Magic Breaker Ch 229 - 231 (Patreon)

Chapter 229: Leviathan

The first thing we do is run. Run and keep running, avoiding the bones like the plague. After Cool’s little mistake, I have to strongly reconsider how dead the skeletons around are. In fact, I make sure to keep my mana close to myself, just to make sure they don’t feed off it, either.

Which is troublesome, because that also happens to be how I see. Keeping it close means I stumble more than once, only for Wire to eventually reach my side. Kuro extends a shadow-chain, and she grabs onto that, speeding up, yanking me through the water at horrific speeds.

What a considerate woman. She even waited so she wouldn’t touch me. Truly, she is my favourite of this group, now. So long as I don’t get eaten or crushed to death in the next fifteen seconds, which seems like a more unlikely proposal than I’d like.

My mana pulses out, and I send more above, in a cone, trying to find something. It passes through layers and layers of brackish, dark water, and then hits something. Something big, long, sharp.

A jagged thing, cylindrical, tapering towards the front, but curving, so I never see its end. A little like Richard’s chelicerae… a pincer.

I swallow drily.

Just that pincer is the size of a house.

I can feel something enormous, far bigger than even any of the leviathan skeletons here watch me from the dark. Mana coalesces in the water, and I quickly summon my own, putting up barriers.

A condensed jet-stream of pressure slams into the mana I put up and shatters it in moments, but it does slow down. Then, with a ripple of authority, it speeds right back up, shooting through Wire’s leg. A silent scream escapes her mouth, the bubbles of air the only evidence of her agony, and the water stains red.

Instantly, I see the bones around us quiver and writhe. The blood streams towards them, gathering around the long-dead material, and for a moment, the bones sprout muscle and sinew. Pale tissue sprouts on osseous ground like moss, growing in layers - until that horrid authority turns on them.

I blink, and the flesh vanishes. The ocean around it turns to razorblades, carving it away, and the swordfish descend a moment later to devour the chunk. More blood leaks slowly from Wire’s wound, even as she grits her teeth to take another step. I [Suppress] her pain.

And, I figure out what I must do.

Swallowing heavily, I turn to the skeleton. I pick a single rib - a towering thing at least two stories tall, and [Select] it.

My mind is torn into. A torrent of information floods across that connection, and it sounds like a thousand tiny organisms are screaming for help. An entire symphony of undying agony rips into my head, the thought so desperately loud and horrific I can’t even think.

[Selection 34 > 35]

Blood leaks from my nose at the pain and the bones sing to me. Instantly, the authority shifts off us some more, and targets the bones. Even that tiny trail of my blood let the skeleton begin healing again. It needs countermeasures.

Swarms of swordfish, and the attention of the leviathan. Just to deal with its regeneration. And all we need is… time.

A wicked grin spreads on my lips. With a single, simple motion, I summon a mana-knife - and promptly plunge it into the shoulder of my missing arm, drawing a jagged line across my body. Salty water touches the wound, and the sting is exquisite, but I bear with it.

[Suppression 38 > 39]

My blood turns into a red cloud, sucked towards the ancient bone. Wire takes another step, dragging me along, leaving a trail of red, magnetized towards the ancient fossil. Flesh grows from what I feed it. My mouth starts to bleed, too, as the chorus in my head turns euphoric.

But I can do better. After all, according to [Selection], the bones are clearly alive…

And I’m a healer.

[Biological Alteration] charges up with a very, very respectable seventy percent of my mana. I feel a whine go through the world, through my body. My vessel strains, my channels burn from the effort, and my flesh heats up. But, despite everything, I maintain control. 

My mind locks around my mana. It’s wild, brutal, energetic. It thrashes and writhes and struggles to expand, to push outwards, to ruin everything and anything in its path.

But that’s not who I am. This is my mana. And I am nothing if not controlled. Polite and Efficient. 

