The infinity dungeon 247

Chapter 247

Michael arrived at Johanne’s lab feeling rather good. His conversation with Icarus had left him in a very good mood, and he felt closer to his AI than ever. The good mood didn’t last long however, because when Johanne brought up the topic of space, saying that she wished to launch missions up there with the aid of magic, Michael's fear of the deep void resurfaced and he panicked.

“NO!” he said, not even realizing that he was shouting. “No space! I’m not going there until I’m Gold. Platinum even!”

Images flashed in his mind, of the terrifying emptiness stretching as far as the eye could see, with the perfectly transparent Seedship window being the only thing separating him from certain death. He could survive, stranded, but for how long? Did it even matter, when there was nothing for miles and miles, millions of miles, just the cold, hard, empty blackness of space?

Johanne looked down, trying her best to understand Michael’s irrational display of emotion and failing.

“I… understand. Even though…”

Michael was dragged back to the ground by her voice. More like crash-landed.

“Spit it out,” he barked. “Even though what?”

She hesitated before speaking. “With your current power, I imagine that surviving in space would be rather easy. I suspect you could literally fly up to the edge of the atmosphere right now, if you so wished.”

Michael shook his head, uttering a single word.

“No.”

***

His mood was soured. He did not even know why he had lashed out at poor Johanne, and he felt awful. She did not deserve the treatment, and now it was too late to turn back and apologize. She was busy with her own work, face scrunched up in concentration, her mind filing away the recent interaction with him, categorizing it and unpacking it in ways he struggled to relate to. He could not predict what would come out of it, or if anything would come out of it.

Going back now would only do more damage. She would not understand why he was doing it, only seeing the irrationality of it, which would confuse her greatly.

He, however, did feel the conflict like a physical thing. He knew he could not resolve it now, but knowing did not diminish the desire to do so. It only made it harder to walk away, with a tight knot holding him down, and he realized that it was not just his fear of space that made him act out, but also a lack of trust.

Barely hours after leaving the room of the four pillars, already he had gone against the teachings of the First Embrace. Why else would he get that deep fear of space, after all, if not because he did not trust Johanne to be able to handle a space program without his direct intervention?

His mind had conjured up a million scenarios where things went wrong and he was asked to physically fly up and rescue marooned astronauts, fight alien beings, deal with equipment failure and prevent disaster. Of course he had to be the one, in his imagined scenarios, because he was the only one with the power to actually do those things.

Or perhaps, because he did not trust anyone else to do those things.

Perhaps it was not even about Johanne, but about him and his arrogance. 

The first pillar is more than just the game of the Hungry Ghosts. It’s not just about trusting other people not to screw you intentionally, but also about being humble and trusting their skills.

And if he did not trust Johanne’s skills, then whose skills did he trust? Travis’s? Not really. He trusted the man to be able to do his job, but he did not trust his end goals nor his methods. Operators were crawling around Site 00, literally everywhere, but Michael couldn’t help but eye them in suspicion.

David? Not after the rejuvenation. Now that his program was underway, the Site was also crawling with veterans mingling with the Operators, Vanguard and Candle Light closer than ever. Yet, the two were also farther from Michael than ever.

He felt isolated, alone. Not for the first time either. But how could he not feel this way? 

All this, he thought as he looked around, comes crashing down the moment I stumble, the moment I lose against the Renegade, the moment the dungeon claims me or some other accident happens to me.

He felt what little understanding of Qi he had gained slip away from him, his inner turmoil a storm that wiped all progress and growth, and only left bare rock behind. The recent Renegade sighting was fresh in his mind, and he walked with his senses stretched out, searching for any sign of the incoming threat.

“I’m going back into the dungeon.”

Icarus perked up, face twisted in worry as he looked at his screens in the control room of the inner space. There were many control things, Michael realized. The control room, the control tower, control this, control that. Why did everything need to be under constant control? Icarus’s very existence was about control nowadays, hooked up as he was to the global surveillance network via legal and not so legal means. 

He took a deep breath.

“For the time dilation?” Icarus asked after Michael was done spiraling. “What about the Gaze and the taint?”

“What about it? If the Renegade comes and realizes I can’t fight him, I die. I’ll find a way to deal with the taint.”

When Michael reached the sixth floor of the dungeon, he pulled most of the power away from the Aura Accelerator. He felt the Gaze on him as he walked toward the hut he had called his home while under Master Yu’s care, and with the Gaze came the taint. 

A sign that the time dilation was once again stretching each moment into an eternity. He was buying time, cheating time and paying with his own sanity.

And he knew it.

The hut felt empty and meaningless. Michael almost wanted to tear it down, reduce its shoddy wood to splinters just to feel something. Something other than the manic need to get his ass moving.

He turned away before he lost his temper–this was way too early for him to blame it on the taint–and returned to the mountain peak. He pulled from the Borealis Block, using the ice element to create a simple seat and ward off the cold.

After he closed his eyes and entered the inner space, the real work began. He focused on the batteries first, working like a madman to design an upgrade based on the collectors mark-two upgrade. He scoured the whole inner space for resources, dismantling all the asteroids that had come from the latest expansion after he had sucked the Renegade dry of his Renegade Energy.

It took a very long time, but in the state of intense focus and inspiration, it felt like mere hours. Magic had taken care of everything else. 

When Michael opened his eyes, his power had skyrocketed.

Flexing his magic, he felt the changes in his inner space. Behind the first mark-two collector array sat a similar structure, a sprawling network of batteries and wiring what opened up like the second wing of a butterfly, mirroring the collectors on the other side of the Aura Accelerator.

His mana capacity had increased from a hundred silver to almost two hundred, and while the upgrade had taken a long time and a lot of materials, it now paved the way for a whole new level of power.

The rest of the materials had gone into the FLAGSHIP project and the beginning of a second collector upgrade. 

“It is a good upgrade, however… I fear it will not be enough for even a single layer of shields,” Icarus said. 

In the last test, the shield had maxed out its absorption rate at ten silver per second, while Michael’s current regeneration was only slightly more than zero point two per second.

“I know,” snapped Michael. He could feel the slimy tentacles of the taint making him see red. “You don’t need to point out the obvious. I clearly have a plan for this. You keep building the Flagship.”

“Breathe, Michael.”

He did. “Thank you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have gotten all worked up. It just feels frustrating at times. I have a magic system with boundless potential… why do I always have to run from one emergency to the next?”

Icarus said nothing. Michael went up to farm the fifth floor and gather some coins, then returned to the mountain peak. Below him, the room of the four pillars beckoned. Even though he could not see it, its mere presence commanded attention.

He ignored it. Now was not the time.

Clutching the newly acquired coins, he sat back on the cold ice. The simple seat had grown during the time he had spent on it, becoming a throne of sharp edges and jagged white teeth.

He paid it no mind. It was just a quirk of the magic.

“It’s time to do some more tests, Icarus.”

“Always happy to help, Michael. After we are done, you could help me put the finishing touches on the Flagship and we could test that too.”

Michael grinned. “Sounds like a plan.”