Chương 6: Chapter 5 — Apparently, Defense Works

Jack made it halfway across the backyard before remembering he still hadn't spent the Passive Point sitting in his Status. He stopped. Looked at the storage shed. Then opened the interface. JACK MERCER Level: 2 Job: Warrior Life: 119 / 119 Mana: 53 / 53 Armor: 85 Fire Resistance: 18% Cold Resistance: 16% Lightning Resistance: 20% Passive Points: 1 Skill Gem Slot 1: Cleave Native Unique Skill: Appraisal — A Jack stared at the line.

"Right." He had seen the Point yesterday. Several times, actually. His intention had been sensible enough: get the equipment first, see what the new gear fixed, then decide where the Passive belonged. Then North Ridge had happened. Appraisers. Crafters. Eight pieces of equipment. GateGuide. By the time Jack returned home, the Point had remained exactly where it started. Unspent. Fifteen years ago, he had spent almost an hour staring at his first Passive choices. Physical Damage looked useful.

Attack Speed looked useful. Strength looked useful. More damage meant monsters died faster. Monsters dying faster meant fewer opportunities to get hit. The reasoning had not even been completely wrong. It had simply been incomplete. Jack opened the Passive interface. The full structure extended far beyond anything he could meaningfully use at Level Two.

Paths branched toward weapon specialization, defenses, Attributes, movement, critical strikes, ailments, resource interactions, and mechanics that would not matter for dozens of Levels. Jack ignored almost all of it. Near his current position sat a thoroughly unexciting node. LIFE AND ARMOR Maximum Life +16 Armor +20 Jack selected it immediately. PASSIVE ALLOCATED LIFE AND ARMOR Maximum Life +16 Armor +20 The change flowed through his Status.

Maximum Life: 119 → 135 Armor: 85 → 105 His Life had been full before the allocation. It remained full against the new maximum. Life: 135 / 135 Jack looked at the numbers.

"Boring." A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Good." Fifteen years ago, he had chosen damage first. It had felt better. It had also been worse. Jack dismissed the interface and continued toward the shed. The Layered Dungeon waited behind the blackout tarp. Blue light filled the old wooden building. Jack checked the gate. LAYERED DUNGEON Status: Unclaimed Current Accessible Layer: 2 Current Threat Rank: F Known Depth:??? Total Layers:??? Origin: UNKNOWN Still there. Still unanswered.

Jack adjusted the mismatched Scrap Iron Helm on his head and rested one hand on the Rusted Sword. Same sword. Same Cleave. Very different margin for error. He had still found no trustworthy Life Flask. There were already photographs online of supposed healing liquids, red bottles, medicinal drops, and at least three things somebody had confidently labeled a "Potion."

None had been verified well enough for Jack to drink them, and nobody within reasonable distance was selling anything he trusted as an actual Life Flask. For now, damage taken inside the dungeon still meant hours of natural recovery outside it. Another reason not to be stupid. Jack stepped through. Stone replaced wood. Cool Dungeon air settled against his face. He crossed the already-cleared first Layer and descended into Layer Two. Crude barricades. Black wall markings. Scattered metal.

Smoke somewhere deeper inside. A Scrap Goblin Raider rounded the first bend. Appraisal. SCRAP GOBLIN RAIDER Level: 3 Threat Rank: F Weapon: Scrap Sword The Raider shouted and charged. Jack drew his sword. Yesterday, he had fought three of these immediately after unlocking Warrior and Cleave. Today he wanted something different. Data. The goblin swung. Jack could have avoided it cleanly. Instead, he shifted just enough to take the edge of the attack against the reinforced section of his chest armor.

Not the full hit. He was testing armor, not volunteering for brain damage. Metal struck metal. The impact still landed. Jack felt it through the Scrapmail Vest. His Life dropped. Single digits. He stepped away before the second attack and killed the Raider with two compact cuts. Gray ash dispersed. Jack checked the shallow new mark across his chest piece. Yesterday, before building defenses, a weaker Scrap Goblin had taken twelve Life from him with one clean hit. The comparison was not exact. Different monster.

Different weapon. Different angle. But the result was obvious enough. His new equipment worked.

"Good." Jack moved on. Armor was permission to survive mistakes. Not permission to make them. The next monster tested something else. A goblin crouched behind a low barricade with three clay bottles arranged at its feet. Each bottle glowed faintly orange. Appraisal. SCRAP GOBLIN FIREPOTTER Level: 3 Threat Rank: F Weapon: Improvised Fire Pot Damage Type: Fire / Physical Jack stopped.

