Chapter 525 - 7th floor’s monsters

Three days pass and it feels like the weather becomes colder and harsher; the snow, even though cleaned often, collects against the tents. It’s darker outside and often you can see only a few steps ahead.

Yet we continue as before.

Sophie, Aaron, Dennis, and me helping in the workshop and getting access to more and more advanced parts and information while absorbing all the knowledge we can.

Lily, guarded by the others, is often called to heal as more and more smaller expeditions stumble upon mimics near our camp and are forced to fight them.

One thing is for sure, sooner or later the enemy will notice a lot of mimics dying in this area and someone stronger will be sent to examine it.

I also wonder why have we been sent here so early. Why we didn’t spend more time outside and fixing the parts there. Even Exoria and Praxion seem to be still damaged and were like that before we headed here. The mission we are on seems to be important and urgent, causing us to be sent here unprepared.

One smaller group of mercenaries clashes with lumorans, taking a few technicians as hostages and threaten to kill them. It’s a dumb decision, but it says a lot about their desperation. They just ask for some equipment so they can leave, nothing else. They know they won’t survive in that cold as they are.

Together with more mercenaries and group 4, we watch as Serabeth kills them all without even scratching a single lumoran technician.

The mercenaries’ bodies implode into small balls made of their flesh or are pulled to the ground under incredible gravity, flattening to the thickness of a pancake.

“I will talk with Serabeth,” I tell my group and head towards the tent where she went after dealing with it all.

“What? Now?” I hear Maya gasp in surprise.

I pay it no mind and, reaching her “office” tent, I send a signal.

After a bit of hesitation, the canvas flap opens up and I enter, welcomed by a warm orange light and a clean, minimalistic room other than two dozen plants placed on the shelves in one of the corners. Serabeth is sitting in her chair behind a wooden table and I grab a chair, and after getting a nod from her, I sit down.

“So, I have thought of it. If you know what’s going on or if you are also left in the dark, and my opinion on it kept changing. One day I think you are informed and a few hours later I suspect you know nothing.”

“What conclusion did you come to?”

“You know a little, but even you don’t know everything. They are probably limiting the number of people in case a mimic takes over. It’s also possible, you being you, that you try not to think of it so in case you fall to a mimic, it won’t get this information out of you.”

“That’s a reasonable conclusion. In that case, if you came here to ask any of that…”

“I did not. I want to join the scouts for a few runs.”

"No. You’re too valuable right now. Surprisingly, even Quent seems to like you. Personally, I find you to be a pain in the ass, but the technicians clearly see something in you."

“I can join scouts in my free time and…”

"No, this conversation is over. Do you think I don’t know about Dennis and Aaron rummaging through our storage? I’m aware they took one of the smaller tents and some supplies. I also know about the connection you’re setting up to our array and I saw you examining the Signature Isolation Framework."

She leans closer, her golden eyes dangerous. “All of this was allowed by me because of the worth you guys have and the fact you know so annoyingly well where the line is, and haven’t stepped over it, Nathaniel.”

"I’m not naïve enough to think you wouldn’t notice—it’d be pretty lame if you didn’t. But I also know that heading out with the scouts still stays on the right side of that line."

Serabeth groans, and I feel the pressure on me increasing as pale blue mana swirls inside her crystalline features.

“What do you expect out of it?” she asks, clearly annoyed.

“Honestly? I’m not sure yet.”

Her eyes harden even more, but I know I’m still within that line.

“Fine. You will go scouting with the group tomorrow. And Nathaniel…”

I nod, “If I break the rules, I will be killed.”

***

Leaving group 4 in the care of Biscuit and to a lesser extent Tess, I head towards the meeting spot. All my pyramids are dissipated, Restrictive Training Emblem is turned off, and Burden Enhancement Inscriptions as well.

Even though I have been working a lot, my crown is humming with a decent amount of mana, not even mentioning my body with an increased mana pool after the Primary Class upgrade.

After my daily training, either on my own or with someone from the group, my skills also leveled up nicely bit by bit.

Active skills (10/10):

Focus - Lvl 60

Perception - Lvl 55

Redistribution - Lvl 58

Mana Domain (Pride) - Lvl 57

Mana Crown - Lvl 52

Mana Manipulation - Lvl 62

Ley Line - Lvl 47

Bone Knitting - Lvl 29

Eclipse - Lvl 16

Empyrean Lance - Lvl 11

Part of my mind tunes in to the lumoran archer, the scout leader, as he explains the rules—rules I already know but that he makes sure to remind everyone of. Breaking any of them will get you killed, whether by mimics, the weather, or the Lumorans themselves.

All fun stuff.

The group consists of 10 members, me included. Five lumorans, two humans, and two thylarin mercenaries. Three of the lumorans are likely closer to level 400, and the rest of the group hovers around level 300-350.

It’s clear that our group chose one of the more challenging options on this floor, judging by the average levels of everyone around us. If we had gone to the 6th Front instead, we’d likely be encountering people around level 300 or lower.

Following the instructions, I adjust my clothes and put on the amulet they gave me. It uses a mana battery to make the cold more bearable, a function that will last for 12 hours before needing a recharge.

