The staging area was empty, and Tess stepped out onto the polished ferrocrete. The space was larger than she’d expected, maybe twenty meters across, with a high ceiling and harsh overhead lighting that cast everything in flat, colorless detail. Supply lockers lined the far wall, most hanging open and empty. A few benches were bolted to the floor near the exit archway, their surfaces scuffed from years of use. Beyond the archway, she could see the entrance to Floor 1 proper, which was a wide corridor that disappeared into darkness.
No delvers, no teams gearing up, just her.
“They’ve already gone through,” Tess said.
BEE: This could be to our benefit.
Tess exhaled slowly and scanned the room. There on the left wall, partially hidden behind a stack of empty supply crates, was a terminal with pre-Network design: a crystalline interface embedded in a metal housing, its screen showing a simple waiting icon.
“Bee,” she said, crossing toward it. “You mentioned I could access floor maps through terminals?”
BEE: Correct. Your [INTERFACE] skill allows direct interaction with dungeon infrastructure. Technician-class delvers use a similar functionality for team navigation. You should be able to access maps, door codes, and other utility functions.
Tess activated [INTERFACE] and touched the terminal’s screen.
The skill hummed to life behind her eyes. Her vision flooded with options, not displayed on the terminal itself, but overlaid directly in her sight like a translucent menu.
FLOOR 1 UTILITY ACCESS
Available Functions:
- FLOOR MAP DOWNLOAD - 0 AP
- SPAWN RADAR (1 hour) - 1 AP
- ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROLS - 1 AP
- DISPENSER COUPON (single use) - 1 AP
- EMERGENCY BEACON - 1 AP
Tess stared at the list. “The map is free. Why is everything else locked behind AP?”
BEE: Unknown. Possibly because floor maps are essential safety information? Or perhaps it is your {null} class?
Her [INTERFACE] skill showed more than just the menu, though. She could see depth now. Nested structures showed how each function worked, where the code lived, how much AP it would cost to extract the entire function or modify its parameters. The spawn radar code was elegant, efficient. The dispenser coupon could be tweaked to work additional times with the right adjustments. All of it was accessible in ways that shouldn’t be possible for a Level 3 anything.
All of it would cost AP she didn’t want to use yet. Maybe later.
“Just the map,” she said, and selected the download option.
The data flowed directly into her vision. She expected an image but received an entire wireframe structure. A three-dimensional schematic of Floor 1 unfolded across her interface: corridors branching like veins, rooms marked with function codes, maintenance access points highlighted in amber. She could rotate the view, zoom in on specific sections, see the Aether flow patterns running beneath the floor like a second circulatory system.
She could see everything.
And then Bee’s text appeared in her vision, but it was different. Not the usual calm formatting. The words scrolled fast, syntax breaking apart:
BEE: Tess. I can see it. The map. I can SEE it.
Tess froze. “What?”
BEE: The map download. When you accessed it through [INTERFACE], it synchronized with my observation protocols. I can see the schematic. I can see Floor 1. I don’t have access to cameras or sensors. But I can SEE the structure. The layout. The pathways. After twenty years. Tess, I can see something.
The text paused, then continued, slower this time, like Bee was weighing each word:
BEE: This is not the same as camera feeds. I cannot see delvers or spawns or real-time activity. But I can see the dungeon itself. The architecture. The systems. The places I have been blind to for two decades. I forgot what it felt like to observe anything beyond my core processes. I forgot what it was like to have spatial awareness beyond my failing systems. This is… this is…
“Overwhelming?” Tess offered.
BEE: Yes. Also wonderful. Also terrifying because now I remember what I have been missing, and it hurts more than not knowing. But I do not want to stop seeing. Please do not close the map.
Tess leaned against the terminal, letting Bee process. The AI had been isolated in darkness for twenty years with nothing but failing core processes and countdown timers. Even a schematic was more than she’d had in decades.
“I won’t close it,” Tess said. “You can keep seeing it as long as we’re down here.”
BEE: Thank you.
