~~~Lee~~~
Saira walked quickly between Bradley and Penelope as they led the march back outside.
It was good to see the earth mage smiling, even if he blushed a lot whenever he looked at Saira. The successful run had done wonders to restore his confidence, and now he had a proper wizard staff. Hopefully, the disastrous first run would only serve as a warning and not a deterrent for future hunts.
Lee was thinking about runes and what he might do with them. So he didn't realize Mar had wandered ahead until he heard the scream.
He took off sprinting at the same moment as everyone else and finally heard the roaring sound... right before the mouth of the cave turned into a waterfall.
Saira didn't even slow, and she vanished through the curtain of rain. Bradley followed an instant later in an explosion of dirt. Only Lee knew it wasn't rain water pouring down. Mana Mind told him that much.
So he was ready when Alejandro tried to activate his movement ability, and Lee ripped the skill apart without hesitation.
Penelope was screaming and staggering away from the rain when Lee caught up and dragged her deeper into the cave. He had to hold her up when her legs buckled, and a moment later he realized exactly what the rain was when it splashed over his feet.
The liquid raining down and running into the cave wasn't water. It was acid, and it felt oddly reminiscent of his brief time spent in a frog stomach... which was to say, it sucked ass.
He had to get in Alejandro's way again when the man tried to run past. "Stop!"
"Saira..."
"She's gone! Stop!"
Alejandro's face fell, his expression a bleak mask of despair, and Lee quickly reiterated what he'd meant to say. "Bradley took her. They went underground! She's fine!"
He hadn't directly seen it and wasn't positive Saira was okay, but considering he didn't see her outside melting... and their rune armor had plunged abruptly into the ground, then shot away to the southwest... he was hopeful. Though not all the runes kept moving... many of them remained underground right outside the cave, with the remainder spreading out in a trail with only Bradley's new staff running further into the distance.
His hopeful words worked. Also, the acid finally burned through Alejandro's boots... Then he helped Lee haul Penelope further inside and slammed his shield into the dirt to funnel away the stream of acid that was flowing after them into the cave.
Lee did his best to ignore the pain from his feet and tried not to think about all the dirt that might get stuck in the wounds as they healed... On that note, he sat down and lifted his feet to brush them off.
That was when the roaring rain abruptly let up.
It didn't stop completely, but went from a downpour to a light sprinkle. That let him hear a new growing sound from outside—a buzzing sound.
Lee scrambled back to his feet as the first giant fly landed right outside the cave. First, because a swarm followed behind it, and a lot of them flew inside.
Alejandro saved all of them by snatching up his shield and creating a shimmering wall that filled the tunnel.
The flies crashed into it en masse, blotting out the light as they swarmed.
Lee tried frantically to think of what he could do, even as he watched the bugs scramble over the magic wall, their weird mouths sucking at it... Outside, his Mana Mind saw more of the things slurping up the puddles—the mana-rich puddles of acid.
"I can't hold it!" Alejandro yelled, his voice barely heard over the buzzing.
They were after the mana! Lee could see it now. They melted everything down and then drank the slop left behind. It was a simple and horrible way to eat... and he briefly wondered what they did with the cores...
Only briefly, because he was pulling the runes from his shield as he dropped it next to Alejandro and then drawing out a new rune onto the metal. He botched it once, twice, and then a third time while cursing vehemently. Which did nothing to help his concentration. Neither did the buzzing swarm inches from his face...
He felt and saw them violently react to each surge of liquid mana as he worked...
Alejandro screamed, and his shield vanished—an instant before Lee finally finished his rune.
A few flies got through, and one landed on the back of his head, sucking at the mana in his helmet... Alejandro cut it in half, and Lee shook his head when something dripped onto his neck with a searing pain.
He winced and sat back as Lucas helped cut down the rest. Then Lee looked at his shield. A wall of glowing blue light. He hadn't known he could do that, and unfortunately, it wouldn't last long.
