It seems that the family trio made up of Benladann, Benladra, and me made the dungeon explode with power due to our residual super mana quantities, which only made it so the monsters grew stronger, that's pretty convenient to be honest, so let's continue grinding!
We moved across the corridors of the first floor, exploring the first rooms and finding nothing inside, it was a long corridor with nothing else, I guess the floor 1 is no good. We quickly decided to walk downstairs and reach the floor 2, and immediately after that, we found what seemed to be a slime- no, three slimes! They were standing over one another, and they were blue, green, and red. Wait, doesn't this reminds me of something?
The slime trio was all Rank 3, but combining their power, they could even reach higher levels of power, and they did! The moment they spotted our party, the trio fused their mana power and unleashed a barrage of magical attacks. It seems that higher ranked slimes can actually conjure magic! Fire, Wind, and Water Magic converged into a wondrous show of spiritual elements, combining together into elemental beams, arrows, and more, that began to attack us mercilessly! I desperately created a magic barrier to protect ourselves, composed of mostly ice, an incredibly hard, harder than perhaps orichalcum, barrier of ice.
CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! BOOOOMMM…!
The elemental explosions were way too flashy, weren't these guys at the level of those Shadow Crows and Lightning Catfish I once fought in the Ice Moon Dungeon? No, these are even stronger if they can combine their power like that! We have to finish them off quickly, we might be stronger and near immortal with Benladra, but the rest is still normal people even at Rank 4, they could be seriously damaged-"YAAAAH!"
Yuki suddenly jumped into action after the trio of slimes fired their first barrage, her claws grew larger and even more metallic, forming into blade-like claws, and she used them to attack the slimes! She infused her powerful icy aura and enhanced her body for maximum speed as well! The Slimes, however, took some damage and then retreated together, evading some of her blows, that really impressed me.
"BUUUB!"
The slime suddenly and angrily roared, the magic it was charging was unleashed, as a massive barrage of arrow-shaped elemental attacks of ice, fire, and wind began to reach Yuki in an instant! However, Yuki smiled, moving incredibly fast across the corridor and swiftly evading the magical attacks, and then, she unleashed her magic, as a several icicle spikes began to emerge from the ground and reached the slime, crushing it!
CRAAASH!
"BUUUBBB…"
POOF!The slime exploded into a puddle of slimy liquid, with three different-colored cores floating over the pond of colorful slime, Yuki ended killing it with a lethal ice spike made of magic, she had gotten pretty good at her magic, I have to admit it.
"Hehe, that was pretty good, I felt the thrill a little bit, this is not bad, I like it if you made it a bit harder." Said Yuki. "I think this one trio was stronger than any monster I fought in your dungeon… Maybe is it because they're more intelligent?" She wondered.
"Intelligent? Maybe…" I said.
Right, intelligence, something that I had mostly not cared for in the dungeons I own, so most of the monsters are very savage and lack planning or tactics, they can't even evade well, so when they get intimidated, they roar back and fight, but this slime evaded, planned a strategy, conjured advanced magic spells, and even was able to think quite deeply. I suppose monster intelligence is what makes some monsters more lethal than others.
"Nicely done, but that could had been a Benladra kill!" Said Benladann.
"Babah! Kwill!" Said Benladra angrily.
"Hahaha! Sorry, my bad, I'll let you have the next one." Said Yuki while petting Benladra's head.
"Oway!" Said Benladra, saying "Okay".
"Well that slime was stronger than I thought." Said Pekora.
"Yeah, I've never seen a slime conjure that sort of powerful magic…" Said Rakasha.
"Quite interesting indeed! This means that we'll encounter even more of these guys, I bet they give nice high quality materials that cost a lot and are valuable, hehe." Laughed Miranda, as she began to get greedier by the second.
"You're the greediest, aren't you?" Said Belle walking at her side.
"I-I am not greedy, just interested in our funds!" Said Miranda.
I quickly decided to collect the item with a mere thought, as the slime liquid and the three cores were transferred inside my inventory in a single second, everybody watched that and wondered what the heck just happened there, so I had to explain to them that I had such a new ability, it was hard, but after they had seen me done all sorts of crazy things, they ended accepting it as another "crazy thing only I can do" and decided to lave the topic aside.
Every floor had several rooms, so we explored the other rooms, and in one of them we suddenly encountered what seemed to be a skeleton! Yeah, there was a skeleton there, it was rather tall, perhaps that of a giant? I couldn't find any soul around, so it was just the skeleton alone wearing some armor and with a bag of money at the side, he probably got eaten by a slime.
"I think he got eaten by a slime, I read that they consume their prey by dissolving them completely until only their bones and equipment is left." I said, I quickly went to pick it up and it easily moved to my Inventory, I guess anything that is within range of being "picked" can be put inside the inventory, isn't this ability way too overpowered? It could even be used for insane strategies in battle, although it has a range of around ten meters, not bad though, of course, it consumes tens of thousands of mana, but that's no problem for someone that can regenerate mana so easily and quickly such as me! Heh.
"Did you seriously just picked up the skeleton as a loot?" Asked Pekora.
"Yes, finders' keepers." I said.
