(Second Book Complete!) Runeblade: A Delving & Skill Merging LitRPG

Standing still, Kaius closed his eyes and sampled the breeze. The life mana was rich, laying heavy on his tongue like a hearty stew. It wafted, cutting through the scent of heavy iron and mulch that sat so heavily in the ambient mana of Vainblood.

Despite its potency, the life mana was a bare trace compared to the deep red and green hues that swallowed so much of his surroundings. If it wasn’t for how starkly different it was, he might not have noticed it.

The rest of the mana surrounding him was pure and strong — much more so than he had experienced outside of a high-mana zone, though the Great Depths came closest. The life mana, though? It was multifaceted. With every breath, his sense of it changed just slightly. At first, he could smell the low smoke and warm heat of the hearth, then the rising potency of spring, as life surged anew. It was far too complex to be simple, ambient mana. That was almost mono-dimensional in its…scent. This was much, much closer to the complexity he got from tonics and reagents.

Gods, whatever was producing it had to be strong for even slight traces of mana to feel this potent.

Opening his eyes, Kaius ignored the curious looks of his team, and looked slightly off to his right. Now that he knew to look for it, it was obvious — gleaming motes of life mana swirling in the eddy currents. Through dark brown trunks and shining red brush, he could see it getting denser in the distance. It was still thin: the source had to be far off. Maybe a few leagues?

“Mind sharing what’s got you playing bloodhound?” Kenva asked.

“Life mana,” Kaius said, gesturing towards it. “The smell of it was started — I think it’s some sort of alchemical reagent — maybe even a Natural Treasure.”

Ianmus frowned, staring in the direction he had pointed out. “I see it.”

Mana swelled within him, and the mage gestured. Motes of life mana drifted from the shifting tides that swallowed Vainblood, gathering around his hand.

“I see what you mean — definitely feels much more dynamic than ambient mana,” he said, before meeting Kaius’s eyes. “Your mana sense makes me jealous, you know? I know mana synesthesia doesn’t actually strengthen the sense, but every mage I've met who has it seems to have some knack. I might have to focus and pay attention to feel the fine differences between two sources of mana, but it’s like it’s written out for you in plain ink.”

Kaius shrugged, unsure of what to say. It wasn’t like he knew any different, so he couldn’t exactly explain how it differed. It would be like trying to figure out if their experience of the colour red was the same.

Truesight might have allowed him to see mana at a distance, but everyone could sense the energy when it was in their immediate proximity. Sure, it wasn’t very finely tuned without stats, and certain races could feel it far more keenly than others — but everyone could do it. Hells, some races, and all greater beasts, could naturally bloody see the stuff. He just happened to smell and taste it, instead of feeling it like a buzz against his skin — or however it worked for everyone else.

Kenva looked curiously in the direction the life mana led.

“Well, should I scout ahead and see if it's worth our time? It might still be in the rough direction of our heading, but it looks like it will take us away from the edge of the crater — I could save us a detour if it ends up being something useless to us.”

Kaius glanced in the direction of the Crater, hesitating. He couldn’t see the pool of black — they were a good walk from the lip of the depression — but they were still close. Even ignoring the monstrosity that lived there, they were in the deepest reaches of Vainblood. There were plenty of creatures that avoided the permanent dark of the Crater — and the most powerful of them lived around its rim, where the mana was dense and pure. If he’d learnt anything from the last few weeks, it was that there were plenty of beasts in here that were a challenge to them. Hells, they’d found a Gold on their first day, close to the edge of the zone at that.

There was a chance that third-tiers roamed these woods. Their ranger was good, and Kaius had no doubt she could pass under the notice of most creatures — but what about those with specialised sensory abilities? What if she ran into a peak Gold ambusher, or even a Platinum one? This deep, Kenva scouting alone put her at risk, which would put all of them at risk — Kaius didn’t think they could afford that.

“Let’s just check it out together,” he said. “We can try to get an eye on it from a distance, just in case their’s any beasts that find it as tantalising as we do. Besides, it can’t be that far — we’ll only lose a few hours at most.”

Kenva shrugged. “Fine by me.”

They set off. Kaius revelled in the sensation of thick grass cushioning his footfalls as his boots continually dried. They might have been enchanted to repel the elements, but they could only do so much when they’d spent days soaked in mud.

As they walked, the life mana grew denser and denser, until it was a roiling haze that seeped through the entirety of their surroundings. Everything else was still present — it couldn’t displace the sheer volume of the ambient mana in its entirety — but it was almost concerning how potent it was getting. It tingled, like the wind before a storm.

“We need to be ready for a fight,” Porkchop grumbled, his head swaying as he checked his surroundings. “Whatever is making this mana, it’s burning like a signal fire. Beasts hunger for reagents like this — and something strong will be sitting on it to guard its prize until its good and ready to eat it.”

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Kaius grunted, resting his palm on his pommel. He’d been worried about that — he’d known some beasts liked to eat magically dense food, but hadn’t known it was something they actively sought out. Though… it made him question how the reagent hadn’t already been eaten if it was giving off this much mana.

“Could it be a trap?” Kaius asked. “Maybe some sort of carnivorous plant that’s using all this mana as bait?”

“It certainly could be,” Ianmus said, planting his staff on the top of a tall root as he hopped over it. “Not necessarily, though. Some reagents will have natural defense mechanisms to keep away anything that wants a nibble, others use beasts as a tool.”

Kaius raised his brow. “A tool? How does that work?”

“Well, think about common bees and flowers. Sometimes a magical plant will have tantalising fruit or nectar — helps them spread. Others will produce more rarely — encouraging a powerful creature to ‘claim’ them for their own. Sort of like their own personal guard.”

