Immediately, the circles of mana scattered around the world started to move toward him, one catching the boy's body a few seconds later. As it did, all of the others stopped and returned to their original place.

Towering over him, a monster appeared out of thin air. Before he could react, an explosion of fire burst forward from the place and a scorched, black scorpion emerged. Its exoskeleton, which bore no shine, was lit with flames on the tips of its legs and pedipalps.

Its six eyes were also made out of fire, however, they were more like firm marbles that contained the flame within.

Staring right at the human, the monster that just barely stepped into the first gate began to gather mana. Ten lance-like spikes made out of fire appeared above the scorpion before launching themselves at him.

Instinctively, Conall knew where to move. His clairvoyance, along with the recently enhanced battle sense were telling him exactly where each of the lances would hit, when they would start flying, and how it would all change if he moved.

Just like that, all of the lances flew past him, and no damage was dealt whatsoever. Seemingly confused by the easy time he had, the monster's legs moved swiftly, traveling through the sand lightning quickly.

Adjusting the position of his feet, Conall leaned in. The sword blatantly waited for the opponent.

Feeling the brunt of the hard chitin hitting against him, he tensed the muscles across his body, somehow withstanding the attack.

Cocking his head to the side, the deadly stinger just barely missed him, lava-like venom dripping from the sharp end.

Even if he wanted to slice it apart with his sword, the stinger was simply too quick and swift for him to attack it. And that was what he dreaded. On the stinger’s bottom, he could see the big fragment of a rune’s marking he wanted.

Of all places, it just had to be there, he grumbled inwardly. However, it was still perfectly possible to obtain.

Suddenly, something in his head told him to disappear from this place. Quickly moving away, he dodged the lava that was spurted out from the stinger. The sand beneath quickly melted before allowing the rest to flow further, its state not decreasing in temperature at all.

Another few fire lances followed his escape, however, the scorpion couldn’t get to him. It was as though the boy was seeing into the future.

Any time a spell was fired at him, he would dodge it perfectly. Even targeted spells that changed trajectory were of no use.

Jumping away, Conall could feel a column of fire rise behind him and running straight at the scorpion, he clashed with its hard exoskeleton. Together with the fact that the monster was Grade B, it seemed like no attack could break through the chitin.

Slashing down once again, he twisted his body as the stinger made its way. Unfortunately, the scorpion wasn’t willing to let him go just like that. Retracting its stinger before attacking in an instantaneous motion, his enemy was ruthlessly fast.

He tried backing away, but the scorpion simply followed him before attacking yet again. Finally, when he successfully dodged the fourth thrust that was as quick as a flash, he couldn’t keep up with the next one.

Right through his right thigh, the stinger made a hole as big as the palm of his hand. Conall felt as the scorching lava venom entered his system, immediately wanting to punch the sand from the pain.

The scorpion tried to move its stinger away since it needed to regenerate the venom, only to find it was useless. Holding onto the stringer with all of his might, aura filled his arms. A wide grin could be seen on his face as the scorpion hissed in pain, feeling the rune on its body being ripped apart.

Getting the rune he wanted in his inventory, he chuckled inwardly while feeling numbness on the whole right side of his body. Nonetheless, after the scorpion forcefully retrieved its stinger, he took his fang with both hands, waiting patiently for his blood to purify the venom.

The enraged scorpion let out countless stinger thrusts one after another, followed by countless fire lances and columns. Yet, unlike a few seconds ago, he used his sword to defend the stinger with perfect accuracy.

Easily dodging the lances by twisting his body, he moved right before the fire columns were able to get him. Before long, Conall regained control over the right side of his body.

His right thigh was pierced through, obstructing his movement somewhat, however, it was still something he could get behind. The pulsating pain would eventually stop anyway.

Parrying the stinger that had great force behind, he pushed the scorpion to its utmost limit. The anger of someone stealing its rune clouded its reasoning, prompting the monster to attack even fiercer and more powerful than before.

With deadpan eyes, on the verge of being bored, Conall parried the attacks constantly. Be it a thrust, a horizontal or vertical sweep, the stinger was constantly hitting the sturdy blade of his longsword.

After countless exchanges, both of them noticed something. The boy started pushing the monster back, prompting it to jump back a couple of meters.

The chitin around the stinger started to crack, which allowed the monster to regain some of the lost reasoning back. Firing unstable spells, it also tried to spay lava venom at him, but it was all for naught. Despite the monster being physically and mentally superior in every way, he still managed to evade all of the danger.

Instead of complying with the attacks of the scorpion, it was now he who initiated contact. Slashing down vertically, he changed his trajectory at the very last moment before the claws clashed with him.

Unable to grasp his weapon, the scorpion blocked instead. As vibrations spread throughout the exoskeleton, a stinger sneaked its way toward the human. Yet, as it was about to hit him, the monster looked dubiously, staring into the human's cold eyes.

