The entrance to the dungeon remained a white sheet of light acting as the gate. The white marble columns and structures were still behind, acting as set pieces for the dungeon itself. Adventurers weren’t lining up to enter the dungeon, but rather sat idly against the stones with their peers. All eyes went to Arlene as she arrived.

  Arlene herself studied the entrance. There weren’t any changes. The entire architecture of it remained the same as it was two days ago. Before she could continue further, she heard the rustling of those around her.

  She held a hand up. “At ease,” she said softly eyeing the adventurers around her who were trying to get up. They did, sitting back down.

  “Well,” she said to Anire softly. Before she had no one with mana-vision, but now she did with the neko. “See anything strange?”

  Anire bent forward, putting a hand above her eyes like she was scouting ahead. She hummed with a grin. The dotted in her eyes started forming into lines—indicator for her ability activating.

  She sighed immediately after. “Nothing so far,” she shrugged. “Maybe we’ll see more if we go inside.”

  A staff clicked against the hardened floor behind them. “Oh look who finally decide to show up~?” Anire teased as she covered her mouth, glancing to the coming figure.

  Wattyson grunted then sighed. “It’s not my fault. You people are just too fast.”

  “Oh? I thought you would have the same energy as us.” Anire replied as she gestured to both her and Arlene. “For someone who looked in their mid-twenty, you’re acting like you’re actually five thousand years old~.”

  “Spiritually, yeah.” He pointed to the entrance. “Let’s go in. You can go first, Anire.”

  “How forwarding!”

  Arlene watched the two exchanges. She didn’t move fast enough to suggest Wattyson to go first again—to maintain that tradition like the previous dive. There was still another chance when they exit the dungeon.

  She nudged Anire. “Alright go on, our trailblazer,” she teased in a higher pitch voice. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Immediately after, she quickly added. “Scratch that, Watty will be right behind you. I’ll go after him.”

  Wattyson snapped his gaze to her. “Why?”

  She looked back at him with a half-smirk. “Knowing you, this might be the perfect chance to run away and terrorize people in the Hub.”

  “I would never.”

  “Lies.”

  He clicked his tongue, and followed Anire disgruntledly.

  Arlene watched the confident Anire stepped right into the light, disappearing without a sound. The limping weirdo next, taking small steps to the light. Arlene had to push him in—in a way, the tradition is maintained.

  Now she stood before the entrance, she glanced back to all those by the edges of the room and beckoned them to come—they didn’t need to mind her going in. With a polite smile, she nodded to them then stepped into the light—entering the dungeon.

  Arlene came to be in the familiar looking corridors of pristine marble walls and aged ruined floors. Her eyes went to her companions first. Wattyson was there leaning against the wall with his staff while Anire was crouched down, mumbling something incomprehensible while scratching the wall with a dagger.

  “What are you doing?” Arlene asked, walking toward the neko and crouched beside her. Her free hand lifted as she muttered out light, casting an illuminated orb to swirl around her. She saw the scratched wall healed back up after a short delay. It was still the same anomaly. “So? What’s the reading like?”

  “Fascinating,” it came quickly from Anire. She pointed her dagger to all over the wall. “All of these are real materials. Real marbles. You can even tell how young these marbles are if you’re into the grains of it.”

  Her dagger struck onto the wall, slashing it across. “There’s something behind it—many behind it. Threads pulsing through the wall.” She scratched more forming lines after lines above one another. “You can think of them like the manasteel wires, except these are living and pulsating mana running all around us!”

  She quickly slashed down vertically on a no longer visible lines, forcing her to quickly made new ones.

  “Ordinarily,” she pointed to the now crossed scratches, “if you cut a wire, the power from one end wouldn’t reach the other. However, in mana, these things leaked out to reattach itself any way necessary.

  Imagine for a moment~, the vertical lines here,” it disappeared she had to make a new one. “If you see them as a wall, the mana threads will simply go around. If it’s an impassable wall, those threads will continue ramming itself into it till it penetrated through.”

  She stroked her chin with the equipped dagger hand, though Arlene had to intervene and took the dagger away. “Uvela is right. These manas look like they still have lingering desire to survive.”

