The way back down into the Dungeon was much faster than coming up from the 30th floor. One moment Hazel was shouting at him, and the next the world fell away for a couple of seconds before the glaring, desert sun nearly blinded him as his boots hit the dry, dusty red stone of the 1st floor. Wind howled, carrying dust and the scent of ash and in the distance, he could already see a sandstorm approaching.

  Miles stretched his hands above his head as he eyed the Dungeon’s prompt. It’d been a while since he’d seen this place. Decades. Thankfully, even back then, he hadn’t had to face the grueling desert alone and today… well. He expected to be out of here in a few minutes.

  Name: Miles Callahan

  Archetype: Torchbearer

  Dungeon Rank: Master

  Core tier: 30

  Time spent: 0

  Skills:

  The Courier Moves. The World Makes Way (Transcendent)

  My Vault, Wherever and Whenever I Roam (Transcendent)

  The Courier Accepts All (Transcendent)

  Return to Sender (Legendary)

  Safe Extraction (Epic)

  Field Agent Requisition [3 Agents] (Custodial)

  Respawn Protocol [44 Days] (Custodial)

  Soulbound Items:

  Mask of Embers

  Starseeker, the Solar Spear

  Warden's Promise

  The Blooming Cauldron

  Custodial Key

  Unlike his exit from a couple of days ago, he didn’t expect the screen to change much by the time he was done. He didn’t plan to stay long. Two or three days tops, in which he had to reach the deepest floor he could manage.

  “I’ll have to find some shortcuts,” he said, scanning the horizon left and right for clues. He had to find a way down, first. Toward the real 1st floor, and not… this. The rocky desert was only the entrance. And now that he was down here, he could really stretch his legs and get some practice in with his new Skill.

  [The Courier Moves. The World Makes Way]. Fancy name. Let’s aim for 30%, he thought, channeling a thin thread toward the Skill. He had used it a little back in the Custodial room, but that had just been a trickle. He wanted to see what the Skill could do with a little more juice.

  Immediately, a surge of cool, fluid magic flowed out of his chest and down his limbs, filling him with a soft, deep vigor that made him feel like there was just no more restraints on his body. He felt light. Breezy. And as he took the first step forward, the world blurred.

  He had expected some speed and strength. It was supposed to make him resilient as well, considering it had subsumed [Titan’s Hide]. What he hadn’t expected was to literally shoot out across the ground like a cannon and before he could blink, his boot hit a slightly raised boulder and pulverized it into dust.

  Waving the dust away with a grimace, Miles took a few steps back and glanced at his starting point. It was nearly a hundred yards away.

  That’s gonna take a second to get used to, he hummed, looking down at his dusty boot before nodding to himself. This time, he made the mana thread even thinner. He was going to make the most out of these couple of days and get as much practice with the Skill as he could fit.

  ***

  By the time Miles located a fissure leading down, he’d gotten used to up to 30% of the Skill. Already, even in its weakened state it nearly matched any of the previous Skills from which it sprung. At least when it came to his movement speed and he’d expect nothing less out of his resilience and strength. But those would be much harder to push this high up in the Dungeon.

  Leaning over the river-wide canyon, he took a deep inhale and smelled the moisture wafting up. He didn’t really need to smell it either. It was obvious from the flora that set its roots against the harsh walls. Delvers would usually use climbing gear to go down, or they’d work with a Wayfinder—a Seeker specialized in divination—to find one of the safer and more explored routes. Considering the drop point on entry was random, finding a good way down could be a matter of hours or days, if not weeks if one was unlucky enough.

  The fissure Miles was looking down upon was a straight drop down. The powerful gust coming up told him that it likely didn’t have too many branching tunnels.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “Good enough.”

  Standing over the ledge, Miles wound his arms back, and like an Olympic diver, he aimed for the center of the fissure and jumped. It took five seconds for him to hit one of the walls.

  “Wheee,” he laughed, boot skidding against the wall as his fingers dug into the rock, mildly slowing his drop. Occasionally, the wall would disappear and he’d get a few seconds of free fall before the rock would come back and he’d slow down once more. While he would have been capable of this even without the reinforcement the Skill was providing, it made it so that he wasn’t even feeling any of the pain. Not even when his fingers would catch on minerals or crystals embedded into the stone.

  Pulverized stone and dust were falling around him, the stuff he himself had dislodged, but it couldn’t threaten him either. It was just a little annoying. By now, his environment was nearly pitch-black, though he could see just fine. This area had none of the glowing mushrooms that the popular routes had but if his estimations were right, he should be hitting one of the caves any time now, at which point he needed to find one of the rivers and follow it down to the lake.

  Even underpowered, it’s already matching [Titanhide] in how tough it’s making me. Even though that one had been Epic-rank, he mused, tuning down the Skill a little bit as he continued his descent. His new Skill was ranked as Transcendent by the Dungeon, which was, in a way, a side evolution to Epic. Unlike the Common and Rare ranks, Epic Skills could upgrade to either Legendary or Transcendent. Then Legendary Skills could become Transcendent.

  A hiss rang out as he passed by some wide opening in the wall, and he barely had a fraction of a second to see a pair of glowing yellow eyes before he was gone, probably annoying a local monster on the way before going back to his train of thoughts.

  Legendary Skills, when compared to Epic, were usually a substantial power up. If it’s a Skill that hits hard, it now hits even harder. But Transcendent Skills were about breaking the rules. In their raw power, they could be as weak—if one could call it that—as an Epic Skill, or as powerful as a Legendary. But they often had something about them that made them special.

