921 All the Time in the World
Gary stood in front of the weirdest portal he had ever seen in his life. Normally, a portal would be completely covered in swirling energy with hazy light coming off of it, and would not allow one to look into what was inside of it.
However, this new dungeon that had formed out of nowhere had a portal that clearly showed what was inside.
He looked at the reading on his device and was confused by the findings as well.
"Why is there absolutely no mana in there at all?" he wondered. His head ached from the lack of sleep as he was forced to look after the dungeon. He wanted to sleep already, but he would have to wait a while since he was going to send some people in to check the inside.
The group of hunters, the one at the head of them all being an A-ranked one, walked inside immediately.
Gary had to wait around 3 or so hours before they completely cleared the dungeon and—
"We found nothing," the leader said from in front of him.
Gary looked confused. "Why are you guys still out here? You should go in," he said.
The hunter looked confused as well. "We did go in," he said. "We spent 5 hours in there searching for any sort of life, but aside from normal bugs and birds and maybe a few animals, we found nothing."
Gary was confused when he heard that. "How did you spend 5 hours in there when it hasn't even been a single second since you entered?" he asked.
"Are you okay?" the hunter asked. "We spent 5 hours in there."
"No, you didn't," Gary said. "Look, it's still 12:35."
"What? That can't be, we really did spend 5 hours inside," the hunter said.
Gary looked around at the rest of the hunters who said the same thing. "Um, can you go in for a few minutes and come back out again?" he asked. "Stay in there as long as you can. Oh, right. Take this tablet with you too."
The hunters looked around for a bit and said, "sure."
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Gary watched them go in this time around. When they did go in, they immediately walked back out.
"How long was it now? We stayed there for about 15 minutes," the hunter said as he handed back the table.
Gary looked at the tablet and was surprised. The time was now 12:48. They truly had spent some 15 minutes inside the dungeon.
Then how had time not passed at all?
"I see, you may give your report now," he said.
"Well, nothing much to report, I guess. There is absolutely nothing but flat grounds and trees around. No beast, no boss. There's not even mana if I'm not wrong, but that's just a feeling," the man said.
"I see. Thank you for your service," Gary said.
"Sure."
The hunters walked away. As it still ached, Gary massaged his head a little and looked at the data. 'Is time moving differently?' he wondered. He had to check.
Gary thought for a moment and left his tablet behind before walking in through the dungeon gate. He arrived on the inside and smelled the cool and fresh air, unlike the hot air from the desert heat of Utah.
Despite his headache, he moved around and looked at the landscape. Truly, there was nothing in here that was worth reporting at all. It was just a simple piece of land.
Which was probably why it was worth reporting in the first place. There had yet to be a simple piece of land with no monsters in any dungeon.
"I should return," he thought. But he had to wait a while. He looked around, just to make sure there really was no danger. Once he made sure there was none, he laid down and waited for a while.
As he did, his lack of sleep slowly took over him. Within minutes, he fell asleep in the soft grass beneath him in the caress of the cool breeze that went on around him.
The deep, howling winds in the distance only made his sleep more peaceful.
Gary woke up in a daze many hours later and slowly got up. He looked towards the sky and saw nothing but a pale silver moon hanging in the sky.
He was confused. He looked around, wondering what he was doing in this place. As his mental capabilities returned to him after a long sleep, his heart hastened as panic filled him with dread.
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"Oh no, I fell asleep," he thought. He was refreshed, but that didn't stop him from worrying. He quickly walked back through the gate and immediately blocked his eyes at the midday sun.
"What? Why's the sun out?" he thought. He looked at the tablet that was on the table and remembered what he had expected before going into the dungeon.
He slowly took the tablet and proceeded to turn it on, but before he even did so, he realized it was already turned on. Rather, he realized that it hadn't turned off at all.
His eyes moved to look at the time and he noticed the number change from 12:48 to 12:49.
'12:48… wasn't that the time those hunters came out?' he thought. He checked the log and it was indeed the case.
'Then wait, did I spend less than a single minute for all that time inside?' he thought. He had to report it to his superiors.
He quickly got on the phone and explained everything.
"If that is the case then stay there. We will arrive in a day or two, and then we will decide what to do," the superiors said.
Gary nodded and looked back at the dungeon gate. A single minute out here meant hours in there. What could he do if he had so much time on his hands?
He quickly opened his personal smartphone and started downloading books, movies, tv-series and everything else he had wanted to go through for a long time but hadn't had the time to.
Gary Benton enjoyed the time of his life as he spent multiple years inside the dungeon while only ever coming out to charge his smartphone. Sometime later, he even took a charger with him inside the dungeon so he didn't have to come out to waste time.
While he spent his time enjoying his life, he slowly got acclimated to the environment that was this world as a single day passed outside. While there was no Qi inside, his body still slowly changed, becoming one where it could accept Qi if ever given to him.
Now, when he went back outside, he could even cultivate if he knew how to. With how strong Qi could make someone, he would have a definite advantage over the hunters of the earth as well.
Unfortunately for Gary, he would never have the chance at all.
"This is useless," a figure spoke to himself from a place that couldn't be easily reached. "I thought it was interesting that there was another universe out there, but I can see no humans anywhere."
"Without humans, I have no need for something," the being thought to himself. Then, the portal to the other universe started closing. However, a disaster struck just then, and in that disaster, the figure found a chance.
A chance to rise above everyone else.
922 Three Rings for his Kin
"Brother, tell me how you did it. Please, I want to become as strong as you," Tae Jung-Hee said in an overly enthusiastic tone.
Ning had woken up not long ago and had come down for breakfast, and yet he was already being hounded over by his little cousin over how he could get stronger.
In fact, this wasn't the only time. Even last night when Jung-Hee had only just returned home and had learned about his grandmother being out of the coma, and Ning being the SSS-ranked hunter the healed her, he had started asking Ning about the secrets that led him to become this strong.
His uncle and cousin had helped reel in this young cousin of his last night, but he had once again started asking Ning.
As a C-ranked hunter, he truly wished to learn the secrets that could help him reach the same heights as Ning.
"You aren't an Apostle, right?" he asked.
"No, no, I'm not an apostle," Ning said.
"Then please tell me, big bro. I will do anything that's necessary," he said.
Ning sighed for a moment and decided to give him something. "Fine, I will tell you how you can become stronger," he said.
Jung-Hee excitedly looked at Ning while waiting for him to speak.
"First thing is, you will have to give up on your soul. You will have to sell your soul in exchange for something else that will help you grow stronger," Ning said.
Jung-Hee's smile slowly disappeared as a frown appeared on his face. "You're messing with me. Just say 'no' if you don't want to answer," he said.
Ning couldn't help but chuckle. "There's nothing I can do that will make you become stronger in a concise amount of time," he said. "If you want to get stronger, you must persevere and go along with the flow of time."
Jung-Hee's eyes narrowed. "How long did it take you to become this strong?" he asked.
"Very long," Ning said. "Much longer than you can imagine."
"6 years?" Jung-Hee asked. That was the furthest back he could think of when the dungeons were just starting to appear.
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"What are you guys talking about?" Hi-Ah asked. "Is he bothering you?"
"What do you mean 'bothering'? I'm just asking big bro some questions," Jung-Hee said.
"No, he's not bothering me. He just wants to know how to become strong like me," Ning said.
"Can he become strong like you?" Hi-Ah gave a confused look. "From what I gathered, you didn't get strong normally, but rather just awakened this strong. I don't think we can ever reach your level."
"Hmm, that might not necessarily be true," Ning said. Ning pulled out a set of rings, 3 in total that he had prepared before going to sleep last night.
"What's that?" Jung-Hee asked.
"Wear this," he said as he gave on to his little cousin. "You too." He handed the other one to his other cousin.
Hi-Ah curiously looked at the ring. Aside from being of very high-tier craftsmanship and having a nice-looking red jewel on it, she couldn't see what was so good about the ring. It wasn't even gold or silver from what she could see.
"Just promise me you'll wear it. It's a type of item for defense," he said. "I've already given grandmother something similar, and this is for you two. I will give uncle one when he wakes up."
"It's a defensive item? What does that mean?" Jung Hee asked.
"It will be easier to show," Ning said and took a plate from the table before throwing it in his direction.
Jung-Hee instinctively put up his hands to block the plate, and he heard it shatter. But he did not feel it.
He slowly opened his eyes to see a soft yellow-colored barrier around him that was protecting him. "What? How is this possible?" he asked. He had seen some magical items that could do various things, but they all needed the wearer to inject mana.
However, he was doing no such thing himself.
"That's not the only thing possible," Ning said. "Say 'status'."
"Status? Woah!" Jung-Hee moved backward when the transparent blue screen appeared in front of him. "What is this?"
"It's a little copy of what the Apostles see. It's just there for you to keep track of your own stats without having to use one of those machines. I have also put in a technique in there that if you can learn and use properly, you can acquire 100% of the mana you take from every mana stone you use."
"Depending on the grade of mana stone you can acquire, you will be able to improve your mana by a lot," he said. "But you have to remember that this is just your mana. Your physical capabilities will still have to rely on your daily exercises and various other physical activities you will do."
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"Will this really help though?" Hi-Ah asked.
"You will be able to tell after you try it out," Ning said. "Here, give this to your father too."
"Okay," Hi-Ah said and took the 3rd ring.
His cousin no longer bothered him and only stared at the status window, seeing his ranks in the same way it would be shown in the Department of Dungeon Defense. His Strength, Speed, and Mana were all C-ranks, and he was just a single rank increase away from entering the B-rank
Ning finally got to eat his breakfast in peace. Just then, the doorbell rang from outside, and Hi-Ah lost her focus on her ring. She turned to look towards the outside with a confused look on her face.
"Who could it be at this time?" she thought.
Ning spread his divine sense and saw who it was outside. "It's a Chinese man," he said. "Do you know anyone Chinese?"
"No? You are the only Chinese person I've talked to in ages," she said. "I'll go see who it is."
Hi-Ah went to the gate and opened it. When she saw who was on the other side, she couldn't help but be shocked at the person that stood outside.
The man said something in the Chinese language. She had no way of understanding Chinese, but for some reason, she did understand exactly what he meant. And even more surprisingly, she knew what to reply.
"Is Ning Ruogong here?" the man asked.
The man who seemed to be in his early 30s had long flowing hair, and pitch black eyes, and was wearing what she could only assume was a modern take on some traditional Chinese robes.
Hi-Ah looked at the man and without even having to second guess her thoughts, she knew who the man was.
Zhu Zentian, the Apostle of the Shadow's Edge guild from China.
She had only ever seen him on TV, so seeing him in person made her feel quite surprised.
"Is the hunter named Ning Ruogong here?" a man by her side translated the words to Korean, assuming she did not understand him.
Hi-Ah was way too caught up in her own shock so before she could even respond, Ning appeared behind her.
"I am Ning Ruogong, the one you seem to be looking for," Ning said as he stepped in front of his cousin. "How may I help you?"
923 Zhu Zentian
"So, you are the new SSS-ranked Hunter, huh?" the man said. "You're Chinese, right?"
"Yes, I am," Ning said. "Who might you be?"
The man's face scrunched up a bit at the question before bursting into a small fit of laughter. "Come on, stop joking. You know who I am," he said.
"Oh, you must be someone important then," Ning said and turned toward his cousin. "Who's he?"
"He's Zhu Zentian, an Apostle from a guild called Shadow's Edge. They're one of China's strongest guilds along with Blind Fury and Stull's Children," she quickly said.
"I see," he said and turned to look at the man. "So, how may I help you?"
"Did you really register as a hunter in Korea?" the man asked.
"Yes, I did," Ning said.
"Why?" the man asked.
"What do you mean why?" Ning asked.
"Why would you go to another country to register? Why not register in China?" the man asked.
"Uh, no reason. I just saw an opportunity and took it," Ning said. "You're still not saying what you're here for. Should I assume you have nothing else to say and go back inside?"
The man frowned. "The government sent me to bring you back so you can become a hunter in China. Dress up as soon as you can. You have a plane waiting for you at the airport," he said.
