I breathed in deeply, taking stock of my situation. I hadn’t much time. Even if these newcomers, who had gotten their hands on the key, supposedly, took their time exploring this little village as I had, there was no assurance they wouldn’t happen across me by accident. Furthermore, I couldn’t estimate their tier from this distance, which made the threat they represented unknowable.

That left me with two options. Either A: I booked it out of here as fast as possible and snuck back around to the exit or B: I explored the central spire first, before leaving. Sneaking up on these intruders was also possible, but a risk I didn’t need to take. Besides, even if I took them out, more would come now that the gate was open. This had turned into a race and I couldn’t help but blame myself for taking so much time initially, thinking I had plenty of time.

After a moment of consideration, I decided to raid the central spire after all. Treasure called. With my mind made up, I rushed over to the stone chest I had left behind moments earlier. I kicked the stone tablet that functioned as a lid off and stored all of the gems inside my spatial pouch. They hummed with mana as I picked them up, but didn’t react otherwise. My pouch was starting to fill up though, so I took some old-looking nutrition pills and placed them where the crystals had been before. Hopefully, these could buy me some time.

Now, I needed an exit. The front gate of the warehouse was visible from afar, there was no way to use it without being spotted. I took a quick scan of the rest of the warehouse, but found no other way out.

Making a quick decision, I went over to the back wall, drew my sword, and cut out a rectangle hole, before gently dropping the stone wall to the floor. I stuck my head outside, finding myself in a deserted alley. Above the roof of a nearby house, I could see the central spire rise to the roof of the cavern. It took a few more zigzagging alleyways before I found myself staring at its large entrance, a stone gate that had been carved into the stalagmite, but it was closed. I guessed that the gate would still be slightly visible from the cobblestone path at the side of the cavern wall, too. Instead, I decided on taking another way in. I had noticed the village’s buildings, including the stalagmite, to be dotted with small windows. They started appearing on the spire at about thirty meters up and from this distance, I couldn’t reach them. If I climbed up from the back, however… Yes, that could work.

I stuck to what little shadow the small nearby houses provided to circle around to the back of the spire, where the other intruders couldn’t see me, and attempted to climb to the nearest window. I wasn’t close enough to visualise where I was trying to apparate to, so I wanted to get a better view. Strangely, though, the stone spire had no holds for me to climb with, and my fingers refused to sink into the stone itself, no matter how much strength I used. Meanwhile, the other stone buildings crumbled when I so much as clenched my hand while pressing it onto their stone walls.

Clearly, this wasn’t just a spire that had been dug into. It had been reinforced somehow. Thankfully, I had options. Clenching the muscles in my legs, I crouched slightly, before catapulting myself into the air, giving me a clear view of the spire’s inside. Through the small window, I could see a winding staircase leading up, with green crystals carved into the wall to keep the place illuminated. I stopped hesitating and decided to apparate inside, my form shifting into one of smoke. My vision switched as my body reappeared inside of the spire, looking out of the window this time. I had just enough time to notice a green glow appear around the window, but not enough to dodge. Thankfully, the unexpected green bolt passed through my body, as the intangibility hadn’t worn off yet. Instead, it harmlessly hit a piece of the wall behind me.

I heaved a sigh of relief and thanked the system for my luck, while cursing myself for not expecting such strong defences a second time. Even worse, I didn’t have the time to carefully tread this time, I had to rush before they got here.

No follow-up attacks activated after the initial curse, so I advanced, determined to see this through to the end. The spiral staircase I had found myself on continued scaling upward, winding around its own axis all the while. It took a while before I reached the top, even while sprinting as fast as my stats allowed me to, but when I did, I concluded that this risk had been worth it.

Near the top of the spire, the staircase ended, revealing a circular chamber carved within the spire. Green crystal ran across its walls, domed roof and floor, acting and looking like veins. The thin crystal trails spread and split at various points, as if to replicate the branches of a tree or, more accurately, veins of blood. They pulsed rhythmically, making the similarity even more striking.

At the centre of the ‘veins’ and the room, the origin of the pulse hovered lazily up and down. A sickly green orb that had been carved roughly. It only slightly resembled the smaller crystals I had stolen from the warehouse, with its rough edges and strangely angled and asymmetric surfaces. What it lacked in looks, however, it made up for with power. Only now that I stood in the room with it, was my mana sense picking up its signature. That being said, the mana that roiled off of the course crystal ball made my hair stand on end. The feeling was comparable to when I first lay eyes on that holy grail thing the church had ordered me to fetch from the between lands, with one distinction. This feeling… This… power! It had a dark-affinity! That meant that I could use it, this time!

