Astrid felt uncomfortable in her new equipment, even though it provided about the same amount of attributes as before. The new gambeson was perfect, and Astrid mentally compared it to Felix's own underlayment. In his case, it was powerful, focused on being overwhelmingly protective. In her case, it was woven through with ribbons of tendons, each one reinforcing every one of her joints. The enchantment on the tendons made her movements swifter, stronger. With other equipment that gave attributes, she just felt stronger, faster. With this, it almost felt like it was pulling her along instead of the opposite way around.
Then there was her new platebody. In appearance, it was much the same as the one she had previously had: deep manasteel with little flares on it where the enchantments were. Where her previous armor set was dark gray, this Mithril tier one was black. It seemed to suck in the light that touched it, and the difference in quality between the new one and the old one was enough to completely cover the disparity in attributes given, now that her hammer was no longer in her possession.
The new warhammer, fat-headed and looking rather ordinary, gave her no attributes at all. It was, according to Olafson, "a hunk of metal that will withstand the beating you give it, and not much else."
She felt that difference keenly, the unwieldy rough nature of the new hammer paling in comparison to that of the echo stone. She missed her old hammer, even though she'd only had it for a comparatively short time. Regardless, the party was all adjusting to new pieces of equipment they were using as they followed after Gabriel.
True to his word, Olafson provided Mithril tier equipment to the party, though it wasn't nearly so customized as the stuff they had gotten used to. Instead of any enchantments to fill gaps in their builds, this new equipment purely gave attributes, which was why Olafson had chosen to replace the pieces that he had for each person.
"We're almost there," Gabriel said, pulling Astrid's attention away from her introspection.
The grizzled commander had guided them through maybe 100 kilometers of forest before entering the Dungeon proper. When they entered the mana-dense hidden land, high Iron and low Steel tier manticores waited, and, seeing the enemies that appeared, fled without hesitation.
The stretch of Dungeon proper they were in wasn't nearly so exotic as where the shimmerbugs lived. It was a mountainous slope, the mountains made of sandstone with deep craggy canyons cut through the stone. Inside those canyons, high Iron tier fish swam through rushing waters, and again, when they saw the Wanderers approach, they fled as fast as they could swim. Evidently, they could sense the difference in the density of mana between themselves and the intruding delvers.
The journey from there passed in a blur, Gabriel leading them into safe areas where no monsters were high enough level to pose a threat. Every so often, he would burst forward, his spear transforming from a mundane-looking thing to a glowing red omen of death, and whatever it touched was quickly reduced to a corpse.
The environment shifted from a red mountainous vista to a swamp, where acidic black sludge bubbled and popped. Astrid and Felix had exchanged nervous glances about that when they first arrived. The thought of fighting where a missed step could cripple them was maybe worse than fighting on a cliffside. At least there it was always easy to tell where the danger was.
Fortunately, Gabriel just took them through the swamp, where occasional purple tentacles slapped lazily at the delvers as they rushed past. Astrid was close enough once that she lashed a kick out at the limb, and though she didn't make it explode, the predatory appendage was ripped off and flew into a nearby tree.
"Try not to antagonize things," Gabriel grunted when she did that. "The mana concentration here won't support any Mithril tier monsters, but calling dozens of Steel tier monsters down on us will still make for a long delay."
Astrid found herself embarrassed by being called out like that, but Gabriel was also more forthcoming with information as they continued to rush forward. Though he didn't apologize verbally, the sudden change in his actions was enough from the old man as the delvers continued on their path.
The environment continued to change, and as mana concentrations grew, so too did strange surroundings. Though there was no strange land of glowing exotic trees, sudden thick fog and mist that coalesced into wraithlike beasts, as well as footprints two meters across, served as Astrid's first introduction to fog giants. They didn't see any of the giants, and Gabriel explained that fog giants in particular were typically high Mithril tier or above. They seemed to have migrated from this area, and their mana had transformed the land they left behind.
