Chapter 244

After the third battle, when the last runic golem crumbled into the flooded stone with a hiss of blue steam, the group decided they’d had enough for the morning. Their mana reserves were low, their gear was slick with seawater and dusted with fragments of shattered coral, and even Kharnek’s breathing had grown heavy.

They pulled back through the winding corridors until the sunlight of the entrance spilled over them again. The air outside felt cleaner, still salty, but free of the labyrinth’s thick, metallic mana.

Lunch was simple: dried meat, hard bread, and fruit packed from the mainland. But the moment they finished eating, Rathen was already on his feet.

The Ironhand captain squatted in the sand near the camp and began scratching lines into the ground with a stick. “Alright,” he said, voice carrying across the camp. “Now that we’ve got three encounters worth of data, we can start refining our formation.”

He drew the rough outline of a corridor, marking where each fighter had stood during the last engagements. “We’ve confirmed that the golems always start by scanning, then firing a frontal barrage. That gives us two, maybe three seconds of prep time. During that window, shield bearers form the first wall. Mages prep reinforcement. Gaius and Ludger, your earth spikes and Wards stay reserved until the golem begins its charge We can try to use other spells for the same effect, but the chances of working are low thanks to the weight of those things.”

Ludger nodded faintly from where he stood nearby, but he wasn’t paying full attention. His hands were busy reshaping the ground near the labyrinth’s mouth, mana pulsing beneath his gloves.

Rathen continued, “We’ll drill this until it’s reflex. And for the second line…” He glanced at Kharnek with a grin. “We’ll need some pressure testing. You’re up, Chieftain.”

Kharnek cracked his neck, clearly delighted. “You want me to play the monster?”

“Exactly,” Rathen said. “Go easy on them.”

“I won’t,” Kharnek said cheerfully.

The Ironhand soldiers groaned collectively as he stomped toward the training circle. While Rathen organized his mock battle, Ludger stayed focused on his own task. The water that had filled the labyrinth’s corridors had been slowing their progress—so he’d decided to fix it the old-fashioned way.

He extended his mana through the earth, shaping a channel from the labyrinth entrance all the way toward the sea. Sand shifted, hardening into smooth stone as he carved a shallow path that sloped downward.

Bit by bit, the water began to drain from the entrance, flowing in small rivulets toward the beach. The sound of it was soft and steady, like a living heartbeat. Viola eventually wandered over, arms crossed, watching him work. “You know,” she said, tilting her head, “the water doesn’t even look that bad. It’s pretty clear. We could probably drink it.”

Ludger paused, giving her a flat look over his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m not drinking the same water that

your boots

and

Kharnek’s boots

have been stomping through all morning.”

She blinked, then smirked. “You make it sound like we’re toxic.”

“I don’t

make

it sound that way,” Ludger said. “You two already did that yourselves.”

Viola laughed, leaning on her sword. “You’re impossible.”

“Careful,” he corrected. “Big difference.”

She rolled her eyes, still smiling. “Whatever you say, Mr. Stonewall.”

Behind them, Kharnek bellowed something about “training like real warriors” as three Ironhand soldiers were sent flying into the sand. Rathen sighed heavily, but didn’t call it off.

Ludger glanced back at the chaos for a moment, then returned to his work. The water continued to drain smoothly, and for the first time since entering the labyrinth, the entrance began to look almost manageable.

It wasn’t much—but it was a start. And in a world that was slowly learning to fight back,

small victories mattered.

Not much water was coming out of the labyrinth.

The shallow stream that had begun trickling down the stone channel was already slowing, leaving only a faint ripple crawling toward the beach. Ludger crouched at the edge, hand pressed to the wet ground, his brow furrowed.

So that’s it, huh?

he thought. The labyrinth’s internal flow wasn’t just trapped—it was self-contained. The water that had flooded the corridors wasn’t simply pooled inside; it was bound by the mana currents of the place itself. It wasn’t going to move unless he forced it.

He tapped his fingers against the stone, thinking. Sure, he could just drain it with brute-force mana shaping, compressing and forcing the liquid out through raw geomancy, but that would take constant effort and focus. Not sustainable.

