– Beginning of Arc 6, Heretical Style –
– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 217, Season of the Setting Sun, Day 97 –
Terry stared at the entrance where Rafael had disappeared. Terry’s mind understood that he was now trapped in this secret realm and that he would have to remain here until the realm opened up again.
Even worse was that Terry required one of the magic tickets to leave the realm. Even though many people were able to enter with a single ticket, only a single person could leave with it. If Terry did not find another way out, he would have to acquire one of the magic tickets from the many mana martialists. Otherwise, he would be stuck in this secret realm.
Terry’s mind understood, but it was still hard for him to accept. All the effort he had gone through to get out of Thanatos and closer to Arcana. All the risks he had taken and now? Trapped again.
Terry wasn’t sure if his flight from Thanatos had been worth it. He remembered a saying from the Warlord: ‘Frequently, there are no solutions, only trade-offs.’
At this moment, Terry was only sure about one thing. He was pissed. Pissed at Rafael for withholding the details about the secret realm. Pissed at himself for being too trusting yet again.
“...what a bumpkin.”
“Useless fool.”
“Sure knows how to pick friends, doesn’t he?”
Slowly, Terry’s mind registered the berating comments from the mana martialists around him. He felt the urge to lash out and punch someone. His gaze settled on one of the mana martialists.
“What are you looking at?!” barked the bald martialist.
For several breaths, Terry just glowered at the martialist in silence.
“Are you itching for a beating?!” The martialist didn’t take Terry’s gaze kindly.
Terry inhaled deeply like his accepted parents had often instructed him to do in order to clear his mind and stay focused. He turned around while ignoring the martialists. He moved to follow Rafael.
“Yeah, that’s right, you better run!” jeered the bald martialist.
“How dare you leave without permission!” Another martialist had been incensed.
“Hold it!” Shen motioned for his group to calm down and addressed the departing Terry. “If you are looking to settle scores with your ‘friend’...” He emphasized the word with derision. “...you’re going the wrong way.”
Terry stopped in his tracks and glanced back at the man in white-golden robes.
“The same entrance does not guarantee that you will end up in the same place,” explained Shen. “Some trials accept multiple contestants, but from what I know, the first trials are individual. An entrance can therefore lead to multiple trials. You’ll get teleported to wherever your trial takes place.”
Terry only nodded in reply and then continued walking to the same entrance regardless. He ignored the posturing of a few indignant martialists that were offended by Terry’s lack of respectful demeanor.
“Who do you think you are?! Can’t you see that our princess has already chosen this entrance?!”
Terry ignored the newest batch of arrogant martialists right in front of the entrance and just kept walking.
“You dare!” A mana-charged fist was rushing towards Terry.
Terry casually lifted his arm and fleetingly transfixed his septimum bracer. He did not stop. He did not so much as spare a glance towards the martialist that was howling in pain after the collision with an immovable object.
The man’s screaming attracted even more attention from the surrounding people.
Terry ignored the others that were now also trying to pick a fight. He was focused on the entrance and carefully examined the mana distortion in his mana sight.
I guess that’s the teleportation field?
Terry used his mana touch and scouted beyond the teleportation field to discover that the entrance tunnel continued behind it.
I wonder where…
“I’m talking to you, dipshit!”
Terry could sense someone flaring their mana and rushing towards him. Terry inwardly shrugged, burst his mana, and stepped into the range of the teleportation field.
“You! What—?” The person that had been charging at Terry had been teleported away as soon as he had entered the range of the mana distortion.
Terry, on the other hand, was still standing where he was. He glanced back for a moment to examine the change in the mana distortion and then continued further into the tunnel.
Terry was unaware of the bewildered stares he had left behind.
“Ugh…” The bald cultivator from Shen’s group stiffened. The martialist that had attacked Terry and ended up with a mangled arm was not any weaker than himself.
“What just happened?” asked another man.
