Chương 136

-0-0-0-0-0- The Third Floor, The Dungeon, Atlantis -0-0-0-0-0- Sophie Ravenfield slid through the cooling shadows like a ghost. She once again allowed herself a mental squeal of joy at the sensation. So many of her old clique back in Tennessee would've killed to have darkness itself at their beck and call. Died for it, even. She supposed she did, with a mental wince. Damn that Geas. Even now, even thinking of her own death was painful. She didn't even know how she'd died, only that she had.

Refocusing, Sophie stalked the neon red tiger as it, itself, stalked her friends. She'd noticed it slinking through her shadows, and with a whispered warning to Akio and Bruce, Sophie had sunk into her own shadow. From within the shadows of the towering jungle trees, Sophie waited for the perfect moment to strike. There. It was about to pounce. The red tiger's shadow turned on it, tentacles pinning its paws and legs to the ground as others rose to tickle its exposed stomach.

As it began to struggle, confused, Sophie propelled herself out of a tree's shadow at speed. The pointy ends of her shortswords buried themselves in the side of its chest, slipping right past its ribs. It fell sideways under her momentum, letting out a choked 'mew' and then breathing its last. She must have nicked its heart. Sophie pulled her swords out and waved at the boys, who jogged over.

"Nice one, Soph!" Bruce called, smiling, as he knelt beside it, carving knife already out. He quickly examined the tiger's pelt while Sophie and Akio kept their heads on swivels.

"This one is much more intact than the last. It should sell well. Give me a few minutes." Bruce had learned how to skin animals during their cross-country trip, doing short hunts with random guilders to help feed the caravans they traveled with. A handy skill to have and valuable in the dungeon. The sooner you skinned a monster, the better. It was the same with butchering, to prevent rot from setting in. They'd do some basic butchery here but leave the rest.

Staying still for too long near a fresh corpse would draw the floor's monsters like flies. A beam of light erupted from Akio's forehead, piercing one of the firebirds as it tried to divebomb them. The birds were majestic, resembling a phoenix with their yellow-orange-red coloring and fire magic. Given that they didn't erupt into fire on their deaths, leaving a chick or egg behind in the ashes, they weren't actually phoenixes. The bird monster crashed unceremoniously into the ground with a dry thump.

There was movement in the canopy as the firebird's flock fled. The dungeon guidebook described waves of these things attacking relentlessly. In Sophie's experience, they were more opportunistic and picked their battles carefully. Akio had proved they were too hard a target with how easily he took that one down, and the rest didn't like their chances. They were still dungeon monsters, though, and didn't flee entirely. They just moved higher into the canopy.

If any other monsters attacked, potentially distracting them, Sophie knew the birds would take their chance to avenge their flockmate. Speaking of, Sophie infused her right sword, Raven, with Darkness mana and stabbed it into her shadow. There was a cry of pain, and a Kobold fell from a low-hanging branch. Shit! She'd thought it was a monster!

"Sorry!" Sophie called as the little lizardperson got to their feet.

"I didn't know what you were, and we're a little tense right now. Are you going to fight us, or are you a non-combatant?" The scowling kobold bore dark brown scales that blended perfectly into the bark of the trees, while its leaf-green tunic was lined with lime green tiger fur. Sophie had only noticed them through her shadows; otherwise, they'd have blended perfectly.

"Gobble not doing anything!" the kobold insisted, its voice... feminine? Sophie couldn't tell yet.

"Gobble's just keeping an eye on humans!" Gobble, the kobold, crouched slightly, looking uncertain.

"Humans... not attack Gobble?"

"Of course not. The Creator declared His Children off-limits unless they attack first, right?" Sophie answered, kneeling down to the kobold's level as she got closer.

"My name's Sophie. And you're Gobble, then?"

"Yes!" Gobble answered, looking... relieved? Lizardpeople's expressions were so human, but different enough that she couldn't be entirely sure.

"Gobble was looking for food. Gobble ate all the food at the village, and the others didn't like Gobble taking theirs."

"Is that why your name is Gobble, then? Do you like food? What kind of food?" For a few minutes, Sophie talked to the now-enthusiastic kobold about her newly revealed favorite topic. Once Bruce and Akio were done skinning and butchering the tiger, they joined her. She turned to them, a grinning kobold holding her hand.

