Chapter 306 - I woke it up (Patreon)

I get into the bunker where I find the asshole in the room with the core where he examines the giant mana crystal pillar. As I enter, I feel his senses touch me, and he turns his attention to me.

“Again…” he stares at my missing arm and my eye that is close to being healed, “do you even realize how often we tend to lose limbs? It's to the point where it can't be normal. Maybe Bambi's curse?”

“What have you done?”

“Just try to think about it; you could build five of us with all the lost limbs. Actually, do you think it could work? If Lily helped...”

“It's not that many limbs. And maybe? What have you done?”

“It is a lot of lost limbs. We are the only reason Lily was able to level up her healing skill so quickly; we boosted her. And I did nothing wrong.”

“The sleeping noodle moved,” I say.

“Yup. I woke it up.”

He did what to the three-question-mark monster?

“Damn, it is funny to tease you like this. I know how you will react, and most of the time I can even predict the exact words you say, yet it's still funny. Like a game, trying to predict as much as possible."

I can't even say much against it as it really sounds fun, “So, want to show off?”

“Oh, you know me well.” He gestures at me and leads me to another room. “I already toured this bunker, and it's mostly useless, as always. At this point, I bet it’s the system making things more difficult. All data is deleted, facilities are destroyed and beyond my abilities to make them work. At the moment it's just a cool place used to store the mirror. Obviously, check it out, you will find a lot of inspiration here and bits of knowledge.”

We reach the room with thousands of seats, and he boosts his body and sits on the podium, and I move close, sitting in one of the front seats.

He explains, “Do you remember that annoying acid and weird aura snake?”

Oh my, he did not do that.

“Yes, I did that!”

Fuck.

“Yup, fuck.” Clonthaniel seems to have fun, “I was thinking, you know. This bunker was used to only store the mirror, so where can we learn about what happened to this world? Surely not the Sanctuary, and even the Bastion seems to be lacking. Then I remembered that there was a quest to avoid waking up the sleeping Calamity. Why? No one would go close to it anyway, right?”

He swings his legs, a thermal orb floating between us and lighting the huge room with rows upon rows of empty seats.

“It's a bit of a stretch, but I wanted to check if there is any facility or bunker near the sleeping noodle,” he adds with a dramatic pause, “And there is! The problem is that I couldn't get inside. So, I found the acid snake asshole and left some marks on him, and imitated his mana. Then I used a few bombs mixed with his acid to attack the noodle. You probably saw the outside, but the big boy wasn't happy at all.”

“Damn, I would love to see that.”

Clonthaniel nods, “Cool as heck. Anyway, the asshole snake is gone. The danger noodle moved a bit, which allowed me to place a few anchors under, through the crack in the entrance to the bunker he sleeps on. I already sent a few monsters through one of the anchors, and it didn't wake him up, so we can get there a bit later.”

“So, you are hoping something inside will help you?”

“Yup, the natives here created the Veil, so surely they have some nice stuff in their databases. And that place seems to be one of the facilities where they worked on the Veil. Even Butler assumed there might be such facility in the Valley.”

At first, I want to trash-talk him for risking so much, but then I notice my missing arm. Ehm, maybe let's stay quiet about it for a bit.

It also confirms that slowly we are becoming more and more different. His goals are different than mine, so he is thinking about different things, practicing other stuff.

It's fascinating to watch, as when I think about it now, most of the things he did make sense, and I totally can see myself doing them if I was in his situation.

“By the way, the healing with passive is quicker when you use thermal energy from the Vortex Core,” I tell him.

“Sounds good. Will you give me one of the Voidsteel blades?” he looks at the new one that I just got.

Without hesitation, I throw it to him, and he grabs it.

I know both of us are thinking of the same thing at that moment.

“Let's practice controlling black mana. We can spend a day or two on it. After that, we can go to the Bastion, get some mana conductive paint, and maybe a few more useful items. After we come back here, we can go to the bunker under the Calamity,” I tell him.

