"By the way, it's not good to stay here for long, one of the dungeon's mini-boss walks by here regularly..." (Damian)
A frown appeared on Lia's face:
"How do you know that? How long have you been here for?" (Damian)
The man replied with a proud look on his face:
"Well, I have been here for like ten days or so I think… what why are you looking at me like that…" (Damian)
"Isn't the time limit to clear this dungeon seven days? How could you have stayed here for ten days?" (Lia)
Damian shook his head in confusion and replied:
"What are you talking about kiddo? The time limit for this dungeon is 30 days…" (Damian)
"Okay, forget it… there might have been some administration mistake, you guys follow me, it's not safe to stay here for too long, my party members are missing and I can't help you fight a monster right now.." (Damian)
Damian pointed to the grimoire in his hand and said in a proud tone:
"You see this grimoire, it is an S-rank artifact, and it helps me protect myself from this chaotic mana and also is capable of tracking the surroundings in this area too… if you guys follow me, I will take you to my temporary base…" (Damian)
"What do you say?" (Damian)
Hearing Damain's suspicious offer, Lia hesitated to agree. If she was alone she would not worry that much, but right now she still had to protect Riya too. It's difficult for her to fight an A-ranker while trying to protect someone else too.
[No need to worry girl, as long as you summon me, we can take care of him for sure, it's better to get out of this fog first…]
Lia hesitated a little bit but still decided to follow Damian after the guarantee from Kai.
…
(Random Explanation)
The time limit of a dungeon:
Whenever a party raids a dungeon they have a certain time limit, in which they have to conquer the dungeon, otherwise the raid will fail and the party members will be ejected from the dungeon back to the place they entered from.
Every dungeon has a different time limit according to the difficulty of that dungeon.
It is extremely easy to find the time limit and other information about a dungeon by simply using a good enough appraisal artifact.
Sometimes the difficulty or the time limit of a dungeon decreases or increases when the monster's quality or quantity inside that dungeon changes in that dungeon.
It's rare for such a thing to happen but there have been many such cases so it's nothing new nowadays.
…
A Few minutes later.
Lia's group slowly walked out of the foggy hills area and arrived in front of a large hill.
Damian used ice magic and made stairs to directly climb the hill.
Lia and Riya followed behind the man and arrived at the top of the hill.
A small tent came into their view.
Several Books were scattered across the tent and a small bonfire was lit.
Lia glanced around the hill and found the whole area was covered in fog. Wherever she glanced, it was a sea of dense fog.
Lia said with a confused look on her face:
"Compared to others, this dungeon is much bigger…"
Damian smiled a little and glanced at the horizon.
"Well yeah, this is an S-rank dungeon after all, what else do you expect from it…" (Damian)
"I am more surprised by the fact that the alliance sent B-rankers to an S-rank dungeon, it seems the corruption has been running too deep these days…" (Damian)
Damian shook his head in annoyance.
"Looking at you two kiddos makes me remember my two daughters who are waiting for me back at home, hahaha I have a lovely wife you know gahahaha" (Damian)
While Riya was still busy nibbling on candies, Lia tilted her head in confusion.
"S-rank dungeon? This is an A-rank dungeon though…" (Lia)
Damian shook his head in annoyance and replied:
"No way, not even A-rankers could handle this chaotic mana environment, they must have fooled you guys…" (Damian)
"When my party entered this dungeon, we had 10 people in it, 9 A-rankers and 1 S-ranker…" (Damian)
A look of pride appeared on Damian's face:
"This is one of the strongest line-ups you can assemble for an S-rank gate…" (Damian)
"But the environment in this dungeon is extreme… around 5 of my comrades who used to adventure with me died the very moment we entered this horrible place…" (Damian)
"As for the rest, I don't know what happened to them…. I had been teleported to this foggy place when I opened my eyes… now it's been 10 days and I have yet to find the way out of this place…" (Damian)
Lia tilted her head in confusion and asked:
"But didn't you say that this grimoire can be used to track?" (Lia)
Damian shook his head at Lia's question:
"It could do that before, but I ended up fighting the mini-boss of this area on my own, and the artifact got damaged heavily…" (Damian)
"My magic has been greatly suppressed in this place due to the chaotic mana, due to which it's become extremely difficult to fight for me…" (Damian)
Damian shook his head in regret:
"Turbulent mana is the bane of every magician, only some insanely talented people can keep their full strength even in this turbulent mana field..." (Damian)
Damian glanced at Lia and Riya with a look of doubt:
"You guys might be extremely talented to be able to keep yourself safe from all this chaos… I wonder how my elder daughter is doing nowadays…" (Damian)
"My Elder daughter had just recently awakened when I left for this dungeon… I wonder how her entrance exam went…" (Damian)
Damian seemed to be contemplating life at this moment as he continued to stare at the horizon with an empty look on his face.
