After Damian struck down the unidentified object, a rustling sound echoed through the gray mist as if something was retreating.
A moment later, the metal disc in Damian's mind glowed faintly. More than a dozen wisps of red light—Void Power visible only to him—drifted out of the mist and were absorbed by the ancient relic.
Damian took a dozen steps forward. The passage walls behind the Bio-Workshop's main gate were completely covered in pulsating masses of flesh entangled in dense roots.
The roots sprawling across the ground seemed to extend directly from these fleshy cysts. They were undoubtedly the things that had just attacked him. The mutated creatures clearly possessed some survival instincts, ceasing their assault after realizing Damian wasn't an easy target.
However, Damian was here to actively purge the 4th Floor Bio-Workshop. He naturally couldn't just let them go.
He drew his wand. "Fiendfyre." Golden flames roared into the air, instantly igniting the entire wall. The dense cysts writhed as they let out piercing, unpleasant hisses. But Damian's mastery over Fiendfyre was absolute; the cursed flames were incredibly fierce, and the fire-fearing mutations went dead silent after only a dozen breaths.
"Finite Incantatem." Damian pointed his wand at the golden inferno, and the fire obediently dissipated. Charred residue sloughed off the walls and crashed to the floor.
Dozens of wisps of red light drifted up from the ashes, instantly absorbed by the metal disc in his mind. The Void Power contained in each cyst was minuscule, but they made up for it in sheer numbers.
Since Damian had claimed the Blue Hub Crystal, the metal disc acted as a universal converter. It could actively harvest the red mist from afar and funnel the raw spatial energy directly into the Wizard Tower's primary subterranean core.
The colossal structure consumed massive amounts of magic, and the 2nd Floor Alchemy Workshop he frequently used was a heavy drain. Naturally, the more Degrees of magic stored in the core, the better.
With a thought, Damian activated the synergy between the disc and the crystal. He seamlessly converted the newly harvested Void Power into raw mana, routing it directly into the underground core.
The Hub Crystal was the ultimate administrator key. As long as he stood within the Tower, he could remotely manage the energy reserves without visiting the basement.
Once the transfer finished, he reached out through the blue gem. "Tower Spirit Zero, how much has the core's reserve increased?"
"It has increased by twenty-six Degrees," Tower Spirit Zero answered faithfully. That was exactly equivalent to the total mana capacity of twenty-six standard Magic Stones.
So three of those cysts are roughly equivalent to one Degree... not bad. Damian had just absorbed the energy from roughly eighty of the mutations.
Having purged the passage, Damian pressed deeper into the ruined ecological biome. Exiting the corridor, he stepped out onto a barren, sandy expanse.
According to the layout provided by Tower Spirit Zero, the 4th Floor Bio-Workshop was divided into five distinct regions.
The east was a grassy plain, and the south resembled a dense tropical rainforest. The west housed a towering, snow-capped mountain range reaching thousands of meters into the artificial sky. The north was a harsh Gobi desert, while a massive lake occupied the center, bridging all four biomes.
Damian couldn't help but marvel once again at the Ancestor of Time, Aemon. Through extreme spatial folding and Undetectable Extension Charms, the space inside this single floor was larger than some small European countries.
Damian was currently standing in the northern desert zone, which was heavily shrouded by the invasive gray mist.
He needed to carve a path straight to the biome's control hub to inspect the internal magical arrays. If the circuits on this floor could be repaired, the 4th Floor could be reintegrated into the Tower's primary defense matrix, allowing the mist to be systematically purged.
Damian didn't possess the ancient architectural knowledge to fix the Tower himself. However, Tower Spirit Zero could execute the repairs remotely by taking command of Orianna, the advanced alchemical puppet.
The hub was located on a small island in the central lake. When the Wizard Tower was at its peak millennia ago, instantaneous teleportation arrays connected the different biomes.
"Looks like I'm walking." Damian glanced helplessly at the local array next to the passage. Its runic stones had been thoroughly chewed up by mist-corrupted beasts.
Barely a dozen meters into the trek, Damian spotted a humanoid calf sticking out from behind a boulder. The rest of the body was buried deep inside a sand dune.
Squatting down, he brushed the sand away to reveal polished metal and dense magic circuits exposed at the severed joint.
"An Assistant Golem!" Damian was thrilled. If he hauled it back to the 2nd Floor Alchemy Workshop, the automated production line might be able to repair it.
