The second dungeon in the bug territory was a desert—a vast expanse of dunes stretching endlessly. As soon as we stepped in, the heat struck me like a hammer. The sun was brutal, with no breeze or shade, only an endless horizon of shimmering sand no matter where I looked. Mahya wrapped a cloth around her head to shield her face, squinting into the glare. Al and I quickly followed her lead, adjusting our scarves as we moved.
“Once we finish this dungeon, my core will have enough glass for a hundred greenhouses,” I said, wiping away the sweat.
Mahya shot me a sideways glance, her eyes narrowing. “You’re not getting all of it. I gave you all the sand from the rats, so I want some back,” she said, her voice muffled by the cloth.
Al gave us both a pointed look, his tone carrying a note of reprimand. “Maybe we should first clear it and then divide the spoils?” he asked, his eyes flicking between us like a parent tired of bickering kids. Mahya and I both nodded sheepishly.
Rue struggling more than any of us. He panted heavily beside me, his normally lively telepathic voice sluggish and strained. “Hot. Too hot. Rue not like this place,” he said, the heat clearly getting to him.
“Want to wait outside?” I asked, glancing at him. “With all that fur, you’re feeling it worse than us. Maybe sit this one out?”
“No! Rue protect John!” His response was sharp, despite the heat slowing him down.
Each step I took felt like the sand was pulling me under. And it wasn’t just the heat—there was something… off. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught glimpses of movement. Something was sliding under the sand or darting across the dunes, but it was gone every time I looked directly.
Suddenly, the ground in front of us erupted, and a massive shadow burst from the sand, darkening the sky. A giant scorpion-like creature, its cracked exoskeleton glowing with molten lines, lunged at us without warning.
“Watch out!” Al shouted.
I threw myself to the side as its stinger slammed into the ground where I’d been standing, sending up a plume of sizzling sand. Mahya was already on the move, her sword flashing as she went for its legs. Al blocked its pincers with his shield, trying to counter with his sword, but the creature was too fast, skittering away each time he attacked.
“Why is everything in these dungeons always on fire?” Al grumbled, his sarcasm barely masking the strain in his voice.
The scorpion hissed, its molten lines glowing brighter as its tail whipped toward Mahya. She dodged just in time, the stinger narrowly missing her. Rue growled and lunged at the creature, sinking his teeth into one of its legs.
The scorpion screeched, thrashing to shake Rue off. Seizing the opening, I summoned a bolt of lightning, sending it crashing into the creature’s underbelly. Electricity crackled along its body, and with a final hiss, it collapsed, twitching in the sand.
Wiping sweat from my brow, I let out a breath. “One down. Probably a dozen more to go.”
Mahya kicked the scorpion’s body, her frown deepening. “Those are dangerous.”
She wasn’t wrong. The next few hours were a grueling fight through the desert’s twisted creatures—molten-scaled snakes, fiery-winged birds, and wolves with glowing red eyes, their sand-colored fur blending into the dunes. Each battle drained us. They all shot fire or were on fire, so we collected a lot of burns that I kept healing, and the relentless heat only made it worse. Between the healing and the high cost of the lightning and the shield, my mana reserves were dwindling, even with the Siphon trying to compensate. The sun wouldn’t move, making every step harder and harder.
We were exhausted when we reached the dungeon’s center, but there it was—the core, glowing in the center of an oasis-like clearing, surrounded by palm trees that offered the first real shade we’d seen.
Of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy.
Standing between us and the core was the dungeon’s final guardian—a hulking beast that looked like a lion crossed with a dragon. Thick, armored scales covered its body, and its eyes burned like coals as it paced, watching us.
“Of course,” Al muttered. “A fire-breathing lion. Why not?”
“We need to rest and regenerate,” Mahya said. “Let’s fall back.”
The guardian had other plans. As we backed away, it pounced, hurling a stream of fire in our direction. I barely got my shield up in time, the flames slamming into it, draining another 1,000 mana.
The fight was intense. The guardian moved impossibly fast, darting across the sand like a shadow. One second, it was in front of us; the next, it was behind, spitting fire with a roar. We barely had time to react. Mahya swung her sword at its legs, sparks flying from its armored scales. The lion shrugged her off, leaping away before she could land a clean hit. I hurled a wind blade, but it dodged, flames shooting from its mouth. I threw up a shield, bracing against the heat.
Al launched wind blades, but the beast twisted out of reach. He tried to hold it down with roots, thick vines shooting from the ground, but the lion broke free, its strength overwhelming. Mahya struck again, her movements desperate, each swing slower than the last. I felt my mana draining with every shield and lightning I cast, and I got increasingly dizzy, losing my focus. We couldn’t pin it down. Every time we thought we had it, the beast leaped away, leaving us scrambling to keep up.
