Chapter 154: Are there Dungeons in this world?

Chapter 154: Chapter 154: Are there Dungeons in this world?

Pale sunlight spilled across the balcony, carrying with it the faint scent of snow and distant pine. Theon stood quietly near the railing, the light falling warm across the stone floor beneath his feet. Ifrith had not moved. The primordial demon simply stared at him, his expression stripped of anything familiar. Gone was the amusement, the arrogance, the teasing smile he usually wore. Only disbelief remained.

"Original Spell," Ifrith finally said, the words lingering in the cool air.

Theon turned his head slightly. "Yes."

Ifrith studied him for a long moment. "You understand what you’re saying, don’t you?"

"I think so."

"No." Ifrith shook his head. "You don’t."

Theon raised an eyebrow, and Ifrith stepped closer, his voice hardening. "Original Spell isn’t some ordinary spell you find in an old book and master after a few days of practice. It isn’t something you decide to use just because you need more power." His expression grew serious. "Even i possess my own Original Magic."

Theon looked at him with new interest. "You do?"

"Of course." Ifrith folded his arms. "But possessing Original Magic and being able to freely wield it are two very different things. It is tied to the very nature of the one who carries it. Even a voidborn like me cannot simply treat it like an ordinary spell."

Theon stayed quiet, understanding the weight behind Ifrith’s words, but his mind had already settled on its answer. "I don’t care how difficult it is."

Ifrith’s brow furrowed. Theon glanced past him, toward the room beyond the balcony doors, where Lyra sat on the floor, laughing as she played with the small wolf. He watched her for a moment before his expression hardened. "If there’s even a chance that learning Original Magic can help me save Lyra, I’ll learn it."

Something in those words struck Ifrith harder than he expected. His thoughts drifted back to the Ancient Forest, to the battlefield, the destruction, Asmodeus, and Theon standing at the center of it all. Three techniques surfaced in his memory: Limit Break, Eclipse Frost, Origin: Detonation. None of them were ordinary. None of them should have existed in the hands of a human. He had watched countless beings rise throughout his long existence, humans who became heroes, monsters who became kings, demons who clawed their way up from nothing into something terrifying. But what Theon had done in that battle was different. A human should not have been able to unleash spells like those.

A thought crept into Ifrith’s mind, one so absurd he nearly dismissed it outright. Could he actually be the one?

He shook his head. "No." The word left him before he had even decided to say it.

Theon looked at him. "Ifrith?"

"No, no, no." Ifrith shook his head again, harder this time, and turned slightly away. "Impossible. He’s human." His voice dropped. "An abnormal human, perhaps. An absurdly powerful human, certainly." He glanced back at Theon. "But still a human. He can’t be the one." He forced the thought down, or at least he tried to.

Theon, unaware of the storm playing out behind him, turned back toward Lyra. There was no ambition in his voice when he finally spoke, no hunger for recognition, only quiet resolve. "I know Original Magic may be difficult to learn," he said, "but I’ll find a way. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Lyra from dying."

Silence settled between them. Then footsteps approached from inside, and Silver stepped through the balcony doors, her silver hair stirring gently in the breeze. Her gaze went straight to Theon. "Master."

He turned. "Yes?"

"May I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

She hesitated before speaking. "During the battle in the Ancient Forest, you used three extremely powerful spells." She held his gaze. "Limit Break. Eclipse Frost. Origin: Deatonation. How were you able to cast them in the state you were?"

The question caught Theon off guard. He looked away, his mind returning to the Ancient Forest, to the overwhelming pressure of that battle, the pain, the sense of his body being pushed past its limits, the power that had erupted out of him without warning. The more he searched the memory, the less sense it made. "I don’t know," he admitted.

Silver tilted her head. "You don’t know?"

"No." He leaned against the railing. "It felt like something happened to me. I can’t really explain it. It was like a force just took over. I wasn’t thinking about how to cast those spells. I just used them."

His memory reached further back, to the moment he had nearly died, to the darkness that had closed in around him, and to the presence that had appeared before him there: an ethereal being, her body wound through with green vines, radiating a strange, celestial light. He opened his eyes. "Maybe it was the Spirit Sovereign."

The balcony went still. Ifrith froze. Silver roze beside him.

"What?" Silver’s voice came out barely above a whisper.

Ifrith’s expression shifted entirely. "The Spirit Sovereign?"

Theon looked between the two of them. "Yes." He frowned. "Why are you both reacting like that?"

"Please repeat what you said master?" Ifrith’s voice was tight.

"The Spirit Sovereign."

"Explain." Ifrith demanded.

