The following month was “interesting.” The hailstorms came more often, forcing us to stay inside more and more. Al lamented the lack of snow, which would have frozen the lake where I filled up water and allowed for a few hockey games. At least he seemed satisfied with the plant specimens he collected in the ape dungeon, which kept him busy experimenting. He even forgave me for forgetting the herbs he had asked for from Lumis.
Mahya kept herself occupied with the wood she’d collected in the wolf dungeon and the strange vehicles we “acquired” in the palace in Tolarib. She dismantled one and developed a theory about how it worked, but said she needed more information—or a different model with a similar drive—to figure it out and convert it. Apparently, it was so different from Earth’s mechanics and her knowledge from Maratan that a single disassembled vehicle wasn’t enough to figure it out.
When I asked her what she’d learned so far, I struggled to stay awake through the flood of technical jargon. But Mahya, undeterred, leaned against the vehicle’s stripped frame, wiping a smudge of grease off her cheek as she launched into her explanation.
“Alright, here’s what I’m mostly sure of,” she began, her voice buzzing with excitement. “This thing doesn’t drive on roads—it flies. But it’s not using typical engines the way you’d expect. It’s leveraging the planet’s magnetic field.”
She tapped a finger against the vehicle’s central drive mechanism. “See this core? I think it’s designed to interact with the planet’s magnetism, specifically how magnetic fields work at the poles. It seems to have two modes: one generates a magnetic field that matches the planet’s polarity, like charges repelling each other, so it pushes away from the surface—your lift. The other mode flips the polarity to the opposite charge, which pulls it toward the destination. That’s your propulsion.”
She grabbed a few parts she had extracted and laid them out like puzzle pieces. “It can hover and move efficiently by alternating these two states—lift and pull. It’s like surfing the magnetic waves of the planet’s field. The trick is in the precision. It would need to constantly adjust its polarity to stay stable, which might explain the complex circuitry here.”
Her expression shifted to one of cautious doubt. “That’s the part I’m not completely certain about—the fine-tuning mechanism. The vehicle may use gyroscopic stabilization or an onboard processor that senses the magnetic field strength in real-time and adjusts accordingly. But I can’t confirm that without more data or another vehicle to compare.”
Mahya sighed, motioning to the scattered components. “If I had a similar model—or better yet, a functioning model—I could figure out the rest. For now, though, I’m 80% sure of the basic principle: lift through repulsion, movement through attraction, all controlled by flipping magnetic polarity. The rest? Still a theory.” She shook her head and added, “Of course, if I’m wrong, it might just be some fancy scrap metal.”
“But we took two vehicles. Why do you need more?” I asked, frowning as I glanced at the second disassembled heap.
“They’re the same,” Mahya replied, her tone carrying the weight of a professor explaining a frustratingly simple concept to a dense student. She let out a deep, sorrowful sigh that was so exaggeratedly sad that it tugged at something in me despite the theatrical delivery. For a moment, I actually felt sorry for her.
“I need similar but not identical to compare some parts and extrapolate,” she continued, rubbing her temples as if the entire burden of interplanetary engineering rested on her shoulders.
Well, I could understand her frustration. I wasn’t trying to resurrect dead technology, just trying to figure out one annoying lamp, but it felt somewhat similar. The crystal lamp I bought in Lumis was maddeningly stubborn in revealing its secrets. I could feel an embedded spell in the crystal—the mana was unmistakable.
The problem was that the crystal was a naturally occurring one, meaning it had never been melted or reshaped. So how the hell did they embed the spell in it? The second issue was the spell itself—it didn’t have any discernible concepts. It was just a lump of mana sitting inside the crystal. I could sense it even without engaging my mana sense. It was there, plain and obvious, but completely undistinguished.
No matter what I tried, I couldn’t figure out what they’d done or how they’d done it. It was ANNOYING!
