The actual dungeon itself as a whole is rather disappointing. It is basically just a series of warrens with lots of groups of hobgoblins in it. While it will be a good way to grind some money, it definitely isn't going to be a good grinding spot for raising stats. As they walk through it, water dripping on them from the stone ceiling, they encounter medium sized groups of hobgoblins here and there. It is definitely more efficient when it comes to earning a lot of crystals in a short amount of time, and Sen makes a note to run it a few times to get some money to buy Gale Steps.
Eventually, they reach the end of the maze like area, where an E ranked orc seemed to be just standing around waiting for them. It is pretty disappointing for Sen to have such a lifelike game spoiled by standard dungeon design, but he supposes people need a good grinding area. As the group squares up against the human sized, heavily muscled monster, they note that he is wielding a massive two handed axe.
As they go to engage it, Sen leads the charge, starting off with his strongest strike, empowered by all of his skills. Unfortunately, Sen's blow with all of his strength behind it barely manages to make the orc's arms budge a fraction of an inch, and Sen's eyes widen. He'd been expecting the boss to be strong, but this has to be at least D ranked strength. When the orc goes to return the blow, Sen notes that it isn't very fast, even a little slower than Sen himself.
Dodging the blow with a massive amount of weight behind it, as there is no way to block it, the rest of the group starts circling around the orc, getting in a few strikes, but only managing to cut an inch or so into its tough hide. The fight continues, with the orc using large, sweeping blows in order to push a couple of them off, but with its speed being so slow, it isn't able to catch anyone considering how telegraphed the blows are.
Eventually, they manage to put enough cuts in it that it collapses, and they now have an E ranked crystal. While its value is less than the many crystals they'd gotten from clearing the dungeon, its true value lies in how they can enhance their attributes with it. As the boss is slain, a teleport array appears, and they all step into the glowing lines, appearing at the entrance of the dungeon again. Sen wants to run it again, but for now, he's stuck with guard duty, guarding in case King decides to come back to try and fight over the dungeon.
Nothing happens during their guard shift, though a few groups of King members start to appear from the dungeon, and they are sent on their way without killing them. While chatting with the others, he learns from Tir that you can only run a particular dungeon every 15 hours. Once every group from Ares has done their dungeon run for the day, they decide to not bother controlling it, as the rewards aren't attractive enough to constantly have some of their few members acting as guards for it.
As they start to leave, they see quite a few groups of players coming, clearly having heard the news that the King guild had been taken out. As the unaligned player population starts to overwhelm the number of King guild players that had taken over the dungeon, everyone figures that King won't be able to wrest the dungeon back from the general population at this point.
The rest of the week is spent grinding in various forms, and Sen manages to complete more of his bone enhancing. Each time, he can feel the air slightly better, and he starts to use it to enhance his movement, increasing his movement by a very small, but still noticeable amount. Other than that, he buys Gale Steps, but is barely able to succeed in using it. Not only does he have to learn the energy pattern, which is far more complex than the ones for his other skills, comparable to the patterns he has to create in his bones, it also requires a special footwork to go with it, and by the time the second part of the tournament arrives, he is only able to use it about half the time.
On the bright side, Sen is able to get his his strength stat to D, and is horrified to learn that from D and on, the amount of crystals he needs to progress has doubled. Apparently, he's going to need to find a lot more monsters to farm. According to Tir, it doubles yet again at B and SS ranks, though at B rank, the restriction of reducing returns from the same monster crystals is removed. You can literally hunt a single type of monster to raise your stats at that point, though it will still take a lot of grinding.
As Sen and the others go to the arena in preparation, not sure if they'll be brought to the arena no matter where they are, they don't chat much, preparing their mental state for the coming tournament. As they arrive at the arena, they see that it is entirely flooded with people. Looking at the brackets, they see that the tournament has been subdivided into different regions yet again, as even with the precursor tournament, there are still nearly two million people globally who placed top two in the 1024 people brackets. For this region, there will be thirty nine different brackets, and then the next weekend's tournament will be fully global.
It isn't long until Sen, Xue, Lynna, and Julie are whisked off to the tournament. The first round for Sen is actually quite a disappointment, being significantly weaker than the man Sen had faced to get first in the precursor tournament. When he's done, he goes to spectate Lynna, and sees she's using her sword and shield, and slowly wearing down her opponent. Seeing as how there's likely not going to be any upset, he goes to spectate Julie's match.
The first thing he sees when he joins is a man waving a flaming sword around. He's not hitting Julie due to the illusion array, but when his sword impacts the ground after a particularly wild swing, it explodes in a wreath of flame. Sen stares, there's no way that's an E ranked skill. On the other hand, seeing as how his physical attributes are at a low E rank, he must have been pouring all of his crystals into energy.
The man continues waving his sword around, but Julie just uses her illusion to confuse the man, and he eventually runs out of energy. Seeing as how Julie's array runs off of energy crystals, there's no way the man can outlast her when it comes to energy. Sen shivers, he's really glad he's not in the same bracket as Julie.
By the time he's done spectating, Xue has finished her match as well. He thinks she won seeing as she doesn't say otherwise, but if she's happy about it, it doesn't show. Her face is more focused than cold at the moment, and Sen thinks the look fits her much better than her usual one.
The next round starts without fanfare, and Sen actually has to work for his victory, spending a good few minutes wearing down the sword and shield user, unlike many of the other rounds, where it will end in a second.