Lone cleared out Maxwell's room since it was filled with rare and restricted books. After that, Soph teleported him, Greed, and Wrath, down to Eolande who was in the tower's deepest floor.

"Lovely place, huh?" Lone commented as he looked at the see-through steamforged septic tanks and blood-covered apparatus tables that littered the chamber.

Eolande shrugged. "It looked better when there were screaming peasants having drugs tested on them. I sort of ruined the party when I showed up to unbrainwash and re-brainwash everyone, you see."

"Hah. I like your sense of humour," Wrath said as some fire was snorted out of his nostrils.

"Speaking of the drugs, what even are they?" Lone asked as he approached a rack hung on the wall that was lined from end-to-end with small glass test tubes, each of which contained a liquid of some sort.

"From Clicker's power I can only see two different drugs, both of which are very interesting," Eolande explained as she prompted Lone to inspect the substance vials himself.

The drugs seemed to be two very distinct colours like Eolande had said.

The first and most common was a deep shade of red while the other one that only seemed to account for roughly 5% of the drugs was a strange mix of red and white. It was pink, but specifically a mix of the two colours, which was what made it so odd-looking.

First Lone checked out the pure-red drug.

PL-18 Description

Created by Maxwell - a servant of Ancient Gruluthu - in an attempt to find a way to increase the maximum potential of his mana organs.

It is the 18th strain of the Primal Leech drug that is used to steal Primal Essence from a fake version of the missing Primal, Reality. The drug moulds the host's reality to boost their internal power and allows them to use magic.

Rank Legendary Stats Durability: 1 Weight: 1 Abilities 11% chance to awaken unawakened mana organs when absorbed into the host's bloodstream.

Upon failure, the host will be left in a vegetative state.

Upon success, the host's internal strength potential shall be capped randomly between C-rank and S-rank. 34% chance to increase the host's maximum MP amount as well as the host's ability to learn and understand magic.

Upon failure, the host's mana organs shall explode, possibly causing the death of the host.

"Hah. Fucking knew it. Fake Primal. I knew there was no way that they'd killed a real one. Ancient or not," Lone snorted arrogantly.

Wrath scrunched up his flaming eyebrows. "What're you on about? Also, why couldn't an Ancient kill a Primal? If anyone could, it'd be an Ancient."

Lone shrugged dismissively. "I've permanently damaged an Ancient's soul before with my Mental Destruction unique skill, but I've also used the skill on a Primal before, multiple times. The bastard got hurt, yeah, but he took no permanent damage."

"Forgive me if I don't believe you when you say that you've attacked a Primal before," Wrath said as he chuckled mockingly.

"Heh, regardless of what you think, I'm just happy that my hunch was right. I wanna see the remains of this fake Primal now if there are any," Lone muttered.

'As do I, Mighty Mortal. To think someone or something was pretending to be one of my brethren and that they or it fooled a triple-X-ranker as well as an Ancient. Blasphemous,' Radiance complained. Lone imagined that she had her arms crossed over her chest as she pouted from her tone.

Not a second later, he felt her presence fade. 'Right. She's still weak.'

'What a wet ending, and not the good kind of wet ending,' Darkness sighed. 'It's far more believable that it was a fake than that someone had actually killed a Primal, but it's also so much more boring.'

'...' Again, Sky remained silent, but Lone knew he was listening.

Darkness started to debate over the topic all on his own, but Lone honestly wasn't too interested since he and the others likely knew just as much as he did.

Instead of eavesdropping or telling Darkness to talk privately and not directly into his head, Lone just chose to ignore him as he inspected the other, differently coloured drug.

SC-92 Description

Created by Maxwell, a servant of Ancient Gruluthu, in an attempt to find a way to break past his natural bottleneck and reach Divinity safely. This drug is an imitation of a far superior drug Maxwell once encountered in his youth.

It is the 92nd strain of the Soul Combustion drug that is used to artificially break inner strength bottlenecks for the host at the cost of the host's soul. Each dosage has diminishing returns with an increased soul combustion rate.

Rank Epic Stats Durability: 1 Weight: 1 Abilities 50% chance to go up by a single inner strength rank at the cost of a soul rank (or potential soul rank). If the host's soul (or potential soul rank) is at I-rank, then the host shall instantly turn to stone should they consume it.

Upon failure, the host shall turn to stone.

Upon success, the host shall turn to stone after 6-12 months have passed unless another dosage is consumed.

Each additional dosage after the first lowers the success rate by 5% (to a minimum of 5%) and the time frame of turning to stone shall also be reduced by 30-days (to a minimum of 1-day to 30-days).

"What a horrible drug," Lone exclaimed in mild disgust. "There's literally no benefit at all. You put your life on a timer and lose a soul rank, essentially making you more susceptible to manipulation-based skills and magic, all for only one internal strength rank-up. What garbage."

Eolande nodded. "Indeed, but it's garbage that could create a flash army of XXX-rankers, no?"

