As the overseers barked final orders and the last rays of sunlight faded, the prisoners were herded back into their cells. The cold, damp air of the cell hit Tyler as soon as he stepped inside. The heavy door clanged shut behind them, sealing them away from the outside world once more.

Tyler, Marcus, Elric, Darius, and Livia settled into their cramped quarters where Ghost sat sulking on a bench, the day's exhaustion evident on everyone else’s faces.

Tyler leaned against the rough stone wall, his mind still racing with the implications of his recent discovery. The invisible book lay on the bench next to him, its secrets waiting to be unlocked He glanced at Elric, who was frantically scratching runes into another flat rock with the old nail.

“What are you making, Elric?” Tyler whispered to the man.

“I’m thinking we just need to create an elemental weapon for you, and you could break us out of here,” Elric replied, his voice tinged with desperation.

Tyler frowned, sensing the urgency in Elric's tone. “Elric, calm down. Think about it. Even if we managed to break out, how far would we get? We’re likely near the edge of the city, but we’d be hunted down with powerful magic the moment people realize we’ve escaped using enchanted items.”

Elric paused, his frantic scratching slowing as he considered Tyler's words.

“And once they caught us,” Tyler continued, “how would we fight back or explain how we were able to escape in the first place? The moment they see we’ve used enchantments; they’ll know something is up.”

Elric’s shoulders slumped, the realization of their situation sinking in as tears splashed on the stone in his hands.

Tyler placed a hand on his shoulder “The best play is to stay here,”, his voice steady and reassuring. “We need to fight and dominate the pits. Then we move on to the Colosseum and prove ourselves there. Once we’ve made a name for ourselves, we’ll have a chance to climb the tower. When we make it into the tower we can use every bit of magic we can come up with and climb further than anyone has ever gone before.”

Elric looked at Tyler, a glimmer of hope returning to his eyes. “You really think we can do it?”

Tyler nodded confidently. “Trust me, Elric. We can do this. But we need to play it smart and stay focused. We need to gather allies, build our strength, and take things one step at a time.”

Elric sighed, a mix of relief and resolve washing over him. “Alright, Tyler. I’ll follow your lead.”

“Good,” Tyler said, clapping Elric on the back. “Now let’s get back to practicing these runes. With your help we are going to create the isekai hero's best friend”

Elric looked up, confused. "The what?"

Tyler grinned. "A dimensional inventory. Imagine having a pocket dimension where we can store stuff. We wouldn’t have to worry about hiding things or carrying too much."

Marcus raised an eyebrow. "You think that’s possible?"

Tyler nodded and held up the book. "I found something about dimensional runes in this. It’ll take some experimentation and a little bit of luck but it's worth a shot." Seeing their confused expressions, he remembered he was the only one who could see the book.

The group gathered around to shield Tyler and Elric from the patrolling guards as they began to explain the rune for dimensional storage. They both started inscribing the rune onto flat stones combined with Tylers best guess of what the correct rune syntax would be their fingers growing more confident with each stroke. Despite their efforts, nothing seemed to happen when they tried to activate the runes. On and on they went, slowly Tyler was unravelling what each symbol purpose was. These were the symbols the empire believed were simply inert of inactive. When really, they were the parts of the syntax required to customise and create new magical effects.

"Why isn’t it working?" Darius asked, frustration creeping into his voice.

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Tyler stared at the rune, deep in thought. "It’s like coding," he muttered. "In programming, you have to specify input parameters for a function to work correctly."

Elric looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"

Tyler began to sketch out some ideas in the dirt. "The rune needs parameters—dimensions, like the size of the storage space. We need to tell it what we want."

They experimented with different numerical values, inscribing what they thought were the integers laid out in the book's index and attempting to activate them. Each time, the stones remained inert, showing no signs of life.

Tyler frowned, staring at the runes. "Could it require a strongly typed approach?"

Noticing Elric's confusion, he explained, "In programming, strongly typed languages require you to specify what type of variable you're using, like saying it's an integer, before you can use it in a function. This helps the system understand exactly what kind of value it's dealing with."

