BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
CRACK!
On the 48th floor of the dungeon, the deafening echoes of combat reverberated through the suffocating air, swallowed instantly by the vast, cavernous expanse as monsters flooded the scene.
More specifically, they were 'Flame Rocks'....sentient, volatile anomalies that seemed intent on grinding Draco into the burning crimson dust beneath his feet.
Draco, who had arrived on the floor several hours prior, had been locked in a relentless, exhausting cycle of combat ever since.
His primary mission was pressing: searching the floor for the jewel fetus.
Unlike the 41st to 43rd floors, the 44th through 48th were entirely different.
Known collectively as the Crimson Mountains, the zone earned its moniker honestly.
Stepping into this region felt remarkably like walking through the cooling, yet still volatile, interior of an active volcano.
The walls, the ground, and the towering vaulted ceiling burned a deep, angry red.
Distorted, jagged rocks were scattered haphazardly across, creating a natural camouflage that made it maddeningly difficult to tell regular stone formations apart from the dormant Flame Rocks just by sight.
They looked almost identical, sharing the same ash-dusted, heat-cracked surfaces.
Even with magic sensing, identifying the threats proved to be a frustrating guessing game.
Every rock, whether animate or inanimate, gave off nearly identical, ambient thermal and magical signatures in this geothermal hells-scape.
Along the jagged walls, massive cracks split the stone, colored a deep, light-absorbing black like carbonized matter.
From these fissures, a reddish-orange, eerie glow pulsed rhythmically, perfectly mimicking the look of flowing magma.
According to Ouranos, the jewel fetus should have been on the 45th floor.
But when Draco had scoured that level, it wasn't there.
He had, however, discovered unmistakable traces left in its wake.
The jewel fetus had hatched, and in doing so, it had left behind a rather hard-to-ignore trail of residual magic.
Whether this was done deliberately to taunt pursuers or merely as a by-product of its rapid metamorphosis was impossible to tell.
Regardless, Draco had made a decision: he needed to find and eliminate it.
That singular directive had dragged him down through the descent, level by level, until he finally lost track of its trail here on the 48th floor.
"Ugh, when will this end?" Draco grumbled for the nth time, his voice dripping with a potent mix of annoyance and sheer fatigue.
Ever since entering the 48th floor, Draco felt as though he had barely made any physical progress forward.
The moment he took three steps, another wave of Flame Rocks….monsters that looked like regular debris until they lunged…..would pop out left and right.
His magic senses were continually blinded by the environmental interference.
Worse still, unlike organic monsters, golem-type entities felt nothing.
There were no primal emotions like fear, and no shock of pain to signal when his attacks successfully connected.
Their durability was utterly ridiculous.
They could violently shed and shoot parts of their own burning bodies as flaming projectiles with terrifying accuracy.
Worst of all, they kept attacking relentlessly until they completely ran out of internal magic, their hidden magic stones were separated or pulverized.
Figuring out where their magic stones were located was a grueling chore in its own right.
Each individual Flame Rock possessed a core in a completely different location, forcing Draco to completely obliterate their entire bodies with overwhelming physical force or potent spells just to be safe.
It was a process that was rapidly becoming both physically and mentally draining.
And, of course, the dungeon couldn't just give him a break.
There were elite variants mixed into the hordes, boasting high magic resistance layered on top of their already absurd resilience.
The only saving grace was that these monsters were, at best, around Level 5 in individual strength.
But the sheer volume of them…..endless waves crashing against him like a tide of liquid fire….more than made up for their individual limitations.
However, Flame Rocks weren't inherently malicious or coordinated enough to act as a unified military force.
Normally, they didn't concentrate their aggression onto a single target so mercilessly.
If they did, it would be impossible for standard adventuring parties to ever clear a path through the 44th through 48th floors.
This was undeniably the machination of something…..or someone…..intentionally pulling the strings to keep him bogged down, and frustratingly, it was working.
Draco was undeniably, overwhelmingly powerful.
But that didn't mean he possessed infinite stamina or an endless well of mind, a fact he was painfully aware of as sweat beaded on his brow.