"And garbage that could result in them all turning to stone before fulfilling their orders, not to mention the stronger drug this is based on... I see I need to have a chat with the Empress of the Taslo Empire rather urgently," Lone said as he recalled that he had a group of 100 stone statue corpses just laying about in his Dimensional Storage.

Eolande chuckled and said, "How fun."

Lone and everyone else spent the next hour scouring the tower for any potential remnants of the destroyed false Primal, but even with Soph's absurd luck, fortune wasn't on their side.

Either it had been destroyed entirely, it had been with the Ancient travelling to The Academy and thus destroyed there, or it was elsewhere when it was dealt with.

Lone had stored all instances of the two drugs that they found as well as anything else that seemed valuable, but apart from the information they had acquired, the tower had been rather fruitless in the grand scheme of things.

Granted, Lone had acquired some rare books and a new steamforged toy to play with along with several septic tanks which also had steamforged aspects to them.

Wrath yawned impatiently. "Well, we're done here, right? Let's go round up the kidnapped peasants and then bring them to the closest branch of The Adventurer's Guild to deal with them."

"Yeah, let's, please..." Soph agreed. She didn't like the darkness and creepy atmosphere in this tower, so if they could leave, then that would be ideal for her.

Eolande frowned a bit awkwardly. "What do we do about the mages? Every single one had been brainwashed. I've since broken that, but they're all mages who have a countdown before they turn to stone, more or less."

Lone frowned. "I'll do something about them. First, we bring them with us to The Academy, I guess."

"H-How many are there?" Soph asked timidly.

"I dunno. About six, no, maybe 700?" Eolande replied with a casual shrug.

"Well, in that case, we physically leave the tower and figure out how far we are from The Academy. If we're more than 100-miles away, then we think of something else. If we are close, I'll make a massive carriage for them all and drag the thing back to Mystopolis. I could use some strength-based passive skills."

"You're insane," Wrath said a bit insultingly, but Lone smiled and took it as a compliment.

"Well, let's go get everyone then and meet back up with Hazel then we'll see what the situation's like outside," Lone said.

Soph tugged at his shirt, prompting him to look down at her curiously. "Uh, I can sense it already, Lone. We're in the middle of the ocean..."

"Well, that's not a great start, now is it, Lone?" Eolande asked teasingly.

She just wanted to teleport back to their hotel and collapse onto her soft and luxurious bed, in all honesty.

Fixing advanced brainwashing and long-term charm magic on over 700 people has been no small burden on her MP, that was for sure.

Lone held his chin and grinned. "This is a good opportunity, actually."

"Why do I suddenly have a bad feeling?" Eolande asked.

Wrath shared her concerns and wore a suspicious expression on his round and childish face.

Before they left the tower, Lone made sure to check his status. He'd only killed Veronica while here, but she was still an XX-ranker, so he was hoping to have had a bit of explosive growth in regards to his Magic Power.

Status Name: Lone Immortus Sex: Male Age: 27 Level: 3,077 [+152] Species: Foxkin Rank: SSS Race: Ascending Foxkin HP: 103,770/103,770 [+2,030] SP: 276,520/276,520 [+1,400] MP: 736,630/736,630 [+45,300] DP: 64,320/64,320 WF: 1,500/1,500 Basic Stats Strength: 14,125 [+90] Vigour: 10,377 [+203] Dexterity: 10,746 [+121] Agility: 11,630 [+52] Vitality: 27,652 [+140] Luck: 1,062 [+12] Secret Stats Charm: 788 [+143] Charisma: 349 Magic Power: 73,663 [+4,530] Divine Power: 6,432 Rage: 55 Control: 945

Lone hummed away happily as he walked over the ocean with everyone following behind him.

"Why's he so cheery?" Wrath asked as he held his shoulders and shivered.

"He gained a lot of MP from killing that charm mage," Eolande lazily explained.

Wrath got a bit upset at her disrespectful tone. "What's got you all up in a twist? You should be just as cold as I am right now."

"I'm annoyed that he learned some ice magic just like that after trying a few times while I have a personal master back at The Academy who's giving me lessons in water, snow, and ice magic on top of the classes for those magic schools that I already took, and, despite that, I have yet to learn a new spell even after a month."

Wrath's eyes narrowed. "He's a freak of nature, that's what he is."

Soph who was matching her pace with Eolande and Wrath frowned. "No, he isn't! He's a genius!" she defended.

"Geniuses are freaks of nature," Wrath claimed.

Lone could hear them bickering, but he hardly cared.

"Ice Path," he said to invoke his new skill.

Active Ice Magic Skill: Ice Path

A common application of the ice magic school where the caster focuses the element of ice into a hard layer of ice which takes the form of a path.

Created paths last for 30-minutes. If a path is created on top of water, the path will be 4-times stronger and last for 2-hours.

Cost: 10,000 MP Mastery: Beginner Level 1

The skill had been levelling up so quickly over the last half an hour Lone had been using it that it had practically skipped the crude stage entirely and evolved.

