It was at Wave 11 that Rainer finally reached a point where in order to keep Elizabeth alive, he needed to expend more and more Arcane Power while using [Arcane-Ice Manipulation] and [Arcane-Wind Manipulation]. Added on to the amount he needed to use to keep everyone else at tip top shape, eventually he’d run out of Mana to convert to Arcane Power.

It was truly an unfair stage for weaker races. He glanced over at the [Nature’s Walkers] who seemed to have their own protections against the heat. Despite being Humans, they only appeared to be discomforted and nothing more. The Giants were completely unbothered, simply sweating more than usual, and Fai’Etah’s group looked like they didn’t even notice the heat.

The [Severed Hand], the party with the man Rainer had tried to kill, looked to be doing the worst. Many of their members were forced to remove armor and clothing just to stay active. They weren’t particularly useful being mostly single combatants, so Rainer was fine letting them all temporarily die and then leave the Dungeon. If they stayed even without lives, he could only leave them to their own fates. It wasn’t as if they’d be the ones winning in the end, in any case. Why not leave now?

“Are you sure you want to give it a try?” Rainer asked his aunt.

“I’ll revive anyways,” Elizabeth said, “Now get me out of here.” While the Arcane-Ice kept her cool, she still suffered from occasional waves of heat and cold when Rainer over- or under-adjusted for the changing temperature. The stress of switching from hot to cold, added on to the lack of sleep - she just hadn’t slept enough last stage - meant life wasn’t pleasant.

He nodded, placing a hand on Elizabeth and activating the skill. His Soul twisted and contorted while the small floating, Soul-like energy pool seemed to invisibly leave his body and grab Elizabeth into it. She disappeared as if she teleported away.

Despite carefully watching the process, he was as clueless as he was when it came to how [Sleep Learning] worked. Gaining the [Living Storage] skill only gave him the ability to use it, not to understand how it worked.

Looking inwards, he saw Elizabeth now sitting in an empty white room. If stuffed to the brim with no room to move, it could fit a hundred or so of her. Where the oxygen or anything else came from, he couldn’t be sure. It took him a moment to then realize that he probably couldn’t store his Arcane-Weaved rituals in here without them dissipating like normal. It looked like he wouldn’t be getting the expected increase in strength from this.

“Are you alright?” he asked, somehow focusing his voice into the [Living Storage] space.

“Yes… but what do I do now? I’m guessing I still can’t sleep,” the woman complained as she rubbed her eyes.

“Probably not. I’ll send my mom in there with you. I’ll take some time to create some books for you to read.”

“Thanks.”

As a final test, Rainer Void-walked a few feet to his left. Seeing no reaction, he played around a bit more. He used [Soul Presence]. While no longer strong enough to outright kill a lava hound, it was still enough to cause damage that stunned it for a few seconds. And [Devil’s Soul Language], despite taxing and damaging his own Soul with every use, had no effect on [Living Storage] either.

At least the less temperature-resistant members of his party would be safe for now.

[Wave 17]

[43:07]

[Parties Remaining: 94]

The loss of two parties surprised Rainer. Especially since he had no idea if other parties were facing a different or similar stage. But he figured any race weak to high temperatures may have simply given up once they found out leaving only cost rewards. Not every place this Dungeon appeared on had people on their last legs and willing to risk much to reach level 25.

At least he guessed that was the case. Not that it mattered.

Whatever they risked, victory would be his in the end.

Surprisingly enough, it was Art who entered the [Living Storage] next, followed by a sleeping Tiamat who as a familiar and monster was thankfully exempt from the sleep rule. Art himself expended too much Mana to resist the current temperature and his magic was generally less effective against the monsters that burned ever hotter. Rainer got the feeling the formerly old man was just lazy. Amer followed, reappearing with his Avatar whenever needed. Aurora too went in there.

Kara, Sarah, Gunthar, Frederick, Theodore, Furtak and the [Ice Wolf Queen], and all the Fae stuck at the frontline. Even Luna had some fun comparing her fire to the beasts before returning to Rainer.

The monsters’ strength had reached a point where they would simply be overwhelmed or lose too much energy if they still did rotations. That left them fighting side by side with Fai’Etah’s party. Their shadow focused abilities, whether magic or Aura, proved great for squelching any fire. Though watching their hoods and robes expand as they occasionally devoured a monster whole was frightening.

Out of everyone, only Gunthar seemed to be enjoying himself. He had long wished to truly combine Souls but had thus far been completely unsuccessful beyond using more than one at the same time. But these monsters with nearly identical Souls proved great test subjects. It was also the theory he came up with for advancing a second 2nd Tier class for himself or his father.

[Nature’s Walkers] still stood off on the side, to handle any healing, and to reinforce whenever a side struggled. They also showed signs of no longer being able to deal with the heat. Given their semi-friendly relationship, Rainer wondered if he should offer them to stay in his [Living Storage] - assuming he could even hold them all - and see if he couldn’t earn an invite back to their world.

After all, there was a chance - albeit a small one in Rainer’s opinion - that after this stage they could use the rest area to leave with all their rewards. So his gesture would be seen quite kindly.

“You want us to go where? And to do what?”

“Here,” Rainer said, pointing at himself with an amused grin. He was speaking to the female leader of the [Nature’s Walkers] like last time. Though rather than extorting a very interesting spell, he wanted to mark one of their Souls.

