"Lucas, where is your partner? We need to go now," Professor Gards called out, looking over his ledger at the front of the gates.
[A Few Hours Earlier]
"Lucas, could you tell the professor I'm not coming with the group anymore?" Prate had asked me back in the villa, his voice heavy as he threw his final items into a traveler's bag. "Tell him I'm going back to Eather City. You don't have to worry about how he'll react, because he already knows about my family situation."
Before turning toward the door, Prate reached out and handed me the core artifact he had spent the last few months sacrificing his resources to build.
"Why are you giving this to me, Prate?" I had asked him genuinely. I truly didn't understand why he was handing over a project he had spent months working on.
"I'm not entirely sure why I'm giving it to you either, but I know it will be helpful to your build," he muttered.
Looking at it, I noticed the artifact's surface structure had completely changed. Had he stayed up all night working to stabilize it for me?
"I really have to go now, Lucas," he said, offering a tight smile. He picked up his baggage and stepped across the threshold, leaving me standing completely alone in the quiet villa.
I walked over to the window and looked down into the courtyard. A black luxury car was already waiting by the curb to pick him up. As the vehicle pulled away, Prate looked back through the rear window and waved a final goodbye before disappearing past the gates.
Left alone, I carefully placed the incomplete artifact into my spatial pouch. The physical size of the object immediately shrank down to its baseline form—collapsing until it was roughly the size of a single gaming dice.
[Present Time]
"I see," Professor Gards murmured, checking off the attendance sheet as I finished explaining the situation. "In that case, why don't you find another established team you could form a temporary party with?"
"I prefer going solo for this run, Professor," I told him flatly.
He stopped writing and looked up at me, studying my expression for a long moment. "Alright. Whatever happens inside that dungeon instance is on you. Here, take this emergency teleportation scroll just in case you find yourself in fatal danger." He patted my right shoulder firmly, handing me the parchment. "Everyone, get inside! We are ready to depart!"
The mage students filed onto the transport bus one by one. I climbed the steps and took a seat near the middle row—the exact spot where Prate was originally supposed to be my seatmate. I leaned my head against the cool window pane, watching the campus slip away as the engine roared to life.
"We are about to clear the city perimeter," Professor Gards announced over the speaker as the bus navigated the northern transit routes. "Our destination is Tarosa Mountain, where the designated dungeon portal is located."
As the bus drove toward the colossal North Gate, I found myself amazed all over again by the sheer scale of the city's defenses. The outer containment walls were impossibly tall, and the anti-monster artillery batteries mounted along the parapets were massive.
A few hours into the journey, a shadow fell over my seat. I looked up to see Anya looking around the rows, trying to locate a familiar face.
"Lucas, where is Prate? I didn't see him board," she asked, tilting her head.
Sigh. "He had to leave the city earlier due to a family emergency," I explained quietly. "I already cleared it with the professor."
"I see..." Anya murmured, studying my face. "Anyway, you've been looking incredibly upset since we started driving. Did something happen between you two?"
Of course something had happened. He had left an incredibly precious, high-tier artifact in my hands right before disappearing, and the mystery of it had been bothering me the entire trip. "Nothing happened," I lied, looking back out the window. "It was just a bit too sudden."
By the time the bus crawled up the winding paths of Tarosa Mountain, the sun had begun to set.
"Everyone, disembark immediately! Do not wander off into the mountain paths!" the professor ordered as we pulled up to a baseline hunter outpost.
The faculty assigned us to our respective lodging quarters. Because of Prate's sudden absence, I didn't have a roommate assigned to my unit. I walked into the empty room, tossed my heavy baggage onto the mattress, and slumped down beside it, too lazy to even unpack my tracksuits into the closet.
Following a quick dinner service, the department gathered back in the outpost lobby at 8:00 PM for the final briefing.
"Is everyone present?" Professor Gards barked, scanning the crowd. "I will call names individually. If anyone fails to respond, I will issue an immediate deduction to your academy points. Is that understood?"
"Yes, Sir!!!" the class chorused.
Once the attendance check cleared, the professor issued his final instruction: "We will assemble outside at the dungeon entrance tomorrow at exactly 6:00 AM sharp. Get some rest."
I returned to my isolated quarters and locked the door behind me. Lying flat on my back, I reached into my tracksuit pocket, pulled out the compact dice-sized artifact, and held it up beneath the dim ceiling light.
"System," I muttered under my breath.
[Name: Unknown (Incomplete)]
[Rank: F]
[Type: Unknown]
[Description: A unique artifact constructed by the Creator using a fractured Mana Orb harvested from an Ancient Dragon. The core material is an ancient catalyst originally intended to forge a new lord entity, or function as a Legendary-tier weapon. Due to its currently incomplete structural form, the baseline effects have been significantly weakened. To restore and strengthen its attributes, the Creator must reforge the matrix using specific rare materials. Special: This artifact will permanently alter its physical shape to mirror the user's primary weapon desire.]
[Effect: Increases all base stats by 5. Increases maximum HP by 100 and maximum MP by 500.]
"An Ancient Dragon orb?" I gasped, my hands trembling slightly as I stared at the prompt.
In the lore of this world, resources harvested from an Ancient Entity were supposed to be astronomically expensive! Why on earth did Prate just give something like this away to an F-rank newcomer like it was nothing? More importantly, my eyes locked onto the final line of the system description: the artifact will change form based on the user's desire.
Sigh. I honestly had no idea what was happening to the timeline anymore. This specific artifact had never existed in the original novel I wrote.
Wait... did my own presence cause this anomaly?
Ever since I transmigrated, I had encountered multiple skills and items that were never part of my drafts, yet everything kept manifesting around me as a direct result of my actions. Why hadn't I realized this fundamental rule from the very start?
"Dammit!" I growled, nervously biting my nails as the weight of the mystery pressed down on me.
After a few minutes of deep breathing, I managed to calm my racing thoughts. I looked back down at the shimmering dice on the sheets. What was I supposed to do with an item of this caliber? Should I keep it to fuel my own progression, or find a way to return it to Prate's family?
I got up from the mattress and headed into the bathroom to take a hot shower, hoping the steam would clear my head. Once I finished, I lay back down on the bed, pulled out my phone, and drafted a message to Prate asking if he really intended for me to keep it.
Realizing the time was ticking, I quickly forced myself to organize my inventory for tomorrow's instance. A closed dungeon environment was highly volatile. I carefully laid out my necessities on the nightstand: Mana potions, the professor's emergency scroll, a high-intensity flashlight, and a small packet of rations. The average clear time for a low-tier mountain instance was typically three to five hours, but entering completely solo meant I couldn't safely predict the variables.
I finally turned off the lamp and closed my eyes. Exhausted from the emotional weight of the day, my mind slowly drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
[The Next Morning]
The automated alarm jolted me awake. I checked my phone—it was exactly 5:00 AM.
I jumped out of bed, threw on my tracksuit, and securely strapped my gear over my frame. Once I was fully packed and armed with my new wand, I headed down the wooden steps to the outpost courtyard. Even though it was early, the air was freezing, and multiple students from the physical combat classes were already gathered in the fog, preparing their weapons for the gates.