The infinity dungeon 245

Chapter 245

Even from a distance, Travis’s silhouette was hard to miss. His buzzcut and wide cheekbones, thick neck, gigantic shoulders and arms were pretty unmistakable, as was his propensity to walk about Site 00 dressed in military gear and bulletproof vest. Despite his desire for protection, however, he also liked to show off the goods–his arms were bare and the bulging muscles flexed as he walked, responding to subconscious stimuli.

“Another gold card,” Michael said. Watching the Site from the top of the Control Tower felt like spying, like he was a panopticon tower that used magic to know all that happened below. Not just magic, but also an artificial intelligence the likes the world had never seen nor dreamt possible.

“Even with two gold cards, he is still weaker than David,” Icarus observed. “I don’t understand, magic makes no sense!”

“It does make sense, actually. It seems that Travis has traded everything he had for the chance to gain gold cards in his strange challenge floor. To think that a shallow floor would give away gold cards like this…”

Icarus shrugged. He was floating in the air, pretending to sleep on a mattress that wasn’t there. He rolled to the side, facing Michael. “Did you not gain the [Unity] skill when you beat the second floor’s challenge?”

“Fair enough,” Michael conceded. “In any case, to explain why he’s weaker than David, consider this. Even though David was initially given the skill stones by me, he has shored up his foundation very well. He has two elements, one of which is a mutated unique, he can manipulate Qi and is beginning to understand Intent. His mid-silver aura is very strong.”

“What about Travis?” Icarus asked. The AI could obviously see the same data Michael could see, but struggled with understanding magic at an intuitive level. On the other hand, he was very good with science and technology, where Michael instead struggled.

“Remember when I had rare and higher skills but my aura was still Copper? Travis is mid-Silver, like David, but he’s pure mana right now. He has no elements to strengthen his foundation, nor Qi or Intent to build the scaffolding to grow. He will struggle with a third card, and a fourth one is out of the question for now.”

“Speaking of foundation,” Icarus said, now serious and no longer lounging on invisible pillows. “You have gathered the materials, haven’t you? I am very curious to see what you were building in the inner space.”

Which was a way to say that Michael should stop wasting time and get to work. He agreed, of course. The sole thought of the torn-up boundary and the chaos soup outside, threatening to spill in…

He remembered what happened to the steel beam after only a few fractions of a second of exposure. If that stuff spilled in, he had no idea what was going to happen to his magic. The first time around, he was left powerless for more than a month and only a miracle allowed him to restore his power–a different power. This time it looked like the dungeon was all out of miracles.

He sunk his consciousness into the inner space. The boundary looked more frayed than ever, dissolving slowly. The apparent peace was going to abruptly break once a tipping point was reached, and the only question was how long it was going to take to get there.

Suppressing a shiver, Michael looked away from the boundary and focused on his work. Hours passed as the enormous stash of materials slowly diminished, dwindling to almost nothing. 

“I’m done,” he said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “For now, at least.”

There was a glowing blue band running the length of the Aura Accelerator, on the outside of it, a few yards away from the focusing lenses. It was attached to the batteries via thick glass-like tubes that would be filled with raw mana as soon as he gave the order.

And give the order he did. “Icarus, turn on the main power.”

There was a sudden draw from the batteries, their output maxing out in moments. Ten silver units of mana per second were being pulled out, powering the new ring. 

Michael kept an eye on his mana levels, which were dropping, while the rest of his awareness was focused on the ring. He felt like biting his nails in anticipation, and he couldn’t help but sneak glances at the boundary, almost expecting a reaction to what he was doing.

There was none.

Five seconds later, when more than half the mana in the batteries were already gone, the ring glowed and pulsed. A gigantic shield, translucent hues of blues and glimmering hexagons, grew from the ring. Up and down, from the whole circumference of the ring, it stretched and expanded, drawing more and more power until the two hemispheres finally sealed shut at the two poles.

The Aura Accelerator, the machines, and the spiral black hole were all encased in an enormous shield now.

“Thus is born my second ever inner space skill. A shield.”

