Her village was a mixed human and beastkin affair. Although it happens now and then, this race mixing was pretty unusual. Especially because of the unfair nature of mana usage as done by both races.
Their leader was a man- wielding beastkin, his internal usage of the emotionally unstable energy turning him into quite the despotic ruler. The leader of their commune being mentally unstable on a fundamental level, Green learned from a very young age that she should snatch every single scrap of food, currency, and power for herself whenever possible.
Although beastkin are more powerful because of their potential semi-instinctive mana usage, only a few are talented enough - or members of the correct bloodline - to do so. When a human learns to wield mana, they do so through their mind, instead of their body, allowing for far more destructive effects and usually allowing him to easily beat a beastkin with similar levels of mana control.
When she was but a teenage girl, a mage-led raiding party had made landfall at the nearest fjord and struck out towards her village. Their leader, his head filled with the lie that he was the most powerful being in a large radius, died very quickly when he went out to confront the magus.
The entire village was either enslaved or slaughtered. Green didn't really care much though. Her parents had died long ago, and the other villagers saw a thieving street rat instead of a precious child. Green doesn’t like to think about the years that followed. Whenever she was sold or her owner died - something that happened suspiciously often to high-level mages - she was shipped from mage island to mage island. This at least spared her from Capillary Island’s pleasure whirlpool.
When she woke up in a totally alien environment after her latest round of being sold and shipped, she made the firm resolution to grab any valuables with both hands and never let go. Well, she could totally let go, but only if she receives other good stuff in return.
This is why she is having such a hard time right now. She had taken on a mission to infiltrate and sabotage the holding cells under the large castle and had done so swiftly. She joined a small team of other students, barely paying attention to their names or skills, and had quickly done the minimum described in the mission briefing. Now she is looting every single thing she can get her grubby hands on.
So, she is followed by a couple dozen slaves that seemed nice and a few soldiers that wanted to defect, but who has the time to bother with those nobodies when there is stuff to steal?
Weighing both objects in her hands - an intricately detailed sailboat miniature in a bottle and a silver candlestick - she continues pondering which one to take with her.
Green has found herself in a vicious cycle. The first spatial ring she received had a rather small storage capacity. Filling it with loot from those fancy Brighntin nobles gave her enough points to trade it for a larger one. She had filled that one with crystals during the Mana Dungeon delve she was forced on, and that was enough to trade in her storage device for a slightly bigger ring.
Now she has filled her third ring up once more with loot and it is full. Suddenly, she slaps her own forehead. Turning around, the red man that was tapping her on the shoulder jumps back in surprise. “Carry these. Good, now follow.”
She leads her group of rescuees up more stairs, peering into hallways that grow ever more ornate the higher she climbs. She is utterly and totally lost, but that doesn’t really matter when a single punch can break walls and make new exits or entryways.
Judging that this new hallway is fancy enough, she kicks open the first door she sees. Empty rooms stare back at her. She motions a few followers inside, handing them all the valuables she sees.
“What in the fucking-cursed-dungeon-shitting-blazes is going on here!?”
Her hand frozen halfway to a rather large gold-rimmed painting, she looks towards the entrance. “Hey, king! Never mind me, I’m just on a mission!”
“A mission to rob my castle blind?”
“Nope! But a good friend of mine said that valuables not stolen are valuables wasted. I’m just making sure you are not wasting any of your resources!” Beaming at the king, she pulls the painting from the wall and hands it to a very pale ex-soldier.
The king rubs the bridge of his nose. “And she doesn't feel evil. That must mean she really believes that, gods. Why does Teach attract so many idiotic people.” The king watches Green with a complicated look, his eye twitching as he sees her ripping gilded candelabras from the ceiling.
The king takes a deep breath and motions her closer. Skipping towards him, she looks up at the man with curious eyes. “Okay, follow this hallway until you reach the area with green walls. That’s where the good stuff is. Then please leave.”
