[Chapter 275. Fog Cliff Castle]

Searanox left them after they had handed over all their old pieces, the collection of simple jewelry disappearing into his storage ring with a casual flick of his wrist.

On his way out, he spoke to the four teams of silver-ranked adventurers who were grinding away inside the Labyrinth's sun-baked expanse. Their armor was still dented from previous battles, and their expressions were a mixture of determination and exhaustion as they rested between creatures. He informed them that the first group to reach level fifteen would receive a personal monetary reward from him. The offer sparked immediate excitement among the teams; their weary eyes suddenly burned with renewed competitive fire as they immediately began discussing strategies and formations to maximize their experience gains.

Once outside the Labyrinth, his TP was already mostly recovered. With his city protected by the newly summoned drones, Searanox was able to leave without worrying about it being invaded. The thought was reassuring as he mounted his travel drone, its metallic frame humming with power as it lifted off the ground. He made his way toward the northeast dungeons, the landscape below becoming a blur of vegetation as the drone accelerated.

`Time to level up myself.`

He reached the dungeon where he had encountered Kandora and her team before nightfall. The sun was slowly setting over the horizon in a spectacular display of orange and purple hues. The memory of their brief, tense encounter flickered in his mind before he dismissed it with a mental shrug.

In his hand, he held a round object that served to lead him toward the dungeons. Its surface was mostly smooth and cool to the touch, featuring a compass rose engraved in its center and surrounded by sixteen faceted, milky gems that seemed to absorb the fading light. The gem facing the dungeon right next to him glowed with a brilliant dark blue light, pulsing with steady intensity, while two others glowed less intensely with a dimmer azure. He had finally figured out how this item worked, and in the end, it was quite straightforward: the stronger the glow, the closer a dungeon was in that direction.

`With the compass working perfectly.` he made his way toward the next dungeon. Within a matter of minutes, he arrived.

To his dismay, however, it was a dungeon named Undergrowth, and its level was only ten. A wave of irritation flickered across Searanox's features as the System window materialized in his vision. From the information extracted from the captive Imperial strike team, he knew that the dungeons closer to the Node were weaker. The outer rim dungeons would offer the true path to meaningful advancement. He turned in the direction of the Mineshaft behind him, then over toward where the Molten Core was located to his right—the memory of its blistering heat still fresh in his mind.

Searanox looked down at the compass and saw that five gems were glowing in varying intensities, their azure luminescence pulsing softly against the deepening twilight. Even though he understood how it worked, it was not easy to tell distance by the glow alone. The device provided direction, not level, creating a frustrating ambiguity that forced him into a game of trial and error. He suspected the ones glowing in front of him were the lower-level dungeons clustered near the Node.

His drone banked to the left, the smooth turn sending a rush of cool air across his face as it made its way toward the next glow on the compass. Not long after, he spotted the next portal in the distance. As he drew close enough to bring up the System window, the familiar tingling sensation washed over his mind. His gaze fixed on the new information appearing before him.

Searanox's boots crunched softly as they touched down on the damp earth in front of the dungeon portal. He took a brief moment to survey the area before stepping through. The transition was familiar to him now—a brief, disorienting sensation of being simultaneously pulled apart and reassembled.

He found himself in a corridor of weathered stone, the air immediately growing colder and thicker with the weight of centuries. Long, ruined carpets—once deep reds and blues but now faded to muted browns and grays—covered the length of the stone floor, their patterns barely visible under layers of dust and decay. Large, tall windows lined his left side; their glass was so dirty it looked like murky water, with occasional shattered panes leaving jagged, gaping wounds in the stone wall. Thick fog flowed in through these breaks, completely obscuring any view of the outside world. It was as if the entire structure were adrift in a sea of mist.

Light fixtures hung on the wall at regular intervals, each containing a fist-sized stone that gave off a decent amount of pale turquoise light, casting long shadows that made the corridor feel alive with movement. The fog that came in from the broken windows hung low above the floor, curling around the glow of the lights as if drawn to them, creating strange swirling patterns. The air carried the musty, damp smell of stone that had not seen sunlight in ages, mixed with the faint metallic tang of rust and something else—something wild and animalistic.

