Nick eyed the young man with palpable hostility.
(First things first, restrain him. Soul Pressure.)
The young man's grin transformed into a frown as he felt an irresistible force push down on him. His frown slowly turned into a smile, however.
"Not bad."
The young man's body suddenly writhed and morphed, becoming a white scaled, black spotted serpent that had a length of about ten meters and the serpent was as wide as four fire hoses put together. It slithered towards Nick seeming to be unaffected by the effects of Soul Pressure.
Nick squinted his eyes and made a guess:
"This is transformation path magic."
The serpent creepily grinned and spoke:
"That's right and this transformation here is the soulless snake. It's a troublesome magic beast that eats souls but whose own soul is impervious to magical influence below rank three. Sexy, right?"
Nick replied with a snort:
"Hmph! Who are you?"
The serpent lifted its head by about two meters and spoke cheerfully:
"Well, I'm glad that you asked. My name is Tanner White and I am a proud student of Raylam Priest Academy. Who might you be, sir?"
Tanner was being so polite and cheerful that Nick started to feel awkward about his own aggressive stance. He replied:
"Uhh...my name is Nick Capitol of Richter Order Academy. Do you know where exactly this is?"
Tanner's serpent transformation writhed and transformed back to looking human again. He replied to Nick's question eagerly:
"I have no idea. When I found my way to the third floor, I could see nothing at all so I transformed into a mercy rat and scurried about until I fell into a stream and ended up here. I've been at this pool meditating for about one month now."
Tanner put on a thoughtful expression and then asked:
"Are you the Nick Capitol that people from both academies are talking about? They're saying that your a blood thirsty lunatic that uses evil magic to have magic beasts slaughter each other."
Nick shook his head and replied:
"People like to talk. All that could refer to another Nick Capitol."
Tanner chuckled and replied:
"Ha, I guess you're right. Anyway, what do you plan on doing now? There is a small passage way out of this pool area over there but when I use any of my transformations, my instincts warn me that something dangerous is waiting on the other side. My beast instincts have never been wrong so I'm guessing that there is at least a powerful magic beast somewhere on the other side of that passage. I've been waiting here with the intention of teaming up with some other people that end up here to get past this place."
Nick took a good look around realized that this pool was really shallow and at the northern end of it, a hole could be seen in the rock wall that was situated a little above the water level. Nick spoke without looking at Tanner.
"Although the light here is refreshing, I don't have much time to waste here, Whether or not there is something dangerous in that tunnel, I'll have to see it for myself."
Tanner nodded in understanding and said:
"Well then, in that case, mind if I tag along?"
Nick turned to focus on Tanner once again and asked:
"Tell me something. Why not just ignore the risks and go by yourself since we cannot really die, anyway?"
Tanner blinked his eyes innocently and replied:
"That's because I thought that spending a few months in this pool meditating was a good thing to do anyway since I wanted to take the time to nurture my mindscape in preparation for the lower floors. You coming along now just presents an opportunity that I don't mind taking advantage of."
Nick looked and Tanner indifferently for a few moments and then slowly said:
"I like your forthrightness, if you're ready, let's go then."
Tanner's grin widened and he walked up to Nick and the two then walked towards the hole in the wall without saying another word to each other.
Nick internally sighed.
(If this strange guy is telling the truth, it might be worthwhile having him around. If not, I can just part with him when we get to wherever this passage leads.)
Nick and Tanner entered the passage at the same time since it was large enough to fit five adults walking in tandem. They proceeded to walk down a long stone walled corridor made of smooth gray stone. Nick looked around and thought:
(Hmmm...this corridor can't be naturally formed, right? It seems as if someone carved it out perfectly. Why else would the texture of the walls be so smooth and uniform?)
Nick was starting develop a nagging suspicion about the Never Ending Battlefield.
(First, the stone monolith, then this. Both indicate that intelligent life lived in the area, more intelligent than weak magic beasts at least.)
The passage was not straight but had twists and turns and even slight slopes but the walls and ground remained as smooth as can be. Nick and Tanner walked forward for about an hour in almost absolute darkness before they caught sight of an exit with some light emanating from it. Nick felt relived; he had been using Space this whole time to guide him through the darkness and was starting to feel uneasy since he was not alone. Nick did not know how Tanner guided himself through the darkness but he suspected that it was by using transformation path methods because of the strange flow of different magic that Nick sensed coming from Tanner's position.
