The descent into the spiritual haze was an experience Haru had a hard time describing, but the further he walked into the maw of the cave, the more convinced he became that he’d felt it before. The feeling itched at the back of his head as the mouth vanished into the distance behind the gentle twists and turns of the passage angling ever further into the haze.

The further he went, the darker it became, and the thicker the mist became. Soon, the air weighed down his lungs like he was breathing through thick smoke. He couldn’t do anything about the air, but he could light up the world.

Please don’t let there be another monster like the last one waiting to eat me.

It wasn’t until he reached for the aether that he realized why he recognized it. At his beck and call, the mists came alive, rushing to meet his call like a favored spirit and forming into a new wisp.

The effort had barely phased him as the ambient mana didn’t even need to move to replace what he’d used.

Well, this isn’t good.

The mist hanging ready in the air, to the walls, and saturating the ground at his feet was pure spectral aether, an amount potent enough to cause actual harm to someone without a Brand to regulate it properly. In short, if he stayed, he was on a ticking timer until his lungs burned out from mana saturation.

Realizing that, Haru turned tail to retreat which was about as useful as a warm, cloudless summer sky was to an ice shadow since the way he’d come from just moments ago was gone.

Haru stared dumbly at the solid wall, pressing a hand against it to be sure it was as solid as it looked. He pressed, prodded, and even tried to send a rush of mana through the dungeon wall in an attempt to trigger some mechanism he’d missed, but nothing gave and nothing happened. Haru did his best not to panic and moved his hand along the wall, searching for some hidden seam or hinge to show him where the door had closed from.

Minutes passed and yielded nothing but what he’d already feared.

So, it’s not an illusion or a trap door…

Had he taken a wrong turn somewhere? Wandered off the path somehow?

No, that couldn’t be it.

How could he have gotten lost in a test?

It had been a straight shot out of the entrance, no true turns, no branches, nothing.

As he stood there dumbfounded, the mists parted, and he found himself in a large chamber with three offshoots before him.

He recognized junctions like this all too well, and realization washed over him like waves on the beach. This wasn’t just some pocket dimension separate from the world’s dungeon anymore.

“Reaper, take me,” Haru cursed.

He’d found his way into the true Ashes of Ektos, the dungeon of the Bound Beast, Yon Ektos, the Assimilative.

Taking a breath, Haru looked around for any monsters and centered himself.

The Ash was the first zone of any planet’s dungeon and made up most of the accessible dungeon area on Ektos and the weakest level by far. Haru knew that if he’d been in the Kindling or the Inferno, he’d have been dead already.

Still, the Ash was still the dungeon.

Monsters were born and lived here, and on Ektos, most of them enjoyed feasting on what made sapient souls unique. On Erra or Arash, he’d be as good as dead thanks to their elementals and more physical challenges, but on Ektos, the Ash was more forgiving if someone was unlucky enough to wander in.

Living ectoplasm, lesser spirits, and possession traps should be the only things I have to worry about, Haru ticked off mentally. Class E and F threats at most. If I’m smart, it shouldn’t be too terrible. I’ll need to avoid the junctions though, I doubt I could take a guardian without a Brand, and since I don’t know how far down this took me, I don’t want to risk going deeper.

Checking his bag to be sure that he still had everything he left with, Haru thanked his ancestors for the lack of any more shenanigans from the dungeon and turned his attention to the three paths.

From where he stood at the near center of the room, the paths on the left and right seemed no different from one another. The Bound Beast’s power bled as mist and aether, rolling like a gentle fog across the floor and more than likely a breeding ground for the slimy, ever-hungry, living ectoplasm that called the Ash their home. That’s what drew his attention to the center path. Unlike the other two, the rolling fog was lighter here, a wisp of fog against a pair of billowing banks.

As his wisp hovered at eye level next to him, it was obvious what he should do.

If Haru wanted to get out, all he had to do was keep following the depleting essence clouds and work his way back up and out of the dungeon. Hopefully, that would be enough to get him back to where he needed to be. Escaping alive trumped everything.

Firmly planting his foot with each step, Haru did his best to avoid any hiding puddles of ectoplasm.

