The tunnel sloped deeper into the dungeon, its glistening stone walls pressing in tight. Green mana pulsed through veins in the rock, casting a faint, sickly light shimmering across Fin’s wiry frame. At eleven, he moved with a predator’s ease, tantō jostling against his back, mostly unused since he acquired Thunderfang. Kilian strode beside him, his broadsword loose in his grip.
The team moved as one, their rhythm tight from the morning’s fights. Brady McNeil flanked left, lean and hawk-eyed, his curved dagger tucked at his belt. Stefanie Broun ghosted right, her shadow-cloaked form a flicker against the stone, twin daggers poised. Jason Glowery, Jace, brought up the rear, quarterstaff in hand, it’s runes dormant, his freckled face locked in a tight line. Fin’s Electromagnetic Perception tingled, a heavy buzz pulsed ahead, stronger than the ants they’d crushed.
“Boss is close,” Kilian said, voice low, eyes scanning the tunnel. “Stay tight.”
Fin nodded, his field mapping the team, Kilian’s steady pulse, Brady’s quick flicker, Stefani’s faint trace, Jace’s solid hum. The deeper buzz loomed, a thick weight. “Straight ahead,” he murmured. “Big one.”
Jace shifted his grip on his staff. “Better not get cocky, kid. Tier Three’s no joke.”
“He’s fine,” Kilian said, his tone lacking his typical jovial nature, hand resting briefly on Fin’s shoulder, just a quick touch. “Let’s move.”
A lone ant skittered from a side passage, glossier than the others, mandibles dripping sizzling ichor. Fin’s field caught it; he snapped, “Left!” Kilian reacted, a thin funnel of concentrated flame searing it mid-lunge, leaving ash crumbling in a puff of burnt stink. The kill was clean, but Fin frowned as they pressed on. Thunderfang worked up close, and his perception skill kept him ahead, but the ants kept clustering too far off. He needed a way to hit them without having to give chase.
The tunnel opened into a small cavern, roughly hewn as If carved by something with neither patience nor precision. Fin paused at the threshold, his electromagnetic field stretching outward like invisible fingers. The buzz of mana signatures prickled against his awareness, separate from the visual cues of the pulsing green veins in the walls.
“Movement ahead,” he whispered, the words barely audible over the constant drip of condensation from the ceiling. “Cluster of signatures. Maybe seven… no, eight.”
Brady unsheathed his curved dagger with a practiced motion. “Only eight… Kilian oversold this.”
“They might be scouts,” Stefanie countered, her voice a ghost of sound that somehow carried to all their ears. “Scouts mean the nest is aware of intruders.”
Kilian’s eyes narrowed, calculating. “We’ve been clearing methodically. No survivors to report back.”
Fin shook his head, certainty blooming from his perception. “They’re waiting. Not moving like scouts. More like… an ambush.”
Jace sighed heavily. “Wonderful.”
Brady shot Fin a silent thumb-up, his grin betraying the same restless eagerness for action thrumming in his stance.
The tunnel widened into a jagged chamber, its floor slick with ichor, walls throbbing green. Five ants surged from the shadows, legs churning the stone. Fin tracked them, “two center, three right!” Kilian’s fireball blasted the center pair into cinders, Brady’s air blade sliced one on the right and Stefanie’s daggers took another. Fin darted in, Thunderfang crackling around his hand to punch through the last, its thorax split with a snap of ozone. But more ants skittered beyond the chamber, out of reach, their buzz taunting him.
The carapaces of the creatures crunched underfoot as they advanced. Each step released a new wave of acrid stench, the smell of insectoid innards mixed with the burnt ozone left by Fin’s skill. More signatures buzzed at the edge of his perception, always just beyond his reach.
Kilian sheathed his sword, flames fading. “Need a ranged trick yet?”
