KeroKeron

  Ign the familiar feeling of new knowledge being filed into her cortex, Emily looks at the new quest with dissatisfa.

  Fiftees? I evehat many? That’s more than the ant seems to be aware of too, so I’d have to plete the quest then rewind time.

  Thermodynamics is useless here. The only element it could help with is fire, and I already use that. Waves definitely help with light, and possibly darkness sihat’s an absence of light? But that only takes me to nine elements, I need six more. Space is too abstract, I get a feeling I will have to look outside of physics for that one, and I don’t feel much of a e with it yet.

  The lesson finishes with Emily still stu her thoughts. She leaves the quickly, ign Jenny’s attempts to get her to stay, and visits the information hub to grab another spell. By the time she settles back down in her room, Emily has e to a disappointing clusion.

  “Do I have to give up here?” Sighing, she colpses in her chair.

  Needing a distra, Emily pulls up her new skill.

  Figures, I think I’ll give up on darkness for now and see if I even work out what other elements I could use. Let’s test copper theate for a bit, I’m exhausted.

  Sitting back up, she closes her eyes and follows the same process for maing steel, but this time picturing a k of copper being formed. As expected, she successfully mas the metal, however, her instincts tell her it’s still the same element as steel.

  Whatever, I’ll find out tomorrow.

  Emily meditates tain her mana, spending the time fog on different elements. She picks out a few, including space, and reaches out to them as she empties her mind. For spad darkness, she feels an instinctive resonation tellihe elements may respond to her call eventually, but they’re still out of her grasp for now. She mao find a few other elements, like sand and sound, that give her the same feeling, but she ’t ma the o fifteen, and she doesn’t manage another maion.

  “Damn,” she mutters, opening her eyes after a while. “It would be useful if I had a tool to check my affinities or something. I’m starting to feel like the quest was right when it called this impossible. I guess differeals is my st hope.”

  The reset, Emily cycles through all her elements again in css. After the four on, she summons lightning, ice, light, and steel. Then, while ign her cssmates’ disbelief around her, she mas copper. Cheg her system quest, she sees 8/15 marking her failure.

  Thought so, it feels the same as steel and the system ts it as such. I think I have to give up on this quest. I’ll just reset until I have a free spell from each element The ant has then move on.

  Disappointed, she accepts her inability to plete the third stage of her quest and begins the slow process of repeating the same day over and ain with no ges.

  [colpse]

  Emily’s friends stand behind her, mouths open in shock as they gaze upon the destru wrought by her spells.

  “Don’t just stand around, let’s go!” Emily says, snapping them out of their stupor.

  She bends her legs and fshes forwards at inhuman speed, disappearing into the remaining ants who quickly switch from spewing a flood of mud to ing themselves in rocky armour. Emily’s friends move too, Hester f another barrier as everyone else flings out spells or bullets to cut down the numbers.

  Damn, that used a lot of mana.

  Emily g her mana reserves ahem reduced by twenty per t as she drives a maa-charged Cw through an ant’s neck, severing the nerves within.

  I definitely ’t throw around third circle spells freely, though I still use plenty and dip into my maa reserves if need be.

  Her limbs whip out rhythmically, her body being a windmill of death as she cuts through the ants with ease. Runes her body again as Emily starts casting arc-bolt, this time manually setting the targets.

  Green blood soaks her robes, and jaws of stoedly snap at her, trying to catch her to no avail. Her spell finishes f, as she slips behind into the back row of enemies, and she releases it instantly. A thick bolt of psma shoots out behind her, spreading across the bugs and killing almost everything behind her, other thas her teammates are actively fighting. The remaining thirty or so ants in front of her group up around their , using their bodies as a st line of defence.

  Emily holsters the Spitter, losing the range bat buff to her stats as she summons two flying lightnings, one around each arm.

  “It was a good fight,” she tells the ants with a smile before her arms blur into motion.

  Fshing arcs of silver slice through the creatures, splitting a few rocky projectiles they fire at her along with the bodies behind them, freezing each oppo ih a single ssh. The ants quickly fall in a mass of limbs and flesh, and Emily pulls ba the deadly wires, still slick with blood, to around her arms at rest.

  She taps the ground, sending out aheion s that forces through the interferenow that she’s closer. She finds no vibrations ing from the , the inside probably empty, and throws out arified dart to impale the head of the st ant to crawl out before turning to observe her friends with a satisfied smile.

  They’re still ed in a rge bubble of water, with six ants biting at it, and two more spewing jagged rocks at it. Deg they need no help, Emily dismisses her bat spells and watches as Juliana knocks back the attag ants with a burst of air and Enzo, Ivor, and Dante unload into them, crushing aander fire ah. Tom fires a few shots into the soft flesh revealed by the cracked and fking chitin, ending the st squirming bugs’ lives.

  Emily cps as her friends look away from their kills, cheg for any remaining enemies and only finding Emily standing in a mountain of gore, bug parts and burn marks littered around her bloodstained form. She walks towards them, casting se quickly aurning to pristine dition.

