Micro stood before the portal deep in thought for a moment as his friends gathered around him. He had fond memories of his time in the Fire Mountain Art Dungeon with Kel, Tae, and Blue, and he had grown stronger since the last time he attempted to climb a dungeon's mountain. He turned around and addressed his small following.

“If this Earth Mountain Art Dungeon is anything like the last Mountain Art Dungeon I was in, it may be a good place for Kolt and Kira to practice cultivating for a while.” Micro explained.

“What do you think, Lena?”

“The girl would find it difficult, and the boy would find it lethal.” She replied.

“Oh...” Micro sighed.

“Once they have cultivated a Jade Core, it will become possible to learn to withstand the pressures of a dungeon.” Lena continued.

“But Blue was alright in a dungeon before she had a core.” Micro added.

“Pixies' physical forms are more similar to a cultivators core than a material body.” Lena replied, looking closely at the pixie on Micro's shoulder.

“Though she appears weakened and possesses only a Jade core, the energy which comprises her body is refined to the extent of a cerulean core.”

“Oh, wow.” Micro glanced at Blue with his eyebrows raised.

“Good job.”

“You'll catch up one day, maybe.” Blue scoffed, failing to hide her delight.

“What should we do though...?” Micro wondered.

“If I can't bring them with me...”

“I will see to the children's safety in your absence, Micro.” Lena said.

“See to your business in the dungeon. With your permission, I will use this time to instruct the children.”

“Thanks, Lena!” Micro replied happily, though Kira and Kolt looked disappointed. He looked at the siblings and reassured them.

“It's a great chance to learn from an expert. Do your best!”

Kira looked ready to protest his decision to leave her behind, but she restrained herself and bowed her head. Kolt looked more embarrassed than disappointed after Lena's assessment of him, but he lacked the confidence to protest.

“You keep doing what your doing.” Blue ordered Trill, who simply extended a thumbs up from Kolt's pocket.

“Is it truly your intention to challenge this dungeon simply because you came upon it?” Arbur asked, his eyes wide in disbelief.

“I have only set foot in a single dungeon, and I was allowed to escape only because the guardian pitied me. I am not the only cultivator whose abilities are granted by Core Cards gifted by others.”

“If I don't master every Core Card, I'll never be able to control space and time and find a way home.” Micro replied with a shrug.

“Space... and time...?” Arbur gasped.

“It's obviously possible.” Micro explained.

“Dungeons do all sorts of weird stuff to time and space, and they were all created by a cultivator, weren't they?”

“Yes, but...”

“You should join us.” Micro smiled.

Arbur's face turned pale at Micro's words, and Micro wondered if he'd suddenly run out of fuel. However, Arbur slowly bowed his head, and replied with a heavy tone.

“I will follow you, master.” Arbur sounded like he was resigned to a terrible fate, but Micro patted his back and began walking to the dungeon portal.

“It'll be fun!” Micro laughed.

“We might be in there for a really long time, but keep calm and the time will fly by.”

“I'll beat you to the top.” Blue said, summoning a slingshot with one hand and a shield with the other, taking a defensive stance upon Micro's shoulder.

Without hesitation, Micro and Blue entered the dungeon. Following closely behind, with heavy steps, Arbur accepted his fate, and the three cultivators passed through the glowing doorway to the Jade Earth Mountain Art Dungeon.

~

“Huh.” Micro looked around with an awkward expression as he adjusted his flow of energy to account for the heavy gravity.

“This is... different.”

“Master...” Arbur panted as he desperately tried to withstand the dungeon's pressure.

Micro was worried at first, but it seemed Arbur would manage somehow, despite his discomfort.

“The dungeon won't let you run out of energy as long as you can use it.” Micro assured Arbur.

“Just take your time. We probably have a lot of time in here.”

“Time does feel the same here as it did in that other mountain, but that's about all that seems the same.” Blue mumbled.

“Agreed.” Micro nodded.

Despite the dungeon's name, Micro could see no mountain in any direction. There was no plant life of any kind either. Extending endlessly in every direction was nothing but coarse sand. Micro reached down and scooped up a handful, and thought it felt more like damp dirt than the sand at a beach.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I was expecting a mountain.” Micro said, then came to an unpleasant realization.

“Wait, where's the exit?”

Blue and Arbur looked behind them, but nobody was able to see the portal through which they'd passed.

“Looks like this dungeon isn't quite as friendly.” Blue sighed.

“What's the trial though? This is just... boring.”

Micro nodded and frowned, then took another look around with his Spirit Vision Skill activated. The horizon was flat and barren, with no obvious destination in sight. However, something caught his eye when he looked upward at the orange sky.

“I wonder what those are.” Micro though aloud.

“I'll take a closer look.” Blue replied, then flew up high in the air.

After flying around and analyzing several of the floating objects, she grew tired and fell back down to Micro's shoulder.

“Flying here really isn't fun...” Blue panted.

“But I think I get the idea now.”

“You know how to finish the trial?” Micro asked.

“It's hard to tell from down here, but those are all boxes with Core Cards inside.” Blue answered after catching her breath.

“And way up there, above them all, is a portal.”

“But how are we meant to get all the way up there?” Arbur asked, barely able to lift his head to look at the floating objects.

“There is no mountain to climb...!”