"There you are." The goblin grabbed one of the bottles and threw. Jack moved. The clay container hit the wall beside him and shattered. Flame splashed across the stone. Part of it caught his left sleeve. Heat rolled over him. His Life dipped. Less than it would have yesterday. Jack slapped the burning residue away and rushed forward before the Firepotter could prepare another throw. One cut forced it backward. The second ended the fight. Ash. Jack inspected his sleeve. Scorched. Not burned through.

The skin underneath remained untouched. Life had taken the injury instead. Jack checked the Resistance line. Fire Resistance: 18%. Nothing impressive. Eighteen percent more than zero. That was enough to matter. Jack smiled faintly. GateGuide had told people to get off zero. Apparently GateGuide knew what he was talking about. Convenient. Layer Two was not dramatically stronger than Layer One. It was more complicated. That distinction mattered. The Burrow Rats and basic Scrap Goblins above mostly asked one question.

Could you handle something trying to hit you? Layer Two asked several. Could you handle a melee attacker while something else attacked from behind it? Could you use a barricade instead of treating it as scenery? Could you notice a Fire Pot before it landed? Could you keep multiple enemies in front of you instead of letting one circle behind? The individual monsters were still F-rank. The situations were better. Jack preferred that. Near a split in the corridor, something snapped against stone beside his head.

Jack shifted automatically. A small piece of sharpened metal bounced across the floor. He looked toward the source. A goblin stood twenty feet away with a crude sling wrapped around one hand. Appraisal. SCRAP GOBLIN SLINGER Level: 3 Threat Rank: F Weapon: Scrap Sling Damage Type: Physical / Ranged"Good." The Slinger immediately began loading another projectile. Two Raiders emerged from the side corridor between them. Now the encounter had shape.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Jack stepped toward the narrower branch. One Raider followed. The second crowded behind it. The Slinger moved sideways, trying to create a clean angle around its allies. Jack backed once. Then again. All three compressed toward the same line. There. Cleave. Mana moved. Mana: 53 → 49 The Rusted Sword swept through both Raiders and clipped the Slinger behind them. One Raider dissolved. The second staggered. The Slinger lost its balance.

Jack stepped forward. Two normal attacks. Two more patches of ash. He checked Mana. Forty-nine. Four Mana. Three targets. Still worth it. Jack continued deeper. The first Mana Stone dropped from another Raider. Jack picked it up and placed it in the padded pouch he had added to his gear. The second dropped twenty minutes later. The third came from a Firepotter. Jack counted automatically. Not dollars. Not yet. He picked up the third Stone and glanced toward Cleave in his Status.

CLEAVE Skill Gem Level: 1 Mana Stone Infusion: Available Jack knew what that option meant. Almost nobody else did. He turned the Stone once between his fingers.

"Not yet." His weapon was still the more obvious bottleneck. The Stone went into the pouch. There would be time for Skill Gem leveling later. The first genuinely dangerous pack appeared near the middle of the Layer. Two Raiders. One Slinger. One Firepotter. Four enemies. Jack stopped before they noticed him. Position first. The Raiders stood near the center of the corridor. The Slinger had room behind them. The Firepotter was farther off to the side, with a clear throwing lane. Not ideal.

Jack deliberately revealed himself. The Raiders charged. The Slinger raised its weapon. The Firepotter reached down. Jack backed toward a stone support. The Raiders followed. Cleave. Mana: 49 → 45 The sword crossed both Raiders. One died. The second survived. The Slinger fired. Jack shifted. The projectile scraped his side. The Fire Pot came a fraction later. Jack saw both threats. He could not avoid both without giving the surviving Raider a clean attack from his blind side. Choice. Fire or blade. He chose fire.

Jack moved out of the bottle's path. The Raider's sword struck his shoulder armor. Life dropped. Jack killed it immediately. The Slinger loaded again. Jack closed distance. One normal attack. Ash. The Firepotter had already grabbed another bottle. Too slow. Jack reached it first. The goblin disappeared beneath the next strike. Silence returned. Jack breathed once. Then checked his Status. Life: 118 / 135 Seventeen Life lost. He looked back at the four patches of fading ash.