What he needed was automation, something that could keep cycling without him.

He smirked faintly, an old memory flickering through his mind.

If only I had a pump…

The idea lingered. A proper water pump, mechanical, not magical. The kind that worked on air compression and suction valves. Back on Earth, it was simple fluid mechanics. Here? He didn’t have the tools or materials, but he had mana, and enough physics lodged in his head to fake it.

He stood, scanning the area. His eyes settled on a few pieces of scrap metal from the dismantled golems, joint plates, tube-like conduits, and a few broken cores that had housed fluid regulators. Perfect.

Within minutes, he had gathered what he needed and began shaping the pieces with careful bursts of earth magic, small, precise manipulations, like bending clay. He formed a cone-shaped chamber from hardened stone, embedding the metal tubing inside at an angle.

Then he reached for a flask of oil, and poured a few drops into the inner chamber. “This’ll do,” he murmured.

He added a small piston-like section carved from stone and sealed with bits of softened resin from the nearby coral. Then, using a few flexible strips of leather the Ironhand soldiers had been using for straps, he built a crude valve system, one that could open and close with alternating pressure.

Once assembled, he connected the improvised pump to the channel and placed a flat, round plate of stone on top. With a focused pulse of mana, he made the plate vibrate in steady rhythm.

The pump wheezed once… then

gulped

.

Water sloshed forward, then began flowing steadily down the channel. The suction effect took over, and the labyrinth’s stagnant water started to move again.

The hum of the mechanism echoed faintly, rhythmic and hollow, but it worked.

Behind him, Viola had been watching in silence, arms crossed, brow arched. “Okay,” she finally said, “I was gone for five minutes. What

is

that thing?”

Ludger didn’t look up, still adjusting the vibrations on the plate. “A pump.”

She frowned. “A

what

?”

“It uses pressure and suction to move the water automatically,” he explained. “Think of it as… a stomach that keeps swallowing until it’s full. Except this one doesn’t complain.”

Viola blinked at him. “You made that, out of rocks, scrap metal, and leather?”

“Improvised,” Ludger corrected. “It’s not perfect, but it’ll keep the labyrinth from flooding again. And I don’t have to waste mana keeping it going.”

She crouched beside him, staring at the crude contraption, the faint slosh of water echoing inside the stone tube. “It actually works,” she muttered. “You really built a machine out of garbage.”

Ludger smirked faintly. “It’s called engineering. You should try it sometime.”

Viola gave him a mock glare. “You should try

relaxing

sometime. Normal people eat lunch, not invent whatever this is.”

He chuckled quietly, straightening up. “Lunch doesn’t solve problems. Pumps do. Actually, it solves, my stomach from rumbling.”

She groaned. “You’re hopeless.”

“I have my moments,” Ludger replied, dusting off his gloves.

As he watched the water finally draining out to sea, the steady rhythm of the pump echoing softly beside him, he allowed himself a rare moment of satisfaction. It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t beautiful. But it

worked.

And for Ludger, that was more than enough.

After lunch, Ludger went to check on his improvised plumbing system.

The rhythmic

clunk

and slosh that had echoed through the channel earlier were now barely audible. The water still moved, but sluggishly, like the labyrinth itself had decided to resist being drained. He crouched beside the stone-and-metal contraption, tapping the side of the pump with his knuckles. Nothing. Just a tired gurgle and a weak pull of suction.

He sighed. “Figures,” he muttered. “Guess I didn’t invent perpetual motion after all.”

The idea had been nice, an endless water pump running on a steady vibration of earth-aspected mana, but reality was less forgiving. Without constant energy input, the system had gradually slowed to a stop. The water pressure inside the labyrinth had equalized, killing the flow entirely.

He leaned back on his heels, eyes narrowed in thought. It made sense. Everything obeyed balance, even here. Mana could mimic mechanics, but it wasn’t immune to friction, drag, or loss of momentum.

“Alright,” he said to himself, “so what’s the next best thing?”

