BAB3 -Chapter 6

# Chapter 6: Dungeon Domination

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The next morning, Xay, Dragon, Lexi, Kimi, Tyra, and Willow shared a light breakfast in their kitchen before getting ready.

Everyone was hype to leave the city, especially Tyra. This was only the largest hurdle standing in their way.

It was finally time to clear the Cosmos Academy Dungeon.

The dungeon was broken into ten floors, each with its own biome, monster type, and final boss.

“Floors one through five are what first-years are typically expected to clear,” Kimi explained between bites. “Six through ten are required for graduation.”

Xay chuckled, his Jetnir Orbs spinning in circles around his head. “Leave it to Rox to push us twice as hard as necessary.”

Lexi shrugged. “Just means one through five will probably be a cakewalk for us.”

“We’ll finally get to test our new abilities and really push ourselves,” Tyra said, grinning as she flexed her bicep.

Kimi grimaced. “We should probably hold off on the big techniques until it’s absolutely necessary.”

“She’s right,” Xay said, nodding in agreement. “We’ve only got two days to clear the whole thing, so we can’t take too many long breaks. We need to be as efficient and effective as possible.”

Tyra pursed her lips in a cute pout.

Lexi laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get to unleash the big-massive wild animal on the lower floors.”

Tyra chomped her teeth playfully in Lexi’s direction, laughing.

“Mana and stamina preservation should be a priority early on,” Kimi continued smoothly. “But we should also strike to kill. Long, drawn-out fights will only hinder us in the long run.”

Lexi, Kimi, and Tyra each carried three C-Rank Mana Pills and three C-Rank Restoration Pills that Xay had acquired from the alchemical auction.

Each pill could restore 35% of their mana and vitality, respectively.

Xay, on the other hand, had three Mana Pills but only one Restoration Pill left—he’d used two after his spar with Rox.

He didn’t plan on getting hit often, but he hoped the new Life Weave cord currently tied around his braids would pick up the slack if he did.

His crushed Auric Diamond grill was also fully charged with mana, though it paled in comparison to the vast reserves stored in their crystallized mana channels.

Xay had gotten his entire team Conduit Crystallization Elixirs from the same auction where he’d picked up the pills and the Nootropic Concretion Serum.

The elixirs transfigured their mana channels into living mana crystal, allowing them to store up to an extra 50% of their total Mana stat directly within their bodies.

Rox had also given each of them a stash of her weird, red electrolyte juice.

At ten minutes to seven, the gang stood and activated their rings, auto-equipping their Quantium Armor.

They’d decided to coordinate in tactical black for the dive, each set paired with a matching hooded cloak.

Xay was fully decked out in his modular polycarbonate composite set: the solid torso piece, forearm guards, segmented leg plates, reinforced elbow and knee pads, and armored sneakers.

Beneath it all, was a black herringbone mesh underlayer. He first got the armor when he only had a single Sphere Skill: *Arsenal Forge*.

***Arsenal Forge (Artificer Sphere) (S-Rank)** – Master craftsman capable of transfiguring bonded entity’s essences into weapons.*

But it was built for a fighter, so no modifications were needed to support his second Sphere Skill: *Psionic Monk*.

***Psionic Monk (Striker Sphere) (S-Rank)** - Master martial artist capable of channeling psychic force.*

Dragon had her own Quantium set as well, but Xay didn’t bother equipping it.

Her new crystal flame armor from her Arsenal Weapon Talent: *Omni Flame*, was far more protective, making anything else obsolete.

***Omni Flame** - Generate and command any flame consumed.*

Lexi’s armor featured a lightweight, flexible dark blue mesh beneath a sleeveless, overhanging cloak.

Reinforced black plates covered her vitals, and her NoirWood bow hung horizontally across her lower back.

It was a perfect ranger setup, tailored to her Sphere Skill: *Abyssal Spell Shot.*

***Abyssal Spell Shot (Ranger Sphere) (S-Rank)** - Master marksman capable of shaping mana, frost, and darkness into controlled projectiles.*

Kimi’s armor was sleek and form-fitting, composed of flexible, overlapping black plates creating a protective sangu.

