Chapter 28

Meanwhile, in the Gilded Runemaster Guild's portal room, Master Therdreag observed the portal, surrounded by the three outer disciples standing on points of the crimson triangle, painted within a circle formed with dwarven runes.

The portal was a window through space, showing the other side, ripples on the surface as still it was not stabilized yet.

All three of the disciples could take it anymore and completely drained of mana collapsed on the ground, but not before the portal was stabilized. The ripples settled, the ellipsoidal surface was completely clear.

A lifeless, white golem came to them.

"Sir, two disciples died over mana drainage. The third one survived but was severely injured," the servant reported to readying master Therdreag with an uncaring, mechanical voice.

"Good, I am promoting the surviving one to the half-inner disciple. Make proper preparations for him," he instructed the Golem absentmindedly as he watched the portal. He wanted to be sure it was completely stabilized.

"Understood, master. Portal is stabilized. Four people can enter. It will stay open for half an hour," the golem said.

"Tafur, bring two 3rd rank apprentices."

"Yea, master," Tafur answered without questioning and ran out.

In a mere two minutes he was back with two dwarfs, clothed in black robes engraved by nigh-invisible runes and armed with axes.

"Master, these two were sent by mae family," Tafur introduced them.

Master Therdreag shot them a swift, judging glance and nodded. "Let's go," he motioned them to follow and stepped through the portal as the first one to lead.

On the other side, they saw a room similar to the one in the guild, however here the room had been ransacked and the corpses of the guards were laying all around the place.

"Dornus fucking dammit! The containment field failed! Fucking ancient trash!" Master Therdreag began to profusely curse as he went over his destroyed property.

"Master, seems like they went up," Tafur deduced from how the remains were mostly positioned. It was as if someone ploughed through them with bare hands.

After ten minutes of very colourful swearing, Master Therdreag took control of himself, he made a decision.

"I will go after them. They had to gain powerful bodies to tear the guardians like that, enough to make you three unusable in a fight. Instead, you will go and inspect the laboratory," with this order, the 5th rank runemaster conjured a whole set of runes, forming a word and injected the refined mana into it. An air concentrated all around him and he shot out of the chamber with an incredible speed, annihilating what was left of the main gate.

"Ye two, come. Ye'll never speak of what ye saw or will see here," he instructed his two minions and went down the stairs.

In the laboratory, he saw the broken casket and a marble gate that wasn't there before.

"What in the…? Dornus dammit! These ancient labs… Master'll be fuckin fumin," he cursed and made his two bodyguards wait there, while he examined the gate.

"Hmm, simple nature rock with the lifeforce as medium…" he mumbled.

He turned to his minions and issued, "bring mea som' stone and a few rats."

"Yea, master," they replied and promptly completed Tafur's order.

He put the unconscious rats and random piece of rock in the tile with ancient rune depicting earth and made the bodyguards to stand on the rest. He conjured the required elements with his own runes easily. A little bit of lifeforce was drained from them as the gate opened.

"Search the area."

"Yea, mast'r."

☁☁☁☁☁☁

"Did ya hear it?" Dafur paused as he heard a loud 'click' and glanced over his shoulder, "the gate opened."

Stone ignored him as he was lectured about Druegars and Ethereals. Thanks to his raised intelligence, he was able to grasp it quickly.

"Finally, you can comprehend like a normal person, Stone… But after your first evolution, you won't be able to raise your intelligence with learning, at least not learning about mundane things. What is your limit now again?"

"15."

"So eighteen on the 10th level… damn that's quite a boost. You should be able to evolve at level 10. On that level, requirements should be clear to you as most of the Monsters know them instinctively. I wonder what happens…"

"Hey! Mister Stone!" Dafur put him before his face and attempted to gain his attention.

"What?!" Stone's annoyed, high-pitched voice echoed several times.

"Loud," Luci said with a certain amount of satisfaction.

"Ya're being loud, mist'r Stone," Dafur said while grinning.

"…" Stone felt strange. He decided that he should ignore this. Probably for the best.

