Marc's lightning struck the Rock Golem, crackling across its surface with bright flashes that illuminated the entire chamber.

  The bolt dissipated into harmless sparks, leaving not even a scorch mark on the creature's mineral hide.

  "Lightning isn't working!" Marc shouted, backing up as the golem took another thunderous step forward.

  Eli gathered her wind, sending a concentrated blast at the creature's featureless head. The air howled as it cut past the golem, but the monster barely swayed.

  She stared, stunned. "Wind isn't doing anything either!"

  Jax circled the creature, looking for any weak point. "There has to be a crack or something we can exploit!"

  "Its entire body is made of cracks," Layla said, still staring at her broken greatsword. She tossed the useless hilt aside and pulled a backup longsword from her back. "But they're all reinforced with that blue energy."

  The golem slammed a fist into the ground where Jax had been standing a moment before. The impact sent tremors through the chamber, dislodging small stones from the ceiling. Dust filled the air.

  Seven minutes until the Rift shift.

  "We need to retreat," Marc called out. "Find another way around the collapse!"

  "There is no other way," Eli shot back. "And we can't outrun that thing in these tunnels."

  The golem moved again, its massive bulk somehow accelerating despite its size.

  It swept one arm in a wide arc that nearly caught Layla. She ducked just in time, rolling away and coming up beside Magi.

  "Any ideas?" she asked, breathing hard despite his healing. "I don't think we can punch our way through this one."

  Magi watched the golem carefully.

  Its body had a peculiar structure. Not solid rock, but stones of various sizes fused together by the blue energy that pulsed between them. Like concrete with magical reinforcement.

  The stones themselves might be vulnerable, but they were held too tightly together to exploit any weakness.

  He sighed. This was going to be inconvenient.

  "I need to get close to it," he said.

  Layla looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "What? No, you need to stay back. You're our healer!"

  "I think I can loosen the stone," Magi said, already walking toward the golem. "It needs preparation first."

  "Loosen it?" Layla called after him. "What does that even mean? Get back here!"

  The golem had turned its attention to Eli, who was maintaining a wind barrier to keep it at bay.

  The barrier strained under each impact of the creature's fists, bending inward but not breaking. Yet.

  "Magi, what are you doing?" Marc shouted when he noticed Magi approaching the golem from behind. "That thing will crush you!"

  Magi kept walking. The calculations were simple enough.

  The golem's body was composed of tightly packed stones with minimal space between them.

  The blue energy prevented physical force from separating them, which explained why Layla's sword had broken. But if something could get between the stones and then expand rapidly...

  "He's lost his mind," Jax muttered, darting in to try to distract the golem. "Hey, rock face! Over here!"

  The golem ignored him, continuing its assault on Eli's barrier. Her face had gone pale from the effort of maintaining it.

  Six minutes until the Rift shift.

  Magi was now directly behind the golem. He reached out his hand toward its massive leg.

  "What are you doing?" Eli screamed when she spotted him. "Run!"

  The golem sensed Magi's presence and began to turn, its body rotating with the grinding sound of stone on stone.

  Magi didn't move. He placed his palm flat against the creature's leg, feeling the rough texture of the fused stones.

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  "Basic Water," he said.

  Water formed at his palm, not as a jet or a wave, but as a persistent force that pressed into the tiny fissures and cracks between the stones.

  He maintained the flow, pushing the water deeper into the golem's structure, saturating the invisible spaces within.

  The golem completed its turn and raised a fist above Magi's head.

  "Get out of there!" Layla screamed, rushing forward with her sword.

  Magi ignored her.

  The water was in place now, filling all the microscopic cracks and pores throughout the stone. He placed his other hand next to the first.

  "Basic Fire," he said.

  The effect wasn't visible from the outside. No flames appeared, no dramatic explosion occurred. But inside the golem's body, the water instantly converted to steam, expanding to thousand times its original volume in less than a second.

  The golem's leg cracked. Then its torso. Then its arms. Fractures appeared all over its body, spreading in a network of widening fissures.

  The blue energy tried to hold the pieces together, glowing brightly as it strained against the internal pressure.

  It wasn't enough. With a sound like a mountain splitting, the golem's body exploded outward.

  Stones of all sizes flew in every direction, clattering against the chamber walls.

  The blue energy dispersed like mist, leaving nothing but debris where the massive creature had stood.

  When the dust settled, the team saw Magi standing exactly where he'd been, completely unharmed.

  He was wiping his hands on his jeans as if he'd just finished a minor chore.

  "I loosened it for you, Layla," he said. "You can finish it now."

  Layla stared at him, her mouth hanging open. "Finish what? There's nothing left to finish."

  The golem was already dead. If it had ever been alive.

