Agnisotra: Origin Tails

I had two ideas; one was to use daggers and wires and another one was to become a bit more serious with using ice and water to move around. I made a lot of daggers but wires were something I also wanted to make. Hera was a weaver so I had some knowledge of how to deal with textiles and I used those skills to make thin yet strong ropes. They were thin enough to be categorized as wires. I applied this technique on some metals and finally got some wires made that were strong and conductive to magic but could also be used to cut through stuff. Quite versatile, which is exactly what I was looking for. There was one problem, they were heavy as fuck.

I tried carrying some on me in person but the amount I need to be effective in combat made the wires weigh about 30 kg. Yes, nobody wants to deal with that. It's stored in my dimensional pocket but I'm not adept enough to make them appear out of it and close it fast enough to emulate the usage I'd get out of it if I wore them on me. So, this is the moment to practice! What practice in a place where I won't fall into a spike pit if I mess up? That makes too much sense! I will be pushed harder if there is some risk involved.

Since I never really used my dimensional space in any offensive ways, I never bothered to optimize the process of taking things out of it swiftly. Normally it takes me about 3 seconds to open it and 2 seconds to completely close it. I also can only open one instance at a time and I will have to make this faster and make it so that I can open multiple instances of it at once. I retrieved some daggers with rings on the end of the handles on which they could either ride on the wires or the wires can be attached to. I tried to open 2 instances of my pocket dimension to make the wires shoot out of and attach to the daggers. Only one opened and it took its sweet time.

Hmm as expected it's not gonna work just because I thought of it. After an hour of attempting this, I finally seem to have sped up the process. Still, only one pocket dimension opened but now it was somewhat fast enough to make me not fall to my death. I shot out a wire to attach to a dagger and threw it at a nearby wall. The idea was that the moment the dagger lodged into the wall I would run or slide over the wire or maybe swing with it like Tarzan. It would depend on the angle and situation, I guess. The moment the dagger was about to hit the wall I started to run and jump on the line. Now here was the mistake I made. The walls are made out of corundum. Remember me saying it was about the hardest mineral out there below diamond? Yeah, the dagger bounced off the wall and I started falling.

Shit, why does this place keep ruining all my cool ideas by making everything so damn hard! I shot a wire into another dagger and threw it at a platform, this time I made it bounce off from another platform so it would approach my targeted platform at an angle and hopefully pull tension on the wire so I could swing towards it. The dagger connected and I felt tension on the wire. I sent frost magic towards the wire which it conducted beautifully towards the dagger and turned the dagger into a budget grappling hook with frost magic. I swung towards the platform and at the highest point of my swing, repeated this action to swing from platform to platform. I tried to reclaim some height to land on a platform. There were 5 layers of floating platforms. The layer I was on was the lowest but there were 4 more layers of platforms above me. I originally started on the third but I fell down to the first one.

My goal was to get up toward the fifth layer. I looked up but it was up so high that I could hardly see it with normal vision. I estimated it was about 400 meters up. This third floor seemed to be the biggest floor volume-wise. Maybe the ancients thought they could cut corners by making one floor 3 times more voluminous than the other floors and cutting down on floor numbers like that. I thought it was time to see how far I could shoot these wires. All these times I tried to open 2 simultaneously but only one kept opening. The speed at which this could be done kept increasing but the rate at which it got faster started to slow down. I selected a platform on the third layer to grapple to and shot a dagger with a wire attached to it, mid-flight I turned the dagger into a grappling hook with frost magic, and the moment it connected I melted the wire on my end off and froze that end onto my current platform. The wire had a lot of tension on it and since both platforms were moving, I had to be fast because the wire might snap. I used lightning magic for the first time in a very long time and dashed over the wire to the third floor. I want the lightning magic to carry me upward since the speed of lightning is way faster than I can dash but for now, this is fast enough. I safely arrived on the third layer and looked up to see some platforms from the fifth layer. I heard a grinding sound and then heard something snap.

Seems I had more than enough time since I was on this platform a good 10 seconds before the wire snapped. Now I could repeat this same action but that would be boring. I shot out another wire and this time a second opening from my pocket dimension opened! The wire that came out just drooped out of it though. Baby Steps! I will just have to keep firing these until the second one is satisfactory. The speed at the second one seemed to open and close was identical to the first one but it didn't seem to do exactly what I wanted it to do. After shooting and snapping about 500 meters worth of wire the second pocket dimension instance seemed to be doing what I wanted it to. I was physically exhausted and realized that I was spending way too much time testing stuff out here. What if this dungeon had a time limit? I didn't consider this but maybe I will get kicked out and it will reset after a certain number of hours or start an instant kill event to clear out the intruders.

