Unlimited Power - The Arcane Path

To avoid any surprises, Leon filled the steel plates and the armchairs with his mana before he touched the crystal. When he touched it, the space around him became totally white for a second, but then he and Ren appeared in the middle of a wasteland. It looked like a world without life, but considering that the slimes were the creatures that would eat anything that had energy, that was to be expected.

Since the next boss could only go to Earth the next day, there were no big slimes nearby, but a few of them noticed Leon and Ren's presence quite fast. Without wasting time, Leon made his steel plates surround the nearest slime and caged the creature. After that, Leon made the top steel plate fall with all his might to smash the creature. The creature resisted, but he managed to kill it quite fast. The water of the slimes evaporated, showing that he had succeeded.

Leon repeated that same process several times until there were no slimes trying to approach, even though he succeeded in killing the enemies, he spend a lot of mana.

"Call me if other monsters approach, I will recover my mana until the next battle," Leon said.

"… Got it." Ren said, his wide open.

While Ren was picking the slimes' cores, Leon started to meditate. Although he had to meditate for almost one hundred hours to obtain a single point of intelligence, by doing so, he could recover fifty points of mana every minute. The downside was that he had almost to turn off his brain and become oblivious to his surroundings.

Regardless, each of those slimes gave Leon fifty coins. It was quite nice, even though Leon was yet to find anything decent to buy. The market of the dungeons was somewhat unstable, and anyone with a brain would rather learn a powerful skill of a tome instead of selling it.

Leon and Ren stayed there for a few hours, but they only found a few dozen of slimes. Considering that was another whole new world, that was to be expected, but Leon felt quite bored the whole time, and they only obtained fifty of those cores.

The same purple crystal they found at the end of the dungeon, could be found in the middle of that wasteland right behind the point where Ren and Leon appeared, so they returned using the same method. While Ren was carrying a bag with the slimes' cores, Leon was playing with one of them, throwing upward and catching it.

"I can feel a lot of mana inside of this… it is a pity I can't absorb it… yet." Leon said.

The core was just a white stone that had a random shape, but it had enough mana to cast the four basic spells for one hour straight. So, Leon assumed that stone had the equivalent of seventeen thousand mana points. It was very convenient, but it was only used when monsters invaded cities, since no matter what, the stone would stop working one hour after someone started to use it.

"I heard that exists a spell that grants the user the ability to draw mana from objects, the land, water, and even the air," Ren said. "But if I remember correctly, it is not that efficient."

"As long as it doesn't force someone to stop moving and clear its mind, it is way better than meditation," Leon said. "We are partners right, so half of that is mine, and the other half is ours, but I don't have any use for those yet. For how much you sell them?"

"Usually, we sell them for five hundred coins, but are you sure?" Ren asked. "I don't think I did half of the work."

"You kept an eye on things while I was meditating. Besides, this dungeon belongs to you," Leon said. "If you don't think that is fair, then just work hard to find a way to help me go back home. Anyway, you owe me 12500 coins."

"Got it." Ren nodded.

It was already dark when Leon and Ren returned to the port. Surprisingly, the whole place had electricity, even the smallest houses had. Little by little, humanity was recovering itself. That being said, it would never become like it was before since the dungeons couldn't be destroyed. Regardless, Leon started to wonder where he would sleep. Although he wasn't tired and would meditate, he needed a house to protect him from the sea breeze. Unlike that island, the port was quite cold. He could make his own simple house, but it would look out of place, and he didn't want to spoil the beauty of such a traditional place.

"I guess I will sleep at the police station," Leon said.

"That is not necessary; you can sleep at my home," Ren said.

"Thanks, but no thanks." Leon frowned. "I want to stay alone in a place where I will meditate. Go teach your men how to manipulate the elements and don't bother me until morning."

"Okay… usually, the police station doesn't work at night, but you can have my keys." Ren said. "What about dinner?"

"I'm still full from lunch, so you don't have to worry," Leon said. "See you tomorrow."

Leon walked toward the police station, and even though that place was used to keep prisoners, there was no in the cells. The place was completely dark, but Leon didn't feel the necessity to turn on the lights. He was already used to the darkness and solitude. There were numerous couches in those buildings, but Leon had a hard time sitting in them. They were… too comfortable.

"I guess it will take a while before I can get used to the commodities of civilization."

Leon started to meditate while praying that his family was still alive somewhere.