It was time for the second floor's rewards!
"Didn't the rewards come too early? We had to fight two rounds of battle to clear the first floor. And the second floor is cleared with only one round?"
Renar asked in confusion. Lady Zee cleared his doubts with her response:
"It's not the number of rounds the dungeon considers but the level of difficulty you have to face as a team to clear the floors. Maybe you didn't have to exert as much effort when compared to the first floor, Renar.
But Ronny and Jules had to bring out their absolute best. That contributed to the team's credibility to clear the second floor. Plus, the dungeon would do what it does best- surprise you when you least expect it. It follows the known pattern only half the time."
Renar looked at Ronny and Jules after he heard the explanation and remembered the fights that they had to suffer through to secure their victories. As Lady Zee had said, he didn't face the burn of the second floor much. Since there were people who had outperformed themselves, the dungeon's mechanism balanced their hardships by putting less burden on him.
"Let's not waste any more time. With our current performance, the third floor of the dungeon is the maximum we can go. I'd like to wrap things up after that. There are also solo towers that you can take part in.
Jules and I would part from you guys after the third floor of the dungeon gets cleared and we get out of it. You can explore the dimension for some days and take part in solo challenges if you are okay with the risks. We'll meet when Purgatory is going to close for this year."
Lady Zee said and gestured to Belar to step into the array. The usual followed and everyone had their turns. Ronny was the last to go since he had decided to practise his ranking technique some more to stabilize his condition.
Contrary to Lady Zee's grim prediction about the third floor, he was looking forward to it. He had so many insights to digest after all. Battles would be a convenient method of achieving that objective in the shortest amount of time.
Ronny stepped into the array and closed his eyes. Next, he sent his mana sense into his storage and waited for things to appear like they did last time.
It didn't take long for Ronny's rewards to arrive in his storage. Just like the first floor, there were multiple items this time as well. But his attention was drawn to one particular item as soon as he laid his eyes on it.
'Hm? An egg with runes on it?'
Ronny wrapped his mana sense around his unexpected reward and inspected it. The egg was twice the size of his palm.
The runes on it lit up when he tried inspecting it with his mana sense. But apart from sensing that the runes were there to keep the contents of the eggs safe, he couldn't find anything about it.
'Reen, can you sense what it is?'
The butcher asked his demon beast companion. The latter just seemed to have shaken her head in denial before responding:
'No, Erni. The runes on the eggs are not letting me get a read on it.'
Ronny seemed to have thought of something before directing his question next to another of his partners that liked to keep her mouth shut for most of the time:
'Alephee, what about you? If Mana Sense can't work, I bet your Soul Sense can. Would you like to help your host and friend here?
At least pay the rent for living inside my mana core.'
The butcher asked playfully while displaying his frugal attitude. Alephee seemed to have rolled her eyes before making a few things clear for him.
'Haah! Pay the rent you say. If I wasn't there, you would have died by that wolf chewing on your dick. And no I can't help you.
Not because I don't want to. But doing so might affect the reward you have.
Soul Sense isn't as simple as Mana Sense, you know.'
Ronny didn't budge from that half-assed explanation. He wanted Alephee to clarify a few things for him right now. So he pressed on:
'What do you mean? Does Soul Sense damage things every time it gets used? Why didn't that happen when you used it in the battle?'
Alephee pondered for a bit before replying:
'The Mana Sense employs your mana to do things. It becomes an additional sense that goes beyond the limits of the traditional senses. It lets you analyze things more deeply. But what if you could employ your soul to do the same and then some more?
In Soul Sense, you have to spread your soul around you. That means your soul stretches beyond the confines of your body and treats the area around you as an extension of your body.
If I do that with this egg and the eggs turn out to be alive inside the protection of those tunes, then my Soul Sense would negatively affect the fetus. A soul's interference should not be taken lightly. Especially when it is being used on someone who hasn't even been born yet.
Now you tell me. Do you want to take the risk of running your reward just to satisfy your curiosity?'
'Um, no. Let's... wait.'
Ronny told Alephee and decided not to ruin his reward. He then focused his mana sense on his next reward-- an old tome that had a locking mechanism.
The locking mechanism opened on its own when the book came in contact with the butcher's Mana Sense. He opened the book and scanned the content written over it.
The butcher was mesmerized by what he found inside the tome. He kept on turning pages after pages, giving them a quick read. He only stopped after he finished checking up the last page and registered his surprise to himself:
'Holy moly, it's a jackpot. There are so many potion recipes I haven't even heard exist. Most of them belong to F and E Ranks.
Fuck! Some of them are also in D-Rank. This tome alone is worth all the effort I took to win my round on the second floor.'
Ronny was extremely pleased with getting his hands on the tome as a reward. He had also found the things he was looking for in it. He had found the recipe for the miasma potion that he had found intriguing. Plus, the tome explained in detail how the potion traps worked.
Plus, the tome also gave him the ability to permanently strengthen his weapons using potions. In addition, a few recipes were given as examples of how the way of the elements could be used in the concoction of potions.
Ronny had high hopes for the egg after he realized the value of rewards the dungeon had granted him for clearing the second floor. He turned his attention to other rewards after he begrudgingly kept the tome away.
The butcher found a stock of various vials next. He immediately recognized a bunch of the vials. Because the content inside them had the same tint as Edward's miasma potion when he had used it against him.
The potions seemed to be 5-stars in quality too. This type of reward also put a smile on Ronny's face because it gave him the immediate trump cards he needed to turn things around. Especially in the separate dimension.
The butcher was never fond of making his safety dependent on the actions and reactions around him. Especially in Purgatory where he couldn't count on anybody. These miasma vials would serve as get-away passes if things started turning grim for him.
Other vials contained potions of the E-rank. They ranged from stamina potions to mysterious concoctions, carrying some known as well as unknown buffs and debuffs.
The butcher then shifted his attention to a bunch of scrolls he had received as his reward. He opened them up and saw that they were all 5-star, E-Rank variants of his time and lightning element spells.
'Damn. This dungeon needs to be farmed for rewards. I'll have to find a way to enter the dungeon and sneak Jake and the rest in here.'
The butcher thought to himself and read through the scrolls. The first floor had given him new spells while the second floor had raised the ranks of all his existing spells. The dungeon sure knew how to keep its participants interested.
Lastly, he discovered a non-elemental F-Rank spell to make his weapons levitate and attack as per his commands using the mana sense as their driver. He remembered Dom's way of handling the wooden spears and realized that the spell's potential was already laid out in front of him in the previous battle.
'This non-elemental spell isn't that special. But it can give me the variation I need to tackle my opponents in mid-range. Not bad.'
The butcher thought to himself and smiled. He retracted his mana sense after confirming all the rewards.. He couldn't help flash a grin to his teammates when he stepped out of the array.