Chapter 122: Chapter 122

The last little bit of prep I needed was securing my weapon. Aurier had finally finished with only a few hours left before I was supposed to head out and meet my party.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” he said, huffing and puffing a little like he had run all the way to the temple to deliver the large wooden crate.

I grinned at him. “I knew you’d make it.”

We broke open the crate together. Not sure why we even needed that sort of formality, but Aurier insisted he wanted to do it properly. I didn’t mind obliging.

My new mace was nestled inside the crate on some cloth. I whistled under my breath. It was impressive. The build was mostly like a morning star, a straight haft of metal etched with what looked like real wood—very expensive here on Zairgon—topped with a spiky head. But instead of a sphere, the head was a bit more oval.

Beating up my enemies with a metal pinecone was going to be funny.

“Thanks a lot, Aurier,” I said. “This looks amazing. I see the metal of the spikes are different from the metal of the rest of the thing.”

He nodded, growing in enthusiasm as he saw my reaction. “It is different. Easier to infuse with special properties.”

My eyes sparkled. “Special properties, you say?”

Somehow, that embarrassed Aurier again. “Well… it’s nothing too special, sorry. The spikes are now regenerative. The whole head actually. Even if it starts wearing down, it’ll self-repair.”

I tutted. “Don’t apologize. That’s awesome.”

“And the metal can also accept and amplify Aspects better, so you should have a much better time of stuffing in Gravity or Flare or whatever you want, really.”

“Yes! The spikes are made of adamantium. Really works well with any sort of mana.”

“I feel like adamantium doesn’t come cheap…”

Aurier shook his head. “Somebody like you doesn’t deserve something cheap, Ross.”

I wasn’t going to argue against that, and Aurier was too embarrassed to explain the economics behind acquiring and using adamantium. Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard about mines or the like anywhere nearby, so it wasn’t like I knew about the economics of regular metals either. So, I let it go.

“Thanks, Aurier,” I said. “This is going to help a lot.”

Aurier’s smile was huge.

I decided to get some last-minute practice in with my new mace to make sure I was used to it before the dungeon trip. Thıs content belongs to Nov3lFɪre.ɴet

“Soap,” Aqrea said as she read off the list with a dubious voice. “Incense, lots of firewood and matches. Fermented spicy water? Lamps with… Runes of Barricading…”

“I know all those sound extremely random,” I said. “But trust me, we’re going to need them.”

“For the Blight Swarm?”

I nodded. “For the Blight Swarm.”

We were having a last meeting before I headed off to the dungeon with my party, and the main thing I wanted to do was make sure they were continuing preparations while I was gone. I wasn’t expecting to be gone for more than a few days, but that didn’t mean our work could come to a stop.

Everything I was tasking Aqrea to gather would help against the giant bugs. Many of those hated fire and smoke, though several species had apparently developed resistance to it. Then there were others that detested incense and soap smells.

The barricade lamps would just be an extra precaution on the day of the invasion. I couldn’t exactly imbue Illumination into everything around Ring Four.

“No sign of Tural, huh?” I asked.

Aqrea’s face fell. “I’m afraid not, Cultist Ross. He’s avoiding us.” She paused but ended up not adding that he was avoiding me specifically. “None of the other Scarthralls had much luck.”

I sighed. “Alright, just keep an eye on him, please.”

Another thing I saw to was the start of the Ration House. It was now fully constructed and operational. The day I visited with Hamsik in tow, we spotted a long line of people steadily going in through one door before emerging out of a different exit.

“Aren’t you going to go inside?” Hamsik asked.

I looked at a man smiling wide as he carried a crate, his children laughing and skipping along behind him. “I feel like I don’t need to.” I squinted at my half-Scarseeker fellow cultist. “In fact, why don’t you go inside and take a peek at things?”

“Don’t be so dramatically angsty, Hamsik.”

He sighed exaggeratedly. “Alright, fine. I’ll go take a look.”

“And I’ll be heading out. I don’t want to be late to a dungeon delve.”

Hamsik paused as he was about to head into the Ration House. “Then I’ll be seeing you after you return?”

“Yes. Take care of things here for me while I’m gone, please.”

“Of course. Stay safe. Don’t worry about Zoltan or the Claws or whatever else. I’m looking into it. Just focus on your little adventure.”

I nodded my thanks and waved my farewell before heading out. Like last time, we were meeting at the gate to Ring Three, though instead of going down through Ring Four, we were trekking through Ring Three instead.

As we walked, I took a peek at my status. Well, the main number at the bottom.

Universal Language Approximator [Paragon I]

Path of Burning Starlight: Silver VI

Path of the Apostle: Silver VI

Mana Implosion: [Unawakened]

Sacrifice: Silver VIII

Support creative writers by reading their stories on NovelHub, not stolen versions.

Illumination: Iron VII

Time until Mana Implosion: 12 hours ]

Twelve hours till my mana implosion. My heartrate spiked at just seeing that. The cracks in my chest seemed to feather in anticipation. The others had assured me we’d be able to reach the dungeon’s depths within half a day, so I wasn’t too worried.

