An hour later, the girls have finally stopped laughing, and I've got enough refined poison to fill my inventory several times over. I'm starting on the ballista re-design now, I'm trying to make it as powerful as possible without revealing that I can control atoms directly. I'm sure Devlen at least would be able to notice if I used diamond thread as the bowstring.

The others have been bouncing ideas around, but the best they could come up with was to have Devlen open up a shaft ahead of it, and drop a big pointy rock onto it when passes underneath. It's simple enough that it may actually work, so we added that to the list of backup plans.

I say backup plans, but we're going to try poisoning it, firing the ballistae, and dropping the big rock all at once. This thing is just that damned big. Once I'm done working on the ballista, we're all going to head a few kilometers in front of it. Then Devlen and I will open up a cavern and set everything up.

"What kind of arrowheads are you planning to use?" Nev comes walking up when I'm almost done with the over-sized siege weapon.

"Not sure what will work best." I shrug. "Was planning to go with an even mix of points and broadheads, maybe a couple drill-shaped ones if the test fire works alright." I'm plan to use the same amorphous steel that I created for the armor plate.

"Think you can make a couple of these?" He holds up an arrow with four points, a fixed center one, and three that snap out to a sixty degree angle.

"Can't hurt to try." I say hoping that all this actually does the job. But, if it's still not enough kill the damned thing. I'll come back with diamond arrowheads, nano-fiber re-enforced ballistae, and any explosives I can figure out. And, if it's still alive after all that, well there's always the flying island option.

"Alright, Apricot. She's ready for the first test fire." I say after a few more minutes. "It's only loaded with a hardened wood shaft right now, but this should give us an idea of what it can do." I erect a ten meter thick stone block a couple hundred meters away.

"Yes!" She squeals and flies over to the trigger, shifting back to human size to pull the lever.

WHAM! The projectile launches almost faster than I can track, it slams into the stone a split-second later. Obliterating itself while punching a meter deep crater into the granite. Chunks of rock fly outwards from the impact, several even ping off of my barrier all the way back here.

"Hahahahahahah! Again, again." The pixie bounces up and down in place.

"Alright, try the basic steel lance now." I reload the machine, and repair the target.

WHAM!!! Half the target is blown apart, and the rest is shattered.

"FUCK YES!" Apricot shouts. "Oh, I fucking love you Sorrel." She tackles me to the ground. "That was so fucking awesome."

"One last test, then let's go kill a worm." I kiss her and disentangle.

Once I have my feet under me again, I rebuild the target once more, only this time it's a thirty meter high worm head made from magically reinforced stone. I load the weapon while the mages around me swear at their second glimpse of what we'll be facing.

"This is one of the broadheads we'll be using against it." It's a simple elongated diamond shape, but made from not-so-simple materials, and its blades are sharpened to nearly a molecular edge. "Let 'er rip." I nod to Apricot.

Wham! Shunk! Boom! Crash! The bolt rocketed away and slid into the toughened stone like butter. It traveled over a dozen meters into the stone before deforming and imparting all of it's energy into the surrounding stone.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!" I'm the one laughing this time, as everyone else is too shocked to say anything as the head of the worm crumbles.

"How in the gods?" Devlen is the first to mutter. "I watched you reinforce that stone, it-it just... shattered."

"Yes it did." A grin is practically splitting my face open right now. "See, there's a fun little fact about that special steel I made." I brandish a thin rod of it. "It's tough as all get out, right up until it breaks, then it just shatters." I snap it in half with a loud crack.

"So, all the force went off like an explosion in the middle of its head." His grin starts to match mine. "I think we may actually be able to do this."

"Everyone, start loading up the poison while I make the rest of the bolts." They do so while I get to work. Between Devlen's and my own stocks we have enough material for two dozen shots. That's just enough that each of us gets to fire twice.

Another hour later and we're all set up a few kilometers underground, and right in the Mega-Worm's path. Devlen, I, and one of the mages from the scouting team opened up a large cavern at the end of a long sloping tunnel. Where I then built and loaded twenty-four siege weapons.

