Arch-Mage Wilson gapped at the quest as he stepped into the first room of the Ancient Dungeon Armageddon. Dance? Really?

The Ancient Armageddon greets the mortals!

Quest:

Do a unique and sensual dance, or really rock it!

Reward:

Strange hide and seek

Warning: If you make it to room 15, stop. Level 15 is restricted and will result in destruction.

Happy delving!

"This is some unbelievable bullshit," Wilson grumbled. Jenkins was reading the quest now. "Wow, man, that's some bullshit. Do you think we can just blitz it?" Wilson continued to stoke his beloved goatee. "Hmm, we could try, but I don't like this dungeon has quest prompts. System-sponsored dungeons are notoriously dangerous. This is also Godlike, which is scary. But, it could be a huge deal depending on its rewards." Jenkins jumped as the doors slammed behind them, locking them in the dance room.

"Oh shit!" Wilson groaned. "Yeah, just don't look, man," Jenkins replied. Just then, music started thumping. Jenkins leaned his massive sword against the wall and started doing the robot. His metal armor did make him look like a robot. "Common man, it's not that bad."

An hour later, a very red-faced Wilson and a laughing Jenkins left the room. Jenkins poked at Wilson, "Your sort of a baby for being a high and mighty Arch Wizard." "Shut it, or I'll hit you with a silence," grumbled Wilson.

Wilson pulled out his manna transmitter and sent a recorded message back to the guild "We followed that Strange. You guys won't believe this, but it's a roaming mob from an Ancient Godly Dungeon. This is a huge find for our guild branch, and we need to establish a small town or outpost here immediately. We should also hire a dance instructor to increase the success rate of the lower-tier adventuress."

As the duo crept forward, another prompt hit them.

Congratulations!

As a reward for dancing well, you will receive a reduction in lethal events while you enjoy your delve.

Remember-Don't even try room 15.

-Kolan Empire: Planet Kaolin-

The Emperor rubbed his hands gleefully as he read his heads-up display. The special research team had been successful! They had set up all the supercomputers in the empire to calculate universes most likely to be selected by Armageddon's system, and they finally had a list of potential candidates. After all, no computer ever conceived was utterly random. Not even the hyper-advanced A.I. could be completely random as math is the multiversal factor.

The Emperor's special team had also found most of the research relating to multiverse phase drives and had successfully manufactured and implemented the technology into a new fleet of ships. They didn't have universe-ending weapons like Armageddon, but they would undoubtedly suffice to wipe any planet out of existence. It would be perfect for eliminating any worlds Brian may have made friends with.

The Emperor didn't think Brian would order Armageddon to wipe out his universe. The boy was indeed too naive. Instead, he would surely run, and perhaps imperial forces could trap him. The center of a black hole would be the perfect prison for an un-killable immortal.

-Brian-

I woke up feeling super depressed. I had actually been fired, resulting from bumbling government idiocy, no less. It was pretty unbelievable. I just couldn't get over how something like that could be allowed to happen.

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I moped around at my apartment for a while, before finally getting up and dragging my but down to the job board to see if there was any other work I qualified for in this society. Before I left my apartment, it was almost like I felt another presence on the other side of the door. I put my ear to the crack and listened.

There was quiet shuffling before someone whispered, "You got the surveillance?" Another voice replied, "Yeah, just got it set up. We will be able to capture any conversations he has there, " and the footsteps lightly padded off into the distance.

I paused for a moment and considered what I had heard. The voices were defiantly coming from the other side of my door. I stepped outside and looked for any devices that might be visible. I could not detect anything, but I didn't know much about the manna technology they used in this universe. The fact that they seemed to have planted physical spying devices led me to believe that I was being targeted by an actual physical entity and not someone acting on behalf of the strange soul factions.

I confirmed my suspicions by using my HUD and eye movements to type a message to Armageddon: "We got another problem. I just heard two people speaking outside my door. It sounded like they were setting up surveillance equipment on my apartment. Can you confirm by replaying the quantum scan from the satellite assigned to me?"

My heads-up display shimmered as the satellite overlay was beamed into my implants. The active scan was, of course, detailed down to the quantum level. I watched as the scan scaled up through the various levels of magnified quarks, then electrons, protons, and neutrons, to a more macro level where it would be helpful to my eyes.

Two individuals were standing in the hallway outside my door. One of them lightly drew a rune on my door: I must have heard the scuffling sound, and then they had their conversation. There it was! Conclusive proof I was not crazy!

Once I walked out of the building and presumably far enough away that the listening array would miss me, I toggled a com to the Armageddon. "Make sure to track those two spies with the quantum scanners. Surely the mighty Armageddon who can track subatomic particles and predict probably futures can follow two government idiots?"

The Armageddon replied in a crisp voice, "Roger roger, commander! I'll overlay any spies and connections they make about you as red dots on your HUD" The overlay popped up in the upper right of my vision. Two red dots were sitting in an adjacent apartment from my building. I rolled my eyes. These noobs had no idea of the power I had. If I ordered, the Armageddon could rule this world like a god using his Weapon of Mass Control (WMC) chip.

WMC is essentially built on artificial intelligence that monitors subatomic particles on an entire planet or in my case an entire universe. The technology was born as part of the multiverse phase drive project in the imperial empire. The phase drive requires obscene computing power as warping between realities must be calculated. A 100% probability must be arrived upon before the engine's fire to prevent the eventual loss of a ship.

WMC can manipulate events in all sorts of unethical ways using advanced mathematics to calculate future particle interaction probability. I mussed on the idea of using it, but it was way too unethical for now.

The simplified idea was that I could order a quantum field adjustment of a particle. The vibrating particle could cause a monkey to fart, which could result in a banana falling, which could drop on the head of a passerby at a calculated time, which could cause them to trip and hit a rock and miss their interview, or any other type of chain event predicted with a high probability of occurring by the computer. As the A.I could monitor all known data sources, calculating the probability future of a human was much easier than a particle a universe away. People in ancient times named this causation "The butterfly effect," and it is very very real.

Simitionalious manipulations at every given second across the globe by a quantum satellite network would result in the complete dominance of humans by my computer. The house always wins, so to speak. To people without access to the technology, mass manipulations would seem like nothing but a force of nature, an act of God, or chance that guided their fates, or perhaps their farts day-to-day. But to me, everything was calculated, nothing was random, and I had a computer that could prove that.

I briefly considered the soul factions and the fact the Armageddon had not yet been able to detect them, manna use, or anything related to those powers. I wondered if they had a similar technology that allowed them to manipulate the low-tech mortals if they chose.

The existence of WMC was one reason I would rather not have a confrontation with the Imperial Emperor. He might be aware of the project and using it. Sure the explosion of the FUCK base likely destroyed all files on WMC, but I wasn't prepared to deal with that situation yet

I shrugged my shoulders. I wasn't desperate enough to play God with weapons of mass control yet. I decided to leave the option open if the so-called spiritual realm I was investigating required more considerable firepower to deal with. I did, however, open a channel to the Armageddon. "I am concerned that the spiritual realm or these so-called soul factions may have access to systems similar to our weapon of mass control. Can you start manufacturing the satellite WMC systems if we need them to combat the soul factions? I know it will take most of your computing power, but I feel paranoid. Spies surround me, and I may level up to spirit five at any time now. At that point, I will be a target for the SOUL factions."

I decided to stop at a restaurant before continuing to the job board. I was pretty hungry after all the spy bushtit.