"They gave me a test from my world."
Silence.
Jax continued staring at the strange grid carved into the wall.
Pixelle did not.
She slowly turned toward him.
"Your… world?"
Jax's eyes moved between two of the boxes.
"Hmm?"
"You said they gave you a test from your world."
"Oh."
Jax glanced at her.
"Sorry. I meant my lands."
Nyxian waved a hand dismissively.
"No, he didn't. Jax isn't from this world. We think he's a summoned hero."
Pixelle froze.
Jax went back to studying the wall.
Pixelle stared at Nyxian.
Then Jax.
Then Nyxian again.
"A… summoned hero?"
"Probably."
"PROBABLY?!"
That got Jax's attention.
He looked back.
Pixelle was hovering perfectly still, staring at him as though he had suddenly grown another head.
"You're a summoned hero?"
"Well—"
"From another world?"
Jax scratched the back of his neck.
"We're guessing that is possible."
Pixelle's mouth fell open.
Summoned heroes.
She knew the stories.
Everyone knew the stories.
Figures who appeared throughout history with strange knowledge, impossible abilities and powers that sometimes changed the course of entire nations.
They were legends.
History.
Myth given flesh.
And apparently—
Jax.
The man she had fallen in love with was one of them.
"How long have all of you known this?!"
Bunny looked at Llandra.
Llandra looked at Zee.
Zee looked at Nyxian.
Nyxian shrugged.
"I think from the beginning. I don't know. It's been a while."
"A WHILE?!"
Jax pointed toward the wall.
"Can we come back to this?"
"No!"
"Okay."
He turned back toward the puzzle, and tried to refocus on the task at hand.
Pixelle flew around in front of him.
"Jax!"
Pixelle stared at him.
"How can you possibly be this casual about this?"
Jax finally looked at her.
"I'm not trying to be. I just know some stuff that I shouldn't know about, and can do some stuff that I shouldn't be able to."
"That doesn't explain anything!"
"I know."
"And I have questions!"
"I figured."
"A lot of questions."
"I'll answer what I can."
"When?"
Jax smiled.
"After we figure out how not to accidentally throw away whatever the World Tree is hiding from us."
Pixelle opened her mouth.
Stopped.
Looked around at the treasure.
Then back at Jax.
"This conversation is not over."
"I appreciate the stay of execution."
She flew back toward Nyxian.
Nyxian smiled.
"Feel better?"
"No."
"You'll get used to that too."
Pixelle crossed her arms.
"You really think he's a summoned hero?"
"You have slept with him. Do you have any other explanation?"
That was a scenario she hadn't even considered.
Pixelle stared at her.
That was possibly the stupidest evidence Nyxian could have offered.
Unfortunately, it made her think about all the other evidence.
The United Kingdoms.
Raids cleared in days that took others weeks or months.
Inventions no one had ever seen.
Abilities that shouldn't have been possible for a man his age.
Knowledge he couldn't possibly have learned.
And, yes…
There were a few things in the bedroom that were frankly suspicious too.
Pixelle slowly turned toward Jax.
"He IS a summoned hero!"
Jax turned his attention back to the chamber. Ignoring the revelation from his newer Vixen.
The puzzle.
And the treasure.
A lot of treasure.
He slowly looked around.
Gold.
Silver.
Rare metals.
Crystals.
Weapons.
Armor.
Magical materials.
Some he recognized.
Many he didn't.
And that brought his merchant instincts back to the surface.
"Zee?"
"Yes?"
Jax gestured around the chamber.
"How much?"
Zee blinked.
"How much what?"
"How much is all of this worth?"
Bunny's ears immediately rose.
"I was wondering when he'd ask."
Nyxian laughed.
Zee looked around again, but this time with a different purpose.
She walked toward one of the pedestals and examined a crystal without touching it.
Then another.
She moved to several ingots.
Llandra joined her.
Bunny began looking too.
Several minutes passed.
Jax waited.
Finally, Zee turned.
"Based only on the materials and items I recognize?"
"Sure."
"And assuming the purity is what it appears to be?"
"Yep."
She hesitated.
"Millions."
Jax waited.
"That's a pretty big range."
Zee looked around again.
"Perhaps twenty million gold."
Silence.
Even Jax needed a moment for that one.
"Twenty million?"
"Possibly more. There are materials here I cannot identify, and several artifacts whose value I would not know how to estimate."
Bunny looked around.
