Chapter 15 Part 3 of 3 (Patreon)

After all of the presentations were complete and questions answered some people left, but most headed to the different arenas. Rugrat split off from everyone, walking with Julilah to their assigned arena.

“Do you think that these public lectures are helping out?” Rugrat asked.

“I think so, a lot of the people that want to join the military are taking this to get some skills. We have people from all stages joining in. Most want to learn more so that they can defend themselves. The majority are military. As they can they come down here to test out what they’ve learned and put it to the test.”

“How have things been for you?” Rugrat asked

“Good, I only do this three times a week, the rest of the time I’m in the classroom or working on the factories.”

“I meant, how have you been, personally?” Rugrat asked.

They reached the entrance to the arena grounds, people had arrived ahead of them and were setting up. Military members and medics were spread around to supervise.

Julilah let out a sigh and leaned against the wall.

“Tired, there is so much to do. There is only so much time to do it in. I only see Qin at these training sessions. Same with Tan Xue.

“Everyone is driven to improve themselves as much as possible. I just formed my mana core and I am looking to start tempering my body. I-I’m not suited to joining the military, I’m not a fighter.” Julilah dropped her head in defeat.

Rugrat put his hands on her shoulders.

“And there is no need for you to be.”

“But there are so many people that are signing up!”

“We need fighters, yes, but we can’t fight a war if there aren’t people that are keeping things running here. If we don’t have you here keeping everything going then what are we fighting for? We need your stacks, we need formations, we need armor, we need food, all of it and more. The military is a ravenous beast. Just being a fighter is not everything. If we were in a sect, it might be!”

Julilah nodded, Rugrat squeezed her small shoulders.

She’s not even twenty and she has these worries on her shoulders. Just look at how far you’ve come since I met you.

Rugrat let go as he felt the box on his hip shift.

“Well let's get this class started.”

A beep came from the box, telling him that it was out of mana stones.

“I swore I charged that,” Rugrat muttered as he grabbed a mana stone and turned the box.

“Ahh!” Rugrat screamed, fumbling the box and smacking it so hard it came free of his belt and hit the wall, coming apart.

Julilah yelled as well in surprise.

Rugrat held his fist out, clenching a mana stone in it.

The duct tape covered skull started moving. It looked like pure pearl with blue runes running through its surface, wisps of blue smoke drifted from the runes.

A grunting noise came from the skull that was face first on the ground.

Using its jaw the head rolled to the side, two bright blue flaming eyes glaring at Rugrat before it fell on its cheek.

“FRUECK!” The muffled voice came from the duct tape.

“Egbert?” Julilah asked.

The glowering blue flames locked onto Rugrat as it fought against the tape holding his mouth closed.

Rugrat let out a dry and nervous laugh, pulling out a blade. He moved to the skull and removed the duct tape.

“What did you do with my body, you muscle headed, tattoo covered, cowboy hat wearing redneck!”

“Umm, well, it-its around.” I put it up as a scarecrow on the Wood floor.

Egbert growled, his eyes dimming as he connected to the dungeon.

“Oh, that’s not good. Ah, the gnome’s drill. I think I need to talk to everyone.”

“Egbert, what happened?” Julilah asked.

“Bit of a complex question.” Egbert drew out the last word opening his jaw wide. “So the dungeon may or may not be one massive drill that the Gnomes were making to tap into the ley lines of the First Realm. They discovered that the First Realm had a complete set of ley lines that are interconnected and run through the entire realm, unlike the higher realms where all the mana is all over the place. When I went into standby mode a bunch of my memories were removed and at one time I might or might not have been well uhh, a powerful. Wizard. Yeah long history. The guy who ran this place, he was my brosef, studied together. I died, he brought me back, kind of. Dungeon magic. He dealt with formations, I dealt with spell scrolls. We found a loophole in the sect we were roped into. Ran away with his family. Gnomes really populate like rabbits. He had a dungeon core and we set to work. I obviously died, an experiment went wrong. Druvan, my friend and the guy who led this place brought me back. I got linked up to the dungeon core and helped out. Had a soft spot for others, the human boy turned against him and betrayed him.”

Egbert sighed.

“Area used to be nice a few hundred years ago, I had to make sure the dungeon didn’t fall apart after he stole part of the core. In the first battles, I focused on the dungeon core, keeping everything together, I shut down floors, cannibalized what I could. The Kanesh clan weren’t a clan of fighters, they were crafters.” Sorrow lay heavy within Egbert’s words, his eyes distant. Recalling a past long ago. “I, I tried to defend them. I used everything I had. The ground of the Beast Mountain Range was changed, rivers that lead out to the ocean were diverted underground. Towns were destroyed, hills turned into mountains and plains into valleys. Not one of the people that attacked Kanesh survived. Though the cost was high. So high.”

“What about the Gnomes?” Julilah asked.

“The Dungeon was broken, disconnected from the other floors, formations broken, burnt out in the fighting. Some stayed, tried to rebuild. The area was quiet and desolate. Nature took its course, creatures became powerful and we had to seal the dungeon. They left if they could. Some of them remained and we worked to create the Beast Mountain Trial. It was their last act. They sent excursions to the lower floors, but there was little that they could do. In the end, there was just me to carry on the work. With time, like the dungeon I came into disrepair. I cut off memories, sealed my power so that the dungeon might last longer.” Egbert’s eyes shone.

