Dungeons in The New Reality are ranked on an alphabetical system. This system, ranked from A to F, is based on the amount of Wild Mana present in the dungeon. In special cases, they may achieve S tier. Dungeons of the S tier are either artificially more difficult than they would otherwise be or their amount of mana is immeasurable by conventional standards. For an example of the first case, an entirely underwater dungeon with A rank mana would be classified as S rank for human adventurers as they are not adapted to a submerged environment. The latter case, sometimes called “True S Rank”, are considered the most dangerous locations in this world. These dungeons can be home to Dragons, Great Spirits, even Lesser Transcendents. - History of a New Age, pg 36

Waking up, Li took in the rising sun, the chirps of the birds, and the nice breeze coming off of the lake water. He had slept incredibly well and awoke feeling perfectly refreshed. The smell of fruit had his stomach growling in anticipation of the delectable meal they would provide. As he sat up, he only had one thought on his mind.

“Oh man, I am so screwed.”

Li’s voice echoed over the water as the gravity of his situation set in. He was trapped. Trapped in an idyllic vacation destination, but trapped all the same. Thankfully water wouldn’t be an issue, and plenty of food was available. Less fortunately, as long as he was here, he wasn’t moving forward. He almost expected that, in and of itself, was the trap of this place. Complacency and fear of what it would take to leave.

He could stay here, build a home, never need for any food or water. Grow used to just this. He couldn’t even blame himself for it. Why shouldn’t he? There was no pressing need for him to leave. No goal to accomplish in the outside world. The only thing he’d lose is his opportunity to make history.

Still, until he actually had a way forward there wasn’t much he could do. Returning to the courtyard without any improvements was as good as a death sentence. With no easy way to gain points, that meant practicing his spells for the time being. If he could just increase the effect of his Reinforcement Armor, maybe he could eke out enough speed to make it past the Warlord and through one of the other doors. Hell, maybe he just needed to spend a few days storing up enough kinetic energy and he could make it out.

It was hard to say without experimentation. At least if his armor spell didn’t work out, there were other options. Force Wall should be more useful than it had proven to be so far. He could make a wall wherever he wanted, which allowed so much flexibility. He could stop enemies in their tracks, defend himself, or close off entrances. If only they could take more than one hit without entirely draining him of mana.

He still hadn’t gotten a chance to really play with his Telekinesis. He also hadn’t had a chance to use it in combination with his daggers yet. Perhaps he had been too single minded in that thought process though. If he could just shove the Warlord at the right moment maybe he could throw the stone man off balance long enough to make it past him.

He had messed with the spell a little bit, but he could really only focus on one thing at a time when using Telekinesis. He could hold three or four objects at a time, but trying to move one would immediately send the rest tumbling to the ground as he lost focus on them. It was frustrating, but as far as he could tell this was a personal failing and not a limitation of the spell. He simply couldn’t keep the mana holding everything else in place going while he tried to make fine manipulations.

As for Giant’s Punch, he still hadn’t tested the real limits of the spell yet. Maybe it had the power he needed to deal with these heavily defended opponents. Maybe he just needed to get close enough to actually use it. He’d have to see just how much he could up the mana content and strength of the spell.

As for his two passive spells, those were probably the ones he was most comfortable with. He had been regularly relying on his Perfect Force Understanding and Motion Sense to survive throughout this dungeon. He wasn’t perfectly in tune with these abilities, but he felt his understanding was significantly higher with them than with any of his other abilities. The only one that even came close was his Reinforcement Armor.

The feeling of using Perfect Force Understanding was difficult to explain. At its most base level it was simply knowledge on how anything around him would move as long as none of the forces affecting it changed. With a glance he could tell where a falling leaf would land, assuming no breeze came through and changed its flight pattern. After a breeze started, he would know the exact point it would land as long as the breeze continued at the same strength. It wasn’t truly predictive, but it allowed for fairly accurate guesses of where something like a punch or thrown item would hit.

When he began spending mana, there were two effects on the ability. The first was that he could focus his understanding on multiple objects. Rather than just knowing the landing place of one thrown rock, he could anticipate the landing point of every one of a handful of thrown pebbles. Assuming he spent enough mana. The second effect was more esoteric in nature. He could sense active forces in the area. Well, sort of. By observing an area, he could get a feel of where forces were affecting things. He didn’t understand it exactly, but when he saw an object he could visualize each force acting on that object, their direction, and their intensity.

