Kael remained motionless inside the hollowed trunk while his breathing slowed to a near meditative cadence. He had occupied this cramped sanctuary for five continuous hours. His focus split between the world outside and the internal pressure of the divine mana technique.
Within the winding pathways of his soul, he pushed against the stubborn threshold of the ninth mana gate. He felt the heat of his progress thrum against his ribs like a trapped bird. Each pulse of his heart sent a ripple of golden energy through his spiritual veins.
The mana gathered at the gate was thick and viscous like molten honey. It resisted his efforts to force it through the narrow aperture of his core. Kael ignored the stinging pain in his chest and focused on the rhythmic cycle of his breath.
His vigil was not merely a matter of patience but a study of a civilization. From his narrow vantage point, the hierarchy of the simian colony became clear. The elders moved with a deliberate heavy grace that commanded immediate respect.
Their skin bore the dull matte finish of weathered granite from years of exposure. They were the primary laborers and the seasoned warriors of the tribe. These elders ventured deep into the maws of the earth to extract raw ore.
They hunted for mana cores hidden within the darkest reaches of the cave system. In contrast the juveniles possessed flesh that still looked soft and vulnerable. They were relegated to the periphery where they scratched for meagre fragments of iron.
The true masters of the colony were those with shimmering metallic hides. These leaders never deigned to enter the dark of the caves or handle raw earth. They stood in the central clearing like statues of burnished bronze and silver.
When the elders returned from the depths, they brought earth mana cores. These treasures were harvested from the powerful beasts dwelling within the deep stone. The elders offered these prizes with a submissive posture and lowered heads.
They bowed before the metallic elite who whisked the treasures away. The leaders placed the cores into a massive stone vault located at the center. Kael observed the vault with a predatory interest from his wooden hiding spot.
To his surprise the structure lacked any complex runic protections or visible wards. Its security relied entirely on the physical strength of the colony and a single ritual. As night fell the activity died down and a heavy silence draped over the clearing.
A lone monkey with a shimmering red metallic skin approached the vault entrance. Kael watched through his mana sight as the creature began to channel energy. The speed of the casting was breathtaking and surpassed anything Kael had witnessed.
Runes flickered into existence and vanished so rapidly they blurred together. They formed a continuous ribbon of crimson light that wrapped around the stone doors. Kael found himself frustrated because he could not track the individual components.
He needed the slow cadence of a low-level beast to record the sequence. This creature was performing high level warding as if it were natural breathing. The complex geometry of the spell shifted too quickly for his human mind to grasp.
With a final pulse of power, the entrance to the treasury was sealed solid. The red guardian retreated to its small hut near the center of the camp. Kael waited until the silence of the dungeon was absolute and heavy.
He did not approach the vault directly across the open and dangerous clearing. Instead, he dove deep into the earth using his phasing rune to bypass the surface. He pushed himself far below the reach of any surface mana radar the monkeys kept.
He swam through the cold stone until he was positioned directly beneath the floor. He attempted to rise through the stone to enter the vault from below. His whole body jerked to a stop and he felt a surge of sharp shock.
There was no magical resistance or warding blocking his path through the earth. The stone itself stopped him as if he were hitting a wall of solid diamond. Kael had been wrong in assuming there was no physical defense for the vault.
He turned his mana sight to focus and saw the stone he was trying to phase through. When he usually visualized the stone there were always spaces in the structure. The molecular lattice of natural rock was usually open enough for his mana body.
This time there was no space at all within the material of the vault floor. The stone was so compacted that there was no room for him to phase through. It was a wall of infinite density that rejected his presence entirely.
He rose slowly while phasing through the natural earth toward the side. He analyzed the walls for gaps but the result was identical at every point. Even with arcane mana he could not phase through such extreme density.
He had found a fundamental weakness for his phasing rune in this moment. If an object was compressed beyond a certain point his magic became useless. He continued analyzing the walls until he reached the ritual section.
