Felix quickly flew into the air and towards the lake, drills safely stowed in his inventory. It took him a few hours to get there where he immediately dropped into a dive into the lake. He swam south to where he and Grim thought it should be, using his map as a reference. He used a mage light underwater to try and clarify things but he was mostly scouring an underwater cliff face for any sign of- well anything really.

How the hell am I supposed to find it, or know if it exists?

I mean if it does exist, it's a natural treasure…

So guardians. Oh man I don't want to fight them underwater, I can't even use lightning then, or shouldn't. Am I just stuck to force bombs then? Solid mana would be slowed too much and sound would do more damage to me then them. Alright, force it is.

Felix was pretty sure he was at least near where he should be laterally so he began diving downwards. He should have a few hours of breath, last he checked. It was thanks to the fact he had trained his muscles to run more efficiently by starving them constantly. He descended a few hundred meters before he found the first enemy.

[D - Uncommon] Hunter of the Deep (Lvl 132)

Woah, that's as high as the alpha guardians were on all the other treasures.

Instead of Force Bombs, who's effects Felix was pretty sure would be significantly dulled underwater, he instead decided to use Force Beams. They were like Force Bolts but they were much stronger and had a less defined shape. He thought about Force Spears or Javelins, but he wasn't bothering to shape them at all, instead just firing off a blast of force mana at a target.

As deep as he was underwater, Felix needed his Mage Light to see, but that also turned him into a beacon for all of the monsters. He quickly found that, though force was his best bet underwater, it was still significantly hindered by the thicker medium. His effective range was just a few dozen meters and his damage was greatly reduced.

The other issue, was that he couldn't swim nearly as effectively as the natives. He was nearly as fast due to his Amphibian's Belt, but he wasn't nearly as elegant or proficient. His inscribed boots and plates on his palms helped tremendously, but it was still an incredibly tedious fight. His accuracy was abysmal, but Felix figured it took him around 8 or 9 hits to kill.

Grim's theory that identify was only showing what Felix knew, plus rarity and level, was becoming increasingly likely. Every creature he fought, looked completely different and yet had the exact same name. Felix found some at a lower level than the first that took twice as many hits to kill meaning their stats were completely different as well. There were long snake like creatures and wide shark like maws, scales and slick black skin as well as tentacles and even some that cast spells. Felix was close to running out of air so he quickly ascended and restored his breath before descending back down and continuing onwards.

As he descended, the monsters he could take out between needing to ascend became lesser. It became impossible for him to continue like this when he fought monsters at levels 150 to 160 and had to ascend between each and every one of them. He started to create thick bubbles of mana above the surface then stow them in his inventory to refill his breath while he was down there. With some testing he found that he had to make the bubbles very thick to keep them from collapsing under the pressure. Though, he found that he didn't need to make all the bubbles extremely thick. He could also have one thick bubble to contain himself with braces running through it like pillars in a cave. He would then summon fresh bubbles within the larger bubble to restore his breath.

The only issue with that was that the bubbles were all insistent upon ascending so he had to hold them down with large amounts of mana and force spells. That meant that after each and every time he restored his breath, he had to then quickly meditate and restore his mana as well. This was all becoming a major hindrance to his finding what he was looking for so he began to look for alternative solutions. Unfortunately, the best he could come up with was to compress the air in the bubbles using force and gust spells.

It took him almost two days just to clear out the monsters above the champion guardian, as well as any that sought out the beacon of light. He did however manage to find the guardian or rather guardians of the treasure. At least, he assumed that's what they were. The two creatures were long with slick black skin and multiple layers of wide fins. Their maws had layers of teeth like sharks and they had multiple stringy antennae being dragged by their heads. Worst of all though were two sets of four eyes on either side of their heads that glowed a sickly greenish yellow color.

[D - Special] Hunter of the Deep (Lvl 132)

[D - Rare] Hunter of the Deep (Lvl 155)

Felix quickly restored himself as much as he could, both breath and mana, then dove down and engaged the creatures. The fight was a showcase, and the perfect example, of just how much rarity mattered. Though the Rare creature was over 20 levels above the Special one, it felt significantly weaker to Felix. They seemed to have a similar distribution of stats but the Special one was almost 20% stronger than the other despite their lower level. Under water, the creatures, at least fighting them together, almost felt like fighting a world boss all over again. It took him a total of 15 or so hits between the two, 6 for the Rare one and 9 for the other.

