"We got another eight units of flax off that one," Claire said, standing up and coming over to stand next to Ian. "It's still a bit weird joining you in the dungeons instead of watching you from my office."

"I kind of like it," he replied with a smile. "This way, you can tell me to stop being stupid before I hurt myself instead of after I barely get out alive."

"Ha! I like that part as well," she said, smiling at him before turning back to look around them. "We've been farming this place for three days, though. I doubt there is much of a chance of you having an accident in here at this point."

Ian just chuckled. The last three days had been an absolute grindfest. After getting the list of materials needed to craft new gear, the party had split into multiple groups to grind out the items more efficiently. Ruth and Jimmy were running with Ashlyn in a level seven hundred dungeon to gather scales, leather, and turtle shells. Lana, Tram, and Selenia were currently hitting another level seven hundred dungeon to farm out claws, fangs, and chitin. That left Ian and Claire to farm a field dungeon to gather cotton, flax, and wood.

Unlike the other two, their dungeon was rated at just over nine hundred, and it was a lot different than what Ian had imagined when he read the description. The first level was a lightly forested area that was filled with large, aggressive bunnies and bears.

The bunnies were known as fluff nibblers. They were around three feet long and had incredibly sharp thorns for teeth. They were also made entirely out of vines with puffy cotton where their fur should be. Each kill tended to drop a few units of cotton on top of a handful of small essence stones, which happened to only be a drop in the bucket for what was needed to craft large amounts of equipment.

The thorn bears were similar in that they were giant bears made completely of thorny vines. Unlike the green and white bunnies, they were dark tan or brown—the larger specimens being darker as the vines grew thicker. They dropped flax and small vials of a sap-like substance along with up to a dozen small essence stones.

These two monsters would have been incredibly hard for Ian to handle without his Magic Soul skill. A spear wasn't the most useful weapon against a bunch of magically enhanced vines, so he was using his new gladius for most of the work. Most adventurers who farmed this area used fire, which prevented the crafting drops from being looted—meaning most of these drops were only sold at a premium.

Even though these monsters were difficult, they were nothing compared to the Thistle Ents that appeared randomly throughout the forest. They were the only monsters on the first floor of the dungeon that were normally higher level than Ian and Claire, which had allowed them to continue gaining a few levels over the past couple of days while allowing them to collect different kinds of mana-infused wood.

"Well, that makes around forty pieces of cotton so far today," Claire said as they began to walk through the forest. "Yesterday, we managed to get over two hundred, so we should be getting close to the amount Jimmy wanted to start with."

"Yeah, but we'll probably hit this place for another couple of days," Ian said with a thoughtful nod. "I'd much rather have extra than not enough. I know there are a couple of lower dungeons that also drop this stuff, but it is in such small quantities that a lot of the newer parties could spend weeks working on getting the basic mats. If we can get a bunch in a couple of days, it will be worth it."

"Good point, but we should still be spending some time working on preparing for the upcoming tournament. We're at the very bottom of this bracket, and killing a bunch of monsters under our level really doesn't seem to be helping much."

Ian nodded. They had gained seventeen levels since they started grinding out crafting materials. The reduction in experience was a lot harsher than he'd expected, but at least now he fully understood why most adventurers only went up a level or two after a week of dungeon diving. The nibblers and bears were between one and two hundred levels lower than them, while the ents were a little less than a hundred levels higher than them.

After killing the first ent, Claire had to explain the change in the feat level requirements for bonus experience to him when they hadn't received anything extra. As the level range increased by five times, so did the feat requirements, so he knew he would be receiving considerably less bonus experience through the mid-tier.

"We'll have to talk to everyone about what they want to do," he said. "Though we need to get both of our crafters to the mid-tier first. We have to make sure we don't leave them behind. They might not feel like they are doing much right now, but I'm sure they will become some of the most important people in the adventuring community in the future."

"I agree with that," Claire said, giving him a smirk. "There hasn't ever been a high-level crafter. Only a handful have ever made it out of the low-tier, and none of them were fully focused on crafting.

"Though, I think we have kinda started a trend as Restless Hands picked up two crafters as well. One is a weapon smith, and the other is a jeweler. Though picked up might not be the right word." Claire smirked at the thought. "The weapon smith is named Julie, and she's married to James. The other is Nexa's sister, who goes by the name Xena. Both had given up adventuring shortly after getting their crafting skills and realizing they would have a hard time both crafting and fighting."

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"Adds a lot of credence to what Ruth and Jimmy had mentioned before about crafters having a hard go of it."

"Definitely," Claire said with a nod before she gave him a mischievous smile. "Actually, I have some interesting news about Peerless if you are interested."

"I'm not sure if I'm actually curious, but hit me."

"Well, your ex's party is no longer streaming," Claire said, earning a sideways glance from Ian. "It's actually true. Instead, they are posting a few minutes' worth of highlight reels at the end of each day. Even though it is short, many in the online community have noticed that she hasn't said a single word on camera in the past week."

