Magic Breaker Ch 127-129 (Patreon)

Chapter 127: Undercover

We hide.

Like rats, we hide. Bile digs for us. Underneath the shed where Amelie keeps her minions, he digs. The fourth floor’s underground is full of bones, full of skeletons just wanting to claw themselves free, but we butcher them. I sit with him, I live down there with him. And I hide.

No one sees me. Not Kuro as my cloak, no healing abilities, and I keep my mana under a tight leash. I’ve seen the way it rolls off of other people, and I don’t want that, I don’t want anyone to know where I am, where I’m doing. So I suppress myself. Physically, magically, I train.

[Intuition 4 > 6]

My skill levels, feeding me an understanding of what normal mana looks like. I observe the people above me, as they walk along the streets - never touching their mana, just letting it brush up against my senses.

And I watch. I compare. I observe. I learn.

[Observation 13 > 14]

That’s the funny thing about being a rat. I notice a lot of what happens in the town above. But I keep my skills to myself. Even when others cast things, even when I feel the pulses of abilities, the glowing mana that comes from them, I stay quiet. I dig, I lay low, I eat in the underground bunker, I live in the underground bunker.

Bile buys books for me. Amelie earns money, staying on the walls to guard the town, and joining me in the bunker to experiment on her minions. There are so many bones buried down here, most of them undead, and we kill them by the dozen as Bile excavates.

[You have killed a lv. 32 Skeleton]

[You have killed a lv. 29 Skeleton]

[You have killed a lv. 35 Zombie]

Those are the usual candidates. It smells of bones and rotten flesh, but I wear my headphones. My batters is out, but I still wear them, hoping for the day Bay can come back and charge them. It’s miserable, but I use even more instances of [Suppression] and [Selection].

I keep the two skills running until my mind hurts, until the migraine builds behind my eyes, and I need to use restoration spells on myself. 

[Suppression 23 > 24]

But I also grow. I can feel it, every day. The way my limits were removed. How my mind is more than just my brain. How I keep three instances of [Suppression active] while enchanting. One on my vessel, to keep my mana tame and calm, the attunement loop. One on my body, to train my physical stats, what I’ve dubbed the cruncher, because it squeezes all my bones. And one on the noise around me. On Bile’s digging and the incessant sounds from above. I block out everything that’s unimportant, focusing only on the mana and the space around me.

And so, we hide and we dig. The longer Bile sticks around, the more I want some kind of terrain-manipulation. It seems so useful. So, sometimes, when he’s out of mana, I lend him some of mine, which is usually overflowing, and deconstruct his digging skill until I have it perfectly recorded in my archive.

[Memorization 6 > 7]

And that, finally, leads to the biggest part of my work. I experiment. I work with my Archive. The tower fed me the abilities that the priest, Ezekiel, uses. How he heals, how he fights, how he breathes. The way he summons fire, the way he applies marks. It’s all outdated, but that’s fine. After all, I have nothing but time.

So I experiment. I cast his healing spell, and modify it, and see what happens. Again and again and again I cast his spell. Over and over and over. I test it on myself, on the stump of my arm, and it makes my skin itch. Sometimes it regrows. Sometimes a bit of it rots away. It hurts, but that’s just pain.

My eyes bleed. My brain hurts. My magic succeeds and fails, but I record it all. I build a profile. Of not just the skill he had but of what the skill could be. Its potential. I feel the guiding pull of [Intuition] and I listen. To the way the mana wants to be shaped, to how it might be most efficient.

Essence guides me, though I’m not proficient at healing. But I have so much source material. The spells the other priests of Lurelia used. Philia, the Darkbreaker, and her golden flames. They’re all sponsored by her. Ezekiel is, too.

That’s why she has so much agency over him. Their classes are sponsored by her. They use similar skills. And Lurelia, while being an Eye, a powerful thing so high above me in the tower, she still has patterns. Patterns that, bit by bit, I uncover.

I compare, in my dinky, dark, underground research hall. I hide away like a rat, working tirelessly, catching sleep only when I need it, until my mind teeters on the brink of exhaustion, and when I sleep, I dream of patterns. Of connections. I dream of the archive.

Obsessively, brutally, I work. My friends fights. Opal and Thatch grind their levels, Amelie thrives on the floor, Bile builds with me, Richard gathers info and allies in town, cooking meals. Norman feeds me details about the floor, and about mana figures, and steals books.

