While Braun may have appeared to have solved the centuries-long puzzle so easily, the process was far from easy.

Only a madman like him, selflessly devoted to his selfish cause, could perhaps uncover the truth of the lake’s truth, a mystery that had eluded hundreds, thousands of souls for hundreds of years.

Only with extensive data gathering and research, study into the arcane arts of astronomy, divination, and journals about dungeons and sources of mana generation, had he managed to reach this point.

Only by being a conman, a master of illusions, was he able to measure the realness of the reflections. Only with his supernatural senses was he able to differentiate the minor shifts in light intensity and mana density, differences so small they might as well be the same.

From years of experience as an artificer’s son to the knowledge of the moon phases and the inquisitiveness of a scholar, Braun had dug up the truth after two weeks of mad searching.

Now, he only had to wait.

A cold breeze danced through the open lake as Braun and Bear set up their equipment. They hid themselves in a layer of illusions, making sure passersby wouldn’t notice what they were doing and try to exploit the situation and get the artifact themselves.

Braun was confident, no, he was assured that he would succeed. He had continued to observe the lake for the past few days, and the minute changes were signs that his hypothesis was true.

Now, he only needs to reach the source of the lake’s magic and find out what could be the source of this truth-revealing phenomenon.

The moment he does so, he would have achieved a pretty damn respectable feat!

It’s not about the potential artifact gain. Braun slicked back his hair. It’s about sending a message.

It’s about letting the world know that I! Braun smirked. Am a fucking genius!

Artifacts are magical objects of untold powers, like Excalibur, the famous sword of the Pendragon family. They hold mystical abilities that only extremely powerful artificers and craftsmen could hope to achieve, bringing their wielders great strength.

If he manages to get one himself, he will gain a huge boost to his power! Even a niche artifact like a non-extinguishing flame could be exploited with the right tools and equipment.

For example, if he manages to set up a proper reactor using his nanites, he could effectively make an infinite source of energy that doesn’t rely on zenithral power!

Perhaps the artifact, if it was even an artifact in the first place, one that clearly delves into the domains of truth and divination, could counteract the flaws of a conman. As a mere fake, an artifact with those domains could potentially allow him a better grasp over truth and falsehoods, the two main domains of a conman, one that had traversed the class of Generalists and Jack of All Trades.

While waiting for the time to pass, Braun saw Bear had returned from his short shopping trip, carrying a handful of fluffy buns.

“Ror.” Bear tossed one of the buns to Braun as soon as he entered the illusory field, hiding their existence from the rest of the world. Floating right beside Braun was a black spherical construct, with nanites constantly streaming out of the skin on his forearms, inscribing runes and finishing the last details of their underwater ship.

“Thanks.” Braun caught the bun in midair and munched on it. “Hmm. It has a pretty crispy exterior and a munchy interior. It’s a bit sweet, and warm too.”

“Ror,” Bear smirked.

“Yeah, yeah, I admit it.” Braun chuckled. “You have an unnatural sense for locating good food. Is that why you even found my cave back then? Was your food sense so good you managed to establish a connection of destiny between us?”

The thought entertained Braun, but he soon dismissed those ideas as he sensed a shift in the mana in the atmosphere.

His eyes darted to the edge of the distant hills, where a round moon slowly peeked through the tips of grass. Braun’s eyes glimmered with anticipation as he devoured his bun whole, and quickly said, “Get on! It’s starting soon!”

The surface of the black metallic sphere warped, revealing an oval-shaped opening that led to an expansive space inside. Relying on space magic principles and applying them with runes, along with previous experience in crafting storage rings, Braun devised a method to expand the space inside their ship all on his own without having to rely on methods devised by other arcane experts.

Even as a conman, his genius was undeniable in the field of arcane arts.

Bear stepped inside and Braun followed, closing the entrance beside them. The illusion around them gradually dissipated as the metallic sphere turned invisible, cloaked in plenty of anti-divination and anti-tracking layers.

The full moon then soon revealed itself to the rest of the world, causing the once dormant lake to light up with bright blue light, a level of luminosity far grander than ever before.

“It’s here.” Braun squinted his eyes as the sphere revved into life. Its figure shrunk to a quarter of its size before, but it remained as expansive as it was inside before.

