After spending two weeks farming, crafting, and teaching, then a day selling goods and looking at other peoples' goods… I want to stretch my powers a bit. The question here is if I should go into the mines again or return to the Mistwood. Both options are viable right now.

  There are plenty of resources I can gather in the mines, and I know this for sure. It'll also let me build up my powers a little bit more since I know I'm still able to gain Skill Levels quickly right now. Some of the spells I cast are just that complex, and the monsters are worth that much. When factoring in my Blessings, I can definitely gain quite a few more Skill Levels if I go to the mines today.

  Doing so won't bring me up to my old level of power, but it will still make me feel more comfortable.

  As for entering the Mistwood, that will let me acquire resources and reagents not found in the mines. I'm not completely sure what all is in there, other than that a lot of it will potentially be new to me.

  "You're dressed for hunting?" Dylan asks as he enters the living room, a sleepy look on his face. "Going to the mines?"

  "Maybe," I answer. "Might go into the Mistwood instead, haven't decided yet. Breakfast is on the table. It's sweet rolls with icing and some sausages and eggs; you can reheat it on the reheating plate if you want."

  "Where's Nolan?"

  There's no panic in his mind, just curiosity about his son's location. He's fully adjusted to his son not being in the room with him when he wakes up. At the same time, he's accepted that his son is safe as long as he's on my property.

  "He's having fun," I answer.

  "Gah!" Dylan jumps, then turns forward to look at his son, who has a water spirit sitting on each shoulder in addition to his usual plant spirit and a mischievous grin on his face, his shoulders bouncing in his silent laughter. "That was frigid!"

  The water spirits each sent a tiny, ice-cold splash of water at Dylan's back after his son snuck up behind him. I could have warned him in advance, but I knew Dylan wouldn't be upset about it. Letting his son have his fun when it's harmless will only help the boy grow comfortable and eventually, break out of the shell that's kept him from talking, too.

  "Anyway," I say. "I'm going to head out now, I'll see you guys this evening."

  "Good luck," he says, and Nolan waves to me.

  I leave the cabin and walk over to the warpstone, then [Teleport] to Robin's tower. He opens the door just as I reach it, a friendly smile on his face.

  "Good morning, Rowan," he says. "How does your morning go?"

  "Quite well at the moment," I pull the box of jams for him and Rose out of my storage and offer it to him. "These are the jams I made, I'm gifting them to each of the villagers."

  "Thank you," he accepts the case, which then vanishes. "If you're planning on hunting today, know that the spirits of the mines are disturbed. They always are, due to its buildup, but especially so right now. As for the Mistwood… something strong lurks within, the spirits say. If you go in, be mindful of your surroundings and you may acquire something good."

  That sounds like it would be a better idea to head to the mines than the forest. The spirits being disturbed there means I should lessen the built-up mana.

  "Understood," I say "Thank you for the advice, Robin, and I hope you enjoy your day."

  "May the gods and spirits guide your paths," he says.

  "May the gods and spirits guide your paths," I respond, then leave his property.

  Once there, I [Teleport] to the mines. If I go down to the fifteenth floor for a little bit, I can become strong enough to go straight to the twentieth. That will allow me to grow stronger, gain more resources, and help the spirits of the mines calm down.

  The effects of the buildup are stronger the further down one goes. Or rather, it's lighter the higher up one is due to the higher levels being affected by what travels up from lower down.

  Spending a day on two different floors will help deal with the buildup a little bit, even if not a massive amount. Unless things are particularly bad, the spirits will be fine for awhile with that.

  I warp straight down to the tenth floor, then continue further down, slaying any of the monsters which appear before me. My current level of power will let me handle monsters on the sixteenth floor and some on the seventeenth, but I'll stop on the fifteenth floor just because it's a stopping point and I should be able to quickly reach a high enough level of power there to take on the twentieth floor.

  As for the actual floor count… I'm not sure how deep the mines reached. All Robin told me before is that they're pretty deep, which is why I'm assuming there are at least twenty floors.

  I descend the stairs upon locating them and take in the entry room for the eleventh floor. If the first zone could be considered normal stone mines and the second set could be considered mossy mines… the third would be "overgrown".

  It still matches the previous five floors, but with extra features. There are still the support posts and beams with lanterns, and I can even see minecart rails and a few minecarts in this room. That's the first time I've seen those in this Labyrinth, and it's likely because of past delvers reaching this deep that they became known as mines rather than just tunnels.

  In addition to the moss, algae, and moist spots, there are also patches of grass on the ground and some of the rubble piles. On the posts and beams, there are also vines and ivy. A couple of the grassy patches have small flowers growing in them, adding a bit of extra color aside from the browns, greens, and greys of everything else.

  Moss, algae, and grass completely covers the ground where there aren't piles of rubble, "fallen" beams, boulders, and other features. Even those have the greens, though. It really is an overgrown space.

  The lights here are dimmer than in the previous section, and they're spaced a little bit further apart as well. My dusksight bracelet ensures that's not a problem for me, but I take it off for a moment to see what the room looks like without it.

