Chapter 57 Bypass (Patreon)

            Looking at her husband's arm…. stump, Victoria was not happy that Claude was making them continue their way through the labyrinth. She wanted to protest, but Claude had the authority to take away her chance at becoming a tier-three mage.

            While Victoria was considering the ramifications, Claude snapped his fingers in front of her face and said, “Victoria, wake up. We need you to cast illusion and vacuum bubble.”

            “But what about bending light? Albert lost his arm, he can't cast it.”

            Claude rolled his eyes. “Albert still has an arm. If he is ever going to attempt the tier-three labyrinths, he will have to learn how to deal with little things like missing one limb.”

            Before Victoria could protest, Albert told her, “I got this.” And he began casting bending light.

            Victoria watched for a moment, her feelings a jumble as she was proud of her courageous husband, wanted to give him a hug, wanted to heal him, wanted to leave with him, and wanted to cast spells to protect them from the surprisingly dangerous tier-two labyrinth. She could only choose one thing to do, and she wisely chose to cast the spells Claude told her to. Not long after, all their defenses were back up, and they moved into the biome.

            As the trio entered the biome, Claude said, “Help me look through the essence creatures and see if we can find one with a lightning core.” It did not take long to find the burnt and melted corpse of the projectile bear. When Claude found it, he frowned and said, “This isn’t good.”

            Victoria asked, “Why?”

            “Because when this essence creature uses its lightning spell, it burns its entire body, including its lightning core, making that lightning core useless. So if we come across another one of these things, chances are they will use their spell, destroying their core and body.”

            “We can also find another one of those weird creatures that could fly in vacuum. They have lightning cores, and it would allow us to complete our mission.”

            “I doubt it. That creature was incredibly ineffective. The dungeon core has to know that. This creature just bypassed most of our defenses and made Albert lose his arm. Because this creature is so dangerous, we can assume this is the creature that killed the vacuum warrior, and it is the creature the dungeon should be making en-masse and improving. If the dungeon can figure out a way for that creature to use that spell without dying, then this will be one of the best dungeons to train tier-two mages.”

            “You want us to face more of that?”

            “Oh yeah. This dungeon will be a great place for mages to learn more practical ways to use ice and slurry magic. This dungeon might single-handedly force slurry magic users to become more than builders and maintainers of mage guild halls.”

            Victoria asked, “How?”

            “Because nobody is going to one to face that attack head on….” Claude considered for a moment, then said, “I will show you.” Then he turned to Albert and asked, “Do you still have soul sight on?”

            Albert hesitated and said, “No.”

            “I told you to reapply all your spells. I don’t want to hear any whining about your missing arm, cast it.” Albert obeyed, then Claude asked, “Do you see any souls through the walls of this labyrinth?”

            Albert nodded and said, “Yes.”

            “Point out the most distant ones.”

            Victoria didn’t like the sound of that so she asked, “Why?”

            “Because this dungeon is legitimately dangerous. Up till now, you two have gone to dungeons that you were overprepared for, and that’s fine for giving new mages experience. But as you get closer to tier-three, you will be sent to more and more dangerous labyrinths. One of the tricks of overcoming danger is finding ways around the labyrinth the dungeon has built. In this case, that means finding the furthest soul underground, and once Albert finds it, we will go through the walls, and around the dangerous labyrinth tunnels, and thus its dangers. This will also allow us the opportunity to go after essence creatures in unexpected ways. Sure, it will take a bit of experimentation to go after the lightning-core creature in a way that allows us to claim his core before he attacks, but that is good experience to prepare for tier-three labyrinths. So Albert pointed out the most distant soul. “Albert did so, and Claude led the trio in the direction Albert pointed. When they reached the wall of the biome, Claude said, “We just have to move this wall.”

            Claude cast a spell, frowned, and Victoria asked, “What’s wrong?”

            “This wall is significantly tougher than I thought it would be; mold earth isn’t breaking through it.”

            Victoria was surprised; mold earth was the spell they used to build the mage towers in part because it could move earth in complicated patterns and hold thousands of tons of it still until the mages were finished construction.

            After some consideration, Claude said, “We need to step a hundred feet back and adjust your vacuum spells so that no heat or debris from magma can hit us.”

            Victoria asked, “Why don’t we use heat immunity?”

            “I need you to keep watch with heat vision. I do not want something from this labyrinth sneaking up on us.” One of the few downsides of being a mage was that they were limited to using one spell at a time, as each of their cores only had one draw mana channel attached. Since they only had one set for each core, they could only power one spell per core. Most warriors could perform several spells with their cores, but they also had several mana channels carved into their bodies. Mages just didn’t have room for that, at least not until they became immortal.

            Victoria said, “I understand, and you're right, this labyrinth is more dangerous than a little heat from magma.”

