In the capital city of the Union empire, within Helix capital, despite the prosperity of the city, it isn't impossible for some degree of slums to form. Naturally it isn’t like the dirt poor slums that existed long ago but it isn’t middle class either.

Walking along the extremely busy streets, subconsciously all the people avoided two bodies without even seeing them.

The first belonged to the Dungeon Core and lord himself, Helix. The other was an elder. An elder Logan was very familiar with.

With two long ears and a concealed magical presence, Elas the elven Magic smith walked beside Helix.

“I truly do thank you for coming, elder Elas. You had proclaimed yourself retired after teaching your final student but I am truly happy that you would come.” he said.

“I had no plans to when i answered the thirty other calls from the kings all over Nuntip. They were just spouting bullshit about helping protect the continent and all that when in truth they just wanted me forging their legend blades. If you had not told me that it was related to the resurgence of demons and a possible new demon lord, i would not have left Eshen.” he replied.

Each of their voices could only be heard by the other as immensely powerful magic isolated their presence and voices from the world around them.

“You reacted greatly when I mentioned the Eshian boy.” He said.

“I am particularly fond of the boy. Although he aims for a path of revenge, it is not a blinded path to say the least. Him being the second adopted child of the 12th golden lion is a coincidence though.” he said.

“Yes, I only learned of it because his skills set was being looked out for and I sneaked a peek into his background when the guild was looking at it. I think it was very lucky that I had given him the ancient art.” he said.

Elas sighed, “You should have waited for his sister. She is the proper heir and even her sword is proper and the legacy is mixed with it. Telling the boy to not share it is going to make his family situation that much more complicated.” he said.

Helix smiled weakly at the frowning stare of the elf.

They continued in silence until they reached a particular house and with a very simple usage of mana they entered.

The house was bare of anything but Elas was not an elf or a master of magical arts for nothing. He took nothing less than a footstep before they both heard an immense number of cracking as if glass shattered.

On the floor at the back, he walked and waved his hand as a magical door opened revealing a circular stairway that the two walked down. Countless magical traps and even physical ones were destroyed by Elas’ heavy handed destruction and Helix sat every bit of it. Even as one of the biggest dungeons with his actual strength matching the top ranking of his dungeon he felt fear from this casual display Elas performed. He made it look simple but this was an elf who had lived nearly 800 years, a rare sight as common elves would otherwise die from many accidents as humans do in daily life.

Elven communities are sparse at best with some being even regarded as savage groups and counted among monsters.

The truth is that elves are monsters, they are sentient plant monsters who achieved near perfect human form and achieving this is not as simple as it seems. The first elves were basically stuck to their trees or within proximity and using charm magic, they mated with human prey.

The result was usually the monster breed but in nature there are never coincidences. Human DNA naturally gathered and eventually a true hybrid appeared and with it several at a time, free from most of the constraints of trees.

Of course, they are very intune with nature. As for High elves, they are elven kind who have transcended both plant and human limits and became more like a human spirit. That is how their lifespans extend twice that of common elves.

That said, saying that high elves are stronger is a joke because Elas is a clear demonstration that this is clearly not the truth.

As one of the 3 surviving grand elders and the oldest among them on Nuntip, if not for his retirement, he would be one of the most influential people. To understand his influence, until 20 years ago, he was the one tasked with reforging the Legend sword of the central Empire’s emperor and it was not his honor to do it but the honor of the emperor to have his blade treated by him.

The humble life he took now was simply his way of retiring to a stress free life doing jobs that just supported his life to the end of his days. Logan and Olivia just happened to be children that had swords forged by him but among the two, he only truly thought of Logan. He forged Olivia’s sword because Logan asked and because he knew the significance of the Golden Lion group.

Had it been anyone else then it would never have happened.

After reaching the bottom, there was only a magical door locked with an extremely complex lock of demonic origins. Sadly for the demon, all magic smiths of the Order originated from demon smiths who went to the human side and established the order. The very art of making legend swords come from the demons so he only needed a look to understand the key and create the spell for opening the lock.

Helix smiled weakly at how easily Elas could break the defenses of demons. If the order was not neutral towards actually fighting and in so few numbers, he would be extremely happy if they were to fight.

