Chapter 6
The first few days in the Wild lands were hell. I was forced to constantly adjust my barrier to keep from breathing in the various noxious fumes, to keep from freezing to death or to spontaneously combust… the only way I managed to stay alive in this hellish landscape was my ability to cultivate.
Cultivating mana was the art of taking mana from the environment, cycle the mana in your body and then return it to the environment. After a few hours during which i had to create a thick barrier to ward of the unnatural occurrences and maintain a breathable atmosphere in the barrier. I was starting to feel my mana reserves dwindle to nearly nothing, so I sat down and cultivated, that is when I discovered the secret to survive here. because as soon as I started to take in the chaotic mana into my body the environment outside normalized a little and put less strain on my barrier but on the inside the taking in of chaotic mana nearly made me explode.
That is how I spent the next day; while one of my minds was taking mana into my body the other three would work as fast as possible to stabilize the chaotic mana that threatened to kill me from the inside. Without multitasking I would have died as soon as I started to cultivate. This chaotic mana was the reason for the harshness of the environment.
Once I had found a way to calm down the chaotic mana in my body I tried to replicate the feat on the outside of my body. While the task was much harder, the reward was an instant return of the natural world around me, instead of the previous unpredictable state things were in before. Of course this calm was just a temporary state, already I could see the chaotic mana trying to claim back this land that I protected.
These various discoveries led me to use my class skill spell creation to create a barrier that would automatically calm down the mana in region of space of a few feet from me, while the chaotic mana would try to dismantle my barrier, each time it came in contact with it, it would return to its normal state and stop attacking the barrier the creation of this ward plus my S.E.P field allowed me to fall asleep after a truly exhausting day.
I was woken up from my restful sleep by the alarm that I had tied to my S.E.P that was supposed to go off if anything crossed the boundary. I was instantly on my feet with a ball of light behind my head to not get blinded. What I saw was a mutated spider the size of a bear, venom dripping from its fangs ready to pounce on me. I sent fire at it, a veritable flamethrower came out of my arm when I saw it keep moving I use wind from my other arm to increase the intensity of the blast. Once I was sure the thing was cooked thoroughly I approached to see what kind of thing managed to get past my wards. What I saw was an amalgam of creatures that was completely unnatural. I should have expected this really, the chaotic mana in the atmosphere didn’t only cause unnatural weather phenomenon, it also mutated the wildlife. I would bet my life on the fact that this thing that I killed was so mutated that it didn’t even have a proper mind… my ward’s purpose was to take your mind off the area after all, for something with no mind, just basic instincts the S.E.P field was useless…. I was going to have to rework my ward if something that dangerous managed to get in.
The next day saw me walking through the thoroughly devastated landscape. Behind the same ward that allowed me to survive yesterday designing another ward that I would use to sleep tonight to avoid the same kind of incident. I was slowly piecing together what needed to be where to fool an animal’s instincts. My efforts were not helped by the fact that today for whatever reason all kinds of mutated creatures were trying to eat me, nothing truly dangerous, that could not be dealt with by a wind blade or a lightning blast, yet. Which added to the pressure to finish this ward fast before something truly dangerous finds me. Finally after long hours of walking and killing abomination I managed to come up with a ward that should be able to make me invisible to these monsters.
I also think that I managed to figure out why they kept attacking me; they needed this chaotic mana to live off of, and I was basically calming the mana in the zone around me. Even if this calm state was only temporary they didn’t have enough intellect to just wait it out.
My new ward was the same as always but I added a thin outer layer of what looks like chaotic mana, this new layer is not only going to keep the chaotic mana outside my bubble from trying to get in it is also layered with a shocking ward that would give the creature that touches it a small shock; like what a farmer would have done to keep his cows in their field. This ward would also be connected to an alarm in case shocking it wasn’t enough and I had to deal with this matter myself with more firepower.
I wandered the Wild Lands for months, looking at beautiful vistas, battling for my life against monsters that could have swallowed bears in one bite.in one word; freedom, and it was fantastic. While I mainly stuck to the Wild Land sometimes I craved a little civilization in which case I would go back to Everwoods to talk to Ashley and Magnus when he was around. Or like this day I would go into one of the kingdoms today I was simply window shopping in one of Karabor’s cities’ market when I heard a man cursing in English, ”you speak English?!” I asked, shocked, in the same language. The man as shocked as i was replied ”yeah! Are you from Earth too? “He asked me with a look of wonder on his face that I was pretty sure was present on my own face; leaving to find a better place for a private conversation. We rented a private booth in a restaurant down the road from where we met.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
After ensuring our privacy with a little bit of magic. After we were seated I started us off with a quick “I’m Adam White. What’s your name?” “Jordan, Jordan Erikson” after this somewhat awkward introduction we found ourselves sharing our stories and while Jordan was amazed that I managed to cultivate my mana so swiftly he shared his own experience with me. While I had reacted fast enough that I had a little time to prepare myself, Jordan on the other hand was completely unprepared when the mana rushed into his body.
