Micky watched the sailors swim toward the island with all their strength. The poor souls didn't even dare to toss a glance back as their crewmates got dragged to the dark depths one after the other.
Some tried to resist the monsters. Colours of every common affinity flashed beneath the surface as the distraught men fired their spells at their hunters. Micky guessed that a couple of blasts might have even landed, though he failed to spot any carcasses. The dead creatures were probably devoured by their kin almost immediately.
The water foamed and roiled as pools of blood blossomed like flowers all over the aquatic battlefield, the thick scent of iron mixing with the salty breeze. It was strangely quiet, however, as nobody dared to so much as let a whisper out, probably afraid to attract the beasts' attention.
The sailors were at too much of a disadvantage against the monsters. There were too many beasts, and they were fighting in their element. If there was one thing that worked in the sapients' favour, it was the fact that each of their dead companions bought the survivors a couple of extra seconds.
Micky had counted over a hundred men originally, though their numbers had already been cut down to the low dozens by the time they approached land, and they weren't even there yet. Meanwhile, Micky and his host were still stuck watching the horror show atop the sinking ship.
'Damn it… we've fallen too far behind. Swimming by ourselves would be suicide at this point,' Micky said.
Not only did they have nobody to split the monsters' focus with, the commotion must've drawn even more creatures to the area. Getting through the blockade without help wouldn't be easy.
Then again, they couldn't afford to stay on the shipwreck much longer. Looking back, Micky realized that the vessel had sunk a couple of metres deeper, the surface of the water having already swallowed the hole they'd just climbed through.
Swiftly running out of options, he pulled up his Status, skimming through the information quickly in search of anything he could work with.
___
Marnok Du Vent-Noir (The Lone Wanderer's clone)
Mana cores:
[Mana core 1 – Yellow – Air]
[Mana core 2 – Seed – ???]
Domain:
[Pulse – Dormant]
Spectral traits:
[Weaving] – Boosts one's proclivity in manipulating one-dimensional structures.
[Insomnia] – Eliminates the need for sleep.
[Scribing] – Boosts one's proclivity in expressing meaning onto any written medium.
Spells:
[Spectral Art: Parasitic Connection – Refined]
[Spectral Art: Cauldron of a Thousand Whispers – Masterful]
[Spectral Art: Instantaneous Formation – Masterful]
Alchemic principles:
[Extraction] – Separate and condense an ingredient's essence.
[Pacification] – Delay an ingredient's activation rate.
[Redirection] – Adjust an ingredient's effect.
[Deattunement] – Prevent multiple conflicting ingredients from reacting with one another.
[Bonding] – Enrich an ingredient with crystallized pure mana.
[Restructuring] – Alter an ingredient's phase.
[Scaling] – Brew a greater volume of ingredients at once.
[Compression] – Elevate an ingredient to the next grade.
Decrees:
[Phoebe's Decree] – Grants access to your Status.
[Moirais' Decree (Incomplete)] – Grants the seed of a second mana core. Requires potent life mana to germinate.
[Metatron's Decree] – Open a one-way portal to the Vault of Magic at will.
[Ea's Decree (Modified)] – Augments and enhances your Status.
[Obatala's Decree (Modified)] – Augments and enhances your Status. Allows you to effortlessly deploy your domain in its strongest state.
___
This wasn't the time to memorize his host's full name, nor to dwell on the fact that Marnok was apparently considered the Lone Wanderer's clone. Focusing on the details that mattered, Micky realized – to his great dismay – that the man didn't have much going for him.
'An air affinity. Not the best, but at least it's one I'm skilled with…'
Sadly, even if he poured enough life mana into the sailor's second core, he wouldn't be able to clear enough channels to fully activate it in the next few minutes. Preparing his body for Circulation would be even harder, and the domain was back to being dormant again – an inevitable consequence of changing bodies. Awakening it with a single Yellow core would be extremely difficult, and the weak pulses wouldn't help that much even if he somehow succeeded.
Even worse, he'd already consumed some of his stashed phantom mana to stitch up Marnok's injuries. Micky still had plenty left, but its best use would be to fuel the Harvester's enchantments, allowing him to wield the deadly weapon for as long as possible.
The sharpened scythe could be used to slaughter dozens of Yellow beasts and even a bunch of Greens with ease – assuming that the creatures took turns attacking them. Sadly, the hungry monsters were far more likely to swarm them from every direction. Micky didn't have enough mana to replicate the scythe, and there was only so much that he'd be able to do with a single weapon.
'Any brilliant ideas?' Marnok pressed, his heart beating wildly. The poor guy was clearly frightened, and Micky couldn't exactly blame him. Getting eaten alive was a terrible way to go and, unlike him, the Yellow didn't have another body to return to.
Scanning the area in front of him carefully, Micky measured the distance to shore, estimating roughly how long their reserves would last if they used them sparingly.
'About three kilometres to go. Using air mana to attack the beasts would be a waste. We're better off propelling ourselves forward whenever they're about to catch us. But it still won't be enough to get us even halfway there.'
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If he used a couple more tricks, they might make it a bit farther, though whether it would be enough remained to be seen. Either way, the water had almost reached the ship's figurehead where Marnok was standing, indicating that they were almost out of time.
The resurrected sailor was about to speak again, when Micky made a move. Drawing some air mana to his hand, he played with it for a second or two, trying to fashion it into a rune to test an idea.
The concept behind it was similar to his Instantaneous Imprint spell, though air mana was much harder to force into a fixed shape than metal mana, and Micky didn't have Kassorith's Blue core right now, nor a domain to help him.
"Come on, just stay put already," he spat through gritted teeth, stirring the Scribing trait slumbering inside his soul.
Almost immediately, the green motes snapped into place, forming a small, circular symbol in Marnok's palm. It was a concealment rune, blocking everything behind it from Micky's Mana Sense. Sadly, the rune didn't last long, the unruly resource simply refusing to remain still. The very next second, the shape fell apart, robbing the enchantment of its effect.
Sighing, Micky realized that this wasn't going to work.
He'd wanted to try and mask his host's core, to reduce the number of attacking monsters. He wouldn't be able to hide from the rest of their senses, but if he could just lessen the pressure slightly, he'd have an easier time killing the rest or escaping.
Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. Even if he managed to keep the rune from crumbling for a prolonged period of time – and while swimming – he'd need multiple enchantments to conceal their core from every direction.
'Damn it!' he swore. 'I should start equipping my clones with concealment bandages!'
Then again, hindsight was twenty-twenty. The reality was that his spatial seals had a limited capacity, and he couldn't possibly carry every single tool that he might need in his adventures.
Suddenly, a tall wave rose a little higher than the rest of the sea, licking Marnok's heels. Under other circumstances, the water's cold touch would have felt refreshing – a welcome break from the burning sunlight drying the sweat on their forehead, caking their scalp in a salty crown. Right now, it only served as a grim reminder that their time was up.
Gathering all the strength that he could muster, Micky leapt off the tip of the figurehead, trying to cover as much distance as he could before splashing into the ocean.
By the time he found himself submerged, he had summoned his scythe again and hurled it downwards. The spectral weapon phased soundlessly through the water, flying in a wide circle beneath his host's body – spinning and invisible. Micky might not be able to hide his host's core under these circumstances, but at least the greedy beasts wouldn't be able to sense the deadly construct.
'Swim as fast as you can,' he said, giving Marnok control of his body back. He figured that his host would be able to handle his limbs better than him anyway.
At the same time, Micky allowed his senses to unfold outwards, locking onto several mana signatures closing in rapidly. He couldn't make their shapes out, but their grades were obvious enough. Over thirty Orange creatures and a dozen Yellows were about to reach them. No Greens had appeared yet, but this was still a lot of beasts to fend off at once.