"I see," Ning said. "So, you're here to take me back? Feels weird that they would send someone strong like you as a messenger."
"I'm here to help you get away in case the Korean government is keeping you here through some nefarious methods," the man said. "Are you being kept against your will?"
"Oh no, I'm not. Thank you for asking though," Ning said.
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"Alright, then let's leave quickly. I have my guild to look after," the man said.
"Huh? Oh, I'm not leaving," Ning said. "I'm going to continue to stay in Korea."
"What? Why would you want to stay in this country and not return to your own?" the man asked.
"My own? Oh, haha, you seem to not have all the information," Ning said as he brought out his national ID for South Korea. "See this? I'm someone from South Korea now."
The man stared at it with a dumb look on his face as he couldn't read Korean on it, so the man beside him had to explain what it was quickly.
"You… you became a citizen of Korea?" the apostle asked.
"Yes, that's what it says. Sorry, I forgot you couldn't read Korean," Ning said.
"Why would you?" the man asked. He simply couldn't comprehend what Ning had done.
"Because I'm half Korean, and I have family here," Ning said.
"But your name is Chinese," the man said.
"I was Chinese, but then I changed to Korean," Ning said.
The man looked at him with eyes that could not believe what he was saying. "You traitor. You betrayed your own country and joined these damn Koreans," he said with a visible rage on his face.
Hi-Ah's face turned sour when she heard it. She could understand what the man was saying, so hearing her nation being treated as a worse one didn't feel good.
Ning only smiled at the man. "So in this situation where the world could be overrun by monsters any day and you could lose everyone in a matter of hours, you still care about countries and nationalities?" he asked.
"Who said the world can be destroyed that easily?" the man asked. "As long as I and the other apostles are here, we will never lose to any damn monsters. I can promise that on my god, Hrestill's name."
"Well, good for you then. Since it seems like you have nothing else to do, goodbye," Ning said and turned around. He beckoned his cousin to go in, so she started walking in.
Ning also went behind her, but before he could do so, Zhu Zentian's hand landed on his shoulders.
"I came here to take you back. I will do so whether you want to or not. Let's go," he said. Suddenly, the shadow underneath Ning and him expanded until they touched each other.
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At the same time, the shadow became a portal through which both he and Ning started falling through.
"Cousin!" Hi-Ah shouted the moment she saw what was happening after turning around, but by that time, both Ning and the man were gone through the shadow.
The two of them immediately reappeared outside of the shadow in the opposite direction, feet first.
Zhu Zentian was used to this technique, so he quickly flipped and landed on his feet.
"Let me take you to—"
"Cousin, are you okay?" Hi-Ah quickly came up to Ning but stopped when she saw his smile.
Ning turned around to look at the man's shocked face.
"What… what happened? Why are we not in China?" he asked. They were back where they had just left.
"If you want to go back to China, then go. But don't expect me to come along with you," Ning said as he walked close to him
Zhu Zentian couldn't help but feel a little scared when he realized that Ning might have done something to him to make it so that his skill didn't work.
"What did you do?" he asked.
Ning placed a hand on the man's shoulder. "I won't be as lenient the next time you try to pull something like this. Leave."
Suddenly, the space twisted around the man as he was teleported away. Ning sent him back to the place they had just come from.
The other man who was standing there quickly bowed and ran away in his car.
"Let's go back inside," Ning said.
Hi-Ah was surprised, but that didn't feel unusual anymore. They went back inside the house, and just as they returned to the kitchen, Jung-Hee came up to his sister.
"Sister, look at this!" he quickly showed the lock screen of his sister's phone. There was a notification on it that had surprised him a little bit too much.
"You've got a message from the White Devil guild."
924 Some Questions
"The White Devil guild requests that you meet them today by 11 am. Can you do it?" Hi-Ah asked Ning.
"What's the time now? 9?" Ning asked.
"Yeah, a little past 9," she said.
"Ok then, I can do it," Ning said.
"Brother, should I leave my job? Can you get me into the White Devil guild?" Jung-Hee asked.
"No," Ning said. "I'm not helping you anymore. You will grow reliant too much. You'll have to do it all on your own. Work hard like everyone else."
"Come on, just a little help," Jung-Hee said.
"Nope, no help," Ning said. He turned towards Hi-Ah. "You should go back to work too. Does the government assign you some task or do you just sign up for it?"
"They set up a schedule at the end of each day," she said.
"You didn't miss out on anything yesterday, right?" he asked.
"No, I had taken a day off knowing that I would have to rank up. I will start today again," she said.
"Good," he said. "Also buy some vehicle. Since grandma is alright now, you don't have to worry about money anymore."
"Ah, you're right," Jung-Hee said. "Sis, can we buy that bike I've been telling you about? It's awesome, and I think it's going to go on sale very soon."
"If we're getting anything, we're getting a car first. If we buy a bike and you take it, that's the same as being without any vehicle again. If you want a bike, reach Rank B and gather some money. You will buy a bike in almost no time," Hi-Ah said.
"Aw," the young man got sad.
"Well, aside from a vehicle, you should look into moving houses as well. Unless you have an emotional attachment to this house," Ning said.
"I would like to keep this house. He and I grew up in this house, and it's been in our family for generations, so it feels wrong to just leave it," she said.
"Okay, then you should just get a place closer to the city," Ning said. "That way you don't have to commute such a long distance every day."
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"Later," Hi-Ah said. "With grandma healed, I will have more than just that to think about."
"Alright, I'll leave you up to it then," Ning said. "Where's white?"
"You mean that blonde dude? I think he's still watching TV," Jung-Hee said.
"TV?" Ning sent his divine senses to the TV room and saw White watching the TV intently. He was watching some documentary on tigers from what Ning could see.
"Do you plan on leaving today or not? Will you watch TV all day?" Ning asked.
"Oh, no master. I will leave. I want to go out and check the rest of the world," he said.
"What about you?" Ning asked Saphandra, who had been watching the TV as well.
"You won't take us to other places to see, right? Then I will go with him too," she said.
"Good, go and do what you want. Just don't get into trouble like yesterday," Ning said. "I will be leaving soon too."
After a while, Ning changed his clothes and went over to the building for the White Devil guild. He walked in and asked to meet their guild leader.
The vice leader was already in the lobby, so he quickly came up to Ningg and brought him to Kim Min-Soo.
The girl was waiting for him in her office at the top of the building once more.
"You're finally here," she said the moment she saw him walk in.
"Yes, I hear you called me. You must've decided on my contract details then," he said.
"Not yet, there are still a few things I'm confused about that I wanted to clear up with you before our team forms any sort of contract," she said. "I hope you can answer some of our questions."
"Uh… sure, go ahead," Ning said.
"First thing, your name is Chinese, but you are a Korean hunter?" she asked.
"That's how it came to be. I'm Half-Korean by the way, in case you didn't know," he said.
"Even then, you were a Chinese citizen before this right? We have a record that says that you only recently become a Korean citizen," she said.
"You looked me up, huh? Yes, you're right, I only recently became a Korean citizen," Ning said. "You aren't going to ask why I became a traitor or something, right? Zhu Zentian asked the same thing just a few hours ago."
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Kim Min-Soo's eyes narrowed. "Zhu Zentian? He came to meet you?" she asked with a concerned look.
"Yeah, but he's back now. I hope you won't be as patriotic as him. You'll find that I simply do not care about the country I'm from," he said.
The girl kept a serious face. "I'll keep that in mind," she said. She didn't ask the question about why he left China for Korea and instead moved on to another question.
"Are you from Chengdu?" she asked.
"Hmm? You're quite fast. How did you find out?" he asked.
"So it's true," the girl said with a bit of shock.
"That is true," Ning said. "I am from Chengdu. But you must tell me how you found out."
"Image recognition software," she said. "We had the Korean government look you up."
Ning's eyes narrowed as a small smile appeared on his face. "The Korean government has access to China's database?" he asked.
The girl said nothing. "Anyway, we learned about you from there. I hope you aren't angry about us doing a background check on you," she said.
"No, no, It's alright. It's not like you can do anything just because you have knowledge of my past," Ning said. "So, now that you looked at my past, is there anything that you want an answer for?"
"Yes," the girl said. "Our information might be incorrect— no, it is incorrect. I was hoping to learn why there is wrong information in the database about you?"
"Which information might that be?" Ning asked.
The girl frowned. She could tell that Ning was being purposefully oblivious to her question. Still, she decided to humor him and asked the question that had been bothering her ever since she read him information this morning.
"Why does the government think you died in a zoo accident?" she asked.
Ning's smile broadened. "I died, of course. That's why the government has that information. I can't believe you would ask such a simple question," he said.
The girl was ticked off slightly by Ning's words. "Why did you fake your death?" she asked, as she believed that to be the truth in this instance.
"I did not fake my death. I did die," Ning said. "But an all-powerful being wanted me alive, so I was reincarnated. And now I'm here."
Kim Min-Soo couldn't figure out which feelings to feel. On one hand, she felt that Ning was making fun of her by obviously lying, but on the other hand, the document stated his death as well as the fact that there was video proof from the zoo.
She could only believe one thing to be true in that instance then. Her voice got a little softer as she asked, "Did you come back to life because of your System?"
925 Seoul
Ning was the one surprised at this point. He hadn't expected the question to come out of this girl's mouth.
"How do you know about my System?" he asked.
The girl's eyes went wide. "Ah, so you do have it," she said.
"Tsk, you weren't even sure? And here I assumed your god must've told you," Ning said. He was a little annoyed that she had taken away the confirmation so easily, but the fact that she knew about the system alone told him that he hadn't really lost anything there.
Even without confirmation, she and her god would've considered the option at least, and they would be very certain, as anyone gaining so many powers without a system would be near impossible, especially in a world that knew nothing about mana or Qi or spiritual energy.
"May I ask what this system allows you to do?" the girl asked.
"No," Ning said. "Do you have anything else to ask, or can I leave?"
"What? No, I don't have any more questions, but you can't leave," Kim Min-Soo said. "The director of Dungeon Defense wants to meet you, and he apparently has some work for us."
"The director? Hmm, alright," Ning said.
"Let's go then," the girl said. "Can you teleport us to Seoul?"
Ning was about to say yes, but instead, he shook his head. "I've never been to Seoul, and I can't go to a place I don't know about," he said. He wanted to make it seem like his teleportation powers had limitations, which there were if he was using the space manipulation property of his tamed spirit, Void.
His intention was to make it seem like his system wasn't as good, and as such Kim Min-Soo's god wouldn't realize that he was dealing with the energy system.
"No? No problem. I've already prepared our travel means," she said.
Ning nodded and walked out. He walked over to the elevator and pressed the button to open the door.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Calling the elevator. What are you doing?" He asked when he saw her by the stairs. "You are going to take the stairs?"
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"Yes," she said. "We're going to the roof."
"The roof?"
Ning arrived at the room and heard the loud noise of spinning motors. He looked at the helicopter that was kept on the helipad and was surprised.
"Wow, imagine having a Helicopter in your own building. You guys are really rich," Ning said as he walked towards the thing.
"What?" Kim Min-Soo shouted through the ferocious wind that made it impossible to hear anything that was being spoken.
Ning laughed slightly and shook his head before getting onto the helicopter. He put on the belts and headphones as they took off and flew toward Seoul.
"We will reach Seoul in an hour," the girl said through the mic. Ning only nodded toward her in understanding.
Ning looked down at the land far below him and chuckled a little as he wondered how happy Saphandra would be if she could have seen this.
The ride was smooth and as Min-Soo had said, it only took an hour for them to reach. They landed on an empty area and they disembarked.
Ning looked at the place where they had come and saw other helicopters close by. "You said the others are called too?" he asked.
"All the SSS-ranked people are called," She said.
Ning nodded and walked up to the building that looked more like a gymnasium than anything. They both entered the building and heard shouts from inside as they saw two people fighting.
A man stayed inside a barrier and shot out magic attacks left and right, trying to hit another man, but he was too fast to be hit.
The magic caster was a middle-aged man with long black hair that was tied in a bun and thick facial hair. He wore a purple suit and pants and looked quite professional.