Books which I devour when my mind cools down from the works. Books on enchanting, on runes, on sigils and arrays. I’m a rat. A coward. I hide in the tunnels, and we dig and dig and dig. 

But we’ll be ready for them.

Chapter 128: Boneweaving

PoV: Amelie Ehrenherz - Spider

Snow is a maniac.

The fourth floor smells like rot. Like decay. Like corpses. Occasionally, there are impacts, when bodies fall down from a higher floor, from the floating islands up there. But our bunker? The labyrinth Bile is digging?

It smells of iron. Blood. 

The earth around Snow is stained red. I look over at the hunched figure, currently devouring a book, eyes staring unblinkingly at the pages. For a moment, I wonder if Snow is more like the undead on this floor than a human. I compare the frail shape to that of a wraith, their dark mantle to that of a revenant.

Bloodshot eyes turn to me, and Snow smile’s. I shiver when Snow’s lips part, and blood spills out. For a moment, I see surprise written across that face. I see that mouth snap shut, and a golden wave of healing spread across pale skin. And then, noise.

“I have the next inscription prepared,” Snow says, voice hoarse. It sounds like a dead frog, like someone’s last rasp on the deathbed.

“Drink some water, for the love of all that is worthy,” I say, exasperatedly, pressing that refilling bottle forward. For a moment, Snow just seems confused, but after blinking a few times, the weirdo takes the phial and gulps down a few mouthfuls of water. 

“Will you work with me now?” This time, the voice comes out calm, collected. Raspy, but not near-death. 

I sigh, suitably dramatically, and nod. “If I must,” I agree, then look to the inlay we’ve prepared.

There’s been a change since I came to this floor. My class has taken almost naturally to it, and so did I. It feels strange, to be so at home between shambling ghouls, and yet, they don’t scare me. The yellow-white buildings feel comfortable to me. The stale air is familiar.

Perhaps it’s because I, too, am a rotten thing. The thought makes me snicker, and I look at the inlays again. My job has evolved on this floor, after I took an apprenticeship. My talents are respected here. Summoners or controller-types apparently often spend months on the fourth floor - or so the compendium says. 

And so, seeing my puppeteering, an elderly necrobuilder took me under their wing. They’re a scithian, and almost scary, but the silks wrapped around them are exquisite.

[The Bonetwister eagerly awaits your next work.]

And, of course, I gained a fan. I sigh, activating my new skill, and get to work.

[Boneweaving 3 > 4]

One of the skeletons we’d dug up and dispatched comes apart. It’s bizarre to look at, even now. The bones that construct its body come apart, unravelling into strings. It takes a good bit of time, and I use my hand to draw out more of the material, then give it to Snow.

The bone-string is soaked in mana, and our anti-mage takes to it like a fish to water. Snow places the strings, defly integrating them into the lattice they’ve built. 

In our underground bunker-labyrinth, there is a sprawling construction. Square meters of densely webbed thread, layering inscriptions and enchantments. The material adheres to itself fluently, allowing it to be worked almost as if 3D-printing something by hand. Snow shapes it, creating thin plates to inscribe, or enchantments that are woven themselves.

Mana pours out from that endless vessel. There seems to be always more mana in there, and it sends a shiver down my spine. Even I’ve invested a good bit into heart, to keep my body together. Mana is heavy. It doesn’t want to be caged. And yet, Snow doesn’t seem to leak much. Instead, everything about the mana coming from them is almost mundane. Average. 

But it never stops.

Magic pours from their fingers unceasingly, and the threads twist in Snow’s hand as I spin more of it. Seconds turn to minutes, then a full hour, until we’ve undone yet another body, added yet another segment to the enchantment.

“Thank you,” Snow tells me with a nod, looking at the newly added part with satisfaction. “It didn’t explode. That’s good.”

I stare. “Excuse me, please do not do explosive experiments around me,” I note drily, but with a good bit of offense in my voice.

Slowly, the uncaring bastard turns to me, then blinks those bloodshot eyes. “Right,” Snow says. “Yeah. I’ll get some sleep. Can you make me more thread?”

“Fine,” I say. “Look out for your-”

Before I finish, the undignified cretin is already asleep. I feel my eye twitch in fury, then I take a deep breath, and calm myself. I discard the rage, and push my wheelchair up the ramp into the base, and to the wall. “Ungrateful little…” I stifle the words, biting down on them as I make my way to work. 

Despite everything, I know Snow wants me safe. Despite everything, I find myself liking the coldhearted critter. And I could not be more angry that Opal is right. Because no matter how angry I get, somehow, I cannot bring myself to hate Snow.

