This time, we were smart wheered the dungeon. Al g tightly to my back while Mahya perched on Rue’s, ah flew in slowly. The basin was only ohird full of water, so we had to get close to the surface for the green sharks to attack. A few luoward us, but so few that electrifying the water felt pointless. Every time a shark leaped, either Al, Rue, or I caught it with telekinesis and squished it. Al turned his catches into crystals while I handled mine and Rue’s.

  After five minutes, Mahya sighed and remarked, “I feel so useless.”

  I reached into my Ste and pulled out a undry basket, handing it to her with a smirk. “Catch them with this, kill them however you want, and turn them into crystals.”

  She took the basket but frowned, not looking happier. I suspected it was because she couldn’t use her beloved rifle.

  We fihe few sharks that dared approa less than half an hour. The fluardian still didn’t show up, so I gently set Al down, and he immediately retrieved his jet ski. Rue lowered Mahya, who did the same. We made three rounds on the small ke, but nothing appeared—no new sharks or fluardian.

  I g Mahya and asked, “Doesn’t this seem strao you pared to st time?”

  “No. This dungeon robably never cleared, so it acked to the max. Now that we’ve cleared it, its level matches the level of the world.”

  I frowned in thought. “I thought the duhrows out the trash mana to make room for more trash. Or at least that’s what you and Lis expio me if I remember correctly.”

  Mahya nodded. “You’re right, and I’m sure quite a few of those green sharks found their way out. But with the number of critters in that s, I don’t think they survived more than a few minutes.”

  “Good to know.”

  I removed my core and prepared to draier, but Mahya quickly stopped me. “No. Don’t draier.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if we empty the dungeon again, we’ll have to wait two to three weeks until it regees. If we doy it, we run it again in a day or two.”

  I shrugged, returning the core to Ste, and said, “Good idea.”

  We headed through the opening in the ter of the sphere again, but the stairs were shorter this time—just twenty steps, not the five-minute dest from the previous time. When we emerged oher side on the hill, the dungeon was still the same size but looked pletely different. A haze repced the sky and clouds’ illusion, and a thin yer of soil covered most of the area, with small patches of shrass scattered here and there. I looked up and saw the core still floating in the air, but now it didn’t resemble the sun—just a tiny, glowing orb.

  I flew up, noting how easy it was to approach the core. It still radiated heat but was much weaker now. When I touched it, I felt the warm surface, and I received a cheerfully tied scroll with a green ribbon, like a birthday present. I desded, and as we gathered around, they each touched the core and received a scroll.

  I identified my scroll:

  Verdant Grasp

  Using this spell, the spellcaster cause thick roots and vio burst from the grouangling araining ehe roots tightly around their targets, immobilizing them and making it difficult to break free. It shows particur effectiveness in forested or pnt-riviros, where summoning natural growth quickly aid in capturing foes.

  Okey-dokey.

  Mahya again threw a fist in the air and excimed, “Yes!”

  Al looked equally pleased, his smile broad. Their reas genuinely surprised me.

  “I thought we were after affinity stones,” I asked.

  “ly,” Al replied, his toter-of-fact. “Whenever a dungeon is cleared, the initial run sistently provides a superior reward. In subsequent attempts, the rewards are signifitly diminished. Did you not observe this in the dungeon with the silver?”

  I nodded slowly. “Yes, I noticed. I assumed Mahya suggested releasing the core because she hoped for another affinity stone.”

  “Not at all,” Mahya interjected, shaking her head. “I knew we’d only get one. But because the first reward was so amazing, I retty sure the reward would be good, too. I suspected we’d get spells—or at least I hoped we would—and I was right. I told you I was a genius, didn’t I?”

  I shook my head, rolling my eyes. I didn’t have a response.

  The following day, we pleted another run, which was much the same, though with even fewer sharks. It was getting b.

  Reward:

  Flourish

  Using this spell, the spellcaster expedite the growth of pnts. It make seeds sprout, flowers bloom, and trees grow taller, thicker, and sturdier. It be used to grow natural resources quickly, create imperable pnt barriers, or restore barren enviros.

  At least the reward was good.

  The third ru different right from the start. As I ehe dungeon, the portal seemed off—somethied me. It was as if sticky mud el was trying to prevent my entry. I had to push harder, fog on reag the other side. Finally, with a sudden pop, I broke through. Rue, with Mahya on his back, took longer. I guessed he o figure out how to push through the stiess. But I trusted my boy to succeed.

  I felt Al murmur against my back, his voice filled with . “I do not think we are that strong.”

  When Rue and Mahya finally made it through the portal, Mahya immediately began cursing the dungeon. “Weird, crooked, stupid, stingy dungeon…” She tio rant, cursing its creator and even its entire lineage.

