Chapter 777 Pool
While Lex was busy with his looting, within the Milky way a number of small drones explored the vacuum of space. Telescopes, formations and other means to observe the universe at large could only provide the most basic information about space within a galaxy as many various kinds of spiritual energies and other anomalies hid endless secrets. ๐ญ๐๐ท๐๐ฆ๐ข๐น.๐๐ฐ๐ฎ
These drones, sent out by the A.I. once they arrived on Earth, were conducting a survey of nearby space for exactly this reason. After all, unlike other races, the A.I. did not care if the Earth was inside a deadzone. The concentration of spiritual energy mattered little to them. After all, they only cared about valuable materials, and even dead zones could give birth to those. Using the harvest from dead zones, the A.I. could create unique bodies for themselves.
It was while conducting this routine survey, the drone discovered a rogue planet that hadn't been detected on any of its previous scans. Following protocol, it went closer to investigate. As soon as it was in range, it scanned the planet and to its great surprise, discovered that the readings from the planet already existed in its database. This was a known planet, but its location was not where it was supposed to be. After all, Polebitvy was in another galaxy all together! But at this moment, it was right in front of it, disturbingly close to earth!
Immediately it sent back this information for it could be extremely valuable!
*****
Lex did not need his instincts to tell him that there was more than meets the eye regarding the Peronian jade, but he had already signed a contract to give it away so there was no use pondering over it. He would study it a bit more when he had the chance, but for now he stopped thinking about it and exited once more.
The final hall that constituted the dragon's hoard was large and elaborately decorated with immaculate stonework and masonry, with endless jewels, valuable metals and various stones. Although the decorations were many, they all had one thing in common which was that they gave off an unusual, heated spirit energy.
Lex already knew that there were different kinds of spirit energies and that they served different purposes, but for now Lex was too low leveled so to him it was all the same. What was more important to him was that each and every one of those items were valuable, and to a degree, could also act as fertilizers.
But instead of immediately rushing to them, Lex first calmly surveyed the entire hall. Just because Lex was in a rush did not mean he lost his professionalism. All things had to be done efficiently and in the correct order. He would first loot the actual treasures in this hall before turning his attention to other, lesser valuables.
The vast majority of the hall was an open space, which made sense considering the dragon's size. But there were 12 smaller halls and rooms, similar to the one which contained the Peronian jade. This also made sense. After all, there was limited space and not every hall could be massive. Moreover, if even Fenrir could change its size, how would the dragon not be able to?
Speaking of Fenrirโฆ the pup had struggled a lot under the Dragons Might, but it had been too stubborn to retreat as well. Once the pressure from the dragon disappeared, it collapsed. But by the time Lex returned, he was nowhere in sight. Yet, through his connection to the pup, Lex knew exactly where it was. It was doing the same thing as Lex: it was looting!
Lex chuckled, and then swiftly entered the nearest hall. This room was, surprisingly, a small study containing endless books and crystals containing information. Lex swiped them all.
The next room was a kitchen, and had a massive storage treasure filled to the brim with frozen carcasses all radiating a powerful aura. The kitchen also had endless other fresh ingredients. After storing them in his own spatial equipment, Lex had to waste some time returning to the Inn. After all, he could not place one spatial equipment in anothers, so what Lex referred to as the 'spatial freezer' had to manually be dropped off. He took the opportunity to empty his equipment as well, before returning to the hoard.
The third room Lex entered had been ransacked already by Fenrir, leaving not a single speck of dust. Lex did not know whether to laugh or cry when he saw this, so he quickly moved to the next room.
This room was a little special, in that its design seemed to fulfill some purpose. Shaped like a dome, the room had a massive pit inside of it filled to the brim with blood. Lex was immediately reminded of what Mary had requested and scanned the blood with his spirit sense for the scale, but encountered an unusual problem. The blood was incredibly thick, and resisted the penetration of Lex's spirit sense. If he wanted to look for the scale she had requested, he would have to get inside.
Orโฆ
He put his hand atop the blood and began sucking it inside his spatial drum! Lex had no interest in taking a literal blood bath, so this was an excellent alternative.
As the blood slowly drained, the immense size of the pit was revealed as even ten feet down, it had not reached the bottom.
Lex was waiting for the pool to end, while at the same time making a mental note to look into what this blood could possibly be used for, when he noticed something in the pool. There was a figure swimming within.
Could it be the baby dragon that Mary had mentioned earlier? Lex wondered warily. It had to be known that even a newborn dragon was in the Earth immortal realm, and was not something he could fight off!
But a moment later, his expression froze. A blood covered wolf was revealed, and looked around wondering where the pool was disappearing to. It was having such a good time swimming.
