Chapter 97

Michael was lounging on a reclining chair with his sister, watching the stars, when he got a message. It was from Travis, informing him that it was time they studied the chest anomaly the OA wanted them to neutralize. They were organizing the teams and the scientists, ready to move out first thing tomorrow.

Which means, Michael thought, it’s no better time than now to go explore the fourth floor. It would give him the necessary mindset to be ready for the coming day.

On the way, he saw Mustang milling about, working through a small mountain of materials in the dark of night. The man grimaced when he saw Michael approach, and Michael almost sympathized with him until he remembered what Mustang had tried to do. The man was as guilty as any, he thought, at least according to Travis, and well deserving of his punishment.

“Listen, man, I’m sorry for what I did,” Mustang said.

Michael was surprised. Of all things, this wasn’t what he expected to hear. “I… appreciate it. And I’m sorry for how we dealt with you, but you must understand our position,” he replied diplomatically.

“I do now,” Mustang said, a complicated expression on his face. “To think you’d check up on me. I thought you wanted to punish me some more.”

“Why? I’m not a sadistic asshole,” Michael retorted.

“For a moment, I was really scared you were one. When you caught me, that man Travis came to me. I thought he was there under your orders? Ah, I shouldn’t say more,” Mustang stammered.

“Well, it’s all fixed now, I hope,” Michael said. I have no sympathy for this man, he thought, no matter his current woes. “I know we didn’t really give you a choice, but it is what it is.”

Mustang waved his hand dismissively. “It’s fine. This is literally my dream job. I just can’t enjoy it, not yet. Not until I feel safe again. I hope you can understand this.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Michael asked.

“Yeah. Leave me alone. I’ll cooperate,” Mustang said with several frantic nods, “so please keep Travis away from me, yes? I need time, maybe. Maybe it will never go away. Beats being dead, and I would never dream of crossing you ever again. Of this you can be sure.”

The rest of the trek to the fourth floor was bathed in the eerie light of a Spirit Guardian, banishing the gloom with strange tricks of the light depending on which spirit was summoned. Michael occasionally stopped to observe the little entities in the mana, noticing how they seemed to interact with the forest's vegetation. In the distance, nighttime animals sang alien songs. Michael had been to the forest almost every night, so it took him a while to realize that something had changed about the way it felt, looked, and sounded. The interactions between the denizens of the mana and the real world are not as harmless as I thought at first, he realized. Perhaps I should investigate what’s happening.

But then again, he thought, I literally do not have enough time in a day to do everything. A nagging part of his mind told him that this was important, however, it also happened to conveniently be outside of his area of expertise. I know about mana and magic, he mused, but not even the material Johanne gave me to study helps when it comes to plants. What we need here is an expert, which makes it Johanne’s problem. Surely she’s already on it.

After the short delay in the forest, Michael reached the end of the dungeon’s third floor rather quickly. He didn’t stop to ponder his actions, having already made up his mind, and proceeded towards the twin set of doors that appeared in the boss room after he defeated the monster. One was bright, like all doors leading outside the dungeon were, even though it was currently night in the outside world. The other was dark and foreboding.

Drullkrin was with him, a few steps behind, silent and waiting for Michael to take the step into the doorway leading further down.

***

Somewhere, an entity existed with the sole purpose of overseeing a particular instance of the Infinity Dungeon. When Michael entered the dark staircase leading to the fourth floor, this entity was immediately roused from its semi-dormant state—one could say that it was only running the basest of subroutines because there wasn't much activity coming from Earth’s dungeons yet—by a set of messages. Excitedly, it rushed to see what was going on, only for its smile to widen when it saw the name of the delver who had prompted the messages.

“It’s him again!” it exclaimed. “Finally! I thought he would never do it!”

The messages scrolled one after the other in quick succession.

4th floor generation request received.

Request coming from:

Universe #4815162342

Earth #108

Rolling special challenge.

Roll is 37. Floor is normal.

Evaluating delver.

Michael Lexington #001

Estimated power level: ANOMALOUS

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Adjusting floor difficulty.

WARNING: mana density too low to provide a proper challenge.

“No, no, no. He deserves better,” it muttered.

OVERRIDDEN

Floor set to challenge mode.

Local administrator requested increased complexity of the scenario — granted.

Scenario will reset unless completed.

Searching data banks.

Scenario selected. Extracting from storage. Materializing.

Floor bonuses adjusted to new difficulty.

Scattering exit points.

Scenario ready.

***

“Is it me?” Michael asked as soon as the light from the new floor reached his eyes. “Or was there a little bit of a… how to say it… sort of a cut between us stepping out of the stairs and now?”

Drullkrin shook some non-existent dust from his clothes. “I didn’t feel anything strange, my king,” he replied.

“Huh,” Michael grunted.

The arrival point on this floor seemed to be a hole in the mountains, much like the second floor’s landing place. The difference was that here they were much further up, and the valley below had been replaced by a plateau nestled between sheer rocky cliffs with sharp points. It was mostly barren, loose rocks and pebbles of various shades of dark brown and gray with small spots of snow. Occasionally, some timid high-altitude plants were visible, a shade of green so dark as to almost be black, swaying in the brutal wind. It was cold by human standards, but not so cold as to require Michael to use his Ice Element. His aura was enough to keep him warm, while Drullkrin had enough mastery of the Ice element not to suffer any discomfort.