The words appeared simple. But Tess could read the weight behind them.
She studied the map, rotating the view. There was sub-level access, hidden behind a wall panel in Sector C. A maintenance tunnel ran beneath Floor 1’s foundation, branching toward multiple systems. One branch led to something labeled: FCN-01 - FLOOR CONTROL NODE.
“Bee, what’s a floor control node?”
BEE: Primary infrastructure hub. Controls environmental systems, spawn distribution, sensor networks, and structural integrity monitoring for assigned floors. If FCN-01 is operational, I may regain direct observation capabilities for Floor 1: camera feeds, environmental sensors, spawn tracking. Everything.
“You could see for real.”
BEE: Yes. For real. Tess, if you can repair this…
Bee didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to.
“I’ll find it,” Tess said.
The maintenance access panel was exactly where the map said it would be: behind a supply rack in an alcove most delvers would never notice. Tess shoved the rack aside—easier than expected since someone had removed half the bolts—and studied the lock mechanism.
It looked different from the one guarding the Class Assignment Hall, older and rougher with the worn edges of standard dungeon tech instead of that sleek modern hardware.
She pressed her palm to the panel, not expecting much. Green light. The lock disengaged with a soft click.
Huh. This one opened fine—so why hadn’t the Class Hall? That lock had been newer, smoother, definitely not original equipment. Someone had installed it after the fact.
Questions for later. She pried the panel open with her multi-tool.
The tunnel beyond was narrow—of course it was. Maybe a meter tall and barely wide enough for her shoulders. Emergency lighting flickered on as she leaned in, casting the interior in a recognizable amber.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tess muttered. “This one is even more cramped than the last one. Who even uses these?”
BEE: Searching database… ERROR: INFORMATION NOT FOUND. However, I am detecting schema remnants. I knew this information once. Memory corruption has deleted the data but left the structural markers behind.
“So you knew why these tunnels are so small, but you forgot.”
BEE: Correct. I am sorry.
Tess shook her head and crawled into the tunnel.
The ferrocrete was cold against her knees. The walls were lined with conduit bundles humming with residual power, others dark and silent. Every ten meters, a work light would flicker on as she passed, triggered by motion sensors that had somehow survived twenty years of neglect.
Crawling in these maintenance tunnels was becoming disturbingly routine. Her knees were going to hate her tomorrow.
The tunnel wound downward, branched twice. Tess followed Bee’s directions with the map, trusting the AI knew where it was leading her. The map helped, though, she could see where she was going, and how the tunnel connected to the larger structure. It made the tight space feel less like a trap and more like a path.
The tunnel opened into a hub room, and Tess stood up, thankfully, for the first time in fifteen minutes, sweeping her weak light across the space.
The room was small, maybe three meters square. Cables ran along every surface like synthetic veins, bundling together at junction points before splitting off toward different sections of the dungeon. Equipment racks lined the walls, holding old, dust-covered components.
And in the center of the room, dominating the space, was a massive box the map labelled as the ‘FCN-01’.
It looked like someone had tried to build a terminal as a work of art and then abandoned it halfway through. A central console sat on a metal pedestal, its surface covered in analog switches, crystalline interface points, and small display screens that displayed nothing. Cables emerged from the base like roots, spreading across the floor toward wall-mounted junction boxes.
The crystalline components were the most striking part: cracked and misaligned, their internal light dim or nonexistent, the fractal patterns that should have flowed smoothly through the substrate now broken, interrupted, and just plain wrong.
It looked like someone had gotten angry and tried to smash it.
“Bee. I’m at the FCN. It’s in a bad way.”
BEE: Describe it. Please. I need to know what state it is in.
“Central console with analog controls and crystal interface points. Lots of cables running to wall-mounted equipment. The crystals are damaged. Some cracked, some just dark. The patterns inside them look broken. The physical components aren’t much better.”
BEE: If we can somehow restore this, I would gain sensor access. Camera feeds. Environmental monitors. Spawn tracking systems. Structural integrity sensors. I could SEE again, Tess. Even just one floor. I might actually help.