Beaming a blinding smile, Green nods happily and darts off. A few of the standard-skinned humans nod shamefully at their own king before scuttling after their supposed rescuer. The king ponders the morality of sending her to the nobles' section of his castle, but faint sounds of fighting and yelling coming from deep below him pull his attention away. Sighing deeply at the absolute clusterfuck this day has turned out to be, he mutters curses under his breath while hurrying down the castle.
⁂
“Okay, I will admit that these dungeons are one of the best training environments I have ever seen. I would give the guys in charge credit for this, but I suspect that it’s a template.” I muse out loud while studying the way my students overcome this new floor.
I have already sped through this one, of course, but that was thanks to overwhelming power. Also, I stopped at floor hundred and sixty because it was getting annoying, not because I felt it was dangerous. Seeing my students with more apt levels of power figure out how to fight and traverse these levels is interesting.
The hundred and fifteenth level of the Mana Dungeon is made out of hollow space in the form of vertical columns, connected through randomly placed horizontal walkways. The walls and walkways are made from this weird, translucent, and solid fire. Glowing with a deep orange, the walls, floors, and ceilings undulate slowly as if burning in slow motion. Each column has a sprinkling of fire crystals that transforms into smooth, flightless birds. They can swim through the walls of solid fire and they are really fast.
Ket looks in my direction as I mutter my comment, but has his eyes scanning the environment a split second later. Still, his distraction was noted by one of the bird fishes, and Tess barely manages to jump from the shadow between his legs to save his bacon. It is hot enough in here to burn mortals, but everyone seems to be managing the heat. Ket’s metal did melt, so except for the crown thing on his head he has no weapons.
Selis is also doing very badly, her last drop of water evaporated as soon as she entered the room. Rodrick is guarding her small form while she uses any moisture in the air to cool the overheating bonecore wielder. His axe is starting to glow at the edges, but the rubber grip is too qi-infused to melt anytime soon. Rodrick does have the highest kill count on this level, his viciously-chopping-axe-intent cutting through the floor with ease, hitting the birds as they swim. The floor is repaired soon after, telling me he is only focussing on raw cutting power. Sword-intent tends to leave hard-to-heal wounds, but he seems to have foregone that effect for a more brute cutting force.
Bord is running up the walls, letting the bird things strike him before trapping them in a localized gravity field. They are splatters of molten fire soon after as he pummels them with his fists.
Then, just when Ket and Tess seem to be cornered, Bord comes crashing back down, sending a shockwave through the solid fire floor that is brutal enough to pulverize everything. The last few enemies circling around the couple are crushed into red fragments of fading flame.
Bord looks rather cool as he rights himself, the centre of a cindering whirlwind. Then he delivers the final blow by casually catching a thin rope that fell from above and handing it to the kneeling Ket and Tess. “You guys owe me fourteen meals now,” he tells them before jumping away.
Selis flies with her ice, Rodrick can't fly, Ket flew wit
h his metal, and Tess seems to have trouble performing her rapid-jump-type floating technique in this hot and mana-dense environment. This leaves Bord as the only one with reliable flying and floating skills. I find it hilarious, the smartest, prettiest, and most destructive of my students are all forced to wait for Bord to do his thing.
They climb up the rope in a hurry, entering the stairs to the next level. They all look rather singed and parched, and each one of them pulls out a drink and starts gulping it down the moment they arrive in the cooler stairwell.
“That went well,” I smirk at them.
“Yeh,” replies Bord with a massive shit-eating grin.
Selis pouts with a sullen look on her face, looking at me with big eyes. I pull the small fish from Tree’s oceans, where I temporarily put it, and hand it over. She smiles as the transparent critter starts swimming through the water she holds out. “Thanks... that was tough.”
“We got through it, that’s all that matters,” reassures Rodrick. He is still juggling his axe, faint trails of smoke trailing from the piping hot tool.
“Kettyyyyy, my hair! Please make it good again.” Tess holds up a singed lock of raven strands.
