Chapter Forty-Four

With the aid of his dark sight, it didn’t take him long to find the tunnel. Helped by the fact that a light beam from above shining down into the pitch-black dungeon. Upon reaching the light beam, he weakened his dark vision and orientated himself upward.

From his practice, the ascent turned out to be easier than he expected. Though it still took a while as the tunnel spanned hundreds of meters and he didn’t dare to fly fast in fear of catching his wing on the walls.

Halfway up, he turned off his dark vision, causing momentary panic as the light blinded him. With a burst of mana to his eyes, they adjusted before anything bad happened, though he earned a hiss.

Finally, after the longest flight and most nerve wrecking flight, he reached the top of the tunnel. As he reached the top, he felt himself break through a barrier, something he didn’t notice on his way down. It must be the beginning of the dungeon.

The moment he broke through, a sickly tune blasted him, sending him crashing downward. Fortunately, the dungeon entrance vanished, or he would have fallen right back down. He wasn’t the only one affected. The snake let out a pained hiss, though it might be from the fall.

He pushed through the horrid out of tune melody and scanned his surroundings. The clearing with the dead stump and stone trees surrounding it remained the same.

His senses zeroed in on the dead stump as the source of the broken melody. Despite his distaste, he delved into the melody and tried to fix it, but it was beyond fixing. It was missing too many notes, like a warped and scratched record. It was a miracle he heard anything at all. The stone trees around him were silent. The only melody he heard aside from the two of them was the dead tree.

Arden delved deeper, trying to find the difference between it and the stone trees that was when he noticed a sliver of life mana. Not enough to give life to the tree, but enough to keep the melody alive.

Upon prodding the life mana, he knew he could take it, but should he? Was there another solution? That was when he remembered the stockpile of life mana within his staff. Did he want to waste such a valuable resource, though?

As a last test, he tried his equilibrium sense, finding it practically screaming at him to do it as if it would correct some imbalance. One look at the surrounding stone trees told him why.

His focus turned toward the staff, which hummed in anticipation. Not sure exactly how to use the mana within, he tapped the staff to the tree and willed life mana into the stump.

At first nothing happened, but that was just the calm before the storm. A torrent of life mana exploded out of the staff and into the stump, causing Arden to stiffen, worried someone would notice the spike of mana.

As the staff did its work, he glanced at the snake, only to find her in her humanoid form laying on the ground hugging herself with tears running down her face. Through his bond, he felt some muted emotional turmoil. The temptation to help sparked, but he barely knew her, so he doubted he could help. Despite the distaste he felt leaving her alone, he turned his attention back to the stump.

Any thoughts of the girl vanished as he stared at the disintegrating stump.

For a moment, the melody silenced, but it was only for a moment. A healthy but faint melody replaced it, prompting him to look downward at a tiny sprout poking up from the ashy ground where the stump once stood.

A random idea came to him as he stared at the sprout, prompting him to open his Ortus menu and put his Accelerated Growth card into his active hand.

Mana continued to pump out of the staff as he activated Accelerated Growth. A gasp escaped him as his arms jerked back as if recoil hit him.

That was when he remembered the description of his class. Based on his equilibrium sense, he was correcting the balance. The realization sparked hope for the future. Maybe he wouldn’t be so limited. It wasn’t the current balance, but an overall balance, and the current state of the world was severely unbalanced.

Most of the known world was a dead desert, after all. Not a desert biome with desert focused life but actually dead. Like the area around the dungeon didn’t have a living creature in it, as far as he could tell.

If his assumption was correct, he had a big buffer of boosted cards to achieve balance. It would take him years. He wasn’t arrogant enough to think he could do it alone, either. Just the clearing took more mana than he had in his core to rejuvenate.

Fortunately, he had his staff, but that had its limits. The dungeon was a fraction of the size of the stone forest, after all. Though with the boost, he might have a chance.

As if it was his own mana, the potent mana flooding into the sprout diverted and funneled through his bracelets as the card activated. His bracelets burned hot, but he held on fully dedicated to the task now that he knew his class supported him.

He jerked as an explosion of nature and life mana filled the clearing. Where he stood, sprouts of green poked out of the ashy ground as the now knee-high tree grew visibly. His bracelets flashed with a rapid cadence, but he paid no mind as he put all his focus on funneling the mana. Both the melody and equilibrium of nature roaring in his mind.

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Unbeknownst to him, the girl sat up and surveyed the changed area in wonder, though she schooled her features within moments. A scaly sundress appeared on her frame, swapping out the previous thicker scaled armor. Then she sat in the now grassy field and closed her eyes with her daggers resting on her lap.

A moment later, her Ortus bracelets shined like Arden’s as another flood of mana joined the staff from her daggers.

As if supercharged, the tree shot up several meters in height, though it remained thin.

That soon changed, as well as the tree’s trunk filled out to almost a meter in width, like a child preparing for a growth spurt. And what a growth spurt it was. The tree shot upward above the stone trees surrounding it, then the trunk filled out once more to about two meters.

