Chapter 368 – Going In
Damion stepped through the entrance to the Avalon labyrinth, as it was now called since he had turned ownership of the labyrinth over to the school, though of course, since he was a co-founder of the school, he still retained ownership rights. Phil flew in behind him, and the pair found themselves on a wide open plain.
Taking out his tablet, Damion took a look at the surrounding area. A few kilometers away, he could see where the core for the floor was as well as what was likely the guardian of the floor. However, Damion did not immediately start heading that way.
Since this was his first proper visit to the labyrinth, he wanted to gather information that would be useful for other groups when they came. This being the first floor, all the Demonic Beasts were only F Rank and were no threat to him. Still, he wanted to at least have an idea of the type of beasts found on each floor, as that would give farming parties an idea of where they should focus their efforts for different types of materials. Not to mention that this floor was a prime farming ground for F Rank cores. The Magic System might only give him 10 credits for each F Rank core, but it would still add up.
After locating a large group of Demonic Beasts, Damion summoned his Ice Sword and flew towards them. The ensuing slaughter of Demonic Beasts was not very sporting, but Damion was able to collect nearly 100 F Rank carcasses, and he learned a fair bit about the creatures on this floor.
The majority of the Demonic Beasts he killed were a type of bull. Unlike the Donetto Stone Bulls which had a Stone affinity, these bovines had a Lightning affinity. A rather rare affinity to find on the first floor of a labyrinth, which Damion hoped meant there were more rare affinities on other floors. At the very least he suspected he would run into more Shadow Rend Bats on the B Rank floors, he just hoped all the B Rank floors were not Fire Caves.
After collecting all the carcasses into his personal storage space, Damion headed towards the guardian of the floor. When he reached the area with the guardian, Phil had already defeated it and was happily munching on the heart of what looked to have been a type of Wind Wolf. Unfortunately, since Phil had already consumed the core, he could not be sure of the affinity of the Demonic Beast.
‘Mine,’ Phil sent through their bond.
“Yes, your kill. Next time, let me get a look at it first. I just want to be able to record what kind of Demonic Beast it is before you eat it.”
‘Wolf.’
“Can you tell me the affinity of the wolf?”
Unfortunately, wolf was as helpful as Phil was able to be. After a few more bites, Damion destroyed the core and the entrance to the next floor revealed itself.
“I’m going to the next floor. The beasts will be a little stronger there. Do you want to come with me or finish your snack?”
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Phil looked to the remains of the two-meter-long wolf and then to Damion and then back to the wolf. Damion struggled to keep a straight face while Phil made up its mind.
‘Stronger, tastier. Come.’
Damion shook his head at the foodie’s way of thinking and headed through the entrance to the next floor. The second floor of the labyrinth was still on a wide plain, but according to the map his auto-mapper created, there was a large, oblong lake, roughly 100 meters wide and 500 meters long, near what Damion felt was the center of floor. On the shore of that lake was the signal for the core to floor, however, Damion did not see many Demonic Beasts close to the lake, there was, however, a signal coming from inside the lake. The Demonic Beast in the lake, he guessed, was the reason the other Demonic Beasts were keeping their distance.
‘Must be a large predator type Demonic Beast,’ Damion mused.
The first image he conjured was some sort of alligator or crocodile beast, but then he quickly started imagining aquatic dinosaurs before finally arriving at the image of the Loch Ness Monster in his head.
Because of his bond with Phil, the Blizzard King was taking in the images Damion thought of and was sending back the question of taste for each one. Of course, Damion had no idea how any of them tasted, so he ignored his familiar and focused on the groups of Demonic Beasts on the map.
There was no singularly large group of Demonic Beasts he could find, there was one group with just under 20 members, but he felt it would be a waste of time to hop around the floor killing each of these groups in turn. It would be better to round them all up.
“Phil, fly out and scare all those Demonic Beasts out there towards me.”
The Blizzard king tilted its head to the side as it pondered Damion’s order prompting Damion to conjure images of a dog herding sheep into a pen.
‘Make wild ones run to you?’ Phil asked.
“Yes. Make them all come to me,” Damion told him.
Spread out across the floor were a few hundred Demonic Beasts, but since they were all F Rank, unless Damion let himself get trampled, he did not think he had anything to worry about.
Understanding Damion’s request, the Blizzard King flew off high into the sky. Damion watched Phil’s progress on his tablet. Within a minute the closest group of Demonic Beasts were fleeing from Phil towards the entrance of the floor where Damion was waiting.
The first group turned out to be a half dozen Wind Rabbits, that Damion was surprised survived the shock of a B Rank Demonic Beast swooping down on them. A quick cast of Frost Over was enough to freeze them solid and Damion collected them to wait for the next group of beasts.
The next group was a bit more imposing than the Wind Rabbits. It was eight Fire Boars. The F Rank Demonic Beasts were aggressive, but still fled from the B Rank Phil. Of course, they had no idea the human they were charging at had the passive spell Concealed Aura that made it impossible for the Fire Boars to tell he was an even bigger threat than the Blizzard King.
Wanting to work on his different spells, this time Damion dispatched the charging Demonic Beasts one at a time with Earth Shard. A single cast for each and he was able to kill all eight in just under a dozen seconds.
For the third group of Demonic Beasts, four strong looking apelike creatures with the Fire affinity, Damion cast Earth Prison, to contain each of them, and then finished them off with an Earth Shard each.
For the next half hour, Phil continued to herd, and Damion continued to practice his various spells as the Demonic Beasts rushed towards him. All in all, he collected 157 F Rank Demonic Beast carcasses, however, most were either Wind, Fire or Earth affinity. Once all the Demonic Beasts between him and the lake were dispatched, he and Phil headed to the lake to find out what kind of guardian this floor had.