Day 2.

My assets are reduced to a fraction of what they were, now being just the stray reconnaissance unit, and marginally useful at that. They either catch a glimpse before being consumed or show me what I already know. My armor is gone, destroyed by the incessant assault groups of devourers I've been constantly fending off, the different monsters working together with frighteningly efficient coordination. At least my weapon is still pristine. Whatever I am reliant on is securely held inside my own spatial fold, or I risk losing it as well. And with it, any hope I have of conquering this prison.

I've scoured every cubic centimeter of the dungeon, and there's still no sign of the boss. Wherever the monster is hiding, it is a place I cannot access or even perceive. It's not on the surface. It's not hidden beneath the earth, waiting for me to step on top of it to burst out. It's not biding its time somewhere in the coldness of the finite cosmos, watching my futile struggles. It's not within the fake star, nor the previous ten I've annihilated, always returning and beaming down their frigid light, carrying no warmth to soothe my skin.

Deep rumbles shake the air around me. Another attack is imminent, it seems. The All-Seeing motionless and far away, their barriers impeding my righteous retaliations, futilely delaying their own deaths. The All-Hearing trying to liquify both my spells and my body, destabilizing anything I try to conjure. Droves of All-Consuming throwing themselves at me with reckless abandon, driven by their eternal hunger, hoping in their vile approximations of a mind that I will finally drive away their punishment. Flocks of the flying vultures crashing down on top of me, attempting to peck out strips of flesh. The colossi dropping down from space like meteors. Useless... Useless. Useless!

You will not defeat me.

***

Day 7.

I have purged this unending filth without stopping, without rest, without any other thought gracing my mind, a singular resolve. So then why does nothing change? The monsters' numbers ever unchanging, ceaselessly replenishing. The dungeon always gray and static. I've cracked this forsaken rock into dust more times than I care to remember. I've thrown the star at the planet and erased them both dozens of times. I've generated thousands of singularities, rending space and time into thin ribbons of physical paradoxes. But they always return. Always the same. Always gray and static.

How much more do I have to end before the boss reveals itself? Is there a puzzle, a trick, a secret, hidden somewhere I will never find? Impossible. Every possibility is accounted for, ruled out, exhausted.

Enough wallowing. Remember your purpose, remember what you came here to do, remember who you are doing it for. Two digital hands slap my digital face, mirroring the action of the tangible counterparts. Two resounding claps can be heard, one outside and one in my mind.

Alright, let's mix it up. If one thing doesn't work, the next it is.

After repelling the latest assault, I take advantage of the brief downtime and warp out a Knight. Then I pull out a shiny mana crystal out of my slowly growing stockpile. Brought a good amount with me, but the devourers do drop the occasional penultimate-level resource, rare as they are.

I get close to the drone and place a hand on its chest. Then I hesitate. Maybe I should try out a Squire first? Even a master of enchanting struggled with imbuing enough power into my creations to make them remotely viable, and that was against an A-grade. And I am no master. Is this all for naught? Of all the golems that exist, Mara is probably the only one that could tackle an S.

But I do have one advantage. I know you—my hand slides along the surface of the drone—in and out.

A squeeze crushes the crystal into dust. Brilliant light flows from my clenched left hand to my right, resting on the drone. The glow enters the metal and loses intensity, dimming to a muted flame. Then it settles, flickering but still burning.

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The Knight warps a hundred kilometers away and shoots a railgun dart at an ever-smiling devourer. The dart freezes before even touching the monster. The drone fails to warp away. A snap follows. Well... it's a start.

Enchanting, in and of itself, is quite similar to spellcasting. You need both intent, to guide the process, and visualization, to mold the outcome, if you want to imbue properties into an inanimate object. Where the two disciplines differ is that you don't need willpower. You need understanding. One could argue that willpower is understanding yourself, but the two aspects are categorically different. If you want to enchant a sword to be a better sword, you need to know how to make a sword, what makes a sword better, and how you can reach that desired state, even if the concepts are somewhat nebulous. Then there's the fuel—mana crystals. Higher grade mana crystals do not only carry more 'fuel', crystallized mana, in them, but they also have more conceptual weight behind them, making any enchantment have a higher possible potential.

To make a better drone, you need to understand every piece of technology that goes into the creation of this machine. That requirement is decidedly checked. And you need to have the right tools. What better place to be in, huh...

I warp out another Knight. But now, instead of focusing on the entirety of the loyal fighter, I turn my ethereal gaze to a single contraption. Its warp drive, deep within a spatial fold. The fuel supplied by the crushed mana crystal is fully drained away due to my inexperience, but my experiment succeeds. Running diagnostics on the drive does not reveal anything different. My mana senses detect a subtle shift.

The drone is sent off again. Another dart is frozen in space. The drone tries to flee the lock. A tiny tear into reality forms, but then the drone is gone. Can a success be both spectacularly impressive and whimperingly unsatisfactory? I decide in the affirmative.

Another hundred tries shift my decision confidently in the negative. I flex my control, lifting my hand and the next prepared Knight with it. A clench crushes the disappointing drone into a sphere of useless scrap. My hand relaxes and the metal drums against the dusty ground.

A new approach is needed.

I crack my digital knuckles, once again mirroring the gesture in the real world, and bring out the drone components that are ordinarily housed securely inside a fold in reality. We have a still wet-looking quark-shift reactor, a little taller than me and just as wide. Next to it is the warp drive, casting a large shadow over me. The gravity drive is a much more modest height, and so is the all-in-one projector, used for both stealth and defense. Following that is a line of weaponry. Electromagnetic, high-energy, ballistic, and explosive, with great variety between the last two. Then there's the actuators that give the drone improved leverage that isn't normally possible in such a small package. Next to that is the package itself, the superalloy body. And finally, the brains of the operation. A sensor suite, comms, and the integrated processing unit, all hefty hardware. There's also all the redundant systems, maintenance systems, wiring and tubing that connects it all, heat management, and other miscellaneous auxiliary devices, but those aren't as important.

A mana crystal is gripped in my hand, I toss it up and freeze it in place, letting it drop slowly back down and into my open hand. While repeating the process, I contemplate. What should I start with?

The crystal drops in my hand one last time, and I squeeze. A glowing hand is placed on the drone's proverbial brain. What do I need from you? I don't need you to be faster, you're nearly as fast as me. I don't need you to be more accurate, you're already flawless. The glow in my hand intensifies. I need you to be more like me. With a dazzling flash, the glow intensifies even further, but only for a moment, gone in the next. Trying to levitate the unit with my control offers palpable resistance. ...Sublime.

My gaze shifts to all remaining components. Let's see if I can make you work together.

I succeed on attempt five.

Attempt forty-seven sees my success not immediately blow up in my face once fully assembled.

The Knight is standing in front of me. My sensors are scratching their heads, wondering why the hell I have that goofy smile on my face. My mana senses catch the subtle feeling of power radiating out instantly. I offer the newest iteration of the Knight a final bow. A glass rose materializes in its hand, and it offers it to me. Oh my, you shouldn't have. I take the celebratory present and give it a wave. The drone brings two fingers to its imagined brow and fires off a crisp salute, warping away at the end of the motion.

A dart strikes the All-Consuming's shoulder, blowing out a chunk. The monster appears next to where my drone was standing. A second dart is caught in its flaky hand. The monster turns toward its attacker again. The drone decides that a tactical retreat is the best course of action, warping back to me.

Little better. But you looked like you needed some backup.

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