Chapter 22: Cave

As soon as I run out of the tunnel I see a giant underground cave full of glowing white crystals. Those crystals are beautiful. And what are they made out of. I come close to one of the crystals and touch it. As soon as I touch it I can feel pure mana coursing through the crystals.

"Hey, are you there, tree?"

"Of course, I'm here."

"Okay, so, what are these crystals?"

"These are mana crystals. At least that's what I call them. Even I don't know how they grow this way. But they are purest mana compressed into crystals. If you manage to absorb that mana and use it, your training will benefit tremendously."

"So, is that why you told me to come here? I knew cared. I'm so moved."

"Once again don't flatter yourself. Do you believe you're the only one down here? This place already got an owner. If you want to stay here, you need to take care of them first. And you might get killed here, you know."

"Still, I know you care. So, who is the owner of this place, then?"

"Don't rush, you will know soon enough."

"Okay, so, any advice on how can I absorb the mana inside the crystals?"

"Nope."

"Tsk."

Useless firewood. Now, let's think. Can I absorb mana inside the crystals like I absorb the pure energy around the atmosphere? I guess I can only try then.

I put my hand on the crystal and first feel the mana inside it. As I try to do that I can feel the mana flowing like a river and as I follow the flow I see that all the crystals in here are connected underground like a tree branch. And mana flow through all of them like a river system.

Now that I know how it moves I try to absorb that mana like I absorb the pure energy. First, I visualize a blackhole on the palm of my right hand and will it to suck the mana inside the crystal. But it fails miserably. I can feel the mana being affected by my blackhole. But problem is the flow is too strong and stable to be disturbed by my suction force.

Hmm, so, this method isn't feasible. Next, let's try something with my left arm then.

I will my left arm to make a shape of big nail and shove it into the mana crystal. As I shove my arm into the crystal I can feel the mana flow being disturbed. But my arm isn't absorbing the mana. Flow just passes by my arm.

So, once again I visualize a blackhole sucking in the mana. And this time my arm manages to absorb tiny bit of mana. Because mana inside the crystal is so pure and is in liquid form it takes a lot to absorb just a little bit of. I'm absorbing it drop by drop.

But, since its purity is so high it's actually much more effective than just converting mana from pure energy. So, after absorbing the mana from the crystal I will that little bit of mana into my brain and like usual I nurture my cells with it.

Maybe because of the purity of it, I feel a slight headache but after a while it become cool and refreshing feeling. Every time I bring a drop from the crystal and nurture my cells this happens. Well, even with slight discomfort I can already feel my mana vessel strengthening.

While absorbing mana from the crystals I feel something getting in my perspective range. Problem is I don't see anything moving. But the feeling is still there. So, I pull my arm out of the crystal and enter my camouflage. And push my back against the crystal and wait, observing my surroundings.

Feeling is getting nearer but I still can't see anything. Since I can't depend on my sight I decide to depend on my other senses. I close my eyes and focus on my ear and try to enhance my hearing. As I focus more on my ears I can hear everything around me. My heartbeat, slight wind coming in from the tunnel, water drop falling from the ceiling and very quiet beating of a wings above me.

So, some flying and invisible creature is observing me from above, huh. I can only hear its wings beating with my hearing. That is useless. I need to confirm what it is first.

To do that I need to use something else. My left arm. This time I concentrate on my left arm and try to feel my surroundings. As I concentrate more on my left arm, I start to feel my more clearly. And I finally see it. About five meters above me a bat like creature but much bigger. Wingspan of five meters and almost two meters long.

Still strange how wings that big make this small noise. Apparently, it seems this one uses echolocation too, since it can see me in my camouflage. Wonder why it's not attacking me. Is it simply observing me or waiting for backup? It's most likely latter.

Just as I thought that, I see five more bats coming from the depth of the cave heading to this direction and hovering next to the first bat. Shit, sometimes it sucks to be right.

And as soon as they got together they dive down on me. I roll to my right and dodges their claws. Pieces of shits take to the air as soon as they miss. This time they open their mouths and scream with high frequency noise. And that noise bursts my eardrums. As my eardrums burst I lose balance and almost fall on my knees. Fucking flying rats dive at me right as I lose my balance and one of them digs its claws into my right shoulder and lifts me up.

After this one lifts me up others start to swarm me, clawing and biting. As soon as I manage to orient myself, I immediately use my fire breath on one that's lifting me up and burns it. It let's me go as it burns, screaming for its life. And after few agonizing seconds later it plummets to the ground and burns to ashes.

It seems potency of my flame increase significantly. I drop on my knees and struggles to stand as my eardrums are yet to heal. And it's hard to stand up with lost balance.

Maybe because of their fear, I can see them with my eyes now. I need to kill them fast before they call for more reinforcements. But how? By breath may reach them, but they probably can dodge it. So, that only leaves my left arm.

I point to them with my left arm and pump more mana into it. As soon as I pump more mana, my left arm starts to extend and branches grow like crazy. But as it finally makes to their height, they dodge, but just as they dodge my arm, I will my arm to branch out, pumping even more mana, and my arm expands porcupine, skewering them and killing them.

HAHA, what do you call it? Rampage, right.