He picked up a new stone and carefully added additional runes around the main dimensional rune, specifying length, width, and height as integer variables. He focused his mind, channelling his intent into the runes as he completed the inscription.

"Alright, let’s try this," Tyler said, holding the stone up. He concentrated, feeling a surge of energy flow through him and into the stone. The runes glowed brightly for a moment before fading.

Tyler looked at the stone, hopeful. "Did it work?"

Elric took the stone and examined it. "Only one way to find out."

They glanced around the cell, searching for something to test. Tyler’s eyes landed on the chamber pot in the corner. "Perfect," he said with a smirk.

Darius chuckled. "You want to put that in the dimensional storage?"

Tyler shrugged. "If it works, we’ll know for sure."

Elric carefully removed the lid and placed his hand inside the chamber pot. Tyler concentrated again, activating the runes with an intent to store the contents of the pot. There was a shimmer, and then more than half the waste disappeared, leaving the stone glowing faintly in his hand.

They all stared at Tyler waiting for the verdict. Tyler grinned. "We did it! We created a dimensional inventory." He whisper shouted to the group and everyone shushed him.

Livia nodded, her eyes wide with excitement. "We have to be careful with this. If anyone finds out..."

Tyler nodded, understanding the gravity of their discovery. "We’ll keep it secret. But now, we have an edge."

Tyler held up the stone. "Not done yet, let's see if we can get it back."

He held the stone over the open chamber pot and focused on the stone, trying to reverse the process and retrieve the contents. The stone glowed, and there was a faint shimmer in the air as the contents reappeared.

He stored the contents again and realised he was only able to a little more than half of the contents. “Weird, we should be able to store a lot more," Tyler said, furrowing his brow.

Elric examined the stone in Tylers hand more closely. "It's a regular stone, not exactly high-quality inscription material. In fact, it shouldn't have worked at all. To use a normal stone like this, you’d need an incredibly powerful mana core to do anything."

Tyler pondered for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, I guess we know it works. But this stone isn’t reliable. Time to get rid of the evidence."

Tyler walked over to the small, barred window, aiming carefully. With a grunt of effort, he threw the stone at an upward trajectory, watching as it sailed perfectly between the iron bars. To his astonishment, the stone flew much farther than he had anticipated, arcing gracefully through the air. It travelled nearly quarter of a mile down the road, crashing through a window of some noble’s house.

There was a brief silence, followed by a massive bang and the unmistakable sound of something splattering. The explosion sent a shower of debris, mixed with the contents of the chamber pot, cascading over the steps of the building. Shouts of confusion and disgust echoed from the distance.

Elric, Marcus, Darius, and Livia all turned to look at Tyler, eyes wide in shock. Tyler gave a sheepish grin. "Oops. Guess the connection to me got severed and the dimensional inventory collapsed."

They all rushed to the window, squeezing together to get a better view of the chaos unfolding below. The sight of nobles frantically trying to avoid the mess was both comical and horrifying.

Darius’s expression changed from shock to shaking his head in disbelief before he started giggling, trying his best not to make a sound.

Marcus chuckled, "We’d better hope no one traces that back to us somehow."

Livia started giggling too “Would you tell anyone if that happened to you?”

Elric wiped tears of laughter from his eyes. "We’ll need better materials and a proper mana core to make this really work." He stifled another laugh. "You can't hold onto a rock forever."

They were all jostling for position at the window, watching noblemen and women lose the contents of their stomachs, slipping and falling as they tried to get out of the building. The sight was too much. Tyler bit his lip, trying to suppress his laughter, but it was futile.

The giggles started softly, but quickly spread. Marcus and Livia clamped hands over their mouths, tears streaming down their faces as they tried to contain their mirth. Elric leaned against the wall, shoulders shaking as he struggled to stay silent. Every time one of them managed to stop, another would catch a glimpse of the pandemonium outside and start all over again, setting off a fresh wave of laughter.

Soon, they were all on the ground, trying just to breathe, tears rolling down their cheeks. The guards outside their cell remained oblivious to the commotion, too far away to hear the muffled hysteria.

Finally, after several minutes, they managed to pull themselves together, wiping away the last of their tears. Tyler, still grinning, looked around at his new friends.