77 One-Star Dungeon

When he finally started to regain consciousness, all Greyson could feel was a hard, cold stone floor underneath him. Opening his eyes, all he could see was a dark blackness. Panicking for a moment, he quickly cast a simple light spell that lit up his surroundings. Now capable of seeing the stone tunnels around him, Greyson could let out a sigh of relief. At least his sight was still there. His entire body was still aching and he was not able to get up just yet. Touching his chest, he found Lucius lying there unconscious. Looking closely, the cat's originally luscious silver hair started to dull slightly. Placing his hand on his partner's body, Greyson used his light magic to check Lucius' condition. After checking the situation, Greyson realized his partner's blood force felt weak which was very important for magic beasts. However, it was only a matter of time before Lucius could wake up. He just needed to continue resting while his body recovers. Luckily, Lucius was still a young magic beast and using his bloodline was not very dangerous since his body would quickly recover.

Still confused on where he was and how he got here, Greyson deduced that Lucius must be responsible looking at his partner's condition. Since he still needed to recover, Greyson pushed all these thoughts to the back of his mind and started to meditate. Slowly, he recovered his mana stores while allowing his light element to travel through his body and heal him. The only problem was that wherever he was did not contain a lot of light element inside. His healing process was significantly slowed down by the scarceness of light element in these tunnels. After one week, he could sit up. After two weeks, he could stand up. After one month, he could finally move around. Due to Zephyr taking a powerful hit, Greyson's body took a lot of damage. Even after one month, his body was only 80% recovered. However, he felt that if he continued sitting in this same spot for any longer, he would be driven insane. Picking up Lucius and placing the cat on his shoulder, Greyson chose a direction and began walking. The tunnels continued for what seemed like forever, a never-ending scene of the cold stone tunnel walls. Trying his best to keep his wits about him, Greyson decided to one-sidedly complain to Lucius about everything so he could let out some frustration. This tunnel is cold, smells moldy, boring, and he feels like he is about to lose his mind. Maybe it made him look crazy, but it was a type of catharsis.

Step by step, he continued walking down the long tunnel. When he was tired, he would stop and begin meditating against the wall. Finally, he saw the end approaching that was better lit. An ecstatic expression spread across his face as he began running towards the exit. Once he entered the new area, his eyes took a minute to adjust to the light again. His eyes finally focused and he could see that he had entered an enormous room that was brightly lit by light mana stones. There were 3 exits all labeled differently on the other end of the entrance that Greyson came from. Turning around, he realized that the opening he just came from disappeared. Seeing that there was no way back, Greyson continued walking into the room. In the middle of the room was a large stone table with words carved into it.

"There is no turning back, the test has already begun. Choose your path wisely, as some will lead to prosperity and others to death." The minute he read the words, Greyson finally understood where he was currently. He had arrived at a dungeon! While he was studying with Elder Sweetbow, there were a lot of new things that he became aware of. One of these things was dungeons. Dungeons were mysterious creations usually left behind be extremely powerful magician emperors and some believed that the most amazing dungeons were left behind by the legendary elemental gods. They usually contained an inheritance or special magic tools, pills, and treasures. However, each discovered dungeon was ranked by star level. From one star to five stars. One-star dungeons were challenging for advanced level magicians, but rather simple for higher level magicians. Each star up the dungeon becomes challenging for the level above: two-star match with magister, three-star to great magister, etc. If an advanced level magician tries to go into a two star dungeon by themselves they will most likely die from the tests or escape severely injured. The prizes and inheritance usually reflect the star level which is why higher-level magicians do not even pay attention to lower level dungeons.

Fired up by the new challenge, Greyson decided to keep going through. Although he was not sure of the level of this dungeon, he still had to try his luck. Otherwise, if he left without trying, he would regret it later. Making up his mind, he looked up to the three entrances in front of him. Each one was labeled with a different color. Red, black, and green carved in large letters sat above each opening. His instinct was to believe that the colors represented different elements, as he knew that dungeons were mostly straightforward. Some of the higher-level dungeons did have tricky problems to solve depending on the creator. However, he did not know what the element labeling meant. Did it mean that fire element magicians should go through the red entrance or that they should avoid it? After a moment of contemplation, Greyson almost started laughing as he realized that he was taking this too seriously and missing the fact that these issues did not apply to him the same as other people. Even if the hallways were specifically made so that some element magicians suffer, he used seven elements so no matter which one he chooses he should be fine.

