Chapter 72: C72 – Elemental

The job Dirk and Ava accepted was to kill the king of this dungeon and retrieve its Tier 4 water mana crystal. And naturally, since the king of the dungeon was a water type monster, the rest of the monsters within the dungeon were water types as well. 

The dungeon was about 40 miles long from the entrance to the king's hall. However, this dungeon was peculiar in that it had two territories. 

The dungeon was divided up the middle and two monster species occupied the left and right sides. 

The first monster type on the left was a crocodile, at least that's what Dirk compared it to. These monsters were long and stuck near to the floor, attacking prey with their long snouts and razor sharp teeth. Their hides were notoriously tough, and their bodies were filled with anima. 

Normally, Dirk wouldn't mind hunting such prey. The most valuable part of these crocodiles wasn't their mana crystals, but their tough hides that could be enchanted and used in armor. However, the monster Dirk came here for was the second type. 

On the right side of the dungeon were things called water elementals. These water elementals had bodies made entirely of water, making them basically impervious to physical attacks. Their fatal weakness though was the elemental core within them. This core was a big crystal ball the size of a head. This crystal core was exceptionally hard to destroy, but break it, and the elemental would die. Within the cores were the water mana crystals. 

Normally hunting the water elementals wouldn't be worth it. It took too much work to fight the elemental and then manage to break their core, thus getting the mana crystal. However, the reason these elementals were so popular was because not only were the crystal cores valuable, but the water mana crystals were more powerful than normal. Dirk found out from the dungeon association that these water mana crystals had much higher densities and purities than normal mana crystals. Smaller crystals but denser mana, all from monsters that weren't too hard to kill. It was very profitable. 

This was also the reason why the town around this particular dungeon was nicer than normal towns. This dungeon simply gave more money while requiring the same amount of effort. 

Dirk didn't have to, but he was most certainly planning on killing all the water elementals he could see on the way to the king. After all, he and Ava needed to understand them to ensure higher chances of success. 

However, although they knew that these elementals were more profitable, they didn't really understand just what that entailed. So when they finally entered the dungeon and saw crowds of people, they were shocked. 

"The hell?"

Dirk was baffled as he looked at the haven near the entrance. There were so many people around this haven that they spilled outside of it. Dirk saw camps of people all around the haven fortress. Most people were waking up and packing their stuff so they could go hunt for the day. Still, for so many people to be in this dungeon was an odd sight. There were even vendors who cooked and sold food. 

"Around it is then."

"Mm."

Ava nodded as Dirk started walking around the haven. They avoided all the people as they set off on the path to the king's hall. However, before they could get far, someone intercepted them. 

Dirk frowned as a tall man with scale leather armor blocked their path. He didn't have the nicest look on his face, obviously not in a good mood.

"You two kids aren't allowed to hunt."

"..."

Dirk was silent as he looked at the man. His eyes narrowed, and it was clear he was now far from happy. Ava was quick to spot this and stepped forward in his stead.

"Why can't we hunt?"

"There's a line. Only certain groups are allowed to go out each day. If we just let everyone go out and scour the dungeon for water elementals, they would be wiped from the dungeon. If you want to hunt, you'll have to join a group and wait until your group is allowed to hunt."

"...How long would we have to wait?"

"We cycle groups every day. There's three groups, and since you just joined, you would have to wait three days."

"Three days?!"

Ava gawked. In three days, they could make their way through the entire damn dungeon! Dirk and Ava already had plans to make this trip quick, taking no longer than three days to kill the king. With that, they could have a round trip time of around 10 days. But now, just being able to go and hunt would take three days, and who knew when they would be ready to face the king? In this case, this job would take them close to two weeks. 

Ava shook her head.

"We can't wait three days. Besides, we're not here to hunt. We're only here to kill the king."

"Kill the king? Please. Save yourself the air and just join the line. If I catch you two trying to sneak away, I'll have to throw you out of the dungeon."

"I'd like to see you try."

Dirk sneered as the man took a step away. As he wasn't being quiet though, the man stopped and looked back, his face twisted a bit in anger.

"What'd you just say?"

He scowled at Dirk. Before things could get worse though, Ava stepped forward again. 

"Nothing. Look, we have a job to kill the king. If we can just-"

"I don't care! Wait in line, or I'll kick your tiny asses out of this place myself!"

"..."

The man bellowed, causing Ava to go quiet. Now, even she was twitching in anger. She was realizing that this trip was positively fraught with conflict at every damned step. Because of Dirk her patience was high, but that was being rapidly sapped at. 

"Hey!"

Suddenly, she stepped forward, her voice rising an octave. The man was about to snap, but then he saw Ava wave something around. 

