As they walked, Libera couldn’t help but ask, "My lord, how did you pass the Gatekeeper’s riddles? The Book of Eternity claims that the riddles ask questions about the very essence of life."
Karl chuckled. Pffftt... anyone without knowledge of modern internet s wouldn’t be able to answer that. Only humans from modern Earth could. A thought then hit him, making him pause. He repeated the phrase in his mind: anyone except modern humans, but there’s only , isn’t there? He began to wonder. Did humans build this place? Or is this world I’m in just Earth, but so far in the future that humans no longer exist? This is a piece of history I have to uncover.
He then answered Libera, "The riddles were not about life’s deep, complicated truths. They were, in fact, based on sarcasm and cultural references."
"So it’s just jokes?" Libera asked.
Primarily, yes," Karl replied, wanting to avoid a lengthy explanation.
"Who would create such a bizarre test for a gate pass?" Libera wondered aloud.
Karl chuckled. "Exactly. Only an individual who is profoundly...eccentric or who simply does not concern themselves with over-complicating matters. The most precious thing is not so grand cosmic truth, but the simple, fleeting monts of the present—the laughter, the happiness, the entire experience of it. The aning of life, in my opinion, is the present mont itself."
Leo smiled, staring at Karl. Even if you, my lord, claid not to know the aning of life, your profound wisdom speaks volus, that would make anyone believed it as the truth. He then glanced at Libera, who was lost in contemplation of Karl’s words.
For Karl, the mont got awkward. "Anyway, let’s steer away from that philosophical nonsense," he said. He wasn’t used to verbally talking about deep philosophy.
Later, as they walked toward the end of the bridge, a tallic door automatically opened, surprising Karl. It revealed an entire room of tall, glowing cylinders that illuminated the space. The material was as alien as the ones on the upper floors.
"Whoa," Libera said. "This is my first ti entering a demonic chamber. There are so many machines."
Karl just let him be. Libera was far too indoctrinated to see machines as demonic or maybe he was right. But whatever it is, the only demon is the one using it or created it.
Leo, however, asked, "My lord, what do you think this is?"
"It must be the mana node room," Karl said. "I don’t know for sure, but it seems to be working passively." He spotted a platform with a long pedestal at the end of the room, with multiple glowing alien tubes attached to it. "That must be the control panel or sothing."
He approached it, then turned to his companions. "Don’t touch anything. We don’t know much about this place, and we don’t know if sothing will go wrong, if you touched sothing, you may accidentally turn the Gatekeeper hostile." This warning sent shivers down their spines, and they beca very wary, careful not to trip or touch anything. Karl scoffed, smiling.
He stepped onto the platform and touched the large pedestal. It glowed with touch controls and a holographic interface lit up in front, looking like a Linux screen terminal.
[ Please Input A New Admin Na: ]
[ Confirm ] [ Cancel ]
Karl typed KarlLeech. As soon as tapped confirm, the screen displayed a progress bar.
Loading..
████▒▒▒▒▒▒ Loading: 38%
███████▒▒▒ Loading: 67%
████████▒▒ Loading: 73%
██████████ Loading: 91%
██████████ Loading: 94%
Loading Complete
The screen transitioned again.
███ SUBTERRANEAN UTILITY CONTROL NODE ███
System Kernel v12.4.993 Neutrino Distribution System
Codena: NIGHTSTREAM
Session: /dev/tty0 (authenticated: KarlLeech_admin)
Local alias: "Dungeon Mana" = Neutrino/NQ
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ MAIN NU - NODECTRL │
├─────────────────────────────┤
│ 1. View Node Distribution │
│ 2. Manage Conduits │
│ 3. Compression/Spin Core │
│ 4. Task Automation │
│ 5. Status & Upkeep │
│ 6. Ritualize (mana alias) │
│ 7. Logs & Diagnostics │
│ 0. Exit │
└─────────────────────────────┘
-----------------------------------------------------
Hmm... Karl thought.
"What’s that for, my lord?" Leo asked.
"This is the mana distribution control system, or neutrino, as they call it."
"Interesting," Leo said. "This is actually an efficient way of distributing mana."
"Yeah, it’s much like the arcstone system we planned but more advanced. But first, let’s see the available floors connected." He then typed 1, which showed the floors.
