Harold was surprised, since he had never met such a huge, heavy beast before and the thing was below ground to boot. What does it even eat down here, the mushrooms?

But the mission came first, and so he spoke in a rush. “Sorry, I stepped on you, I did not realize you were there. I am on a mission you see, I have to get past, could you kindly move please?” See, I know how to speak to animals, when I want to. Kalle and Oscar do not even know what they are saying.

The giant, too-round turtle kept trying to look at him behind its back, but it had a hard time twisting, and it was moaning heavily with each motion. It was hard to even tell what colour it was, with all the dust and gravel it was steeped in.

“Hrrahhm. You come rushing in, and wake me from a twenty year sleep, to provide such paltry excuses? Where are your manners, Child of the forest?”

Harold did not even grasp that the turtle was a female before the tone of her voice really rose on the word manners, but he could see where this was going and he simply did not have the time. I am gonna have to be rude.

“Sorry old gal, I am gonna have to go past in a jiffy or things could go badly!” He went to leap onto her shell but the strange paddle of a tail rose unexpectedly and almost swatted him. He managed to dodge by throwing himself against the wall, and then he was off.

He squeezed past and then even stepped on the tail to make a small leap to land on the middle of the shell so he could then tumble through the gap and push the turtle's very offended face out of the way as he squeezed through.

He was past in three seconds and then dodged the lazy snap of the toothless mouth before he was scot-free and into the larger network of caverns that went on beneath the giant ritual etching being crafted above. He was running down the tunnel in a hurry, but the strange cave turtle’s voice could still reach his ears.

“Aaaah, unruly child, you Pixie lot never change. It’s why sensible folk stay below, where it is peaceful. MOST YEARS!”

She yelled the last words so loud it echoed, but with the press for time Roldy could not do much else than shake his head and try and stay focused. I bet that will cost me.

He finally reached a big underground hall where signs of work being done could be heard from above. He went to climb closer to the cavernous roof and then proceeded with the plan.

Using [Ruptured Earth] this way was not difficult, despite only having had yesterday to practise. Usually the Spell exploded like a bursting rock from below and snapped whatever it accelerated into, but when you made it tiny enough and found a spot of loose dirt, you could simply tighten the Spell up and punch the force through.

He did so now and waited a few seconds to make sure there was no reaction from above, then he sent his [Spore of Dreams] through and heard the work above be suddenly discontinued, right before a strange, chittering, insectile voice started coming closer. Then suddenly there was the noise of violence.

Mission accomplished. But right as he had that thought, there was a small rumble near the entrance behind him and a cascade of rock and soil went crashing to the ground. In the roof above was the sign of a big pole having been punched through from above.

If I don’t hurry they might end up accidently shutting the path out behind me.

Kalle was alone at their spot in the forest, to keep watch over the ant activity while the others kept a crew waiting for Harold by the caverns. He had relieved Redd again. The man was pulling double shifts, doing whatever he could to keep things under control and the rest of them in top condition.

Apparently your body needed less and less sleep as you kept levelling past 40. Something Sten had been very interested to note down, since that was the capstone his father had been unable to teach him more about.

As someone who was learning about rituals, the work spreading out before him was truly fascinating. If there was one Skill that Kalle had been neglecting it was certainly [Ritualistic Practice]. It was clearly meant to enhance his learning of rituals, but the [System] must have believed such practices were a lot more common than they were, since it neglected to provide him with anything that might have sufficed as blueprints.

The [Quest] he had failed put him on the track to figuring things out, but now he was getting a chance to see the magic being executed live and even though it had seemed like gibberish at first, it was finally starting to feel like he was getting somewhere with his constant musing over the spreading pattern.

None of the ants nor Mantis had neither the look nor feel of a caster, although it was hard even imagining how that actually would look. But the rituals only needed all their pieces in place, and sure you could act as the source of power, but you didn’t need to apparently. Not if you built something like this.

Livia had mentioned earlier how it all sort of looked like the polynesian tattoos from Earth, like those of The Rock… The words were nonsensical before she explained, but apparently people used to put stuff like this on their bodies and apparently The Rock is awesome. A strange idea, but it might actually look like some cool clothes were on you at all times, or something. Who even has the time to think of those things. Maybe they were magic?

It was certainly food for thought, but better yet, Kalle could feel his Skill working in the background as he meticulously let his gaze wander along the growing patterns that the thousands of warrior ants were working on.

He was about to reach level 8. I suppose this must qualify as a sort of combat, since I am stealing enemy secrets.

When Harold did not dare go on any longer, after one of the poles being smacked into the ground nearly hit him in the head, and after having made nearly a hundred holes and pushing his spores through, he decided to quickly return in the direction of the exit. But finding his way was not so easy.

The constant building going on above was making the air down here dusty and the regular cascades of dirt made it hard to recognise where you were. I swear they are not even building a wall up there, the deeper depressions seem all over the place.

The [Druid] kept his eyes peeled and eventually found his way after sprinting back and forth, but the door he came upon was still blocked by the old granny turtle.

“Hah, I knew you would, need to return that is, what will you do now, Pixie boy?”

Roldy was thoroughly exasperated, clearly this turtle must have a deathwish. “Come on, let me through, or do you want to get buried down here too? There is a Mantis army up above who could end up caving this whole place in,”

The turtle merely chortled at this. “You think they can bury me, I will just eat myself out,” The way the old turtle spoke was agonisingly slow with the huge stress of the situation. “But now that you mention it, I do sense them. I do not see, how that is a reason to be so rude. Just after waking someone up, for that matter.”

Ah, this is impossible. What do I do, I very much doubt I could kill it even if I wanted to, and that really would not feel right, but I am getting buried here.

It seemed like the constant pressure and great weight of movement above had caused a rearrangement that was slowly making itself known, despite the striking poles having moved on from the area there were still rumblings in the earth and chunks of ceiling kept falling.

What can I do? [Ruptured Earth] might work, to work myself upward. But it was a risk with his already low reserves and getting stuck halfway to the surface, all out of magic, did not sound like fun. As he looked around the cavern he spotted the same rocky mites as before, and that gave him an idea.

He went towards a couple and then used some of the last of his magic to change their very nature. He made them more conductive to magic.

The cave turtle was watching him carefully and even perked its eyebrows up at the display of magic.

When he went to present the treats to the giant beast it actually drew in their smell in a long smiling inhale, although it was hard to imagine how the thing could pick out any individual smell in this musty tomb.

“That will do nicely. Nicely indeed. Plan to visit more? You are now welcome to, Pixie boy. With this I will be able to stay, here to sleep a while longer, and not have to come up to the surface to hunt the cheeky little Pixie boys running around on adventures, with his Ant rivals. That, would be a burden, I tell no lie.”

And with that slow end to a long, arduous speech, the great beast finally flapped its flippers and moved out of the way with surprising ease, and Roldy darted past for the 2nd time, back towards the light and his friends.