The forest floor should not have existed this far down.
Trees thicker than castle towers rose into the darkness, their bark layered and ridged like interlocking armor plates.
The crowns above fused into a ceiling of leaves so dense that even Hajime's enhanced Night Vision only grazed the lowest fraying edges.
Massive roots knotted across the ground like petrified serpents. Some were as wide as city streets, towering ridges that forced detours.
Others split the earth open, the soil sagging around them as though the entire forest was crawling forward very slowly.
Grass surged around those roots in shoulder-high waves, blades thin and glassy, sharp enough that even a glancing brush could cut exposed skin. Every shift of their bodies sent the grass whispering and hissing, an ocean of knives restless beneath invisible winds.
The air was hot.
Damp.
Each breath dragged the taste of sap and wet wood over Hajime's tongue, undercut by the faint metallic tang of reptilian musk and the sour edge of something that smelled disturbingly like blood left too long in the sun.
"Yeah, no," Hajime muttered. "This is way past natural dungeon decor. This is straight-up prehistoric bullshit."
He stretched out his senses.
Infinite Resonance slipped free of his control like a tide, spreading through the forest in layered waves.
Mana signatures unfolded in his perception—pressure ridges, currents, whirlpools of intent. It was no longer just a pulse; it was a full scan.
Depth.
Density.
Direction.
Hostility.
The feedback struck him.
Too much.
Dozens of large presences prowled at the edges of his range. Heavy. Patient. The way they moved—slow and deliberate, conserving motion like predators that knew they already owned the territory.
"This floor feels alive," Hajime said. "And it knows where we are."
Beside him, Yue walked calmly through the grass as though strolling through a garden. Her bare feet barely bent the blades. The simple white dress she wore—stitched from treated monster pelt—brushed her knees, plain and unassuming.
Above that, the astral crimson gown flickered into existence in short, heartbeat-long pulses as she summoned and dismissed it.
Each manifestation burst into view like a blood-red comet, scattering faint starlight particles through the humid air.
Each dismissal left a subtle ache in space itself, a quiet pressure of power being held back instead of unleashed.
"Lots of monsters," Yue observed, golden eyes half-lidded.
"That just means lots of test subjects."
Hajime lifted his left arm.
Under his sleeve, the Twelvefold Equalizer pulsed in a slow, steady rhythm—twelve Divinity shards drinking in ambient mana from all directions and sending it through a self-correcting lattice.
The surge rolled up his arm, but the Flow Governor ring smoothed it before it hit his core, turning the wild tide into a controlled river.
The Continuum Core pendant resting against his chest rose and fell with his breathing, cycling mana in and out like a second heart.
The thrum synced with his actual pulse until he could barely tell them apart.
Mana logistics online.
"Roughly ninety-nine thousand units available at full capacity from my set alone," he muttered.
"Per person. Pool those and we hit one hundred ninety-eight thousand minimum. Factor in personal reserves…"
"In essence," Yue finished, "if we get serious, we have at least two hundred ten thousand units to use."
"Yup. Only downside is this thing gathers mana, doesn't generate it, so it takes time to refill." Hajime snorted.
"It's currently Half-charged, it's still busted though."
He took a breath, then nodded ahead. "Stay close. This floor's built for ambushes."
He stepped forward, Gale Claw sliding from the tip of donner and Schlag with a quiet metallic whisper.
He did not brute-force the grass aside.
Instead, each swing of the talon-shaped energy protruding from the weapon cut precise arcs—controlled, clean slashes that sheared the blades of grass and made them collapse inward rather than scatter. Less motion. Less noise. More elegance. More kirito heh~.
Behind him, Yue was hanging from his back close enough that her breath tickled the back of his neck when the wind shifted.
Every now and then she leaned in, teeth brushing his skin in a quick, playful nip, drawing tiny drops of blood for her to taste.
"Stop farming crit buffs off my carotid," he muttered.
"Warm," she answered simply.
The bond between them—a Tier 4 Resonance—hummed like a taut string, its presence a steady, reassuring weight along his spine.
Armor not worn.
Armor shared.