"That's a lot of shoes."
Jax barely heard her.
He was still studying the room.
"There's more here."
Zee looked at him.
"More?"
"Yeah."
He turned toward the wall.
"Twenty million is what they want us to see."
Jax turned back toward the wall.
Twenty million gold.
Just sitting there.
Waiting for whoever completed the raid.
And according to the inscription—
That was the ordinary reward.
He smiled.
"Alright."
The Vixens looked at him.
"We're not grabbing the loot."
Nyxian frowned.
"I understand the words individually. Together they make no sense."
Jax pointed toward the wall.
"We're solving this."
Pixelle hovered beside Nyxian.
"What happens if we get it wrong?"
Jax studied the first section.
"We don't."
Llandra grinned.
"There he is."
Jax walked toward one of the pedestals.
"Iron."
He picked up the ingot.
That part he knew.
Ancient Gaian inscriptions were carved around sections of the wall.
Jax could read them now.
They weren't names.
They were descriptions.
Properties.
Behaviors.
Relationships.
Another part of the test.
But for iron, he didn't need them.
He found the pattern.
Raised the ingot.
The moment it approached the correct box, the stone seemed to soften.
The iron slid inside.
CLICK
Everyone looked around.
Nothing happened.
Nyxian raised an eyebrow.
"Was that good?"
A section of wall beside them suddenly split.
Stone slid backward.
A small compartment opened.
Inside rested a dagger.
The blade was silver-blue.
No ornamentation.
No jewels.
No elaborate hilt.
Just a beautifully crafted knife whose blade seemed to shimmer in the light.
Zee stopped.
Llandra's eyes widened slightly.
Jax looked at it.
"Hmm?"
Zee approached.
She didn't touch it.
"Mithril."
Jax looked at the blade again.
"That's Mithril?"
"Yes."
"How much?"
Bunny laughed.
"Of course."
Zee studied the dagger.
"At least five million gold."
Jax slowly turned toward her.
"For one blade?"
"Yes."
Bunny stared at the blade.
Then looked around at the treasure that had filled the chamber when they entered.
"That one knife is worth a quarter of all this?"
"Approximately."
Nyxian's smile grew.
"Oh, I really like this game."
Jax looked back at the wall.
So did he.
"Copper."
Bunny found it first.
She carried the ingot over.
Jax pointed.
"There."
She placed it.
CLICK
Another compartment opened.
This one contained a necklace.
A dark gemstone hung from a delicate silver chain, purple energy moving slowly inside it like smoke.
Nyxian was already walking toward it.
"No touching."
She stopped.
"I wasn't."
"You were."
"I was appreciating."
"With your hand."
"It's how I appreciate things."
Jax moved on.
"Carbon."
Zee found it.
Jax placed it.
CLICK
Another compartment.
A crystal.
Zee identified it as something used to permanently strengthen enchantments.
Silver.
CLICK
Armor.
Gold.
CLICK
A magical catalyst.
Tin.
CLICK
A ring.
Lead.
CLICK
A sealed vial containing a liquid that glowed bright blue.
Jax stopped.
He looked back at the puzzle.
Then at the growing collection of newly revealed treasures.
"This is going to take a while."
Bunny smiled.
"I'm okay with that."
For a time, it was easy.
Not effortless.
But easy enough.
Jax knew the common elements.
He remembered the basic structure.
He remembered groups.
Rows.
Patterns.
He knew enough chemistry to understand what he was looking at.
But he very quickly discovered something else.
He did not remember the entire periodic table.
Not even close.
Jax stared at an empty position.
"Okay."
Everyone waited.
He stared longer.
Bunny tilted her head.
"Well?"
"I don't remember."
Pixelle blinked.
"But this is from your world."
"Yeah."
"And you don't know it?"
"I didn't memorize the whole damn thing."
Bunny smiled.
"I feel better now."
"Thanks."
Zee stepped closer.
"What do you remember?"
"Enough to know what should be around here."
He pointed toward several positions.
"And enough to know that whatever goes there should have properties similar to some of these."
Zee looked at the materials.
Then at the wall.
"Properties?"
"That's the important part."
Jax turned toward them.
"This isn't just a list."
He pointed across the grid.
"The position means something. Things are grouped because they share characteristics. How they react. What they're made of. How they behave."
Pixelle frowned.
"Everything?"
"On my world?"
Jax hesitated.
"Everything we knew about."