A slanted red sash circled her waist, and her white katana hovered in its sheath just above her back—an elegant match for her Sphere Skill: *Radiant Blade Dancer.*

***Radiant Blade Dancer (Striker Sphere) (S-Rank)** - Master swordsman capable of wielding light, flame, and the blade with the grace of a dancer.*

Tyra’s base layer was a supple teal bodysuit overlaid with segmented black polycarbonate plating, etched with a subtle tree bark motif.

It perfectly echoed her Sphere Skill: *Connected Wild Heart.*

***Connected Wild Heart (Mender Sphere) (S-Rank)** - Master of nature’s primal energy with a deep connection to chosen companion beast.*

Willow also had a set, but like Dragon, she didn’t wear it. With access to Tyra’s *Full Glamor*, her current armor couldn’t keep up.

After a final armor check, they headed out.

Fully kitted in Quantium gear, Xay, Lexi, Kimi, and Tyra wore their game faces. Even Dragon and Willow were wearing serious expressions as they flew beside them.

They took the elevator to the lowest floor of the tower, stepping out into a long, reinforced hallway. Several open blast doors marked the path forward.

At the very end stretched the sterile staging hall—and Rox was already there to see them off.

“I already signed you all in,” she said, nodding toward the attendants behind the protective glass. “You’ve got forty-eight hours to clear ten floors.” She grinned. “And remember not to destroy the core.”

Xay smirked. “We’ll do our best.”

With that, they were ready.

The six of them approached the glowing white portal hovering above the low altar and crossed the threshold.

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**Cosmos Academy Dungeon Floor 1: Toy Factory.**

The group arrived in the familiar, dilapidated lobby of an abandoned fabrication facility.

The air was still thick with dust, and the same dim light filtered through cracked windows, casting jagged shadows across the rusted metal beams and shattered tile flooring.

“Monsters on this floor drain mana, so let me handle them with psychic force,” Xay said quickly.

“Good plan,” Kimi agreed at his side.

His Jetnir Orbs hovered at the ready above his shoulders as the group broke into a sprint.

They passed through the lobby and into a dim hallway with a partially collapsed ceiling.

Xay expanded his psychic sphere of awareness as far as he could reliably process all the gathered data within.

The first monster appeared, lurching around the far corner of the hallway with jerky, unnatural movements.

It was one of the creepy one-foot dolls with half a face and cracked porcelain skin. A slowly spinning key crank protruded from its back.

**Clockwork Doll (F-Rank) Lv. 2**: *A clockwork construct in the form of a porcelain doll. Drains mana to sustain itself.*

One of Xay’s orbs shot forward, blasting a hole clean through the monster’s chest and causing it to shatter into loose essence.

At such a low level and rank, it would take tens of thousands of these creatures to make even a dent in the team’s levels—especially after their second awakening.

Higher-ranked monsters had denser essences.

That was slightly different from Awakened individuals, whose essence density increased every five levels and became hyper-concentrated during breakthroughs.

Xay raised a fist in the center of the hall, and his team halted just behind him. Tiny, tapping footsteps echoed from both ahead and behind.

Faster than the first time, both ends of the corridor filled with dozens of clockwork dolls, spilling over each other in a clattering swarm.

Xay fed a thin trickle of mana into his Jetnir Orbs—far less than any full technique would require.

The orbs instantly doubled, and Xay sent two flying forward and two behind. They slammed hard into the advancing dolls.

With precise use of *Psychokinesis*, he hurled the orbs in and out of the swarming packs, arcing them just wide enough to build speed before crashing through multiple targets at once.

He still frowned, though—the combo required more concentration than he liked, and it was only four orbs.

Xay cleared both ends of the hall in seconds, then withdrew his mana from the Origin Orbs. As they quickly flew back into his orbit, the team sprinted forward again.

“That was awesome,” Tyra laughed from right behind him.

“Jetnir looks good on the Mood Marbles,” Lexi teased, pulling up the rear.

Kimi just smiled warmly.

Her request to her family had worked out even better than she could’ve imagined—though she had to promise to send Auntie Leah vids of Xay using the orbs in creative ways.

