"Wonder where Henry is…" I blurt out just as the two squirtle-wannabes.. receive a magico disk on each of their throats, each disk coming in from opposite directions, the impact pushing them against each other while at the same time, using that as leverage to dig in deeper. They're not dead, but injured enough to be out of the battle for a while. Still, the other two ignored any commotion happening behind them to continue assaulting Roy. They feel a little too simple minded for what is supposed to be actual creatures with a soul.

** DING **

Those are merely the seeds of a soul, their minds have yet developed enough to exhibit logic and conscious thoughts, and limited to following orders from an entity slightly less than an infant, albeit one on the verge of an evolution.

Your adventure has given us much insights, we are delighted

'Don't you already have some kinda access to these dungeons and most of their data, I don't understand what's the difference?' Kirana and I continue to watch the battle while my conversation with The System continues.

Thee and thy companions are that difference, for a Dungeon is most alive in the presence of nourishment

Geez that sounds so wrong… 'So these guys are weak to soul damage because of their underdeve–'

"Zane, let's continue. They seem to have things under control."

'–loped souls?' Kirana's voice came through the string and into my ears.

Yes, most fortunate. The fact would not be true on the morrow

"Okay, it sure seems like it." I started moving towards the sixth sentry. 'Yes, very! Well, I'm going back to work, chat with you later!'

No more System text delivered itself, so the monotone task of cast. Approach. Stab. Rest continues. We are definitely doing our part faster than the other team, which is a good thing. I also tried to look for item drops, but still have not managed to find anything.

The sixth died to Kirana's scalpel, so I turned my head towards the corpse of the seventh sentry, the first creature I slayed in here. It still lays there on the ground, while a new live sentry has taken its place. "Eh, that's not good" I whisper into the line.

"What?" Came her wary reply at my negative outburst. A replacement does not bode well for us, either the Dungeon is capable of spawning new creatures willy-nilly or there are more of them hidden somewhere.

"Umm, see that sentry corpse there?"

"Yeah, we haven't been there."

"Yup, that's because it's one I killed while you guys were learning how to make Latent Mana camo. But, see there's already a new one taking its place?" I explain to her. "Finish this one and let's fall back, I think we need to consult with the others."

"Okay." I sense her finishing the creature off before making her way back while saying. "So we need to get to the ground floor?"

"Hmm," good point. I ponder for a while before saying, "no, let me first try to make a connection with Henry." I just noticed how the string between us would tighten and loosen during our longer walk back, not one to leave an apparent flaw around, I added the property of a rubber band, but only allowed it to effect itself without actually pulling on the users, that did the job.

Stopping near the entrance, the four are seen using their previous tactics, assassinate the flier, then kite the rest to a bottleneck that is the corridor, then an ambush by Henry… We came just as they were backing away into the bottleneck, so I invest thirty mana into the armor's Latent Framework and shaped the produced Latent Mana in addition to the ones my armor currently has produced, into another string.

So, it turns out that extending a string less than two meters away to a person nearby and extending the same string about 25 meters away to a person on a lower floor is two entirely different levels of difficulty. I stare at the limp string in silent frustration.

"So, are you doing something? Are we waiting for the right time?" Kirana's question broke me out of my frustrated mind-blankness.

"Uh, I'm trying to but the string is being a string and refusing to move the way I want it too." I tell her.

"Of course, don't be dumb! It's a string, what do you expect..? I dunno, shoot it out with an arrow or a stone or something?" She tells me, "or use that disk of yours."

That's kinda smart of her, it's what I expect of a string, which is what I get. But what's stopping me from thinking differently? "Thanks, you're smarter than I expected." I blurted out only half aware of what I'm saying, my mind focused on reconstructing the mana string. It's now some kinda mana tendon that has several groups of muscle, allowing them to move according to my will… could also be an octopus's tentacle.

It wasnt' easy, but the tendon-slash-tentacle eventually connected with Henry's helmet successfully, so I reconfigure it back into a fishing line and make it work as how ours do, now to wait till their battle en– "you mean, you expect me to be stupid?" Kirana's words came in like a wrecking ball.

"What?"

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"I'm smarter than your expectations. A string cannot move on its own, is just common sense. You don't expect me to be smart enough to have common sense?" She asks me, her voice so cold that she might begin singing let it go any time now.

"What?" Unknown to me, the battle below concluded.

"What, what? And how is it possible that we are talking?" Henry's voice came through the new string phone. "Of course, probably some kinda new spell you come up with."

"Cat got your tongue?" Kirana said, a trace of humor in her voice. "You're lucky I'm feeling a little kind today! But this better not happen again."

"Yes, sorry." I bow at her like how they do it in animes.

"Sorry what? Geez, stop talking to your new girlfriend and answer me already!" Henry's annoying voice once again came through the line.

"What no! She's not my girlfriend alright." I tell Henry. "Look man, focus! So, this is another use for Latent Mana I just came up with, imagine those cups and string phone. As for why this is necessary…" I proceed to tell him about the presence of a new sentry number seven and the remains of an old one.

