The infinity dungeon 260

Chapter 260

“Where do those lines lead?”

Michael floated close to the edge of the event horizon. Outside, the dungeon had spawned a terrible blizzard that shrouded the peak of the mountain, but the ice and snow failed to penetrate his aura.

The lines he was looking at were threads of data, like the ones connecting all the data rooms and creating a sort of scaffolding for the whole inner space. Except, these ones plunged deep into the spiral black hole, disappearing inside of it.

“The far reaches,” Icarus said. “Like with the lines leading into the chaotic void, I have no idea where they lead. Even back when I only had the data rooms, I never knew what awaited outside.”

“Your very own mystery,” Michael said. “No wonder it meshed so well with my mysteries.”

“And that stuff crawling up the lines, infecting the data?” Icarus said, pointing.

True enough, there was some sort of strange substance, like black goop coming out of the event horizon and making its way up.

“The taint,” Michael said solemnly. “It’s infecting you.”

“There’s no me, Michael,” Icarus said with an exaggerated eye roll. “Only us.”

“I don’t like that it’s infecting the beautiful structures you made, though.”

Icarus shrugged, but Michael knew it was just fake indifference and bravado. “We knew it hid inside the event horizon.”

“I can’t see inside. Can you?”

“No, Michael. If you can’t, then I also can’t.”

“Do we brave the depths?”

He felt Icarus tense. 

“Yeah, I don’t want to either. Let’s hope the dungeon helps us. The spiral might be docile now, but I'm not feeling like going in there just yet.”

Back in the dungeon, the ice throne crumbled to dust. “One less eidolon of the taint,” Michael muttered. He knew it didn’t change anything, but it seemed to make it easier to move on. He looked inside once more, where he spared the data and the taint infection one last glance before approaching the stairway leading down.

***

In a room deep hidden deep below the surface, Travis watched a demonstration of the newest development in magical technology. There was a soldier, striking dummies with spells of ice and fire, and every single spell exhibited the uncanny sameness that he had come to attribute to skill-based magic.

“Except he has been given no skill stones,” he said.

“Exactly,” Johanne said as she scribbled something into a tablet that then promptly vanished. “This is the power our new project, the Origin system, promises once we manage to work out its kinks.”

Behind her, a pedestal stood at the center of a storm of magical power. Green energies shrouded its center, but Travis could clearly see through them thanks to his golden card’s ability. Three common-rank skill stones floated at the center of the vortex, feeding the pedestal of steel and metal. Tubes snaked down, across the floor, disappearing in a nearby room.

He had seen the room. It was a mess of machines, more tubes, wires and computronium matrices.

Once the soldier was done with the demonstration, Johanne removed the skill stones from the pedestal. The magic wound down, and the soldier’s aura vanished, reverting him back to being a normal Iron-rank human.

“Anyone using the Origin system will have access to any skill we possess,” Johanne explained. “Without the need to assign the skill stone itself to the user. There are some limitations, such as the fact that a skill stone cannot transfer its power to more than a single user at a time. If you want two users to have [Fireball], then you need two common skill stones. There is also this other problem,” she pointed at the soldier. “As you can see, outside the range of the Origin system, the users are left powerless, although you could call it a feature given the amount of control it gives us.”

She put two new skill stones on the empty pedestal, [Wind Rush] and [Fireball]. As the pedestal came to life, she told Travis to switch to his magic vision and focus on the soldier’s Sanctum.

“It’s etching a fractal in his Sanctum walls,” he muttered. “How?”

“It’s a temp-fractal. Look what happens when we power down the device, or the user leaves its range.”

When she cut the power, the fractal in the soldier’s Sanctum dimmed and then faded.

“No scars, because there had never actually been a skill there,” she said. “But this also means that once the connection is cut, all power is gone. But.”

She put more skills on the pedestal, only stopping when there were ten. With a nod, she ordered the soldier to proceed with the demonstration. 

