I blinked open my eyes and sat up. I felt surprisingly good for having been zapped by a magical lightning bolt. A quick scan of my stats confirmed my health and mana were full, along with a sizable orange bar of extra energy captured by my boots. I had another, smaller orange bar from energy my Magical Resistance had captured from that Vault Keeper's magical club.

Looking around, I found myself in a pretty standard-looking jail cell, if jail cells were 40 feet across and all the bars glowed silver with magical enchantments. I sat on a surprisingly soft cot against the back wall. The room was empty except for another cot nearby.

"Nigel!"

I rushed over to my little murder kitty, who was sprawled out on the cot, still unconscious. When I touched him, he awoke and shot straight up 20 feet. When he landed on the cot, his entire body shook and he looked around in panic.

"Where did the dogs go?"

"Take it easy, bud."

"Dogs, Lucas! The last time we met a dog, it forced you to do unthinkable things. Now they knocked us out." His voice fell to a whisper and his shaking got worse. "They could have done anything. Maybe even licked me!"

I concealed a smile. This was traumatic for the little guy. I stroked his shaggy fur. "We'll figure it out. Right now, you need to calm down."

It took a few minutes, but he finally did. As I sat petting him, I checked my messages. Surprisingly, I got a couple achievements.

"Congratulations, Lucas! Mimic has captured Stun Strike. Time remaining to re-cast the spell: 15 seconds."

So they hadn't used lightning magic, after all. Stun Strike sounded like it could have been really good, but the timer had long-since run out.

It must have been a very powerful spell. My Magical Resistance was at 188, so it would have blocked a lot of magic, then captured another 30% into my extra temporary energy pool. Some of my other gear boosted my defenses even more, but even with all that, a single shot had knocked me out cold.

"Congratulations, Lucas! For being the first human to penetrate the inner world all the way to a maintenance warehouse, only to get captured within 1 minute of arriving, you receive a gold Jar Jar loot box."

"Congratulations, Lucas! For surviving the stun club of a tier-3 Ironpaw Vault Keeper set on its lowest setting, you receive a gold Wimpy loot box."

"Jar Jar and Wimpy loot boxes? That's mean."

Cyrus chuckled. "Fitting, though."

Maybe they'd have something to help me escape the cell. I willed the loot boxes open. They appeared, and the Jar Jar loot box flashed and opened first, leaving behind 2 items.

"Stun club replica. This child's toy is a 1/10th scale model of the actual stun clubs used by the Ironpaw Vault Keepers. Delivers a tiny jolt of magic across a target's skin. Uses remaining: 3."

The tiny replica club would have been cool for a 4-year-old. I banged it against my palm and received a tiny shock, kind of like from one of those buzzer things people used to conceal in their palms when shaking hands. The other item just made me laugh.

"Ironpaw Patrol Uniform Patch and Repeat Customer Card. A perfect duplicate of the official Ironpaw patrol patch, this card includes 5 removable cutouts to track how many times you've been stunned."

A magical punch card. The first of the 5 star-shaped cutouts was already missing. Four to go. Would I get a special prize if I got stunned all 4 times? I tossed both items in my to-sell pile for Jeeves.

The Wimpy gold loot box flashed and disappeared next, leaving a single scroll behind.

"Upgrade Scroll. Plus 10 to Magical Resistance."

Nice, but not as useful as I had hoped. I read the scroll and it flashed, then disappeared.

No one had come to see us. The cell was located in a larger open room, empty of decoration. The walls were bare steel, while a single desk and chair sat near the only door. Several papers were scattered across the desk, but I couldn't make them out from that angle.

Waiting around wasn't my preferred response, so I headed for the door and gingerly touched the glowing metal with the back of my hand. A shock tore up my arm, making me convulsively pull away. Good thing I hadn't grabbed the bars palm down, or I might have gotten stuck there for a while as my hand convulsively closed around the bar.

I tried to summon my Maul, but nothing happened. "So this cell can cut off my inventory?"

