— Hikari's mental journal —
[First floor] The room with the big gate. Filled with nothing but old junk.
[Second floor] A lot of sitting down in boiling rooms with an increasing number of squiggles.
[Third floor] A lot of goodies on this floor. More pots. A strange shard. Cannonball fruit, more glowy petals. Luckily, there's water.
[Fourth floor] Wyvern heads that breathe fire. Burned through those strange bark demons.
Found an orb that breathes fire.
[Fifth floor] Something's strange up there.
Munch. Munch.
Hikari was back on the third floor where her temporary camp was.
With the strange bark demons in the tower, she figured this would be a safer place to rest.
Because they built their hive there, she knew she wouldn't find food if she went deeper into the tower.
The silver of sunlight points to the right this time.
No idea what that means. She had long lost track of time.
She stuffed her face.
Four ration packs left.
She actually wants to clear the tower.
From what she'd heard, if she returned now, it would be hard to arrange another expedition to clear the rest of the trials.
She flexes her muscles.
Bulky.
Either the cannonball fruit or the petals provided the extra nutrients she needed to grow big.
Her lady might be angry that she disappeared like this.
But she has so much to show her once she returns.
The loot had been unimpressive so far.
Mana crystals from clearing the demon hive on the floor above.
She stashes them inside a pot.
The mana clashes with the tower's mana she's been absorbing, so she can't just absorb it.
She'll probably ditch them.
By the end of the trials, she'll be too tired to haul potfuls of low-grade mana crystals over long distances.
She checks herself.
Her salamander skin was doing well.
Her wyvern skin was charred in places, but it still offered decent protection.
Her inner cloth outfit smelled as she wore it to sleep.
But they were fully intact and kept her warm as she got cold in her sleep.
Three throwing daggers left.
With the exploding shards she harvested, she'll keep them for utility purposes.
Her sword was still fully intact despite all of the punishment she put it through.
It doesn't cut or move as well as her previous swords, but damn, it's durable.
Now she's really curious how they were forged.
If she could figure out how to brandish it with fire, it would be an even better weapon than the runium sword her lady gave her.
Time's ticking.
Warm-up time.
Sit-ups. Push-ups. Squats. Leg raises.
Ten reps of each.
Mana exercises.
Her telekinesis was doing fine.
Her RazenHeir flames couldn't be used right now.
She practices the basic form lest she forget.
The wyvern fire courses through her body.
The new mana form that she was getting accustomed to.
Basic drills. Ten swings of her sword.
She charges up a shard and throws it at a wall.
No premature explosions like the first time.
The orb of wyvern flame she picked up.
It glowed with power as it absorbed her excess mana while she slept.
She's all set.
…
The platform rumbles.
Click! She reaches the fourth floor.
She had gone around the entire floor, incinerating everything just the day before.
Vines slowly seeped out of the cracks in the ceiling, as though trying to reclaim lost ground.
Mana sense.
She sees the tower's golden mana flowing upwards.
But something was breaking the flow.
Badum! Something was above her.
It's alive. The intense aether pricks her skin.
Hikari breathes out, readying herself for a fight.
How does she get up?
She tries to operate the platform by channeling her mana.
"Up."
It had been good at reading her mind up till this point.
But something was preventing it from moving her up.
"Trial?"
The bark demons destroyed the floor when they set up their hive.
The trial mechanisms must have been broken.
She has to find another way up.
Looking around, she sees a heap of rubble.
She raises her orb and channels the wyvern flame, burning away the vegetation holding the stone together.
Some of the stone crumbles; a brief gust of wind.
There's space behind.
Raising her leg, she kicks the rubble gently to clear a path.
Stairs.
The loose stone rolls down.
She clears a path through the stone.
Braziers are lit up along the walls, dimly lighting the spiraling stairway.
She climbs down, wondering where it leads.
A pair of doors.
One leading further down and one along the side.
She senses the tower's mana flowing through it.
"Flames."
As the voice in her head keeps telling her.
She presses her palm on the warm stone and channels.
The doors sink into the ground.
A sliver of sunlight points right from the crack in the wall.
A breeze, the biting cold wind from the wyvern peaks.
Her giant pot of water sits against the wall.
She was right back at her camp again.
Hikari scratches her cheek.
Back up the stairs she goes.
The spiral ought to go up further.
"Ivory berries."
She cursed.
The next floor didn't seem so high up when she got to ride the platform up.
She reached the fourth floor again.
She took a moment to recover the stamina she would need shortly.
Her salamander skin bearing the weight of her body helped a lot.
The way up must be on the other side.
She was right.
Pink flowers squeezing out of the rubble.
Incinerate.
The flowers shrivel.
She kicks down the wall of rubble.
Stairs leading upward, cluttered with grey, dead vines.
Woosh.
Step by step.
She burns her way up.
The aether presence grows stronger.
She stops.
The vines move.
A giant flower appears, bloated and glowing brightly, flames ready to burst from its petals.
Hikari dodges back down the stairs and braces.
