Chapter 99

Lykan

QI Powered

Lykan began exploring, always remembering to keep entrances to the large freshwater biome nearby. While he didn’t need water now, knowing where he could get fresh water from was a boon. He was glad he remembered to fill the skins he had with the fresh Qi infused water when he was at the coy pond. Or else he would be lost, not that he needed such comforts. But the waters were needed now. Also, his body was still processing the raw powers of the coy fish he ate, though part of his problem might have been that he ate an unknown species raw. There are no telling what problems could arise from such actions.

This was why he fought against the urge to eat the Qi cores he harvested from the different flying beasts. Though after dealing with the coy fish, and the birds Lykan had concluded sorts. The first was that animals could for whatever reason only have one Qi core in their bodies. The titans, as well as he himself could clearly have multiple cores. While multiple cores allowed for multiple things to happen, it was clear that this evolution, the ability to have multiple cores set both humans and titans apart from the standard Qi infused animals.

Also, Lykan was beginning to have his doubts about the exact makeup of the animals that he was witnessing. There was something off about them, something that felt strange. While he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, each creature had distinctly unique traits that Lykan had never seen before. While a few modifications and evolutionary changes could be considered apparent for creatures that had been living underground, this was not quite the case for these creatures. Unless these creatures had been allowed to grow and move on their own for hundreds of thousands of years in this Titan built refuge, but even that consideration still sparked more questions than answers.

The current theory on dragons was spontaneous evolution. That they appeared at or around the times the gods battled the Titans. Some assumed that the gods had called forth the dragons as a being of divine wrath to strike down the corrupting Titans. Yet, there might have been more. There was also the supplementary theory that the bridge species that showed the natural progression from known lizards to dragons were either forced to evolve or killed during the Titan war. Since there was no evidence to the contrary this theory had been accepted, but now Lykan was wondering if there was more.

Even the base creatures on the land seemed to have more in common with dragons than nearly any other creature on the planet. So why were they here? Do dragons need Qi? Or can they use mana? Did the gods switch them from Qi to Mana? Then if they did, why? There were so many questions and not enough answers. This was why Lykan kept exploring. If he stopped now, he knew he would likely never find the answers to the questions that were plaguing him. His inquisitive mind was alive with the spark of understanding.

As he moved and descended down the different layers of labyrinth, he noticed that some of the floors had observation windows that allowed one to look from benches to the creatures that were in the water. From there Lykan could see all the different forms of life. The image was green and mostly faded, except for where a fish with an exceptionally wide mouth clung to a deep patch of green algae. It took Lykan a moment to realize that the fish was a cleaner fish, one that would remove algae from different locations. The only problem again was that this creature seemed to have more to it. First, it seemed that this fish could mimic invisibility by oscillating its core while it ate.

At the same time this was not an uncommon trait, as most of the non-predatory animals seemed to be able to perform the same invisibility trait that had taken Lykan days to master. Days that he was now uncertain of whether he could do so with his multiple cores and ability to fly. He had thought of ways of stringing up the different cores to once again be able to go invisible, but the idea of doing both flight and invisibility at the same time was beyond him. Still looking at the fish being able to move right past the much more powerful hunters caused Lykan to wonder why didn’t more animals hide in such a way? That notion was instantly shot down, as the answer was obvious the creatures needed a core to perform such an action. But if that is the case, then how did all these creatures seem to instinctively know how to create a core?

Lykan realized there was likely a very easy answer to such a question. The most logical being that these animals had been trapped down here for so long separated from mana that they naturally evolved to develop cores. But then there was the question of how they survived the transition? What did the Titan’s do to make it so?

Also, Lykan wondered why he could see the fish that were clearly using invisibility from meters away, while the apex predators could not even notice the disturbance caused by the invisible fish being so nearby.

Skitter, skitter.

