Chapter 113

Hidden beneath layers of stubborn frost, ice so thick and compressed it was almost electric blue, lay the stone of the forges. The forges, as the name suggested, were numerous rooms where the dwarves of old used to work their metals, shaping them into marvels of engineering and magic. At least, Michael thought as much from what he saw here and there, but all that was left were mere hints at the greatness that once was.

Not much remained of the bygone age that produced such marvels, and most of what had survived the ravages of time, cold, and solitude had done so at a great price: the machines were no longer functioning, crumbling into pieces. Supposedly. Michael had trouble coming to grips with a time-looped floor. If the dungeon could simply recreate it from scratch every time, just how real was it all? Why not make a few changes, given that it could restore a previous version of the whole place? And since it was at it, why not change everything?

This meant that the floor could be as fake as a movie, a script created just for him as a challenge and nothing more. The magic and the machines could be mere props, worthless when looked past their façade.

“The forges are made of sterner stuff,” Trylfir assured the two delvers. “Carved from the stone of the mountain itself, they are now as they were long ago.”

The rooms were peculiar. An entire wall looked more like a fountain than a proper forge, even with all the equipment strewn about and the long worktables at the other end of the room. Neither Stephan nor Michael were experts, yet their eyes were drawn to the far wall where faucets and canals were dug into the stone.

“Aye,” the dwarf accompanying them commented, “your eyes are keen indeed. Beyond there lies the heart of the forge, where the fire is nurtured. It is not a mundane fire, but a fire born of magic and the Elements, capable of producing wonders. This”—his axe was drawn across the shoulder plate opposite to it—“is but a mere work of imitation, born of coal fire. It is a shame we all carry, to be forced to use our sacred techniques on mundane metals softened by mundane fires.”

“Because you lost your elements,” Michael stated pensively.

“It is so,” the dwarf confirmed. “We are left with few, the ones suited for battle and war, not for smelting. I do not know when dwarfkind decided war was more important than progress and tradition, nor was I present when the last of the gifts was lost, yet I know that since then…” He paused, words heavy in his throat. “Since then, we have only declined. In might, in spirit, and in values.”

“Take me to the heart of the forge, then,” Michael instructed.

The dwarf nodded, and both Michael and Stephan followed him to a large room a surprising distance from the main forges. Here and there, doors that had rotted off their hinges revealed smaller workshops, miniature forging rooms, and other rooms that defied mundane logic or reason. Dust was everywhere in those rooms, as were traces of some Elements that Michael never thought he would find this deep down: Nature, Life, Plant, and others more bestial in nature. Was that Blood and Flesh he was sensing?

Were they the product of the decay of the many magical ingredients the dwarves used to enhance their products?

Michael felt his sense of wonder grow. For the first time since he had entered the dungeon, this was a mystery he wanted to solve for the sake of adventure. No longer did the seed of doubt about the nature of the floor count in his mind. It might be fake, but it was still an adventure, like a video game but better.

It would also benefit him and his Unity corporation.

The Truth facet, however, was still ringing, telling him something wasn't right.

When they reached the heart of the forge, Michael was surprised.

“It’s just an empty room?” Stephan asked, echoing his surprise and disappointment.

“It’s more than that,” Michael replied, immediately seeing traces of magic—not mana, for the dwarves seemed incapable of using it, but tightly woven Elemental energy that had managed to survive, however dimmed, the passage of time.

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“That is it,” the dwarf declared. “This is the true beating heart of the mountain. More than just the heat of the forges, lad, the flame nurtured here will bring life to the halls and banish the cold for good. What are you waiting for? You wield the elemental Fire; cast it on the ancient stone and let a new flame be born. For all of us gathered here, it is the only hope.”

Michael’s eyes narrowed. The entire room wasn't just covered in ice, but there was so much of it that they were practically standing several feet above the floor. The cold here was almost unbearable, even for him, and it seemed to snake in and around his aura and his Fire, seeking weak points to attack.

