Chương 30: Entering the Tower

Eventually, the trees began to thin. The forest gave way to open ground. There, rising from the clearing was a tower wide enough to be a city block, and so tall she couldn't fathom how it stayed standing. The structure itself looked almost crystalline from a distance, though not in the delicate way of glass. It looked geological. Like a mineral, or like someone had cut into a crystal vein and used the polished stones as material.

Veins of faintly luminous ore or crystal ran through the dark stone in uneven lines, pulsing softly in a pattern Scarlet couldn't yet begin to understand – though she knew there was one. Scarlet stopped at the edge of the tree line, breathing with more difficulty than she would have liked. Honestly, she was beginning to suspect that 'with more difficulty than she would have liked' had become her default. At least difficult was still achievable, she told herself.

Her senses spread outward automatically, probing the clearing ahead. Unlike the dense forest, the open ground around the tower was almost unnaturally barren. No brush. No clusters of strange plants. No movement or signs of life, at all. That should have been reassuring. It wasn't. The clearing itself was enormous, extending hundreds of meters around the base of the structure. The tower rose from its centre like a monument, ascending into the sky.

The upper reaches vanished into the clouds above that still drifted along despite her not knowing if this world was spinning at all. There, all the way across the clearing, at the base of the tower and insultingly small compared to the impossible structure surrounding it, was a single door. Scarlet stared at it for a long moment.

'That looks truly ominous,' she thought as she considered whether the potential respite was worth crossing the mysteriously-devoid-of-life-clearing to get to the ominously-placed-single-door. Maybe if she felt something from the clearing, a beast hiding underground, or a winged predator or something, she'd at least know where the sense of danger was coming from. Unfortunately, all she had were her senses, and they weren't picking up anything. No emotional signatures. No mana flares.

No hidden predators waiting in ambush. Even her strange energy sense stretched outward into a vast and almost uncomfortable emptiness. That bothered her more than if something had immediately tried to eat her. Scarlet forced herself forward anyway, limping across the clearing one painful step at a time. First one foot, then the next was gingerly placed into the clearing. When nothing happened, she moved further forward.

Every time nothing happened, she moved forward until she was most of the way across, and still quite unmolested. Sure, her wounds ached beneath freshly reapplied bandages, and despite the effects of the poultice she could feel the accumulated strain dragging at her body. However, that was to be expected from moving for hours, fighting for hours, bleeding for hours. Somewhere along the way exhaustion had stopped feeling like a temporary state.

Eventually she shunted the unpleasant sensation into the background with the rest of her aches and pains. Still, she kept moving forward. <-… -> The subjectively tiny, ominously placed, tower door wasn't locked. Scarlet found that to be both suspicious and a relief. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting when she first entered the tower, but what she got was the equivalent to a boot room, only made entirely of stone and completely devoid of boots or jackets or really any signs of life.

The room itself was spacious enough, like the kind you'd find at the back of a farmhouse. There was a sink against one wall, and even fresh linens and towels stacked in an open cupboard. The décor was mostly grey – a lot of the furniture was obviously made from the same material as the interior stone. The interior tower stone didn't have that same somewhat crystalline look of the exterior. Outside of that, the small room was clean and serviceable. There was a door on the far wall.

Presumably it led to the tower interior, though Scarlet would have to check to be sure. Something she wasn't willing to risk just yet. Especially considering that the restrictions that had been placed on her senses from outside the building were no longer there. She took no hesitation when flooding the area with her senses. She could sort of feel the space around the room beyond this one. The only thing she could really make out was that it was big. She thought she felt something like stairs, maybe.

There were things out there, just none of them exuded any of the signs of life that she was so used to latching onto and orienting herself with. She'd need to get better at sensing and deciphering inanimate objects. It was embarrassing to be blind, not because she couldn't see, but because she had no clue what she was seeing. As far as she could feel, it was safe, or at least she couldn't sense anyone in the nearby vicinity. This was about as safe as she was going to get in the near future.

Eventually, she felt assured that if someone were to approach, she'd feel it, or at least the way it disturbed the things around it. She got to checking her wounds, especially after all that exercise. She was delighted to find that the sink worked, and after running the taps for a while, she filled the basin with the lukewarm water. She didn't want to light a fire in such an enclosed space, so instead she mixed iodine into the otherwise clear water.