The roar came like a thunderclap. Sound hit first—a deep-bellied bellow that rolled through the forest and made the grass flatten.
Then came vibration. The ground shuddered under his feet. Leaves avalanched from the canopy like green rain.
Something enormous smashed through trees that shouldn't have been breakable, splintering wood that had stood untouched for centuries.
It burst into view with a final crash.
A dinosaur—easily the size of a house. Its scales were layered like overlapping stone plates, each one ridged, black, and thick enough to shrug off artillery. Its breath steamed in heavy gusts, each exhale like a burst from a furnace.
Rows of dagger-like teeth lined its jaws, glistening with saliva and a faint oily sheen of venom. It roared again, humid wind buffeting them.
Growing out of its skull, just behind its eyes, bloomed a ridiculous, oversized flower.
Soft petals.
Bright, gaudy colors—pink and purple stripes, as if someone had stuck a cheap festival ornament into an apex predator.
Completely absurd.
Yue stared for a long second.
"…It looks stupid," she said flatly.
"Stupid things can still kill you," Hajime replied, equally flat.
Donner appeared in his hand. The weapon barely resembled the original pistol that had once saved his life in the abyss.
Shtar-reinforced twin rails ran the length of the barrel, etched with intricate crystal arrays tuned to Yue's mana signature.
Micro-sized mana batteries locked into the frame like a cluster of gemstones, ready to dump energy into the rails without denting his personal reserves. The outer plating shimmered softly as its adaptive layers analyzed the humidity, temperature, and ambient mana density to optimize heat dispersion.
"Big, armored, probably high elemental resistance," he said.
"Perfect test target."
Yue stepped forward. The hem of her dress brushed the grass; blades sliced, but her skin remained unmarred. Mana wrapped around her like invisible silk.
"Let me," she said.
Hajime glanced at her. The bond pulsed—resolute, firm, tinged with something quietly stubborn.
"This is an equipment test," he reminded her.
"You said we rely on each other now," Yue replied calmly.
"I won't always stand behind you. And I'm primarily a mage. Shouldn't the mage test the mana logistics first?"
He clicked his tongue, but his lips twisted at the corner. "Fine. Go ahead."
The dinosaur dug its claws into the soil. Muscles bunched under its stony hide. It charged, each step smashing roots, throwing up clods of dirt. The flower bobbed on its skull with each thunderous stride, making the whole thing look somehow more insulting.
Yue lifted her left hand, the Flow Governor ring catching the scattered light in a golden arc.
Mana surged.
Golden energy poured from her core, compressed and refined as it flowed through the Governor's regulation lattice. The Continuum Core nudged the routing, prioritizing output over regeneration. Not a drop was wasted.
The air around her warped subtly, heat and cold snapping into sharp contrast as all elements were forced into alignment.
"Azure—"
Heat pressed against Hajime's skin, tasting like lightning about to strike. His Night Vision flared white for a heartbeat.
"—Javelin."
The spell condensed into existence: a spear of blue-white flame so compact it punched a hollow silence into the world around it. The ground at Yue's feet cracked under the pressure. The humid air hissed as steam burst outward.
Then the spear fired.
It crossed the distance between them and the charging dinosaur faster than the monster's eyes could track.
The javelin punched through the flower, detonating it in a shower of burning petals, then bored into the skull beneath.
For an instant, Hajime saw the insides of the beast's head—bone, blood, brain—all rendered into incandescent sludge.
Then the top half of its head evaporated.
The creature took three more massive steps, momentum dragging its corpse forward. It collapsed with a ground-shaking crash that sent another wave of leaves raining from above.
The smell hit immediately—scorched flesh, boiled ichor, and the sharp, clean scent of ozone.
Yue let her hand fall. Her expression remained serene, but her eyes gleamed, pupils narrowed with the aftertaste of power well used.
Hajime holstered Donner with a sigh. "Show-off."
"This is the minimum," Yue said softly, "to stand beside you."
Their bond throbbed in agreement—a warm pulse that made his chest momentarily lighter despite the suffocating heat.
They moved on.
The forest responded.
