Chương 7: The Depths

The forest transformed. Ivan only noticed it halfway through the second day. The trees grew thicker, their trunks so wide three men couldn't link arms around them. The bark turned black, veined with silver fungus that pulsed faintly in the dim light. The forest roof overhead was so dense that even at midday, the floor felt like twilight. And the mana. It saturated everything. Ivan could taste it on the back of his tongue. It was metallic and sharp, like licking a copper coin.

His teeth ached from it and his skin prickled. He activated [Mana Sense], and mana flared across his vision. Every tree was a conduit here, channels of energy flowing through roots and branches like veins carrying blood. The silver fungus glowed brighter, feeding on ambient mana and redistributing it through the forest. Even the shadows pulsed with power. This place is a small mana nexus. No wonder high-level monsters live here. Ivan found a hollow tree large enough to sleep in and set about making it defensible.

He carved a [Minor Alarm] circuit into the bark near the entrance, a simple tripwire spell that would trigger if anything crossed the threshold. The geometry was basic, just a sensor node linked to an auditory output, but it would wake him if something tried to eat him in his sleep. Small victories. He yawned and sat with his back against the inner wall, pulling out the last of his dried meat from inventory. Not every kill dropped food, sadly. He had three days of rations left.

After that, he'd be hunting for food as much as levels. Better get efficient.

The Ironhide Boars were not cooperative. Ivan crouched behind a fallen log and watched six of them root through the underbrush. They were massive. Horse-sized, with tusks like curved swords and hide that shimmered faintly in the low light. Natural armor, probably E-rank if he had to guess. He activated [Inspect] on the nearest one. [Ironhide Boar, Level 20] Twenty. I'm Level 9. Well… He needed the experience. And more importantly, he needed to know if his spells could punch through natural defenses.

Ivan raised his hand and sketched [Lightning Bolt] in the air. The circuit formed cleanly, mana flowing through the nodes he'd optimized over the last week. He aimed for the closest boar and released. The bolt cracked forward, slamming into the creature's flank. It squealed and stumbled. Then it… shook its head and kept walking. What. Ivan stared. The hide had absorbed most of the damage, dissipating the electricity across its surface like a lightning rod. The boar was annoyed, not hurt. Fuck. I need penetration.

He pulled up [Architecture of Mana] and studied the spell circuit still lingering in his mind. [Lightning Bolt] was wide, diffuse. It hit hard over an area, but against thick armor, that didn't matter. What if he compressed it? Made it narrow? He recalled a similar spell. Ivan traced the pattern again, but this time he tightened the geometry. Instead of a branching network, he drew a single focused line. All the mana in one sharp, thin point. The spell formed differently. Longer and sleeker now.

[Lightning Spear] created (improvised). He'd copied a couple Lightning Spears in his career too, but those cost a lot of Mana. This one was like a mini version of it. He aimed for the boar's eye and fired. The spear punched clean through. The boar dropped at once, smoke rising from the entry wound. Ivan barely had time to register the kill notification before the other five turned toward him, squealing in fury. Godsamned pack animals. They charged.

Ivan threw himself sideways, sketching [Flame Wall] as fast as his fingers could move. A horizontal line of fire erupted waist-high across the clearing, splitting the pack. Three boars skidded to a halt in front of it, squealing and backing away from the heat. The other two went around. Ivan cursed, formed another [Lightning Spear], and put it through one's skull. But the second closed the gap before he could cast again. Ivan jumped and barely got [Minor Shield] up in time to catch the tusks.

The barrier shattered on impact, and the force threw him backward into a tree. Pain exploded across his back. His vision swam. [HP: 297/590] Shit. Stamina's dropping too. The boar reared back for another charge. Ivan didn't have time for complex spells. So he grabbed a fistful of loose dirt and hurled it at the boar's face, then rolled left as it barreled past. That gave him a precious second to come up with [Ice Spike] already forming in his hand. He drove it into the beast's exposed belly.

The spike punched through hide and viscera, freezing from the inside out. The boar thrashed once and died. The remaining three were still trapped behind the [Flame Wall]. They could surely push through but I guess fire remained a psychological weakness. Ivan picked them off one by one with [Lightning Spear], aiming for eyes and throats. By the time the last one fell, he was gasping for air. He finally checked the notifications.

[You have slain Ironhide Boar - Level 18] [You have slain Ironhide Boar - Level 15] [You have slain Ironhide Boar - Level 20] … [Human (F) has leveled up!] [Human (F) has reached Level 10.] [New Skill Unlocked: Determined Step] Ivan collapsed against the tree, breathing hard. His mana refilled with the level-up, washing away the exhaustion like cold water. As the adrenaline eased, Ivan felt much better. His eyes moved to the final notification. What's this?

