Lone took roughly ten minutes to explain to Breena and Sophie what he had done during his time away from them. He told them how he captured thirty-four Minotaur and then tried to gain some darkness related skills which led to him forcing the entity which had assaulted Breena known as Darkness to submit to Lone via the assistance of the entities Void and Sky.

Lone then told the two girls how he then used Darkness to force negative emotions onto the Minotaurs much like how it had done so to Breena before he gained a magic skill called Implant Fear that let him do exactly that, implant fear on others. He then described how he took a couple of hours to learn how to take that implanted fear and push it onto himself which resulted in his latest resistance skill and the Fear Transfer skill.

"Okay, now that that's out of the way, I found the entrance to the real dungeon, so let's sleep for now, and we'll go explore the real thing after a good rest," his companions could do nothing but nod at Lone's orders. Both of the girls were left in awe at how Lone had gained so much from doing so very little, despite how amazing capturing an entire element was, the way Lone had told his story made it sound like it was almost an everyday occurrence to him.

A few short hours later, Breena woke up from her slumber. For some reason, sleeping was very difficult for her now. Breena could only chalk this up to her most recent experience with Darkness. She didn't care much because she was used to getting little sleep due to the previous Hero's nighttime hobbies.

Upon noticing that Lone, Sophie and Kyuubi were still asleep, the young Foxkin decided to fight her fears by once more practice using her first ever skill. The ability to merge with the shadows.

Due to successfully entering Darkness with the host's physical body, Gained Skill: Skill: Darkness Melding Effect 1: Allows the host to meld with any form of Darkness in exchange for mana Mastery: Beginner Level 1 Reduction of Mana Cost to Use: 2%

Were Breena to look at her status, she would see that her mana stat was a relatively decent amount of two-thousand and forty-four. Such an amount was a drop in the ocean for Lone, but to an ordinary Foxkin her age, it was a phenomenal amount, so running out of mana quickly wasn't a concern for Breena.

She gulped audibly before she slowly lowered her hand to the floor. Her eyes were closed, and her fears were quickly building up which was only counter-productive to her goal since Breena wanted to take things slowly regarding entering the shadows once more. However, if she were so afraid, then it would only serve to empower her Darkness Melding skill.

Thankfully, as soon as her fingers touched the floor, they entered the shadows, but unlike last time, the space on the other side of the shadow didn't immediately assault her and instead chose to gently circle her hand, as if to welcome her to its domain. Clearly, it was still being subservient to Lone, but Breena wasn't fully trusting in his relationship with this power, so Breena steeled her will to gain control over this mysterious force as soon as possible.

"Well, that's certainly some progress," a voice said from behind her which instantly startled her. Her concentration was broken, and she accidentally stopped using her ability which had some dangerous consequences.

"AHHHHHH!" Breena screamed while she held her stump of a hand. The entire top half of her hand have been completely severed. It would seem that cutting the connection with the shadows wasn't wise. It wasn't wise in the slightest.

"Calm down. Endure the pain, Breena. I can heal you," Lone had said before he knelt down to be level with the girl. He then gently grabbed her wrist and activated the remained chance he had today to recreate another being's body part completely. Breena's severed hand was now fully intact once more.

"There you go. Good as new, in fact, it's probably better than new. I'd imagine that extended your lifespan a bit," Lone told the fear-filled girl with a smile. Breena took a brief moment to collect herself before she quickly checked her race sheet.

Race: Crimson Fox of the Deep Effect 1: Grants immunity to all forms of darkness magic Effect 2: Grants maximum affinity for darkness magic Effect 3: Passively activates the mana brain and mana heart Effect 4: Enables the host to learn darkness related skills Effect 5: Grants the hidden stat, Fear Restriction 1: Makes it impossible to hide the host's racial traits with a skill, magic or by other means Restriction 2: Reduces the host's lifespan by 92.5% Stat, Fear: The more fear the host is experiencing, the most potent their darkness related skills become

"Y-You're right... it improved by two point five percent," Breena said in a daze of sorts. She was feeling a little bit lucid from the extreme pain she had just experienced, and she was also delighted at the revelation of the fact that Lone could indeed improve her lifespan as he had promised.

"I know. I can see your notifications, remember? I saw your skill too when you were checking it. Darkness Melding, huh?" Lone asked in a way that showed that he clearly didn't expect Breena to answer and that he was just thinking aloud. "Oh, also, sorry for startling you. I didn't believe that you'd be so jumpy and lose half your hand, my bad," Lone apologised in a very rough manner. Indeed, saying sorry was certainly not one of Lone's many talents.

A deep look of fear had flashed through Breena's eyes before she smiled at Lone weakly. It would seem that the Foxkin had realised that to cure her, Lone would have to remove and recreate every single part of her body, which was obviously not something that she was looking forward to.

Lone shrugged at this and walked back to the bed he had created for his small family and proceeded to wake Sophie up skillfully without disturbing Kyuubi. Lone was getting far better these days at handing the little Fox without disturbing her rest. Naturally, he still woke her every now and then as demonstrated earlier that day, but Lone was still quite happy and even more so to the fact that his efforts were steadily increasing his agility stat.

'I think if she does well and doesn't let her fears defeat her, I'll accept her as a student after we've cleared this dungeon. She needs to beat her demons herself and take control of the powers she has been granted,' Lone thought about Breena while he was busy cooking breakfast for the three. Even though they had only slept for a few hours, it was more than enough rest for Lone. Breena seemed like she didn't wish to sleep while Sophie was upset at the little amount of snuggling time with Lone, Kyuubi and the tails she had, but she understood that Lone was trying to be considerate of Breena.

After eating and washing using a small bathhouse that Lone had created, the group left the chamber and Lone led them towards where he believed to be the actual entrance to the dungeon.

Sophie was now wearing what looked like a battledress. It was very similar to her traditional gothic-styled dresses, however, it was adorned with a steel breastplate and a set of steel gloves that look like they were embedded onto the armour. She also had her sword belt on which held the two swords Lone had bought from the auction on it, Slesh and Chakoo.

Breena, on the other hand, was wearing a full suit of what looked like leather armour. Her waist also had several iron daggers attached to it. Apparently, Lone wanted her to become something akin to a Darkness Assassin. Breena was more than happy to become such a person since Lone had explained that in the future all she would have to do was attack things from the shadows and be very sneaky. This fit perfectly with her nature as a Foxkin and with the fact that being a frontline warrior like Lone or Sophie was far too frightening of a prospect for the young girl.

Lone was wearing his usual smart attire along with his ebony armour sleeve. Also, Dawn, his alterion sword spear, was strapped to his back now instead of being kept in his dimension.

"Well, we're here. This is where I found most of the Minotaurs I experimented on," Lone said to the girls before he gestured to a large ten-foot tall door made entirely out of metal. The door looked very strange and seemed like it didn't belong at all in the dungeon due to the yellow glow emitting from it and from the fact that it was covered in strange looking runes which Lone didn't recognise at all.

Both Breena and Sophie were entranced by this door, Sophie seemed fascinated by it while Breena appeared to be terrified of the thing.

"So, Breena, look anything like the entrances to the dungeons you explored with that pervert?" Lone asked the still dazed girl. She slowly nodded her head. Indeed, this was clearly a dungeon entrance, but due to the way it looked, Breena had a few things she had to tell Lone about the nature of dungeons. This one in particular.