Chapter 102: Dungeon Investigation

The Collector snaked its way towards the source of the swirling mana flow in the environment: the boss creature's dungeon. It did not move at its maximum pace, instead taking a rather slow one in order to perceive as much of the area as possible. It also did not take a linear path to the dungeon, instead opting for a circular one so as to ensure the perimeter was secured.

Ten minutes of travel allowed the Collector to glean a few details. The density of magical energy swirling towards the dungeon was significantly less than that which gathered around the dungeon of the goblin lord.

Yet, the Collector could not equate this with the boss specimen being weaker. No, in terms of sheer size and magical energy pressure given from the boss creature's secondary presence, it was significantly more powerful than the lord.

Instead, then, the Collector surmised the lack of magical energy indicated a lack of complexity within the dungeon itself, extrapolating this hypothesis from the elder's knowledge of dungeons.

Dungeons in this biome tended to merely be lairs. They did not possess complicated series of layers nor did they seem to host a variety of creatures within them. Thus, it stood to reason that they were of a lesser magical density than the lord's multi-layered dungeon.

External threat wise, the Collector sensed nothing anomalous from a thorough scanning of magical energy in the environment. This, the Collector had learned to do well once prompted by the female daemon specimen and her particularly exceptional sensitivity to flow.

With green energy covering the Collector's ocular systems, it scanned for even the faintest traces of magical energy that belonged to those that did not belong to this biome.

Every living creature with sufficient magical energy left traces behind them that remained for small periods of time before expiring.

The amount of time correlated directly with the amount of magical energy, and the Collector could only sense the magical tracks of the boss specimen. Deep red marks of mana around the snow and in the air visible only to the Collector's eyes when it opted to wreathe them in magical energy.

Mana traces tended to disappear faster than tracks or scent, but in this biome where raging winds and constant snowfall obscured both, sensing for mana was the most efficient method of scouting out foreign presences.

There did not seem to be any, however.

As for physical traces of potential external threats, the Collector also found none, though it did observe the carcasses of various prey and predator specimen. These corpses were stripped of their meat down to the bone and jutted out from the snow.

Analysis with magical sight indicated the same wavelength of red mana wreathing them, indicating they were simply recent victims of the boss creature.

With potential for external intervention minimized, the Collector stood before the entrance of the dungeon.

The dungeon itself seemed to be a sizable construct of ice not dissimilar to the Snowmound, but where the Snowmound was comprised of more pliable flakes, the dungeon was fashioned from solid, frozen and magically charged ice.

The structure mimicked the round, icicle wreathed entrance of a massive cavern. Faint blue light flickered across the surface of the ice, dimly lighting the shadowy cavern entrance. The cavern would lead down further into presumably a wider living space for the boss specimen.

The Collector theorized how this specimen and essentially any living specimen escaped the grasp of the 'Shadows' during nightfall or low visibility environments.

The elder had stated that the 'Shadows' resided only in Snowmounds, places of concentrated magical energy and darkness, and exited only when there were storms, tending to follow concentrations of inclement weather and, when those dissipated, returning to the Snowmounds.

Thus, the 'Shadows' did not indiscriminately attack all specimen during nightfalls. They only exhibited hostile behavior to those that stood in their paths.

The nature of the 'Shadows' and their movement was difficult to glean for they could not be physically consumed, and they intentionally avoided the Collector now.

But it could add on to the elder's information that these 'Shadows' did not inhabit dungeons even when they too seemed to be environments with darkness and charged magical energy.

The 'Shadows' would be a point to investigate later. For now, the dungeon.

The Collector slithered into the icy cavern's maw. Here, the temperature rose considerably, likely due to insulation from the outside. Stone, not ice, comprised the innards of the structure.

The layout, as the Collector had hypothesized, angled downwards, and after thirty meters, expanded vastly outwards into a sizable pit approximately one hundred meters across in diameter.