When he'd first reached Level 10 and evolved from Human (Null) to Human (G), the System had given him several Skills to choose from. This time it had assigned one without asking. Was that because he was already Human (F)…? He wasn't complaining. He'd expected no new Skills until Level 50. Ivan opened the description. ▣▣▣▣▣ [Determined Step] - Level 1 (Passive) Description: You are a creature made for long walks.

Movement speed and Stamina consumption are unaffected by difficult terrain (mud, snow, thick underbrush). ▣▣▣▣▣ Ivan blinked and then laughed. Persistence hunting. That's what this is. For thousands of years, humans have hunted by running prey into exhaustion. Not faster, just longer. They'd chase an antelope for days across the plains until it collapsed from heat stroke. The prey was stronger, but humans were stubborn. And now he had a skill that made him unkillable by terrain. Good day to be a man.

Over the next week, Ivan moved deeper into the forest, sleeping in one cave after another. At night, he sketched spell circuits by firelight and tested variations. The failures were spectacular. One attempt to modify [Fireball] into a sustained flame jet backfired and set his sleeve on fire. Another try at branching [Lightning Bolt] resulted in a feedback loop that shocked him unconscious for ten minutes. But the successes made it worth it. [Chain Lightning] came together on the fourth night.

He created it by adding branching nodes to the [Lightning Bolt] circuit, offshoots that split the main current into three arcs on contact. It cost 150 Mana and could strike several targets, which made it useful against packs. [Flame Lance] was simpler. Instead of an explosion, he inverted the combustion geometry to create a concentrated jet. It punched through armor better than [Fireball] and cost less mana. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

[Frost Nova] was an accident. He'd been trying to make [Ice Spike] bigger when he accidentally flipped the projection angle inward. The result was a sphere of freezing air that detonated around him. Emergency crowd control. Despite everything, Ivan caught himself enjoying the work.

Ivan finally risked a bath after a week without one. The Venom Serpents proved why he'd kept putting it off. Ivan had stripped down to his underwear and waded into a shallow stream to wash off days of blood and grime. The water was freezing, but it felt good. Clean. Then something bit his calf.

"Oww!" Pain exploded up his leg, hot on his flesh. Ivan jerked backward, stumbling in the water, and saw them. Three serpents, ten feet long, with green scales dripping with venom. [Venom Serpent, Level 26] The closest one had its fangs sunk into his leg. Ivan acted fast. He grabbed it by the neck and ripped it off, hurling it into the water. Blood poured from the puncture wounds. [You have been poisoned.] [Venom Serpent Toxin is draining your health.] [HP: 380/450] [HP: 360/450] The poison burned.

It felt like molten metal spreading through his veins. As it lessened down to 200, Ivan stumbled out of the stream, grabbed a health potion from his inventory, and chugged it. [HP: 450/450] The poison kept ticking. [HP: 430/420] Fuck. The potion can't keep up. He must level up to get this off him. The serpents slithered toward him, tongues flicking. Ivan traced [Flame Lance] with shaking hands and fired point-blank into the nearest one's mouth. The serpent's head exploded in a spray of gore and steam.

[You have slain Venom Serpent - Level 26] [Inscriber of Principles has leveled up!] [Inscriber of Principles has reached Level 10.] [New Skill Unlocked: Glyph Suspension] The other two fled. Ivan collapsed onto the riverbank, gasping. The Level-Up purged the venom, but his hands kept shaking. One mistake. That's all it takes. If he didn't have the health potions and if he wasn't close to a level-up, that could have killed him.

An hour later, he decided to check out the newly unlocked skill as his adrenaline rush calmed. ▣▣▣▣▣ [Glyph Suspension] - Level 1 You can draw a spell circuit in the air and pause the activation. The spell hangs as an invisible mine until you trigger it mentally or an enemy touches it. (Max 3 suspended spells at once). ▣▣▣▣▣ Ivan stared at the description. Why hadn't he been given a choice? He scowled. [Determined Step] had at least come with a possible explanation.

He had already taken Human (F) past Level 10 once, so perhaps the System had simply assigned a Skill tied to a racial milestone he'd crossed before. But [Inscriber of Principles] was completely new. [Arcane Scribe] had offered him three Skills to choose from when it reached Level 10. This time, the System had selected [Glyph Suspension] for him and moved on. Maybe Unique Classes handled Skill milestones differently?