The weapon worked overtime, flying rapidly through the cold abyss, splitting a creature's soul in half with each violent revolution. The poor fuckers never stood a chance – this was a weapon that had claimed the lives of multiple Blues and even a Violet, after all.
Still, more beasts took notice of the swimming sailor soon enough. At least, Micky had made sure not to inflict any physical wounds on his victims, unwilling to spill even more blood into the water. Even so, he doubted that it would take long for the surviving monsters to realize what a sumptuous feast he had laid before them.
Marnok's limbs burned from the effort as he swam as fast as he could, the water failing to cool his muscles down. Micky, too, poured everything he had into his weapon, slaughtering the aquatic horrors by the dozens as their numbers kept increasing.
The first Greens arrived, the scythe still managing to carve through their souls like a hot knife through butter. However, Micky knew that this wasn't without cost. The more he used the construct, the more it would degrade, forcing him to sacrifice some of his phantom mana to fuel the self-repairs. This wasn't a problem back on Remior, as he could always rely on an endless supply of ambient mana thanks to the Dance. Here, every single drop was priceless.
Sure enough, the weapon began to slow down about a minute later, indicating that its edge had dulled. Gritting his borrowed teeth, Micky extracted a hefty chunk of phantom mana from his stash, letting the scythe fly through the grey blob to repair itself.
The school of monstrous fish seized the opportunity to draw closer, faster than he could kill them. Micky was forced to consume some air mana too, the momentary burst propelling him several metres ahead – just enough to break out of the encirclement.
He wasn't in the mood to celebrate, however, fully aware that both of his mana pools had shrunk noticeably in the past few minutes. And they'd covered less than half of the distance to their destination.
A similar situation played out a few seconds later. The other sailors must've reached the island already – or perished entirely – Micky didn't know which. Either way, they had freed up more of the monsters, putting pressure on Marnok.
The sailor tried to refill his core with every strained breath, though he was clearly approaching his limits. Noticing this, Micky emptied a few healing potions in the man's stomach to relieve his fatigue. The life mana barely lingered for a fraction of a second in the Yellow's muscles before the seed in his abdomen gobbled it up.
More beasts attacked, and more died, as Micky and Marnok used everything at their disposal to survive for as long as possible. They drained their reserves at a scary rate, their expenditure vastly exceeding their pitiful intake as the situation grew more dire by the second.
Even so, they persisted, covering about two-thirds of the journey by the time Micky's phantom mana ran out completely. Marnok's air mana lasted a little longer because he'd kept trying to replenish it, though he eventually emptied his core too – another five hundred metres later. Losing the ability to repair the scythe, Micky watched it dull again, giving the monsters a chance to draw nearer once more.
Left with no other choice, he discarded the scythe's shaft entirely, breaking the blade into three fragments, and using them to kill the creatures thrice as fast. It worked for a while, buying him and his host a few more precious breaths, though the pieces only degraded faster when wielded separately like this.
Thankfully, they'd already drawn close enough to the island that the sea had grown shallower. Micky estimated that the seabed was only four or five metres below the swimming sailor, greatly limiting the number and sizes of creatures that could encircle them at once.
By the time Micky felt the sweet feeling of sand beneath his feet, what remained of his weapon was entirely useless, and his host was making wheezing noises with every exhausted heave.
The creatures chasing them hadn't given up yet, however.
Some kind of giant crocodile lunged at the tired sailor, its colossal maw about to snap shut around his body, its curved fangs glinting beneath the bright sunlight. The monster's enormous head disappeared, falling inside a circular portal, metallic surfaces covered in pulsing runes visible on the other side.
Micky promptly deactivated the Decree, giving the Green creature the Syrreneth treatment, and the rest of the monsters a nice little distraction. The smaller beasts were more than happy to fight each other over the bloody feast, devouring the elephant-sized reptile in seconds as they dug through its flesh in search for its nutritious core.
By the time they were done, Marnok had already walked out of the water. Even so, the man clearly didn't dare to stop moving until he was over thirty metres from the edge of the sea. Only then did he allow himself to plop down weakly, hugging the scorching sand as if it was his long-lost lover.
Micky shared the sentiment, though his attention was inevitably drawn to the other survivors slowly surrounding him and his host, their mouths agape.
The sound of the tall waves washing over the coast was strangely soothing – almost like the sea had forgotten the horrific massacre that had taken place in its depths just then. The sailors didn't seem to care about the ocean's cruel irony in the slightest, too busy whispering to one another while gawking at Micky's host.
"Marnok?! How in the reefs did ya pull that off?!" one of the survivors barked, holding out a hand to haul him up.
Micky found it odd that he could register the sailors' weird speech patterns, having never experienced anything of the sort in the past. His hosts all spoke languages entirely alien to him, which he could only understand thanks to their connection. Any weird quirks that they exhibited tended to get absorbed by the translation entirely, sounding like regular sentences in his mind.
The fact that he could notice the discrepancy probably meant that Marnok had been exposed to the correct version of his language, yet both him and his crewmates clearly insisted on butchering it by clinging to their uncouth sailor-speak like a bunch of barbarians.
'Oh well… I suppose I can forgive them for being a little difficult to understand, considering all the shit they've been through today.'
Oblivious to his thoughts, Marnok groaned, clearly wishing that the others would let him rest on the soft sand a few seconds longer. He ultimately kept those thoughts to himself, however – and to the nosy foreigner sharing his body, of course – before grabbing his friend's hand.
The man helping him up released a burst of mana from his palm, sending it into Marnok's body. Micky was a little surprised by the familiar rush of life mana, having not expected to meet someone with a rare affinity here. That said, the sailor's generous attempt to heal his friend didn't amount to much, the mana getting sucked into the seed in Marnok's abdomen the very next instant – much like the potions from earlier.
'I hope he didn't realize what happened,' Micky thought, though he mentally shook his head the very next second.
It didn't really matter, did it? This wasn't a developed world, and the sailors were all at Yellow or Orange, stranded on an island with questionable odds of making it out alive. Besides, even if he told them everything about the Moirais' Decree or his bloodline, there was a good chance that they wouldn't believe him.
That was why he didn't bother coaching his host, letting him make up whatever excuse he wanted. Marnok opted to go for the good old strategy of playing dumb, pretending that he'd escaped from the aquatic horrors through sheer luck.
Well… that wasn't entirely false, though Micky's host conveniently left out a few crucial details – such as the hundreds of powerful creatures that the parasitic ghost hiding in his body had slaughtered using his now-broken scythe, or the portal to a different world that said spectre had employed to rip a Green reptile apart.
Tuning the pointless part of the conversation out, Micky focused on something more interesting. He scanned the sailors up and down, finally getting a chance to learn more about them, and this place.
'They look surprisingly similar to humans,' he noted.
He might have even struggled to tell them apart, if not for the overly square jaws barely concealed beneath their bushy beards, or the way the top of their ears pointed outwards. Their bodies were admittedly a little too muscular to pass as humans, however, their skins sporting a deep bronze colour. Then again, those features could have just as well been caused by their rough lives sailing across the ocean.
Their attire varied slightly from person to person, though it was generally centred around a certain theme. Most wore loose, cropped trousers that Micky guessed had been fashioned out of repurposed sailcloth. They were paired with V-collared or buttoned linen shirts, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows. Many had a thick sash tied around their waists – Marnok's was red, though Micky saw some green, yellow, orange and blue ones.
A few of the more uncommon features included piercings that a couple of sailors wore on one or both ears, and a crimson bandana that one of them had wrapped around his forehead. Marnok was in the minority that didn't have boots on – only three out of fifteen had made it to shore barefoot like him. And only two had Orange cores, the rest being at Yellow.
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'I suppose the survivors are heavily skewed toward the higher grades who had been awake when the ship crashed,' he reasoned.
