Chapter 61

That night, Michael slept fitfully. It was an unexpected thing, especially after many days spent in the dungeon with not even a hint of a bad dream. It was as if the spirits themselves were encroaching upon his mind, coming from other planes of existence and from the mana in the air itself. It was a stifling, claustrophobic sensation, with Michael drowning in a sea of Gold-rank mana that had enveloped the Earth itself. There were things in the mana, answers to questions and dreadful horrors, sleeping giants that threatened the universe if they ever woke up.

Then his eyes snapped open, and he was awake once more. He took a deep breath of mana-deprived air, the final reminder that what he had seen and felt was just a dream and not reality. Still, it made him anxious about the future and what it might mean for humanity. He almost texted Travis to ask the man about the progress with the company and especially the Candle Light division, but he knew that it was a pointless question that would only betray his immaturity. What could the man have done overnight? Nothing, because Michael did not expect Travis to skip sleep over this.

“Good morning, my lord,” a surprisingly alert voice snapped him out of his contemplations.

“Johanne,” he replied in a much sleepier tone, and it took a round of self-healing to get rid of the morning stiffness he got from sleeping on the floor, “good morning to you.”

“Here,” she said as she gave him his phone, “thanks for lending me this. I had to keep it plugged to the wall charger all night, for the wretched device was complaining about a low battery. Stupid iPhones. Apple shout really let go of their plan to make the devices obsolete ahead of time.”

“Hey, I like iPhones!” Michael said almost automatically. “Wait, where did you hear about iPhones? Did you stay up all night?”

“I have,” she said proudly, “I took the time to study your culture through this internet you introduced me to last night. It truly is most fascinating, trumping even my wildest expectations. There, I found a wealth of knowledge beyond the greatest of libraries. But, most of all, I came to learn of the method with which your culture has achieved its current heights: the scientific method!”

There was fire in her voice, and it was hard for Michael not to be infected by the sheer emotion. “Oh yeah, science, I want to use it to study magic.”

“Of course, it is only to be expected for my lord to reach such conclusions. I was wondering why such a project was not already underway, and I had thought that perhaps the idea had not come to you, I apologize for thinking so little of you.”

“It’s not that I didn’t think of that,” he began. “We are trialling the approach with Dr Kavins, a scientist who studies healing arts basically. I want to see how that goes before going wider, the risk is too high.”

“I see,” Johanne nodded, “you do not wish for the knowledge of arcane arts to spread beyond your control. A wise move. Despite the risks however, I cannot help but be excited. What heights of magic could we reach, I wonder, if we could be allowed to study it with a method so powerful? Could I ever hope to catch up to you and finally be able to be useful to you?”

“Don’t talk like that. You are plenty useful.”

“This is no laughing matter.” She shook her head, “if I catch up, then I will be able to lift you higher. I can see your unease, and learning of your world has made me realize its dangers. I was also approached by your mentor, David, yesterday while you discussed some things with the one you call Travis. We had an enlightening conversation, and we reached the conclusion that you need to grow stronger as quickly as possible, before the world changes. To that end, science can be a powerful thing.”

“I… see. You’re right. We are already planning the next stage: to have actual scientists of all fields work for us. We just need to recruit them, make sure they are on our side and actually build the labs they will be working in.”

“David said very similar things. I agree. We must find more like-minded people. Scientists who we know can keep secrets. To that end, I took the liberty of making a group chat with the one you labelled as ‘Old Dave Pawn Shop’ and the one you labelled as ‘Travis Tyrell Petro-something’ on your contact list. I believed them to be David and Travis from yesterday, and I was proven correct.”

“So many things going on behind my back nowadays…” Michael muttered.

“It is only normal, my lord. You are the leader of a growing organization, it is most important. You cannot be expected to run things alone. There are competent people working hard to make your vision come to life. If you allow me to voice a selfish request, I believe I would be most useful if you provided me with a phone of my own. I cannot pay for it myself, but I swear to work hard to repay the growing debt I have towards you.”

“Nonsense,” Michael said, “let’s go do some shopping. Forget the phone, you also need clothes and shoes and… why do you have a list?”

“I did not waste time, my lord.” She said with a smile. “The internet is quite useful indeed. I find that my talent for magic has translated very well into talent for technology.”

***

Back on the second floor, almost a full day had passed for the denizens of the now pacified land under Michael’s control. The monsters had done multiple runs of the first floor to vent their need for battle and to train, emboldened by the fact that they could come back to life if they died. The dungeon was an unfair place for them, because it did not adjust its difficulty in the slightest, instead presenting the same set of dangers to all the Fae without consideration for their strength.

“Make a note,” Michael told Johanne, who was there with him, “if we ever find volunteers, I want to test a theory. Did Travis tell you about the bureaucrat who went missing?”

“David did, actually, my lord. What about him?”

“He went in and survived. I wondered, how did he do that? The thing is, we have no data about other people delving the first floor alone, and no way to see what’s going on there. My current theory is that the dungeon gives first-timers a powerful spell to counteract the increased difficulty.”

