Grinning at Agus, whose expression is flat as a board despite the apparent tease, Henry continues explaining. First of all; yes the rocks are its flesh and yes it heals, an improved regeneration of sorts. Note that they are actual rocks too. What's weird is how its bone is not subject to this effect. Though as a living creature, any damage to its physique may still be healed by magical or mundane means. Albeit for a much higher price. As for Quagxytes, they are some form of automated defense against intruders, I believe something akin to our white blood cells. Yet, despite the aggressive-defensive creature that resides within itself. Torterrenes are passive until provoked.
Another interesting fact is how they do not reproduce, instead, there is a very small chance they are created when a planet is suddenly flooded by vast amounts of mana. Some also believe that their creation is not the products of chance, but the fulfillment of some very complicated criterias. Upon birth, they vary in size between one to a few thousand kilometers and would continue to grow indefinitely. There have been reports about sightings of mysterious entities who stand upon a Torterrene larger than a small star, but even to this day, not much more is known to the public regarding these creatures besides hearsay.
After his explanation, Agus is smiling with eagerness. "We can harvest the bones and heal them. Infinite materials hack!"
"Don't get your hopes up just yet, what if the bones are nothing good?" Henry pulled him back from his daydream.
"Bones that can support something that large are durable, if nothing else." Agus insists, I honestly agree with that assumption. Which comes with its own problem.
"You might be right, so we might not even be strong enough to chip, let alone harvest any sizable amounts of these bones." I poured cold water over his burning desire.
Not that the fire died out. "Well, I believe there is a solution to every problem, last but not least, I believe in your Strength. Zen!"
There's no changing his mind, so we started ignoring his persistent idea for now with answers of cool, hmm, nice, et al. Though the fact that their bones are not subject to regeneration is very interesting. Can we create a shelter within, and if that works, maybe we can set up a Mana Tower. That means we will have access to a LeyLine Gate… Now this! This is more exciting to me than an unknown material dupe glitch!!
"Okay, so I'm thinking of going back in." Briefly telling them about the new idea I just had garnered me the complete support of everyone—Agus included. Having to travel hundreds of kilometers to arrive versus stepping through a gate, I think we all agree which is the better choice.
"I'm coming with you!" Agus requests… I decided the slower pace would be worth having company and someone else to brainstorm ideas with. Some preparations are made for the more normal Human; food and water, a few pots of bambreeze to provide him with oxygen and various others. I spent 9,050 mana to cast Mark of Returning for each of us, which provides us with a little more than 500 kilometers. Plenty enough for a 300-ish kilometer dive. After all that preparation and excitement, I was told we will depart tomorrow morning, after Agus sleeps…
"Tsk, weak mortal!" I complain partly as a joke. "Though seriously, I thought we were gonna depart now. Mayb—"
"Rejected!" Agus said before I even finished suggesting that he should probably wait for the next time. "Wait for me, pretty please~"
All this preparation took us all over the Territory and Mini had somehow tagged along somewhere during all that. At Agus's nudge, she shot me with her level 1000 skill; puppy Mini eyes. "Pretty ple~ase~, acek Zen!"
It's super effective…
—
A little more than an hour to midnight now, I wonder if Dwarves sleep, and if yes, early or late?
Zen: Hello! Sorry if this is not a good time but are you awake?
Minedora: No. I'm sleep mailing. What do ya think!?
Minedora: Wait, nevermind that question. What do ya want!?
Zen: Is now a good time for a visit? Are you interested in a cultural exchange, should we trade languages?
Mindora: Eh, I don't see why not. Come then.
One Micro Flight and several blinks later. I find her waiting for me at the entrance of their fort. She texted me a greeting and we continued our communication verbally after I took the time to apply Gift of Conversing.
"Hello to you too," I replied to her texts verbaly. "So who will I be Imparting English to and who will impart Dwarvish for me?"
"Huh, yer' already speaking it, why do yer' need it ag'in?" She asks me with a confused look on her face.
"This is temporary, and quite costly." For ordinary spellcasters that is. I proceed to explain until she understands and summoned for an older Dwarf wearing very ornate robes, who she introduced to me as their head librarian. He happens to speak Elvish but lacks Impart Language and refuses to purchase the Spell before further consideration. Dwarves are stingy that way, they say proudly. Speechlessly, I first imparted English onto Dora and this librarian's mind—dismissing conversing soon after.
Alas, Artificial Infusion saved the day! When the idea came to me, I carelessly harvested a large piece of rock and spent 300 mana to infuse the spell. Then had mister Dwarven librarian Impart their language onto me… Only for the rock to crumble and the Spell to fail. I took a larger rock and infused the same exact spell only to watch it survive the cast while the Spell still failed to take effect. Eventually, after the harming of multiple innocent rock-standers, the Impartation took effect after a generous 500 mana Infusion was provided. A rather complicated language with infinite room for verbally attacking your enemies, thank The System for Impart Language. Next I visited Erssoan to fulfill my promise before activating my Return Mark and moving on with handling other stuff.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
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Combat summary
Enemies slain;
Earth Elemental lv 25 x 1
Water Elemental lv 25 x 2
Plant Elemental lv 25 x 1
100 syscred and 345 exp awarded
Strength + 44
Constitution + 54
Dexterity + 38
Intelligence + 51
Wisdom + 16
Will + 28
Charisma + 8
'Inspect! Thank you.'