In between hailstorms, we cleared dungeons. The weird monkeys with the extra mouths hinted at the remaining dungeons in their territory. The rest of the dungeons weren’t better in the standard sense. Each one was odd in its own way.
The first dungeon after the apes greeted us with an enormous pond—no ground, no rocks, nothing but water. The moment we stepped through the portal of doom, I was chest-deep in water.
Floating on the surface were massive leaves, each resembling an oversized grape leaf, with “fingers” stretching at least a meter long. Hopping across them were creatures that could only loosely be called frogs. They looked more like starfish attempting a career as frogs, complete with mouths on their backs and long, slingshot-like tongues.
Thankfully, the water wasn’t deep, and we had jet skis. The moment we revved them up, it became clear we’d found the right move. Gliding over the water completely messed with the frogs’ attack plans. Or at least it did at first.
Al was the first target, and five of these creatures shot their tongues at him simultaneously. Their sticky tongues latched onto his jet ski, and as he zoomed off, he dragged five frogs in tow, water-skiing behind him like the world’s weirdest aquatic circus act. I would have doubled over laughing if their comrades hadn’t decided to join the fun. Within minutes, we had a flotilla of distorted starfish-frog hybrids flailing behind us, stuck to our skis like some dungeon theme park ride.
The real kicker was that nothing worked against them. Bullets? Useless. They just made the frogs ripple like a jelly mold and stuck to their skin. Mahya switched to her sword with grim determination, but the first swing ended with her weapon glued to a frog. Al gave it a go, and his sword met the same fate. In a burst of canine enthusiasm, Rue lunged to bite one, only to discover his mouth was now permanently attached. He thrashed and shook violently, finally freeing himself but losing chunks of the inside of his mouth in the process. The look he gave me afterward was pure betrayal.
I couldn’t use lightning—it would have fried the jet skis. Wind blades barely made their skin ripple. Mana Darts? Same story. Blazing Orb fizzled out when it touched the water, and Verdant Grasp’s roots stuck to them like everything else. Even crossbow bolts bounced off and stayed stuck like they were part of some arts-and-crafts project gone wrong.
In a moment of desperation, I cast Aggressive Clean. It didn’t do anything helpful, but now we had a bunch of sparkling frogs doing water skiing, which was… something.
Despite the chaos, we weren’t in any real danger. The frogs maxed out at fifty centimeters across, most of them smaller. But the situation was as perplexing as it was ridiculous. There we were, jetting around the pond, dragging an ever-growing train of frogs behind us like an aquatic clown parade.
Then it hit me—the bat in the monster gorge. With a flicker of hope, I cast Exude Mana on one of the frogs. It shrank. Another cast, and it shrank more. By the fourth cast, it was the size of a coin, and the fifth made it disappear entirely.
No crystals for us in this dungeon, but at least I’d found a solution. And, as a bonus, I now knew how to make frogs sparkle.
After over three exhausting hours of casting Exude Mana—with one break to regenerate—every last starfish-frog had vanished. But there was no final guardian, no core, nothing. Just an empty pond and a lingering sense of frustration.
I pulled out my core, ready to toss it into the water in pure exasperation. Rue’s telepathic shout stopped me mid-throw. “John stop! Rue need vacation!”
Mahya nodded thoughtfully. “He has a point. It’s much nicer here than outside.” She gestured toward the serene pond, now free of frogs, with the floating leaves bobbing gently on the water’s surface.
Al and I exchanged a glance. He raised an eyebrow, and I shrugged. “Why not?”
And so began our impromptu dungeon vacation, which somehow stretched into a week. I opened my house on stilts, and it became a bizarre but oddly cozy base in the middle of the pond. The jet skis, no longer tools of battle, became our recreational rides as we zipped across the water, weaving between the massive leaves like kids on a theme park ride.
Mahya spent most of her time swimming or inspecting the pond’s unique flora. She ran her fingers along the massive leaves and muttered theories about their structure and purpose, occasionally letting out a soft chuckle when something clicked. On the other hand, Al focused on examining the leaves in meticulous detail, carefully extracting samples and taking notes as he worked, his brow furrowed in concentration.
