My Infinite Investment System

The missing wrench shone inside the boss like a bad idea with a handle as Spark Sense opened across the final chamber.

The Bronze sentinel filled the rotating room from floor to ceiling, eight meters of black armor built around a furnace-red core.

Burned metal mixed with hot stone while blue scorch marks crossed its right shoulder, ending at the black handle beneath one plate.

Nia looked at it and said, "Mine."

"The boss may disagree," he replied as he checked the room controls on his tablet.

"The boss did not pay for it," she said as her jaw shifted once.

Mika flexed both hands, coaxing one thin blue thread between fingers that still trembled from the earlier blast.

"I have one clean strike," she said, watching the scorched shoulder, "after that, I become motivational support."

Ryan found the wrench jaw with Spark Sense where it had pierced the inner fastening ring, leaving a seam that opened whenever the sentinel raised its arm.

"Jun, can you turn the room nine degrees clockwise?" he asked while tracing the seam with one finger.

The scout studied the rotating walls, then pinched the map smaller.

"Once," he replied as the map turned beneath his fingertips, "the west gear lost three teeth during our ambush."

"How long does the floor hold?"

"Four seconds before it snaps back," the scout said, marking the broken gear in red.

The bulwark lowered her tower shield toward the sentinel’s left knee and said, "Give me two."

Ryan touched the bronze token under his jacket, then let it fall back against his chest.

The trial had turned every rigged choice into another usable angle, since Bartek chose the hardest bracket and Northstar kept finding handles.

The sentinel moved.

Its right arm dropped in a diagonal sweep capable of taking the workshop wall with it.

"Split!" he called as his attention flattened into distances and routes.

Humor left every face as Jun ran for the west control while Mika cut right with her remaining current buried beneath both palms.

Nia stepped left into the strike, meeting the armored fist with a tower frame that lifted dust from every stone seam.

She slid half a meter, boots carving pale tracks across the stone, but the shield held.

Ryan watched the wrench rotate upward inside the damaged shoulder and ordered, "Again."

Nia drove the lower edge into the sentinel’s knee, forcing its weight back while the damaged shoulder opened by two finger widths.

"Turn it!"

Jun struck the west control with both heels planted against the tilting surface.

The maze groaned around them, stone shifting clockwise while the walls moved in the opposite direction.

One broken gear screamed beneath the chamber before the boss adjusted too late.

Its left foot crossed behind the right as the chamber carried its weight sideways.

Nia hit the knee a second time and tilted the sentinel until the black handle appeared above Ryan’s head.

"Four seconds!" Jun called.

Spark Step fired with one gold crack beneath Ryan’s planted boot, and he forced it two meters past the safe range.

Ryan crossed six meters in a gold blur and arrived against the boss’s right side with nausea already climbing his throat.

He planted one boot on the bent knee, caught the wrench, then pulled.

Nothing moved.

The filed jaw had caught harder around the inner fastening ring.

"Three!"

Heat burned through his glove while he braced beneath the armor plate and twisted the wrench toward the open seam.

The sentinel swung its free arm back while Spark Sense drew the approaching strike across his ribs.

"Two!"

Nia rammed the tower shield between them before the red route could reach his ribs.

The armored forearm hit hard enough to buckle one corner of her frame inward.

Ryan twisted again until the inner ring broke, sending the wrench free while the shoulder plate dropped six centimeters.

"One!"

He kicked away from the boss as the rotating floor snapped back beneath him.

Spark Step had nothing left to give, so the moving stone threw him toward the eastern wall.

Jun changed the room by one last degree, rotating a narrow door into Ryan’s path where solid stone had been.

He fell through the opening, hit one shoulder, then rolled into the corridor with Nia’s wrench clutched across his chest.

The door turned away behind him while his stomach emptied onto clean trial tile.

’Perfect landing,’ Ryan thought as bile burned his throat, ’nobody can prove otherwise from the useful angle.’

Jun hauled him upright by the back of his jacket while both route bands pulsed beneath his feet.

"You crossed the marker before the room reset," he said, breathless while both heels pulsed against the floor.

"Is that good?" Ryan asked as he wiped his mouth with his wrist.

"It means the door should have missed you," the scout replied, staring at the recovered wrench.

