Chapter 232: Deals and Tutoring

“So how’d you lose it?” I ask Pyro, kneeling down in front of him. My healing powers are still a soft secret, but, well, even having it known that Yuki can heal things is better than just the plain knowledge of Yuki and Ion being the same person.

Then again, I did publicize my address as Ion. No one comes knocking down my door, of course, because Respitia can’t spread it to her descenders, and after my achievements in the last mono, the tower protects me even more. I don’t have an official, tower-given title yet, but I’m pretty close. 

Erodyl even called me by a few different ones, and they’re a monarch, so they must know about titles. Flamebreaker, Stormbreaker, Guildburner. There’s a lot of trouble I’ve caused. Even now, in Downpour, we set up Crybabies as a guild.

I have a soft suspicion that the guild will outlive us. Well, our core group, at least. Seven people can enter into a monolith, after all, and if I got to take my pick at who’d go, that’d be easy. Myself and Kuro as one, then Inu, Thatch, Opal and Sylves. Richard and Dar would round us out to seven. Though I could be convinced to swap Dar for Amelie.

Plus, climbing was messy. Even now, I was doing a monolith without the rest of my friends. Which was a shame. But that was fine. I focus on the present again, since Pyro started talking about his eye.

“Was on the third floor,” he grunts. “Some cat-vine-thing clawed it out while I was distracted. The forest doesn’t particularly like me.”

His name is Pyro, so if he started a fire, I can imagine that going rather poorly for him. Nodding sagely, I take a look at his wounds. The missing eye is sort of bandaged up, but with my mana-sight, I can easily pierce through it. Plus, healing his eye will give me valuable experience for my own.

By now, the wound is well-closed, too. The healing from the monoliths might have even restored it eventually, if he climbed them for another few years. But I could hasten that process by quite a lot. Monolith healing was designed for getting people functional.

In that way, it could do things I couldn’t, yet. Like stitching a vessel back together. It was amazing against minor or medium injuries. But missing limbs? No dice, generally. Maybe if I cut off a finger and pressed it against the stump and then got the healing? Maybe.

Pyro’s wound was old, and he wouldn’t heal from it anytime soon. So, I nodded along. “Yeah, I can heal it. Just call me Yuki for now, and give me one of those refilling phials.”

Maximillian barked a laugh. “Hah! You’re still bloody working on those? What’s so special about a little water?”

Of course he wouldn’t get it. The brute is a warrior. Maybe an earth-mage, too, if memory serves? He’s not as sophisticated as I am, of course. Doesn’t understand the beauty of mana-to-matter conversion. Of self-sustainability.

If I can turn my own mana into water, then all I need is food. If I can turn mana into calories after that, I can probably keep myself going for an entirely unreasonable amount of time. No more texture issues, no more food aversions. Just mana.

Regardless, that’s a future-me problem. For now, I let my party settle around the well-room, have my own sip, and wait. Grisha and the young lord enter soon after. I whisper to Pyro that we’ll meet on the next floor, and I’ll heal him there, then go about my own business.

We’ve climbed four floors without any major break. It’s time to sleep, for once. I announce as much to the party, and half of them collapse to the floor instantly. Wire slumps against the wall, Nerves, Pout and Cool flop down on the floor. Even Arithia collapses, complaining. “Finally, fucking tireless bastard.”

She’s a bit right about that. Thanks to Perpetual Pursuit, I feel mostly fine. I don’t even need to sleep yet. Lars is the only other party member to maintain his dignity. He shoots me a few glances, then settles down at the wall, leaning, bringing one knee up and laying an arm on it. 

I ignore him, and focus on Leo’s cube with liquid mana. Everyone else can sleep, I’ll learn in the meantime. I’ll-

Grisha sits down next to me. The burly woman, this time, doesn’t try to clap me on the back. In fact, she looks almost conflicted. I give her the same blank stare I give everyone - maybe a little more annoyed, since she interrupted my training. “What?” 

“Because of you, young lord Seetang is whining my ears off,” she complains, staring at the ceiling. “Clearly, that means you owe me a debt. So, to repay it, let me tutor you a little.”

