— Hikari —
[Physique : 880]
[Mana : 1080]
[Defense: 900]
[Mind: 955]
[Height: 5.1 meters]
[Weight: 3650 kg]
[Heart of wyvern: 230]
[Telekinesis: 490]
[RazenHeir flame: 255]
"Ah…"
Warm.
Hikari was sweating all over.
She sat in a puddle of her own sweat.
Her lips felt dry.
"More…"
Only one passage remained on the wall.
Hikari pushed all of her mana into it.
Click. Finally, the last knob clicked into place.
Hikari fell backward, exhausted.
A nauseous feeling came over her.
The familiar feeling of absorbing more mana than her body could take.
She got up.
It wasn't too serious just yet.
Click. With the whole wall lit up, the mechanisms started turning.
The wall of glowing words sank into the ground, revealing a vault.
The spacious chamber contained only two items on a stone table.
A luxuriously decorated flask. A strangely shaped key.
The braziers lit up the murals.
A knight kneels before a priest.
The priest offers him a flask.
The knight drinks it.
Carefully, Hikari picks up the flask and shakes it.
The sloshing sound of liquid inside.
"No."
She doubts that whatever exquisite elixir it contained would be edible after centuries.
The bottle itself was pretty nice.
A well-decorated bottle from a lost civilization would fetch a high price at auction.
She keeps it in her harvest sack.
Her improvised caterpillar sack wasn't sealed well enough to hold something more delicate.
The strange key goes inside as well.
She has no idea what it's for yet.
She thinks she might find a drawing of a stickman holding a key to a door somewhere deeper in the tower.
The mural goes on.
The priest presents the knight with a sword.
The knight accepts it.
The mural ends.
"Sword?"
Hikari looked around the empty chamber.
No sign of a sword anywhere.
She felt a little cheated after all the effort she'd put into opening this chamber.
But given the people responsible for delivering a sword had been gone for centuries, she had no one to complain to.
Her stomach rumbled.
She's completely out of ration packs.
She had packed way more than her standard issue before leaving camp.
She was supposed to go back now, but she was too engrossed in unlocking the tower's secrets.
Her cooking pot boiled.
She opened the lid.
Small pieces of caterpillar meat were swimming around.
She learned to chop the tough meat into finer pieces so it would cook better.
It was cooking very well indeed, thanks to the intense mana from the tower's core.
She fished a piece out with her dagger.
It was so soft that it tasted like bear meat.
She ate piece after piece out of the boiling water.
Even without seasoning, the meat was delicious.
It was well worth hauling the giant pot of water up the stairs since the water stream couldn't be accessed from the current floor.
Finishing her meal, she stands at the hole in the wall and looks out into the distance.
A breathtaking view of the lands beyond the tower.
Ruins of an ancient city enshrouded in the cold fog of the wyvern peaks.
Tiny flickers of wyvern flame visible as the cloud moves.
Specks of aether flames.
"Vines."
It seemed the corruption she had just cleared in the tower had spread throughout the entire city.
The wyverns had been fighting it with little success.
Hikari shrugs.
There was little she could do.
Even her mana pool, which lets her annihilate a horde of bark demons, wouldn't be enough to clear an entire city.
Neither could the RazenHeir house field an army big enough for that.
Flapping sounds. Waves in the wind.
Hikari ducks back into the tower.
Cautiously, she peered out.
A wyvernling had landed on the side.
It tugs at the vegetation, tossing aside vines it bit through.
Hikari watches.
The wyvenling dug out a cannonball fruit, yanking it out from the wall.
Its jaws snap shut around the fruit as it flies outward.
It made Hikari feel hungry.
From this distance, she certainly can't catch the wyvernling.
But what if…?
The wyvernling continues digging.
Loose pieces of plant scatter to the wind.
Hikari watches.
It dug up another fruit.
Its jaws open as the fruit flies above it.
Snap. It closes on empty air.
The cannonball fruit flew upwards, pulled by a telekinetic force.
Munch. Munch. Hikari bites into the fruit.
She can't believe it worked.
Her telekinesis had gotten sharper.
The wyvernling snarled at her and flew off.
A small win for her. Though without the wyvernling, she couldn't reach the fruits growing along the sides of the tower.
Rumbling sounds behind.
She turned and looked up the spiraling staircase.
A door opened at the top.
She stretches.
Leg stretch. Arm stretch. Side-to-side rotations.
