“It's an endless cycle that continues: corruption, anger, distrust, greed, envy, fear, all leading to war. Empires rise and fall; thousands have, and thousands will. As that happens, technology and learning follow the same cycle: old and what was lost is found or discovered, then it's lost again. We strive to stop that. Hidden libraries and keepers of knowledge that abstain from endless cycles to protect the future of this realm.”

  - Liberian Estovis

  Aster

  “It's pronounced Caltermira,” Umbra said but was quiet after as we both read over the most extended system messages we'd ever seen.

  [System Announcement: A Realm Wide Integration and Update will begin pending completion of Merging Realm Event. Changes and notices are listed below. Note: Not all changes are listed publicly in the realm.

  Update Name: Caltermira Integration 1.3

  Update 2.11.123: Grade 20 and above monsters cores now have an increased refinement rating due to the rarity of high-grade monsters.

  Update 2.11.124: Monsters that have been bound by pet and tamer classes have a higher chance over time to gain sentience and become a creature.

  Update 2.11.125: Items rated at legendary and lower that are granted by the system or created by an individual now become unbound upon death and have the binding cooldown reset.

  Update 2.11.126: Multiple Racial and Secondary class rarities have been adjusted. The update will not affect current class holders or possible evolutions and advancements the grade of the class might have granted.

  Update 2.11.127: Dead Zone 2, The Broken Land, will be adjusted in size to return previously displaced land. Any current individuals or ruins in the area will be displaced to the boundaries until integration is finished.

  Update 2.11.128: Updates 2.10.120 to the present update will be applied to integrated individuals upon entry into Caltermira.

  Realm Notice: The War of Heralds has concluded, and all rewards have been distributed.

  Realm Notice: Due to core restrictions on dungeon cores, all dungeons in the integrating realm will be put in an offline state 1 month ahead of the start of the integration and realm event. Dungeons will be fully active after the event and integration have concluded.

  Realm Notice: Event: Territory expansion has begun in The Broken Land. All individuals of Grade 1 or higher who are in The Broken Land participate by default. Increased rewards can be earned by joining a new or existing faction.

  Grade restrictions on attacking lower grades who participate are not in place during this event. A class with a King title or equivalent is required in the faction to claim territory. The faction with the most territory claimed when the integration finishes will gain ownership of The Broken Land.]

  [Event Started: Territory Expansion.

  Current Faction: None

  Faction owned territory: 0%

  Personal Owned Territory: 0%

  Top 5 Faction Territory Ranking:

  Kingdom of Arilon: 31%

  Karvum Empire: 27%

  Dwarven Crafting Union: 7%

  Elven Council: 5%

  Note: You are in the contested territory and have joined the event by default.

  Note: Leaving the contested area will not exclude you from event rewards]

  [System Notice: You are currently in a dungeon that is in the process of shutting down. Expulsion from the dungeon will occur in 12 days. Time left: 11 Days, 23 hours, 59 minutes.]

  I exhaled, blinking a few times. It was a lot to take in. It was a system update. The first for me and the first in a long time. That would answer a lot of questions for a lot of people. Under me, I felt Umbra turning back to the camp. Flicking over the updates again, I felt a sense of vertigo at the first one. Grade twenty monsters were a thing? That couldn't be right. A grade-five monster was already something that haunted a few of my dreams. Still, besides a reality check, none of the updates really applied to me at the moment. It was the notice that I was most interested in.

  Some exasperation did filter through my mood. I'd just complained about not being able to complete the quest or dungeon, and now we were going to be kicked out in twelve days so it could go offline. I assumed that it meant the dungeon was going to sleep, which brought a few other questions about dungeons being alive to the front of my mind, but it wasn't the time for that.

  The new realm-wide event and the Void Realm event were my main worry. The integration was going to start, or end, or something after both events finished, and I wasn't entirely sure what that meant. But having the entire continent be called the Broken Land and a dead zone wasn't a good feeling.

  That brought up the question of what an Integration was, and I had no clue. Sure, I had guesses based on the word, but none made much sense. What was being integrated? The realm? The continent? And what was it being integrated into? Caltermira?

