In the red light of the morning sun, Lucille was stretching in preparation for her journey into the jungle wilds. As was normal for a jungle, the morning was steamy and only slightly better than the humid heat of the night. It was roughly 5 am, but already carriages pulled by low-ranked magical beasts and several trains of pack animals with bags of all sizes strapped onto their backs were making their way through the streets of the Supreme Serpent’s Silent City, heading to and from the brightly coloured bazaar. She had said her goodbyes to Darvis and her sparse few acquaintances the night before, letting Marty treat all of them to free drinks with the prize money and retreating up to bed.
Considering her friend, she might return to the city after she completes her goals, but it would be a long time after that before she would return. She had spent a couple of years here in the past, but if she was going to enact her plans, she needed to head to the other realms. Particularly the realm of magic, the Mystical Realm. Shaking her head, she checked her inventory. She was fully stocked with enough food to last a month as well as other necessities due to her Tutorial fortunes and the time spent between Everett’s and her dinner, so that was fine.
She had also replaced her trench coat and other clothes with a more fitting adventurers’ outfit, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have it anymore. It was her only memento of Earth for the next five years, so she kept it. Her Emporium dimensional backpack held roughly a quarter of her supplies because if some other less pleasant members of society knew she had a soulbound dimensional pack, they would turn to more extreme measures to get their way.
In a way, it was lucky she couldn’t increase her INT stat. Monsters go after Users with more mana, and so Lucy was currently less appetising than a fly in a soup. She could still die by breaking her bones, drowning in water, or getting slammed into a tree by the force of neighbouring Ascendants fighting, the normal deal, but hopefully, the magical items she ‘acquired’ would help her avoid that. She had picked the most useful ones such as the enchanted leather belt, an extendable rope, a perception interrupting device, a presence minimiser anklet, a forcefield summoning necklace, and several others. Maybe only a fifth of her items had uses applicable to her in the current situation but it was always good to be prepared.
She picked up the belt to carry her nice bronze knife. The sapphire pommel was a bit ostentatious, but she wasn’t going to complain about too much luxury. Unfortunately, it had a massively more underwhelming item sheet than the one Everett had tried to tell her it had.
[Weapon – Type: Large Knife, Magic Item ]
Name: Severing Water’s Guide
Rarity: Rare
ATK: 1000
MP: 100/250
Desc:
This weapon was crafted by a senior blacksmith in a frontier city for the birthday of a young lord, who was becoming a user. The young lord had it for less than a day before it was sold to a scammer in exchange for a ‘longsword of high renown and found in myth and legend.’ Unlike the longsword, this knife has a high quality suiting its materials and has perfectly functional spellwork engraved in the sapphire pommel.
Abilities:
A Guiding Hand- An aid given from father to son in the hope of letting him fulfil his dreams.
* This knife will stabilise the User’s hand when in use, preventing them from hurting themselves or others when they do not wish.
Severance Of Water- using the strength of the blue sapphire in its pommel, this blade can unleash the rapids of rushing rivers, becoming a force to be reckoned with.
* User can push mana through the blade, releasing a stream of water at the same rate as the mana flow, or use the charge within the pommel to unleash a slash of high-pressure water at an enemy. Pommel holds a maximum of 250 mana.
[ ]
Lucy had to smile when she saw the description. She had forgotten about how the descriptions of items changed the more you knew about them. The bronze knife could also supply her with fresh water, a valuable function. She had some thoughts on how to charge the knife if she only had sparse internal mana, but that was an experiment for later. It was time to get going. She slipped the knife into its sheath on her leather belt and headed off.
Exiting the city gates, the glow of the sun was just about to appear over the tops of the high trees. The leafy maze shimmered with viridescent green, she could see flocks of multicoloured birds hovering above it, and she even heard several animal calls. From the outside, the Violet Luminosity Jungle looked like any rainforest you could find on Earth. That changed when you got deeper in. It was a peaceful walk for the first section, as the area around the city had been cleared away to make way for expansion, but half an hour in, she made it to the edge of the jungle. She looked in and took a deep breath to prepare herself.
The jungle was in a valley. While the thick growth surrounding the top of the valley hid it from view, it was not light and sunny. As soon as she took her first step under the shade of the vine-covered trees, she could see it. The steep incline of the ground caused the carpet of undergrowth to appear bright at the rim of the valley, but very dark and shadowy at the bottom. Separated into three layers by the city, the outermost circle where the jungle met the sparser greenery was the glow zone. It had weaker monsters, and no beast enclaves could be found in the area.
The middle section was the daydream zone. Called such due to the still present view of the sun, several weak vassal enclaves could be found here, but the key features of the Violet Luminosity region were not apparent. The nightmare zone, as it was called, was the centre, most dangerous and darkest section of the valley. It was obviously where Lucille was headed.
