Yana was bored. While the trip to the capital of Masire wasn't packed full of adventure. There were, at least, moments of it when he got excited. This last week was just a repeat of the same old thing, and reminded him of the disguise he put on in the Hold. He hadn't minded back then because he was learning here and there, but now...

His hand moved the knife through the chest of the lizard abomination, his Mana Sight allowing him to dodge the valuable parts. Then, his fingers twisted into the, now, familiar series of shapes needed for the skinning spell he made. From the outside it looked like he was a master at skinning the beast, but in reality he just sat there while the magic did the work.

In the first couple days it had been fun to watch the skin peel itself, cleanly, from the muscle tissues. With the strands of connective tissues bundling up for easy grabbing. It had been interesting to see how different each abomination was from the natural creatures of the world. Yet, it quickly became boring as the patterns revealed themselves.

He wasn't sure the others noticed it, or if anyone could see the similarities. Perhaps Mother would see it even faster than him, she could see the full mana patterns after all. It was these similarities that allowed him to quickly create a skinning spell. This dungeon wasn't "Mad" like the heard all the time.

It was creating a large variety of the same monster, just with different parts attached. Sure one beast might have an odd number of limbs or a head that was a flower, but their internals were identical. Besides some elemental variety of course, but still that just screamed System.

Through the cave like walls were signs of shaped stone walls, and rune sequences that looked crude compared to the ruins he found under the hold. Yet, it all showed a meter of intelligence was present in this place, not madness. If anything, the people running through this place were mad for not noticing all of this.

The number of times they had been told that the dungeon had impossible shapes and beasts from nightmares in it was just untrue. Yes, some of the corridors looked too smooth, and usually that was because it had been smoothed by the Dungeon. Didn't these idiots realize the power of a Dungeon Core? But, this dungeon might have a size to exceed Mother, but not the clever and artistic design.

Sure the runes behind the wall were clever ways to create tracking and power absorbing formations. They weren't as good or complete as the Laws. Dungeon Laws were held by their Will and couldn't be ignored or overloaded with enough power or knowledge. The Will of an individual, or even a hundred people, just couldn't compete with a Dungeon Core.

These beast were another example of this dungeon's inferiority as well. They didn't have the tactics to make them an actual threat, even to the delvers, at least if they were being smart. They roamed as individuals and often just attacked in a straight line. Only using abilities at random times, which had killed a few of the delvers, but only because they thought they didn't have any.

Sure, Mana Sight let Yana see when they would be charging an attack, but even Marshall had noted the changes in the creatures behavior and backed off. He had only gotten hurt a few times trying to protect others. Which was it's own form of stupidity that Yana had lectured him about. Though the man told him it wasn't "In his nature to watch others die without helping."

Yana had no equals in this group of humans and beastkin, and without being able to contact Mother due to the System mana all around. It felt like he was starved for good conversations and experiments. His sister was still a wonder to be around, though he didn't know how to help her. He could feel the instability of her mind in the mana around her. It was like a sun blazing at the world, a host of rage and confusion.

Annoyingly, she would have conversations with the others and Marshall more often about it than himself. Even if she tried to "spend quality time" with him. Yana didn't understand why it was important to talk and eat food at the same time. But it was nice to talk to her about the experiments back home, or his theories on mana control. She, in turn, would ask questions, usually silly ones, about the limits of such things or how it related to the System.

Stolen story; please report.

She might be the eldest child of Mother, but she wasn't her equal in putting concepts together. Perhaps that was a part of what drew her to talking to others more. Yana preferred to just talk to himself most of the time. It was easier to have a conversation with an illusion of himself, and often netted more results in his theorizing. He had heard there were some grand libraries and schools of magic in each of the kingdom's capitals, but they had a high entrance fee.

Once the spell had striped the body down into piles of usable, and sellable, parts. The rest of the group came forward to pack away his work, and he moved on to the next body. Again, and again, and again, this repeated. He would perform this on all the bodies left after the fights, which usually was a few dozen a day at least. Then, they would go back to the barracks where they would "relax" and the others would go spend the pay they were given.

"After that one its the end of the day people." A whinny voice yelled, the "Leader" of this harvesting crew, "Good job today. Pay will be in your rooms." Everyone started to wander back to the exit. It never moved or looked different, and even when the tunnels and caverns did move they had a pattern that Yana had figured out. He had to assume the Guilds had to some degree too.

Usually, only he, Pyra, and Marshall would leave at the end. They could carry the last body parts back themselves, and no one worried about them being attacked after Pyra's and his display. So, soon they were left alone beside the cart they would carry things back in.

"You two start heading back, I want to try something." Pyra just tilted her head at him, before starting back, but Marshall looked concerned.

"Yana, I-"

"No, go." My words cut him off, and he looked a bit shocked. I had been harsh to him before, but maybe there was something else in my voice. He looked worried, like he sometimes did when talking to Pyra. Odd.

"We need more information, and this place is clearly some sort of base for the System. Go, I will catch up." These words seemed to make him more worried, what was he hearing? Probably some dumb human thing. He was just a modified human that people had a prejudice against after all. Marshall gave him one last look before he pulled the cart at a rapid pace to catch up with Pyra.

Yana took a deep breath of air and let the light spell flicker out. He felt safer and better in the dark, perhaps it had something to do with his elemental alignment shift. It didn't really matter right now. Now was a time to perform magic, a time to experiment at last, a time to be free.

The staff swung from his back and he unsealed the Orb causing a whirlwind of mana around himself. The mana here was actually thinner than in Mother's dungeon, and so it pulled from much further away much more quickly. A series of raw elemental energies created halos around his body, with his Will holding them in place. He couldn't just let them go without clearing a good chuck of System infected mana first. He had a theory that the System would be far quicker here than anywhere else, but he needed enough mana density to prove it. So the mana continued to whirl.

-----

High Magus Rasputin Emberlight was bored out of his mind, and showing it to his hosts. They were sweating at this point, because they had called him in on an "Urgent" matter. Yes, the mana collection and distribution assemblies were important and of his design. However, he wasn't even an Alumni of this school, and it was their task to fix it.

If the King hadn't asked him personally to visit the Threshold University he would have stayed in his laboratory where actual work was being done. In fact, if he had known the nature of this visit he would have likely thrown the King himself out of his tower. These buffoons' couldn't have passed his Intermediate class on runes after watching their bumbling attempts. Yet, they were the magical Engineers of this place?

"So," Rasputin drawled, "Explain, in vivid detail, AGAIN why you have put a release rune next to that specific mana intake array? The one that gathers and compresses FIRE mana?" The man on the left, Rasputin had created a specific spell to block out any details to show they were people, rubbed his hands together.

"To release heat of course, honorable Master. See it would keep the university warm during cold days and-" He was cut off by a mental sound so piercing it seemed to cause the air to tremble.

ERROR...Moderate Mana Anomaly Detected in Dungeon #1... All Personal engage search and destroy.

The two men blinked away tears to see the venerable Master looking out the window, no signs of distress but with a gleam in his eyes.

"Now THAT is a reason to be here." He said, a tone of delight as he gazed at the funnel cloud of mana.