  Dim. Not so dark as to obscure my sight, but dim enough that it'll be easier for monsters to hide in the shadows. Unless the spooklights stop showing up here, that means that I might be facing both light-based and darkness-based monsters.

  Which isn't an issue for me, of course. I'm more than strong enough to handle anything on this floor and have seven years of experience in combat against various types of foes. I'll be thoroughly shocked if anything actually manages to land a blow on me.

  The attacks would hurt, of course, since I only have 87 Constitution right now and the monsters here have between 200 and 225 in their offensive stats. They wouldn't kill me, though, unless they hit my head. My armor protects the other important bits and will shield me from most of the damage I take.

  But really, I'm not expecting to get hit by anything.

  I exit the entrance room and step into the tunnel. From experiences in similar Labyrinth settings, I can make a guess as to what some of the monsters I'll encounter here are. There are still the giant rats and ants; the bats, octopuses, slimes, and spooklights; and the goblins, trolls, and golems I've faced on previous floors. They all go down easily enough regardless of their types or variations.

  It doesn't take me much time before I encounter the first monster with a different base type from the ones I've faced higher up, though.

  Resting on the ground against a tunnel wall is a tortoise with a shell which looks as if made of impure ore, with some moss spread across it in a few spots. Because of the way it's resting, it looks like just a giant lump of stone and ore, a trick which would fool most Labyrinth delvers. As an eleventh-floor monster, it likely possesses some sort of mithril rather than iron. The bluish-white hue to the ore suggests it's an ice-type.

  Fighting it would be bothersome, so I slip into its mind and crush its thoughts, then take over its mind and force it to push its head out of its shell and face me. The moment it does, [Fire Spear]s begin striking into its head.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  When they strike, the spears pierce into its head, then all of their flames travel forward similar to how force magics work for impact spells. Rather than fully traveling into the tortoise, however, the flames splash and spread. This forces the flames into the shell around the monster's neck, as well as into the holes where its front legs are hidden. The more that seeps into those parts, the further in the next flame wave is able to go due to the previous having burned away the flesh within.

  It takes me only three [Flame Spear]s to burn through the monster's HP, partially thanks to being able to burn away its head. I don't know of many creatures which can live once their head is gone.

  The tortoise bursts into black and red mist and several items plop to the ground. A fist-sized ice-like crystal, a fist-sized earth magic crystal, a fist-sized crystal with a metallic grey coloration, and a head-sized lump of bluish-white mithril.

  The grey crystal is a big surprise to me. I don't think any of those have dropped for me in the mines so far, but it can be sold for a pretty coin in town.

  When used while creating an alloy with metals of the same tier as it, it enhances the result up a quality tier. This means that if I take a Tier 6 lump of spatial ore from this floor and have this incorporated into it, it'll be Tier 7 by the end.

  Which is why I'm surprised the crystal even dropped from the tortoise. These things are fairly rare, whether as a drop or in a place where magic crystals form on their own.

  I slip it into the space pocket cuff I'm wearing, along with the earth magic crystal, then examine the other two items which dropped.

  I can use the ice magic crystal to make cooling or freezing enchantments, and the ones I can make with this are superior to the ones I can make from the ones purchased in town. The shops there pretty much caps out at Quality 5 materials while these are Quality 7. As for the mithril, I can use that for weapons to combat flame-type monsters.

  Probably not a necessity to do that, but I can use it for other things as well, such as a charm to resist heat. That will be more useful than a weapon, once I travel to the fiery levels of the mines.

  A little bit further into the eleventh floor, I encounter another creature that's not on the upper levels. This one resembles a very thick vine and does a good job at imitating the ones hanging from the support beams.

  I flick my hand forward and a series of [Arc Slash]es soar forward. The vine snake attempts to dodge the attacks, but it can't see them as I cast them perfectly rather than flawed. It only anticipated an attack because of my gesture and that's not enough.

  The five [Arc Slash]es I cast soar forward and cut through the vine snake with ease, the beast swinging back some from the force of the impact. Then, it bursts into black and red mist and loot drops to the ground. Two chunks of meat, a plant magic crystal, its fangs, a regular magic crystal, and bark from its hide.

  The meat goes into a stasis pocket bracelet while the rest is placed into my spatial pocket cuff.

  It takes me almost two hours to reach the fifteenth floor, then another two before I'm strong enough to take on the twentieth floor. Since the spirits seem to actually like the Labyrinth, I decide to avoid going straight down there. Instead, I kneel and touch the ground.

  "O spirits of the land," I murmur in the language of the spirits. "Is my work today enough for this floor, or should I stay for longer and clean up more before traveling further down?"

  A spirit which wasn't even in a partially-manifested state appears before me, taking the form of a leopard cub with a brownish-orange body with grey spots on which small flames burn. He gives me a small nod of his head, then vanishes again, completely imperceptible to my senses.

  With confirmation that it's fine to continue on, I descend down to the sixteenth floor and examine the room. The overgrowth here is stronger than in the previous zone, and there are now more flowers growing around. Bushes and shrubs have grown in, and there are plenty of mushrooms around.

