In an hour, the boat took us back to Venezia Island. As we entered the Island’s waterways, I could see the snakes slithering out of the streets. With their leader gone, they were now scurrying away in hiding. We docked outside the Church. Father Jacob and the other townsfolk came out to see what was happening to the streets.
“Hey, Father.”, I waved at the old priest.
“Oh, Sir Ray? Have you closed the Dungeon already?”
I nodded at him, flashing him a smile. “I promised you, didn’t I?”
Hearing my words, all the townspeople started to cheer. A few of them came forward and started to thank me. Since this was my first time being the target of praise of such a big crowd, I just gave them an awkward smile in response.
“Please Sir, come in.”, Father Jacob invited me into the church seeing my awkward state. I followed him into his office with Mike.
Behind me, I could hear some boat engines running. The townspeople were probably going back to their residences now, though it will take a few days for them to resume their daily lives again.
“We thank you for helping us, Sir Ray. The town is grateful for all you have done.”
“It's okay. There was-”
“Father, you won’t believe it. I Awakened.”, Mike cut me off.
Father turned towards Mike in surprise. “Oh Lord, that’s so amazing, Mike. I am sure your father will be very proud of you.”
After a moment, he spoke up, “Mike, would you mind waiting outside for a moment? I have something important I need to talk to Sir Ray here."
Mike obediently left the room. I kind of knew where this conservation was going to head.
“Sir Ray, I hate to impose on you again, but may I ask you for another favour?”, Father began nervously.
“I suppose you want me to take Mike with me to the Human Continent?”, I voiced his thoughts for him.
“I am very sorry about this. The islanders aren't really fond of Mike. I try to help him as much as I can but even I am reaching my limits considering my old age. Now that Mike has got such a wonderful opportunity in front of him as an Awakened, I would hate for him to waste it on such a small island.”
The door burst open and Mike marched in. “Father, if I go to the Human Continent, you need to come with me.”
“Mike, we shouldn’t burden Sir Ray too much. A pass for the portal to the Human Continent is very expensive. And I don’t want you to miss such an opportunity for an old man like me.”
“But Father…”
“Can I add something to this.”, I interrupted them. “Father, I am in no way lacking in finances to not be able to teleport two people to the Continent. Not to mention, right now I only have one Return Marble with me. So forget yourself, I won’t be able to take Mike with me either. And Mike, I was always going to bring you with me to the Human Continent. You have too much potential to leave you on this small island.”
“But, Father-”
He started but I shushed him with a finger to my lips. "Shush!"
“Father, I will need at least a month to arrange for proper accommodations for Mike. Also, since I am a Professor, I reside in the Academy dorms, so I would need someone to look after Mike in his new residence. It will be helpful if it's someone he’s familiar with.”
“All right, Sir Ray, I would take you up on your offer.”, Father finally gave up.
I could see he held a lot of affection for his ward. He would have given up on his stubbornness sooner or later.
Now that our discussions were over, I was feeling the fatigue from the Dungeon Raid.
“Father, can you tell me what the best lodge is here? My return isn’t for another few days and I don’t have a suitable place to rest.”
“Oh, of course. The best place to stay will be at Maria’s. Mike can take you there. Also, I once again can't thank you enough for helping us.”
I gave him a gentle nod, before leaving the Church. The lodge I was guided to was a three-storey house on a beach. It seemed clean and well-kept from the outside, which I was thankful for. Mike left me at the door, saying he had to get back to his house.
When I walked in, a lady in her mid - 50s greeted me. She had dark hair and tanned skin, which seemed to be native to this area. Behind her, a teenage girl, who I presumed to be her daughter, was dusting the counter.
When they saw it was me, the daughter rushed in front of me.
“Oh my, Mr. Hero. What brings someone like you to our place?”
“Oh, I am looking for a room to book for a few days.”
“Oh, please, right this way. For the person who saved our town, I will provide you with our best room." She cheerfully guided me.
The room she took me to was a plain room on the second floor, with a queen bed and a small side table and chair. It had plenty of sunlight and was well-ventilated. It even overlooked the beach, giving it quite a nice vibe.
“Thank you for the room.”
