Large Tree Labyrinth and Dragons' Secret

After the little episode with Ais, Nox and her got much closer than before and would go out to eat or just practice together a lot more often. The next day, Nox helped Lili move into her new home in his 13th floor hideout but for now, she couldn't support him in the Large Tree Labyrinth where the Abnormal resistance skill was necessary for survival if you plan to stay long with a small party.

Although she initially refused, Nox put some time off his regular activities to help Lili train and fight on the upper floors. While she couldn't update her status for now, Nox told her he was working on that and while she had no idea what that was supposed to mean, she chose to trust his judgement.

In truth, Nox had several projects going on in the background, he didn't always spend the entirety of his nights on his magic. He prowled Orario in the night, seeing if he could find less reputable adventurers to steal magic and curses from and even used his Item Box to help the Hermes Familia smuggle some things around for a nifty reward.

Being on great terms with one of Orario's most well informed familias also gave Nox the chance to learn a lot of interesting things like who had what and what were some people planning and he used his nights and stealth magic to extract some value of that info.

Nox was even getting called a phantom thief in the dungeon city's less reputable circles since he kept stealing their stuff without leaving a single trace of his presence. Like this, he was steadily gathering things for his experiments and to practice his skill but it was still going to take a while before these efforts bore fruit in the meantime, it helped Nox earn some extra money.

This was rather important since Nox's nature as a hoarder made it difficult for him to sell any items and even when he had no real use for then, Nox still kept them with the excuse they might be useful for later or some other thing, his Item Box was steadily being filled with all kinds of things.

The rest of Nox's time was spent on exploring the Large Tree Labyrinth. He had tamed a Firebird he called Phoenix and Ash and Luna's abilities kept increasing due to their master not skimping on magic stones for them. With their help Nox dominated the floors and even made several great discoveries that greatly helped him.

He had managed to establish a hideout on a safe room he found on the 24th floor. This allowed him to have a sustainable forward base for his future expeditions to the lower floors. He had also located three different Treasure Trees but had not initiated an attack on any of them. Still, his exploration of the Large Tree Labyrinth was quite satisfactory.

The fact that he tamed a new monster also gave him the opportunity to chat up Rose and while she usually gave Nox the cold shoulder, he was starting to break through her defenses the fact that since he got his third pet, the Guild head ordered her to keep a closer watch on him also greatly helped. This however, left Nox worried about Ouranos' growing interest in him.

Nox taming also got him attention from someone else, the Ganesha Familia. Well, since they were the most prolific tamers in all of orario, it made since they became interested in an up and coming, talented tamer like Nox.

At Loki's request, Nox met even the captain of the familia Shakti Varma, a beautiful azure haired woman with a cool, strict and collected personality, even in a hectic and chaotic situation, valuing rules and conduct and taking them very seriously.

With a professional attitude and a couple of tasteful compliments along with his increasingly charming looks, Nox quickly got on her good side and the request she came to him with was even something he was definitely interested in.

"It is a pleasure to meet you Lyros-san. My name is Shakti Varma, thank you for taking the time to meet me." Shakti greeted while bowing respectfully.

Nox really appreciated her respectful attitude considering she was actually a powerful Level 5 adventurer and the captain of her familia thus much higher ranked than him.

"The pleasure is all mine Varna-san to have the beautiful and even more capable captain of the Ganesha Familia request a meeting with me is quite an honor!" He greeted while bowing in turn.

This sort of respectful attitude along with a compliment to her appearance which no woman dislikes regardless of her personality and an even bigger one to her capabilities which are almost always valued by capable women got Nox into Shakti's good books indeed.

Her request was that he practiced his taming with her familia and to exchange insights. In truth, she merely wanted to make sure Nox had his monsters under control and posed no danger to the population but she didn't want to sound like she was dismissing his abilities.

Still, when Nox gratefully accepted, she was quite surprised by his great attitude despite his obvious talent, gaining Nox a few more points with Shakti. And so, Nox's time in the dungeon was reduced to make up time for this new task and since Loki was working on getting him a potion mixing teacher, it meant his time would be further reduced.

Nox was fine with this however, he could still maintain a satisfactory rate of growth due to his Exceed skill and the fact that he was technically fighting monsters that were supposed to be stronger than him. Since they were of a higher level, even if Nox flipped the power balance with magic, it still counted as facing monsters above him in class.

In truth, a lot of the boy's projects required greater crafting skills and even if his Craftmaster development ability was better than smithing, mystery and mixing combined, Nox still needed to work on his basic skills further since despite his outrageous rate of growth which left all his teachers stupefied, the time he had spent on the various crafts was still relatively limited.

This didn't however mean that Nox's endeavours in the dungeon were completely abandoned he still fought regularly to improve his status even if at a slower pace than before and train his three pets who got stronger and looking less like their lesser cousins as time passed. He had also gathered a significant collection of plant type ingredients.

In the end, after a great struggle which nearly resulted in a Mind Zero state, Nox created a separate Item Box for the sole purpose of preserving ingredients that were spoiled by time, he even started collecting monster blood for later projects.

He also wanted to create an Item Box to hold his tamed monsters but unfortunately, Nox still lacked the power to make a space capable of supporting life.

The objective Nox had in mind at this moment though, was the harvest of the three Treasure Trees he found and the slaying of the Green Dragons protecting them which also usually had some nice drop items, specially with Nox's Luck.

Since he wasn't quite sure how he would fare against them, Nox was going to take every precaution for the first fight but as he observed the Green Dragon more closely than ever before, he realized it was somewhat different than other monsters. He remembered that the Wyverns he had fought before had a peculiarity to them as well but in their case it was barely noticeable.

'Dragon Type monsters have something special to them . . . This merits closer investigation. It may lead to a strengthening similar to what Mind Veins and Spirit Circuits brought me before!' Nox thought with excitement.

It was a well known fact that Dragon type monsters generally have greater abilities than their peers and the strongest monster in all of history is also a dragon so it made some sense. The order Nox had chosen to take out the three green Dragons was based on how likely other adventurers would be able to find the Treasure Trees they were guarding.

As such, he decided to take out the first two like he had planned and try to figure out the mystery behind the Dragon Type by analyzing the last one. Deciding on this course of action, Nox prepared to execute a debilitating first blow. Even if the target Green Dragon didn't die, the flow of the battle would become completely his.

In a single instant, Nox activated his Invictus Shade while increasing the Archon skill's boost to the maximum he could handle and delivered a full powered burst of darkness magic filled with corrosive power and debuff to the dragon who had reacted far to late despite its great senses.

Just as he had suspected, Nox wasn't able to finish it in one blow but with the power of darkness constantly corroding it and weakening it, the Green Dragon's remaining time was numbered.

Changing from his Invictus Shade to his basic one, Nox started to wear down hi opponents with barrages of magic from a distance avoiding melee and dodging the occasional breath attack. Holy Ray, Spirit Missile Storm, Winter's Breath and bursts of magic from his weapon for attacking while Arcane Chains were used to slow the beast down since even weakened, it could still break free.

Despite the Green Dragon putting up a valiant fight, it was eventually worn down until it fell down and moved no more.

'If it wasn't for that first strike . . . This battle would have gone quite differently. Although I can exert a combat prowess similar to that of a Level 4 adventurer's, it take far to much out of me and I cant maintain that state for long . . . I guess my plans will have to be changed a little again . . .'

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