For my first attempt, I decided to hunt the Wraith Queen with ten party members. If I succeeded without anyone dying, I would reduce the number to nine, then eight, and so on until I could defeat it alone.

“Our party leader’s level 15.”

“Why did he come back to the 10th floor?”

“There are people like them from time to time. You know, the boss drops an equipment set. They want to collect them.”

“Eh, it’s impossible to collect them all though.”

“Shh, just leave him be.”

Of course, I planned to do that as well. Well, perhaps it wasn’t really a plan, since I knew the Wraith Queen’s set would naturally fall into my hands as I collected Soul Tempering Elixirs. Without answering the party members’ questions, I opened the door where the Wraith Queen was waiting.

“Kiyaaaaa!”

“Human, live humans!”

“Kiyaaaa!”

“Everyone go in! Two tanks need to hold her off! Damage dealers, get in position! Tempest!”

As I gave out orders, I blew away the group of wraiths flying toward us with Tempest. With half of the wraiths suddenly gone, the remaining wraiths panicked and flew around in circles. Meanwhile, the Wraith Queen started her summoning gesture. When I saw my party members’ dumbfounded expressions, I smirked and commanded, “The Wraith Queen is in her summoning gesture! Everyone, attack!”

After two months, I had successfully changed from the Crown Prince of 5F to the Crown Prince of 10F.

“Crown Prince-nim!”

“No way, this is Crown Prince-nim’s party!”

“Crown Prince-nim, how many are you accepting into your party today?”

Three blonde women who would normally be considered beauties suddenly teleported in front of me. By now, I had partied with all kinds of people from other worlds, so I was no longer fazed by average-looking people like them.

Uh I guess I had grown up. If my past self could hear my current self’s thoughts, he’d be astonished that I’d call some eye-catching beauties ‘average-looking’.

“It will be just us four,” I replied.

“…But you didn’t ask what our classes were yet.”

“One of you is a healer, right?”

“Right. How did you know?”

“I’ve found that parties of three or more always have a healer in them.”

I gave a quick reply as I checked my equipment. I had consumed 53 Soul Tempering Elixirs so far, and had raised my magic and charm stats by 9 each. The Muscle, Bone, and Skin Compressing Elixirs all stopped having any effect after they had raised 10 of their respective stats, so I basically assumed it would be the same for the Soul Tempering Elixir. In other words, once I raised my magic and charm by one more stat point each, I would be done with hunting Soul Tempering Elixirs.

During my hunt for elixirs, I had seven attempts where the Soul Tempering Elixir didn’t drop. For those attempts, I ended up picking up six pieces of equipment from the Wraith Queen’s set and a Middle Potion. I now possessed the Wraith Queen’s Headdress, Wraith Queen’s Black Jacket, Wraith Queen’s White Pants, Wraith Queen’s Silk Gloves, Wraith Queen’s Ghost Shoes, and Wraith Queen’s Leather Whip.

The Wraith Queen’s equipment was made of lightweight fabric, which normally wouldn’t be my jam. However, since I didn’t know what skill came with the complete set, I decided to collect them all to find out. That being said, I couldn’t get myself to like the Wraith Queen’s weapon, a whip.

“The grind is almost over,” I murmured.

“Eh? Over? You’re leaving the 10th floor?”

“Ah, I’ll still be around for a little while, but I’ll eventually have to go to the 15th floor.”

“Wow, as expected of the Crown Prince.”

“So cool…”

“Alright then, let’s head inside.”

The Wraith Queen was much easier to hunt compared to the Orc Lord. At least, it was for me. The reason was simple. The minions could all be blown away in one hit, and the ectoplasm arrows the boss shot out crazily could be blocked easily with Spiritual Shields. Most importantly, my Orc Lord’s Warcry could block the Wraith Queen’s special skill that drove countless dungeon explorers to despair.

All I had to do was use skills properly and it was guaranteed that I would beat the Wraith Queen. In the past, when the Orc Lord used Warcry, I felt like I was barely hanging on at the edge of death. In contrast, the Wraith Queen fights had become so easy that I even yawned in the middle.

In truth, I was already immensely confident that I’d be able to defeat the Wraith Queen by myself. The only reason I continued to fight with party members was because I still needed to get more Soul Tempering Elixirs.

Most importantly, I was level 15. Beyond the fact that I had been strengthened by Muscle, Bone, and Skin Compressing Elixirs, there was still a huge difference in challenging the first Floor Master at level 5 versus challenging the second Floor Master at level 15. Additionally, I had grown quite used to boss fights after spending more than three years grinding the Orc Lord.The only reason I needed a healer in the party was to ensure that the other party members would survive. Among dungeon explorers, there were some who stayed on the same floor for several years due to their lack of ability and skills. While I was at it, I wanted to help them safely advance to the next floor.

In RPGs, players gained experience points and leveled up whenever they killed monsters. However, it wasn’t so easy in the dungeon. To level up, explorers had to prove their qualifications by conquering dungeon floors or by defeating floor masters.

Basically, dungeon explorers did not get stronger by leveling up.  Instead, leveling up only happens after dungeon explorers provided proof of their own strength. Consequently, the strong only got stronger while the weak remained weak.

In the beginning, I was ranked last out of around 140,000 dungeon explorers. Now, I was in the top 100,000. In other words, there were 40,000 people who could not advance past the 15th floor. Of course, this number included people in Second, Third, and Fourth Dungeons. Since I was in the First Dungeon, which was the most difficult dungeon, it was safe to assume that none of those 40,000 people were stronger than me.