On the other hand, the man that was zipping around was a younger man, maybe in his mid-20s, who wore a tracksuit and had buzz-cut hair.
"They're already here," Kim Min-Soo said.
Ning looked to his left and up, and saw a man and woman calmly looking down at the fight below them.
The man wore a black suit and red tie and looked way too average to have a memorable face.
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The woman on the other hand wore a white dress with transparent white sleeves and had crystals glittering all over her clothes.
The common-looking man turned his head and looked toward them. His eyes widened a bit and a smile formed on his face. "Look who it is, the man of the hour," the man said.
He jumped from the 2nd floor and gracefully landed in front of Ning. "You must be Ning Ruogong, the new and only SSS-ranked hunter in the world."
Ning grabbed the hand that was put in front of him and shook it. "Nice to meet you, and who might you be?" he asked.
The man was taken aback, but he wasn't offended. Instead, he smiled and answered. "I am Lee Kwon-Yu, leader of the Frost Empire guild. Nice to meet you too."
Ning moved his eyes from him and to the rest of the people.
"Ah, you must not know them either. Let me introduce you," he said. "Guys, stop fighting, we have someone here you need to meet."
The two fighters stopped fighting and turned towards Ning.
"This is Ning Ruogong, the one we've been waiting for," he said.
He pointed to the fast-moving young man in a tracksuit. "That is Park Hyung-Jye, of the Neo Warriors guild." He then pointed to the old man in the barrier. "This old man is Bi Sang-Ook of the Young Korean guild. Don't ask why he named his guild 'young' while being old."
"And that is… huh? Where did she go?" the man looked confused.
The woman appeared from behind him and took Ning's hands to shake them. "I am Ja Soo-Yun from the Silver Star guild. I hope you will consider joining my guild," she said with a wide smile on her face.
Ning smiled back at her too. "I definitely would've," he said. "But since you tried to charm me, I don't think I'll consider it anymore."
The girl's face froze a bit before going back to the smile. "Whatever do you mean? Am I so beautiful that you mistook it for some charm?" she asked.
"You've already been figured out, Soo-Yun. You should forget about charming him," Min-Soo said from the side.
"Tsk, you must've told him about our powers beforehand," she said with an annoyed face.
Kim Min-Soo said nothing. She was just surprised that Ning had been able to recognize charming skills being used on him, and had somehow negated the effects.
'How did he negate charming skills from someone that has SSS-ranked mana?' she wondered.
Lee Kwon-Yu looked rather surprised but in a happy way. He smiled at Ning and turned to look at the two that had started going at each other again.
"If I were to ask you to fight the two of them one-on-one, could you beat them?" he asked.
926 Sung Han-Sum
"Oi Lee! What are you saying?" the young man asked after coming next to him. His speed was fast enough that the rest of them had to force their eyes to keep up with his movement.
Park Hyung-Jye looked at Ning. "Don't scare the young kid. He's only just become a hunter," he said. "There's no way he can do anything to any of us. We've had way too much experience."
"Haha, I was just asking," the generic-looking man said. "Do you want to try out and see how you fare against them?"
"Not really," Ning said. "I don't really have any intention of fighting right now. Anyway, I heard that the director called us. Where is he?"
"Who knows where the old man is," Lee said. "It will certainly take him some time to come. You should try and compare yourself with him. As far as I know, you have a SSS rank on speed as well, right?"
"I do," Ning said. "Is your expertise in just speed as well?"
"Yes," Lee answered before Park Hyung-Jye could see himself. "He is one of the fastest people in the world. The fastest in South Korea at least."
"What the hell? You just want to see how strong he is. If that's the case then why don't you fight either? If I recall correctly, he has an SSS rank in strength as well," Park said.
"Well, I could. But I just—"
The doors to the room opened and an older man, with rough hair that was streaked with white, walked in. He wore a bluish-black suit and had a body that could only belong to people that were into doing a lot of exercise and fitness routines.
"Are you all gathered already?" the man asked as he walked into the hall.
"Director!" every one that was gathered respectfully greeted him.
The director nodded and stopped right next to Ning. "You must be the new hunter. I am Sung Han-Sum, the director of the Department of Dungeon Defense. Nice to meet you," he said.
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Ning shook his hand. "The pleasure is all mine, director," he said.
"I didn't expect you to be so young. I was sure the information said you were 25," the director said.
"I am," Ning said. "My young looks… well, let's just call it a blessing."
"Why did you call all of us here, director? Was there an emergency?" Bak asked as he lowered his barrier and walked up front.
"No, not so much an emergency, I simply wanted to request a few things from all of you," he said.
"What is it?" they asked.
"You guys must be aware of the S-ranked dungeon that lies by the Jongmyo Shrine, right?" he asked.
"Isn't that the one you refuse to sell?" Lee asked.
"Not refuse to. Because of the nature of its location and the fact that it lies in a shrine makes it impossible for Dungeon Defense to just outright sell it," the director said.
"So, what about it?" Bak asked.
"For the last year, we have been slowly bleeding S-ranked hunters that have either been taken away by your guilds or the foreign guilds that keep scouting them. As a result, we've been lacking the manpower to quickly clear them," he said.
All 5 of the Apostles lost their bored look and got serious.
"Director has the S-ranked dungeon…" Kim Min-Soo asked.
"Yes," the director said looking at everyone as he affirmed their thoughts. "The S-ranked dungeon near the Jongmyo shrine has indeed become an SS-ranked dungeon."
The 5 Apostles looked concerned.
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"You should have told us if you couldn't clear it in time," the woman from the Silver Star guild said. "We could've lent you some aid."
Ning looked a little confused. He didn't understand what the problem really was here.
"I called you all here to come up with a solution for this predicament," the director said.
The 5 Apostles remained quiet, thinking as to what they could do. Ning was even more confused by this behavior.
"What's the problem here exactly?" he asked.
"The dungeon has evolved into SS-ranked. Beasts inside of it will now be SS-ranked and the boss will even be SSS-ranked. The people who can possible clear it stand in this room alone," Lee said. "Since there are so few of us, we won't be able to continuously clear the dungeon enough for it stabilizes and not turn into an SSS-ranked dungeon. If that happens, we might as well kill ourselves."
"No, I understand that part," Ning said. "I realize how hard an SS-ranked dungeon can be for the hunters. What I'm confused about is why are we even trying to come up with a solution since the solution is obvious."
"It's not that we don't know of a solution, but rather that the solution has to be the last thing we possibly do. After all, if we get rid of the dungeon, we lose a massive source of money, ores, and mana cores for the country," Bak said.
"Here's what we should do, Director," the young man in the tracksuit spoke. "We will go into that dungeon and bring out the SS-ranked mana cores. With that, we should be able to grow new SS-ranked hunters soon enough. That way, they will be able to help us in the dungeon too."
"Yes, we should do that," the rest of them agreed as well.
Ning sighed. His plan to just get rid of the dungeon was not accepted. But how could they? Doing so would be crippling the country in their eyes.
They would rather make this risky play with lives at stake than live a life with no risk at all.
'There's nothing I can do then,' he thought.
"Can the 5 of you work with each other?" the director asked the Apostles.
"We've worked on multiple occasions. We should be able to fight with each other easily," Lee said. "Although, it might be hard if we were to add this young brother into our group. Do you mind asking him and Hyung-Jye to have a mock battle to see how he does?"
927 Mock Battle
"What do you say, young man? Do you want to have a mock battle?" the director asked after listening to Lee. "You don't have to agree, but I would appreciate it if you did. I will have to make the decision on whether or not to send you to the dungeon and it will honestly make it easier for me."
Ning sighed. "It's okay. I can fight," he said. "But would it be alright if I fight him instead?"
Lee looked surprised at Ning picking him. "Huh? Why me?" he asked.
"Since you kept suggesting it, I think it would be better if we fought. It doesn't look like brother Park is that excited about our fight, so we should fight instead," Ning said as he gave a smug smile towards Lee.
Park started laughing after hearing that and kept saying that Lee was getting called out by a newbie. Lee looked uncomfortable and tried to find a way out of his current situation.
"I'm sorry, you can't fight me. My strength is too high and you might get hurt," the man said.
"Oh, don't worry brother Lee, it's a mock battle anyway. The chances of us getting hurt is non-existent, right? Besides, we can have brother Bak here stop us with his magic if we get too into it," Ning said. "You will help us at least with that, right?"
"Of course," the middle-aged man named Bak said. "Go on, Lee. You have nothing to worry about."
Lee was starting to silently get angry as he had been pulled into a situation he hadn't expected to get into.
"Fine, fine," he said as he resigned to fate. "But don't go crying if I end up hurting you by mistake. As I said, I find it hard to control my strength."
"It's alright, brother Lee. I'm sure you will subconsciously keep it in mind not to hurt me even by accident," Ning said as he slowly walked into the center of the gymnasium.
"I will need you to have a mock battle with young Ning after this. Since his Speed is said to be rather good, I want to see just how good it is when compared to an Apostle," the director said.
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"Sure thing, director," Park said. He was more than happy to fight Ning so long as it was Lee who had to go at it first.
Ning stood in front of Lee with his hands behind his back and waited for the man to start.
"You better get in a stance, we will be starting," Lee said.
"I'm already in stance," Ning said while remaining straight with his hands behind his back.
"That's no stance. That's full of openings," the man said.
"Then I dare you to make use of the openings," Ning said.
"Arrogance huh? That's not a bad feature to have as a hunter. Unfortunately, that is also the downfall of many," Lee said.
"So, when are we going to fight exactly?" Ning asked. "You just keep stalling."
"Hmph, here I come then."
Lee dashed forward with a relatively swift movement as he arrived in front of Ning. He punched Ning, targeting his chest.
Ning could feel the force behind the attack, and while Lee was holding back, this was certainly enough to fracture the ribs of any normal SSS-ranked fighters. In fact, with the current force, Lee could break his own ribs as well.
Still, Ning stood there, remaining nonchalant. He brought his left hand from behind him which was already turned into a fist and punched Lee's fist with his own. The force behind his punch was barely stronger than Lee's, so when the first exchange was done, Ning appeared to have won by a hair's margin.
Once the exchange was done, Ning's hand went back behind his back as he waited for Lee to attack again.
Lee's ego had been hurt. He had always thought of himself as one of the strongest people in the entire world in terms of strength. His physical capabilities were, in some parts, a reason why South Korea was considered to be the country that was doing the best in the apocalypse.
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Certainly, the other countries might have more Apostles and hunters, but he doubted he could lose against anyone in a one-on-one fight.
So, when Ning won while he was holding back and was smug about it, Lee started getting angry.
Now that he knew Ning was strong, he was going to hold back even less. He dashed forward again and punched once more. This time, the strength was about a third more than the last time.
Just as he was about to land, Ning's hands came from behind him and stopped him. He even took a step back from the force.
'How?' Lee couldn't understand. It wasn't just that Ning had barely better strength than him that surprised him. It was the fact that Ning was pulling out so much strength from a stance and attack posture that gave him no advantage.
Lee started worrying. 'Is he stronger than me?'
He held back no longer and went at Ning with his full strength. The other 5 in the room recognized that as well as they heard the thump beneath his feet.
"Lee, stop!" The director shouted.
Kim Min-Soo started her summoning process, Bak and Soo-Yun started casting skills to stop Lee, and Park moved so that he could divert Lee's attack.
However, none of them were fast enough, and from the looks of it, neither was Ning.
Lee's punch landed on Ning's chest as the sound of the clash sent the air rumbling with reverberance. Everyone was forced to close their ears as it sounded like a lightning bolt had struck right next to them.
A moment later, however, there was nothing but silence in the room.
All eyes fell on the blood on the ground, and the crumbled-up Lee who cried in a fetal position because his hands had been mangled.
Ning looked at the man that groveled in pain beneath him and said, "My bad, I blocked too hard."
928 Compensation
The 4 Apostles and the director looked stunned as they watched the bleeding hand of the one that was supposed to be the victor of this little mock battle.
He was the one that was supposed to test the newcomer, not be the one that tried his hardest and still failed. How could that make sense?
