Etheria and Donis bonded further, refining their combination moves, their teamwork and quickly found themselves being able to handle monsters ways above their levels safely. Neither Striga nor Jimmy could believe their eyes every time they would see the two without a scratch when they came back.

They'd beat monsters 10 levels above them handily, which would agitate some of the more lazy men in the headquarters, forcing them to then try and outdo themselves. It rarely ended as easily as it did for Donis, since none of them had a plethora of utility skills, and abilities to match almost anything the swamp could throw at them.

They ended up needing a few more upgrades to [Contract Knowledge], but it wasn't expensive. They had upgraded it to have a range of 200m, which was quite extensive. They found the initial distance of 50m quite poor in large scale battles that forced them to split up, so Donis bit the bullet and splurged [300SP] on it.

He was currently saving the [8,740SP] for an unknown variable. He had everything he needed right now, and there was nothing to even warrant that thought. He wondered what goodies would become available to him once he reached 10k, though that was still a bit away.

Even though he was saving, and he didn't need anything really, he still ended up getting a few skills to aid him further, just in case. Namely the [Bolster], [Beastly Instincts] and [Void Frame] skills. He remembered how important they had seemed, and didn't see any downsides of picking them up.

Donis's family ended up sending a letter back eventually, clearing Donis's mind of any fears. There were many a restless days for him, panicking that something awful happened to them, but instead they were out of town, attending a meeting to further upgrade their shop building. They were expanding! Turns out the business is booming, the family is working hard to uphold the gift Donis left them back in Vorinar.

The sisters even wrote extensive letters themselves to him, detailing their daily lives, their businesses and even their love life. The love lives could have been less detailed, but he was glad to hear they're starting to succeed. Rosa and Priscilla ended up finding someone they liked and who wasn't intimidated in their current success. They were worried they were just in it for the money, so Korrin had someone investigate them on the side.

The men turned up clean, but a fathers duty was never done when it came to taking care of their kids. In his personal letter, he told Donis that he'd always try to weed out the sc.u.m from their lives, because he knew what greed did to people.

All in all, the entire family was thriving. They told him that there is money waiting on his account the next time he visited a big city and went to the Erazari Bank. They were all a part of a large bank now that they owned a business, and apparently Donis even now had his own account. Delighted as he was, Donis threw that in the back of his mind. He wasn't sure when he'd get to go to a large city next, so he was happy to just let the money stew for now. He had no real use for it anyway right now.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned in to months. Time flew by quickly in his life. He never sat still for too long, since the monsters never stopped existing. Three months pa.s.sed by quickly before Donis was informed that he was half way through the year now, and that he'd be going back in 6 months.

He'd reached level 25, and with it new understandings of his abilities. His draconic abilities, bar [Dragonfury I] didn't evolve yet. He had figured out through extensive research into this subject, that for Draconic abilities to level up past their soft-cap, he'd have to kill Monsters a direct evolution cla.s.s above the ones found in Grimbay.

[Dragonfury I] had reached a mindboggling 750 base damage. It had reached its soft cap at 50 multi-kills, and wouldn't go further. It truly had a terrifying presence in battle every time he used it, leaving havoc and destruction behind.

Draconic abilities had a funny way of working. Turns out there have been quite a few instances of humans being able to achieve these skills through personal growth and research. They had concluded that just like Dragons themselves, they were prideful abilities. They required stronger and stronger opponents to further their growth.

Though Grimbay had the required level to fuel the growth, the evolution cla.s.s of the monsters was still only at tier one. Through further research, Donis learned about evolution cla.s.ses in monsters. Each type of monster had a near limitless growth, but what stopped them was the bottleneck that are humans. If left alone, a monster could in theory take control of an area, and continuously kill other monsters until it forced an evolution.

Evolutions for monsters varied from bigger, bulkier sizes to near changing their species. It was a well studied subject, and one Donis was greatly interested in since he had Etheria by his side the whole time. Wild monsters and Soul Contracts though differed greatly in their evolutions. Wild monsters would generally follow their typical evolutions, while Soul Contracts would alter their own paths to try and match their owners, to further compliment the repertoire the owner had.

The researchers have long theorized this was an act of the [System], though none could truly say the [System] was benevolent in its reasons. Though none complained, as having a Soul Contract could aid any and all adventurer or mage in their fight to the top.

Etheria herself had grown to be a powerful pet in her own regard, reaching a staggering level of 31 in just 3 months. Unlike Donis, she wasn't bogged down by the monstrous numbers Donis needed to level up. For her, fighting monsters way out of her level would skyrocket her [EXP] gain, leaving Donis in the dust. He wasn't jealous, in fact he was happy to see her being able to fight alongside him on even footing.

Even though Donis abused Will of Dragons, he still didn't even come close to the ease of levelling Etheria was experiencing.

Though the days were fun, they had come to a halt. There was to be an expedition in to a ruin that was hidden deeply within Grimbay, and Donis was not one to shy away from such an opportunity! He immediately got to Striga and began begging.

"Please please please, I really want to go! I swear I'll be useful!" pleaded Donis.

"No," replied casually Striga.

Donis had not given up though.

"I knew you'd say that, so here's my counter argument. If you allow me to come, I shall stay waaaay in the back, completely out of harms way. If you guys need me, I can heal, I can hide your presences and I can even remove debuffs clouding your mind! I'm totally a viable choice in the pick!" said Donis, entirely confident that he wont be shut down this time.

"No," she replied the exact same way. She had been reading a report for some time about the ruins, and was already used to denying Donis. It was his 4th time today alone on trying to wear her down.

"Please captain, I swear I can do this!" he continued.

She had been sitting at her desk for some time and was of no mind to allow a young adult, which she was tasked by the Academy to protect, to throw their lives away in an unknown ruin.

She sighed.

"Donis, how many times do I have to tell you? You're not coming. You are not allowed to come. This is an order. There are too many variables, and you're not old enough to throw your life away on a gamble such as this one. There will be other ruins, other adventures, but please stop bothering me about this. Even Jimmy doesn't want you to come, and he's definitely the picture of self preservation," said Striga pointing behind herself with her thumb.

"Capn's right. You're not only too young, but sadly inexperienced to come to an unknown ruin. Sorry kiddo, not this time," sighed Jimmy, sitting languidly at one of the corners of the room.

Donis sighed heavily before looking back at the captain.

"Fine, I'll sit out of this one for once. Can I at least get a few days off while you're gone to do my own thing? I've been meaning to pay Yyrthrub a visit," said Donis, completely void of life.

"Sure kid, just make sure to not give that lizardbrain too much of a ha.s.sle. You've seen what he's done to Jimmy," laughed Striga.

"Sure sure, I'll watch what I say," said Donis as he walked out of the room.

As he got to his room, a wide grin spread on his face.

'Like f.u.c.k I'm not going, these are some unexplored ruins in a low level area, how bad could it be?'