The stairway down was more like a trip through Wonderland. After a certain freefall down the stone chute, I'd feel the hidden portal activate and instantly cart me to somewhere else.

It reminded me of when I was connected to Xena. The dungeon wasn't truly connected, not the way people thought it was. Each floor was more like a realm onto itself, another layer of a complicated puzzle.

And we had skipped the layers and stopped at floor four.

Instantly, the dark-aspected mana filled the area. There was metal, stone, and other minor types of mana mixed in, but it was a place of shadows that dampened your senses.

As the others stood up, I stomped, pushing my heel onto the floor. What returned was a muted echo that traveled for less than a second before fading.

"Naturally silent. Makes it harder to hear things sneaking up on you," Teddy explained.

While everyone gathered together, he flexed his mana and light banished the shadows, revealing a dull hallway coated in black dust.

"The shadow mana is perfect, but we can go lower if you think it's best. We'll make whatever choice work."

"What are we doing exactly?" Sereza butted in.

I ignored her question and rubbed at the dust. It didn't come off, but a thrum of mana zipped through the walls.

There was a feeling, something entirely new, that swirled in my gut before rising into my chest like bubbles. On a hunch, I threaded my mana and needled it into the wall, between the seams of gray brick.

"Aaagh!"

A flash of information flooded my brain before I flinched and clutched my head. Waves of agony clawed at my brain and I had the sudden urge to cough.

"Cyrus! What happened?" Teddy demanded.

A blanket of warm light suffused my body, relieving the frenzied scratching to dull taps. Liquid filled my mouth and I coughed, splattering the ground with semi-transparent blood.

I tried to breathe in through my nose, but it was just as stuffed while blood leaked down.

"Cyrus?"

"First of all. Ow. That fucking sucked. Second of all, there's a spider about twenty feet out."

Isaac sank into the floor. Teddy continued to heal me with his aura while the others stared.

Celenae in particular, already had a new journal out.

"Seriously, how many of those do you have just for me?" I asked.

"Currently? Nineteen. Twenty after this one," she replied.

I groaned and wiped away the blood.

Isaac returned, emerging from the shadows as he dragged a large black-metal thing from below.

As he tossed it onto the floor, I realized what it was. With eight legs, and only one central eye, the entire creature was made of black metal and dark-purple fibers between the joints. Resting in the center, just behind its eye, was a cracked mana core, leaking thick mana.

It dripped and sizzled before the ground swallowed the mana and whisked it away, deeper into the maze.

"Fess up," Isaac said, stomping his way over till he was only inches away. "How'd you do that? It was exactly where you said it'd be."

I closed my eyes and tried to process more of the information that had briefly flooded my mind. It was too much and beyond chaotic. But it had dumped knowledge into my brain, knowledge that told me a lot more about the dungeon than I knew before.

Not to mention the voice I definitely heard. But damn, Xena, so that's what it's like trying to process dungeon information without a dungeon fairy.

I opened my eyes and rubbed my temples. "Can't tell you. Part of the forbidden knowledge."

"I swear I'm going to sho-" Isaac began before Celenae bonked him on the head with her staff.

"No angering the gods. Not yet," she admonished.

He grumbled but backed off.

I chuckled and rubbed the wall. "It's the new perk I got. Too much information, though. But at least I know that going down doesn't matter. We're technically at the lowest we can go. Floors five and six are somewhat above us."

Celenae was furiously scribbling down what I said before she pointed her pen like a gun. "What do you mean technically?"

I sighed and explained what I had learned from Xena about how not all dungeons are actually connected. And how the Labyrinth had portals separating the floors.

Slowly, I sifted through enough of the information goop and rubbed the wall. Teddy looked interested but unhappy.

"Cyrus, that was a lot of mana used to repair your brain," he said.

"Fine. I'll experiment later. For now, we should be safe if we're ready to begin."

He nodded. "Igas, create the fortress. Celenae, the warding stones."

Igas stomped and pillars of thick ice formed around us, blocking off the area. It didn't stop at just creating a barrier from the rest of the dungeon; the ice spread across the ground and crawled up the walls to cover the ceiling.

Celena held up her staff and tapped it gently across the walls where plates of amethyst crystals grew. Each plate curved into intricately carved statues that held a glowing sigil inside.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Mana thrummed, and a sphere of protection joined the walls of ice, leaving us secured inside a small but well-guarded bunker.

"Okay, seriously, what's going on?" Sereza asked. "We're inside a dungeon. We just built a mini-fortress. And you did something weird again, and now they all look like hungry wolves as they stare at you."

She pointed to Broken Tower who had already pulled out the betting board and began setting it up. There was a brief argument between Igas and Isaac before they nodded solemnly and sank into chairs they summoned.

A grin spread, and I extended my hand. Her gaze sharpened, lasering in on my palm as I balled it into a fist.

"So, Sereza. There's a secret you should probably know..."

Her eyes narrowed and her tail arched forward like a scorpion.

"Go on."

I pulled out the last skillstone and exposed it to Teddy's light. "You see."

"Oh fuck you! That's what? Three extra slots? How? Why?"

Well," I said while clearing my throat. "Mmm... I haven't gained any extra slots. I have the same limit as you do."

"Oh? You didn't have ten slots? I thought with your mana..."

I shook my head. "No. I had ten slots. I have ten slots. The amount hasn't changed, not yet at least."

"Then, what do you mean?" she asked suspiciously.

In response, I crushed the skillstone and watched the glittering ruby dust flow between my fingers and into my veins.

The skillstone was absorbed and another weight settled inside my soul.

Sereza continued to look confused while the others were leaning forward, watching me like hawks.

I pulled up my status and smiled at the progress in the skills I had absorbed nearly a week before.

Good to know the Split-Mind Cultivation is putting in the work.

