Blacksmith vs. the System 309

I watched the roar of the cannons, raining death on our enemies, the corrupted and the heretics on one side, the sea monsters from the other side. A grand battle, one that we were able to sustain without a single casualty.

That equation came with a truly shocking use of shells, already surpassing a hundred metric tons of high-grade mana alloys. We were probably the only city that would find that equation acceptable, as for others, sacrificing a few people to maintain stores would be better. After all, a trip to the dungeon was all they needed to create a replacement.

As for us, well, there was a reason I fought hard to build a proper industry to create mana alloys, already running with limited intervention from skills.

I wanted to watch the heretic army to see if they had a nasty surprise hidden, but before that could come ahead, the shark finally lost its patience, and rushed forward, trying to breach the ice wall. Liam looked at me, asking whether to use the experimental cannons. I shook my head, and instead, I triggered the first wave of the traps I had seeded around the ice wall.

The shark's rage was as spectacular as it was ineffective, coming in the form of a dozen huge columns of water, their immense momentum splashing helplessly against the steel walls of our castle. I responded by a dozen ranged frost attacks of my own, which bit deep into its skin, even managing to partially freeze it.

It retreated. It gained us another few minutes.

I frowned, surprised by their actions. At this point, I expected either a reckless rush, or a retreat after repeated failures. Yet, they stayed at the edge, patiently testing our defenses.

Something was different about the sea monsters. I wondered if it was just about the age. On land, at least in the range I could reach, their lives were measured in weeks, before a hunter team dealt with them or they came across a town.

Or maybe, it was a difference of source. Quite a few land beasts were dungeon monsters that had broken free. Maybe the shark was a normal beast that had got lucky. Though, whether such a thing was even possible, I had no idea.

Maybe I was completely wrong, and it was about the sea. Too many options, too little knowledge to base my assumptions.

I would kill for a proper book on Void energy, and its impact on fauna —

“Void energy,” I muttered, finally remembering my recently upgraded skill, one that allowed me to perceive void energy directly. I could see how the ocean handled the void energy.

I moved to the ocean once more, standing on the frozen platform. I closed my eyes momentarily, focusing on the Void Sentry skill, trying to read how much errant void energy. On land, the earth pushed it back, which meant it accumulated on the surface at night, then slowly got burned during the day under the direct impact of the sunlight.

Though that breaking down took some time, which was why, once heretics had destroyed something in the sky that pushed away the void energy, it started to accumulate on the land, relying on the dungeons to properly cleanse the lands.

What I felt from the ocean put a frown on my face. “That’s … troubling,” I muttered, as I could sense the void energy easily penetrating the ocean surface without the slightest push. On one hand, it might be why the sea boss monsters were less savage than the land boss monsters. They were less corrupt.

I was reluctant to call that fact a silver lining, though, as it meant that the sea beasts were still dangerous and hated humans. They were just more strategic about it.

Then, there was the other question, the real troubling fact. What happened to all the void energy that passed through the sea? It probably got destroyed in the shallow water. I feared that the situation in the depths of the ocean was considerably different.

Void energy got slowly destroyed by the sunlight, which was famously unable to penetrate water after a certain depth. Below five hundred feet, the light was dispersed to the point of uselessness, and once that number surpassed two thousand feet, practically, it was total darkness.

I gulped, afraid of the real situation. Technically, there was a chance that whatever special magical impact the sunlight had on the void energy wasn’t wholly dependent on the light, and was able to keep the ocean floor clean.

“I doubt we’re that lucky,” I muttered, feeling that, if that was the case, the ocean wouldn’t have been the source of threat even for the more developed cities.

It was troubling.

Naturally, with my luck, the moment I discovered something troubling, another issue arrived to distract me. It was from the castle, calling for a retreat. Since I was the only one outside the castle, it meant I was the recipient.

I sent several more attacks toward the sea, targeting both the shark and the octopus to make sure they would stay away a bit more. We would eventually have to hunt them or scare them away, but it was not something I wanted to do with the heretic attack still ongoing, their numbers persisting despite constant shelling.

A familiar sight that reminded me of the first real battle we had endured after retreating into the dungeon; though the monsters attacking were stronger. Luckily, we had improved even more. Rather than weak shells that struggled to damage anything stronger than the weakest mob of monsters, each shell created a zone of devastation that destroyed all but the strongest of the monsters.

The monsters that survived didn’t need my personal attention. Our army was not limited to a bunch of farmers below level twenty, holding spears for the first time, but ascended farmers, each capable of wielding a range of spells and martial options, every single of them stronger than I was back then.

Truly a game-changer.

It was also why I had a frown on my face as I returned to their side. I couldn’t see anything that would signal for me to use the emergency alert. Making the situation even scarier, it was either Liam or Spencer who was calling me, neither with a habit of rashness.

When I returned, I found Spencer examining the same device that had driven him to panic earlier, his frown deeper. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Professor. The device is going crazy,” he muttered. “It might be an error, but…”

“You did the right thing calling me,” I responded, focusing on the device. “Have you gone to check the dungeon?” I wasn’t able to feel anything from my connection, but it was better safe than sorry.

“I did,” he responded. “The readings are perfectly normal in the dungeon. No leakage. Nothing.”

“Alright. Explain to me exactly how it works,” I responded. Initially, I had assumed that the working principles weren’t critical compared to the battle, but the fluctuation had changed my mind. “What this device tracks.”

“To be fair, Professor, I’m not sure yet,” he said. “I have calibrated it to the noise created by the weakened parts of the dungeon walls, as well as the gates. There’s at least one type of energy, which we tentatively named DX energy, whose presence correlates with the strength of the dungeon borders; the weaker the walls, the denser the energy.”

“A mysterious new energy,” I muttered. “Are you sure about the conclusion? Maybe your method is resonating with an absence of energy.”

“That’s not impossible,” he muttered. “We still have no idea what that DX energy is. It might not be a type of energy, but an imbalance between two. Our best guess is that it’s a non-destructive energy radiating from one of the other dimensions, but we might be mistaken.”

He flipped open the device, showing a lattice of semi-organic crystals, developed in a complicated pattern.

“Any reason for the shape?”

“Not particularly. We have just tried to maximize the resonance through testing. I’m sorry that—”

“No need to apologize,” I said. “That’s how we achieve progress. We just need to focus on more.” I examined the structure, trying to see if it triggered any reaction in one of the skills. It did not.

Yet, even as I examined the device, I could see that its output was spiking; a spike that was far too steady for it to be random noise.

“Alright, do you have a backup of the device?” I asked. He nodded and gave me one. I took it and started moving around. First, I started simple, circling the castle, about a mile, and noticed that the farther I got from the castle, the weaker the resonance became. The epicenter was near the castle … but not on top of it.

The next step, I decided to check up and down, and used wind to fly, glad that I had solved my little concern with the heights. The more I floated, the higher the resonance got. After half a mile, I decided it was enough and returned, but not before sending the device to the sky as a probe.

The result was telling. The resonance spiked somewhere about three miles in the sky before disappearing.

There was a chance that it was a misreading, but I decided not to take the risk.

I returned to the castle and started building a few wards, each targeting the epicenter of the anomaly. I would be ready if something came out. Was that an excessive measure? Certainly, especially since there was a chance I was reacting to a completely natural phenomenon.

But, merely ten minutes later, a ripple covered the sky, making me glad for the precaution.