“No problems, Sir Hero. Dinner begins at 7.30 PM, but we can also send your meal to your room.” She explained before leaving the room.
I jumped into the bed as soon as she left. It's been days since I had slept in an actual bed and my bones were aching from all that camping and fighting. For a city boy like me, this kind of lifestyle was really exhausting.
As I sunk into the soft bed, my eyes slowly fell asleep.
When I woke up, the sun was already setting into the horizon. Red rays illuminated the room as I got up. Since I hadn't eaten the entire day, my stomach was grumbling from hunger.
I quickly dropped into the shower and after getting freshened up, I went down to have my dinner. The restaurant, whose entrance was beside the reception, already had other customers inside. When I entered the room, they stopped chatting and stared at me.
I quickly took an empty seat and ordered a soup and prawn dish. Soon, the daughter brought me my order, and I started digging in. I could sense the other customers’ lingering gazes on me as I ate. They were quietly whispering amongst themselves, but it wasn’t hard to catch their words with my sensitive hearing.
“That Hero must be really strong for closing such a Rank C Dungeon by himself.”
“I hear that the Harpoon kid was the one who took the Hero to the Dungeon. He was bragging about it all over town.”
“What use would that troublemaker be inside a Dungeon? He must just have been in the Hero’s way. If I sent my Jake with the Hero, he would have been so much more helpful than that kid.”
“Did you know, that Harpoon kid was lying to everyone that the Hero gave him powers or something?”
“Haa. That kid is a liar, just like his father was. Saying he had friends in the Hero League. Well, those ‘friends’ never came whenever he asked them for help. That phoney was just showing off until his lies were revealed.”
“Well, maybe this will give us a chance to throw that kid out of our city.”
I was pretty surprised by all the negative comments that were flowing around about Mike. Since I was an outsider, I couldn’t really call them off, so I just left for my room after finishing my food. As I sat on the chair, thinking about Mikael’s story in the novel, I took a look at my arm.
“Ah, I completely forgot about him.” The black snake tattoo was still there on my arm. “Deus, come out.”
The tattoo slowly started to move, and Deus raised his head before the rest of his body started to follow. Soon the tattoo was gone, and its real-life golden replica was wrapped around my arm.
Arcadeus was on the verge of crying. “Master, you are so cruel. How could you forget about me?”
“Sorry about that!” I apologised. He was my Spirit, so I should have a good relationship with him.
Deus started slithering around the room, exploring the new place.
“So, Master, what are you doing on this island?”
“Hmm. I just came to sight-see.” Deus might be my Spirit, but there’s no way I am telling my secret to a talking snake.
“Master, you do realise I am now bonded to you, right? I can feel when you are lying.”
“I feel like I am getting the short-end of the stick here.”
“If you are so concerned with me spilling your secrets, you can always order me to secrecy with the Spirit Seal on your hand.”
“Spirit Seal?”, I checked my hand again to find a tattoo slowly inking into existence on my arm, in the place where Deus had slithered out just moments ago.
I remembered reading about Spirit Seals in the books. They could be used to summon your Spirit, no matter where they were. And if the Spiritualist and his Spirit had high enough ranks, then they can even use each other's skills.
“So, what were you doing in the Dungeon, master?”, Deus asked me again.
“Well, I got information that a Spirit Seed was supposed to appear in that Dungeon.” It technically wasn’t a lie, so he won't be able to call me out on this.
“Ahh, then I guess we were meant to be together, Master.” Deus declared, snuggling close to my leg.
“Yeh, I doubt that.”
I took my smartwatch out of my dimensional ring and placed it on the table. The smartwatches here doubled as both smartphones and laptops in my previous world. I had stored it in my ring before entering the whirlpool and then totally forgot about it in the Dungeon.
I pulled up the screen. A hologram floated above the table, popping up multiple notifications. Looks like my students have started posting their assignments.
“Um, Master, I am kind of hungry right now.”
“Ah, right, I forgot about that. What do you eat, by the way? I can ask Maria to send some fish to the room if you would like?” I said, pointing to the intercom placed beside the bed.
“Normal meat isn’t good enough for me. They don’t have enough mana in them for them to taste good. Could you take out the monster corpses that are in your ring?”
“You mean the s-snake monsters?”
