The first thing Lucen noticed was the sound.
There wasn't any.
No air hum. No echo. No wind through the pipes.
Just stillness.
Like the whole place was holding its breath.
He didn't move at first. Let his eyes adjust.
The space around him shimmered faintly. Color saturation was wrong. The green was too green. The air too still. He turned in place.
Trees.
Everywhere.
Not normal trees. These were twisted, vine-wrapped, massive things that looked like someone tried to breed a rainforest with a nightmare. The bark pulsed slightly. The canopy above blocked out everything except a weird blue haze that passed for sky.
He exhaled slowly.
'Okay. Jungle drift.. Didn't expect that.'
He took a step forward.
Leaves didn't crunch. They just sort of gave up under his boot. Damp. Spongy. Too warm.
He kept moving.
Each step was deliberate. Quiet.
He didn't take out his knife. Didn't cast anything yet.
Just walked.
His system blinked into the corner of his vision. Waiting. Passive.
He opened it manually.
[Zone: DRFT-12]
[Type: Unstable – Organic]
[Mana Density: Moderate]
[Threat Tier: F to C – Estimated]
[Field Sync: OFFLINE]
[Status: Solo Entry]
'Cool. Just me and the murder plants. No problem.'
He looked up at the canopy again.
Blue haze shifted when he moved. Like it followed him.
He shut the system window and crouched near a patch of moss.
Soft. Alive. Slightly warm.
He stood again and whispered, just to himself, "Alright. How do these things work again…"
And then he answered himself. In his head. Because thinking out loud in a death jungle felt rude.
'Drifts are basically pocket zones. Reality cracks, mana spills in, and the world says "sure, let's improvise." They don't follow physics. They don't stay stable. They don't have to make sense.'
He brushed a leaf with his fingertip.
It recoiled like a muscle twitch.
'They're not full dungeons. Not yet. But they're on their way. Which means you get weird monsters, broken terrain, and the occasional loot pile if the gate gods feel generous.'
He stepped over a root that looked like it wanted to trip him.
'City says they're F-tier. Most of the time they are. Sometimes they aren't. Sometimes the drift's been feeding too long, or pulls something extra in from a stronger gate nearby.'
He walked ten more steps.
Paused.
Listened.
Still no sound.
No birds. No insects. No wind.
Nothing.
'And sometimes, you walk in expecting slimes and rats… and you find something with way too many teeth and a name that doesn't translate.'
He cracked his neck and kept walking.
Thirty meters in, the trees shifted slightly. More space between trunks. More light filtering down.
And then he saw it.
A structure.
Stone. Half-sunken. Covered in roots and vines. Looked like a shrine. Or maybe an altar. Either way, it didn't belong here.
He approached slowly.
No footsteps echoed. The moss killed all sound.
He knelt next to the stone.
There were carvings. Faint glyphwork. Not a language he recognized, but his system blinked once.
[Unknown Construct Detected]
[Sigil Trace: Yes]
[Scan?]
'Oh..I can do this as well?'
Lucen hesitated.
Then hit yes.
The air shimmered.
A soft pulse ran through the ground under him, like a sonar ping from an invisible depth.
[Trace Complete]
[Minor Sigil Signature Present – Extractable]
[Warning: Interaction May Trigger Local Hostile Response]
He stared at the message.
'Ah. There it is. The "please touch it so you die" moment.'
He stood slowly and stepped back.
Didn't trigger it.
Not yet.
He looked around the clearing.
Still quiet.
No movement. No shapes. Nothing watching.
That was probably a bad sign.
He opened his bag.
Unclipped the sigil case.
'Alright. Let's see what counts as treasure today.'
Lucen crouched again in front of the shrine.
It was maybe waist-height. Made of old stone or something that wanted to be stone. The texture was rough and uneven, like it had grown rather than been carved.
The glyph was embedded in the front panel.
Not glowing.
Not pulsing.
Just sitting there like a weird stone tattoo waiting to ruin his day.
He looked at it for a full ten seconds.
'One sigil. Forty credits entry bonus. Maybe double that if I bring something back. Worth it. Totally worth it..'
He pulled the sigil case from his coat and popped the latch.
The foam inside had three empty slots.
He tapped one with his finger, just to make sure it still existed.
'Storage is fine. My brain might not be.'
He looked back at the glyph.
Still just sitting there.
The system window hovered near his eye.
[Trace: Active]
[Minor Sigil Signature – Ready for Extraction]
[Trigger Risk: Medium]
He muttered under his breath,
"What does medium even mean? Medium like 'oops I stubbed my foot,' or medium like 'hello please meet the jungle's favorite murder lizard?'"
The system didn't answer.
Lucen glanced left.
Then right.
Still no movement.
No sound.
Just trees. Vines. And that awful silence that made him want to start talking to himself on purpose.
He leaned in.
Raised one hand.
Did not touch it.
Yet.
Instead, he reached into the bag and pulled out the cheap plastic tool from the scavenger kit. It was supposed to be used for sigil etching. Felt like a toy.
Probably designed by someone who had never survived a dungeon.
He tapped the glyph lightly.
The stone vibrated under his fingers.
He froze.
The glyph began to glow.
Faint purple light. Smooth, round. Not angry. Not yet.
[Extraction Sequence Detected]
[Hold for Conversion: 5 seconds]
Lucen's eyes didn't blink.
He counted in his head.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four—
The glyph flared white.
The tool in his hand snapped clean in half.
The glyph vanished.
A thin piece of crystal cracked loose from the front of the stone and floated upward like it weighed nothing.
He caught it.
It was warm.
The moment his fingers closed around it, his system blinked again.
[Sigil Acquired: Drift Fragment – Grade D]
[Stability: Low]
[Trace Tag: 1]
Lucen dropped it into the case and slammed it shut.
The lock clicked.
He exhaled.
"…that was easy."
The trees disagreed.
A sound echoed behind him. Wet. Heavy.
Like something dragging itself through the underbrush.
Lucen didn't turn.
Not right away.
He stood up slowly.
Shield disc clipped to his side. Spell system open in one motion.
[Spells: 2 Active]
[Unstable Kinetic Point – 3 Mana]
[Gravitic Snap – 12 Mana]
[Mana: 51 / 51]
Another noise.
Closer.
Sniffing.
Something low to the ground.
Lucen turned.
The thing that stepped out from the trees didn't look like it wanted a conversation.
It had four legs. Skin like rotting leaves. No eyes. Just a flat skull and too many teeth, all crammed into a jaw that looked like it had never closed properly.
It hissed once. Then again.
Lucen crouched.
Didn't move.
'Okay. Good news. I have spells. Bad news. I don't know if they work under stress. Worse news. That thing looks like it wants to eat me.'
The creature sniffed again.
It stepped forward.
Lucen's hand hovered just above the casting trigger.
'One shot. Maybe two. Then I either run or start punching with a pocketknife.'
The beast growled.
Then charged.
Lucen fired.