I turn my mana sword off and absorb what little mana remains in it, probably only enough to run for a few more seconds at most. That was close. I’m pretty much out of mana, and I’m using all that I regenerate to keep a light mana boost going, mostly around my stump. I look down at where my left arm is severed and notice that the bandages around it fell off at some point. I then notice my coat is missing as well, and then I look down and realize that all of my clothes are missing.
I am naked, for some reason.
Corvax collapses to the ground next to me, covered in shallow and deep wounds from the bear. His red skin is much paler than it usually is, and he’s covered in his own dark green blood. A soft glow covers nearly his entire body, getting dimmer and dimmer by the moment.
“Fuck! Daniel, get over here! Help me drag Corvax next to the window, into the light!” I say as I rush to Corvax’s side.
“Jesus Christ.” Daniel mutters once he sees Corvax.
We each grab one of Corvax’s upper arms and drag him into the direct sunlight, with a little difficulty due to his size and definitely not my missing arm. The windows are already broken, and we pull down what remains of the curtains, allowing him to get the light straight from the source.
Corvax’s eyes are closed, although he is still awake, groaning in pain whenever we move him, but after we get him under the window, he starts glowing a little bit brighter.
“Help me put pressure on some of these wounds.” Daniel says as he tosses me a towel from his backpack and bends down to staunch some of the bleeding.
I follow Daniel’s lead, putting pressure where he tells me to, while he directs Corvax on where to focus his sunlight healing. During this time, the excitement of battle wears off, and my mana regenerates enough for me to send my spatial senses back out. The pain from my stump being exposed to the air stings like hell, but I’m able to deal with it. It’s just pain after all. I notice for the first time that although the mansion is made out of the same gray stone as the rest of the city, the interior is lined with wood and has carpet in many rooms. After about fifteen minutes Corvax has stopped bleeding almost completely and starts speaking for the first time since the bear died.
He opens his eyes and looks at me, a small smile forms on his lips. “Why are you naked, Ray?”
Daniel laughs, also asking, “Yeah, why are you naked?”
“I think I left my clothes behind when I teleported earlier. They’re stuck under the bear now.” I reply. “Are you good, Corvax? Do you need any more help, or can I get dressed?”
He laughs and then groans from the pain it causes. “Please, get dressed. I can heal the rest of this on my own. Especially with my new class.”
“You’re level twenty-five?” Daniel and I both say it at the same time.
“Yes. I’ll answer more questions once it doesn’t hurt so much to speak.” He manages before closing his eyes again.
I chuckle and then move over to the bear, which is lying almost completely on top of my clothes. Daniel walks up next to me and laughs at my predicament.
“Can’t you just warp them out from under there?” He asks.
I don’t know if he’s trying to be helpful or annoying, so I just ignore what he said. “I see a few wardrobes on the second floor. I’m going to check those out.”
On my way to the second floor, I scan my body for any damage from the fight and wounds that need treatment. I have a few cracked ribs, my left shoulder has a small fracture, and I have a little bit of internal bleeding, but that’s where blood is supposed to be anyway, so I ignore it. I cycle mana around those areas to promote healing and continue on my search for clothing.
After searching around the second floor for a few minutes, I manage to piece together an outfit from the remaining clothes, finally shedding the all-black clothes I’ve been wearing for days now. A surprising amount of the clothes are still in good condition, even though most of the wooden furniture has decayed to the point of collapse. Why is that?
Merrick once mentioned that after the necromancer who created this place was killed, the city was cursed and constantly spews out death mana. He said that’s why the bears live here, because they have evolved to use that death mana, but I’ve never felt it despite being here over a week. Not like I could feel the cloud of mana the bear created. Halon also told me that there is a small amount of ambient mana in the air as well, but I also can’t sense that. Now that I’m closer to the center of the city, it should be easier to spot.
I check myself out in one of the mirrors in the room. My body is much more lean now, and I can tell that I’ve put on a decent amount of muscle as well. I’m probably in the best shape of my life, minus half an arm, of course. I’m almost positive that mana has something to do with it, and probably leveling up as well. I’ve changed too much over just two weeks for it to be natural. After I’m properly dressed, I decide to grab the mirror and bring it down to Daniel and Corvax with a little difficulty due to my missing hand.
“What’s the mirror for? Nice outfit, by the way. You look like a seventeenth-century playboy.” Daniel says as I bring the mirror over to Corvax and angle it to concentrate more sunlight on his exposed chest.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Corvax opens his eyes and looks at the mirror for a second before closing them again and concentrating on closing all his wounds. “More.” He grunts.
I turn to look at Daniel, who is currently checking over his weapons and armor, repairing or adjusting them. “You heard the man, go get some more mirrors. The second floor has a few in good enough condition. Should only take you a second.”
Daniel grumbles to himself but leaves to gather more mirrors without complaint. I decide to sit down and rest, mostly to recover mana, but I also want to try and sense any ambient mana here and maybe get some levels in [Mana Sense].
