Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Chapter 554: The 34th Floor, The Pit And The Mysterious Ruins (5)

She could see the fire of rivalry in the eyes of her junior sister and Marcus. After all, the both of them had performed splendidly in the battle of the finest tournament. One placed fourth while the other tied with the third prince for the third spot.

Plus they each were accessed with very high potential. Both saw each other as rivals.

“Hehe, it just turned out that way. I was simply excited to explore the dungeon and before I know it I was already on 34th floor. Father taking charge wasn’t something that I was planning for”.

Marcus laughed, he made some small talk before commenting “It looks like Miss Hallie is still as taciturn as ever”.

Hallie hasn’t spoken a word since the moment she arrived here, her behaviour was just like the time he saw her on the stage. After Marcus’ the geniuses of the Crimson demolition guild, Sea God’s Trident, Absolute Sea Guild, Baskerville guild and other various guilds, came to initiate small talks.

When everybody was done expressing the greetings, the genius from the Assassin guild, Gallio Stallard used his transmission conch to send a report back to the Main camp.

“What did they say?” Marcus asked.

The assassin’s guild was tasked to be the reconnaissance unit for this expedition. Thus their members were present within all of the seven teams.

“The main camp said that the guild leaders are having an important meeting right now. They told us to wait here and secure the floor. It may take them a couple of hours to arrive” Gallio reported.

“They expect us to wait here that long? What should we even do on this floor?”.

Levin Field from the Phantom Light guild spoke. He was wearing light leather armour made of top quality goods and carried a sword on his back.

“Well, they did say we can secure the floor. You know the thirty fourth floor is called ‘The Pit’ by the adventurers of the tower town. They say that the pit is frolicking with strong looking monsters and the fate of those that fall inside the pit, is extremely miserable. My team has cleared the surface of all the monsters. However, we have yet to dive inside the pit”.

Marcus stated, his nonchalant manner of speaking intended something.

“Are you saying that we should try to clear the so called ‘Pit’?” Tiana frowned when she heard that.

“Well, the main camp did say that we secure the floor”…

“Right and if the pit is still filled with monsters, the primary teams would think that we are slacking on our task”.

After a while, they all came to a consensus that the floor need to be secured before the main unit came. The seven tertiary teams each led by their own geniuses turned their attention towards the big hole in the ground north from the centre.

From a distance this enormous big hole looked just like the mouth of the devil, it was deep, dark and not even a single trace of light could be seen inside.

“So this is the pit huh? It doesn’t seem that special.”…

“Well, we will find out once we head there”.

Marcus, Kenan, Park… all jumped inside, their teams followed behind. Tiana who was Looking at that spectacle, sighed.

“Elder Sister Tiana, what are you thinking?” Hallie asked.

Tiana shook her head and said, “It’s nothing, I was just thinking that these boys are so competitive. It hasn’t even been an hour since we all gathered together yet we are now heading down to further explore the floor”.

“Hehe, it should be fun, let’s go down too and see what the pit looks like” Hallie looked at the deep dark pit and her eyes involuntarily started shining from the excitement.

Compared to Hallie who was impulsive and adventure seeking, Tiana was much more practical and cautious. This was also the reason why guild master Karina had made Tiana the leader of the tertiary team instead of her disciple Hallie.

After deliberating for a while the mage guild too followed the other tertiary teams and jumped down. In any case, the surface was already cleared, there was nothing to do here.

Whereas, the pit was yet to be explored. Given the fact that their journey to this floor was a smooth one without any hiccups, the teams jumped inside the pit without any worry.

So what if the pit was frolicking with monsters? These guilds who had no problem tackling the monsters on the floors above, didn’t think much of the monsters on the 34th floor. A mistake that they would later come to regret.

Except for a few thousand people who were told to sit outside and wait for the primary team to arrive, nearly four thousand people jumped inside the pit.

The three girls landed in a dark underground space, they used their powers to slow down their fall. The pit was more than five thousand feet deep, it was dark and the only source of light was the dim ores that protruded from the ground.

Sound of clothes flapping could be heard as their team landed behind them. Tiana and the three sisters used their magic to create an orb of sorts that released light and illuminated the place for them.

“So this is the pit huh?”.

Hallie remarked looking at the numerous tunnels at the edges of the underground space. These tunnels weren’t big, they only allowed at most three people to walk side by side. If they were to encounter a monster on this pathway, it would probably be a little troublesome.

“Looks like the other teams have already entered those tunnels. Let us also be on our way then” Tiana, Anna and Hallie led the team from the front while the others cautiously followed behind them.

Their team already had the smallest number out of the seven teams to begin with and they left half of it on the surface to wait for the primary team to arrive. Therefore only around 200 people from the mage guild entered the pit.

The pathways were dark and gloomy, muck and filth littered the place. Sometimes, a crisp cracking sound would echo in the tunnel whenever one stepped on some bones. Who did these bones belonged to?

That was a question none of these girls wanted to think about. Some of the bones clearly had bestial features while some had the outlines of a human. This dark and contained place was enough to make anyone claustrophobic.

“It is weird” Tiana muttered under her breath as she observed her surroundings.

“Big sister, what’s wrong?” Anna asked from the sides, she was looking at the bones and made a revolted face.

“It has been a while since we entered the pit yet we haven’t met a single monster till now. According to the adventurers of the tower town, the pit should be frolicking with monsters. However, we are yet to encounter even one. Don’t you think it’s weird?” Tiana stated the bizarreness of the situation.

“Now that elder sister has mentioned it, it is quite weird. Could it be that all the monsters were attracted by the other six teams when they entered?” Hallie questioned playing with her staff in boredom.

Tiana frowned she did not say anything and simply extended her staff to conjure a Light magic spell.

“Light Magic Mastery:- [Light of Dawn]”.

A speckle of light as big as an egg materialised, it sped toward the front with Tiana’s command leaving behind glitters of light. The team from the mage guild silently waited for Tiana to complete her magic.

Being a mage themselves and belonging to the same guild, they understood quite well what kind of magic Tiana conjured. It was similar to an Assassin’s skill [Pathfinder], the light magic [Dawn of Light] charted out the correct path for the caster.

It was quite useful in situations where there are winding paths and abnormal conditions barring your vision. The mist on the upper floors could easily be confronted because of the existence of such kinds of skills.

“I found the path, it looks like the other teams are waiting at the end”.

Tiana noted after finding the exit. The team proceeded forward and soon the narrow pathway opened up to reveal a huge space much like the one they dropped down to after falling inside the pit.

While coming out of the passageway, they all failed to notice the many tiny four leaf clovers growing at the edges of the ground. These tiny clovers were so inconspicuous that they were like wild weeds that would be stepped over by the people without them even noticing it.

No sane person would always keep activating their [Analysis] at every little loitering in the ground but if they did, perhaps there was a one per cent chance that they would notice the flour leaf clovers hiding amongst the weeds that was growing all across the edges of this underground space.

Tiana and her team stepped into the underground space to see a large mysterious ruin standing at the other end of the place. The various teams that had reached here earlier than them, were gathered in front of the ruins.

The armours on Marcus, Kenan, Park and the other geniuses were extremely conspicuous even from this distance, so it wasn’t hard to spot them from thousands of people.

CHATTER… CHATTER… the place was noisy as many people discussed something. At the centre of the crowd, there seemed to be some kind of commotion going on among the leaders of the team.