After drinking the odd potion and some slight time with Atu and Ruby to simply relax, Azotreh returned to mana manipulation training. After the breakthrough, they had a slightly easier time manipulating the mana around them through the simple action of pushing and pulling with their aura.
The ritual circle had finally drained the first of the ruby coins after a week and a half of constantly running. Since that meant they were on a clock, it only increased Azotreh's desire to train.
Once in a while, they felt either Errazorrus or Nicholas try to check in, but each time they were rebuffed by the cold presence that was now almost constantly present with Azotreh.
Atu had also been spending most of her time within the circle, seemingly having realized the same thing as Azotreh. Even if she got fewer benefits from it, it was still a circle producing extraordinary quantities of mana, especially for Nightshade.
She had slowly become less creeped out by the stillness of Azotreh's aura when they trained. She knew that high rankers could suppress their aura and had even met several fellow zinc-rankers who could utterly hide the fluctuations of their aura from her.
It was still strange for a lower ranker to do it, but it was easy enough to understand.
Ruby had also taken time to sit in the circle, but still spent most of her time hunting.
The little fox had grown substantially in the couple of weeks they stayed with Atu, having grown from maybe the size of Azotreh's head to nearly the size of Atu's. She communicated through the bond that this was as big as she'd get at this rank.
By far the thing that stumped Azotreh was the very slight skill progress they'd been achieving. Each morning, they'd wake up to find a lower-level skill had advanced by a stage. Most commonly, it was either Aura Manipulation or EXP Manipulation, since Mana Manipulation had far surpassed them.
The sheer density of energy within the circle had massively advanced their progress in Mana Manipulation, even when they couldn't advance the technique due to its nucleic limitations.
On the third day since the strangers had asked after Azotreh and the pact was broken, Azotreh reached a bottleneck in External Mana Manipulation at Apprentice-50. They had started pushing at other skills instead after they spent a whole day shifting mana around and couldn't do anything.
Azotreh was still afraid to touch Internal Mana Manipulation, slightly worried that they would accidentally harm themselves in some way by trying to push the mana within their body around. Weirdly, though, they'd gained two advancements in the skill to Apprentice-3.
But while Atu continued to push around mana, a knock suddenly sounded at their door.
Viket was deeply nervous, far more so than usual. Asergia had left for the world vent, in a rage of some kind, and had complained to him about the child residing in this very house. He knew that those past the ruby-tier would sometimes have problems understanding why they should interact with their so-called 'lessers.' Even so, that kind of anger directed at a child was completely unnecessary.
If anything, Viket was surprised that Asergia had even sat down with the pale human that had emerged from the blue slime. But the prospect of a personal dungeon had appeared to stay the chief's hand, even if it didn't do so for long.
He had been disappointed that he couldn't have investigated the growth of a not only sapient, but cooperative dungeon nexus. The others with the scholar root class or any of its branches had very similar opinions to his.
But that wasn't why he was here. Asergia had promised revenge against Azotreh for taking away his opportunities. Viket simply couldn't sympathize with the idea of killing a child for doing nothing wrong. So he'd come with all he could.
Atu answered the door, a flat glare focused on Viket. He knew that he and the other rabbit-kin of the village should visit Atu more often, but she was intimidating. Especially to him.
"A- Atu, is Azotreh home?" He asked, stuttering as he met her chilly gaze.
"Yes, they are. Why do you care? Here to hunt them down for being a slime too?"
Viket flinched at that. Is that why the alvod had come here? She seemed to take his flinch as agreement, and before he could even speak again, she had her fur armor already shimmering into form around her.
He raised his hands defensively, "I- I'm not Atu! I c- came with a warning, and some g- gifts for the potential candidate."
She was in the middle of pulling a gorgeous iron spear from her inventory before stopping. Her gaze remained steady as she asked, "What kind of warning?"
"A- Asergia just went to the wo- world vent," the nervous rabbit man spoke, "When he left, he v- vowed revenge on Azotreh f- for taking what he thought should be his opportunity."
She scoffed, "His opportunity? He's an emerald-ranked clan head raised with beast cores and monster cores from the lord. He's not fit for a tenth of what my father gives him."
Viket felt a shiver go down his spine at her words. The sheer disrespect Atu showed for her half-sibling, and the leader of her clan, astonished him. Even if he agreed, he'd never say such words aloud.
"And what does he care about potential candidacy? It's not like he'd be fit to be the next candidate anyway. He's too old, and his path is already set."
"It doesn't m- matter that he could never become the n- next candidate. I- it only matters that he thinks Azotreh took something he deserved."
That made her pause. Then she sighed, "If you're telling Azotreh to run, I'm going with them."
"Wh- what?" Viket's eyes widened to be as wide as saucers.
"So are you, Viket. While I'm leaving to accompany Azotreh, and therefore could choose not to, you have no such option."
"Wh-"
"You told us that Asergia vowed to kill Azotreh. Imagine what that prick will do if he finds out you told us. He'd drop you into the depths, or feed you to the colony, or another eight thousand things."
Viket gulped. It was true. Asergia had killed his own kin for substantially less, even if each time it got him scolded by the Lord Rabbit.
"B- but where would we go?"
Atu rolled her eyes, "Did you forget the reason Asergia was so happy to have Azotreh in the village to begin with? They have a dungeon, a proper manifested dungeon."