Raptors slithered through the grass in coordinated packs, their tails bladed like scythes. Hajime caught them on Infinite Resonance a heartbeat before they pounced—clusters of jagged hostility closing in from three directions at once.
"Left, high," he said. "Middle, low. Right, flank."
Yue nodded once.
Hajime flicked his wrist and lobbed a Storm Torch Grenade into the space between the converging vectors.
The canister detonated midair.
It didn't explode outward like ordinary shrapnel; instead, it unfolded into a spinning vortex—a compact storm of compressed flame and spiraling lightning.
The air screamed.
The raptors launched themselves into the kill-zone at the exact wrong moment.
Lightning crawled over their scales, forcing their muscles to seize mid-leap. The storm tore through them, cooking flesh from the inside while flames stripped skin from bone.
Several of the beasts hit the ground in broken, spasming heaps. Others never made it that far, burning to ash in the air.
A moment of silence followed, broken only by the crackle of fading electricity and the drip of liquefied fat onto sizzling, scorched roots.
The ground beneath Hajime convulsed.
A plant-beast erupted upward—a massive tangle of vines wrapped around a core of pulsing, tooth-lined petals. It snapped its maw toward them.
Hajime was already pulling another grenade.
Horror Frost.
He thumbed the activator and rolled it straight into the creature's opening mouth.
The explosion made no sound.
Instead, an expanding ring of absolute cold burst outward. Color drained from the world for an instant. The moisture in the air flashed into fragile white crystals that spiraled away like shattered glass.
The plant-beast froze in the middle of its lunge, every leaf, tendon, and petal solidified into streaked ice.
Yue flicked her fingers. The astral gown around her flickered into existence for a fraction of a second, then vanished. The pressure wave alone shattered the frozen monster into a thousand glittering fragments.
The shards flew toward them, propelled by the dying shockwave. Barrier anchors at Hajime's feet flared in response, rising like transparent petals around them.
The shards ricocheted away, scattering like broken gemstones.
Then came the next wave.
Fire spells lanced from hidden nests in the trees—compressed orbs of flame traveling at arrow speed.
Hajime's prepared barrier snapped up, translucent plates overlapping and locking into place. The first barrage splashed across the surface, fire dispersing into harmless sparks.
The second barrage came from the opposite direction—but by then Yue had stepped fully into the barrier's radius.
Resonance surged.
The barrier's thickness doubled, lines of crimson and gold etching themselves along its interior surface. The spells slammed into it—and died, heat absorbed, mana unraveled.
"It feels like our bond turned into armor," Yue murmured.
"Good."
They advanced, methodical and merciless.
Hajime tested everything.
He tossed Lightning Blast grenades into suspiciously still water. Each detonation turned hidden monsters into boiled silhouettes that floated belly-up, the stench of cooked swamp flesh filling the air.
He layered his new Earth Control into close-to-ceiling magic traps—dense stone pillars lying dormant beneath thin crusts of earth.
When ambushers dove at them from hidden alcoves or the treeline, the pillars erupted with insane velocity, spearing the monsters and hurling them straight up toward the ceiling.
Once they were silhouetted against the patchwork canopy, Hajime used Schlag.
Lightning-imbued railgun rounds cut through the air like crimson comets.
Each shot traced a clean arc, punching through monsters in mid-flight and detonating in miniature storms.
The game started then.
"Three in one shot," Hajime said.
Yue released her own spell—compressed spheres of azure fire that burst like silent bombs. "Four."
"We're counting confirmed kills," he retorted.
"Mine were cleaner."
He snorted. "This isn't a style contest."
"But I'm winning that too," Yue replied.
They kept moving, laughter mingling with the dying screams of beasts.
The mining laser, refined from the Azure Blade spell, proved itself on both stone and flesh.
Hajime tuned it down to a narrow beam and carved precise tunnels through thick root clusters, then tuned it up and bisected a charging monstrosity from jaw to tail.
The creature's body slid apart, each half steaming as if someone had simply decided reality should be two copies thinner.
The deeper they went, the more the forest pushed back. Monsters hit harder.
Their coordination tightened.
Environmental hazards grew more frequent—collapsing roots, sudden pits, explosive pollen clouds.