She narrowed her eyes as she surveyed the glow zone. There were two ways to get to the nightmare zone. Or technically three. The first was to take the long spiralling path around the rim and through the entirety of the outer zones, then end up in the centre. The second way was to take an extremely steep shortcut down the side of the valley, cutting through most of the glow zone and the daydream zone. Treacherous and barely visible, it was pretty much only used for emergencies. The third ‘way’ was to slide down the slope as if it were a slide. Only idiots or dead bodies did that. The differences between them were zero. Sighing, she made her way to where the second path was located. She had taken it several times before, so she didn’t need to fear much, but it was still annoying.
And so began Lucille's trek into the wild unknown. She moved down awkward paths and steep slopes, using her equipment to progress through the jungle valley. She had spread her perception wide to ensure she could detect any monster or beast around her, as while her lacking mana would lower her value as food, it was better to be safe than sorry. Her time traversing the glow zone was relatively easy and peaceful, if monotonous. The glow zone was the largest, so while it was the safest, it would also take the most travel time.
In the daydream zone, a thick purplish-grey fog drifted through the gloom. Secreted from the symbiotic hibiscus that lived among the trees, it distilled tiredness in its victims and induced hallucinations. Lucy, due to her soul, found it very hard to hallucinate. She was aware that the tiredness was also a hallucination, and easily shook it off to continue her hike.
One night, when her camp was set up, she pulled out the bronze knife. Lucille walked away from her camp for a moment and activated the skill through her 'will', which was essentially a very rudimentary, instinctual application of spiritual energy. Water encased the blade and shot out. She let the skill continue until the blade's mana was emptied. Lucu returned to her bedroll and sat down on it, then focused on her perception field. Using her spiritual energy she controlled the local mana to flow into her body, even if it was in minute doses. Her body didn't have the constitution to take great amounts of mana yet. When she ranked up then she would, but currently, her low rank was why she wouldn't be able to gain stats from stat-boosting foods yet.
She directed all the mana into the blade. It flowed into the gem without difficulty, making Lucy content. The mana hadn't remained in her body long enough to obtain her mana signature, so she was glad the weapon wasn't picky enough to only take her branded mana. She put the blade away and just rested until dawn that night.
The following day she found the nightmare zone, where she was faced with very pretty-looking phosphorescent plants. With acidic sap. As well as found toxic mushrooms that would give her a new lung disease if she breathed in their spores. And of course, the creatures there weren't very friendly either. She put more effort into leaving the area fast.
On the morning of the fifth day, she finally made it past the luminous area. Here, the trees were back to their monstrous heights, and the dream hibiscus could be seen once more. The undergrowth in this area though was glowing blue and lavender, providing light for the creatures where the sun didn’t touch. She was almost there. Making her way to where the biggest of the trees were, she attempted to climb them. It took some effort, but she managed and went on one of the widest of the branches. She leaned back on the green-grey trunk behind her to take a break.
When she opened her eyes a few minutes later, a snake with a head the size of her own was staring back at her. Its tongue flickered in curiosity.
The beast enclave she was visiting was called the Truth-Seizing Serpent clan. With the oldest of them reaching several kilometres in length, and their heads the size of castles, they were one of the largest snake clans to be found in the Beast Realm. They were also surprisingly unknown. The beast clan’s abilities were centred around illusions and trickery, and it was reflected in their looks too. The snake in front of her had a gorgeous pattern of indigo, dark blue, and specks of green all on black scales that shimmered every time its body moved. These patterns were understandably distracting and were used to hide the tensing of their muscles under their skin, disguising when they would strike.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
They also had their bloodline abilities that created illusions and clones to bait enemies into attacking. As seen in the pulsating deep indigo eyes of the Truth-Seizing snake in front of her, they had the eyes from a bloodline ability to see past illusions. That was where they got their names from as combined with their ability to sense lies, they could ‘make their own truths’. They were the Supreme clan of the region, a position only one beast enclave could take per region. They just didn’t care about going anywhere else, so nobody knew about them.
She bowed her head for the traditional greeting but added a bit. “I greet a denizen of the realms. I wish for the Supreme clan’s blessing in travelling to their ancestral home.” It was considered the most peaceable way of asking to go to their ‘city’ of a kind.
The snake in front of her blinked its purple eye the size of a small plate and flicked its tongue to taste the air in front of her. It pulled back to size her up.
“What’s your name?” the snake asked. For people unfamiliar with the magical beast race, hearing such a human voice sound in their head with no warning, and no movement from the beast in question was very unnerving, but she was used to it. Considering his voice sounded like a young boy’s, she could guess he was male.
She raised her head and responded, “Lucille Goldcroft.”
The snake raised its upper body a bit to look at her and nodded. “I don’t have a real name yet, but others call me Skulker.”
