[CH598+ Continued] Dungeon Diver: Stealing A Monster's Power

We walk the border for hours, stopping to absorb piles of 4th class Ether Stones that litter the landscape outside the border of this mining zone.

We cover tens of kilometers of ground, curving around the outside of the zone, and with every stone I absorb, the process of pulling in ether gets faster and easier.

While collecting stones, I practice activating my footsteps, and occasionally, between absorption sessions, I ask Ava to hit me with her hammer.

However, my healing speed and summoning proficiency have grown so drastically over these last 24 hours that her highest power attack just leaves a tingling sensation for fractions of a second.

While I estimate my ether stores have grown to about 15.0 Low Quality Ether, the growth I've shown since we stopped sparring is far more than just 3x.

Even though Ava has drained a similar amount of Ether as me, her Avatar's settings seem to be holding her back from progressing like I am. They're naturally hard-capped.

I have no good way to practice further, so I focus on just collecting as much Ether as possible.

She speaks up after a while.

"This is about the time the Lord comes back every month. We should head back to base camp. I have enough to satisfy our squad's mining quota and can pay off 150 years' worth of exile contract time with the Ether we've managed to gather. In just a few weeks, my entire lifetime quota could be filled."

I do some quick calculations after her statement but see a smile on her face as she looks up to the sky while I reply.

"You were exiled down here to work for over a thousand years...?"

She sighs and looks back at me.

"Yes. My contract has roughly 1200 years remaining. Even for an Ascended, that's basically a full life. But in the end, my world will be safe and free. That is our duty as Lords, isn't it?"

I look down at my palm with a glowing [1], feel the planet floating in a black void in the depths of my mind, and reply.

"Yes, that is our duty."

Then, we leave the border and head back into the center of the mining zone, passing abandoned pits left and right.

My senses of our surroundings have increased drastically. While my visibility through the green divine fog is the same—100-200 meters at most—my Ether senses have increased over tenfold. I can sense the dimly glowing 5th class Ether Stones all around us for about a kilometer on all sides.

I can feel a grouping of beings with very low ether stores clustered together as we walk for about 20 minutes, paired with Ava speaking up.

"All right, we're almost here. I doubt any of them have ever seen a human before, other than in dungeons on their old worlds... So, just don't frighten them. I'll approach first."

I chuckle under my breath, trying to imagine what a dungeon with humans as the monsters would look like, but nod and reply while taking a step back.

"Sure, take the lead."

We walk forward into the mist, and I let Ava move farther and farther ahead until she disappears. All I can hear are her footsteps, and I use my ether sense to tell where she is.

Her voice calls out.

"I'm back, and there's no need to worry about your contracts expiring. We've met this month's quota just in time!"

The warm blobs of ether clumped together move toward the Hobgoblin holding her hammer over her shoulder. High-pitched and coarse voices, much like the two goblins I met by chance before, reply to her.