“Yeh.”, Deus looked at me with sparkling eyes, acting like a cute puppy.
I never even imagined it would be possible for a reptile to be able to act like that. Not to mention, a cannibal at that. Well, as long as it didn’t eat humans, I was okay.
I took out the small Red Snakes that Mike had killed. Deus immediately started feasting on it, ripping the outer skin off and tearing into the flesh with his fangs, before swallowing the chunks of meat. I decided to keep the bigger ones that I had killed inside since I didn’t think Maria would appreciate 40-foot-long snake carcasses in one of her rooms. I decided to feed them to Deus later.
I could have sold the corpses too, but Spirits ranked up after collecting enough mana in their body. It was more fruitful for me to invest them into Deus' stomach rather than exchange them for some cash. Anyway, for the cash, I was thinking of selling Ray’s Potions on the black market after I produced them.
I quickly typed in the black market name I remembered from the novel.
Pandora’s Box.
It was a very special organisation that dealt in the underworld. Rather than an organisation, it would be much more accurate to say it was a Dungeon.
A sentient one at that.
No one knew where it was located or who operated it, but one day it just latched to the Internet like a parasite and established itself as one of the biggest dark websites.
In fact, Earth wasn’t the only place it could be accessed from. Various other planets had it too, so it couldn’t even be verified if the Dungeon was on our planet or not.
Even I didn’t know where Pandora’s Box was and I was the reader of the novel. But people did say that if you raided the Dungeon, you could find enough priceless Artifacts in it, enough to be able to buy an entire planet.
I quickly pulled up the website. There was a biometric lock in the middle of the screen. I placed my right thumb on it and sent a shock of mana into it. Immediately, the website’s homepage opened up on the screen.
Usually, someone needs to pass a lot of security restrictions to be able to register here. But, I never doubted that Ray would be denied access. Every famous Hero had an access pass to it and Ray was the eldest son of the owner of the Rank #5 Guild. It was another fact that he never used it, but he would have been forced to register by his father.
I scrolled through the site. There were quite a variety of products in it. Potions, monster corpses, Artifacts, and even monster slaves.
There were several brokers logged in as well, selling information. Though the prices that were displayed in front of them could make one’s eyes pop out.
Every day stuff like mass-produced weapons and monster corpses were sold at market price. But anything rare or unique was sold for hundreds of millions of R.
I decided to search for something. I quickly typed in ‘Monster Repelling Potion’, but my search came up empty.
‘Looks like there is nothing like Ray’s potions being sold here. Well, they are pretty special. I doubt anyone has come up with them yet.’
Looks like Monster Repellents will be the first potion I should sell here. I had seen their effects first-hand. Usually, some non-combatant Heroes and researchers also entered the Dungeons to research the fantastical flora and fauna found there.
Heroes with combat abilities were usually hired to protect them since they were very quite weak, despite being Awakened. This Potion could very well solve this problem and increase the security of the researchers.
I took the Potion Notebook out of the ring. The Monster Repelling Potions seemed quite easy to make. It didn’t use any rare ingredients.
But after scrolling through it for some time, I came across a major problem. I didn’t have any of the equipment for distillation and other processes. So I decided to think about it, when I went back.
‘If I remember correctly, Ray had another house before he came into the Star Academy. It had an underground lab attached to it. I better go see his house once I return.”
I hadn’t really explored the world outside the Star Academy in the two months I was here. This excursion to Venezia Island was my first Other-World excursion, so I had very little personal experience about the place.
“Zzz. Zzz. Zzz.”
I turned back to find Deus sleeping on the floor, not a trace of its meal left behind. The golden hairy-viper looked cute while sleeping, kind of like a puppy.
I chuckled at myself, comparing a monster to a harmless puppy, after remembering the amount of destruction it had spread in the original novel.
There was some blood from the corpses spilled on the floor, so I used Water mana to wipe it away.
While training I had realised a major flaw about the Sword Art I was practising. Without a proper weapon in my hand, I wasn't able to gain complete access to my mana reserves. A small spell like this was all I could conjure with my bare hands.
I quickly made a mental note to practise mana usage without any tools later.
I went back to my screen, now checking the assignments I had gotten in the mail.