“That much is reasonable. Also, for half a day, I want you to help me with the core of this bunker. I think I found a few interesting things, and two eyes might be better.”

“Okay.”

Without any other words, we get to it.

***

A day passes, we do not sleep, and the black mana orb constantly hums in the air, fighting against us.

“It just keeps being annoying,” Clonthaniel complains. “Just a bit of lost concentration, and it starts sipping all our mana in.”

“I thought giving it a different shape would help, but right now it seems that only absorbing it into the body weakens the effect somehow.”

“It might be because of our passives, hell, maybe even the Mantle is helping or Mana Circuit.”

“Mana Circuit sounds more reasonable, maybe passives. Upgrading the Mana Circuit might help.”

“Well, it's not like we will be upgrading eyes; they are hard to deal with anyway.”

I nod, “Do you still think there might be hidden grades to active skills and traits?”

“For sure, active skills are confirmed with there being skills such as [Disintegration] and what did the guy from hard difficulty have? Water blast or some similar bullshit. If that doesn't confirm hidden grades for skills then nothing else does.”

“I don't even remember his name, C something. Well, it would be cool if Mana Wavelength Iris is some rare stuff. Even though I still liked Arcane Skeletal Framework. Could be an amazing trait.”

“Yeah, Vortex Core tried to copy it, but I bet the trait would be amazing.”

Both of us stop at once and send the black mana orb to the corner of the room, where it will crumble after some time without supplied mana.

As I stand up, I ask, “So, what did you want to try with the core of this bunker?”

“I want to try activating it for a moment. Two of us should be able to if we use Mana Reservoir as well,” he says, to my surprise, and he noticed it. “You wouldn't believe how mana-hungry that thing is. How the heck did they even power it?”

“Champion?” I ask while we walk there.

“If I was a Champion, I would tell them to fuck off if they kept asking me to recharge the batteries of their bunker.”

“True,” I agree. “Maybe absorbing ambient mana and using it to power stuff. But I still think Champions doing it could be it.”

“Why?”

“Money. Imagine being a Champion and only once in a while they come to your house. You fill some mana stone for them, and they use it to send mana to the core. You get paid a shitload of money, and you can spend your time doing Champion stuff. There being a dozen or two Champions could make it less annoying too. Or imagine your Absolute ordering you to do so.”

“Yeah, but I bet the owners of this place wouldn't like that much. You know, smart people like engineers or enchanters would try to automate this to save themselves the headache.”

As we theorize, it feels natural, and the ideas we throw at each other sound reasonable. But I do remember that I'm just talking to myself, and somewhat I just find it funny. It's such a weird feeling to talk to myself, agree with myself.

Reaching the extremely tall room with a mana crystal going through the middle, we reach the control panel.

Duplicaniel shows me where to place the anchor, and both of us do so. Then we prepare for a while, and when it's all ready, mana bursts forth from both of us.

Our body reserves, our Mana Reservoir, all of it rushes to the anchor placed on the mana crystal. In waves, our mana rushes inside, filling it, powering it, and the crystal, as wide as a car but as tall as a skyscraper, starts glowing, even if ever so slightly.

My role is to control both of our mana and make sure it flows to the right parts, while Clonthaniel bridges some inscriptions and collects the information.

Both of us push even harder, a hum filling the room and the light on the walls flickering on for a moment. Until Clonthaniel redirects that mana and cuts off the lighting to not waste it.

His eyes glow with a golden circle around the pupil, his hand on the panel. And I, even though it pressures me, just in case follow what he is doing and also go through the information he accesses.

He knows my suspicions but doesn't complain when I do so.

It takes only a few minutes, and both of our mana drop to a dangerous level, and not finding anything more, we just cut off the connection. The Mana Reservoir is nearly empty, and body mana starts filling it back up.

Shaking off the aftereffects, we let our bodies heal.

