Sworded Affair

"The third encounter is to be the hardest, yet again," Emma guessed, as a notification arrived the moment she set foot in the next room.

This one was completely bare of decorations, a simple cylinder surrounded on all sides by simple stone walls. These walls were bare, save for a single column, where careful carvings produced a chain of long, flowery script from top to bottom. The room was otherwise empty, with neither enemy nor proctor to greet her. Taking the heavy handed hint in stride, Emma began to read from the wall.

"If it must be named, let its name be Great. Great and kind, great and terrible, remembered from antiquity until the stars go out. This is The Way: the immensity of heaven, the solidity of earth, and the tenacity of mankind to bridge the gap."

Emma paused, as the next line reverted to the first, repeating the same stanza again and again until it cut off mid sentence against the floor, as space for writing ran out.

"It\'s very… inspirational?"

[The text is old, stemming from the writings of Li Er, if I\'m not mistaken. The System does its best, but translation is a delicate art, and certain nuances are inevitably lost when the recipient is not themselves a native speaker.

Time is accelerating.

WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 21 hours, 21 minutes

WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 21 hours, 20 minutes

WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 21 hours, 19 minutes..]

"Shit."

Feeling the urgency more than ever, Emma looked around the room with renewed fervour, looking for a hint to what had to be a puzzle room of some sort. Nothing changed, neither hide nor hair of anyone coming to greet her. All the while, the clock ticked down, a minute gone with every passing second. Faced with a situation with unknown parameters she couldn\'t begin to guess at, Emma defaulted to doing what she was best at: breaking things.

Calling Epitaph to her hand, she began by hacking and slashin at the nearest wall, seeking a hidden exit. Her blade bounced off every time, doing no damage at all despite her best efforts and considerable strength. This remained true as she circled the room, until at last she reached the wall with the carvings. The moment Emma scratched through her first Chinese character, Emma died.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

[50,000 Anima lost.

One With Everything activates, leaving you at 1 Anima!]

Emma slammed against the far wall, courtesy of an immense hand that had appeared out of nowhere to give her the mother of all slaps, before retreating back into the wall, or rather, what the rest of the wall had been built around.

[Funerary Tablet (Spirit Severing) - Level 80]

"I didn\'t even see it move," Emma gaped as she slowly slid down the wall, leaving a faint imprint as she landed, as she watched the faint cut she\'d managed seal itself, leaving the tablet pristine once more.

[Spirit Severing is the highest realm of cultivators in the modern age. Anything above that could not be sustained by the mana available: in an era of drought, those in higher realms were forced to either ascend or starve. Even Spirit Severing didn\'t have it easy; the majority at this rank have spent long centuries asleep, and will only now start to wake back up in this new era of abundance.]

"So this is the resting place of a powerful dead cultivator?"

[Stronger than any of his descendants, much to his chagrin.]

That answer wasn\'t too helpful, and as Emma considered her options, she realised there was no way she could overcome such an opponent. Brute force, clearly, was not the answer.

"Wait."

Emma glanced down, tracing the faint impression beneath her.

"The walls resist damage, the tablet fights back, but the floor did neither."

Earthbound Immortal, excavate.

By Emma\'s command, her summoned elemental took possession on the earth beneath them and pulled, taking all of it with him to form a body taller than herself. Not too big, as the room was only two feet deeper after the fact, so there wasn\'t that much dirt to work with. None of it looked any different from further up, but Emma didn\'t care, her eyes immediately turning to the funerary tablet. Measuring the remaining distance from the end of the writing to the floor, she decided that, yes, there was exactly enough room to finish the final stanza, if the correct size and script was maintained.

[WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 19 hours, 05 minutes]

By now, One With Everything was back off cooldown, courtesy of the accelerated flow of time, so Emma had her safety net back even if her deduction proved wrong. Heading back before the Funerary Tablet, and careful not to touch what was already there, Emma laid flat on her belly for a better view and leverage. From there, she lightly pierced the newly revealed stretch of wall with Epitaph\'s tip, and began to carve.

It was slow, careful work, Emma frequently pausing to look at the existing characters further up, trying to keep as close to the design as possible. She knew parity wasn\'t realistic; being neither a trained stonemason nor equipped with the tools to make it so, but Emma still tried her best to keep to the theme. Thankfully, no further attacks materialised as she worked, and as the eighth and final line took form, ending less than a millimetre above the new floor level, every character lit up in heavenly blue, and caved in on itself.

[200 EXP gained for passing a trial of wits.

Time resumes its normal flow.

WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 13 hours, 17 minutes.]

Where once was a stretch of solid wall, a narrow passageway appeared, through which Emma could see two figures. One, an old man dressed in scholar\'s robes, lying dead on the floor. The other? A massive ball of liquid metal, pulsating in tune with an unknown heartbeat.

[Heavenly Jade Mirror - Level ???]