Two and a half weeks after Azotreh passed out, the slime in the training room finally began to move again.
Azotreh was bombarded with system messages. But more important than that, they felt a kind of pressure throughout their body. Energy pulsed and flared beneath their skin, attempting to break through and escape into the wider world. But it couldn't. Not without killing Azotreh.
[You have been afflicted with Progression Sickness. Allow yourself to break through to E-Grade to disable this condition.]
[Title: Survivor has increased your resistance to Progression Sickness.]
{The Black Ichor has revoked its task.}
But they didn't allow the energy to make the breakthrough. They first started checking through the other system messages. They had experienced pain before and suffered plenty of damage. Each time they gained an additional resistance, and resistances reduced the related damage type or pain. They had even gotten an additional title from pushing pain resistance high enough.
In their still gelatinous form, suddenly glowing with a kaleidoscope of color, they investigated the system messages.
In their humanoid form, they appeared as blue floating boxes in the air before their eyes. But for some reason, right now, the boxes appeared in their mind's eye instead of the empty air.
Plenty of skill advancement, which was confusing. The addition of a new ability altered by the Rainbow Dragon bloodline, followed by another strengthening of it.
[Scales of the Green Dragon - Rare Ability, Passive, Alteration/Defensive]
[Coat your body in green scales. These scales reduce poison and venom damage taken. Attacks from seeds, spores, and other plant-based or fungus-based material will be partially absorbed to regain Prana.]
[+1 Concentration to the Prana Poten per level.]
[Current Level: 9]
[Your Rainbow Dragon Bloodline has been strengthened.]
Preceded by a completion of their Records of Existence quest, and followed by more than thirty completions of their Raison D'être quest, which finally pushed their Black Dragon faction to level 11, granting them another perk choice and slightly more concentrated mana.
They'd also advanced several of their resistances, mostly poison and the invasive spores, but also fire resistance and a new sub-resistance, Ice-Flame. They pulled up Ruby's status through their bond to check, and were correct that it was one of her capabilities to use something called ice-flame.
Ruby was currently asleep, so they couldn't ask. But they would have to ask Atu and the orcs about it, assuming that at least one of them had seen light from the room. Light beyond the endlessly shifting rainbow now lighting up the room, that is.
[You have gained Progression Pain Resistance (0.01%)]
That was what they were looking for. Hopefully, the pain pressing against their body from the inside was just that. If it was also damage, they might be in trouble.
Their mana attunement had increased to 0.05%, and their astral attunement to 0.02%.
The astral infection they were suffering from had crossed their outer soul in its entirety. It was draining energy from their abilities, making them weaker.
Errazorrus was already beginning to gather the purple roots and drop them into the mouth that represented their devouring power. Instead of making Astrum, he decided to invest more in their astral attunement. Increasing the number was probably a good thing.
They communicated to Errazorrus to leave the vines around the Astral Bolt ability. Until they learned to control it better so it wouldn't obliterate half of a treeline, they wanted to have it weakened on purpose. It would hopefully offset the dense mana of the dungeon being used to create the ability.
They slowly reformed their regular body, taking a lot more effort than normal due to the pain attempting to burst them from within. The light continued to pulse from beneath their skin as they moved through the dungeon. No one was home right now, with Atu out being guided through the dungeon by the orcs, Anthei returning to her colony to assist against both the slime and spider threat, and Mukurric elsewhere.
Their tail dragged across the hard rock behind them. Azotreh had activated both Scales of the Black Dragon and Scales of the Green Dragon on the tail to make a spiral pattern. While they had slept, a lot of information had been transferred between minds. That included Errazorrus' suspicion about there possibly being sets of draconic abilities. If they could grab Scales of the White Dragon somehow, it would hopefully help in whatever Errazorrus wanted out of the ability sets.
They had no idea how to get the ability, though it must exist. They had two scales of different dragons, and an ability named for white dragons, so there must be a scales power for white dragons.
When they entered the core room, they found it clean and tidy. Ants crawled over several surfaces, and a new room sat adjacent to it. Through the door, they could see piles of various items, separated and organized. Stacks of alchemic coins, a large pile of various bones, stacks of pelts, and lined bags of teeth. Some bottles of varied liquids and several gems. There were also three faceted spheres of red crystal, fourteen smooth spheres of sky blue crystal, and the sphere of orange crystal they'd gotten from Viket.