The sound of clawed feet rustling against smooth floors echoed in the open room. Lykan felt his Ambuscade skill warn of an impending attack from his rear, so with quick movements Lykan’s body reacted before he could even think. His left foot spun back in a spinning heel kick. Echo location of the approaching steps, and his Ambuscade skill informing him of the location and approximate distance of the approaching adversary.

Splat.

His kick struck true, coming down in a powerful arc that would have broken a grown man’s ankle. Instead, he found that he crushed a rat. Qi flowed off in waves from the twitching creature’s back, as the creature slowly began to appear to his other senses. The odd part was that even after seeing the creature appear he knew where the creature was. He knew it was some form of small rodent type creature, only now that it was dead and no longer able to oscillate its core could Lykan see that it was also invisible. Or at least it had been invisible when it tried to sneak up from behind.

Lykan then looked at the hideous creature with orange and red blood that oozed from exposed skin that had popped from the sudden impact of Lykan’s foot to its back. Looking at the creature, it was clear that this was not a typical rat, it was too large for one. That and it seemed to have some type of tentacle arms on its back. Was that thing for the Titans? Take regular animals and add tentacles? That would sort of explain their faces, yet there seemed to be more. Or maybe Lykan was reading too much into the whole situation.

Before Lykan could second guess himself, he struck his hand forward to pluck up the core that was clearly poking through a part of the creature’s skin. Nausea and revulsion warred in his stomach as he pulled the core from the mostly hairless creature that looked to have both scales and fur. In the end Lykan chose to leave the rat there.

He half expected to see the cleaning cylinders come out, but nothing happened. Shrugging to himself he went a little further on and saw the cleaning cylinder out, but it had been attacked by what appeared to be a swarm of the rats as it had teeth and claw marks all over. That would explain the state of this place, also why the cleaning cylinders did not react for the rat feet that clearly had Qi. They likely had worked for a bit, but then were called out when the rats were on the move, then the rats struck either thinking the cylinders were food or trying to make it so they could strike at unsuspecting prey. Either way that was something that this floor clearly needed, a good cleaning.

With that in mind Lykan made his way lightly through the piles of dirt and debris that he could only hope were piles of dirt and not the excrement that he was now fearing them to be. Still, he moved on, half wondering why there weren’t more of the vile creatures.

A short way away showed the true reason why there weren’t more. The next room was some sort of Qi furnace as the room was insanely hot and being near caused parts of Lykan’s skin to tingle with pain for a moment. Lykan could feel waves of Qi entering him and enveloping around him. He paused to wonder if this was the right thing to do, but then forced his mind to calm as he tried to take in the dense form of Qi that was all around him.

Assuming the meditation pose he sat and forced his mind to calm as he began taking in lungful after lungful of the dense Qi. Each breath felt like it was nearly suffocating, like breathing in smoke. Yet Lykan pushed on, until finally after the hundredth breath the burning sensation went away, and he felt his body slowly begin to relax as he became more accustomed to the thick swirls of energy around him.

Only once he was done did he realize he had at some point during the entire exercise improved his Qi Resistance.

Skill Base Plus Bonus Rating (4) Qi Resistance Sage (+Unknown) (Maximum) (5) Qi Sight Novice (5) Perfect Recall Novice

Not surprisingly he had two new skills. Qi Sight seemed like it would be useful, but didn’t he already have that? Or was that a sign of the skill manifesting before he truly was ready for the skill? There were multiple theories about the way skills were just a natural showing of what the body was already doing. One could always do things that they didn’t have a skill for, there was just a perceived penalty for doing so. One could always cross blades with a sword master, but unless the person had a skill in blades or of similar weapons, the match would be pointless. The same went for skills, one didn’t need the skill Ambuscade to notice an ambush. The skill just made noticing the ambush ahead more possible. Seeing these Lykan felt like it was a letdown. He could already see Qi, and with his exceptionally high intelligence that was nearing the third echelon status, he didn’t think he was missing anything. Yet, he postulated that such actions might be the signs of the skills manifesting prematurely.

