After a 6 hour rest Yunan roused the party for some more food, and then led the party on its way to the rhino boss room, the journey was 4 hours long because of the geography of the floor, again, the whole party did not get enough time to even check out the boss properly before it was dispatched in a lightning shower.
Yunan did not stop to rest after the 4 hour journey, mainly because he was anticipating how to deal with the rat floor because running at high speed there is just impossible with these teammates, and so once they descended to the 23 floor Yunan walked at a brisk pace to allow his teammates to regenerate their stamina, and last as long as possible.
Wading through the wave after wave of hip high stacks of rats, the party was visibly shaken at the fact they stood in the middle of the same mana storm that is killing the endless horde, the maelstrom Yunan was using was just the elemental one, he did not add in his other area of effect spells simply because it was inconceivable for the usual adventurer who doesn't have optimal mana control nor can they draw upon the full power of their best attributes.
At this slow cruising speed, the party started getting to relax and chat together, and slowly made Yunan the center of the party instead of the head, however they still did not include Yunan in their conversations mainly because they thought he was under extreme focus trying to keep both the buff and the maelstrom running at the same time, and what they feared most was a lapse in judgement that could lead to Yunan lose control over the maelstrom and end up killing them along with everything else.
The party could not be faulted for thinking so, Yunan had slowed down the speed of travel, did not rest, and they could not see his relaxed and bored face under the helmet. Therefore it was not strange for them to keep to themselves and try not to disturb the man who had their fate in his hands.
" I have wings too" the words startled everyone in the vicinity, thinking the man was going crazy. Yunan was talking to a particularly curious feline looking girl who seemed to be fighting her own desires to touch Yunan's tail, so he brought it closer to her to inspect. The girl had steam rising from her ears as she placed her hands on the metallic tail and felt it carefully. Her friends beside her were about to grab her by ears and pull her away but they saw that Yunan did not even mind her so they themselves took a closer look.
"Is it real?" One of the girls asked subconsciously. "Its as real as your own, except for that it only exists as part of the armor, and only then i can use it" Yunan's answer got their eyes sparkling. There was very little armor with a working tail, let alone one that can respond to the user, however they soon found something more interesting, Yunan was not in any kind of stress from his voice, it was the same voice he used when they first met, and the girls as casters were curious about how he could pull it off.
The first one to start talking to Yunan was the curious feline was was now tracing the edges of the armor with her finger, it felt good to touch the cool and supple scales, " is your tail sensitive like ours?", "Cough, would it help if I said this armor feels like another skin, you are basically tracing your fingers on my bare skin" the girls immediately took their hands off of him. Touching the tail of another in the beast tribes was a very intimate action, and they thought Yunan could only control the tail and not feel it. Yunan chuckled at their reaction and said " you can keep touching it of you want, i know it feels good to do so, its materials were the best dwarven treasures that were collected from bygone eras"
"You got a dwarven master to make this for you?" There was silence in the party, every ear was perked to Yunan's answer. "Technically i got the best mortal smith to forge it for me, he is the a disciple of the heart of the mountain, so we got to use her private forge and treasure, i was so lucky". "You seriously met the heart of the mountain?" Asked someone on the edge of the party. "Yes" answered Yunan nonchalantly " I met all the four hearts once, they had a meeting when i was training under the lonely mountain".
"Whoa~" was the only answer to hearing someone meeting a legend, and even claiming to meet with their own god king. The conversation however shifted again because the cat-girl stroking the shoulder pads of Yunan asked a question that in turn blocked the questions they wanted to ask about their own heart of the beast. "How can you keep spending so much mana and not even sweat it, and you don't seem to be too focused on keeping us alive in this storm you are using to clear the way"
"Easy, i don't control the spell, and i have mana drain trained to the highest perfection. Simply put, my area of effect spells only require the range of activation, the mana required and an answer to friend or foe, anything i consider friend can benefit from all my buffs and is immune to all harmful spells and plagues and poison created by me, those i consider neutral are not affected by my spells, and those who i deem foes are targeted by all harmful effects i release and immune to my buffs, as for way i can keep using so much mana, well i have a unique mana drain spell that refills my mana as long as there are foes in range" it felt good to brag about one's strength to an adoring crowd.