Three days pass and the weather only seems to grow colder and harsher; the snow, despite frequent cleaning, begins to collect against the tents. The skies grow darker and many tis a person can barely see a few steps ahead of them.
Yet we continue as before.
Sophie, Aaron, Dennis, and I continue to help in the workshop and work towards gaining access to more and more advanced parts and information all the while absorbing as much knowledge as we can.
Lily, guarded by the others, is often called to heal as more and more of our smaller expedition units find themselves stumbling upon mimics near our camp and are forced to fight them.
One thing’s for sure, sooner or later the enemy will notice the quantity of mimics dying in this area and send soone stronger to take a look.
I also have to wonder why we’ve been sent here in such a rushed manner why we didn’t spend more ti in the rear to continue fixing the parts there. Especially since Exoria and Praxion still seem to be damaged in much the sa state they were in before we left. Our mission seems to be important, urgent even, That’s the only reason we could have been sent here so unprepared.
One of the smaller groups of rcenaries eventually decides to rebel against the lumorans, taking a few technicians as hostages and threatening to kill them. It’s a dumb decision, but it speaks to their desperation. They just ask for so equipnt so they can leave, nothing else. They know they won’t survive in that cold as they are.
Group 4 watches with the other rcenaries as Serabeth kills them all without leaving so much as a scratch on a single lumoran technician.
The rcenaries’ bodies implode into small balls of flesh or find themselves pressed into the ground under the incredible gravity, squished into once sentient pancakes.
“I’m going to speak with Serabeth,” I tell my group and make for the tent she retreated to after dealing with the situation.
“What? Now?!” I hear Maya gasp in surprise.
I pay it no mind and upon reaching the tent that serves as her “office”, I send a signal.
After a bit of hesitation, the canvas flap opens and I enter to be welcod by a warm orange light and a clean, minimalistic room aside from the two dozen plants littering the shelves in one of the corners. Serabeth is sitting in her chair behind a wooden table and I grab a chair and wait for her nod before taking a seat.
“So, I begin. I’ve been wondering if you know what’s going on or if you’re like us, left in the dark, and my opinion on the matter just keeps changing. One day I think you know sothing and a few hours later I suspect you know nothing.”
“What conclusion did you settle on?”
“You have to know sothing, but even you don’t know everything. They’re probably limiting the number of people who know, just in case a mimic takes over. It’s also possible, you being you, that you’ve been trying not to think about it, that way if you were to fall to a mimic, it wouldn’t be able to get the information out of you.”
“That’s a reasonable conclusion. In that case, if you ca here to ask any of that…”
“I did not. I want to join the scouts for a few runs.”
"No. You’re too valuable right now. Even Quent seems to like you, surprisingly enough. Personally, I find you to be a pain in the ass, but the technicians clearly see sothing in you." 𝘳Ã𝐍ôВÈš
“I can join scouts in my free ti and…”
"No, this conversation is over. Do you think I don’t know about Dennis and Aaron rummaging through our storage? I’m aware they took one of the smaller tents and so supplies. I also know about the connection you’re making to our array and I saw you examining the Signature Isolation Frawork."
She leans closer, her golden eyes dangerous. “All of this was allowed by because of the value your team brings to the table and the fact you know so annoyingly well where the line is, and haven’t stepped over it, Nathaniel.”
"I’m not naïve enough to think you wouldn’t notice—it’d be pretty la if you didn’t. But I also know that heading out with the scouts still stays on the right side of that line."
Serabeth groans, and I feel the pressure on increasing as pale blue mana swirls inside her crystalline features.
“What do you expect to get out of it?” she asks, clearly annoyed.
“Honestly? I’m not sure yet.”
Her eyes harden even more, but I know I’m still within that line.
“Fine. You may go scouting with tomorrow’s group. And Nathaniel…”
I nod, “If I break the rules, I will be killed.”
Leaving group 4 in the care of Biscuit and to a lesser extent Tess, I head for the eting spot. All my pyramids are dissipated, The Restrictive Training Emblem is turned off, as are my Burden Enhancent Inscriptions.
Even though I have been working a lot, my crown is humming with a decent amount of mana, not to ntion my body with its boosted mana pool after my Primary Class upgrade.
And with my daily training, both on my own and with the other mbers of our group, my skills have also been leveling nicely, bit by bit.
Active skills (10/10):
Focus - Lvl 60
Perception - Lvl 55
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Redistribution - Lvl 58
Mana Domain (Pride) - Lvl 57
Mana Crown - Lvl 52
Mana Manipulation - Lvl 62
Ley Line - Lvl 47
Bone Knitting - Lvl 29
Eclipse - Lvl 16
Empyrean Lance - Lvl 11
Part of my mind tunes in to the lumoran archer, our leader for this scouting expedition, as he explains the rules. Rules I already know which he nevertheless proceeds to remind everyone of. Breaking any of them will get you killed, whether by the mimics, the weather, or the Lumorans themselves.
All fun stuff.
The group consists of 10 mbers, Myself included. Five lumorans, two humans, and two thylarin rcenaries. Three of the lumorans are likely approaching level 400, and the rest of the group hovers around levels 300-350.
It’s clear that our group chose one of the more challenging options on this floor, judging by the average levels of everyone around us. If we had gone to the 6th Front instead, we’d likely be encountering people around level 300 or lower.
Following our leader’s instructions, I adjust my clothes and put on the amulet they gave . It uses a mana battery to make the cold more bearable, a function that will last for 12 hours before needing a recharge.
