The next few days went by peacefully, under the guidance of Debauchery, Yunan was able to smoothly combine traceless casting and all his other spells, however according to Fae he needed to practice ordinary casting as well to reach mastery in a more sensible way.Lina, Nina and Ophelia integrated well into the group and one could tell they have changed in some way or another. Reina and Lili were just so happy to have more sisters that can help them keep Yunan on a leash. As for Debauchery, they were always accepting of those with pure intentions, so the girls were not put through any torment.
Bai had successfully retrieved all the a.s.sets the heir owned and killed of all the men that were left behind, the a.s.sets were sold and the money was put into the accounts belonging to the kids. Anne spent most of the time reading the medical books in the infirmary, and when Yunan told her it was about time to leave, she asked for permission to visit Ophelia and teach her on the same intervals as Debauchery, since all of them would be on the same floors.
Yunan did not reject the proposal, since Ophelia was going to be the resident healer, it was a good thing of she could learn more, next was Yunan taking Reina and Lili back to their respective organisation, promising them he would team up with them when they reached the 50th floor. They reminded Yunan to show up every weekend while he is climbing down the dungeon.
With all that done with, Yunan sent Lina, Nina and Ophelia inside the new portable home, and headed out to his date with Fortuna, this time the date was mild, and consisted mostly of the pair cuddling together without many words, either reading in the library or watching the moonflowers sway under the moonlight. Yunan felt that Fortuna was not as vigorous as she was before, and was thinking too much, very unlike her. So he could only give her what small warmth he could and did not ask or probe about what troubled her.
Around dawn Fortuna spoke to Yunan in a very tired tone. "I think you were right, you need to become much stronger, very fast, let"s postpone our meetings till you reach floor 50" Fortuna had her eyes on figure that stood on high rise and watched them from the other side of the valley, Yunan could not help but glance at the figure before fixing his eyes back on his partner " and what happens when i miss you?" He asked, already longing to see her again.
"If you are lucky maybe you can find me hiding" she answered him, she too did not like the idea of taking such a long time before they meet again. "You are too good to me, if she ever tries something, tell her I"ll turn her into your most obedient slave, maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon enough". Fortuna laughed. "She is just bitter and jealous, you can seduce her later on when you have enough strength, I"ll help too, just be safe until then".
The pair kissed a fleeting kiss that ended with the first rays of sunshine. Fortuna could still disappear like a sweet summer dream, and Yunan could not even tell if she was there or not.
After collecting his stray thoughts Yunan returned to the dungeon, and stepped into the 21st floor. The floor was full of arachnids, they displayed 3 new patterns that one did not encounter in the previous floors. The monsters were using group tactics, they were able to cast spells and not just apply elements to their weapons or simply spread them out, finally they were able to use their wisdom stats more effectively.
Yunan"s first fight was against spiders that were very adept at using their webs to surround and capture their prey, they were commanded by an Arachne, who could cast rooting spells and poison spells to slow the prey and destroy them from the inside out. The spiders also used their legs as spears and their fangs as daggers to incapacitate, causing Yunan to take his first wound in months.
The strategy to fight these kind of monsters was simply brute force, if one allowed them time to start acting on the plan, he would lose fast enough to not know how he was turned into food. Yunan did not turn the buffs of the armor on, and fought tooth and nail against the spiders, who under the leadership of the Arachne surrounded him and kept shooting webs and poison b.a.l.l.s at him. Yunan used his short swords to get close and personal, it would be a losing battle if he made it a ranged one.
Yunan found that every monster group had their own tactics and specialties, some were more proficient in ambush and stealth takedowns, some were better at close combat, there were also groups with multiple proficiencies, those were the hardest to deal with, because their commanders had the highest wisdom among commanders and would change the attack plan as the battle went on.
Yunan found that all monster meat in this floor had an attribute or another, for example eating the brains of the Arachne commanders gives wisdom points, the same thing for the rest, each proficiency gave a different attribute when eaten. As for the armor, it gained the poison touch effect, a minor camouflage effect, and better string for the bow, making Yunan very happy with his findings, it took him around a month to fully map the floor and finally meet the boss, a very large spider queen that had filled the boss room with webs and eggs.
Yunan felt like he was truly in mortal danger when he stepped inside the boss room, he could feel his every move monitored and there was a presence that grasped every minute twitch in his body, the spider queen made a very happy screeching sound as it watched Yunan edge closer to the center of the room. The spider queen lowered itself from the ceiling on a golden string and approached Yunan, and bared its fangs at him. The match started and Yunan knew why he had such a bad feeling.