CHAPTER 28: FINISHING THE RIFT
The second Enchantment fell far more quickly, though Jenna wasn’t totally sure why. It was equally probable that the Enchantment was weaker, she was stronger, or that she had just learned how to destroy the Enchantment more effectively. In any case, now that she didn’t have to worry about more goblins spawning, she was now free to destroy the remaining goblins.
Jenna rushed back into the fray, running through goblins as she went. When punching and throwing became somewhat monotonous, she had another idea. Hoping that it would work, she focused her Magic around her left foot. A small cloud bloomed in her Magical vision, and she grinned.
She kicked out, sending a goblin back. Its neck snapped from the sudden jolt, and it flew into the horde of rushing goblins. Internally, Jenna was ecstatic. Suddenly this combat had gone from dangerous and grueling but ultimately boring to something fun.
A few minutes later, after a goblin managed a particularly lucky and hard blow, Jenna had another idea. She coated her entire body in a thin layer of Magic. It was horribly wasteful, she knew, but it meant that she didn’t need to worry about any attacks from the goblins in the room.
As she fought with more reckless abandon, a part of her mind was free to consider how quickly her Magic was draining and how much it was affecting her fighting. It was relatively easy for her to model, which made Jenna stutter for a second. How much had the increase in Magical density done to affect her thinking?
After receiving a few blows that, while harmless, still sapped some of her Magic, Jenna shook the thought away. Ultimately, it did not matter. She was stronger now than she had been, and she had the Pyramid to thank for it. If one side benefit was being able to do much more difficult projections and calculations in her mind, that was just icing on the cake.
Refocusing on the model, she breathed a small sigh of relief. Even by her most conservative estimate, Jenna calculated that she should still have about a third of her Magic left by the time the final goblins were dispatched.
Of course, all of her models included them constantly rushing her. When there were less than three score of the monsters remaining, they stopped rushing her. Shrugging, Jenna dispersed most of the Magic from around her body and leapt forward.
She hadn’t considered what effect a coating of Magic would have on her legs. When she barreled through the fifteen paces between her and the goblins in a single leap, though, Jenna’s internal smile broke free. She was doubly grateful that these monsters did not bleed and that no one was here to see her. Even her own mental image of herself, mercilessly ripping beasts of stone apart with a jubilant smile, was enough to make her consider what had happened to her sanity since entering the Pyramid.
As the last goblin fell, Jenna expected a door to open. She hadn’t seen any exits in the room or near either spawning Enchantment. During a brief moment during the fight, she had even realized that the door behind her was gone. If she hadn’t been so lost in blood lust, she might have been concerned about that fact.
As Jenna stood in the middle of a room, empty except for corpses and a broken mace, she tensed. The Pyramid didn’t wait, in her experience. There was either something coming, or she had missed whatever sign the exit gave as it appeared.
After a few more minutes of focus, Jenna shrugged. If the Pyramid had meant to send another challenge, it would have by now. She looked in both of the spawning rooms but found them still empty, save for broken Enchantments and goblins.
Walking back into the main room, she was surprised by the sudden appearance of a table.
Congratulations! You have completed the rift. Rewards available. Would you like to exit the rift?
Jenna considered that. It was strange that her party had planned to spend three days in the rift, but maybe it would have taken longer or had more floors if the three of them had all stayed. The fact that the rift was giving her an option not to leave gave her pause.
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She had enough food to last almost another twenty days, and the gains she had made in her Magic density were already so large. Whether the growth was linear, exponential, or logarithmic, she wasn’t sure, but she was nearly positive that her Magical density would continue to grow if she stayed in the rift longer. More to the point, she wasn’t sure how she could directly measure Magical density. Everything she’d done up to the point was just relative based on the density of other parts of her body.
“Is there a way I can start measuring my Magical density in absolute terms?”
Yes.
“Will you provide me with directions for how to do that?”
She didn’t get an explicit response, but she did watch her Grimoire become slightly thicker. “Also, how do I get back to the safe room?”
Jenna once more felt an emotion from the Pyramid. This time, it was clearly petulance. A doorway opened directly in front of her.
Looking through it, she saw the safe room. As she walked around the door, though, the rest of the rift was still in the same place. It hurt her mind to see both at once, so Jenna quickly walked through the door.
Back in the safe room, she stopped by the cleaning room and washed the sweat and dried blood off of herself. It was nice that she didn’t have to find a way to continue delving the rift without any access to a weapon, she supposed. After leaving the cleaning room, she sat down.
“How long will I be allowed to stay here?”
The longer you remain in the rift, the lower the reward will be.
Jenna couldn’t really think of anything that she needed at the moment. Sure, more Magical density would be nice, but she would get that by staying in the rift as it was. “What is my reward right now?”
Rewards available when exiting rift.
She wasn’t surprised that the Pyramid was completely unhelpful, but she was still annoyed by it. It was really a question of known gain versus trust in the Pyramid. When she framed it like that, it became incredibly easy to decide. For all that Jenna trusted the Pyramid when it gave explicit directions, she was more and more convinced that her working to solve problems on her own would be the best way forward.
She opened her Grimoire to the newest section. As it turned out, there was no good way to measure absolute Magical density, only relative. Starting at the Fifth Tier, there were Enchantments that could define relative to a standard level of Magic. Unfortunately, the standards were incredibly difficult to produce, which is why it required the Fifth Tier.
As it was, Jenna could only hope that there was something in the rift that had a stable Magical density. She rifled through her bag, finding the two sheets of Hardened Glass that she had made. “Will these change their Magical density over time?”
Query imprecise.
Jenna rolled her eyes. “Within the next twenty days, will the Magical density within these pieces change?”
Query imprecise.
Jenna took a moment to formulate exactly what she wanted to ask. Her mind’s improvement was incredibly helpful here. “Will the Magical density within these two pieces of Hardened Glass change relative to a calibrated standard Density to an extent that I would be able to notice, given a prediction of my ability to detect Magical density two standard deviations above the median prediction?” She hoped that would cover every base, for all that it was unwieldy to say.
Unlikely.
With that as confirmation, Jenna got to work.
Jenna’s Status:
Jenna Fredrickson First Year Spells Known: First Tier: Hardened Glass Expected Years Completed: 8 Prediction Confidence: 33% Points: 5 Qualified to Ascend to Next Year? Yes