"We're adopting her," Sophie declared. And that was that. Every proper party needed a mascot, right? -0-0-0-0-0- The Creator, Atlantis, Theona -0-0-0-0-0- Okay, that was enough for now. After a full, uninterrupted week of work and only having barely covered what I would call roughly a hundredth of the desert, I decided to move on to something more interesting before I went insane. Honestly, grinding down stone into fine particles of sand over and over and over...

Something different would definitely save my sanity, so I did a scan of the Twelfth. The Life manabeings continue to spread trees and grass across the southwestern forest. It was about half-done, I think. They got faster as time went on, actually. I suppose being surrounded by trees and life bolstered their mana and abilities in the same way a water manabeing was more potent in the water.

Something interesting that I noticed was that the growing forest was actually contributing mana to the manastream as it swirled through the sky. Not in a visible stream or anything, but it was like they were slowly leaking mana into the world. In smaller numbers, it wouldn't be a noticeable amount, but this forest was already the single largest concentration of plant life in my dungeon.

Checking my upper floors, I could confirm that the trees, mushrooms, and plants were likewise contributing minute amounts of mana, at least the ones that were entirely made of living matter and not still partially made of mana. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. That was another thing; this forest was actually physical.

Growing things with mana always ended up with the mana 'pretending' to be physical until the being absorbed or ate enough nutrients or other matter to replace the mana with flesh or plant matter. This forest, grown with what I could assume was pure life mana, circumvented that stage entirely. Veeery interesting. But that was a diversion. Looking throughout the dungeon, I noticed this mana 'leakage' in all large concentrations of 'elemental' forces.

The oceanic current on the Eleventh Floor was mainly fed by the stream coming in from the surface ocean, but there was a noticeable amount of mana joining it and growing it on the Eleventh Floor itself. The Sixth contributed a bit of fire and earth mana, specifically from the lava lakes, which were mostly used in the upkeep of the lava waterfalls, so they were more offsetting the cost than anything else.

Hell, even the manastream in the sky of the Eleventh likewise grew slightly rather than shrank as it flowed through to the Twelfth. My conclusion is that mana leaks into this world through whatever conceptual medium is linked to that mana type. Where does it come from? The same place the manabeings come from; essentially infinite elemental planes linked to their conceptual elements.

Following that, theoretically, if one concept was erased from the material plane, such as life or fire being wiped out due to the heat death of the universe... It may cut off access to that plane. Of course, that was only a theory. But it would explain why there was a seemingly endless amount of mana pouring into my dungeon from all sources. Alright, enough heavy thoughts. It's time for some light-hearted creationism!

The growing forest had spread into the 'center' of the area I planned to cover, so I could start my World Tree! I picked out a sturdy-looking Oak tree. I picked the oak tree specifically for its wide, low canopy and snaking branches, which would provide plenty of space to live on for my future tree-bound civilization. I enlisted the aid of a nearby group of sprites and the Life Spirit while the rest continued spreading the forest. I started with a seed.

First, I used mana to enlarge the seed, making it big enough to work with; then, I tried to condense the mana into a manacore in the center of the seed. It took a surprising amount to 'germinate,' but it was successful, producing a perfectly spherical core. With that done, I dove into the seed's genetics. I didn't want another thing I'd have to micromanage, so I wanted to ensure it grew in a particular way. An incredibly thick but relatively 'stubby' trunk compared to the branches that would spread from it.

Next, I had to address the root system. This was an entirely closed space, and the few yards of arable soil the sprites had produced so far wouldn't be close enough to enough, even with the shallow-rooting oak. After that, it was the floor of the Twelfth. I could hook all the trees into one organism, a real 'the tree is the forest' situation, but that wouldn't solve my problem. Cool concept, though. To make it as large as I needed it to be... I needed a second enlarged space.

And I know it wasn't advisable to make an expanded space, inside an expanded space, but, from the tests I'd performed ages before when first studying the expansion enchantments, they shouldn't collapse the whole thing. Either way, first, I had to raise the forest floor, bringing in rock to create a gently sloped 'hill' from which the tree would grow. The slope was so shallow that it would be almost impossible to notice. I made a 'room' about a mile in length and width, but only a hundred yards deep.

