Lunch with Zavira released a tension that I hadn’t realized I was holding. Out of everyone, she was the one who really knew me the best. Even the last few years on different floors of the dungeon hadn’t changed that.

I found myself almost melancholy when lunch was over and we headed toward the entrance. There were a few people gathered, likely waiting to be seated, though it was easy enough to find an open space to one side for one last goodbye before we headed our separate ways.

I felt the urge to delay, if only to extend our time hanging out. Unfortunately, Zavira had other obligations after lunch.

It was probably a good thing, really, since my original reason for coming to Aegeas was to dig through the Enchanters’ Guild library and maybe finagle a few bits of guidance from the Vice-Guildleader.

I still had quite a bit of time before I needed to do anything for the sect, and I wanted to get as much benefit out of that time as possible. Since I’d passed on artificially raising my Enchanting skill, I needed to put in the work if I wanted to learn new techniques.

My thoughts shifted to my next task as I watched Zavira turn toward the exit—

—before promptly finding myself face-down on a cold slab of stone.

I could sense the barest hint of foreign Time mana, though I barely paid attention. I was too busy casting every defensive spell I had as I scrambled to my feet.

Once both of my Barriers were in place, I pushed Spatial Sense to its limit. The limit was, surprisingly, the stone walls encasing the small room.

Where are my talismans? I wondered, noting their absence. And even more importantly, where are my clothes?

My almost instinctual attempt to [Equip] a new outfit from my ring drew an even more startling discovery – my ring was gone. That should have been nearly impossible to remove, especially if I was impacted by a Time spell.

But nearly isn’t absolute.

At least my embedded talismans and personal inventory weren’t compromised. The small consolation kept me from completely freaking out as I manually examined my surroundings.

The stone room was completely unadorned, with the only items of interest being an altar in the center and an open doorframe centered in the wall across from me.

There were no decorations or furniture, nor were there windows. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all comprised of dark gray stone so uniform it almost looked artificial.

A glance with Mana Sight verified my suspicion that wherever I was, the environment was on the upper end of Tier Nine, maybe even Peak-Tier Nine.

That was bad.

At level seventy-two, I was still considered Low-Tier Eight. Fighting up a tier was hard when you were at the peak of your current tier. This kind of gap… it seemed almost impossible.

It might not be a death sentence, but it felt damn close.

I glanced at my status and winced at the tiny amount of experience I’d gained since leaving the dungeon.

***

Name: Emie Momentia

Level: 72 (1009915/3824100)

Profession: (P) Enchanter

(S) Manatechnician

(T) Merchant

Affinities: Time, Space, Arcane

***

Health: 320/320

Stamina: 550/550

Mana: 960/960

***

Attributes

Strength – 23

Agility – 33

Vitality – 32

Intelligence – 96

Wisdom – 73

Perception – 38

***

Spells*

Skills*

***

“Stay calm,” I told myself quietly. “Freaking out accomplishes nothing. Assess the situation and figure out a plan. I can do this.”

My attempt at self-motivation felt hollow, but the words still did their job.

Withdrawing one of my new black sets of robes from my inventory, I got dressed as quickly as I could. It was a little more difficult than I remembered, but I also hadn’t manually dressed myself in decades.

I was immensely glad that I’d stuck the items in my inventory instead of in my ring like I usually did with clothing. Clothes and my favorite weapons and accessories were the only major exception to my standard personal storage rules since I couldn’t [Equip] from my inventory.

Only the new black robes I hadn’t gotten around to wearing yet and my ceremonial Elder robes were stored in my inventory.

“Thank goodness for [Self-Cleaning] enchantments,” I muttered just before a screen forced itself into view.

[You have entered a Challenge Rift! Complete the Challenge to exit!

Challenge Parameters:

Defeat the Five bosses.

Place the cores of the Five bosses on the altar.]

I hated challenge rifts.

They were always a pain to complete, and it was impossible to exit without finishing the requirements. Being severely under-leveled certainly wasn’t helping matters, either.