As the group kept staring, Lee looked up with vicious anger in his eyes. "I will kill you!" he shouted at Ning.
Ning looked at him and smirked. "You already tried," he said and put on a mocking smile as he said, "and you failed."
Lee thought of attacking again, but his broken arm hurt just too much to even move it for now.
"Bak, heal him or something," the director said as he was the first to be out of their startled state.
"I… I can't. My healing skill is atrocious. I can maybe only close up the wound at best," he said. "Maybe Soo-Yun can do better."
"I don't really have any healing capabilities," the girl in the glittering white dress said. "Wait, let me call someone from my guild. She's a great healer."
The girl pulled out a smartphone from what seemed to be an inventory slot that was given to all Apostles by their gods.
Before she could find the number to call, however, Ning spoke. "You guys don't have to worry. I'm a healer too," he said.
He reached towards Lee's crushed hand. Lee flinched and moved backward out of instinct, but Ning still reached it. Then, a yellow light glowed from his hands and at the next moment, Lee was healed.
Lee still felt the residual pain, at least he thought he felt it, but the hand was fully healed.
Kim Min-Soo looked at the healed hand with a look of shock that could not make head or tail of what had just happened.
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'How many different skills does this man have?' she thought. From manipulating rocks to teleporting, to rusting metals to now healing. These were more skills than one could possibly have.
And somehow, they were all of higher grades as well.
"You're fine, right?" Ning asked Lee who was on the ground. "I think that concludes our mock battle, does it not?"
He then turned towards the director. "Do I have to have a mock battle with him too, or can we just go and deal with this SS-ranked dungeon situation?" he asked.
"N-no, you don't have to prove anything anymore," the director said. "You have proven enough. Although, I hope you have some experience in clearing dungeons."
"Don't worry, director," Kim Min-Soo said. "He's already solo cleared an S-ranked dungeon of ours yesterday. At the very least, he has experience in that."
"Good! That's good to hear," the director said. "Alright, since we've made sure that you all are ready and willing to do this. Let's go to the dungeon."
"Okay," Everyone except Lee replied and started walking. Lee was simply too shaken to say anything, but he also followed behind.
"Oh right, director. We didn't talk about compensation, did we?" Park said. "We can expect some good compensation, can't we?"
"We will divide whatever loot you can find inside the dungeon in 8 ways. I will be keeping 2, and you 6 will take the remaining. On top of that, we will give each of you 100 Million Won per dungeon run," the director said.
"Huh? Not bad," Bak said.
"I would love a little more though," Park said. "We are risking our lives after all."
"Why not split it in 7 ways instead of 8?" Soo-Yun asked.
"I'm fine with it," Kim Min-Soo said.
Lee simply didn't speak at all, and Ning had no opinions on it. It wasn't like he needed any of it anyway.
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"No, I cannot give any more than what I already have. That is what you will get. If you wish to get out of getting potential SS-ranked mana stones, then you can refuse the job," the director said.
"Tsk! Fine, fine. You don't have to get angry," Park said.
There was a van waiting for them which quickly took them on-site.
Ning walked out of the van by a narrow road. On one side was the wall that protected the Dongmyo shrine's dungeon, and on the other were the broken houses that had been abandoned post-dungeon break.
Ning could only wonder how many people had to die before one of these 5 came and saved them.
'So many deaths that could've just been prevented had the constellations bothered even a little bit,' Ning thought. With such thoughts in mind, he couldn't help but get angry.
"Let's go inside," the director said, taking them through the gate as many other hunters and guards that were gathered there looked at the 6 of them in awe.
The 5 Apostles were rarely seen together, so it was no surprise that they would be shocked to see them all gathered in one location.
Many were also confused as to who Ning might be to walk along with the Apostles and the director, but a little bit of thought quickly told them who he most likely was.
Ning looked around at the mostly destroyed shrine and pathway. Right next to one of those shrines was a glowing portal that gave off a different energy from any Ning had seen before.
'It's definitely a higher tier than the one before,' he thought to himself.
"The dungeon has been barred from entering the moment we were notified of its rank change. No hunter has gone in before this, so you will all be treading in some new place we have no idea about," the director said.
"Won't it help to know what kind of dungeon it was when it was Rank S?" Ning asked.
"No," Park said from the side. "The dungeons change every time they evolve. So each dungeon has a different location."
"Which is to say," Bak continued from where Park left off. "We're completely in the dark here and will have to tread every step carefully."
929 First Encounter
The 5 Apostles stood in front of the SS-ranked dungeon with their eyes wide and a trepidation in their hearts that they had not expected to feel before.
"What's wrong? You're not backing out now right?" the director asked.
"N-no," Soo-Yun said. "It's just… let me leave for a moment, I need to consult with my god if there is any help he can give me before I approach this."
"Me too," Bak said.
"I should probably do that too," Park said as well.
Soon, all 5 of them were gone with Ning and the director was left alone to wait for a while.
"So, young man. It seems we are alone," the director said.
"It seems so indeed," Ning said.
The director looked at him for a moment before asking. "Are you really 25? You look so young," he said.
"Haha, I get that a lot. People are usually surprised when I tell them my age. They never seem to be able to tell that I am much older than I appear to be," Ning said.
"By the way, you didn't just suddenly awaken as a hunter right? What were you doing before deciding to be a hunter?" the director asked.
"Oh, I was doing nothing really. Just going around the world visiting different places," Ning said. "I probably would've continued if I didn't realize I had some kin in South Korea. When I realized the situation here, I decided to become a hunter. Who would've thought I would become an SSS-ranked hunter."
The director got curious after listening to Ning's words. "You must've had some bountiful encounters during your travel," he said.
"Haha, you could say that," Ning said as his eyes slowly shifted toward his right. He could feel a presence there, watching him intently.
'Hah! So the Constellations actually came huh?' he thought. He didn't give his mind to them as long as they weren't interrupting him.
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He talked with the director for a while longer before the Apostles finally decided to show their face again.
"I am going in," Bak said as soon as he returned.
"I have my god's blessing," Lee said.
The others said similar things to denote that they were also allowed to enter. Each time they said that the person would sneakily look at Ning with a weird look on their face.
Perhaps the only person without such a weird look was Kim Min-Soo, and that was only because she was used to Ning's existence.
As for the rest, they were only just learning about something called 'System'.
"If you are all ready, then you can enter," the director said.
Everyone nodded and one by one they entered the dungeon.
As soon as they appeared, they landed on some sort of swamp with their legs sinking nearly halfway deep.
"Ewww! I've got mud all over my dress," Soo-Yun said as she tried to pull up her white dress, but it was already brown from the mud.
Kim Min-Soo looked disgusted as well. The men were disgusted as well, but the fear they felt at the new dungeon made them accept the situation relatively early.
Ning looked around the swamp. There was a white haze around them that was limiting their visibility by a lot.
Still, Ning could see better than the others. Once he released his spiritual sense, he could see everything.
The swamp ran forever. In fact, the entire dungeon was nothing but a swamp. There were trees, most of which were rotting, as well as aquatic plants that grew in the swamp.
Most pathways were either muddy or mossy, making the terrain incredibly hard to walk on. On top of that, there were many monsters lurking around the trees, or underneath the water, just a few paces away from them, hiding behind the white haze.
Ning smiled when he realized this was going to be fun.
Bak created a barrier around himself as he slowly floated above the swamp, sitting inside the barrier.
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Soo-Yun used some sort of skill and made herself light as a feather and floated on top of the water.
Lee and Park had nothing they could really do to leave the swamp, so they just remained in it.
Kim, however, did and so she used her own skill. Dark energy flowed down her palms as they entered the water below her. The water turned dark as an enormous hand appeared from beneath her, holding her up.
"Hmm? An Orc skeleton?" Lee asked.
The bone Orc took Kim and placed her on its shoulder so that she was no longer in the water.
Ning looked at her curiously, wondering if she had summoned the skeleton or just brought it out from someplace where she was keeping it.
"Let's move," Bak said. "But be careful. Who knows what this wretched place has for us."
The others nodded and walked through the swamp.
Barely a few meters away, Soo-Yun shouted. "Head's up. There's a monster in the mud in front of us," she said.
"Move!" Park said as he punched in front of him. His punch brought forth an unimaginable amount of wind with it that it felt physically impossible to have come without any sort of magical spell.
The gloomy haze in the air moved away for a moment, giving them all a clearer view of the swamp ahead of them.
At the same time, the wind pushed the water as well as the mud aside, showing scales of something beneath the mud.
Suddenly, the beast woke up, large as a train and it loomed over the 6. Ning looked at the beast with a look that seemed to be thinking about something he had forgotten long ago.
"Dragonborn Centipede…" he said softly as the information about the beasts in his mind gave him the answer he desired.
The beast in front of them was a giant, towering centipede, the head of which lay beyond the haze. Its body was clad in blue dragon scales, with talons instead of arms.
If not for the centipede-like head or the many limbs, this beast would be easily mistaken for a dragon.
And this was only the first encounter in the SS-ranked dungeon.
930 Dragonborn Centipede
"What the hell is that?" Lee looked up in half-horror, and half-disgust. He had never seen something like this.
"Is that… a centipede? What are those arms?" Kim couldn't help but ask.
"How are you guys seeing anything? This goddamn haze won't let me see much," Park said.
"Are those… dragon scales? Those look just like the thing that damn Aaron grows when he fights, doesn't it?" Bak asked while remaining inside of his barrier.
"Those are indeed Dragon scales," Ning said. "That's a Dragonborn Centipede, which is only capable of appearing in places where a dragon has bled. Be careful now, this is a Dragon's dungeon."
While the others looked scared and confused, Ning remembered back to the fond memory of being around the dragon that called him a 'worm'. He wondered if this dragon was anything like her.
Since they were both dragons that used mana, they had to be at least similar in some ways.
"How the hell do you know that?" Lee asked from the side.
"I can tell you either about the centipede or about how I have the knowledge I do. Choose one," Ning said.
The 5 Apostles grumbled, and some muttered a few words, one of which was 'system'.
"Tell us about the centipede," Soo-Yun said while floating atop the water and looking at the centipede.
"Dragons never stop growing," Ning said. "They are in some ways immortal creatures, and as such as long as they are alive, they continue getting bigger. The same is true for any creature that has dragon blood in it."
"Only difference is, the creature will only have a limited lifespan and will have no control over its own size, which dragons can freely manipulate."
The Apostles looked confused.
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"What the hell does that have to do with the current situation?" Kim asked with a bit of anger in her voice.
"What I'm trying to say is, a dragon-blooded beast's strength can be judged by its size," Ning said. "Judging as such, the centipede is a high SS-ranked beast for certain. You will have to be ready for it."
The people suddenly grew tense and looked at the beast that rose high in the air.
"Don't move just yet," Ning said. "It lacks proper vision, and can only identify moving objects. Since we are mostly motionless at the moment, it can't see us. But, the moment we start moving, it will attack."
"Then let's attack it," Lee said.
"We should, but there is something else you need to know, which thinking about now, I should have led with this information," Ning said.
"What information?" Soo-Yun asked.
"That centipede, it's poisonous. With dragon blood in it, its poison generation is so high that it can't keep it contained. More than likely, you will find its entire face clad in poison," Ning said.
"I see," Bak said. "Then let me begin with my magic."
"AND… " Ning continued, stopping Bak in his tracks. "Since the beast continues to secrete poison even while sleeping, the place it stays in is usually poisonous as well."
The Apostles grew tense as they looked below them at the swamp that was there from the moment they had arrived.
"It's poisonous?" they asked.
"Yes," Ning said. "And you might want to know that it is not just the water in the swamp that is poisonous, but also the water that evaporates from it and condenses in the air."
"What are you…" The others got suspicious of his line of information.
"It's a slow-acting poison though, and it won't affect you if you have either a strong body or a dense amount of mana in your body."
"However, if you do have a body that is neither strong nor full of mana, you will start seeing the symptoms," Ning said. "Your body will itch, your scalp will tingle, and… " he turned towards Park. "Your vision will get cloudier by the second, making you think this haze is only growing thicker by the second."