I breathe in, on reflex, and water pours into my mouth. Regretting my decision, I try to ignore the horrible sensation and focus. Mana pours, roars, rages against my touch, but it still latches onto the tether I have. [Selection]. It directs my mana, gives it purpose, imbues it with my intent, and helps me control it properly.

A heartbeat passes, then a second, and a torrent of mana pours out of me, then into the bone. And, from one moment to another, it freezes. 

The shaking stops. The chorus in my mind goes silent. The bones freeze. I feel the water around me cool down, as if the faint warmth it holds is being sucked away. My body cools down, and I feel the spark of heat in my chest fall apart.

Next, the authority moves away from me in full. Whatever the leviathan is, it’s clever. It knows there’ll be trouble. So, it crushes the bone with its authority. Wire takes another step, dragging me through the water.

And then, finally, I see the effect.

My mana takes hold of the bones, every last drop having moved across the tether. Silence hangs for a moment more, then the chorus in my mind screams. It’s with such easy elation that I’m stunned for a moment, the noise so overwhelming I almost want to join in.

I cut the tether. [Selection] falls apart, and the bones drink that mana, too, falling into the maelstrom. Blood and mana drift through the water into the skeleton, and I watch flesh bloom forth at unprecedented speeds. It moves like a living thing would, muscles spawning, writhing, crawling over each other.

And the water roars in protest. Icicles coalesce and tear into the monstrous regeneration. Swordfish descend in swarms, sawing away. Blasts of pressure and authority tear away hunks of meat the size of buildings. Blood fills the water in a swath, so dense it’s hard to see even with my scans.

Also, the regenerating meat is tearing at my mana whenever I do try to look around, so that’s annoying. In fact, it bothers me so much, I [Deconstruct] part of the healing spell, and suddenly, the fish-bones stop touching my mana. 

Which is good.

Sighing softly, I let myself be pulled through the water. We get away just as the leviathan’s true body descends onto the bones, scouring pale flesh with its pincers. A gigantic body that could tear me in half with a simple accident moves through the water with such grace it doesn’t even disturb it.

My mind glints. Jets of pressure descend, and I feel my curiosity rise. The leviathan doesn’t disturb the water as it moves through it. It’s so very, very… Efficient. Water and air bubbles from my mouth as I breathe out.

Then I do what I do best. Be a little clingy vulture. When skills are cast, I sabotage them just a little, picking off tiny fragments of their essence. When the flesh writes and forms magical constellations, when it regenerates, I steal bits of info from that, too. Never enough to attract attention.

Both combatants turn to me with a fragment of their knowledge, with a hint of annoyance and rage - but they’re locked in battle, unwilling to give any ground to their opponent. So, when leviathans fight, I feast.

I steal, I scrounge for tiny bits of information, and as I gather chips of their skills, I exhaust my mana. My eyes bleed, my brain is fried, and blood keeps leaking from my wounds, and yet, I laugh.

[Annexation 14 > 15]

And I keep stealing all the way until we’re through the portal to the safe zone.

- - -

“Ah, you finally made it,” the princeling greets us. Cassian Seetang. 

In and of itself, that’s fine. But at the same time, Wire has a hole in her leg and he stands between us and the healing fountain. “Get out of the way,” I say, stepping up to him.

Cassian smiles gleefully, crossing his arms as he eyes the trickle of blood down my shoulder. “Oh, so you can speak, after all! What, has this floor finally beaten the arrogance out of you?” 

“Move,” I tell him. This time, my words are cold. “It’s the last time I’m asking politely.”

Once again, the lordling moves his lips to retort, but this time, Grisha steps in. Her meaty hand lands on his shoulder, pulling him aside. She throws me a look, the grin from her face gone. I just nod, and step forward, dragging Wire now.

She’s passed out since we made it to the safe zone, and the both of us leak a trail of blood. Behind me, the portals hums, spitting out the rest of our party. Cool and Nerves made it through relatively unscathed, Pout and Lars took some cuts. Arithia looks the worst, blood streaming from a dozen wounds across her body. She’s missing an eye, and yet she just grins.