  Arlene nodded, dropping the dagger. “What about normal dungeon? How do they normally function?”

  “Nothing like these,” Anire scoffed and letting her ear shook. “Once the dungeon is fully formed with its core, there wouldn’t be mana threads running along the walls and floors at all. It will be wider, forming like a bubble around the dungeon so that when the dungeon is destroyed, that sphere will slowly fall down and consume the structure into nothingness~.”

  Arlene reached her hand out and got a feel on the marble itself. It was rough enough she could feel the individual grains, yet her hand never felt like she was dragging along a prickle surface. It was all smooth.

  She figured she would feel something else in terms of mana, but there wasn’t anything like that. It was accurate to her previous dive at the very least.

  Perhaps her boundless mana pool was the issue. “Watty,” she called out. “Can you get a feel of these walls?”

  Wattyson narrowed his eyes at her. He didn’t answer—just silent stare.

  “Uhhh… Watty?”

  “Pervert.” He retorted in a whisper.

  “W-What? That’s not what I meant!” She stomped the ground in a playful jest then she pointed to the wall. “Just get your hands on them!”

  “I concur!” Anire popped up behind Arlene. “These walls have mana running behind them! I want to see what happen if the void such as you were to interact with it!”

  Arlene glanced to the neko then to Wattyson with a full smirk. “She’s not going to let it up, you know?”

  Wattyson didn’t reply. He didn’t grunt or did his usual scoff. He simply turned and touched the wall. Dragging his hand across it.

  Arlene watched him with a smirk still. “Come on! Get a good feel at it!”

  “Don’t say it like that.”

  “Well? Describe the texture please.”

  Wattyson let go and looked at his own hand. “Rough. Felt like I was cruising my hand through piles of sand then bumped into a sandstone.”

  Piles of sand? Sandstone? Arlene hadn’t been to the beach or a biome with those in some times, but those didn’t seem to scream smooth like hers was.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Perhaps this was the same instance when they were feeling the wall further into the dungeon where the temperature wasn’t the same for everyone.

  Her shoulder became heavier. She glanced to Anire resting her full chin on her shoulder. Her lined eyes squinted at Wattyson then back to the wall. Her grin never faltered and she hummed loudly in rhythm to the point Arlene could guess if she was currently thinking or not.

  “Anire? What do you see?”

  “It’s like,” Anire began with quivering lips, “they are avoiding him. The threads move in a straight line, but when he pressed against the wall, the threads all curved away from him.”

  She threw her hand up to Wattyson. “Try casting something—anything while you’re one with the wall!”

  Wattyson shook his head. “What is it with everyone’s phrasing?” He muttered as he pressed to the wall once more. His other freehand he casted a flickering flame forming into an orb. He threw that ball of fire away, and it bounced off the floor like marble before vanishing.

  Anire watched them all—him and the fire. “Fascinating!” She proclaimed loudly. “I have noted it before, whenever you cast magic mana of all sort get sucked into you. However,” she eyed the wall, “these manas seem to try their bests to avoid it at all cost, almost like it is still alive and breathing.”

  “Before you continue, can you stop shaking on my shoulder,” Arlene retorted before sweeping her off. “What about the fireball,” she pointed to the has-been flame marks on the floor.

  The neko crouched and swiped her dagger across the floor—it didn’t get healed. “That fireball,” her voice dragged, “is something I don’t understand either, but I could theorize.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  She stood back up, swiping a notebook and a pencil from her bag. “Despite the dungeon’s mana best attempt to avoid you—they still get absorbed into your weird casting ability. That fireball comprised mostly of that mana. If we’re to take that into account how the wall and the floor are different instances rather than the same...”

  Stopped writing for a few beats, she turned to Arlene. “How old is this dungeon?”

  Arlene shrugged. “About a month or so old, why?”

  Anire glanced to the wall again then to the floor, darting between the two. “We can assume the floor is running with mana that are ambient at most unlike the wall. Hence why one is showing its age while the other is brand new.”

  Arlene’s eyebrow raised. “Assume? Can’t you tell?” She gestured vaguely to the floor. “You have the ability to see mana flows so you can deduce it right?”

