Chapter 134
The Decision
Dragon after dragon fell to Alexa and her Replicas. With each dragon slain, she accomplished two main goals. The first of which being that she got to free a new dungeon every time she Stayed. On its own this might not seem like much, but to Alexa it was huge, as it implied the dungeons understood her intentions. Had she just stayed, then the dungeon would have somehow been able to reset time, reimprison themselves and then create an exact replica of the Albino dragon. This however was not the case. Alexa noticed this the first time she fought and killed level 1 dragons, each time she reset the stage a new level 1 dragon appeared, ready for her to slaughter or scare off. If she could, she wished she could go back to those dungeons, if only to set the dungeons free. She didn’t know what happened to dungeons that were not holding dragons, but were still imprisoned against their wills. Did they eventually find a way to create a key on their own? Would they somehow starve?
From all her travels, she knew three things about dungeons. The first thing she knew for a fact was that dungeons at their very heart had a flesh like core that could somehow be enslaved and chained to do another’s bidding. The second fact she learned was that dungeons seemingly fed off of the ambient energy that adventurers inadvertently left behind while they ran through dungeons. Even when she used spells, she could tell that none of the residual energy would go to waste by the dungeon. In a way, dungeons were the perfect biodegradable mana factory. The third fact she had learned was likely the most important fact of all, the fact that dungeons were sentient. She didn’t know how sentient, as she had never had a conversation that was deeper than being able to be answered by simple yes or no answers, but she could ask complex questions and they could answer truthfully. This was why, when she told the dungeon that had been her last and final Stage X trial for the Dragon Trials, she knew the dungeon had not only understood, but would follow her will.
That was why she had stayed, not because it was easy, although it was amazingly so. With each new dungeon, she increased the number of Replicas she carried. This time she decided to go slower, to start off with three, and slowly work her way up as time went on.
Each time the process was the same, she would go in, check for dispersion runes at the other end and her Replicas would enter a minute later. This was not because she could command them over such vast distances, in fact her initial concern about the communications not being able to go backwards to the previous dungeon were proven correct. However, despite this, she still managed to bypass this concern by just telling her Replicas to count to a hundred first, before following her through the portal. That hundred seconds was more than enough to disable any runic structure that awaited her and her team on the other end. Once all runes were defused, her main purpose for the raid was over, and she went about creating the key to free the dungeon while her Replicas carved their way through the often slumbering dragons.
While freeing the dungeons was her primary goal, her secondary goal of increasing the efficacy of her Titles, which were massive. With so many high-level dragons killed, her Absorber class was able to come in handy enough to absorb enough for three title increases for her Attribute Increase title, followed by her Dragon Slayer title that at the very least improved her magical potency by an extra 150%, for a total of 555% increase.
Attribute Increase (16 -> 19): All Attributes increased by 10% (160 -> 190%). Dragon Slayer (27 -> 37): All Magic abilities increased by 15% (405 -> 555%). Magical effectiveness against all dragons increased by 50% (1,350 -> 1,850%).
The increases were amazing, but what truly made her feel like she had accomplished something was seeing the way the dungeons all seemed to glow just a little bit brighter after they were freed. By the end the new Replicas that she was able to summon were nearly unstoppable. While she had twelve of them at one point, by the end she found that five were more than capable of dispatching any dragon she came in contact with.
With her army of five enhanced Replicas, she was in prime position to move on to stage IX of her Trials of Ascension, these Replicas were all created with her most recent Dragon Slayer title active, while they weren’t the full 1,850%, she doubted the fifty percent difference from 1,800% to 1,850% would be that noticeable. Still, it had been a long day, and she had so much to tell.
By her internal clock, she and her minion army had torn through the fifteen dungeons at an incredible pace, clearing them all in just under two hours. If she didn’t care about people, she would keep going, she would not stop until she completed both stage IX and X together in one go. But that wasn’t her, at least that was not who she wanted to be.
Also, she realized that with so much going on, her parents, well her mother would still be in London. At best she might have been able to start the long nine hour flight back home. Meaning she would have seven hours to tell her brother everything.
At this point, she realized she wanted to be the one to tell her brother. She didn’t quite know why, but she felt he would appreciate her telling him, in person, versus some hired super. Or worse, having him find out from mother. She paused, wondering why it would be worse for her mother to tell him, versus her, but she couldn’t exactly explain why. There was an emotional complexity that was held between them thanks to their twin bond that she could not understand. Logically such a bond should not exists, that or if it did, it should be noticeable somehow, but despite all her magical abilities, she had yet to explain why she had such a deep connection to her brother. One that let her know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if she wanted to have a good relationship with her brother going forward, then she would need to be the one to tell him. Logically she knew from reading books and journals on the study of mental health, that being there to grieve with a family member during the time of a tragedy would be something important, that this was key in every relationship. Yet, Alexa felt an overwhelming dread when she thought about telling her brother. Just the idea of going and telling him would make it real, and that frightened her.
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Chuckle.
In that moment of realization, Alexa found herself laughing. She was afraid, for the first time in her life, she had come face to face with a problem that truly frightened her. Not monsters, not fighting dragons, nor hell beasts that breathed out torrents of flames, nor rats whose very bodies could create explosions when surrounded by magical forces. None of those thoughts scared her as much as being there to tell her brother the truth of what happened. And with that, Alexa couldn’t help but laugh at herself.
It was right up there with the time she found out her mother, was afraid of spiders. Here she was, one of the most powerful women in the world, a Super Hero, not just a Super, and she was afraid of spiders. The entire concept was beyond her, especially as an emotionally stunted child.