But I am a little afraid of that enchantment. Just a little.

- - -

PoV: Snow Okiyama - Ion

[Inscription 17 > 18]

A tapestry of runes sprawls out in front of my. My vision is blurry, and I wipe the blood from my eyes, casting another heal on myself. Every single limb of mine aches, squished by the cruncher, but I endure. I can feel my body growing stronger, so I intensify the pressure with each day. My mind grows, and so I increase the strain on it.

Nowadays, I work on modifying the spells in my archive at the same time as I work on the enchantments. It makes my eyes bleed, but what else is new? The working is important. It’s by far the biggest thing I’ve ever made, and I could not have done it on my own. 

Bile is creating the space. Amelie is providing me with mana-conductive bone, in both thread and plates, letting me carve and weave the enchantments. Norman is hiding the whole thing from the people above, and Opal keeps bringing me more books about runes. Richard keeps me fed, and the meals are so heavy in calories that small snacks can sustain me for a day.

We all work together to prepare. I wear my mind ragged with experimentation, with an enchantment that’s a specific gift for a specific person. I weave and work, coldly, calmly, steadily. Unwavering. 

Blood drips onto the enchantment, lifeblood leaching into the ground, and I blink redness from my vision. I craft more runes, I inlay them, stacking circles atop each other. It’s a butchered thing, but I learn as I work.

[Job Up! Imbuer 14 > 17]

More mana enters my vessel, kept low by my attunement loop. It pours out of me in a steady stream as I weave and carve and inscribe. Essence fuels me from advancing my job over level 15, and it guides my hand as I learn from it, taking the lessons apart.

“Ah,” I mutter. “So that’s how to properly stack runes…” 

Instantly, I adjust my work, layering the inscriptions more heavily. I carve runes, then place another bit of bone-weave on top, the lattice that fuels this entire place growing thicker. More blood spills from my eyes as my brain fizzles and sputters, and I direct more healing to it, patterns of mana fueling me.

Even the steady flow of mana from my vessel is almost too much to endure with how much mana I have in comparison to my physical stats. But I don’t stop. When the inside of my skin burns, I heal it. 

The slow trickle of red and blue contrasts each other. And the ground underneath me stirs.

“Oh,” I say quietly. “I think blood may attract the undead.”

How lovely. I was almost out of bones to work with.

Chapter 129: Material Supply

A hundred skeletons lay dead around me, a dozen are already rising again on Amelie’s strings, and yet more crawl from the ground. But they’re slow, already, and as I open the floodgates, they slow even more.

My attunement loop decreases in power, and I let my mana spill out of me in a grand [Suppression]. It’s crushing, driving some of the undead to the ground, easily. My solidified mana-needles pierce through their empty eye sockets, and the remnants of animation fizzle out. 

They die a second death, and I grow, the tower witnessing my superiority. 

[Level Up! 57 > 58]

Three more points go into my vessel, and it trembles as it grows. More mana courses through me, when the ground properly cracks.

Dirt splutters into the air as a hand of not just bone and meat reaches from it. Instead, it’s covered in a ghostly green light, a facsimile of flesh and skin, woven from my necromancy. I watch with curiosity as the thing rises from the ground, wearing a long cloak of ghostly green. 

[Revenant lv. 52]

It’s strong. And it clearly bears a mantle, even if it’s corrupted by whatever is reanimating the corpses. I stare at the thing, and feel its mana move. Its vessel is cracked and weakened. It leaks mana with every motion. But it’s also huge. 

Shards of mana-glass constitute a core almost twice as large as mine. It must have been much stronger when alive. I see those animated eyes fixate on me, and even more mana leaks out from it.

A thin haze of dark green spreads in the chamber, and I feel it pressing back against my suppression. It’s not even a skill, just raw mana. Which makes me laugh. A small laugh at first, then slightly louder, as I pour more power into [Suppression].

My blue-grey clashes with the mist, forcing it low to the floor. Mana pours from that cracked vessel at a phenomenal rate. It should overpower me, but it can’t. Because it’s inefficient. Raw mana against a skill? That’s no way to win.

So the revenant changes tactics. It steps towards me with a blindingly fast movement, and I feel a rapier stab into my shoulder. Instantly, rot infects me, and my flesh begins to decay - and then I focus. [Selection] and [Observation] latch onto two patterns, the one for the sword, and the one for the poison.

