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The infinity dungeon 129
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Chapter 129
Michael narrowed his focus, bending his will towards containing the wild energies of the gemstone. The Ice element felt wild and violent, a far cry from how Michael had always pictured the cold-aligned energy when he sought to control it. Even the Ice in his Sanctum was vibrating now, stimulated by whatever the Ice in the stone that the dwarves had asked him to retrieve from the obsidian scorpion was doing.
The Ice rebelled, sending sharp shards flying in all directions. One of them nicked Michael in the cheek, drawing blood from a wound that sealed itself shut in a matter of nanoseconds. A sensation of cold and pain seeped into the wound, lingering even after the wound had disappeared until Michael’s aura overpowered its energy.
He snarled. How dare the Ice disobey him? He had studied it. He could create Ice V in a matter of thoughts, even though his reservoir of the element was limited. He knew it as intimately as he could without taking the last step, which had so far eluded him.
His aura flexed, layers of power laced with Intent. Deep within the Sanctum, his Manipulation skill sung as its power was used to tame the energies of the room. Wild magic exploded outwards in a bubble, Michael’s magic, rewriting the rules of reality itself. The magic of the room resisted, itself capable of bending the rules of the universe, but Michael wasn’t done.
The skill fractal containing his most powerful piece of magic, Unity, lit up like a beacon in his inner space. Its two Facets that he could control vibrated, their hum a dissonant melody, incomplete but powerful. Fate sought to correct the endpoint where all the roads are headed, changing their destination to one more suitable for its wielder. Truth allowed Michael to finally see.
“Ah, that’s what I was missing.”
Suddenly, the room quieted down. All the magic, and the wind which had been buffeting him until now disappeared. Michael opened his eyes, beholding a magnificent sight of frozen stillness. All around him, the Ice element had taken on its primal, original shape. Infinite lines of frosty power, glittering like chains of a multifaceted gemstone, hung in the air connected by the thinnest of threads. They crisscrossed each other in fractal patterns of no apparent order but perfect immutability. At their intersection, larger beads of condensed Elemental power shone with frosty white radiance, and deep inside them hidden blue hues pulsed and sent waves of energy through the whole network.
Something changed within Michael. The elusive Ice had finally revealed itself, and in a moment of pure enlightenment he seized it for himself, adding it to his aura and transforming the pitiful stockpile of Ice he had into a bountiful source. Gone was the small cube of frost from his Sanctum, and now in its place was a pitch-black lake, its surface immobile Ice, its perfect transparency betraying its infinite depth. It was right next to where the indecipherable presence of his Soul resided, close but not interacting with it.
You have tamed the exotic element: Black Ice.
Your Aura has changed.
The moment of perfection lasted for the smallest fraction of a second before it started to unravel. The perfect disposition of entropy and Ice element was not stable in time, nor was it able to sustain itself. But the way the room was built suggested that not even the wondrous unfathomable state Michael had just witnessed was the endpoint, merely a step in the process. There was something else that needed to be done, for this was the Heart of a forge and not a cradle of coldness and Ice.
It needed Fire, a burning flame so strong and pure that it could afford to choose not to fight the mighty Black Ice, but work together with it. Two antithetical elements working together, the apex of dwarven ingenuity and talent with the Elements.
As Michael deciphered more and more of the true purpose of the room he was in, he doubted even he could have come up with such a clever piece of magical engineering. He had talent, but he was only a single man who had the hubris to compare himself, and his talent, to the work of an entire race. Somewhere deep within he thought that perhaps he was right to do so, Travis’ words and even Dave’s teachings stocking the flame of ambition within him.
He was not alone. Unity Corporation was an extension of himself, and the pooled resources of the company would be akin to his own achievements in the end.
He let instinct take over. Pure, unadulterated elemental Fire poured out of him in a torrent, activating long-dead runescripts in the room’s walls, floor and ceiling. They interacted with the Fire, changing it in unexpected ways until it was nothing like the Fire Michael had supplied. He felt his control slip away but instead of despairing, a grin made its way to his face.
He wasn’t a master of Fire just for show. He grasped this new, changed element and made it his own, watching as the room around him was simultaneously bathed in an orange light and in a cyan glow from all directions. The two colors mingled and interacted, the orange veering into deep red while the cyan threatened to turn frigid blue. At the center, however, a chain reaction exploded out and kept them in careful balance, creating boundaries each element reluctantly respected.
At the same time, inside Michael’s Sanctum, he saw the fire that flowed in the mana veins strewn across the surface of the stony walls of the ethereal place where the Skills resided. It turned a deep, dark red. In the depths of this new fire, specks of white hotness flared and dimmed, in tune with his breathing, as if his lungs had become the great bellows of a forge.
Your Fire is now Forgefire.
The moment was short-lived. The stability of the room began to crumble once again. The circuits in the walls, ruined by time and neglect, flickered and dimmed. Their sustaining power, their mediation between the elements faded, and chaos was about to return.
“Nope,” muttered Michael.
He did not need external help now that he had fully integrated the exotic elements into his aura. He could supply the room with as much energy as it needed. Grasping several Silver coins hidden in his pockets, mana and Qi were quickly converted into raw Black Ice and Forgefire.
It wasn’t enough. Michael had to deploy his considerable Aura control to manipulate the elements, keeping the room stable while he carved new circuitry into the walls. He couldn’t claim to know what he was doing, but by copying what was already there and a lot of trial and error, the situation slowly calmed down.
With the last section of circuitry repaired, Michael felt the last of his burden fade away. Now, his eyes took in the majestic beauty of a room of two elements, stable without his intervention. He felt the two elements speak to him in a language he could now speak fluently, their song echoing in his Skill Sanctum where their twin simulacra had been erected to mirror his newfound mastery.
[Magic Manipulation] had evolved to level 12 while he was concentrating on the elements of the room, and its crude description devoid of all blue boxes felt almost redundant. He knew what he could do with magic, he knew that now he could control two elements at a time, there was no need for a system superimposed upon magic itself to spell it to him in language.
[Rare - Magic Manipulation 12]
In the ether's embrace, the threads of mana dance; with deft manipulation, I weave the strands of magic, shaping reality with the gentle touch of a sorcerer's hand.
You can manipulate, store and project any magic that you understand, up to energies equivalent to the rarity of this skill. Your proficiency is proportional to your understanding and to the strength of your Aura.
Known magic:
Elements: Forgefire (Aura), Black Ice (Aura)
Chi and Jing (Beginner)
Mana (Intermediate)
Qi (Intermediate)
Intent (Intermediate)
He was about to check his status, to see what had changed there to reflect his new gains, when the heavy stone door creaked open behind him. The moment it did, Michael felt a new form of magic wash over him and knew that the floor had been beaten before a message even appeared. The reward for all his efforts was waiting for him outside; he only had to talk to the dwarves to get it.