We were all pretty prepared for the trip. I was once again in solid armour, shields strapped to my back, though I made sure to reduce its weight with Siphon just like I had last time. After Ugnash requested, I did the same to his gear too—his huge tower shield, his armour, and even his boots as well. It wouldn’t last forever, but redoing the cast was trivial.

“Wow,” Ugnash said as he walked about with vastly reduced weight. “This is pretty cool. No wonder you’re wearing all that armour despite being a mage. Makes it lighter than robes, I bet.”

“I’ve… never actually tried on robes,” I said. “Well, the cultist robes, sure, but not the ones I’ve seen mages wear.”

Cerea made a sound of complete, abhorrent disgust that resulted in hissing laughter from Khagnio.

“You’re failing mage-kind, mageling!” he cackled.

We didn’t have to walk far. Just over to the less populated side of Ring Three, near where the pastures for the cave-sheep and other such establishments were. Climbing down a little dip on the mountainside there took us to a spot that was level with Ring Four, so we were essentially back on the height of the mountain we had started on.

Before we went in, I suggested we perform a Ritual of Growth. Khagnio looked dubious but eventually agreed after I explained why I had even come up with it to begin with.

He still didn’t like that it was religiously tied, and I wasn’t even sure if it was going to work on someone so opposed to any sort of prayer or faith so fundamentally, but it was worth a shot. Turned out, even someone like Khagnio got a benefit.

You have performed 1 [Moderate] Ritual of Growth. Windfall bonus activated.

Reward: Rank gain hastened by 3x for Iron-ranked Attributes, Aspects, and Paths, by 2x for Silver-ranked Attributes, Aspects, and Paths, and by 1.5x for Gold-ranked Attributes, Aspects, and Paths for 2 hours and 20 minutes. ]

“Oh wow,” Khagnio said, whistling in appreciation. “Not bad. The duration isn’t that great, but it looks like it’s simple to perform.”

“Exactly We can just do it again later on before an actual engagement. And I can Sacrifice it to boost the effects even further.”

Although, I did add I’d have to be careful since I wanted the mana implosion to occur too…

For all that the others had built up our upcoming dungeon as something far stronger than the one we had cleared before, the entrance wasn’t anything special. Same unassuming if yawningly dark cave opening covered up by those interesting strands of mana.

“Do stronger dungeons needs stronger Wards in front of them?” I asked.

Cerea nodded in the affirmative. “Good intuition. The Ward tokens also cost more accordingly, right Ugnash?”

“Right.” He shrugged though. “But we don’t give a shit since the Adventurer’s Guild is paying for the tokens.”

Made sense. I recalled what he had said last time about the Preservatory Guild and the Adventurer’s Guild striking up some kind of deal to facilitate the sale of the tokens.

“Ah…” I said as we entered the dungeon proper.

That was probably a more muted reaction than normal, given we were walking through a tunnel lined with eyes.

Cerea was observing the walls and ceiling with academic interest. “I’ve never been in this dungeon before, although I’ve heard the stories. Some of these are actually—right, there we go.”

For the most part, the eyes were closed, their rocky lids looking like they were sealed shut. But some of them cracked open as we passed, revealing glistening eyeballs with sharp, demonic pupils that swivelled and followed us. All of them were heavily bloodshot too, the cracked lines running through their whites blacker than they were red.

“Quite,” Cerea agreed quietly.

We didn’t have to go far before we encountered the first monsters. Just as with Seethescale dungeon, we were getting slimes. The only difference was that instead of having solid little mana cores within that we could collect, each slime in Eversight dungeon had its gelatinous body forming around a demonic eyeball.

Ugnash and the others didn’t hesitate to harvest the eyes. Like before, Cerea had to zap the life out of the slimes before the other two could extract the valuable goods.

“Can’t we just collect the eyes from the walls?” I asked.

“No,” Cerea said, ever the knowledgeable one willing to dispense her wisdom. “The eyes on the dungeon walls and the eyes within the slimes are pretty different actually, even if they look very similar. The dungeon eyes are, well, actual eyes. But the ones inside the slime are still constructs made of mana, so they can fetch a decent price.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know who paid good money for eyeballs constructed out of mana from within the bodies of living slime monsters, but I wasn’t one to yuck anyone’s yums.

“How does this happen, by the way?” I asked. “Like, why is everything here made of eyes?”

My question had arrived right after we had started getting visits from our first floating eyeballs. Ugnash and Khagnio hadn’t reacted, though both I and Cerea had failed to contain ourselves. Cerea had gasped with fascination while I had backpedalled a few steps after the first one jump-scared me. This was why I was never one for horror movies.

“They’re harmless,” Ugnash said. “But only for now. They’ll get more agitated the deeper we go into the dungeon, and eventually, they’ll be a nuisance we’ll need to take care of.”

Khagnio sighed like he had just had his birthday cake stolen. “I almost want to take care of them now… but these ones aren’t so bad.”

“The eyes of these ones are mana constructs too,” Cerea said, like that was an important addition. “We could try harvesting these, but…”

Ugnash grunted. “No point in getting them worked up and making more work for ourselves. We’ll get loads of those deeper in the dungeon.”

