The hallway they entered was different. The air grew colder, the stonework more jagged and oppressive. Noctar's Appraisal Eyes fed him a new notification.
[DUNGEON FLOOR: 4]
He didn't know the Shifting Keep had six levels. He didn't know the monsters here could climb as high as Level 60. The Lucky Tree guild knew, but they held that information close, a silent test for the walking paradox in their midst.
Noctar didn't care. He saw red outlines, he pulled the trigger. The Perdition pistols became extensions of his will, roaring their percussive rhythm through the cavernous halls. Monsters made of shadow and stone fell before they could even shriek.
[LEVEL 18!]
[LEVEL 21!]
[LEVEL 25!]
Then, the rhythm broke.
Click.
He pulled the trigger again. Click.
`// AMMUNITION COUNT: 0/200. RECHARGE IN: 23:59:12, S.A.R.A. informed him, her tone breezy. // The divine armory is great, but even gods have to respect the daily reset.
Noctar stared at the useless weapons in his hands. The pack of Level 28 Void-Badgers, sensing a shift in the balance of power, began to circle, their forms flickering in and out of reality.
The adventitioners tensed, ready to finally step in and do their jobs. Borin raised his shield ready to batter the void-badgers in case they jumped at him.
Noctar's gaze swept over them. He looked at Kaelen, the assassin, and gave a slight, dismissive shake of his head.
"Show me how to cast a spell," he said, his voice flat.
Elara blinked. "What? You can't just… you need an affinity, a class, years of practice..."
"The basic one. The one you would teach children," he interrupted, his ice-blue eyes boring into her. The silence that followed wasn't just empty; it was demanding. It was the silence of a system waiting for a command.
Swallowing hard under the pressure of that gaze, Elara held out her palm. "Mana is the energy. You shape it with your will and a mental pattern. The simplest is Wind Cutter." A small, shimmering, crescent blade of air formed above her hand with a soft whoosh. "You visualize the formula, the flow. It's like… tracing a rune in your mind."
Noctar watched, but he wasn't just watching. He was seeing.
His Root Access skill flickered to life for a few seconds. The world washed away in a cascade of green code. He didn't see just a spell. He saw a functioning script from the very source.
[SKILL: WIND_CUTTER]
[MANA_COST: 5]
[EXECUTION: GATHER_MANA(USER) -> SHAPE_VECTOR(FORMULA_ALPHA) -> RELEASE(KINETIC_FORCE)]
He saw the entire process, the elegant, inefficient code that made reality bend. He saw where the mana was wasted, where the shaping algorithm could be optimized.
He held out his own hand. He didn't visualize a rune like Elara said. He compiled the code and in that moment ablade of wind, sharper, thinner, and almost invisible, shrieked into existence above his palm.
It wasn't a gentle whoosh rather, it was the sound of a razor cutting the air. With a flick of his wrist, it shot forth.
It didn't just hit a Void-Badger. It passed through it, through the two behind it, and embedded itself in the far wall with a solid invisible thunk. Three monsters dissolved into motes of light and experience points.
[EXPERIENCE GAINED!]
Elara's jaw was on the floor. "That's… that's not a Wind Cutter. The mana efficiency… the force…"
Noctar ignored her. He was already recoding the spell in his mind, creating a more efficient loop. He fired again. And again. Each Wind Cutter was faster, deadlier, and cost less mana than the last. He was no longer casting spells; he was running a perfectly optimized execution file.
He moved forward, his cloak billowing, his hands becoming conduits of silent, lethal wind. The monsters fell in swathes.
[LEVEL 27!]
[LEVEL 28!]
[LEVEL 29!]
By the time they stood before the entrance to the fifth floor, a massive archway pulsating with violent energy, the constant chime of leveling up had finally, blessedly, stopped.
[LEVEL 30!]
[STATUS: Experience to Next Level - 12,450/150,000]
The EXP required had skyrocketed. He had stagnated in his progress.
//It could be because of your unique code within the Gaia system. You need more Experience points to grow more powerful.
He looked at the archway, then at the bug marker on his internal map. It was close, flickering somewhere on this fifth level.
"The big one's down there," Kaelen said quietly, his hand resting on the hilt of his knife. "The Spatial Pupper. And whatever else this damned place has been hiding. You Ville, we'll be taking it from here.
Don't interfere."
Noctar nodded, his expression unchanging. The guns were out of ammo. The basic spells were becoming inefficient for killing the monsters and the minute EXP they provided. It was time to get creative.
He glanced at the rusty knife in his inventory.
Maybe it's time for an upgrade.
Since they told him not to interfere he had to be creative in the means he'd use to get rid of the bug.