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  Hall of Reflection

  I fidgeted in place as the energy from the prowler’s core crawled up the roots of the cinderwing tree. The extraction finished quicker than I thought.

  Extraction successful.

  Merging Cut (Common) and Storm Cutter (Common)...

  New ability [Flame Cutter] learned!

  Flame Cutter (Common): Your cinderwing condenses its heat and fires a wave of cutting fire from its wings. Damage scales with arcane.

  I breathed out. ‘Lucky me.’ I wasn’t sure how low that ‘low’ really was, but I wouldn’t question it.

  Two spherical indentations appeared in the trunk of the cinderwing tree like an invisible orb had been engraved into the bark. Hovering my hand over the spheres showed me the relevant skill. Agility at the bottom, flame cutter at the top. I could swap them. Not sure what the use of that was, so I kept it how it was originally.

  The egg was finally identifiable.

  [Cinderwing Harpy Egg]

  Already, its egg had grown to twice the size of the cinderwing chicks. From the trembling going on inside, it’d hatch any moment now.

  The garden faded around me as my mind pulled back into the real world. Jake was still unconscious. Ray was meditating. Judith was staring out of the cave entrance, looking north.

  ‘One week…’

  My hand moved into my pouch and touched the inheritance map. It’d be cutting it very close if just about anything went wrong on the way towards the range. But hadn’t my luck held up until now?

  I got to my feet. “There’s a dungeon I want to check out.”

  Judith glanced back, her gaze still far. “Are you sure? We’ll leave when Jake recovers.”

  “Yes. I’ll catch up with you or reach the gate myself.”

  Ray exited meditation. From his expression, he doubted either would be the case, but he wished me good luck.

  I donned my robe. It was still wet, but the enchantments and my extra vitality would do their job.

  Prowlers screeched, their cries joined by those of other animals and even ones I thought sounded vaguely human.

  Making my way down the mountain and travelling near the base was easier than scaling the mountain sideways. The trees also offered cover.

  ‘The dungeon entrance should be nearby.’

  More than one cavity in the rock face peeked out of the snowfall. I would’ve liked to search every entrance. But most were dead ends and others had multiple pathways, so I let the essence density in the air guide me; dungeons radiated essence. Not always. Sometimes the system changed it up to make them harder to find, but I didn’t expect such from a common dungeon.

  After entering what must’ve been my tenth cave with potential, my breath hitched. The essence was so thick it clogged my nose.

  A strangely sweet smell—reminiscent of steamed buns—came from further inside the dark cave. It was faint. Like the source had vanished years ago but remnants of the taste remained in the air.

  My hands painted on the world. One of the chicks shot out.

  “Scout ahead.”

  She took off deeper into the cave. The low light was enough for her sharper-than-human eyes and she didn’t cry out to reveal enemies.

  Going inside myself, I strode past a variety of herbs.

  [Calmdew herb (F) - Common]

  [Redroot Ginseng (F) - Common]

  [Chillroot Sap (F) - Common]

  …

  They first sprouted from the floor. Over the course of around an hour, they began to grow every inch of the walls and ceiling.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  My chick’s flapping wings drew closer. I found her hovering beside a wooden door. No footprints had disturbed the path, so no one had come here in quite some time. Despite that, the door was in pristine condition.

  Identifying it didn’t reveal anything. I knew it to be a dungeon entrance once I touched it.

  Dungeon [Beast Cavern] discovered!

  …

  Requirements for optional Challenge Dungeon: Must be below level 10. Must have a spirit beast. Must meet Bloodline criteria.

  All requirements met!

  Warning: Challenge Dungeons can only be entered alone.

  Would you like to upgrade dungeon [Beast Cavern] into Challenge Dungeon [Hall of Reflection]? [Y/N]

  A dungeon upgrade…How lucky was I today? Not many dungeons had them. But even luckier was that I met the requirements. Yet as I scanned the list of prerequisites, my brows rose.

  ‘Bloodline requirement?’

  …truly? My heart raced as the ramifications of that requirement settled in. So soon…I’d expected—I don’t know. A struggle or valiant battle? Or maybe nothing. But here it was: my heritage. Standing in front of me.

  My forehead scrunched. Challenge dungeons were much harder than their regular counterparts. The system was all for hand-me-downs, but it wasn’t one to give out a free lunch. The challenge would scale with whatever was inside.

  And that meant a serious chance at death.

  …

  I exhaled. It wasn’t a choice, really.

  Dungeon upgraded!

  Enter [Hall of Reflection]? [Y/N]

  A final check on my gear. All there.

  ‘Let’s do this, then.’