I’m also connected to something akin to the link the twins can create, just not that expansive. This connection allows sending simple orders: things like “attack,” “go back,” “enemy on the left,” and similar.

When we pass through the defensive array, the mood shifts and the atmosphere changes as we trudge through the snow, our superhuman bodies easily moving it aside. But the cold increases and the wind strengthens, making audible conversation nearly impossible.

We walk for only a few seconds, but when I look back, the Exoria Deployment Camp is nowhere in sight. It’s not just the weather obscuring it—its defensive and camouflaging arrays are concealing it as well.

Disconnected from the twins’ link and Sophie’s web and even forced to cut off my Ley Lines, I feel a sense of dread at that sight. My heart thumps and I feel a cold on my back not caused by the weather.

How easy it would be to never find that camp again, passing near it for hours, yet unable to locate it, neither my eyes nor my skills helping.

Prodded by the signal from the leader, I turn away and head closer to the group.

For some reason, I have decided to try my very best to keep the leader or any lumoran that knows the way back alive.

***

The biting wind intensifies the cold, but no one uses their mana; instead, we stick to relying on our equipment as planned.

We start going in a huge circle while a few of the members send ahead some special detection frequencies, which I examine. They seem to be an attempt to locate a mimic without a “host” nearby.

A mimic without a host can take the shape of almost anything: a tree, a stone, hell, maybe even a pile of snow. The limiting factor is the mimic’s original size, and the stronger a mimic is, the larger the object it can mimic or the stronger the person it can take over.

Some mercenaries in the camp like to tell rumors about Champion-grade mimics being able to mimic entire buildings and letting people get inside before devouring them.

Without a host, a mimic’s powers are limited, and its intelligence as well. They have dangerous poison, an extremely durable body, and are great at hiding, not to mention incredibly sharp teeth that possess incredible properties the older or stronger a mimic is.

Once a mimic takes over someone, that’s it—it can’t return to its original form. That’s why they’re so selective, especially when it comes to stronger mimics.

Sometimes a powerful mimic can end up taking over a low-level lumoran, having its power limited. In other cases, a weak mimic can luck out and take over a half-dead Champion, but end up unable to fully utilize the body’s powers.

Once the mimic takes over, it has access to most of the memories while realizing it is a mimic and acting to be useful to the mimic “cause”, or whatever it is. These “rules” change a lot when it comes to powerful mimics or powerful beings they take over, with many exceptions and dozens of little things influencing the final result.

The current consensus is that once a mimic takes over, the host is effectively dead, leaving behind only memories that the mimic uses to impersonate them. However, there’s a rumor that a unit of lumoran has a theory about reversing the process. Some call it false hope, while others argue that even if it succeeded, the 'person' brought back would just be a mimic with the host's memories, unaware of its true nature as a mimic.

Either way, it’s possible to resist a weaker mimic attempting to take over. As for the stronger ones, it’s best to avoid them whenever possible or take them out from a distance.

So even though it’s not needed and I’m told I could rely on our scouts, every time we pass by a boulder or a tree covered in snow, I form a dagger and give it a stab.

I know there probably should be a text with level and monster name, but at this point I expect the system to actively hide them until we truly locate them. Even though it goes “against the rules,” the system I know, hate, and love doesn’t mind twisting these rules to avoid the attendees abusing them for the “intended experience.” That’s what I think happened to that mercenary, with his class and level not changing despite being taken over by a mimic.

It makes me think of another way the system twists the tutorial, about what my handler once told me—not to abuse Beyond Stay tokens to escape danger. Apparently, the more I do so, the angrier the system becomes, twisting things when I return to punish me for it.

I strongly suspect that when I abused it in the mana desert and came back, buried in the white sand and then those damned whales, that was one of these things. So I do wonder what would happen if I do it again. Even so, I know I would still do it if really needed.

While I think about that, our scouting continues, and my expectations of danger or clashes with monsters fade after hours upon hours of uneventful scouting. The romanticized life of constant danger, hunting monsters, or evading powerful foes turns into a monotonous trek through the snow in wide circles, stabbing trees and stones along the way.

It’s the same for the entire 12 hours, not a single mimic, not a single enemy presence in the area—much to the happiness of some of the scouts.

We return and I very closely observe the way the leader locates the camp, remembering the movement of mana around him, its frequency, and the way it affects ambient mana. I even observe the movement of his body or vibrations sent from him.

All this information is compacted, kept fresh by one of 6 parts of my mind that starts examining it over and over again, [Focus] allowing me to push through that boring task and continue to do so. I also examine the way the Signature Separation Framework examines my body.

For a moment there is a thought of what would happen if it just broke and didn’t light up. Thankfully it does, and I live another day, with the lumorans calming down.

There are additional checks done before I return to our tent. Immediately reactivating my training and allowing my body to radiate some heat makes my muscles feel like they are about to melt—a feeling akin to jumping into a hot bath after a really cold day.

With Biscuit on my lap, I open Community to check what I have missed.

Hadwin - little pup, one month and I will be joining you on the 7th floor.

***

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