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nHe looked up from the chair and over towards a stone doorway that led outside of the chamber. From his memory, he knew that that path led down a long, frozen corridor, and ended in a large, stone room, supported by several grand stone pillars.

nIn there, he remembered seeing a long, faded and frozen red carpet lying down the middle of this room, leading to a raised stone platform where a lone, black throne sat.

nThat was the Throne Room of the Ice Keep.

nArial had used her Touching Light Ability to stab into that throne, activating some type of magical circle to force the magical Red Portal down below to begin powering up. They had been forced to wait several hours for it to become fully charged, something that had led to Dorian having to fight a grand battle against a blind, King Class Grakon and a small army of Shades.

nAt the time, he hadn't known much about life in the 30,000 Worlds. He certainly didn't know enough about how to activate an Artifact or portal, or anything of that type.

nEven now, Dorian still didn't think he knew much.

nWhat he did know, however, was how to sense emanations of Law.

nAnd right now, he could see several very distinct lines of Law Energy all coagulating upon this simple looking table.

nAs he gazed at this and studied it, he began to gain an understanding of what this was. He could feel the energy coursing, and see it connect to the ground, the floor, the walls, and spread out to every part of the Ice Keep.

nArial's method of stabbing the throne to activate the Red Portal down below was, ultimately, a crude method. It involved leaving behind a large amount of damage that, while automatically repaired over time by the world of Blizzaria, was not the intended way to activate the Ice Keep.

nAs Dorian studied this table, he could see that, for some odd reason, this set of furniture had been designated as the key control point for the Ice Keep.

nHe had no idea why. It made perfect sense for the throne in the Throne Room to be the functional control point for the Ice Keep's mysteries. For it to be a random table and chair seemed odd beyond belief.

nBut who was he to question the design choice of the Grakons? He shrugged. He was sure they did this for some deeper reason, but he didn't care enough to try and unfold the mysteries. As long as it worked, it worked. He'd leave the abstruse stuff to the Aurelius Family.

nHis original plan had been to recreate Arial's actions and activate the Red Portal. Now, however…

nHe walked over to the frozen chair and sat down in it, brushing aside a large amount of frigid ice. As he got comfortable, he took in a deep breath and closed his eyes.

nFaintly, he began to spread out his senses, imbuing a small amount of energy into the table and chair.

nA warm, tingling sensation spread throughout his chest as he did so. Abruptly, he felt the chair and table he was sitting at begin to vibrate. Energy began to rush towards him, slowly picking up speed.

nSeveral seconds passed as the energy flooded to the table in front of him, gradually building up in size.

nDorian watched this closely. After a few more seconds, he began to frown, however.

n'It's slow.' The first thing he noticed was that it was taking a while for the energy to build up. He could sense that the table needed to gather a large amount of energy before it could activate.

nRight now, it was drawing energy from the air, concentrating power into itself.

nHowever, the rate it was doing this at was just too slow.

nAt least, it was slow from Dorian's perspective.

nFor a regular person, an Artifact that possessed the power to condense energy from the air itself was something incredible. It was worthy of being a rare treasure, one that was almost self-sufficient in usage.

nAbilities like Dorian's Hyperion Beam were extraordinarily rare. Artifacts with a similar function were also extraordinarily rare, mainly because creating any such Artifact was not only difficult, but also almost impossible to do if it was for an Artifact intended to last a long time.

nCondensing energy from the air wore away at an Artifact. Therefore, if one wanted to create something that would last a long time, it was necessary to put certain limits on such a tool to keep it from being overwhelmed after a few years.

nAt its current rate of absorption, it would take at least a few hours for this table to gather enough energy to fully activate and become a control point that Dorian could manipulate.

nDorian began to understand why it had taken so long for the Red Portal to be usable, back when he and Arial had broken into the Ice Keep.

n'Let's see if I can speed it up a bit.' He thought, his eyes narrowed as he reached out with his right hand. He rested the clawed appendage atop the table, his claws clinking softly.

nHe cast his senses into the table once more, able to feel the budding energy keenly. As he centered his mind on this energy, he began to exude energy from his soul. The power rushed through his veins and exited out of his right palm, absorbing directly into the frozen table.

nAs soon as his energy began to appear, the entire feast hall was thrown into disarray.

nSteam flooded the air as the temperature around Dorian's body jumped a solid 50 degrees. The raw heat given off by this energy transfer was enough to thaw out half the room, creating an odd, frozen fogscape.

nThe heat didn't affect the table or chair Dorian was sitting at. The energy he was outputting, however, did.

nIn three seconds flat, he pushed more than 100,000 units of energy into the table.

nThe table ate everything he pushed into it up, its body trembling slightly, almost like a happy puppy devouring a hunk of juicy meat. The energy was smoothly absorbed into its central area, rapidly accelerating its activation process.

nOne more second passed as he pushed off 35,000 more units of energy.

nIt was at this point, after a mere 4 seconds, that the table shifted and groaned slightly, refusing to accept any more energy. Dorian instantly stopped sending power, causing the billowing steam that had blown the feast hall into disarray to begin to cool.

nHe ignored that, however, as a small smile appeared on his face.

nThe instant the table became 'full,' the control point for the Ice Keep had activated.

nA multitude of sensations flooded into Dorian's mind as he detected, studied, and subsequently activated a line of energy that had reached out to connect with him. The line had come from the chair he was sitting at, linked with the table he had just filled with energy.

nThis line pulsed several times every second, sending out hundreds of different waves of energy that spread out through the Ice Keep all around him. Dorian found that he could track each and every one of these lines, tracing them throughout the entirety of this large structure.

nHe also found that he could spread his senses along these lines of energy, all at once simultaneously, allowing him to expand his line of sight to an immense degree, detecting everything present.