I sit down with my back up against a wall and Corvax just a few feet away and start to clear my mind, focusing on the air around me. After a few minutes my concentration is interrupted by Daniel bringing down a mirror and setting it up to catch more light. I turn my focus back to the task at hand.
After a few more minutes of fruitlessly searching, I realize that this method won’t work, and I need to try something else. I push some of my own mana out of my body and watch as it dissipates into the air, trying to keep focus on it as it gets thinner and thinner before it disappears from my perception. I try to find out if something is sucking it away, but all of my experiments end up with the same theory, that it’s just acting like a gas, expanding to fit the available volume, which causes it to dissipate into nothing.
With another failure under my belt, I try to think of anything else that could help. Going deeper into the city might do it, as the origin of all the death mana is at the center, according to Merrick. The only other thing I’ve seen that uses ambient mana is the power core from the tower, which I theorized absorbs the ambient mana to power itself and the tower. The only issue is the storage core is stuck under the bear with the rest of my stuff.
I manage to convince Daniel to help me lift up the bear just enough for me to grab my coat out. The coat is mostly undamaged, along with the storage core, but my clothes are practically shredded. It’s clearly not from the bear, as it didn’t have enough time to finely shred them, which only leaves the teleportation as the culprit. I only teleported myself, and the clothes being on the fringe of that must have gotten shredded from it. I’ll have to keep that in mind and include my clothes in future teleports.
Daniel has put six mirrors around Corvax at this point, and he’s glowing slightly brighter now, healing slightly faster. I put on my coat and take the power crystal from the tower out from inside and hold it in my hand. Time to finally examine this thing.
The crystal itself is yellow, and with the housing around it, it’s about the size of a baseball. The crystal seems to have two main effects from what I can see, and the housing is only there for protection and to add more connection points than the crystal itself has room for. The first enchantment on the crystal is a robust mana battery circuit. I can tell it’s built to last and not built to be super efficient, which seems to have been the right choice, as it’s still functioning centuries later. The second enchantment is some kind of mana vacuum, slowly gathering up mana from somewhere and feeding it into the battery, which leads to the connection points on the outer shell.
Well, unless this thing just manages to magically materialize more mana out of nothing, I think I have my key for discovering ambient mana. I follow the flow of mana inside the crystal, but in reverse, starting from the stored mana and working my way out. After tuning everything else out and focusing right on where the mana seems to be materializing from, I finally get something. On the surface of the sphere, I feel a small flow of mana that gets ever so slightly denser as it travels toward and gets sucked into the crystal. I keep examining that mana, even as [Mana Sense] levels up, and I start feeling even thinner and thinner mana further out from the crystal's surface, all getting pulled into the crystal. Eventually, something clicks, and it feels like a veil has been lifted from my perception.
I can feel the ambient mana around me, almost like a second air, permeating everything. I can tell that it’s definitely some kind of death-related mana, as it feels very similar to, but not exactly the same as, the bears. With my spatial senses, I can even tell that the ambient mana is thicker closer to the center of the city and thins out the further you get. This is also when I notice that Corvax, Daniel, and I are all leaking a small amount of mana that pushes away the ambient mana a little bit. The amount coming off of us is so miniscule I’m not surprised I didn’t notice it before, and it’s still hard to notice unless I’m specifically looking for it.
Once the sun starts setting, I put away the crystal and join Daniel in checking up on Corvax. He still has a bunch of open wounds, mostly on his arms and chest, but he is clearly doing much better than he was hours earlier. We decide to stay here tonight, mostly because we are all tired, and this place has real beds we can use, even if they are centuries old.
Daniel and I drag a few mattresses into one of the bedrooms and get Corvax situated on them. He knocks out almost instantly, and Daniel and I agree to take alternating watches during the night, with him taking the first one. I lie down to sleep and find that I have greatly missed real beds.
Daniel wakes me up about four hours later for my watch, and I get to it without complaint. I have found that about four hours is all I need to sleep each day now. Halfway through my watch, I get a new notification. This one is a new [Quest].
[You have started a new secondary quest]
Quest given by Peros
Secondary Quest
Stop the enemy agents and retrieve the research core.
Quest Description: Hello Ray, It’s good to see that you have survived so far and are making good use of my gift. Now I have a need of your particular services. A rival of mine is making a move against me, and you are in a prime position to stop them. There is a research lab hidden in the city near you. The most I can reveal is that it is within the quadrant of the city you currently occupy. I need you to get there before my rival's agents do and disconnect the core in the final chamber.
Time remaining
[23 hours 59 minutes 55 seconds]
Completion Reward: Anything not nailed down in the lab
Punishment for failure: No punishment required, but I will be very disappointed.
Huh, my first job from my new boss. It’s nice the quest has a description. I wonder if that’s standard or only because Peros is specifically giving this [Quest] to me. Either way, it doesn’t seem too hard. And it doesn’t prohibit me from working with Daniel and Corvax. The only worry is the one-day timer. I have to scour a pretty large area and only have one day to find a supposedly hidden research lab. Well, Peros is right about one thing: I’m probably the best guy for finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.