Rise Of The Infinite Sovereign

Chapter 333: An Imperfect Existence

Another twelve weeks passed, making it thirty four weeks since Alvarach’s death.

Now two months into the year 1722, Ezra was 22 prime years of age.

Much to Zydrax’s chagrin, the solution had to be found.

No, more like its progress had slowed to a snail’s pace.

While the Life Ark helped him a great deal, understanding, assimilating, dismantling still took a great deal of time.

Moreover, unlike the Life Ark, he had a more complex range of probabilities to deal with thanks to the Mana Cube.

But while a bit irritated, he was going headstrong.

As a mage, research his life blood, and while he might have grown out of it due to inhabiting the world’s will for such a long time, Zydrax could feel his old self coming back.

This project could be seen as a collaborative effort between the past life and this one, with failure being but an inevitable step on the path to greatness.

Giving up was not an option, it would be too much a shame if a being such as him could only go this far.

As such, he pressed on.

On the other hand, everyone in the cultivation lands had broken through at least once, well...except Frederick.

Meaning, all the Peak masters in other cultivation land had broken through to become Grandmasters.

For better understanding, there were more than thirty!

As expected, the pressure mounted on others.

Mervida, Raven, Deneris had broken through to Peak Grandmaster rank in the twenty fourth, five and sixth week respectively.

Severus had finished feasting on the demon’s corpses, and subsequently grew three meters in lengths, crossing five meters in total as during that time, it had broken through to become an SS rank beast, equivalent of a mid Grandmaster.

Apparently, the lack of food had slowed its development, and upon getting the nourishment it needed, it grew explosively, giving space for its body to digest the mana it had sucked while in the space ring.

The mana was enough to push his core past a rank once more.

Thanks to the nature of its food, the snake’s aura was thrice as threatening as before.

Rather than let it go out and terrorise the townspeople, Cabrera had had people from the guild to bring beast carcasses.

For those wondering, he did so via communication scrolls.

The mana resurgence hastened the cultivation of many, and increased the chances of successful breakthroughs.

Four new Grandmasters had appeared in other parts of the world.

From such events, one could see why the mana resurgence had put Orion in such a frenzy.

Like a lie, another sixteen weeks passed, making it fifty weeks since Alvarach’s death.

’Hmm?’

Supposedly deemed impossible, something bypassed the barrier, and it wasn’t small.

But that didn’t make any sense, as far as he knew, he was the only Mythic rank in Orion at the moment.

A minute later, a loud thud resounded as the object hit the ground.

Annoyed beyond belief, Zydrax was still forced to check the cause.

De-freezing his body, he rose out of his abode, eyes scanning as he floated toward the object.

Only for his eyes to widen moments after.

’This...’

A cave looking structure made out of brown rock and the size of a monolith, having a single entrance.

Ezra’s grave tone resounded within his head.

"It’s a Dungeon"

The apocalypse was here.

Zydrax had fussed over where the first dungeon might land, feeling that it would allow him better insight on completing the project but inevitably gave up such thoughts to focus on solving Ezra’s pending crisis.

Moreover, he felt that he was on the cusp of crossing the final hurdle of manifesting his creation when this thing popped up.

But what was this? The dungeon had come far earlier just as they expected, but for it to land directly into Quartez? Was this not too much of a coincidence?

Others who had been cultivating also had their concentration disrupted by the dungeons’ loud landing.

Seeing Ezra out, they exit the cultivation land and approach it.

Johan was the first to ask.

"What is it?"

"It’s called a dungeon, the first of many and the beginning of a calamity" he replies. "Using this, the enemy will send down their armies to invade our lands"

"Shouldn’t we destroy it then?" Ashton questioned.

"That normally seems like a good action to take, but no, we will not destroy it"

"Why?" Ashton questioned.

"As the enemy, the first few enemies are but scouts, sent to assess threat levels" Zydrax replied, eyes gazing into a distant past as he turned towards them, a voice amplifying magic circle forms in front of his face.

"For now, I need you all to stop cultivating for a bit because I have something I need you to do"

"Okay"

"Sure"

"I’d like to go back to cultivating, but I guess I’ll go"

They express their willingness as Zydrax nodded.