Theon hesitated. "When I was on the verge of death, something appeared in front of me. She looked ethereal, her body intertwined with green vines, this strange celestial presence around her." His gaze lowered. "She appeared right when I was about to die, and she saved me."

Ifrith’s breathing slowed as his mind raced. The Spirit Sovereign had not appeared before anyone in thousands of years. Not kings. Not legendary heroes. Not ancient beings. No one. And now she had chosen Theon. Piece by piece, everything began fitting together in Ifrith’s mind: the strange spells, the impossible power, the abnormal mana, and now this. He thought, his fists slowly tightening. For thousands of years she hasn’t shown herself to a single soul, and now she has chosen him. He is the one. This time, the thought did not feel absurd. It felt certain. Someone chosen personally by the Spirit Sovereign could not be ordinary. There was no coincidence here, no other explanation that made sense.

Ifrith looked at Theon, who stood there seemingly unaware of what he had just revealed. There is no doubt anymore, Ifrith told himself.

Theon, meanwhile, was still turning the question over in his mind. If the Spirit Sovereign truly had something to do with the power he’d used, then there was more to his abilities than he understood. He looked down at his own hand, curling his fingers slightly as he remembered the sensation, the pressure, the feeling of something opening inside him. He didn’t understand it yet, but he intended to.

His gaze drifted toward Lyra, still playing with the little wolf, laughing as it chased after her hand. The sight softened something in him before his attention shifted toward the landscape stretching beyond the academy. *If this was truly a fantasy world*, he thought, looking toward the distant mountains, then there had to be dungeons somewhere. A dangerous place, full of monsters, where mana gathered naturally. If such a place existed nearby, he could train there in secret, away from the academy, away from curious students, away from anyone who might notice what he was capable of. He could test his limits there, work through Original Magic, figure out what had really happened to him during the battle in the Ancient Forest, and above everything else, grow strong enough to protect Lyra.

He turned to Silver."Search the entire Imperial Academy."

She tilted her head. "For what purpose?"

"Look for a dungeon."

"A dungeon?"

"A place where mana concentrates and monsters are born from it," he said. "Usually underground."

Silver said nothing for a moment, clearly unfamiliar with the term. Theon rubbed his forehead. *Right. This world probably doesn’t use the same words.* He tried again. "Picture somewhere that enormous amounts of mana gather, until eventually monsters start to appear from it."

Before she could respond, another voice cut in. "Do you mean a Colove?"

Theon turned to find Ifrith standing behind them. "A what?"

"A Colove," Ifrith said, stepping forward. "That’s close to what you’re describing. They’re places where enormous amounts of mana build up, and once the concentration reaches a certain point, monsters begin to appear. Adventurers go in to hunt them, gather materials, earn money, and occasionally find something valuable."

Theon’s expression cleared. "So that’s what they call it here," he said, looking out toward the horizon, a small smile forming. Colove. Not quite the word he was used to, but close enough. "Fine," he told Silver. "Search for a Colove."

She opened her mouth to answer, then stopped. "There’s no need."

He frowned. "Why not?"

She raised her hand and pointed toward the distant mountain, the same one where Ifrith had once lost control. "There’s already one there."

Theon followed her gesture toward the mountain, then reached out with his mana perception. The ordinary scenery dissolved beneath layers of magical energy, currents of mana flowing invisibly through the air. Deep within the mountains, he found it: a dense, unstable mass of mana, growing by the moment. "There really is one," he murmured.

Silver nodded. "It formed recently."

He kept scanning, and his expression turned serious. "It’s already active."

"Indeed," Silver said. "The battles fought around the mountain released an enormous amount of mana into the surroundings. The greatest concentration, though, came from the fighting during Ifrith’s rampage. That mana never dissipated. Instead, it gathered in one place over time, until it condensed."

"Into the Colove," Theon finished.

"Yes. And now it has begun producing monsters."

Theon looked toward the mountain again, a strange certainty settling over him. This did not feel like coincidence: a place thick with concentrated mana, already breeding monsters, formed from the very battle that had pushed him past his limits. It was exactly what he needed.

He glanced back toward the room, where Lyra still sat playing, still laughing, still unaware of everything unfolding around her. He watched her a moment longer, and whatever uncertainty remained in him faded, replaced by something colder and far more resolved. He had found his training ground, a place to test his power, to uncover the truth behind his abilities, and perhaps, finally, a place that could change Lyra’s fate.

He looked toward the mountain one last time, his fingers tightening around the railing. I have to save her.

Deep within the shadows of the newly formed Colove, something stirred and roar...