Kael's mana channels felt like torn flesh—raw, burning, held together by sheer stubbornness. Every breath sharpened the ache. Every heavy heartbeat reminded him he was one single mistake from collapsing entirely.
Rest later. Survive now.
The cavern floor was smeared with the steaming blood of two creatures that should never have crossed paths. One still twitched faintly, the vampiric bat behemoth he had barely managed to kill. Its wings were shredded and folded like broken knives. Lying beside it was the massive body of a Troll, a brutal monument to resilience that was now merely meat.
Kael knew his time was up. Leaving the massive cores behind meant all his efforts were for naught.
He staggered toward the behemoth corpses, massive and unmoving in the crater their bodies had created. His hands trembled violently. Kael knew that his channels could only handle so much; casting so many spells for the battle and now attempting a tricky extraction had left them raw.
He inhaled sharply and aimed the extraction rune as he had with the stone serpent. The moment his fingers brushed the bat's chest, the rune stuttered and died. Kael frowned.
He tried again, but still the spell failed. Kael knew he had to get his hands dirty if he wanted this prize.
He channeled Flesh Mana for the first time in his life. A foreign feeling took hold, unlike any other mana, but he possessed the legacy of a necromancer and he knew how volatile the Flesh Mana could be. It made the target feel malleable, and he knew that pure intention was required. When he tried to part the Troll's flesh to search for a core, the surface started rippling.
The flesh parted a little, and a geyser of viscous, corrupted blood washed over his face. The Troll's blood went in his mouth. He gagged reflexively and tried to move away from the fountain that was pouring out.
The blood he had swallowed by mistake coursed through his body. His body shuddered. The pain dulled, wounds tightening rather than vanishing—a temporary stay against total collapse. The blood started soothing his ravaged mana channels.
His arcane mana could usually soothe his channels, but this felt alien, a potency borrowed, not earned. Kael's eyes shone with a raw, undeniable greed, yet the knowledge of the act tasted like ash. He moved hastily toward the geyser of blood leaking from the Troll and started swallowing it like a thirsty man finding an oasis.
He kept drinking until the warmth sloughed off. The restorative rush collapsed into nothing, like a candle snuffed mid sigh. A single, dark fleck formed beneath his left eye—a pinprick scar he hadn't possessed moments ago. Kael lamented the loss of such a potent resource, but he did not have time for regrets. His body and channels were stable enough not to collapse for now.
He focused, channeling the Flesh Mana with renewed vigor and control. After several attempts, he succeeded.
A shining core slid free from the vampiric bat's chest. The Troll did not have a beast core, a final assurance that this was a sentient being, not mere prey. A hunger, ancient and deep, came from the entity he had locked away with soul chains inside him.
Kael saw a pouch attached to the Troll's belt. He picked it up and tried to store it in his dimensional artifact, but it refused to enter. Kael narrowed his eyes and strapped it on like a backpack. He extracted as much raw meat as his spatial artifact could possibly hold for sustenance.
He turned to run.
The trees blurred around him as he sprinted. Lungs burning, every step hammering pain up his shins. He kept his senses stretched wide, not his own, but the borrowed ones, the senses gifted by the thing sleeping in his soul.
A prickling awareness crawled across the back of his neck when his new senses caught the faintest ripple of movement far behind him. Something massive. Something curious.
Kael did not look back. He pushed harder, breathing ragged but controlled. The darkness ahead felt safer than the open cavern behind.
Only when the oppressive pressure finally faded did Kael allow himself to slow, slumping against a cold wall. He wiped his brow, smearing blood he was not even sure belonged to him. He needed to find a safe place to rest, absorb his meagre gains, and plan his next steps. The only thing he had going for him was that his rank was too low. High level beings usually ignored small fry like him unless he proved a direct threat.
He was leaning against the tree bark, trying to regain his breath, when his new senses flared. It was a borrowed, tingling awareness that screamed of danger. He looked sharply to his side and saw a panther with spots all over its lithe body. The beast was not looking at him, but sniffing, its head tilting as if searching for something on the thermal current.
The panther moved so fast that Kael's eyes could not even track it properly. Its sharp claws raked the spot where Kael was standing a millisecond before he phased. He activated the rune on instinct and sank into the earth, saving him.
This time, Kael knew what it felt like to be buried, the pressure of the compressed dirt and stone against his skin, a feeling still so alien and deeply unsettling.
The panther was confused. It kept sniffing the area, unable to find its target, the heat signature suddenly gone.
This interaction gave Kael an idea. He needed shelter, a place where no one could detect him, and since he had the ability to phase, he did not need a visible entrance.
Kael started shifting through the earth, keeping the phase rune active. The disadvantage of the rune was clear: it still only worked for some seconds, and he did not want to be inside the earth when his spell ran out. He moved carefully, testing the stability of the ground before taking the next short, desperate step deeper into the dark, silent earth. He counted his heartbeats: one, two, three—the phase could end at ten.