One unlucky sailor had reached the island buck naked, making Micky thank his lucky stars that Marnok had slept with clothes on. Spending the whole trip in his host's birthday suit would have been way too embarrassing.
'Still better than getting killed within the first hour though,' he reminded himself, thinking back to the unfortunate swimmers.
Micky wasn't sure how many had died in total – he'd personally witnessed close to a hundred getting eaten alive, though many more had likely drowned inside the sinking vessel before he'd even arrived here.
Alas, there was nothing he could do about those poor souls, other than maybe praying that their final moments had been swift and not too painful. Turning his attention back to the sailors' conversation, he perked up upon realizing that they'd already moved past the topic of Marnok's unexpected survival and onto other, more important things.
"What are we even goin' to do now?" a man asked, his voice cracking with worry. "We ain't got a scrap of food nor a drop of ale left!"
"I'd be more worried about endin' up as food 'arselves," another growled. "Edric, ya sure those things won't chase us here?"
"The ones in the ocean won't," a sailor – Edric presumably – said. "They're smarter than ya give 'em credit for. Wouldn't risk fightin' so many of us on land. Most can't even survive outside the waves. But I won't rule out some Green beast crawlin' outta the jungle," he added, gesturing toward the dense foliage some distance away from where the group was standing.
"Great… so how are we supposed to survive?" the first man muttered again.
"Edric's got a water affinity. He can conjure drinks for us – ya don't need ale to survive. I say 'tis best we take a breather before doin' anythin' reckless," the life affinity user said.
On closer inspection, Micky realized that he knew the man's name. His host had to be familiar with all of his crewmates – not just the healer – but Micky had known for a while that people his hosts interacted more often with tended to leave a deeper impression in their minds, allowing him to access some of that information himself. This was largely how he'd managed to get by during his brief stay in the Proudheart Academy on Felmara, and also how he could understand and speak his hosts' languages while sharing their body.
Either way, Flammy's most distinguishing features were two golden teeth in the upper-right side of his mouth, along with a vertical scar over his left eye. The man had clearly used his life affinity to seal his wound a long time ago, though he didn't seem skilled enough to get rid of the lingering traces that his injury had left behind.
Oblivious to Micky's thoughts, the other sailors nodded in agreement with the healer, many of them plopping down on the spot.
"How the bloody depths did ol' Harrosh even manage to sink the ship?!" the naked man asked, drawing everyone's attention. "Cap'n was a stubborn bastard alright, but he sure knew 'is stuff when it came to sailin'! Never seen 'im screw everythin' up this badly!"
"The old sod downed a barrel o' rum last night, that's how!" one of the Orange-cores snarled, spitting on the sand. "Told 'im it was a bad idea too, but he wouldn't listen!"
"Always knew the ol' sack of bones would drink 'imself to death on' day!" another swore. "Never thought he'd nearly take the lot of us down with 'im, though!"
"Well, that's just perfect, ain't it?!" the sailor with the red bandana said. "This was supposed to be an easy voyage – four months 'ere and back, safe as houses in the Commodore's waters, not a soul from the Brumes-Indigo fleet to trouble us. Not to mention nearly two hundred men to storm this place… and now look at us! Can't even protect 'arselves! Are we still chasin' that treasure?"
Micky couldn't help but raise one of his host's eyebrows upon hearing the word "treasure". Sure, he probably shouldn't expect much from a barren world like this, but he still struggled to suppress his curiosity.
"What choice do we 'ave?" another sailor asked. "We 'ave to trek into the jungle if we don't want to starve, so might as well head for the tomb. If it's truly where 'ar intel says, we might find somethin' buried with the ol' Saint that can 'elp us."
Soft murmurs rippled through the group, most of the men nodding in agreement. A few didn't seem to like the idea much, but everyone understood that they couldn't just stay on the beach waiting for their deaths.
Meanwhile, Micky couldn't help but shift his attention to his host. 'Hey, who's this "Saint" whose tomb you guys are after? Someone important, I take it?'
Micky tried to temper his expectations, knowing that, at the end of the day, he'd only come here to have some fun. Obviously, he wouldn't shy away from helping someone in need – which was why he'd done his best to save Marnok earlier – but he didn't think that he'd be walking away with anything particularly valuable.
At most, he was hoping to spend some time practicing a certain trick that he hadn't had a chance to work on with his main body in the past few years – one that would factor heavily into his future plans. That said, his host's next couple of sentences flipped those expectations on their head, making Micky realize that there might be more to this world than he'd initially thought.
'Of course he's someone important! Saint Ludwick was one of Robari's last demigods!'
Micky had several questions, not the least of which being "how did a barren world without elixirs ever produce demigods?" He wasn't in a rush to voice them, however. First, he and his host had to take a few precautions to raise their odds of surviving the upcoming trek.
After giving Marnok a brief explanation about himself and the second core, Micky began emptying ridiculous amounts of healing potions and mushrooms into their stomach, allowing the gluttonous vortex in their abdomen to absorb the mana.
'Man, repairing the Decree has never been easier,' he thought.
In the past, his clones had mostly relied on unprocessed mushrooms rather than finished potions. The problem with the former was that they contained more than just raw life mana, which meant that they left traces behind after getting drained.
Micky couldn't just dump a hundred thousand mushrooms inside a person's stomach at once and expect them to digest the fungi in a reasonable timeframe. The best alternative would be to summon a pile outside the body, draining them a few at a time. That came with its own issues, however – namely the fact that the other sailors would inevitably question where the mountain of mushrooms had come from.
Thankfully, things had recently changed a little.
Micky's main bodies were currently brewing hundreds of doses of healing potion per hour back on Remior, leisurely honing their alchemic skills. Thanks to his larger cauldron, improved yield and the endless supply of dead wasps that the Starry Queen was more than happy to give him, he could convert enormous volumes of fungi into potions in a relatively short amount of time.
It wasn't like he had a better use for them either. Repairing a person's second core through potions alone would still amount to a couple of weeks of nonstop brewing, so Micky was hesitant to rely solely on them, which was why he was using a mixture of mushrooms and potions. The moment the fungi got drained, he stored the empty husks back into his seal, to hide them from the others and make room in Marnok's stomach for more.
Even better, he had more space than ever before, since his main bodies were down to just three cords. That meant that he would only ever need a maximum of four spatial seals, so he'd never have to divide the artifact more than twice. By skipping the bottom denomination entirely, he could ensure that every clone had eight times the capacity.
'Hmmm… in hindsight, maybe I should start equipping the clones with more stuff than just food, mushrooms, potions and a scythe…' he thought, challenging his earlier assumption. Alas, that was more of a suggestion to his future self – it wouldn't help him much right now.
A few minutes later, the second core was finally done accepting mana. Micky instructed his host to start clearing channels for it. The sooner they got it into working condition, the sooner it would start helping them. If there was one thing that Micky loved about barren worlds, it was the fact that his hosts had never advanced before meeting him, making their second cores just as powerful as their first ones, giving him the most value for his efforts.
Micky didn't slack while his host was busy with the new organ, focusing on a different task. He turned his attention to their first core, resuming the project that he had failed to complete atop the ship.
This time, he didn't bother drawing any air mana to his hands, trying to shape it into a concealment rune while still inside his host's sternum. Maintaining the enchantment like this would inevitably be much harder, but they would only need a single, much smaller rune to mask their mana signature, and they wouldn't have to worry about the ocean's currents – or anything else in their environment – disturbing the enchantment.
'Come on… just stay still for a second!' he groaned internally, though he struggled to force the unruly resource into shape even with the Scribing trait's help.
