Lev was facing a dilemma. Beatrice was keeping him healthy enough not to bleed out, and his own willpower was constantly utilized to keep his mind sharp and active.
The strain, however, was getting massive overtime. He was also pretty sure that the moment he stopped forcing himself to stay alert, he would lose control of everything or straight up pass out.
Giving the aura mage a look, he made some extra preparations. An infusion of shadow mana surged into the bubble, with his willpower acting as a replacement for his mind.
Interestingly enough, he couldn’t even begin to properly gauge his willpower reserves. He knew that using it to direct shadow mana as a fuel for the concealment enchantments wasn’t exactly taxing, but he was also wrung out enough that his willpower was already low. How low, he couldn’t tell, though the sensation was comparable to a bone-deep weariness, one that permeated his being without any concrete start or end.
And if his current state was anything to go by, he had used far too much power during the battle and the subsequent escape.
Pushing the musings to the back of his mind, he also created another layer underneath the bubble’s enchantments. Powering all mana concealment enchantments to the maximum, he infused the new layer with pure mana to use it as a buffer for the whole construct’s fuel. It would be responsible for everything that didn’t use shadow mana.
With that done, he infused just as much raw fuel into his armor. Then, with an effort of will, he forced his mind and body to relax.
Calling it a wave would’ve been a lie. A tsunami of exhaustion slammed into Lev, and so did his armored face on the bubble’s floor. The rope holding him up on his knees also went slack, painfully dropping the rest of his body.
Fortunately, he was made of stern stuff, and Beatrice’s first-aid constructs were also far from fragile. They held without problem.
Behind him, the scouts panicked briefly. Someone erected a sound ward with a general skill before the old leader spoke.
“Boy, you need to find a spot to rest. We can’t risk-”
“I’ll be fine,” Lev wheezed. Some part of his mind noticed how Beatrice’s constructs had literally created small ‘pipes’ in the bandages to keep the blood flowing through the stump of his right arm instead of just halting it entirely. “Healing will take a while, and I need you all to remain silent and alert.”
That was a lie. He could easily keep up with any conversation and even fight weak monsters during the healing. It was a matter of not caring enough to engage.
Thankfully, whether they believed him or not, no one challenged his order.
Beatrice took that as her cue to sit down and properly begin healing him in earnest. It was immediately obvious that her anatomical knowledge was leagues beyond his own, but curiously enough, the healing wasn’t that much more efficient.
Lev reflected on that. He knew his body pretty well, even if he didn’t bother to study it deeply. Was that willpower at play, remembering how he had healed himself most efficiently, or was it him getting used to being injured often enough to be forced to learn how to heal himself better?
He hoped it was the former. The latter was too embarrassing, even for him.
For ten minutes, no one spoke. Lev’s body was brought to a usable condition overall, whereas the stump of his arm was continuously prepared for regrowth through waves of restoration mana. He wasn’t even aware that such a procedure was necessary for regrowing limbs.
Another ten minutes of that, and Beatrice was finally ready for regrowing his arm. A skill enveloped the stump, and it went numb.
“Convert more.”
Lev acted on that. No longer did he need to suffer to channel mana, so he upped the rate until she had all the mana she would need.
Bringing his Perception down to the slowest, he watched. Restoration mana was an enigma, a mana type that he couldn’t even attempt to evolve yet. The level of mastery such a feat required would take forever to obtain.
Still, he had to start somewhere, and so he observed. It was obvious now that the aura mage in front of him had honed her knowledge about healing quite extensively, for the process was smooth. She probably had a lot of experience under her belt, too.
As his arm grew from nothing, another issue presented itself. He was famished, and his body demanded food now. As usual, he had no shortage of sustenance in his ring, and he brought out venison for a hearty meal. Combined with a nutritious juice, it was barely enough to shave off the worst of the cravings.
“Um,” the girl leader began hesitantly. “Do you have some food to spare, sir?”
Sir? Lev noted, amused. That was a stark improvement over the previous interaction, and even the old man was looking more subdued now. Maybe his inadvertently telling them to shut up had caused the change.
He didn’t answer and created a table and a few chairs before waving them over. On barrier plates, he summoned salads, soups, water, other drinks, and a whole lot of cooked and fried meat. All of that was transported over one by one, while utensils like barrier forks, knives, spoons, and plates also appeared on the table.
With the scouts engrossed in their meal as background noise, he continued to take mental notes from Beatrice’s skill on display. She didn’t rush the healing, nor did she focus on one aspect more than the other.
Instead, she used the restoration mana as a guide. It was a potent mana type, the one he had kept for a reason. Restoration mana tried to constantly heal his arm to an ideal state, and by following its lead, she healed the flesh, bone, and everything else in a marathon.
Combined with her bandage skill, the resulting arm took over half an hour to regrow. No signs of injuries were visible on it, nor was it pale like he expected it to be. Instead, the limb felt as normal as the other one, almost even better.
“Well damn,” Lev said with a smile. “Thank you.”
She just put a hand on the side of his head and gave it a light push, the gesture somehow loaded with tiredness, exasperation, relief, anger, and more.
“Where are we?” she eventually asked and looked around. There was nothing recognizable in the jagged cavern they were flying through, though it seemed to be steadily growing larger, allowing the bubble to pass through smoothly. The change was marginal and gradual.
