— Hikari —
[Physique : 862]
[Mana : 977]
[Defense: 855]
[Mind: 924]
[Height: 5.1 meters]
[Weight: 3250 kg]
[Heart of wyvern: 125]
[Telekinesis: 450]
[RazenHeir flame: 250]
Hikari wakes up.
The dim glow of the smaller braziers lines the top of the circular room.
A sliver of sunlight shines through the crack she slashed in the vegetation.
"What…"
Seeing how bright it still was, she must not have been knocked out for long.
Hungry.
Hunger pangs.
She pushed herself up and dragged her body to the wall.
She plucked the fruits and shoved them into her mouth.
The ones she ate before she blacked out from the strange crystal didn't give her a tummy ache.
It was sweet.
She wished she could have these every day back at the estate.
The fruit just made it to the top of her loot list.
If she found nothing else, she would bring a pot full of these back to the fortress of Escher.
She stopped herself and plucked some of the golden, glowing petals.
They tasted blander, but they were quite filling, and they seemed to stabilize the mana she kept absorbing from the tower.
She pushed aside the foliage to the outer corridor where she left her harvest sack.
Ten ration packs left. She eats three a day.
That's how she would keep track of time.
She unloads a pile of sweet, cannonball-shaped fruit into her harvest sack.
Cannonball fruit. That's a nice name.
They are shaped like a cannonball.
They feel like one the first moment when she sinks her teeth in.
She'll save those for when she wanders deeper into the tower.
Munch. She eats some of it with a ration pack.
The sweetness of the cannonball fruit makes her dry rations go down easier.
Nine more. She'll stay here at most two more days and save the last two for the way back.
Thirsty.
Her eyes turn to the pot which she left below the water stream.
It was overflowing.
"Fast."
She was surprised by how quickly it filled.
Thirsty.
She tilted the pot, letting the water slash onto her palm, and drank.
"Ah."
Still thirsty.
There has to be a more efficient way.
She scans around the room.
The bottom of a broken pot.
She grinds away the sharp edges against her sword to craft a makeshift bowl.
She tilts the pot and fills it.
She drinks.
The water was cold.
Time for a quick wash.
She fills up the bowl with water and pours it down her shoulder.
She scrubs herself with her fingertips.
The water splashes onto the ground.
She releases her telekinesis, trying to pull it back up in a whirling motion.
The water coalesces into a ball and splashes onto her chest.
Hikari scratches her cheeks in confusion.
That wasn't what she wanted.
But she was surprised that something happened.
She sat down and began her meditation.
Her mana courses through her.
Maybe she's imagining it, but somehow, her mana feels sharper.
Her mind felt clearer, and she could sense her own mana more acutely.
She tries to practice with her throwing dagger.
The dagger hovered in midair, stable.
"Nice."
Somehow she had gotten better.
It even felt as easy as before her string of growth spurts started.
The dagger started wobbling.
Hikari tries to compensate.
The dagger darts in one direction, flying straight out the crack in the wall.
Clank. Hikari hears her dagger crash into the wyvern peaks in the distance.
"Ivory berries."
She cursed.
Looks like she still needed more practice after all.
Cold. She shivered.
Lack of physical exercise left her body cold.
She put on her salamander skin.
She shivered as the viscous moss slowly crawled up her arms.
But once it covered her body, it quickly released the stored-up warmth.
The tower's mana courses through her, warming her up.
Time is short.
Just a little more tidying up.
She finds a lid for her water pot.
She puts petals and cannonball fruit into her harvest sack, replacing the space her ration pack took.
She bends both knees and tries to carry her water pot with both arms.
It's bulky; its diameter is the length of her shoulders.
But it'll be her water supply deeper into the tower.
She enters the next room.
"What's this?"
A wyvern-head statue in the center of the room faces her.
She reads the carvings above the next room's door.
A stick man standing opposite a statue.
He holds a diamond.
A single squiggle between him and the statue.
"Diamond?"
Hikari looks around the room.
A section of the wall was smashed.
But golden crystals stuck out of it.
As Hikari walks towards the wall, she senses the tower's mana strengthening.
A concentration of the tower's mana flowed upward right behind the wall.
She senses it.
It was like standing in front of one of its main blood vessels.
She plucked out one of the crystals.
It was barely the size of her finger.
"Diamond?"
The stickman figure was holding a diamond as big as his body.
But this was all she could find.
She studied the crystal.
It contained the tower's mana in crystallized form.
But otherwise, it was just like every other mana crystal known to men and women like her.
She tried to absorb it.
The small amount of mana inside it quickly drained.
She felt the mana getting absorbed into her body.
But it wasn't enough to make her grow bigger.
She plucked another crystal out.
Now to pass the trial.
She stepped onto the tile that had always marked where she was supposed to stand.
The wyvern-head statue was a leg's length away from her.
She looked down at the wyvern-head statue, about stomach height.
The crystal was positioned between her and the wyvern's mouth.
"Push."
The tower's mana courses through her.
The crystal in her hand glowed with excess mana.
She projected her mana towards the wyvern statue.
Its eyes glowed with mana.
Crack. The tiny overloaded crystal broke.
The mana dissipated.
The wyvern statue's mana petered out as its supply ran dry.
Hikari walked back to the smashed wall and plucked out a handful of shards.
It's going to take a few tries to crack this trial.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Hikari blew through the whole fistful, but it didn't work.
The wyvern head was certainly receiving her mana.
But the frail crystal broke before the wyvern head was even partially charged.
Hikari glanced at the stick drawing again.
The stickman held the diamond up toward the wyvern head.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
She blew through another fistful.
She took a break, meditating on the tile where a faint stream of mana rose.
Time to try again.
Some of the crystals she plucked seemed to have grown back while she was resting.
She plucked another fistful.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
No luck.
She could feel herself getting better.
The fistful of shards disappeared faster as she pushed to the breaking point.
Frustrated, she charged up the last shard and flicked it at the statue.
The crystal shattered against the stone.
A brief flame.
The statue's eyes glowed.
They glowed brighter.
A fire was lit in the wyvern head's mouth.
The door rumbled, lowering itself into the ground.
The way to the next room was clear.
Hikari scratched her cheek.
She felt as though she had just cheated.
She shrugged and proceeded to the next room.