Bryce Badlands, depth 6
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A realm of clay and rock, it resembled the famous Bryce Canyon in Western North America. This realm wasn't too dangerous at first. For a flying creature like Fairy-Robert, the risks were minimal. Most of the value of the trophies from this realm was due to their rarity and how deep it was compared to Earth. Even the shortcut through the Maze Corridors only brought the depth down to four. Robert flew above the rock formations, admiring the view and searching for his target.
He saw a dust devil carrying a tragedy theater mask. There it was. He aimed his void lance and fired. The beam caught most of the dust devil but spared the mask. Robert descended and instantly suffered the most dangerous aspect of this realm.
The maddening whispers. The wind that blew through the rock formations made a haunting sound that eventually became charged with Mental essence and incited madness in the travelers. The aural attack required working ears but they delivered the whispers directly to the ear canal. No amount of protection save from magic could keep one from hearing the whispers and letting their mental defenses erode.
The masks of these Desert Revenants were said to be the remnants of invaders' souls when they perished in the wastes. They carried a strong curse that repeated these whispers along with the traveler's last words. Robert used the same box that kept the Prime Vestiges from being heard to store the mask and got out.
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Cairo, Nubian coalition.
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Disguised as a local, Robert paid the entrance fee and crossed the Dungeon portal. The guards snickered and said something rude about his intellect as he went. Robert found himself in a random location inside the realm and heard the clicking sounds of machinery.
He was inside a massive fortress of gears, pistons, and mechanical marvels, where time itself seemed to warp and distort. The walls and floors shifted and rotated in intricate patterns. All around him, ticking gears of brass, wood, bronze, stone, steel, and other materials moved and whirred, depending on their size. Robert could sense the Time essence flowing in the realm even without his improved fairy eyes.
The entrance to this realm was so cheap and unguarded because one of the real challenges was to find the exit. Though it rested in the center of the fortress, the paths changed all the time as the pistons moved platforms and changed the corridors. Mapping and crossing this maddening mechanical monstrosity was almost impossible. And the sense of time was skewed. You could journey for an hour before you found the exit, and leave, only to realize that a decade had passed outside. Or get stuck for a month and depart a minute after you enter. Though nobody ever left before they entered, some theorists stated that it was possible. Robert doubted. Nothing he saw about Time magic talked about going back in time. The practical pinnacle of Time magic was stopping it altogether. Not even his talent achieved that.
However, experiments showed that the whole realm was separated in time from the rest of the interspace. Delvers with talents that allowed for cross-realm communication tried to send messages out but they all reached Earth at the same time. Only when someone entered or left through the portals did the realm update its time frame with the outside, jumping forward or slowing down at random?
That's why he cheated. Robert entered the liminal void and the machinery stopped as it lost all color. Now all he had to do was to fly around and find what he needed. Some hours later, he pinpointed the monster he needed to defeat.
The Clockwork Conductor was a gentleman made of gears, sprockets, metallic plates, and pistons, seven feet tall and wearing a tuxedo. An array of lenses on swivels and little arms stood to the sides of its mechanical aperture eyes. It had only two stars. These monsters fought by manipulating Time, controlling the environment, and with just raw power. These pistons weren't there for fun.
Robert prepared the torus lens beforehand and fired it as soon as he returned to reality. The hollow beam carved a donut out of the conductor's body, leaving the upper chest intact. Another Zoltraak void lance obliterated the conductor's head. From there, he just flew and collected the conductor's gear core. It leaked Time essence and Robert had to use a special containment box with pins to stop the gears from rotating and wasting the precious Time essence.
Too bad he only had one box. Else he would hunt more Clockwork Conductors for their cores. Robert still killed a few more. He collected a few clockwork heads and interesting devices, as well as taking some conductors to the true void. The silvery-sand orbs he obtained from the "Void feast", as he dubbed that particular talent evolution, only replenished his essence.
Robert escaped via the true void. This way, he skipped the realm's time distortion. He returned to earth at the same moment as he had entered the realm. If only he needed time and had a way to keep anyone from crossing the passage, he could stay there forever. But extra time was something he definitely didn't need.
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New Miami, Empire of America.
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Robert wore a common armor with a biker helmet. He mingled with the delvers in the passage hub. As he waited for his turn, Robert noticed some of the delvers had mining equipment. The parties at the L.F.G. all turned him down so he had no other choice but to wait. Well, he could go and cross the passage but he didn't want to cause this particular faction trouble. They were allied to Samson.
He sat and waited, watching the news in the meantime. The fight in Bosstown was still a hot topic and a live debate about it was on TV. The pundits talked about the destruction, who was guilty of what, and what their motivations were. Eventually, one of them mentioned the bounty.
"It is surreal that so many hunter groups were lured by the false bounty of ten billion dollars," the well-dressed woman identified as Diana Williams, social studies PhD, said. "Ten billion dollars was the amount of destruction and life loss they caused."
