Chapter 73: Hunting in the dungeon
The outer perimeter of Atlantis was vastly different from the gleaming districts near the imperial core. The towering crystal structures that defined the city’s prestigious interior had long since disappeared from this outer ring, replaced entirely by reinforced defensive walls and sprawling military installations designed specifically to withstand monster incursions from the surrounding ocean depths.
Powerful barrier arrays shimmered faintly in the water beyond the city limits, their magical energy creating a protective dome that few creatures could penetrate.
Patrol vessels moved through designated routes under strict surveillance protocols, their crews constantly monitoring for any sign of dungeon breaches or aberrant activity. This was the front line of Atlantis, the boundary between civilization and the untamed wilderness of the deep sea.
Victor and Diana stood on a deserted observation platform overlooking the entrance to the Abyssal Trench Dungeon. Dark water stretched endlessly into the distance, an inky void that seemed to swallow light itself.
The pressure here was noticeably heavier than within the city, pressing against their bodies with each breath. Victor could feel the weight of the ocean above him, a constant reminder of how far they were from the surface world.
"Victor."
Diana suddenly broke the silence that had settled between them. Her voice was calm as always, but something in her tone caught his attention.
"I have already completed the prototype of the spell."
Victor turned toward her, his eyes widening slightly. "Really?" The excitement rushed into his heart like a sudden tide, warming his chest and quickening his pulse. He had been waiting for this news for weeks, hoping that her research would bear fruit before their situation became even more complicated.
"Yes," Diana replied. Even her usually calm voice carried a trace of anticipation, a rare hint of emotion that she rarely allowed to surface. "I would like to test it."
Victor frowned slightly as he considered the implications. The mythical rank spell was not something ordinary mages could even dream of touching. Such magic belonged to the realm of legends, the kind of power that reshaped battlefields and rewrote the laws of nature.
A single mistake during testing could attract attention from every major force in Atlantis, from the imperial military to the various noble houses that controlled the city’s politics.
"Then test it," Victor said after a moment of thought.
Diana shook her head immediately. "I cannot."
Victor immediately understood the problem. Her combat strength had already exceeded the limits of lower ranked dungeons by a significant margin.
Even if she restrained herself, the dungeon’s monitoring systems would immediately detect abnormal energy fluctuations and report them to the authorities. The empire kept close watch on anyone who displayed power beyond the expected thresholds, and Diana’s capabilities would certainly raise alarms.
"I cannot enter any dungeon below A rank," she explained further. Her voice remained steady, but Victor could sense the frustration beneath her composed exterior.
Victor crossed his arms and began thinking through possible solutions. She was absolutely correct. The current plan depended entirely on remaining hidden from the empire’s watchful eyes.
An A rank dungeon expedition would require registration, approvals, combat records, and military oversight. There would be too many eyes watching, too many variables to control, and too much risk of exposure. One wrong move could bring the entire imperial military down upon them.
After several seconds of heavy silence, Victor finally spoke. "Wait a little longer."
Diana remained silent, her expression unreadable.
"I will take you out of the ocean eventually," Victor continued, his voice firm with determination. "I need to make preparations on the surface anyway. When the time comes, you can test it there, far from Atlantis and its monitoring systems."
Diana considered his words carefully before nodding once. That solution was undoubtedly safer than attempting anything within the city limits. Using a mythical rank spell within Atlantis was equivalent to announcing their existence to the entire empire, a declaration that would bring every major power down upon their heads.
"Understood," she said simply. Without another word, she turned and began walking back toward the residential sectors, her figure gradually disappearing into the dimly lit streets.
Victor watched her vanish into the distance before turning his attention back to the dark water before him. Testing a mythical spell could wait for another day. His own breakthrough could not. He had been putting off his personal advancement for too long, and the time had finally come to push his limits.
