Chương 487: B7—Chapter 63: MAKE IT SO

We stood and waited for the boss room door to slide open.... And waited.... And waited. After over ten minutes, with the opening slowly widening but still less than ten centimeters, Mahya took out an ugly mustard-yellow couch and dropped into it. It was an atrocity. The fabric was frayed in places, with threads and stuffing poking out, and the cushions sagged in the middle, permanently shaped by people who had spent far too long sitting on them. There were stains. Old, settled-in stains of suspicious origin.

The arms were shiny in places, cracked in others, and the whole thing smelled faintly of dust, old fabric, and something funky.

"Where did you get this monstrosity from?" I asked.

"Af's house." I grabbed her arm and tugged at it.

"Get up for a minute. I'm not sitting on that thing." She sighed but stood, stepping aside while I went to work. I cast a couple of Clean spells on the couch until the stains were finally gone. Another two casts shifted the color from mustard yellow to banana yellow. It didn't look any better, but at least it smelled better, and I was willing to sit on it. We waited for another twenty minutes while the door slowly opened. The trumpets kept picking up tempo and volume, and by that point, it was overwhelming.

I felt Rue's distress and put my hands over his ears, trying to help.

"Do you have any idea how to shut off this ruckus?" Al shouted over the blare. The trumpets cut off.

"That worked," Mahya said, sounding surprised. I gave Al a thumbs-up. We waited for another ten minutes. I could understand a build-up to make the boss fight more exciting or something, but this was ridiculous. By then, the door had opened maybe forty centimeters, and the other side was completely dark. I checked. Even with my improved vision, I couldn't see anything. I returned to the ugly couch, got comfortable, and took out a book. It took the door over two hours to finish doing its thing.

By that point, all of us had books in hand, and I was scratching Rue's ear with my free hand, so none of us noticed. A shrill trumpet blare made all of us jump in place, and Rue whined in pain. Light spilled from the boss room. We got up, stored the books and the couch, and went to see what awaited us. Yeah, I should've expected something weird. Everything up to this point wasn't exactly logical. But despite all that, I just stood there and blinked, completely speechless. Inside the room was something.

I didn't even know what word to assign to it. Half of it was a metal contraption with gears, pulleys, cogwheels, and a lot of other moving parts, all bolted together with no logic whatsoever. Shafts spun for no reason. Belts looped around empty pegs, transferring motion from one place to another and then back again. A piston pumped steadily into open air. Tiny hammers tapped rhythmically against steel plates, while a counter clicked upward, reset itself, and started over. Nothing fed into anything else.

Nothing came out. The other half was some type of plant. Or at least I thought it was a plant. It was green, which kind of suggested a plant origin, but that was all I had. It had a lot of leaves, or maybe tentacles. That part wasn't clear. The overall shape reminded me of an aloe plant, mostly because of the thorns running along its length, but that was where the similarity ended. The leaves were rounded and thick, more like tentacles than leaves, and they didn't stay still.

They drifted and curled as if the air inside the room had turned into water. Every few seconds, the mechanical contraption wheezed, and the moving parts suddenly picked up speed, gears whining and belts slapping faster and faster. The plant part froze. All of its leaves snapped straight, standing on end, and sparks crackled from their tips, lighting the room in brief, angry flashes. Then it unfroze. As retaliation, all the leaves stabbed into the mechanical half at once. Metal rang and buckled.

The contraption belched thick clouds of noxious smoke and shuddered violently. Then, with a series of popping sounds, the dented parts sprang back into shape. The gears resumed their slower spinning, while the plant returned to its lazy, floating motions as if nothing unusual had happened at all.

"Huh," I said, staring at the thing.

"I believe it symbolizes the conflict between technology and magic," Al said, waving at it.

"You think?" Mahya asked, tilting her head and squinting at the wheezing, sparking mess.

"It looks more like the conflict between industry and nature from where I'm standing." I looked from one to the other, then shook my head.

"It represents that all dungeons are insane. That's what it represents." Al hummed, thoughtful, eyes still on the contraption. Mahya shrugged.

"That too." Once we stepped into the room, the plant's tentacles straightened and slowly pivoted until every one of them pointed at us. At the same time, the mechanical side began to slow, gears grinding down. That was the only visible change, but I got the feeling it was looking at us too. It wasn't just an impression, but that prickling sensation at the back of your neck when someone's watching or following you, only turned up to eleven. When we got close enough, both halves reacted.

The metal side fired first, launching short, needle-sharp pegs that screamed through the air at terrifying speed. A split second later, the plant joined in, hurling thorns in a loose, almost lazy spread. I threw up my Protective Shield on instinct. The metal projectiles slammed into it and bounced away, clattering across the floor. The thorns didn't stop. They turned wispy as they passed through the shield and sank straight into me. The world tilted.

