Battle Rhythms and Magitech Repairs
“Already?”
Allen eyed him suspiciously and flicked his fingers. Click. A brilliant light filled the open space.
“Mana stones accepted too.”
One by one, more visitors trickled in. They carried spare gear just in case, but it was always better to be prepared for the unknown.
The magitech devices they brought grew increasingly complex. One even hauled in a helmet-style EBI.
Repairing an EBI solo required handling both Rune Letters and Star Letters at once.
If the user wasn't a mage, something had to chant the runes in their stead—and that was the soul stone.
Allen nodded at the lizardman's question.
“Can do.”
“For real? Hmm...”
There was a hint of hesitation. This wasn't a legit registered shop, and Allen was a total stranger.
Allen pulled a soul stone from his cart's automaton compartment, revealing the Milky Way pattern inside, then slipped a [Flame] card under a soup pot.
The lizardman's tail wagged up and down at the sight.
Once the job was done, he'd earned 700,000 coins just from repairs.
Even at cut rates, the take's better than expected.
But he wasn't about to get complacent. The labyrinth's unique nature—and the fact that he was the only magitech engineer around—made that risky.
As Allen tallied the value of the mana stones he'd taken as payment, someone slung an arm over the lizardman's shoulder.
“Repairs done?”
“So fast I didn't even get bored.”
“Good. We need every bit of firepower to take down the water gatekeeper.”
The water gatekeeper blocked the 11th layer. It didn't always appear, vanishing for a while after someone killed it.
Allen paused his calculations and looked up. He'd seen the man at the second-floor shop. Word was he was registered with Breaker, which at least meant he acted human.
“Mind if I watch?”
“Well...”
“In return, free repairs after the fight. Labyrinth stuff only, not everything.”
“Lemme check with the crew.”
After conferring with his teammates, permission came quicker than expected.
No other explorer would've gotten the nod, but a magitech engineer lowered their guard. Maintenance was essential for long delves.
It was a golden opportunity for Allen too. Automatons weren't alive, so they had patterns—and he'd get to study them up close.
Video recording was impossible thanks to whatever tricks the labyrinth's creator had up their sleeve.
Reconstructed memories were all he had, but recollection always came with distortion and subjective bias.
Seeing it firsthand beat hearing about it any day.
Eye (3)
The labyrinth wasn't some spot you could round-trip in a day.
Even the maze sections from layer 1 to 10 took days to traverse back and forth. Deeper down, and it could stretch to months.
On long hauls without reliable healing, explorers ended up lugging wounded comrades like dead weight.
A healer changed that, but they were rarer than magitech engineers, if anything.
That's why labyrinth explorers fought systematically to prevent injuries in the first place.
They've been partying together a while.
Allen watched the explorers he'd tagged along with, paying close attention to their combat flow.
Talking about hunting the water gatekeeper wasn't just talk—they handled packs of five or six automatons with room to spare.
Like perfectly meshed gears.
This was a world where individuals could crush mobs or even armies, but such powerhouses were few and far between.
Until then, numbers beat one-on-one. Same went for labyrinth delving—teamwork made it easier.
Should I scout for people? Or crank out more automatons?
Allen's mind wandered to future plans when the fight shifted abruptly, drawing his eyes forward.
Dennis—the blue-haired guy who'd butted into his chat with the lizardman—leaped ahead.
“I'll draw their aggro!”
Gorilla-like automatons lined up before him. Their gaping maws extruded steel rods like gun barrels.
Weapons like mana guns?
Sure enough, the barrels glowed blue, then spat projectiles at Dennis.
Charging straight would be suicide, but he plunged right into the barrage.
His legs—prosthetic magitechwear, to be precise—began transforming. They looked human at first, but the joints bent backward into beastly form.
Boom!
A powerful stomp launched him skyward, slamming into the ceiling.
Blue rounds intercepted where he'd stood—but the gorillas missed their mark.
Like a grasshopper, Dennis ricocheted off walls and landed behind enemy lines.
The lizardman Karkda—who'd entrusted his EBI for repair—along with two other mages, unleashed Air Burst in sequence.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three sharp explosions. The gorillas, eyes locked on Dennis's acrobatics, scattered. Many lost heads or had torsos caved in.
Skilled fighters exploited weaknesses mercilessly. The waiting warriors charged, bludgeoning the survivors.
Allen nodded.
Obvious outcome.
Raw firepower seemed comparable, but one gap stood out.
Thinking. Automatons just detected foes and reacted per their soul stone programming. Humans could strategize.
Underground dwellers on layer 11 and below changed things, but in the maze sections, it was a huge edge.
The party scooped loot and moved on with Allen in tow, halting at the 10th-layer entrance for regrouping.
Layer 10 had wider passages, more automatons, and gatekeepers spawning anywhere.
With fights possible anytime, peak condition was mandatory.
