Edward looked at the at least ten feet tall door that marked the entrance of the dungeon and was covered with what looked like white marble with a look of wonder, only to be distracted by Aidan clearing his throat from the back

“Edward, you should make Minx’s size smaller…”

Edward didn’t understand at first and looked down only to notice that most of the adventurers on the ground were staring with caution and weapons in hand at the giant wolf that appeared from the dense forest surrounding the dungeon. Probably the only thing stopping them from attacking was the fact that there was a party of humans on top of the wolf.

Edward felt a bit embarrassed and said: “Minx, small.”

As Minx started decreasing her size, everyone jumped off her back and landed cleanly on the ground. The people all around also relaxed once Minx’s size reached that of a normal wolf and sheathed their weapons as they started whispering to each other.

“A beastmaster?”

“Is probably that young man that was sitting on the wolf’s head. I heard him whisper something to the wolf before it decreased its size.”

“I never heard of a beastmaster with a moonwalking wolf in our City of Ashes… I wonder where he came from.”

——————————

“Ignore them. Beastmasters are quite rare in this part of the continent.” Said Aidan, seeing Edward’s confused expression.

Edward nodded and fixed his eyes back on the gigantic door mounted at the base of a mountain cliff. It was his first time seeing a dungeon and, while still anxious about venturing in with his new party, he couldn’t deny that he was also really excited. Reigning it a bit of his excitement, he asked: “Shall we head inside or wait for tomorrow?”.

“We still have time today.”, said Aidan as he started walking towards the entrance. Edward and the others started following him, only to hear a whimper from the back after a couple of steps. Turning around, they saw Minx looking at Edward with her head tilted to the side.

“She probably wants to follow us inside.” Said Edward, already understanding Minx to a certain degree. “What do you guys think?”

“Yes.” Said Mya out loud, before realizing she just yelled and blushed as she continued in a low voice: “I don’t mind…”

“I don’t either.” Replied Aidan and Steven at the same time.

Everyone then turned to look at Brendan. Feeling all the other’s gazes on him, Brendan shrugged and said: “Do whatever you want, but the wolf stays near you. I don’t want it coming next to me or messing up our formation.”

Since everyone agreed, Minx didn’t wait for Edward to say anything and jumped to his side. Patting her head, Edward followed the rest as they continued walking towards the entrance.

There were two strong-looking guards in front of the door, but after checking everyone’s adventurer badges, they moved to the side to let them pass after saying: “You can go in. Also, 30% of your winning has to be paid back once you exit the dungeon. Understood?”

After everyone nodded, they started walking through the white marble door.

On the way after entering, Aidan said: “Edward, since you are new, I’ll explain the formation we’ll be fighting in. Bran and Steve will be in the lead, followed by you and Mya. I’ll stay in the back to protect against any attack from there and only move if anything gets past Steve and Bran. You have to use your spells to support them and make sure they are not overwhelmed. Understood?”

Seeing Edward nod with a serious look, he continued: “Mya will take care of healing if anyone gets injured. Since she’s still a beginner, she can only heal minor injuries, so everyone has to keep that in mind.”

“What about life force distribution?” asked Edward, not understanding how everyone will level up while they’re hunting as a party.

“For the first floor, since we are all level 2, we’ll let Mya absorb all the life force using her tablet. Once she reaches level two, if we still have time, we’ll head for the second floor. There, we’ll split the life force evenly between the five of us. Once a group of monsters is killed, we’ll each use our tablets to absorb an equal amount of life force. Also, in this dungeon, the only type of enemies are white-scaled lizards. They are not especially strong, but they are agile, so be careful about their speed.”

“Alright.” Edward understood the gist of it and agreed to the set-up.

The group then continued in silence for around five minutes, but there was no trace of any lizard. Just as Edward was doubting there was even anything else besides them in this dungeon, Minx let out a small growl.

