Yolen Arcanum
"I agree." As soon as the words passed from myself, the mana in the air began to drift towards the crimson slime on the floor. It was clear that he was doing something. Just as I thought that, my Spell Analysis skill kicked in, not having an MP cost to use. The MP was gathering to create a pendant.
Sure enough, there was a bright purple flash and a pendant dropped onto my lap. I quickly glanced at the lady stood next to my sick-bed. She was an attractive human woman at first glance, in priestess robes, but then you noticed the two thin, smooth horns protruding from her forehead that bled into red towards their tips. In all my time since arriving in this world, she was one of the first people to actually intimidate me, besides a dungeon boss. Though, mostly it was because of her looks combined with the feeling of malice that leaked through her demeanor when I'd tried to get out of the bed. So, I kept a close eye on her as I sat up and picked the pendant up.
It was made from a brown chord that was braided into a loop, at the end of the loop was a blue crystal. It looked almost as if someone had just cut the crystal from wherever it grew. As I picked up the pendant, it's screen appeared before me.
MANA PENDANT
THE USER CAN STORE MANA WITHIN THE PENDANT TO USE AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR INTERNAL MP.
Sure enough, this was exactly what I needed, I looked over to the slime. "How did you do that?" I asked.
The ooze vibrated on the ground, the sound coming out as speech, "I told you, this is the Proof of Contract. It gifts its owner with a boon of a kind, to solve a problem present or yet to come."
I nodded, holding the pendant in my left hand as I lifted it above my right. I focused on the mana present in the air and began to funnel it into the blue crystal. As even the first mote of mana flowed into the crystal, it began to glow, an effect that left a light on my palm. It was visable to all then.
I checked the screen for the pendant again and noted the addition of another line.
MANA STORED - 260
I sped the flow of mana up, and watched the numbers climb into the millions, but the glow of the pendant didn't increase. I pulled the pendant over my head, and then it came to my attention that I was in the nude.
"Hang on, where is my stuff?" I asked the priestess.
She reddened slightly, "We had to remove them for the fever, they're in that box there." She pointed to a large black metal chest.
I looked to the chest and used Psychokinesis to pull it closer to me. The heavy chest scraped across the ground as those stood about my bed fell silent. Once the box was within reach, I leaned slightly out of the bed and opened the lid. Within, true to the priestess' words, was my stuff, all of the items I had accumulated. I needed to test out this pendant, so I activated my Storage skill just above the box. Thanks to my high intelligence and agility, I saw a thin stream of mana leap from the pendant, to where I wanted Storage to activate, the mana forming the usual pitch black disk.
"It works then," I said to the room, I could feel the priestess' eyes on me as I made the disk. With it floating just above the chest, I lifted my items into it with Psychokinesis. When the chest was empty, I closed the disk and reached over, pulling the metal lid down as well.
I turned my attention to the rest of the room, with the minotaur, the priestess and the slime. "You've seen that the pendant works, so am I free to go?" I asked the room, knowing what the woman's answer would be as I caught her stern gaze.
"I have decided," the slime started, "that I should be a part of this meeting. Once you have the four leaders within the Source, retrieve me as well."
"Okay." What had changed between this time and the last time? I wondered, he'd been more than happy to let me sort it out, was it the Mana Sickness, had he lost faith?
"I'm free to go now, right?" I asked.
The priestess looked hesitantly towards Layman, and the slime buzzed, "Yes."
With that answer, I activated Incandescent Travel and the sickroom vanished in a burst of light. I reappeared on the field I had visited what felt like an age ago. Roaming about were boars, the size of horses, Dire Boars. One looked towards my naked form, but then leapt about, sprinting away from me. I was never so glad to be in a field with no influence from society.