Having fully embraced the vacation spirit, Rue sprawled out on one of the floating grape-leaf rafts, his legs lazily dangling in the water. Occasionally, he gave a few half-hearted kicks or rolled over to bark telepathic snack demands, thoroughly enjoying his self-declared time off.
As for me, I alternated between perfecting my jet-ski tricks and lounging on the house’s deck, pretending this was all part of some grand plan to unwind after our recent ordeals. It wasn’t exactly the high-stakes dungeon crawl we’d prepared for, but it was peaceful, absurd, and undeniably relaxing.
During the week, the dungeon produced three new starfish-frogs each day, as if it didn’t want us to feel neglected. They were considerate creatures, immediately shooting their sticky tongues at the house the moment they appeared. This saved me the trouble of hunting them down, making it far easier to cast Exude Mana and dissolve them.
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By the end of the week, we all felt ready to leave this peculiar dungeon-slash-vacation spot. With a sense of finality, I tossed my core into the water. As expected, the entire pond transformed into liquid acrylic paint, swirling in mesmerizing patterns before disappearing into my core. Beneath the water, we discovered a thick layer of rock—smooth, solid, and hiding the core.
After the core had finished absorbing the dungeon, we spotted it: the dungeon core itself. Small, barely four centimeters across, it gleamed faintly as Mahya knelt to pick it up. We each touched the core, and in an instant, we received 10 gold coins as a reward.
“Another one created after the integration,” she remarked, slipping it into her Storage with practiced ease.
With its purpose fulfilled, the dungeon wasted no time ejecting us back into the world. Unfortunately, the world had greeted us with yet another hailstorm. I hunched against the icy barrage and groaned. “I’m really starting to hate these storms,” I muttered, brushing shards of ice off my jacket.
I wrestled with the lamp for a few more days before finally throwing in the towel. The timing couldn’t have been better, as it coincided with a bright, beautiful day—perfect for Mahya, who, unsurprisingly, was eager to tackle another dungeon.
This next one also turned out to be strange, though entirely different.
The dungeon opened into a vast expanse of barren land dotted with piles of rocks. At first, it seemed underwhelming—just a field of rubble—until one of the piles started moving. Slowly, the rocks shifted, rearranging themselves into a crude animal shape. A large block served as the body, a smaller one the head, and four sturdy “legs” propelled it forward at a surprising speed.
I barely had time to react before another pile of rocks animated, its form shifting unnervingly. The first “animal” suddenly reconfigured itself, standing upright on two legs with its “hands” ready to fight like a boxer.
“Shapeshifting stone golems,” Mahya muttered, her tone equal parts fascination and exasperation.
“Great,” I said, sarcastically.
Al swung his sword. The blade struck one of the golems with a resounding clang—and bounced off. Not even a scratch.
Magic wasn’t any better. I tried everything—wind blades, lightning, mana darts. Nothing. The golems shrugged it off like I’d hit them with a feather duster. I melted two with Exude Mana, but it took too long. Meanwhile, the rest were gathering speed, their movements unnervingly fluid for literal piles of rocks.
Mahya, ever resourceful, took out a sledgehammer. Without hesitation, she charged at the nearest golem and swung with all her might. The impact echoed through the air, and cracks spidered across the golem’s torso. Two more swings and the thing crumbled into a heap of defeated rubble.
“That works,” she said, a satisfied grin spreading across her face.
Al and I exchanged a look, shrugged, and reached for sledgehammers of our own. With these new weapons in hand, the dungeon moved faster. It was still exhausting work—each swing felt like a battle against the world’s most stubborn rock. But it worked.
The golems were strong, unyielding, and annoyingly persistent, but we were stronger—or at least more stubborn. By the end, every muscle in my body ached, and I couldn’t help but think how much easier jet-skiing frogs had been.