"Everyone clear on the plan?" I double check. "Just wait until I give the signal, then fire and flee. Dev and Tarrah will keep the roof from falling in while I shield us."

"We're good." Nev and his team nod. "I know you could do all this on your own, but thank you for sharing the levels with us."

"Same here." Devlen puts his arm over Deluca's shoulder. "Thank you."

"We're with you babe." Amelia says.

"Damn straight we are." Apricot agrees.

"Okay. Everyone get ready, it's at the poison now." We hid them in the stone about fifty meters further in. I was afraid it would turn away from us, but it's dead set on going straight for the Capital.

The magic pressure builds, but there's barely a low rumble as an opening appears in the far wall. I trigger the falling boulder, but hold off a second before giving the order.

"And... Fire!" Everyone triggers their weapon at the same time. I reload them all in under a second and they're fired again before the worm can even react to being hit the first time. "Move, move. move."

We all run for the car fearing the worst, but there's no sudden tremors, no earth shattering roar. No anything. I look back in time to watch the boulder smash into the worm, but it doesn't make any difference.

"Hold up!" I shout. "It's dead. We did it." Everyone skids to a stop at hearing my words. And then a series of *dings* echo through the man-made cave.

"What? That easy? I got three levels from that." Deluca breaks out in hysterical giggling.

"Look for yourself." I move the boulder out of the way to show the ruined mess that used to be a worm. "All that magic and it only had as much defense as fucking worm. The first salvo was probably all we needed." I don't know if I want to laugh, or to cry.

"I can still feel the mana radiating off of it." Apricot speaks up and starts to walk closer, but soon stops and pinches her nose closed. "Ugh. Sorrel, do something about that stench. Please."

I wrap us all in a bubble of clean air and take us up to the edge of the splatter zone. "That is so weird. Do you feel that Dev?" He nods, and Tarrah says she does too. "Alright, let me deal with this mess. Decompose!" I point Blackthorne at the worm and start turning it's corpse into soil. "This is going to take a while."

"Better than digging through worm guts." Amelia laughs as we slowly walk forward.

"I might as well call Oliver." I say and dial his number. "Good news!"

"You did it?" He sounds as shocked as I felt.

"It took a couple dozen over-powered ballista, but the thing had no defense, at all. Our bolts ripped right through it and shredded its brain." I explain. "We all leveled several times from it though. And there's something magic in its body, I'm tunneling us toward it right now."

"That easy?" He lets out a relieved sigh.

"Oh, we had a three pronged assault planned." I let out a forced laugh. "We fed it tens of cubic meters of poison, then fired the ballistae twice and dropped a giant boulder on its head. I was ready to pump a storm's worth of lightning into it too. But, our first shots probably killed it. It was just a worm."

"Hahahah." He bellows out a deeper belly laugh than I imagined he could. "That is fantastic news. I'll go tell Her Majesty. Let me know when you discover whatever it is you're looking for."

"Will do." I say, but he's already disconnected. "I think it's near the hearts. There's so much mana it's hard to pin it down."

"What do you feel?" Amelia asks.

"Earth. It's all kinda jumbled up, but it's strongly Earth." We're about half way there, and I'm getting a clearer picture, but it still doesn't make sense. "Devlen are you picking up on this."

"I might as well be staring at the sun, all I can feel is a strong source of Earth Magic."

We've nearly reached the first heart, and I'm about to decompose it when I notice something strange lining it's walls. It's coated with thousands of shiny metallic crystals. Pulling one to me, I Identify it as Essential Aluminum.

"Mithril!" Devlen hisses. "It's all mithril."

"Neat!" My eyebrows raise. "I've heard the name before, but haven't read anything about it. What is it exactly?"

"It's the most common of the magical metals." He gushes while fondling the crystal. "Just like the name says, it's the very essence of aluminum. Lightweight and strong, but it's real value is it's natural passivation. The ability to resist and become less affected by outside influences over time. It's typically made into armor and subjected to harsher and harsher treatments to strengthen it. Some of the oldest pieces are said to be almost invulnerable. But it is almost never seen in this part of the world, and there's tonnes of it here."

