“Look far into the distance.”, said Echo while looking over the horizon.

Edward followed her sight and noticed there was a curtain of light raising out of the ocean and connecting to the ceiling of the dungeon.

“Is that the safe zone?” asked Edward.

“Yes. The entire dungeon is submerged under water, but from the second floor down until the last one, the floors are flat ground. You can also hunt here, on the first floor, but there is no point since you’ll be fighting mostly underwater.”

“Even if Minx could probably fight with ease even here, it would be a pain for me to do it. We should just head to the second floor and start from there.”

Edward fell into deep thought after hearing Echo's words, before looking along the coast of the gulf.

“So, most people avoid the first floor?” he asked after a while.

“Usually. Why?” asked Echo.

“Then we should stay here for a while. I only need the cores and we’ll probably encounter more beast tamers on the other floors. Some privacy won’t be bad. With the safe zone not that far, you guys can also head there while I go to sleep.”

Echo felt quite disappointed since this meant she didn’t get the chance to fight, so Edward promised her they would head to deeper floors as well after he tries absorbing core energy in here.

After moving away from the direct path to the safe zone, along the coast of the gulf, Edward turned towards Minx: “Can you bring me some cores? As many as you can.”

Minx nodded and took her wolf form before diving into the water. Edward and the other girls sat down and waited for her to return.

“This is so boring.”, said Echo after not even ten minutes, causing both Edward and Violet to giggle. They were just happy to spend time with each other and didn’t mind the wait.

“You can also try to hunt. Or even head to deeper floors and gain some levels.”, said Edward with a laugh.

Echo shook her head and said: “With my mostly defensive skills, I’ll use too much stamina and divine energy to kill monsters of my level.”

“Sorry about it. I’ll make it up to you.”

“No need to apologize. I was the one who wanted to come and I’m happy to spend some time with you in the dungeon, like the old times. It’s just a little frustrating that we won’t be able to fight together again.”

“We’ll fight together as well as soon as I form a source for myself.” Replied Edward with a smile.

“Can you tell me more about this source while we wait?”

Edward nodded and started explaining to her how a source worked. He also told her the reason he chose to create a source and renounce Yggdrasil’s power. Echo listened through the entire story about Yggdrasil’s deeds with a stunned look on her face.

Not long after Edward ended his story and Echo was asking many questions about it, a small ripple appeared on the water surface and Minx jumped out. What appeared next was a huge water ball, full of water cores. If Edward had to count them, there must have been over 500 of them.

Smiling wryly, Edward asked: “Did you wipe out the entire floor?”

Minx returned to her human form and smiled at him before placing the small mountain of cores on the ground.

“Fighting in water is quite easy. Also, my level is a lot higher than the monsters here.”

Edward walked to the mountain of cores and took one in his hand before closing his eyes and trying to feel the energy inside. He could feel it, but absorbing it out of the core seemed impossible.

Frowning slightly, he turned towards Minx and said: “Can you create an ice bubble around us and slowly crack one core inside? I want to see if I can absorb the energy released from it.”

Minx nodded, and the other girls moved to the side. After a small ice bubble formed around Edward and Minx, thin needles of ice came from the walls and pierced the core Edward was holding in his hand as gently as possible.

The core started cracking and Edward could feel the water energy escaping its shell. He instructed Minx to stop, afraid the core would explode before sitting down and working on absorbing the energy inside the core.

“Fenrir, can you feel it too?”

[No. What are you talking about?]

“There appear to be other types of energies mixed with the water one.” said Edward with a frown.

[I have no affinity for other energies other than chaos so I can’t feel it.]

Edward nodded and started working on absorbing only the water energy inside the core. It took him almost eight hours until he finished one core, but even after all that, he still felt like he was trying to fill an ocean using a bucket.

“This is too slow.”, said Edward as he opened his eyes. He was already quite tired, and he knew he needed to let the wolf out soon.

As his thoughts reached the wolf, he looked at the cores with an idea appearing in his mind, only for Fenrir to pour cold water over his plan.

[The water energy will be turned into chaos energy. It would serve no purpose other than wasting the cores.]

Edward deflated like a balloon and told Minx to break the ice bubble. Violet and Echo stopped chatting and turned towards him, with Violet asking: “How did it go?”

“Well, it works better than just taking it from the atmosphere, but the energy is quite impure and it is still quite slow.”