Chapter 778 Ring
"You're going to stink of blood," Lex said with a frown, though Fenrir didn't care about that. In fact, he was distressed that Lex was taking away his pool!
"Woof woof woof!"
"Fine, I'll leave the blood alone. But check the pool if there's a scale inside, I need it."
The pup immediate;y plunged deep inside the pool, anxious to find the scale lest Lex continues to drain the blood.
A gleam flashed through Lex's eyes. Although Fenrir was sometimes silly, he was actually very intelligent. If it was so attached to the blood, it must be benefiting it greatly somehow. Lex naturally would not covet an opportunity gained by Fenrir, but that did not stop him from contemplating if the blood would be helpful to the other beasts inside the Inn.
He did not think the Galactic Sovereign Turtle needed any help, but Little Blue had been a part of the Inn for a long time. Although Lex did not have too much of a personal connection with it, that did not mean that Lex did not care about it.
A moment later, Fenrir came out of the pool with a remorseful look on its face.
"Woof woof!" the pup said.
There was a scale at the bottom, but it was too heavy for the pup to move. The pup was scared that Lex would drain the pool to get to the scale, so it mentioned that the blood was actually nice and warm and didn't feel bad.
Lex sighed, and then jumped in. The warmth Fenrir mentioned was actually scalding hot, to the extent that even Lex's freshly upgraded body turned red with subtle signs of a mild burn.
The pool was much deeper than Lex expected, and he sank for about 300 feet (91 meters) before he reached the boot.
He naturally could not use his eyes to look around, and his spirit sense wasn't working either so he could only feel around to look for the scale. It was easier to find than expected, for it covered nearly the entire bottom of the pit.
He did not experiment with the weight, despite his curiosity for how much it weighed, and simply placed it within his drum. Nothing unexpected happened, so Lex swam back to the top and exited the pool safely.
He was half expecting his body to absorb the blood or something along those lines, considering that Fenrir was so excited about it, but it had no effect on him.
"Are you sure you want to stay here?" Lex asked with hesitation when he couldn't figure out the benefit of the blood, but Fenrir was adamant. He only nodded, and left the pup up to his devices.
He quickly began going through the remaining halls. He encountered a greenhouse filled with various potted plants. Lex could not put them in his spatial equipment so he had to consider whether it was worth it to waste time teleporting to and back to the Inn every time. After all, for him to return to the Inn was not instantaneous and would take a while.
Ultimatelyโฆ he decided it was worth it. Anything at this level would be unbelievably valuable. He grabbed as many pots as he could manage and teleported to the Inn, instantly dropped the pots in the greenhouse near the turtle. Before the turtle could even realize what was happening, Lex had already disappeared.
But the time the turtle analyzed the first pot, a dozen more appeared. A tinge of excitement was born in the turtle's eyes as he began to salivate, and looked from one plant to another. From time to time, more pots appeared, stimulating the turtle's heart.
Each and every potted plant he saw was supposed to have gone extinct! That was the information on plants it was inheriting from within its bloodline, so the fact that he saw even a single sample was unbelievable let alone multiple different extinct plants!
He could possiblyโฆ bring these plants back from extinction if only the circumstances were right. Ambition suddenly took hold of the young turtle's heart, and the horn on its forehead began to glow without its knowledge.
All of this was unknown to Lex, who took an entire 10 minutes to transport all the plants to the Inn. Without wasting a single breath, he dashed to the next hall, and the one after that, and the one after that.
Despite the amazing auras each of them had, Lex did not pause to study them. He had been hoping that any one of them might turn out to be a system, but unfortunately he was disappointed.
Like that, he made his way to the last hall. But upon entering Lex paused, for the hall was empty. He frowned. He was sure Fenrir had not been here, so where could the contents of the hall have gone.๐ต๐ฒ๐ซ๐ง๐ฎ๐๐.๐๐ธ๐ข
He used his spirit sense and even tried to listen to his instincts but was not able to discover anything, despite the obvious pedestal that had been prepared for an individual item. Whatever it was, it was gone. Lex turned around and left. Although he was curious, he could not waste time to sate his curiosity.
What he failed to notice was that as soon as he left, a ring made of wood reappeared on the pedestal, as if it had always been there.
With all the rooms and halls explored, there was only one item remaining here that Lex felt was incalculably valuable. It was the massive chandelier hanging far up above. It was not made of glass or crystal, and bore no elaborate stone or metal work. Instead, it seemed to be made entirely of molten rock, held together through some mysterious means. Moreover, it was the primary source for the heated spiritual energy within the hall.
