After setting out, the party went straight to the third floor of the Valley of Dawns, but once they got there, they had time to kill.

Ayako's Rallying Cry was actually a super skill, which could both temporarily boost the speed of an entire Alliance and also increase their Morale by 5%, 6% after the effects of the Support Berry.

Morale had several functions, increasing the odds of certain effects when skills are used, and allowing the Seeker to resist attacks that would affect their psyche. It also unlocked a secret skill called 'Morale Burst' when it reached 100%, where the user could consume all of their Morale in order to unleash a super skill.

Only problem was that Ayako could only use said skill once every 15 minutes. Meaning they had to wait roughly 4 hours before they hit their max Morale.

In the meantime, they went hunting.

The third floor of the Valley of Dawns seemed to be a vast forest, occasionally broken up by rolling hills, and was mainly populated by Gaze-Hound, an above average sized Irish Wolfhound with a singular black and yellow eye in the middle of its face. Its speed was impressive, though its offensive bite attacks weren't anything special. Its main weapon was the ability to stun anything it made eye contact with.

It was something that was very dangerous if you found yourself outnumbered and the hounds managed to stun lock you in place, less dangerous if you had a large group.

And even less dangerous for Rin.

"You know, you would think that they would be immune to their own abilities." Rin said as the Gaze-Hounds she had tamed and the enemy ones were stuck in a staring contest with each other.

With the new skill she had learned, Tamer General, she could now easily support 12 monsters, instead of just 8. So she had immediately decided to expand her roaster with the addition of 4 Gaze-Hounds, again replacing her Killer Bees for them, as well the bee's stingers might have been stronger for the sake of paralyzation, the Gaze-Hounds could be given light armor, making them infinitely more tanky.

While the wild Gaze-Hounds hunted in groups of 4 to 8, with 4 of them out of the picture and the rest having to contend with 5 trained archers, who could kill them in just two arrows, as well as the rest of the party, they didn't pose too much of a threat. Shirou never even missed a shot. Despite supposedly being a manufacturing job, his accuracy was by far the best against moving targets.

"I can't believe how easy this all is." Sophie said in a daze, as the archers shot down yet another group of Gaze-Hounds.

"I knew these kids were crazy, but I never even imagined…" Georg agreed, rubbing his neck.

Polaris had avoided the third floor due to how easily it was to get overwhelmed by a large pack of Gaze-Hounds, but the kids' party made it trivial. With the exception of Rin, Sakura, Ayako and Shirou, no one was even expending MP, which would normally be one of the greatest limiting factors when it came to hunting.

Four hours had gone by and they had killed over 100 Gaze-Hounds, and with each one being worth 20 contribution points, that was a total of 2,000 points. It was enough to qualify for taking the exam to move on to the next District, an almost impossible amount to gather in one day at the lowest district. If only because finding that many monsters would be a challenge.

Granted, the isolation of the third floor due to Juggernaut roaming around the second meant that the population density of the hounds was a lot higher than usual, but even so…

And what was with all the treasure boxes?

"Don't get complacent yet." Rin said as the timer on Ayako's cooldown finished and she used Rallying Cry for the 17th and final time. Rin looked down at her ID to confirm that it had worked, grinning as she saw the display. "It's time for the real show to begin."

=Morale Burst: Summon Hero=

After maxing out their Morale, the party started to scout out the entrance to the fourth level.

They had briefly confirmed its relative location before, using the map given by the key and comparing it to the map on their IDs. However, when they actually reached the point in the forest where the map said it should be… they found nothing.

"What gives? It's supposed to be here." Ayako said, annoyed as she looked around them.

"Oh! I know! I know!" Misaki said, jumping up and down. "I bet it is buried and that is why no one has found it before!"

"Probably." Rin admitted. "Madoka, can you get us some shovels?"

"Right away!" Madoka said, glad to be of service.

Despite having grown to level 5, she had received remarkably few useful skills for the party. Nothing that could help either inside or outside of combat.

…Well, except one. As a Merchant, she had unlocked 'cart' type skills.

Stupid as the name made it sound, the 'cart' skill tree allowed you to manipulate with your will anything from a normal wooden cart to a mobile fortress equipped with laser cannons. And as you gained more skills in it, you would be able to move around at high speeds in it and project protective barriers to keep the people and goods inside of it safe.

If Madoka could get her hands on such a 'cart', her usefulness would absolutely skyrocket.

Problem was, they were so expensive. The cost of a basic armored cart was in the multiple thousands of gold coins, comparable to all of the magic weapons that Shirou had produced that first night.