I decided that I didn't know enough about this place to take my time. It was also nearing morning outside. It was about 5 hours since I split up with Gregory and started investigating. If I didn't get home on time Philip and Hera might get worried. Although it might be already too late for that, my delivery shouldn't have taken all too long but I got captured and had that battle with Cecilia and Charlize and then I went to investigate. I've been away for about 8 hours, woops. I will apologize properly to them later. I was really tired but complaining and resting wouldn't get me out of this dungeon. I still needed to clear 3 floors after this.

I decided to speedrun this dungeon since I started feeling the limit of how much stamina I could recover by resting. I needed some proper sleep. And only one way to do this is by burning up more stamina and energy! That doesn't make any sense. How naive the energy I will spend on this will be far less than if I continue taking my time and some dumb event happens because I'm in this place for too long. I want to deal with any problematic events now. I still have the energy to do so, which means I need to get to the end boss as soon as possible. My training got put on hold and it was time for a dungeon rush.

Well kind of, I still wanted to try out moving around with ice and water and see what's on the fifth layer. So, I retrieved any wires and daggers I had out and started freezing the place up, creating ice slides and using water to push me up steep slopes. At first, I was being a bit sloppy since I'm only used to doing this in two dimensions but now, I was navigating with this in three dimensions. I slowly got used to planning out routes while I was moving around at high speeds.

Normally I plan my routes out before I start but the platforms changing, and traps going off it made me have to constantly reroute and update it. I picked up more speed and saw some F3 golems react and jetpack toward me. I just froze them to become some scaffolding for my ramps. I was now comfortably zipping around and going upwards. I unfroze the golems so that they could chase me and I could get some action while climbing towards the fifth layer. That is what I wanted but those golems were so slow they didn't even come close to me when I reached the fifth layer. Nothing outstanding was to be seen from the fifth layer except when looking down it seemed like the platforms of every layer moved in such a manner that while looking from above it seemed like they made 3 Corund symbols that read: hmm what does it translate to. It reads pink orange rock. That's oddly specific, or is it? I remember some paparazzi stones I saw earlier. Well, that wasn't the correct name, I should try to put in more effort to remember names, Paparadsha? Padarasha? Padparadscha? I'm sure that was its name, paparazzi stones sound cooler though.

Anyway I encountered 3 languages in this dungeon of which there is one language I didn't know. The Corund words were “harvest” and I guess Padparadscha and another language read “rock”. I was glad I went all the way up here since it provided a clue I might need later on. Maybe this was why there was no treasure room. I picked up a small paparazzi stone which was small but still the largest one I'd yet encountered. I stashed it and was about to head down towards the third layer where the entrance to the fourth floor was but also the secret passage. I can't forget Bunai! As I was about to head down the F3 golems arrived. I lost interest in them so I froze them solid and sent them crashing down. I made an ice slide and slid down and opened the secret passage and confirmed that nothing of importance was in it before sending a heatwave through it and melting the golems within. I crushed the cores as I passed them by and opened the secret passage on the side where Bunai was recharging.

Bunai! Uhh, activate! Follow! Bunai reformed to look back like a golem and followed me. He did look weird without his flaming hair but that was an easy fix. Bunai! Burn 150 degrees! Bunai burst into flames and regained his haircut. Way better! I let Bunai through the half-molten secret passage towards the entrance to the fourth floor.

The moment I reached the fourth floor my jaw dropped. The floor wasn't big but something else was big. There was an enormous paparazzi stone in the middle. Guarded by 50 F4 golems. I want that stone. Now I could melt these golems but I would destroy the paparazzi stone in the process. There also seem to be symbols engraved in it. The edges of the floor were filled with treasures and stuff. It seemed the ancients got lazy here, the previous floor was three times the size of a regular floor and this floor was relatively simple. Could it even be called a floor? It was just a big and fancy treasure room. I looked around to see if there were other clues I needed to watch out for. It didn't seem like there was anything. Since I decided to speedrun this dungeon I needed to dispatch these golems fast and efficiently without destroying Bunai and the enormous paparazzi stone. I temporarily froze the paparazzi stone and Bunai with frost magic, slid around with my ice and water magic and collected all the treasures, and torched the room. 37 golems instantly melted but 13 seemed to stand strong, they were melting but didn't melt completely.

Hoho, we got some badasses under the golems I see. The fire I used wasn't really hot by my standards but it was well over 2500 °C. I decided to honor the golems and dropped the fire. I created a fire sword and went at the golems. It wasn't a real sword, just concentrated fire in the form of a sword. I cut off the arm of a golem that wanted to smash me and jumped out of the way of another golem that decided that randomly shooting a laser beam would hit me. The laser beam took down 3 of its already half-molten allies making it a 10v1. Even though I was vastly outnumbered, I had confidence that I wouldn't lose. These golems were incomparably fast compared to Bunai but to me, they were still really slow. I went to another golem but the fire sword didn't cut all the way through the golem's arm. I blasted the golem away with a heatwave to not get hit by its counter.