The idea of drawing the rune inside his core hadn't come out of thin air. Micky – or rather, Percy – had envisioned the potential of combining pre-casting with magiscript since he first learned about it on Felmara. Of course, he'd always known that it would be extremely difficult. In fact, he doubted that even the most skilled Felmarans had ever succeeded.
Then again, Micky had several unique advantages that Leo's people had lacked, giving him hope. Even so, this was a project that he had put aside for the longest time, until he met the prerequisites to properly attempt it. Over the years, he had grown increasingly proficient with both arts, and his Scribing trait was the final nail in the coffin that should allow him to embark on this difficult journey.
'It's going to be a while before I'm any good at it, but I need to give it a shot if I ever want to turn my boosting art into a permanent promotion…'
At the very least, Micky didn't see any way of upgrading his spell that didn't involve drawing lots of runes inside his body. Whether he could make enough progress with this ambitious project in time to benefit Marnok remained to be seen, but they would certainly get attacked by several more beasts in the coming days, so having a way to hide their presence wouldn't hurt.
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As the two men worked hard on their respective tasks, Micky spared some attention to resume their previous conversation, still curious about this world.
'So, Marnok? You said that this place was called Robari? Is that the name of your country or the whole planet? Also, would you mind explaining what you meant by "demigods" earlier? I didn't spot any souls above Yellow while looking for a body.'
The sailor shrugged before replying. 'Robari is 'ar world. We used to 'ave not just demigods, but even full-fledged gods too, a long, long time ago. Of course, none of us folks alive today was around to see that, but the evidence is pretty darn clear.'
Micky couldn't help but frown. So, this place was actually a former lesser spring. In many ways, that sounded like an even crueller fate than being born on a barren world without any knowledge of the wider cosmos or the possibilities that lay beyond the bottom grades. After all, it always hurt more to lose something precious than to have never possessed it.
'What caused this?' he asked.
'Nobody knows exactly,' Marnok replied with a sigh. 'The details were lost to time, but 'ar gods were killin' one 'nother for some reason. A bunch of 'em fell as others escaped Robari with their tails tucked between their legs. The worst was that they ruined 'ar only source of beast mana, leavin' us stuck at 'ar birth grades. Though it ain't all gloom 'n doom.'
'How so?' Micky asked, struggling to see a silver lining.
'Well, there is some beast mana left. Rather than lettin' it hang out in the open for 'nyone to grab, 'ar Saints decided to brew it into a solid shape to make it last longer. They buried piles upon piles of priceless coins with 'em – Fools' Amber we call 'em – hidin' it for future Green-borns to find.'
Micky let out a soft whistle, thinking that the demigods' plan was rather smart. After failing to attain divinity themselves, they chose to do everything they could to raise Robari's odds of producing new gods later. Had they not hidden the coins, the Yellow-borns and Orange-borns would have split them among themselves, maybe advancing once or twice and living a couple of centuries longer, at the cost of wasting their world's last traces of beast mana.
By gathering the coins up and stashing them away in hidden locations, they made it more likely for the Holy Children to find and collect enough of them to reach the Clear grade.
'How can they ensure that a Green-born finds the buried treasure and not anybody else though?' Micky asked.
Assuming that the coins were as effective as Remior's elixirs, even the Green-borns would need several thousand years' worth to advance four times, and there had to be lots of Yellow-borns around hunting for the lost treasure.
'Well, there ain't 'ny way to be sure. But they probably knew that the new Green-borns would hold all the power after the higher grades died out. They'd also live longer than 'nyone else, thus 'aving more time to amass 'nough Amber and expand their advantage. And that's exactly what ended up happenin'.'
'So, your world is currently ruled by a bunch of powerful Green-borns?'
'Pretty much. Only four of 'em are currently at White, splittin' the seas among 'emselves. Each lets a couple subordinates reach Blue, but not Violet – it would cost too much Amber and threaten their rule. The four navies are constantly fightin' over the few tombs that 'aven't been found yet, racing toward the Clear grade.'
'I see…' Micky muttered.
He didn't recall spotting any Whites or Blues while scanning the planet. Hell, he hadn't seen any Greens either, even though he knew there had to have been some Green-borns around. Unlike gods, powerful mortal souls didn't stand out as much, so it was easier to miss a bunch of them scattered in a population of hundreds of thousands, if not millions.
'Do you think any of them will make it?' he asked.
'Hard to say. Two are supposedly close, including 'ar own Commodore Vent-Noir. Of course, there 'ave been other Whites in the past, but none of 'em made it to the end. Not even when the Fools' Amber was more abundant than it is now.'
Micky nodded internally. What his host had left unsaid was that even if one of the Whites somehow made it to the Clear grade, there wasn't any guarantee that they'd be able to attain divinity. Only a tiny fraction of demigods ever did, so this world was probably screwed regardless.
But he didn't see any point in talking about that. Instead, he homed into something else that Marnok had mentioned. 'Commodore Vent-Noir? Isn't that the same surname as you? Are you two related by any chance?'
Marnok guffawed, garnering weird looks from the other sailors sitting nearby. He didn't seem very bothered by it, merely waving their curious gazes away apologetically before responding. 'Don't I wish? Ya think I'd be puttin' me hide on the line for some ol' Saint's treasure if I'd been the boss's nephew? 'Tis just how we do things on Robari. We all carry the name of one of the four fleets, to signal who owns us.'
'Why does he send you to collect the Amber in his stead? Isn't he worried that you'll keep it to yourselves?' Micky asked, finding that difficult to believe. A Yellow-born like Marnok was never going to make it very far, but even reaching Green would make a huge difference in his life.
'They trust that most people ain't dumb enough to double-cross 'em. Where would we even hide if we stole from 'em Commodores? All the oceans belong to 'em anyway. We wouldn't even get a chance to use 'em coins before they found us.'
'Is Robari all ocean and islands? No large landmass?' Micky asked.
'Pretty much. Well, the islands the Commodores live on are bigger than the rest, but not by much. 'nyway, the Saints did a good job hiding their burial places, so we're still findin' more to this day. But it's slowin' down. I doubt there's many left.'
Micky nodded once more, satisfied with his host's explanation. Part of him was starting to get a little excited about the Saint's tomb. He didn't personally need any Fools' Amber, of course, since he doubted that it was any better than the nectar he now had a near-infinite amount of, but he had no idea what else the demigod might have buried with him.
'Even if there's nothing, I can still make some progress with pre-casting, so the trip won't be a complete waste,' he reminded himself.
Everyone felt a lot less tired by sunset, though the sailors agreed that it was best to wait until morning before beginning their journey into the island's unwelcoming depths. Granted, time was precious, and it wasn't like they were completely safe on the beach, but delving into the jungle at night would have been even riskier.
A small campfire burned amidst the sleeping men, giving the fine sand a rich, golden hue. Many had argued against lighting the flame up, of course. The hardened seafarers didn't really need it for warmth, nor did they have any food to roast over it, so nearly half of the group had insisted not to risk attracting any nearby beasts. The rest had convinced them that it would be better not to fight the monsters in complete darkness, should any choose to attack anyway.
Marnok was among the few men still awake. Heeding Micky's advice, he'd volunteered to join the small team on guard duty. It was the best way to take advantage of their Insomnia trait without revealing its existence to anyone else, allowing them to continue working on their projects. They'd have to pretend to sleep tomorrow, of course, but that was neither here nor there.
Micky had also told his host not to activate the new core immediately, as it could draw unnecessary attention from friend and foe alike. Either way, Marnok was still about a day away before he was done clearing enough channels for it. Micky wasn't much closer to forming a stable rune inside their first core either.
"Eatin' that crap will give ya the runs," the sailor with the red bandana told another, drawing Marnok and Micky's attention. The man had kept his voice low so as to not wake up everyone, but his words couldn't escape a Yellow's ears from only a few metres away if they weren't sleeping already.