Suddenly, through the use of Space, Nick sensed Tanner's body writhe and morph into a bird like creature that was the size of a bald eagle. Tanner's voice sounded soon after:
"My instincts are sending me warning signals, far more intense than before. Are you ready for what might come?"
Nick replied indifferently:
"Naturally."
Nick walked towards the entrance making sure to extend his special space to cover several meters in front an behind him as well as prepared the soul capturing cloak to transform defensively. The sound of wings flapping filled the passage way as Tanner flew forward and kept pace with Nick.
(I could try to extend my special space out of this exit by a great distance to get a clear picture of what's out their within my mind but if there is an enemy or enemies sensitive to the changes in the surrounding magic energy, that might alert them.)
Nick took the straight forward approach and boldly walked out of the passage to touch the solid ground of a large, seemingly almost closed off cavern, the hole in the wall behind him being the only way out of it. The cavern was as big as a football field and the air was slightly stale but well lit.
(Where is all this light coming from?)
Nick looked around and saw nothing to speak of but empty space surrounded by curved rock walls. Tanner suddenly whistled to get Nick's attention, then whispered while still in his bird like form:
"Look up, try to focus on the ceiling directly above you."
Nick quickly did so and noticed something strange jutting out of the ceiling. The object seemed to be curved, pale white and pointed at the end. Nick had seen many similar objects it the past few years so he recognized it almost instantly, asking:
"Is that a bone? Why would it be jutting out of the ceiling?"
Suddenly, Nick's magic sense warned him of a threatening magic power coming his way but he saw nothing.
(What is this feeling, I've never felt this sort of mental pressure before?)
Nick was confused but as he looked in front of him, he witnessed the space directly in front of him slightly tremble as if it had been disturbed. Nick felt a sort of familiarity with the trembling space but this familiarity forced his intuition to alert him. Nick quickly expanded is special space to fill the whole cavern and cast a spell whose laws he quickly made an adjustment to using his master attainment in space path:
(Still Space.)
Suddenly, everything contained within Nick's special space stopped moving except for Tanner and Nick himself, even the air went still. The power of Still Space was to create a vacuum where non-biological particles could not move freely and that included, air, light and even magic energy. Tanner fell to the ground as Nick's spell took away the air from around his wings but Nick made sure that he still received enough air to breathe.
Nick had quickly altered the laws of Still Space to change its one target nature into an area of effect nature when used cohesively with Space. Tanner transformed back to his human form and stood up, saying:
"What did you do?"
Nick did not immediately answer and watched as the walls and ceiling of the cavern started to warp and then dissipate, revealing an even bigger cavern with a large glowing crystal jutting out of the ceiling and the gigantic skeleton of a magic beast that seemed to be positioned as if it was holding up the ceiling. The piece of bone that Nick saw earlier was one of the skeleton's finger tips. Nick pondered:
(An illusion? No, that's not just it, my special space had given me sensual feedback which indicated that everything was real. Was that space magic?)
That's what Nick's intuition was telling him. Whatever that illusion was, it was reinforced by an altered space and that's why Nick felt something strange about the situation - because of his increased affinity with space magic after he had become a deep seeker dragon warlock.
THUMP THUMP ...
Nick and Tanner both heard low sounds coming from the other side of the room as the space there warped, twisted and collapsed, revealing two magic beasts that sat cross legged on a one meter high elevated stone platform. The magic beasts had bipedal figures and were entirely covered in grey scales and wore ragged, cloth clothing. They looked almost identical except, for the fact that one had a pair of glowing blue eyes and the other had a pair of glowing red eyes.
They both looked at Nick and Tanner while holding out there claw tipped left hands and using the side of their balled right hand to slowly pound their left palm.
Tanner spoke warily:
"It looks like those two were responsible for the illusion earlier but their work was shoddy at best since it had imperfections that we noticed. Huh?"
Tanner suddenly jolted as he said in panic:
"One quarter of my magic energy has been drained from me without me noticing before now!"
Nick frowned and checked his own magic energy reserves.
(What the hell is this? My magic energy reserves dropped by 8,000 magical units when I used Still Space but realistically speaking, the spell should have cost no more than 2,000 magical units.)
The magic beasts looked and Nick and Tanner indifferently and slammed the side of their balled right fist into their left palm with twice the impact as before.
At that moment the space around Nick warped and a few moments later, he found himself submerged at the bottom of a large body of clear water, gasping for breath.
(Fuck!)
