Three years.

  That was how long it took for Rory to finally step back, dust himself off, and pat himself on the back.

  “Ahead of schedule by six months,” He had said, congratulating himself.

  It had taken three short years to finalize what he was referring to as his ‘processing’ plant. Pulverizer, Washer, Pulper, and Mixer. The biggest hurdle, as always, was simply the sheer amount of enriched iron he needed, which was further refined into stabilized steel and used to construct the magi-tech machinery. Regarding aesthetics, they weren’t the most eye-pleasing, big ole blocky metal constructs he had hidden away within a new building he’d constructed as an offshoot of their forge area.

  Rory had even set up two lesser forges, albeit the standard kind. Some excess heat of the Stellar Forge was used to bleed off into the two new forges, which helped reduce the stress the Forge Heart placed on the orbital rings and outer constructs.

  All in all, for only three years of work, Rory had to hand it to himself; he’d outdone himself.

  He wasn’t the only one who had been pushing themselves hard. Apostolos had thrown himself into the role of one-man scout and assault force. At the rate he was pushing himself, he’d reached A6 in only another year or two. He explored their surrounding areas as far out as twenty miles until he’d begun to find tier-six monsters as the weaker ones. From that point onward, Apostolos hadn’t bothered pushing any further; a tier-seven monster would be able to kill him with a sneeze.

  Progress was progress, but Rory couldn’t prevent the creeping feeling of… unease. Not with anything external. Instead, it was an unease with himself. It had now been three years since he’d fought and lost to his Chosen Bane, three years since he’d seen really any action.

  Thus leading to his current predicament.

  He was bored.

  “I never thought I’d say this,” Rory muttered as he stared into the pulsing Forge Heart. “But I wish something would happen,”

  Losing himself in a project was something Rory had come to enjoy; the issue was the matter of establishing their burgeoning industry was boring. There wasn’t any sense of a wall to overcome. Each contraption was mind-numbingly simple in theory; they’d only needed labor, not brains.

  The Stellar Forge had been fun because it had been one big problem to solve, constantly figuring out how to make something work.

  “I’m bored,” Rory mumbled to himself once more. “I think it’s time to go stretch my legs,”

  Heading to his hovel, now rather cramped with the number of knickknacks he stored within, he quickly snatched armor from a rather ugly-looking mannequin he’d made.

  The armor was perhaps the only thing of interest over the last few years. It was light armor, simple chest armor, helmet, vambraces, gauntlets, shin and thigh guards, and boots. Part of it had been that Rory preferred being light on his feet, a sensation he’d had ingrained in him after years of using blood weave as his armor of choice.

  The other part was that the entire set was made of Stellarite. Unlike blood weave, it was not easy to mass produce, requiring stellar matter to be folded into the mix.

  As far as armor went, it was straightforward, runes for further galvanization and repair, alongside a few utility runes, such as a pattern of runes meant to flush corrosives from the armor with a quick pulse of pneuma. Each piece had two gems, a simple barrier gem, and a newer gem, float. The barrier gem did what it always did, but the float gem had the unique effect of cutting the effect of gravity on his mass. Without the ability to burn through essence in blood weave, he’d felt sluggish in the armor, and it was through the float gems that he had sort of fixed the problem. The reduction in gravity’s effect on his mass resulted in his ability to move much faster.

  Beneficial, that is, until he was sent flying, in which case he’d often sprawl through the air in a strange floaty manner.

  Rory hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it yet, but then he’d hardly put the armor on, focused almost entirely on his projects of the last three years.

  Once fully strapped up in his armor, Rory went to grab his newest weapon of choice, no longer using bows.

  “Hey there, beauty,” Rory cooed as he retrieved the chains hanging from a peg in his home.

  Unlike his silvery-white armor, the chains were scarlet as if dipped in red velvet batter. They were made entirely of his improved crimson steel, only a smidge less durable than the Stellarite.

  They made up for lesser durability with wounds that bled more freely, and most importantly, they seemed to resonate with his blood essence. He still hadn’t upgraded Essence Spark into Essence Projection, so utilizing his affinity to project outward was still tricky. Thankfully, they seemed to bypass that difficulty due to the resonance of his blood affinity and the chains. Each chain ended in a spade-like blade with a handle just beneath that he could hold onto. If he wanted to get up and personal in a fight, he could do so.