I felt them inside my body, a cold, crawling sensation that made my head swim. I cast Neutralize Poison immediately. The wooziness faded, and I checked myself. No entry wounds.

"Son of a whore," Mahya shouted, snapping me out of it. I split my mind and cast Neutralize Poison on everyone in quick succession with one hand, while shooting the thing with lightning with the other. It didn't react at all. The lightning slammed into it, sparked all over both halves, and winked out. Rue tried to blow the thorns away with his breath, but they became wispy again and passed straight through the gale. We tried everything.

Wind Blades, Blazing Orbs, Mana Darts, Stone Shards, and Al even tried the freezing spell. Nothing worked. Every attack slammed into it, whether it hit the mechanical side or the plant side, and then simply fell apart, dissolving into mana eddies I could see spiraling away. I alternated the attack spells with Neutralize Poison on everyone, trying to keep us functional while we figured out what would actually work. Out of sheer desperation, I even cast Aggressive Clean on it.

The mechanical part looked shinier afterward. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. We backed toward the entrance as fast as we could without turning our backs. Just before we reached it, less than ten centimeters from safety, the door slid shut. This time it moved fast. Mahya swore again, louder. The thing didn't stop shooting. Pegs and thorns kept flying, reaching us even by the closed door.

We crowded in behind Al and my shields, metal shrieking as it took hit after hit, while I kept casting as fast as I could.

"Listen up," Mahya said.

"John, move closer with us, but keep your shield up. Continue casting the poison-cancelling spell. Rue, stay with John behind the shield." Rue growled. She pointed a finger at him.

"Don't argue with me. We don't have time for that." Then she turned to Al.

"You take the mechanical part, but I think a sledgehammer will be better than a sword. Can you manage it while holding your shield?"

"Yes," Al said, taking out a sledgehammer.

"While difficult to handle, it is still feasible."

"Good. I'll take the plant part." She clapped her hands once.

"Move it, everybody. We've only got as long as John's got mana."

"We have potions," Al said.

"Good idea." Mahya nodded.

"Everybody, take a potion ball as a backup. John, cast the new fortification on me. I need the speed." I summoned a potion ball into my mouth and hummed to cast Fortify on her. To do that, I had to stop Neutralize Poison, since I was still holding the shield up. It took about three seconds, but that was enough to poison all of us. My head swam again, but the potion helped. I summoned another one, just in case, and judging by the hamster cheeks, everybody else did too.

Mahya jumped toward the green part and went to town on it with extreme prejudice. Green plant matter flew everywhere, thick chunks and shredded strands spraying the room like a food processor gone wild. Every time her sword struck, the whole plant side spasmed and shot even more thorns. Its tentacles tried to grab her too, but when Mahya jumped, not much could touch her. Especially when she stood on the wall above it and kept shredding it. I could almost feel the plant's protest.

Al reached the mechanical part a heartbeat later and got to work as well. He didn't strike from above. He went at it sideways, swinging the sledgehammer in brutal, controlled arcs, blasting gears, shafts, and plates clean off. Metal screamed. Cogwheels shattered and skipped across the floor. Whatever passed for structure in that mess began to come apart. Rue and I stayed tucked in behind my shield.

Pegs and thorns slammed into it from every direction, the metal ones clanging and bouncing away, the wispy ones slipping through and making my skin crawl. I didn't stop casting Neutralize Poison. Spell after spell, barely a breath between them. Rue pressed in close, his body rigid, growling every time something hit the shield hard enough to jolt my arms. At one point, the spell upgraded. I felt it, but didn't check. This wasn't the time. The thing tried to fight back.

The mechanical side suddenly sped up, belts snapping loose and whipping wildly, mimicking the plant's flailing motions. Twice they snagged Al, coiling around his arm and shoulder, but he switched to his sword and cut himself free. Sparks flew as severed belts slapped against the floor and walls. At some point, he cast his freezing spell again, and it finally made a difference.

The belts still tried to grab him, but their movements turned sluggish, just slow enough for him to twist free, step in, and blast off a few more parts with heavy, sideways blows. The plant part lashed out in blind fury, trying to lash, grab, or stab Mahya from every angle. It didn't help. Mahya tore into it without slowing, carving paths straight through the green mass. By then, she was completely covered in green goo, dripping from her armor and hair, until she looked more like a swamp monster than a person.