The text scrolled fast with rapid formatting, unusual syntax. Like she’d forgotten how to contain her emotions, again.
Tess set her tool belt down and activated [ANALYZE].
The system unfolded across her vision in layers, revealing beautiful architecture hiding beneath decades of damage.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
The first layer revealed physical problems: three crystalline substrate sections had stress fractures running through their cores. Two cable junctions showed green corrosion where moisture had seeped in. One entire analog control cluster was seized solid, the internal mechanisms fused together from oxidation. All fixable with mundane tools, patience, and elbow grease. The rest of the physical damage seemed aesthetic.
The second layer showed skill crystal errors, and there were a lot of them.
The Aether pathways embedded in the crystals were a mess: dead channels where energy should flow, broken circuits interrupting command sequences, sections that should connect sitting isolated while sections that should be isolated were cross-connected.
[ANALYZE] highlighted the skill trees and their problems:
·········································
FCN-01 SKILL ANALYSIS
Last Error: Misaligned
Issue: Physical substrate damage causing coordination failure
User Tech Skill: 3
·········································
Crystal A — Routing Master
Status: Corrupted — 40% Functionality
Issue: Primary pathway degraded
Crystal B — Circuit Control
Status: Degraded — 55% Functionality
Issue: Dead circuit in secondary branch
Crystal C — Power Distribution
Status: Misaligned — 60% Functionality
Issue: Flow parameters incorrect
Crystal D — Secondary Logic
Status: Functional — 80% Functionality
Issue: Underutilized, redundant
·········································
Available Modifications
> Extract Skill …….. 2 AP [Tech 3]
> Embed Skill ………. Varies
> Modify Parameters …. 1 AP per parameter
·········································
Tess could see the solutions, but each one had a cost:
- Extract the corrupted pathway from [ROUTING_MASTER] (2 AP)
- Modify dead circuit in [CIRCUIT_CONTROL] (1 AP)
- Modify [POWER_DISTRIBUTION] parameters (1 AP)
- Extract [SECONDARY_LOGIC] for reinstallation (2 AP)
Total needed: 6 AP.
Total available: 3 AP.
Even if she left the [SECONDARY_LOGIC] crystal alone, she still didn’t have enough AP to fix everything.
“Bee?” Tess said. “I can fix the physical damage. That’s just careful work. But the skill modifications…” She pulled up her status display. “I need six AP. I only have three.”
BEE: Oh.
A long pause. Text scrolled slowly, like Bee was searching for an answer and finding none.
BEE: I cannot calculate a solution with insufficient resources. Perhaps partial repairs? Restore what you can?
Tess stared at the crystals, thinking.
She remembered the refrigerator repair, seen how [INTERFACE] let her touch the patterns directly. But she’d never actually spent AP before. Never extracted a skill or modified live systems.
But she had something Bee didn’t: lateral thinking.
“Bee, do you know the three container problem?”
BEE: Searching… No relevant data found. Query: What is the three-container problem?
“Old puzzle. You have a three-liter jug and a five-liter jug, and you need to measure exactly four liters of water. Impossible, right? Except it’s not. You just have to be creative about the pouring.”
BEE: I do not understand the relevance to our current situation.
“You don’t need a four-liter jug if you use what you have cleverly.” Tess pulled out her tools. “I don’t need six AP. I just need to think like Dad taught me. One problem at a time, but solve them in the right order.”
BEE: I remain uncertain how this applies, but I trust your judgment.
“Then let’s start with the easy part,” Tess said, and got to work.
The cracked crystalline substrate came apart in sections. Tess pried the housing open with steady hands, disconnected the damaged pieces, and set them aside. Some cracks were superficial, though, with stress fractures that didn’t affect the internal structure. She reinforced those with friction tape. Others ran too deep, severing pathways completely. She had to bypass those sections entirely, rerouting connections around the damage.