Yet every time they drifted away from a certain direction, the hostility faded.
Every time they corrected their route back toward that invisible axis, the aggression spiked.
"They really don't want us going this way," Hajime said.
Yue smiled faintly. "Then that's exactly where we go."
After nearly an hour of near-constant combat—on the monsters' side, at least—the enemies began to thin.
Trees spread out. The canopy rose, letting in a muted, indirect glow. The grass shortened to knee height.
Then a dungeon wall loomed ahead—a towering cliff of dark stone, half-swallowed by roots that crawled across its surface.
A hairline crack ran through it, almost invisible. Vines and roots had grown in deliberate patterns over the line, like someone trying to stitch a wound shut.
Hajime brushed the vines aside and traced the crack with Infinite Resonance. Mana currents slipped into the stone, ran along the fracture, and came back to him with a clear signal.
"There we are."
He focused the mining laser into a broader blade and dragged it slowly down. Stone yielded like butter.
Light flared white-hot in the narrow tunnel as rock vaporized, leaving a clean-edged opening behind.
Beyond lay darkness.
Not the wild, humid gloom of the forest—but a compact, suffocating quiet. A tunnel that swallowed sound and stripped away ambient mana until only the faint breath of their own resonance remained.
They stepped through.
The chamber at the end was circular. Too clean. No roots. No moss. No cracks. Just smooth stone, perfectly symmetrical.
Detect Magic screamed.
Hajime's teeth actually ached from the density of overlapping enchantments.
"Traps," he said. "A lot."
The walls opened.
Dozens—then hundreds—of green spheres burst out, launching themselves through the air in converging trajectories.
Each sphere pulsed with mana, the signatures varying—flame, acid, concussive force, curses, raw kinetic energy.
A kaleidoscope of murder.
Yue's astral gown flared into being as she raised her hand, mana condensing around her like a tidal surge.
Hajime reached for his guns—then stopped.
He had options. Too many, in fact. But this was what testing floors were for.
"Yue," he said.
"Nn?"
He grabbed her hand. Resonance surged.
Their mana met between their palms and spiraled, twisting into a helix of crimson and gold.
The pressure exploded outward—not a dome, not a flat wall, but a combination of both forming a multi-layered barrier that looked almost like overlapping petals of glass.
""United Will.""
The barrier bloomed.
The spheres hit.
Impact shook the room, but the barrier held.
Each orb that touched it flattened out, its magic unraveling at the contact point as if some larger, absolute will simply denied its existence.
Fire burned, then vanished. Acid sizzled, then evaporated. Shockwaves spread and were absorbed soundlessly.
"Tier 4 synergy confirmed," Hajime muttered.
"Mm. Warm," Yue answered, squeezing his hand.
They dismantled the trap room after that—disarming launch nodes, detonating arrays in controlled bursts, turning deadly enchantments into harmless junk.
It didn't take long. They worked like a machine, movements synchronized, commentary short and efficient.
When silence finally settled, their mana reserves had barely dipped.
Then the boss arrived.
The far wall split open like a rotting tree trunk. A dryad-like monster stepped out, bark-flesh splitting to reveal glowing veins of green mana beneath. Its face was a mass of knotwork and hollow eyes.
It exhaled—and the air filled with spores.
Billions of glittering motes poured outward like a reversed waterfall, trying to seep past the barrier, into their lungs, their skin, their minds.
Every single one carried a different kind of curse, poison, or control magic.
"Annoying," Hajime said.
The United Will barrier pulsed once. The spores hit it and slid away, unable to find an opening.
Yue lifted a single finger.
One spell.
No chant. A needle of compressed golden light shot forward and drilled into the dryad's core.
The monster didn't even have time to scream before it turned to ash.
Hajime stepped outside the barrier and used predator on what's left of the monster.
"Plant Control," Hajime noted as the essence sank into his body. "Pheromone Creation, Feromonikinesis… Great. Now I can canonically gaslight fauna."
Yue made an unimpressed face. "You were already doing that to people."
"Fair."
They moved on, descending further.
The next floor was a kaleidoscopic wonder—walls polished to mirror-like perfection, reflecting them from every angle. Mana-light scattered along the surfaces, splitting into colors until the whole corridor looked like the inside of a prism.
