Archie’s eyes snapped open after the surge of mana that had previously surrounded him vanished.

  All around him stretched the vast expanse of space as he hurtled forward—stars, planets, comets, and meteorites all streaking past in a dazzling blur, vanishing behind him as he surged ahead.

  Archie’s pupils dilated as he absorbed the breathtaking chaos around him, his body hurtling through the cosmos. Asteroids from the dense belts whizzed past, some narrowly missing him, their jagged surfaces glinting in the distant starlight.

  His mouth parted as impossibly large, ancient leviathan-like beings floated in the vast expanse of space, not paying him any heed, considering him to be yet another speck of dust.

  Suddenly, his Sixth Sense

  He had unknowingly leaned too far, just enough to slip out of the tractor-like beam surrounding him.

  Archie’s heart pounded like a drum, his chest heaving as he steadied himself.

  As he continued to hurtle through space, his speed kept increasing until everything around him turned into a blur. Stars, planets, comets, asteroids, and giant space creatures all turned into multicolored streaks as he rushed past them.

  "Let’s go!" Archie shouted. His adrenaline's previous lull had surged through him, and a grin stretched across his face, threatening to split it in two as he shot through the cosmos.

  Then, without warning, he came to an abrupt halt, almost managing to yet again launch himself out of the tractor-like beam that surrounded him.

  His breath caught in his throat as he came face to face with what was going to be his new home.

  A massive planet dominated his vision. Its many towering mountains pierced the sky, their jagged peaks reaching so high they brushed the edges of space itself. Vast valleys stretched endlessly, their surfaces dotted with clusters of bumps—

  Enormous deserts, just as expansive as the valleys, were speckled with similar formations. And encircling it all, an immense ocean wrapped around the landmasses he could see, like a blue belt.

  Giant landmasses, floating above the surface, drifting through the atmosphere. With some covered in lush greenery, and others looking similar to asteroids, but far smaller.

  Yet, as Archie’s eyes roamed over the planet’s surface, he noticed something his eyes had glossed over—every landmass was scarred, marred by deep ravines and colossal craters, each as vast as the tallest mountains he had seen. Some crisscrossed and overlapped while others were by their lonesome.

  Some were stained a golden color, while others were overtaken by their surroundings in the forests. The ones in the desert were untouched, the sands by them seemingly stuck in place, as though the sand around the ravines and craters were seemingly unhindered by gravity.

  Archie exhaled, barely aware that he had been holding his breath.

  Then, just as quickly as he had come to a halt, Archie was yanked forward, hurtling toward the planet.

  And just as he broke through the atmosphere, he vanished.

  Unbeknownst to Archie, an invisible cloaked figure soared through the sky, unseen by all. They watched his sudden arrival with quiet interest, their gaze fixed on his sudden disappearance once he entered their planet's atmosphere.

  Then - beep

  A device on their hip emitted a soft tone, making them snap their head to the right, toward a temple off into the distance.

  Archie stood slightly hunched over, not moving an inch, as his eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness that surrounded him. A harsh shift from the incredible view he'd seen moments prior.

  As he slowly looked down, a faint breeze brushed against his face, and judging by its direction, he was high up.

  Archie cracked his mouth open slightly, letting the air settle on his tongue. It was dry and carried the sharp, grainy taste of sand.

  Activating Forgesmith's Flame

  “Sandstone?” he muttered, staring at the brickwork that surrounded him. His gaze dropped to where he stood, balanced atop a wooden beam, one of four, suspended over an abyss of pitch-black nothingness. A rafter, if he remembered correctly.

  Looking toward the many small beams of sunlight that pierced through the many cracks in between the sandstone bricks told him two important details: that he was inside of some sort of building and that the sun was out.

  His eyes traveled upward, tracing the dome ceiling just above his head.

  Archie thought in confusion.

  Before he could process it, the universe decided to throw one more curveball. A few grains of sand broke loose from the stone above, spilling downward, straight toward his unprotected eyes.

  Archie smirked as he leaned backwards, dodging the grains of sand that fell.

  Crack!

  The moment he shifted, the rafter beneath him produced a sharp crack that echoed throughout the tower before it gave way completely.

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  Archie barely had time to curse before gravity yanked him downward. He plummeted into the darkness below, crashing through the brittle floor beneath him. The cracked, dried surface gave way instantly, offering no resistance as he tore through it—and the next floor... and the next.

  Forgesmith’s Flame

  Quickly, Archie summoned a mana platform just below him, his teeth gritted as he felt it crack under his weight and shatter almost immediately, halting his descent for a moment.

  Without hesitation, he activated Thornscourge ExpansionForgesmith’s Flame

  The flames, unsnuffed from the sand that splattered against it.

  Archie surged nature mana around the vines, feeling them shoot out in all directions from his body, hoping they would find purchase on something sturdy. His mind raced, focusing on getting the vines to latch onto a solid pillar or dig into the floor before he crashed through yet another layer of the tower.

  Just as he was about to crash into another sandstone brick floor, back first, Archie lurched upward with a violent jolt. A loud snap echoed throughout the old sandstone brick building he found himself in as his left shoulder popped out of its socket. The aflame vines that extended from his left arm wrapped tightly around a sturdy stump of a pillar, their roots digging deep into the wood.

