1029-1043

Chapter C1029: A New Day

The astral chart opened in front of Ning to show the location of that which he could find. The system quickly showed him the location which was somewhere at the edge of his galaxy.

"Here?" Ning asked with a frowned look on his face. If it was in the Milky Way galaxy, then it was a bad choice.

However, he also had to improve his Mana. That was an entirely separate problem that he had been intending to solve right now as well.

"How long will it take me just for this one task?" Ning asked, not even bothering to learn about the time it would take to gather the mana.

<At least a year>

Ning's frown only got deeper. "What is that in earth time?" he asked.

<around 10 days>

That was much better, but it was still quite bad. When adding onto that the time it would take for him to be a Tier 8 mage, that was even worse.

"I will need to be away for so goddamn long," he thought to himself. That was on top of the already exhausting amount of tasks he had to do here on earth.

"I can't do this all by myself," Ning thought to himself. He wondered what he could do for a few minutes as an idea came to his mind. When he thought of the idea, he couldn't help but smile like a child who had just thought of something mischievous.

"Let's start a new day with a new me," he thought to himself. "System, I'll be needing your help."

* * * * * *

Ely watched as her brother walked out of the bathroom alongside Blue who had helped him through his breakthrough.

The filth was cleared up and Chase was looking around with a weird look on his face, not understanding what was happening to him. What the hell even was this cultivation bullshit that his apparent sister was forcing him to go through? Was this how he got abducted? Or was this just a way to make him work for the aliens?

"Good, you're—"

She stopped speaking and looked in a certain direction with a confused look on her face. Blue was confused too.

She quickly walked outside and saw a portal opening right in front of the house that lead to somewhere that didn't seem habitable.

Outside of the portal, Ning was standing with a curious look on his face. However, even as she walked towards him, Ely could tell something was wrong.

"Honey?" She called out to Ning.

"Hmm?" Ning turned around. "Hey, what are you guys doing out here?"

"We sensed the portal," Ely said as she pointed to the portal in front of her, but even as she said that the portal closed. "Why did you open it?"

"I needed something that was there," Ning said.

Ely narrowed her eyes. "Did you get it?" she asked.

"No, it will take some time," Ning said. "But I'm certain I will get it."

Blue returned back to the house, but Ely stood there. She could tell something was wrong, but she couldn't tell what it was.

She walked close to him and suddenly punched him in the face. Ning tried to dodge the attack, but the attack was too fast for him.

Her punch landed on his face, breaking not just his nose, but also a couple of his teeth at the front.

"Ely, what the hell?" Ning cried out as he held his face to stop the bleeding.

"Hah! Imposter! You're not Ning," she said. "My husband wouldn't be injured by such a weak attack of mine."

"Geez, that's why you attacked me?" Ning asked. "You couldn't have just asked? I would've told you."

"Told me what? That you're an imposter?" Ely asked. "Who are you and where is my husband?"

Ning's face slowly changed as his wounds reverted back to normal and even his fallen teeth grew back. "I'm not an imposter," he said. "It is me, your husband. Well, I'm a clone, but that shouldn't change things much."

"What? You're a clone?" She asked with an absolutely gobsmacked look on her face. "Where is the real Ning then?"

"Away," Ning said. "On an important job."

"And he didn't think to let me know before leaving?" Ely asked.

"I mean… I am telling you right now," Ning said. "There was no point in telling you since I would still be here anyway."

"That man needs to learn to control his impulses," Ely said while shaking her head.

"Hey! I'm still here. Don't speak badly about me while I'm in front of you," Ning said.

"But you're not him," Ely said.

"I am," Ning said. "Just because this is another body of mine doesn't make me a fake. Both my body are made up anyway."

"So you two are the same?" Ely asked.

"Well… not physically I suppose," Ning said. "I don't have a system, so I'm lacking a few skills aside from the ones I put into this body. But I do have all the memories and feelings, so on the inside, I'm essentially the same person, capable of making the same decisions. Also, I'm connected to the body with the system, so that can override me and use my body when needed."

Ely was having a slightly hard time understanding what was happening. It didn't seem like a clear case of real and fake as it would usually happen with clones that were made using Qi. This was something else.

"So you are just a worse version of Ning," she asked.

"In a way, yes," Ning said.

"And why did you do this?" she asked.

"I had multiple things to do, and doing it all back to back felt exhausting. So, I decided to go do the important tasks far away, while I take care of the less important tasks down here with this body," Ning said. "Once I am back, this body will be taken in by the system and all our memories will join together."

Ely thought for a bit. "What was so important that you needed to leave?" she asked.

"Let's go in," Ning said. "I will tell you all about it."

Chapter C1030: Quick Power Up

"So, what exactly can you do?" Ely asked the Ning that was in front of her. He had already told her about his plans, so the only thing remaining was for her to wait until he was back from what he was doing.

However, they still had things to do so she needed to know what he could do exactly.

"I can teleport, regenerate, have the same base body that I can improve if I wanted to, and I have the same knowledge as my other self," Ning said.

"Are you connected right now? It's hard to say if I'm speaking to a new you or the actual you," Ely said.

"No, I'm not," Ning said. "I'm pretty much independent for now, but I can be taken over by the other me. Just think of myself as a terribly accurate copy of my own intelligence artificially created and put into this body."

"Well, as long as you don't mess it up," Ely said. "So, what do we do now?"

"Well, I have many things to do, but the first thing would be that I need to break through. I'm going to have to improve as much as I can for the next few weeks before Ning comes back," Ning said.

Ely sighed. "Alright. Let's go," she said and let him do his own thing.

Ning started cultivating without waiting, and at the same time he also absorbed mana and spiritual energy in the surrounding

He had spirit stones for Qi, so his cultivation speed would be quite fast, and Earth was full of Mana, so that wouldn't be very hard as well. However, there wasn't that much spiritual energy for him to draw from the surrounding, so that was a problem.

Also, since his 4 spirits were bonded to this other self, he didn't have access to Saphandra, Terra, Void, and Gray's abilities.

They were roaming around in the house as he had let them free, but he wasn't going to be able to bond with them either way. The best he could do was try to find a different bond from far away and maybe summon it, but with the lack of spiritual energy on earth, he had to give up on the idea of reaching any higher than maybe rank 4 with it.

So, he decided to focus on cultivation and mana for now.

The people in the house, especially Night, Blue, and Ely were surprised by the constant movement of Qi in the air as Ning broke through realm after realm in a matter of minutes.

They knew their cultivation method was good and could help one break through very quickly. However, they had only seen that speed with themselves.

Now, they were witnessing what happened when you mixed the best cultivation method in the entire universe with a body with the best talent in the entire universe.

Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul, Spirit Transformation, and finally Ascension, Ning went through them in less than 2 hours.

The only reason he was so slow was that the Qi refused to leave the spirit stones any faster. Otherwise, he would've entered the upper realm even faster.

It was the same with Mana as well. He had a very good mana absorption technique, which he run parallel to his cultivation. Due to Mana circuits and Qi meridians being separate in his body, the same with Sea of Qi and Sea of Mana, he was able to perform both sorts of absorption at once.

In the 2 hours, he sucked dry the SS-ranked mana stone he had left for himself, reaching Tier 5 by the time he was done.

His Mana core was gone, so he brought out some more spirit stones and continued cultivating alone. His Body and Qi were improving at the same time, so he didn't stop.

Or so he thought. Unfortunately, he now had a job he needed to do. So, when someone called him, he had to stop.

"We have a training session at 11 today. Do you want to join?" Kim Min-Soo asked from the other side.

"Is this for the S-ranked dungeon I went to before?" Ning asked.

"No, this is for a different one, government-owned. I'm trying to have a secondary team go clear the government-owned one as a favor. I just wanted to know if you are willing to come by for the training or not," she asked.

"11…" he said as he checked the time. It was already 9 am. He had been lost in his own time for a while now. The director and the prime minister still had to set up the global meeting, so he supposed he had some time.

"Sure, I can do it," Ning said. "I might even join as part of the group to clear the dungeon."

"Uh… I don't think that's a good idea," Kim Min-Soo said. "I just wanted you to come help with the training."

"Don't worry, I won't make it easy for them," Ning said. He couldn't do that anyway. "I just want to fight with a few monsters while they rest is all."

Kim sighed on the other side. "Sure," she said. "Be here by 11 then. We will have a 3-hour training. We will enter the dungeon later around 4 pm."

"Alright, I will see you at the guild then," Ning said and ended the call.

A few people walked into the room where he was cultivating and stared at him. Ning stared back and gave a confused look. "What?" he asked.

"How did you cultivate so quickly, master?" Blue asked.