Yesterday, that sequence might have ended the run. At minimum, it would have forced him to retreat. Today? Annoying. Manageable. Jack touched the battered section of shoulder armor.

"That." That was what defense bought. Not immortality. Margin. Enough room for a bad angle, a delayed dodge, or one enemy refusing to behave exactly how he wanted. Enough room to keep going. Jack drank from the water bottle in his pack, waited until his breathing settled, then continued deeper. The Layer Two Guardian chamber looked less like a cave and more like the beginnings of a fort. Crude wooden walls reinforced the outer edge. Metal plates had been nailed over weak points.

Two braziers burned along the back wall. A much larger goblin stood between them. Shield in one hand. Heavy axe in the other. Appraisal. SCRAP GOBLIN WARDEN Level: 4 Life: 146 / 146 Threat Rank: F Primary Weapon: Reinforced Scrap Axe Secondary Equipment: Scrap Tower Shield Physical Power: Moderate–High Mobility: Moderate Jack looked at the shield. Then at the Rusted Sword.

"There it is." The next problem. The Warden slammed the shield once against the floor. Metal rang through the chamber. Then it charged. Jack moved left. The Warden turned with him. Faster than the Chief upstairs. The shield came first. Jack avoided the bash. The axe followed. He stepped outside the arc and attacked. The Rusted Sword struck the edge of the shield. CLANG. Almost nothing. Jack withdrew. The Warden advanced. Shield. Axe. Short reset. Jack watched. Again. Shield. Axe.

The Warden did not overcommit the way the Chief had. Less recovery. Better balance. A real defensive pattern. Jack smiled.

"Fine." He stopped trying to force damage. Instead, he made the Warden move. One step. Two. Let the shield face him. Circle. The Warden adjusted. Again. Again. Eventually, the goblin committed to a longer shield rush. Jack moved at the last second. The shield passed. The Warden needed half a heartbeat to recover its stance. Jack attacked the exposed side. The Rusted Sword bit. Not deeply enough. The goblin roared and turned. Jack withdrew. There was the second problem. He could survive this fight.

His damage was terrible. The Warden's armor and shield turned every opening into too little progress. Jack glanced at the Rusted Sword.

"Definitely replacing you." The Warden disagreed with the timing of the conversation. It rushed. Jack moved. Not enough. The shield caught him squarely. His feet left the ground. He hit stone hard enough to lose his breath. Life: 118 → 96 Jack rolled before the axe came down. The blade smashed into the place where his chest had been. He regained his feet. Twenty-two Life. Much worse than the Raider. Same Armor. Stronger enemy. Heavier attack. Worse result. Exactly as it should be. Jack raised the sword again.

"And that's why the sheet estimate wasn't a promise." The Warden came forward. This time Jack changed tactics. Cleave was good at controlling groups. That did not make it useless against one target. It was still a System-supported Attack. Jack baited the shield. One step. Turn. The Warden drove forward. Jack slipped past the outside edge.

"Cleave." Mana: 45 → 41 The broader arc caught the goblin behind its shield. The Warden staggered. Better. Jack withdrew before the axe counter. Again. Shield rush. Avoid. Cleave. Mana: 41 → 37 The fight settled into a rhythm. Not easy. Predictable. Jack was happy to take predictable. He used normal attacks whenever the opening was clean. Cleave when the shield angle made the broader arc useful. He refused marginal opportunities. No rush. No need. His defense had bought him time.

Eventually, the Warden's movements slowed. The shield dipped a little lower. The next rush lacked the same force. Recovery took longer. Jack stepped around it. A normal strike bit into the side. The Warden turned. Too slowly. Jack moved with it. Cleave. Mana: 37 → 33 The Rusted Sword swept beneath the raised shield and across the Warden's torso. Gray spread from the wound. The axe fell. The shield followed. The Scrap Goblin Warden collapsed into ash. Jack lowered the sword.

"Finally." A clear tone rang. LEVEL UP Jack Mercer has reached Level 3. Passive Point Gained Jack looked at the notification. Another Point. He did not spend it. Not yet. First he wanted to know what Layer Three demanded. Loot glowed inside the Warden's remains. Two Mana Stones. A piece of chest armor. And a sword. Jack ignored the armor and picked up the weapon. Appraisal. SCRAP SOLDIER SWORD Rarity: Common Required Level: 2 Physical Damage: 9–14 Condition: Worn Jack compared it with the Rusted Sword. 6–10.