Unfortunately, he immediately needed to retreat to the surface after the fight. He replenished his breath and compressed air into as many bubbles as he could and returned to the scene of the fight. He had to fight off waves of enemies that tried to claim the newly vacated post and claim the treasure causing him to have to ascend twice again. Finally he dove down and had the area to himself. Thought the Rare and Special Hunters were guarding something, Felix wasn't exactly sure what it was and even scouring the wall, he couldn't find any signs.

He decided to just start drilling into the wall and hoping so he took one of his hand drills and pressed it into the stone as he flooded it with mana. It effectively drilled through a couple of inches but then he couldn't seem to get any farther than that. He kept pushing on his drill though as hard as he could with extra force spells to push even harder. The drill started moving forwards and Felix was happy to finally make progress, and excited for what could be behind the layer of stone. Once the entire drill head had passed into the stone, Felix pulled back the drill so he could look inside. As he pulled the hand drill out though, most of the drill head was completely gone. Instead of drilling into the rock, the rock had tore through the drill. Felix tried another two drills before he gave up, marked the exact location on his map, and flew back to Henry's forge.

"Ah, you're back. I take it-"

Felix held up three of the completely flattened drill heads, interrupting Henry.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Damn, what the hell are you trying to drill through?"

Felix shrugged, "Got any stronger materials?"

Henry scratched his head, "Uh, I got a little bit of Ekronian left. I was kind of hoping to save it for something else but I guess you can have it."

"What the hell is that and I'll pay for it."

"Nah, that's alright. I want something from you though, so we can just exchange services and any required materials, how about that?"

"Depends what you need, but in principal sure. What is Ekronian?"

"It's the metal we mined in the mountains to the north after you took out the turtle. Stuff is strong as hell and nearly impossible to work with, it's also D grade."

"How much did you get from mining?"

"Just enough. I used all the rest on the thing I need your help with, let me show you." Henry gestured for Felix to follow him into a back room, through another thick steel door. The room was smaller with no forges inside, almost like an office for managing the books. In the middle of the room was a large table with a single item on top of it.

[D - Uncommon] Ekronian

A large amount of Ekronian shaped into something specific. This item is incomplete and until it is functional or close to it, it will be considered scrap material.

Henry had forged a large amount of Ekronian into a cannon. If Henry hadn't told Felix it was a metal, he would have said it was made of a dull red stone. The cannon walls were thick and the barrel was long. There were no decorations on the outside other than two handles, one around the middle and the other at the back. It was a couple of meters long and almost half a meter wide at it's thickest end.

You gave him the cannon prototype, didn't you?

Yup.

"I take it you want me to inscribe a spell into it?"

"I want it to work like the cannon you gave me during the siege worked. If possible though, I'd like it to shoot Fire Balls."

"I can do that, but you're going to need to power it somehow. I can't supply you with batteries forever."

"I already started putting points into intelligence so I can build up my mana pool."

"Uh… These Fire Balls aren't going to be as big as you hoped then."

"How much mana are we looking at? I'm willing to invest in it for a while. I don't mind if it takes time to get there."

"If I just switched the spell from lightning to Fire Ball, at the same size, it would take just over 30,000 mana."

Henry paled and his head dropped a few degrees towards the floor, "What if it was smaller? How big would a thousand mana be?"

"Uh, I can show you I guess… I don't really want to blow a hole in your workshop though, I doubt it would, but I don't want to risk it."

Felix and Henry walked outside into the city then beyond it's current border onto the flat stony cliff. Felix did some quick math and fired off a 1.6 sized Fire Ball which cost him just over a thousand mana. The tiny bullet of mana raced through the air and struck the ground a few hundred meters away exploding into a torrent of fire a few meters across.

Henry brightened when he saw the result and turned to Felix, "That wasn't bad at all. What the hell would the 30,000 mana one have done?"

Felix fired off a 5 sized Fire Ball at the same location where the rocky ground was blackened but otherwise undamaged. The tiny bullet of mana raced through the air and struck almost the same spot, exploding into a torrent of flames a dozen meters across. Where before the light from the fire had reached them, now they felt the heat of the flames wash over their faces and the force of the explosion struck them. It made Henry stumble a couple of steps backwards to catch himself. When the flames cleared, there was a crater in the ground and the rock was scorched in every direction for dozens of meters.

