Chapter 190 - 189 Into The Depths Of The Forest

With nearly all of the tunnel bees now dead Marcus went around and began the tedious task of picking up all of the magic cores, along with the valuable materials from the stronger tunnel bees.

It took Marcus quite some time even after he summoned an iron golem to help him pick up the cores.

When all was said and done Marcus had collected around one thousand cores when he finally gave up and decided to just leave the rest.

'It is not worth it. Most of these cores are not very high grade anyway and I already collected the cores from the captain level and higher bees along with their wings and stingers.'

Marcus then gave a perturbed glance towards his beast companion that had laid down after the battle, not helping in any way with the core collection.

With the best of the spoils collected Marcus finally told Roxene that it was time to go, and the little wolf pup got up and took a long stretch before walking over to Marcus.

However, on their way out they passed through another room that was filled with sweet honeycomb and after taking a quick taste, Marcus no longer feeling his fatigue from collecting all of the magic cores began slicing off massive chunks of honeycomb until he had filled up his item box.

Roxene looked at the smiling Marcus with ridicule since he was almost certainly going to have to throw out some of that honeycomb later since it was still only their first day in the dungeon.

Walking out of the hive, Marcus and Roxene jumped down and landed on the ground from a height of forty feet with no difficulty.

They then headed over to Lilia who began waving at Marcus, happy to see him again as she was beginning to get worried.

Rushing up to Lilia, Marcus said, "We cleaned out the hive and Roxene managed to easily dispatch the queen. Also, we found this incredibly delicious honeycomb which I made sure to bring back for you to try."

Pulling out a small piece of honeycomb, Marcus handed it over to Lilia and she looked at him with a confused expression.

Unlike Marcus who had the pleasure of trying honey back on Earth, very few people on Mirrion ever got to eat honey since obtaining it was quite the ordeal.

However, as much as Lilia had no idea why Marcus was raving about something he had gotten from inside the tunnel bee's hive, Lilia trusted him and plopped the piece of honey comb into her mouth.

Immediately the sweet flavor spread across Lilia's mouth, and she reflexively held her hand up to her cheek as she savored the taste.

Marcus smiled smugly seeing Lilia's expression and said, "Did you perhaps want some more, I managed to get quite a lot of it."

Lilia began furiously nodding her head and Marcus took out a plate and piled a much larger piece of honey comb onto it and passed it over.

Lilia quickly began digging in and the effect of the honey started to invigorate her as her stamina came back and was increased.

What Marcus did not know was that this honeycomb was one of the main ingredients for making high quality stamina recover potions, and even by itself had a limited effect.

"There is plenty, so slow down or you are going to choke." Marcus said as he handed Lilia a water bottle that she took a massive gulp from."

Unfortunately, their happy honey eating was soon interrupted as a different species of bear Marcus had not seen before lumbered out of the woods attracted by the battle and smell of honey.

This bear had a deep black color with the occasion red stripe going down it and was far larger than the scaled bear they fought earlier.

This bear was the size of a semi-truck and even made Blitz look small.

'Bloodlust Berserker Bear, level twenty-six. Well, it certainly is large but not much a threat to me, Blitz, or Roxene. To bad it is still far to strong for Lilia to take on.'

As Marcus appraised the massive bear that had just arrived, the creature in question began sniffing the air and its eye's soon locked onto Lilia who had the strongest smell of honey on her.

The bear then began to emit a blood chilling crimson aura and Lilia suddenly became overwhelmed by fear and even Marcus could feel a slight pressure on himself.

Alas, the bear directing its bloodlust at Lilia was the last mistake it ever made as a beam of light shot through its body and straight through its heart.

Its heart rupturing, the semi-truck sized bear collapsed onto the ground as blood gushed out of it and it soon succumbed to death.

With the oppressive pressure no longer suppressing her, Lilia looked at Marcus and thanked him before the two of the got to work cutting out the bear's magic core along with its teeth and claws.

However, Marcus was out of room in his item box so instead they stored it in Lilia's magic bag.

"Now I think we should get out of here. It will not be long before more beasts and monsters come here to investigate, and I think we are all a bit tired."

Marcus companions agreed and after traveling around and hour they set up camp under and outcropping of rocks that would give them some cover.

"Okay the rest of you get some sleep, I will keep watch while you rest."

Lilia and Marcus' beast companion readily took Marcus up on his offer as all of them had become quite worn out from the long day of fighting.

Luckily, Marcus had no need to sleep and could keep a vigilant watch as his companions slept.

…

Three more days quickly went by as Marcus and his companions continued to fight beasts and monster to get stronger.

During this time Marcus was mostly focused on getting Lilia stronger since she was the lowest level.

To do this Marcus would float around and search for suitable monsters and beasts close to Lilia's level and lure them back over to her.

This had been a pretty effective strategy and Lilia had just recently level up to level nineteen after days of mostly fighting.

Of course, she was not the only one to have leveled up as Blitz was now level thirty-one, and Roxene after what seemed like an eternity finally made it to level three.

Unfortunately, Marcus had still not been able to level up once, and he was pretty sure that unless he went deeper into the forest area to fight creatures at or above his level, it was going to take him far longer just to get one level higher.

'We still have three days left before we need to get back to our inn and pay for an extension on our room. And Lilia is starting to get a bit rundown after non stop fighting so she could use a break. Most of the beasts and monsters on the outskirts of the forest are in the upper teens in term of level with only the occasional outlier being above level twenty. If I leave Blitz with Lilia, she will probably be fine, and it will be some good experience for her to get by without me.'

Having made up his mind Marcus walked over to Lilia who was currently sitting down and recovering and said, "Lilia let's talk for a moment."

Lilia hearing the seriousness in Marcus' tone turned towards him and awaited what he wanted to talk about.

"I think it is time for you to get some experience without me around, and I have also hit a bottleneck fighting the enemies of this level and the experience I gain is negligible. So, I am going to head deeper in to the woods along with Roxene who is in a similar boat and find stronger opponents. We have three days left before we need to head back and it looks like you could use a break anyways. So, I will leave you with Blitz for protection and you can do what you want, just try not to get into any trouble while I am away. Though if you are really against this idea, I will stick around with you."

After giving his spiel Marcus waited for Lilia's response as she was deep in thought about what to do.

A part of her really did not want to be left alone, but she also did not want to shackle Marcus down since this trip's main purpose had been for him to get stronger before the kingdom's tournament.

Coming to a decision, Lilia smiled at Marcus and said, "Go ahead and go, you are right about me needing to try fighting on my own, otherwise I will get too reliant on you."

Nodding his head Marcus thanked Lilia for her understanding and pulled out a bottle from his item box.

He had been holding onto this item for a while now and figured now was the time to give it to Lilia.

Lilia for her part recognized the bottle since Marcus had given her one before.

"Here you go Lilia, this is the last stat boosting potion I have and now that you have leveled up there should not be any problem with you drinking it. And do not worry about me it would be useless for me now anyway."

With the bottle full of multi colored liquid in her hands, Lilia gave Marcus a big hug before opening the bottle and drinking the contents inside.

Like before a soft glow enveloped Lilia and after using his appraisal skill Marcus confirmed that all of her stats had gone up by ten.

"Okay now if you need me to come back early just have Blitz seen me a distress signal through our connection and I will come running. Otherwise let us meet back up at the forest area's entrance in three days"

After saying their goodbyes Marcus and Roxene headed deeper into he woods, leaving Lilia and Blitz for the next few days.