Aurelia started the discussion starting with some insight of her own. "'While it's probably pretty obvious, if your fast enough nothing in this dungeon should be able to harm us. So with your skills and my light magic buffs for your speed we should do pretty well in that aspect. If needed I can also do other buffs as well, what do you think?"

I quickly agreed on the proposal Aurelia gave me as we left the safe zone. I started to increase my guard as we left the safe zone, as even a weak beast could be a problem if they catch you off guard in real life. Though it quickly became apparent that they were weak enough that I would still be able to react even if caught by surprise, as they were far weaker than us. Seeing they could be killed by either one spell or attack from Aurelia or me.

As we were moving through the initial levels of the dungeon quickly, since our job was the lower floors, we only got enough experience to level up once after finishing the second floor. Most of the monsters we had encountered were variants of animals like bobcats, squirrels and other smaller animals. The only thing we gained was four elementless mana stones that Aurelia could use for enchanting, even if low quality. finally we arrived at the fifth floor and reached where our task would actually start. From here our gains would be bigger because this was where D ranks stopped and C ranks started. This was a big divider for monsters, because at this rank they would get a significant power boost, as they would awaken to their most compatible element, even if with only minor control of it. In very rare cases, they could even awaken two elements, though it required equal compatibility between the two elements.

Thinking carefully I say that we should assign stats before we proceed further. "Hey Aurelia, I'm thinking we should assign our stats before we proceed any further, just in case we encounter something unexpected."

I see her ponder my suggestion for a very short moment before she responded. "That would be a good idea, though I think I will hold onto my points for now. "

After thinking for a moment, I figure out how I want to distribute my new points and ingenuity point. As there aren't any skills I really need for now at the moment, I decide to put them all towards my stat points. With the Ingenuity point I put it towards a new sub skill for my Ingenuity skill, Multi Channeling, which would allow me to use more than one element at a time for my weapon or any skill I have. Though it would cost more mana to power it.

Winter Jenson

Aurus Name: Tess Cryo

Race: High Human(Lightning-Ice)

Ingenuity: Elemental Channeling 2, Multi Channeling

Level: 10

Strength: 28 (+4)

Agility: 70 (+20)

Dexterity: 21 (+4)

Vitality: 24 (+4)

Intelligence: 44 (+12)

Wisdom: 32 (+8)

Skills:

Intermediate Scythe Proficiency 1

Intermediate Hand-to-Hand Combat Proficiency 1

Basic Scythe Energy Affinity 2

Basic Ice Affinity 5

Basic Lightning Affinity 5

Basic Tanning/Skinning 1

Basic Leather-working 1

Basic Stealth 4

Basic Life Affinity 1

Severing Blade 3

Quick Steps 3

Energy Sever 3

Heal 3

Cosmetic Heal

Life Vision

'Close status screen, now that that's taken care of let's see how Aurelia is doing,' I think as I go and ask her how she distributed her new points.

"Oh, I just leveled up my light magic skill, you can take a look if you want though," She says to me as she makes her system available for me to see.

Name: Amy Steele

Aurus Name: Aurelia Magus

Race: High Human(Light-Fire)

Ingenuity: Rune Casting 3

Level: 10

Strength: 17

Agility: 24

Dexterity: 41

Vitality: 25

Intelligence: 75

Wisdom: 54

Skills: ^

"Wow, your stats are really good Aurelia, not to mention your level four magic that's going to be really helpful for when we need to fight together, unlike what has been happening so far," I say with a happy tone.

"Well it's only so high because I don't have to focus on a lot of stats like you, I really just want to hurry up and get level five magic. It just feels so far away, though I guess I can't really complain."

"You're right, You'll get there eventually though. We are already progressing way faster than normal people with being able to level up. We just need to be patient and it will happen eventually." Excited for what the future holds I know that we will achieve what Reya sent us here for. Taking a moment I continue to fantasize I get back to the present, and we start to get ready to start on the mission we picked now that we are at the appropriate floor.

"Alright, let's start heading out Tess, I'm ready when you are to head out and get this done," Aurelia says to me as I am just as I'm about to finish my preparations.

As we make our way out of the fifth floor safe zone, which is only present when you first enter the floor, we bring our guard back up to a reasonable level. I briefly notice that I feel much more comfortably in this floor than I have on other floors, and realize that the mana in the air is infused with the lightning element. 'That probably will make it so that the monsters in this dungeon will have the lightning element,' I think to myself. I realize then that I probably won't be able to fully utilize my lightning element, as monsters and people usually have some resistance towards elements they have affinity with. "Aurelia, I don't think my damage will be as high as we would like, it seems that this is a lightning element dungeon which will weaken my damage agains these monsters."