Motion sense was a much simpler feeling. It was almost like hearing motion around him. The actual mechanism of recognition was different, but pinpointing the motion was a lot like when something making a sound moved around and you could anticipate where it was coming from based on the relative volume in each ear. Also like hearing, the sense didn’t tell him exactly how far away from him something was moving. Though the relative volume could give a general impression of closeness or distance. As for the actual feel of the motion, it was similar to looking through a thin blindfold in a bright room. He could “see” impressions, but they were vague and larger motions could easily obscure smaller one. This masking of motion could also be created with sheer number. Many moving objects could blend together and obscure each other. By expending mana he could get three effects: greater range, greater clarity of what each motion was, and a greater ability to track differing motions.

The real goal, of course, was for each ability to feel entirely natural. Like they were something he had been born with and relied on without conscious thought. Not something he needed to remember the optimum way to use, or actively concentrate on. Something he just felt and used. He was sure that he could manage it too, given enough time. Like learning an instrument or how to type. At first you had to consciously think about where each finger went and when to use which, but over time the skill built and eventually you didn’t even realize which finger you used for which note or letter. It was so ingrained you simply didn’t think about it anymore.

So that was his goal for the day. The first tiny step of many to move from using his magic to internalizing his magic. That meant practice. Lots and lots of practice. Starting with the spells he was least confident in. Focusing on the relatively unknown factors of his less used spells and fleshing out his understand was reaching for low hanging fruits, but it was also important to build a solid foundation. He couldn’t attempt to run without first knowing his limits while walking.

For the following hours he would focus on creating Force Walls and then striking them with his Giant’s Punch until he was out of mana. Given the cost of using Force Walls, that likely wouldn’t take long. In addition, he would attempt to make each Force Wall a different size than the others. Each Giant’s Punch would be aimed at a different part of the wall. He needed to see how these variables would affect the mana cost for the Force Wall and the ease of penetrating through.

#

As it turned out, beginning intensive practice with magic wasn’t much different than starting to exercise for the first time in a while. Each repetition of his Force Wall and Giant’s Punch spells left him more and more mentally exhausted. Each following repetition somehow felt more difficult as a deep exhaustion slowly built up in him. Simultaneously, a headache similar to when you woke up highly dehydrated started to build, leaving his thoughts and senses feeling fuzzy. He was also absolutely certain that these pains were not limited to the present. He would be feeling the after effects in the morning.

He wasn’t one hundred percent sure what those after effects would be, but he kind of anticipated that it would be similar to the worst hangover of his life combined with the feeling of staying awake for twenty-four hours straight. If his current state was anything to go by, that might be getting off lightly. He wouldn’t give in though. The options were to improve or die when he tried to leave. To some degree, he was thankful for the deeper, desperate implications of his work. It would have been incredibly difficult for him to maintain the will to put himself through his current pain without the drive a threat on his life provided.

It was paying off too. He really had been underestimating just how much additional strength Giant’s Punch granted his blows. He’d imagined that the spell would grant him equivalent power to his reinforcement armor for a single strike. Turned out, if he really pumped his mana into it, he could strike with four or five times more power then he got out of his armor spell alone. The affects could be stacked as well, resulting in a blow at least ten times stronger than he could achieve without his Force Magic.

He’d also realized that his Perfect Force Understanding could help him achieve better results with the spell. The Giant’s Punch effect was actually very finicky. If he changed the angle of his punch after activating the spell, for example if he had to change his target because his opponent moved, a lot of the spell’s efficacy would be lost as a large portion of the additional force continued in the original direction. This made the spell very powerful for jabs, but far less impressive when he was using hooks or other wider strikes. Using his Perfect Force Understanding he could better read the way the kinetic force wanted to flow and create a more fluid change in direction for the entire spell.

Of course, that wasn’t his only break through. The biggest game changer had come in realizing the more fundamental methods by which his Telekinesis worked. He had noticed it while using the spell to pick fruit for himself during a brief break. He’d had Perfect Force Understanding fully activated at the time, trying to get more comfortable with the feedback from the spell, when he had seen the real mechanism of the spell for the first time.

The spell worked by redirecting and manipulating existing forces on the object in question as much as it did by applying new forces. For example, when he had ripped the fruit from the tree, he hadn’t achieved this by applying an additional source of downward force on it. He had achieved it by adding additional energy to the pull of gravity. Then he had guided the fruit to him by slightly changing the angle at which this additional gravitation energy pulled on that particular fruit and upping his own bodies gravitational pull on it.