"I have a talented body," Ning said. "I am the best there is."

"Can… can I have one too?" Blue asked.

"A talented body?" Ning asked and shook his head. "It's a 'me' thing. Anyway, stop gawking around. You've seen more fascinating things than this anyway."

That was true, but this was just as equally fascinating as well. A mortal breaking through to Immortality in just 2 hours.

"Where's Hi-Ah and Jung-Hee?" he asked. "Get them ready, we'll have to go to work any minute now."

Chapter C1031: Breaking News

Ning, Hi-Ah, and Jung-Hee left for their work.

"Sister Ely said that we will be able to fly too in the future, is that true?" Jung-Hee asked.

"Hmm, how strong are you guys right now?" Ning asked as he checked their cultivation bases. "Oh right, you didn't get a chance to cultivate, did you? Once you cultivate to Foundation establishment realm, you should be able to hover around and move slowly. To actually fly around you will have to be in the Core Formation realm."

"And… how long is that going to take us?" Jung-Hee asked.

Ning thought for a moment. "If you cultivated all night long, you should be able to reach there within the week, maybe even faster since your body is strong enough to handle the changes already," he said.

The two siblings couldn't help but be happy when they heard about it.

"By the way, brother. Why did you join the White Devil guild?" Jung-Hee asked. "That doesn't make sense to me at all."

"It doesn't?" Ning asked. "What? Did you expect me to join another guild? I'm pretty sure the White Devil guild is the best one."

"It is," Hi-Ah said. "But I don't think that's what he's asking. He wants to know why you didn't open your own guild. With your ability, people would flock to you far faster and your guild would be one of the best in no time."

Ning chuckled a bit when he heard that. "I have no desire to start a guild. In fact, doing so would work against what I'm planning," he said.

"Against what you're planning?" Hi-Ah asked curiously.

Ning wondered if he could answer the two of them or not. One of the very unfortunate results of leaving behind a clone was that he could no longer sense the constellations when they were focusing on him. As a result, he didn't find it wise to speak freely every word in his mind.

"Well, I can't go into the specifics, but the goal of my plan is to rid of the dungeons on earth so humanity no longer has to live in fear every day," Ning said. "If I were to start a guild, I would have to find dungeons, make plans to keep the dungeon healthy for a long time, and make use of it, which ultimately isn't what I want. I don't want to keep the dungeons here," he said.

"I see," Hi-Ah said. "But are the dungeons really that bad? They provide us with mana stones and a lot of various rare ores that have been greatly useful."

Ning sighed when he heard that. "And what if that leads to another dungeon break?" he asked.

"Well," Hi-Ah hesitated. "That would be horrible. But we have fighters who can protect us this time around, so I don't think the casualties would be as high as last time."

"What if the monsters in the dungeon break range from E-rank all the way beyond SSS-ranks? Is that still okay?" he asked.

"What?" Jung-Hee exclaimed out loud. "There are monsters out there beyond SSS-rank?"

"Yes," Ning said. "The dungeons are too low level for that, but once the SSS-rank dungeons appear, you will see. Although, it might be very late by then."

The two showed a bit of fear on their faces as they understood the severity of the situation. "I see," Hi-Ah said. "Then we must destroy the dungeons very soon."

"Yes," Ning said. "But that's not very easy either."

"Why not?" she asked.

"Well… there are things that don't want you to interfere with those," Ning said. "You will find every Apostle against the idea of destroying a dungeon. They will use excuses like the ones you just did for keeping them around, but in truth, they are doing what they have been ordered to do."

Hi-Ah tried to say something, but Ning interrupted her. "Don't speak about it." He said. "Never speak about it with anyone. There are forces here that I won't be able to save you against, not yet. Keep your thoughts to yourself."

Hi-Ah gulped down her words and put on a blank, but pale face as she continued driving through the highway on the way to the city.

"Man, I just wanted to work with the two of you, that's why I brought up the idea of starting a guild. I didn't think that…" Jung-Hee stopped speaking as well.

They arrived in the city and Hi-Ah dropped off Jung-Hee before taking Ning over to the guild.

Hi-Ah went to do her own thing, while Ning was led to a VIP room to wait out the minutes before the training was to begin.

He sat comfortably on the massive sofa, looking up the news on the TV that was inside the room. Just then, a headline popped up on the screen.

At the same time, his ring started buzzing, a sign that someone was calling him. He quickly checked and it was the director. He accepted the call.

"Is this about the new dungeon?" Ning asked as soon as he accepted the phone call.

"You know about it?" the director asked with a surprised look on his face.

"I'm watching the news right now," Ning said.

"Damn, the news outlets know already?" the director couldn't help but ask. However, he seemed to have gotten different news from the other side, so he quickly stopped talking.

The news anchors who were giving the normal news, immediately changed their state to put on a serious look to give the latest breaking news.

"We interrupt this segment to give you a breaking news that is coming to us from around the world. Many people have started noting the appearance of new dungeons all around the globe. These new dungeons seem to appear at random places, so we suggest all the people stay away from any you might come across and notify the authorities if you see one around your place."

Ning looked at the news segment with a slight awe on his face. "So that's your move, huh?" he thought. "That certainly will make things difficult going forward."

Chapter C1032: More Dungeons

The team training for later that day was canceled as everyone immediately rushed to help the government document the various dungeon gates that were opening up everywhere.

People everywhere were advised to stay away from the gates, and while that didn't work entirely, they did manage to keep most of them away from the gates.

The daredevils couldn't be stopped as they rushed head-first into the dungeons, trying to find glory.

Ning walked with Kim Min-Soo towards the upper floors of the building to a massive room with screens all around them.

Various individuals, all important to the country, were on the screen.

"The White Devil guild is available," Kim Min-Soo announced as she walked up to one of the screens.

Ning stayed a little behind with the vice leader and other important members of the sect. He looked around to see the other 4 Apostles and their guild members, some more leaders from smaller guilds, various ministers, generals, director Sung and the prime minister.

"Does anyone have any idea what is happening?" the prime minister asked. He looked awful on the screen, not just from the lack of sleep the entire night, but also from the stress of having to hear such terrible news right afterward.

"What many dead?" Soo-Yun on the screen asked.

"As of yet, about 40 people that have entered the 13 new dungeons in Korea have not returned. It has been at least 2 hours since the first one is said to have entered, so it is expected that they have died already," the director spoke as he read from a few pieces of paper in front of him.

"It's also possible that they are inside there still, right?" one of the ministers asked. "A normal dungeon hunt can go anywhere from half an hour to an entire day."

"It is, minister. But one of the groups of people who entered included an S-ranked individual according to my data, and he too hasn't come out in the many hours. If the dungeons are so strong that it takes someone like that such a long time, then the other weaker ones certainly won't be having an easier time," the director said.

"That's a very negative look on the situation," the prime minister said. "But I suppose that helps us be realistic with our expectations."

"What's the dungeon rank exactly?" Lee asked.

"We do not know right now, but our people are finding it out as we speak. We should have the answer by the end of the meeting," the director said.

"How many dungeons are there exactly?" the speedster Park spoke from one of the screens.

"There are 18 dungeons that have opened around—"

"26," Ning spoke up from behind Kim Min-Soo. Everyone turned around to look at him with weird looks on their face.

"How do you know that, Apostle Ning?" the prime minister asked.

"I have my people searching the entire country. They already documented the number and location of the dungeons in Korea," Ning said. "I've sent them overseas to document the entire planet."

"Can that be trusted?" one of the generals asked.

"I don't think it matters if we trust the information or not," the director said. "His number is higher than our own, so at worse, we will just over-prepare. No harm in overpreparation."

"Yeah, but we will have to split personnel throughout the various dungeons. That will slow down our time if this turns out to be wrong," the general said.

The director had no answer for that. He was right after all. So, he quickly fished out a piece of paper from the pile in front of him and started reading out the places where the dungeons had appeared.

Once finished, he asked Ning, "tell me one dungeon that I did not list that you know. We will check it immediately to make sure your words are true."

"Sure," Ning said. "There's one in an abandoned building in Seoul itself. It's a half-constructed building with no paint, warded by sheets of red tins in Jung-Dong, Mapo-Gu. Since no one goes there anymore, people haven't realized that one has opened there as well."

The director immediately sent someone to check there.

"Alright, let's talk about what we're going to do now. Whether there are more dungeons or not, we still need to know how to go about the ones that exist," the prime minister said.

"What else can we do?" one of the generals asked. "Keep about 8 of them, and give the remaining up for auction. That's what we always do with the dungeons."

