The morning came quickly. I was the first to wake only find Liliandra slumped over her staff sitting on the wardrobe it was probably best to let her keep sleeping at least until everyone else woke up unsure on what to do with this small amount of free time I started scrolling through all the files on my tablet organizing them into color coded folders. I eventually stumbled onto a file labeled monster guide. I opened it scrolling through tell I found the Skreen and the Beadbiters. It was in alphabetical order and organized by rank which was helpful however the entry ended around mid-city rank. I'd have to ask Sophia about that. I bet there are even more volumes. My thoughts drifted to the night before and how Liliandra, Sophia,and Douge were all town rank. It made sense why they would be sent after a nest of village rank monsters but why did Valder put me in this team.

  [Skill: Mark Of The Void]

  I stared at that one skill contemplating. Valder knew Sophia had the Mark Of The Light. Is that why he pushed me towards her? Everything at the academy felt planned. I doubt he could have predicted Kenji would create the element syrup and then make this weapon but maybe that was his intention to put me close to Kenji, a boy who was being bullied and who met some unknown criteria. If he had access to my file from the military academy he would know how I would react to somebody like Douge picking on someone like Kenji.

  The memory was clear. My parents had both just been killed.murdered in cold blood by someone from the slums. The funeral service was small, the bare minimum really. Since Xulun city was so packed and a rotting corpses could spell untold disease The city's government had instituted a funeral service free of charge but it was nothing more than a glorified incinerator where you can put your loved ones in and watch them turn to ash. I remember my hands were dripping bloody as I stood over Anthony's limp unconscious body. His jaw was to the side of his head and his collar bone was sticking straight up into the air. He had told me my father was a cheat and deserved what he got. His laughter fucking gods damned his laughter as he spoke. A voice interrupted my thoughts.

  “Rin? Are you okay? You got this axe murderer look on your face?” I looked to see who spoke it was Sophia. She was still halfway in her sleeping baby rubbing her eyes as she looked at me.

  “ Yeah, just a bad memory.” I said coldly

  “ I'm here to talk if you need it. I know I haven't been the best person to you these past couple of days, but I do want to make it up.” She pulled herself from the sleeping back to stretch groaning as she did so. She spotted Liliandra who was still passed out. She had moved from her staff to the floor, her back curled against the wardrobe.

  “ Thanks but I'm fine.” I could feel my face form a smile but I didn't feel the emotions behind it. Sophia returned the smile and walked over to her pile of gear grabbing her new sword. Pointing the tip out to me.

  “ Come on, let's practice your swordsmanship. I noticed you use less mana or ummm shell mana? To produce your blades it will be a good way to conserve your ammunition.”

  I grumbled but complied pulling her old sword from my inventory.

  Sophia and I spared for about an hour before Douge finally woke, Liliandra slowly following. My chest was sore from the sparring session and I had a fresh trickle of blood staining my shirt. Liliandra groggily sat down on her sleeping bag. Yawning

  “Okay you two let's look at those wounds.” Her eyes were still closed as she swayed back and forth. Douge was the first one to get checked on. All the wounds were healed leaving fresh pink flesh behind. Liliandra nodded happily with his recovery.

  “ It always amazes me what someone with an increased constitution can do. Rin I see that fresh blood let me see it. I sat pulling my shirt off what was once a large hole was now pink flesh with a small tear leaking blood.

  “ That's not bad, I don't think your body can handle healing magic anymore so we will just use some synthetic flesh to cover it up.” Liliandra reached into her dimensional storage bag pulling out a tool that didn't look too unsimilar to my stitching gun. She placed it against the tear and a blue light pulsed out. I could feel a warm ooze-like substance pressing against my flesh. The light hardened the ooze till it became like an elastic band. Sophia had been preparing breakfast while Douge and I got our check up. She finished around the same time and started hanging out bowls of oatmeal with some freshly cut up bananas. I took the bowl from her staring at it then at her.

  “Oatmeal? Like actually oatmeal, not just some oats soaked in water. This is actual oatmeal with sugar and flavoring.” I said Sophia just shrugged.