…
Outside the dungeon.
A frown appeared on Raji's cold face and she said in an annoyed tone:
A frown appeared on Raji's cold face and she said in an annoyed tone:
"As I thought, all the mini-cameras have stopped working due to the chaotic mana inside the dungeon…" (Raji)
Since the moment everyone was teleported away, the mini cameras had started to stop working and the last camera also stopped working when Lia and Riya were just about to meet Damian.
Right now Raji only knows the general location of everyone in the dungeon, but her contact with them has broken.
'The only way to keep track of their well-being is by the wristwatch now…' (Raji)
Although the wristwatch only tells about the general health condition of a student, it's still accurate and precise. (The wristwatch can track HP and it can also track if the student is conscious or not…)
'Ugh, why do all these weird things happen all at once…' (Raji)
The appraisal artifact generally only tells about the difficulty and time limit of a dungeon, there's no way to know about the inside environment of a domain, thus Raji was also unaware of the inside situation beforehand.
If you are confused as to why they did not send the drone cameras for surveillance, then the answer to that is extremely simple, the dungeon gates work with several rules and restrictions.
Cameras or other things are considered artifacts or items in the dungeon space, and an artifact can only go in or out of a dungeon when someone takes it out or in the dungeon.
This means someone will have to enter the dungeon beforehand to scatter these cameras if they want to scout the dungeon ahead of the actual raid. Which would mean that the moment someone enters the dungeon a raid has already begun.
If they left the dungeon just after scattering the cameras, that would mean the raid failed and a dungeon wave would occur. (Simply speaking it's not worth the risk…)
'Should I just storm in forcibly?' (Raji)
An SS-ranker can forcibly stabilize the inside space of a dungeon and enter it without causing the dungeon to fall apart, due to which an SS-ranker can enter any domain of SS-rank or below easily.
'Well, right now the health bar of the students seems okay, as depicted by the wristwatch's tracker… perhaps I should wait a bit….' (Raji)
Raji wanted all of them to experience hardships and grow up as an individual, if she intervened too early, it would be counterproductive.
Thus she shook her head and continued to keep an eye on the health bar as shown by the wristwatch.
(Contrary to Lia's doubts, Raji hadn't sent anyone in after their group, which means, Damian's existence in the dungeon was already a strange phenomenon in itself.)
…
Link's group.
"Hmm, Riya has moved from her original spot, change direction to that way…" (Link)
Link pointed his finger toward the direction Riya had moved.
At Link's voice, Ellie flapped her wings and changed the direction towards the one Link was pointing.
'Please be safe, Riya…' (Link)
While Riya nibbled on her candies without any care in the world, Link was worried sick about her safety.
…
…
Author's Notes.
Yo! Your beloved author is here! The mystery intensifies, a new twist has occurred, who Damian might be… the author laughs as the suspense has increased.
Question of the day.
Would you guys also want to ride on a Dragon's back?
1.Yes (Dragon-knight for the win! Let's go!)
2.Not (No, we choose the hog-rid*r!!)
3.Others (Tell me in the comments.)
By the way, don't forget to use those power stones and also leave a review if you like the story. Comment your opinion about the chapter. Your support is my motivation.