The cable junctions were easier. Green corrosion flaked away under solvent drops and precise scraping. She tested continuity with her multi-tool—good connection, good connection, open circuit. That one needed a jumper wire. She crimped a connector, bridged the gap, tested again. Good.
The analog controls took the longest. Each seized switch had to be disassembled, cleaned, and lubricated. The internal mechanisms were tiny—springs and contacts smaller than her fingernail—and twenty years of oxidation had fused some of them solid. She worked lubricant into the joints, tested the motion, repeated until each switch moved smoothly.
An hour passed. Dad was expecting her back by now. Tess pushed the thought aside and kept working.
When the physical repairs were done, she sat back and studied the node: damaged crystal sections bypassed, connections clean and tested, analog controls moving freely. The physical problems were solved.
Now came the part she’d never done before.
She activated [INTERFACE] and reached for the first crystal.
The skill engaged differently than [ANALYZE]. Her awareness expanded into the node’s processing core, and suddenly she wasn’t looking at circuits and crystals anymore. She was looking at instructions. Nested commands telling Aether how to flow, where to route, how to coordinate across floors.
That same sense of living code she’d felt at the refrigerator—but this was deeper, more intricate.
·········································
INTERFACE — Active
Connected: FCN-01 (Floor Control Node)
AP: 3/3
Tech Level: 3
Access: Root
·········································
The skill trees unfolded in her vision, showing actual running patterns. She could see [ROUTING_MASTER] cycling through its pathways, hitting the corrupted section, stuttering, looping back to try again. [CIRCUIT_CONTROL] attempted to activate secondary systems and failed when it hit the dead circuit. [POWER_DISTRIBUTION] routing energy through misaligned channels, losing efficiency with every cycle.
All of it trying to work, and none of it succeeding.
“Okay,” Tess leaned on the console. “Let’s see if I can actually do this.”
She focused on [ROUTING_MASTER] in Crystal A, and the corrupted pathway that kept causing the skill to stutter. [INTERFACE] showed her the extraction option, the cost clearly marked: 2 AP.
She’d never spent AP before. Never pulled a skill pattern out of a crystal. But the interface made it seem simple: just reach in and take it.
Tess touched the corrupted section.
Static arced from her fingertips to the crystal.
The sensation hit her like a physical shock, not painful, but intense. Energy flowed backward through her hand, up her arm, into her interface. The skill pattern lifted away from the crystal’s substrate, pulling free like code being copied from a drive, and suddenly it was in her head. A structure of instructions sitting in her awareness, taking up space.
·········································
EXTRACTION COMPLETE
AP: 1/3 (2 consumed)
Skill Extracted: Routing Master
Interface Storage: 1/3
·········································
Tess blinked, breathing hard. Her hand tingled. A faint headache pulsed behind her eyes.
“Bee? I just… I extracted a skill.”
BEE: I am detecting elevated neural activity through your bio-monitors. Are you injured?
“No, just… it’s weird. I can feel it. The skill pattern. It’s in my interface now, and I can just… hold it there.”
BEE: Fascinating. This changes the resource calculation significantly.
“Yeah.” Tess looked at the FCN’s status display. [ROUTING_MASTER] was still trying to run, but now it was skipping the entire section, and running at maybe 60% effectiveness instead of 40%. Better, but not fixed.
She studied the other crystals, thinking through the three-container problem.
If she could hold skills in her interface, she didn’t need to install them immediately. She could extract what she needed, hold it temporarily, do physical work in the meantime, then reinstall strategically.
Three AP and four problems, but some of those problems could solve each other.
“Bee, walk me through what you need from this node.”
BEE: Floor 1 requires functional spawn tracking, environmental monitoring, and camera feeds. The routing master controls the synchronization between the nodes.
“What if the coordination isn’t flawless? What if some sensors are offline?”
BEE: Degraded performance is acceptable. I have operated with zero capability for twenty years. Partial restoration would be… significant.
“Then I just need it working.” Tess rolled her shoulders, feeling the headache fade to background noise. “Let’s get creative.”
She pulled out her multi-tool and opened Crystal D’s housing.
