Chapter 399 - Heat (Patreon)

One hour into my exploration of this station and the deeper I am the hotter the air becomes. At this point, I notice the inscriptions that are somewhere within the huge plates of metal this place is made of. They run through the entire pyramid, absorbing the heat from outside and sending it somewhere inside.

Of course, I use my thermal energy to track where it heads.

Sometimes I have to track back as I reach the end of a tunnel, but so far it's fine and my steps continue to echo as I walk on my own through this metal structure.

I'm curious what metal it is made of. I also use my damaged arcane axe to touch the walls to see what would happen.

Nothing too amazing, just when I use the axe, I can absorb some of the heat quite easily. Maybe the materials are similar, maybe it's the effect of the axe or maybe the axe is made out of alloy that contains the same weird metal the pyramid is made of.

I also finally find tunnels meant for humans to pass through, instead of the ones used to channel the heat.

Not knowing how to get there, I focus on the thinnest part of the wall and channel a significant amount of my mana, combined with absorbed thermal energy, into a laser-like stream. This concentrated beam cuts a small hole for me, but it depletes a nice chunk of my mana.

The new tunnels I enter aren't dissimilar to the ones I just left. They are just a bit colder and sometimes there are working lights and more inscriptions. And so my journey continues.

A bit of kinetic energy powering my body just so I can move, my [Focus] used not for emotions but for me to deal with my constantly disrupted mana and that evil orb over my shoulder.

I think I have already grasped how the orb works, so I should be able to mimic it in the future and create it on my own. Maybe I can even create multiple of them for increased difficulty. Just the thought of that sends shivers through my back and I once again remind myself that I'm the most normal one. People in group 4 are worse.

When five hours pass I start getting bored of the never-changing area and twisted tunnels and having to trail back, so I'm happy when I finally find a room.

In front of the door lie a dozen or so corpses. All of them are wearing some sort of suits not too dissimilar to the ones natives used to scrape frost off outside. Just these are meant to be dealing with the heat.

I can see that from the inscriptions placed on the multiple mana stones each suit contains. There is even weird dust glued to the surface of the suit. I recognize it as the one painstakingly scraped from the bones of the dead serpent.

Each of these people is totally dried up, their skin shriveled, and burned. It's difficult to even describe properly. They must have been here for quite some time.

What seems interesting is that the heat here isn't that terrible. I'm not even using that much thermal energy to deal with it. Plus, my physical stats couldn't be that much higher than theirs and probably lower than some of them if they are close to 200.

Could it be that the heat can increase and they got killed by such a thing? I note that down and decide to keep a lookout for such a possibility. Then I examine the door they tried to open, some tools lying on the ground. Most of them are burned or straight-up melted so nothing useful I could loot, so instead, I examine the door.

The surface is smooth similar to the walls, the only difference is the slightly darker color of the circular door. In the middle of it, inscriptions are carved. I can sense they are even continuing under the surface.

Well, this will be fun.

While also dealing with all of the training I have to do constantly because of Lissandra, I use part of my mind to work on the lock.

In the end, it takes me two hours until I finally deduce how the lock mechanism works. After that, it's only five more minutes until I unlock it with the help of thermal energy and [Resonance].

[Resonance - lvl 48 > Resonance - lvl 49]

The circular door moves backward away from me and then it slowly rolls to the side, letting me enter the room. There, I find even more corpses, the men and women in the same suits as the ones outside. All of them are close to the door, some of them with clearly damaged hands.

Did they maybe get trapped inside? Did people outside try to get them out or did they try to get in to escape the heat?

Some of the corpses inside are also clearly damaged, parts of their suits burned, often even to the point of the entire body part behind gone.

But soon enough the ones responsible let themselves show.

[Ashen Phantom - lvl 150]

[Ashen Phantom - lvl 101]

[Ashen Phantom - lvl 123]

They are all ashen gray and build like goblins, just unlike them, Ashen Phantoms seem to be sneakier. 

I can sense that heat concentrates in one place and they appear there, using it similarly to my [Tether]. The moment they appear the heat in the room drops, all of it channeled through the monsters who start burning hotter and wordlessly charge me.

Curious, I shoot a mana projectile at one of them, only for it to be blocked by a blast of heat. Then, while protecting the evil mana orb, I use [Redistribution] to try to absorb heat from them.

It works surprisingly well, there almost isn't any resistance as all the heat they absorbed gets stolen by me and when I push more even the heat they did have disappears from them.

Before they even reach me, they are cold, their ashen skin now looks sickly, and even their movements are slower.

Testingly, I shoot yellow flames at them, but the monsters just absorb them, becoming lively again and making me jump back a few times to dodge the attacks. Then instead I concentrate my flames more and a golden one envelops them.