It was time to tackle the next trial.
…
"What's this?"
She stared at the symbol inscribed above the door, confused.
A stickman as usual.
It bent its knees and held both arms straight up, holding a sword above its round hands.
A pair of squiggles lined up with the sword, sandwiching it between them.
"Duck walk."
Hikari recognizes it.
The drillmaster makes both veterans and recruits do it every other day.
She had been doing it long before she joined the RazenHeir house.
Nothing seemed to have changed in centuries.
A zigzag path of tiles through the room.
Hikari sensed a horizontal blanket of mana along the level where she was supposed to hold her sword.
She drew her sword, held it over her head, and squatted down.
Left, right, left, right.
She mumbled in her head.
This isn't a hard exercise for a veteran like her.
It just feels really weird to be doing it out in the wild.
As she moved, she saw a line of runes lit up along both sides of the wall.
They track her progress, lighting up as her sword passes by.
Hikari holds her sword steady, avoiding rushing through the trial.
She has a feeling she has to restart if her sword sways too much off the path.
The last rune was lit.
Hikari stops, holding her stance until the door opens.
The stone rumbles as the door sinks into the ground.
Thud. Hikari falls back and slams her bottom onto the ground.
Her legs are sore. She massages and stretches them.
Even with salamander skin lending her strength, this was one of the most hated exercises among knights.
Onwards to the next trial.
Hikari's eyes immediately pointed at the stickman drawing at the end of the room.
Three stickmen this time.
Two squatting, their swords resting on their shoulders.
The stickman in the middle was elevated a step above them, holding the same pose.
"Frog jump."
The tiles on the floor activate.
A three-by-three grid.
Arrows on each one.
The arrow on the first tile points forward.
Hikari steps on it.
Her sword rests on her shoulder.
She bends her knees and jumps forward.
A rumbling sound behind.
The tile she just left sank into the ground.
She looked down between her legs.
Left.
She shuffled left.
Jump.
A rumbling sound behind her.
Left jump.
Right jump.
Forward. Forward. Left. Left.
She had done it all.
The door rumbles and opens.
Hikari sat down, her legs straightened and stretched.
Munch. Munch. She pops a cannonball fruit into her mouth.
On to the next trial.
"Push-ups."
She immediately recognizes the symbol.
It's just that one wouldn't expect to make a pilgrimage up a magical tower on the wyvern peaks only to be made to do static exercises.
She rubs her eyes to double-check.
Stickman in a plank position. Sword on its back.
Three stickmen. The ones on the left and right have straightened arms.
The middle one has bent its arm.
It was unambiguously a depiction of the most basic static exercise.
A pair of small tiles in the middle of the room.
Mana flowed from one end of the room to the other.
Runes on either side to count her reps.
The ancient civilization takes their physical tests rather seriously, it appears.
Sword hoistered on her back.
Hikari placed one palm on each tile.
Down.
Down.
She noticed the runes on either side flare as she completed each rep.
Down.
Down.
One by one, the runes lit up, tracking her progress.
Not even the RazenHeir house has such advanced counting machinery.
Down.
A mechanism clicked.
Hikari counted twenty reps.
The door rumbled.
Shoulder rolls to loosen her muscles.
Doing push-ups with a heavier body and a sword on her back did give some kick.
She has more training to do once she returns.
The hive's growth destroyed the next room.
A mass of dead vines punched a giant hole in the floor.
Hikari charges up her orb.
Woosh. The wyvern flame burns.
It was only a third done.
Woosh. Woosh.
The vines burned, but a huge chasm remained between her and the door.
Mana courses through her legs.
It was nothing she couldn't handle.
She straps her supplies tightly to her body with the giant caterpillar's sinews.
Especially the pot of water, which she had to wrap tightly with its lid.
The force of both legs thrust her across the chasm.
Her elbow hit the wall as she aimed to one side, initially thinking she needed to kick it to make it across.
She had grown much stronger since she left the RazenHeir estate, which surprised even her.
It felt good.
Onward to the next room.
It was ruined too.
Woosh. She cleared the room of vines.
The door sank into the ground, revealing an upward stairway.
She cleared the floor.
Out of curiosity, she looked up at the stickman drawing.
"Lunges."
The stickman was standing straight.
Sword over its shoulders.
The next stickman bent its knees.
The last one was standing straight.
Hikari shrugs.
She wouldn't have minded the workout.
It just wouldn't make for a very compelling story.