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Chapter 615 Pits of Lava

Tssssssssss…

A drop of lava burnt Liam's shoulder guards as soon as he entered the dungeon. In front of him, laid a vast expanse of rocks, protrusions, and crevices that could be easily manageable, except that it was raining lava.

And also, there was lava everywhere else. The rocks were basically floating on the lava soup. There were only two stretches of land that were somewhat safe.

One where Liam was standing and the other at the center of the lava lake. However, the former was still unsafe as lava drizzled on it, dripping constantly from the rocks at the top, spread across as the roof of the enclosed dungeon.

If Liam didn't make a move soon, he would be completely drenched in lava, his health bottoming out, but this dungeon was not new to him so he knew exactly what to do.

Though he had not entered into this space before, he had heard about it and read about it in his last lifetime so he was somewhat familiar with it.

Tssssssssss…

Another drop of lava fell on the exact same spot and Liam burst into action. He used the small rocks that were here and there and raced across the lava pool to reach the center safe spot.

However, after reaching there, he placed the fox on the ground and immediately swung around, unsheathing the black dragon sword.

"Come out." He shouted, summoning the soul minions and the howler demon, and before he could close his mouth, the lava around the small rock platform started bubbling.

"Here they come." From within the bubbling lava, all sorts of creatures started stepping out. Some were tall, some were short, some were beast-like, some were humanoid, and so on. Their only common feature was that all of them were dripping with lava.

Liam grinned. His fighting spirit was raging. Fully surrounded by Level 60 deadly lava monsters that could take his life in an instant. This was it!

Thud! He planted his feet strongly on the ground and started his onslaught.

With this type of lava beasts, ice attacks combined with lightning attacks, wind attacks, and dark attacks would be the most effective. Fire and earth wouldn't do much.

So he churned his mana core and immediately started spamming [Ice Spears] and [Ice Shards]. These seemed to do the maximum damage.

And at such a close vicinity as more and more beasts crawled up from the lava to enclose Liam, he started swinging his sword.

The small rocky platform was meant to be an inconvenience to the player but Liam was using this small space to decimate all the creatures that were relentlessly coming up one after the other.

The only tricky part was that a creature had to be finished quickly. Otherwise, it could regenerate its health somewhat by jumping back into the lava.

Liam was already aware of this point so he did not let himself get overwhelmed. Though his moves seemed arbitrarily random, there was always a pattern in that he was not sparing any injured creature.

With the soul minions, the howler demons, and the lava creatures, the small platform was a complete mess. Halfway through, Liam sent away some of the soul minions back in so that the fight did not become too chaotic and backfire at him.

This smoothened some things and the first wave of the dungeon was swiftly cleared. However, almost immediately afterward, the second wave appeared.

This was the second plus point of the dungeon. Liam did not have to move anywhere. Everything knocked at his doorstep one after the other giving him absolutely no rest. This was the brutal design of the dungeon.

Liam grinned, welcoming the second wave of the lava creatures with open hands.

With every lava creature that fell notifications popped up endlessly. The huge chunks of experience points raining on him had already made all of this trouble worth it.

Liam tirelessly slashed the black dragon sword that roared in his hand. After the tower tournament, finally, the sword seemed to be alive once again when facing so many enemies at the same time.

The legendary rabbit's foot neckpiece was also working amazingly. This was the item that had given Liam the idea of attempting this dungeon in the first place. Without it, Liam wouldn't have come to this place just yet.

The buffs from the neckpiece boosted his attributes tremendously. His speed, strength, stamina everything was pushed to the extreme as more and more lava creatures started pouring in.

The second wave, the third wave, and even the fourth wave, everything was handled in a jiffy, almost as fast as the previous dungeon. If the players from his past life knew about this clearing speed, they would shed tears of blood.

As the last lava creature of the fourth wave fell, the entire place started shaking. There were light tremors everywhere and the lava lake roiled.

Waves after waves of lava started assaulting the small platform, rocking it back and forth. However, Liam did not look scared. He gripped his sword tightly and stood steady. He already knew that nothing was going to happen to this platform.

Even the one at the entrance had a chance to crumble but this platform was the core of the dungeon so no matter how much it rocked it would never fall.

The threatening tremors continued to rage for a few seconds when from within the turbulent waters of the lava lake, something huge started materializing.

A giant creature appeared from the depths of the lake to face the intruder.

This was the only boss of the dungeon and it had a mana core! This meant that its attacks were going to be much fiercer than the other mobs.

So for this boss fight, Liam only kept Crawford and the howler demon around, sending back everyone else.

