Liam fully expected to be thrown out on his ass again but surprisingly that did not happen. He was able to enter the dungeon without any hitch.
However, once he was inside, he only barely had a chance to take a look when almost instantly a heat wave assaulted him. Rather calling it a heatwave would not be doing it any justice.
He was being cooked alive at the moment. 10% of his health dropped in a second and it was continuing to go dangerously low.
"This is not good." Liam could see the dire situation he was currently in and immediately took out the stone tablet. As he laid the tablet on the ground, he gulped down a health potion and waited for the effects to start.
The other demons also worriedly looked at Liam as he clearly couldn't take the burning hot air of the dungeon. "My Lord…" Yessika hesitantly said when suddenly everything around them started to change.
Thankfully, the stone tablet quickly got to work. "It will be fine now." Liam sighed in relief as the atmosphere was slowly becoming mellow and the stone tablet's world opened up.
All the demons were utterly shocked. The burning valley in front of them was no longer there. Instead, it was a dull barren land with nothing in sight. There was only a small suspicious puddle at the center.
Just as they were wondering how this was possible, slowly something else became exceedingly clear. The space they were in at the moment was rich in fire essence.
Since all the demons were above Level 100 and their body had matured accordingly, their perceptivity was currently higher than Liam's. They could immediately sense this change.
And this time, Liam also could vividly notice it. This was the difference between the lower level dungeon and Level 100 dungeon. The essence here was much thicker. At the same time, it was also very comfortable and nourishing and not harsh.
Liam looked at the fox in his hands who also seemed to be enjoying the ambiance. He placed her in the puddle just like last time and quickly started his business.
The other demons obediently stayed on the side watching him in silence. A gasp escaped their mouths as they witnessed the undead soul minions materializing in front of them and flooding the space.
Liam immediately started forging and reforging every single minion in this upgraded space. Now he had enough time to finish the rest of the minions and after a few hours, almost everyone received an upgrade in terms of fire magic resistance.
Of course, some also gained a boost in fire magic affinity, all the imps and the lesser dryads having more fire power now for their respective level.
Liam wanted to mainly accomplish this, after which he started growing several Fire Persimmons so that Luna could consume them regularly. He made about ten piles of the fruit which he transferred into his inventory space, each pile occupying a slot.
"Now to the last task at hand." Stretching his limbs, Liam sat near the puddle and tried to absorb the fire essence swirling in the puddle bit by bit.
The puddle had now grown a lot and there was more essence available in the waters but there was only a certain amount he was able to take in. So his pace was nevertheless slow.
Liam continued to steadily absorb the essence and it took about five hours before he finally received the notification that he wanted.
<Ding. Congratulations. Your affinity for the fire element has improved. All your fire type attacks now have 10% increased damage]
Liam clicked his tongue reading the description. There was a definite increase in his attack damage but it was not as high enough as he would have expected. For the efforts he had put he expected more.
"Since it's a permanent buff, I guess it's difficult to bring this up?" He concluded with a frown. He then once again closed his eyes and started to absorb more essence from the puddle.
However, all the demons standing on the side and watching him were completely speechless. They had an entirely different understanding of innate traits like fire affinity.
Something like this needed a person to be born with it. Otherwise, it was very difficult to change the affinity, but their city Lord… They gulped and continued watching Liam in awe.
The next few hours quietly passed by like this when unexpectedly once again things started changing. There were small tremors and rumbling sounds as the world in front of them faded.
Everyone including Liam and the little fox found themselves back in the outside world of the nether realm. "This is sooner than I expected?" Liam let out a deep breath and stood up.
He had expected a high level dungeon to give him more time but it looked like all dungeons could only fuel the stone tablet for a certain period of time irrespective of the dungeon's level.
While Liam continued to ponder about this, the other demons looked around in shock. Burning valley dungeon was missing?
The dungeon they had known all their life had completely vanished without any trace.
Liam noticed this and awkwardly cleared his throat. "Right. I require your silence in this matter. No news of what happened here should spread. Even if someone else asks, we had nothing to do with this dungeon. Is that clear?"
"Yes, My Lord." Everyone collectively replied.
"Good. Good. Then you can all return back to the garrison. I have some personal things to attend to."
Though many of them were reluctant to leave him alone, particularly Yessika, Liam quickly chased them away and he also opened the portal to leave the place in a hurry.
He had daringly consumed yet another dungeon but he did not plan on repeating that action and bringing more attention to himself.
Like a thief wanting to skip the scene of the crime, he ran away along with Talon and Luna back into the Xion realm.
