[ "The Mana channels are closer to the system pathways that spread throughout the system. These pathways carry information as well as energy throughout the dungeon." ]
[ "You can think of the Mana pathway as the framework through which the Core of the dungeon observes, controls, and maintains each and every other element of the dungeon." ]
I did not touch the Mana channel directly just yet. I did not know what would happen if I did something foolish, and there were only three chances!
I couldn't just blow one away accidentally!
The certain hum of these Mana pathways was melodious, but the knot present before me was like a pimple on a pale face– something that just shouldn't be there.
[ "As the guest architect, the dungeon allows you to visually overlay one pathway upon the other before physical interaction to test them, it allows you to check how the Nodes would react to the different pathway interaction since the holistic view may not be present during the task at hand." ]
[ "Also, to make the task safer for the rest of the dungeon, the guest tasks are limited to the produced Shell." ]
"So, core-level directives are forbidden, making this place a sandbox." Sandbox, being the safer, temporary environment where I can tinker with something without blowing up the entire dungeon system, the whole test did not give me any encouragement.
I was still clueless about how exactly this was going to play out.
"So, system sis, how do I untangle this thing exactly? It's not like it's some rope… just looking at the mess of those channels is giving me a headache."
The Mana channels were like neural pathways. They were so thin and so delicate that even cutting off one of them might result in a larger catastrophe.
'It's better that the dungeon made it into a sandbox, but I would still only have three chances.'
Better not waste them.
[ "The present cluster is composed of interlaced Mana conduits. Each of these delicate conduits carries directional flux." ] Read complete version only at ⓝovelFire.net
[ "The points at which they twist and knot, flux collides, losing phase coherence. Your task is to restore the phase alignment across the affected nodes." ]
My guardian system just explained this whole mess in the kind of words that actually processed through my brain.
Directional flux, knots, nodes, phase alignment, I knew all this! This was exactly the kind of terminology that was drilled into us during uni and internships!
[ "To solve the problem, you may apply corrective phase vectors, re-route low-flow conduits, refactor tangled nodes into linear paths, and finally, stabilise with a temporary containment lattice." ]
So the translation would be: Mana pathways are frizzed and need rerouting– this phrasing still sounded like infra-work to me.
Routing, load balancing, temporary containers, my inner Cloud Architect woke up, stretched, and grinned ear to ear.
"Basically, this is IaaS-level network triage," I muttered to myself. "I can do triage."
I can do this. Magic and swords, I don't know, but I was sure I could do this one.
This first attempt felt like debugging someone else's production during peak traffic.
The assistance system came in clutch once again and painted the knot in my vision with overlay tags: Node A, Node B, and Node C; there were flux values in quantified numbers, probably only the two of us understood, vectors between A, B, C…
In addition, there was no heavy refactoring. The changes were kept minimal to minimize the risk. The comfort of the architect was maximised.
'As easy as it may look…'
I reached out my hand and, for the first time, touched the Mana channels directly.
It buzzed through my like static, my chest tightened, almost feeling heavy.
The strand's pulse was off, not by much, but enough for it to feel uneven.
I focused my attention on it and sent the first corrective vector in the form of a pulse, a clean, confident mental command that made everything around me sing in harmony.
Then, a neighboring strand collapsed like a cheap script hitting an exception.
The flux I'd diverted overloaded it. The knot reacted, shuddered, and the whole cluster hiccupped. Then, my system sister screamed.
[ "The attempt has resulted in a partial failure. The unbalanced reroute caused a collateral spike. There are still 2 attempts remaining." ]
Thanks to the sandbox structure, the dungeon wall did not explode on the spot. It just made a horrible, sour noise in my brain and flickered. A tiny whip of Mana expelled itself and gushed into a nearby cavern like a spilled drink.
I felt hungover even though I was in this ghost form. The system sister's silence fell heavy on my ears… Also, only two attempts were left now.
"Ok, bad plan," I admitted, cheeks hot even though I wasn't physically capable of blushing right now. "Less improve, more arch."
This time, I built with more ceremony.
'Think, Aria, think. Watch, observe, and think…'
I visualized the cluster as modules. Each tangle was the container. I first drew temporary boundary lines, wrote a mental lint-rule to refuse crossing vectors, and finally began refactoring.
My imagination went something : I was sitting in front of a terminal made of light, writing a tiny patch in a language of will and Mana.
The syntax was from the skill hall earlier, the mages' gestures filtering through my Cloud Architect brain. Intuition became my code, my fingertips a magnetic wand guiding the Mana.
First, I spun up a containment lattice, a thin, elegant, encasement-like scaffolding. Then slowly but carefully, I nudged threads into their new channels.
Halfway through, I felt something smile sickeningly in the core.
The cluster emitted a rumble— not catastrophic, just a cold and deliberate one.
The dungeon threw a counter-test when I wasn't even done with the first one: a burst of chaotic flux that pulsed out, seeking the path of least resistance within the existing, untangled nodes.
My lattice held. The cluster had not fallen apart despite the strange sound earlier.
For a heartbeat, it felt like victory.
But then a subordinate node brightened with an unexpected resonance.
A small feed I'd thought stable synchronized with a rhythm I hadn't predicted, and the entire patch I'd stitched re-phased wrong. The refactor collapsed in on itself like a cache miss under heavy load.
[ "The second attempt has resulted in a failure. A newly activated Feeder had caused hidden resonance, resulting in the crash. There is only one attempt remaining." ]
[ "Should the owner fail the last attempt, the guest's privileges will be revoked for the time being." ]
I stared blankly at the scene before me. The structure that I had thought was completely in my sight… wasn't really the whole picture.