Chapter 29 - Pants and ants

Being vastly under-clothed and with no pockets, Adam would have a hard time transporting the dozen bright crystals. As such, he decided to create a pouch from the beast-hide of the dead shadow wolves. His makeshift water bottle was half empty by now and the vines he used to tie it to himself were worn and weak.

He used his mana blade to skin the largest grey-cored wolf he could see, since the even larger pack leader was much too tough for him to work on. The fur was unique and odd, it looked and felt like smoke as the pelt was incredibly soft and light. The flowing black fur didn’t offer any protection to the creature but rather seemed to act like a mana sponge.

This was all only a guess, but he now believed that the strange fur of the shadow creatures must have helped them either absorb or somehow elevate their magical ability. The ambient mana in the air seemed to get pulled towards the fur but only rested on the coat. Adam assumed that this must be the wolves' equivalent to breathing in ambient mana in order to replenish their cores.

It was a good reminder that magic and biology can work together to build some truly monstrous creatures. He was very much limited by his mana capacity and would be defenseless if it ran out. But what if some creatures don’t have that issue? If mana beasts can attract and devour ambient mana using their entire body, then their supply of mana would be refilled a lot quicker than his measly breaths.

After lamenting his poor biological adaptation to magic, he cheered himself up by reminding himself that they were all dead and he was alive. Better evolutionary traits or not, his soul mana would level the playing field.

The clothing he was making out of the wolf's fur had two main purposes. Firstly, he had been running around in his same worn boxer shorts for months and it was a miracle they hadn’t been ripped by now. He would therefore make himself some new shorts to make him a little less exposed and also create some pockets.

To do this, he simply used his mana to make small holes in his new pants and a spare piece of hide in the rough shape of a pocket. Then he used a long and thin strip of the wolf's skin as thread and weaved it in and out of the holes to attach the added piece of fur as a pocket.

He did the same for the other side and even punctured a hole at the top of the pocket and into the fabric of his new shorts, to be able to thread some more makeshift thread though the two and tie the top of the pockets shut temporarily, thus protecting the crystalline contents even if he needs to run or jump.

Unfortunately, despite how proud he was of his new clothing, it was a little loose fitting with the added weight of the crystals.

He also knew that simply adding a belt on top of the fur clothing wasn’t going to cut it since the soft fur was very light and would gradually slip down when he moved.

To solve these issues, he took inspiration from adjustable sweatpants and used a long strip of pelt as an adjustable lace, and got to work stitching his masterpiece. It took a while but it was a nice break from dealing with magic. Even though he was literally using his magic as a needle to puncture several holes in the folded-over top part of his shorts in order to form his waistband.

After he threaded the long strip of pelt into the waistband, he had just created this world's first size adjustable shorts that he tightened to himself and tied into a bow.

His new stylish clothing fitted and his crystals loaded and secure, he set off on his hunt for the ants once more.

“Man this fur is awesome, it would definitely create a wave in the fashion world if someone from Earth saw me now”

He smiled to himself as he imagined the looks on the faces of people if he walked out into the street like this… A muscular body with wild hair and wearing nothing but a pair of pants so black that not even daylight can properly illuminate it, he assumed the fur would look like a smoky black shadow.

His smile faded slightly when he got to the large hole in the ground that the ants were attempting to get to, when they were ambushed by the spiders.

He strained his eyes to peer down into the darkness and something strange happened to his eyes. He had no idea how long he had spent down here in the underground but definitely a dozen days already. Spending all this time in pure darkness means that he had to use his greater sight spell in perpetuity in order to see and it had become second nature to him by this point. It was like watching an old black-and-white film, at first you can’t help but notice the lack of color but as the movie progresses, you completely forget about the color and your mind simply accepts the black-and-white movie as normal.

Stolen novel; please report.

A similar thing was happening to Adam as the new black and white colors he had been seeing no longer registered as unusual to his mind as he entirely forgot about the sight spell and let his mind work on autopilot. But this changed when he suddenly got a huge upgrade to his vision as the once slightly blurry white walls of mana-infused rock became vastly more detailed.

The stone walls he had seen for hours on end all had a somewhat smooth look to them as smaller details were lost to him. It wasn’t something that bothered him much as noticing the small bumps in the wall had no relevance in finding his way. What had changed significantly, was his ability to see further than ever before.

