Chương 326: Discovery

After the Magic System upgraded his auto-mapper to B Rank, Damion inspected it with True Sight. To his amazement, the range of the auto-mapper now extended to 50 kilometers in every direction. This was a huge improvement. With this B Rank artifact, he would be able to map well into the Red Zone just by skimming the edge of the border and still be able to detect any Breaches inside the Yellow Zones.

In fact, with this auto-mapper, Damion had a feeling he could map an entire Yellow Zone in a day and if he was brave enough, perhaps even map an entire Red Zone. When morning came, Damion decided to put his auto-mapper into service by returning to the point where he and Phil had ended their exploration the day before. Casting Portal, the pair returned to the area and found it exactly as they left it.

After turning on his auto-mapper, Damion pulled out his tablet and took a look at the enlarged area his artifact could now show him. To his amazement, about 30 kilometers away was a cluster of Realm Breaches. He had never seen Breaches close together like that and the only thing he could imagine being the cause was something similar to the Saung beast wave two years ago. A number of Breaches had opened at once, causing a flood of Demonic Beasts into the Green Zone.

To Damion's surprise, he no longer sensed the powerful aura from the day before. He figured whatever Demonic Beast had caused it, had likely moved on to another area, or had not noticed their presence yet. Whichever was the case, speed was the nature of today's exploration. With that many Realm Breaches close by, there was a good chance there was already a beast wave in progress, the question was, were the beasts heading towards a human domain or not.

The map on his tablet did not reveal any large groups of signals that would indicate a beast wave, but it was possible they had already moved on.

"Let's go check that area out," Damion told Phil before flying off in the direction of the Breach cluster. Phil let out a loud chirp and flew after him. Mage and familiar traveled at close to their top speed and were able to reach the cluster in just a few minutes. To Damion's amazement, not only were the Breaches all Stable, they were also all A Rank Realm Breaches. Eight A Rank dungeons within 100 meters of one another, it was truly a magnificent and horrifying sight.

Damion saw no signs of Demonic Beast activity around the Breaches. Either these were newly formed, or it had been a long while since any Demonic Beasts came out of them. The more likely scenario was that they were newly formed. Since this Red Zone, like all the others received routine patrols, at least every other month, if these Breaches had been here for a while, they would have been reported and cleared. Damion took out his tablet and sent a message to the Adventurer Association under his alias James Picard.

Since he was not supposed to be out exploring as himself he could not send the message as himself but given the seriousness of eight A Rank dungeons in the open, it was important to alert the Association as soon as possible. S Ranks would respond to this threat. Damion just hoped he would get the chance to explore some of the dungeons before they were moved. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

A few seconds after sending the message, Damion felt a surge of power coming from the distance. He could not be sure, but he felt it was likely the same Demonic Beast he had sensed in the area before. There was plenty of time to flee, however, the problem was Damion was not sure if he wanted to. In his possession was the C Rank containment unit Mage Teft had procured for him.

He was fairly confident that if the Magic System upgraded it to B Rank, given how the System could improve enchantments and other effects of an artifact to their maximum, he felt there was a chance it could contain one of these Breaches. The downside to the containment unit was that it took a while to set up. There was no guarantee he would be able to acquire one of the dungeons here before members of the Adventurer Association and Mage Association arrived.

And there was no guarantee the Realm Breach he took would be of use to him. Until the dungeons were explored, they could contain anything. There was also one other situation Damion had to take care of before anyone else arrived, Phil. The Demonic Beast was Damion Wells' familiar, not James Picard's. Taking the auto-mapper from Phil, he cast Portal to send the Blizzard King back to their home.

"Go on home," Damion told the bird as he activated his Metamorphic Bracelet.

"It won't be good if people connect you to me." Phil reluctantly went through the magical passageway to the hill over their underground home. Damion was not sure how long he would be waiting here. He was sure plenty of A Ranks would be showing up to clear these Breaches and potentially even bringing containment units to take ownership of them. As a Spatial mage he was sure his talents would be sought after for exploring the dungeons and finding out which were profitable, and which were not.

He just had to be patient. While Damion was waiting for the cavalry to arrive, he noticed the pressure he felt from a Demonic Beast was slowly building up. Looking around, he could not locate the creature, but given how the pressure was slowly growing, it made it seem that whatever kind of Demonic Beast it was, it was coming closer. The longer Damion waited, the more he felt that he should leave the area. The Demonic Beast was pushing out its aura to try and scare him off.

This told him it was smarter than most and also that it was not sure if it could defeat him. As James Picard, Damion had switched off Concealed Aura, so the Demonic Beast should have been able to detect that he was an early B Rank. Any A Rank creature was sure to have attacked already, so Damion guessed the Demonic Beast somewhere in the B Rank.

While Damion was pondering how strong the Demonic Beast was and what kind it was, the creature was in fact slowly creeping up on him and just as he was beginning to think the creature was going to leave things at a stalemate, it attacked. The ground underneath Damion's feet exploded. Sending him into the air. A split second later, he used Blink to move himself out of the path of the Demonic Beast, keeping himself in the air and hopefully out of danger.

But a second later he was smacked with what he guessed was a tail. The blow sent Damion slamming into the ground before he even had enough time to consider using Blink again. Hitting the ground did not hurt Damion, except perhaps for his pride. The blow from the tail was strong, and he hit the ground with a fair amount of force. However, his body was strong from years of training, and he had the protection of the enchantments on his armor which held, saving him from injury.

Damion got to his feet quickly, looking around to see where the Demonic Beast had gone, unfortunately all he could see was a pair of holes in the ground. Entry and exit. Since this Demonic Beast was s subterranean creature until it came out in the open, Damion had no way to identify it. He could still make a few guesses though. Such as, it was most likely an Earth or Stone affinity, and he still believed it was a B Rank Demonic Beast. After all, an A Rank Demonic Beast would have hit much harder.