The infinity dungeon 232

Chapter 232

After they retreated for the night, Michael went straight to see his sister. They hugged, and she cried. Maggie had been worried sick about her brother’s condition but she, like many others, had been prevented from seeing him while he was cooped up in the underground lab searching for a way to regain his powers.

After she was done crying, she punched him a few times, calling him mean and all sorts of names for making her worry so much. Then she hugged him again, and the two stayed up all night talking. She eventually crashed, leaving Michael alone in the small living room of her house.

He decided to take a short walk around. This was a new part of Site 00 he was unfamiliar with, where they were building houses for personnel and scientists. Only some of them were finished, and even less were currently occupied, but some people had moved in already. He could see some lights here and there, windows hidden behind secular oaks that had been grown with careful use of magic and the time element. Or he could see paths leading to what looked like a sheer rock face surrounded by a garden, and only with his magic was he able to see that there was a door hidden there, with a full house built inside a hill behind it.

Another house sat on top of a tall ponderosa pine, like a watchtower overlooking this side of the residential district. It reminded Michael of his treehouse in the Fae forest, although the environment was different, drier. 

There was no main path. Instead, here and there, Michael could see portal rings being constructed so that people could connect to the network that Johanne was disseminating all throughout Site 00 for instantaneous travel. With how spread out things were, separated by hills and woods, the portals were certainly going to be a big boon.

A Ford Bronco parked on a lawn answered a question that was bubbling up inside Michael’s mind. What if it all came crashing down? 

The car stuck out like a sore thumb, plopped on the neat turf in front of the wooden house and surrounded by a strange zen garden full of smooth rocks, running water and multicolored flowers. A pond with koi fish was right behind it. 

Seeing it allowed Michael to finally notice the other cars, trucks and SUVs parked here and there, and he smiled. 

Of course, he thought.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, sound waves reflected on the sides of hills hidden by vegetation and trees. Looking up, Michael saw the moon disappear behind a thick curtain of clouds, and felt the first cold drops of rain land on his face.

Gathering some mana, he layered it around himself and created a thin shield out of it. The action felt easy, natural, but not in the way that skills used to feel. Skills were intuitive in the sense that when Michael used them–in their intended way at least, with no shenanigans–he only had to think about activating them. Now, with no more skills, the process was more similar to how he thought a proper wizard should feel. He sensed his own mana, shaped it, told it his intentions, negotiated with it, and molded it like clay until he was satisfied with the result.

It felt like he was shaping a proper spell, instead of a ready-made skill. It was harder, yet much more rewarding, and it had the strange side effect of never being quite the same. No two shields would ever be the same, with some tiny differences in how he shaped the mana, how the mana responded, and a million other factors influencing the spell in some minute ways.

He took to the air, soaring above the hills. The trees melded together in his view, becoming a carpet of dark green. 

The only thing that came close to having an actual skill was his Artillery Station, he thought. But even then, there were so many ways to use it to produce an effect in the outside world, and even in the inner space for that matter, that assimilating it to a skill felt way too reductive.

Flying through the air felt nice. The wind was no bother, not with the shield, and the summer heat clashing with the cold gusts of the incoming storm made for an interesting experience. Despite that, Michael never rose more than a few hundred feet above the ground, and even this height filled him with a strange sense of dread and anxiety he could not quite explain.

It was not vertigo. He was not scared of heights.

He looked up. He could pierce the clouds, see the world from above them. How would the storm look from space, he wondered? He could see it through the satellite feed, have Icarus beam it straight into his mind, but seeing it with his own eyes was surely going to be different.

His breath was coming in short spasms now. His hands felt cold, terribly so, while his chest was filled with an alien heat. 

Nope. He couldn’t do it.

Fortunately, a text message distracted him. Nowadays, he did not even need to carry his phone with him anymore, the message appearing in his field of view in response to his will.

It was from David, the man asking to be called at Michael’s earlier convenience.

Hmm, I wonder how calls work with this mental connection. Let’s try them.

He asked Icarus to dial David’s number, and when it began to ring he heard it in his mind just like he did with Icarus’s voice.

“Hey Mike,” David’s voice was crystal clear.

Instead of speaking, Michael subvocalized. “Hey man, what’s up?”

“All good. Well, lots of stuff to deal with after last night, but it’s fine. Listen, I was looking through Unity Corporation’s holdings. As you know, we have a lot of random shit, acquired with a just in case policy.”

Michael was still flying as he talked with David. For a moment, the rising sun peeked from below the clouds before disappearing behind them when it got too high in the sky.

“Okay, I’m listening,” Michael said.

“Among the many things, I saw that we have a few plots of land west of here. We bought them for cheap because they are full of abandoned warehouses and factories and are a nightmare to clean up. Rustbelt leftovers, as you know. I thought they could be a good source of scrap materials for you to do your builds. In that solar system of yours. It’s a few hours by car, but we could check it out when you have some time. See if it’s worth the effort. You can fly, and I can take a helicopter.”

“Sure,” Michael said. “Let’s go.”

“Right now?” asked David.

“Why not?”

“Right. Give me a couple hours to prepare. How fast can you get there?”

“Send me the coordinates,” Michael said. As soon as he received them, a map appeared in his vision. “A hour of flight and then I can probably just teleport back.”

“Good. I’ll ask Travis to lend me an air magic Operator and I’ll be on my way.”

“Air magic?”

“I don’t trust a helicopter without some backup, not in this weather, man.” David said with a chuckle. “I rather like living, these days. We’ve been training air magic Operators for this very reason, ever since the storm started. Meet you there in a few.”

***

What David had described as a few lots of abandoned warehouses and factories turned out to be a whole industrial complex. From his vantage point in the sky, Michael could see the miles upon miles of crumbling buildings, heaps of gravel, red-tinted rebar and graffiti. Nature had long since started to reclaim this place, with trees and vines covering every surface. 

The sound of the helicopter reached him soon after, making him rather glad he didn’t have to wait too long for David to arrive. The man had wanted to see the process in person, and was quite eager to hear Michael's verdict on using the abandoned factories as a source of material once it was over. Was it worth doing, or was it a waste of time and effort?

“Hey Mike,” David said as soon as the whirr of the engines died down. “Been here long?”

Michael shook his head. “Just arrived. Is this it?”

“This is it. What do you think?”

Michael had scanned the place from above with his magic, and his mind was already busy with trying to come up with the optimal way to absorb all the useful stuff into his inner space. To that end, he had gone to the dungeon and farmed the third floor, obliterating the roaming mummies over several runs, until he had a few gold coins to spare.

“It should be a good haul, but I won’t know for sure until I see it in the inner space.”

David made a face, clearly not understanding.

“It tends to…” Michael looked for the right words. “Well, the inner space tends to put things in another perspective, let’s just say. What’s big and huge here is severely recontextualized there.”

He approached the first building. It was a long warehouse, mostly empty. Magic flowed out of him as he burned some coins as well as some of his own magic. The mana he manipulated easily, while the rest of the energies went into the spiral to feed the infinite hunger of the black hole.

Compared to the platinum coins, tossing a few gold coins worth of stuff in there was nothing. He could use it, of course, but he did not need the extra push, making it not worth the effort.

Hmm, he thought to himself, how should I do it, I wonder?

The answer came almost naturally. When it came to absorbing stuff, there were many ways to do it, but nothing beat the satisfaction of plunging a hand inside whatever was closest to him and watching it disappear.