  “Hehe~ just because I can see it doesn’t mean I can tag it. It’s not like mana has different colors of flavor.”

  “Ahh. I see.”

  “And Wattyson? Do you feel anything strange?” Anire strode and leaned to him. “Any lingering nauseous?”

  Wattyson raised his chin and gazed upward then back to the neko. “Nah.” His shoulders dropped. “Look. How about, now I know this is very radical, we continue down the dungeon? This is still the first floor. Why don’t we just keep going until appearance change?”

  The suggestion made Anire’s mouth hung then closed into a wide grin. “A man after my own hearts.”

  “That’s not my intention—“

  “Arlene~. Let’s continue! I can’t wait to see more anomalies!” Anire hopped to Arlene, pulling her arm and already raring to continue.

  Arlene rolled her eyes at Wattyson playfully as she walked with Anire. “Anire,” she said softly. “I know the dungeon is probably deserted but we should still be careful.”

  “Of course, if the Chosen One said so~.”

  Floor Nineteen, the spiral staircase leading down to Floor Twenty. Last time Arlene was here, she felt the warmth touch of the wall and the cold breeze on her forehead. The same sensation was different to Wattyson who reported it to be lukewarm.

  Before, the group discussed about the dungeoncore was undergoing a mutation—as hypothesized by Naciv and Rinea. Naciv suggested the wall reflected who you are as a person.

  Another test and a new pair of eyes wouldn’t hurt. “Anire,” she called to the neko behind her. “Reach your hand out. Tell me what do you feel on this wall?”

  Anire did, stretching her hand out. “Ouch!” She yelped. “It’s very hot~. It’s not supposed to be hot!”

  She went for another touch anyway, and again, and again, and again, and—

  Arlene joined too, pressing her palm to the wall and again the feeling of warmth spread all over her senses. She pressed her forehead, and it was the same cooling effect. She wasn’t sure what these said about her.

  “Watty! Do it too!”

  “It’s lukewarm.”

  Lukewarm, it was the same last time for him too. This dungeon stayed the same in principle. Even in the sea of weirdness of a limbo dungeon, Arlene found it comforting there are things remaining the same.

  Until she laid her eyes on Anire who kept trying to touch the wall continuously, “would you stop that if it hurt?”

  “It burns!” Anire screamed out excitedly. “It’s like the sudden rush of heat in a sauna!”

  “What kind of sauna have you been to?!” Arlene shook her head. “Never mind that, do you see anything strange?”

  Anire’s eyes searched for the flows and found nothing out of the ordinary. “It just looks like the threads on the wall are closer than previously.” She frowned before pouting. “Not exactly what I expected.”

  “Just that?” Arlene replied with unease. Demon physiology, as far as she was aware, was dangerous to beings of this world—their blood especially. ‘Corrupted Blood’ was what referred to demon’s blood by scholars and mages as they literally corrupted any humanoids on this plane of existence. That much was known.

  But what about mana? What’s the difference between demon’s mana and normal mana? As far as she was concerned, they were the same. People who fought on the frontline were exposed to it more so than this dungeon—nothing happened to the same degree as corrupted blood.

  She groaned. She should’ve invited Uvela with them in this dungeon’s dive, then again that would mean risking the world’s exposure to Wattyson.

  “Alright,” she beckoned to the two. “Let’s go. Nothing to note here. So far there isn’t any monster at all. We can pick up the speed till we reach a change in scenery.”

  That change came immediately on Floor Twenty—old walls and pristine floor now. “So,” Arlene paused resting a hand on her pommel. “Any strangeness?”

  Anire was still pouting and shook her head hastily. “Nothing much. There’s like,” she pointed back to the stairway going back up, “tangled threads here like someone knotted it before sprawling all of them back out.”

  “Well, let’s see if the glassed section of this floor is still here.”

  “Glass section?”

  “One of our party member previously, Xylia and with the help of Watty,” she pointed onward. “Fired a ‘Moonbeam’—the highly concentrated heat blasted off the lion-slime here. You remember that core I gave you? It was on this floor.”

  The neko beamed. “Then what are we waiting for? Lead on, Arlene~!”

