My Infinite Investment System

Chapter 35: Contested Claim I

The clearing voucher expired at sunset, leaving Seven-B one attempt to turn forgotten paper into a route.

Outside the dungeon mouth, a district guild crew had prepared specifically to stop Ryan.

Mika pointed toward the two locked Exchange options while Ryan translated their prices.

"If you buy both, you enter an unregistered dungeon with ninety credits and the financial instincts of a man choosing dessert before rent," she said, folding the voucher beneath one elbow.

[Return Credit Balance: 680]

[Iron Root: Physical Adaptation: 280]

[Professional Claim-Team Intelligence: 310]

[Combined Purchase Balance: 90]

The intelligence package promised formation habits, equipment records, and the sponsored crew’s last three claims.

Every fact would expire after this contest ended at sunset with the route.

"The intelligence package would help once," Mika said, tapping its locked price, "Iron Root can help every time you enter a bad room."

Iron Root offered less immediate certainty and more pain beneath Ryan’s current conditioning.

It reinforced lower-body alignment whenever Ryan established Opening Position under impact.

Stronger anchoring could transfer displacement into joints still adapting to the skill.

’The useful purchase was the one that made the next mistake expensive,’ Ryan thought, choosing the adaptation screen.

"We keep four hundred," he said, confirming the physical adaptation, "their records solve one crew, but this has value after today."

[Exchange Purchase Confirmed: Iron Root]

[Cost: 280 Return Credits]

[Return Credit Balance: 680 -> 400]

[Adaptation Warning: Alignment Exceeds Tissue Conditioning]

Knowledge entered through Ryan’s feet before his body accepted it.

The contest demanded that he rescue an isolated teammate, control a rival captain, preserve a legal claim, and evolve a combat skill before the dungeon decided which floor still belonged to anyone.

Pressure traveled from the spear into his hips while every old habit felt several degrees wrong.

Dara tested the purchase with a padded shop ram against his levelled shaft.

The first impact kept his rear foot planted until his right knee turned inward and ended the drill.

"Your new trick knows where the force should go," Dara said, tightening the brace he had hidden beneath the bench, "your leg still receives the invoice, so stop treating planted as immovable."

Twenty minutes of correction taught Ryan to release the stance before alignment became injury.

Iron Root now had one useful limit before Seven-B crossed the dungeon boundary.

The voucher’s terms appeared on both teams’ body cameras.

Reach the core, record stabilisation, then return with proof before any licensed competitor.

Deliberate sabotage would void the offending claim under the registered terms.

Across the entry shelf, four D-ranks wore the district crest that had occupied Ryan’s mineral discovery.

Their claims captain carried a hooked staff instead of the reinforced cleaver he had learned to counter.

Combat Valuation found the reason after one sweep of her stance and marked the rotation point.

[Primary Threat: Formation-Break Specialist]

[Preferred Target: Positional Anchor]

[Method: Forced Rotation / Line Collapse]

"Nonaggression until stabilisation," the captain said, holding her signed copy between both teams, "we compete on route choice and core custody, with every contact preserved."

"Add mutual rescue when failure creates lethal exposure," Ryan replied, marking the clause as her hand moved toward the document, "unless your sponsor wants footage of a licensed crew stepping over bodies for paperwork."

Her pause cost two seconds without changing the expression behind her eyes.

She initialled the addition while every camera watched the rival captain’s hands.

The upper route descended through stone ribs that opened whenever mana pressure shifted.

Plated burrowers emerged toward whichever formation carried the stronger core signature.

Seven-B let the rival crew take the first junction without exposing its route.

Nia reduced their own output until three burrowers followed the louder team through its chosen lane.

"Manipulation by silence," Mika said, drawing both conductive batons as the rival captain looked back, "I am proud of how irritating we have become."

At the second junction, a rival hunter struck a dormant shelf without crossing the sabotage threshold.

Six smaller creatures woke and followed her legal retreat toward Seven-B.

Ryan planted the spear between Nia and the founding archer.

Opening Position settled while Iron Root locked the line from his heels through the black shaft.

The first burrower hit low and met Nia’s shield before its plated head could enter his range.

The melee recruit broke a side limb, giving the archer a clean seam.

Two more attacked from opposite angles.

Ryan retracted, valued, then extended beneath the nearer shell while Spark Reflex separated the strikes.

Accrued Return drew its first gold line along the spear.

[Accrued Return: 18%]

A fourth creature struck with enough weight to break his old stance.

Iron Root held the rear alignment while pressure climbed toward his braced knee.