  “ Sue me, I like oatmeal.” Liliandra leaned over and spoke but loud enough everyone could hear.

  “ She keeps a whole box of the instant packets in her bag.”

  “Liliandra!” Sophia's face turned red as a tomato. Douge and I shared a look and burst into laughter. Once Douge and I had calmed down we got down to the nitty gritty business. We began discussing what our next move was. According to Sophia a rift could have multiple floors according to reports she had read while in the academy a rift could range from one to one hundred floors. Typically teams of City rankers would be sent in to assess the average strength of the monsters inside if it was determined safe for lower rank adventurers large raiding parties should be sent in along with material recovery teams. Xulun had sensors that could detect fully formed Rifts and it was likely we could be rescued in a few days. But none of us knew whether we were on the first floor or not. If we are still on the first floor of the rift, we could find the exit and leave through there. However, if we somehow ended up deeper. We would have to fight our way to the end even if rescue came, we would still have to go on a journey with them to the final floor. By the end of it, we decided to spend the day searching around for an entrance if we could find it. Then we can just walk out and head back to the city. However, if we were unable to find an entrance that would confirm our suspicion of being at least one floor deeper than the first floor.

  We left the safety of our cavern. The only exit was a large tunnel so we decided to follow that until we could come across a crossroad. It wasn't long before we encountered our first monster. The beast was a long slug-like creature at least six feet long. Every foot along its body was a segment with two long tentacle-like appendages that trailed behind it; each tentacle was at least five to six feet long. Douge stopped us, placing his shield down in front of us. Everyone leaned in behind it.

  “Any idea what that is, I've never seen it.” Sophia asked if I was already scrolling through the monster guide looking for it. Thankfully the monster hadn't noticed us yet and was just laying in the tunnel.

  “ Found it. It's called a Hiru. Huh I thought it was a slug but says here it's a leech monster..high village rank when they evolve they split into two leeches and become town rank a colony of Hiru can fuse together to create what is known as a Hirumass if that happens the simple village rank monsters will turn into a high town rank almost city rank.”I said

  “ Got it, don't let them become a mass.” Douge said

  With the monster being so weak Sophia and I worked on our coordination. The two of us would move opposite each other attacking from separate angles only striking once Douge used his mana to aggro the monster. Sophia would pick the spoilt to strike, cutting in deep and I would follow up cutting into the same place leaving a deep gash in the shape of an X. The Hiru tentacles became a problem very quickly, whipping around Douge's shield to hit him on the back or attack Liliandra. Sophia and I systematically begin to cut off each tentacle. While Liliandra prepared a debuff spell. The moment it was done a white most spread across the battle tiny water droplets landed on the leech leaving burning welts. Once the Hiru was dead it was nothing more than a pile of bloody flesh.

  While Sophia extracted the mana crystals from its body I went to talk with Liliandra.

  “ What kind of spell was that?” I asked.

  “ A simple one. It's typically designed to rust out automaton type monsters. I use wind to aerosolize the water creating a fine mist. I use water magic to produce a high salt content solution. Normally salty water wouldn't rust an automaton but the mana used to cast a spell quickly accelerates it. I figured if this monster was a leech then a little salt would hurt it and I was right.” Liliandra smiled up at me. Her voice had gone up an octave with her excitement mentally.

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  “ I had no idea magic could be used like that, but it doesn't really feel like a spell, it just seems like you're manipulating the elements.” what squishing can be heard behind us as Sophia dug deeper into the Hiru.

  “ That's what magic is. We manipulate our elements to create certain effects. Spells are really just a string of the words of command that help us communicate our intentions to the mana. In fact healing magic isn't actually wind and water magic. Most healing spells require you to process the water and wind elements into light elemented magic You could consider it a facsimile of light magic. Kind of like how your magic tool does it.” I nodded my head. This was a lot of information to parse and none of this was covered in any of my classes although I suppose I was never in any class that would focus on magic. Well besides my magic technologies class but that mostly focused on the implementation of magic to overcome the natural physical reality that electronics are restricted by.

