The Over-Break System

"All right, let's do this, I need to clear any previous attempts, and although I have no idea how many plates there are in the lock, 50 full spins should be enough to reset things." stepping forward and gripping the palm-sized dial indicating in white letters 01 to 500, Cynrik narrowed his eyes and focused.

With a bit of finesse, he quickly and freely spun the dial counter-clockwise exactly fifty times and watched as multiple flashes of clear yet outlined light; Sound Particles flashed around the door. 

'For this to work, I need to filter out all the unnecessary Mana Particles constructing every piece of matter, except for Metal and Sound, of course, but even that will be annoying and strain my eyes.' he thought while slowing his breathing down, as calming himself down was the best concentration method.

With each slow and deep breath, one vibrant color after another dulled, creating a visual spectacle not unlike what he would see within the shadow realm. 

It took him a couple of minutes to finish the filtration of Mana, but when he finally felt content, only then did Cynrik tap his index finger against the dial, triggering a wave of Sound Mana to course through the vault door. 

In doing so, he noticed no obstructions with the dial meaning his idea of spinning the dial 50 times was the perfect amount to wipe out the previous combination attempts, and a smirk lit up his face, which caused Selene to giggle. 

'Why is he so handsome when concentrating…' Selene mused while pulling out a round cushion and sitting on the floor nearby. The last thing she wanted to do was interrupt Cynrik's work, so she quietly observed his actions from the sidelines. 

'Left first,' he thought as he slowly turned the dial counter-clockwise using his wrist. As he did so, his eyes noticed faint pulses of sound triggered by the clicking of the dial until one was significantly more impactful than the previous ones, causing him to stop.

Tearing his eyes away from the metal plates, Cynrik zoomed out his eyesight and noticed the first number of the combination was 107.5, causing his cocky smirk to transform into a deep frown. 

'Tsk, fucking decimals. Had I tried crunching the numbers beforehand, I would have ended up in an infinite loop of possibilities.' With that thought, he changed the rotation to clockwise and slowly spun the nob until the next click occurred. 

'Slow and steady wins the race Cyn, don't get overconfident; spinning the dial Fifty times to wipe out any combinations means there are Fifty plates. Fifty plates mean fifty codes, and the more I rack up, the more difficult it becomes to focus on the sound pulses.'

Seconds turned to minutes, and as Cynrik surmised, the more plates which clicked in place, the more static noise their movement created, making it harder to differentiate when a new pin clicked against the subsequent plate. 

By the end of the first hour, Cynrik had his first mishap in the form of an accidental reset. When he got to the tenth plate while scrolling the dial, he accidentally passed the number, and to his dismay, all of the lined-up pins he had gotten in place up till now separated, causing him to start back at the beginning. 

"Ugh, fucking fail-safes," Cynrik grumbled as he stepped back from the vault door and shook his stiff left arm. 

The moment he spoke, Selene, playing the part of a good wife, flashed behind him and began massaging his stiff left arm and shoulder while using her Mana to hold up a bottle of water for him to drink. 

"What happened?" She asked with tender affection, watching Cynrik take the bottle for a couple of sips before putting the cap back on with one hand. 

"There's a trigger mechanism inside the lock, where after nine codes are input, if you mess up and pass the 10th, it collapses the connection between the plates causing you to start from the beginning." 

Closing his eyes and deactivating [Mana Sight] to allow his eyes a chance to rest, Cynrik sat down and enjoyed the touch of his Kona as she worked out the stiff kinks in his shoulder. 

"Luckily, I have enough of a brain to memorize the codes I got correct so that I won't start from scratch on my second attempt." 

"Well, that much is obvious; you wouldn't be you if you couldn't remember a few codes," With a giggle, Selene gently leaned Cynrik back, giving him a lap pillow while working on the front of his shoulder. 

However, when she saw his face, Selene paled but didn't say a word. Knowing the personality of her Maður, she knew it would do no good to call attention to his physical state, but she couldn't stop the pain in her chest from coming forward.

The reason for her overreaction to seeing his face was the jagged red marks spanning Cynrik's eyes, eyelids, temples, and forehead.

They looked like tree roots to her, spreading out from the corner of his eyes all the way up to his forehead and down to his chin. Choking back silent tears, Selene looked at the tiny fairy floating above Cynrik's chest and noticed she was wearing a frown while examining the lines.

  -This idiot is doing something crazy again, but don't worry, the lines aren't permanent, and other than giving him a slight stinging sensation and headache, I don't see them causing any harm to his body.-

  -They are a direct effect of triggering a new ability with his [Mana Sight]; as usual, the numbskull thought up an insane plan and somehow got it to work. In this case, he filtered out every Mana particle except for Sound and Metal, which put a heavy strain on his eyes.-

  -Think of the lines in the same manner as the bloodshot eyes you get from opening them underwater in a chlorinated pool. Basically harmless other than some slight discomfort.-

  -Similarly, what you see now, are the blood vessels connecting his eyes to his brain and his face rising to the skin's surface.-

'So some rest and a good temple massage should do the trick?' Selene asked with a hint of worry in her voice. It's not that she didn't trust Tobs' words, but when it came to Cynrik, she was always cautious, even if it involved their shared System AI.

  -Yep, no biggy, but he definitely will have a splitting headache for several hours, especially since the difficulty level for cracking this 50-plate safe is incredibly high.-

Sighing internally, Selene allowed Cynrik to rest in her lap until the lines on his face receded under his skin, which took around 30 minutes, before tapping his shoulder several times as a sign that he needed to return to work.

Soon enough, he was back on his feet, and in the same position as before, only this time, he mumbled the numbers he had cracked, allowing Selene to hear. 

In an unspoken agreement, she began memorizing them not to feel useless in case he asked for them later, not that she expected him to. 

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