There he found the first stone that was not fully compacted by the magic. It was dense but still possessed enough space for him to slip through. He phased through the gap and appeared in the darkness of the depository.
The vault was divided into three distinct chambers of immense wealth. One was overflowing with mana cores of every variation and size imaginable. The sight kindled a sharp palpable greed in his chest that he struggled to suppress.
Even with his spatial brooch he could only take a fraction of the hoard. The small artifact was no larger than a common basket in its internal capacity. A sudden frantic desire pulsed through his bond with Echo in that moment.
Kael released her and the iridescent guardian immediately fell upon the hoard. She ignored the lesser stones and focused on the highest quality cores available. Her mandibles crunched through the shells of magus level cores with efficiency.
While she feasted Kael worked with a clinical focus to gather his prizes. He filled his brooch with earth aspected cores as he had originally planned. The Compendium suddenly chimed with a secondary directive for his mission.
The system urged him to gather cores of water and air and fire. These were required for the construction of a future dwelling array. Though he did not yet understand the necessity he followed the guidance.
He trusted the optimizer without question and packed the brooch to its limit. Kael moved to the second chamber and found a small pool of liquid. The liquid shimmered with a light that defied simple visual description.
He could not decide the color with his sight but felt drawn toward it. He felt like a moth drawn toward a dying ember in the dark. He could feel earth mana combined with soul essence within the fluid.
The draw was almost overwhelming to his primal instincts and his core. Kael physically stopped himself from touching the liquid with his bare skin. He found stone bottles in the chamber which he used to collect the fluid.
He deposited the bottles in his spatial artifact and moved away quickly. He left the room hurriedly lest he be consumed by the strange substance. In the third chamber there were intricate murals painted all over the walls.
There was no writing but the pictures illustrated a powerful mana technique. The images showed that the body must be filled with earth and metal mana. Then the practitioner must be submerged in the liquid essence he had found.
The process would destroy and remake the body into something new. It would prime the user for planting metals directly into their own bones. This transformation would grant a metallic body with a specific color.
The final color would depend entirely on the metal used during the process. Kael was fascinated but knew this method was designed for monkeys alone. It would need to be altered for human physiology before he could use it.
He recorded the method in the Compendium for future study and modification. Kael waited for Echo to finish her feast and observed her growing mana. He felt that she had absorbed enough energy for her evolution to magus rank.
Echo flew toward him and entered his soul to digest the stored energy. Kael moved to leave the vault and poked his head outside the wall. He needed to ensure he was alone before fully emerging into the camp.
The moment half his face emerged he saw a monkey walking past the gate. The creature opened its mouth to scream an alarm to the entire colony. Kael grabbed its face and tried to phase it into the dense stone wall.
The head popped inside the stone while half of the body remained outside. Kael stopped channeling his phasing rune once the head was inside the stone. The monkey thrashed in pain and rage as it suffocated within the wall.
Only Kael could hear the muffled sounds of the creature dying in the stone. He channeled an arcane spike and lodged it in the forehead of the monkey. This final blow killed it instantly and stopped the thrashing of the limbs.
He let the soul devourer absorb the essence of the fallen creature. The memories were sent directly to the Compendium for later processing.
[Input received: Memories of Stone Carapace Monkey logged. 250 CP Gained.Balance 1075 CP.]
Kael phased the dead monkey fully into the vault to hide the evidence. He released Echo which started devouring the monkey corpse with hunger.
Kael wanted to extract the beast core but his spatial artifact was full. Echo whined when she found out that no soul was present in the meat. She kept eating until there was no trace left of the guardian.
Kael sat in the dark and considered his next move with care. Compendium how much to assimilate the memories of the Stone Carapace Monkey?
[Query Initiated: Full memory assimilation. Cost 1000 CP.]
Kael stopped for a moment as his heart shook with brief hesitation. He wanted to understand these creatures fully to ensure his own survival. He knew that viewing raw alien memories was like watching a blurry film.
Without compendium's intervention the memories lacked sound and context. To grasp their psychology the Compendium would need to bridge the gap. It would use his CP to translate simian thought into human logic.
