The ratty, scratchy carpet of room 221 pricked into the side of Alex's cheek and arms throughout the entire night. It bore the scent of old tobacco smoke and dust that didn't pair even slightly well with the blood, sweat, and mud coating him.
He'd never slept better. Even before the golden rays of the sun could shoulder their way past the dirt and scum marring the old window, his eyes fluttered open and he rose, his wounds completely healed and his stench untouched.
Today was a new day. There were at least 24 hours before the next part of the System initialized and a horde of monsters attacked the settlement they were in. That didn't sound like much, but it would be more than enough for a trip to the Mirrorlands to fight some more powerful monsters and gain a new summon.
But before Alex could step one foot outside of the building and set out once again to prepare for the oncoming monsters, there was a critical issue that he had to deal with first.
That carried the drawback of having to speak with people. While Alex didn't particularly mind talking to anyone normally, he'd just jumped two levels in a single night. He didn't want to get stuck explaining what he had done — or how he'd cleared a dungeon on his own — at the moment. There was just nothing good that would come of it yet.
Fortunately for him, Claire was already awake and more than willing to lend him her status-obscuring bracelet so long as he promised to wash it off before bringing it back. As soon as she removed it, Alex saw that the System identified her as a Novice 4.
With his new anonymity, it was a simple task for Alex to set off to find a bathroom. It only now struck him as odd that the room lacked one. He wasn't sure if that was because the building was just the most scuffed apartment to have ever been built, or if it was due to the system screwing with things during initialization.
His search didn't take long. Luckily for him and everyone in the vicinity, the others had already prepared two large meeting rooms as makeshift bathing areas and dragged a number of tubs into them.
A few other people were milling about and the water was freezing cold, but Alex didn't care. He just plunged in clothes and all, scrubbing himself furiously and with borderline reckless abandon.
If there's a magic item that conceals my abilities and name from people, then is there one that lets me instantly take a bath without having to get in one of these? That would be sweet.
Alex finished his bath and clambered out, completely soaked from head to toe. He ignored the looks the others sent him as he splish-splashed right back out of the bathhouse and up the stairs to return to room 221.
"Thanks," Alex said as he held the bracelet out. "That saved me a lot of hassle. How'd you get it, anyway?"
"Monsters in the dungeons have items sometimes, but you can buy them from some merchants as well," Claire replied. She held a hand up to stop Alex. "And I think you should hang onto that, at least until we get out of town."
Alex blinked in surprise, then nodded a moment later. Claire had a good point. Showing off his level now wasn't any smarter than doing it while he was bathing. He slipped the bracelet back over his wrist.
"What do you mean by merchants? Like, people with merchant classes?"
"I won't claim to know exactly how it worked, but they had some way to get items from the System… or from people that represented it. I just remember people were starting to sell a whole lot of stuff, and not all of them were hunting monsters or delving dungeons."
Alex nodded his understanding. "Interesting. I guess we'll see it start happening here soon enough. I hope I didn't miss anything in the Razor Forest. I didn't see anything spawn."
"Spawn?" Claire's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"What, do the items not drop after the monsters die?"
"Are you asking if the item just magically pops into existence after you kill a monster?" Claire asked incredulously before shaking her head. "No. The monsters use the items. They can be parts of traps as well. I saw a pitfall with a chest on it in a dungeon once."
Alex grimaced. "Okay. Now I feel like a bit of an idiot for even asking that. I don't know why I assumed the world would follow game logic. Of course the monsters would use the items. Wouldn't be as much of a challenge if they didn't. Makes me wonder if they follow the same rules we do."
"With challenge and the like?" Claire tilted her head to the side. "You know, I never really thought about it that much. I don't see why they wouldn't, but there has to be a reason they're in dungeons. I guess there has to be some difference."
Alex nodded slowly, but he wasn't so sure he agreed. So far, the system had been pretty consistent in everything it had done — and like Claire had just reminded him, this wasn't a game.
Items didn't just spawn in. People didn't magically just get stronger. They had to earn it. They had to seek out challenge and draw in magic by taking it from those they defeated — or possibly just through challenge and difficulties as a whole.
