Chapter 176

Chapter 176

Minkalla didnt try to restrict their flight as they descended into the hole, and Matt was grateful for it. The last hole they found had a no flying restriction and spikes at the bottom, after all. Still as they descended they stayed near the wall just in case they needed to grab on in a hurry.

The hole did send a mass of nearly invisible bats at them like a swarm of locusts, but Matt easily took care of them with [Flamethrower] and [Fire Manipulation]. The Genesis Energy he got was a pittance, but it seemed to be more of a check of their ability to sense the monsters rather than a concentrated attack from the hostile planet.

When they reached the bottom of the hole, they found a pair of pyramids on the ceiling and floor, like a pair of stalactites and stalagmites. The tips of the pyramids seemed connected by two hands of Genesis Energy that gripped each other as if one of them was preventing the other from falling. The reason why became apparent as the top pyramid started to draw them in, with gravity warping and inverting before placing them at the foot of the pyramid.

As they came to a halt, Matt found that his flight ability was completely locked down once again.

Liz sighed over their AI comms. Well, we arent flying out of this place. Let's see what this cavern looks like. Aster, youre with Matt let's circle the pyramid and see what we can find. Hopefully, some other way out.

Aster scampered into Matts shoulder and laid herself down, facing away from the pyramid and the empty space to their left. Without their eyes working because of the floor restriction, it didnt matter how she situated herself, but they had trained with her keeping her attention on their perimeter, and that was an easy habit to fall into.

The trip around the pyramid told them exactly nothing. There were no entrances, and nothing that seemed to be interactable along its edge. All they could sense in the surroundings were the flat rocks that made up the cavern's ceiling, so they just moved along without stopping.

Once they completed their half of the trip, they waited about two minutes for Liz and Susanne to make their way around the corner.

When they did, the four of them reconnected with their AI, and Aster was able to ask, What did you guys find?

Liz, who just stepped into range of his spiritual perception, stopped at the corner and said, The entrance. Or what we believe is the entrance.

Matt jogged over and followed them to where he could see a black, seemingly endless hole in the bottom of the large stone that made up the pyramid.

It felt ominous and wrong somehow, but he couldnt put a finger on exactly what the problem was. Minkalla was keeping him from looking beyond the surface, but that only indicated that it was hiding something. Something he wasn't eager to find with his face.

Susanne asked, You feel it as well, right?

Matt and Aster nodded in unison. Yes, and I don't like it. Do we try to bypass it?

Liz looked from the hole and back to Matt. If we could. Go ahead and try to climb the stone.

Aster remained in place as he walked over the ten-foot-tall brick of stone, and in a small leap, jumped to the top of the first layer.

Except when his feet landed, they were on the ground once again.

Matt looked to Aster, and while he couldn't feel it, he could see her snuggle deeper into his neck. That had been unsettling.

He had felt himself jump, but when his feet had been about to touch the stone, reality had warped around them so subtly, they hadnt noticed it initially, and it sent them back to their original position.

Ok, so climbing is out of the question. I don't like this door. Were clearly in a puzzle area, which means stepping into this first entrance would be suicide.

Liz tapped her foot, but Susanne spoke up. First rule of puzzles in Minkalla is that our AIs will either be shut down or ineffective at solving said puzzles, if theyre even allowed. Since our AI still work as much as they ever do, it's either not a puzzle, or our AI won't help.

Aster offered up her idea, What if we do a lap together?

They all agreed, but before they left, they stacked a series of stones to indicate where the entrance was. This place was already warping space, so having a marker wouldnt hurt.

What they found as they made another lap around the pyramid was disconcerting. Where Matt had found nothing on his first walkaround, they now encountered a new entrance. Their little pile of stones was also noticeably absent.

The entrance, while blocked off from this spiritual perception, was noticeably less dangerous than the last one, but all of them agreed that it was still noticeably off.

When they returned to the spot where Lizs and Susannes entrance should have been, they once again found nothing but bare walls. No stacking of stones, and no entrance.

Matt paused and looked around for a long second.

He had realized something on his trip around the pyramid, and he didnt like the implications.

Wanting to be proved wrong, he asked Susanne, When did we get married?

As he asked, he projected the thought, Right before we came to Minkalla, in case something went wrong.