“Hah! Fun floor!” she says happily. Cassian pales a little at the sight of her face. She turns to the lordling, tilts her head, then grins wider. “Huh? Never seen a lady bleed before? See, this happens during certain times each month-”

Hastily, he brings up his hands. “Enough of that! Do not speak to me, peasant!” Cassian says, turning away. There’s a soft sound of him coughing and Arithia grins at the sight. Grisha eyes us, her brows furrowing.

“You bit off more than you could chew,” she says quietly.

I shake my head, washing my face with water while putting Wire lips up against the fountain. She gulps down a bit, then awakens with a start, gasping and looking around. I nod at her for a moment, letting her get her bearings, as I turn to Grisha. Blood still pours from my shoulder in steady pulses, in tune with my heartbeat.

“It was a fine floor to choose,” I reply. “We didn’t figure out the puzzle fast enough to avoid getting attacked.”

“The puzzle?” Pout demands angrily. “What puzzle?! The part where we had a leviathan ready to tear us to pieces?” they ask.

Gently, I shake my head, letting them have a drink from the fountain next. A lightning bolt splits the sky, shedding light through the glass ceiling. “We would never have been attacked if we didn’t bleed in the boneyard.”

“Ah,” Grisha says quietly. “The boneyard. Feck. That’s a nightmare. Sorry, kids.”

I tilt my head at her. “You know it?”

She nods. “It’s my twenty-second time up the Stormcloud mono, whelp. I’ve seen almost every floor it has to offer, and the boneyard’s nasty. It’s a simple trick, but avoiding bleeding is a shitshow. Especially ‘cuz bandages ain’t enough. You’d need a healer.”

“Yeah,” I say slowly. “You would.”

“How’d you make it?” she asks.

“Fed the bones enough blood to distract the leviathan.”

Grisha whistles. “Brave. Clever, too.” Her eyes glint. “Let me tutor you, whelp.”

At that, Cassian perks up again. “What?!” he demands. “You would accept a low-born like that as a disciple?” 

The old woman smiles, her steel skin crinkling with delight. “Cassian,” she says. “Your parents pay me well, but not well enough to let you mouth off like that.”

He flinches back a step, unconsciously. I watch for a moment, then he grits his teeth, and draws a sword. It’s an elegant rapier, long and thin, the same beautiful runes as before sprawling down its edge. 

And he points it at me. “You have dishonored me!” he declares haughtily. “I challenge you to a duel!”

Oh come on, I’ve not even had a drink.

Chapter 230: Honour and Magic

“... A duel?” I ask.

Cassian looks at me with a grimace. He looks… on the verge of tears, actually. How old even is he? “Yes!” Cassian supplies haughtily, sniffing in a mix of upsetness and disgust. “You have besmirched my honor. You are attempting to steal my tutor from me, you have used your mana against me. I will not abide this.”

“Cassian,” Grisha warns. “This is a poor choice you’re making.”

I tilt my head slowly. “How old are you? What level?”

“I am nineteen years of age, more than enough to shut one as you up, and my supremacy is beyond a hundred!” he declares.

“Just barely,” Grisha grumbles. She places a scarred palm on her scarred face and shakes her head. “Splendid,” she sighs. “A duel.”

“To the death?” I ask curiously.

Instantly, the air freezes. For a moment, no one moves. Even Arithia runs out of quips, instead just staring at me, open-mouthed. Leo draws in a bit of air through his teeth. “Cassian is a duke’s son,” he provides helpfully. “Killing him would cause you quite some trouble, Yuki.”

“To the death!” Cassian demands, offended at the implication he’d lose.

I sigh. “To first blood,” I say, with a wave of my hand. He moves to protest, but I interrupt. “You still get to claim your honor back. We haven’t bled each other yet. Get a taste, then the full meal,” I tell him. Then I shrug. “I’m not dueling to the death. Too much trouble.”

