Archie stood atop the lower half of the defeated Temple Guardian’s corpse, his active skills now deactivated. He gazed toward the entrance of the boss room, magically stopping the Temple Guardian’s toxic fluids from leaving the boss room and trapping it inside.

  The Temple Guardian’s bisected corpse, along with bits of debris from the twin staircases that got destroyed during their fight, now served as makeshift ‘islands.’ Toxic fluids from the Guardian’s body had flooded the surrounding ground, slightly below his calves in height.

  “How the hell did it hold all of this poison?” Archie wondered as he looked at his notifications, curious as to what his rewards were… Archie suddenly remembered how he got slammed into the wall, back first aka Spirit Nucleus first.

  Deactivating Material Carapace, Archie moved his satchel from his back to his front. His panic instantly evaporated when he saw that it was unharmed. Thankfully the physical damage negation from the Sentinel Plantiniteshell protected the Spirit Nucleus from any damage. He’d even double-checked with Identify, which further reduced his worries as nothing had changed from when he read it before the fight.

  “Phew,” Archie muttered while shifting his satchel to his back. “Almost had a heart attack.”

  Looking back at his notifications he read;

  *[Temple Guardian Lv 96] has been slain – XP has been given. 1344 Tutorial Points given**Your Class has reached Lv 74 – Points allocated, +4 Free Points*

  *Your Class has reached Lv 75 – Points allocated, +4 Free Points*

  Dungeon of the Hidden Temple

  Objective: Reward:Dungeon will automatically close in 0:09:52:42

  Just as Archie read his rewards, he felt two objects suddenly enter his spatial storage, one being the Sigil of Challenge and the other being, Archie thought as he took out the Totem of Spring’s Ascent.

  The totem stood a meter wide and five meters tall, adorned with vibrant colors—green, blue, yellow, brown, and numerous others—symbolizing springtime. The colors that painted the totem were used to produce intricate images and sigils across its surface, each conveying a deep feeling of springtime.

  It was hard for Archie to explain what he felt from the totem.

  But what stood out the most was the dense nature mana that radiated from the totem. Rivaling that of the dungeon itself.

  Totem of Spring’s Ascent (Epic):

  A totem carved from [Redacted] a very precious tree that has been heavily imbued with the concept of spring by a B-Grade Druid. Once placed into the ground, ambient mana shall be absorbed, and spring shall ascend into the totem’s surroundings. Passively nurtures all nature-based entities and enhances all nature-based abilities and skills when in the Totem of Spring’s Ascent’s boundaries.

  “So, this thing is a ‘portable’ nature energy converter,” Archie chuckled before sending the totem into his spatial storage. All the space Archie cleared out from his spatial storage was immediately taken up by his new ‘portable’ nature energy converter, leaving him without any room to store the Temple Guardian’s core that he held in his hand, something he found floating in the calf high toxic fluids beside where he stood. Thus he placed its core beside the Spirit Nucleus in his satchel.

  Glancing back at the toxic pond surrounding him, Archie decided it was time to leave the dungeon before the fumes started to affect him more than what he could handle. The toxins had previously seeped through his armor when he’d been covered by the toxins when he crashed into the wall. But ever since the fight ended, he used his vital energy to neutralize the toxins that managed to slip in. As he worked to destroy the invading toxins, he came to understand their effects on his body: they acted as both a corrosive acid and a paralytic.

  An interesting concoction to say the least.

  Leaping from one ‘island’ to another, Archie jumped out of the boss room, landing on the laterite flooring. Giving one last look into the boss's room, Archie stared at the toxin pond and noticed that some of the toxins congealed into sludge.

  Essentially creating some sort of sickly neon green forbidden chunky toxin soup.

  Walking towards the Assistant Village with a fist full of Honeycombs, Archie felt content. The sweet taste of sugar danced atop his tongue with every mouthful of honey.

  He had found the beehive, killed a couple of level 72 bees, and grabbed a handful of honeycombs, quickly leaving before the regular patrol of wasps caught on to what he was doing.

  “That was delicious,” Archie sighed in contentment, finishing the last piece of honeycomb and licking off the remnants of honey stuck to his right gauntlet.