The second person was munching on a pile of seaweed that the waves had washed up. Micky found the notion of eating the slimy leaves disgusting. Not to mention that he personally wouldn't have dared to step any closer to the dark waters, afraid of the abominations that might still be lurking in their depths. The fact that the rising tide had brought the sea closer to the group over the past couple of hours certainly didn't help with his paranoia.
Marnok's crewmate didn't seem to care about the danger in the slightest. Nor did he appear to mind the texture of his meal. "Better this than starvin'. Unless 'ny of ya is hidin' more of 'em crackers, 'tis all I'm goin' to get tonight."
The sailor was referring to a funny scene that had unfolded on the beach earlier. One of the others had secretly tried to eat a small pouch of food that he'd managed to bring out of the sinking ship. The seawater had turned the crackers soggy, though that hadn't stopped him – nor had it deterred the naked guy from wrestling him for the food. In the end, they'd split the meal, but only after providing some much-needed entertainment to their crewmates. Marnok chuckled, as did the man with the bandana, though nobody said anything else.
Micky wasn't as worried about the food as the rest of the group, carrying some rations in his spatial seal. He didn't have too many – they would barely last Marnok a week or two, so sharing them with anybody was out of the question.
Either way, Micky's host was going to outlast his crewmates if they failed to find anything else. Then again, that wasn't a good outcome either. Marnok would find it exceedingly difficult to survive on the island by himself – relying on nothing but a pair of Yellow cores.
'Fingers crossed for a good affinity,' Micky thought.
A rare or composite mana type would be best – especially if it was one that he was familiar with. He'd even settle for water to fuse with air into ice, or anything solid that he could more easily draw runes with. Of course, the Moirais' Decree had never much cared about his wishes, so he was under no delusion that it would start listening now. At the end of the day, they'd have to make do with whatever they got.
He was about to resume working on his project, when somebody sat next to his host. It was Flammy – the life user that had tried to heal them as soon as they reached the island – and who Micky guessed was Marnok's close friend. As if to confirm Micky's assumption, his host leaned closer to the healer, whispering in his ear. "Thanks for the treatment earlier."
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Flammy grinned, his golden teeth glinting as they reflected the playful flames of the campfire. "Don't sweat it, mate. I'm a wee bit surprised ya noticed though. Felt like me mana vanished the moment it entered yar body. Wasn't sure it did anythin'."
"Nah… I definitely feel better now," Marnok replied vaguely, not bothering to explain the Decree's shenanigans to his friend. "I 'ave to admit, I didn't expect to see ya alive and well on the beach. Thought the fish would 'ave eaten yar face off – given yar affinity and everythin'."
"Got worried about me, did ya?" Flammy asked, his grin widening.
"Worried? Nah… Would 'ave been an improvement," Marnok replied, cracking a smile of his own.
Both men burst into laughter, before Flammy moved to a more serious topic. "Say, did ya buy that crap about the Cap'n gettin' drunk?"
Marnok shrugged. "He was always drunk – that much I ain't doubtin'. Not so sure about 'im getting the ship wrecked though. Ol' Harrosh knew 'is shit better than 'nyone I know. He could 'ave stirred that boat into a storm while sleepin', and I'd 'ave bet on him makin' it to the other side in one piece."
Flammy sighed. "So, ya also thinkin' somethin's fishy?"
Marnok shrugged. "'Tis Robari, mate… There's always somethin' fishy goin' on…"
Flammy nodded. Patting Marnok's shoulder, he was about to stand when Micky's host grabbed him. "What's yar plan, Flammy? Ya still interested in the treasure?"
"What choice does 'ny of us 'ave? Commodore's goin' to skin us alive if we fail. Besides, me family in Ravisport's gotta eat. Why? Ya thinkin' of bailin'?"
"Bailin', no," Marnok said, shaking his head. "Where would I even go? We're all stuck 'ere 'till they send 'nother boat lookin' for us. Just thinkin' we should be focusin' on survivin' rather than treasure. We can worry about the Amber later."
"Ya heard the others, Marnok. Two's the same thing now. Can't get food without goin' in the jungle. And… if we go in the jungle 'nyway, might as well head to the tomb."
Marnok nodded, begrudgingly letting go of his friend.
'Are you all in this to feed your families?' Micky asked once his host was alone again.
'Most of 'em are,' Marnok said.
'Not you?'
'Ain't got a family no more. Not since the Lys-Clair fleet raided Narrisport 'n butchered me wife 'n kids. Now, I'm just hopin' to help Commodore Vent-Noir get strong 'nough to kill that Lys-Clair fucker. Still, I ain't desperate 'nough to throw me life aside on a random island for no reason neither.'
Micky nodded internally. He hadn't realized how intense his host was. Evidently, offering him a ticket to the Vault to save his ass was probably off the table. Not that Micky wanted to spend his vacation dealing with Metatron. He'd have to go back to the artificial world sooner or later, but he wasn't quite ready to clean up the mess he'd left there the previous time. Besides, he'd rather make some progress with his current project first, to get a better idea of what books he'd need to buy from the cube for the next step.
The rest of the night passed uneventfully, though Micky doubted that they'd keep getting this lucky.
Once the sun was up – and all the sailors with it – the group started walking along the coast, circling the island. This was arguably going to take longer than heading to their destination directly, but they wanted to travel the shortest possible distance through the jungle, as that was easily going to be the most dangerous part of the journey.
Nobody spoke much – all the seafarers probably trying to preserve as much of their strength as they could. That suited Micky and his host just fine. It was mostly quiet, save for the sailors' muted footsteps on the sand, or the soothing sound of the waves washing against the coast, allowing Micky and Marnok to focus on their tasks.
Micky managed to whip the concealment rune into shape multiple times, though the enchantment never survived more than a second or two, leading him to believe that he would have to come up with some other trick to get this to work. As for Marnok, he'd already cleared over two-thirds of his new channels, bringing him that much closer to discovering his second affinity.
The relative quiet served them better as a group too, since it allowed them to keep their ears open to any potential threats. It also helped Micky notice something else, however. Something that he found more than a little odd.
Three of the sailors were coughing.
Not much – it was just a light cough every minute or two. Thinking back, Micky realized that two of them had started since the night before, though nobody seemed to have paid much attention to it. Micky probably wouldn't have noticed it either, under normal circumstances.
After all, it had only been the Orange-borns at first. Their bodies weren't that much stronger than a Red's, and they had just swum out of a shipwreck earlier that day. The water hadn't been very warm either, so it was entirely conceivable that they'd caught a cold.
'But why has the Yellow-born joined them?' Micky wondered.
It was the same person who had eaten the seaweed while on guard duty – which again, Micky would have chalked up to food poisoning, had it happened in isolation. Still, he didn't think this was a coincidence.
'Better keep my eyes open,' he decided. He couldn't put his finger on it just yet, but he couldn't shake a strange sense of unease from creeping through. Something about this place was off…
Lacking enough information to determine with any certainty what exactly was making the sailors ill, Micky decided to let the situation unfold, and to deal with everything as it came.
Ignoring the coughing men, he took a moment to bask in the warm sunlight, and to take a few deep breaths of the cool, salty breeze, appreciating his leisurely stroll along the coast. His host didn't know where exactly their destination was, but according to the others there was still some ground left to cover.
For Marnok and his crewmates, this island might very well be a deathtrap, but for Micky, it was just the beautiful setting for another of his many adventures – one of the more relaxing ones too.
'I should still try to get the new spell down before we enter the jungle,' he reminded himself.
The concealment rune might save Marnok's life later. While Micky wasn't above enjoying his time here, he wasn't going to willingly sabotage his new buddy's survival prospects out of laziness or nonchalance.