What kind of messed up logic is that? Isn’t she just making up a reason to teach me something? What does she even want from me? Why is she so insistent? What has she latched onto? “You’re a warrior. What do I have to learn from you?”

“I’m a warrior, yes. But I’m not an idiot. I know how to build muscle, I know you’re trying to do it with that…” her face wrinkles as she furrows her brow, “shoddy bit of magic of yours.”

My head tilts sideways. She can see the cruncher? Most people don’t. I use it to move as though carrying weights, always under strain. “So that’s what you want me to improve?”

She barks a loud laugh, close enough to make my ears hurt a bit, then grins. “Whelp, my skills for manipulating with mana are in the 40s. Can you keep up with that?”

The answer is… almost. Given what I showed at the duel, she probably thinks my highest skill is around 28 or so. That’s what I’d wager Cassian sits at. Still, even as a warrior her skills are higher than mine, then? That’s wild.

“No, I can’t,” I say, which is technically the truth. Somehow, I think I could still crush her in a contest of mana. In the same way that she could fold me in half like a lawn chair with her bare hands. But we’re both polite people.

Grisha smiles at my reply. “So, let me show you a trick. That thing you did to make a sword and shield is impressive. Few people have the mana to spend on full constructs. There’s a couple tricks to make them last longer.”

Ah dang it. As she talks, I know she has me. She shows me how she uses mana to reinforce her armor, and even under the jealous looks Cassian shoots me, I find it too interesting to ignore. Her technique might let me turn my repairing shirt into a piece of pseudo-armor. And that sounds really dang cool.

[Compression 4 > 5]

Well, if she wants me to turn her skills into enchantments, I guess I’ll oblige.

Chapter 233: Shoddy

Our group heads to the fifth floor first. We’re lucky that this time, we have a relatively peaceful choice. It’s set indoors again, though with a horrible storm going outside. The goal is to protect the building from the surging elements, the halls filled with ghostly butlers and maids.

I let my party work on that while I wait for Pyro. He comes through the gate half an hour later, accompanied by Maximillian and Rose. Almost instantly, I set upon him. “We have thirty minutes,” I hiss. “This’ll hurt, and it won’t restore your eye fully, but I’ll bring it back enough that the wellsprings can fix it. By the end of this monolith, you’ll see again.”

That’s all I say. I don’t even wait for a reply before reaching into him with my skills. Unlike my party, Pyro is slow to withdraw his natural defenses. He bristles and freezes up as [Deconstruction] reaches for the healed up bits of skin that I need to remove to regrow stuff. He even resists [Suppression].

Though, that latter problem solves itself. Without my skill numbing his pain, the removal of excess skin hurts. Almost instantly, the pain makes his barriers waver, and I sneak my magic in between the gaps.

[Selection 35 > 36]

Pyro hisses in a breath through gritted teeth. I feel mana light up in his hands, fire spreading across his fists. And then, Maximillian grabs them. His flesh sizzles, and he presses Pyro’s hands into the floor. The fire spills across the stone, moving to burn my shoes, but a thin barrier of stone stops it.

Before Pyro can even complain, Maximillian whispers quickly. “Now, now, Pyro. Let’s not be impolite here, eh? And Ion, please, be a little more reasonable about things, hm?” I get the feeling that he’s more annoyed at me than Pyro. Which is a pain.

Healing, for the most part, sneaky by barriers. There’s a very intuitive sense to it, where they tend to block out a lot of harmful things and let a chunk of beneficial ones through. Healing skills usually register as such. Which is the only reason Pyro’s eye is healing.

He’s still got his barrier up, he’s just bad at it, and I’ve snuck my skills through the gaps. By now, I’ve dulled the pain, and torn open more of his wound. Sealed blood vessels want to spill into that space again, but I seal them shut with healing. More flesh grows.

It’s my first time regrowing an eye. “Doing my best,” I assure them, but I am also using Pyro as a practice dummy and relying on the wellsprings to fix what I fuck up. Much of his nerve is still intact, luckily, so I mostly use his own calories to rebuild the eye. The muscles for the lens are easy. The spongy bits that make up the eyeball itself are harder. The lens, especially, is tough.