-----------------------------------------------------
> 1
NODE DISTRIBUTION — FLOORS 5 to 10 (active sector)
Floor | Node ID | Status | Pressure (NQ) | Notes
------------------------------------------------------------
F-05 | Node-05 | SEALED | ---- | Lock engaged
F-06 | Node-06 | SEALED | ---- | Lock engaged
F-07 | Node-07 | ERROR | ---- | Distribution module FAIL
F-08 | Node-08 | ERROR | ---- | Distribution module FAIL
F-09 | Node-09 | STABLE | 2,390 | Flow: Normal
F-10 | Node-10 | HIGH | 3,641 | Overpressure risk (watch)
Total active neutrino pool: 10,041 NQ
Main Storage Link: DISCONNECTED
Collector Arrays: DISCONNECTED
-----------------------------------------------------
"Ah, that’s why floors 5 and 6 seed abandoned and got us locked out," Karl said. "There was no power connected, so the system automatically sealed them."
"It must also why we got stuck on the 7th floor," Leo said. "There was a distribution failure."
"Seems like it. But damn, look at that. The total dungeon mana, or the neutrinos, is 10,000. That’s a lot," Karl said.
"That’s not even considering the main storage link was disconnected. How much could it have contained?" Leo wondered.
"Well, it must be more," Karl said. "My guess is that this is just the upper distribution control, so the total must be in the hundreds of thousands. Distribution networks only keep a small percentage to maintain activity in case of ergencies, and this total pool must only be a small amount."
"Do you think we can get to the main storage link anyti soon, my lord?" Leo asked.
"Whoa, I don’t even want to imagine what’s on the deeper floors. I an, we barely survived raiding this 5-10 floor," Karl said, his voice serious. "If we want to clear the lower floors, we must have an army and proper weapons to not only defend ourselves but also dominate and avoid risks, such as the beast the Gatekeeper calls the Cerberus units."
Karl exhaled. "For now, let’s open the upper floors." He then typed commands, unsealing the -5 and -6 floors and setting their distribution to low.
-----------------------------------------------------
> unseal F-05
Seal disengaged — Node-05 available for ops.
Status: LOW POWER (awaiting distribution command)
> unseal F-06
Seal disengaged — Node-06 available for ops.
Status: LOW POWER (awaiting distribution command)
> distribution set F-05 LOW
Node-05 active at LOW distribution.
Consumption: ~21 NQ/day
> distribution set F-06 LOW
Node-06 active at LOW distribution.
Consumption: ~26 NQ/day
-----------------------------------------------------
The lights on floors five and six flickered on as their ergency egress locks disengaged. "Now, to the next one," Karl said. "Let us try to reboot floor seven." He executed the commands.
-----------------------------------------------------
> attempt repair --node F-07
ACTION: Restarting node distribution module...
ERROR: Automated module failure persists.
Advisory: Remove and replace module in Engineering Wing.
Alternative: Switch Node F-07 to MANUAL mode.
-----------------------------------------------------
"A hardware failure," Karl muttered. "Let’s check floor eight." The result was even more dire.
-----------------------------------------------------
> attempt repair --node F-08
ACTION: Restarting node distribution module...
ERROR: Hardware failure (irreparable).
Advisory: Distribution module requires removal.
Alternative: Seal floor or reroute.
-----------------------------------------------------
"That seems to be worse than the previous one," Leo said.
"Yeah, but we can leave that out for now and seal the pipeline until we can figure out a way to fix it," Karl said. "But where is the engineering wing?"
Libera pointed. "Uhhh... my lord, that section of the wall opened."
Karl smiled. "Let’s go and fix the hardware problem." Karl walked first, and Leo and Libera followed him into the opened section of the wall. Inside, there were pillars of glowing alien machines with glowing tubes snaking through them. "This looks like a ssy server room," Karl said, stressed.
"Where do we find the malfunctioning hardware, my lord?" Leo asked.
Karl looked around the expansive room. "There," he said, pointing toward the edge where a glowing light blue was illuminated with a red glow. "That must be the issue."
Leo was worried. "No offense, my lord, but are you sure that’s the right one?"
Karl smirked. "Well, there’s only one way to find out. There are no other red glows, so..." They walked toward it. When they arrived, both pillars glowed red, with the attached tubes also glowing red, fading in and out. "Now, how do we remove the module?" Karl asked. As soon as he touched it, a rectangular, thin glowing glass panel with glowing circuits inside detached itself.
"Very convenient," Karl said, pulling it out. "I don’t have to break this entire pillar of shit to find this specific module." He started looking nearby. "Now, any available replacents?" He spotted an identical glass panel nearby, picked it up, and compared it. The circuit shapes and the size were the sa. "This must be it." He inserted the new one, and the pillar automatically pulled it in and lit up in a light blue glow.