"We have no intention of buying that which has not been explored yet," Bak said. "So, our first task should be to explore one of the dungeons to see what it's about."

"Who is volunteering?" Lee asked.

Everyone remained silent. No one wanted to be the hero of the day. They would rather survive and be one some other time. If the dungeons were unnaturally strong, then they would be in trouble.

"Any of you Apostles willing to join? We will have to have at least two of you go together to look after yourself," the prime minister said.

"You should ask Graves what he knows," Ning said. "And if he knows exactly who is involved in this."

"Who are involved?" Kim Min-Soo gave a weird look. "What do you mean?"

"This is not something that just happened to happen," he said. "The various gods are behind this, I just don't know which ones."

The White Devil's guild leader couldn't help but give a wide-faced stare at him when she heard that.

"Sir, this just came," a voice shouted from the screens and everyone turned around just in time to see the director receive a note.

He stared at the note with so much shock and confusion, that the others couldn't help but get curious and a little scared.

"Director Sung, what did you just receive?" the prime minister asked.

"I…" the director tried to find his words. "The dungeons' ranks have been determined."

"And?" the prime minister pushed on him to answer quickly.

"And… they are all E-ranked dungeons."

Chapter C1033: Action

"E-rank? What?" everyone immediately showed their disbelief at the news they were hearing. Even Ning felt that it was wrong.

These dungeons were special, created by the constellations to screw with him and his plan to teach people about the magic circles.

He wondered how many constellations it took to open so many dungeons. 10? 20? He was sure there weren't many constellations involved in this, but certainly, there was a large enough number to deter the other constellations from either not joining in, or stopping them from doing what they did.

'Dammit,' he thought. 'If only I had more information.'

He didn't have access to the system to easily get the information he wanted. If he had, not only would he not have to send Blue, Night, and Ely to go around the world to document every single dungeon, he would have been able to tell what rank each one where and who had made them.

However, right now, he had no such ability.

He could contact Ning and ask him for some help, but given the amount of time that had passed since he had left, he had most likely already begun working.

Since what he was going to have to do was a delicate task that required his full attention and even the system to work along with him, he couldn't just call him and disturb him.

He would have to wait 10 days before he could contact him.

"Are you sure it's E-rank? That sounds impossible," one of the guild leaders said.

"That is what has been recorded," the director said. "We will do some more tests and will have to figure out if that is correct or not. But the fastest way will be for some of you to go in."

"Ning and I will go into the one here near our city," Kim Min-Soo said. "We will report our findings once we go through with it."

"Really, Apostle Kim? Thank you," the prime minister said.

Ning didn't even get the chance to refuse. "Why did you speak for me?" he asked.

"What? Are you not going to go?" she asked. "You are the strongest of us. If you don't go, who will?"

Ning got a little frustrated. He was no longer the strongest at all, so he would rather stay low-key for a while.

'Screw it! What use is staying behind if others die due to my inaction,' he thought.

"We will get you the answer soon, prime minister. Just wait for it," Ning said. "Aside from that, regarding the magic circles, what will happen to that meeting?"

"I'm afraid that is going to have to be delayed, isn't it?" the prime minister said. "We have something new we need to take care of before we can even think about doing what you said. Besides, your request to gather every country will be impossible for a while since every country will have to go through this."

"I see," Ning said with a blank face.

They had won. Those damn constellations, especially since Briss had successfully stopped him from spreading the information about magic circles.

'For now at least,' he thought. 'They must have had to give up a lot of power to make this happen. But still, why E-rank? What does that accomplish?'

Of course, they were most likely not E-rank dungeons. Or else, those people that entered would have come out by now.

'Maybe it's a maze? That's why they are stuck in there for so long?' Ning thought. There was something fishy going on with the dungeons that he will have to find out soon.

"I just received another piece of information," the director said. "Ning's dungeon did indeed exist. We found the gate in the abandoned building and people are heading there to evaluate it."

"Dear lord, so there really are 26 new dungeons?" the prime minister shook his head as he thought about it. "So the number is now up from 58 to 84."

"Hopefully these new ones really are E-ranked dungeons. Otherwise, we won't have many people to spare for them," one of the Apostles said.

"Alright, Apostle Kim, Apostle Ning, please prepare your group and go to the dungeon as quickly as you can," the prime minister said.

"Yes, prime minister," Kim said and turned around to leave. The vice leader took her place to continue talking with the others while Ning walked out with her.

"Do you really want to go?" he asked her.

"Huh? Of course," she said. "It's not like I have anything to fear. You're going to be with me. You have the power of 5 gods in you, so what's there to worry about?"

Ning gave a wry smile, not knowing what to say. There was a chance this dungeon run was going to be dangerous.

With constellations involved, death was all but confirmed for him. 'If it really is so dangerous that I die, then at least I will learn that something big is going on here,' he thought. 'Even if I have to stop what I'm doing, I will come back.'

"You stay, I will go alone," Ning said.

"Huh? I'm going too," Kim said.

"As I said, gods are involved in this matter," he said. "And…" he couldn't tell her about his lack of power just in case a Constellation was listening to him.

"Anyway, stay here," he said and teleported away, leaving Kim with nothing to do.

Ning appeared outside of the dungeon, surprising a few people that were working there. He didn't immediately enter the dungeon, however.

He instead contacted Ely with his divine sense and told her what he was planning to do and how dangerous that task likely was.

Ely wanted him to stay out, but she understood that it had to be done.

"Don't worry," she said. "I know what to do in the case of emergency."

Ning nodded after hearing her and finally was slightly relieved. He no longer had to worry about anything, even if he died.

As such, he turned towards the gate of the dungeon and walked through it.

Chapter C1034: Quick Dungeon Run

Ning arrived in a brightly lit cave with a wide pathway and a high ceiling. The place he had just come from was the end of the cave, with no way back.

Without waiting, he spread his divine sense all around him, looking for the monsters that would be in this place. However, when he actually did find them, he was surprised.

In the entire dungeon that had so many various pathways around it, there were maybe 20 monsters total. And not a single one of them was above E-rank.

"What… the hell?" Ning thought.

The monsters were giant, fluffy spiders that were not strong at all. He could defeat them with the snap of his finger if he wanted to.

"Why are there so few monsters?" he wondered "and where the hell is the boss?"

Ning did not move a single step and just stood there in confusion. There was definitely something wrong here, only he couldn't figure it out at all.

He snapped his finger and a ball of fire appeared in front of him. He sent the fire forward, guiding it with his divine sense as it made its way through the entire dungeon.

The dungeon was so massive that it took an entire minute for the fireball to reach the fire spire where a piece of it split off from it and hit the spider.

The spider burned immediately, leaving behind nothing. As E-rank monsters, there was a very low chance for them to contain mana stones in them.

The ball of fire moved around the dungeon until 5 minutes later every single spider in every pathway was fully defeated.

When he defeated the final spider, a portal appeared where the last spider had died.

"That's it?" Ning thought curiously. He had defaulted to long-ranged attacks just in case there was something about this dungeon that was still being hidden. However, from the look of it, that wasn't right at all.

He teleported over to the portal and checked around once again. Then, having nothing else to do, he walked out of the portal.

He appeared outside the dungeon and was surprised by what he saw. "What? Why is it dark?" he thought.

He looked at the sky and noticed that the moon was in the sky. Then, where was the sun?

Ning frowned and turned towards one of the people that were looking at him. "What's the time right now?" he asked.

"4— 4 AM," the woman said.

"How long have I been in here?" he asked.

"About 15 hours," she said.

Ning openly frowned now, making the people around him fear a bit. He sensed a divine sense fall onto him.

He teleported and arrived next to Ely.

"Are you okay? You've been gone for a while," she said.

"I'm fine," Ning said. "Was I really gone for 15 hours?"

"I'm afraid so," Ely said. "What happened? What took you so long?"

"Nothing took me so long," Ning said. "I was in there for maybe 10 minutes at most. I don't even think that's right. Maybe 7 minutes at best."

"What? Are you saying that time moved slowly in that dungeon?" she asked.

"I'm afraid so," he said with a frown on his face. He quickly contacted the Director and Apostle Kim to let them know he was out.

Both of them accepted the call despite the time.

"Young man, you're out?" the director asked.

"Yes," Ning said.

"Are you fine? Was the dungeon dangerous?"

"No, it was not," Ning said. "I'll go in once more and will let you know what I find in the meeting tomorrow."

He ended the call.

"You're going in again?" Ely asked.

"Yes, an experiment," Ning said. "Come with me."

They both went back to the portal site where Ning one of the people working there.

"Do you have stopwatches?" he asked.

"Stopwatch? Uh… I have one on my phone," the man said as he took out his smartphone and handed it over to Ning.