The magical doors unlocked and with a light push, the doors opened and the light of magical crystals flooded out and revealed the interior.

Elas’ demeanor instantly chilled becoming extremely cold.

He took a few steps and that aura became desolate. Within the room, besides three of the stolen holy artifacts that were in the middle, the room had hundreds of legend swords. Sadly the fate of these swords was not gentle and every last one was killed leaving only the sword.

“Even in the time of the demon lord, demons were never this disgusting!” he said as his mana was literally affecting the atmosphere of the room.

If Helix was not so powerful, he would have fainted but the walls, floor and ceiling began to crack under the pressure but it slowly withdrew into his body as he looked around.

“There are nearly 500 swords here. Logan told you that they were aiming for 100, did he not?” he asked.

“Indeed. I think what the demon was truly after was the power of the legend and from all the gathered swords, he would pick the best before merging them.” Helix said.

Elas spat on the ground, “Such a blade is worthless. The spirit they were thinking of putting to control it wouldn’t have made it a legend sword, it would have been little better than necromancy enhanced but the power of 500 legends. It would have taken years of reforging to make it a true legend sword like they wanted. I believe their true goal was to arm their soldiers and have material for proper demon generals.” Elas said and left the artifacts alone while walking to the swords.

They slowly levitated and started moving as Elas looked over and passed his finger over each. They moved around into different groups depending on the primary element of the monster materials the sword was forged from.

Blended ones didn’t matter as he arranged it by the original and primary element.

Arashi would still be counted as a lightning blade putting her in the lightning sword category.

He did this for every last sword until he had categorized it all. The six basic elements, fire, water, earth, wind, light and dark and the advanced elements, ice, metal and lightning. Beyond this there were many mixed elements and even merged elements. The difference between that is like a sword that has fire and earth magic but controls just those two compared to a sword with both but can be used to control magma as well.

“The kings and emperors will be happy that so much legend sword material became available.” Helix said.

Elas snorted in discontent, “If the situation didn’t call for their usage, I would have created a sword graveyard and placed a powerful barrier until these swords were reclaimed by nature.” He said.

Helix smiled and knew he wasn’t lying about that. “That said, there are two important swords that need reforging.” He said growing serious.

“So you really do want me to make the Swords of Golden Lions for the two kids huh?” he said.

“It is vital that at least the girl gets it. It will set her foundation straight.” Helix said.

“The boy does not need this destiny.” Elas said.

“Destiny picks those worthy, he doesn’t. He is more than well aware about what is going on with the slowly growing problem.” he said.

“It will surely break the original balance of his sword that has already been reforged with a wind blade.” He said.

“It will not, his sword will achieve the perfect state. The attack has fully formed both the burning color and the Awakening burn. Furthermore, when he killed the demon’s soul, he formed Dawn’s Horizon and the Rising sun within the domain of his sword.” Helix said.

Elas sighed at the news, “You will copy the Golden Lion’s ancient arts for the girl. She is the proper one to bear the weight of this destiny because she was the one their father picked. Logan was merely a spare, I will give him the choice if he wishes for the Legend Sword of the Golden Lion like his sister will obtain.” he said and waved his hand.

Two sets of swords from every element were pulled out and wrapped with magic while the rest was stored away. “The holy artifacts and these weapons, deliver them to the Order for me. I will eventually join in picking up every artifact left so that the demons do not obtain sufficient numbers to perfectly enact their plan.” He said.

“Hmm, that is a hard thing to get. I also suggested for the boy to go to Mortis desert to obtain Holy water.” Helix said.

Elas already heard the story about Jade.

“You left a C rank light drake bone so that she can have a staff to cast holy magic I assume.” he said.

“Exactly.” Helix said.

Elas thought a while but shook his head, “The ability is good but not perfect. Her being his battle beast is her luck however with the special mana that contains traces. We will have to watch the path of evolution with so much holy water that was absorbed by her DNA. It is possible that a new saint will be born.” he said.

“Do you think so?!” Helix said.

“I do not know, who can say for sure? There are many rare races which possess the term ‘saint’ but are simply a powerful light breed. For a goblin, we can only be truly sure when she evolves beyond a Hobgoblin.” he said.

Helix frowned but understood and nodded.

