The Rift, Two hours earlier
“Well, it would appear our time has come to an end.”
I stopped my body mid-movement, sweat dripping down my brow.
“What?”
“Our time has come to a close.” The Vestige of Wisdom sighed. “Your former group has reached the final checkpoint.”
“I thought you were delaying them?” I wiped at my brow with my forearm, flicking away the sweat. I had been going through a repertoire of movements that the vestige had instructed me on. They were meant to properly agitate my whole body, my muscles aching in ways I never knew were possible. In the words of the vestige, “Training the entirety of the body is just as important to maximizing one’s potential as expanding one’s mind.”
“You are under a failed assumption, Flows.” The vestige shook his head as he called me by my sage name. “Affecting the might the dungeon can bring to bear is not some simple matter. The will of the dungeon is, to a certain degree, unflappable. This was effectively the best that could be done to achieve the balance that I did between scaling back that force of the dungeon and ensuring it still provided enough to slow them.”
“Fine, not like I’m the voice of the dungeon. What do I know?” I shrugged. “So, now what?”
“I can provide you a shortcut to the Throne room, but once there, you must claim the dungeon for yourself, as per our agreement.”
“Iris won’t take well to that.” I looked down at my feet, doubt gnawing away at me.
“Do you believe yourself her inferior still?”
“I-” I cut off, my eyes cutting away from looking at the ground to the third golden ring wrapping around my forearm. “Honestly, I’m not sure. If she has grown stronger-”
“Oh, she has.” The vestige confirmed. “The role of a sage is to face trials and grow in the face of adversity. I wouldn’t give you the ability to grow stronger and then rob her of the chance. She has long broken through her former limitations by utilizing the resources available within the dungeon.”
“Great,” I muttered before shifting the topic. “So what about this then?” I reached into the folds of my pants, pulling out a red crystal, a glowing orb of gold floating within, as a black obsidian lattice wrapped around the surface faces of the crystal.
The vestige vanished before reappearing beside me, plucking the mana matrix from my hand.
“The mana matrix was originally devised to filter through the limitless possibility of wisdom provided by the Throne. Without the matrix, those who sit upon the Throne will only be able to divine a single thread of fate, of reality. Such knowledge grants power, of course, but it is constrained without the matrix.”
“Meaning, I should do what exactly….?” I questioned.
“It amuses me to no end that you hold the key to the unlimited potential of infinite wisdom within this world, and yet you so casually disregard the grand potential of it.” The vestige threw the matrix up before catching it repeatedly as if the mana matrix were no more than a ball that a child would play with.
“I don’t really care about that,” I said with a shrug.
“Yes, I’m aware.” The vestige nodded to itself as if confirming something. “Yes, I believe I have an option that will prove agreeable. The matrix, as I mentioned, was devised as a method of filtering and comprehending knowledge. Its full potential can only be realized when utilized in tandem with the Hallowed Throne. Without the Throne, the matrix becomes much more mundane, at least to those at the level of a Great Sage, as the matrix can be utilized for your personal needs of assisting in your ability to manipulate mana, easing the difficulty of forming your future sage rings.”
I felt my eyes widen, staring at the matrix within his hands.
“Yes, you are curious.” The vestige scratched at his ghostly chin. “Unwilling, or simply uncaring of unlimited power, yet curiously you still desire the means of aiding your development.”
“I don’t want to be some sort of god amongst men,” I answered. “Plus, complete knowledge or whatever sounds… taxing. I’d rather take things at my own pace.”
“And perhaps there is a wisdom to that.” The vestige smiled faintly. “In a way, you come to the same conclusion that I, or rather, that the proper Sage of Wisdom once came to. Power such as that, what is the point? If perhaps for different reasons of how you came to that belief, I find it admirable.”
I felt pleased with myself, as if I had passed some sort of test I hadn’t even realized I’d been taking before frowning lightly for a moment.
“What is it?” The vestige asked, noticing my expression.
“What will happen after? To you?” I hadn’t known the vestige of the former Great Sage for long, but in our time together, I had come to find the man, former man, as good company as something of such status could be. “I’ve heard once dungeons are cleared, they disappear.”
“Ahh, you worry for my well-being?” The vestige raised an eyebrow at me. “A quaint gesture, which I appreciate, but your concern is misplaced. In its former glory, this was the Citadel of the Moon, the great research site of the prime directive of the second greatest sage of a generation, behind only the arguably greatest sage to have ever lived.”