Bear curiously watched the screens hovering in front of Braun, showing the full moon in the sky, and the area ahead of the sphere, with the lake releasing a bright blue glow. A series of numbers flashed on the bottom right corner of the screens, displaying the luminosity of the water, the mana density in the air, and various data that Bear couldn’t understand.

Hovering into the sky, Braun mumbled, “Buckle up,” and maneuvered the sphere forward. It left the spherical illusion behind them, and while invisible, swam through the glowing surface of the lake and into its depths.

Showing unnatural familiarity with the lake’s depths, as if he had traversed these waters numerous times already, Braun employed various divination spells and utilized his ship’s power to their fullest, diving deep into the lake’s depths.

Swimming through the glowing blue waters, Braun’s gaze remained plastered to the screen, a creepy grin slowly forming on his face.

On the other hand, Bear, slowly growing bored of the constant sight of glowing blue waters, tried to study the inner workings of the ship itself. Arcane blue lines allowed mana to power the ship, with glowing runes running along the interior of the ship, granting the ship its powerful anti-tracking measures, divination capabilities, and magical effects.

Bear scratched his head in confusion as the overwhelming complexity of the ship’s design eluded him. In fact, the more he tried to understand it, the more the pain in his head ached as if just merely trying to understand it would corrupt his very mind.

“Don’t study it too much,” Braun warned, snapping the bear out of its entranced state. “I used a little bit of my eldritch understanding to create this expanded space. It’s like I exploited a tiny error in the world’s laws, you know? A glitch, if you will.”

“It’s a bit close to cheating, so I don’t employ it much, but I can teach it to you later once you adapt your mind enough to process incomprehensible and forbidden knowledge.”

Bear, though understanding Braun’s words, was left further confused.

Eldritch knowledge? Exploiting gaps in the world’s laws? Incomprehensible information?

What?

The bear couldn’t ask anything more though, as Braun abruptly flashed a smile of utter excitement.

The sphere came to a screeching halt as Braun’s epic-level senses easily recognized that stupidly tiny rift hidden amidst rocks and stones at the very bottom of the lake. Due to the glow of the lake and the ambient mana, that rift easily blended in with everything else, and its tiny size would easily be masked from most divination spells.

“Bear…” A wide grin formed on Braun’s face.

“Ror?” Bear nudged closer to take a look at where Braun was looking but failed to find the ant-size rift.

“Let’s get ourselves an artifact!” Braun pressed the medal to the pedal and rushed towards the rift. Magical lights swirled around the sphere as its size became smaller and smaller until it rammed straight into the spatial tear.

The feeling was extremely similar to entering a dungeon portal back when he was still in Limer, like passing through a transparent film, and even inside the sphere, that same tingly sensation greeted the two adventurers.

Then, the fleeting feeling disappeared, and the two found themselves landing in a strange underwater cave terrain. It was flooded with water, with glowing moss illuminating the cavernous tunnels.

Braun tried to screech for any signs of life, but as his magical wave continued, he sensed none… except for one, at the very end of this cave. It was a spacious cavern with a powerful magic signature, along with the presence of a powerful monster.

“A single powerful monster?” Braun analyzed, but without much fear, he controlled the sphere to swim forward at an accelerated pace. The glowing blue waters gradually cleared up as he used a divination spell, giving the two a clearer view of the water’s depths.

“Ror…” Bear both showed apprehension and excitement as the prospect of fighting a powerful monster intrigued him. His fur spiked up, his aura overflowing with battle intent.

“While it would have been way more fun to fight on land…” Braun’s eyes shone brightly with a green light, his hands turning black and fusing with the walls of the sphere. “I have been meaning to test out a certain BnB gimmick.”

Soon, the two arrived and found themselves facing a strange sight.

At the end of the twisting tunnels and the complex maze-like structure of the cave was a large, cavernous room nearly a hundred meters wide. Swimming among its waters were numerous corpses and bones of dead fishes. Bits of flesh floated to the surface of the flooded terrain, while a massive serpent swam near a bright point of light near the bottom of the flooded walls.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The serpent was huge and was easily ten meters in length. It bore dark-blue scales that blended with the glowing waters, and dark green eyes that had noticed the arrival of the shrunken black sphere.

