Chapter 317 - The cracked core (Patreon)

1,050 shards, that's how much I get from selling some stuff from the research center. Obviously, I keep the best and some data as well. Even then, that gets my shards just a bit over 27 thousand. That's when I also decide to buy another epic passive.

Sure, I could save up some shards and go with my plan of building rare passives and trying to learn a thing or two, but with what's happening around me, it might not be a good idea.

The Veil Guardians are sniffing around, the Veil itself is acting weird, and the duplicate is cooking. I mean, I have [Tether] too, but how the heck did he teleport a giant mana crystal from the bunker, and where?

“Master, another one!” Vega rushes closer and hands me a few small mana stones. After examining them, if they aren't useful, I sell them also, getting a few more shards.

“Good job, minion, did you keep some for yourself?”

“I did as master said. I already started practicing.”

“Good, continue to do so. You can push yourself harder, I will help if your control slips up.”

“It's hard because of the items the mister gave me and all this mana round, but I will try.”

As she goes back into training, I open the system shop and look at the passive I was thinking about.

Cognitive Fortress (Epic) - Bestows upon the user a remarkable capacity for sustained mental engagement. The passive skill bolsters the user's cognitive stamina to extraordinary levels, making them capable of enduring prolonged periods of intense cognitive activity.

It's a bit expensive, just over 15 thousand shards. With epic passives starting at 8 thousand, it most likely is one of the better ones. If there are hidden low, mid, and upper ratings to grades as I think, then this one is most likely upper, maybe better mid.

My current passives are these ones:

Mana-Fortified Resilience (rare)

Mana Reservoir (epic)

Arcane Resilience (epic)

Phoenix Embrace (epic)

Mana Overload Absorption (epic)

The rare one is not even worth speaking about at this point. Mana Reservoir is the one I'm most happy with.

Arcane Resilience says it reduces the physical toll of casting. After testing, I found out it applies to overloading my brain and eyes, but it's not as much as it protects my body with my ever-growing stat imbalance.

Then there is the beautiful Phoenix Embrace that Lily will surely trash-talk and tell me to sell.

I won't, I love it.

Mana Overload Absorption is similar to Arcane Resilience, only working in a different way.

So, Cognitive Fortress should be mainly focused on dealing with the strain the eyes put on me. My new trait is powerful and difficult to handle properly even now. And that's good. The more dangerous to me, the more dangerous to others.

Or something like that.

It should also help with black mana powering my [Focus] and most likely other skills, even if it's not as much as these two.

Okay, let's buy it.

I sell Mana-Fortified Resilience and confirm it, and with sadness, watch as a bit over 15 thousand of my looted shards disappear.

For the next few minutes, I resist the burning feeling I'm getting. It feels as if someone is setting my head ablaze from the inside, but I don't let it show and continue to observe Vega in her training.

Then, as we are leaving, I even sell some tables that are considered tools similar to enchanting tables. It doesn't get me that many shards, but spending so much on my new passive, I will sell anything that isn't glued to the floor. Even if it is, I try to remove it and sell it. I don't care if it's 1 shard only. Hell, I would even sell the entire station if I could.

“So, Minion, how was the week back in your village?” I ask while waiting for the pain to abate.

It takes her a moment to unfocus from the mana stone she was observing and look up at me with her ruby-like eyes.

“I appeared at the same place where I disappeared from and then killed the monster that was hunting me! Master, it was so weak I can't believe I was so scared back then, I even cried while running.”

“It's fine to be scared, minion. It helps us to survive.”

“But master isn't scared. You even block your fear,” she tilts her head.

“Only partially and lately not that much. Sometimes I enjoy the feeling of fear, minion. It makes the fights more fun.”

“Master is weird.”

“Nope, I'm the most normal here.”

“So I killed the monster and then returned to the village. The first few days I spent as before, I didn't show anything and kept hiding and observing how powerful the people were. A few times I went to hunt in the forest too. Then a few days before returning, I masked myself and started asking questions.”

I'm trying to imagine my silly minion beating a bunch of older men and find it somehow amusing. Even she is smiling at the memory. Vega swings her arms, gesturing how she dealt with men, and then describes how she made them talk and where she kicked them.

She thanks me for teaching her the kick and describes how scared some of the men were while adding things they did to her before she became my disciple.

As amused as I am by her, I'm also angry. I think if I were there, these people would end up much worse.

Hurting someone like me is fine, but hurting a kid like Vega? Trying to leave trauma on someone so curious and cheerful?