His eyes narrowed further. Something was wrong with the room. It was a perfect cube, and while the inscriptions buried beneath the ice seemed to converge at the cube's center, nothing of note was there. At the same time, the air swirled with blue icy energies to his magic vision, almost as if…

“This room is a nexus of some sort. Stephan, I’m going to ask you to leave. I don’t know if I can protect you from what hides in here.”

Stephan frowned, but nodded. “Will you be okay?”

Michael almost laughed. “This is nothing.”

He wasn’t being cocky. He knew he was powerful enough that he couldn’t even fathom his own upper limits. So far, this whole floor had been a walk in the park. The obsidian scorpion? Laughably weak. The dwarven attackers and the monsters? Fodder. The environmental cold? A problem for maybe even Johanne, and indeed a cause for alertness for him, but nothing more. He had Fire in spades as long as he had mana to convert, and the fourth floor was rich in it.

And yet, the Truth facet was ringing. One can never be too sure, hence why it was better if Stephan waited outside. In fact, “You should go outside the mountain altogether. I’ll fetch you.”

After Stephan left, under Trylfir’s gaze, who seemed to view their actions as the folly of madmen, Michael finally approached the center of the room. The cold energies were strong there, so strong that he felt like he was gaining insight into his own Ice element in real time. But even though the room was already proving its value, Michael didn't want to waste time, not with the unease he was feeling.

“I will be right outside, lad,” Trylfir said.

Michael barely heard the dwarf over the roaring wind. It had picked up sometime after he was halfway to the center of the room and wasn't letting up. In fact, it was increasing in strength as the temperature dropped.

Soon, Michael’s clothes were being ripped to shreds. The cold air nipped at his bare skin, depositing sharp ice crystals that melted into water and drenched him. His cold, wet hair fluttered, slapping against his forehead.

“You know what?” Michael declared suddenly. “I tried to do this the normal way, but this is no adventure, this is bullshit.”

Suddenly, his aura flared, and the whole room was subdued into silence. It was as if the winds themselves, the very Elements, quivered and cowered before his might. In the deafening silence of loneliness— Trylfir had shut the door behind him while he was distracted—Michael didn't even find it in him to be annoyed. He simply walked to the center of the room, using not Fire but aura itself to melt the ice that coated the floor.

The water was pushed away from him in much the same way. When he reached the last third of the distance to the center, however, he had to start using his skills to cut up the ice and prevent the water from suffocating him. [Magic Manipulation] bolstered the power of his aura, which was being used and stretched to do something it wasn't suited for, while [Distortion Field] was shaped into a sword to hack at the ice.

Michael only did so because, all things considered, he was using a relatively small fraction of his mana pool. He had coins to spare, and with his many farming operations—the Fae and the Operators—he could afford to splurge. Splurging led to growth, as long as he didn’t overdo it.

Then he was at the center of the room, finding himself in the eye of the storm. All was quiet here, and the flood of water from the melted ice didn't even try to flow towards him anymore. Here, the inscriptions in the stone coalesced into a crucible of stabilizing energy, waiting for his input.

Michael thrust his hand into the empty space and willed Fire to surge forth.

That’s when it happened. That’s when his overconfidence was punished.

He felt it deep in his bones: a chill, a dread, an existential threat. His aura immediately reacted, honed by years of training in the valley to respond to threats before Michael’s conscious mind was even aware of them. It wrapped around him, shielding him from the brunt of the assault. It gave his mind a moment to understand and process what was happening.

He realized that, had it not been for his training, he would have died here, at this very moment. Unaware of even the event happening. Was this how it felt to be subjected to a power greater than his own?

Two words immediately surfaced: Silver Aura.

It was a silver aura pressing against his own, with a weight Michael had never experienced before. It was easily ten, even twenty times as big as his own, an ocean pressing down on a kiddie pool. But it was fundamentally different. It was more sparse, less dense, less deadly, and less pinpoint accurate. That was how Michael managed to regain his feet after being pushed to his knees. That's how he managed to use his own, much denser, if overall weaker, aura to drill through this massive weight and stand.

The same couldn’t be said for Stephan. He didn’t know where this aura came from, but he was pretty sure it reached at least him from somewhere deep within the mountain. If it managed to hit his sensei, Michael wouldn't be able to protect him, and Stephan would surely die.