...

Before Alexander, or rather his sliver of mana, inside the non-euclidean space was what he was looking for. It was sneakily hidden under a rat's nest of cables, beside mana gems, and under layers of metallic plates.

His mana swirled around it, and he could barely sense it. The mana it was radiating felt like he was looking at the sun, 'It should be the hard drive, right?'

However, when Alexander came closer, he suddenly felt a powerful force that tried to suck his mana in. Still, as he strained his [Mana Manipulation] to get into a sort of equilibrium, he was unexpectedly thrown away, as a repulsive force pushed against him, 'Are you fucking with me?!'

Alexander barely stopped while being pushed away, trying to reorganize his position. Since nothing on the outside happened, it was clearly no attack against him. So, he did the only pragmatic thing he could think of: Came close again, and like clockwork, his mana was pushed and pulled in unspecified intervals.

His only way was to increase his concentration, using a multitude of skills so his mana could stay stable as he slowly but surely entered the enormously dense mass of mana. He made it to the inside through nooks and crannies, and all the forces that acted upon him became more substantial the closer he came.

'If the forces influencing my mana increase with proximity, this means that mana...' Even though it was an interesting thought, which made him hear a lot of pings in his head, this little leap in concentration almost crashed him into a piece of metal.

Only through sheer brute force could he stop it and try to find equilibrium again, 'Okay, Alex, you need to get your shit together!'

He proceeded cautiously, determined to avoid making the same mistake again. Fortunately, even though his subconscious tried throwing some weird ideas and theoretical concepts at him, he only remembered them for later to review and continued.

Alexander strained his mind to the point where he felt his body becoming warmer, with sweat running down his face. Yet, when he heard the pings of how his skills increased in levels, it became continuously more effortless.

He prepared himself for the worst as he made his way through the metallic layers. His fears were not unfounded, as the force he experienced upon entering the space was far stronger than anticipated. Due to the intensity of the impact, he was almost thrown against the wall.

Inside, he immediately wanted to know what the damn force was, and as such, he drew a map again, moving around carefully. However, as he finished it, he knew where it came from, 'It's a damn mechanical mana hard drive, holy shit.'

He immediately understood why it was so hard to enter and stay inside. Right in the middle was what he would describe as a flat sphere gleaming with mana and constantly rotating around its own axis. The forces changed, however, frequently, for some reason, and again, he needed to put his contemplations aside and concentrate on what was in front of him. Otherwise, he would immediately crash into something.

The pathways he previously followed were over and under the rotating sphere, melded into sticks with sharp ends that touched lightly the sphere. The sticks had enchantments engraved on them that Alexander couldn't identify, but he nonetheless burned them into his mind as they could become necessary later.

After more observation, Alexander intuitively guessed that what he saw was closely designed like an old mechanical hard drive. The sphere was an element that could save information, while the sticks probably appropriated said information from it.

The more he moved, the more he understood where the force came from: From the sticks. When the space around him pushed into a direction, mana went from the pathways, through half of the sticks, and into the sphere. The same was true the other way around, with mana leaving the flat sphere and into the other half of the sticks.

After observing the fascinating process and trying to balance himself in this claustrophobic place, he licked his lips, thinking it was enough foreplay, 'Time to get into it.'

In his opinion, it was clearly a hard drive, and as such, it had information. What would they look like? He had no idea. He had at most another hour, and while he could first observe everything else and then risk entering it in the last minutes, it could be that he could actually access the information easily. If that were the case, he would've wasted his time. Also, since it was a Tier Test where he couldn't die or get injured, it would be a waste not to risk everything he had.

Alexander swirled around the spherical object to find some weakness, an entrance point, or something else entirely. After a while, he saw no entrance but got another idea. What he would do could disintegrate his mana into billions of particles, making him probably suffer incredibly, 'No pain, no gain.'

He exhaled strongly, strained his mind, and moved closer to the sticks that pushed mana into the sphere, 'Well, here we go!'

Alexander pushed his sliver of mana into the stick he was close to and immediately felt vertigo. His mana rushed through the stick and into the drive, spinning around, making him almost puke. Yet, after some moments and straining his mind to the point where he felt virtually on fire so he wouldn't move around like crazy anymore, he saw an entirely different world.

'I can't fucking believe it.'

An enormously long block of text was swirling around itself in a spiral. It floated inside the space, which felt much larger than from the outside. After observing it more closely and carefully, he saw that the text on this spiral was made out of mana.

He decided to distance himself first and figure out the ongoing workings. The mana at some places became denser, almost to the point where it became a blob, which then was suddenly sucked away by some enchantment to the outer part of the space he was inside.

