"What's up, Han."
"I uh…" Han pauses. He looks at Adrian.
Adrian meets his eyes. His focus sharpens. A small smile forms. His lips move.
"You got this."
Han steadies. He nods. "I want to talk about the dungeon."
Sho leans forward. "What about it?"
The room shifts. Eyes settle on Han.
"I've never been there," Han says. "But everything I hear says it's chaos. I want a map made of the dungeon."
Veil exhales. "Easy to say. Few people enter the dungeon. Fewer come back. No one wants to fight there."
Han shakes his head. "If we want to conquer the tower, why ignore it? Players rely on floor magic. The dungeon offers a faster path."
Orin speaks. "He's right. If a path to the hundredth floor exists down there, it cuts years off our climb."
"No," Rhy says. Her voice turns sharp. "You haven't seen it. You don't know what lives there. The dungeon isn't a shortcut. It's a grave."
"Stop trying to scare him," Yin says. "The dungeon isn't that bad. A map helps everyone."
She looks around the table. "If floor magic fails, what then? If we lose access, we're stuck. A mapped dungeon gives us a fallback."
Hex scoffs. "Floor magic doesn't fail. That's not how it works."
"Isn't it?" Yin replies. "We already have anti magic. What if someone creates a spell that blocks floor magic?"
The room quiets.
"The mana needed for that is absurd," Archer mutters. "Not even Pendant could do it."
Pendant laughs. Her purple hair shifts.
"I could," she says. "Blocking floor magic isn't hard for me. I don't see a reason to do it."
"I thought your goal was to delete all magic," Anya says.
"That's my guild's goal," Pendant replies. "Mine goes further than that."
Anya sighs. "Of course it does. The smartest person in the tower."
Risto leans back. "I don't know how your ego and Thousand Eyes don't clash."
Pendant's expression hardens. "I'm done with this."
This is the Pendant I know. She shifts without warning. Calm one second, cold the next.
Not a friend. Not anymore.
A presence forms behind her.
Another Pendant stands there.
This one feels wrong.
Her hair is short and uneven. The purple fades into gray at the ends. A butterfly hairpin sits in her hair, cracked in three places. One on each wing. One through the center.
Her eyes look dull. Washed out.
No cape. No weapon.
She smiles.
"Wow," she says. "You annoyed her enough to get me."
She shrugs. "Low rank copy."
The other Pendant vanishes.
Lilith sighs.
"A low rank copy?"
Pendant's copy looks over at Adrian. A small smile forms.
"According to my memories, you're all stupid."
"What?" Anya says.
"Our goals aren't the same," the copy continues. "Mine and Thousand Eyes don't clash. I barely remember seeing it."
"So this is her clone magic," Lyra says. "It's almost identical."
Lyra's blue eyes glow as she studies the copy in front of her.
"If I can ask," Lyra says, "what makes you low rank if you look the same?"
The copy tilts her head.
"The real Pendant doesn't rank us like that. She ranks us by results."
Ezekial leans forward. "Results?"
"We aren't ranked by strength alone. We're ranked by usefulness, control, and output."
She points upward.
"Three markers. That's all you need."
She raises one finger.
"First. The hairpin."
"If it's missing, the clone failed. It won't last. It won't think properly."
"If it's damaged, the clone exists, but it's unstable."
"Minor damage means functional. Gold means complete."
"The real one," she pauses, "has the true hairpin."
Second finger.
"Hair length."
"Short hair means low mana retention. The body can't hold what I give it."
"Long hair means the mana cycles correctly. No loss. No waste."
"If the color fades, the structure is collapsing."
Third finger.
"The cape."
"No cape means disposable."
"White and blue are trained units."
"Purple and silver are combat ready."
"Gold means I trust it to act without correction."
She lowers her hand.
"Everything else is secondary."
"Weapons. Magic. Movement. Those are the results."
A brief pause.
"None of us are her."
Ezekial laughs. "Sounds like a way to justify weak copies."
The copy looks at him.
"My clone magic isn't like yours. Each copy acts on its own. Because of that, we build our own mana, learn our own magic, and become our own person."
"What are you learning?" Ezekial asks.
"Since our memories connect, it doesn't matter much," she says. "But I'm learning sealing magic."
Sho's expression shifts. The copy notices.
"The ability to seal monsters, enemies, even heroes," she says. "The spell used against the Slime Queen was sealing magic."
"And what do you plan to do with that?" Shino asks. "You're planning something dangerous."
