Apocalypse Cultivation 2, ch 12

Apologies in advance for the editing.  It won't be as good as usual.

I have like over 10 more chapters written though and I need to get the book done.  

I'll go back and reedit everything in about a week. :)

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Jake sat on a stone in his little base of operations in the labyrinth.  The little space appeared to be a small cave that had been blocked off from the starting area by an ancient cave in.  He absently scratched in the dirt by his foot with the broken bone in his hand.  Today was the day he was going to finally attempt to leave this place through the hardest door he’d been able to find.

His map drawn on the hard clay of the ground was the product of over a year’s worth of effort.  He’d been actively trying to conquer this challenge for over a year and a half.  Drawing the map

in a safe place had taken him an embarrassing amount of time to think of.

That’s another year and a half that isn’t even going to count towards the time I owe the Morrigan in Murim.  He grimaced.  Time would be compressed here the same as it was in any challenge room.  Maybe he could make that work for him, though.

As he stared at his map, he ran through the memories associated with some of the areas he’d drawn out.  Just leaving the labyrinth alive, not trying to get any impressive achievements, would not have been too difficult for a competent C rank adventurer back on earth.  Hell, even a decent, lower powered group could do it.  Of course, the Faceted hadn’t mentioned whether groups could challenge this labyrinths, so he wasn’t even sure if that would be an option.

The labyrinth was set up like a wagon wheel with a hub, sort of like Jailtown in the Web burrows.  This wheel had seven hallways, like “spokes.”  Through each hallway was its own ecosystem of sorts, all populated by different monsters.  In total there were seven of them.

Jake had wiped out five of the seven so far.

Each ecosystem had different types of monsters with one theme or type of ability.  It seemed the ecosystems were meant to represent differing difficulties.  At the end of each de-facto dungeon,  past a boss or powerful group of monsters, was an exit door.  It hadn’t taken too much brain power after discovering this to better understand how rewards would work.

And of course, the entrance to this system had been a long tunnel populated by weak monsters with its own exit door.  Jake wasn’t sure whether it was a legitimate exit door or a trap.  He wasn’t really interested in finding out.

Past the entry area, the first ecosystem had been the easiest.  This was also where he’d finally been able to confirm that he had an actual affinity to Shadow.  It hadn’t been his imagination back in the mines.  The more he practiced hiding and being stealthy, the more he’d discovered a knack for it.  Now he could…feel the deeper part of shadows, almost like looking into water and spotting the bottom.  He wasn’t sure what the purpose of this was yet, but he could feel his understanding of shadows growing every day.

Jake would have just chalked this new sense up to a new dao or some other form of power, but after meeting Morrigan more than once, he couldn’t deny that the sensation he got from shadows now reminded him of her.

He’d take any tool he could get.  To that end, he’d put the labyrinth to good use, too.  And that also went for Morrigan.

It was time to call in one of the tools he’d earned through signing away the next few thousand years of his life.

“Hey crow, Rishlay, messenger of Morrigan.  I need to talk to you.”  Nothing happened.  Jake opened his menu and examined it.  There was a way to call Morrigan, he’d found it long ago.  However, he needed a question answered, and there wasn’t an obvious way to summon one of Morrigan’s messengers.

That was a problem because he needed to know his assumptions were correct before pulling the trigger on his plan.

He studied the menu for days before finally putting it away.  Apparently, what he was trying to do wasn’t part of the deal or at least wasn’t a feature of his Champion status.  But in the supernatural world, names had power.  Maybe he could use that.

His time in the labyrinth had been dangerous as hell and he’d been here for over a year already, but he’d already felt grateful for the opportunity.  Now the emotion surged up again.  Sometimes it was nice to have all the time he needed to think through something, all while the outside world waited.

His time in the first challenge room he’d found back on earth had honestly been a massive help, especially back when he’d still just been a zombie.

Jake pulled some of the glowing moss he’d scavenged out of a cubby he kept it in so he could adjust the light level of the room.  He placed a bit more on the ceiling than had been there before.

Then he fetched some of the special sand he’d kept in his inventory, stuff that he’d found in the labyrinth and then charged with energy a few months ago.  He was a little proud of his forethought, back when the plan had just been a glimmer in his mind.  The sand was handy.  As long as the grains touched, it would work as a decent conduit in a pinch.  Then he began to draw a bastardized version of a summoning circle.

If he was right, using sand he’d already charged with energy like this should allow him to use limited magic.

Unlike chi or cultivation techniques, most magic seemed to follow more rules.  Not always, but there were forms of magic that Jake still thought of more as…baking than cooking.  Summoning spells were this way.

Jake only had chi now, but he was pretty sure he could still offer the spark needed to ignite a spell as long as he drew it out correctly and used materials pre-charged with power.  He couldn’t offer the power directly himself, but he believed he could prep it to work instead.

The effect was like…starting a manual transmission car while it was a moving instead of using a key.

At least he hoped.

Jake carefully drew out the summoning circle on the ground on the other side of the room from his map.  Even though it wasn’t very complicated, he wanted to make sure everything was perfect since he was modifying it.  Instead of trying to summon the crow, which could be a bad idea for lots of reasons, he was just going to try calling it, letting his call reach it.

Theoretically, the fact he was in a challenge room wouldn’t matter, but it was still definitely a concern in the back of his mind.

Once he was done, he carefully filled the lines he’d drawn with empowered sand.  Then he stepped back and critically inspected his handiwork.

It all looked good, so without stalling, he called out the ancient syllables of the simple summoning spell he knew, with the last bit cut out.  Instead of a command, it was a suggestion.  He ended the entire thing by using the crow’s name.

“Rishlay!” he called.  Then he jabbed a portion of his power into the energized sand, creating a chain reaction that consumed all of it.

The entire cave was lit up like the sun for a split second before the light faded.  After the area was dim again, Jake waited, not sure what exactly to expect.  Ten minutes assed.  Nothing else had happened but he wasn’t entirely surprised.  Sometimes these things could take a while.  Now that he’d come come to another world where time moved so differently from Earth, he had a better understanding oh how the effects of some magic, especially summoning magic, could take time.

Jake sat cross legged against the wall, settling in to meditate and wait.  As he did so, he reviewed his situation.

He’d been able to get a lot of monster cores that he needed for an evolution path that he was willing to accept, one that could eventually lead to where he wanted to go.  One biome had been full of different types of scorpion monsters that had helped with this.  Another biome had been the home of strange, shape-shifting monsters.  Encountering them had changed the evolution information in Jake’s head.  Apparently they were somewhat rare.

Jake had extra monster cores left over, too, but his instincts were telling him that evolving again before attaining a complete cultivator’s body transformation would be beneficial for him, especially since he’d managed to overcome the limits of the Silver stage of Body Refinement.

He was currently at the Eighth level of Gold, and likely stronger than most cultivators with a new, reforged body.  The strange circumstances and trials he’d been through so far on his path had served to make his foundation much deeper than normal.

As he was musing about his advancement, his eyes caught a flicker of movement.  A second later, Rislay the crow was standing on the ground in front of him.

“This is highly irregular,” said the messenger without preamble.  “I hope you had a good reason for calling me or I am going to be…irritated.”

“Hello to you, too, Rishlay.  Thanks again for the warning 10 years ago.  But now that you’re here, I have a few questions.”

“Well then, I likely have answers.  I take it that this is regarding something to do with the mistress?”

“That’s right.”

The crow gave a very human-sounding sigh and hopped closer.  “Well, I will answer as best I can.  There are some subjects I cannot delver very deeply or must ignore entirely.  I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course I do.”  The crow’s feathers fluffed up.  “So what do you need to know?”