The spear refused to move against the anchored pressure at his rear foot.

Ryan released one step before the joint folded, converting the forced movement into a shorter position that let Nia drive the creature across his point.

The clean adjustment added another line without pretending the skill had made him stronger than the impact.

[Accrued Return: 37%]

Both teams reached the central shaft within a minute of each other.

Three descending bridges carried anchor marks that changed whenever weight committed to one route.

"The bridge is answering formation weight," the support scout said, matching the symbols to the counter-map, "the first body is only the invitation."

The rival captain sent her lightest hunter halfway across the western bridge.

Its symbols brightened before he withdrew, leaving Seven-B to choose between copied information or lost time.

Ryan valued the mechanism rather than the performance after checking the bridge marks.

The bridge responded to total formation balance instead of the first body placed upon it.

"Centre route, shield last," Ryan said, entering before the rival crew understood why, "Mika, hold your first Step."

They crossed as one distributed load while the bridge symbols changed beneath them.

Forty seconds disappeared from the rival crew’s advantage before the western bridge folded beneath its heavier formation.

The rival captain moved back under control.

The advantage lasted until the next creature wave attacked through the moving walls.

Hooked forelimbs reached for one hunter beyond formation protection beside the wall.

Opening Position caught the first two before their hooked limbs reached the recruits.

The spear’s gold lines reached sixty-eight percent while Nia preserved the centre.

Behind the monsters, the claims captain hooked her staff into the stone beside Ryan’s rear foot.

She never touched him, keeping nonaggression intact while her pull rotated the ledge supporting his stance.

Iron Root followed the false floor and anchored him to the piece being displaced.

The entire position slid toward a drop instead of surrendering one foot.

Ryan broke his own stance and drove the spear into a higher seam.

He swung Nia’s retreat lane around the fixed point before the ledge disappeared.

The manoeuvre saved all five hunters.

"All five are clear," Nia said, drawing the recruits behind her shield, "the route still belongs to whoever keeps the formation alive."

Three solved exchanges pushed Accrued Return against a ceiling that refused further growth.

[Accrued Return: 100%]

[Additional Qualified Return: Wasted]

"Your captain attacks the floor when she cannot attack the team," Ryan called across the widening gap, making sure both crews heard the valuation, "watch your anchors."

Her rear hunter looked down before his next step touched the false floor.

Their advance slowed enough for Seven-B to take the lower passage first.

Mana shifted as Mika crossed its midpoint beneath the central shaft.

A stone partition rose between one heartbeat and the next.

Her second baton struck the seam after the wall separated her from the formation.

Spark Sync vanished from Ryan’s awareness, taking her position and familiar lightning rhythm with it.

The passage divided into two descending routes beneath the active core.

"I am intact," Mika said through damaged comms before the crack of a controlled discharge, "I have company, and I am not spending a Step until you earn the reunion."

The rival crew entered the parallel route above them with the captain’s scout.

The dungeon continued rearranging the route while both crews searched for the stabilisation point.

Every bridge, partition, plus creature had become part of the valuation, so one clean choice could return the team to daylight while one greedy choice could turn the claim into another creditor’s evidence.

Every bridge folded at once as the dungeon’s stabilisation pattern reversed around an active core.

The split route forced Ryan to choose among holding the rescue line, protecting the claim marker, or trusting Mika to spend her own Step, yet none of those priorities mattered if the central wall sealed before both teams reunited.

Stone sealed the retreat line below them.

The rival captain’s route disappeared beneath her rear hunter while deeper movement answered from both sides of Mika’s wall.

Ryan held Opening Position with a full spear and nowhere left to bank another solved exchange.

"Ryan, the wall is moving toward me," Mika said through damaged comms, "if the channel closes, do not spend a Step guessing."

"Your route is sealing too," the rival captain said from the parallel passage, "the core has changed the contest."

"Keep your team behind the rescue line," Ryan replied, turning the spear toward the divided wall, "we will settle ownership after everyone reaches air."

"Open the barrier when the route stabilises," Nia said through the shared channel, "no one claims a floor while six witnesses remain below it."

"The next purchase will need a larger reserve," Ryan said, keeping the spear pointed at the moving wall, "this dungeon is charging interest in terrain."

The system finally priced the limit that had followed him since the freight-yard claim.

[Accrued Return: Structural Ceiling Reached]

[Evolution Available: Compound Return]

[Requirement: Reinvest Existing Capacity Under Continuous Combat]

’The dungeon had not denied him a reward; it had made him pay for the next version in the middle of a rescue,’ Ryan thought, turning the spear toward the divided wall.