The flies swarmed and scrambled madly over the magic as they tried to melt it. Their feet didn't stick to the surface, and the acidic drool only ran down... where it was pooling at the bottom.
His rune was far weaker when projecting outside an item like this, and the strength of the effect waned the further it went. It didn't help that the acid and flies were accelerating the drain.
A hand rested on his shoulder, and Alejandro said something that Lee didn't hear as he stared at the sight before him, a terrible realization dawning in his mind.
They wanted mana... He could see an extra thick pile of them melting a hole into the ground as they dug for the buried runes... and they weren't all that far from the fort... from Three.
His building was powerful. A few flies shouldn't be a threat... but what about a swarm of them? Or a flood of acid rain? Both?
All the kids would have been in there... probably in the open courtyard... No, they had lookouts. Someone had to have seen this coming.
"Lee!" Alejandro shook him, snapping him out of his thoughts. "What is..."
"The fort..." He didn't have to say more, and he saw the color drain out of Alejandro's face a moment before the man took a step toward the shield. "Wait! We can't!"
"I have to... wait, the building will protect them! Right?"
"Yes," Lee said with conviction. He had created Three from the source, yes, but also with his soul. Which meant he could feel it even from here. He knew without a doubt that it still stood. He just didn't know for how long... because he could tell something was happening.
It wasn't like the snake. He couldn't feel the runes depleting... if the source runes could even deplete. All he could tell was that something was happening—that Three was reacting to... something.
"How is she?"
Lucas looked up from where he knelt beside Penelope and shook his head. "Not good. She's alive, but..."
"I need all of her armor," Lee said, already pulling off what remained of his boots and the runes on the metal plates. "Get her and yourselves further down the tunnel. And dig a trench to funnel the acid when the shield falls!"
Most of her armor practically fell off; the straps and buckles dissolved, but some had to be peeled away...
Lee hated to steal her protection, but he needed it, and he started by taking the runes from her shield after memorizing the rune he'd just created. He recreated it in his Soul Storage, the charged version, using the mana from the shield.
Then he was designing a new rune while also funneling mana into his barrier to keep it standing.
His plan for the rune didn't call for much. It didn't even need to be very stable. In fact, he was aiming for the opposite.
He dropped Penelope's shield once they carried her far enough in, and a new shield sprang up, cutting Lee off from the others.
Alejandro noticed. "Lee? What are you doing?"
"We don't have a healer. I can't have any of you taking hits."
"No! I will fight beside you!"
Lee shook his head as he gathered the scavenged metal from Penelope's armor. "I can't risk it. I'm the only one who can regenerate."
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"Lee, you don't have to take this on alone. Not again! Let me help you! You already sacrificed enough!" He pounded on the shield to punctuate his words, but Lee recharged it as he did.
"That's nonsense," Lee said while inside the darkness of his Soul Storage. "This is purely selfish. I can't let you die. Who else will protect me and gather cores for me?" His voice didn't even waver. How good was that?
Skill Level Up: Rune Soul Storage
Lee packed as many charged runes into his soul storage as he could. Until it started hurting... That will have to be enough.
Alejandro stopped yelling when Lee dropped the outer shield and threw a metal bracer as hard as he could into the swarm.
His other hand rested on the shield through the process, and he dropped the rune back into place the instant his throw made it past the barrier. Unfortunately, the flies were thick, and his weapon didn't make it nearly as far as he wanted.
Lee snatched up his sword when the shield once again held back the tide and went to work, cutting apart the six flies that had made it past. The bugs weren't smart and didn't dodge; they only flew straight to the highest concentration of mana they could find and drooled on it. Which was Lee...
He might have screamed a few times, but most of his attention was on the bracer he'd thrown past the shield and the rapidly overloading rune he'd placed on it.
One of the rare times he hadn't used a strengthening rune, since he didn't want the armor to actually survive what was coming. In fact, he wanted it to fail as violently as possible.