“Okay, hold still, Dear.” Ket pulls a knife from his ring and moves it faster than the naked eye can follow. He looks at Tess’s happily preening form with an odd look. “We are still recultivating after this, right?”
“Hmm? Sure, whatever.”
“So, what have we learned so far? Any flame-based, foundation-level cultivator can make many kilometres of battlefield these temperatures with just his spiritual sense. How would you fight them?”
“Bring more water,” Selis grumbles as she stares daggers at her ring.
“Chop him down before he can perform that technique,” replies Rodrick.
“Long distance sniping,” is Ket’s answer.
“I’d go, like, distract him, I guess, or hide in a cave,” is Tess’ surprisingly sensible answer.
“I’d be in the back, healing, I guess,” replies Vox.
“Punch him… no, make the air heavy. It will go away then.” replies Bord.
“You have been fighting for ages, no water is left. He is too far to reach with a chop, he is protected by a physical nullification barrier, and he’s gay. Also, he can melt through the ground and reach any cave with time. Healers are priority targets with huge war bounties on their heads. He won’t let you get near, and that’s actually the correct answer, Bord. Fighting large-scale effects can be done in two ways. Personal and battlefield control. Either you are somehow immune to the effect, or you fight it with a large-scale effect of your own.”
Everyone glares at Bord, who ignores them and walks on. Then he stops and turns, facing me. “No… I want that effect. So, I will take it all. That’s what I will do.”
He nods to himself and moves on.
“My axe will be useless then,” mumbles Rodrick while staring at the shining tool.
“In that scenario, maybe,” I reply.
He opens his mouth again, about to ask another question but is stopped as he sees the next floor. This is another of the weird reversed floors where we will have to climb up instead of going horizontal or down. The stairs open up onto a small platform that is hovering above the floor. As far as the eye can see, there is a snowy slope, and a low thundering reaches our ears as a constant avalanche is running down the incline.
Bord, still overconfident from the fact that he was instrumental in getting through the past few levels, jumps off and disappears in the roiling stream of snow and ice. He does not reappear. We stare down the edge for a while, uncertain how to react to his sudden jump and disappearance.
Selis snickers and also jumps down. The snow parts for her up the hill, splitting the ten-meter thick river of rumbling ice to either side of Bord, who is looking a bit blue even though he is glowing a deep red. Large swathes of ice separate and surround the small girl, forming wings as she tauntingly swoops through the air.
“Or luck. You can prepare all you want, but sometimes it comes down to pure chance.” Rodrick, Tess, and Vox all jump down, landing next to the half-frozen Bord. They slip and slide for a bit, but the hard surface beneath the avalanche seems to be worn down rock instead of solid ice.
“Or you become a braincore and figure it out on the spot, using small eternities to calculate the optimal answer.”
I turn to Ket and nod slowly. “Yeah, or you could rely on your team a bit, something I struggle with a lot.”
Ket looks at me a bit before nodding and also jumping down. Pretty soon, the troupe of students is charging ahead, Selis splitting the thundering volumes of snow just enough for them to run upwards single file.
Should I warn them about those long-legged harvester spiders made from ice that will ambush them? Nah, this will be a learning experience for them. They were getting spoiled after all.
chapter forty-two
Assessment
Bassik sees things. His wife is still sleeping, the pressure of the constant defence draining her usually endless mental powers. This is happening to more and more braincores as the defence drags on, the mental pressure not doing the thinkers any favours.
But Bassik sees things because he recultivated on a whim. He found his own combat effectiveness lacking, his generic heartcore limiting him to the role of carrying his wife and kicking the occasional sea beast that came too close. Bassik was not happy with that role.
So, he decided to go down a path he knew for sure that no one had taken yet, as Database gave him a point reward for suggesting the cultivation idea in the first place. Bassik went to Tree’s much quieter moon, and after tucking his wife in, he forced all the power out of his body and heart. Five heart wrenching and tortuous hours later he was a mortal without a scrap of qi in his lanky frame.
