Eternal Dungeon POV

My new partner.

I could feel a connection between us that was distinctly different from the ones I had with my other creatures. My new connection with Wyla was certainly powerful and binding, but it was also more . . . mutual.

A partner. Someone who had the same authority as I did. I could somewhat tell through our shared link that I still had the slight advantage in authority. However that was to be expected to a degree, after all it's not like the system ever ordered me around before.

“Hello Wyla, pleasure to meet you” I respond once my thoughts have calmed

“It is a pleasure to meet you as well. I have been informed that we’ll be together for a long time.” Wyla says

“Yes, we will. Anything you need to tell me immediately?”

“No, there is nothing urgent at this time”

Our short conversation now ends in awkward silence. I’m definitely not used to having to deal with someone else who I can’t just turn my attention away from. My connection with Wyla is stronger than even my connection with my chosen. It’s also a connection that I’m unable to control as it’s a two way street. With my Chosen I can regulate my connection with them, even if I can’t shut it off completely. My connection with Wyla is something that neither of us seem to be able to control.

“So. . . do you want to help me with the fifth floor?” I awkwardly ask

I hear a soft chuckle echo through our connection before Wyla responds in her increasingly feminine voice.

“Sorry, I’m not laughing at your question or anything. I just find it funny that an all powerful true core is socially awkward.” Her voice is light and filled with mirth and through our connection I can tell that she’s teasing me as she lacks any malice.

“Well It’s not my fault that every being I’ve spoken to so far has either worshiped me like a god or been an administrator.” I respond while smiling internally.

“Of course not, oh wise and powerful Eternal Lord” Wyla says while also sending the impression of deeply bowing over our link.

I find my mood matching her own as I slowly remember how to talk with peers. We talk for several minutes, but with how fast we can both accelerate our thoughts those minutes are more like hours. We trade small barbs and get to know each other now that the ice is broken. I find myself feeling more like I used to by the end of our conversation and less like an almighty god.

“So Mark, shall we work on the fifth floor now?” Wyla says, likely sensing my shifting thoughts.

Wyla’s personality slowly became more solidified over the course of our conversation. When she first spoke she sounded more like the robotic and monotone system. However over time her inner voice became more feminine, ending with her sounding like a matronly woman. She also appeared to have slowly been absorbing concepts from my own thoughts as she understood concepts that I knew from earth without explanation.

“Sounds good.” I respond, starting to turn my attention to the fifth floor.

My fifth floor has been slowly changing ever since I made it. I created most of the plants through accelerated evolution and wanted to do the same for animals. The floor has been running in time acceleration for a couple hundred years of subjective time. Normally this wouldn’t be enough time to see anything other than small adaptations, however with mana in play things are different. A couple hundred years is enough for massive changes to take place in both the animals and plants due to mana, especially so since the mana density in my dungeon is so high.

I look over the floor and start to examine individuals to see what kind of changes have occurred within them and how those changes help them survive. I also start doing checks to see if any species were wiped out, if there are then I need to check to see why. Unlike the fourth floor free for all, the fifth floor would have a more curated experience similar to the rest of my floors.

As I’m beginning my tedious checks I feel Wyla’s attention also looking over the floor. I watch as she instantly identifies dozens of new species variants and takes samples of their blueprints. She also starts rapidly going through all of the tasks that normally take me hours of subjective time.

I forget to keep working and simply watch as Wyla rapidly performs hundreds of repetitive tasks. It reminds me of watching an AI or program perform a function. She takes no breaks and completes the tasks as fast as she’s physically able to. I sense her attention turn to me as she finishes cataloging all of the new species that have evolved.

“Are you going to work or just watch me do it all?” She questions with the sent impression of a raised eyebrow.

I snap out of my temporary daze and start to look over all of the new species that I now have the blueprints of.

“How are you able to do things that quickly? I mean I know that I can do things fast objectively, but to me it still takes hours of work in subjective time.” I ask my partner as we work side by side

“I am a partial system entity, I find repetitive tasks as easy as breathing.” She doesn’t even pause as she answers me.