  Unlike his armor, the chains had no inscriptions, mainly because adding inscribing runes upon chains would have been excessively annoying. He’d hoped they’d be blessed by an Akashic Record, but fortune had not been on his side, the chains had come out completely free of any magical effects.

  That said, they were still surprisingly effective weapons for Rory. Ordinarily, chains were unwieldy, given their nature as non-standard and pendulous weapons. With a high enough cognition density that became less of an issue, the rapid mental processing allowed one to constantly gauge and readjust faster than foes could, the erratic and non-standard nature of chains now a boon.

  Grabbing a pouch of ossified gems, armored up, and with his chains wrapped around his vambraces, Rory set out, one destination in mind.

  The Maw.

  And not just the first or second floor. Rory would finally take the plunge and investigate the mysterious third floor.

  Leaving their camp, Rory made it nearly halfway there before running into a surprised-looking Apostolos. Even in his mid-twenties, he still looked like he was not a day over eighteen.

  “Master?”

  “Oh, nice coincidence running into you,” Rory said cheerfully.

  “What’s wrong? Why are you all armored up?”

  “I got bored,” Rory said plainly. “Been sitting around doing only brain-dead projects for too long. Want to go investigate the third floor with me?”

  “Wait, for real? Just like that?” Apostolos asked, flabbergasted.

  “Well, yeah, I told you not to go there yourself, not that you couldn’t go with me.”

  Apostolos shifted, his own dull yellow armor clinking as it gently rubbed against itself. Much like Rory’s, it was made to be lightweight. However, Apostolos had the extra reason that taking a fatal wound was far less severe for him than it was for Rory. Made of Solarite, the solar-aspect version of Stellarite, it had a natural synergy with Apostolos, further augmented by the fact that Rory had given his armor a barrier gem and light gem combo. Apostolos could manifest barriers of solid light to repel magical attacks or reinforce his armor against physical attacks when used in tandem.

  Between the two sets of armor, Apostolos’s armor was definitely the ‘better’ armor, if only due to the natural synergy between himself and his armor. Rory had considered making armor of improved crimson steel for himself, except the resonance between his blood affinity and the armor meant little, given it was armor. Without all the extra essence contained within blood weave, it would likely only result in the armor becoming more malleable, if anything. Therefore, if all he wanted was raw defensive strength, Stellarite was the way to go, at least for himself.

  “What if something goes wrong?”

  “Then something goes wrong,” Rory said with a shrug. “What happens, happens. Control what you can; don’t fret what you can’t.”

  Patting his former apprentice on the shoulder, Rory began striding forward without looking back as he heard Apostolos hurry after him.

  “Are you sure I won’t get in the way?” Apostolos asked after a moment.

  “I don’t know, you tell me,” Rory said with a smirk. Rory could almost sense the moment the words triggered something in Apostolos, his overly concerned side swapping out with that of the brat he could be.

  “I shouldn’t have asked. If anything, you’re the old man who has barely gotten out.” Apostolos said sarcastically.

  Better. I can still tell he’s forcing it, but that’s a better mindset.

  “Ego much?” Rory said, playing along with Apostolos’s bravado. “Fancy weapon and armor and you think you’re hot shit.”

  Apostolos snorted before sighing a moment later. “Thanks. Sometimes, when I’m around you, I’m back to being a kid again and forget that I can take care of myself.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment for a job done well of raising you. That aside, here is the basic plan. Given your decreased durability between your race change and your Spiritual Body, I’ll be the front line.”

  “Are you sure I shouldn’t? Given me ‘dying’ is less of an issue?”

  “Nah, I’d rather you weren’t one shot straight away, leaving me to fend for myself. My guess is that the third floor will be mostly tier-five monsters, with maybe a third of them being tier-sixes, potentially upward to high-tier-six. If the pattern holds, the boss will be a tier-seven, so we aren’t going anywhere close to that.”

  “So, I fight from the backline. While Solar blades should work well enough on tier-five monsters, I’m not sure how well they will perform against tier-six monsters. If you can pin something down, I can blast ‘em with a continuous sun ray.” Apostolos said confidently.

  “Sun Ray. Heh, nice pun.”

  Apostolos stared at Rory, confused.

  C’mon, that one was obvious!

  Ignoring that such a pun was apparently too far beneath Apostolos to notice, Rory coughed awkwardly into his hand and moved on.