Nick looked to his right and saw Tanner in the same situation. Tanner's body writhed and morphed into a fish like magic beasts with scales striped in a zebra pattern, being black and white and had six long fins visible at its sides, three on each side. Nick snorted and focused his magic, casting Still Space again, however, the illusion took twice as long to dissipate and Nick almost passed out from lack of oxygen.
When the illusion dissipated, Nick drew in deep breaths and Tanner morphed back into human form. Nick checked his magic energy reserves and saw that his consumption had amounted to three times what it should have been.
"These magic beasts are using their magic power to excessively expend ours somehow."
Tanner nodded in agreement but hesitated to move forward, saying:
"These things are still pounding their hands together, they must be preparing for another attack, should we advance or retreat?"
Nick's expression became filled with malice as he shouted:
"Advance!"
Nick quickly expanded his special space to cover the two magic beasts but when he tried to teleport them, nothing happened.
(At least one of them must specialize in space path and they're somehow interfering with Space's effect.)
Nick quickly waved his machete twice in a horizontal motion.
(Sever.)
(Sever.)
Two thin layers of magic power instantly crashed into the two magic beasts but then Nick's magic power ended up being impeded by an area of warping space directly in front of the magic beasts. Nick suddenly disappeared from his position and reappeared two meters above the magic beasts, in midair.
(Soul Pressure.)
An irresistible pressure crashed down on the two magic beasts and they were forced to momentarily stop their hand motions before straining to make another loud pound onto their left palm.
Nick's surroundings instantly changed as he fell and below him was now filled with a thick grey fog as far as the eye could see. Nick didn't have the time to search for Tanner's position because the moment that he arrived within twenty meters of the fog, a giant, scaly maw the size of a skyscraper moved towards him with its rows of sharp teeth and its bad breath. Nick didn't have time to think of a winning strategy because as far as he was concerned, this was a life and death situation.
Nick quickly folded both of his hands into each other and an intense darkness spread out into the area, covering the snout of the creature lunging at him and some the surrounding fog. Nick braced himself as the decrepit temple appeared in midair, providing him with footing and watched as thousands of pieces of bones littered the atmosphere.
Nick did not hesitate and poured as much magic energy as he could in pulling his spell off, not even caring about where exactly Tanner was. The pair of reddish rings in both Nick's eyes unbeknownst to him shone lightly at this time.
(Malevolent Shrine.)
The giant maw seemed to stop moving for a moment before suddenly, thousands of sliced pieces of its flesh and blood flew away from it and spread into the surroundings, appearing like a shower of hail.
Thousands of pieces of the creatures flesh continued to be cut off by the millisecond until it seemed as if the creature was being vaporized by Nick, the portion of its body above the fog becoming a bloody mist within three seconds.
At that moment, the space around Nick began to shake violently and the effects of Malevolent Shrine ended with Nick starting to fall towards the fog again but soon thereafter, the illusion completely dissipated with an extreme suddenness.
Nick found himself on the ground of the cavern once again about six meters away from the stone platform.
(Looks like they teleported me away when they forced me into that illusion.)
Nick turned his attention to the stone platform, preparing to act despite the fact that his magic energy reserves were nearly empty, however, he was pleasantly surprised to see the blue eyed magic beast violently nudging the red eyed magic beast who was now lying sprawled out on the ground, bloody with deep cuts all over its body and its long pink tongue sticking out of its mouth; the latter's eyes glowed dully and had a vacant stare.
(Hmph! That thing is clearly dead. Good riddance.)
The blued eyed magic beast slammed both its fists on the ground and then turned to look at Nick with hatred. Nick focused his attention and realized that there was blood slowly flowing from its mouth and its movements were slightly awkward as if it was in pain. Nick reasoned:
(Did those two magic beasts suffer from some kind of backlash? That must be why the other one is dead. Now that I think about it, Malevolent Shrine seems to be more than just a blade path spell, I couldn't sense it before but with my increase in attainment, it seems to me know that the spell has to be partly of the space path. When I cut up that creature, the effects of Malevolent Shrine must have spilled over to these poor fucks or at least it broke up their combined spell and caused them a backlash, killing one and injuring the other.)
Nick didn't have to guess whether he was right as the evidence was right in front of him. The remaining magic beast snarled at Nick and got up from its stooping position about to pound its left palm with its right fist but suddenly, a large copper colored serpent, as thick as a five hundred year old oak tree sprung out of the ground on the left side of the stone platform and swallowed the magic beast whole. The serpent visibly shook and spasmed a bit, then spit out the body of the blue eyed magic beast which was now more than half corroded and covered in a viscous, foul smelling, green liquid.
