Ryan stopped just long enough to take a shower. The clinic washed what they could reach, but the giant was still bloodstained. Rivulets ran down Ryan's body, cleaning the last of the blood as he scrubbed himself raw. 

Refreshed and impatient for his hair to dry, Ryan climbed into the new capsule.

Just as spacious as his original, the inside had more lines of energy passing through it. The "pillow" full of sensors used to transmit the diver's consciousness also featured a new design. 

Ryan assumed the differences were used to monitor his brainwaves. Additional technology crammed into the capsule would probably communicate directly with Mon-Tech's Research Servers.

As Ryan situated himself inside the cabin, the unit sensed he was fully inside and began to close. A cool pneumatic hiss announced when it was closed. The energy lines began to darken near his feet, quickly spreading until only the pillow beneath Ryan's head emitted light.

As soon as the transition finished, Ryan's head lay slack on the pillow. His mind faded to white.

*****

When Ryan gained awareness again, he stood inside his game lobby. Furniture from his previous improvements to the space was still where he left it.

At least I don't have to start from scratch.

A thought suddenly occurred to the Titan, and he twisted, feeling for his back. The smooth curve of his spine greeted him. After a moment, Ryan laughed.

It was fixed the first time I was in here. Why would it be different now?

The giant blushed in silence for a moment before he refocused.

Ryan rushed over to the desk and used the interface to send his completed assignments to his various teachers. Fortunately, the giant used the downtime from his first death to sort out the next day's work.

If it weren't for Ryan's foresight, he would have fallen behind on his coursework.

As soon as the giant finished sending his assignments, the door to Frontier Online appeared behind him. A soft glow announced the door's presence. 

Ryan slowly turned to look at it. Mist billowed from the edges and between the cracks of the ornate double doors. 

Even digitized, Ryan felt his heart begin to pound inside his chest. Excitement and nerves mounted as the giant walked up to the doors. As tall as Ryan was, the doors still dwarfed him. 

With both hands, the Titan shoved the doors open and walked through, wondering if his avatar was surrounded by goblins.

*****

Deep beneath the mine outside of Grotto, a pillar of light flashed. A brief glow lit up the inside of a gently glowing shaft, all the way to the top, where six tunnels spilled out.

Rydr appeared, expecting a rough stone floor underneath him. The giant let out a startled shriek when he suddenly dropped like a stone.

What happened?

Notifications buzzed against Rydr's senses as adrenaline pumped through him. Rydr tumbled through the air before he managed to orient himself, spread-eagle in the air. 

As Rydr looked down, a profound sense of vertigo assaulted him. The shaft seemed to be bottomless from Rydr's perspective, but it wasn't the height that bothered him.

A gentle glow illuminated the edges of the shaft, tracing spirals of ancient runes. As Rydr stared straight down, the combined glow and optic illusion of the spiraling runes mesmerized the Titan.

Aside from the illumination of the runes, ambient mana flowed, visible to the naked eye without [Third Eye]. An explosion of mana seemed to throw itself up at the Titan.

The wind ripped at Rydr's hair as he continued to fall. A strange force began to pressure Rydr's mind as he watched the spiral of runes. The sensation was similar to when Izor forced the three spells into him.

Unlike Izor's rough method, the enormous diver felt like his mind was gently widened this time. At the same moment, Rydr felt himself sink into the mana around him. 

Rydr's senses extended away from his body. One by one, the giant felt the essence of the energy around him.

Wind, ever-present, solid, and ghost-like at the same time, whispered to him. Through its pull against his body, Rydr felt a gentle spring breeze, and more distantly, the crashing, ripping strength of a hurricane. 

Earth surrounded the giant. Immovable, the element cried out to Rydr's mind. Through his connection with the mana, the diver felt as if he could push against the carved stone where it rushed past several meters away. 

Rydr reveled in the experience, the connection he felt with the world around him. As he dived deeper into the sensation, Rydr touched on something.

All around him, an enormous pressure pulled evenly at everything. The wind, earth, body, and clothes, even the mana around Rydr, communicated the same, all-encompassing force. 

Then the tunnel pulsed. That all-powerful force increased. Around Rydr, the mana spoke to him. The Earth complained, feeling itself compress. Air dragged against itself, gases separated by their atomic weights under the force. 

Is it gravity?

As Rydr had the thought unknown to him, his nose began to bleed. Sometime during his descent, Rydr activated [Third Eye] to better observe the energy around him. 

Somehow, [Third Eye] allowed Rydr to peek past the curtain of mana. Panic struck the Titan, severing his connection with the wild mana when he realized the ground was barely fifty meters away from him. 

At first, the giant thought he might be able to land thanks to [Springform], but a glance at his health bar proved otherwise. Rydr barely had ten percent of his health. [Springform] only negated fall damage below terminal velocity, which Rydr was definitely at.

Rydr tried to angle himself toward the edge of the tunnel, but a force seemed to repel him away. 

The Titan thought quickly. As he fell, the wind pulling at his limbs reminded Rydr of his experience just now.

The diver, having felt it before, extended his senses to the mana around him. Similar to how Rydr activated his spells, the giant felt the wind's energy.

Inspired by the spells stored in his memory, Rydr tried to cast [Reinforcement]. Rydr focused on the hard pressure generated by the air on his body. 