  Its remains lay scattered across the chamber floor, reduced to gravel and pebbles. Nothing remained of the intimidating creature that had broken Layla's greatsword and shrugged off Marc's lightning.

  Five minutes until the Rift shift.

  "What... what did you just do?" Marc asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

  Magi looked at the scattered rocks. "I put water in the cracks and heated it up."

  "You put water—" Jax started, then shook his head in disbelief. "That's it? That's your explanation?"

  "Basic thermodynamics," Magi said with a shrug. "Water expands when it turns to steam."

  Eli approached one of the larger fragments, prodding it with her foot. "But this was a Rock Golem. A high-level creature that shouldn't even be in a D-rank Rift. And you just... shattered it?"

  "Did you have better ideas?" Magi said. He looked toward the central structure where the Rift core pulsed. "We should finish the contract."

  The team exchanged looks of confusion and awe, but no one argued.

  They made their way to the center of the chamber, stepping over the remains of the golem.

  The Rift core floated above a small pedestal, a swirling blue orb of energy that matched the veins that had run through the golem's body.

  Marc approached it cautiously. "This isn't right. This core is too developed for a D-rank. It's at least a B, maybe higher."

  "Someone mis-classified it," Eli said, keeping her distance from the core. "Deliberately, I'm guessing."

  "Who would do that?" Layla asked. "And why?"

  Jax snorted. "Set a trap for some poor team that takes what looks like an easy job? Could be a rival guild."

  "Doesn't matter now," Marc said. "We need to harvest this and get out before the shift. Standard procedure. I'll extract, Eli will contain, Jax and Layla keep watch for any more surprises."

  "What about me?" Magi asked.

  Marc hesitated, then said, "Stand by in case we need healing. And... maybe be ready to do whatever you just did again."

  Magi nodded and stepped back, watching as Marc began the extraction process.

  The core resisted at first, its energy flaring brightly as Marc pulled it from its position. With Eli's help, he managed to secure it in a containment vessel designed for much smaller cores.

  Four minutes until the Rift shift.

  "That's it," Marc said, sealing the container. "Let's get out of here."

  They turned back toward the collapsed tunnel entrance. The obstacle that had trapped them still blocked their path.

  "I forgot about that," Layla said, frowning at the pile of rubble. "How do we get through?"

  "Same way we handled the golem?" Jax suggested, looking at Magi.

  Magi walked to the blockage and examined it. Unlike the golem, this was natural stone with few visible cracks or fissures. He placed his hand against it and concentrated.

  "Basic Earth," he said.

  The rocks shifted, creating a narrow passage just wide enough for them to squeeze through one at a time. It wasn't elegant, but it was functional.

  "You can control earth too?" Eli asked, her voice tinged with awe.

  "Everything I guess? But… Just the basics," Magi replied.

  Three minutes until the Rift shift.

  "Questions later," Marc ordered. "Move now."

  They filed through the passage, Layla first, then Jax and Eli. Marc went next with the core, leaving Magi to follow last. As he passed through, he felt the tunnel shifting behind him, threatening to close again.

  "Basic Earth," he repeated, stabilizing the passage until they were all safely through.

  The team hurried through the tunnels, retracing their steps toward the exit. The earlier carnage from their battle with the goblin forces lay all around them. Bodies and broken weapons scattered across the ground.

  "I still don't get it," Jax said as they ran. "If you could do that to the golem, why didn't you just blast all the goblins from the start?"

  "We handled the goblins fine," Magi said.

  "Yeah, after you healed us all," Layla pointed out. "Which, by the way, no ordinary healer can do that many times without running out of mana."

  Magi didn't respond.

  The exit was visible ahead, a shimmer in the air that marked the boundary between the Rift and the normal world.

  One minute until the Rift shift.

  They burst through the exit together, tumbling back into the parking garage where they had started.

  Behind them, the Rift pulsed once, twice, then collapsed in on itself, leaving no trace of the world they had just escaped.

  Marc sat on the concrete floor, the containment vessel clutched to his chest. "That was... not what I expected from a D-rank rift."

  "No kidding," Jax said, glancing at Magi. "But we got a B-rank core out of it, at least."

  "And some questions," Eli added softly.

  Layla approached Magi, who was brushing dust from his clothes. "You said you only had basic attributes."

  "I do," Magi confirmed.

  "Then what was that?" she demanded. "Because what you did to that golem wasn't basic anything I've ever seen."

  Magi considered the question. "I just applied the basics correctly."

  "The basics," Layla repeated flatly. "Right."

  Marc stood up, securing the core in his pack. "Whatever it was, it saved our lives. And completed the contract." He looked at Magi with new respect. "I think we need to reevaluate your position in this team."