122 Corridor of Foggy Waters (1/2)
[Day 112]
Today we woke up early in the morning. Due to the little amount of food on the Inn, that would never satisfy my hungry family, we decided to go eat outside of town, where I prepared a giant breakfast made of several monsters we have killed, there was also Gnome, Dryad, Wendigo, Yuki-onna, and Gemstone Wyvern meat.
Due to the alluring fragrance of our feast, a lot of adventurers that were leveling outside of town killing weak monsters approached us. So, I decided to invite them to eat accompany us.
As time passed, more adventurers began to gather around asking to join. Some even brought new meat and beer. I used this opportunity to spread my flesh and slime minions in each of these adventurers, this way I can keep track on the tasty looking ones.
After two hours, my family was satisfied so I quickly gave away the spare grilled meat to the adventurers as they continued the small feast between themselves.
When we entered the town, we did some shopping on the way until we reached the dungeon entrance.
The dungeon seemed to be made of pale blue colored bricks of a very ancient mineral. The entrance was wide and more than one hundred adventurers were walking inside and outside with their different parties along the way.
Greeting every person that enters, there will be a massive spiral stair that descended beyond what my normal view could see, giving the vibes of being an almost endless abyss.
Well, this maze is not called a maze for nothing. This dungeon itself is composed of several floors that change positions each day. Most of the time, the floor that you enter with your party won't be the same that you saw the adventurer party ahead of you previously entered.
The mechanism of such a place is beyond my knowledge, and certainly, I would love to know more about it, as it involves space manipulation. A field that I've been wanting to know for a very long time, but it seems to have been forgotten in time, as it considered a very ancient type of magic. Most of the time, attributed to godly beings and not to mortals.
This raised a question on my mind. How was possible for the Old Ancestor to manipulate space in such a way that he was able to bring the whole Aquaria on that door towards the Grand Forest?
And even when I glanced and almost memorized his entire collection of books, I never found any answer to this.
It seems that he never reported such an event. Such a big event like obtaining a [Legendary] relic, and then placing his entire Kingdom inside of it…
Well, I will leave these thoughts for another day.
When we finally reached the dungeon stairs, my children began to admire the carvings on the walls, which depicted the ancient Dragonoid's building this maze. It seems that it was built by [Divine Order] from a god.
The paintings and carvings also showed how several dangerous monsters were sealed inside. These monsters resemble the dungeon bosses that I saw on the guide books.
This guide book was given to us when I registered my group on the guild. It shows some general information about the monsters on each floor variation, the dangers of coming to this place alone, the different bosses and their \”special drops\”.
It seems that in this kind of dungeon, monster and bosses will often drop special items called Special Drops, which are seen as very valuable crafting materials or food.
One of the most valuable Special Drops on this entire dungeon is the item dropped by the boss named Greater Thunder Wyvern Emperor Baadra, which is the Zapping Golden Nail. A very sturdy item, far surpassing adamantine on its durability and sturdiness. Its also filled with powerful Thunder Magic, akin to more than one thousand Thunder Spirit Stones.
Only the wealthiest of nobles can buy equipment made with such material. Equipment made with this item is always guaranteed to be of [Mythical] quality and tend to have incredible bonuses on the wielder stats alongside some interesting skills. I would certainly love to get my hands on such an item.
When we reached the dungeon first floor, I instantly noticed that it was completely empty, no adventurer was wondering around, meaning that this was a newly generated floor. As I admired the place I slowly walked inside, and as if waiting for the rest of my group, the floor remained still until everyone was inside.
Then, out of nowhere, a powerful force moved the floor, changing our perspective of the stairs. The place where the stairs should be were changed to a long corridor.
Although it would seem dangerous at first glance, the humans inhabiting this town use what is named [Teleportation Thread], a magical item that can teleport anyone back to town, it only has one use and needs to be purchased once again if you want to go back to the dungeon and have a safe way to go back to town.
I have previously purchased several of these items and even ate some, but I didn't obtain any skill. Although its value is high, it is sold at a rather decent price, being fifty copper coins. This item is being mass-produced by a company that belongs to one of the Five Heroes, the Heroine of Alchemy. And it seems to be a gift from her to all the adventurers in this realm.
I would certainly like to meet her one day.
As we continued our way through the floor, I browsed the guide book and using some patterns and the monster found inside, I concluded that we entered a \”novice\” floor named [Corridor of Foggy Waters].