Damian instantly shaped a Runic Model in his mind. He used the Invisible Hand spell to telekinetically rip the construct out of the dune. It was missing its entire upper torso, the metal violently sheared off by something with massive jaws.
He levitated the heavy scrap directly into his magically expanded pouch. Producing a brand-new Assistant Golem cost a staggering 10,000 Degrees; even if this unit was beyond saving, the rare metals and parts could be recycled.
Tower Spirit Zero had mentioned that a small army of golems used to maintain this biome. Recovering them could save Damian a fortune in magical upkeep.
Unfortunately, their internal power cores had bled dry centuries ago. Damian's True Magical Perception couldn't detect their inert husks through the dense, magic-suppressing mist.
Wait, golems are forged from metal. Damian suddenly recalled a utility spell he had acquired using the contribution points he looted from Madam Alsha.
He hadn't bothered actively practicing non-combat utility spells yet. Rummaging through his pouch, he fished out a physical runic blueprint: Detect Metal.
Activating the blueprint, the alchemical ink instantly dissolved into particles of light, rapidly engraving the fundamental matrix directly into his Sea of Spirit.
Detect Metal required a mere twelve Runic Scripts. As a First-Level Sorcerer, assembling such a basic spell was practically effortless.
Recalling the mental matrix, Damian opened his right palm. Twelve glowing runes rapidly condensed from raw mana, instantly locking together to form the complete Runic Model.
A cluster of silver-white light bloomed in his hand. With a surge of magic, ethereal threads shot outward. Some plunged directly into the earth, while others scattered across the misty dunes.
The threads successfully bypassed the mist's sensory interference, locking onto buried metallic signatures within a several-hundred-meter radius.
Several threads pointed stubbornly at the crater he had just excavated. Using his Invisible Hand to telekinetically shovel tons of sand aside, Damian eventually unearthed three spare arms, a leg, and a dented golem head.
Are these parts from two different units? Where's the rest? He glanced toward the horizon, tracking a particularly thick cluster of silver threads pointing deeper into the desert.
Trekking forward, the terrain eventually gave way to a massive, steep incline. The thick gray mist restricted his vision to a dozen meters, making it impossible to see the bottom of the depression.
Although his True Magical Perception was heavily muffled by the Gap World environment, his combat intuition screamed that something was wrong.
He instantly cast the First-Tier Summon Mist spell. He manipulated his magically generated fog, blending it seamlessly into the environmental gray mist and pushing it down the slope to act as an extension of his senses.
Feeling the displacement of his own spell, Damian realized the "slope" was actually the lip of a massive, cone-shaped sinkhole.
An ambush predator? Acting on his suspicion, Damian seamlessly channeled his Transfiguration. He instantly morphed a thick patch of his own mist at the bottom of the pit into a perfectly solid, bleating lamb.
The sinkhole reacted violently. Tons of sand erupted like a tidal wave, crashing over the slope and dragging the helpless lamb deep beneath the surface in the blink of an eye.
Too bad for the predator, the bait was a product of a Formal Wizard's massive-scale Transfiguration.
Damian gave his wand a sharp flick. Boom! The transfigured lamb violently detonated within the creature's grasp. A muffled, concussive shockwave echoed from the depths, sending a geyser of sand flying into the air.
A distinct wisp of Void Power floated up from the crater. Damian estimated the kill yielded about one full Degree of magic. It was significantly more potent than the fleshy cysts at the entrance.
After confirming the predator was thoroughly dead, Damian slid down into the pit, following the pull of his Detect Metal threads.
Several lines converged near the creature's burrow. Excavating the site, he found the missing upper torso and a mangled leg. Stowing the salvage, Damian climbed out and continued his trek across the wastes.
Soon, the fine desert dunes gave way to harsh, jagged terrain covered in gravel and sharp rocks.
His tracking spell pointed directly into a dark, half-meter-wide burrow. Rather than crawling in blindly, Damian conjured a massive torrent of water and flooded the tunnel.
The moment the water rushed in, violent vibrations shook the bedrock beneath his boots.
He immediately cast Invisible Hand on himself, achieving sustained flight as he levitated high into the air. With a slash of his wand, he ruthlessly transfigured the floodwaters into boiling, molten lava.
Horrific, piercing shrieks echoed from the subterranean network. Almost instantly, a dense swarm of red energy breached the surface, magnetically drawn into Damian's relic.
