Chương 65: Book 2 Chapter One: Awake

ONE Roan woke with a gasp, sitting upright in a jerk as the thin sheet that had been covering his torso fell into a pool around his waist. Light streamed into his eyes, bright spears that caused him to blink as he wiped away at tears, trying to remember what the hell had just happened.

"Taoya was fighting that thing and then…" Roan mumbled as disjointed pieces of what happened slowly coalesced. He reached over and touched his face where he remembered the searing pain and felt the ropy texture of a scar under his finger. He looked down across his chest, further down his abdomen, and then his hip which was lost under the beige sheet. A red line of raised skin ran straight as an arrow down his body. The skin around it was inflamed, burning hot to the touch, sore beneath his probing fingers.

His mind finished rebooting and he remembered what had happened.

"Stood in front of a mob stronger than myself and got filleted like a fish," Roan groused. He tossed his feet to the side of the bed with only a hint of a wince and stood gingerly up. Whoever had continued to heal him had left him with the privacy of his underwear, though with how clean he was he knew someone had washed him.

"Anyone there?" Roan asked, raising his voice and realizing how dry his throat was. The room he was in was small and cozy but he didn't recognize it as anywhere in the village he'd seen so far. When the only door opened to reveal Hana, the beast-kin mayor; he flushed as the older female's eyes darted up and down him.

"Still alive I see. I have your gear over here," she stepped back from the door and he could see into the mayor's office which he'd already visited once. His ruined clothes were folded in a pile of soiled laundry, while his warhammer, both shaman staffs, canteen, rings, and backpack were piled on her desk.

"Why am I in here?" Roan asked as he forced away his embarrassment and walked to his canteen, prying it open and drinking deeply from it. Hana had glided out of his way and was across from him by the door in a reversal of their positions not even a day ago.

"A mutation I wanted to study. I paid your fellows to observe you," Hana said. She leaned in and her human nose twitched like a rabbit's.

"The bloodline thing?" Roan asked, he remembered that well enough. The floating words were some of the last he remembered. Without looking at his many notifications he bought a fresh set of inferior-grade robes and drew them over his bare limbs. He'd never been one to be shy, but her gaze was more piercing than what he was used to and the long scar down his body made him uncomfortable.

"Yes. Normally people achieve bloodlines through powerful rituals and then pass it on the old fashioned way. Progenitor to progeny," Hana said.

"Not exactly what happened to me," Roan said as he gingerly finished rearranging the clothes and started to buckle on his gear after checking his backpack. Someone had been kind enough to toss all six of the ogre necklaces into his bag, even if they were a little scorched. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

"It had all the earmarks of a ritual. A poor one, but it was there. Sacrifice, a power source, and direction. It's just that your bloodline isn't in our data bases, which confused us," Hana said as she folded her arms across her chest. One of her ears twitched as she stared him down like he had the answers for her.

"Don't look at me. I was a little out of it," Roan said honestly. He felt raw and bare at the moment, his normal shields he'd surrounded himself gone.

"The best I can come up with is you depleted the natural mana in your body, which is dumb and very dangerous, but leaves your body unguarded. Similar to say, an auto-immune disease, you were defenseless. Then you used the raw vitality of the Life Fungus while the filtering aspect of a common-grade amulet and combined it with a basic body tempering manual to somehow build a purification bloodline.

Your friend Moira, I don't know what part she played in it, holding those specks of corruption out so your nascent bloodline could focus on them. Honestly I'll spend a decade or more studying what happened last night," Hana said with a shrug.

"A decade? How old are you?" Roan asked, not feeling like being polite.

"Still young, hardly past the century mark. I was a juvenile when we landed on your planet," Hana said, not seeming to be annoyed at him.

"Do you know what this bloodline does?" Roan asked as he grabbed her chair and lowered himself into it. He was feeling better by the moment, but there was still a weakness in his limbs that scared him. After the past few days of feeling like a demi-god, the sudden brush with mortality was grounding.

"Purifies. That's about all I know. The Tower is watching it though and has much better processing power than I do. There will be rewards that can help you develop your bloodline somewhere in this place," Hana said, waving her hands around them.

"How big is the tower?" Roan asked. If he was going to have a tower born feeling chatty he might as well get answers from some of his questions.

"As I'm sure you've extrapolated, the Tower Master is skilled at spatial and time manipulation. There are worlds worth of labs, smithies, gardens, and everything else needed to ensure that a tower climb is successful. Of all the towers that landed ours is the oldest and largest, by a fair margin," Hana said and there was definitely a hint of pride in her voice.

"That's not what we climb though, is it? That's all what you guys go through and seed through the floors for us to discover?" Roan asked.

"Hmmmm?" Hana hummed, shaking her hand back and forth before explaining.

"The Tower is alive in a way. We tower born are servants and aides for the Tower Master, but we are well compensated for it. There are areas even the most privileged servant can not enter and rewards we can't dream of possessing. Rewards that a skilled and powerful climber could claim," Hana said.

"Sounds like prison." The words hung between the two of them. Hana blinked slowly and nodded twice.

"It could be viewed that way. There is plenty to explore and see in our tower though. Even after a hundred of your years I have not experienced everything our tower has to offer. There are multiple floors I've never set foot in," Hana said. She smiled but there was something wrong with it, a sadness to her as she leaned back against the door and huffed once.

"You're awake and mostly healed. Collect your rewards and earn what you can before darkness comes. Now that you know how the level works I'm sure you will use the daylight to the best of your abilities." She jerked her finger at the door and Roan took her message, rising to his feet and grabbing his weapons as he headed out the door. Even before it clicked shut behind him he was accessing his notifications and seeing what he'd managed to earn with his blood and sweat.