In the forest, the first creatures they encountered were normal creatures, something that hadn’t been covered in their briefings, and their genuine first surprise since entering the dungeon. There was a large variety of normal beasts, and for a while, it truly felt like a normal forest near a civilized area. Squirrels roamed the trees while small birds fluttered around. They even saw a normal-looking brown bear just minding its own business.

  Eventually, they ran into their first encounter, as people were calling them. No one knew how the name came to be, but the prevailing theory was that someone had seen the name on a random screen at some point, and from there, the name had stuck. It was odd because no one had yet reported anything, unless the information had been added to the restricted list somehow.

  Anyways, the encounters were called that because they all seem to be almost pre-determined, at least in some areas of the dungeon. This time around, the trio ran into another brown bear, but unlike its pure brown counterpart, this particular bear had a more earthy tone to it. Now, though they were called encounters and seemed pre-determined, it was more how adventurers and monsters met that seemed controlled. Otherwise, each encounter would be suited to challenge each explorer or adventurer team at the appropriate level. And since the trio didn’t even register this mighty bear in front of them as a threat, not to mention it was alone, it was clear that the encounters had a certain level of randomness.

  Honestly, it made sense to the trio. After all, the closer they were to the town, the easier things were meant to be, since it was meant to be a training ground for new D Rankers. So, it made sense that this bear that was still staring at them wasn’t even ranked yet, and honestly, the trio felt bad for the creature. However, it had sought them out, and they had been itching to fight.

  Alexion enhanced his body, not even bothering to use any godly mana or his pure mana in general. Rushing at the beast, which was now charging at him, its body enhanced as well, a surprise, to say the least, considering it wasn’t a ranked monster. Still, the surprise wasn’t anywhere near enough to worry Alexion, especially after he felt and saw magic icicles fly by him and stab into the monster's back, causing it to falter. Following Adrianas's attack, roots sprouted from nearby trees and the ground itself and began entangling the bear, who was starting to recover.

  Thankful for his training, Alexion felt the mana around him stir and hesitated at the very last second before two stones of slab erupted right where he was going to be, slamming together. The attack wouldn’t have killed him, but in his current state, it would have hurt. From there, the fight didn’t last long; the beast was empowered, but it was still a normal ranker with very limited mana. So, without any further tricks, it was quickly dispatched. From what they gathered, it would be a decent foe against a group of normal-ranked folk trying to rank up, but to a D Ranker, it wasn’t that big of a problem.

  After the fight with the bear, and to everyone’s annoyance, the itch for battle had only grown. The stupid bear had barely allowed them to do anything. In response, the team hurried through the forest, searching for the stupid sun daisies.

  “What did she say they look like again?” Adriana asked as she looked over every patch of forest that was struck by any remote amount of sunlight. Misty had told them that the flower grew explicitly in the forest and in spots where sunlight struck enough to allow the damn things to bloom.

  “It’s a daisy, but golden. So small, a bunch of petals and yellow,” Arctur replied, being the one most familiar with plants.

  “And you are sure you can’t just grow it, like you do with Adriana's hat flowers?” Alexion asked, annoyed.

  “No, I can’t. We have been over this. I might have plant powers, as you call them, but they are still very limited. At most, I would be conjuring them, which is not the same as the real thing. Which, by the way, is what her hat flowers are!” Arctur replied, even more annoyed.

  “Alexion, stop it! You are doing it on purpose now, getting him riled up isn’t going to help!” Adriana yelled from a random spot in the forest.

  “Well, yeah, why else would I do it?” the storm elf said suddenly behind Adriana, startling her. She responded with a smile and a playful slap.

  After meeting up, the duo moved over to where Arctur was. The green man, seeing them, gave them a confused look, questioning why they weren’t searching.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Yeah, buddy, we're idiots, more you than us, honestly,” Alexion said, putting a hand on Arctur's shoulder, making the big green man frown.

  “What do you mean?” Arctur said, still frowning as he gently slapped the slender elf's hand from his shoulder.

  With amusement, the storm elf answered, “Listen, I won’t blame you. It's been a big day, and between you and Adriana’s forms, it can all get complicated. However, can’t you just switch over to your nature spirit form and find the flowers that way?”

  As the elf spoke, slow comprehension began to appear in Arctur’s face as he realized how dumb he had been.