Dhampirs are technically monsters from my perspective. Even if Claire looks and acts like a human, she's a different species. The System works for her just fine, even though she's swapped what world she's in. Why wouldn't it work for monsters?
He wasn't going to get answers here, and time was too valuable to sit around theorizing.
"We can worry about all of that later," Alex decided. "We've got one day left until the next part of the System initialization. You remember what I said last night, right?"
"I'll be honest, I was really hoping it was just a nightmare. We barely got out of the Mirrorlands. Do you think you can open a portal back to my world or something?"
"Then why would we even want to go back?"
"Two reasons. First, because the monsters there are stronger. A lot stronger," Alex replied. "And I've already cleared out the dungeon here. I'm pretty sure doing it again would just give me diminishing returns."
"There could be different monsters."
"Could be," Alex agreed. "But that doesn't change the fact that it's still a Novice dungeon. A lot of the monsters in it were barely worth our time when we were weaker. Do you not remember the squirrels? They're just a waste of time when we could be pushing ourselves even harder."
Claire picked her sword up from where she'd leaned it against the side of her bed. It seemed that she'd cleaned it off while he was gone, as it was polished silver once more. She studied her reflection in the blade.
"There will definitely be rewards for people that manage to get placed high up on the leaderboards after this thing ends," Claire muttered. She lowered her sword. "But going back into the Mirrorlands… I don't know."
"I won't force you. We can take on bigger threats when it's the two of us, but I won't lie and say it isn't a risk. It's definitely more dangerous than staying here and going into the dungeon with a group of people."
Claire blew out a breath and sheathed the blade at her side. She turned to look Alex in the eye. "Yeah. It is, but power is an avalanche. The stronger you are, the stronger you get. I saw how quickly people in my world grew once they got rolling. It's always easier to stay at the top and convert your power to more power than it is to claw your way up. If we aren't advancing, then we're falling behind."
"That sounds like a really roundabout way to say you're coming."
"I was trying to make it seem more bleedin' philosophical than the actual answer, which is just that I don't want to be left behind," Claire grumbled, throwing her hands up. "This isn't my planet. It's not even my apocalypse, but I'm stuck here now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I'm just not letting myself get dropped in the dust if I can help it. And it does strike me that the System is going to give me a whole lot more energy than most people could have gotten in the Mirrorlands because of my class. Not being able to use a lot of my abilities increases the challenge."
Alex smiled and gestured to the door. "Shall we go, then? The day is slipping away, and I need to find us a portal into the Mirrorlands. In and out. We'll be back by the night so we've got time to meditate and prepare for the horde tomorrow."
"You've got to find the portal? I was kind of hoping you got a way to just open them. Are you even sure there's one in the area other than the one we first came through? I don't fancy finding that demon a second time."
That was a good question. Alex gathered his focus and cast it inward. A roiling lake of power within him rose in response. Even though he couldn't see it, the feeling was identical to the chilly power that filled his basin in his Mind Palace.
The energy clearly refills on its own, since I used every last scrap of power I had yesterday. Though that makes me wonder… when Glint dies, is my limit the amount of energy I have? Or is it the amount of energy that he has?
He could test that out today while they were in the Mirrorlands. For the time being, Alex needed the energy for something else. He needed to locate the nearest portal to the Mirrorlands. He focused on the desire and the chilly power rushed forth in response.
Alex's eyelids prickled. He blinked in surprise as he looked down and spotted a thin trail of faint blue energy running from his chest and through one of the walls. It was going in the opposite direction of the portal they'd entered through.
He could feel a steady pull on his magical reserves. By rough estimate, he was pretty sure he could keep the ability active for around ten minutes before it completely used up all the power he had.
"Yeah. Opposite direction. I'm not sure how close it is, but the ability description said it extended my senses, not made them infinite. It's probably relatively close."
Claire set her hand on the hilt of her sword and gave him a sharp nod. "Lead the way, then."
"With pleasure," Alex said, holding the door open for Claire as an eager grin pulled across his lips. "This isn't the same as before. The last time, we were trapped and starving. Now we're on the offense. Let's find out just how much we can take from the Mirrorlands, shall we?"