There was a tiny beaten road, nothing more than a trail really, winding down the mountain and leading to a tiny speck at the center of the plateau. As Michael and the goblin got closer, the speck turned out to be a small hut surrounded by tall conical trees, almost too tall to survive in this much wind but very much unperturbed. The road continued onwards, going back up and towards another sheer cliff ending in a peak at the other side of the plateau. From here, however, it was also possible to see an actual valley quite some distance away, below them, filled with alpine trees surrounding an icy river. All around, like the jewels of a crown, impossibly high mountains of ice and snow created the clear boundary of the floor and were the source of the river’s water as well as the cold air.

The first thing Michael and Drullkrin did was settle into the hut. This is another challenge floor, Michael thought, and if my small pool of data is enough to extrapolate, it will take a while to beat it. Time isn’t much of an issue yet, especially since lower depths within the dungeon have proven to mitigate the time dilation loss due to my increasing power.

The problem, instead, was that the hut was utterly empty and cold, save for a single table and a shoddy wood stove.

“Food, water, and firewood,” Michael stated as he took in the cramped space. “After which, we’ll discuss strategy.”

Drullkrin nodded. “I agree. It’s a good contingency to have a base of operations first. Shall I go hunting in the valley below?” he suggested.

Michael nodded. “I’ll take care of the wood and water,” he confirmed.

As the goblin left, Michael approached one of the trees by the house. It would be a shame to cut them down if this was a real place, he mused, but as a place within the dungeon, the priority is beating the floor and not preserving its natural beauty. If this turns out to be a persistent rest zone like the Misty Valley, then perhaps I’ll do some renovations, but for now this is hostile territory. Knowing that, he braced himself and called forth the power of [Magic Manipulation].

“It’s time, my old skill,” he murmured. “Time to change.”

With barely a thought, he activated a second skill that had been on the cusp of upgrading for a while. Without wasting much time, he flooded its Uncommon-grade fractal with magic and Qi, watching as the strange shape morphed and changed rapidly.

Skill Level up!

[Distortion Field] reaches level 8. Its shape is no longer limited to that of a sphere, but can be changed at will.

Michael grinned, immediately activating the skill. Instead of a dark orb of force, a thin beam of darkness materialized from his hand, like a baton.

Well, I wanted to make a sword, but I suppose this will work too, he thought with a shrug. Feeling the minuscule trickle of Qi flowing into the skill, he realized that changing its shape increased the cost for keeping it active. Letting it hover in the air compounded this cost, turning the minuscule trickle of Qi into a decent drain, enough to be noticed even without paying attention. Content with the progress, Michael grasped the baton of repulsive force with his hands, the cost once again lowering to the point he could barely feel it with his increased awareness of Qi, and swung.

The base of the tree exploded in a burst of splinters. Unlike the first time such an event had happened, this time the projectiles all stopped at the same time as Michael grasped them with his Aura, making them look like an explosion frozen in time. Then, with meticulous movements, he gathered them all up in a neat pile as he used his superhuman strength together with his upgraded [Distortion Field] to cut and split the logs.

For an outside observer, the ease with which he did all that would make it look trivial if not for the sweat beading his brow.

Of all the things I did, the aura manipulation trick I used to stop the splinters from flying away taxed my system the most. I could have used [Magic Manipulation] to project some mana and make the whole process truly trivial, but this is good training. It isn’t like there’s a threat nearby.

In fact, by the time Drullkrin had returned with his kill, Michael had already secured a source of water, recuperated all his mana and Qi, and the hut was pleasantly warm. A roaring fire in the stove cooked the meat, and the two took some time to plan their next move. The goblin had seen some movement in the valley below, but had decided to avoid whatever it was, more preoccupied with hunting some meat. Michael had found some clean snow and carved some rocks with magic to create makeshift pots and plates.

“It almost doesn’t feel like the dungeon, does it?” Michael commented.

The goblin shrugged. “I feel some unease, but nothing I can’t handle.”

Michael nodded. He was aware by now that he was the only one completely used to the dungeon’s presence. It didn’t bother him nearly as much as it did the others, even though he felt it like a watching eye, looking over his shoulder at all times. It is true that it is stronger down here, on the fourth floor, but lately I have grown in power so much that I would be—according to Johanne—completely immune to its effects for several more floors even at my current level.

Unknown to him and to the goblin general, everyone else felt it when Michael entered the fourth floor for the first time. For a moment, it was as if the dungeon had its attention solely on him, and the pressure and sense of dread on the other delvers and denizens of the dungeon lessened to almost zero. The Fae despaired, their predicament now that they momentarily understood their condition akin to being trapped in the worst of prisons. Theobond laughed, a mad laugh of defiance. Travis lifted his head from his computer, humming before he returned to his work. Johanne recorded the data, probing the mist at edges of the Valley without success. Finally, the other teams delving the dungeon on different floors—some still on the first floor, others challenging the standard version of the second, and a single team dealing with a totally new challenge version of the second floor—all drew a sigh of relief before the presence of the dungeon returned and restored the status quo as it was moments before.