Chapter 5

  After he returned to his room and slept for 30 years, Arcius quickly returned to his Dungeon and expanded it by another 1023 rooms, pushing his total up to 1584. It left his status looking pretty good.

  With nothing left to do at the Dungeon, he returned to his room and exited to the dining area again. This time, he decided to head to the second nearest corridor. Just as with the first, he had barely taken a step down it before finding himself at the other end. This time, he was in a massive circular room, with hundreds of doors lining the wall.

  Each door was labelled, and he recognised some of the names displayed: Earth, Li’Tri’Ah, Aruun, Zelztrior, and so on. He even saw his home world, Regulon. Curious he stepped forward and was presented with a floating message before him.

  Interesting. These rules must be here to prevent the inevitable interference of the Gods from destroying worlds on a whim. What Arcius found most fascinating, however, was what was implied, rather than what was outright stated. For instance, Rule 3 forbids acts outside of a world’s Natural Laws while being observed. This means that he couldn’t just go to Earth and use his Divine power to perform magical miracles.

  However, the ‘while being observed’ part means that he would be permitted to use those magical abilities, so long as he didn’t let himself be seen doing so. The other Rules, with the exception of Rule 1, had similar loopholes. He doubted CoG would be so stupid as to miss these, especially the more obvious ones, so he assumed that they were put in deliberately. Probably to avoid having bored Gods.

  Having read the message, Arcius dismissed it. Looking around it didn’t take much to realise why this room was here. Inspiration. By observing the different worlds, he and the other Dungeon Gods would be able to receive inspiration for how to shape the world they now controlled. Curious, he decided to enter the door labelled Alliiru. Entering the door, there was a bright flash of light.

  When the light faded, he found himself standing on a hill overlooking a city. A fairly common scene in the universe, save for the fact that the hill was made of obsidian, and the city was made of crystal. Acting quickly, Arcius cast Living World, a Life spell that could detect all living things within a given area. He used it to observe his immediate surroundings, but found nothing living close enough to see him.

  Satisfied that he would not be seen, he then cast Phantom Shroud, a Darkness spell that hid him from all senses, as well as Calming Aura, a Light spell that would negate negative emotions in his immediate surroundings. Thanks to Phantom Shroud, the calming effect is negated, but due to the overlap of the two opposing-attributed spells, there would be no way for a mage with expertise in Darkness to detect him, as they would be able to sense the gathering of Darkness attributed Mana otherwise.

  Now hidden from sight, he cast one last spell, a movement-type Wind spell called Soaring Wings, and moved quickly to the city. The trip did not take long, and he soon found himself among the crystal growths that made up the city. They were smooth and flawless, and each tower seemed to be a single crystal that had been grown into shape. And, if the light blue tint that shone from within was any indication, each was made up of Mana Crystal.

  Mana Crystals were essentially just very big Mana Gems. To use a human analogy, if the Mana Gems were the infants, Mana Crystals were adults. And as one might suspect, they held a much greater amount of power. A Mana Gem’s ability to generate Mana per unit volume was approximately 1/100th that of a Mana Crystal.

  This would make it seem like Mana Crystals were vastly greater for anything than Mana Gems, but there was one major problem: the type of Mana produced. Natural Mana is ‘tainted’ by the environment it is found in. It is still technically Mana, and normally requires no special method to absorb, regardless of its attribute, but there were some exceptions.

  Mana Crystals generate Arcane-attributed Mana, Mana in its purest Natural form. Very few beings could harness Arcane Mana, and most of those did so by converting it to other attributes, a method which greatly lowered its power. The number of those that could harness it completely, besides the Gods, numbered approximately 3 or 4 per segment of the universe.

  To put that into perspective, there are practically infinite amounts of sentient creatures in each segment, and seven segments of the universe at any one time. That means that in the entire universe, on average there are at most 28 people that can use Arcane Mana and aren’t Gods.

  The beings that made up this particular ‘city’, clearly weren’t among their number. They were Crystal Golems, a type of Light Attributed being made up of floating Mana Gems, circling a large Light Element Core, sort of like a Beast Core, except made up of elements for Elementals. Some of the floating Gems were shaped into various appendages, such as human-like hands, or bird-like claws. These particular Golems seemed to be sentient, if the city meant anything.

  There were vehicles made of metal and crystal, all sized and proportioned to the bodies of the golems, and these vehicles were all tripods, no wheels. The roads were made from some kind of asphalt-like substance, although it had a natural blue tinge. And the giant Mana Crystals were all hollow, filled with uniform hexagonal rooms.

  Arcius decided to explore for a while, and see what this city held.