With that in mind, he had begun practicing isolating that particular aspect of his telekinesis spell. Eventually, he had found himself able to manipulate the forces themselves directly, rather than manipulating them by the proxy of controlling an object. This had resulted in him receiving a rather strange message from the system.

Warning. Your Beginner level spell Telekinesis is undergoing an evolution. This Transformation has consumed 10 Evolution Points. Congratulations, your Beginner Level Spell Telekinesis has become Beginner Level Spell Force Manipulation. By giving up some of the ease of use of Telekinesis, you have gained significantly greater control and specificity. Additionally, through proper manipulation the cost of the spell can be severely decreased.

This change had opened the way for turning his Giant’s Punch into a force to be reckoned with. Now, by utilizing his Perfect Force Understanding and Force Manipulation, he could maintain the full strength of a Giant’s Punch even if he had to change where his blow was aimed. With practice, he also began getting to the point where he could gather extra force using telekinesis to add even more power to his blows.

It left him with a devastating attack, if one that left him vulnerable as the strike took up so much of his concentration. He couldn’t afford to concentrate on anything but the spell and his target, resulting in a dangerous amount of tunnel vision. It also cost about a tenth of his mana pool in total and he still didn’t feel as if the technique was truly complete. As it was, each strike would seem to rattle the bones in his hands, wrist, and arm. Large bruises would appear over his knuckles as they were exposed to forces they were never meant to endure, even with the protection of his armor spell. Until he could do something about that, this attack would be a double-edged sword and not truly suitable to actual use.

He had also made progress in his use of his Force Wall spell. The upgrade that had come with unlocking Force Manipulation had helped to some degree, letting him reinforce the wall with natural forces and even siphon a little bit off of incoming blows to add to the defense of the wall, but it was still an extremely costly ability to use. As it was, it could barely be compared to a wall, and only when he was willing to sink almost his entire mana pool into it.

Thankfully, this was another spell where his passive abilities proved to be the key to improvement. Because the amount of mana required was directly proportional to the amount of force it was blocking, angled walls consumed significantly less mana. Thanks to his Perfect Force Understanding, he could achieve the best angle possible to throw attacks off balance and minimize the cost. At least in theory. In reality, a change in the amount of force an opponent put into an attack or any change in target could throw the entire thing into disarray. Still, even a deflection that wasn’t perfect cost far less then meeting an attack head on.

Of course, to truly practice deflecting attacks he would need to change his method of training. He needed something to practice the spell in conjunction with Force Sense and possibly Force Manipulation. That meant setting up something else to defend against other than his Giant’s Punch. Maybe if I throw sticks in the air, I can deflect them as they fall back down?

It would be significantly less mana intensive then his current practice. Honestly, though, he could probably use the break. After I get used to that I can try using reinforcement armor to chuck larger rocks above me and practice against those. They should provide significantly more punch.

#

His new practice method had consumed most of his afternoon. He had tried to jump directly into deflecting the falling sticks using only his Motion Sense, but the enhanced effects of Perfect Force Understanding, specifically his ability to see the forces affecting the object, was significantly hampered. The experience had confirmed for him that he wasn’t actually seeing the forces when using Perfect Force Understanding though, at least not entirely. It seemed like he was somehow extrapolating the forces affecting the object based off of how they were moving and any forces that he and the object were both being acted upon by (such as gravity or wind). The filter of Motion Sense simply wasn’t detailed enough to provide that same level of input and it made his sense of the forces acting on an object fuzzy for lack of a better word.

Still, it wasn’t like that meant he couldn’t deflect an object using just his Motion Sense, it was just less efficient since he couldn’t get as perfect of an angle. He often used an angle far greater then strictly necessary to avoid being hit himself. With practice he had got a better feel for the process and had begun working out a method to momentarily spike the mana he input to Motion Sense. He hoped that with more practice he could increase the effectiveness of Motion Sense just enough and just long enough for Perfect Force Understanding to give him the information he needed.

The disruption of his Perfect Force Understanding wasn’t the only issue with creating force walls in areas he wasn’t looking at. He also found it difficult to properly scale and orient the wall he created. It was easy to just throw up a plane of force between himself and the incoming object, but anything more than that...He just couldn’t visualize it properly without actually looking. All of this led to him regularly creating walls that didn’t quite meet his expectations, like drawing without looking at the paper. Again, this was something that could only be fixed with a large amount of practice.