  “Yeah, that should work. Our main objective will be to clear out the immediate vicinity of our landing area. If the third floor is to the second floor, what the second floor is to the first, it will be a massive, sprawling labyrinth that goes on for dozens of miles in any direction, if not more. We’re not looking to chart that all out, not even close.”

  Continuing their conversation for another half an hour, they soon found themselves staring at the familiar sight of the tear in the earth shaping itself like a gaping maw.

  “Floor two,” Rory announced as they appeared atop the transport platform in a shower of purple sparks.

  “So,” Apostolos said, staring over the side into the endless black pit. “Do we just- oh, right, sure, of course.”

  Without a second thought, Rory had hopped off the side, dropping into the darkness like a rock down a well.

  “Yeah, why not,” Apostolos sighed as he followed after his master.

  “How long have we been falling?” Apostolos questioned; the terror of falling through the blind darkness had long grown tiresome.

  “Ten minutes or so,” Rory said. Unlike Apostolos, Rory could see through the darkness thanks to Eyes of the Architect.

  “Just how much longer are we going to fall?” Apostolos asked.

  “About five, maybe ten.”

  “Minutes?”

  “Seconds.”

  Staring at Rory in shock, there was only enough time to brace themselves as they plunged into the depths of… something.

  “Uhh, what is this?” Apostolos questioned, sending a spark of golden light to see with.

  “Looks like oil,” Rory answered. “But it’s not.”

  “What’s oil?’

  “Not important,” Rory brushed the question aside. “We fell into the center of some underground lake or whatever you’d call this.”

  Roughly a thousand meters in any direction was a shoreline to swim to, which Rory promptly did, having no intention of hanging out in some mystery black liquid where who knew what was lurking.

  Dragging himself onto the shore, Rory turned just in time to see a giant, somewhat familiar tentacle reaching out from the darkness and lunging toward Apostolos.

  “Oh fuck no,” Rory growled as he whipped his arm forward, sending the large chain blade slashing through the air before cutting through the tentacle in one stroke.

  “What was that?” Apostolos shouted as he dragged himself onto dry land alongside Rory.

  “I’m thinking there is a Watcher in these waters.”

  “Wait, you mean like the boss from the first floor you killed long ago? What’s it doing down here?”

  “It wasn’t some unique monster, obviously,” Rory said with a frown. “And as for what it’s doing down here, a dark pool of black liquid seems like the exact place one of those things would call home. Not to mention, on the third floor, tier-fives are to be the common monster.”

  Apostolos shuddered. Rory was confident that Apostolos could handle a Watcher on his own. Still, there was something unnerving about a flesh-eating tentacled monster lurking beneath the depths.

  “By the way,” Apostolos turned to look at Rory, crossing his arms. “I didn’t want to ask this earlier because I was hoping you’d thought this far ahead, but how exactly do we get back?”

  “Assuming we can’t just warp back?” Rory scratched his chin before shrugging. “We climb.”

  “All that way? We fell for ten minutes! You realize how long of a climb that is?”

  “Not sure what terminal velocity is on Aelia, so not really.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Right, of course,” Apostolos sighed. “Not sure why I expected anything different.”

  “Well, let’s get a move on then,” Rory said, ushering Apostolos to follow him as they found a tunnel branching off their landing site.

  Walking through the tunnel for several minutes, the compacted earth began to give way to stone before the stone also gave way, revealing walls of dilapidated cobble.

  “Wow,” Apostolos ran a hand across the worn cobblestone. “It’s like people used to live down here,”

  “Nah,” Rory dismissed. “It’s either Aelia or Eon attempting scene setting; take your pick for which you prefer.”

  It still didn’t prevent Rory from examining the walls, even having said as much, only to confirm it was basic mundane grade material.

  Walking for several more minutes, their hall soon melded into a larger circular tunnel, a sewer, or what was supposed to look like a sewer. The same black liquid from before trickled through the very bottom of the sewer, small creatures like a fusion of rat and roach scuttling around.

  “Roaches and rats, never been a fan of either,” Rory muttered, recalling the first apartment he’d rented had a problem with both.

  “Should we deal with them?” Apostolos questioned.

  “No need. They’re not even tier-one. Pretty sure they’re here just to set the mood.”

  Exploring for another few minutes, the duo stopped as they saw a creature crouched over a mound of rotting flesh.

  That’s the first time I’ve seen anything rotting on the planet. Maybe something down here makes it possible?

  “Master?”

  “Yeah?” Rory responded in a hushed tone.

