The Runic Alchemist

"They are not the same as us.." Valen said.

"There are similarities though," Agatha added. Celestine nodded, so did Valen.

"They have different methods of living and rituals, but the spells and strengths are not much different from us—that is why we search for their spells.." Celestine said.

Damian nodded. "Dungeons have much bigger importance in our life than most people think. Leveling is merely one part of it. The knowledge of spells is good, but only in the short term. For the long term, for the whole of humanity—this knowledge of other worlds is invaluable."

"Other worlds?" Seraphina asked.

"Yes, the truth of the dungeons I wish for all of the mainland to know. We were not in the dungeons for ten years, but in the world on which the dungeon was based." Damian replied.

"Based on? Lord Keeper, are you saying all the dungeons in our world are part of another world?" Agatha asked, with a bit more impatience than the others; she herself realized that, and her cheeks turned red with embarrassment. Damian merely smiled—good to know he wasn't the only one interested in the knowledge of dungeons.

"Yes, but not exactly. They are a copy of the world, like our astral planes. I don't have enough information, but if I have to guess, the dungeon shows the ruins of a civilization after a great calamity or something that ends all its native population. It usually includes stories of their people described through murals or ruins."

"Can we go to these worlds?" Celestine asked.

Damian shook his head, "Not yet. But there has to be a reason why they are here—if we conquer enough of them and compare the data acquired.."

"There is a possibility of us decoding something of importance," Valen finished his sentence with a look of realization.

"Can only the five of us do that?" Seraphina asked.

"No, it's not your job," Damian corrected her. "I will need many academics and scholars for that. You guys can ignore the individual dungeon reports now and focus only on the dungeon relics. See if there is anything of particular use that will help us or improve the lives of our people. Keep in mind that any runic spell you come across can be copied and mass-produced—so think big."

"Yes, Lord Keeper." The five answered and went back to their job.

When night fell, Damian smiled mischievously and waited for Lucian and the others to come back home from their dungeon diving. Not everyone could return, but Third Rankers had no problem flying through several levels every day—it was small work for the chance to stay with their loved ones every day. Damian had plans to make dungeon diving more efficient for normal folks, but that would come later.

When Lucian came back and took a shower, getting refreshed for dinner, Damian awaited her in their room. When she came back, at first looking at him with warmth, but a second later she remembered she was mad at him and her stone-cold expression returned. Damian could not help but chuckle.

"Come with me, I have prepared something for you," Damian said, getting up.

"What if I don't?"

"Then I will be one sad Keeper."

"Did you wait for me?"

"Yes, I have prepared something special for you," Damian replied, smiling.

She nodded but still kept eyeing him. When Damian opened a waygate and pulled her in, Lucian's eyes widened. They were back at the small island in the middle of the ocean—only this time it was fully lit by lights of blue, gold, and green. Damian had made simple runic tools that made fire using liquid mana, but he had modified the color just slightly—it increased the cost of mana with added sections in the runic circle, but the result spoke for itself.

On the beach, colored with all the hues, with the added dark, clear sky twinkling with millions of stars—Damian had set up a lunch table with all the foods he remembered Lucian preferring to eat over others.

Needless to say—Lucian forgot all about his earlier transgressions. Damian's game was strong after all.

Once the dinner ended with quite pleasant conversations and Lucian proposed to go back, Damian remembered another thing he had planned to do tonight.

"Ah! Lucian, I called a meeting of others—I forgot to tell you. You are right, we should go back," Damian said, opening a waygate.

"Why the sudden meeting?" Lucian asked.

"The new metal I found—I want everyone's help to get that in enough quantity to start building some necessary buildings."

Damian and Lucian waited till the others gathered in his office, exchanging the highlights of their day with each other. When everyone came, minus Evrin, Damian took them to the sea dungeon where he had found the mecha-lizard, and they all entered on their own. Five people—so five mecha-lizards at once.

They did it for three hours straight—accumulating over 60 mecha-lizards. It was a lot of metal for now. Damian collected the sacrium storages and told everyone to rest if they wanted to once their ongoing dungeon was finished. Their imminent need for material was sated for now. Sam wanted to continue, Lucian and Souldealer decided to take a break.

Damian and Lucian spent the night getting refreshed for the next day of work. Lucian went back to her dungeon to get her team back while Damian reached his new factory as Evrin had already prepared some workers. Damian kept a group of them together and showed them how to do the whole process.

He had already written the scene of when to turn on which switch and how much they should wait or what they needed to do in that time. Still, Damian showed the group of workers how to do it from the very start till the end. People showed more promise than he was expecting—he felt bad for assuming they wouldn't understand, but he was pleasantly surprised at being proven wrong.

They listened and paid more attention than most people on Earth would. Damian let some of them do it for the next two mecha-lizards, and it was indeed a success. They could do it on their own.

Damian selected a few among the group who seemed to get the whole process better than others and decided to make them supervisors. Damian gave the guys a break after paying them the wage for the day through Evrin's attendants and told everyone to come back tomorrow. Damian himself started building more factories placed right next to each other, with some open space left in between.

He wanted to have at least 10 for the starting. After observing how these worked, he could expand more or wait for a better source of metal from other dungeons. He would have to keep visiting them for some time each day to see how it was going. There were chances of getting injured, which was why Damian wanted to make hundred percent sure the workers understood the whole process perfectly before leaving them to do all of it on their own. He also needed a blacksmith or people with some knowledge of blacksmithing.

It barely took half a day to finish. He had inscribed all the spells but had not put in the liquid mana, so it was just blue metal structures.

Finishing that, Damian went back to the Sanctum and started building more waygate points. All the major places in the Sanctuary were already connected through his steel waygates, but there were still border regions and other important cities and big villages Damian wanted to connect with the Waygate network for the civilians to be easily able to move throughout the entire Sanctuary in minutes.

The islands were also not connected thoroughly, so Damian changed that too. Once he had enough waygate points installed and had even more for the replacement for the steel ones—Damian started working on the other projects.

First, he wanted to have all the dungeons accessible. Damian started building the dungeon platforms for all the dungeons that he had in the list. For now, he did not make any pretty designs and just kept the square box of the Blazur alloy supported by the dungeon entrance itself underwater.

He put the monster in a caged prison above the square box and modified it for the waygate to open inside the metal square, keeping a little gap covered by an air shield. Damian also kept the wind-wormholes the same way for air circulation.

Damian tried to cover as many dungeons as possible. Not all were underwater—a few were on some random islands and even above the ocean surface. Those had potential to become much more than just simple dungeon platforms—Damian had already decided to develop those places further and expand and make them into something of an island that people could come to stay for a while.

He couldn't cover all the dungeons—Damian pulled an all-nighter and used up over half of the mecha-lizard to get as much blue metal as possible. Building over 180 square boxes over dungeon entrances. A few too swarmed by monsters he left untouched for now. There was risk involved, and he would have to make safety his priority there.

The above surface ocean dungeons were listed by him in another list—on those, he could build big platforms right now and send many people at once.