I'm glad I could help and become her master. I'm glad I allowed her a way out so she can stay as beautiful as she is.

I also remember the conversation I had with my duplicate and while looking at Vega telling me her story, I come to the answer.

There is no way I would be able to hurt Vega like that. I might push her to become stronger and it might even hurt, but every time it will be for her good, and after making sure she agrees. But I will never hurt her in a way others did.

My duplicate realized it before me and seemed to have fun teasing me this way. Such an asshole. Biscuit truly is the greatest to realize it so quickly and keep calling me, us, like that.

“Vega, one day I will introduce you to Biscuit. I think you guys would like each other.”

“Is Biscuit also a minion?”

“Not everyone is my minion, you silly disciple.” I pinch her horn and shake her head. “You guys probably won't meet in the tutorial, but after I get out I will find your planet. It will take some years so be patient, okay? Until then become as powerful as you can so I won't have to be ashamed in front of Biscuit.”

“I might become stronger than master in such time,” she says with a cheeky smile. “And then I will call you minion!”

Look at her.

“If you will, you can do that. I will even call you Master Vega and ask you to teach me,” I say and watch as her eyes become dreamy and I lean closer, continuing in a whisper. “Just imagine that. Master Vega and her lowly minion Nathaniel. Your heart even more powerful than mine and I would keep following you around, begging you to teach me.”

Her eyes widen even more, and I can see how much she would like that.

In the end, I stand up, the pain of acquiring the passive nearly gone. “So give it your best, but stay careful, okay?”

“Will do so, master!”

Looking around a few more places, I'm once again amazed by how much work was put into this station. The walls are all shielded and extremely durable yet have nice aesthetics to them. There are drains in the floor at places and in some facilities in case of some toxic spillage or flooding.

Air filtration devices are all over the place and some things they did with inscriptions are a mystery to me even now. I can imagine myself spending months down here, trying to learn as much as possible.

Well, I might have better opportunities on higher floors.

So I just examine the most interesting things and keep the best items while selling the rest and then head back into the destroyed control room where Duplicaniel and Nevan are already waiting.

“Out of curiosity, I jumped to the bunker we were using,” my duplicate says. “It's already overrun by monsters and the doors are wide open so we have to change our base.”

“So, plan B.”

“Yup, plan B it seems like. I brought back some items from the bunker, and you can do your stuff with them. A show of my goodwill,” he teases me.

“I hoped we could stay here as I somehow don’t think they can pass by Gaiathra that easily, but there is the problem with mana radiation.”

While I grab some items from the pile to sell them, the duplicate continues, “A few hours, maybe six hours at most with all the stuff we have and maybe half of that if we move closer to the core. Am I right?” he turns to Nevan.

“Longer. I have prepared more items I haven’t used yet,” the man answers with his usual calm voice. “Keep the girl close to you; we are heading deeper.”

Then he heads in first, wearing a full set of items he made of a mix of multiple metals. He grabs rods as well; his mana seeps into the chestplate he wears. There are no inscriptions; it's just the alloy it's made of reacting to his mana with an extremely weird frequency, and that strengthens greatly the effect of the plate.

Step after step, we trail behind him as the mana around us increases.

Even with all the protections we have, I feel pressure and send more mana into the barrier I keep around myself and Vega. To reduce my expenditure, I pick her into my arms where she nestles her ear against my chest and listens to my heart.

Passing through a certain zone, the sheer amount of mana seems to cause another effect than pressure. Some of the colors change their vibrancy. Red, blue, and yellow become much more vibrant, while some others become much paler.

We notice the iron walls curve, looking more like waves frozen mid-movement rather than straight sheets of metal.

For a short time, all sounds disappear and only the beats of our hearts can be heard impossibly loudly. I'm even able to differentiate whose heart which sound is. Then it stops, and for more steps, the air looks misty.

All of the epic rods crack and wear off, thrown away, and Nevan uses even more of his mana to strengthen the effect of his chestplate that creates a barrier around us. At this point, I'm sure the piece he made is still epic but just a step away from arcane. The most he could do in the time given to him.

Through holes torn in walls and melted doors, we enter a room in a circular shape. Yellow and purple colors become much more vibrant and a pillar radiates light in the otherwise dark room.

It's much simpler than expected and much smaller.

The bunker we left did have a mana crystal used to hold mana, and that crystal was as tall as a smaller skyscraper. This room is the size of a small apartment, and in the middle, there is a mana stone.