Hissing steam was billowing from where he'd thrown it, and Lee could see the stupid bugs drooling on the red-hot metal as it glowed brighter and brighter.
Then it melted, and the runes broke. The heating rune... and the battery.
Lee felt the bits of his soul come back. It always did. Though he wasn't sure if it even was coming back so much as simply settling back into place. He wasn't removing pieces of his soul when he made the runes; he was just spreading it... around. Except it wasn't actually going anywhere. It was why he could always feel every rune, no matter where it was. They were all part of him.
It was weird.
But the liquid mana he jammed into every rune wasn't a part of him, and it only came back if he pulled the rune deliberately, not if it broke.
Lee was prone in the dirt, his hand on the shield as he pumped mana into it, when the bracer blew up.
The shield's runes held... for an instant. Just long enough to rebound most of the explosive force he'd unleashed and send it back up the tunnel like a cannon barrel.
His ears were ringing as... stuff rained over him in a sprinkling wave of tiny pinpricks. Lee didn't wait before scrambling to his feet with the shield in one hand and another bracer in the other. Then he sprinted through the mess of shredded and pulped flies toward the entrance, which was already refilling with fresh monsters.
He ran only a few feet through a muddy sludge that burned his feet and threw the second bracer before planting the shield with a new shielding rune blazing to life on its surface.
Again, the flies swarmed the trap, their efforts to get the mana only hastening its eventual detonation.
Lee used the time to prepare the next bomb. Then he gained a few more feet after the explosion.
Again and again. He pushed his way back to the surface with fiery explosions of molten metal and acid steam. It hurt even more once he started using up his own armor, but his regeneration was up to the task.
He had to sprint back for more pieces of metal occasionally and tried very hard not to think about the open wounds on his feet that were sloshing through ankle deep muck. All of that acidic sludge was steadily running downhill and piling against the second shield. He topped it off on each trip and was glad to see Alejandro and Lucas digging a moat to funnel it around Penelope when the dam eventually broke.
The first bomb that went off outside killed even more flies. It also didn't break his shield without the tunnel amplifying the force. Lee pulled the shield off anyway to throw the next bomb even farther.
Back and forth, he dropped the shield and bombed the seemingly never-ending flies, then did it again. And again.
He ran out of pieces of armor to blow up before he ran out of mana. Penelope's armor and his own. The big chest plates had been especially spectacular...
Since every monster that died released a burst of mana into the environment, while only a smaller amount went into the core. It meant the lair—which was pulling in mana like all of them did—was absolutely feasting on the mana generated by mass killing monsters right outside.
Lee didn't know anymore if it was the explosions of mana drawing the flies or if it was the huge field of cores he could see glinting out there.
Alejandro had escaped from his confinement by then, but at least he hadn't tried to wade through the acid until the dirt soaked up most of it. He brought the food with him, which was extremely helpful, and Lee binged while considering his remaining options.
They could probably bunker down in the cave and wait this out, assuming the swarm would eventually move on... Lee's mana regeneration was good enough to keep the shield up. Penelope wasn't doing well, though, and she needed a healer.
Plus, Lee didn't want to hide and wait it out. He didn't know for sure if this swarm was only on top of them or if it spread far enough to reach the fort. But he expected it had reached far enough, if only because of what he felt from Three. The attention he was drawing here had to be a good thing, if that was the case. The more he killed, the less there would be that could attack the fort.
He didn't want to use the others’ armor. Just in case things got worse. Or if more monsters showed up. Lee's skeleton gave him a type of protection, enough that he was willing to risk destroying his own armor.
That left one option that he'd wanted to avoid.
Skill Shard[F-grade]
Summon Plate (Common)
A dish for every meal.
User may summon a plate mana construct.
Size, detail, and duration determined by supplied mana and skill level.
Skill Level Effects (Novice)
+1% Duration
+1% Variation
Requirements:
Mana Core/Channels [Requirement Not Met][N/A](Adaptable)
Adapting to this Skill will require 50% Adaptation and may alter your Class.