“But,” Johanne caught on, “scientific method dictates that we test this theory. I shall make a note to find suitable volunteers, my lord.”

Then it was the goblin general’s time to report.

“The glacier is now under out control, my liege. We are moving troops towards the desert as we speak. Meanwhile,” the goblin rubbed his hands, “sweeping changes have come across the army now that the Fae are learning about their immortality. Some of the weaker Fae, who have always known that weakness was their sin, have taken to dying over and over to the monsters of the first floor until they grew strong enough to complete it. A commendable feat.”

However, according to Drullkrin, they were reaching the point of diminishing returns from the first floor now that the difficulty wasn’t ramping up anymore. A thing which Michael confirmed. It wasn’t just the Fae runs that weren’t making a difference, not even his own repeated attempts were increasing the dangers anymore, confirming Theobond’s theory that the floor had reached saturation. The Fae were fighting with all sorts of handicaps to make the fights harder, but it was clear that soon it would be time to delve deeper and into the third floor of the dungeon.  Michael tried to ask the king in the castle about it, but the blue humanoid was tight lipped. It was clear that he knew something, but he could not share for fear of the dungeon’s retribution.

At last all the runs the monsters had done—it turned out that many parties could delve at once in parallel without interfering with one another—net Michael a veritable wealth of coins, random assorted loot and two common skill stones.

The random assorted loot was of the non-magical variety, like the trinkets he used to bring back to the pawn shop back in his first days of dungeoneering. It was set aside to be taken out of the dungeon and sold, some of it through the pawn shop to make Mustang happy, and some of it through other means.

Speaking of Mustang, he had been disciplined by his boss—whom he had thought now absent from the business—and the fat man seemed to be back on the straight and narrow.

The skill stones were too useless to be absorbed by Michael. Or rather, even though there was no useless ability, they were weak enough that he could set them aside for experimentation. He wanted to see if other people could absorb them or just him, and then he wanted to study how they were made. While the first task only required a willing participant, the second would have to wait until he had a lab and scientists working in it.

It turned out that yes, other people could absorb skill stones. That was how Old Dave found himself with [Stone Skin], a passive bonus to his toughness, and [Night Vision]. It went a bit against Michael’s tenets, because the skill stones were not something that the old man had earned through hard work, but it wasn’t like Michael would ever ask the man to risk his hide going through the dungeon. Besides, even though Old Dave was not fighting monsters, he was more than pulling his weight and Michael felt that the skill stones were rightfully earned.

Finally there were the coins. Michael had more than enough to make a gold coin now, which he promptly did. Much like silver-grade coins were full of Qi and had traces of intent, the golden-hued ones were filled with intent, as well as the lower tiers of energies, and had traces of another sort of energy Michael was not familiar with. No doubt it would be the missing piece to understanding the tier beyond rare skill stones: Epic-rarity stones. Having never seen one, however, he had not enough data to level his [Magic Sense] up.

That’s how, after all was done, Michael found himself lazily flipping a mana coin in the air. His control through [Mana Manipulation] allowed him to turn the coin into a thin cloud of mana that swirled and moved according to his thoughts. He made shapes out of it, and even though they were hazy and barely cohesive, he found the exercise relaxing. It even helped him understand the skill better, his control increasing with each little ring or deformed silhouette of a monster he willed the mana to shape itself into.

Too bad only he could see the mana. The Fae couldn’t, nor could people unless they had a mana sensing ability. Johanne could, but she was away training.

Michael made the mana return to a coin-shape, which was the only stable form that prevented the mana from dispersing in the air.

Wait a minute, he thought, what if I could create more coins? I could literally have an infinite number of them thanks to my increased regeneration.

He, of course, didn’t have a shortage thanks to the efforts of the Fae, but more was always better. He tucked away the coin and willed some mana to come into existence from his mana pool.

It didn’t move. Or rather, it only moved as far as Michael’s own aura extended and no more. Trying to squeeze said aura did not result in a coin either, but mana was being expended.

To do what?

He fed more mana to his aura, squeezing. His manipulation skill was high enough to make the exercise not trivial, but easy. In the end, after much effort, something clinked to the ground. A crystal.

A mana crystal.

Michael’s cheers were short lived. The crystal seemed to be totally inert and, vexingly, its solid mana was impossible to return to a gaseous state. Not even the magical stones the golems of the stone region of the valley kept giving him as a tithe were this useless. True, he still didn’t have a use for them, but it had more to do with his priorities rather than the stones themselves. He would ask Johanne to handle it.

Seeing the solid mana however gave him and idea. What if he tried to make liquid mana?

No matter how hard he tried, nothing came out of his aura but crystals. He even tried to make coins out of the ambient mana in the air, thinking that perhaps he could use his ability to manipulate mana outside of his body and not from his mana pool to make some coins, but it did not work. After several hours, he had to call it a day.