The Runic Alchemist

It was a treant—a giant tree with legs and branches for hands. Its rage-filled face was grotesque, twisted into an expression of fury. The creature possessed a significant amount of mana, and its massive limbs moved with surprising speed.

First of all, Damian restrained it using his vines and a gravity-reversal spell, meticulously analyzing its internal structure. The mana veins resembled those of a stone golem, though they were more prominent, and the core glowed far brighter. Yet again, there was no way to halt the mana refining process to get a clearer view of its mechanisms without killing it and stopping the process altogether.

After completing his observations, Damian released the treant. Lumi and Elias immediately engaged it, fighting with their lives on the line. The treant's movements became increasingly erratic as Damian's mana poisoning began to take effect. Lumi, limited in mobility, kept her distance, chanting spell after spell. Meanwhile, Elias dodged the thrashing branches and limbs with great agility, closing in to strike the creature's main body at point-blank range.

The others just stood at the side, watching the great struggle take place.

The commotion eventually woke Toph. With an excited trumpet, the small elephant didn't hesitate for even a second. Activating his Temporal Shift ability, he blinked from beside Damian to atop the treant. Black flames spewed from his mouth, scorching the wooden beast into a pitiful state. Toph delivered the finishing blow with a Juggernaut Charge diving from air, his body engulfed in black flames with Elemental infusion.

Lumi and Elias froze, staring dumbfounded at the tiny elephant standing triumphantly atop the burning treant, which screeched in agony as it thrashed about. Snapping out of their stupor, they delivered final strikes, putting an end to the Lord-ranked monster with surprising ease.

Nearby, two Highsword members looked equally stunned, pausing mid-task to gawk at the bizarre team taking down such a formidable foe in seconds.

There was a key point behind the charred remains of the monster, which allowed them to exit the dungeon without proceeding to the next level. They could revisit the same dungeon plane if at least one of the 100 participants in their batch stayed inside the dungeon. However, they had no idea who the other 90-plus participants were, as they hadn't encountered anyone aside from the two guards stationed earlier.

Damian couldn't confirm the others' presence, as the dungeon's levels were too vast even for his mana sense. The only way to know would be to check the logs maintained by the Highsword guards.

As they walked back to their rooms, the students going around eyed their rugged and bloody appearances. Damian's two squires looked particularly worse for wear, though he himself remained spotless thanks to his cleaning spells.

It was a nice little peaceful time, much closer to what a vacation should be than his stay here. He felt a sense of relief—no strange voices had echoed in his mind over a week. The destruction of the book seemed to have done its job. Still, to be certain, he resolved to visit the historical site later and check for changes in the giant runic circle.

"That was fun," Grace remarked. "Much better than most dungeons. Maybe we could do it again sometime."

"Cruising through five levels is a bit tedious, though," Sam said excitedly. "The real fun would be seeing how far we could go together."

"I agree," Lucian added. "From what I've seen, with this team one could break records." Explore more at empire

"Only the top student gets unrestricted access," Einar said, smirking as if to imply 'I can easily take all of you childrens with me.'

"Hmph, I could top this in my sleep," Sam retorted, his arrogance matching hers.

"That remains to be seen," Lucian replied with a small chuckle.

For most, it might have seemed like Lucian was underestimating the strength of second-rankers, but Damian wasn't so sure. Lucian wasn't just proficient with the sword—her physical stats were terrifyingly high for a first-ranker.

Damian had an excuse; his stats weren't system-organized like hers. He knew exactly how much strength and defense were needed to match him and how he had prioritized some aspects in certain situations, and Lucian came very close even with her automatic stat allocation. What's more, she hadn't revealed most of her skills yet.

After refreshing himself in his room following a week of dungeon crawling, Damian felt genuinely content. He and Toph enjoyed a long bath before Damian dried off, and placed the little elephant on the bed. His tail was really a weird feature of his body - as it did not burn anything that Toph didn't want to burn. Just as he was putting on his shirt, the door of his room—left slightly ajar—swung open.

"You're finally back! You won't believe what I foun—" Reize froze mid-sentence, her arms full of books. Her mouth fell open, and her eyes widened as she took in Damian, shirtless, his chiseled, fair, athletic figure in stark contrast to his dark pants.

Damian, unfazed, calmly picked up his white shirt and slipped it on. Reize remained rooted in place, her face gradually turning crimson as her brain seemed to seize up. Without saying a word, she turned and walked away stiffly, ignoring Damian's attempts to speak to her.

After fully dressing and drying his hair, Damian picked up Toph and knocked on the door across from his own. A muffled voice answered,

"Uhm… 'cough' Wh-what…?"

Damian chuckled at her flustered tone.

"Come on, let's go eat," he called.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

"Just a minute… I'll be right there!"

"Okay."

More than a minute passed before Reize finally emerged, still avoiding his gaze as she joined him.

"So, what was this exciting thing you wanted to tell me?" Damian asked, tactfully ignoring her awkward behavior.

"Oh! I found some enchantments that might be really useful," she said, launching into an explanation. The earlier awkwardness quickly faded as she became engrossed in her discovery. This girl really was a simple creature.

According to her, she had found enchantments capable of guiding mana. Small enchanted objects could attract or repel mana, theoretically allowing for controlled mana flow through connected pipes or similar conduits.

It wasn't the storage or refining breakthrough they were hoping for, but it was a significant step forward in their project. If enchantments could achieve this, then so could runes, with enough research. Enchantments, after all, were considered a derivative of ancient runic knowledge.

Damian recalled reading a book that claimed all enchantment knowledge originated from a strange dungeon—one filled with peculiar creatures and an even stranger environment.