Underworld - Book 4 - Chapter 16

The first thing I did was skirt around the mana projector where the Wraith had appeared to me on my first visit and faced the wall that separated me from his coffin. I half expected him to try to appear through the projector, but nothing happened. There were many approaches I could take to getting to the other side of the wall, but it was one I hadn’t used in a while that I decided on. Knocking it down would likely cause more problems than it was worth, so instead, I went full-on Magma Man.

With my magma flesh glowing the orange, I stepped into the wall and it started to melt around me. It was not a cheap use of mana, but the excess I had made the thirty seconds or so that I was in the form well worth its convenience. 

Liquid rock poured from me to the floor as I stepped through the wall. I let it slow to a drip before cooling myself and transforming back to my buffed up, human form.

The coffin sat in the middle of the room on a slab of stone. It looked similar to the obsidian of the vault doors but sitting inside its glassy dark surface were thousands of purple granules. There were a number of metallic cords that looped down from the ceiling to connect with it. They were about four inches thick. I would never have tried to severe them unless he had already confirmed that doing so wouldn’t kill him. There was much he knew that I was determined to find out.

I moved forward, grabbing the first cord and cast Stone Skin on my arm then Magma Fist. It took a few seconds to melt through it. Stepping up to the next one, I hesitated. I’d told Aeris I was going to be extra careful and not experiment with my True Forms, but I was having second thoughts. I was already using my Light Magic, so speed was the most important thing right now.

“Aeris.” I called.

“I’m here.” She replied, surprisingly from above from where she was hovering.

“I’m going to try something.”

“I knew you would.”

Now that I had a baseline of what it took to cut the cord, I activated Solar Mage. The tingle of energy replaced my armor and flesh. Pulling up my character sheet, I saw that my active buffs had been cut by 70% as it said they would be, but my passive ones that I’d received when reaching Master Light Magic were still intact. Returning my attention to the cord, I examined it.

Holding up my index finger, I placed it a few inches from the cord. Laser didn’t have a baseline cost. It was the first spell I’d run into that assumed I’d be able to manipulate mana. It also meant that I had no idea how much mana it needed to be effective.

From what I knew about lasers from the surface world was that they needed a lot of power to do any real damage. Even then, it was like using a magnifying glass to set something on fire. I actually doubted it would be able to melt through the metallic cord at all, especially one that was four inches thick. If it did work, as long as it wasn’t too costly, it should be much more precise than melting through it with Magma Fist.

Deciding to start with 10,000 MP, I cast Laser at the cord. The dimmest of blue lights shot forward in a straight beam and appeared on the cord’s surface. Immediately, smoke started to emerge, and I could see the parting of its surface. Slowly moving my finger over its surface, I watched as it cut into the metal with little resistance. When I reached the end, the two new ends sprung apart. They weren’t flexible like normal cords, but more like steel bars.

“El.” Aeris said.

Looking up, I saw her pointing to the back of the room. Passed the cord, I saw a thin line that had been burnt into the rock. My glowing jaw hung open. The laser had cut right through the cord and continued deep into the wall.

I’d started with 10,000 MP, but I’d taken a few seconds to finish the job, so it cost a little over 20,000 MP in total. Not bad at all.

Quickly, I stepped up to the next cord and eyed the trajectory another laser would take. With half the mana as before, I cast Laser. If it wasn’t for Light Sight I wouldn’t have been able to see the beam at all. I watched it shoot right through the cord from a side perspective and into the far wall. As I fully severed the cord, I examined the wall and saw it had only etched a shallow line this time.

On the final cord, I used half the mana again, or 2,500 MP a second. Immediately the laser started to burn into the metal surface, but it took a full second before I saw it exit the back. A few more seconds later I had it cut, but the wall was left unscathed. Not only had Laser been powerful enough to cut the thick cord, but it did it with the precision of a razorblade.

Changing up my approach, I reverted back to my human form and removed Master Muscle Buff for now, leaving only Master Mind Buff in place.

Moving on, I began to deconstruct the tomb, removing all the parts and pieces I’d need. I wouldn’t place them in my inventory until they were all lined up and ready.

Even without my Strength buffed, I found it easy enough to remove the coffin from the back room, which I placed outside.

Returning, I got to work.

I brought up the list of machine designs I’d stolen from this tomb on my first visit.

