I expand my all-seeing eye's visual range and watch the woman with the unique skill slip away back into one of the houses, quickly moving away from my gaze.

The thought of flying over there and confronting her about her skill and why she was watching me crosses my mind, but it would make sense why she would be curious and want to see what the mysterious man in the flaming suit that took over their captor's operation is doing.

That's what perception skills are for; she might as well use it if she can. It's not like I'm doing anything I don't want her or any of the others to see. So, I'll leave her be.

I do a quick scan of all the rescued workers in the surrounding safe houses and find that half are asleep, many are restless, and others are huddled together and talking to each other in small groups.

Most of them have average basic skills like swordsmanship, dagger arts, and various speed or strength buffs, but a few have interesting unique skills, and even 3% or so have some kind of elemental ability.

Everyone is very low level and won't be useful to me in the immediate future, but I'm looking forward to talking to each and every one of them once the sun rises tomorrow.

Letting out a sigh, I deactivate my scanning senses and turn my attention back to the grunts.

"Now for you 20, I have some labor for you to do. Drink up, then follow me. We're building a road."

I use telekinesis to give each of them very small vials of a highly potent bottle of elixir to drink, and they gulp them down without batting an eye and follow just as I ask. As we walk, I ask a few of them to search the looted warehouses we pass on the way to get 20 empty wooden carts because they'll be carrying a few things for me.

Once we get to the edge of town where the stone road stops, we face in the direction of the canyon.

There's a long and winding narrow pathway, only visible to my advanced eyesight in the dark of night. Even in daylight, it's not much of a path, so if I want this to be better for high volume travel, I need to make it myself.

I begin replicating the technique my body double used earlier to make the dimly glowing orbs of light that are fixed on every corner of the inner city.

It's a combination of many kinds of magic. I use earth magic to lift small balls of sand up into the air, fire magic to turn them all into molten material, then a combination of wind and water magic to blow the molten sand into glass and cool it into a sphere shape that stays solid.

Once this process is complete, I take a single high-grade mana crystal and place it inside. Then, imbue both the materials with my [Flash] skill to make the mana crystal glow dimly.

With the small output of light compared to my actual flash skill, the mana usage isn't immense, but the makeshift mana bulbs will run out of energy eventually. All I have to do to recharge them is feed the item another mana crystal, or imbue some of my own mana inside.

It's a design in progress. I may come up with better lighting ideas in the future, but these are perfect for now.

Once I make about 100 glowing orbs of light and set them neatly in the sand nearby, I turn to the 20 men behind me and give them another order.

"Follow behind me as I make this road."

I pause, using my earth summoning skill again, and placing hundreds of kilograms worth of stone in the back of every one of the grunts' wooden carts.

"As I make the road, I need all of you to stress test it for me. There is going to be a lot of traffic on this path. I want to make sure it's ready."

With a smirk, I float up into the air, carrying all 100 orbs of light around me using telekinesis.

I activate my earth summoning skill again and begin creating a 5 meter wide stone pathway through the desert.

Every 20 meters or so, I sculpt a stone pillar and place a glowing orb on top of it, using liquid stone to glue the bottom of each orb in place. The pillars are crafted on alternating sides and stand about 4 meters high.

Behind me, I hear the heavy carts of the grunts creaking as they follow behind me all the way to the canyon's edge.

I look down into the darkness and another idea sparks up in my mind.

The same glass blowing process is used to craft many more orbs of light while the grunts continue to make their way toward me.

Once over 100 more orbs are created, the grunts finally make it to me and I give them another order.

"Turn around and walk the road again. Once you get to the town, turn around and come back. I want you to walk back and forth on this roadway until I tell you to stop."

The moment they hear me, the group of mindless grunts turns around and begins their trek back with carts full of heavy stone.

I lift the many orbs up in the air and begin building more winding pathways down into the canyon full of dungeons.

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Each one of the dungeons has a stone tablet crafted beside it by my double showing the loot drops, approximate level, and monster type beside every dungeon.

I build pathways that end right before the entrance portal of each one, and light the way with more and more of the white orbs, illuminating the canyon.

I'm sure these paths will be a little less traveled, but I still want to make them sturdy.

They are roughly 2 meters wide, and orbs are placed on shorter stone pillars every 40 meters or so. The natural blue glow of the portals lights up the regions close to the dungeons themselves, so I don't need to use quite as many lights as I first thought.

The only 7 dungeons I decide not to connect the pathway to are the 6 breaks for safety reasons, and the single B-Grade dungeon that is very deep down in the canyon because I want to keep that one for myself away from prying eyes.

Once finished connecting every single one, I contemplate telling the grunts to stop their mindless stress test so I can assess the damage, but decide against it because I have one more thing I'd like to check on.

I slip inside one of the closest blue portals nearby, then dungeon walk back into the Vice City Labyrinth's 40th floor.

Coming in on full alert with all my buffs activated, sword drawn, and Qi flowing through it, I'm ready for anything. However, my worst-case scenario theories don't come true.

I'm left in an empty dirt pit.

