"As you all have already been inford, the Fortress is a large pyramid. The investigative party we sent has confird that it has eight floors, and while each floor gets progressively smaller, even the smallest one is exponentially bigger than the floors of other Dungeons."
"Then, did the party go through the entire Dungeon?" Inquired Jaden in response.
"Yes, that’s right. Also, unlike the consistent terrain we generally find in Dungeons, every floor of the Fortress is a different terrain, and all of them are absolutely swarming with Monsters."
"And I’d say that isn’t even the worst part. The parties explored the floors as much as they could, and in each of the eight floors in the Fortress, Monsters with imnse power, beyond Calamity Level, were detected, one on each floor.
And as for the eight and final floor, a Monster with power beyond even that was detected, the Detector who sensed it lost consciousness in fear. Before that, they also detected dozens of Greater Demons and a number of Archdemons on that floor."
"So, what you’re saying is...there are seven Monsters on the level of the three we fought today, presumably the rest of the Sentinels, and then the Demon Lord, with a swarm of Demons to fight through to get to him," I surmised with a grimace.
"Yes, that seems to be the case."
"How are we supposed to fight our way through all that?" Spoke up Aarav quietly.
"I an, we really don’t have to. The Teleporter in the party that investigated the Fortress, couldn’t they just teleport all of us X-Aces to the top floor? That way, we don’t have to fight our way through the entire space," Chid in Aria.
"Oh, that’s a great idea. We can do the sa with the other Dungeons too!"
"Yeah, how did we not think of this sooner? Actually...why haven’t we done this the whole ti with Dungeons?"
"Well, Teleporters are quite rare, after all, especially high-ranked ones, so it wouldn’t be feasible for every Dungeon. That said, we could have saved a lot of ti and effort if we’d done this with higher threat Dungeons."
Huh, now that they ntion it, it seems like such an obvious solution, so why did no one think of it?
Teleporters at Q-Rank or above can freely teleport anywhere within a radius of five hundred ters, so they could teleport all the way to the Boss Room of a Dungeon in a about a couple of minutes, at most.
Long-Range Teleportation is exclusive to Aces. It allows them to teleport to any location they’ve been to before...however, there are only two Ace Teleporters in the world at the mont, Isla and an Ace from one of the other Sanctuaries.
Still, if we’d made use of that in Calamity Level raids, we could have conquered those Dungeons astronomically faster. We’d just need the Ace Teleporter to teleport through the Dungeon and upto the Boss Room, leave and then teleport the party straight there.
Hm...I suppose the fact that Teleporters are so rare might have inadvertently made the HUC apprehensive towards incorporating them into the standard practices, unconsciously.
"Okay, then...we might actually stand a chance of conquering the Dungeons within a week with this thod. We’ll be cutting it close, but it’s definitely in the realm of possibility."
"Maybe this is wishful thinking, but maybe all of the Dungeons will disappear if we kill the Demon Lord?" Suggested Iseul hopefully.
"It’d certainly be nice if it turned out to be that convenient. But we should proceed with the assumption that that isn’t the case."
"Yeah, better safe than sorry."
"Also, even if that does end up being that case, the Demon Lord isn’t going to be easy to defeat by any stretch of the imagination. The three Monsters today, they were a lot weaker than the Demon Lord, weren’t they?"
"Yeah, I’d say they had about a third of his power, more or less, assuming all three were around the sa level," I nodded in response.
We’ve got the info on Titan and Viscous saved in Appraisal, but since neither Aria or I saw the one called Sky, we can’t be sure if that one was on the sa level.
Based on the report from Jaden and Iseul, though, that does seem to be the case, it might have even been a bit more powerful than the other two.
"In that case, we’ll likely need all, or at least most, of the X-Aces to fight the Demon Lord at the sa ti, if we’re to defeat him."
"Yeah, I believe our best course of action is to conquer the Fortress, before a Stampede occurs. We have a month and change before it cos to that."
"What about the other Dungeons? At the very least, we need the X-Aces to conquer the Calamity Level ones."
"About that, uh...I’d like so ti to train. I sort of discovered a new technique that makes stronger during my battle against Sky, and I’d like to master it," Spoke up Jaden.
"Right, you ntioned that in your report, a self-destructive power boost...I suppose we will need more firepower, so you mastering such a technique could prove to be vital."
"Actually, um...I’m kinda in the sa boat," Added Aria sheepishly.
"Sa here," Remarked Iseul as she raised her hand.
"I could definitely use so extra training too," Chid in Aarav.
"I see...we can’t let all of you dedicate all your ti to training, we simply don’t have that luxury. At the very least, we’ll need you to participate in the Calamity Level raids."
"Kaivel Intrix, what of the newest X-Ace, Cleo Nova?"
"Huh? Wait, back up, there’s a new one?" Responded Jaden in surprise.
"In terms of power, she’s got an abundance of it. But she’s still seriously lacking in real battle experience, I’d say she isn’t yet ready to fight a Calamity Level Monster by herself, to say nothing of the Sentinels or the Demon Lord himself," I remarked with a shake of my head.
"I suppose that’s understandable, considering how new she is. Do you think you can train her up to that level in, say, a couple of weeks?"
"What, like a crash course by throwing her off in the deep end? Well, she’s a pretty fast learner, so...maybe that’d work? Letting her fight Critical Level, and a handful of Calamity Level, Dungeon Bosses could help accelerate her developnt.
It’s a risky idea that I wouldn’t suggest under normal circumstances, and as much as she herself would welco it, I’m not particularly keen on throwing her off the deep end like that.
But given the circumstances, we don’t really have the luxury of playing it safe...it’s worth considering, at the very least."
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