"Okay, this is a problem," said Max. He stood in the cavern that had become his home over the last few months, staring at the pile of loot on the floor. Now, in addition to the two swords he'd taken from the dungeon on Earth, and a few odds and ends from this dungeon, he had three more items.

His spirits materialized before him. Slick was doing an exaggerated show of holding a hand on their chin and tapping a foot. Lavinia had her hands on her hips, one eyebrow raised, and Saliron looked the same as he always did whenever he manifested. A big dark cloak of midnight seemingly standing by itself with two piercing red eyes within the hood.

"What's the problem?" said Lavinia.

Max pointed at all the loot. "That's the problem."

"That seems like a good problem to have to me."

Max shook his head. "No. It's not that I have the loot that's the problem, it's the fact that after I hit this button,” he said while waving generally in front of him, indicating his screen, "and I leave this dungeon, I'm probably going to be in a rather nasty fight. And this is a bunch of stuff to carry."

"Ah, I see what you mean," she said. "Couldn't you just, I don't know, take all of it with you in your arms and throw it to the side?"

“No way. Especially for Mystic Spear Path Challengers, even a half-second might be crucial. I really don't know what to expect and I want to plan for the worst."

"I see, that makes sense. And you can't use your storage yet, right?"

"Nope. The problem is I still need more power to do it than I currently have. I can do things right now to get rid of stuff…like how I've been getting rid of my trash, but that's a one-way ticket. All that stuff goes who-knows-where. Now I basically need some sort of magical storage or transportation. What I really want is a temporal storage space, basically like a small micro-dimension attached to my soul. I can do it with the help of my mana vault but only after I reach third star mana body. Then I’d be able to overclock the mana capacity to reach the juice for that kind of inscription. All of this is one reason I’ve still been working so hard on my mana body even though I haven't exactly had bountiful amounts of mana in this dungeon."

Lavinia gravely nodded to show she understood.

Max folded his arms and pondered the new artifacts he'd obtained. They were actually pretty good. And if he chose to actively use them, then that would definitely lower the number of items he had to store.

He opened his third eye and read aloud:

Bracelet of Bloody Arrows

Bleeds the user to form arrow structures out of blood, that can then be shot with great force and accuracy.

Flask of Unending Water

The water never runs out. Once a staple of adventurers all over the universe, now exceedingly rare. This model can be adjusted to produce boiling, hot, warm, lukewarm, cold water, or ice cold water.

Weight Reduction Adventurer Pack , Mk 4

A pack from another universe made for adventurers. Water proof, magic resistant, weight reducing, and impervious to vacuum, small animals, impacts, or most wear and tear. Bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

"Really? That's what you got?" asked Lavinia. "What other kinds of choices were there?"

"Well, I didn't have a lot of time to look at them all," said Max. "But a couple I remember are like..” He recited from memory:

Shield of the Unseen

When worn, allows the user to see the unseen. Repairs itself over time. Weight significantly reduced. Can be magically folded and worn as a gauntlet.

Weekday sword.

A fine sword that changes elemental profile every day of the week, randomly. Available elements:

Death

Life

Holy

Unholy

Light

Dark

Fire

Water

Earth

Metal

Nature

“--And a few other elements I don’t remember off the top of my head. It was a cool sword but also kinda weird.”

Lavinia slowly said, "Okay, I think I understand why you chose what you chose. And I can definitely see why you wouldn't want to be carrying this stuff. Like, couldn't you put the flask in the pack, but then you probably wouldn't want to be fighting with the pack on, right?"

"Exactly," said Max. "And... The bracelet of bloody arrows will be extremely helpful later. I think I've read of similar items before. The problem is that I'm still too weak to be bleeding out just to form attacks right now."

"Couldn't you just put it on in case you really need it later?"

Max shook his head. "No, because an item like that will start bleeding you as soon as you wear it. And... If I'm ever so screwed now that I need to bleed myself for attacks, then I'd probably already be bleeding from other wounds, and bleeding even more would be a bad choice."

"Couldn't you try it?" asked Lavinia.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Nope, don't wanna. I don't want to give myself a crutch or temptations to use weapons that I’m not ready for. That could end up screwing me. I know myself and I'd probably keep thinking about it when I shouldn't. So I just want to put it away."

"Fair enough," said the spirit. She took a step back and raised her hands in a sign of surrender.

Max stared at the items on the ground for a bit longer and thought about some of the strange rocks and other oddities he'd found that he'd also like to take back with him. At least his mana unit problem was solved since his pouch seemed to store an unlimited number of them.

An awful grating voice reverberated through the area, Saliron’s voice. "Actually, contractor, I believe I might have a solution for you."

Max raised an eyebrow at the bone-loving spirit. "I'm listening."

He couldn't see Saliron's face, but he got the distinct impression that he was smiling. "I am not entirely sure it will work, but I believe that my idea is worth an experiment. All you need is some bones."

"Of course I do," sighed Max. "Okay, what are you suggesting?"

***

Max made a face and looked critically at his handiwork. It was a horrible-looking doorway of bone, with all the pieces joined together with magic, looking almost like the bones had melted into each other. It was unpowered–he could see right through it. There was more than one standing in a line. This was the first he’d made.

"What now?" He gestured to the doorway and a pile of bones to one side, all harvested from one of the giant corpses littering the dungeon.

Saliron’s horrible chuckle echoed off the ceiling. "Now, I instruct some of my spirits to leave your lovely living bones and move into this structure. Then, you will press your incomplete temporal doorway bead to it. If your problem right now is truly merely a matter of power, not the actual structure of the imprint, I believe that my spirits may be able to bring you the rest of the way to completion. Bones converted to energy."