  My hand lingered over the door. The cold touch of hesitation and anticipation locked around my wrist…What if I discovered something I didn’t want to? What if…I forced myself to turn the doorknob. My vision shifted the moment the entrance opened.

  The girl leisurely strolled along the mountain and scouted the multiple entrances. She was undoubtedly searching for a dungeon. If Shivan struck, he could wrench the token from her corpse and enter it himself.

  Black whimpered at his side. The marks from Shivan dragging the leopard through the snow trailed behind them, the cat’s face the biggest imprint in the snow. Essence whirled inside the beast like the spirit was a newborn babe still getting used to the mystical energy.

  The bond between spirit and cultivator was more than spiritual—it was a physical connection that could let two beings share pieces of their soul.

  So whose sweat was it that was dripping down Shivan’s neck?

  ‘She’s level 3,’ he reminded himself.

  He was level six. So was Black. There should be nothing to fear…

  But Black could see it, and so could Shivan. A haze. An aura that hung around the girl. It wasn’t the regular air of a higher realm cultivator, whose spiritual pressure bore down on a junior’s shoulders like a mountain. This was something far more intangible. Something that induced within him an emotion more primordial than fear. His chest contracted and expanded heavily.

  He should run, his subconscious told him. Why was he still hiding within the treeline?

  His tongue wet his lips.

  ‘The greatest opportunity to enslave a drake is when it’s still an infant.’

  Had Erri read his thoughts on his face, she would’ve struck him down on the spot. But the statement remained true.

  So Shivan forced himself forwards. His growing determination slipped through his bond into Black, and the leopard managed to lift his nose from the ground.

  Shivan posted near the entrance to the tunnel. When she exited, he’d be ready.

  Challenge Dungeon [Hall of Reflection] entered!

  Objective: Witness the Eve of Communion.

  The world went black. When I opened my eyes again, I was lying down inside a hallway. A long hallway.

  I pushed myself to my feet. Soft light filtered through the mosaics throughout the walls. Peering past the depiction in the glass wasn’t possible, but I got the sense I was in a place high up.

  Scanning the room for threats revealed nothing, neither was there an entrance behind me or at the end of the room.

  I frowned and turned to the system objective.

  “Witness the Eve of Communion…”

  My head turned to the mosaic closest to me. A tree looking suspiciously like the cindertree grew from a plateau of rock overseeing a barren valley. Hundreds of flaming creatures poured from the canopy of the massive tree. They charged down the slope of the valley and barrelled into a horde of creatures which lacked the fire aspect. These creatures were bigger and stronger than the first. Some could even be seen as the evolutions of the spawn from the tree.

  ‘Flaming creatures pouring forth from a tree…’

  Was this truly an inheritance of my past, then? A muscle pulled in my chest. I’d fought with the idea of never finding any evidence of where I came from for years. To have it tossed in my face so suddenly…

  Breathing growing softer and more controlled, the whole of my attention poured into the mosaics, which rose in a dome over my head. My stare grew deeper, and to my mind, the images began to move, sucking my consciousness into them.

  Embers scattered through the air to the sound of searing leaves and cries. The horde of flaming creatures crashed against the vanguard of their enemy. Claws and talons rent flesh. Breaths of fire scorched fur and skin. Dozens of monsters died in seconds. But for each flaming beast which died, another sprouted from the canopy of the great tree, replacing the lost. Slowly but surely, the horde of enemy creatures was pushed back.

  I stalked forwards through the hallway.

  The enemies dragged their dead with them behind their lines whenever they could, the motive of which became clear. Where the fiery spawn of the tree had pushed back the wave of monsters completely, roots burrowed out of the earth and swallowed the bodies that’d been left behind. Then the spawn of the tree changed. Its fruits grew. Morphed. Evolved. Some became more like the creatures the tree had absorbed. Others grew into other variations entirely.

  In the next mural, wyverns flew whose flapping wings conjured storms, feline creatures—whose roars shattered the land—pounced, and shelled reptilians with shells big enough to hold cities flattened the disgusting, flaming creatures below them with a single footfall.

  None could stop the tree’s onslaught. The army of spawn charged forth, devouring the titanic, singular entities through sheer numbers. What was left was a field of cinders and ash. A wasteland that contained no life except for those that were conjured.

  My steps carried me to the end of the hallway. The last mosaic took up the entirety of the wall. A woman in black and red robes, like the one I wore now, held the butt of a spear going through the head of a dragon. Charred crimson scales covered her cheeks, a set of flaming wings protruded from her back. Behind her, the figure of a dragon-like spawn loomed, its teeth dripping with the blood of the dead dragon.

  Of everything about the image, I was drawn to the woman’s hair. It was lava-orange, the same as my own.

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