Limitless Path

Training with Bai's team was a refreshing break from their other duties and training, at least for a couple hours, but then Beth was right back to it. It was the weekend, and the five of them were doing another run of the golem facility. This time went much faster, as they had an idea of how the layout spawned; the level of dungeon they were doing now didn't always have set layouts but would sometimes spawn the instance in a random order. Still, they often had biases that would allow an experienced team to navigate them more easily once they had cleared them one or more times. Killing the dungeon denizens was sometimes the least difficult part of the delve, apart from killing the boss, and Beth was just glad that the number of traps was few and far between. They apparently got a lot more common at the kinds of levels that higher end Enlightened dealt with, increasing in volume through the levels that started to require Ascended to clear. That was more in the four hundred level range, or even the five hundred level range, but by five hundred and beyond, traps and magic barriers and such impediments were far more common.

There were a couple ways to deal with such things, but most parties that delved dungeons would have one or two enchanters to handle barriers and some traps, while they would have a rogue-like class to handle the more complex or purely physical of the traps. It was often nice to have one or two alchemists along for the ride as well, especially if the rogue didn't specialize in it, as alchemists could both help with various kinds of traps as well as harvest useful items or reagents from them for their professions. The other way to deal with traps, apart from learning more about them and runes and becoming good enough to disarm anything oneself, was to brute force it. Beth did vaguely recall an old conversation between Baelvyr and Jaq where they discussed Baelvyr's dungeon clearing methods, with Jaq explaining that charging through the dungeon walls wasn't usually a viable strategy for anyone other than the ogre. Supposing one was strong enough, and resistant enough to damage, one could just destroy the traps and barriers with force, though Beth also suspected there was a higher ideal in there. Someone like Tazeen, for instance, would likely be able to cut apart traps with his unimaginably high weapon skills without needing to resort to the brute part of brute force.

The team had enough variety with the five of them that the minor traps and puzzle they encountered from time to time were easy enough to deal with. Beth had encountered some such things all the way back at the first big dungeon she had done with Blood, the kobold dungeon, which did remind her they still hadn't decoded the other place down there, the strange forcefield that was somehow connected to the tower with the trapped sapient beast. She really needed to check with the others, including Val, about what they had found. Considering it wasn't anything that seemed to present a clear and present danger, she didn't think the CRA would offer much help. Not unless she paid to create a mission, but she thought that would sort of defeat the whole point of them looking into it in the first place.

The clear of the golem factory they were currently working on took about thirty hours or a bit more, a vast improvement over their first run, but it was likely to be their fastest for a while. They had both learned the layout of the dungeon pretty well and then gotten rather lucky on top of it. Sometimes, it just went like that, with a dungeon layout being easy to navigate and giving a party an almost straight shot right to the final boss, if they didn't want to spend time searching for sub-bosses or other hidden secrets. It was always a coinflip on that, whether spending a bunch of time searching for additional secrets or objectives would be worth it. A lot of parties or teams that spent large amounts of time clearing dungeons would be thorough with every clear, as both the items themselves, as well as the money from the kills and sales of extra equipment, were very important to the team. Beth and her group had at least a bit of a cheat there, though selling items was still far more profitable than farming beasts for dozens of hours. Hundreds or even thousands of hours, however…

They wouldn't be doing any of that today, or this weekend, as they were focused on clearing the dungeon before returning to the CRA Hall and working on their skills. They made use of Beth's gate once they were back at the Hall, using the compressed time to practice their professions as well as train their weapon skills. Beth and Sera's progress in smithing was pretty good, and she knew that Blood's progress was keeping up with them in general, though the bigger thing the other two were focused on was their weapon skills. Having Beth get to Master and demonstrate its power to them firsthand, then having Bjorn reinforce that with his own Master-level skill, the other two had become rather eager to reach that level themselves. Beth didn't try to push them on the professions, either, as the voucher didn't have a redeem window or time limit, so better let them focus on what had most of their attention.

Another couple weeks went by like this, with Bai's team showing up one more time in those few weeks, though it was a brief encounter. They were about to start a more long-term project to clear several dungeons and wouldn't be popping up for a time. That, and the fact that the teleportation fees were back to normal, so popping between the Halls was a bit of a burden for Bai's team. Beth gave them a group duel and an individual duel each before they headed out for their next duty. They weren't working for the CRA but were helping to clear areas out for what remained of the government of China, or rather what the government had reconstituted into.

The next thing Beth's group had to work on were their rebirths, which meant getting the last handful of levels to see what their material list was. Bjorn and Kris were both ready to rebirth, but Kris needed a couple more items, which they already had a line on. They would likely get their rebirths done within the next week, and Beth was happy to give them some advantageous leveling. In preparation for that, they didn't use the gate that weekend, as Beth intended to leave it open for a few objective days while Bjorn and Kris used it, or leave it open for a day, shut it, and then leave it open for a couple days in a row. That much was no issue, but she was being careful about overuse with the gate still. A quick check with Liveria, not even enough to bring her out of the reliquary, had confirmed that one opening a week for an objective day or less was fine at her current strength. Any more than that and it could start to be a problem if she wasn't careful, but there would also be warning signs of fatigue; spiritual weariness that caused sluggishness, general body fatigue, and aches and pains. That was a clear sign to slow down or stop using the gate for a while to recuperate.

