Varian's feet touched the ground, and the next moment, he appeared dozens of meters away.
He headed towards the white barrier, the exit of the dungeon.
He passed plains, forests and stopped after reaching the edge.
Dungeon had many ecosystems. Now, he was in a desert. An adult man would've fainted by just walking in such heat, but Varian didn't even sweat.
A peak greater human could lift a military truck and level a normal building. Now, he had 70% of that strength.
'But it's not enough.' Varian walked towards the white barrier. He couldn't appreciate it before, but now he couldn't help but appreciate the soft light. It was like the legendary moonlight.
'Moon!'
Moon used to emit similar soft white light in Old Earth time. But after it was converted to a military base and second line of defense, Varian, or any human for that matter, couldn't see the white moon anymore.
There was only a chunk of red metal in the sky.
For the exchange of safety, the world sacrificed the beauty of moonlight. Only after losing what they previously took for granted did the humans realize what they've lost.
Even though many regretted it, it was irreversible.
'From landing on to the moon to explore the deeper space to stop the Abyssals invading earth. How low did humanity fall?'
Varian shook his head and bent down to see the stones all around.
'I could just try my luck.'
He extended his space sense and scanned the surroundings.
"None."
Varian shook his head in frustration and got up.
However, his space sense slightly shook, and he picked a small grey stone.
'Spacort?' He sensed its space power was far less and impure compared to space stone.
'Why can't it be a space stone?.' He sighed but placed it in his space ring.
'The space power in spacort is impure and small. However, their quantities can make give me some tangible benefits. My space power can improve.' Varian continued to search and found a few more spacorts.
After ensuring there were no more space stones, he headed back to his cave.
It was on top of a barren hill and was as wide as a 30 meters. Its location was in the edge of Outer zone. This meant the monsters that dwelled here were the absolute beginners of Level 3.
Varian was confident in suppressing even a horde of such level 3s.
"Hiss!"
As he was about to enter the cave, his heightened hearing caught a sound.
Varian didn't flinch and stepped in.
Shauu!
A ten meter snake as thick as a human barred its fangs at him and lashed its tail at him.
It was a Level 3 monster.
The peak Level 2 Varian would've struggled to deal with it. But the him now?
Varian just snapped his fingers, and the space around the snake froze a moment.
Crack.
Using its level 3 strength, the snake's tail broke the level 2 space binding. However—
Shaa!
A shark sword sliced into half across its length.
"Dinner confirmed." Varian smiled.
Then he dug up the stomach section and found a small white sphere — Beast core.
Even though he had no immediate use for them, he developed the habit of collecting the beast cores he hunted.
He wanted the beast cores of the rats as well. Unfortunately, after he recovered and reached the location where he slew twelve rats, it was too late.
Varian only saw their skeletons and scales. Everything, including their beast cores, seemed to be eaten.
'In my injured condition, staying there to collect beast cores instead of escaping is suicide.' He shrugged it off and sliced the snake meat into pieces.
He held one slice and put the rest in his storage.
Then, Varian formed a small fire using the primitive method and roasted the snake.
A Great Human physique could not preserve itself based on aura alone. So whether he liked it or not, Varian had to eat.
Thankfully, it wasn't too bad, and he finished his first meal in the lost dungeon and sat down to practice.
With a flick, a dozen spacorts appeared in his palms. On top of them was a tiny rock — his only space stone.
Varian channeled his space power into the space stone and it carefully guided it out, taking a small portion of the pure space power inside it.
This space power entered his body and slowly merged into his own space power.
After assimilating the new space power, he channeled his space power into the spacorts.
The surrounding space fluctuated. It weakened and solidified. It twisted and stretched.
Varian focused his space sense and trained it to this dynamic and turbulent form of space.
At the same time, he stretched it slightly beyond its current range.
During fights, there would be no static enemies. Varian was training space sense for battles and, at the same time, expanding at it.
The cycle continued, and Varian lost track of time.
With each cycle, his space power slightly rose and his space sense was increasingly accustomed to dynamic targets, with its range rising at the same time.
After a while, he felt 'full'.
It was like he couldn't eat anymore. He had to give his training a break.
[+20 Xp
Space Path Level 2: 20/200]
The System's prompt greeted him. With it, a few aura crystals also vanished.
'20 in one sitting? Are you serious?' Varian was shocked.
[Host, using a space stone is too extravagant for humanity.] It commented.
'I'm just making the best use of my opportunities.' Varian shrugged.
Space stones were formed in Inner space. They contained the true essence of space power and were extremely useful to any Space awakener.
Many space stones get ejected to the Outer space every year. Spotting them, however, was incredibly hard, and there was almost always a shortage of them.
On the other hand, spacorts were formed in Inner space, but also in the outer space with complex spaces.
Since the Lost Dungeon was in Inner space, many spacorts and space stones enter it every day.
Thus, Varian was in supply of expensive training resources and he was using them unapologetically.
His actions would drive any normal human mad. It was too extravagant for a Level 2 to use space stone.
Despite being immensely beneficial to Space Awakeners, not a single space stone was sold in the federation.
The only thing sold was spacort, and it was very expensive.
The locations like Mirror Hollow Abyss which gave spacorts were limited in the number of spacorts they could provide.
'I could be executed if this is known. It's not a joke.' Varian glanced at his comm and sighed.
The stakes were too much.
Any of the eight planets in the federation needed to be accessible in case of emergency.
Even the latest space shuttles reaching the 10% speed of light would take hours, if not days, to reach the outer planets.
So every planet had several teleportation formations exclusively for the use of military.
All the space stones in the federation went to maintaining and using these formations.
'But I want to survive first. Everything else comes later.' Varian snickered and glanced at his palms.
A lot of spacorts turned to dust while the space stone dimmed slightly.
"Spacorts, I can manage. But what if the space stone also runs out?" Varian had a headache.
He put them into the space ring and almost coughed out blood once again.
"Why are my aura crystals so low?" There were quite a few before his advancement. Now only a pitiful few were left.
[Host, your advancement to Level 3 consumed way more aura than expected. And remember, you have two paths. You will only need more of them.]
"Tch."
He wouldn't be able to breakthrough to Level 3 Space path with them, much less Level 4 in Body path.
"I'm in a bad mood." Varian walked out of the cave and sprinted to the site where he fought the red-scaled rats.
"I'm in a bad mood." He muttered and carefully observed the ground.
"If you can find me, then I can find you too." He spotted the trails by which the red-scaled rats travelled to him.
"Revenge." He snickered and chased the trails.
After a few minutes, he was standing in front of the nest.