Oradu Dungeon, Level 4.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Three large fireballs roared forward, bombarding a pack of little goblins ahead.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Violent flames lit up the underground passage, throwing seven or eight terrified dark-green faces into stark relief.
Then came the finishing blows—her staff striking down the remaining goblins.
Each hit slammed straight into a goblin's eyeball, puncturing it so hard that brain matter splattered.
After finishing, Iris pulled out a strip of white cloth that was clearly almost worn out from use and wiped the blood and pulp off her staff and the edges of her leather armor.
Leon glanced at Iris, genuinely surprised.
"I didn't expect you to be this experienced in dungeon fighting. Even your finishing habits—and cleaning your gear—are that practiced."
That wasn't a lie.
Leon had assumed Iris only became truly cold and ruthless in combat after the Dark Elf corruption incident.
"I traveled with my mother since I was little," Iris said. "I've been into more than twenty different types of dungeons. I've been to Oradu a few times too. This level is easy."
She released a small-area light purification spell. In the blink of an eye, all remaining grime vanished.
First wipe with cloth, then use a small-area purification spell—this prevented corrosion and contamination.
If you skipped the wiping and directly used a full purification that included both body and equipment, the mana cost would likely be double.
Small savings added up, and the mana conserved would be very significant.
Iris's sequence of actions was efficient and mana-saving—impressive.
She clearly had the aura of someone who regularly entered dungeons.
Leon praised her silently. He'd thought he'd need time to "train" and sync with this teammate.
Now it looked like she was plug-and-play—no, usable right out of the box.
Even though goblin gear wasn't worth much and the kill value was low, the two of them still picked out a couple of decent-looking knives and small daggers.
Then they cleanly cut off the goblins' right ears as proof of subjugation.
By the Adventurers' Guild's posted rates in the capital, killing one little goblin earned twenty copper coins.
Five goblins made a silver coin—enough to buy quite a lot of black bread.
As for the remaining heavy, bulky junk, all of it together wasn't worth more than thirty copper coins—so they left it for whoever came after.
Leon's target was the 25th floor. He wasn't about to haul that much weight that far.
As an aside, Leon's current outfit was also light leather armor covered by a mage's robe. He carried no staff—instead he wore a slender silver sword.
Total cost of his gear: twenty-one gold coins.
It had almost emptied the starter funds he'd scraped together over the past five years by every means he could.
Because this world was so real, even with game memories, making money while weak was still a major hassle.
Among his equipment, that silver sword was the most expensive.
It was an old magic sword—originally third-tier, now degraded to second-tier—crafted during the Seventy Years' Kings' War. At full value it would have cost at least two or three hundred gold.
But using his game knowledge, Leon found it in a secondhand market for only nine gold coins.
Nine gold was still a fortune for ordinary people—half a lifetime of savings—but for an extraordinary item, it was an insane bargain.
In combat, he used the silver sword to instantly kill many ordinary mobs, showing the crisp, lethal footwork and handling granted by his Phantom Walker class.
Unlike before, now that he was gradually getting familiar with Iris, he could reveal a little more.
"Isn't your class Mage and Astrologer? How do you know sword techniques too?" Iris couldn't help asking on the way.
"I'm not as naturally gifted as pure-blood elves," Leon said with a sigh. "You can break attribute limits without even trying. If I don't train more and take multiple classes, then once I reach higher tiers, my stats will still be low."
That wasn't a lie either.
Humans grew quickly, but their attribute caps were indeed low.
Among the intelligent races, humans had the third-shortest lifespan—and the third-lowest attribute limits.
The highest attribute cap belonged to dragons, followed by pure-blood elves, drakes, half-elves, dragonkin, lizardfolk, dwarves, long-eared folk, humans, beastfolk (with large internal differences), and halflings.
At the same tier, dragons could crush every race except pure-blood elves.
And the higher the tier, the larger the racial gap.
At low tiers, the difference wasn't as obvious.
