At the same moment in Delp's capital, Constantos, the news of Oscar's failure had already been known to the highest echelon of the kingdom for a day. In a certain room of the royal palace, 2 men were very nervous "How come she escaped your watch ??"
"You know the miss ... she tricked me ! Right now we should focus on finding her or our heads will roll by the end of the day." "You are right, where would she go ?" "I still don't know but for now let's seek in the capital."
On this last sentence the 2 men disappeared at an unbelievable speed. A funny thing would be that they were so nervous and hurried that they didn't notice a paper on the pillow, a paper on which was written informations that could have helped them finding this miss.
This same miss was currently outside Constantos, after hearing of Oscar's failed operation she decided to seek something which could help her nation.
She knew that what Oscar should have brought back was extremely valuable and it would help them fight off Kartelion and maybe even allow them to get their place as the most powerful kingdom. However they swear that unlike Kartelion they wouldn't oppress the other kingdom.
'My father had betted everything on this mission, I hope that I will find something which could replace what they should have brought in those legendary ruins.' This miss had long blonde hair, magnificient green eyes and was currently breathing heavily.
She was a peak rank 2 cultivator and she just finished a hard fight against a bunch of lightning hounds, light wounds covered her body and there was even some heavier ones but overall she was alright.
'This one was a hard fight I should rest before continuing to explore those ruins.' She found a safe spot and took a rest, she decided to take the burden of her whole kingdom on her shoulders, hoping to find an artifact or something that would help them.
Back on Zach, what he had just found was a pretty rare plant, it main use was in improving the physical cultivation but it had a pecularity that made this plant priceless in Zach's eyes.
This pecularity was none other than the void affinity, one could see the enormous benefit someone with the fire affinity would get if they consumed a body improving plant with fire attribute.
It was the same thing but the void was affinity was so scarce in the people that it could be called inexistant and the one with would never go far without a good method which would be non-existent in lower worlds and in the higher world only few existed.
Usually the rarer something was the more valuable it was, and for the void affinity it was indeed the case. It was very valuable and powerful, however it has its drawbacks, it prevented the one who had it to have another affinity and without a very good method it would only put the one having it in the top 15 % of the same cultivation level.
But with the right method like the one Zach had gotten one would become unparalleled in the same cultivation level.
He had gotten information about this plant along the first part of the method, it didn't include all the things with the void affinity that would help him but only the one which had the greatest effect.
'Now that I have this plant I will be able to improve my physical cultivation, however this will need to wait after this dungeon, it's too dangerous to do it here even if I had what was needed.'
Zach carefully plucked the plant, he then immediately put it in his shadow. Just to be sure he decided to check if there was something more although what he got was alone a treasure so it was more a wishful thinking. As expected after searching the area for 10 minutes, he found nothing more.
Though he now had to find something else, the stairs, and he didn't have the slightest idea of where it could be.
'This was where the big bat was so there is no reason that the stairs aren't near.' Zach was thinking about where the stairs could be. He searched the area again but this time he was seeking the stairs but in the end he found nothing.
He decided to go at the complete opposite of the cave to search those damn stairs, after a few minutes he reached the other end of the cave and started searching for it. 'Where could this damn stairs could be ???' Zach was about to go mad when he finally saw a hole in the cave's wall and as expected when he went to see it was the stairs.
'Now that I think about it, if I went left when I was looking for the stairs the first time, I would have found it but I would have lost something even more precious.' Zach could not consume it like that otherwise he would waste a good part of its efficiency.
He would need to wait and infused it with some others herb in water in which he would bath in, like this he would get almost all the potency of this flower and have big effects. Unfortunately he didn't have the other herbs needed on him so it would wait for after exiting this dungeon.
He descended the stairs and ended in another room, this time he ended in what seemed to be a forest, however this forest was a bit odd. All the trees in this forest were blue in color, the grass was yellow and some plants were illuminating just enough of this forest for Zach to see where he could put his feet.
For the second floor, at first Zach believed that it was easier but after his small encounter with the mid rank 1 bat he quickly understood that it wasn't easier.
'This time, I will be even more careful when exploring this floor, I don't want another surprise.' Zach carefully went deeper in this forest and was paying attetion to everything inn his environment.
Suddenly something caught his eyes, at the foot of a tree the grass was no longer yellow but orange, when he was above this oddity even in this forest a powerful smell of iron invaded his nose.
'This is blood, it should have dried not too long ago. From what being it comes ? Could it be an internal conflict with the being on this floor or is there someone who went before me ?' Zach was confused because on the first 2 floors there wasn't any abnormalities.
He explored the vicinity of this pool of blood and indeed he found something, 25 meters away at the foot of another tree was the corpse which had lost a good part of its head, Zach wasn't certain but it seemed to be a tiger like beast.
'This injury was definitely done by someone and not another tiger.' He tried to absorb it souls but without surprise it had already disappeared, like Zach had thought it meant that it wasn't a fresh kill.
After thinking about how could the first 2 floors didn't have any clues of someone else being in this dungeon he finally came to a theory.
His theory was that this someone was just too fast for the snake of the first floor and in the second floor this someone should have spotted all the bats and didn't wake them up and didn't encounter the mid rank 1, finding the stairs on the first try.
He continued to explore this forest and he became less and less careful as he found more and more corpse of those tiger like beast and each time he could not absord their souls and it seemed like it took place about 2 days ago.
However after exploring this forest for an hour he finally stumbled on a living tiger like beast. 'Interesting, with this one I would be able to estimate how powerful was the one that took care of all the other one.' With his powerful soul Zach was certain that this tiger wouldn't pose him a death threat but he knew that it wouldn't be a walk in a park.
He prepared himself, he had already took out his scythe, he decided that he let his tiger attack him first. As he expected the tiger rushed on him but the thing he didn't expect was the speed at which it was running, Zach was still able to follow its movement with his eyes but he wasn't sure if he would be able to attain this speed in a fight.
However he was ready and when the tiger was about 2 meters in front of him it jumped, it was targetting his neck. He expected the tiger to do this so he reacted at the same instant the tiger barely took off the ground, Zach crouched and sliced his scythe forward.
When it saw that an expression of horror could be seen on the tiger but it was too late for it. A second later it was bisected from its head to its rear, each half landing behind Zach.
Zach heard the usual notfication and a smile could be seen on his face. 'I'm glad, I'm not drenched in its guts or blood, I don't want my body to smell for a week.'
Zach collected its soul and looked at the notification, it would tell him the exact level of this tiger.
[Ding ! Host has killed a peak rank 1 being + 350 EXP]
When Zach saw that it was a peak rank 1 being he felt dread. 'I don't want to imagine what I would have to go through if there wasn't someone who took care of most of them for me before. I hope it was just the most powerful one remaining.'
Even if Zach got this one easily, he already saw about 50 corpses of those tigers and even if all of them weren't at the peak rank 1 he would have gone through a lot of trouble to clear this floor. It wasn't the time to think about this, it was the time to find the stairs.