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The 4 Apostles suddenly moved their eyes to look at Park as well whose eyes moved around, but due to how cloudy it looked for him, he could barely see anything.
"No way…" Park said. "Am I… going blind?"
The others waited for Ning to answer.
"Not really," Ning said. "Just have someone use a cleansing spell on you. As long as it is a high-tier spell, or used multiple times, the poison will be purged from your body."
"In fact, let me do it right now," Ning said and moved his arms. The moment his arm moved, the centipede did too. It saw the motion and came to attack.
However, Ning didn't dodge or do anything. A spell circle grew in front of his arm as a radiant yellow light fell on Park, healing him instantly.
The centipede's massive, purple-colored face showed itself as it barely its fangs at Ning.
The beast crashed onto Ning, sending shockwaves through the water and air, pushing all but Bak, who was inside a barrier, away.
The skeleton orc fell, but it was large enough that Kim didn't fall onto the water. Soo-Yun simply floated behind, and Lee's body was strong enough to fight off the little poison in him for now.
Bak managed to catch Park in another barrier before he was pushed away too far.
They all quickly turned to look at Ning to see his situation. Lee was even hoping to see him hurt.
However, they saw a person who stopped the massive beast with a single arm.
"I've wasted too much time, explaining about a single beast, haven't I?" Ning asked. "My apologies. I usually can't keep track of time as well without help from someone else."
He turned around towards the centipede and used some sort of power. As the group watched, the centipede grew bigger and bigger, until it was so big that it died and then started rotting.
The centipede's body fell onto the ground, with its mana stone being the only thing that remained.
Ning picked up the stone and looked ahead. A smile formed on his face.
"The Dragon is waiting for us."
The Apostles spent no time preparing to the best they could. Lee brought out some gauntlets that he wore, Park brought out some daggers that did not reflect anything.
Bak and Soo-Yun brought out staff of their own. Bak's staff was a long, straight stick with a giant, circular crystal at the end. Soo-Yun's staff was an unusually cut gem that seemed to be clutched from some tendrils that grow out of a long crooked stick.
Kim Min-Soo was the only one that did not bring anything except for a mask that she seemed to have in her inventory.
When asked why she didn't take out anything, she said that she already had. If she was in danger, only then would her protection show its face.
Ning walked forward while the rest of them felt worried about doing so. The water was poison, the air was poison, and there was a freaking dragon waiting for them at the end of the journey.
That was simply walking onto the jaws of death itself.
Ning looked back at the people that weren't moving at all. "Don't be afraid now. You have your items, don't you? we need to keep moving," he said.
"But… the poison," Park said.
Ning shrugged. "Don't ask me. You're the ones who didn't plan ahead and are now poisoned," he said. "Don't you people have some healers in your guild?"
"We do… but this is not a place we can just bring them. With our own safety at risk, it would be reckless of us to bring anyone else," Soo-Yun said softly.
"And none of you have healing spells?" Ning asked.
"I do, but it's not of a very high grade. It can only heal minor wounds," Soo-Yun said.
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"Sigh, just keep moving. I will heal you if you get too wounded or poisoned," Ning said and started walking. With no other choice, the rest of them started following him as well.
After just a minute of walking, another beast arrived. Although, Ning couldn't tell if he should call it a beast or not.
What appeared was a rotting tree with vines around it swinging like arms. Was this a plant or an animal? Or was that distinction itself useless when dealing with things that were not normal?
"You guys want to try fighting that?" Ning asked.
"What is this thing?" Bak asked.
"Uhh… it's a Swamp tree monster. No proper names as there are way too many variations of it to give them all names. It's just a tree that has gained some consciousness and can move thanks to mana," he said.
"What can it do?" Kim asked.
"Are the Apostles really that useless that they want the answers to everything?" Ning asked. He wanted to see what they could all do, so he wasn't going to answer everything.
"Fine, let me go at it," Park said. He prepared for a second before moving. He blitzed his way through the swamp, arriving next to the beast. There was a dagger in his hand which he used to cut the beast.
Ning saw that Park's body was enforced with mana to make sure that his body didn't break under his own speed.
The dagger attacks left some marks on the monster and while they weren't powerful, soon enough the number of attacks stacked up to an incredible amount, and the monster fell to the ground.
Ning moved his hands and quickly healed Park who was once again getting poisoned by the poison fog.
"Thanks," he said while being a little out of breath. "I didn't expect this to take so much out of me."
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"Yeah, it takes quite a bit out of you. Especially since you were breathing in the poison fog," Ning said.
"Shit, I don't know how we would be able to handle such a dungeon if you didn't come," Park said. "Thanks to you being here, at least I'm not useless."
"Alright, grab that mana stone and we can start moving," Ning said.
After a while, they met another beast. This time, it was a giant snake that seemed to have dragon scales too.
This time around, Lee decided to fight. He needed to get back his honor as well as his own sense of self-worth. If he continued feeling useless, he would never actually be able to be useful.
The snake was strong, but Lee still managed to defeat it. If it were just physical strength, Lee would have certainly lost, but thanks to him being able to use mana to bypass some of the snake's defense, he won.
However, even if he did win, it became a little hard for the group just to dig out the mana core from the snake as the snake's skin was quite tough.
Bak used some sort of magic to create an illusory sword that cut the snake multiple times, finally getting access to the mana core inside.
Next up, they came across a smaller beast. A far smaller beast.
There was a blue beast in front of them, sitting in the poisoned water. It was about the size of a young crocodile or maybe the size of a komodo dragon.
It was mostly blue except for some reddish tips. Its body seemed to be soft, as if slime, and had nothing to it that would make one think that it was related to a dragon.
However, the moment they even got closer, the beast moved. Its mouth opened and fired a massive amount of water toward the group.
Everyone panicked for a moment, thinking that the water was poisonous, but it was not. Still, the force at which water was being blasted at them was quite strong.
Bak created a barrier around all 6 of them, protecting even Ning from the blast of water. He simply waited for the water fountain to be over, which surprisingly went on for nearly 5 minutes.
Only after the blast was over, were they able to see the tired beast in front of them that seemed to have given its everything to attack them.
Now, the blue Axolotl was vulnerable, and would easily die to Bak.
The Axolotl was rather easy to defeat once you survived its initial attack. Without mana and a rather weak body, the Axolotl died to a single strike from Bak's magic attack.
After that, Bak pulled the mana stone from the beast's body toward him with magic.
"It was quite weak physically," he said amusingly. "Hopefully, we keep getting that monster."
"Well that's unfortunate," Ning said. "There is another centipede to fight. Who wants to try their hands at it this time around? Or should I fight it again?"
"I will," Kim said. "I have to earn my share of the mana stone anyway."
"Great!" Ning aid. "It's just in front of us."
Kim moved ahead a bit and stopped before turning around. "How do you know there is a centipede there?" she asked.
"I know where every beast is in this dungeon," Ning said. "I could tell you all right now, but there is no fun in that."
"We're not here to have fun. It's a life or death situation," Lee said.
"Well, you might not be, but I surely am," Ning said. "If it wasn't for fun, I would've cleared the dungeon already."
They all frowned when they heard that. Kim was the only one who saw the truth in those words and how frightening that made Ning. Given how fast Ning had cleared the S-rank dungeon to get that fruit, if he was taking his time with this dungeon, then it was because he did not worry about anything at all.
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To begin with, if he could easily defeat any SS-ranked beast with a single touch or easily purge any poison and toxin from himself, or know a vast amount of knowledge about every beast they came across, what was the point of worrying?
Kim sighed and turned around before going forward. As she did, a centipede did come out from the ground, looming over her with its height.
All of a sudden, dark energy poured out from her feet, turning the entire water black. From the black water came a bone spike that landed on the clear water.
Another such spike arrived and landed on another side. More and more spikes continued coming, totaling 8 in the end. Once all 8 bone spikes were out, they pushed on the ground, and out came a massive bone spider about half the size of the standing Centipede.
Ning got confused for a second. 'Spiders don't have bones though,' he thought as he stared at the thing that Kim had summoned. 'It looks like she has bone summons, so this must not be something that naturally exists. Did she just make it out of the exoskeleton of a spider?'
However, when looking at the spider, he couldn't see anything that looked like a spider. It in fact did look like what a spider's skeleton would look like if it did have a skeleton.
There was a hollow skull where the eyes went, ribs on its chest, and a vertebra that went all the way to the back. The legs were separated into multiple bones that worked together like normal bones would in a normal limb with bones.
The spider moved with incredible grace, laying bone webs on the ground before approaching the centipede.
The centipede moved to attack the thing that moved. It slammed against the spider, but the spider wasn't hurt as badly as one would've thought.
There were cracks around its body, but other than that, it could move around perfectly, with not a single problem. It laid its bone webs around the centipede, catching it in its web.
However, it wasn't strong enough to kill the beast, so out of the darkness below Kim came out two bone knights riding horses of bones.
They charged toward the centipede and started attacking it. To Ning's surprise, these knights were strong enough to cut through the dragonscales and kill the centipede.
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Ning stared at the bloody skeleton knights and some parts of their bodies didn't make sense from a biological perspective. They had bones that humans should not have.
'What's going on system?' he asked. 'What are her powers exactly?'
She is capable of creating beings in the image of monsters and beasts that she has scanned with one of her spells. She can then summon the beast made up of bone using the image she gathered.
The design of the monsters is mostly dependent on the knowledge of the summoner, so the reason for the weird-looking summons is just her lack of knowledge about a beast's bone structure or lack thereof.
"I see," Ning said softly to himself, finally understanding what was going on. "Do you think she has a number on how many she can make?"
There can be as many as she wants, but the restriction lies in the fact that she consumes mana every time she makes one. The stronger the beast, the more mana she uses, so while she can make many, there is a limit.
'Hmm, that's still quite good,' Ning thought.
After the centipede was lost and the mana stone was acquired, the group continued moving. Ning once again had to heal Park since he was being poisoned. Not only him, but the others were also starting to get affected too, so he quickly healed them as well.
The group of Apostles looked both surprised and confused at the fact that he was using the high-grade spell so many times. They wondered where he was getting all the mana from.
The next monster they came across was a blue-scaled lizard perched on a giant, rotting tree. Even with just a look, one could tell that the lizard was poisonous.
"Don't kill this one," Soo-Yun said. "I can charm it and have it fight for us. Just give me a few minutes."
Ning suddenly chuckled. "I'm afraid we don't have such free time," he said. Soo-Yun turned angrily to say that she deserved to fight as well when she saw that Ning was looking somewhere else.
Then they heard it, the flapping of massive wings. Even through the haze, the group could see it.
The silhouette of a Dragon
"Stay back," Ning said as he moved ahead. The Dragon was approaching and everyone else got scared, so they backed away.
The silhouette only got bigger and bigger until it arrived right in front of them and a single flap of its wing sent the haze away.
The blue dragon with massive wings landed on the swamp, sending the swamp water splashing everywhere.
Bak quickly created a barrier to protect everyone from the poison water as well as the Dragon. Somehow, Ning was the only one that wasn't inside the barrier, but he still remained untainted by the water.
The dragon crouched down. The Dragon was massive, bigger than anything Ning had ever seen. It was even bigger than Derel or that one draconic beast he had summoned back in Nulwurn.
The dragon was a typical mana dragon with webbed wings and two pairs of limbs. Its face alone was as big as the bone spider that Kim had previously summoned.
The blue-scaled dragon stared at them with eyes that surprisingly showed emotion.
"Can you speak?" Ning asked the dragon after seeing it looking at him curiously. The dragon's curiosity only increased when he heard Ning speak in a language that only it knew.
"How do you know the dragon tongue, tiny human?" it asked.
"Oh, you can speak?" Ning said with a surprised expression. He had been fully expecting the beast to not be able to communicate. After all, the intelligence of a beast was usually dependent on the fact of whether or not it had a soul.
However, if a dungeon beast had a soul, then either the beasts were getting replaced every time they died, or someone was manipulating souls to keep something alive even after it died.
Ning did not believe someone capable of manipulating the soul could exist in this world, so he went with the other option.
However, that too didn't make sense as to who could possibly find the same type of monster to swap each time. Did they have a stock anywhere? Why were the monsters with clear intelligence not fighting back?