For a moment, the young lord splutters with indignation. Then he grunts. “Fine!” he eventually admits. “To first blood then! I will deal you a wound like no other - we shall wager a scar on it.”

“A magical item,” I say. “If you win, I’ll keep the scar, forever. If I win, I want an item.”

“As if you’d win,” he scoffs. Grisha’s face sinks further into her palms. The automaton guard gives a burst of steam from her mouth. I stare at him, and just wait. Then, finally, he scoffs. “Fine,” he says. “I suppose in the unlikely event of my loss, losing an item would be preferable to letting you scar me.”

Once he agrees, I nod, and quickly feel the Ire retreat. The monolith was watching, I note, deciding if we’d be doing bloodshed in the safe-zone, but with a duel arranged, Cassian is likely to wait until we make it somewhere else. 

Apparently deciding that he’s done with me, the lordling turns to Grisha. “You, madame Wartorn, shall be my second.” 

“... Aye,” she says, still holding her face in her hands. “I shall.”

Right. A… second. I turn to Leo, who gives me a small smile. “Means someone to witness the duel, and participate if you can’t,” he provides.

I turn at my motley crew of idiots. Arithia looks at me brightly, blood still leaking from her ruined eyeball. Wire lays on the floor, panting as the flesh on her leg tries to regenerate. Pout and Nerves refuse to meet my eyes, and Cool looks about as enthusiastic as a marble statue. 

Which leaves Lars. I see a spark of disdain for the noble in him. The way his fists clench, the way he stares with a dislike… and jealousy? Weirdo. But it’ll work for me. “Lars, you’re my second.”

In a whirlwind motion he turns to me. “Huh? What??” he splutters, eyes wide. He points at himself. “Me?”

What a weirdo. I just nod once, then turn away, leaving him to his internal conflict. I mean, looking at someone doesn’t contribute to my sight of them in the slightest, but it still influences whether they think I’m looking at them. See, right now, I can still feel the way the lordling bites his nails, trailing a hand over his sword and muttering to himself.

I just ignore it, and instead take a sip of the healing fountain.

Relief flows through me, my aching flesh finally stopping. The long, jagged gash on my shoulder mends - skin knitting back together. I turn to Wire, who is still wearing a grimace, the fountain water only doing so much for a puncture wound all the way through.

Sighing softly, I lean in, and lay my finger to my lips. Leo watches me, but he already knows I’m Ion, so it doesn’t really matter. What does bother me is Grisha’s eyes.

But that’s not enough of a reason to let someone suffer. Especially since Wire is my responsibility. I accepted the job, so I’ll do it properly. And that means doing things when they need doing. 

My mana, still almost empty, still more than my entire pool a few floors ago, courses into my healing skill. It’s a small thing, a hidden thing, Just enough to give the healing energies from the fountain the push they need.

[Obfuscation 19 > 20]

Wire gives me a grateful look, tears prickling the corners of her eyes, but I shake my head. “No thanks needed,” I say. “You dragged me along. This makes us even, at best.”

I still remember that she was considerate enough not to touch me. I think, right now, she might be my favourite among the crew.

Grisha stares as I stand back up, eyes glinting.

- - -

A night passes in the safe-zone. Leo and I sit silently. Grisha tries to talk to me, until Lars stubbornly sits down next to me, body blocking her. Arithia regenerates her eye with the help of the fountain, Pout takes a nap in a corner, and Nerves chatters away at some of the lordling’s guards.

Duke-scion Seetang makes a show of practicing his swordwork in front of me, trying out graceful thrusts of the rapier, its swept hilt flowing from one stance to another, the graceful blade cutting the air. It’s fast and solid swordwork by my judgment, though Grisha seems everything except impressed, barking instructions at him as soon as he tries to show off.

