"I'll take care of any breaks you have, and in return, you give me a better deal on bulk ordering fresh produce than any of your current clients. I'll collapse any break you have in the future too, and in return, I want to make a trade route connecting my settlement in Sector 2 to your land here in Sector 3."
The middle aged man named Carson thinks for a moment but makes a decision rather quickly and nods, pointing to another shed on the property behind the large red barn that the kid and old man went into earlier in our meeting.
"Deal. I'll sell you crops at our break-even price for a lifetime if you can provide quick and stable protection to our land. We've wanted to cut ties with the Association for decades, but no one else is capable of making it this far out into the Dark Continent because of the control over their transportation crystals."
He begins to walk over to the shed behind the barn and motions for us to follow.
"The trade route you speak of would raise some political issues with many of the villages and towns in this area. We live a simple life here, and we do not want to get mixed up in world politics. We would rather live off the land and never have had the dungeons form here in the first place. However, if these breaks aren't taken care of soon, there won't be much farm left for us to negotiate over."
I listen to his words as the entrance to the shed comes into view.
A small blue and white plane with a tarp over the back half of it and a dirty propeller on the front comes into my vision as he speaks again.
"If we fly now, it will only take 3 or 4 hours to make it down the river and to the breaks. All nearby villages have evacuated already."
I turn to Lith, and he shakes his head.
"We don't have time for this. Maybe 30 minutes at most considering the time we spent in Sector 4 and here already. The Bedrock Region is our next stop, and they're not a party you want to upset. Being punctual in their territory is necessary. Right under the Vice and Apex region, they have the potential to be one of your biggest clients. First impressions are important. Trust me."
I can see Carson's expression drop to one of sadness, as I'm sure he knows exactly where this is going. Based on what he's already told us about the Association and Solara, money has always gotten in the way of helping others in his line of work.
I let out a sigh and turn to him with my arms crossed.
"Where's the break? Point to it and give me an approximate distance."
He lifts his head with a confused look but still points off into the rolling cornfields and long winding river and speaks.
"About 200 kilometers that way. If we follow the river and maybe catch some air currents, we could get there in under 3 hours."
I turn to Ember and nod.
"Watch these two for me real quick. I'll be back in 30."
He grins and doesn't respond because I've already started flying through the air toward the direction the man pointed.
I close my eyes and fly high enough in the air that I can use my full extreme speed, wind magic, telekinesis on myself, and even soul energy to power my footsteps through the air and not affect the landscape below me.
I use enemy detection and my All-Seeing Eye the whole time, flying over small towns and hundreds of fields with kilometers of farmland and thousands of workers in the fields.
There are small E and D-Grade dungeons scattered throughout the landscape, but I don't stop to check them out. I just keep following the river faster than the speed of sound.
Loud cracks echo through the sky down on the workers below, but the speck that disappears from their view is gone before they can examine what it might be.
Soon enough, I sense something in the edges of my vision that is quite a bit stronger than an E-Grade dungeon.
I feel a high C-Grade break happening in the center of a field that has decimated crops for nearly 10km in every direction.
I sense a nearby town with some magical goods in it nearby, but the entire population has been evacuated and no one is working in nearby fields.
A bright red dungeon portal hovers in the middle of the field and over 3 dozen massive 5 meter long caterpillar creatures are digging up the earth and destroying the crops.
They all have advanced-grade earth magic and sit between level 450 and 475.
These are some serious monsters; no normal amateur hunter could ever handle one of these. It may even be difficult for hired help from Solara to take these monsters out. High-level association elites would need to be deployed to take out a threat like this. Even then, it would be quite the struggle.
This reminds me of the breaks I was sent out to take care of in Sector 4 by my team on my first Dark Continent mission for the Association. If they're sending more squads like this out, Carson is right. It may take days, or possibly even over a week to get men out here if they're already dealing with other regions.
"Well, time to handle this myself."
I dive down, activating most of my skills and buffs so I don't harm the farmland while touching down onto the soft soil in front of the red break, then jump through.
Once inside, the dungeon itself is just massive dirt mounds with occasional trees every couple of hundred meters with trunks larger than any tree I've ever seen. The trees are covered in the same green caterpillars, and the soil is infested with them too.
High in the sky, there are 3 mutants clearly higher level than the rest, each of them over level 500, with an additional skill, buff, and new ranked up forms with colorful wings and slimmer bodies.
