Chapter 78: Following the thread

Chapter 78: Following the thread

[Lvl 36 > Lvl 37]

I pause briefly to invest my stats. After a moment's hesitation, I put them into mana; I don't believe any other stat will help me at this moment. I quickly skim through the notifications, paying no mind to the ones about kills.

[Focus - Lvl 14 > Focus - Lvl 15]

[Mana Manipulation - Lvl 14 > Mana Manipulation - Lvl 15]

[Oscillation - Lvl 9 > Oscillation - Lvl 10]

[Armament - Lvl 8 > Armament - Lvl 9]

[Disruption - Lvl 4 > Disruption - Lvl 5]

For a moment, I summon my status window while starting to run towards the area with the least amount of monsters.

[Name: Nathaniel Gwyn]

Difficulty: Hell

Floor: 2 -Mana Infused Kingdom

Time left until forced return: 4y 318d 021h 51m 03s

Traits (1/3): Mana Circuit (Passive)

Lvl 37

Strength: 14This chapter's initial release occurred on the n0vell--Bjjn site.

Dexterity: 15

Constitution: 40

Mana: 100

[Primary Class: Mana Channeler]

[Sub-class: Unavailable]

Active skills:

Focus (Dual Focus) - Lvl 15

Mana Manipulation - Lvl 15

Mana Perception - Lvl 14

Oscillation - Lvl 10

Kinetic Redistribution - Lvl 9

It's already night and I'm mostly navigating with the help of perception that only feels mana and the little light that the moon offers. Unlike Earth, it's bluish, giving the night an unusual hue.

At the edge of my reduced perception, I feel another signature that I identify as a weredeer and stop leaning against the tree, stepping a bit away from it.

One of the mana orbs that hover around me starts orbiting me and slowly increasing its speed. I found it's much better to increase its speed this way instead of using a surge that puts too much pressure on me in this state.

Sure, it's annoying and it takes a bit longer, but the result might be even better than just boosting it. I just anchor the bead to my body and push it to make it spin around me.

I let the weredeer get closer and then sling the mana bead at him. It hits the monster's face, tearing off a chunk of its head as big as my fist. My accuracy is only getting better and it's enough; the monster falls down dead.

[You have defeated a Weredeer - lvl 36]

I already invested my skill point into [Armament], knowing that it would probably have a more difficult bottleneck as I have a feeling that I am closer to leveling up [Kinetic Redistribution]. Also, the second skill is something that I think is better, and I know I would regret, using the easier way to master it instead of doing it my own way.

So even as I barely walk and mana continues to threaten to ravage my body, I keep continuing to absorb the energy of a single raindrop out of the thousands that continue to fall around me.

At some point, I find the corpse of one of the men that was in our group. His body is mangled, limbs torn off, and there isn’t enough of his face left for me to identify, but I remember the dagger that lies nearby. I grab it and continue without looking back. The blade still seems to be in good shape.

A few minutes later, I find another corpse. Half of its body is missing, the wound looking similar to the one the sniper's projectiles caused.

It's been a few hours since I concluded this is the work of a human, not a monster. Probably someone paid to deal with the competition. Someone hired to kill the man that led us and to leave no witnesses.

The sniper must also have some ability to at least affect the monsters a little bit and they are not too high level, otherwise we would be dead already. They must have planted the triggering mana projectiles around us as we were pushing forward and then started using the super ranged sniping skill, probably with a long preparation time or some setback that doesn’t allow to use it quickly. Or it's just to mess with us.

I've learned to detect the threads of mana and this way avoided three traps. At the last one, I even climbed on a tree and observed the mana projectile, not too much out of fear to not trigger it, just enough to learn that there are two parts to it.

One of them is a huge amount of mana that is compressed into an elongated sharp shape, somehow made to not leak mana. The other part is the trigger, a mana thread that will activate something that will send the arrow flying at the place where the thread of mana touched the person. I already have multiple ideas of how I can use this to improve my skills or to help me in creating a construct.

Thanks to tracking mana threads, I find the one that is slightly different, even thinner, and leading somewhere else. There are no projectiles around. So I reduce the mana my body radiates. I slow my Mana Heart the same way I did when I killed Emeric, and I reduce the area of my perception by a lot.

And I continue to follow the thread of mana, slowly, carefully, concealed in the rain and the darkness that blankets the area. The wind continues to howl around me, sending leaves swirling and making the branches creak. Soon, I reach a small clearing, tucked away behind a line of trees.

There, I find two people, a man, and a woman, standing in between the wilderness where we went and the village. Even through the rain and darkness, I recognize the figure of one of the men from the group. The vice leader, Bram.

[Blade Sentinel - lvl 51]

[Phantom Sniper - lvl ?]

I take a small step to the side and only too late do I realize that I have torn a mana thread even thinner than the ones from before.

My surge fires up and both parts of my mind focus on redistribution. This time, I don't hesitate and reach out towards the forceful wind that keeps roaring through the area, causing the trees around us to groan under its strength.

I absorb the kinetic energy from the wind, almost instantly filling up the amount I can control.

I hear them scream something and turn towards me. Mana projectiles form around the sniper and the traitorous vice leader charges at me.

When he gets close, he hesitates for a moment, recognizing my face.

I do not.

His head blows off, hit by the kinetic energy I absorbed and I refocus my attention on the sniper.