He navigated with his mana sight, now infused with the Earth Mana he was using to hold the phase rune. He came near a small mountain, and looking at it with his borrowed, spatial sense, he found that the mountain was hollow from inside. It was a massive, empty space that offered genuine cover.
Kael did not hesitate. He moved into the mountain wall as he could sense that the panther was still following him, its senses unnervingly sharp.
Kael reached the massive, hollow space by phasing through the thick stone wall. It was a damp, cold, and dark cave. His feet crunched on ancient debris. Fissures ran across the ceiling, and the sheer weight of the rock above felt oppressive, like it could collapse any moment. This was not a haven; it was a trap with a roof.
Kael started infusing his eyes with Earth Mana to penetrate the absolute darkness and his lungs with Air Mana, setting a passive rune that meant he would not need to draw breath constantly. But most importantly, he needed structural integrity, and he needed it fast.
"Compendium, please evaluate a method to reinforce the cave so I can use it for shelter. Prioritize speed, durability, and resource conservation."
The voice in his mind responded immediately with an unexpected directive.
[Query Initiated: Place a Stone Structure Dwelling Array. Requires 500 CP and Initiate level beast core with earth affinity. Balance 963 CP]
Kael's eyes widened. "This is the first time I have heard this name. I never learned this array. Where did you find this knowledge? And so many CP with just 1 array"
[Knowledge found in the memories of Rakshar of the Valley Tribe Trolls. Optimization for host requires 500 CP.]
Kael's mind shook with this revelation. He had harvested specialized, unique knowledge from a high-level foe—a reward immeasurable in value. He still had the core from the stone serpent, which was a perfect match.
"Compendium, please show me the array composition for structure stabilization."
The full array structure assimilated with a sharp, iron taste on his tongue, forcing his mind to absorb complex geometry and esoteric runic language. This was the first true array Kael had to carve, not just activate, and the Compendium's guidance, which was utterly merciless in its demand for efficiency, was the only reason Kael was willing to attempt it.
Kael infused his finger with Earth Mana. He pointed his finger as if it were a stylus and started carving the array into the cold, damp stone. In the middle of the first diagram, his hand trembled from lingering exhaustion, and he made a mistake. He immediately had to infuse the surrounding earth to cleanly erase the mistake, then start that section again.
He kept making and correcting mistakes, the Compendium guiding him with ruthless precision. A voice that was not his own, cold and smooth as polished steel, whispered in the back of his mind: "A waste of effort. Let me show you a faster, simpler way. Just a small offering..." Kael flinched, his finger gouging a line too deep. He violently suppressed the thought, refocusing.
Kael was so focused on the work he was doing that he had no idea how much time had passed, but he was fully submerged. He traced dozens of complex, interlocking sigils across the rough stone walls and ceiling. When he finished carving the full array, he placed the stone serpent's beast core in the specific, concave spot the Compendium indicated. After placing the core, he started channeling Earth Mana to trigger the activation.
The beast core flew up in the air, then liquified instantly. The dense, pure earth mana from the core submerged through the whole array, tracing every carved line and vector Kael had spent hours perfecting.
The whole array shimmered with a radiant light of Earth Mana, nearly blinding him even through his mana vision. He had to instantly shut his internal sight off, and his eyes plunged back into absolute darkness.
The whole cavern was shifting and changing. A strange, low grinding sound filled the space. Suddenly, a chair formed beneath him with a bump, melded from the living stone. The Compendium's voice cut through the noise, telling him to sit down, and Kael, exhausted and trusting the array, did so.
He decided not to waste the precious stabilization time. Kael started using a divine mana technique—another borrowed piece of knowledge—to condense his mana for advancement. He kept the meditation going, focusing on the slow, painful compaction of his mana, until he felt his world light up again.
Kael opened his eyes, and they widened in surprise.
No longer was he in the damp, dark, unstable cave, but he was in a room, a dwelling fully designed and structurally sound. Tiled stone with elegant, geometric designs now covered the whole cave, making him feel like he was in a fancy noble's home. The cavern was efficiently lit by a large, glowing stone situated neatly on the roof.
A bed made of carved stone and a full table with a chair sat on one side of the room, perfect for study. A whole area for cooking was assigned, with stone crockery and earthen ware cooking equipment placed neatly on stone shelves. Kael looked at the polished stone surfaces, remembering the rough spun wool of his matron's apron—a phantom scent of warm porridge and safety he had not earned.
The Compendium guided him. He focused, channeling Water Mana into one specific etched basin, and a tub filled with clean water. Kael stripped off his blood-soaked clothes and started cleaning himself. He scrubbed the grime and blood from his skin, then washed the clothes.
After the bath, he placed raw meat and water into a cooking pot—an earthen ware vessel carved with an array. He channeled Fire Mana into the pot. He only needed to provide a small amount of mana to initiate the array; the rest of the cooking process was fuelled by ambient mana.
Kael realized the Compendium had inscribed mana siphon arrays throughout the dwelling, making certain functions automatic. The meat would take time to cook. Feeling a level of stability, he had not known since his arrival, Kael lay down on the stone bed and instantly fell asleep.