Two hours. One turret. A mine carved in iron and quiet trust.
The last stretch of the trial hadn't erupted in chaos—but it hadn't passed quietly either.
Caidyn leaned against the cooled body of Mountain's Fury, her breath steady, posture relaxed but still coiled. Across from her, Lira was crouched beside a small pile of sorted ore, scanning each with a practiced eye. Between them sat the remains of the cavern's natural bounty: stacks of iron, low-grade quartz, and a pair of strange, reddish crystals they hadn't yet identified.
They'd held the space well.
In total, they'd fended off four minor incursion attempts—none coordinated, none serious. A handful of opportunistic climbers had peered into the chamber's edges, assessed the risk, and faded away into the tunnels. Two hadn't backed off quickly enough and met the bark of Mountain's Fury, her hybrid core rounds shredding stone and resolve alike.
"Nothing like a turret to say 'we're not accepting visitors,'" Lira had quipped, half amused, half admiring.
They hadn't strayed far. The system's five-hour minimum survival time demanded presence and activity, and they made both count. With her Essence Flow meter now resting back at 10/150, Caidyn had spent the final hour in controlled, deliberate motion. The earlier cascade's high had faded—replaced by a comfortable low hum, like the body resetting itself after a sprint.
One wall had held her attention longer than the others—dense, brittle, and structurally suspect. She'd narrowed her eyes at it and muttered, "You know what? Let's try that again."
One activation pulse, and Mountain's Fury roared.
A short barrage from the upgraded weapon had carved open the rock with a satisfying tremor. No mithril this time—just a thick seam of iron, but clean and plentiful. Enough to add weight to their stockpile.
Not glamorous, but it mattered.
Between shifts, they rotated watch duty. Lira kept her Cipher Nodes tuned to the tunnels' entrance points, occasionally updating her threadlines on any movement nearby. Caidyn ran brief scans through Kairos, tweaking internal HUD overlays and running predictive models—but mostly, she rested and observed.
They didn't talk much. They didn't need to.
What words they did trade were precise—logistics, percentages, movement vectors. It wasn't silence, but sync.
By the time the system clock ticked down into its final minutes, their temporary cavern base was orderly, mined clean, and unbreached.
Five hours survived. Resources gathered. Weapons tested. Trust earned.
And now, Essence Flow steady once more at ten, she was ready for the next verdict.
Now, it was time to see what the Tower thought of their work.
[System Notice — Turn-In Point Reached]
The message blinked into Caidyn's vision as she and Lira stepped up to the iron-ribbed stone threshold of the Village Chief's house. The structure felt rooted in the mountain, built from fused stone and reinforced intent—like it wasn't so much constructed as revealed.
Caidyn pushed the heavy door open with her shoulder, letting warmth and the faint tang of coal-oil wash over them. Inside, the Village Chief stood behind a wide table layered with old blueprints and a static-linked material scanner. He glanced up with a raised brow.
"Well then," he said, voice edged with iron and age. "Let's see what you've dragged up from my mountain. Lay it all out."
Without hesitation, Caidyn tapped her HUD. One by one, ore containers blinked into view—digitally manifested and neatly organized.
"Three full stacks of Mithril," she said as they clinked down in gleaming blue-silver mesh.
"Two stacks of Iron."
"Two of Copper."
"And one full Gold."
Each release came with a soft chime, the metal echoing faintly through the room. The chief's beard twitched in something that might've been mild surprise—or restrained approval.
"Strip-mined a whole vein, did you?"
Caidyn smirked faintly. "It hit back, so I hit harder."
He grunted. "That's the spirit."
He turned to Lira, gesturing for her to follow.
Lira adjusted her interface, letting her own set materialize with a smooth cascade of data:
"Ten Mithril from earlier—before I met up with her," she explained, tilting her head slightly toward Caidyn.
"Two stacks of Iron, pulled after we teamed up. Four stacks of Copper, one full Gold, and about half a stack of Silver. The non-mithril stuff came in scattered across before and after we linked up."
"Efficient," the chief noted as he activated the scanning array beneath the table. Lines of green and amber light passed over the metals.
Kairos uncoiled from his idle form, his semi-transparent body faintly shimmering across Caidyn's left shoulder. The presence was quiet, deliberate.
"You both exceeded expected resource averages by a notable margin," he observed, voice smooth and slightly theatrical. "Impressive, given the lack of automated collection tools."
Lira glanced his way, lips quirking slightly. "Back again, are we?"