"Let's go," he shouted as he dashed forward and swung his sword.

And just like that, the fight started with the black dragon sword howling loudly.

Chapter 616 l am dead

"Arrange a meeting for me with your big brother."

Madan chewed his nails and stared at this one-line text again and again unblinkingly. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. One devil wants to meet the other. What am I supposed to do now?"

He was already relieved that their 'big brother' had let them simply leave the team, just like that, without any sort of repercussions whatever.

And now… he had to go back and ask for a favor?

"Fuck." Just the thought of it made Madan nervous. He shook his head and thought about his alternatives. What if he brought this to the guy as a business proposition?

He thought about it for a second but then once again shook his head. "Damn it. That also won't work. The crazy guy will once again start blabbering about fate and the future and drive me crazy."

"ARGHHHH! Just what am I supposed to do now?! Should I just tell him that big brother didn't agree to a meeting?"

That seemed to be the best option for now. Madan spat out bits and pieces of his dirty nail and stood up as if he had decided his course of action.

However, all of a sudden he froze. He couldn't help but think of the meeting with Liam that had gone exceedingly well.

To be honest, just like Anya had been warning him from the beginning, he at least expected to die once or twice. If not for that, then the meeting should have gone horribly wrong.

But none of that had happened. Everything went so smoothly. Suspiciously so. Just thinking about it, gave a chill to the guy. Maybe all along, he was let off only because of this meeting?

If perhaps this meeting did not happen… then… maybe that guy would hunt him down and kill him after all?

"Fuck. I am so dead. That maniac might just do it."

No matter how he looked at this he was definitely caught between a rock and a hard place. He could neither arrange the meeting nor let it go.

ARGGHHHH! Madan shouted in frustration.

Meanwhile… back at the dungeon…

ARGGHHHH!

Liam shouted as he repeatedly slammed the black dragon sword onto the lava giant. After every single time he attacked, he had to move because the giant was ready for the next attack.

However, he soon grasped this rhythm, and with Crawford and the Howler demon backing him the rest of the fight went smoothly. The boss was put down just like the other lava mobs.

A series of notifications and abundant experience points instantly chimed in. Liam, however, ignored these things and quickly went ahead to take note of the small fox lying down on the ground in a corner.

Weirdly enough she had a small smile on her face as if she was dreaming and she looked extremely comfortable that Liam did not feel like disturbing the little thing.

Unfortunately, to reset the dungeon he had to go back out and come in again. So he lifted the little thing and walked out. Behind him, the howler demon collected the drops and followed Liam out of the dungeon.

Once outside, Liam quickly took a look at the drops most of which were quite useless except for the pair of boots which gave a bump in the fire resistance.

Tossing the others into the inventory, he equipped this set of boots and once again rushed back into the dungeon carrying the fox along. He only had about a dozen fire-resistance potion bottles and he wanted to make good use of them all.

So once again the rodeo started all over again. This continued for six hours straight when the potion supply finally ran out.

Liam huffed as he walked over to the barren cracked lands some distance away from the main dungeon. The elves were still standing there, patiently waiting for him.

He waved at them and went to sit beside them. However, he remained silent, checking his status first.

He had started this whole dungeon business at Level 51 with about 40% of the experience bar filled up. Now, he was at Level 52 with about 80% of the experience bar filled up. And to do this, it had almost taken him the entire day.

"So one level per day?" It did not sound bad, but Liam frowned. For others, this might be an insane leveling speed, but for him, this was just simply not going to cut it.

At this point, there was no way he could afford to spend his time here in the middle of nowhere, grinding endlessly in a dungeon.

However, at the moment, this seemed to be his only option. It was impossible to cross the barbarians territory when he was this weak. The elves made that clear.

"I hope this is at least helping you." Liam turned to look at the fox who seemed to be slightly doing better? Maybe not? He really had no way to tell.

He stroked the creature gently and lovingly when Lyana unexpectedly spoke up. "That dungeon is helping the beast." She said, affirming his theory.

"How do you know?" Liam was surprised, to say the least.

"Ummm… I am weak right now. So I can't say for sure but I can vaguely sense the life force of the beast." The elf looked reluctant to answer the question almost as if she regretted blurting it out in the first place.

"Hmmm… Thank you for telling me this." Liam thanked her sincerely.

He wanted to ask more but he decided to wait until he finished the quest. Hopefully, by then the elf would be more willing to answer the questions.

His gaze left the sleeping fox and flickered towards the dungeon in the distance, thinking about the more pressing issue.

