Nearly nine hours underground, and Dylan finally saw light.
It slipped through as a thin silver line beneath the rusted blast door ahead, dust motes drifting lazily through the beam, dancing in the stale, stagnant air.
“…About time.” Dylan exhaled, the words heavy with exhaustion.
His shoulders throbbed, his legs screamed with every step, and three hours spent wrestling a single locker open had left its mark.
Gripping the rusted wheel one final time, he leaned his full weight against it.
Years of corrosion held firm at first, then gave way all at once with a deafening screech tearing through the silence.
Screech!!!
Cold mountain air rushed into the tunnel like a living thing.
Dylan instinctively closed his eyes as sunlight poured through the widening gap, forcing away the darkness that had surrounded him for almost half a day.
The scent hit him first.
Pine, damp earth, wildflowers and beneath it all mana.
Not the faint metallic trace lingering over New California, nor the heavy, suffocating density of the abandoned tunnels.
This was different.
Pure.
Fresh.
It flowed through the wind so naturally that breathing felt strangely invigorating.
He stepped outside.
For a long moment, he simply stood there.
The forgotten tunnel had opened onto the eastern slopes of Ashveil Summit.
The world before him looked less like a mountain range and more like something stolen from a forgotten myth.
Towering peaks rose one after another until they disappeared beyond the clouds, their snow-covered summits gleaming beneath the afternoon sun like polished silver.
Vast forests blanketed the mountainsides in endless shades of emerald, broken only by sheer cliffs where waterfalls plunged hundreds of metres into crystal-clear rivers below.
Wisps of pale blue mana drifted lazily through the valleys, weaving between ancient trees like strands of living silk before dissolving into the breeze.
The entire landscape shimmered with quiet life.
Flowers unlike anything from his previous world bloomed between weathered stones, their petals faintly luminescent as they absorbed ambient mana.
Butterflies with translucent wings floated through the air, leaving behind tiny trails of glittering light before vanishing among the branches.
Far above, enormous birds circled effortlessly upon invisible currents, their feathers flashing shades of sapphire whenever they caught the sun.
Even the silence felt alive.
There were no blaring horns.
No advertisements.
No towering skyscrapers of steel and glass.
Only the whisper of wind through ancient pines, the distant roar of cascading waterfalls, and the occasional cry of creatures hidden somewhere within the vast wilderness.
Dylan slowly lifted his gaze toward the highest peaks.
Far beyond them, several Dungeon Portals shimmered in the heavens like fractured mirrors suspended in empty space.
They pulsed rhythmically, releasing faint streams of mana that drifted downward across the mountain range before disappearing into the forests below.
Ashveil Summit wasn’t merely close to dungeons.
It had grown alongside them.
For twenty-three years, the mountain had endured an endless rain of mana, slowly transforming into one of Earth’s greatest natural sanctuaries and one of its most dangerous frontiers.
“…Wow.”
The word escaped almost involuntarily.
He had imagined this place thousands of times while staring at a computer screen, describing mountains, forests and rivers with nothing more than words.
None of those descriptions had come close.
Reality was breathtaking.
A quiet laugh escaped him.
The sight before him had almost made him forget why he was here.
Almost.
He drew in a slow breath and forced himself to calm down.
“Alright,” he murmured.
“Admiring the scenery can wait.”
As if protesting that decision, his stomach let out a long, unmistakable growl.
“…Perfect timing.”
Dylan slipped his backpack from his shoulders and crouched beside a flat stone.
Unzipping one of the compartments, he reached for the wrapped venison he’d painstakingly prepared after killing the Mana Deer.
His hand found…
Nothing.
He stared into the empty compartment for several silent seconds.
Then slowly closed his eyes.
“…Right.”
“I already ate it.”
A hand rose to his face.
Smack.
He covered his eyes with an exhausted sigh.
“..huhhh”
“How do you finish an entire deer without noticing?”
After a moment’s thought, he answered his own question.
“…Because there wasn’t much of the deer worth eating in the first place.”
Most of the animal’s body had been dense muscle, bone and thick connective tissue altered by years of mana exposure.
Once he’d trimmed away everything inedible, the amount of usable meat had been surprisingly small.
“…Brilliant planning.”
He shook his head before rummaging through his bag again.
Thankfully, one thing hadn’t become a problem.
His fingers wrapped around a matte-black cylindrical bottle.
It looked no larger than an ordinary thermos.
Yet the label proudly advertised its absurd specifications.
Capacity: 500 Litres
Price: $50
Mana engineering.
One of humanity’s few genuinely convenient inventions after the Dungeon Emergence.
Spatial compression enchantments had turned an ordinary-sized bottle into something capable of carrying enough water to last days.
He unscrewed the cap and took several long drinks.
Cold water washed away the dryness in his throat almost instantly.
“…Much better.”
After sealing the bottle, he reached into another compartment.
His fingers brushed against something rough.
Round.
He pulled it free.
A dragonfruit.
Its crimson skin shimmered faintly beneath the sunlight, tiny blue veins of mana tracing delicate patterns across the surface.
For a moment, Dylan simply looked at it.
He remembered the elderly woman practically forcing it into his hands before they parted.