☁☁☁☁☁☁

"Did ya hear it?" The guard who was closer to the shaft asked.

"Nae. Wanna report?" The other shrugged.

"Yea, I'm sure I heard somethin'."

They caught up with Tafur who was examining the gate lights.

"Mister Tafur!"

"Found somethin'?"

"Yea, a long shaft and there was a voice comin' from inside.

"Hmm," Tafur pondered about it, "Shoulda I wait for master? When I think about it, they shoulda not need to hide if they are strong…" In the end he decided to go inside.

"Master, I'll go first, ya second and Trag last."

Tafur nodded and they stepped inside as they heard echoing hurried steps.

"Master half a kilometre ahead, someone's runnin'."

"Speed up," Tafur conjured a double-rune, his speciality, learned by many months of experimentation and drowning a fortune into it until it became a technique. At the moment he showed it to runemaster Therdreag, the runemaster accepted him as a personal apprentice.

The double-rune landed on his ankles. He conjured two more of them for his bodyguards. As the runes' glow intensified they all sped up by 2 times.

"I'll be able to handle it for two minut's and mae mana'll be depleted. The rest'll be on ye two."

"Understood, boss."

☁☁☁☁☁☁

"Dornus ass! They heard us!" Dafur panicked and accelerated.

"Loud!" Stone protested. Fruitlessly.

"Shut the fuck up! If they catch us, we're done!"

Stone pouted. Never before his minion talked back. He did not appreciate it. Before he could conjure the bluish wall, he was stopped by Lucifer.

Dafur erratically ran towards the deposit, but they already could hear the echoes of their pursuers' steps.

Right before the entrance to the small cavern filled with mana crystals, they heard, "Fuck! It's a crystal deposit! STOP!"

Dafur leapt towards the deposit' and hid behind a cluster of large crystals. He conjured his earthly rune and a thin film of dust covered him. He put Stone nearby and lay on the ground.

"I heard steps. Look around, they must be near," one of the guards stated.

"Wait, cast a shield over mea… I don't wanna catch blight," Dafur deeply frowned as he recognized that voice. Tafur! What shitty luck...

"Sorry, master, right away," a translucent, watery shield made by the 3rd-rank apprentice surrounded Tafur.

"Fuck! That's mae twin! Dornus dammit, what shitty luck!" Dafur internally cursed.

Meanwhile, Stone asked Luci, "What would happen if they would find Dafur?"

"Death… In the end."

"Hmm, I don't like that."

"Me neither. We can only hope they won't find us."

"Would not they find Dafur?"

"They are apprentices and their master will not be far in a place like this. Trust me, they have ways to extract memories easily, so sooner or later they will know about you."

"Hmm… I guess that would be bad, right?"

"Yeah! Even your Universum said you are the first sentient mana crystal. Imagine that they would lock you up in a secret laboratory, then they would tear you apart to the point before death and force you to regenerate over and over again. You are an almost unlimited amount of low-grade mana crystals…"

"Oh… I don't like that! Not even a little bit."

"Yeah, and me… thanks to your blabbering, they will know about me too… and that's bad. Very, very bad."

"Why?"

"Rules… Well, I am no longer connected to the source, but still have an extensive amount of knowledge about the world, plus thanks to you, I am turned to anomaly too," he sighed. "No thank you, I don't wanna be extracted and be experimented on."

"I have an idea. How strong can you make a proper shield with your mana shaping," Stone asked and if...

"Not much. I didn't have time to train it properly. Why are you asking…" Lucifer's mind spurned and he could tell what Stone was planning. "Oh, no! No! No! No! We are not doing that!" Luci shouted.

"Loud! And do you have a better idea?"

"... No… Shit…"

"Anyway, it will not be big! Just a little."

"It can evaporate the whole mountain, you fucking moron!"

"I will be careful, I promise!"

"Stone! Please! Anything else! Anything!"

"But you said that if they catch us, it will be bad!"

"Fuck me sideways! No... Please…" Lucifer pleaded with imaginary tears on his non-existent face.

