Maybe it was something about them, about the speed they were clearing with, or something about the dungeon itself, but they only needed four spikes to normalize the feline dungeon. That took a total of a little over three days, and then they rested for about thirty minutes, using Beth's gate to stretch that into five hours. After that, they made their way over to the moles, wanting to save the frost and insect dungeon for last. Putting it off wasn't going to make it any better, but Beth was a bit too mentally fatigued at this point to handle that right now.

The mole dungeon was…not pleasant, not even to get to, as they had to hop down a long, fragmented cliff to get to the floor of the valley where the entrance was. The moles had no trouble with this, as they left the dungeon and just burrowed through the ground, going wherever they pleased as they pleased, but getting to them going the other way was a real pain. There were some Enlightened who could, using the power of their Mana Physique and a strong skill, fly, but Beth didn't have anything like that. Well, not yet, at least, as being able to fly without the ship was absolutely something that was on her current to-do list.

Mental attacks. Now, these were both problematic and not, surprisingly for Beth. It was a bit of hell for the other two, as such attacks were some of the more esoteric things that their mostly comprehensive defensive skills didn't cover, or cover well. Dealing with such things would require very special skills, but Beth herself already had one of these. Indominable Heart was just such a skill meant to deal with mental attacks and strain, though it wasn't purely a defensive skill, it was certainly in that realm. Even the passive effects of the skill allowed Beth to all but shrug off the attacks of the ornery little moles, and when using mana to activate the skill, she didn't even feel their attacks as a tingle against her brain.

That left Sera and Blood to suffer, but it simply required a slight change in tactics. Beth took the center, something she was still quite deft at, attracting all the attentions of the beasts to herself. This greatly reduced the pressure on the other two, taking it from something that interfered with, even greatly interfered with their battles, to a mild annoyance. It wasn't so great for getting the other two some kind of resistance against the mental attacks, but such things would still come. Actively using the opportunity the dungeon afforded to build such a skill would be even better, but just popping out a skill, especially a strong one, was far, far more easily said than done.

With Beth taking the brunt of everything, especially the mental attacks, the other girls were fine enough. They were able to clear out the area around the dungeon entrance given enough time, though dealing with burrowing enemies was never not an enormous pain in the ass. Sera was able to pierce through even solid rock, which was more than most of the moles dug through, but Beth and Blood both had a harder time attacking through the ground. Beth made up for it a bit as she was able to simply destroy the earth around where she struck, her Mana Physique making her a little bit overpowered for the task at hand, but Blood's claw attacks faced a lot more restriction in punching through the dirt. The wolf often had to wait for the moment the beast was attacking her, timing a very precise dodge and counterattack to damage the moles.

The clearing of the area around the entrance mostly done, Beth decided they weren't going to waste time on a test run here, especially as she knew the whole dungeon was underground and she was not that interested in spending all that much more time spelunking in this life. She used a spike right away, supercharging the dungeon before they entered for the first time, finding a space much like the dungeon with the kobolds from all those years ago. The difference lay in the fact that the kobolds didn't burrow through the very walls and ceiling of their dungeon to attack intruders, whereas the moles most certainly did. They attacked from all angles, in fact, including the floor and from rooms they had already cleared, making the entire dungeon into one long, painful, tedious running fight that never seemed to stop.

The boss was even worse, if that were possible, being a giant, six-legged, six-clawed mole that possessed both earth and some kind of metal mana, using both to turn the broad, low-ceilinged boss chamber into a horrific deathtrap. Beth was made of much sterner stuff than even Sera due to her Mana Physique, though Sera was also doing quite well on the stats front and would be surpassing her as well once she had a Mana Physique herself. Beth was pretty confident, based on just a bit of reading, that she could get another class evolution before rebirth ten, which would keep her firmly in the lead in their group in terms of power. Not that she had to be stronger; she would be perfectly happy if either Sera or Blood or even both were much stronger than her. It was only about if she could continue to do what she wanted to do, continue to push forward, continue to walk that Path that stretched out endlessly before her.

They eventually beat the damned boss that first time when Beth got her gauntlets firmly on the fucker and slammed him up into the ceiling, smashing him flat. Before it could recover at all, Sera pierced it in an already existing wound with a massive attack that drove right through its thick, furry body and pinned the wriggling, mentally shrieking bastard to a slab of stone right where Beth had thrown it. Beth and Blood followed up together, slashing into the beast's neck and head with a powerful combination attack, Beth channeling annihilating energy through her sword while Blood used her two blood skills in tandem, the claws and the blood waves combining into a massive attack that ripped and rent anything in the way. The combination of all of it tore the boss's already injured neck to shreds, Sera removing her spear from the center of the torso with a quick jerk and then slamming it home through the carved-up neck with an overpowered Deathblow, gaining even more power for the beast being close to death. Three feet of mana steel and mana platinum ramming through the creature's brain after its neck was turned into bloody strips was far too much for it, overwhelming the last of its tenuous grasp on life.

The overcharged dungeon, like the one before it, really did not disappoint. It was yet another thing that Beth might not have encountered without being a part of the CRA; most teams would never dream of overcharging a dungeon. The danger was far too great, and the expenses were just way too much. A team like Dream Snake, which she encountered way back in the second Trial she ever did, operated on a razor thin margin; considering the size of the team, including support staff, and the amount they spent on gear, consumables, rights to run contested dungeons, salaries, and far more, a team like that would never be rolling in money. And all that was assuming nothing went wrong. Such a team could strike it rich, or make a decent profit, based on luck or if they were willing to take some risks, but many, many teams like that never operated with more than a platinum or two in reserve.

