Chapter 134

  After Travis excused himself to deal with the everyday operations of Candle Light, which were not easy to handle with the increasing number of anomalies, Michael decided to return to the dungeon. Seeing the dwarven script Kavanaugh had brought in exchange for the Silver tier resulted in a sort of itch he couldn’t wait to scratch, like his mind was yearning for a chance to put into practice what he had learned in the fourth floor of the dungeon—when he had fixed the Heart of the forge.

  He went to the Valley as the location of choice to run experiments in peace, where he sat under the shade of a large tree. Instead of rushing to the problem at hand, however, he decided to meditate, letting his mind wander on many things for a while.

  He thought about how he had treated Kavanaugh, wondering what had come over him that made him treat the man so poorly, and realized that perhaps he was still blaming him for the deaths of the operators and the whole scheme Travis had pulled on him. He still had complicated feelings about Travis in general, but the man was too competent to be removed from his station, not to mention the problems that doing so would cause.

  If he wanted to remove Travis without causing problems, he feared he would have to kill him. And despite Travis’ misdeeds, Michael wasn't even considering such an extreme action.

  Then his mind drifted towards more mundane problems, even though he didn’t think he could really call them mundane. More like everyday problems. Things he had left in the backburner for a while, and that would remain there for longer still. An ever-growing list of things that required his attention, his focus, his mental energies.

  Not even the time dilation of the dungeon helped. In fact, the time dilation itself was one of the problems in the list, the mechanics of its diminishing effects still mostly unknown. Then there was the matter of the critters Michael saw whenever he cranked up the effect of Truth, the holes in reality that had almost caused Stephan’s brain to turn into jelly when Michael had involuntarily exposed his friend to the very same sights he saw on a daily basis.

  Then there was the more pressing matter of the foreign magic he detected in the aberrations that had almost overrun the biolab after Doctor Kavins’ experiment had gone sideways. Someone was sabotaging them, using magic unknown to even Michael. The sole thought that someone could have infiltrated the compound had caused both David and Travis to go on overdrive for a full day before they calmed down, but even now he could sense their unease under the fa?ade of calm.

  Perhaps that was why Travis had been so on edge with Kavanaugh. The same went for Michael, whose mind inevitably circled back to the topic.

  He was stressed, and no matter how many times people kept telling him that he needed to find a way to deal with stress, not only did he not find any solutions but he always ended up more stressed than before, with new things to do and keep in mind piling up faster than he could sort through them. The latest addition, if one disregarded the foreign influences inside Site 00, was the sensory overload caused by his Mind Dantian core.

  Michael had yet to find a solution for it, while the pill to bring Unity in resonance with his cultivation was heavy in his pocket. Despite its allure, he didn’t dare touch it yet.

  Then there were other problems. The anomalies. The world was changing, its flora and fauna transformed by magic around the dungeon, where it was touched by mana and changed in mysterious ways. How would such change affect the world once it got out?

  Even inside the dungeon, Michael wasn’t immune from sources of stress. Even in the Valley, even in his safe haven, he found himself worried and tense. The Fae around him, for example. Every time he saw one of them, he couldn’t help but think about the brainwashing effect the dungeon had on them. Would they stay loyal to him if they had free will? Would they leave or, worse, force his hand?

  He thought about the utopia he wanted to build, thought about the school he promised to his sister and the things he wanted to change about the world. It all stood upon his shoulders like a great weight that no amount of stats could help him bear.

  He was the keeper of the delicate balance between the powers that had come into being inside of Unity and the unknown forces outside of it. He was the bastion defending Site 00 from dangers. He was the reference point his sister looked up to.

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  Michael checked his phone, reviewing notifications and instructing Icarus. Between one thing and another, Michael had also begun to use the AI to keep in touch with the many happenings and things being done around Site 00. He checked on Travis, on David and on Johanne, because no matter what they said Travis and David did not cancel each other out, and Johanne left unchecked would be an even worse threat to the world than an AI gone full paperclip maximizer.