  , Archie cursed, wincing as chunks of sandstone and brick smashed into the side and back of his head, battering against his newly forged steel armor as the larger chunks smashed against the floor, breaking it with ease.

  With a restrained groan of pain, he quickly summoned another mana platform under his feet. His feet planted firmly on it, Archie gritted his teeth and deactivated Thornscourge ExpansionForgesmith’s Flames

  Taking a few moments to catch his breath, Archie looked below to find it gone, and judging by the sounds of crumbling sandstone crashing into floors, it was a deep drop.

  “It’s a pretty deep tower,” Archie muttered as his left shoulder snapped back into place moments after he aligned it.

  As Archie looked around him, the area now illuminated by his Forgesmith’s Flame,

  Archie let out a deep breath before creating a mana platform a few meters above him. He leapt up, grabbing the edge of the new platform and pulling himself onto it.

  After repeating the process for about thirty floors, Archie finally reached the highest level of the tower, just a few meters from where he had been moments ago, marked by one of the broken rafters. Looking to his sides, he found the four hallways that branched off from the ‘tower’. And judging from the faint beams of light shining through the cracks in the sandstone walls, he was now above ground.

  Though he could easily break through the wall and escape if the place decided to collapse or cave in on itself, Archie felt an urge to explore the surface level a bit. After all, he was already here.

  "I mean, I am here... fuck it, who cares." With that, he jumped off the mana platform and landed softly in one of the hallways. "I hope there’s no giant owl in here."

  As he walked a few meters down the hallway, he suddenly stopped before his hand slowly reached for his back satchel.

  Archie released a long exhale of air to calm himself before muttering, “Maybe its in the spatial storage of the Livingwood Propagator…”

  After a few minutes of thorough searching through the Livingwood Propagator, Archie released a sigh of relief, it was there.

  “Thank you, Bralmir.”

  Apparently, when he’d teleported, either to the bazaar or to this planet, the System had placed it in his spatial storage just like his forging equipment when he was being awarded his points. It previously wasn’t sent to his spatial storage in his ring because it couldn’t hold living things, but apparently Bralmir’s Livingwood Propagator’s spatial storage had no issue with that.

  Still feeling the small twinges of anxiety from the sudden panic he had minutes ago, Archie moved cautiously down the hallway. He had to admit, it didn’t feel like a tower anymore. It seemed more like some kind of pyramid.

  , Archie thought to himself as he glanced towards the symbols written all along the walls, colored in faint gold and red paint.

  As he stared at the symbols, he suddenly remembered the USL Language Crystal he had in his spatial storage.

  Pulling out the small light blue crystal, Archie gave it an Identify

  Information Crystal (Common) – USL Language:

  A lesser-sized Information Crystal containing the knowledge of the Universal Standard Language, the first language most denizens of the multiverse are taught and known to be the easiest to learn. Flow your mana through the crystal to gain the knowledge within. Uses: 5/5. Status: Perfect.

  Shrugging, Archie let his mana flow through the crystal, and for a moment, he froze as thousands of words surged through his mind and hundreds of grammatical rules flooded his brain.

  It was the largest info dump he’d had since freshman year of university.

  “Christ…” Archie muttered as he blinked owlishly before putting away the USL Language Information Crystal. Pushing his headdress upwards a bit, Archie rubbed his forehead in an attempt to elevate the minor headache he was having from the sudden rush of information.

  Archie thought to himself, shaking his head in frustration before muttering, “Why does the word ‘table’ have a gender? It’s a table…”

  His complaint-filled thoughts were interrupted by the sharp sounds of metallic snapping and skittering echoing from the darkness of the hallway.

  Instinctively, Archie activated Vital Sight

  Curious, he decided to try Identify, and to his delight, it worked.

  [Neurovenom Hadrurus Arizonensis Lv 61]

  ***

  [Neurovenom Hadrurus Arizonensis Lv 64]

  Archie thought in confusion as he read the names of the creatures that were scurrying toward him.

  Pulling out his Mana Revolver, Archie fired at the most concentrated point of each of the creatures, where the largest clump of sparks of Vitality gathered, as it normally was around whatever creature’s center of mass.

  Every two shots killed one of the… creatures that were scuttering toward him, and after emptying the mana container of the Mana Revolver, he killed five and heavily injured one of them.

  He wasn’t expecting them to suddenly scurry on the walls of the hallway, and he wasn’t even upset with missing a shot; rather, he was just really curious as to what these creatures were and why he heard a tinging sound from them as he shot at their center of mass.

  After refilling the mana container of his Mana Revolver once more and emptying it once more, Archie was finally greeted with the creatures, face to exoskeleton.

  They stood about four feet tall, their translucent-yellow and dark brown exoskeletons gleaming under the greenish-red glow of his Forgesmith’s Flame

  These weren’t creatures forged from hardened lava. Instead, three of their eight eyes glowed like red monocular lenses, seamlessly fused into their exoskeletons, with metallic plates surrounding the base of their metallic eyes.

  Their right pincers bore the same mechanical nature, entirely cybernetic, snapping relentlessly as if testing their own strength. Even two of their eight legs were sleek, jointed metal, moving with an eerie precision.

  Archie thought, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing.

  “What type of planet am I on?” Archie muttered, staring at the dozens of scorpions scuttering toward him.

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