Chronicles of the True Wizard

Felix found himself back in a swamp. Felix was relieved when he tried to summon the belt from his inventory and it appeared in his hand.

[E - Epic] Amphibian's Belt

While equipped, all movement speed increases that apply on land or in the air, also apply while swimming.

Well that's pretty useful, almost like it knew where I was going next. Speaking of which, I was planning on heading to the next dungeon way on the west end of the map, but now I think I should probably back track to the one in the water next to the desert. If I don't head back there now, I'll have to travel across the map for a single dungeon, which does not seem worth it at all. The only question is, do I go around the water as much as I can or do I take the straight path which requires more swimming.

Felix figured he would decide later, the dungeon he was heading towards was almost directly south which meant he had to travel through a lot of swamp. He debated going around it, but ultimately decided it wasn't quite worth it. He ran as mindlessly as he could, trying to distract himself with anything. At the moment he was emptying his entire mana pool into the D tier puzzle cube.

Once that was complete, he pulled on the ambient mana as much as he could, spinning up a vortex and everything. Once his mana was full, he started pushing it into the box. About halfway through his mana pool, he realized he was being incredibly inefficient. He starting pulling ambient mana to regenerate his mana as he pushed mana into the box. He realized he was still doing this stupidly and decided to remove the middle man. He pulled the ambient mana directly into the box, so he didn't need to act as a conduit at all.

The box was heavy, but the spells on the sides were making it feel lighter as they gained mana. He was directing the mana into the correct configuration to reverse the spell's original effects making it so that the spells aided in moving the box whenever something tried to move it.

Unfortunately, Felix didn't manage to completely fill the cube before he reached the waterline.

The landscape is so weird. The swamp just ends where the ocean starts, there is barely anything between them. No beach or cliffs or anything. I don't even think this would have been possible back on earth.

Felix stowed the puzzle cube in his inventory and dove into the water. Along the way, while he was distracting himself from the smell of the bog, Felix had decided to swim the rest of the way to the dungeon. It was far, but he had the belt, lots of endurance and a massive pool of energy. He didn't suspect he would have any issues with swimming there. He thought about creatures lurking in the deep, but he figured, and hoped, they would simply be too low level to matter.

Felix had never been a great swimmer, but he did know how to swim due to his spending his summers at a family cottage for most of his childhood. The water was a little cold, but not unbearably so, even for a normal human before the integration. Surprisingly to Felix, the water was only slightly salty, nothing like the ocean from earth.

He decided to start practicing his underwater combat and testing out spells just in case. First he held his breath and dove down so he could measure how long he could hold his breath. Luckily, it seemed he was capable of holding his breath a lot longer than he suspected he would have been able to before the integration. He hadn't checked the tutorial screen just yet, but it had definitely been over a minute or so as he still wasn't feeling anything yet.

For spell options when submerged, he had the obvious Mana Bolt which should function fine, but he also wanted to test out other options as well. First, he tested icicles. He fused a cooling node with the shape component of a Mana Bolt with an outer ring to launch it forwards. He found that he needed to use a lot of mana just to freeze the water, otherwise it mostly worked. He had to increase the size as well, as a Mana Bolt sized Icicle was just too small to do much. It was also much less accurate than he hoped for.

Ultimately he settled on spinning the icicle before he shot it, it was much more accurate, but it also consumed a lot of mana. After than, he applied his learnings back to Mana Bolt and just decided to use that instead. With a similarly sized, spinning Mana Bolt, even if the icicle dealt twice the damage, the Mana Bolt would be more efficient and accurate. The icicle just didn't come out perfectly shaped every time, which meant it tended to wobble or veer to one side. Even comparing his spell form against the icicle spell he had found in the dungeon, both had similar issues even though their forms were completely different.

Felix found the limit of his breath at almost a half hour if he wasn't pushing himself. If he swam as fast as he could, while buffing himself with energy, it would be 5 minutes or less. That meant 5 minutes was his limit for underwater combat unless he dragged his enemy up to the surface.

Luckily for Felix, none of the creatures he encountered this close to the surface were particularly aggressive, or high level. He saw some hovering in the mid thirties to forties, but nothing higher than that. He suspected the real powerhouses were deeper down and further from the mainland.

Referring often to his map, Felix swam in a mostly straight line. Once he had arrived, he swam himself on top of the icon on his map, or as close as he could get. Felix took a moment to cycle his energy as efficiently as he could, providing just a trickle of energy to his muscles, almost starving them but not quite. Then he took a couple deep breaths, filled his lungs, and dove straight down.

