Chapter 602

His new affinity was a small thing, a spark compared with the roaring conflagration of his elemental traits, yet it fundamentally altered his perception.

Already, the air around him no longer felt like a mere element. It had texture. He could sense the invisible seams where the dungeon had folded the caves, the conceptual stitching that held the impossible geometry together.

He raised his left hand and focused on the plain silver band of his spatial ring. For a long time, he had used the artifact as a blunt instrument, pouring mana into the runes to access the stored pocket. Now, his senses went deeper, and an immensely complex enchantment he’d only observed from the outside unfurled in his mind.

Given who had given it to him, it was no surprise the rind was a masterwork. Its runic arrays functioned as nails, pinning a discrete bubble of reality to the physical metal and forcing reality to obey a static law.

In a way, it’s not too dissimilar to a Domain, though the core concept has been taken in a completely different direction. I wonder whether the study of the divine led to the creation of the first spatial artifact? No, it’s more likely it was a dungeon.

His surroundings, by contrast, were fluid. The leylines coaxed the space to warp, bending the canvas without breaking it.

Nick closed his eyes, focusing on its fluid nature while keeping the ring’s enchantment in mind to try to discern their differences.

The first thing he noticed was that while the ring required no upkeep beyond filtering atmospheric mana in its dormant state, the dungeon greedily consumed a lot.

That was not surprising, since it also had to sustain and give birth to monsters, but it was more than he’d expected. A closer look told him that a good chunk of what it was taking went into warping space overall.

Is natural spatial manipulation less efficient? That makes sense, but it’s not the whole story.

Indeed, most of the mana was consumed by the constant alterations the dungeon was making. If it had been content to maintain its current state, it would have had much more mana to produce monsters, which explained why he’d only been attacked a few times.

Do dungeon cores have specializations? Preferences?

That, unfortunately, was a question unlikely to be solved anytime soon, so he shelved it.

Returning to the spatial effects, he made a note of the most interesting ones, trying to understand how and why they worked as they did, before pulling his senses back.

The mental demands of casting spatial magic had plummeted the moment the affinity took root. He could now experiment much more freely, all to reshape the spellforms to suit the battlefield.

[Spatial Relocation] was his first attempt. Before the ritual, he would have clamped down on the spell, relying on brute force to swap the coordinates. Now he visualized the spellform as a sliver of water slipping through a cracked stone. He aligned his mana with reality's natural state, smoothing the rough edges of his intent.

The rock he’d chosen vanished and reappeared hovering an inch above his palm. The transition was silent, without the sharp pop of displaced air that had accompanied his earlier attempts.

He tossed it aside and chose a larger target, a floating slab of stone the size of a horse.

It took only a moment to adjust the spell's matrix, widening its conceptual net. He then poured a steady stream of mana into it, coaxing reality to release its hold on his target.

The spellform, it turned out, required a harmonious agreement between his soul and the surrounding space that he’d simply been unable to notice was out of balance before. Following those new instincts, Nick tweaked the pathways, twisting the magic into a tighter, more efficient loop.

The stone vanished and reappeared fifty yards to his left, without making a sound.

Nick grinned. Moving a larger object wasn’t insignificant, but it was manageable compared with what it had taken before. More importantly, the whole process now required very little attention, since he knew what he was doing.

He could relocate weapons, incoming projectiles, or even unwary enemies, as long as he kept his concentration. True teleportation—moving his own complex, living, and highly resistant physical form—remained out of reach for now. To teleport himself, he would need to map the process with absolute precision. A single flawed coordinate could cause catastrophic damage, and he needed a stronger foundation before risking his own safety.

This version came from the NovelPhoenix site without the author's permission; the chapter in its publication supports the writer.

Still, he’d taken several steps down that path, and it was inevitable he would succeed. He just needed to sharpen those instincts further and make the whole process as smooth as his elemental or spiritual magic.

I could probably brute-force a [Blink], but there’s no need. I’m already making significant progress; I can afford to take my time and do it right.

He spent another hour working through the variations of [Spatial Fold], learning to compress distance quickly to create momentary stepping stones in the air. The practice smoothed the edges of his new capabilities, bringing them up to an acceptable standard, which was saying something, given what he was capable of.

Satisfied, he shifted his focus to offensive applications.

[Spatial Sever] was an interesting bit of magic. As far as mundane materials were concerned, it was invincible, but when mana was involved, the costs rose exponentially.

He’d seen as much when even the Guardian had failed to fully cut the stone he’d imbued.

First, Nick refined the basic expression he’d managed, visualizing a razor-thin wire drawn taut across the fabric of reality. He immediately sensed the spellform was flawed and set about stabilizing the edges of the tear. Once he was satisfied, a line of pure black appeared in the air, seemingly innocuous yet capable of terrible destruction.

He held the rift open, feeding it a trickle of power. Ten seconds passed. Twenty. It stayed stable, consuming less mana than he’d feared.