"Good," Ning said. He opened the stopwatch app and set it up. "What time is it right now? Exactly."

"Exactly… 4:13 AM," the man said as he looked at his wristwatch.

"Alright, I'm going in again," Ning said and turned toward the dungeon. He held the phone in his left hand and a small knife in his right.

Then, he started the stopwatch and entered. As soon as he was inside, he searched for the spiders in the dungeon. He found them immediately, so he killed them all by teleporting over to them and walking out of the portal that had appeared.

As he arrived, he pressed the stopwatch on the phone. "3.22 seconds," Ning said as he looked towards Ely and the man that was standing there doing nothing.

"What's the time?" he asked.

"4:20," the man said.

Ning handed him back his phone. "So every second in there, two minutes pass out here," he said. "Good to know."

He left the young man in a daze who looked at his phone and the number 3.22 displayed on it. That wasn't minutes, that was seconds.

How could anyone clear a dungeon in such little time? "Is that what it's like having the power of 5 gods?" he wondered.

Ely looked towards Ning who had a contemplative look on his face.

"What are you thinking?" she asked him.

"I'm thinking if I'm somehow wrong about all of this," he said.

"Wrong?" Ely looked confused. "How so?"

"Until now, I had been thinking that this was all the 'good' constellations that were making the dungeons to send the world into chaos, thus delaying my knowledge of magic circles from being spread," he said. "However, I don't see how whatever is going on right now is possibly going to help them."

"What are you trying to say?" Ely asked.

"I'm saying that this is more than just about magic circles," he said. "This… this isn't just about that, but about me destroying the SS-ranked dungeons. They're trying to overwhelm me with many new dungeons where time passes so slowly that it could never realistically be cleared completely."

"They're going to force the other SS-ranked dungeons into existence merely by diverting our attention elsewhere," Ning said. "And I'm afraid that it is working."

Chapter C1035: New Actions

Ning arrived in Seoul around 9 in the morning. He decided to come here before going to the guild.

He wanted to come to the director first, but he found himself going for the prime minister. He needed to have a small talk with the man.

"Apostle Ning, I didn't realize you had left the dungeon. No one else has," the middle-aged man said.

"I'm afraid it will take a while," Ning said. "I have something to talk to you about, prime minister.'

"What is it?" the man asked. "Is it about that magic circle? I'm afraid I don't have the time."

"You need to make time," Ning said. "Imagine being able to go from Seoul to Jeju in a single second. Imagine a barrier around the city where even S-ranked monsters wouldn't easily enter. Don't you want that? Do you really want the world to go through another dungeon break? Do you remember what happened last time?"

"We-we have Apostles now, and hunters," the prime minister said. "And we will be prepared this time around."

"Will you be prepared for SS-raked monsters? Can your hunters fight them? Imagine a thousand monsters, each as large as a skyscraper. Who would fight against that? You?" Ning asked. "Please, stop playing into the enemy's hands and just contact the other countries regarding this."

"They won't listen," the prime minister said. "Each one of these countries is busy with these newly found dungeons. They will never waste their time elsewhere at all."

"I've thought about that," Ning said as he brought out a small piece of paper. He handed it to the prime ministers.

The prime minister slowly opened the paper and found that it was a list of country names with coordinates on them.

"What's this?" the prime minister asked.

"A dungeon that their government missed while searching for the new ones. When contacting these countries, tell them that if they attend this meeting, they will get the rest of the list of dungeons that they will normally take months to find. I'm sure that will get them moving," Ning said.

"That…" the prime minister was surprised. "That might work."

"Good," Ning said. "I want the meeting set within the week. I don't care how busy anyone is or what. They must attend it. Please get it done."

Ning left the prime minister in a very weird state where he didn't know who had the higher importance in their conversation just then. He was the prime minister but Ning's word held more weight than his own.

He decided to do as told and left for his office.

Ning arrived at director Sung's office and told him everything he knew about the dungeon.

"It's… slowed time?" the director was surprised.

"Yes," Ning said. "The dungeon is about 120 times slower."

"Is that why our people aren't out?" the director asked.

"Can't really say," Ning said. "I did only go to that one dungeon, but it is possible that they have some sort of time dilation there as well."

"So those dungeons actually are E-rank? We didn't mistake them?" the director asked.

"No, you did no mistake in the measurement," Ning said.

"I see," the director frowned.

"You're worried that it will be a D-ranked dungeon soon?" he asked.

"Yes," the director said. "All E-ranked dungeons have become a D-ranked dungeons within a few days of appearance. Within the next 2 days, these dungeons will change too."

Ning nodded. "How long for C-rank?" he asked.

"I… I can't really tell," the director said. "Not a single dungeon has been tested without sending anyone in it. Every time there is one, we always send people to investigate and complete it. So, we can't say for sure."

"What's the fastest it's ever been?" Ning asked.

The director thought for a bit and said, "A month."

Ning sighed. "So we can expect the dungeons to evolve in just a week or two," he said.

"That's…" the director couldn't wrap his head around the fact that something so terrifying was happening so quickly.

"We will have to start sending people to complete it without waiting," Ning said. "No private dungeons, so schedule. Send anyone who wants to go in. It will take them forever to come out if what I'm understanding is true, but that will slow it down by just enough so I can be of help."

"You can help?" the director looked curiously.

"Hopefully," Ning said. "We'll have to wait and see."

Ning then pulled out the book he had brought and flipped through the pages. The director glanced for a second and saw the names of countries written in a massive font at the top of the page.

"There it is," Ning said and tore off the piece of paper and handed it over to the director. "These are all the dungeons that have newly opened in South Korea. I've listed some that are close to the borders of North Korea too."

The director looked at the list with a very surprised look on his face. "These numbers, they are longitude and latitudes?" he asked.

"Yes," Ning said.

"And this last number?" the director asked.

"Height," Ning said.

"Height?"

Ning nodded. "Some of these dungeons have formed in weird locations like underground or on top of a skyscraper. Quite a few even have appeared inside lakes and rivers all around the world. I decided to add height for that reason."

"I see," the director said. He looked at the piece of paper and called his assistant in. "Scan this paper and send it to everyone available to check and set up equipment around the dungeon. Also, call every available hunter around the country to visit their local Dungeon Defense Department. We are going to have to send everyone to fight in the dungeons, so have them prepare."

Ning smiled when he saw the director's reaction to the information. He had instantly accepted it all and made his moves.

'That's how it should be,' he thought.

"Anyway, I'll be leaving now. I'll let you know if I find anything else," Ning said and teleported away from the director's office.

Chapter C1036: To New York

A few more days passed, and in that period, Ning spent most of the time either in the guild or back home helping the new cultivators get used to cultivation.

He helped them understand how Qi worked, how divine sense worked, and many other things that came with being a cultivator.

Both Hi-Ah and Jung-Hee broke through to the Core Formation realm in just 3 days despite cultivating for just some night.

Chase was the same, but his schedule was slightly broken due to having to come and go at irregular hours, so he didn't get as much time to cultivate at all.

He also called his Uncle and Grandmother over to stay in his house for a few weeks. That, however, was just an excuse to keep them close just in case.

One day late at night, he got a call from the director. He accepted the call.

"Director Sung, I didn't expect to hear from you at this time," he said. "It's quite late."

"I just got some news, I thought you would want to hear it too," the director said.

"What's the news?" Ning asked.

"That S-ranked hunter, the first one to go in, he's come out," the director said. "He says that it's been less than an hour since he entered. You were right, time is flowing differently in those dungeons."

"I knew it," Ning said. "See, you won't have to worry about sending in hoards of people."

"I hope so," the director said. "I already sent what I think is the right number, but with such delay, I might have to send more to stop the dungeon from evolving."

"Good luck regarding that," Ning said. There was nothing he could do to help regarding that situation. The system probably had some ways, but Ning still didn't have any communication with his other body.

It would be about a week or so before he got any feedback from Ning.

"Oh right, about that meeting, how's that going?" he asked.

"It's… going as well as we could hope at the moment. Information has been delivered to all the countries, and I'm sure they are intrigued, but since they want to see the demonstration in person, it will take a while to create the meeting," the director said.

"How many of them said anything about coming to the meeting?" Ning asked.

"All of them," the director said. "They're very curious how you got the information you gave them. Besides, I think they're actually coming for you rather than the information itself. A 5 god blessed Apostle is not something you see every day."

"I see," Ning said. "Thanks for letting me know."

"Of course," the director said.

The call ended there and Ning went back to cultivating. The nighttime was the most peaceful, so he did nothing but cultivate.