“The Sage Above All.” I guessed.
“Correct. Transcending time as she did, is something no being in the history of existence had done before, not to the caliber she did. This direct linear path preserved her essence and soul, not some cheap imitation of reincarnation.”
“Cheap imitation?” I felt my curiosity piqued, but the vestige waved it off.
“I digress. The point is that the dungeon and I will continue to persevere.”
‘Alright.” I had to accept the answer as the best I could get. “So, then the matrix?”
“Yes, the matrix.” The vestige tossed it one more time before it stopped mid-fall, floating in front of him as it slowly rotated in magical suspension. “It will be given based on your unwillingness to take the power of the Throne for yourself. Instead, for clearing the dungeon, it shall be your reward.”
“Wait, I thought it belonged to me already?” I pointed at it. “I built it.”
“No.” The vestige shook its head. “You did not. You simply put the pieces that already existed together, pieces that the Sage of Wisdom left behind, in a way that would allow one who was worthy of assembling it. Of course, the way you found the nullite matrix weave was roundabout to how you were originally supposed to find it, but in the end, it still achieved its purpose.”
“Wait, how was it supposed to be found then?”
“The nullite matrix weave was meant to be found within a second laboratory site, but due to the sheer number of how many of you there were, and the interference of draconic mana skewing the spatial obelisks, you instead ended up within the production site of the nullite. Regardless, little was lost.”
I was instantly reminded that outside of other sages, the Great Sage seemed to have little regard for the well-being of others.
“Again, I digress. The point is, while you may have assembled the matrix, you did not create it; thus, it is within the rights of the dungeon, and myself as its authority, to withhold it as a treasure that cannot be carted off without worthy accomplishment. While a mana matrix would provide a little boon to a full-fledged Great Sage, it is a treasure for which nations would go to war.”
I whistled, staring at the crystal device. “It’s really that impressive?”
“Indeed.” The vestige nodded. “In theory, one could internalize the mana matrix and reform it within their mana core, allowing for the unrivaled ability to absorb mana and refine one’s mana core as a passive ability rather than having to spend intentional time or effort to do as much.”
“Reform it in your mana core? How does that even work.”
“Magic.” The vestige shook his head. “Don’t think about it too much. Now, in your case, you lack that mana core, to begin with, and so it will outright replace the mana core.”
“Does that mean-” Before I could ever get my hopes up, the vestige dashed them.
“No. While becoming a part of yourself, the mana matrix will not substitute an actual mana core, in the same way that a pump used to pull water into a tank cannot replace the tank itself. But that does not mean it won’t be of aid in other means.”
Oh.” I felt downtrodden for a moment, looking down.
It was as I looked down that I noticed something wrong.
Mainly that I was see-through.
“Uh.” I jerked my head back up, staring at the vestige. “What’s going on?”
“Oh. I forgot to mention that did I?” The vestige looked around, feigning innocence. “I told you I would give you a shortcut to the Throne Room, did I not?”
“Yes? What does that have to do with-” I gestured toward my body. “-this?”
“As you may know, I only have the capabilities that the dungeon itself does. That means I cannot transport those within the dungeon’s walls without the aid of a spatial obelisk.”
“So then this is?”
“Is it my method of getting around that limitation, and quite a clever idea if I do say so myself.” The vestige answered, looking pleased with himself. “In the same method I have used to curtail the might with which the dungeon brought against your former comrades, I can increase the hostility and send further reinforcements to aid in the protection of the dungeon.”
“Meaning…?”
“Meaning, due to your prolonged time spent near the lifeblood of the dungeon, the Rift, you contain enough of its mana signature to be quantified as an asset of the dungeon, allowing for you to be transported through the dungeon in response to the actions of any dungeon delvers.”
“Okay, not sure I understood any of that, really,” I answered. “But that still doesn’t explain why I’m see-through.”
“Well, that is the issue.” The vestige flicked his fingers, still feigning innocence as it looked anywhere but at me. “To do so requires drawing you into the void space of the dungeon.”
“The what!?”
“Best of luck, young sage. You carry the mark of the Sage of Wisdom, his disciple after death. So, do not embarrass his memory.”
