Four people could be seen waiting in front of multiple entrances. The ceiling was just eight feet above, and the cave was ten feet wide. The only girl in the group looked at the entrances and said, "It would have been better if these caves were bigger and wider. It is restricting the use of our contract beasts."
"You are right. The deeper we move, the narrower the cave becomes. I am waiting for them to return so we can learn what's inside this dungeon." said Lalit.
Jay was the one who came first; he was covered in wounds. Others gave him healing potions and let him calm down first. Dev asked, "How did you get injured?"
Jay explained to them everything he experienced. He was caught in some traps and barely escaped with some wounds. He also told them that most of his wounds came from strange creatures that looked humanoid and used weapons.
After some time, Manu appeared; he was fatally wounded. He explained that it took a medium-grade health potion to make him recover. He didn't face any traps and thought it was safe, but then he was suddenly ambushed by three strange creatures. He got injured initially, and his wounds only increased with time.
He had to use his ultimate move to escape. The other guild members started discussing their opponents. Manu had revealed that these creatures were five feet tall and had a hyena-like head over a humanoid body.
Everyone was looking toward the last two entrances; Rishab and Dilip had entered those ones. They were both the strongest and fastest in the group; Dilip had inhuman perception skills, while Rishab had a powerful concealment ability.
The sound of footsteps came from one of the entrances. A shadow of a figure became visible. It looked like a human, but his head was different. He roared at them and started approaching them with an axe. Everyone jumped back in surprise. They took out their weapons and pointed them at their enemy.
"Ha ha!" A burst of laughter resounded in the cave; a red-haired boy appeared with ruby-like eyes. He was carrying the head of a hyena-like creature in his head.
The others saw it was Dilip and sighed in relief before charging at him again. They almost got a heart attack from his prank. Dilip tried to explain himself, but no one listened; they chased him for some time.
They discussed among themselves about their opponents, and Dilip shared his experience with them. Each one of them was strong; they were ferocious when they started fighting, but when they saw that they were at a disadvantage, they tried to escape.
A boy walked out of the entrance. The others looked at him and saw he was not injured. Rishi sat with them and explained to them in detail everything he knew. He even explained to them the different types of gnolls. He explained that the opponent could be from 2500; this number was not that big, but when looking at the average strength of the Gnolls, this looked like a tough situation.
Usually a dungeon raid team would have anywhere from 15–20 members, but they were only eight. Dev looked at the other guild members and said, "Don't be intimidated by their numbers; we will use Gurella warfare to reduce their numbers first. Don't forget we also have Vinay, who can create a skeleton Army; this will help us reduce their number advantage."
Everyone calmed down; their faces regained their confidence. Dilip looked at the other members and said, "You all need to become stronger. The four of you will struggle while fighting against three Beta Gnolls. We need every one of you to at least be capable of taking care of at least seven Beta Gnolls at once without the help of your contract beasts."
Jay, Manu, Lalit, and Nina were the ones that needed to work harder; Rishab, Dev, Dilip, and Vinay were the strongest members; each one of them could defeat more than twenty Beta Gnolls at once. Dev was a strong knight who had balanced stats; he was well-versed in both offense and defense.
Vinay's name surprised the other members. His growth speed was equal to Rishab's, but what made him unique was his ability to create multiple contracts. Only Rishi knew that he had a legendary- job class necromancer, which made him capable of playing both mage and summoner roles with ease.
When the hell training started, everyone had to work hard to increase their strength, skills, fighting style, and level. The only advantage that the lower-level teammates had was that they gained the Growth Status effect, which only took place when a Beast Tamer raided a dungeon above their level.
This increased the speed of mastering skills and experience points; the advanced stage beast tamers get 100% buffs for the Growth of skills, Battle Techniques, and weapon mastery and 200% buff for the level-up experience.
As this was a B-grade dungeon, the elite-stage Beast Tamers also got growth effects, but the buffs they received were very low. The beginner Elite Stage, which was from Level 1-3, received 80% and 160% growth buffs, while the intermediate Elite Stage from Level 4-6 received 70% and 140% growth buffs, and the upper Elite Stage from Level 7-9 received 50% and 100% growth buffs. The peak Elite Stage, or Level 10, received 35% and 70% growth buffs.
There were some conditions to getting the growth bonus like this should be a dungeon never explored before, and the raider can't depend on others to gain experience. The last was that it took one month for the growth bonus to recharge once it was granted.
It meant that if a Beast Tamer got the Growth Buff, he would not be able to get another buff until one month, even if he fulfilled other conditions. With this buff, everyone started to train; they knew they were not prepared and needed to become stronger if they wanted to go further.
Two days passed in which everyone experienced massive growth. Even Lalit had reached the peak of the advanced stage. Nina and Jay started to improve their skills, but they decided not to level up to the Elite Stage as their buff would be reduced. Gnolls have become active in the past two days; some of them even visited the caves.
With the Gnolls approaching them in small numbers, the members of All-Stars didn't need to search for them. As time passed, everyone improved. Rishi made full use of this buff and mastered all his newly learned skills. After that, he started to increase his mastery of weapons.
He was also not in a hurry to advance; he was already at Level Nine. If he leveled up once more, he would get fewer benefits from the buffs.
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om