  I'm not going to pass up magic mushrooms of types I don't have and so completely clean out the entrance room of them before entering the halls.

  As I travel down to the twentieth floor, I don't encounter anything fully new, just variants of things I faced in the upper zones. The monsters here are also resistant enough to my mind magics to make disabling them with it an actual challenge at times.

  Just as I start nearing the point where I'm thinking about heading home, an interesting monster enters the range of my [Empathy]. It feels like a troll, but with a lot more focus than the other trolls of the Labyrinth have had. That could make it the first mage variant I've faced here. The others have all fought with their brute strength, their bodies resilient to damage in general. Some had resistances to certain types of magics, but weren't capable of using them beyond coating some or all of their bodies in it.

  Mage trolls have a high Mind stat in addition to a high Strength, Constitution, and Magic. It might actually be able to fully resist my mental magics, so I would normally need to keep that in mind here.

  I locate it within one of the mining caverns, where it's slowly walking through the room. There aren't any other monsters in there based on what I can see and sense. Either the troll chased them off or killed them, or the Labyrinth simply didn't spawn any others within the room.

  Trolls stand about eight feet in height and have a build on the leaner side, but still muscular at the same time.

  It has the same medium-grey skin as a standard troll, and its eyes aren't much different. The same goes for its hair… which is normally a darker grey. A few other things set it apart from normal trolls, though.

  Including the fist-sized medium-grey crystal set into its forehead and the two smaller crystals to either side of it. The one on the left side is brownish-orange with reddish-orange, flame-like patterns running through it. To the right of the center crystal is a green crystal with brown, vine-like patterns running through it.

  This is definitely a troll mage, and one with lava magic and plant magic. If I'm right about the central crystal, its primary magic types are actually spatial and temporal.

  I could avoid the mage troll entirely if I want to, but things have been too relaxed for me lately. While I haven't been too worried about an attack coming this past week, taking down something like this would probably relieve some of the anxiety I know will build up as my focus pulls away from learning about gardening and has more time to wander.

  But it would've been better if I'd taken him on when I first arrived on this floor. That's when I was about as strong as everything here.

  I'm almost as strong as the strongest monsters on the twenty-fifth floor. A gesture from me summons a high-intensity [Inferno] on the troll, incinerating it in seconds. A monster with a high resistance to heat and burning, a high regeneration rate, and the ability to hasten its movements and even [Teleport].

  "Ah, crap," I say as I realize what I did.

  I did it again. Rather than just taking on enough monsters to ease the spirits' minds about the intensity of it, I just went all-in and pushed myself hard. That was completely unnecessary and the spirits probably became fine with things several hours ago.

  "Dammit," I groan.

  I've got to get better about this.

  Since I don't have a warpstone that can take me back to this floor's waystone, nor the previous waystone, I need to walk back to the waystone. The mana density here is too high to use a warpstone to head up to a higher floor. Not with the warpstones I currently have, at least.

  Upon reaching the waystone, I use it to return to the fifth floor, then use a warpstone to the exit the Labyrinth. At the waystone outside, I return home and approach the cabin, mildly confused.

  My [Empathy] can now stretch from the waystone to my house, and I can feel Dylan's mind quite clearly. It's full of embarrassment and desired secrecy, along with haste. Nolan's mind is full of innocence and confusion, but also an attempt at listening.

  Whatever Dylan's doing, he's telling Nolan something and the kid is doing his best to understand, but is confused about it.

  Rather than walking in through the front door, I [Teleport] inside, to a spot out of view of where Dylan is.

  The smell of burnt food is the first thing I notice.

  "-understand, Nolan?" Dylan says. "Absolutely no telling Rowan that I burned dinner. And getting the smell out is why the back door is open. Keep waving the pan, that'll help push the air out."

  I peek around the corner and see Nolan waving a pan toward the back door and Dylan staring at a skillet which has what looks like burnt meatballs.

  "I've got to get rid of this," he mutters. "At least it was wolf meat and not the more expensive stuff."

  "If you want to get technical," I say, and he jumps and looks at me. "Stoneseeker wolf meat is actually fairly pricey. They're just a common beast around here, so the value is only lower in this area. Someone buying it from out of area would have to factor in the transportation costs, though, which is why it's pricier outside of here. That's especially true if they want it raw instead of as jerky."

  The embarrassment in his mind has increased a lot, to the point that he probably feels like he could die from it.

  "You were trying to make sure there was something to eat when I got home?" I ask.

  "Y-yeah," his face is bright red. "It didn't go so well. I thought I was doing what you did, but I guess not."

  "Depends on if you used the right ratio of other ingredients for the meatballs," I say. "The heat setting, how long you left them on, and if you had other moisture in the skillet. Let me get out of this gear and wash up, then I'll fix us up some spaghetti and meatballs."

  A gentle breeze blows through the house, pulling the burnt smell out through the back door, which promptly closes.

  "You can stop now," I tell Nolan, then start to turn back toward the hall. "And Dylan?"

  "Yeah?" Nerves fill his mind.

  "Thanks for the effort," I tell him. "Even if it ended in failure, I do appreciate it."