nOnce he discovered he could do that, he promptly did.

nWith one sweep of the entire structure, he could tell that he was the only living creature in the Ice Keep. There weren't even any undead Grakons here, the area was completely abandoned. The mysterious blind Grakon King that used to live here was nowhere to be seen.

nHe also found out that this building was far larger than he had thought. It stretched for miles and miles underground, a huge fortress full of tens of thousands of differing rooms. It seemed to have been some type of last-ditch defensive stronghold, designed to house an entire city if need be.

nIn this search, he sensed a few small and large treasure rooms, full of ancient, frozen-over treasure. After glancing them over with his senses, he ignored them, able to tell that their value was nothing that could interest him.

nHe could see a few old libraries, granaries, bedrooms, feast halls, smitheries, and more, a veritable underground, frozen city that surpassed the city of Icicar above.

nThe discovery he was most pleased with, however, was the fact that he could now teleport.

n'Oh? I can move anywhere in the Ice Keep instantly?' He discovered the rather useful perk almost immediately, the knowledge settling into his head automatically after he gained control.

nAnywhere there was a line of energy, he could transport himself to. If he wished, he could loot every single treasure room in just a few minutes, warping between them instantly.

nA power like this would save him from making the long trek through the maze of corridors that led to the Red Portal down below, something Dorian was more than willing to accept skipping.

nAs he discovered his ability to teleport, he also understood, at least a little, why this table and chair was the control point.

nThis table and chair seemed to be part of some type of ancient creation that predated this fortress. It was almost as if the entire fortress had been built around this table and chair, rather than the table and chair being built for the fortress.

nThis feast hall seemed to be one of some type of historical significance. Dorian wasn't aware of the intricacies of Grakon history, but this place probably should've been some type of religious or ancestral holy site.

nThis control point was also something that was more complicated than it looked.

nFrom what Dorian could tell, there were hundreds of identical control points spread out around the castle in various replica feast halls. However, each of these control points had remnants of what clearly used to be some type of energy-based 'lock.' Dorian wasn't exactly sure how these points could've been 'locked' but it was clear that they weren't intended to be opened up and used by just anyone.

nThese locks had long-since been drained and faded away. Unlike the general array on the front door of the Ice Keep, these 'locks' used a very specific type of Law energy, one that Dorian didn't recognize, to power themselves up. It seemed that the death-aspected energy of Blizzaria, constantly repairing and keeping everything in a state of homeostasis, had worn away the 'locking' energy, leaving the Ice Keep open to manipulation.

nIt was because of this that Arial had succeeded with her crude method of activating the Red Portal. And it was also because of this that Dorian could so easily gain access to the Ice Keep's control point.

n'I'll take it.' Dorian wasn't going to complain about it, that was for sure. With a cheeky grin, his eyes began to glow with light as he activated the power of the Ice Keep.

nHis body blurred, icy blue energy wrapping around it as he disappeared from the feast hall.

nAn instant later, he found himself in another familiar-looking room.

nHe had landed on the ground in a large, mostly empty circular room, about 500 hundred meters across. A few grey stone pillars supported a ceiling far overhead, covered in, unsurprisingly, ice. The floor was made of some type of gold material, dotted intermittently with chunks of ice.

nAt the center of this room and set into the ground was a large, 50 meter wide glowing red portal. The surface of this portal was calm and seemed to have depth, making it appear almost as if it was a still pool of water.

nFrom this portal, Dorian could sense strong fluctuations of energy, radiating with otherworldly power.

nJust like that, he'd arrived in the room that housed the Red Portal.

nDorian gazed at it silently for a few seconds before sighing as he shook off the memories of the past. Instead, he focused on the present and the future.

nAccording to the Aurelius Family, redirecting the Red Portal to reach the Birthplace of Giants wasn't very complicated. The key to doing this lay in the city the Red Portal was originally designed to connect to, Dragonmount City.

nBack when Dorian first moved through the portal, it had been rather destabilized and his teleportation had been a haphazard, dangerous occasion, forced by the immediate danger of the Ice Keep's impending self-destruction. As a result, he ended up teleporting to an area outside of Dragonmount City, instead of his intended destination.

nAnd it was in that city's far outskirts that he had been rescued by the B Rated Warrior Woman mercenary team. He could remember the infuriating powers the leader of that team studied, a technique that gave her a 'Lucky State' similar to Dorian's own manipulation of Fate, allowing for odd coincidences to match up.

nThis odd encounter was what eventually led to him meeting Leader, and much of what had happened to him in his journey today. Even if he could go back now, he wasn't sure if he would. His encounters with Helena, the boosts and powers he'd gained, allies he'd made… all of these things and more would likely diverge a great deal.

nHowever…

nThis time around, his teleportation should take him to his intended location. The receiving portal that was located in Dragonmount City, hidden away within one of the mysterious, fog-covered mountains that dotted the lands inside the city grounds.

nAnd it was there that he could find what he needed to redirect the portal to take him to the planet Phenshrip.

nDorian walked up to the edge of the glowing pool of energy, his eyes calm. He studied the fluctuations briefly, noting how they shivered. It faintly reminded him of how he had teleported back when he was on the Blighted World of Moria, warping between Demonic Inheritances.

nIt also felt slightly similar to the fluctuations his Warping Turkey form gave off when it teleported. He shuddered slightly at the vague memories he held of his time using that cursed, brain-restricted form. He made a firm mental promise to only use that form again if he absolutely had to.

nEverything seemed to be in order. His rapid activation of the Ice Keep hadn't made any unintended changes, at least, not as far as he could tell.

nWith that thought in mind, he smiled and took one final step forward, his eyes flashing with eager light.

nAnd then, without a whit of hesitation, Dorian dived headfirst into the Red Portal.

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