The next few days, he went to the guild and helped complete a few dungeon runs to train the secondary team of S-ranked fighters.

Then when the weekend came, it was time for him to leave.

Apparently, since the world leaders wanted to see the magic circles in work by themselves, they held the meeting in person rather than over the internet, like most of the meetings nowadays took place.

The place where it was going to be held was the United Nations headquarters in New York, despite the fact that the United Nations barely did anything at this time and age.

Each country was out for itself and wanted to see the other one's downfall. Unless there was a global threat, no one even remembered the existence of this global body.

People from all around the globe were flown into New York on the weekends, all of whom were guarded by an apostle.

Of the remaining 129 countries, each and every single one of them had come to this assembly and Ning was going to be the one to address this.

Ely sat on top of a tall skyscraper along with Ning and looked at the sprawling city of New York.

"It's not like what I thought it would be," she said as she looked at the city.

"I don't think anything is like what you thought back then," Ning said. "Those dungeon breaks really did reshape most of the world."

Ely nodded. "Still, it's not that bad," she said. "Certainly has a lot of the tall buildings still."

Ning nodded and continued watching the city. The sun slowly rose from the east as the morning came to light.

"That's very pretty isn't it?" Ely asked.

"I suppose," Ning said. "But it's not as pretty as those stars and nebulas I talked about. Now that is true beauty."

"I'm looking forward to seeing them someday then," she said.

"Sure, I'll take you out to the stars after all of this mess is over," Ning said.

Ely smiled and said nothing as she stared at the morning sun. To Ning, it might not look as pretty, but to her it absolutely was. To lose love for such a sight, she wondered what could be so much more beautiful than this.

She turned to see Ning put on a somber face as she looked into the distance.

"Are you nervous?" she asked. She wouldn't have thought that was possible.

"No, I'm not nervous," he said. "I'm just… thinking."

"About what?" Ely asked.

"About life, I guess," Ning said. He turned to see Ely looking confused at his statement.

"You see, ever since I left Kumia all those years ago, my goal had been to return back to you guys, which I did. Then, along the way, I had another goal added to my journey, to save earth from these gods," Ning said.

"I've already fulfilled my first goal, and if I complete my other goal soon too… then what do I do?" he asked. "I have an infinite amount of years to leave, and I'm worried I won't be able to do it at all."

Ely got contemplative for a moment and smiled. She grabbed Ning's arm and leaned into his shoulders.

"Don't worry. No matter how many years you have to live, I will be by your side forever to live them with you."

Chapter C1037: Addressing The Assembly

The speech booths on the podium had all been removed, leaving behind just a normal stage in the end.

Ning sat on a single chair on the stage and closed his eyes as he waited for the various country's world leaders to arrive in the meeting hall.

He opened an eye from time to time to see how many people had come and closed them again when he realized that the room was still not full.

He was a little annoyed about having to open and close his eyes just to see. It had been a long while since he to do something like this so… consciously.

Usually, he could see things no matter where they were without his eyes, but with the system gone, he was just an above-average person.

He used his divine sense this time around to see everyone in the room and noticed Night, Blue, and Ely staying on the other 3 sides of the circular room.

The director and prime minister from South Korea had also arrived at this meeting and were sitting in their own section of the room. They were perhaps the only leaders there that did not have an Apostle guarding them.

The rest of them each had at least one, sometimes even two guarding them.

"Hmm?" He opened his eyes and looked ahead. "Is that all?"

He looked around and realized that the room was filled up.

"When are we starting?" a voice spoke in English. The president of the United States of America was rather loud and boisterous, and he shouted at Ning after seeing that he still hadn't started.

"Yes, yes, I'm starting," Ning said as he walked away from the chair and arrived at the edge of the podium. His voice boomed through the hall, catching everyone's attention.

He spoke in English, as that, Chinese and Korean were the only three languages he had let himself understand. He could use his ring to translate the other languages too, but that did not mean he could fluently speak them.

The English language was the most widely used language among them, so he decided to speak to the assembly about that.

"I see you have all gathered," he spoke loudly with a slight pause to let the translators have an easier time doing their job. "Welcome."

A few people started clapping for no reason and others joined in as well. However, not many clapped, so it died down as quickly as it started.

"Anyway, I know you have come here for two reasons today. First is the list of dungeons that have formed in your country and the second is to learn about Magic circles," he said. "Just in case anyone is just here for the dungeons, I will be providing that information after I've taught you about the magic circles."

A few people grumbled, but most of them were there for both, so they remained quiet.

"First, let me tell you what exactly a magic circle is," he said. "Basically, it is a diagram that lets you cast a spell without you needing to know that spell. That's as simple as it gets."

A few people talked with each other, trying to understand what they were hearing. They spoke to the apostles and asked if that was true. They wanted most of them to find out if that was true or not.

Not all Apostles were aware of this, and those that were didn't have much idea about it either.

"You all see confused," Ning spoke to gather their attention again. "Let me give an example."

He slowly walked back away from the edge of the podium and stood at the center of the stage. "Can someone please attack me," he said.

"Huh?"

"What?"

Multiple such confused words, all in their own language were spoken throughout the assembly when he asked the question.

"Anyone? Just attack me," he said. 'Don't worry, I have 5 Gods on my side. I won't be hurt." He took any opportunity to fulfill his end of the bargain with the five constellations.

The president of India nudged someone, and a dark-skinned young woman stepped out of where she was sitting.

"May I?" the woman asked Ning, and Ning simply opened his arms wide, waiting for the attack.

The dark-skinned apostle took a deep breath as the people around her rubbed their arms as cold air flowed next to the woman.

Next thing anyone knew, there was a large icicle right next to the woman, floating like it was her own sword.

Many apostles took a defensive stance in front of their leaders, but the Indian apostle's target was always Ning.

"I'm attacking," she said and Ning nodded.

Everyone was confused why this was happening at all, but since it was, they couldn't help it at all.

The woman threw her ice spear directly toward Ning, aiming right for his chest. Ning was surprised that she was bold enough to aim at his chest but other than smiling, he did nothing.

The icicle slammed onto him and shattered into a million pieces, the shards of which scattered throughout the podium.

Everyone gasped when they saw the subtle greenish barrier in front of Ning which had blocked the attack. The glint vanished and no one could tell that there was even a barrier there anymore.

Ning slowly stepped away from where he was standing and removed the carpet from underneath. People were curious, so they looked to see what he was showing.

When they saw a 2-meter wide circle with intricate details drawn onto the floor, they were surprised.

"For today's example purposes, I snuck in here last night and drew this magic circle, which can create a barrier around the place it was drawn," he said. "I'm sure Miss Apostle wasn't trying anything strong, but she was still stopped. Imagine such a circle covering your entire city. Any sort of attack by any foreign threat would be snuffed out in an instant."

"Would you not want to learn more about this?"

Chapter C1038: Mental Patient

The many leaders were surprisingly quiet, not even moving around their papers and tools in front of them to fully focus on what Ning was telling them.

Ning proposed to everyone to let them teach two magic circles.

One would be the magic circle that defends, and another a magic circle that lets them teleport.

For the defense one, everyone would get the exact same magic circles. However, for the teleportation one, each and everyone would have to be different due to the distance between the two magic circles.

Ning started by telling them about the first one.

"I will provide you with a better image later," Ning said. "For now, all you have to remember is that you will have to draw this around the place where you will want it to be defended by an outside force."

"The one I'm giving you will defend against any attack or stop any non-human with a magic core in them. Meaning, it will stop most of the beasts that can come out of a dungeon break," Ning said. "Of course, that also means it cannot protect those that do not have any mana cores in them, but those beasts are usually easy to defend against."

A few people raised their hands to ask a question. "Yes," Ning said, pointing to one of the people who raised their hands.

"Can this thing attack that which enters it, or is this just normal protection?" the person asked.

"It won't attack anything," Ning said. "But it will suppress whatever that manages to enter it, which will give you an easier time against that thing."

"Can we not have one that attacks?" another person asked. "That seems more useful, especially in the absence of hunters and apostles."

"You could, but I'm not going to," Ning said. "The amount of mana used to run this thing is not small. Adding offensive capabilities to such a thing would make it almost impossible to run."

"Just this small one under my feet has already dried up quite a bit of mana in the room. A few more attacks and this will stop working. To make it work more efficiently, I would have to drop a few mana cores onto it."

"Similarly, the ones you will be getting will require a lot of mana to run, which I don't expect the city you will be drawing it around to have. In that instance, you will have to use S-rank or higher-ranked mana stones to power it. The stronger the mana stones you will use, the stronger the defense will be."

