With bated breaths the party looked at Kaede as she placed the call, all waiting to see what would happen. Would the call go through? Would Jack pick up? What should they do if he cannot be reached? Of course, it was not like they were in a panic mode, running around like headless chickens, but the input of the one person who seemed to always have at the very last a decent answer, as well as undying respect and belief of the party, was nevertheless more than just slightly significant. The seconds that passed by felt as though they were dragging their metaphorical feet through sand and mud, like exhausted soldiers after days of non stop march towards the next battlefront.

  "What's up kids?" Jack's voice resounded from the 'loudspeaker mode' of the communication orb, clearly heard by the entirety of the party. "It's been, what, barely half a day and you already miss me? I am both flattered and slightly worried at the same time." he half teased for a short moment, but his joking manner changed quickly enough a mere moment later. "So, what's the problem?"

  Kaede proceeded to summarise their encounter, the appearance of the know recognized chimeric plant, as well as the message they received trough the system. The rest of the group chimed in here and there, adding their own small observations, both from right outside as well as their immediate surroundings- A half empty cave expansion that seemed to have some strange plants growing and glowing on the far end of the cavern like place they found themselves in right now.

  "What should we do? In your opinion?" Kaede finally asked, the group waiting for Jack's verdict with slight anticipation.

  "Well" Jack started, taking a longer breath as though preparing for a long rant of sorts before his words kept flowing through their communication device "You have two, overall choices in the matter. Firstly- you can try and exist the place in a similar way as you entered. There should be some sort of a weird, though likely similar plant to the one you saw right before being drawn inside. Or in case it's not there the first option might not very much be one. The second obvious choice is to delve deeper and explore, though in that case you should be extremely cautious as you begin your advance. From what little I have learned of dungeons so far, they seem to have a generally determined difficulty level that scales up by small margin the deeper one gets, though that same rule gets ignored as well in case the dungeon in question is extremely old one and has begun expanding outwards. That's when new levels are generated, creating a new outer shell of sorts that contains weaker beings due to the distance from the core itself. It is thus logically implied that such dungeons are the truly dangerous ones as they had spawned in locations not reached by our kind and left to grow unrestrained. The theory behind it is that all dungeons begin as simple beginner ones, slowly amassing mana in their cores and growing stronger until someone stumbles upon them and destroys the core of the dungeon, leaving behind heavily mutated environment that can then be exploited by whoever own the land and the means to access the place. Or, as history would often prove- find them much too late to have the necessary manpower to take care of it, leaving the local residents with no other choice but to flee, lest they are eventually overrun by the ever growing dungeons."

  He took a short moment as if to catch his breath, or so it felt from the side of the combat party, before he then moved onto the main reason their conversation was even going on at this particular time. "I would suggest you first figure out the level of the dungeon in question and if it's not too high, no higher than low level twenties, you should try and perhaps slowly clear through it. If luck is on your side, we might just soon have the first dungeon clear under your belts. But, no matter what, remember that your safety and wellbeing always comes first. I have no desire to see, or hear in this case, of you going all the distance only for one of you to be forced to make the ultimate sacrifice. Slow and steady wins the race that is life in such a cruel world. If worst comes to pass and you can neither progress in the dungeon, nor leave, inform me straight away and I will bring in the big guns. Everything clear?"

  "Understood!" came a joint reply from the group in the dungeon, with not a single voice exhibiting even a sliver of doubt or disagreement, like a flock of faithful, devout followers following the word of their lord.

  "Chiyo." Kaede spoke as soon as the call was finished, only to be interrupted by the person in question replying as she already was moving out, her actions precise and calculated as she headed towards the other end of the cavern where the cave led further inside, all actions emphasizing safety and stealth.

  "On it. Stay back the rest of you." she added a warning just to make sure. Out of the team, she was the one with the best perception and sense of danger, as well as the most sophisticated in the art of stealth. The latter was not, however, a great praise of sorts for Chiyo, as much as it was expression of just how bad the rest of them were in the art. Still, Chiyo could do decently when needed, since most of her job and skills were focused on tracking, perception and ranged combat, with stealth being a minor side branch of her class.

  Slowly, with measured and careful step after step, the scout slowly advanced- her senses tuned to maximum as she searched for threats both mobile and stationary. The group knew, based on the name of the dungeon, as well as the chimeric plant they saw before entering, that this place no doubt had both flora and fauna that could at any time attack them should they become overly careless and overconfident. Not of which, luckily, would happen, especially so with Jack's words spoken just recently.