  “Is that a -”

  “Tier-six? Yep.” Rory said quietly.

  Fetid Deep Walker

  Level: 60

  A deformed mutation of a long-forgotten creature, the Fetid Deep Walker knows only the darkness of the depths and the rotting flesh it consumes.

  “So, do we attack?” Apostolos asked.

  “I doubt it will let us go on our merry way once it notices us. We’re going to flash-bang it. A burst of good old-fashioned sunlight should disorient it enough for me to start laying into it.”

  “And if that doesn’t work?”

  “Then we do the work and put in the elbow grease until it does,”

  “Fine,” Apostolos said, rolling his eyes. “What’s the signal?”

  “This,” Rory snickered as he shot forward, activating the float gems to reduce gravity’s hold on him. At the same instant, he lashed forward with his chains, the large spade-like blades at the ends of the chains like two striking vipers. Responding instantly to the sudden sense of incoming danger, the Fetid Deep Walker whirled to face them, a putrid green aura radiating outward. Before it could do more than blink, a brilliant flare of light exploded out from behind Rory as if the stars they called their suns had suddenly appeared underground. Recoiling at the sudden light, the Fetid Deep Walker tripped up as the chains left ugly, weeping wounds over its body. It was a testament to its status as a tier-six that it hadn’t been torn deep terrible rents through its body too severe to recover from.

  Flaring Essence Spark through his chains, Rory channeled his blood essence as the already ugly wounds on the monster suddenly began to spew putrid-smelling blood the color of mud. At the same time, an arrow of light streaked through the air within a split second, lancing into the monster’s shoulder as it jerked backward.

  Good start.

  Things only got more complicated from there as the Fetid Deep Walker rose to its full standing height, around nine feet tall, give or take a few inches. It looked like a dish towel that had been wrung dry, with a face that reminded Rory of a starved man with ant-like mandibles and pits for eyes.

  Nasty.

  Covering its body were pustules that leaked weeping tears of gangrenous pus.

  Nasty, nasty, nasty.

  Lastly, its overly long arms ended in fleshy ribbons of mangled bones and rotting skin.

  NASTY.

  As much as Rory hated looking at the thing, that wouldn’t prevent him from watching just long enough to murder it. Yanking the chains back, Rory advanced in a dervish whirl of slashing blades and entangling chains. Often, his chains would strike and rebound off the walls, yet Rory had left his second train of thought open to help account and re-orient himself the moment it happened. He was a storm of erratic movements and confusing moves that even Rory could barely process.

  If Rory could barely comprehend his own moves, then the Fetid Deep Walker was entirely incapable. It attempted to strike at him, but Rory’s chains enchained the offending arm and quickly tore into it, forcing the monster to backpedal. More golden arrows streamed through the air as it did, striking it repeatedly, the light constantly disorienting the creature.

  Growing tired of being brutally assaulted, the monster shrieked as it flung an arm forward, and every pustule on its body popped all at once, a small jet of the ugly pus splashing upon Rory’s armor, where it immediately began to sizzle.

  God damn it, that is gross.

  Activating the barrier gems within his armor, the goop was repelled instantly. Taking a single moment to glance at the damage, Rory could only mentally whistle.

  While the damage wasn’t extensive, the fact that it had visibly damaged the armor with tiny pockmarks of acid etching in an instant alarmed him.

  I would not want to see what that would do to my skin.

  Not one to miss taking advantage of an opportunity, Rory sent his chains flying forward, wrapping the monster briefly as it seemed to wither after spewing its pus.

  “Swap!” Rory shouted, ducking as he did. Instantly, Apostolos was lunging forward, swinging his scythe as the curved blade found its mark, stabbing through the side of its skull where an ear would be on a human.

  Lifeless, the monster collapsed as Rory felt the surge of ascension energy flow through him.

  “Wow,” Apostolos said, eyes wide. “That is a lot of energy.”

  “Oh, right; since you’re tier-five, you receive more energy than usual for killing something above your tier.”

  "Yeah, it's a nice bit of windfall," Apostolos said with a small smile.

  “That aside, you think you could have handled it alone?” Rory questioned, curious to see Apostolos's assessment of the battle.

  “Not sure about that,” Apostolos said, not even bothering to puff himself up. “Between your chains and my light, it was constantly stuck on the backfoot. I wouldn’t want to test my luck against something that can damage our armor in a split second.”

  “Smart, overconfidence will get you killed, even if only temporarily.”