Then back to the new weapon. 9–14.

"Finally." Not Rare. Not Magic. Not a miracle. A better Common base. Exactly what he needed. Jack equipped it. The difference was obvious immediately. Still crude. Still ugly. Better balance. Better edge. Higher base damage. The Rusted Sword went into his pack. It had done its job. Jack had no intention of throwing away the first Dungeon weapon of his second life merely because something better finally dropped. He collected the two Mana Stones and inspected the armor. Usable.

Not better than his current chest once modifiers were considered. Pack. Maybe somebody else would want it. The chamber shifted. Stone doors opened behind the Warden's former position. LAYER 2 CLEARED LAYER 3 UNLOCKED Jack looked into the darkness beyond.

"Let's see." The stairs descended farther than the previous transition. The air changed first. Warmer. Drier. Then the smell. Smoke. Hot metal. Jack slowed. Layer Three opened into reinforced stone corridors with actual metal bracing along the walls. Not random pieces nailed into place. Deliberate construction. A crude forge burned somewhere ahead. Hammering echoed through the dark. Jack advanced only far enough to see the first patrol. One goblin. Better armor. Actual helmet. Weapon in reasonable condition.

Appraisal. SCRAP GOBLIN VETERAN Level: 5 Threat Rank: F Weapon: Forged Scrap Sword Physical Power: Moderate–High Mobility: Moderate Jack stopped.

"Five." Still F-rank. That would confuse plenty of new Delvers once people started comparing Levels and Dungeon Ranks. They were not the same scale. F-rank covered a broad beginner band. A Dungeon did not become E-rank simply because one Layer's monsters crossed an arbitrary Level threshold. This Layered Dungeon had apparently not reached its first Rank transition yet. A second figure appeared farther behind the Veteran. Appraisal. Level 5. Another shadow moved near the forge. Also Level 5.

That answered the useful question. Layer Three was a Level Five band. Jack was Level Three. Could he kill one? Probably. Experience mattered. His defenses were good for his stage. His new sword was better. Could he efficiently clear an entire Layer built around Level Five enemies, with attack patterns he had not yet observed and no reliable Life recovery inside the dungeon? No. Not yet. Jack backed away before the first Veteran noticed him. No fight. No test hit. No curiosity tax. He returned to the stairs.

Fifteen years ago, he might have interpreted the Level difference as a challenge. Today, he interpreted it as routing information.

"Layer Two, then." Back at the house, Jack spread the day's loot across the kitchen table. Mana Stones. Common armor. Scrap Soldier Sword equipped. Rusted Sword retired beside the wall. He opened his notebook. CURRENT PLAN Layer 1 — Cleared Layer 2 — Farm Layer 3 — Wait Underneath: Reach Level 4–5. Find better weapon bases. Accumulate Mana Stones. Find more Skill Gems. Keep Resistance correction slots flexible. Do not spend Mana Stones on Cleave yet. He counted the Stones.

Two full Stones had been sitting at home before the run, along with the partially depleted Stone from the GateGuide demonstration. Five new full Stones today. F-RANK MANA STONES Full: 7 Partially Depleted: 1 Jack closed the container. For now, all of them stayed. There was no reliable market. No stable price. No reason to sell an increasingly useful resource just because somebody on the internet had decided blue rocks were worth three hundred dollars each. Tomorrow, he would farm Layer Two. Then again. And again.

There were worse problems to have than a private Dungeon fifty feet from the kitchen. The next several days settled into something approaching a routine. Not normal. Nothing about waking up, eating breakfast, putting on goblin-made armor, and walking into a portal behind the shed qualified as normal. But repeatable. Jack learned Layer Two. Not just the broad route. The smaller efficiencies. Which barricades usually forced Raiders into awkward approaches. Where Slingers preferred to stand.

Which corners gave Firepotters the best throwing angles. How far he could push before the lack of reliable recovery made continuing inefficient. The Scrap Soldier Sword shortened fights immediately. Cleave became less something he consciously tested and more something he simply used when positioning justified four Mana. On his third full day of Layer Two farming, the System chimed again. LEVEL UP Jack Mercer has reached Level 4. Passive Point Gained Jack looked at the two unspent Points in his Status.

