《Reversion》Volume 1 - Chapter 9
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Dungeon Traps Galore
The moment Tristan jumped down, the hole sealed up behind him.
"Looks like I can only move forward."
Tristan decided to rest for sometime to recharge his batteries. He had the nourishment drink he had made as well as healed off the scrapes and muscle aches he was feeling because of the mad bull's attack. Within the span of a few days he had two brushes with death and was going through an emotional turmoil.
He was worried about his mother and his sibling. He wondered how Diane was doing. She too must be 12 years old now. He tried to imagine how she might appear now. Rudi, did he become the muscular brute that Tristan always imagined him growing up? And did Miza's world still revolve around that brute? He was puzzled about why aunt Mel didn't tell him anything about them. Deep in his heart he was afraid of the worst happening. He had to atleast take responsibility for his dad's last wish.
Now revitalised, he decided to march on. There were no diverging paths. The labyrinthine maze he had sensed lasted only till the territory of those monstrous bulls and were devoid of life. But now he had a straight path that he cautiously followed. The path then ended. He had come face to face with a spiral staircase. The construction of which made it impossible to know how far up it went. With all other paths blocked he could only move forward. However..
"Aah!!"
Tristan shrieked and howled madly in pain. The moment he stepped on the first stair sharp spikes pierced his right foot and as he reactionarily pulled his foot out in fear he was bleeding profusely.
"Neurotoxin!..."
Tristan grew increasingly laggard as he struggled to search for the antidote in his bag. His face was becoming increasingly blue and he wasn't being able to breathe. He finally found a purple vial and thrust it directly into his bloodstream through his right vein. He had no time to consume it orally right now.
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A few minutes past. Tristan began feeling better. After a few more minutes he vomitted out a green slime and immediately burnt it with a flame. He then sealed his legs with bandages and applied healing magic and consumed restoration potions. That was a very deadly poison. Traps! Tristan wasn't the only one who could think underhandedly after all. He had to be very wary now.
He tapped the stair with a knife and in response a large number of spikes came out, a few bloodied from the previous exposure to Tristan's foot.tristant decided to use the walls to fashion metallic slippers to protect him from such spikes. After a few trial and error arrays he was able to create a fairly comfortable pair of slippers with extremely thick soles. Now he could be safe of spikes surprising him, but there would be other traps and so he had to be vigilant.
He began slowly climbing up the spiral staircase, checking each stair with his dagger before climbing. Sometimes trapping the next stair caused spikes to appear on the one he was standing while other whiles stairs had traps only in a certain fraction of the surface area. He had climbed atleast 3500 stairs in this manner but there seemed to be no end to it.
Once when he rested on a stair for too long eating food, spikes from all corners attacked him in an attempt to impale him. If it weren't for reinforcement magic of the orcs he wouldn't have been able to realise and escape from certain death. He thus found out that he couldn't stay on a stair for too long.
"If there is a gateway to hell, this is probably it."
Tristan was mentally and physically tired. The constant concentration he needed to fend of traps as well as the exhaustion of constantly climbing with rest while not knowing when it ended frustrated him to no end. But in this life or death situation, he had to keep moving forward.
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After a couple of thousand more steps, Tristan began panting. He had never been the athletic kid in the village. He preferred more mentally stimulating pursuits, but right now he wished he had more endurance. He was constantly wondering when the stairway would end. At that moment of lapse in concentration, Tristan carelessly stepped on the next stairwhich caved in and suddenly large whirring noises could be heard. The entire column containing the spiral staircase began revolving a layer of brick at a time until a certain pattern appeared om the wall.
"Water drains! Oh shit!"
Just as he exclaimed thousands of pores began leaking a tremendous amount of water in. The stair suddenly transformed into an inclined spiral plane as water quickly began enveloping the height that Tristan had climbed till now. Swearing in his breath, he quickly changed his slippers to running boots, applied reinforcement, drank energy and stamina supplements and invigorate his manna and alleviate the tiredness, and ran like there was not tomorrow.
As he ran he kept initiating traps which he tried his best to avoid, but couldn't help getting scraped, hit or pierced by arrows or shape changing walls trying to trap him. He kept running without looking back, but he could hear the gushing water reaching ever closer to him. His speed was remarkable thanks to using wind magic and reinforcement magic to strengthen his muscles and bones. He punched through walls that came in his path until he found an opening in the wall big enough to be called an exit door.
He jumped out but realised his folly the very next minute as it was the ice cap of the tallest mountain in the Urek range - Trapeze mountain. He began sliding down the mountain at a tremendous pace and used his daggers to stall his fall. At the last moment when he was about to fall into a crevasse he used his glove to transmute an ice basement to stall the fall completely. A huge water fall passed over his body head and flew down with incredible force right in front of him.
Calming down, he used his glove to manipulate the ice block to move upwards again. Slowly pouring in his manna to make it move using a manipulation array on ice.
Twenty minutes later he had arrived at the jumping spot - water was gushing out at an unprecedented rate. He couldn't dare to go in from there. His only choice seemed to be going upwards from the outside. As he climbed he discovered a walking trail that treacherously winded around the mountain towards the peak. Unable to sustain the magic to carry him up any longer, Tristan decided to walk along the path.
