Chapter 92

Lykan

Hunting the Hunters

A thrill ran down Lykan’s spine as he as sneaking up to invisible predators who seemed to have no clue about his position. The predators in this case were little more than condensed Qi particles that somehow managed to float around the room in intricate patterns that represented a novice of invisibility movement.

Fortunately for Lykan he was a quick study, and an even quicker predator.

He moved until he was right behind the bewildered Titan Apprentice, before he lashed out with a fist coated in Qi.

Crunch.

Bones cracked, while viscera sprayed out wildly from the impact site. Yet, Lykan wasn’t done. He wanted to test something, to find something. A core of Qi in this apparition. Just as his fingers latched around something solid, a marker went off in his mind.

Core strike detected.

Invisible Apprentices Neutralized 1 of 2.

With the message the apparition before him completely disappeared. The blood that had covered him was also gone, dispersed into the air of the simulator. Everything was back to normal. Fortunately, Lykan was able to calm his heart rate and breathing quickly enough to maintain invisibility. As it was, he almost felt he needed two minds to do this exercise properly. One mind to oscillate his core at the right frequency so that he blended into his surroundings. Then a second mind so he could track down the other predator that was allegedly looking for him but judging by its meandering movements it seemed to have no clue where he was.

This suited Lykan just fine as he wanted an easy lesson. At least for the moment.

Crunch.

Lykan having already found the second Invisible Apprentice just shook his head as he felt there was something lacking about this mission. After all the days, or likely weeks at this point of training this scenario felt bland. He walked up behind the Apprentice and once again struck a killing blow easily that merged into a core strike.

Core strike detected.

Invisible Apprentices Neutralized 2 of 2.

With that confirmation the jungle surroundings vanished. In their place was the tall tentacle faced Titan still in a meditation pose, its fierce red eyes glowing with a gleam of satisfaction. Then with a nod of approval he too disappeared as more training text appeared before his eyes.

Scenario: Can you see me? Has been successfully completed. Apprentice?? Has been advanced to the rank of Initiate.

With that the final illusions around the room vanished, once again revealing the four doors that Lykan had long ago noticed.

Lykan collapsed, partially out of exhaustion, partially out of needing to grab something to eat while he could. He was now aware that Qi and his blessing could sustain his body, but that was a miserable way to live. He had food; even old, dried rations would be better than slightly spicy air particles.

Given the chance to relax, he felt all his muscles tighten. Fortunately, he didn’t stop the circulation of his Qi, which would have likely given him a temporary rush of adrenaline in exchange for all his remaining energy. That was a good ace in the hole to know about in a fight but given that he might very well need that in the future he focused on getting back up.

No sooner had he stood up, then a panel in the center of the room slid away. A brief glance showed that this was the exact spot where the instructor had perched for all his lessons. Now that the floor moved away to reveal a trap door of some kind the reason for the teacher being at the center of the room made sense, it kept any interested students away from finding the sliding floor panel.

As the panel slid away a round tube appeared.

What was odd about the tube was that it was full of tiny pieces of writing that seemed to cover the entire package. This was confusing as it was hard to determine where the writing began and ended.

Finally, after turning the tube over and over and reading the different instructions the process became simple. This tube was a capsule of some kind. The instructions were on how to both push in the top of the capsule while twisting the top and bottoms in opposite directions.

He was about to follow those instructions when the next set seemed to detail what he was to do with the item inside.

A quick shake of the tube revealed that there was in fact a lighter object inside that could slide up and down the shaft of the tube. The package also had wording written in high wood elven.

Intermediate Terraforming Qi Supply.

Apply all six breathing tentacles on the extension tubes. Breath in as much Qi as possible with each breath, hold, then release excess with non-breathing tentacles. Repeat as required until all Intermediate Qi Supply is gone.

