Chapter 134

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The Ninth Floor, The Dungeon, Atlantis

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Haythem raised a hand to shield his eyes and look ahead while the midday sun beat down upon the group trudging across the dune sea. According to Isid, the entire floor was surrounded by the same enchantment as the Eighth that mad it seem as if they were on the surface.

But that didn't change what it looked like. A harsh sun, the exact shade as the one he was familiar with, slid through a clear blue sky. Not a cloud was in sight and the dunes continued endlessly in every direction. They'd emerged from a rock formation, but that'd long disappeared behind them. In the distance, Haythem could see a lone mountain that split into two peaks near the tip, with a point of light between them. Isid insisted no such mountain existed; that it was an illusion.

Before descending, they'd been told by the Guildmistress that there was, supposedly, a canyon here somewhere. Isid led the line of guilders, attempting to navigate by following the diverging manastreams as they wound overhead. She claimed there were two points the streams reached the ground. Which of the two was the canyon was a coinflip. Haythem raised his waterskin and took a long gulp. The cooling liquid was a relief; the heat-resistant cloaks they'd gotten for the Sixth helped, but this was a different kind of heat. It was oppressive, and all-pervasive, and did nothing to prevent the heat seeping into their boots and feet.

"How much farther?" Haythem asked, calling up the line. His voice echoed slightly into the faint wind.

The group was walking single-file along the ridge of a dune. The left side face was steep, while the right had a much shallower slope. With each step, sand cascaded down the shallow side. The sound it made, an almost drumming sound, was a constant drone in their ears. This had to be the fortieth such dune they'd traveled along in this manner. They'd yet to encounter any monsters or manabeings, and it was making Haythem a little paranoid.

"Not too long now," Isid replied from the head of the procession. "Two more dunes at most. That manastream is powering an enchantment, one trying to hide whatever's under it." 

Two dunes and passing through the concealment enchantment later... they found a tiny structure, gleaming copper in the sunlight. From base to tip, it was only waist-height. 

"I don't understand," Isid said, kneeling in the sand to peer at the pyramidal structure. "The manastream comes right down through the point, and just... disappears. The concealment enchantment is inscribed on the faces... but not all of it. About half."

"So the rest is buried in the sand?" Lilliette reasoned, kneeling next to the albino woman. She reached out with her mithril hand, running her fingers along the faintly glowing symbols. Haythem frowned at the implication.

"So how deep does it go, then?" Bertram seemed just as worried as Haythem was starting to feel. "If this is just the tip, how big is it?"

"We have no way of knowing," Isid answered. "I cannot see past the sand. There must be some enchantment or trial we need to pass to reveal this structure, like that cavern on the eighth." Haythem shuddered just thinking about it, but felt the group's leader wasn't wrong.

"So, we go to the other manastream," Haythem stated, his eyes moving to scan the horizon. "There's nothing more we can do here... Though I do think we're about to have company." A dark shape was forming through the heat haze, though it was still too far away to identify.

The group formed up, moving away from the waist-high pyramid and towards the shape, which Isid said was coming from the other manastream. Minutes passed as the shapes grew in size, until they become suddenly much more discernable.

It was birds. A large flock of very large birds. Along with the flight of suspiciously shiny birds, a dust cloud hung beneath them. It didn't take much longer for them to reach the group of Guilders. As the birds flapped their wings, Haythem realized it was worse. They weren't just close, they were in range.

The dozen-or-so birds shot very shiny feathers at them, which cut through the air with piercing shrieks. There was a pulse of magic and Lilliette was already raising a half-dome shield, just in time for the feathers to impact, bouncing off, though not without leaving dramatic-looking cracks spiderwebbing across the curved face. Haythem glanced at the mage, and could barely see the wince as she pushed another pulse of magic through her staff and metal arm, healing the cracks and thickening the shield.

"Let the arches deal with the birds, we've got Incoming on the ground," Jerrard called, and Haythem's eyes snapped back to the dust cloud. It looked like... d half-dozen tiny tornadoes. The probably-manabeings rushed in and circled around, approaching the open back-end of the shield. Haythem rushed to the gap, along with the other purely-melee fighters.

He twirled his new sword, still getting used to the weight, and swung it right through the twister, aiming for the glimmer he saw within; potentially the manabeing's core. His sword pulsed with light as he did, it's enchantment activating. It was a rather rare one called Mage-bane. The sword absorbed the mana of any being it cut, storing it in the monster core in the hilt. Over time it would slowly dissipate, since it wasn't a dungeon core, but in the short term...