"Wouldn't be much of a holding cell if you could pull out a cutting torch, or something," Cyrus said.

"Nothing is easy," I muttered.

Cyrus responded in Yoda's voice. "Do or do not. There is no try."

"I'm working on it."

I tried casting Shadow Walk, but it also failed. Next, I tried Phantom Step, and that ability did work. Was that because it was a gear-based ability? I grinned as I phased out of the physical world and again touched the bars. With any luck, I could slip right through.

The magical jolt hit with 10 times the force in ethereal form, blasting me back all the way to the back wall. Luckily, the wall didn't hit me with another jolt, or I might have ended up ping-ponging back and forth forever. I didn't slip through the wall, but just bounced off.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Cutting off the ability, I dropped to the cot with a groan. "Ow."

Nigel tried raking the bars with his Mufasa claws, but the ethereal claws didn't leave a mark. Instead, Nigel yelped and leaped all the way to the high ceiling before rushing back to join me.

"That jolt's no joke," I agreed, scratching behind his ears.

He growled low at the glowing bars. "Must have been made by dogs."

I sat back against the wall on the cot, studying the situation. I couldn't use my inventory or my spells. I lacked the strength to break out, or any useful equipment. I did have mana, though.

When I focused on my pool of mana, it responded like normal. Just couldn't activate spells. I was able to activate Spellseer's Gaze and the colors of the drab room deepened, while the glowing bars shone with vibrant, golden light. I focused on Mana Control and all the mana in the cell appeared in sharper detail.

There was a lot more than I'd expected. The mana density was a lot higher than most of Arasha I'd explored, definitely tier-1 at least. Basic mana flowed all around me, while light mana flitted about the glowing bars. With a thought, I swept my Mana Control across the cell, transforming all the mana to convergence mana.

Then I studied the bars more closely. They contained a lot of power, but the mana signature was new. It felt like a blend of iron and spirit and light, all blended together. Must be some kind of constructed mana, sort of like convergence mana.

Which was stronger? Using my Mana Strings ability, I formed a glowing hand made out of pure mana and wrapped the fingers around one of the shining cell bars. Energy sparked and crackled like mini lightning from the contact, and an ozone scent wafted across the cell. My convergence mana clashed with what I thought of as prison mana, both trying to overwhelm the other, but neither gaining much ground.

If I was going to languish in there a long time, I'd keep worrying at it and eventually I bet I could figure out how to break through. Time might be short though, so I released the cell bar. Maybe I could learn something useful elsewhere.

Compressing the hand of mana, I willed it out through one of the gaps in the bars. Mini magical lightning sparked between my mana hand and all the surrounding bars, little jolts that drained some of my mana pool, but I pushed harder and the mana hand slid through.

Once out in the larger room, the drain faded. I'd worried the cells might somehow block my connection to my mana, but that proved incorrect. I pushed the mana hand across the room to the desk and carefully manipulated the fingers to raise the top sheet into the air and rotate it toward me so I could use Spellseer's Gaze to zoom my vision onto it and read the page.

The process came smoothly, and I grinned when I thought back to how agonizing it had been to manipulate that tiny knife when I was stuck in the heart of the Colossus. Of course, I'd been on the verge of getting literally ripped limb from limb. Still, getting Mana Control and Meditation up to tier-1 and Mana Strings to level 6 made an enormous difference.

The first couple pages were a bust, containing boring lists of supplies and a schedule for patrols. I carefully flipped each page over, maintaining the same order so I could put them all back without anyone realizing what I'd done. The third page made me smile when I read the title.

"Stage 3 final approved map of Ruin."

It showed the entire expanse of stage 3, which really was nothing but a huge plateau covered entirely by the ruined city. The entire expanse was laid out, along with all of the canals and bridges marked.

It did not show where to find the boss lairs, or show anything about Echo City, so there had to be more pages with the rest of the map somewhere. After studying the map for 3 seconds, I got a notification.

"Congratulations, Lucas! Navigation map updated with new information."