He was now completely out of the fire resistance potions. So how was he going to continue these dungeon runs?

Chapter 617 What is this?

Liam took out the other items he received from the dungeon. Apart from the pair of boots, there was also another ring and belt that had dropped and both had some fire resistance attributes.

He added these to his current gear but the required fire resistance was still far away. He neither had extra potions nor herbs to make more.

Liam looked at his inventory for anything that he could use and saw that he still had plenty of health potions left. "I guess I could always drink these and keep going?"

He thought about it for a moment and did not go along with it because health potions were always required for emergencies and it was not wise to use them during grinding.

Even if he planned to do that, then he needed to prepare more beforehand and only then use it. Otherwise, in case there was any unexpected emergency, he would be caught off guard and the result would be disastrous.

Either way, it looked like he needed to spend some time making potions. "Hmm… too bad the PVP tower is out of commission." Liam bitterly smiled and started to take out things to make more health potions.

He had more sets of herbs stored for making these so there wasn't any issue. The next couple of hours quietly passed with Liam silently busying himself with the potion-making.

Lyana observed this and became even more shocked. This mysterious person who had rescued them seemed to be holding many talents and secrets.

After making a few sets of potions, Liam then once again started the dungeon diving process. His goal was to get a few more fire resistance items and if possible the dungeon set because that would enable him to wander around this place easily without needing any other potion.

However, the grind was brutal. He ran the same dungeon ten more times and still there wasn't any other item drop. He had ten health potions still left which would last about twelve runs so Liam kept going.

With every run, the little fox also seemed to be doing better and better. One could now see her chest rise and fall as she seemed to be sleeping much more peacefully.

A couple more hours passed by when Liam once again ran out of potions. It looked like it was time to move on to another dungeon as this was becoming less efficient.

At the same time, Luna's condition was improving here so he was torn between the two options. If he could only use the stone tablet anywhere, his life would be a lot easier.

However, he neither had the mana cores for it nor there was any particular location nearby. There were only barren lands and beyond that dense forests for acres and acres.

Liam silently stared into the distance when suddenly something very obvious crossed his mind. What about the dungeon itself?

Dungeons were special places inside the game where mana was found in abundance and since the stone tablet required this sort of rich mana for its special functions, why not give this a try?

The more Liam thought about this, it made sense and he did not know why he didn't try this before. The solution to this problem could be something so simple and all the while right in front of his eyes?

He stood up and quickly dashed forward to the dungeon once again holding the little fox in his hand. "Come on. This needs to work."

Liam first completed the dungeon run, killing the final boss as he had every time before. He then settled on to the small rock at the center, taking out the stone tablet from his inventory space. He laid the inconspicuous stone tablet to rest on the ground.

One second passed. Two seconds passed. Nothing seemed to happen. Not even the usual garden popped out.

"Hmmm… Maybe this is a bad idea?"

Liam began doubting his theory when suddenly the lava surrounding the rocky platform at the center started bubbling slowly.

Soon the bubbles became intense as if the lava itself had started to boil. "Fuck! This whole thing is going to explode on my face?"

Liam hurriedly picked up Luna and prepared to leave but before he could a visible ripple emanated from the stone tablet. The next instant everything around them calmed down and surprisingly, the scenery also started changing.

In a second, Liam was no longer in the volcanic mountain. Instead, he was on barren cracked land that was somewhat similar to the outside and yet different.

"What is this?" Liam was utterly shocked. It was almost as if he was in another place. Till the eyes could see, this same barren cracked land extended indefinitely.

Only the stone tablet lay innocently some distance away. There was absolutely nothing else here. Maybe this was a version of the garden?

But Liam knew that it couldn't be so simple because the air around him pulsed with a strange energy. It prickled his skin like the summer heat.

Luna?" Liam immediately panicked and checked the fox to see if she was okay when the sight that met him was once again shocking.

The small fox had an intoxicated expression on her face as if she had just eaten her fill and drank a few jugs of wine.

"You…" Liam helplessly smiled. It seemed that he was worried for no reason. The fox was doing just fine. Only he looked stranded and confused. "Just what is this place? Can I still make potions here?"

He looked around strolling for a while, keeping the stone tablet as his direction center but there was really nothing in this place. No pond. No trees. Only acres and acres of scorching hot barren empty land.

It was the complete opposite of the garden. He closed his eyes and thought of a few herbs and unfortunately, even those did not pop up as they did with the garden.

"I guess this is a bust after all?" Liam turned around to walk back to the stone tablet.

There was no point in staying here any longer and he knew that the space would disappear if he tossed the stone tablet back into his inventory space.