Passive Points: 2. Then left them there. Layer Two was already safe enough. The next allocation should solve a problem. Layer Three would tell him what the problem actually was. His mother called twice during the week. The first time, she wanted to know whether he had been anywhere near one of the gates. Jack answered honestly.

"No public ones." There was a pause.

"Why did you specify public?" Jack looked through the kitchen window at the blue light barely visible around the edges of the shed door.

"No reason."

"Jack."

"I've been home." Also true. His mother did not sound convinced. His father took the phone long enough to complain that every hardware store within driving distance had sold out of axes. Jack promised, very carefully, not to buy an axe. He already had a sword. No need to complicate the conversation. GateGuide's inbox became functionally impossible to clear. The community database grew faster than Jack could follow it. New monsters. New Skill Gems. New crafting abilities. Bad advice. Good advice.

Several people had started reposting old GateGuide messages as if they were established reference material rather than things an anonymous account had typed less than a week ago. The political world moved too. On Day Four, Russia ordered every known gate under state control and prohibited civilian entry. Military and scientific teams would handle exploration. Recovered Dungeon resources would be state-controlled. Jack remembered that decision. Too few teams. Too many gates.

Too much resource sitting behind barriers while other countries learned to extract it faster. Russia would not be the last country to try. North Ridge changed almost as quickly. By the fifth day, several vendors had printed actual signs. More importantly, the absurd early prices on survival equipment had finally started coming down. Verified Life Flasks were appearing often enough that the thousand-dollar panic listings had collapsed. Portal Scrolls remained more expensive. Jack went back.

He bought two Life Flasks. Then three Portal Scrolls. The purchases cost more than he liked. They cost considerably less than dying. Knowing that a piece of equipment was temporarily overpriced did not make entering a Dungeon without one intelligent. Jack equipped the two Flasks immediately. Both were empty. That was fine. His next Layer Two run filled them. The first time red liquid appeared inside one after a Raider died, Jack felt a degree of relief he had not expected. Not because the mechanic surprised him.

Because he finally had one of the basic tools he had spent fifteen years taking for granted. The Portal Scrolls went into separate protected pockets. One active carry. Two reserves. Jack still did not enter Layer Three. Healing and an emergency exit changed the risk calculation. They did not make fighting an entire Layer of Level Five monsters at Level Four efficient. There was a difference between safer and ready. By the sixth day, two food trucks had appeared at North Ridge.

Apparently civilization required tacos before formal Dungeon law. Jack's Mana Stone reserve grew with the routine. One drop. Two. A productive Warden clear. A dry run. Another three. By the end of the first week, Jack counted them again. F-RANK MANA STONES Full: 34 Partially Depleted: 1 Thirty-four. That was starting to become inventory rather than pocket loot. And then the governments finally put a number on it. Seven days after the gates appeared, the world stopped pretending the situation was temporary.

Not completely. There were still emergency barriers. Military sites. Scientists asking basic questions. Television panels debating whether the word Dungeon belonged in official documents. But the argument over whether ordinary civilians would enter gates had effectively ended. They already were. The United States responded first in the most American way possible. Not with a grand national Delver Act. Not yet. With guidance.

Federal agencies acknowledged that gate entry was inherently dangerous, that designated secured sites remained restricted, and that state and local law still applied. But a legally accessible gate on private property? With the property owner's permission? There was no blanket federal prohibition preventing an adult from entering. The news translated that into: AMERICANS NOW ALLOWED TO ENTER DUNGEONS AT OWN RISK The government immediately objected to the wording. The internet did not care.

Jack watched one press conference while sorting Mana Stones. A reporter asked, "So you're legalizing private dungeon exploration?" The official at the podium visibly regretted coming to work.

"We are not using the term legalization. We are clarifying that existing emergency restrictions apply to designated sites and that there is currently no universal federal prohibition covering every privately accessible gate." Before he finished speaking, one news site updated its headline. PRIVATE DUNGEON EXPLORATION NOT FEDERALLY BANNED Jack smiled.

"Close enough." Japan took a more controlled route. The major urban gates remained secured. Access stayed restricted. But the government announced the beginning of a registration and authorization framework for civilian exploration of designated gates. Different method. Same realization. The state could not efficiently extract every Mana Stone with soldiers, police officers, researchers, and civil servants. There were too many gates. Too many resources. Too much value sitting behind them.