At first glance, there were no monsters.
No killing intent.
Just endless reflections.
But Hajime had Resonance and Heat Vision.
He stared at one wall—and a patch of "reflection" failed to match their movement exactly.
"There," he said.
He fired a railgun-enhanced slug from Donner.
The round hit the mirror-wall and went through something that wasn't stone.
A chameleon-like beast, previously invisible to both sight and magic, spasmed as the slug tore through its torso and pinned it to the opposite wall.
Its camouflage failed, revealing layered scales that bent light around them.
"Predator". Hajime commanded.
"Camouflage," Hajime said after absorbing the remains. His skin tone and hair flickered briefly, cycling through several possible faces and colours.
"Nice."
The following floor drowned them in swamp.
Humidity went from oppressive to suffocating. Insects whined in clouds thick enough to be seen as moving fog.
The water beneath was murky, the mud clutching at their boots with greedy suction.
Paralyzing insect swarms descended, a living curtain of stingers and nerve toxins.
Hajime answered with Lightning Field, arcs of electricity dancing along the water's surface and up through the air, turning dozens of bugs into smoking, falling husks.
Yue's Azure Blades rode the wind, slicing broad paths through the writhing clouds.
Predator feasted.
From the processed swarms came Parallel Processing and Hive Mind.The latter was useless for now, but Hajime understood instantly how dangerous it could become in the right scenario.
Later floors blurred—a parade of monsters, puzzles, and oddities—until they reached the Eldritch one.
The creature on Floor 188 wasn't supposed to exist. It twisted space around itself; looking at it too long gave Hajime a physical headache.
Killing it took effort.
Absorbing it was worse.
For several seconds his vision split into too many layers—mana, soul, logic, probability—all trying to render at once.
When the world snapped back into proper shape, he had Analytical Appraisal and his vision skills had merged into one terrifying ability: Truth Eyes.
He decided not to think too hard about what temporary partial omniscience and his inate multiversal awareness had done to his brain cells.
The toughest fight awaited them on Floor 195.
A turtle.
A turtle the size of two buses parked side by side, covered in layered shell-plates that were part organic, part inorganic, and all stubbornness.
It was a magic-focused monster, its physical movements slow and almost lazy—but its spellcasting speed made Hajime's skin crawl.
By the time Yue finished a single advanced spell, the turtle had already fired twenty.
Elemental beams, homing curses, sharpened mana blades, temporal deceleration waves—the air around them turned into a killing field.
For the first time, United Will truly earned its name.
Their barrier became their entire world.
Spells slammed into it in rapid succession, layering shockwaves over shockwaves.
Mana consumption spiked. Every few seconds Hajime had to redirect flow from their equipment reserves into their own cores to keep the barrier from flickering.
Yue's expression remained serene, but sweat beaded on her forehead. Mana flooded through her in a constant stream, refined and fed into the shared defense.
The turtle tried everything—piercing attacks, area saturation, debuffs aimed at their minds. The barrier denied them all.
"As long as there's mana," Hajime realized aloud, "this thing doesn't break."
"Then we just need more mana," Yue replied.
There was a hint of predatory joy in her eyes.
The battle dragged on. Their personal reserves ran dry.
The Mana Logistics System picked up the slack, draining the Continuum Cores and Equalizers. When the last of the turtle's frantic spellstorm petered out, they still stood—exhausted but uninjured.
The counterattack was almost casual.
One Azure Javelin from Yue, amplified through their resonance and their new skill set.
One synchronized volley from Donner and Schlag using upgraded rounds.
The turtle's overclocked head cracked, then shattered.
Absorbing it hurt.
The moment Predator finished processing, Hajime staggered, clutching his head.
It felt like every nerve from his spine to his skull had been dipped in molten metal.
Images, equations, probabilistic paths of spells and counters flooded his mind. For a second—just a second—he saw every potential move he could make for the next ten seconds all at once.
Then it narrowed.
Stabilized.
When the pain receded, three new skills remained: All Element Amplification, Thought Acceleration, and Quantum Calculation.
