Ch: 116.1 (Patreon)

I don’t know what it was, but staring up at the outer edges of the crater for the second time, they felt more intimidating to me, probably because I knew what lay on the other side of them.

It was hard not to question myself, but thankfully that’s what Tabitha was here for.

“You ready?” She turns and asks me casually, but there is no mistaking the excitement on her face.

It’s funny, but seeing Tabitha so enthusiastic, somehow comforts me. The heart of the forest was dangerous for both of us, and yet she didn’t have a hint of fear, only a desire to challenge herself. What kind of partner would I be if I couldn't match that energy? After all, this was what I wanted, a sense of adventure and a chance to explore the unknown.

“I’m ready,” I respond in a clear voice without much hesitation. There was no backing out now, and I refused to be a burden for Tabitha.

“Good,” Tabitha grins at me before once again turning back to the mountain that was the crater's edge looking up in thought. "We won't know what it's like inside the bubble, but we can’t stay there for long,” She warns me. “I give us seven; no, six hours before we must leave. If we stay longer, we'll start suffering the effects of mana poisoning.”

I nod, but while Tabitha isn't looking at me, I swallow a lump in my throat. Master warned me about what happens when someone takes in too much ambient mana. Of course, everyone has a different threshold that they can handle, but the side effects were always the same.

The first thing a person feels when suffering from mana poisoning is a burning sensation on the skin, and the pain only grows the more mana you absorb.

Two days ago, when we were on the crater's edge, I felt a slight burning sensation, the earliest sign of mana poisoning. Master said depending on a person's skills, stat spread, and levels; it’s possible to feel a burning sensation for hours, sometimes days, before a person experiences the next stage of mana poisoning, depending on how bad the ambient mana is.

But once a person absorbs enough raw environmental mana, they’ll enter stage two. And when that happens, a person will randomly start having their mana-based skills and spells fail on them, with the failures increasing until the person can no longer use either.

Stage three is more straightforward in that your entire body erupts in soul-crushing pain as you slowly lose your health. Master said that if I ever made it to stage three, I was to immediately run to an area with as little mana as possible because once a person passes stage three, they suffer permanent damage that not even status points can heal.

That leads us to stage four, the destruction of a person's mana network. Even if you survive the excruciating levels of pain it takes to reach stage four, by that point, the massive amounts of mana your body has absorbed will have crippled you for life, and anything mana-related will be impossible.

And finally, stage five, death. The body can no longer contain the mana it's absorbed in any form, and you burn up from the inside out and disintegrate into dust, much like when I pump too much mana into an item. Only the process is drawn out because the body tries to resist what's happening to it, leading to a very slow and agonizing death.

With the area we’re heading to, being like it is, it was a given that Tabitha and I would suffer at least some form of mana poisoning. The trick was for us to leave before either of us reached stage two, and things started to get complicated.

Most of my skills were mana based, and if even one of them started to stop working, I would be in big trouble. It would be especially bad if that skill were Mana Skin, which was my primary defense against the high ambient mana in the first place.

Tabitha had recovered to 95% by yesterday morning, but as a team, we decided to wait another day until she had recovered to peak condition. After discussing it, we concluded that we would only spend a minimal time inside the bubble based on how bad the ambient mana was.

Tabitha's enchanted armor acts similar to what Mana Skin does for me and repels a specific amount of mana, while her high level and stats take care of the rest. But even then, she told me she was reluctant to stay more than seven hours, and now she’s reduced it further to six, and we weren't even in the crater yet.

I might be able to fair better than her, but it was a toss-up at this point. Thanks to the extra day of rest, I managed to increase the thickness of Mana Skin to three layers. Mana Skin is now strong enough to fully protect me from the extreme levels of mana outside the crater, but I still need to see how it does once we climb up. But I’m confident I can last as long as Tabitha, maybe even longer.

I would’ve loved to break past level 60, but it wasn't that long ago Mana Skin finally reached that level, and this was its second bottleneck. Mental resistance took forever to break through, and I suspected Mana Skin would be just as hard. But while I had to torture myself to increase Mental Resistance and hope it leveled up, I could be more active in trying to improve Mana Skin.

I had many ideas on how to strengthen my skill; it was only implementing my ideas that I was having trouble with. Any change to Mana Skin, besides just adding another layer, requires absolute precision on my part on an almost microscopic level. So if I wanted to improve Mana Skin, it would require the help of my other skills as well.

However, this wasn’t the time to question my skills, as hesitation could kill me. Instead, I would have to deal with where they were at now and try to improve them later.

With that in mind, Tabitha and I start climbing.

The second time climbing the outer walls of the crater was much easier than the first time. Tabitha wasn't winded this time, and we made it to the top twice as fast as we initially did.

I had thought I had mentally prepared myself enough over the last two days to return here, but now that we were back staring down at the massive bubble of magic, I couldn't help but openly gape again. I could see this view daily for the rest of my life, and I'm sure I'd be floored every single time.

“Stay close to me,” Tabitha orders.

"I'm not leading anymore?" I'm not mad that Tabitha insists she takes the lead, but I am curious why as I move closer to her.

“Are you telling me your sensing skills will work down there?" Tabitha's tone is flat, not disbelieving, just inquisitive.

"Maybe?" I hesitantly answer. "As we were climbing, I reduced the area I was scanning with Sense Mana so that I wouldn't get a headache," I explain.

“What has it been reduced to?” Tabitha raises an eyebrow.

“I can now only sense things within 270 feet of me,” I admit embarrassingly.

“That’s a 40% reduction,” Tabitha doesn’t look surprised.

"It's actually 38%," I cheekily correct her, but neither of us laughs.