I walked over to the altar, dropping one of my barrier spells. In some ways, knowing that I was in a rift was comforting. At least I knew basically what to expect and didn’t have to worry about other people trying to kill me here.

No, I just needed to somehow kill five bosses at Peak-Tier Nine, I thought, feeling overwhelmed.

Thank goodness rifts didn’t work like the dungeon. It would have been flat-out impossible for me to fight two tiers up if the bosses were all Low-Tier Ten.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Silver linings, I supposed.

The altar was little more than a raised stone dais with five shallow basins arrayed in a circle. I touched the altar and closed my eyes, connecting to the rift as I’d been taught by Stella back on Earth. It didn’t work as well from the inside, but without a portal to connect to, the altar was my best hope.

I gasped at the limited information I was able to peruse.

“No,” I said, shaking my head in denial as I pulled my hand away like it had been bitten. “That can’t be right.”

The readings I’d gotten from the rift showed my current instance had been active for just over 906 local years.

“Don’t forget the rift’s natural time dilation of 7.25,” Lisa said helpfully.

“That’s still almost 125 years!” I hissed. “It can’t have been that long. My contract would have broken.”

“Yes, but also no. You are mixing the contract requirements with your agreement,” Lisa replied. “The actual contract said nothing about reaching Tier Ten in a century. It only stipulated that you, and I quote, ‘take a break of no more than ten Alliance Standard Years outside the dungeon after entry before reaching level 100.’ The agreement to strive for the Pinnacle within a century was not part of the contract.”

“But wouldn’t the contract still have been violated?” I asked, feeling a little dizzy. It was completely psychosomatic since my body no longer got dizzy like a mundane human might. “Even if we’re on Sira, that’s still twenty-five Alliance Standard Years that I’ve been time-locked in this rift. How is that not a breach of contract?”

“The system probably doesn’t recognize the time you spent in stasis,” Lisa replied. “In fact, extrapolating based on the internal countdown I have been maintaining, which is linked to the contract, I can assure you that is exactly the case. With that, I have good news and bad news.

“The bad news is that the clock is now running again,” Lisa said. “However, the good news is that based on how slowly the numbers are changing, I can confidently say that you are, indeed, on Sira. That means you have a lot of time to work with since you only spent a few months outside of the dungeon before this… incident.”

“So, what?” I asked with a hint of hope. “I have a few hundred years to find my way out of this rift and back into the dungeon before I technically violate the contract?”

“Exactly.”

It was still bad, but not as bad as I initially thought. Obviously, it would be next to impossible for me to ascend with Master Kairos now. I wondered how he would take it.

Rather, I wondered how he’d already taken it. He had to already know.

My heart clenched as my mind made the obvious connection.

My family would have been devastated, especially my parents. Even if I made it out of the rift alive, they’d probably want to kill me… metaphorically.

Hopefully, I’d find a way to complete the rift challenge and still have enough time to spend a little with them before I had to leave again.

I immediately felt guilty for all the time I’d wasted during my break so far. I’d let my social discomfort cheat me out of time I could have spent with my family.

Something occurred to me. “Hey, Lisa? How is there extra time dilation now but there isn’t in the dungeon?”

“Nobody knows for certain. Though you enter and exit through a portal, it is important to remember that the dungeon is not a rift. In fact, some believe it is not of this realm at all.”

“Huh,” I said thoughtfully, trying not to think about the piercing pain in my chest.

It didn’t work.

I could easily imagine my mom’s tearful expression when she learned I’d disappeared. Dad would almost certainly blame Master Kairos, not that any of it was really his fault.

Justin and Bell would be understandably upset as well, as would Deni and probably Gabby.

I wonder if Gabby and her party have entered the dungeon already?

Shaking off the errant thought, my mind shifted to Zavira. I’d only just had lunch with her from my perspective, but it had been more than twenty-five years for her.

I hoped she didn’t feel bad about being the last person to see me before I disappeared. I could absolutely see her blaming herself for something crazy like that.

