Cultivation a fantasy li.., p.37
Cultivation: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Battle Mage Farmer Book 3), page 37
“What… what have you done?”
“What I should have done a long time ago. I’m almost ashamed it took me this long to realize it,” John’s voice said, growing weaker with every second.
Feeling his spirit continuing to fade away, Kythov could sense his connection to John’s body evaporating. An intense premonition swept over the Necromancer, and he suddenly realized he was dying. He had been fleeing from death ever since he’d appeared in this world, but this time he knew there was nothing he could do. No matter how he struggled, he felt some sort of power that superseded even the mana of the world binding him, a law that couldn’t be denied. In desperation he tried to escape from John’s body, but it was clear that whatever John had done, it had trapped him.
“You would destroy yourself to save her? You’ll die too!”
“No,” John’s quiet voice was calm. “But you will.”
“Haha! I’ve already bound myself to your spirit!” Kythov said, his voice vicious. “Anything that happens to me will happen to you! You might think you’re clever, but by doing this you have ensured your death!”
“But you forgot the most important thing,” John’s voice said, growing stronger as it drifted closer.
As the blinding light cleared, Kythov, whose body had grown so faint it was little more than a shimmer in the air, saw an unbelievable sight. The sea of crimson flames was gone, and in its place were the gently rolling hills of the valley. In the instant his gaze swept over it, Kythov could see green forests and a river that looked like a silver belt winding its way into the distance. Above it all stood John, his body made entirely of raging blue flames. He towered over the platform, larger than it was possible to be. Despite the strength with which they burned, the blue flames gave off no heat as John leaned forward to speak.
“I am eternal.”
CHAPTER 47
The swirling mana quieted down, seeping into Ellie’s body and driving out the corrupted blood that carried Kythov’s curse. Vitality surged through her, restoring her arms and legs to a healthy state. As her sunken cheeks expanded, she regained her senses just in time to see John’s body fade away completely. Her heart seized in her chest and a sense of desperation rose up in her as she suddenly sat up, reaching for John. When her fingers grasped nothing but air, tears began to well up in her eyes, causing her vision to blur.
Yet no sooner had the first of her tears fallen than she saw a hand catch it. The shock made her look up and she saw John’s face, blurry from her tears. Smiling down at her, John offered her a hand and helped her up. Pulling her into a hug, he held her gently, his body continuing to solidify until it returned to its normal, corporeal state. Seeing the others running over, John dropped a kiss on Ellie’s forehead and then lifted his head to smile at Katrine and the others.
“Well, that didn’t go the way I planned.”
Her mouth dropping open as she stared at John, Katrine pointed a shaking finger at him.
“What? Do I have something on my face?” John asked, a sense of lightness shrouding him, as if he had let go of an incredible burden.
“Um, sir,” Thomas said carefully, his eyes worried. “Your eyes. They… they’re burning.”
Frowning slightly, John looked down at Ellie who fished in one of her pouches, pulling out a small mirror she used for rituals. Holding it up for him, John saw that his eyes burned with a brilliant blue flame, appearing almost like the sky-blue flames of the Ecclesia’s blue-eyed ascension.
“Ah, sorry,” John said, blinking.
As his eyes reopened they had returned to their normal brown, but that didn’t stop the worried looks from his friends. Realizing what they were worried about, John just smiled and waved his hand.
“Don’t worry. My flames are different. I’m not burning my life force.”
“And Kythov?” Haver asked, his eyes narrowing as he stared at John.
“Dead. He selflessly sacrificed himself for Ellie.”
“I’m sorry, but maybe someone could explain to me what’s going on,” Katrine said, crossing her arms and staring at John grumpily. “After all, someone left me all the way at the back, fighting the most annoying creature this world has ever seen.”
“Sure, but before that, congratulations on advancing to become a sage,” John replied, his eyes drifting to the blue windows that hovered in his view.
[Failed Quest - Prevent the Apocalypse: Ruined by war, this world is teetering on the brink of annihilation. Food and other resources are growing more scarce and the echoes of destruction threaten to rip apart even the tightest community. As one of the last Mages in the world, your power has grown to a point that the world can no longer bear. The universal mana pool has begun to overflow, inadvertently causing the world to go through an upgrade cycle. Once the mana purity of the universal pool grows to a critical level, the world will begin its upgrade process and all life on the world will be destroyed. The apocalypse has begun.]
[Time until mana purity reaches critical levels: 3:54:31]
“We don’t have time for that, John,” Katrine spat, storming over. “We have less than four hours until the mana levels kill all of us. We need a solution, and we need it now!”
“I am aware, Katrine. And I’m working on it,” John replied.
Watching the seconds tick down on the timer, John sighed and shook his head. He had tried so hard to keep this from happening, but ultimately he’d failed. Even now, he could feel the mana he used mixing with the mana of the universal mana pool, increasing its density bit by bit. Though he still didn’t understand exactly what was going on, he knew that every breath he took purified the mana he breathed in, and since he was no longer trying to keep all of it in his body, the purity of the universal mana pool was ticking up with every second that passed.