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There were many questions, which had made the answer obvious previously. Just like in Genesis, the dungeon was created by someone and the same went for the monsters inside.
Every time something died, it would be replaced. However, beasts with intelligence couldn't be created, so the correct answer here was that Ning was missing some information to make sense of his current situation.
"Tell me, human. Who are you? Do you have any relation to a dragon?" the blue dragon asked.
"No, I don't," Ning said. The other 5 that were staying behind him were getting confused by the situation. Since they could not understand the language, they couldn't tell what they were talking about. Only that they were talking.
And that was even more confusing as no one had ever seen a dungeon beast that talked.
"I just know the dragon tongue," Ning said.
"Who taught it to you? I haven't heard of any dragon being close to the humans enough to teach them our tongue," the dragon said.
"Nobody," Ning said. "I learned it on my own. Tell me, how did you get here? Were you created here?"
"Hmph! You better show respect, tiny human. I can kill you at once if I feel like it," the dragon said. It then looked around the place. "I was not created. I do not know why I am here. I only remember waking from my slumber and finding myself in this place. I didn't know where I was and had this strange urge to kill anyone that came here. Do you have any information that can be helpful to me?"
"So, you did have a life before this?" Ning asked, ignoring the other questions for now.
The dragon got angry seeing Ning dodge the question. "No one dares disrespect a dragon," the Dragon said. "Answer me. Are you the one responsible for me being here"
"I am not," Ning said. "I am also not certain who is. Wait, I will see if I learn something."
Ning quickly asked the system, which quickly gave him an answer that surprised him.
"Well… in some ways, you can say that it just happened randomly. It is just natural that you are here," Ning said.
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Ning had learned something that bothered him, which he wanted to learn more about, but as of now, he didn't have the time to think about it. At least not inside the dungeon.
"Clarify, tiny human," the dragon said.
"Stop calling me tiny human. My name is Ning, use it. Also tell me, what's your name?" Ning asked.
"Sorlusarian Nortos," the dragon said with a puffed-up chest. "The youngest dragon of the Nortos family."
The dragon's eyes grew vicious. "Now, answer me," it said.
"What can I expect in return for answering you?" Ning asked.
"You dare demand something from me?" the Dragon cried. "Don't tempt my anger, or I will kill you."
"Kill me?" Ning chuckled. "Kill me if you can."
The dragon growled and opened its mouth to breathe into Ning. However, what came out of its mouth was just a gust of air, along with some dragon spit that couldn't even land on Ning.
Ning's eyes went wide. "Oh, you held back?" he asked.
The dragon's eyes narrowed. "Why aren't you afraid of me?" it asked.
"I have no reason to," Ning said.
The dragon's eyes narrowed for a bit before looking at Ning. "Fine," it said. "I will tell you what I know, and you tell me what you know."
Ning was surprised that the mighty proud dragon managed to calm itself down enough to compromise. 'Did it realize I was strong?' he wondered.
"Deal," Ning said. "Tell me what you think you should be doing. What new knowledge did you wake up in this place with?"
,m The dragon thought for a bit.
"I am the protector of this confined space and I will have to defeat anyone that comes in here, even if it means my own death."
"You will have to kill anyone?" Ning asked with a weird look on his face. "That's not something you thought of on your own, right?"
"No," the dragon said. "I have those thoughts not because of myself."
"I see," Ning said. "Thankfully, you've been able to control your wits. If the will had fully manifested, you would've likely had a hard time controlling your own thoughts."
"What will?" the dragon asked.
"Hmm… explaining that is a little hard," Ning said as he thought a bit.
"Tiny human! Don't you dare try and go without answering me? I will rip your flesh apart with my—"
"No, no, I'm not saying I won't answer. Explaining will be hard because you don't know what I'm talking about in the slightest, but I will explain," Ning said. "Just, not right now."
"Why not?" the dragon asked.
"This place is poisonous and I don't want to continue healing them," Ning said. "So, let's talk after they've left this place."
"Hmm… are they… weak?" the dragon asked as it looked towards the Apostles behind Ning. For some reason, the Apostles were very scared by the Dragon's gaze.
It was as if they were looking at a figure who could only be beaten by their god and no one else.
"They're quite weak when compared to you," Ning said. "We should talk after they leave this dun…"
Ning's voice trailed off as he saw a problem in his plan that he hadn't noticed earlier. "Wait… how do you leave a dungeon again?" he asked.
As far as he knew, the only way to leave a dungeon was if the boss inside the dungeon had died. Did that mean they had to kill the Dragon before they left?
Ning turned around. "Is defeating the boss the only way to leave a dungeon?" he asked.
They all shook their head. Kim mustered up some courage and spoke, "Y-you can use an Escape-stone too," she said.
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"Escape stone? Hmm, do you guys have any?" he asked.
They all quickly checked their inventory and only two of them nodded. The rest of them didn't have any escape stones.
"Why do you not have any escape stones?" he asked the remaining 3.
"We… we don't usually need it," Park said. "After all, we are the strongest people in our guild. So we leave it for some weaker members that need it."
"You should still keep one," Ning said with an annoyed look.
"Escape stones are as rare as they are expensive. You can't just get one, and most of the time, it's not even worth it," Bak said.
Ning shook his head. In a sense, even if they had escape stones, it wasn't like the problem would've just been solved since he didn't have one himself. He asked the system to see if it could make one, but the escape stone seemed to be made up of mana, and thus his system was useless in that aspect.
'Whatever, I will think about it later,' he thought. For now, he needed to find a way to get out of this place without using an escape stone.
"System, any idea how I can get out of here without using escape stones or killing this dragon?" Ning asked.
There is a way. This dungeon is tied to its boss. So as long as you get rid of the boss, you can leave this place.
"What? No, I meant without killing the dra—" Ning paused. The system surely wasn't giving him the wrong information. Then there was a way to get rid of the Dragon as a boss from this place.
"Ah!" he thought. He quickly turned around towards the dragon. "Do you want to get out of this place?"
"Yes!" the dragon said enthusiastically. "Can you take me out? I can't find a way out of this place."
"I can," Ning said. "But… you will have to become my subordinate."
"Nonsense! I will not become your underling. A Dragon looks up to no one," the dragon shouted.
"Well, then I will have no choice but to kill you so I can leave," Ning said. The air suddenly fluctuated as Ning's cultivation base opened up in full fury, pressing on the Dragon.
The dragon didn't understand what was happening. After all, it couldn't feel Qi at all. Still, it knew that it was in danger.
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The dragon immediately opened its mouth to attack. It sent a massive blast of water toward Ning. However, all Ning did was move his arms a little, and the water disappeared.
In the same instance, the water appeared from the right of the dragon and blasted its body. The Dragon handled the water but it was still surprised by what had happened.
As it was confusing, Ning jumped next to it and punched the dragon in the face, sending it flying away.
The massive dragon created an earthquake when it landed further away. Waves of swamp water were pushed away, forcing Bak to focus on his barrier.
Ning moved and arrived on top of the dragon's body. "Don't randomly attack me," he said. "I wasn't going to kill you."
"What the hell are you?" the dragon asked with a fearful expression on its face.
"I'm really just a human," Ning said. He looked around him and looked at the body of the massive dragon. The dragon was so large that one could play football on its stomach and still have enough place for an audience.
"You can change your size and shape, right? Become smaller, and if possible, become human," Ning said.
The dragon grumbled, not knowing if it should obey Ning's orders or not. "If you do that, and become my subordinate, not only can I take you away from here, but I will also help you understand everything you want to know."
"On top of that, I can even help you improve upon your mana collection ability so you can improve even faster," Ning said.
The dragon was starting to wonder if it should do as asked or not. The more he heard Ning, the more he began to feel that it might just be a good idea.
"If that doesn't persuade you, then you will only have to be my subordinate for 12 years. If you want to leave after that, you are free to leave," Ning said.
"Are you… telling the truth?" the dragon asked.
"I never lie," Ning said. "Now, what will be your choice?"
The dragon was all but persuaded now. "What… what will I have to do if I were to become your subordinate? A dragon has his pride, and you cannot make me do anything that I will not do," it said.
"Oh, you won't have to do anything really. Maybe help me here and there, help protect my family, and such. Most things will be your choice," Ning said.
"Make an oath," the Dragon said. "A blood oath."
Ning quickly asked the system to learn what a blood oath was and was surprised to learn what it was.
"An oath where one person dies if they break it huh? Not bad," Ning thought amusedly. "I accept. Let's make the oath."
Ning cut open his palm and dripped blood onto the dragon, who did the same. Then, both of them did a magic ritual where an oath was placed on Ning as per the Dragon's request.
"I'll be calling you Sorlus from now on. That's fine with you, right?" Ning asked.
"That's alright," the dragon said. "Alright, I will do what you say from now on, that's the oath we made after all."
Ning smiled. "It will be easier if I do this though," he said as he placed his palm on the dragon's stomach. "Now, don't resist."
Suddenly, a massive amount of energy was pushed into the dragon's body and his mind was overwhelmed.
Ning felt the amount of energy draining from his body and couldn't help but be surprised at just how much was needed to dominate a Dragon capable of using Tier 7 spells. Its ran was truly quite high.
Fortunately, even the massive amount that was taken away from him was basically nothing to him at this point. He simply had way too much energy for his normal needs.
Once he was done, Ning got off the dragon. "Shrink," he ordered the dragon.
Sorlus, as he was now called by Ning, shrunk his size until he was no bigger than the Axolotl the group had fought just a few moments earlier.
"Uhh… can't you change to a human form? That will help me so much more," Ning said.
"Sure, master," Sorlus said and quickly changed his form to a young body no older than 12 years old.
The young boy was small, slim, had bright blue eyes as well as hair, and was currently naked.
"Dammit, can't you make yourself some clothes?" Ning said in an annoyed manner before creating some clothes to give to the young dragon.
The dragon wasn't phased by Ning's annoyance and quickly wore the clothes. "How is this, master?" he asked.
"Not bad," Ning said. "But why are you a kid?"
"A kid?" Sorlus asked with a confused look. "This is what I envision myself to be as a Dragon."
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"Are you saying you are that young?" Ning asked with a hint of surprise. "How old are you?"
"I'm only 6 thousand years old, master," Sorlus said with a proud face. He was proud of the fact that he had managed to reach Tier 7 with mana when he was only 6 thousand years old.
Compared to normal people, Dragons needed a lot of talent and mana to advance, so his being Tier 7 was in fact quite a feat.
'Tier 7… that's SSS-ranked,' Ning thought. Correlating the actual mage's ranking to a hunter ranking, a SSS rank was the same as a Tier 7 mage.
From SS down to D were the rest of the tiers from 6 to 1. There was no Tier to correspond with the Hunter rank E. That was simply because Hunters that were ranked E were simply normal people in any world with mana.
The only difference between an E-ranked hunter and a normal human was the fact that an E-ranked hunter had been fully acclimated to the mana in the air and had thus formed Mana circuits in their body to start accepting more mana.
Ning walked up to Sorlus and grabbed him by his underarms before picking him up into the air.
"Good," he said. "Thankfully your weight didn't increase. Let's see if you can go in now."
With but a thought, Sorlus simply disappeared in front of Ning. Ning quickly checked the beast space where he had sent Sorlus, and he was in fact there.
"Nice," Ning thought. "Thankfully it works with beasts that have turned to humans."
As he thought that, he heard a set of footsteps approaching him and saw the 5 Apostles come close.
"N-Ning… where's the dragon?" Kim asked with a fearful face.
"Hmm, why are you scared?" Ning asked when he saw their face.
"Wh-why did the dragon turn into a kid? Was that your doing? Did you do that?" Park asked with a quivering voice.
"Not only are you strong, but you also have a lot of secrets about you," Soo-Yun said.
"Where did that dragon go?" Bak asked the same question. "Did you not kill it?"
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"Don't worry. I've gotten rid of the dragon, so we can leave the dungeon now," Ning said.
"Leave? How?" Bak asked.
"Umm…" Ning looked around and even sent his spiritual sense all around the place, but he couldn't find any form of exit at all.
