Valens watched with anticipation as the aptly named lost group finally made their way into Sora’s boss room. He had put his expansion effort on hold for the moment as he wanted to watch the show with his undivided attention. He was finished with the nineteenth floor and just about to start on the twentieth so this was a good place for a break anyway. Magnus, get up, some adventurers are about to fight Sora.

With a few quiet mumbles the drake’s head popped up as he looked around in confusion. Valens was frankly a little surprised he had woken up at all, usually, it took a lot more effort to rouse the drake when he was asleep. Well, they’re certainly not winning any intelligence contests are they now. Taking on a boss with only three people tisk, tisk.

To be fair there was that adventurer who fought Aspen all by herself, so if anything these humans might be slightly more intelligent.

Magnus shrugged, trying and failing to hold in a massive yawn as he replied. You might be right, but still, you would think they would be a little more nervous and careful about taking on the final boss of a dungeon with so few people. For all they know Sora could be tier three by now. Also, weren’t there four of these guys last time I checked? What happened to unlucky number four.

He was on watch for the group but went to answer nature’s call and ended up just a little too far away. He also managed to walk right into a group of greater ice wolves and got torn to shreds before his team members even knew what was going on.

The drake nodded his head sagely. I see well too bad for them I suppose, though I’m not really sure having four team members would have helped them that much, Sora’s turned into quite the battle maniac.

That was true and might have even been an understatement, Sora spent almost every waking hour in constant combat. She only took periodic breaks when she was close to exhaustion and then got right back at it once she had recovered. The core certainly couldn’t complain about her work ethic, it was one of the reasons why her furious leveling pace had stayed so high even without many humans making it so deep into the dungeon. If only Aspen shared Sora’s enthusiasm.

That’s not quite fair Valens, she’s doing quite well killing off invaders all things considered. She’s just not as active as Sora is, and it makes a bit more sense when you consider the evolution path of her species.

Valens was a little annoyed, was the drake intentionally teasing him dropping vague hints about his boss’ evolution? So you’re saying Aspen will evolve into something that allows her to be lazy, are you?

The drake’s mouth clicked shut and he shook his head swiftly. My mistake I’m trying not to spoil what happens when your creatures evolve. But it might be a good idea to start ordering the fairy to go out and hunt when there’s a lull in adventurer activity. Hunting for her will also be even more important once she moves down to the twentieth floor and has fewer humans getting to her.

Agreed, hopefully, they’ll start sending higher-tier humans down here. The upper floors are frankly rather small compared to the tier two areas. It would also help him keep the tier-one sections fully stocked with his creatures, even after scaring off half of the adventurers with Sora, he was still needing to send up occasional groups of tier-one monsters from lower in the dungeon. It was a good thing he decided to use Magnus’ ecosystem method, if he hadn’t all of his mana would be spent replenishing his monsters instead of creating new floors.

The balance should start tipping towards having more powerful adventurers eventually at least. It doesn’t take that long to level through tier one and those that survive will make their way down to the tier two section, or try to anyway. Magnus casually tapped his claws on the ground. Looks like they’re finally going in to fight, this should be interesting.

Sure enough, as the core turned his attention back to the adventurers they had finally psyched themselves up enough to go fight Sora. The three-man party trickled into the boss room which was still wildly different from the first boss room. Stony and jagged rocks covered the floor making footing treacherous and deep cracks ran through the rocks providing Sora just enough room to hide and ambush invaders using the environment. Apparently, though the greater lizard didn’t feel like she needed such a big advantage this time, she sat right out in the open staring down the humans.

It would have been a very good time to sit at a distance and try to kill the exposed boss with ranged attacks. Unfortunately for the three chi users, they didn’t have that option and moved in to engage in melee combat. Valens briefly wondered if chi users with bows were a thing and if so, why hadn’t he seen more of them? It seemed like a good idea to him but then again what did he know about true combat or having limbs.

The hapless adventurers got halfway to Sora before she decided they had come far enough. With a coiled jump that was more cat-like than reptilian she threw herself across the room and smashed into the chest of one of the humans. The screaming man lost his weapon as he was born to the ground by a pile of muscle and scales. Not like the oversized club would have done him much good anyway as Sora bit into his neck so hard that the corpse was almost decapitated.