Reaching out with his hand, he grabbed a bit of mana from the dimensional door, examining the structure that formed it. He had no idea why, but he felt as if the mana of the dimensional door held the key to solving the situation they were in. It was only a hunch, but John had survived on instinct his whole life and he wasn’t about to throw it away now.
Time seemed to have shifted for him as the endless mana his body contained poured into his mind, causing Mental Model to run thousands of thoughts and simulations to their logical conclusions. With a whirring sound, his sense of time sped up until it matched the others and they began to move again. Staring down at the bits of mana he held in his hand, John’s eyes narrowed, his brain working on deciphering them. Waiting for a moment, Katrine shared a confused glance with Ellie and then reached out to poke John, shaking him out of his daze.
“At the very least, can you explain what happened?”
“Oh, right. Well, after you held back Jepsef, heroically I might add, we continued on and discovered the Master of the Skull.”
“Who I fought to a standstill,” Haver said, his voice edged with pride, almost as if he was still marveling that he’d been able to go toe to toe with a legendary class holder.
“That’s right, Haver took care of him, and we pressed on. We didn’t find anyone in the third yard, but we did come upon a bit of a maze. After getting through that, we found Kythov here, doing something with the door. Turns out the whole thing was an elaborate setup to get me here so he could steal my body.”
“Uh, really? That seems like a way lamer goal than taking over the world. Besides, I thought his goal was making himself undying. Like a lich or something,” Katrine said.
“You’re not wrong. It is pretty lame. But he was actually aiming to become undying, just by using my body. He thought that by gaining my body, which he assumed was at the sage level, and reinforcing his soul with the mana from the first Mage’s door, he would be able to cobble together immortality. However, he made a few errors. First, the mana that makes up the dimension door can’t be mixed with other mana. It’s locked up into itself. He was still able to use it to reinforce himself, just not in the way he thought. And second, both my body and mind have passed the sage level.”
“So you lured him into your body and then killed him? But what was that thing you did? Where you started to disappear?” Ellie asked, her cheeks still streaked by her tears.
“Remember, the more you know, the easier it is to win. Well, I didn’t understand anything about Kythov. Letting him invade my mind was a risk, but it was the only way to really get a handle on what he was capable of. Plus, it gave me time to think. A lot of time. I probably spent a year or more thinking about everything between the time he invaded my body and when I stood up. That whole time, I was pumping all my mana into Mental Model, looking for a solution. It just so happens that I found one. Incidentally, I had no idea you could improve skills in your mind. From there it was simple. I reconstructed an ability that Haver told me about, called Spiritual Sacrifice, into a spell and cast it when I touched Ellie. It’s pretty complicated, but at its core it sacrifices the soul of the caster for an equivalent amount of healing on the target. Since Kythov had bound his spirit to mine in order to take over my body, he was subject to the spell as well, and kindly sacrificed himself on Ellie’s behalf.”
“Then how did you survive?” Katrine asked, her eyes staring suspiciously at John.
“Slow down, I was about to come to that part,” John said, smiling at her. “Remember how I said my body and mind have surpassed the sage level? My soul has been at that level for some time. It can’t be sacrificed. The spell burned off Kythov’s soul, along with all the other souls I’ve been carrying, and left me as I am. Eternal.”
Silence followed John’s words as everyone tried to process the implications of what he’d said. While they were thinking about it, John turned to Ellie’s shadow and bowed his head.
“Thank you for your help, both in leading us here and in protecting Ellie’s life. I owe you and your people deeply for this. You have my word that, should you ever need my help, I will exert my utmost effort.”
Appearing from behind Ellie, the tiny elf-like spectre smiled and bowed her head.
“Your words honor us. I shall relay what you say to Raymenas and the council of priests.”
Turning away, John looked at the dimensional door, examining the mana that surrounded it. Mental Model had reached one hundred points during his long walk across the battlefield in his mind, and he found that it had opened up an entirely new world to him. Problems that had been completely obtuse now seemed exceptionally clear and straightforward, spells that he had struggled to memorize now appeared in his mind’s eye with a thought. In the brief moments when he had examined the slivers of mana removed from Jepsef’s spine, he had learned more about the woven helix structure than he thought possible.
Lifting his hand, he pulled a bit of mana toward him, his fingers flickering as he tried to unravel it, yet no matter how he tugged and stretched, he could only separate it for a moment before it sprang back into shape. Frustrated, John tried to use his own mana on it, injecting his blue flames into the strand.
[Warning! Your actions have shortened the time remaining before the destruction of the world! Time until mana purity reaches critical levels: 2:38:56]
Swearing, he quickly stopped what he was doing and stared at the suddenly shortened timer.
“John, what was that?” Katrine asked, her voice carrying both worry and anger.
“Nothing, just running some experiments,” John replied, coughing to hide his embarrassment.
“What’s the problem?” Ellie asked, trying to understand what John was doing.
“This mana was put together by the first Mage to hold the dimensional door. I’m sure the key to understanding this problem is contained within it, but I don’t understand how.”
