Joshua stared at the ceiling of the room as he caught his breath after the long fight. He knew that the boss's corpse was still laid out on the ground in front of him, but for the moment he couldn't muster up the strength to get up and put it away into his inventory. This time around the boss wasn't a giant beast so he wasn't expecting to sell its body parts for much to the system. It seemed like the boss relied more on its aura than its body to fight which meant that its body parts probably wouldn't be anything special outside of the stinger that Adrian had cut off on the other side of the room. Joshua took the moment to think about how the dungeon run went in the end and he had to admit higher tier dungeons were on another level from the ones he and Lilly had been going through up to this point. Although the prairie dog dungeon was technically a higher level dungeon it wasn't in the same league as this one. Even so the prairie dungeon had its own challenges that weren't normal for the dungeons they had been taking on up to this point.
This dungeon was a maze in itself that could have tired them all out before they even got to the boss if Henry didn't already know the routes they needed to take. Then there was the case of the sub-boss being a long dragged out fight that could take out large groups of people at a time if they weren't careful. Then finally came the final boss which felt indestructible at first until they had figured out the fact that you had to do enough damage to it at a quick enough pace so that the creatures aura would finally give out. This dungeon was testing them in so many different ways and Joshua could see why it hadn't been cleared yet at this point. When people go into high level dungeons or dungeons in general they usually have an expectance on how long it will take or if they will be able to clear it in the first place. This dungeon just didn't give you that.
"Well that was one hell of a fight." Adrian said tiredly with a few bruises still visible on his body from where the boss had knocked him away while trying to kill Joshua. Henry's buff was helping them regenerate their injuries, but now it was time to let Lilly's rabbits do their work. Adrian was hunched over holding himself up with one of his swords with a giant smile on his face. "Told you these high level dungeons would be way more interesting for you."
"Interesting might not be the right word, but it was definitely challenging." Joshua said as he smiled back at his friend. "Now we just have to see if this dungeon was worth all of the trouble in the first place."
"Yeah I'm interested in seeing what kind of reward this place will end up giving us in the end." Aito said as he took a seat and leaned up against the wall. He was the least exhausted of everyone there, but charging up shot after shot with his mana was definitely putting a strain on his body. His ability called for using mana or aura and he had more mana than aura, but he wasn't a mage so it didn't surprise Joshua that it was fairly taxing on him in the end.
"Well honestly it doesn't really matter now that I know that we can actually grind an entire level in a day at this place." Henry said with thoughtful look even after he sat down. "Since we can clear our way through this dungeon so fast as long as we know the right path to take were can grind it fairly well. At our level getting a full level in a single day is really good, but that will probably change next time through. The level difference will make it harder and harder for us to gain levels here."
"Maybe for you three, but for the rest of us low levels we can gain a lot of experience from this place." Amy said with a big grin. "I mean I'm close to gaining two levels at this rate."
"Yeah Joshua and I both gained two levels and the pets that I used throughout the dungeon also gained at least a level. It's really good for one day." Lilly said with a small smile as she put away Flutter and Cinder so that she could take out her two rabbits and heal everyone. The rabbits were doing well at their job as Henry's regeneration buff finally started to fade away from everyone.
"That won't last forever." Joshua calmly said as he forced himself to sit up as the pair of rabbits were making quick work of his injuries. With the added benefit of his high vitality and aura regeneration he was looking like he was in tip top condition before even a minute passed. "Besides once this dungeon becomes less challenging for us we'll start falling behind on our potential gains and that isn't something that we need at the moment. I think we should clear this place a few more times for the experience and whatever reward we get for it, but after that we'll have to go on to more challenging things if we want to get as much strength as we can before the alliance tries to take on a large town later this year."
"Fine, but at least let me clear this place enough to get to level fifty so that I can get my first sub-class when we get back." Amy said with a grieved look that got everyone to smile at her antics.
"Do you even know what kind of sub-job you want?" Joshua asked but he nearly face palmed when he saw the confused look that she was giving him in return.