“Why do the beasts even hunger for them so much?” Kenva asked. “No one ever really explained it well — only that its nourishing, or sometimes they use them almost as crude tonics.”

“It helps them grow,” Porkchop replied, still keeping a wary eye on the shadows that stretched long under the dense, red canopy of the forest. “They level faster than they would just relying on ambient mana, and if the reagent is strong enough, it can help them break through the bottlenecks of their species as well as any battle can. From what my Matriarchs have said, if a herb is a pure enough source of a particular affinity, it can impact their evolution options when they hit the next tier.”

“Really?” Ianmus asked. “I’d never heard that before — about the bottlenecks, at least.”

“Is that really so strange? Up until recently, true beasts were rare outside of high-mana zones, and always low level. From what I gather, reagents were just as rare — it’s a bit of a hard process to observe unless you live in the middle of one of the things. Regardless, something this potent will be irresistible. It probably only reached maturity recently — maybe in the last few days. It would be gone already if it hadn’t.”

As if to punctuate the wisdom of Porkchop’s words, a shrill shriek echoed through the forest — in the exact direction they were heading. There was a cutting fury to the noise — somewhere between a raptor’s scream, and the gravelly hiss of a large lizard. All around them, birds took flight. Their calls joined the cacophony, a swirling cloud that scattered in every direction.

Kaius paused mid-step, cocking his brow at Porkchop. “It seems you may be right.”

“Of course I am! I was literally born in a high-mana zone!”

Grinning, Kaius picked up his pace, picking his way through briars and weaving around the shorter, orange-leaved trees that were more common in this section of Vainblood. He was still cautious, of course — alert for any sound of the battle cry they’d heard, he kept his hand firmly wrapped around the hilt of his blade, ready to draw at a moment's notice.

Despite his readiness, a grin tugged at his mouth. The best prizes were those well-defended — and wouldn’t a good fight be a prize of its own? All of them were on the verge of their next class skill, and this could be what they needed to push them over that edge.

Still, from the sounds of it, there was a chance they’d need to move on without the reagent. Whatever was producing the life mana, there was a chance it might have pulled in a creature beyond their current capabilities. For all they sometimes boasted, a Platinum beast would be a tall task, even for them — even a low third tier would have incredibly potent skills, and the bodily strength to match.

He could only hope they got lucky.

Besides, that cry had sounded angry. If beasts were fighting over the reagent, patience would work in their favour. Why throw themselves into the melee, when they could watch and plan? They’d get a front-row seat to witness their eventual opponent’s abilities, and then they could strike when they were still weakened from dealing with any contenders.

Another thundering shriek ripped through the trees, stabbing Kaius’s ears like an icepick. Whatever was fighting, it was furious. There was no edge of pain to that cry, either — it was battling strong.

Interestingly, he couldn’t hear a trace of anything else — the creature’s opponent was silent.

The sounds grew louder and louder. Eventually, they hit a rise in the forest, the ground sloping up into a hill.

“Let’s pick up the pace a bit,” Kaius said. “I want to see this fight before it finishes.”

His team nodded, and they broke into a measured run, powering their way up the incline. Kaius’s every step sank heavily into the soft soil, cushioning his stride as he kicked up sprays of dirt. Thick brush, patches of white stinging nettles, and tangled thornbushes made their route circuitous, but they reached the peak in good time. Through the scattered trees at the top of the hill, Vainblood spread out before them in all its crimson glory. He ignored the massive lake of black a handful of leagues to their left, focusing instead on the sounds of battle.

Life mana was everywhere now, richer than ever before. Its source was obvious from their view point. A large clearing cut through the middle of Vainblood, maybe a half-league beyond the hill. It was a golden field of long grass, with a twin trunked tree at its centre.

The tree was small compared to the red-leafed behemoths that hemmed it in, smaller even than the orange leafed trees that now scattered their surroundings. About the size of an apple tree, its two trunks wove around each other in a double helix. There was a small, natural wooden basin where they merged at its base — filled halfway with a thin, sticky-looking resin. It was a clear, shimmering yellow that shone like a bonfire to his mana sight. Small droplets of it ran down the trunks, moving so slowly they looked almost static as they made their inexorable descent towards the pool below.

Equally as obvious was the source of the shrieks they’d been hearing for the better part of half an hour.

A Gold bird-thing with cleavers for arms was doing its best to shred through a pack of five Silver nature sprites, each a living bramble shaped in the form of a large wolf.

The bird-thing held his attention first. It was an impressive specimen. Flightless, it was built like one of the terror birds that lived near Dawntown, though far larger — its body was easily as tall as Kaius, and its head loomed another good few strides above that. Deep-red feathers covered its head, turning to a mottled blue and green that covered its body, with stride-long lightning-blue plumage at the tip of its long tail.

Despite its stark and beautiful colouring, it was clearly a beast built for battle. Instead of a beak, it had a scaled muzzle filled with needle-like teeth — a carnivore. If that wasn’t obvious from its arms. Rather than having small wings tucked tight to its body, it had almost normal arms, covered in fine feathers above the elbow and scaled below. Though, instead of clawed hands, stout bone jutted from its wrists like the blades of a mantis.

Cleavers. It had cleavers for hands. What the fuck.

The bird-thing screamed, pouncing lightning-fast at the nearest spirit. Bloody energy burned on the edge of one of its cleavers, and it sliced halfway through the dense braid of canes that made up the spirit's neck. When the canes rewove, the bird-screamed in rage.

Kenva leaned against the nearest tree, crossing her arms. “Well, this seems interesting.”

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