It was something he and Liz had considered, but discarded. They wanted a proper wedding with all their friends in attendance. That wasnt even considering her parents, nor the fact that they would want to be there. But they were incredibly busy due to Emperor Emmanuel's absence. As the Empires only two Tier 48s, they were his second in command, and had their plates full with his attending of Sword Saint Hastor's and Dicomatys Ascensions.

Dicomaty had ascended not long ago, and last he heard, they were just arriving at the Clans capital, but Sword Saint Hastor still hadn't completed his ascension yet.

Susanne, as he expected, said what he feared. Are you ok, honey? We got married right before we entered here.

Hearing that, Matt crushed the talisman he had in his fist and summoned his sword, just as ice appeared around him and Aster.

He seemed to take the fake Liz and Susanne off guard, because his sword and Aster's icicles took each of the fakes in the chest.

A wash of Genesis Energy hit him and Aster, and he sighed, looking at his friends' mutilated corpses. Or at least, the copies that Minkalla had created.

It took returning to Liz and Susanne's location for him to realize the issue. If walking around the pyramid brought you to a new location each time you turned a corner, he should have never met up with Liz and Susanne.

Either the rules hadnt happened to work for them, as they were separated, or the two of them were illusions. Thankfully, Minkalla couldnt read the past and didnt even try, so simple tricks like projecting thoughts about one falsehood was usually enough to expose its lies. It was worrying that Minkalla could so flawlessly act as his friends, complete with their AIs. But if it was from the higher realms, even the most secure messages would be like childs play to intercept.

The fake duo vanished in a second now that he had taken the Genesis Energy from them, leaving two-quarter circles of stone in their places.

Aster whined as he picked up the drops. That was scary. Can we go back to where we were?

Matt nodded, and at his fastest boosted speed, sprinted around the pyramid to their original landing spot. He was reassured by the fact that he encountered both false entrances and a stack of stones along his way.

When he and Aster returned to where they split, they ended up waiting for nearly half an hour before Liz and Susanne came around the corner.

Matt readed his sword and cast his strongest [Bulwark], keeping his mind as blank as possible as he demanded through their now established AI connection, Report?

Liz and Susanne both handed their weapons at the ready, which comforted him, and even though Aster kept her summoned ice at the ready, they were both fairly sure that these were the originals.

Encountered false yous that tried to lead us on a trip around the pyramid, which was creating new sides or something.

Matt hunkered down as he asked, Did you get anything from the false copies? Two-quarters of a square?

Lizs answer reassured him slightly. Half of a circle. When did you buy me the ring on your finger?

Matt smiled as he answered the trick question. We earned it together.

Their paired teleporting rings werent in fact earned by the both of them; he had earned them himself. But if Minkalla was creating copies, the lie would hopefully be easily noticed.

A double lie about their rings was one of their preset answers that they had established before they entered Minkalla.

Liz didnt approach at his lie and asked, What city did we meet at?

This time Matt told the truth. A training planet hardly counts as a city.

Liz lowered her weapon and approached cautiously. What is your favorite ice cream.

Aster answered this one. Right now bananas and strawberries. No actually that was last week. Right now I really want some apple fritters ice cream. Mmm that sounds good did I pack any of that away? Oh, of course I did!

Liz was reassured at the rambling answer and approached.

Dropping his guard, he and Aster met up with the real duo. Now that Minkalla had started to make copies, they would need to do this testing any time they left each other's spiritual perception.

Putting together their quarters of the stone circle, the pieces clicked into place as they neared each other, then released a small pulse of energy. The wave revealed an entrance right on the face of the pyramid, mere feet from where they landed.

This entrance didnt have the signature Minkalla veil over its depths, and they could clearly see a chamber room inside the gloom of the pyramid. At least, as clearly as the Eternal Darkness would allow for.

Matt took the lead and was ready for any traps, but they found none.

As they entered the interior of the pyramid, the stone circle fell apart and crumbled into dust before vanishing.

The room around them was cluttered like a pack rat's storage house, but there were three stone pillars standing in a triangle in the center of the room.

None of them moved, and were careful to avoid touching anything.

Matt reviewed his AI downloaded list of traps and puzzles, but found nothing similar to particular room they were in.

