The boat dropped anchor but Logan only saw sand and a small bit of buildings in this place.
"Damn, the storm hit strong. It seems the citizens evacuated since they don't have wave breakers." Maxwell said.
"So it was useless to come here?" Logan asked
"What bullshit are you talking about? Do you think these desert cities haven't faced this before?" Maxwell said, scoffing at him and grabbed him by the back of his shirt.
"Huh!" Logan exclaimed in fear.
It goes without saying that Maxwell has done this plenty of times.
He blasted from the boat into the air with logan.
The boat was close to 30 meters into the ocean unable to approach due to the shores that had been raised.
Boom!
Maxwell landed lifting sand and Logan crashed down but instantly got up and slapped his hand off.
"Seriously, stop doing that! I've said it so many times!" He shouted.
"Pipe down, you're not a child to be whining anymore." He said and took out a magic bag and started to sift through and frowned before looking through almost twenty minutes to finally laugh, "Here you are. Goddamned piece of shit!" He said and pulled out a long object.
Logan had already dusted off the sand and washed what had gotten into his clothing.
"What is that?" Logan asked.
"A desert fan. Sandstorms are common so special magic items were produced to unearth things under the desert a long time ago. Don't worry about how strong the wind gets, it will only heavily affect sand and push it away." He said.
Logan instantly felt something bad as Max bent down low, holding the end and the fan glowing golden.
Finally he swung and it drew the fan open and swung.
Instantly the wind smashed the atmosphere with immense pressure and a sandstorm was instantly lifted and only grew more powerful as the sand lifted and even the water was lifted with mud and sand.
Logan lost his footing as the sand dropped nearly a meter until it hit solid cobblestone pavement.
He squinted to see and his jaw dropped as he saw the nearby ocean drain and a large port open up before them while buildings were being unearthed by the second.
The storm raged for nearly a full kilometer before it died down and the sand dropped at the edge.
"Damn that is a lot of sand. Still it feels quite good that i could do all this with a single swing. I've done it before at B rank and it isn't nearly as powerful." Maxwell said and laughed. "Come on."
"I've been meaning to ask but why did your hair revert to your natural color and your muscles swell when you got to A rank?" Logan asked.
"It didn't swell, it regained the vigor that it once had. You know that human limits are at D rank right? Well this includes many things and one of them is life force strength. Adult dragons are powerful because they have an amazing life force that supports their bodies. Humans don't naturally have this but breaking each limit of rank sort of evolves our bodies though much less than monsters. The result of this is that the age at which we can maintain our peak, our prime, extends and to an extent so do our lifespans." Max explained.
"So… you live longer now? How much?" Logan asked.
"D ranks live natural lives, C rank retains their physical prime to their late 30s instead of 20s, B rank maintains it to their mid 40s and A ranks maintain it to their mid 60s. For lifespan, that doesn't change much. C rank generally live healthy to 100, B rank probably to 110 to 120 and A ranks a bit more. I've heard that S rank humans have lived to go out fighting at 200 years old." Maxwell said.
It was surprising to hear something like that as it was the first time he heard anything like that.
Maxwell led him through the city and opened doors to every building they passed until they reached the edge of the sand wall and he swung the fan.
The eruption was even larger because it dug from under the sand and it was faster.
The eruption ended when it struck a wall and began to lift upward and spread out.
He swung to the sides and the city was eventually uncovered to the walls.
"Perfect, now we just need to uncover the rails." He said.
"Rails?" Logan said.
Maxwell just grinned and walked to the wall were massive doors going all the way to the top of the wall.
Two massive ring handles were near each door and he grabbed the left one.
His muscles seemed to swell as he exerted great force and an intense screeching came from the hinges filled with sand.
Still that did not stop him from using his power to open the left door causing a mountain of sand to fall in before taking the right door and opening fully and finally wave the fan against the wall of sand.