The individual creatures possessed pitifully weak Void Power; it took roughly twenty wisps to equate to a single Degree. However, the colony was so massive that hundreds of wisps were harvested in seconds.
But the tremors didn't stop. The bedrock violently ruptured. Two massive, ten-meter-long arthropod limbs breached the surface, shattering the stone and sending razor-sharp shrapnel flying.
A colossal insect resembling a mutated ant dragged itself out of the abyss. Its armored carapace was caked in cooling lava, and the massive wings on its back had been completely incinerated by Damian's trap.
While the molten rock had inflicted severe burns, it was still very much alive. A terrifying swarm of basketball-sized soldier ants poured out of the fissure beneath it.
The Mutated Queen Ant shrieked, rearing back before violently spewing a high-pressure geyser of corrosive acid into the sky.
Damian lazily swiped his wand, instantaneously transfiguring the ambient mist between them into a massive, solid steel pillar.
The acid proved impossibly caustic. It rapidly melted straight through the dense steel, retaining enough momentum to arc toward Damian.
Relying on his Invisible Hand flight, Damian sharply banked to the side. Mid-evasion, he mentally triggered a dual-layered defense.
A kinetic Mage Armor and a dense, magic-neutralizing Spell Barrier flared to life, forming a polygonal shield and a deep blue energy wall.
The Queen Ant whipped its head, tracking him perfectly. The acidic stream adjusted its trajectory, lashing out faster than Damian's telekinetic flight could carry him.
The corrosive payload slammed into his defenses, completely washing over the Mage Armor. But beneath the sustained assault, the First-Tier Runic shield held firm, refusing to yield.
Now that he had materialized his spirit crystal core and stepped into the realm of a First-Level Sorcerer, the structural integrity of his Runic Models had skyrocketed.
Down below, the massive ant colony was still fully enveloped in the fog bank Damian had laid down earlier. Smiling, Damian slashed his wand downward. Using the fog as kindling, he instantly transfigured the entire battlefield into a roaring sea of fire.
The Queen Ant shrieked in agony as the flames consumed it, though its massive bulk bought it a few moments of survival.
Its soldier swarm wasn't so lucky. The basketball-sized insects rapidly carbonized, converting into an endless stream of Void Power that rushed into Damian's mind.
Deciding to end it, Damian raised his left hand and sharply clenched his fist. Synergizing his Invisible Hand with the Great Lightning Summoning, a colossal, crackling hand of pure lightning materialized in the sky.
The thunderous construct seized the Queen Ant's head and ruthlessly crushed it. The immense physical and elemental force obliterated the creature's skull instantly.
A massive cluster of red energy drifted up from the twitching corpse, easily providing another 10 Degrees of raw power to the Hub Crystal.
An hour and a half later, his Detect Metal spell went completely dark, finding no more salvageable alloys in the immediate area. Damian had successfully unearthed three more ruined Assistant Golems, bringing his total haul to four-and-a-half units.
Alongside the scrap, he also unearthed an intact, disc-shaped hover vehicle.
According to Tower Spirit Zero, the golems used these transports for daily maintenance; the ecological zones were simply too vast for the localized teleportation arrays to cover entirely.
Following the AI's instructions, Damian channeled a burst of mana into the vehicle's power core. To his surprise, the ancient hum of machinery flared to life.
The disc smoothly levitated off the sand. Damian climbed aboard and settled into the operator's seat. The vehicle possessed internal gravity runes, ensuring the rider wouldn't be thrown out even during inverted maneuvers.
A transparent force field materialized over the cockpit. The kinetic barrier provided minor physical protection while perfectly shielding him from the artificial wind and harsh desert elements.
The controls were remarkably simple. Three levers governed the flight: the right dictated direction, the middle managed altitude, and the left controlled velocity.
Damian nudged the center lever, and the disc steadily climbed into the misty sky. Leveling off at a thousand meters, he slammed the speed lever into its highest gear and pushed the directional thrusters to the max.
Whoosh! The transport rocketed forward with terrifying acceleration. It was vastly faster than a Muggle airplane, causing Damian's heart to spike as he hurriedly pulled the throttle back.
Tearing through the thick, visibility-killing mist at Mach speeds was a death sentence; he wouldn't have the reaction time to dodge an aerial ambush.
[75 STONES] - Unlock1 Bonus Chapter
[150 STONES] - Unlock 2 Bonus Chapters
[300 STONES] - Unlock 3 Bonus Chapters