Suddenly, the fire around the sharp end increased and the strike was promptly delivered. Slashing at the stinger with an unstable aura coating his blade, the lethal weapon of the scorpion was no longer viable.

With panic filling its fiery marble eyes, the scorpion quickly backed away with all of its eight legs before sending out all of the mana stored inside its body into the air.

As a last measure, a rain of lances fell upon the world. Hundreds upon hundreds of fiery spells scorched the sand, but the human simply walked past them as though it was nothing.

The already mellow night was further illuminated by the sheer magnitude of the spell. Calmly walking through thousands of deadly lances that fell upon him, he soon met the scorpion that was barely holding itself up.

The bright fire that filled its limbs and eyes was long gone, replaced by fear and perplexity. He swung his sword towards the monster. Its chitin was all lackluster after using up all of the mana, clearly shown by the easiness his fang was cutting with.

Even without aura, he cut the Grade B monster in half, though that was mostly the work of his tenacious sword.

Immediately, all of the fire that was still falling disappeared along with the body that turned into a white light before disappearing.

Still, even though it didn’t seem real, he got his fill of exp.

‘I'm probably on a few percent by now.’

Leveling up with such a huge soul was a chore, he had to admit. With this amount of experience, he would have been already at the thirty-fourth level. Though, he didn’t really mind it. Having a bigger soul had its advantages and disadvantages and he already had the answer for the latter.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

After the light disappeared, the reward for the battle finally appeared. A large, rune-like rock. Although it still had discrepancies compared to a real one, it was definitely more valuable than a singular rune fragment.

When the urn sucked the rune, he immediately knew there were 1514 fragments in his possession. The scorpion dropped a rune worth one thousand and three hundred rune fragments.

However, that wasn’t the best reward for the fight. Taking out a part of a real rune, he crushed it in his hand before another marking appeared above the transparent one. Although, it wasn’t nearly as big as the other two, roughly five times smaller.

At the moment, there wasn’t any immediate changes happening to his body. Noticeable ones, at least.

Summoning his status, he saw the rune's effect work properly.

[Level: 21]

[Strength: 17]

[Constitution: 17]

[Dexterity: 17]

[Mind: 16(+1)]

[Spirit: 16]

Rune of the Challenger. It wasn't possible to be acquired at any altars in the dungeon, and the proper way was through the waves. After twenty waves, there was always a boss wave that didn’t add up to the counter.

On every of such wave, you could acquire a part of the rune, completing it at the last boss wave, which was the main boss of the dungeon.

The effects simply gave a bonus to stats, as well as a stat increase in percentage. When facing a stronger enemy, the blank stage of the rune gave a twenty percent rise, so he had four percent currently.

He fell down on the fine sand, staring at the starless sky. There was nothing to dream about here. This was nothing more than an abandoned, destroyed world. No life, no death, and no time. A world that strayed off the course of regularity, suffocating in its own divinity, which had been deprived of truth.

…

There was one last rune he needed to obtain before he could properly start farming rune fragments. Once again, it was purely to save time during his battles. He couldn’t go on and keep fighting one hundred worms each round after some few waves. It would take him unnecessary, extra months to finish this dungeon and get the rewards he wanted.

During the next week of his travels, Conall battled with ten more waves to gather up some runes. On the twenty-first wave, the number of worms had increased from twenty to twenty-two, an increment one more than previously. To add to that, a smaller version of the scorpion boss appeared alongside them, though only one.

It wasn’t Grade B, however, it was still stronger and more agile compared to the worms. It also gave twice as many fragments as the weaker monsters. Over the next few waves, the scorpion number increased only by one.

In total, he gathered a little over eight thousand fragments. With the average fragments that the worms gave being twenty, the scorpions gave forty. In his urn, it added up to just above ten thousand before rune enchantments.

Spending 1250, he upgraded his Rune of Clairvoyance once, which allowed him to see much further underground. Still, he couldn’t make out the treasures stuck below him. Saving the rest of the runes for his next rune, he simply continued on with his travel.

Beyond, on the line of horizon merging with the red sand, he could see tall structures similar to the ones from the capital. The only difference that separated them was the complete lack of walls whatsoever.

Instead of there being a colossal rock that pierced the top of the sky, the buildings were made out of the black rocks. The tallest of the bunch, however, were different. They still were made of the black sandstone-like material, however, at the very top of them, there were enormous runes that glowed bright blue, even all the way to the place where Conall was standing.

Walking casually through the desert in his resistant robes, it didn’t take more than a few hours for him to finally reach the place.

He stepped into the settlement, only to experience a feeling of dread immediately. As soon as his foot entered the circle defined by the last buildings of the large city, he felt the shrieking desertedness oozing out of this place.

