Chương 85: 85, loop 2 part 39

It was a bed. A very small bed, to be clear. But nonetheless, a bed. It felt like it had been years since the last time I had had a nice, long nap on a real bed. And here it was. The dungeon was giving me what I most desired in the world. Sleep. I could have celebrated. I could have wept for joy. I could have even forgiven the fucking dungeon for trying to kill me. Finn, though, had to ruin the moment.

"A bed? Dude, what the fuck? Of all the things in the world you could have 'needed,' you got a fucking bed?" To say he was feeling dubious would be to insult the word. It was clear I had pushed straight past his bullshit quotient and was now approaching apocalyptic levels of incredulity. I grinned before I picked it up out of the chest. A system notification appeared. [The Last Bed You Will Ever Need] Legendary talisman. This item binds to the user. It is quite simply the greatest luxury invention of all time.

It has temperature-controlled sheets and pillows. It will always teleport back to the owner when lost. And if the user somehow falls asleep away from the bed, the user will find himself waking up in the last place he slept on the bed. 0/4 Enchantment slots.

"Finn. Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho," I gasped, my voice getting higher with each one.

"Do you understand what this is?" I clutched it to my chest like the dungeon might snatch it back.

"It's a talisman."

"Okay, but why are you excited about a casting talisman, of all things? Don't they require more effort to use? You hate hard work." I glared at him.

"No. That's just a myth. Talismans work the same way as wands, duh. Besides, this one's a bed. And not just any bed. It's the bed. It'll teleport to me. Which means for the rest of my life, no matter where I am, I'll have something to sleep on." I wiped tears from my eyes before turning it over and over in my hands.

"I… so happy." It looked delicate, but the little wooden frame held when I pressed against it. The whole thing was about as long as my index finger, with purple sheets in a material as fine as silk. I pushed my thumb into the mattress, which squished down before slowly popping back up. It was so soft I wanted to just dive into it.

"This is the single greatest thing I've ever been given."

"Dude, it's three inches long."

"It'll get bigger."

"Okay, but what if it doesn't?"

"Maybe it's a grower, not a shower, Finn. Have you ever considered that?"

"Dude, gross. Get your mind out of the gutter, Laz."

"What? No, I didn't mean it that way."

"Well, what did you mean?"

"I just meant that I'll cast an enlarging spell on it. Like I've been doing to Axe, and I've been doing to everything since the dawn of time."

"Oh." He actually managed to look sheepish. I casually set the bed down, flicked my wand at it, and cast [Enlarge]. But nothing happened.

"Motherfuck." I stared at the bed as Finn fell on the floor laughing. When he recovered, he said, "See, you get an idea in your head and keep running with it until you somehow manage to make things work. But this time, you've got the world's tiniest bed, and no amount of wishing is going to…" Is it for a small person? Flag asked, leaning forward over the bed and interrupting Finn's rant.

"No, buddy, it's for me." Oh. So are you going to get smaller, then?

"No, I'm gonna make it larger." I lifted the bed off the ground, pinching it between my thumb and forefinger. If casting a spell on it with my wand wouldn't work, then maybe I had to cast through it. It was a catalyst after all. Which gave me an idea. I'd never tried casting spells on my wand. Never even thought about it, actually. But here it was plainly, the catalyst had 4 enchantment slots. Could I figure out a spell that made other spells cost less or conserved my mana?

Because that could be just as revolutionary as the mana batteries. But that was a problem for a version of me with more mana and way more time. Meanwhile, Finn was digging through the chest, taking out the scrolls. One said AXE, one said FINN, and one said FLAG. He opened them one at a time, clearly excited about the fact that each one seemed extremely powerful. I ignored him and focused on my catalyst. I channeled a little magic into it, and a system prompt appeared.

[The Last Bed You Will Ever Need] Legendary talisman. Do you wish to bind? Yes / No I obviously selected yes, and a second prompt appeared. This catalyst is now soulbound. This cannot be undone. Through [Wideview], I could see my eyes sparkle with glee. If it was soulbound, did that mean it would travel back in time with me? There was only one way to find out, but I was in no hurry to get there. I put my wand back in my pocket and cast the spell through the catalyst instead, targeting the bed itself." [Enlarge]."

The catalyst shook in my hand and then grew, and grew, and grew. I let go before it could crush my hand, and then a full-size bed clattered to the ground. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. It was a real bed. My bed. My just deserts after suffering through this never-ending torture session known as a dungeon. If this was the kind of thing I could expect to get out of dungeons, I almost understood why Dungeon Studies was a thing. Almost.

I promptly collapsed into the bed. It was as soft as air. I felt like I was [Float] ing, and I knew what that felt like, given how much I'd been using that spell. My entire body just sank into the pillowy surface. All the tension, all the aches and pains I'd been feeling, vanished. The pillow was even cool to the touch, and I wept against it. Where had this bed been my entire life? I pulled the sheets up, wrapped them around me, and collapsed back on the pillow. I was in heaven. Until Finn interrupted my peace.

"You're getting mud all over it," he said.

"So? I can clean it off later."

"You're seriously going to sleep?"

"Well, duh. I was just given a bed by a dungeon. What else would you expect me to do?" He growled.

"Uh, help me figure a way out of here?"

"And why do I need to do that? We already discussed this. The golems can carry me out, and you can figure everything else out. I dealt with the boss monsters. You deal with this. You owe me."

"I owe you?"

"Come on. Let me just have this, just this once."

"It's never 'just this once' with you, Laz. Never." I stuck my tongue out at him and promptly went to sleep. - I fell off the bed. Which I didn't really like, given that I'd never fallen off any other bed before this one. My head slammed against the floor so hard I saw stars, and then a Frollart landed on my chest.