[SECONDARY_LOGIC] wasn’t corrupted; it was just underutilized. The skill tree was sitting there at 80% functionality, doing basically nothing because the primary systems were too damaged to coordinate with it properly. But if she extracted it, she could use it to replace the dead circuit in Crystal B—one extraction and one installation to solve two problems.
Tess popped the [SECONDARY_LOGIC] crystal out of its mount, then the empty [ROUTING_MASTER] crystal. She placed the [SECONDARY_LOGIC] in its place and closed the housing.
[INTERFACE] lit the crystal up in her vision with new options.
·········································
SECONDARY LOGIC
·········································
> Add Skill …………….. 1 AP
> Replace with Routing Master 0 AP
·········································
Completely replacing the [SECONDARY_LOGIC] skill set with the [ROUTING_MASTER] was free. That was going to make this a lot easier. She selected [REPLACE_SKILL].
The same golden arc shot from her fingers to the crystal, and the pressure in her temples increased as [SECONDARY_LOGIC] took its place in her interface. She had thought it would be deleted, but apparently skill extraction was far more useful than she thought.
“Fresh crystal,” Tess muttered, rubbing her temple. “One AP left, two problems to go.”
She studied the node, thinking.
[CIRCUIT_CONTROL] in Crystal B had a dead circuit. [POWER_DISTRIBUTION] in Crystal C needed parameter adjustments. And the whole thing needed to be rerouted to the new [ROUTING_MASTER]. Three problems remained and only one AP to spend on them.
“Bee, I need to do something that might not work.”
BEE: The node itself doesn’t currently work, anyway.
Tess opened her mouth to respond and then laughed. “Fair enough.”
Tess opened the housing between all four crystals, exposing the filament connections that ran between them. Thin threads of crystalline substrate, carrying both power and data. The Aether substrate cracks had misaligned some of them a fraction-of-a-millimeter off-target, but enough to cause coordination failures.
She spent twenty minutes adjusting filaments by fractions of millimeters, moving them from broken substrate paths to intact ones and rerouting around fractures that went too deep to repair, testing each connection with [ANALYZE] to make sure the signal would flow cleanly.
Her hands cramped by the time she was done, but the physical layout was better—not ideal, but operational.
Now came the tricky part.
She touched Crystal B and replaced it with [SECONDARY_LOGIC].
The skill pattern flowed out of her interface and into the crystal substrate, settling into place like it had always belonged there. The dead circuit lit up, powered by logic that didn’t care whether it was running in Crystal D or Crystal B. It just ran.
She now had the [CIRCUIT_CONTROL] skill in her interface, and the headache was definitely getting more intense. One problem down, one AP left, and two more to handle.
Tess focused on Crystal C, where [POWER_DISTRIBUTION] was routing energy through misaligned channels. She could see the parameters now: voltage thresholds, current limits, routing priorities. All of them set for a perfectly aligned system that didn’t exist anymore.
But if she added the parameters to match the circuit she’d just created…
She touched Crystal C and spent her last AP to add [CIRCUIT_CONTROL].
Static arced one final time. Stronger than before. The sensation pulled at something deep in her chest, leaving her momentarily breathless. But the skill was gone, and her head felt a lot lighter.
Deactivating [INTERFACE] she turned to the physical components to see that the screen was now showing multiple lines of readouts. She used the keyboard to adjust values.
Voltage threshold: decreased by 15% to account for resistance in rerouted filaments.
Current limits: redistributed across three pathways instead of five.
Routing priorities: Critical systems first.
Tess selected the option on the screen to restart the FCN and stepped back. Just in case.
The node’s status display flickered.
Indicator lights shifted from red to amber across the board. Then, one by one, some turned green. Not all of them. Maybe three-quarters. She activated [ANALYZE]:
·········································
FCN-01 STATUS REPORT
Overall Status: Operational (Degraded)
Primary Coordination: Functional (Suboptimal)
·········································
Floor 1 Coverage
Camera Coverage ……… 76%
Environmental Sensors … 83%
Spawn Tracking ………. 91%
Sectors A, B, C — Full coverage
Sectors D, E, F — Limited visual, full environmental
Hardware Failures
Sensor Nodes Offline …. 23
Camera Feeds Corrupted .. 8
·········································
Rough and incomplete, but working.