He was a long way from where he wanted to be, but at least he was making progress. And all this practice had let him build up quite a bit of charge for his Reinforcement Armor. He’d actually learned, much to his chagrin, that there was a maximum limit to the energy that could be stored by his armor. This limit seemed to mostly be due to his familiarity with and control of the spell more than anything, though the amount of mana he fed into his armor seemed to play a part as well. One more thing to add to the list of potential improvements I suppose.

#

It was strange how quickly something as incredible and alien as magic could become boring. It only took a few days for Li to be ready to tear his hair out. Following the same routine over and over to make small incremental gains. All to be rewarded with a massive headache and a general sense of soreness in the channels his mana ran through. It really was incredibly similar to exercising.

Still, the rewards were worth it. He was finally seeing some success with his Perfect Force Understanding and Motion Sense combination pulse. He could manage it about a quarter of the time now, a massive improvement over what he started with. Additionally, he had finally gotten the trick to at least properly sizing his Force Walls without direct vision. He was still a little inaccurate with his orientation, but he was getting better.

He had grown confident enough with his Force Manipulation spell to keep all three of his daggers in the air. He could only really focus on using one at a time still, but the others wouldn’t just drop out of the air anymore. He had learned that the secret was to sort of…knot his mana. It was hard to explain. Every spell had a pattern that you sent the mana through and Force Manipulation’s was incredibly simple. His best analogy would be that some spells, such as his Reinforcement Armor, felt like an entire choreographed dance, others felt more like a simple 4 step waltz. Force Manipulations might be even simpler than that honestly.

The downside to a simpler spell pattern is that the spell would quickly fade. With practice he had discovered that spells wouldn’t immediately end when he cut off the mana. Whatever mana was currently in the spell pattern needed to either run its course or be drawn back into your core before the spell would actually end. That meant that a spell with a complex pattern could continue to run for a few seconds as the excess mana continued to fuel it. Of course, without active oversight the mana pattern could quickly break down and end in an uncontrolled burst of energy, but that seemed more likely to be an issue in the future when he worked with higher intensity spells.

The secret he had discovered to keep force manipulation going was to actually add an extra length to the beginning of the spell pattern. Then he would add a small twist to the connection point between this extra length and the base spell pattern. After he flooded the extra length with excess mana, the knot would slowly allow that mana to flow into the spell and keep the pattern going, resulting in a continuing effect. It wasn’t a perfect solution. Ideally the way forward would be being able to keep all the flows of mana actively under his control. It was, however, something useable right now while he worked to improve. Something that increased his chances of survival.

Honestly, at this point he would feel far more confident in dealing with everything he had seen in this dungeon. At least everything besides the Warlord. With the scorpion or bug, he could aim at the eyes of the creature at least. What was the weak spot on a statue though? No, his only chance against the Warlord right now was to hit it with his Giant’s Punch, and even that wasn’t guaranteed to do anything. It also almost ensured he would get hurt, both due to the backlash of the spell and the Warlord’s counterattack. Really now. How is it fair that I have to fight something made out of solid rock that hits like a truck and moves like a damn dancer.

Of course, beating the thing wasn’t really his goal. He just needed to make it through the square and out one of the other doors, and he thought he had the tools to get that done now. In the morning he would make an attempt at escaping.

#

While taking breaks over the course of his training, Li had discovered that the door opened for about one hour four times each day. They opened at approximately four am, ten am, two pm, and seven pm. As the door would stay open for almost an entire hour, he would give himself forty-five minutes to attempt to make it past the Warlord. If he hadn’t managed it in that time he would retreat and make another attempt later. An alarm on his phone should make sure he didn’t stay out there too long.

The morning before his attempt he had collected as many fruits as he could fit in his backpack. He had filled his canteen and packed up a roll of padded leather and blanket that had been his bed for the last few days. He had stretched and gone on a short run to get himself warmed up. Then he had worked his way to the door about five minutes before the ten am window. He was as ready as he could be.

As the door slowly opened, he saw that things had changed since his last visit. All the statues in front of the door had been moved. Now, when the door opened into a cleared column of space. At the end of the column, the Warlord sat on his throne, staring down at him. Lining each side of the cleared area an assortment of statues stood at the ready with swords held high, as if in salute. The statues were densely packed on either side, leaving no clear path to escape into the safety of the chaos beyond them.