I’m also connected to sothing akin to the link the twins can create, though it’s not quite that expansive. This connection apparently allows for the transmission of simple orders: things like “attack,” “fall back,” and “enemy on the left.”
When we pass through the defensive array, the mood shifts and the atmosphere changes as we trudge through the snow, our superhuman bodies easily moving it aside. But the cold increases and the wind strengthens, making audible conversation nearly impossible.
We walk for only a few seconds, but when I look back, the Exoria Deploynt Camp is nowhere in sight. It’s not just the weather obscuring it—its defensive and camouflage arrays are clearly working together to conceal it as well.
Disconnected from the twins’ link and Sophie’s web and even forced to cut off my Ley Lines, I feel a sense of dread at that sight. My heart thumps and I feel a chill down my back not caused by the weather.
How easy it would be to never find that camp again, passing by ti and again for hours on end, without ever managing to locate it, and neither my eyes nor my skills would help.
Prodded by a signal from the leader, I turn away and keep pace with the group.
For so reason, I’ve decided to try my very best to keep the leader and any other lumoran that knows the way back alive.
The biting wind intensifies the cold, but no one uses their mana; instead, we stick to relying on our equipnt as planned.
We start walking in a huge circle while a few of the other mbers send out so kind of special detection frequencies, which I examine. They seem to be an attempt at locating mimics without a “host” in our vicinity.
A mimic without a host can take the shape of almost anything: a tree, a stone, hell, maybe even a pile of snow. The limiting factor is the mimic’s original size, and the stronger a mimic is, the larger the object it can mimic and the stronger the person it can take over.
So rcenaries in the camp like to tell rumors about Champion-grade mimics being able to spoof entire buildings, such that they simply let people walk inside before devouring them.
Without a host, a mimic’s powers are limited, as is its intelligence. They have dangerous poison, an extrely durable body, and are great at hiding, not to ntion their incredibly sharp teeth that tend to possess incredible properties the older or stronger a mimic is.
Once a mimic takes over soone, that’s it, it can’t return to its original form. That’s why they’re so selective, especially when it cos to stronger mimics.
Sotis a powerful mimic can end up taking over a low-level lumoran, thereby having its power limited. In other cases, a weak mimic can luck out and take over a half-dead Champion, and wind up unable to fully utilize the body’s powers.
Once the mimic takes over, it has access to most of the host’s mories all the while realizing that it is, in fact, a mimic and acting to advance the mimic “cause”, or whatever it is. These “rules” change a lot when it cos to powerful mimics and the powerful beings they take over, with any number of exceptions and dozens of little things serving to influence the final result.
The current consensus is that once a mimic takes over, the host is effectively dead, leaving behind only mories that the mimic uses to impersonate them. However, there’s a rumor that there’s a unit of lumorans that has a theory about reversing the process. So call it false hope, while others argue that even if it did succeed, the 'person they've brought back would just be a mimic with the host's mories, unaware of its true nature as a mimic.
Either way, it’s possible to resist attempts by a weaker mimic to take over. As for the stronger ones, it’s best to avoid them whenever possible or focus on taking them out from a distance.
So even though it’s not strictly necessary and I’m told I can rely on our scouts, every ti we pass by a boulder or a tree covered in snow, I form a dagger and give it a stab.
I know there probably should be lines of text with a level and monster na, but at this point I expect the system to actively hide them until we truly locate them. Even though it goes “against the rules,” the system I know, hate, and love doesn’t seem to mind twisting these rules to keep the attendees from abusing them, all for the sake of the “intended experience.” That’s what I think happened to that rcenary when his class and level didn’t change despite having been taken over by a mimic.
It makes think of another way the system twists the tutorial, about sothing my handler once told —not to abuse Beyond Stay tokens to escape danger. Apparently, the more I do so, the angrier the system becos, twisting things when I return to punish for it.
I strongly suspect that when I abused it in the mana desert and ca back, buried in the white sand and then those damned whales, that was one of these things. So I have to wonder what would happen if I were to do it again. Even so, I know I would still do it if I really needed to.
While I think about that, our scouting expedition continues, and my expectations of danger and battling monsters begin to fade after hours upon hours of uneventful scouting. The romanticized life of constant danger, hunting monsters, and evading powerful foes quickly fades into a monotonous trek through the snow in wide circles, stabbing trees and stones along the way.
It’s the sa for the entire 12 hours, not a single mimic, not a single enemy presence in the area, much to the relief of so of the scouts.
We return and I intently observe the way the leader locates the camp, rembering the movent of mana around him, its frequency, and the way it affects the ambient mana around us. I even observe the movent of his body and the vibrations emanating from him.
All this information is compacted,and kept fresh by one of the 6 parts of my mind that imdiately starts turning it over ti and ti again, [Focus] allowing to push through that boring task and continue my efforts. I also examine the way the Signature Separation Frawork examines my body.
For a mont there I wonder what would happen if it just broke and didn’t light up. Thankfully it does, and I live another day, as the lumorans calm down around .
There are additional checks to get through before I return to our tent though. And I imdiately restart my training and allow my body to radiate so heat causing my muscles to feel like they could lt—a feeling almost like jumping into a hot bath on a really cold day.
With Biscuit on my lap, I open the Beyond Community just to see what I’ve missed.
Hadwin -little pup, I will be joining you on the 7th floor in one month.
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