[You have defeated Ashen Phantoms - lvl 123]

[You have defeated Ashen Phantoms - lvl 150]

[You have defeated Ashen Phantoms - lvl 101]

They die right away. Surprisingly easy.

When I move closer to their bodies, they are already turning to ash that keeps burning with small golden flames of my primordial thermal energy.

Am I maybe countering them really hard? I would expect them to be able to handle a bit of heat, but this? There was barely any resistance.

I kick one of the bones and it dissolves into a small pool of ash. Then I use a blast of kinetic energy to destroy the remains of all of them. Everything with Phantom in their name shall be destroyed.

Instead of bothering with them longer, I examine the room and unfortunately, it seems to be empty, already looted who knows how long ago.

Done there, I leave it and head deeper into the pyramid, following the heat.

***

During two more hours, I find multiple groups of natives, all of them in these weird suits. Sometimes they are near some rooms, in other cases in the middle of the hallway. All of them are very dead and with nothing valuable enough to take on them.

After those two hours, I don't find any more of them. Either not going through these parts of the pyramid or being unable to go that deep.

At this point, I'm forced to use [Redistribution] and thermal energy to deal with the heat. Even so, I feel clothes sticking to my body and sweat dripping off my forehead. So at this point, I activate [Mana Crown] to help me deal with the training while I also feed it a bits of my mana.

After activating it, it becomes much more manageable to do all these things at once and the heat becomes bearable as I'm able to give it more effort.

I'm attacked a few dozen times. All of the attacks are from Ashen Phantoms who just appear from the heat they concentrated into a small point. I don't complain much as just a bit of concentrated thermal energy is enough to kill them. 

The deeper I go, the higher level they are, already at around 200.

I expected to be much deeper at around this time but all these twists and dead ends waste plenty of my time. Even the inscriptions and the way where heat is heading seem to be used to trick me.

***

Two more hours later, I experienced what most likely killed the first group I met.

Immense heat fills the tunnel out of nowhere. Rushing from somewhere off the center of the pyramid like a wave through the hallway. It crashes against me, burning the ends of my hair and my skin as well. The air becomes dry and the tunnels brighten, the heat glowing like polar lights.

I'm forced to stop and concentrate on dealing with it, both [Redistribution] and my thermal energy working at once. My body becomes so filled with heat that I heal at the same speed I'm getting burned.

When I try to counter it with barriers made of mana or domain, I find the result being so ineffective, so I continue with thermal energy.

That's also when that monster attacks.

[Heatseeker - lvl ??]

At least level 290 from my estimation.

It's barely as tall as me, but much longer. Of all of the animals, it reminds me of a centipede, but its face is more humanoid. It moves through all that heat as if it's nothing, with quick twitchy movements.

When it notices me, it pauses, then its movements speed up and the heat that fills the tunnel gets absorbed by it partially. A huge amount of it dances on the monster's surface that looks like flesh without any skin.

The Heatseeker charges me, its humanoid mouth opening and flame shooting at me.

Thanks to the now lowered heat of the hallway, I grab a chunk of thermal energy from my Vortex Core and concentrate it even further.

My golden flames meet those of the monster.

It's not even a fight. My flames pierce through, enveloping the monster that catches ablaze in golden flames that spread in a blink. The humanoid-like face of the centipede-like monster twists in pain, its flesh monster burning and moving in twitchy spasms until it stops.

[You have defeated Heatseeker - lvl 291]

The heat then starts filling the hallways once again, forcing me to fight against it and it takes one more minute until it stops.

As it slowly weakens and the temperature returns to previous levels, I almost feel cold even though it's still very hot.

After examining the corpse, I ignore the heat hallways I wanted to head to. Instead, I go to the tunnel where the heat wave and Heatseeker came from.

Why are the monsters here so weak against thermal energy?

***

At some point, I find more and more burns on my body as my concentration is not enough. Even so, I continue.

All the water I had on me has already evaporated and I eat the food.

At times I catch myself wanting to just sleep, but I push these silly thoughts away.

It would be easy to return, but I just don't feel like it.

***

Hours later, I finally find another door. It’s also circular but the inscriptions cover the entire surface. The heat here is higher than in the other parts. Nearly comparable to the heat wave from before.

The 24 hours Lissandra gave us to explore the pyramid and meet her have already passed a few hours ago.

Well, sucks to be her.

I reach into my body and remove the inscriptions she placed on me. With Burden Enhancement Inscriptions gone, I can move without having to use kinetic energy. Also, my mana feels so tame, it's crazy.

Then I look at the orb over my shoulder. Unbelievably I was able to keep that evil thing alive for so long.

I send a burst of mana through it and with deep satisfaction watch it burst open.

The heat around me becomes barely a nuisance as I can give it that much more attention.

I turn to the inscriptions on the door and start working on them.

Let's see what this place is hiding.

***

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