Chapter 117: Enjoying My Moment
With a newly expanded aura strength came the unsettling sensation that Nara was being watched. It wasn’t specifically her—there were eyes on the nebula house.
“It wasn’t a pointless upgrade after all,” she muttered. “Sen,” she said through voice chat, “We’re being watched.”
“Do you know by whom?”
“Is it important enough to expose myself? Whoever it is will know I’m searching for them.”
The silence on the other end indicated Sen’s contemplation. Should they lose the stealth advantage Nara currently possesses? Once their watcher knows they are watched in turn, they will move more discretely, or change their plans. If he waits for Nara to refine her new bronze rank aura, she may be able to prevent reciprocal detection.
No, he concluded, if they were already watched, then the culprit was on guard. No doubt they’ve sensed Nara’s new bronze rank aura. This may be their only chance.
“Do it,” he said. “It’s our best chance.”
Nara closed her eyes and focused her aura. It was still fresh; she’s upgraded from pigeon to albatross, but her control wasn’t precise enough yet. With a higher rank aura came expanded range, further boosted by her aura strength but particularly by the effects of her Unbounded title, which increased her aura range.
More accurately, the title didn’t give the effects to her; rather, it was a reflection of changes to her soul and aura. Her expanded range she had earned from shearing apart her soul and throwing it to the winds of the astral like scattering ashes to the sea.
She forwent stealth and sent her aura out with unrefined raw power. It wouldn’t harm anyone, but it was a wave of fog on a clear day to anyone that could sense auras. They’d feel it roll past them.
“I didn’t get a person. I did get something else though—someone is using animal familiars or minions. It’s unclear which one specifically. I’m not experienced enough to know the difference.”
“I understand,” said Sen, forming new theories with the new information. “Thank you.”
*****
Nara was miles away from the rest of her team in the untamed wilds of the Shian Union. She was fighting a combined pack of the usual chimeric monkeys and some pherators, her old nemesis that had once claimed an eye. Her battlefield was a sheer stone spire. The ground spiraled out beneath her, the stone spire sheer cliff with the occasional goat-hopper ledge. On her face was a simple pair of reinforced goggles, crafted by Henri, with the rather nonsensical effect of amplifying and reflecting light to whatever was directly in front of Nara. It was so blinding she couldn’t use it around other people. In this dizzying solo battle more against gravity than monsters, it was the perfect, if extremely odd, piece.
Both packs of monsters were mixed iron and bronze ranks. The bronze ranks were at the lowest end of the rank; Nara wasn’t foolish enough to take on this many monsters alone if they weren’t a weaker type. She’d learnt that even same rank monsters posed a threat.
Monkeys hung from cliff trees, their roots stabbed into rock and their branches extended out in a desperate attempt to catch rays of light from beyond the shadow of the spire. They flung stray rocks, although thankfully at this height there weren’t many. Most had long since plunged from the stone spire, either smacking dirt or crushing the skull of whatever poor bastard wandered too close at the wrong moment.
She and her Dimension Nodes were operating at all cylinders, teleporting vertically and horizontally to unleash devastating blows powered by gravity or quick cuts. She transformed Nirvana into a baseball bat and swung, punting a monkey off from its perch in the tree to have it plummet haplessly down screeching like a banshee before it splat in a small red speck far below.
She was more monkey than the actual monkeys. Gravity was her friend, while it was their reaper. The pherators launched themselves like dart shots from a T-shirt cannon, but Nara Phase Shifted through them, causing them to impale themselves on the monster monkeys or smack with a satisfying crunch (for Nara) on the cliff face.
Rocks and flying birds were subtly shifted around her with Infinity Domain, as if she had managed to calculate the exact gap to dodge. She hadn’t, of course, she was a big fat cheater. Weak attacks she intentionally let through, triggering Refresh to gain an instance of Invigorating Spirit, which restored the same amount of mana as health damage she took. Refresh would never restore more health, mana, or stamina than the cost or damage that triggered it, but at full stacks, it was a 1-to-1 restoration of resources, albeit for a different resource. As long as she continually spent all three, she wasted nothing. Together with Integrity, it created her resource positive self-sustaining flow. Enemy effects would complicate matters, draining mana and health with afflictions or other effects, so it rarely ever operated at the fabled 100 percent efficiency.
A notification dinged but didn’t interrupt her flow state of battle. The result of her efforts to increase her mastery of The Way of the Traveler: Dancer shone; she balanced attacks from multiple directions, prioritizing the dangerous ones while letting the harmless ones pass through. Deflections, teleportation, Phase Shift, movement, damage resistance, and healing—she utilized all methods of interception and damage reduction to create a deceptively resilient fighting style for her otherwise light armor type and quick movements.