  “Trust me; I’ve learned that lesson enough times,” Apostolos rubbed at his neck sheepishly, clearly recalling failed run-ins with tier-five monsters on the second floor of the Maw.

  Happy with the fact that Apostolos hadn’t gotten too cocky in his growth, Rory took some time to inspect the monster. There was, unfortunately, nothing of interest to do with the corpse. Oh, for sure, Rory could have come up with some potential ideas to use its body for, such as investigating the rotting nature of the creature, but that would require him to bring its corpse back to the surface.

  Something which he was not intending to do.

  Moving on, minutes passed until they found themselves entering what reminded Rory of the G-Cans of Tokyo, a massive underground water discharge facility for…

  Flood water, I think. In hindsight, I never actually learned what it was for.

  After emerging from a sewer area, it was shockingly beautiful, and its architecture was too flawless to have been of ordinary human origin.

  Which, of course, was the point. No humans had been involved in its creation.

  “Wow,” Apostolos uttered, awe in his voice. “What is this place?”

  “On Earth, there was a city called Tokyo-”

  At least, I think it was in Tokyo

  “- that had an entire underground facility meant to deal with flood waters. It looked a lot like this.”

  “Master,” Apostolos suddenly spoke up, his voice nearly hysterical. “You should really examine the material making up these pillars.”

  Curious, Rory did precisely that, his jaw nearly hitting the ground a moment later.

  “What the hell, Legendary grade stone?” Rory sputtered.

  Eternal Stone

  Quality: Legendary

  A stone, in the absence of outside forces, may last eternal. Embodying that concept, Eternal Stone is invulnerable to all but the most potent Extreme-grade or above tools.

  Hot damn, I wish I could collect some.

  As much as the thought of gathering some of the Eternal Stone tickled his brain, Rory pushed the idea aside. Aside from being incredibly tough, the description made it clear that the stone was otherwise wholly generic.

  Furthermore, it was not like he could harvest any of it. It was pretty explicit about what type of tools would be necessary to even think of scratching it, much less collecting any.

  “Why do you think there needs to be Legendary-grade stone here?” Apostolos asked.

  “One of two reasons. One, it’s meant to show off the existence of Legendary-grade stuff in a way that, even if it were collected, would provide little benefit aside from making some really fucking tough buildings, buildings that you couldn’t even carve into or shape without proper tools.”

  “And the second reason?”

  Rory winced internally, not a fan of the second option.

  “Something down here requires the presence of legendary-grade stone to withstand it.”

  On guard, the two walked through the massive underground facility before leaving it behind. Before long, they were back to walking through tunnels of dilapidated cobblestone, the room of legendary stone just an afterthought as they pressed onward. They spent ten minutes wandering until the tunnel opened into a ginormous cavern more than a mile across. Nothing but darkness stretched below them for nearly a quarter of a mile until, from the dark, there rose an island of roughly hewn basalt. Dominating the center of the basalt island was a colosseum of all things made of the same rough-hewn basalt.

  “Wow,” Apostolos repeated for the umpteenth time. “What’s that?”

  “A colosseum. It’s where in ancient history, Earth history, warriors would battle against one another, wild animals, or a whole assortment of things.”

  “Should we check it out?”

  Rory glanced warily at the pathway built over the dark void that led to the basalt island. It would be all too easy to fall off the edge, and a quarter mile worth of pathway stretching over an endless void seemed like one of the things Rory wanted to avoid if possible.

  But.

  But the Colosseum was intriguing.

  And really, what are the chances that it’s really an endless void?

  The thought didn’t give him much comfort. The only reason he’d been so carefree in jumping down the pit from the second to the third floor of the Maw was because he knew there was something below, something to land safely upon. Eon -or Aelia- wouldn’t have tricked them into a death pit for no reason.

  “Sure, although let’s exercise some general caution. I don’t like the look of this.” Rory gestured toward the endless void.

  “Whatever you say, boss man,” Apostolos said with a mock salute.

  Kids.

  Together, the two quickly but cautiously crossed the airborne land bridge. Thankfully, nothing appeared, no monsters or traps whatsoever. Feet back upon solid ground, the two stared up at the massive Colosseum.

  “So… now what?” Apostolos asked as the first to break the silence.

  “Approach with caution,” Rory said as he led the way. Entering the Colosseum, there was only eerie silence until they stood at the top of the seated arena, staring down into the arena proper.