Or maybe [Inscriber of Principles] had been built too specifically from his achievement for the System to offer the usual options…? The System might have chosen something tailored to him instead. Ivan read the description again. Invisible spells he could prepare in advance, after nearly two weeks of checking every place he slept for teeth and claws. It certainly fit what he needed. Was that the System helping him, or was it steering his Class in a direction it had chosen?

He had nearly died naked in a stream an hour ago. Maybe he was just being paranoid. One unexplained Skill was not enough to prove any of those theories. Whatever the reason, he still needed to understand what the Skill did. That's… Isn't that magical landmine? It wasn't too mind-boggling, he'd inscribed spells before in papers that were designed to act after a designated time, but that happened because the paper was unique, not his spells. This time was different. He didn't even need a paper!

He could prep the battlefield before a fight. Draw three [Fireball] circuits, suspend them, and wait for an enemy to walk into the kill zone. Anyone dumb enough to attack him in his sleep would have a very bad time. The Skill changed how he could sleep, hunt, and prepare for every fight.

If he survived long enough, that was. The Forest Wyvern found him on the fourteenth day. Ivan was harvesting serpent fangs when the shadow passed overhead. He looked up just in time to see it dive. Twenty-foot wingspan with scales like iron. Claws that could gut a bear rushed towards his face. [Wyvern, Level 55] Oh, fuck me. Ivan dove sideways as the wyvern's talons raked the ground where he'd been standing. He cast [Minor Shield] on instinct. The wyvern's claw hit it and the barrier shattered like glass. Ivan ran.

"Gwargh!" The wyvern pursued, its wings beating the air into a gale. It opened its mouth and breathed fire. Ivan threw himself behind a tree. The flames washed over the bark, scorching it black. Heat seared his back. [HP: 340/480] I can't outrun it. It's not possible to tank it either, it'll rip me into pieces. I need to out-think it. His life was at risk, he had to be careful! He spotted a massive hollow tree ahead and sprinted for it. The wyvern dove again.

Ivan slid into the hollow just as talons raked the entrance. The wyvern tried to follow. Got stuck. Ivan's hands trembled as he carved a [Lightning Bolt] circuit into the inner wall of the tree. He poured half his mana into it, overcharging the spell until the runes glowed white-hot. Then he triggered it. The tree exploded. The wyvern screamed, thrashing free in a shower of splinters and smoke. It beat its wings once, twice, and fled into the sky. Ivan sat in the wreckage, breathing hard.

Although there was no kill this time, perhaps the survival itself was crazy enough that he gained a massive EXP. [Human (F) has leveled up!] [Human (F) has reached Level 16.] [Inscriber of Principles has leveled up!] [Inscriber of Principles has reached Level 14.] He checked his stats. Agility: G+ → F- Wisdom: E+ → D- Intelligence: E+ → D- That was all good and he was having fun growing. One thing bothered Ivan though. His highest stat, Dexterity remained C+. It hadn't budged.

It made sense, since it was already so highly ranked given he'd been using it the most for 10 years, but he wanted it to grow too. He'd been using his hands constantly, drawing spells, carving runes, but it wasn't growing. I need specialized training. Or maybe just different actions…?

That night, Ivan sat beneath a tree and ate cold rations while watching the sunset through the canopy. For a moment, he thought about Hana. Wondered if she was okay or not. She'd saved his life this time back in Sky Reach, surely to repay the debt from when he'd saved hers years ago. They were even now. That life's gone now. No point worrying. His body ached. Since those Serpents had pissed him off last time, he'd been actively hunting them.

The residual venom burn today was a dull throb in his leg, and his ribs felt bruised from the wyvern's wind-blast. But he was alive. He pulled the folded parchment from his inventory. His sad, hand-drawn excuse for a map. It outlined the continent he stood on. The warped, bloated replica of what used to be Australia – but more than hundred times larger.

The System had twisted the geography during the Integration, copying terrains from different parts of earth, even adding an ever-snowing Himalayas-like region, and drowning the coastlines, but the core remained. Victor Hargraves ruled most of it, the only Primordial-Blessed to hold an entire continent alone. Everywhere else, Champions had been forced to share. There were names attached to those other Hearts too.

Back in the Tutorial briefing days, the Guild used to pass around nicknames like trading cards, it was quite funny. The Citadel of Dawn in New Denver, America, under the Dawnbound Aurora's Champion. Solhaven, buried deep in what used to be the Scandinavian north, made of glass spires and sun-catchers, governed by a council that never appeared in public. Thalassa Prime on the drowned edges of the old Mediterranean, rebuilt atop flooded ruins, its authority split between admirals, scholars, and whoever else.