'Currently, it isn't a critical problem, but depending on what else the enemy has planned…' Draco let the thought trail off unfinished.
Suddenly, his hyper-tuned senses picked up on something deeply peculiar.
He felt a tremor.
The vibration wasn't coming from the hordes surrounding him.
It was a subtle, rhythmic thrum pulsing from below…..deep down on the 49th floor.
The reason this discovery was entirely baffling was simple: Balor, the dreaded Monster Rex of the 49th floor, was dead.
It had been valiantly slain by his own familia members during their most recent major expedition, and as per the rules of the dungeon, the behemoth wouldn't regenerate for another nine months.
Balor was the only known entity on that level powerful enough to cause tremors of that magnitude…..tremors powerful enough to resonate all the way up to the 48th floor.
This could only mean one thing.
The entity causing the disturbance was the jewel fetus….or rather, its newly hatched, female type form….which had already descended far below.
Either that, or it had somehow rapidly accelerated its growth cycle, evolving directly into a full-fledged demi-spirit.
A terrifying thought, and one that should have been strictly impossible under normal circumstances.
'Calculating the timeline from when it was first reported, up until the exact moment I took action… it's only been a few days. A week at best,' Draco pondered internally, his mind working at lightning speed even as his tail whipped around to violently smash another rushing Flame Rock into a shower of glowing gravel.
"However, more concerningly…..why is it heading deeper into the dungeon so fast?" Draco muttered aloud, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion.
The descent wasn't erratic.
It was purposeful, almost as if it were being called or summoned by something waiting in the abyss of the lower floors.
It was also highly unlikely that this was some kind of elaborate trap specifically laid out to lure him.
There was simply no way a creature…..or the mastermind behind it…..could have known in advance that Ouranos would specifically commission him for this exact hunt.
The variables were too vast, the timing too tight.
'Sigh, so many questions,' Draco grumbled, ducking beneath a torrent of liquid magma spat by a towering elite variant before driving a fist straight through its chest cavity, pulling out its magic stone.
"Lucky" Draco muttered, stashing it inside his dungeon bag.
Regardless of the mounting mysteries, he was going to chase the target down.
He had a job to do, after all.
He just couldn't shake the nagging, persistent curiosity about what on earth was actually going on in the belly of the dungeon.
...........................…
Around the same time, at the heavy, weather-worn entrance of the old church that served as the home of the Hestia Familia, Bell arrived.
His mind was a whirlwind of lingering thoughts, bouncing from the strange, imposing adventurers he had encountered at the Hostess of Fertility to the peculiar, leather-bound book clutched securely in his grasp.
"I wonder who those people really were," he thought, slipping through the door and into the dimly lit sanctuary.
Glancing around, Bell realized his goddess had not yet returned.
With a gentle sigh, he set the book down on a scarred wooden table with one hand.
A creeping sense of nervous anticipation settled in his chest, urging him to take a seat.
Pulling out a rickety chair, he sat down, drew the tome closer, and looked over the title page, dominated by the embossed, intricate emblem of a dragon.
Title: The basics of elemental magic, written by... (D.B)
'Hear thee, Hear ye: The greatest in the land is I.'
'(Awaken Your True Magic!)'
"Right off the bat, it sounds arrogant…..or perhaps just childish," Bell mused, turning to the next page.
(Chapter 1: Basics of magic even dummies can understand!... Hopefully, someone below the level of an idiot isn't reading this!)
'Ugh, why does the chapter title have to be so demeaning? I really want to close the book right now, but I have to bear with it. I can't let Syr's good intentions go to waste,' Bell thought, steeling his resolve.
Forcing his eyes across the characters on the page with all the endurance he could muster, he pressed on.
Though the opening paragraphs felt like petty jabs at the reader's intellect, the underlying content was undeniably genuine.
True to the promise on the cover, the book was a primer on the fundamental workings of magic.
"Ooohhh!" Bell's eyes lit up with sudden, eager anticipation as he dove deeper into the text.
There were, he learned, two distinct types of magic: innate and acquired.
As the term suggested, innate magic was an intrinsic trait passed down through genetics, usable by various races without external catalysts.