“Something’s up ahead.” Said Edward as everyone’s expression got serious and they quickly got into position. Out of the two brothers in front, one had a long sword while the other had a heavy-looking halberd. Aidan in the back had his small, round shield and short sword at the ready. The only ones with no kind of weapon were Mya and Edward in the middle. Edward summoned two water balls which he made hover around his body to not get left out, but Mya didn’t have any attacking abilities and just carelessly continued petting Minx.

It didn’t take long until the party started hearing fighting noises from the front and, after walking for a few more seconds, they spotted another party fighting a group of weird-looking lizards. The lizards were around three feet long and were extremely agile while running on all four legs across the floor of the dungeon, but the party didn’t seem to struggle too much against them.

“If they don’t appear to be in any danger, we should not interfere with other parties since they might think we’re trying to steal their life force. Let’s move around so we don’t disturb them.” Said Aidan and everyone nodded as they took the long way around the party fighting the lizards. The first floor of the dungeon was not that tall but was wide enough for them to pass by the other party with no problem.

For the next quarter of an hour, they spotted six other groups of lizards, but they were all engaged in fighting other adventurers. Edward’s initial worry started also disappearing, feeling that even if they got into trouble, they could at least run towards another party and ask for help with so many of them being around.

“Aidan, where are the monsters in the dungeon coming from?” asked Edward, not understanding how there were still lizards around with all the adventurers constantly hunting them.

Aidan gave Edward a weird look, not understanding how he couldn’t know that, but still explained. “It depends on the dungeon. For most dungeons, the monsters inside are created by the dungeon’s core to protect itself. The dungeon uses its life force to give form to the monsters inside. Because they are creatures created out of mana and life force, with no soul, they are called monsters and not beasts. As we descend deeper and closer to the core of the dungeon, the life force concentration will increase, and with it, the strength of the monsters will as well.”

“I see. Thank you.” Replied Edward as he turned his attention back to his surroundings. Looking at the white marble forming the floor, ceiling, and pillars in between, Edward found the dungeon’s name quite appropriate, but strange. He had this image in his head that a dungeon should be a gloomy place, but what he saw until now differed completely from his expectations. The entire place and even the monsters were white, while the ceiling also provided a decent amount of light to the place, making it a lot more welcoming than he expected.

It took the party over half an hour until they spotted a group of lizards that were not engaged in combat with other adventurers. There were 3 lizards and were taken care of easily by Brendan and Steven, without Edward having to lift a single finger. As Mya reached the dead lizards and started absorbing their life force, Edward also canceled the water balls he kept hovering around his body since it was quite tiring to focus on keeping them floating around.

The group then proceeded onwards and Edward noticed a very obvious increase in the number of lizards. They even encountered a group of 16 lizards and Edward had to take action twice. Two hours later, they finally killed their 100th monster, and Mya managed to reach level two.

“Damn, leveling up is so easy in a dungeon. It took me so long to do the same in the wild…” murmured Edward, feeling a bit jealous of how easy it was for Mya.

“Good, now it’s time to head for the second floor.” Said Aidan as he saw Mya make her status tablet disappear.

“How do we do that?” asked Edward in a curious tone, attracting another round of weird looks from the rest of the party.

The others kept silent, but Brendan couldn’t hold it in anymore and said, “Did you grow up in the forest or something? Why do you keep asking such basic questions?!”

Edward scratched his head awkwardly and nodded. “Actually, yes. I only recently came to the City of Ashes and, before that, I indeed lived in a small village in a forest.”

His answer stunned both Brendan and the other members of the party, prompting Aidan to ask: “But, how could a noble live in a small forest village?”

“Noble? I’m not a noble. I’m just a commoner..”

“Huh?” everyone had stunned looked on their faces when they heard Edward’s words and Aidan added: “But a commoner part of the magician guild? You also have a surname…”

“That… I’m no noble. I got in the magician guild since Circe Winterhope took me as her disciple. As for having two names… I’ve just registered with two names when entering the city…” replied Edward, not understanding what all the fuss was about.