The Crown of Zenith, perched high in the Andean ranges, so elevated and isolated that half the world swore it was a myth cooked up to scare recruits straight. Asterion on the old Greek coast, ruled by some philosopher‑king type nobody could agree on pronouncing. A half‑dozen other cities across the Atlantic whose banners Ivan had only seen on crumpled Guild notices. He'd once seen an old flyer with a stylized sunburst stamped on it, the motto underneath in three languages: "The Order of Dawn watches."

Then he'd gone back to copying [Lesser Heal] scrolls in a basement and never thought about them again. [Lesser Heal] was not useless, but it was slow, mana-hungry, and bad for poison or deep internal damage. Potions were expensive, but they worked instantly. There were other City Lords in this new Australia too, petty tyrants scrounging for power in New-Sydney or New-Melbourne, but they all bowed to Sky Reach. Victor's gravity was inescapable. If I stay here, I die. Ivan frowned.

The logic was a little paranoid, but was paranoia even a thing in a world where Gods and Demons existed? Maybe Victor was not searching personally, sure, he might really have forgotten Ivan existed. But that did not make staying near Sky Reach safe. If Ivan stayed here and kept growing like this, somebody would eventually notice. A supposedly useless Scribe killing creatures above his Level and casting spells without scrolls would turn into a rumor the first time he went near another settlement.

Victor was not an idiot, and he had patrols, cities, informants, and sponsored lackeys everywhere. The rumor would reach the Spire without Victor ever having to look for him. And there was still the Serpent of Blackglass. It had apparently withdrawn for some kind of isolated training, although Ivan had no idea what a Primordial even trained for. It had been the one who wanted the relic copied. If it came out of seclusion and examined what had happened, it might realize Ivan had done more than destroy the scroll.

If it warned Victor, then Victor would have a reason to start looking. Ivan had no idea if the Serpent could examine something like that after the fact. He was not going to stay nearby and bet his life that it couldn't. Other Champions had Primordials behind them too, but their attention wasn't already fixed on Ivan. Some people swore the priests of the black-sun across the ocean actually enforced laws about slavery and "systemic injustice." Maybe that was propaganda. Maybe they were just Victor with better PR…

Either way, none of them wore the Serpent of Blackglass on their crest. Ivan traced a finger across the parchment, past the serrated coastline, over the vast expanse of the Abyssal Sea that separated this land from the rest of the world. He needed to cross it. He thought of Julianne. Ivan had never had many friends. Juli was the last person he could call family, not by blood but after growing up together. Before Integration, she'd been the friend who dragged him into trouble and expected him to follow.

The last time they spoke, three years ago via a Guild communication crystal, she had begged him to leave Sky Reach. It wasn't the first time she'd asked.

"Come to Asterion already, Ivan," she had said, her voice crackling with static.

"It's different here. The City Lord isn't a tyrant, and the city is beautiful too. The water is clean, the walls are white marble... it's really a good place. Like the old stories." Asterion. Located near the ruins of old-world Greece. She'd described it as a bastion of civilization amidst the chaos, a city of bronze statues and philosopher-kings, ruled by another Primordial-Blessed. One whose name Ivan couldn't properly recall, but whose reputation was one of law, not fear.

A different continent, different city, and a different Champion. Victor's authority ends at the shoreline. It was a good plan. The only plan, even. But the logistics were a nightmare. The Abyssal Sea wasn't normal water; it was a ship graveyard, teeming with titanic sized monsters that ate galleons for breakfast. Juliane had never expected him to cross the world alone as a broke Scribe. She had wanted him to reach Port Vallow, find sponsored passage, or beg his way onto a Circle list.

Crossing it required either a Void-Ship, which was massively expensive and rare, or a Teleportation Circle capable of transcontinental jumps. The nearest circle open to the public was in Sky Reach, of course. After that would be Port Vallow, a neutral trade city on the western coast. Three months of travel on foot, through territories controlled by warlords, monsters, and worst of all, the Iron Chain Consortium. Ivan leaned his head back against the tree, staring up at the darkening sky. One problem at a time.

Transcontinental Teleportation Circles are impossible for someone like me to access. So first, I have to get strong enough to survive the walk to Vallow. Then, I'll see what's up. But… He looked back toward the smoking ruin of the tree where the wyvern had fled. I have to kill that shitty lizard before I leave. Ivan stared at the darkening forest roof. Then he closed his eyes with a yawn as sleep took him quickly. Ivan dreamt of white marble walls and a blue sea that night.