“My benefactor, please pardon my interruption. I have discovered something within the mines.”
“Now’s not exactly a good time, but go on, Sage.”
“Is that fine, benefactor?”
“I’ll call it added challenge.”
“I am afraid that Mister Arlang’s influence may be rubbing off in rather dangerous ways.”
So she said, but Sage was probably happy about it. Sage supported excellence.
“It’s fine~ don’t worry about it. What’s up?”
"I have completed my preliminary investigation of the tunnel Miss Sahar discovered. The tunnel originally leads into a cavern, where chairs and tables have been set up.”
“Does it seem like some sort of super-secret meeting room or gathering hall where disgruntled miners gather to overthrow the bourgeoisie?”
Sage ignored the nonsensical comparison. “Something like that, benefactor. However, there is something else. There is another branch of the tunnel, concealed with magic.”
“How did you discover it?”
Nara could not perceive magic yet, which her perception ability would grant her at bronze. Familiars share certain properties with their summoner; Sage should not have been able to perceive magic in detail either.
“There are unusual tracks, leading into a solid wall. Some are footsteps, some are not.”
“So, they covered their tracks, heh, literally, but not all of them…You can’t go inside? Whoops!”
She grabbed a branch to propel herself into a low gravity spin, her sword catching the pherator in its stomach that had tried to dive bomb her. She transformed Nirvana into a whip, pulling herself under the protection of a cliff tree.
“Judgement of the astral.”
She cast Astral Judgement on one of the bronze rank pherators, eviscerating it at range from all of its built up afflictions. As its body plummeted, she looted it, sending rainbow smoke into its comrades which were equally affected by the stench, staggering rather than flying like over-fattened airborne geese.
“Sorry, you were saying?”
“Benefactor, you were inquiring on whether I could enter the concealed room—”
“The secret room within a secret passage.”
“—Unfortunately, I should not, benefactor. There is likely detection array on the entrance if we consider the perpetrator’s amateur ritual capabilities. I believe Miss Sahar is better equipped to access the room than I am. I apologize for my lack.”
“No need to apologize for a job well done, Sage.”
“I want to.”
“…Okey-dokey then.”
“Sen,” Nara said, addressing him. He’s a part of most of the separate channels Nara’s Guide operates, since it was important for him to receive all the information, “I’m going to send Thanatos to sniff out the tunnels.”
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“You have my approval.”
“Thanatos? Stick to the shadows, prioritize remaining undetected. We’re being watched. If you can’t make it there without being detected, turn back.”
“Woof.”
While they had already been detected, that was it. The culprit didn’t need to know they had found his secret hideout.
Thanatos stood from the stone floor of the archive, dipping his head to acknowledge John, and shook out the relaxation from his body. He subsumed into shadows, slinking away.
She sat on a thick branch of the ever resilient cliff trees that rejected the unceasing pull of gravity. The double monster pack was eliminated, remnants of blood and flesh already transformed into rainbow smoke. She didn’t forget to loot the monkeys that fell to their deaths. With her massive aura range, she could reach them from where she sat, swinging her legs over what would be instant death for a normal rock climber. That of course didn’t stop free solo rock climbers.
She meditated there, bringing up that flower within her garden of abilities in her soul. The high mountain wind flowed through her body and whipped up her hair, cool and crisp like a mountain stream untouched by human hands. She felt the vastness of the world here; the trembling of the air, the sway of the tree, and the cold monolith at her back.
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-Balance Essence Ability, [Refresh], has reached Bronze 0. Increase all Balance Essence Abilities to Bronze 0 to increase the [Recovery] attribute to Bronze 0.
-Increase all Essence Ability to Bronze 0 to rank up to Bronze rank. Progress to Bronze rank, 10%.
Ability: [Refresh]
Awakening Stone: None
Special Ability (boon, recovery)
Cost: None
Cooldown: None
Effect (Iron): When expending mana, gain an instance of [Invigorating Energy]. When expending stamina, gain an instance of [Invigorating Blood]. When expending or suffering health damage, gain an instance of [Invigorating Spirit]. Instance threshold is determined by the [Recovery] attribute. Ability cannot recover more than expended mana, stamina, and health.
* [Invigorating Energy] (boon, recovery, stacking): Recover a small amount of stamina. Additional instances have an increased effect.
* [Invigorating Blood] (boon, recovery, stacking): Recover a small amount of health. Additional instances have an increased effect.
* [Invigorating Spirit] (boon, recovery, stacking): Recover a small amount of mana. Additional instances have an increased effect.