"And to make it worse," the show host added. "The bounty was placed on the Imperial Academy tournament Champion, Robert Blaze."
A moving picture of him played in the background. It was from the tournament, one of the early fights.
"It was a clear attack on our Empire," a second pundit said. "A terrorist attack."
They kept rambling. Robert smiled inside his reflective biker helmet. With the bounty discredited, the organization behind it would need to either double down and reveal part of its hand or withdraw. He doubted they would go to the extreme of hiring a four-star for the task. No four-star would move their ass for any amount of raw cash.
The show went into a commercial break where an ad for Samson's Minotaur armor played. It was too expensive for these normal Archs but the goal was to keep the brand in people's minds, not just sell armors.
Eventually, his number was called. Robert entered the Crystal Caves. He sensed eyes on him though the observers were well hidden. His prescience kept having these spikes of mild danger and nothing the next moment. It was as if people thought about attacking him and then changed their minds.
The realm was recommended for early-to-mid two-stars and had many mining spots. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of crystal, mostly quartz. But Robert could see the veins of amethyst, citrine, onyx, and so on. Deeper in the cave, one could find corundum veins. Emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and even deeper, diamonds.
It was all fun and games but the realm had its dangers. First, the crystals were very good at transmitting light and vibration. Second, whenever someone mined, there was a chance of aligning the cracks with huge faults that ran through the caves, causing a collapse. Tunnels might close at random, massive blocks of crystal could shift and split the tunnels or even create dead ends.
Despite that, people fought and mined in the expansive cave system. This realm alone was responsible for the drop in the price of normal minerals. Robert walked into a huge hall, still with these irritating eyes on him. He wanted to use his main talent or even the secondary but he was trapped on the ground because of this observer.
These halls had another danger. Sharp crystal formations could fall for any reason and impale people. But the floor was littered with shards and pieces of crystal. Robert had zero interest in it.
Three humans appeared at the edge of his spatial sense. One man and two women. Robert kept moving but they adjusted their path to intercept him. Once they were visible, he looked at them. All three were two stars. Robert relaxed a bit. But they moved with soft steps, he couldn't hear them. And they seemed to pause for a moment when his gaze went over them. The helmet made it difficult to tell where he was looking at, a fact he knew very well because of his teacher.
Oh, wait. They had an invisibility spell on them. Did they think they were sneaking up on him? Robert turned his music player on. It was connected to outside speakers. The music was to hide his speech. He had to adjust his code of ethics. Where once he loathed to make changes to people's minds, he had no qualms about doing that to people he intended to kill. He wanted to make harmless changes to their minds if they proved to not be after his life.
"Mind blackout." The man fell under his influence. Robert learned that they had identified him when he registered to delve. One of them had a clairvoyance talent, probably the source of the discomfort he felt this whole time. Robert changed the man's memories to make him believe they were allies. Once the changes were firmly in place, he let him go.
"Mind blackout." The left woman resisted a bit but Robert's spell broke normal mental barriers like Truck-Sama taking a salaryman to the Isekai. He did the same to her. Then the third woman as well.
That took a big chunk of his essence reserves. He went to the liminal void to recharge. When he returned, he greeted them. "Hey, how are you?" Robert waved.
The invisibility vanished. "Robert! Fancy meeting you here!" Karina said.
"Wow. What brings you all the way here?" Robert asked. "I thought you were in Nova York."
"The shitshow in Bosstown made us move down here," the guy said.
"Cool."
"Wait," Sabine, called and held the other two by the arm. "What about the bounty?" She winced, cognitive dissonance settling in. "We were here to kill that guy!" She shouted.
The other two stopped in shock as they too fought against Robert's mental manipulation.
"Wait, everyone. I can explain! I just sensed a deviant golem!" Robert said as he approached in a hurry. "We need to hold hands!"
They gave his "friend" the benefit of the doubt and did as he asked. A deviant was bad news. When he had a hold on all three, he used his main talent, dragging them down into the true void. There, he used his secondary talent as it was the easiest way to disengage from people holding onto him. The three were devoured by the void, who paid its tithe with those colorful orbs.
Fire, Earth, Water, Blood, and Light. Robert felt heartburn, tasted dirt in his mouth, felt his body get drenched, then the coppery taste of blood, and finally, got momentarily blinded by the light.
Still no perceptible effects. Robert collected the items and returned to the near void. There, he moved along the crystals (as they would be solid in the liminal void), searching for a Greater Crystal Golem made out of corundum. He found a Ruby Golem. It was a giant humanoid creature made entirely of clear ruby, with light refracting through its body in dazzling patterns. Three stars burned in its soul. and an opaque orb of deep crimson pulsed inside its chest.
Spatial distortions created a diverging and torus lens combo, he fired a Zoltraak void lance and carved a donut hole. Robert stored the core in his time-constricted ring and got the fuck out of there.