He even pouts at it, almost like a child at his mom.

Ah. Maybe that’s why he got all annoyed when she asked to train me?

Leo’s mana spills forward from the mana-maze, as he messes up one of the puzzles, and the building pressure shoots it outwards like a fountain. The zoof laughs as the cube shoots out of his wiry hands, smacking into the floor with a thump. But he looks so happy as he picks it back up again.

“It’s changed so much!” he says happily. “I can barely recognize it. The mounting difficulty, the different levels, it’s…”

“Wonderful,” I finish for him. “Yes. I got it at the pinnacle of the Cloudward monolith.”

Lord Seetang turns to me. “Cloudward?” he asks. “I’ve never heard that name. Do you hail from elsewhere on the sixth?”

“I don’t hail from the sixth, silly,” I tell him, and he almost explodes at the casual way I address him. “I climbed up from outside the tower. From integration.”

There’s a pause in the conversation, then. Cassian Seetang looks at me, and for the first time, I think his eyes don’t instantly dismiss me. “Oh,” he says. “You’re an ascender?”

“Humans were recently integrated,” I provide. “All of us are ascenders.” How did he not figure that out?

“Oh. I thought you were feryran. Your hair-” 

“Dyed,” I lie. The bleach and stuff has faded. By now, it’s just its natural colour - changed by [Biological Alteration]. 

“Your nails?” 

“Painted,” I lie. [Biological Alteration], once again. 

“Ah,” the lordling says. Then, he looks awkwardly at the ground, and sits down. 

Grisha promptly pokes him into the forehead. “None of that, Cassian,” she says with a hum. “Work harder! Prepare for the duel!” 

The two keep talking, but I start to ignore them. Very gently, I reach into my backpack, pull out the headphones, and place them over my ears. Safe zones were noisy enough with the seven people in my group, but now, there’s a whole 11 more people here. No thank you, I don’t need any of that.

With a soft sigh, I turn on the noise cancelling, and the world quiets. Then, I apply a [Suppression] loop to the noise in addition to that, making it even more quiet. Finally, I turn on my music, drowning out the last of the noise. 

I draw in a deep breath, enjoying the feeling of air. Kuro cloaks my figure, the wetness still clinging to me, slowly drip-dropping away. I try my best to ignore it, and instead focus on Leo’s mana.

A helpful little blob of blueish, translucent liquid hovers in my palms. I poke it, and it wriggles.

How in the hecc did they do it?

- - - 

[Annexation 15 > 16]

By the end of our stay in the safe zone, I’ve made more progress integrating the Leviathan’s techniques into my own than Leo’s. His mana is weaker, smaller, less dense, but it’s also more unique. Like him.

Leo isn’t strong. He doesn’t have as much mana as me, but I can tell he’s resourceful. He’s the kind of guy I’d never want to pick a fight with, because he’d glue nails to my chair and I’d get real upset when I tried to sit down. He’d put a bowling ball on my locker, so I get smacked in the face when I open it.

I look at his cute lil’ face and I can tell. His smile gives it all away. 

There is mischief in those bones, I know it.

Leo gives me a sheepish grin as I stare. He must know what I’m thinking. Quickly, I avert my face, giving him fewer tells, but he only snickers in reply. Calmly, he places more liquid mana in my hands, and I hum. “Let’s make a deal,” I offer.

“I accept,” he says, without even hearing out my terms.

With a soft sigh, I prepare two cubes of solid mana. One is solid all the way through, and I hand it to him. The other is hollow, and I extend it out. He fills it with liquid mana.

Making the construct is beyond me, but feeding it some of my mana to study is doable. The same goes for the cube I hand to him. Leo’s mana crashes into it, trying to take control of it - and I let him. In a moment, it goes from perfectly stable, maintained by mana, to fraying at the ambient pressure.