This place is filled with damp walls and a foggy mist. There are various small ponds of clear water were monsters emerge from time to time and seem to be their main area of spawn.
The monsters found in this place are Sapphire Tail Salamanders, Merfolk Undead Soldiers, Water Slime, Water Slime King, Golden Walking Fish, and Baby River Dragons.
The main boss rotates between three choices, the easiest boss is the Azure River Dragon King, a giant serpent-like dragon that is covered on beautiful azure-colored fish scales, has two golden whiskers and a pair of beautiful coral horns. It usually attacks with [Oceanic Breath] and [Ice Spikes], a decent group of human adventurers can deal with it with ease.
Following this boss is the Lighting Tongue Toad King, a massive blue colored toad covered on several yellow markings on its body. Its giant tongue can break the dungeon walls with ease while releasing power lighting attacks and jumping at lighting speed. It can still be dealt with relative ease if the adventurer group possess enough healers and experienced veterans.
And lastly, the strongest boss is the Giant Merfolk Savage, a giant merfolk monster that possess herculean strength and reflexes, alongside this, it has a massive trident that can release powerful lighting attacks. This boss is said to have a lower half of a giant blue whale, and its upper body resembles a bizarre lizardman-like creature.
Its most valuable drop is the boss trident itself, which is considered a [Unique++] weapon and it sold at a very high price.
Seeing how this was a quite low-level floor, I let my children go wild. Meanwhile, I assisted them on the back giving them some buffs on their stats while gathering the dropped items and monster corpses.
It seems that monsters' corpses disappear if one doesn't save them on their Item Box, so I quickly began to gather every corpse that my strong children left scattered around.
There were Water Slimes and Water Slime King Cores, which shined with bright blue colors. And it seems that a Water Slime King dropped a valuable item named [Golden Slime King Crown], which seems to be made purely of gold and decorated with several valuable gems.
It doesn't have any magical power and its quite the bad equipment, giving very little bonuses, but its monetary value seems to be quite high, as it is completely made of gold after all.
My children's next encounter was a big group of ten Sapphire Tailed Salamanders. Each Salamander was quite big, being three meters tall and ten meters long, with very sticky bodies and a strong and sturdy tail covered on sapphire scales, which is their main tool when fighting.
Amiphossia and Ryo let this group for Valentia and Aarae to try out their strength. And well, the salamanders were completely crushed in less than one minute.
Valentia activated her Dominating Aura while enhancing her physical capabilities with her orb, afterward, she jumped over the Salamanders and using her giant monster hand, she began to detach the monster's heads as if they were mere toys.
Meanwhile, Aarae stayed at a good distance, commanding his Hammerhead Shark Guardian, which devastated the Salamanders without much effort. If a monster approached his back, he would cast a powerful Water Blade Energy Slash and slice the salamanders in half. Although he could float around using water bubbles, so he wasn't as targeted as Valentia or his Hammerhead Shark.
Valentia seems to be a little bit like me, as when she finally defeated the Salamander group, my daughter immediately jumped over the corpses and began to chomp and munch on their flesh, she even ate the entire Sapphire Tail of the salamanders. Her powerful shark fangs can destroy almost anything
Meanwhile, Aarae is more composed and only likes prepared food, usually disliking raw meat. However, his Hammerhead Shark Guardian usually eats some meat. Even though it seems to be made of pure magic and energy, the shark still needs to eat. It's quite weird, to be honest, and I don't understand the logic behind it.
As I was gathering the corpses that Valentia didn't eat, I found another drop item, this time it was named [Sapphire Tailed Salamander Secretion Skin Cream]. It seems to be a fairly common drop item, it's a small transparent bottle of glass filled with the salamander refined sticky goo. It said to be good for people's skin so I decided to save it, as I could gift it to one of my wives.
My wives and the humans were mostly talking and enjoying the walk while seeing our children grow stronger. I did the same for the most part while looking for my children safe. I also sent various flesh and slime minions to quickly map the area entirely.
After some more minutes of walking, Ryo seemed to have encountered a hidden passage on a shattered wall, inside of it, there were more than one hundred Baby River Dragons, which I assumed was a big spawn point.
My four children raided the place as they wiped out the entire group in less than half an hour, gaining several levels. Although I've tasted River Dragon meat before on that Skin Changed nomad leader, which name I already forgot, this River Dragon meat was way more flavorful and tender, the fish flavor was very strong on these. I assume that River Dragon may be an evolution from River Walking Fish, possibly.