Cale sat down with a storm inside his belly. This one raged with a fury deeper than the first, broken murderbot had. The Mana kept breaking out of control, and a great nausea and an urge to vomit passed over Cale. A part of his instincts told him to discharge some of the Mana.

  “I can discharge a third of it,” Aura suggested.

  Cale only shook his head. He would push through his nausea. He was too greedy to let go of a third of this boundless potential. And so he focused and pushed through. It was hard, but he already had some experience.

  He knew what to do. Just because it was difficult wasn’t going to stop him.

  Cale could feel how eagerly his body was waiting for the next injection of power, but there was a large chunk of work to do. The Mana churned as an incoherent mess, lashing out this way and that, surging and swelling with raw chaos for its engine.

  Bit by bit, Cale brought order into that chaos. Slowly a swirling cloud emerged from the storm, and when it settled to circle around his core, Cale started to suck it in with a steady flow.

  Gradually the misty, almost gaseous form that Cale visualized the Mana as started to liquify around his pebble of a Mana pool. It was still mostly gaseous, but clearly the next stage of refinement would be to turn it liquid. Cale was wondering if squeezing that gas to pack together was going to give him an aneurysm.

  One thing was certain. Cultivation was hard work.

  The focus required was staggering. If Cale let his concentration slip even a little bit, the mana would try to burst out violently. Cale stayed in the fight, kept breathing. He felt exhaustion seeping into his psyche. He still had work to do and he wouldn’t let any of the energy go to waste.

  “Your mana pool is empty. You can drain it in, since the Mana is already attuned to you.”

  “Oh,” Cale said. He breathed out and the slowly turning energy around his pool got sucked in. Cale waited and felt that the Mana settled in.

  Cale carefully stood up, keeping his mind on his solar plexus where his Mana pool was. The Mana seemed stable. He moved around and found that keeping the Mana inside the pool was effortless. Then he pulled carefully pulled a strand of Mana from it. It surged upwards through his core to his shoulder and settled on the palm of his hand.

  A tingling sensation, a warmth and the faintest blue emanation was visible on his hand. It dissipated.

  “Don’t waste it!”

  “I need to learn to control it.”

  “You’ll need to develop your Mana circuitry to do that efficiently.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Well, a lot like that. But better. And with a lick of thought into it,” Aura said.

  “Next time then,” Cale said. “How’s my Mana pool looking?”

  “A bit more than nothing,” Aura said dismissively. “You’re about as powerful as a lawn mower.”

  “A magical lawn mower,” Cale said immediately.

  He could have sworn that Aura tittered.

  “Can I see my— thanks.”

  Mid-sentence, a floating rectangle with a bunch of data appeared in front of him, giving him a numerical representation of his cultivation power.

  [Mana Cultivation Power Level: 1]

  [Mana Pool: 4]

  [Advancement Stage: Body Tempering 1]

  [A.U.R.A Skills: N/A]

  “So there are four units of mana inside my mana pool now?” Cale asked.

  “Yes. I am oversimplifying it to make it easy for you to comprehend.”

  “Appreciated.”

  “How do I increase my cultivation power?”

  “By advancing,” Aura said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You need to give your body mana and it will reinforce itself. With each step in advancement, you will become stronger.”

  “How many steps are there?” Cale asked as he slumped against a wall, catching his breath. The floor felt cold, but that was nice.

  “Cultivation is a long journey,” Aura said. “Let’s focus on Body Tempering first. There are nine stages, three for each layer. Lower, Middle and Upper Body Tempering. Beyond that is Mana Circuitry.”

  “So if I’m as powerful as a lawn mower,” Cale said pensively. “How powerful is someone at Mana Circuitry?”

  “The difference between a full tier of cultivation advancement is the difference between a candle and a campfire.”

  “Damn… I better get my ass to work then,” Cale muttered.

  “Yes,” Aura said primly. “But I do suggest you rest a while. You are much less efficient in combat if you are fatigued mentally and physically, and if you die because of that, it would inconvenience me greatly.”

  “Is this amount of mana enough to increase my cultivation?” Cale asked.

  “Well… It is,” Aura admitted. “The difference between Body Tempering one and Body tempering two is miniscule. Cultivation becomes exponentially harder with each advancement, which makes the initial ones easier. Body composition gives children some challenge, but adults will find it easier.”

  “I’ll advance then. It will give us a better chance dealing with the murderbots.”

  “But your fatigue…”

  “I’ll push through.”

  Cale breathed and called the mana from his pool. It was already attuned, but Cale worked it a bit more, trying to condense it. That seemed to be the key. The mana was initially gaseous, and attuning it made it seem like liquid. Beyond that it could even possibly turn solid as far as Cale knew. Now it was a misty gas.

