You know how they say that time seems to stretch and slow down when adrenaline takes over? When the threat of death, or of losing something dear to you makes your mind go into overdrive?

  Well, call me strange but never in my life had something like this happened to me. I got into hundreds of fights–most of them I won easily, but there had been a few where I was losing. Hard. Others, several of them, where my steel pipe was met with the cold iron of a gun.

  When you stare at the barrel of a gun, or that of a rifle aimed at your face, you’d think that those slowing down instincts would activate. They never did.

  When the wolf, whatever was left of Roger the researcher, pounced on Liff I thought that perhaps they’d finally show up. Once in my lifetime, I would have loved to experience the boost in brain ability that comes from the sense of a fight.

  No such thing happened. In fact, it was as if it all happened so quickly that only afterwards did I realize what I had done. I felt something change within me, right as I raised a hand in impotence, almost as if I had telekinetic powers and could stop a wolf that was like a train with my mind.

  By the time the change registered, the wolf was buried by tens of thousands of tons of the blackest stone I had ever seen. As I was saying, it all happened so quickly that I couldn’t even make sense of it as it happened.

  Only later did I realize. My Stone element had evolved. I had something else flowing in my inner Sanctum’s walls, and its name surfaced to the forefront of my mind as I ran to Liff.

  Blackstone.

  Then a light washed over me, and I was transported out.

  ***

  “That’s it?” Michael asked, one eyebrow raised, “that’s like the most underwhelming climax ever in the story of climaxes. Did the dungeon troll you?”

  The look in David’s eyes was dead serious. “I’m not done with that place, Michael.”

  The young man sighed, “I knew you wouldn’t be. How could you be, after this finale?”

  David rummaged with his hands in his pockets for a moment, then produced a vial of clear green liquid. Its ends were steel caps screwed in, looking like Michael imagined the strange analogic technology of his mentor’s challenge floor must have looked.

  “This was my reward,” David said.

  “I see. At least you didn’t walk out empty handed. Although I must say, your power-up is neat. Why aren’t you in a hurry?”

  The last question jarred David for a moment, reminding the old man of the fact that the young Michael in front of him was no longer the same young naive fool who had walked into his pawn shop. In fact, he doubted Michael was even all that young anymore, with all the time he spent in that Valley of his. It couldn’t be good for him. Magic might keep him looking young, but spending so much time there, estranged from the world…

  “Liff will be fine for a while. She’s a strong girl, there’s plenty of food and there’s no danger to her there anymore.”

  “Time might even be frozen while you aren’t there,” Michael added.

  “I’m not going to test that theory. I planned to go back as soon as I was done here.”

  “You want to save Liff.”

  “I want to save Liff,” David repeated.

  “You know I will not say no to that, but she will be your responsibility.”

  “Of course,” David said after the barest moment of hesitation, almost as if he had expected to hear something slightly different. “Give this vial to Doctor Kavins, please. He’ll know what to do with it.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Michael chuckled, “what, you thought I would just let you go down there by yourself? You have been spit out by the dungeon, do you think you can just waltz your way back in?”

  “That was my plan,” said David, scratching his head. “I’ll force my way back there if I have to.”

  Michael got up, “no doubts about that. Good thing you have me; I’m quite interested in that Witch of yours, and in her shield technology. Who knows, it might give me the insight I need to finally develop my own version of it.”

  David got up himself. The blackstone seat crumbled to dust, but Michael did not fail to notice the groans of pain as the old man got up. When he was transported out of the second floor by the dungeon, all his injuries had disappeared. Michael had done a thorough check with his skills to confirm that there was no lasting damage, but the fact remained that David’s body was failing.

  He looked at the vial, then at David. The man was already walking towards the stairs leading out of the Valley. Right now, Liff was more important than even the promise of having his youth restored. With a nod, Michael followed.

  ***

  Michael sat under the shade of a large oak. He was back at the Valley, after a long and trying time spent in the other version of the second floor of the dungeon. In the end, they had extracted Liff from her nightmarish life in the village, but not without paying a great price for it. The WITCH artificial intelligence was still there, now delirious, haunting the hallways of the underground research facility of the Landfall program.

  With a shake of his head, Michael snapped his fingers. A small sphere appeared above his palm, like a tiny soap bubble of iridescent energies. Within the layers of moving magic, the little currents that scattered the light and made the shield look like actual soap, tiny glyphs were written in runescript. The shift that finally allowed Michael to succeed in developing a shield spell was realizing that limiting the energy Tier output to only mana–Tier one–was sheer hubris.

  By allowing the runes in the shield to access Qi–even though he was sure that the OA had managed to get their shield running without using any Qi–he finally managed to stabilize the structure and allow the shield to manifest.

  Getting up, he dismissed the small bubble. He watched it vanish into nothingness, save for a faint trace of magic only his eyes could see. The bubble had stayed in place as he had gotten up, still unable to follow his movements, but that’s why he had not yet allowed the skill fractal to snap into place in his sanctum. The system had tried to make it into a skill many times already, and every time Michael had denied it.

  Now standing, he built a much more complex set of runescript carvings and with another snap of his fingers, he made the cocoon of Qi that always surrounded him vanish. The outside world rushed at him like an evil entity, assaulting his senses and immediately making his brain flare up in pain. Fighting through the headache, he moved onto the second phase of his experiment.

  Around him, a thin layer of energy much more durable than his makeshift cocoon appeared. The world receded back to where it belonged, although the sensation was akin to watching it through a glass bubble. He dialed the settings a bit more until he found the right strength for the shield, then moved a step.

  He slammed his nose into solid magic.

  Cursing, he let go of the shield and went over the runescript again. In the end, it took a couple dozen tries to finally see the long awaited message.

  [Magic Manipulation] reaches level 13.

  “Not this one,” he sighed. He dismissed the shield, letting the energy flow back into his Sanctum where it coalesced into a brand new fractal.

  You created a new Uncommon skill: [Shield].

  “Now we’re talking, pull up the skill description.”

  [Uncommon - Shield 1]

  “Uhm, system? Where’s the description?”

  There was no answer, of course. After a moment spent gathering himself, Michael pulled up his phone and tapped the Icarus app icon.

  “Icarus, diagnostics mode.”

  “Of course,” said the AI. The look of the app changed from its normal black text over white background to something completely different. Now it was a mass of numbers, letters and strange glyphs in a language nobody–not even Johanne–could understand.

  They didn’t even know Icarus had such a capability. In fact, Icarus only got the upgrade after Michael returned from the other version of the second floor. The reason the Witch AI was incoherent was simple: she wasn’t there anymore. What was left was a hollow shell, while the rest of her now lived inside Icarus.

  Only Michael knew. David simply thought that the Witch had gone mad after Liff was taken away. And only Michael knew that Icarus could now do magic, and interpret it much better than a standard Iron-ranked human and perhaps better than even him.

  “Can you see my magic?” asked Michael. “You should have permission.”

  “Diagnostics mode active. Link is active. What are we looking for, Michael?”

  “Is my system breaking down or something? I got a new skill but it’s only showing its name and level, no flavor text and no description.”

  “Let me see,” said Icarus. Compared to his normal mode, his voice expressed emotions that were vast and deep. He thought for a long while, making sounds that were oddly human, until he hummed. “I do see some deterioration. You have been abusing it for a while, Michael. I think it may have started to break down when you forced the Unity skill to go off the beaten path. I will leave a thread of myself active to investigate the issue.”

  “Good,” said Michael with a nod, “you do that. The moment you find something, let me know. I don’t like the idea of a deteriorating system inside of me.”