05

The night granted him respite from the heat and allowed him to find the stairs going down quite easily. When he went down, he found himself in a cave once again. This time the ceiling was dotted with small luminescent gems and made him quite curious to see what they were made of. They were too far high to reach, though, so he left them there. A visual analysis said almost nothing about their nature, and a more in depth look with the LAI’s assistance confirmed his suspicions that the gems actually contained mana. They did not contain much of it, barely a detectable trace, so he presumed that they were mostly useless and that they were there just to provide light.

It didn’t take long for the first enemy to show up here. A green, short and quite smelly humanoid was blocking the way out of the small cave Charles was in. A goblin, barely clothed and armed with a crude spear made out of wood. It was alone and immobile, as if waiting for Charles to cross a certain invisible threshold before attacking. Perhaps it had poor eyesight, or restrictions were imposed upon it, but it mattered little as this allowed Charles to take his time to think his strategy though.

He could use the LAI to engage, in fact he was going to, but he still needed some data to allow the machine intelligence to fight at its best. The weapon the goblin had looked crude and frail, but it was not to be underestimated. He had no idea what wood it was made of, as there were supposedly no trees on this floor. The goblin, or its tribe, either roamed all the way to the forest floor or were spawned by the dungeon already clothed and armed. Well, clothed was an overstatement.

The spear tip was made of sharpened rock, small and unassuming. Its shape was irregular and there were cracks already going through it. Had this goblin fought before? And against what, humans or other monsters?

Charles shook his head. These questions were certainly very interesting but offered him nothing to base his next fight on. The idea was, then, to go at it with as much force as possible in an attempt to one-shot it. It was supposed to be weaker than what he fought so far, as Charles was descending down towards easier levels closer to the entrance of the dungeon.

With that thought, he took out his sword. It was half molten and chipped in several places after what happened in the last floor, but it was still usable. He suspected that he was using it quite wrongly, as swords were not supposed to be this frail. Perhaps it was a magical one that was created with the idea of enhancing a certain type of magic or system related thing he did not have, and that was why his improper use had ruined it. There was nothing to do about it yet, though, as he had not managed to even barely influence mana; let alone manipulate it to send it into the sword. He sighed at the barbaric use of weapons that he, the supposed god of weaponry that he was, was doing and activated the combat mode.

LAI hyperfocus active, assuming direct control. Combat mode, target is passive, can engage after determining best attack model. Charging servos, 1% energy to legs, 35% total reserves left. Readying sword. Lunge, feint, frontal strike. Target reacted to attack, adjusting attack path. Sword will be deflected by spear handle, adding more power to break wood. Wood broke, noting for report. Sword path ruined, disengaging attack. Rotating body, ready next strike. Swipe upwards, full muscular force. Dodge overhead attack, duck, use rotation to aid swipe. Sword connected with target, cut through 28 centimeters of tissue. Wound is fatal, but target is still alive. Preparing finisher attack. Overhead position, cutting from top down. Target reaction failed, sword connected, head bisected all the way to presumed brain stem. Target dead, level up to 31 confirmed. Scanning for differences, preparing report, exiting mode.

Charles found himself panting and completely covered in red, warm blood. It was clotting extremely fast, and becoming sticky and uncomfortable. His suit was soaked in it, and he had no way to clean it. Disgusting stuff, he thought grimacing, and he even sullied his own suit. The goblin was dead, at least, and had not offered great resistance. Its fighting skills were mediocre even by Charles’ zero-combat-prowess standards, and were definitely no match for the LAI’s predictive powers. The AI had zero actual combat prowess, just like Charles, its attack patterns were crude and ungraceful even to untrained eyes. But it had a comprehensive database of recorded fights, simulations, scenarios, actual sword styles and much more from Earth’s history. What it lacked in human skill, it all made up in brute force by calculating and predicting every single possible movement and implementing the best possible attack pattern it managed to think up. Its fighting was the best possible path to victory, without a style, a signature set of moves or any unnecessary movements. It was not a martial art; it was a methodical killer machine.

And it was successful once again, this time with zero damage to himself beyond some physical exertion. And that too was just because he had to save power or his suit would become useless. He asked the LAI to minimize its use when possible to save the little power it had for when it was needed.

Anyway, he gained a level. Finally. He had felt on the cusp of gaining it for a while now, and finally did it. There was a report waiting for him, one that would probably shed light on what actually happened each time the numbers went up. With this final level up, the LAI had enough data to extrapolate.

And the data was quite the revelation. Each level granted him an increase on every single aspect of his body, from his brain power to his physical strength, to even the amount of mana he presumably had. And it all followed a simple rule. The total multiplier over his base body was 1.01 elevated to a power equal to the level. Right now, it was 1.01^31, meaning that he was 1.36 times better than he was before gaining the first level. He suspected, and the LAI did too, that all his attributes increased like this. Even the hidden ones he had no idea even existed.

It was a monumental finding, one that would finally motivate him to grind levels like a madman. Not that he needed any motivation, but he had his reservations against something that had to do with the system. He had no idea what the system was, how it operated or why, so he was reluctant to exploit it. But now?

“Fuck it.” He said, smiling despite the blood clots sliding down his nose and into his mouth. “LAI, begin complete extermination of all enemies.” He said.