“It seems that this Terry is not that simple,” muttered Shen pensively. He looked at his entourage. “This is why you should be careful about whom you provoke. Gather intel properly first. You never know how many crouching tigers and hidden dragons are lurking here.”
“Fine, but what just happened?”
“How did he just bypass the first trial?”
“...”
***
Terry followed the tunnel until he saw an exit from which he could see sunlight.
Weird.
Terry paused in his steps. From outside the inner sanctum, there had been no indication of open areas. Terry would have seen something like that when he had stepped into the sky.
Mana distortion.
Terry noted the slight curving of mana near the exit.
“Does not look like a gate though.” Terry muttered and cautiously walked closer. Looks just like at the entrance.
Terry burst his mana and walked through. He arrived on the other side of the exit and glanced back.
I guess that was another teleportation field.
Then what…
Terry looked forward and found himself in a brightly-lit oasis underneath a strangely colored sky.
I wasn’t teleported.
Okay…
Terry tentatively cycled a burst of mana into his head and through his eyes.
If this is an illusion, then this is beyond my ability to dispel…
Terry frowned and stepped into the sky to look around. He looked towards where the structure of the entrance should be and he could see nothing. The exit was still visible but only from some angles.
“Is this something achieved with the folding of space?” Terry wondered out loud. “Or did I unwittingly walk through a dimensional gate while I was in the tunnel?”
Does it matter?
“No.” Terry subconsciously muttered a reply to his intrusive thoughts. “I have to move.”
Do you? You’re trapped anyway.
“I’ll see about that,” muttered Terry. “Perhaps I can find a spatial barrier to break out of. Or an exit.”
Wishful thinking again.
“Yeah, well…” Terry let his eyes wander over the oasis below. “What else is new?” He took a deep breath. “I’ve made it this far.”
Right into another prison? Well done.
“Thank you,” replied Terry sarcastically. He exhaled sharply. “If this realm opens in another year, then I just need to stay alive until that time and then I can move on.”
‘Just’ stay alive. Just that.
You don’t have any rations from Arcana left.
You don’t have your healing wand.
You’re trapped with a bunch of battle-addicted lunatics.
Oh, and you don’t have a ticket, which means the realm re-opening has nothing to do with you.
“Crap,” exclaimed Terry. He closed his eyes and raised his head to let his face feel the comforting warmth from the strange sun up above. “I need to get a ticket then.”
Terry opened his eyes and looked down at the oasis once more. “I wonder if there is any food here.”
Definitely, but most of it might be located in the storage items of others.
Terry was scowling. “Hmph…” His eyes arrived on the small water surface from the oasis. “I should gather some water and fill up a few of my empty barrels if I can. I don’t know how well the water catchers will work here. Only…”
Only this is obviously not normal water, continued Terry in his thoughts.
Intense mana signature, almost like a mana potion but slightly different.
“Emphasized aspects. Multi-aspected, not unaspected…?” Terry muttered in thought.
Terry emitted a thin layer of mana to scout ahead and then darted towards the water of the oasis on layers of divine mana.
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Back on the ground, Terry crouched down and examined the mana-infused water with surprise.
“This… seems oddly familiar.” Terry recalled some vague memories from his early childhood as a Seedling in the Greenhouse in Arcana City. Memories of taking specially prepared baths that felt great.
Despite the nostalgic feeling, Terry first retrieved a metal rod to probe the bright blue water. The last mana-infused water that Terry had encountered had turned out to be intensely acidic after all.
Fortunately, Terry did not hear a sizzling sound this time. The oasis water was different from the orange water near the Valkyrie’s prison dungeon.
For a moment, Terry simply stared at the bright blue water in front of him. It was beautiful.
Clear.
Deep.
Terry frowned. He had difficulties identifying the individual mana aspects.
Primarily life and water.
Nature…
Terry pushed his own mana into the water.
Fire…
Traces of earth and lightning… Others, still.
Terry subconsciously moved his right hand into the water.
The slightest bit of light and… Even the poison aspect?