Other times, mana entered the space and pushed itself slowly to the end of the spiral. The mana moved recursively through the blocks of text and stopped at some point, lighting up some other text.

After observing the process, Alexander decided to move a little. Even though full of anxiety, he was also thrilled. However, when he read what was actually written on the spiral, all of his excitement turned into confusion.

It wasn't thrilling, less fantasy-like. What Alexander saw was bizarrely mundane and, at some points, just sinful, going by his working experience. It was code, which reminded him of Fortran, a coding language he learned for a job at the university. While it was old, it was still advantageous as its performance far surpassed newer languages like Python.

However, even though it was somewhat close to it, the language he saw was also very different and terribly formatted. Yet, being as pragmatic as possible, Alexander ignored his sentiments and tried to read the code as time was of the essence.

After he moved his sliver of mana along the code to read it, he suddenly felt pressure, making him immediately stay still, hoping that the robot didn't discover him.

After staying still and barely moving his mana, it was clear that the robot still had no idea that he had invaded it since there was no outer pressure. What he felt inside the hard drive was probably an automatized safety feature. He hoped that he was wrong and that it was maybe some natural pressure, but since it increased every moment he was in there, the space probably tried to get rid of him.

Now, Alexander had a choice to make. Should he disable the function somehow or get in and out constantly while trying to read through any information he could find?

There was only one obvious answer for him since he didn't believe the pressure would quickly subside after he was gone. Also, time was of the essence, and if he needed to re-enter every time he left, it would considerably cut into his studies.

As such, Alexander's mana started to move faster and erratically around the block of text, trying to find which part constantly lit up and was pulled to the outside since he assumed it was what was used from the code.

He looked around the text and found a function that indicated that it could be the safety feature, lightning up and constantly sending small amounts of mana to the outside, 'i.aura.hard_drive... really?'

However, Alexander had little time to analyze it and determine if it was indeed what he thought it was since the pressure increased continuously. He decided on a more radical move, hoping he wouldn't be exposed, going against his intuition.

'Okay, how do I delete this shit?'

Alexander wanted to delete it but had no idea how to work with code in this space. He only knew that the code was made out of mana, so he should be able to manipulate it, but this method brought other problems.

Manipulating other people's mana was as hard, or even harder, than controlling ambient mana. Alexander tried it once with Green, which became a fight between minds. The strain he felt on his mind when trying to grab her mana was immense, and the same was true the other way around.

A decision needed to be made since the pressure became unbearable, making him irritated, 'Fuck it!'

Alexander breathed more deeply, trying to calm down and prepare for whatever was about to come. As long as he could prepare for all eventualities, he believed he could go through hell and back, as it was with his body strengthening.

When he was calm, he forcefully directed his mana into the function. As he forcefully entered the code, it became scrambled and impossible to comprehend.

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

Yet, Alexander's sliver of mana was also immediately ripped to shreds, making him suddenly feel as if a hammer had smashed into his brain. His [Mana Sense] was forcefully canceled, making him puke blood from the shock.

"Eurgh!"

He became dizzy and could barely orient himself again, as even the sound of level-ups and new skills became distorted. He could smell colors, touch smells, and continually taste the pings he normally heard. Nothing felt right anymore as his mana moved inside of him erratically.

While Alexander tried to control his mana quickly, he became confused. It felt terrible, not expecting his actions to have such a severe effect. After another moment, he looked to the side and saw the robot on the throne, shaking, 'Now, it noticed, huh?'

Alexander clicked his tongue, angry at himself for making such a stupid blunder. The continuous stress slowly made his decisions irrational, and he looked for shortcuts. Even though it was only an hour, it was an hour when he had to peak his concentration while not giving anything away that he was doing this mischief.

'Stupid Alex! Bad Alex...' He inwardly sighed, '...fuck it.'

He fucked up and needed to see it through since the robot would probably attack him in a moment, but he didn't panic. He threw away his last bit of rationale, as it was too late either way. All he felt was now excitement as if he was fighting someone, making his instincts go wild while ignoring all the consequences.

At first, Alexander wanted maybe to study him a little and see what he could get out of him. His expectations weren't high, with him thinking that he could get some plans of how the robot was built, but he got so much more, which he wouldn't give up now.

Alexander licked his lips, ready for what was about to come. Even though he was filled with maddening thoughts now, he had a goal. He wanted to study the robot for as long and thoroughly as possible, and now that he knew that the robot had a code that controlled it, he would try to get what he could out of it. Yet, why stop here? He had received skills and a plethora of level-ups, so he wanted to continue and try to end the test in his favor. He had nothing to lose anymore.