Lex did not need to understand what this spiritual energy was to know it would obviously be valuable, so bent down and jumped up, causing his body to go soaring up into the air as if he could actually fly.
He grabbed the chandelier and pulled it free from the ceiling. That's when things went horribly wrong.
Chapter 779 Hunt
From the moment Lex came to this planet he had been suffering from various extreme temperatures. As if that was not enough, the temperatures had an element of spirituality to them so that even Lex could not avoid being affected. From the extreme cold on the surface, to the boiling heat within the dragon's hall, he had weathered it all without much complaint. After all, what was there to complain about being too hot or cold? He spent his entire life as a mortal regulating temperatures.
But there were some extremes that even he could not tolerate. The moment he pulled out the chandelier, as if he pulled out a plug stopping a drain, molten lava started to fall from the hole left behind. Hovering in the air, with nothing to hold onto, Lex could not avoid getting splashed by the unusual gray colored lava.
Lex didn't immediately suffer burns but he could tell that if he were exposed to it too long it was only a matter of time before he was cooked. Remarkably, his suit seemed to be tolerating the lava better than him.
Lex crashed onto the floor, but he didn't remain covered in lava the whole time. He put the lava that had splashed onto him into his spatial drum alongside the chandelier and quickly jumped to the side as soon as he landed. Although this trick had worked once, he could tell that the lava was putting a strain on his drum. If he added anymore, he would cause the drum to collapse.
In the center of the hall, a stream of lava was falling down, forming an expanding puddle. Unless the lava stopped falling in, it was only a matter of time before this hall was filled entirely.
"I'm going up, don't stay here too long," Lex told Fenrir through his spirit sense before rushing up the stairs. Although the first encounter with lava had disturbed him a bit, the situation had not deteriorated fortunately.
How was he supposed to know that what he unplugged was actually the switch for the dragon's regular lava shower? It did not like the cold temperature of the planet, and so regularly washed itself in those flames.
Moreover, since that lava was used to bathe the dragon, it could absolutely not be normal. Perhaps many of the treasures in the hoard might not be as valuable as a drop of that lava, for a dragon would not allow its scales to be tainted with anything impure!
The skin on Lex's face which had suffered the splash of that lava also soon recovered from its blushing state, and looked fresher and more vibrant than ever before.
He quickly climbed up to the floor with various prisons, and then froze. Although Lex had not paid attention to many of the details, even his lack of specific attention resulted in a state where he could recall most things in his environment.
He immediately noticed that a single dwarf was missing. His eyes swayed to the various prisons and discovered nothing amiss, but the disappearance of a body was not normal at all.
Upon being unable to discover anything, Lex skipped over the bodies and went to the next floor. This floor only had prisoners and Lex was not interested in collecting slaves, so all he could do was move on to the next floor.
Although he had no recollection of having passed through the subsequent floors, that did not slow down Lex at all. He was able to hone in on the most valuable treasures on each floor and took them, leaving the rest behind.
He only managed to cover 3 floors like this before he encountered others. Countless Frigals in heavy armor were fighting against elves, dwarves and other races. Normally the Frigals would not be able to come this low due to the Dragons Might, but as the dragon itself had disappeared so had that deterrence. All the Frigals in the vicinity were gripped with fear even greater than that of the impending abomination invasion at the thought of their Lord dying, and so they rushed in to investigate. That's when they found that their castle had already been infiltrated!
The battle was chaotic and bloody, with body parts flying everywhere and screaming echoing in the halls. A mad fervor had gripped everyone, as the Frigals were in a rush to confirm their Lords status while the others wanted to loot.
Amidst all of thisโฆ Lex never actually slowed down his looting! He directly ignored the combat and continued to pick out anything and everything he thought was valuable. His actions were noticed by more than just a few, and they all took an opportunity to attack him, but the attacks could not even cause his clothes to crease let alone injure him.
Lex did not even bother to acknowledge the attacks coming his way, except to speed up all his actions. After a few minutes he already got everything he wanted and hurried to the next floor, leaving many who saw him bewildered.
"He came from down below!" one of the elves noticed, and rushed down during the distraction Lex had caused. Like a domino falling, as soon as the first went down, everyone else began to follow.
There were a few, however, who instead chased after Lex. He definitely got the best stuff already seeing as how he came from down below!
As soon as Lex entered the next floor he froze. Of all the things he was expecting to find inside a dragon's hoard, he was not expecting a spaceship collection!
Moreover, all of these ships were much larger than his Silent Wanderer, and seemed better equipped as well.
How the hell was he going to plunder these?