A grinning man, moving with methodical, machine efficiency was running across the floor of the dungeon. Charles was barely aware of what was happening, because after the first hour it got quite tedious and boring to watch. He was greedily going through another report, instead, having decided to let the use of those crude weapons to the LAI and the LAI alone. He was a man of brains not of muscle, and the only weapons he decided he would use directly were those he deemed worthy of it. Ion cannons, nuclear bombs and the likes, not certainly magical swords he could not even use well.

The new report offered a possible explanation to why the system restricted his access to it. The LAI suspected that the system was aware of its presence, or at least that something was wrong with Charles’ brain. And thus, in order to avoid deviancies as the system itself stated, it disabled its advanced functions for him. The fact that he could gain levels meant that they probably were unaffected by the system’s presence and were a different part of the world that simply got integrated into the system at a later date.

Perhaps they didn’t even behave like levels without the system’s mediation, but rather like Chinese cultivation or classical European magic. He’d have to experiment with it a bit, even though the how was not yet clear to him. The priority for now was getting stronger and getting out of this dungeon, both at the same time if possible, like right now.

He looked at the number in his vision, a holographic counter provided by the LAI at his request to track the total amount of goblins killed. It was in the hundreds now, and was rising constantly. Perhaps there was no way to actually clear this level, as the enemies seemed to respawn whenever he left an area. This prompted the LAI to formulate quite the sadistic extermination plan, which exploited the system to achieve maximum efficiency. As soon as it mapped the whole floor and identified the stairs, it moved to a corner of the floor map where five caves were connected in a circular pattern. Then, it began going through each of them, the time needed to kill all the goblins just aligned with the time needed for them to respawn.

It had been going in circles ever since, eliminating all opposition. And with ease, as the caves were narrow and never allowed for large groups of enemies to appear. He watched yet another green man get decapitated, then decided that he had enough. He willed for the LAI to exit the killing mode as soon as another level was gained, a thing that was happening with less frequency by now. It was not the normal exponential increase in experience needed either, and the change happened suddenly after the first few hours, so he suspected that someone was watching him farm the goblins and had tried to nerf him directly.

It didn’t discourage him, as he was busy reading, and neither did it deter the LAI, as it was just a machine following orders.

[Level up! New level: 52]

He stopped in place, and he reacquired control of his body after so long. The pain was almost new to him, the sensation of every single muscle in his body screaming and complaining with every movement. Perhaps he had overdone it a bit.

He sat down for a while, the cave empty of threats by now, and decided to take a quick nap before proceeding. He had, together with the LAI, formulated some quite interesting theories on how to trick the system into thinking that he was eligible to have its assistance. To hide the LAI, basically. He needed some sleep to ponder over them, as he felt that they would prove quite valuable one day. Not right now, but as soon as he had the right equipment to make what he needed to make.

Ah, a sweet mad scientist workshop. His eyes heavy, he drifted off to sleep thinking about his plans for the future. All the weapons he would build, all the ways he would science the shit out of this strange new world. All in the name of the Technocracy of Earth.

He woke up refreshed, but feeling an odd heaviness on his right-hand middle finger. It was the finger with the ring he stole from the party that attacked him, something he had almost forgotten about ever since his last disappointment with mana. This time, however, he felt as it the thing was calling at him, pulling on strands that came from inside his brain.

He had managed, he realized, to somehow sense the flow of mana in the world and to manipulate it. And he did so without even realizing it. He frowned at the idiocy of the situation. Such a discovery and he didn’t even experience it properly. He imagined the possible children of this world being all ecstatic when they first managed this, and yet here he was groggy and sleepy moving mana with his will for the first time.

He knew that he was the odd one here, not only because of the idiotic way he had unlocked the ability, but also because he was quite sure that it was not supposed to come this late in life or in levels. It was the damn system pulling on his leg again, he was sure. By now he had reached a level so high that it was impossible for the system to dampen his mana abilities anymore, since they increased with the level as well, and so he could now use them. Bullshit, but not something he could deal with right now. If he was level fifty-two and was only this strong, meaning 1.68 times his base stats, then the party he decimated had to be in the high hundreds at least. He was just worthless in the face of real power, assuming those people even were any powerful at all.

To distract himself, he tried sending the damn mana into the ring on his finger. As soon as his strand of energy, something akin to an extension of his consciousness, touched the ring it was met with strong resistance. The ring not only refused him access, but was fighting against him with all its inanimate might.

Even a goddamn piece of equipment was trying to obstruct his path to success. Utter madness. He asked for the LAI’s help, because if the enemy was fighting dirty then he too would use all his means to react. Suddenly as the LAI entered the connection, it was as if a veil had been lifted. Or perhaps it was the nature of the AI itself that manipulated the mana, but he saw the very strands of it reorganize and change. They were now resembling code. A convoluted, regressive quantum neural network of three hundred q-neurons was protecting whatever laid inside the ring. And yes, the ring had an inside, a space severed from the normal spacetime where even Lorentz invariants actually varied. A pocket dimension without time, as large as a small warehouse.

The ring too, the neural network hesitantly revealed after the LAI softened it for a while, had a level attached to it. 352.

“Hack it, all resources available.” Charles said, and sat back to watch the LAI make the small neural network made of mana into its little slave.