  Michael could check on them in real time thanks to the portal system Johanne put in place, but the consequence of the Valley being connected to the outside world in mini-bursts of data, however, was that the constant state of connection, of availability, of weight that the valley had so far been a refuge from, was back. At least the time dilation effect wasn’t affected too much, thanks to Johanne’s clever configuration of the portals.

  Michael got up and looked around the idyllic valley between mountains. Beneath the thin layer of his eyesight, his senses picked up the vast signature of magic that bore the dungeon’s fingerprint.

  This wasn’t nature. This wasn’t the outside world. It was a dungeon and they had plans to develop it for the good of the real world. The Valley that was a safe retreat from the worries of the world, couldn’t be one anymore. The time to play was not yet over, but the fading time dilation was sure to remind Michael that it wouldn’t last for much longer.

  “Time to work,” Michael muttered.

  In order to focus on developing the shield skill, he descended down to the fourth floor, where he found the dwarves busy with the reconstruction of their civilization. Without the Renegade’s influence, they were no longer the traitorous race who had almost killed Michael’s friend, instead they were once again the wondrous people who had built wonders under the weight of untold layers of stone.

  Except, Michael couldn’t bring himself to view them as that just yet. The memory of the betrayal made him apathetic to their fate, like when he had lit the fire of the brewery the second time around but had watched the merry festivities from a cold and detached distance.

  Hopefully, with the time loop broken, not being forced to live through the same experiences over and over again each time he descended to the fourth floor would change how he saw the dwarves. For now, he ignored them, thankful for their respectful reverence that kept them a fair distance from their mysterious savior, and went back to the Heart of the Forge.

  There, the frigid Black Ice and the roaring Forgefire clashed and mingled: now enemies, now best of friends.

  When Michael opened the door, the Forgefire acknowledged him as equal, and let him pass, while the Black Ice knelt to its superior elemental manifestation, to Hycean Ice. The disparity did not cause troubles, however, for Michael was more than just Elements and used his magic and aura to keep the two forces from destabilizing the room with their uneven reactions.

  Sitting at the center, in the cradle of fire and ice, he studied the runescript on the walls. Not runes, nor circuitry, it was a mix of both in a clever design worthy of a true great race. Perhaps, before the dungeon, the dwarves had indeed been one, and perhaps with his help they might one day be one once again.

  I need to solve the problems of my own people first…

  He closed his eyes, visualizing the runescript behind the OA’s dome shield. His mental statistics as well as his Mind Dantian core allowed him to perfectly memorize the script, leaving the precious designs to Johanne and Travis while Icarus worked to digitalize them.

  Slowly, he began to construct a mental framework, leveraging his skills to shape his mana into the lines and swirls that made the script. The hard part came next: integrating the runes.

  Michael tried many times, but each time he thought he was making headway, something blocked his path. The runes refused to manifest out of mana or any lesser energy, even though originally they were invented by a race that did all their magic with the Elements and the Elements alone. The OA too, the most they had was mana, surely not Qi or other more exotic magic.

  After a few days spent pondering over the issue, Michael decided that he wasn’t getting anywhere and that he would need a fresh mind to figure out what was wrong. Sitting up, he decided to go check on the others.

  He stumbled upon Old Dave on his way to his treehouse.

  “I heard that Johanne is training with Kavanaugh,” the man said. “Training Kavanaugh, actually. Poor soul.”

  Michael nodded, “I was just going to check on them. Join me?”

  “With pleasure,” he said, turning pensive after a brief pause. “By the way, I also heard that Travis is busy dealing with some missing operators.”

  “Missing?” Michael asked. He remembered reading something about it, “is it about the portal that suddenly opened in a field around Redbud?”

  “Yeah,” David nodded, “it’s a one-way aperture, but from the energy readings Johanne confirmed that there is breathable air, water and normal gravity on the other side. Some operators volunteered to be sent inside to see where it led, but they haven’t come out yet.”

  “Problems?”

  Old Dave shrugged. “There may be. People are Redbud Ridge are getting used to all the new anomalies, by the way. Some of them are beginning to ask how to join Unity, and how much we’d pay them if they did.”

  “That’s good. We need more personnel,” Michael said.

  David grinned, “already on it. Don’t worry.”