*Tap, tap, tap.*

Jisha's light footsteps resounded through the stairwell.

*Tap, tap, tap.*

Sound claimed her world again as the mana crystals' glow in the previous room faded, enveloping everything in darkness.

The metal walls curved. A concave surface on one end and a pillar on the other - it was a neat spiral staircase.

However, in less than a minute, order vanished, and the staircase wound in all sorts of random directions.

*What kind of design... Who built this thing?*

The builder wasn't a player, but most NPCs still operated like humans. Whether they were stingy, lazy, or something else, it was a bit frustrating.

Nevertheless, echolocation proved invaluable.

Down, down, down...

*Perhaps it's somehow the most efficient design... was there a method to this madness?*

Finally, the tunnel straightened out, and a well-lit room awaited in the distance.

A literal light at the end of the tunnel, but was it a metaphorical one?

*Are you kidding me? Is it one of these?*

The answer was... no. She'd traversed several hundred metron underground for over 20 minutes, and for what?

A room of less than one hundred square metron, featuring a solitary metal crate in the center. The only illumination emanated from neatly arranged mana crystals surrounding said crate.

There was nothing else.

Unfortunately, this was an inherent aspect of dungeoneering. When faced with multiple confined pathways, a portion of them were destined to be dead ends.

The most exasperating aspect was the impossibility of weeding out dead ends without scouting. No adventurer ever wanted to stumble upon a dead end as it sometimes felt like a punishment worse than death...

*... Now what?*

There was another problem with this dead end. A crate and valuable items just sat in the center of a nondescript room. It was such an obvious trap that it was borderline offensive. Even a vehicle labeled "free candy" was less suspicious.

The two choices were obvious - oblige with the trap's request, or retreat.

Returning to the strange room would take 10 minutes at least, and the dungeon would progress from there. It was only a small amount of time, and dying to a trap here would be worse.

However, there was a decent chance that this trap wasn't perilous. Occasionally, chests that appeared to be traps were completely safe to open. It was akin to how a harmless bug's vibrant colors served as a warning to predators, mimicking danger.

Plus, this was only a level 15 dungeon. Early-game traps were extremely tame compared to 10 years down the road.

*Ugh, enough excuses. What's inside?*

Whether she wanted to admit it or not, the allure of "free candy" was too powerful. Jisha approached the crate and flung it open - it was already unlocked.

*... Really?*

The only items inside were the lowest-grade stamina potions.

*Though there's an unusually high number of them...*

She picked up one of the clear vials with the bromine-colored liquid... and waited.

Once again, vigilance was key. If anything special was going to happen, it was soon.

*...*

Nothing.

The air was still stagnant and musky. The walls were still made of light-gray, plain, smooth stone. The doorway was still gaping open, leading back into the darkness. And the rest of the objects in the center of the room remained untouched.

*Hm...*

Though unlikely, it was still possible to get surprise-attacked by some delayed mechanism, so Jisha kept her guard up.

She sifted through the chest, but nothing else happened. She quickly scanned the item description of every single potion.

*One of these has got to be special, right?*

One potion...

Two potions...

Thirty potions...

Forty potions...

*Useless.*

They were all identical.

She kicked the crate in mock frustration and turned her attention to the glowing blue-white crystals.

*These are the real treasures of this room, then.*

The 10 mana crystals were perfectly refined into the shape of cubes and lay around the crate in a neat circle. Out of the plethora of crystals available in this dungeon, only these were collectible for a low-leveled player.

She gingerly picked up the nearest one... and the doorway into the darkness slid shut.

*How unexpected.*

Nothing else happened. At this point, it was safe to conclude this trap wasn't deadly, and there was plenty of time to figure out the solution to this puzzle.

She looked at the cube’s original resting place.

*Mana wiring?*

These mana cubes were essentially batteries, and removing one of them broke the whole circuit. After putting the mana crystal back on top of the mechanism, the door re-opened.

*Oh, I see.*

This was among the most feared traps in the entire game, the rumored "worse-than-death" punishment!

But... nothing was happening. How was it worse than death?

Well...

These mana crystals were insanely valuable at level 15. Anyone with half a brain cell would want to come up with some way to bring them outside.