Then, the guardian slammed its massive paw down, pinning Rue beneath it. I freaked out the moment I heard his pained yelp, my heart pounding in my chest. But before I could react, Rue snapped into action. His jaws clamped down on the creature’s leg, causing the beast to stumble back just enough for him to wriggle free.
Al didn’t waste a second. Seeing the opening, he sent a sharp wind blade straight into the creature’s eye. The lion roared in pain, thrashing wildly. I used the opportunity to channel the last of my mana into a bolt of lightning, aiming for the same eye. The lightning struck as intended, and the creature howled in agony as it staggered, half-blind.
The beast roared, flames spewing from its mouth, but Mahya was already in the air, her sword raised high. She brought it down with a final, powerful strike, piercing the guardian’s skull. The beast collapsed with a crash, the flames in its eyes flickering out as its body slumped into the sand.
None of us moved for a moment, too exhausted to do anything but breathe. My vision blurred, my mana completely drained. Rue limped over, singed but alive. Mahya clutched her side, blood seeping through her armor, and Al had a nasty gash down his arm, his face pale with exhaustion. All of us also had burns on various parts of our bodies.
“We did it,” Mahya whispered.
“Barely,” I said. “Give me a few minutes to regenerate, and I’ll heal you.”
After downing five liters of water and resting on the sand, I could finally move. I healed us all, and we touched the core.
Vial of Eternal Water
A magical flask that never runs out of water. Perfect for survival in desert environments, it provides a constant source of cool water, ensuring the bearer is never without hydration, no matter the circumstances.
Before the dungeon, I followed Mahya’s advice and asked the house to create five metal containers. I filled one with sand for her. The oasis had nothing interesting—just some palm trees and a pond with cloudy water, so we collected nothing.
“I thought dungeons were for collecting resources. We haven’t found anything interesting so far,” I said, frowning as I glanced around the bland surroundings.
“Not all of them,” Mahya replied, shrugging. “Guilds, cities, or nobles control the ones with valuable resources. The rest, like this one, they take the core and collapse it.”
“I figured they all had something valuable,” I said, still surprised by the lack of anything useful.
“Not even close.” She shook her head. “Only about ten to twenty percent. The rest, you clear and take the core.”
Once Mahya was happy with the sand, I told my core to absorb the rest of the dungeon. We were exhausted, but now had an additional core.
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The next area we tackled was the slime zone. Before asking the wind about the dungeon locations, I gathered all the slimes and used them to take care of the hornless rhinos.
The first dungeon we found was buried, so we had to excavate it. Inside, we came across sprawling ruins—cracked stone, jagged pillars, and delicate arches that seemed ready to crumble. The design was a strange fusion of oriental and Arabian styles, decaying over centuries. Every step felt like the ground might give way beneath me, and the air smelled of dust and ancient rot.
“Looks like this place is held together by stubbornness and hope,” Al muttered, his eyes darting to the looming arches overhead. His fingers tapped a steady rhythm on his leg, a habit that always surfaced when he was uneasy.
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Mahya was already scanning the area ahead. “Be careful,” she warned, her voice echoing faintly off the walls. “These structures are more unstable than they seem. One wrong move, and we’ll bring the entire floor down.”
Rue padded beside me. “Bones. Rue smell bones.”
It wasn’t hard to see why. Scattered across the ground were strange, twisted bones, half-buried in sand and rubble. They didn’t look like they belonged to any creature I recognized—some long and thin, others wide and curved, all with an unnatural quality, like they’d grown in place.
“Let’s clear the upper floors quickly,” I said, eyeing the bones. “The core’s probably deeper, but I don’t like the feel of this place.”
The deeper we went, the more weird creatures started showing up, their bones clicking as they moved. They didn’t look like any skeletons I’d seen before—no humanoid figures or recognizable forms. Instead, these things were twisted masses of bone forced into unnatural shapes. One creature skittered toward us on interconnected rib cages, while another floated, its rigid bones spiraling unnervingly.
“Brace yourselves,” I warned, summoning magic to my fingertips. “They don’t look friendly.”
From above, one creature perched on a crumbling arch launched a barrage of bone shards. Al reacted quickly, raising his shield, deflecting the attack, though the force knocked him back.
“They shoot bones? Just great,” he muttered, steadying himself.
Mahya moved swiftly, dodging another volley as she closed on one of the bone constructs. She struck it, but the creature exploded into sharp fragments, sending her flying with a curse.
“They’re rigged to blow when you hit them!” she shouted, grimacing as she yanked a shard of bone from her arm. Blood stained her sleeve, but she ignored it.
Gritting my teeth, I sent a pulse of magic toward the floating creature. If physical attacks made them explode, then maybe magic wouldn’t. A lightning bolt crackled through the creature, and it collapsed into a pile of bones without detonating.
“Magic works without blowing them up!” I called out, firing another bolt at the second creature. “Avoid physical attacks!”
