[Farmer] Mage

Cal no longer felt the suppressive effects of the corrosive air. He hadn't realized how much it weighed on his body until he was free of it.

It was like breathing fresh air after so long that he'd forgotten how good it felt.

He winced as his body trembled, his frayed nerves emitting bursts of pain that should have incapacitated him.

Cal willed additional wisps of mana from his reserves to act like a balm. It didn't make the pain vanish, but it let him move without his nerves crying in protest.

A pain suppressant was more than he could ask for at the moment.

He gathered himself enough to take stock of the area he'd entered. It hadn't taken him more than half a minute, and considering the circumstances, that was an accomplishment.

He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dark. Thankfully, it wasn't a complete absence of light. Faint purple and crimson glows pulsed in and out across the area, frequent but patternless. With no rhyme or reason to their appearances, he couldn't draw any conclusions.

The next thing that hit him was the intense saturation of mana in the air. It wasn't dangerous—in fact, it felt comfortable on his skin—but it shocked him that a place like this could exist.

That ruled out [Mana Sense]. He had no intention of using it anyway; his body was in no condition to spend mana on anything except holding itself together. The saturation put even the slightest chance to rest.

He wasn't masochistic enough to find a workaround in his state.

Then he noticed what set this area apart from the others: the ground was flat—the usual descent absent—and there was no void at the center.

Still, given the exits in the previous area were all in the center, he had to assume the same here. If not, he'd decide what to do once he knew more.

Cal shuffled forward, keeping his movements minimal to avoid aggravating his frayed nerves. It wasn't a complete success.

He winced with every tedious step. Given the power that had coursed through his body to destroy that accursed tree, it was a fair trade-off.

There was no fog or similar veil hiding the area, but it was simply too large and too dark to see everything. He still had some hope that Tavia was here, given how uneventful the place seemed. It could be a place to recover.

He wasn't sure how much time passed; he kept moving, gingerly, without stopping. He usually kept track, but for now his focus was on refusing the pain's constant demand that he quit.

He could not allow that—especially now that he saw the wound at the center.

It was nearly invisible, but the closer he came, the more his skin prickled as the mana thickened, making it impossible to miss.

This must be the tear in space the Overseer mentioned.

Cal stopped several hundred feet away, wary of the pull he felt on his body. The tear wasn't large—twenty to thirty feet at most—but it opened onto a void that looked ravenous.

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That contradicted the flood of mana pouring out of it.

He thought it contracted. He narrowed his eyes and stared until he saw it again.

It's becoming smaller.

Cal didn't have to do anything but wait for the sinkhole to destroy itself—or so he assumed the tear's function to be. The immense mana it released would have flooded this area to dangerously high levels.

All that mana had to go somewhere, and the only thing that could use such a staggering amount was the sinkhole itself, to sustain its existence.

The problem was time. The tear contracted unevenly, and he did not know if it would close in days or weeks.

He wasn't sure he could delay healing for that long. He went over his options, but other than the ambiguous [Mist Walker], there was nothing he could use.

Am I going to be forced to—

He felt a touch on his arm.

Cal acted instinctively. His mana reserves roared to meet the challenge despite his body's loud protest and the surge of intense pain. Everything but the imminent fight became secondary—and rightly so, since something had snuck up on him without him noticing. He turned with a raised fist and moved as if his body weren't in shambles. It might be an impossible demand, but he wouldn't go down alone.

His murderous gaze met Tavia's concerned eyes. She was already preparing to defend herself, gloves limned with fire and blades extended between each knuckle. He froze in shock, and the will to push his body beyond its limit vanished in an instant.

Cal stared at Tavia's moving mouth as his body failed spectacularly, his ability to stay upright the first thing to go. She rushed to catch him before he became an undignified heap on the ground, but he could only watch her lips move without hearing a sound.

…Oh. I'm deaf. When did—

He sucked in a sharp breath as pain flooded his senses. Only now did he realize one of his major senses had gone dark; the throbbing of his nerves had masked the silence he should have noticed.

Tavia held him with a frantic expression, still speaking to him. He gathered the last dregs of his will to communicate what mattered.

"H—Health." The word scraped out of him. He would have balked at the weakness on display if it hadn't sold his point. Relief washed through him when she pulled a small vial from her storage pouch. It was water to the metaphorical fire ravaging his nerves—though only for a moment. He winced as she opened his mouth and fed him the potion.

Cal groaned when the pain somehow spiked as the potion took hold. Thankfully, it didn't last. A few seconds later his limbs began to answer him again. He tried to stand under his own power, though Tavia was reluctant to let go. He was still steadying himself when his ears popped.

A low thrum from the tear reached him as he smiled at Tavia. "Thank you. I really thought I would die for a moment."

She hovered her hands near him as if he might fall at any time—a logical assumption. "Can you hear me now?"

His smile widened, and he pulled her into a tight hug. He had truly thought he'd be left to rot in this place until she swooped in—optimism be damned.

His neck muffled her voice. "Cal?"

He pulled back and looked her over. Aside from the scorched fringes of her robes, she looked untouched. If not for the tree he'd destroyed in the previous area, he would have been ashamed to call this incursion a rescue. Not that Tavia had needed help, but at least he'd contributed.

"It's good to see you doing well. You seem to have met minimal resistance."

Tavia nodded absently. She rubbed her thumb over a spot on his jaw, making him flinch. The lightning his body had channeled had left it tender. "What did this to you?"

"You might have missed it if you left the previous area without exploring, but there was a tree absorbing…something from the corpses. It was massive, and I overestimated myself trying to bring it down. On the bright side, I killed it and stopped that horror."

Tavia frowned. "Corpses? Tree? What are you talking about? The previous level was a barren wasteland with air that tried to melt my skin."

Cal's thoughts froze, then raced. There had been no direct challenge in the previous level other than the urge in his mind to flee, but the area's purpose had been to grow the gems—and he carried several in his storage pouch.

Could the gems have acted as a key to the area?

He met Tavia's eyes. "It looks like we might have taken different paths to get here. Let's compare notes and make sure."