Nick was about to manipulate his special space to restrain the serpent but it writhed and morphed into a glasses wearing young man who was currently grinning from ear to ear. Tanner walked past the carcass of the now dead blue eyed magic beast and declared:
"We, won. Man, I almost thought that that last illusion would have gotten us for good. You are really something, Nick."
Nick fell to the ground in a sitting position and raised his head to look at the glowing white crystal above them, using both his hands as support and taking deep breaths.
(That was close. When did that guy burrow into the ground and how come he wasn't affected by my Malevolent Shrine?)
Nick lowered his head to look at the grinning Tanner and said:
"You're really something too, aren't you?"
Tanner shook his head and ignored the deeper meaning behind Nick's words, saying:
"I just found an opportunity, that's it."
Nick then stood up while retracting his special space to a few inches beyond his person and said:
"I'm going to find a way out of here, but first."
Nick cast Blink and appeared next to the carcass of the blue eyed magic beast, willing his soul capturing cloak to drag out and absorb its soul. The process was quick and fruitful since the magic beast had just been killed so its soul had not yet dissipated. Nick cast Blink again and did the same thing to the carcass of the red eyed magic beast.
Tanner looked on without saying anything. Nick then looked around for possible exits which he had not been able to do before because of the threat of the two magic beasts. Nick and Tanner walked throughout the room and both soon found a small hole in the ground that was apparently the opening of a steep tunnel that lead lower into the ground. Tanner looked into it, adjusting the rim of his glasses and then said to Nick:
"It'll be a tight squeeze but we can fit. Want to leave this place now?"
Nick thought for a bit:
(Why is he asking me that, does he really want to keep moving together? I'm not opposed to traveling through this tunnel but it feels like I'm forgetting something...)
Nick turned around and placed his sights on the gigantic skeleton that seemed to be positioned as if it was holding up the ceiling.
"That skeleton right there must have been one hell of a magic beast when it was alive. What rank was it?"
Tanner was confused as to why Nick was suddenly talking to himself but he didn't want to be pushy since it was Nick who made overcoming the two previous magic beasts possible. Nick walked up closer to the skeleton in order to examine it properly.
(This thing was clearly bipedal and from the shape of its arms and leg bones, it was probably a fairly muscular magic beast.)
Nick had read many anatomy books in recent months in regards to both humans and magic beasts and that knowledge was now coming in handy. Nick reached out his left hand to touch a piece of the magic beast's toe bone, keeping his right arm at his side, firmly holding his machete. Nick's hand touched the toe bone and he rubbed it for close to a minute before retracting his hand.
(This skeleton still has magic energy radiating from it. That means that magical laws must still be etched into it, they haven't been transferred to the surroundings.)
When most magic beasts die, after a certain period of time the laws on their bodies would slowly be transferred to the surroundings; this was a commonly known fact.
"In that case..."
Nick quickly swung his machete, casting Sever against a section of the toe bone. A small portion of the bone, about the size of a penny, was immediately cut off and started to fall to the ground. Nick spread out his special space to stop its fall ad floated it towards himself, taking it into his left palm and holding the bone fragment up to his face.
Tanner watched all of this with confusion and didn't know exactly what to think. Nick shrugged his shoulders and opened his mouth wide, then he threw the bone fragment into his mouth and swallowed it whole. Tanner was shocked by Nick's impulsiveness.
Nick stood in place and soon felt a rush of magic energy saturate his abdominal area; it felt oddly satisfying and it left him wanting the feeling again. Nick looked at the skeleton from head to toe and asked himself.
"Can I eat this entire thing?"
The skeleton was as big as a modern day cargo plane and normally, eating it in its entirety would take Nick at least a few months of painstaking effort, not considering the fact that eating raw bone was not easy.
Nick thought for a moment before an idea popped into his mind.
(My magic energy reserves are back to full capacity so this should work.)
Nick stuck his machete into the hard ground and reached out both hands to touch the toe bone of the giant skeleton and cast a spell, then poured his magic power into the skeleton.
(Small.)
Nick was using his spell that could uniformly scale down the size of whatever he touched. Nick's magic energy reserves fell rapidly but the effects of his spell were not noticeable.
(This skeleton is greatly resisting the effects of my spell. The numerous laws on it must have a fair degree of conflict with my rule magic.)