  Adriana and Alexion watched for the thousandth time as their friend's normal green eyes transformed into orbs of green energy, sparkling with even more power than before. All the while, his slight green skin turned a much deeper green, and his hair became the texture of very fine grass and vines. Where before, Arctur radiated a faint bit of power. Now, with all the plants nearby, his power had grown much more, and he felt like a completely different creature.

  Seconds after transforming, the blue and white hair couple felt a pulse of power from Arctur and followed as he walked with confidence toward the sun daisies.

  After harvesting enough daisies to satisfy Misty’s questing needs, the party began making their way back to town. At that point, Arctur had reverted back to his base form, and the trio was enjoying a walk through the forest. They had entered the dungeon around mid-morning, and it was already getting into the afternoon. To that end, they discussed what they wanted to do.

  “I think we should try and stay at the inn and continue our fun tomorrow,” Adriana said, mainly because she didn’t want to return to the real world where most everyone stared at her like a piece of delicious pie. Unlike Alexion’s attention, which she purely enjoyed, the looks others gave her were like a sweet poison; she couldn’t get enough of it, yet it killed her little by little.

  “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. We didn’t bring our camping gear with us this time, and not heading back to get it will delay us. I think we should leave and come back, then stay for the rest of the month,” Alexion said, looking over to Arctur for his opinion.

  “Yeah, I am with Alexion on this one. We know the dungeon reset like a day ago, so we have a month to properly explore.”

  “I guess, when you guys put it like that, I have to agree.”

  With their issue resolved and knowing they were planning to leave the dungeon after they returned to town, the trio slowed their pace. They were hoping to run into a proper encounter with proper D Rank beasts, which was why they had gone so far from town. Sadly, they had yet to encounter anything and wondered if they ever would. Of course, right at that moment, something final happened.

  In a flash of energy, something landed right in front of them, and they only had time to register that it was a rather large acorn before it exploded as roots and vines shot out to grasp at them. While they struggled to untangle themselves, their Body Enhancements already active. They saw a blur of yellow pass by before they heard the sound of an electric discharge, followed by Alexion roaring in pain right after.

  The first to leave the binding of the vines was Arctur, who commanded some of his magic to overcome the nature magic of the plants. With the plants now under his control, he quickly pulled them back from his almost free companions.

  Looking around, they quickly spotted an armored bear slowly making its way to them, along with the singed mark on Alexion’s otherwise light skin. Seeing the bear, the trio was annoyed. This was one of the instances where the monsters seemingly gave adventurers time to get themselves together before the real fight broke out. They wanted some real pressure, but they understood that not everyone was like them. Still, it was time to rumble, and Alexion rushed forward to meet the bear whose armor was actually just decently placed and somewhat jagged pieces of stone.

  Watching Alexion run off to punch the bear, his other two companions stayed behind. They were on the lookout for the blur of yellow that had passed by early, along with any other possible surprises. After all, they had yet to find what threw that acorn. With that in mind, Arctur realized it was probably some sort of nature creature, and he quickly transformed into his half-nature spirit form, his eyes turning to green orbs of green while his skin gained a deeper pigmentation.

  Adriana spotted a flash of yellow and didn’t hesitate to throw a multitude of icicles in its general direction. However, hearing no cries of pain, she assumed her attack had missed. Then, hearing Arctur speak, she turned to him.

  “Aha! Gotcha!” The big green man said before she heard a loud crack of wood. Upon looking at the noise, she saw that a large branch had been crushed.

  “What was that!?”

  “From what I could tell, there was some sort of large nature-aligned squirrel hiding in the wood, so I crushed it.”

  “Oww! Son of a monkey!” They both heard Alexion yell and turned to find him dodging strikes from an armored gorilla that was wearing a stone plate chest piece with a matching helmet. The gorilla’s fists were glowing with power, and from how the elf was rubbing his cheek, the large monkey had clearly gotten a good swing at him.

  “You know, you could have told us the bear was rushing at us!” Arctur exclaimed, seeing the bear coming at them at a saunter.

  Alexion, dodging yet another blow from the gorilla while getting a good kick in himself, yelled back, “Well, this guy got me by surprise! It just dove in from a tree! Also, it’s a battle! Pay attention! Oh, and look out for those monkeys!”

  “What monkeys!?” Adriana and Arctur yelled right before two baboons landed on their heads.