Logan watched all this and suddenly noticed something strange about this space. The road here was slightly raised and made of much harder materials while there were lots but no buildings at all along the road.
He looked out the gate and saw the stone road extend upwards until it became sand only.
Maxwell then began to work on removing sand from the walls to remove that pressure so the walls did not fall inwards.
"So, do you get anything for doing all this?" Logan asked.
"Not really but all cities are vital in the desert because every city is built around a water source. There is a regular party who restores any and all lost cities. You will see it since we are early." Maxwell said and continued blasing the sand until the entire wall was visible and the sand levels had dropped to ground level.
"Won't the water invade now?" Logan asked.
"It looks like that but it won't, it is just high tide and there is a lot of sand spreading all the way out so the water looks higher but soon it will be dredged up and the ship can enter port properly." He said.
When the wall was done, he went to the shore and swung again and sand and water was burst into the air bit it was all lifted up in a rising tornado and taken out into the ocean.
He did that several times and the shores just got deeper until buried reefs appeared.
This produced a 10 meter space from the piers to the ground and water was coming in like a waterfall and filling the space that water and sand was ejected from.
"It is also world breaking." Logan said.
"That is nothing. I'm still not in good control of my power since i am also regaining my prime power but also growing but when i fully develop the first cycle the power, it should rise several fold. If it doesn't then it is not A rank. A rank was once ranked as S rank and dragons were all this rank until systematic ranking improved the grading system." Maxwell said and stretched. "Alright, the city is basically cleared, I'll be at the walls on watch. You stay on the boat until it arrives." Max said.
Logan felt it was strange but he seemed excited for something but there was no telling what it was because he or the crew said nothing.
When the water was stable the boat finally approached the harbor and docked. Logan helped and tied it rope before boarding.
He sat in the shade of the deck and began to absorb mana as he has done for the last weeks when not training the monsters and kids.
Like always, a large field formed drawing mana to him but he perfectly worked through all the mana. All the mana inside the micro world had already been exchanged and it properly filled half the internal space since rain had caused the new land to decompress like the first.
Along with the training, all the monsters were made to farm alongside the children.
It wasn't something Maxwell had taught Logan to do but after feeling how farming worked the body he made it part of their training so that they would work hard on the field as well as the training ground.
He breathed calmly for hours as he trained until he heard a loud drawn out whistle.
"Huh?" Logan muttered and drew the cycle to an end and stood up.
He looked towards the city but saw nothing so activating lightning clad he stepped off the boat and rushed to the wall and jumped all the way up the ten meter tall walls and landed next to Maxwell.
"Behold kid, the strangest marvel of dungeon magic. One of the Dungeon Caravans." Maxwell said.
At that moment, a blue light rushed from the sand and connected to the stone road. The sand instantly hardened into stone forming a huge road. In the distance, a cloud of sand was picking up until a massive wave of sand burst and cleaving through it was a massive desert train that was nearly 10 meters tall and 6 meters wide while beside it were countless carriages with metal bodies and tank treads to travel in the sand. What pulled them left Logan’s mouth dry, lesser drakes, all young ones while some large carriages had single adults. It was an incredibly scary sight.
They rushed along at a blazing speed and entered the city through the gate Maxwell opened.
It was only then that Logan felt the immense power of this strange dungeon because he finally saw how long it was.
An amazing size of nearly 120 train carriages. He suddenly wondered how this would happen and looked only for his eyes to widen as the train circled all around and the locomotive stopped at the very center plaza.
"How… how is this a dungeon?" Logan asked.
Maxwell laughs, "The way is only achievable when enslaved in a way that a newborn dungeon conscious doesn’t form in the core. It is also placed on a cart and the system starts up. The discoverer of this was an earth dragon from another continent. Each 'floor' is one carriage and every 10 main carriages there are 2 passenger train carts." Max said
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"What of all those small ones?" Logan asked.
"Floors need 'rooms' at least half of them are different brands of dormitories for the monsters." Max said.