Leaving that to sit for a while she then started the careful work of peeling away her bandages and checking her wounds. She was unsurprised to find that yep, constant excessive exercise and exertion meant that in the places the poultice hadn't been able to fully heal, the skin was still quite raw, and inflamed. She had an odd sense of detachment when looking down at her body. She wondered if this would scar, and if so, how badly.

On the bright side, the poultice had bound her flesh back together, so there had been no need to whip out the needles and thread. As she cleaned and rewrapped her wounds, Scarlet pulled up her Action Log and System notifications. There were a lot of them.

[You have killed Juvenile Earthen Fox – Level 5] [You have killed Juvenile Earthen Fox – Level 4] [You have killed Juvenile Earthen Fox – Level 4] [You have killed Adolescent Earthen Fox – Level 8] [You have killed Juvenile Earthen Fox – Level 5] [You have killed Juvenile Earthen Fox – Level 5] [You have killed Juvenile Earthen Fox – Level 3] [You have killed Juvenile Earthen Fox – Level 4] [You have killed Adolescent Earthen Fox – Level 6] [You have killed Juvenile Earthen Fox – Level 5] [You have killed Iron Claw Burrower – Level 5] [You have killed Steel Claw Burrower – Level 6] The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Her eyes skimmed over the entries rapidly. Then she pulled up her reward notifications again. The Advanced Poultice had already proven itself worth more than its weight in gold – not that there was much left of it. The storage expansion was a purely beneficial upgrade. Then the knives… Scarlet reached over and picked one up from beside the sink. The blade was beautifully balanced, dark metal veined faintly with mineral-like patterns that almost resembled sedimentary layers folded through steel.

When she pushed mana into it the weapon responded immediately. She tested the recall function carefully, wrapping one of the knives in a cloth before tossing the quiet bundle a distance away. Then she recalled the knife. It disappeared from within the cloth bundle and flew back into its sheath with the dull thwap of leather meeting metal. Scarlet only barely avoided being nicked by dodging out of its flight path.

Okay, so the sheath for those knives would have to be placed carefully in the future, and she'd need practice recalling the knives safely. A faint smile tugged briefly at her mouth. Dangerous on the way out, and the way back in. The smile dimmed when she opened her stat sheet. She forced herself to go through it properly.

Name: Scarlet Bourne Level: 4 -> 6 Tier: 0 Stats Per Level (SPL): 10 Free Stats (FS): 20 Titles: Early Adopter First Bond First Kill Traits: Anomalous Soul Primordial Psion Psionic Shroud System Guide Stats: Strength: 5 -> 6 Dexterity: 8 -> 9 Vitality: 5 -> 7 Perception: 13 -> 15 Intelligence: 11 -> 12 Willpower: 10 -> 11 Mana: 8 -> 9 Skills: Bond Communication (T1) Empathy (T1) Inspect (T2) Mana Imbuement (T1) Mana Sense (T1) Meditation (T2) Bond: Maus The stat increases, and the level gains.

The accumulated improvements from what had honestly been one of the top ten worst days of her life, top fifteen at least. All of this should have made Scarlet happy. Instead, she mechanically noted the changes, pulling out her designated notebook as she did. Then came the her updated skill list. By all reasonable metrics, today was a success. She should have been ecstatic. Then, she would see Maus' entry on the Interface. It was greyed out, and dull, like it was partially faded away.

For a moment Scarlet simply stared at it. Then she very deliberately closed the stat sheet. Her hand flexed once at her side before she exhaled slowly through her nose and refocused. She'd bury him properly, she promised before she focused back on the prompt.

"Later," she mumbled to herself. Finally, it was time she did something about that notification. [Combine Mana Imbuement with Mana Sense?] [Yes | No] [Yes] [Mana Manipulation: Active. The perception, control, and directed manipulation of mana within and around the user. Precision, efficiency, and complexity scale with control, understanding, and available mana reserves.] The change was immediate. There was nothing painful, or dramatic. No sudden flash of light or explosive revelations. She just understood.