Adapting this Skill to your Class will require 1% Adaptation but may drastically alter the Skill.
Adapt Yourself and Learn Skill: Y/N?
Learn Adapted Skill: Y/N?
If the plates could hold a rune... even if just long enough to throw... He took the chance.
-1% Adaptable
Adapting Skill: Summon Plate (Common)
Liquid Mana Detected.
Skill Adaptation Successful.
New Non-Class Skill Learned: (3/3)
Create Plate (Rare)
A plate for every need.
User may create a plate by condensing Liquid Mana into physical matter.
Size, detail, and material features determined by supplied mana and skill level.
Skill Level Effects (Novice)
+1% All Mind Attributes
Lee hesitated at the condensing physical matter line... the original skill had said it summoned a mana construct and it had a duration. Was there a difference between the two? Would the plates have been like the panthers? Illusions that could interact with the physical world?
That probably wouldn't have been any use for runes... this one, though...
He cast the spell.
A terrifying amount of liquid mana surged down his arm and burst from his hand. It moved fast, but not too fast. Right at the threshold where his arm only tingled but didn't burn.
The strangest part was what the mana did once it left his body. He could see it clearly with Mana Mind as the potent liquid fire poured out into twisting streams that condensed even further... into a simple white ceramic plate.
Lee stared as it formed atop his trembling hand.
Exactly like the ones in his apartment. At least, it felt like ceramic...
Lee clamped both of his sweaty hands onto the plate, desperate not to drop it while also terrified that he might break it by squeezing too hard. So much mana had gone into it... except he couldn't see it anymore... Mana Mind saw a plate with only slightly more mana inside it than anything else.
So he removed the shield and threw the plate as far as he could.
The flies barely reacted. Other than the handful that flew in when the shield fell. Lee killed one, but the rest flew after the two people still wearing rune armor. He let them handle it while watching a few flies go drool on the unbroken plate in the muddy field outside.
It dissolved quickly.
Lee frowned and summoned another one. Once again, way too much mana went into the skill... condensed... then vanished into a normal plate.
Was creating matter that energy intensive? Obviously, it was in the real world, but this was magic. Hadn't the laws of physics gone out the window? What about all those spells that created... Huh? All the spells he'd seen created nothing beyond energy. That was what allowed him to tear them apart with Mana Mind...
The buzzing cacophony outside forced him to put aside the questions and focus on the original reason he'd created the plate.
It accepted a rune. A simple, tiny light rune. Barely.
That was useless... but there was one last thing to try. He activated the skill again, and this time he poured in as much mana as it would take while trying to envision something akin to the metal he'd been blowing up.
Metal plates were a thing... Hell, the armor was technically a metal plate... of a kind.
It took way longer and nearly half of his entire mana pool, but he created what sure looked like a metal plate... Lee grimaced at the cost, but his frown turned into a smile when he realized that, if nothing else, he now had a great way to dump mana quickly. Especially if he wanted to get a little more hands on with the blasting...
First, though, he tried the plate.
The new plate withstood the runes, only faring slightly worse than the smallest pieces of armor he'd blown up already. It blew up slightly faster. Which was perfectly fine when that was the whole point.
Lee smiled as he used Mana Mind to drag all the free mana within range into himself. Then he made another plate and drained his mana down to near ten percent in the process. He placed only the battery rune instead of the melting combo, then sent more mana into his Soul Storage to replace all the charged runes he'd expended.
His mana neared empty, and Lee took a deep breath, dropped the shield, and held up his hand....
Boom time.
There was a small risk that he might mana burn himself, especially considering the plate skill would let him keep blowing flies up indefinitely. But he was still worried about the fort. Worried about the people inside... worried about Penelope... and yes, worried about Three.
He needed to step it up.
So he unleashed a Mana Blast point blank into the swarm.