The weapon is simpler. A manifestation, kind of like my [Solidification]. I figure it out in a heartbeat, and the weapon shatters. The poison resists those attempts, and starts to spread, but before it can, my mantle waves around my shoulders. Geometric sigils flash on the invisible fabric.

My shadow, Kuro, wraps around the revenant when it tries to step back, and I conjured a mana needle, then infuse it with the remnants of Philia’s golden flames. The green necromancy screams as the gold approaches it, and I watch it fall off the revenant’s body.

Again, it tries to step back, tearing at the shadows… but Kuro has grown. They’re keeping up. They, too, made it to the fourth floor. They carry a mantle as well. And so, the shadows tighten their hold, and I burn away the necromancy with holy light that I rightfully stole.

Then, I wait.

The revenant conjures up their sword again, and I shatter it. It tries to spit poison at me, and I pick that skill apart, too. Half an hour later, when I’ve exhausted every skill it has, and recorded their remnants in my archive, I finish it off.

[Level Up! 58 > 59]

[Class Up! Nullmage 19 > 20]

I breathe a long breath as my vessel grows. The poison breaks apart underneath my skin, and I heal the wound shut with a torrent of mana. With the roadblock cleared, I kneel down to work on the enchantment again, and fall over as my knees give in. “Ah, dang,” I say quietly. 

Then I black out.

- - -

[You have been granted a possible epitaph. Accept?]

[Epitaph: Perpetual Pursuit]

“And what did you learn from this?” Amelie asks me, exasperated.

“Absolutely nothing,” Opal replies with a snicker. “Look into those eyes. Do those look like learned eyes? No! I bet there was some kind of shiny reward.” They lean over my shoulder, as if trying to get a look at my menus.

With a small sigh, I make the notification visible to them, and they give a whistle. “Whoowee. There is a reward! I knew it!”

Amelie groans and rubs her eyes. “I can’t believe it,” she says, the words muffled by her hands across her face. “I can’t believe it.”

[Epitaph: Perpetual Pursuit (Heart)

Perfection the traitor, a goal to surpass.

Heart beats fainter, still we last.]

“So? What’s it say?” Opal asks with a grin. Once more, I make the window visible to them, and they read it out. Amelie frowned, but Richard gave me an upbeat smile.

“It suits you,” the hiy’ht said. “Very much.”

Norman scoffed, leaning against a wall. “Yeah, it does. Maybe then you can work yourself to death without dying.” Despite the coldness of his words, I find myself amused. Because he doesn’t want me to die - he just can’t say it. Softie. 

I smile faintly, reading the lines again. A Perpetual Pursuit, to always strive higher… Almost on instinct, I look upwards. Isn’t that a funny metaphor for the tower itself? That I want to climb all the way to the top, and see what’s beyond. It definitely suits me better than my other offer, Hunter’s Heart. 

With a small nod, I decide. “Accept,” I say out loud. 

[Epitaph Etched.]

One moment to another, my skin burns. A change ripples across me, and I feel heat and cold course through my veins at once. A hiss escapes my teeth and my insides writhe. It feels like when Kuro first tried to eat me - or at least just as invasive. It’s not painful, not exactly, just supremely uncomfortable.

And then, in a blink, the sensation is gone. I sat there, twitching in my chair for five minutes, and then it disappeared, and time seems to resume. I draw in a first breath, and the change is almost violent. In its comparison.

Air floods me easily. I can feel the way that the exhaustion bleeds off me. My heart thumps almost loudly in my ears, blood rushing through me. Everything feels easy, as if some invisible weight was lifted off me. I call up my status.

Name: Snow Okiyama - Ion

Floor: 4

Class: <Nullmage> - 20 (II)

Job: <Imbuer> - 17 (II)

Mantle: Architect of the Assembled Archive

Lv. 59

Heart: 52 - Perpetual Pursuit

Power: 26

Vessel: 307 - Abiding Apathy

My stats have grown again, by themselves. Especially my heart. That’s… what, 20 points of growth? Did etching the epitaph push it up? Maybe that was why this one felt like a more intense change than when I got Abiding Apathy.

“You look better now, Snow,” Thatch notes with a smile. He was always the most perceptive, and I return the look. 

“I feel better,” I say. Then I finish another bite of food, get up, dust off my clothes and shrug. “Which means it’s time to get back to doing some more enchanting.”

A lot of palms met a lot of foreheads as I headed right back into the basement.

Two weeks later, explosions start rocking the surroundings.