From the center of the cave, jagged pillars of stone ringed a serpent's lair. There, hulking Thunderclaw Serpents bathed in the core's pulse. Their bodies were crowned with horns of flickering electricity. Their eyes glowed with malevolent blue hunger.
A new quest window chimed.
[QUEST: Kill 150 Thunderclaw Serpents
Level of Power: Foundation Realm Rank 8
For each murder, you get 800 to 900 gold coins.
Warning: Best to wear something that is lightning-resistant. Or dodge every strike.
Charles pulled Raijin's Emberfang out in one fluid stroke.
"Time to see if the sword's very dramatic resume is true."
A flash of scorching flesh and thunder came from the shadows as the first snake struck.
Charles was gone.
His footwork, honed by many fights, let him move sideways—a flash. Dark heat filled his hand. He sliced. His blade let forth a shrill yell.
And the serpent's head hit the ground with a wet, explosive thud, rolling like a roasted eel in festival skewers.
But that was just the first.
The others came in waves.
Blood, Fangs, and Laughing Death
The cave became a battleground of sparks and carnage. Thunder Strike after Storm Coil—bolts of blue-white fury slammed against Charles's defenses. His robes burned. His arms smoked. More than once, he hit the ground, rolling through puddles of snake blood and half-charged venom to dodge the attacks.
He slashed, burned, and punched with precision. Raijin's Emberfang sent out elemental fusion strikes—arcing lightning storms and violet flame mixed together. His Fist Art broke through serpent scales. His Footwork moved him between snapping jaws and electrified strikes with impressive skill.
But for every five he killed, one landed a hit.
Venom seared his back.
Fangs grazed his ribs.
A Storm Coil pushed him down and slammed him into a pillar so hard that his vision blurred.
[SIGMA: Vital indicators are quite bad. 71% of the damage has been done. Should I suggest a tactical retreat?]
"Are you kidding?" Charles coughed. "We're on 127. Only 23 more. I won't allow these slithering taser noodles to win in the end."
[SIGMA: Agreed. Putting out emergency stimulant vial #12.]
One jab. Then two. Pain became white fire in his veins.
His sword spun in an arc, and three serpents were beheaded mid-coil, their blood bursting like fireworks across the mana-lit cavern.
He was grinning like a madman now. Soaked in venom. Limbs shaking. One sleeve was burnt off. A single eyebrow singed.
"Who's laughing now, you overgrown worms?" he gasped, hacking a cough laced with static. "Still better than boardroom politics."
Finally… finally… serpent 150 collapsed into an electrified puddle of its own melted brain.
The cavern dimmed, the mana stilled.
Charles staggered backward.
His knees buckled.
The threshold had been broken.
But not without violence.
[BREAKTHROUGH INITIATED – FOUNDATION REALM RANK 8]
He sprinted to a nearby chamber he had noticed earlier. It was empty and sealed off by ancient stone glyphs.
His body convulsed.
Every bone cracked.
Muscles spasmed.
His organs burned from qi overload. Meridians twisted beneath his skin—expanding, breaking, then healing. It felt like his whole skeleton was being taken apart and rebuilt with nails made of lightning.
"AAAAAGGHHH—"
[SIGMA: Deploying 6 Recovery Pills, 3 Vital Qi Elixirs, and 1 Emergency Flame-Body Stabilizer.]
Charles gulped them down mid-scream.
For the next five minutes, he felt as if someone had shoved a live sun into his dantian and set it spinning.
When it was over, he lay on the stone floor, chest heaving, cloak burned, and the ceiling swam in and out of sight.
"...I hate growing."
[BREAKTHROUGH COMPLETE—Foundation Realm Rank 8 Achieved]
[SIGMA: Final Loot Summary from Thunderclaw Serpents:
150 scales from Thunderclaw
9 Storm Beast Cores
13 Lightning Essences
5 Soulstones of the Serpent
6 Thunderclaw Fangs
84,600 gold coins (an average of 880 coins for each murder)
Charles whistled softly, his head still whirling.
[SIGMA: Do you want to start the protocol for banking transfers and storing equipment?]