  Once she finally calmed down, I turo her, curious. “What’s going on?”

  Al’s voice came from behind me, sounding resigned. “This is the st time we run this dungeon.”

  “Why?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Because ear to be to,” Al expined.

  Mahya looked at him in surprise, her brow furrowed. “What are you talking about? How does this have anything to do with this stupid, stingy, weird-ass dungeon?”

  “It is something I read in one of my aors’ journals,” Al replied. “He mentiohat if he wao keep gaining levels, he would have to move to a world with much higher mana levels. The st three dungeons he ran became sticky after two or three attempts.”

  Mahya shook her head, disbelief in her voice. “I’ve never heard anything like that. Not from my parents and not from Lis. On the trary, they all said no one knows what determihe number of times you run a dungeon.”

  “That is true,” Al aowledged. “The total number of times a dungeon be run does vary, and no one knows why. But based on what my aor wrote, if the level of the person running the dungeon is too high for the dungeon’s level, the number of runs decreases signifitly—sometimes by two or three times.”

  Feeling strange in the middle of this versation with Al still hanging on my back, I interjected, “Guys, how about we take care of the sharks and tihis discussion on the sed floor?”

  They both ughed, and Mahya nodded. “Agreed.”

  Again, the number of sharks was minimal, and we dealt with them in ten minutes. I threw my core into the water and a to absorb every drop. Ihan an hour, I retrieved the core from the now dry sphere and flew with Al toward the opening to the sed floor. Once we reached the sed floor, I turo them, saying, “Now you tihe ih discussion.”

  Mahya smiled, shaking her head. “We’ve pretty much fi. But I have an idea. Before we take the core, I want to test something. The ditions here are perfect.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Mahya’s eyes lit up with excitement. “iles of ons and explosives from Earth. I know the 47 rifle works, but I have no idea about the rest. This dungeon is a separate, closed space—perfect for testing all the different ons and explosives to see what works and what doesn’t. And besides, this weird dungeon deserves it.”

  I shrugged, giving her a nod. “If that’s what you want to do, go for it.”

  Al and I headed to the far end of the space while Mahya went to the opposite side. I opened my house in a pact figuration, asked it to extend the deck with a barbecue, and began preparing lunch. Rue nudged Al to scratch his ears until the food was ready. Al ughed and obliged. As I cooked, gunshots and explosions echoed from Mahya’s side. It was quieter than expected; I expected the o shake the dungeon and leave me half-deaf. But that wasn’t the case—It was loud but tolerable.

  When the food was ready, I called Mahya over. She arrived aed the results. “The C4, fshbang grenades, ines, and IEDs don’t work. The suppressors are funal, and the Magpul FMG-9 you picked up in Trinidad is also a no-go. Everything else works.”

  I frowned slightly. “Isn’t that the full list of explosives?”

  Mahya shook her head. “No, the stick grenades, fragmentation grenades, and smoke grenades wreat. Judging by the fact that regur explosives work as well as bullets, I think if we find a trigger solution that operates on mana instead of eleics, I make the C4, ines, IEDs, and fshbang grenades work, too. But I’ll only know for sure once I solve the trigger issue.”

  She looked at me with a hopeful expression, her eyes practically pleading. I raised my hands defensively and said, “Don’t look at me. I hate guns and explosives. This is your baby and yours alone.”

  Mahya stuck her to at me but then ughed and said, “Fair enough.”

  After lunch, I was about to close the house, but Mahya stopped me. She began taking out more crates, pg them on the deck, and then looked at me. “Tell your house to absorb these,” she instructed.

  “What are they?”

  “Red dot sights and scopes,” she expined. “They’re eleic, so they definitely won’t work in a mana world. We should have giveo the house earlier. Plus, some suppressors since I don’t need so many and the crates of the Magpul FMG-9s yht me. I opened o has eleic circuits, so it’s useless.”

  “Don’t you want to try turning them into Magitech?” I asked.

  She gave me a long, almost pitying look, as if expining something obvious to a clueless child. “I kept two crates for myself, don’t worry. But I’m not going to vert twelve crates with 36 guns into Magitech. I’ve got better things to do.”

  I had a moment of uainty. “I’m not sure I want to feed my house advanced ons.”

  Mahya pced a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “You’re the Dungeon Master. Your house will never produything you don’t want. Right now, it’s just a colle of metal and other materials.”

  That vinced me, and I told the house to absorb all the crates. Once all the crates were gone, I instructed the core to close the house and absorb all the dungeon’s materials. The same phenomenoed—the entire dungeon ndscape no longer resembled soil, grass, and stones, but transformed into a swirl of green, yellow, and brown, like acrylic paint flowing toward the core and being absorbed into it.

