Hector didn’t immediately agree to Conrad’s request. The two of them added each other as contacts through the System interface. That would allow them to leave messages for each other – not directly through the System, unfortunately, but any public computer would let them do so. It was how he got in touch with his current teammates to ask for a meeting in the lobby.

  “Some guy cims to be Jinn special forces and you just believe him?” Zelda was skeptical, to say the least.

  “I’m supposed to be the one gathering allies, Hector.”

  “Sorry, Rod.”

  “Can I get another thousand credits?”

  Hector ignored the request for funds. He wouldn’t let Rodrick starve, but he thought learning about frugality might be good for his friend. Or at least less video games and massages. “Conrad pns to do another dungeon run in the next week.”

  Zelda’s eyes went wide. “We are not ready, Hector. We still have more than a month of preparations before we need to make a run.” The ‘preparations’ she spoke of meant restoring energy. Hector still didn’t know what he thought of the Arahant situation. It seemed manifestly unfair that they passively recharged so long as they had a good reputation. Then again, who was he to compin about unfairness when he had a cheat code for cosmic energy?

  “Then you shouldn’t go yet,” Hector said.

  Zelda was never slow on the uptake. “You shouldn’t go either.”

  “I’m ready, Zelda. When we fought together before, I had no body enhancement, a weaker aura, and an almost unusable domain. I’m so much better now. I have about seventy percent energy reserves right now. In a few days I can have that full. I can even schedule a rest day before going in.”

  “I thought you were making good progress, Hector. You don’t need to rush into this.”

  He chose his words carefully, not wanting to make it seem like his friends were holding him back, even though that was how it had begun to feel to him. “The System gives me those survey results to show my progress. It’s extremely motivating, but I don’t know what those numerical increases mean. I want to fight.”

  Rodrick frowned mightily. “But you’re our teammate.”

  “Of course I am. That’s not changing. Think of this as me scouting the dungeon in advance.”

  They argued with him for an hour. Halfway through they moved from the lobby to the cafeteria. Finally, they conceded that it was his choice. Following that lunch, Hector switched his schedule to revolve around chaos cultivation.

  He still did traditional cultivation with his aura and mind, but those were only used when his externality became exhausted from transforming chaos. The mental strengthening and domain practice he cut out altogether. They cost energy at a time when his efforts were directed towards filling his reserves. The gym session and daily run he continued. They might not produce much benefits comparable to the time he invested in them, but Hector had dearly missed his fitness routine while desperately hopping between worlds and then cooped up on War Barge Kevin. Exercise was more than a hobby or a routine to him, it was a form of moving meditation that put him in touch with who and what he was as a person.

  Conrad arranged to be in the gym at the same time as Hector, so they interacted quite a bit in the lead-up to their dungeon run. Hector might have been annoyed at the distraction, but he learned a lot of valuable information in those sessions.

  “Casuals use ‘run’ and ‘delve’ and ‘crawl’ interchangeably, but dungeon veterans ascribe specific technical meanings to each word. A run is a fast-paced traversal from your entry point to the nearest exit. You chart a direct path, go as fast as possible, and try to avoid trouble. It’s about minimizing the risk necessary to get paid. The majority of those who enter a dungeon are following the ‘run’ pybook.

  “A ‘crawl’ is the same strategy but uses opposite tactics. Instead of blitzing towards the nearest exit, you advance with an abundance of caution. It requires competence in both stealth and threat detection, so it isn’t possible for everyone. For example, your cosmic energy is fundamentally incompatible with stealth. A Xian is very obvious to monsters. You should never rely on crawl tactics.

  “The third method is far more ambitious. Everyone in our line of work cims to be a ‘dungeon delver’ but only a few actually delve. I suppose it seems like foolish risk-taking for the mercenaries who only want the money. Maximizing your monster kills doesn’t pay any better than doing a run. It used to, actually, but the incentive got too many newcomers killed. True warriors and patriots will delve out of principle.”

  Hector paused at the bottom of his squat. “By the way you’re talking, I assume we’re delving?”

  “I am willing to do a run this time if you want a gentler orientation. The computer in my armor makes it impossible for me to get turned around in there, so we could actually do an extreme speed run if that’s what you want. I am a true delver at heart, but at the moment my concerns are financial.”

  “Why is it you don’t already have a team?”

  Hector saw the wince on Conrad’s face from the corner of his eye. “There was some bad luck during my st trip inside. It was a team of five at the start. Only two of us made it out. There was a miasma bubble. You know about those? Yeah, most don’t. People talk about the miasma like it only exists in its native form outside of a human universe. That’s because ninety-nine percent of the stuff takes on a fighting form when it enters normal space. Sometimes, though, you get a bubble. It floats around like it’s innocent, then it pops to spread its taint over the area.