"See this? This is a job application from the Magic Academy of the capital city! Our job here is to kill the water elemental king and retrieve its mana crystal! This is my official student identification card! Take a good hard look at these two things, and then decide if you still want to hold us here. Better yet, go grab whoever is in charge! Otherwise, we might just have to walk over you and go to the king's hall anyway!"

"..."

Now, the man was silent under Ava's roars. The name of the Magic Academy was just too renowned, and everyone there was a magical freak of nature. Even some of the children there could kill those twice as old as them with a wave of the hand. While the man didn't take Ava's aggression seriously, he was now reevaluating whether or not he could actually fight these two kids. Especially Dirk who gave off an aura bristling with violence.

The man looked at Ava before swiping the job application and her student card. After seeing the official seal of the magic academy that glowed with magical power on both, his eye twitched. It looked like he kicked a rock today.

"...Be on your way."

With a low huff, the man threw the paper and card back to Ava. She caught it with a small smile. 

"Thank you. We shall."

Taking Dirk's hand, Ava sauntered off. Along the way, dozens of people looked at the two kids with envy. Not just because they were being let through, but because they were students of the Magic Academy. A majority of the people in that academy were nobles at the barest minimum. For all they knew, Dirk and Ava could be high nobles, and they wouldn't be wrong in that assumption. 

With that, the duo walked off into the dungeon. While Dirk's mood was still a bit sour, he was much happier.

"See? Not everything needs violence to solve. Unlike most, we have status. In times like these, it's better to just wave it around."

After separating from the crowds, Ava spoke with a bit of arrogance. While she wasn't the child of a Marquess like Dirk, she was only a level lower. With her near-perfect water affinity at 97%, she was easily let into the Magic Academy, one of the largest and most renowned institutions in the entire world. She was absolutely right in that both of them enjoyed a status at the highest echelons of the empire. A man like the one she just dealt with was lesser in status than the maids and butlers in her house. 

Only, when she was constantly surrounded by others with similar or higher classes like her, she forgot about this fact sometimes. Now, she wielded this power to solve a problem. It made her seem like a spoiled princess, but she preferred that over the alternative. She just didn't want Dirk to have to fight anyone. This was for his sake as well as the health of those unlucky people who got on his bad side. 

"Status shouldn't matter."

While Dirk agreed with Ava, he still spoke this point. That man had no common decency, and if he did, then things wouldn't have gotten hostile. It could have been solved nicely and Dirk would still be in a good mood.

Surprisingly, Ava agreed.

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"You're partially right. In fact, status doesn't matter. It's the power behind that status. Power is everything here. There's power behind the name of the Magic Academy. There's power behind your family name. You also have the power to beat that guy into a bloody pulp. All of these things could have solved that problem. It's just a matter of choosing which would solve it better. If throwing out a name and some papers gets us by, then I'll choose that over having to expend effort on fighting some nobody."

"...I guess."

Dirk found himself nodding at Ava's statement. She was right. Not only here, but in this world of sword and magic, power was everything. There was no need for common decency if one was powerful enough to do as they wished. If Dirk and Ava were commoners with power lesser than that man, then they could do nothing but wait like everyone else. But with the power of a name and especially personal power, they could directly bypass all those things. 

It was like how Dirk enforced his bottom line only the day before with sheer power. He made his point with his fists. That's what it took in this world. While morality wasn't completely thrown out the window, it was further bent to the whims of the strong than on someplace like Earth. 

Dirk was enlightened a bit as he thought of the meaning of power. More and more he was adapting to the dynamic of this world, and Ava was shaping that view once more. 

He looked at her.

"Well, aren't you wiser than you look?"

"Huh? What the hell does that mean? I'll have you know that I am a very graceful and distinguished young woman and very wise for my age group. You just don't see it since I'm your only friend in the entire academy."

Ava flickered her hair as she spoke with the demeanor of a queen. Dirk just snickered. 

"Uh-huh. Plus, I have friends."

"No, you have a friend. Alec is the only one you've ever talked to."

"Well, you plus Alec makes two. That's more than one so I have friends."

"Haha! Sure, sure."

Ava couldn't help but laugh as Dirk made his defense. He also smiled and chuckled, his good mood returning to him. 

Like that, the two walked deep into the dungeon.

It wasn't obvious near the entrance of the dungeon since it had been modified by the dungeon association, but the dungeon was actually something of a jungle. The sun above was blocked by the tall and thick trees while the ground was covered in thick brush. However, this wasn't a normally green and vibrant jungle either. In the water elemental territory Dirk and Ava were in, the jungle was blue and black. 

This made the surroundings look much darker than normal, as if it weren't even daytime. Plus, as they got deeper in, the duo encountered a thick fog. This fog was actually filled with water mana, so it not only blocked normal senses but obscured mana sense. 