She hid a smile at that. The nickname ‘skulker’ really did suit the snake, considering how he decided to sneak up on her for fun. She probably disappointed him when she didn’t act surprised. The snake turned his head and gestured vaguely with his nose in a direction in front of her.
“I’ll take you to the enclave. There is someone who said they knew ‘Lucille’.”
She froze for a second before smiling widely. It seems her prediction was right; he did remember her. She nodded her head in thanks before carefully following the 10-metre-long snake across the thick boughs of the trees. The enclave was built on the other side of a cliff, so climbing trees was one of the only few ways to enter it. There was a tunnel through the cliff, but that was for the current beast ancestor of the clan, and so would be extremely rude to go through it. She was lucky the large size of the snakes meant that she could easily walk across the branches they used. They slowly climbed higher.
It turned out Skulker was quite the chatterbox and was rather curious about the outside world, so she placed his age at an estimate of twelve to thirteen. The size of them varied depending on factors like bloodline strength, mutations, and ancestral blood quantity, so it wasn’t the same for each one, but she could guess. As long as both parents were intermediate beasts, the children matured at the rate of a human, regardless of size. He was not afraid to quickly shrug more polite speech to ask her questions.
“When do you think I should enter a city? I’ve heard when you turn 16 you can use the Obelisks,” the young snake asked her.
She smiled and responded to the serpent, “For humans, we tend to live in cities because of our small size, so we can easily access the Obelisks. However, I think you may have problems. If your seniors are telling you to wait longer, it means they think you’ll be too big to enter without learning to become a human at advanced rank or shrinking yourself.”
It was why some enclaves didn’t use the Obelisks until they were in their 50s or older. Particularly those without a main bloodline and that had more intermediate beasts than advanced. The lower bloodline purity makes it harder for them to become human. They could still use the System, but in the Truth-Seizing clan’s situation, it was important for them to have either inherited the bloodline ability to shrink or reach advanced rank to become human, so they could undergo the Tutorial. Bonding was popular because it allowed a beast not at advanced to come into an Ascendant city.
“Why don’t you become my bond? We can do it right here!” the snake excitedly suggested.
She raised an eyebrow. “You believe I don’t know the enclave rules? I can only bond with a clan beast if it is at a minimum strength of intermediate and age of 14. You have, what, one or two more years left?”
“Two….” Skulker murmured despondently. He quickly perked back up when they started talking about the food in the city though.
Eventually, they made it over the cliff, and she looked inside the overgrown semicircle of cliffs surrounding the enclave. One thing most humans misunderstood about enclaves is that they were the same as the dens mundane or low-ranked magical beasts live in. They were incredibly wrong. With human-level intelligence, even before they gained human forms, magical beasts were capable of building tools and structures and ignoring their lesser base instinct, in the case of solitary animals, to build cities for their clan. Easily bigger than the size of the Supreme Serpent’s Silent city, the enclave was full of Truth-Seizing snakes of all sizes going about their business.
Generally, when it came to isolated enclaves, none of the beasts used human form, so they all bartered and worked in snake form. This led to unique structures suiting their forms being built. She spotted interesting pulleys made of vines and spiralling ramps that took snake beasts up the 3 layered city levels. The city had been made in the way a bonsai tree would, but with magic, and so the city was made of giant trees pulled into the form they needed where they could go about the rope bridges and wooden decks. Some of these structures were giant to fit the size of the larger beasts, and so the entire city made Lucy look very, very small.
“Hmmm….” Skulker turned to Lucy. “Normally I would use this tree slide here,” he said, using his tail to point at the spiral tree forming a ramp, “But like the younger ones, I think you’d just slip off it without our weight. I’d let you ride me, but my parents would get angry if I let someone who wasn’t my bond on my back. Sorry.”
Lucy held up a hand and shook her head. “I didn’t expect you to let me ride you. I know how beast clans work. Besides, you’d be just as slippery as the slide,” she said, pointing to his sleek scales.
It seemed the young snake hadn’t even realised that his body wasn’t the type for people to ride on anyway. She wondered what he had been told about bonding. She took a look at the drop and smiled. She retrieved a certain item from her dimensional bag. Shaped like a bag itself, it had a leather strap on it which she pulled to show Skulker the triangle-shaped glider that popped out. She smiled.
“In case there were no trees I could climb, I brought this. It can help me fly for a short while.”
Skulkers' slitted pupils widened as he inspected the glider, but then they narrowed again. He looked up at her.
“It doesn’t even look like feathers. How can this help you fly? Don't lie to me.”
Lucy grinned and after putting on the brown leather glider, jumped off the edge of the cliff. She looked back and saw Skulker staring at her, starstruck. Gliding around the slide, she made her way to the first layer when she alighted upon the wooden deck. She turned back to Skulker, up on the cliff.
“Aren’t you coming down?”
