Epic of Caterpillar

We quickly made our way into the Seaside Treasury once I was done with my own things, wielding my powerful Blazing Katana and with my two floating Black and White Spears, while having my trusty Dungeon Knife and my Blue Necklace transformed into a giant tiger made of water and ice, I looked into the depths of the entrance leading to the interior of the now-fearsome dungeon.

The entrance was a long stair leading down, there was sand and even corals, crystals, starfish, and snail shells lying around everywhere, and once we stepped into the last stair, we were greeted by a beautiful scenery resembling a seaside sanctuary. The stairs ended right in the middle of a small island, while the rest of the place was the sea, with several small islands everywhere. However, down below into the water, the real dungeon started, with several intricate ruins and monsters roaming around.

"So this is the Seaside Treasury Dungeon, its hot in here even when there\'s no sun, and there\'s sand and sea waves too?! This is crazy, so this is the sea!" Ariant who had never seen the sea before was thrilled.

"Well this is not exactly the sea but yeah, something like that." I laughed. "However, up here there\'s nothing, if we want to advance through the roofs, we need to go underwater… Aquamarine, conjure [Aqua Bubble] on everyone!"

"Got it!" Aquarina said, quickly conjuring bubbles of air around everyone\'s head combining my wind magic into the equation, these bubbles generated oxygen from the surroundings, including normal air or water, and allowed us to easily breathe underwater.

"Ooh, this is amazing!" Said Ariant.

"Wait! Are we not going to drown or something?! Agh! It\'s all water!" Eriant didn\'t realize how this worked yet.

"Dummy! Kireina-sama would never drown us, just relax and breathe." Sighed Ariant.

"I am relaxing! But this is just water and I\'ll drown- Ah." Eriant took a while, but quickly came to his senses once he realized he was breathing just fine.

"This spell… it is so simple yet its principle is complicated." Luminous praised it. "Even I cannot breathe underwater, I\'ll eventually have my lungs filled with water and oxygen will not come to my brain, I\'ll probably survive even if I drown, but my consciousness might go away. I can hold my breath for a few minutes at most… But yeah, this is useful even for me, who is a God."

"Huh, aren\'t you giving yourself a bit too much praise, lizard?" I sighed. "You can\'t conjure this spell anyways, it is all thanks to my beloved and adorable little Aquamarine, right baby?"

"Yeah! I\'m useful!" Aquamarine celebrated on his adorable tiger form. He was way too cute for anybody to refute him.

"I think I can hold my breath indefinitely. I can travel across space and all. You guys don\'t know how to cover your bodies with Aura to be able to resist these things?" Wondered Frank.

"Aura?" Ariant wondered.

"No, I don\'t think we can do much about that…" Eriant said.

"Hmm, Kireina you\'ve not been teaching them everything, haven\'t you?" Sighed Frank.

"Huh?! I am not a babysitter or something! Also Magic can do things just fine. They\'re not advanced enough to practice and utilize Aura correctly either, so I am letting them slowly get used to its power as they fight and grow stronger. I don\'t want to rush them to learn stuff." I shrugged.

"Aura is the power we often feel when we fight and give it our all, right?" Fiere asked. "So that\'s this fiery power that doesn\'t burn my skin…"

"I\'ve felt it several times, many times I coat my body instinctively with some sort of divine and magical power to become stronger… So the path to truly grow stronger is to control this ability?" Luminous wondered.

"Something like that, yeah." I nodded. "Though there\'s a bit of everything. You\'ll also eventually have to merge powers and abilities to keep advancing and the like. Daos become essential once you comprehend some laws at 100%."

"Laws…" Fiere said while thinking. "I remember you said something about it, but what do you truly mean?"

"As your Divinity Stat increases you\'ll naturally comprehend the Laws better suited for you. All of you guys already have developed a Dao, so you probably already have a Law close to the 100% mark. Though you can even go beyond that, but you\'ll need special abilities or powers for that… Like my Realm Core back home." I said while thinking of that Realm Core\'s powers.

"W o o o w! So there\'s a whole world of things we weren\'t aware of but that we were already developing…" Brunhild said while wondering about it. "I think I might have a Dao related with magic!"

"Yeah, most likely." I agreed with her. "You probably have mostly all Elemental Laws that aren\'t compound elements at higher comprehension Level, because you can easily conjure magic the moment you see it, you\'re amazing, honestly. I think you\'re the destined [Sage] of this world."

"[S a g e]?" Wondered Brunhild. "Is that some cool title?"

"A [S a g e]…" Luminous wondered. "The last [Sage] accompanied the [Ancient Hero] on defeating the [Old Demon King] years ago. It was a figure almost equal to this hero, a powerful person blessed by the World\'s Mana. I suppose you have the same traits, the [Sage] was said to be able to wield all elements of magic seamlessly and without any effort. I\'ve heard there could eventually be reincarnations of these ancient heroes by old Elven Myths…"

"Eeeeh?! I am really the [Sage]?!" Brunhild freaked out a bit.

"Well, we\'ll eventually see once you keep growing stronger and perhaps evolve. For now, let\'s go!" I said, quickly leading everyone into the depths of the salty sea, diving underwater.

S P L A A A S H!

"Something\'s coming!" Sol said, the moment we went down, we saw a large group of Fish-like Monsters drawing closer!