This would usually be fine. Dirk didn't have any problems trekking through a jungle. But one problem they constantly encountered was the abundant water in the area that formed small murky pools on the ground as well as small rivers crisscrossing everywhere. He wanted to complain as his armor got wet, but this was a water type dungeon, so he could only deal with it. 

"Well, this is at least better than blistering heat."

Ava mumbled as they hopped from the huge exposed roots of a tree over a running stream of water. As their boots splashed in a mossy pool on the other side, Dirk sighed. 

"You better be using nothing but magic here. This is the perfect place for you."

"We'll see if my water magic can actually harm a monster made of water. Actually, you're probably going to be doing most of the heavy lifting, mister fire mage."

Ava poked Dirk with her elbow as they walked along something of a path. 

For a while the two didn't see any water elementals, but that was likely because of how popular they were to hunt. Dirk was sure that every time one of those groups was let out every day, every monster in sight would be promptly wiped from existence. 

So although it took them a while, the duo eventually spotted one of these elementals. From behind a large tree, Dirk and Ava observed a large blob of water whose body flowed with thick water mana. The blob was a simple sphere about 8 feet in diameter, and its bottom glided across the surface of the ground to move, like a flat tire. Dirk and Ava were surprised by the size. 

"That thing is huge... Oh, there's its core."

Ava suddenly pointed as she spotted a glimmer within the water elemental. In the middle of its body floated a huge crystal about a foot in diameter. The crystal was translucent, and in the very center of this crystal was a small blue orb the size of a marble. This was the mana crystal.

"So we need to break the core to kill it. And we can take both the core and mana crystal as harvested material. Only, the core is really big. We can't hold very many, maybe one or two at most inside your ring alongside all our other items."

"Mm. Well, time to practice. What Tier is this elemental?"

"Hm, I would say the middle of Tier 2."

Ava guessed as she felt the power of the water mana radiating from the elemental. Hearing that, Dirk nodded. 

"Alright. There's not much threat. Experiment with it and see how well your water magic does."

"Okay."

With that, Ava stepped out from behind the tree. After taking a few obvious steps, the water elemental seemed to spot her. Without warning, two streams of water were launched from the body, threatening to crash into Ava head on. 

Of course, such an attack was child's play to Ava. Her face was neutral as she brought up and pointed two fingers.

On the back of her hand, runes were suddenly formed while a magic circuit was constructed. This spell had three circles and over a dozen runes. This was obviously a higher level spell than normal. And in fact, it was one of the spells she had chosen after going back to her classes. 

After a second to complete the spell, the magic circle flashed, and Ava's hand moved. Her two fingers streaked through the air, a line of water being left behind. From her left shoulder to her right hip, a blade of water was instantly formed. And once it formed, it was fired. The water blade sliced through the air and toward the two streams. 

*Crash!*

Despite the water blade being thin, the two streams of water exploded outward upon colliding. The water blade sliced through and obliterated both streams before continuing toward the elemental. 

Seeing this deadly attack, the elemental's water body shook before sending out more streams of water. But they were all destroyed by the water blade. The water blade was unstoppable as it cut into the elementals body, crashing into the core. 

*Crack!*

When the blade hit, the core instantly chipped and cracked. However, it wasn't completely broken. The water elementals body, upon being injured, felt a huge amount of its body flood away. It was quickly reduced to only 3 feet in diameter. 

"Good job."

Seeing this, Dirk walked out and stood beside Ava. The water elemental continued to attack them, but its attacks were nothing more than little splashes of water. In fact, it weakened by the second, water mana flooding from its core. It would soon die without them doing anything. 

"A single water blade. So we know that nothing in the shallow areas can harm us. And it seems your water mana is effective."

"The same element from two different people will still collide as two separate magics. It's all about who the mana belongs to. Though, it takes a bit more brute force. Try your magic next time. Your fire magic is a direct counter, but your earth magic would also be good with its rigidity."

"Alright. Let's see if we can find another one. But first, time to harvest."

Saying that, Dirk walked over to the dying elemental. Its body had already almost completely drained away, so Dirk grabbed its core with his hands and stuck his fingers in the cracks. With a bit of force, he pulled the core apart like shattering glass, the mana crystal within dropping to the floor. 

Ava grabbed the mana crystal, feeling the water mana within. She was surprised. Despite the elemental only being a Tier 2, the mana density was that of a Tier 3. While it exchanged that for lesser total mana volume, gathering enough crystals would reconcile that. No wonder the elementals were so popular. 

"At least the harvesting is clean, albeit a bit wet. Come on."

Dropping the head sized core, Dirk turned and continued walking through the thick jungle. He definitely preferred this over digging through flesh and bones. Ava pocketed the mana crystal before following.