Unlimited Power - The Arcane Path

Leon didn't want to look down on other people, but someone like him who had to train for years to obtain the power to cross the dangerous ocean, he couldn't help but feel disappointed. Many people died at the hands of monsters; many people died without even noticing it. And now, the survivors were happily living while trusting their lives in the hands of others. Leon recalled those armed survivors, and now he could understand why no one attacked him.

"Well, let's go to the dungeon," Leon said.

While Ren guided Leon to the dungeon, Leon felt many annoying stares, but he had no interest since those came from the people who had no will to fight. However, once Leon recalled his family, he started to think if that wasn't reasonable. If he could choose, he would rather protect his family instead of training them to obtain the power to defend themselves. His parents were almost sixty years old, and his sister was in her late teens... he didn't want to see them fighting for their lives against monsters.

"Why are you looking so much at people today? Ah...It seems you finally understand why people decided not to fight and trust in others," Ren said.

"... More or less." Leon sighed.

After leaving the port, Leon and Ren walked through a dense forest for fifteen minutes before they reached the dungeon. It looked like that forest had been specially made to slow down the monsters in case some of them leave the dungeon.

"How do dungeons work?" Leon asked.

"You must think of dungeons as if they are a bridge that connects two worlds," Ren explained. "If we clear the dungeon, we obtain the means to reach the monster's world, and the same applies to the monsters. A new group of monsters appears every ten minutes, so we sent a team to clean the dungeon at regular intervals. We also keep some outside in case something happens. My best twenty-four men keep watching and cleaning this dungeon, they worked in two teams, and each team works for twelve hours."

"Sounds harsh," Leon said.

"It is not that difficult actually," Ren said. "My men already can defeat the monsters without many problems; things only get difficult when a boss appears."

"A boss?" Leon frowned.

"Yeah, a monster that is many times stronger than the others." Ren massaged his eyebrows. "It is not as troublesome as a dragon or a megalodon, but it is annoying in its own way."

The dungeon was basically a regular cave, but unlike ordinary caves, that one had crystals in the walls that were used to illuminate the interior of that place. Several men were around the cave playing cards. Leon frowned when he heard and saw a vein throbbing in Ren's forehead. It looked like Ren's best soldiers were quite lazy. Hopefully, they would spend their free time practicing magic once he teaches them. After smacking their heads, Ren returned.

"... Approach the dungeon, a list of options should appear in front of you," Ren said after a long sigh.

Leon nodded and approached when he was five meters away from the entrance; several options appeared in front of him.

Weapons

Armor

Accessories

Items

Tomes

Specials

Leon wasn't interested in anything but the Teleportation Spell, so he chose Tomes, but he only saw crappy tomes that could teach him Water Ball, Fire Ball, and things like that. The best ones looked to be an area of effect attacks like Blizzard and Fire Storm. Occasionally, some of those tomes would appear and disappear constantly. Their prices were absurd; the cheapest was 100.000 coins.

"Why the options are always appearing and disappearing?" Leon asked.

"It is because someone bought, I don't know why, but some options only appear after a certain amount of monsters die," Ren explained. "When we found this dungeon, the number of options was small, but the more land the humans recovered, the more the options increased."

That was kind of confusing, if people around the world kill monsters, certain items would become available in that shop, but only until someone finds them. It was just weird. Regardless, Leon waited for something practical to appear, but he didn't find anything. The same could be applied to the other options; everything was of low-quality or useless. Certain weapons, armor, and accessories could increase the power of certain elements, but it wasn't anything amazing. In items sections, only potions were being sold, potions that restore health, mana, and stamina or potions that could increase his stats for a time. In the special sections, Leon only found that handcuff that sealed spells, stones used to illuminate certain places, and items that teleported survivors back to the entrance of the dungeon.

"This was a huge waste of time..." Leon sighed.

"Well, I bet you can buy something nice in the Imperial Capital," Ren said.

"You said the same thing earlier..." Leon frowned.

"Yeah... but in the Capital, you can actually see things that are being sold," Ren explained. "Even our group has a shop there."

"Is that so... what was the best thing you saw being sold there?" Leon asked.

"The best thing? I guess it was a sword that could suck the monsters' soul and turn it into the user's mana." Ren answered.

"Wow, very pleasant to know that. It is useless to me, and now this weapon will prevent me from sleeping at night." Leon said.

"Well, most of those things are sold to everyone, but if you gain the trust of some counselors, I think you can obtain the chance to negotiate with them to buy their treasures," Ren said.

"Dude... you are telling too many things that may happen if I stay here and help." Leon showed a fed-up expression. "Until now, you didn't say anything that will certainly help me if I stay and help."

"Sorry, but I can't really promise you anything since I don't have that much influence," Ren said. "If you help me here, I can give you a boat, but will a single wooden boat make you cross the ocean?"

"No," Leon answered.

"With my current power, that is all I can do for you," Ren explained. " But if I manage to increase my influence in the country, then the things I can do will increase... I cannot guarantee that you will find a safe way to go to home, but I promise you that I will do everything in my power to find it... perhaps we can obtain the routes the spies under the Emperor's command use."