Ch: 116.3 (Patreon)

So much to explore, so little time.

We were against the clock, but the longer we were in the mana bubble, the more accustomed we became to the environment. I had managed to block out most of the ambient mana while Tabitha was growing used to moving on top of the grey bricks.

Descending the crater's walls grew much easier, and other than stopping a few times to collect plant samples, we were making excellent time. An hour and forty-three minutes had passed since we entered the crater, and factoring in the extra time it would take to climb out rather than go in, minus the time we stopped to collect samples, we had roughly used up half of our valuable exploration time.

Using Air Walk, I hop over another mound of grey bricks while Tabitha dances over it. Mana Skin wasn’t my only skill seeing improved efficiency thanks to the high amounts of ambient mana. Also, with the surrounding mana being so thick, I only needed a barrier half the size I usually used to push off it. Meaning I could use my skill more often without it being a severe drain on my mana, allowing me to keep up with Tabitha, who was moving faster every second.

And it wasn’t that we were just getting used to our surroundings either. We were nearing the bottom, and the terrain was starting to level out more. However, these small hills of bricks were getting old fast. They were the remnants of old buildings and were popping up at increasing intervals. I wanted to fly up to see how many of them there were, but Tabitha forbade me from leaving her side.

Much like the forest, the deeper we went into the crater, the stronger the fish we encountered became and the more aggressive they were. The worst was the pufferfish we encountered; they were like slow-floating sentient mines.

When not inflated, the fish were the size of basketballs, but when angered, they expanded to the size of small children. The blunt force damage of my hammer did nothing against them, and the countless razor-sharp spikes covering their bodies were a pain to avoid. Tabitha could cut them with her sword, but under their balloon-like appearance was firm flesh that didn’t comedically burst when punctured. The puffer fish were also highly territorial and lived in clusters, meaning we never dealt with just one.

Neither Tabitha nor I have been harmed by their spines yet, but Tabitha warned me they were probably poisonous based on how her danger sense skill reacted to them.

However, while most of the fish were becoming more aggressive, there were still the odd passive ones to be found. On our way down, we encountered several giant catfish-like magic beasts that were like swimming cows. They would use their giant mouths to suck up a handful of algae-covered grey bricks, swish them around in their mouths, then spit out the now-clean bricks. They didn’t even care if we approached them; one even let me place my hand on it before it lazily swam away.

There seemed to be an even mix of salt and freshwater species present, which begged the question, how did they get here? Did there use to be a lake here? And how far were we from the ocean? Some of the fish vaguely resembled birds, but they were the minority. What happened here?

Did a meteor strike this place? It would’ve had to be a big one to cause such a crater, and I refuse to believe that in a world filled with magic, especially a city that used force-absorbing bricks so liberally in their construction, they couldn’t defend themselves from a rock falling from the sky.

Then there was the crater's center radiating all this mana. To fuel the Endless Forest for so long and still be able to produce this bubble, the lake at the center of the crater had to contain an ungodly amount of mana.

Shit, while getting lost in my thoughts, the distance between Tabitha and I started to widen while we were moving over a particularly large pile of grey bricks. I must take an extra step with Air Walk to close the distance.

However, as soon as I’m next to Tabitha, I sense something large moving underneath us inside the pile of loose bricks.

“Tabitha!” I shout warningly as I immediately use Air Walk again to fling myself to the side. No sooner than I do, does a forty-foot eel emerge from a hidden hole amongst the rubble. A casual scan of its soul reveals its level to be around 85.

But my warning was pointless because, by the time I reacted to the eel and called out to Tabitha, she was already drawing her sword in preparation for battle.

"Back me up," Tabitha directs me as the eel slithers through the air, mouth open, intending to bite her in half. The eel's maw stretched wider than its body, and if positioned right, it could easily swallow a human being.

“Understood,” I acknowledge her orders, holding my hammer at the ready. When Tabitha asks me to back her up, she means she wants me to watch our surroundings while she deals with whatever she needs to.

Similarly, she could've asked me to 'back up,' meaning she didn't want me near the beast she was fighting. But Tabitha was always particular with her words, so if she wasn't instructing me to run, she was confident she could deal with the eel without me needing to move very far.

