It's been five floors since my knight defeated the Ogre Variant.
Patting his shoulders to get rid of the dust on it, he slowly approaches the brown bear. Unlike before, he's more careful now, properly planning his steps and considering dangers. With an disgusting squelch, he rips out the beast's eye. It had a brown iris and black pupil, practically oozing mana as it left the beast's eye socket.
Once again, my knight held it in his hand firmly and began to concentrate. Not as much as the first time, no, he'd already reached the point where it was practically second nature to him. With a quick breath, he began siphoning mana out of the core, segregating the incompatible earth mana while isolating and absorbing the darkness mana into his own core, purifying it even further. The more cores he absorbed, the better he got at doing it—something that I found extraordinary.
Absorbing mana from fallen beast cores were, in itself, a particularly easy task…if it was compatible with the magician, that is. If a magician with an opposing element or simply lacked the aptitude to attune to it, then the core will simply reject the magician, as per it's nature. This is no trouble for a normal magician, of course. They could just find another — more compatible — core, after all. However, that is only in the case of a pure core.
A mana core that houses only a single element is what is called a pure core. Mana cores that houses two are called variant cores, three are rare cores, and four are legendary cores. Though the last two are considered myths and can mostly be found in the delusional fantasies of overly-optimistic magicians, there have been a couple of tales detailing the appearance of a rare core—the accuracy of which is a little hazy. Variant cores, however, are much more common. In some cases, even more than pure cores themselves.
I watch as the white-haired knight projects and manipulate his won mana and siphon the one most compatible with him and leaves only the earth mana inside of the variant core. On his first attempt, he absorbed some of the red mana unconsciously, meaning that he would have a longer time purifying the darkness mana in his own core. This improved very quickly though, and in his fourth attempt, he managed to do it practically flawlessly, a huge leap in his mana manipulation mastery.
Hmmm…it should be about time, I ruminate as I watch him pocket the core. I had to remain on the ground, or at least keep my mana concealed on top of using my invisibility spell to keep him from detecting me. It's worked well so far, though there were times when I found myself being stared at for an uncomfortable amount of time.
It made me a little anxious, thinking he might have spotted me, which made me focus on erasing my presence even more. This worked wonders, earning me a resigned sigh from my knight. I always suspected that he was very sensitive when it came to malicious intent, but I never thought it would be this powerful. It might have been a skill or an attribute, maybe even a spell that I don't know of…though I highly doubt that last one. Even with the unique properties of darkness, I'm confident in my ability to detect and analyze spell formations.
I deactivate my spell and appear before him, giving a slight curtsy. A little flair never hurt anybody.
"O, brave hero. Through thine courage and perseverance, thine have managed to conquer this dungeo—h-hey! Don't just ignore me!!" I grab his shoulders as he nonchalantly walks past me, not even batting an eye. Is he dense or does he just not like me?...actually, I think I'll keep that question to myself. Let sleeping dogs lie and all that.
"You really don't have any sense for theatrics, do you?"
◇◆◇◆◇
"You really don't have any sense for theatrics, do you?" I sweep the witch's hand off my shoulder, giving her a pained look.
Ugh, why does that sound so grating for some reason…?, I thought as I make my way down the dark halls of the 'dungeon'—as she called it. The more floors I went down, the more grim the décor seemed to get. The lighting artifacts around the room became more ornate and less bright as I went down, creating a somewhat spooky vibe to the place. So did the walls, black lines that seemed to cover the entire floor being the first thing that I notice when I arrived here. But now, that all meant nothing, or maybe everything, depending on how one looks at it.
I take a deep breath and round the corner, taking in the sight of a intricately-carved door made out of some kind of magically-reinforced metal. The towering double doors were over 10 meters tall, easily surpassing my height.
"Move aside." The witch nonchalantly took a step forward, her tone sounding somewhat impatient. Does she not like being ignored THAT much?
"No, I don't."
"…?!" How did she know?!
