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Another agonizingly long minute later, Hallie finally spoke. “My scan is telling me that the skill inside stops involuntary movement, but I don’t know what it would be. It’s not in any of the corporation’s Tier 8 skill databases that we bought. Here, I’ll send you the readouts. Any thoughts?”
Unexpectedly, it was Jacqueline who spoke up next. “Oh! I think it’s [Steady]! Er. [Self-Control ST8-NN]? Or is it [-NM]? Anyway, it’s a popular marksman skill, but don’t have any major-drop rifts with it. Nearly all our supplies come from the Federation, though there’s been some talks with the Sects for imports from them lately.”
Rachel, their remaining teammate, poked Jacqueline and gestured for her to hurry up. “Yeah, but is it valuable?”
Jacqueline nodded. “Extremely. Or at least, that’s how I’d rate the normal module. I looked into getting a spell module, and after import cost and tariffs, the Tier 8 module costs tens of megacredits when it’s available. I can’t even imagine what a full core would go for.”
Axel leaned forward. “How rare is it in the Federation? If we can figure that out, we ca—”
Hallie chopped down her hand, cutting his sentence short. “We can only speculate, and it won’t be that accurate. What really matters is if one of the big Corps wants it. And if it’s import-only, we can guarantee they want a nearly unlimited source of the skill, no matter what it is. That it’s combat-relevant just makes it better.”
Her shoulders moved as she raised her hand. “This has the possibility to have a value measured in gigas or teras, if not more. Do any of you think we can get better loot before the fourth floor?”
Axel shook his head. He suspected the evaluation she gave the skill was on the lower side, and that they could make more, but that made his decision easier. They never intended to delve past the fourth floor of Minkalla, and now they earned something that could ensure they had an easy road ahead of them if they just left now.
There was the fact they couldn’t come back once they left, but getting out alive meant they got to enjoy their prize, after all.
“I vote we exit now.” He spoke first.
A few seconds later, Jacqueline and Rachel agreed with him.
Hallie, seeing that nodded firmly. “Then we immediately change from a ‘Genesis Energy gathering’ delve to a ‘reach the safe area and leave’ delve.”
Having said that, the four of them turned their gaze to the distortion that would take them to the third level, and started looking for another ruin with a boss so they could leave.
Xavier was worried.
He and his team had managed to fight their way past the first guardian of Eternal Darkness, very grateful for the orientation package that they’d gotten while preparing for their time in Minkalla. But now, he wished that he’d listened to the old man and spent a few more weeks learning about the peculiarities of each floor.
Now, on the second layer of Eternal Darkness, everything was too empty. He kept waiting for some monster to jump out of the tall grass they were walking through, or some great hidden hazard to unveil itself and kill them all, but there was nothing. So, they continued to walk aimlessly, desperately hoping that they weren’t going in circles, and that they’d find whatever horrible twist this challenge would eventually reveal.
He almost felt vindicated when their scout, Kathy, collapsed without warning, but that part of him was quickly quashed by panic for his friend and teammate. He and the rest of his team rushed to her side, and he summoned flames in preparation to strike at whatever invisible monster had finally revealed itself.
“I don’t understand,” Alex messaged. As the group’s de facto healer, he was in charge of healing their fallen friend. “She’s not wounded. I don’t see what the problem is, she just collapsed.”
As if on cue, Nathan collapsed almost on top of Alex, and Xavier unleashed a blast of flames where he had been standing, unafraid of setting the grasslands on fire thanks to his Talent.
“It’s the same thing!” Alex protested. “No visible wounds… Oh. Oh, no. Xavier! Drop the flames!”
“What?” he protested. “Why?”
As his body suddenly collapsed out from under him, Xavier was just barely able to process the final message.
“It’s not an attack, it’s heatstroke!”
Sun Li waited.
She had been told that Minkalla was a great hidden realm of treasure and rewards, capable of forging even the meanest of talents, such as herself, into the finest of blades. Thus, she had been most eager when the time had come for her to claim her destiny.
She knew not what awaited her, for according to the Sect elders, knowing of the challenge beforehand would lessen the tempering this forge would grant, and would therefore be a shameful display of weakness. She was farm-born, she would not abandon this chance to prove herself worthy of the chance she was given. Unlike the spoiled Young Masters, who did not truly rely on their own strength, she would reforge herself and emerge radiant and victorious. That the first trial was one of patience that she had not been expecting, but in this strange space, where even her body did not exist, it was understandable. She had tried to walk around, yet nothing had happened. Even her spiritual sense, trained to stretch for miles around her, returned nothing existing beyond her core, not even her body.
She was at least most certainly capable of waiting. She had done so her entire life, after all, and this was not even the first time she had been tested in this manner. She had waited to be selected from her village as one of the fortunate few to be elevated to a higher station in life, she had waited to be granted access to the greatest meditation points, and she had waited for instruction on how to forge the Tempestuous Spear’s techniques from their undignified, barbarous original forms.
It was that very practice she was exercising even now. When the only thing she could sense was her spirit, that meant she could meditate, and thus bring her techniques to the standard demanded of her.
If Minkalla sought to test her patience, it would not find her wanting.
Her final thought, as the last drops of blood dripped from her impaled body, was that of boredom.
- Writer
