Darius Supreme

Ash, Reina, Jonathan, James, and Anthony sat together in the mediation room of Darius' mage tower. Their eyes closed as they contemplated their power and possibilities. 

They had all achieved a new level of strength recently, and now sought to consolidate it before anything else. 

Martin had sent a request for Darius' permission to allow them to do so. He had given them a week to meditate and consolidate, and that week would be ending today. 

As such, the AI had sent out an alert to all of their HoloBraces. 

The lads slowly opened their eyes, sharp glints echoing within them. They rose to their feet as one, then glanced at each other with hints of provocation in their eyes. 

Knowing that each of them had achieved something transcendent, they felt the heat of competitiveness, far from their usual harmony when Darius had been training them. 

After all, they had all suffered under the hands of Gunner and struggling to meet Darius' quotas, so they felt a kinship. 

Now that the tigers were away, the mice would play. Without adult supervision, they began to drift apart as their natures clashed with each other. 

The Noble and Heroic Ash. 

The Carefree and Adventurous Reina. 

The Ambitious and Overbearing Jonathan. 

The Enigmatic and Shadowy James. 

The Arrogant and Powerful Anthony. 

These five were sure to leave behind legends across the entirety of Faust in time, but right now, they were just kids wishing to compete with their peers to find out who was better. 

In order to break their needless standoff, Martin reminded them: 

"Just so you know, you have to continue with your dungeon crawling missions again. Please get to the dungeon area so I can begin the task assessment." 

Hearing this, they could only relent and leave the mage tower together, heading out of the city using special access pathways to reach the dungeon that resided just beside the outer walls of the town 

Near the dungeon, the various adventurers who had made dungeon diving their daily bread saw the usual bunch of kids. They had wondered if and when they might return as they had all missed them for a few days, some even suspecting they might have died inside. 

Seeing them back though, it likely meant that they had just taken a break or stopped to do something and were now back. 

This made the various adventurers there all the more curious as to their background, but when they inquired from Martin, he told them that their status wasn't high enough to access that information. 

The lads ignored the looks of wonder and curiosity they received and entered the dungeon together. 

They had struck an unspoken agreement to challenge the group one as they usually did first, then split up to do their individual rounds after. 

When they appeared in the first rest station, they spent some time resting their minds a bit more before entering the first room. 

The five of them went through the motions, fighting like they usually did as they cleared the first battle room, then the second, to the third, then the fourth. 

Even the final battle room did not faze them as they faced the boss, and easily took it down with their current skillset. None of them had used any of their new skills and abilities they had gained so far. 

It would be overkill to do so, because when they were fighting as a group like this, nothing could really push them that far. 

After clearing the floor, they then ignored the treasure chest that appeared at the end. Instead, they looked towards the two stairs that appeared. One went down into the abyss while the other went up, to return them to reality. 

Normally, the lads would clear the dungeon and head up immediately to go back and continue with their life in the mage tower. However, today their eyes were fixated on the second set of stairs as if it was raw gold. 

They were silent as they gazed at it, no one making a sound, but all of them had the same thoughts. The five lads were startled out of their thoughts by a message from Martin. 

"Sure, I'll allow you to do it. However, you may only challenge up to the second battle room of the Journeyman level." 

Seeing as they had received the approval from their handler, the five shared uncertain looks before gritting their teeth and walking down. 

As for Martin, he watched them go down with a soft smile on his face, a smile so reminiscent of Darius that any onlooker would be able to tell Martin to be just a smaller version of him. 

"Hm, this will be interesting." Martin murmured to himself. 

On the Journeyman floor, the five lads entered the first rest station. It was bigger and far better stocked than those above. The lads took some time to rest and make sure they were at their full power before stepping into the first battle room. 

This chamber was almost twice the size of the one on the Amateur floors, big enough that it felt like they had walked into a mega church's hall. Before they could spend time looking around, the doors in the room opened to reveal a set of monsters. 

[Vine Wolf - Level 21 Monster 

HP: 650/650 MP: 231/231 STA: 546/546 ] 

30 Vine Wolves rushed out and surrounded them on all sides. Unlike the Amateur floors where all the monsters were made of a myriad of different kinds, it seemed the Journeyman floors released groups of monsters from the same race. 

Their group also noticed that the monsters co-operated well, almost seamlessly in fact. So unlike the upper floors where every monster fought for itself, here they would be fighting against concentrated groups. 

No wonder those adventurers had to team up in huge numbers to come down here! The slightest mistake could see even an entire team of 100 Journeymen fall in this battle room since this was only the first wave, much less in later battle rooms. 

The five lads became serious. The five brought out their all for this fight. Ash directly held his sword staunchly and swung it multiple times, launching out sword waves over and over again. 

The Vine Wolves were shocked by this, but they had enough Agility to either dodge or avoid most waves, though some of them lost limbs or had their vines severed as they howled in pain. 

Reina drew on her bow and nocked an arrow that carried a Wind element spell that was enhanced the speed of the shots. She had realized that these wolves were potent for their Agility, in which their vines also helped greatly. 

As such, she fired her wind-enhanced arrows that pierced their eyes, noses, and other soft spots of the Vine Wolves, either incapacitating them or outright killing them. However, most wolves smartly began to use their vine to either whip the incoming arrows or block it for them. 

Jonathan held his greatsword in one hand and his poleaxe in the other. With heavy swings, he attempted to cut down any of the foes he met, but it was futile given the speed of these wolves. The few that fell under his blade were either smashed or cut until half with ease. 

Still, he endeavored to move faster and better, but the wolves noticed the fact that his swings left him wide open, some of them counterattacking by aiming for his joints or his butt. 

At this time, James, who had been walking around mostly unnoticed, would stab out and kill those who tried to attack his team member. Soon, the Vine Wolves noticed the existence of an invisible enemy. 

They deployed their vines like a net around their bodies, to intercept the arrows and to form a sort of domain where if one entered, they would know and beg able to react to it within seconds. 

James could only tsk in annoyance at the adaptability of these monsters. They were truly nothing like those above, their intelligence at least higher than 10 points to come up with such a scheme to hunt him down so quickly. 

However, they were nothing compared to their group. 

James simply decided to attack from afar in this situation, sending throwing knives hurtling towards key spots of his foes, rendering them stunned or immobile long enough for Ash or Jonathan to get a kill. 

As for Anthony, he was the most mobile of the group. At the start of this wave, he had already mounted his nimbus cloud and was attacking the Vine Wolves using his bo-staff that could elongate and retract on command. 

He swung it around with ample dexterity, smacking many of the Vine Wolves away and disrupting their entire formation. He took it upon himself to prevent the enemies from harming his allies and pinning them down. 

His staff might not be sharp enough to cut, but it was certainly sturdy enough to break heads, legs, and bones to pieces. No to mention when Anthony suddenly lengthened its edge during a swing or retracted it to catch them off-guard. 

He did not activate his Sage Mode because it was something that took a great toll on him, so he had to use it sparingly. 

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