  Cale worked on it to turn it into something more solid, but soon the strain was too much. His control was slipping.

  “This is enough. Release the mana into your body. It will naturally absorb it.”

  Cale did that and relaxed. It felt amazing. He was at the end of his rope.

  He observed the mana as it spread throughout his body. To his muscles, tendons, bones, internal organs and skin.

  Something shifted. His fatigue receded ever so slightly. He felt stronger, more alert. Better. Just overall better.

  “You did it!” Aura said happily. “You’re second stage!”

  “Show me,” Cale said immediately.

  [Mana Cultivation Power Level: 2.2]

  [Mana Pool: 0.4]

  [Advancement Stage: Body Tempering 2]

  [A.U.R.A Skills: N/A]

  “Nice,” Cale said and squeezed a victorious fist. “And I still have some mana left.”

  “Yes, your focus was quite impressive,” Aura said. “Do note that you can also call mana back from your body, but you are essentially going into cultivation debt. You won’t decrease a rank, but you will need to work extra hard to make up for using your natural mana reserves. Sometimes it has to be done, but try to avoid it.”

  “Got it,” Cale said and slumped against the wall, satisfied with his work.

  “Now for the love of my creators and all that is beautiful, mainly me: Please rest, Cale!”

  Cale chuckled at that and nodded. He closed his eyes and just breathed in the cool air of the tomb. Cale could feel the advancement in his body immediately. The aches from his battles were waning and there was a distinct increase in overall energy. Cale felt powerful. The kind of martial artist powerful who screams and breaks bricks with his forehead. How Cale got that image in his head was anybody’s guess.

  But the greed inside him was satisfied. For now. Cale relaxed.

  “Hey, Aura,” Cale eventually said.

  “Hm?”

  “These murderbots. How powerful are they compared to a lawn mower?”

  “They’re designed to group up and slaughter tier 1 cultivators. I would say their power level ranges between twenty to twenty five.”

  “Then why am I only getting so little power out of them?” Cale asked. “Are we missing something?”

  “What are you insinuating?” Aura asked with a shrill voice. “I will have you know, I am a Special-grade Mana attuning device. You will not find anything superior than I!”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Then what gives?”

  “You of course,” Aura said. “You’re barely capable of containing the Mana. You are burning through a lot of Mana to keep what you have under control.”

  “Oh..?” Cale muttered. “So I’m using up some of the Mana to attune it?”

  “How else would you be able to control it?” Aura sniffed.

  “Are you saying I’m burning four to five units of Mana to cultivate one?”

  “Give or take.”

  “That’s unacceptable.”

  “My point exactly,” Aura said with an exasperated sigh. “That is the equivalent of using a tier two Mana attuner. Look, I have it catalogued in your statistics.”

  A blue floating rectangle appeared in Cale’s vision. From the list of different statistics, one specific one was bolded and brought up to next to the base stats that Cale understood.

  [Mana Attunement efficiency: 20.8%]

  “This is an average. Sometimes when you’re focused it is around 23-25 percent. When you’re sloppy, it is around 17-18.”

  “Well, I’ll be…” Cale muttered. “How do I get better?”

  “How about we first get you out of here alive? That kind of training will take time. The reason you are using Mana inefficiently, is because you are stuffing it in like you’re starving.”

  “Seemed like the natural thing to do.”

  “Quite so. But I must admit I find it appalling.”

  “Now that I know better… you and me both, Aura.”

  Aura said nothing, but Cale could feel the swell of joy inside him, as the magical AI recognized her new name.

  “Remind me to deal with the Mana inefficiency later. Let’s get out of here.”

  Cale got up and dusted his jumpsuit off. The ruins were eerily quiet, but Cale was sure there would be more fighting ahead. He was tired, but the surge of increased strength from advancing made him excited.

  I’m actually looking forward to the next fight.

  The next half an hour went by in careful silence. Cale used his stored up Mana sparingly, but he was learning to control his Mana sense. So far he didn’t sense anything in any corner, lurking in wait of an ambush. And neither did Aura.

  Slowly they made their way through a main corridor sloping upwards. It went up for a mile with nothing but a dim white light emanating from the high ceiling. Cale followed the tunnel until he reached a large chamber. The tunnel opened into a wide balcony overlooking a large circular chamber below. The balcony itself was carved from the same stone as the rest of the facility, offering a hidden vantage point.

  From his perch, Cale could see the chamber below clearly. It was wide and carved circular. The other end further away began with a bridge that stretched over an endless darkness into the yonder. On the other end was a large door with intricate carving upon it.

  There were four people in the room. Three of them clearly from the same faction, judging from their equipment. But another figure walked first towards the door, without a care in the world, as if they were on a summer stroll.