Now here she was, at the cusp of womanhood herself, and she found herself afraid of telling her brother the truth. She wondered if he would blame her, the same way she also blamed herself. If she had been faster, had spoke first rather than looking into the box and its operations. Everything had happened so quickly, but she still had taken a moment to inspect rather than acting, rather than going with her gut instincts. How many times had she doubted herself in dungeons? Countless times, and each time it had been met with a similar fate, a bad injury, a loss of items, the breaking of a rib. So many times she had doubted herself, and so many times that had come back to bite her. And here she was doing the same exact thing, and expecting a different result. Logically she knew that there was nothing that could have been done, but even now she found herself pausing, doubting herself even more.
“Just go!”
The thought of her rational mind kicking in, telling her to press through. Realistically she knew her rational mind was right, that she should go, get it over with and continue with the healing process as quickly as possible, but it wasn’t going to be that easy.
“Only because you won’t let it be easy.”
At that, Alexa realized the truth. She wanted to suffer, she wanted to withdraw herself from society, and hide from everything. Of course, this would mean that once her high from killing dragons was over, she would be back to her coldly logical side, her stronger side. The side that even now was telling her to push on. Part of her emotional mind wanted her to just wait it out, to let the high fade away until everything was numb and painless. Then her rational mind would take over and shoulder the hard facts, just as she always had, and always would.
She stood there for a minute, then a second.
Finally, her Replicas made up her mind for her. One by one the Replicas stepped away from Alexa, and then drove their swords into the ground and let their remaining energy flow into the dungeon.
Whoosh!
These weren’t the high intensity explosions that had torn chunks out of the different dragons she had faced. Rather these were the intense deep tissue release of magic that would be beneficial to the dungeon.
Glow.
With each Replica that sacrificed themselves in such a way, Alexa got to see something beautiful. Something she didn’t even know what was possible. Alexa watched as the chain imprints that had covered the dungeon’s core began to fade away. With each Replica gone, she saw the way a portion of the exposed and raw marks were cured. Then by the last one, she saw how a layer of pink flesh like material appeared over the final portions of the core. Seeing that, Alexa once again tried Healing magic on the dungeon, only to find that the dungeon cores were still not healthy living tissue, at least not the way she was used to thinking about living tissue.
Looking at the healed portion of the core, Alexa felt a bit sad. “Sorry, had I known, I would have been sacrificing those Replicas on every dungeon I cleared.”
Flash.
The dungeon flashed in understanding. Alexa meant it too, had she known her densely woven Replicas could heal dungeons, she would have sent them and more to heal the dungeons. Even if it drastically slowed her pace of advancement.
Still with her overly enhanced Replicas gone, she knew her overwhelming advantage for clearing stage IX and X were gone, along with any excuse she had of pressing through. For a moment, she wondered how sentient her own Replicas were, until she realized it was likely a subconscious command given by her rational mind. The same mind that all but demanded she go home and tell everyone.
Just thinking about that, a cold wave of fear gripped her, as she didn’t like that she needed people. For years she had been independent, at least she thought of herself as independent. Yet, now she realized how much she relied on others. Her brother to drive. Her mom to tell right from wrong, and her dad, well he had always been there, the rock of their family. Only now that part of her life had been taken away from her did she realize how precious life was, how important building these connections were. What good was life, what good was sacrifice if you did so alone.
Pausing, Alexa realized that enough time had passed. She had spent enough time being ungrateful for the many wonders she had in her life. Despite everything, she had a great childhood, loving parents, a brother, and Gina.
Gods, she didn’t know what to do with herself about Gina. The fact that even now, while thinking about family, that she would be recalled at all spoke volumes about how much she had grown to mean to her as a friend. Then there was the rest of her pack, while she could name them all, none of them held the same value and respect as Gina did.
“I have a favor to ask dungeon.” Alexa found herself asking in the Precursor tongue.
Flash.
Seeing the flash, Alexa instantly understood that this was the dungeon’s way of saying for her to go on.
“Can you send me home?”
There was a system message that popped up in her mind. One that was written in Precursor, but her mind easily interpreted the information.
Would you like to go to Dawning Light Academy Dungeon?
“Yes.”
Flash.
There was yet another flash, and the dungeon that seemed to be glowing with a vibrant shade of life caused its exit portal to change. There at the other end of the dungeon sat a now all too familiar guard shack.
“Thank you dungeon. May our paths cross under better circumstances when next we meet.”
Flash, tingle.
There was a quick pulse from the dungeon to her. Something deep, something that was indescribable, it felt like she was cleansed in some way, like part of her had been sealed away and was now open.
Touching her heart, she felt for the imprint of what had happened, but found nothing there. Maybe I imagined it? Alexa thought to herself, as she did a few scans for any signs of what had happened, but nothing came up. Whatever the dungeon had done was invisible to her, even her magical senses hadn’t picked it up. Still for a moment, she felt like she was connected to the dungeon, well not just this dungeon but every dungeon in the universe. For a fraction of a second, she even felt a form of sympathetic pain for other dungeons who were themselves still bound by the dragons, or worse creatures.
Realizing just how many dungeons were still bound was beyond her. For a moment, she thought about asking to be sent to those, but then stopped herself. She was exhausted, both physically and emotionally. She had been on little to no sleep for the past two days and despite stopping to create her own food, she needed to rest. But first, she needed to tell her brother what had happened.
“Thank you dungeon.” Alexa said, not quite knowing what the dungeon had done, as the act didn’t appear as a title, or skill, but something had happened. She felt that deep seed of gratitude that the dungeon felt towards her, one that seemed to be carried on by multiple other dungeons who also shared that same sentiment.
Flash.
The dungeon, ever sentient as always flashed in understanding and then almost as if in annoyance flashed for Alexa to enter the portal. Seeing that a faint smile filled her lips, as it seemed the dungeon too knew she was stalling.
“Fine.” Alexa said, as she took in a deep breath, then walked through the portal to face her destiny.