Sam doesn’t fight the water current as it forcefully drags him under, his mind a completely calm state as he just concentrates on his internal energy that is undergoing a shift. The egg that he can see is about to hatch.

The chaotic egg is secured to his body inside his uniform yet he doesn’t move as it’s far too dangerous to do anything with it now; he is being dragged further and further underground.

His body enters a smooth tunnel that he bashes against, ‘This must be the hole the beam made.’

His breath is holding well yet as he attempts to shift his body in the direction he’s going, he is almost blinded by a light going through his eyelids.

Sam turns around and hopes that it’s not something on fire as the water proceeds towards it.

The tunnel gives way when Sam feels a shift in the gravity, he’s suddenly falling towards the ground as the water becomes sparse.

He has a new problem now, he has no idea how high he is.

He opens his eyes yet shuts them immediately, it’s a blinding bright light everywhere in this room.

He quickly pulls out the spear and stabs all around, not hitting anything. He does the only other thing he can do and places the harbinger beneath his feet.

*CHHHHH* *SNNNNHNG*

Moments after placing the sword, he hits something with it forcing his body into a roll down a large flat surface slowing him down enough to not hit the partially flooded ground too hard.

His violent tumble involved with a mad scramble to do anything to slow down, Sam is left panting yet unscathed ultimately, as he attempts to shield his eyes from whatever is making the light.

He finds the water up to his calves and rising, this slows his movement down turning around yet it’s much better than being entirely underwater or stuck with that creature. Facing the wall he’s allowed a somewhat better view of the room, where there are metallic walls with control panels and displays of all sorts on them.

Actively working yet covered in dust and water.

He angles his body to block the light and notices that there’s a door leading somewhere else, he looks further around and spots nothing of note so opts to go in that direction where he finds a set of wooden double doors that open with no effort.

“Hello?”

Sam yells pensively peeking around the corner, there’s luckily no response other than the sound of distance water flow filling things. A long sterile hallway goes in two directions, a white brick or marble hallway that stretches on kilometres. One direction leads to a dead-end, the other one leads down this hallway so he opts for the dead end but spots nothing.

“What a waste of time.”

He turns around and walks down the other hallway, the water level is rising fast and Sam frowns not knowing what to do.

“Well this is a relic site right? Can I get a relic? If I can earn a shitload of money then I don’t have to worry about anything once I get out of bootcamp. I can just hide somewhere and try to find my proper egg..”

Sam nods, “Ok I’ll look around some relic… The first thing to do is get some sort of map of the place, it’s got breathable air but the water is an issue. I could plug the hole up but that creature might try to shoot me again.”

Sam returns to the room where he came from and look up, the hole is high in the sky and where’s no way that he’ll get up there. He shields his eyes carefully and looks around the room for any indicator of where this is or some piece of information but it’s like the whole place has been wiped clean.

There is not a single piece of identifiable information here, there’s not a single name or description of things. There is a list of names, ‘Alpha, Omega, Theta, Gallium, Trident’ but no reference to what they are or anything that will be helpful for the situation at hand.

It’s like everything has been wiped clean yet left running in a perfectly fine state, it makes no sense unless you never needed to have people here yet why build it in the first and keep it then.

Sam walks through the doors again and looks down the hallway, there’s several cutouts that look like opening. He lets out a breath and quickly walks down the hallway.

“What sort of place was this Ingnistellar-tech… what a stupid name.”

Sam walks away from the bright room and enters the first cut out, it’s an empty office with a single desk and chair. The water is almost completely submerging the desk, but this room is empty otherwise. He rifles through the drawers and finds nothing before moving on.

This time it’s a science room, the water is nearly at the counter tops yet, again there is nothing.

“Don’t tell me this whole place is empty? Have people been here before?”

He rushes out of the room and gets to the next hallway, this time it’s filled with rooms yet the first one he arrives in is filled with a single bed and nothing.

He walks into the next room where it’s much the same, the place is filling with a lot more water.

He returns to the hallway and heads to the next cutout, a wide section that leads into a lobby area that has a large gate and some stairs that lead up or down. The gate opens up to a larger area that is blocked off for some reason, sealing the access.

There’s a passage leading to a set of stairs though.Sam walks over to the stairs looking both up and down.

The down is already flooded, there’s no other way to describe it as the water is already above his knees… (lol)

The upstairs is fine and goes up for several flights, this leaves him with little option other than to go up that way.