He quickly cast Mage Light as bright as he could, as he was expecting it to get dark quickly. He also cast a Gust spell with the wind node replaced with a force node to push himself through the water even faster. As he descended, his visibility deteriorated, his speed decreased and he started to grow worried he wouldn't be able to find the dungeon.

[E - Uncommon] Sea Serpent (Lvl 48)

Holy shit, other than the world bosses, that thing is the highest level I have seen outside of the dungeons. It's almost big enough to be a world boss too.

Felix didn't bother trying to fight it as he was worried enough about finding the dungeon and the serpent didn't even seem to notice Felix as it swam by.

Felix swam past a handful of other creatures of the sea as he dove, finally reaching the bottom almost ten minutes later. He searched around the sand looking at his map and trying to find the dungeon. He figured if he didn't find it in about 9 minutes or so, he would have to ascend. Luckily, Felix spotted a faint glow from off to his left. As he approached, he realized the dungeon was nestled in a sea cave.

Really? Not only is the dungeon at the bottom of the damn ocean, but it's also hidden in a cave? Why though?

Felix swam to the door and placed his palm upon it.

Combat Dungeon B

You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?

Yes

No

Yes.

Felix immediately found himself in a familiar cube which was luckily, filled with air. He blow dried himself with a simple Gust spell and channeled mana into his clothes to clean them.

Combat Dungeon B

Choose your difficulty.

-2 ~ -5 Lvls

-1 ~ +1 Lvls

+2 ~ +5 Lvls

+6 ~ +9 Lvls

+10 ~ +15 Lvls

10 to 15.

Combat Dungeon B

Would you like to claim your reward in this dungeon?

Note: You may claim the reward in this dungeon once. The maximum reward tailoring level is 44. This level increases based on how many Combat Dungeons you have completed and claimed.

Yes

No

Yes. Shit I forgot about those. Only level 44 kinda sucks. That also means the next one is gonna be level 69? Actually that's not too bad, that's just shy of where I am hoping to be for the world bosses.

Combat Dungeon B

Warning: You have selected the difficulty: +10 ~ +15 levels above your own. The encounters will be deadly to a party with an average level of 44. Proceed with caution.

Note: Rewards will be tailored to level 44 independent of levels you may gain throughout the dungeon.

Calibrating, one moment please.

Oh wait, please don't tell me this is gonna be 10 to 15 above level 44 right? I thought the last dungeon was tailoring it to my level, but it could have been tailoring it to the reward level. That would mean a party of level 19s taking on the Vampire. While I don't see that happening, The System also said it would be deadly.

Felix looked around at the ice cave he found himself in. All around him, the cave was made of almost a solid chunk of ice with a blue white color. The ground was mostly gravel with a smattering of puddles and chunks of ice. Felix turned around and found a solid wall of ice behind him. With no other options, Felix walked forwards into the cave. The cave was huge at almost 200 meters in width and equally as tall. The light peered through the ice around him, giving everything in the room a cool blue hue.

Felix walked a few hundred meters and noticed the cave getting slightly darker when suddenly something glimmered over in the corner of his eye. Felix turned towards the reflected light and saw a long scaled serpent like thing jump out from a hole in the wall.

[E - Uncommon] Selefin (Lvl 62)

From all around Felix, Selefins dove off their perches on the walls and ceilings. Like ribbons, they fluttered to the ground before bouncing off and forming a perfect arc in the air. They were long 6 legged creatures with beautiful chromatic scales all along their backs. Their stomachs were a soft light blue fur and they had fins starting on their head and neck running down their backs to the end of their tails.

As they bounced through the puddles on the floor of the cave, the water sprayed in every direction creating an icy cold mist that filled the cave. The Selefin's scales along with the mist they created, reflected the light peering through the ice all around the room creating an almost blinding display of rainbows and flashing light.

The light show would have been a beautiful sight were it not for the fact that the Selefins were currently trying to attack Felix whilst distracting and blinding him with it. They tried to score glancing blows with the claws they had used to hold themselves on the ice. Felix managed to block most of them with his Energy Wraps and Mana Shield, but they were starting to get into formation, attacking him more persistently, from more directions, faster.

Felix started running towards where he remembered the edge of the cave to be. He figured if he could at least get a wall behind him, he would have one less angle to defend. Effectively blind, Felix almost tripped as his foot slid down the ice wall. He quickly recovered and swung his arm out to block a claw using the momentum to spin himself around, back to the wall.

The drive by attacks were interlaced now with the Selefins swinging their tails into the water and spraying Felix with an icy slush. Their coordination was impressive as one attacked him directly while another blinded him with water or light. . . . . .