Armipotent

Augusto Thamsen looked at the three people in front of him before turning his eyes toward his son. "Am I not clear enough that we don't want to fight the Tang Empire? Our focus is the tower and finding the boss to reach the next floor. Is that not clear enough?"

Reinar Thamsen nodded. "I understand, Father. I did not order them to fight Tang Shaoyang but tailed the Divine Church, who seemed to be hunting Tang Shaoyang. I sent them to watch and gather information. I figured out that we need to find out how strong Tang Shaoyang is, in case we have to fight them in the future."

"Then what happened to these three?"

Three Ancient Rank masters were crippled on the first day. That was a disastrous result for the first day, which was supposed to be no casualty. On top of that, the ice was not something that could be easily healed. They needed a special resource to regrow the missing part.

"That's what I want to hear too, Father. Shall we listen to what they have to say first?" Reinar showed no emotion to his emotional father. He maintained his calm and collected mind.

The three Ancient Rank masters reported everything they encountered, but they missed something. They did not report that Tang Shaoyang tried to pit them against the Divine Church and also did not report that they pretended to be the federation. They left out those details, thinking it was not that important compared to Tang Shaoyang's dragon tribe and angel ally.

"Tang Shaoyang knew that he was being followed?" Reinar furrowed his brows. The fact that Tang Shaoyang not just discovered the Divine Church but also his men was a surprise.

"It seems the dragon tribe girl is watching the surroundings for him…." Reinar paused as he found something fishy. "But where does this dragon tribe girl come from? We don't see her at the gate." The angel and the dragon tribe were too eye-catching to be missed out.

Augusto rubbed his chin, assessing the current situation. One for sure, they needed stronger forces to kill Tang Shaoyang, and it was not worth the time. The purpose of the dimensional tower was not to slaughter each other. Authority level was for sure nice, but not worth it to spend all the force to annihilate one single faction.

"Since he did not kill you, we will drop the issue." Augusto made his decision. He planned to meet with Tang Shaoyang about what happened, but then he decided to drop the issue. Since Tang Shaoyang did not kill his three subordinates, that meant Tang Shaoyang did not want to go to a full war against them.

"Isn't this good, Father? We exchange three elixirs for this information." Reinar took the thing from the positive side.

Reinar received a glare from his father. While it was important to investigate their rivals from the same city, he felt like his son was doing unnecessary things. Eventually, Tang Shaoyang would show his real power, and they did not need to lose three elixirs for that.

"Warn Arnor not to pursue the matter with the Tang Empire anymore." Augusto massaged the space between his eyes. "We are under pressure and need to find the mithril mine soon. If we have the correct information, there are supposed to be at least two mithril mines between the eleventh floor and the fifteenth floor. Focus on our search!"

"Yes, Father." Reinar bowed his head.

"You take care of the rest, Reinar. I need to go back and get the elixir. It seems the one we have is not working on them." Augusto shook his head and left the hall.

*** ***

"Too weak!" Avyn's frustrated yell rang in the air.

The dragon girl was holding the freezing giant green cat. The beast was twice bigger than Avyn's human form and had green fur with brown dots. The interesting part was that the giant cat had curved blades on its four limbs and also a blade-like horn on the forehead. It was the first Epic Rank monster they discovered after three hours of looking around in the forest. However, the Epic Rank beast was easily frozen by the dragon girl, and she complained about them being too weak.

"Why don't you return first? I will summon you out when I find at least a Myth Rank beast?" Tang Shaoyang took the giant cat and stored it in his inventory. He kept the dead bodies in his inventory, a pair for each new beast he found, in case he needed them for something.

"That's for the best, I guess." Avyn looked quite dejected. She had been lonely for the longest time, so she was quite excited to fight. However, it had not been fun because it was like she pinched the helpless ants on the ground. All of them died in a single hit, and she got bored pretty fast. Also she was also aware that Tang Shaoyang used a lot of mana to keep her. She decided to return after the fruitless three-hour adventure.