  The walk there Arlene had thought there would be glimmers—the fragments of slime cores darted all over the area. There weren’t any. The adventurers since then must’ve picked up everything.

  She was relying on using it as a landmark of sort. Now she had to trace how many steps she had taken before to reach the battle site.

  “Ummm,” she eyed the area. “I think it got healed up.”

  Anire stepped beside her before crouching down. “You think it is right here?”

  “I think so?”

  Anire started knocking on the pristine floor—echoing the sound of a hollow wood back. She was taken aback. “That’s strange.” She stood back up and raced to the rear—to Wattyson.

  “Give me your staff!”

  “What?” Wattyson swayed the staff away. “No! This is an heirloom?”

  Arlene gave him a doubtful look. “An heirloom?”

  “Yes. It’s been part of me since me. You’re not taking it.”

  “But you gave it to Xylia freely.”

  “Semantic.”

  Anire swooped her hands in, grabbing hold of it. “Please~ I need to test something out! I would’ve asked for a blade, but Arlene’s sword look to be too hard to hold for poor weakling like myself!”

  The staff pulled toward her, but Wattyson never let go. He didn’t put strength into fighting for it back. “What do you intend to use it for?”

  “I need a blunt object. You heard that earlier right?” Her ear pointed vaguely to where she was earlier—to that floor she knocked on. “Hard floors aren’t supposed to do that.”

  She made a face with eyes of pure intention, trying to find empathy from those purple irises of his. “Your staff of steel is perfect for me to leverage it and bashing that floor. Please~? For science~?”

  “If it was for science, shouldn’t you have the tool in that rune-bag of yours?”

  “Nuh! This rune-bag is for potions only, no dangerous tools that can harm me accidentally!”

  Arlene walked to the side between them, eyeing the rune-bag and tilted her head. “Accidentally?”

  “Mhm. There was a time I forgot to turn off the runes, and I fell. The bag was opened and it dropped a hammer on me!”

  That got Wattyson to chuckle.

  “Hey! Why are you laughing at that?”

  “Your anguish is my comfort.”

  “Then the price is your staff. Give me it! Please!”

  Arlene sighed and nodded to Wattyson—to surrender the staff briefly.

  Wattyson frowned at Arlene then to Anire who was pulling the staff with full strength. He exhaled, drawing it out. “Fine.” He let go which caused Anire to tumble backward, but with the staff in hand.

  Anire quickly used the momentum and did a back roll to standing straight. “Thanks Wattyson!” She said cheerfully as she primed the staff atop of where she knocked.

  Arlene stepped beside her. She drew out a motion before muttering out barrier—forming a shimmering light of blue surrounding the staff and a sphere around the bottom.

  “So,” she whistled out, “are you going to just do what I think you are doing?”

  The neko grinned wider. “Simplicity is the road to discovery.”

  She raised the staff up high then fell it down like a guillotine. It made a loud hollow sound and also a click. The floor showed no sign of damage.

  “Looks like the floor managed to heal up fast.” Arlene said, squinting at the impact zone.

  “I’m going to do it again!” Anire quickly replied gleefully. Her eyes shined with the lines darting across.

  The staff fell again, and again like a piston powered by Anire’s mania. At first there wasn’t anything, then small fragments of marble flew and hit the barrier, ricocheting all over. Then there were sparks. The bashings were enough that the hollow sounds gave way to a loud click and a clank. She couldn’t pull the staff back up.

  “Huh?” She paused, stepping away to see the staff was embedded into the floor cleanly.

  Wattyson floated close to it now. “Great,” he said annoyingly. “How am I supposed to retrieve it back?”

  Anire ignored him and crawled to get a better look at the impact site. It wasn’t so much like someone hammering in a nail, there would’ve been a clear indication of something penetrated in. This was clean like the staff’s pole meant to be there.

  Arlene jabbed at Wattyson’s shoulder. “As if you can’t get it out, I’ll help you if you can’t, O’ Grand Chaos.” She turned to Anire. “Anything?”

  “Oh. More than anything.” Anire replied back quick. “This is… mutation at its finest.”

  Mutation. Naciv and Rinea did say that last time. “What kind of mutation?” Arlene rested her hand on the pommel.

