I had been in the dungeon for nearly a week by the time we reach the tenth floor. I had gained numerous levels. White Mage was now twenty, Hero was fourteen, and both Slave Master and True Dungeon Diver had made their way to ten.
I earned several skills of interest. True Dungeon Diver brought me Resist Hunger, Reduce Fatigue, and Detect Trap. Detect trap was pretty self-explanatory. I hadn't run into any traps so far though, so it seemed useless. Hero offered another unknown skill I had already gotten. It seemed like the more jobs and levels I got, the more duplicates I ran into. Since most people only had one job in their entire lives, it looked like redundancy was common.
White Mage got me Group Heal Plus… a presumably larger and more powerful version of Group Heal. As for Slave Master, it had the most interesting skill. It had Steal Slave Life, a skill I did not plan to ever use, and Cap Slave, which I assume meant you could forcibly stop a slave from earning experience. The ability of most interest was actually Duplicate Slave Skill. If I understood what it meant correctly, this was a skill that would allow me to imitate the skills my slaves had. At the moment, Miki was the only girl officially registered as my slave. Spirit Fire was a trait I couldn't replicate, unfortunately. I'd have to pay attention to what other spiritualists skills she got and see if I could replicate them.
"This leads down to the tenth floor," Celeste said, stopping at a door.
"Is that so?" I asked, pushing it open and revealing a library.
The library was on the ninth floor, not the tenth floor. Why was… oh, right… At the end of the library, my eyes fell on a staircase that ran down to the tenth floor.
"I thought you said this dungeon was thirty floors," I said.
"Eh? Thirty?" Celeste scratched her head in confusion.
That wasn't true. Celeste had said there were five more libraries. I assumed that meant thirty floors, so what would a… that's right, I forgot. Every five floors was a miniboss, every tenth floor was the main boss. I noticed Celeste looking at the stairs uncomfortably.
"What's the boss down there like?" I asked.
Celeste blinked and looked back at me. "M-mean…"
"Hah… can you defeat him?"
Celeste shrugged. "I've never tried."
"Let's take a break before we go the rest of the way," I said.
This looked like we were going to fight the next big fight. The guy on the 5th floor had already been really tough. That wither had nearly killed us. Now, we had to fight something much tougher. I could put off that moment a little bit, although I admitted I was starting to miss Lydia and Miki a whole lot. I wondered how they were doing without me. I wasn't too worried, as the townfolk would take care of them. They'd put their prejudices aside and were generally good people.
I registered with the teleport kiosk and then went about starting a fire. Soon, I had something tasty cooking in a pot, and Celeste was staring at it with a drooling mouth. I poured her and myself a bowl and sat, taking a break. We ate in relative silence. Despite appearances, Celeste wasn't usually that chatty. Having had no one to speak to for 20 years, that'd do that to you.
After finishing my meal, I leaned back and closed my eyes. A little nap before the fight would be good. Suddenly, a large form landed right on my stomach. My eyes opened as I gasp, sitting up straight. Celeste had her hands on her hips and was standing on me, giving me her best glare.
"What is it?" I asked.
"No sleeping! You haven't told me the story yet!"
I turned and glanced at the mosaic. Oh yeah, thoughts of the boss below had caused me to completely forget about the lore. I supposed it was time to reveal one more piece of the puzzle.