In an hour, the boat took us back to Venezia Island. As we entered the Island’s waterways, I could see the snakes slithering out of the streets. With their leader gone, they were now scurrying away in hiding. We docked outside the Church. Father Jacob and the other townsfolk came out to see what was happening to the streets.
“Hey, Father.”, I waved at the old priest.
“Oh, Sir Ray? Have you closed the Dungeon already?”
I nodded at him, flashing him a smile. “I promised you, didn’t I?”
Hearing my words, all the townspeople started to cheer. A few of them came forward and started to thank me. Since this was my first time being the target of praise of such a big crowd, I just gave them an awkward smile in response.
“Please Sir, come in.”, Father Jacob invited me into the church seeing my awkward state. I followed him into his office with Mike.
Behind me, I could hear some boat engines running. The townspeople were probably going back to their residences now, though it will take a few days for them to resume their daily lives again.
“We thank you for helping us, Sir Ray. The town is grateful for all you have done.”
“It's okay. There was-”
“Father, you won’t believe it. I Awakened.”, Mike cut me off.
Father turned towards Mike in surprise. “Oh Lord, that’s so amazing, Mike. I am sure your father will be very proud of you.”
After a moment, he spoke up, “Mike, would you mind waiting outside for a moment? I have something important I need to talk to Sir Ray here."
Mike obediently left the room. I kind of knew where this conservation was going to head.
“Sir Ray, I hate to impose on you again, but may I ask you for another favour?”, Father began nervously.
“I suppose you want me to take Mike with me to the Human Continent?”, I voiced his thoughts for him.
“I am very sorry about this. The islanders aren't really fond of Mike. I try to help him as much as I can but even I am reaching my limits considering my old age. Now that Mike has got such a wonderful opportunity in front of him as an Awakened, I would hate for him to waste it on such a small island.”
The door burst open and Mike marched in. “Father, if I go to the Human Continent, you need to come with me.”
“Mike, we shouldn’t burden Sir Ray too much. A pass for the portal to the Human Continent is very expensive. And I don’t want you to miss such an opportunity for an old man like me.”
“But Father…”
“Can I add something to this.”, I interrupted them. “Father, I am in no way lacking in finances to not be able to teleport two people to the Continent. Not to mention, right now I only have one Return Marble with me. So forget yourself, I won’t be able to take Mike with me either. And Mike, I was always going to bring you with me to the Human Continent. You have too much potential to leave you on this small island.”
“But, Father-”
He started but I shushed him with a finger to my lips. "Shush!"
“Father, I will need at least a month to arrange for proper accommodations for Mike. Also, since I am a Professor, I reside in the Academy dorms, so I would need someone to look after Mike in his new residence. It will be helpful if it's someone he’s familiar with.”
“All right, Sir Ray, I would take you up on your offer.”, Father finally gave up.
I could see he held a lot of affection for his ward. He would have given up on his stubbornness sooner or later.
Now that our discussions were over, I was feeling the fatigue from the Dungeon Raid.
“Father, can you tell me what the best lodge is here? My return isn’t for another few days and I don’t have a suitable place to rest.”
“Oh, of course. The best place to stay will be at Maria’s. Mike can take you there. Also, I once again can't thank you enough for helping us.”
I gave him a gentle nod, before leaving the Church. The lodge I was guided to was a three-storey house on a beach. It seemed clean and well-kept from the outside, which I was thankful for. Mike left me at the door, saying he had to get back to his house.
When I walked in, a lady in her mid - 50s greeted me. She had dark hair and tanned skin, which seemed to be native to this area. Behind her, a teenage girl, who I presumed to be her daughter, was dusting the counter.
When they saw it was me, the daughter rushed in front of me.
“Oh my, Mr. Hero. What brings someone like you to our place?”
“Oh, I am looking for a room to book for a few days.”
“Oh, please, right this way. For the person who saved our town, I will provide you with our best room." She cheerfully guided me.
The room she took me to was a plain room on the second floor, with a queen bed and a small side table and chair. It had plenty of sunlight and was well-ventilated. It even overlooked the beach, giving it quite a nice vibe.
“Thank you for the room.”
