Magical Engineering

We spent the next few weeks in and out of the simulator, trying run after run against the giant man, never getting any closer to victory. It was a fun diversion, and actually let me practice more of my skills in a way I hadn’t gotten to before. The cores and I managed to come up with several routines where we managed to work our magic well together, and while the effects were impressive, they did little damage or much else against our opponent.

Pryte had let me know he was likely a member of the Divine Dynasty as they had had a new squad on the floor with us, but he wasn’t sure who it could be. He had been a bit surprised at the idea of anyone quite so strong on the floor, and even more so that we had yet to beat him over repeated attempts.

With the further floors locked out until I beat this one again, that had stalled some of my planned growth as well. I had tried laying low a few times, similar to our initial path, to see if that would work, but we still seemed to attract the man’s attention just by existing long enough. I figured it had something to do with our relative strength and his interest in fighting stronger opponents.

That was why I was now trying out a run in some of the other dungeons we had faced in an attempt to find some higher experience. As I had never technically beaten the Basement of Shadow, that was my current destination. All Elody, the brothers, and I had ever done was defeat the boss. We had never bothered with a full exploration or searching for loot, and I was curious on if that would allow for completed quests within the simulator or not.

“Okay, the second we enter that room, I believe we are about to be surrounded by shadows. I’m not entirely sure how to kill them yet, so let’s start there and see where we can get,” I said to the cores floating around me.

We were standing in the room where the elevators had deposited us in my first experience in the dungeon. I had turned on no extra modifiers, so I could get an idea where the creatures were compared to me now. If I remembered right, the next room would be the staircase that would lead us to the bottom of the archives.

“For the Empire!” Beta said loudly. None of the other cores spoke.

Opening the door, I stepped into the next room, and just as expected, shadow creatures swarmed the walls around us. Unlike last time, we didn’t have Elody and her light magic to assist, but on the other hand, I had access to a lot more magic of our own now. And after a couple of small blasts of fire, it seemed that was enough to take down the ones in here.

“Well, that was easy enough, but there’s still a boss at the bottom, and a lot more shadows coming up,” I said as I started down the stairs.

We had poked our way through every door, killing shadows as we descended. So far, I had found nothing new, just a lot of empty space and more of the formless masses ready to swipe at us. Not a single one had been able to pierce our shields on this descent. Had they really seemed so strong the first time we passed through? It was probably time to try my hand at all the simulation dungeons again, just to see where I could push myself the most.

“I believe the only thing left is the final room,” Corey’s manifested form said as the cores circled us, more shadows fading away as we reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Yeah, looks that way. Elody didn’t have a lot of issues with the boss, so I’m guessing we won’t either, but let’s try to win this one. We’ve been on a long losing streak,” I said.

“But it has been fun!” Gamma yelled in reply. I couldn’t argue with that. It had been fun.

Moments after walking through the door into the final room, the figure of the man who had attacked me in the sub-basements appeared. “Strange, who are you that surrounds yourself with dungeon cores?” the man asked.

I had been wondering how this would work. This dungeon core had been much more intelligent than most of them, and I wasn’t sure if the System would be capable of simulating that intellect or not. I had no idea of the extent to which the simulations were able to learn and adapt as we fought them either. Generally, they didn’t last long enough, or I didn’t last long enough to find out.

“Hey, I’m Dave. Remember when you tried to kill me?” I asked.

“No, was it my host?” they asked in return. Ah, so it still thought it was a dungeon core, interesting.

“Check the room for anything of interest,” I said to the cores before looking back at the simulated core host. “Yes, but that doesn’t really matter now.”

“Why do the dungeon cores listen to you?” they asked again as the tools zoomed into the nooks and crannies of the room, each quickly returning with nothing in tow.

“Because they had the chance to grow and learn, and sadly, that wasn’t possible for you,” I said as I fired a large blast of fire at the figure.

It dodged.

Just as I readied more fire, a wave of darkness engulfed the shield around me. Everything went dark. Even more surprising, the temperature within my shield rapidly dropped to a point I could feel it.

“Take the boss out now!” I yelled through chattering teeth, hoping we weren’t about to lose yet another simulation.

Several loud bangs accompanied the blackness over my shield vanishing. I saw Alpha malleting away at the thing’s head, to no avail, while Beta left giant slashes across its front. Gamma was floating slightly back and launching lightning bolts at it. I wasn’t sure how much progress they were making, but it had been enough to distract it from focusing on me.

I reversed the gravity under its feet, causing it to crash with a loud thud into the ceiling above. Just as it fell back to the ground, a chat window popped into my view, but I quickly dismissed it as now was not the time for that. The moment the figure hit the ground, I was on it with several more fireballs, matching Gamma’s lightning bolts. I could feel Corey rapidly cycling mana orbs to keep the needed mana flowing. Finally, the room went black and an experience notice popped up.

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