Heavily relying on my scanning mechanisms, I eventually manage to reconstruct it a lot like the other one, it just takes a few redos. For a bunch of the gel that fills up the eyeball I get lazy, leaving it for the wellspring to fix. I mostly focus on the receptive cells at the back, remaking those.

They’re by far the hardest part of the healing operation, though all of them are difficult. These bits of flesh are different from others I’ve made and with very different purposes, too. But the retina is so full of sensory cells it’s wild. And sensory cells are troublesome to make.

[Biological Alteration 13 > 14]

But I learn a bunch, and I only need to do a shoddy enough job for the tower to fix it up. Pyro gives another grunt of pain and disorientation - which makes sense, given that his brain is currently regaining a sensory experience he hasn’t had in ages, and the eye is still severely damaged. 

Frankly, it’ll hurt like a bitch until he gets to another wellspring. Prolly should’ve warned him. Wait, no, it won’t. If I just-

Spontaneously, I modify [Suppression], emphasizing the part where it numbs pain, applying it locally, and then watching as Clinging Consequence makes it sticky. I focus it on Pyro’s eyes, then apply a dozen stacks in as many seconds, quickly reducing the pain down to a mild headache at worst.

[Suppression 39 > 40]

Then, my vessel is empty from the prodigious expense, and I rise. All in all, emptying myself out took fifteen minutes, and gave him… half his eye back? Maybe a little less than that. Closer to a third. And the bits I did do are shoddy.

“Alright, that’s all my mana,” I inform them. “Your eye is still in cruddy shape, Pyro. But the wellsprings will patch you up. I applied a local anesthetic with a skill. It’ll fade over time, but I can reapply it in the next safe room if you need me to. Depends how much the fountain there does for you, so ideally, don’t get hurt.”

He grits his teeth. The tension in his jaw from the pain is still there. He’s a bit whiny, I think, but then again, I think my pain tolerance is a little abnormal. Out of the two of us, he’s prolly the more annoying one though. Probably. Surely.

Despite all the pain, he nods and even mutters a shaky “Thank you.” Which is kind of him, I suppose. I nod.

“Keep my secrets quiet, and hand over that item, and we’re good. I’ll keep checking in on you for the rest of the mono, and if there’s trouble, you can find me outside of it.” 

At that, he looks surprised. I don’t quite get why. I may be utilitarian, but I do stick to my word. He paid, and I promised I’d heal his eye - even though I woefully undercharged him, frankly. Bloodstain paid me so much for an arm that the little refilling flask he gives me is pathetic in comparison.

But that’s fine. I [Deconstruct] that bit of enchanting, and analyse its pieces. My ability to learn from runes is greater than ever, and still the complexity of the enchantment is absolutely stunning to me. How wonderful.

[Inscription 29 > 30]

But I learn a little from it, my skill leveling propelled forward by [Annexation]. More fragments of essence pool in my mantle, slowly growing my intuition as my archive is expanded. There’s so much more I want to learn…

With that goal, I turn to the corridors and hallways again. I can hear Lars yelling further onwards, and there’s a pained wheeze that I identify as Wire. She must’ve gotten hurt again. I can’t let my favourite party member bleed out on me, now, so I nod at Pyro, and walk off.

“What a weirdo,” Rose complains as I leave.

Maximillian, for some reason, defends me. “I think Yuki’s nicer than you’d think.” His tone betrays his smile, and I frown a little. Then I let it fall into my apathy and move on with my day.

- - -

When I find Wire, her chest has been bandaged by one of the ghost-maids that haunt the halls. The dead girl gives me a glance with her pretty, spectral face, and bows deeply. She moves to hurry away. “Thank you,” I tell her.

Somehow, she smiles at me. I notice it distantly, then focus on Wire. On the walk, some of my mana has replenished, and her wound is significantly less complex. A cracked rib and a lacerated chest from a falling bit of rubble. The castle is failing against the storm.