“Impressive, not sure if I even need to be here then since you have everything covered” I say in a somewhat depressed tone.

“Mark, you're the one who made all of this. Being a partially system entity means that any idea’s I have already exist within the system. You however have the ability to innovate and bring new things into this world” Wyla tells me in a gentle tone.

I find my mana resonating happily as my emotions bleed into my aura.

“Thanks Wyla.” I say while reigning in my emotions so they stop affecting my aura.

“If you can cover all the maintenance I’ll start working on the changes. Once we get with this we can work on some new quests together. I’d love to get some input on the one’s I’ve already made as well.” I say trying to move past my emotional shifts.

“Certainly. I’ll help however I can, Mark” Wyla says, matching my tone and ignoring my shift in conversation.

For the first time in this new world I’m wishing I had a body so that I could smile.

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Captain Kal POV

“Everyone’s Clear! Fall back!” The shout comes from the rearguard followed by a barrage of spells and projectiles being launched past me.

Four of the giant flaming ants are knocked away or outright killed by the barrage, leaving only the two that were shielded by my own body. One quick activation of shield slam is enough to stun the bugs long enough for me to disengage. As I run in a sprint towards the edge of the cliff I can see my fellow tanks and frontline brawlers disengaging as well and following me.

Ahead of us the top halves of most of our ranged raid members can be seen peeking out of the canyon just enough for them to use their attacks. We had made a mistake, clear and simple, a mistake that we were doing a great job of surviving so far, but still a mistake. I pivoted and turned back around the moment my first foot got over the edge of the cliff, forcing my hand down into the rock and shifting my momentum so fast that my body slammed into the cliffside.

I felt a rumbling sensation as a slab of rock extended from the cliffside below me to give me a space to stand. I let go with my hand and dropped down about two inches, my entire body and now concealed from the top of the cliff. Technically I was supposed to be climbing down further and into the cave that we had designated our fallback spot, but as raid leader I refused to leave first. I made sure everyone else was down from the cliff top before I even started moving from my spot.

We were forced into a fighting retreat as the Burning Ants (Greater) continued to pursue us down the cliff. Luckily their numbers didn’t continue to increase, it seemed that only those already after us were in chase and not the entire nest. By the time we reached the cave all our pursuers were dead and most of us had less than 15% of our mana left.Once we were all inside the cave at the entrance we activated a barrier ward as well as an alarm trap before finally letting ourselves rest.

“Ok so, don’t try to traverse outside of the valleys. Lesson officially learned” I said from my rested position against one of the cave walls.

“Apologies for that, my team should’ve attempted to gather more information within the village. If we had known beforehand we wouldn’t have had to waste so many resources on this pointless endeavor” Shrike said bitterly from his standing position, he refused to stop watching the entrance.

I sighed and scratched the back of my head in thought. I knew that all of Redemption were quick to take on blame, especially their leader. As reformed criminals and members of the Righteous Path Church they were quick to self-blame. They seemed to genuinely believe that any failure was on them for not being better somehow, no matter how insane it made them sound.

“It’s on all of us. We’ve all had to do information gathering before and every team should’ve taken more steps to learn more about the floor. If It’s anyone’s fault it’s mine for setting such a harsh time limit on how long we could spend in the village.” I said taking responsibility as the leader “If this was anyones falling it was mine.”

Shrike looked like he was about to speak up again before he was interrupted by Earthheart.

“Ok, ok, listen, it was everyone's fault. I swear I cannot sit here watching you two volley back and forth again. We all know that the two of you are paragons of virtue, now can we get on with the actual planning for what to do next.” Eartheart somehow managed not to yell through his entire speech.

I suppressed a grin and Shrike and I shared a nod of understanding.

“Sure thing Eartheart. Let’s focus on the future” I easily agree with him and we move on to planning our next steps.