The entire thing was odd, first it clearly showed locations where ten tentacles were to be placed. Six were to be placed over the tubes, while four were placed downward away from the sphere. This meant that the Titans could breathe in and out with different tentacles. Seemingly they could do so at the same time. Did this mean they had two sets of lungs? One set connected to the breaths coming in, and one set connected to sending the breaths out. If so that explained the strange look of the Titan instructor. It also explained why it only drew in Qi particles from some of its tentacles. At first, he thought it had been a limitation of the simulation, but apparently that was a thing. Breathing in with one set while breathing out with a second. Did that mean they didn’t drown or choke as easily? So many questions filled his mind.

Fortunately for Lykan he had other things to distract his wayward thoughts, at least for the moment. He was about to take some much-needed food and water, but then quickly saw the warning label.

Warning: One must detoxify body of all food and water for at least two complete solar cycles before consumption. Excess food and water might cause bloating, spontaneous combustion, and other unpleasant experiences.

Seeing the message Lykan was relieved to realize he had not had a chance to eat or drink. While he wasn’t certain how long he had spent training down here, he was relatively certain that it had been longer than two solar cycles.

With nothing better to do, and the instructions firmly in his mind he held up the tube. He was surprised that he could see a dark shape hidden within the tube. There was a dense circular area, along with six thin spider like legs that shot off from the center. In his mind he knew spiders had eight legs, but that was the closest thing he could think of. He hoped their shape indicated that they could be moved.

Moving quickly, he popped open the lid, let the black ball of tightly condensed Qi fall into his hand. Then quickly moved to put the six movable straw like contraptions into his mouth then he breathed in.

Nothing happened.

He paused for a second, wondering if there had been a fluke of some kind. But no, a second breath confirmed that there was nothing.

After the third breath he released the straws from his mouth to look at the black rock of condensed Qi in his hands. Then just like on the package there was a lot of tiny writing that was once again written in high wood elven.

Crush Qi stone to begin extraction process. Make sure tubes are tightly secured into breathing tentacles before process begins.

Reading this Lykan let out a sigh. Then once again placed the six straws in his mouth. Then taking in a deep breath he calmed himself before he crushed the Qi stone in his hand. As he crushed the stone, a cloud of what could only be considered spicy dust exited the straws and entered Lykan’s mouth. It was all Lykan could do to forcefully breath in the pungent substance. While Qi itself had been filling, this level of Qi was on a whole other level. This was like being able to eat an entire nine course meal in the matter of a few breaths. Breaths that were hard to get down without choking.

Internally Lykan only had one set of lungs, which meant that as the Qi came in, it had to go straight to his lungs. He felt he was near to bursting before he managed to bite down on the straws long enough to cut off the relentless flow of Qi into his body so he could finally exhale.

Unfortunately, this meant he could only exhale through his nose. His nose that sat well above and past his Qi infused mouth. This caused more burning sensations to form in his nose as burning particles of Qi began to infuse into his nose as well.

His eyes began watering, but he focused on maintaining the process. Qi would flow in; he would breathe it into his lungs which would then enter his meridians through several interlocking passageways. Then he would breathe out through his nose. The whole thing was an incredibly complex and painful procedure that caused a bout of nausea to settle in as the Qi at one point became too dense for his body and fell for a second to his gut. This of course would have caused an immediate vomiting or other embarrassing situation had he eaten or drank anything.

Fortunately, the empty stomach meant that Lykan didn’t defecate on himself, but it was close. Instead Lykan chose the moment to once again bite down on the straw like appendages that came from the core so he could stop the flow of Qi into his body.

The biggest problem that he noticed was in how dense the new set of Qi was compared to what he already had in his system. If anything, the Qi he was now processing seemed to be twice as rich and compact as the previous sample. This meant that there were obvious problems that could happen should he continue to build over the weaker material with the stronger Qi he was now ingesting. Ultimately, he decided to go with the creation of a second core.

The idea being that he could then use the second stronger core to break apart the first core and use the materials from the first one in the second one. This of course was meant he needed to learn to circulate two drastically different levels of Qi.

