[Technique Card: Lightvein (Legendary) (Fortification) (Compatible Class: Hunter) (Compatible Aspects: Hyperspace)]

  Jace held up the card and nodded. She’d simplified the name and made it better suited to his class and aspect, which, in his experience, had always helped improve the card’s main effect, too.

  He called up the description and reviewed it:

  [Technique description: Once every two (2) minutes, fortifies the user’s body and weapons with a surge of hyperspace-aspect Aes. Temporarily adds three times the user’s Resistance into Agility, Strength, and Vitality, and Potency. Card can stay active for a maximum of thirty (30) seconds.]

  For one, now it said, ‘whole body’, not just the limbs. Of course, the aspect was slightly different, probably the most important difference was that instead of converting his Resistance, it simply added the other stats, which now included Potency.

  “Thanks, Lessa,” he said.

  She grinned. “I know it’s not a huge change, but…”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “This will still help out a lot, and it sounds like a good building block to work off.”

  “Exactly! I—”

  Before she could finish, the wilting furnace let out a beep, and Ash said, “It is ready. I believe I’ve melted all the cards, though you may want to check your storage ring. We don’t want to run out of material.”

  Lessa hopped up and ran over, then picked up the tongs, and said, “Jace? Can I have the hyperdash card?”

  He socketed in the Lightvein card, then manifested his Hyperdash card and handed it to her. “Ready?”

  She gripped the card with the tongs. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Perril and Kinfild backed away. Lessa approached the wilting furnace and dipped the card into the shimmering silver liquid for barely a second, then tugged it out and engraved a new rune in the center. Then, she dropped the card. Along with it, she dragged out a trail of molten plastic and metal flecks.

  It hit the ground with a burst of sparks, but this time, it sputtered away for much longer, infusing the main card with power and locking in its previous functions to the base card and amplifying them.

  “Jace, use an ability. Or…or something,” Lessa said. “I just need to put down a few more runes, and I need to look at your tree.”

  He nodded, then activated the new Lightvein card. This time, hyperspace-aspect Aes surged through his entire body, crossing his chest and filling his gut. When he moved his arm, trails of blue lightning sparked behind him.

  Ash and Perril stared at him, and they both raised their eyebrows.

  “Would you like to test it?” Ash asked.

  “Sure. Uh…how do—”

  Before he could finish, Ash struck him in the stomach with a bare fist, but he barely felt it. He widened his stance, and only slid back a few inches.

  “Impressive,” Ash said. “Even with a fortification technique, most level forty-five Wielders wouldn’t have been standing after that.”

  “Do you think we’re ready to go after Rallemnon?” Jace asked.

  Kinfild stepped between them and pressed his staff down. “We said we were going to rest. We should sleep.”

  “That’s not very reassuring,” Jace muttered.

  “I think we are as ready as we can be,” Ash said. “We will do what we have to in order to get out of here.”

  Jace chewed his bottom lip. “Not just get out of here. I want to win, and properly win. I want to deal with Rallemnon, and I want to get that spear.”

  “You sound like you’re ready, aye,” Perril said. “But not if you’re exhausted.”

  Jace let his Lightvein technique sputter out, then turned back to Lessa. “Was that enough, or do you need…more?”

  “I’ve got it!” she announced, then peeled the card off the ground and flicked it to him. “Should be completely reforged now.”

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  Jace caught the card between two fingers, then flipped it around and stared at it. The surface was smooth, and the entire card was slightly iridescent, save for the new wires she’d soldered onto it.

  [Technique Card: Hyperdash (Rare) (Utility) (Compatible Class: Hyperspace Hunter) (Compatible Aspects: Hyperspace)]

  He focussed on it until he could discern its new description. [Technique description: (Reforged) Activates the technique Hyperdash, and allows the user to carry all objects with him, regardless of enchantments or spiritual presence.]

  He raised his eyebrows. No hidden additional effects, but still a helpful bonus if he wanted to carry anything that wasn’t in his backpack and didn’t have any special enhancements. He socketed the card as well. “Thanks, Lessa.”

  She gave a smooth bow, then grinned. “My pleasure.”

  With that, Jace went over his mental checklist. They’d done all they could to prepare for the fifteenth level. Now they just had to rest, recover their strength, and descend one last time.