Master Machines: 2

- Spirit Compressor

- Spirit Command Hub 

Advanced Machines: 3

- Spirit Projector

- Arcane Tomb Conduit

- Mana Refinery: Dark

Intermediate Machines: 10

- Elemental Battery Bank: 4

- Sub-Elemental Battery Bank: 4

- Minion Generator: 2

Interesting enough, the coffin wasn’t listed, nor had I been able to breach it with Forced Learn. It was somehow self-contained. Only time kept me from examining it closer.

Now that the Wraith was gone and there was no possible interference, I started by removing the metallic cords that had acted as the primary mana channels that had been attached to the coffin. I didn’t dig into the ceiling to pull them out, but only took the sections that were easy to get to. It would probably take longer to remove all the mana channels in the tomb than it would take to remove everything put together. They weren’t worth the additional time.

My experiments weren’t done. The first cord hanging from the ceiling I used a beam at 5,000 mana per second. Even though it was approximately three meters above my head, it cut the cord nearly as easily as it had up close.

I was satisfied with Laser’s basic utility, but I was only getting started. Transforming back to my human form, I tested Laser without using Solar Mage. Just as the Form details had said it took five times the MP, or 25,000 mana per second to get the same results. It was nowhere near as impressive at such a high cost.

I couldn’t stop there. As a Blue Mage, I had to try to cast a partial True Form. Back in my human form, I lifted my hand before my face. The problem with Solar Mage and Light Surgeon was that I transformed into them instantly unlike any of my Shapeshifting Forms. There was no guarantee they would work the same. Casting Solar Mage, I tried to limit the amount of mana and funnel it only to my hand. It didn’t work. I transformed fully instead. I wasn’t finished.

Transforming back and forth, I focused on what it felt like and tried to pinpoint exactly what was going on. It only took a few transitions to understand. It was my mana itself that was taking on a new form as opposed to mimicking something else. With a bacon-loving grin on my face, I focused the transformation to my hand. Before my eye, my hand took on new light. My skin and physical tissue became energy, never ceasing to move in a light-filled cloud in the shape of a hand. I wasn’t sure if my muscle kept its mass, or bone. It would make sense that it would be both of them since I was able to move, but I wasn’t convinced. Regardless, when I took aim at the next cord, Laser only cost twice the mana that it did in my Solar Form.

It actually worked. I tried the same transformation but focused on my eyes. The light spectrum lit up the world around me. Checking my buffs, it was too good to be true. Only a small percentage was missing from Master Mind Buff. I could successfully add Solar to my ultimate form.

There were so many other things I could try, but time was an issue. I moved on from Solar Mage to Light Surgeon just to test its basic usefulness.

My eyes changed once again, tossing my perception from my head to the strand of light. I’d succeeded in only activating the form for one of my senses, but the drawback remained. I couldn’t move my body. It was also troublesome still hearing from my physical ears yet seeing from the strand. Like Solar Mage, my buffs remained intact, but to a lesser extent for some reason. I felt dizzy, like I was going to fall over, but it didn’t affect my body, only my coordination with my strand.

When my human sight returned, I activated Light Surgeon only with my ears, sending one strand to one side of the room and another to the opposite. This time I could see out of my eyes, but I was still unable to control my body. I suspected I could use this ability for spying, but I was starting to feel nauseous. I reverted back to normal even quicker that time.

Finally, I focused on my hand. My sense of control didn’t leave me this time as my hand was transformed into a glove of milky white. The strand was only a few feet long, but I could move it at will. With a thought, it extended from my body until it was about five meters long and flowed in the air as if it wasn’t there. There were a number of possible uses, like a Light Mana whip, or an ultra-efficient method of healing, but each possibility would need to be tested. It was easily the oddest form I’d run across and I understood it far less than anything I had.

Aeris had been watching me as I tested things out and remained silent, taking it in. I returned to Solar Mage and made quick work of the remaining cords. She made herself useful by carrying the rod-like mana channels out of the Tomb.

Moving to the main chamber where the Spirit Project was, I started dismantling it from the bottom up. There was a platform that collected and focused all the Dark Mana that ran down the wall in numerous channels. This big slab had to weigh a couple hundred pounds, but it would work like a giant lens so I couldn’t pass it up.

Using Solar Mage, I cut it out of the ground in seconds, then transformed and hauled it outside. 

