When he came to, James was lying on his chair, which was tilted at approximately a 30 degree angle. The back of his chair was precariously propped up on the edge of his bed frame. It seemed that he had leaned and fallen backwards when he’d been shocked by the music. Miraculously, he had kept his balance and hadn’t toppled over to the left or right.

With some careful movements, some mediocre arm strength, and some grunting, James was able to get out of that position without falling and making a loud noise.

James looked at the clock and determined that he had spent a little more than an hour in the dungeon.

“Well, I guess Mom and Dad aren’t home yet, so there’s no problem there. But...May?”

James slowly walked out of his room and approached his sister. He could hear music playing from beyond the door.

He thought to himself, “I’m sure I yelled out of surprise when I played that music. Well, it’s May. I could have a seizure and I’m sure she wouldn’t care.”

James sighed and returned to his room. His parents would probably be coming back soon. He thought about what he should do during that time.

“Tonight, I’ll go to the dungeon, and I’ll check out the magic tome. Next, I’ll have to warn my senior explorers about that music. I swear it can affect mana. It was called ThousandDust, I think.”

That was fine, but he couldn’t go to the dungeon yet, since he’d have to be unconscious. Then, what to do now? He’d already finished his homework.

He looked at his phone. He saw a message that had been sent to him earlier in the day:

[Zhang Li: Hey James! This is some music production software. Thought you might need it. :)]

Now that James’ fatigue was gone, he was able. His turbulent emotions, consisting partially of rage, confusion, and despair, gave way to bloodlust.

“I guess...I can write a song? I have to anyway.”

James really wanted to curse but couldn’t since he was afraid he’d be sent back to the dungeon. He downloaded the files that Zhang Li had sent him and, suppressing the feelings in his heart, opened up the software.

‘I have realized something important. Although I used to play violin, I have no idea how to compose music.’

For hours, James watched countless tutorial videos online.

===============

James had toiled on the computer, Mama and Papa Lu had come home, James had heated up dinner, the family had eaten, they had a short conversation about their plans for the weekend, and James had retreated back into his room to make some hype beats.

“You know, this actually doesn’t sound that bad.” James thought to himself. “I don’t know if I would call it good or not, but it’s listenable. Unlike that other music.”

After spending the entire evening fiddling about with sound files, James had created something. Maybe some people would enjoy listening to it.

“Well, it’s a lyricless track for now. I wrote some general ideas for lyrics and a melody. I absolutely refuse to sing. Refuse.”

James was afraid that he’d somehow be dragged into performing on stage.

[James: File Attached]

[Zhang Li: holy shit, you’re already done?]

[James: i was bored. Plus this is just a rough draft.]

[Zhang Li: I’ll look at it. you know, i wasn’t actually expecting you to write a song]

[James: didn’t you post a picture of me to your millions of fans?]

[Zhang Li: ...i could have just told them you wrote the song, then we put you in the music video for a bit]

[James: …]

[James: *anger emoji* *anger emoji* *anger emoji*]

[Zhang Li: unless you want to sing. that’s cool too]

It took all his control to not throw the phone across the room.

============

“Dude, what’s wrong?” Beck asked James.

The group of four explorers was once again sitting in the dungeon shop. However, James was giving off an aura of intense bloodthirst. Despite the fact that there was no way he could actually hurt any of the other 3 explorers, they were afraid to approach him.

“Nothing is wrong. Absolutely nothing. I just happen to be eager to murder a certain person.”

He glared at the entrance of the dungeon shop, as if daring a Chinese pop idol to come in. No one appeared.

“Ahem. Don’t worry.” James turned back to the table. “The one I want to murder isn’t one of you. Anyways, I have some news. You guys know I don’t know magic, so I was hoping you guys could help me instead. Do you remember that time I told you about my friend Mostafa Saleh? I was suspicious of him being a dungeon explorer?”

“Yeah.” Mike nodded.