He looked toward the strange magical substances scattered throughout the chamber.
"This place apparently has some additions. And it doesn't look like everything from mine is represented either. It's not exactly the same."
Llandra walked toward the silver-blue metal they had identified earlier.
"Mithril."
"Exactly."
Jax picked it up.
"I know what Mithril is. I have absolutely no idea where Mithril belongs."
Zee moved closer.
"What do you need to know?"
Jax thought.
"Everything."
They went to work.
Mithril conducted mana extraordinarily well.
It resisted corrosion.
It was lighter than gold.
Heavier than silver.
Extremely stable.
Difficult to melt without magical heat.
Llandra knew how Elven smiths used it.
Zee understood how mana moved through it.
Bunny knew its weight and value from her family's merchant business.
Pixelle knew where it could naturally form.
Jax listened.
Then looked at the wall.
He moved between several positions.
"No."
Another.
"Maybe."
Zee described its magical reaction again.
Jax stopped.
He pointed.
"Try there."
Llandra inserted the Mithril.
Nothing.
Everyone froze.
Jax's stomach dropped.
Then—
CLICK
Bunny exhaled.
"Don't do that."
"I didn't do anything!"
"The wall did."
A compartment opened.
Inside was a pair of bracers covered in tiny golden runes.
Nyxian smiled.
"We're learning."
They continued.
And gradually—
It stopped being Jax's puzzle.
It became theirs.
Jax understood the structure.
Zee understood magic.
Llandra knew materials Jax had only heard mentioned in passing.
Bunny surprised him repeatedly with practical knowledge of metals, ores and commodities.
Pixelle recognized natural substances and ancient names no longer commonly used.
Even Nyxian proved useful.
Very useful.
She recognized materials the others didn't.
Things traded far outside the respectable markets Bunny's family had dealt with.
Things associated with demons, curses and darker forms of magic.
Jax held up a nearly black crystal.
Everyone looked at Nyxian.
She stared back.
"What?"
"You know what it is?" Jax asked.
"Of course."
"Why?"
Nyxian smiled.
"You don't want to know."
Jax considered that.
"Fair."
She told him anyway.
They placed it.
CLICK
Another reward.
Then another.
Then another.
The chamber became a rhythm.
Question.
Discussion.
Placement.
CLICK
Reward.
Some were weapons.
Others armor.
Rings.
Amulets.
Crystals.
Potions.
Books.
Enchanted tools.
Raw magical materials.
Artifacts none of them immediately understood.
Jax stored each reward only after the System clearly recognized the successful placement.
Then they completed the first entire section.
The wall changed.
A deep rumble rolled through the chamber.
Bunny looked around.
"That sounds bigger."
It was.
An entire section of the opposite wall pulled backward.
Golden light spilled through the opening.
Behind it stood rows of pedestals.
Dozens of items.
Bunny's mouth opened.
"Oh."
Nyxian walked beside her.
"The individual pieces are rewards."
Jax nodded.
"And finishing a section is the bonus."
Nyxian looked back at the enormous puzzle.
"I have never been this motivated to learn."
Zee slowly entered the newly opened chamber.
Her expression changed as she examined the contents.
Jax noticed.
"How much?"
She looked back.
"No."
"What?"
"I am not doing this every time."
"Why?"
"Because every time I calculate it, you open another wall."
Jax smiled.
"And that's a bad thing?"
"It is, when you make me try to calculate all of it again and again."
"Ok, that's fair."
They went back to work.
Minutes became an hour.
An hour became more.
They made mistakes.
Or almost did.
Jax stopped Bunny twice before she inserted something into the wrong position.
Zee corrected Jax when he misunderstood the magical properties of one substance.
Llandra remembered a passage from an old Elven text that solved another.
Pixelle spent nearly ten minutes translating the Ancient Gaian name etched onto a container before realizing the modern name was something all of them knew.
Nyxian guessed once.
Jax stared at her.
"What?"
"You guessed."
"I was right."
"You were."
"Then it wasn't a guess."
"It was absolutely a guess."
"Prove it."
He couldn't.
They kept going.
Another section completed.
The chamber trembled.
Another wall opened.
More treasure.
They stopped for food.
Then continued.
Jax forgot things.
The Vixens filled the gaps.
The Vixens didn't understand the structure.
Jax explained it.
Fantasy materials appeared more frequently as they moved farther through the puzzle.
Mithril.