The obvious answer was manual labor. Plenty of soldiers and guild members around, all with working arms and time to spare. He could easily assign a few to operate a hand pump they reached manageable levels. Inefficient, yes, but it would work.

Still, it felt… inelegant. His gaze drifted toward the shore, where the wind howled steadily over the waves. A more creative idea began to take shape.

He rubbed his chin. “A windmill…” he murmured. “If I could build a vertical shaft out of stone and use the wind to turn a gear, attach a piston system below, it could drag the water out automatically. Maintenance-free, renewable…”

He frowned, calculating angles in his head. “But that would take too long to build. And I don’t have proper bearings.”

Then his attention shifted toward the afternoon sun blazing across the sea. The air shimmered slightly from the heat.

Another idea sparked. “Solar energy,” he said under his breath. “Evaporation.”

He picked up a handful of sand, letting it run through his fingers. With enough heat, it could be turned into glass, crude but functional. If he layered that glass into a series of reflective panels and angled them at the entrance, he could concentrate sunlight directly into the labyrinth. The heat buildup could make the water boil away gradually.

And if he lined the inner walls with mirrors, dense, angled layers to trap light and multiply reflection, it could speed up the evaporation exponentially.

A stone windmill powered by air, or a solar array powered by light. Both were crude in theory, but both

might

work.

He turned them slowly in his hand, the light glinting off the glass. “Plenty of options ,” he murmured. “Just have to pick one.”

A grin tugged at his mouth, half engineer, half madman, as he looked between the roaring sea and the sun-drenched cliffs.

“Alright,” he said finally, standing and cracking his knuckles. “Let’s see which one of you wants to make this island a little drier.”

Ludger didn’t waste time. Once the last of the lunch cleanup was done, he went looking for

Lucius

. The noble was sitting near a supply crate with a half-finished sketch of the labyrinth’s outer layout spread across his knee, speaking quietly with Rathen.

“Lucius,” Ludger called out. “Got a minute?”

Lucius looked up immediately, curious. “Of course. What’s on your mind?”

“I need to talk about the water problem,” Ludger said, folding his arms. “The draining system I made earlier worked for a while, but it stopped. I thought I could keep it cycling on its own, but without a constant power source, it’s useless.”

Lucius nodded thoughtfully. “A mechanical issue, then.”

“Exactly. I could use more hands and some proper engineering knowledge,” Ludger said. “If we could make a working pump or some kind of water evacuation mechanism, it would make clearing the labyrinth a lot easier.”

At that, Rathen’s brow arched. “You’re in luck,” he said, standing up. “You forgot who’s with you, didn’t you? The Ironhand Syndicate doesn’t just fight, we build. Half of our veterans are engineers or rune welders. We’ve been rigging siege engines and mana extractors since before the Empire learned how to polish a blade.”

Ludger blinked. “Right… I

did

forget that.”

Lucius smirked. “Then let’s use it.”

Within minutes, Rathen had rounded up five Ironhand engineers, grizzled men and women who looked just as comfortable holding chisels as they did crossbows. They followed Ludger back to the channel near the labyrinth entrance, studying his improvised pump with a mix of curiosity and professional disdain.

One of them, a broad-shouldered woman named Rina, knelt down, tapping the side of the stone cone. “Crude work,” she said, “but clever. You’ve got the basic compression chamber and directional flow figured out. Just no energy maintenance.”

“Exactly,” Ludger said. “I can’t keep feeding mana into it constantly.”

She nodded. “Then we’ll make it feed itself.”

Another engineer, a lean man with a rune-carver’s kit slung over his shoulder, pulled out a flat piece of bronze. “What if we use wind runes?” he suggested. “We can line the suction pipes with them, small ones, layered in sequence. They’ll create constant low-pressure movement, pulling the water toward the channel. If we tie the effect to the natural mana in the environment, it’ll sustain itself.”

“And if we do it right,” Rina added, “we can have the runes drain the mana from the water as it passes through. That way, we kill two problems at once, less magical buildup, and less resistance.”

Ludger’s eyes lit up. “You can do that?”

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