Stroking my chin, I examined the various engraving on the circular stone clearing. There were various symbols on the ground that I hadn’t noticed beforehand. Leaning down, I felt touched around the outline of the symbols.

They were strange? Yet slightly familiar? Maybe I’m overthinking it. I have seen them before the last time I was here.

Shrugging, I focused my attention on the entrance. The teleportation beacon was beneath this stone clearing.

Closing my eyes and focusing on the mana in the environment, I examined the mana in the area. There was a simple mana gathering principles in the array and various defensive schemes, along with other parts utilizing principles I didn’t recognize.

Uhh… this is more complicated than I initially thought. The mana in the environment in a state of constant movement and the array’s structure is constantly changing around with its movement.

Give me a bit…

…

Although I didn’t understand most of the array’s principles, I could tell that a specific area was a weakness in the array.

All I need to do is… Now!

Waiting for the array formation to move into a position where the weakness was visible, I sent a blast of mana into that part of the array formation.

BOOM

An explosion occurred with the array at the epicenter. Thrown onto my back from a massive shockwave and landing against a tree.

A small beacon of light shot into the air from the circular stone clearing, blinded my vision. Forced to cover my eyes, I waited for the blinding light to disappear.

“Oww...” A numb pain throbbed around various parts of my body. While the pain wasn’t that great, it was annoying like hitting a funny bone.

Ugh… okay, in the future, maybe be a bit more careful when messing with arrays. At the very least, do it from a distance.

A couple moments later, the soreness and pain disappeared. My regeneration fixing the damage quickly.

Thinking back to the light shot into the air.

So, the beacon of light was set off early? That’s probably not good.

Stretching as I sat upright, I looked toward the circular clearing. Stairs downward had appeared in the middle of the circular opened. Going up to the entrance to the stairwell, I prepared myself for a fight.

Let’s see if there really is a fire monster.

Slowly descending into the stone room beneath that hosted the teleportation beacon, a visible difference in temperature could be seen from the heat waves in the surroundings.

A wolf made of flames slept near the teleportation beacon. Its body continuously releasing flames and heat.

I gazed toward it with interest. “Wolf, huh…”

It seemed to be made entirely of flames. Continuously releasing fire and burning the oxygen in the surroundings creating a physical distortion effect in the air.

Its flames should need oxygen? How did this wolf survive when this place was sealed without any new oxygen coming in? Probably magic.

I remember the boss monster of this area had some kind of weakness? Maybe just tossing water on it. Although that seems a little simple.

It doesn’t seem aggressive.

Then again, it’s sleeping. Nothing looks aggressive while it’s sleeping.

… Hmmm, should I deal with it? Gazing between the wolf and the teleportation beacon, I decided it was probably best to get rid of it.

I wouldn’t bother with killing the wolf if it weren’t for the fact that I’ll need to mess around with the security protocols of the teleportation beacon. I doubt the trick of hiding my bloodline would work.

Unlike the teleportation beacon in the tutorial, which was only checking to prevent monsters from teleporting out, this one will likely check system authorization before confirming the teleportation… and well, without the system, I probably don’t have authorization.

Summoning my spear, I prepared to attack the wolf composed of flames.

Apparently it sensed my hostility as the wolf awakened. It released a growl and backed away.

Err… what am I doing? I should have analyzed it.

Analyze.

{Ignis Wolf – Extremely weak, who cares about its existence?}

Okay…How exactly are these names and descriptions generated? That literally means fire wolf and that advice isn’t helpful. These cannot possibly be the species’ official name.

Regardless, I lowered my spear.

An extremely weak creature? Although I hadn’t been analyzing other creatures in the zone, that seems kinda low?

The moment I lowered my spear, the Ignis Wolf immediately pounced in my direction, catching me off guard. Reacting immediately, I raised the spear and stabbed into its body.

The spear passing straight through the wolf’s body without any resistance.

However… the Ignis Wolf seemed completely undamaged by the strike. It ignored me and ran past, fleeing up the staircases to the jungle above.

Chasing it up the stairs, I watched helpless as it fled into the trees and foliage in the distance. The tree and foliage caught flame as it ran past.

Wincing, I realized I wouldn’t be able to stop it.

I could only hope that doesn’t cause any problems... such as burning the entire forest down.

Heading back down to the teleportation beacon, I tried the trick of hiding my bloodline to utilize the teleportation array.

Unfortunately, my assumption of that trick failing was correct. Obviously, this teleportation beacon was built with differing protocols from the teleportation beacon in the tutorial.

However, I should only need to bypass the authorization.

Diving into the authorization coding of the teleportation beacon. Soon I realized that the beacon was designed with intruder protection.

Perusing through the array’s functions, I found that any attempt to bypass the authorization requirement would activate the teleportation beacon and send the offender directly 100,000 miles upward. As far as I remember, that’s in the void of space.

Even if it’s not in space (as this is a different planet than earth), I probably wouldn’t survive that kind of fall. Although that’s probably far above the point of terminal velocity so maybe I would.

