The control chamber was surrounded by a barrier that caught Julius’s attention because it only kept the mana crystals out but let everything else pass through.
Ren’s beast was in the middle of the chamber, atop an enormous and perfectly circular golden crystal that served as a pedestal. And its mouth was completely full of sothing oval, almost spherical, that seed to be almost the sa size as itself.
"What does it have in its mouth?" Luna asked, fascinated by the image of the small fungus struggling to swallow sothing so large.
Surrounding the golden crystal were just over a hundred pedestals illuminated by mana, with potions on each of them, forming a perfect circle around the great transparent barrier that protected the center.
Most interesting was a column that seed to be the one distributing the main mana ray to all systems. It had seven crystals of different colors embedded in its surface, each pulsing with a unique rhythm.
"The colors of the 7 basic elents," Dragarion imdiately identified.
When the fungus finally finished swallowing the thing it had in its mouth, it began to glow with a light they had never seen before.
Ren imdiately relaxed in the king’s arms, the pain he had been experiencing visibly fading from his face.
"He looks better," Luna observed with relief.
"Much better," Liora agreed.
Then, to everyone’s surprise, Ren also began to glow.
It wasn’t the blue light of concentrated mana or the golden light of the fungi they had seen. It was sothing completely different, a green-blue luminosity that seed to emanate from within and that made the air around him feel cleaner, purer.
The transformation was beautiful. The light didn’t just illuminate; it seed to actively purify, creating a sphere of clarity around Ren that made breathing easier and thoughts sharper.
"What’s happening?" Julius asked, observing how Ren’s light gradually intensified.
Dragarion studied the phenonon with eyes that had seen wonders and horrors alike, but even he seed puzzled by what he was witnessing.
"Sothing I hadn’t seen before," he admitted. "But sothing tells it’s sothing good..."
The small fungus, now glowing with satisfaction, seed to have found exactly what it had co looking for.
♢♢♢♢
The intense pain faded from Ren like a nightmare that was finally ending.
His breathing normalized, the knot in his chest loosened, and for the first ti in what felt like an eternity he could clearly feel his fungus’s voice resonating in his mind.
"Prepare to rise to Silver rank 1 in a special way," ’Mooshito’ whispered to him, its voice clearer and more powerful than ever before.
What followed was an expansion of consciousness that defied everything Ren had experienced previously.
His perception extended like waves in a pond, first reaching the chamber’s limits, then beyond. The platinum beasts, which had previously been incomprehensible enigmas, now revealed themselves like open books. He could not only understand their patterns and behaviors, he could perceive their motivations, their deepest instincts, the currents of power that directed them.
But that was just the beginning.
The chamber they were in unfolded before his expanded consciousness like a three-dinsional map.
The intricate, more powerful roots he now possessed allowed him to perceive every corner of this mana structure, every interconnected system, every function that had remained hidden to less adapted eyes.
The seven-ring door didn’t just guard another chamber; it led to a depth of two thousand ters, where secrets with more powerful traces lay.
The transforming windows in the walls weren’t simple decorations. They transford liquid mana into crystals and runes of different types, from low levels to high platinum and diamond formations that were believed impossible to obtain in human domains.
The hundred double potions surrounding the central golden crystal were rechargeable every ten years, much faster than the natural veins of the three upper rings. A production that could transform entire generations of golden tars.
The ten diamond-rank healing elixirs glowed with power that could bring soone back from the very edge of death.
Small artifacts of varied but simple functions surrounded a golden crystal.
The golden crystal itself was a kind of connection to the mana of the entire tower, allowing perception of things in the world’s flow in a way similar to his beast’s roots, but much less complex.
’Simpler and not as interesting for soone who already has their own ’sight’,’ Ren thought, analyzing the artifact’s function.
Finally, the column that received the main mana contained seven Diamond Rank cores. Seven ’crystallized’ dragons that absorbed and transford energy in an extensive area...
This was the processing site that prevented the city from being covered by raw mana.
’The reason humans can live in the city without being rapidly poisoned,’ Ren realized with amazent.
The entire system was a masterpiece of magical engineering that had been functioning for hundreds of years... perhaps millennia, invisible but essential for the survival of the civilization above.
But the revelation of his new roots would have been only informative if Ren hadn’t also felt much better about his entire environnt.
His perception extended beyond the chamber, beyond the castle, encompassing not only Yano’s territory but also the abyssal space underground and the territory occupied by the neighboring kingdom.
He could perceive Yano, its castle and its part of this sa tower’s bifurcation with crystalline clarity. But even more disturbing, he could sense where Yino had connected strange corrupt forces to their own access to the main vein.
In the first chamber under the castle... Where they fed it.
"Now I understand why the vein under our school supposedly opened ahead of ti," Ren murmured, the puzzle pieces fitting together.
The corruption’s roots were absorbing all sources within their reach from their first access to the main root. Yino’s leaders had done sothing quite careless in their hunger for power.
’Or were they looking for sothing more?’
That’s why they had gained so much power lately, so quickly...
The corruption was absorbing practically all the liquid mana from the vein on that side before it could be processed into crystals, destabilizing the entire system.
It wasn’t just theft of resources... it was systematic sabotage of the fundantal systems that kept human civilization functioning.
’And if they open their door with their own ring,’ Ren continued, his mind filling with growing urgency, ’the corruption could absorb a much larger amount and have access to a more complex crystal in their own second chamber.’
The small fungus whispered to him then, its voice loaded with ancient knowledge and imdiate concern:
"I have consud the jade seed, but they can obtain the dragon blood obsidian seed."
Ren felt a chill.
"If the corruption obtains that for its roots," Mooshito continued, "the Kegare Smoke will blind your humble beast’s roots where they touch. And our enemy beast will beco powerful at diamond level."
The threat was real. They had no ti to consolidate their new understanding, no ti to plan elaborate strategies.
’We have to destroy it now, before they open their door,’ the fungus concluded, its urgency infecting Ren.
♢♢♢♢
Ren straightened out of Dragarion’s arms, his new expanded consciousness processing information at speeds that would have been impossible minutes before.
"Your Majesty," he said, his voice loaded with a power it hadn’t had before, "we need to act imdiately."
His eyes turned toward where he knew the bifurcation connecting to Yino was, where corrupt forces fed on the main mana flow.
"The corruption is draining the system, and if they get access to the deeper levels..."
He didn’t need to finish the sentence. The magnitude of the potential catastrophe was evident to everyone present.
The ti for discoveries had ended. The ti for action had arrived, and Ren finally had the power and knowledge to lead the charge against a threat that could consu not just kingdoms, but the fundantal balance of the world itself.
♢♢♢♢
Coleoran observed Kassian and Ravenspire enter his audience chamber with the satisfaction of a commander seeing key pieces return to the board.
"Promising reports," he murmured, his fingers drumming on his throne’s armrest while processing the information he had been receiving during the last hours.
Soon Hagen and Bloodwyn’s group would return as well, completing the circle of operations he had set in motion days ago. Intelligence reports painted a mixed picture, but not without hope.
"I know the bridge has been destroyed," he declared, addressing the newcors. "Our soldiers’ advance cannot continue by that route."
It was a significant tactical loss, but Coleoran had learned during decades of conflict that wars were rarely won with a single strategy.
"But there is good news," he continued, a genuine smile crossing his face. "We have managed to destroy the golden light’s cradle."
The victory was real and substantial. While they had lost one avenue of advance, they had struck a blow against forces that had long opposed their expansion.
The war was far from over, but the tide was beginning to turn in ways that promised either ultimate victory or catastrophic escalation. Yet either outco was preferable to the stalemate that had defined the conflict for too long.
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