He carefully took the holy artifacts and frowned at the containimantion from a demon’s touch and knew they had to be taken to be washed in holy water from another artifact for it to be purified. It was a lengthy and costly process.

They did one final search but found no holes and only found a pile of ash spread across the floor when the wind blew from opening the door. This was the result of the demon’s death at the hands of Logan.

Together they headed to the dungeon and Helix teleported them to the 20th floor city.

***

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Countless banging came at the door to a single room covered by a magical defensive circle.

“Miss, please stop!” the employee said worried.

The situation was quite simple, Logan had sped back to his room and had naturally arrived first. Going up, he locked the room and holed himself up to train his mana.

After a while, Olivia arrived and didn’t ask for a room. Instead she pulled out her adventurers ID.

“Hello, I am Olivia McEwen, my brother Logan McEwen said he is staying at this inn.” She said.

“Sorry, we cannot tell you private information.” the receptionist.

“Can you please check my ID. I believe families are allowed to be identified if they are staying in a room if their background is clear.” She said.

The receptionist forced a smile and took it. She was forced to put it on a scanner and naturally her information appeared and referenced it to find family.

Maxwell and Logan appeared and she just kept that smile and coughed, “Yes… your brother is staying here.” she said.

“Which room, I will wait for him there.” She said.

“Eh…” she said.

Naturally she had seen Logan walk in, there is no way she hadn’t.

“Is there a problem?” She asked. “I want to stay in his room until he returns from a dungeon run.” She said.

“Um… no there isn’t but don’t you want your own room? The one he occupies is a single bed room.” She said.

Instantly something clicked, “He is here isn’t he? What room, tell me?” She said instantly making the receptionist’s heart leap “Miss… he currently locked his room with the magical locks. This blocks all sound into and out of the room, banging wouldn’t work and there are those who don’t use the full lock system. Please do not do anything because it would disrupt the others.” She said in a near pleading tone but Olivia’s eyes were nearly shooting flames.

She could only lead her and as expected, not all rooms were fully locked but a magic circle was glowing on the outside of the door and as soon as it was pointed out, the initial scene began to play out.

Olivia didn’t even hear her and pulled Hydra but the moment she swung, the door opened and a figure came flying out and connected the foot to her face before smashing her against the wall.

A light hop off her, her body dropped before Logan landed and crossed his arms. “What the hell are you doing, Olivia? It is prohibited from drawing your weapons inside the cities except in areas like training rooms. Do you want to be banned from the dungeon over a hissy fit?” he said.

“You lier!” she said and rubbed her face, “And how many times have i told you to not drop kick me like that!” she shouted.

Logan grinned when she said that. Olivia has always been a tomboy and it can be annoying to Logan. From a young age, she hid her frustrations of what happened to her family and in truth, she is quite clingy towards Logan however he is annoyed by this. In no few number of occasions he has locked the door and in response she has almost broken the door so he started doing different things to her from opening the door with his leg out to trip her. Eventually he discovered that he felt the most satisfaction when he drop kicked her in the face.

It would feel very good and she would actually shut up. That said the direct process was, be stunned, complain and then basically break down into tears.”

Her shock had passed, her complaint was given and in less than 10 seconds she started to rub her face close to tears.

He sighed at how easy it was to read her but he knew that she just hid the anger she had better than him. He never chose to hide his anger and instead uses it as fuel.

He turned to the employee, “Sorry for all the trouble she caused. It’s been close to 2 years since we met after some family problems.” he said.

The receptionist sighed as well, “Is she going to be fine?” she asked.

“Don’t worry, as strange as it sounds, this was something common in our home.” He said.

She reluctantly nodded as she saw Olivia trying to hide the tears.

Rolling his eyes Logan grabbed Olivia’s arm and pulled her into the room before locking the door fully.

Instantly she started to cry openly.

“Geez, you’re 21 already but you still cry just like a baby.” He said.

She didn’t say anything and after making her sit on the bed she suddenly gripped his waist and used him as a crying pillow.

He had to rub the bridge between his brows and began to count. As soon as he finished counting to 50, he pulled his arm and swung it straight to the side of her head.

“That is enough fake crying.” he shouted.

“AH! Y-You heartless demon! Where am I faking it!” She shouted as tears staining her face.

