Chapter 115: Desert Forest Kingdom

“Not as hard as expected, but you lot are certainly more annoying than I gave you credit for.”

I ran through the sandy forest at blistering speed as I tore apart the MBones that stood in my way.

Crunch

After my leap, I landed on the skull of one of them and caused the pieces to smash right into the ground.

The MBones were the only monster I had faced, which was certainly strange. Even in smaller dungeons, there was usually at least some variance of enemies, that was unless there was just a single monster. That variance didn’t necessarily mean completely different types of monster; sometimes it was just as simple as larger or different colours of the same base monster type, but these MBones all appeared the exact same as if they were copied and pasted.

Strange indeed.

When I sliced and destroyed their bones, a cloud of sand-like dust poured out, which dis-stabled the nearby mana and energies to a lesser extent. This didn’t affect the mana inside me, but it did increase my wariness as it was possible that other monsters possessed similar but more dangerous abilities. 

Espr still wasn’t communicating, so an easy solution to my answer was unavailable. 

This man disruption would greatly impact mana constructs like my [Fire Arrow]. While that was mostly Fire energy, it was converted recently from my mana to it, which leaves some mana left in. That wasn’t a bad thing, as especially for Fire-related magic, it allowed the attack constructs to react and explode more violently. But it meant that using on these enemies meant each arrow would be a one and done, and options like crafting a weapon to use continuously weren’t appropriate. 

My Starlight weapon had resistance towards this effect, as it was made from pure Starlight I had stored and had no mana mixed with it. The sand-like substance did have an effect, but it was nothing my control over my Starlight couldn’t prevent.

The greater issue was if this substance somehow got inside me or my armour. The armour didn’t have any cracks that would allow it to interfere with the internals, but if it took damage, that would be a different story. 

“At least they provide a decent challenge with their annoying ability.”

I had faced plenty of humanoid monsters, though they were never comparable to humans. Humanoid monsters could be far stronger than humans, that was for sure, but humans held so many tricks up their sleeves that it was impossible to account for all of them. Monsters, for the most part, were a lot more straightforward. 

These monsters weren’t anywhere near the top end of threats I had faced, but their ability meant I had to be careful. That situation made for good training. I wasn’t here to train, but before I faced more dangerous foes, getting used to the basic fodder was ideal. The loss of [Burst] was still heavily felt in my movement. I tried replicating with minimal success. In skill form, [Burst] was perfectly balanced to focus fully on accelerating my movement and impacting my body minimally. Trying to forcibly create a manual alternative challenge lay in creating an explosion that propelled me in the directions I wanted and didn’t damage me in the process. There was a clear difference between the manual form and the skill form of an ability. Some magic skills could be replicated manually with more ease, like the energy and mana construct skills, but magic skills like [Burst] were much harder.

Time to check from a height again.

I pierced through the desert’s pawn skull, then jumped onto a tree and climbed up. The numerous MBones began clambering around the tree, their jaws snapping open and close, creating a loud assortment of click clacks. 

Monsters held a range of intelligence, but these beasts were certainly on the lower end.

Attempting to climb over each other, they tried climbing the tree. There was enough synergy that they would eventually reach me if I stayed still.

Once I was at the top, I used the height to get a view of the area. This wasn’t the first time I’d done this, but so far the only sight I had seen was more sand and trees.

“What..?” I looked into the distance, and it was hard to see due to all the trees, but I was certain I could see some form of wall. Sudden large, sharp mountains weren’t something I hadn’t seen before, but this was something more.

I spent a few more moments examining before I exclaimed. “Is that a fucking city?” 

My mouth widened; how was I supposed to expect a mediaeval-ish castle-looking wall?

It was made of stone and large tree trunks, but it was clearly built. Structures of any kind were not seen at all in dungeons. The only exceptions to that were on Dungeon Planets, these were some of the smarter monsters that worked in packs or communities which created some defensive and fort-like structures but nothing that big.

“Espr, do you really not want to comment on that?” I asked.

There was still silence.

“Your loss.” I taunted; it would’ve been a fun conversation.

I leapt from the tree, and it took a moment for the MBones to realise I had moved. 

My hand caught onto another tree, and I pushed myself off it to leap towards another. Finally, I slid down this new tree and continued my sprint. 

An MBone flung itself from the ground, not active until I neared it. 

I dipped to the side, stabbed the black arrow into its skull, and swung my Starlight Lance backwards into the crowd that tried to sneak attack me.

I haven’t lost any Starlight besides what I used to create my weapon, and I planned to try and re-absorb as much as possible. The lack of Starlight generation was a massive concern, but it was something I had to deal with.

Sprinting towards the wall, my goal was to observe what was on the other side. I doubted it would be anything friendly; nothing was friendly on Espoiramissa or in any dungeon, and that wasn’t going to change here.

But finding allies wasn’t my hope; my goal was to find this world’s dungeon core, and an unusual structure could be my goal to finding it.

"Seriously, Espr, why couldn’t you create something like this?” Breaking through the deep forest, as I got closer to the wall, the clearer it was. The was certainly built by hand, and surrounding it was a large herd of MBones that tried to climb it, but for some reason, they were able to climb more than one metre above the ground level, and when that wall was at least fifty metres tall, their effort meant nothing.

I pushed my muscles to my limits and increased my speed. The MBones couldn’t catch up and made an effort to simply avoid any new ones in my way.

However, as I neared the wall, the wind began to stir, and then within seconds, a storm of sand vomited the area.

Now this sucks…

It was an environment that suited these monsters the best, as I was sure they didn’t use sight to see. My Soul Pressure could feel them, but their individual souls were so weak it was genuinely hard to feel them near. 

“I know where the wall is anyway.” I was glad to be wearing a helmet, as getting this sand in my mouth would be awful. Once it subsided, I planned to see if I could grab any that was left of my armour and examine if it had any special properties. 

I formed a bomb of fire in front of me. “Time to fly.” I laughed and jumped into the air, throwing the bomb beneath me.

A concussive blast of energy and explosive flames damaged the surroundings and sent me further flying into the area. 

Swinging my lance forward I morphed into a chain with a spike and lodged it high into the wooden trunk sections of the wall. My body flew towards it, and with a tug, I flung myself up the wall. 

Bang!

The metal armour slammed into the wall, and I could feel a slippery substance on it. 

“A little annoying.” But it was no obstacle, my chain still connected to me attached to the top of the wall since I was near it and I pulled myself the rest of the way up.

While pulling myself I recounted my sprint here. “Well, that was fun.” I still needed to adjust the ratio for movement explosion. [Solar Bomb] technically could work as an alternative but it was more expensive as my Sun magic skills tended to be and it functioned differently. It was still an option I would use for movement if needed, but I needed to fill the gaps in my toolbox instead of relying on the remaining tools.

Once at the top, I looked below, at the other side of the wall. It only dipped ten metres and within this massive wall was a small city. Houses made of trunks and logs, hardened sand were used as roads, and small gardeners were all over the city. 

Within the city was a race of lizard-like creatures moving about, talking, trading, playing…

“Espr… what the fuck I am seeing?”

An ominous laugh ran in my ears.

(“ A city of intelligent life. One you must destroy if you wish to claim this world’s treasure ”)