Michael realized, on the way back to the dungeon, that not even a few minutes passed in the real world before he somehow ended up going back to the dungeon yet again. Despite his claims that he should take it easy, he just couldn’t help himself sometimes, and things like the aberrations in the biolab—contaminated by strange energies that did not come from Site 00—as well as other rumors about things starting to move in the wider world made sure that he never really felt like slowing down was an option.

  If anything, he should be speeding up. Despite Travis’ grand talk, Unity corporation was quickly reaching operational capacity, and once it did only people like him and a small part of the upper management could make a difference.

  “It should be expected,” Travis said with a long sigh, “we are already squeezing more out of this organization than anyone would have thought possible. Magic or no magic.”

  Michael nodded. “That’s why we can’t really slow down.”

  “That’s my man,” Travis said smugly, “you are finally starting to see it.”

  They reached the treehouse a few minutes later. The sun was high and warm above the Valley, somewhere in the fake dome of the sky, but the temperatures were milder than they were in the outside world. It was always pleasant in the Valley, making it the perfect place to relax and unwind. Despite the hurry, the duo enjoyed a banquet with the Fae before doing anything, the meaning of time losing most of its value inside the dungeon. Only afterwards, with the last light of the setting sun dyeing the upper deck of the treehouse orange, did they sit down to work.

  Fireflies were just coming out, little spirits of magic and light Element streaming up from the forest floor to dwell in its canopy during the night.

  “Alright, I’m going to begin.”

  Michael sat cross legged on a tree stump, balancing his weight with the preternatural grace that comes with increased stats. The shield surrounding him dimmed and vanished, allowing his pool of Qi to start recharging after a long time spent on empty. It had doubled as good training, now that his Qi pool was no longer tied to his mana.

  “Watch carefully,” he added, “you can only see with your magic vision what happens to me on the outside, but I still think it can be a good insight for you.”

  “Of course,” Travis said with a nod, “I’m honored you chose me for this.”

  Michael rolled his eyes. “You were just closer at hand and David is otherwise occupied. Now shush.”

  With that, he sunk into his sanctum. The infinite wall of stone where all his skills were etched, taking the form of infinitely complex fractals of grooves and lines in the stone, manifested before him. The Sanctum was like a cavern, even though it didn’t follow the conventional laws of space and direction, making the wall with the fractals feel like an infinite plane when seen from up close.

  After a moment of consideration, Michael approached the first fractal he wanted to get rid of. He acted quickly: slashing at it with a sword made of pure Intent and something else mixed in, something that felt like it came from the depths of his Sanctum where the soul resided.

  You have Sundered the Rare skill: Voice of Command

  “Huh,” he hummed, “that’s new. Icarus, are you recording this?”

  The AI could not manifest in Michael’s sanctum, and not for a lack of trying, but it still managed to communicate a faint “yes.”

  He decided to continue. Aura Masking was next. Just like with Voice of Command, it felt too situational to keep as a full Skill all the time, especially when he could reinstate it with just a thought and some concentration. In the heat of a battle, neither of the two skills would be very useful: there were better ways to distract someone with Aura pressure than to issue a command that would have questionable efficacy, and masking was only useful when escaping.

  Then Michael turned his attention to the Presence skill.

  “Aura can do this and more, all by itself,” he said with a shake of his head. Not to mention the Truth facet of the Unity skill.

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  “And Marksman… I just don’t use guns all that much.”

  With that, the easy decisions were over. Looking at Distortion Field, he hesitated to Sunder it. It had been one of his first skills, and even though—just like the others—it would always remain a thought away from being whole, it felt wrong to sunder it. There was potential there, to do something with it now that Michael also had the Shield skill.

  He decided to keep it, together with Okinawan Mastery, which he felt like deserved more attention before getting rid of it. He felt much lighter than he had in a long time, and there was no rush to sunder all his skills in a single session. Many hours were passing in the Valley, and he wondered whether Travis had stuck around or if the man had gone to do some plotting and scheming.

