“RUN!” someone shouted.
The ground split beneath us.
Spiderweb fractures burst outward from the rim of the shaft, racing across the staging yard in jagged lines.
The earth shuddered as I used my active Kinetra to run away from danger as fast as I possibly could. But the ground broke beneath my boots rapidly. Each step was an active struggle to retain balance and move forward as entire sections sagged and collapsed.
Luckily, Kinetra didn’t just increase my movement speed magically, it enhanced every muscle in my body, allowing me to stay steady despite the terrain shifting unpredictably beneath me.
In my peripheral vision, miners with active Kinetras sprinted away, some stopping to help their comrades who lacked crystals.
I wanted to help out too, but a deep metallic groan tore through the chaos and pulled my attention away.
Still running, I looked back.
The ground beneath the drill collapsed in front of my eyes, and the massive machine tilted before vanishing into the widening sinkhole. The nearby sorting machines fell under as well—but that wasn’t the source of the groan.
It was the crane.
The soil beneath it gave way, the center of gravity shifted, and slowly it began to tip toward the adjacent building complex.
Also behind me, Riven flared green as he was flying toward the tilting crane.
Was he actually going to try to stop it from falling?
Was he insane?! No crystal could stop this catastrophe from happening.
Umbrium? Not enough time for it to corrode the metal before impact.
Cryora? It might’ve worked when the crane had just begun tilting, and if the ground was stable. But now, at this angle, with the soil beneath it collapsing, his ice wouldn’t form thick or steady enough to bear that kind of load.
Aero? Even the most precise pressure control wouldn’t hold something that massive once gravity took over.
Kinetra? It amplified strength, yes. But not to the point where someone could intercept thousands of tons mid-collapse.
So again…was he insane?!
Meanwhile, the ground beneath me sank faster, fissures widening, whole section dropping. I had to abandon sprinting altogether and leap—long, Kinetra-boosted lunges that carried me over collapsing patches and widening cracks.
Each landing shuddered beneath me as I pushed harder, surrounded by miners and Enforcers who were doing the exact same thing—trying to survive.
Finally, after a sequence of fast and desperate bounds, I reached relatively stable ground beyond the staging yard’s perimeter—back at the street before the Enforcers’ checkpoint we passed through when we arrived.
I spun around just in time to see what Riven’ plan actually was.
Up in the air, combining both Aero and Cryora, he showered the crane’s upper frame from one side with bursts of powerful winds and massive ice projectiles, applying lateral force.
His intent wasn’t to stop it from falling. He was redirecting it away from the buildings.
And it worked.
The sinking earth already altered the crane’s center of mass, and Riven's combined pressure shifted it further.
The massive structure’s descent adjusted just enough. Instead of crushing the nearby neighborhood, the crane’s bulk veered away and slammed into the open street.
The impact was thunderous.
Metal screamed. The ground ruptured as the crane punched into it, burying itself and sending a violent plume of dust and debris exploding outward in all directions.
I turned away instantly, one arm raised over my face instinctively despite the goggles shielding my eyes.
The shockwave rippled through the air, pushing me backward and causing me to fall.
When I stood up and looked back, the staging yard was gone behind a wall of dust that blended seamlessly with the Foundry’s ever-present haze, dropping visibility to nothing.
After destruction like that, I expected to hear pained screams of trapped miners begging for help. But there were none. Only scattered shouting.
The miners who had escaped the collapse called out names, searching for their friends, but received no answers in return.
It seemed the ones who hadn’t made it out were simply…gone. Buried completely.
My heart pounded in my chest. I wanted to move forward, to help them search, to dig, to do something.
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t even see the ground—what was left of it—properly. The dust masked everything. For all I knew, one more step would send me plunging into a cavity beneath my feet.
“Viktor!”
Riven’s unmistakable voice echoed from somewhere above.
Hearing him, I couldn’t help but chuckle at how committed he was to this recruitment act.
If I wasn’t this cynical, I might’ve actually fallen for it.
And still, in his defense, I have to say, he had once again proven he cared about the regular citizens first and foremost when he decided to fly toward the falling crane instead of away from it.
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“I’m here!” I shouted back, trying to draw him toward my location. After all, the plan hadn’t changed. I still needed him.
“Don’t move even a single step!” he yelled. “The ground is still unstable. It could collapse further!”
“Yeah, I figured that out myself,” I replied dryly, already summoning an Aero into my palm—just in case the earth suddenly opened beneath me.
“Stay right there and wait for me!” Riven called. “I’m gonna help a few guys here and then I’m coming to you.”
“Sure,” I said, shifting my focus to the Inventory—specifically to my remaining crystals.
- Ignis x3
- Cryora x3
- Kinetra x2
- Umbrium
Damn it.
This was my last Aero.
Thankfully, I still had the unused COG upgrade from earlier.
Now…should I go for Burn Rate or Memory Slots? More burn time per activation or more flexibility thanks to storage time?
The decision looked clear to me in my head as it meant more control.
I pushed the upgrade into Memory Slots.
[Memory Slots lvl. 3: Previously loaded crystal is saved for 60 minutes unless burned through]
Great.
With my last Aero stored for a full hour, I could keep it in reserve without committing to a full burn.
Still, for now, I kept the Aero in my hand instead of slotting it into the Channel Core.
Meanwhile, right as my Kinetra burned out, I recognized another problem.
I didn’t even have a Lumen available for the off chance I decided to go along with Vorrick’s proposal and signal him.
