“Can you take care of this?” I ask Tess, and when she nods, I turn my attention back to the room.
First, I check on group 4. Hadwin's wounds, even the big ones, are already nearly healed thanks to his weaker healing skill and Lily. The petite black-haired girl is still missing some limbs and fingers, but she seems fine. [Sacrifice] is a scary skill and even scarier is how used to it she got.
I will have to sit down with her and force her to learn to sacrifice other things than her body parts. The skill also seems fairly good as for a short moment she was quick enough to rival the Arcane Archer. It was a really short moment and it did cost her, but the amount it boosted her speed is quite nice.
“Everyone is fine,” Sophie says after stopping by my side, “Some wounds, but nothing too serious, and Lily will get her hands back.”
“Sounds good. You couldn’t do that much, right?”
She shakes her head, “The archer didn’t have any mind I could manipulate. I will have to be more careful. I rely too much on mind manipulation.”
I can’t help but agree, but I don't think it will be that hard for her. [Manipulation] is a fairly versatile skill and she will find something even though mind manipulation is what she is best at.
(Food?)
I turn my attention to the best doggo of the 4th floor, no, the best doggo of the tutorial, “You did fucking amazing.”
(Food!)
“Yes! You totally destroyed him, he couldn’t do shit against you!”
(Food food!)
“Yes, you are the good boy!”
I keep petting the mighty young divine beast and the future Absolute of Earth. The Archmage Biscuit. May he remember me when he rises to his throne. To be honest, seeing him sometimes do things like he did during the fight against the archer makes me wonder how strong he actually is. I don’t think I saw his full power yet.
Does he also have classes? Subclass? Is it a gluttony subclass if yes? What Primordial energy does he have? What is his level?
Well, it doesn’t matter that much. He is cute so he can keep his secrets.
Walking towards Obelia, I notice one of Min-Jae's orbs on the ground and lift it. It's much heavier than it looks, surely as heavy as little Isabella. And he is moving dozens of them like it's nothing. Then I remember that a long time ago I gave him practice where I told him to make the stone heavy with his [Gravity Well] and move it around with [Telekinesis] at the same time.
Oh boy. Did he continue to do that the entire time? Is this why he asked for mana conductive metal to make it better to accept his skills? The orbs are small, but with how durable they are, how heavy they are, and how quickly they move, they deal a lot of damage.
What a silly teenager.
Can group 4 people stop being scary for just a moment?
“Min-Jae, this thing is terrifying. Good job.” I hand him the orb and he gives me a big smile back.
The twins immediately make fun of him, but he only smiles brighter.
I reach Jenna, who is already examining the two mana stones I gave to Obelia, “Hey.”
She greets me with a nod and I look at her guild master, “How does it look?”
“Jenna is trying to decipher them. It will take a lot of time, but I don’t mind it that much. We already confirmed our suspicions so hopefully, the mana stones will contain more information.”
I nod. I also have one mana stone that I plan to examine and then use as a Mana battery.
I glance at it.
Whispering Echo Stone (epic): The Whispering Echo Stone is a rare, iridescent mana stone that serves as a powerful mana battery and harbors an imperfect personality imprint. There is something encrypted inside.
Yup, another epic item in my collection. Something tells me it shouldn’t be that easy to get them even though this one isn’t that useful. The part that would make it a bigger mana battery is ruined by inscriptions of the personality imprint and encrypted information. In the end, the amount of mana it can hold is really small, a few hundred stat points worth.
“Any luck with finding a way out?” I ask. I know there are already multiple of her guild members looking around the room in hopes of finding an array that would allow us to teleport outside.
“Nothing so far,” she shakes her head.
Not too surprised, I head towards the door that has tonnes of stones on the opposite side and activate my [Mana Domain]. I take hold of the skill and change it so that instead of keeping a sphere-like domain around me, it extends more in one direction. Then I continue to make it thinner and thinner, just big enough to create an anchor.
[Mana Domain - lvl 16 > Mana Domain - lvl 17]
I also check it with my [Perception] and in the end, I have a feeling that I'm close to reaching unfallen parts of the tunnels.
That much should be enough for now, I have an option of moving people outside with the help of [Tether], or in the worst case, we can dig the tunnel. [Resonance] would be good for that while other people would strengthen the stone so it doesn't fall down.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Or I can take the epic ring from Hadwin and find some shadow far away and get there after leaving an anchor where I am. Now that I think about it, it could be better. The ring has further reach the more mana you pump into it.
“It’s nice to always see you so calm,” Lily stops by my side, “You just look like you are thinking about what you will eat after we get out or how to make your skills more destructive.”
“Quite rude to hear from someone with a Skill literally called [Disintegration].”
“I know, right? Are you scared of it?” she asks teasingly.
“A little bit,” I lie.
Actually, I'm scared of her skill by a lot. Scared and jealous. I mean, [Focus] and [Mana Manipulation], the Skills I started with are good and all, but!
“Yeah, me too sometimes,” she sighs. “Dennis said I should seal it in my left arm and put some bandages around it. Something about renaming it to Black Dragon and keeping it sealed.” Lily rolls her eyes.