Regardless, falling that far is… suboptimal.

Uh…

Let’s try getting authorization instead of bypassing the authorization requirement then.

Fiddling around with authorization protocol, I found myself confused. The teleportation array’s authorization function weren’t set up in any of the ways described in the books.

Normally, there is a password… or a master authorization function backdoor. Sometimes that’s done for maintenance purposes, other times it is done to give control of the teleportation beacon to specific individuals.

…But there didn’t seem to be any such program.

Okay… well, that’s not helpful.

The coordinates also seem to be locked onto a specific location. It’s literally build into the teleportation array that this array cannot teleport anywhere else…

No… it can teleport people into the void of space, right? That means it can teleport people elsewhere, it just been hardwired not to teleport people elsewhere?

Damn it… uhh… there doesn’t seem to physically be any method to bypass the main teleportation’s location. Too many security measures. Even attempting to activate the beacon without the correct authorization is dangerous.

Tilting my head, I turned my gaze to the secondary part of the teleportation array that would teleport me into the void of space.

Hmmm, I wonder…

Changing around the array slightly, I attempted to move the destination of secondary teleportation that would normally intruders into space. Reprogramming it so that the array would teleport me approximately five feet behind me. The array easily accepted the new coordinates.

It… worked?

I blinked in surprise at how easy that was.

While there was other security measures that might activate if I attempted to bypass the main teleportation’s coordinates. I didn’t need to care about those anymore.

Taking the coordinates from the main part of the teleportation array, I copied them into the destination of secondary teleportation.

The array accepted them.

Stared at the teleportation beacon with a strange expression, I felt strange.

I hadn’t expected it to be that easy.

The main teleportation destination was locked down with so much security for a moment I was scared that it would be impossible to utilize the teleportation array. Yet, the secondary portion of the teleportation array didn’t even have the slightest security.

It’s like someone used fifteen separate locks on their front door to keep people out of their house and then left the window open.

Do people not properly understand the concept of security? Even the strongest chain is only as good as its weakest link.

All I had to do was change the destination of the contingency that would send people into space upon failing to bypass the array and swap it with the destination location of main teleport array. Regardless of failure or success in bypassing the security, it will now teleport people to the Residential Zone.

Shaking my head, I decided to just accept my blessings. If they hadn’t programmed it badly, I probably wouldn’t be able to utilize this teleportation beacon at all.

Purposefully triggering the array’s security. A flash of white light filled my vision and I was teleported directly to the Residential Zone.

Let out a breath of air in relief.

I’d definitely been teleported to the Residential Zone.

I had been slightly worried that secondary teleportation might’ve had other security measures, such as resetting the teleportation’s marked location upon activation. It seems I was overthinking it.

Leaving the room with the teleportation beacon behind, I noticed two people sitting down the floor playing cards.

Right… I forgot about the two people we ignored guarding the Hell Difficulty teleportation beacons.

I would say hello… but they seem busy (and I cannot really speak their language that well).

Leaving them behind, I decided to simply search for a place to stay. I probably won’t be able to utilize system housing as that requires system authorization so I’d have to find an empty public building to stay in.

First goal involves living in the Residential Zone. That means finding a place to stay and learning the language whilst simultaneously studying artifacts.

Second goal is to find someone with a healing ability that can heal damage to the heart, or at least an injury close to the heart. This is needed to heal Kara when she gets injured.

Third goal is to acquire a Decima game token.

Finding a place to stay is relatively simple. Just need to find an empty guild house and set up some wards for defense. Then purchase some bedding, supplies, and anything else relevant for staying in a place for a long period of time.

Searching for a place was easy. There are tons of empty buildings that were never put to any use in the Hell Difficulty segment. I found a small empty building in a dark alley and commandeered it.

I marked the building as private property (by physically carving the word ‘private property’ on the front door). Then setting up a barrier, along with wards that released warnings if the parameter was breached.

While I could create some more dangerous arrays in case someone breached the property… that creates more problems than it’s worth.

Any lethal arrays are going to destroy a good portion of the property in the process. I’d have to be careful to avoid triggering it myself… Yeah, lethal wards are far more effort than they’re worth.

Well, now that I have an empty building, I need bedding and other conveniences to populate that building… which means borrowing various bedding and conveniences from the marketplace.

After traveling around the city for awhile I quickly discovered a minor problem.

They simply didn’t have the amenities or goods to steal. The economy simply wasn’t set up, thus the only things being traded and bartered were artifacts. Minor and mediocre goods, like bedding or conveniences didn’t exist in stores (at least as far as I could tell).

I’m sure it was possible to acquire them, but it probably had to be done through specific targeted vendors and with disadvantageous bartering.

As it turns out, stealing… err, I mean ‘borrowing’ was a lot more difficult when nobody has the goods to borrow from. So it seems I’ll be living in discomfort and sleeping on the floor. Least until I find someone to borrow a bed and blankets from.

The second goal also requires learning the language, I need at least basic fluency in the common language of this place. That along with learning more about artifact creation is my goal for the time being.