The group of rabbit-kin began moving soon after the sun rose. The dimmed shine from above was still more than bright enough for the enhanced senses of even the tin-rank children to continue the journey forward.
Atu felt almost all those around her using their marks constantly. It was a basic skill for any of them, and she understood it. But it was interfering with her senses.
She, Azotreh, and Ruby were a ways behind the larger group. Azotreh shone like a beacon to her mana sense, while Ruby did the same to her aura. The spiritual fox wasn't as masterful at controlling her aura as she likely should have been, but Atu knew that training would fix that.
Azotreh's aura remained as calm as a still pool, even as their eyes continued to flick around the forest, seeking out the slightest movement.
The group was moving alongside the Blueshine River, making their way to the waterfall that shared its name. They rarely stopped to drink, but did pause their journey around midday to eat.
Atu, Azotreh, and Ruby didn't sit down to eat, instead sitting to begin training.
Atu didn't understand either of their eating habits. Ruby seemed to like eating, and clearly still needed to eat once in a while, but rarely seemed truly hungry.
Azotreh always looked hungry, a little too skinny in her opinion. Maybe it was just the difference in species, though, since the child never asked for food. They always accepted when she offered, but didn't ask.
She placed a small mana crystal in her mouth and let it disperse. It wasn't as filling as an alchemic coin, but she didn't need it to be. Her body could sustain her on far less than others of her rank because of her Beast Affinity.
She sat Azotreh down, and instead of continuing in their practice of mana manipulation, she instead decided to show them how to channel their mana.
Ever since whatever had happened between the kid and Asergia, Azotreh had gotten a pair of the rabbit marks the rabbit-kin all shared on the back of their ears.
She had Azotreh sit in her lap before reaching up to gently stroke the backs of their ears.
The marks looked a little different from how she expected. Normally, the marks looked a bit like the common rune of audio, but Azotreh's had a slight extra curve in a few of the lines. The curves made the lines appear more like teeth than the ear usually represented by the rune.
She placed her thumbs on the marks. One on the back of each ear, a deep twilight purple compared to their normal blue, black, and white hair. She channeled some of her mana through her wrists and into the marks on their ears. She kept it at a lower concentration so as not to overwhelm.
"Do you feel that?" She asked.
Azotreh nodded.
"Try pushing mana through your body to where I'm inserting mana now."
Azotreh felt a slight tingle in the back of their ears. Their aura immediately picked up on the way the mana was dispersing from around their ears.
They focused on themselves. They closed their eyes, feeling their heart beating in their chest. They felt every inch of their skin as a slight breeze pushed some water from the nearby river. But most importantly, they felt nothing from within.
While in the facility, before they'd become exposed to the Skill System, they still had some access to mana. It was always a tiny trickle compared to the outside world, but still present.
The facility could shut down access to the system, but not to mana itself. Azotreh had spent many nights following their mana as it moved, feeling it pulsing in tune with their heart. It wasn't easy to sense, but when there's nothing else to do, focusing on a vague but constant sensation is a lot easier.
Now, though, they couldn't feel it. There were no paths for the energy to flow through.
Azotreh could still feel it as it pulsed with their heart. But it didn't move along set paths as their blood did. It moved seemingly at random, emanating from their chest.
Before they could investigate any further, the camp began to pack up. They only had maybe another hour of walking, so they wouldn't have another break to practice.
Atu ruffled Azotreh's hair, "Don't blame yourself. It's not that easy, even for us." She said soothingly. But Azotreh wasn't satisfied.
Atu looked down at Azotreh. They looked a little irritated for some reason. She knew that failing at an immediate goal felt awful. Especially for someone so young. When each moment felt like it was important, setbacks like this felt much more important.
She wanted to reassure them, but couldn't think of a way to do so. She simply didn't know how. She'd spent the last few years facing repeated setbacks in her conceptual advancements. She wasn't sure how to comfort someone after this kind of minor setback.
When she looked back at Azotreh, their face had returned to an almost creepy neutrality. Their eyes moved almost constantly, as if they were sleeping with their eyes open. But their face didn't shift at all. Their mouth didn't curve, their eyebrows didn't twitch.
Their aura was flat again, flatter than ever. It was also held much closer to their body than before. Acting almost like a shield.
Their movements were almost automatic. Their arms and shoulders barely moved as they walked, and their feet remained flat. Their knees reached a ninety-degree angle from their torso with each step before being planted in front of them.
She looked to Ruby, who was still sitting atop Azotreh's head. But she was asleep, content to be wrapped around Azotreh's ears. She didn't even notice the change in her bond, which hopefully meant that they were okay.
The group arrived at the dungeon just over an hour after they set out from their lunch spot. Over one hundred rabbit-kin stood before the Blueshine Waterfall. It really was gorgeous to look at from here. The deep blues and purples of the reflected sky danced across the fall and into the river at its foot. The water was dense enough and flowed with enough force to cloak what sat behind it, which Azotreh had to lead them into.
They had been having no luck in discovering the secrets of their own mana flow. They took control of their body from the cold awareness and stepped in front of the group, Atu immediately behind them. She was still in her full armor, unwilling to let them come to even the slightest harm.
Azotreh led Atu first, then the others up a slight incline. The stone was carved smooth and slick from the fall, making the few steps treacherous. But soon enough, Atu and Azotreh stood before the mouth of the open cave, illuminated by glowing mana crystals and water essence stones. The lights of the crystals illuminated a dozen small, shadowy forms that were scattered across the room. Atu wanted to grab her weapon at first. But in the next moment, her hand fell away from where she had opened her inventory.