“No problems, Sir Hero. Dinner begins at 7.30 PM, but we can also send your meal to your room.” She explained before leaving the room.
I jumped into the bed as soon as she left. It's been days since I had slept in an actual bed and my bones were aching from all that camping and fighting. For a city boy like me, this kind of lifestyle was really exhausting.
As I sunk into the soft bed, my eyes slowly fell asleep.
When I woke up, the sun was already setting into the horizon. Red rays illuminated the room as I got up. Since I hadn't eaten the entire day, my stomach was grumbling from hunger.
I quickly dropped into the shower and after getting freshened up, I went down to have my dinner. The restaurant, whose entrance was beside the reception, already had other customers inside. When I entered the room, they stopped chatting and stared at me.
I quickly took an empty seat and ordered a soup and prawn dish. Soon, the daughter brought me my order, and I started digging in. I could sense the other customers’ lingering gazes on me as I ate. They were quietly whispering amongst themselves, but it wasn’t hard to catch their words with my sensitive hearing.
“That Hero must be really strong for closing such a Rank C Dungeon by himself.”
“I hear that the Harpoon kid was the one who took the Hero to the Dungeon. He was bragging about it all over town.”
“What use would that troublemaker be inside a Dungeon? He must just have been in the Hero’s way. If I sent my Jake with the Hero, he would have been so much more helpful than that kid.”
“Did you know, that Harpoon kid was lying to everyone that the Hero gave him powers or something?”
“Haa. That kid is a liar, just like his father was. Saying he had friends in the Hero League. Well, those ‘friends’ never came whenever he asked them for help. That phoney was just showing off until his lies were revealed.”
“Well, maybe this will give us a chance to throw that kid out of our city.”
I was pretty surprised by all the negative comments that were flowing around about Mike. Since I was an outsider, I couldn’t really call them off, so I just left for my room after finishing my food. As I sat on the chair, thinking about Mikael’s story in the novel, I took a look at my arm.
“Ah, I completely forgot about him.” The black snake tattoo was still there on my arm. “Deus, come out.”
The tattoo slowly started to move, and Deus raised his head before the rest of his body started to follow. Soon the tattoo was gone, and its real-life golden replica was wrapped around my arm.
Arcadeus was on the verge of crying. “Master, you are so cruel. How could you forget about me?”
“Sorry about that!” I apologised. He was my Spirit, so I should have a good relationship with him.
Deus started slithering around the room, exploring the new place.
“So, Master, what are you doing on this island?”
“Hmm. I just came to sight-see.” Deus might be my Spirit, but there’s no way I am telling my secret to a talking snake.
“Master, you do realise I am now bonded to you, right? I can feel when you are lying.”
“I feel like I am getting the short-end of the stick here.”
“If you are so concerned with me spilling your secrets, you can always order me to secrecy with the Spirit Seal on your hand.”
“Spirit Seal?”, I checked my hand again to find a tattoo slowly inking into existence on my arm, in the place where Deus had slithered out just moments ago.
I remembered reading about Spirit Seals in the books. They could be used to summon your Spirit, no matter where they were. And if the Spiritualist and his Spirit had high enough ranks, then they can even use each other's skills.
“So, what were you doing in the Dungeon, master?”, Deus asked me again.
“Well, I got information that a Spirit Seed was supposed to appear in that Dungeon.” It technically wasn’t a lie, so he won't be able to call me out on this.
“Ahh, then I guess we were meant to be together, Master.” Deus declared, snuggling close to my leg.
“Yeh, I doubt that.”
I took my smartwatch out of my dimensional ring and placed it on the table. The smartwatches here doubled as both smartphones and laptops in my previous world. I had stored it in my ring before entering the whirlpool and then totally forgot about it in the Dungeon.
I pulled up the screen. A hologram floated above the table, popping up multiple notifications. Looks like my students have started posting their assignments.
“Um, Master, I am kind of hungry right now.”
“Ah, right, I forgot about that. What do you eat, by the way? I can ask Maria to send some fish to the room if you would like?” I said, pointing to the intercom placed beside the bed.
“Normal meat isn’t good enough for me. They don’t have enough mana in them for them to taste good. Could you take out the monster corpses that are in your ring?”
“You mean the s-snake monsters?”