  For example, his [Return To Sender] was Legendary. It allowed him to send any projectile or spell back to their senders, so long as he could stomach the cost. It was pretty straightforward. On the other hand, [The Courier Accepts All], one of his Transcendent Skills, would allow him to just ‘accept’ the projectile thrown at him and package them into a stasis-effect. He could even take in people, if he considered them a parcel to be picked up, which was something he had to work on for a bit and which also came with its own sets of complications. But that resulting parcel? He could store it in his other Transcendent Skill. [My Vault, Wherever and Whenever I Roam]. Which, while its offensive capabilities were a little reduced, was one of the core abilities of his kit. He basically had a limitless space at his disposal to store anything and everything he wanted. A space he could access anytime, any place. Even through the loops.

  Miles put a pin on that line of thought and eyed the wall against which he was sliding. It was getting slimier with moss and mold, so he must be getting close. And a couple of seconds later, his assumptions were confirmed.

  Miles’s eyes widened as finally, the fissure spat him out in a wide, dark and damp cavern. He slammed on the ground hard, soon followed by a shower of dust and rocks. Looking down at his hand, he cut off his Skill. Even though he’d kept his use low, he’d eaten nearly twenty percent of his core, and he wasn’t recovering fast up here.

  “Great Skill,” he whispered as he gazed about. All that was to say, while his new Skill was powerful, he wasn’t seeing the Transcendent aspect of it just yet. It might take him a moment to find its limit. But that’s gonna be a subject for another time. For now, he took in the cave. He could see a few of the glowing mushrooms glowing in clumps here and there, and as he peered around for a tunnel or a way leading down, he heard an echoing hiss coming from behind, and he turned.

  A few yards away, was a tunnel. The hiss had come from there, so without wasting any time, Miles sauntered toward it.

  If he was lucky, it’d be a mini-boss, which would award him a shortcut to the 2nd floor.

  No wonder the Surveyors have to hold their checkpoints at the Surface’s exit. Imagine trying to control traffic in the floors with shortcuts around, he thought as he took his first step into the tunnel, then he paused, recalling the fact that he was back in the Dungeon.

  He could activate the loop. In fact, he probably should, considering he had at it his disposal. If nothing bad happened, then he can just disable it before leaving.

  “Yeah. Probably a good idea,” he hummed as he took a step back. Then taking a second to take a good look around and make sure no ones watching, Miles let out a slow breath and spoke the words in his mind.

  [Respawn Protocol]

  If Transcendent Skill broke the rules, then Custodial Skills took those rules, dumped water over them, mushed them together, dried them, set them on fire, then spread their ashes before spitting in their general direction.

  The Skill activated. A pulse spread out of his chest, and it was echoed by the air all around of him. His spirit buzzed as threads he could barely sense spread out of him, linking his consciousness, spirit, and body to this exact point in space and time and forcing a groan out of his throat as nearly all of his mana was burnt away. But it wasn’t done.

  Cracking his eyes open, Miles watched as the fiendishly complex circle burned with golden light, illuminating the damp cavern and slowly brightening further as it pulled on the ambient mana. The threads—that he could now see with his eyes open, grew brighter as well, matching the glow of the circle. Miles waited, slightly annoyed that the Skill took all of his mana and nearly a minute later, there was one more pulse, and then—

  It extinguished. The cave was dark once more as the mana deprived space refilled again. The threads disappeared from sight, though he could still sense them, and if he were to pull on them strongly enough, he’d be back here.

  Miles hummed. It had taken a lot longer than he was used to, though that was probably because of the low amount of mana up here.

  But at least it’s active, he thought as he shook the tension off of his shoulder and reached into his storage before plucking a little glowing purple vial. Turning it in his hand, he found his own little sticker with grade-20 scribbled on it. It would bring him to at least 25% of his reserves.

  “That should do for now…” he mumbled, uncorking it and downing the tingling liquid down in one gulp before he glanced back through his Vault’s interface.

  Alright, I still have around 300 vials of the grade-20. And 500 and change of the grade-25. I should be set for a while, and eventually, I’ll have to make some grade-30s, but I’ll need to explore the 31st floor and what comes after, he thought as he dismissed the interface and turned his attention back to the tunnel as he cracked his neck.

  With all that taken care of, he stepped into the darkness, with his return point active and his mana quickly refilling.

  Now, whatever happened, he could start over, and as his steps echoed and as the unsuspecting monster at the end of the tunnel grew more agitated, Miles wondered how Lott was doing with the tasks he’d left him with.

  He hoped for some good news by the time he was back up. And he hoped that by the time he left the Dungeon, the mana in the Custodial room would have improved. After all, that was the main reason why he was down here. To see if the depth attained could affect the notches in the stele and the mana it funneled.

  Miles came out into wide, bright cave full of glowing mushrooms, creeping up the walls and within the large pond at the edge out of the space, a smooth, moist head of a pale flesh-colored salamander hissed at him, pulling itself out of its pool, its warning mixing with the sloshing water in the quiet cave.

  Activating his newest Skill at 10%, he rolled his shoulders as he approached the creature. "Also to work on the new Skill, I guess. And to get ingredients for the core elixirs for Aunt Seren," he listed, tilting his head as he eyed the big beastie. Its wet feet splashed on the moss-covered soil as it stomped toward him, angered at its territory being intruded upon. It was nearly ten feet tall and probably thirty or forty feet long. Behind it, he could see the soft golden glow of a secret passage within the pond. Though by now, the monster seemed to sense that something was wrong and, after stopping its posturing, took its first step backward.

  A grin spread across his lips. He'd found both the ingredients he needed and a passage to the 2nd floor already.

  "Should be a fun couple of days," he chuckled.

  max.

  Chapter 1:

  Chapter 2:

  Chapter 3:

  Chapter 4:

  Chapter 5: