Hot Rock Dungeon

"I'd like to borrow an evidence monster. What's the cheapest one you have?" Cui Xuefeng pulled out his slim wallet.

The store clerk looked him up and down. He shrugged with a sigh, "Alrighty then. That'll be 461.27 yuan or 9 coins." he also handed him a contract.

Cui Xuefeng didn't have the currency from the dungeons they called coins. He paid in yuan. The contract was a simple loaning contract. It said he would take responsibility to pay for the monster if anything happened to it and had the requirements for use on it.

He had a worker go in and bring out the monster. "It isn't one of those fancy ones that record video, just senses mana, alright? Don't let it out of the cage. If you sense something that makes it howl, call the authorities. Don't try to be a hero. You have 48 hours. Return it within that time or you'll have to pay compensation." He handed over a black cage the size of two heads and waved him off.

Cui Xuefeng accepted the cage and left. The others in the line or browsing the store watched him go.

"I heard the chances of coming across something is less than 5%, and by then it's too late."

"Kids nowadays are dumb. They think they can find portals everywhere. They'd be better off with a metal detector at the beach."

"Maybe he's checking to see if he's awakened?"

"It would have reacted already if he were."

Most weren't enthusiastic about his chances at 'portal hunting'. There were others who thought differently.

"I wonder if he's an adventurer."

"If his mana awakened then the monster would have a reaction. That's why adventurers use the better ones."

"He's so hot!"

Cui Xuefeng ignored the chatter. He left the shop and faded himself from the onlooker's perceptions. This would make him overlooked even if he did something out of the ordinary.

It didn't matter if he took it out of the cage. He just needed a strand of mana to bind it to him like a leash. The clerk had only warned him so because he didn't think he had awakened. But he didn't bother with such things. He held the cage at his side as if the 25 lbs weighed nothing. He jumped up onto a roof with his next step. It didn't feel like much, just like taking an extra long step. There was no jerking or moment of stillness in the air. He stepped onto another roof, and another. Soon, he was moving faster than the cars.

A few minutes passed until he slipped to the ground again. When his foot touched down the tentacle monster in the cage began howling. Cui Xuefeng ignored it and walked straight forward. A trashcan in his way moved as if it was making way for him. He walked into the brick-and-mortar wall behind it. His figure disappeared.

The temperature rose by a dozen degrees in a single step. Cui Xuefeng didn't bother giving the little monster protection as he knew it wasn't as weak as a human when it came to temperature. His current body had no resistance though. He added another barrier to fend off the heat. The air in the barrier became thin and hard to breathe.

Cui Xuefeng didn't pause in his steps as this all happened. He walked forward into the realm and looked around. It was mostly hills and mountains of rock. According to his research on humans, there were only a few materials here that they knew of and sold. They either could not use most of it or did not know its use.

Orange Rose Obsidian was one the humans knew of. It had high-temperature mana in its nature so they use it as a warming stone. Some fire magicians also keep them on their person. Although it isn't proven, some say it can help their fire magic. If their mana was pure they'd be able to use the mana directly. A fire mage can use natural fire mana to fill their core and adapt their body. At this point, they would become something not-so-human anymore. Walking into an Earth volcano directly wouldn't pose a problem. This was a rare minority, however. Anyway, Earth's volcanoes aren't very impressive.

There was Orange Rose Obsidian on the outskirts, where he was. He wanted some intrusive rocks from the middle before leaving. He turned his target to a patch of pumice that looked like a rock meadow. It was only a dozen kilometers away. He stopped partway to break some ground and pull out a large pure ore from a vein, or cracking some plants and tossing them in his inventory.

At the pumice meadow, he directed his mana to break the rock. As opposed to the targeted openings earlier of no more than two meters deep, this time he stood off the pumice and wreaked havoc on the entire 500 square meter area. Meter by meter pumice flew up into the air in chunks and fell into piles around the hole. He dug six meters down before he stopped. There were three strange rocks between the pumice and the next layer. He jumped in and carefully dug out the first one.

The blue rock looked like a halved sphere with a few snakes coiling out from it in every direction. He flipped it over. The bottom was flat. He touched the base. It broke apart like a piece of mica. Inside were blue gemstones that looked like a date. The blue rock sphere was 30 centimeters but the gems ranged from a bean to the size of a fist.

Cui Xuefeng took one the size of a thumb, then broke off a snake-like spine from the outer shell. The snake-like spine was actually slimy inside. It looked like green aloe. He put the thumb-sized gem inside the spine. As the gel was opened to the outside words it began to harden and change color. He pressed the spine back onto the place it'd broken off from the shell. The gel that was left outside of the spine hardened and turned blue. It acted like glue that healed the spine back into place.

He put the rock aside and went to carefully dig out the other two. He put them in his inventory. Then he shifted through the pumice to find lighter pieces. These ones were more fragile than the rest. Most of it was accessible because that's where the pumice had broken as he dug it up. He took a piece of pumice twice the size of a thumb and powdered it. He returned to the blue stone he'd set aside and slathered the pumice over the spine. The spine had begun to shrink already. It looked as if it had dried up. Only the knot where he'd broken it stayed the same. As the pumice powder was added it seeped into the spine little by little. There wasn't much of a reaction from the outside.

It needed another hour or two until he could use it. He broke a small scale off the edge and slid it over the bottom of the blue rock. It soon healed over. He returned the spine to the side, but the lacking gel may not be able to heal it this time. He carried it and continued walking.

Three hours later he broke the spine, which was as thin as a spaghetti noodle now, and pulled out the gem. It was now full of luster and no longer looked dry. It had raised into a beautiful ellipsoid. He shot a strand of mana into it. When the mana didn't have any negative reactions, he pushed mana into it and back into his body. He continued circulating it until the color dimmed. Blue disappeared only leaving behind a dark gray stone. Its transparency and beauty were gone. It looked no different from any other old stone on the side of the road except for its shape.

Cui Xuefeng put the blue stone into his inventory with the others along with his shoes and pants. He grabbed the howling monster in the cage then he headed towards a volcano.