  Her eyes darted from an odd looking blue palm tree with paler and slightly luminescent leaves, with darker blue coconuts underneath said leaves, to vine infested bush that stood taller than the rest of the grass level weeds. An odd twitch here and there screamed danger, especially so with the lack of any kind of actual wind down here in this cave like environment. And with each next step she took, nearing the illuminated area, she noticed more and more of such bushes, until she decided, wisely, to head back and request Emi's assistance in identifying what was most likely their first monster encountered within the place.

  "Bush wump." Emi spoke to the group several minutes later after Chiyo had returned, brought her with her to analyze what she believed to be the first monster type within the place and brought the two back straight afterwards. "It's around level eighteen. That's all I can tell at the moment."

  "That's good enough. Thanks Emi." Izumi spoke, reassuringly squeezing her shoulder. "So team? What are your thoughts?" she added as her gaze moved over her party. A short, yet significant moment of silence permeated their surroundings, the only noise their continued breathing as each and every member of the party mulled it over for a moment.

  "I think we should do it. Try and clear it I mean." the first to speak was Mika. "We can, and should, rely on Jack when it comes to his wisdom and whatnot, but at the same time we will cripple our growth if we don't push ourselves a bit to our current limits, perhaps sometimes past them."

  "I agree with Mika." chimed in Kate, little to no surprise to anyone around. Though if anyone was expecting there to be any, save for perhaps Carla, who would oppose the idea, they had clearly not spent their time with this particular group.

  "It's decided with perfect unity then." Kaede smiled as she looked over the unanimous vote. more than just a bit happy with the single mindedness, though she did have to look at Carla suspiciously for a second at which point, Stolen Constellation's mental health expert just shrugged as she commented.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  "It's not like i don't agree with your assessment. Yes, I cannot argue fighting is not for me, for I would much rather sit back at home and await anyone in need of counsel or mind soothing there. But, at the same time, it's not like the world will just sit back and wait for me or anything, so I need a bit of an experience for when inevitably some shit will be stirred up."

  "Fair enough." Izumi hummed, guiding the team towards their next, logical step.

  With Kenji and Mika up front, the group advanced forward, their steps slow and steady, yet filled with determination and will. Weapons drawn, senses sharp and muscles strained, ready to respond to any sort of an attack coming their way at a moment's notice. They did not have to advance for long, as the moment the group was some thirty meters away from the first bush wump, the oddly wriggling vined bush visibly even in the dim light of the cave shuddered, second later almost leaping their way as a low hum came from its direction, making the encounter all the more weird.

  It propelled itself through the air in their direction, mid air launching its vines towards the party.Though much to its displeasure, none of the attacks connected, landing on either empty ground or being repelled by some extremely hard objects as both Kenji and Mika stepped into its range and deflected them with relative ease. The monster did not slow down though, it's whip like vine arms repeating the previous motion as it tried again, only to meet the same result once again as well as its vines were deflected in the same manner. The creature, for all its odd appearance was nothing more than a simple creature, working on nothing else but seemingly simple directive and rudimentary instincts. It had not time for a third attempt at striking down its targets as it landed at that moment, followed by an arrow that pierced the creatures bushy part, as a result of which it squealed of sorts.

  Sharp, high pitched squeal resounded, drawing the attention of not only the party but numerous other bushes nearby.

  "Shit, death call for reinforcements of sorts!" Kenj icursed as he recognized it for what it was.

  "Still within manageable limits." Kaede called out "Take formation." she barked out orders as the party quickly followed "Emi, slow them down, Chiyo, pick some of them off if you can. Arrows seem effective enough."

  "Roger!/ On it!" came different responses from the girls given directives, not a single sound of disagreement filling the air. all the while Kenji and Mika were taking their places, having a small exchange of words of their own.

  "As usual, yea?" Mika asked, already well off enough to converse with Kenji without any issues whatsoever, though that was to be expected. Over the days the team had spent together roaming the forest, Kenji had been himself more than once, taking off excess monster off Mika and making sure she gets the hang of the art of tanks while staying mostly in one piece and doing her taks at the same time. It was in moments of greater danger that Kenji took over, hogging the lions share of monster attention as his body was pummeled and what not.

  "Yep. Can't risk it." Kenji replied, his eyes locked on the approaching monsters with determined gaze.

  "Okay." Mika only responded and took her own position, double checking on her weapons and her grip as monster were coming in.

  "Come here you damn salad bowls!" Kenji raised his shield as his energy exploded, all for a simple reason, yet vital for the safety and success of their plans nonetheless. Within a second of him doing so, the monsters unanimously whipped their long, vine like appendages towards him, clearly hell bent to tear him to shreds as though he was their mortal enemy, forgetting about anything else within the cavern. providing the rest of the team with plenty of openings to exploit and cut down some weeds.

