Inflame (The Completionist Chronicles Book 6), Dakota Krout [free novels to read TXT] 📗

took a few moments to draw out the ritual using aspects on the paper, and soon, it glowed a wispy dark grey.

“Totally a waste to use this for such a weak ritual,” Joe sighed as he prepared to activate it. He paused, stood, and got into position like he was about to throw a frisbee. As soon as he had poured mana and the second Trash Core’s power into the diagram, he whipped the paper away. It didn’t go terribly far, but it was far enough that he was only caught in the outer edge of the spray it created.

Ritual of Sprinkling Acid (Novice) created! This ritual creates a fine mist of Weak Acid that will eat away at its surroundings for up to four hours! Can only remove Common or below ranked items. Make a stronger version to get rid of more stuff in one go! Range: 15-foot radius. Time remaining: 3:59:46.

The ritual did its job perfectly; after only a few minutes, Joe could neither see the ritual nor the acid from his re-seated position. He had planned on following after it rather quickly, but a dense cloud of smoke had started to rise out of the pit the acid was creating. As a test, he threw some fruit peels into it. There was a deep hiss, and the smoke started melting the rotting foodstuff. “Acidic smoke, got it. No reason to breathe that in.”

An hour after he’d started the ritual, the ground began to shift. Joe judged that the garbage had been reduced at about a foot per minute, and what was around the pit of empty space had finally destabilized. The varying sections of the landfill came into stark relief as garbage the next section over remained in place. He should have been expecting that the area was magically sectioned off; the area that had shifted was one hundred feet exactly. That must have been why the explosion he’d caused hadn’t gone too far; there were internal safeguards in place.

Once the garbage had fallen by ten feet, the sections opened and allowed the nearby waste to slump down and fill the unused space. Once everything had settled, Joe closed his eyes and slid down into the deep crater that remained. No resonance at all; nothing hidden or magical. That meant that only Common or below rarity items remained, as far as his magical senses could detect. That was okay with him; he was only on the edge of the city limits. It was time to move deeper.

“Can’t just stay here ‘cause it's safe and the most comfortable area. I need to get out there and get the absolute most out of this trip. After all…” Joe turned his eyes to the center of the landfill, and a plan began to form. If he wanted the best trash, he needed to get under the most valuable shops and creation centers. If he wanted to leave as close to the end of the week as possible, he needed to start moving while muttering to himself.

“Staying in your comfort zone means that you lack dedication to improve. A lack of dedication is an insult to those who believe in you.”

Chapter Sixteen

“Cone of Cold!” Joe directed the freezing blast at the two-headed vole that had burrowed out of the trash and jumped at him. He had been attempting to stay away from fire or electrical-based attacks, since he was hoping to avoid blowing himself up again. The vole took the final attack and fell, so Joe walked over to its body and stomped heavily at the base of its necks, breaking the frozen portion open and retrieving a single Trash Core.

He had learned something interesting after fighting a few of these: if he followed their tunnels back to their nest, there was almost always at least an Uncommon item stashed nearby. Of course, if they were not near enough to their nest, Joe would just be wasting time searching for it. It was a good reminder that monsters were supposed to have treasure, and natural monsters tended to hoard it instead of carrying it on them. Though he struggled to keep it in his mind, Joe needed to remember to play by game logic before anything else.

Skill increase: Cone of Cold (Beginner V).

Joe had been traveling toward the center of the landfill for the last day, and monster attacks were becoming more and more frequent. He had defeated several raccoons, skunks, and voles now, but he was expecting to see stronger creatures soon. He had been making good time and figured that, within a few hours, he would be directly under the main portion of the city.

*Boom*.

He looked to the side as a house-sized ball of trash dropped from the ceiling and slammed into the landfill. Just after the enormous sound of the impact, something roared a challenge, and a section of the landfill went up in flames, a fire that reached all the way to the top of the chamber and illuminated the ceiling. It was strange to see a dark sky filled with open pipes, but he was becoming more used to it.

Another thing Joe had found was that whatever the shielding was between sections, it only contained items for a little while, though fire was confined until it was suffocated. He could cast spells between the different sections, and there seemed to be no limit for how far anything other than fire could travel in a straight line.

The downside to the bellowed challenge and plume of fire was that he was pretty sure that it would be the most profitable destination. There was an adage that the most dangerous things tended to give the highest rewards. If that wasn't the most dangerous thing in this entire junkyard, Joe didn't know where to look for it. A nearby sound dragged him out of his thoughts, and he cast a Cone of Cold without looking. “These voles are starting to bother me.”

“Brooo…” a deep voice groaned at him. Joe