Eventually, when it became clear he could keep it up as long as he wanted, he waved his hand. The tear followed his motion, slicing through a cluster of crystals jutting from the wall. They fell to the floor, their cut surfaces polished to a mirror shine.

There had been some resistance, but the rift was solid enough that he hadn’t needed to impart more power to it to cut through the mana held within.

Cleaning up took a moment with his new utility spells, and he stomped on the floor, sending ripples through his surroundings that smoothed out cuts and restored the alcove to its previous appearance.

He briefly considered cleansing the place of his mana, but the dungeon was already doing it for him, so he activated the Stillness, layering his [Spiritual Sovereign] trait over its enchantments. The ether accepted his passage, parting around his form without a ripple.

With his new understanding of spatial magic, traversing tunnels that spiraled at impossible angles was much smoother; gravity already had no hold on him if he didn’t want it to, so it was simply a matter of following the warping to speed his passage. He sought the dungeon's remaining secrets, eager to test his refined spells against live targets.

Soon, he encountered a pack of spatial hounds near a waterfall. It flowed upward, defying the pull of the earth, pooling in a basin suspended on the ceiling.

The hounds roamed around, seemingly without purpose, but he could tell they were sensing for changes in the ripples of space. The Stillness alone was enough to fool them, but even without it, he could ghost by them now that he could restrict those changes.

A [Spatial Sever] formed over his right index finger, and he stepped into the pack, completely invisible to their senses. A moment of concentration made the spell ripple and reshape until it more closely resembled a blade, and he gripped its base, smiling when it felt solid.

He swept it through the neck of the nearest hound, feeling no resistance. The severed head fell to the stone.

That was enough for the rest of the pack to take notice, as he couldn’t contain the ripples. Their forms blurred, and they all attacked as one.

Nick cast [Spatial Relocation], locking onto the hound to his left. He disrupted its magic, forcing it to swap places with a stalagmite directly in the second hound's teleportation vector.

The second hound materialized, crashing violently into the razor-sharp stone. Nick closed the distance and drove the void blade into its core, killing it.

Dismantling the rest of the pack took a few minutes, as he took his time, playing with their senses, luring them into dangerous spots, and interfering with their magic.

Once the last fell, he harvested the silvery cores and tossed the bodies into his ring.

He pressed on, following the strongest mana currents.

Hours bled away in the dark. The crystals' light shifted to a pale green. The temperature dropped, icing the rock walls and freezing his breath in his lungs.

He stepped onto a frost-covered ledge overlooking a canyon-like chasm.

Below, the Fourth Guardian patrolled its domain.

It was a massive beast of pale white jade and howling wind. Its serpentine body coiled around the canyon's frozen pillars, spanning a hundred yards from its horned head to its bladed tail. A blizzard howled around it, drawing ambient moisture from the air and spinning it into a vortex of razor-sharp ice shards.

A spark of fire bloomed in his hand, quickly growing and taking the form of an armored knight, which he sent down with just enough mana to withstand a few blows.

The horned snake moved with shocking speed, crushing the knight against the canyon walls with its tails, while the blizzard shredded its body, preventing any attempt to flee.

Upper nineties, very close to Prestige. It’s a beaut, but I don’t really need it, and killing all the Guardians wouldn’t sit well with Bluetear. He’ll want the dungeon to use its mana to produce resources rather than rebuild its best monsters.

With a sigh, Nick stepped back from the ledge. He had his prize. While the serpent’s core and body would fetch a high price, he really didn’t need them. He still spent a few more sparks of mana crafting more knights, cataloging its attack patterns, and filing the information away for future reference, but eventually he slipped past the canyon and moved further down the tunnels.

The ether grew sluggish, resisting every step. The spatial warping ceased, replaced by a crushing pressure that pressed against Nick’s mind.

He was approaching the core.

A few stone walls crumbled under his spells, and soon the tunnel opened into a cavern of impossible scale. The walls vanished into the gloom, and the floor was a sprawling plain of glassy obsidian.

In its center, a pillar of pure mana erupted from the bedrock, shooting straight toward the unseen ceiling. It was the exposed nerve of the leyline, the raw power source that sustained the entire dungeon.

Coiled around the pillar was the Inner Guardian.

It was a draconic monstrosity with three distinct, wedge-shaped heads. Its scales were forged from liquid crystal, and it absorbed the leyline's golden illumination, radiating a Prestige-tier aura that made the air crackle with static.

For the first time, Nick had to pause and evaluate his chances.

The Inner Guardian was strong, and its mana exceeded his. With access to the leyline, it could outlast him by a mile.

Destroying the core would instantly neutralize the threat, dissolving the anomaly and erasing the spatial warping, but it would also leave a smoking crater the size of a city.

Killing the Guardian without harming the core would be difficult. He could do it with enough preparation, but he didn't need to.

Soon, this place would be swarming with mages from Alluria, and they would want to lay their hands on it themselves.

Nick had already gotten what he’d come for.