Gaia's Tear.
Umbral Ore.
Metals that stored mana.
Crystals that reacted to living tissue.
Powders that became lighter when exposed to magic.
Substances Jax was fairly certain would have caused several physicists on Earth to either win Nobel Prizes or start drinking heavily.
Probably both.
And slowly—
The wall filled.
Near the end, Jax stepped back.
Only a handful of spaces remained.
The room no longer resembled the chamber they had entered.
Hidden compartments covered the walls.
Weapons and armor rested everywhere.
Entire collections had been revealed behind completed sections.
Rare materials filled shelves.
Artifacts sat on pedestals.
Jax looked at Zee.
She immediately shook her head.
"No."
"Come on."
"No."
"Final estimate."
"We aren't finished."
"Current estimate."
Zee sighed.
She looked around.
Bunny joined her.
The two began quietly discussing items.
Llandra supplied several estimates for Elven artifacts.
Nyxian knew the likely value of two pieces Zee had dismissed because she didn't recognize them.
Eventually Zee turned back.
"Approximately two hundred and fifty million gold."
Jax stared.
Bunny grinned.
Nyxian whistled.
Pixelle's wings stopped moving for half a second before catching her again.
"Two hundred and fifty million?"
"At minimum," Zee said.
Jax's eyes narrowed.
"At minimum?"
"Several pieces have no obvious comparison. I am estimating what similar items might be worth."
Jax looked around.
Then smiled.
"It's low."
Zee frowned.
"It isn't."
"It is."
"Jax, I assure you—"
"You're pricing the objects."
Zee stopped.
Jax pointed toward the Mithril dagger revealed by their first correct placement.
"What was that worth, again?"
"Approximately five million."
"No."
Zee frowned.
"You asked me—"
"A Mithril knife is worth five million."
Bunny's ears rose.
Jax smiled.
"That isn't just a Mithril dagger."
He walked toward the blade.
"This is a Mithril dagger recovered from the final floor of a World Tree by the Vixens after the fastest known clear in history."
Bunny's smile slowly widened.
Jax continued.
"You put a normal Mithril dagger on the market, maybe you get five million."
He gestured toward it.
"You put this dagger in the right auction, tell its story, establish exactly where it came from and how it was earned…"
Bunny nodded.
"Twenty million."
Pixelle looked between them.
"For the same blade?"
Jax smiled.
"It's not the same blade anymore."
Bunny crossed her arms.
"I am a merchant, you know."
"I know."
"You sounded surprised."
"I wasn't."
"You looked surprised."
"Can we focus?"
"That's what people say when they know they're losing."
Nyxian nodded.
"She got you."
"Thank you, Nyxian."
"Anytime."
Jax looked around again.
Two hundred and fifty million gold.
Minimum.
And that was before he started selling the story.
Before auctions.
Before collectors.
Before nobles started competing against each other for the right to say they owned an artifact recovered by the Vixens from the final floor of the World Tree.
Jax had absolutely no idea what the real number was.
He liked that.
A lot.
"Three left," Llandra said.
Jax returned to the wall.
The mood changed.
They were close.
The first two took another twenty minutes.
One required Zee and Pixelle working together to understand how the material interacted with mana and living plants.
The second came from something Bunny remembered her father once refusing to trade because the material was too unstable to transport safely.
Nyxian knew how it was stabilized.
Jax knew where its properties suggested it belonged.
CLICK
Another compartment opened.
One remained.
They gathered around it.
Jax studied the final empty space.
Then looked at the remaining materials.
There were several.
That was the trick.
Not everything in the room belonged in the puzzle.
Some really was treasure.
Some was distraction.
Jax crouched beside the remaining possibilities.
"I don't know."
Nobody laughed.
They were too close.
Zee knelt beside him.
"What should it do?"
Jax looked at the surrounding positions.
"Based on everything else?"
He thought.
"Stable. Very stable."
Llandra picked up one of the remaining ingots.
"This?"
Zee shook her head.
"No. It reacts strongly to concentrated mana."
She put it down.
Pixelle hovered over another.
"What about this?"
Bunny shook her head.
"Too soft."
Nyxian held up a dark crystal.
Everyone looked at her.
"What?"
Jax shook his head.
"No."
"You didn't even ask what it does."
"You're smiling."
"That doesn't mean anything."
"It means absolutely everything."
She put it back.
They continued.
One by one.
Eliminating possibilities.
