Chapter 13: 13 – Void

Ruith sat down on the ground with his eyes shut, focusing on his mana core. It was emanating a slight green glow. He felt that it wanted to progress, and he simply needed to absorb a bit more mana than his core should be able to hold.

Mana was pulled from the surroundings, and once the first bit went in it began to be absorbed faster. The pressure built in his head, turning into a burning pain. However, it was not as bad as when he had gotten his ability.

The mana core absorbed several times what its max capacity normally was, getting slightly bigger. To Ruith, it looked like it was about to explode. Once it had reached four times its normal capacity, a bang resounded within his mind.

Ruith clenched his teeth, veins surfacing all over his forehead and neck.

Even more mana was pulled into his spine, feeding the seemingly endless hunger of his mana core. The color of his core slowly began to change.

It lightened, but then gained a slight reddish hue. It continued, the color deepening until it was dark red. Another bang went off in his mind. Ruith’s core had settled into its new level, but the transformation was not completed yet.

The mana from his core flowed through the rest of his body. First, it seeped into his bones, he could feel them becoming denser and more durable. Each of them even became a tiny bit more flexible, but the amount was far too small to be noticeable. Then, the mana flowed into his muscles and tendons. The muscle fibers started to snap, but immediately regenerated thereafter.

Ruith began to sweat, sharp pain radiating every half a second throughout his entire body. The pain was almost too much to bear, but it ended quickly. He felt several times stronger.

Finally the mana worked on his skin. It became tighter, more like leather than human skin.

That was the last of his physical improvements, but a small amount of mana went towards his eyes. Instead of improving them in any way it simply sat there and gave his eyes an almost imperceptible green glow.

And then all the pressure vanished as if it was never there to begin with. 

Ruith stood and stretched, his joints popping. This had only taken ten minutes but the improvements were immense. The first thing he noticed was that he could now control the mana around his eyes. He willed it to go back to his mana core and it did. Then he brought it back, looking around.

Rivers of an ethereal green glow flowed through the air. Some were like raging rivers, and others like calm creeks. He pulled on one of the rivers of mana, and a string of it departed from the main flow, connecting to his spine.

He could see how the mana was being absorbed into the plant life around him, giving them a slight glow. Ruith willed the mana in his eyes to go away, and everything returned to normal.

‘Time to see how good my body is now…’

Unlike when he first awakened his ability, this time he felt extremely energetic. He turned to Vaeri, excitement evident within his voice.

“Let’s have a quick spar!”

She agreed and reached for where her sword would usually be. When her hand grabbed air, she was confused for a moment before remembering what had happened. Instead, she raised her hands up in front of her face, and launched at Ruith.

He reacted instantly, her movements far easier to track than when he had been at the black core stage. Ruith stepped to the side, jabbing at Vaeri. She deflected the punch with her left hand, her right hand shooting forwards towards Ruith’s jaw. He twisted his upper body, the punch just barely whizzing by. 

Ruith grabbed her extended arm with his right hand and yanked her towards himself. His left elbow came up to meet her face, and her nose slammed right into it.

She stumbled, but was unharmed.

“Alright, you win…”

Ruith’s eyebrows raised. He knew that he would lose if Vaeri was in her peak condition, but this was still shocking to him. His body’s power had increased by around three times.

The girl sat down on the ground while Ruith decided to test the final improvement.

He absorbed as much mana as he could into his core.

‘Five times increase to the capacity!’

This shocked Ruith greatly, he knew that the advancement from the black core to red was large, but not this much.

Ruith sent his mana into the nearest tree and took full control of every single one of its roots. The tree was quite large, about fifty feet tall, but he barely felt a strain.

‘I could probably control at least ten trees this size!’

He aimed every root at one point in the ground, utilizing both his and the tree's mana.

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BOOM!

Dirt shot up high into the sky. When the dust cleared, there was a mass of roots twisting around each other until they formed into a sharp point. The thickest part of it was more than four times the size of his thigh.

Ruith stared at the result of his attack with wide eyes. It had taken only 10% of his mana.

“Vaeri, is that an attack a normal red core can do?”

“...No, that power is more near the level of a gray core mage, and one close to the white core stage at that. However, someone with a gray core would be able to perform an attack like that tens of times.”

Ruith nodded.

‘So my attacks are powerful far beyond my level, except I can’t do them as much…’

That massive wolf that had killed the rest of the group, perhaps he had enough power to kill it at this point? Ruith decided to not think about it for now. They needed to find a way out of here before he could even consider taking revenge.

“Vaeri, let’s put our mana into this thing now.”

They both walked over, placing their hands on it. Their cores went completely empty, but the green glow within the lines grew much stronger than before. The two closed their eyes and replenished their mana before touching the gate once again, repeating these actions over and over.

Finally, after several hours, they touched the gate but not all of their mana vanished. A quiet hum started to sound and the mana within the lines moved to the ones carved on the inside of the frame.

It grew brighter and brighter.

WHOOSH!

It sounded as if an intense wind had blown through the area. But now instead of leading to nothing, a layer of pitch black and slightly wavering energy stretched across the gate. It felt like peering directly into the void.

Ruith reached out a finger, sensing no danger from the gate. The finger touched the black surface and its tip vanished. He didn’t feel anything.

“What should we do?” Ruith asked Vaeri.

“I need to fully heal first, the muscles in my forearms are still damaged. Then…I guess we have no choice but to go through. Seems like this is our best chance of escaping this place.

Ruith agreed. Vaeri sat cross-legged on the ground and closed her eyes. She was fully focused on absorbing mana to finish healing. Ruith began to get used to his newfound power.

It was now no challenge for him to control hundreds of roots the size of his pinkie at this point, and though small, they could strike with far more power than before. 

‘I should be able to simply overwhelm enemies with the sheer amount of roots.’

He couldn’t wait to test his abilities on an actual enemy. Ruith almost hoped that something would attack them when they went through the gate, if they could even go through it at all.

While waiting for Vaeri, Ruith decided to create something that he could use for defense. He had two offensive skills that he created, but no defensive ones.

Using all the roots of a tree, he willed them to grow into a barrier in front of him. Roots of varying sizes twisted around each other and burst out of the ground, but instead of an attack they formed a wall. It wasn’t very thick, only about half a foot, but was very wide. It slightly, completely blocking the front of Ruith’s body. He could still be attacked from the side, but this was the best he could do for now without wasting much more mana.

‘A simple skill needs a simple name. [Root Barrier] it is.

***

Five hours later, Ruith and Vaeri stood in front of the gate. 

“Here, take the dagger. You need a weapon.” The boy handed her his dagger, at this point it would be very hard for enemies to come into his melee range anyway. She took it, gripping it tightly in her hands.

“Alright, let’s go.”

The two stepped through the gate and into the void.

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