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Beth and her little team had no such problems, nor likely ever would, considering they were sitting on multiple orichalcum coins and talking about saving up multiple adamantine coins for a starship. Spending a handful of platinum on a mana spike wasn't a problem for them, especially as the spikes gave a greater chance of very rare or exceptional rewards. It was too much of a risk for somebody barely getting by on a tiny budget, but for somebody that could afford to buy dozens of the things, one high-level Relic or Transcendent item could multiply the profit by hundreds or thousands of times. Beth was going to see about sourcing a steady supply of the things, as soon as she went to see about some new armor. She knew Mortaine had something for them, but she was shameless enough to use the old fellow as a taxi service and have him take them on a little shopping trip. A thought that would have turned most people's hair white, using one of the dozen or so Exalted in the entire galaxy as a glorified delivery service.

The spike proved well worth it in this case, backing up her thoughts, though maybe not her thoughts about the Mortaine Limited Taxi Services, Inc. There were only two pedestals in the boss room, one containing a chunk of low mana-density orichalcum half the size of Beth's fist, the other containing a circlet. And, well, what a circlet it was; made of a bright golden metal with rings of violet metal banded across it at intervals, the peak of the forehead had a diamond the size of a golf ball, though not quite that thick, which was carved into an intricate, and certainly enchanted, piece of work that reflected any light in a dazzling array of colors. The diamond was surrounded by rubies, with three on each side, each of them the size of Beth's thumbnail, which was fairly large, and each of them also carved exquisitely. Beth inspected the circlet, her eyes glowing silver and blue as she Identified the piece.

Circlet of Great Awareness

{This circlet was forged to grant the wearer a much greater awareness of their surroundings and the mana within various items and beings around them. It provides total shielding to the face and head, allowing it to be worn without a helmet while still providing excellent protection. It is enchanted with Greater Durability, Greater Repair, and Greater Warding.

20% increased DEX

25% increased INT

25% increased WIS

Minimum level 250.

Allows wearer to use skill True Scan at the equivalent of Gold[0] rank.}

Beth read the description, whistling a little at what it said. The circlet was very powerful, especially with the enchants that were worked into it, and provided rather large stat boosts. She picked it up after inspecting it, feeling the weight of it in her hands as Sera looked on, both of them ignoring Blood dismembering the boss's corpse in the background.

"Looks like you already found a replacement helm," Sera said.

"Wonder if it conflicts with my, uh, crown," Beth said, equipping the circlet and then summoning her Presence. It did not, in fact, conflict, though that seemed due to this strange secondary quality of Presences that they wouldn't interfere with arms and armor when summoned in. Beth wasn't sure how it worked, exactly, but was glad that she could wear basically whatever she wanted on her head and it wouldn't interfere with the crown she summoned.

"You don't want it?" Beth asked Sera.

"My armor's just as good, and I didn't totally trash it standing in dragonfire and punching it out with a monster eleven rebirths higher than me," Sera said with a chortle.

"Fair," Beth replied with a shrug, adjusting the circlet on her head before going to help Blood a little with her task. She wasn't great at skinning, but she could cut through a body and get a beast core out without doing too much damage once Blood had gotten the skin or scales cleared from an area.

That was just the first clear of the dungeon, though sadly, the next four clears with spikes didn't net them any crazy, artifact-tier equipment or such. They did get plenty of consumables, very high-quality ones, as well as plenty of random resources; this dungeon in particular skewed towards more metals as rewards than other output. Beth wasn't going to complain about all the metal, either, as she and Sera could eventually use it, or they could sell it. Even the low-density mana orichalcum was still worth its weight in at least mithril coins, if not close to it in orichalcum coins, and they could make quite a lot from it. She and Sera did already have a bit of metal stashed away of that type as well, and it wasn't like they would be able to use it any time soon. They would have to be Grandmasters or Sages to work orichalcum, and that just to make standard equipment from it.

After five clears with spikes, they were done with the moles, though that had taken them a little over five days. The last thing they had to do, after clearing up some of the surrounding area, was deal with the insect hell, something none of them were looking forward to. Blood seemed the least phased of the three of them, but even she made some sour faces when they discussed how they were going to tackle the dungeon. It was hard to formulate a plan with the information they had, especially considering the spike would change things, but they did have a general idea of the third dungeon and how they could get through it. It was a rare dungeon where the beasts were more quantity than quality, but as the saying went, quantity had a quality all its own.

Even approaching the third dungeon was a massive pain, and that was after cleaning up the other two dungeons and doing a dozen hours of work on the surrounding area. They had to literally wade through waves of insects that ranged in size from one of Beth's fists to a large dog, though a pre-Path dog only. It was made much more complicated by the fact that every single insect had ice mana or magic of some kind that they used with almost reckless abandon, to the point of exhausting themselves from overuse. It made the whole area a frozen, barely navigable hell of ice, snow, and weirdly branching frost that just genuinely sucked.

All of that only then got them to the dungeon entrance, which was truly and fully swarmed, needing hours upon hours to clear just so they could even see the damn thing. After that, they had to clear some of the area of more insects just to try to get a handle on the situation, which was also tedious and unpleasant. Then, the dungeon itself needed to be tackled, and Beth made all kinds of faces even using the spike, thinking of the kind of crawling nasties that would be inside in their thousands and millions, all of them faster, stronger, and frostier than ever before. The girls each took a potion to boost their metabolism and reinforce fire mana in and around them, all of which they had gotten from the feline dungeon, as soon as the first spike was done. They only had four of the potions, but Beth wasn't taking any chances on the first clear, and they used up several buffing items even before stepping in the gate.

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