  “You know,” I said to both of them, “when I see this and how the dungeon looks at the end, with only the borders of the haze visible, I realize we didn’t out the other dungeons as much as we could have. When we fihose, we were still standing on solid ground—there was a stone maze, and so on.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Maya replied. “I thought about that st time we did this.”

  “ime,” Al said.

  I here was no point in g over spilled milk or an unharvested dungeon.

  I flew straight up toward the other core without waiting for the core to finish. As soon as I touched it, I received another scroll. When I desded, everyone else received a scroll as well.

  Nature’s Path

  Using this spell, the spellcaster create a surfaposed of stable pnt roots that will temporarily cover a difficult terrain. The roots form a stable and smooth route over mud, water, or narrow ravines. Ohe spell ends, this path will return to its inal state, but it serves as a useful way to navigate difficult terrain without causing harm to the surrounding enviro.

  I went to retrieve my core to store it before st the new one and colpsing the dungeon, but something stopped me in my tracks. When I was a few meters away from my core, a wave of intense hunger emanated from it, a clear yearning directed at the new core.

  I took a few steps back, and the hunger subsided slightly. It seemed to depend on proximity. “Mahya,” I called out, armed.

  She walked over, looking worried. “What’s up?”

  “When I bring this new core closer to my core, I feel that my core wants to e it. I thought you needed a lot of mana to unite cores. What’s going on here?”

  Mahya frowhinking for a moment. “I don’t think most normal rules apply to your core. I read somewhere that a dungeon guardian reaches sentieer about five hundred years, and the one guarding your ay have been in that state for a long time. Your core is huge! I’ve never heard of one bigger thay timeters; yours is nearly forty. So, I don’t think any of the usual rules apply to it. Anyway, the new core is up to you—either keep it or let your core e it.”

  I shook my head. “My core eats plenty of mana. It do without a dungeon eal. I’ll save it for the Jeep.”

  Mahya patted me on the back, grinning. “Much better idea. If our luck with dungeons keeps up, we might give your core a core or two to eat. Who knows, maybe one day it’ll be a spaceship core.”

  I chuckled, shaking my head at her enthusiasm. “That’s your dream, not mine.”

  She gave me a pyful smirk. “What, yoing to let me travel in space alone? And who’s going to cook for me?”

  I ughed and shook my head. She was getting too spoiled.

  We should have put some thought into what would happen when we colpsed the dungeon.

  Why?

  Because as soon as the dungeon started to fall apart, it dumped us in the middle of the s, into the cold standing water with the creatures. It wasn’t too deep, and as soon as I recovered from the initial shock, I stood up and started humming, but it was enough for something with teeth to ty leg. I flew into the air and discovered that it was a baby crocodile-fish. It was about thirty timeters long, not two or three meters like Daddy or Mommy. I didn’t want to kill it. It was cute in a spooky and twisted way. I released its teeth from my leg and threw it into the water. Al and Mahya, in the meantime, got o skis, and Rue hovered by my side.

  We went back to the st pce we opehe house. It was still the only pce where we could ihe balloon, so after sulting, I opehe house. It was already afternoon, and we decided to leave tomorroere all sick of the s.

  After dinner, I felt restless and needed some time aloo clear my head. There wasn’t anything specific b me; I just craved solitude. I soared above the trees and gazed at the sky. The steltions were unfamiliar, a stark trast to what I knew. With my back to the s and my face turo the stars, I floated there, lost in their brilliance.

  Soon, I felt an irresistible urge to move. I started by drifting side to side, effortlessly gliding through the air. Then, I mixed it up with a figure-eight pattern, weaving through the sky in a graceful rhythm. The freedom of movement was exhirating—I dove toward the ground, only to pull up at the st sed. It felt like an incredible release, a liberating break from everything.

  For the first time, I was flying just for the sheer joy of it, with no goal in mind. As I soared through the air, the world below seemed to fade away, leaving only the vast, open sky above. The sense of freedom was intoxig, a pure, unfiltered thrill that made everything else vanish from my mind.

  Laughter bubbled out of me, spontaneous and iious. I sped up, feeling the rush of the air as I pushed faster. The exhiration of flight was overwhelming—a heady mix of joy and freedom. The magic of flight felt like it was carrying me beyond ordinary limits, and every turn and dive was a burst of urained happiness.

  As I soared higher, I felt the sheer thrill of the open sky; the wind rushing past me like a wild dance. I didn’t have to think about anything except the thrill of the moment. My ughter echoed through the air, a perfect refle of the joy and freedom I was experieng. Flying like this was a new kind of liberation, a celebration of the magic that let me escape and just enjoy the flight.