But that’s fine. I’ve scanned a few hallways down, and found the exit. We’ll just have to make it for another little while. I spin up a small bit of healing for wire, lacing it in between her metallic bones, and watching her rib mend just a little. It’ll make it easier for her to breathe, and the lithe woman gives me a grateful nod, then dashes out into the rain again.

I watch outside through a window. The storm consists mostly of waves and the surging tide, as well as a rainstorm. Lightning splits the sky occasionally, bright bolts of electric energy arcing through the clouds. 

Lars stands as a bastion against the waters, envelopped in an aura of fire. He produces enough heat to beat the waves and the rain back. Wire is mostly doing infrastructure work, tying metal wires around bits of stone that look about to fall. That’s how she got her chest caved in. 

I turn my gaze upwards, to the ceiling of the mansion. Of course, I don’t exactly see anything there. But I do feel it. Arithia stands on the very top of the mansion, wearing metal armor, and letting herself be struck by lightning. I wonder what her plan with that is, but she’s probably preventing damage to the mansion, so it’s fine. 

Nerves, Cool, and Pout are also out there doing their thing. Good for them. I open up the door, the rain crashing down on my shadow-cloak. I don’t have a whole lot of mana, just enough to maintain my basic sensory domain, but I am nothing if not efficient.

The floor can be exited after a period of time elapses. That’s the default win-condition. But there’s also a storm to be beaten here. And, well, one of my nicknames is Stormbreaker. It’d be a real shame if I didn’t live up to it.

Stepping across the cold, rain-slick stone, I head for the heart of the storm.

Chapter 234: Clingy People

Lars chases after me as I head into the storm. I may have enhanced my heart with Perpetual Pursuit, but I swear, that guy must have Persistent Pursuit. He tries to talk to me the entire time, too, but the rain swallows the noise, getting heavier as I walk.

The clouds hang over the waves that crash into the estate. It’s a flooded back garden, with water crashing in. It soaks my shoes, my socks, and the hem of my pants, and that’s a pretty miserable feeling. Almost as bad as the endless half-chatter reaching my ears.

With a great skill that I have honed over the decades, I ignore Lars entirely, acting as if he didn’t exist. Of course, despite that, he reaches out with his fire, trying to keep me warm. I reach out and reflexively crack the skill in half. 

He stops. Then pauses for a moment. Then follows after me again.

Sighing softly, I walk further through the soaked garden. My shoes sink into the mud. I cut through rose bushes, and I drink in the mana from the dense environment, my vessel refilling itself bit by bit. Rain pours down around us, Lars constantly enveloped in a plume of steam as he superheats the air.

I, for my part, just look like your average wet idiot. Which I’m fine with, because the center of the storm is drawing closer. The waves grow as I hike across the muddy greenery. My mana matches their pattern, flooding out of my vessel in great waves. When it does, it solidifies for a moment, into half-shield domes that keep the water from bowling me away.

Then the shields fizzle out, and the mana floods back into my vessel. Recycling is important, after all, when someone is afflicted with the terrible curse of mana deficiency, as I am. By the time I’ve spent five-ish minutes walking through the water, my vessel already holds as much mana as someone like Wire has, total, I think. Maybe a bit more.

It should be enough.

I stop in the middle of the rain. A titanic wave crashes down on me, but I don’t even bother to throw up any defense. Lars is so silly, after all. He jumps in front of me, entire body enveloped in a plume of heat that makes the air hazy. 

Rather than water, I’m hit by a plume of steam, blowing my hair back faintly. When the wave abates, I send my mana forward and outward, a great crashing wave that scans everything in front of me. I notice multiple thousand raindrops, and a tiny lil sphere of magic so dense that it singes my mana on touch.

[Observation 30 > 31]

With relaxed movements, I walk up to it, bend down, and pick it up. It’s a small conch shell, twisting in on itself, the colour of pink pearl. The cursed item instantly sends arcs of lightning and needles of cold down my fingers, but my defiance stops it from frying me properly. 