Contrary to what the Collector had initially hypothesized, the pit was quite well lit by the presence of several crystal formations that jutted upwards, some in clusters, some in singular, large shards.

All of these crystals emitted magical energy, and they acted like channeling points where mana from the environment swirled around them.

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Thus, the crystals supercharged the pit with magical energy, and, analyzing the nature of mana's flow, the Collector determined it roughly similar to that present within the throne room of the goblin lord's dungeon.

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In essence, the pit would provide both physical and mana restoration, though physical repair would be at a third of the rate of mana restoration. Both of these benefits were 'keyed in' to only apply to the boss's core.

The Collector spent a minute investigating the pit and found more bones of prey specimen. There was no warp-capable vessel here. The specimens were not useful, comprising largely of herd-based quadrupeds similar to the deer of the Collector's prior biome.

Yet, one useful specimen.

The Collector found a portion of the skeletal remains of a human. A sizable one. Two meters tall based on the remaining skeletal upper body. The remains possessed remnants of tattered, furred clothing speckled across the curves of bone, and nestled by the shattered pelvis was a holding vessel of some kind fashioned from dried skins.

The Collector tore open the vessel and emptied it of its contents. A smaller vessel of dried skins for holding water. A pouch containing small circles of bronze, silver, and gold. All metals unenhanced by magical energy. A few circular chunks of Everfrost marked with linguistic inscriptions that held stored magical power within them.

Again, however, like the tinkering tools with inscriptions etched in them, the Collector could not assimilate the magic stored within them into its form.

What was useful, however, was the presence of a scrolled-up map and a curious, thin stick of metal fashioned down to a pointed nub. The nub was not sharp enough to indicate the stick possessed any merit as a weapon. Its usage seemed to be linguistic in purpose, meant to fit to the manipulation of human finger digits.

The Collector took the map, unraveled it, and saw that it outlined this area known as 'Fjall'. It memorized the map and then put it into its crystal skull, storing the map for later for potential use by the goblin swarm.

The metal stick, the Collector devoured for its Metalloglottic ossifier.

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*Metalloglottic Ossifier Sample Obtained [1/5]*

--Mithril

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The Collector noted that this metal, this 'Mithril', was quite useful. It was highly reactive to mana, and much like the Volcanite and Everfrost, it could change its physical properties when mana was infused into it, growing significantly more durable.

However, more notable was the metal's ability to 'interact' physically with mana.

Thus, the Collector theorized that if a tinkerer fashioned a blade made of this alloy, they could cut or bat away normally intangible phenomena such as gouts of flame so long as the phenomena was magically created.

Aside from these, the Collector found no further details to investigate in the pit.

For now, then, the Collector would simply wait for this specimen, this 'boss' creature, to return. It signaled again for the goblin swarm to zone in on its location.

Judging from the strength of psionic link between the Collector and the elite carrier unit, it determined they would arrive in thirty minutes.

Then, the Collector would experiment with its Blessing of the Deep. It slithered under the shade of a particularly large mana crystal. Within the angular shadow, the Collector bent down and put its hand into the darkness.

The Collector felt as its hand sink into the shadow and completely meld into it, phasing through as if it was conducting its matter through a warp-gate.

Yet, what was even more notable was the sensation of water around the part of the Collector's hand that was submerged within the shadow. Cool water with a slight numbing property.

The Collector could feel warp based psionic energy, this Blessing of the Deep, and it determined that the ability allowed it to utilize shadows as gateway points to warp into an alternate space. The nature of this space, however, remained utterly unknown to the Collector.

The Collector did not desire to undertake needless risk by submerging its entire body within. It withdrew its hand and cupped one of its six skulls, specifically the Flametongue Salamander's skull.

It popped the skull out, and with Sapia, maintained a flow of magical energy within the skull to keep its ocular systems working even when separated from the Collector's body and its blood flow.

Using this temporary conduit for the Collector's senses, it dipped the skull into the shadows and observed.

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