She couldn't possibly afford it, even with her business being jump started by the 'share' that her party members insisted was hers. And she didn't want to borrow money either.

With everyone's increased strength, it wasn't long until they uncovered the large stone pad covered in runic symbols. The pad was around seven feet by seven feet, pitch black and had a sense of oldness to it that didn't match up with how hard it was, considering their shovels didn't leave a scratch on it.

"Yeah. That's definitely a teleportation plate. You start to see a lot of them once you start exploring 3-star dungeons." Elysha said with a nod of her head. "I can't believe there was something like this hidden here."

"Alright then. You, step on that plate." Rin ordered one of the Fanged Orcs. It obediently did as its master commanded and walked onto the plate. A glowing white energy started to surround the monster and seconds later, it was gone. "Teleportation. Real teleportation." Rin said, swallowing back some of her drool as she stared intently at the plate, trying to engrave every single detail of it into her mind for later reference.

While the magecraft to create subspaces was rare, it had existed. One of Rin's own skirts had boasted a pocket large enough to fit a car into, but teleportation was a lost art.

Not a True Magic. Not by a long shot. Teleportation was effectively the same concept as moving from point A to point B, which could be accomplished by two legs. This by definition made it a magecraft. But it was still some powerful stuff.

Rumor had it that some big shot families were hoarding the secrets of teleportation, but Rin had no idea how to do it herself. The fact that it could be done so easily in this world was almost infuriating. Rin had nearly scrapped her summoner's necklace the moment she got it wanting to figure out how it worked, but it was unfortunately only a remote access to the true system that took care of the summoning. Same went for the single use teleportation traps.

But this was the first one she had seen that had its runes on full display. Perhaps it was even self-contained, and if she could figure it out, she could make teleportation plates of her very own!

"Madoka, could you give me a pen and some paper, I want to copy this." Rin asked the girl, who quickly complied.

"Onee-san, the Orc." Sakura said gently after Rin spent a few moments looking up and down from the stone.

"Huh? Oh, right." Rin said, pulling out her ID and giving it a sidelong glance. "It looks like it is still alive, so there was no ambush or immediate traps. Give me a moment and I will try summoning back to us."

Rin pulled out her necklace and gave it a squeeze.

An error report appeared on her ID.

"Looks like you can't teleport out of that place." Rin said, a little miffed. "That means this is everyone's last chance to back out if they don't feel like they are up for it."

Shinji scowled, as he noticed the smirk she had given him.

Some looked nervous, but their nervousness passed as Misaki chuckled and put her arms behind her head. "I'm good. I trust that you guys will be able to handle everything, and it would be a pity for me not to be there and you lose out on my lucky skills." She said with a joking grin.

"Just make sure you don't cause trouble." Elysha said with a sigh.

"Oh come on. Since when have I ever gotten us into trou…"

"Look out!" Sophie shouted, right as Theresa threw herself forward, tackling Misaki to the side right before the ground where she had been standing exploded, sending dirt flying everywhere.

All of them were immediately in danger mode, weapons up and eyes scanning their surroundings for where that enemy attack had come from, only to find nothing there. It wasn't until moments later that they realized just what direction Theresa had tackled Misaki in.

"Misaki, get off of there, now!" Suzuna shouted at her friend as the teleportation plate started to glow, the light surrounding both Misaki and Theresa.

"Ah… Oops." Misaki chuckled before she disappeared from sight.

"Misaki!" Suzuna shouted running onto the pad after her friend, joined by Elysha, who failed to stop her.

"Great." Rin said, looking around at their surroundings. "Let's take care of whatever this is before following after them. I don't want us to be chased down there."

"Where is it? How did it get so close to us without us noticing?" Issei asked, his hands up to guard his vitals as he stood ready to react at the slightest signal.

"I don't know. It didn't turn up on my detection skill until the moment it was about to attack." Sophie said as she looked around the forest. "I can't sense it at a… There!"

She shouted, pointing at a large tree, up in its branches.

The leaves shifted as something unseen came shooting out towards Ayako, who barely had time to get out of the way before the unseen thing smashed into the ground, kicking up dust.

She tried to swing at it, but whatever it was pulled back at lightning speed and her attack missed.

One of the members of Polaris threw a bolt of lightning at the tree, blasting apart the branches. "Did I hit it?" He asked tentatively.

"I don't… No!" Sophie shouted as she lunged to the side to dodge an attack aimed at her, as the invisible creature had moved to yet another tree.

"This is a problem. How are we supposed to fight it, if we can't even determine where it is?" Issei said, wishing that Theresa was still with them.