The heatwave melted the front of the golem exposing its core. I shot a fireball at the core turning the fight into a 9v1. I provoked the golems but realized that they are golems they don't react to provocations as Bunai demonstrated at the start of the dungeon. A bit embarrassed I dodged another laser beam and drove the flame sword through the torso of another golem vaporizing its core. 8v1 and my fire sword started running out of juice. I cut a golem in half through its core when the sword became too cold to deal any damage to these golems. The golems still seemed to be quite hot from the early torching I did earlier so I rapidly dropped the temperature on the floor and 3 golems cracked and crumbled from the thermal shock. 4v1 was it just me or did these golems start to become reluctant to attack me after seeing me slaughter their allies? I didn't touch these 4 golems but they seemed quite damaged from the torching and thermal shock they got hit with. I wonder if they were brittle enough that I could shatter them with a punch. I strengthened my body with nature energy and punched a golem.

Yowch! That hurts! I inspected my hand, nothing seemed to be broken.

Holy shit that was dumb! I dodged another smash and just decided to finish them off. Even though I said I would speed-run the dungeon I was still messing around a bit. I torched the golems and destroyed their cores after they melted. I gave the piles of molten corundum a polite bow and returned the room temperature to normal. I needed to take a break because all that action made me nauseous. I unfroze Bunai and the big paparazzi stone and inspected the paparazzi stone and it seemed full sentences were engraved on it. It had 7 lines of text on it but every line seemed to be in another language. I could read 4 of these languages. 1 of them was close to Hourai, maybe a bit older so I guess it is the original Kaledonian. Of course, there was Corund, another language that I could read and which said rock in the treasure room on the second floor. And another language that I knew from Tero. The last three languages I couldn't read. One of these languages seems to be the language I couldn't read on the second floor and gave off primal energy. It seemed this line used the same word that was in that treasure room. After looking at this paparazzi stone for a while I noticed something. Of the four languages I could read, they all said the same thing.

Is it possible that it just says the same thing 7 times but in another language? This is big! I could decipher the other 3 languages with the help of the first four languages I knew. It turned this paparazzi stone from extremely valuable to priceless. I was planning to sell it but now I can't. The sentences were quite long and seemed to describe a historic event. I doubt that it is a clue to solving this dungeon. I focused on the word in that primal language that I saw in that treasure room.

If the grammar is similar to half the languages, I know it means calamity, if the grammar is similar to the other ones, it would mean nightmare. Can't say any of these translations are reassuring. I tried to lift the paparazzi stone into my dimensional pocket with water magic but this thing was extremely heavy. I imagined that in a situation like this Raishin would make an inappropriate “yo momma” joke. I thought about how to tackle this issue. I used ice to create a fulcrum and a lever and used water magic to try and lift and push it into my dimensional pocket. It seemed like there was some movement until the ice shattered.

Shit! I remade the lever and fulcrum but this time I used frost magic to ensure that it wouldn't shatter. The stone moved but not enough. This was one of my weaknesses. I don't have a lot of raw power. Fire is the only thing that has raw power but I can't exactly use it to move a heavy rock. Hmm but is that true that I don't have a lot of raw power, speed can be converted into power. I imagine myself speeding at the paparazzi stone while still keeping the lever active and turning into a red splat on the stone.

Hmm, that doesn't seem like a great idea. I hope that I've learned my lesson at trying to cut corundum, trying to lodge daggers into corundum, and trying to punch corundum. None of those seemed to work and crashing into a big hard rock seems like the worst idea out of all of them. I tried to alter the idea a bit. The new idea is that I will cover myself in various layers of water and frost. The combined layers will absorb and dissipate the impact of hitting the rock on which I could redirect that energy back towards the rock and push it. I would add some body enhancement to myself using nature energy just in case because even with those it could hurt like hell. I made ice ramps coil up towards the ceiling and then have them make a graceful loop aiming at the stone. I needed to build up a lot of speed for it to matter so I needed to create as long of a path as I can make on this small floor which doesn't cause me to lose too much speed. I reused the technique I last used to peel potatoes at home.

I had more tails this time so I could muster more lightning element to speed myself up. I spun myself crazy replicating a dynamo effect. The lightning shifted to dark purple. I coated myself in 4 layers of water and 4 layers of frost alternating each other. I made an outlet behind me to expel the excess energy in case it would cause me to launch the rock or the impact is greater than I can convert into energy. I should thank Gregory because without his tutelage I would have never been able to pull this off. The lightning seemed to want to shift to a higher color but I wouldn't let it, I wasn't confident in successfully controlling a higher color of lightning yet. I sapped some of its energy with frost magic to keep it deep purple and used all the magic to electrify myself and give myself a massive speed boost. I suppressed the emerging nausea. The whole ice traject I laid out was about 1100m long. I covered that whole distance in 1 second and crashed into the paparazzi stone. The ice and water layers seemed to hold up well and do their job. The paparazzi stone moved and rolled into the dimensional pocket.

