The next puzzle room occurred in room 83. The room was a small chamber, 10 meters by ten meters, and contained a massive floating cube made of 27 smaller cubes of dark grey rock. The instant Michael saw it he recognized it for what it was, a gigantic Rubiks Cube. For a moment Michaels face showed a look of horror as he failed to see any difference between the blocks but he realized that, just like the invisible maze and the invisible matching puzzle, there had to be a trick. Approaching the cube Michael used his Chilling Touch on it only to find that nothing happened. The block showed absolutely no change in color, size or shape. No marks were revealed, or patterns were formed. The block simply sat there, mocking him with its silent indifference.

Jelly ran through several of his spells but nothing produced any change. Michael tried to feel all of the blocks to see if there was any difference in texture but there was none. The cube was surprisingly easy to move around, the blocks rotating and sliding with remarkable ease. The gritty stone that made up the cubes seemed like it should produce a horrifying grinding noise when shifted but they failed to produce even a whisper.

Michael tried several different methods to find a difference in the various cubes and finally struck gold when he activated his Mana Sight while hitting a cube with an ice spell. For a few moments after the cube was hit with the spell a symbol appeared, only visible under Mana Sight. Grabbing a pen from his inventory Michael and Jelly went through the process of marking all the symbols that appeared onto the blocks in a more easily visible manner.

From there on solving the puzzle was simply a matter of time. Michael had never actually solved a Rubiks cube fully so it took far longer than he was comfortable admitting to solve the puzzle but he got there in the end. As soon as he completed the final rotation there was a small rumble before all the outer blocks simply fell to the ground, nearly crushing Michael in the process, before disintegrating into piles of dust.

The block that was left, floating in midair, slowly lowered itself and settled gently onto the ground. As soon as it settled a Glacial Key appeared, resting on top of the block. Grabbing the key, the trio moved on with the dungeon.

Room 85 was another amphitheater containing another Vitr Fraujõ. Rather than enraging the Fraujõ again the trio went through the various stages, facing off against three Jötunns followed by five Ulfs and finally three Drekis before culminating in a fight against the Fraujõ itself. As before the Fraujõ summoned its retinue of Hirds at the beginning of the fight. Unlike before, Michael was ready this time. As soon as the final Dreki fell he pulled his bow to full draw and imbued it with a Wind aspect Wizard Arrow. When the Fraujõ started summoning its guards Michael activated his Power Shot skill. The second the summoning was over and the swirl of protective Mana around the Fraujõ disappeared, the arrow shot from Michaels bow and tore through the air. The overwhelming power and speed of the was greater than any shot he had ever made before, barring the Murderous Hate shot he had made outside the dungeon.

Whether by luck or by coincidence the double wind blade effect activated once again and boosted the speed of the arrow to an incredible degree, so much so that the Fraujõ was completely unable to block or dodge the arrow. It impacted the Monsters chest and hurled it through the air with such speed the Monsters body broke the speed of sound for the brief moment before it slammed into the arena wall.

The Vitr Fraujõ was quite dead, killed in one shot with no hope of survival. As the dust cleared and the ringing from the multiple explosions cleared Michael was surprised to find a notification of an achievement appearing up in his mind.

Achievement Earned!

By successfully killing a Higher Tiered Monster with a single attack you have earned the Deadly Touch Achievement.

Deadly Touch: Critical hits are 5% more likely and deal 50% more Damage.

Michael was a bit unimpressed by the achievements rewards and was about to complain when another notification popped up.

Minor Milestone Achieved!

Low Achiever

Congratulations! You have managed to finally earn 10 achievements! Granted, some do this before the age of ten but hey, you got there eventually! Well done!

Low Achiever: Turn one of your achievements into a Title, doubling the achievements effects.

After reading the message accompanying the Milestone Michael turned his head to the ceiling. “You know what, _____ you, mysterious author! I was only inducted into the system less than two years ago! I’m not slow, you’re stupid!” With that out of his system Michael looked down to find Hazel and Jelly staring at him, confusion scrawled across their faces.

“Don’t worry, just letting off a little steam, nothing to see here.” He said, somehow keeping a straight face.