Just as he was admiring one up close, a frozen spike came out from the distance and hit the ship, causing it to tremble. Although the ship did not suffer too much damage, if such a thing continued it would only be a matter of time before it broke.๐ญ๐พ๐๐๐๐ถ๐น.๐ค๐ฐ๐
Lex frowned. Not a single one of these came with a spatial equipment in which they could be stored, and Lex could not fit any of them inside his spatial equipment either. In the end there was only one solution. He would break off the bits that looked the most expensive and have Xeon study them later. Maybe he should also invest in getting a few spaceship engineers.
Lex bolted and entered the spaceship. He knew that the two most valuable things inside a ship were its ammunition and its energy source. He planned on getting plenty of them, and anything else he could get his hands on.
Once again a similar scene reappeared where Lex was being attacked from all angles but he was ignoring all of it. He did not know the reason, but for now only Golden core cultivators had made it down so far. With that being the case, did Lex even need to fight back?
In fact, fighting back ould waste more time than just ignoring them, so that's what he did. More or less, his blatant dismissal of all incoming attacks intimidated those around him, and they even began to hesitate. That was, until, a mournful scream was heard throughout the castle, rocking the mountain-range itself.
Even Lex paused, for he felt in that scream for the first time the power of an immortal.
"A human has desecrated the Lord dragon! All Frigals, find and kill the human!" the voice roared, shattering every mirror and glass within the entire mountain range.
Lex's expression changed, but instead of running he just sped up his looting. He didn't know how his actions had been detected, but he could tell that whoever yelled was far away from him, for now at least.
But the reason for his exposure was simple. The two remaining dwarves from the first party were trying to escape, but were too injured to do so with so many guards in their way. Although they had already prepared an escape plan, to make sure things were as chaotic as possible, thus making their escape easier, Barley threw out multiple crystals containing the recording of Lex atop the dragon.
It was only a matter of time before they were discovered. When they were finally discovered, all the Frigals went mad in search of Lex, making it easier for the dwarves to escape. After all, once they saw that the two dwarves were not their targets, they would ignore them. Normally there would have been a fight, but right now they only cared about hunting down Lex.
"Did you manage to complete the mission?" Terrol asked, as he limped along with Barley.
"I couldn't loot the bottom floor, but rest assured, I left traces of Valder dust there. As for what happens next, that's none of our concern. That human might even take the blame for everything as long as we stay hidden."
"What about the others bodies?" Terrol asked, thinking of his former companions.
"Each of them came prepared. In an hour, their bodies will dissolve, leaving no trace."
"I told that human my name, will that be a problem?"
"Only if he escapes here alive."
Chapter 780 War zone
A part of Lex wondered why he was even bothering to steal so many spaceship related things when he had no real need for spaceships at all. Was it just because they looked so cool?
No, he was just preparing in advance to avoid issues in the future. After all, who knew when he would need a very cool looking spaceship?
Such justifications were going through Lex's mind as he continued his looting. He was spending longer on the level with the spaceship, but that was only because harvesting the energy sources and ammunition took longer than just grabbing it. Even reaching it required going through special procedures, lest they become tainted or compromised in some way.
During this time, Lex was continuously attacked, which he was ignoring. But there was one fundamental difference now compared to before. Due to the sensitive nature of what he was harvesting, he would create a barrier around himself so the attacks would not accidentally hit the energy sources or volatile ammunition instead.
Oh, and considering the fact that everyone was now hunting for a human, he also used Notorious Anonymity to hide his identity. After all, with various races attacking the castle altogether, he could easily just be some other race that was not well known. Or at least that was the hope.
For what it was worth, his idea seemed to work. No one was targeting him because he was a human. Instead, his complete disregard for any attack targeting him made him the biggest target.
Lex almost considered reevaluating his tactics, but watching the frustration build up in his attackers, Lex felt a subtle sense of satisfaction. He really had to give it up to Geeves. His idea to frustrate his enemies was not bad at all.
But there was one very important factor he had to keep in mind. To return to the Inn, he needed some time to teleport, and he could not be disturbed during that time frame. If he were attacked, his teleportation would be canceled. As such, he needed to have an escape plan in mind, which included getting away from the crowd long enough to teleport away.
Once he had been through most of the ships, Lex reluctantly went up to the next floor. He was unable to actually take away most of the energy sources, as he recognized them to be too unstable to handle the environment inside a spatial treasure.
The next floor, unbelievably, looked more like an antique bottle collection than a dragon's hoard. Hundreds of thousands of glass, jade, plastic, or even metallic bottles were lined up in countless counters. But it was this mundane, unusual even, floor in which the fighting was most brutal and chaotic. A single moment to study the situation revealed why the situation was so different.