Max eyed the ugly archway skeptically. "What's the catch?"

"The ‘catch’ is as you see," said Saliron. "This method will only work with a bone archway made in this style. And you will probably only be able to use the archway once per activation of your bead.”

“--And the bead is tied to my soul," Max finished. "Okay, but you never explained the extra pile of bones over there."

Saliron gave a creepy laugh and said, "Collecting bones is its own reward, don't you think? But, in addition to the joy of acquisition, perhaps you will want bones to make more gateways in the future, or perhaps construct more delicious effigies like this one. In that case, you will already have them on hand."

Max frowned and scratched his cheek. "Okay, but that doesn't help me make a new gateway when I get to the Quartet in order to get to these bones in the first place."

"Ah, I do believe that is what you would say is your problem."

"Great," Max said under his breath. "Okay, fine, let's see if this works. I need to test what happens after the mana vault is stored, too."

"Of course, dear contractor, I exist to oblige." Saliron’s voice faded away as the spirit also chose to cease being visible.

"What a drama queen," Lavinia muttered.

Max rolled his eyes, walked up to the doorway of bone, and pushed an inert temporal doorway bead against it. Nothing happened. Then he grunted and tried actually activating it while pressed against the doorway, despite the fact it was not finished and shouldn't do anything.

The moment he tried, the bead melted into the bone, which flashed, and a pitch black surface, almost like oil, spread from the edges to fill the entire center of the doorway.

"You know, that really does look like the doorway you got the stuff out of a while ago. The golden one in the dungeon," said Lavinia.

"That thought has occurred to me," responded Max. He observed the doorway from every angle curiously until he intuitively sensed that it would only last a few more minutes.

As he studied it, Max also began to slowly register how his body had felt different before. After the spirits had left his bones to inhabit the gateway, he hadn’t noticed how he’d felt…lesser. But now that they’d returned, it was definitely notable.

He could ponder that later, though. The gateway wouldn’t last all day.

"Oh well," he said, and began tossing everything he wanted to keep into the doorway. As he did, a screen formed just like the one for the dungeon's doorway. It wasn't quite the same, he verified after an inspection, but it was close enough. Weird. Max had no idea what to think about it and filed it under his weird-shit-that-he-couldn't-explain-right-now mental folder.

Once he'd divested himself of the loot, with an effort of will, he collapsed the portal in the doorway. After that the doorway itself began to crumble and fall apart, making horrible, empty clacking noises on the stone as the bones fell. "Okay, that wasn't super pleasant, but it worked. Thank you, Saliron."

The spirit's voice echoed in his head mentally. "Anytime, contractor."

He tested whether he could use the mana vault while it was inside the doorway. The only function he sensed would work was his super charging ability. Max moved to the second doorway that was ready to go, waited for his spirits in his bones to make the jump, and activated this one too. Then he fetched his mana vault.

"All right," Max did one quick check. "I think I'm going to spend a few more days crushing mana units and building my mana body. Too bad I know I won’t hit three stars in that time. But I'm going to just sit right here and work on it. If you all could keep watch, I would appreciate it."

"Of course," said Lavinia.

Max sat on the stony floor and tuned out the world. He started the cycle of crushing mana units, sucking it up with the mana vault, and then directing the flow of power directly into his palm to utilize as he slowly changed his body. As usual, this gave him plenty of time to think.

He used that time to plan for his fight after getting gack to the Quartet, as well as formulate some plans for after he was back.

***

Three days later, Max stood and stretched. "Okay, everybody, I'm going to do one more walkthrough of the caverns while I think about this. But after that, I'm hitting the button and we're getting out of here." He loosened his sword in his scabbard.

"You're not going to craft more beads?" asked Lavinia out loud.

"No," said Max. "Already thought about it. I have lots right now and I still have the extras that I squirreled away in the room over there." A well-sealed cave off of this chamber that Max had been storing his bead supplies and extra beads in.

"Fair enough," said Lavinia.

Two hours after that, Max was standing in the middle of what had been his home for some time. "And you're still not going to do anything about the centipedes before leaving?" asked Lavinia.

"Oh, hell no," said Max. "There's dangerous and dumb, like trying to take out the giant chief and the shaman. But then there's the next level dumb, which would be crawling around some tunnels with fifteen-foot long centipedes. Fuck that." Slick gave Max a goofy salute.

He pulled up his screen. "Okay, this is it everyone." Then finally, Max read the line again, [Would you like to exit this dungeon?] and he pressed yes.

Max tensed, expecting to immediately be teleported back to the Quartet. The moment stretched to seconds until he opened his eyes that he hadn’t even realized he’d squeezed shut. He was still in the cavern. The only change was a new screen that had popped up.

His his jaw dropped as he read it. "You have got to be kidding me," he said.

"What?" asked Lavinia.

"The system is making me stay here one more day before I leave."

"Wow," said the ghost girl. "So if you had tried to use escaping from the dungeon as a last-ditch way to save yourself, like if the fight against the giant chief had gone badly, you would have been screwed, huh?"

"It sure looks like it," muttered Max. He face-palmed. "Well, I have another day. I might as well do some bead crafting after all.”

Saliron seemed excited. “Perhaps you could collect some more bones, too.”.

"Yeah, I have the time. Maybe if it'll make you happy. And you did help me with the storage problem."

"Excellent," crowed Saliron. "One can never have too many bones!"