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Bjorn had waited for Kris to be ready, and it indeed didn't take her very long; having very good family connections certainly helped in securing rare and valuable materials. The two of them did an old Beth standard and used a private training room to undergo their rebirth before returning, stronger than ever and ready to quickly get a hundred or so levels under their belts. Beth let them use the gate at the lowest setting she could put it on right now, which was just over a hundred levels below her current level of three hundred and five. Bjorn and Kris wouldn't have any problems dealing with beasts at just under level two hundred at their current strength, with Bjorn practically able to tank them in his regular clothes.

After Bjorn and Kris had partially caught back up, it was time for Beth and the others to spend as much time as they could pushing to max. They were able to ask for a day off here and there and they used one of those days to give themselves a three-day weekend. That let them start on Thursday and go through Sunday night, giving them over seven hundred hours subjective time, depending on how long they wanted to spend in the gate. That would let them get at least a couple levels, maybe even five, since they were quite used to fighting massive numbers of enemies for long periods of time. Getting to and past three-ten wasn't a big issue, and pushing another level or two, just squeaking it out before they had to rest for a couple hours, literally, and get to work was the cap to the weekend.

They were all a bit dead Monday, but they did the smart thing and rested that night anyway, allowing their minds and bodies to recalibrate a little. Beth was feeling that feeling she got when they were getting close to something good, that edge-of-the-seat feeling that was like she was about to get a big present. Sure, they'd have to look through their lists for their True Rebirths and figure out what the items were and how to get them, but they were really closing in on the next rebirth now. Hitting rebirth seven wasn't going to be some kind of major milestone, like hitting rebirth ten was for most people, but it would mean even more stats and even more potential. Every little bit they could get right now would help with their explorations and, if they stuck to their speed, they might get close to or even get a second rebirth before their ref duties were even done.

They pushed a little during the week, after resting at the start. With the gate allowing ten times compression of their time when inside, using even ten hours of their downtime meant a hundred hours of beast slaying, give or take a bit of time to rest, as they couldn't fight things at level three hundred forty or three hundred fifty for that many hours with zero breaks. They could do maybe three nights, take a night to rest, and then do the whole next weekend. That would get them there, and if not, it would get them close. Another run of the golem factory after that would be all they would need to get to three hundred twenty and see their lists.

And what lists they were. They did a run of the golem factory the next weekend, getting a very, very good shield from it, which they had all agreed to put up for sale at a brokerage…if only they knew a reliable one. One that, perhaps, somebody that was part of their group had a membership in. One where a certain member of their group had, perhaps, some kind of close relationship with the staff, allowing them to get items seen, appraised, and put into auction or for private sale with some ease. A real shame that nobody that was part of their group had anything like that, though.

Anyway, the lists that the three saw were rather expensive. Initial research into the lists was running each of them anywhere from seventy-five to a hundred and fifty diamond coins, depending on how many of the items they needed, how long they were willing to wait, how far they were willing to travel, and so on. They would be spending, barring getting the items themselves, anywhere from a little over two mithril to somewhere over four mithril coins, maybe even close to five, given their urgency and time constraints. They didn't have to do it right that second, but Beth was willing to pay more to wait less, considering they still had plenty of money for their current rebirths. Of course, item prices were increasing, with the rarity increasing, as well as other factors considered in the overall prices.

Beth's list was probably going to be the biggest pain, and hers was also the fuzziest in terms of price. She had gotten very rough estimates for pretty much everything on her list, apart from a requirement for a metric ton of beast cores, which they could very handily supply themselves. Besides that, the other seven items, or groups of items, she should say, that populated her list were all very rare and often not even farmed. She was already entering the territory of the kinds of items that were randomly found, often highly desired, so they were put up as the centerpiece of an auction or as a special reserve for big ticket customers. Most of what she found said that much of her stuff that was traded came from these random one-offs.

The only other option Beth really had, other than trying to get her hands on the items herself, which might be possible with a couple, was to hire help. It would not be cheap, at all, but if she couldn't wheedle things out of Mortaine or Zane for practically free, she could hire someone at their level, or maybe a bit lower, like Selene's level, to help get the goods. And that wasn't some roundabout speak for having the person bargain with others or use their connections, which could obviously help secure materials, but people doing True Rebirths would often hire people much stronger than them, often for an exorbitant fee, to simply go and farm a certain number of a specific resource that the person needed. For a lot of those items, one was no longer talking about a couple diamonds a piece, or even twenty or thirty diamonds for the lot, but a few mithrils or more for the person's time. Of course, a person like that could secure the resources quite quickly, so it was worth it for them, taking a week or two to farm a material for someone for four or five mithril coins. That was, overall, a very lucrative transaction, for a job that, when spec'd right, would present very little danger to the powerful person doing the farming.

Beth couldn't really take up the time of anybody she knew with that, though she would ask, but they would likely know people that could do the task, given the right incentives. Another benefit of her having an extensive network of powerful people that were willing to not just say hello to her but also help her with various tasks with their connections and knowledge. She was pretty sure if she went bottom-to-top, she would get what she needed and could even help the others. She'd start with Alex and Selene, as that was the pretty obvious choice, but she'd also work up through Mortaine and Baelvyr and eventually hit Zane and Fallon. She wasn't sure whether the last two had truly extensive networks, though that didn't seem to be a bad assumption, but they were extremely powerful and knowledgeable, so they could likely still throw her some help in one form or another.