The stairs are fine and dry, if dusty as he walks up to next level where he’s greeted by a locked wire gate, it’s a faintly lit hallway with a bunch of sealed wooden doors devoid of anything. He goes up the next three floors and is much the same before he comes to a metal door.

A double metal door with a small gap between it.

It has large writing on it, ‘Storage Area - Depot 1’. The text is scratched into the wall giving him the first sign of any information, he can somewhat feel the gap between the doors.

Sam stabs a dagger into the gap, it takes a few of them to leverage it open wide enough to fit through. He takes one last look down and spots the water.

It has risen a floor yet still a few floors below, giving him plenty of time to look inside. Worst-case scenario, he’ll make a mad dash for the hole again.

Inside the faintly lit room he’s greeted with rows and rows of equipment but after walking past one of the rows, he can only frown. It’s all laboratory equipment, various glassware and instruments that look disposable, some of them have remnants of liquid in them but overall there’s nothing.

He walks through row and row before coming towards the rear of the room and entering the area of larger goods and some tables filled with an assortment of small goods.

Sam walks over to the table first and spots a plate, a cup and several clipboard along with a folded up piece of paper, which looks like a map.

He opens it up revealing that it is indeed a map, looking at the cross-section he can work out where he came in.

‘Viewing gallery/monitoring room’

It doesn’t label what it’s a viewing gallery for, a large blank space with restricted over that area yet it labels the rest of the facility including the underground sections. Unfortunately, there’s no immediately obvious way to get out.

He continues to read the map after confirming that fact.

This was the only path upward and it ends at this storage room. The gated off sections lead to temporary living quarters, well submerged by now. He follows underground, downstairs, where there’s 2 laboratories and a secure tunnel that leads to the restricted area.

It seems like nearly everything filters through this restricted area, yet that’d be incredibly inefficient…

Sam can hear the water bubbling up the stair case reminding him that he needs to decide soon otherwise he might be trapped here.

He takes the map and looks around, “There’s actually some stuff I might need on the shelves.”

He walks over to a shelf holding a few white circles, touch one of them causes it to crumble to dust right away. “Damn, thought it’d work. I swear that’s a superior-class relic. Why would it crumble to dust though?”

He walks carefully up to the next item, this time a leather strap.

He picks it up, surprised as the fact it held its integrity. The display comes to life on it with a touch,a holographic projection appears for a moment before switching off.

Sam touches it again but it doesn’t respond, he picks up another one and does the same but this time it lasts longer.

‘Low Batt’

It switches off.

Sam throws this one away before walking away. His footsteps are hurried but it doesn’t take him long before he stops at an item, several metal spikes attached to two bottles, he picks it up and wanders around some more coming across a facial mask covering. A metallic bowl looking thing yet it’s easy to identify as the designed haven’t changed much.

After pressing the button an orange light flashes on it. Sam smiles as knowing that it’s truly the same as he knows. The orange shows it’s not in the best power, but after checking the other two, this is the best option available to him.

He places it over his face and presses the button, *SHHNK*

It formed a tight seal around his face, face mask which can be used for labs or underwater in this case perfect, it just needs the right attachment. At the bottom of it there are several holes, he stabs the spikes with two bottle into it.

A display comes up in the corner of his vision, ‘98% - 8 Hours’, internally he wants to celebrate as this means he can be underwater for longer yet he remains calm and looks for more items, not coming across anything that looks necessary apart from sunglasses.

Sam looks at the water now lapping up against his feet in this room.

“How much water is there? Shouldn’t the pressure have equalised somewhere? The map said this is it…”

He takes one last look around for anything of value and spots nothing, he wouldn’t be able to store it under the water anyways, he walks through the narrow gap and peers down the stairs where it’s now pitch black.

“Well atleast I’m not getting shocked by anything.”

Sam mutters to himself as he steps into the water, his best option is downwards now and hope there’s an exit through there.

He steps below the water and swims downwards, the mask does its job as Sam is able to breath while having clear view under the water.

He swims downwards and looks around for anything yet spots nothing, there’s literally not even a piece of paper floating about the water as he swims down to the first level. He looks at where he came from before opting to continue downward.

He could try to swim back up the way he came yet that creature is probably still there, why would it stop being there? It’s not like it was waiting for him in this building in the first place, it might just stay there until someone else falls down that entrance and kill them right away.

He cannot tell with whatever that thing is, so his only option is to hope for this restricted area.

He swims down the stairs, they change from nice carpeted stairs into concrete bare stairs before finally turning into wireframe steps allowing him to view the entire bottom section revealing a large hollow section carved out of the rock.