Staring at the three entrances, Greyson finally made his way towards the green door. After some consideration, he decided on this one because if going this way helps wind magicians then both he and Lucius could benefit. The tunnel this time was not long and after a couple minutes of walking he made his way into a valley. Fascinated, Greyson could not help but look around. Suddenly, it felt as though he were outdoors. The sky above was blue and the deep valley around made of rocks. The scene was very peaceful, but Greyson did not allow himself to easily walk through the valley without any precautions. Carefully observing, he sent a large rock flying through the valley. Arrays on the walls of the valley lit up and sent sharp waves of wind to slice apart the rock. Sweat dripping down his face, Greyson was glad he decided to first test out the valley. Instead of getting impatient, Greyson sat on the ground and continued throwing in boulder after boulder until his body finally tired out. After almost an entire day of observing, he started to understand the patterns of the wind attacks. Three more days of testing passed before he could finally get passed the first batch of arrays. Securing Lucius inside a makeshift pouch across his body, Greyson's eyes lit up with a pretty green glow as he activated Air Steps. Leaping through the air, Greyson gracefully dodged the multiple wind array attacks that sliced at him. Landing in the middle of the valley, Greyson stopped again because the arrays from this point on were different. Although he got through the earlier attacks it was not completely perfect as he had a couple of shallow cuts in multiple places. Sitting down, Greyson tried activating Heal only to realize that after healing his wounds, the light element mana could not be replenished. Only the wind element was present in this valley. It seems his earlier guess that the color represented the magicians who would have the advantage was correct. Any weak non-wind magicians could definitely die in this challenge since they could not replenish their mana unless they were wind element magicians and they could not turn around and leave after entering. After he finished meditating, Greyson began the same rock test. However, the difficulty went up for the second batch of arrays. Instead of separate wind blade attacks, the arrays formed large wind vortexes. This time it took Greyson around a week to figure out the patterns of the vortexes. They followed specific paths that only allowed for small openings. Even Greyson was worried about beginning until he had each spot memorized.

Finally ready, Greyson activated Air Steps once again. Triggering the arrays, Greyson jumped to one spot then continued to observe the vortexes spinning around. Waiting for the perfect moment, he jumped to the next spot. This continued for hours while slowly wearing down on Greyson's mental power. Right near the end, he got too impatient and jumped a little too early. His leg grazed against the wind which cut up his leg fairly deeply. Sharply inhaling, Greyson grit his teeth while waiting in the next opening. Two more jumps later, Greyson finally escaped the second batch of arrays. Tenderly placing his leg down, Greyson was forced to use up the last of his light element mana stores to heal his leg. The bleeding slowed and the cuts closed up. Looking up, Greyson could see the exit from this wind valley. It was the last third of the valley. If it was similar to before, Greyson knew that this array would probably go up in level compared to the earlier two. Meditating to recover, Greyson decided to sleep a little as well. This entire time in the dungeon, he kept meditating instead of sleeping. Advanced level magicians could go without sleep for a good amount of time, but in order to rest his mind, sleep was the best solution at this point.

Well-rested and healed, Greyson began the same test. Even he could not help but scowl at the results of his first test. Instead of blades and vortexes, multiple wind beasts formed. They could use the same attacks as the first two arrays, but they actually had intelligence to them. He was worried about the next parts of the test after this wind valley, so he did not use his other elements after running out of light element mana this entire time in case he needed certain spells later. He would have to fight these beasts with just the wind element which he was not used to at all. This time just the rock test would not work, he would have to fight with them in order to figure out their weaknesses. Preparing himself, he stepped into the array and faced off with the first wind beast. Roaring, the beast sent multiple wind blades towards Greyson. Easily dodging, Greyson brought out his bow and arrow and fired off multiple wind enhanced arrows. However, none of them hit as the beast was extremely quick. Furrowing his brows, Greyson retrieved his bow and arrow and instead pulled out Genesis. Long distance attacks gave the beast too much time to dodge. Activating Air Steps, Greyson burst into action and slashed down at the beast. Swing after swing, the wind beast continued dodging, however, Greyson's eyes soon lit up with understanding. The wind beasts were not capable of dodging up or down, they could only move side to side. Moving further away, Greyson held Genesis and slashed in a circular motion that sent a circular wind blade spreading out in every direction. The wind beast could no long dodge since it could not jump up to avoid, letting out a screech the beast dissipated. Understanding he beat the first one, Greyson moved on to the next wind beast array.

Fight after fight, he continued beating them all. Nearing the end, he had to fight many of them at once. Thankfully, they all had the same weakness that he continued to take advantage of. Making his way to the end of the valley, Greyson collapsed onto his butt while breathing heavily. Laying onto the ground, he stayed completely still and began to meditate to recover. For what felt like half a day, Greyson continued laying their and recovering his energy. This entire time, Lucius continued to sleep inside the makeshift pouch. At this point, he could only feel slightly resentful watching his peacefully sleeping friend, since he was pretty sure that it was due to Lucius that he suddenly entered a dungeon after a strong enemy attacked. At this point, he was extremely grateful for this opportunity since he was almost completely sure that this was a one-star dungeon. The fact that he could pass this stage of the test with relative ease was a good marker of the level. Therefore, he had a great chance at reaching the end and receiving some sort of special reward.

Opening his eyes, he got up and looked towards the exit. It was completely black so he had no way of knowing what to expect on the other side. However, he could not turn back at this point so he steeled his heart before firmly stepping into the doorway to the next part of the test.