“And you cannot expect us to-”

“It’s fine, sister,” an older man interrupted, “You may mark my Soul. We appreciate the aid in reaching the Rest Area,” they were not keen to give up the powerful skills they had gained. The items were impressive on a personal level, but they couldn’t compare to the tailormade skills they learned when considering their homeworld. Especially since truly powerful and rare skills and spells often unlocked classes of similar rarity at a certain point. They believed they could keep their rewards if they left through the Rest Area.

“So a deal is struck,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder and pulling her in. He stared at the older man for a while before beginning to apply a [Soul Mark]. Testing out a hunch, he started with [Soul Presence], just like he could use [Void Descent] to cast a Void ability faster and better, and pushed down on the old man’s Soul.

The dual level 24 Tier 2 Expert had a strong Soul and so he was only momentarily stunned by the skill, but the [Soul Mark] applied afterwards seemed to deeply enter and fuse with his Soul. It wasn’t something that could be easily removed anymore without Rainer’s aid. Of course, the key was that the man hadn’t resisted at all. Otherwise while Rainer could likely force a [Soul Mark] on him now with [Soul Presence] and perhaps [Devil’s Soul Language] as well, it would be removed just as easily as before.

Rainer smiled before sending this man and the rest of the people of the party in, shocking the rest of the watching parties. Those unrelated were curious what exactly that weaker party traded to be allowed to coast on another’s laurels. They certainly didn’t approve but no one from the Giants or the other party wanted it to come to infighting. At least not yet.

Rainer had tested just a few minutes ago what happened when someone in his space attacked the space itself. They were instantly ejected on a quite unpleasant ride. Their own Soul would be taxed in the action rather than Rainer’s. A miraculous skill indeed.

He had at first underestimated the system’s reward, especially since he had cleared so many bonuses so his original overestimation had been flipped, but they only surprised him more and more. What other uses would he discover in the future?

Looking at the empty white-walled space around her, Hib didn’t know how to react. But she quickly brushed the situation away with the explanation that it was an Arcanist. Even if she knew little about them, it seemed like a reasonable explanation.

“How is it,” she turned and asked her older brother. That something was placed in his Soul deeply bothered her but she knew it would have only hurt their case if she argued with him.

“As far as I can guess, benign. So long as I’m willing to sustain some damage, I should be able to remove it. Given that we’ll be leaving the Dungeon before them, I’ll take the risk and remove it the moment we return home,” he said, using a bit of spatial magic to block his words.

“He is a powerful teleporter, do you think…”

Hib watched as her brother frowned, “Even if that is the case, our distance could be unfathomable. Let alone him, I doubt any 3rd Tier could be sent over. And even if the time is altered in here, I should be able to remove it before he can follow the mark to us.”

“I’ll ask around,” Hib said, knowing there was an easy way to check. The closer the properties of their home plane, the closer they tended to be in distance.

A few minutes later, it had been easy enough to join a group of three women, two Humans and one Elf, that took turns either being angry or depressed, playing some sort of game with paper. They were strangely friendly, and after asking about Hib’s own clothes and her returning the questions, it was easy enough to steer the conversation towards what their plane was like.

Unfortunately, the conditions, apart from a weaker monster population and a more varied climate, weren’t too different from Hib’s plane.

“Although, that technically isn’t the planet we are from.”

“Planet?” Hib asked, confused why the term sounded familiar. She barely kept herself from breaking into a grin. If they were from a planet the distance between their worlds would be immense! How could their plane be close to something as silly as a spherical world? There was no need to risk her brother’s Soul anymore.

“Oh, do you come from a ‘plane’ or whatever?” one of the red-heads asked, more interested in the paper game than the conversation.

Hib talked about her home plane fondly, glad that things were turning out so well. Not only was the Arcanist’s condition meaningless, they got themselves a free pass to the rest area. Perhaps they might even be able to trade more of their magic for some of the resources these people gathered last stage?

Rainer stood wearily as the rivers of lava on both sides rumbled. As usual, the final monster would appear in the last ten minutes of the wave. They had tested it once, and it did indeed persist to the next wave, making it key for them to kill it fast. Especially since they would have a minor break as this was the last monster to spawn in a wave.

As of now, Rainer had never had to act. Kara with an [Aura Blade] or his grandfather with a orb and subsequent explosion of Arcane magic was enough to always end the beast, even if recently it took more effort.

Yet at wave 30 even both working together right now couldn’t finish off the large and tall flaming hound. Any lost body parts seemed to not matter in the slightest. It would simply be regenerated as if this was purely a beast of lava.

Rainer void-walked forward, appearing above the two-storey tall hound. With a use of [Arcane-Spatial Domain] and a [Blade of the Void] he descended harshly. Reality tore for a brief instant as a large wound cleaved through the hound’s head. Rainer flew upwards this time, using another [Blade of the Void] as he cut the head off completely.

The hound thrashed around and showed no signs of actual defeat. They continued to bombard it only for it to outheal their attacks. It was a minute later that it finally managed to regenerate its head as well.

Rainer tried to just use raw manipulation of Arcane-Ice and attack it, but it’s flame would ignite and deal with him. After a while, they had little choice other than to let Kara lead it away and fight with it as the next wave began.

Glancing back, the other river wasn’t any better off. The only difference was the giant’s Spatial Mage was the one handling, or rather distracting, the last wave’s final monster.

“Grandpa,” Rainer called him over and he nodded in return. It was obvious that overwhelming force was the only answer. And the two of them were perfect for such a strategy.