Shrugging, and happy that it wasn’t something like fire walking, or pain resistance skills that would require actively trying to hurt himself in specific ways to improve, he was okay. Not happy, but okay. They could have been worse, he admonished himself. With his self-introspection done, and his skin no longer tingling thanks to his maxed-out Qi Resistance, see that is what happens with these resistances you must subject yourself to pain. Glad it wasn’t poison resistance, or something equally painful to practice against. Shaking his head and realizing he had likely dodged a bullet by the resistances ending with the one he continued.

As he moved forward, he saw wisps of Qi floating in the air. Some were golden, others were dark and seemed to be filled with rot. Lykan tried to stare at the different Qi, to understand why they were different from each other but staring caused his eyes to hurt. It felt like staring at the sun, like the more he stared the brighter the motes of energy he was staring at became. There was also the problem that every breath he took drew in multiple motes of light, so often a cloud that he had been peering at for understanding would slowly disappear or be drawn into him. He then would back up, but that just made the stupid dots harder to see. Realizing he was still at a loss, he tried to take a step back.

There was what had appeared to be a thin film of Qi that was on the floor and seemed to flow through an opening in the wall. After a few seconds of trying to understand what happened, looking at the tear points and stress fractures that came in Lykan soon came up with an idea of events that led to this layer of solidified Qi on the floor. The room to his right, the one that had a giant hole in it, likely housed some type of furnace or engine. The engine burst, causing Qi to flow int this adjoining room that was also hallway leading to multiple different rooms.

Looking around, he could also see what happened to the swarm of mutant rats that ate the cleaning cylinder from the adjoining room they got blown up. Burnt rat corpses were covered in now congealed Qi. It reminded him of stories of people who were caught by sudden volcanic eruptions, how the ash came out and blanketed the surrounding landscape sealing everyone to their deaths.

The entire thing seemed odd. With a quick tap of his big toe, Lykan checked to make sure the solidified Qi on the floor was in fact safe to walk on. There was nothing, no tingling sensation, just the slightly cold floor. Comforted by this he walked on, feeling the slightly smooth grip of solidified Qi under his feet. As he walked forward, he peered into the wall and got a good look of the engine room that blew up. He knew it was an engine room as he had worked on many similar rooms when he was a captain of his own airship. Thinking about the airship caused a slight breath of nostalgia to course through him. A breath that he immediately exhaled as he didn’t want to dwell on the past and what could have been. He was okay with his past, or at least he would no longer let it hamper his future.

Looking at the room and the number of congealed rat corpses that were covered under blankets of Qi, a picture of what happened slowly came to mind. This had been alive, a factory of facility of some kind. Rats got in, clearly clawed, and bit everything they could until finally they broke the engine. This caused several explosions to occur at once, killing the rats who were caught red handed in their acts. The picture was one that was easy to understand, though somewhat hard to piece together. First, what was the engine doing? What happened to the creators of such an engine? Was this truly the work of the Titans? Part of their corrupted process to change the world, but if so, then how?

So many questions and Lykan felt like he was only just beginning to see the tip of what was happening. He continued, finally finding a door that was not sealed under an amber infusion of solidified Qi. Instead, this door had a title that caused a shiver to run down Lykan’s spine.

Terraforming Control Room.

Three words, that was all it took to cause a pit of fear to form in Lykan’s stomach. He had no clue what the sign meant, but he knew the answers to many of his questions lay beyond the door. Lykan reached out, but hesitated wondering if he was ready. This was stupid of course; he was right there. Right there. He knew the answers to many of his questions were beyond that door, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that was pouring through him. This was a survival instinct, one that Lykan knew not to take lightly. He by all rights should turn back, come with a weapon, anything. But the door was right there, and so was he. Barefoot, half naked in torn rags for clothes and only a few waterskins to his name Lykan could be better prepared. He could, and likely should, but he didn’t want to wait. If he turned back now, he felt he would never regain the confidence to move forward.

Taking a deep breath Lykan centered himself, then opened the door.