  “That’s everything I dete here dead. All that’s left is the ,” she says gesturing towards the rge rock structure in the middle of the cavern with her head. “I’m pretty sure there are earth stones in there, so Ivor and Enzo e with me, the rest of you please collect the gnds of as many of these ants as possible. That’s the most valuable part. The rest of them isn’t worth much. Oh, grab a you want for cooking too, they’re not poisonous.”

  Her friends follow her instrus without pint as Emily turns around and walks towards the eagerly. Ivor and Enzo quickly catch up, walking oher side of her.

  They approae of the ’s entrances and gaze in. The hole is small, only a metre in diameter, and would require crawling to get inside. Instead, Emily pulls out a spider without a vibration pad rolls the little guy into the .

  “One sec,” she says to Enzo and Ivor, fog on her e with the scout as it wanders into the ants’ home.

  The is a windiwork of tunnels and chambers, filled with half-eaten herbs, minerals, a corpses, that lead down into the stone below the cavern. Emily guides her scout down, heading slowly towards the strong magical signature she feel leaking from the structure and ign the discarded signs of habitation.

  It doesn’t take long for her scout to step into a chamber, buried in the depths of the , with glistening brown crystals shining from the floor and several rge eggs scattered around. Emily smiles as she locates their prize, but her eyes open wide in surprise wheices the form curled up on top of it, ed in jagged, rocky armour.

  “There’s a queen,” she mutters quietly, shog Ivor.

  “Really?” he signs with clear excitement. “What circle?”

  “I ’t tell because of the mana crystals she’s sleeping on, but I don’t think she’s reached third yet. I’m pretty sure I’d be able to feel it if she was, even from here.”

  “Wait, why are you surprised? Don’t ant ies normally have queens?” Enzo asks in fusion.

  “Not burrower ants,” Ivor expins. “They don’t always have a queen sihey multiply by burying parts of their bodies, or the bodies of their dead, and supplying them with mana over time. Queens are a rarity that usually only appear in massive ies.”

  “I see.” Enzo nods, notig Ivor’s enthusiasm. “Is there something special about them that’s got you so excited?”

  “The heart of a burrower ant queen is the main ingredient ih drops,” Emily says with a grin.

  Enzo’s eyes open wide in surprise.

  “Earth drops? How many you make from o?” he asks with clear excitement and a hint of greed.

  “Ha,” Emily ughs, patting him on the shoulder. “O should be enough for three portions. Don’t worry, you two have first dibs. Also, if this queen is only sed circle the elixir won’t have any effee anyway, so I’ll let Tom have mine.”

  Both men are surprised by her statement, looking at her questioningly.

  “Are you sure? Earth drops are worth a small fortune even if you ’t take them,” Enzo asks.

  “Well, I never said I wouldn’t take it out of his cut,” Emily responds, fshing them a sly smirk. “Now, let’s actually get to the queen and crystals, otherwise this versation is pointless. Enzo, I’ll show you the correct route, so you please soften the rock around the tunnel? And Ivor, you learned shiftih, right?”

  Ivor nods in firmation.

  “Good. you focus on drawing the softeh out, please? I’ll reinforce the structure to make sure it doesn’t fall on us.”

  Both men turn towards the , Enzo pg his hands on the rock above the hole, and Ivor the floor below. Two glowing brown magic circles flicker to life around them, sending a steady stream of mana into the .

  The ceiling of the tunnel in starts to melt, dripping down as a viscous fluid before being drawn towards Ivor. Emily els a few spells, using a modified eartheion to locate cracks f iunnel as it starts to cave in, before reinf the structure around the failure points by hardening the remaining stoo dense rock. She also watches Enzo’s spell spreading down, poking the edge of it with her own raw mana to show him the correct dire to go.

  It takes them a few mio dig the tunnel down teres before Ivor and Enzo start tle to push their spells further. Emily raises a brow at the limits of their range.

  “’t you dig deeper?” she asks Enzo with slight fusion wheices him halt his spell.

  “I could push my spell a bit deeper, yes,” he says calmly. “But I wouldn’t be able to sense your interference accurately past teres. That’s as far as my perception goes.”

  Ivor nods in agreement at his statement.

  “I see,” Emily mutters thoughtfully, stepping into the wideuhe moment Ivor pulls out the st of the liquid earth. “Let’s tinue from ihen.”

  Strange, my magical perception at sed circle was over thirty metres. Actually, now that I think about it, it expao almost thirty before I asded to third circle. Is magical perceptioo my intelligeat? In that case, their intelligence must be less than half mi the same circle... I guess being a dual awakener has more perks than I realised.

  She makes a o review her stat improvements ter, to try and uarengths more, and marches down the dark tunnel into the . They pass through the first small chamber and pause as the path narrows down agaiing the same process as before, they slowly dig down towards the tre of the , depositing piles of dirt in the chambers they pass.