As though attacking his soul, the place clearly didn’t want him here. Nonetheless, he kept on moving forward. Walking through the countless streets, he could feel the tension rising in the air the closer he got to the city’s center.

He saw it all. Different shops, accommodations, places of culture, and monuments, all corroded with time as the black rock encapsulated the soulless remains. With enough time, the space where markets used to be held was in his sight. A large, open space with a road of red sand. In the middle of the city, a certain, blue shrine shone bright, created with the same crystals the towers had been at their tops.

Walking towards the circular base of the altar, he prepared five hundred rune fragments to be put inside the blue bowl. When all of the fragments turned into a blue liquid, the city shook immensely, almost making him fall to his bottom.

The buildings around him, along with the stalls, remained intact. On the other hand, the five towers with glowing crystals scattered around the city broke down their outer layer, revealing white pillars that upheld the levitating crystals.

He felt something was moving underground, but he didn’t move away. Promptly, two columns rose from the sand, beside him. Then, chains formed around the columns before quickly subduing the human.

Pulling his arms, he couldn’t move anywhere. Soon, in front of him, something appeared from the air. A hazy face made from some sort of energy. Having quickly cleared up, the face that seemed to have been made from a blue fire opened her mouth.

“It was you!! Human! You did this! All of it!”

The hood on his face collapsed as the sheer force she exerted swayed all of his surroundings. His hair swayed in the artificial wind, the chains stopping him from collapsing.

Nevertheless, that wasn’t the impressive part. It was simply a physical force. In the air and all around him, he could see red lines of energy forming, ready to pierce right through him. The hatred she held for the one responsible for her current state was conceptualized in the form of matter.

The materialization of her emotions shook in the air, glimmering with the hope of rupturing the human boy.

“Because of you… my world… Forget it. Die already. O’ broken souls, hand me your power. Shatter your murderer.”

One of the stalls from what used to be a town square shimmered before light captured the whole structure. Turning into a white light, the building flew away towards one of the crystal towers. Lighting up, the crystal quickly released a blinding light, a wave of energy coming out of it.

As soon as the crystal stopped shining, the energy condensed into a spell. A monstrosity in its own rights. Despite not being the most powerful of attacks, not even a bit, the control behind the creation, the laws that ignited the spark of the spell, all of them were the pinnacle of the subject.

The spell flew beautifully through the air, without losing any bit of mana in the process, something practically not achievable even by the standards of grand wizards. Not to mention, the construction of the spell was changing on the go, adjusting to its environment.

The ball of energy composed purely of mana quickly hit his motionless body. He couldn’t even tell where the attack would hit him since he deactivated the Clairvoyance. However, a simple repentance in the form of receiving attacks wouldn’t work. Still, he omitted any form of using the runes.

Once again, she spoke in that unknown language of hers. Even though it was completely different from Calypian, he somehow figured out the meaning, all thanks to the dungeon.

“You let my children die, all thanks to that disgusting creation of yours.”

She wept tears of blue that melted back into the energy surging around her face. To her, the human, who had runes engraved on his arm, was clearly the perpetrator. Otherwise, there was no way he could have survived in this world before turning into the red sand.

Once again, the stall from the town square dissipated into light, before flying at the boy with great might.

The power clashed against his body, flinging him to the side slightly before being quickly pulled by the chains. Even though the chains from black rock were extremely brittle, he could simply pull on them harder to break them, he allowed them to rule his body.

Conall received the attacks of pure mana and magic, ceaselessly. Right shoulder, his back, under his left knee, on the back of his head, the attacks were brutal, however, it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. It was slightly better than receiving a blunt strike from a hammer.

While shouting at him repeatedly, her attacks started to slowly bruise his body under the robe. Even though he didn’t have a core, Conall felt as the mana spread in his entire body, from the flesh to the cold mana veins, they all reacted to the attacks.

Every time the energy blast went through his body, dispersing and scattering everywhere, his mana moved along.

After a while, when all of the stalls had been converted into the purest form of mana, some of the houses around the streets began to be used as fuel. And with a much larger building, the attacks were fiercer, stronger, and bigger.

Conall felt a raging pain cover his back as the blast attacked him. The mana in his blood moved furiously, not knowing what to do. He simply lowered his head, receiving both verbal and physical attacks.

However, as hours passed, the face noticed an oddity.

‘What is this?’

She thought while looking at the disheveled hair around his bruised face. Half of the city had already been long sacrificed for her great cause. Her intention of killing the human never diminished throughout the process. Until now.

Thousands of attacks pierced through him, altering his mana-body harmony. That was her problem. She quickly sent out another attack, omitting the verbal remarks.

As the ball of energy touched him, instead of dealing serious damage, it instead slowed down, some of its mana being sucked into his body.

‘That’s not possible. He shouldn’t interact with mana at all. Who is this?’