The air was bone chillingly cold. It was also becoming extremely difficult to breathe. Tristan's manna was recovering very slowly. Soon heavy snow pounded on him as he carefully climbed along the small winding path. A fall here meant instant death.
Tristan suddenly looked above. A badger like creature with white fur made clicking sounds before it suddenly attacked him. It's speed was incredible and it seemed to be adapted to the cold. Tristan struggled to fend it off with his dagger which he laced with a paralysing toxin, because of his disadvantageous location and lack of manna.
After a long battle of attrition where Tristan received a lot of bruises, he managed to hit the enemy and paralyse it. He then killed it and roasted it with a low flame to eat it. He drank a recovery potion to heal himself. He noticed that his potions were exhausting at a tremendous rate. On that thin treacherous path overlooking a fall of thousands of meters, a tired Tristan created an igloo from his books using a transformation array and fell asleep from tiredness.
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Dungeon of Night
Eden is at peace. The kingdoms and races will have the odd skirmish, and occasionally there will be an outbreak of a particularly dangerous monster that hunters would have to face, but largely Eden was in a time of tranquility. On the surface. In reality the kingdoms were each looking for something to give them the winning edge over their neighbors, many secretive groups hatched plots and schemes in search of power, and the number of deadly monsters grew with every year. In this time of false peace a strange dungeon is born, one that could potentially change Eden forever. But more importantly the birth of this new dungeon could shatter the façade of peace that has held sway over Eden for the past three hundred years. On Hold Random Releases
8 233Devourer of Destiny
A wise old grandpa in a ring. An ancient weapon to unleash one's true potential. An unorthodox teacher who emerges from obscurity to provide heroes with enlightenment. In a cultivation world, those who would rise to the top usually have some sort of advantage that propels their rapid ascent. Things that many would offer their souls to obtain. Ebon Dirge, a fallen devil descended from the highest realms of the divine, is more than happy to accept their payment. Thwarted by the machinations of the mightiest beings in the universe, he is forced to begin anew in the lands of the weakest mortals. To prepare for the ultimate confrontation, he has hatched a plot to steal the best weapon of all: destiny. Whether it is a downtrodden youth in the savage wilds, a prince driven to desperation by the royal web tangled around him, or the students and staff of an illustrious magical academy... all should beware what they wish for. They just might get it. For a price, of course. --- PROGRAMMING NOTE This is a wholly rewritten version of the novel that originally began in 2018, not a copy-paste of those original chapters. ABOUT THE NOVEL Devourer of Destiny is an exploration of cultivation story tropes and foibles. It features: - Cultivation stuff. The story is a satirical take on xianxia and xuanhuan staples and tropes.- An irredeemably evil central character.- Multiple POVs. A lot of them, although the central character remains central and will always have the lion's share. POSTING SCHEDULE TBD. Still working it out.
8 125The Mystic Healer
With his clan declining quickly, Lance has no choice but to do what many experts choose not to, become a dual master; training as both a warrior and a mystic.Only by becoming stronger on a much harder journey, would Lance have the opportunity to not only assist his clan, but to take one step closer to immortality!
8 168Storm of the Elementals
The apocalypse was something that people were expecting to happen sooner or later, rising sea levels and everything. What our protagonist didn't expect was it to be from a system, let alone the fact that he missed it. Waking up as an elemental and being given frighteningly little info from a system that seemed a little off , stuck with 3 other eccentric individuals that he could almost swear are a bit dodgy, and not being quite sure he was human anymore, it was the start of a long day. It only got longer when he found out he was moved to a whole different world. ~ This is a slow burn story, focusing on the world and what happens if an eccentric historian gets transported in a world with systems and power that are not quite meant for him. ~ Some things you can expect: -No harem, god no. -Yes the protagonist is strong, no he isn't completely OP. -Other people who have been changed, he isn't the only special or chosen one who got transported or messed with. -It is sad to actually have to put this here, but the main character does shockingly have common sense.
8 173Dust and Glory
A century after World War III left the planet a nuclear wasteland, earth is nearly unrecognizable. Alien ‘Benefactors’ have taken control of North America’s most populous cities and built indomitable walls around them, defending their inhabitants but trapping them under a totalitarian rule. Outside these citadels, chaos reigns, led by the mutants of the wasteland; cultists, raiders, and canibal clans. Glory, a rogue android, is roaming the wastes after escaping her sadistic “father”. Alone and reeling from the effects of a previously sheltered life, her only ray of hope is Reza City, built upon the ruins of what used to be Phoenix, Arizona. True, the Benefactors have a strict ban on self-aware artificial intelligence in place, but that should only prove an issue if they realize she’s an AI. The real problem is what lurks outside the city: over a million square miles of harsh, unyielding desert. And slinking between the dunes and the fissures are the mutants, looking for an easy victim.
8 377walking disaster
a burnt child loves the fire tfatws bucky barnes x oc
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