Out of the five dungeon explorers on Earth, I was now ranked third. My father was still ranked lower than me, and there seemed to be someone else at a lower level. Although I was curious about the identity of the first ranked dungeon explorer, I really couldn’t do anything at the moment to find out, so I decided to not worry about it.

Oh, so what does all of this actually mean?  Basically, the dungeon placed great emphasis on personal strength based on the way it was designed.

After we defeated the Wraith Queen in under ten minutes, the three blonde beauties had entirely different expressions on their faces.

“Crown Prince-nim… you really are incredibly strong.”

“Gulp… Um, Crown Prince-nim.”

“Yes?”

As I was about to look through the reward list, I turned to look over at the three beauties.

“Starting from the 11th floor, you know you can party with people from other continents, right? …Would you like to continue partying with us?”

“That’s right, Crown Prince-nim. I don’t usually say this, but if it’s you, I would be happy to…”

Offers like these hadn’t appeared when I was doing my grind with the 5th Floor Master.  This was likely because dungeon explorers were just starting out and hadn’t learned enough about the dungeon itself. The importance of having a strong party member hadn’t hit a lot of them. Starting from the 11th floor, however, it became possible to party with people from other continents. It was only natural that people would want to recruit strong people into their parties.

Climbing the dungeon made an explorer stronger. However, borrowing others’ strengths to do so wouldn’t change that fact as level ups would occur even if you conquered a floor with other people.

In truth, it was an incredibly foolish mindset. If people focused solely on leveling up, they would undoubtedly neglect to improve their skills. In the end, they would have no choice but to bow down somewhere else in the dungeon.

However, these women weren’t thinking about such things as they offered me enticing looks. One even used the excuse of fixing my clothes to whisper, “I wouldn’t mind offering you my body if you entered our party.”

This wasn’t the first time I had encountered something like this. In fact, there were even parties that were complete with five people who had offered to kick someone out to recruit me. My response was always the same.

“Sorry, but I want to test just how far I can go by myself.”

“Ah, Crown Prince-nim.”

“Then, I’m off. I hope you can find what you’re looking for in the dungeon.”

After confirming the Soul Tempering Elixir as the reward I wanted, I quickly grabbed it and disbanded the party. When I exited the boss room and closed the door, it began to wane and disappear. Those three ladies likely went back to the dungeon they came from. I found Loretta staring blankly at me and returned a smile.

“It’s good to see you again.”

“Yes. You haven’t given up on the quest yet?”

“Haha, you see… Gulp…”

I laughed and swallowed the Soul Tempering Elixir as I was tongue tied. Her continued sulking made me feel awkward.Then…

[Your soul has been tempered to pure white. Your magic and charm stats have increased by 1. A perfectly tempered soul strongly affects the body, making it easier to control mana and making it look more charming to others. Your affinity to all souls has increased. Consuming more Soul Tempering Elixirs will likely have no effect.]

[The duration for Deific Manifestation skill has increased. The skill’s cooldown time has decreased by one day.]

“…Haha.”

The moment I saw the message, I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I never imagined there would be an additional effect. When I noticed Loretta was looking at me as if I was crazy, I explained, “Loretta noona, I’ll clear your quest tomorrow.”

“Eh? I thought you were putting it off because you weren’t confident. Wait, hold on, you just swallowed a Soul Tempering Elixir, right?”

“Yes.”

“…I’m asking just in case, how many Soul Tempering Elixirs did you consume?”

“54. That was the last one.”

“…”

Loretta froze as if she had been petrified into stone. Because she didn’t respond even when I waved my hand right in front of her, I lightly pinched her cheeks. Only then did she finally regain consciousness.

“Ow, what are you doing!?” she exclaimed.

“Nothing, I thought you were frozen.”

“Of course not! I just spaced out from surprise!”

“Is what I’m doing that surprising?”

“I didn’t think anyone could consume so many Soul Tempering Elixirs. Even the ones who were lucky enough to obtain Soul Tempering Elixirs stopped after one…Wait.”

After thinking a bit, Loretta asked, “Did you also consume Muscle Compressing Elixirs?”

“And Bone and Skin Compressing Elixirs,” I added.

“Whoa, I was wondering how someone so big could become so slim…Plus, this is the first time I’ve heard of Skin Compressing Elixirs.”

“So there are things even noona doesn’t know about.”

“I’m usually only at the Floor Shops. If my customers don’t sell me the boss drops, I have no way of knowing the contents of the Floor Masters’ rewards.”

“Those who obtained Skin Compressing Elixirs must have consumed it for themselves. Just like me.”

“Yes, yes, you’re amazing, customer. Whew, I picked the wrong person to make bets with. So that’s why you didn’t die a single time in these past two months.”

She pouted and complained, but soon made an expression of relief.

“Well, it might be better this way. Hee hee, try your best, customer. I, Loretta, will watch just how far you can go.”

Her words, ‘try your best’, had a different nuance compared to the last time she said it. After hearing her heartfelt support, a smile appeared on my face. However, that was that and this was this.

“Don’t just watch, continue helping me.”

“I am a shop owner. My role is to sell you items objectively and fairly. I will be sure to sell you the right items at the right time, so be satisfied with that.”

“Tsk, you suddenly became cold. You were cuter when you were angry.”

“C-Cute…!”

Loretta’s face suddenly turned red. Sensing the imminent danger, I quickly opened my phone to leave the dungeon, but was a step too late.

“Stop, you rude customer!”

“See you tomorrow!”

I, of course, waved at her and turned to leave. I could only challenge the Wraith Queen once a day. In my spare time outside the dungeon, I trained my spearmanship, practiced my mana cultivation method, read books, or helped my mother with chores.

‘Alright, let’s go practice my Peruta Circuit!’

“Waaaaait!”