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_________________________________________________________________________________________________"Why? Why wouldn't I want to know how the dungeon works? It's trying to kill us—understanding it will obviously be useful. Not to mention the benefits to be gained from reverse-engineering it."His brow furrowed. "Reverse engineering it?""If I can discover how he's doing what he's doing, then I can emulate him—or break his System entirely, possibly. To our benefit."He blinked. She supposed it sounded like a rather over-achieving ambition. Rather than addressing that, though, he asked, "What 'he' are you talking about?"She waved her hand. "You know, the Grand Architect. The designer of this place. The System. Whoever he, or she, or it, is." She'd defaulted to a 'he.'"What do you mean by break it?" Vesper asked.Morgana shrugged. "I'm not precisely sure, to be honest. And that's not necessarily my goal either. But who knows what's possible? I'm curious." She was the only one who even seemed aware of how magic worked at its fundamental level. The Grand Architect was obviously also an archmage of significant skill—though even the generous descriptor of 'archmage' felt like it was blaspheming his name. Archmage was a title applied to people she knew. Humans. Talented ones, but mortals nonetheless. This creator was a mage of some entirely other caliber. Nearly godlike in his abilities. "Even if I can't manage to, I don't know, exploit his designs in some way, then there's so much to learn in general. The opportunity to study the complex creations of an archmage—no, an arch-archmage." Morgana's thoughts went briefly wandering away, imagining it.If only she could find where he was hiding the spell formulae…"Don't salivate too much at the idea," Vesper laughed. "But if he's as smart as you're saying, he's probably hidden things pretty well. Made it tamper-proof. Sounds like it'd be a hard thing to 'break'.""And dangerous," Flint added.Morgana's mood briefly spoiled. The two of them were, of course, correct. The Grand Architect clearly didn't want his creation exploited—or at least easily.Then again, maybe the possibility simply hadn't crossed his mind when creating everything? Perhaps the System's obfuscation was inherent to its design, not a 'preventative measure.' Because there weren't other mages here, it seemed, besides the ones granted powers through his own designs.Seeing how she had no clue what the real circumstances behind the System's creation was, anything was possible. Theorizing was almost pointless. Not that she would be able to help herself from doing so.Even just to take a peek at his designs, though…who knew what she could learn?But it wasn't happening with this pressure plate, or even today, likely. Morgana sighed and stood.Less than an hour into their adventures, right after putting down another one of those gruesome [Unseen Lurkers], a welcome surprise came.***You have leveled up.***"Hey," Vesper said, straightening up in surprise. "Did you get that?" she asked, glancing at Morgana."I did, yes," Morgana said, mildly surprised, both at the speed of the progress and that Vesper had gotten the notification at the same time. "I thought you said it would take up to a week to level?"Vesper raised an eyebrow at her. "You do realize I have no clue what I'm talking about? It's not like I grew up in some adventuring family. Don't take anything I say too seriously." She paused. "Plus, I didn't account for how many monsters you'd be killing every trip," she said dryly."You two leveled?" Flint asked."Yep." Vesper twitched. "Wait, did you get a class, then?""No."Vesper deflated."I'm surprised the experience gain is so synchronized," Morgana said. "I had figured since I was doing most of the work, I would level before you."Vesper shrugged. "Me too. But guess not.""Is all of this really not solved, to some extent?""Solved?""Well documented. Understood. It's still such a mystery to everyone? After so many years?""Maybe some people know more. But information is power. Anything about dungeons, levels, the System is kept hidden, when possible. To use to their advantage."That didn't surprise Morgana; it was perfectly rational behavior.Also, it wouldn't surprise her if the Architect had designed a convoluted and even purposefully obfuscated system to keep people from 'gaming' it. Seeing how the System could read thoughts to some extent, perhaps intentions even mattered. When it came to experience gain, maybe acting in good faith affected the result. That she and Vesper were genuinely teaming up, rather than, for example, one person intentionally carrying another through the dungeon for the purpose of leveling them—as a rich prince might hire someone to do."In any case," Morgana said. "It's a good thing we're leveling at the same rate. I'm glad it's not all going to me." While Vesper and Flint weren't contributing loads to most combat encounters, Morgana absolutely didn't want to be down here alone, with no back-up. Nor did she want to leave Vesper behind in levels; she wanted to continue exploring the dungeon with her on, while not truly equal footing, at least equal when it came to levels."Is pretty weird, though," Vesper commented. "Really would've figured you'd level before me.""What skills did you get?" Flint asked.Glancing over at him, Morgana saw Flint had asked Vesper, not her—though at the question, Vesper had turned to Morgana, clearly curious at what she had gotten.Closing her eyes, Morgana sought out her skill list.***[Magic Missile]: MASTERED. Aim a burst of arcane energy.[Efficient Usage]: Primordial mana, when utilized directly, is three times as effective.[Frost Nova]: CLUMSY. Encase a target in ice, reducing magical defenses and slowing or disabling.***