Chapter 48 Meeting an Immortal (Patreon)

                As the imp accused the dungeon of poisoning him, the dungeon grew excited and nervous. Excited that the imp may not be able to get close to his core, especially as the fuel rods became hotter and released more radiation. Nervous that the imp may come back into the core room and crush the dungeon core.

                The dungeon only imagined two scenarios, but unexpectedly, it wasn’t the imp that acted. Instead, there was a distortion throughout the dungeon's area of influence ending near the imp, a distortion that the dungeon would later realize was folded space. The distortion only lasted a fraction of a second, and once it was over, a perfect specimen of manhood stood next to the imp.

                The man asked the imp, “How did a tier one dungeon injure you?”

                The imp bowed to the man and said, “The dungeon made rocks that create heat. At first, there wasn’t an issue, but then I started developing sores and bleeding both externally and internally. As soon as I noticed the wounds, I fled the room with those rocks to avoid any further damage.”

                The imp's master looked over the imp closely, even lifting him and turning the imp over a few times. After a minute of this, the imps master said, “Well, I have to admit this is new.” Then the distortion appeared for a fraction of a second, and the man stood before the dungeon core and asked, “Tell me about the rocks that turn hot.”

                To the dungeon's shock and surprise, he was compelled to speak. “The rocks are something called uranium 235. Uranium 235 reacts with other rocks of uranium 235, so I put them together in clusters of rods. The main reason I am doing this is because I am using them to make steam and to power a turbine that will power an electrical generator as I was under the impression that I could convert electricity to essence the same way I can convert mana to essence, and I was right. The power generated is empowering me.”

                “Did you know that the rocks would injure the imp?”

                “I did not know, but I suspected. Nuclear radiation is one of the most dangerous things in my world.”

                “You are not yet a tier two dungeon, so I have to ask did you use either your earth or wind masteries to make this rock?”

                “I used duel core monsters to collect uranium from the air and then used my ability as a dungeon to separate uranium 235 from the other isotopes of uranium.”

                The imp’s master tilted his head sideways and asked, “So you did not take normal earth and somehow convert it into this material?”

                “I did not. Uranium is naturally occurring, and so is uranium 235. I used my abilities as a dungeon to separate uranium 235 from the other isotopes of uranium, but I did not change one element to another.” Then, to the dungeon's great displeasure, he found that he had to be fully honest, “Although I should be able to do that with my electrical abilities by building a particle accelerator. In my world, they built mile-long particle accelerators that had magnets powered by electricity that forced particles to move near the speed of light, and when they crashed, they were able to change one element to another. This process also produces radiation.”

                The man standing before the dungeon nodded, and as he nodded, he began bleeding from his eyes and nose, and he was visibly developing blisters. He smiled and said, “So this can affect me. Don’t tell me how this poison works. I want to figure it out myself.”

                The dungeon asked, “Why am I answering your questions?”

                “Because I am a mage, and you are hard-wired to answer me truthfully. Albeit because I am a mage I can also make you answer questions fully. I noticed that you did not want to fully answer my question earlier, but I can see your soul and adjust parameters as I see fit.”

                “It looks like the radiation is killing you. Shouldn’t you leave?”

                “Not before I figure out how this poison works. By the way, it is fascinating. I have my immunity to heat spell running, and yet I am developing heat blisters. I have never seen a poison do that. I am also feeling extremely nauseous, have a headache, and quite a few of my cells are just dying.” The mage smiled and said, “This is going to be fun to figure out.”

                As for the dungeon, he didn’t know what to think. He figured that the mage was dying so quickly because he was right next to an active nuclear reaction. He didn’t understand why the mage looked amused that he was dying horribly. As more time passed, his blisters began covering his entire body, and the blisters began bursting open. Despite what had to be an enormous amount of pain, the mage continued examining his body as radiation destroyed it until he died.

                To the dungeon's surprise, when the mage died, the dungeon did not get a massive infusion of mana, instead, the mage's mana moved over three feet and recreated the mage's body. As soon as that body was created, the mage's old body disintegrated, and the particles left over from the disintegration flew to the mage. The dungeon didn’t get anything from the death of the mage. No mana, no information on the structure of the mage's body. Just shock.

                As soon as the mage was reformed, he said, “Oh, by the way, I am one of the immortals.”

                The dungeon was left speechless. As for the immortal, he continued examining his, now-naked body. The immortal mumbled to himself, “This is the first time my body reformed with injuries.” After a moment's pause, he snapped his fingers and said, “Let me pump up my body's regeneration.” As he spoke, he moved a finger in what the dungeon recognized as a mana channel pattern, and as he moved his finger, mana formed, and soon its energy reentered the immortal’s body. The movement was very fast, superhuman in fact. So fast that the dungeon assumed that some sort of spell was involved.

                Oddly enough, after the spell was cast, the injuries the immortal received appeared faster than before. The immortal said, “I was right,” before dying once again. This time, after death, the mana in the mage's body moved outside of the core chamber and next to the imp, where the mage's body once again reformed. Although this time, there were no injuries on the reformed body.

                After carefully looking over his body, the immortal looked toward the dungeon core, even though there were very thick concrete walls between the immortal and the core, and asked, “Tell me if I am right. The way nuclear radiation poisons a creature is that the faster a creature's cells multiply the faster the cells degenerate.”  

                The dungeon thought back to all its random knowledge on radiation poisoning and said, “From what I read in my previous life, creatures like cockroaches survive radiation poisoning better than mammals because their cells are much slower at division.”

                The immortal gave himself a self-satisfied chuckle and said, “I still have it.”

                The dungeon asked, “What do you mean?”