The skill was as straight forward as it was complex. Mana Sense had allowed her to perceive mana. Mana Imbuement had allowed her to introduce mana into objects. Mana Manipulation gave her an instinctive understanding of the ways those two Skills worked, the actual mechanics of the Skills. The concept of Skill mechanics was both obvious and revelatory. Scarlet pulled out a 'Training Planner'. Glad she'd packed the notebook into the storage bag, just in case.

For the most part, gaining a new System Skill was like gaining sudden instinctive understanding about something. Thus far Scarlet had only consciously been using her Skills according to the understanding the System had given her. However, from what she could see on her Interface, and from what the 'Skill merge' process told her about Skills; they weren't static. There was a methodology behind Skills, and it might benefit her to explore the boundaries of hers, to push beyond just the basics the System gave her.

Mana Manipulation for example. Instead of just taking the System's word for what it could do – vague as it was – she decided to truly allow herself to experience the Skill. The mana inside her body became distinct to her senses. The ambient mana around her stopped feeling vague and atmospheric and became something more structured and distinct. Tangible. Pushing her Skill to give her only sensory feedback for now, the world in front of her eyes suddenly became so much more vivid.

Not only could she feel the mana, but she could also see it. Scarlet lifted one hand slowly, watching faint wisps of iridescent energy curl between her fingers. It was beautiful. After a few more minutes of experimentation, Scarlet figured out a way to toggle the 'mana sight' on and off without turning off the mana sensing part of the Skill entirely. It wasn't even that difficult. Before the Mana Manipulation Skill, the idea of working mana had felt daunting.

Even in meditation she'd only really been able to interact with her own. Now it felt, well, not easy, but definitely possible. She was already able to separate out the different types of mana. She couldn't yet identify them all, but she could differentiate them. The energy inside her body felt different from the energy in the room. The traces clinging to her weapons felt different as well. The residual mana in the poultice, the strange signatures embedded in the tower walls.

Each its own distinct, identifiable, fascinating signature. Carefully, Scarlet began testing the 'manipulation' part of the Skill. Nothing dramatic, just small pushes and pulls of some of the ambient mana. Tiny manipulations. Grouping small blobs and moving them in space. Seeing how many small blobs she could maintain and move about at once. (Five if they remained still, four if she needed to control them). She just explored what it felt like to manipulate mana.

Once she got a feel for it, it quickly became her one of her favourite skills. The ways to use the Skill were only limited by her own imagination and power. She became determined to practice with it until using it became second nature. Her senses remained spread outward while she experimented, adding the new mana sense to the mix. She had grown accustomed to constantly scanning her environment and was not inclined to stop just because this new place looked vaguely civilized. That was why she noticed it immediately.

Scarlet froze. For the first time since entering the tower her senses brushed past something alive. Not the ambient hum of tiny unseen creatures. Not the general low-level ecosystem noise she had grown accustomed to filtering out. This was something substantial, something she didn't immediately recognise, and it was moving. Her head turned slightly toward the inner door, every muscle in her body going still. It wasn't approaching. Whatever it was, it didn't feel like it was coming toward her.

If anything, it felt like it had been moving past, simply existing somewhere on the other side of the inner door. Whatever or whoever that creature was, its presence felt heavy. Like a weight in her senses. Being around it was like walking in increased gravity, or deep water. Or maybe it was more like catching sight of an enormous predator, just hoping your existence was too small for them to register. She couldn't get a good read on the creature.

The best she could come up with was that it didn't feel threatening, but it certainly didn't feel harmless. The closest comparison Scarlet could come up with was a bug briefly scurrying past a lion. The lion was dangerous; the question was if the bug had made itself enough of a nuisance to catch its notice. Scarlet stayed perfectly still. Then, because curiosity had always been one of her more dangerous personality traits, she reached outward with that strange sense of hers. Not mana, and not Empathy either.

That other energy she'd found herself tapping into, the one she was beginning to believe had something to do with her psionic trait. With that energy she just brushed against the creature, trying to get a clearer read. Nothing had ever responded to it before, so she should be fine if just the slightest – Something changed. The thing had noticed. Scarlet went cold. The moment she went from passive observer to prying deeper, even with her gentlest touch, it noticed.

She felt it pause, shuffle about a little, then lock on to her location. Whatever it was, it was headed right towards her.