Chapter 252: Chapter 250 – Skeletal friends.

“That's about it…”

Roland screwed in the last screw to the device he was assembling while Agni gave out a yawn. After clearing out the last of the monsters there wasn’t really much to do for him anymore. Even if they spent a week here the monsters wouldn’t respawn that fast. Thus the only thing he had to do was to sniff at the strange thing that was standing there.

“Be careful with that Agni.”

“Awoo?”

Agni moved his head sideways while looking at his owner. The thing that was standing here was on something that looked like an adjustable platform. At the rear side, there were two long support limbs that would keep it from sliding back. In the front, there was a really long cylindrical shape that made this object look like a massive gun.

This thing had the shape of a cannon but it lacked a hollowed-out bore. There was no inside chamber to house anything resembling a cannonball or bullets. There also weren’t any fuses to be lit but instead, it was connected to a side canister by thick cords. This canister was the actual fuel portion of this magical device that Roland was slowly filling up with the crystalized Elokin’s fluid.

The cannon had handles that he could hold with both his hands as well as a sight for aiming. It was a fully functional magical cannon that could cause a lot of damage but had a very limited aiming angle. It was made as a tool for farming monsters and used the naturally forming crystals here as fuel.

Roland had thought about ways of hastening his leveling process. It was possible to use his current armor to produce a strong enough blast to kill some of the lower-leveled tier 3 skeletons. It was a very inefficient way of going around it and also a fast way of damaging his expensive creation. Instead, he decided to create a bulky magical cannon from cheap materials. The thickness of it would counter the deterioration effect and he could just repair the runes by himself.

With the cannon now assembled all that was left was to open up the wall. After going through this part several times he was convinced that the monsters inside would not attack him. Even if they did they could not penetrate to the side of the dungeon he was residing in. Thus he could go ahead and create a large enough opening for the cannon to shoot through.

“It doesn’t seem to be getting thinner at least…”

Each time he visited this space he had made measurements. The area between the two dungeons didn’t seem to have moved at all. At first, he was concerned about the opening spilling into this dungeon but after further investigation, this didn’t seem possible. The dungeons had separate areas of effect, something was keeping the creatures from being able to leave them.

‘Could these dungeons really be some type of living organism made from magic?’

This was not the first time two separate dungeons came across each other. The main theory was that the creatures that came from one dungeon could not survive without the support of their dungeon's mana. They would even be separated into levels by their dungeon as well.

‘Perhaps they require a certain mana signature to survive? That would explain why they can’t go out or even go to separate levels.’

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This was only a theory that was somewhat faulty. If a higher level collapsed with a monster falling to a lower one they wouldn’t just die. He had even tested this out on one occasion while trying to find a shortcut to the lower levels.

‘What makes more sense is that the dungeon blocks its monsters from leaving in certain areas like passages between levels. There is probably some kind of barrier right before its region of effect ends as well.’

Yet that was only when the same dungeon was considered. It didn’t look like the monsters could break through this invisible barrier and travel into another dungeon at all. He couldn’t find any research on anything like this happening and his contact at the magical academy didn’t have any information on it either. It seemed that this was a very safe way of grinding and he was in no danger at all.

‘Even if a monster breaks through, it should not be able to survive in this environment, the mana in this area should be like poison to it or at least its reserves should run out and it would just die.’

After putting his worries to rest he moved the cannon closer. For the time being the opening to his grind spot was devoid of any monsters. He took this time to heft his weapon closer and aim it towards the middle. Luckily the dead-end corridor on the other side wasn’t very wide so his targets would not have that much space to dodge.

“Agni, whatever you do, don’t get close to that hole, just stay there for now.”

Roland pointed to the opening that he made. Agni was very interested in what was in there and would be able to venture forward. He would not be able to contend with the tier 3 undead monsters in there. It was a possibility that he would try intercepting one of them if they attempted to charge towards his cannon. He knew that they would be bounced back by the invisible barrier but Agni didn’t.

“Woof?”

“Yeah just stay there and look at what the golem for now…”

 

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