Snowpiercer formed in my hand as Beaks, and I walked out of the darkness. The stone band around my hand felt extra heavy as I planned for the challenge ahead. I had skills with weapons, but I wasn't confident I could clear out the dungeon with those skills alone.

  As I stood at the entrance to the underground jungle, thoughts played through my head. How would I clear this floor with only my weapons, and what did Tom mean by the floor? That meant there were other floors, right? Or was he implying that each of the sections was their own floor?

  That would mean there were three or four floors if the bugs counted as a floor. It was the last thought that discouraged the idea. If the bugs counted as a floor, they'd logically be floor one… which was already cleared. No, all the separate rooms on this level must belong to floor one. So I had to fight a jungle full of monsters, a den of wolfbears, and a templar rank bugbear with just my weapons. Which brought me back to my first thought. How?

  Fortunately, I'd been through this dungeon. Several times now. With mana, I had no problem clearing this floor. Experience wasn't the only advantage I had. I could tackle the dungeon as many times as I wanted until I was successful. Only I didn't intend to waste the lives with multiple loops.

  Cal's memory wiper was still at play, and I didn't want to risk losing more memories. I had a better option available, and I'd exploit it endlessly.

  ****

  Tack wasn't stoked about the new simulation—well… he didn't like sharing the simulation with all the other splits, to be more precise. He was quite excited for the chance to test out his combat skills against the challenge. It just didn't feel like the other splits had any business taking part in his specialty. To be fair to Tack, with only the limited time he spent training, he was already leagues ahead of the rest regarding weapons.

  The weapon-focused mind threw himself at the first floor hundreds of times. His first attempts were with the sword alone. The challenge was a skill issue, and any failure resulted from a skill gap. A gap he was happy to fill with dozens of experiences.

  I watched Tack cut through hundreds of trees, beasts, and monsters in the forest. However, despite the swordsman's stubborn attempts, the problem became clear early on. There were just too many foes, and my current strength didn't allow Tack to power through the situation. So, while it was a skill issue, it was more a lack of power, strength, and speed than technique.

  The difficulty wouldn't be so high if it were only a handful of foes. Tack could kill them quickly enough and then move on to the next pack. My split diligently stuck with his path. He killed promptly and efficiently. Eventually, he made it all the way to the tree boss of the jungle zone, Gulley and Vines.

  The rooty tree stump called minion after minion to overwhelm the swordsman. Tack was driven to win. Each failure fueled his next attempt, where he would fight longer, honing his skill and bridging the gap. The split cut through the first stage of the boss fight, shredding the throaty tunnel into splinters, and made it several minutes into the second stage.

  Where Tack used brute force, Fender was more strategically minded. At first, I thought the defensive split focus would struggle more than Tack. All of its time was spent shoring up my mental defenses, and most of that time was spent conjuring monsters and upgrading their abilities. All good for the mental game, but would not help him here.

  Fender proved me wrong.

  The mind used a combination of bow, sword, and stealth attacks. Instead of rushing into the jungle head-on, Fender took his time blending into the jungle, finding his prey, and striking. It took him longer to clear the smaller foes but allowed him to reach Gulley with fewer attempts than Tack.

  Fender's first attempts at Gulley and Vines resulted in quick failures. The tree stump had a high constitution, strong mid-range attacks, several area-of-effects, and the ability to call minions. He adapted to the boss fight and tried several different strategies. To the defensive split, the boss wasn't a source to hone its blade, it was a puzzle. One that must have a simple solution.

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  Stealth attempts turned into wild endeavors to pit the entire jungle against the boss root. To my surprise, Fender succeeded on its seventh coup attempt, bringing down the tunnel and angry tree inside in a riotous battle.

  The split's victory didn't last long. The minions used to fight the boss swarmed Fender and put an end to the trial run. A new run started immediately after his fall with a little more focus on loyalty. In a way, Fender treated the monsters of the jungle like his own creations.

  I wasn't sure if I employed that technique if Tom would approve. Then again, I was still clearing the forest, and just because Fender used the monsters for most of its power, didn't stop it from firing arrows and slicing limbs. It was just a little less than what Tack was doing… a lot less. Still, no mana was used, which was very impressive and the only limitation I'd been given.

  Cult turned out to be the biggest surprise of the split minds. I had no expectations for my cultivation-focused split. After all, it was not focused on strategy or improving physical combat skills. Instead, it was focused on improving my pathways and strengthening my mana techniques. None of which would help the split in this trial. The fact that it started the trial meditating also caused reason for doubt—although it should've proved otherwise since that was precisely what I was doing.

  Maybe it felt like too much of a waste of thought or a conflict of interest. If I was meditating on my split minds and one of my splits was also meditating, what was it meditating on and was it on a higher plane of thought than me?

  Despite my doubts, I let Cult do his own thing.

  I was glad to be proven wrong and a bit foolish. The problem with the split minds' attempts was that they worked individually at the problem, attempting to achieve success in their own way.

  It should've been evident from the start. Fender approached the problem like it was trying to break through a defensive structure. Tack acted like the challenge was meant to improve its sword skills. Neither of which coordinated with the other splits or thought to work together. To Cult, the singularity was absurd; they were all one mind.

  Cult studied the other minds' attempts, absorbed their experiences, and sought ways to achieve success using all their expertise. Bringing the minds together proved the key to the first and second rooms.

  The cultivation split took Fender's strategy one step further and brought the entire force of the wolfbears and ratkin into the battle of the jungle, where he stayed out of the main conflict and whittled down each of the opponents with bow and blade. Throughout Cult's iterations, he learned to not pull too much aggro from the beast, and when he did, he quickly killed them with the sword or bow and retreated to a new obscure place.

  Following this technique, the jungle and the den were eventually cleared by Cult, who then focused on Lipper, the templar-ranked bugbear.

  The grounder put up a strong resistance. Like the earlier floors, fighting against the earth templar was brutal without mana. Even with Cults skills, it still failed multiple times. Not even luring Lipper out of her cave worked. She was too keen on destroying the intruder who disturbed her peace. It didn't matter how many different ways Cult tried to implement the same strategy as before, the brute only wanted the invader's blood.

  Thanks to the success of Cult in the first two rooms, the rest of my splits accepted defeat and focused solely on battling the grounder.

  Tack took on Lips with swords and might. The split dodged boulders, parried rocks, and tried to cut down the bugbear. He increased his skills with the sword through his hundreds of loops but only managed minor cuts on the foe.

  Fender tried his hardest to kite the templar. It took him several attempts before he was able to escape the rocky walls and entombing earth. The prolonged battles never amounted to much more than a long chase. Eventually, the split would run out of arrows and was forced to fight the grounder with a sword. At that point, it did no better than Tack.

  Cult tried to blend the two techniques once more. He would fire arrows and charge with the sword. Score a slice, retreat, fire, and repeat. It was flashy combat that took advantage of all of my agility and skills with the blade and bow. Still, it wasn't enough. Lipper was a body-focused cultivator; she was stronger and faster than me in all physical aspects, and she had the might of earth on her side.

  In order to beat her I needed more power or skills. Power was limited, and so were my skills… to an extent.

  Tom might not be my instructor yet, but that didn't mean I couldn't learn from him.

  At once, all of my focus abandoned the fight with the grounder. My mindscape turned to a blank room where all four of us watched the fight I had against Tom after reforging my mind. The sage managed to beat me without his mana, and I was going to learn how.