"Also, these symbols you see here, all work together to give you defensive capabilities. The more of these symbols here, the more defensive. However, if you somehow start removing it for offensive symbols, you will lessen its defensive power," Ning said.

"Also, I'm worried you people will learn how to use the offensive symbols to create your own circle. I don't trust you enough to hand you over such destructive abilities," he added.

The various world leaders that got those words translated for them gave awkward looks around. The smaller ones were glad that there was nothing offensive about it at all, and the bigger ones were angry that they weren't getting it.

In their minds, the best form of defense was the threat of retaliation. For a very long time, that had been the nuclear weapons. However, now that dungeons and hunters were a thing, they were far more fearful of those.

Especially the Apostles.

Once he was done explaining the defensive magic circle, he gave a brief explanation of how the teleportation circle worked and how they could use it.

"I will hand over the exact circles you will have to draw in various major cities of your country," Ning said. "For now, this is it. Does anyone have any questions?"

Almost all of the world leaders wanted to speak. Ning sighed silently and pointed to one of the closer ones to him.

The world leader there started speaking, and Ning got the question translated to him by his ring.

"Do you really have the power of 5 gods?" the leader was asking.

"That has nothing to do with the meeting today. Please stay on topic," Ning said and pointed to someone else.

"Where have you been all this time? Were you made into an Apostle recently?" the person asked.

Ning couldn't help but feel slightly angry at the question.

"If you do not have anything else to ask about then please don't ask," Ning said. "I just want questions about the magic—"

A barrier suddenly appeared in front of him, while a massive fire bombarded him where he stood.

People cried out in fear and the apostles moved to protect their leaders from falling debris.

Ely and the rest were going to move to help, but Ning's voice entered their head, telling them not to help him, but instead get these people out of there.

Their Qi covered everyone from the falling debris as the building came crashing down from the fiery blast from outside.

The barrier Ning was standing in was broken long ago, but he wasn't hurt despite that. His clothes were a little singed on the edges, but he came out of the fire otherwise okay.

He looked at the woman that was flying on top of him, a woman with black hair that was completely uncombed, a white dress that was burnt for the most part, and a crazy smile on her face.

"Who are you?" Ning asked with an angry look on his face. The girl giggled when she heard that and Ning saw something that made him feel weird.

'Is that… a straight-jacket?'

The white clothes she was wearing were torn and burnt remains of a straight jacket, judging by the many straps on it.

Then, he looked at the woman with her crazy smile.

"Oh, hell no," he said as he looked at the woman, who was clearly a mental patient of some sort. "Someone actually gave you their power to come to disturb me?"

Chapter C1039: Battle Against the Rogue Apostle

Ning frowned. He didn't know what to do right now.

On one hand, this woman was someone very strong, nearly as strong as him for sure. That meant fighting her wouldn't be as easy as if he still had his other body.

On the other hand, she was clearly a victim here too. She was being played by one of the constellations as a pawn in its plans.

Ning frowned as he had absolutely no idea who this constellation was at all.

'Come on, Ning. Hurry,' he thought to himself. 'Please complete it quickly.'

He knew Ning wasn't going to come unless there was an actual emergency since only someone's life in danger would be more important than what he was doing at that point.

He looked at the crazy woman who flew in the air. She was going for another attack.

A small beam of dark red and black fire flew at him with incredible speed. Ning checked the people behind him and only dodged after noticing that no one was there.

At the same time, the woman came flying at him with her fists together, which she swung like it was a club.

Ning crossed his arm to block it, but the strike still hit him so hard that he fell all the way back down to the crumbled assembly hall that had now been evacuated.

A few of the Apostles ran up to the woman while they looked from the ground.

"Get her, she wants to kill us all," one of them shouted.

"Attack!"

The few apostles that had gathered suddenly let out a few attacks that went flying toward the woman in the sky.

Ning quickly got back up and ran outside, just in time to see the attacks fall on the woman.

"No, you idiots. Run," he shouted at the Apostles, not many of which understood what he was saying. "She's strong. Far stronger than you."

The ones that understood him frowned, but the others only saw an angry and annoyed person that was only flailing his arms around.

"Run!" Ning shouted as he looked up at the sky. The smoke slowly faded, and the woman emerged with not any damage to herself.

"She's too powerful for you," he said as he flew up to in front of them and looked to the sky.

The crazy woman was strong. Too strong. That was nothing like what he had seen before regarding the apostles. Not any of them were supposed to be this powerful.

She had the mana and the strength of someone far stronger than an apostle. As for her speed—

Before Ning could think of anything else, she disappeared and appeared right next to him.

Ning turned around and blocked her right arm, diverting the power in it to the sky. At the same time, he punched her in the guts to make her fall unconscious. However, he might have held back a bit too much as she didn't fall at all, and only grimaced in pain a little.

At the same time, she punched with her left hand, which Ning made sure not to underestimate this time around.

The woman frowned a little when she saw that he was able to block it this time around.

'Dammit,' Ning thought. 'This is no ordinary apostle. She's either been given the power by many constellations or one of them gave her a lot of themself. There is no way, one can be this strong without that.'

The apostles behind him got ready to attack, but Ning angrily turned around to shout at them again. "Get away from here!"

His angry gesture seemed to have helped them this time around as they all ran away from this place.

'Let's finish this quickly,' he thought. A small spear came out of his ring and he held it strongly with two arms.

The woman attacked again, but Ning vanished this time around. He appeared behind the woman and slammed at her with his spear.

He didn't cut her but the attack still hurt her. He moved his spear again and hit her on the head with the butt of the spear.

Then he ducked as the woman sent the blackish fire all around her.

Ning moved up again and slammed the butt of the spear on her head again. He took back the spear and struck her stomach with his palm.

The woman cried out in pain, her giggles already stopping and only anger and pain remaining on her face.

Ning stepped back a bit in the air while the woman growled angrily. He needed to think about what he could do. He certainly couldn't kill her, but what other choice did he have here?

'I can capture her,' he thought. That was the only other choice he had, but that didn't give him the one advantage that killing her did.

If he killed her, whichever constellation gave a portion of their power to her would lose it forever. If he captured her, however, the constellation could just take it back, not losing almost anything.

Ning couldn't help but frown. The answer here for him to choose was obvious, but he really wanted to get back at the woman somehow.

"Screw it, I maybe not be able to waste all of your energy, but I can make you lose most of it," he thought to himself and put away the spear into his storage ring.

Then, he started attacking the woman, who also fought back.

Their clash made booming sounds in the air that shook buildings all around the city. Ning made sure to keep their fight to one area, but there were still quite a few destructions to the location around them.

Fortunately, everyone was evacuated, so there was no loss of life. However, the property damage was a lot.

For the next 5 hours, he fought with the woman continuously and in that time the United Nations headquarters was completely demolished while many of the buildings around them were cracked.

Once Ning saw that the woman was tired and could no longer continue fighting, he finally captured her.

Chapter C1040

The crazy woman was on the ground with Ning holding her hands behind her, keeping her from leaving.

She struggled, but she wasn't as strong now that she had used most of her mana on the attack previously.

"Ely! Do you have something for me?" Ning asked as Ely flew down close to him.

"Yes," She said as she brought out a plate from her interdimensional space. She threw the golden place toward the girl and Ning backed out.

The plate fell on top of her head and quickly expanded to become massive, nearly 5 meters in diameter.

Like a piece of cloth, it fell on the woman while spinning as it wrapped itself around the woman. When the woman was fully wrapped, she was suddenly squished on herself as the cloth went back to becoming a plate from before.

Only this time, the woman was trapped inside of it.

"Not bad," Ning said as he walked towards her.

"Of course," Ely said. "It's one of my best artifacts after all." She looked at the plate in her hand now and frowned a little. "I can't put something with a soul into my storage. What do I do with this?"

Ning took it from her. "I will take it for now," he said as he slid it into his robes.

Suddenly, the plate flew out from his hand and landed on the hand of another one. Both Ely and Ning quickly turned around to find someone standing next to them whom they could not sense there at all.

"You are not him, are you?" the… thing asked.

6 tentacles waved around like wings from its back while its head looked like that of a goat, only without any skin on it. The muscles wriggled on its face and the black cloak it wore was more black fog than cloth.

Ning couldn't even tell if this thing had legs or arms at all as they were all hidden, even from its spiritual sense.

The golden plate suddenly broke open, and the girl they had just captured fell to the ground. She coughed a bit and looked up to see the black figure.

"Master!" she shouted.

"I have no need for you," the thing said as moved its slimy hands that came out of the fog. It suddenly wrapped around the woman, and Ning could visibly see strains of light move out of the woman, and into the thing's body.

