Chapter 27

Dafur picked up Stone, while Lucifer was still training and scanned the area. During the search, Stone expanded his perception sphere to 10 metres, but when he had done that, he wasn't able to see through everything like before.

[Your technique Ambient Mana Refinement gained a level 5 times]

"Luci?"

"Don't bother me now," Lucifer dismissed him. Lucifer understood that this was very strange conduct for a Partner, but he grasped that he was no longer one. This thought broke his concentration and his bubble and wall fizzled, turning into motes of purplish flux. He imaginary shook his head and resumed the training.

"Dafur!" Stone called for the dwarf.

"Yea, mist'r Stone?" The dwarf absentmindedly replied.

"Why can't I see through things after I expanded my perception sphere?"

"Ya have a perception sphere'? That's a mid-tier technique…" The dwarf blinked several times. He finally began to come to terms with his situation.

"I don't have a technique like that. Luci said it's part of my natural sensing."

"How shoulda I know?" The dwarf shrugged.

The conversation ended and an awkward atmosphere fell between them. Needless to say, the awkwardness was missed by Stone who did not care a bit. He was happy he acquired a new minion. Hopefully, this one will not betray him or expire too soon.

After they searched the whole room, the single path they found was leading back to the crystal deposit and stairways leading up.

"Dafur, I noticed something," Stone proclaimed in his high-pitched voice, while they were climbing the stairways.

"What?"

"That you had second skin and those other two too. But the male one tore that skin out of her and put stones with golden runes and refined mana crystals into it…"

"WHAT?!" Dafur cried out, not realizing Stone was talking about clothes.

"Loud!" Stone grumbled and conjured a bluish hand to slap Dafur's cheek.

"You slapped me!"

"Yes! Don't be loud," Stone firmly issued while thinking, "slapping these bipeds is a nice way to make them shut up. I have to remember this."

Dafur peered at the strange piece of white rock and decided to let it be. He had already enough on his plate and this weird entity could help him.

Meanwhile, Stone continues his story, "well, she then got up and left my sphere."

"Wait… got up? After skinnin' her alive?"

"You had that second layer too, but it was disintegrated when the glow enveloped you."

"Oh! Ooooh!" Dafur exclaimed and facepalmed, "ya mean clothes!"

"What are clothes?"

"… Do ya realize how odd this is? A talking piece of talc asks mea what clothes are…" He laughs with a tinge of craziness in his voice.

"Tell me about it," Luci added his own sigh… Of course, Dafur could not hear him as it was in Stone's mind.

"How shoulda I know?" Stone innocently replied. Dafur didn't know how, but he could hear the shrug in the sentence. Luci rolled his imaginary eyes up and continued to train the basics.

"Clothes're protective barrier for people like mea. Some can be enchanted, metallic…" Dafur proceeded to explain what clothes were and how they worked to the talking piece of mineral.

[Your intelligence had risen by 5]

After five minutes of climbing the stairs, they reached the ransacked room, filled with torn golems and automatons.

"What is this?" Stone asked, when he saw it with his enlarged but weakened, perception dome.

"Seems like Breadbeard brok' his way out… shit…" Dafur stated as he peered at the destruction around.

Slight tremor rattled them and from the room linked to the hallway came a bluish light.

"Fuck! This place is naet abandoned!" Dafur swore simultaneously with Lucifer.

"Loud!" Stone was disregarded again. When Dafur saw the incoming conjured hand, it was too late. The slap was heard all over the place.

"Let's go back, maybe there will be another way out… or we coulda go back to the crystal deposit'. I'm blighted anyway…" Dafur said while caressing his red cheek yet again.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, and with res'rvation for the fourth one," Dafur cursed as he bounced from the stairs with Stone in his hand.

Stone decided that quickly moving around felt good as it was certainly more interesting than sitting in one place. Still, he had the option for his lousy flying spell when it came to it.

Lucifer quickly scanned the place with Stone's perception dome. Even though he could see through things anymore, it was still superior to the mere eyes.

"Nothing," Stone reported after Lucifer gave him the green light..

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Does yar Partner look too?"

"He was the only one looking. I couldn't care less."

"Yes, yes… there was nothing, let's go back and hide inside the deposit," Lucifer answered.. Violet flux walls and bubbles were materializing and dissipating around Stone with increasing pace.

[Your technique Ambient Mana Refinement gained a level 2 times]

"He said we should go back to the deposit."

"Fuck! Fine!" Dafur was getting exponentially more anxious with every second.

"Why are we running anyway?" Stone asked. He couldn't understand at all.

"Ya know, probably ya woulda naet be discover'd, but I woulda end up as a specim'n in the lab," he explained while running through the laboratory with the broken, black casket.

"And that's my problem how?" Stone questioned with the same tone.

"… I can help ya, ya know! Ya can't move prop'rly by yourself!" Dafur tensed as he almost yelled. He didn't want to end up carved up and preserved in jars in some laboratory.

"Loud," Stone menacingly warned and to bolster the threat he conjured a blueish-hand again.

[Your skill Mana Carving gained a level]

'Slap!'

"Fuck! Can ya stop slappin' mea?!" Dafur tearfully asked as he massaged his red cheek again.

"This time it didn't stop his 'loud'. Slapping will need more research," Stone thought to himself.

"Stone, stop it, he can crush you easily…" Luci said worried, finally done with his training and registering what was happening.

They ran through the gate. Dafur shut it behind them. A click echoed through the cave as the gate locked itself.

☁☁☁☁☁☁

Encyclopaedia Stonia

Ethereals and Undeads

Ethereals are not considered Undead in most cases. Ghosts (and similar sub-races) created from living souls are counted as Undead, but naturally produced spectrals are not.

Partner

Kind of public secret. Those who have them don't talk about it but are known to be heroes. No one knows how Partners are obtained, but you have an assistant, a companion, and a library in one. A few old heroes wrote in their memoirs about them, at least those who lived long enough to actually write them.

They always had to help their hosts and push them towards 'right' decisions. Their incredible amount of knowledge and wisdom to use it 'correctly' is superior to most. Of course, there are exceptions to everything.

Strange is that almost none of those heroes lived more than a hundred years, excluding a few exemptions, but those are mostly hidden in their fortresses, erratic and paranoid.

Magic - School of Soul

School of mana manipulation used by those who are often considered as evil in nature like Undead, warlocks, necromancers… Priests can use it to a certain limit. Still, they only cast it with their deity's permission and utilize it for healing.

It allows you to manipulate the souls of 'living' beings to a certain level. Those who practice it often refer to it as the 'original magic' as it is said to have been the first magic used by Mortals and thus should not be shunned as an 'evil' magic. It is too bad that those same people use others' souls to increase their lifespan. But again, evil is not the weapon but the person who wields it.