"Hmm, that is a little troubling, but it isn't anything that should affect us to much," she replied to me after thinking for a moment. "But at the very least, you should still have your normal solo strength with my buffs, so we should be fine."

Moving forward, I sense more than I see a flicker of lightning ahead of our position. Motioning towards Aurelia, she understands that I will scout ahead and that she should follow close behind. As I approach I see three horned rabbits a little bigger than a small dog with lightning flickering on thier horns. Similar to my lightning it has a slight purple tinge to it, giving a mesmerizing glow to the surrounding trees. Once we get closer I activate my appraisal skill on one of them.

Horned Lightning Rabbit

Rank: Low C

I quickly send a message to Aurelia through the system telling her that there are three horned rabbits over here, and to prepare for battle. As while they aren't the strongest, their lightning element slightly makes up for it. Providing them with an increase to their already somewhat high speed and more destructive attacks.

Eventually she shows up a little distance behind me at a point where she can still see the horned rabbits. She quickly draws some runes in the air, casting a speed and attack buff on my, before I sneak towards the horned rabbits. I swiftly arrive close to the them and shoot forward with a burst of speed, Ice and lightning gathering below my feet causing my speed to increase even more. Snowflake-like patterns spread across the blade of my scythe as I channel my ice element through the blade. Swinging the blade parallel to the ground, I lob the head off of a surprised rabbit before making my way towards the others. With ease we both quickly dispatch the horned rabbits, Aurelia killing the last with a metal spike through the temple.

As we make our way through the floor, we kill a variety of different monsters from Lynxes, to hawks, which were a little annoying to deal with. We were only here to do a general clearing of the dungeon, so we didn't need to wipe out all the monsters of every floor, but generally we were advised to kill 80 monsters per floor to keep a break from happening within a month. The biggest boon of this trip though was the experience as well as the high quality Mana Cores. These were useful to us because Aurelia could use them in her enchanting process, which could help us make more money. It only took an hour and a half to reach the required kills on each floor, and we quickly finished clearing the floors and made it to last floor before the boss.

Starting this floor, the monsters are at the peak of the peak, non including boss monsters, of C rank. There are certain monsters that are stronger than just the high grade, and while it is an unofficial rating they are refered to as Peak C rank threats. The monsters on this floor include tigers and bears which are individually strong and wolf packs, which are a threat due to their pack tactics.

We make our way through the final floor of the dungeon being careful of our surroundings, as the wolves like to stalk their prey. The only way we can stay safe is by having constant vigilance. I was in stealth, and Aurelia cast a simple spell that made the light go around us, thus making us invisible, getting illusion magic in the process. It didn't take us long before we found a pack of Lightning Wolves. From what we see, they are currently standing over the corpse of a bear. As I though about it, it didn't surprise me that a wolf pack could take down the bear with good enough coordination, as while peak ranks are powerful it wasn't equivalent to the difference of a sub rank. I start to put the useless thoughts out of my head as I get ready for battle, infusing all my body with ice and lightning. Only infusing my Scythe Energy and Ice in my weapon. Shortly after I feel a series of buffs blaced on me by Aurelia, and a few moments after get the all clear to go. I go forward with an immense burst of speed as ice out around me. With lightning flickering around my feet I burst forward like a bolt of lightning. The first wolf just barely reacted to my attack, but not fast enough to keep its head from flying into the air. I reach the center of the pack and the battle starts to look like a carefully coreographed dance. Like a feather caught in the wind I faught amoung the wolves, because it wasn't a surprise attack though I wasn't able to end them in one hit anymore, due to their strength. 

As I weave through the pack I make occasional counter attacks as Aurelia supports me with occasional metal spears towards wolves she can tell I can't dodge. With her support we start pushing back the injured wolves, and after several minutes the last wolf in the pack dies to a metal spear spell through the head.

"That was a lot harder than I imagined it was going to be, but it's not too dangerous yet. I definitely is making me think about taking on a higher teired pack or even a horde." Now understanding the dangers a more powerful group could present, we decide to be even more cautious with these types of monsters in the future.

"It definitely is more dangerous, but it is also a lot more exhilerating to fight packs," Aurelia exclaimed to me, the exitement clear in her voice. "It's kind of like a game of chess, trying to control their movements through every action we take."

