I Killed the Last Dragon and became the Administrator

Chapter Three Monolith

Ke'an found himself in a world with a sun but no sky. Above is a single star in an ocean of starless black. The terrain is uneven and rocky. Stone hexagonal pillars rose out of the ground each varied in height but the shortest over two hundred meters tall. They were about as thick in diameter as a carriage and too smooth to be natural. The monoliths dotted the landscape in random patterns; some pact tightly together while others spaced out. In the distance some of them appeared to float in the air and emitted a faint glow.

The portal that brought him to the strange location disappeared by collapsing into itself as he walks a few steps away. Wind howls in between the pillars kicking up dust and masking all other sound. Ke'an has to watch his step as he blindly chooses a direction towards one of the floating pillars in the distance that seemed brighter than the others. He can't tell how far away the floating pillar is amongst the forest of pillars around him.

As he walks closer to the floating pillar he notices that the wind seems to be intensifying. At first it was little more than a mild breeze, now however he is up against a torrent. The pillars seem to focus the wind flow in his direction as he walks and the number of pillars grows. He decides to take a break and sits in the shadow of one of the monoliths to shield himself as much as possible.

As a mage himself, he is especially attuned to magical energy and he could feel a subtle magic being infused into the wind. By moving his mana into his eyes he activates magic perception which allows him to see the magic move about the world. The wind is unnatural, blowing at a constant and ever increasing strength the closer he gets to the glowing pillar. There didn't seem to be a reason to need his weapons but the fact that System told him he would, has him on edge. He keeps his head on a swivel as he nestles up against the piller for some respite.

"Well it looks like it is just going to get harder from here." Ke'an says to himself.

He reaches into his pocket and takes out his stamps--careful to not let the wind snatch it from his hands. He takes out the stamp labeled rock and stampes both of his boots then the handle of his war machete. He puts the stamps away and stands up holding the machete in hand. He focuses small amounts of his magic into the weapon and holds it up to the pillar he then presses the blade into the hard rock which shifts around the blade like puddy. He stops the flow of his magic and the malleable rock solidifies into its normal hard state. The blade becomes stuck as it is embedded in the stone.

"Good, looks like magic still works on these weird things." Ke'an says as he surges just enough magic into the blade to pull it out of the monolith. "Okay, let's get going."

Ke'an walks out into the stream of air pushing forward as he gets closer and closer to the floating monolithic pillar. The wind becomes so intense that he has to crawl along the ground as if he were climbing a sheer drop. He uses his boots infused with small amounts of his magic which thanks to the rock stamp creates small footing locations. Luckily the ground is rocky enough to already have many places for hand holds as he crawled along.

As he reached out his hand again he felt a barrier of air frozen in place. There are no visual cues as to the magic being used, just a sudden stopping of the hurricane level winds. He pushes himself forward and feels a new magic pressing down on him. This time instead of wind it is gravity that shifted. It is as if the world itself turned ninety degrees and he really was climbing a shear wall. He climbs to one of the monoliths and finds he can stand up on the side that is facing the glowing menhir which is still in the distance.

"What in the name of the Goddess is going on here?" Ke'an says to himself as he wipes the sweat from his brow. "Okay, longer break this time."

He sits down and leans against the wall that used to be the ground which still confuses him. His exhaustion doesn't just come from the climb but also the amount of magic he had been using. Magic takes life energy as fuel--the more one uses magic the more of their own life it takes. Using too much of one's own energy will cause them to black out or even die. Most mages including Ke'an will use magic siphons which will draw life energy from the surroundings so they don't have to use their own. The only problem with being in this unusual world is that there is no life besides Ke'an himself.