Fin wiped ichor from his knuckles, scowling. “Yeah, but not Spark. That’s too basic.” He’d read about it after Marian kept going on about how other Lightning mages had developed the perfect outline for their followers. A lot of work for just a little shock.
Brady leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “Then what’s your plan?”
“Something stronger,” Fin said pacing the chamber’s edge, mind ticking. Stefanie perched on a jutting stone, watching quietly, while Jace crossed his arms, saying nothing.
The silence hung heavy, broken only by the distant skittering of more ants somewhere in the darkness ahead. Kilian showed surprising patience as he waited on his brother to figure it out. He simply waited, eyes tracking the boy’s movements as Fin worked through the problem in his mind.
“I can feel them,” Fin muttered, more to himself than the others. “They’re there, but Thunderfang can’t reach. It’s like… having a bow with no arrows.”
“Except you’re the bow,” Jace quipped. “And your arrows are being limited by your stubbornness.”
Fin ignored the jibe, his mind already spinning with possibilities. From his studies on Earth, before he was brought here by Kailos, he remembered the principles of plasma, the fourth state of matter. Not solid, liquid, or gas, but something else entirely: superheated particles stripped of electrons, capable of conducting electricity and generating magnetic fields.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Lightning, Fusion, and Transfer mana mixed in his core. He could figure this out. Superheated gas, wild and charged, made when energy ripped atoms apart. If he squeezed his Fusion mana tight compressing it while he used his Lightning mana to superheat it… Pack it down and then let it go. He grinned, sharp and quick. It’d hit hard in theory, not just peck like Spark.
He raised a palm, mana coiling blue and warm. “Back up,” he said, steady. The first try fizzled, sparks flared, then withered, barely singeing the floor.
Brady snorted. “That’s it?”
“Give him a sec,” Stefanie said, soft but firm. “He’s onto something.”
Fin ignored them, tightening the mana’s flow. Speeding it up. Convergent Resonance pulling on his core more than ever as he tried bending the mana to his focus.
A white flicker flowed in his palm, then faded into smoke with a hiss. Jace muttered. “Should’ve stuck to what works,” but Kilian’s eyes stayed on Fin, patient.
“Push it more,” Kilian said, voice even. “I can feel it, you’re close.”
The chamber itself seemed to hold its breath as Fin gathered mana once more. He closed his eyes, visualizing the atomic structure of plasma, electrons torn free, nuclei exposed, energy contained yet chaotic. Convergent Resonance within him hummed like a tuning fork, aligning his intention with the fundamental laws that governed both worlds.
“It’s about compression,” Fin murmured, half to himself. “Packed tight, then released all at once.”
His skin tingled where the mana gathered in his palm, not uncomfortable, but certainly noticeable. Like holding a sparkler too close to your fingers, knowing you won’t be burned but feeling the heat, nonetheless. The blue light of his gathered power cast strange shadows across his young face, highlighting the intensity of his concentration.
Fin nodded, jaw set, picturing energy crushed small, atoms jammed until they burst hit. Third try: mana condensed in his palm, white hot and trembling, stinging his skin faintly. He flung it at an ant twenty yards away, a plasma burst flashed, silent and sharp, entering its thorax before detonating and send molten chitin everywhere. The air stank of burnt shell.
Brady let out a low whistle. “Well, damn.” Stefanie nodded, a flicker of approval in her eyes. Even Jace had a quick look of shock on his face, but he stayed quiet.
Words flared in Fin’s vision…
[Skill Offer: Plasma Compression Burst (Unique)]
An active skill that creates an explosive burst of superheated plasma that can devastate targets with heat and shock.
Fin locked in, grinning, the heat still tingling his hands as he accepted the skill. “That’ll do,” he said, glancing at Kilian. “Beats Spark any day.”
Kilian smirked. “Knew you’d figure it out, runt. After all, you are my brother.”
The knowledge settled into Fin’s mind with the solidity of iron. He couldn’t wait to test it, refine it, and improve upon it.
