The Arcane Emperor - Chapter 189: A Quick Escape

Chapter 189: A Quick Escape

“You came at a good time Rainer,” Kaltek said, completely ignoring the glares sent his way, “these people were just bothering me, now they can’t.”

“I don’t follow,” Rainer said, holding back a chuckle at the glares sent their way. He wouldn’t be afraid of these 3rd Tiers even if his real body was here. They were quite obviously of the farm-raised variety, and the Draconic changes to his Soul had made [Soul Presence] and [Soul Consolidation] an even greater force to be reckoned with. And that wasn’t even counting how much better with [Blade of the Void] he had gotten now that he had [Strong Void Affinity]. At least in terms of how many uses he had. Not to mention the improvements [Void Call] and all of his other Void skills and magic gained.

“Well, if I can just leave Plane, they can’t annoy me can they?”

That seemed to get the 3rd Tiers attention. And all of them looked at Rainer like he was their greatest enemy, even if that look didn’t contain any actual enmity. Whatever the conflict here, it wasn’t life threatening.

“If you are going to be petty, you might as well be so petty that you run away to another world,” Rainer agreed.

“Exactly,” Kaltek agreed quite liking the way Rainer put it, “I assume you came here for a reason?”

“I found a Dungeon-”

“Perfect,” he laughed, “Let’s leave.”

Rainer finally laughed himself as the 3rd Tiers moved to stop him. One seemed to even cast a space-related spell. All of it was for naught as he disappeared with both Kaltek and Ol-dea in tow.

With Elru, her familiar Theodore, and Prince Laneth not participating, the eventual party for the Third Tower of Conquest had at least two free slots. Tian, from the Farseers, was unlikely to participate as well, busy as he was with the Farseers in the City of Wealth and settling in their eventual chosen destination. There were many organizations and Empires happy to accommodate the Mage Guilds that arrived there. Though they obviously avoided the Zan.

Rainer had a mind of filling at least two of those empty slots with both Kaltek and Ol-dea, the two strongest from the 2nd place party of the last Dungeon. The last empty slot would be offered to Kara’s father, but he had no idea if he’d take it. At the very least he was happy to get what should be ‘free’ rewards from the First Tower of Conquest.

The First Tower was a perfect place to test if they could be trusted, though nothing suggested they couldn’t. As the ‘restriction’ on everything but Aura was only enforced as a penalty, it would be easy to survive any attacks in exchange for being unrewarded.

Especially as they might be as good as stuck in this new world if they decided to betray Rainer. There was simply no reason for it, even if they still carried resentment from the prior Dungeon.

Not to mention having two possibly soon to be powerful 3rd Tiers on his side never hurt. That is, assuming they wouldn’t be putting off the Trial to the end of their lifespan. Rainer may sometimes think in centuries, but it was difficult for the 21-year-old to really consider things beyond just a few years at times.

“It seems like I owe you quite the favor. I had been stuck arguing with those old useless things for hours,” Kaltek complained, as he glanced around the area. The four Dungeon towers were particularly striking. There was no real vehemence in his voice, meaning it was likely an internal conflict rather than actual danger.

“You know things will just be worse this way,” Ol-dea reminded him from the side, “assuming they can even find us,” she eventually added. She turned to Rainer. “How far from our home are we exactly?”

“I have no idea how you’d measure that, but this is a planet,” Rainer answered wondering what other places they had visited other than their plane. The way she spoke suggested they had, or at least they knew of those who could.

Both of them turned away from the towers and regarded him with shock. Kaltek laughed and Ol-dea simply sighed, though it seemed to carry a bit of happiness.

“Far indeed,” Kaltek chuckled, taking a glance at the metal ‘city’ not that far from these towers. “Shall we start on the Dungeon right away?”

Rainer started explaining it to them. He didn’t particularly have any other pressing matters. Until he firmly improved [Arcane Awakening: Violet Death] to use up his Soul much faster, he was stuck just watching the situation on Alvra from afar. Thankfully, his [Archon] bonus seemed to have improved the skill in that direction already when it was made in the first place. It sacrificed flesh only sure, but it seemed as if [Soul Presence] used up his Soul that much faster when the skill was in use.

“Let’s gather everyone,” Rainer finally said.

The first thing Rainer did as they stepped into the Dungeon, was see if he could use his Void Will. It was a 50/50 shot as far as he was concerned. And the coin flip seemed to fail him this time around as he got a warning. The Second Tower may not be strictly Magic, but the first tower definitely seemed to be strictly Aura.

The magic that technically kept his Soul together didn’t seem to count, though he could visibly see Sarah getting depressed over having to deactivate her passive spells without needed to actually check with [Arcane Revelation].

It was on that note he tried to use Arcane Aura to try and fuel that skill. The Dungeon didn’t warn him and his eyes were covered. [Arcane Awakening] with Arcane Aura was no different, which led Rainer to believe it was non-Aura resources that were the problem rather than magic itself. It didn’t mean he could really fight but it was better than nothing.

Thankfully, for him at least, the First Tower of Conquest differed from the Second. Unlike the second where Aura users were useless baggage that had little choice but to tag along and do nothing of value, the First tower was more cooperative.

Rainer, and a few others stood in the center of wide open stone room with four hallways leading into it. Anyone capable of fighting spread out and blocked a path while the rest stood in the middle to handle the challenge in the center.

The puzzle varied each time, but it seemed to always be some sort of Runic based one that created a portal to the next stage. It took only a few moments for Rainer to realize the Runes were nonsense and were just used as a placeholder for letter or images, perhaps even to slow any Magic user down from mental pain.