“I found the source of the mana I thought was from him. It was actually the music that he was playing.”

“Music?”

“Yeah. It was powerful enough to knock me out, actually. I also felt mana from it.”

Beck leaned forwards. “That’s weird. There shouldn’t be mana outside of the dungeon.”

“Because the dungeon told us not to, right? I don’t doubt that they would punish us if we did. Or, if we did without a good cause. “ Mike glanced at James, who had used magic on Earth, but had been rewarded, not punished. “We had that theory that they didn’t want magic to spread. But what if someone could sneak past the dungeon?”

James scratched his head. “I don’t know magic, but it seems impossible to track down a small magical signal. Not that I’m going to try to test the dungeon’s administrators. After all, they did find out that I used magic.”

“They could have put some tracking device on us dungeon explorers.”

The 4 explorers sat there, thinking , until Leah broke the silence.

“If the dungeon is powerful, then dungeon enemies are powerful as well.”

“The dungeon’s enemies?” Beck was confused for a moment, but realization dawned on his face. “Not the dungeon itself, but the administration. Someone must have set this all up.

James slapped his forehead. “It’s possible that other beings are trying to mess with the dguneon’s administrators. At that point, isn’t Earth just their playground? I swear I’ve seen this plot in a novel.”

“Hold up.” Mike, as steadfast as ever, reeled Beck and James back in with logic. “This is all mere speculation. It is also quite possible that the dungeon administrators don’t actually have the ability to track down all usages of magic. In other words, they aren’t as powerful as they seem. This just started from James finding some music that contained mana, which - not that I’m doubting him - we haven't even verified yet.”

Leah and Beck nodded.

Personally, despite the lack of evidence, James was quite convinced that their first hypothesis was correct. This was due to the conversations he had had with the beanie. Although the beanie had never directly told him anything, James had been able to extrapolate. However, he couldn’t reveal this to the other explorers. He hadn’t even told them about the talking beanie yet. So, he spoke:

“Yeah, it’s too early to make so many assumptions. Basically, we have to accept that we know nothing.”

“In other words, James just brought us another headache,” said Mike.

“Hey! Think of it as a clue, okay? A clue that will help us solve this mystery.”

 Mike grinned. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. What was the band called again? ThousandDust? I’ve never heard of them, but I’ll go check it out.”

The topic shifted to other things. After a few more minutes of light conversation, Mike and Beck stood up and got ready to leave.

“Oh, by the way, James,” said Beck.

“Yeah?”

“I’m looking forward to that song.” Beck left the dungeon quickly before something unfortunate happened to him.

“...”

“James.” Leah spoke tentatively.

“What?”

“Good luck.”

“...were you the one who told them?”

“They would have found out anyways.”

=================

“Alright, time to open the magic tome.” After having locked himself inside one of the training rooms, James finally did something that he probably should have started a while ago.

“This will help me learn magic. But even more than that, it might give me a clue on why the dungeon has been broken for me. I didn’t get a relic, I have a broken luck stat and insane drops, and the first time I came into the dungeon, I had to fight stronger monsters.”

That being said, James didn’t expect to solve every single one of his questions with this. He’d been confused by the dungeon for a long time. The beanie knew some information but refused to tell him.

“So, you are finally going to open this book.”

“Bean bag, why do you speak as if I should have done so a long time ago. Do you know something about this book?”

“Why do you call me a bean bag? What is that?”

“A bean bag is a wonderful thing. Don’t worry about it.”

After bantering a bit with the beanie, James retrieved the magic tome - no, the grimoire. Just like before, it seemed to be filled with an unknown power. Simply holding it gave James chills.

“What do you think is in here?” James asked the question to himself, but the beanie replied anyways.

“Magic.”

“...”

James opened the cover of the book.

“It’s...blank?”

“What?” The beanie was confused, even more so than James.

“Oh oh oh I see. Nevermind. That was the first page. Here.” James flipped to the next page.

"..."