[Book 1 Completed] Industrial Mage: Modernizing a Magical World [Kingdom Building LitRPG]
B2 | Chapter 47 – An Old Enemy Makes an Appearence

Your race, [Human], has leveled up – Lvl 17 > Lvl 18!

[Elemental Mastery] has leveled up! – Lvl 6 > Lvl 8!

[Healing Touch] has leveled up! – Lvl 12 > Lvl 13!

[Mana Bolt] has leveled up! – Lvl 8 > Lvl 9!

[Mana Shield] has leveled up! – Lvl 18 > Lvl 20!

[Mana Control] has leveled up! – Lvl 11 > Lvl 13!

[Mana Convergence] has leveled up! – Lvl 4 > Lvl 5!

Theodore whistled when he got to his room that night, for he had gained a lot of levels in a single fight. I'm gonna have to bother Freya with more spars in that case. Because if he'd be gaining skills that fast, he wouldn't mind more spars, and the barbarian woman seemed keen on doing that anyway.

The next day, Theodore got to finalizing the bathhouse. Finally, the bathhouse sketches were finalized and completed. Theodore studied the clean lines he had drawn for piping systems and showerheads and the other important things, leaning back in his chair and rolling his shoulders. Now everything else was in its proper place. All they would need to do was have the hardware manufactured, and they'd be good to go. And more specifically, he needed to contract a guild.

He carefully arranged the sketches before tucking them into his binder. Couldn't have them getting wrinkled or lost. Not with all that effort. But now came the real issue. The mana stone.

Theodore pulled it out of his pocket, turning the smooth crystal over in his palm. He had been delaying the inevitable for hours on end, coming up with one excuse after another.

The thing was, you really didn't want to fuck around with random mana stones. Not ones you'd taken from dead monsters, in particular. He had no means of knowing if this object was contaminated in any manner. Could scramble his brain, poison his mana channels, or worse.

After all, Derrick had always taught him that the real risk came from making the initial connection. Once you opened that link, you were committed—there was no halfway measure with mana stones. The moment his mana touched the crystal's pathways, he'd be exposed to whatever was inside. After that point, it wouldn't matter whether he accepted any skills or abilities it might contain.

The damage, if there was any, would already be done.

So there was definitely some danger in doing this, but he was also confident in his [Psionic Resistance] now and had a lot of control over mana, and he could keep himself safe. Not to mention he could just turn to slime for safety if need be. Most of all, he was curious. That slime had used some kind of cloning skill, and if this stone contained that ability...

Theodore let out a sigh. There was no reason to delay any longer.

He made a tentative connection with the stone by pressing his mana into it as he closed his eyes. Strangely, the connection came together nearly instantly. It usually required more work than that.

Even weirder, he could suddenly sense mana pathways inside the crystal he couldn't before, no matter how much he tried to sense them. It appeared as though the structure of the stone had been etched with elaborate channels. He followed the flow, pushing his mana through them.

And then everything changed.

He was seated in his chair one moment, and next he was hovering far above what appeared to be a huge maze. The maze was so intricate that it was painful to look at, with the walls extending in all directions.

The view was disorienting. Like looking down from a giant's height at an ant farm.

What the hell?

"I'm pretty sure you've panicked by now."

Theodore almost suffered whiplash from the speed at which he spun around. Or at least attempted to. He was not entirely certain that he had a body here.

As if it were the most normal thing in the world, she was floating there. Lyra. The succubus. Night Whispers' leader and a general pain in his ass.

"Calm down," she said, waving a hand dismissively. "I'm not actually here. This is a mere recording."

Reaching for his mana was Theodore's first instinct. The fight-or-flight response was kicking in hard. But when he tried to access his power, he got nothing. Where his mana should be, there was only a chilly, empty sensation.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

"How do you like my gift?" Lyra asked with a coy grin spreading across her face, "When I found out you'd be there, I decided to add some fun. The slime wouldn't have been able to get such a skill otherwise. I hope you like this skill, Theodore."

She pointed to the maze that lay below them.

"Consider it a gift. We don't have to be enemies… as you know. Just find a way through the labyrinth. Guide yourself through the right path and reach the prize."

She cocked her head, her greedy eyes examining him. Even in whatever magical recording this was, her stare felt uncomfortably genuine, even though he knew it was only a recording. It was all tense and uncomfortable.

"You know, Theodore, I do miss our little chats," she sighed, drifting closer through the space. "But that pesky little skill of yours makes things so... complicated now."

She clicked her tongue in annoyance.

"Can't just slip into that delicious mind of yours anymore. Such a shame." Her lips curved into a pout that was probably meant to look innocent but came across as anything but. "I used to enjoy exploring all those fascinating little thoughts you tried so hard to hide."

Theodore's skin crawled when he heard her say it.

Theodore wanted to speak, but in this space he had no mouth to do so.

"But don't worry. I've found other ways to... interact with you. This labyrinth, for instance. Every wrong turn you take, every moment of frustration—I designed it all with you in mind."

She laughed, the sound like silver bells wrapped in velvet.

And then she was gone just like that, vanishing into thin air like she'd never been there at all.

A moment passed while Theodore floated there, trying to take in what had just happened.

So she was the one who'd sent Rufus to Westford? To fatten up the slime? But why? What was the point of giving the slime a cloning skill in the first place? And why give Theodore the mana stone afterward?

More importantly, how the hell had she managed to stuff a skill into a mana stone? That wasn't supposed to be possible. Skills were personal things. Part of your class, your identity. You couldn't just transfer them around like trading cards.

