Adil led the way, the luminous fauna and insects grew in number and size as they moved in. Having talked to the researcher about what he planned to do an expected notification came up before they moved further in.

Notification

Cartography upgrade unlocked

Your cartography skill has linked with your spawn crystal enhancing your player map. Within the range of your War-table, your map will have real-time changes.

He looked at his mini-map, the landscape appeared to change in colour, a lighter green to signify the dungeon as opposed to the dark grey of the cave tunnels. The area they were heading into had an icon over it, it was a glowing white elk head. Adil zoomed in to see red dots moving around, the hostile enemies of the dungeon.

"Elk ahead," Adil said, signalling with his hand for everyone to get into cover. The drones moved further back to keep a decent distance from the group, they would be easily destroyed if anything were to happen.

Steve moved close to Adil and said in a hushed tone. "The stags shoot a laser out from between their horns, but they take varying amounts of time to charge it up,"

The large Orc let out a grunt. "They will not be faster than my sword," he said.

Peering around the corner Adil could see a male and a hornless female elk grazing on the dungeons fauna, A puff of mystic energy erupting from the plants as the beast pulled them out. Adil with a few hand movements pointed for Horatio to move in and wait to target the far elks. Once he was in position it was time for Aku to move up close and Seras to get ready to run. Regardless of the horns, they could give away their position to the more dangerous foe.

Adil gave the go hand signal to Horatio. Horatio aimed his bow, focused on the elk at the back, and before the beast even realised three arrows had lodged into its neck, puncturing the place its heart should have been. Before the other beast reacted Aku was running out of the bushes, swiftly swinging his twohanded sword across the beast's neck cutting the head off. Quickly and silently.

"get in position, more could come at any moment."

He saw how the next cavern along their path appeared to hold crystals scattered around it. It wasn't very far in. Further, there didn't appear to be any more red dots in the immediate area. Adil hoped there would still be a place in the cave where the old red barren landscape still had its impact, he planned to gather at least some sand.

They moved into the next cavern and Adil saw that the red dots around appeared to be dormant. It seemed to him that there would be no trouble whilst they excavated them.

"You can relax, we should be on our own, and there only seem to be low-tier mobs in the area."

He controlled the drones and sent them to gather crystals around the cavern, the drones moved over and started coating the crystals in whatever their mandibles appeared to turn into. As Adil looked at the drone he saw the crystals move through its system and compress into a smaller form of itself.

He could see progress displayed in the corner of his vision as the drones began to harvest.

12% complete it said.

Notification

Crystal harvesting is slower than mining due to the difficulty the drones have in processing high-quality material.

Well, Adil thought, now he knew for the future.

Suddenly a large red dot appeared to be moving at speed to their location. It passed through a few of the smaller ones and then appeared to jump in through the side of the cavern.

It was a stag, like the others but twice the size, its fur darker of two separate shades, a lighter over the front of its neck, darker over the rest. Ornate sigils across its fur glowed a dark red and as it stood facing the group, began to resonate with power matching the beast's eyes.

"Spread out!" Adil shouted.

Horatio with his quick initiative shot an arrow into its neck, but it barely went an inch deep, not far enough to cause significant damage to the giant of a beast. A black and red mass started coalescing between its antlers as the beast appeared to begin charging a blast.

Then Seras and Aku came charging towards the beast. The creature's beam of concentrated power burnt through the surrounding landscape and tore off one of Aku's legs taking him out of an attack mid-flight. The creature still took a solid wack from Seras though, its head seeming to shake and the power between its horns dissipating, releasing its powerful beam of death. it turned to look at Seras and appeared to charge up its power before there was a slash of red. The beasts head had exploded from the delayed effect Seras held within her weapon. More of the creatures came running in at that moment. These though were just the low-levelled blue sort. With quick reflexes Adil was already there, and Swift had charged up his attack.

Adil had jumped into the air and now looked down on the creatures. He saw a few of them charging an arcane blast. Swift had cast searing chains on the mass burning them whilst they held in place. Adil concentrated mana into his sword and felt the wind and lightning bond. On a gust of air, he shot past them slicing. Each head had been cut but only fell from their bodies once Adil turned around.

Notification

Enemy Slain: XP

alpha arcane-stag 0 (killed by Seras with assist from Aku and Horatio)

arcane-stag. 86 x 4 (50% modifier Swift +Adil) 5% tax from spawn crystal dungeon.)

Steve wearily walked up to Adil and said "Thought you said there wouldn't be any monsters. not that its a problem."

"I guess there were a few enemies," Adil said. trying to compress the leg, blood puouring over the floor he sat.

"Sorry Aku." He replied Aku was grunting as he braced the pain of losing a leg,

"Yeah, that sucked, sorry, if you don't want to die the spawn crystal can fix you up," Adil added, unsure if the spawn crystal could really help. He really needed a healer.

"I'm fine," Aku said in a grunt, a stern expression plastered on his face. He tore some cloth and tied up the wound before using his sword as a walking stick.

Swift intersected the conversation. "I thought you were a scientist. didn't you say you loved being proven wrong?"

Adil gave out a chuckle, the memories of his past life flooding back.

"I like being proven wrong like I like a good curry," he replied with a smile.

"How so?" Swift asked curiously.

"As long as I don't shit myself."

swift laughed as well. The remains of the giant elk seemed to shimmer as Seras moved towards it and pushed mana through the corpse. The energy of the corpse seemed to pour directly into her axe making it glow a faint violet and vibrate the air around it. Swift and Adil went to the others. Instead of the normal oddities, they usually received Adil and Swift both found a leather material.

Notification

Item: Arcane Elk-skin.

A high-grade mana resistant material.

quality: high

Notification

Dones have successfully harvested the crystal. Drones have obtained 13kg of citrine, 4 kg of rose quartz and 7 kg of Jasper.

I guess it's time to make our winning ticket, Adil thought. He saw how the area around had seemingly been cleared from elk and saw on his mini-map a space of reddish ground. Sending the drone over there he successfully found sand. When the drones came back they began the journey towards the base.

"They seemed stronger than before," Steve said.

"The mobs are meant to change as time goes on, and as the spawn crystal or area changes, the mobs should as well. The death of mobs this close to the area gathers a crystalized form of mana known as experience, this experience allows for the spawn crystal to grow stronger. It's interesting because as the crystal feeds into the growth of the animals it invests in more experience gain in its future." Adil said to the ex-soldier. The newfound information flowing through him.

"Oh," Steve replied. casually falling back, slightly overwhelmed by the information.

Horatio came across.

"I think we need to talk." He said.