Mike gave a nod before he asked the guild receptionist

"If these are lowest quality monster crystals does that mean that there are higher quality ones?"

The receptionist gave a nod

"Of course, the quality goes up every five floors, these sell for 25 apiece while the ones from the 5th floor and deeper sell for at least 50 so please keep on diving deeper if you think you are able"

"I see… Well then we"ll arrive at the 5th floor before the end of the month"

The receptionist gave a smile

"Please don"t push yourselves too hard, remember you only have one life"

"Sure"

Mike walked away from the counter with the 900 safely in his money pouch, making his way through the crowded guild he eventually arrived outside where the rest of the group waited

"So, how much did we earn?"

"900, but that will go up once we reach the 5ht floor"

"I see… Well then let"s reach the 5th floor as quickly as possible���

"Yeah"

The group made their way back home while buying some ingredients for dinner and some feed for Molly, Serina had her fill with carca.s.ses in the dungeon so she could last until tomorrow without feeling hungry, Mike made some calculations in his head and figured out that they used about 500 for food so the total earnings for today were only a mere 400

"Well at least it"s in the positive… We also kept the stone of pa.s.sage and that sells for 100 so I guess we earned 1000 today, not bad..."

The group returned to their new home and after eating they turned in for the night…

The next morning Mike decided not to use the stone of pa.s.sage and they entered the dungeon like they had the day before but unlike the day before they weren"t hara.s.sed by the other adventures as much, it looked like most of them had remembered what had happened yesterday and such they didn"t attract as much attention and could get to killing the goblins on the first floor faster, like yesterday they went without any lights, after a couple of hours they found the 2nd floor boss room and luckily for them there weren"t any other adventures in sight thus they entered the boss room without waiting this time, as the boss, a slightly taller ratman with five other ratmen glared at them Mike clapped Julie on the shoulder

"I leave them to you Julie"

Julie gave a nod before she covered her nose

"... Next time I would like a less smelly gift Mike"

With that complaint Julie slaughtered the ratmen without wasting any time and then Elina and Rebecca dug out the monster crystals and picked up the stone of pa.s.sage for the 2nd floor, then the group went down to the 3rd floor, on the 3rd floor a familiar foe greeted them, hobgoblins.

The hob"s proved little challenge for the group so after spending a few hours hunting them while exploring the 3rd floor the group decided to begin heading back and by the time they reached the entrance to the guild they had managed to collect 2 stones of pa.s.sage and 43 monster crystals, they didn"t receive a monster core today however, as usual Mike and Julie decided to hold onto the stones of pa.s.sage and sold the 43 monster crystals for a total of 1075, which combined with the two stones of pa.s.sage was a total of 1275

"A good increase from yesterday… But I really can"t see us earning much experience each since we have no need to use teamwork to kill the monsters and thus the experience only goes to one person on the low floors, hopefully that will be more important once we reach the deeper floors..."

Mike was satisfied with today"s work and was in a good mood so he praised his two servants as they walked home and even personally taught them some cooking while demonstrating, the two girls had never touched a kitchen before and he hoped that by teaching them how to cook he could sleep in on the days off with Julie some more, all in all his motivations were purely selfish, the two girls however were greatly thankful for being taught how to cook personally by their dear master...

The next morning the group left behind Serina at the house and took Molly with them to the dungeon, diving straight into the depths by following the same route they had taken yesterday past the 1st and 2nd floor defeating the boss on each floor on the way there before they once again started exploring the 3rd floor that was filled with hobgoblins, Molly however was ecstatic over this as she had been feed dry feed the last two days so she jumped on the hob"s without having to be told and ate them alive, after spending most of the day exploring the 3rd floor they managed to find their way to the boss room and were once again lucky that there weren"t any groups of adventures that were waiting on the boss in front of them, only the boss door was closed shut so a group had likely entered before they arrived there meaning they had to wait a little before they entered, when they entered they found a slightly taller and more muscular hobgoblin with five other hob"s, the pattern followed the previous floors

"Elina, Rebecca you"re up"

""Yes master!""

While Elina and Rebecca made short work of the hob"s Mike took out a stone of pa.s.sage for the first floor and played around with it in his hands before he gave a nod and spoke to Julie

"Let"s extend our trip today"

"What do you have in mind Mike?"

"Well, let"s use this one when we get tired, then we quickly kill the first floor boss for a new stone of pa.s.sage before we instead of going down return to the surface, what do you think?"

"... Sounds like a plan"

"Good, then let"s move on to the 4th floor"

Elina and Rebecca made short work of the hob"s and quickly dug out the monster crystals, but they were surprised when they found a monster core in one of the hob"s and quickly brought it to Mike

"Master, we found a monster core"

"Good job, then like last time Elina gets to use it"

"Thank you master"

Elina held the monster core and crushed it and for a moment she looked blankly out into s.p.a.ce before she suddenly muttered

"[Stone skin]..."

With that a portion of her skin turned grey giving the impression that it had turned to stone, then her face lit up with joy

"Master I got a new skill!"

"... Yeah I noticed, congratulations"

Elina kneeled down on the spot and spoke in a serious tone"Now I can serve you even better master, I am very happy master"

Mike could not see her expression because of her hair but a very dedicated smile was plastered on her face while a red light shone in her eyes, Mike patted her on the head a few times before he spoke

"Let"s move on"

Elian looked up, she had hidden away her smile and was back to her usual expressionless self

"Yes master"

The group moved onwards and on the 4th floor they found a new kind of monster, with the height about that of a hobgoblin it had black scales on its body that looked mostly human with rows of sharp teeth in its mouth and claws on its hands, this was a lesser lizardman, they were however little threat as its combat powers were about equal to a hobgoblin"s there were just more of them, which was good news for Mike and the rest of the group as it meant more experience and more monster crystals, the group moved through the 4th floor for a few hours before Mike"s internal clock said it was about to be evening and that it was time to head back

"Well then… How am I supposed to use this thing?"

Mike played around with the stone of pa.s.sage for the first floor in his hand a bit before he turned to Julie that gave a smile and spoke

"You have to push it into the wall"

"Okay..?"

Mike did as Julie said and walked over to the smooth gray stone wall and then lifted the stone of pa.s.sage up and pushed it onto the wall like Julie said, to his surprise, it entered the wall with a click, then the wall lit up and opened up, behind it a staircase formed that went upwards towards the surface

"... Neat"

"Don"t just stand there Mike, it"ll close up soon if we don"t hurry"

"Okay, then let"s go"

The group walked up the staircase for a while, thankfully it was big enough for Molly to use it too and so after a few minutes of walking the staircase ended at a familiar door, the first floor boss room door