Humans managed to build many nations across the continent largely because they reproduced fast and matured quickly.
On top of that, humans, dwarves, and halflings practiced divine worship and could gain divine blessings—giving them at least some foothold in high-end power.
As for other races, each had its own "baseline survival tools," barely able to endure under the might of dragons and pure-blood elves.
"But isn't awakening a new class really hard?" Iris asked.
"It's hard," Leon replied. "So you don't try?"
Iris fell silent, and then respect rose in her eyes.
Right—wasn't that exactly how she herself had fought her way to the special class of Light Elementalist?
How could she ask such an obvious, foolish question?
"Leon… compared to you, it seems I still have a lot to learn."
Iris had to admit it. This guy might be suspicious—but he really was someone worth learning from.
[Affection +2%. Current Affection: 59%]
…
Oradu, Level 11.
The first ten floors were filled with first-tier weak monsters, with goblin packs being the strongest.
Along the way, other adventurers often passed through and cleared enemies too, so the route was smooth; the chance of casually "earning extra" loot was almost zero.
And since the opponents were limited, it was hard to use them to raise mana capacity.
Generally speaking, real combat was one of the best ways to raise your cap.
Unfortunately, the shallow levels had no strong enemies.
So the two of them only took an hour and a half to descend from the first floor to here.
"From here on, it's all second-tier monsters," Leon reminded her. "Watch your mana allocation. Once you've spent more than half, replenish immediately."
If things went well, one run could earn at least ten or so gold.
With good luck, even making over a hundred wasn't impossible.
The last time Leon explored Oradu with Bisce, they'd stopped at floor ten.
For safety reasons—and because his personal mana endurance couldn't support extended exploration—he hadn't gone deeper.
This time, he was prepared, and he had a strong third-tier teammate. No matter what, he needed to push further.
After killing a few lone second-tier slimes, they reached level 14.
The monsters' aura intensity clearly jumped up a notch.
Drip.
Water droplets fell.
In a damp, labyrinth-like cavern, bioluminescent moss covered the walls, providing a faint glow.
On this floor, brightness fell off a cliff.
Both of them had enhanced vision thanks to class bonuses, so they weren't weak.
But to keep moving safely, they still needed torches or light/fire magic for illumination—to avoid blind spots and ambushes from small monsters.
Both slowed their pace considerably.
Fffft, fffft.
Leon lit a torch. To ease the heavy atmosphere, he picked a topic to chat with Iris.
"By the way—how is your achievement requirement for advancing to fourth tier coming along?"
From fourth tier onward, every extraordinary needed to complete a certain amount of "merit" or "great deeds," combined with an advancement item, to advance successfully.
All events related to suppressing or killing monsters were considered demon-suppression or monster-slaying merits, which would accumulate automatically on an extraordinary until they sensed the enlightenment for advancement.
Besides that, doing major deeds praised widely by intelligent races also counted.
For example: as a king, governing so well that people lived in abundance and peace, earning widespread acclaim—that was statecraft merit.
As a church cleric, spreading faith, healing the sick, educating orphans, becoming broadly revered—that was sacred merit.
The type and quality of merits accumulated also influenced the type and quality of the saga gained at sixth tier, granting different blessing effects.
"Don't underestimate me," Iris said proudly, pushing out her small chest. "Pure-blood elves grow slowly, but we gain plenty of experience with age!"
"So you already have enough merit to advance?"
"More or less. As long as I find a suitable advancement item, I can go straight to fourth tier."
As she spoke, both of them instinctively held their breath.
It was here—an enemy with a very obvious, heavy presence.
Thud. Thud.
Heavy footsteps.
A pair of thick, dark hooves stepped into the boundary between torchlight and shadow.
A powerful gust blew down the tunnel ahead, making the torch flame whip and dance.
What appeared before them was a Minotaur—four meters tall, breathing thickly, gripping a gigantic battle axe!