The Forgotten Legacy

Searching for the next dungeon was a somewhat enjoyable experience this time around. The sun was shining in a clear sky and Shaun was taking full advantage of the heat. Summer had always been his favourite season, soaking up the sunshine and being outdoors always paired well together for him, even more so now that he was practically immune to being sun burn. Rather than speed through finding the dungeon he took a few hours here and there to actually hike up the side, enjoying the feeling and making everything seem normal for a while.

He knew that he was wasting time in taking these breaks, but he also knew that he couldn’t keep going nonstop forever, burn out was still a real thing, no mater how much the world changed, taking a few short hours here and there would only help in the long run. He didn’t know whether to be happy or disappointed when he found the dungeon, it was almost like something had pushed him into the area where it was located. It didn’t take much longer to get to the entrance, even with walking at a slow pace, but he wasn’t able to put off the inevitable. As long as it was a decent dungeon he wouldn’t get too annoyed.

**Welcome to Win the War (E grade) Dungeon**

This dungeon forms part of an unclaimed cluster. Current dungeons claimed in this cluster: F grade 15/15, E grade 3/5, D grade 0/1.

Note: to claim this dungeon you need a minimum of 2,000,000 TE. No rewards will be provided if dungeon claimed.

One participant located, would you like to enter the dungeon?

He didn’t stop to try and decipher the name, every time he tried he got it wrong. This one, even more than the others, had literally no information to go off. Time to go on in.

**Objectives of Win the War dungeon**

The war has raged for centuries, neither side able to take the lead and conquer the world. Two elements have battled since the beginning, balance has been thrown off. You will need to lead your side to victory, Commander.

To complete dungeon you must lead your side to victory against the opposition. As a commander in the war you will need to make decisions that will impact the outcome of the war. Only when the last of the opposing force is dead or they surrender will the dungeon be completed.

Choose your war.

Option 1: Water vs Fire

Option 2: Air vs Earth

Option 3: Randomised

Note: You may leave the dungeon at any time by retreating back to the entry point. Dungeon difficulty set to max until dungeon is claimed.

The more he read the objective and options the more excited he got. Not only was this a war that he got to play commander in but it was also an elemental war, one that he got to choose. The real question was, which option did he pick?

A lot of his best attacks were fire based and it was one of his most used elements. If he picked option one he may learn even more from seeing what kind of attacks he witnessed from other fire users. On the flip side he hadn’t used water that much so seeing what could be done with it could also be interesting.

Air and Earth he used in more of a support capacity, so witnessing how these were used in a war could be very intriguing. Or he could just wing it and randomise the entire thing and see what he ended up with. After a full minute of indecision, he quit and just chose to randomise it.

**The war has been decided. Water vs Earth**

You have been assigned to fight for Water.

The messages disappeared and he found himself in a room around a large table, he wasn’t alone either, around the table he saw different beings, some looked relatively humanoid but with skin ranging from blue to green. There was even some that had scales and looked similar to the Mer Folk, if they had legs instead of tails.

Checking the levels of everyone in the room, they ranged from level 80 to the low 100’s, and every single one of them were looking to him as if he was expected to say something. “So, how is the war going?”

“Commander, sir, we are at a stalemate, Earth has put up defences that are continuously being reinforced, making it impossible for us to break through. We have sent out our strongest warriors to attempt to break through but before they are able to do any lasting damage to their walls they are pushed back. We need new orders, sir.” The being that spoke seemed to be the strongest one in the room, one of the ones that had scales coating parts of their skin.

The purpose of the dungeon was to probably find a way to break through the defences, storm through the opposing army, killing off as many beings on the opposing side as possible. If he was to guess, to finish the dungeon he would need to take out the commander on the other side as well, probably an earth related being at level 124. Shaun fully planned on doing that, just not yet.

“Show me to our strongest soldiers who are able to wield water. I want to see what they are capable of.” No one argued with him, they simply nodded at his order and led him out of the room.

He was guided around the water stronghold where the majority of the army was currently located. There were easily a thousand beings in the area, all of various strengths and some more unique than others. As he would expect from a water army, they were positioned beside a stream where those that seemed to have been injured would swim into the water and after a while come back out looking healed.

He stopped for a while to observe this, even moving closer to see what exactly was happening when they went into the water. It took a moment to understand the process, having to use his mana sight and water affinity to get a clearer picture. If he was right, they were pulling water from the river into their wounds, cycling it through the injured area which boosted their capacity to heal. He used his nature affinity in much the same way, but the idea of using water and nature in tandem was an interesting idea that he made a mental note to attempt later.

When he was done observing they moved on to a training area where it seemed that different levelled groups were segregated and training skills in different ways. The weakest of groups seemed to be pretty average in terms of their ability to manipulate water and really only seemed to be on this side due to their race being aligned with water.

The middle group showed much more promise as they had some ability to manipulate the water around them, from what he observed this was only possible in a small area around them and they tired quickly, still they were able to move quickly and use their strength to their advantage. They demonstrated their skills for him in a one on one fight and he could admit that they were formidable opponents.

The last group though, the peak of the army, was where he really got to see what could be done when one wielded the power of water. They demonstrated the ability to pull water from the air, condense it down into a weapon and send it flying at a target, all in the span of a few seconds. On top of that, some were able to demonstrate empowering their bodies with the element for short periods, boosting their strength and dexterity with a high level of skill.