"Many low rank copies have died from mana overload trying to replicate it," the copy says. "We accept that cost."
"Pendant," Yuto says, "if all of you are separate… do you know which one is real?"
The copy smiles.
"Each of us knows we're a copy. None of us know which one is the original."
"Our memories connect, but not fully. We share enough to function, not enough to see everything."
She looks around the room.
"We all move toward the same goal."
"Every copy is born understanding the ranking system."
"And why are you telling us this?" Yin asks. "Your original wouldn't want you to."
The copy shrugs. "Pendant has control over us. If she wanted me dead, I'd be gone. I'm still here. That means I'm allowed."
"Now," she starts.
"What are you planning Pendant." hex asks
"Well if you insist we for our goals to complete we need to remove two key players from the board . Sho and Shino.
"We intend to seal Shino and Sho away."
"Why Shino?" Rei asks.
"The Slime Queen is the manifestation of mana, just as Great Dragons are the manifestation of their element," Sato says. "If Shino gets sealed away, it creates just enough imbalance to let us reset things completely, or at least accomplish a secondary goal."
"Sho's sealing serves a similar purpose. With Sho, the Queen of the tower gets removed from the area around her, and the system collapses."
"And how do you intend to seal Sho?" Yin asks.
"We would never beat Sho in a fair fight," she says. "We would need to challenge her two-on-one, four-on-one, or six-on-one."
Sho opens her eyes, looking at the copy before her. A smile crosses her face.
"I look forward to the challenge," she says, calm.
"However…"
"Let's get back on topic," Valen cuts in. "We interrupted Han."
"Oh, like you care," Hex says." Things were getting interesting."
Hex looks back at the copy. "Are we really accepting this? This feels like a flex. I bet this isn't even a copy. It's her."
The copy smiles. "I'm glad you think a low rank copy like me is good enough to be the real one."
Hex leans back. "You know, I spoke to someone a while ago. Brown hair. Pink eyes. He said something strange. Claimed this was his thirteenth time going through these events. Said every time he dies, he goes back to the beginning."
"And you believed him?" Lyra asks.
"Not at first," Hex says. "But one thing he said stuck."
"Not at first," Hex says. "But one thing stuck."
He looks around the room.
"When everything goes left, don't be surprised when I'm right."
Silence settles.
"He mentioned a villain with dual colored eyes," Hex adds. "Said she'll appear soon."
"If that's true," Ezekial says, "why tell us? That puts him at risk."
"Hex," the copy says, quietly, "introduce me to her."
"And why would I do that?" Hex laughs.
"Pink eyes…" Anya mutters. "I know hundreds with that trait. It's not rare."
"With magic, maybe not," someone says. "But time reset like that? That's different."
"So," Archer says, "the dungeon map."
"Right," Sho says. "We got off track."
She looks at Han. "He's right. A dungeon map gives players another path if floor magic fails."
"I still think it's pointless to plan around hypotheticals," Anya says.
"What do you mean?" Sho asks.
"My guild will help map the dungeon," Anya says. "But where does it stop? Do we start forcing everyone to train everything? Magic users learning combat. Non-magic users are forced into magic classes."
"That's not a bad idea," Yin says.
Anya blinks. "What?"
"Even people like Adrian," Yin continues, "should understand magic basics. Mana control. And mages should learn physical survival. Make it mandatory before becoming an adventurer."
Anya shakes her head. "You think you can force players to study?"
"Maybe not alone," Yin says. "But if major guilds push it, people follow."
"Getting players to adopt RG IDs was already difficult," Sho says. "This is worse."
Rhy leans forward. "Then don't force it at the start. Tie it to rank."
The room quiets.
"What do you mean?" Anya asks.
"Before ranking up," Rhy says, "you take classes outside your specialty."
"What stops people from not ranking up?" Anya asks.
"We restrict certain activities," Rhy says. "Dungeon entry. high level parties."
"If you restrict them, they'll go around it," Anya replies. "Illegal groups form. The current system at least keeps things visible."
Rhy looks at Sho. "What do you think? Keeping weak players out of the dungeon helps everyone."
"It does," Sho says. "But Anya's right. If we lock things without enforcement, only honest players follow. Until we build a prison system, I won't support hard locks."
"We don't need full locks," Rhy says. "We add a step between ranks."
She pauses.
"You don't jump from B to A. You become a Semi A rank. During that phase, you take required classes."
Yin looks around the table.
"It ties into what we discussed earlier. Understanding the magic system."