"...Leave that to me." Shirou said before fishing out his ID.

Moving through the menu, he quickly got to the page to select new skills and spent 2 of his remaining 3 skill points to purchase 'Mind's Eye I'. He felt the momentary headache which came with learning a new skill and quickly activated it.

It was like everything around him came into share focus, the movement of the wind through the leaves holding greater meaning, as he became able to predict the swaying of every single branch. Every single sound and every twitch of his party member's tense muscles became noticeable, and the actions they were about to take became obvious.

The location of the previous ambushes. The angle and velocity of the attacks. The order of the trees that had been visiting and the size and shape of the branches that the monster had been pitched on unseen. All of it ran through a calculator in Shirou's head before spitting out an answer.

"Rin!" Shirou jumped towards Rin, using his body to intercept the attack meant for her.

The heavy club pounding into his back, wrapping around him before pulling him up into the air.

Issei jumped up after Shirou with his 'Shadow Track', tacking a swing at the thing that had gripped his friend, which could now be seen in a sort of half haze. Only for the thing to release its grip so that it could speed away.

"Shirou, you okay?" Issei asked as Shirou coughed up a little bit of blood.

"Yeah… I'm good." Shirou said, shaking off some of the goo that the monster had left on him.

He had only taken 3 points of damage through his buffs and armor, but that showed that whatever had attacked him was an unusually high level for this location.

A Named? It didn't feel powerful enough for that.

Didn't matter. Shirou could sort that out when it was dead.

Pulling out his bow, Shirou poured more magic power into his 'Mind's Eye I' skill until he thought he could feel steam shooting out of his ears.

The numbers were running as he put an arrow to the string. He spun around, drawing his bow back and letting the arrow fly as the monster attempted to reposition between two trees for another ambush.

It let out a croak of surprise as it started to fall, stunned from having suddenly been hit, its near perfect invisibility failing it, revealing a large chameleon-like monster that was nearly 8 feet long.

The chameleon tried to recover and climb away, but unlike its tongue, which had been able to move at high speeds to the point where the party couldn't retaliate, its main body was much slower.

Fueled by anger, Issei was on it in a heartbeat, landing a bone popping punch to the back of the creature's neck, causing it to give off a loud croaking sound.

Issei pinned it down with one hand before unleashing a few more blows for good measure into its head and legs.

"It's dead already, you can stop now." Rin said after the tenth blow. "I sure hope you didn't break anything important." She joked as she checked on Shirou. Issei looked to be struggling with himself to not hit it again, before taking a deep break, letting the tension disappear from his face and straightening his glasses. "You alright?"

"Don't worry. I'm alright." Shirou said before getting a slap to his head.

"Idiot. You know as a combat-type Job, my defenses are stronger than yours are." Rin said sharply before seeing the small line of blood coming from his mouth. She winced and quickly started to heal him. "Don't just go around throwing yourself in front of attacks like that."

"I'll try not to make you worry." Shirou apologized, not making any promises about not throwing himself in the line of fire in the future.

"Plains Eater, level 5." Georg said as he looked the monster over. "What in the world is a level 5 monster doing in a 1-star Labyrinth?"

A normal Plains Eater was supposed to only be level 2, and its stealth wasn't supposed to be so good. It shouldn't have been able to sneak up on 2 Rogues at the same time.

"It probably didn't start out as a level 5." Shinji guessed. "Remember that this area has been isolated for a long time. If I had to take a guess, I'd say this guy had been feeding off of the other monsters for the last three months and had grown a lot of levels doing it."

"Can I dismantle it?" Melissa asked, one finger in her mouth as she stared at the rare super lizard with curiosity. Like a kid looking through a candy store window, a slight bit of drool at the edge of her mouth.

"...Later." Issei said.

"I'm surprised how fast Shirou was when he went to intercept the attack." Madoka said, surprising everyone. "It was almost like you weren't a manufacturing Job at all."

Having reinforced his body as well as he could, Shirou had moved much faster than his normal self in order to get between Rin and the unseen attack. The difference had gone unnoticed by the people who had combat related Jobs, but as a Merchant, Madoka had seen the abnormal speed for what it was.

"I guess my 'Training' skill is useful after all." Shirou said, rubbing the back of his neck, his eyes avoiding everyone.

Issei and Madoka instantly recognized it as Shirou's weak attempts at lying, but the others who didn't know about his magecraft took it at face value.

"Alright. We'll head down into the next layer now." Rin said after Madoka quickly picked up the corpse. "Hopefully the others didn't go anywhere without us."