Effect (Bronze): Convert mana to recover health, health to recover stamina, and stamina to recover mana.
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“Interesting, it’s a conversion in the opposite direction.”
More importantly, it was an on-demand heal. The conversion efficiency was likely poorer than the heights of what the Invigorating cycle could achieve, but when she converted mana to health, she’d get stamina as a byproduct. Even better was the conversion of stamina to mana, which byproduct-ed health. Nara’s abilities didn’t require that much stamina. Converting excess stamina to mana, her most important resource since it doubled as indirect damage reduction, on top of healing would go a long way to keeping her alive.
She’d likely never use the health to stamina conversion.
“Not never,” Chrome said.
“Not never?”
“There is one particular ability you’ll gain from me at silver rank that will consume both mana and stamina at extreme rates.”
“You don’t mean…!” Nara’s eyes widened, sparkling with uncontainable excitement.
“Yes, I mean time acceleration.” He sounded pained as if imaging the trouble Nara would cause with it. “At silver rank, you can use a time acceleration ability while I’m subsumed. Or not subsumed, in your case.”
“So you aren’t just a glowstick and a waste of a Time Awakening Stone.”
“How dare you. You’d rather have a time acceleration ability over me?”
“Nope! I’d choose you 100% of the time. You’re my favorite glowstick, Chrome.”
She could sense his resigned sigh from here, and perhaps a bit of tsundere embarrassment.
In her meditation, one other ability broke through the barrier of iron into the rank of bronze, setting her aglow again with bronze light.
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-Mystic Essence Ability, [Cosmic Path], has reached Bronze 0. Increase all Mystic Essence Abilities to Bronze 0 to increase the [Spirit] attribute to Bronze 0.
-Increase all Essence Ability to Bronze 0 to rank up to Bronze rank. Progress to Bronze rank, 15%.
Ability: [Cosmic Path]
Conjuration (dimension, movement)
Cost: Moderate mana / High mana
Cooldown: None / 10 minutes
Effect (Iron): Conjures a path of stars beneath the caster’s feet. Prevents abilities from manifesting directly below the caster. Enhances [Speed]. Can reduce the weight of the caster for low mana-per-second cost, allowing for reduced fall speed and water walking. Can further enhance the caster’s [Speed] for additional low mana-per-second cost. The slow-fall effect can be extended to others in proximity.
Effect (Bronze): Cosmic Path allows gliding for low mana-per-second cost. Weight reduction no longer costs mana unless affecting additional people. Can make Cosmic Path briefly tangible for a low mana cost. This effect has a 20 second cooldown.
Effect (Bronze): Conjure a dimensional gate between two locations on a regional scale. The distant gate must appear at a location you previously visited. This effect is a conjuration with a very high mana cost and a 10 minute cooldown. Other effects can still be used while this ability is on cooldown.
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Cosmic Path was the last of the first four abilities she had automatically awakened when absorbing her essences, tied to her Mystic Confluence. Phase Shift was the last of her original four that hadn’t reached bronze rank, as it was the hardest to level, not only because of its extreme mana-per-second cost which drained her mana pool in just a few seconds, but also because it was her final defense in her string of other defensive abilities she used before it.
Chrome manifested on the branch beside her, his glowing gold hair fluttering like golden sunset light woven into physical form by Arachne.
“Nara you can’t avoid portals forever.”
“I can,” she mumbled, “I can teleport.”
“You shouldn’t avoid portals forever.”
“I doesn’t have to be now though, does it?” She said, her voice tinged with desperation.
She jumped off of the branch, conjuring the swath of cosmos too teeming with lights and nebula to actually represent the depths of space. She floated downwards, using the gravity effect of Cosmic Path to float Chrome down with her. Gradually, the trees one below her leveled with her vision, then surpassed her in elevation until she touched upon the ground.
With a thought, a portal opened in front of her a distance away. It stood at odds with reality around it, a borderless archway cut-out of the scenery that exposed the innards of the universe. As she looked into it, she felt as though she’d fall into the beautiful swirl of nebulas and stars against abyssal blackness.
She crouched, suddenly feeling very faint. The ground felt distant beneath her feet, and her hands and body shook. She reached out for something to stabilize her against the spinning record-player earth, grabbing onto Chrome for support, who reluctantly allowed the physical contact.
She regressed to telepathy, unable to speak physically.
“Do I have to use my own portal?”
“Your own portal can save your life,” Chrome said, very calmly and very logically. “Your astral jumping requires concentration and time, part of the reason you could not escape your suppression. Conjuring a portal is far faster. If not anyone else’s portal, Nara, at least use your own. Do you mistrust your own portal?”