"Wait, if it is a dungeon then wouldn't it be affected by the broadcast?" Logan asked.
"Nope because Caravan dungeon's make any humanoid monster humanoid and with higher intelligence. It focuses on quality over quantity so every humanoid monster is sentient. Furthermore, the bond to the dungeon is much stronger so even if they want to break away, it requires their contract broken for a high price." Max explained.
"Do they lose power?"
Max laughed, "Nope, Caravan dungeons literally run on gold coins. Monsters naturally produce gold coins as their mana is solidified by the system and when they have enough they can take it to the Dungeon bank and purchase an upgrade and pick from available options. The more gold, the better the evolutions available." Max said.
Logan’s jaw dropped at such a system.
"What is even the point? These dungeons can't do the objective that most dungeons have?" Logan asked.
"They can do it. Also these dungeons are almost exclusively run by earth dragons who hold the power and knowledge for it. If it was 700 years ago then i would argue against it but dragon hunting made them dangerous and smart. If you are wondering what is so important, it is because dragons have a particular genetic trait you and Storm need to be aware of. Dragons love any magical item and particularly gold because alongside their normal methods to gather mana, they have a unique way to channel mana into gold and magical materials and produce dragon mana, the source of their immense power." He explained.
"So… Storm will need a hoard?" Logan asked.
"Yes, it helps keep their sanity in check." Max explained.
Logan nodded and looked as the train finished entering the city and came to a stop.
Suddenly a huge amount of pressurized air came out before every train cart was released and they began to move on their own to each side of the road in a zigzag format while the carts each gathered right next to them in the empty spot and this is when the shocking part really started.
From the front, a dungeon domain, the space that distorts the space within dungeons, excluded from the locomotive and began to ride back all the way to the last one as they released the condensed domain and instantly the entire city, a part of the harbor and a lot of the outside of the city was covered. Next the locomotive and the cart behind it began to transform as they combined and quickly began to grow and form a large near castle-like building.
The third one was right behind it and expanded to nearly the same size with three floors forming a bank.
One by one all the carts expanded into buildings of different trades. The most surprising is the small carriages began to expand as well forming brothels, taverns, Inns, warehouses, dormitories and much more.
When it all finally finished expanding and opening, a shocking thing appeared in front of them.
Dungeon domain fully expanded. Dungeon station, Port city Celopes fully formed.
Damage to original structures located due to storm winds and sand storms. Location cleared and requires just minor maintenance repairs. Commence full cleaning.
Suddenly a powerful wind originating from the center alongside a strange magic forced all windows and doors opened and a gust of wind rushed into the sand and eventually got all blown out of the city.
All damage and sand has been cleared and repaired. Welcome home passengers, please be careful upon exiting your temporary lodgings and please remember to trade in the generated gold for common coin before the Caravan Dungeon leaves.
At that moment, all the doors opened and humans and countless humanoid monsters walked out holding bags, luggage and more and came in droves.
"Come on, we should meet the dungeon master." Max said.
"Huh? Meet him? For what?" Logan asked.
"Obviously we need passage through the desert to the city of water. Also, I'm just going to show off my contacts." He said and jumped down off the wall and didn't hide his power.
Very quickly, some powerful guards ran over and bowed, "Greetings sir, you must be the one that uncovered the port, yes?" He asked.
Logan looked with shock as he saw the light pink skinned very human orc in front of him. He knew of his own which had human body structure but this was another league. The pig head was fully humanoid and only the ears and tusks remained.
"I am, I arrived half a day ago. I wish to talk to the dungeon master for passage." Max said.
"This way sir." The guard said, cautious of Max.
Maxwell grinned as he walked along the road.
"Are these all the city's population?" Logan asked.
"Yes, to protect our interests, Caravan dungeons evacuate settlements when needed." The orc said.
"The caravans ride upon the world's ley lines allowing them to form solid tracks from the sand. Because of this, they also possess some of the best weather tracking capability so they noticed long ago the storm that was brewing." Max explained.