Michael opened up his Achievements, curious to see what would work best as a Title.

Achievements

Extravagant Wastrel - Gain 5% of the items worth in System Credits when you throw away an item.

Perfect Genes - Attributes are easier to acclimatize.

Insane Attributes - Base Attributes are 5% more effective.

Murderhobo - Deal 10% more damage when homeless.

One With The Universe - Increase Mana and Health Regeneration by 10%.

Twinned Soul: When soul companions are the same level they gain 5% increased experience.

Overskilled - Skill evolutions become easier.

Friends In High Places: Higher Tier creatures are less likely to attack you.

Idiotic Soul - You are no longer trusted to know normal stupid from too stupid. You will now receive a warning whenever you are about to do something self-destructive, or just monumentally stupid.

Deadly Touch: Critical hits are 5% more likely and deal 50% more Damage.

Michael looked over his achievements and retracted his earlier statement regarding the Deadly Touch Achievement. He’d forgotten how … lackluster Achievements were. Granted, the Murderhobo achievement basically gave him a permanent 10% bonus damage and the One with the Universe Achievement was pretty decent, but the rest weren’t all that amazing. Michael decided to equip the Deadly Touch achievement as his Title, the 10% crit chance being the more decent option. Murderhobo would probably give slightly better damage overall but Michael would prefer to be known as the Deadly Touch than the Murderhobo.

After they had all recovered their Mana they went on with the Dungeon. The rooms had definitely ramped up their difficulty, Dreki appearing more often and the Jötunns and Ulfs no longer appearing in singles or pairs. By the time they had reached the 90th room the Dreki even started appearing with Ulfs by their side. On the bright side, he ramped up pressure helped their skills even more. Michaels Dodge, Stealth and Throwing Weapons skills all reached Tier 2 and gained a large boost in power. Novice Dodge became Confusing Dodge, the skill leaving an after image behind to confuse the enemy. Novice Stealth simply became Intermediate Stealth, the skill now removing his scent as well as his tracks as he moved. Since he had been using Spell Arsenal in conjunction with his Novice Throwing Weapons the skill seemed to have picked up on it when evolving, the skill becoming Empowered Throw and allowing him to imbue whatever he threw with Mana to increase its speed and damage. Best of all, the skill was no longer just a weapons skill and could be used with anything. He could even chuck an empowered Hazel at his enemies, though when he thought about suggesting it his Idiotic Soul achievement warned him not to.

The 91st room contained the final Puzzle Room. The room was circular, 20 meters across, and had 6 waterfalls around the room with the water disappearing through grates built into the floor. A podium stood near the door and to the right of the center of the room was an impressive ice sculpture. The sculpture was of a fierce and dominant looking Giant, clad in exquisite armor and wielding a massive two-handed sword in its right hand, as if it was the main character in an anime. Just to the left of the statue stood a large pillar of ice, just a bit bigger and wider than the statue.

Feeling apprehensive Michael approached the console and looked to see what was written on it.

Make Them Match

…

…

What?

Michael looked up from podium and took in the block of ice and the exquisite Ice Sculpture, full of a thousand little details that made it look almost lifelike. He looked down at the podium and asked “Really?”. The letters shifted for a second, forming the one word – Yes – before reforming the earlier sentence. Michael stared at the podium for a few seconds, then up at the two pieces of ice, then back at the podium. His face went from disbelieving to tragic to thoughtful and ended with determined.

“Nope.” He said, and lifted his hands. Two boulders formed from thin air and launched at the block of ice and statue, smashing both into tiny pieces.

He looked down at the podium and said “There, they match.” The smugness in his voice was unbearable, even to the author, and the podium agreed.

Incorrect

The pieces do not match.

At once a bolt of lightning blasted from the podium and struck Michael in the face, sending him flying headfirst into the wall. Michaels Vitality was already at 35 so neither the blast nor the crash was enough to knock him out, meaning he felt everything.

“Oww! Mother ________ _____ ____ and a bowl of _____ with a ____ in a hat! That hurt!” Michael sat up, the last bit of electricity still making him twitchy.

[Are you okay?] Hazels voice pierce his intense anger towards a certain un-angelic angel.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Just really, really done with this dungeon.”