I carefully enchanted the walls, maintaining the thousand-yard circle that would be the 'entrance' the tree would grow its roots into. Once it was the right size, about doubled in all directions, I began the process of filling it.... And now I've traded one tedious task for another. All well, at least this shouldn't take as long. -0-0-0-0-0- The Forest, Training Area, Atlantis -0-0-0-0-0- Elize Phenoc could never have expected to end up in this situation. Her life had been a simple one for a bastard.

Her mother was common, a woman the king had lain with during a tour of the kingdom and had tried to raise her humbly. At around age five, the village people- she didn't remember the name- noticed something that her mother had tried very hard to hide. She had a noble's face. Delicate features; a straight nose, defined jawline, almond eyes... her hair was finer and less prone to tangling.

Elize's mother had left with her before they could count the months between the king's passing through on his way to the west coast and her birth. They traveled to the capital in caravans, even though it took almost a year. At the age of six, she met her father for the first time. She didn't remember much of her early life, but a few moments stood out. Her father had her face. Her hair. Even if she'd gained her mother's eye color. Elize remembered him saying she looked as if he was born a girl.

She remembered how he promised a modest living, but they must live in obscurity. He had heirs, a wife, and if it was known he'd fathered a bastard... especially when his pregnant Queen was raising his heir while he toured the kingdom... And they'd done so. They'd lived in the cheapest area of the noble district, right next to the market bridge. As she grew older, her father provided an amulet to disguise her features. She fingered the place on her neck where it'd once rested.

It was long lost, taken by the steward when she'd been taken. She scowled at the thought of that man. It was inevitable someone would figure something out. Her father had done his best to make his visits discreet and random, but he was the king of the whole continent. He had guards, and his movements were watched closely. At some point, the steward had discovered them. Hours after the castle exploded, palace guards broke down the door, killed her mother in front of her, and kidnapped her.

She next woke in her own personal prison.

"Healer!" Elize was jolted from her increasingly dark thoughts by the shout and raised her wand towards it. Oh. Right. It was only the leader of her party, a group of guilders, who'd agreed to take her on until she could join her friends in the dungeon. Elize lowered her wand as he approached, rubbing his head. A slow trail of blood ran from his forehead, around his eyebrow, then down the side of his face.

"One of those flying rabbits got me. I need some healing." Elize sighed and raised her wand again. She called upon the mana in her core, letting it grow through her body and down her arm before directing it through the wand. Healing was hard. While not the most dangerous element to wield, in Elize's humble opinion, life mana was the most complicated and unwieldy. If not treated with ironclad control and discipline, the mana was prone to do things other than healing.

Some of those things could prove far worse for the patient than their initial injury. Until a senior healer had tested her and judged her spells good enough, she would use this wand. It was enchanted to produce a basic healing spell that would encourage wound regeneration and blood replenishment. Slightly worse than a potion, but Elize could do this dozens of times before she started running out of mana. She'd only get better as time went on, too.

She hovered the wand's tip over the bloody spot in the young man's hair and released the spell. Focused on such a small area, it healed quickly, and she cut off the spell. With how careless her party members had been getting and all the minor wounds they'd been accumulating... She felt like she'd need to conserve mana.

"I must once again warn you not to let your guard down," Elize chastised him.

"If that flying hare had-""Hey, hey, hey. No need to worry. We've got you!" The careless man interrupted her with a smile and a 'roguish grin.' Elize once again studied his face. He was common. Common as the dirt under Elize's boots. One of the rare commoners lucky enough to be born with a manacore and possessed an overinflated sense of his own strength. Probably loved being the strongest, fastest, and most energetic kid in his village and had yet to realize that didn't make him special.

Oh, and he also had a crush on her. He wasn't subtle about it, and Elize wasn't particularly interested. He was dull, uninteresting, and not worth her time. His smile wavered and slipped at her impassive gaze. He gave an awkward 'right' and moved back to where his party members desperately tried to cut open the knee-height slime slowly rolling towards them. Elize sighed. Hopefully, it won't take too long.

She idly flicked a dagger at the ground, spearing the single-horned rabbit that'd lunged for her thigh with a squealing warcry. She glanced back at the three young men, celebrating over the blue puddle of slime. Gods, she hoped it wouldn't take too long. -0-0-0-0-0-