A dungeon entrance.
That was what this golden, shimmering bead signified. There were a lot of secrets related to dungeons, but right now I won't mention them. The only thing you need to know is that dungeons are a type of monster. They're alive.
Now, the reason I was here was because of a few things. The cliche for dungeons, after all, was the fact that they were breeding grounds for both riches and dangers. A double-edged sword that killed or made heroes.
That was the same for Emerallia. Just, with a few twists here and there.
And this dungeon in particular had a few more twists to it. Twists that I could make use of.
Thus, I gently touched the golden bead at my feet and poured my mana into it.
Suddenly, the ground shook, and a rectangular structure grew out of the earth. I looked inside and found a set of stairs lit up only by a few torches that stretched deep into the dark depths. The staircase was straight and steep, and I couldn't see the end of it.
"Going back out is gonna be absolute torture. Damn it, Ambrosya." I once again cursed myself for writing such a scenario.
Fuelled by rage, I moved my body. I was going to overcome every trial I faced no matter what.
I chanted those words in my mind as I descended. The creepiness of the entire set-up did not faze me. I simply walked down the stairs, grumpy because every step I took going down meant a step going back up.
Yes,
With every step I took, I got angrier.
There were 3267 steps in total. I counted it all. At least it wasn't as bad as the 11,674 steps of the Nilsen Railway in Earth's Switzerland. I would dread going back up that many steps.
Of course, somewhere in the Golden Deserts, I did add a Pyramid of Babel with 22,222 steps, so there's that. I was going to stay as far away as possible from that place. If I do have to go there for a few of its pretty treasures, then I would do it when I could fly or teleport.
Back to the matter at hand.
After descending the long staircase, I was greeted by a sight that I had written very much for fun.
I want you to imagine an abstract painting with a thousand brush strokes of different colours, shapes, and sizes. Such a chaotic yet artistic image was the landscape that lay before me, illuminated only by the rare torch.
My sense of depth was being toyed with by this scene. I could barely recognize which area was near or far.
"F*ck," I swore under my breath. I was trying my best to look for the path that I needed to avoid at all costs. That path would be the most torturous one as Virion had passed through it in the fourth volume of [ Evergreen Passage ].
I almost took a step forward as I was looking for the cursed path. But I paused at the last second and brought my foot back.
I recalled the first trap that Virion encountered. Noxious gas.
I wanted none of that so I made sure to leap over that small area. I then continued forward.
"There it is..." With my movement came a different perspective on the abstract landscape. I found the hidden path that was actually a portion of hell brought into Emerallia. I could recognize it by the pair of torches that lay at its entrance. They were very archaic.
Very greek.
Now, when I say hell, that wasn't a metaphor.
Space would warp in that place and bring any unlucky soul to the actual depths of Emerallia's hell.
Thus, I took a sharp right and headed to the right-most corner of the landscape.
From there I moved straight, looking for another path forward. My memories of this chaotic landscape weren't accurate. After all, explaining an abstract image with words was totally different once it became reality. The image I pictured in my head wasn't like this.
"I should've drawn an oversimplified map and published it with the chapter," I looked back at my writing in hindsight. "That way, it would be so much easier for me to navigate this place."
Well, which writer writes a book for the purpose of living inside it? None. Well, maybe there would be, but I wasn't one.
I decided to make use of Mana Vision. After all, this entire place was simply one large living organism. I could see the flow of mana within its body to look for hints.
It was time to use my brain a bit.
With Mana Vision, I studied the path that Virion took. I witnessed large pulsations of mana emanating from and coalescing within its depths. I glanced at other pathways and saw no other path that had as intense characteristics as it had.
Therefore, after recalling my wording that Virion had taken the most perilous path, I could conclude that mana intensity and density were signifiers of difficulty.
I then added a note to such a statement— the movement of mana in said pathways also determined the nature of their difficulties. I just did not know which behaviour determined what.
Thus, I looked for a path with the least amount of mana movement. It took me a minute before I arrived at its blue, snaking slopes that intersected with several other paths. I then made slow steps forward, marvelling at the rapid changes in scenery with every step I took.
Each new perspective garnered a new abstract painting. But I just kept following my blue path, even when overpasses or walls of different colours disrupted it every now and then.
My experience was uneventful save for a few traps that I instantly recognized through Mana Vision. There was always a particular flow of mana that would occur when a trap was triggered.
All that I had to do was retreat whenever such a thing happened. After which, I could continue forward.
When I completed my walk, I arrived at the end of the abstract landscape. I was now in the treasure room of this dungeon floor. A place that Virion originally suffered greatly for, given that he walked through the plane of hell itself.
In this treasure room, there was an altar sitting underneath a pile of garbage.
An altar for a goddess that I personally called the [ Sad God ].