As he worked his way through the passage, the path began a slow rise toward the surface. It was a good sign if Haru had any say in it. The higher it went, the sooner he’d be out. As his wisp merrily lit the way and fulfilled its life’s purpose, the mouth of a new opening ahead glowed back, brimming with a light that told him he had to be right. It was nearly bright as day! He still had time!

Reaching the top of the tunnel, time was the last thing he realized he had if he stayed here. It wasn’t daylight as he first thought. No, it was a bright chamber rimmed with softly burning white torches with a monstrous glob of ectoplasm wiggling as a steadfast guard of the only other…

As he turned to retrace his steps, it was then that Haru realized there was one trap he’d forgotten about…

Reaper, take me!

… and he’d been walking right into and through it for the last quarter of an hour.

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It was rare to see phantom passages in the upper, regularly cleared levels of the Ash, but they were not unheard of. They were insidious traps, one-time-use hallways that led to other rooms or into deeper parts of the dungeons before vanishing back into the aether.

Usually, these sorts of phantoms weren’t too dangerous on their own to a usual four- or five-man team, but as a single Unbranded, a phantom passage that led him straight to the room of a guardian as his only way back to the surface was downright vindictive.

Well, no turning back now.

As Haru looked on, Haru thought back to what he knew about guardians. Since he still wasn’t Branded and lacked a team, he’d never fought one outside of training exercises with illusions, so at least he knew the mechanics of the different species empowered by the Beast.

Thankfully, this one, in particular, didn’t seem too difficult.

As a giant glob of ectoplasm, the guardian would be durable and nearly immune to physical damage, but slimes of any kind weren’t exactly smart and should lack any special skills or magic this far up into the dungeon. That was assuming he was still high enough in the Ash which he was very heavily relying on.

Taking a deep breath, Haru opened his bag and went to work…

That lasted about as long as it took for the guardian to notice him and start him down the long road of on-the-job learning.

The first lesson Haru learned was that the reputation that ectoplasmic slimes got for being resilient little jerks was well-earned. The guardian may have been an exceptional example when it survived Haru detonating the wisp in its face, but that was no reason to underestimate its smaller brethren.

The second was that slimes were much faster when they rolled rather than slithered across the floor. None of his books mentioned slimes being smart enough to roll after prey, but it taught Haru that he could run surprisingly faster when the other option was being digested slowly over the next few days.

The third was that you could never over-pack.

Slimes, despite their reputation, didn’t eat just anything, or guardian-level slimes were a bit pickier than the smaller members of their family.

As it went after the intrepid graduate, the guardian ignored absorbing the rocks, potions, broken glass, and solidified ectoplasm Haru used to try and slow it down and escape. Worse, not a piece punctured or got caught its membrane as it rolled ever on through the larger room.

Moment by moment, the rumbling earth beneath his feet echoed through his bones until, in desperation, Haru chucked the only thing he had left he was willing to part with - a sandwich.

Despite the danger in it, Haru stared for a moment at his stupidity as the sandwich flew.

As aerodynamically as bread could move, it did under Haru’s fanatical attempt to survive. It spiraled perfectly through the air and kept his attention as if it were the winning throw in a game of Elements.

I’m an idiot.

The rushing blood to his face was nothing compared to the sheer surprise that held him in place. No survival instinct in the world could overcome the stupidity he felt at the moment as the small thing flew into the oncoming storm of rolling thunder. Rooted as firmly in place as if an Erra mage had bound his legs in stone, a single thought broke through the storm to sit firmly at the forefront of his mind.

Please don’t let there be recording crystals here.

As far as last requests went, he felt pretty good about that one. Let him die as one of the lost graduates, not as the sandwich-throwing manic….

There was no noise as the crusty exterior collided with the guardian slime. The bread broke open like an egg, and bits of elk, cheese, condiments, and lettuce exploded across a small portion of its body.

To both their surprise, it stopped.

Haru recovered faster, and his feet suddenly remembered the job as they ran for the safety of the tunnel the guardian was no longer before. Always keeping an eye on the guardian, he saw as the film of the slime opened and pulled everything inside. It only took a few moments for it to digest the simple foodstuff, going from a mess of ingredients to nothing in a matter of moments.