  Before leaving, though, he decided to Sunder one last skill.

  “Foul Water Bullet…” he tasted the words in his mouth, “revolting to say the least. But useful beyond belief.”

  He shook his head. “If there’s one benefit to being powerful, it's that I get to choose.”

  He sundered it. The moment he did so, he felt something, like a faint echo of a sensation escaping the scar that was once the skill’s fractal representation. Different from what he felt when he sundered the others, this time the sensation almost had an Elemental feel to it.

  He hummed in thought. “Could it be the element of Foul Water? But, so far I never managed to extract an Element from a skill. What gives? Why this and not the others? Is it because it’s a mutated Element?”

  He followed the sensation, playing around with the fractal. Sadly, reinstating a Sundered fractal and then Sundering it again did nothing. The sensation was gone, present only in memory as an elusive magical taste, a lead that could be followed with great patience and persistence.

  Evanescent, right now the lead refused to go anywhere. Especially because something else caught Michael’s attention, jolting him back to the real world. Travis was there, looking sharp.

  “Sundered skills degrade!” shouted Michael. “Fuck.”

  “Good morning to you,” shot back Travis, “do you know how long you spent sitting on that stump?”

  “Don’t care. The sundered skills degrade!”

  “How?” the man was immediately operational, “can’t you just reinstate them to nourish them? You said they can also level up again?”

  “And it looks like, I think, that when they level up they get repaired a little bit. But the thing is that every time I sunder a skill, it loses a tiny bit of its potential. It stays broken, so to speak.”

  “And a broken skill…?”

  “Is less effective, less adaptive, harder to use and abuse and, most importantly, harder to level up. Sure, when it does it gets repaired a little bit, but not completely. If I sunder a skill too much, it might even devolve, become unusable.”

  “Ah,” said Travis, “there goes your free exploit.”

  Michael said nothing. Travis looked like he wanted to say something, but hesitated.

  “I was wondering,” he said in the end, seemingly unable to resist the urge, “why don’t you just try to fuse the skills together instead of Sundering them? It would free up some space, and some of them are similar enough that maybe you could get a higher Tier skill out of it.”

  Michael inhaled, biting his tongue, but the look on Travis’ face made him explode. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think I never tried? Did you ever try to merge your cards? Was it easy by any means?” he breathed, “Skills, even at Common Rarity or Tier One, are infinitely complex fractals. It only gets worse the higher up you go. There might be an automatic merging system, much like the rarity evolution, but if there is I haven’t found it yet.”

  “Can’t you do it manually?”

  Michael cocked his head, “I know I’m talented, but how am I supposed to merge two infinity shapes together by hand? It’s not like I can just smash them together and hope for the best.”

  Even as he spoke, his mind returned to the sensation of sundering the Foul Water Bullet fractal. Perhaps what he was saying wasn’t correct, and he was getting stuck in wrong idea loops again.

  Then the sensation vanished again, leaving only frustration behind.

  “You know, maybe I’m wrong here. Maybe I can just… smash them together, woo a new skill into being. It wouldn’t be the first time something odd happens, and the more I learn the more I come to believe that magic is much more holistic than we thought. If you have the right framework, at least, and again my condition seems to be special in that regard. Rules become more like guidelines. What you say does have merit, even though not in the way you meant to say it.”

  Travis nodded, “always happy to help. Let me know if what you find can be applied to Cards as well, I would like a power-up or two myself.”

  “Earn them and you shall have them,” Michael said as parting words. It didn’t faze the other man, who simply nodded and walked away.

  Michael wondered if perhaps motivation was the last thing Travis needed, but it was too late to go back on his word.

  “Whatever, I’m tired of the outside world already.”

  He turned around, and for the third time in a row approached the dungeon entrance with the intention of spending a long time there. The objective was Floor Five, a good way to get his mind off of things, punch some monsters, and come out more powerful. Power always helps, and maybe he could even get some more insights into the nature of magic.