  “Supposedly the area here,” she swiped her hand around the staff, “is the glassed area. The threads of mana here are the same like the wall earlier. However, because it was damaged so thoroughly last time I imagine, it couldn’t repair itself fully.”

  “That can happen?”

  “It has happened. You said it wasn’t until Floor Thirty-Five or up till the environment turned more mechanical right? Like a workshop? Now because of the glassing attempt, the mana couldn’t repair or transform one substance to another—glass to marble.”

  She stood back up and tried to pull the staff out, failing. “There is still a layer of glass. Those hollow click sounds were mana pulling marble over a sheet of glass, and everything else underneath a sheet of metal from other floors.”

  Arlene held the staff too, to help pull it out. “What about the mana flows? Anything strange?”

  “From the healed area? Nothing. It’s the same threads like before, the only change is those threads are going through the glass inefficiently.”

  “Inefficiently?”

  “Like a clogged blood vessel.” Anire grunted. “Help me get this staff out before the floor claimed it!”

  Wattyson, who was satisfied watching the others doing the work, snapped. “What?”

  “The mana is flowing in between your staff. I imagine it will pull resources to form structure around it like it did to the glass layer. Unless you want to donate the staff to the floor for a case study, we need to pull the staff out!”

  Arlene chimed in. “It’s harder than it looks! I don’t want to accidentally snap the staff in half!”

  Wattyson rushed in. “Let me have it.” He nudged Arlene away and held onto the staff. With one motion, he pulled it up and freed his heirloom. “You had trouble with this?”

  Arlene folded her arms behind her, playfully kicked a few debris on the floor. “Didn’t want to break your stuff,” she whistled.

  She looked to Anire now, already writing in her notebook. “Do you know what this means for the dungeon? Its cores?”

  Anire glanced up once to Arlene before returned to writing. “Everything is behaving like a dungeon should except those threads of mana. I don’t know how the dungeonsters are yet. Hope to fight them soon so I can get a better look at the state of the dungeon. For now, it just tells me the dungeon itself is alive unconsciously.”

  “Alive unconsciously?”

  “Accidentally gained the urge to survive. If the core is destroyed… even I don’t know how it’ll go. The bubble of threads supposed to fall down and destroy the structures after that, but with how the mana is flowing through this dungeon? The dungeon might still be here long after the core is destroyed~.”

  “Making it—“

  “—never respawning again, losing Toulasi’s adventurers a source of income. The other side effects are dungeonsters could respawn without a core—eventually forming into a stampede to the outside world.”

  Arlene looked around the seemingly empty corridor. “But there isn’t any dungeonsters right now.”

  Anire nodded as she nibbled on her pencil. “That worries me~. Why are there none in all the floors we’ve been to so far? That raises a few theories.”

  She closed her book. “Either the core is inert with all the ‘demon mana’, or… it is stressed by something.”

  “Stress?”

  “I don’t know what, but it could happen~.”

  Stressed by something, now Arlene had to fight with the thought there were malicious party interfering with the dungeoncore.

  Her grip tightened on the hilt of her sword. “Alright, let’s keep going. No more studies of the floor.”

  “Ehhhhhhhhh?”

  She quickly added. “Until we reached Floor Forty. I will assume Thirty-Five is the same, same threads but different materials. When we reached Floor Forty, you can have a field day.”

  Wattyson joined them while he still rubbing his sleeves to clean the staff. “Didn’t you say Floor Forty the messy gore area? I’d rather not linger there.”

  Arlene quickly retorted. “It’ll be fine! It has been two days since we dealt with the Moonless. Besides, adventurers made it to Floor Forty-Three! They likely cleaned up the place… I mean,” she gestured to the corridor around them. “I don’t see any slimes’ cores fragment anywhere here. Either the dungeon slurped them up or other adventurers cleaned up the place.”

  Anire scoffed. “You mean claim them~?”

  Arlene chuckled. “Doesn’t matter. Point is, it’ll be fine. Come on,” she grabbed Wattyson’s sleeve and Anire’s arm. “Let’s go. Unless you guys really want to stay in this floor?”

  None of them answered.

  “Thought so!”