Dungeon of Niflheim

When the adventurers returned to the [beginner’s ice magic] monster lair they encountered a nasty surprise. Many people died during that time, and it set a precedent, reaffirming the fact that no matter how profitable a monster lair is it’s still a monster lair, a place of danger, looking to kill whoever enters.

Since this floor contained stronger opponents Frost no longer openly emitted his pseudo aura and blood lust, he’d fight his way through the floors from now on. Learning to fight against multiple magic users such as flans, spirits, frost goblin mages and several others.

The moment he stepped onto the third floor and once again saw the usual ice covered room but not only that. There was far more adventurers on this floor as well as monsters. From his current position he could see at least four different battles going on, all the adventurers involved had serious looks on their faces, showing their struggle.

One group of three were fighting against an ice flan like the one stationed in the second floor’s boss room. Two people dealt with the ice bolts being fired with great precision and power, utilising their shield to endure or agile skills to roll out of the way. The last member utilised arrows to strike its jelly body, attempting to strike its core but finding it difficult to pierce that deep. Without a mage or physical user with enough strength to reach the nucleus, an ice flan was a tough adversary.

Another group was fighting against a mephit, an ugly flying imp that had the appearance of a frost goblin with wings. It was agile, had sharp claws and could use magic similar to [freezing touch]. An assassin and swordsman were its opponents.

The third and fourth group each had a mage in their roster making their fights far easier with the added benefit of preserving most of the monster materials. Frost instantly felt that this floor was much more his style, the previous ones didn’t even manage to crack open his shoulders. With a big smile he moved forward, seeking out his own foe.

He didn’t need to wait long however, after 10 minutes or so a group of monsters blocked his path, each displaying aggressive snarls, two frost goblin mages and a mephit appeared from a cave. Frost entered their territory, and they didn’t take too kindly to trespassers. He was rather fortuitous coming across three monsters at once, two F-rank and one E-rank. He didn’t wait for them to get into position, summoning his glaive he charged straight towards the flying mephit.

Multiple bolts of ice were fired his way but with his glaive out and ready there was no danger. Just like he did with flying daggers he knocked them all down with his glaive arts, not reducing his momentum in the slightest. Ice bolts contained more force than daggers, but their flight paths were easier to predict given their larger size and summoning position.

.....

Shwing!

“Gyahhhhhh,” Frost arrived before the hovering mephit in an instant and slashed upwards. The mephit screeched in pain for a moment before being split in two, leaving only the frost goblin mages scrambling away in fear.

“[Ice become like vines and entrap my foe, ice entanglement]” Frost wasn’t about to let free DP escape. Using his 2nd circle spell [ice entanglement] he pinned the two goblins in place.

Shwing! Shwing!

With another two swings of his glaive, he killed these two frost goblin mages without much effort. Once in close combat these monsters really were in dire straits, making them easy pickings. Getting so close however was generally not that easy. Frost was incredibly agile, able to cross tens of metres in a single second but even then he was confronted with several ice bolts. Most would really struggle to endure this much magic, forcing them too at the very least brace themselves and endure until it was over. By then the mephit and frost goblins would be able to move back before repeating the same tactic. The mephit would be even more difficult to deal with, given its ability to fly it was usually far quicker than its opponents, shame it met Frost.

“Tsk dirty again,” Blood now adorned Frost’s white robes emphasising his intimidating appearance, he didn’t bother casting clean up magic given that he’d just get dirty again. He frowned in irritation as he looked at the red blotches on his robe and weapon. Ideally he’d like to be able to deal with opponents of this level without ever getting a single drop of their blood on his robes but that would take at least advanced level glaive mastery (level 4). Right now, he could easily kill this level of opponent but managing his swing angle and strike depth was a bit too much of an ask, at least for now.

A moment later the life force from the three dead monsters entered his body, filling him with energy and a tingly feeling. Having a quick look around for anyone nearby and finding no one he brought up the dungeon menu in its limited form

“Seems like father’s dungeon war rules apply here.” Usually when out with the dungeon, any kills he made would facilitate him with double their daily DP amount. However, from these three as well as the ice golem and ice flan from earlier he received three times their daily DP. He surmised that out with the dungeon his body only held a certain amount of attraction for loose life energy or DP, allowing him to only take in 20% with the other 80% returning to the world. Here in a monster lair however he was battling with the crystal that was the monster lair’s core and not Nova, allowing him to gain some ground. An extra 10% didn’t sound like much but when his kill count grew in number the difference would really show. It’s also the reason he decided to fight from the 3rd floor instead of the 4th or bottom floors. F and E-rank foes were worth killing despite the extra time required.

Frost and his siblings were now in a race and one that promised great rewards as well as status, each of them were ardently seeking out methods to quickly gather DP. Although training was important, collecting DP could not be put off otherwise, he may lose his 4th position on the leader boards.

Frost quickly removed the magic crystals from the corpses as well as anything that could be sold for money and or experimentation. Like regular frost goblins, mages lacked anything worthwhile in terms of their body, only their ears being accepted for fertiliser. Their crystals of course were worth more being F-rank, but their staffs were nothing but sticks in comparison to the true thing. Mages wouldn’t be caught dead using such primitive and pathetic equipment, that would sooner work against a magic crest than enhance it.

Frost decided to store them for a little experiment, planning to give them to a few of his goblins to try an unlock the mage archetype when they evolve. For the mephit though it looked very much like a flying goblin, but its body was much more useful. Its wings and nails were both useful materials, so he stored them all in his spatial ring before once again jogging towards the next room.

He didn’t bother casting [ignition] on the bodies knowing that the monster lair would absorb them fairly quickly.

In the beginning when monster lairs were considered new, everyone would always burn the bodies as per usual protocol. This is to prevent attracting other monsters to the area and or to prevent the corpse coming back to live as an undead monster.

Undead were very, very difficult to deal with if one lacked the means to do so. It was a very troubling problem in the early days of adventuring. Undead monsters tend to carry diseases that infect local monsters, flora and even those that hunt them. Add on the fact that they can’t feel pain making killing them much harder. The best way is to destroy the brain and or use fire of light magic that works wonders on purifying such monsters.

But eventually they realised that this protocol in monster lairs was pointless as well as damaging. While in monster lairs corpses would not become undead (unless the lair was undead type monster lair) and would be quickly absorbed by the monster lair turning back into life energy before being reconstituted into new monsters. When the corpses were set alight some of the life energy would be lost, especially in the smaller less established monster lairs reducing their monster generation and life span.

It was the federation of knowledge that discovered this situation through their extensive testing and monitoring. Along with the adventurers guild they quickly brought out a new rule or rather an amendment to the burning of monster corpses, stating that it became void while in monster lairs. Thanks to this many lairs have been able to last for decades instead of years or even months. This discovery greatly increased the status of the federation of knowledge giving them a large amount of leeway when it came to their investigations.