[Oh good, cause that was hilarious!]

Michael turned to glare at his self adopted daughter only to find her a foot from him with a grin on her face. The same sight from a couple of meters away would have been adorable, but from a foot away it drove a shiver down Michaels spine. He couldn’t help but remember the times when those same teeth would rip apart her enemies in very visceral ways. Rather than snap at Hazel Michael swallowed his response and simply patted her head.

“Yeah, I guess it was.”

Standing up Michael proceeded to go around the room and destroy all the individual pieces using Fire aspect Wizard Arrows. The process took quite a while, the ice melted slowly and there were a lot of pieces spread all over. Eventually he got them all and returned to the podium only to find that it had already produced the Glacial Key at some point. Sighing at the petty podium, Michael grabbed the key and walked out the door.

Once they were back in the main hallway Michael took out the other four Glacial keys and put all five together, hoping that something would happen. He was not disappointed. Once the keys all made contact with each other the started glowing and small balls of light appeared, floating up from the surface of the keys. The small balls of light merged into one and slowly drifted through the air down the hallway. Surprised by the turn of events, Michael followed the light.

After a while Michael got a bit bored. The ball of light had been doggedly floating down the hallway for over ten minutes now with no sign of change. Michael liked to think he had lots of patience but this was taking forever. He tried a few things to get the light to move faster, even asking it politely, but nothing worked. In the end there was nothing he could do but follow the light.

20 minutes after it was formed the light finally reached its destination. The ball of light turned to a seemingly random door and merged with it. Once the bright light cleared five keyholes were revealed, arranged in the shape of a pentagon.

Before inserting the keys Michael took a bundle of Frostbite arrows from his inventory and liberally applied Chilling poison to them. He had no idea what they were going to face inside the Inner Sanctum but there was a 99% chance it was heavily guarded; an 85% chance the Guard was a Mini-Boss and a 13% chance the Mini-Boss had an evil guy mustache.

If Michael was going to fight an evil mustache sporting Mini-Boss, then he was going to do it prepared. The arrows and the poison were the best he had available to him and he had to hope that they, along with his deadly skills, would be enough to kill the evil mustache monster.

Once Michael was as prepared as he could get, he inserted the keys one by one into the different key slots. Once the keys were all in place they simultaneously melted, the water ignoring gravity and falling into the keyholes. The water filled up the keyholes until the levels were flush with the surface of the doors, at which point the water flash froze and left the door looking as if the keyholes never existed.

After a few seconds spent waiting for something else to happen Michael shrugged and opened the door. On the other side of the door was a long hallway, the sight immediately filling Michael with apprehension. Not because he had some sort of fear of hallways, though he was starting to develop a healthy sense of caution, but because the hallway was lined with holes and glyphs across both walls and even the ceiling. The floor of the hallway was covered in tiles, each with an intricate symbol carved into it.

At the end of the hallway, roughly 100 meters away, was another door. Michael shuffled up to the start of the tiles and Identified them closely. Some of the symbols were familiar to him from the Rubik's cube puzzle but the majority were ones he had never seen before. Michael studied the walls, once again wishing he had the Trap Dismantle skill, but he figured the traps would be too high a level for his skill anyways. Taking out one of his normal arrows Michael tested the walls surrounding the door on his side but found them to be the same impenetrable ice as before. Testing the door produced some results however, the arrow actually being able to penetrate the ice a bit.

With that in mind Michael pulled out his ace in the hole, the perfect and most usable tool in any adventurer's toolkit, a length of Rope. Specifically, a magical item named Expanding Rope, a 3 meter rope that could be expanded to 150 meters with a mental command. The rope had cost him only 500 credits, likely because of its nature as a support item rather than being a weapon or piece of armor.

Tying one end of the rope to his arrow Michael pulled to full draw and aimed at the door on the other side. After waiting a few moments for his Power Draw to build up he released. The arrow flew through the air, the rope trailing behind it, and imbedded into the door with a solid thunk. Grabbing another arrow Michael fired it into the door on his side and tied the rope to it, creating a nice traversal rope.