"Yes, the 20 Caravans of the Mortis desert each designated specific settlements to evacuate until the storm mostly passed. The great master is also getting annoyed by them and it seems they are thinking of ending this fiasco themselves." The orc said.
"How strong are they?" Logan asked.
"The first master possesses the power that is closing the gap to SS while the youngest master is our master who is A rank." The orc said.
The orcs looked at Maxwell when saying that. He grinned, "I'm not stupid enough to draw the ire of elder earth dragons." Max said.
They walked in silence as they walked through the entire city and reached the center.
The imposing three story castle like building was honestly amazing but what was scary was the castle guards.
"Look Logan, every boss monster in the dungeon is the dungeon master's guards. This is the main difference from regular dungeons. You have to be ready to fight everyone." Max said as they got to the door and an armored golem 4 meters tall stood in front.
"Unauthorized powerful individual. Please withdraw or you will violate defense protocol. Immediate execution will commence.
"Hehehe, you guys got a pretty interesting toy but you should call it off if you do not want to lose one of your bosses." Maxwell said.
"Construct command unit, withdraw." A shout came and a man walked out from inside.
The man had red skin and two horns.
"Huh? Demon?" Logan said.
"Yes but it is different from any demon you know. Those anomalies weren't demons and demons in the Dark empire are more fallen angels while he is a demon originating from hell based demons called imps." Max explained.
"Maxwell McEwen, it is an honor to receive you. What would be the nature of your visit?" The demon asked.
"I need a lift to the city of water. Also, i would like to talk to your master." He said.
The demon scowled but had the bosses move and the two entered and the demon led them in. It was as big as it looked and maybe bigger as some of the dungeon domain might still be distorting space.
Eventually they arrived at a large hall and laid down in the middle was quite a large dragon with stone-like scales.
It opened its eyes slightly and looked at those entering and upon seeing who it was it's eyes widened and it instantly rose up.
"Maxwell, you old dirty dog! I heard you were retired and B rank, were those fucking lies!" The dragon exclaimed as many complex magical circles formed and his body transformed and shrank until it was human sized. What remained was a man no less muscular than Maxwell covered in luxurious dragon scale plates that were tight against his body.
He strutted over and when close the both swung their arms met at the middle with a big erupting as their muscles flexed.
"You've lost your touch old man!" He growled.
"You're still as weak as i remember you brat!" He said grinning as they kept forcing each other until it stopped.
"How are you doing, Hyron." Maxwell said as the arms dropped. The dragon waved for the demon to leave and after they were left alone he answered much more relaxed.
"I'm quite good, as you can see and feel, I've reached full maturity in power and live a life of luxuries." He said. "So how did I hear lies?" He asked.
"No, I settled down to raise my adoptive children as the next generation of Golden Lions. It just so happens that my son rediscovered the ancient art of the golden lions." Logan said.
The dragon froze in shock and looked at him and then at Logan and began to examine him. "Interesting boy. Does that mean you and all those old guys got off your asses to rebuild the Golden Lion Army?" He asked.
"Yes, we took initial steps with some low ranking monster breeds. We have a full 52 divisions counting the leadership division. Only my daughter has the nearly 600 young generation. The rest are starting up with about 30 monsters." Maxwell said.
"I see. What did you need from me?" He asked.
"My son had the luck to breed a lesser priestess lord so we need holy water to allow her access to holy magic. Few religious groups sell it so readily as the Saint Paladin himself." Maxwell said.
"I see. I also smell the scent of a dragon breed on him." Hyron said.
Logan explained about Storm which surprised the earth dragon.
"Not bad, it seems a new tribe is going to be born soon. If you have a Micro World, after it gets to a good size, you should have your partner raise them. The hardest part is definitely ogre horns with how the world is at this moment." He said.
"So can we get a ride?" Maxwell asked.