While remaining humans were visibly shaken, to their credit they didn’t run, and instead tried to capitalize on the boss's moment of distraction. Unfortunately for them, Sora had been getting quite a few brutal practical lessons in combat recently and one such lesson had been to always pay attention to her enemies. That particular lesson had cost her a severed spine and a day to respawn, but she was not going to make the same mistake twice.

The lizard boss wiped her tail around, catching one of her assailants across the chest and sending him sprawling. The other jumped forward, scoring a nasty scratch down her flank with the rusty dagger he carried. Sora quickly repaid the injury in kind, opening up bloody furrows on the man’s leg with her claws. The injured man scrambled awkwardly away and the two humans regrouped looking nervously at the boss who was staring them down hissing with fury. Sora was now positioned between the invaders and the now shut exit to the boss room. Most adventurers had the presence of mind to prop the door open when they fought a boss, but not these people.

The adventurers were still trying to come up with a desperate plan to finish off the boss, but Sora wasn’t going to give them the time for that. Despite her one injured leg Valens’ boss still managed a strong leap across the room which sent the two humans scrabbling. The injured one was just a bit too slow and Sora’s jaws came down hard on his leg. Dragging the now crippled man to the floor Sora ended his flailing with a quick swipe to his neck.

The final human was frantically clawing at the exit with now bloody hands, his weapon lay discarded behind him as he desperately tried to find a way to escape. Valens smiled grimly, once the boss room door closed it wasn’t opening until either the boss was dead or all the invaders were, should have been more careful. Not that they actually would have gotten away even if the door was open, Sora disliked the cold of the lower floors but that wouldn’t have stopped her hunting down any fleeing humans. There was a loud scream and another spray of blood as Sora’s jaws closed with a snick around the back of the man’s neck.

Valens took a quick peek at her levels and was still a little disappointed to find that she was quite ready to evolve yet, but it was close which would have to be good enough. Shifting his focus back to his aura the core began pouring out his formidable mana reserves once more, his floors slowly growing, drawing ever closer to the next tier.

Gary paced back and forth around the pathetic hovel that he was forced to stay in. He knew for a fact that the Mage Guild had practically finished construction of their tower, so why was he being forced to live like a pig in this filth? It was a plot by that stupid old mage, just another petty attempt to shove down a noble son of one of the oldest houses in all the kingdoms.

The noble paced his way around his minuscule room working himself up into a fury. His house had been formed long before the kingdoms had even been formed but now they were reduced to this? They didn’t even have a dungeon of their own, this was supposed to be the start of their renewed rise to power but that jumped up trash of a house had to say otherwise. He didn’t care if they were high humans, they didn’t have the history of a true noble house like his house did, and they didn’t deserve to be telling him what to do.

There was a soft knock on the door and Gary was practically snarling as he answered. “Come in.” One of the servants that he had brought with him scuttled out and bowed low, almost toppling over as he did so. “So what did you find?” One of the trainees hadn’t sat right with him, his motions were too assured and practiced for the other bumbling idiots. Gary didn’t train that often, he considered such activities below him, but he was still a chi user taught by a noble house. There was also the way that the boy had held himself, Gary was almost certain he had noticed him at some point but for some reason had seemed to care. That had infuriated the noble and he had briefly considered executing the arrogant bastard right then and there, but he had refrained. There was another more chilling possibility for his behavior.

“Yes my lord, it's not good. It appears that the boy’s name is Vance and that he arrived some days ago in a well-constructed carriage. The carriage stopped outside of the gates so not many people got a good look at it sir, but the few that did mention seeing a crest of a lightning bolt and cloud.”

Gary’s blood boiled and he brought his fist down on a nearby table with every scrap of strength his tier three body could muster. The servant flinched and cowered as the enraged noble stormed around the room trying desperately not to be noticed. “House Storm is it? It's not enough for that damned house to order around my family like we’re trash but now they’re conspiring to take our only opportunity in centuries for ascension?” He could see it now the duke handing off the new dungeon to one of his cousins or maybe it was a nephew, deliberately denying this opportunity to house Bancroft. But Gary had seen through the plot, they had the upper hand now and it was just a matter of exploiting this opportunity.

“Send word back to my family with all secrecy, and appraise them of the situation. Ask them for further instruction on how to proceed.” He would need his father’s counsel on what should be done next, it was too risky to try something now, not right under the nose of so many witnesses. Gary refused to ruin this chance by acting too hastily, just a little bit longer and his house would be lords again.