Then, Leo takes over and stabilizes it. I do the same for his liquid mana, kept neatly in a box by me. He studies the cube, twisting and turning at it, looking at each facet, holding it up to the glass roof and watching as a lightning bolt spears through the sky, shedding more light down on us.

“How?” he asks quietly. “It’s so… solid.”

I swivel around the liquid mana in the cube, extending my control over it, and it feels like I’m trying to hold on to sand. It keeps slipping through my fingers, impossible to control. At best, I can stop it from decaying. I see Leo try to shift the shape of my cube, and he fails utterly. It even falls apart into sprinkling particles of mana with a horrid crunching sound, and then, we both laugh.

With a small motion, I hand him a new cube. He refills the liquid mana that I spilled and wasted. And then, we keep experimenting, both baffled at what the other person manages.

Magic is so wonderful.

An hour passes, until Lars interrupts me, though he does so politely, tapping the ground just hard enough for me to feel the vibration. I look up at him, and he gives a sheepish smile. I take off my headphones. “They’ve picked their next floor,” he says, pointing at a portal. “Cassian says he wants to duel you there.”

Well. That’ll be quicker than I anticipated. 

Chapter 231: Monolith Madness

I set onto a sandy beach.

The sky is full of clouds. The sand is wet, and rain pours down onto my shaded hood. In front of me, there’s a circle drawn in the sand. The dukeling sits there, eyes closed, blade laid across his lap. Behind him, the rest of his entourage stands, arms crossed or cheering.

Grisha stands especially close to the edge of the circle, eyeing it. She looks to me. “Duel to the first blood,” she reminds me.

Nodding, I step forward, and the rest of my cohort enters from the portal. Lars stares at the sand for a moment. Lightning splits the sky.

A part of the beach turns to glass, the electric bolt reaching down with long, white fingers. The light lingers for a moment, then fades, like a wave receding back into the ocean. I breathe in. Then I step over that line.

Cassian’s eyes open, and he focuses on me. Very slowly, he gets up. “Yuki,” he says. “No surname. I’ve challenged you to a duel for my honor. Whichever one of us bleeds first shall lose. Do you understand?”

I nod. 

“Good. Then we begin once lightning strikes once more.”

The air holds its breath. Cassian keeps his sword pointed at me. Its tip drifts slowly through the air.

Lightning splits the sky, and he lunges.

I have to give it to him: He’s fast. His authority rises and suffuses his body, boosting his muscles. He applies two skills, too, by my read. They’re strong, but they’re also obvious. The first is another muscle enhancement, to turn him faster, and the second is a little more complex - some bladework skill, I imagine?

Mana turns to wind, and I shift slightly. The sand is grainy under my feet, and reasonably solid, though it gives way from the swift movement. A blade of air whips past my throat - not quite managing to graze me.

Of course, my body can never shift faster than his blade can. Cassian is upon me like a whirlwind, his sword flicking out in a quick, efficient strike. I bring up a hand to block and he stares at my fleshy fingers.

Then, mana pours out of me.

Instantly, there’s a tower-shield wrapped around my hand. It barely withstands a single blow, the rapier cutting a deep groove into it, but that doesn’t matter. Just as quickly as Cassian manages to withdraw the blade, my shield is whole again. Three more probing cuts carve deep lines into the shield, and then he thrusts.

[Compression 3 > 4]

His sword skitters off the dense mana around my hand. It’s far, far denser than the rest of the shield, and his eyes widen. He’d expected that thrust to land, but he recovers instantly, using another skill to support his foot mid-air and leap back.

A dozen needles dig into the ground where he stood.

“Nasty,” Grisha grimaces. “It’s first blood, not first to bleed out, whelp!” 

I shrug. Cassian is clever, he’d probably survive that… Surely.

He’s upon me again in a moment anyways, though his face looks tense. My world is cast in the greyscale vision I have from mana-sight. It teaches me to look for the little tells, the way his feet shift, the way he drives me back - ah, the way my heels touch upon the line in the sand.