The dwarf suddenly interrupted his thoughts, "What is happening? Guide? Are you okay?!"

"You are annoying me, buddy..." Alexander stomped once, conjuring a combination of constructions and contraptions. The air suddenly became freezing cold, exploding into ice before his feet, which instantly started to chase at the dwarf like a hungry wolf after prey, freezing everything in its way.

The dwarf became surprised, and even though she could defend against it by surrounding herself with little energy, it entangled her fully nonetheless, 'Not a fighter, huh?'

Alexander quickly ignored the dwarf and sent a more substantial amount of mana into the robot. Yet he suddenly felt pressure on the outside and saw how the cables broke apart from the columns, moving toward him, 'Oh, uh.'

The robot sounded angry, his voice now making, instead of something he could understand, weird noises that sounded as if a game crashed, increasing in volume by the moment.

While this was annoying, worse was that his mind was strained passively as he now needed to hold the dwarf hostage, knowing that if he killed her, it would end the Tier Test immediately, but nobody would win. He had already such a case in a written test for [Writing] when he killed some annoying bastard.

As such, he moved his mana back into the robot more freely and faster while the cables slowly approached him. However, he conjured multiple walls made out of fire around him, letting them crash into them, which gave him more than enough time to get back into the hard drive.

The last thing he wanted to experience was what the robot would do with him if it got him. While Teach' was calm and playful, the robot seemed to like to be in control, seeing how it couldn't even entertain a simple argument from the dwarf.

Alexander quickly entered the hard drive space, looking for anything to disable the robot for good. Luck was on his side, as the robot's functions were constantly pinging and lightening up like crazy, sending a substantial amount of mana to the outside. However, he wouldn't have time to identify what did what, 'Okay, time to brute force.'

Without hesitation, Alexander split his mana into many parts and braced for impact by slamming the multiple mana slivers into different parts of the code, which lit up, hoping for the best. However, this time, he tried to avoid any pushback, bracing his inner mana by controlling it firmly.

"Keugh... urgh!"

It was not as bad as the first time, but he still felt horrible. He tasted iron, and his sight reddened, 'I overdid it.'

Alexander went on one knee because he couldn't orient himself anymore. What was up or down was impossible for him to determine any more. Yet the pressure stopped entirely, the cables fell to the ground, and the robot stopped emitting the annoying sound. With it, he could disintegrate his ongoing spells, which protected him so that he could concentrate better on his mana inside the robot.

However, when he thought he had more than enough time now to pry open the robot, he noticed the timer on the screen, which showed that the test was still ongoing, 'Okay, fuck it. One more time.'

After a mere moment, he was back inside the hard drive, already remembering the way, like the back of his hand, looking for the timer function. Still, suddenly, he felt something behind his mana, quickly moving away as something akin to a tiny rocket formed out of mana wanting to ram into him.

'Oh, that is just great.' He thought so sarcastically.

He dodged it and moved around the spiraling code as fast as possible from it. The rocket wasn't fast, but it could precisely home on his mana, and even though he tried to cut corners abruptly, he couldn't shake it off.

Assumably, it was something akin to an anti-virus that tried to get him, and by looking at how the rocket acted, it wasn't moved by the robot but had some kind of weird algorithm following his mana, 'Did the damn attack activated it, or was it something tin can did manually?'

Alexander was back looking at the code to find out how to disable it while dodging the rocket's crazy maneuvers. He wasn't even close to giving up. Since the dwarf was frozen and the robot disabled, he wanted to delete the timer and anti-virus, making this whole thing an extended stay for him.

The positive effects of strengthening his whole body were also shown, which made his mind much more robust, allowing him to bring his insane plan to fruition in the first place. His regenerative powers were also pushed, giving him the insurance that as long as he could do it slowly, he would recover enough to hold the dwarf hostage indefinitely while studying the code.

Unfortunately, though, when he looked for the function that would disable the timer, he saw that the first function he crashed was slowly regenerating by itself. Mana was absorbed more heavily, mending back to its original state.

Alexander panicked but stayed focused and started to calculate how much time it would take with the current pace. He could still hold out as long as the mending needed more time than his recovery from another crash. Yet, by his calculations, it was going faster.

Even though his greed was screaming to go through with it, he couldn't anymore. At this point, it became far beyond stupid, as he knew his limits too well. It would be wiser to find a way to succeed in the test rather than risk more for some minuscule gain. He got new skills and too many level-ups, which he wanted to keep.