Since the ancient era, these bloodlines had harbored the potential to cast spells, undergoing rigorous rituals in their youth to awaken their potential.
While the variety of spells available to them was generally limited, the sheer strength and scale of their casting were often big.
'It's written in Koine, the common tongue, so even I can understand it…..mostly,' Bell observed, silently thanking the author for tailoring it to beginners.
"Wait… what are these symbols between the lines? They aren't words… maybe some kind of code?" he wondered, tilting his head.
In truth, these shifting hieroglyphs were a manifestation of the Mystery skill; not even the author fully understood their meaning.
Turning the page…
Acquired magic, by contrast, was a dormant possibility unlocked only by those who received the blessing of a Falna, manifesting organically from the soul.
Free from rigid ancestral restrictions, this type of magic took an almost infinite variety of forms, its potency directly tied to the growth and experiences reflected in one's Excelia.
Unlike standard writing, the text seemed to pulse.
The strange, shifting sea of symbols pulled Bell further inward, drawing him into a trance-like state as his fingers gently brushed the edge of the page.
He turned it.
Magic is interest.
The phrase stood out as a vital cornerstone for all acquired magic.
What held your focus? What did you accept, hate, want, grieve for, worship, swear to, or long for?
The trigger was already buried deep within the soul.
Falna merely acted as the catalyst, setting that inner fire ablaze.
As he read on, an illustration materialized before him.
It was a face…..defined by eyes, a nose, a mouth, and ears.
No, it was a face.
A visage with closed eyes, sketched entirely in heavy black ink.
On the following page, the book posed a series of silent, piercing demands:
If you desire it, answer.
If you desire it, demand.
If you desire it, focus!
A terrible mirror of truth lies before you.
'That's… my face. My face, with nothing above the forehead. No… it's a mask. It's another side of me. A me I never knew existed….another self,' Bell realized, his breath catching in his throat.
As the realization dawned, the drawn eyes suddenly flew open, staring out from the page, and spoke with his own voice.
Ruby-red letters spilled from the illustrated eyes, washing over him like a wave, intertwining with the phantom face that interrogated his soul.
"What is magic to us?" the voice asked.
"I don't know. But it's something great and mysterious. A finishing move to slay monsters. A wondrous power used by heroes to crawl back from the brink of death. Strong, fierce, merciless, overwhelming. What I've always wanted to hold, just once. What I've been yearning for," Bell replied, his lips moving subconsciously.
"What is magic to us?" the voice asked once more.
"Power. Great power. A massive weapon to shatter my weak self. A grand instrument to inspire the coward inside me. Not a noble shield to protect my allies, nor anything so elegant as a healing hand. A heroic force to clear away every obstacle in my path," Bell responded, his tone firming.
"What kind of form is magic to us?" the voice asked, shifting the question subtly.
"Form? What do you mean by form? Fire. Magic has to be fire, right? It's the very first thing I think of when I hear the word. Strong, ferocious, hot. To burn the plains, scatter the ash, scorch the air, and envelop everything in waves of flame and shimmering heat. Crimson tongues of fire, completely unlike my natural weakness. Hotter than anything else, an immortal flame… I want to become a flame."
"What do you seek to accomplish with magic?"
"To become stronger, like her. To become faster, like her. Like light breaking through the clouds. Like lightning tearing across the sky. More than anyone, more than anyone, more than anyone…."
Bell repeated the words with conviction, yet he felt as though mere words could never fully convey the depth of his yearning.
He pressed on, his voice rising in the quiet church.
"I want to be faster than anyone. Like her. To be worthy of her sight. If I can...I want to become a hero. I've always wanted to be a hero, and like a fool, I've chased that impossible dream. Just like the ones in the old tales. A hero praised and loved by all. No matter how pathetic the fantasy, how vain and foolish, how miserably unsuited I am for it… I want to become enough of a hero for her to finally notice me."
Bell finished with a desperate shout that echoed off the stone walls.
"Hmph. You're such a child," the voice inside his head scoffed.
"Sorry, but that's just who I am," Bell answered back softly.
Within the confines of the book, the ink-drawn reflection seemed to offer a faint, knowing smile.
And then, in a rush of descending stillness, the world went black.