Ugh, I should find a better way to move heavy things in and out of my dimensional pocket. I wasn't as tired as I expected to be but I was fighting to suppress my nausea. After trying to calm my body down by circulating nature energy I managed to get rid of it after about 20 minutes. I realized that I might not be as good at speed running as I thought. I looked over at Bunai, it was trying to patrol but the floor got uneven and bumpy because I melted the whole place.

Bunai! Follow! I made Bunai follow me through the parts I deemed to be least bumpy and went down towards the fifth floor. After arriving on the fifth floor, I noticed that the scenery completely changed. This looked like a golem production facility. There were a lot of golems patrolling and machinery made out of corundum seemed to take cores and assemble golem parts around it and then zap them with some special magic to animate them and make the parts stay in place. I wonder if the ancients just gave up on continuing to make dungeon floors and just put their golem production plant here. I got curious though because I might be able to upgrade Bunai here for the end boss on floor six. The only thing that seemed to be on the sixth floor is a big circular room with a strong magical signature and behind that room was a smaller room with seemingly no traps and magical lifeforms but I was picking up a magical signal.

I looked around to see if I could find where the F3 or F4 golems. Bunai must have the jetpack functionality! I didn't know what the F4 golems could do because I made short work of them. I looked for the magical signature strength of the p4 golems and found the area where they were produced. I observed the assembly process and I identified the part that would probably be the jetpack part. I borrowed one of those and melted it on Bunai.

Bunai! Fly! The jetpack went off but I did a shitty job attaching it to Bunai so he took off at an angle and crashed into the machinery responsible for making the F4 golems.

Woops. I looked at the machinery but it was busted.

Hmm, that is unfortunate, I guess they don't make these as they used to. I was obviously talking out of my ass but I needed something to distract myself from my fuckup.

Bunai! Uhh, Get out of this mess! I heard Bunai sounds but nothing happened.

Oh no please tell me you’re not stuck! I moved the rubble aside while stashing rubies and sapphires in my dimensional pocket. There he was under a pile of rubble bleeding. Wait bleeding? Golems don't bleed. I inspected the red liquid. It seemed unlike anything else I'd ever seen. It wasn't magical based but it seemed to have a lot of special properties. I don't know enough about the Corund technology to know what kind of special stuff they had. The only thing I know about them is their language and that they seem to love corundum else why would they call themselves after it? Ok actually it was me who gave them that name since nowhere did I find the text of them referring to themselves.

I tried to lift Bunai out of the pile of rubble and cleaned him with water magic. I expected some golems to react to this but seemingly nothing happened. Maybe the instructions on how to behave happen on another part of this floor. I went to the F3 assembly line and studied it again. It seems that the part where normally the jetpacks are is just a rock in the F1 golems, so I need to remove that and replace it with the jetpack rock. I tried to mimic the magic that was used to assemble the golems and reversed it, I applied it to the useless rock and it fell off. I borrowed another jetpack stone and attached it with similar magic as this assembly line did.

Bunai! Fly! This time Bunai seemed to properly fly with its jetpack. I tried looking for the part that was responsible for the laser beam but it seemed that I would have to replace the core if I wanted to get all his laser uses in. This was quite disappointing. Replacing its core is like taking someone's heart out and replacing it with another heart! I can't do that to my mining buddy! Granted he was quite useless lately but I could use his company. I proceeded to upgrade him with F3 parts, at least those I could replace. He was now a golem that had F1 and F3 parts. I could use F4 rocks but then I had to look through the pile of rubble and I didn't feel like doing that. I reinforced his arms as a bonus because the last boss is probably going to be a super tough golem. Even still I doubt that Bunai can be useful to the boss. At this point, I'm upgrading him so he won't get one shot since I don't think I can cheese this boss with another laser. I looked at Bunai and his cool flaming hair. He has come so far. He is like a protagonist from a series. He leads a dull life until he does something outside his daily routine and gets stronger after some adventures and now, he is here ready to defeat the last boss!

The Chronicles of Bunai! Hmm doesn't sound bad. I looked around to see if I could upgrade him more but there didn't seem much more. I saw the room where the golems got magically programmed but I didn't want to come near that. They would probably attack us the moment we set foot in there. I rested my eyes on the entrance to the boss's room. Was this enough to defeat the last boss? I don't want to go back and grind more experience points to stand a chance after my defeat! Wait this isn't a game I could die if I messed up!