However, when he returned to the place, this time something was different. Near the stone tablet, a small puddle was formed if one could even call that. It was just a handful of water.

Liam curiously walked over closer to this puddle and peered into it. Almost immediately his eyes widened in shock, his lips slowly curling up into a grin.

Inside the puddle, visible clearly, were small wisps of fire essence. Golden reddish wisps were dancing in the water.

If he was right, then this puddle had to be some sort of special pond just like the one in the garden but with a concentrated amount of fire elemental essence.

He bent down and scooped some amount of water, dipping his hand inside the puddle. Just like he thought, something warm and nourishing swept across his body.

He waited for some notification like the one he received earlier but nothing like that came out. Nevertheless, he was sure that this was fire essence he was absorbing. He remembered the feeling and it was exactly the same.

"Just what is this place…"

Now that he had confirmed the presence of fire essence, slowly other things were also starting to fall into place and everything was becoming clearer.

The stone tablet in front of him was probably absorbing all the essence from the dungeon and slowly pooling it in this place. With time, perhaps there would be another big pond in this spot.

Did this mean if he took the tablet to a frozen dungeon or an earth dungeon then those essences could also be collected? There were so many possibilities he could think of.

Liam looked at the stone tablet in puzzlement. He was sure he still hadn't scratched even the surface of this treasure.

"Hmmm… Now that I think about this, if that old guy Crawford went crazy over this stone tablet, then it's definitely not something ordinary."

He wondered what surprise it would give him if he fully unlocked its potential, but all of those could wait. For now, there was something more important that he needed to do.

Liam gently placed the fox in his hand down into the puddle formed near the stone tablet.

He was ready to quickly lift her back up in case things looked worse but the fox cooed comfortably nuzzling her head in the waters like it was her mother's womb.

"Seems to be working?" Liam continued to observe the little thing and only then decided to let her be.

"So this place collects the essence and the dungeon also seems to be fueling the tablet. Why can't I make it grow herbs then?"

He suddenly had a thought and closed his eyes. He imagined a herb again but this time he imagined one herb that was rich in fire essence and grew only in an extreme atmosphere, specifically inside a volcano.

Chapter 618 Poof!

When Liam opened his eyes, in front of him there was a small red color vine that was curled up on the barren grounds like a snake. Interspersed on this vine, there were tiny red fruits, Fire Persimmons!

Liam grinned. It actually worked. He had only half-expected it but this was good. After observing the plant, he plucked the small fruits on the vine and then started making juice out of them by smashing the fruits together in his palm.

He then fed this juice to the little fox who was happily laying in the puddle. A drop fell down her cheek which was quickly retrieved by a small tongue.

"Are you getting better?" Liam smiled. He fed the fox some more of the juice filled to the brim with fire essence and then allowed the little creature to rest.

Everything was going great but his main problem still remained. He did not have any fire resistance potions. Only one ingredient probably could be grown in this type of atmosphere so it was not possible to make the potion at the moment even with the stone tablet.

So Liam dropped that idea and decided to just spend some more time here before leaving for another dungeon. He wanted to give Luna enough time to recover and see if her condition improved.

Meanwhile, there was something else that he wanted to try out. He sat down close to the puddle near the stone tablet where the fire essence was slowly and steadily accumulating and grinned. "Come out."

The next second, his group of soul minions popped out with Crawford standing front and center.

"Damn it. Is he going to torture us more?" Gu Donghai worriedly looked around, not recognizing where they were. Gorak also showed a similar expression as he cautiously studied the surroundings.

It was a strange sight that they had never seen before, except of course for the demon Liam and the little dead fox. Ever since Luna had fallen ill the two were cursing her relentlessly and hoping for her to die just so that Liam would suffer.

But now that was not their problem. The problem was this lunatic. Every time he summoned them when there was no battle, they could tell that something else was going to happen. Was it their turn?

As this thought crossed their mind, Liam's gaze landed on them for a moment and then flitted away ignoring them. Instead, he once again focused on the chickens and rabbits.

Liam ordered one of the three-headed chickens to come over. By now, it was a habit for him to start experimenting with these beasts first before proceeding to the higher-order soul beasts.

All the soul minions watched as the three-headed chicken innocently walked over because it did not know better.

Liam smiled at the chicken and then without any warning condensed it back into the soul bead form. He then started churning his mana core and forging the soul bead once again.

This time he was not combining this soul bead with another soul bead. Instead, he wanted to try and combine it with the fire essence swirling in the puddle near him.

