"What do you mean you can't find him?"

A dwarf shouted at the High elf mage in front of himself, this mage was a specialist at finding people, all he needed was an item of the person and they had tons of Christopher's things.

"It's not so easy, either the target's magic power is too powerful or some dark force is blocking my detection, only thing I know is that he is still alive, now cough up the payment"

The high elf said arrogantly as if he had succesfuly accomplished his task, not even considering a refund of sorts or some discount.

"Fucking scammer Don't even think about informing your kingdom about his whereabouts, we will be monitoring you and anyone nearby you"

The dwarf said as he passed some materials to the high elf, whom simply snorted as he took the items and went back to his room.

The dwarf didn't know if the high elf was telling the truth or not, but if it was then it was rather serious, the last location known was Reddor, which was technicaly as close to Munnero as it was to Eolia. The problem was that they could not pin point his location anymore, his last known location was in a small village in the boarders before he suddenly disappeared.

---------------------------------------------------------

Uknown to them Christopher under the psebdonym of Kiris was led into an underground cave, this was only a small hidden shrine to the Demon God Cult.

It was magicaly concealed and looked like a cave with little to no decorations, looking like a regular monster cave, unless someone goes deep inside will he come across the secret entrance to the shrine.

The three adventurers or as they themselves told them to call them, "Priestesses", they were rather high in the hierarchy of the cult.

Kiris and the noble called Alec were simple initiates, they weren't even full initiates until they took some oathes and passed through the initiation ceremony.

Kiris in truth did care if they tried to make him offer sacrifices to demons and other stuff, he had no wish whatsoever to change faith, it was more like a matter of principles rather than belief.

In reality there are few people on earth whom trully believe in god or even know what they trully believe in, but due to pride, ignorance and the psychology of the masses, they simply say they believe, it's like asking someone which team he's cheering for and out of sheer unwillingness to stay out of the social surrounding him answering with one or another, without really caring whichever team wins or loses, this is what faith has turned into in our modern society.

Entering the shrine they could see a round Shrine in the middle, there was a circular altar with no special to be seen, it was just two cilinders one large and a smaller one on top of it, there were no visible decorations but there were around 20 plates with offerings around it holding gold, meat, fruits and all sorts of offerings, the strange thing was on the smaller cilinder he could see small sculptures depicting something really shocking.

There were dozens of cultists whom were kneeling in front of the sculptures, sculptures of various well known earthen religions. It was simply unthinkable that the Demon God Cult even had a cross inside.

"Wellcome to the Shrine of free belief, to begin your initiation you first have to decide on which god you are will follow, let me quickly go through them all, we have the faceless Alla, the Cross Martyrs, the Manyhand Deva, the No desires Vuva..."

It was simply painful to hear the priestesses explainations, they were simply oblivious about the real symbolisms and beliefs of the religions they were worshiping, simply creating some rather pathetic excuses of them.

Of course Christopher would only follow one god and seriously speaking he had no qualms with the cross, only problem was the god of love and compassion he believed in was not the god they worshiped.

The Cross Martyrs were fanatics that believed that dying so that the others could live on was their purpose in life, it was a rather pathetic excuse for creating fanatical zealots.

I won't say that In Christianity self-sacrifice is not viewed as something noble, but it was not the main creed of Christianity.

The Cross Martyrs was like a heresy of the Christian belief, the others too were the same, they were altered so that they could achieve some purpose to their existence.

Christopher didn't know whom had done so, but if you think it further why would people care if Christ sucrificed himself to save people on earth from sin, opening the gates to heaven for them, after all this wasn't Earth.

Christopher of course chose the cross and Alec after consideration went and chose the Satan, which was the oposite, of course their beliefs of the devils and gods were a lot different than on earth, in Axis they called everyone other than Ecclesia as Demons, they believed that Satan was simply a ruler of the demons and that meant that he was stronger than others they didn't care if the gods they worshiped were good or evil, as long as they offered them power.

The Cross Martyrs had phenomenal willpower and could easily blend with regular people since their creed didn't allow them to summon demons or practice any demonic magic, but in turn it forced them to help others when they were in trouble and stay undercover.

Christopher's brain hurt as he heard what he was told, of course the Cross Martyrs were not good people, they hid the murderers and scum of the other more radical beliefs, which didn't really do them good, of course this was mainly because everyone wanted to simply live.

