When night had fallen, Jack and Dingo carefully sneaked their way out of the jail room. Since it was nighttime, the hallways were dim and there weren't as many guards around. Even so, it wasn't completely safe either as they have to carefully maneuver their way around the few guards they do encounter.

From what Jack could tell, Dingo was a natural rogue given how his footsteps were nearly silent when he walked. In fact, everything about Dingo gave off an air of competence and self-assurance that he hadn't seen before. With this level of clever thinking and calm composure, it really was a wonder how Dingo had allowed himself to be caught in the first place.

After sneaking past a couple more stretches of hallway, they've finally arrived at a door that seems to lead to an exit. However, just as Jack was about to go through it, Dingo stopped him.

"Hey, wait." Dingo whispered, grabbing Jack's shoulder.

"What is it?" Jack whispered.

"I need to find my staff. And my hat."

Jack gawked at him. "Seriously?! Dude, forget about them! The exit is right there! We need to get out before the guards find us!"

"I'm not leaving here without my staff and hat." Judging from his expression, Dingo seemed insistent on it. "Come on, mate. I helped you escape after all. The least you could do is return the favor."

After some thinking, Jack finally relented. "Oh, alright. But make it quick."

After sneaking across more hallways and searching through the rooms, they've finally found one that looked reasonably like a storage room for prisoners' possessions and criminal evidence.

"This should be the place," Dingo said as he picked the lock and entered.

The room was fairly big and filled with various items, all stacked neatly in rows of shelves.

"Aha! Found my hat!" Dingo said as he grabbed a brown hat from one of the shelves and wore it on his head. The hat seemed to be a cross between a wizard hat and a cavalier hat. It had a pointy top and one side of the brim---the left side---was folded up. In addition, a red feather was attached to it to act as some sort of decoration. "Now, I just need to look for my staff."

"This room is so big." Jack whispered as they stepped further inside the room, where a cold dampness lingered in the air. "It's going to take forever to find it."

"Oi, come now, mate. With the two of us, it shouldn't take that long."

"What does your staff look like?"

"Why, it's a one-of-a-kind beauty, I tell you. A staff made of the finest wolfwood straight from Dorencor with a Brushwind design and a 7th Grade Sylvestia mana core. Honestly, if that staff was a woman, I'll marry her right away."

"That's not exactly helpful! I don't even know what half of those words mean! Can't you give me a simpler description?"

"Fine. It's a wooden stick with a green orb attached to it, you uneducated oaf."

"Thank you! That's much better!"

Jack and Dingo searched through the room looking for the staff. While searching, Jack came across a variety of artifacts ranging from common to strange-looking to everything in between. He came across things like magical tomes, scrolls, glowing gems, potion bottles, and even a freaking human skull. Seriously, this look less like an evidence room and more like a museum for witchcraft.

After some more searching, Jack finally came across a barrel holding a variety of magic staves. Among them, he found the staff that matched Dingo's description: a wooden stick about the length of a cane with a shiny green orb attached to one end of it. While Jack wasn't exactly an expert in this sort of thing, he could tell that the staff was intricately made with exquisite detail.

"Hey, is this the one?" Jack said, waving the staff at Dingo.

"Yeah, that's the one. Toss it here." Dingo said. Jack tossed the staff to Dingo, who then proceeded to cuddle it like it was his own child. "Oh sweet baby, I missed you so. I hope those guards didn't handle you too roughly."

"Save it for later. We need to get out of here."

Just then, the door to the room suddenly opened, revealing a guard who came in and spotted them. For a moment, Jack and Dingo turned into deer in the headlights as they stared at the guard.

"Hey, who are you-...Guards!" the guard shouted.

Immediately, Dingo pointed his staff at the guard and activated a glyph, summoning a powerful gust of wind that sent the guard flying backwards and slammed him against a wall. By then, it was too late. They could hear the loud chatter in the background. The entire building was now alerted of their escape.

"Run!" Dingo commanded Jack.

Dingo and Jack hurried out the room and bolted through the hallways. As they ran, they encountered more guards who were coming after them. They tried to avoid fighting the guards head-on whenever they could, but sometimes fights were inevitable.

Dingo's method of attack involved shooting powerful gusts of wind out of his staff while Jack used his sling to pelt the guards from a distance. All in all, they were pretty successful at keeping the guards off their tail.

However, as they traverse further down the hallway, they eventually came across a dead end. In front of them, there was nothing but a solid wall of stone while, at the back, the guards were quickly closing in on them.

"Well, looks like were shit out of luck," Dingo said.

Just then, Jack had an eureka moment. "Not quite. I've got an idea."

Equipped with his stone axe, Jack began hammering on the stone wall. While on the surface it may not be doing much, in actuality, Jack was chipping away the stone wall's durability with each hit of his axe, as his heads-up display was showing.

Dingo, not knowing what was happening, saw Jack beating at the wall with his axe and thought he might have gone mad.