A rare smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“…Guess i really am indebted to her now.”
His smile widened ever so slightly.
“Thanks.”
Without another word, he drew his knife, cut the dragonfruit cleanly in half, and took his first bite as the winds of Ashveil Summit drifted quietly through the ancient mountains.
Ashveil Summit was far larger than it appeared from a distance.
The towering peaks visible from the outskirts were merely the beginning.
Beyond them lay an endless labyrinth of forests, valleys, cliffs, hidden rivers and mana-saturated wilderness stretching for hundreds of kilometres.
Dylan kept to the eastern slopes.
Not because they were safer.
Because they were familiar.
Or rather they were familiar to the person who had once written this world.
He unfolded the old Bureau Survey Compass in his hand.
The awakened Armament gave a faint pulse before its needle slowly settled, pointing deeper into the forest.
“…Lead the way.”
The path ahead quickly disappeared beneath towering pines whose trunks were thick enough that three grown men couldn’t have wrapped their arms around them.
Moss carpeted the ground, while shafts of sunlight slipped through the canopy in scattered beams, illuminating drifting strands of ambient mana.
Every now and then, distant roars echoed across the mountains.
Sometimes followed by silence.
Sometimes by another roar even louder than the first.
Dylan wisely chose not to investigate.
He stepped carefully over tangled roots, occasionally checking both the compass and the rough map stored in his memory.
There were countless animal trails branching away from the route he followed.
None of them were meant for people.
“…One wrong turn…”
His eyes drifted toward a narrow ravine disappearing between the trees.
“…And I either spend the next three days hopelessly lost…”
He looked toward a shimmering distortion floating far beyond the valley.
“…Or accidentally wander into a Dungeon Portal completely unprepared.”
Neither option appealed to him.
The mountain had no mercy for careless travellers.
Even experienced Hunters disappeared here every year.
Some were claimed by Mana Beasts.
Others entered unstable dungeons that had manifested without warning.
Some…
Simply vanished.
No bodies.
No equipment.
Nothing.
Ashveil Summit had a habit of swallowing people whole.
“…Let’s avoid becoming a statistic.”
Hours passed.
The terrain gradually became steeper, forcing him to climb over weathered boulders and navigate narrow ridges overlooking crystal-clear streams.
His clothes clung to him with sweat despite the cool mountain air, while scratches accumulated across his arms from pushing through dense undergrowth.
Still, he never once questioned his route.
Eventually, the forest opened.
Wildflowers swayed lazily along the banks, their petals glowing faintly with mana, while ancient willow branches hung low enough to brush against the water.
Nestled quietly beside the river stood a modest stone shrine.
No towering gates.
No magnificent pillars.
No divine statues reaching toward the heavens.
Just weathered grey stone softened by centuries of moss and creeping vines.
It looked…
Ordinary.
Dylan stopped walking.
A smile slowly spread across his face.
“…Found you.”
He approached the shrine almost reverently.
Among the thirteen shrines hidden throughout Ashveil Summit…
This one was the oddity.
The other twelve were infamous.
Each demanded impossible trials from those seeking their inheritances.
Some forced challengers into life-and-death battles against ancient guardians.
Others tested the soul itself through endless illusions, impossible riddles or ordeals lasting weeks.
Entire Hunter teams had disappeared attempting to conquer them.
This shrine…
Asked visitors to solve a puzzle.
That was it.
“…No wonder my readers hated you.”
He crouched before the weathered entrance, brushing away fallen leaves that concealed a series of shallow carvings.
Back then, he’d created this place for one reason.
Ethan Walker.
His protagonist had needed a Combat Scripture early in the story.
Rather than spending several arcs earning one…
Teenage Yoo Hajin had simply handed it to him.
The internet had responded exactly as one might expect.
“That’s it?”
“The protagonist just gets rewarded for showing up?”
“Where’s the struggle?”
“This is the most obvious author favouritism I’ve ever read.”
He winced despite himself.
“…Yeah.”
“They weren’t wrong.”
Looking back now…
It had been lazy writing.
Conflict made rewards meaningful.
Without hardship…
Victory felt hollow.
His younger self had understood that eventually.
Unfortunately, It had taken several thousand angry comments to realise it.
A quiet chuckle escaped him.
“I suppose getting roasted by your own readers counts as character development.”
He lowered his gaze to the stone puzzle before him.
Unlike the brutal trials guarding the other twelve shrines, this mechanism was almost embarrassingly simple.
Nine circular stone discs sat embedded within the shrine’s entrance.
Each bore a different elemental symbol.
A weathered inscription above them read:
“Harmony opens the path where conflict cannot.”
“…Seriously?”
Dylan sighed.
“I really expected Ethan to struggle with this?”
He reached forward.
One after another, he rotated the discs into their proper positions.
Water.
Earth.
Life.
Wind.
Light.
The remaining symbols aligned themselves automatically with a low rumble.
A deep metallic click echoed from within the shrine.
The ancient stone doors slowly parted.
Cool air drifted out from the darkness beyond.
Dylan stood silently before the entrance.
“…Well.”
He adjusted the strap of his backpack.
“Let’s finally collect what I came here for.”