“Yeh.”, Deus looked at me with sparkling eyes, acting like a cute puppy.
I never even imagined it would be possible for a reptile to be able to act like that. Not to mention, a cannibal at that. Well, as long as it didn’t eat humans, I was okay.
I took out the small Red Snakes that Mike had killed. Deus immediately started feasting on it, ripping the outer skin off and tearing into the flesh with his fangs, before swallowing the chunks of meat. I decided to keep the bigger ones that I had killed inside since I didn’t think Maria would appreciate 40-foot-long snake carcasses in one of her rooms. I decided to feed them to Deus later.
I could have sold the corpses too, but Spirits ranked up after collecting enough mana in their body. It was more fruitful for me to invest them into Deus' stomach rather than exchange them for some cash. Anyway, for the cash, I was thinking of selling Ray’s Potions on the black market after I produced them.
I quickly typed in the black market name I remembered from the novel.
Pandora’s Box.
It was a very special organisation that dealt in the underworld. Rather than an organisation, it would be much more accurate to say it was a Dungeon.
A sentient one at that.
No one knew where it was located or who operated it, but one day it just latched to the Internet like a parasite and established itself as one of the biggest dark websites.
In fact, Earth wasn’t the only place it could be accessed from. Various other planets had it too, so it couldn’t even be verified if the Dungeon was on our planet or not.
Even I didn’t know where Pandora’s Box was and I was the reader of the novel. But people did say that if you raided the Dungeon, you could find enough priceless Artifacts in it, enough to be able to buy an entire planet.
I quickly pulled up the website. There was a biometric lock in the middle of the screen. I placed my right thumb on it and sent a shock of mana into it. Immediately, the website’s homepage opened up on the screen.
Usually, someone needs to pass a lot of security restrictions to be able to register here. But, I never doubted that Ray would be denied access. Every famous Hero had an access pass to it and Ray was the eldest son of the owner of the Rank #5 Guild. It was another fact that he never used it, but he would have been forced to register by his father.
I scrolled through the site. There were quite a variety of products in it. Potions, monster corpses, Artifacts, and even monster slaves.
There were several brokers logged in as well, selling information. Though the prices that were displayed in front of them could make one’s eyes pop out.
Every day stuff like mass-produced weapons and monster corpses were sold at market price. But anything rare or unique was sold for hundreds of millions of R.
I decided to search for something. I quickly typed in ‘Monster Repelling Potion’, but my search came up empty.
‘Looks like there is nothing like Ray’s potions being sold here. Well, they are pretty special. I doubt anyone has come up with them yet.’
Looks like Monster Repellents will be the first potion I should sell here. I had seen their effects first-hand. Usually, some non-combatant Heroes and researchers also entered the Dungeons to research the fantastical flora and fauna found there.
Heroes with combat abilities were usually hired to protect them since they were very quite weak, despite being Awakened. This Potion could very well solve this problem and increase the security of the researchers.
I took the Potion Notebook out of the ring. The Monster Repelling Potions seemed quite easy to make. It didn’t use any rare ingredients.
But after scrolling through it for some time, I came across a major problem. I didn’t have any of the equipment for distillation and other processes. So I decided to think about it, when I went back.
‘If I remember correctly, Ray had another house before he came into the Star Academy. It had an underground lab attached to it. I better go see his house once I return.”
I hadn’t really explored the world outside the Star Academy in the two months I was here. This excursion to Venezia Island was my first Other-World excursion, so I had very little personal experience about the place.
“Zzz. Zzz. Zzz.”
I turned back to find Deus sleeping on the floor, not a trace of its meal left behind. The golden hairy-viper looked cute while sleeping, kind of like a puppy.
I chuckled at myself, comparing a monster to a harmless puppy, after remembering the amount of destruction it had spread in the original novel.
There was some blood from the corpses spilled on the floor, so I used Water mana to wipe it away.
While training I had realised a major flaw about the Sword Art I was practising. Without a proper weapon in my hand, I wasn't able to gain complete access to my mana reserves. A small spell like this was all I could conjure with my bare hands.
I quickly made a mental note to practise mana usage without any tools later.
I went back to my screen, now checking the assignments I had gotten in the mail.