He turned his attention back to the half-formed enchantment inside his host's core. As difficult as it was to control one's mana internally, Micky was more than a little skilled at doing precisely that. His elemental body on Remior had to do something similar every time he wanted to shift his ice mana between its three states, and that was without taking into account all the other permutations of pre-casting that he could apply in battle.
On top of that, drawing a single rune was pretty much the simplest expression of magiscript possible, even without his spectral trait helping him. With it, shaping the air mana into the circular symbol was more than manageable.
'Drawing the rune isn't the problem,' he noted. 'The biggest issue is the rest of the mana messing the enchantment up.'
Mana cores contained a mage's entire reserves, holding enough power to conjure up some pretty violent spells even as early as Yellow – let alone the higher grades. And all of that energy was normally stored inside a volume no larger than a strawberry. Consequently, even the slightest push could cause the mana to thrash wildly inside the organ.
This was why pre-casting was so difficult to master in the first place – manipulating the mana with any finesse required a gentle touch. Things were still simple when it came to more straightforward transformations like rotations or splitting the flow into multiple parts, but even the most basic runes had a relatively intricate shape.
Worse still, while Micky's trait helped him control the mana tied to the enchantment, it had nothing to say about the rest of his reserves. Then again, that was only to be expected, given its description.
___
[Scribing] – Boosts one's proclivity in expressing meaning onto any written medium.
___
Thankfully, Scribing was rather lax when determining what counted as a "written medium", having allowed Micky to do all sorts of interesting things with it in the past. However, the definition didn't seem to extend to indirect help – it could force the mana into the correct shape, but it couldn't prevent a separate stream of mana from distorting it.
'It's ridiculous that I thought I wouldn't have to worry about the environment disturbing the enchantments…' he lamented, the corner of his host's lips curling into a bitter frown. 'There's no worse environment than the interior of a mana core!'
There was a silver lining, however. Micky had once again discovered how profound the Vault's runecrafting language was. The circular runes fit neatly inside the spherical core, making use of every square millimetre of its cross-section. Had he used any other language, he would have had to make the runes smaller to make them fit, weakening their effects and wasting space.
He was pretty sure that it was just a coincidence. He didn't think that Metatron knew about pre-casting, and he sure hoped that the titan hadn't even considered the possibility of elevating Circulation into an artificial promotion.
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'As long as Tlaloc and Leo keep their mouths shut about the Dance, it would be too great a leap of logic.'
Then again, it was entirely possible that Micky's friends had already let the information slip. Perhaps, he shouldn't be underestimating Metatron's ingenuity either.
Whether the god had realized it or not, he already had access to many of the tools that Micky was planning to use in his project. The only ones that he might lack were the spectral traits and the alchemic principles, but Metatron could still potentially find workarounds.
'Well, there's nothing I can do about it now. Even if he gets there before I do, it won't affect me immediately. As long as I can become a god, I'll be able to deal with him one day.'
Either way, Micky already knew the titan's main reasons for building his entire runecrafting language on circular shapes, and they had nothing to do with mana cores. It made the enchantments simpler to draw and easier to stack together – both things that Micky had grown to greatly appreciate after years of experience in the field.
Regardless of Metatron's motivations, Micky had to admit that the runes were practically perfect for what he wanted to do. Even if he stopped holding the enchantments in place, they would be able to keep spinning inside the core with no obstruction.
'Wait… Spinning? That could work!' he thought, causing his host's heart to skip a beat.
Micky had been trying way too hard to keep the runes still, but that only made it more difficult for them to weather the violent flows of mana inside the organ. What if he stopped resisting and just allowed the symbols to rotate freely?
Deciding to give that a shot, he repaired the damaged enchantment once more, this time letting go of the circle's circumference. Like a flicked coin, the rune began revolving rapidly, falling apart within mere seconds. This was precisely what Micky had feared would happen, though he keenly noticed that the symbol had survived a little longer than his previous attempts.
Seeing that his latest idea had merit, he repeated his actions, adjusting his mindset slightly. He couldn't afford to let go of the rune entirely, or it would crumble on the spot. He still had to put some effort into keeping it intact, though he should probably avoid squeezing it as tightly.
'Its shape has to stay fixed, but its angular momentum and orientation don't really matter.'
The second attempt went a little better, the rune lasting for over five seconds before getting ripped apart. Thankfully, the wind crashing against it didn't apply as much pressure when Micky allowed the symbol to move freely, though a new problem soon presented itself.
Focusing on the enchantment was difficult. It revolved dozens – if not hundreds – of times per second, and it did so randomly, in all three dimensions.
Micky was only able to hold on to the rune for a while due to his trait. Unlike the conscious part of his mind that struggled to keep track of the construct, the instincts granted to him by Scribing didn't seem to care about whether the symbol was upside-down, flipped horizontally, or spinning.
Leaning into that feeling, Micky stopped trying to sense the rune directly. Ignoring the feeling in his host's chest entirely, he allowed a static picture of the concealment rune to form in his mind – a perfect representation of the enchantment inside his core, stripped of the movements.
He could still feel how the symbol was being affected by its surroundings, but he had essentially aligned his thoughts with the rune's frame of reference. He experienced the erratic air mana slamming into the construct as a series of violent gales, hitting it from every direction in an attempt to tear it down.
'They feel weaker than before though,' he realized, suppressing the urge to grin.
Ten seconds passed. The enchantment remained intact as Micky shattered his previous record. The gales didn't just crash onto the rune, however. They also collided with one another, brewing a chaotic storm inside the organ.
The enchantment wasn't spinning at a fixed speed, nor in a single direction. It constantly accelerated and decelerated, its rotation fluctuating wildly from one moment to the next. Every major shift threatened to throw Micky off, and to undo the symbol's structure, each sudden change impossible to predict or prepare for.
Micky was hanging on for dear life, like a boat trying to stay afloat atop a tumultuous ocean. He filtered all the detrimental information out, concentrating on nothing but the rune itself as he poured his mind into keeping every last stroke of the magical symbol in place. Whenever the shape felt like it was about to twist, he clamped down on it just a touch harder, letting go again as soon as the storm eased.
A minute passed, and then another – he guessed so at least, though he was too preoccupied with the difficult task to keep track. Micky's mind constantly alternated between tense and relaxed, almost as if he was wrestling with a tireless hurricane – struggling to block its violent blows with everything he had.
Thankfully, the situation improved markedly over time. It never got easy per se, but it did get a little easier after a while.
About an hour in, Micky wasn't as worried about the enchantment falling apart anymore. Maintaining its shape still required a lot of effort, but he was feeling increasingly confident that he could keep it up for a very long time if he didn't break focus, and his Status seemed to agree with that assessment.
[Congratulations! You have mastered a new spell: Spectral Art: Internal Runecrafting – Refined!]
Straight to Refined, huh? Not bad!' Micky thought, pressing his excitement down before it showed on his host's expression by mistake. The last thing Marnok needed was to have to explain to his crewmates why he was the only one thrilled to be starving on a deserted island.
Thinking back to the spell, Micky had to admit that he wasn't all that surprised by its classification. The new field of magiscript that he had just invented had an extremely high barrier of entry. In fact, he wasn't sure that his latest Spectral Art was easier to cast than his Instantaneous Formation, and his Status had listed that one as Masterful.
At the same time, he understood that Phoebe's Decree took several things into consideration when registering a new spell. Complexity was an important factor for sure, but so was potency. Viewed from that angle, the powerful formation that he had used to bring down one of Thess'kala's most talented disciples was worlds apart from his latest trick.
Internal Runecrafting demanded his undivided attention for a prolonged period of time and didn't even give him that much in return. Right now, the best he could manage was to replicate the effect of a cheap concealment bandage – something that even a novice enchanter could prepare with ease.