His first swing missed the monster's core, but given the bright glow in the gem, his sword had absorbed a decent amount from that one strike. He activated the second enchantment as the twister recoiled, likely in shock. His second swing unleashed an arc of white mana, which did hit the manabeing's core. The twister dissipated almost instantly, and he barely glimpsed the ball of light that was the true manabeing before it fled beneath the sand.

Haythem smirked to himself, giving his sword a satisfied nod. He'd seen the kid, Akio, use a spell like this, and had commissioned the island's Enchanter to make a similar spell. It was certainly effective, and even after what seemed like hundreds of uses in the last three days of this delve, it was holding stable.

He cut down another twister, and seeing that was the last of them turned to face the birds, only to see those that remained fleeing, eight corpses decorating the sands in front of the shield.

The shield fell, and Haythem realized it was getting pretty dark out. The sun was low on the horizon, and the dunes were practically glowing orange.

"Right, we have no shelter and we don't know what kind of monsters might come out at night here," Isid called out. "We're going back. We'll try the other manastream next delve." Haythem turned and admired the sunset for a moment longer as the distinct flashes of the teleportation cristals went off, one after another.

"aythem!"

He blinked. Isid was standing next to him, a hand on his shoulder. "Everyone else has gone already. Just you and me left. You... alright?"

Haythem sighed. He watched the sun dip past the horizon, and plunge the floor into darkness. On the other side of the floor, he saw the single moon rise, and the stars blink into life. "Why dungeon that it thinks the sky looks like this, Isid?" Haythem asked, waving at the band of light running across the sky. "Where's the Ring of Heaven? Why does it think there's only one moon?"

"Who knows. I don't think it'd tell us if we asked," Isid replied, quietly. Haythem realized what he'd said a moment later.

"Sorry, forgot you can't see it. It just... It looks so real. It's so detailed your first thought is that it's the actual sky, that it couldn't possible be an illusion."

"Apology accepted, Haythem. I have a theory or two, but we can discuss them later. For now, we need to leave. The dungeon might be marshaling forces that'll attack us if we wait a moment longer."

Haythem nodded and activated his teleport crystal.

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The Creator, Atlantis, The Kalenic Sea

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After the CHI group left, I refocused on the future Twelfth Floor. There was work to do, after all.

I spent the next day or two carefully enchanting the cavern with space-expansion charms. These were much-refined from the Eleventh's and I made sure to add a limiter, to prevent it growing too fast, or going past a pre-set expansion multiplier. In essence, while the Eleventh grew quadratically in speed once everything starting running, the Twelfth would grow linearly, letting air flow into it at a reasonable pace.

You're sure you can restrict the portal to only allow air through? I don't want uncontracted manabeings coming through. I said to the Air Fairy. The 15-foot feminine cloud giggled and nodded from her perch atop Zephyr Peak, the Air Elemental Island.

"Yup yup! I mean it's like what you got the water sprites to do when you made this floor, but as a portal to the Air Plane instead of the surface oceans. One-way, mostly. Manabeings can only cross into the Material Plane when explicitly invited, which is what a summoning spell is, and they won't be able to pass through the portal."

Thank you for the explanation... Actually, did you decide to take a name yet, or do you still want to remain nameless?

"Hmm. I might take a name, actually. When you're weak there isn't a real point, but I'm a Fairy now... And will be for probably a year or more, even with the accelerated growth being contracted to you is giving me. You got any good ones?"

A few. Aang, Aeolus, Boreas, Zephyr, Aura. Any sound good? I have more.

"Oh they sound fun. I like Aeolus the most, I think. Aeoooolus. Aeolusss. It's a funny one. I'll take it!"

I'm happy for you. Now, if you'd make your way to the Twelfth Floor with as many sprites as you can bring? I'm just about ready to start it's growth.

"Of course. Will you be there with that fancy body of yours?"

I wasn't intending to, since I'm spending time with Cadmus at the moment. Wave and Taura are... busy... and can't watch them for me.

"Bring the kid, too! I'm sure they'll have fun!"

About half an hour later, I stood in the cavernous Twelfth Floor with Cadmus, Aeolus and her... Aeoli? Maybe. Sounds cool.

When everyone was ready, I started the enchantment, and prompted the Air Sprites to open the portal.

The walls and ceiling s away from us, though at different rates. I made sure the roof would end up the exact height I wanted when the walls had finished expanding.

Beside us, the portal to the Air Plane practically exploded, wind gusting through at gale-force speeds. As the floor grew, five other groups of sprites formed up and opened portals of their own, releasing enough air to keep up with the room's expansion.

Another hour passed slowly while I monitored the expansion, making sure it was growing at the correct speed.