The final guardian loomed ahead, a golem three times the size of the others. It stood there, massive and imposing, but as we quickly discovered, it brought nothing new to the fight. No special attacks, no clever tricks—just more of the same, but bigger.
It took a bit longer to smash apart, mainly because the thing was so solid it felt like hitting a mountain. By the time it crumbled into a pile of oversized rubble, I was dripping with sweat and seriously reconsidering my life choices.
At least the reward made up for it. As the golem disintegrated, we all received the Stone Shard spell. That, at least, brought a small smile to my face. Finally, something to show for all the back-breaking work.
Stone Shard
An offensive spell that conjures a sharp shard of solid stone and propels it with tremendous force toward a target. It is favored for its precision and effectiveness against physically vulnerable enemies. As the spell levels increase, the number, size, and velocity of the shards increase, making it a versatile tool for single-target precision and crowd control in battle.
After the lamp failure, I wasn’t in the mood to dive into a new project right away. Instead, I shifted gears and read some good books, experimented with cooking interesting dishes, spent hours playing and learning new songs, and relaxed for a while. It felt good to take it easy.
Two weeks later, on what passed for a relatively clear day—rainy but mercifully hail-free—Mahya decided it was time. With her usual determination, she dragged us to the final dungeon in the monkey territory.
And, of course, not surprisingly, this dungeon turned out to be strange as well. It was the smallest dungeon we had seen in the city so far—its total area couldn’t have been much bigger than a football field. What made it different, though, was the ground: it looked like cracked glass, fractured and shimmering, as if something had shattered it long ago but left the pieces intact.
The entire dungeon was filled with swirling and shifting clouds of various sizes, each shooting bolts of lightning. The clouds were so dense that they blended together into one massive, looming entity, with streaks of light running through them like veins, flashing and crackling across their surfaces. There were no monsters, no treasures, nothing but clouds and lightning.
“Another elemental dungeon,” Al said. “This is the third one we have encountered here. It is peculiar, as these dungeons are relatively rare according to the records in my family’s archives.”
Mahya narrowed her eyes at the clouds. “I don’t think the level of commonness or rarity is what’s important here. What I want to know is how the hell we finish this dungeon.”
Al turned to me, a confident smile on his face. “John controls lightning. I am sure he has a solution.”
I rubbed my neck awkwardly, feeling the heat rise in my face. “I have no idea.”
We stood at the cave entrance leading into the dungeon, staring at the swirling clouds outside, utterly lost.
“Shoot them with magic?” Al suggested, his tone as composed as ever.
“Worth a try,” Mahya said with a shrug.
The four of us cast Wind Blade simultaneously, sending sharp gusts hurtling toward the clouds. Predictably, it did absolutely nothing. We tried a few other spells—Mana Dart, Blazing Orb, and even the new Stone Shard. None of them worked. The clouds remained unbothered, flashing and crackling with lightning as if mocking our efforts.
“Shoot them with lightning?” Mahya suggested, her tone tinged with uncertainty as she glanced at me.
“First, I want to see if their lightning hurts me,” I said, stepping forward without waiting for a response.
The closest cloud to the cave was relatively small, its shifting form sparking faintly as I stepped into range. When its lightning struck, I braced for impact. The jolt rippled through me, and I felt it—but the damage wasn’t severe. Or rather, it wasn’t the kind of damage you’d expect from lightning.
Like always, when lightning hit me, it passed through my body without causing the usual reactions of burns or pain. This time, though, it was different. The lightning felt polluted, tainted like everything else in dungeons. That pollution, as it coursed through me, caused some minor damage. My health dropped by thirty points, nothing catastrophic, but enough to notice.
Physically, it wasn’t much worse than the pins-and-needles sensation you get when your leg falls asleep, except it spread across my entire body from head to toe. The sensation lingered for a moment, then faded entirely within five seconds. Annoying, but manageable.