Aether flame floods the corridor.
The spiraling stairway allowed her to find cover behind the curved wall.
She charges her shards.
The charged shards fly down the corridor, bend around the corner, and explode on the monster flower.
Another barrage. A charred smell.
The monster explodes into a splash of acid.
Hikari kept close to the wall and waited.
The monster's acid melts into the wall opposite her.
She charges up her orb.
It takes a few seconds to charge, so she can't use it as an instant response.
But it packs a punch once it does.
Woosh.
She burns through the remains of the monster flower and more of the wall of vines behind.
Skittering sounds.
Bark demons waving their aether blades rush from above.
A telekinetic blast compresses the horde.
Woosh.
The wyvern fire from her orb incinerates them.
Woosh.
Hikari edges her way up the stairway.
Burning through wave after wave of bark demons.
Woosh.
Glowing eggs.
She had reached deep enough into the hive to see the eggs.
They pop as her wyvern fire scorches them.
Woosh.
She switches the orb from one hand to the other as it strains from the constant casting.
The orb cools.
She had used up the mana stored in it to clear the stairway.
She stuffs it into an empty dagger slot.
It slowly charges up again from the ambient tower mana.
Her body was burning after clearing the stairway.
The salamander skin absorbs the excess heat.
She drinks from the small pot of water and stuffs a fistful of petals into her mouth.
Something was behind the door.
She rests, reading herself for the big fight.
…
Kick. Hikari kicked down the door that the vine growth had broken.
Crash! Rubble flies outward, crushing some eggs behind the door.
She found herself in the hive's heart.
Glowing eggs everywhere.
Mana surges through her body.
She draws her sword.
Badum! Her heart pounds.
A rush of adrenaline.
A barrage of aether fire and acid from above.
A telekinetic blast knocks away the acid.
Small, sizzling sounds as tiny droplets of acid nonetheless splash onto her wyvern skin.
Crunch. She crushes the eggs underfoot as she dodges the barrage of wyvern fire.
Another barrage.
She looks up and sees the hive's heart.
Another barrage of aether fire rains down on her.
She raises her sword to shield herself as she runs through the hive.
She catches glimpses of the heart between explosions of the aether fire.
Giant vines surge out of the ground and converge on her.
Woosh. Charged shards hit the base.
But the vines were so thick that the wyvern fire did not burn them.
It only staggered them.
Splash.
Hikari pops eggs as she dodges around the room.
The egg's insides make the ground slippery.
Hikari channels her telekinesis to keep herself moving whenever she slips.
The heart's tentacles and constant barrage of aether flame do not stop.
Skittering sounds.
The bark demons emerge from their eggs.
Hikari charges up her wyvern flame as the horde converges on her.
Incinerate. A wave of fire surrounds her.
A split second of intense heat.
The wyvern flame dissipates, but not before leaving a charred pile of bar demons.
A barrage of aether flame.
Hikari raises her sword to block it.
The tentacles swing at her.
She blocks them.
She throws a few charged shards to break out as they attempt to surround her again.
Hikari observes her surroundings.
The attacks kept coming, but she had worked out their pattern well enough to give herself room to breathe.
She had destroyed large swaths of the hive by drawing the aether fire and the tentacles' swings towards herself.
But she had cleared only a fraction of the massive hive.
Her blunt sword offered her excellent defense, but she lacked a main offensive weapon.
Crunch. She jumped up a platform to avoid the thrashing tentacles.
A clear line of fire to the heart.
A tortured clump of flesh throwing aether fire every which way.
In the short window, she charged up five shards and hauled them towards the heart.
Woosh. The shards exploded.
But the heart was completely intact.
Its carapace was too thick for those shards to crack.
She'll have to get up close and crack it with her heavy sword.
The next barrage comes.
The tentacles kept going after her.
She doesn't have the window.
Giants emerge from the eggs.
Clank! She briefly parries and dodges.
Hordes of awakened bark demons converge on her.
Hikari runs around the edge of the room to avoid getting surrounded.
Eggs all along the walls.
She runs through them with her weight.
The viscous goo sticks to her wyvern skin.
They get incinerated when she releases her flames onto the swarms of bark demons.
A giant tentacle swung directly at her.
It was too late to dodge.
She swings her sword.
Her momentum violently pushes the tentacle onto the wall.
The howling wind of the wyvern peaks as the tentacle smashes a hole in the wall.
Clank! Hikari clears out the giants converging on her.
More and more bark demons appear.
She lacks the firepower.
She wonders whether to retreat after clearing out a third of the hive with her surprise attack.
She'll return with an army behind her and a full tummy to finally defeat the hive.
Boom. Boom.
Something massive landed on the side of the tower.
Hikari caught a brief glimpse of a large reptilian eye.
Wyvern flame charged up, stronger than what she had felt.
She dived towards a pillar, dodging tentacles.
Her sword, slung on her back, blocked some of the aether fire.
Woosh! The chamber was filled with fire.
Hikari hid behind the pillar.