  At one point, I straightened my legs toward the ground and began spinning like an ice skater, my arms stretched out to my sides. I spun faster and faster, ughing all the while. The wind sensed my joy and joined in. It began swirling around me, and before I k, I was at the ter of a twister in the sky. I stopped my spinning and floated in the vortex’s eye. Instinctively, I pointed my hands downward. The vortex touched down.

  Water and pieces of wood flew about. I even thought I saw a flying snake.

  Oops!

  I checked to make sure Mahya and Al were safely away from the disturbahey were a few kilometers off, so I rexed.

  Refleg on what I’d just done, I didn’t send any thoughts to the wind; I simply directed it, and it obeyed. Cheg my profile, I saw that finally, besides Wind, I had [Novice].

  I looked up at the sky and said, “What? Couldn’t you have provided a bit of expnation? Why do I have to figure everything out on my own? I’m starting to get the hang of it, but why not offer some guida’s called the Guidance, for heaven’s sake, but it doesn’t actually guide—just provides general information.”

  For the first time, I felt a hint of embarrassment, or maybe uainty, directed at me. Then came a sense of anticipation.

  “No, no, no,” I said. “It’s your mess. You ha. Don’t expeything from me.”

  I felt amusement and a touch of parental affe directed at me. I rolled my eyes. It seemed like the only fitting respo that moment.

  I had to calm down from my frustration with the so-called “Guidahe name was so misleading. To clear my head, I pulled out my guitar and pyed. The soothing strum of the strings quickly helped me settle my thoughts, and soon, I wrote lyrics for a new song. The joy of my ret flight was my inspiration—every note and line reflected the exhiration I’d felt.

  Despite the frustration, my life in the present mome incredibly amazing. The thrill of flying, the freedom, and the pure delight I’d experienced were all woven into the music. It erfect remihat even amidst my annoyahere were moments of pure joy ay to be celebrated. I called the song Wings of Stardust because that's how I felt, like I had wings made of the stardust above.

  Wings of Stardust

  In the realm where sky and dreams collide,Winds of magic whisper, guiding my glide.With a heart unbound and spirit free,I take to the air, where my soul be.

  In the vast expanse where clouds waltz free,Stars shine like keys to infinity.My spirit unfurls, a blossom in flight,Brushien the endless night.

  Chorus:Wings of stardust, I rise and soar,Through the endless night, forevermore.In the ice, where dreams ignite,I’m an unseen angel, born to flight.

  I soar on winds of stardust dreams,Where day and night are not what they seem.Twilight’s glow, an otherworldly hue,I’m an unseen ahreading pathways anew.

  With a heart unbound and spirit free,I take to the air, where my soul be.In the vast expanse where clouds waltz free,Stars shine like keys to infinity.My spirit unfurls, a blossom in flight,Brushien the endless night.

  Chorus:Wings of stardust, I rise and soar,Through the endless night, forevermore.In the ice, where dreams ignite,I’m an unseen angel, born to flight.

  I soar on winds of stardust dreams,Where day and night are not what they seem.Twilight’s glow, an otherworldly hue,I’m an unseen ahreading pathways anew.

  I glide weightless, trag ic art,A vessel of wonder, pying my part.Twilight cradles me in its ethereal glow,An unseen angel, putting on a stelr show.

  Oh, the ecstasy of boundless blue,Surrendering anchors, magigs true.Sky’s precious relic, eternally free,A iad, that’s who I’ll be.

  Chorus:Wings of stardust, I rise and soar,Through the endless night, forevermore.In the ice, where dreams ignite,I’m an unseen angel, born to flight.

  As night falls, stars ighe way,steltions weave tales of the day.Gaxies be from afar,In ic silence, I’m a shooting star.

  I traverse the firmament, a et’s flight,Breeze and darkness dan the night.Stardust trails in my celestial wake,An unseen angel, ic paths I make.

  Feathers of light, my esseakes wing,At golden dawn, I’m reborn to sing.Sun’s warm kiss, moon’s gentle embra this boundless sky, I’ve found my pce.

  In this boundless sky, I’ve found to embra this boundless sky, I’ve found my pce.

  Wings of these winds ale breeze,My soul finds pea the skies with ease.A symphony of stars sings my song,In this celestial dance, I forever belong.

  In this sky where stars softly gleam,I need no wings to live this dream.Magic lifts me to touch the divine,Leaving stardust as my ic sign.

  Chorus:Wings of stardust, I rise and soar,Through the endless night, forevermore.In the ice, where dreams ignite,I’m an unseen angel, born to flight.I traverse the firmament, a et’s flight,Breeze and darkness dan the night.Stardust trails in my celestial wake,An unseen angel, ic paths I make.