Liam gritted his teeth feeling the familiar pressure of the soul thrashing against his grasp to disperse and then he started slowly fusing it with the essence from the pond.

Though the process seemed simple enough, actually doing it turned out to be troublesome. Controlling pure essence was very difficult and the whole thing was brutally slow putting that much more pressure on Liam.

In the end, it took him five hours to get a grasp and completely reforge the soul. Thankfully, he got the notifications that he wanted.

Liam wiped the sweat off of his forehead and nodded contently. "Not bad." He then quickly opened the status screen to check the new and improved version of the three-headed chicken.

[Name: Chicken1

Type: Undead

Level: 41

Health: 3700

Mana: 100

Strength: 39

Agility: 35

Physical Defense: 69

Magic Defense: 18

Special Skill: Hurricane Peck; Fiery Pursuit]

"This is too good!" Liam's grin continued widening as he scrolled up to down and noticed all the new changes in the status screen. Not only had the chicken gained mana stat, and increased magic defense, it had also gained a new skill.

[Fiery Pursuit: Create streaks of fire while chasing after the enemy; Cool Down: 3 minutes]

The skill did not make sense as it could affect the chicken as well, it was extremely weak and the cool-down was horrible. However, Liam didn't care about that.

Though this skill might be useless, the fact that this was even possible was very big news! It opened up several avenues for him to reinforce the others!

Liam took a deep breath, closed the system interface, and called over the guy next in line. The huge rabbit arrived in front of him in a single jump.

And thus… the long day started. Starting from the chickens and the rabbits, Liam started reforging all the soul minions one after the other in the presence of the fire essence.

The puddle next to him that was being constantly filled up by the essence from the dungeon was slowly being sucked clean by him from the side.

One by one all the minions received their baptism. Liam as well was very satisfied with the overall results. Even if not many special skills popped up, everyone's magic defense improved a lot.

This was important because the magic defense was one of the main weaknesses of his soul minions. With a higher magic defense, their health wouldn't get drained as fast as before.

And not everything was so low-key. Some of the minions gained notable skills. One, Two, and Three who were all werewolves now gained [Fire Slash], where fire essence enveloped their claws and increased their attack power.

The imps and the lesser dryads as well showed huge improvement as their soul beads underwent a qualitative transformation with their attacks now a lot stronger.

The entirety of the next twenty-four hours was spent in this madness and of course, the little fox was happily resting on the side throughout all the ruckus.

Liam let out a deep breath as he tiredly looked at the group of minions in front of him. He had worked very hard but it was going to pay off in the upcoming days.

He observed all of his creations one by one and now the only ones that were left unforged were the lackeys from the Gu clan, Crawford, Gu Donghai, and Gorak.

Except for Crawford, all the other guys were shivering in fear. Was it their chance next?

Liam did not have any plans for them at the moment but hearing them curse Luna repeatedly made him want to teach them a lesson. "Perhaps I should give it a try?" Liam gave a sinister smile.

He called the lackey number one whose name he did not care to remember and everyone's face fell. This was it. This was the end.

The lackey number one stepped forward hesitantly though he did not want to and everyone else watched in dread as Liam made the familiar hand motion.

And just as things were about to take a turn for the worst, suddenly something started happening. The world was shaking. More precisely, the land they were standing on was quaking.

Liam immediately became alert as his eyes went to Luna first and he grabbed the fox. He then turned to look at the stone tablet which was vibrating visibly.

"Hmmm?" Before he could begin to wonder what was happening, the stone tablet glowed and the next second everything around him darkened.

When Liam's vision cleared, the group found themselves standing on the outside. The special world was no longer there and the stone tablet was also lying on the ground.

"Hmmm?" Liam picked it up and tossed it into his inventory space. "What happened? Why did I get kicked out?" The obvious question appeared in his mind as he looked around and saw the familiar dungeon's location.

However, something was different. It took Liam a second but he soon saw what was different. The dungeon was missing! The entire damn dungeon was missing!

"Fuck!" He looked around hurriedly, moving here and there, and saw that the tall mountain peak had really vanished. There were only dry cracked lands nearby. The white mist, the volcano, the lava, everything was gone.

Liam couldn't believe his eyes. For the thing that he was seeing, there was only one explanation, but... could that really be possible? It frightening to even think about it.

However, the truth was right in front of his eyes.

He had only planned to borrow, and take a little mana from the dungeon, but now it looked like the stone tablet had ended up swallowing the whole dungeon, the entire goddamn place!

Wasn't this just a bit too much? How could a significant landmark of the game disappear just like that?