"What the fuck?" I was about to try and fling it off me, but I didn't need to. A ghostly scimitar swept across the Frollart, cutting it in half and covering me in its gross blue blood. [Wideview] had worn off while I was sleeping, so I couldn't see anything from my current spot. And my head hurt, so I didn't really want to lift it. I didn't even want to lift my wand out of my pocket, either, because that would require moving again. Instead, an idea came to me. I put my hand on my bed and cast [Wideview].

The spell worked, and suddenly I could see everything once again. This had so many possibilities. Axe was on the other side of the bed, three ghostly weapons hanging in the air around him. And they were all killing Frollarts. The scimitar dived and slashed, a morning star smashed them to bits, and a ghostly bow and arrow took them down with beautiful precision. And as violently as it had started, the Frollarts were gone.

"That's all of them," Finn said in between Axe and what looked like six Flag clones. I did a double take at that. But when my vision cleared, I only saw one. Finn had a strange green and gray ward wrapped around them, which he promptly canceled.

"I'm fine, by the way," I said from my new bed—the floor.

"How long was I out?"

"Uh, about four hours. I actually caught a couple myself before these assholes attacked." He kicked a Frollart corpse.

"Glad to see you made it here in one piece." I said. Instead of smiling, he glared.

"Dude, don't even."

"What?"

"You complained the whole damn time."

"I was asleep."

"Yeah, that's the worst part. You were asleep, and you spent the entire trip here complaining whenever the golems jostled you the wrong way. The only reason I don't say anything about your naps is it gives me time away from you."

"Ouch. Harsh."

"And now you're sleep-talking?" He shook his head before laughing and sticking his tongue out at me. Finn looked annoyingly refreshed for someone who'd only got two hours.

"You were hugging your bed in your sleep."

"What's so weird about that? It was the softest bed I've ever slept in. And the pillow was magical. Literally. My arms were nice and toasty under the pillow and my head was perfectly cold, just the way I like it." I yawned through a stretch.

"So how'd we get here?" Finn explained that we for some reason had to trek all the way back to the entrance, and that he'd used the golems to carry my bed out. As he was talking, I went about casting all my spells. We had made our way back to the Lost Library, having safely exited the dungeon. What a relief. That was a place I never wanted to go back to. Amazing rewards or not. I handed Finn a cheese wheel before munching on my own.

I leaned against a shelf to enjoy my breakfast and finally realized what I was looking at. I must have hit my head harder than I thought, because there were six Flags in front of me. And now they were playing some weird sort of game. They patted one another over and over again on their mannequin heads. Each time they did, they also called one another by their names. Maur-Ice. Pat-Rick. Joe-Nathan. Flag. Not Flag. Robert.

"What the fuck? I thought we got rid of the clones. Fuck, fuck." I almost got ready for another battle, but Finn put his hand on me and said, "Relax, man. It's the spell Flag got from the chest. It lets him make independent clones of himself. And you saw what Axe got. His own personal armory." He paused, and I took a moment to let my heart rate stop trying to kill me. When I was calm, I asked, "And what did you get?"

"I can't believe what I got, Laz. Like... it's such an overwhelmingly powerful spell. It's so powerful it practically gets rid of the limitations of every ward I'm able to cast." I gestured for him to continue, but instead of explaining, he cast a couple of spells. He cast a static [Anchor Ward], like the one I'd put on Flag so long ago. And then he cast his go-to mobile [Ward]. And then he cast a third spell. [Ward Weave].

The spell pushed the two wards together into a single magical pane, blue and gray magic meshing into one solid frame. And then he started running, and the ward frame followed him. He forced it into a library shelf, and the shelf went over. Dusty books clattered to the ground. I opened my mouth in shock.

"Is there a limit to the wards you can merge?"

"I don't know. If there is... the spell's mana cost is variable. I assume if I have the mana to cast it, I can get around most things." I lost my balance and let myself fall to the floor.

"You okay, Laz?" I stared up the entire time, thinking, thinking, thinking.

"Finn?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know if you can cast that spell on somebody else's ward?" The end. Book One of Lazy Loops: An Idle LitRPG Lazlo's Status at end of book one: [STATUS: LAZLO YARROW] Second Year, MIRKS Mana: 754/820 (66 reserved) Mana Regen: 25% per hour (while sleeping), 3% per hour (while awake) Enchantment --- Level 64 Alteration --- Level 59 Soul Magic --- Level 24 Manifestation --- Level 34 Prestiges: 13 [Efficiency 1] -5% mana cost on spells and enchantments.

[Mana Pool IV] +520 mana [Mana Flow 1] +5% mana regeneration during rest or meditation. [Feedback Loop] When you alter an active spell, recover 10% of the original spell's mana cost. [Ambient Draw 1] Passively absorb ambient mana, maximum 3% per hour. [Recursion II] Each successive cast from the same school within 4 seconds costs 6% less. Floor: 46% of base cost. [Cascade II] After casting the same spell 3 times in quick succession, the fourth and fifth casts cost 30% less.

[Dual Weaving] Cast any two spells simultaneously. [The Last Bed You Will Ever Need] Permanently soulbound legendary casting talisman. Temperature-controlled sheets and pillows. Returns to the owner when lost. If the owner falls asleep elsewhere, they awaken at the last location where they slept on the bed. 0/4 Enchantment slots. [Soul Tether] Mana reserved. -8% maximum mana. Can't be dispelled. [Soul Sickness 1] Your soul is wounded.

Family Trait: [Soul Sense] Subconscious Soul awareness; allows user to interact with and detect Souls.