While she could still sense they were monsters from that empty hatred in the depths of their auras, she could also very distinctly sense Azotreh's aura in all of them. The unique sense she got from them was in each monster. Even more confusing to her, they didn't even try to attack. They simply observed from the walls.
Azotreh calmly led her into the cave and through a narrow tunnel into a much larger space. Just barely large enough for all the rabbit-kin. Within the room stood a towering orc, hands pressed against one of the walls. The stone shifted and molded beneath the powerful orc's fingers before parting to create a tunnel.
She knew she could kill the monster easily. It was tin-rank, and despite its physical power, a real tin-rank orc wouldn't stand a chance against her, let alone a monster based on them. But when it turned around to look at the two of them, she noticed something truly odd for a monster.
There was genuine intelligence in its eyes. A light of awareness that no monster she'd ever encountered had. Not once in her life had she seen such an awareness, or the control she sensed from the monster's aura.
It bowed to her before speaking in a rough voice.
"Welcome, Atu."
She wondered how it knew her name and how it spoke the Ilmabi. But before she could ask, it clicked in her mind. Of course it could. Azotreh could.
Speaking of Azotreh, the child had moved over to the wall being excavated and looked at it.
"What's this?" They asked, their voice seeming to resonate within the very walls of the dungeon.
"We have guests. It would be rude to shove them in a giant box forever. Cruel too."
"Cruel?" Atu asked. She had honestly expected the others to have to sleep in boxes. Azotreh didn't know them well, and she had no idea if this monster was truly under Azotreh's control, or if the dungeon was its own thing.
"Do you not have cruelty in this world?"
"Of course we-"
"And cruelty is wrong?"
"Yes."
The orc nodded before turning back to its work.
She simply stared as others began to file in. The others just stared up at the imposing orc in often open-mouthed astonishment. The only ones who had any sense were the soldiers, all of whom she had to push down with her aura to stop them from attacking.
This orc seemed to have an awareness beyond Azotreh, and she didn't want to make a bad impression on whoever seemed to be their host.
Azotreh soon placed one of their hands on the stone as well, assisting in the carving effort. It didn't take too long for that same flat look to appear on their face. Eyes rapidly darting around without a twitch of the face.
As they channeled their power into their ability to shape Nightshade Gneiss, they focused inward more and more. Each second, they felt more and more power rush to their hands and into the stone, pushing it away. The cold consciousness took over the effort, following the will of Nicholas beside them while Azotreh continued to shape the stone.
The rabbit-kin watched on as the pair vanished into the stone. Atu followed close behind, keeping her gaze on the main room.
After half an hour of stone shaping, mostly aiming slightly downward, Nicholas began to shape a larger room. Azotreh followed suit. A moment after the duo began to shape the room, a small black salamander fell from the ceiling onto Atu's head.
She almost pulled one of her weapons out again until the salamander began to speak.
"They want to make you a room first. The others will have to wait, but Azotreh insisted."
The voice was cold and seemed to drip down the back of her spine like water. She was surprised again as a monster spoke the language she knew. Monsters don't speak languages in her mind.
She reached up and grabbed the salamander before holding it in the air. It stared back unblinkingly. Its eyes were an unnerving shade of cerulean blue. Entirely, no difference between sclera, iris, or pupil. Just the same shade of constant blue.
"Who are you?" She asked, staring at the little salamander.
"Fuzem."
"You have a name?"
"Yes. We all have names."
"We all?"
"Whatever we are. Four of us."
Atu's eyes widened a little as she looked at the little reptile. Four? She'd seen Azotreh just before they fell over, and their eyes had shifted to have four spinning pupils for a short moment.
"Do you not know what you are?"
"No."
The salamander didn't seem to want to share anything more, but clearly had more to say. Atu glanced at the towering orc that had spoken before, "What about that one?"
"Nicholas."
Atu went quiet. She'd heard that name from Asergia just as Azotreh was brought to her house. She still thought it was strange, not rolling off the tongue as well. But she had one more question.
"What about the fourth? Are they in the room?"
"Errazorrus. No, not in the room. He doesn't take an avatar."
"Why not?"
"He has other business."
Atu nodded a bit. She knew what it was like to be busy. She looked at the pair still shaping the walls. They had created a central room and were now working on a tunnel.
Azotreh felt the mana flowing from their body. But it didn't leave from their wrists like it used to. It was simply pushed through their fingers and palm as they touched the stone.
They focused more internally, at that beating center of their energy. It pushed out waves of mana, the energy continuing to suffuse their body. Each second, more mana flooded into their body before being released through their fingers and the rest of their skin.
They also felt a slight suction during the gaps between beats. Small amounts of the strangely dense mana flowed into their body from the world around them before being channeled into the beating core of their being.
They pushed more and more mana out, hoping it would give them the breakthrough they needed. To figure out what was going on with their own body.
Instead, all they were rewarded with was a new ability. No new insights, and no understanding of themself.
[New Ability: Biomass to Mana (1)]
They didn't feel like they were losing mass, but they apparently were, as they pushed more and more mana from their body to shape the room.
Soon enough, Nicholas–still in the form of the towering orc–grasped their wrist.
"The room's done, Azotreh. You can stop."
Azotreh didn't want to stop, but immediately realized that there was no point. Other than trying for their breakthrough, there was no reason to keep shaping the stone. They wouldn't make a room anyone could live in if they turned the whole hill into a super-dense pebble. It would take them centuries and not have a reason.
They pulled their hand away, their eyes down.
"When are we making the next one?"
Nicholas stared down at them.
"In twenty minutes. Spend some time with Atu."