Two wolves were laying on the ground, smoke continuously escaping both of their bodies. A giant egg was lying on its side, not that far from them.

Of of the wolves slowly turned into a human and said while panting: “Fenrir, next time I get a stupid idea like that, please feed me to the wolf…”

A snicker resounded through the empty stairway: [It was quite amusing. Even Azure was laughing her fins off.]

Edward exhaled a deep, pained breath and got up to check on his companion. Minx’s fur was burnt here and there and she was panting just as hard, but didn’t appear to be heavily injured.

“I’m sorry, girl.”, whispered Edward as he wanted to rub her fur, only to stop, worried it might hurt her.

“Minx is good. Edward?”

“I’m good, too. I’m good, girl.”

The two rested for a few hours to recover their mana and stamina before heading for the fifth floor. Edward knew that hunting monsters one level higher would reduce the amount required to level by half, but it would also increase the chance of an accident, so he chose the safe route, hunting level 10 monsters.

“Minx, we’re going to hunt around the safe zone. Make sure you keep yourself safe.”

Minx nodded, and they both stepped out of the stairway into the fifth floor of the dungeon. Edward decided to only turn into a wolf when his mana would reach under 200 or if they were in trouble. He didn’t want to get ambushed when he was low on resources and end up in a precarious situation.

They walked through the large floor for about five minutes until they reached their first monsters. Two flying monsters that resembled wyverns and three humanoid ones.

The humanoid monsters looked no different from humans besides their scaly tails and wings on their backs. Edward decided he would call them dragonkin. The monsters noticed them and started charging toward them immediately.

“I wonder if those can fly as well…” muttered Edward as he signaled Minx to let him deal with them and stepped forward.

Edward held a water whip in his hand and surveyed their movements. Swords made of fire appeared in the dragonkin’s hands as all three of them moved to surround Edward.

Not willing to get surrounded by them, Edward ran forward and launched the whip toward one of the dragonkin. The dragonkin tried to cut the whip with his sword, but the whip bent like it had a life of its own, dodging the simple slashing attempt, and cutting its neck clean off.

Seeing two fireballs heading for him, Edward rolled forward while directing the whip toward another dragonkin.

The dragonkin moved to cut the whip as well, but the same thing repeated itself and his neck flew clean off his shoulders.

“Those who don’t learn from… oh well.”

Turning towards the last monster, Edward was surprised to see it trying to flee. Shooting a water bullet, Edward cleanly pierced its head, letting it fall dead on the ground.

As he lifted his head, he noticed the wyverns were already flying away.

“I’ve never seen monsters trying to flee before.”, said Edward while absorbing the life force from the dead monsters.

[Maybe even with soulless monsters, the higher their level, the higher their intelligence.]

“Maybe…”, muttered Edward as he curled the whip around his arm and beckoned for Minx to come closer. After having her eat the cores that dropped, they headed deeper into the floor.

Their first hunt went easy, with Edward taking care of the land monsters and Minx using spells to kill the flying ones. Edward would absorb the life force while the cores would go to Minx.

In the staircase’s safety, as they were recovering, Edward summoned his status tablet and clicked his tongue.

“Barely 23 life force. This will take a while.”

[You should try letting the wolf out.]

Edward was already quite tired, so he didn’t find the idea that bad. After waiting a bit more for Minx to recover, they both walked out of the safe zone again. He was worried about the wolf fixing its eyes on the dragon egg, so he had no choice but to do this.

After defeating a small group of monsters, Edward rubbed Minx’s head affectionately before laying down on the cold floor to sleep. The monsters were scarce enough, so he was sure he won’t get overwhelmed once he woke up.

After the wolf had its share of fun, Edward woke up laying next to Minx as she was cleaning her fur. Rubbing her head, he summoned his status tablet to check on the wolf’s progress.

<Name: Edward Black>

<…>

<Mana: 703/1558>

<Stamina: 1104/1104>

<Strength: 21.2>

<Dexterity: 22.8>

<Level: 10>

<Level Life Force: 106/450>

<…>

“Not bad. Fenrir, isn’t there a way to let only the wolf hunt?”

[Of course there is. You just have to bonk yourself in the head once every ten minutes or so.]

“Yeah… I’ll pass. Still, its speed is a lot better than mine.”

[The only problem is the density of the monsters here is too low and it spends most of its time searching for prey. The monsters would also scatter whenever it would get too close.]