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Jones Junior POV

I looked over to see the party leaders all deep in conversation, likely about our plans going forwards. We had wasted three days of travel and one day of preparation in our attempt to move across the plateaus to get between valley sections. The members of the raid were a mixture of disheartened and pissed off at the wasted time we could’ve spent gathering more points.

All it had taken was six hours in that Spiritkin village for everyone to suddenly want this floor's special currency. Hell I was one of them. After seeing what we could buy in the shops on this floor for contribution points all of us were ready to dive into the monster filled valleys and fight as many orcs as we needed too.

I was so glad that I had gotten that letter delivery quest from the old man as without it I wouldn’t have even been let into her store. Apparently there were multiple exclusive shops on this floor that could only be unlocked if you completed special quests and `Master Amaki’s Inscriptions’ was one of them. All the items in her store were incredibly valuable and potent, however it was one in particular that had me chomping at the bit for some points.

Class Upgrade Manual: Superior

Allows the user to select any number of skills in order to receive a Superior rank class based on the skills selected. Only skills equal to or greater than Superior rank can be used for this process. (Warning: the more skills selected the more broad the end result class will be. A class received through this Manual cannot be refused or forgotten)

Almost all of my skills were at the Superior Zero limit and I was confident that I could raise the rest of them to that level by the time we finished this raid. I was a little worried about raising up the three skills I had purchased from Kororo, but if I focused on them it should be doable.

I continued to spam the use of Glimpse of History (Greater) . I had already managed to get the skill to level 10 using the array of collectables I had gathered from archeology contracts and inherited from my father. I only needed that last little bit to push the skill over into a Superior rank skill.

I was more worried about Advanced Button Pusher (Greater) as I had only gotten it to level 3. I had a plan to convince some party members to buy some class exclusive gear and then loan it to me so I could make attempts to use it. I knew that using the skill on different items and more powerful items would give it the fastest level ups. The only thing faster would be to directly use the skill for combat purposes, but that would drain my mana too fast in a fight.

The only way I was going to be using Advanced Button Pusher (Greater) in combat was if every single one of our healers was tapped out on mana. For that situation I had been given a special healing item that normally only Priests of Magic could use that would allow me to cast Arcane Restoration (Superior) Level 10. The item would only let me do it ten times before turning to dust and the party that had lent it to the Raid efforts had received the item with only four uses left.

I still needed to plan what skills I was going to select when I got the item. The warnings on it were pretty clear that whatever the manual gave me I would be stuck with, so I better get it right. I had already planned to use Glimpse of History, Advanced Button Pusher, Invoke Icon, Advanced Trapfinding, Advanced Disarming, Archeologists Archive, and Masterful Escape. I still needed to decide if there were any other skills in my extensive skill list that would help get the class I wanted or that could possibly enhance it.

Adding a weapon skill for example might misalign my class too much from the one I wanted. I knew that my father’s class focused mostly on sneaking into and out of ancient sites while disarming all the traps and avoiding all the monsters. A weapon skill could cause me to get a more combat oriented class, which while not bad, it also isn’t what I wanted.

One of my more generic skills could be added to the mix such as Athletics or Acrobatics, but I would then have to raise those skills all the way from lesser to Superior. This meant I was limited to the skills I already had at the Superior zero limit or ones that were close to it.

I continued my internal debate and got completely lost within my own thoughts. I was only pulled out of my headspace when Captain Kal’s voice rang out through the entire cave.

“Listen up everyone! We’re heading what we assume to be north, traveling within the valley this time. We may be getting tight on supplies so we plan on trying to hit up one of the metal fortresses to acquire more. According to the Spiritkin those forts are where the Orcs reside and they are the dominant force on this floor. This will likely be our first proper raid challenge after the bug tunnel. Gear up, we move in five!” Captain Kal finished and started making rounds checking on people.

I packed up what few things I had taken out and made sure everything was squared away in my inventory. After that I put all my gear back on and double checked everything. It was time to get to work, those contribution points weren’t going to collect themselves after all.