Karl smiled with pride. "Well, I’m a good repairman. For the first ti, I actually fixed sothing." He then instructed Leo. "Now do the sa with the next pillar there." He pointed at the pillar next to it. Leo carefully touched it, and the sa glass panel detached. He pulled it out slowly. "Now try to find and scan nearby for an identical glass panel." Karl added.
After a while of looking, Leo said, "My lord, I can’t seem to find anything identical. Others have larger sizes and different circuit shapes, and others have a thicker width."
Karl exhaled. "That’s fine. We can just seal the 8th floor and leave it for later." Leo nodded. "But bring those two," Karl said, pointing at the error glass panels they had removed. Leo took them. "Now let’s go back so we can finish up here."
Later, after arriving back at the control console, Karl typed a bunch of commands.
-----------------------------------------------------
> replace module --node F-07
ACTION: Module removed and replaced (Engineering Wing).
Status: Node-07 restored to STABLE.
Flow: Normal, ~1,320 NQ allocated.
> remove module --node F-08
ACTION: Distribution module removed.
Advisory: Node-08 sealed permanently.
Status: SEALED
-----------------------------------------------------
He had successfully restored the mana flow on the 7th floor, but sealed the flow on the 8th floor. "Now, I have an idea," Karl said. "Maybe we can connect the dungeon core room on the -4th floor to this place."
"That would be a great idea, my lord," Leo said. "That way, you can control the input and output."
Karl smiled. "Great, let’s do it." Karl then typed the command.
-----------------------------------------------------
> add floor F-04
ACTION: Scanning floor -4 for sub-cores...
Found: Sub-core detected.
Module status: OUTDATED (v5.1 legacy), compatible.
Advisory: Safe to use as SMALL-YIELD collector.
-----------------------------------------------------
Karl’s eyes widened. "Ooohh... it advised us to use the core on the 4th floor as a collector."
"But isn’t it already acting as a collector, my lord?" Leo asked.
"Yeah, I guess it just wants to connect with it. We can use this distribution system as storage and automatic distribution."
"What about the arcstone, my lord?" Leo asked. "Are we going to abort the plans for our own mana distribution network?"
Karl smiled. "Well, I intend to have the similar system of using electricity instead. That’s going to be my goal. We can apply the elents generated by mana to convert it into electricity. For example, we can use a fire stone and water stone as steam generators, or a wind stone in a wind turbine system. We’ll revolutionize the region with electricity and guns. And everything will slowly be in my control. HAHAHAHAHAHAH!"
Leo facepald. Here we go again.
Karl cald down and exhaled. "For now, let’s continue." He typed the command.
------------------------------------------------------
> activate collector --node F-04
Node-04 activated in COLLECTION MODE.
Output: ~121 NQ/day (avg.)
Consumption: ~73 NQ/day (self-sustaining).
-----------------------------------------------------
"And that is it," Karl announced. "Everything should be operational."
"Should we return to the others, my lord?" Leo asked.
"In a mont," Karl replied, "I just want to check one last thing." He typed a command to view the floors below ten.
-----------------------------------------------------
> view nodes 11-20
Node Distribution — Floors 11–20
------------------------------------------------------------
F-11 | Node-11 | OFFLINE (requires reboot: 5000 NQ)
F-12 | Node-12 | OFFLINE (requires reboot: 5000 NQ)
F-13 | Node-13 | OFFLINE (requires reboot: 5000 NQ)
F-14 | Node-14 | OFFLINE (requires reboot: 5000 NQ)
F-15 | Node-15 | OFFLINE (requires reboot: 5000 NQ)
F-16 | Node-16 | INERT (structural collapse)
F-17 | Node-17 | INERT (structural collapse)
F-18 | Node-18 | SEALED
F-19 | Node-19 | SEALED
F-20 | Node-20 | ERROR (no response)
Total available NQ: 10,041
Note: Insufficient reserves to reboot nodes F-11 → F-15.
-----------------------------------------------------
"As I expected," Karl said.
"The floors covered by the distribution networks are quite expansive, my lord," Leo said.
"Yeah, it seems that way. Let’s leave that for later expeditions. I have plans for these lower floors," Karl said, exhaling. "We’re done here. Let’s go and et the others so we can finally go ho. I want to know what happened while we were away."
He then faced Libera, smiling. "I’ll introduce you to the others on the upper floors you haven’t t. You’ll also have to be familiarized with our establishnt."
He then looked at Dullahan and Rook. "Also, you, Dullahan, and Rook will lead my intelligence departnt as well as the future military."
Libera stood up straight and knelt. "I will do my best to serve you, my lord."
Karl nodded. "Then I’ll be looking forward to it."
Reviews
All reviews (0)