Its eyes widened with animosity as it hissed, causing the water of the flooded cavern to churn and transform.

A large water serpent that was at least ten meters long fed on the corpses of large horned fishes. The water serpent had dark blue scales and its eyes had an ominous red glint. Its fangs were long and sharp, while its body was formidably developed. Magical energy radiated out from the boss-like monster, and the presence of an overlord could be clearly felt from it.

Many of the fishes floated aimlessly in the waters, their bones and flesh slowly disassembling from one another. Their heads were gouged and some were eaten fully in just one bit. Most strangely, Braun could discern the horned fishes and the water serpent weren’t from the same species, which is strange because dungeons usually only house one type of monster group…

I think I get it now. Braun pieced together what should be the most likely truth of this whole situation.

First of all, the miniature dungeon entrance he had seen at the bottom of the lake, plus the fact that it was endlessly leaking out mana like any other dungeon, proved his idea that a dungeon was indeed hiding the source of the lake’s magic, or the dungeon itself was the source of the lake’s truth-revealing magic.

Second, the dungeon’s terrain hinted that this should have been a dried-up place, but since the dungeon’s entrance was at the bottom of the lake, it caused the whole place to flood. This should have interfered with the natural monster spawning mechanics of the dungeon, which might have caused the entrance to shrink down.

As for its correlation to the lunar cycle, Braun had no idea, but sometimes, one doesn’t have to answer every little mystery to enjoy the benefits of treasure.

Lastly, this serpent should have been a monster that came from the lake and accidentally entered the dungeon since why would a cave dungeon spawn lake monsters? I don’t know how it fed itself, but it does seem like enough fish visit the dungeon every night whenever the entrance opens.

I must have been wrong about the fact that the dungeon entrance only opens during full moons, but it was easiest to find tonight.

Most importantly though, now that he was here, he realized that the artifact, the source of the lake’s magic, must have been created alongside the formation of the dungeon itself.

Beyond the fact that dungeons were essentially endless sources of monster flesh and resources, along with producers of mana, dungeons were solid sources of acquiring artifacts. Dungeons have a naturally low percentage of spawning with artifacts, providing more value to their existence.

As he contemplated, the massive water serpent hissed, opening its maw wide while the water around it came to life.

Its magical aura pervaded the entire cavern, suffocating the two adventurers inside their sphere, but the two only felt excitement and anticipation.

“You ready?” Braun looked back, his form having already changed to a shade of metallic black; his arms and legs were partway fusing with the walls of the sphere.

“Ror!” Bear growled after having entered a similar state as Braun. His fur had turned a shade of metallic black, his legs melding in with the shifting blue lines and arcane runes of the sphere’s interior.

The two slowly transformed themselves completely into biomechanical lifeforms, blending in with their nanite sphere.

“GRAHHH!” The water serpent roared as it sensed the newcomers. It instinctively rushed forward, its maw opening wide.

The sphere rapidly expanded in size, growing from half the size of a normal human male to many times bigger than the tallest of man. The sphere formed a torso, and four arms and two legs sprouted out of its shoulders, back, and arms. From the empty top was a draconian head, with a crown of twisting metallic horns.

“BnB Fusion!” An almighty roar echoed as the eyes of the giant mechanical lifeform lit up with bright green light, a stark contrast to the blueness of the flooded cavern. Thrusters protruded out of its back, arms, and legs. “Mechanical Dragon God: Water!”

“Grahhhh!” The water serpent shrieked as it manipulated the environment with its potent water magic. The water surged forward, becoming giant tentacles ready to grab the mechanical asura with four arms.

“Come!” BnB extended two of their hands outwards, and a magical light shone. The light converged, becoming a giant barrier of light. “BnB Shield!”

The water tentacles bounced away from the barrier of light, causing the serpent to hiss in anger and once again rush forward, forgoing strategy and replacing it with its raw, unmatched power.

But it was a foolish move, for the BnB Mechanical Dragon God: Water was no pushover.

“BnB Blasters!” Guns formed from their two free hands, while the light in their two upper hands reshaped into a pair of gauntlets. “BnB Gauntlets!”

The two titans collided, causing ripples and bubbles to form. Grabbing the giant water serpent with their arms, the serpent opened its mouth wide and prepared to blast the fused duo with a beam of pressurized water.