  Chiyo released arrow after arrow, making a couple of the wumps into pin cushions, while Izumi, Fumiko and Kate charged in, their weapons swinging to further cut down the force against them, accompanied by Mika who used her own form of taunt the moment she was in position next to the trio as they slashed at monsters, ensuring that no accidental aggro shift endangers them while at the same time lowering the load on Kenji. While it was true he was still tanking all that punishment incredibly well, there was no reason to risk it, was there? Emi's slow curse did wonders as well, allowing for a much easier execution of the plan as well as giving the team members who made some small upsies a bit longer to get out of the way of an incoming reflexive counter from the monsters. And so, soon enough, the pack was taken care off cleanly enough.

  "I don't think there is a monster of this type in adventurer's guild reward book." Emi hummed a moment later as she was kneeling down next to one of the bush wump corpses. It turned out that within all that bushy mush, a weird mix of a small rabbit and plant was hidden, with the plant part growing from the small mammals spine and sides.

  "Sense monster cores or the like? Dungeon based monster are said to have them more often than otherwise." spoke up Kaede, proving she too had spent some time in the books they had gained access to thanks to Ramia and his connections.

  "Not on these ones, though that is to be expected. Monster cores are more likely to be found in the apex predators- the lone monsters that do not huddle together for survival but are the ones that determine who gets eaten and when. Supposedly the larger the packs the less individual monsters can absorb mana from the surroundings and thus the speed of core formation gets exponentially slower. Or something like that." Emi explained as she quickly dispersed the monster corpses, then signaling to Kaede and Chiyo they are ready to head further in.

  It was here that Jack's ring of deconstruction showed its true utility and multi purpose. Ordinary, the adventurers who explored the dungeon would collect what they found to be of value while either leaving the rest of the bodies behind to be slowly absorbed by the dungeon or torching them till nothing but ash remains. The former was much faster, allowing the group exploring to head further with greater pace, but at the same time it also carried with it quite a few risks. Firstly, if the dungeon was some sort of an open field type, the smell of death would quickly attract packs of predatory monsters, perhaps even the previously mentioned apex predators of the zone, soon enough putting all those bloodthirsty creatures on their trail, creating numerous possibly deadly pincer attacks.

  The second option of torching, or perhaps burying the remains- for it was virtually impossible to carry all that such party could kill as the spatial storage items were rare and of limited capacity- had its own drawbacks as well. First was the time necessary for the task itself- setting up the pyres, hauling monsters together, or just the latter if said group had a powerful pyromancer. Then was the light such large pyres would cause, resulting in a few, though admittedly less unexpected, monster encounters, prolonging the time taken that could otherwise be spent exploring.

  Luckily, the alchemists eventually came up with a third solution in the form of the powder of stillness. It served a unique purpose of freezing the bodies it was sprayed on, giving the party in question the much needed buffer zone in the matter of time to get away far enough from the encounter location that the previous worry of an ambush would not be much of an issue. The powder came with its own set of issues though, one of which was more painful than anything else. The powder was relatively expensive, cutting in the profit margin of dungeon delvers quite a bit, making the whole business less attractive to the general masses of adventurers. It was simply not quite worth it, thus a large numerical disparity had formed between ordinary adventurers and dedicated dungeon delvers who would more than happily head towards any freshly spawned dungeon to try their luck in the depths of said dungeons.

  As such, a permanent, one time purchase type of deal for the same, better even, effect was predictably a big deal. Not only would countless groups desire their own, but plenty more would want to see if they could gleam some secrets of the item itself, perhaps learning even to replicate it, becoming overnight rich if the mysterious creator of the item in question did not make enough to cover for teh demand.

  The group spent the rest of the day slowly advancing, mostly encountering only bush wumps, though sometimes some other, still swarm like in behaviour, monster popped up. Be it fox like creatures with deer antlers and snake like tails, or hog like creatures with lions mane and small bat wings, though the latter did not fly, they fought nothing but small swarms of monsters, always leaving nothing but small puddles of blood in their wake.

  Jack Raja(?)

  Age- 27

  Species- human(?)

  Level- 21

  Class- Twin aspect of Creation and Destruction(EX)

  Stats unassigned: +11

  Attributes:

  Strength- 24 (14+7+3)

  Vitality- 23 (12+8+3)

  Dexterity- 21 (15+6)

  Intelligence-7

  Spirit- Spirit- 25 (20+5)

  Skills- Wisdom of Creation and destruction(EX), Choice of the creator(EX), Eyes of procurer(EX), Matter storage(EX), Arukain language(C), Spark of inspiration(EX).

  Spells- none.

  Titles(unlocked): The real Monster, Big Game Hunter, The brilliant rookie, The insane Solo. Monster debugger.The actor. Executioner. Survivor. Pioneer, Record breaker.The new champion supreme.

  Gear: amulet +2 vit: weapon- Gundao+3 str. Rings- spatial storage, vit +