“I know you better than even dad. You honestly cry only for about 30 seconds, the rest you just want to fake to keep me in a hug.” He said.

“You’re such a brute! That is probably why you have been getting battle beasts instead of party members!” She said.

“Not really, I am just training myself to the limit of what I can do alone. They just appeared in my life by chance.” he said. “It does work out though, Storm is very durable and great to act as a tank while I am training Jade to be a healer.” he said.

“You are so solitary.” She said.

“Not true, if you think human interaction is all we need then that is a lie.” He said.

He looked at Storm who grew while laying down and Logan sat down against his body.

“What were you doing?” She asked while whipping her tears.

“Training since i lost this trip.” he replied.

“How far did you get?” She asked.

“25th floor I was planning to explore to the 30th or as far as I could since I can fight E ranks.” He said.

“So what was that light when you attacked?” she asked.

“Magic of course, I just activated it through Arashi’s mana channels instead of on the outside. I’ve said it already but you should start training Hydra’s mana channels. Go rent your own room since I need silence and you have too much energy and never give me that when we are in a room together.” he said.

“Why did you not go back home before coming here and show our father your progress?” she asked.

“Which home? The place the guy who raised me for the second half of my current life without properly teaching me or the destroyed village retaken by nature in western Eshen?” he said.

“Come on, dad still hasn’t taught us everything. When i got back there after reaching E rank he taught me an amazing summoning spell. He said that it would allow me to create elemental birds and I can directly combine my power and spells to add immense power to the attacks.” She said.

“Do you have any?” He asked.

“Yeah, I even learned basic taming magic to increase my three beast limit to 6.” She said and waved her hand and six orbs appeared each one a different color.

Logan looked at them, “They are basically the same thing as Jin except he is a spirit animal and these are elementals. Have you figured out how they grow?” He asked.

“Well, dad said that the basic spirit is just mana right now but using mana i can make a mana pool and mana channels and they will definitely become birds. It takes a lot of effort though since mana leaks like crazy.” she said.

“Yeah, the same thing. They are battle beasts so you can actually fix 80% of the leaks by commanding the magical energies to rotate on its own.” he said.

She blinked and frowned before recalling all but the red one and tried to order it and the flame began to spin.

“Start at the bottom and draw the central energy and rotate. Then slowly increase the angle until the flames start to climb and form a sphere. At the top make it return inside, that will reduce most of the leaks and the rest you can control by adding a layer of rotating mana to catch leaking mana.” Logan said with his experience.

She listened and looked before telling it to stop and calling it back showing she would do it later.

“How many layers did you do already for F rank?” She asked.

“Just the first time I changed unrank into F rank?” he said. “I started on the second so it is already a good distance and I hope to complete all three cycles soon.” he said.

“Three? Do you think there are only three?” she said and started to laugh.

“Opening it took 3 and it was instantly ready to become F rank.” Logan said.

“Yeah but F rank doubles that number and E rank doubles again. Did you think it was that easy? Not to mention that E rank increases the number of compression and purification steps. There is no way that it is that simple to go up the ranks with just three cycles each rank.” She said and laughed.

Logan frowned when he heard that. The growth of quantity honestly did work, just having more meant evolving so he thought that just grinding away and compressing that little bit would also work.

“The number varies for people with weaker talent though. I’ve heard that people with next to no talent have had to grind 5 to 10 times to open their mana channels and they have to do equal numbers to advance.” she said.

“Yeah but if they upgrade their technique it obviously reduces that.” Logan said.

“True but you can’t expect everyone in the world to have B rank development techniques.” She said. “Even still, their talent plays a part in what dad said.” She said.

Logan just snorted but his eyes widened and he stood up as two figures magically appeared. “Elas!” He said.

The elderly elf smiled seeing him.

“Sir Elas… and this is? How did you get here when it is locked?” Olivia asked.

“There is no place I cannot go in my own dungeon.” Helix said.

Instantly Olivia turned pale understanding clearly who it was.

“What are you doing here so suddenly… and with Helix?” he said.

“Honestly, it is good that you both are here since it involves your future by a huge margin and even the future of Nuntip.” he said.

They both looked startled as Helix waved his hand to form two comfortable seats for the two and the children each took their own respective seats as they began to talk by first getting Olivia up to date.