STATUS

Name: Cyrus

Race: Reborn (Felkin)

Age: ??

Tier: 0

Active Skills:

(T:0 R:9) Summon Familiar: Verdant Healer: (Áine)

(T:0 R:9) Summon Familiar: Resplendent Inferno: (Zharia)

(T:0 R:9) Racial Skill: Dimensional Storage: (Chomperz)

(T:0 R:9) Spirit Lord's Invocation

(T:0 R:9) Summon Familiar: The Dead Will Provide (Erebus)

(T:0 R:9) Summon Familiar: Reflective Coat of the Mirror Beast (Magnus)

(T:0 R:9) Summon Familiar: Storm King's Tempest (Sturmrorex)

(T:0 R:9) Summon Familiar: Shroud of the Astral Archon (Galarion)

(T:0 R:7) Roar of the Spirit Lord

(T:0 R:7) Absolute Authority

(T:0 R:0) Summon Familiar: Felblood Sanguinarch (N/A)

Passive Skills:

(T:0 R:9) Etherious Blood

(T:0 R:9) Sovereign-Threaded Soul

(T:0 R:9) Chaotic Resonance

(T:0 R:9) Spirit's Lord's Echo

(T:0 R:9) Split-Mind Cultivation

Perks:

Legacy of the Obsidian Crown

Scion of Calstrax

Demonic Blood

Child of Mana

Dread Guardian's Apology

Crystal Synthesis

Devourer of the Deep

Whisper of the Tempest

False Dungeon Core

Unleashed Soul

Astral Lotion

The skill rank-ups were as easy as breathing; the process only slowed down since I didn't actively meditate. Still, it wouldn't take long before the new skill was ready to tier up. I just needed to contract a new familiar and solidify the skill in my soul.

As for the latest skills, I pulled up the information and double-checked, rereading the notifications I received.

Roar of the Spirit Lord:

* Amplifies the commanding presence and battle prowess of the user.

* Floods the battlefield with a commanding aura that enhances combat abilities of all allies within range.

* Increases attack power, defense, speed, mana regeneration, and resistance to mental effects for all affected allies.

* High Initial Mana Cost, Moderate Initial Stamina Cost.

* Consumes a significant portion of the user's mana pool.

Absolute Authority

* Invoke the law of reality.

* Bend and command the authority of the world through runes and runic mana.

* Mana cost is dependent on the rune and its familiarity.

* Stamina cost is dependent on rune and its familiarity

* Only temporary runes may be created.

Summon Familiar: Felblood Sanguinarch (N/A)(Currently no spirits contracted)

* Summon a bonded familiar. The familiar is a blood-based guardian.

* Summons can remain inside the body in a passive state. While active, they reserve an amount of your mana pool.

* All Summons have their own mana pool and regeneration but may tap into their summoner's mana when they run out.

In the end, the changes were simultaneously more and yet exactly what I expected.

Sovereign's Warcry becoming another spirit lord skill was interesting but not unexpected. The buffs sounded insane, and I couldn't wait to use it.

Absolute Authority, however, was an odd one. It completely lost the term 'rune' in its name. And its description was just as weird.

What the fuck does invoke the law of reality mean?

I shook my head and thought about how easy it was to recognize runes. There wasn't a new feeling around them, and I admittedly hadn't gone through Eraztis' rune guide yet, but I would soon.

The skill sounded powerful, and hopefully, I'd be able to mess around and start creating something cool.

"Well?" Celenae prodded. She waved her pen in front of my face to grab my attention. "What did it change into?"

"Huh? Oh uh, from Baneblood Immortal to Felblood Sanguinarch. Whatever that means?"

Celenae scribbled it down and tapped her chin. "Bane or fel implies poison, so blood and poison. Could also mean demonic, as in fel-kin. Sanguin could be related to blood as well, and considering your skills, I'd guess the suffix is monarch. So, a poison-blood monarch?"

It made sense to me.

I turned to Sereza and was about to tease her about her expression until my heart thumped and silenced the world.

What the?

There was a disturbance in my soulspace and I dived in, finding my familiars circling around the island. Between the golden sigils etched into the obsidian, a new line was forming, a rune appearing every couple of seconds as they formed stroke by stroke.

"Everyone okay?" I asked.

I received a round of impressions confirming everybody was doing fine. Together, I huddled closer to them all and watched the line complete itself.

Once it did, a new feeling started and the mana pool inside the soulspace rippled. One wave became a towering pillar that crashed down and washed over the island, drenching me and knocking the wisps away.

I asserted my will before my familiars were carried adrift and carried us above the endless waves that bombarded the island.

It didn't hurt, but the feeling of needing to burp rose exponentially.

The island was drowned by the wave of pink but the golden runes shone their light through the mana and started to pulse.

Before I could lower myself to inspect the island, Chomperz's skillwisp stopped in front of me and chomped.

The wisp broke and his true form materialized out of strands of mana. They pulled from the realm itself until it condensed into jet-black scales.

Chomp!

"What's wrong?"

He shook his head and pressed his face against mine. I was forced to look into his eyes and I stared into the crimson ring spinning inside his sclera.

"Chomperz?"

He grabbed my cheeks and pulled me even closer till I saw only red. It was only then that I finally realized what he wanted to show me.

The crimson ring was slowly breaking into strands. Strands that detached and formed sigils so tiny I could barely recognize them as anything other than dots.

When the first ring stopped breaking apart, he pulled back, sporting a second ring that spun counter the direction of the first.

He nodded slowly and pointed to the island, the waves having stopped their assault. As he flew over, the others followed and they each landed on the small glass mounds that surrounded the island's edge.

Each mound had a crude pedestal and what looked like a single rune etched into the base that blazed with light once my familiars landed.

Well, what the fuck does this mean?