“Well, you just got more valuable,” Brady added with a half-smile that took any sting from the words.
Stefanie slid from her perch with a fluid grace. “It’s efficient. I wouldn’t have believed a Tier One could produce such a powerful skill. Just how much mana do you have?”
Fin silently ignored the question and turned to look at the sloping tunnel. The group began heading down the tunnel, the stone became slicker as the descended. The walls pulsed faster, the drone swelling into a guttural roar. Ten ants boiled from side passages, mandibles separated and snapping. Fin’s field flared, “Four left, three center, three right!”
Kilian’s fireball torched the center trio, Brady’s wind cleaved the left, and Fin’s Plasma Compression Burst popped the three on the right into a shower of ichor.
“That was clean,” Brady said, voice dry but impressed. Jace nodded, staff ready, no one hurt, no need for his healing.
The deeper they pressed, the stronger the pulse of mana through the stone walls. What had begun as a gentle green glow was now a throbbing, urgent rhythm, as if the dungeon itself had a heartbeat that quickened with their approach. Fin found his own pulse unconsciously matching that rhythm, and he wondered if the others felt it too. The air grew thicker, carrying the cloying scent of fermented ichor and something else, a musty, animalistic smell that hinted at something far larger than the soldier ants they’d been dispatching.
“Anyone else notice the walls?” Stefanie asked softly, her fingertips brushing against the stone. “The veins are getting thicker.”
Kilian nodded. “Means we’re approaching the core. Probably where the boss is waiting.”
Fin tried pushing Electromagnetic Perception further ahead, but the distance made everything fuzzier.
The rhythm of their progress changed subtly. Where before they cleared each chamber almost lackadaisically before moving forward, now they advanced with more caution that Fin assumed the group would normally have in a dungeon that matched their Tier Three status. Kilian began using more hand signals, directing their formation with minimal sound. Even Brady’s characteristic quips fell silent as the pressed on.
A narrow passage opened before them, its walls almost pulsating with mana. The green veins had grown so thick here that they dominated the stone, making it appear as if they walked through a living artery rather than a tunnel. The floor beneath their feet was no longer simply slick but seemed to undulate slightly with each step, as if the very dungeon itself breathed.
“This is it,” Kilian stated, pausing at the threshold to a larger space beyond.
Fin nodded, his Electromagnetic Perception buzzing with a signature unlike any he’d encountered before. Not just bigger, but more complex. It gave so little information compared to what he had gotten from the soldier ants. This wasn’t just a larger version of those ants; this was something with intelligence, with purpose.
The chamber that greeted them dwarfed all previous spaces they'd encountered. Stalactites hung from above like jagged teeth, dripping luminescent green ichor that collected in pools throughout the floor. The walls were no longer merely veined with mana, they were practically composed of it, pulsing with energy that made Fin's skin tingle even without his perception.
Kilian stepped up, flames licking his sword. “Sorry, little brother, your fun stops here. Our turn.”
Stefanie and Brady stepped up beside Kilian with smiles on their face. Jace hung back beside Fin, a little twinkle in his eyes.
The massive signature in Fin’s perception was moving, awakening, responding to their presence.
The cavern shook, dust falling like rain. A shadow loomed, huge, mandibles like scythes, legs thick as saplings. Its black-green shell shimmered, eyes glowing sickly yellow, a weight pressing the air. Fin hadn’t felt pressure like this since Alaric unleased his mana. Before Kilian could move, a whir spun in Fin’s mind, sharp and sudden.
[Skill Offer: Scientific Warfare (Unique)]
A passive skill enhancing skill creation and combat efficiency through scientific principles.
Fin froze, breath catching. The plasma? The fight? The thing staring them down? The ground quaked, a screech splitting the air as the beast lunged, mandibles snapping. Kilian shouted, flames blazing, and the team braced, Fin's grin flickered, caught between the skill's hum and the chaos erupting.