As he looked down into the large hole from whence he ants wished to return, he found that his ‘telescopic’ vision had more than doubled in its ability to see into the distance. He wondered if this was what eagles saw, but then realized that eagles likely had even better eyesight. The thought of an eagle with mana brought back memories of the large falcons flying over the beach and what kind of strange abilities they might have evolved.

Adam Hartwell

Mana core: [grey - late - (Soul)]

Divine patriarch (???): [???]

Spells:

- [greater sight - refined - uncommon]

- [mana blades - crude - uncommon]

- [enhancement - crude - common]

- [soul circulation - crude - epic]

Nafritese’s edict: Opens the path for magical growth.

(???)

He was excited to have once more upgraded his sight spell to refined. It was the only spell he could use permanently without draining his core and as such, also the spell he was the most familiar with.

He hadn’t opened his status screen in a while and was happy to see the mana core section about having upgraded his core to the late stage. Seeing the ‘edict’ also made him wonder about the benefits of the system.

It claims to open the path to magical growth but he didn’t need the system to tell him he had upgraded his core as the red cracks at its center were a good indicator. It obviously helped with perfecting spells like it had just done but that didn’t seem to fit with the edicts description.

But what really caught his eye was his soul circulation spell. He hadn’t touched his soul mana since his out-of-body experience, but the reminder of his only epic spell forced him to make a decision about how to proceed.

Until now, the system has been nothing but helpful in forming spells. None of his spells had any evident drawbacks or negative effects so his soul-related spell also presumably wouldn’t have been awarded to him if it was harmful to his soul.

He also supposedly met the entity responsible for the system and that old man told him he would help as best he could, but that his edict was the only way he could interact with the multiverse. So he decided to trust the mysterious God and use the spell to augment his soul.

It would be stupid not to use an epic grade spell to improve himself since he was given the opportunity. The thought did scare him a little as he wondered if the spell he was given was because of the God himself or because he deserved it based on his magical achievements. Was that what the God meant when he said he would do his best to help him?

That he would be able to upgrade or gain new spells faster than most? Or that he would bend the rule a little to give his stronger spells than he might deserve?

Either way, he was grateful for any assistance. Maybe he was just delusional and dreamt up the whole encounter or maybe the God simply meant to wish him good luck and wouldn’t actually give him handouts. That seemed like the more probable situation based on the guy's personality anyway.

“Fuck it, half-half” He now knew how powerful his soul mana was so he would split it up and use half for defense and the other feed to his soul.

Adam descended into the large hole with better visibility and growing confidence as the tiredness that had built up in his body during the long travel and fights was washed away by the feeling of his soul burning brighter as the silver mana circulated in his soul’s pathways.

The tunnel had a visible downward curve as he followed the path into what he presumed was the way to the ant nest. He had no intention of actually making his way to the heart of the nest but simply wanted to get close enough to the ants to be able to use one of their small scout groups as his test subjects in his “Mana crystallization conversion experiment”… Patent pending

The tunnel soon reached a cross-section with three possible directions. He learned his lesson about getting lost in a maze of tunnels and used a mana blade to carve a mark in his tunnel for future reference. Then he randomly picked the tunnel heading left and continued on his way.

The path further down seemed to open up into a much more trafficked road as he could hear eerie pattering noises in the distance. He turned the corner to see a large open space with several ants guarding what looked like the same large white ant from the fight above.

He grinned maniacally as his ridiculous plan was all coming together. He simply needed to get one of those white ants to devour his crystals before slaughtering them and taking back his precious processed mana.

The only thing stopping him from doing so was the twenty or so soldier ants that walked alongside the glowing large white ants. It seemed that each white ant had ten personal bodyguards and this group had two white mana-processing ants.

He wouldn’t be able to deal with all twenty soldier ants at the same time and using his soul mana blast would likely only kill the white giants too. Not to mention they would simply run away… Or would they?

One thing he found odd about the fight between the ants and spiders was the inactivity of the giant white ant. Even when it was being attacked, it didn’t fight back or run off, it simply stood still and forced the guardian ants to throw themselves in danger, using their own bodies as meat shields to protect the white giant.

If the same was true for these two giant ants, then he might actually make this work. He stopped using his soul circulation spell as he watched the ants waddle down the large tunnel to the right of him. They were moving at a snail's pace, probably to stay close to the white giants moving in slow motion. The tunnels had several turns in them so it was the perfect spot for an ambush while they were alone. He simply needed to pick them off as fast and quietly as possible.