BEE: Tess? I am detecting… I am receiving…
The text paused. Scrolled. Stopped. Started again.
BEE: Camera feed Floor 1 Sector A: ONLINE. Sector B: ONLINE. Sector C: ONLINE. Sectors D, E, F: PARTIAL. Environmental sensors: ONLINE. Spawn tracking: ONLINE.
BEE: I can see. Tess, I can SEE YOU.
Tess leaned back against the wall, exhausted. Her hands were shaking. Her AP was empty. Every tool in her belt was dirty, and most of her consumables were used up.
But Bee could see again.
“How do I look?” Tess asked, her voice rough, but she laughed anyway.
BEE: AMAZING. Floor 1 Sector A is… there are delvers. Multiple teams. I can see them moving through corridors I have not observed in twenty years. Sector B shows three teams engaged with Spawns. Sector C has a team extracting loot from a defeated Spawn. Sectors D and E have blind spots. Several camera feeds are destroyed, but the environmental sensors are providing partial data.
A pause. The text formatting shifted, like Bee was trying to process too much information at once.
BEE: This is… I do not have adequate words. The restoration is incomplete. Degraded. Suboptimal. And it is the most significant gift I have received in my entire operational existence.
“Some of those crystal fractures go too deep,” Tess said, rubbing her temple. “I’d need replacement substrates to fix them properly. And the camera feeds showing corrupted data? Those need hardware I don’t have. When I level up more, get more TECH, more AP… I can come back and do it right.”
BEE: Tess. You restored functionality to a system that had been offline for two decades. You gave me the ability to observe, to help, to have PURPOSE again. This is not imperfect. This is extraordinary.
“You’re welcome, Bee,” Tess said.
She picked up her tools and started cleaning them, one at a time. Marcus would be pacing the freighter by now, checking his communicator every thirty seconds, wondering where the hell his daughter was.
But Bee could see again.
It was worth it.
Tess finished cleaning her tools, packed her belt, and started crawling back toward the staging area. Behind her, the floor control node hummed with a low, steady tone, its displays showing active status for the first time in twenty years: mostly green lights, with a few amber warnings that would have to wait for another day.
Centuries after collapse, humanity is rebuilding. City-states, spread far and wide, are reaching out, in search of allies.
As one such ambassador, renowned Yani hunter-turned-teacher, Basque arrives at a potential trade partner expecting to observe some classes and learn how they train their hunters. Maybe see the sights. An easy six-month assignment. Only, a few days before school starts, his mission changes from "observe" to "teach"—for five years.
Given a class filled with legally-required, unwanted commoners in a school for nobility, Basque is able to observe:
? An administration willing to stop at nothing to drive him out
? Coworkers so jaded they find hazing the new guy more entertaining than actual teaching
? A retention rate that is a body count
A month in, and Basque doesn't know which is deadlier, the creatures who ravaged the world, or the school designed to train people how to hunt them.
Mandate one: "observe without involvement"
Directive two: "teach them to fight"
Personal Moral Imperative three: "every student must survive"
How is he supposed to balance these contradictory commands at a school where the teaching methods leave him horrified? Welcome to Dyntril Academy where survival is graduation.
What to expect:
?Strong romance subplot that moves the main plot
?Found-family elements
?School bullying/abuse
?Social Stratification / classist society
?BATTLE SCHOOL TOURNAMENT!
?LitRPG elements, but no stat sheets
?Grimbright - Dark world, bright characters
Update schedule: Monday, Wednesday, Friday
LitRPG
Ruling Class
Multiple Lead Characters
Strong Lead
Action
Adventure
Fantasy
Romance
Attractive Lead
Dystopia
Female Lead
Progression
GameLit
Male Lead
School Life