Ian just shrugged. "As long as I don't have to deal with her, I don't really care."

"I'm glad to see you aren't letting what she did define you anymore," Claire said as they paused in a clearing and looked around. "Though Peter said in an interview that you were afraid to face them, which is why you leveled up as quickly as possible."

"Really?" Ian asked with a snort. "What a strange, weird little man. It makes you wonder if he really believes what he is saying or is just so full of himself that he can't imagine other people wouldn't just take ego-ridden lies at face value.

"Doesn't really matter much, though. At this point, the only member of our party that will be in that range is Glade Runner—and that's only because she's dedicated to sticking with Restless Hands."

"Who are absolutely killing it now that they have allied with us officially. If they weren't waiting for their crafters, they could probably roll straight through the low-tier with their setup.

"Especially with Glade's new skill. That shadow warp phase thingy she does not only looks amazing, but has turned her into a mobile death machine. I've actually never seen entire groups of goblins literally run away from an adventurer in fear before. She's like a ghost, and the glowing silver eyes matched with her silver hair made her look intimidating as all hell."

"Yeah, I'm really excited to see how her skills develop as she catches up to her team. I think they are going to rock out that tournament."

"Well, her team sent me a message this morning saying they have decided to sit out the tournament," Claire said with pursed lips. "They are more interested in helping people than fighting others. We really got lucky with how wonderful they all are, and how much they care about the people around them."

Ian just nodded before both of them got quiet. The rustle of leaves was the only sound before Ian dashed to the side and brought his sword up with magic soul already activated. When Ian turned to face the monster, he saw he had bisected the nibbler. The root ball that made up the center of the creature was its weakness, and Ian could see it shrivel inside as the creature expired.

"Nice kill," Claire said, looting the mob.

"Thanks. Now what were we talking about?"

"Oh, how Restless Hands is bowing out of the tournament," Claire said. "Actually, Glade Runner has offered to enter the tournament solo if she can get to fight The Conquerors in the preliminary round."

Ian just looked at her in shock. "What do you mean? I thought the brackets for the rounds are seeded at random in the low tier."

"Mostly, though, you seem to forget that it is really all about entertainment," Claire said with a shrug. "It is kind of like those cage matches that famous people used to participate in against each other. If there is a rivalry that draws enough hype, the organizers make exceptions.

"In this case, they just treat it like a qualification round for the first round of the tournament. The winner moves forward to compete in the tournament while the loser gets knocked out before it even starts. There are two other matchups that are doing the same thing."

"I really hope she's gonna be alright," Ian said. "She isn't even back to level two hundred yet."

"Don't worry, she is just helping Julie and Xena level," Claire said, waving it off. "Once they get up high enough for the rest of the party to take over, I think we'll see her shoot up. I'm actually more worried that she will have to stop adventuring for the week before the tournament. She could actually level quite a bit faster than us."

"Yeah, she probably could," Ian agreed, his nod turning into a scowl. "But why is she volunteering to fight them? I can't think of a reason she would personally have to rile them up."

Claire looked uncomfortable as she frowned and looked away into the forest. After a couple of seconds, she said, "I'm sure she has her reasons."

Ian understood when to let a subject go. He was just about to change the subject when he heard the creak of a tree, causing him to instantly pick up Claire as he dashed to the side.

The cracking sound of a log hitting the ground let Ian know that the tree they had just walked past was a thistle ent. He moved a few steps farther before putting Claire down as he checked the area for additional threats.

"I can handle anything else that comes," Claire said, noticing his actions. "We need more imbued wood anyway, so just get in there."

Ian snorted as she made a shooing gesture at him. He looked over to see the tree-like monster pull itself out of the ground and slowly use its feet-like roots to advance in their direction. He knew they were only slow when it came to walking. They were ambush predators that could quickly move their large limbs to crush unsuspecting victims.

Not wanting to wait, Ian quickly dashed into range of the creature's attacks and ducked as it swung a limb across, aimed at head height. The whooshing noise and the wind rustling his hair let him know that it had passed him, and he found himself right next to the monster.

Activating magic soul, he brought the sword across the bundle of knotted wood that made up the creature's face. He scored deep into the monster, but not enough to kill it. As it brought a branch down to crush him, he sidestepped twice and ended up behind the creature as he began to hit it with slash after slash—causing large amounts of sap to pour from the wounds.

When it tried to turn towards him, he just kept sidestepping. They could only attack in a forward cone, so he managed to finish the creature off after another twenty seconds.

"That one almost got the jump on us," Claire said with a sigh as she looted the monster. "Maybe we should focus on the dungeon?"

"Yeah, it would probably be safer that way," he agreed. "Plus, we have a meeting with Diana this evening. We're going to need to pick it up if we want to meet our excessive daily quota set forth by that slave driver of a Keeper we have."

Claire glanced over to see Ian giving her a shit eating grin.

"Just remember you said that when I get even," she said, returning his smile.

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