"That's weird," Ning said. But he had gotten rid of a boss from this dungeon. Did putting Sorlus in his beast space not count?
Ning quickly brought Sorlus back outside. "Did you want something, master?" the Dragon asked.
At the same time, the 5 Apostles backed off instantly and prepared their attacks to fight off the dragon.
"Ning, are you our ally or our enemy?" Kim asked as dark energy dripped from her palm, falling onto the surface of the water underneath.
Ning looked at the situation and sighed. He didn't think about the Apostles for now and turned towards Sorlus. "So, the dungeon didn't disappear even when I put you away. It seems the beast space counts as if you were still part of this dungeon. So, I'm going to send you someplace else for the time being," he said.
"Oh, where?" Sorlus asked.
Before even answering Sorlus, Ning had to ask him. "Can you breathe in outer space?"
It wasn't until Sorlus found himself in this empty void with no light that he understood why Ning had asked such a question.
He quickly held his breath as he truly was in outer space.
Ning suddenly felt the space tremble when he put Sorlus into his own world. "The hell?" he thought when he sensed that.
He could understand why the portal had appeared next to them. That was his purpose in hiding Sorlus after all, but he couldn't understand why whatever was happening was happening.
"Well, we might have to leave quickly," Ning said to the 5 Apostles who were looking at him with curious and suspicious eyes.
Ning couldn't help but smile when he saw that. "You must be eager to go and tell your gods about what you saw here today, aren't you?"
The others cringed a bit when they heard that.
"I'm afraid I can't really let you guys show everything," Ning said. "I will have to manipulate your memories a little."
The 5 Apostles walked through the portal with some missing memories. They remembered Ning most of what happened, or so they thought at least.
They remembered the beasts they fought and even the dragon that appeared. Then they remembered Ning punching that dragon and then… was that how it all happened.
They didn't really have any reason to get suspicious of their own memories, so they walked out without a problem.
Ning was about to walk out as well, but he sensed that the space in there was about to collapse. He didn't know what would happen in the case of such spatial collapse, but he was sure that if that were to happen, the beasts in here would certainly die.
Now, Ning didn't care for the beasts that were in there. But he cared about the SS-ranked Mana stones inside the beasts. After all, this was the first SS-ranked dungeon in the world, so he had to get the mana stones.
Otherwise, it would be a waste to leave without them.
Ning used his spatial powers to slow down the crumbling space as he quickly went through the entire dungeon taking away the beasts.
He had no time to kill them and take away their mana stones, so he left that task to Sorlus who was inside his world at the moment.
After finishing, Ning quickly went through the portal as the dungeon collapsed behind him.
When he got out, the portal disappeared as well.
"Oh, you're out. Thank god," Park said quickly. "I thought something happened to you."
"Hmm, no nothing happ—" Ning paused as he looked at his surrounding. A bright light shined from all around them… but why?
"The hell?" he thought. "How is it already night?"
"No idea," the Apostles said. "It was already past midnight by the time we came out too. And you took 15 more minutes than us."
"I took 15 minutes?" Ning asked suspiciously. He turned to look at the portal behind him that was now gone forever.
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'Wait… time difference? In a dungeon? But that was supposed to only happen when…' Ning paused when a thought came across his mind.
Not long after coming to Earth, he had asked the system about the situation with the constellations, and during that time he had learned something.
The reason why there was so many dungeons was so that the mana in the other worlds would permeate to earth, and when that happened, it would create a stable dungeon that would work as a portal between the two universes.
Ning didn't believe that this was such a portal or anything, but he did believe that it was the start of one.
If left alone, any and all dungeons would continue to evolve until they all become portals to other worlds.
Given that it was an entire Galaxy at play here, Ning could only wonder how many different worlds could freely enter Earth and terrorize it.
'And those damn constellations are waiting for this exact thing, aren't they?' he thought, remembering the system's words.
'So that makes it 3 universes that I've been to,' Ning thought with an amused face.
Ning quickly teleported back to his Uncle's house before dropping Sorlus off. He hadn't breathed for a while, so Ning didn't want to keep him inside.
"White, you here?" he called.
White, who had been watching TV all night quickly turned around. "Master? You're finally back," he said.
"Not yet. I'll be back in a bit. Look after him for me, okay?" he said, pushing forth the tiny blue-haired child.
White sniffed the air twice and put on a disgusted face. "I don't like his smell. He reminds me of something," he said.
"Well he is a dragon," Ning said.
Saphandra quickly flew out too. "He's a dragon? This kid?" she asked.
"Remember Derel?" Ning asked.
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"Derel… oh, right. Dragon," she said. Unlike Ning, she had no eidetic memory, so it was a surprise she remembered at all.
"Master, what is he?" Sorlus asked while pointing at White.
"He's a tiger," Ning said. "Now, don't go fighting you two. I will be back in a bit. Saph, look after them."
He was about to leave but stopped. "Oh right, here," Ning quickly created a bracelet that went around the Dragon's wrist.
"You will be able to understand other people's language with this. You can talk to these two now," Ning said. "As for explaining what happened to you, I will do so once I return."
Ning finally left the house, leaving behind the dragon, the tiger, and the spirit to talk with each other.
He arrived back at the Dongmyo shrine site where the Apostles looked at him curiously.
"You can teleport? Where did you go?" Park asked.
"Sorry, sorry. I needed to relieve myself so I went to some remote site," Ning said.
They talked for a minute or two before the director arrived at the location.
"You guys are out?" he asked before even opening the door of his van. He quickly walked out and checked.
"Oh thank god you are all fine," the director said. "I was so worried that you had all died in there. Why did you spend over half a day in that dungeon? Was it that hard?"
"Uh… no, director," Soo-Yun said. "We actually only spent maybe 15 minutes at best. I have no idea how it turned to over 12 hours outside."
"15 minutes? In that dung— wait, where's the dungeon? Where did it go?" the Director asked. His relieved mind panicked again when he didn't see any portal in the area.
"It's gone," Ning said. "The portal was destroyed once we defeated the beast inside."
"No way! That can't be true," the director refused to believe it. However, the lack of a portal was very convincing.
"I don't think this is something you have to be worried about, director," Ning said.
"Huh, what do you mean?" the director asked.
"If I'm not wrong, and these Apostles should ask their gods to confirm this too, any dungeon that goes to SS-rank or above becomes a one-time dungeon that will be destroyed if defeated."
"That… that cannot be…" Kim said. "If a dungeon disappears after beating it when it reaches SS-rank, then how are the people supposed to get stronger? No hunter will ever fully reach SS rank."
"As I said, ask your god," Ning said. "Also at the same time, ask them why they let you go into the dungeon knowing that you had a very little chance of survival."
"That…"
The group felt scared and hesitant. They did not want to believe that their gods knew about the danger before they went in.
"Anyway, that's that," Ning said. "You can tell me what you find later. I already see the sun coming up so I'm gonna go take a nap. Speaking of which, is there a reason for me to stay or can I just go back?"
The director looked at the portal and sighed. "I don't think there's any reason to keep you here," he said.
"Great, I'm leaving then," Ning said.
"I will prepare the chopper so you can go back quickly," the director said and brought out his phone.
"No need," Ning said. "I can leave on my own. Also, while we didn't manage to kill many things inside there, here is an SS-ranked Mana stone for you."
"Wait, I didn't get one either," Soo-Yun said. Sorlus had appeared right before she was supposed to charm the lizard.
"Bad luck to you then I guess? Well, if you kept count, I gave mine to the director too, so ask for compensation from these 4," Ning said. Without even waiting for anyone to say anything else, he simply turned around and left.
He walked out of the site and right after he was away from everyone's vision, he teleported back home.
As soon as he arrived, he saw Sorlus sitting next to White by the sofa, watching some sort of cartoon on the TV.
"What are you guys doing?" Ning asked.
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"Master, I'm showing him this funny thing that comes on TV," White said.
"Master, is it true that humans in this world look like this?" Sorlus asked.
"Of course not," Ning said. "Can't you see how I look? Do I look like a cartoon?"
"Oh… then why am I watching this? I thought he was giving me knowledge of this world," Sorlus said.
"This is knowledge, you idiot. Have you ever had fun?" White asked.
"This is not fun at all. Fun is when I get to sleep for 200 years on top of my pile of gold. Ahh… how I wish I could do that again," Sorlus said.
Ning shook his head. "Sorlus, you want to know why you were there right? Come I will tell you," he said.
"Really? Thank you, master," Sorlus said as he quickly ran up to Ning.
Ning explained what he knew on top of asking the system for new information.
Currently, there were 3 universes that were passing by each other. They were barely touching each other, but that still meant that galaxies were colliding on a different plane.
Portals formed naturally between galaxies, but these portals were normally not wormholes that lead to other galaxies.
The white portals that appeared on the planets in various cities weren't natural at all. They were something carefully engineered to be there.
In this instance, of the three galaxies colliding with each other, one of them had a dormant will that had not manifested itself.
As such, it was acting on some bare instincts that it had learned over the course of eons.
Ning was curious. Why portals? Why dungeons? Why would something like a dormant Will ever think of filling another world with its energy and creating a stable portal to the place?
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It wasn't long before Ning learned that it was for no reason.
To be more accurate, the dormant will had no idea what it was doing. It was merely acting on instinct. It had no intention of hurting the humans or inhabitants of other worlds.
That begged the question then why the will was even doing what it was.
That was when Ning learned something he wished he had learned a very long time ago.
The will had learned it all by watching the Constellations do the same thing.
The constellations, on a galactic scale, would make dungeons to a different world where they would send their soldiers to terrorize humans and make them submit to pray for them.
If the humans resisted, they would be killed and the constellation would move onto a different world.
Ning continued learning. A Constellations will in most cases were former humans that were transformed by Magicules.
Magicule was a corrupted form of mana that could only be created by a constellation. As mana was the only energy that could be affected by the constellation, they more often than not worked around it.
When a magicule transformed someone, they would usually grow large, and angry. Their skins would change and most of the time grow different body parts like horns, tails, or wings.
These humans would become demons under the influence of the constellations. And under a constellation's order, they would wage war on different worlds to bring them to worship their god.
The constellation had no regard for human life, so whenever a demon army attacked, they would either make the habitants submit to them or kill them all.
If they did kill them all, there was nothing for them to worry about as they could simply go to another world and keep up what they were doing.
Ning sighed when he learned this. 'So that is why there are so many demons, huh?' he thought. He remembered the game he played in the Yomire galaxy.
He wondered if Yomire galaxy was once under threat from the demons, and that's why they knew about it.
"They don't have any demons this time around, do they?" Ning asked the system.
,m The constellations have no control over the dungeons, so whether there is or not is not up to them.
"Good," Ning said. "All long as they stay in their lane and don't try to do anything disruptive here, I will let them live for a little longer."
Finally!" A man looked happily at what he had managed to create by the things that he had salvaged from the platforms that were out of work.
It had been so many years, but finally, he was going to go home. He poured all his energy onto the thing in front of him and looked towards the sky with a hopeful look.
However, the look disappeared from his face as he noticed nothing.
"No… that can't be! It's working. So why is it not—"
Suddenly, he noticed something else happening a few dozen kilometers away. The thing he was trying to do had resulted in something he could not expect at all.
After all, how was he supposed to know that there was a concealed portal to another universe so close to him?
A figure clad in dripping black smoke moved around a void of his own creation. He paced back and forth, thinking of what exactly he could do in this disaster he had caused.
He didn't care for the lives of humans at all, so the dilemma he was having wasn't on what he could do for the humans, but rather what he could do for himself.
"Dammit! I didn't choose anyone to represent me because I wanted to wait for the dungeons to send out beasts again. Having someone would've helped me right now," he thought.
"Wait… I can still do it, can't I?" he thought.
He disappeared from his void, arriving next to a young woman in her mid-20s that was crying next to a wreckage of a building.
"Tristan! Tristan! Stay with me. I will get you out, okay? Don't worry," she spoke through her tears. The short, black-haired girl showed enough courage to save her brother from the rubble.