Allen pulled a book from his bag—the Beginner's Guide to Star Letters he'd bought without batting an eye at its steep price.
500,000 coins had given him pause once, but new knowledge made bank balance irrelevant.
As he dove into his own world, Dennis approached.
“You're one busy guy. Always like this?”
“Minus sleep, yeah.”
“Nah, I mean in the labyrinth. Reading when enemies pop from a manhole? Recipe for disaster.”
“If camp's crowded, I read. Otherwise, I stay alert.”
“Smart. That's how you survive.”
Allen closed the book and met Dennis's gaze. No way this was casual chit-chat. Sure enough, Dennis hiked up his pant leg.
A sleek silver-gray prosthetic leg gleamed from the detachable cuff.
“Think you could check this out?”
“Any discomfort or malfunctions?”
“Nah, but with a magitech engineer in the party, why not? Catch issues early.”
“Hop on the cart, then. I'll take a look.”
Dennis perched on the cart as Allen scanned it methodically with his eyes.
“Mana pack's fine. You don't recharge it separately?”
“Got a mana heart, so I tap that in emergencies. Spares too.”
Confirming the pack strapped inside Dennis's clothes, Allen continued.
“Gonna touch it now.”
He pried open a thigh panel and yanked a cable. Power cut from the mana pack—Dennis's eyes widened.
“Getting invasive, huh?”
“Drops magic resistance for a proper check. No pain—relax.”
Like a dentist, Allen activated his eyes' x-ray vision, probing every inch inside.
The prosthetic magitechwear used mana for energy, pushing joints beyond human limits while.
engraved with [Acceleration], [Weight Reduction], and [Reinforcement] runes to boost performance and efficiency.
“[Hardening] just toughens material, so [Reinforcement] balances it.”
“You can tell. That smug asshole from before who bragged about being a magitech engineer couldn't even read runes. Your touch feels... off, though?”
“Just a standard inspection...”
“Huh, my bad?”
Allen's blank expression gave nothing away. His instincts were spot-on, though—Allen was dissecting this unfamiliar prosthetic piece by piece.
No issues, but lingering too long might raise flags. Time to wrap.
“Runes, mana circuits—all nominal. No scratches, dents, cooling system's solid.”
“Damn right. Can't even afford a car 'cause of this thing.”
“True. If your leg craps out bad, Dennis starves paying repair bills.”
Brown-scaled Karkda poked his head in. Lizardman scales glittered under mana stone lantern light.
“The tab you've run up leeching off me is insane. Total bum.”
“Paid it all back. Quit spreading lies, spell-slinger.”
“Don't call me that—I'm a mage.”
With EBIs letting anyone sling spells, true mages dubbed them "magic users."
"Spell-slinger" was Dennis's tease—like calling a bedwetter "piss-pants." Kid stuff.
Karkda thwacked the floor with his tail, annoyed.
Friends turned childish around each other—nothing new.
Allen spoke up amid the banter.
“You mentioned applying to the magic tower? So you are a mage?”
“Damn straight.”
Karkda's tail curled happily at the question.
“Studied magic since my scales were soft. Bought the EBI for body-boosting spells—Air Burst earlier? Pure me.”
“Which tower?”
“Eshel Tower.”
Eshel was top-tier. Corporate equivalent: megacorp. Dream gig for mages or apprentices.
“Here for the bonus points, then.”
“Yup. Labyrinth explorer track—deeper you go, more points. No cap.”
Karkda nodded agreement, smirking at Dennis like he finally got a guy who listened, then pulled a memory crystal from his EBI.
“You handle memory crystals too?”
“Not yet. Haven't studied 'em.”
EBIs were magitech where a soul stone CPU read spell orders from memory crystals to cast magic.
Allen guessed why Karkda asked.
“Shelf life issue?”
“Contents keep wiping—gotta buy new ones constantly. Dying to meet the 'tech developer' behind it. Er, mage developer.”
“What then?”
“Big-shot mage? I'd shut up and behave.”
To Allen, memory crystal resets screamed peak planned obsolescence.
Tower sales pitch: Prolonged use degrades circuits, risks user accidents.
Sounded good, but nobody bought it. Durable crystals meant fewer sales. Corps needed profits.
Not just crystals—phones glitched after two years, TVs' mana circuits snapped.
Allen handed back the crystal.
“Once you're at Eshel Tower, you'll do the same, right?”
“Now's now, then's then. Anyway, I'm applying to the labyrinth exploration division—no relation.”
The lizardman slithered past smoothly, scales gleaming.
People's views shifted with position. Allen wasn't judging.
Topics drying up, Allen reopened his book. Dennis turned to Karkda.
“Came down hearing the gatekeeper got cleared—should be respawn time.”
“Hope it's there this round.”
Even the same 11th layer meant facing the water gatekeeper