“This might be one of your stupidest ideas, Julius,” he murmured to himself as he stared at the pool of fire. He took a tentative look over the edge and grimaced.

It wasn’t quite lava like he expected at first. It was more similar to water than pure lava. He didn’t know how that worked, but it was almost like the fire mana in the area was so dense that it formed into this watery substance.

But that didn’t really make him feel much better about his idea. While it might not be lava, it was still extremely hot. He was already sweating buckets just by standing near it. From the looks of it, this fire water was being collected in this cavern. Dozens of tunnels congregated here and collected at these pools.

He didn’t know how they formed into giant pillars of flame, but he admitted it was pretty cool to look at. He imagined that they worked sort of like geysers.

He bent down and carefully poked his finger into this liquid. He held back a grunt as his finger was immediately burned. He left it in there for a few more moments before he took it out. It was bright red and was already forming a blister the second it made contact with the cooler air.

He tapped his chin, deep in thought. The fire water was actually not as hot as he feared. It was definitely hot, but he could definitely imagine himself withstanding this heat for a short period. The problem was that he didn’t know if the heat would remain consistent throughout the entire pool or in those towering pillars of liquid flame.

More importantly, it hurt like a bitch. It was like someone pressing a hot iron against his skin. If the heat didn’t kill him, the pain might.

Then again, he didn’t really have a plethora of options, and using the pool of liquid flames had a secondary benefit. The dense and powerful nature of its mana would conceal his own constructs and skills to some extent. Especially since his constructs were made of fire mana.

He looked around to make sure he was alone, and once he was sure there were no peeping toms, he stripped down to his underwear. He could have removed it, but he decided against it. He wanted to have some dignity.

Then slowly and carefully, he took control of his mana, gathering it into tight threads. He used his willpower and Authority to compress these threads as much as possible. The results were pretty good, and once he got that process down, he began to wrap himself in these threads.

He modeled it after his usual armor. But his previous armors were more focused on absorbing force and disrupting attacks. This armor had one purpose and one purpose only.

It needed to keep the liquid fire and heat out. He had a few good things going for him. For one, he didn’t need to breathe, so he could remove any potential holes that someone else would need. Secondly, his mana control was really quite good.

He eventually formed a relatively thin layer of fire mana over his skin. He added some soft properties to the mana, so he would be able to move around well enough. It wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world, definitely not like his wings, but it was practical.

He moved around for a bit, testing the suit and before he could chicken out, he stepped to the edge of the pool. He flinched and tentatively stuck his toe as if he was testing the temperature of a swimming pool. To his surprise, he didn’t feel much.

The heat was certainly there, but it didn’t feel painful. Feeling more emboldened, he took another step and waddled into the pool. Almost immediately, he regretted his decision. The liquid fire mana was so strong that it almost ate away at his armor before he realized it.

The only warning he got was a sudden heat on his ass. Then, before he could repair the hole, the liquid flame made its way into his suit. He jumped out, holding back a shriek and biting his lip as he silently cursed animately.

His healing skill healed the burn, but he looked at the pool with a complicated look. He didn’t think the pool would have been able to eat through his construct so easily. Perhaps, this was going to be a little more difficult than he expected.

***

Twelve attempts. That’s how many it took until he was finally able to figure out how to withstand the liquid fire. Twelve times he got burned, and it wasn’t until the last attempt that he realized that he didn’t have to get into the pool to test the construct. He could simply make a small section of it and watch how it reacted in safety.

It was even more embarrassing because by the time he figured it out, he had already gotten the technique down. Or at least a version that didn’t melt immediately.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

He blew out a sigh and, doing his best to forget his mistake, he wove together the construct. The trick was to create a barrier of authority all around the construct. For some reason, the liquid fire had a really hard time eating through his authority. It was really hard because while he was okay at infusing his authority, creating a solid surface with no gaps was another story.

Fortunately, the cube he’d been using over the past weeks helped him with this. It was janky and on the verge of collapsing at every moment, but it worked. He finally had a suit of mana that didn’t burn in the pit of liquid fire mana.

He took a careful step into the pool for the thirteenth time and waited for a couple of minutes. He let out a sigh of relief when he wasn’t melting. That was the first issue solved at least, and he gained something out of it.

For the moment, he relaxed in the pool as he examined his suit. He didn’t want to rush things because surviving the pool was the first step. He needed this suit to survive the entire journey from here to the tower.