  Once Sophia extracted the pale blue crystal she gave it to me and I tossed it into my inventory. We continued our search for an exit. I had used my interface and the tablet to pull up a scratch pad attempting to map out the entire floor. As I was sketching out the cavern we had started in along with the long tunnel where we encountered the Hiru I overheard Douge talking to Sophia.

  “ So you think that demon was sent to assassinate you? By who tho?” Douge had said his armor clinking together as we walked.

  “The cult of the Void.” Sophia respond Douge made a grunting sound.

  “ That hole they think you're the hero of Lumia and will bring an end to their attempts to resurrect their god. What a load of shit. If you're really the hero you would be casting light magic.” Douge said

  “ Yeah they're all crazy anyway so it doesn't really matter what the truth is. What I'm concerned with is in order for them to form this rift they would have had to pay a fortune to some one on Trest not to mention all the money they would have spent on bribes just so they could get the relays on the planet. So you think someone in your family was bribed?” Sophia said.

  “ Not a chance. It's more than likely someone in the government was bribed. They could have easily gotten a ship onto the planet without detection if someone with enough power was bribed, they could have shut down the sensory array or simply bribed the ones monitoring the array. I think it's one of the noble families in Xulun that are backing the cult of the Void on the planet. It was no secret on where we were going for our next contract.” Douge said.

  “Yeah I just. I would hate to throw blame at a family only to be wrong and it backfires.” A drop of slime hit Sophia's shoulder stopping her dead in her tracks. I followed her gaze up. Oh fuck. I thought as a group of five Hirus suddenly dropped down. Douge grabbed Sophia and tossed her to the side. The five monsters all landed around him. It was maybe only two seconds before Sophia responded immediately, drawing her sword and casting what appeared to be a large fireball at the closest one. She began shouting orders.

  “ Liliandra use that spell again, Rin unload and try to get Douge out of there.” I could not see Douge in the mess of Hirus they're thick bodies undulated as their tentacles whipped around in a frenzy. I quickly drew malice switching to an earth elemental shell. If salt burns I might be able to produce salt like I do obsidian and rose quartz. I visualized what salt was in my mind. Tiny little rocks spread across the food to add flavor. I took the mental image of that tiny rock of salt and formed it in my mind turning it into a large bullet shaped salt rock and I pulled the trigger. A white rock blasted a large hole in one of the Hirus segments; the wound started to bubble and pop as the salt burned its flesh. I continued firing, putting as many salt shots as I could into the Hirus. Sophia started carving away. A tentacle shot out towards Liliandra with one swift motion Sophia cut the tentacle in half. That same most spread over the Hirus however it was even more dense then before. The droplets explode the Hirus flesh as they landed against the monster quickly, killing off the rest. Their bodies shriveling up revealing a mound of rocks in the shape of Douge.

  Douge wasn't even hurt. We harvested the mana crystals and moved on being a lot more cautious than before. The next few hours were all the same. Find a pack of Hirus let a Douge grab their attention while Sophia and I remove the tentacles while Liliandra cast her white mist spell. Douge was becoming very good at using his mana to create a threatening Aura. At the start he could only grab the attention of one or two Hirus however by the end of the day he was grabbing whole packs of the monsters.

  We set up camp in another cavern-like room. Douge set up another wall to block off the only entrance I had pulled the tablet out of my inventory and was showing everyone one the map I had made. It was getting hard to keep track as some tunnels lead us over or under other tunnels creating cross sections on the map that didn't actually exist. Each tunnel would lead to a large room that usually ended up in a fight against a large pack of Hirus I would mark the number of monsters we encountered as well as what encounter we were on. Looking at the map in a whole the tunnels created a large concentric set of circles all leading into the center. We had yet to explore the center leaving a large blank space there. Each tunnel that led us to the center ended in a large room where we encountered some of the largest packs of monsters we had seen as well as a second tunnel leading out into the center.. Liliandra was the first to notice the difference and had claimed it felt like a boss room would be down those last tunnels.

  “ I'm confident we ended up deep inside this rift. That center space will most likely have a staircase that leads us further in. I suggest we rest tonight and make our way there tomorrow.” Sophia said she was leaning over me examining the map.

