Chapter Sixty-Five

Arden prodded the melody radiating off the little creature. One thing became obvious. None of his cards would help him in the situation. The creature was alive and wasn’t a plant as far as he could tell, so Resurrecting Growth was out.

Another problem was he wasn’t sure he wanted to mess with the melody too much. He had ideas on how to bring it back in tune, but to do that, it might change the creature. It was different than messing with a dead stump. Still, if they didn’t do something, the creature would die.

To get another opinion, he turned toward his bond with Solanine, but she remained passive on the subject. Still, it was worth asking. “What do you think?”

“Let it die. It would be a waste of mana to save it.”

The lack of emotion in her tone sent a shiver through him. If she wasn’t going to help, he may as well take a stab at repairing the melody.

Before the attempt, he glanced at it with his less used sense given by his class. His connection to the core wavered as a blast of potency hit him. He shut off his equilibrium sense, sighing in relief when the force, or whatever it was, silenced.

That was far more potent than the fairies in the trial dungeon. So potent he wasn’t sure if it was only his equilibrium sense affecting him. One thing was for sure, he needed to save the creature, but why was it so important? Even the resurrected tree didn’t give as strong of a response. At least the last time he checked. Maybe it was different now.

He found it hard to believe the creature who must be the dungeon core gave him a stronger response than a massive tree housing a territory core. Unless it wasn’t just a dungeon core. Maybe it was something more. All the more reason to save it.

Now more determined than ever, he refocused on its melody. He sent a mental prayer to Ortus that he was making the right decision before he tweaked the melody. It was almost like tuning an instrument. Each tweak gave it a slightly better or worse tone.

Unfortunately, like tuning an instrument, he didn’t have much experience. All he could do was go by ear or whatever heard the melody with. It was hard to tell if the melody of life was audible or only in his head.

Time passed as he gave it little tweaks, fully immersed in the task. Not all tweaks made progress, but overall, he brought the melody in tune, at least he thought he did. It was hard to tell because every time he made progress, there were setbacks. Some setbacks reset all progress, but it wasn’t hard to retrace his steps back to his previous point and avoid the note that reset the melody.

As he worked, he found the melody was intact as he originally thought just injured forcing it off tune. There was no way he could tune the fragments that were in the stump. Even with it intact, that didn’t mean the task was easy. Each time he made a tweak, another part shifted off-tune. It was like a puzzle with every piece connected. He needed to find the right sequence to bring all notes back in tune. If only he heard the original melody.

Arden froze, then delved into his memories he received when he delved into the core. Before he just glanced at them as they flashed by too quick but this time he focused on each one. What was odd was they weren’t normal memories. They implanted themselves in his mind like the locations.

On a whim, he focused on the memories, trying to pick out the melodies. What he received sent him stumbling back from the core, breaking the connection. It was like security footage providing evidence. Not only did he hear a melody similar to the off-tune melody he was trying to fix, but the potent tune of five others.

Unfortunately, their figures remained blurred, but their melodies were crystal clear. Clearer than the creatures, as if it put extra focus on them. Maybe to leave evidence of its invaders to whoever could hear the melody of life.

If he were to hear the melodies again, he would have no problem recognizing them. Not that it mattered much. Whatever happened to the dungeon core, or whatever it was, happened a long time ago. Maybe even before Ortus. There were some ancient being out there, but he found it hard to believe the group survived that long.

Plus, if they did, they would be so far above him he would get squashed like an ant. No, if he recognized the melodies in the future, he needed to retreat immediately. His focus was on saving the creature, not chasing some ancient people far above him.

On that thought, he pushed the potent melodies aside and focused on the much quieter and fragmented melody. It was almost like the creature tried to hide its melody because it was so much weaker. So much so he heard its present day off-tune melody clearer. That didn’t stop him, though. His mind shifted between the memories of each one housing sections of the melody. When a note was too quiet to hear on one, it was perceivable on another.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Soon a in tune melody took form in his mind. Well, most of one. Even after checking every memory, some notes were impossible to find. Though going by the off-tune melody, he had over ninety percent of it.

With the incomplete key, he tweaked the off-tune melody, bringing it in line with the key. However, as he expected, the last few notes remained off-tune. He hoped it would cause a cascading effect when he had so much of the melody tuned, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

One fortunate thing was, as he tweaked the remaining notes and triggered the reset, it didn’t reset to the beginning but instead to the ninety percent point. It was as if he reached a save point. He wouldn’t complain about a boon.