  I reached up, rubbing one of my ears as I thought of the implications, and after a moment, I came to a realization. None of it mattered. Well, it did, but what could I do about it? Nothing. I definitely didn't want to get involved in whatever war the event was going to start, and most of it could still be avoided after the Void Realm Event started. What could we do in the meantime, though? The dungeon was going to kick us out. As Umbra landed, I tapped her on her shoulder. “What do you think about all of this?”

  Her answer came surprisingly quickly, “I have no clue what most of it means, and the stuff I understand doesn't really apply to us. Besides having to leave the dungeon early, has anything changed?”

  I thought about the words as I slid down her side, humming. She was right and had followed the same path I had. Nothing would change that much for us. Our goal was the Void event. Bringing out the token, I inspected it and read the screen it offered.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  [Bound Void Event Token - Unique - The token required for entry to the Void Merge Realm Event. Event Begins in 5 Months, 24 Days, 8 Hours, and 32 Minutes of current realm time. Item is bound and will return to the owner if separated.]

  “Where should we go then? We've only spent a little over half the time we have here. That means we'll have over a month of time once we're out, and we can't go into other dungeons. Should we go back to the Claw Woods? Do you know how to get back from here?” I looked to Umbra, who had sat down and was currently watching me pace.

  Umbra thought for a minute before she nodded. “I do know roughly how to get back, but I don't think we should. We're far north, really far. The Claw Woods is far south between Karvum, the Desert, and Arilon. If we wanted to get back before the event, we'd have to go straight through Karvum, and they don't exactly like dragons. If we went towards the border and through Arilon, we might make it, but I doubt that with all the griffins that'll be on the border.”

  Frowning, I felt a pang of homesickness. It hadn't been expected, but a chance to see Kulni had gotten my hopes up. “What do you think we should do then? We have some time and can't stay at the dungeon entrance because it's in the empire's land.”

  Umbra blinked at me, and I saw a gleam filling her eyes as she thought of something. Excitement filled the bond.

  I smiled and playfully pointed a finger. “You have an idea, don't you?”

  My bond rolled her eyes and huffed a breath of frost as she moved both of her front talons from side to side. “Aster! We are far north. We're next to one of the last towns Karvum has up north. We want to explore. Why don't we just go north? We have plenty of food. We can see how much snow falls in the north.”

  It was my turn to be silent. Explore? That was what we wanted to do. Was there even anything to see in the northernmost part of the continent? It would take us away from all of the fighting as well. Even if there wasn't anything interesting, the choice was easy to make. Umbra was a frost dragon and my bond. If she wanted to go there, and judging by the eagerness in the bond, she did, then we would.

  “Let's go then. We still have twelve days to do a bit more training and think about what we'll need, but it's a good idea.”

  Over the next week, Umbra and I grew more excited and a bit rowdy as we made preparations to leave. Sorting out what we should take was a bit of a pain as my spatial storage was full of monster parts to the point I had to take some of the wood and bigger butchered corpses. Umbra ate as much of the meat left as she could, and what wasn't eaten was cooked or left out to dry. While neither of us thought finding food would be an issue outside the dungeon, it paid to be on the safe side.

  We also both had an understanding that if we reached the ocean in the time out, we wouldn't be going over it. The stories about how dangerous the sea and its storms were only really compared to the horrific stories about the desert, and neither of us was going to take that kind of chance. Besides the preparation to leave, we both still practiced our skills, working on them each day, but avoided going on another hunt.

  That last bit of skill practice saw only Blueprinting gain a rank and reach three with a few adjustments to my future armor idea. It all but confirmed the idea that the more time spent in a dungeon, the harder it was to rank up skills. My attempt at finding my mana core also saw a slight jump in progress as I found that even after the mana disappeared from a mental sight, I could follow its flow for a short while by following the surrounding flow of the space my own mana didn't take up. Still, nothing significant came from the revelation on its own.

  The last day of the dungeon was peaceful, and we spent it relaxing together until the final few hours on the timer came. At that point, we made the final preparations to be booted out of the dungeon. I was in my leather armor and flight suit with my helmet already on, strapped to Umbra's back.