They didn't think absorbing the class stone was a good idea yet, simply because of the pulsing energy attempting to escape. So they left that for later, along with the moved bookshelf.
Instead, once they entered the core room, they moved over to the giant beating heart on the wall and pressed one hand against it.
[You have overfilled your maximum potential. Your time in F+-Grade has allowed you to advance to a greater potential than before. Your F-Grade is now considered Perfected.]
[New Title: Perfect Grade.]
[Would you like to advance to E-Grade? Y/N]
Azotreh waited for any new notifications before accepting the notification.
[Excess potens have been converted into Concentration. All potens have had their concentration increased by 2.1%]
Azotreh's body and the massive core before them lit up a bright yellow. Their eyes went blind as thick black sludge was ejected from their body.
[You have been purified. Your aspects are now your own.]
[Astral Infection not cleared.]
Viket and Hadruga had spent most of the last week and a half meeting up each day to discuss details of their new contract with Azotreh. They needed the dungeon to awaken before the duo could get them to sign the contract, but they still hashed out details.
Viket had often gone to Atu to see what Azotreh would need before they signed the contract. He was honestly a little worried after what had happened to Asergia after the powerful rabbit-kin had broken his own contract. Losing a bloodline was often crippling to the advancement of a beastkin, even one as powerful as Asergia. He didn't want something similar to happen to himself.
The original contract was just to get Hadruga's people to stay in Azotreh's dungeon. That had changed after a long conversation with Atu. She had described her feelings of discomfort when having the rabbit-kin within Azotreh's dungeon. Her feeling that they provided little to the dungeon and that Azotreh simply needed more than they could offer.
While Viket wanted to disagree, he couldn't. Other than the class stone he'd given Azotreh, they hadn't done much for the sake of the dungeon or Azotreh's personal progression. So he and Hadruga had changed the contract. A contract to allow all rabbit-kin of the nightshade region, regardless of clan, to move into the dungeon in return for services.
Hadruga had not wanted to include the topaz clan, but had to agree. Viket knew that many of the topaz clan had a distaste for their leader, just as the emerald rabbits did for Asergia. So he'd insisted on including the possibility of topaz rabbit-kin entering the dungeon. They'd also changed it to be on a voluntary basis, allowing those already within the dungeon or members of the amethyst clan who didn't want to move to the dungeon to remain beyond it.
They felt the aura that had repeatedly reinforced Atu's suddenly burst like a sleeping beast from the walls, ceilings, and floor. This time, Hadruga could feel the animating will behind it. Or rather, the wills. One blank one, similar to others she'd felt in other dungeons, but with echoes for four more.
She had never encountered an aura with four roots. Four egos. She couldn't imagine such a thing. What horrific things had to be done to a person to alter their soul so deeply?
Just as Viket was getting up to find the awakened Azotreh, the aura once again blinked out for a moment. Then returned even stronger.
Viket's eyes went wide as he felt the aura. He knew that he'd been tin-rank for an awfully long time. He'd never actively cultivated, seeing no point. So it took him about a year to pass through the rank, which was normal. He just hadn't taken the rank-up test, hoping to discover what was beyond the SSS-Grade barrier.
But the aura now emerging from the walls had a slight suppressive effect despite being a lower grade. It was clearly E-Grade, seven grades below himself. He was more than twice as strong in terms of raw potens, but the aura carried a new weight he couldn't recognize. He turned to Hadruga, who looked surprised, but not nearly as shocked as Viket.
"Perfect Grade jump…" She murmured before standing up, "We need to sign this contract now." She announced before moving to leave her room.
Azotreh managed to hold their form together with the assistance of the others and the dungeon. Their core had a new slight ache, but they were used to minor pain. It wasn't debilitating and didn't drive them to sleep like the total aspect ache after the forced strengthening did.
{The Black Ichor has granted its task once more.}
They forgot, as they were increasing their grade, that the entity had revoked its own quest. They had no idea why, but it had given it back. So not too much of a loss.
The black sludge now sitting on the floor of the core room slowly dissolved into mostly blue and red smoke before dispersing into the empty air. Azotreh could feel the dense arcane power in the smoke and sludge, but assumed it was always that way. Their technique to remove their impurities through devouring granted a lot of the energy they converted it into.
They were a bit unsteady as their body finished its grade up, but there was still a bright smile on their face. They had broken through yet another barrier. They could feel the newfound strength in their body.