  “Master?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “I believe I am.” Rory nodded as he stared down at the very center of the arena.

  A single pane of what appeared like foggy glass had risen from the ground, framed in jet-black stone that seemed to speak of the void and nothingness.

  “What is it?”

  “No idea, have to get in range for our examines to work.”

  Nodding at his master, Apostolos followed Rory down the steps of the arena until only a single railing stood between them and the arena proper. Close enough to examine whatever the object was, Rory sucked in a surprised breath.

  Null Window

  Rarity: Extreme

  A shard of reality splintered off from a now-extinct existence. While ordinarily useless, such an object loosens the hold of physical space and time.

  “Hot damn,” Apostolos whistled.

  “It’s perfect,” Rory muttered, a frown on his face.

  “Perfect? For what?”

  “For the Spatial Doorway. To make a Spatial Doorway, you must disrupt space and time, creating a quantum tunnel that bypasses reality and bridges impossible distances.”

  “In normal terms?”

  “I can skip a hundred years of research and resource collection with it,” Rory said matter-of-factly. “I need it.”

  “So, why the frown?”

  “Because let’s be honest here, what are the chances something so perfectly suited for such a project would just randomly be here?”

  “Oh. Eon?”

  “Eon,” Rory confirmed. “Not even Aelia could make something like this; she doesn’t have the power to manipulate the few remaining elements of the old universe.”

  “Terrible monster, trap, or something else?”

  “All of the above,” Rory said, “Or that’s my guess. It is probably a test, then a trap, then another test, before a final scary monster shows up and tries to eat our face if we attempt to go and retrieve it. Not like I know how to retrieve it in the first place.”

  “So, do we ignore it?”

  “Not a chance,” Rory sighed. Preparing to vault himself over the side of the railing and into the Colosseum arena, he suddenly paused as an interface appeared.

  Trial of Space: Stage 1

  Requirements: Tier-five.

  Attempt Count: 0

  Weekly Attempt Allowance: 2 of 2

  Attempt? Y/N

  “Bingo,” Rory said, half smiling. “Test first, I was right.”

  Before Apostolos could say anything, Rory mentally selected yes. In an instant, the world changed. He was no longer standing in an ominous Colosseum. Instead, he found himself floating above a massive white star.

  “Huh,” Rory muttered, staring down at the star. “Neutron star, I think?”

  Still floating, Rory waited for what felt like hours until even his patience began to wear thin. Floating closer to the star, Rory waited for something to happen. The closer he drew to the star, the more he began to feel an odd prickle against his senses. Curious, Rory activated Eyes of the Architect, using the magic survey effect, as all around him, empty space seemed to bloom with a dark purple shadow.

  “Wow,” Rory huffed, “That is odd.”

  It wasn’t just space; tendrils of purple shadows had intertwined the neutron star, and even as he stared down at the star, he saw more and more shadows reaching into the star.

  “You know, that might not be so good-”

  As if reacting to his observation, the tendrils heaved, yanking back and away from the star and tearing it apart.

  Seeing such grand destruction was almost too much for his mind to comprehend, yet he only had several moments to take it all in. Ripped apart, the star exploded, and before Rory could even consider his proximity to such power, he was instantly bathed in cosmic fire and energy, his existence wiped away as easily as a hurricane would blow aside a single speck of sand.

  With a lurch, Rory barely caught himself on the rail of the arena, no longer floating in space.

  “…master? Hello? Are you done spacing out?”

  “Apostolos?” Rory spun around to face his former apprentice. “How long was I gone?”

  “Gone? You just sat silently for a few seconds, spacing out like you do sometimes.”

  Ignoring the second part of what Apostolos had said, Rory frowned as he considered everything that had happened.

  “I felt like I was in there for hours…”

  “What happened?”

  “I was floating above a star, floating for a while before I got tired of waiting and approached the star. Then it exploded, and I died.”

  “So are you-”

  Rory didn’t even finish listening to Apostolos as he lurched back into space, floating above the star again, opting to use his second weekly attempt.

  “Alright, don’t float uselessly for two hours this time.”

  Zooming toward the star, Rory frowned; he’d activated Eyes of the Architect to its full extent the second he’d appeared this time around.

  Having not wasted as much time, Rory found the neutron star was no longer nearly as intertwined by the shadowy tendrils; it was now a globe of pure glowing power.

  “Alright, so what’s the catch?” Rory muttered, investigating what he could. Star exploding was a failure, as if his first trial hadn’t made that obvious enough.