  The chance of Griffins being outside the dungeon was minimal, especially with the announcement, but we were both still in grade two. Umbra’s planned flight in a straight shot north was the smartest idea.

  “Are you ready?” Umbra asked, turning her neck to look at me with one of her eyes.

  I gave a thumbs up in response, sending a mental feeling of the excitement I felt and knew she also held. A month of exploring the north, searching the snow, and seeing different creatures and monsters. It was earlier than I thought it would be, and it would only be for a short time, really, but that was fine. I didn't expect to find a lost city or new ruins like in books, but having nothing to do other than travel was just what Umbra wanted, and I was starting to crave. Using the bond, I spoke, “I know we won't find anything, but that's sort of what I want. After all the working on skills and killing monsters here, an endless flight with no one else just sounds right.”

  Umbra's pleased rumble was only broken by her warning words: “We will have to be careful to avoid high-grade creatures or monsters. While rare at higher grades outside dungeons, they still have been seen up to grade six, and we can't even fight a grade three.”

  My nod of agreement, mixed with my understanding of the risk and our need to be careful even outside the dungeon, seemed to reassure my bond, and we both took the time to look around the dungeon.

  The orbs in the sky and the large mountains on either side hadn't been close to a home for me, but the dungeon had provided a way to escape the ever-present higher-grade people making decisions. The risk of entering the dungeon had been, and still was, reckless.

  Even after learning how stupid I had been thinking we'd be able to clear the dungeon over a single year at our grades, I still felt a slight tinge of anger and embarrassment at entering so willingly. The Void token and the unexpected Update were the only reasons we wouldn't be stuck here stagnating for over a decade and probably, if I was honest, never coming out. The mana overflow of the dungeon also played a major part in making the dungeon strangely easier, being able to take items in and out of my storage. Shaking my head, I stretched and physically shook off the thoughts. I'd been stupid, no doubt there, but I would do better in the future.

  Rubbing Umbras scales, I watched the last few seconds of the time tick away on the system message I had pulled up.

  Then I felt my ears pop, and everything disappeared. It wasn't that I couldn't see or that it was all black. It was that there was nothing to see. It felt like a second and a year passed as the endless nothing around us stretched forever and didn't have any space at the same time. There was a tug, not a physical force or a mental one, but like the gravity of reality had shifted and bent into itself and pulled us into it. It was over before I could even blink. All at once, we were outside in a clearing surrounded by tall rock spires and trees.

  The massive wave of vertigo and my balance failing as the straps kept me in place didn't help with the bile I felt in the back of my throat. Under me, Umbra staggered sideways before righting herself and shaking her entire body. That motion did nothing to help my spinning world, and I groaned. The feeling faded slowly, but it did decrease, to my relief. “We're not doing that again,” I stated into the bond, not wanting to open my mouth in case this morning's breakfast decided to come up.

  My bond made a sound of agreement before we both were quiet as we let the feeling fade. After a minute, Umbra flexed her wings and took flight. Tilting my head, I turned and looked behind us, checking around. The physical entrance to the dungeon was still there, but there was a lack of a black fog to pass through to enter. Looking beyond that and to the sky as we rose into the air, I glanced at the city that we were aimed away from and blinked, then felt my eyes widen. A ship stood anchored in the air, floating above it. It wasn't big, or I thought it wasn't. It was the only ship I'd seen, but it couldn't be more than double Umbra's length. But either way, it was floating. It was like the ship from the strategy game I played in Arilon. That meant it was Dwarven-made.

  I stared open jawed and directed Umbra's attention to it and felt her surprise and curiosity. It was made of wood and rocked slightly when the wind caught both the edge of its pair of rolled-up sails. It didn't move, and over the course of a few minutes, the ship and city under it grew more and more distant before it faded from view. I turned around. My tail twitched in anticipation. Leaning down, resting against Umbra, I looked in the distance we were heading. In the distance, rocky surfaces and sparse trees littered the area, not unlike where we had made camp, but beyond that, neither of us truly knew what to expect.