Then it was done.

The once large cavern was now a Continent-sized space, with roughly the same height at the Eleventh, which allowed for much more complex weather systems. 

Hundreds of ideas fought for dominance as I contemplated just what I was going to fill a Europe-sized floor with. Sticking to just one biome like I'd been doing with the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth was right out. It was just too large, which meant I could fit multiple biomes, with transitional areas where monsters from both could be encountered. Really, there was a list of biomes I just had to include; at least one mountain-range and it's foothills, a desert, a country-sized forest, rolling plains...

Along with a few non-standard biomes slipped in among them.

One of the first I decided on was the Giant's Forest., which would be located at the center of that country-spanning forest. Everything was at least twice as large. Everything. Animals, plants and all the monsters. All their dimensions would be doubled, making any normal human walking through it feel like a hobbit in comparison. 

And I decided not to limit areas to only one or two monster types. Every area would be saturated with every monster species that could logically live there. 

Alright. Enough talk. Time to actually make stuff. Gods, I feel like it's been years since I actually started making a new Floor.

Time to work!

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Obsidian Beach, Atlantis, The Kalenic Sea

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Bruce sat quietly on the sand, looking out at the sea as the sky slowly darkened, the sun setting on the far side of the island. Stars slowly flickered to life as bright blue gave way to navy, then pure black. The few clouds faded into darkness, undetectable against the sky but for when they obscured the flickering lights behind them.

He let the chatter of his friends flow over him, and he meditated.

It was something he'd been doing recently, taking inspiration from stories he'd read. Who knew if any of them were applicable, but here, where mana responded to intent more than a regimented system of spell slots, skills or math of some kind... He felt it was worth a shot.

And so, he meditated. 

He let the noise of the town's nightlife, his friends chatter, the wind pushing the sand around... It all faded away... but for the crash of the waves. Push... and pull. Push... and pull. In... and out. In... and out. He closed his eyes, and focused.

He felt the mana inside him, cool, and flowing as it rested within his core. What felt like years ago now, but he knew was only maybe a month or two... probably... His mind returned to when he'd talked to Akio and Sophie about mana when they'd first had it unlocked.

Akio thought about spells like computer programs, but it wasn't like that at all for Bruce.

While he could slosh and direct his mana out of his core and through his body freely, acting on water outside his body with it was like using another limb. The more he tried to do, the more resistance he felt, and the more mana it took. While his mana reserves had been growing... He felt like he was falling behind.

Akio was... Akio. The guy was great fun, and a bro, but he didn't realize just how absurd his growth was. The guy could lift a fucking boulder, for fuck's sake! Bruce could vaguely tell he had more mana than the Japanese teen, but with how he used it in combat... Akio was definetly more effective. Hell, even Sophie was better at using her mana than he was.

And it.. rankled, slightly.

So he needed to figure out something else. A different way. Get a different perspective.

Bruce breathed. In... and out. Push... and pull.

As he did, he moved his mana through his body. He let it move like his blood, rushing out from his core, through the spiritual veins that ran along his actual arteries and veins. With each inhale, he pushed his mana out. With each exhale, he pulled it back in. Slowly, with each repetition he felt... something happening.

He felt like he could almost grasp what was happening. He almost had the words!

"Hey, Bruce, you okay there?" And he lost it. All at once the world crashed back into him. The chatter, the waves, the wind, the town... he blinked rapidly, and turned to look at Akio.

"Dude, I was this close to spiritual enlightenment," Bruce complained, falling back to lie on the sand. "Do I need to go into closed-door meditation or something?!" 

"Closed-door medi- wait. WAIT," Akio down at him with wide eyes, and Bruce could see the cogs turning in his eyes. "That's possible!?"

"Hell if I know," Bruce answered. "Gonna give it a shot though."

"What are you talking about?" Sophie asked. Bruce turned to look at the girls, who looked confused.

"You know what Xianxia is?" Bruce asked. Sophie's eyes also went wide. Elize just looked confused. 

"Immortal Heroes?" The princess said. "That... what you said sounded nothing like that word. That wasn't.. English, or Japanese, was it?"

"No. It's Chinese," Sophie answered. "The name doesn't describe it well. It's a genre of fiction where people cultivate energy and attempt to ascend to higher planes of existence."

"People... farm energy? What has farming got to do with energy?"

Bruce let his eyes close as Akio and Sophie tried to explain further. He didn't know if it was possible. He'd need to find his Meridians and Dantian, though that should be in his Diaphram. Would his manacore work as his Golden Core?

He didn't know if it could possibly work.

But it'd be fun to figure it out.

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