"By the way, why do we have to hide exactly?"

Christopher asked suddenly, not really understanding why all of them had to hide, after all there were plenty of Countries that didn't force beliefs, only Ecclesia was like that or so he knew.

"Do you think we like hiding or something and how dare you talk to the priestess like that!"

A cultist shouted rather irritated by Christopher's audacity, making not a small rackus to begin amongst the other cultists there.

"Silence everyone, You might not know, but there are people that will kill you if they find a small cross hunging on your neck, the Ecclesians have the inquisition's shadows, that work throughout the world, they are merciless murderers that have been executed millions of times, but will simply appear once more in this world, the Eolian have their own Magic Echelon, if they find a high elf whom believes in some deity they will go there and straitly kill him, even if he belives in Ecclesis, there are tons of people whom operate undercover to do the dirty work of religious organizations, thus it's prudent to hide"

The priestess explained as calmly as if she was a normal priestess or something and not at all an evil cultist.

"First we will need your full information, so please enter the room in the left and stay there"

The other priestess said as she guided him to a room nearby and then two people grabbed him and chained him to a wall.

"Now we will ask you three questions, if you lie, the magic chains will cause you extreme pain"

The priestess said, but Christopher didn't care.

"What's your name?"

The priestess asked him.

"Christopher"

He said and nothing happened, but the priestess was rather surprised for some reason.

"Which country are you from?"

She asked him.

"Greece"

His answer made no sence but the chains indicated that he was telling the truth, there were only two possibilities, either he was from up the tower or there was some small country that none knew about nor cared.

"Which god do you worship?"

She asked this was of course a sort of tricky question, since she could probably kill him if he called some Axis deity known to them.

"Holy triad"

Christopher said, making the priestess silent, she had no idea what that was, they had no intelligence of such a religion even existing, but he wasn't lying.

"What is this holy Triad?"

The discussion went on for hours as she asked tons of stuff, beginning from his beliefs, moving to his country and lastly learning that he was one of the summoned heroes, the final straw however came when she discovered that it was his fault that they failed in assassinating the queen and princess of Nivava.

In truth she wanted to kill him, but there was a problem existent, that was that he believed that their world was fake, he begun explaining that in the real world there was no magic and that this world was fake, everyone was but a fiction of his fantasy, a dream that he would just wake up from, he was probably in a comma in the real world seeing all this as he slept.

This fantastical explenation made her rather angry but it explained why he had such disregard for life, well in a world where you can simply revive life was rather devaluated.

Of course she could understand why he would think so, after all even if she killed him, he would probably be resurrected by some country and used as their own hero.

Days passed, they had taken his rings and other stuff, since they were rather valuable to them, even the sleep immunity, which was rather crappy had its use to them.

Christopher was rather shocked to find that he could use no magic nor powers insid the chamber, making him no different than a regular prisoner.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Of course he had no idea that the cult was trying to dig some information about him, it wouldn't even be strange if they would sell him off in the end.

---------------------------------------------------------

In the Underground dwarven mines of Munnero, the strange hero Stelios, I say he was strange because he was a half dwarf with a beard and all but his size was that of a human, he was like a zoomed in dwarf, as if they had taken a dwarf and grown him in size.

Stelio was a blacksmith class, you could say that he was the sole blacksmith in their whole banch. His cheat power was however rather disappointing he could summon weapons or his own level, of course the weapons were as weak as his mentality, which was no greater than 11 in the beginning.

Of course he had thought of ways to use his skill for offensive purposes, like summoning caltrops or arrows or even bombs, but he found a rather large problem in front of him, first being that he could only summon the weapon in his own hand and secondly the weapon was practicaly useless against others.

Caltrops are small sharp objects that are thrown to the ground in order for your oponent to step on them as the impale his feet, causing him extreme pain, but other than the fact that he could only summon one little caltrop at a time, in Axis they were simply pulverized as someone with high physique stepped on them, making them useless.

As a blacksmith however he had already learnt the blacksmithing skill, which offered him experience each time he used it.In the past months he had created plenty of things, reaching a shockingly feeble level of 28.