“A rubix cube?” Rainer asked his grandfather’s next to him. Except how exactly were they to determine which runes went where? It was completely black after all. A shame he couldn’t figure out how the Dungeon was making it just sort of float there.

“Luna wants to try!” the Fairy said, floating down from his side and switching to her full size as she went forward. No one opted to stop her.

Rainer paid a quick glance to the blocked tunnels. Both Kaltek and Ymir, Kara’s father, were fine blocking a tunnel completely on their own. Neither would likely run low on Aura anytime soon. Kara herself was no different. Given the more burst nature of his talents, Gunthar would support anyone who needed it and Mira and Delilah handled the last tunnel. A monster like the [Ice Wolf Queen] being the least likely to truly run out of Aura in most cases.

“If you do not mind me asking,” Ol-dea started a bit cautiously, “what is she?”

“I’m Luna,” the Fairy absentmindedly answered.

“That doesn’t really answer my question.”

Rainer took a moment to give a quick overview on Fairies, leaving out of course anything about their dust. There was no reason to mention a sensitive topic like that. Few people lacked those in their life they wouldn’t want to live just a bit longer.

“She is… not a Flame?” the three-eyed Human asked, sounding quite confused.

That stumped Rainer for a bit. The Sacred Faerie Fire was certainly merged with her Soul, and he had a similar discussion with Art before.

“We don’t really know. You’ve dealt with sentient flames before?” Rainer said, thinking of the… ‘evil’ flame that he found in the Forbidden South with Luna. He couldn’t think of any other way to describe it other than that.

“I would not say they are common, but… they do exist. Often in strange parts of our plane. Some of the people of our world worship them, especially after many of the Divinities were ousted. For all their evil some seemed to miss worshiping something,” Ol-dea said, seemingly not understanding it herself, “they offer a few rewards and their protection in exchange for certain things. Though they don’t seem to particularly care about the worship itself.”

Rainer grew interested but he wasn’t so morally corrupt to have Luna go and try and consume flames that didn’t do anything to them first. Of course, a small part of him hoped they earned consumption through their actions but it didn’t sound like it. It was at the end of their conversation that Luna had already given up, muttering and rubbing her head at the ‘stupid puzzle’.

It was only a few minutes later that he realized the elemental nature of the runes and figured that was how you determined what went where. He took the time to scan over them but they didn’t seem to really make much sense. Nor were they particularly complicated enough to elicit any mental pain from him.

Had the Dungeon created ‘useless’ Runes just for this task? How was it even capable of that? But if the Runes were entirely useless they wouldn’t be Runes, at least from what he understood. Either way, he’d commit them to his memory later in [Sleep Learning]. There was no reason not to after all. He might even try to throw together a few random formula combinations and see if it did anything at all. That was generally a poor idea, even with [Sleep Learning], given how long it would take to produce anything that even worked negatively. But he wasn’t willing to let go of the Dungeon given Runes so easily.

Surprisingly enough it was Frederick who solved the thing in just under a minute after they figured out the gist of it, earning him some strange glances.

“What?” Frederick asked, a bit annoyed. He quite liked the little colorful cubes back on Earth.

The second stage involved hunting down a particular monster. They had watched it run away from them while they themselves were within a Dungeon-made barrier, from which they were released from exactly one minute later. It was a forest stage that was exactly the same in appearance as the 2nd stage of the Second Tower of Conquest. Kaltek and Ymir went off hunting on their own, while Kara carried Rainer on her back. Both [Void Detection] and [Arcane Revelation] were perfect for this type of thing after all. The rest stayed back under the protection of the remaining Aura users.

“I have to admit, this wasn’t how I pictured taking advantage of your lack of magic,” Kara grumbled from beneath him, pausing for a moment. No matter the purpose, Rainer using a riding skill on her was always embarrassing. Even if his current use of her made it so he could guide her to avoid any monsters without actually saying a word about it. It was almost romantic in that sense.

“What exactly did you imagine?” Rainer laughed, easily staying on with his strengthened body. He wasn’t even bothered by a few branches that swiped at him. They’d have to be going at an absurd speed for those to actually hurt him. Though it seemed Kara specifically sped past certain ones. Even without the pain he could still fall off after all.

“Me saving you like a helpless maiden?”

“Why like a helpless maiden? I can be just as helpless as myself,” Rainer asked, more so to be contrary than anything else, before suddenly growing a bit nervous.

“Maybe because I’d like to see what you look like in a dress?”

Rainer realized he was right to be nervous. Even if a part of him was curious himself just what his Charisma would make of that. He wasn’t afraid she’d actually do something against his will, but his pride would deny him saying mercy. But she’d be damned if he went willingly!

“You can’t get revenge for me using the riding skill when you agreed to it,” he reasonably complained, wondering over a viable escape plan.

“I agreed under coercion,” her wolven voice said unconvincingly.

She seemed content to let him think over it as she continued her trek through the forest. Before their conversation could continue, Rainer suddenly shifted his attention over to his Avatar.

With one Avatar in the City of Wealth and another guarding the Mana-Well, his last one currently lectured numerous Enchanters. It was the easiest way to motivate them to help with the next Auction in said city, if the free Mana for their own projects was ever not enough.

It didn’t matter if many of the things he spoke of he couldn’t recreate whatsoever himself. [Arcane Revelation] was simply that much of an advantage when it came to Enchanting. However, that wasn’t why he focused on his Avatar. Locklar had just entered the room and told him a group of Mages led by a 3rd Tier monster were waiting a bit outside their Guild.