She couldn’t answer him. She had told Sen that she couldn’t use any portal but her own, if and when she got one, and there was a good chance she would. However, she may not be able to use her own portal without feeling as if the ground was glass and had shattered beneath her. Fortunately or unfortunately, John’s message through voice chat interrupted her self-contemplation and building dread. Chrome’s sigh was suffused with annoyance as he subsumed himself back within Nara’s aura. She knew he meant well.
“I found something,” John said. “Around a year and a half ago, Siyu Hong undertook basic ritual magic training to become one of the ritualists of the miners.”
“Who’s the main ritualist?”
“Adar Wang. More important is Siyu Hong—he’s got a full essence set.”
“That’s rare for a town like this.”
John nodded. Now that he’s been in Crystal Quarry 6 for a day, he’s been able to sense who has essences and who does not. Sanshi was unusual for the high concentration of essence users; it was a hub of training and development. Other towns did not come close. The more provincial, the lesser the possibility of even a single iron ranker, especially in a low magic zone like this. In higher magic zones, most towns had a silver or bronze ranker who had grown up there and rotated with other teams to protect their hometown.
“That’s definitely odd. A full essence set should make Siyu one of the pillars of the community. Next in line to be town chief,” Encio said. “He shouldn’t be working as a miner anymore. The town head would’ve taken him to show him the ropes.”
“Encio, Eufemia, could the two of you ask why Siyu Hong refused to become the next town head?”
“We’ll do that.”
*****
The group met back up in the nebula house. This time, Nara manifested a doorway, and the group entered, continuing their conversation in Nara’s door domain.
“There’s no way we can be eavesdropped on in here. What do we have?” Nara kicked off the discussion.
“We asked Kisang Zho about the schedule of the miners,” Encio said, “All start work during the day, pretty early.”
“How long do they work?”
“Not too long,” said Encio, “Six hours, at most, per day. And two days of rest per week.”
“Fantasy miners have a better work life balance than I did?” Nara grumbled. Erras’ weeks were only six days long, which meant they had shorter work weeks as well, although adventurer work weeks were notoriously unpredictable. Disaster never waited for your days off.
“And Siyu?” Asked Sen.
“Here’s something a little interesting,” said Eufemia. “Siyu enters the mines before everyone else and leaves last, way later.”
“How much later?”
“Until nightfall, apparently. Ties into his excuse to turn down the town head position—he just really likes the mines. I don’t buy it, of course, wouldn’t even need a Truth priest to know it stinks. No one in their right mind likes the mines over the popularity and power ‘next in line for town head’ gets you.”
“I think plenty of people don’t like positions of power,” Nara said, playing devil’s advocate. “I don’t.”
Eufemia snorted, “Once I have my eyes on him, I’ll know if this Siyu is just throwing shit so others can eat it.”
“Have you seen him?”
Eufemia shook her head, “As elusive as he is fraudulent.”
“How did Thanatos’ investigation go?”
“He did manage to sneak into the tunnel. He said he smelled blood leading into the concealed corridor. A lot of it.”
“The den of the culprit. Those disappearances are not just disappearances.”
“Probably dead, yeah,” agreed Nara somberly. “I’m going to keep Sage at the entrance of the hidden cavern and have her see who enters. Have Sage pick them out of the miners later.”
“That’s a good plan. I’d like you to additionally leave a body of Sage at Aira Hong’s house.”
“We’re narrowing in on the Hong’s?”
Sen nodded, “He’s unmarried, and still lives with his mother.”
“If he turns out to be an incel,” Nara said, “I called it. It could only be worse if he literally lives in her basement.”
“It’s strange. An unmarried iron ranker in a village like this should have any number of young ladies and gentlemen falling over him,” Aliyah remarked.
“What about Tousa?”
“Has an alibi,” said Eufemia, a term she picked up from John after working with him for so long, “Usually works when the traders are out. Something else too—some time ago, he asked that his shift be diverged from Siyu.”
“Which means Siyu doesn’t work when the traders are away.” Sen said.
“Why’s that strange?” Nara asked Eufemia.
“Apparently,” Eufemia leaned in like she was discussing some juicy gossip, “They used to be close friends.”
“Ah! And they were roommates!”
“No. Just friends,” she denied, confused. “And now he wants nothing to do with Siyu.”
“Siyu’s mother is also acting strangely. Siyu’s former close friend is distancing himself, and Siyu himself is an anomaly,” John said. “Siyu is the most suspicious person in the village. He’s the primary suspect,” he sat back in his chair, pensive.
“You sure look proud of yourself, John,” Nara smirked.
“Quiet, you. I’m enjoying my moment.”