“Ahhh! Alright,” I said, physically shaking myself out of my depressed reflection.

I needed to take stock of what I had. Most of my crafting materials were in my ring, but that didn’t mean much, given where I was.

It wasn’t like any of it would have done much good, anyway, since it was mostly Tier Eight stuff I was saving for when I re-entered the dungeon. I doubted any of it would be very helpful now.

Entry rooms were almost always safe zones of sorts, and given the complete lack of disturbance, I felt fairly confident it would make an acceptable place to shelter, though I knew better than to leave anything lying around.

Rifts had a tendency to absorb things left unattended for too long. I’d learned that the hard way when I’d been abandoned in the rift back in the other timeline.

I paused and let out a little gasp at the thought.

This was the second time something like this had happened to me! It had happened once in the other timeline, too.

Was there some kind of Fate at play here?

It would almost be a good thing if there were. I’d overcome the first challenge when, by all accounts, I should have died. Maybe I could manage to do the same thing again?

Oddly comforted by the thought, I focused on my inventory.

I’d stupidly left my pod set up as a second workstation in my penthouse apartment, so I was now without that treasured asset. I could make another one since I always kept the Crystal Node stored in my inventory, but without the right additional materials, I’d have to rely heavily on my personal mana to compensate for the lack of reagents.

I silently cursed the Assassin or whoever had tossed me in here before I’d managed to gain access to the Enchanters’ Guild library. I’d probably have to use a Trial reward to push myself to Master Enchanter.

On that note, I needed to find a way to complete the rift challenge without tiering up unless I wanted to lose access to the eighth-floor Trial. I was almost certain that tiering up would force me to reenter the dungeon on the ninth floor, and I wasn’t quite willing to lose out on such a valuable boon.

If I had to… well, I’d do what needed to be done. But if it was at all possible to defeat the bosses without tiering up, I’d take advantage of it.

Realizing the direction that my thoughts had drifted, I chuckled mirthlessly.

Here I was, thinking about gaming the system and finding a way to get extra advantages when I still wasn’t confident that survival was possible. I had no idea what kinds of mobs I was up against, nor did I know if my magic and manatech would even be effective.

I honestly should be, especially my magic, but I wouldn’t know until I did a little scouting.

Thankfully, food wasn’t much of a concern since I always stored my MealMaker in my inventory. However, I would still need materials to [Transmute.] Worst case, I could always collect some dirt and debris and use that.

It really was too bad that transmuted materials didn’t work well with enchantments or Alchemy. It would have made things quite a bit easier.

“Alright, I still have some weapons, some of my pod furniture, bedding, some crafted items…” I said to myself as I mentally reviewed my inventory. “Oh, I forgot that I stored those ores and gemstones in here. And the mana cores will be useful, even if they are a tier too weak,” I murmured.

There were also several growth items carefully separated from the rest of the items. I’d given a lot to the sect for future dungeon challengers, but I’d also kept quite a few things for Amie and the younger generation of my immediate family.

Seeing the items made me frown and drew attention to something I’d intentionally been shying away from acknowledging.

Amie had undoubtedly awakened by now, and I’d missed it. The twins and my newest siblings, too. I’d missed their whole lives. Kaylee and Ashlynn wouldn’t know me at all.

The thought hurt more than I expected.

They were all grown up now, and I’d missed everything. Would they even care when I came back, or would I just be another stranger with a familial connection?

Struggling to hold back my emotions, I removed the only comfortable chair I’d kept stored in my inventory and sat down. As much as I hated feeling the emotions, I needed to give myself a short period to grieve for the years that I’d lost.

Inside a rift, I could not communicate and had no way of letting people know I was okay. I couldn’t even send a delayed message.

Until I escaped, I was completely cut off from the rest of the universe. Even Time magic couldn’t influence me…

…aside from branches in time. But those really didn’t count since the me here now would still be stuck.

For the first time since my return, I was well and truly alone.