Chapter 12

Tina's berserker mode was, to put it bluntly, scary as hell. She gained not only the physical strength and durability increase such a berserker rage would put into her normally. But her reflexes and bodily control were elevated beyond even the strength and durability which made her spear play even more dangerous. The Blood Fury Spear was truly a skill that made the gods jealous and was worth its hype as I had no doubt that she was at the same danger level as a peak level two right now.

And this was her running the skill on its low power setting as it drained her stamina quickly... Normally that stamina issues would cripple the skill's value but there was one issue in which I changed how the skill basically operated.

Tina was using life-steal weapons which also restored stamina... So she was able to keep the Blood Fury Spear skill on at all times while in the dungeon as we tore through goblins and kobolds on the first floor.

This wasn't us pushing ourselves to a higher level to get more money or even excellia, this was weak ass level ones with overpowered gear with my own scale mail armor making me immune to anything the goblins and kobolds could do, and Tina with her Blood Fury Spear switching between the goblin and kobold spears when necessary depending on which race of monster we rant into bullying the dungeon.

We were doing this as a challenge to ourselves and to stress test Tina's skill in the frankly almost uninhabited first floor as people typically just skipped the first floor and went up down to the second to get the slightly bigger monster stones and more of them. Also, our rampant slaughtering of the monsters was quickly evolving the quests for the kobold and goblin slaying spears which we were both wielding.

With my armor, I was able to tank the claws and fangs of the goblins and kobolds and I would wield my spear close to its head almost like a knife with the spearhead's long jagged blade being more manageable at such close range for me to kill the monsters that tried to grapple me.

Most importantly of all... Even with Tina getting a new skill and getting a new home in the Hephaestus Familia, she remained the same. She didn't get cocky even with her being physically stronger than me with her new skill. If anything she seemed to think her skill, her new weapons, her clothes, and down to the very tramp stamp of Hephaestus upon her soul was just further proof of my hold and her own surprisingly willing subservience over her.

Which was just further proof of the convenient madness her Blood Fury Spear skill forced upon her in use.

"Tina, stop for a sec," I said pausing as I thought I heard something in the distance around the corner. At my order, she paused from where she was plucking the monster stone from the dried-out corpse of the kobold she had killed.

There was a series of dull crashing noises along with the sounds of the rock walls of the dungeon being shattered and we both paused as we shared a look and we silently decided if we should leave whatever happening to happen naturally and finally I shrugged with Tina smiling weakly as she followed me as we went to investigate around the corner inside one of the deepest parts of the first floor of the dungeon.

Around the corner were two men fighting barehanded, each a whirlwind of speed, strength, and ferocity. And at seeing them Tina poked my side and pulled me around the corner as she hissed. "Jake, we need to go. Those are Zeus's adventures. I will explain but we need to move." She said quickly pulling me away and I blinked but I didn't argue and we took off at a sprint with Tina tapping into her skill to get the speed to keep up with my obviously far larger strides as we ran.

A couple of minutes later as we literally ran to the other side of the first floor Tina stopped us and we killed the goblins and kobolds that chased us down from where we were running from. "So why the hell did we need to run?" I asked winded from all the running and wanting some answers.

Tina groaned as she leaned against the wall of the dungeon and took a breath as well with her red eyes dulling back to her normal green eyes as she began to explain somewhat tiredly. "The Zeus Familia is the Familia of 'Heroes'... And in order to earn the right to have your Falna updated you for one have to be on a long wait list as Zeus is picky about how often he updates his member's Falna." She began to explain and I raised an eyebrow before having to facepalm as she continued.

"In the Zeus Familia, it's common for members to fight and grievously injure others in order to get the other's spots in the schedule for a Falna update. And they obviously have to have their fights in the dungeon due to such fights would destroy any arena they made up on the surface... And they are all sore losers when they lose." She finished and I realized why we had to fucking run.

Basically out of fear of the loser getting up and killing us for seeing his loss or just to vent their frustrations.

"And the Guild is useless I guess?" I said wryly and Tina only looked at me with a deadpan look.

"Jake... Literally every member of Zeus and Hera's Familia's of three hundred plus adventures in each Familia are level five or higher as they only recruit from Familia's that cannot support such a high-level adventurer while also sending those previous Familia's a very hefty payment for basically raising that adventurer to that level as severance pay... The Guild cannot do squat." She said flatly with no argument possible.

'This golden time here in Orario was truly different from canon.' I mused as I disregarded the whole might makes right aspects that were far more in the swing than in canon but the sheer knowledge that instead of the couple dozen at most level fives in canon... There are hundreds maybe even a thousand of them across the world with much more competitive the world was. Was truly staggering.

So after taking a break to catch our breath for a bit. I held out a hand to Tina as I spoke. "Let me check our spears for wear and tear along with their magical details," I said and then handed over a short sword to Tina so she could defend herself if a monster came or something, while I began inspecting the four spears as I made a spear for both goblins and kobolds for both of us.

[Goblin Slayer] [ Evolution Quest 100% Complete]

[Weapon absorbs the life force and transfers some to the user while using the rest to passively strengthen the weapon.-- New!] The user has completed the evolution quest so now killing all Goblins with this weapon increases Excellia gained.] Now for goblins down here on the first floor, this was kinda shit, to be honest.

But ten-something floors down in the foggy floors when we were still fighting armed goblins with stone weapons that were much stronger this would be a lot more valuable. After a quick check, I saw the other three spears were also evolved as well so I smiled and fused the sets of goblin and kobold spears together. And then looked at the result.

[Beast Slayer] [The combination of two weapons that focused on different monsters has left this spear less focused upon the two monsters but the Excellia gain remains... And with more monster-slaying evolution weapons added to this weapon, the more focused and stronger the monster-slaying aspects will be till the mere sight of the weapon makes monsters kneel in supplication or merely die out of sheer fright.]

[Quest Available] [Zenith Evolutionary Hunter.]

I handed back the other spear to Tina and after explaining what the spear did... And how it would literally increase the growth of her Falna. She looked ready to jump me right there on the dungeon floor!