Jacob looked at the Void Gauntlet. He had mapped the chaos and understood the inefficiency. Now he had to delete it.
The enchantment was held together by the random, brute-force nodes he had identified earlier. They functioned like heavy clamps holding a high-pressure pipe together. If he removed those constraints, the pressure should dissipate, and the chaotic mana should leak out into the room.
It was a sound theory.
He picked up his mithril tool and took a slow breath to center himself before beginning to pull on the magic within his core to power his method.
When the first node was targeted, he found a jagged knot of power situated near the wrist.
Jacob pressed the tip of the tool against the stone.
He did not try to unravel the knot, he simply flooded it. He pushed a surge of his own magic directly into the anchor point.
Pop.
The node shattered. It couldn't handle the sudden influx of concentrated mana. The structure collapsed instantly, and the magical tension in that part of the gauntlet vanished.
"Easy," Jacob whispered.
He moved to the next one. There were six major anchors holding the messy "spaghetti code" together.
Pop. The second one went down.
Pop. The third.
Jacob worked with the focus of someone dismantling a volatile mechanism.
He removed the fourth and fifth anchors in rapid succession. The buzzing noise of the enchantment began to shift in pitch, moving from a steady hum to a wobbling, uneven vibration.
He pressed the tool to the final anchor near the knuckles.
"Goodbye," Jacob said.
He flooded it.
Pop.
The final clamp broke.
Jacob sat back and waited for the enchantment to fade.
It didn't fade.
The hum spiked into a high-pitched whine. The central core, which he had assumed would just leak its energy out, did the exact opposite.
Without the anchors to hold it in check, the high-pressure battery began to expand. It started to spin wildly inside the stone, which caused it to start heating up.
"Uh oh," Jacob said.
The black stone, usually cold to the touch, was suddenly radiating heat like a stove top. The chaotic pathways he had disconnected were flailing around inside the mana field like live wires. They were shorting out against the stone itself.
The gauntlet was turning into a mana bomb.
If that core detonated, it would shatter the Void Stone and turn his priceless loot into a pile of expensive gravel.
"No, no, no!"
Jacob didn't panic. He got angry. He hadn't dragged this thing out of a swamp just to let it blow itself up.
He grabbed the mithril tool with both hands.
He couldn't drain the core since it was spinning too fast. He had to crush it, instead.
He drove the tool down onto the back of the gauntlet, right over the center of the runaway core.
Then, he visualized his own mana as a massive, solid anvil. He dropped it onto the spinning, chaotic mess of the dungeon's core.
CRUNCH.
He felt the resistance in his mind. The dungeon's magic fought back with a wild and violent tenacity. It tried to burn through his connection and push him out.
"Sit. Down." Jacob gritted his teeth.
He poured more power into the tool, flooding the gauntlet with so much blue mana that the room lit up. He suffocated the red-hot chaos of the dungeon core with a blanket of his own power.
The stone was searing hot now. He could smell the leather pad beneath it starting to smoke.
He pushed harder, feeling the structure of the runaway core buckle. It cracked under the weight of his will.
Shatter.
The high-pitched whine cut off instantly.
The chaotic energy didn't explode. It dissipated into the air in a harmless wave of heat and static electricity.
Jacob slumped forward, his breathing hard and his shaking.
He pulled the mithril tool away.
The Void Gauntlet sat on the desk. It was glowing a dull red from the heat, and smoke curled up from the leather mat underneath it. The room smelled of ozone and burnt hide.
The noise was gone.
Jacob reached out with his mana sense and found only silence. The stone was empty.
The messy pathways and the brute-force anchors were gone, and the unstable core had been reduced to dust.
It was a blank vessel of high-grade Void Stone now.
Jacob grinned. He ignored the smell of burning leather and the sweat dripping down his nose.
He looked at the gauntlet with hungry eyes.
It was cleared of its enchantments and ready for experimentation.
He grabbed his notebook and flipped to a fresh page. His hand moved across the paper as he sketched out a new design.
He knew exactly what he was going to build, and it would be far more efficient than the chaos he had just destroyed.
It was going to be beautiful.