'Oh well… it's still proof of concept that my idea has merit. Every new field has to start somewhere,' he consoled himself.
All things considered, Micky did have a vague plan on how he was going to upgrade his boosting art. Ideally, it would serve as a direct improvement over the original Dance of the Savage Gods – not the Carnival, the Symbel, or the Symphony. Those were even more powerful, but they were tailored to Micky's unique combination of cores, affinities, and other abilities.
He didn't want to create the new spell merely for his own sake. His ancestors on Huehue had originally intended to elevate the technique further, though Rhaziel and his goons had prevented them from ever completing their project.
'I'll do it for them. And for Remior too.'
Micky wanted to pick up where the gods had left off, creating a spell that worked for every affinity, just like Circulation and the Dance. The latter already provided a person with enough mana capacity and regeneration to touch upon the next grade, but the boost was temporary and incomplete.
The next step would be to truly compress the mana to the next grade, which Micky guessed would bring about a much deeper physical enhancement, extending one's lifespan like a regular promotion.
His recent ventures in potionmaking had already given him a blueprint to follow. Conveniently, his spherical cauldron was shaped just like a mana core, so many of the key details would hopefully translate quite well from one application to the other.
'Mana cores are complex and delicate organs though,' he reminded himself. 'I'll need to be careful to avoid any injuries and make sure that the core still works properly afterwards.'
Normally, mana cores couldn't compress or support mana of the next grade. The whole point of drinking elixirs was to cleanse them until they could. Micky would have to use runes to pick up the slack. He'd also have to make the organs gather and compress mana automatically, otherwise his grade would drop the moment he stopped paying attention.
Finally, he doubted that he would be able to force more than a single artificial advancement. Much like his cauldron was currently limited to potions just two grades higher, Micky knew that he wouldn't be able to strengthen the organs endlessly with magiscript alone.
This meant that he'd have to continue cleansing his cores the good old way, drinking Aurora Dew multiple times per day – working towards his next natural promotion. And he didn't want to keep removing and reapplying the runes, so he'd have to design them in a way that didn't interfere with beast mana.
'There are several major problems that I'll have to solve,' Micky thought.
He'd have to plan the enchantments out and buy whatever books he was missing from the Vault. He'd also have to get countless times better at drawing them, because struggling to keep a single rune active inside his core just wouldn't cut it.
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More importantly, he'd have to find a way of making the enchantments permanent, since he couldn't afford to actively maintain them. One option would be to use solid mana types. Between Crystallization and ice mana, his bodies already technically had the means to craft permanent enchantments inside his own cores, but that went against his hopes of making the spell usable by every affinity.
'I wonder whether a mortal can learn to craft solid seals like Metatron's…' he thought, creasing his host's brow.
The spatial seal that the titan had sold him was made entirely out of space mana, and Micky was pretty sure that wasn't normally a solid mana type. If he could copy the god's methods, he'd have the means to turn every single affinity into a solid material to forge his enchantments out of.
Pondering over this some more, Micky felt that it was a viable approach, though it created a bunch of new issues. Leaving aside whether he was even capable of learning Metatron's technique, he had no idea whether the titan would be willing to sell him the information.
'I'll have to look into this the next time I'm there. If I can't buy it with credits, maybe I can claim it from the reward pools after clearing the sixth wave of the challenges.'
If it wasn't in the Red or Orange pools, it might be in the Yellow or Green ones. Gabe had even managed to get a demigod's soul mana that way, so Micky felt good about his odds. And even if the information wasn't in the system, he could still try trading Metatron something for it.
Once he had everything he needed from the Vault, it would be time to essentially perform alchemy inside his cores. The thought of treating his own body like a cauldron was quite scary, but it should be safe as long as he approached it with sufficient caution. As soon as he had something that worked, he would need to solve the issue with the elixirs too.
'I suppose that I can't keep relying on the Scribing trait forever either, otherwise the spell won't be useable by other people.'
That wasn't a priority of course. It was already going to be extremely difficult to reach his goal with the trait's help, let alone without it, so Micky wasn't in a rush to get rid of his spectral crutches just yet.
Even so, he was happy with the plan. It would admittedly involve a lot of challenging steps, but Micky didn't see any of them as insurmountable. He'd just have to tackle them one at a time – which wasn't anything new to him.
'Most of those things can wait until later anyway. Right now, the best use of my time is to help Marnok while getting better with Internal Runecrafting.'
Micky was about to resume working on his spell, when he noticed that something had changed in the outside world. The sailors had stopped walking at some point, having probably reached the spot along the coastline closest to their destination. They'd gathered up, staring at the jungle ahead while discussing how to proceed.
Some wanted to do things more cautiously – to get in, find something edible, and immediately return to the beach. They weren't necessarily against heading toward the Saint's tomb eventually, but they wanted to take their sweet time preparing for it. They didn't want to risk it until everyone was fully fed and rested, and they had slowly mapped out the area.
Others disagreed, insisting on going straight for the treasure. Apparently, their information already gave them a good idea of where it was located, and they reasoned that it was best to spend as little time inside the jungle as possible. Caution was good, but not if it meant giving the monsters dwelling in the depths of the island more chances to ambush them.
Micky didn't much care what the sailors ended up choosing, his attention shifting to his host's surroundings. The beach wasn't as empty anymore – at some point, a few boulders of various sizes had appeared, jutting out of the sand. They were sleek and pitch black, most of them sporting irregular shapes that left no doubt that they had been formed naturally.
He keenly noticed a few with oddly canonical shapes, however, giving him a weird feeling. Micky wouldn't call them half-spherical exactly, and their texture didn't look any different from the regular boulders, but he thought that they appeared a little too similar to one another.
Scanning them with Mana Sense, he came up empty. No wonder the other sailors hadn't thought much of the objects. Was he really just imagining things?
Wanting to be sure, he searched inside his spatial seal, finding a tiny piece of his scythe that he'd managed to salvage earlier. It was barely as long as his index finger, and he didn't have a single drop of phantom mana left to repair it. Even if he tried to forcefully feed air mana into the adaptive runes, he guessed that they would distort the construct's shape into something unrecognizable long before he managed to regrow the weapon.
The scythe wasn't the point, however.
Quietly summoning the object to his host's hand, he clenched his fist, shattering the construct. Micky ignored the grey powder trickling through the gaps in his fingers. He couldn't un-crystallize his mana, but his reinforced weapons contained traces of soft mana as well.
There wasn't much, though he was able to send a tiny amount to his host's eyes, activating Soul Vision. The magical sense only flashed for a fraction of a second before fizzling out, yet it was just about long enough to give Micky a better glimpse into the strange rocks.
The sight that had unfolded before him sent a chill down his borrowed spine – a silver silhouette burned patiently inside each of the oddly-shaped boulders!
Micky had to stop his host from yelling.
'We need to warn 'em!' Marnok protested.
'We do, but you need to calm down first. Panicking will only make the situation worse,' Micky said.
He didn't think there was any chance that the creatures were planning to let them go – the endless hunger that came hand in hand with their affinity simply wouldn't allow them to ignore such a feast. If anything, it was surprising that they'd even held out this long, though Micky understood that was just a behaviour that they must have evolved after countless generations, to better their odds of getting a meal.
Judging from their sizes, most of them were at Yellow or Orange, and they appeared to outnumber the sailors three to one. Micky could see the fight going either way, but the outcome would largely depend on how they handled it.
The creatures likely understood that too. The only reason they hadn't attacked yet was probably because they wanted to lure the men even deeper into their ranks, to surround them from every direction. Their shells clearly concealed their mana signatures, the monsters having long learned the value of patience.
Micky was willing to bet good money that the creatures would drop the façade in a heartbeat the moment Marnok's people raised a big fuss or attempted to run away.