Travis’s jaw hung open. 

“Yes,” Johanne said. “Quite the sight. As you can see, skills can be swapped almost instantaneously, although the maximum capacity is limited by normal Sanctum progression. The Origin system works anywhere within Icarus’s domain, which includes the explored floors of the dungeon by the way, in case you wanted to send your men there to train their Sanctum and increase in rank.”

“This is crazy,” Travis said. “What about outside the domain?”

“We are working on portable domain projectors. For now, they only give our men the Origin system, without bringing the full power of a domain.”

“More than enough.”

“Not against Faith but, alas, progress is slow even with access to the Valley. Now,” she said as she refocused on the soldier. “There are some unexpected side effects. The idea is to make the Origin system work through Icarus. As you can see, right now that is not the case. We are here, in an isolated room with miles of rock above us, for a reason.”

Travis almost did not want to ask. “What reason?”

“Icarus, when you are ready. Mr Tyrell, please take a couple of steps back.”

A blast door quickly came down, answering his unspoken question. The glass was reinforced with so much magic it almost glowed. On the other side of it, the soldier's body language betrayed his nervousness.

Then Icarus arrived. His presence felt like the Gaze, but different. 

For a moment, nothing changed. A hologram on the blast door showed that the soldier had taken all the skills, and as he used them, the hologram highlighted their name.

Then [Fireball] changed. The letters glowed golden, and the text shifted into [Fireball 2].

“For now, nothing strange,” Johanne said. “We did not program this into the Origin system, it came out as an emergent property, but it was within parameters.”

Travis kept watching. The soldier unequipped the skill, and Johanne pointed at the pedestal behind them. The ten skill stones looked the same as usual.

“You should be able to notice what has all of us, Icarus included, miffed. Use that gold card of yours.”

It took Travis a moment, but then he saw it. “The skill stone did not level-up.”

“Exactly,” Johanne said. She spoke into a microphone. “Soldier, equip it please.”

The skill was reinstated. It appeared again in the soldier’s status, and it was still dubbed as [Fireball 2].

“Oh,” Travis said. “So if–”

“There’s more,” Johanne said.

She instructed the soldier, who used [Wind Rush] soon after. On the screen, the two skills were highlighted and then vanished, replaced by a new one: [Fire Wall]. According to what was written, the new skill was uncommon.

Except on the pedestal, there were no uncommon skills. [Fireball] and [Wind Rush] were still there.

“You might have drawn the correct conclusions already,” Johanne said. “Just to be sure they are correct: yes, it only works when the Origin system runs through Icarus. Yes, it is user-specific and depends on the user’s talent. By all means, when a user has a skill, the Origin system lets him use it as if he really had the skill stone. Evolutions, mergers, upgrades and level-ups. They are retained with no penalties even if the skills are removed and reinstated multiple times.”

“Each user will be able to use all the skills in Unity’s possession, while also building their own specialized kit,” Travis said. “This… this is momentous.”

“Icarus can also restrict access, if needed. I’m sure you were already meaning to ask.”

Travis was salivating. Already he could see all the possible uses! Then he gulped. “All this is because of Icarus?”

“Yes. Without him, the Origin system only lets users equip basic skills. It is powerful, but it would not be a complete system. I do not know how or why, but Icarus seems to be the key to making it a complete magic system.”

Travis felt his mouth go dry, all the saliva disappearing as if it had never been there. “...are there other side effects?”

“Just one,” Johanne said. Her grin scared him, and he didn’t even realize he had taken a step back until he felt the cold blast door against his back. “Icarus, and therefore Michael, will have access to every single skill under the Origin system as if it was their own. Including the upgraded, user-specific skills, as long as the user has them equipped.”

Travis managed to breathe again. “Oh,” he said. “I feared it would be much worse.”

Johanne was still smiling. “I want to do cards next. Good thing you are here and volunteering to help!”