All of the burn marks and holes blasted in the ground from my battle against the lightning wolf have completely disappeared and have automatically regenerated. However, the room feels unusually stagnant and cold, as if time has stopped and it's waiting for a trigger to be pulled.

The odd sensation of transport magic lingers in the air, like it's about to activate, but something is stopping it from occurring.

I scan the boss room and slowly walk around in circles trying to see if there's anything new I can find, then let out a sigh and open my item storage.

"It's about time I got this loot. I knew something was up with this floor... I'd like to find out what's going on here."

I let the deceased wolf's body fall onto the dirt floor, and less than half a minute later, its mana begins to disperse into the boss room and dissolve.

Four objects are left behind in the creature's place: a large pink mana crystal about the size of my head is one of them, and a half-transparent yellow stone with large arcs of electricity coming off of it drops next to it of similar size.

I open up a storage portal on the ground beneath the items and get a reading on the small black stone and large white tooth that fall inside next to the crystals.

[40th-Floor Boss Identification Core 0248]

[Wolf Guardian's Fang][+265% Mental Strength][+258% Speed][Lightning Attribute]

As soon as they fall inside, the lingering feeling of transport magic in the air resumes, and I feel my body become enveloped in white light.

Once the flash subsides, my vision goes black.

My non-visual perception skills pick up a deep winding cave system with narrow tunnels, dripping water, and even large caverns, but I don't sense a single living being.

My objective here isn't to stick around long; I just wanted to get the 40th-floor trial completed and get access to teleport to the 41st floor whenever I wish.

The instant I begin to activate my dungeon walker skill to leave, I feel something strong and sharp piercing through every layer of my mana shielding, Qi barrier, and armored defenses to sink deep into my stomach with no warning at all.

Even as the weapon comes out the other side of my body, I can't sense or see at all where it's come from.

It doesn't matter; I dungeon walk back to the 40th floor less than a tenth of a second later.

I cough up blood while regenerating my wound and armor, trying to figure out what that was and where it came from. My appraisal and enemy detection skills were active, yet I didn't see the attack coming nor did I even get a glimpse of who sent it.

I stand to my feet once fully healed, then look to the sky of the empty dirt pit. A huge countdown timer can be seen floating in the sky.

[29:23:59:41]

"A 30-day cooldown timer, huh? Well, at least I have access to the higher floors..."

I dungeon walk back to the 39th, then 38th, then all the way through each layer between here and the 30th until I find my double farming away at mana crystals while it waits for the minotaurs to respawn.

It transfers its inventory into my storage, and I kill it on the spot, creating another copy to go check out the 41st floor for me and see what it can find.

Less than a second later, the memory of it teleporting into the darkness and being stabbed multiple times in the stomach then decapitated comes rushing back to me.

I send another double, and the same thing happens.

I perform well over a dozen more tests, and no matter where I send the double into that boss room, I can never sense the enemy, and can never survive longer than a second to survey the landscape.

"Seems like I'm just not strong enough for whatever is up there... the 41st floor will have to wait for another day..."

Another copy is formed, and it goes back to farming mana crystals and waiting for the minotaurs to continue feeding my other double and Ember stones for the isolation pod.

Meanwhile, I dungeon walk back to the dungeon nearest to the canyon's exit and make my way back to the stone road to meet up with the grunts that continue their stress test on my stonework.

I slowly hover above the grunts and watch them work for another hour.

The eeriness of the 41st floor leaves the front of my mind as I become very satisfied with my new project's results.

Mid-way through my process of assessing the grunts, I get the feeling of being watched by the same woman in the town, even from nearly 2 kilometers away. It's a far weaker feeling, but I'm impressed that at below level 300 she's able to sense me out this far.

I don't mind that she's watching and let the tests continue.

No cracks have formed in the roads, and the carts are able to be pulled very smoothly. The lighting fixtures are far enough to the sides of the roads that they don't impede travel, and they are bright enough that even in the dead of night the entire pathway is lit up completely.

Eventually, Arie comes walking over from the Abyss covered in sweat and grinning ear to ear.

He waves me down and shouts out.

"I did it. I mastered the Demonic Energy crescent. Just like the one you showed me this morning."

I can tell he's very happy with his new power, but also he looks exhausted. I let down my flaming disguise to look more natural to show him my unconcealed face and reply.

"That's good, I'm glad you achieved it without any major setbacks. I'll be waiting here conducting some tests throughout the night and staying on watch duty. Feel free to take a rest and look around the town until my double gets back with-"

Once these words leave my mouth, I sense 6 figures appear out of thin air deep below the canyon.

One of them is my double, and two of them show up as clear as day on my Rising Emperor's Domain perk.

I point downward into the dimly lit canyon as they all begin to make their way up.

"Never mind. Perfect timing... It seems our long awaited guests have finally arrived."

Abby, Maria, Fisher, Lydia, and Monk all walk up the stone pathway with confusing expressions on their faces.

The emotions that pour off them are mixtures of fear, excitement, confusion, and anger.

The first words I hear any of them say come from Maria's lips.

"We barely got away... Jay, we need to prepare for battle. The Dark One knows we're here, and its Guards are coming to declare war."