  “A Xian with a strong body like you probably doesn’t have much to worry about. Jinn, though… a single breath shreds the lungs. It’s a terrible way to go, coughing up blood and bits of flesh. I survived because I invested in the right gear. After, I had to repce my air filtration unit and goggles. My surviving teammate lost an eye, so he returned to Terra to get a clone transpnt operation.”

  Hector put the weights down. “Is there any middle ground? Could we do a slow run or an easy delve? I have fought monsters during an invasion, so I’m not a complete rookie. I also don’t want to bite off more than I can chew.”

  Conrad shrugged. “The three styles of entering a dungeon exist because they optimize around different tactics. Speed, stealth, and offense. You can’t do stealth because you’re a Xian. The monsters will be drawn to you like moths to a fme. And doing a ‘slow run’ would just be a standard delve for you. Your only options are running or delving.”

  After a moment, Conrad volunteered new information. “If things become too dangerous, you are allowed to retreat out the same way you came in. The government discourages that by not paying for it, but better to lose your payout than your life. I need the credits this time, so we should just run if you aren’t confident.”

  Various considerations ran through Hector’s mind. He didn’t want to take stupid risks, obviously. He wasn’t suicidal. On the other hand, sprinting to the nearest exit didn’t seem like it would test his combat capabilities. The thing that made the decision for him was what he anticipated his team would do. They’d definitely run the dungeon. If he disappointed Conrad now, the man might never invite Hector again. This could be his only chance at a real delve. How could he pass it by?

  “I want to push myself.”

  The broad grin from Conrad made it clear how the cyborg special operator felt about that. “Good choice, Hector. Every monster killed in this dungeon makes a real difference. Union Central is along a major miasma corridor. It draws in miasma that could otherwise target Terra or Maya. I know neither of those are a homend to you, but we have to defend every surviving true world.”

  Over the next several days, Conrad slow dripped tidbits of dungeon knowledge. Things Hector would have learned on his own if he attended any of the government seminars held at a nearby university. Things like the dungeon’s yout. It was constructed inside a vast pit at the edge of the city and covered by a dome. The circur perimeter and ceiling were lined with gravitic fields that made it extremely hard for anything to come close. Due to the enclosure, it was extremely dark inside. There were only three sources of light: the flood lights around exits, the reddish glow of the rifts, and whatever delvers brought with them.

  Hector bought several lights after learning that. One clipped to the pel of his uniform. Another fastened to his forehead by an estic band. A third was a handheld fshlight with a retention loop that went around the wrist. And the final one was a compact ntern. While making purchases, he also picked up a set of combat fatigues, two canteens, and night vision goggles with infrared capabilities. The ability to see in infrared mostly was to help him follow Conrad. Monsters didn’t really do thermodynamics the right way, so their thermal signature was far from reliable.

  They weren’t pnning on a deep delve, which was the term for going through the center region of the dungeon, so he didn’t bother picking up food and camping supplies. The supplies shouldn’t be necessary and the extra weight would only slow him down.

  Zelda ambushed him a few times during meals, trying out various arguments to talk him out of his pns. She seemed quite frustrated by the fact that he wasn’t swayed, which made him wonder how much his friends maniputed him prior to him beginning the mental strengthening routine. From being around Arahant as long as he had, he knew their form of mental influence wasn’t a binary choice.

  With their kind, there was no such thing as ‘zero influence’. Every word they spoke held some degree of supernatural charisma behind it. When he first met Evelyn back on Earth after his failed attempt to cultivate on a hike, he questioned if she was messing with his head. She gave some assurance that she hadn’t developed her influence abilities yet, but also cimed that all communication was using words and gestures to put ideas in other people’s heads.

  At the time, he didn’t give much weight to her words. It seemed like just a part of her quirky personality. Now he understood better that Arahant didn’t see a hard line between normal conversation and overt mental manipution. It was a spectrum to them with many shades of gray. They literally could not communicate with zero influence. An Arahant minimizing the impact of their words sounded like Ben Stein teaching high school. They went into that mode on occasions when they were trying to make it very clear that they weren’t being pushy.

  Rodrick went in the opposite direction and made himself a part of the pnning process. He parroted schemes he picked up from his network of acquaintances. “C5 to D1 is the path with the easiest terrain. There is a ravine you can follow for half the distance. The monsters have a hard time finding you unless they’re already in there.”

  All of Rodrick’s tips were like that. His second-hand knowledge came from more timid delvers and he judged its worth based on how clever it seemed. Hector suspected Rod’s new gaming hobby might be conditioning him to look for tricks. It was hard to tell with that. Arahant tended naturally towards ‘perception is reality’ type thinking, so the distance from public retions gimmicks to more generally gamifying everything might not be as much as he thought.

  Finally, Hector filled his energy reserves. He agreed to a meet-up time with Conrad in two days and prepared to take advantage of day off. There was an entire city he had yet to explore.