"Please save the exciting facts until I stop tasting breakfast."

The scout looked down at the recovered wrench, then released one startled laugh.

Inside the chamber, the exposed shoulder plate hung from one hinge while the furnace core shone through the opening.

The bulwark held the shield beneath the boss’s descending weight and shouted, "Strike is open!"

Mika raised both hands until one blue thread linked her palms inside the hard white glare spilling from the seam.

Her shaking arms held position while Ryan found the gold break running from the loose plate into the central core.

"Lower edge, twelve centimeters left of the hinge," he said, pointing through the white glare.

She followed his finger as the sentinel tore free of Nia’s shield and turned toward the corridor.

Mika waited until its chest crossed the line, mouth slightly open and public smile absent while every remaining spark gathered between her hands.

"Now," he said as the gold break widened behind the hinge.

The blue thread vanished into the seam, leaving one suspended heartbeat before lightning filled the armor from inside.

White cracks raced over the sentinel’s chest, down both legs, then through the furnace core.

Its raised fist stopped above Nia as the entire body split along the fastening lines Ryan had exposed.

Armor plates crashed around the tower shield while the core tore free and hovered inside the trial’s extraction field.

Silence came slowly.

Mika lowered her hands and looked from the smoking ruin to the nearest spectator screen.

She placed one palm against her chest with theatrical shock.

"Publicity stunt," she said as the screen carried her voice upstairs.

Nia pushed a fallen plate off her shield and said, "Return my wrench."

Ryan held it out handle first, its filed jaw blue from heat, while she inspected the damage before placing it inside the repaired pouch.

"Acceptable," she said as the pouch clasp clicked shut twice.

Jun stepped into the chamber as his boots replayed the whole route from the first altered mark to the final rotating door.

He looked down when both heels delivered a new pattern.

The pulse traveled backward through every turn he had mapped, then forward along the path he had chosen after the sabotage.

His route feed completed itself with one clean green line across every altered turn.

[Growth achieved: Turn a trapped route into an advantage]

[Investment return generated]

[Return acquired: Guard]

Gold light gathered across Ryan’s left palm while the new route faded from Jun’s display.

[Guard]

[Effect: One barrier lasting one heartbeat]

[Limit: Timing determines strength]

He closed his hand before anyone noticed the screen as the new ability settled behind his wrist, ready for one decision rather than long defense.

Jun watched the clenched fist and asked, "Injury?"

"Later," he said as the extraction field lifted the furnace core toward the ceiling port.

The spectator screens changed to show the guild office above.

Trial staff gathered around the receiving cradle while officials replayed Mika’s final strike from three angles.

Priya stood nearest the controls with both hands away from the panel.

Bartek entered the frame wearing one clean glove and one glove stained along the wrong edge with route ink.

He saw Northstar watching through the linked screen while Priya spoke beyond the chamber audio’s reach.

Bartek moved her aside.

The boss core rose through the ceiling port, crossed the transfer line, then settled inside the office cradle above them.

Its red light painted his face while the stained glove reached beneath the cradle.

Spark Sense found the manual release before his fingers covered it.

Ryan stopped breathing and shouted, "Move!"

The core dropped.

It fell through the open transfer shaft toward the four people beneath it, heavy enough to break the trial floor and every body there.

Nia raised her damaged shield from half a step too far left to meet the falling core.

Jun reached for Mika while the route boots searched for an exit that did not exist.

One heartbeat remained when Ryan threw up his left hand and Guard opened above them.

A flat gold barrier flashed above Northstar at the instant the furnace core struck.

The impact drove him to one knee while gold light bent within centimeters of his face.

The core’s weight traveled through his shoulder into the floor before the barrier vanished after one violent beat.

Ryan caught the furnace core against his chest as the light vanished, its heat stopped by the trial casing and its weight nearly folding him forward.

Nia shoved one armored hand beneath it while Mika took the other side, then together they lowered the core onto the stone.

Every spectator screen still showed Bartek’s hand beneath the empty cradle.

Priya stared at him without looking away this time as Jun lifted the tablet that had captured the release from below.

"That was deliberate," he said.

Ryan stood slowly, one arm numb from wrist to shoulder, while the furnace core burned red between his boots.

He looked into the nearest screen and said, "You dropped this."