Two of them have wind magic, and another has a skill I recognize very well from a gang leader I killed back in Sector 2.
Poison Mist [Special Grade]
My version of this skill is already legendary grade, but it's worth wasting a few seconds and taking a detour to kill this mutant.
So, I change my flight path to arc upward and slice the colorful ranked-up butterfly creature in half on my way to the boss room, upgrading this skill to mythic grade on the spot.
My flight path arcs downward again, and I ignore all of the other mobs in here until I see even more mutants near the boss room.
They're over level 500 too, but still in the form of caterpillars.
There are 4 of them guarding the dark black boss room portal.
Three of them have legendary body hardening along with advanced earth magic, but one of them has another skill.
I slice it to pieces on my way through the boss room and acquire a brand new skill, instantly upgrading it to mythic grade due to my absorption perks.
Cocoon [Mythic Grade]
While killing another ranked-up butterfly mutant in the boss room, I look at the details of this skill, and it looks like it's an advanced form of body hardening.
While I assume with these monsters, activating it works to morph them into a different form during their rank-up or something, the skill has adapted to my biology and created an ultimate defensive skill.
It may create a greater shell than body hardening does, but the downside is that the caster cannot move their body out of this cocoon while activating it. A neat addition to my status, but not one I'll likely be using much in the future.
I stand over the final boss's corpse and watch it dissolve away with the dungeon, and I'm transported back to the open field.
The dungeon disappears, and I activate my All-Seeing Eye to attempt catching any luminite fragments or special drops that might occur after clearing a dungeon like this, but nothing happens.
I was expecting for something to happen, and am slightly confused when nothing does. I can't figure out where the luminite that was powering this dungeon's transport magic has even gone, but decide not to dwell on the idea for too long.
The excess mana just evaporates into the air, and the 5-meter-long insects that were terrorizing the land fade away with the dungeon, ceasing to exist.
I jump into the sky and begin my return trip, but given that I have a few minutes to spare on the way back, I stop by a few E and D-grade dungeons near villages and set dungeon walker points just in case I want to return back here in the future without having to fly across an entire continent.
Once the red barn comes within range, I drift down with a smile on my face beneath the black helmet. Then, once my feet hit the ground, I speak to the surprised man with my static disguised voice.
"The break is cleared. You have nothing to worry about anymore. I assure you, I will have men sent here to survey the area whenever there are any more surges and have breaks cleared before you even know they've happened. I look forward to doing business with you in the future."
I turn to Lith next.
"Now, we have business to attend to in the Bedrock Region, don't we?"
He chuckles to himself and pulls the labeled transport crystal from his item box.
"Indeed we do."
As I crush the crystal, Carson waves goodbye with a puzzled but very relieved and happy look on his face.
"T-Thanks. See you next month! Mr. Sector 2 Leader, Sir."
Once the bright flash of transport magic fades, the three of us are left in a dark dome-shaped room.
The center of the floor is a white transport platform, but outside it, it's all made of grey stone.
A light turns on at the back of the room, and a large man in +100-200% defensive armor stacked head to toe filling all 12 item slots on his status walks forward with 3 guards on both sides of him also wearing the same caliber of gear and they're all between level 400 and 600.
The man in the center of them is level 902, standing over 2 meters tall, with enough muscle mass to double or possibly even triple my own. Despite his large stature, my eyes stay locked on his five skills that appear when I use appraisal.
Body Hardening [Legendary Grade]
Extreme Strength [Legendary Grade]
Extreme Speed [Special Grade]
Swordsmanship [Special Grade]
Appraisal [Special Grade]
I've seen a status like this before. Brutus, the leader of the Vice Region, had very common skills artificially stacked on his status, and the gear matches his too."
His mana control is pretty strong as well, nearly matching a level 700-800 monster in the labyrinth, so this man is not power-leveled. This power was earned. He is just very reliant on his gear and skills while most likely being a very smart and tactical fighter.
I would even assume that this is just one of the top elites in this region coming to pick up the ordered goods, but the glowing golden ring on his finger that slowly leaks Soul Energy that matches the Sun God's makes me positive that this is the Regional Director I'm looking at right now.
His strong and demanding voice echoes through the dimly-lit dome-shaped room.
"It is wonderful to see some new faces in the bulk item trade industry. Let me see the quality of goods you've promised, then I'll decide if they're worth the prices I'm about to pay. I, Regional Director Maylack, welcome you three to the Bedrock Region."
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Author's Note:
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