Somehow, I feel like this would make for a good buddy to tomey-tome. Sadly, though, the monolith doesn’t announce it as a treasure-object. That means I could still take it with me, but it’s probably also horribly cursed. After all, it’s the cause of this storm. Lars tries to ask what it is, but the storm is so loud that I have a good reason to pretend I don’t hear him. 

Instead, I put the conch shell up to my ear. There’s the sound of the ocean and rain and also some kind of eldritch whisper telling me to douse the world in water and lightning and bring it all to heel. Hm. 

As per the usual, the effect tries to burrow its way into my brain and infect my thoughts. For a moment, my mana moves without my oversight, and a thin bolt of lightning circles over my head like a crown.

Then, my defiance shreds the foreign influence, and [Suppression] comes down on the shell with brutal violence. The lightning bolt comes apart under my magic, feeding essence to my mantle, and I add it to the general electricity corner, alongside what I’ve learnt from Bay and taking apart magical lightning stuff.

With a quick gesture, I reinforce my hand and squeeze. The shell is tough. It digs into my skin, the spikes even drawing blood. But in the end, it’s just an empty conch shell. A husk left behind by someone who was good at making storms.

It shatters, coming apart under physical violence and mana. It feeds my techniques, my mantle growing longer behind me, new fractals added onto it. My archive grows, absorbing a bit of eldritch knowledge, the kind that makes my head hurt to even analyse, so I throw it in a corner for later consideration.

And then the sky clears up, and a staircase appears in front of me. Lars opens his mouth as if to protest something, but I speak before he can. “Shoot a flare for the others, please.” My pants are still soaked, even as the standing water begins to recede. So, I walk up the staircase. 

For a moment, Lars stands there like a lost puppy. In the end, though, he does as I asked, and the bright light flashes just as I crest the entrance to the safe room. Cassian Seetang gives me a smug smile, seemingly happy they completed their floor before I did mine. Grisha soon sits down next to me, making him frown, but I ignore her for a moment.

“Hey, brat, I have magic to teach you.”

Nodding absent mindedly, I have Kuro encase my legs in a blanket of darkness. Only when they’re hidden do I strip off the wet shoes, and lay out the soaked socks on the stone next to me. Then, forming a cup from my mana, I take some water from the well, drink it to empower myself, and feel my aches disappearing. I don’t yet heal myself, because I don’t want to come out of the wellspring with fewer injuries than I got in. There’s enough suspicion on me already.

Only then do I look towards Grisha. “Ready to learn.”

Defiantly, Cassian plops down on the other side of the giant woman. When she shapes her mana, she forms it into threads, interwaves them into strange grid-like locking mechanisms. It’s a bit unlike my solidification, since it’s more flexible than crystalline. What a strange way to go about things.

But it’s closer to what I usually do than Leo’s liquid mana. The zoof sits in the corner of the safe room, playing with my mana cube. I can mimic the threading well enough, weaving bits of it through my usually crystalline, brittle mana to give it some flexibility.

[Solidification 30 > 31]

[Job up! Core Controller 29 > 30]

The additional points trickle into my vessel, but far more importantly, I get another injection of essence. This one deals with the way that I can make these threads and use them to create artificial cores, or lines for mana to flow along.

Using my own mana as a material to conduct mana produced in cores or even from the environment is an interesting idea. It should, theoretically, let me create something closer to permanent active enchantments.

Of course, I’ve fuelled enchantments with ambient mana before, but they were passive, weak things. These sorts of pseudo-actives are probably what allow things like wands to function? I think. Storing up mana, then releasing it in a burst along pre-made channels.

Grisha shoots me a glance as I get distracted, and Cassian huffs when he sees that I don’t give my full attention to the exercise. For his own part, he doesn’t do well at it. His talent lies mostly with elemental manipulation and swordsmanship, from what I’ve seen. Decent affinities for wind and water, maybe even metal.

But, stubbornly, he feels the need to compete with me. After the duel, and after finding out I’m a climber, his respect for me has grown. But he’s still a noble in all the ways that matter. I ignore him, as my team trickles in one by one, soon followed by Maximillian and his group.

I take slow breaths as I rest. Halfway up. This monolith is exhausting. I wonder how my friends are doing.