Who the fuck was she, really?

Theodore scowled as he attempted to interpret everything. The whole situation stank of manipulation. Lyra didn't do anything without a reason. She usually had a motive. Multiple reasons, too. She was the type to have plans within plans within plans.

But the world changed around him before he had a chance to consider it further.

Abruptly, the floating perspective disappeared, and he found himself inside the actual labyrinth. On either side, stone walls rose. Under his feet was polished marble that had weathered with time.

And he had access to mana again.

He let out a sigh. Well, there's no need to just stand there. He would have to play Lyra's game if this was the only way to get the skill.

Where to go, though?

He glanced to his left, then to his right. Both sections extended into the darkness. There were no clear indications of which direction was correct. Typical. He got a general sense of direction by looking about when [Arcane Awareness] was active. After all, if the skill had to be somewhere, it would definitely be the huge as fuck mana eruption he was seeing in the distance.

With that, Theodore began to move.

The following few hours were a haze of retracing, dead ends, and false turns. The maze was enormous, much larger than it had appeared from above. Every way appeared to be the same as the last, and each corridor seemed to lead to three more. Theodore could've probably just flown up or blasted his way through, but he was bored enough to give normal maze traversing a try.

After the first hour, Theodore started marking the walls. Had to keep track of where he'd been somehow. The stone was soft enough that he could leave shallow grooves, and it helped prevent him from walking in circles.

Well, it helped reduce the number of circles he walked in, anyway.

He began to become really irritated in the second hour. This was a puzzle, not merely a maze. There were sections that looped back on themselves in ways that were not geometrically logical. Other passages would shift when he wasn't looking, walls rearranging themselves like they had minds of their own.

Magic bullshit, basically.

He would certainly play dirty if this place wanted to.

His initial attempts at navigating the labyrinth felt like a fool's errand, a never-ending series of identical stone corridors designed to break his will. But his will wasn't so easily broken.

Deep in the maze, he sensed the siren's call—the thrum of the mana eruption. He chose to approach the labyrinth as a barrier to be destroyed rather than as a riddle to be solved.

With a series of balls of doom, he braced himself and blasted a crude tunnel straight into the walls. As he forged his own route in a straight, unsightly line toward the center of the maze where the power he desired resided, rock and rubble rained down on him.

It worked viciously well.

The meticulously designed labyrinth proved useless in the face of such an unabashed attack. Although it took him some time to make his way through—the sheer amount of rock and dirt was evidence of the labyrinth's size—it wasn't that difficult.

He focused only on the objective at hand, ignoring the dead ends and branching paths that his destruction exposed.

There was a deafening roar from his ongoing excavation.

And then, finally, he reached the center, and the eruption of mana disappeared as he did.

The chamber was circular, maybe twenty feet across.

Here, the weird markings that covered the walls sparkled with a gentle blue light. There was a ball of light in the middle of the room, floating there, making him wonder if that had been the source of the mana eruption.

Actually, that wasn't light on the ball, was it? They were runes!

Theodore stepped forward cautiously. The ball, composed completely of intertwined runic patterns, was perhaps the size of his head. It was as though a single intricate structure had been created by weaving together a thousand distinct symbols.

The base underneath looked suspiciously like a weave.

The complexity of the runic work was astounding. It was more complicated than anything he had ever seen or created, so much so that he stood there for minutes on end just trying to remember every detail so he could play around later. The symbols moved and rearranged themselves in patterns that appeared to follow a logic he was unable to understand.

Was this the system's language, then? Runes? The underlying code that made skills work?

Theodore reached out tentatively, his fingers brushing against the surface of the runic ball. It was warm, and he could feel power thrumming through it.

He grabbed it.

The world exploded into white light, and then—

Theodore gasped and sprang awake in his chair. His hands trembled as his heart pounded in his chest. He still had the mana stone in his hand, but it had changed to a simple crystal. No warmth remained in there, and no mana either; everything had been absorbed. It was just a piece of pretty rock now.

And then the system prompt appeared in front of him.

Mana requirements met.

Would you like to learn skill: [Cloning]?

YES | NO

Theodore stared at the prompt. He'd already opened himself to whatever risks the crystal contained the moment he'd formed that connection—Derrick had hammered that lesson into him whenever he brought up mana stones. You don't dabble with unknown unregistered or untested mana stones without accepting the consequences. After all, who knew what could be in there?

But skills themselves… They were different. They were part of the system's fundamental architecture. Derrick had been clear about that too: skills couldn't be tampered with or made malicious. They were what they were, nothing more, nothing less. Unless the skill's inherent purpose was to harm the user—which cloning certainly didn't appear to do—it would function exactly as intended.

What truly unsettled him wasn't the safety of accepting the skill, but the impossibility of what Lyra had accomplished. How had she managed to embed a skill into a mana stone in the first place? That shouldn't be possible. Skills were personal, tied to classes and identity. They weren't transferable objects you could stuff into crystals like some kind of magical USB drive.

But here he was, staring at proof that she'd done exactly that.

Regardless, Theodore didn't hesitate. After all, he wasn't about to say no. He selected 'YES' immediately.

Pain exploded through his skull. Not exactly bodily anguish, but something more profound. As if someone were using a rusty fork to rewire his existence. Then, as though working on his body as well, it spread throughout his body.

It was too much, too fast. The agony was unbearable. He was at a loss for words. The last thing Theodore remembered was turning involuntarily into a tiny pool of slime dropping from his chair as his vision darkened.

Then everything went black.

When he woke up, he had a new skill.

***

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