Icarus watched in awe, eyes wide and jaw hanging open. “You… built all that…”

Then the mana ran out, and the hexagons that composed the shield evaporated into motes of blue-tinted mana. Michael’s head snapped to the boundary, but all was quiet. Even the spiral’s hum, a constant background noise, seemed strangely muted, almost as if it too was waiting with bated breath for a reaction that was not coming.

Several seconds later, Michael forced himself to relax despite his body wanting to do the exact opposite.

Icarus inhaled, shaking off the momentary stun that such a momentous feat had caused him. This time, Michael had really surprised him, exceeding all expectations. The shield had been truly grand, and he imagined one such shield enveloping the Sol System in the real universe, his own mind boggling at the scale despite not even being a human mind!

“What now?” he said in a low voice, almost reverently.

“Now, we test it again with mana coins. I want to see if it can be sustained indefinitely.”

Michael’s words took a few moments to register. When they did, they were like a physical blow. “Indefinitely?” Icarus asked, disbelief on his face. He stammered words, disbelief on his face. “You want, you want this, the shield, to last indefinitely?”

“How else am I supposed to protect myself from the chaos? This shield is only the beginning. Once we know it works and have tested it thoroughly…”

“You want to collapse the boundary yourself.”

Michael’s breathing quickened. “Wait, wait, wait, no. With only one layer of shield? Never. You’re crazy?”

“Michael!” Icarus said. “Breathe.”

He did. “Thank you,” he said after several deep breaths. “You almost had me fall into a panic attack. Never mention things like this again. Space, the void, whatever that is,” he pointed at the boundary, beyond the boundary. “Sensitive topics.”

“Of course.”

“Many layers of shields. A lot of layers,” he said, working himself into a frenzy again. “Lots. and then, only then, yes… I will try to collapse the boundary myself, rather than waiting for its inevitable catastrophic failure.”

Of course, Icarus did not need to tell Michael that his current mana regeneration was not even close to enough to sustain the shield. That thing ate ten silvers of it per second, and the regeneration was currently less than zero-point-two.

It was a problem for later, once they were out of the testing phase. Michael gathered coins in the dungeon and went back to testing, moving about in a frenzy as if fearing that the boundary might collapse at any moment.

Icarus did not stop him. In fact, he thought that Michael's fears were founded. The boundary was in bad shape. And, while there was no logical reason for it, it did feel like Michael’s daring plan to protect himself with a shield should elicit some sort of reaction, some sort of retribution. The magic lashing out at him, attempting to punish his hubris at thinking he was better than it.

It made no sense, but Icarus did not reject the idea. He had been shown time and time again that magic did make no sense, and while he was good at creating schematics and coming up with science fiction machines for the inner space, his understanding of its actual magic was still lacking.

His acceptance of the irrationality of magic pushed him to the cusp of something, some sort of grand understanding. Some things he had forgotten about his experience in Michael's collapsed core, and the Demiurge Particles, resurfaced.

After another round of tests, they talked about the logistics of layering more shields, and Icarus returned to his more rational side.

“You want five? Michael, how can you ever support five different shields and still have enough magic to do anything else?”

“Right now I can’t even support one,” he said. “That’s why I must focus on expanding my regeneration. I want each layer of shield connected to redundant, independent power supplies, all of them shielded. And I don’t want just five layers of the same shield. I want each layer to be different, starting from the weaker stuff outside and going inward. Layer one: mana. Layer two: mana and Qi. Layer three: pure Qi. Layer four: mana, Qi and Intent. Layer five: pure Intent. So on and so forth.”

“This is crazy.”

“But not impossible.”

“Maybe, given time. I’m not sure you will be able to do it before the boundary collapses, Michael."

“I have to. I simply have to, Icarus. Have you looked at the chaotic void outside, Icarus? Have you truly?”

“I have, Michael."

“Then why don’t you understand? I’m going to go down to the sixth floor to use the room of the four pillars to coalesce my proto-Dao, gain access to Qi and perhaps even Intent generation. In the meantime I want you to conduct some more experiments for me.”