He was taking back the power he had loaned.

At the same time, a few other hands grabbed the woman, as well as her power, was even more drained away.

Ning watched in surprise as he realized that he had been wrong about his assumption before. He had assumed that someone had given her a lot of their power to make her this strong, but as he could see, he was obviously wrong.

'They all gave her a piece of their power,' he thought. 'Damn, that's what I said I was given.'

"Where is he?" the first Constellation that had arrived asked.

"I am right here," Ning said, while covertly telling Ely to run away. Ely didn't hesitate as she ran away very, very fast.

One of the Constellations nearly moved to grab her, but on second thought, there was no need for that. There was nothing Ely could do that could be of harm to them.

"You are not him," the Constellation said. "You don't have his power."

"Is that so, Briss?" Ning asked. "Do you want to see my power?"

The Constellation hesitated for a bit. "You do sound like him, your attitude is the same, and you even know my name," Briss said. "But you don't have his power. You didn't even notice me when I came here. The other man would've noticed me right away. Tell me, where is he?"

"Why do you ask?" Ning asked. "Are you that in a hurry to die? I have remembered you all, so soon you will die. Just like I killed Stryxus."

"You really do sound like him," another constellation spoke. "Are you sure this guy is not it?"

"He can't be," another one said. "Just look at his pitiful strength. He had to struggle with someone that we barely gave any strength to."

Ning frowned as he looked at the nearly dozen or so Constellations that were there. He couldn't help but wonder which ones they were. He took a gamble.

"Do your Apostles know you were involved in today's attack?" Ning asked.

"Why would we care if they know?" Briss asked. "They are our slaves and do what we say. Although, I suppose not for much longer."

Ning couldn't help but frown at what they meant. However, he knew they weren't going to kill them. Of course, that didn't mean they couldn't hurt them, but they would have to fight against their own power to do so if they wanted to.

After all, Constellation Wills could not kill or hurt anyone intentionally or directly normally.

That was why they used stuff like Dungeons and Demons to do their bidding. If they could do something on their own, they would have already gone to worlds and wreaked havoc on them and become the dictatorial god of that land.

Instead, they have to do sneak stuff like corrupting mana or manipulating them, or turning them into slaves via someone intermediary.

But that sort of restriction only meant that the Constellations had learned to get around it, and Ning was afraid this was one such thing.

"What are you planning on doing?" Ning asked with a worried look on his face.

"I told you not to reveal the magic circles into the world. Now, they know it works and with it, our value as gods will severely lower," Briss said. "We can't let you have that."

"So, instead of trying to help this world by giving you apostles, we will now harm it," Briss said.

Ning's eyes went wide as he looked at the 12 or so Constellation there. "We?" he asked.

Suddenly, more and more gods started popping up around them as Briss looked at him with a crazy smile.

"Yes, we," he said. "All of us."

Chapter C1041: Apocalypse

20, 40, 65, 82, 104…

Ning started counting until he counted 143. Every single Constellation was there. Both the ones that were trying to save the humans and the ones that were trying to hurt them.

Ning looked at the 5 that were among the 143. "You too?" he asked.

Noraxis shrugged slightly. "You should not have tried to teach them a way to fend for themselves. It makes us useless, and that is not why we do what we do."

Ning frowned. "I should have killed you when I had the chance," he said.

"Haha!" Briss laughed with his goat-like skull. "Even the man you imitate doesn't have the power to kill all of us, and you say you can do it?"

He wasn't wrong there. As Ning was currently, even with his main body and system, defeating them all was near impossible.

"Well, if you really think you can, then we will be ready for you. Whether it's you or him, we won't lose," Briss said.

'Is he bluffing?' Ning thought. These constellations were supposed to be scared of their existence, but somehow, they were very confident.

"What? Not going to kill us?" Briss asked. "Then just wait and watch, the show will begin, very, very soon."

One by one, the Constellations disappeared from right in front of him, surprising him greatly.

'Something bad is going to happen,' Ning thought. 'Ning, you have to return quickly.'

A few minutes later, as if some sort of blockade in the area had been released, people came rushing in towards him.

Ning tried to think of ways to tell them what was happening, but it didn't look like he had to. These people were already losing their minds from something else that had happened that Ning did not know about.

"What's wrong?" Ning asked. "Why are you freaking out?"

The one at the front was director Sung who was looking at him. "Are you okay? You were fighting with that terrorist? You weren't hurt, were you?" he asked.

"No, I'm fine," Ning said.

"Thank god. You must have finished the battle before it happened," the director said. "Oh god, what are we going to do now?"

"Director? What is going on?" Ning asked.

"Huh?" the director looked at him. "Have you not sensed it yet?"

Ning frowned and used his divine sense to search around him, but he didn't find anything that immediately stood out to him. "What's wrong? I can't tell," he said.

"Your powers," the director said. "They're gone."

"What?" Ning frowned and flexed his cultivation base and mana, but they were both there. "I'm still a mage."

"Huh?" the director looked confused. "How were you spared?"

"Director, please tell me exactly what has happened," Ning asked.

"The powers, they've lost their powers," the director said.

"Who—" Ning had only just asked when he realized he knew the answer.

"The Apostles. They have all suddenly lost all of their powers," the director said. "There are no more apostles."

Ning's eyes went wide. That was it. These constellations truly had given up on this world.

'All because of my Magic circle?' Ning thought. He was starting to feel horrible. He should have stopped himself just a bit longer to wait for Ning to come back and let him do everything.

'Dammit, it would have led to the same result,' Ning thought. 'I would only be delaying the inevitable.'

However, that seemed like a much better option than losing all of the Apostles right away, right now.

'But why?' Ning wondered. He understood that they were no longer trying to help the earth, but that didn't really accomplish much with the removal of the Apostles. Sure that made it hard to do all the dungeon runs, but Ning could clear the SS-ranked dungeons easily.

And without those upgrading, no portals would form to the other universe that will send in—

Ning stopped in his thoughts. 'Those are not the only dungeons out there,' he thought.

"Director, I need to go check on something," he said and disappeared, leaving the director dumbfounded.

The director looked around with a weird look on his face, wondering if Ning hadn't lost his Apostle's power at all.

He was about to return when Ning suddenly appeared in front of the director again.

"Dear god, young man. How are you doing this? Do you still have your Apostle powers?" the director asked.

However, Ning didn't answer. "Director, the worst possible scenario is happening around the world right now, so you need to quickly take back the prime minister and start preparing for an apocalypse," he said.

"What?" the director was surprised and scared. "What apocalypse? What's happening?"

"All the new dungeons, the new ones that had formed a week ago, they are all spewing out the people that had entered in it," Ning said.

"Huh? People are getting spit out of the dungeon?" the director asked.

"Yes, halfway through too. There is a bit of chaos around it, but that is not even our main problem," Ning said.

"What… what's worse?" the director asked.

"The worst part if that none of the dungeons are accessible anymore," Ning said.

"Not… accessible?" the director asked.

"Yeah, no one can enter it anymore," Ning said.

"And that's… bad?" the director asked.

Ning turned to look at the director with a disappointed look. "Did you forget what happened the last time there was a dungeon no one could enter at all?' he asked.

The director thought for a moment and color drained from his face as he realized what was happening. "No…" he said. He couldn't believe it.

"Yes," Ning said. "I'm afraid… this is the preparation before the dungeons break open and we are overrun by monsters in our city. The same thing from years ago will happen once more."

"No…" the director couldn't believe it still. "We will die. We don't have any apostles this time around."

"No, we won't die," Ning said. "We won't have apostles, but we have strong hunters. Besides, I just gave you the best tool for survival today."

"Tell everyone, we will have to start making the magic circles all over the world as soon as we can."

Chapter C1042: Confusion

"Master, what's going on?" Night asked as he and the rest came up to Ning. "I can hear many people crying out in fear. Something bad is going on."

"Yeah, I too saw a bunch of people trembling after getting some sort of news," Blue said.

"Honey, are you alright? Did they attack you?" Ely asked as she got close to check on Ning.

"No, I'm fine," Ning said. "But earth might now be."

"What do you mean?" Ely asked.

"Those bastards, they are preparing another dungeon break, this time one of a much larger proportion than before," Ning said.

Ely frowned slightly. "A dungeon break?" she asked. "Like the one that killed so many people before, including my mother?"

"I'm afraid so," Ning said.

"Should we fear that, master?" Blue asked. "Aren't we strong enough to defeat them? Even the one from the strongest dungeon was easily destroyed by sister Ely."

Ning shook his head. "The problem won't be their strength, it will be their numbers," he said. "I'm afraid there will be no chance for us to win against all with just all four. And only a few minutes ago, all the strongest fighters of the planet lost their powers."