I was a tad jealous that Aeris’s forms didn’t hinder how much she could carry in her inventory, but I was beginning to understand Solar Mage worked that way, not because it made me less physically powerful, but because my mass was literally changed to energy so that there was less of me to interact with the physical world in the same way as before. I was surprised to learn that her Wisp Form did cost her mana to carry something heavy outside her inventory. It took mana for her to gather her wind in such a way that it would hold a solid object. She was capable of carrying less weight than me in her inventory despite Solar Mage’s debuff, because my Strength was so much higher than hers.

Laser made the job much easier than it would have been otherwise. It took a while for me to get down how much mana to use and I continued to refine it. I mostly used less mana than I needed to allow for slower cuts that wouldn’t damage other components. 

Things got much more difficult as I got into the upper reaches of the room. I was considering building a platform to stand on, or seeing if Aeris could manage the rest, when I realized I had a new tool that was perfect for the job.

Switching to Light Surgeon, my vision cord snaked up toward the upper recesses of the room. The dozens of colorful mana channels looked like archaic cabling for some ancient network. These cables were made of different kinds of stone depending on the kind of mana they were carrying. They were also thick like the cords that had connected to the coffin.

As discombobulating as it was, I was able to poke my mana strands through the cabling and above it to get the perfect view.

I heard my body laugh from below and was instantly creeped out.

Aeris poked her Wispy head through the cabling, startling me even more.

“Everything okay?” She said.

“Yes.” I nodded the end of my mana strand like a head. “I’m going to do some cutting. I’ll get the small things first. Do you think you could catch them?”

“Um, sure. Should I be talking to your cord, or your body. It’s really awkward looking at this thing when your voice is coming from all the way down there.”

“Either. I’m hearing you from up here though when in my full form, so I don’t think there will be any less awkward way of communicating.”

“Fair enough.”

She disappeared, and I followed her down. Taking a look from a few more angles, I came up with a quick list of cuts and what order they should take place in. Turning back into Solar Mage, I took aim and Laser went to work. It began to rain cables, which Aeris caught without any problem. Then different parts of the Dark Magic Refinery started to fall.

I positioned myself under them in human form, but Aeris simply became a blanket of air that caught everything and slowly lowered it to the ground.

“Show off!” I said with a snort.

***

It took less than an hour to strip the tomb of everything I thought was worth the time to take. Before, Arcane Engineering had been difficult to make any progress in because I felt like I lacked the tools and materials. Not anymore. Now I had a surplus of materials, some mana machines that were already mostly intact. I also had a few new tricks that would make construction much easier.

Recasting Master Muscle Buff, I began to load my Magic Bag that would go straight into my inventory. There were only the same 30 slots, but the amount I could carry was over one hundred times greater than when I’d first entered the Underworld. The Magic Bag made it even easier, lightening the items by 30%. The common materials like mana cables stacked as long as they were made of the same material. Suffice it to say, I was able to easily carry all the heavy stuff without nearing the maximum weight capacity. Aeris took my extra food, water, and ore which I’d originally planned on using to make golems to carry everything.

Technically, I was overburdened in a sense, because the Inventory system only bore the weight of 100 lbs. Even if the total weight was being reduced by 30% by my Magic Bag, the rest sat firmly on my shoulders. It wasn’t really a burden for me. It would slow me down, and it would limit how high I could jump, but my Improve Regeneration more than made up for it any extra stamina drain. Not to mention the constant healing of my body made exhaustion a thing of the past. I wouldn’t even need food or drink to keep me going.

Aeris contacted Sanctuary, letting them know that our plan was going off without a hitch. Russ, Olivia, and a small group would head to a chosen meeting spot north of Sanctuary in a place we had never been but was known to Zorik. It was a large cavern that acted as a crossroad for many tunnels. There would likely be mobs in the area, but Aeris and I would get there first and clear the path, unload our goods, and wait for the others to come with the work golems I had left at Sanctuary to help with the farming. The golems would be pulling the same carts that we’d used when bringing loot back from the Imp’s Dungeon.

I wouldn’t get to test out the new speed that Solar Mage provided, but after making sure we didn’t miss anything, Aeris and I shared a look. It was possible that we’d never be able to return to Sanctuary until Mistress Nava was taken care of, but she wasn’t letting that bother her. I’d seen the same look she gave me a thousand times. Mischief was in the air.

She set off at an incredible pace that was impossible for me to match. One moment she was gone, the next she was back and flying circles around me like my own personal whirlwind. It was an incredible feeling to know this was the girl that I’d asked to marry me, and she’d actually said yes. I had no idea what we were in for, but as long as she was around, I was content.