“And the problem is that we don’t know how the first Mage and the other class holders managed to create it,” Ellie said, nodding in understanding.
Freezing, John’s mind spun for a moment as his eyes slowly widened.
“What did you just say?”
“We don’t know how they managed to create it?”
“No, before that,” John said breathlessly. “The first Mage and the other class holders. He didn’t make this by himself. Everyone, come here!”
Gathering everyone into a circle, John looked around at their pale faces. Considering they were staring down the end of the world, he was quite impressed with how calmly they were handling themselves. Once everyone was in place, he began to speak while his hands gathered up a strand of woven mana.
“The purity of the universal pool has reached a point that will not sustain life. I’m sure that all of you can feel it, right? And at this rate, it will only continue to get purer, until everything dies. Everything but me, that is.”
“You really think this is a good time to rub that in?” Katrine said, her eyebrows arcing dangerously.
“You’re right, that was in poor taste,” John said, grimacing. “But, I’ve got an idea. If the problem is mana purity, why can’t we just reverse the process? If we can figure out how to deconstruct the pure mana in the environment, we should be able to split the mana into its component elements.”
Reaching out with his hand, John began to condense ambient mana, stopping right before the mana coalesced into a mana crystal. His meditation sessions with Ellie had taught him the control he needed to keep the mana partially condensed, and once the ball of mana was stable, he used his Mana Control to move the mana ball into the center of the group.
“Ellie, remember how, when we meditate, we condense your mana, making it attributeless? Well, it’s not really without attributes, right?”
“Correct, it’s only mixed so well that individual attributes don’t stand out,” Ellie said.
“Exactly. In theory, we should be able to reverse the process, but what’s strange is that I’m not able to pull it apart by myself. But so long as you lock onto the specific attributes, you should be able to control them, right? Let’s say I defuse the mana, do you think you can lock on?”
“Um, I can try?”
“Well, it’s my only idea, so let’s hope it works,” John said with a shrug. “The process will be simple. I’ll keep this ball of pure mana in the center of the circle and diffuse it to the best of my ability, and all of you will do your best to pull any threads that resonate with you toward you while I try to diffuse it. Simply focus all of your attention and will on pulling mana toward you. My hope is that this will allow you to attract the elements that resonate with your class out of the strand and cause the mana to break down into its component elements. If it works, we can figure out how to do it on a larger scale.”
“Hold on, John,” Katrine said, her eyes narrowing. “Are you seriously trying to tell me that the key to saving the world is holding hands in a circle, wishing really hard? Let me guess, after that we’ll sing kumbaya?”
Staring blankly between Katrine and John, Haver shook his head and sighed.
“I’m not a very good singer, but if it helps save the world, I’ll do it.”
Laughing, John patted the Wolf King on the shoulder.
“Right there with you, Haver. But hopefully it won’t come to that. Everyone, get ready.”
Seeing everyone stretch their hands toward the center of the circle, John began forcing the mana he’d just condensed to expand, trying his best to pull it apart. The process was painstakingly slow, and it only stretched to a certain point before he couldn’t expand it anymore, but just when he was about to lose control, he felt a tug and some of the strands of mana shifted toward Katrine. Sensing that he was competing with her for the elements that were most closely aligned with the Mage class, John quickly relinquished his control, allowing her to pull them.
Like threads being tugged from a ball of string, the elements began to move further apart. After the first set of threads moved out of the way, the next were easier to find, and soon Ellie had pulled some over as well. Little by little, the ball of mana was pulled apart as Thomas took over the threads that most closely matched the Rogue class and Haver did the same for the Ranger class. Realizing that the Fighter class was the only one left, John strengthened his control on those threads and began to gently tug at them, trying to unravel the woven mana completely. It was difficult work, and soon everyone began to feel the strain of it as inch by inch they pulled the mana apart, causing the unified ball of mana to split into thousands of tiny threads.
“It’s working! Keep it up!”
No sooner had John spoken than a grunt escaped from Ellie’s mouth and a drop of blood dripped from her nose. Of all the people present, she was the lowest level, and the strain of controlling so much mana was taking its toll. Tightening her control, she gritted her teeth and waved John away.
“I’m fine. Keep going.”
Another inch of the mana ball unraveled as the threads were pulled apart, but the progress stopped abruptly and this time Haver’s control slipped, nearly losing the threads he had separated out. Afraid that everything they had done was about to unravel, John barely restrained himself from taking over for Haver as the Wolf King struggled to get a hold of the mana threads.
“John, I don’t think this is working,” Katrine said, her eyes darting between Haver and Ellie.
“It has to,” John said, his voice hoarse, “because there are no other options.”
Suddenly the air grew warm with a spring breeze and the scent of flowers as a song rose up around John and the others. Glancing back, John was stunned to see that the spectres had all gathered around them, their hands interlocked as they lifted their sweet voices. The sound refreshed the party’s souls and lifted their spirits, bringing a sense of rejuvenation to their tired bodies and worn-out minds. Feeling his control increasing, John looked across the circle at Katrine, who had a dumbfounded expression on her face.