"That sounds amazing, but it's not all mithril. Now that I know what I'm looking at I can sense a lot of other metallic essences. All the common ones, and a few that must be from metals I haven't come across yet." I push past the mana interference as best I can and see that all the hearts are just like this one.

"We need to collect it all, it's incalculably valuable."

"Oh, goody. Another reason for greedy bastards to pick on Larendath." I sigh before turning to Nev and his team. "Can you keep your lips sealed about this? Larendath isn't ready for the kind of trouble the news of this getting out would bring. Not, yet at least." I stealthily activate all my senses to detect if they lie or not.

"Yes Marquis. No one will hear about this from us." He vows, and his team follows suit, each one telling the truth.

"Good, and thank you. You will all be well rewarded for this." By me directly, if need be. "Alright, we still need to find whatever is pumping out so much magic." I get back to decomposing the corpse, and leave collecting the essences to Devlen and the others.

"You don't seem happy." Amelia sidles up next to me. "Want me to go get Mittens from the car, so you can pet him."

"I'm fine, just a bit upset that I'm probably responsible for waking this beastie up. It's likely been hibernating since magic was last plentiful in this region."

"More likely it's been roaming around farther north of here" Apricot counters. "And just got pulled in by the dungeon and then the tree."

"I still don't like it, magic is starting to change the land. And, not for the best." I heave out a sigh. "Remember how everything tried to eat Mittens on our way into the Capital? I saw a lot more aggressive behavior like that on our way up here, but it grew less and less common the farther away we drove."

"That shouldn't be the case" Apricot says worriedly. "Higher magic areas might have bigger and stronger animals, but they shouldn't be inherently more aggressive."

"I think I know what you're talking about." Devlen says. "Right after the dungeon was reported I heard there were a few reports of aggressive wildlife, but it seemed to move out in a wave, and settled down afterwards. What you saw was likely just the new wave caused by the Mana Well."

"See babe." Amelia pats me on the arm. "They're just working out a new pecking order as different creatures get stronger. It's nothing to worry about."

"That's something, at least." I smile at her. "And you're right, it was quieter near the Capital. I just thought I hadn't noticed it because there were more people around."

"You don't need to carry the whole country's weight on your shoulders." She rubs said shoulders. "I know you take your responsibilities seriously, but it's okay to relax."

"I know." I reach up to pat one of her hands with mine. "This should be a time for celebration, I just got a little worried that as soon as we deal with one situation another will pop up in its wake."

"Don't go borrowing trouble. If something does happen, we'll deal with it." She kisses the hand that's holding hers. "Now, please tell me we're getting close. I'm not sure I can take much more of this pressure."

"The rest of the lunkers don't so hot either." Apricot adds.

"Oh, sorry." I look back to see all but Devlen visibly affected, and there's even some tightness to his eyes. "I'll increase the shielding. And yes, we are close. I think it's in the crop, just one more heart to go." I reinforce and strengthen the bubble that's pushing the mana away from us, causing everyone to sigh in relief.

"How are you not affected by this?" Sylas asks.

"If you'd seen his Embiggen spell, you wouldn't ask." Deluca answers. "I watched it drain him completely dry in just minutes, and the only reaction he showed was to sit down and eat a bar of chocolate."

"That, and they live on a Mana Well." Devlen continues. "He was planting the mother of all apricot trees when its roots intersected shards of the ancient dungeon core. Our best guess is that they were excited by the influx of mana from the dungeon. And, when they came into contact with his Growth spell they somehow fused with the tree."

"You all are welcome to visit the Garden when you return to the city." I project a copy of the bonsai tree for everyone to see. "Though, you might be a bit late buying up a place nearby. Everyone in the guild has already started a bidding war over the nearest lots. I don't know if the neighbors love me or hate me."

"Wait. That's your house?" Nev's eyes go wide once the scale clicks for him.

"I said it was the mother of all apricot trees." Devlen laughs. "Whoah, is that it?" The pressure doubled again once I uncovered the source.