The reason for his failure being because he hadn't taken on secondary blacksmithing skills, like smelting and jewel making, of course he would have to pay to take them and he nearly made ends meet through blacksmithing weapons and armors.

He used the most cheep of materials and made crappy weapons, but his specialty was his repair rune, he could easily repair stuff. Of course the money he got from repairing he spent on blacksmithing.

Of course the repair rune was considered as magic and gave him no experience, but it was critical to balance his expenses and gains.

as for gaining new skills, they would have to buy them first, meaning they would have to either hunt or sell stuff and services.

Stelio and the others at first had gathered a few times to hunt undead, but since he was a blacksmith, he didn't enjoy the same ease in hunting as the two monks and the monster tamer.

Stelio was left alone as well as the others went hunting, the dwarves responsible for guarding him weren't exactly happy with him staying in the city and forging weapons, but what could they do, they were bound till death to guard him due to their huge debts.

In the past months Stelio had oppened his own blacksmith store at the first floor, where he repaired items for adventurers as well as sold crappy weapons for a cheap price, it was funny how some people bought them only to melt them again and resell the ore back to him.

His store was called Hero's weapons, of course it was a small forge with a street stall outside, of course stealing in the dwarven kingdom was rather rare, especialy stealing something so cheap as his crappy iron swords.

Of course as a bright mind and nerdy person, how could he be stupid and not try creating a gun?

Now knowing how to create gunpoweder, not really a problem this world had tons of alchemists whom knew how to make explosives, mayhaps there's even something even better than gunpowder in this world.

The problem however was that he had no idea how a gun worked, well probably a small hammer hiting the bullet, but how the heck would a teen understand how to create a triggering mechanism.

In general he could create a gun barrel and even a small hummer or something, but how to create the trigger inside was a test for his immagination.

The second problem was how to create a bullet, many people might think it's simply a piece of metal with gunpoweder on its butt, the truth however is that it's not that simple, nowadays bullets are mountd on cannisters and the canister is later taken out and can even be re-used, problem is that he had no way to create a methode to eject the canister, no method to make the side of the barrel to open and close, in single words, he was no fucking mechanic prodigy.

This however didn't turn him down, he discovered that this world did have guns, problem was that they were too high leveled for him, they required a physique of at least 100, unless you want your hands to dislocate after each shot, there was no reason to create guns for lower levels, mostly because they would be pointless against monsters and people, to begin with a regular pistol or rifle wouldn't do shit againt a person whose physique was above 30, the average of Axis, at we are talking without armor on.

You can understand that physique in our world is around 0.5-2, meaning that pistols do around 5 damage, and a riffle around 5-20, well there are also special bullets used for armor piercing or even explosive ones.

The problem however was that Stelio was too poor and weak, the others had already surpassed level 50, while he was stuck at level 28, all he could do was curse at his bad luck.

Some may ask why can't he summon a gun, with bullets, he has after all his cheat ability, well the reason is simple, he cannot, first of all a weapon isn't composed entirely of iron, secondly he has no idea how it's made, what's inside, his cheat ability uses his own knowledge to summon weapons, if he has no idea how it works it will simply summon a model of a gun that can only be used as smelting material, otherwise he would be able to summon a laser blaster, a grenade or other modern weapons.

How many teenagers do you think know how a grenade works, how many teenagers know how a pistol functions, how many teenagers know how a sword is sharpened, many haven't even sharpened a knife in their lives.

This was the trouble this nerdy hero stumbled upon, he even cursed that he wasn't a monk like the others, after all he did have the martial arts skill since he also learned at a karate dojo, in truth he was even better than Kris in that prospect, but the other had ended up with a monk class, while he was stuck with a non combatant one.

Of course he didn't despair, he had lots of plans for his future, he simply had to get stronger step by step, he might be slower in the beginning, but everyone knows that crafting professions are slow in the early stage, before entering the mid stage, where they begin a boom in growth and wealth making.

For the moment however all he had to do was reach level 29, to evolve his blacksmithing skill and be able to craft better stuff.

Find a dwarf or gnome engineer or gadgeteer to teach or cooperate with him, well mostly teach him how to make a gun or a flamethrower, even a chainsaw would be great.