Edward and Minx entered a routine. They would have two hunting sessions during the day, pass the night in the safety of the stairs and check on the egg, two more sessions again the next day, and let the wolf out at night. He also took it as slow as possible, keeping about half of his resources intact before returning to the safe zone.

After one week, Edward finally reached level 11, and they moved down one floor. One entire week later, he leveled up again, reaching level 12.

Since he was being extra careful, they were not really in any danger and without the need to distribute life force with anyone else, his speed was also acceptable.

Three months and a half later, he finally leveled up to 17. Even with his mana poisoning already gone and him getting stronger with each level, he noticed the monsters were getting harder to kill the further down he progressed. Some monsters took up to five hits of his whip at the same spot to die.

Since Minx didn’t appear to have the same problem he did, he quickly figured out the answer. With beasts and monsters not relying on classes and class advancement, their power would increase uniformly, even before and after level 20. He, on the other hand, had to promote once he reached level 20 to keep up with the monster’s strength.

Luckily, he had both Minx and the wolf, which were not affected by this, or he would have had no choice but to give up.

The next few levels proved even more difficult to achieve, and they even amassed some serious wounds in combat. He would also have to fight only in his wolf form or he wouldn’t stand a chance.

Two months and a half later, Edward was sitting on the stairs of the safe zone, one of his arms completely missing and frozen by Minx so he won’t lose too much blood.

He leveled up to 19 yesterday and had his first try at level 19 monsters. To say it went poorly was a nice way to put it. He lost his arm and his tail and Minx had to pull him out of there. And that was just a six-monster group close to the safe zone. Any deeper and he would have been dead with Minx probably ending the same way trying to save him.

[You might need a party to reach level 20. Without promotion or help, I don’t think progressing further is possible.]

Edward bit his lip in frustration, and he looked toward the depths of the dungeon. One more level and he could promote upon returning to the city. If he had to look for a party, he would lose a lot of time. There was also the risk of having him expose his curse to other people.

“That would also not be simple… I must at least reach level 20 before leaving this place. How about letting only the wolf hunt?”

He realized it was a bad idea the moment he said it, and Fenrir wasted no time in confirming it.

[You will remain stranded inside the depths of the floor and I don’t know if even Minx could protect you until you reach the safe zone again.]

“Then I guess I can only keep trying.”

Edward took Minx with him and headed up the stairs. He knocked himself out and let the wolf heal him on the level 18 monsters before getting back down on the 24th floor.

“Ready for another try, Minx?”

Minx nodded with a serious expression and they started looking for monsters while moving in a circle around the safe zone. Twenty minutes later, a group of five monsters appeared again. There were three wyverns and two dragonkin.

Turning into his wolf form, he started moving in circles while the two dragonkin were chasing him and shooting water bullets at them. Minx was busy fighting the three wyverns alone, but she was doing just fine.

The key problem was the dragonkin’s speed. They were faster than he was and were slowly catching up to him. Also, because of their agility, barely any bullets would land on them.

After two minutes of constant running and shooting spells at them, the dragonkin finally caught up. With no other choice, Edward summoned a water whip and dashed towards them, starting the close-range combat.

The dragonkin ignored his whip attack and both of them slashed their fire swords at Edward. Covering the place in his water curtain, Edward dodged the two attacks by jumping over them and sent a few water blades at the necks of the two.

Now that he was behind them, he quickly jumped backward, dodging two tail swipes coming his way. As the lizards were turning around to charge at him once more, Edward hit them with another wave of blades, but since the two still didn’t die, he had no choice but to summon two water platforms to block the two incoming attacks before retreating even further back.

As he summoned a few water bullets and was about to close the gap again, two ice spears pierced through the two dragonkin from the ground, killing them instantly.

Edward heaved a sigh of relief as he undid his transformation. Looking at Minx, who was coming towards him with burn marks all over her body, he said: “Thank you, Minx, but you didn’t have to take such risks. I could have kept going for a little more.”

“Minx worried Edward would get hurt again.”

Edward sighed and said nothing as he quickly gathered his meager five points of life force and they both retreated toward the safe zone. He already spent a great deal of mana just fighting those two dragonkin and Minx was also injured. They were in no condition to continue fighting.

Looking at Minx, who was slowly licking her wounds, Edward said: “Fenrir, ask Azure if there’s any way to increase the amount of damage my spells do.”

[There’s no way for now. Once you promote, the quality of your mana will increase and even your weakest spells would gain a tremendous boost of power, but until then…]

Taking out his status tablet, he kept looking over his stats, trying to find a solution, when a thought popped into his mind.