"Not a clue, but I'm sure I'll figure it out when we get back." Amy simply replied getting everyone to shake their heads. Joshua was thinking about leveling until the point where he could get a new sub-class as well, but that was still four levels away for him and Lilly and he didn't plan on running through the same dungeon for so many levels. Besides it honestly wasn't that big of a deal for him or for Lilly at the moment since they were both already fairly well trained in the sub jobs that they were planning to take. Joshua had been keeping up with the material that his mother had given him back at the hospital that would help him study up for the exam needed to get the sub-class of a doctor while Lilly had been studying with her parent for everything required to become a veterinarian in the new world. Amy on the other hand…had not.
Before Joshua could question his sister anymore on the topic a message appeared in front of him. The fact that everyone else seemed to focus on something in front of their faces as well told Joshua that the same message had most likely appeared for all of them.
[Congratulations on clearing the dungeon. The clear speed was excellent and the rewards for the clear are being calculated… finished calculating. The reward for this dungeon clear will be a new raw material found inside this dungeon. This material has not been named at this point, but its properties can be found if you analyze the material. Any subsequent clear will gain you a certain amount of this material depending on how well you clear the dungeon. Since you all are the first group to clear this dungeon you will be rewarded with the territory. Any members of your guild will gain bonus experience and materials when killing beast in the area or in the dungeon.]
Joshua was surprised by the sudden change in rewards from what he was used to getting when clearing a place. He usually got a skill of some sort, but this time around the only things they had gained were the territory itself and a new raw material that had yet to be named. Although if the dungeon was so challenging and only gave a new type of raw material then he could assume that the raw material would be something more than worthwhile in the end. He quickly flipped through his inventory until he came across the new material he had gained from the dungeon and clicked on it so that he could see what it was all about.
[???- A material that is incredibly durable and can be used for either weapons or armor when making higher level equipment. The key strength to this material is its ability to generate aura in absurd amounts when used and its ability to take on the property of whatever aura is being flowed through it.]
With that short little statement alone Joshua already had a fairly good idea of what he could use this raw material on. He pulled a blue print out, checked it, and immediately new that the properties of one of the materials needed to build his future scale blade matched up well with the new material he had found. That brought a big smile to his face. He was going to need more of the stuff if he wanted to build his scale blade in the future, but another couple of runs should get him the amount that he was going to need in the end. It wasn't some absurd amount in the first place since he didn't plan on building to many weapons with the stuff, but he would like to have some of it mixed in with his next set of armor. Not enough to where it would restrict his movements, but enough to where if he channeled his aura through it his defense would improve greatly.
"Well the materials seems fairly useful. Especially for people like Joshua or Amy." Henry said getting everyone's attention once again. "It strengthens aura so it's a no-brainer that it would help you two out in the end. Hopefully in the future we can find something similar that works with mana instead for me and any other mages in the alliance."
"Yeah I'm sure Laura would love something like that with her own gear, but since we found one for aura I'm sure there is one for mana out there somewhere. " Adrian said with a grin as he stood up and stretched a bit. "Anyways now that this is basically alliance territory we should have no problem getting a lot more of the stuff for all of our guilds."
"In the future perhaps, but right now I highly doubt any group outside of the top tier ones in our guilds can handle the boss of this dungeon. Numbers alone won't work against it." Aito explained.
"True, but I'm sure a group with Laura at its core could burn through its aura eventually in a similar manner to us and a group with Madalyn might just be able to poison the creature in some way. That woman scares the hell out of me some times." Henry said with a far off look. Joshua smiled a bit at Henry's antics since he knew that his friend was probably right. Madalyn could be a bit creepy when it came to experimenting with her poisons and Joshua wouldn't be surprised if her poison was on another level than the poison in the stinger of the Scorpion Prince. She did have what looked like a small basilisk for a soul beast after all.
"Well I'll need to go through a couple more runs of this place if I want to get enough materials to build my scale blade. There are still a few other things I'll need to put the thing together, but I'm sure I'll find all of those things by the time I reach level one hundred anyways." Joshua said as he got up as well in good condition. Everyone seemed well rested from the little break and Lilly had finished healing everyone with Mr. and Mrs. Hoppy. Now that they were all set and it was time to head over to the glowing platform. When they all passed through it they were covered in a bright light before their bodies were transported back to the platform outside of the dungeon. "Well let's get some rest for the night and then go again in the morning. We'll spend a couple more days here before moving on." They all nodded at his words before setting up camp and getting some rest.