The instant you removed one of the cubes, however, the door slammed shut.

It was literally impossible to get the crystals out the door.

It was impossible to throw the crystals out the door. Jisha was alone, but even if there were a party here, no one around this level could destroy the door. Someone who *could* destroy the door would likely be a higher-leveled player. Similarly, these crystals also held no value to players with teleportation-like spells. They were just too impotent to be useful at that point.

Now, this was where the sadism began.

The hypothetical victims would attempt to outsmart this puzzle to no avail. There was no food in this cave, so slowly but surely, stamina would be drained. Using one or two stamina potions to stay in the dungeon to figure something out... wasted a lot of time.

This was the reason it was worse than death, at least for a front runner. The penalty for death in a dungeon was far lesser than the penalty for death in the frontier. Outside, you'd lose a level among other things. Here, you'd only lose a fraction of that.

In the time wasted trying to solve this puzzle, you could easily get that XP back, plus more, by retrying the dungeon... or doing almost anything else, for that matter.

The disgruntled players would complain about their bad luck and leave with a haul of mediocre stamina potions.

However, there were no unsolvable puzzles in Synergy. There was definitely a solution somewhere.

One could consider leaving the room as a "solution", but that was the boring route. If one had the proper tools, any item from any dungeon could be returned to the mainland. The question was, did Jisha have the tools at this level?

*It should be possible.*

She equipped the Magical Oaken Dagger, walked up to the stone wall next to the metal door, and pressed the tip of the blade against the wall, slowly dragging it across. The knife left a visible line in its wake.

*Sure enough, it's some sort of mana-infused calcite.*

Similar to the urns from earlier, this stone was weak to mana.

Jisha tried digging the knife deeper into the wall, but was met with massive resistance.

*If only I had spells...*

This stone was much sturdier than the urns'. As her primary weapon was merely the Golden Sling, there was no good way for her to damage the walls.

With proper spells, it was possible to dig a tunnel, but would it be efficient?

This rock was too sturdy for level 15 spells to leave much of an impact. Plus, spells cost mana. Mana would deplete and would regenerate agonizingly slowly in the wild.

Stamina, on the other hand, would not regenerate naturally, but was that a problem here?

The creator of the dungeon was taunting the players by telling them to "just break out", but break out to where? This room was hundreds of metron underground, and the tunnel staircase was enclosed in metal - impossible to break with current spells.

*But... There is another way.*

Jisha collected all of the crystals and put them in her inventory.

She returned to the door and began carving at the wall next to it.

*Tck, tck, tck...*

The sound of a sharp object hitting a rock resounded through the room.

Small sections of the wall crumbled to dust and flaked towards the ground.

*Tck, tck, tck...*

A small hole in the wall grew deeper and deeper for several minutes.

Now, the preparations were nearly complete.

*Heh heh...*

It was time for some fun.

The door was made of a blast-resistant metal, and the tunnels were constructed of the same material. Why?

Simple. Mana crystals were high-density packets of energy. From the strange room earlier, it was clear that this cave system contained rich veins of crystals. If you disturbed them forcefully enough...

Jisha ruefully stared at five of the mana crystals she had just collected... and placed them in the small hole in the wall.

Sadly, this was it... the only way to break out. This trap taught a valuable lesson of sacrifice; only by giving up some of them could you take the rest. Players that hoarded countless useless consumables wouldn't even consider sacrificing some of the treasure they worked so hard to get.

At the end of the day, it was still a hefty profit of five crystals.

Jisha retreated behind the massive crate and equipped her Golden Sling.

*Goodbye, little ones...*

She peeked over the edge, pulled back... and fired!

The pellet seemed to fly in slow motion.

The calm before the storm.

*...*

*CRACK*

The satisfying sound of glass shattered the silence, as if a baseball had broken through a window.

*BOOM*

*BOOM*

*BOOM*

*...*

The explosions were... very loud.

The sound of five crystals detonating shook the room, and the infrasound shook Jisha's body to its core.

Despite this, she attentively listened to each one with a smile on her face.

This was the beginning of a new virtual world, and she was going to experience it to the fullest.