Smirking, Cassian strikes me again, the tip of his rapier aiming for my ribs. I frown, just a tiny bit, and counter. [Selection] into [Suppression], a simple combo of moves. 

His hand slows. Suddenly, he fights like he’s trapped in honey. I step out of line of the stab, beat his sword aside with my shield, and kick him in the ribs, sending him stumbling back. Cassian fights to find his balance, his muscles struggling against the additional weight, and just as he’s flailing, I release my debuff.

Instantly, he moves too fast, overcorrects, and lands on his butt.

I rub my nose at the cold air, and look at the lordling, sitting in the sand. A gust of wind brings him right back to his feet, but there’s a bead of sweat running down his forehead. “What was that?” he asks.

Calmly, I shrug. 

A frown creases his lips, and he gets more serious. A second authority descends on me, this one… familiar. It feels like what the guards use - perhaps something inherent to nobles? A legacy, maybe.

My Defiance swiftly cuts its effects to ribbons. It’s not even really his, it’s borrowed and unsupported here. In the monolith, he can’t lean on his family. Cassian grips his chest for a moment, his heart throbbing painfully, but he grits his teeth. Again, he lunges.

The sand underneath his foot gives in, suddenly weak and crumbly. 

He slips. I step forward and smack my shield into his face. His head snaps to the side, and Grisha hisses as she draws in air. Leo flinches, and Cassians does one roll in the sand, dirtying his fancy robes. A moment later, he’s on his feet.

A new skill triggers, water-related, rather than wind. Little chains of moisture climb from the sand to ensnare my legs. And, unfortunately, this spell is slow and continuous, so I just toss an overpowered [Deconstruction] at it.

Cassian charges in, sure of his advantage. My chains fall apart, my mantle flares. I forge a sword from mana, reinforcing it in ways I stole from Ezekiel’s vanguard and spellsword. It’s not perfect, but with my new [Compression], I can create gradients of density… So it’s okay.

Once again, his sword slams into my shield, the mana expanding to cover my entire body. Cassian grimaces as I counterattack, but his rapier snakes out fast as light, carving right through my mana. He grins.

The deattached bit of my sword flies right at his face, taking the shape of one of my needles. I see his smile fade and his face pale as he ducks. My leg comes up, and I kick his chin, sending him stumbling backwards. Needles gather, and he leaps upwards.

His mantle flares wide, a gathering of storms, letting him hover in the air. A breath passes, and three lances of water fly down at me, gathered from the air. I block all three, reinforcing my shield with more and more mana, supported by my vessel and my channels. Even now, channelling multiple skills, I don’t feel like I’m falling apart.

My body holds. I breathe in and out. Then I tilt my shield upwards, detach it from my hand, and shape it into a massive, sharp-edged disk. Cassian pales. I throw the thing at him like a frisbee, and it spins through the air, propelled by force and willpower. He tries to dodge.

I [Suppress] his movements.

Mana crashes into his armor, and it’s just sharp enough to bleed through the gaps in his chainmail. It’s a shallow cut on his upper arm, but a few links of metal fail. 

Before the disk can do more damage, I call it back. It freezes in the air, stopping its spin. Cassian opens his eyes, having closed them in fear. 

My mana flows back towards me, then thins out, turning into a few threads, each of them exploring the mana-maze as I repurpose it for training. He stares at me. I turn my blind face straight ahead, not even bothering to look at him.

Grisha lets out a breath. “The winner is Yuki,” she declares, giving her protege a sad look. “Please choose an item you want.”

“His sword,” I say with a shrug.

Instantly, Cassian’s mouth drops open. He was looking at me with a mixture of respect and fear before, but now there is only shock and anger. “You cannot,” he whispers.

Giving me a pleading look, Grisha shakes her head. I tilt mine. “Why not?” I ask.

“It is not my sword,” he replies. “It is my father’s.” 