“So, are we going to deeper floors?” asked Echo in enthusiasm.

Edward nodded before saying: “You head on first and get some food from the merchants in the safe zone. I need to rest for a while.”, turning towards Minx, he said: “Can you come and join the wolf after taking the girls into the safe zone? I’m afraid I will end up in trouble once I woke up.”

After a few more words, Minx took the girls with her and helped them reach the safe zone before walking back to Edward. The entire journey took less than ten minutes.

Looking at all the cores laying in a small mountain by the side, Edward sighed and said: “Take me deeper inside and be careful of the wolf. It’s been through some changes and I don’t want it to hurt you. If you notice anything unusual, just run away.”

Minx nodded and took Edward deeper inside the floor before creating a small ice platform atop the water. Edward laid down on it and went to sleep quite fast. He was afraid the ice would prevent him from sleeping, but it looked like his worry was for nothing.

The wolf still played nice with Minx and the two hunted together throughout the first floor for a few hours until Edward got control of his body again. Minx brought his body to the surface right away so he wouldn’t drown.

“Sorry for causing you so much trouble, Minx.”, said Edward while rubbing her ear. Minx shook her head and didn’t say a thing back. She was happy to spend some time with Edward alone.

Edward focused on feeling the energy inside since the wolf had consumed quite a lot of water beasts, but it was just as Fenrir has said. There was no progress in his water energy.

With a sigh, he had Minx take him to the girls, and they headed to the last floor of the dungeon. There were hardly any people there, but it was a place where Minx could still hunt without issue.

Echo once again pouted since the monsters there were too strong for her to fight again, but Edward had no other choice. He had to try with higher-level cores and see how it goes.

After having Minx quickly bring him a water core, he repeated the experiment on the first floor. The progress was quite a lot quicker since the amount of water energy inside a high-level monster core was a lot higher than the low-level ones, but also a lot purer.

After taking ten hours on absorbing the entire core, he felt the energy inside him and said with a sigh: “I’ll need at least an entire month of almost constant absorption before I can form my source.”

Seeing Echo’s tragic face at the news, Edward chuckled and said: “I don’t need you to guard me for that entire time.”

Turning towards Minx, he said: “Bring me two water cores from the monsters inside. I’ll just stay here and work on my source while you hunt on the upper floors.”

Echo perked up slightly and Minx went to bring him two more cores. After returning, Minx created a new ice bubble around Edward and cracked both cores at the same time. She then headed with Violet and Echo to the upper floors.

Edward sat down and started absorbing the energy inside the cores. He knew Echo just wanted to leech on Minx to gain some free levels, but he didn’t mind it.

Time slowly passed, and they kept repeating the same routine for a month and a half. During this time, Echo and Violet mostly stayed on the upper floors, with Minx traveling between his floor and the girls’ to help everyone.

His calculations proved quite wrong because as soon as he started working on directing that energy and compressing it to form the structure of the source, he made quite a lot of mistakes and ended up wasting quite a lot of energy.

Today was the day when he was going to finish making his source. The structure was almost complete and was identical to what he had seen from Azure and Fenrir. All he needed was to create the vortex as well.

Just as he was about to form the vortex, Fenrir spoke.

[Are you sure you want to finish creating only a water source? According to what Azure said, you won’t be able to create other sources.]

“I know, but if I can only reach godhood in one. Is there really any point in spending more time on creating other sources? I am also the most familiar with water.”

Fenrir remained silent and Edward spent a few more hours finally spinning the energy inside to create a vortex. Once the vortex was created, a series of nine successive popping noises sounded from inside his body.

All nine layers of the source had been stabilized as well.

Opening his eyes slowly, a small smile appeared on his lips. He could feel it again. Water magic.

Lifting his hand, a water ball appeared above it.

[Congratulations. How is it?]

Edward tried to move the water ball away from his hand and noticed it broke into simple water before falling to the ground. He tried controlling the water on the ground, but nothing happened again. He could feel the water energy, but it wouldn’t respond to his orders.

“Strange. I can control water, but it appears I’m using my body to do it. I need it to remain in close contact with my body. It also doesn’t feel very strong.”

[That should be the limit of the first layer.]

Edward nodded and performed a few more experiments, but there was nothing else available to him. He could manipulate water around his body, and that was all.

“I’m quite disappointed this resulted from an entire month and a half of work.”, muttered Edward as he started climbing up the stairs of the safe zone.