However, the two were faster and they had more limbs. Their blasters glowed brightly with a brilliant blue light, with a low hum becoming increasingly higher pitched.

With a loud bang, causing ripples to form across the flooded cavern, the two blasters shot a dangerous beam of light into the serpent, searing through its scales and into its mouth. It cried out in pain, its attack disrupted.

The attack caused the serpent to rage and increase its strength. The two struggled to hold it back. The whole cave started to shake from its trashing, and the two had to let go, distancing themselves from the serpent.

Propulsors on their body released a constant stream of energy, allowing the two to fly away at great speeds.

The serpent’s dark green eyes glared at the duo. With a wave of magical energy gathering around its body, it swam at far faster speeds than before, transforming into a living aqua bullet.

Bear! Braun maneuvered all four arms to pull back.

Ror! Bear intuitively manipulated both aura and mana, and using the arms as the mediums created four golden hands beside the four-armed asura.

“Converge into one!” BnB slammed all four arms in front, transforming it into a gigantic drill. “And pierce through the heavens!”

“BnB Aura Magic Fusion!” The drill spun rapidly and shot forward to collide with the water serpent. “BnB Drill!”

A wave of energy erupted as the two collided.

The water serpent stubbornly crashed against the BnB Drill, revealing might of epic proportions; it alone could devastate an entire town and easily fight against a whole group of rare adventurers.

They had to end this beast and acquire the artifact for themselves, for the greater good of mankind!

Bear, keep the focus on the drill! Braun manipulated their nanite body.

Ror! Bear grunted. Even though he struggled to stabilize the drill, he could still manage for a few short seconds.

And Braun only needed a few short seconds.

Black swarms converged towards their chest, and a hole slowly formed in the center. Blue light circled around its edges and a new, large barrel extended out of the hole. A dangerous level of electrical-magical energy coursed through the new weapon, and Braun was ready to fire.

Let go of the drill! Braun willed the new weapon to activate.

The drill collapsed, catching the water serpent off guard who was still hard-pressed to win the contest of might. It flailed forward uncontrollably towards the four-armed Mechanical Dragon God, its eyes still red from anger.

“Be banished from this world, foul beast!” Braun’s voice echoed.

“Ror!” Bear grunted as well.

“Activate!” BnB stretched out all of their arms, grabbing the water like solid air to keep themselves from falling back from the force of their attack. “BnB Railgun!”

Light and water caved inwards to the barrel of the railgun, before a bright beam of blue light shot out. It pierced through the water, vaporizing everything in its path into steam and energy, and through the protective water film surrounding the water serpent.

It tried to defend itself, raising water barriers and instinctively enhancing its body with magic, but it was futile.

The BnB Railgun, a weapon of great power, one capable of even working through a dragon’s scales, pierced through the serpent from the head down to the end of its tail. It exploded from the inside out from the intense heat, its blood dying the waters red.

However, as powerful as it was, it also consumed a lot of mana to power.

The four-armed asura Mechanical Dragon God collapsed, pushing out Braun and Bear from its mighty form by spewing them out as glowing white figures. Bear panicked as he returned to his normal form and suddenly found himself underwater, while Braun hurriedly swam to the bear and pulled it in.

He used the last of his reserves to create more nanites, creating a transparent film around the two that filtered out the water. The bear gasped for his breath and coughed out the water that had entered his lungs, before mumbling, “Ror.”

“You’re welcome.” Braun weakly leaned on the wall of the transparent film, his mana exhausted. “And also, you didn’t have to panic you know? You would have evolved midway through drowning, and you ate a lot of shit before going here so calories aren’t a problem.”

“Ror!” Bear, still having some of his aura left, ignored Braun’s remark and pointed at the shining thing in the corner of the cave.

“That’s it!” Braun, still weak, slowly drove the transparent film of nanites forward. As they got closer, the thing became clearer and clearer.

A pair of eyes, seemingly made from the purest of crystals, with blue irises and pitch-black pupils, lay dormant amidst rock and rubble. It floated softly atop the ground, releasing a faint stream of energy that surged all throughout the waters.

Either this is one of those special dungeons that have special conditions to be discovered, like the Crystal Kingdom Dungeon of the underground dwarves, or the flooded terrain fucked over the inner workings of the dungeon. Roan contemplated as he approached the pair of blue eyes, the fruit of their labors crystallized into an artifact that many would long for.