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
The last I saw before my body disappeared, drawn into a space that did and didn’t exist, was the rather obnoxiously pleased expression of a chuckling vestige of the former Great Sage.
Gods above, I hate Sages.
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I waited, and waited, and waited, in that damn void space for what felt like an eternity. Within the endless nothingness that I had become a part of, time didn’t exist.
You would think the idea of existing within nothingness would be frightening, but in truth, it was nothing more than unending dullness.
With time to spare, or rather, the absence of time, I did the only thing I could.
I came up with clever things to say.
‘My death was greatly exaggerated?’ No, no, that’s stupid. Maybe ‘I’ll be back?’ No, dumb, I’ll already be back at that point; that’s just redundant.
Hmm. Oh, I got it; when I see them, I’ll look straight at Iris and tell her, ‘My name is Rook. You pushed me to my death. Prepare to die.’
Look, it had been nearly three months of being isolated, alone with nothing more than a glorified ghost, learning and practicing and pushing myself to the brink as I tried to finish the development of my sage ring. I wasn’t typically one for such quips but cut me some slack; I was starved for human interaction.
Bored, it wasn’t until I ‘looked’ down and saw my body reappearing that my heart started to thump within my chest, excitement blooming through me.
This is it!
I held my breath, or what acquitted for holding my breath, given that, again, I was in a place of nonexistence, like I was nothing more than self-aware words on a page rather than a living, breathing person.
That was, until from my state of non-existence, a light appeared, a grand ray of shining white light that swept over me, ferrying me through the very fabric of the dungeon meta-space.
When the light finally vanished, I found myself standing within an oversized throne room, opulent and garish in a way that perhaps a lord of darkness would find appealing.
Dramatic much?
I didn’t have time for further investigation or reflection, though. From where I had appeared, a marble statue was throwing a punch directly at me; only I could possibly be unlucky enough to appear in the direct crossfire of an enemy attack.
It's never easy, is it?
I reacted instinctively to the attack, my hand raised as I drew in the mana of my sage rings, my body flaring with strength, catching the fist with only a little oomph of effort.
Well, would you look at that?
I stared at my own hand in surprise, I hadn't actually expected to catch the attack as easily as I had. At one point, trying to no-sell a punch as I just had from an oversized marble statue would have required the active draw of mana and usage of flow.
Now, with three rings worth of sage mana and a body that had been physically strengthened, such a thing was possible with only a slight strain.
“Your usage of mana is intriguing.” The Vestige of Wisdom announced, walking around me as I stood shiftlessly. “It is similar to the reformation achievable by sages who reach their fifth ring, reforming the body using mana to reinforce it, creating a greater physical vessel to match a greater realm of magic. You take a similar principle of reinforcing the body but use it as an active state of being rather than a passive state.”
“Wait, do you mean sages who reached the fifth ring were physically stronger?”
“Of course.” The vestige scoffed as if it were obvious.
“Guess I always imagined sages as frail hermits locked up in towers or something.”
“Well, you would be surprised.” The vestige chuckled. “But such matters are not the point. For now, given your current physical state, I believe we can improve upon it.”
“We can?”
“Of course.” The vestige pointed at me. “A question for you. Tell me, your ‘flow’ state, as you call it, utilizes mana to forcibly reinforce and draw out potential from a body, does it not?”
“Yeah?”
“Wrong. It does not draw out potential from ‘a’ body but from ‘your’ body. It does not ‘magically’ grant power, but rather-”
“But rather... wait, I got it! It magnifies what's there. Huh, does that mean the stronger I am physically speaking, the greater the effect?" I followed up with the question. The idea of simple strength training being all that was required to further my magical abilities was almost too good to be true, something I needed to hear confirmed firsthand.
“Correct, but your method of thinking is still too shallow. It is not as simple as simply ‘strengthening’ the body as you likely understand it. Flow does not target specific parts of your body; it does not galvanize just your arms or legs, but the entirety of your body. If you wish to bring out its full potential-”
“I have to strengthen my whole body.” I interrupted, finishing the explanation for him.
“And thus, you shall.” The vestige confirmed a smile of unknown wickedness upon his face.