Ely frowned slightly. "What can we do then?" she asked. "Do we migrate these people somewhere?"

Ning shook his head. "We don't have the method to," he said. "The best we can do is evacuate them from places with dungeons and keep them somewhere safe."

Ely suddenly fell into thought as something brewed in her mind. "I might have a way to protect them," she said. "I can make some defensive artifacts that can protect many of them."

"Can you make them so that they can save billions of humans?" Ning asked.

Ely hesitated and shook her head. It was impossible for even her to make something like that, especially with the resources of the earth. They just weren't used to working with Qi.

"What else can we do though?" she asked.

Ning quickly shook his head. "You're right. We have to do what we can," he said. " Start working on that. The two of you, help her. I will go talk with the others about quickly making magic circles to defend the rest of them."

The three of them nodded and left Ning. Ning turned around and walked towards the panicking world leaders that were evacuated far away from the battle location.

He explained to them the problem that was happening and what solution they could take to avoid most of it. There was no guarantee that people wouldn't die, but he wanted to have it be as little as possible.

The Apostles, while having lost their powers, were still Hunters. So, even weak, they were stronger than average hunters. So, they too got to work despite their fear of being weak.

There were 2 things that Ning forced them to do as soon as they all could after going back.

First, they would find large, open land outside major cities and draw massive magic circles there to defend the people.

Ning's plan was to have them make magic circles in the cities themselves, but with the lack of time, they simply couldn't make enough planning to create one in the city itself.

After all, many buildings would have to be destroyed in order for the magic circle to be drawn.

For now, a normal magic circle out in the open was the best choice in his mind.

The second thing he forced them to do was prepare the willing hunters to fight back the dungeon break.

There was no saying when the dungeons would break or how strong they would be, so they were forced to have Hunters be on guard every second starting now for the dungeon break to happen.

The last time, nearly a year had passed before the dungeon had broken. But that was only because the barely formed will of the galaxy on the other side was copying the Constellations. It had no thought of its own as of yet, so it couldn't make any changes.

However, the many constellations could make those changes and even make it very fast. Ning couldn't help but wonder if it would only be 2 or so days before the dungeons broke.

'But it doesn't make sense,' he thought to himself. There was something going on that Ning simply couldn't understand at all.

'Why the hell would all 143 of them work together?' he thought. This was the most confusing part for him. After all, the reason they had been working on the opposite side in the first place was that it would not make sense for so many of them to be working together, as the 'thought' of each human being could only be spared to so many of them.

With all 143 being involved, this would mean that after many of the humans were dead, the remaining humans' thoughts of them would have to be split among them.

Negative thought was more powerful than positive for sure, but with the lack of numbers, Ning couldn't understand just how that would benefit them.

Also, he understood why the 'good' constellations would want to switch sides if Ning was going to make their presence useless by revealing the truth about the magic circles. But he hadn't really done that, had he?

All he had done was teach them a defensive circle, and one that would help teleport them. The humans would still very much have to rely on the Apostles and hunters for a lot of things.

On top of that, why the hell would the 'bad' constellations let the 'good' ones join their rank this late into the game? Did they just accept them because their number was higher?

"Just what the hell is going on?" Ning thought. There was something happening here that he simply didn't know about. He could've learned that if he had the system, but without it, he would simply have to guess.

And Ning could not make any sensible guesses at all. At this point, he needed to wait for Ning himself to tell him the answer.

Chapter C1043: Radiant

Ning stood in a space devoid of any stars for at least a few light years around him. It was mostly pitch black in his vicinity, but he could see things easily.

'That's done,' he thought, as he was finally finished with the first task he had left earth to do. It had been nearly a year for him, and in that time, something else had happened to him, something good.

He flew from there and opened a portal to a solar system that was not very far from him. On one of the planets there, a wormhole had opened to one of the other universes.

That universe had worlds with high amounts of Mana in there, and that was what Ning was looking for.

But, before he could go in there, he flew next to the sun of that system, and as he did, he opened his system information.

'Status!'

[Status

Name: Ning Ruogong

Energy: 122.66 Septillion

Separated Energy-

Heat Energy: 344 Billion

Sound Energy: 543 Billion

Kinetic Energy: 22 Billion

Electrical Energy: 0

Magnetic Energy: 0

Gravitational Energy: 8.51 Trillion

Radiant Energy: 148 Million

Qi Energy: 0

Aether Energy: 0

Mana Energy: 0

Magicules Energy: 0

Willpower Energy: 0

Spiritual Energy: 0

Lifeforce Energy: 0

Aura Energy: 0

Essence Energy: 0

Chakra Energy: 0

Skill: …]

He had spent a lot of energy on what he had done previously, but that wasn't of much concern to him. What he was concerned with instead was the new Energy he had unlocked in the last year.

The Radiant Energy.

"What was the requirement, system? Taking in a lot of light?" Ning asked as he flew closer to the sun.

<Yes >

"Hmm, could I have unlocked it back in the other universe where I spent my last hundred thousand years as a hermit?" Ning asked.

<No. One of the other requirements was to kill a rogue Constellation>

"Oh… really?" Ning asked with a bit of surprise. "That sort of thing also plays into my requirements huh?"

<yes. >

<By now, all hosts would have gotten strong enough to defeat any rogue constellations, so that was put there as one of the requirements>

"I see," Ning said. "And what about Genesis? I killed a Galactical will. Did that not count for this before?"

<Killing a Galactical Will is not the requirement for unlocking Radiant energy. That another energy, which you have completed. Once complete other requirements, will unlock it as well.>

"Okay…" Ning said. By now, he was close enough to the sun that even metals would have started glowing red hot. However, he felt nothing and continued forward.

He needed to gather as much light energy as he could, so he continued.

"So, can you tell me what the next energy and requirements are?" Ning asked.

<Yes. 1 Your next energy is Chemical Energy. To unlock it, you will have to observe million different chemical reactions, and then spend Septillion when are done.>

Ning frowned slightly. "1 million different reactions? Do I have to actively search for them, or can I just unlock them by experiencing stuff in my daily life?"

<You will have to consciously look for them.>

"1 million," Ning could help but give an awkward laugh. "Sure, why not?"

He absorbed a lot of energy as he got close to the sun, of which a lot of it was light energy as well.

"Double my cap, please," Ning said. "I should be able to do all 3 in one go with this, right?"

<Yes. Doubling cap>

<Your energy cap has been doubled from 655.36 Billion to 1.31 Trillion.>

<Your energy cap has been doubled from 1.31 Trillion to 2.62 Trillion.>

<Your energy cap has been doubled from 2.62 Trillion to 5.24 Trillion.>

<Congratulations, You have bought all Radiant Energy Cap Increments>

<As a reward, the system has awarded host with [Toggle -Low-Level Radiant Damage Ignorance]>

<You now have the ability to ignore 15% of Radiant damage your body could suffer>

<You can improve this skill in the shop>

"Finally," Ning thought to himself and turned around. He teleported to the top of the barren planet where the wormhole was located.

The wormhole was easy to find. Like a dungeon gate, it was a portal that had formed in this location.

"I should be able to reach a high level as a mage if I do this," he thought to himself. However, before entering, he needed to do something else.

"System, gather information from my clone," Ning said.

<Gathering Information>

Ning closed his eyes and suddenly, he gained all the knowledge that his clone had gathered for the last 10 days.

Suddenly, Ning frowned. "What the hell? Earth is about to go through a lot of danger," he thought. "How did it come to be?"

Just like his clone, he was confused about the actions and motives of the constellations as well. Something didn't add right.

"System, what is going on? Why are they acting like this?" Ning asked.

The system didn't answer at all.

"System?" Ning asked after not hearing from it.

<The system is unable to answer your question. The could not find the answer.>

"What?" Ning couldn't help but be surprised. "What do you mean you can't find the answer?"

<The system can't give you an explanation at the moment.>

"The hell?" Ning thought. "Then when will the dungeon break? Can you tell me that?"

<Yes. The constellations are powering up the dungeons to best of their ability, so within a day or two, dungeon break will happen.>

"And how strong will the monsters be?" Ning asked.

<Between 3 Tier and tier 5.>

'B-rank to S-rank,' Ning thought. That was much more than his clone had been expecting. 'That's going to be a problem. Should I return?'

However, he needed to become a stronger mage so that he could cure people of mana poisoning. Who knew what would happen after he went back?

"There are two more days," Ning thought to himself. "Pass along my memories to my clone.>

<Understood >

"Hang on for just a little longer," Ning said softly and entered the wormhole in front of him.