The next dungeon was a major letdown after the glorious mana gym. The portal spat us out into a wide ravine between two towering cliff faces. It twisted to the right, so visibility was twenty ters. The place was also dead quiet. No wind, no rustle, no anything. It felt like being in a tomb or wearing noise-canceling headphones.
We stood there, looking around. Al’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. I blinked and finally noticed he had his eyebrows back.
“Let’s move forward cautiously,” Mahya said, adjusting her grip on the rifle.
Rue pushed between us, almost knocking into the right cliff. “Rue go first.”
After the right turn, there was another stretch of about thirty ters. The ravine twisted left. Still nothing. The third stretch was longer—at least two hundred ters—and still empty.
“John, check the tops of the cliffs,” Mahya said, glancing up.
I flew up and heard gunshots. Below, three furry creatures with antlers rushed the gang. I flew down and fired lightning. Nothing happened. They didn’t slow down or flinch; just kept charging and almost reached them.
Rue shot into the air. Mahya and Al jumped up and retrieved the flying swords.
“What’s on the cliffs?” Mahya called up.
“Didn’t check yet,” I said. “Heard the rifle.”
Below us, the creatures stopped charging and just stood there, staring up. They were weird-looking things. Furry, with round heads, huge black eyes with no sclera, and long, pointy antlers like thin branches. Mahya shot twice more. One of them dropped. The other two didn’t move, just kept staring up.
I cleared the cliffs and looked around. Endless jagged stones in every direction, with the dungeon’s hazy borders hanging overhead. I did a flyby over the area but didn’t find anything. Sa thing over the left cliff. Rocks and the dungeon border.
When I returned, Mahya asked, “Anything interesting?”
“Just rocks.”
“We should investigate the rest from the air,” Al said.
The dungeon was over five kiloters long and completely empty. The ravine twisted left and right every two or three hundred ters, but that was the only variation. I inspected every nook and cranny, looking for anything different, but found nothing. No caves, no cracks in the cliff face, no monsters, no boss, no core. A big fat nothing.
“We have to land to clear this dungeon,” Al said. “I suggest we return to the beginning to gain more crystals.”
“Yeah,” Mahya said, her voice heavy with disappointnt. “Looks like it.”
When we returned to the starting point, I said, “I’ll provide air support,” and floated a little higher, scanning the ravine below.
“Lightning didn’t do anything,” Mahya reminded .
I didn’t answer. Just pulled out my crossbow and loaded a bolt with a click.
She saw it, gave a curt nod, and they landed.
The next stretch was the sa length, twisting left in the distance. When they were about a third of the way through, another three creatures charged from around the bend. The bolt I shot bounced off the leading one. The mont it touched, there was an almost imperceptible flare of mana around its body. A faint shimr that vanished in a blink.
Mahya and Al were back up on the swords, weapons drawn, rising fast. The sa scenario repeated. The creatures stopped and looked up, motionless. This ti, I paid attention and saw the flare of mana when the bullets hit. It protected it three tis, but not on the fourth. It didn’t shatter like a mana shield. The creature simply didn’t have it on the fourth shot.
That’s how we cleared the rest of the dungeon. The number of creatures slowly rose to four, then five. The last stretch was the longest—about half a kiloter—ending in a twist to the left. This ti, the boss charged them as soon as they started walking the stretch. They flew up again, but had to engage in aerial maneuvers. The boss didn’t stand around like a dumb puppet. Instead, it shot lightning from its antlers, arcs snapping through the air with a crackle.
“Go up. I’ll handle it,” I said.
I floated higher, locked onto it with my crossbow, and kept shooting it with bolts, one after another. Its lightning hit a few tis—it tickled.
The reward was shit, in my opinion. Gold again. Ten this ti. At least Mahya got a core, and my core seed to enjoy the processed mana. All in all, a boring dungeon run, and my last for now. I felt less restless and didn’t feel like being let down again.
During our flight between dungeon clearings, Al and I tried practicing how to put our armor on directly from the Storage. It didn’t go so well. By this point, both of us could summon it anywhere we wanted—on our shoulders, in our hands, in front of us, at our feet… but never actually wearing it.
Grrr.
Mahya got a lot of entertainnt out of our attempts.
