Chapter 442: Dirty Water

Just a few minutes later, once again, far, far away. Multiple kilometers from Draven’s location, another group appeared out of thin air.

This group had six people instead of four, and it was none other than Adrian, Claire, Serena, Aria, Octavia, and Vance.

All six of them looked around and saw that they were standing in a really elevated, hilly area. They could literally see the entire jungle from this place, at least as far as the eye could see.

Adrian appeared like he was just casually looking around, but in reality, his heartbeat had gotten significantly faster.

He stared intently at the glowing blue system screen that was moving along with his vision.

[You have entered a Dungeon’s Extended Domain.]

[Please find the main dungeon entrance and enter the dungeon to proceed with the Dungeon Takeover.]

Adrian took a slow, deep breath and exhaled. He mentally spoke to the system in his head like he always did.

’This dungeon has a domain, and I am currently standing inside that domain, right? And the dungeon entrance is somewhere else entirely. Which means that this dungeon can extend its influence far outside its own walls. Am I right?’

[Affirmative. But there will be limits. You will only be able to find out about these exact limits once you enter the dungeon and take over the ownership to control it.]

’Okay. I got it. Can you just point me directly towards the dungeon entrance?’

[I apologize, but I do not have the capability to do that. You will have to find the entrance yourself.]

Adrian sighed softly as he looked at a patch in the jungle that looked plain, without much trees.

He looked at Aria. "Do you think that place down there is a village or something?"

Aria looked down at the valley and nodded her head.

"Yeah, Papa. I think it could be a village. The river is very big, and the clearing is right next to it, so they have good, easy access to water, which is very important. Unless someone did it intentionally, a patch like that is not possible naturally in a dense forest like this."

Adrian nodded. "Well, that is very intuitive. You really are a genius, aren’t you? My cute angel is very intelligent isn’t she?"

He patted her head and both of them chuckled like idiots.

Then she looked up at Adrian, her smile fading slightly. "Papa, but I feel weird... there is no mana in the air. Not one bit."

Adrian nodded. He could feel the mana inside his own body slowly dissipating out through his mana veins. It was leaking specifically through his palms, his mouth, his eyes, and certain other areas.

"Why do you think this is the case?" Adrian asked.

He looked over at Serena. "Do you know why?"

Serena nodded. "Yeah, it is the basic, first principle of magic. Mana inherently moves from a place of high density to a place that has a lower density."

"Good," Adrian nodded.

He looked back down at his daughter. "Why do you think you are feeling like this, Aria?"

Aria pouted. "Because I have way more mana inside me than this air does."

"Yes," Adrian nodded. "You have significantly more mana inside your body compared to the air around you. The Grand Elder did tell us that knights are much more useful for this continent, but I don’t really know why. We can sense my mana leaving, but the fundamental properties of mana do not change whether it is for a knight or a mage, does it?"

Aria nodded in understanding.

Adrian turned to look at the others, focusing specifically on Claire since she was the only pure knight in the group.

"Do you feel anything different?" he asked her.

Claire shook her head firmly. "No, I do not feel anything different at all."

"I see," Adrian muttered. "The Grand Elder did say that the people in this place use mana in a completely different way. The natural state of mana in this place is supposedly liquid instead of the gaseous form that we are used to. So we need to find this liquid mana."

"Papa, do you know where this mana is?" Aria asked.

"Well, not really," Adrian admitted. "But we can test things out. We know exactly where the river is, so let’s go down and see if the regular water contains mana."

Adrian began to walk casually down the hill, and the others followed closely behind him.

While it took them almost an entire hour to go down to the river by foot, it wasn’t really an issue.

Adrian walked into the river, which had a really gentle, steady flow. He cupped his hands and scooped up a bunch of clear water. As he did that, he subtly sent some of it directly into his Dungeon Link.

He used the water in his hands to wash his face while he spoke to the system.

’System, tell me if there are any differences in this water or anything special in it when compared to the river water from Oresfall.’

The system immediately responded.

[There is a high content of iron particles and a slightly higher content of gold particles in this water compared to the water in Oresfall. They are minute, but they exist. The overall quality and purity of this water is much, much cleaner when compared to the Oresfall river.]

’Why?’ Adrian asked.

[Multiple highly populated territories are lined up along the exact same river that Oresfall uses. A lot of them dump their wastes directly into the river, and this same river water is used for multiple purposes down the line.]

Adrian immediately couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of disgust. The grim reality was that even he had casually used that river water for cooking. He had used it for cooking, for showering... literally for almost everything.

Adrian just blinked twice as he stared at the clean river water swirling around his ankles.

’Couldn’t you have told me this before? Now I feel like puking.’