Charles rolled over, wiping blood from his mouth.
"SIGMA," he croaked, "remind me to take a vacation when I hit Rank 10."
[SIGMA: Noted. Adding to future itinerary: "Fake Death, Disappear, Tropical Beach Retreat."]
Charles laughed until it hurt.
"Best damn assistant in the multiverse."
Lightning Eden - The Cave of Crystalline Storms
With every step, the air thickened. There was more here than imminent death or peril, though those loomed.
"Go on," Charles smirked. "Make me blush."
The cave was unlike anything he'd ever seen.
Veins of glowing crystal covered the walls like frozen lightning bolts—some rough, others smoothed by time and mana flows. They glowed softly in shades of violet, sapphire, and silver. Each beat matched the sound of a stormy sky.
A mine for natural mana crystals.
But this was more than a cave. Every gust carried a crackling charge. Each stalactite pulsed with latent power. The whole cave was a symphony of storms awaiting a conductor.
Charles crouched next to a group of herbs, some of which were sparse and some of which were blooming defiantly next to glowing stones.
He whispered, "Thunderleaf Herb," stroking one.
It zapped the tip of his finger.
"Yes." Still hot.
The light made the leaf look blue-green, and its veins sparkled like circuit lines.
[SIGMA: Thunderleaf is real. A lightning affinity booster with a moderate grade. Estimated market value: 7,000 gold per bundle.]
Charles whispered as if in prayer, "Oh, I'm going to ruin a kingdom."
He ventured deeper, where the herb clusters thickened. Stormroot vines snaked around the base of an ancient mana crystal pillar. Each root hummed with shocked vitality.
Then he saw them.
Thundercloud Blossoms.
Five of them.
The petals shone violet-black, moving seductively between the clouds and the lightning.
Charles stopped moving.
"SIGMA."
Confirmed by SIGMA. Flowers in the Thundercloud. Individual worth: 25,000 to 35,000 gold. You need to be precise when you harvest. High risk of elemental backlash:
He whispered, "I'm not breathing. Tell my lungs to stay in formation."
[SIGMA: Understood. For twenty seconds, breathing stopped. [Ready for the harvesting protocol.]
Charles advanced like a thief, movements honed by stealth drills. One cut, a turn, knife flicking with lightning qi to match the blossom.
Click—shimmer—pulse.
He did it.
The first flower fell into his inventory like a queen falls into her vault. One is down. Four more to go.
Twenty minutes later, he stood triumphant, all five flowers safely stored. His hands were lightly burned, hair prickling upward in erratic spikes.
He said, "Did I pick magical plants or just get cast in an ad for electrified hair?"
[SIGMA: The humidity index went up. Visual signature: looks like a mess. Rating of approval: 9.4 out of 10.]
He picked Charged Ivy from crystal walls—stormlit vines twisting deeper. Mana grew denser, forcing Charles to steady his breath. One careless inhale could stress his lungs or nerves.
He muttered, "Not dying for a vine. Even if it tastes like voltage wine."
After an hour, his stock had turned into a real goldmine:
[SIGMA INVENTORY – Current Herb Loadout
23 bundles of Thunderleaf Herb
Stormroot Herb 7 times
Voltspike Blossom × 11
19 coils of Charged Ivy
Thundercloud Blossom × 5
Estimated Market Value: 476,000 gold (a conservative estimate)]
But that was just one part of it.
Charles stopped in a massive chamber fit for a dragon's nest, walls sparkling with mana crystals brimming with lightning—raw elemental wealth.
He said, "Spoiled nobles mine iron. This is gold lightning."
[ SIGMA: The analysis of the mana crystal is done. Estimate:
187 low-tier crystals
92 units in the middle tier
28 units in the high tier
One Unclassified Celestial Crystal (sealed)]
Charles blinked. "What's that?"
[SIGMA: Lightning Crystal from the Celestial Tier. Ratio of elements that have not been classified. Estimated risk of extraction: death. Estimated market value: could shake the empire.]
He bent down next to it.
The crystal pulsed in a pool of condensed lightning qi, covered in Charged Ivy, silent and divine.