Mahya switched to her rifle, but it didn’t go so well. Some bullets passed between the bones, not doing anything. The ones that hit caused an explosion. We looked around wearily, but the ruin held so far. Mahya looked dejected but stored her rifle and also switched to wind blades.
Rue darted toward one of the skeletal beings that had Al pinned, dodging its bone projectiles. He leaped, knocking it off balance, giving Al enough time to dispatch it with a wind blade.
The upper floors were a maze of crumbling rooms filled with bone creatures waiting in the shadows. Each encounter was a tense dance of dodging their attacks and trying to hit them with magic to bring them down without triggering explosions. The air rang with the clatter of bones and Rue’s occasional growls as he fought alongside us.
By the time we cleared the second floor, I healed so many cuts I lost count. The ruins groaned under the strain of each battle, but we avoided triggering any collapses.
“That basement is going to be worse, isn’t it?” Al asked, wiping sweat from his brow. He looked pale, the strain of keeping up with spells taking its toll.
Mahya nodded. “The core will be down there, along with whatever’s guarding it.”
The stairs to the basement were steep, carved from the same worn stone as the rest of the ruins. As we descended, the air grew colder, and the faint light from above faded, leaving us in near darkness. I cast my Light Ball, but Mahya refrained, saving her mana.
At the bottom, we entered a massive chamber lit by pale blue flames flickering along the walls. In the center was the core, glowing with energy, casting an eerie light. But it wasn’t alone.
The final guardian stood before it, a towering monstrosity of bone. Its body was a twisted patchwork of fragments, woven into a grotesque form with multiple limbs, each ending in sharp points. Its head was an ever-shifting mass of jagged bone shards.
It let out a low, grating sound and immediately fired a barrage of bone projectiles toward us.
I dove to the side as bone shards exploded where I’d stood moments before.
Mahya and Rue ducked behind Al and me as another volley of bone shards rained down from the guardian. Al raised his shield, deflecting the sharp projectiles, while I cast my shield spell, forming a shimmering barrier in front of us just in time.
“We need to keep moving, kite it around!” Mahya shouted.
I shot a bolt of lightning at one of the guardian’s limbs. The electricity crackled as it hit, causing the limb to jerk, but the bones quickly regenerated.
Al nodded, raising his shield again as the bone guardian lunged at us, its sharp limbs slashing through the air. “Stay behind me!” he yelled, bracing against the impact of another bone-shard barrage. Mahya and Rue kept close, dodging and weaving, staying just out of the creature’s reach.
Mahya cast wind blades from behind Al’s shield, sending them slicing through the air at the guardian, but its regeneration was too fast. “I’m running low on mana!” she called out, retreating behind Al as her magic faltered.
Rue, determined to fight, launched more wind blades. His mental voice sounded strained. “Rue help! Rue fight!” But even he slowed, his mana nearly depleted after the continuous casting.
“Focus on staying alive!” I called out, casting another lightning spell that struck the guardian, but the creature kept advancing, relentlessly. Al deflected another bone shard with his shield, gritting his teeth. “We have to finish it!”
Mahya, now out of mana, crouched low behind Al, unable to cast any more spells. Rue, panting and exhausted, took shelter behind me, his mana drained.
With the others out of the fight, it was up to Al and me. I launched another lightning bolt, this time aiming for the creature’s center. Al sent wind blades one after another right behind it, and both attacks hit in quick succession. The combined force finally staggered the guardian, its limbs twitching as it struggled to regenerate.
“Again!” Al yelled, and I followed up with another blast of lightning while Al’s wind blades tore through the weakened limbs. The guardian let out a shuddering roar, its movements slowing as we continued our relentless barrage of magic.
Finally, with one last surge of mana, I unleashed a last bolt of red lightning, and Al struck with a wind blade. The guardian collapsed into a heap of bones, unable to regenerate anymore.
Breathing heavily, I released my shield and glanced at Al, who was leaning heavily on his shield, exhausted but victorious.
Mahya and Rue slowly emerged from behind us, both worn out but safe. We stood together, catching our breath as the chamber grew silent, the threat finally over.
“Not… the worst dungeon we’ve been through,” I said.
They both looked at me sideways.
“Don’t look at me like that. The fire lion was worse.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Mahya said.
We touched the core.
Gold again, ten this time. I shook my head and sighed. At least my core got to dine on refined mana, and we got another core.
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We rested a day and tackled the next dungeon in the slime territory.
When we crossed the portal of doom, we stepped into an enormous cave with damp walls. Pools of greenish liquid shimmered in the dim light, and the air smelled of chemicals and decay. The slimes appeared quickly—small, greenish blobs that pulsed as they moved toward us.
I watched as one slime oozed over a rock, causing it to sizzle and melt.
“They’re acidic. Be careful,” Mahya said.