Comparing.
Arguing.
Thinking.
Then Pixelle stopped.
She flew toward a small container near the back.
Inside rested a dull, almost unimpressive piece of pale green material.
"This."
Jax looked at it.
"Why?"
"I've seen it before."
"Where?"
"Under the Fairy Kingdom."
That got everyone's attention.
Pixelle lifted the container.
"It forms near deep concentrations of natural mana. It's incredibly old."
Zee moved beside her.
"I know this."
"You do?"
Zee nodded.
"Not by sight."
She studied it.
"But if it's what I think it is…"
Her eyes began to glow faintly.
She examined the material through magic.
"It barely reacts."
Jax stood.
"Stable?"
"Extremely."
Llandra joined them.
"Hard?"
Pixelle nodded.
"Very."
"Conductive?" Jax asked.
Zee considered it.
"Not exactly."
"What does it do with mana?"
"Almost nothing."
Jax frowned.
Then Zee continued.
"It doesn't conduct mana."
She looked at him.
"It holds it."
Jax's eyes moved toward the final space.
"How long?"
Pixelle answered.
"Centuries."
Silence.
Jax smiled.
Jax stared at the final space.
Then at the material.
"That's our best answer."
Pixelle looked at him.
"You're sure?"
Jax considered it.
"No."
That wasn't the answer she wanted.
They walked toward the wall together.
Pixelle held out the container.
Then stopped.
"You do it."
Jax looked at her.
"Why me?"
"You recognized the puzzle."
Jax shook his head.
"We solved the puzzle."
He pushed the container gently back toward her.
"You found the last one."
Pixelle looked at the others.
Then down at the pale green material in her tiny hands.
"I can't."
Jax's smile faded.
"What?"
Her voice cracked slightly.
"I can't be the one who chooses the wrong one and fails."
She flew toward him and held out the material.
Jax didn't take it.
"Pixelle."
"You do it."
He looked at the three-inch Fairy Queen hovering in front of him, both hands wrapped around an ingot that looked enormous against her tiny body.
Then he gently pushed her hands back toward her.
"We win as a team. We lose as a team. No matter what happens, we do this together."
Pixelle looked down at the ingot.
"Trust yourself."
She looked back at him.
Jax smiled.
"We already trust you."
Bunny smiled.
Llandra nodded.
Zee stepped beside her.
Nyxian grinned.
"Do it, Queenie."
Pixelle flew toward the wall.
She removed the pale green material from its container.
Held it with both hands.
Then carefully pressed it toward the final empty space.
The wall accepted it.
CLICK
Nothing happened.
Pixelle froze.
Bunny's ears lowered.
"Uh…"
Jax waited.
Nothing.
Nyxian looked at him.
"Was that the bad click?"
"I don't know."
Then the World Tree moved.
Not the chamber.
The tree.
A vibration traveled through the floor beneath their feet.
Deep.
Massive.
Ancient.
Dust fell from above.
The treasures rattled on their pedestals.
Pixelle flew backward.
Zee raised Sanctaris.
Llandra reached for Starpiercer.
Bunny grabbed World Breaker.
Nyxian's hand went to Lilith's Kiss.
Jax drew Peacemaker.
The vibration grew.
Then every symbol in the enormous puzzle ignited at once.
Light raced across the wall.
Through every row.
Every column.
Every completed section.
One after another, the hidden reward chambers opened fully.
Then—
THOOM.
Everyone turned.
A seam had appeared along the far wall.
A wall they hadn't realized could move.
It began to separate.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Golden-green light spilled through the widening gap.
Warm mana rolled across the chamber.
Not violent.
Not threatening.
Alive.
Pixelle turned toward it.
And froze.
Her wings stopped.
For one terrifying second she simply dropped.
Then they snapped open again.
"Pixelle?" Jax asked.
She didn't answer.
Zee saw it next.
Her eyes widened.
Sanctaris slowly lowered.
Llandra stepped beside her.
For once, the Elven princess's composure simply disappeared.
Her lips parted.
Bunny's ears rose until they stood perfectly straight.
Nyxian walked forward.
Her smile vanished.
Jax looked between them.
"What?"
Nobody answered.
The hidden chamber finished opening.
Golden-green light poured across their faces.
"Guys?"
Pixelle whispered something.
Jax couldn't hear her.
He stepped toward them.
"What is it?"
Then he saw what was waiting inside.
And stopped.