The Runic Alchemist

Fewh.. That took more work than Damian thought it would. Maybe he shouldn't just plan stuff on the go and do extra hard work to make it work.

"So, it will just stay there?" the Land-breaker asked. They were flying—or more like falling—down, chaining multiple wormholes. Damian had done that many times today.

He could have just used a waygate, but his liquid mana was used up, and to make more, he needed to be in a mana-filled environment. And this was much simpler and fun. He didn't even put wormholes constantly—just falling freely.

"Even if someone is capable of staying up there long enough to push the thing down—it will burn to cinders before reaching the ground. To truly throw it away, we need a lot more power. For now, it's good enough," Damian replied.

"So much mana.. Your mana cubes are ridiculous," the Land-breaker commented.

Damian just smiled. He had no idea what to say to that.

Voidshaper was still sucking up poisoned water with the runic device—it was mostly clean now. The rest was too diluted and had spread away. Seeing them return, he stopped—the three of them hovering midair, looking down at the water.

"Did I miss something or were you two really playing catch with the island?" Voidshaper asked.

"It wasn't easy to do—I had to improvise," Damian replied.

"Now the dungeon. Can you sense it?" the Land-breaker asked.

Damian could sense three actually, but when he closed his eyes and focused on his mana sense, he could feel two more. All five were spread out in a roughly 70-kilometer area around them, underwater.

"There are five," he said, then started flying in the direction of the nearest one. "Let's see."

All three of them moved at top speed, diving into the ocean. The nearest one to the island was some 8–9 kilometers deep. Reaching near the large dark entrance suspended above the ocean floor, Damian did the same process as he had done when making dungeon waygate points.

A large invisible box, then emptying it of water—placing wind-wormholes to have breathable air. He wrapped some green vines around the invisible box and let the Land-breaker tie them to somewhere on the ocean floor.

Standing inside the invisible box, the three of them stared at the dark entrance of the dungeon. After a few silent seconds, all three looked at each other and moved to the far corners of the box. To enter, one had to use their status tool, where the name of the dungeon usually showed. None of them wanted to show their status to the others.

No one cared to peek at another as all three of them activated their status tools away from each other.

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Dungeon: Maw of the Thousand Voids

Location: The Bleeding Blue Ocean

Limit: 50

Description: Far beneath the roiling waves of the Umbratide—a black, starless sea where no sun has shone for centuries— lies a sinkhole of endless shadow, its edges scorched and warped by ancient sorcery. At its heart spirals the Maw of the Thousand Voids—an obsidian spire fractured into impossible angles, whispering blasphemies in forgotten tongues. This place is a monument to black chaos, where entropy itself has been weaponized. Time fractures. Space twists. Souls are shredded and remade. It is said that the Prime Aberration stirs at its nadir, dreaming of unmaking creation. None who descend return sane—if they return at all.

User ID: Damian Sunblade

Nearby: 2

Form a team | Join a team | Enter

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Hmm.. Definitely this one was it. No need to check out the other dungeons. Damian scrolled to the very end of his status where the dungeon info was, being careful that the window didn't show anything more, and quickly used solid air with a slight light element to write the entire description of the dungeon that his status showed.

For the two behind him, just checking the name of the dungeon didn't even take a full five seconds. They quickly noticed the golden, half-transparent paragraph Damian had written in the air.

"Prime Aberration.. Unmaking creation.." the Land-breaker murmured. "What is all this?"

Damian closed his status, storing the tool back in his storage. "I have a spell that reveals a little information about the dungeon when I am near it," he lied.

"This is it," Voidshaper said, moving closer beside Damian. "Starless sea and black chaos.."

"We can't close it if we can't enter it," the Land-breaker commented from the side. "Your spell saved us once again. I was about to propose we enter the dungeon."

"This is how I'm certain the dungeon the demons get to enter is not too problematic," Damian replied.

"There has to be another hundred-level ancient one like ours.." Voidshaper asked.

"I didn't have time to check all of them—only the ten I gave access to demons I've checked, and a few others. But yes—I did sense a couple of high-level dungeons similar to yours," Damian said.

"Any chance you're willing to share?" the Land-breaker asked.

Damian looked at the guy. From the tone of his voice, it was clear it was meant more as a joke than a serious question. Still, Damian answered,

"Yes. In fact, once I can build a better waygate connection to all dungeons and the ocean platforms with something more enduring than steel—I will open it to the public."

The two ancient men's eyes widened in shock. They stared at him as if he were an alien.

"Are you.. insane?" Voidshaper spoke up first.

"To the public—meaning all your people?" the Land-breaker asked.

"They'll have more benefits than others, but no, I won't limit it to just my people. Anyone who accepts to hand over half the loot and all the problematic dungeon relics they find inside can enter and level, earn money, collect monsters and materials."

Now the Land-breaker was truly stupefied.

"You want the whole world to work for you? Can you even imagine the scale of this whole thing? The mess it will make?" said the Supreme Blade of Highswords.