Ah, right. And I asked for one of his items. Well, that’s rather unfortunate. Ah well. I shrug, then nod. “Alright, got any treasures on you?”

He grimaces, but nods, pulling out a… wand. “It casts water-bolts,” he provides helpfully, giving me a shrug.

I stare at the piece of wood. It looks like an ordinary stick, but he holds it out to me like it’s his most precious possession. “C’mon,” I say. “You gotta have at least one good thing on you, right? I don’t want the wand. Worst case, you can give me your refilling water-bottle. Everyone has one of those, right?”

Cassian blinks, but then quickly nods and hands me a flask. It’s far, far fancier than the one I use, a waterskin full of dense runes. I’ve broken four of these things already, and still haven’t figured out how to reproduce the effect. All I want is to make water. Direct mana-to-matter conversion surely can’t be that hard.

By now, I kind of have it down for my healing skill, so surely I should be able to make water. Surely! Just because the module for the healing skill is so complex it’d take me forever to break down… Ugh, whatever.

I [Deconstruct] the fancy new flask, shattering it into a thousand pieces that sink into the sand. Assembled rune-patterns flow into my archive, adding themselves to the pieces I already know, creating more connections and sticky notes on the “water creation” pinboard. A bit of essence flows into me, as the information is processed by my mantle.

“Thanks,” I tell Cassian, who just kind of stares at me. Grisha smacks her forehead audibly, and Leo gives me a wry smile. I just sigh, leaving them to it.

The lordling stares after me for a long moment, in a way that promises me we aren’t quite done yet. I sigh already. What a pain… what a pain.

- - -

The rest of the fourth floor goes smoothly. There are a few attacks by monsters, and a few close calls with lightning. Arithia gets struck once, and lichtenberg figures burn themselves into her skin, but she just laughs. “That’s a fuckin’ kick, bitch,” she says. Somehow, I distinctly know that the “bitch” means me.

There’s also one time a lightning bolt tries to strike me, but they appear to be mostly made of mana. I learn this because I instinctively use [Deconstruct] and the bolt only cuts halfway down to the ground before mysteriously disappearing. Truly strange. I wonder what could have happened to it.

We may never know.

I compare its essence with Bay’s [Pulse], but just click my tongue. Way too much, way, way too much. I need something more delicate to charge my headphones, dang it. What a disappointment.

Stepping to the left, I avoid another lightning bolt. Jeez, they’re attracted to mana, huh? Luckily, I have a good handle on mine. Ah, well, I don’t need to see anyway.

- - -

When we get to the well room, there is, somehow, once more, a party already there. This time, though, it’s not nobles. It’s just three people, and I recognize them. He’s tall, shirtless, muscle bound, with brown hair that’s grown a fair bit longer over the past few months.

I stare - well, staring is relative of course, but I send out more pulses of mana, trying to remember his name. He’s still with that guy, the red-head that I healed because he nearly died on the way to the first, who’s now missing an eye, and the girl who was all grumpy about using a request to pay me. 

What were their names again?

Instantly, the girl rolls her eyes. “Oh my frigging god,” she says. “I knew you looked familiar. How is your hair still dyed? It’s been months.”

“... I must’ve said that out loud.”

“You sure did,” the red-head scoffs, giving me a snide look. It would be more intimidating if he weren’t missing an eye. The woman also looks more ragged, with a deep scar running down the length of her arm. I tilt my head a little.

“So, are you gonna tell me again?”

Shirtless buff guy laughs. He points at himself. “I’m Maximillian,” he says. “Those are Pyro,” the red-head, “and Rose,” the woman.

“I’ll-”

Rose rolls her eyes. “You’ll forget in a week. It’s fine, relax.”

“Actually, we do have a question,” Maximillian says quietly. “We know you were on this floor, given the duel-”

Ah fuck. Right, they know I’m Ion.

“-And we were wondering if you could heal Pyro’s eye?”

And that’s my ticket out of that problem. Score.