  “These are cultivators!” Aura squealed excitedly. “Pay attention.”

  Cale nodded. He needed not be told twice. He leaned over the perch eyes focused, not willing to let go of a single detail.

  The one walking first was an exceptionally tall man of athletic build and wavy black hair. He was wearing a fine black suit with reinforced shoulders of sleek silver. Thin pinstripes of silver ran down his well tailored suit and a white shirt and a silk vest with a red tie completed the sophisticated look. He strode in a tall confident gait of even pace toward a massive stone door, idly swinging a large, closed umbrella in his other hand, spinning it as easily as he smiled to himself, as if he knew an important secret.

  Behind him followed a retinue. There were two skulking men in combat armor made of crude iron. Green lines criss-crossed about the armor, like spiderwebs. They pulsed. In their hands they were carrying devices Cale did not recognize. They had to be weapons.

  But his attention was not on these two men. It was on the largest person in the room.

  Even taller than the guy wearing the suit, this monstrosity of a man towered over everything. A large, bald head of small beady eyes and an angry scowl, giving him a menacing air. Nine feet tall, wide as a brickhouse, his muscles rippled as he walked after the tall man in a suit. He also had green spiderwebs of wiring lining his torso, but these slight tubes went about his skin. It was gray and thick like that of a rhino’s.

  But his most distinctive feature was a massive, red scorpion tail made of some unholy fusion of flesh and metal. It whipped around as the man walked, and at the end of the tail was a a sharp claw, that opened into a deadly fan and back into a sharp spike rhythmically. His other hand was made of the same red mesh of flesh and machine. It was a massive pincer that dragged along the ground as the massive man slightly hunched over its weight.

  The tall man stopped before a stone gate. It was braced with a shining blue steel, and in the middle of the gate was a panel that was faintly glowing with Mana.

  “This is the treasure chamber,I reckon,” the tall man called behind him. “What do you think?”

  “I think this is the end of the line for you, Darius Roas,” the brute behind him growled.

  Darius only turned his head over his shoulder and smirked. “Took you long enough.”

  “You knew?” The brute asked.

  “I wasn’t sure, but I was counting on it. Chimera Corporation isn’t known for its subtlety.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” The brute asked.

  “It’s a… subtle way of saying you’re stupid and predictable.” Darius said, smirked and turned his head back towards the treasure door.

  One of the brute’s lackeys stepped forward.

  “You dare to disresp— oof!”

  The large brute punched the lackey. “Shut up.”

  “Yes, lord Scarroid.” he muttered.

  Scarroid turned his scowl back to Darius. “If you knew this was a setup, where is your backup?”

  “Oh, they’re outside, I’ll need their help carrying the loot,” Darius said, pocketing his free hand.

  The brute bristled, and his scorpion tail whipped the air.

  “We’re both Core Formation,” Scarroid said.

  “You know what a tiger and a housecat have in common?” Darius asked, still not bothering to turn around, as if the treasure room door was more interesting than the conversation. “They both have claws. But that’s where the similarities end.”

  “I see you keep yours well manicured, you domesticated sod.”

  “I do, don’t I?” Darius said and turned to smile. “I got them done just before I got here. I knew I wouldn’t have to get my hands too dirty.”

  “I’ll enjoy breaking your pretty teeth in.”

  “Not ignoring how you think I’m pretty,” Darius said. “But how are you going to do that?”

  “Did you really think I would come here without a Mana-burn engine?”

  “I don’t know,” Darius said. “You forgot your brain at home, so why not two for the price of one?”

  “That’s it,” Scarroid said and produced something that looked like an oversized compass from his waist satchel. Then he nudged his head at the two lackeys by his right. “You two, buy time.”

  Darius turned and flourished his umbrella, and let it fall on his shoulder, still keeping his other hand in his pocket.

  Cale watched as Scarroid growled as the plate-sized compass started to whirr and a tether of blue energy connected it and the brute. It enveloped him in a translucent cloak that pulsed with energy. Meanwhile the two lackeys approached Darius carefully.

  Darius gave them no time. He lunged, and Cale saw only a black and silver blur. In the next eyeblink his umbrella had pierced the other lackey’s stomach.

  Instead of withdrawing his strange weapon, Darius opened it. Cale could only see the sudden shocked realization in the young man’s face before he exploded into a chunky rain of gore.

  Darius lifted his umbrella to shield himself from the bloody rain. Cale suspected pretense. Even though he had stood next to his foe point blank, somehow, his suit was still immaculate.

  The other lackey was now drenched in the blood of his comrade, and he visibly shook as he looked at his hands.

  “Attack,” Scarroid growled.