We flew over four cities in total, all behind towering walls, but didn’t stop. As Mahya put it, none of them had the right vibe. Before we reached the next Gate, the wind located another two dungeons. They cleared those without .
Less than two or three kiloters from the Gate, we flew over another ruin. It didn’t look like a city, more like a chain of towns strung along a massive industrial area, with monsters galore crawling everywhere. Mahya got a huge grin and started rubbing her hands.
Al tilted his head in the Gate’s direction. “I prefer to investigate the Gate first.”
I pointed at him. “I’m with him.”
Mahya glanced between us, then jabbed a finger toward the ruins below. “Look at all those cores, just lying there, neglected.”
“They’ve been neglected for thirty years,” I said. “They’ll survive a few more days.”
She gave puppy dog eyes, lips twitching. “And if the next world is interesting?”
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“Then they’ll survive a few weeks or months more.”
Her shoulders slumped in the most exaggerated, theatrical way possible.
“Oh, don’t give that,” I said, waving her off. “You have a shit load of cores. Stop acting so dejected.” I paused. “How many do you have?”
She let out a dramatic sigh. “Only 162.”
Al sputtered, nearly choking on air. “Only?!”
Mahya gave him a baffled look, palms turned up and tilted sideways. “What? It’s not that much.”
Al turned to , eyes wide, clearly asking if she was serious.
I shrugged.
He glanced at Rue with the sa expression.
Rue yawned.
Mahya looked between the three of us. “What?”
I shook my head. Al pinched the bridge of his nose. Rue yawned again.
We couldn’t land near the Gate—an enormous boulder and a cliff with a high drop were the anchors. We circled the area but didn’t spot a good place to land. Dense trees covered the top of the cliff in every direction, and the bottom looked like an obstacle course cramd with boulders. After three passes in wider and wider circles, we gave up and flew out of the balloon. Mahya stored it midair, grumbling the whole ti about how much she hated doing it that way.
Travelers Gate #463333257
Destination: Tatob
Status: Integrated
Mana level: 53
Magitech Level: dium
Threat level: Moderate-High
We all broke into wide grins.
Finally.
I reached for the Gate again, fingers brushing the boulder—
Mahya’s hand clamped around my arm. “Didn’t we agree not to go for spoilers?”
“We did,” I said, lowering my hand, “but that was before the last moon. That place was a shit show.”
She let go, rubbing her temple. “You’re right.” She exhaled hard through her nose, then looked between Al and . “So I have a suggestion. The next ti we see Location: Experintal, we check the World Info. Agreed?”
I looked at Al. He t my gaze with his usual calm, arms folded, weight shifted slightly to one side. “I do not care either way,” he said. “We are strong enough for this mana level.”
I let out a slow breath. “Fine,” I said, shoulders sagging. Defeated from all sides.
The other side of the Gate was a dense forest. It felt almost like we’d never left Zindor. Towering trees easily five stories tall and underbrush thick enough to swallow Rue. The only differences were the distant roars echoing through the forest and the gnawing unease scratching at my Perception. Luck stayed quiet. That silence was the only thing that kept from diving straight back through the Gate.
“I don’t like this place,” I sent to them telepathically.
“I feel it too,” Al said.
“Stay invisible and engage Stealth,” Mahya said. “The branches are high enough to fly between, and there’s a road not far.”
I found what she ant on the Map. A thin line cut through the forest to the north of us. We glided toward it, silent. Rue brushed against my side now and then. I hoped Mahya and Al were managing all right. The trees grew close together, trunks massive and tangled with vines. In so stretches, even I had to adjust my flight, ducking and weaving around the twisting growth. Climbing plants stretched from one trunk to the next, weaving a living net through the air.
On the way, we flew over a few scary-looking bear derivatives. Massive things, way bigger than an elephant, with claws that could probably split a tree and enough teeth to make a shark jealous. To my great joy, they didn’t sense us passing above. Just seeing them made shudder. Those things considered Moderate-High? I’d say more like Lethal on steroids.
Yikes!
After an hour of careful maneuvering through the climbing plants, we finally reached the line on the Map. It wasn’t a road. More like a long channel made of stone, almost like a massive pipe had been sliced in half lengthwise and laid across the forest floor. Ten ters wide, smooth, and brimming with mana. It glowed in my mana sight.