“Somewhere far below ground,” Lev answered, his good mood evaporating. “In other words, I have no fucking clue. I’ve even lost track of whether we’re getting closer to the fort, or further away from it.”
“You’ve been going deep without a plan?” the old man asked.
Lev almost felt annoyed at the question. If only he couldn’t feel the fear in the words.
“Yeah. And before you ask, yes, I am well aware of the risks. There’s a reason I wanted to remain fully focused in case something jumped us.”
“What do we do? Is the ant champion following us still?” asked the other leader.
“Definitely,” he answered without hesitation.
“Why?” the sound mage asked.
“Because it was chasing me, and I pissed it off too much. There’s no way a monster will let go of a grudge.”
Thankfully, the man didn’t question his prepared answer. Instead, he turned to his team. Everyone was done with the food, and questions and suggestions ran rampant. Soon, those bled over to Lev and Beatrice.
“Do you have any items that can communicate with the fort?”
“We’re probably too deep,” he answered. “The item will likely be noticed, too. Too risky.”
The older scout paced around in the bubble. “How about creating a false trail. One person can use the device away from others, and then this… construct can pick them up once a rescue team has been dispatched.”
“Again, are you sure you want to risk it?” Lev asked, looking straight into the man’s eyes. “You feel it too, don’t you?”
Above them, somewhere between the bubble and the surface, many auras were on the hunt. The most prominent was the champion, daunting and domineering, but there were more variants now. They felt like warrior ants with potent body enhancements and physical skills.
“So far, I’ve been going left on every turn to make it easier to trace our way back, but that will also lead us directly to the monsters.”
“Then what can we do?” The question came from another person, almost as young as Lev himself. He was surprisingly less nervous than the rest of his team, more resigned than anything.
“We can wait them out,” Beatrice suggested. “Or, we can hunt them, but that’s a bad idea for many reasons.”
“Why? Aren’t you two Masters?” the girl leader questioned, looking at them intently. The accusation was hard to miss.
“Watch your words,” Lev rebuked, giving her a hard look. “And if I start fighting properly, we will be crushed by more stone than you can comprehend. And she’s an aura mage.”
The older man put a hand on the other leader’s shoulder, holding her back from saying something stupid. It wasn’t like Lev couldn’t see where she was coming from.
Without any plan, he had taken them all underground. It was both the only option and the worst option. What else could he do? Continuing the run would’ve exhausted him and made the humans easy picking, whereas the skies were not even a question.
So, he had done what he needed to live.
Regardless, he would be damned if the scouts tried to blame him for saving their lives. He had been blamed plenty for existing already; any more, and he might take out some of his anger on them.
“Now, now,” a member of the girl scout’s team raised her hands, trying to defuse the situation. “I know we’re all keyed up right now from the danger, but arguing will not solve anything.”
She then turned to him. “Sir Lev… you are Lev, right?”
He blinked, surprised. “Yeah.”
“We heard about your exploits when encountering a fourth-threshold being in the Grand Forest. Err, please don’t tell anyone that the details got leaked to a few teams. And the Runic Warlord has also sent out a notice to different cities to find strong adventurer teams who are willing to accompany you.”
“He wants me to lead them?” Lev asked, curiosity piqued.
“Oh no, he advertised your team as the primary combatants. That’s the most interesting part. Sir Warlord wanted to find more utility and scouting-focused teams for the expedition.”
“Huh…”
He filed that information away for later. The realization was also enough to mollify the girl leader, her shoulders no longer as tense. At least the rumors of his strength were coming in handy.
Time passed in a blink. Another hour of floating even deeper was enough to make even Lev hesitate. They were easily over a dozen kilometers underground now, and while equipment would easily provide them with the needed air and food, the monsters so far below the surface were… twisted.
Most of them were ambush predators, lurking in the darkness and relentlessly chasing their prey. Some of them were much worse, able to manipulate the mind through means that were yet to be understood by humans.
Still, something told him that they were safe for now. No one else seemed to be alarmed either, and they oddly hadn’t encountered anything yet.
Some of that could be explained by the thousands of ants above them. The sheer force arrayed against Lev, a single human, was mind-boggling.
The rest of it could be attributed to his luck finally being above average. He deserved the rest after the terrifying chase, and he had even taken a great risk to save the scouts.
“We need to stop eventually,” he voiced out loud. “I’m low on mana, and we can’t rely on Beatrice to fill up all of our pools. She also needs to be prepared in case something goes wrong.”
Both scout leaders nodded. Seeing no problems from their end, Lev stood up to his full height, Stargazer’s haft resting in his right hand.
For a moment, he squinted his eyes. His Mana Perception tried to locate something, as if feeling hints of something negligible.
He didn’t ignore the sensation and instead focused his Perception all around him. Stone mana empowered the cavern they were in, though there was also something else. It felt natural, so he ignored it for now and looked for anything out of place.
He gave up a few minutes later. Either his attribute was too low, which was unlikely, or his Perception skills were slowly falling behind. He didn’t doubt that one of them would evolve soon, but for now, it wasn’t enough.
Consulting Beatrice and the scouts one last time, they decided to head even deeper, completely oblivious to the fact that even the ants didn’t dare brave the depths they were approaching. While they should’ve been perfectly able to, none of the humans noticed that the auras their pursuers had stopped following them deeper a while ago, instead opting to block all their exits in case they survived.