She didn't seem to notice or care and kept shredding her way forward while Al, just as methodical, reduced the mechanical side to flying scrap piece by piece. From one heartbeat to the next, the monster's rhythm changed. The plant half sagged, its movements slowing, leaves drooping and twitching. The mechanical side gave one last wheezing grind as a gear jammed sideways, and the whole contraption shuddered, belched loudly, and spewed a dense cloud of black smoke.

With a sound somewhere between a sigh and a whistle, the boss came apart. Both halves disintegrated into swirling motes of mana that filled the room in a glittering storm before collapsing inward. When the light faded, four scrolls clattered to the floor and slid to a stop. I cast another round of Neutralize Poison on everybody and picked up one scroll. MAKE IT SO This is a spell for finishing what refuses to be finished. Not by inspiration. Not by motivation.

By forceful, extremely opinionated completion, held at mana-point. When cast on a project of creation that has become genuinely stuck, MAKE IT SO identifies the parts that are missing, misaligned, unfinished, improperly argued with, or quietly sabotaging the rest. It then completes, corrects, or replaces those parts as needed until the project functions as a coherent whole. How much mana this requires depends entirely on how much the spell has to invent reality on your behalf.

If only minor adjustments are needed, mana trickles out with polite efficiency. If hope, bolts, and denial hold half the project together, mana is consumed aggressively and without remorse. A lazy caster may simply continue channeling the spell, allowing it to keep the project functional and up to date as long as mana is supplied. The project will continue to work. It will even improve.

Right up until the caster runs out of mana, at which point the spell releases its grip and the project immediately remembers all the reasons it was not finished in the first place. A smart caster does not do this. A smart caster watches. While MAKE IT SO is active, the project exists in a temporarily enforced state of correctness. Components sit where they should have been. Processes flow in the order they should have followed. Interactions resolve in ways that make sense, even if no one knew why beforehand.

The spell does not hide its work. It does not explain it either. It simply demonstrates competence and expects you to keep up.

Those who examine the project during this time can learn: Which parts were actually missing Which parts were overengineered nonsense Which assumptions were wrong but loudly confident Where structure mattered more than power How the solution fits together without being held at mana-point Once the caster applies those lessons and completes the project independently, the spell is no longer needed. The result persists. Reality agrees.

MAKE IT SO will refuse to function under the following conditions: If the project violates the laws of nature or magic in a way that cannot be resolved If the caster lacks sufficient mana to cover the missing or altered parts If the spell determines the caster is attempting to outsource thinking instead of finishing the work independently Yes, the spell can tell. No, arguing does not help.

Class Progress Warning: Using MAKE IT SO as a shortcut does not meaningfully advance progress toward earning a crafting-related class. Borrowed competence does not impress the Guidance. If, however, the caster studies the spell's intervention, learns from it, and recreates the finished project through their own effort, that work does count toward class eligibility. The No Double Benefit Rule is strictly enforced.

You may receive: The shortcut from the Mythical, Transcendent, Divine, Celestial, Reality-Bending, Fate-Weaving, Dimension-Hopping, Inexplicably Convenient Hatchegg of Eventual Resolution, received previously in this dungeon. Or: The developmental benefit of completing the project yourself with the help of the Diligent, Character-Building, Self-Improving, Growth-Focused, Life-Enriching, Wisdom-Cultivating, Grit-Enhancing, Suspiciously Educational MAKE IT SO. You may not receive both.

Attempting to do so will result in one of the following: No class progress No functional project A deeply judgmental notification from the Guidance In summary: MAKE IT SO will not finish your work for you. It will show you how to finish it yourself. The reward you receive depends entirely on whether you learn from it or just let it happen. Mahya whistled in appreciation, tilting her head as she looked it over. Al hummed in agreement, eyes bright with interest.

"This is outstanding," I said. Rue growled, stepped forward, and batted the scroll away with a sideways swipe of his paw. It skidded across the floor.

"Stupid dungeon. Stupid spell. Rue not have thumbs to make project." I crouched and scratched behind his ears. Mahya joined in from one side, Al from the other, and within seconds both his ears were under coordinated assault. It was probably the first time they had ever received that much focused attention at once. He kept growling anyway.

"I'll trade you for it," I said. Rue nodded immediately, but the growling continued, quieter now, more sulky than angry.

"What's the matter now?" I asked. He let out a long, dramatic sigh and visibly deflated. The disappointment rolled down the bond, so heavy I almost choked.

"This dungeon terrible for Rue. Rue want fun dungeon."

"You had fun with the sharks," Mahya pointed out. Rue stopped sighing and stood a little straighter, chest puffing out.

"Yes. Sharks fun." He paused, then added,"Rue still disappointed. Rue need lots and lots of crab and snake to feel better." We all snickered. Yeah, he was not subtle at all.