“I mean, there’s some nice stuff for a future evil lair—inscriptions, ideas, information on materials, all that stuff—but I want more,” he complains.

“It might be part of the system. It likes to feed us information slowly, so maybe this bunker only contained the mirror and information on the creation of the core and future base.”

“Could be it. Hopefully, there will be more under the danger noodle. Anyway, do your stuff, and I will do mine. We can try playing with black mana a bit after a bit of rest, and then head to the Bastion.”

“How long will your anchors last down there?”

“Three to four days.”

I leave the room afterward, and alone, I walk through the bunker. It's cold, it's dark, and my steps echo in the empty rooms. With curiosity, I examine them. Its weird architecture, broken inscriptions all over. A few pieces of furniture or other items that were left behind.

After a bit of time, I reach the room with a forge that is as tall as smaller buildings. Even here, the inscriptions are broken, so it can't be activated without getting fixed. But I still spend some time looking around and examining it.

Sure, my crafting skills are far from optimal. Especially when it comes to creating new items. But in the future, I could just have people do such stuff and then I can just inscribe. Or I will learn it when I get bored.

Observing it and marking down as many details as possible into one of the mana stones I hold, I then go from room to room. I do the same thing in every one of them.

I try to sense as much as possible, learn a lot, and write it down.

After a few hours, I realize it was as my duplicate said. Even though the place is fascinating, it is as empty as its interior. Instead, I spend time training my skills and examining my newest construct, Vortex Core.

So far, it's an amazing addition, and I'm extremely happy with it. The amount of thermal or kinetic energy it can hold makes me happy and is much more than I would be able to do on my own.

“Status,” I say.

Name: Nathaniel Gwyn
Difficulty: Hell
Floor: 5 - Mentorship
Time left until forced return: 4y 18d 10h 11m 36s
Traits (2/3): Mana Circuit 1/3, Mana Wavelength Iris 0/3

Lvl 224
Strength: 109
Dexterity: 107
Constitution: 263
Mana (Stage 1/3 - Vast Mana): 874 + 874
Primary Class: Focused Channeler (Epic)
Sub-class: [Initiate of Pride]

Active skills:
Focus - Lvl 46
Mana Manipulation - Lvl 46
Perception - Lvl 42
Redistribution - Lvl 43
Resonance - Lvl 42
Mana Domain - Lvl 33
Tether - Lvl 29
Regalia - Lvl 19
Infusion - Lvl 24

Constructs:
Reinforcement (Construct)
Thermokinetic Mana Heart (Construct)
Mana Regulator (Construct)
Mana Sovereignty Mantle (Construct)
Vortex Core (Construct)

Passive skills:
Mana-Fortified Resilience (rare)
Mana Reservoir (epic)
Arcane Resilience (epic)
Phoenix Embrace (epic)
Mana Overload Absorption (epic)

Tokens:
Beyond Difficulty entrance token

Shards: 11,892

Not wanting to push things further, I stand up and head towards where my duplicate is. The guy is annoying as heck, but together we are able to test things that would otherwise tear my body apart. Even then, I'm sure he is already planning something, even though he doesn't share it.

I'm also extremely curious, so I let him cook. But the question is if I should let him cook.

Well, anyway, I still have this collar I took from Ir… Ir, something guy. The cattle guy, soylent green producer.

Null Collar (Epic): Actively disrupts the wearer's magical attempts and skills, using absorbed mana to diminish both magical potency and physical vitality.

There is a bit to learn from it that could improve our disruption of mana or even create a similar lasting effect without items. Using [Tether] to anchor that sort of disrupting stuff to someone could work. Hell, I already used [Tether] to “glue” a black mana dagger to the First One, and [Tether] seems to be a better skill than I thought initially. It even ignored black mana partially.

Is it because it's a sort of spatial skill? Probably? Who knows. Oh, and fuck the system.

Anyway, let's test out stuff and then head to the Bastion. I bet there will be more interesting things and we get a few more honest answers.

***

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