One crystal wasn't enough.
I felt it the moment I stood.The power I had taken burned low and deep, not roaring—just there, like an ember pressed into my bones. The dungeon still dwarfed me. Its Axiom pressed in from all directions, vast and indifferent. I hadn't become strong.
I had become compatible.
That was all.
I wiped the dried blood from my chin and steadied my breathing. The dungeon did not care about my revelation. Somewhere deeper, something shifted. Stone groaned. Axiom pulsed.
So I moved.
I ran.
My feet struck the stone unevenly, body screaming with fatigue, but instinct carried me forward. I traced a circle mid-stride—small, brutal, efficient.
ᚲᛋ ᚠᛏ ᛋᚱ (Crucis Flux – Vector Step)(Force Conversion – Directional Burst)
Axiom detonated beneath my heel, not outward but backward, and the recoil hurled me forward in a blur. Pain flared up my leg.
I welcomed it.
—Again, my father's voice echoed in my memory.Move first. Think later. If you hesitate, you're dead.
I rolled, came up low, used another burst—shorter this time. The spell snapped instead of flowed. Sloppy.
"Again," I muttered, teeth clenched.
I ran until my lungs burned. Until my legs shook. Until the dungeon tried to kill me for it.
A shape lunged from the dark—too slow. I pivoted, chained propulsion into a lateral burst, felt my shoulder tear slightly as momentum twisted wrong—
—Control your weight, Father snapped in memory, striking my stance.Speed without balance is suicide.
I corrected mid-air. Landed. Didn't fall.
Then came magic.
I collapsed behind a stone ridge, shaking, hands trembling too badly to steady a proper circle. I laughed breathlessly. Beasts on my tail.
"Still terrible," I told myself.
—Magic is not passion, Mother's voice surfaced, calm and patient.It is articulation. If you can't explain it, you can't cast it.
I opened my palm and traced a basic circle. Not healing—stabilization.
ᛋᚾᚱ ᛚᚨ (Seneris Latus)(Sustain Form)
It barely worked. My vision steadied. Pain dulled, not gone.
Good enough.
I cast again.
And again.
Each spell drained me dry. Each time, I waited—counted breaths—let the dungeon's pressure seep back into me. Not drawing. Not absorbing.
Leaking.
Then casting again.
Hours blurred.
Days maybe.
Time in the dungeon didn't behave. I learned that quickly. Hunger came late. Exhaustion came early. Wounds healed wrong unless I corrected them.
I hunted.
Not recklessly—methodically.
I lured monsters into narrow passages, trapping them—not foolish enough to fight head-on. Into Axiom-rich fault lines. Into unstable crystal growths. I learned which roars meant charge, which meant probe. Which tremors were territorial warnings. Which meant run.
I killed.
Not cleanly.
Every beast left behind a crystal.
Axiom cores varied in hue—pale blue, sickly green, deepening to crimson. The darker the gem, the more violently it pulsed, the more the dungeon noticed when it was removed.
I absorbed sparingly.
At first.
Every attempt nearly killed me.
Blood. Vomiting. Convulsions. Blackouts.
So I imposed limits.
Not on the dungeon.
On myself.
I capped intake. Forced excess Axiom to bleed off through casting. Through movement. Through pain.
It burned constantly now—this foreign, dense Axiom nested inside me. Not mana. Fuel.
And then I realized something.
Common knowledge said dungeons were mana wells. Dangerous ones. Unstable. That monsters were parasites feeding on ambient Axiom.
That was wrong.
Living here taught me the truth.
The dungeon was not a source.
It was a circuit.
A self-correcting engine. Monsters weren't parasites—they were regulators. Pressure valves. When Axiom density spiked, life formed to consume it.
And now—
So was I.
Magic circles were never fixed.
Each rune carried attributes. Each attribute carried cost.
Edit the rune—pay the price.
I experimented.
Removed the Scope Circle—the spell collapsed inward, imploded violently.
Removed the Limiter—the circle detonated.
Removed both—
The result wasn't chaos.
It was weaponization.
Short-range. Massive output. Unstable. Lethal.
Perfect.
I engineered spells. Failed dozens. Nearly died twice. Melted stone. Vaporized steel. Once, accidentally erased a section of wall so thoroughly the dungeon regenerated it wrong.
I learned from that.
I documented everything—scratching notes into stone, memorizing failures, refining successes.
I forged minerals.Projected hardened Axiom into blades.Condensed force into armor plates that lasted seconds—enough.
I ate monster flesh when crystals weren't enough. Tasteless. Bitter. Necessary.
Floor after floor fell behind me.
I never went up.
Only deeper.
Until—
I stopped.
The corridor widened into a cathedral of stone. Runes older than Sunspire lined the walls—not magic circles, but foundational definitions. The air was heavy enough to press me to my knees.
Ahead stood a door.
Not stone.
Not metal.
Something else.
It breathed.
Axiom surged behind it, deep and ancient, coiled like a sleeping god.
I stood there, bloodied, scarred, burning from the inside out—and smiled faintly.
"Alright," I whispered.
"Let's see what you're guarding."