“Yeah, yeah,” Xay shook his head with a shiny grin, ignoring the kill notifications.

Past several sealed doors lay the ruined cafeteria, lit by harsh, flickering lights.

Broken, overturned tables cluttered the crumbling floor, surrounded by dust-covered chairs and shattered vending machines.

Xay raised a fist, bringing the team to a halt in the center of the room.

Right on cue, every light cut out at once, plunging the space into total darkness.

But this time, Xay could see perfectly with *ESP*.

Before the lights even flickered back on, his Jetnir Orbs had already wiped out the monsters that spawned in—two clockwork guards and three clockwork dogs.

**Clockwork Guard (E-Rank) Lv. 6**: *A clockwork construct in the form of a security guard. Drains mana to sustain itself.*

**Clockwork Dog (F-Rank) Lv. 4**: *A clockwork construct in the form of a guard dog. Drains mana to sustain itself.*

“Which side do you want to take first?” Kimi asked from Xay’s side.

He grinned down at her. “Both.”

He already knew the cafeteria had three exits. The real one was sealed, and the other two paths needed to be cleared before the real one would open.

Xay floated into the air and crossed his legs beneath him.

Splitting his two cognitive threads into four, he let the new ones focus on both left and right paths simultaneously.

With *Psychokinesis*, he flung both doors open.

One led to the Hot Fabrication Room, a sweltering maze of robotic arms, all controlled by Shadow Puppeteers working alongside several active clockwork components.

**Shadow Puppeteer (E-Rank) Lv. 8**: *A dark entity that possesses inanimate objects, and likes to strike from the shadows or when victims aren’t looking.*

The other opened into Cold Storage, where more Shadow Puppeteers were dismantling clockwork dolls. It was still the nightmarish scene of detached limbs and broken faces he remembered.

Taking a deep breath, Xay flexed his control of psychic force harder than he ever had in the real world.

Reaching out with *Psychokinesis*, he mentally grasped everything in both rooms at once—every monster, every robotic arm, every shelf, and every loose component.

Then, he lifted it all and slammed it into the floors, the walls, and the ceiling.

Again and again, he shook both rooms inside out, the shriek of twisting metal and rupturing gears echoing down the halls.

When he finally let go, nothing in either room moved.

Xay dropped back to his feet, his breathing labored as sweat beaded on his forehead.

Lexi, Kimi, Tyra, and even Dragon and Willow looked at him in slight disbelief, having only witnessed the horrific sounds screeching down each hallway.

None of them had a chance to speak before more Clockwork Guards and Dogs appeared.

Xay stepped forward, collapsing his cognitive threads back into two and feeding a trickle of mana into his Jetnir Orbs once more.

The four orbs violently dismantled the advancing monsters as Xay and his team calmly headed toward the final exit without even looking in their direction.

Once Xay’s orbs returned to their orbit around him, the team entered the Safe Zone.

**Cosmos Academy Dungeon Floor 1: Toy Factory - Safe Zone 1.**

Tyra checked the time and let out a squeak of astonishment. “It hasn’t even been fifteen minutes yet.”

“An elite show of pure dominance at the end,” Kimi said, licking her lips.

Lexi nodded in agreement, throwing an arm around Kimi. “It was pretty sexy.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Xay said with a smirk. “Let me take a quick five before we hit the Production Room.”

With that, he took a seat and dropped into *Zen Meditation*.

The Production Room Floor was divided between hundreds of pre-assembled clockwork constructs and assembly lines that were constantly churning out more.

The real trick, though, was the Clockwork Metronomes in the rafters.

**Clockwork Metronome (F-Rank) Lv. 10**: *Precision clock that regulates the tempo of mechanical movements, synchronizing the rhythm of surrounding machinery.*

They controlled the pace of the room—and with each one destroyed, everything sped up.

But once all of them were taken out, the assembly lines would shut down, and the remaining clockwork constructs would slow to a crawl.

Xay felt his mental fatigue fading quickly as he meditated, but something about it irked him.