"Dafur?" Stone whispered. It made him extremely hard to hear, however, dwarfs always had a great hearing.

"Yea?"

"We will make a little explosion."

"…"

"Dafur?"

"Ya're insane, aren't ya?"

"Well, you can try to talk to your twin…"

"I can create fairly strong shield that can protect us but not for long, and it'll drain all of mae mana. I coulda die from overdrain," Dafur quickly changed his mind.

"Please, Stone! Don't do this! It will rip us apart!" Luci cried out in Stone's mind.

"Loud!" Stone complained in his mind and continued with a whisper, "I will create my maximum powered [Mana Point] from refined mana, but it will take a few seconds to power it." Then another idea transpired to him, "can you create a fire? I will absorb heat and mix it."

"I can. Damn, ya're really strang'. Ya can absorb fire…" Dafur wondered for a bit, but the pressuring situation forced him to focus, "they'll notice. I'll try to delay them."

He created a tiny fiery rune with heat emanating from it.

"Hey! He's her'!" One of the dwarfs detected a ripple as the ground nearby suddenly rose. The bodyguard tightened his fingers around his axe and readied himself.

"Tafur!" Dafur shouted as the dust fell from him.

"Dafur?" Tafur's eyes bulged. "Dornus dammit! What happen'd to ya?" He exclaimed, noticing his twin was hairless and grey-skinned; he resembled a filthy Druegar!

"I… I'm blight'd, brother…" Dafur whispered with a lowered head.

"Hahaha! Ya look like a Druegar!" Tafur snickered and ridiculed his twin.

Dafur's eyes shot up and while glowering at his twin, he angrily said, "go fuck yarself Tafur!"

"Haha! Finally, I can get rid of ya! Boys! Chop his head off!"

"Yea, young mast'r," they leapt towards the blighted dwarf and one of them grabbed him from behind before Dafur could react. Dafur tried to resist, but the difference in strength was too big.

"Trag! Korag! My father… oh…" Then it hit him what Tafur meant by he could get rid of him. He was blighted. He lost everything and everyone because he wanted to leave the city for the first time. "Hurry mister Stone, I dinna wanna die yet!" He prayed to the pebble as he found a resolve to live. He hadn't lost his mind... even when his race changed and his level dropped back to the 1st level, he was still himself. Mostly. The beard would be missed.

An axe shone in the glow of mana crystals as it fell towards Dafur's neck. Tafur happily laughed, because he would not need to share his inheritance nor resources anymore.

"Stone! NO!" Lucifer shouted.

"Loud! Concentrating!"

A heated [Mana Bubble] exuding blue rays appeared near Dafur and compressed.

"Back!" Tafur yelled at his minions as he retreated himself. He was able to safely distinguish refined mana. The bodyguards released Dafur, bouncing towards their boss.

Dafur leapt back too and cast a more powerful iteration of the earth rune around them. He depleted almost all of his mana on this.

Lucifer closed his imaginary eyes and with a sigh signalling a capitulation, he created a thin purple cover around Stone.

Mana was chaotically flowing all around the cavern and all of the mana crystals' radiance intensified.

[Refined mana sends you to berserk. Reason: You are Mana Crystal]

"Pretty," Stone whispered as the heated, blueish [Mana Point] pulled all of his attention towards itself.

He became a mana crystal himself, so he could feel the flow of mana and had the same reactions to mana too.

"For the god of… Stone! Wake up, you moron!" Lucifer attempted to wake him up. The idea was simple; be as noisy as possible!

[Berserk status suppressed]

"Loud!" Stone reflexively protested.

Ambient mana condensed around the red and blue crystals as they reacted to the refined mana and released pulses of heat mixed lightning arcs.

"Oh, here we go," Lucifer closes his eyes in defeat, praying to all gods he could remember.

[Your spell Mana Point gained a level]

Stone read the message and pumped even more refined mana into the [Mana Point].

The two 3rd-rank runemasters conjured all the protective runes they could muster. One rune had floating droplets of water around it and the second rune pulled dust around to itself. A two-layered shield materialized around all three of them.