"This is quite troublesome."
Vallerynne said as we were gathered around the grimoire we obtained through the tenth floor subquest.
My pupils and I were inside my private library.
We were currently discussing our research progress on the peculiar book.
Ever since the arrivals of the other 3-star mages, my pupils' workload in the magic hall had reduced slightly.
Yuxia and Matrias were no longer made to do research in the magic hall. Anaiya and Jafar had taken over those duties.
Weirui had also been helping Vallerynne in casting reinforcement enchantments on our weapons and armors. Plus, the new brewers in the alchemy lab freed the enchanter from most of her potion-making chores.
So I now made my pupils focused most of their time researching the cryptic formulas in the grimoire.
Gerrits had found all the supporting materials we needed to craft powerful weapons using the precious ore we also obtained from the subquest.
Our duties left were to discover any more spells or enchantment that could be useful for the weapons.
The mental spell from the grimoire that allowed Shanny's anger to cast enhancement spells was such a great find. Including the spell that allowed Jonah and Darius to use dimensional magic to summon their projectile weapons.
So my pupils and I thought we could dig up more of such useful spells from the grimoire.
But we had been finding empty sites lately.
"All these spells are useless!"
Yuxia said with a click of his tongue.
My pupils and I had basically researched most of the formulas in the grimoire.
But many of those formulas were, as Yuxia suggested, unusable.
There was a certain factor in all of those formulas that we could not implement in our casting.
That factor was not something that we could create by manipulating our own mana.
It was something foreign.
A different form from mana.
A separate element.
A new source of power.
We needed this power to activate most of the spells in the grimoire.
Unfortunately, we could not figure out what this power really was.
"So this would be the end of our research, yes? There's no point figuring out these formulas if we can't figure out the Malaikat Factor."
Matrias said.
Considering the grimoire was called the 'Book of Malaikat', we decided to name the mysterious power as the 'Malaikat Factor'.
"We will keep studying the grimoire."
I told my pupils.
"But the Malaikat Factor!"
Matrias repeated.
I nodded to his reaction.
"The investigation on the purpose of those formulas will be put on hold. But we still managed to obtain useful byproducts from the research."
I began reassigning my pupils' work.
"Yuxia, Matrias, there are parts of your formulas which implied absorbed force could be converted into elemental factors. Study a way to make it actually happen. The Fretna Problems should be a useful guide for your task.
"Vallerynne, the last few formulas you researched implied that a magic rune could be activated by actually breaking it. Use Zamaaya Theorem and see if such method is possible for dimensional runes."
My pupils' shoulders slumped upon hearing my instructions.
They witnessed their remaining free time in the lobby fly away from their frail grasps.
"This is so much more horrible than before the fifteenth floor climb!"
Yuxia grunted.
The 4-star elementalist went on.
"Zecht has been tripling Party 2's training hour and making the session more intense than ever. He said we had to catch up with the other parties because most of our members had been away in the Exploration Dungeon."
His fellow pupils nodded alongside him.
"Djhotti has been pushing me very hard in Party 4 as well."
Vallerynne said with an exhausted sigh.
She continued.
"The old man said just because I was a mage, it doesn't mean I should get less training than the warriors. In fact, I should be the one training the most because the mage is supposed to be the one who must not fall in battle."
"It's the same with Ulrica."
Matrias replied with hollow eyes.
He went on.
"According to her, an army's strength is determined by how strong and unkillable their mage is. So she has been working me till I pass out every day.
"I no longer remember getting into my bed anymore. I just suddenly found myself already there, woken by the Dragon Lady so we could continue training again."
Music to my ears.
The party leaders understood what needed to be done for the Quintal Trials.
Only by pushing ourselves in the lobby till we were half-dead that we would be anywhere near ready for such grand missions.
I supposed they had also begun to grasp just how big of a challenge the twentieth floor was going to be.
Party 2 to 11 had been frequenting the sixteenth floor while Party 1 was frequenting the seventeenth.
It was also turned out that the seventeenth floor, despite it was an exploration mission, could still be accessed again.
So Party 1 had been frequenting the mission for the past week and a half.
Moreover, Party 2 to 5, all of those in the Main Forces, had started climbing the seventeenth floor yesterday.
The others must had noticed the first two floors were already harder than the regular floors below.
It would only become more difficult from here on, especially on the twentieth floor, the fourth Quintal Trial.
But we should be ready.
With Sigyn's help, we had to be ready.
We had to be!
Three 2-star parties from the second floor of the lobby had also climbed to the sixteenth floor.
They had now become the new Party 12, 13, and 14.
Once I presented those parties to Master, Sigyn immediately moved them to the Reserve Forces lodging on the third floor.
There were four more 2-star parties that would be trying the sixteenth floor today. They would be joining the Reserve Forces soon.
Our army was growing larger.
Surely we would not have any problem clearing the twentieth floor mission.
Would we?
The tower continued to surprise me. Surprising all of us.
It would be dangerous to think we had anticipated every danger it possessed.
But we should still strive to anticipate them all anyway.