"You're so predictable." She sneered and turned back to the large double doors. She held her breath as she placed her hand on the cold metal of the door's frame. The very next moment, mana started coalescing around her in a storm, her body acting as both a way to absorb and emit mana.
*creeeeeak*
The door began open slightly outwards, just enough for me to peek through and find some kind of altar inside of the room. The next moment, the door violently swung outwards.
"Come on." She instructed. "This is what we came here for."
Right, I never did ask about that. I follow the witch inside and inspect the intriguing room. Intriguing not in the way that the room interested me, but rather in the way that the place definitely needed further inspection.
The room was about 30 meters in length and width, with shelves lining both sides. Various books were placed inside of the shelves, some even placed on the ground haphazardly. The black lines outside seemed to converged here, all of them meeting in a blood-red circle with a pentagram in the middle in the very center of the room.
"Hmmm…" The witch knelt down and touched the ominous symbol, inspecting it carefully.
Various artifacts were placed at the five points of the pentagram, all of them equally ominous. One an animal head unrecognizable due to rotting, a large silver feather the size of my arm, some beast's fur, and some other knick-knacks. It didn't seem like it was just a coincidence that they were placed there, which meant that somebody or something arranged them here, along with the blood-red circle.
*tap tap*
"…Huh? Oh, sorry." She stood up and patted the dust off her knees, then pointed at the ominous circle on the floor. "This is a magic circle, a necessity for invoking higher tiered magic. I'm quite familiar with them, though I wouldn't say that I'm an expert. The one that you're looking at right now is a special type of magic circle, one used for summoning. Summoning refers to the invocation of a greater magic to call, or in some cases, materialize the summoned. It could summon anything, from a demonic sword to even gods, depending on the quality of the ritual."
She pointed at one of the knick-knacks. "You see these?, these are artifacts used to summon a specific being. Most likely demonic, based on the nature of the artifacts. Either way, you don't have to worry. The summoning circle's already been used, so it wouldn't just turn itself on for no reason. Besides, the artificial circuits that were supposed to be powering isn't even activated, so I highly doubt it could even work."
Hmmm…I guess that makes sense. Though, there's still one thing I'm curious about. I point up high, prompting her to look up.
"…Oh, yeah. THAT. It's probably the influence of this place. The reason so much darkness mana is present here is most likely because of the summoning circle, but then again, it could be the other way around. The reason the ritual—better yet, the entire dungeon itself was built here, is most likely because of the abnormal quantity of darkness attribute mana in the atmosphere. That could also explain the abnormality that all the monsters above exhibited. It's normal for monsters to adjust and evolve based on their circumstances, so monsters developing unique characteristics to better survive is a common occurrence. It's why all the monsters had the darkness element as either their primary or secondary element."
*nod*
"Still, one thing bothers me…" She looked down, her eyes swimming for an answer. "It's crystal clear that the Guardian I killed before was from here, most likely to defend this very room—the place where it made it's pact with the demonic being. That much I get. The problem is…why did it leave?"
She sounded troubled and frustrated as she tried to put together all the puzzle pieces. " It's a guardian. Even if it meant dying, leaving it's post is a clear violation of it's nature. Or maybe…" Her voice trailed off. "It sensed something dangerous. A threat, a thing to be eliminated…was it me? Maybe even my knight. I may be stronger, but I didn't have any malicious intent. Heck, I didn't even know about this place until a month ago. That shouldn't warrant a personal visit from the Guardian."
The witch's eyes went wide like plates. "…Could it be because of something else? Something even more dangerous than the two of us combined…?" She trailed off once more, seemingly caught on her own words.
…
*grab*
*shake shake*
"W-what?! I'm trying to plan our future here…why are you looking at me like that?"
…
"H-hey, stop that!"
…
"F-Fine, I'll leave this for later…still, what should we do with this place? It seems like a waste to just abandon it. I mean, I'm totally taking all those books and artifacts, but the room itself is pretty well-made. We could even leave here!...except there isn't any water around." She gives me inquisitive tilt of the head, upping her cuteness point for a bit.
"What do you think we should do?"