บท 30: White Polan's Lair
A few minutes later, as the trio were resting or rather waiting, Alfred suddenly spoke.
"Master, I see the bird you mentioned."
Almond sprung up on his feet, "Where?"
Alfred quickly pinpointed it, and the group began moving again, following the bird.
The clues led them to this area. Particularly the direction the feather pointed when they discovered it.
Based on that, Lily and Almond deduced that the bird would appear around this area of Snow Almond Grove.
After following it for twenty minutes, it led them on a zigzag path upward, and they finally arrived at a tall grass area with a mud pond.
The bird flew towards the mud pond and suddenly dived down.
"Damn, so it's under that?" Natalia's face scrumped. "Guess we'll have to get muddy."
But the special area was worth it because defeating the boss there would give them a random Rare-grade item.
The important thing was that Rare-grade items found inside the first floor would be valuable forever, as long as the Labyrinth existed.
Because Rare-grade items crafted outside or gained from 2nd or other floors couldn't be brought into the First Floor.
Selling these 1st Floor Rare-grade items would fetch a high price because it could tremendously help newbie Adventurers on the First Floor!
"Alfred, you go first and find the passage so that we can quickly dive and reach there," Almond said with a wry smile.
"Got it," Alfred seemed to smile and dived into the pond.
A minute later, Almond got Magic Whisper from Alfred, "Found it. I've created a Mana trail to the passage for you to follow."
"Thanks, Alfred."
The trio could see a string of Mana coming out of the pond.
They jumped in and quickly followed the string of mana through the darkness of the mud below.
Lily and Almond could tear through the mud and go smoothly thanks to Physical Enchantment. Both of them held Natalia's hand and pulled her with them since she couldn't travel inside on her own without Physical Enchantment.
Without Physical Enchantment, a group must have one or two warrior-role Adventurers to even enter and lead their group to the passage with their class skills since warrior-based classes usually had at least one strengthening skill.
Of course, other skills could also work since there were a myriad of classes and class skills.
…
A minute later, the trio finally entered a passage and met with Alfred before resuming their journey after cleaning up with water from a water bag.
"Let's go straight for monsters at silver level five and above," Lily said. "No need to waste time on silver level one to four monsters."
"Yep," Almond nodded.
"If I remember correctly, White Polan have those strange white snakes and white lynxes, right?" Natalia spoke as the group arrived at a big cavern with white trees and white fog covering it all.
The group stopped at the passage's end and didn't enter the cavern.
"This area should have monsters between silver level one to five," Almond said as he grabbed his sword. "I'll scan the location, and we'll make a beeline straight towards that passage at the end."
Sixty-five meters away was a passage leading to the next cavern.
"Alright, let's do this," Lily nodded and carried Natalia in her arms. "It'll be faster if I carry you."
Almond nodded as he consumed 50 Mana and used the Preying Sense of the sword, locating all the monsters fifty meters in front of him.
"The last fifteen meters will be unknown, so I will take the lead and deal with monsters that jump on us but won't stop our speed. We'll be able to fight better inside the passage even if some monsters follow us."
"Alfred, you will run behind Lily and Natalia so you can act if some monsters attack from behind after we pass them."
"Understood."
"Let's go," Almond said and dashed, Lily and Natalia right on his tail and Alfred behind them.
Since he knew where all the monsters were hidden in this fog-covered tall-grass area, he knew what to do.
Crossing ten meters, Almond said with Magic Whisper, "Jump high. Cross six meters at once."
Almond was two meters ahead of Lily and Natalia, so it was enough. He jumped and crossed six meters, skipping over a bunch of White Polan Snakes and Tigers that were on the right and left.
Lily also jumped, powering her legs as she crossed seven meters and resumed running with a two-meter distance between her and Almond.
"Tigers on our ass," Natalia said as she spotted two Tigers pouncing behind Lily.
They were already alerted when Almond jumped, so when Lily jumped, they decided to attack her.
Unfortunately for them, Alfred was right behind as his fiery sword slash cut both of them and tailed behind Lily before smiling at Natalia, who was looking back over Lily's shoulder.
Alfred had learned to use Flame Manipulation to empower his sword, effectively creating a technique—Flame Elemental Aura—on his sword, coating it with a fiery layer that increased his attack's lethality to a notch above.
The group continued behind Almond as he bypassed all the monsters, but the last fifteen meters were unknown.
"Lily, let's jump with our full power. We can cross fifteen meters easily with Physical Enchantment."
"Good idea. Better to do that than to rush through."
Almond's legs pumped as he arrived at the mark, consuming Mana and empowering his legs further as he jumped long.
He crossed over fifteen meters and directly arrived at the solid stone ground in front of the passage.
Turning around, he saw Lily and Natalia coming as well, but their balance shifted due to double weight.
Lily blinked as she saw Almond looking at them and let go of Natalia with a slight arm motion towards him.
Natalia's mouth was open, tongue out, and face shocked while forced to the side as her angel had changed mid-air. It was a funny scene as she didn't expect to be thrown at such height and speed.
But Almond quickly acted and caught her while Lily also landed safely.
Alfred arrived right behind, bringing five White Polan Tigers and Snakes.
The group entered the passage fast as the monsters followed.
But since the space was small inside, the monsters couldn't fight properly, and their main weapon, the specialty of monsters here—White Polan Poison, couldn't work that much.
White Polan Poison was dangerous because it could make someone paralyzed and also sleep, making their consciousness wobbly.
Paralyse could only stop the body, but not the applications of Mana or the usage of skills.
But Sleep affected the mind, so it was hard to use Mana techniques or skills.
White Polem monsters all had this poison as their main attribute, so most of their attacks were infused with this poison.
However, inside the passage, they couldn't move freely to attack, and they weren't intelligent enough to make a formation.
The group killed Silver-level 4 and 5 White Polan Tigers and Snakes easily without getting hit.
Lily was close to silver-level 6, at 97% while Alfred and Natalia were halfway to silver-level 6 after the battle.
"We got a drop!" Natalia exclaimed. "That's our first drop from normal monsters!"
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