Though as far as bought time went, it wasn’t much.

Before Haru could reach the door on the other side of the room, the guardian finished its meal and resumed the chase.

In the face of another setback, an idea had taken root and was blooming petals of inspiration for the young Ektos mage-to-be, petals of fresh bread, cheese, and tomatoes with just the right amount of shaved elk.

If the guardian wanted to eat Haru, it would have to go through his mother’s cooking to do it.

Juggling between his rod and his bag, Haru managed to pilfer the second and final sandwich from its dark depth, unwrap the wax paper sealing it, and switch his weapon back into his dominant hand without dropping a crumb.

As the sound of rolling jelly drew closer, he checked the charge of Blood in his weapon. After that explosion stunt, there wasn’t enough to kill the beast outright, but there was enough to do something very, very stupid.

Into the crust, Haru began carving runes.

Runes were the language of magic, and each magic had its own, unique structure to it. Ektos runes were flowing and script-like, not to the extent of Arash’s wild, borderline unreadable wind runes, but not nearly as strict as Erra’s earth runes. Even so, they still required precision to funnel and store mana, let alone function properly.

Using the shortest rune phrase he could remember, Haru’s hand shook as the tip of the rod glowed and dug the shapes into the crust. As it traced, he did his best to remember the lessons he’d been taught on the subject. If Haru did it right, the Blood and language would infuse each rune with the power to hold mana like the rod. Lessons on script rarely covered fieldwork involving active combat situations, but you worked with what you had.

Soon, three runes marred the perfect crust of the bread. They were blackened and slightly discolored with a strange blueish hue, but they were legible, and that meant everything. Roughly translated, the rune script read as a simple, timed force cantrip that would be triggered when enough time had passed and enough latent ectoplasmic energy infused it naturally.

Of course, he didn’t have time for that.

Please work, please work…

Focusing on the last of his Blood, Haru poured mana into the structure and prayed to his ancestors for their blessings and their luck. At first, nothing happened and the rumbling ground grew closer by the second. Slowly, painfully slowly, the runes began to glow a dull gray-blue like cold steel, barely noticeable in the bright light and hardly enough for the Blood he’d spent thanks to what was likely a horrible transfer ratio.

Even so, it had to be enough.

Please, let this work…

And for the second time that day, Haru turned a sandwich into a projectile.

There was no music, no cacophony of combat, nothing to signal anything even happened as the missile of bread and meat took flight. The enchanted meal didn’t have to fly far either.

The guardian was ready to breathe down his neck, engulf his flesh, and devour his soul as it rolled into the sandwich’s flight path. There was nowhere he could go now that it wouldn’t be able to cut him off. Everything was riding on his gambit as the sandwich splattered across the face of the ectoplasm. There, close enough to tint the light blue, the giant slime stopped.

Without moving, it slowly absorbed the meat, the cheese, the condiments, and the bread Haru so painstakingly toasted for it. Then, everything began to break down before his eyes.

He’d failed.

Reaper, take me swiftly!

The beast was going to kill him there, and he’d be lost, soul and all.

It still didn’t move as Haru prayed, but within its gelatinous mass, something did.

From the top of its membrane to the deep purple-blue core within, the guardian shivered violently.

Since he wasn’t being devoured yet, Haru looked up to see its membrane shaking like the world around it was coming apart. His hope rekindled as the creature began to bloat in random spots at random as whatever it was continued to happen and got worse.

There was a noise, something inhuman, something pained as the half-digested runes began to glow like tiny stars within its depths. They moved within the body of the creature this way and that, closing in on the membrane’s edge before being sucked back toward the center of mass and bubbled.

The bubbles from its core moved outward and across its membrane before popping, releasing more of the inhuman noise as they came from within as if they were coming from the bottom of a boiling pot.

Then all thoughts were lost as a wave of slime washed over him and everything behind him as the final tick of the timer rune expired, and the overloaded burst rune triggered in all its glory.

There, covered in the remains of his fallen enemy, Haru remembered something.

Right…

Each tick rune is twenty seconds, not ten….