Conquering the Water Palace I

"Here are my masterpieces!" Nox exclaimed with pride.

As a goddess of smithing and one of the most skilled smiths in Orario, if not the best, hephaestus and Tsubaki immediately realized the quality of the pieces before them and it truly surprised them to see how far Nox had come.

Based on first impressions, these would beyond doubt grabe between second and first class weapons, pending more towards the later.

'It's strange though, Nox brought these with the confidence that he had surpassed me but this is not nearly enough." Tsubaki thought.

But then, she looked at her goddess' dumbfounded look and analyzed the weapons more closely. Soon she realized just what had shocked Hephaestus so much and now, Tsubaki was even worse off than her.

"Magic Weapons . . . But, not exactly either . . . What are these?" Shwe thought with wonder.

Hephaestus however, with her divine skill could instantly realized the capabilities of each weapon and thus knew exactly how amazing what Nox had accomplished was

She turned towards him with a question.

"Did you just create an entirely different type of weapon?"

"Yes I did! Awesome, right?" Nox said smugly.

He then proceeded to explain all of the features of each weapon as well as their names before asking.

"So . . . What do you two think?"

Tsubaki was the first to answer.

"I think I now owe you your promised reward . . ." She said in a daze.

"Hehehehe~" Nox just laughed perversely, actually managing to make Tsubaki blush a little.

"What about you Hephaestus~?" He teasingly asked.

The goddess just froze in place with an obvious blush.

"I-I won't go b-back on my w-word, if t-that's w-what y-you're asking!" She stutteringly said.

"Oh I know! And I'll be sure to come by and collect on both of my rewards when I have the time so better be prepared~" Nox teasingly said to the two mature beauties.

Recovering her boisterous demeanour, Tsubaki answered.

"Hahaha! I'll be looking forward to it then!"

After a little more chit chat, the group left the Hephaestus familia's home and went to the dungeon.

From now on, Nox would start his push for Level 3 and, if all went well, he would get there this month. The girls would use their enhanced magic and powerful equipment for some high intensity training in the middle floors.

With all the emergency magic scrolls and countermeasures Nox prepared, they should be safe enough and perfectly capable of taking advantage of the environment to rapidly accumulate Exilia.

Their base of operations would be the safehouse on the 18th floor and Nox would kill the Goliath on the way down if it hasn't already been defeated by someone.

Meanwhile, Nox would try and fight the more powerful monsters of the Water Palace section of the Dungeon to rack up Exilia and materials.

'Alright, let's set up some task to accomplish in this Dungeon dive.' Nox said in his mind.

'First, as a little warm up I'll hunt some targets that, while strong, are incapable of harming me but still possess drop items I want like Light Quartzs and Iguazus.'

'Then I'll move on to Kelpies until i get comfortable killing them, then I'll try a Voltimeria or two as a last preparation before challenging the Monster Rex of the Water palace, Amphisbaena.'

Deciding on this, Nox quickly moved through the floors while ignoring the monsters, heading straight to the Water Palace. Cleaning up some warp up monsters on the way, he headed towards the safehouse managed by his Mermaid Xenos, Marie.

Until he figured his accumulation was good enough to reach the peak of Level 2, this would b his home. After that was achieved, Nox would return to the surface in order to have his status updated before going back down and killing the Amphisbaena for the level up.

After greeting Marie, Nox set out into the water, his Invictus Undine covering his body and making it so that the fact he was underwater became an advantage rather than demerit.

With his Prometheus strapped to his back a a standard high quality sword with no magical abilities in his hand, Nox went on the prowl for prey.

Swiftly disposing of the occasional Raider Fishes that crossed his path, Nox used his Spirit Pulse to look for the Kelpies that would be his opponent.

Soon, his first target was detected. A Kelpie is a blue colored, horse like marine monster with fins for legs that "runs" in water like a normal horse would on land. It was considered one of the more formidable monsters in the Water Palace too.

Unfortunately for it, that reputation was due to its great maneuverability underwater and the Invictus Undine clad Nox could easily maneuver just as well and even hamper the poor beast somewhat.

As the Kelpie charged at him with blinding swimming speed, Nox gracefully dodged like a dancing water spirit while grasping the timing of the beast's attacks.

It tried to futilely use its fins to produce water attacks but with the power of the Undine, Nox could easily dispel them and even send out his own in return. Unfortunately, just like how he could easily deal with such attacks, so could the Kelpie.

But, as soon as he felt comfortable with the maneuvers and speed of the monster, Nox slipped its charge by a few inches while holding his sword out to the side and performing a drawing cut, slashing the Kelpie completely open.

'Hmm . . . I think I've got a handle on these . . . I'll try this strategy on a couple more specimens and if it goes just as well, I'll move on to my next prey.' Nox decided before looking for more victims.

Just as expected, dealing with Kelpies no longer posed any challenge.

'This is why dealing with monsters is easy . . . Once you figure out their moves, their low intelligence and simplistic attacks make them easy prey, which is precisely why one must constantly seek difference and stronger monsters.' Nox thought.

'Although . . . If I remember correctly, there should be Spartoi deeper in the Dungeon that possess actual skill and fighting styles similar to adventurers. Even the beasts become for formidable, not just in the way of raw power but in their ability to use it as well . . .'

'But there is another way to get a challenge without needing to go deeper into the dungeon. I can just pick fights with powerful adventurers." Nox deviously considered.

'Just something to think about later. For now, Let's see if I can find a Voltimeria to play with . . .'

It was quite a rare monster so it actually took Nox a bit of time to find one. It was a fish monster between 1 to 2 meters in length with stone scales and eight fin like organs as well and a single eye on its forehead.

It was even faster than a Kelpie with superior maneuverability, not only that, it was also much stronger with its fangs able to easily pierce high quality armor and its stone scales providing it with phenomenal defensive abilities.

As the battle started, Nox immediately faced some pressure. Inside the water, a lot of his favorite long range attacks couldn't be used and his water based ones were quite useless against the fellow before him so he had to go for close combat.

Nox wanted to use a similar strategy to the one he enacted when fighting Kelpies but was unsuccessful.

The greater speed and numerous fins that allowed for quick turns made its charges much harder to avoid and they way it pierced through the water made disrupting its movements using water magic quite ineffective.

In the end, Nox who was already using Invictus on full blast, also activated the power of his Sanguinare Vampiris curse to further up his abilities and finally obtained enough speed to comfortably dodge the monster.

Now, all he had to do, was figure out its timing and cut it open after slipping one of its charging attacks, just like he had done with the Kelpies.

The plan was good, but reality was cruel. Nox got the attack out just fine but the Voltimeria's stone scales made the amount of damage pitiful.

'If I wasn't forced to keep using my Invictus Undine, I could just switch to one with more attack power to deal with this . . .' Nox complained.

In the end, he decided to use a Blood Art. Which was the name he gave to the magic like moves he developed to use the Blood Pool his vampiric type curse gave him.

'Blood Edge'

With the Blood Art enchant on his blade, Nox was finally able to slash open the damned fish but he was left thinking.

'I probably shouldn't have made a fire based weapon for myself when my current main battlefield is underwater . . . Really . . . What the fuck was I thinking when I made that decision!?'

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