Terry briefly felt the instinct to pull back his hand, but the more rational part of his brain reminded him that such a tiny amount of poison-aspected mana would not be able to harm even a manaless person, much less someone with his own sizable mana pool.
Terry felt a warm and slightly prickling sensation from the skin that was submerged in the water. It felt comfortable. More than that, Terry felt that he could absorb mana from the liquid.
This shouldn’t be possible. Not like this.
Terry pulled his hand out of the water and observed the surface with intense suspicion.
The mana is quite dense and tied to the liquid. It shouldn’t be this easy to absorb and naturalize. It’s not really unaspected either. It reminds me of Matteo’s mana signature with the different aspects mingling but not mixing.
Converter spells?
Terry could only think of a single explanation. He tentatively moved his hand into the water again and focused his mana perception on the liquid touching his hand. He could vaguely make out that the mana was changing before coming into contact with himself.
Does this mean the mana inside is actually unaspected and somehow adapts to the person touching it? Spellwork? Or the unorthodox means of the mana martialists? Or something completely different?
What’s the reason for the initial mana aspect composition then? It also doesn’t seem the same everywhere…
While Terry’s bad premonition was still in the process of manifesting, he already heard an outraged shout.
“You dare peeping in my bath!” The shrill voice of a woman pierced the heavens.
Terry glanced up from his hand to see the shape of a human woman. Terry let his mana sight wander over the cultivation points and meridians to get an idea of the threat-level of whom he was dealing with.
“Are you done ogling?!” hissed the woman contemptuously.
Terry focused less on mana and more on his actual sight to find that the woman was practically naked and she was glaring at him with cold fury. She was holding a robe in front of her with one arm and pointed with her other hand at Terry.
I guess she might have been in the water below. Hard to tell with this water, especially if it adapts to the person inside.
Terry did not care to mingle with the enraged woman whose mana signature revealed her to be a mana martialist. He stood up to leave and circle the oasis lake.
“Where do you think you are going?!” an indignant shout rang from behind Terry’s back.
“Away,” replied Terry without looking at her.
With a flash of a water-aspected moving technique, the martialist woman arrived in front of Terry, now fully clothed.
Are there martialist techniques that hasten getting dressed? Terry’s mind blurted useless thoughts while he dismissively moved to step around the woman.
“You’re not leaving without paying a price!” The woman raised a white folding fan in front of her and unfolded it. There were sharp claws at each of the fan’s leaves. “Gouge your eyes out first, then you may think about leaving.”
Terry blinked. How about no? “No, thanks.” He continued walking.
The woman’s face contorted into a snarl and she flicked her fan. Ice-aspected mana rose around her. “You have sullied my body with your eyes, don’t even think about leaving without paying the price.”
“I have what?” Terry stopped involuntarily out of sheer bewilderment. His face transformed into a scowl and he spoke with intense irritation: “What does that even mean? What’s wrong with you?! What ‘price’? Can I get a refund? Who even asked to see you? Sullied my butt.”
“You!” The woman’s face was flushing from anger.
Terry didn’t care anymore. He had run out of patience and he did not even remember where it went or what it had looked like. He continued without holding any of his thoughts back: “What kind of idiot starts bathing naked outside in the middle of an overrun folded space?! Surrounded by who knows who or what? Who does that? Put up some wards for mana’s sake. Wait for a friend to keep watch, why don’t you?”
“This oasis is my reward for clearing my first trial,” gritted the woman through her teeth. “I absorbed the heavenly energy to wash my meridians. There was no one else supposed to be here. I thought I was alone!”
“You were mistaken then!” Terry barked back. “That water was interesting to me, so I took a look. I didn’t even realize you existed. If you hadn’t called out to me, I wouldn’t even have known that you weren’t properly dressed. Why do that, for mana’s sake?! Couldn’t you have put on some clothes first? Who calls out to strangers while being practically naked? That’s on you, weirdo.”