As the energy discharged from Rydr, he let his mind feel it. For a brief moment, Rydr's body seemed to "bounce" off the wind. 

Unfortunately, the air cushion lasted for only a moment before it vanished. Even without someone to explain it to him, Rydr identified the problem through his connection with the mana. 

[Reinforcement] wasn't enough. The spell worked best with something of substance. Even though the spell managed to make the air more cohesive for a moment, pulling its atoms together like freezing ice, it wasn't enough.

Air flowed freely. [Reinforcement] alone couldn't hold the molecules rigid enough to support Rydr's weight when he crashed into it. Air, by itself, wasn't compressed enough to be solid.

Compressed enough?

As the ground rushed toward Rydr's face, an idea hit him. Instead of briefly buffing the drag force on his body, the giant needed to make an "air platform."

If I mimic the effect of [Consume] and drag more "wind" mana to one spot...

Rydr cast his mind into the mana around him again and began to [Consume] it. Unlike before, Rydr's delve into the mana allowed him to sense how his mind influenced it.

Instead of pulling it in, focus on the center of my hands. Rydr chanted to himself. His mind felt like it stretched, but it was similar to his connection with the mana.

Rydr's mind bore the strain, even as his health ticked down, blood trickling out of his nose.

In an instant, like throwing a punch and tightening his fist at the point of impact, Rydr heaved against the mana, pulling it to one spot. The wind rushed to follow, dragged along by the displacement of its elemental energy like a magnet. 

At the peak of Rydr's suction, between his hands, it felt like the Titan was trying to hold air from a super-powerful, super-tiny fan. 

Then Rydr flooded the gathered wind and mana,  forcing [Reinforcement] and [Empower] through the condensed mana. 

Suddenly, around twenty meters above the ground, Rydr felt like he clutched a soft clay ball. The Titan's body jerked, whiplashing against the ball of air in his arms. 

As Rydr's weight jerked against it, the ball of air in his arms unraveled. Combined with Rydr's break in concentration, the cobbled-together spell fell apart.

The whiplash from the diver's impact pinwheeled Rydr dizzyingly until he crashed into the ground. Thanks to Rydr's quick work, he survived the fall, landing on his side.

Perhaps because of [Springform], Rydr's breath wasn't knocked out of his when he hit the ground. Since the majority of his momentum arrested twenty meters above the ground, his impact was well within the passive's ability to negate fall damage. 

Neat. All this ran through Rydr's mind as he sat up. The giant's mind raced, blood still dripping from his nostrils, as he got up and looked around. 

Rydr landed off-center, which turned out to be a good thing.

Quest Updated! Save Grotto!

You have located the Mana Wellspring beneath Grotto. How will you seal it?

A translucent emerald screen forced itself onto Rydr's HUD, but he waved it away.

Yeah, I got that one, thanks. In front of the Titan, dead-center of the chamber was a huge "bowl." The edges of the chamber sloped toward the center, where the depression formed a small pond of pure liquid light.

Rydr activated [Third Eye] and observed the Wellspring, only to turn it off in an instant. 

It's like staring at a flare with night-vision goggles on. Rydr shook his head to get spots out of his vision. In the brief moment Rydr glimpsed the Wellspring, he saw mana getting purified underneath it, turned into one homogeneous substance like in a machine. 

From that glance, Rydr understood something.

This Wellspring isn't natural at all. The carvings, the tunnels, all of this feels like a massive energy system.

Rydr traced backward in his memory, remembering the notice he got for stopping the giant death ball. 

Ancient Ether-Ways...

The Titan took a step toward the pool of light when he heard a guttural growl behind him.

Rydr whirled around to find himself face-to-face with the same Hobgoblin Warlord he fought the previous night. 

No, it's not the same.

After a moment of stunned silence, Rydr dashed away from the Warlord. After a few steps, the creature howled and launched itself at the diver. 

Rydr rolled out of the way, rough stone pressed against his [Alpha's Pelt], and watched the Warlord charge past him. The giant braced himself, ready for the creature to turn around. That's when he noticed it. 

The Warlord sniffed at the air, its head swiveling as it scented the air. Slowly the creature turned to face Rydr.

Its eyes are gone. Rydr was trapped at the bottom of some sort of giant mana reactor with a blind monster.

Rydr [Inspected] the Warlord.

[Mana-Scarred Warlord (Epic)]

Lvl: ???

HP: ???

MP: ???

Rydr gulped when he read the Warlord's new status. Before, the Warlord's modifier was Elite, but now its name changed, and it was an Epic monster. 

Mottled burns, glowing with energy, covered the Hobgoblin from head to toe. Deep within its empty eye sockets, deep green energy flickered hauntingly. 

The monster's head whipped toward Rydr. His involuntary gulp picked up by its sensitive ears, it lunged toward Rydr and grabbed him before the Titan could react.

Without his buffs, Rydr was helpless as the monster squeezed him to its chest once and crushed the life from him.

The giant vanished in a pillar of light as the Mana-Scarred Warlord beat its chest and howled, shaking the chamber.

 

 

AN:

I hope everyone enjoys this chapter! Rydr is finally back in [Frontier Online]. 

Who knows what else has changed since the Titan left the game? 14 hours have passed IRL. 

[Frontier Online] Discord Server is online! https://discord.gg/5sqwPeJrYf