Impressed with his own creativeness Michael turned to Hazel and Jelly to find a pair of decidedly unimpressed faces.

[Michael, you realize we don’t really have the fingers needed to grab that rope, right?] Hazel said.

“Ummm, about that. I actually have an idea on how to get you and Jelly cross without the rope, but you won’t like it.”

Hazel stared at Michael suspicion in her eyes. She’d rarely seen Michael act this shifty before and it was always when he’d done something stupid that he didn’t want anyone to know about.

[What is it?]

Michael took a breath and said “Well, you know I’ve got that Empowered Throw skill that increases the strength of my throws right? Well, the skill isn’t just for weapons, I can throw anything with it, even other people.”

Understanding dawned on Hazel. [Oh, so you were planning on throwing me and Jelly across. Makes sense. It’s a risky plan but I think it’s doable. Wait, why were you so worried about telling me the plan?]

Michael was confused by how well Hazel was taking it. “I’m not really sure. I thought about telling you about my skill uses before and got a warning from my Idiotic Soul Achievement, so I figured you’d have some sort of issue with the skill.”

[What uses were they, exactly?] Hazel asked, her mental thoughts portraying sweetness and curiosity.

Completely missing the warning signs, Michael said “I had this great idea where I could throw you like a missile at enemies. I figured it would be a great opening attack.”

[So, you’d chuck me around like a boulder?] Her mental voice hadn’t changed, but her body had started to shift in ways that gave off a subtle hint of impending doom. In Michaels defense, he was currently testing the rope to see if it would support his wait and he wasn’t really paying attention, a costly mistake. Hazel may have been a bear, and his companion, but she was a woman first, and not paying attention to a woman when she’s talking is a dangerous risk to take.

“Yeah, you’re getting it. No idea why my achi-ohdearI'msosorryforwhatIsaidpleaseforgiveme" Halfway through his sentence Michael had turned round and noticed Hazel's stare and immediately knew he was in trouble. He still wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but he was smart enough to know it was his fault.

Hazel looked at Michael and decided to let him off the hook. He seemed to be genuinely sorry and that was enough for her. Of course, she wasn’t going to let him know that.

In a voice as sweet as before, Hazel said [Oh, don’t worry about it. So, you’re going to throw us over and then follow on the rope?]

Michael gulped, no longer finding Hazels sweet voice comforting. “Um, yeah, if that’s okay with you?”

[Of course. I’ll be going first, so don’t miss.]

All of a sudden Michael was a lot less sure of his plan, but he went through with it anyways. When he had studied the tiles on the floor he had tried hard to find a discernable patter but couldn’t see anything. The only way to get across was to either test every tile, activating a ton of traps in the process, or to go with an alternative route. Hazel still had her shape shifting earring but the _____ thing had a caveat that it could not be used in dungeons.

Picking Hazel up wasn’t an issue. His 35 in strength meant that he was roughly three and a half times stronger than a pre-Manapocalypse human was capable of. Even with Hazel being slightly heavier than he had expected, an observation he kept firmly locked away in a distant corner of his mind, it was still easy to lift her.

Aiming down the corridor Michael activated his Empowered Throw and felt Mana flow down his arms and around Hazel, enclosing around her form like a second skin. As soon as he felt the skill fully activate Michael let rip, throwing Hazel as hard as he could down the corridor. Thanks to the hallway being made for giants he could get enough height for the throw, his only worry being the distance.

Thankfully his throw was enough to get Hazel all the way across and she landed safely on the other side. Michael turned to Jelly, just in time to see it turn into an icy fog and whisk down the corridor, reforming at the end next to Hazel.

Michael was surprised, he had no idea that Jelly had that kind of spell up his sleeve but was grateful nonetheless. Hazel had a hefty amount of Vitality along with several defensive skills so the danger for her had been minimal. Jelly on the other hand, might have been killed or at least severely injured if he landed on the traps.

With everyone else already over Michael grabbed the rope and slowly made his way over. After he arrived on the other side he retracted the rope, getting to watch the beautiful fireworks as the rope activated about a dozen traps. Once the rope was back in his inventory, an everyone was ready, Michael opened the door to the Inner Sanctum.