  Do I need to figure out how to stop it from exploding?

  That felt… perhaps a bit much. As a tier-six, he was well beyond superhuman; jogging, he could outpace a cheetah, and benching a semi was hardly an ask either.

  Which was still a long way from the power needed to forcibly hold a star together and keep it from exploding.

  Right, so I’m probably not supposed to stop the star from exploding myself.

  Understanding he would probably fail again, Rory took his time to observe whatever he could, trying to glean any meaning or valuable insight. As minutes rolled by, the shadowy tendrils began reaching out from space, clawing their way into the star and gradually burrowing their way into the star until he was washed away in a sea of cosmic power, much like the first time around.

  “Hrmm…” Rory grunted as he found himself back in reality.

  “…going to explain what happened?”

  Rory turned to face Apostolos once more, a thoughtful look on his face.

  “I failed the trial. Twice.”

  “What? Already?”

  “Yeah. You can give it a go if you want. Word of advice: don’t waste time lingering.”

  Trusting his master, Apostolos shrugged as if he didn’t see why not. Putting his hands on the railing, a blank look crossed his face for several seconds before he collapsed.

  “Have fun?” Rory said after a moment as Apostolos collected himself.

  “That was intense,” Apostolos said, eyes filled with excitement.

  “Oh?” Rory found his curiosity piqued.

  “Yeah. I failed the trial, but being so close to a real star made my Solar Regeneration go crazy. I’m confident I could endlessly regenerate like that; I could probably even outlast a tier eight or nine monster like that. Well, until the end, that is. The Solar affinity being blasted outward by the star was overwhelmed by whatever that other energy was.”

  “Really? Give it another go and see what you can pick up this time around,”

  Nodding, Apostolos blanked out, seconds passing until the young man staggered backward.

  “Oof. Nasty. Nasty stuff.” Apostolos gagged, dry heaving before wiping his mouth. “Bleh. I merged with the star.”

  “You did what?”

  “Well, merged is putting it too nicely. It’s more like I got myself stuck in the star. In reality, that would have been a rather bad experience, unable to escape its gravity but also unable to die thanks to the star endlessly regenerating me. I only did so because I knew it was just a trial, and the star would explode anyway.”

  “Alright... And?”

  “Inside the star, when… whatever that energy was that invaded the star, it also invaded me.”

  “Was it some sort of dark or malignant energy?”

  “Yes… and no. It wasn’t malignant, just antithetical to the forces holding together a star. I’m primarily a Spiritual Body composed of Solar energy, so it just feels icky to me.”

  Frowning, Rory considered the words for several moments before a light bulb lit up in his mind.

  What holds a star together? Well, gravity, or more accurately, a gravity well.

  Ba dum tss. I still don’t see why no one thinks I’m funny, what with puns like that.

  Chuckling, Rory sat down and nodded to himself.

  “What? What is it?”

  “When I said dark energy, I hadn’t meant it literally, but that’s exactly what I think those shadow tendrils represented: dark energy.”

  “Shadow tendrils?”

  “Oh, right, you don’t have that effect in your version of your eye skill. Using my eye skills, I could observe the energy you were speaking of, and it appeared like dark tendrils that ripped the star apart.”

  “That explains why I felt like I was ripped apart. But, uh, what’s dark energy?”

  “As far as I ever understood it, it was the opposite of gravity. Humans still hadn’t advanced our understanding of it that much before we became wrapped up in the entire ‘Universal War’ business.”

  Nodding to himself once more, Rory stood up, dusting himself off from non-existent dirt.

  “Alright, well, time to get a move on.”

  “We’re not going to hang out any longer? We’re just going to leave after such revelations?”

  “We’ve both used up both of our weekly trial attempts. I don’t see what we’d gain from staying here any longer.”

  “Alright, well, if you say so,” Apostolos said with a shrug as he began to follow Rory out of the Colosseum.

  The question of the nature of dark energy would be a thought to turn over in his mind for the next week, fully intending to return and use his two weekly attempts once more a week from now.

  Still, for the time, there was more delving to be done.

  rocks, and a trial area. Oh, and a three-year time skip! Who knows what else there is to be found on the third floor of the Maw!

  opposite of dedicated to any given path or direction. He's not a dark lord, but he will dabble in blood arts; he's not an archer but will abuse a range advantage when needed; he is not a teacher but will mentor others, etc.