“Though now I know what is happening and why. Rugrat, the council will need to hear this.”

***

Erik watched Glosil enter the council office, the refined power of the dungeon channelling down below just meters away.

“Elise and Blaze will take too long to arrive,” Delilah said.

“Very well,” Egbert’s body was transforming as his skull had. He wore a robe, hiding most of the changes.

“The Kanesh clan were a bold one, crazy one might even say. They were lovers of formations and creations. When we escaped to the First Realm, at first we just survived. We found an underground cavern that was filled with water. Using the dungeon core we created a floor to live on. It is part of the reason why the water floor is so large. Though it didn’t have so much water at the time. We built up, creating a multi-layered city. It was brilliant with the power of the dungeon core. Then we started to build out the first floor. Druvan had this idea to separate out the affinities, a floor for each one. It gave the gnomes a goal. We rose through the mountain, creating floors. It was incredible. There were lots of trials and failures, we had to switch some floors around, Wood and earth were around the other way when we planned things out first. With the floors started, we had to put in formations to move the mana upward, have them support one another, creating an interlinked system. The dungeon core was essential to maintain the balance between them all. We created the living floor that we’re on, most of the Gnomes lived between floors. Only the water floor connected to the outside world. It was how the boy got in.” Egbert’s runes flared distorting the air around him and making his robe flicker. The power was contained, not reaching anyone else.

Completed control over his domain. Erik noted.

“Druvan took him in, cared for him. The boy took the kindness, he said he wanted to be the bridge between people. He went to his family that he had been chased out of. Wanting their acceptance, he sold out the Gnomes and everything that they built. The family was fairly powerful. They got the boy to prove what he said was true. He took them a piece of the dungeon core. I fought to keep the dungeon operating. With only one dungeon core and so much attributed mana built up, I needed to drain it. So, I came up with an idea. Use that mana to power a drill. I built a massive energy consuming drill, before the attribute mana poisoned us all. We didn’t know about the coming army.”

“So you reversed the direction of the attribute mana and drilled into the ground.” Rugrat said.

“Yes, biggest drill in the Ten Realms. We got the notification from the Ten Realms. Though we were just fighting to survive. Then the armies came. They used magic to attack the dungeon. The Gnomes fought back. In the last part of the war, I had them carve runes into my body to contain the power. Then I stopped the drill and used all of the power of the dungeon. I killed off the plants, the creatures, nearly everything on the other floors, consumed it in the battle against the attackers. Altering the Beast Mountain range into what it is today.”

“So what about the drill? Why is it drilling?” Delilah asked.

“Well, that is a bit more of a technical glitch than anything. We repaired everything according to the plans during the war, not the peacetime. Once everything was done, then it was like a switch was flipped and drill powered up.”

“Can you turn it off?” Erik asked.

“Yes, I can,” Egbert held up a hand to stop everyone. “Though I don’t think we should remove the option. If there is a time when Alva is in need, the drill can help us. Possibly save us. It was the hypothesis of myself and the other gnomes that there is an interconnected system of ley lines in the First Realm. If we can truly tap into them, then that is a massive amount of power under our command. Few if any people would be able to challenge Alva. Even if we don’t hit a ley line but strike magma. Then the attribute power alone, purified by the different floors and by our dungeon cores will massively increase our power stores.”

Erik looked at Colonel Yui and Commander Glosil.

“Egbert, shut it off for now. We need to show people that we have this under control.”

“Very well,” Egbert’s eyes dimmed as the runes around the dungeon core powered down. Mana stopped flowing through floors. Erik saw formations in rings down the channel reaching through floors switched and altered into a new alignment.

The mana density increased on the floor, bottling up like pressure

“What else can the formations in this dungeon do?”

“Defensive spells and offensive ones,” Egbert’s eyes lit up again as the pressure was released. Mana was once again directed upwards, each floor connecting to the one above before they reached the massive mana storing formation on the living floor, lighting up the runes to each of the mana cornerstones gathering and converting the power into mana stones.

“When the gnomes were dying off, we prepared this place to survive a long time before someone was found. One was that once the dungeon was restored, then there should be enough power for me to recover to my peak.” Egbert pointed at his rune carved skull. “And two we made sure if the descendants of the dungeon were attacked again, they could defend themselves. Only if they completed the dungeon and showed me that they were worthy of the Gnome’s heritage. And I guess that you all are.” Egbert smiled and looked at everyone in the room.

“What if you didn’t like us?” Rugrat said.

“Then all of the defensive and weaponized formations would have been quietly destroyed and I could have destroyed my memories, effectively killing me and making sure that I could never pass on my knowledge or the knowledge of the gnomes. What books and items I gave to you. They are a fraction of the information in my brain. I was also a pretty good wizard, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Well that is at least one problem dealt with,” Delilah rubbed the side of her face. “It’s good to have you back Egbert and overall it could be a benefit with the power of the Consortium growing to new heights.”