"Uhh, mate, what are you doing?" Dingo asked. "There's no way you're going to chisel your way through it in time. It's going to take forever-"

After a few desperate hits, a section of the stone wall cracked and crumbled into pieces, leaving a large hole. Chunks of the stone wall were then dematerialized and absorbed by Jack.

Dingo saw what had happened and was utterly amazed. "Well, I'll be damned..."

"Hurry! This way!" Jack urged.

The two of them went through the hole in the wall. Afterwards, just as the guards were about to follow after them, Jack summoned a couple of stone blocks to seal the hole shut, barricading the guards from pursuing them any further.

"Jack, you are one clever dog," Dingo praised with an impressed grin.

"Hey, what could I say? I got my moments," Jack replied.

After some more running, they've arrived at a large wide-open hall area with white stone piers scattered throughout. At the far end of the hall, a huge door representing their exit was just in sight.

However, as they approached closer, they saw a couple of figures emerge from the shadows. Three glyph-wielding guards stepped in front of them, blocking their path of escape. Accompanying them were about a dozen regular guards wielding wooden batons. Altogether, they lined up near the door, creating a sturdy formation to blockade the exit, preventing anyone from passing through.

"Prisoners! This is your final warning!" one of the magic-wielding guards said. "Surrender now or suffer a most severe punishment!"

"Yeah, uhh, no thanks. Looking at your ugly face is punishment enough already," Jack retorted.

"Ha! Nice one," Dingo added with a laugh.

That snarky comment had visibly ticked off the three guards, causing them to fire bolts of lightning at both of them. Dingo blocked the lightning bolts by summoning a flat circular magical ward, shielding both of them from harm.

The guards with the batons soon advanced forward to surround the two. In response, Dingo formed a large glyph on the ground, summoning a miniature tornado heading straight towards the guards.

As the tornado moved, it collided with some of the guards, tossing them wildly in the air. In addition, the turbulent winds had picked up a good amount of dust to create some sort of dust cloud which lowered the visibility of the hall, making the guards' lightning attacks less viable.

Not all of the guards were taken out by the tornado, though. Some of them have managed to get through and were now advancing towards them. Jack and Dingo charged forward, using their melee weapons to parry the guards' attacks.

With the activation of another glyph, Dingo quickly transformed his short staff into a longer staff, similar to that of a bo staff. During the transformation, the green orb was now squished into a long thin oval shape and was relocated to the middle of the staff, making the staff more slender and uniform in thickness throughout its length.

Additionally, instead of regular wood, the extended lengths formed at the tips of both ends of the staff was made of some sort of greenish semi-translucent ethereal material. Overall, it made this alternative form of the staff looked like a hybrid between a regular weapon and an ethereal one. Using this version of the staff, Dingo was able to fend off several of the guards with skillful martial art prowess.

Meanwhile, Jack was able to parry a guard's incoming baton attacks with his stone axe in hand. However, as he parried, he noticed on his heads-up display that the wooden baton the guard was wielding had a durability meter as well and that, with each parry in which the stone axe made contact with the baton, he was able to chip away its durability.

[Wooden Baton: 35/50]

[Wooden Baton: 20/50]

[Wooden Baton: 5/50]

When the baton's durability finally dropped to zero, the baton suddenly dematerialized from the guard's hand and was absorbed by Jack.

[+1 Wood]

"Huh?! What the-?!" the guard said, utterly dumbfounded.

Taking advantage of the guard's brief moment of confusion, Jack whacked him in the head, knocking him out cold.

So even during combat, I was able to use my ability to break down my enemy's weapons, Jack thought, staring at his stone axe with amazement. I just need to hit their weapon with mine enough times and their weapon would be broken down and harvested by me. That's pretty neat!

Realizing this new mechanic, Jack was able to take advantage of it as he fend off more guards, hitting their batons with his stone axe enough times until they dematerialized from their hands before finishing them off with a surprise blow.

With the two of them together, they made quick work of the guards. However, by the time they've done so, the tornado was starting to lose its strength. They knew that as soon as the tornado lets up, the magic-wielding guards would be able to resume their barrage of lightning bolts.

"We don't have much time. Hold on to me," Dingo urged as he quickly wrapped his arm around Jack's waist.

"Hey, what are you-WWWOOOAAAHHH!!!" Jack yelled.

While carrying Jack by the waist, Dingo activated a large glyph beneath his feet, propelling both of them forward with a powerful burst of wind energy. With that, they smashed through the door, splintering into pieces. At last, they have finally freed themselves from the prisoner's building.

There was just one problem, though. Once they were outside, they realized that the building itself was built on top of a tall cliff and that there was a long staircase leading down the cliff. But because the wind spell had propelled them with so much momentum, they ended up overshooting the staircase and flew off the cliff's edge before free-falling down a great height to the sea beneath them.

Jack's expression went from triumphant to horrified as he fall helplessly to the depths below.