And thus you shall. The memory made me shudder. Every day from that point onward, I was sent to the mire, where my body would be broken down by the decaying aura until the point my muscles were practically bleeding before I would provide my body with the mana needed to accelerate my healing, gained through fusing the decaying aura into a more stable state. At first, it took everything I had just to do that, but eventually, I’d begun transitioning into slow workouts, and ultimately all the way to full-speed martial practice, meant to tax the entirety of my body, even the most mundane or insignificant of muscle groups.
For a being that was supposed to be all about ‘wisdom,’ it sure did like taking a physical approach.
I spent three months like that; in three months, I’d gained what usually could have been achieved only after years of disciplined training. Given that I was currently holding back the fist of an imposing-looking marble statue with only a tiny exertion of effort, for as hellish as those three months had been, it hadn’t been without obvious benefit.
Still holding the fist, I heard a gasp from behind me. Looking over my shoulder, I saw none other than Tez staring at me with wide eyes.
“Rook?” She stared at me with an expression as if she had just seen a ghost.
“Miss me much?” I asked, shooting her a genuine smile, given I was just happy to see her, or really any human for that matter, again.
Oh, c’mon, all that time spent thinking of cool things to say, and that’s the best you could come up with?
My jovial attitude was dashed shortly after, as my eyes continued to trail past Tez, before landing upon the broken form of a man, Thoron, if I remembered his name correctly. He was unmoving on the ground, dead, the cause obviously being the fact that he had been cleanly bisected through the waist.
Further back, I saw Intilda, the vice-captain of Shangsattva, pinned to a pair of massive doors, a stone spear through her gut as she slumped over, also unmoving. Off to the side, Elsmere was thankfully still alive, engaged with a similar marble statue, where she was doing her best to simply fend off blows from a massive maul with desperately raised stone walls. Past even her, there was a man whose name I couldn’t remember, cradling his arm, or what remained, reduced to a stump below the elbow as yet another statue raised a polearm, ready to bring it down upon his unguarded neck.
As far as priorities went, it was obvious who was in the most danger. Shoving at the statue I had inadvertently protected Tez, it stumbled back as I sprinted the short distance between where I had been, and where the injured man sat at the mercy of his marble assailant.
It wasn't enough, the polearm descended with sudden speed, and furthermore, it had only to cover a fraction of the distance that I had to before his head would roll.
“Flow.”
To the others in the room, it must have seemed like I had vanished, only to suddenly reappear in front of the marble statue as it prepared to behead the injured man.
The reality was, of course, more straightforward than me gaining the ability to teleport.
I was just too fast to see.
My fist sailed forward, catching the statue in the chest and launching it through a stone column. Crashing into the wall of the throne room, all that remained of it was debris and a crater.
Wow.
I once again at my fist in surprise, the power I’d displayed greater than anything I'd ever managed with purely my abilities alone before. The surprise quickly turned to pain though, a dull ache radiating out from my fist as I winced.
Think I overdid it a bit.
My fist was left as nothing more than a pulpy mess after hitting the marble body of the statue with such force. I was confident that given a bit of time, it would heal good as new, one of the perks of having a body meant for a reincarnated sage, but until it did I would have to dial it back.
“Zero?” The man managed to look up at me, staring at me much as Tez had, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head.
Or maybe it's the shock of losing an arm. Who can say?
There was no time for conversation with the man, much as I may have been tempted to try again for a witty remark.
There was a problem to solve after all.
Twenty problems, to be exact.
Reaching for the sheath strapped to my back, I grasped the hilt of my last remaining sword, before pulling the rapier free.
Normally, a rapier would be ineffective against solid marble statues.
Normally.
“Renlous,” I spoke the word of power, as instantly my rapier was enveloped by a shining fluid, the quicksilver changing the outer form of the weapon into a heavy-ended falchion.
If the adventurer who I had just saved had looked like his eyes were about to bulge out of his head before, now it was like they were trying to reach escape velocity on the way out.
“There is a mistaken belief about mana.” The vestige prattled on as I balanced on one leg upon the muddy rock within the center of the mire. “That there is only one direct method for advancing your ability with magic. The more affinities you have, the greater your ability. After all, is that not common sense?”
“Uhh, maybe?”
“Wrong!” The vestige shouted. “Mana oft functions as a reflection of the universe, and the fundamental language of the universe is mathematics, numbers.”
“Okay?”
“In math-” The vestige continued, ignoring my confusion. “-is it limited to simple addition?”
“No. I think?”