Those in other cultivation lands also exited as well, ready to render assistance.

"Oh yes, only Grandmasters can go, the rest should continue cultivating"

Vanessa was sullen as she marched back into the cultivation land, fired up to reach Grandmaster rank more than ever.

"You will split into groups of four and head to every kingdom to rally the Grandmasters"

"If they refuse?"

"Do not take no for an answer. You know what to do"

They nodded, quickly dividing into groups of four, numbering eleven, with Cabrera and Frederick making up a twelfth group.

In other words, Ezra had fourty six Grandmasters under his banner!

Designating out kingdoms to visit for each group, they set off.

With them gone, the brief noise died out and Quartez returned to its familiar stillness.

With others gone, Zydrax didn’t hesitate to approach the dungeon.

Stepping into it, he finds that nothing happens.

It looked just as damp and desolate as any other cave, whilst hosting an awful stench.

Zydrax couldn’t help but wonder if this was why it was tagged the name ’dungeon’

Zydrax continued unabated, until he reached the cave’s end where he found a floating crystal spinning slowly.

With two pointing edges, it looked like two ice cream cones conjoined.

Spinning, it brightened and dimmed, like a flickering candle.

His intuition was piqued, and out of impulse, he reaches out and snatches the crystal.

It mounts resistance, but it proves futile as Zydrax amplifies his muscles and forcefully drags it away.

Taken out of its original position, the crystal immediately seizes all struggle.

At the same time, the dungeon shakes, signalling imminent collapse.

In a second, Zydrax is outside, and turns to see as it crumbles.

Starting with small cracks, it quickly expands and spreads, small pieces falling as if chipped at.

In no time, larger pieces follow and the dungeon collapses without any hiccups, kicking a small cloud of dust.

"Why did you do that?" Ezra questioned.

"I feel the crystal would be helping solving the heart problem"

"How are you sure?"

"I’m not. But I trust my intuition"

Ezra suddenly felt Zydrax was suspicious.

"You mean...you don’t know what it is?"

"I don’t" he replies, tossing lightly into the air. "I’ve come across things of its nature before, far better things. But no, not exactly, and because my main field wasn’t in the spatial attribute, I’m intrigued to find out why it was shimmering"

"Do you realize you just destroyed the dungeon?"

"So?"

"Are you stupid?" Ezra just had to ask. "The dungeon landing here was something that didn’t happen last time! And you destroyed it without knowing anything? Are you trying to destroy us all? Who knows what’ll happen because of what you just did?"

"More than that. Didn’t you just tell Johan not to destroy it?"

Coughing away his embarrassment, Zydrax waved his hand. "Calm down, it won’t change too much...Hopefully"

He also realized that destroying the dungeon might not have been the best idea.

Zydrax didn’t regret his actions though.

Through this, Ezra saw it clearly.

While Zydrax was a powerful being from unknown origins-he didn’t know everything, and more importantly, he also made mistakes.

He was Imperfect.

You’d expect Ezra to have realized that sooner, but it had eluded him.

Such an obvious trait had been overlooked because of the sort of power and knowledge Zydrax wielded.

It occurred to him.

’If he was perfect, Orion wouldn’t have turned to hell during his past life.

That didn’t mean he didn’t regard him highly.

Just that his expectations were doused as he understood that beyond knowledge and power, Zydrax was an existence just like everybody else.

—---------

On the other end of things, a signal was cut off the moment Zydrax pulled away the crystal.

Sitting in a closed space lit up with floating blue particles aplenty, a being draped in worn robes took and signalled to those behind him.

Particularly at the one that had brought them together.

"Khasavar" said this being. "We’ve lost contact with first probe"

Khasavar frowned, having chanced upon Orion, he gathered helpers, making sure each one was a person weaker than himself to keep his control firm.

Except for him that was simply a weirdo, the others were rejects of society, people at the bottom rung, having failed to prove their worth and without any meaningful connections.

Some were directly excommunicated by their own families.

So, of course, when Khasavar brought his preposition, they readily accepted.

"How long was it on?"

"A few minutes?"