“Do you know what that is?” Al asked.
“No clue,” I said.
“I think I do, but I’m not sure,” Mahya said. “Let’s follow it, but on foot. My mana won’t hold much longer in the air.”
“What do—” Al started.
At the sa ti, I said, “Your regeneration—”
Both of us cut off mid-thought. The air between us felt awkward, even with no one visible.
“Go ahead, Al,” I said.
“What do you think this is?”
“So kind of Magitech transportation, but I don’t know which kind.”
“Yeah, makes sense,” I said. “It glows with mana.”
“What about regeneration?” Al asked.
“It was ant for Mahya. Mahya, your regeneration should be higher here with the mana levels, so you should be able to stay on the sword longer.”
“It is, but I don’t want to be only a third full if we have to fight.”
“Rue too need walk soon.”
“As I said, buddy. Start feeding your orbs instead of size.”
He huffed and moved ahead.
Walking along its lip, we followed the stone thing for nearly two hours. I cheated now and then and floated up. Al did, too. I realized that invisible or not, the others could sense it every ti I took off. Mahya and Rue didn’t say anything, so I took the hint as permission and stayed in the air, drifting just above them.
At so point, the mana coming off the stone shifted. It was subtle, more like a whisper or an echo than an actual shift, but I felt it.
“Sothing’s happening with this thing,” I said. “Jump down, just in case.”
Less than two minutes later, a train arrived, gliding silently inside the channel. It hovered just above the stone, with no rails or wheels, its motion smooth and soundless. The locomotive was rounded, with no visible windows or seams. It resembled the head of a serpent, with two massive fangs extending downward. As it passed beneath , I realized the fangs were drawn on two protruding tubes.
The train’s cars were shaped like dark gray tallic cylinders, connected by short narrow bridges. It looked like a train made of beer cans. tal tubes jutted from the tops of the cars at irregular intervals, pointing in every direction—so thick, so thin, as if each served a different purpose.
The thing was fast. It flew by us at a speed that was hard to comprehend. The lack of effect on the surrounding environnt threw off the most. At that speed, it should have created a wind tunnel, a sonic boom, or at least flattened the trees ten rows deep. But nothing. My hair didn’t even ruffle. The whole thing was enveloped in a mana bubble that looked like the glow from the stone before the train arrived, so I wasn’t any wiser about what created the dampening effect.
“We should have grabbed it and let it pull us along,” Mahya said.
“I don’t recomnd trying,” I said. “It has so type of mana bubble around it. I can’t figure out what it does exactly; it’s just blue. But either way, bad idea.”
“How long before it arrived did you sense it?” Al asked.
“About a minute, maybe less. Why?”
“I was considering using the motorcycles in the channel.”
“Better not risk it,” Mahya said. “It’s too fast. I don’t want to end up as paste.”
We continued following the channel for the rest of the day. A few more trains passed, but their schedule wasn’t consistent. Sotis, there were only thirty minutes between them, and other tis, it took an hour or more. Al wasn’t happy about it. He still wanted to use the bikes in the channel. I was wondering where the other tracks were. Shouldn’t trains run in both directions?
In the early evening, we reached a wide river. The stone channel bridged over it, and I finally solved the other train mystery. A few hundred ters to the east, another stone bridge stretched across the river, and while we stood there, a train passed in the opposite direction.
The other side of the river opened into a vast plain. It was green at first, but the color gradually shifted to yellow as it stretched farther out. Curious, I flew ahead to get a better look. The grass thinned out, the soil turned dry and pale, and before long, the plain gave way to a desert.
“We should open the house for the night on this side,” Mahya said.
“What about the bears?” I asked.
“Your house has defenses. Just in case, we can take turns keeping watch during the night.”
We walked back a bit from the river and into the forest until we reached an extra-large tree with a trunk over three ters across. I’d never tried to open my house against a living thing before, but I’d seen dungeon openings embedded in trees.
Should work. I hope.
It did!
The core unfolded the opening in the middle of the trunk with no problems. During dinner, we inspected the Map and discovered the desert was massive, but it had three cities in it. Judging by the ti it took us to reach the river from the Gate, we figured we could make it to the first city by the afternoon of the following day. We agreed on a watch rotation—mine was the last—and went to sleep.
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