After three days of being in the Holy Forest, Damion believed he had killed off every Demonic Beast save the guardian. He had scoured the forest and collected every rare ingredient he could find and amassed an absolute fortune in rare flora. His personal spatial storage was filled with ingredients and Demonic Beast carcasses, ranging from F to C Rank.

Not only did Damion successfully kill and collect everything of value in the dungeon, with the exception of the guardian, he also completed eleven quests. This included his completion of a step of his C Rank beast killing quest that had been stagnant for quite some time.

He now just needed to complete one more quest. Damion had been working primarily with his new affinities. Focusing on spells that he could not use outside the confines of the dungeon. He had even managed to raise Fireball and Spatial Storage to C Rank, but he was still one quest shy of the experience needed for the Magic System to advance.

As Damion eyed his list of available spells, he considered the ones he had not worked on. Poison Breath and Poison Grasp. These two spells he was hesitant to use. Most damage to a carcass can be dismissed or overlooked for not coming from a person with an Ice affinity. But not Poison. If he were to use these spells, not only would the effects linger, but Damion had read that if too much Poison affinity mana is applied to a Demonic Beast it could affect the core, making it worthless.

Since Damion's goal was to acquire as many cores as possible, as well as Holy and Light materials to use in the creation of his artifact, contaminating a Demonic Beast with Poison mana seemed to be a sure way not to maximize his profits.

With only needing to complete one final quest, Damion decided it was time to either face the guardian or figure out some way to distract it so he could destroy the dungeon core and clear the dungeon. Even if he had completed one more quest, he would have held off letting the Magic System advance. Last time the Magic System leveled up, the System shut down for several hours.

This was fine in his dormitory or somewhere else he was certain he was safe but depriving himself of his greatest asset while in a dungeon seemed like a foolish choice. Though, confronting a B Rank Demonic Beast while only an upper C Rank was probably even more foolish.

The guardian of the Holy Forest was a White Griffin. The winged eagle-headed Demonic Beast was not like the majority of the other creatures in the dungeon. It was aggressive. Anything that invaded its territory would be attacked.

Thus far, Damion had steered clear of the guardian's lair. Which was easy to do, considering all the other Demonic Beasts in the dungeon kept clear of its territory as well. However, now that he was approaching the White Griffin's territory, Damion had doubts on how he would reach the dungeon core.

The advanced summary of the dungeon Damion reviewed indicated that the dungeon core was in the White Griffin's nest. The problem was the nest was on top of a plateau. The cliff walls of the plateau were sheer on all but one side. The approach wound its way up the side of the plateau along a narrow path that at times a person needed to be a mountain goat to cross.

To make matters worse, the entirety of the path was within the guardian's territory and the guardian would attack anyone trying to make their way up. Damion of course could fly with his Ice Sword, but this would also illicit the wrath of the White Griffin. Most teams attempting the dungeon, would simply lure the White Griffin away and either fight it in the forest, where its flight advantage was mostly nullified. At the very least most of the team would keep the Demonic Beast distracted while a single team member snuck up the plateau to destroy the core.

Damion could possibly use Phil to distract the Demonic Beast, but he did not want to take that risk. To the White Griffin, the Snow Hawk would no doubt appear as a tasty snack. Although Damion did not think he ranked much higher to the Demonic Beast.

Since he did not want to risk Phil getting severely injured fighting above its weight class, Damion was left with the option to be the distraction. He was fairly confident in his ability to keep the Demonic Beast occupied long enough for his companion to find and destroy the dungeon core.

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However, there was one flaw in his plan.

"When the guardian comes after me, you find and destroy the core," Damion told Phil.

'Help. Fight.' Phil answered through their bond.

"Help by destroying the dungeon core," Damion insisted, forcing a picture of what dungeon cores usually looked like in his mind onto the Ferocious Beast. "It will be in the nest."

'Help, hurt?'

"If I get hurt, then you need to hurry and break the core. Even if both of us fight the griffin, we won't win. If we destroy the core we will win."

'Break rock.'

"Yes, once the White Griffin follows me, go break the shiny stone."

It had taken a while for Damion to get the plan through to Phil, but he was finally confident that the Snow Hawk understood. He just hoped that when the fighting started that his companion would stick to the plan.

Damion mounted his Ice Sword and willed himself into the air. There was plenty of space between him and the plateau that the White Griffin called home. Once he reached a high enough altitude, Damion could see the Demonic Beast in its nest. As he continued to rise higher in the sky, the White Griffin locked its eyes on him and watched. Waiting for the moment he crossed into its territory.

Crossing into the guardian's territory was not on Damion's agenda. He planned to attack and run away as fast as possible. Once he reached what he thought was the optimal angle of attack, Damion cast Summon Ice. Dividing the chunk of ice into four large spears, he positioned them and launched his attack while signaling Phil.

'Go!' Damion sent through their companion bond.

The moment Damion launched his attack at the White Griffin the Demonic Beast reared up and, with a few flaps of its wings, took the sky. Not bothering to see if he had hit the Demonic Beast, Damion pushed his flying sword into a nosedive and flew as close to the plateau as he could.

He might be able to outrun the White Griffin, but he did not want to try and discover he was wrong. Instead, Damion chose to try and out maneuver the Demonic Beast. Considering he was a fraction of the flying beast's size, he felt that was the safer bet.

As Damion rapidly descended with the cliff wall to his right and fast approaching tree canopy to his left, an explosion in front of him forced him off his course. Swerving away from the falling rocks, he guided his Ice Sword into the trees and cast Ice Shield. After positioning the Ice Shield in front of him, he continued forward as fast as he could go.

The Ice Shield served to take the brunt of the impacts from tree branches in his path. At the speed he was flying, dodging those limbs was more dangerous than just letting them hit him. By letting them bounce off or be broken by his shield, Damion was able to keep flying at speed and avoid any serious injury.

The White Griffin, after sending a spear of light at Damion, forcing him into the forest canopy, was flying overhead, keeping pace with him. If given another opportunity, the Demonic Beast would surely launch another attack, but there was seldom any gap in the canopy large enough for the White Griffin to get a good attack off.

There were not many reports on the White Griffin using a ranged attack. Mostly, the Demonic Beast relied on its talons and beak to kill opponents. Its physical capabilities, coupled with a regeneration speed akin to having a healer of equal Rank constantly casting healing spells on it, made it a deadly opponent. As far as anyone understood, the white spear of light it shot at Damion was Holy mana concentrated so densely that it became a solid object.

As far as Damion could learn from his research, no mages had been able to replicate the White Griffin's ability through a spell, but he thought that was probably because they were focusing on the wrong element. The research he had read, indicated it was Holy mana condensed to a point it was made solid, which did not make sense to Damion. Ice Shard, Ice Wall, Ice Shield. All of these spells condensed his Ice mana into a solid form. There was no reason Holy mana could not be condensed in the same way, the problem lay with how people considered the spell.

Light and Holy magic were often thought of as something intangible, untouchable and pure. Able to enter another person and heal them. But all mana was intangible and untouchable, until you willed it to be different. After reading about the White Griffin's ability, Damion was confident he could combine his knowledge of offensive and defensive spells and apply them to the Holy affinity to create a strong offensive spell.

However, he had the challenging question of why he should. He had plenty of offensive spells now. And the time it would take to create a new spell for the Holy affinity would greatly detract from the time he spent on his artifact. In time he might venture more into creating spells for affinities he had, but he had other priorities at the moment.

Like dodging the light blast that exploded directly in front of him.

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