They head back through the nest, ignoring all of the valueless items scattered around by the ants.
“Why did you say my mana manipulation was a pleasure to watch?” Emily asks Ivor as they rise through the earth.
“You're very good at it. Your mana movement is so fast and precise it’s like watching an artist at work,” he signs back, confusing Emily more.
“But mana manipulation is easy. You just have to will it into shape and it follows without resistance,” she says, raising her hand and pouring out a small ball of mana before forming it into the outline of a flaming bird, perched on her finger.
Enzo and Ivor roll their eyes at her.
“For you maybe. Us normal people have to force our mana to listen to us,” Enzo says, raising his hand and gathering an orb of brown mana particles before slowly guiding it into the form of a bird.
His mana construct takes him ten seconds to complete and has shaky, poorly defined lines. Emily raises a brow, her mind suddenly filled with questions.
Why is it so different for me? I already know I’m abnormally good at setting a mental image and manifesting my elements with raw mana, but what about this? I have a basic mana manipulation skill, but that only gives me ten per cent more efficiency and control, and I generated it just by practising a little bit. It’s never felt like forcing it to listen.
She pulls up her system as they step out of the nest and into the well-lit cavern above. She scans through her status for the cause and her eyes pause on one of her talents.
¯¯¯¯¯
[Magical Genius]
User is a natural-born mage.
-Grants instant comprehension of new magic [Knowledge]
-Mana strength increased by +50%
-Increased aptitude for creating new spells
_____
Magical genius, could it be this? It doesn’t say anything about mana manipulation though. Do skills and talents give unmentioned benefits?
Emily’s broken out of her thoughts by their other friends approaching them.
"You get anything interesting?” Dante asks.
“One hundred and thirty-six lesser earth crystals, twenty-six normal, and five greater,” Emily says with a proud smile, pushing her questions about her talents to the back of her mind. “That, and a second circle burrower ant queen.”
Tom and Hester both look shocked at the reveal of the queen, surprising Emily, but Juliana and Dante only react to the crystals.
“Damn, that’s over half our entire haul from the last trip!” Dante says excitedly.
“Wait, a borrower ant queen?” Hester asks.
“Yep. She was sleeping on an earth crystal vein,” Emily explains. “You two know about burrower ants?”
“Ah, yeah,” Hester responds with a nod. “A while back there was a colony near Cairnorm, our home town. The Dahlia family made a big deal out of parading the queen back through town after killing it, saying that it was a rare and valuable find.”
“Well, it’s used to make an elixir, so I can see why they were happy.”
“An elixir?” Tom asks with shock. “What type?”
“It’s called Earth Drops, an earth attribute elixir that will increase the mana capacity of a second circle earth mage.”
“Only earth mages?” Tom says with a hint of disbelief.
“Well, not exclusively. A mage with a different attribute could take the drops, but they’d get a much smaller increase, so most don’t have the same interest in them as earth mages.”
“Oh, cool. Will there be enough for me to have one?”
“Ha, yes. It will come out of your cut from the expedition though, since a single queen can only make three portions. Anyway, we can deal with that once we leave here. For now, are you guys done harvesting all of these ants, or do we need more time?”
“We’re done,” Juliana answers for them. “We’ve collected every gland that’s still intact.”
“Perfect. Let’s get going then. I’m hoping we can reach the luminis layer by nightfall,” Emily says, glancing around at the several entrances to the cavern and quickly picking out the one they entered through.
They retrace their steps, back to where the path split, and continue the way they were going before Emily diverted to the nest. They journey through the dark tunnels, killing anything that stands in their way until they see a faint blue glow ahead.
“Just in time,” Emily mutters, glancing down at The Clock and seeing it’s almost midnight, the latest she’ll keep moving in the tunnels.
“Pardon?” Juliana says behind her, not quite catching Emily’s quiet musings.
“I was just saying we’re cutting it close. We were going to camp in this cave for the night even if it didn’t have any luminis.”
They step into the cavern as they talk, finding an open room, filled with shining blue flowers, with seven paths branching off ahead.
“Is this the same room as before?” Enzo questions, looking around at the paths.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“It’s impossible to tell,” Emily says, tossing the barrier disc into the air, activating the light and sound arrays. “If it is, it’s changed completely. Even the dimensions are different.”
They quickly set out sleeping bags, crushing some of the blue flowers to make space and lighting a campfire. Hester cooks them some ant meat, and they eat quickly before turning in for the night.
***
In the morning, they pick the first of the seven routes out of the cavern and set off. The tunnel angles noticeably downwards, leading them deeper into the earth.
They run into a group of screamers half an hour in and this time Emily notices in advance, casting a sound-isolating barrier before letting her teammates bombard the flying beasts with spells. Emily quickly strips the corpses before they continue on.
Just under an hour later, after killing a few bugs along the way, the dark tunnel joins another tunnel, this one overflowing with light. Emily grins, sensing there isn’t anything living close to the entrance they walk through, and spins on her toes to walk backwards.
“Welcome to The Crystal Waters,” she declares, spreading her arms open in an exaggerated manner as the light swallows her.
Ivor, Enzo, and Dante have mild reactions, chuckling and rolling their eyes at Emily’s performance. Tom, Hester, and Juliana on the other hand are dragged into Emily’s show, looking around in amazement and gasping at the sight of the beautiful underground river. Their eyes roam from the swirling, clear water, with a layer of shifting fog just below the surface, to the glittering crystals lining the ceiling.
I can see why Oscar was dramatic before. It’s fun to watch their reactions.
Emily smiles, pulling her gaze away from Juliana’s glistening eyes to take in the cave herself. It’s much the same as last time, and she doesn’t see any beasts or resources of value, so she makes her way to the water’s edge. Her friends follow her, curious about either the water itself or Emily’s actions.