As for Zara, she had returned earlier. She despised fighting a much weaker opponent than herself. With Avyn returned, Tang Shaoyang was left alone again.

"Where should I go now?" He looked in the four directions, making sure he remembered where he had come from. "Hmm, let's go straight for today."

Tang Shaoyang found more green cats and took out his barely recognizable paper with worm-like writing on it. He frowned at the sight of his unique writing. Scratching his eyebrow for a moment before writing Brown-Spotted Saber. It was the name of the giant green cat.

"I don't remember that my writing is this ugly…." He did not remember the last time he held a pen, so it had been like years since the last time he wrote on paper. He put back the pen and the paper to the inventory, then he heard a roar and also a cry.

Tang Shaoyang looked ahead, and there was no hesitation for him to rush forward. His ears barely picked up the roar and the cry, so it must be far. The three thousand meters [Spirit Eyes] could not find the source of the cry. That meant the cry was further than three thousand meters.

After five minutes of rushing, he finally spotted the source. A ten meters bear, blazing in fire, stood before two people. The beast roared at the two people, a woman with a basket on her back and a six or seven years old boy. The boy was crying while the woman shielded the boy from the bear while screaming for help.

[Burning Urside — Epic Rank]

Tang Shaoyang took out the battle-ax and used [Blink]. He arrived between the bear and the woman, swinging the battle-ax toward the bear's belly. To his surprise, the bear reacted to his surprise attack. The bear smashed the battle-ax downward with its paw before jerking away from Tang Shaoyang.

Ding!

The claw and the battle-ax sparked in flame as the two clashed. Burning Urside observed Tang Shaoyang from a distance with its burning eyes. Meanwhile, Tang Shaoyang looked at the smoked battle-ax. He noticed that his battle-ax melted at the spot where the bear hit. An Epic Rank beast damaged his battle-ax was a surprise for him.

"Let's see whose fire is stronger, shall we?" Tang Shaoyang set himself on fire, but his fire was black, while the bear fire was crimson. He used [Blink] once more, arriving in front of the bear the next moment. He put the battle-ax back and fought the bear with his fist. It was the same repeat, but this time his fist was met with the bear's paw.

The fire flared out as their first met, but this time, the gap between the two was visible. Burning Urside was pushed a few steps back as the black fire tried to engulf the crimson fire at the same time. He then launched himself into the air toward the bear's head. The black fire swirled in his right knee, and he brought the right knee toward the bear's face.

Boom!

It exploded, and the bear was pushed further back. The giant body swayed to the right and left as it tried to stabilize itself. Tang Shaoyang did not give a chance as he maintained his body floating above the head. This time, the black flame gathered in his right foot, then he stepped right on the bear's face. He brought the bear down to the ground, pushing the head down to the ground as the black fire exploded once more.

This time, Tang Shaoyang remained standing above the bear's body, letting his black fire do the rest. It was a battle between two different fires, but the black fire was clearly in the upper hand. It took merely thirty seconds before the black fire devoured the crimson fire. At the same time, the Burning Urside stopped moving.

It was an Epic Rank beast, a good material for a sacrifice. He stored the dead body and returned it to the woman and boy. "Are you guys okay?"

The woman's long hair shriveled from the previous struggle, but she calmed down after Tang Shaoyang appeared. The boy was still crying in her embrace, covering his face with the woman's body, not daring to look in the bear's direction.

The woman's green eyes locked on Tang Shaoyang, observing the man who saved her and her brother.

Tang Shaoyang scratched his head. "Does she not understand me? Is it a system error?" The system usually translated everything he spoke. Since the woman did not respond to him, he thought the translation did not work.

"We are fine. Thank you for saving us." The woman finally responded.

Tang Shaoyang was pleased that it was not a system error. "No problem." He then looked around. "No one accompanied you two? Do you want me to escort you back to your home?"

That was why he did not hesitate to save the pair. He wanted them to lead him to the settlement. It would be best if he had a native that could help him, the native who knew very well about the terrain.