"Sure, you probably need a sparring partner who is stronger than you anyways. That said, we have 5 other evacuated settlements that we need to clear out at the coasts and 4 others still stuck under the storms. You are lucky that we let out a few here." Hyron said.
"Great, I need some time to retrain my sword techniques. How skilled are your master smiths?" He asked.
"Compared to the other caravans they naturally can't compete but I invested a lot of my personal gold into one of the lead dwarven smiths to evolve it into an Elder Dwarf. They still can't compare to the smiths of the order sadly." He said.
"I don't need that strong of a smith. I gathered a shit ton of materials I need forged into several hundred magic swords. I need to prepare materials and weaponry for the army." Max said.
"I see, however I can't make them work for nothing." Hyron said.
"Give us the bag and we will put an IOU on the entire order until we generate the gold." Maxwell said.
Hyron grinned and he snapped his finger and thousands of small pouches formed and Maxwell took an empty magic bag and pulled everything but two bags inside and tossed onto Logan.
"What is this?" Logan asked.
"It is a magic gold pouch. All humanoid monsters born on caravan dungeons are born with those and they form a certain amount of gold coins depending on how much mana you can draw. From your natural absorption, you should safely produce 100 coins daily without doing anything. If you properly train that will go up." Hyron said.
"Do these work outside the dungeon?" He asked
"Of course." He said.
"Can i have two more then." Logan said.
It was no sweat to make more money makers.
Logan had three, one for the other two battle beasts while Jin would be unable to carry his around when he stays inside Logan so much.
"I will get you a high ranking room. The mana quality should be good for you both." Hyron said.
"Get the kid his own room. He has a Micro world so he absorbs a lot." Max said.
"Seriously!?" Hyron said shocked but nodded and prepared two rooms and had the demon lead them to the first and highest quality passenger train cart.
"Why are the first carts so much better?" Logan asked.
"In a sense, the boss room is the room behind the locomotive so it is the back of the dungeon. When moving, it would be hard to invade from the front. Also, the back carts are specially prepared to be easier to invade so they force you into the main dungeon grind." Maxwell said.
It made sense so he entered the room alone and sighed.
He sat down to train but called Jade and Storm out and explained the pouch before they began to train hard. The absorption only reached the walls and no more but the quantity of mana was superior to what it had been as the dungeon drew mana into the domain.
***
Maxwell charged his mana capacity and continued an extremely complex system of development. With the VIP room the mana was capable of supplying the huge consumption of mana.
This was the hardest condition to achieve in high ranks, having a space with sufficient mana to develop at full speed.
Maxwell came specifically for this so that he could fully stabilize the A rank system.
He went on for 12 hours for him to finish but he could tell this was a burden for the dungeon. It was why mana rich food was important as a substitute.
Still he finally finished but he doubted he could continue such a pace. He felt the pressure on his bones and he knew he needed training to adapt. Using mana was a great way to adapt to the rise in quality. In fact, what slows down human development is having a body to adapt to the mana.
Thankfully Hyron possessed an arena. A special train cart that was always distorted and had a huge arena that could be further distorted so that more powerful creatures could fight.
Standing there were only the two while Hyron tossed a nodachi at him. It was forged with stored monster parts he had in store and it was for himself.
He examined the internal energy, "Your smith is good, the mana channels are already opened but need to be developed." He said.
"I doubt you can use your full might with that but it should be enough." Hyron said as he transformed and the distortion took effect and they were split by kilometers but that wasn't important. Distance began to lose meaning at B rank and it was even less to these A ranks.
Speed so blinding that even the fast Logan would need to work his mind to the limit to keep up. It took but three steps for Maxwell to reach Hyron but the giant body didn't follow the laws of physics as it's speed and power was no less and the sword and tail impacted and the ground below them gave way before an immense shockwave was released sending both backwards.
Hyron spread wings but Maxwell's eyes shined as solid wings of flames formed on his back.
A swing of the wings and both of them became streaks in the sky and began the battle.