Dungeon Raider System-Chapter 202: Axis mundi

"Man, that hurt!" Uriel rubbed the back of his neck. Although body had completely healed after Water warlock’s blessing activated on its own, everything ached due to spending all of his flux energy. His clothes were in tatters, he lost his backpack but somehow, Jon’s fedora hat remained on his head in perfect condition which relieved him and annoyed him at the same time. "What is this place?"

Uriel scanned his surroundings, but it looked like a completely different world. It was cold, dark and grimy. It was the complete opposite to the fresh and sunny top of the cliffs but it felt nostalgic somehow, as it was similar to what living in the slums felt like.

The first instinct of any sane person whenever they found themselves in a dark place was to turn on a light but Uriel didn’t have any of his belongings with him anymore. Fortunately, he still had some trites left from his last purchase and he quickly entered his trait to remedy his situation.

Despite his dire situation, he couldn’t hold his excitement when he saw that Terry Pratchett’s sword ’Thunderbolt Iron’ was on a pedestal at the modern era exhibition and he wheezed a sigh of relief. That was, by far, the most expensive and powerful item currently in his museum and thought he lost it for good during the fall.

In fact, he didn’t even know he would be able to store it inside of his trait, but then again, it was able to channel flux so it made sense that it would be allowed in his museum.

He then headed towards the souvenir shop and went on a spending spree. New clothes, gas lanterns, climbing and camping gear, food and energy drinks, he bought everything he needed and then some more. His souvenir shop was so convenient he, unknowingly, had become addicted to buying stuff in there, just like people addicted to buying unnecessary things online.

Now that he had a proper light, he noticed that the fog was actually a dense cloud and that the islands were indeed floating which rendered his climbing gear completely useless. His camping gear, though, proved to be invaluable.

Visit freёnovelkiss.com for the 𝑏est n𝘰vel reading experience.

There were no places to take cover in the immediate vicinity and his new tent provided him with comfort while also sheltering him from the merciless cold caused by the absence of sunlight. The sleeping bag allowed him to rest while his meal heated up in the portable stove, though it wasn’t the same kind of synthetic food he was used to.

This was a cup of instant noodles that had a small plastic bag with dehydrated vegetables. All in all, life didn’t look so grim, as long as he had enough credit that was.

The only piece of camping gear that was completely useless was the compass. Instead of pointing north, the needle spun nonstop signalling that he was still in the dungeon. Something like that was to be expected, but knowing that he had no way of telling the direction was discouraging to say the least.

Usually, staying in the same place where he got stranded would have been the way to go, but that was only if there was any hope of being rescued which wasn’t the case. No one would come and finding his way back to his friends depended solely on him and he had to make peace with that fact.

After some sleep, he started thinking on all the possible solutions with the means at his disposal. Making a map would only be helpful if he had a landmark, but since visibility was so low that would be pointless. A gps would have been great, but that was only wishful thinking and he knew it.

In the end, the solution came, as usual, from his knowledge of archaeology. While it was true there wasn’t any landmarks to go by, he had built one himself, his tent. Your journey continues on novelbuddy

It was the same concept of the ’axis mundi’, Uriel took the tent he set up as the ’center of the world’ and started pinning stakes on the ground at a regular distance, then connecting them with cheap thread he bought in bulk at his souvenir shop. This allowed him to make quadrants, just like an archaeology site.

It may have not seemed like much, but having a point of reference gave Uriel an incredible morale boost and he spent hours tracing the quadrants at the best of his ability. Thanks to this, he was able to explore the place and come back to his tent without risking getting lost, all the while keeping track of what places he had already explored.

It was nothing short of a genius idea, made possible only thanks to both his studies and personal experience. Nevertheless, none of that would have been possible without his odd, but helpful trait. After being saved time and time again by it, he couldn’t believe there was a time when he thought it was worthless.

With time and patience, Uriel managed to cover a vast amount of terrain but even so, there wasn’t much mentioning except for the places where the floating islands shade created a dense darkness that gave Uriel the creeps and he knew better than to ignore his gut feeling. He couldn’t tell whether or not it was his mystical sense, but something told him venturing into the darkness was dangerous.

Even if he survived the fall, he didn’t know if Water warlock’s blessing would still activate if he ran out of flux and Uriel decided it was better to avoid troublesome areas for the time being.

Thinking about these matters, Uriel took a seat on a rock to rest for a while. He also drank a can of the same energy drink that baffled Professor Lamar when he met him. Uriel knew it wasn’t long ago when he met him, but it felt so distant he had trouble caring about professors, instructors, college, all that seemed like a dream and reality was nothing but ground, rocks and cold.

"Huh, this rock isn’t cold!" Uriel jumped at the realization that the rock he was sitting on was warm to the touch. Thinking it was a creature, Uriel summoned his new sword, but that wasn’t necessary because the reason why the rock felt warm was because it was made of pure orichalcum.

"Holy trowels!" Uriel said the first thing that came to mind, fortunately, there was no one else there to make him feel embarrassed.

Unknowingly, he sat on what could be over 1million credits worth of orichalcum. On such cases, there was only one sensible thing to do.

"Hi there! This is Uriel Sage and this is my Vlog. Today I’ll show you something really cool, this is what an orichalcum vein looks like!" He said adjusting the front camera of his smartphone in order to screen the vein and his radiant smile filled with excitement and greed.

An amazing find like that was more than deserving of a Vlog entry, though a couple minutes after something strange happened.

Uriel’s smartphone was turned off.