241 Turning 30
To start on his plans Yunan left a quest in the guild to look for a party in the vicinity, however, he didn't sit and wait; instead, he went to investigate a claim that he received through the guild about someone having the blood of a phoenix in their possession.
The claimant was an old man living in a remote area, he used to claim that his ancestors had a close relationship with the Phoenix clan and worked as stewards for them, he also claimed that a red glass bead was a gift of recognition left by the Phoenix clan for his ancestors before they too died off, almost at the same time as the dragon clan. According to the old man, there was an old map in his possession that can lead to the burial site of the Phoenix clan and where they left their legacy, however Yunan immediately knew that he was lying because the red bead in his possession was the tear of a dragon and not a phoenix blood drop, he had both types of blood running in his veins and he could tell.
Yunan was not dispirited and chose to return to Tartarus and leave the matter of the Phoenix legacy to another time. He spent the next year fighting vultures in the 46th floor and ended up slaying the boss in that time, the boss was a 4 winged vulture with domineering aura, it could debuff those under the influence of its aura directly without the need for it to cry, it instead used its mouth as a wind cannon and fired it in tandem with the wind blades from its wings to make Yunan have even more of a miserable time, all thanks to the debuffs he had been suffering, he had to buff himself to 500% just to counter the loss of functionality.
The fight went as can be expected with Yunan teleporting into the bosses blind spots and firing his magic at it, in addition he had golems act as ballistic troops and air suppression, making things much easier for him, he who used the fact that the boss was focused on the golems to deal as much damage as he could each time he made it into the blind spots of the boss.
Afterwards, Yunan moved forward for the next 5 years until he reached the 50th floor, during that time he had no news about the legacy of the Phoenix and the responses he got from Hephaestus and Fortuna about the matter were ambiguous at best, something about not bringing forward the arrival of a certain person. The gains during this period were three golden books, one was the second volume of the biography left behind by Apophis, the second was an upgrade to the heavenly smithing that includes engineering and higher enchanting in it, the last golden book contained the myth of creation, specifically the story of the Phoenix clan and the dragon clan.
According to the script in the book, it was created by the scribe of the god Metatron, and was left behind by the scribe inside the dungeon as a reward for clearing the first 49 floors solo, the book itself was read by many before, and Yunan was the 14th person to achieve the great deed. It seems that even though Yunan had led a few parties through some floors, he was still awarded the solo clear because he had the ability to clear each floor on his own and was carrying others and being burdened by them.
The book itself talked about the two sides of creation, soul and body, the Phoenix clan was the soul aspect of life while the dragon clan was the body, thus the dragon clan had greater affinity to mortals and magic while the Phoenix clan was a clan that sought the peek of spiritualism, they had mortal disciples who aimed to achieve eternal life through reincarnation or spiritual ascension. Like the two faces of the coin that is life, their existence required each other, and their bloodlines being mutual exclusive was the result of the separation of the clans, they had been apart for too long, so long they had diverged from the path intended for them by the creator.
The body must seek spiritual ascension while the spirit must seek bodily pleasure, a spirit without desire is nothing more than a shoddy replica of an angel while a body without a lofty spirit is nothing but mud. In their quest to seek individuality, the dragon clan chose the path to magic and earthly creation, while the Phoenix clan sought the path of nirvana, the path of bliss through spiritual growth and fulfilment.
Even though both clans rejected each other, they could not change the compatibility of their bloodlines until the mana corruption started affecting the world and as the clans that birthed life itself, they were the first to be corrupted and even though their minds were not lost, their bloodlines slowly followed their paths and not long after the two clans became mutually exclusive thus being unable to restore the world to what it was before the corruption even if they wished to.
With the corruption of mana, many things and legends came into life, the humans were not the only sentient beings anymore, and then with time the corruption of the clans reached the point where both had to die so that the world may live longer, the reasoning was that if both clans were to be corrupted even further and lost their minds, then life itself will be lost too, or it will change into something else, both clans left behind eggs and legacies to revive themselves and perhaps find a way to regain their compatibility, but alas, the clans that chose death had chosen the wrong stewards, who used their legacies and eggs to get paid instead of protecting the future of the world.
Upon reaching the 50th floor, the guild contacted Yunan about a party in the 50th floor who were seeking a magician, and Yunan decided he might join them while waiting for his girls to reach the same floor. The group hiring a mage was almost shocked to see a teenager entering the meeting room, they themselves were middle-aged men and women, they looked that way even though they were much much older, and seeing someone looking like a teenager was rather odd for them, it meant his Constitution advanced greatly in a short amount of time thus extending his lifespan and halting his ageing process.