  The lackey dropped his weapon and ran. In one fluid motion, Darius closed the umbrella and leveled it with a straight arm as he aimed. His shoulder bucked from recoil as a bolt of blue energy shot from the tip and slew the escaping man. The hole in his chest hissed and a faint trail of smoke trailed from it as the man fell.

  “Thanks,” Scarroid said. “Saved me the trouble.”

  “I’m glad we found some common ground,” Darius said and hoisted the umbrella back on his shoulder. “Now. How about you show me what you got?”

  Scarroid growled as he squeezed the Mana-burn engine. The tether of energy between him and the device grew wild, thick and unstable. Arcs of energy spewed out. Then it blinked out. Scarroid growled.

  Even Cale could sense the dense storm of energy swirling inside the gigantic man. He seemed to grow in stature, and the green spider-veins on his body seemed to thrum with green energy. He extended to his full stature, seemingly no longer weighed by the massive claw grafted onto his left arm. Scarroid now swung it forward and clacked it in front of him. It made Cale’s ears ring.

  With his scorpion tail, Scarroid casually swinged at a statue behind him. It exploded into thousands of little pieces.

  Cale watched in awe.

  “He is now well into the midway of Core Crystallization stage power levels,” Aura said. “This other man is almost at peak of Core Formation himself, but right now he is unmatched.”

  “What are the rankings again?”

  “You are at Body Composition. After that follows Mana Circuitry. Then Core Formation and Core Crystallization. Each is several times stronger than the previous. There are ranks beyond that, but this is not the time.”

  “How much stronger is the scorpion guy?” Cale asked in a whisper.

  “Two— maybe three times stronger.”

  “How did he do that?”

  Aura huffed indignantly.

  “A Mana-burn engine is something I will never let you use. It amplifies your power, but at a terrible cost. Not only will it eat away at the Mana cultivation you have built, burning away your Mana circuitry and draining your core, these devices will also drain your life’s essence.”

  “Burning the candle from both ends.”

  “Exactly. It can give a cultivator great temporary power, but at the cost of his potential.”

  Cale nodded. That was all he managed to do. Both Darius and Scarroid vanished from their spots and now a black and white blur darted along the room, while being chased by a large red and green blotch. When the bigger blur caught Darius, they clashed. The shockwave of the impact blasted Cale back.

  He immediately scrambled on his feet, determined to not miss a blink of this fight.

  When he got back up, he had to hold on to a pillar to not be thrown on his back again. He watched as the two were now standing next to each other. Two weapons were swinging above and about them with lightning speed, with which Cale could not keep up. Scarroid’s massive tail lashed like a massive red viper, and Darius’s umbrella was nothing but a black blur as it came to meet the strikes. He was no longer smirking, but wore a focused scowl.

  Eventually, Darius had to dodge and he blink-stepped backwards or sideways. Every time he did that, Scarroid would charge with his massive clawed hand. Darius kept dodging and parrying, but he was slowing down.

  He took another blink step. The giant red claw rushed at him. Darius opened his umbrella and absorbed the force of the strike, skidding backwards on the stone floor.

  He smiled. “I got you.”

  The umbrella hummed and blasted out a torrent of silver energy, like a dam burst open. It covered Scarroid and he roared in pain. When the torrent ended, he charged, his tail whipping wildly about him.

  He moved like a boxer on the twelfth round. Slow, sluggish, staggering forward. His shoulders shook with pain and exhaustion as he lunged again with the claw, much slower this time.

  Darius was slouched as well. When he took the blow on his umbrella, his arm gave and he was thrown twenty feet backwards. Scarroid lumbered towards him with pained and slow steps. Hurt for sure, but Darius was struggling to keep up.

  “Nothing to say?” Scarroid sneered as he managed to push himself into a jog, dragging his massive claw behind him.

  Darius produced a small flask of golden-orange liquid. He swigged it down and immediately got up and straightened, full of new energy.

  “Tsch,” Scarroid said. “A mana elixir? That cost you a lot.”

  “I guess I did come prepared after all,” Darius said and graced his foe with a mirthless smirk.

  Scarroid protruded a flask of his own. A bigger, this one, full of green, oily liquid that sloshed when Scarroid uncorked the flask.

  “You know what this is?” Scarroid said and grinned an evil smile.

  “A beastform elixir!” Darius gasped and raised his umbrella. He fired a volley of blue energy at the flask.

  Scarroid threw down a grenade. A giant cloud of green smoke billowed out and the large man vanished in the midst of it. Darius kept firing at the cloud with his umbrella, as he backed out, taking distance from the cloud.

  After a few heartbeats a guttural, inhuman growl reverberated in the chamber, so deep and violent, that it chilled Cale’s spine.

  Something emerged from the cloud. It was no beast. It was a monster.