"Hmm" Khasavar contemplated, they had expected it, but this was too fast. "Was the core destroyed or did its imprints change?"

The draped figure simply shrugged. "You need a higher level gateway to tell. With such a basic version, it’s impossible. As far as I’m concerned, it could’ve been a curious beast or a wanderer that randomly snatched it up"

He continues. "This is why I proposed that you put more effort in hastening the gateways awakening"

Khasavar huffed. "I know, but we need to be cautious. We must not mess this up"

"At least now we’re certain that there’s life on the planet"

His eyes narrowed. "That is the area where essence is most concentrated on the planet, is it not?"

"It is"

"Send two more gateways, have them fitted with light drives and have one of them awakened immediately it lands"

"Done"

"The rest of you should ready the first wave,"

"Right away"

—----------

Back in his abode and once again self frozen, Zydrax was in deep thoughts having accessed the dungeon crystal for the last two hours.

To put it plainly, it was a door.

A spatial gateway for better understanding, one that allowed for transportation of things.

It could be used in a myriad of ways.

With a bit of tinkering, he infuses mana into it, unknowingly imprinting it.

A connection formed as Zydrax felt it connected to him on a fundamental level like Skyfall.

Within, he found a myriad of runes, most of which he was familiar with and the few he knew not.

Like codes in machines, they were placed against one another to execute a single function.

Zydrax had memorised the runes and their placements in one go.

Too bad the connection to the other end was no more, so he couldn’t find out the coordinates of the attackers from it.

He pried further, increasing his understanding of the crystal and its placement in a dungeon.

’This changes everything’

At one point, his eyes widened in euphoria.

He realized what was wrong and why he was stuck with a seemingly unsolvable problem.

Neither the dungeon crystal nor the runes within it were anything special on their own, but together, it opened Zydrax’s eyes to something he’d missed.

’I’ve been doing things all wrong’

It flipped over his thought process, allowing him a major breakthrough as a solution formed to the hurdle keeping his progress at bay.

Ecstatic, Zydrax flipped and dismantled all he had done till now.

He begins anew, following a completely different path. But having already done it once, his pace was incomparably faster.

Placing the dungeon crystal in his hands, Zydrax crushes it, using mana to make sure not a spec falls to the floor as the crystal splits into little fragments.

Using mana, he places the fragments inside the mana cube.

Melding the Crystal’s function into the Mana Cube, Zydrax sought to take the creation one step further.

’As an amplifier, this would give interesting results. If I tie it together with the ark’

The only problem would be that he couldn’t accurately measure the effects.

In any case, he would cross that bridge when he got there.

Delving into the new changes, the abode goes quiet as Zydrax enters a state of fluid concentration, tinkering and tinkering.

Ezra had learnt not to disturb him in these moments.

Another two hours passed, and another surprise was delivered.

A familiar object breaches the barrier once more, and this time they were two.

Their loud landing disrupts Zydrax’s train of thought, forcing him to pause.

Groaning in annoyance and utmost displeasure, he exits his abode, placing the mana cube, and orbs into the space ring.

Out of the abode, he finds not one but two dungeons in its wake.

They had fallen fifty meters from one another.

"Do you see this?" Said Ezra. "Destroy one, they send two, destroy these two and they’ll send four! You should be more careful"

Zydrax dug out his left ear with his pinkie. "For a dude who had no qualms facing a Mythic rank demon. Seeing you so triggered over some caves is disappointing"

"I understand that you’ve seen that carnage these things can cause. But you mustn’t let that blind you" he said. "This is a different time, things will proceed differently"

"Besides" Zydrax’s tone deepened. "Things are never so simple"

On cue, one of them brightened as light filled it from within.

"That’s new"

With Ezra’s past life experience and having accessed the crystal, he inferred about sixty percent of how dungeons actually worked.

He arrives in front of the active dungeon.

A spatial membrane lay at its entrance like a spider web.

Zydrax paced between the dormant one and the active one to note the differences.

He finds a flickering dungeon crystal in the dormant one, proving that it wasn’t a unique occurrence.

This time though, he left it alone, having already understood its workings.

With that done, Zydrax went back into his abode and dived right back into actualizing his visualised creation.