Where there appear to be large devices and instruments sitting there, Sam cannot tell what it is exactly but it looks like a laboratory that was hastily setup outside the doors. A twin set of doors stand before the laboratory setup which his target yet he stops to look at the instruments for a moment on the swim down.

It seems familiar, it’s almost like a configuration of instruments that his parents used after the ceremony yet cruder and older.

Sam ignores them all as he doesn’t understand it and the reminder of his parents wasn’t helpful, swimming towards the doors. A control panel has a flashing orange light on top of it beside the door which attracts his attention. Even under the water the light still works.

He swims up to the door and feels it, it’s made out of completely different material not allowing him to grab it with the sticky fingers.

Sam stops trying and turns around.

He takes a single step when the light on the control panel turns green and the two large doors behind him open suddenly.

He doesn’t have time to react as he’s sucked into the new space devoid of water, it rushes in dragging him in behind it.

*WHHHHHHH* (rushing water sound)

The doors close behind him; he is dragged into a dark space but the water only goes up to his shins as he stands up.

Lights flicker on revealing this to be a small room, a double door is on the other side and this door seems incredibly familiar.

A flashing yellow light is on top of a secure double door, Sam stares at these doors for a moment before stepping towards them.

The light on top of it flashes green, he walks through it in a daze expecting more water to hit him but he finds nothing but a dark space.

He walks through the door, the lights flicker to life revealing the scene.

“This looks exactly the same as the other place, that testing room. Don’t tell me this is another one…”

He walks the few steps onto the slightly red platform, it flashes brightly causing his body to feel fatigued suddenly, his steps become uneasy as his vision goes blurry for a moment. 

He holds his hand out before him and clenches it a few times, the gentle melody constantly ringing in his ears and mind as he steadies his feet.

Sam takes a long, drawn out breath and looks around again.

Nothing has changed, he’s still standing on the platform surrounded in a red glow.

He looks over to the side where there should be the timer and spots it, it’s exactly the same so far. 

Sam walks up to the first door and spots the same narrow gap. He jumps over it.

He repeats this for the next several rooms before coming into the one with the figure standing in the middle of it again. The room is the same as the other one as holes are in the walls and ceiling.

The spike comes at him, he dodges it easily while the blade comes from the wall. He pulls out the harbinger and fends it off.

*CNK*

He’s pushed back slightly but not harmed at all, the blade disappears again and the door is opened.

Walking through the next room, it’s the same.

Sam mutters to himself about creativity and walks forward through the rooms again, each time repeating the same thing as last time but doing it with his heavy weapon and a gas mask.

He arrives at the same room he stopped at before and pulls out his stopwatch, he stares at it blankly for a moment.

“It says, 3 hours? I didn’t even reset it…” Sam presses the button on the side switching the time, it flips to timer B which is a much higher number. 

It’s reading 21 hours and 23 minutes.

Sam presses it again before arriving at the 3 hours again, this is clearly labelled timer A.

“Weird, too bad I didn’t ask father about this stuff… They sound about right though, so it took me 3 hours this time instead of 7.”

Sam looks at the room with mixed feelings, he walks up to the figure and presses the button wondering if the same thing will happen. He prepares himself when, nothing happens.

He presses it again and again, he’s getting a tad confused now. 

“How is it that they both have the same fault at the same time?”

Sam strikes down the dummy and nothing happens, he walks up to the door where he tries the same method as before.

His hands stick to the door, a struggle to pull them apart for a moment, his body pushing itself to insert the harbinger into the gap this time.

His body begins to get body as he feels his grip slipping, or changing as the door gets away from him.

He focuses his body and gets his finger around and and opens it just wide enough; he jams the sword in but inside his mind he hears a cracking sound.

A huge amount of energy enters his body, it feels hot, but he knows that he needs to sit down and focus on this. He needs to capture all the energy leaving out from the egg that just hatched.

He sits crossed legged on the ground and uses all his mental power to capture all the energy as it floats from the egg uncontrollably everywhere within this mental realm. It’s all added to his own energy, this pure energy gathers into a ball that sits within the mana cloud.

This process lasts an hour, Sam reaches into his shirt and pulls out the pouch where the egg was. Sam can see a faint form of it in his mind yet he wants to see it, it’s not squirming about as he takes the pouch in hand.

He opens up the pouch and something pops out, Sam almost strikes it down upon seeing it. It looks like a cross between a worm and an octopus. It’s able to get around on its long thin legs and it doesn’t have a head except for a little red nub that looks more like an anus than a head.