The lighter Qi, the Qi he got from his training was a known quantity. While the second denser Qi took much more energy and pressure to get moving. Though once the second ball of Qi got moving it stayed moving.

Forming the second core was remarkably easier than it was for the first core. Part of this was that he already knew what processes to do. The second part was that the denser Qi seemed to perform better to the actions his body was giving it. There was of course still the process of contaminating the two sets of Qi.

As a result, Lykan had to let the lighter Qi infuse with his body, lest he suffer a degradation of quality. This was good as it helped flare up his mind and body as he began to focus inwardly. Once again, he moved the old core to the side, while he focused all his efforts on building a new stronger core.

Just like before he focused on condensing the Qi particles as tightly as possible, then stopping the rotation as quickly as possible and having it cycle in an opposite direction. He did this over and over, occasionally he would breathe in more Qi to help fuel or fill in obvious cracks in his core.

Then finally like before he was met with a similar message of creation. Though the words were slightly different.

Blessing Bestowed: Intermediate Spherical Core.

Intermediate Spherical Core. You have managed to shape your core into one of the primary shapes necessary for true advancement. With an Intermediate Spherical core many balanced abilities will be possible to you, at the cost of losing some chaotic abilities. The energy stored here is permanently in use to improve your body. This core can be improved upon to receive greater results. Results: +4 Strength, +4 Mobility, +4 Power.

The bonuses offered were doubled from his Basic Spherical Core which he still somehow possessed.

It took Lykan a long minute to realize that there was a difference now, as he was seeing bonuses from both cores.

Name: Lykan Vov'Vita Race: Human Class: Valiant Wanderer Age: 18 (Unageing) Attribute Base Plus Modifier(s) Total Strength (9 + 12 +6) 27 Awareness (9 + 12) 21 Mobility* (10 + 12 +6) 28 Intelligence (9 + 18) 27 Power* (10 + 18 +6) 34

Did this mean he could get multiple? Also, what did he have to do with these cores? Surely multiple cores meant a lot of the techniques he was learning would be more difficult. It was tough enough to oscillate one core in place, now if he tried to do that with two cores could he even manage?

He decided that before he left this chamber, he would make sure he could oscillate both cores in tandem. He had often read about adventures where the hero would go on to learn one set of tricks that would be instrumental in the next level of the dungeon. While hopefully none were as demanding as this last room was, where he had to go from nothing to the rank of intermediate before being allowed to leave. He knew that what he learned here had been invaluable.

He spent the last few minutes trying to suck out the last few morsels of intermediate Qi that were still available. Then with a bit of hesitation he thought about eating the item. Shrugging to himself he pushed the depleted husk of a core into his mouth and began to chew. Each bite filled his mouth with warmth and power. Qi was a stimulant of some kind, that much he was certain about. But the core themselves seemed to be made of a dense leathery material that he could tear through if he forced his bite hard enough.

Finally, after a long time of chewing even the particles that had filled his mouth with flavor began to die down. Then finally he was left with an idea of either spitting out the component or swallowing it. While it was a foreign design, it didn’t seem to be harmful in any way. Shrugging once again Lykan swallowed the remaining core and was instantly notified that he had done something extraordinary.

Blessing Bestowed: Titan Core Eater.

Titan Core Eater. You have consumed the power source of a Titan, the true enemy of the world and the gods. The gods are pleased. Reward: Increase of lowest Attribute. Awareness +2.

Lykan was confused by the message. Part of him wondered why he was eating at a Titan’s core. Also, why would Titan’s offer such a reward up to initiates who succeeded in a particular challenge? The whole thing seemed odd, but before he could go too deep into that line of thinking his stomach began to convulse in violent spasming waves. The first form of food he had eaten in gods knew how long the all-powerful core of a Titan was.

Moving his hand to hold down his stomach he focused through the waves of pain. Lykan had the feeling that today was going to be a long day.