SSS Awakening: I am the First Legendary Mage

Alex wasn’t surprised by the notification. Throughout the battle, he had already noticed his movements becoming much smoother than before.

The level up simply confirmed what he had been feeling.

Previously, whenever he compressed too much mana into his body, most of his focus had to remain on fine-tuning the mana between muscles.

That made it harder to move naturally during combat because his attention was divided. This time, however, his body had moved almost on its own while he concentrated on the battle.

The fight had helped him grow familiar with that sensation. As he adapted to using the new spell in actual combat, activating it became more natural.

It was only reasonable that the spell improved through repeated use.

"Everyone, take a short rest. If anyone is injured, ask Petra to heal you. Spend your stat points now if you leveled up instead of saving them, and Frank, collect the Gene Potentials. We’ll divide everything after we leave the dungeon," Alex said after confirming there were no more enemies nearby.

The group looked at him with mild surprise before following his instructions. His orders were simple and practical, leaving little room for confusion. Since nobody else had experience leading a group, no one objected.

Alex himself wasn’t experienced either. However, he wasn’t willing to entrust his life to someone else’s poor decisions when everyone was equally inexperienced.

If mistakes happened, he would rather they were his own.

The others seemed to think his composure came from military experience. Alex noticed the misunderstanding but didn’t bother correcting it. Right now, keeping everyone organized mattered more.

Frank had blocked the first attack at an awkward angle, leaving his shoulder sore from the impact. Although it looked a small injury, it could lead to disasters in a battle. Petra healed it.

A soft glow surrounded Frank’s shoulder as Petra activated Faith. Within moments, the discomfort disappeared completely. Frank rotated his arm a few times before giving her a grateful nod.

Earlier, Alex had asked Petra about her healing ability. Interestingly, [Faith] was much more effective when used on others than on herself.

She could still heal her own injuries, but the results were noticeably weaker.

After everyone finished resting, the group resumed moving through the tunnels. Petra quietly guided them while the others remained alert for any movement ahead or behind.

Before long, they encountered another group of Titan Reef Crabs. This time there were three monsters waiting inside a wider section of the tunnel.

Without needing many instructions, everyone moved into position.

Their coordination had already improved after the previous battle.

Emma pulled the monsters with Taunt, Frank held the front, and Sarah attacked whenever Alex created an opening.

Petra continued supporting them by distracting whichever monster threatened to overwhelm someone.

The battle ended quickly. Although Alex was individually stronger than the crabs, fighting alongside a coordinated team reduced the time needed to kill them considerably, thus improving his efficiency. It also allowed everyone to gain combat experience, something that could help if they encountered too many monsters for Alex to deal with alone.

After collecting the loot, they continued deeper into the dungeon. Surprisingly, they encountered no more monsters along the way.

The silence gradually became unsettling. Sarah frowned as she looked around the empty tunnels.

"We should have run into a lot more monsters by now. The last time we came here, they were everywhere," she said quietly.

Alex considered the situation as they walked.

’Are they hiding somewhere and preparing an ambush?’ he wondered. A few moments later, he shook his head.

’The simpler explanation is probably correct. It’s the middle of the day, so most of them may have gone outside to search for food,’ he thought.

Even so, he kept his guard up and remained ready for an attack.

Several minutes later, Petra came to a stop.

"We’re here," she said softly.

Everyone looked ahead.

The place where Joseph and Yulia had been hiding was empty. The wet muddy floor was covered with marks left by a fierce battle, and broken pieces of Titan Reef Crab shells lay scattered around the area.

Silence filled the tunnel.

The scene spoke for itself. The monsters had eventually broken the barrier protecting Joseph and Yulia, and fighting had erupted afterward. What happened next was impossible to determine from the evidence alone.

’We reached this place before the barrier’s time limit should have expired. That means there were monsters stronger than Level 10 attacking this place,’ Alex thought as his brows furrowed.

Level 10 was an important threshold. Judging by the difference between his Level 10 spell and the Level 1 spell of the next rank, Alex already knew how significant that jump in strength could be.

If monsters followed the same pattern, enemies above Level 10 would be considerably more dangerous.

"They’re not dead."

Emma’s voice broke the silence.

Everyone turned toward her.

"There isn’t any blood on the ground. If they had been killed here, we’d see some. I think they escaped as soon as the barrier broke. They probably used Magic Bullet or something else to distract the monsters," she said after looking around carefully.

Hope returned to Sarah’s face. At the same time, her worry deepened because there was only one direction Joseph and Yulia could have fled.

The deeper they went into the dungeon, the stronger the monsters became.

There was no guarantee their current team could safely return after continuing deeper, let alone rescue two people along the way.

Presented with the two choices, Alex did what he always did. He put forth advantages and disadvantages of going deeper.

’My leveling speed is already slowing down. I need to kill more monsters for every new level, and this colony is full of Titan Reef Crabs. Even if most of them are outside right now, they’ll return eventually, making this an excellent place to keep leveling.’

’If higher rank species variant of Titan Reef Crabs lives deeper inside the dungeon, defeating them would provide higher-ranked Gene Potentials. That alone would make the risk worthwhile.’

..

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