Riven walked into the darkness, using the flame on his palm to guide his way. He looked around carefully, trying to find Noel.
"I should have stayed with him, then I wouldn’t need to be worried . If anything happens to him, I’d be screwed," Riven thought. He kept looking; he felt like calling his name, but he was scared something would come to him rather than his brother.
But even in his quietness, he couldn’t escape the spawns of the dungeon. Three goblins charged at him from the darkness. He pulled his sword out of the pouch and attacked with one hand.
The fiery floor goals were no longer an issue for him; he was able to cut them down with a few moves. He picked up the crystals and stored them before heading deeper into darkness.
He walked for a while, and he hadn’t found anything that could relate to his brother. "Fuck Noel, where the hell did you go? Do you have to make life unreasonably hard for me every time?" Riven asked.
After walking for a few more minutes, he saw a dim light in the distance. Immediately, he knew that was where to head towards. But a flock of blood bats came from the ceiling, their numbers in the fifties, they all charged at him.
Riven knew that he couldn’t fight them with only one hand, but luckily enough, the dim light provided him enough light to fight.
He gripped his sword with both hands and took a sharp deep breath. "Let’s see what this sword mastery can do," he said before charging in.
Riven had not learned any serious footwork while training with the sword, and only used the basics, but now that he had sword mastery and the title of sword disciple, his movement was fast and advanced.
His sword moved through the air, and in one slash, several blood bats fell to the ground. He took a few steps back to retreat after killing the first few.
The bats charged at him with more vigor. But Riven wasn’t bothered by their attack; he kept attacking, moving swiftly to dodge. A bat came in from above. Riven dodged to the side and slashed it before turning around, stretching one hand and using Flame Blast to attack.
To his surprise, the size of the flame greatly increased when compared to before the upgrade. The flame engulfed several bats and then an explosion followed immediately after, taking out more than half of the bats.
As the explosions died down, he rushed in again and began cutting down the rest of them. In a few minutes, he killed all the bats, their crystals littered the floor.
He took a deep breath to calm down and then began gathering all the crystals that he got. After gathering the crystals, he looked toward the light and walked toward it.
But it seemed the light was farther than he expected. Soon enough, he got there, and what he saw stunned him—light blue glowing crystals filled the walls.
But these were not just any crystals—they were mana crystals. In the story, they were items used for the construction of many things; they could be found in mana veins and dungeons.
The crystals were used in formations, magical devices, and lots more, but they were extremely hard to find. In many dungeons, they were found in the deepest floors of the dungeon, so deep that only the best out of the best adventurers could get them.
The mana veins were also very hard to find, and the ones that were in Vermillion were controlled by nobles of high caliber and the royal house. The mana crystals were also of three grades: low grade, mid grade, and high grade, and what he was seeing here was definitely high grade, as their light blue color suggested.
"What are mana crystals doing this high up, and such good quality?" he said, running his hands on the walls. His finger touched one of the crystals.
[Absorb mana crystals?]
A system notification came up. His eyes lit up—was that even possible? He was about to say yes, but a pained groan echoed off the walls of the dungeon.
"Noel?" He rushed in the direction of the groan, and taking a turn, he saw Noel leaned against the wall, bleeding out from his stomach. His entire armor was bashed up badly, he was bruised and in a very dire state.
"Shit," Riven cursed. He came close to his brother to check on him.
"Noel, Noel," he called his brother’s name. Noel slowly turned his head; he saw Riven’s face, though it was blurry in his eyes.
"Riven? What are you doing here? Get out of here, get out before it comes," Noel forced himself to speak.
"What? Before what comes?" Riven asked. A loud roar suddenly echoed within the dungeon. Riven looked up, and he saw it—standing there in all its disastrous glory.
A stone golem, standing eight feet tall, its eyes glowing red, its jagged sharp teeth showing itself to Riven.
Riven stood there, his expression was a mix of tiredness and confusion. "You shouldn’t be here," he said, and the golem responded with another thunderous roar.
Riven pulled out a healing potion and a vitality potion from his pouch and dropped it on Noel. "Drink this quick, I’m not sure I’ll be able to carry you when we need to run," he said and got into a stance.
"You... you ca... can’t beat it," Noel stammered.
"We don’t really have a choice now, do we?" Riven said and charged in. He covered his sword in flames and attacked with a full slash. The stone golem lifted its hand at a shocking speed and blocked the attack before punching him in the gut with the second hand and sending him straight into a wall.
He slammed into the wall, crystals fell off. He coughed up a huge amount of blood and fell to the ground.
"Shit, this is going to be far worse than I thought," Riven said, trying to push himself up.