"How many of those to kill a world boss?" Henry asked after a few seconds of gawking.

"Maybe 20 or so for the stronger ones."

"It took 20 of those? So 6 hundred thousand mana?"

"It's more efficient to use smaller spells and lightning is more efficient, but yeah, something like that."

"Will I be able to kill things around my own level with the first Fire Ball?"

"Might take a few of them, but probably. Your best bet is probably to just make mana batteries that recharge with time."

"You can do that?"

"Yeah." Felix pulled the blueprint he had out of his inventory and handed it to Henry, "Here, take this."

Henry carefully took the parchment and squinted at it while he identified it, "Don't you need it?"

"Nah, I memorized it."

Henry looked at Felix with confusion then shook his head and looked back at the parchment. Felix continued, "I'll enchant the cannon and inscribe some spells but you probably want to change the design a bit. The first one Gr- I gave you was a prototype. The final product has plates that can be swapped out to change the spell when you need to."

Henry's eyes widened then his shoulder's fell, "It's a real pain in the ass to work with Ekronian. I probably should have consulted you before I made the damn thing, huh?"

"Yeah, probably. You also don't need it to be so thick and heavy, the spells don't have much feedback or effect and no recoil whatsoever."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's very counter-intuitive but the spells essentially create force, so there is no equal and opposite reaction."

"That just seems wrong."

"Yeah, confused me for a while."

"So I should probably melt it down and just make armor then, huh?"

"No, you should melt it down and make a giant drill. One that you can ride. Then you can mine for even stronger materials and use those for fancy weapons and armor. Then you can sell those and buy the components for batteries if you don't wear them. How usable is Ekronian really? It looks like stone and seems absurdly heavy."

"It is. It's really strong though. No matter how much I tried to polish or forge it, it always comes out looking like stone. Maybe using it as a stepping stone is the best bet. I don't want to have to run around in armor made of that stuff. I'm really curious what you were trying to mine that requires it."

"I'll let you know when I can actually get any of it to identify."

"Will you bring me some too? To replace the Ekronian?"

"Just make me a hand drill head and I'll go try it out. Then you can work on a large excavator or drill and use that on all kinds of metals. I'll show you where I'm mining, but you aren't gonna like it and you won't be able to get there for a while."

Felix shared the location with Henry who said, "We can probably make it into the mountains there and-"

Felix shook his head and pointed downwards.

"How far?"

"A couple kilometers or so."

"How do you get down there? Wouldn't the pressure kill you?"

"I have a ring and a belt for that."

"But I'm gonna need a submarine or something."

"Yeah, something like that. I'll bring some to you though cause I'll probably need you if I want to actually make anything with it."

"Alright, I'll go make you a drill head then work on a bigger one for later."

Henry and Felix headed back to the forge and walked into the back room where the cannon was, or at least, half of it. On the table, a large chunk of the cannon was completely missing, like someone had taken a bite out of it. Almost a third of it was gone and in it's place, was a black rock.

Oh shit.

Hah, you forgot about it didn't you?

Yeah.

Henry looked towards the table with a look of pure befuddlement on his face.

"Oh, sorry about that. I kind of forgot I left it with you. I'll try to replace it with whatever I manage to mine."

After almost a minute of Henry being baffled, he recovered and sighed, "It's fine. I was going to have to melt it down anyways I guess. I probably didn't need it all for drill heads anyways."

"It didn't wake up and eat anything while I was gone?"

"I stuck it in the scrap pile and it ate a chunk of it then fell back asleep. I didn't realize it could move though."

"Yeah, it still seems to be a little shy. It likes new shiny materials though, anything it hasn't seen yet might wake it up… How long will the drill head take?"

"The hand drill? A few hours at most, maybe 5 or so."

"Alright, mind if I take my familiar for a walk then come back around 8 then?"

"Sure, I'll have it done. Any chance you could get me a schematic for a spell cannon though?"

"Yeah sure, let me just buy some paper and write it out for you."

"I have some you can use in the back room."

"Oh perfect, I'll go draw it out now."

Felix spent a half hour drawing out a schematic for the latest version of his spell cannon with some slight modifications. He made it so that the battery and the spells themselves were smaller, since Henry likely wasn't going to use a multiple hundred thousand mana capacity battery. Once that was done he picked up his familiar and carried it under one arm as he wandered into the city. He was planning on shopping around, finding materials for his familiar and just exploring the town. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .