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  Professor Richards took the System Band from Lauren and inspected it. “What was sickening about using it?”

  “That Band…” Lauren licked her lips. “It ripped mana out of my body and the environment to cast the spell! It felt disgusting to use.” She looked at her family. “That’s not normal, right?”

  Maeve shook her head. “We’ve never experienced anything like what you’re describing.”

  The professor explained, “The average Explorer doesn’t have enough mana to cast very many spells, so the Band is designed to take additional mana from the surroundings as a means of easing the burden on the caster.” He glanced at the Park family. “A very small percentage of people have managed to increase their mana pools quite a bit, however. There’s incredible effort required for that.”

  Lauren glared at the man, who shrank back. “This thing is offensively inefficient. It takes dozens of times too much at the very least. How many people have died because these Systems are ripping out everything they’ve got!?”

  He held up his hands defensively. “No one’s ever died from using all their mana.”

  “If you need to cast a spell to prevent yourself from being killed but you have no mana left, then it’s the same fucking thing!”

  “Lauren,” Maeve calmly said, gently placing a hand on her back.

  Lauren took a breath and walked away from the professor. Her family joined her while other researchers came over to discuss things with Professor Richards.

  “What happened?” Lucia asked.

  Lauren leaned against a wall and shook her head. “It felt so revolting. Like my insides and the air around me were suddenly missing. It was just this innate, visceral, wrongness.”

  A few minutes later, the researchers asked if she would be okay with casting the spell chantlessly while still wearing the Band, and she reluctantly agreed. She took a deep breath to calm herself, then created a flame above her finger. There was no disgusting feeling this time.

  After measuring with several different devices, Professor Richards cleared his throat. “We can’t yet determine how it compares to the current method, but our readings put you in the ‘unmeasurable’ category. No surprise, given where you’ve been living.”

  “Now you have something else in common with us!” Savannah said.

  Lauren smiled. “Are there any side effects of having a lot of mana?”

  “Several.” The professor nodded. “People become much more durable and healthy, less likely to get sick, and their aging slows. That all increases the more mana someone has. And the amount of food someone needs actually decreases, as they gain more mana. People’s appearances tend to change in line with their desires, too, though scars, birth defects, and signs of age will remain.”

  She glanced at her family, taking in their appearances again. Her mom and aunt were around seventy years old, but still looked to be in their fifties, and her sisters, despite being in their forties and late thirties, still had the appearances of people in their twenties.

  So Lucia got a magic transition on top of what she did in the past? She looks good.

  “What about my height?” Lauren asked. “I’ve noticed that all Explorers are tall, but I’m even taller than them.”

  Professor Richards nodded. “That has to do with the depth of Dungeons. Environmental mana is denser the further down they go, and the more time they spend on deep Floors, the more likely they are to be taller, though it’s still not a guarantee. If someone else transformed on the same Floor as you, then they’d likely be taller than average as well. You should be glad that mana-induced growth is only this much compared to other animals.

  He paused and fiddled with his wedding ring. “There is one more side effect I didn’t mention yet. The more mana someone has, the less likely they are to have children.”

  She blinked. “Oh… Well, I never expected to have kids anyway.”

  Maeve said, “A lot of religious people have some very angry thoughts about that aspect of mana, so you might get the occasional bizarre comment from a stranger.”

  “Great,” Lauren said sarcastically. “Wait, Tyche’s had plenty of children, though? And she definitely has a ton of mana.” She received a confused look in return. “Oh, she’s the giant crocodile in the jungle.”

  “Strangely, this is an issue that only affects humans,” the professor said. “We aren’t sure why, yet.”

  With the mana measuring test done, moved onto the physical tests, where they measured her strength, speed, and reflexes. She had already known for years that she was well beyond the capabilities of a normal human, but seeing the results on a screen made it a reality for her. They also measured her height, which turned out to be a towering 249 centimeters, compared to the average Explorer height of 211 centimeters.

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  They also did tests on her blood and hair. She tried not to laugh when they couldn’t get a needle to pierce her skin, so she ended up pricking herself with a claw for them instead. The blood levels were normal, but the hair test revealed trace amounts of manganese.

  “So I probably inherited the metal in my hair from my father?” Lauren asked.

  “Most likely,” Professor Richards said. “You don’t seem to have any abilities related to it, however; it’s purely aesthetic as far as we can tell. The tests we had you perform didn’t indicate an affinity with the metal.”

  So I just got shiny hair out of it? I guess that’s still cool.

  Emma asked, “Wasn’t there a famous manganese elemental Explorer around a decade ago? Is there any data you can pull from records about him?”

  “Ah, that person… Joined the military, I think,” the professor said, scratching around one of his antlers. “I’ll see what I can find and send it to you later.”

  After a lunch break, they had Lauren and her family each cast spells to compare the data between her chantless magic and the System’s magic. The results were inconclusive. Lauren forced herself to be nearby when the System spells were cast so she could get used to the sensation.

  The final thing they wanted to test was Lauren’s ability to summon her weapons to herself, but she had refused to bring them, and they weren’t in range, anyway.

  On the train ride home, Lauren asked, “When are we going to the Dungeon?”

  “In the next day or two most likely,” Lucia said. “We should already have any supplies you might need—emergency provisions, basic camping equipment, bags for storing collected materials, things like that. Is there anything you might need? Armor or weapon maintenance, maybe?”

  Lauren shook her head. “No, I always keep my stuff in good condition. I’m ready to go whenever. Do you usually camp in the Dungeon?”

  Emma, playing with her hair, answered, “No, but it’s good to be prepared in case we need to rest, or end up too far from the nearest telepad. That rarely happens, though.”

  Savannah looked at Lauren with keen interest. “How did you manage things in the jungle?”

  “Let’s see…” Lauren began, “At first, I typically found a nook somewhere, usually beneath a tree root. I eventually discovered that sleeping in a tree gave me the best odds of not being attacked.

  “I also created a camouflage cloth to sleep under, doused in pungent odors. Once I got used to the smell, my sleep was usually much more peaceful, especially after I made my ward crystal. And then figuring out how to stop the Dungeon walls from regrowing allowed me to finally create somewhere safe and comfortable for myself.”

  They received strange looks from other passengers on the train, but the family simply ignored them.

  Savannah grinned. “That’s so cool! I can’t wait to see it. Do you know how big the jungle is?”

  Lauren thought for a moment. “I can’t give a precise measurement, but it took me I think maybe fifteen years to explore everywhere I could? At least that long.”

  “So massive…”

  “Speaking of sleeping in the Dungeon, how was there a day-night cycle underground? There was this bright spot that moved across the ceiling, but it wasn’t an actual sun. It felt like real sunlight, though.”

  “It is real sunlight,” Emma said. “The position of the ‘sun’ in a Dungeon matches with its position in the real world. How that works is yet another mystery, however.”

  Maeve asked, “Lauren, is there anything you want to do before going back?”

  Lauren bit her lip as she gazed at her mom, aunt, and sisters. “I honestly just wanted to see all of you again. It’s been so long that… there’s not much up here I care about anymore.”

  “What about other Dungeons? The Abyss isn’t going anywhere, after all. We could also look at other Floors in the Abyss.”

  “What’s different about them?”

  Lucia replied, “The Floors of Dungeons are always random. Like how the Abyss has a jungle at the bottom, other ones might have like a tundra or a swamp. Other Dungeons won’t be as deep—meaning less powerful animals, smaller Floors, and fewer crystals—and their shallower depth means they Reset more frequently.”

  Before Lauren could ask, Emma explained, “A Reset is when a Dungeon’s layout drastically changes, but we know it won’t happen in the Abyss for decades yet.”

  I hope it doesn’t mess with the jungle too much when it happens…

  “Hmm, Lauren considered, “in that case, I don’t think I’ll be missing out on much by not seeing other Dungeons. Is there anything on the surface you think I should see?”

  “Well, tourism is still a thing, but pretty much everywhere outside of cities isn’t being maintained right now.”

  She frowned. “I’m really not up for spending time in a city for a while. Today was… kind of a lot. Let’s save sightseeing for the future.”

  When the five of them were eating breakfast the next day, planning their trip to the Dungeon later, when a drone dropped off a package on the doorstep.

  Savannah brought it in and held it out toward Lauren. She smiled. “It’s for you.”

  “You got me a gift? Should I open it right now?” Lauren asked.

  “Go ahead. It is a gift, you would’ve gotten one soon anyway, though .”

  Lauren used a claw to slice through the tape, then cast a tiny water spell to wash the tape residue from her claw. “A phone…?”

  Emma said. “A smartphone for Explorers, specifically. They’re designed with durability in mind more than anything else, so they’re kind of bulky.” She let out a giggle. “I suppose it might be a little small for you, though.”

  Lauren turned it on and found the interface familiar enough, though she hadn’t heard of most of the pre-installed apps. With her aunt’s help, she got her Explorer information registered with the device.

  “By the way,” Maeve began, “Adam’s video of the jungle was released a few hours ago. It only showed them discovering it and then fighting against some animals.”

  Lauren looked at her. “So I’m not in it at all?”

  She shook her head. “No. So I would avoid looking at any news right now, because it’s just a lot of praise for him.”

  Lauren nodded and, after her muscle memory for texting kicked in, sent a text to Heather after getting her number from Savannah.

  You

  Hi! This is Lauren. I just got a phone

  Cute Bee

  Hey! Nice. Everything else going well?

  You

  I think so, yeah. It’s been an emotional couple days, though

  Cute Bee

  I would imagine. So, I have a video I recorded, and I’m really sorry I recorded it without your permission, but I promise I haven’t shared it with anyone. It was just too good of a moment to not record

  Lauren’s eyes opened wide when she saw the video. It showed herself stepping on Adam’s face and refusing to let him order her around.

  Cute Bee

  What do you think?

  You

  Being recorded like that was kind of weird, but it’s fine. Want to share it with the world?

  Cute Bee

  Omg please I’ve been dying to deflate his ego