Edison didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until he was halfway back across the bridge, the heat of the forge fading behind him.
The moment he stepped back into the giant hallway, his knees nearly buckled.
"Holy shit," he muttered, pressing a hand to his chest.
"Ah, the sweet relief of not being smashed into a pancake," Guide chimed in, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Truly, your negotiation skills are legendary. 'Hey, ancient god of the forge, here's a cake, please don't kill me'—bold strategy."
Edison scowled. "It worked, didn't it?"
"Oh yes. For now at least. I'm sure you realize how stupid your entire plan was."
Edison ignored him, rubbing his temples. The poro were still nowhere to be seen.
"So," Guide continued, "now that you've brilliantly secured temporary lodging in Hearth-Home, what's you're plan? You're not actually dumb enough to think you can learn some blacksmithing just by staring, right?. And not to mention—"
"Shut up," Edison groaned, slumping against the tunnel wall. "I just need to not die long enough to figure out how to not die longer."
As Edison bickered with Guide, a loud slam to his right made him jump.
A door had flown open.
Out stepped the Fabled Poro, he grunted and stared up at him.
Edison blinked. "What?" he asked, his voice flat.
The Fabled Poro jerked his nose toward the open door behind him.
Edison sighed and stepped forward. He peeked through the doorway—and paused.
It wasn't a storage room like the one he'd stumbled through earlier. This looked… different.
It looked like a place to live.
The room was plain and quiet. Dust floated in the air. A single stone in the wall gave off a soft, orange light—just enough to see by. In the corner sat a raised stone platform. A bed, maybe?
Edison stepped inside, boots tapping against the cold floor. He looked around.
"Guess this is where I stay," he muttered.
He ran a hand along the platform's edge. It was solid. Rough. Definitely not built for comfort—but then again, Ornn didn't seem like the type to care about that.
He frowned. "Weird," he murmured. "I didn't know Ornn slept."
"Maybe he doesn't," Guide offered. "But this room doesn't look like it was built for him."
Edison glanced around again. The proportions… the shape of the bed... they all fit someone his size, human size.
"You think it was made for the Hearthblood?" he asked quietly.
Guide hummed. "Could be. A place that was meant for them, maybe. Before they were wiped out."
Edison sat down slowly on the edge of the platform. The stone was hard and cold beneath him.
Not exactly cozy, but he can't complain.
He leaned back against the wall, letting out a long breath.
Edison had just started to relax against the cold stone wall when—
DING!
A blue screen materialized before him, flashing the text:
[Survival Points Awarded!]
[+1000 SP]
[Current SP: 1002]
The numbers hung in the air, glowing faintly in the dim chamber. Edison's breath caught in his throat as he processed what he was seeing.
"Wait. What?"
"Congratulations," Guide said dryly. "You just got paid for not dying."
Edison scrambled to sit upright, the stone bed forgotten. "How the hell does sitting in a dusty room earn me a thousand points?"
"Correction," Guide said, summoning a secondary screen filled with scrolling text. "You didn't get points for the room. You got them for surviving an encounter with Ornn—one of the most poweful beings of Runeterra. The system typically award a lot more for surviving direct interaction with this level of entities, but since your survival involved approximately 90 percent luck so the payout was... adjusted."
Edison let out a laugh, running both hands through his hair. The sudden windfall felt unreal. "Well that solves our cake problem. And our food problem.
"Oh, let's not get ahead of ourselves," Guide said, his tone shifting to that particular brand of cheerful malice that preceded bad news.
"Let's break this down properly," Guide said, summoning a glowing ledger in the air. "Your basic survival now costs five SP per day for food rations - and that's the bare minimum calories to keep you moving. Then there's one SP daily for clean water, unless you want to find your way out of here to find and drink snow, or drink those mystery water used in smithing."
Edison opened his mouth but Guide plowed on.
"Add the mandatory five SP weekly cake tribute to Ornn, and we're looking at thirty-six SP weekly for food and water, plus five for the chocolate cake. That's forty-one SP per week just to stay alive and in Ornn's good graces."
The numbers floated between them, glowing ominously.
"At that rate," Guide continued, "your thousand SP gives you about twenty-four weeks. Six months if we're being optimistic. And that's before accounting for-"
Edison leaned back slightly, some tension leaving his shoulders. "Six months just for basics? That's... actually not terrible. Gives me time to figure things out."
Guide contiued. "Don't get comfortable. That bare-bones budget doesn't account for so many other things. You're not planning to just eat and sleep like a pig right?"
Edison rubbed his temples as the numbers swirled in his vision. "Okay, so I can't just hibernate like a bear for six months. I need to earn more SP."
"Well," Guide's voice sounded again. "There is a way, now that you pass the 1K SP point. You've unlocked challenge mode. Complete them, earn SP, don't die - simple as that."
Edison perked up. "Okay, now we're talking. Tell me more about this challenge mode."
"Let me break it down for you," Guide continued, summoning a glowing display in front of Edison. "There are four difficulty tiers, each more likely to kill you than the last."
"First we've got Delta challenges - your basic beginner stuff. Rewards range from 10 to 1,000 SP, and the survival rate is... acceptable. These are the only ones I'm recommending you try right now."
"Next up is Gamma," Guide continued. "Now we're getting real. Rewards go from 1,000 to 10,000 SP. Maybe consider these when you can kill one of those Ursines by yourself."
Edison opened his mouth to speak, but Guide steamrolled ahead.
"Beta challenges are where things get properly insane. 10,000 to 100,000 SP rewards. You can start considering these challenges when you can annihilate an elite Noxian battalion."
Edison shut up immediately.
"And finally, Alpha tier." Guide's voice dropped to a whisper. "These are the 'legendary hero' challenges. Rewards ranging from 100,000 to 1,000,000 SP. You can try this challenge when you reach the level of an Ascended."
Edison stood there in silence as he digested all that information that the Guide had dumped on him.
"So," Guide's voice snapped him back to reality, "wanna try a Delta challenge now?"
Edison blinked. "What, like... right now?"
"Why not?" Guide's tone was disturbingly cheerful. "Your fight-or-flight response is already cranked to eleven after everything that's happened today. Perfect state to survive your first challenge before the adrenaline wears off."
Edison opened his mouth to protest, then closed it.
Then finally, a deep, resigned sigh escaped his lips. "...Fine."
"Wonderful!" Guide chirped. "Let's start with something simple - a Delta challenge even a baseline human like you might survive." The interface scrolled rapidly before locking onto one option. [Challenge Selected:Tier Delta]
[ Soul Relocation in Three... Two... ]
Edison's eyes widened. "Wait, soul relocat—"
[ ...One ]
A wave of absolute darkness slammed into Edison.
Then reality snapped back with the force of a thunderclap.
The smells of salt and sweat hit him, then the sound of crashing waves.
Edison blinked and looked around.
"What... the fuck..."