The eel's hissing sounds like a raging waterfall as it angrily tries to bite Tabitha. Half its body was still anchored underground, while its top half wiggled through the air at blinding speeds. Tabitha could dodge and deflect the beast’s attacks, but she moved much less than usual.

The grey bricks hindered Tabitha’s movement, but she still held her own. With minimal movement, she uses her shield to smack the eel over the side of its head, stunning the beast for a second. Tabitha’s sword flashes, aiming for the eel’s left eye, but it does something neither of us expected.

Sparkes of electricity dance over the eel’s oily skin, and as soon as Tabitha’s sword nears its face, the electricity jumps to Tabitha’s sword like a lightning rod.

Tabitha visibly tenses as an unknown amount of electricity zaps her, but it doesn't keep her from following through with her swing. Her sword plunges into the eel’s left eye, causing it to reel back in pain, far enough back that the electricity it's emitting no longer reaches Tabitha.

I wanted to rush over and help her, but I had a job to do. Using a combination of Flash Step and Air Walk, I move a dozen feet behind Tabitha, where a smaller eel uses the lull in battle to try and sneak attack Tabitha from behind.

The second eel wasn’t even a third of the size of the bigger one, but it was still a level 62 beast. Swinging my hammer, I ready Mana Skin to tank whatever electricity this smaller one will give off. My hammer clocks the new eel square in the face, and I’m rewarded with a wave of mana in the form of electricity.

Thankfully, with Mana Skin boosted by the ambient mana I have stored between its layers, the electrical discharge harmlessly bounces off me. Because its primary form of defense does nothing to me, I use Multi-Strike to deliver a series of four strikes straight to the smaller eel's head. The eel's leathery skin keeps its head from exploding, but the influx of experience informs me that it is dead.

“Aaliyah, dodge!” I hear Tabitha shout behind me.

I don’t hesitate to follow Tabitha’s instructions, and thanks to Sense Mana, I can see what’s happening without turning around. My range was severely limited, but an angry eel rushing me was hard to miss.

I don’t think the big one appreciated me killing its neighbor.

At least with the giant eel focusing on me, I can help Tabitha out, even if I need to constantly use Air Walk to doge it's relentless biting. And while the magic beast is focused on me, Tabitha isn't standing by doing nothing. Instead, she's relentlessly slashing at the eel's large body, trying to get it to focus on her again.

I wanted to get a hit in, but swinging my hammer while running through the sky, wasn't easy. I would need to deploy a lot of Magic Threads to anchor myself properly, but that would keep me from being able to dodge the eel’s swift attacks.

I hate to admit it, but my larger weapon wasn't helping me. It was great when I could adequately secure myself and make the best use of my Strength stat, but in situations like these, it was almost useless.

When I return to the village, I will need to take a hard look at my weapon choice and decide if I will try and reforge it into something smaller or not.

Kaglese was easier than dellinium to work on, but it was still a chore to reform after it had been quenched. It would take time, and I’d have to redesign my weapon. Plus, I would probably need to add more mithril to the mixture after reheating it.

“Bring it this way,” Tabitha tells me. She was off to the side, preparing a powerful attack, and probably didn't want to lose any energy chasing after the beast.

I nod and dodge in her direction, leading the eel and its open mouth toward a waiting Tabitha. As I rush straight in her direction, I notice the smile on Tabitha's face. It felt weird because it looked like the smile she gives me when she's proud, mixed with her battle-hungry smile.

As I closed the distance between us, Tabitha didn't need to say anything further to me. So when I'm only a few feet in front of her, with the eel hot on my trail, I push off the mana-infused air and roll to the side to give Tabitha the room she needs to strike.

I don’t see the swing with my eyes, but I’m close enough to Tabitha that Sense Mana picks up everything with its reduced range.

Tabitha's sword meets the eel's fangs, and the former easily overcome the latter. Tabitha cleaves through a few stets of the eel's teeth, all while being shocked by large amounts of electricity. She adjusts her sword halfway through her swing and carves a large gash in the side of the eel's mouth. The large beast writhes in pain, leaving itself wide open for Tabitha to finish it off.