Japan and the United States had chosen different systems for the same underlying problem. Other countries would follow. Some quickly. Others would spend months trying to monopolize every gate themselves before changing course. The other announcement interested Jack more. Official purchasing. Both governments began buying verified Dungeon materials. Mana Stones first. Jack opened the published American pilot schedule.

DUNGEON MATERIAL ACQUISITION PROGRAM F-Rank Mana Stone Base Purchase Price: $50 Purity adjustments may apply. Jack stopped sorting.

"Fifty." He remembered that number. For a while, fifty dollars had been normal. Not everywhere. Not every buyer. But close enough. Jack looked at the thirty-four full Stones in front of him. Thirty-four times fifty. Seventeen hundred dollars. Useful. Real money. Not enough to make selling everything intelligent. For a beginner with no private gate, though? Ten Stones meant five hundred dollars before weapons, armor, Skill Gems, or other materials were counted. That was enough to change behavior.

Online posts were already appearing. MADE $350 TODAY FROM BLUE ROCKS QUIT MY JOB FOR DUNGEON? HOW MANY MANA STONES PER HOUR IS GOOD? GOVERNMENT BUYING MAGIC ROCKS CONFIRMED Someone had produced a spreadsheet comparing Mana Stones to gasoline, electricity, gold, and lithium despite not possessing enough information to responsibly compare them to any of those things. Jack ignored it. He opened his notebook. MANA STONES Existing Reserve — Hold Future Farming — Approximately Half Sell / Half Retain That was sensible.

Selling none would leave him sitting on resources while spending ordinary cash on equipment, crafting, fuel, food, and eventually travel. Selling all of them at fifty dollars would be worse. Future knowledge did not mean hoarding everything until the exact historical price peak. Money used now could improve his build. A better build produced more loot tomorrow. Half became operating cash. Half stayed inventory. Jack picked up one Mana Stone. Then focused on Cleave.

CLEAVE Skill Gem Level: 1 Mana Stone Infusion: Available This was the part the public still did not understand. Mana Stones were fuel. GateGuide had already demonstrated that. Heat. Electricity. Physical work. Humanity would spend staggering amounts of them on industry. But Dungeon Skills wanted them too. Feed enough Mana through Mana Stones into a Skill Gem and the Gem could gain Levels. For an Attack Skill like Cleave, the improvement scaled the attack built around the equipped weapon.

That made Gem Level valuable. It did not remove the need for a good weapon. Jack had learned that lesson again this week simply by replacing the Rusted Sword's 6–10 Physical Damage with the Scrap Soldier Sword's 9–14. A better base mattered. Spell Skills worked differently. Their base magical damage lived in the Gem itself. Raise the Skill Gem Level and the foundation of the spell rose with it. That made Gem Levels especially valuable to casters.

Once people understood that, Mana Stone demand would stop being driven only by researchers, governments, and people trying to boil coffee. Warriors would consume them. Rogues would consume them. Mages would consume enormous quantities of them. Every growing Delver economy would be competing with industry for the same blue Stones. Fifty dollars would not survive. Jack remembered what followed. Roughly double. Not overnight. Not everywhere.

But once Skill Gem leveling became common knowledge, one hundred dollars for an ordinary F-rank Stone stopped sounding strange. Jack opened GateGuide. Created a new post. Typed a title. Skill Gems Can Be Leveled He stopped. The cursor blinked. Jack deleted the title. Safety information was one thing. Market-moving information was another. People had needed to know that ordinary firearms were failing because they were dying while assuming bullets worked.

They had needed to understand Life because reaching zero could turn the next minor hit into an actual lethal injury. They needed basic defense because too many new Delvers were prioritizing damage over survival. Nobody was going to die today because they had failed to optimize a Skill Gem. Publishing this would do something else. It would tell millions of people that the same finite resource governments had just begun buying could be permanently consumed to increase personal combat power.

Demand would move immediately. Supply infrastructure would not. Jack closed the draft.

"They'll find it." Someone would. Soon. When that happened, GateGuide could confirm it. Explain the difference between Attack and Spell scaling. Maybe stop a few thousand beginners from feeding expensive Mana Stones into Skills they would replace two Levels later. But he did not need to accelerate every discovery simply because he knew the answer. The government purchase table remained open on the laptop. F-RANK MANA STONE — $50 Jack looked at the Stone in his hand. Then at Cleave.

The world still thought Mana Stones were fuel. They were. It just hadn't learned what else was hungry yet.