Then they passed into a land of black, where the monsters were glowing bioluminescent birds. With flapping wings, the monsters swooped down on the delvers as they tried to go past, and when the party returned their own hits, the birds simply provided experience and no challenge. The monsters were, according to the experience granted, level 73, nothing that any of them would go out and try to hunt.
Next came a floating volcano, lava constantly dripping from above into a rapidly cooling mountain underneath. Some sort of elementals were forming down below, a constant fight amongst themselves for superiority going as the magma-shaped creatures fought viciously. The winners would grow, each trying to fight their way back up to the volcano. As their journey continued past the landmark, a part of Astrid wondered what was happening in the volcano up above, but Gabriel had forced the party to focus.
"Up there, that's what's called a mana spout. You've heard of this, right?"
"Heard of it, yes," Astrid answered, "but understand it or really know what it is, no."
Gabriel looked at all the party members to see if they agreed with that thought, and started to grumble as he realized that everybody had the same gap in their knowledge.
"Damn Guild won't do its damn job. One thing it was good for was teaching people about the Dungeon, and now it's not even doing that?"
"In the Guild's defense," Astrid said, loath to admit it, "we haven't interacted with anybody from the Guild, not in any meaningful fashion, since we entered the Wandering Trials at the peak of Bronze. I wouldn't imagine that they would be telling us very much about the Dungeon proper when we were level 20."
Gabriel scoffed at her but shrugged. Then he briefly explained, "Mana spouts are places where the Dungeon connects with the source of all mana. We're not sure what that is, so don't ask me, but up there, there's a good chance that there will be a high Adamantium tier monster. Maybe even Arcanite, depending on how long the spout's been there. There's no way to know, and I'm not nearly stupid enough to get you all killed to answer a question I don't care to have the answer for."
At that, Astrid nodded, and the party continued on their way. As they went, there was something else that Gabriel decided to tell them all. "If you have any questions about what level certain amounts of experience give you, let me know, because Mithril is where your previous balancing things start to get a bit different."
"What do you mean by that?" Astrid asked, slowing her steps.
"I mean that from here on, it's a lot harder to find monsters at this level. In the Dungeon proper, you can think of them as pretty much peak predators. The higher you get past level 100, the harder it is to find monsters of that level outside of the rare Dungeon branch of that level. Even in the deepest, most mana-dense sections, it is few and far between that you find a monster that's willing to share space with others at that level. A level 115 creature doesn't like to play nice with others. So, almost as if to compensate for that, they give proportionally more and more experience the higher level they get. A level 91 gives 5,000 experience, and it's exactly 200 monsters of that level that'll give a single level 91 person enough experience to level up. That's the same as it is at level 1. However, at lower levels, the closer you get to the watershed, the more proportional experience it takes for you to get that next level."
Astrid squinted, not remembering the specific math of those levels so well in terms of percentages. Either way, she waited for him to continue to explain.
"At level 20, you need 34,000 experience to gain the next level, and a level 20 monster gives you 66 experience. That means you need 515 monsters to get the level, two and a half times what you needed at level 1. In comparison, at level 140, you need 3,280,000 experience to cross the benchmark to get your evolutionary quest for Adamantium. A single level 140 monster provides 18,800 experience, meaning it's 175 monsters you need to kill to gain that level. The higher up in levels you get, the more skewed that experience distribution becomes."
None of the party had specific questions about that, though the idea of continuing to cross watersheds, and even tiers, to fight monsters became perhaps more frightening at the thought of the monsters each containing more experience than before. Would they be proportionally more powerful? That's what everybody had always been told, but Astrid didn't have access to the specifics of that question's answer. How much stronger would a wyvern a single watershed above her be? It couldn't be too great of a difference, if Gabriel was bringing them here now, right?
Those thoughts blended with everything else that danced through her mind as they continued on their path. Astrid quickly found that, while the scenery was engrossing and the various different monsters impressive, traveling for basically a full day through the Dungeon proper let her mind wander as they continued to be entirely safe under the protection of their much stronger mentor. That was when she started to feel the difference in her equipment most keenly, after a full day of moving with it. Sure, she was more than capable of using it without issue, but the difference that remained still needed her to get used to it.