The fact that the lists didnt have any leads to pull from wasnt very surprising, in and of itself. Minkalla seemed to have an endless list of puzzles to pull from, and it was rare for anyone to encounter a puzzle they previously were aware of. Even if they found one they recognized, it was all but assured that the planet would stop their AI from solving it.

Matt stepped through the room and made a lap around the pillars.

There were no distinctive markings on any of them, and they seemed as identical as any rift-made item. The problem was that the Eternal Darkness floor theme rendered them totally blind. Even with their spiritual perception, they didnt have color sensitivity. The room's challenge could be as easy as finding the items in the clutter that matched the pillar's color, but they couldnt know that with their limited perception.

Still, that was a big if. Minkalla never had an impossible puzzle, even accounting for floor themes, but that didnt mean it wouldn't make the puzzle a million times harder.

It took them two and a half hours until they fished through each and every piece of clutter on the ground to find the matching junk that each pillar wanted.

When they finished, Matt was sure that the room had been a color puzzle. The Genesis Energy they received as a reward was quite a bit more than they had earned from killing any single monster besides the queen ant and giant monkey.

Still, they estimated that they were doing well in their collection of Genesis Energy, considering that they had only been on the planet for less than a week. Most people took months to complete a single floor, after all, though Pathers were expected to take less time. But a floor in this context meant the three sublayers that comprised each true floor.

Finally, after they solved a complicated puzzle room where they needed to direct a flow of water to a reservoir through a series of broken and blocked pipes, they were given an exit to the top of the pyramid.

They hadnt been able to see it from the ground, but along the top, near the peak of the pyramid where the two hands seemed to clasp each other, there was a little ledge for them to stand on.

Liz pulled out a mana stone, and before it was drained by Minkalla, she tossed it into the clasping hands. Once it passed the point where they met, instead of falling back to the ground at their feet, it fell onto the pyramid above them.

Gravity had righted itself on the other side of the pyramid, it seemed.

As the others discussed the best way to cross the plane of changing gravity with no ability to fly by either item or Concept, Matt was focused on the hands.

Even with just his spiritual perception, they seemed too real.

When they had been at the bottom of the pyramid, the hands looked as if they were made from Genesis Energy, and served as a connection.

Matt got a feeling these hands, or rather the gloves, were the real reward of the pyramid, more so than the Genesis Energy they earned.

Interjecting, he said, I think the gloves are the final puzzle, and if we complete said puzzle, we get the gloves.

That caused the three of them to pause.

Aster spoke first, That seems probable enough, but how do we get them? My Concept cant grab them at all.

Liz asked, Should I test it with blood?

Matt and Susanne easily agreed that it was worth a shot, but they found that Liz was entirely unable to get her blood to approach them. It was like she was trying to push two magnets of the same polarity together.

No matter how hard she pushed, they refused to touch.

Except, it was worse for her blood; it was unable to get closer than within five feet of the gloves.

Susanne tried next with her manifested sword, but even its non-physical self could approach the gloves any closer than Liz. Her spatial abilities got it two feet closer, but that was all.

Aster tried to use ice to encase the gloves, but her ice just shattered as she tried to approach.

Matt went through all his manipulation skills to the same result, and eventually, they decided it was better to just move on.

They secured a rope to the stone pyramid before tossing it up and through the plane of gravity change, where it fell down and kept itself pulled up from their perspective.

Liz tried to grab the gloves, but while her physical body could get closer, she was still repulsed by a few inches.

Matt went next, and paused between the gravity changes that let him hover with only an arm wrapped around the rope to anchor him.

His gut told him that there was a way to take the gloves, and he wanted them.

If his suspicion was correct, this was their reward, and they just needed to figure out how to take it.

When he got close, he could feel the Genesis Energy flowing from the pyramid they had exited and the one above him.

The flows of energy felt distinctly different. The one from the pyramid they had solved felt somehow completed.

It didnt take a genius to suspect that they were supposed to enter the other pyramid, complete all of its puzzles, and then return here.

That would have been the normal and acceptable answer, but Matt refused to spend another three days doing inane puzzles for the gloves.

On a hunch, he sent a little Genesis Energy into the gloves, but instead of being absorbed as he expected, it was just eaten by Minkalla.