Each of those bottles contained medicine. If that were all, perhaps Lex would not have paid any extra attention and would have randomly grabbed some of the pills. After all, his medical knowledge was fairly limited, so he would not know if they were anything special.
But due to the intensity of the fighting, many bottles broke and freed the pills or syrups from their airtight containers. Lex's instincts were immediately attracted to some of the pills as if they could provide endless benefits, though only for the few brief moments before they were destroyed in the chaos. At the same time, it was strongly repulsed by others, as if they were extremely hazardous, even to him.
In fact, due to the fighting and the constant destruction of medicinal bottles, all the ingredients were falling onto the floor and mixing with one another haphazardly. This should not have mattered much beyond the fact that each of these medicines was rare beyond measure in any galaxy, and could not be easily replicated regardless of wealth and power.
But in this instance, the more important reason it mattered was because all the broken pills and syrups and ingredients were mixing and slowly combining to form a very lethal poison.
With treasures in front of him, and a countdown timer in his mind motivating him, Lex burst forward at his full speed, grabbing bottles and entire shelves randomly and putting them in his drum.
Perhaps Charles would be able to identify what these pills were used for. Despite feeling greatly attracted to various pills, Lex did not try eating any at the moment. He had already cultivated as much as his body could tolerate for now, and if these pills were still being targeted by his instincts then they were absolutely phenomenal, and eating them now would only be a waste.
Lex was gathering a lot of loot while also attracting a lot of hate, as seemed the norm by now, when something new finally happened. The entrance to the next floor burst open and an army of abominations came pouring in.
Lex finally laid eyes on one and immediately understood why they were being called as such. With bodies that made no sense, these creatures made of ice attacked anyone near with absolute savagery.
The creatures' bodies looked like blobs of play dough mushed together by children, for the most part. They had tentacles coming out of odd places and hands and legs in inconvenient locations.
All of this should have made them weak, but they were anything but. Their freezing bodies emitted a piercing chill that not only froze the body, but it froze spiritual energy as well.
Those were just the common rabble among the abominations. Some of them seemed to perfectly imitate other Frigals, dwarves or beasts, and could even change shape as they wished or needed.
The greatest threat of all, however, was not their unusual chill or their odd strength, but it was their numbers. Hundreds of them were pouring in from the door, and in fact many of them were trying to enlarge the opening by breaking the door apart so more of them could come in.
Of course, neither their strength nor their chill had any significant effect on Lex, so he originally planned to break through them, but his plans quickly changed. A sense of foreboding filled him all of a sudden and he retreated quickly.
These creatures were not simple at all. In fact, considering the fact that they did not previously exist on the planet, and only appeared recently, they may have something to do with the odd creature that killed the dragon.
Once he had that thought, Lex immediately decided to end his little looting session. As much as he enjoyed it, he was not in dire need of any of it, and it was best to know when to reign in one's greed.
But the situation kept getting worse. The sounds of devastating explosions rocked the castle, accompanied by earth shattering tremors. Lex could not know the situation outside, but it seemed to be deteriorating quickly.
He needed to retreat to somewhere he was no longer under attack so he could teleport out. Unfortunately, everyone else also had thoughts of retreating from the approaching army, so a stampede formed, crowding the tunnels.
As if that was not enough, Lex felt a few incredibly strong spirit senses sweep the area. The Earth immortal who had shouted earlier had arrived, and he was not alone!
"Crap," Lex muttered under his breath and pushed through the crowd, no longer bothering about who blocked his way. The repercussions of trying to be extremely efficient were revealing themselves now, as many of those who had attacked him previously without much success now tried to slow him down - whether it was out of pettiness or simply because Lex just frustrated them too much, he would never find out.
That is because the next moment Lex's instincts suddenly screamed danger, and unable to do much else, he wrapped himself in endless layers of barriers. Something ripped through the ceiling above him and went smashing through the crowd, digging in deeper through the castle floors.
Lex had not been directly under whatever tore through the ceiling, but even still all his barriers broke and he was thrown away to the side. At least he remained unhurt, but the same could not be said for the crowd that had been running with him.
Feeling somewhat shell-shocked, Lex looked up through the hole in the castle. The sky outside was no longer dark as countless ships could be seen flying in the air, bombarding not just the castle but anyone near it.
"What the hell!" Lex exclaimed. It was a literal war zone outside, much more so than even when he came. Without hesitation, Lex jumped into the hole in front of him. No sane person would follow him, and he could the time he needed to teleport away. Unfortunately for him, the icy abominations were not sane by any measure, and they were more than just a few of them.
Pretty soon, an army of abominations could be seen jumping down the hole following Lex.