"B- but he knows where-"
"No, he doesn't," spoke up a smaller, but eerily cold voice from behind Atu.
Viket glanced around the still heavily armored woman to see Azotreh. Her aura was encompassing theirs, so he hadn't noticed it, but now that he looked, it was calm too. Far too calm.
"When Nicholas established the deal with Asergia and gave me the last name Nightshade, he never disclosed the location of the dungeon itself."
"B- but Cekaa found you in a cave behind the B- Blueshine Waterfall. I- isn't that where your dungeon is?"
Azotreh nodded slightly, and when Viket focused, they suddenly realized Azotreh's eyes had no sclera, just what seemed to be a black and red iris and pupil. It was deeply unnerving
"But when Cekaa found me, did they see a giant beating heart? Or a crystal core? Anything to indicate a dungeon?"
"No…" Viket suddenly realized. None of the rabbit-kin had truly seen the dungeon nexus, or anything related to it.
Azotreh nodded when Viket came to the realization. The location of the dungeon really was a secret to Asergia.
"Th- that's good news. I have- no, I don't have to tell them, b- but I want to."
Atu spoke up again, "Tell who, and tell them what?" Her voice was as cold as steel.
"The scholars, and a couple of others."
"Why in the nine hells would you ever tell them? We're trying to go somewhere Asergia can't kill us or whatever his plans for me are."
Viket shook his head, "If there's somewhere safe outside of the village, I do need to tell them. You wouldn't know it all the way out here, Atu, but there are quite a few in the village who are deeply unhappy under Asergia."
Her eyebrows shot up, as did those of Azotreh behind her. Viket chuckled, "Did you think that the tyrant who only values his own artificial strength was popular?" His voice was suddenly a lot more confident as he continued, "Asergia is a menace to those without direct strength. He only treats us well because the Lord Rabbit commands it to be so."
"Then why didn't you already leave for the topaz or amethyst clans?" Atu asked.
"The topaz clan is worse than Asergia, straight up crushing the class stones for root classes beyond those focused solely on the body. They banish anyone who follows a path that isn't some form of martial prowess.
As for the amethyst clan? They refuse us constantly. They prize their scholars and mages, but refuse to let those from other clans in.
And don't even ask about joining one of the clans of other beastkin, or the orcs or goblins. Most of them would eat us, even if it granted little to no nutrition."
Azotreh's eyes widened slightly behind Atu, though Viket still couldn't feel any kind of fluctuation in their aura. It was deeply disturbing to him to see a child with such a controlled aura.
Atu only nodded a bit; she was never going to ask about the other species of Nightshade. The wolf and bear-kin only saw rabbit-kin as food sources, while both orcs and goblins would accept them, but they both knew that Lord Bloodskull or the clan heads would pressure them into martial classes or body focus.
She sighed heavily before speaking again, "Fine, bring them with. More hands make less work, or whatever."
She finally put away her spear, which got a sigh of relief from Viket. She was already very intimidating for any rabbit-kin, and that spear looked rather nasty.
Viket nodded before snapping his fingers, "The gifts, right."
He reached into the empty air and began to remove objects. Most were books, which he handed to Azotreh immediately, who stored them in their inventory before Nicholas removed them. Watching Azotreh store so many different items made Viket wonder what level their inventory was, but it wasn't nearly as important as giving over basically everything he had.
He handed over some glass implements in various shapes and sizes, along with racks to store them. He also handed over tons of small faceted gemstones in a wide variety of colors, and some mana crystals for good measure.
The final item he brought out was another faceted spherical gemstone, though this one was substantially larger than the dozens of other crystals he pulled from his inventory. It was a gorgeous blue, a little deeper than the cerulean blue of mana. It also seemed to shift in color while being observed. Between the facets were faintly shifting lines of gold.
Then, he simply turned around and ran off, leaving Azotreh deeply confused.
Viket ran back to the village. He may have been a scholar, which focused far more on the mind than the body, but he was still a zinc-ranked rabbit-kin. His legs carried him faster than any human not specializing in the speed poten could match, and with a far higher dexterity and agility than most would expect from his thin frame.
He didn't even bother with opening the door to his lab, just leaping up to fling himself through a second-floor window. Two other scholars, taking a moment of peace, were startled by his sudden appearance.
He was slightly out of breath, but quickly pulled a vigor potion from his inventory and downed it. It wasn't one of the ones that tasted good; instead tasting a little meaty with a stickiness he never liked. He once again cursed his inability to just focus on making his own potion recipes.
He quickly explained to the pair that they were finally going to run. That he had somewhere safe to go to, even if it would be rough for quite a while.
After explaining the situation, he didn't even bother to stick around and see the shocked looks on their faces before he ran down the stairs four at a time and into the proper lab space. He began to pack up everything. He'd emptied his inventory of everything except his potions, which only took up one slot because of the stand. So he began to refill it, not with the normal junk collection of quintessence he normally had, but with his proper work materials.
He poured experiments out the window with a sigh.
When others came over to ask him what he was doing, he explained his new revelations, which quickly resulted in even more dangerous arcane chemicals being poured out of windows haphazardly.
The night was filled with quiet packing for just over half of the rabbit-kin living in the village. From his fellow scholars to the many artists and mages, most of the manual workers, and even some of the soldiers who were in on the scheme, followed his lead in packing everything.
They'd set out tomorrow.