Forcing himself to speak more cheerfully than he felt, Li called out to the silent king of this realm. “Hope I haven’t kept you waiting, but I need to get through here. Things to do and people to see you know.”

Slowly, the king rose from his throne and drew his sword, nodding in response to what it apparently took as Li’s challenge. With a heavy crash, he stepped down onto the tiles making up the floor of the square. He looked even larger than Li remembered, easily two or three times the size of a normal man. Every step he took seemed to demand Li’s attention now that they were not longer playing cat and mouse among the other statues.

Li drew his knives and left them floating in the air around him as he started scanning the walls for other exits. He began walking forward to meet his opponent as his armor’s glow shifted. The light reversing course as he activated the release mode on the armor. Light surrounded his right hand as he prepared to use a Giant’s Punch and his eyes began to glow blue with the mana he was preparing to release.

The Warlord, meanwhile, brought his swords up into some sort of stance. The front blade was held low and in front of him, crossed across his body to defend against Li’s attacks. Its partner blade was held above the head and pointed forward, prepared to strike at him with a moment’s notice. The runes on each blade began to glow a faint red and light seemed to shimmer around their edges, as if space itself was being cut by them.

Some kind of subliminal message seemed to alert the two that it was time to begin when they were within ten feet of each other. The Warlord leaned forward, bring both blades down by his side. Then he launched himself at Li with all the strength in his legs, bringing the blades up and around in a sweeping blow that would have decapitated him if Li had continued along his path.

Fortunately, he had not.

At the same time the Warlord launched himself forward, Li had thrown himself to the side. His target had been a statue of a bear of a woman clothed in furs with a pair of axes, one held by her side and the other raised by an arm held at forty-five degrees. Screaming, he brought his fist slamming into her solar plexus and released the full strength of his Giant’s Punch. The result was the statue crumbling around his fist and leaving him a clear path into the warring statues at the cost of a bruised and cut fist that was in no shape for a second blow without some time to recover.

While the Warlord did not appear to have the ability to speak, he heard a grinding, rumbling groan from behind him as the sovereign let out his fury at Li’s flight. The sound was like a cross between a rockslide and a scream, and was quickly followed by smashing as he was pursued further into the square.

This time the chase was less desperate as Li’s fully charged Reinforcement Armor proved its worth. Between the speed it offered him and the option to force a path for himself using his Giant’s Punch every so often, Li had quickly opened a space between himself and the Warlord. He even managed to deflect some of the statues blows with his force walls, proving just how much of an improvement his practice had brought about.

Soon he was running along the walls, looking for an exit and finding absolutely nothing. No doors or cracks or hallways or any way to escape the Warlord’s clutches without returning through the door he came from. He only had so long to look for an escape as he was rapidly burning through the collected energy that supplied his Reinforcement Armor. Once it ran out, he would once again find himself in a desperate situation as he positively hemorrhaged mana to keep his armor running at the same level and throw up the deflecting force walls. That meant it was time to try something desperate.

Circling away from the door he had entered through; Li began working to put more space between himself and his pursuer. He began using his mana without restraint, burning as much as was necessary to get even another second before the Warlord caught up with him. When he had worked his way maybe halfway across the square, he enacted his plan. Leaping onto a statues shoulder, he slammed a full powered Giant’s Punch into the things head and used the reactionary force to fling himself back toward the cleared part of the square.

Soon he was leaping from the heads and shoulders of various statues, feeling more closely in tune with his armor and passive abilities then he had at any time in the dungeon to date. He couldn’t afford to spend more than a moment on each statue, as they would quickly react and attempt to throw him off or attack him, but in mere seconds he had made it in sight of his target. The throne of the Warlord loomed over the surrounding statues and offered an unimpeded view of the entire square. From the top of that boulder, he would be able to discover the escapes available to him.

When he made it onto the boulder, he was able to take in the entirety of his surroundings. To his north, the Warlord smashed his way through the statues. Forcing his way toward Li like a raging bull. The golem would be on him in moments and he needed to make the most of this chance. He began scanning the walls around the square, slowly working his way in a complete circle.

“You have got to be kidding me. Nothing? There isn’t a single available door?” Li couldn’t keep the frustration from his voice. There was evidence of passages everywhere around him. In fact, not ten feet beyond his own door he saw a great entry gate carved with images of the warriors fighting in the square, the warlord with his arms spread wide adorning the top of the gate. The problem was that every single door besides his own was shut tight with no way through.