  Passing through the village entrance, Archie took in the village buildings and the people who were now actively passing through the village. Before, whenever Archie passed through the Assistant village, he would see scant few people hounding the Assistants, but it seems now that the cult was abolished, the number of people who are now out and about quite high.

  It showed how afraid people were of Oliver and his cult. Archie himself didn’t understand why,since he came so late in the Group Tutorial and was far stronger than anyone in it. He could assume why though, from the way Michael and Evelyn spoke about Oliver; he’d kidnap people, experiment on them, and always get away scot-free.

  Then suddenly in the middle of a group feast, he killed about a fourth of the people with the people under his control and escaped before he started kidnapping people left and right, and no one could do anything about it. He was their real-life boogie man.

  But now he was gone, and their fears subsided, allowing them to truly breathe.

  He’d even seen a couple of others on dates, believe it or not. Bonding over killing a couple of beasts and some even having picnics in the more ‘tamer’ areas on the island.

  It certainly put a bit of pep into Archie’s step when he saw a couple of people who were brainwashed and locked in cages, hang out with their family. He felt genuine pride in the fact that he helped these people get back to their families.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Opening the door of Syllia’s smithy, Archie found Syllia watching over a few new smiths, judging by the awkward way they used their hammers, and a few others worked in the corners of the room, working on some personal projects by their lonesome.

  Waving back at Eric, whom he had gotten to know when raiding groups were still being decided, and his girlfriend, Angela. Good people really, if not a bit too enthusiastic about wanting to make giant mech suits that have railguns attached to their fists.

  Even though, he added ‘Make a giant robot mech’ to his to-do list for the future.

  Syllia, noticing Archie’s presence in her smithy, gave one last pointer to one of the beginner smiths and pulled another’s hand from touching molten steel before she reached Archie.

  “Good afternoon,” Syllia smiled. Her tone was still a bit timid around Archie.

  “Good afternoon,” Archie returned. Looking around Archie gave a pointed look at the packed smithy before looking back at Syllia. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “Not at all,” Syllia replied. “It used to be like this before, but a bit before the end of last month everybody stopped showing up. But judging by how everyone came back, I assume the issues are now resolved?”

  “Yeah, a guy called Oliver brainwashed, kidnapped, and experimented on people en mass,” Archie answered, getting a shocked look from Syllia. “But yeah, a day ago or so, there was a raid and it ended with Oliver’s camp getting dismantled and Oliver gone from the Group Tutorial.”

  “Oh…I’m glad that the issue was resolved,” Syllia replied with a hint of bitterness tingeing her tone. She looked off to the side for a moment before returning to her previous attitude. “So, was there anything I can help you with?”

  Pausing for a moment, Archie replied, “Yeah, I’m currently making a motorcycle that runs on a mana engine, and I was wondering if you could give me any tips about making it able to drive on water.”

  “If that would even be possible,” Archie continued.

  Taking a breath, Syllia thought for a moment before replying; “There are a number of ways to make a mana bike able to drive atop water. There are runes to do so, but I don’t really recommend using runes to do so.”

  “For one, it is a fairly complicated runic script cluster, and is typically very taxing on your mana reserves,” Syllia continued. “What you can do is create thin mana platforms under your bike’s wheels and that would work as the same thing. You can even use them to drive in the air. But of course, both require you to have fairly decent mana control, which as you know, is something you should always strive to have.”

  “But wouldn’t creating essentially a road of mana be insanely mana intensive, comparatively?” Archie questioned, puzzled at Syllia’s words.

  “Yes and no,” Syllia replied, slightly tilting her head. “Typically, the runic script cluster is normally adjusted for the average late D-Grade to C-Grade’s mana pools. And currently your mana reserves, from what I can tell aren’t large enough to use said runic script cluster for more than thirty minutes at most.”

  , Archie thought, caught by surprise at the mana consumption for the runic script cluster that would be able to make his bike drive atop water. While he knew it would consume mana, he didn’t expect it to be that much.