Kairos's ember-lit eyes swirled. "I never really left."
Caidyn didn't look at either of them. "Don't encourage him. He gets smug when he knows he was right."
"I'm not smug. I'm elegant," Kairos replied.
The Village Chief cleared his throat like a hammer on iron. "System's processing your yields now."
[System Notice — Trial Completion Verified]
Resource Turn-In Accepted. Tally in Progress... Please Stand By.
A quiet scan tone hummed as the table dimmed. Numbers and values scrolled across the hovering interface—resource types, purity ratings, quantity, estimated tower value—all feeding into an invisible ledger.
"Give it a second," the dwarf muttered, arms crossed again. "You'll get your points, your ranking, and whatever else the Tower thinks you earned."
Caidyn leaned back slightly, her arms folding across her chest as she caught Lira's glance. There was no need to speak, not yet.
But the unspoken truth hung between them like steel in water:
This was the end of the mine trial.
The next floor would be something else entirely.
And they were ready.
[System Notification]
Turn-In Point Reached.
The notification flashed just as the door creaked open before them. The Village Chief stood at the center of the cluttered room again, arms folded beneath the thick braids of his beard.
"Well, you're back." He eyed both of them, his expression unreadable. "Let's see what kind of haul the Tower dragged in this time."
Caidyn stepped forward and, without a word, opened her inventory overlay. With a sweep of her fingers, her yield materialized into neatly stacked crates of ore beside her.
Three full stacks of mithril—99 chunks per stack—followed by two stacks of iron, two of copper, and a capped stack of gold.
Lira followed suit. Her own contribution was smaller: 10 mithril, two stacks of iron, one stack of gold, half a stack of silver, and four stacks of copper.
The Chief gave a low whistle at the volume. "I'll be honest. Didn't expect a cache this dense. Especially not from two strangers on their first trial."
He reached under the counter, pulled out a dense satchel, and walked it over to Caidyn.
"This one's personal. Stack of mithril, back to you. No questions asked. Not part of the system payout. Just respect paid where it's earned."
He dropped the full stack into her inventory with a weighty thunk.
[System Notification]
Personal Reward Received: Mithril Ore (x99)
Kairos gave a serpentine hum, curling just behind her right shoulder. "And here I thought dwarves couldn't be sweet."
Lira snorted softly but didn't comment.
Then came the broader system flood.
[System Notification — Trial Complete]
Resource Yield Tally: Exceptional
Mithril: x297
Iron: x198
Copper: x198
Gold: x99
Time Survived: 5 Hours, 32 Minutes
Hostile Encounters Prevented: 3
Total Gold Reward: 5,000 G
Experience Gained: 1,270 XP
[Level Up!]
You have reached Level 8.
+45 HP
+30 MP
+30 SP
+6 Skill Points Gained
[Current Skill Points: 8]
(2 remaining from previous allocation. 6 newly earned.)
[Bonus Reward Selection Available]
Choose ONE of the following:
Rare Component — Body Module (Unspecified)
Component Blueprints — Body Frame (Rare Classification)
Caidyn let the prompt hang for a moment. Her mind parsed through options, practicality, long-term flexibility. The blueprint would open options—tinkerable ones. Adaptable ones.
She tapped the second.
[Selection Confirmed]
Reward Acquired: Rare Body Component Blueprints (Unbound)
Blueprints stored in Inventory → Engineering: Bodyframe Tier II
"Blueprints, huh?" Lira glanced sideways, picking up on the shift. "You really do prefer control over firepower."
Caidyn shrugged lightly. "Why not both?"
"Touché."
Kairos folded back around her mental frame, already analyzing the new schematics. "Preliminary diagnostics suggest compatibility with your modular augmentation node. We may be able to experiment—when we're not surrounded by pickaxes."
"You love this," she muttered.
"I merely excel at it."
Caidyn's gaze flicked to her stats. Her bars had grown again. Slowly, piece by piece, she was beginning to feel the difference.
Still so far to go, but a foothold was a foothold.
The hum of completion still lingered in the back of Caidyn's system HUD as the two of them stepped back out into the village square. There was no official fanfare. Just a subtle lightness in the air, a shift in the silence. One trial done. On to the next.
But before that—reality. Inventory management, gear check, and whatever came after when the adrenaline wore off.
"We should grab a place to sit," Lira said, glancing around at the low stone benches near a small forge stall.
"After I hit up a few vendors," Caidyn replied. "Need some actual tools. Something I can start using with all this blueprint junk."
"Fair." Lira tilted her head. "Meet you by the well?"