Everyone was still looking weirdly at him, but only Mya looked scared as she asked while stuttering: “C-C-Circe Winterhope? The Frozen Terror?”.

Her words also made a look of realization and pity appear on the other party members’ faces.

“Winter Terror? Circe?” asked Edward, wondering what she has done to receive that nickname.

Everyone nodded in answer and Aidan said while patting Edward’s shoulder in encouragement: “Damn, you must have it touch brother…”

Edward moved away from his arm, not fond of the contact, and said: “Why are you all acting like that? Master is indeed scary sometimes, but she’s not ‘Winter Terror’ level scary…”. Edward’s words stopped as he remembered how she tricked him into becoming her apprentice and how those guards ended up being respectful to him suddenly after he became Circe’s apprentice.

‘Is she really that scary? But she’s been quite nice if you ignore a few things…’ thought Edward.

“Scary sometimes? I heard that once a guy asked her out for a date and she froze the thing between his legs.” Said Brendan as he moved his hand towards his crotch protectively.

“Yes, yes, I heard she then kicked him, breaking his adulthood into hundreds of tiny froze pieces.” Continued Steven, while also moving his hand towards his crotch.

“I heard she has a vault under her magic tower where she keeps all the men who ever proposed to her frozen in ice. Once someone proposes, she will agree, bring him there and add him to her collection as well.” Added Aidan right after, to which everyone, Mya included, nodded with scared looks.

“….” Edward was stunned by everything the others were saying and even he was getting scared for his little brother.

Aidan cleared his throat and said: “We should hurry towards the second floor before it gets dark outside. The dungeon transmits light from the outside so, at night, it gets pitch black in here as well..”

Everyone agreed and Aidan turned towards Edward: “Look carefully, Edward. This is how one goes from one floor to the other. Also, brace for the fall.”

As Aidan’s words ended, he summoned his status tablet and placed it on the floor below them. The floor acted as if it had just encountered its worst enemy and, soon enough, a hole appeared on the ground under them, sucking everyone through it in an instant.

“Ahhhh!!!!” a yell escaped Edward’s lips and not long after, the yell was interrupted by a grunt as his body hit the floor hard enough for his back to release a cracking sound.

“Ahahahaha.” A burst of loud laughter grated Edward’s ears, and he turned around to look for the source, only to notice that everyone around was looking at him while doing their best not to laugh, all except Brendan who didn’t seem to have any problem laughing aloud to his heart content.

“You could have warned me we’re going to fall through the floors” muttered Edward as he slowly stood up. Mya also came to his side and placed her hands on his back. Not long after, a warm feeling started spreading from his back and the pain disappeared like it never existed.

“Healing magic is amazing… thank you, Mya.” Replied Edward as soon as he was completely healed. Mya nodded and went back to playing with Minx while Aidan said: “I’m sorry for not telling you before. I didn’t expect you to panic and fall on your back.”

“Ahahaha… Did you hear that yell? He sounded like a little girl. Not even Mya released a single sound. Ahahahaa.”

Edward’s face turned slightly purple and wanted nothing more than to blast that annoying idiot to smithereens.

“That’s enough, Bran. We were lucky enough to not fall close to a monster group, but we should search for the stairs as soon as possible and hunt around that area.”

“Stairs?” asked Edward.

“To get down, we can use the tablet since the dungeon floors are made of life force and will open a passage as soon as a status tablet goes near it, but to get up we will need to use the stairs like normal since we can’t fly through the ceiling.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is, but how will we know where the stairs are located? I can’t tell any difference.”

“I-I-I can.” Replied Mya from behind Edward and Aidan added: “Clerics can feel the entrance and safe zones inside a dungeon. That’s why they are indispensable for any dungeon party. Their healing ability is not that important during the early levels since they can only heal minor wounds, and they are mostly recruited for their guiding ability.”

Edward nodded, and they all started heading toward the stairs while being on full alert since the second floor was unexplored territory for all of them.