  “ Based on how the number of monsters keeps increasing the closer we get to the center I bet we are gonna encounter the largest group of Hirus we have seen thus far or possibly find a mass down there.” Douge who was cleaning his gear pointed his oil stained rag at Sophia.

  “We should be strong enough and if worse comes to worse we can have Rin use his overclock to over power the monster.” Sophia said

  “ It's gonna be on cooldown for ten more hours but should be ready by the time we get there.” I had to use my overclock in the last encounter. A pack of Hirus had overwhelmed us. there had to be at least twenty of them and more came into the room. Douge was already overwhelmed and couldn't grab the newcomers attention and on Sophia's request I used overclock. The skill allowed me to easily cleave through them ending the encounter pretty fast.

  “ I'm starting to run out of ammunition. If we can find the ingredients on the next floor I'll need to make more shells.” I said Kenji had insisted on giving me the recipe for the alchemical solution. It was easy to make if you had access to the material but down here.

  “What's the recipe?” Liliandra asked.” I might be able to come up with substations.”

  “ Water produced with mana, sulfur, iron dust, and a herb called blood wart” I said reading off the ingredients list on my tablet.

  “ That's easy, have you seen the thin yellow line in the walls? That's sulfur for the iron dust. I'm sure Douge could use his mana to change the rocks he makes into iron ore and we can process it down. As for the Blood wart.” Liliandra contemplated for a second before Sophia spoke up.

  “ What's the Blood wart used for?”

  “ Probably for its high content of the hirudin it's an anticoagulant produced by the herb mostly used in medical applications. It prevents clots and…and.” Liliandra trailed. I could actually see the light bulb in her brain turn on.

  “ Hirudin is actually produced by leeches; the blood wart herbs were genetically created to bypass the need to raise leeches as it was deemed animal cruelty. Sophia while you Carver the Hirus do you ever see a gland?”

  “ Yeah actually I have like fifty of them in my dimensional storage bag. Rin refused to put them in his inventory.” Sophia said as he grabbed her bag digging into it pulling out a pile of blood soaked balls of flesh.” Figuring we could sell them seemed important and the administration will pay good coin for monster parts”

  Once Douge was done collecting the iron dust Liliandra helped me mix all the ingredients together. We had added sulfur and iron together at first however they reacted in an unexpected way forming a compound the interface called iron sulfide. Sophia recommended We add the saliva in-between or at the same time as the iron to prevent the chemical reaction.We were on the final step and it was time to add the saliva from the Hirus and the iron The solution was a murky yellow with the sulfur in it. As we added the sparkling silver salvia and iron at the same time. The solution started to bubble as I looked at Liliandra with a worried look. Liliandra just continued mixing it together with the bottom of her staff. She seemed to think this was a good reaction since no solids had started to form like last time so we kept going. Eventually the water turned from that murky yellow to a vibrant silver. This was a different color then the stuff we used in Mr.Woodickers class however a quick examination with my Interface confirmed our substation worked.

  [ Unstable iron sulfide solution.]

  [This solution has been prevented from forming into Iron sulfide proper leaving it in a state of chemical instability.]

  “Now let's add the crystals it's gonna take all the crystals we've collected so far.” I said walking over to Sophia. She had been laboring away with a make shift mortar and petal that Douge created with his earth magic. She worked surprisingly hard. Every time I learned something about her I had to readjust my own biases. At first I thought she was a stuck up brat but now I can see her for what she really is. A dedicated worker, it didn't seem to matter to her if the work was killing a monster and carving its guts out or grinding rocks for an hour; she did it with little complaints.

  “ I'm almost done, that bucket is all the ones I've finished.” I was worried that not being able to get the accurate weight of both the solution and the crystals powder would mess everything up.

  “ I'd say this comes weighing in at five pounds.” Douge grunted as he set the bucket of solution down.” Minus the weight of the bucket that's thirty pounds.” He picked up the bucket of crystal powder hefting it to his chest a few times. “ fifty pounds of powder.”

  That was the ratio one to ten by weight. With a sigh I had Douge carry the crystal powder over to the alchemical solution and start pouring it in as Liliandra mixed.