We assume it might be a respawn that is triggered when I left the room or there are more of them somewhere, either way, there is nothing to do but push on. At least they have now heard of the possibility and know to keep an eye on the balconies.

So we walked back in and continued. I tried using my disk once but found that it costs me about the same amount of mana, around thirty to send them into the Mindscape and another thirty to get them out, a total of sixty. Besides, trying to navigate my disk from one soul to another without exiting into the real world is currently impossible for me, as the space within seems to twist and turn randomly. So I continued using the dagger.

Another fifteen minutes or so later after the conversation with Henry, Kirana is cutting at our eleventh sentry and the other team is about halfway through tackling their fourth field when the stomping sounds of marching soldiers are heard coming from deeper inside.

"What's that?" She asks me.

"Uh," a disk floats up and begins flying towards where the sounds are coming from. "You keep going while I check."

"Almost done…" She mumbles her reply, "and done! So, have you seen anything yet?"

"Yep, you're not gonna like this." Linking my sight with the disk shows me a line of Druidant sentinels marching towards us. Maneuvering my disk-drone to show a better sideways view, I count ten of them marching on by one. "There's ten of these guys marching our way, this last one is eleventh on the line…"

"So, these ten are coming to fill in the position of the previous ten we eliminated." She finished.

"Yeah, this answers our question about whether or not they respawn." It would be nice to inform Henry but we had to disconnect the line as it was a nuisance over long distances, needing more mana the further apart we go. Todo list, find alternate means of long range communication. "I wonder how many there are, total."

"Beats me, kill them all and we'll know. You should worry about what we need to do now instead." She claims as her head roams the caverns, her mind probably trying to come up with a plan.

Alone, I would just walk up the wall. Hmm, can Spider Climb be cast on another person? It's just coating my legs and greaves with mana, I can probably make it apply on someone else. But what then? "Well, have you come up with one?" I look at Kirana, not that she notices.

"Not really, you?" She is looking pointedly at the way back. "Maybe we can retreat back into the safe zone and start over."

"I guess so," that's probably the best plan for now, we can re-kill them easily enough following our previous plan. Would just need to warn the others and regroup. It's about 7.40 right now, we've still got a bit of time left. "Alright, let's hurry back, we need time to call the others back too."

"Okay!" Her voice sounds determined, my Mana Sense detects her signature moving away towards the exit and I follow suit. Halfway, we stopped for a few minutes to allow communication with Henry and his team, managing to stop them from initiating their assault on the fifth field. They were in position and were just about to focus fire at the flier Druidant before hastily retreating in an orderly fashion.

As they retreated, and from where I stand, I'm pretty sure they were perfectly visible to the creatures in that field. Creatures that I'm quite certain did not show any interest in attacking them.

"So, mind telling me what you got with your System Point?" Came Kirana's question out of nowhere as we're journeying through the last half of our retreat.

"Uh, why are you asking?"

"Just curious, making conversations you know." She excused.

"I see." Does it matter if she knows, not like Metamorphosible Mana has a weakness to exploit. Though I'll keep Devourling Constitution under wraps for now. "Uh, well--."

Hmm, speaking of devouring, I probably should give eating one of the Sentries a try. Though it might not be feasible with her around. Maybe when I get a chance later. The intense hunger I felt earlier feels muted, like--

"I'll tell you mine, if you tell me yours."

"--... Okay, I'll go first then?" admittedly I'm curious about hers too, so at her nod, I gave her a simple explanation. "Mine is called Metamorphosible Mana, it's a Trait. Makes it easier for me to make my mana change or act the way I want it too. Like, I think, it's just easier for them to metamorphose. I've been able to make them do stuff others can't, creating Latent Mana for example."

We've arrived at the corridor, so I slide open the face on my helmet. "Cool!" Seeing me do so, she does too. "My turn, mine is also a Trait, it's called Kirvena's Knife Grasps... I love knives, okay! They're useful in so many ways. So, The description for it says I can easily learn knife related stuff, and they would cost less while doing more. And that they're supposed to be able to live inside my soul or something."

Kirvena is a name right? But she seems to have purposely skipped over discussing it, I'll respect that. "Yours is cool too. Wow, does that mean you learn all knife skills just from looking at it once?"

"Yes, this is how I got the skill we've been using to decapitate the Sentries, by watching the doctors at work, I got a skill called Surgical Amputation. Only works on willing patients as they can easily disrupt it. But, on a willing target, by using the skill a doctor can bypass all defenses to amputate whatever they need to."

Interesting. Would that learning speed apply to spells too? I pull up my status to check and notice two knife related spells, as well as six unspent Attribute Points, assuming daggers are knives. "Hey, kirana, I have two knife related spells. You wanna see them?" I ask her as we enter the safe zone. All members of the other team are already present.

"Sure, why not." She told me, "though maybe later." She approached them and began reporting, I gratefully allowed her to. Soon after I am asked to use one of my spy-disks to keep an eye on enemies movement. I heartily comply, confirming that they'll arrive shortly.

'They'll be in position in a few more minutes." I tell the group, then address Kirana. "Plenty enough time for two spell casts."