Far thinner than the stump it replaced, but it had plenty of growth to look forward to in the future if protected.

The growth leveled off as a vibrant canopy of leaves formed over the clearing, providing shade from the imposing heat of the two suns high in the sky.

That wasn’t the end, however, but before he could investigate further, his bracelets flashed as a light descended from the sky. The light turned out to be a green crystalline sphere, not unlike the dungeon core below. That realization froze him solid.

In disbelief, he checked his notification.

Unclaimed territory core detected.

Would you like to claim ownership?

Contrary to many people, he didn’t immediately say yes. Instead, he stared down at the core, indecision displayed on his face. He wasn’t strong enough to protect a territory core, no matter how small.

At the same time, would he get a chance at one again? This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Best case, he gained a safe, nature attuned oasis in a dead desert, but worst case, someone noticed and killed him right when he accepted.

The changes to the tree alone should have drawn attention. It was massive, towering over every other tree within sight. The green canopy had to stick out in the dead stone forest. It was only a matter of time before someone noticed.

Should he put a target on his back just for somewhere to call home?

A small hand out of the corner of his eye shooting toward the core cut off any indecision. That hand was obviously connected to the girl who looked at the core with greed, any previous emotional turmoil gone.

Fast as lightning, his hand shot out, but the girl had the momentum. He was closer though and had longer arms, so he made up the gap, but only just.

Simultaneously, their hands pressed against the core as Arden mentally accepted the ownership claim.

Notifications flashed in front of him, causing his heart to skip a beat.

Claim accepted.

Error, another claim detected.

Calculating claim.

Error even claim.

Initiating claim conflict.

Error insufficient mana to initiate claim conflict.

Suddenly a suction pulled at his mana core, sucking it dry within moments and going by the sudden swaying of the girl next to him, it happened to her as well. Did he even want to claim the territory over her?

Sure, she could kick him out, but he doubted she would. Her build didn’t seem built toward growth and if he gave it to her, she would assume the danger of someone coming for her to take the territory.

If he put it that way, he wasn’t so annoyed she tried to claim the territory. Still, at the same time, he did the work to resurrect the territory or create it. Who knew what triggered it?

Actually, did he even trigger it? Maybe their presence triggered it, not fixing the melody, though he doubted it.

If that was the case, someone else would have claimed it unless only certain people could. The fact her claim was equal to his even though he fixed the melody meant there were other criteria she had that evened the claim.

Arden tried to pull his hand away from the core, but it remained glued to the core, removing his choice on the matter. He should have known better. Ortus didn’t take kindly to those who changed their minds after accepting something offered.

Whatever happened, he had to ride through it.

He returned his attention to the newest notifications, hoping he didn’t make a big mistake on his impulsive claim.

Initiating Claim Conflict.

Sufficient Mana Detected.

Error Prime Mana Detected.

Recalculating Claim.

Error Even Claim.

Initiating Claim Conflict.

Error Prime Mana Detected.

The cycle continued from there in a loop, ratcheting up his fear he trapped himself. He wasn’t the only one as he locked eyes with the girl’s. Fear flashed in those emerald eyes, any hint of greed gone.

Like him, she seemed to regret her impulsive claim. They should have talked it out, but to be fair it looked like he would claim it if she didn’t move quick. Not that she should have taken a chance at it in the first place.

Didn’t she want to leave? Claiming a territory seemed opposite to her plans, at least what he assumed her plans were.

To be fair, it was hard to pass up a territory claim. It was instant noble status without the work of trying to fight up the inheritance hierarchy or fight someone. Well, the fight someone part may still happen if Ortus broke out of its loop and forced them to fight for the claim.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, that didn’t seem to happen. Instead, the error loop went on for several more minutes. It felt like an eternity before a new notification appeared, both terrifying and relieving him.

Administrator authority detected.

Administrator override initiated.

Conflict resolved.

Claim successfully completed.

Arden’s hand remained glued to the core and a glance at the girl showed it was the same for her, both past the point of hiding their fear.

A potent rush of energy shot up his arm and down his tether before stopping deep within him. Light particles formed in front of both of them. An identical card formed, which he read, grasping at straws to find out what happened. As far as he knew, only one person could claim a territory at a time, though since he wasn’t from a highborn family, he doubted he had complete information.

The card had an overhead image of a circular stone forest with a larger living tree, probably the one they stood in front of at the center.

Based on the size of the tree compared to the rest of the territory, the area was massive. It was easily many times bigger than the dungeon, but to be fair, a vast majority of it was dead and useless.

His mother must have planted him near the center because no way could he walk from the border to the center in a day. At least he didn’t think so. Maybe the card wasn’t to scale.

His focus shifted to the description, hoping it told him more, but it only confirmed his assumption.

Great Stone Forest Territory

Type: Territory

Affinity: Nature

Attunement: Nature

Description: This card grants the owner authority over the Great Stone Forest Territory. User may change the name of the territory through their territory sub menu. With this card, the user may teleport to the territory core once per day.

A quick glance at the girl’s card proved it was the same.

They locked eyes, both just as confused as they added the cards to their decks.