But for some reason, she doesn't. Instead, everything happens while I'm still tumbling through the air, so all I know is that instead of landing the killing blow on the injured magic beast, Tabitha's form turns towards me, and she flashes in my direction.

Tabitha uses Flash Step at least twice to reach me in a split second and tackle me to the ground. I'm about to ask what the hell she did that for when my words suddenly die in my throat.

A large mass swims inches above us, moving at speeds I would have trouble reacting to even if I was prepared. I have just enough time to turn my head and steal a glance at the enormous whale shark zooming overhead. The color drains from my face when it finally dawns on me that I didn't sense it coming in the slightest, and if Tabitha didn't react as fast as she did, I'd have been swallowed whole.

Thankfully, the shark has little interest in us. The large predator was much more interested in the wounded eel to pay us any attention, and said eel was too busy flailing in pain to react to the giant shark heading straight for it.

The shark attacks so swiftly that the eel doesn't even realize it's being bitten until most of its upper body is already in the shark's jaws. In pain, the eel releases a dazzling display of electricity many times what it was when Tabitha injured it, hoping to make the shark let go of it, but the giant beast shrugs off the electricity like it's nothing.

The whale shark jerks its head violently, its razor-sharp teeth almost bisecting the eel in two. Then, the shark tugs with such force that it rips the other half of the eel that is still underground out of its hole, sending grey bricks and dirt flying everywhere.

Blood and viscera drip from the shark’s maw, and I feel a trickle of experience, my reward for distracting the eel for as long as I did. In seconds, the enormous shark rips the eel to sheds and gobbles up everything before swimming deeper into the crater.

As soon as the beast is gone, the tension leaves my body, and I let out a sigh of relief. That was closer than I would’ve liked to admit.

“You, okay?” Tabitha is the first to get up, and once she’s on her feet, she offers me her hand.

“Thanks for saving me,” I let her pull me to my feet.

“Any time,” she smiles at me before glancing in the direction the shark disappeared. "It caught me off guard too. I barely had time to react when I saw it approaching from the corner of my eye. At least it only showed up after I had neutralized the eel.”

"Yeah, but we missed out on the meat," I say jokingly, trying to hide the fear of undergoing yet another near-death experience. "I wanted to see what magic unagi tasted like,” I comment while adjusting Mana Skin. My skill suffered minor damage when Tabitha tackled me to the ground, but it was quickly repaired.

“Is that what you call eel?” Tabitha gives me a questioning look, to which I nod. “You’ll get your chance to try it when you go to Scholl," she tells me. "Eel is oily but tastes good as long as it's prepared properly."

"Fishing is a big deal in Scholl, isn't it?" I note, trying to keep the conversation going while I get a hold of my emotions.

“It is,” Tabitha nods thoughtfully. “It’s why we must remove the dragon. With it occupying the largest body of water in the country, it not only keeps us from growing crops around it but keeps us from fishing. The many flying beasts around Scholl can be used to mitigate the loss of meat, but catching them is difficult and not feasible for the average citizen."

For a split second, I feel Tabitha’s killing intent leak out, and I have to grit my teeth to keep myself from reflexively taking a step back. Many smaller fish were gathering to feast on the scraps left behind by the shark, but after getting hit by Tabitha's killing intent, they were now fleeing as fast as they could swim.

Killing the dragon is probably why Tabitha is so hellbent on reaching level 100. But is level 100 enough? From what I heard, the dragon was dangerous even for Pacore, so I don't know what Tabitha could do even if she reached her level goal.

Nevertheless, I’ll support her as she’s supported me.

And who knows, maybe we can find something at the bottom of the crater that can help us.

One can only hope.

Time elapsed in the crater: two hours and one minute.

**********

2,500 words.

Sorry for the silence; I'm not dead. Unfortunately, I had computer trouble, and I needed to get my taxes done along with some other life things. But I'm back now with another chapter.

I will also hold off on the next rewritten chapter to focus on the next part of the story. I also think I will cut back on my royal road posts for a few weeks to build up my Patreon posts.

I hope you guys liked the chapter, and I'll try to have the next one up tomorrow.

As always, thanks for reading, and stay safe out there.