This part of the world hadn't become a glacier from a few shots, so I figured I was on the right track. Still, there were weaknesses to my rifle that could easily be taken advantage of. When fighting, speed was one of the most important factors. While all I needed was to pull a trigger, what if my opponent was mobile afterward? I could use temporary formations sculpted onto a bullet to hold power and alter the formations on my weapon to connect to a library. That would lower the number of formations needed on the rifle and lower the strain on the weapon.
I strung the weapon across my back and headed down into the dungeon. Half-burned dolls charged at me as I made my way to the basement entrance. The dolls rapidly deteriorated when my aura touched them until only their earthen spirit cores remained. This wasn't some power gained from my numerous spirit cores. Like what happened to the lower spirits, my aura could affect those who possess dolls. Before, I couldn't do much against them. Only touching them with my aura was enough to ruin them.
The door to the basement opened, and I flew down. The qi from the dungeon began to feel faint, like it was retracting its reach around the mansion. World qi began to filter in while I traveled deeper. The imps were no more, and that worried and encouraged me. If the dungeon recovered from its frailties and became more confident, killing it would be difficult. My wall needed to be challenging to drive me to the next level. I flew down the lube waterfall and passed by the metal succubus boss room.
I stepped from a boss room into a laboratory on the next floor to a disaster. The bodies of magicians either lay mulched in a crater, some were torn to confetti, or a rare few were on fire. The dungeon hadn't managed to clean up this mess yet, or that was no longer its concern. Broken glass covered the floor, along with torn spellbooks. Their contents were in a strange circular language the system couldn't translate or refuse. Mounds of dead flesh lay on tables connected to IVs, dissected, or while being sewn up. A strange label covered the equipment with an unmistakable uniformity. These creatures were a part of some group, and I doubted they were dungeon-born.
System Warning!
Ex Mortus Researcher Identified.
Recommendation: Proceed with caution; let nothing remain intact, rip and burn.
The sudden screen flash froze me on the spot. I haven't seen a system warning ever. Not even when it teleported us did it give a warning. So maybe Molly was right; I should have left with them. But the system had asked the right guy to rip and burn.
Black flames erupted from my aura like flowing ink wherever my aura touched black dragon's fire followed. What King left behind I burned thoroughly. The books, bodies, and scraps of robes burned quickly as I passed them by. My aura spread and burned as I traveled further into the dungeon.
I stepped into a room full of massive glass tubes filled with green liquid. The bodies within looked human except for an occasional defect. Some had large insect wings, others had dragon claws, and a few had giant titties. Yet, every face looked the same, and I couldn't help but identify them as Sam. My aura spread, and the glass containers withstood even my dragon fire. The strange symbols that I couldn't read before channeled somehow withstood my flames.
That got my attention. I walked up to the nearest contained and punched with a qi enhanced blow. Once again, the symbols appeared, and they stole the qi from my attack to reinforce the glass. Pain shot up my arm as I struck, but that didn't concern me as much as what the symbols did. Again, my qi was stolen and used to reinforce the glass containers. That shouldn't happen.
I thought about it and then pulled an ordinary hammer out of my inventory. With a smirk, I slammed the nail driver down on the glass to nothing; even with my strength and bypassing the qi absorption, the hammer didn't do a thing. Next, I inspected the glass more thoroughly with my spirit sense. There wasn't any qi inside it, so there could be any number of reasons why I couldn't break it. From nanites to a plastic force absorbing strip between glass planes, it could be anything. That really made it a head-scratcher.
My aura pulled back while I thought about it. No system was perfect, and just hitting it with normal qi enhancement or dragon fire wasn't going to work. Well, what about chaos, qi? My calamity blast worked because it caused a disruption in the natural order.
I blasted the tube with one of the red orbs and watched the symbols absorb the attack. Then I waited as they fully absorbed the attack. Once the calamity blast fully absorbed into the tube's protection, I punched full force again. When I stuck, it only absorbed a partial amount of my qi. My blow struck the glass tube only for the glass itself to absorb my physical blow.
King couldn't break these either that was why they were intact. If I couldn't break them and King couldn't either, then they would be a problem later. All they would need to do in the future was install a door made of this stuff, and boom, they could ignore us all they wanted.
System Message
Qi controlled is more difficult to repurpose than power allowed to diffuse freely.