Alexander ground his teeth, not liking it at all, but if he stayed much longer, he would surely fail. However, how could he win? When he decided to attack the robot again, he was already formulating his exit strategy. He had an idea how and dearly hoped it was there.

With this in mind, he moved systematically around the code while dodging the annoying mini mana rocket that tried to shoot him down. He looked at everything while increasing his focus, basically frying his brain as too many skills were active now, with which he could read in record time.

Fortunately, after only minutes, he found what he was looking for. It was a function that determined who the loser was and automatically determined who the winner was.

What was surprising was that he found his name written there and the one from the dwarf, Maximillian N. Omaxes, 'A male noble name? Weird naming sense, but who am I to judge with a brother named Narsiz.'

The other figures in his test sometimes had names, too, so he quickly ignored what he found, not thinking much about it. What was important now was how he would handle it. He could ram his mana again into the function, but it would disable the whole thing, and nobody would win or lose. Actually, he suspected that nothing would happen at all. It would probably just mend itself back, and that's it.

Alexander needed an idea quickly, as he constantly avoided the annoying anti-virus chasing after him, straining his already weakened mind. At the same time, the crashed code slowly mended itself to what it was. If he thought too long, the automatic pressure would come back, probably kicking him out for good, and in the end, he would lose his new skills.

What could he do? There were a couple of possibilities. One was to write code himself and insert it, creating an easy if-statement that, should the specific function become disabled, activate his and make him the winner. However, he had no idea how to write something like this. Another way was that he could manipulate the code, which was possible for Alexander since it was made out of mana, but it would be challenging.

Alexander thought it through if there wasn't a better way while observing the mending but came to a simple conclusion, 'I am fucked either way. Let's go.'

It was all or nothing. Alexander heightened his concentration to a new peak by using every single skill available, even [Body Overload (Mana)], which split his head apart and made him feel how blood was slowly running out of his ears and nose. Yet, it was his last action either way and since it was a Tier Test, he would afterward wake up with every injury gone.

At first, he separated a tiny part of his mana, making them move separately. Since it became tough to control, he ignored the dwarf entirely now, letting his combination of a construct and contraption slowly dissolve.

The rocket anti-virus flew after the bigger one, while Alexander moved the tinier piece of mana slowly toward the function which declared who lost, to the part which said that Alexander lost, so close, he could basically feel it, 'Okay buddy, now we need to do it slow...'

He used [Mana Absorption], [Mana Emission], and [Mana Manipulation] simultaneously without much force on the particular part. Usually, two of these skills were only used on his body, but he now tried them with his mana. In his mind, it could work since the mana he released was basically a part of his body.

The problem was that he still held onto all other skills since he needed all the focus he could get. A single mistake and the already contorting mana core in his body would probably rupture, killing him.

'It is working, but...'

He tried to pull the function off while it tried to get absorbed back. It was arduous work since he needed to pay attention that he didn't pull out anything more than that.

From what he could take after reading a good chunk of the code, the moment his name was gone, it would automatically activate and declare the dwarf the loser while sending a signal to another function, which he didn't find, probably declaring him the winner. So, if he pulled out more than necessary, the function would break, and he would probably get ripped to pieces by the robot.

Alexander concentrated, making his mind burn to smithereens, which made him lose sight for good, his hearing diminished, and his smell was gone. Yet, he loved every second of it. He felt alive, thinking that he could fuck over the annoying robot, the despicable dwarf, all the while taking a treasure trove of information and skills with him back.

After what felt like hours, he slowly extracted the needed part, but it didn't just disintegrate. No, it suddenly ripped his tiny piece of mana into shreds, making him lose concentration. With it, the other mana piece, which was followed by the rocket, also got immediately hit, vanishing.

Alexander wasn't surprised for too long as he fell, bleeding out of his eyes and ears, as his mana core broke and the veins contorted like a snake, "Fuck!"

He held his head, and it felt not like a punch but as if his mind had been turned upside down and then squeezed. However, it worked. He didn't hear the timer anymore. He hoped, at least since he wasn't hearing much except a loud pinging sound.

However, he now waited with bated breath. He couldn't move either his body or his mana. The dwarf probably slowly escaped the ice, and the other code mended itself back.

Even while in massive pain, yet still not close to what he felt when Green filleted him, he wanted to win this whole ordeal, 'Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on.'

Suddenly, a digitized and bugged-out voice sounded through his head, "Ufoscftgrt... Loser....Affxgjr....Winner."

After another moment, everything went black.