            Once the trio adjusted their defensive spells, Claude cast magma, which heated up the earth on both sides of the wall. That said, the reason why Claude chose the tier-two spell magma, instead of one of the many fire spells, was because the spell worked by causing friction between each earth molecule in range, and that friction greatly increased once the earth became molten, unlike natural magma. It was the hottest spell Claude had access to. Even so, Claude was very impressed with whatever material the wall was made out of, as it lasted for an entire five minutes before melting. Claude had never seen anything without mana or essence actively running through it last so long against the heat.

            After a hole was melted into the wall, Albert asked, “Why did that take so long?”

            Claude said, “I don’t know, but once that wall cools off, we are going to take a piece with us. That stuff is incredibly strong and resilient.”

            Victoria asked, “What do you mean strong? Didn’t that other creature’s attack blow through the wall on the other side of the biome?”

            Claude said, “Yes, it did. But that attack was moving so fast I could barely react to it, so the wall may not do well to fast attacks, or there is some other trick to it, but clearly we need to investigate this material. It may be helpful to our warriors.”

            “Who cares about them? I have flowers that have lived longer.”

            “Warriors often serve as bodyguards to mages who are new to entering dungeons. Yes, they are weaker than mages in most ways, but they have their strengths, besides the immortals are hoping that sooner or later they will find some combination that will allow warriors to become immortals. Once that happens, all of humanity will be uplifted.”

            Victoria wanted to scoff, but she knew better to do that to a tier-three. Claude made it rain over the hotspots until the ground and wall cooled enough to touch, and then he cast mold earth. This was a slurry spell that allowed him to control earth, like water mages and warriors controlled water. Whether it was dirt or stone, he could move it like water, and make it solid instantly any time he wanted. It could be used alongside magma, but that was dangerous.

            As they travelled through the earth, they noticed that there were springs in the ground that were not protected by the super material, so Claude decided that instead of breaking through the wall to get into the biome where Albert saw the souls, they would instead come up through the spring. With any luck, they would be able to ambush a lightning core creature and finish their mission.

            When they found the biome that housed the souls that Albert had pointed out, they made their way under it, found a spring, and used vacuum to gasify and push away all the water. Once it was empty, Claude’s ice went out of the hole left behind the spring first, followed by the vacuum, and then Victoria’s illusions followed. When the illusion exited without being attacked, Claude used mold earth, to push the trio through the hole left behind by the spring.

            When they reached the top of the spring, they were surprised because there were no essence creatures attacking them. This labyrinth had a reputation for having weak flying and ground creatures that relentlessly attacked, and yet at this moment, the biome seemed to be empty of any flying creatures.

            On the ground were three humans, dying in the vacuum created by the mages. Claude said, “Cut off the vacuum.”

            The married mages obeyed, but Victoria asked, “Why?”

            Claude said, “Dungeon-created humans are invaluable. If the dungeon added traits to them, those can often be passed on to the next generation.” As he hurried to heal one of the humans.

            As the vacuum disappeared, Claude’s ice still swirled around the three mages. Claude used growth to heal one of the nearby labyrinth humans. The human was badly injured by the vacuum, and so Claude probably took fifteen years off the life of the human, but it didn’t matter, they probably wouldn’t need this particular human for even a year. Once healed, he used mold earth to restrain him.

            Claude turned to heal another human, but he was too late. The other two were already dead.

            Victoria asked, “What are we going to do with the survivor?”

            “Take him back with us, of course.”

            “How? Are you able to put him in your storage space.”

            “I could, but he would go insane, as there is no light and practically no sound in there. I think I will use mold earth to drag him around with us.”

            Albert said, “That probably won't work. He has an earth core, so if he has any version of soften, he will be able to escape.

            Claude smiled and said, “Good, I was hoping one of you would catch that.” Claude had totally missed that, but he had to act like he didn’t.

            Before they could debate further, the human woke up, looked at them, and asked in their language, “Who are you?”

            Claude’s mouth dropped, and he said, “This changes things. We are taking him back with us right now.”

            Victoria’s face lit up. Her husband would be able to get healed.

            As for Albert, he frowned and said, “But then we won't complete the mission. If we were going to quit, it should have been when I lost my arm.”

            Claude shook his head and said, “You don’t understand. Dungeons never make intelligent humans. Sometimes their offspring are capable of intelligence, but that is a fifty-fifty chance. But the humans made by dungeons are never intelligent; they never have the ability to speak. Even the ones that leave the dungeons influence never learn to speak. They are just normally a smarter version of a wild essence creature. An intelligent labyrinth human is worth much more than a lightning core. You two get close to me, we are returning to the mage tower immediately.”

            Albert and Victoria obeyed and walked closer to the third-tier mage, as he walked to the unique labyrinth human. Once all three were close enough to Claude bent space and returned the trio to the mage tower.