This is what he had been looking for, new uses of the water element that he could learn and implement into is fighting style. He spent a good amount of time watching them, asking them to repeat certain moves over and over again till he was confident he was able to replicate them. Only then did he decide to join them and practice.

Pulling water form the air was a lot harder than he expected, it took a lot of willpower and manipulation of the surrounding mana to pull enough together to form enough to be able to attack anyone with it, but he didn’t give up. He continued practicing the skill, but when he asked for advice form the others they seemed unable to assist outside of showing their attacks again. It seemed like it was some limitation put on this dungeon, but even observing was helpful in its own way.

Hours past with nothing but focusing on getting this ability to pull water together right. Shaun completely forgot about the war he was supposed to win and just trained until he got the basics down, but even then, continued to work on it until he was confident he would be able to continue practicing on his own without assistance.

Using water to boost his own strength and dexterity was harder, being unable to directly see what was happening inside of their bodies made it more difficult to piece together what exactly they were doing. He guessed that it had something to do with manipulating the water inside of their bodies, but that would take a long while for him to apply to himself correctly, probably a lot of meditating and really focusing on his internal mana system would be needed. The one idea he had was to use a skill similar to his stone skin and imbue his body with the element he wanted to use and manipulating it to suit his desire. Again, it was something he would be able to do in his own time now that he had a decent idea on how to move forward.

Turning back to the Mer being, he figured it was now time to get this fight stated. “Show me to the wall, it’s time to finish this war.”

“Shall I gather all of our forces?”

Shaun thought about it for a moment, he was planning to just blitz his way through the enemy but having an army to back him up would be helpful. “Sure, why not.”

It didn’t take long for all of his forces to gather and start moving towards the wall that the Earth forces had put up. It only took about an hour of travel before he saw what had to be the border between the two opposing armies. The wall was as expected, it spanned as far as he could see in both directions and was high enough that it would be difficult to climb, but not impossible.

If he was to guess, this dungeon was supposed to be about tactics, using what you had to take the advantage and overcome your opponent while also finding ways to circumvent the strength of your enemies.

His plan on how to deal with the wall and the opposing army was rather simple, first he was going to scout out behind the wall to see what he was dealing with, then he would choose a specific area, further behind enemy lines to cause some damage. Once their army was rushing to him, taken off guard by being attacked on their side of the wall he planned to move back as quickly as he could, blast through the wall and then let his own army through. It was a simple plan, but also one that he hoped was effective. He informed the scaled being, who he learned was just called a lieutenant on the walk to the wall, what he planned to do, and as always, they just agreed with what he said.

Shifting into the air, he moved as high as he could go before becoming solid again and then running the rest of the way across the wall and into enemy space. Considering that the war was earth and water based no one had a reason to look up, as who would expect a lone man in the air.

Shaun was impressed with what he saw on the earth side, there looked to be an equal number of creatures on the earth side as there was on water, but the earth side also had sturdy golem like beings that stood tall among their ranks, not to mention that there were strategically placed piles of rocks throughout their army that could be used as weapons at a moment’s notice. Although most of the earth army was located at the wall, he could see the enemy outpost further in the distance. Further back from the wall was where he saw what had to be the higher levelled beings of the army, standing just as tall as the golems were giants wielding hammers that looked like they could crush anyone that was unlucky enough to be hit by one of them.

What surprised him was that this army looked prepped and ready for an attack, as if they knew that he had gathered his own army for an attack. Although considering that his own location skill was earth based, he shouldn’t be surprised that this army would have someone that could track people using earth as well.

Having gathered enough information on the opposing army, he now had everything he needed to get started on his plan. He returned to his own army, coming down close to the wall where his lieutenant was, he updated them on his plan, ensuring that they fully understood what they needed to do and when.

Before moving back to the other side of the wall he summoned his first creature of the battle, his magma summons. He had expected some reaction from his own side when he did this, using an element of earth and fire went directly against water, but they didn’t show any reaction to it. His plan for his magma slime was simple, devour a section of the wall, weaken it enough that it could be blown apart by a strong enough attack. The joy he felt come from the slime was clear, it got to consume earth which would only make it stronger, even if it wasn’t in battle. He sent it out to the wall immediately and at the same time went to cause his own chaos.

Moving back into the air, far enough above the earth army was easy enough, and when he was comfortable with his position he summoned the remainder of his creatures. His first Zapian Eagle appeared, followed closely by his second, their attacks wouldn’t be as effective against earthen creatures but they would sow the chaos he needed to distract the army and launch his own attacks. All the while the wall would be weakened, the army distracted, leaving them ripe for picking for his own army to come through and devastate the lower-level beings.

When everyone was in position he gave the call to his summons to start the first round of attacks, his eagles acted immediately and as planned went for destroying all of the piles of rocks that had been gathered amongst the army, using their own lightning based attacks allowed them to blow them up from a distance, moving too quickly for any of the soldiers to land attacks on them. At the same time he went directly for the strongest beings he had found, the giants.

Choosing to announce his presence in the most spectacular way he could, he landed in the middle of the group of around 50 giants in his lightning form, sending a blast of residual lightning out amongst them.

**Earthen Giant – Level 112**

Wasting no time after identifying their levels, he summoned his mirror blade of ice at the same time as he enhanced his mind and powered a magma strike. This is going to be fun.