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However, not only was she courageous, but she was also in denial, as anyone that could think rationally at the moment would see that her brother was already dead.
He had died in the collapsed building while being surrounded by a massive fire that had exploded from a nearby gas leak.
The only reason the girl had managed to survive was that her brother had pushed her out of the fire before the house collapsed. The fire was no more, on her or her brother, but it was too late.
"Young girl…" the newly arrived party spoke in the girl's ears.
The girl turned around and saw a face with two horns, no eyes, and a mouth that wriggled with worms all over it.
"AHHH!" the girl shouted the moment she saw his face.
"Don't shout, my child," the being said. "You do not shout in the face of a god."
"A… a god?" the girl slowly turned around.
"Yes, a god," the being said. "I see that you require some assistance, would you like my aid?"
"C-can you help bring my brother out of the rubble? He's trapped underneath," the girl said.
The god shook his head, worms being tossed out of his mouth left and right. "I'm afraid your brother is dead," he said.
The girl's heart shattered and along with it any hope of her rescuing her brother.
"No… that can't be…" the girl said. "Tristan… he can't…"
"I'm afraid so," the god said. "But… you can save other people. You can save other's families, their mother and father, their brother and sister, and all of their loved ones."
The god got close to her. "Girl… do you want to become the Apostle of a god?" he asked.
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The girl was surprised, her emotional state at the worst state it could be. The death of her brother had already hurt her so much, and that was only minutes after seeing her mother explode along with the fire from the gas in the house.
She quickly suppressed her emotions and nodded. "I will. Please, let me become an Apostles so I can help people," she said.
"Good, Good," the god said. "I will finalize the rest of the details with you later. For now, I lend to you some of my powers."
The girl felt a wave of energy enter her, and suddenly the little mana she could use was improved by a massive amount on top of adding to what she already had.
The wounds on her body swiftly disappeared, the pain vanishing along with it. She hadn't realized just how to hurt she was before and only just realized it.
A screen appeared in front of her, giving her her current status and showing just how strong she was as well as telling her just what she could do.
The girl had a very high Strength, some moderate speed, and not as good mana stat. However, that 'not as good' mana stat was still A rank, which dwarfed the majority of the hunters in the world.
"Go and help people with the power I have given to you today. All I ask in return is that you spread my name, Stryxus," the god said. "If you do not do it, I will take back what I've given you."
"Don't worry, god Stryxus, I will do as you command," the girl said and quickly pulled her brother and mother's body from the rubble. She teared up once more at the sight of their dead body, but she suppressed her emotions again.
One could ask if she was able to suppress her emotions this well out of her own doing, or was there someone else influencing her?
The girl left the location quickly to go help the others that had fallen victim to the disaster.
"Hahaha, I'm awesome," the god thought. "That's how one should make use of a terrible situation. Now I will continue living forever."
With a happy smile on his terrible face, Stryxus disappeared back to the void he had come from.
The entire world looked in shock at the disaster that had struck the United States of America.
From the Department of Dungeon Defense in Pennsylvania to the Hunter's Association in Beijing, China, everyone was in horrified shock at what had happened to the USA.
As the satellite images started appearing, the shock only continued to grow.
Ning had gone to sleep after introducing Sorlus to his younger cousin. The young man was surprised to see Sorlus and his first instinct was to ask if he was Ning's son.
Ning knocked him on the head before telling him to take care of him for a while and went to sleep.
However, since it hadn't been long since he had woken up, merely 8 hours at most, he didn't need much sleep.
Still, since the night was over, he felt like she should sleep so he went ahead and took a small nap.
His nap was interrupted a few hours later by rather loud bangs on his door.
"What? Who is it?" he shouted at the door. However, before anyone could answer, Saphandra flew through the door and appeared inside. On her face was a look that said something terrible had happened.
Ning instantly sent out his divine sense to check on his grandmother, and then his uncle. Once he made sure the two of them were safe, he checked the other two of his family members.
He saw that the both of them were in the living room, watching TV along with Sorlus. White was by the door as he was the one who knocked.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"Ning, you need to come to see this quickly. Something bad has happened," she said.
Ning was a little worried, so he walked out of the room quickly. "Tell me, what's going on?" he asked.
"You should see it for yourself, master," White said before quickly taking Ning down to the living room where the TV was.
As soon as he walked in, he saw something on the flatscreen tv.
There was some news segment being broadcasted in Korean saying something about victims and aids. Ning's focus was instead pulled by the map of the USA that was behind the woman on the TV.
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On the map, there was a massive red circle that covered everything on the western half of the USA, even clipping a bit of Mexico in the south.
"We still do not know the cause of the disaster, but we can say for sure that it was no nuclear attack. None of the countries have reported any missiles being fired, nor has the USA sensed it. The disaster itself does not look like it could be the result of a nuclear… " The woman on the TV continued giving a report on the situation.
Ning, unfortunately, was too late to understand exactly what was going on.
"What happened in the USA?" he asked solemnly.
"Look for yourself," the younger cousin changed channels to another channel that showed footage of the disaster was shown from a high point, likely through a drone.
What Ning saw was a scene that only happen if an earthquake of high magnitude appeared at the exact same time a nuclear explosion destroyed everything.
Fire raged everywhere in the image, with destroyed buildings scattered everywhere. People were trapped underneath rubbles and many were being carried to the hospital.
Help had arrived in the form of military aid as well as many hunters, but it was still lacking.
Ning looked at the image with a fierce look as a thought came to him. "Is this… is this happening everywhere inside the red circle from before?" he asked.
"No, not everywhere," Hi-Ah said as he took the remote and flipped the channel back. She walked up to the TV and made a circle with her finger on top. "Only the people outside of this area are the ones that are hurt or need immeidately help."
Ning looked a little confused. "Huh? Are you saying that the people inside of that smaller circle are okay and don't need any help?" he asked.
"No," Hi-Ah said.
"There simply are no humans inside there, brother," Jung-Hee replied. "They just… vanished. No one knows what happened to them."
Ning's eyebrows lowered in confusion. "There is no one there?" he asked.
"No, none," Jung-Hee said.
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"I will have to see what's going on then," he said. "White, Sorlus. Come, we're going there."
"What? You're going to the USA?" Hi-Ah asked.
"Yes," he said. "I will need to help them as much as I can. Saph, you stay back," he said.
Saphadnra nodded from the side, as she only now appeared before the brother and sister duo.
Ning grabbed Sorlus and White, and then he teleported.
The moment they reappeared, they were flying in the air on top of some of the wreckage.
Ning's divine sense instantly moved at an impossible speed to take in every part of the disaster. His eyes went wide when he saw the disaster for himself for the first time.
As if something had appeared and tried to uproot the entirety of the western USA, all the houses were destroyed, roads and bridges in shambles, as well as vehicles, being tossed around like toys.
There were too many things for him to look at, so as his main focus, he only looked for humans that were in trouble. There were absolutely no humans in a massive circle around the center, not even animals, so he had to focus on the outside for now.
"You two, go help save people. And don't turn to your original self, remain a human," Ning said.
"Yes, master," the two of them said and moved.
Ning moved as well. He moved at frightening speed, appearing near any and all places that needed immediate attention.
He grabbed onto the trapped people using his spatial powers and teleported them out to the safe space while healing them at the same time.
Even as he did that, he needed to know, how did this happen? What could cause such a massive disaster on such a scale?
p And why a circular range of disasters? Did something begin in the center?
As Ning thought that, he had to slow down as he realized what was in the center.
"That's… that's where I opened the portal to this universe," he thought.
"System, does the portal I opened have anything to do with this disaster?" he asked. Every second felt like forever as he waited for the answer.
Yes, that portal is indeed the main reason for this disaster.
Ning grew stunned for a moment.
So it was his fault, wasn't it? Since he was the one that opened the portal, the reason these people had died, the reason so many people were missing; it was all his fault.
He stopped midair as he hovered there with a complicated look appearing on his face. Worry and guilt filled him as soon as he realized that he was at fault for this tragedy.
"I did this…" he said softly. "I'm responsible for all of this."
No.
As if a guiding light in a sea of darkness, the System's voice pulled Ning away from blaming himself.
Ning's sorrowful eyes turned to confused ones. "I'm… not responsible?" he asked.
No
"Then who is?" he asked.
A Constellation named Stryxus.
"Huh? A constellation?" Ning asked. He looked around him at the disaster as well as where the portal was. "So it's a coincidence? No, you said my portal was the reason for all of this. How could it be a constellation if it was because of my portal?"
That's because Stryxus took note of your portal after you came through and kept it open.
The reason for the current disaster is that there was someone manipulating space on the other side of the portal, and accidentally tapped into the space of this world.
Due to that accident, the people of this world were teleported into the other universe. The sudden vacuum created due to space manipulation is the main reason for the disaster that came afterward.
"I see," Ning said. "So… not everyone is in the wrong here. It was just an honest mistake then."
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The system did not answer anymore.
Ning quickly pulled himself out of his current state and we around to help people. White and Sorlus were helping pull people out of rubble or carrying them to the closest humans that could help them.
Ning expanded his divine sense and searched for more he could help. He found a few people nearby that desperately needed help, but before he could move, he saw something else.
Apostles were already on the scene as well, far around the world. Some came from Canada, and some from Mexico. The ones from the USA were still helping on the eastern side of the disaster.
Ning, however, wasn't concerned about any of them. He was more so concerned about the girl in a bloody dress that was helping people.
That alone wasn't something that would make him stop in this current situation, but there was something else that made him stop and put on an angry face.
"Trust in God Stryxus. It will all be okay," the girl said. "God Stryxus will save you, just like he saved me."
Ning teleported instantly, arriving next to the girl. The girl turned around and almost instinctively moved away from him out of fear because of the look on his face.
"Who… who are you?" the girl asked.
Ning ignored the girl for a second and turned toward the elderlies that were trapped inside a half-crushed vehicle. There were some that had already died, that he could do nothing about, but he could save the ones that were still alive.
He threw away the rocks that were crushing the van to give the elderlies some relief. Then, he teleported them away.
The living ones arrived next to a hospital, mostly bloody and bruised, meanwhile, the dead ones arrived nearby where they were gathering the corpses.
Once it was done, he finally turned towards the girl. He looked from head to toe first before asking her, "You are Stryxus' Apostle?"
"I- I am. God Stryxus gave me my powers to help everyone today," the girl said.
"Today?" Ning asked suspiciously. "You gained your powers today?"
"Ye-yes? Is something wrong? Who are you? Why are you here?" she asked.
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Ning didn't answer. Instead, he simply thought of something. Constellations were beings that only truly thought about themselves. So why would he care about humans dying? Did he feel responsible somehow? Just like Ning had mere moments ago.
As he thought that for more than a couple of seconds, the answer became obvious.
No Constellation would ever think about anyone other than themselves, so whatever Stryxus was doing was for himself.
Ning didn't immediately jump to conclusions, however, at least not without confirming it with the system first.
He does intend to use this tragedy to make a name for himself. He is trying to make something out of a wasted investment
Ning finally got mad. "That bastard!" he shouted.
He turned towards the girl with full anger on his face. The girl stepped back a bit in fear, but Ning would do nothing to her. After all, it wasn't her fault.
The girl most likely accepted the request because of what had happened today.
"Go, help more people. Do it fast," he said.
Ning was angry and he wanted Stryxus to pay for it, but that would have to wait. For now, he needed to save the people that were in trouble.
His divine sense expanded once more, looking for everyone that needed immediate attention.
He teleported around, saving people as well as healing them if their wounds were serious. He went around remaking bridges and clearing roads too so help could arrive where it was needed quickly.
He helped in the tragedy as well as he could, and it all finally came to an end after he saved the final person from a dangerous situation some 3 hours later.
There were still others that needed his help to some extent, but they could use the ones from other people too. They could afford to wait.
Ning sighed in relief after everyone in danger was safe. Sorlus and White returned not long after as well.
"You guys did well," Ning said. "I would reward you under normal conditions, but times are desperate. So instead of that, I will require you to do one more thing, White."
"What is it, Master?" White asked.
Ning gave a small smile. "Would you mind going back home?"
:)
