'Who…? What…?' Zephyr was still trying to shake his head clear when the announcements came.
"Heh." He smirked slightly after processing the meaning behind the Voice of The World's words. It had not been long ago he lamented the fact he didn't take Lytheron's offer. And now he had drawn the interest of four different Proctors?
"I guess I did something special again." He chuckled.
Even without the Voice of The World announcing his rewards and the interest of the Proctors, Zephyr knew he had achieved no small feat by defeating the Void Phantom. It was by no means a creature meant to be dealt with by a single individual. In fact, Zephyr could bet not even a team of Champions could take on the Phantom.
He reckoned he'd likely killed something that wasn't meant to be killed this early on in the trial… again. The Proctors' interest only went further to prove his theory right.
And that fact made him wonder what lay beyond in the next chamber.
'Alright. That's it. I'm done for the day.' Zephyr massaged his throbbing head and activated {Silent Mirage}, intending to head back.
It wasn't like he couldn't try his luck, if only to peek ahead just to see the next chamber and what lay within. But he decided to head back entirely after Aegis suggested he simply shouldn't go ahead with that idea.
Being his compendium of 'dungeon knowledge', Aegis had mentioned something about not being able to head back in certain dungeon levels. Zephyr would rather go back and recuperate, taking time to prepare better before coming back again, instead of being forward and potentially stepping into a dungeon chamber he couldn't head back from.
"Damn. Didn't think my dungeon delve would only last this long, though," Zephyr tsked. He cut his losses and turned back, looking towards the tunnel he'd headed in from, but paused suddenly.
His enhanced hearing picked up the silent sound of scruffs echoing subtly from the tunnel.
'Someone's coming. No. Two people?' he frowned.
He wasn't particularly bothered, since his {Silent Mirage} was active. He simply watched as the noise grew louder the closer they got. Till eventually, they stepped out of the tunnel, taking in their surroundings cautiously.
'Why am I not surprised,' Zephyr rolled his eyes. It was the elf girl and her lackey. 'Shebreally must have some unheard of seer kind of ability to keep finding me everytime…'
At this point, Zephyr no longer even knew how he felt about her particularly. In fact he could go as far as to say he was curious about what she wanted with him.
But that was not a curiosity he wanted to satisfy today.
As they entered, he made his way confidently past them, stepping within close distance — close enough that he could clearly see the expressions on both their faces. Zephyr studied the elf variant girl's face carefully, watching for any sign that she could sense him… But she didn't.
He walked past them and entered into the tunnel without a hitch.
They would meet yet again, that much Zephyr was sure of.
"What is it, Elara?" Zephyr heard the lackey ask wearily after he walked a few steps into the tunnel.
"...Nothing. I thought I felt something just now. I must have imagined it."
'Sheesh.' A smile cracked on Zephyr's lips. 'She really has me curious now.'
He made his way down the tunnel and back to the Level 2 chamber, noticing the signs of battle and a few Obsidian Stalker corpses along the way. And after coming out the tunnel, he found a few other members of the makeshift 'Champion Party' making their way into the many tunnels after marking those they'd just exited.
He watched for a moment and waited till the few of them disappeared into tunnels before leaping down.
He cushioned his landing with a fluid display of wind magic, casting a basic wind gust spell.
The rest of his exit was uneventful and he headed out of the dungeon smoothly, returning to the hot desert air outside.
"Damn. I'd nearly forgotten about this heat." He actively cycled the cooling magic spell he had developed a day or two before, and headed directly towards his Troglodyte home.
He brought up his Ranking panel, intending to expand the detail on himself and go over the rewards he earned from the dungeon.
'I think the Voice of The World mentioned something along the lines of priority rights to a Memory Fragment…'
He had just begun to muse, when he abruptly paused mid-thought as he brought up his panel.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rank No: 1
Name: Queen of The Dunes
Rep: Planet 3. B–14. 01–0142
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rank No: 2
Name: ZeroOne Sovereign
Rep: Planet 7. J–22. 02–0038
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rank No: 3
Name: Alyra Ryvelin
Rep: Planet 1. J–22. 02–0031
Rank No: 4
Name: Fate Defier
Rep: Planet 10. H–19. 03–0292
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rank No: 5
Name: Lord Supreme Overlord of Absolutely Everything (First of his name.)
Rep: Planet 13. B–14. 01–0153
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rank No: 6
Name: Harbinger of Doom
Rep: Planet 6. K–11. 05–0275
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rank No: 7
Name: Seraphim
Rep: Planet 9. F–08. 04–0207
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rank No: 8
Name: Xyrie
Rep: Planet 12. J–03. 01–0344
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rank No: 9
Name: Lightbearer of Ilyros
Rep: Planet 5. D–07. 09–0116
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Rank No: 10
Name: Midnight Prince
Rep: Planet 2. E–18. 03–0001
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
'She's passed me.' Zephyr stared at the name: Queen of The Dunes, sitting at the No.1 spot. 'She's actually passed me.'
His mind rapidly moved through a whole rollercoaster of thoughts. He considered whether she'd made a big move that caused the change, or whether it was the result of a gradual closing of the gap. The fact he had just concluded a feat of his own inside the dungeon made him lean towards the first idea.
He had surely racked up a whole lot of points, certainly not near the levels of the worm monster, but still a lot. Except she was also clearing Level 3 dungeon chambers on her own, then the gap from the morning was supposed to be maintained.
After logically coming to the conclusion she had probably made a big move, the next thought that filled his mind was challenge.
The competitive side in him flared. Yes, it was petty. Zephyr himself knew. But now that Queen of The Dunes had surpassed him, he couldn't help but feel a challenge rise from within.
He even considered going back inside the dungeon and attacking the Fourth floor, or inversely, heading into the desert to look for one of those giant worms or something… But those ideas were quickly shut down after he came down from the peak of the rapid thoughts.
He sighed and continued his walk to his Troglodyte home diligently.
'It was inevitable anyways. Vying for the first spot right now wasn't part of my plan,' he consoled himself to calm his competitive side down. 'I just need to maintain my spot in the top ten… No. The top five, at least.' Zephyr realized now that was certainly not okay going below the top five.
"I'll come back to delve again tomorrow." He clenched his fist and set his goals. For the rest of the day, though. He was going to immerse himself in this Memory Fragment thing…