She crouches on the riverbank and reaches into one of her belt’s pouches. She pulls out a small, fist-sized mechanical boat.
It has a small, wind-up motor connected to a propeller hanging off the stern and a few small ones embedded into the sides and bow. There’s a small lesser water crystal mounted on top of the motor, and several runes are scattered across the entire boat, from the hull to the tiny internal gears.
Emily places the boat on the water’s surface, facing downstream, and connects a stand of mana to it. Half the mana activates the boat's array and links to it, giving Emily a rendered underwater view, using the same reflected waves method as her vibration pack. The other half converts into machina, connecting to a small gearbox and flicking the pre-wound engine into action, connecting it with the front and left propellers to send the boat out into the middle of the stream while resisting the weak surface current urging it forward.
“What’s that for?” Juliana asks, watching the little boat drive out into the centre of the water and come to a halt.
“It scouts under the water like my spider does the ground,” Emily explains, standing up and turning around. “Because of the change in medium, the spider can’t tell when there are beasts in the water. Since it would require a much more complicated array and extra weight from another mana crystal to power it, I decided just to make another machine for scouting the water instead of upgrading the spiders.”
“You’re so well prepared,” Hester says with respect in her voice that slowly shifts into amusement. “I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if you said you’ve prepared a way for us to breathe underwater.”
“Ha,” Emily chuckles. “Not yet. I’ll have to work on it.”
Hester rolls her eyes, but Emily pulls up a new folder in her notes to work on the idea when her sleeping cores wake up in a few minutes. Her bird lands on her head, and she quickly switches the unneeded light pack with a thermal pack before sending it out down the river.
“Let’s keep going,” Emily urges, stepping out ahead of the group again. “Hopefully this river will lead us back to the same lake. If not we’ll have to try to search for another point connected to the end.”
They walk downstream, following the river on its winding path. After an hour of walking, Emily’s boat detects something lurking in the water as it guides the way ahead of them.
She casts lightning orb, a second circle spell, and, after travelling a few metres, drops the crackling ball of electricity into the water, surprising her friends. Steam rises, and the water is instantly filled with millions of volts.
No one says a word, as everyone watches the water where Emily has attacked. After a few seconds, as the lingering charge of her spell fades, four piranhas rise to the surface.
“I bet they’ll taste good,” Hester comments as Emily detaches the blades from her Claws and throws them into the heads of two of the fishes.
“They’re already half-cooked,” Emily responds with a smirk, reeling in the bodies.
She pulls them up onto the riverbank, dropping them at her feet as she pulls the blades free and tosses them again. With the last two kills confirmed, Tom puts them in his bag to harvest later, and they continue downstream.
They run into a few more piranhas, and a couple of groups of bugs that were settled in the light of the river, as they steadily continue downstream, following the left bank. Eventually, the crystals above the water start to dim, signalling the arrival of night.
“Let’s set up here,” Emily says, halting in her steps and tossing the barrier disc out above the river.
The anchors fly into the surrounding walls, suspending it in the air as its light array takes over from the crystals on the ceiling. They lay out sleeping bags as Tom and Hester start filleting the fish.
Once all of the sleeping bags are set up, shrouded by the fog covering the floor, Emily settles down next to the twins at the small fire they have started. She glances at the offcuts pile, filled with all the parts of the fish that they can’t eat and don’t care to keep, since nothing in the fish is a valuable material worth taking back. Her eyes are drawn to the fish’s gills and curiosity grips her.
She picks up one of the decapitated heads with the gills still attached and runs a full machina scan. She carefully inspects the route water would take, being taken in through the piranha’s mouth before flowing out through the gills, over the tiny, layered frills of flesh.
Fascinating.
She makes a few notes, adding to her design ideas, before tossing the head back into the pile. Emily leans against Juliana, with almost all of her focus on her design, drawing out blueprints for a piece of gear as she continues to tweak and refine the spell to add to it.
Hester fries the fish fillets in a pan with a sprinkle of salt before handing them out for everyone to eat.
“Are we going to be okay only eating the things we kill? Won’t we get ill from not eating our vegetables?” Tom asks as he digs into his fish.
“I’ve never really thought about it,” Enzo responds, looking at his food thoughtfully. “It’s just common practice on expeditions to eat the things you kill instead of bringing lots of rations. I guess the mana in the meat probably compensates for the lack of variety.”
“Partially,” Emily adds, instantly drawing everyone’s attention. “Mana-dense meat and plants both act like a fully balanced meal. And even if they didn’t, you’d be fine. Mages’ bodies are modified by their mana from the moment of awakening and are far more robust than normal humans. Even a first circle mage would be able to survive just fine on a single type of food.”
“Wait, just becoming mages affected our bodies that much?” Hester asks with surprise.
“Yeah!” Emily confirms with an excited nod. “In fact, even at first circle it’s close to impossible for you to catch a mortal disease. It would need to be enhanced by an energy like mana in some way to affect you at all. Then there’s the rest of the changes as you increase in circle.”
“What changes with each ascension?” Tom asks Emily. “Your life span increases and you get stronger. Right?”
“Yes, those are two of the effects. Every time you go through an ascension, from the first to fourth circle, your body is refined closer to the perfect human. It improves your life span, strength, flexibility, hand-eye coordination, mental processing, hearing, eyesight, and your general fortitude.”
“Woah,” Dante exclaims. “How much can a person even be improved?”
Emily pauses, unable to answer his question. A small frown creases her brow as she glances at a note telling her to go over her past stat increases.
“I have some notes on it but haven’t done the maths yet. Give me a second,” she says, diverting all of her processing power to the task.