Nick did not give up, however, and soon, when his magic reserves were almost bottomed out, he noticed that the skeleton and shrunk by a little. He was not the only one that noticed, Tanner looked on with a fair degree of shock at what Nick was doing, thinking:
(Is this crazy guy actually trying to take away that skeleton? Such guts!)
Nick ignored Tanner and sat down to meditate and when his magic energy reserves were full again, he got up and cast Small on the skeleton again until his reserves were emptied. He continued doing the same procedure of casting Small on the skeleton until his reserves were empty, then meditating until his reserves were full and did this over and over again until about three days later. The skeleton was now the size of a marshmallow and fit comfortably within Nick's palm after Nick used his other spell, Light, to minimize the weight of the skeleton which was still tremendous despite its decreased size.
(Hmmm...that's a serious flaw, it seems that Small does not adequately decrease the weight of magically imbued items that I cast it on. I hadn't noticed this since the objects that I used it on before were a relatively small size.)
Nick sighed, reiterating in his mind:
(Spell making is more art than science.)
Nick didn't want to waste any more time so he quickly threw the miniature skeleton into his mouth, swallowing it whole. For ten minutes afterwards, Nick did not feel anything but then suddenly, a burst of magic energy erupted inside him and the surrounding magic energy started to flow towards him en masse. Tanner who had already decided to wait on Nick looked at the scene from beside the tunnel and quietly observed, not wanting to disturb Nick's cultivation.
Nick sat on the floor cross legged, closing his eyes and begun meditating in an effort to calm the magic energy inside and around him so that his mindscape could process it. After two hours of painstaking meditation, the the flow of magic energy within him was completely processed by his mindscape and the excess was released as the flow of magic energy in the surroundings went back to normal.
Nick didn't end his efforts there, he quickly cast another spell at this opportune time:
(Growth.)
When Nick opened his eyes he realized that his head was near to a stone ceiling, so much so that he had to stoop in order to stand. Nick looked around at his current situation and realized that he was not in his own body.
He was now completely naked, showing off his crimson red skin that sported black circular patterns and the muscles on he arms, legs and torso were persistently bulged; his current height had to be at least fifteen meters. Nick then involuntarily moved and he placed his two muscular arms against the ceiling and roared with such might that the hard stone walls visibly shook in place.
Nick suddenly experienced opening his eyes once again and could feel the sweat pouring down his face and emerging from all over his body.
(How long was I in this position?)
Nick looked around but did not see Tanner so he assumed that the latter had left, unbeknownst to him. Nick got up from his sitting position and flexed his arms at which point his bones made a crackling sound. Nick decided that he needed to move on with his journey so he absentmindedly picked up his machete while thinking about the vision of the giant a few moments ago.
(Now that I think about it, I might have seen a similar magic beast in one of the books that I read a few years ago. I think that it was called a minor rage giant and if I'm remembering correctly, it is a strength path magic beast...)
As Nick picked up his machete, he put more strength into his arm than he realized and his machete flew up away from him and was lodged into the ceiling. Nick frowned.
(That's bizarre.)
Nick expanded his special space in order to retrieve the machete by teleporting it back to himself. Once his machete was firmly in his right hand again, he swung it once and the force of it moving through the air produced a loud whistle.
"Oh."
Nick felt that something had changed about the strength in his arms so he stooped down and punched at the ground with his left hand. To his surprise, his fist went straight through, crushing the stones that were in his way. Nick withdrew his hand and looked at it, feeling a fair amount of pain since it was a little bruised and cut by the impact of his punch.
(What's going on? Does this change have to do with swallowing that skeleton? I guess that's probable since the minor rage giant is a strength path magic beast. I think that it gets to rank three when it matures.)
The more Nick thought about it, the more he felt that he was correct.
(So I guess that means that after I used Growth, my body gained the strength path laws that were left on the skeleton. That's interesting. I never thought that Growth would have such an extreme effect. I can conjecture that the extreme change is due to both the rank of the magic beast when it was alive and the number of laws that still remained on the skeleton but there is no way for me to know for sure.)
Nick decided to make one last test of his new found strength; he breathed in deeply and suddenly crouched, then jumped.
BOOM!
The ground under Nick's feet cracked in the pattern of a spider web as he was lifted more than ten meters into the air and he could now almost touch the stone ceiling.
Nick sprawled out momentarily in midair and took in the feeling of his almost weightlessness.
(This is what power should feel like - effortless control.)