Hearing loss? No matter. The system’s pain mitigation was hard at work.

*BOOM*

*BOOM*

*BOOM*

...

The explosions didn't stop.

The metal crate clinked with every small piece of debris colliding with it, and bits and pieces of rock flew around her. Without cover, death by shrapnel was all but guaranteed.

The five crystals were merely the beginning. Now, entire veins of crystals buried in the subterrain pulverized tons and tons of the mana-infused calcite.

After a few seconds, the debris died down. Jisha poked her head out to witness the pretty flashing lights of the mana explosions.

*The so-called "cool people" who don’t look are just missing out.*

The mana-infused stone crumbled in front of magic, but the physical trembling of the subterrain caused nothing to budge.

*Success!*

Jisha sat back down and let out a deep breath of satisfaction.

*Why are explosions so beautiful?*

Was it the flashing lights? Was it the fact that something that took so much effort to prepare happened in an instant?

It was a physical manifestation of catharsis. Pent-up materials were set free, and for some reason, there was nothing more poetic.

*I didn't think I was going to be like this...*

Ever since reincarnating, whimsical emotions relentlessly tugged at her.

Abandoned Snow, Bren, Luden, and now this... It was only a small explosion, yet when she looked at her hands, they were trembling. It was like she'd downed five shots of espresso... Was it because her physical body had reverted to that of a child?

*It is a bit refreshing, though.*

In the recent past, her mental state was like that of a mountain... an immovable object. The flexibility that came with youth... was it a blessing or a curse?

Jisha watched as the explosions twinkled in the distance. The rumbling grew ever more distant.

Good times always came to an end, and freedom came with a price.

*I'll always pay that price... even if it's 5 mana crystals. Heh.*

 

---

 

"Mana palm strike...!"

"Commander..."

"*Sigh*... It's still no use. I feel like I'm close, though..."

"Commander!"

"Yes, Yana?"

"The War Dog's been killed."

"... Brooks?"

"Yes."

"Huh."

Stein and his crew had been receiving consistent updates from the best martial artist on the continent. They'd heard everything from the auction as well as what happened afterwards.

Out of 9 battles, the player called Fae Sol handily defeated Brooks Lacaia 9 times. Unfortunately, there were no recordings of the fight, and all they had to go off of were Brooks' descriptions. Apparently, it wasn't even close.

This was impossible to believe, but if he hadn't seen the 1v7 firsthand, he wouldn't have believed it either.

Brooks was not only the best publicly known hand-to-hand combatant on the continent, but was over a head taller than Fae Sol's avatar. The sheer size of the avatar's reach would give him a massive advantage. Even though physical strength of the two were normalized at level 0... a thorough defeat 9 times in a row?

Stein massaged his temples as he processed the information.

Fae Sol clearly had game knowledge that far surpassed Brooks'... it was the only plausible explanation. Weapon mastery, bodily control, cooldown timers... somehow, she'd already mastered them.

Regardless, it was obvious that her martial ability was at least equivalent to the War Dog's, which indicated she wasn't from the Northeast. Unbeknownst to him, Brooks had asked the same question - why had someone like this traveled to the inhospitable Northeast?

"Probably to learn armored combat?"

The Northeast wasn't known for raw martial ability, and it was in fact arguably the worst region on Etmos for pure martial arts. However, they made up for that with supremely advanced technology.

State-of-the-art cybernetics and external armored suits were among the physical-enhancing technologies used by Northeastern fighters. Fighting with these technologies was not the same as fighting with a pure human body, and to make matters more difficult, those who had been modified in significant ways were permanently barred from participating in ordinary martial arts.

So, learning some sort of enhanced combat sport was the likeliest option for a skilled fighter from overseas to travel here.

Stein's first thought was to recruit this person just like they'd recruited Brooks, but Fae Sol's IRL identity remained unknown.

"Should I send a friend request?"

"Commander, on another note, the kid's been killed at the exact same time. What hit them was unknown to both."

"It wasn't a player then. You know, this gives us a good excuse to meet up with them. Get them over here, and they can help us clear this dungeon we're looking for. I’m curious as to what they've got to say."