"You could say that again, I always felt that was the most fun part of the VR games we played back on earth." I mentioned this as I thought about the games we played and the player wars our team would get involved in from time to time. "It's a little weird not having Derek here though, do You think he's okay, you know with everything that's apparently happening on earth?"

"I don't know, but the chances aren't good for him, especially considering it's a God interfering with earth. The only question is if they have made their move yet," I commented after thinking for a moment. "There's no point in talking about something we don't know will or already has happened. We'll just have to wait and see waht happens."

Aurelia took a moment sighing and saying, "Ya I know, it's just really hard you know, he's my twin brother after all. I'm just really worried about him, his wife is great and i wouldn't wish him dying on her either."

"Ya, I get what your saying, they seem so happy together. I wish I could find something like they have," I say slowly getting quieter and more red as I dontinue my last sentence, till I couldn't even be heard while looking at Aurelia.

"What'd you say?" Aurelia asked me, not having heard the end of my sentence.

"n, no nothing! nothing important, don't worry about it," I exclaimed to her in a slightly flustered tone of voice.

"Okay," Aurelia said in a slightly sing songy voice, "whatever you say Tess." A hint of newfound understanding hidden in her voice as she smiled out of my view.

What I didn't notice in my flustered state was the snap of a small twig behind me, unable to focus on anything else. Aurelia turned around at the sound as her eyes went wide when she saw the huge tiger pouncing towards me.

"Winter!" Aurelia yelled in a panic at me, as she cast a spell right behind me. "Steel Wall!"

Because Aurelia used a faster vocal cast for the spell, it wasn't as strong as her normal rune spells, but it stopped the tiger just long enough for me to get out of the way before it broke through. I hurriedly slached at it only barely being able to nick it, with a minimal amount of damage. I quickly activated Quick Steps with both elements and sped away backwards for a short moment to collect myself.

Taking a short breath I yelled a quick thank you towards Aurelia, now completely in the zone for the battle. I quickly applied all my strengthening as more lightning and ice flickered around me, and Aurelia applied a power buff to me with her magic. I made my way back to the tiger, as I activated severing slash with my ice element channeled into it, leaving a deep gash on the side of the tiger as it dodged a fatal attack.

I take a side step knowing Aurelia should have finished her spell and just like I though a flaming spear pierces though the air, stabbing into the side of the tiger. As the spear hit it roared in pain, thankfully tigers are solitary so we don't have worry to much about reinforcements, though it never hurts to keep an eye out. In a reage the tiger starts to gather up an intesne amount of mana, to which I can only smirk knowingly. In an instant I arrive inbetween Aurelia and the tiger and add lightning in my scythe. The tiger releases a bolt of lightning which I easily canceling out the attack. I forcefully dissipate the lightning in my scythe, as I send severing wave with my ice back toward the tiger. Not expecting its attack to be blocked, let alone met with an immediate counter attack and it took the full brunt of the attack. Now in a severely weakened state We started to dominate and finally take down the tiger.

Now that the battle was finally over, and the adrenaline finally wearing off, I collapsed in exhaustion, my head leaning on Aurelia's shoulder next to me. Quietly crying on her shoulder I muttered, "I, I, I almost *hick* died. Th, thank you for s, saving me Amy."

"You know I'll always be there for you Tess, I'm just one moment away. No matter what I'll always be by your side," She said to me while stroking my head to calm me down, just like when I first came out to my family. "You take a rest, I'm sure your mentally exhausted right now, I'll take care of the rest." Hearing that my mind was finally calmed down as I fell asleep.

In the time that I was asleep, Aurelia carefully drained the blood from the prior wolf pack and tiger, as well as their mana stones, and stored them away. Not to long after I woke up from my short nap and started skinning the tiger as well as the wolves. "Thanks again for saving my life, I was a little distracted at the time," I said to her with a light blush and a smile.

"Again, don't worry about it, I'm always gonna be by your side and protect you, I can't really do that if you die," she said sa she lightly squeezed my hand then let go.This caused me to go an even grighter shade of red as I looked at my feet. Over the next few hours we slowly cleared this floor of the dungeon, taking our time to not exhaust ourselves. Finally after clearing enough of the floor, we finally made it to the entrance to the the boss floor.

"Well this should be it, this next floor should be the boss room, you redy Tess?" Aurelia asked me this with a confident look on her face. Seeing this gave me a small boost to my own confidence s I answered in a similar manner.

Ya, I'm ready, let's take down this overgrown bear."

"I'm with you on that one, before we do that though, we gained a few levels and I think its about time we use our new points," Aurelia said to which I completely agreed, I just hadn't said it yet.

"Ya, let's do that."