Next, Matt tried mana to the same effect.

Cursing, he tried to reach the gloves once more, but he found that he was still repulsed.

Sighing, he climbed down the rope and let Susanne and Aster make their own attempts, but neither had any success.

The problem they found was that the door that had let them out on the previous pyramid was entirely absent on this pyramid, and they would need to climb down the second pyramid's outer steps to reach the bottom.

Liz looked up at the gloves but shook her head. I don't think it's worth going through the pyramid again. We need to move deeper.

Matt fully agreed.

He was about to step down and follow the others when he turned around and grabbed the rope.

Leaving the gloves was against everything he knew about Minkalla, and he asked, Give me five more minutes to do some tests.

He climbed the rope to reach an equilibrium and spread his spiritual sense in a tight net around the gloves, but found nothing new.

Matt locked down space, and while it didnt let him fly, it gave him a bit of leverage, and he was able to get within inches of the gloves.

As he strained to edge closer, he felt a repulsive force trying to shove him back, and he growled into the silence that Eternal Darkness put over him.

As Matt neared, he felt that there was a challenge he was supposed to overcome, and the very world around him started to warp as he broke the rules of the test.

Seeing that, Matt knew there was an answer, and used his Concepts repulsive effect to counter the power around the gloves.

Doing that set something off with the defenses, and they grew a dozen times stronger, but with Matts own repulsive power, he was able to get within an inch of the gloves.

At that point, he was at an impasse. He was giving everything he had, but Minkalla was pushing back just as hard.

Minkalla wasnt going to make it easy for him to cheat.

But he was so close.

I won't give up.

Matt narrowed his useless eyes and flexed with everything he had, both magically and physically, trying to push past the restrictions.

While locked in an intimate struggle with the planets restrictions, he was able to get a better feel for the forces at work that prevented his progress. With every centimeter of ground gained, he could sense that there was a way to get the gloves.

The first and most obvious was to complete both pyramids, but there was a second, hidden condition. What that condition was, he didnt know, but he could feel that it existed.

That knowledge was more than enough to spur him on.

Liz, Aster, and Susanne couldnt return to the top step, but they were able to send their Concepts to help him.

That actually made the restrictions stronger, and his fingers that were only an inch away were pushed to a foot away.

Through gritted teeth, he sent them a message to stop.

With their interference removed, the resistance he encountered lessened, and slowly, his fingers neared the gloves once again.

Whether it was the puzzle itself or Minkalla as a whole, Matt didnt know. But slowly, ever so slowly, he pushed through the restriction as he refused to give up.

I am Endless. I will not give up.

As Matt embodied his Concept, his fingers neared the gloves. He could feel that he was cheating in some way, and whatever mechanism Minkalla was using to make sure its puzzles were challenging was resisting his attempt.

At first, Matt thought that he was overpowering the restriction, but that was a bit too egotistical, even for his own private thoughts.

Minkalla was a place where even Tier 50s were rebuffed. His little Tier 11 power meant nothing in the face of Intents and Aspects, but he felt that something was making way for him.

It almost felt like Minkalla wanted to test him, but didnt necessarily care how he was tested.

Digging deeper, his fingers crept forward, and the strain on his spirit and willpower started to force his consciousness to slip. Feeling himself fading, and still acutely aware that he was literally holding on to his spot in the equilibrium zone by a thread and could easily fall. He dug deeper pushing past his limits until he finally touched the gloves where they clasped hands.

Just like that, the resistance was broken, and Matt started swinging back and forth on the rope wildly. That stalemate lasted for an instant before the restriction of flight and the gravity shenanigans vanished.

It also meant the giant pyramid that was on the ceiling was now affected by normal gravity, and started to fall.

On top of them.

The four of them were powerful for their Tier, with quick reactions to match. Matts most of all, with all his stats boosted by his channels. He cranked his speed-enhancing buffs as high as they would go and grabbed Liz, using his Concept to fly the two of them in the wake of Queens space bending to clear the falling debris.

They cleared the danger area easily and floated together near the ceiling, but not so close that anything could easily drop down and grab them.

Liz looked at the pair of gloves in Matts hand and chuckled. Well, you got them alright. Are they worth it?

Matt didnt know, but he wanted to find out.