He had faced this problem before with the memories of the Rakshar. The alien logic was impenetrable without the intervention of the system. He remembered the hollow feeling of the Compendium siphoning his identity.
The cost of such an action was always steep and physically taxing. Yet he needed total understanding of this society to survive the hunt. Compendium, please assimilate the memories of the Stone Carapace Monkey.
The transition was violent and lightning fast for his fragile mind. Kael did not just see images but was slammed by sensory data. The torrent of information bypassed his rational mind and entered his soul.
From the memories Kael finally understood how the monkeys heard the stone. They do not dominate the earth like human mages usually attempt. They channel mana to coax the stone into the shapes they desire.
This monkey had only lived for five years in this harsh environment. It was still a young member of the community serving as a guard. Kael understood the primitive language these beasts use to communicate.
He saw how their instincts guide them through the dark of the caves. Kael did not feel any emotions as the memories were stripped of them. The Compendium deemed their feelings unnecessary for his survival.
Even with assimilation Kael knew he could not use the modification process. If he tried that ritual on himself, he would die of petrification instantly. The process would lock a mage to only use earth mana forever.
Kael loved his versatility too much to sacrifice it for a metal body. It took him nearly eight hours to fully assimilate the heavy memories. Most of the data was benign and useless to his current objectives.
Even with the Compendium he could not fully understand their culture. The memories were now devoid of the instincts originally attached to them. However, there was something very interesting in the guard's memory bank.
The elders would not search for a lost monkey in the deep caves. The metal deposits were located in areas full of dangerous predators. This was a test of strength for the juveniles of the colony.
It was advised not to venture too far into the deep darkness. The predators grew stronger and more aggressive as the depth increased. Using the memories Kael knew he could set a new dwelling there.
He could hide in the cave itself where the monkeys never searched. He could set traps for them and have unlimited test subjects. To achieve this, he would need to learn their specific earth runes.
He needed earth compaction and earth shaping at a minimum for his cave. Kael waited in the tree trunk as the sun rose over the forest. The activity in the monkey community resumed with the light of day.
He was fascinated by the magics these monkeys performed in the clearing. They moved with a new and terrifying clarity in his analytical mind. A shift in the mana outside caught his focused attention quickly.
Three juvenile monkeys gathered near a fresh excavation site in the camp. Their hands began to glow with a soft amber light of earth mana. Kael widened his mana sight and recorded the flow of the energy.
He watched as they manipulated the stones with their glowing hands. Input received: Three runes recorded by the Compendium for analysis.
[Input Received: Earth Shaping, Earth Extraction and Earth Compaction runes recorded.15 CP Gained. Balance 90 CP.]
Kael watched as the three juveniles worked as a cohesive unit. One shaped the earth while another hollowed it to extract the ore.
The third compacted the structure to prevent a sudden cave collapse. Their magic was an instinctive extension of their physical bodies. They spent an hour in this rhythmic labor until they held iron.
They chattered and pointed at one another with a level of intelligence. The creatures hovered on the edge of true sentience and logic. Kael finally had the runes he needed for his underground sanctuary.
He sank into the stone until he was forty feet below the surface. He shaped the rune for earth shaping and infused his mana. After the rune took effect Kael felt the stone become malleable.
The rock felt like soft clay beneath his fingers and his intent. He shaped a new room just large enough for his physical needs. He created a space where he could sit and lay down comfortably.
The room shape was not perfect and lacked any aesthetic grace. Kael knew he had to practice to achieve the results he desired. He then used the compact rune to harden the walls of his room.
He started compacting the area around him to provide structural stability. It was not as perfect as the vault had been in its density. For his immediate needs the room was perfect and hidden.
Kael stopped channeling the magic and lay down on the stone floor. He will need to perfect the runes and combine them with tablets. He planned to make a perfect manipulation rune for his future use.
Then he can use the compendium to make the rune flexible. He will adapt it for any mana type he chooses to master later. His journey into the deep stone had only just begun.