Finally, Gabriel called the party's attention to him as they walked into a forest that was similar to the one that Astrid had started her delver journey in.
Dark trees, their trunks black and the brush under them just as dark, filled the area. The leaves overhead were a bright orange, like that of the burning clouds at sunset. The leaves that had fallen from the trees and were underfoot had somehow gone green, and each step through the leaf litter crunched as Gabriel nodded.
"We are on the outskirts of their territory. There's plenty of them, so if you see one, don't forget what you're looking at. I'll be nearby, making sure that you're safe, or at least not dying. You'll need to learn how to determine the difference in strength between different specimens, just like normal. Just know that things around here should generally be within your capabilities, so long as you don't overextend yourselves."
Before Astrid could ask a question, he moved so quickly that he left a flurry of swirling leaves in his wake and nothing else.
"Everybody, ready," Astrid said, mentally shifting away from the brief moment of reliance on Gabriel. She mentally grappled with the ease with which she had started to become dependent on the more experienced man. A quick moment of self-remonstration was all that she allowed herself before she refocused on the task at hand.
"Muti, you seeing anything?"
"I don't see anything, but the smells are conflicting."
Her immediate answer had the entire party looking at her for clarification, and she growled in confusion herself.
"The scent of predator and prey are mixed, but not as if coexisting, nor as if one is being hunted. There are scents that should not exist, of scat that defies ordinary understanding."
"I'm gonna go ahead and say that it doesn't sound like you're talking about an omnivore," Skandr said, raising an eyebrow. The scathing look that Muti sent his way in response to that was something else, and he chuckled as he shrugged. "In the whole hope of sparing me from any further disgust, do you see any traces? I'm not seeing anything, but I can feel the movement of mana maybe fifty meters away."
The discussion largely died off at that point, with Muti agreeing and pointing in the direction. Remembering that they were going to be encountering high Steel tier or low Mithril tier monsters here kept the party on edge. There would be no small amount of danger they were walking into, and they all went through their usual preparations as they went towards the disturbance that some of their number had noticed.
The paths they walked through were almost the picture of an idyllic stroll through a forest, with the exception of the clinking of their armor and the strange appearance of the trees that surrounded them. Each step they took was carefully measured as each member of the party stretched themselves to make sure they were as quiet as possible. Muti's Shadow Aura spread to cover the rest of the party, dampening their steps and allowing them to grow closer to their goal while hopefully keeping themselves from being noticed.
They were notified of their failure to keep themselves hidden when the faintest bleating of a goat sounded from over a hundred meters away. The monster had noticed them, and it didn't care to remain hidden. Thundering footsteps approached, and the party swiftly fell into a protective stance around each other. Nobody hesitated to activate their burst Skills, and just in time.
Throwing itself through the brush and trees alike, a charging goat smashed through two trees as it bleated a challenge at the Wanderers. As Astrid got her first glance at the creature, her mind struggled to understand what she was seeing.
Behind the goat's head, rippling muscles covered a bear-like body, with a horse's front legs and scaly wolf-like back legs. A tail like that of a dragon protruded from its backside, and as the goat's head repeated its battle cry again, Astrid could see that its mouth was full of needle-like teeth.
"Chimeras!" Astrid shouted as Felix pulsed through a series of Skills to make sure that the two-meter-tall beast was focused on him as Astrid continued shouting instructions. "There's no way to know exactly what each one is capable of!"
The rest of the party didn't argue or question anything, with Skandr being the first to respond. Without hesitation, he leveled his ring-covered hand at the beast and unleashed a deep red bolt of lightning. It exploded into existence and slammed into the beast's shoulder, just below its head. The flesh exploded where his attack struck, and though the beast was far from dead, the rest of the party, with the exception of Muti, who remained on the lookout, collapsed in on the solitary beast.
