"This beef is really good Jason," an idle Jake stated.

"That isn't beef. It's diamond rank Depth Wyvern meat but it tastes pretty similar to beef." replied Jason.

"So this is seafood?"

"Yep."

"Huh. Well I'm done. I'll see you guys in a day. I've got some stuff I need to do," said Jake before teleporting away with [One Step Mile].

"Same. Bye Jason," Zac waved before teleporting with [Skybreaker].

"Colin are you going to leave as well?"

The enormous pile of leeches shook side to side before piling into Jason. Jason then stepped into his soulspace. Two steps in, he was thrown straight out.

No indefinite shelter he said. Guess that makes sense.

Jason instead pulled out his cloud flask, deciding to meditate inside there instead.

Not too far away, Jake was attempting to make a cursed necrotic poison. It wasn't going too well. He was furiously pumping [Blood of the Malefic Viper] trying to keep up with the [Cursed Weed]'s poison output. Eventually, Blood worked too well and overcame the weed, destroying it. That threw the entire potion into an unstable state.

Jake backed up and started running before the entire thing blew up in a massive acidic bang. Potion and cauldron fragments hit him, but with [Scales of the Malefic Viper] running, none of them did any proper damage. But damn, B rank potions were hard to make and dangerous to get wrong. He pulled out another cauldron and got to work again, this time wanting to make a health potion, hoping it wouldn't be as dangerous.

Several minutes away...

Zac was playing with fire here. He wondered if the concept of a Dao mould, merging two Daos, could be applied to his skills. Specifically, the two most unstable skills he had, [Primal Extinction] which used Oblivion energy, and [Origin Uprising] which used Creation energy. They were both created from the corrupted halves of [Cyclic Strike] which combined energies before the modifications had split it into two skills.

He was correct, but it needed something else to combine. If he didn't find it soon, he was at risk of losing both skills, his entire back, and probably his life. Conflict didn't work, so he decided if this was a last resort skill, he needed to mix all his emergency energies to make it. Void energy. Cycling it through, it was barely enough to stop both energies from fighting each other, finishing the skill creation.

Void Cataclysm [C]. Proficiency: Peak. Creation and Oblivion separated by the Void. A power nothing can stand.

Zac finally released the breath he was holding and coughed up a lot of blood. He ate a Vitality Pill to start healing him and checked the new skill. The fractals on his shoulders for the other two skills were still available to use, but now both had a channel down to the one on his back. He was wary of using it though. The mere creation made it a Peak C grade skill and something that powerful using Oblivion energy would not be good for him to use.

A day later...

Initialising teleportation.

Teleporting...

All 12 contestants successfully teleported.

Welcome to the 32nd season of The Dungeon of Infinite Parallels.

Your efforts here are currently being streamed live across the multiverse. Any item you find here is yours to keep, trade, or sell to others. There are four groups of three (including yours) currently. You have 30 days to explore, gain rewards and fight before you are returned to your home.

Any questions you may have can be directed to your guide.

All three were teleported back to the start where Jason was putting away his cloud house. Zac and Jake just watched in fascination as an ostentatious castle was turned into clouds and sucked into a tiny glass bottle. Chris was also watching next to them.

Jason turned around after it was done and saw the three of them.

"Can we ask what voting is now?"

"Oh. Yes, um. Voting is for what section of the dungeon you want to do first. You stay in each zone for ten days." Three pictures floated up in front of the three of them. One was a monster hoard, one was an arena, and the last was a 100-floor skyscraper.

"The monster one is the Roaming Zone. You can stay together or split up to go fight monsters, bosses, collect loot, battle other teams and do whatever. Remember, everything is up for grabs. There's also usually towns and cities if you want a drink, trade, buy or sell things, or just want to relax"

"The arena one is handily the Arena Zone. You will inhabit an exact copy of yourself to fight monsters and enemies in an arena style zone with various terrains to the, admittedly not permanent, death. There will be solo and team battles against other teams as well. Prizes are awarded to the winners at the end."

"The third one is the Challenge Zone. It has 100 challenges run by different powerful figures that change each season, like boss fights, crafting challenges, puzzles and many more. Getting a spot to put one in is VERY difficult for anyone. The only one that stays the same is The Endless Labrinth challenge so it's a fan favourite. The creator worked out a deal with the dungeon. You should probably go there with the time you have. While choosing challenges, you cannot attack other teams.

More rules will be introduced when the events start. So, which one will you vote to go first? The second one will be voted by viewers by the way."

Jason immediately hit the monster one. Jake laughed maniacally before choosing the dungeon one. Zac thought for a few seconds before choosing the arena. They all looked at Chris.

"And the winner is..