Blacksmith of the Apocalypse-Chapter 1313: Magical Science

After a while, the power of the stream lessened.

It was enough to allow Seth to try and move against the flow, but without the pressure of the stream pressing him against the wall, Seth felt the incredible buoyancy he had in the dense liquid. Floating in the dense magma like a cork, could be more likened to the magma trying to crush him against the ceiling of the tunnel.

As the magma was still flowing, it was probably more like grinding him to a fine paste against the rock ceiling, but the blacksmith was a little too resilient to let that happen. Blindly grasping along the harder surface he was pressed against, he found it smooth, as he created the tunnel by melting through.

His heart dropped for a moment, his thoughts racing to come up with a way to resist the slowed flow that was trying to push him back out. Then the blacksmith burst into a pale blue blaze and dug his hands into the ceiling.

As they say, fight fire with fire. The moment he engulfed himself parts of the magma flow below him became more liquid and even vaporized, and the blacksmith felt the pressure on himself only worsen. The inexplicable forced that pressed on him now, was worse than just the magma, so he quickly stopped and restricted the flame to his hands alone, before it was too late.

With his hands creating his own holds along the ceiling, Seth pushed his back down against the viscous magma, so he could inch along the ceiling, searching for a way against the flow, back down the tunnel he had dug.

Unfortunately, he didn't have x ray vision and was pretty much blind in this situation. He could only feel his way forward, moving toward the breach where the magma came from, to enter what he thought might be the magma chamber or crater of the mountain.

He kept going like that, when he suddenly grabbed onto emptiness and lost his hold. The moment he crawled past the ceiling of the tunnel, his buoyancy grabbed him with irresistible force. Having lost his grip on the ceiling, the backing that pushed him against it was now rapidly driving him upward.

Unable to find anything solid to hold onto, Seth helplessly accelerated until he breached the surface and was spit out of the magma. He was catapulted several meters into the air before gravity remembered that it existed and pulled him back toward the magma.

He wanted to use , but that was one of the skills of the Lucky Trinket, which was one of the items he had to take off, as it wouldn't have been able to resist this environment. The magma shot towards him and -

Splat!

Seth fell back onto the molten rock, which denied him another dive in. Ultimately he came to float or rather lie on top the magma. The blacksmith took a moment to process what the heck he just went through. He just “swam” through molten stone, enduring over a thousand degrees Celsius and the lack of oxygen.

Then the liquid sludge literally spat him out. The weirdest thing was that all of it had actually felt comfortable, despite sounding like an absolute horror scenario. Out of all the things he could have imagined he would do in this place, he would have never expected something so weird to happen to him.

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This was definitely a magical experience, after all, he would be dead if he wasn't magically enhanhanced by his Traits and items. Yet, what he experienced was fundamentally science. Nature had quickly proven to him that a skinny dip in molten rock was fundamentally impossible, to him. Even if the magma were was like water(which it wasn't at all), he was just a cork, a water strider that was denied access to the secrets under the surface.

When he finally managed to regain his bearings, Seth tried to stand up. Just like a water strider, he was unable to sink on the bright yellow surface. The lava below him felt mushy, as his slightly feet sank into it. It was hard to keep his balance as the magma did not really act like a solid surface..

It felt weird and unstable. Seth had never really taken it upon himself to just walk through a swamp or bog on foot, but judging by movies and stuff he read in the past, he could probably be likened to that.

It was hard, but he found a way to more or less keep his balance and finally stand up to have a proper look around. Although he was deep within the mountain, at least the place was well illuminated. The bright yellow and orange surface gave a great few of the chamber full of smoke and deadly fumes.

it was the smoke that was rather obstructive to the view, Despite not wearing Sight of Theia, his necklace, he was able to roughly make out the dimension of the place he was in. Above him was a wide, ceiling. The stalactites hanging from it suggested that he was in what used to be a natural cave.

That, and his being able to see the boundaries of the cavity, he doubted that this was the magma chamber. It was probably just a cave that was flooded, just like his little mining shaft. This was not his destination, so he had to find a way to continue traveling from here.

Since Seth had no way to orient himself based on what he saw, he looked at his

and the mini-map function. He had ignored it a little on his way in, as he kept bee-lining for mineral deposits, but since he was done playing around, it was time to get efficient with the direction he was going.

The blacksmith tried orienting himself at the crater on the map. Mt.Robere's crater was not huge, compared to the size of the mountain itself, so even after digging around for some time, and gaining quite a distance to Delta situated on the saddle in west from the crater, he was still some distance off, according to the map.

Although the mini map was unable to display any details of his surroundings, except resources picked up by , it indicated the cardinal directions. This was good enough to stay on track when he returned to blasting his way through the softened rock, leaving the magma cave behind.

Starting at the wall of the cave facing east, Seth cast Flamethrower once again, burning his way back into solid rock, leaving the mushy magma lake behind. Having learning form the recent experience, Seth didn't dig straight in.

Melting another tunnel into the rock, the blacksmith aimed slightly upward, and kept making bends and serpentine. This was he hoped to be able to enter the conduit of the volcano, a funny word he learned when looking up info on the subject, above lava level and prevent being flushed again.

In case he did get flushed again, he hoped the bends and serpentines would give him ample chance to get a grip instead of being carried all the way back. At this point, Seth's fantasies about having a fun trip were mostly gone.

He had dropped any intentions of swimming in magma or enjoying the sights of a volcano up close. harsh reality had ruined his expectations and he just wanted to see if he could find the reason for the mountains activity, if he had a look around the vent or conduit of the mountain.

He wanted to do what he could and then return back home, to sooth his broken dreams, of magma caves being a fun place to explore. Fortunately, he only experienced being flushed away by magma only once. It seemed like his strategy had worked.

In exchange for making his path way longer, he had climbed the mountain on the inside and was even able to use the pickaxe again on the later part. With the

at the ready, he finally broke through the flank of the crater.

Col,d fresh air with a slight smell of sulfur welcomed him.