                “It's very rare for dungeons to come up with legitimately new things. Now be quiet while I figure out how to stop radiation poisoning.” A moment later, he reached into the air with both arms, only for both of them to disappear for a moment until he pulled them back. When he pulled them back, one arm held a wand and the other a staff. He said, “It's been a while since I used these.”

                The dungeon was just blown away that the immortal clearly had subspace storage.

                The mages began making mana channels in the air with both the wand and staff at the same time. The difference between the mana channels made with the wand and staff were the sizes. Due to the size of the staff, the immortal was able to make much larger mana channels in the air than he could with the wand. The Immortal stood there for hours, making spell after spell, but each time he showed a look of dissatisfaction and waved the mana away before starting again. The thing was, the mage was so fast he was making about two spells a second. The only reason the dungeon could tell was he now had a perfect memory and the ability to grasp anything that was happening in his area of influence. What the immortal was doing was staggering.

                One of the things the dungeon couldn’t help but notice was that even though the mage must have created a few hundred thousand mana channels, the mage never used earth, wind, or electricity to create one. Obviously, the immortal did not want to give the dungeon ideas. That said, the immortal certainly gave the dungeon an idea of how broad mana channel creation could be. Perhaps the immortal considered this an award for making a new thing on the planet.

                Eventually, the immortal found a spell he liked and said, “Let's try this.” A moment later, he was inside the dungeon core chamber, which was still boiling hot and full of radiation.

                The immortal said, “This is going to take a little while to see if it works, so we might as well have a conversation. So, dungeon, are you from a magical world or a material one?”

                “I am not from a magical world, but I am not sure what you mean by material.”

                “A material world is where your people either do not have access to magic or have not figured out how to use it yet. Magic, in this case, is energy that your people can use as tools without the need for other mediums, albeit a medium like a wand or staff can be used to enhance magic. In a material world, the people use material constructed from the things around them to shape their world instead of magic.”

                “In that case, I come from a material world.”

                “That’s very interesting since you are supposed to be a lightning dungeon. Has your world learned how to use materials to control lightning?”

                “We use material to create and control electricity, which could be said to be a form of lightning. Albeit some of our electricity plants produce more power a second than a lightning bolt produces in a strike. That power is sent to millions of homes via power lines to power billions of devices.”

                “Fascinating. I do not think we have ever had a tier two dungeon core that comes from a material world. I am looking forward to all the new things you are going to make.”

                “You’re not going to interrogate me and find out how to make all those electrical inventions from my world?”

                “Why would I? Our world is a magical world. Even if you knew how to make each thing that came from your world, it's not like my people know how to use material tools to begin making them. Right now, you are a bridge between the material and magical. Over the next few centuries and millennia, you will find ways to make the things from your world via magical means, and my mages will learn from you. If something you make is interesting enough, then they will find talented people who are not talented enough to become mages, and put mana channels in them to make that thing. How many devices did your world have, verses how many you know how to make?”

                “My world had millions, but I honestly don’t know how to make very many of them. If you want, I can manually count them.”

                The immortal instantly shook his head and said, “No, please don’t do that. It's enough to know that you have a lot of information that will one day be useful to us.”

                The dungeon asked, “If you don’t mind me asking, what is your goal? I would think that an immortal like you would be glad to take things easy, but far from that, as soon as your imp said there was a problem, you appeared here.”

                “My goal is the same as all the immortals. We want to make a systematic, repeatable way to make more immortals. Right now, the only way to make an immortal is to track down an immortal beast in the tier four dungeon and take its core after we have every other core in existance. Its not easy, most die long before they can make an attempt, and nearly everyone who passes all the hurdles to challenge the tier four dungeon die during their attempt, but right now it’s the only way to become an immortal. Even if all we do is make it easier to take the core of the immortal beast, then we have succeeded in helping the next generation arise.”

                “And what happens when you fill this world with immortals?”

                The mage pointed up and said, “I don’t know if you have noticed the gas giant in the sky or not. Not every dungeon is able to find a way to see outside of its area of influence. But our plan is that once we have thirty thousand immortals, we will be able to build a shell around the gas giant and create a world far larger than this one. Once we have thirty million immortals, we will be able to do the same with the sun, albeit we will live inside that sphere instead of on top of it. Then, we will guide our sun to other stars and begin making them into living quarters for the immortals until we have a galaxy of immortals. But that is a long way off as we do not even have thirty immortals at this point.”

                The dungeon asked, “You can survive the vacuum of space?”

                The immortal's eye raised, and he said, “I am surprised you know about that. And yes we can, with the right spell, but it is not easy. I take it your people had a material solution?”

                “Yes. In fact, we made it to our moon.”

                The mage smiled and said, “Reaching the other moons is easy. Dealing with the vacuum surrounding them was not. Finding ways to make them habitable was interesting, though.”

                “Making them habitable?”

                “One day, we are going to make a shell around the gas giant. When that day comes, we have to know how to make life sprout on the new shell. We have brought life to all the moons, and in every major city on this planet, we have created gates to the other moons. It was a fun project learning how to bend space and keep it bent with objects. Did your people ever figure out how to do that in your world?”

                “No, albeit there were theories on stretching space, but my people never got far researching them.”

                “Too bad. That said, I no longer have time to chat with you, dungeon core. My spell works, and I am protected from radiation poisoning, and so too will be my imp.”

                “But why didn’t you already know how to deal with radiation? Space is full of it.”

                “Really?” The Immortal asked. He thought about it for a second, then he said, “Chances are that radiation gets turned into mana by gravity dungeon cores, as I used a gravity spell to absorb the radiation and increase the mana in my mana core.”

                Before the dungeon could ask more questions, the world became distorted for a moment, and the immortal disappeared.