Mark of Returning - Intermediate. Expert Rank. 150+ mana. Mind where you Mark and hope it stays bright; less you return upon a pitfall of your own making, or not return at all from beyond its reach. Touch a surface object to manifest a Mark of Returning upon it and thyself; behold for a [MAtk meters] spatial tunnel shall be formed—anchored upon both Marks, and extendable beyond its standard range by investments of extra mana. Following a mental prompt or a spoken keyword determined during the cast, the spatial tunnel shall instantaneously activate; swallowing and returning you upon the Mark. For 25 mana, you may reapply your return-point Mark upon another touched surface. Understanding of the Mark and its bond to a soul, you may now have more than one active Mark and you may transfer your mark and all its usage to another willing creature
Impart Language - Early. Expert Rank. 300+ mana. Understanding is knowing. Implant onto a willing, language-speaking creature who speaks a language you speak, one language of your choice, paid for in mana which varies depending upon complexity.
Gift of Conversing - Early. Expert Rank. 1+ mana. Thrift-in silence. One word one mana—upon cast, all spoken words shall reference The Archive and be interpreted for thy target recipient.
Aiming to improve more of my mental stats, I wrecked my brain for a good target before deciding to travel towards the field Dungeon that had Elementals to give them a try. My attempt to devour intangible elements like wind and fire was a complete failure, but more tangible Elementals like plants and stone were easily done, even water could be devoured, albeit with a slightly more complicated process. Giving each of the three a try, I noticed that water rewards the most intelligence, which is how another one was unfortunate enough to be caught in a mana-kinesis sphere, shrunk and devoured.
Done with my quota for the week, I then returned and promptly got bored waiting for the morning! So I decided to Inspect the new Spells. Apparently I can now make more than one Mark of Returning. Only that, I'm not quite sure how. First of all, what is the cause for said limitation? Only one way to find out!
As an experiment; using Soul Sense and Mana Sense in conjunction with each other to detect the un-resized Mark occupying almost 80% of my outer soul—now that I know I can make it smaller, I had not bothered. I recast the Spell; just the base cost of 150 mana this time. Lo and behold, the old Mark and the new Mark superimposed before attempting to fuse with each other, but ended up collapsing harmlessly instead. Well, that's obviously why being able to resize the Mark matters if we wanna have more than one… I think.
Yep! I managed to create two Marks by allowing each to imprint my outer soul while keeping them apart from each other during their forming process. Nice! I dismiss both experimental Mark and recast one like previously done for Agus; spending 9,050 mana… Then a brief moment of sleep meditation for 15 minutes, then I spent the rest of my time fabricating more cores and browsing the The System Store.
Throughout the night—I end up mere window shopping—and assisted by the Towers Mana regeneration boost, I managed to fabricate 112 Core-150s. I was also bored enough to start paying attention to the Tower's profile and could not help but notice how the Mana Tower has its own mana pool—I may have totally forgotten about this! At exactly 6 Am; between my stock of Mana Cores, the Tower's mana pool and my own pool, I managed to produce a Core-7650. Awesome!
"What's that you got?" Agus asks, I Sensed him Blinking up.
"Mana Core." This one is about 24 centimeters in diameter, slightly larger than the one I used to make the previous Buster Wand.
"Thats massive!" He exclaimed.
"It is," I grin. "So, you ready? I assume you can't sleep?"
He grins back, "well I did sleep. But yes, it was a rather restless one." I stand up and together, we Blink down. All neccessary supplies had previously been stored within our Repository. So without further ado, we walk down the stairs and through the killzone. Did not even bother to inform anyone.
Of course it did not cross my mind previously that Agus is pretty damn slow! He's a spellcaster-crafter extraordinaire, but not one with an impressive physique. We walked at his Hasted-Human pace—which is still rather slow for a 200-ish kilometer venture—until he caught the hints I had been giving him about how long it would take for us to arrive at our current rate of movement. Then, he summoned his mount and we managed to speed up a significant amount. Now mounted, ignoring all detours and any Quagxytes emerging out of the wall, we made good time. A little less than 2 hours after departure the first tailbone enters the range of my Mana Sense. "Found them!"
"Which way?" Agus asks, he is currently rather comical—his torso plumped up, due to having one of the potted Bambreeze secured within his Trillatic Swarm. The plant absorbs ambient mana to produce air, oxygen included, and that is necessary as it allows him to breathe properly. What better placement than inside his armor.
"Follow me." I mimicked my previous method to teach the bone and soon, we find ourselves before the tailbone. "What now?"
"Now we experiment!" He said in unconstrained glee. With unlimited energy, he started chipping at the bone with a pick, then a chisel and hammer; both did not leave a scratch. Next he pulled out a steel pickaxe, which still failed to leave any marks on the bone. I tried to help with my higher Strength and all that gave us was broken steel tools…
Agus is without a doubt diligent, he had a lot of tools prepared, combined with creative methods; among them some did nothing, a few managed to scratch the bone while fewer still successfully chipped it. But until we can get a decently sized piece that can be shaped into a useful object, it is of little use.
Soon enough we were off doing our own separate thing—he has his own ways and is in the process of perfecting them while I have something; an idea, I wish to try.