Database boosted him to Tree’s qi-rich atmosphere after his third attempt at jumping without his heartcore, where he collapsed into a tired heap while he recultivated, shoving all the power he could get his hands on into his eyeballs. The core location was mainly a whim, but Bassik does enjoy observing people, so there’s that.
That was hours ago, and Bassik - previously a fresh core-forming heartcore - is now a fresh qi-condensing eye core, and he sees things. Walking over the Mana Dungeon’s much-changed structures, he has trouble believing his eyes.
The largest building used to be a shoddy brown tower that was just crooked enough to be worrying. Since Re-Haan had taken it as the seat of her power two days ago, things had changed. The students who were carpenters and masons had formed a builder division. They saw the state of the Mana Dungeon’s hastily built structures when they arrived for the first time, cursed up a storm, and collectively rolled up their sleeves.
Now Re-Haan’s tower is a marvel, a temple dedicated to the possibilities of qi-empowered construction. Graceful arches are inset with dazzling scenes made from glowing stained glass. Breath-taking and mind-bending mosaics make the tower shine in a way that’s much more than just the sum of its parts.
But Bassik no longer thinks it's one of the most beautiful things he has ever seen. He has avoided looking at the tower since his first glance. He truly thought he’d been blinded the moment he stepped through the Mana Dungeon portal. When Bassik looks at where Re-Haan is sitting, he sees a shining flow of meaning and power, a coagulation of cooperation. Tendrils of such majesty bring meaning to and from the shining draconic goddess.
Looking around, he sees a yellow energy sitting inside the few unchanged mage-wrought structures. The qi-built constructions look rigid and unyielding in comparison. The energy matrices inside the freshly-built structures look like neat lines and tightly placed bricks to Bassik’s supernatural sight.
The sea is churning with dense mana signatures, and the pale man sees the horizon speckled with glowing concentrations of mana. The sea around the Mana Dungeon itself is a riotous patchwork of intermingling powers, the mana seeping out of the beaten foes painting the waters.
Looking
downwards, the Dungeon itself is a blessed swath of darkness, not a single shred of power visible to his overworked eyes. But Bassik barely dares to look upwards. Shielding his eyes from Re-Haan’s overwhelming glow, he risks another look at the sky.
The moon, faintly visible behind the tumultuous clouds, is similar in nature to Re-Haan; but where the dragoness has lines flowing from her form, like guiding and helpful tethers, the moon is stuck in a rigid web. Stark lines connect to seemingly random places in the sky, ending at points that move slowly. The entire sky is an ever-changing kaleidoscope to his eyes, and it is freaking him out.
He keeps seeing beams of light coming from the moon, the celestial body pulsing with an eye-piercing glow once every minute or so. The waveform of fibrous light grows bigger once more, turning the sky a pure white only for it to split into a fuzzy explosion, as the beam hits the rapidly-spinning, woven formation shielding the dungeon. The intricately knitted span of gauze seems to be blocking the beam, but Bassik has noticed it seems stronger with each repetition,
Bassik looks around while shielding his eyes from the bright blaze above him. He receives odd looks from some of the students and still-cowering mages, but none seem to see what he sees. Bassik again fears that he is going crazy.
The weird circumstances he has found himself in since Rityn and he were rescued from a life of slavery have been impactful, to put it mildly. The only reason very few of the students have snapped is because of the atmosphere inside Tree. A bubbling intensity is in the air, making everyone see possibilities instead of the impossibly large changes in lifestyle. Bassik is also pretty sure he would be raving mad were it not for his wife. The first time in years he’s away from her, and hTreaderlinkse starts seeing thing.
He stops in front of the ornate tower, the makeshift streets around him suspiciously empty. Then again, Re-Haan is the last person here to need guards or protection. Swallowing nervously, the pale man enters the finely detailed interior, too nervous to notice the subtly intricate tree motifs adorning the insides. A few minutes of shuffling later, he reaches the top.
The Dao of Magic: Book 3: A Western Cultivation Series Page 36