The first days were manageable.
Zhao established a rudintary camp at the entrance. Fortunately, the tunnel offered protection and a clear view of the corridor for a good stretch, and it was empty. The mountain seed to be full of passages and chambers reflected in the crystal, but exploring them without the king was guaranteed suicide for a Silver rank.
The mana mountains of the rings had high-level trials, beasts and natural traps that required real power to overco. Or that had been the intelligence that Victor brought...
And not just that...
The underground Platinum Sprouts and other species couldn’t enter, but there were high-level species that had entered at so point before the Dragons long ago and adapted differently inside here.
After a few days of tension, Zhao understood that the monsters inside the mountain didn’t seem to move from their place.
The realization was both comforting and unsettling. These weren’t wandering predators but still dangerous territorial guardians, each claiming and defending specific areas within the mountain’s crystalline maze.
Luckily, as long as he didn’t venture into their domains, they seed content to ignore his presence entirely.
His dicine against mana excess worked well initially. A dose every twelve hours kept symptoms under control, allowing him to care for the unconscious king while continuing his own cultivation.
Absorbing the processed crystals for his raptor had been an unexpected burden. There was already excess in his system, and adding more load wasn’t helping.
But he wasn’t willing to ruin his last hope of cultivation to Gold rank if he could avoid it.
With ti and concentration, he could continue his beast’s developnt even under these extre circumstances. Each day of progress made his mana resistance improve marginally.
The irony... Here he was, trapped in what might beco his tomb, yet still dutifully following Ren’s cultivation schedule.
"Fortunately I have more than enough dicine," he murmured while applying another dose, observing how his skin recovered normal color montarily.
But "enough" was a relative term when you didn’t know how long you’d need to survive.
♢♢♢♢
The first month passed without major changes in the king’s condition.
Although he was regenerating and could be perceived as healthier thanks to his powerful beasts...
Zhao began to worry seriously. He had expected Dragarion to recover in days or weeks, but the monarch remained in a deep coma, his breathing regular but his consciousness absent.
"How severe was the internal damage?" Zhao wondered, studying the king’s vital signs with increasingly worried eyes.
The visible wounds were already gone, but Zhao was beginning to suspect that the real damage remained inside. Damage on a scale that would have killed any other tar, accumulated during weeks of battle against the Dragon Tree.
And he wasn’t the only one with internal damage...
His own dicine was working less effectively. The doses that had previously lasted 12 hours now barely provided 8 hours of relief. He was developing so kind of resistance that would make each subsequent dose less effective and his system was hurting more and more each day.
"This is going to be longer than I thought," he admitted, carefully rationing his remaining supplies.
Fortunately, he had found water in an empty chamber to the right of the main tunnel that seed to contain a water elent beast at the bottom, which thankfully had no interest in coming to the surface.
As long as Zhao didn’t take too much ti filling his canteen...
The creature below was massive, he could sense that much through the water’s distortion. Whether it was sleeping, ditating, or simply indifferent to surface dwellers remained a mystery he had no desire to investigate.
♢♢♢♢
Three months after the rescue, Zhao was fighting unconsciousness.
The vitality and endurance of their beasts had allowed them to survive without food thanks to having water.
His dicine reserves had dwindled dangerously, and their effectiveness continued diminishing. What had begun as 12 hours of relief now lasted barely two, and the symptoms between doses beca progressively more severe.
He had reached the point of preferring to endure prolonged periods of mana poisoning to avoid worsening the intoxication. But both problems worsened increasingly.
His skin had acquired a grayish-silver tint. His hands trembled, and he had begun coughing up a liquid that glowed weakly.
His body was slowly crystallizing from within, unable to process the concentrated mana that perated every molecule of the air inside the mountain.
"Co on, Your Majesty," he murmured, giving the king half of the remaining anti-mana dicine and checking his condition for the hundredth ti. "I need you to wake up."
But Dragarion remained motionless, his recovery process apparently requiring more ti than either of them had.
Zhao had begun contemplating desperate options. Exploring the mountain alone, risking the trials without the king’s power, anything that might accelerate their escape before the poisoning killed him.
But each ti he approached the deeper corridors, his survival instinct stopped him. He could sense the presence of things that would make his beasts seem like dostic pets.
Yet Zhao didn’t give up. He couldn’t... not because of lack of dicine, not because of the effects, not even while the mana flowing through his veins felt like fire burning his entrails when continuing his cultivation.
♢♢♢♢
When 99 days passed, Zhao finally brought his Raptor to Bronze 2 rank.
There was no celebration, nor did he feel much stronger...
He collapsed.
He was so tired and weak that the increase barely helped him resist a little more and, ironically, to better feel the pain that plagued his body.
He hadn’t wanted to give up, hadn’t wanted to abandon hope for the future.
The evolution had been completed through sheer stubborn determination, following Ren’s precise schedule even as his body began to shut down. It was a testant to both his discipline and his faith in the boy’s thods that he had continued the cultivation process under such impossible circumstances.
However, he no longer had strength; he was at the end of the line.
But when Zhao had begun to accept that he would die in this crystalline prison, the king finally opened his eyes.
"Zhao?" Dragarion’s voice was rough from disuse, but his mind seed clear. "How long?"
"A little over three months, Your Majesty," Zhao responded from the ground, his own voice barely a whisper. "I’ve been... I’ve been keeping watch..."
The king’s eyes focused on Zhao’s condition, and Dragarion imdiately sat up despite his own weakness.
The transformation in the king was remarkable, the return of the formidable will that had made him legendary.
"You’re poisoned," he declared, processing the situation with the speed of soone accustod to crises. "How much dicine do you have left?"
"Just a sip... enough for you to maybe... three more days," Zhao admitted. "For ... it’s no longer working well."
Dragarion stood with movents that betrayed his still fragile state, but there was determination in his eyes.
"Then we have no ti to waste. The ring is deeper in this mountain, but we’ll have to fight for it."
The statent carried the weight of absolute intent from soone who had never learned to accept defeat.
Dragarion created a small wooden bed-bowl with 4 legs that he loaded Zhao onto and made it move behind him.
The construction was crafted from his Azure Dragon’s wood abilities. Despite his own weakened state, the king’s power remained formidable, capable of casual feats that would have exhausted lesser tars.
As they began moving deeper into the mountain, Zhao realized that his vigil was finally ending, the mission accomplished... He closed his eyes.
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