The Asshai's Bloodmage

 When the receptionist saw me, I felt a look of pity on her face, and then she said:

"You're back so quickly, there's no need to be discouraged. You can get a good magic or sword instructor in the guild and quickly level up. Besides, it's safer to take care of the cleaning tasks after exploring."

I just smiled, took out the copper token with the F symbol, and gave the silver emblem I collected on the last floor of the dungeon. The woman looked at the two of them for a long time, and then she started to blush and started filling out the documents for my new token.

"Here you go. Congratulations on your promotion! You can go to the bulletin board in the middle of the hall to see which dungeons we're currently exploring and choose one to join. Also, we have some dungeons where we need daily exterminations to collect important materials and other resources. You can go whenever you need work."

I thanked the girl and walked over to the mural while looking at my new token, which now had a D symbol in Asshai'i. The receptionist's kind demeanor was something unusual in Asshai, it made me wonder if she was a newcomer to the city or was just told to be kind to newcomers. As soon as I'm in front of the board, I see 3 highlighted quests:

Distorted Shadow Dungeon:

Size: Large

Difficulty: B-A

Current status: Paused

Current stage: Upper floors

Immortal Ghost Dungeon

Size: Medium

Difficulty: D-C-B

Current status: In progress

Current stage: 6th underground floor

Mages's Throat conquered Dungeon

Size: Medium

Difficulty: D-C-B

Current status: In progress

Current stage: Upper floors

Extermination quests…

Cleanup quests…

Collection quests…

There were 3 major explorations at the moment, but the most dangerous one was paused for some reason, another was nearing the end, and another was just beginning. I wouldn't try a large tower. In my time in the Garden of Beasts, I saw the amount of danger in that place; even a master who invaded would be in great danger without understanding the secrets of the place or what creatures and experiments were there. So, the medium tower was the best way to gain experience, and the one that is in the early stages was my choice. Before I took a look at the other missions, storing them all in my system, there was a lot of important information there that I would have to investigate later, especially the part about the cleaning team and gathering materials.

I soon returned to the polite receptionist again and informed her that I was joining the exploration of the Mage's Throat. I took the opportunity to ask why the Dungeon of the Twisted Shadow was on hiatus.

"The exploration of the Mage's Throat has just begun. It's a good choice for a newbie. I'll leave the details for the supervisor who will receive you. You can go there tomorrow morning at 7:00. About the Dungeon of the Twisted Shadow... I heard that they found clues on the upper floors that the former Master of the tower may still be alive. In this type of exploration, we must act very cautiously. Everything has been suspended until an S-rank Adventurer can join them."

I thanked her for the information and left, taking the authorization to join the exploration. Meanwhile, I was reflecting on the receptionist's words. If the owner of the tower was alive, he could be on the deeper floors or somewhere outside of Asshai. It would be a disaster in both situations. Without a Master joining in to lead the exploration, no one would risk offending a Master by invading their home. But if they decided to explore, that means the owner of the house has been missing for several centuries at least…

The next day, I woke up early and joined the dungeon exploration team. The leader of the exploration is a tall and robust B-rank adventurer who easily reaches 2 meters. He wears a full body armor similar to Zhang and a huge sword that is almost as tall as his body is on his back. Besides him, I see 7 other people standing outside the dungeon. The leader introduces himself as Asimov, a mage with body affinity and a local native; the rest of the team introduces themselves, and I do the same. I only say my name, Rafael, and that I am a fire mage and blood mage, but one of the members recognizes the armband on my arm and asks if I am a member of the Tower of Sages. I just confirm without giving too many details, so the leader starts explaining the details of the exploration and the dungeon since I am a newbie.

"The Mage's Throat dungeon got its name from the walls of the underground floors. It looks like the throat of a living being when we enter. It's as if the lower tower itself is alive, always pulsing and moving... We're currently on the third upper floor of the tower, and there are still 3 floors left before we can finish exploring the upper floors. We usually don't find anything dangerous other than a few traps on the upper floors, but we should be careful on the last upper floor. There's always the tower leader's personal laboratory on that floor. It's also considered by all explorers to be the most dangerous on the upper floors, almost surpassing some of the lower floors.

"Since you're a Bloodmage, you'll help our two trap experts disarm all the traps until we reach the top floor. This should speed up the pace of exploration. The rest of the team will take care of security, and I'll stay on the ground floor of the tower until it's time to go to the next floor."

As soon as I entered the dungeon, I saw the stairs to the underground blocked by several barrels and iron bars. In addition to a barrier, there was also a freight elevator, but it was deactivated. The leader should always be here to ensure the safety of the members on the upper floors since some danger could come from the lower floors and break the protection, leaving us trapped inside the upper floors. After that, I went to the third floor and started helping with the traps. The older adventurer taught me many things. When I said that a trap was weak and we could just trigger it, he gave me a whole lesson about traps that are triggers for bigger traps.

He also explained to me about powerful traps that could take someone to the lower floors using summoning magic or some pre-prepared trapdoor. These traps were the most dangerous, and whoever fell into them was never seen again. It took us 3 days to finish the third floor and 2 weeks to finish the traps on the fourth floor. When we were on the fifth floor, the day came to say goodbye to Zhang.

Omar threw him a farewell party, and I gave him some special methods of contact using magic. When Immortal came to pick him up, I jokingly warned him that he should take care of Zhang's life, or I would make sure he would no longer call himself immortal if anything happened to him. The old man laughed at the joke even though he could tell there was a hint of a threat in it, but he decided to ignore it because he knew I was just worried about my friend. After they had left, we took the opportunity to have a meeting. We talked a lot about the organization's plans for the future, and when I explained that I was exploring a dungeon with the Adventurers' Alliance, 3 of them showed interest in joining as well.

Omar, Jhon, and Jack then agreed to help with the information gathering and a few days later they too became members of the alliance and were at rank D. They joined the final stage of the Immortal Ghost dungeon as a group, and we began to meet frequently to exchange information and other curiosities about the dungeons. And some of this information shocked me…

***

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