Ha! I wanted to check for more maps, but my control over the mana hand was starting to slip from the extended use. I managed to grab a quick peek at the next page, which was another map labeled, "Canal tunnels and Mermaid lair" but the mana hand started to fade before I could study it.

I barely managed to replace all the pages the way I found them, then dispersed my mana hand. With a sigh, I sagged against the wall, sweating and with a dull headache. My skill in manipulating mana had jumped leaps and bounds, but still wasn't easy enough to be useful in battle. I needed to keep practicing. Maybe I could check the rest of the pages after I rested a bit.

The hoped-for notification of ability leveling up didn't happen. Annoying. As I recovered, I willed open my full map. Instead of stage 3, it showed the winding path I'd taken from the moment I stepped through the rift to the huge maintenance warehouse, and then to the holding cell. Apparently, Navigation tracked my progress even when I was unconscious. By the many branching hallways that ended in empty blackness, the inner world area I'd stepped into this time was massive.

Before I could flip the map back to stage 3, the outer door opened and 2 of the huge Ironpaw guards marched inside, followed by a tiny woman with rainbow wings, who flitted like a hummingbird.

"Fulvia!" I blurted.

She scowled and gave me a look that clearly communicated, "Really?"

I guess she hadn't wanted the guards to know she knew me. Oops.

Sure enough, the guards swiveled to regard her. The one on the right spoke in a growling voice, the language new, but my Linguasight utility spell translated it just fine.

"How do you know the prisoner?"

"Where do you think he got the Fairy Friend token, or a Staff Only pass?" she asked, hands on hips as if that was a stupid question. The beautiful little fairy's sultry, Gal Gadot voice still surprised me.

"How did you meet a human on the surface?" the second guard asked. "You work in processing."

"Special assignment. Look at him. Tier-1, golden eyes, with a pass and a token. Why is he still locked up?"

"We found him lurking in one of the maintenance warehouses," the first guard responded. "Only reason he wasn't terminated was the token and the pass. That's why we sent for clarification."

"Well, you got it. Release him. I'll escort him back to the surface."

They clearly didn't like it, but guard two marched to the door of the cell and pressed a metal-clad hand to the surface. The glow disappeared and the cell door swung open.

The guard paused to glare at Nigel and growl. "This one has no pass."

Nigel's entire body fluffed out in rage and he hissed back at the dog soldier.

"Easy, buddy," I said. Nigel was tough, but those Ironpaw guards were tier-3. To them, I was less than level 1. For all the power I'd accumulated already, they were entire tiers out of my league.

"The cat is his familiar," Fulvia said.

After another growl, the guard stepped back. I scooped up Nigel to keep him from doing something stupid and getting us both killed, then exited the cell.

"Sorry for the misunderstanding. I hadn't realized I was supposed to check in with you guys or anything."

"You're not supposed to be here at all," Guard One barked.

The other guard added, "Don't push the limits, human. Your token and pass grant you basic access, but you're not authorized into more restricted areas."

"Good to know. Thanks."

"Give us a minute," Fulvia told them.

"This is our office," Guard One protested. She just gave him the look again. He slammed his teeth together in a sign of annoyance, but marched out with his companion on his heels.

"Thanks for bailing me out."

She turned her glare on me. "I hadn't expected to see you again, let alone have my day interrupted to save you from interrogation. Do you have any idea how stupid it is to delve this deep?"

"Not much choice." I gave her a quick run-down of the situation Marisara had left me in. Her scowl only deepened.

"With live feeds active, this could be disastrous."

"It's covered," Cyrus interjected.

She turned her glare skyward. "I appreciate the bonus I received after helping evolve Lucas's mana to convergence, but I thought the deal was done after that."

"Flexibility is the cornerstone of a successful career."

"Don't drag me down with you when this experiment implodes," she warned, then snapped, "Let's go, Lucas. You're in enough trouble. Don't wander, don't touch things, and don't get distracted. We have to get you out of here."

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