“Enough!” shrieked the woman. “I don’t care whose fault it is. The fact remains that you have seen me! Lay down your life as compensation!”
Terry raised his eyebrows, shook his head, and started walking again without further comment.
“You damnable fellow,” gritted the woman. She channeled her mana into the folding fan and dashed forward to slash at Terry.
However, before she could get closer than five meters, her cherished weapon was torn apart. She stumbled and lost her balance. She was dazed by the backlash from her interrupted movement technique.
Terry, who had fleetingly transfixed parts of the folding fan’s metal skeleton, arrived in front of the woman and punched her in the face.
“Ahhh!” The woman’s eyes flooded with tears while blood ran down from her broken nose. “You dare touch me?! You! My face! Don’t you know that it’s unrighteous to strike someone in the face?!”
Terry stared at her as if she was an idiot. “What kind of bullshit is that? If you attack me, of course, I will fight back seriously. What kind of fool would spare the face of an assailant? What for? What kind of fight would that be?”
His own combat instructors had always emphasized the head as a potential target for impairing, killing, or guiding the attention of an enemy.
Potential for knock-outs.
Damage to a person’s senses. Causing visual impairments by causing the eyes to tear up. Causing a loss of balance by striking the ears. Affecting the blood-flow in the brain. Intense pain. Disorienting with concussions. Using their dodge reflexes against them with feints and combinations.
Terry thought back to the hand-to-hand combat lessons with Bjorln and the weapon training sessions with Isille. Both of them had always emphasized efficiency when it came to combat.
They had also always drawn clear lines between friendly spars, spars without healers around, and real combat.
Terry had judged the woman’s attack as the opening to real combat. He was feeling confident, which is why he had already held back by not drawing a weapon and killing her. Terry was beginning to think the woman was not aware of what she had started.
“Did you think this was a friendly spar?!” Terry snapped at the woman. “You spouted bullshit about crippling my eyes and laying down my life! You drew a weapon over a pointless squabble! Don’t do that if you want to be treated better!” He was getting tired of this exchange and turned to leave again. “Looney weirdo.”
‘Mercy to the enemy is cruelty to yourself.’
‘Pulling out trouble at the roots.’
Terry’s thoughts played back the things he had heard in the past. As soon as he sensed movement from behind himself, he snapped. He undid his mana cloaking and intentionally flared his mana. He pointed his finger at the woman and roared: “Don’t you dare move before I have left!”
“Y–yes,” stammered the woman with fearful eyes.
The timid reaction paired with the bloody and snot-covered face caused Terry to feel awkward. He averted his eyes and accelerated to leave the area. He grumbled to himself: “I hate this place already. It’s no wonder these martialists are all batshit bonkers. Their insanity is spreading through behavior. They’re starting to drive me insane, too.”
A part of Terry’s mind reminded him that he had wanted to collect some water from the oasis. Terry grimaced at the thought. He felt less inclined to consider this as potential drinking water now that he had learned that it was basically the bathwater of a crazy person with anger issues.
From another corner of Terry’s mind, a memory of himself running into a lake surfaced. It was the time when he had escaped from the ghoul-infested dungeon in Tiv when Terry had first met the undying mage Devon.
Terry glanced at the oasis water.
Don’t drink the water. Body of standing water. No drinking from standing water. Unhealthy.
Crazy person fluids. No drinking. Icky.
Terry snickered to himself at the weird memory and continued walking. “I should find some place to camp. I can test the water catchers while looking for food.” He glanced one more time at the oasis water.
Perhaps I can make use of the mana-infused water for my own training?
I should give it a try later…
Terry circled the oasis’s body of water until he judged that he was far enough from the choleric martialist. He examined the flora in the area.
Looks like palm trees but with an abnormal amount of mana. Some shrubbery.
Terry retrieved an empty barrel from his dimensional storage and attached a few water catchers at its top.