"And your range will shrink further once we enter the bubble," Tabitha matter-of-factly states. "With your senses limited to such a degree, I better take point."

Because I'm useless without Senses Mana's range, I darkly think to myself. Of course, Tabitha doesn't say that, but putting two and two together is easy.

"We should move," Tabitha beckons me to the edge leading into the crater. "Time is already ticking down."

"You're right," I bury my feelings down and force a smile.

"Stay close," she reminds me again before hopping into the crater.

I jump after Tabitha, but no sooner does she land on the first outcropping of loose gray bricks does she stop in place and looks down at her feet. I'm about to ask what’s wrong as I land beside her, but I quickly realize what is bugging her. Even though the bricks weren't connected, they retained some of their force-absorbing qualities.

It was like the bricks sucked up all the force from my landing. I try jumping in place and find I need to apply more Strength than usual if I want to get any height. Using Air Walk, I could cheat and technically never touch the stones, but that wouldn’t work for Tabitha.

Tabitha’s fighting style is based around movement; how will she protect us if she can’t move properly? As I’m wondering that, Tabitha’s feet blur, and she jumps further into the crater with a look of concentration on her face.

Letting out a sigh, I follow after her. Of course, she could overcome the effects of the bricks with skills. However, which of her skills was she using, and how much Stamina did it eat up to use them constantly?

Tabitha slows down to get used to the sensation of moving on the bricks, which is good for me because I'm struggling as well. I manage to keep up with her by using Air Walk every three steps, but I’m still burning more from my stamina and mana pools than I would like.

At least nothing attacks us as we slowly make our way down to the blue bubble. The only magic beasts around us were crabs and other bottom feeders. Plus, thanks to the bleak terrain, it was easy to keep an eye out for anything approaching us. The only place anything could hide was behind the destroyed buildings, which were spread out enough that it wasn't that big of an issue.

While jumping around, I steal a closer look at the wildlife, and surprisingly, or not surprisingly, they’re all relatively high level for being at the bottom of the food chain. For example, the biggest crabs, which weren’t that different from king crabs back on Earth, were all around level 40. Heck, even a brightly colored sea-slug-looking creature less than a foot long was level 25.

And besides their impressive levels, seeing them interact with the force-absorbing bricks was interesting. Everything was foraging for food, and while there was some visible dirt for them to move on, it was impossible for them not to touch the bricks at certain times.

The crabs had it the easiest; using their long spindly legs, they expertly wedged their appendages into crevices for support. The sea slugs, however, those things were hilarious to watch. They moved slower than snails while inching across the bricks, trying to scrape food from them, but that wasn't the funny part. When the slugs were full, they simply stopped trying to hold themselves in place and easily slid down whatever surface they were on.

Other than the animals, there was little to look at. We passed close enough to a few buildings that I could scan with Sense Mana, but like the ones buried underground outside the crater, they were all empty.

At least the deeper we traveled into the crater, the better we could make out what awaited us in the bubble. I quickly lose count of the hundreds of different fish species I see. Some looked like regular fish, while others more closely resembled birds with scales.

I try to spot the massive shark we saw two days ago, but thankfully it wasn't around. While the bubble of water mana was relatively transparent, it still distorted light, meaning you couldn't look straight through it and see the other side. And with the size of the bubble, you could never see more than a thousand feet in any one direction.

We could only see the lake at the bottom of the crater because it was producing its own light.

Thinking about it now, water didn't usually glow. And for it to create such a magic phenomenon probably meant it wasn't really water to begin with.

Maybe when we're inside the bubble, I'll better understand what's going on. Speaking of which, we're here.

Tabitha and I stopped twenty feet from the magic bubble, as neither of us was just going to rush in.

“See anything dangerous?” I ask Tabitha, not spotting anything nearby.

“Nope; can your mana senses pierce the bubble?” She probes.

“A little bit,” I grit my teeth as I force my skill past the blue barrier. “There’s so much mana on the other side,” a single bead of sweat forms on my forehead.

“Indeed,” Tabitha walks forward until she’s right in front of the bubble. Then, raising her hand, she places it on the blue film and slowly pushes her fingers through.

I hear Tabitha audibly wince as the ambient mana engulfs her gauntlet hand. “It’s bearable,” she grunts more to herself than to me.

Mana Skin was working overtime to shield me from the waves of mana being cast off from the bubble, but my skin was already warming up. From the time we reached the top of the rim of the crater to where we were now, it had only been forty-five minutes, and I was already starting to feel the effects of mana poisoning.

It was only a slight sensation for now, but it was a good reminder that we were on the clock.

“See you on the other side,” Tabitha turns and grins at me before stepping fully into the bubble.

"Here goes nothing," I mumble to myself as I follow after her.

**********

2,200 words.

Shorter chapter, but that’s because I’m trying to take it easy for a few days. The constant editing and chapters have been tiring. I will still start editing chapter 8 after this, but I probably won’t have it done until tomorrow.

I think once I rewrite up to chapter 10, I'll cut back a bit on the rewrites, but they'll still pop up semi-regularly.

On another note, I’ll officially be four chapters ahead of RoyalRoad again with this chapter. That means the next chapter will be only available to Tier 2 and higher readers (AKA people who donate $3 or more). It's taken me a while to grow my backlog of chapters again, but I will keep working on it. Tier 2 will cover people until I'm thirteen chapters ahead, which will probably take me a while.

If you're curious about upgrading your tier, I believe Patreon only charges you the difference between the two, or they might charge you for the new tier but refund you for the old one. Unfortunately, it's been a long time, so I forgot which one it was.

Thanks for reading, and as always, stay safe.