“I think we found something,” Jenna interrupts us and we follow where she leads us.
There is a big iron circle on the ground, an array similar to the one Storm Brigade used to teleport us towards the old capital.
Jenna carefully moves more stone from it, “There are probably dozens of traps, so I think it will be better if you check it.” Her tone is somewhat casual, yet respectful.
I quickly get to it and put my hand on it, and it's as she said, there are dozens of traps and some of them even seem to be set to make teleportation go terribly wrong or make it explode the moment we feed it mana.
Jenna leaves and I continue to observe it while Lily sits nearby and slowly restores her limbs and fingers.
Slowly I get deep into it, and the trap even requires me to focus on multiple things at once, and that is something I learned to do.
My [Focus] splits into multiple parts, something I did a long time ago with my first skill upgrade token, and then decided against it to not weaken my skill. Yet, while improving my abilities I have learned to do it on my own. To split my skill into multiple parts, each weaker than the original, and [Focus] on multiple things at once. Doing it becomes somewhat easy in a similar way consolidation became.
The more I learn about the skills the more I reflect on my decision to improve my knowledge. And each new thing I learn makes me happy.
“You are quite charming when you focus on something,” Lily says out of nowhere.
That makes me look at her.
She giggles at my expression, “Even though your expression doesn’t change, I can tell that you are having fun and when you give something your full attention. It’s… charming,” she avoids using the word I know she wanted to use.
“Lily,” I say.
“Yes?”
“Remind me, how old are you?”
“Eighteen in a few weeks!” she answers, not understanding why I asked.
I can only sigh and filter out the voice of our childish healer and focus back on the array. The world becomes scarily quiet and loses its colors, and I activate my [Mana Domain] too and get to it. I examine all its twists, remove all the traps, and fix the circuits that were broken with time. I enjoy the entire process and even catch myself not caring about the time I spend doing it. It's fun.
In the end, I stop when the array feels like it's fixed and examine it one more time.
Seems good, this should do.
I look up and my eyes meet those of Jenna’s, who also waits for me to finish my work.
“Can you tell where it's leading?” I ask her.
“Let me see,” she passes by me and puts her hand on the array. The mana she sends in is a bit weird, and she even uses one of the items Obelia takes out when working on arrays.
Curious, I examine the process and try to remember as much as possible.
“Most of the arrays are multi-directional. For example, the one we used to get to the old capital leads to two more places. The one we used to get out of the old capital also leads to three places in total,” her voice is quiet as her mana continuously flows inside.
In the end, she shakes her head, “This array leads only in one direction, and I can't tell right away, but I think the one it reaches also connects only to this one.”
Jenna stands up and after excusing herself, she leaves to meet Obelia.
“Interesting, isn't it?” I hear the soft voice from behind me.
I don’t even have to turn around to know who it is and decide to stay quiet.
“Nice reaction,” the voice continues to speak softly.
At the same time, Lily also continues to talk to me, her expression clearly showing she doesn’t hear the voice that talks to me.
“I will take a look at something else, Lily. Can you check on Hadwin? Just in case?” My steps become heavier as I head away from the room, reaching the far corner of the big room we first entered.
After making sure I'm behind the pillar, I wait a bit and soon the lynthari woman, who is barely taller than me, passes by my side and stops in front of me, the Lynthari Matriarch.
I wonder, why is the matriarch shorter than any other adult lynthari? Is there a reason for that?
Then her piercingly blue eyes meet mine, and she moves a strand of her red hair from her shoulder.
My mana continuously flows through my body, strengthening it, defending my mind, and trying to perceive everything around me. I still don't sense anything. Like appearing out of thin air, the Matriarch is here.
No, she was here the entire time; she entered the mines with us, and she walked by our side. She observed the fight.
The entire time just an arm's reach away from us, yet no one could see her, no one could sense her.
“I can see why Myrra calls you the feral one,” the matriarch, who looks barely thirty, just smiles. It’s a somewhat friendly smile.
“Why are you here?” I manage to get out of myself.
For a moment, she muses over her next words and then she just says, “At first, I went here to kill everyone from Storm Brigade. Obelia long since started asking too… uncomfortable questions and her obsession isn't helping either.” She turns around and looks towards one of the men from Obelia's guild.
He is walking towards where we are, but then, without me sensing anything, the man's expression changes and he stops, a surprised giggle escaping his mouth and he walks around where we are as if there is a wall in front of him.
“As for you and your guild, I planned to keep you alive. Mainly because you have a few guild members with interesting skills,” she thinks a bit longer, “Oh, and Eris seems to like you, calling you underling and such, so I would feel bad for killing you.”
Her voice is calm and confident, even as she talks about killing a few dozen people. A voice of someone confident in their decisions and power. A voice of someone who is used to ruling and making difficult decisions for a long time.
“But?” I ask.
“The array you just fixed, do you have any idea where it leads?” A few steps and she stops in front of me. I could reach her if I lifted my hand.
“Jenna said it's one-directional,” I answer as I still have no idea.
“Yes, it leads to the tunnels far away from here,” her canines show, “to the lab where the lynthari Champion created the self-sustained biological weapon called the Colony.”