“Answer me this.” The vestige spoke, ignoring my confusion. “If the universe is spoken through the language of numbers, and mana reflects the universe’s rules, why should mana be limited by simple addition?”
Using mana, it turns out, was a lot like math. One could use simple addition to achieve a higher form, such as taking water mana and combining it with earth mana to form quicksilver. Addition, it turned out, wasn’t the only way to achieve such a result; one could compound mana through mana fusion, directly elevating water mana to a higher form, all without having more than a single elemental affinity.
Just as I had just done.
Holding my blade of hardened quicksilver, I danced through the throne room, my blade cutting clean through the marble statues like they were nothing more than wet clay. As effective as my quicksilver blade was, I still had to be quick about it, as while my fusion ring had considerably more mana than even my first two rings combined, it was a far cry from abundant. Furthermore, using it to catalyze the fusion of composite mana rather than naturally accessing it through dual mana affinity exhausted a mana supply far faster than typical mana addition.
It’s good that I don’t need much time then.
I continued flying through the throne room, my quicksilver blade flashing through the air, splitting shields, cleaving swords, and shattering bodies.
The entire battle ended within thirty seconds, the broken forms of the statues strewn about us, like the scene of an ancient battlefield.
Satisfied, I looked back at the stunned faces of Elsmere, Tez, and the third adventurer, who I would remember to feel bad about forgetting the name of later.
“Where’s Iris?” I wondered aloud, only post-fight did it occur to me that it was rather odd that I hadn’t seen her fighting amongst the golems.
“I always knew you would return.” The voice came from the far end of the room. Turning around slowly, I took the time to finally let my eyes settle upon what was there.
Oh. So that’s where she went. A bit melodramatic if I do say so myself.
At the far end of the room stood a throne of such majesty that its mere presence alone nearly compelled me to kneel before it.
The Hallowed Throne. The pinnacle of everything the Sage of Wisdom had worked toward.
And seated upon it was none other than Iris.
“Iris?” Elsmere’s voice shook for a moment. “Why? Why? Thoron's dead, Intilda, dead! Why didn’t you help us at all?”
Apparently, I had missed quite the transpiring of events, so dutifully, I remained silent as I let the conversation unfold.
“You don’t understand.” Her voice was warbling strangely as if it were being forced out through chokes. “But I do. The dungeon told me, whispered to me. It asked me what I wanted, and when I answered, it told me where to find it, how to achieve it!”
Ahh, well, that confirms it.
The Vestige of Wisdom had, in fact, asked us what we desired.
Then Iris had decided the best way to get that, was by pushing me to my death.
Or, supposed death. Semantics really.
I get the feeling she isn’t exactly in the sanest of mindsets right now.
“It told me that if I wanted the strength to never again be powerless, never fall, never be forced to make such hard decisions, I must reach the Throne. I did this for you, for everyone! So, why don't you understand, why do you still stand next to him?”
Her eyes were jumping about like a startled rabbit, clearly bloodshot now that I got a good look at them.
Yeah, she’s lost it.
Whether she had always been at the breaking point, or the dungeon has been responsible for fracturing her mind, it didn't change the obvious.
“Iris, please.” Elsmere sounded as if she were pleading. “This isn’t you. So please, please just come to your senses!”
“No! It is you who must understand. That thing is a devil come for us!”
She was pointing at me, and I felt a massive swell of power from around her.
Uh oh.
It suddenly clicked, a reminder that The Throne was a vast source of power.
And she was sitting on it.
Swallowing a mouthful of dry saliva, I stepped forward.
“Iris!”
She fixed me with her eyes, the power within the throne beginning to stain the skin surrounding her eyes orange.
“I knew you would return. The dungeon told me you lived! A devil to be vanquished!”
Damnit Wisdom, did you really have to go that far?
The vestige had made it abundantly clear that he had no intention of making this easy on me after all. This was meant to be the final trial, where I would prove my worth and fulfill what I had vowed.
It still didn't change that I didn't like what I knew I had to do.
Raising my sword, I pointed it directly at her, as I puffed my chest out and stood as tall and proud as I could.
“Iris Steel Haze, you have lost yourself and present a danger to those who would follow you. Therefore, I, Rook, otherwise known as Zero of the Flowing Blade, use my right as a fellow adventurer to challenge you to a duel before the Throne, and let only death decide the victor!"