He had only used psychic force, yet his current meditation technique was restoring his mana and vitality as well—all at the same time.

He wondered if there was a way to isolate and focus on recovering a single resource at a time. But that was a problem for later, the five minutes were already up.

Xay stood and nodded at his team. “Let’s go.”

They stepped onto the Production Floor together.

Before the metronomes could even activate, Xay seized all nine with *Psychokinesis* and hurled them down into the mass of standing clockwork constructs on one side of the room.

They landed with ground-shaking force, taking out dozens of clockwork dolls on impact.

The assembly lines never had a chance to start, and Xay cleaned up the remaining constructs with precise strikes from his Jetnir Orbs.

Tyra laughed as the team entered the next Safe Zone. “Less than five minutes that time.”

Kimi shook her head with a wry smile. “I remember that room being far more difficult.”

Xay chuckled. “No break needed—let’s take out the boss and move on to the next floor.”

They each strolled confidently into the Boss Room.

The vast, circular arena stretched out before them, its floor an intricate mosaic of shifting metal rings.

The heavy doors groaned shut behind them as the towering humanoid construct at the center flared to life.

**Clockwork Warden (D-Rank) Lv. 15**: *An amalgamation of clockwork constructs taking the form of a defense golem. Drains mana to sustain itself.*

Wasting no time, Xay activated *Psychic Blink* and reappeared standing in the air at the height of the warden’s chest.

He immediately ripped the embedded metronome clocks from its shoulders and legs using *Psychokinesis*.

The warden’s body seized up, and several small vents snapped open across its frame. A mechanical winding sound began to rise, steadily revving toward a violent release.

But Xay didn’t run for cover this time—he just waited.

A second later, dozens of clockwork missiles burst from the warden, rocketing outward in all directions.

Xay raised his hands, using the motion to help visualize what he intended to do.

With *Psychokinesis*, he took hold of every missile mid-flight, curving them into a sweeping arc around himself as he twisted his arms through the air.

He redirected each of them, sending the missiles hurtling back toward the Clockwork Warden.

They detonated in rapid succession, bursting into sharp shrapnel on impact.

The damage was substantial, but the massive pendulum swinging at the center of the warden’s chest still moved—if only barely.

Xay teleported directly in front of it, focusing his mind as he gathered mana and aura into the palm of his hand.

In one fluid motion, he thrust his palm forward and struck the bell-shaped end with *Tranquil Palm*.

***Tranquil Palm (Striker Sphere)** - Focus mind and deliver a concentrated, mana-infused palm strike that scales with aura.*

An internal shockwave rippled through the Clockwork Warden, radiating outward from its core.

The pendulum shattered, fracturing into tiny metal pieces as the entire construct crumbled and disintegrated into a swirling cloud of essence.

Xay remained suspended in the air for a moment, staring down at his palm in silence.

At the instant of impact, he had felt the technique’s power reach deep inside the construct, tearing through it from within.

He was suddenly grateful he hadn’t tried using it during his spar with Rox.

*Tranquil Palm* was extremely dangerous.

It would’ve ripped through her defenses and assaulted her from the inside out.

She was probably tough enough to survive it a few times—but this was clearly a killing technique, not something meant for a friendly spar or blowing off steam.

The technique was fairly advanced, though, so he knew there was more to it than met the eye.

For one, it almost felt as if his intent to destroy the monster as quickly as possible had been carried into the attack itself.

And secondly, he still didn’t know what would’ve happened if his palm hadn’t made direct contact.

The first was harder to test or prove, but he was certain he’d have an answer to the second before the day was over.

Lexi’s clapping and Tyra’s cheers snapped Xay out of his musing.

“Show off!” Lexi shouted from below, laughing.

Xay floated down to the floor, where Dragon was already waiting to lick his face. She remembered just how difficult that battle had been the first time.

It had taken a coordinated group effort.

He gently shooed her off with a grin, and the group made their way toward the white exit portal that appeared at the center of the room.

They passed the loot workbench without stopping, choosing to let their rewards accumulate until the very end.

Xay glanced around at his team. “One down, and nine more to go,” he said, stepping through the portal to the next floor.