“So…” Braun controlled the sphere to approach the pair of eyes closer, his hand passing through the film to grab the two eyes. “This is it.”

“Ror.” Bear was really surprised at the outcome. He honestly expected Braun wouldn’t succeed since this was a centuries-long mystery after all, and was ready to pat his friend on the back and say that it’s okay to fail, but no. The madman spent two weeks straight rummaging around town, going half-insane, just for a pair of eyeballs.

“Take it.” Braun tossed one of the eyes, surprising the bear further.

“Ror?” Bear asked. Why was Braun giving his hard-earned spoil to him?

“Are you dumb?” Braun raised his eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I give you one? We’re blood brothers, the dearest of friends! What’s mine is yours, and what’s yours is mine, get it?”

The bear nearly choked on as he heard those genuine words. “… Ror.”

“You’re grateful?” Braun snickered. “Of course you’re grateful! I’m the most magnanimous person I know!”

That was a lie. Christopher had given him more gifts than he could count, and he killed that motherfucker in cold blood. Sigh, he was truly a piece of shit, but who cares?

As Braun drowned in his misery for a short while, Bear fiddled with the eyeball, now stumped.

While he was grateful, how the hell was he going to use this artifact in the first place? It’s not like artifacts come with a user manual… Well, maybe they do if the artifact is like a family heirloom or something of that sort, but their case is much different from that.

“Ror…” Bear scratched his head, staring at the creepy-looking eye that stared at him with a piercing look as if all of his secrets were unraveled like an open book. The bear even shivered subconsciously, his mind twitching in response to the eye’s gaze.

“You don’t know how to use it?” Braun questioned with a tone that suggested ‘Are you stupid?’

“Ror.” Bear shrugged his shoulders, admitting his ignorance.

“Sigh, you’re so dumb sometimes.” Roan shook his head. “The answer is crystal clear, my furry companion.”

Roan raised the eye, placing it near his left eye, “If you want to gain access to a mystical eye’s power… You gotta have that eye in the first place!”

Before Bear could even ask what Braun meant, his companion magnanimously demonstrated his words so the bear wouldn’t be so confused anymore.

With a wide smile on his face, Braun stretched out his hand and jammed the eyeball into his left eye. Blood splattered out, forming a fountain of red, as the walls of the transparent nanite film were covered in gooey eye matter.

Bear’s face contorted in horror as he almost puked out in disgust, but magic closed his mouth shut as Braun reacted fast enough to prevent a tragedy.

Forced to look at Braun, Bear saw the transformation in all its horror. Black, vein-like protrusions began to worm out of the newly jammed eye. It rotated on its own, forcing the pupils to the front, while bloody red vessels connected itself to the rest of Braun’s nervous system. Scarlet red liquid dripped down the sides of Braun’s eye, with blood overflowing non-stop.

Only when a few minutes had passed did the changes stop, and Braun now had a new left eye that glowed blue.

“Tada!” Braun slicked back his hair, grinning at Bear. “See? Pretty easy!”

Bear stepped back, distancing himself from Braun.

“Now, it’s your turn!” Braun’s smile widened as he approached his furry friend. An eyeball had unknowingly appeared in his grasp from who knows where, and Bear felt his heart freeze, his soul falling into the deepest depths of hell.

“Ror!” Bear cried out, his aura overflowing in a vain attempt at resistance. “ROR!”

“You don’t want to accept this gift?” Braun snickered. “My gift? You ungrateful swine!”

“Don’t worry.” Braun slowly approached, his right eye glowing green and his left eye glowing blue. “I’ll make sure you accept this shit. I didn’t just spend two weeks losing my mind trying to solve a centuries-long mystery, only for you to not accept the fruits of my effort, right?”

Bear pleaded helplessly as fear overwhelmed him.

Braun ignored the bear’s pleas, and instead asked the most important question, “Now, where do you want it? Left… or right?”

“Ror!” Bear slammed against the nanite walls around them, but it only served to slow down the inevitable.

“Right?” Braun’s eyes glimmered with malice as he raised the eyeball to the air, his face twisted by insanity. “RIGHT!”