“Cool…” Sam looks at the monster that’s now his but this doesn’t last long as it disappears in a shimmer of light, this creature is now linked to him and will not come out until it wants to, or he calls down the ether for a mana field.

He feels glad yet reluctant at the same time, he looks in his mind and spots the blob of energy hovering around his mana cloud now has the creature basking in it. It’s sucking a large amount of energy from his mana cloud.

A strange cloud of energy that almost is invisible but contains wisps of his own energy appears on the outskirts of his own mana, if one were to look closely they’d see the tiny little creature sleeping within that mana cloud that is sucking big blobs of energy from the big one and returning tiny little beads of purified energy to accumulate.

Once that purified mana has reached above 75-80%, it will trigger the shift into Stage 1.

Sam settles down his internal energy and looks at the room filled with a new energy inside him, noticing that it’s actually different from the last time despite having the same fault. The water is the same, sloshing about down him but above it there are dozens of hovering platforms.

They create a pathway to the other side.

Sam thinks it over for a few minutes before grimacing, he doesn’t to trust this stuff given the broken room but if there’s a creature on the other side again then it’ll be important for his quick escape, he cannot count on the same method again.

He walks up to the ledge and looks down in the water, it’s actually clear this time but that doesn’t give him any solace as he turns away and does some light stretches. The sword will be hard to wrangle with but his mana has settled, he makes a run up and leaps onto the first platform.

*CLINK*

Harbinger hits the edge of the platform causing him to nearly drop it in shock, he holds it and settles his step after the platform itself shakes with his every movement.

“Fuck this.”

Sam quickly runs and jumps onto the next platform and the next one, each one holding him but with each one also becoming incredibly unstable, he makes a final leap onto the platform on the other side and lands safely with a roll.

“Fuck that shit…” Sam mutters as he stands up and walks towards the door with an orange light above it.

The door suddenly has a green light above it, it slides open and Sam is on guard instantly as it opened much earlier than usual.

He looks into the room and spots nothing; he places a foot in it.

*SHHNG*

Sam pulls back upon hearing the noise but nothing happens after waiting a moment, he looks back inside the room and spots that lights have turned on.

A figure stands in the middle of the room, it has arms and is wearing metallic plating.

Sam looks around carefully, the room is about 4 times larger than the previous ones yet seems similar to them in construction.

He walks into the room and carefully makes his way towards the figure, holding his sword out for protection and looking around at all corners.

He walks up to it and pushes the button and readies for whatever comes next.

A door double the size of usual opens elsewhere, Sam looks at it and waits.

Ready to act if anything happens in a moment, the last rooms have been dangerous with all sorts of automated traps.

He waits.

Nothing happens.

He walks over to it and frowns.

A creature is laying there, but it looks like a cross between a fish and a robotic rabbit, all the metallic parts have rusted out and the fish isn’t able to move anything but its eyes.

Sam walks over to it and stabs it with his sword.

He pulls the sword out, there’s not even any blood on the sword as he places it on his back again.

A door on the other side slides open, he walks over to it where he’s greeted with a red circular platform, much like the beginning. It has his current time on it where it’s nearly 5 hours. This confirms the stopwatch time, which is strange.

Sam steps onto the platform expecting it to move but he’s greeted with another strange head feeling, this time it’s much worse as he feels something digging into his skin like thousands of things are crawling all over him, even his senses aren’t immune from it as they feel infected by this feeling.

The melody loudly rings in his mind giving him clarity, he opens his eyes and looks around a bright light enters his eyes causing him to blink when,

He appears to be back at the beginning.

Sam looks down at the board, it has the same markings on it with the same timer increasing on it. He was only here some 5 hours ago and now he’s here again it seems.He brings out his stopwatch, it now reads mostly 0s while he can flip through to timer a, timer b and now…

“Yep timer c.”

He laughs at his situation before walking towards the exit behind him.

He approaches the double door, “This thing has to open right? It did last time.”

He nears it when a red-light flashes above and the door does not open, he slams his fist on it before trying to get some grip on it but finds it impossible.

“Ok… so I go forward and this time, I’ll see if there’s something at the end instead of leaving.”

Sam nods his head and walks through the first door, it’s the same.

He repeats the same things as he did last time, minus the egg hatching, this time killing some sort of cat and monkey hybrid. The creature itself wasn’t able to move.

There’s no other door other than the doorway that slides open revealing the red platform, Sam steps onto it and feels an even worse feeling as he returns to the same red platform at the start by the same timer.