Any positive feelings seem melted away, however, as no matter how many combinations he tried, the last few notes refused to stick.

At a loss for what to do, he turned his attention to the rest of the melody. His eyes narrowed as he noticed the melody was slightly different. The gaps where the last few notes should fit in no longer existed. Maybe his hope it would cascade into completion was correct after all.

He listened to the melody several more times, finding it in tune, giving him a feeling of a tranquil forest. Something was missing, though. The melody felt complete, but it lacked something. He couldn’t figure out what, though. It gave him the feel of something ancient but also not. As if it was both, but neither. Maybe that was the key. It was at a crossroads and needed a nudge one way or the other. What the nudge would do, he did not know, though.

His attention returned to the handful of off-tune notes that remained, even excluded from the rest of the melody. Well, not really excluded. There was a pause at the end of the melody. Not really a gap to fit in the notes, but enough room to add something on. Maybe he needed to do something with the notes. He couldn’t change what they were, just tune them and they didn’t feel like they would fit together away from the rest of the melody. Should he try to shoehorn them in? No, he had an in-tune melody already. He didn’t want to risk destroying it.

On the thought of destroying, he focused on the notes. Did he need to destroy the off-tune notes? Maybe they were unneeded fragments he needed to purge to make way for the new melody.

Would that change the creature, though? As far as he could tell, the new melody seemed stable, and the off-tune notes only had a weak connection to the rest. So weak he wasn’t sure they could rejoin with the rest. He was hardly an expert.

What he did was playing god, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It wasn’t like it was the first time, though. They resurrected a long dead tree and started the process of returning the stone forest to life. He was past the point of questioning if he was overstepping with his actions. If Ortus had a problem with what he did, he could face punishment. It wouldn’t be the first time someone who poked a little too deep got poked back.

That usually was from pokes directed at Ortus itself, though. Even then, he wasn’t sure if the pokes back were real or staged by the Order of Ortus to give themselves a bit more authority. Whatever the case, he didn’t receive backlash from his current actions and based on his class, what he did was approved by Ortus, so he may as well continue.

On that thought, he focused on the notes and ripped at them. Or at least tried to. They remained fixed where they were. He couldn’t move them, and he couldn’t tune them, so what else could he do to them?

He tried again, but in a different direction. Instead of trying to tear them away from the rest of the melody, he pulled them toward him. Panic shot through him when it worked. Too well. In a blink, the notes shot into him and vanished.

Several heartbeats passed, with Arden cringing, expecting something to happen, but nothing did. It was like they vanished, but he remembered clearly they entered him and went somewhere.

Arden turned his melody sense inward, sighing in relief to find his own melody in tune, though different from he remembered. Whatever happened didn’t damage his melody, so what did it do? He doubted they simply absorbed into him without some affect.

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it now, so he returned his attention to the dungeon core. A smile formed as he heard a beautiful melody radiating off the core without even having to delve inside. It sounded healthy, but weak. That weakness grew with each passing second, sending another shot of panic through him.

If he didn’t do something, soon all his work may be wasted.

With his mana sense, he scanned the core, having an inkling of what it needed. Like Solanine said, barely any mana remained, but with his staff depleted, there was nothing he could do about its mana levels. Well, almost nothing.

Arden withdrew his senses, returning his attention to the cavern, and a scale clad girl standing off to the side with her arms crossed. As usual, it was her body language that gave away her feelings, not her expression, and in this case, the fidgeting and blank stares at the cavern told him she was bored.

That wasn’t his problem, though. His eyes landed on the twin daggers resting on her hips. With his weak connection to them, it only took him a moment to sense how much mana they held. When he did, he glared at the girl.

Unlike his depleted staff, her daggers had plenty of mana. Not a dungeon worth, but far more than they should have just from passive absorption. She must have been actively charging them.

Not bothering to use the bond, he spoke out loud. “Now it’s your turn to help. The core needs mana, and you have two daggers full of mana to supply.”

Solanine’s gaze snapped to him, then to the core, then back to him. Her hands gravitated toward her daggers, but instead of grabbing them, she held her hands over them as if to protect them.

Arden continued to glare at her. Itching to grab the daggers himself.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to. A few seconds later, her shoulders slumped, and she approached the core with each dagger in hand.

As soon as she touched the core with her daggers, the core sparked to life and the daggers dispersed into particles.

Arden ignored the sulking girl who stared down at her hands on the verge of tears in favor of focusing on the core.

Each moment, both the melody and core grew stronger.

He hoped his decision turned out to be the right one.