Made sense. If we were going to fight the floating eyeballs later, we didn’t need to waste our time here.

“As for your actual question, Ross,” Cerea said. I was grateful she remembered it without me needing to repeat myself. “Dungeon mana cores can manifest Aspects as well, and they’re usually very powerful and all-encompassing.”

“Aspect of… Eyeballs?” I asked.

“Well, close enough,” Cerea said. “I think it’s Aspect of Eversight, which is where the dungeon’s name came from. The Weave definitely has a certain… penchant for names.”

Now I was curious why I didn’t get fancily named Aspects.

The number of eyes cracking open on the walls seemed to grow more the deeper we went into the dungeon. At least half of them were staring as we passed by while the tunnel widened around us. I was going to mention again how creepy that was, but Khagnio raised a hand.

“A big one upcoming,” he said. “Get ready.”

He disappeared with his Aspect of Stealth.

I hefted my new mace as we approached. Like always, Cerea and I were a little farther behind while Ugnash and Khagnio took point.

Soon enough, the tunnel opened up and I definitely took a moment to stop and appreciate the monstrosity awaiting us.

Damn thing wasn’t even hiding for an ambush or anything. It was just there, waiting in the centre of the chamber, like it knew it was an inevitable obstacle we would need to find a way past.

My first impression was that of a jellyfish out of water. Except, it was floating in midair, easily big enough to wrap most Ogres in its tentacles, and very deadly. Instead of the typical body I associated with jellyfish, it had a legitimate brain just hovering about a dozen feet off the ground, dotted with the same eyes as the rest of the dungeon

“That’s the Sight Flayer,” Cerea said as the other two approached to engage the monster. We had already discussed how best we were going to face off against creatures like that.

“So that’s it, huh?” I asked. My real question should have been who came up with names like that.

Cerea nodded. “The way it’s positioned suggests it’s busy guarding something, likely the path beyond it, which means that’s absolutely the direction we need to go.”

“It is,” Ugnash confirmed. “According to the maps.”

Our conversation needed to stop because the fight began. A warbling, staticky shriek pierced out of the Sight Flayer, then it lunged forward with all its tentacles.

“Don’t let those touch you!” Cerea shouted the reminder. For good reason too. Every single one of those tendrils was sparking with deadly energy.

Despite the warning, Ugnash tanked it. His red aura was active and vapouring off his body. At least he had done his best to use his tower shield to stop the tendrils. Whatever energy the tentacles were trying to inject into their target just couldn’t get past the shield’s defence.

Ugnash’s yell drew all of the monster’s attention to him. All the sparking tendrils now tried to wrap around his shield. The Sight Flayer was trying to rip it away with pure force now that it saw it couldn’t overcome Ugnash’s defensive aura.

But it was taking too long. A second later, Khagnio reappeared, his blade glowing red.

It sank into the monster’s brain-like body, cracks of scarlet energy running all over it. Several of its eyes immediately went out.

The monster lashed out vengefully. One of the annoying abilities of the Sight Flayer was the way it could return a significant portion of any physical damage that it was dealt. That would suggest that ranged attacks would be preferred, but it apparently had enormous resistance to all sorts of mana-driven energies. Basically, it was a pain to fight.

But that still wasn’t the biggest issue.

Khagnio jerked away as the monster’s revenging ability made his body pop with spontaneous wounds all over him. They weren’t fatal or overly debilitating, despite the amount of blood he was losing, but it still looked frustrating. And painful.

The worst part was the curse, though.

“It’s active,” Khagnio shouted. “The curse got me.”

It was indeed affecting him already. Strands of black energy moved eellike through the air until they alighted on him. They pierced right through the revenge wounds, and it was easy to spot how they started rotting him from the inside, making his scales pop and his eyes bloodshot with black vines.

“Any time now before I die, mageling!” Khagnio shouted.

I was already stepping up. Sacrifice activated before I was even done crushing the Rune of Transferring, the white threads of my Aspect latching onto the remnants of the rune and sparking to life.

You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Rune of Transferring. Windfall bonus activated.

Reward: Aura of Transfer reaches into all positive and negative buffs within a radius of 8 meters and transfers the totality to caster for 3 hours and 20 minutes. ]

The aura worked its magic immediately. I felt the air shimmer, saw it turn the lightest shade of blue around me in a spherical region. Khagnio’s curse started leaching into me the next second.

The feeling was difficult to describe, mostly because my mind felt like it was scrambling a little. My skin was turning into sandpaper and my muscles to dried reeds. If I tried moving my arm or leg again, I was sure the bones would just topple out of my desiccated body with a puff of old dust.

Then there was the pain itself that made it hard to even think, much less talk. I was breathing agony at this point.

“You sure your plan will work, mageling?” a mostly recovered Khagnio asked.

Well, minus the revenge wounds from the Sight Flayer. That was something I couldn’t take care of.

I only managed a nod. This should work. The pain was voluntary. Something I had embraced on purpose.

An experience I made my own.

So, with Experientiality in my mind, I channelled Sacrifice and focused on myself.