Moving quickly, he prepared to sprint back through the door and try again at a later time. Maybe he had just gotten unlucky. He would need to map out the area during the beginning and end of each window when his door was open. Keep trying until he actually found an opportunity. He couldn’t afford to stay here though. His stored energy was about to hit empty and he had barely a quarter of his mana remaining. Glancing at his phone he realized it hadn’t even been ten minutes. I can only afford to stay out here for forty-five minutes huh?

#

So it was that moments later the Warlord smashed his way back to his thrown, only to rumble in unmistakable rage as his prey once more scurried off into its hole. The puny creature had insulted him once again, refusing his challenge and fleeing like a coward. He had even destroyed one of the Warlord’s subordinates with a surprisingly vicious attack. He could not allow mere prey to insult him like this. The next time the little pink being came into the square it would be his last.

#

After he escaped the square once again, Li received a message from the system. It appeared that the statues he had smashed were indeed some kind of monster, despite his initial beliefs, and therefore awarded experience points. Unfortunately, as the system explained it the creatures were worth drastically less than one could expect from their defensive and offensive properties. This was because, as the mysterious spokesperson of the system put it, they were immobile, dumb, and for the most part only attacked once each.

Congratulations, you have gained 35 Racial Experience (x5 Lesser Stone Golem, 35 XP). As you have no class, you have gained 0 Class Experience You have gained 4 Evolution Points.

It wasn’t much, but it was one more benefit he could utilize in the coming days. He wasn’t looking forward to the task ahead of him, but the possibility of leveling up at least added a little bit of potential fun. Just training wouldn’t be enough. He had seen how much the effectiveness of his spells had increased with practice, but his base ability was just too low. He didn’t have enough mana, he didn’t have enough strength, and he simply wasn’t durable enough to regularly use his strongest blow. He could, and would, continue practicing with his spells, but against the Warlord it simply wouldn’t be enough.

For now, though, he would need to scout each window when the door opened up. At least at the beginning and end, possibly even once or twice in the middle. He needed to be absolutely certain there was no other exit open at the same time as his own. After all, if there were not any, he would have to turn to alternative options. All of those were more desperate gambles than actual plans.

He could try to survive for however long it took a door to open after his own closed. If that was any more than ten or fifteen minutes, he would quickly be in the desperate situation he had experienced on his first trip through the square. He simply didn’t have the mana or energy reserves to keep ahead of the Warlord for an appreciable amount of time. Even worse, it was almost a certainty he wouldn’t be able to keep enough energy in reserve to properly scout the walls for exits at regular intervals. That meant he would be fleeing through the square for an unknown amount of time blindly looking for an exit at an unknown location while trying to be as energy efficient as possible. He might be able to manage if he had the devil’s own luck and the Warlord fell on his own sword.

His second option was to fight the Warlord. Again, this didn’t seem like a winning possibility. Seeing the opening attack by the giant golem, Li had become absolutely certain that any attempt to hit the thing with one of his Giant’s Punches would result in him getting slashed. Whether his hit would land was something he gave a fifty/fifty shot. He was more confident in how much damage he could inflict after how he had destroyed those Lesser Golems, but the Warlord was obviously a cut above. How much damage would he actually manage to inflict even with a clean blow? No, that option truly is an absolute last resort until I have some way to reliably damage him without exposing myself to a deadly counterattack.

His last option was perhaps even more of an unknown then the first. The other side of the lake had been a wall of vegetation. An entryway into the jungles that had surrounded the entire labyrinth and filled the empty areas between corridors. He could try going into there, looking for opponents he could fight and level up from. This particular section of jungle could only be so big, it was a small pocket in the center of the labyrinth, but who knew what he might find. At any point he couldn’t imagine running into anything in there that was more dangerous to him then the Warlord.

For now, Li settled in to wait. There was no point making a decision right now. If he was lucky, he would be able to find an open door in one of the following scouting missions. He’d need to be much more careful. His antics had obviously annoyed the Warlord and he couldn’t predict what the being’s reaction to such a sudden return would be. All the same, he wouldn’t let this opportunity pass. In the last fifteen minutes of this entrance period, he would go in for another scouting mission. Just as a long shot could be the thing that saved him, desperation could just as easily destroy him and he couldn’t let himself just jump to conclusions. It would be worth the additional effort to avoid the danger of his other options.