For fuck’s sake…the most common mana crystal in existence, and I didn’t have it. Really, past Viktors? Really?! What had we been doing from the start of the time loop?!
Well, never mind that right now. Guess I’d have to leave Vorrick hanging. Unless, of course, I managed to get my hands on a Lumen, or…squeeze another upgrade to buy myself even more time.
I turned my attention to the upgrade materials in the Inventory.
- Tantalum – 8.74kg
- Iron – 51.48kg
- Copper – 1.01kg
- Titanium – 10.89kg
- Beryllium – 17.34kg
- Nickel – 6.63kg
- Tungsten – 6.08kg
I wondered if it was already enough for the next upgrade.
Suddenly, I realized the Dematerializer was still connected to my COG’s Integration Port.
I exhaled in relief. Somehow—lucky me—it hadn’t dislodged while I escaped the collapsing staging yard.
Then, I looked at the upgrade requirements.
[Dematerializer is Active]
[Déjà vu System: Level 26]
[Metals needed for Level 27: Tungsten – 70.8g, Nickel - 73.8g, Tantalum – 64.5g]
[Required Metals are present in the Inventory]
[Do you wish to level up?]
[YES / NO]
Damn…Was luck finally looking my way?
Well, I wasn’t about to overthink it.
YES.
My COG glowed.
[Civic Omni-Gear System: You have 1 Upgrade Available]
[1 Level Upgrades Available]
No hesitation.
[Skill Upgraded: Checkpoint lvl.3]
[Next Level: lvl.4: Increases the time before Anchor expires to 4 hours]
[Checkpoint lvl. 3: Time left until Anchor expires – 01:30:02]
My, my…ninety whole minutes? That’s like waaaay too much. Finally—I assumed—I wasn’t going to suffocate under a thirty-minute clock. Finally, I was getting somewhere.
Eager—perhaps even too much—I looked at the requirements for the next upgrade.
[Metals needed for Level 28: Tungsten – 73.6g, Nickel - 76.6g, Tantalum – 67g]
I ran the numbers in my head, factoring in the conversion rates at Level 1 Consumption, and knew this was the end of the road. For now, at least.
For the COG upgrade, I decided to wait for now. With no active crystals it felt like leveling up immediately would waste the real potential of the upgrade.
Still, this had already been fruitful enough. And, more importantly, it had been done on my terms. Not through favors from Riven. No strings attached from Libra.
“Viktor!” Riven’s voice cut through the haze again.
“Here!” I answered, mind already calculating how this collapse might ripple through Valdemar’s plans for me.
Riven descended beside me. His eyes scanned me worriedly from head to toe.
“You good?” he asked as he stepped closer.
“Yes,” I muttered, extending my arms forward to keep him away from me.
“Sorry,” he muttered, backing off.
I shifted the focus. “Is everyone alright?”
He exhaled heavily. “Not really. But it is what it is.” His tone hardened. “Either way, we don’t have time to waste. Let’s move.”
“Where to?”
“Next mine,” he replied, shaking his head slowly. “We could’ve entered through this one and progressed toward V underground, but that’s out of the cards now.”
“What did they even hit to cause this?” I asked.
“No fucking clue,” Riven said bluntly. “There are basically no safety protocols enforced here. They dig because they’re told to dig. Deeper. Always deeper.”
He gestured forward. “This mine was digging deeper than the already existing drifts.” He was quick to elaborate further. “Imagine the drifts underneath us were dug as an underground level—a minus one level. This auger was digging even deeper than that so the miners could dig a new underground network beneath the already existing one—a minus two, if you wish.” He shrugged. “My guess is the vibrations and redistributed weight triggered a progressive collapse. One section failed, the rest followed.”
I swallowed hard. “Is that common practice here? Digging new levels beneath already existing ones?”
It sounded insane, reckless, and borderline suicidal.
He nodded without hesitation. “Oh, yes. Once we stripped Solvane’s underground of whatever was easily accessible—crystals, ores, everything, really—the Foundry received orders to go even deeper.” His eyes turned furious. “Ever since then, collapses like this aren’t even a surprise anymore. They’re expected.”
That made some sense. I have long wondered how after seven centuries of relentless mining, without the ability to dig beyond Solvane’s borders because of the Parasite, we hadn’t exhausted everything we had underground.
Apparently, the answer was simple: when you reach the bottom, redefine where the bottom is.
But that raised another question…how deep were the deepest crystals? And more importantly—considering what I now knew about them—why were they underground at all?
If Overlord turned past Solvane’s enemies into mana crystals, why hadn’t they simply been collected then and there? How had they ended up beneath layers of soil thick enough to justify vertical excavation spanning centuries?
Natural burial? Catastrophic upheaval? Something else?
The questions stacked quickly. The answers were nowhere to be found.
I considered following Vorrick’s suggestion and pressing Riven for details, but this felt like the wrong moment to do so.
But as we made our way through the dust and smog filled air toward the next mine, leaving behind the wreckage and chaos, I decided, once more, to do things my way.
“Stop,” I said after we passed the Enforcers’ checkpoint and entered the staging yard of the new mine.
Riven halted immediately and turned. “What’s up?”
I took a deep breath.
With around ninety minutes until my Anchor expired, I could afford to destabilize the board.
“What if I told you,” I began evenly, “that while you stepped away and I ran off, Casten Vorrick approached me?”
I watched him carefully, expecting his eyes to show shock, confusion, and everything else in between.
Instead, surprisingly, Riven’s expression remained neutral.
“I know,” he replied simply as he shrugged nonchalantly. “What of it?”