  As they get closer, Emily starts to feel the queen ant’s pulsing magic signature, releasing rhythmic waves of power and ever so slowly growing in strength. Emily watches her the eime, but she doesn’t move, remaining curled up and unresponsive even as they start widening arao her chambers.

  “I think she’s asleep,” Emily muses. “I thought we’d have to fight. I could have just crawled in.”

  “Ah well, we’re in now,” Enzo says, celling his spell and wiping sweat from his brow.

  Ivor cels his casting as well, leaning against the formed mound of stoo him.

  Whoops, I’ve exhausted them. So much for helping me excavate magic crystals.

  “Good job,” Emily says, patting them both on the shoulders and walking ahead. “Wait here for a moment. I’ll deal with the queen.”

  her of them argues as they give her a nod and sit down to rest. Emily walks the st few metres to join her spider, finally seeing the ant queen with her own eyes.

  The queen is over two metres long, with a dark brown exoskeleton that blends perfectly into the jagged grey rocks jutting out from all over her body. The rocks seem to breathe, growing and shrinking slightly in time with the waves of mana rolling off the queen.

  I see. She’s cultivating right now. She must have trusted her y! She must be in a really deep trao not notice us right now.

  Emily appreciates the creature’s violey while approag her slowly, careful not to shock her out of her trance. She raises her hand above the tre of the queen’s abdomen, feeling the pulses of power being released as the beast draws in mana, and log the point where they’re stro.

  Emily casts a spell, instantly ing her hand in glistening etal. She waits for the queen to draw in mana, her rocky armour shrinking slightly, and plunges her hand down. Her metal cws cut through the hard exoskeleton with ease, digging into the soft flesh below. A few inches in, Emily opens her hand wide and grasps the queen’s beati.

  The ant queen wakes from her slumber, letting out a shrill scream of pain and anger, along with a pulse of mana, shaking the and calling for her children. Her screams reach deaf ears, not a single child left to respond or hear her plea, and, as Emily rips her heart out, her cries shift from angry fusion to desotion.

  Emily holds the hefty, still-beating ovoid of flesh in her blood-covered hand, gazing down at the dying creature with cold indifference. She summons a gss jar from her belt and pces the queen’s heart into it before reag down, ign the still squirming ant, and pig up a few loose earth crystals to drop into the jar as well.

  She seals the jar and stores it, turnitention to the queen ant again as she finally stops moving. Emily sends the corpse into her belt and crouches down on top of the glittering crystals filling the floor, pg a hand against them and shutting her eyes.

  She slowly sends a stream of mana into the ground, feeling around the vein of crystals to dis its size and opening her eyes wide in shock after a few moments.

  “Woah. That’s a lot of greater crystals,” she mutters in astonishment, sensing five greater earth crystals at the tre of the vein.

  “Good haul?” Enzo asks, walking in with Ivor close behind.

  “Take a look,” Emily responds with a grin, standing up auring to the ground.

  Enzo and Ivor copy Emily, pg their hands on the floor and closing their eyes for a few seds.

  “Damn,” Enzo says as they both open their eyes and look at Emily with excited grins. “There’s at least a hundred lesser crystals, and twenty or so normal too!”

  “One hundred and thirty-six lesser and twenty-six normal to be exact,” Emily corrects with a matg grin. “Do you guys have enough mana to help?”

  “No, sive me ten more minutes and I should be okay though,” Enzo says apologetically, stepping back.

  “Same,” Ivns, shaking his head.

  “Ha,” Emily scoffs, waving them off. “It won’t take ten minutes.”

  She crouches down, pg both palms ft against the ground and shutting her eyes to focus on her magical perception. She sends mana down into the ground, ing around ten lesser crystals on the surface with a yer of earth-attributed mana each. She gently pulls them out, using her mana to break down the rock ected to them and releasing ten perfect crystals.

  Emily opens her eyes, gng at the crystals and sending them into her belt with a curious glint in her eye.

  It’s on practice to excavate mana crystals of all types using the same attribute so you don’t damage them. But, if I’m then sending them straight to a dimensional ste, why don’t I just use spatial mana?

  She shuts her eyes again, ing a single crystal in deep purple mana. She pulls it through space directly into her belt before summoning it bato her hand. Emily’s disappointed when she sees several hairline fractures ruining the delicate gem’s surface.

  I guess I o separate them from the surrounding rock first.

  She tries again, ing a crystal with a mix of brourple. She disies the eg rod instantly s the crystal away. This time, when she summons it back to her hand, she grins with delight at the perfect, glistening gem.

  She quickly puts her eique to work, excavating the gems ten at a time. She pletely empties the vein, using her mana to reinforce the floor to keep it from colpsing as she fills it with holes.

  Within a few minutes of starting she stands up, turning away to face her exasperated friends.

  “You never cease to amaze me,” Enzo mutters wryly.

  “It’s always a pleasure to watana manipution,” Ivns in agreement.

  “I try my best,” Emily responds with a smug grin, walking towards the exit.