It is a clear white color, and inside of it, yellow and purple mana swirls lazily, and just the sheer pressure makes my disciple pass out, and I strengthen the barrier around her even more, even reaching into my reservoir to do so.

Looking at the mana stone, I'm once again reminded that it has been leaking mana for a hundred years already. It's hard to imagine the sheer force it has to have had at the start. The mana stone itself looks like a pillar-shaped transparent crystal with mana swirling inside. It is only as tall as me, yet even someone with as little experience as me can say how amazing it is.

The mana crystal from the bunker, even though hundreds of times bigger, can't compare to this one. Not even close.

But there is a problem with it.

Stuck inside of that mana stone is an axe, causing a crack, and through that crack, that immense mana seeps out. Holding an axe, there is a burned corpse. Only bones with a bit of flesh remaining. Half of the head is missing, the place where the heart would be has a big hole in it.

Someone making sure the attacker is dead yet too late, the damage already caused.

A chuckle sounds out of nowhere, and I look at Nevan, who unbelievingly stares at the corpse.

Finally, more emotion appears on his face. The pain of finding the world in this state, the pain from seeing his dead wife and daughter. All of it surfaces as he weakens his concentration type skill.

“The axe that destroyed the core was made by me and Champion Niall,” he says as mana radiates from him, bits of metal floating in the air from his bags, “And that man is my father, one of our youngest Champions. He was the only one on this planet with a body strong enough to endure the destruction of a core of this grade. Having even this little left behind shows how strong it used to be,” he smiles deprecatingly.

Then he points to burned marks on the floor, “This is where the core explosion burned Champion Niall´s first disciple. I can feel alloy melted into the floor from the armor I made for her.” He points at another spot, “Champion candidate Igred, I made a bracelet for him,” another spot, “Champion candidate Norret, I made a brooch for her, she gave me a design made by her 5-year-old daughter to make it according to,” another spot, “vice guild master of Black Hand Jeal asked me for a dagger and I still remember how drunk he got while celebrating and constantly thanking me.” He points out more and more spots.

The emblems on his forearms activate and even in such intense mana radiation, he starts melting the pieces of metal floating around him, creating yet another alloy.

“We thought there was a traitor, but my father?” he laughs. “He wasn´t on our list.”

Then the armor on his chest also disconnects and starts melting under his emblem, the mana radiation immediately attacking the man.

At that moment, his face becomes clear, “I had hoped that my father would be alive as you said there might be some champions left. I hoped for something. But this?” he gestures around, “I have nothing left. I´m tired after 20 years of losing my friends. I never wanted to hold my wife´s or daughter´s dead body. I never wanted to see my father like that no matter if he was a traitor or if he tried to stop the ignition.”

Half of the alloy he creates moves towards the crystal where it surrounds it around the crack, making the axe fall out and crumble together with the body of his father.

Nevan´s body shows damage all over, even with as durable as he is, “I wish you would never have taken me out of here and allowed me to wake up, Nathaniel.”

His metal surrounds the crack fully and the mana radiation weakens and continues to weaken even more. But too late for Nevan.

“But don´t pity me; I was dying ever since I awoke. You just find out what happened, learn from our mistakes, and never repeat them,” a big chunk of alloy he made moves towards me and lands at my feet, “And take this, it´s the alloy I created after my entire life of research.”

“You know you could do it differently and then just leave the place. You could join other survivors,” I say to the dying man.

“I could, but I have decided otherwise.” He shows determination I can do nothing against.

“I will respect your decision then, Nevan. Can I do something for you before you die?”

“Please burn my body with the Primordial energy you possess. You don´t have to do anything else.”

“I will do so.”

He smiles gratefully, and after a minute, he dies.

Just a short moment without his equipment was enough. That and a hundred years lying down there in this radiation.

Maybe he could be saved; there are two healers on this floor, and even though they are of much lower level, they could help. Yet, it was all his decision. To throw away his concentration type skill and allow his feelings to overtake. The man unwilling to stay behind alone.

I wish I could say I understand, but I do not. In his place, I would hold on to my life and kill every single person who dared to hurt my dear before dying. I wouldn´t stop until their bodies would lie at my feet.

My eyes activate and even though there is still so much mana in the air, the pressure is manageable.

I watch as the mana that until now continued to leak through the crack only seeps out slightly, the ring of multicolored mass blocking the crack caused by the axe.

Then there is a chunk of molten metal alloy he left to me and a heavily damaged axe that cracked the core. Both of them are probably of high grade, yet it all feels a bit sour.

***

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