Felix, more than large enough to square up with the beast, pushed an ample amount of mana into his shield to draw the beast into it. The wood crunched up against his torso but continued to hold as the ambient mana flooded into it to allow the still-living wood to repair itself. Felix's axe hooked over the back of the beast, catching its center mass and lifting up to keep it from driving forward with its back legs as well.
In the wound that Skandr had already made, Astrid stepped forward and, with the full force of her body, smashed a lightning-attributed Smite into the existing wound. The crackle of lightning echoed out again, and the beast's front leg trembled as it opened its mouth, dislocating its jaws. Like a serpent, the mouth opened wide, and a thick green sludge exploded out of it.
Felix shouted as he adjusted his hold and activated the barrier from his boon and helmet, but the acid still smacked into his legs. He groaned in pain as his legs bent unwillingly. Even as he tried to protect the rest, Astrid's own legs were spattered with the corrosive bile, and she felt her knees weaken under the force of sudden agony. She shouted as she tried to press the attack into the beast.
"Don't stop!" Benedict called from behind as he focused on Song of Victory to strengthen the Wanderers and weaken the chimera. As the last of the sludge dripped from Felix's leg and the frontliner roared, twisting to change the monster's positioning, a Purging Wave washed over the party. The reinforced healing from his Skill, as well as Purging Wave washing any vestiges of acid from both Felix and Astrid's body, let them continue to fight.
With Body Surge, Astrid danced around the monster's whipping tail, which excreted even more acid along its edge like a blade. She pushed a faint thread of mana into her greaves and enjoyed the boost to Alacrity it gave. Like that, she hopped over the tail. It cracked through the air faster than she expected, and the blade of acid along the limb shot out in a scythe of acrid death. It smashed into a tree nearby, and the trunk, to Astrid's surprise, didn't seem to react negatively to the acid. Instead, it soaked in the liquid, and a part of her mentally noted the necessity for herself and the rest of her party to perhaps steer clear of the trees.
She didn't think any further, and, wondering if it would at all cancel out the acid from the beast, she raised her hammer for another strike. This time, she flooded her Smite with the essence of earth and struck the wound that had already been opened on the beast. There was no flash of light this time, but as her hammer's head sunk into the flesh of the beast, stone burst from the impact zone, transmuting muscle and blood there into stone. It tried to step, but the muscles around the suddenly stiff material shattered the impacted area.
The monster threw its head back and screamed a warbling cry of agony, and the left foreleg gave way. It collapsed under its weight. It thrashed wildly on the ground, sending arcs of acid everywhere. The party all hopped away, having come across a monster with deadly death throes before. Unfortunately for them, the flesh surrounding the broken limb started bubbling, reforming at a supernatural pace.
Just as the party started to close back in to cut it down more, Muti suddenly appeared from above, both of her blades slicing in quick succession. With the benefit of ambushing and her burst Skill, Muti was able to decapitate the beast in one fell swoop. Even so, the kill notification didn't flash in their eyes, but the Lethal Shadow said, "Another is approaching. Kill it quick."
Astrid didn't argue with that and stepped forward, raising her hammer high as she put a much heavier portion of her mana and stamina into the earthen Smite. The hammer struck at the base of the neck that had been severed, the brownish mana congealing the blood there as the monster tried to regrow its head.
The flexing muscles started to rip the wound apart as gravel fell from the stump. Felix raised his axe to continue to hack into the twitching body, then buried the blade of his weapon in the beast's spine, just behind its front legs. After that, its struggles ended, and it fell to the ground limp.
The arrival of the kill notification brought faint solace to the party as they glanced at what they received.
Goat-Headed Chimera slain. 5,100 experience gained, split among party.
"Let's keep going, shall we?" Astrid asked, laughing. Even as she expressed her excitement, she couldn't help but wonder about how long this was going to take before they were gaining enough experience to reach Mithril. After all, this was much less experience efficient than just hunting the shimmerbugs.