"Oh, you beautiful overpowered mess," Hajime muttered.
"And its shell is good mana-conducting material," Hajime said hoarsely. "We're turning you into something stupidity powerful later."
Between encounters, he tinkered.
Stone-metal constructs from fallen enemies turned into mid-battle prototypes as he tested Remote Manipulation-controlled mines—basically grenades guided by telekinesis.
Yue watched him with quiet amusement.
"If you keep improving," she said, "Ehit might die to a prototype."
"Perfect," Hajime answered.
The architecture around them sharpened.
Rough stone gave way to carved walls.
Glyphs emerged, glowing faintly with guiding mana.
They reached the antechamber.
Hajime rested a hand on Yue's head, fingers threading through her golden hair.
"For your uncle."
"For our world," Yue replied.
Their bond warmed, mana pulsing in steady, synchronized beats.
"Status"
The status plate flickered into existence before his eyes.
Name: Hajime Nagumo
Race: Human (Heavily Modified)
Job: Alchemist (Synergist Path)
Level: 80
Strength: 4,090
Vitality: 4,900
Defense: 3,850
Agility: 5,400
Magic: 7,555 (+50,000)
Magic Defense: 7,000
MANA & ENERGY SYSTEMS
Active Systems:
Mana Heart Reactor
Continuum Core (Equipped)
Twelvefold Equalizer (Equipped)
Flow Governor (Equipped)
※ Equipment Mana Capacity Applied
※ Mana Logistics System Active
SKILLS
■ Core Alchemy
Transmute EX
└ Precision Alchemy
└ Mapped Alchemy
└ Synthesis & De-synthesis
└ Item Creation
└ Potions Master
└ Trap Construction
└ Ore Perception
└ Ore Appraisal
└ Precision Transmutation
└ Ore Desynthesis
└ Ore Synthesis
└ Duplicate Transmutation
└ High-Speed Alchemy
└ Weapon Creation
└ Potion Synthesis
└ Poison Synthesis
■ Mana Manipulation
Mana Discharge
Mana Compression
Remote Manipulation
High-Speed Mana Regeneration
All Element Amplification
■ Combat & Movement
Swordsmanship (Basic)
Air Dance
└ Aerodynamic
└ Supersonic Step
└ Steel Legs
Gale Claw
Lightning Manipulation
└ Lightning Clad
└ Lightning Field
■ Creation & Control
Density Control
Earth Control
Plant Control
Pheromone Creation
└ Feromonikinesis
■ Perception & Stealth
Detect Magic
Hide Magic
Presence Manipulation
└ Sense Presence
└ Hide Presence
└ Presence Alteration
Camouflage
Truth Eyes
└ Night Vision
└ Heat Vision
└ Illusion Vision
└ Aura Vision
└ Acceleration Sight
■ Body Reinforcement
Diamond Skin
Abnormal Resistance
└ Poison Resistance
└ Paralysis Resistance
└ Petrification Resistance
└ Mental Resistance
└ Fear Resistance
UNIQUE SKILLS
■ Infinite Resonance (Awakened)
Multi-layered mana perception and mapping
Real-time mana synchronization
Resonance amplification with bonded targets
■ First Resonator: Yue
Automatic Regeneration
Blood Conversation
Spell Melding
Image Composition
Mana Manipulation (Yue-linked)
■ Predator
Stomach
■ Soul Core
■ Mana Heart Reactor
Ambrosia-Laden Blood
High-Speed Regeneration
Adaptive Growth
EXTRA ABILITIES
Inventory
Telepathy
Telekinesis
Plarallel Processing
Hive Mind
Thought Acceleration
Quantum Calculation
Analytical Appraisal
TITLES
Survivor of the Abyss
Adept of Infinite Resonance
Predator
Transmutation Expert
Expert Alchemist
First Resonator (Yue)
"Buggy build," Hajime muttered. "Please don't nerf."
With guns loaded, spells primed, and their shared will honed beyond steel—
They stepped forward.
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Author: "Could I have some stones?"
Reader: "You see, I believe in renewable energy — no stones, only wind."
Author: gets blown away by disappointment 🌪️
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