“Everyone’s ready?”

  I took a look at the group of people that would be following me on this journey north.

  Seven of the new personal guards. The boys of course. And from the Adventures guild came Irene and Nate.

  Three of the ten would remain here to help keep things in order, even though I don’t expect them to have to do anything.

  Nate is coming because he’s the one who found the location and would lead us there.

  While Irene, who was now at the 5th Cycle of Body Tempering, accepted the commission for an archer to join the expedition.

  Unfortunately, none of us used a bow as our main weapons. Of course, the members of the personal guard were taught to use a few different weapons, but it wasn’t as if they all suddenly became extremely proficient with it.

  Irene was a genuine talent with the bow by this point and she would be a big help on the expedition based on what Nate described to us when he returned.

  The Dungeon was practically another world altogether. Or maybe like a mirror of the real world. I would need to see it to truly understand it, but apparently it really was a large expansive world were having an array of abilities like a proper ranged attacker would be useful.

  Even before we got to the Dungeon, we still had to pass through a massive forest to the north. Just getting through the forest alone would take us days.

  It was a forest filled with all manner of life from all levels it seems.

  Nate had visited the forest with his brothers while he was at the Qi Refinement realm and his brothers were at the 4th Cycle, but they had to tread very carefully the entire time as not only was the forest teeming with Body Tempering equivalents, but there were also plenty of Qi Refinement Realm equivalents as well.

  And of course, whose to say that there wouldn’t be something stronger, somewhere deep in the forest?

  Thankfully, Nate had managed to find a route that was seemingly devoid of anything stronger than Early Qi Refinement, we would be hoping for something similar on our journey.

  After getting confirmation from everyone that they were ready to go, we left the City from the North Gate in the early hours of the morning and began the trek to the Dungeon.

  It took roughly two days of running with a few small breaks just to reach the forest, and by the time we reached the sun was in the process of setting.

  “Nate get in front. Lirian and Firan flank him, Carlos and Johnny, bring up the left, Bran and Justin, bring up the right. Irene you’re in the center, Erick, Brice, and Micky, you’re behind Irene. I’ll bring up the rear.

  “Let’s be tight, and don’t move out of eye contact with each other. Ready?”

  “Yes Patriarch.”

  That was said by the boys of course, while the personal guards responded with ‘Yes Sir’, while Nate and Irene simply said they got it.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Hearing the different ways, they responded was interesting to say the least, but it didn’t matter all that much.

  Now with our formation in order we entered the forest.

  Weapons were drawn both eyes and senses were spread as we moved a decent pace. Careful not to haphazardly run into something we would rather not meet.

  There were plenty of sounds in the forest at this time. From the songs of birds to the growling of possibly wolves, and the occasional roar of sorts.

  It sounded like a bear maybe.

  Not sure.

  Either way, I’m not sure if it was something I’d us to run into.

  …

  By now we had been moving through the forest for a few hours and the night sky was floating just above us.

  It was dark.

  Very dark.

  Thankfully for us, that served no issue at all, so it didn’t stop our progress.

  A few animals definitely stopped by to investigate on occasion but either it was the size of our group or perhaps being able to sense the strength we possessed steered most of them away.

  Most of them.

  It was a pack of wolves.

  A large pack.

  Roughly 20 wolves had creeped up on us. Of course, we sensed them come in but just like the whole journey thus far we chose the wait and see approach. We didn’t need to kill everything we came across.

  If something left us alone, then that was fine with me.

  These wolves though, they lingered. Their growling intensified as the moments passed. They looked quite similar to regular wolves, in the sense that they didn’t have horns or random streaks of something else in their fur.

  But speaking of their fur…it was pitch black fur. A black that almost reminded me of my flames with the way they blended in the darkness around them.

  Apart from that, there wasn’t anything else that visibly separated them from a regular black wolf, but they were different.

  Every single one of them was strong enough to fight someone at the 3rd Cycle of Body Tempering by their lonesome. While a few could likely fight above that, maybe somewhere at the 5th Cycle.

  But there was one of them that was a bit stronger.

  Strong enough to be firmly considered a Rare Beast, because that meant it would likely have a Rare Core.

  The ranking of cores isn’t something I remembered till the Butcher brought one over. At some point we stopped finding them in the Tutorial, so it was kind of in the back of my mind all this time.

  Below Qi Refinement was common and uncommon. Qi Refinement was where Rare Beasts, and their cores resided.

  The leader of this pack was one such beast.

  “Kill them.”

  I would ignore anything that ignored us, but to anything else, then there was no need to wait around.

  An arrow could quickly be heard whistling through the air as both boys, Nate and the personal guards dashed out towards the waiting wolves.

  Lirian went straight for the big one while Frian took off to the right.

  Their spears danced in the night, as they took to their battles with grim determination.

  I wasn’t worried about them though.

  What I was instead focused on was the personal guard members. All of them were wielding swords at the moment, but I know for a fact there were other weapons in the rings provided to them.

  Rings that were purchased from the Mavelia Merchant Union. They were small, and the insides didn’t have space for much, but it was more than enough for a few essential items for a trip like this.

  Mine even had toilet paper.

  Anyway.

  The battles proceeded with both ferocity and efficiency, and as everyone fought multiple opponents at once initially before they were quickly whittled down to size, with Irene calming a few of the kills with well timed shots.

  A few moments were then spent cleaning up the area and gathering whatever we deemed important to carry. All of which was stored in my ring since it had the most space.

  After that, it took roughly another three days to fully exit the forest. We were attacked twice over that timeframe but nothing of significance.

  But it was behind us now.

  In front us lay a few different things.

  Another forest, much like the one we just exited, but instead of being as thick and deep vertically, it was much bigger horizontally. So, it was more wide than it was long.

  Beyond the forest was our destination, the winter area, and by now we could see the mountains clearer, and snow that coated everything.

  But before we reached either of those things, we had to walk around the massive cavern.

  From left to right it was definitely longer than a football field, and much longer from north to south.

  It was as if a massive sword, big enough to pierce continents, was stabbed into the ground.