  “Currently what you can do is create a thin road construct of mana under your wheels and as it passes behind you, dismiss the construct.” Syllia continued. “That would make its efficiency and consumption based on your own mana reserve and manipulation abilities. While you would still be limited by your mana reserves, it would still be far more efficient as typically the runic script cluster is normally etched onto much larger vehicles.”

  Archie decided as he thanked Syllia for her help.

  But before he left her smithy, she gave him her Aetherglass Account ID and told him to contact her when he reached the Workshop. When asked what the Workshop was, she gave him both a confused and curious look before telling him that it was considered to be an association where everyone with even a modicum of talent in crafting Professions goes to, to hone their skills and create connections, among other things as well.

  Making his way to Xelgar, Archie found him atop his porch, beside a lawn chair, watching over a group of people sparring with one another. Occasionally yelling out instructions or mistakes someone made, which they promptly fixed.

  Something he also noticed was the irregular movement of Xelgar’s mouth; his lips would twitch slightly every now and then and would cover his mouth with either his hand or water bottle. Archie thought for a moment before the absurdity of the question made him chuckle at the impossibility of such a thing happening.

  Making his way to Xelgar, Archie greeted him with a handshake clap and a smile before he suddenly frowned.

  Something felt off.

  It wasn’t Xelgar who felt off, rather it was the area around him. It felt as though he was in front of the tent that was concealed with illusions, but this…this was far stronger than that. And to be honest, the only reason he felt that something was off was when he stepped onto the porch. He hadn’t felt the ‘off-ness’ about the porch until he stepped onto the porch.

  Activating Vital Sight

  Even Oliver had the same outline of vital energy as a normal human, if not a bit slower.

  As the words left Archie’s mouth the off feeling he felt atop the porch vanished and the previously empty lawn chair he was staring at revealed its occupant.

  “Oh,” Xelgar answered, a wide smile painting his face. “You must be practicing your mana sensing quite a bit if you were able to detect and find him that quickly.”

  “Indeed,” Cyric chimed in, lounging across the lawn chair in sweatpants and a shirt with the words ‘Blood, better than sex. Come try it!’ while nursing a blood pack. “Made it myself.”

  Chuckling at Cyric’s shirt, Cryic smiled. “Like it?” Getting a shake of the head and a smile from Archie. “I’ve been thinking about patenting it.”

  “Love it,” Archie chuckled, both at the shirt and at the idea that apparently patents existed in the multiverse. , Archie realized.

  Turning back to Xelgar, he answered; “I’ve been practicing, but I barely even realized that there was even an illusion. I only realized it when I got on your porch.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short,” Cyric replied. “I’d been cloaking myself with an illusion to test your fellow Tutorial Participants, to see who can find me…and so far, you’ve been the only one to find me.”

  “Even though you did not know, I offer you a reward; ask any question and I will answer to the best of my ability,” Cyric continued, twirling around his blood pack.

  “Uh, not sure if I have any important questions off the top of my head,” Archie replied, caught off guard by the sudden reward. Taking a moment he decided to tie his question to the one he gave Syllia. “Do you have any tips on how to make mana platforms that I can use to stand on and eventually be able to drive on with a bike I plan on completing?”

  Pausing for a moment while staring at Archie, he answered, “If that’s what you want.”

  “It’s mana shaping in essence as you probably concluded. Create a platform of any size and shape, make it dense and strong enough to hold your weight, and will it to move around in the same way you do with your mana.” Cyric continued.

  “That’s it?” Archie questioned. Was it really that simple? I mean I know it sounds a lot easier than what it's going to be, but really?

  “Yeah,” Xelgar replied. “It's a common thing in the multiverse really, just very magically taxing for those with small mana reserves and poor control. That’s why in the multiverse there are many alternatives for flight, both physical and magical.”

  “What do some people just kick against gravity continuously to fly?” Archie joked, but seeing the taken-aback looks from both Xelgar and Cyric, he looked at them deadpan. “You’re joking.”

  “How did…Never mind,” Xelgar said before composing himself. “In essence yeah, that’s what people who are more physically inclined and with poor mana reserves do.”

  “Huh,” Archie said, staring at them with disbelief.

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