Lone had acquired this skill by first trying to use his Ice Domain skill instead - the one he'd been gifted by Master Dilroy. However, this hadn't worked. The domain only spread out in a set area around Lone and couldn't possibly fit over 700 people on it.

In response to this, Lone had simply used the skill over and over again as he tried to manipulate it to do what he wanted, which had resulted in him learning Ice Path after about 10-minutes of trial and error.

Now regardless of if they found land soon or if they were even close to Felron - Mystopolis' host country, Lone was happy since he'd learned a new magic skill.

Congratulations! The host's active ice magic skill [Ice Path] has levelled up! It is now Advanced Level 4. Active Ice Magic Skill: Ice Path

A common application of the ice magic school where the caster focuses the element of ice into a hard layer of ice which takes the form of a path.

Created paths last for 1-hour [up from 30-minutes]. If a path is created on top of water, the path will be 6-times [up from 4-times] stronger and last for 6-hours [up from 2-hours].

Cost: 7,500 MP [-2,500 MP] Mastery: Advanced Level 4

No new effect, but Lone couldn't help but be satisfied with 23 level-ups. He'd also done some experiments with the skill as they moved and he'd discovered that he could create paths in midair not connected to anything.

He had no idea how that worked, but he guessed that the answer was simply 'magic'. Still, with this, now he had a second way to fly, more or less. Sky Walking was great, but it was very taxing on Lone's SP.

On the topic of SP, Lone had realised that he was getting very close to the 300,000 SP needed to use Grand Guildmaster Sarah's skill, Ancestor's Eyes.

He really wanted to use it on himself to learn his own biggest weakness and to raise his resistance to the skill, but he was a little under 25,000 SP shy.

"So, where are we, Archenemy?" Wrath rudely asked of Lone as he looked around at their location. He was happy to be on a beach now and away from the hellish bridge of ice, that was for sure.

"Archenemy?" Lone asked with a raised eyebrow.

Wrath glared at him. "You made me walk on ice. What would you be but my life's biggest antagonist?"

Lone shrugged. "I thought we were friends. Anyway, since we can see The Great Barrier from here, that means we're close to the monster continent."

He looked up at the stars above and added, "Also, since it's roughly midnight from the position of the moons, we're probably on the western side of the continent."

Hazel and Soph both tilted their heads, though for separate reasons; Soph in confusion and Hazel in amazement. "How did you figure that out, Lone?" his sister asked him.

'Back to Lone, huh?' he noted, making the girl wince. 'Right. You can read minds. Whoops. I forgot about that.'

Not a moment later, Lone explained to his sister even though she probably knew the answer by now from his lingering thoughts. "We were kidnapped at around midnight, then we spent a little over 13-hours in the tower. Reason dictates it should be around 1-PM-ish, give or take an hour or so, but it's not. Thus, we're in a western timezone. Pretty simple, really."

Wrath scowled. "What's a timezone?"

"I am not explaining that to you," Lone bluntly said before he held Soph's hand and squeezed it softly.

"Mmm?" the girl mumbled questioningly as she looked up at her fiancé's face.

"Mind teleporting all of us back to one of Mystopolis' city gates?" Lone asked.

"I-I can't. With my Mana Points, I can only teleport another, uh..." Soph wasn't stupid, but she wasn't very quick at calculating either, so after using her digits to help her do some arithmetics, she finished her sentence, "Another 42 people, m-myself included."

She didn't want to let Lone down, but her Remembrance Teleportation hadn't ranked-up yet and was still at the beginner stage, hence, every person she teleported cost a solid 50,000 MP.

Lone smiled and reached into his Dimensional Storage. He pulled out the Eternal Mana Crystal and handed it over to her. "Use this. I give you authority to withdraw MP from it, and don't fret over using it. I know you, so you want to refuse, right?"

"Mmm... You took a lot of time and effort to make this so blue," Soph said as she held the indestructible object. "And we can just put them all in The Glade. That'd be easier."

Hazel shook her head in Lone's place. "It'd be foolish to reveal that place to so many potentially loose-lipped commoners, plus, this is a good opportunity for you to rank up your skill."

Eolande nodded as she floated there a bit unsteadily. She was really low on MP, after all.

First, she had to put magic into her wings to hover over the freezing ice, and now, she was forced to continue floating due to the fear of getting sand between her toes.

Needless to say, this was all after ridding over 700 people of brainwashing and lingering charm magic.

She glanced down at her dainty toes and frowned. 'Who'd have thought that an investment into some slippers would have spared me from a crippling headache.'

Eolande glanced over at Lone and squinted her eyes before sighing. 'Pride won't win you any points, silly girl.'

"You know what Lone gets like, he'll never take no for an answer when he's convinced he's right. Just use his mana and let's go. I don't know about you, but I want to be in my bedsheets about, oh, a week ago?" the Tylwyth Teg asked sarcastically.

Soph pouted cutely. "O-Okay, but it's such a waste..."

"Also, Lone," Eolande called.

"Hmm? Need something?" Lone responded.

Yes, actually." She smiled sweetly. "Some shoes, please."