The liquid fire mana was connected to the tower, which was why he had come up with this plan in the first place. But the problem was with the geyser he’d have to pass through to get there. He didn’t know if his suit could handle such a thing.

So for the next couple of hours, he played with his construct, sitting in the pool, constantly making small adjustments to it. He’d been in here for days already; a few hours wouldn’t hurt him.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t left alone for long. He spotted a group of ants heading in his direction, and thinking of nothing else, he jumped in the pool, fully submerging himself.

Thankfully, the suit held, and when the ants were gone, he reemerged.

He looked over at the massive clearing once again. He didn’t really know what was happening, but from what he could tell, these ants were preparing for something. He had no clue what it might be, but there had to be a reason why there were so many ants here.

He was staring at the ants when he suddenly felt something shift in the air. He looked around to make sure that nothing was creeping up behind him, but realized it was coming from the tower itself. The large structure was pulsing with corruption and the ants were reacting to it.

He heard them begin to shriek and cry out as each pulse of corruption disturbed the air. Surprisingly, the fire mana pool was really good at holding back the corruption. And to be honest, he might have preferred the intense heat compared to the nasty feeling of the corruption crawling on his skin.

“What is going on?” he whispered quietly to himself.

Then, to his concern, a large number of these ants started to move. The entire cavern shook when this happened, and he watched as thousands of ants all went down the countless tunnels. It was during this movement that he spotted a very weird-looking ant. This clearly wasn’t like the others. It was standing up on two legs, walking like a human. Huge antennas wrapped around its head, though they looked more like horns than anything else. The black shell shimmered with small pulses of black and purple energy.

He hated to admit it, but the creature looked quite menacing.

The aura he felt coming from it was intense enough that he could sense it all the way from where he was hiding. This ant here was a bona fide Tier 5. There was no doubt about it. The aura wasn’t as bad as Velmora’s, but she had been part dragon, so he didn’t think comparing them was fair.

He didn’t know if this ant was the leader, probably not, but it was definitely high up on the totem pole if it was this powerful.

Julius was analyzing this special ant when it swiftly snapped its head in his general direction. Julius immediately ducked back into the pool of fire mana, praying that the ant hadn’t seen him or sensed him with some kind of skill. He double checked to make sure that nothing was leaking out, but he didn’t know if the ant had some kind of special skill that perceived something he wasn’t even aware of.

Thankfully, nothing happened, and he felt that he was in the clear.

On the bright side, it suddenly became a lot easier to sneak into the tower than before. Seeing that there was no better time than the present, he slowly began to make his way through the liquid flames and paddled down the stream toward his intended destination.

***

His suit was actually pretty good; there were a few issues, but he was able to remedy them before it broke down. His speed wasn’t all that great, but he was more concerned about stealth. And so he carefully approached the tower, the feeling of corruption only growing stronger with each moment.

He was honestly a little surprised by how well his plan worked. The ants didn’t seem interested in getting close to the river of flames, which meant he was pretty safe from detection. To be fair, he didn’t think they were expecting someone to literally be swimming in the lava-like substance.

When he got to the geyser, he came upon his greatest worry. He didn’t know if his suit could handle the temperature, but he wouldn’t be able to get across without being seen by one of the ants. The tower was surrounded by them, and the only places where it was obscured were from the geysers into the air.

Time was of the essence and so he didn’t have time to overthink it, instead he trusted his suit and threw himself into the geyser. He would have liked to say that his suit held up. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. The geyser's pressure was way more powerful than he anticipated. It shredded his suit, and his flesh immediately started to scorch.

He held back a scream and instead used a bit of kinetic energy to hasten his ascent. It was too late to go back now, and he needed to get high enough so that he could access one of the holes on the side of the tower. [Phoenix Renewal] was fully active, healing his burnt flesh as quickly as it was being destroyed. It wouldn’t be able to keep up forever, but fortunately, he didn’t need forever. Got high enough, the tower was right next to him, and with a small pulse of kinetic energy, he grabbed hold of it. He pulled himself into safety, but didn’t relax. He remained tense, and only when he didn’t sense any alarms or ants coming to attack him did he finally relax.

He glanced down at his completely destroyed suit, then looked lower, and cursed. It would appear that his underwear hadn’t survived either. Who would have thought?