Quite a few snakes had looked up as she was gliding to see the strange bird that had dared to fly above their city, and when noticed it was a human, were rather curious and she noticed a few tongues try to flicker near the air next to her. She expected it, and their curiosity receded only slightly when they noticed Skulker was coming down the slide. They probably thought the snake had picked up a new friend he wanted to show around. Skulker arrived on the first layer and watched her pack the glider away closely.
“It really did let you fly! So cool! I want one of them!”
“They don’t make them for snakes, unfortunately. You’ve got to work on getting that advanced rank,” she said to him with a smile.
“But bloodline strength increase is so boring. Isn’t there an easier way?”
She chuckled but shook her head. Then she noticed one of the larger snakes was coming their way. Judging by the small horns forming an upside-down arrow pattern on its forehead, she could see this was one of the stronger ones. She nodded her head in greeting even as she heard Skulker mumble “Gotta get a human form…”
The new snake nodded its head to her and then placed a large eye directly in front of Skulker. The smaller snake jerked when he saw the snake in front of him.
“So instead of looking after your siblings like I asked, you’ve turned to abducting humans?”
The snake’s voice was much deeper than Skulker’s but was still male, so she assumed he was Skulker’s father by their interaction. Skulker turned his head to avoid eye contact. Then he noticed Lucy watching them and turned back to his father, his nose raised high in the air.
“I have been escrot… escorter…. escorting an honoured visitor to our supreme enclave! It is a noble duty.”
Lucy quirked an eyebrow and even the other snake just stared flatly at Skulker. She turned to the older snake and gave him a deep bow.
“By your request, I have managed to retrieve the wayward clan kin by pretending to be a visitor.”
Skulker turned to her with a look of betrayal. He sounded aghast. “What?! You were pretending to visit?! How …oh. You’re both teasing me,” he muttered, noticing how they were both snickering at his reaction.
The older snake turned to Lucy and dipped his head in an approximation of a bow. “Welcome to the enclave of the Truth-Seizing Serpent clan. I am Verdilast. We haven’t had a human visitor for several decades now. Hopefully, Skulker hasn’t given you too much trouble.”
She shook her head.
The snake continued, inspecting her curiously, “We’ve been rather interested in this visitor the youngest great-grandson of the ancestor has been saying would be coming. Especially considering Glimmer, as we call him, has never left the enclave in his entire life, for all his bragging.”
She gave a wry smile at that but then had to reconsider what Verdilast had just said. “Glimmer,” she stated flatly.
The older snake snorted. “We call him that because he said his scales glow brighter than the rest of us.”
She sighed and followed the older snake and Skulker to where she knew the central pulley elevator was.
The three layers were set out like a staircase within the semi-circle-shaped enclave, the lowest layer being the biggest, and the central elevator was where one could alight at any of the three layers. Walking onto the platform with the forms of Skulker and Verdilast, the pulleys lowered the platform. The wood and vines being used to support them were magical materials, granting them enhanced strength to support the immense weight of the gargantuan snakes. It was just another example of the immense quantity of resources found in the Beast Realm as such ‘wasteful’ use of materials that could be used to create weapons in the other realms was considered shocking for most.
Many of the materials reached the Rare level in rarity on average, the same rarity as her bronze sword which required an intermediate blacksmith, valuable jewel and enchanting to reach that point. At the same time, a plank of wood was considered that level. If humans had a choice, they would uproot every tree in this jungle. That was why they supported the expansion of the major beast enclaves so much.
They got off at the bottom layer. The top layers were typically places for trade or work, and so didn’t necessarily require as much space, while the bottom layer, hidden as it was underneath the shade of the middle layer, was filled with massive houses and caves built into the cliffs for space. She was glad all the big ones knew how to shrink.
Opposite the enclave was a beautiful clear lake surrounded by waterfalls, the only space not covered with gargantuan trees reaching a kilometre in height and a third as wide. There were even docks near the lake, although it seemed to only be for interesting ferry structures that enabled the user to get across the lake. As the enclave and the lake were surrounded by cliffs, massive rope bridges crisscrossed the area. It was not as daunting to see when you were on a lower layer, but from above it showed you just how high up the bridges were.
They made their way into a massive cave entrance below the middle layer and at the centre of the curved semi-circle cliff face. A few snakes with small horns on their foreheads sat out the front and nodded when they came past. She knew the horns signified their greater bloodline strength.
As they entered the tunnel, purple gems the size of her head began glowing, lighting up the dark from their alcoves in the cave walls. They had delicate mana-circles on them, so she could only assume they were created with the human forms of the snakes. They took a few entrances that were slowly heading down, deeper into the ground. Eventually, they made it to a much larger entrance. It was dark, and she couldn’t see very far from where she was using her normal eyesight instead of perception. Verdilast thumped the tip of his tail against the grey tunnel wall.
“Verdilast and youngling Skulker are here to show in visitor Lucille Goldcroft.”