The sight brought up a question I hadn’t yet considered. What was the difference between these crystals that hummed with mana, and the bigger ones that just stored it? Mana crystal’s the size of houses hung from the cavern’s ceiling, yet the feeling they gave me was empty, dead, even.

I shook my head, unable to even guess what the difference was. What I could tell right now, though, was that this crystal in particular was powerful. It was different from the other ones…

A strange lull settled on my mind, making it hard to think straight. All I knew was that I needed this thing, that it would make me stronger. Perhaps it was greed, but without thinking, I reached for the crystal, but was repelled by a green barrier that shimmered into existence, violently throwing me against the wall with a single green flash.

I recoiled and coughed as I slumped to the floor, having a rough time recovering from the blow.

I clenched my teeth and stood back up, reluctant to give up yet. This crystal… surely there was some way to release it from this… formation-thing. It acted as a power source for various things around the village, but they wouldn’t make it impossible to transport.

I took a step back to recentre my mind and take a look at the situation. The rest of the room was empty apart from the hovering artifact in the centre and the crystals that pulsed like veins across the floor. Rhythmically, they would alternate between pushing a green glint out, before pulling it back in.

I supposed that was pretty similar to a creature breathing. To begin, I tried to apparate past the barrier, but had no luck, because I was thrown back a second time before I even tried. It was as if it sensed what I was about to attempt before I even did it. The barrier even followed up with a cursed bolt, which soared at me. I blocked with my hand, before cutting it off in one stroke, taking a minute to let it regrow before continuing. I had to look at the situation from another angle.

Suddenly, a random thought struck my mind. What if I used overloaded mana to destabilize that barrier that separated me and the crystal?

Deciding to experiment as quickly as possible to waste no time, I created some rough clouds of unformed overloaded mana by making my core overflow. Then, I pushed the clouds against the barrier, but had no luck. The mana wasn’t penetrating. Deciding to take a more violent approach, I created some onyx chains and created sharp pointed blades at their ends, before attacking the barrier from half a dozen angles at once, careful not to attack it from the direction where I was standing. That was the smart move, because the barrier wasn’t going to warn me twice and started countering my chains with attacks of its own. Green lasers erupted out of the barrier, decimating each of my chains and tearing them to shreds.

Thankfully, the curse couldn’t attach itself to my mana, so that was something. That didn’t change the fact that I was back to square one, though.

Then, I noticed something strange. The veins below my feet were still pulsing, but the crystal trails closest to me had darkened a little. They were now a deeper green than the rest of the web…

I created some more overloaded mana and hovered the formless cloud over the crystals, laying it on top of them like a blanket. Sure enough, when the crystals pulsed again and pulled some glints of light in, they were turning darker.

I repeated the process a few more times and watched the veins noticeably change color. More and more of my mana made its way into the barrier and, presumably, inside the crystal orb I was trying to get my hands on. This change was slow, though. At this rate, it would take at least ten minutes before the veins were entirely black and I wasn’t sure if I had that much time… but I had to try.

I sat down in the lotus position on top of the crystals and started producing as much mana as I could, watching my skin tear near my veins and black tufts of smoke emanate from the wounds, slowly forming clouds of mana. I then slowly coaxed the mana into the crystal veins from every angle, determined to make this crystal mine.

Coordinating all of this was taking all of my concentration, though. To get it over with more quickly, I closed my eyes and focused on mentally repeating the same movements.

After about ten minutes of this routine, I opened my eyes, only to find a pitch-black crystal hovering in the space where, previously, a green one had been. Success!

Now all I had to do was…

My thought was interrupted by a sudden lurch that threw me back against the wall. This time, however, I hung in place, my feet not touching the ground. A stern-looking man stepped out of the corner of my eye. One hand behind his arched back, another directed at me in a grasping motion. His grey hair lay parted sideways on his head, his clean-shaven chin showing a sharp jaw, which twisted into a small sneer.

I felt a non-existent hand around my throat.

“I suppose I should thank you for your work. It seems that whatever you did to the core released it from its formation, therefore no longer fuelling its own defences. Unfortunately, my thanks will remain strictly verbal and mostly insincere, as I don’t see the need to let you live…” he drawled monotonously, as if he was a teacher reprimanding a student.