They suddenly felt two presences moving through the dungeon in their general direction. One was Viket, whom they recognized based on his aura. The other, they didn't know. But she was strong. Too strong.
They hoped she wouldn't try anything, but decided to play it safe.
They knew that their prime avatar, the slimy body they occupied, was able to be restored through their dungeon nexus, but they had a large worry. The heart in their chest looked awfully like the giant heart on the wall of the core room. They didn't want to know what would happen if that heart was damaged. Even if it was just a coincidence.
So instead, they called the orc champion from where he was in the new storage hall. While leaving Fuzem to care for the prime avatar, they pulled Nicholas, the cold awareness, Errazorrus, and themselves into the orc's body.
If this was diplomatic, they wanted to be prepared. If it was threatening, they didn't want to be killed.
Viket was guiding Hadruga to the private rooms dedicated to Azotreh's trainers and themselves when he was stopped by the appearance of an orc. But this wasn't Dur or Kurdan, it was the monstrous spawn of the dungeon. The so-called champion monster.
Hadruga was on guard from the moment the monster appeared. She knew dungeon monsters could be controlled by their nexus, but also that they were still monsters.
The orc was also clearly on guard, knees slightly bent and fists ready to ball at its sides at any moment. It looked down at the two rabbit-kin with four spinning pupils around a central gray iris. One pupil was green, one red, one black, and one seemed only half-present, a mix of pulsing blue and red like a monster core.
"Viket, who is this?" The orc asked, its voice gruff and heavy. The voice was reinforced by the aura of the dungeon around it.
Viket was sweating visibly, his hands trembling a bit.
"This is Hadruga, clan leader of the amethyst rabbit-kin."
"Clan leader… like Asergia?" The orc asked, though the voice was suddenly a little older.
"Not like Asergia. She's kind to her people and works to protect them from the many dangers of the nightshade forest."
The orc gave Hadruga an assessing gaze before asking, "And why are you here?"
She held up a small piece of golden paper covered in blue glowing ink, "I'd like to make a contract with this dungeon."
The orc's eyes narrowed further, "The last person we forged a contract with attempted to have us killed at the hands of strangers."
Hadruga shot Viket a look. Viket nodded slightly.
"I promise I will not harm you. I seek sanctuary."
"Sanctuary? From what?"
"Nightshade has always been dangerous, but recently it has become more so. A monster surge is emerging, and with the absence of the emerald rabbit-kin, our borders are undefended. Not to mention both slimes and spiders."
"Spiders?" While it was the orc who asked, Viket also looked curious. Hadruga hadn't mentioned the goliarchs emergence.
"That will have to come later. For now, I need a place for my clan to remain. I hoped to occupy the space of the emerald clan as well, me, and my people."
"Fine." The orc's shoulders slumped slightly.
Hadruga was taken aback; she'd expected some attempt to gain benefits from the deal. Viket had told her that Azotreh had just accepted the emerald rabbit-kin and the only reason they contributed alchemic coins to the dungeon was their own desire, but she hadn't believed it. She'd never met anyone kind enough to do such a thing.
She handed the contract to the orc, who looked over it with careful eyes before she offered a pen. Azotreh added one line to the end before signing.
A system message appeared to Viket, Hadruga, and Azotreh simultaneously.
[Confirm Contract:
Rabbit-kin will be able to take residence in the dungeon of Azotreh Nightshade.
Azotreh Nightshade will provide homes for rabbit-kin that reside within the dungeon.
Azotreh Nightshade will provide monsters for food and water to the denizens of their dungeon.
Denizens will hunt both on the surface and in the depths, and will contribute 10% of all spoils to Azotreh Nightshade.
Denizens will provide materials and items as Azotreh Nightshade needs.
If the dungeon is invaded, denizens will protect it.
Denizens will teach Azotreh Nightshade.
Penalty for breaking: Removal of a random concept from the penalizer.
Would you like to officially recognize this contract under the force of the Skill System?]
Azotreh nodded and confirmed, quickly followed by the other two doing the same. A set of bright blue chains manifested in the air between them, emerging from each of the three's chests and binding to one another. Azotreh felt a new weight on their core as the contract took place.
With one more sigh, the towering orcish form of Azotreh turned around and left. They wanted to speak to their teachers about progression and spend some time with Atu.