Caidyn nodded, already veering off.
It didn't take long. The village was modest, and what it lacked in high-end commerce it made up for in smithing essentials. A few credits bought her a base toolset: micro-precision mag-screwdrivers, modular joint clamps, a diagnostic spike kit, and a portable forge pad for component melding.
[Inventory Updated]
Crafting Tools Acquired: Basic Engineering Kit (Tier I)
She slotted them into a side-pack and sat at the edge of the vendor's stall, pulling up the fresh blueprint data that had been sitting in her queue.
[Engineering — Blueprint Set: Bodyframe Tier II (Rare)]
Item Class: Component Blueprints (Bodyframe)
Rarity: Rare
Set Count: 5
Her screen expanded with five pulsing outlines, each detailing a separate module:
Sidearm Frame — Light Recoil Pistol
Efficient, compact design. Good for mobility builds or offhand pairing. Low recoil, fast reload curve.
Strike Rifle Frame — Standard Combat Rifle
Versatile chassis for mid-range work. Balanced for weight, impact, and modular mounting points.
Twin Snap Body — Dual Pistol Coreframe
Synchronized design, optimized for burst precision. Built with dual-reactive sensor threading for syncing twin barrels.
Spinal Cutter Frame — Belt-Fed Machine Gun
Heavy core module. Prioritizes sustained fire and suppressive pressure. Integrates well with deployable systems.
Fragment Bloom — Explosive Delivery Shell
Not a gun body. Blueprint for a grenade-class item. Shrapnel bloom on detonation, impact-triggered or timed delay.
She blinked, absorbing the data. One of these isn't like the others.
Kairos coiled into her ear. "A lovely surprise. The 'grenade' entry includes subroutines for engineering replication—modular payload slots, programmable timers, even exotic essence delivery triggers."
"So we could load it with ice, flame, electric—?"
"Among other things. A playground for the right sadist."
She snorted, amused, and closed the pane for now. A quick search showed compatibility with her Modular Engineering skill, meaning full assembly wouldn't be limited by class lockouts.
Caidyn rejoined Lira near the village's central well, where the quiet hum of running water disguised the soft tap-tap-tap of fingers running across their HUDs.
"Well?" Lira asked, raising a brow as Caidyn plopped down beside her.
"Five blueprints," she replied. "Four guns. One grenade. Tools bought. Brain full."
Lira grinned. "That's the spirit."
Caidyn leaned back, letting the moment breathe. For now, they were still in the valley between storms. And valleys were for building.
Caidyn arrived at their agreed meeting spot, the village well standing stoic and unassuming in the midday light. The cool stone surface was worn smooth from countless hands—an unlikely yet fitting place to regroup after the grueling trials of the mines.
Lira was already there, leaning casually against the well's edge, her eyes bright with curiosity as she examined a small datapad. The moment Caidyn approached, Lira glanced up, a subtle smile playing on her lips.
"Right on time," Lira said, her voice low and smooth, the nickname Silvertongue fitting her perfectly.
Caidyn returned the smile with a nod, tapping a command to bring up the set of blueprints she'd been eager to study. "I've been looking forward to digging into these," she admitted, laying the digital schematics out on the stone surface between them.
The grenade blueprints were the first on her list. Unlike the basic firearm bodies, these blueprints detailed two distinct models of grenades: one designed for remote detonation—precision and control in the user's hands—and another the classic pull-the-pin and throw type, favoring quick, instinctive use.
Lira leaned in, pointing at the schematics with an index finger. "Remote detonation… definitely useful for tactical setups. The other one's simplicity is its strength—less chance for a glitch when timing's critical."
Caidyn nodded thoughtfully, fingers tracing the glowing blueprint lines. "There's one major difference I noticed," she said. "The remote detonation model actually houses the elemental core inside the detonation trigger itself. So the elemental effect is controlled precisely by the trigger's activation."
Lira raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "And the pull-the-pin?"
Caidyn shook her head. "That one doesn't have an elemental core at all. It's a straightforward explosive. No extra bells or whistles—just pure, raw blast."
Kairos's voice drifted in, smooth and amused, "A classic meets innovation. Both have their place on the battlefield."
She smirked, "Exactly. I want to experiment with modifying the remote detonation model first. There's more control, more potential."
Together, they began parsing the blueprints, outlining modifications and potential improvements. The quiet buzz of the village around them faded as focus took hold—two strategists quietly plotting their next moves in the ever-shifting chessboard of the Tower.