“Fenrir, this strength I’m getting from the tablet… doesn’t it come from Yggdrasil?”

[Indeed. You use the tablet to trade life force for strength.]

“Doesn’t that mean that she can take it back anytime?”

[Sigh… Indeed. Not anytime since I broke her spiritual connection to her roots, but we cannot rely on this strength to fight her. The life force absorbed by the wolf remains, and so does the chaos energy. When the time comes, I will be the one who’s going to fight her.]

“So, all this is pointless?” asked Edward, frustration obvious in his voice.

[No. The wolf would use that strength to keep growing stronger itself, which means I also slowly get stronger. You also need this strength to survive in this world until we can leave.]

“Yes, but it’s still pointless at the end. Isn’t there a way for me to gain strength without having to rely on that tree? Like you, Azure, Minx, or even that god. None of you rely on Yggdrasil to strengthen you.”

[I am a beast born out of chaos and control the chaos. Since everything originated from chaos, I gain strength by devouring everything. Azure, or more exactly Undine, is just water given a soul. Her strength is high, but it’s also a constant. She cannot gain more power. As for Minx, she is a beast with a core. Mana from the atmosphere gets absorbed into her core naturally and converted into ice mana. She gets stronger naturally and eating cores only gives a boost to the mana inside.]

“Then what about that god? He looked human enough for me. What about that girl that could teleport? There must be a way for humans to gain strength without relying on Yggdrasil. What is the source of their power?”

[That… I don’t know. For all the time I’ve been alive in this world, humans always gained their power from Yggdrasil.]

Edward summoned the chaos core again in his palm and carefully looked at it.

“Why did you give me this? You said it was a gift for me, but what am I supposed to do with it?” muttered Edward under his breath.

Receiving no answer no matter how much he waited, suddenly, a crazy thought came to him and he asked: “Fenrir, if Yggdrasil can grant power to people, how come there isn’t any chaos mage in this world?”

[I don’t understand.]

“Think about it, we know chaos works the same way as the other affinities since it showed as unknown when I checked mine with the guild. Why didn’t Yggdrasil’s tablet list it as unknown? Why didn’t she absorb the chaos energy from inside your body when she killed you and just threw it into this world? Same with your soul. The reason she cursed it and threw it in Midgard must be related to chaos energy as well.”

Edward stood up and started pacing around the stairs as he continued.

“She must only be able to control water, earth, fire, and air… wait. There are also clerics. That must be another type of energy she has control over. Do you get where I’m getting at?”

[There must be energies she can’t use or control. Like my chaos energy. What about that?]

“Since that tablet checked my affinities and even showed the chaos one, it means that I should be able to use all energies without having to beg Yggdrasil for it. She doesn’t show chaos since she can’t grant that energy back in exchange for life force. She might even hide it only so that other people don’t use it. This way, she can stay in control of everything.”

[Yes, but you humans don’t have a core to store the energy.]

“Then where do you save yours? With your body dead, you can’t possibly still have a core now, can you?”

[In my divine soul.]

“In the soul, huh? Fenrir, have you ever looked inside your own soul to see where that energy goes ever since losing your core?”

[What do you mean by that?]

“That place you and Azure live in, it’s the inside of my soul. If I have one, you must as well.”

[… I didn’t.]

“Can you look now?”

[I can’t. That would put my consciousness into slumber and let the wolf take over my conscious mind for who knows how long. The curse would also further corrode my soul.]

“Can’t I go in then? Just like you and Azure are living inside my soul.”

[It’s possible, but we must first wake the wolf up.]

“That’s fine.” Said Edward, feeling he was close to figuring a way, a way for him to get stronger without relying on Yggdrasil, the guild, or the status tablet. Turning towards Minx, he said: “Girl, I’m going on the first floor to check something up. You wait here and rest. I will be fine.”

“Be careful.”

Nodding, Edward sprinted to the first floor before rushing into the enemies and knocking himself out.

Waking up inside his soul space, he looked at the wolf in front of him and asked: “Okay, how do I do it?”

“I’ll send you in, but remember: once the wolf shows signs of falling asleep, I’ll pull you out.”

As soon as Fenrir’s words ended, he disappeared from his soul space and appeared inside hers.

Purple-gray chaos energy was creeping through her soul, all heading in one direction. Edward followed the threads of chaos energy and soon reached the place they were congregating at.

A crown-shaped disc was revolving around a grey-purple vortex that kept absorbing all the chaos energy around it.

“I found it.”