“I could probably fly up there eventually, but I don't know about you guys.” Blue shrugged.

“This really is boring. It's not much of a race if you can't even fly.”

Micro nodded in agreement, but only continued to look around in silence, trying to find something or someone to guide him. However, it wasn't until he looked down at the tiny mound of dirt he'd created when he dropped the handful he'd inspected earlier. It was the only uneven patch of ground in the infinite landscape.

“Oh.” Micro smiled, catching Blue's attention. Arbur continued to struggle with circulating his energy in defiance of the dungeon's heavy gravity.

“You find a turtle to guide us?” Blue laughed.

“I figured out the trial.” Micro replied.

“We do have to climb a mountain, but we have to make one first.”

~

Arbur was eventually able to effectively resist the pressure of the dungeon and move around freely. However, by the time he was able to walk and look around without focusing solely on circulating his energy, Micro and Blue had already made a pile of dirt five time taller than Micro.

“You are able to perform such tasks despite the pressure, master...?” Arbur marvelled as Micro used a large, ethereal shield to push dirt toward the hill of his making.

“It's not too different from shovelling snow.” Micro replied happily.

“I didn't do that often, but It's kind of fun. With the Turtle Art, it's easy to make a snowplow, so I'm excited to show the old man what I can do next winter!”

“Do you not despair at this task?!” Arbur cried.

“This dungeon is cruel!”

“Seems fine to me.” Micro replied awkwardly.

“How many thousands of times must you gather dirt before you are free?” Arbur asked, unable to hold back his anxiety.

“I haven't dealt with numbers this big in detail, but the old man did some landscaping a while ago after a small landslide damaged his neighbour's field...” Micro explained.

“If I had to guess, the number of truckloads we have to move is in the trillions.”

“Trillions...?” Arbur repeated, his panic displaced by a moment of confusion.

“How much is that...?”

“So, take a thousand.” Micro began.

“Yes...” Arbur frowned.

“Multiply that by a thousand.”

“Okay...”

“Then multiply that by a thousand again.”

“A thousand, thousand, thousand...?”

“And then one more time.”

“A thousand, thousand, thousand, thou...”

“That's right.” Micro smiled.

“We've done a few hundred so far.”

“How many lifetimes would it take to complete this task?!” Arbur said, his voice dry and his legs beginning to shake.

“Some dungeons are like this.” Micro replied, patting Arbur on the shoulder.

“You'll get used to it.”

“I don't... I can't...” Arbur mumbled.

“Don't think about time.” Micro continued.

“Don't worry about reaching the exit either. Just worry about doing what you need to do.”

“What I need to do...?” Arbur fell to his knees.

Micro bent down and picked up a handful of dirt, then reached out and pulled Arbur's hand toward him, his palm pointed upward. Micro placed the dirt in Arbur's hand, then stood up and pointed at the hill behind him.

“There.” Micro said.

“You're already halfway there.”

~

It was difficult to track the passage of time without a sun in the sky, but the world eventually grew dark, as if to simulate nightfall. Blue yawned, then dove into Micro's pocket and began snoring in little time. Arbur hadn't moved from his place on the ground, and he still held the small handful of dirt Micro had given him. He watched expressionlessly as Micro continued to push dirt toward the growing hill.

“If you're going to sleep, you should get comfortable a bit farther away!” Micro called out from beside the hill.

“Landslides are no joke!”

“Yes, master...” Arbur barely whispered, then slowly made his way farther away from the mound. Despite his discomfort, he was now able to compensate for the dungeon's pressure without a thought, and he lay down on the soft ground with a deep sigh.

Micro wasn't sure if Arbur would get any sleep, but he had started to enjoy his project. He slightly altered the shape of the ethereal barrier in front of him with every scoop of dirt, and he had found a shape which he was confident was the most efficient.

Micro continued to work as the dungeon grew darker, until the world around him was completely dark. Though he was enjoying himself, he still hadn't completely settled into the mindset which had carried him through his previous dungeon trials with Kel. He sat atop his little mountain and held a small chunk of iron ore in his hand, taken from the cave he'd passed through earlier.

He analyzed it with Spirit Vision for a moment, and was surprised by the bright light that filled his vision.

“Woah!” Micro shouted, dropping the surprisingly energy-rich ore down the mountain.

The dungeon around him was full of a calm and uniformly distributed energy, which made the glowing of the energy in the chunk of ore nearly blinding in comparison. He stood up to go and retrieve it, but another flash of energy startled him again.

At first, the energy like a cloudy which surrounded the rolling rock, slowing its descent down the hill. The energy grew denser until the rock had stopped completely, suspended in the air. The shape began to look familiar, but it was the sound it next made which made Micro sure of its nature.

WOOF

The same dog which resided in his core was now standing on the hill, looking up at him with the rock firmly in its jaws. Its body was translucent and glowed brightly, and its eyes were even brighter.

“Huh, nice to see you.” Micro eventually greeted the dog, which then ran up the hill to sit next to him, dropping the rock in his lap. Micro smiled at the dog's intense expression, and tossed the rock away from the hill.

Sure enough, the dog charged after the flying rock, and caught it before it landed near the base of the hill.

“Hey.” Micro called out to the ghostly dog.

“Do you know how to dig?”