This had basically crippled him: the local healer, who had seen to him after a member of the village carried Jordan to her, did all she could but she was still amazed that Jordan had survived at all; according to the old woman, he had what she called a mana rush. It was something she had only seen once before and the person who this had happened to simply disintegrated into dust. The old healer had been able to keep him alive and his body sore but healthy but he had been completely locked out of his mana pool. But in this world everyone uses mana, from the farmer to make his fields healthier to the delivery man who ran faster thanks to the mana in his legs.
But Jordan, instead of bemoaning his fate and wait to die had gotten to work, the mana rush had left his body healthy but in dire need of exercise and with a trait that allowed him to increase his body without limit through effort he made a very swift recovery. Once recovered, he insisted on helping the village for lodging and feeding him. The fact that he was getting stronger while helping those who had helped him was just a bonus in his mind.
It was at this moment that Jordan created a routine for himself; He would get up, make a 100 push-up, and go around the village and help where he could then he would go back to his temporary home. An old couple had died earlier this year and that house was the only one available that was close enough to come when called but far enough away that his constantly escalating would not make them worry or take pity on him. In fact he; like Adam, yearned for adventure but would not leave the village until he had repaid what he owed the villagers: his llife.
This opportunity came faster than he could have anticipated. One night while he was finishing helping Fred tend to his fields he saw twenty men rush the village while he was wondering what was happening someone in the village enlightened him by yelling “BANDITS!” at the top of his voice. Realizing what was about to happen Jordan took the scythe from Fred and ran toward the bandits. The bandits never made it even halfway to the village. Because Jordan even without mana had spent months training to fight people like this. He would be a Hero this he vowed. After looting what appeared to be a good two-handed sword from one of the better equipped bandit. Having repaid his debt to the villagers Jordan decided to leave and see this new and amazing world… well that was the plan until he encountered a priest of Terra who gave him a quest.
Apparently Terra, the primary goddess of the world, had sensed that the barriers that held the chaos that existed in the Wild lands from flooding the continent of Terraria were starting to weaken. That was why she had charged one of her priest to find one of the of the people that were transported from Earth and give him a Bag of Holding containing twenty crystals that would transform into dungeon cores once buried in the earth. The priest then promptly left before Jordan could demand anything of the priest.
Jordan was completely willing, thrilled even to have received such a quest from a goddess that would determine the fate of an entire continent. He just knew that he was not capable of accomplishing this quest on his own, he would need a powerful mage to help him on his quest but none had been willing to even consider travelling into the Wild lands. That was what he had been doing for six months up to the moment he met Adam.
Adam for his part had no desire to get tangled up in the affairs of gods and goddesses, but he, too had noticed that the barrier that kept the chaotic mana in the Wild lands was on the brink of collapse. So with little choice in the matter Adam joined Jordan and they prepared themselves to brave the wild lands for months at a time. After all dungeons require time to grow and they would need to feed them once they formed.
To be more efficient they each went to their own tasks; Jordan would look for a general supplies store for health potion and healing salves and other necessities when staying away from civilization for some time, while he did that Adam bought dozens of empty small mana crystals that he would fill in order to feed the dungeon mana. He could have fed it without he medium of the crystals but he had heard somewhere that dungeon grew faster when absorbing neutral mana, probably because of the purification process that was a dungeon’s primary purpose.
Once the two companions found themselves together again they verified that they had everything they needed and once they confirmed it they departed swiftly, Adam flying as was customary followed by a bubble of air with Jordan inside in fetal position and who kept repeating to himself “don’t look down, don’t look down…” over and over again.
After twenty minutes of flight Adam landed them just outside the boundary that kept the chaotic mana hemmed in and stood analyzing the barrier while his companion kissed the ground after recovering from his traumatic first experience with flying. Jordan made to go in but was kept from doing so by Adam “What are you doing? We need to go in there, and fast or the entire continent will die!” Adam responded to this shouting by calmly replying “I haven’t had the chance to enchant the amulet that will keep you from dying in like a second dumbass.” Adam replied with scorn. He continued with a less hostile tone “Plus we will have to travel far from the boundary before we plant the first dungeon or we risk destabilizing the entire barrier and there’s no way to do that in half a day. I’ll start working on making the amulet after I erect my wards and it should be finished tomorrow when we wake up”
Jordan, feeling foolish for getting angry so unjustly apologized and started to set up his camp when he started to try and organize turns to keep watch Adam explained about the wards he raised every night before sleeping.
Taking his sleeping bag and waiting for the sun to set, Jordan watched as Adam took an entire bed and mattress out of his Bag of Holding and kicked himself for not thinking of doing the same. After that, Adam sat on his bed and started to fill the empty mana crystals that he bought earlier. Once the few dozen crystals were filled they both went to sleep hoping to get some rest before they could truly start the task that the goddess gave them.