A few minutes later, he stepped through the dungeon gate. Space distorted around him immediately, the familiar sensation of dimensional transfer washing over his body like a wave of cold water. Then his vision stabilized, and Victor found himself standing on a rocky shoreline.
Before him stretched a vast expanse of dark water. Calling it a river would have been inaccurate. Calling it an ocean would not have been entirely correct either. It was something in between, an endless network of interconnected waterways that spread throughout the dungeon to form a gigantic aquatic ecosystem.
The water was black, almost impossibly so, as if it had absorbed all light that ever touched its surface. The sky above was equally dark, devoid of stars or any celestial bodies. Only faint blue luminescence from underwater plants illuminated the landscape, casting an eerie glow across the rocky shore. Victor slowly surveyed his surroundings, taking in the oppressive atmosphere.
His lips curved upward into a smile. "Let’s begin."
He was about to step forward when another thought suddenly entered his mind. Victor froze mid step, his boot hovering above the wet stone. Then he laughed softly, the sound echoing strangely across the dark water. The idea was absurd. Completely absurd. Which was exactly why he liked it so much.
"I have infinite mana," he said aloud, testing the words on his tongue.
The smile on his face widened into a grin. "Why am I fighting like a normal mage?"
Most spellcasters treated mana as a precious and limited resource. Every spell required careful calculation of cost versus benefit. Every battle demanded efficiency and conservation.
Victor had been unconsciously following the same habits, trained by years of conventional magical education. But he was not a normal mage. His mana reserves were effectively limitless, an infinite wellspring of power that never ran dry.
The only restriction was his own body. Too much mana flowing through his channels at once would destroy him, tearing apart his muscles and organs from the inside out. Fortunately, he possessed regeneration magic, a powerful spell capable of continuously repairing the damage as fast as it occurred. His eyes brightened as the implications settled into his mind.
"What happens if I use mana itself as the primary weapon?" he whispered.
The thought became more appealing the longer he considered it. Instead of relying solely on individual spells and careful targeting, he could flood the battlefield with raw elemental power.
The entire dungeon could become his weapon, every surface, every drop of water, every creature within its boundaries transformed into a conduit for his limitless mana.
Victor sat down near the water’s edge, crossing his legs on the damp stone. Before attempting anything dangerous, he began calculating. Mana throughput. Regeneration rate. Physical damage to his tissues. Cellular reconstruction speed. Spiritual strain on his core. He ran the numbers again and again, searching for any fatal flaw in his reasoning.
Finally, he stood and stretched his arms above his head. His conclusion was simple. As long as the damage caused by mana overload remained below the regeneration rate, he could theoretically sustain his output indefinitely. It was insane. Dangerous. Potentially suicidal. Victor grinned at the darkness and took a step toward the water.
Perfect.
He walked to the shoreline and extended both hands toward the black water. Immediately, his water affinity awakened, responding to the vast liquid environment before him. A vast stream of mana surged from his body, far more than he had ever channeled at once. The water around him began trembling as freezing energy spread outward from his position. Cold. Endless cold.
The surrounding river trembled violently as frost formed on its surface. Victor did not stop. Water was only the foundation of his plan. Darkness followed immediately after, dark elemental mana pouring into the freezing currents like ink dispersing through clear liquid. The two attributes merged together seamlessly, dark water and black ice combining into something new and terrible.
Black frost began forming across the water’s surface, spreading in all directions. Cracks spread outward like spiderwebs as the ice thickened and expanded. The temperature plummeted around Victor, his breath fogging in the air despite the dungeon’s natural humidity. He activated regeneration simultaneously, golden healing energy flowing throughout his body in constant waves.
His muscles tore from the strain. They healed. His mana channels ruptured from the pressure. They repaired themselves. The cycle repeated endlessly, a rhythm of destruction and reconstruction that would have killed any normal mage within seconds. Victor poured more mana into the water, more frost, more darkness. The ice continued spreading, advancing steadily across the dungeon’s interconnected waterways.