You can understand that even with magic, modern weapons would still be usefull or at least against humans and weak monsters.

in a way he could easily create a car if he knew how to make one and like said above, there were already engineers in Axis, only their creations were rather disapointing, they were around the age of clockwork and steamwork, although to his surprise he discovered that in Runia they had something called Magi-tech, they simply replaced the complex technological devices with magic ones, it was like I don't know how a TV works so I will make something that looks like a TV on the outside, but inside it works through magic means.

Of course he could not summon magic weapons, or at least yet, but he could enchant them later if he learned hom, but as stated, everything needed money.

---------------------------------------------------------

The final two heroes of Munnero were Dimitri and Mike, they were cousins and Stelio's friends.

Problem however was that Stelio had decided to stay back in the city after seeing that he hunting was too slow, after not seeing him for months they simply forgot about him.

Dimitri was a Monk with a cheat power called knockback kick, while Mike was a monster tamer with a strange cheat skill called pat, but since both of their stats were too low and their skills weren't really deadly they hadn't the chance to experiment with them at least not a lot.

Dimitri's knockback kick was in truth simply a cheat, he could simply kick a boulder his own size and it would be pushed, well not like a lot, but it would move.

Mike on the other side had bought a few pets, he might have fallen into debt because of it, but it was completely worth it.

He now had a Wolf, called Doggy, which could easily tear apart skeletons and shared its experience points with him, only problem was that he had to heal it, pet(cheat power) it a lot and feed it like any regular pet.

The fantastic however thing was that he could communicate with it, well he understood what it was saying, but could barely speak to it in its own tongue.

Well not that it was intelligent to begin with, all it could say was "Prey", "Enemy", "Bone", "Food", "Aou!", the last being from pain most of the time.

As for his commands it was rather easy to understand "Attack", "come back", "go hunt" and other small commands that could easily be understood by the beast.

Mike at first thought of getting another pet, but after experiencing some trouble with Doggy, he didn't dare act rashly, the most evident was how much it ate.

As a full dwarf however Mike could easily ride the large wolf as if it was a horse, something like Dwarf wolf rider thingy, he even asked Stelio to create some armor for Doggy, which although didn't make Doggy very happy, but was rather useful in the end, even though it had a ridiculously low defense.

In the end Dimitri had reached level 58, while Mike had reached 97, making the two rather strong and able to fend for themselves, of course their dwarven bodyguards helped a lot as well, they had stil seven surviving bodyguards whom did a great job in supporting them. Funny enough they lost not a single dwarf as they hunted at the first floor of the dungeon pillar.

In the past months they would sheldomly see Stelio and Kris, even though Stelio had opened a store in the floor, truth was that he wasn't the best blacksmith and his repair rune wasn't even comperable to the rune mages.

As for Kris, they wouldn't even greet him and neither did he, it was as if they were strangers.

The two cousins however weren't as patient as Stelio, especialy when they heard that Kris was already hunting at the second floor.

Thus they begun to try making their way through the darkness and into the second floor, the results however were devestating, they run into a mob of monsters losing all of their bodyguards, being the only ones to survive the monster wave.

Of course they run back and reported on the matter, but were told that it was natural, it meant that the Demon lord of the 10th floor had already been born, although finding him would be impossible until he revealed himself and even then it wouldn't be them whom would kill him, but a dwarven hero whom they had already trained long ago.

This brings the question of why did they even need them in the first place, but if you think calmly you will understand that you can never have enough power, heroes will leave descendant, that means that from 100children that they may have, at least 1 will be a hero, if they left 40 heroes in nivava, there's no need to imagine the aftermath, they would have become the most powerful kingdom in a matter of a few years.

Of course Dimitri and Mike weren't hero matterial in the end, they fell depressed and begun to drink more, they even thought that they could understand why dwarves drink so much, it was simply depressing how even if they spend years hunting, in the end it all results in a wipe out due to bad luck.

Of course they wouldn't do a stupid thing as to revive the dead, it was simply stupid to even think about it, to begin with the dwarves were patheticaly weak, well they were commoners to begin with and their armors were only good enough to last them so far, once they encountered a monster of greater rank than C, losses were unavoidable.

Thus leaving the two drinking away all their gains, gambling in small pubs and even trying the famous dwarven drugs, which were strange potions that caused a strange psychedelic effect that brightened their day, relieving them of all tension and stress.