  After his advancement, he wasn’t feeling especially tired, so he took the first watch and spent the time experimenting with his hand, practicing moving the fingers, and more. By the time Kinfild woke up and swapped with him, the tiredness of the previous day returned, and he passed out almost immediately.

  ~ ~ ~

  The next morning, they set off as soon as they could and ate breakfast on the way to the crust-lift.

  At the bottom of the fourteenth level, they found another smaller cylindrical chamber that led back into the stone. They crossed over a bridge, then exited the chamber and walked a few paces down a short hallway, before arriving in the crust-lift’s main holding cavern.

  It was just like the others, and though they had to cut through a cluster of angry automatons to get there, it functioned just like the others. They activated it and shot down to the fifteenth level.

  Instead of arriving in a barren, rough cavern just large enough to fit the machinery, the crust-lift emerged at the edge of an enormous cave. It wasn’t natural; the roof was a perfect spherical dome large enough to cover a city, though it was rather shallow. Crust-lifts dotted its edge, glowing blue and shimmering in a rippling heat-haze.

  The entire bottom of the dome was a lake of lava, all except an island at the center, which supported a smaller sphere.

  And by smaller, it was only a few kilometers in diameter.

  It was made of white marble with golden streaks, and it had a trench around its center, which glowed bright blue. Lightning crackled around, and Aes sparks hovered in the air, even so far away across the lava lake.

  The dungeon’s core had to be there.

  Jace ran to the edge of a metal walkway overlooking the main chamber, then leaned on the railing. Heat bubbled up from the magma below—about ten meters below—warming his face and making him thankful he didn’t have sleeves.

  “How do we get over to the center, though?” Lessa asked. She walked up behind him, exo-suit whirring, and stared out across the same vista.

  “Use your senses, Jace,” Kinfild suggested.

  “I’m picking up an enchanted structure only a few feet below the lava lake’s surface,” Ash provided. “A bridge of sorts.”

  Both Jace and Kinfild stared at Ash with annoyed expressions.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Jace is supposed to learn and practice,” Kinfild said.

  “Uh, I can still…” Jace shut his eyes and reached out with his newly enhanced senses. Advancing the stage hadn’t awarded a massive leap, not that he could truly tell, but he’d been getting better at detecting objects that weren’t direct threats to him.

  That included the bridge.

  He reached out, sending tendrils of perception as far as he could, then hunted for any objects of significance below the lava. If it was just metal, he might not have picked up on it, but it felt the same as the wall segments that had runes running through them, or tubes that transported Aes.

  A long line of enchanted metal ran from the crust-lift to the center of the dome. They just had to raise it up out of the lava.

  “Here,” Perril said. She ran down the walkway and arrived at a circular dish with different runic lines and layers to it. Ten rotating circles formed its main body, each with different aligning runes and channels for Aes.

  Jace’s stomach fell. How were they supposed to figure out the pattern?

  Still, he ran over. If it was a puzzle, or a lock of some sort, it was their only way across. He didn’t have nearly enough Vitality to survive a swim across a lava lake, that much was certain.

  “Wait…” Jace breathed. “Most of the channels are already aligned.” The channels for Aes to flow weren't obvious, and there were plenty of duds—lines that flowed nowhere. It must’ve been an incredible challenge for the first person who’d done it.

  “Rallemnon was here…” Perril said.

  The runes also had to have meaning, which an old and well educated general like Rallemnon would probably know, but Jace didn't.

  "If we just rotate the bottom ring until it fills..." Jace pressed his tongue between his teeth. There was a well of blue shield Aes at the center of the circles, and the innermost ring was the only one out of alignment. He spun it until its lines flashed blue, then slowed down and perfectly aligned it.

  Spars of blue Aes shot through the circle and out to the edges. A pulse of energy shot into the ground, rattling the walkway.

  A distant whir groaned through the chamber, and the lava below bubbled. Then, a ridge of viscous glowing orange liquid rose up.

  After a few seconds, lava rolled off the edge of the ridge like a waterfall, revealing a metal bridge running all the way from the crust-lift to the central island. It rose higher on pillars until finally, it came to a halt at the same level as the walkway.

  "And there's our way across," Jace said.