While waiting for drinkable water to be collected, Terry was moving his consciousness through his storage items. Even though he knew that he did not have any more rations from Arcana, there might be some food in there somewhere. After all, he had taken some items from the Thanatos guards in the Proving Grounds.
“Ugh…” Terry frowned. He had found some food in his dimensional storage, but he didn’t like it as an option. These were rations from the dead lizan prophet Blue, the food that the lizans had been eating and offering.
It should be possible for me to eat this, but who knows what they’ve put in there?
Terry exhaled sharply. “Okay fine, I’ll do some basic poison testing.” He sniffed one of the lizan rations.
No strong smell… good.
I’ve not eaten anything for more than eight hours, so I don’t have to wait.
Terry broke off a piece of the rations and rubbed it against the inside of his wrist. He waited for a dozen minutes until he was satisfied.
No burning, itching, or numb sensation… Also good.
Terry proceeded with a similar test by briefly touching a corner of his mouth with the piece of food.
More waiting with no adverse reaction.
Terry proceeded through the necessary tests with their respective waiting period. Briefly touching his tongue and mouth.
Waiting.
He placed a bit of food inside his mouth for a few minutes without chewing or swallowing.
Waiting.
Chewing the food once and then spitting it into his hand again.
Waiting.
Finally, Terry swallowed the piece of food and prepared himself to consume nothing but water for the next few hours. If he was unable to detect any adverse reaction even then, he would eat a small portion for his last test.
“Alright, then.” Terry retracted the mana he had spread out to scout while he was testing the available food. He jolted his head and narrowed his eyes. “The crazy lady left.” He tilted his head. “Spatial transfer. Huh.”
A time limit for the reward?
Terry moved his widely-opened eyes over the area.
If this place enforces time limits with unanchored spatial transfers, doesn’t this mean that I can stay as long as I want?
“Huh.” Terry subconsciously grinned.
Focus.
Terry reminded himself to stay sharp and not to indulge in fantasies. He observed the amount of water that had been gathered in his barrel to get an idea of how long it would take to fill it.
Naturally, Terry documented the findings in one of his notebooks.
Afterwards, Terry slowly walked into the water of the oasis – with his equipment on. While others might have to worry about the difficulty of swimming with full equipment, Terry could simply walk through water at any depth with the help of his Immovable Object spell and the fixed layer of his boot mechanism.
Terry focused on absorbing the mana from the body of water. It felt unnaturally easy. He tentatively used the mana for his spellwork and mana cultivation. It felt pleasant.
“Hmm…” Terry’s expression became pensive. He remembered his time with his siblings in the mana crystal mines of Arcana. “Perhaps…?”
Terry attempted to naturalize the mana from the water at a distance and then absorbed the fresh mana into his full mana pool. He grinned again.
I can use this for an external push to my mana pool! This is great for increasing my mana pool size!
Terry retrieved two mana containers from his dimensional storage. He began filling them while using the water’s mana to replenish what he had lost and to add an external push on top.
Terry looked around towards a couple of mana-infused berries he had sensed from some of the shrubbery. “I should test them too, later. It would be great if I could find more food. Even better, if they have some uses besides nourishment.” He absentmindedly looked at the water in which he was standing.
I should make sure to keep my mana pool at least half full, preferably with long-naturalized mana. Just in case.
Terry raised his head to gaze at the strange sky. “If this area supposedly only allows a single challenger at a time, then this would be a good place to get some rest as well.”
I should perhaps set up camp in an immovable cube in the sky though. Just in case.
“Just in case…” Terry muttered to himself. “Am I getting paranoid?”
No, of course not.
I’m only locked into a battle asylum with a whole batch of two-faced pest beetles with the emotional maturity of toddlers and too much mana to spare for tantrums.
What’s there possibly to be paranoid about?
“I’m not sure the sarcasm is helping the situation,” grumbled Terry to himself. He returned his attention to his mana foundational training in the oasis’s water. He had some time to kill until he could continue with the food testing. He intended to make good use of whatever time he had.
***