He didn't touch it.
Not yet.
Instead, he stood and stared out over the glowing expanse.
A dungeon, a vault, a sanctuary. Lightning incarnate, waiting to be tamed.
He couldn't stop smiling.
Crown of Thunder – The Awakening of Vytharion
The cavern's air shifted from tingling curiosity to raw, spine-tingling fear. Charles Ziglar's breath hitched, not from effort but awe. The place crackled with life, as if it had waited centuries for this reckoning.
Storm-laced lightning veins crisscrossed the ceiling, pulsing with his heartbeat. Earth vibrated beneath his boots—pure threat. He stepped further in, fists clenching, lungs tasting the charged air, knowing today's meditation values had been obliterated.
From the abyssal darkness came a rupture of sound: a rumble like tectonic consensus. Crystal trembled when it rose.
An apex variant of the Thunderclaw Serpent, thirty meters of coiled storm and living lightning, slithered from the shadows. Its scales, chipped and jagged, sparkled silver-blue. Veins of raw electricity surged across its body, arcing in miniature storms. Atop its head, a crystalline crest glinted, its Skycoil Crown pulsing with stored thunderstorm fury.
Charles stopped. His heart raced against his ribs. He tightened his grip on Raijin's Emberfang until sparks flew off the hilt, which was filled with lightning.
[SIGMA: Warning. Found a Dungeon Boss-class being. Core Realm Rank 1 is the highest level of power. The code name is Vytharion the Skycoil.]
He took a drink. "Great," he said dryly. "I came for herbs and almost tripped over a snake that looked like a thunder god."
[SIGMA: Not a good idea to get involved. You're three sub-realms below it.]
Charles smiled, his teeth red from biting his lip. "Yeah? I guess it's time to break that record.
[SIGMA: I like keeping track of your last moments. For protection.]
The serpent's mouth opened, and a shockwave of compressed sky blasted out. It hit Charles right in the chest. Rocks blew up, sparks lit up the crystal walls, and he fell, his arms and legs shaking. His cloak was ripped by crystal shards, and his lungs screamed.
He coughed up blood. Ground up. Good.
[SIGMA: Your vital signs are still in the "miraculously survivable" range. Microfractures have been found.]
Charles spat red. "Great. Keep going.
He rushed forward, putting elemental energy into his sword. The blade was struck by lightning, and flames burst from its tip. He quickly let go of Firestorm Blade and then Thunderstrike Cleaver. Lightning danced across his sword in streaks of purple and orange.
The serpent lunged. Lightning-cataclysm erupted. Charles parried, his sword shuddering with feedback. Lightning etched across his palm—he winced, but grinned.
"Your elders would have loved you," he quipped. "Great thunderpower… but terrible fashion sense."
The beast answered with a deafening roar, launching a violent Titanstorm Pulse—a radial shockwave that collapsed stalagmites and rattled his bones. Charles staggered, back pressed against molten crystal. Lightning flared in his eyes; he tasted ozone and iron.
He erupted in sparks as Storm Fusion ignited, wrapping him in violet flame and electricity. He rushed forward, and blades met fang and scale. Sparks flew.
The serpent reared, whipping a Serpent Lord's Coil. Wind and lightning rolled outward in a shield. Charles's strike bounced off, his blade whistling past the serpent's side. He crashed into a crystal pillar, which shattered in a shower of blue glass.
He coughed. Another mouthful of blood. But he twisted, feinted, vanished—the lithe blur of Phantom Stride—and reappeared on the serpent's back, the stormcrown at eye level.
He stared. Just. For a heartbeat.
Then Emberstorm Wrath ignited.
The blade went down into a column of stormlight. When Vytharion screamed, the cave shook and lightning shot out. The walls of crystal bent. Charles was thrown clear, and his arms and legs broke against stone and crushed crystal pillars. There was smoke and mana dust in his eyes.
[SIGMA: Injury is bad but not deadly. Vital signs are not stable.]
He pushed himself up, blood dripping, and his body was on fire with pain. "Three realms below? I should be dead. But hey, let's get a prize."