I was going to shoot lightning back at the cloud, but stopped.
Hmm, am I imagining it, or does it look smaller?
I waited another three seconds for the next lightning strike and checked again. Indeed, the cloud looked smaller. I let out a deep sigh of resignation. It seemed my new role was officially “cloud milker.”
Mahya and Al joined me in dealing with the clouds, determined to help. They stood their ground as lightning struck them, but after only three to five hits, their bodies couldn’t take any more. Each time, they retreated back to the cave to heal, frustration etched on their faces.
It didn’t take long to notice a frustrating pattern. When the lightning hit them, the clouds shrank slightly, but as soon as Mahya or Al healed, the clouds seemed to “heal” too, regaining their size. Meanwhile, the clouds I drained stayed permanently smaller.
After two grueling hours of standing like a glorified lightning rod, taking hits and slowly draining five clouds, my patience wore thin. I was tired of feeling like an idiot just standing there. On impulse, I raised my hand and shot lightning at one of the clouds.
The two lightning streams connected in midair, crackling and sparking violently. They seemed evenly matched for a moment, but then my lightning overpowered the cloud’s. The explosion was instantaneous—the cloud burst into countless small pieces, scattering like bits of cotton wool. The fragments melted away as they touched the cracked glass ground, leaving nothing behind.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” I muttered, watching the last wisps disappear.
With the new approach, progress sped up considerably. Within five hours, all the smaller clouds had been “blown up,” their remains vanishing into the cracked glass ground. That left only the massive cloud looming in the center of the dungeon.
When I shot lightning at it, the lines connected again, crackling violently in the air. But this time, the cloud overpowered my lightning. The cloud’s energy surged through me, and the polluted lightning was far worse than before. The sensation hit like heartburn, spreading across every nerve in my body, sharp and relentless.
I gritted my teeth and cast Healing Touch every minute or two to keep the damage in check. Meanwhile, I absorbed strike after strike, watching as the massive cloud slowly shrank. The process felt endless, every second stretching into eternity, but after what must have been ten or fifteen minutes—it was hard to tell—the cloud had diminished to the size of the others.
I stopped channeling and shot another lightning strike directly at it. This time, the connection lasted only a split second before the cloud exploded, scattering into countless pieces. The fragments floated briefly like scraps of cotton before melting into the ground.
A soft glow caught my attention as the last of the pieces disappeared. Hovering in the air where the cloud had been, the dungeon’s core floated, its faint light pulsing steadily.
The dungeon reward was good for everybody except me.
Lightning Strike
An offensive spell that summons a medium-strength lightning bolt for 100 mana. As the spell levels up, its power increases, and the mana cost decreases, making it a reliable and scalable attack option.
Mahya and Al practically lit up when they received the spell. Mahya clenched her fists, sparks of energy flickering at her fingertips as she grinned. “Finally! You’re not going to dominate all the dungeons anymore,” she said, her tone equal parts teasing and triumphant.
Al, ever the picture of composure, gave me a confident nod, though there was a glint of satisfaction in his eyes. “Indeed. Now that we also wield lightning, the balance of power has shifted.”
I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms with an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, great. Now I have competition,” I said, my voice dripping with mock despair. “What will I do when I don’t have to bust my butt anymore?”
Mahya smirked, sparks dancing at her fingertips. “Relax and let us handle it for a change.”
Al, looking far too pleased with himself, straightened. “Precisely. Consider it a well-earned reprieve, John.”
I shook my head, pretending to look crestfallen. “Yeah, sure. I’ll just sit back, twiddle my thumbs, and let the real experts do all the work.” Then, unable to keep a straight face, I grinned. Honestly, the thought of being off the hook was pretty appealing.
After Mahya stored the core, the dungeon promptly spat us out. Outside, the air hit like a wall—hot and oppressively humid. I wiped the sweat already forming on my brow and sighed. This world’s weather was absolutely neurotic.