One slime lashed out, extending a pseudopod toward Al. He stepped back quickly, and the acidic tendril slapped the ground where he had been standing with a sharp hiss.
“Lovely,” Al muttered, blocking the next attack with his shield.
Mahya moved in and sliced through one slime. Instead of a clean cut, the creature exploded in acid spray. She cursed as she dodged most of it, but a few drops landed on her arm.
“Don’t cut them!” she shouted. “They burst!”
“Need healing?” I asked.
“No, I’m good.”
Nodding, I called up a lightning strike. As the electricity shot through one slime, it convulsed and fell apart into a harmless puddle. “Magic works. Just don’t hit them too hard.”
Rue growled, staying far away from the acidic puddles. “Acid bad. Rue no bite.”
We proceeded slowly, using magic to destroy the slimes while avoiding their poisonous sprays. The floor was littered with half-melted rocks and debris, a clear warning of what would happen if we weren’t careful. We also didn’t collect any crystals; the slimes were too damaged and dissipated fast.
After about two hours, we reached the stairs leading down.
“Are we looking for things to harvest from the dungeon?” I asked.
“I prefer not,” Al said. “Too much acid.”
“Yeah, let’s skip it,” Mahya said.
I told my core to absorb everything until only hazy borders and the stairs down remained.
The air on the second floor was thick and damp, and the floor was darker. Sticky residue covered the walls, making the ground slick and hard to walk on. These slimes were different—larger, darker, and denser. But the real trouble became apparent as soon as we attacked.
“Why does this thing keep coming back?” Al shouted in frustration, swinging his sword again. The slime split momentarily but almost instantly reformed, oozing back toward us.
“They’re regenerating!” Mahya yelled, slashing at another slime. Her attack barely left a mark before it healed itself.
“We need to stop them from regenerating,” I said quickly. I shot one slime with red lightning. The fire burned through its body, causing it to quiver and shrink, but before it could regrow, I hit it again with a bolt of regular lightning. I repeated the sequence three times. The combination worked. With the repeated attacks, the slime couldn’t recover and eventually collapsed into a lifeless puddle.
“Fire and lightning,” I said. “Hit them hard and fast before they can heal.”
Mahya grinned, taking out the Thunder Strike and Flame Wave scrolls and giving some to Al.
With our new plan, we pressed forward. The regenerating slimes kept coming, but we learned to handle them, alternating between fire and lightning to stop them. At some point, I also switched to the Flame Wave scrolls, the red lightning cost double the regular one.
We reached the stairs to the next floor, and before telling my core to absorb the dungeon, we rested for a few hours so everybody could regenerate. It wasn’t hard to fight with scrolls, but it cost a lot of mana.
The last floor was nothing like the others. The cavern was massive, with towering stalagmites and a wide space in the center. But what stood out the most were the slimes. They weren’t just blobs of goo anymore—they were elemental.
One slime was bright red, radiating heat so intense the air shimmered. Another was a constantly shifting mass of water, flowing and reforming as it moved. The third sparkled with electricity, crackling and buzzing with energy.
“Elemental slimes,” Al muttered. “Of course.”
The fire slime came at us first, rolling like a ball of molten lava. I raised my shield just in time to block the heat wave, but the impact knocked me back a few steps.
“We can’t hit the fire one with lightning,” I said, gritting my teeth. “And the water one won’t care about fire either.”
Mahya narrowed her eyes. “We’ll have to take them down one by one. Focus on the fire slime first.”
We targeted the fire slime, since it was the most dangerous. We hit them with Frostbite scrolls, and each slime needed two.
The water slime was trickier. We tried to use a Flame Wave, but it caused the slime to steam a bit and lose some mass, but not enough to do significant damage. After several failed attempts, I realized its weakness. “Lightning works!” I called out, casting a lightning bolt that caused the slime to shudder and collapse into a pool of water.
“That just leaves the lightning slime,” Al said, raising his shield as the sizzling ball of energy rolled toward us, electricity sparking around it.
Mahya tore a Lightning Rod scroll, and all the lightning from the slimes concentrated on one point away from us. We used the opportunity to hit them with wind blades. After repeating the sequence five times, the room fell silent.
The dungeon core pulsed with a soft glow in the center of the cavern, its light dimming now that the guardians were gone.
Mahya dropped on her butt, panting. “We did it.”
I wiped the sweat from my forehead, feeling the exhaustion settle in. “Yeah, we did.”
Rue padded up beside me, his fur singed but otherwise unharmed.
We approached the core, and I placed my hand on it, and… received more gold, ten coins again. I couldn’t help myself and cursed uncontrollably.
The two traitors laughed at me. At least Rue understood me. I felt his disappointment, too.
The only bright light was that after my core finished “eating” this dungeon, it finally reached 40 centimeters.
Yay!