Searanox's mind was already calculating, his instincts kicking in as he assessed the environment. The fog provided cover, but also concealment for enemies. With a mere thought, he summoned a squad of drones, each appearing in a soft flash of System energy that momentarily illuminated the corridor in brilliant blue-white light. The mechanical constructs took formation the moment they materialized, their metallic bodies gleaming under the turquoise glow as they arrayed themselves in a protective perimeter around him.

His defensive drones led the charge into the surprisingly well lit dungeon. The hallway was long, allowing him to see far into the distance. This dungeon had an entirely different feel to it than the others. Unlike the darkness of the Mineshaft or the heat of the Molten Core, Fog Cliff Castle was illuminated by those turquoise stones that cast an unsettling glow along the corridor. The air moved differently here too, carrying a damp chill that seeped through his armor, making the hairs on his arms stand on end.

After just several meters, Searanox stopped, and with him, all his drones; their metallic bodies fell silent in unison.

To his right was a weathered wooden door that had clearly seen better days, just like the rest of this castle. The doorframe was warped, the wood splintered and dark with moisture, and the iron hinges were thick with rust that flaked away at the slightest movement. He pushed the door inward. Behind it was a larger room filled with broken crates. There was not a single beast inside up to this moment, but he could hear them—the sounds of claws tapping on stone rang clear in his sensitive ears, a rhythmic scraping that seemed to echo from deeper within the castle walls. The tapping was accompanied by low, guttural growls.

With a soft nudge of his head, a recon drone appeared, flying right into the room. It circled once before pausing above a large stack of wooden crates.

Searanox made his way into the room, closely followed by his drones. His recon drone had found something, though he was not sure what it was. Through its feed, he couldn't see any signature, neither magical nor alive, but something was either inside or behind these crates.

His defensive drones moved with precision. After one of them blocked off the door with its barrier and the other situated itself right above him, he moved closer to the stack of crates. Stowing his rifle, he placed his hands on the wood. He sensed that it was soft and not as sturdy as he had imagined; it felt rotten and porous, giving slightly under the pressure of his gauntlets as if it might crumble at any moment. The surface gave off a musty, earthy scent.

With a sharp motion, he dug his armored fingers into the wood and tossed the entire crate across the room, where it shattered against the others standing there. Splinters and old dust rose into the air. As the dust lifted, Searanox could see that they were filled with what looked like hay. The impact created a cascade of wooden debris, sending a cloud of dust motes dancing in the turquoise light. The sound echoed through the room, followed by an unnerving silence as the settling dust slowly revealed the contents of the destroyed containers.

He walked over and ran his fingers through the hay. It broke down into dust and fragments under his touch. The cuttings were old and brittle, yellowed with age and decay, crumbling into fine powder that coated his armored fingers. He sifted through the remnants.

`Alright, very old and brittle fillings.`

Searanox's fingers emerged from the decayed hay, coated in a fine yellow powder that smelled of centuries of neglect. The material disintegrated against his armored gauntlets like dried autumn leaves. His heightened senses detected the faintest trace of something metallic mixed with the earthy decay—barely perceptible, but enough to pique his interest.

After a moment of pushing his hand deeper into the filling—his fingers brushing against the bottom of the crate to find nothing but splintered wood and more rot—he turned back toward the stacked ones at the other side. This time, he pulled the lid off and tossed it backward before rummaging through the brittle filling. The sound of the wooden lid hitting the stone floor echoed in the otherwise silent chamber—a sharp crack followed by a softer thud. His methodical search sent clouds of dust dancing in the turquoise light, creating a haze that made the room feel even more forgotten. After a couple of minutes of digging through another crate, then a third, his fingers encountered only more decay and disappointment.

`It was worth a try.`

He thought this just as a box flew across the room, shattering against the far wall with a satisfying explosion of splintered wood and dust. Several boxes later, he managed to clear the entire wall, creating a mountain of wooden debris that filled the center of the room. Behind the destroyed stacks, previously hidden from view, was another doorway. It stood dark and foreboding, its stone archway covered in the same damp moss that clung to most surfaces in this forgotten place, leading into another chamber filled with shelves and wooden crates.

His drone vanished into the dark doorway, its matte-black form disappearing into the gloom like a drop of ink in shadow. As the sensory feed flooded his mind Searanox closed his eyes to better process the data streaming from the recon drone. The turquoise light of the castle corridor faded behind his eyelids, replaced by the crystal-clear mental image of the drone's perspective.

"Fuck yes," he muttered, a grin spreading across his face. "That's what I'm talking about."