'What should we do?' Marnok asked upon listening to Micky's explanation.
'First things first. How close are you to activating the new core?'
''Tis ready,' his host replied. 'I've only kept the last channel half-closed like ya told me.'
Micky nodded internally. 'Good. Activate it. No matter what affinity we get, the physical boost should come in handy.'
While Marnok worked on awakening the organ, Micky paid attention to the sailors' conversation. They were still locked in a heated discussion, trying to decide whether to prioritize food or treasure, and how to better manage the risk.
The poor fools had yet to realize that food and risk had both already found them. Either way, the situation suited Micky just fine. The more his host's crewmates dragged on, the more time he and Marnok had to prepare. Of course, there was always a chance that the monsters would get sick of waiting before they were ready, but there was nothing he could do about that.
About a minute later, their core contained enough mana for Micky to get a feel for its type. He'd experienced most affinities enough times to recognize them by now, though he wasn't necessarily as proficient with all of them. Thankfully, lady luck appeared to smile on him for once.
'Water… nice!'
It was merely a common affinity – which shouldn't come as a surprise, really – but also the best one he could have asked for. Not only was he extremely familiar with it, he was also skilled at manipulating its combination with air. Fusing the elements from two separate cores was bound to feel a little different from having a single core with the composite affinity, but he'd played with enough cores and bodies in the past that he should be able to figure it out quickly enough if necessary.
As an added bonus, he wouldn't have to worry about Marnok going thirsty if anything bad happened to the other water users in the group.
Along with the new organ came the familiar boost to Marnok's physique. Their muscles grew twice as strong, their mind clearer and their senses sharper. Micky didn't wait for his host to fill his core up, rushing to shape its contents into a concealment rune before the others noticed the oddity.
'What are ya doin'? Ain't we goin' to use the water mana?' the sailor asked.
'Only if we have to. No need to reveal all our trump cards before absolutely necessary,' Micky replied.
Keeping the enchantment from falling apart was a lot harder while Marnok was actively drawing mana to the organ, though that should stop being a problem as soon as it was full.
Either way, the added difficulty was offset by the fact that water mana was a lot calmer and slower. It didn't affect Micky's efforts nearly as much as air, and even though the currents inside the organ felt heavier, their movements weren't nearly as dizzying. In hindsight, there weren't many affinities more troublesome to pre-cast than air. Perhaps, Micky should have waited for a different host before attempting this.
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'Oh well… what's done is done. It was good practice anyway. Besides, I'll need to learn how to do this with every affinity at some point,' he thought with a mental shrug. Turning to his host, he said, 'I won't be able to focus on much else while I'm doing this, so make sure you survive.'
Marnok nodded, before interrupting his bickering crewmates.
"Oy! Shut yar traps for a moment!"
The sailors threw him curious glances, but he ignored them.
"No matter what I'm 'bout to say, I need ya to remain calm. See 'em black rocks around ya? Most of 'em ain't rocks. The smaller ones are beasts, bidin' their time to bite 'ar faces off."
"'ave ya lost it Marnok? Beasts can't survive without 'em mana cores. 'n I don't see any," one of the men said with a smirk. "Did the lack of food get to ya?"
Many of the others snickered, only a couple looking like they were taking Marnok seriously.
"Just listen. If I'm wrong, ya can 'ave a laugh at me expense later. But if I'm right, we're in big trouble. Good news is that we ain't got to go lookin' for food. We can eat plenty 'ere."
"What do ya suggest?" the man with the red bandana asked, clearly belonging to the group more willing to entertain Marnok's "madness".
"Keep talkin' so 'em don't realize we're onto 'em. Whatever happens, don't try to run neither. Does 'nyone think 'em can get through 'em shells?"
"I reckon only earth users can crack through 'em big ones. Maybe fire can cook 'em alive if we're lucky. But we should all be able to handle 'em small ones," another sailor said.
Marnok nodded. "Ignore 'em boulders shaped like actual rocks. We all attack on me signal, focusin' on those to me left. We need to carve a path back the way we came, so that we don't get surrounded. Everyone good?"
Some of the sailors seemed more willing to entertain Marnok's proposition than others, though they all eventually nodded. Even the ones still thinking that this was a joke probably understood that they had nothing to lose if he was wrong and everything to lose if he was right.
"Now!" Marnok yelled, unleashing a green crescent blade at the nearest semi-spherical rock, the spell cleaving about halfway through the glossy shell before coming to a halt. Blue blood spilled out of the crack, providing ample evidence that he'd been telling the truth. Not that the others needed it, as they'd already attacked several other creatures.
A few earth users ganged up on one of the Yellow beasts. Its shell appeared even tougher than expected, the constructs unable to break through. The sailors settled for trapping the monster between a few stone pillars, its carapace barely cracking slightly where it collided with the spells. One of the fire users pitched in, finishing it off by pouring mana into the holes.
Things weren't looking great, however. This was about to turn into a massacre if every creature required several people working together to take down. The other sailors either attacked the smaller beasts or tried to push the larger ones aside, focusing on opening a path instead of wasting their time and mana failing to deal any actual damage.
The beasts didn't sit idly either. As soon as the men began attacking them, dozens of previously-still stones shifted at once, chitinous limbs unfolding one after the other. Sharp legs tapped rapidly against the sand, the crab-like creatures moving much faster than Micky had expected.
Each sported two pairs of giant pincers, the limbs stretching twice as long as the crabs' bodies, the afternoon sun giving their serrated edges an ominous red sheen as they clicked loudly.
In mere moments, the army of creatures crashed into the group of marooned sailors like a tidal wave, the men doing everything they could to resist the onslaught while moving backwards.
Beasts fell one after the other – the Orange creatures doing so far more frequently than the Yellows. Unfortunately, Marnok's crewmates experienced plenty of casualties themselves.
The first to fall was one of the sick Orange-borns. Micky wasn't sure whether it had been the man's grade or illness that had caused him to miss a step. Either way, the poor sailor's leg ended up caught by an oversized pincer, causing him to lose both his foot and his footing, two massive crabs soon ripping him apart with savage glee. The second Orange-born performed a little better than his dead companion, even managing to outlive a couple of Yellow-born sailors before succumbing himself.
While the sailors lacked the numbers or the tough exteriors of their opponents, they had a few advantages of their own to fall back to. Unlike the bulky creatures that kept getting in each other's way, the men could stack their spells together a lot more easily. Retreating methodically, they bought themselves time to slowly whittle down the monsters.
Before long, all the Orange beasts were dead, the sailors managing to open up a path out of the encirclement. They should be able to outrun the crabs if they chose to escape, but nobody seemed willing to do that.
Whether it was out of a desire to avenge their fallen comrades, unwillingness to let all this food to go to waste, or pure spite toward the insidious creatures, the sailors decided to stay and fight, their coordinated spells gradually turning the battle in their favour.
The crabs found it increasingly difficult to approach, dying one after the other as the men took turns holding the line or recovering their mana.
Micky never felt the need to pitch in, focusing solely on his Internal Runecrafting throughout the battle. It was valuable experience, and it wasn't like an extra water mage would have made a huge difference. Exposing his host's second core would only bring them trouble down the line.
Marnok never attempted to use his new mana type either. Leaving aside the fact that Micky had explicitly instructed him not to, he probably didn't even know how to wield the affinity properly – certainly not at the same time as his air mana. However, his newly strengthened body definitely made a difference, allowing him to position himself better, preventing him from falling behind his companions and getting devoured by the monsters.
By the time the sun was about to set, the earth users joined forces one final time to pin the last crab between a bunch of constructs, the beast letting out a screeching cry as the fire users emptied their cores inside its carapace.
The sailors had won the gruesome battle and even found themselves some dinner!
Or at least, the eight of them still breathing had…