I reached into my Storage and retrieved my clothes, within moments, I was fully dressed again, adorned with all of my artifacts. I quickly checked on the storage in the pendant, it had taken a heavy dent from my choice of teleportation, but was still over two million. I quickly gathered a ball of mana worth ten million above my palm and forced it into the pendant, watching as the number stored gained a one at the front. Even if I only had to use this for a day, I had to make sure that it was topped up constantly, I was still reeling from what had happened only hours ago. I shivered as I recalled the flight, watching my HP value tick slowly, but inevitably towards zero. That was not something I wished to repeat, the Arcane Form would be off-limits for now, and I'd have to revise when I used it in the future, so that mean back to basics.
I activated Mana Absorbtion, pulling far-off mana closer to me as the mana in the air nearby was absorbed into my skin. I stood like that for a few minutes, then activated the visual side of the skill, holding out my hand infront of my face. It wasn't as dark a purple as before, where it had darkened to black, but this time, the mana leaking out looked like purple fire. It was probably acceptable for the meeting.
The next step was checking on the two monarchs who I'd already taken into the Source, or 'abducted' for lack of a kinder word. So, I pulled myself into the Source as well and felt its warmth and familiar smell of ozone wash over me.
I appeared on the crystalline walkway to the mansion I had constructed from Mana in here. I wandered into the building, a spike of concern rising as I did so, there was little noise in the mansion, and far less then I had expected from the Helios King in particular.
Then the reason for the lack of noise came apparent as I walked through the doorway into the main lounge. Suddenly my arms were grappled and I was pulled down to the ground by two separate people at the same time. My face hit the floor and I managed to look up to my right where I saw the straining golden face of Goh Hungwoo, the King of Helios. The thick, yet short harms pinning my left side down had to be Viznar Munlatis, the Xarthos monarch.
"Why have you brought us here?" The demand came in the thick accent of Viznar who rammed my arm into the ground with more force to drive the question home. Something within popped under the dwarf's immense strength. But I knew I was stronger, even without any mana affecting my stats.
"A meeting of monarchs, no kindly get off." I strained as I spoke the last part, trying to push the two off of my arms while I was face-first on the ground. To my surprise, I didn't budge an inch, the eladrin king holding my other side down felt like an immovable object. Internally I cursed, I had forgotten about Goh's insane strength stat.
"Not so fast," Helios' King said in a hissing voice, "You need to answer for leaving us in here for hours with no explanation, not to mention kidnapping two monarchs."
I was really starting to get sick of this, so I let the mana in my body influence my physically. There was a sudden surge of strength and clarity, but just as I was about to push the two men off, my strength was sapped like someone had poked a hole in me. Not only the strength left, but the purple flame of my appearance vanished as well.
"Not as threatening now, are you?" The dwarven King goaded.
"What did you do?" I asked, panic building, I hadn't seen any flow of mana to mark a skill being used.
"Little gizmo I made in my youth, stops all artifacts working in a ten metre radius, no-one ever expects that." The king explained.
I gritted my teeth and tried shoving again, sure enough, the strength of mana was gone, it would've been fine, if it wasn't for the eladrin's superiour strength.
"How about we just talk it out," I began, before causing the floor beneath the three of us to puff away into a mist of mana.
The two men called out to either side of me, letting go almost immediately as the empty abyss of mana opened before us. Mana Weaving didn't cost me any MP, and that ability meant I could control everything here.
I twisted about mid-air, making sure I tucked my body in so I could fall faster that the other two who were probably flailing about. As I turned to view the Isle with the mansion on quickly shrinking into the sky, I could see the two Kings falling with me, but rather than fear and panic, they both had expressions of determination.
They knew that I was the key to getting out of here and that I made the opening, they're probably betting that I can also stop the fall. I cursed, as I held out a hand, mana crystallising about it and then I made it tug me away from the two falling Kings.
Ten metres, that's what the King of Xarthos had said, that's when my artifacts would work again. As I glanced at the chunk of crystal surrounding my hand, I was confident that I would reach that distance easily. I looked back to the falling Kings and my breath became stuck in my throat.
Viznar had some sort of metal wings on his back and was jetting over towards me, maintaining his distance, atop his back and the contraption was Goh, poised to grab me when the two were close enough.
"You're not getting away that easily," the dwarf taunted.