Cale could hear the rumble and crash of those two cultivators fighting somewhere nearby. He was wary of them not crashing through a wall suddenly, because if that happened, Cale needed to make himself scarce immediately.

  The cultivators intrigued him. He wanted their power. The strange greed flashed in him, and Cale found that instead of being afraid, he was looking forward to facing more murderbots.

  I’m kind of a crackpot, aren’t I?

  In the long forgotten remains of a master civilization, Cale trudged forwards. He faced a murderbot that was alone and unaware of him. Cale quickly jumped on it with a vicious ambush and drained it. He and Aura bickered whether or not he should cultivate with the energy or give it to Aura, so she could recharge her healing sigils. Caution won and Aura got the mana.

  After a few minutes of uneventful exploration and another drained murderbot, Cale stumbled upon a room that had to be a treasury. Glimmering crystals of blue and purple and an orange golden light of varied sizes. Two large piles of little ones the size of his pinky, but there were a few that were the size of his arm.

  There were strange devices on pedestals that Cale did not understand. In the center of the room was one particularly large pedestal made of gold and on top of it was a mystical contraption of tubes and cylinders and sleek metal panels with sigils embedded in them.

  Looming above it all was a guardian made of sharp edges and hard steel. A murderbot. A really, really big murderbot.

  Cale swallowed as his eyes traveled from its tree trunk legs to its hulking torso which ended in a sleek head that had a large triple lens for an eye. The eyes were thankfully dim. He exhaled in relief.

  Cale took a closer look. The monstrosity stood twelve feet tall and had a long tail with jagged blades protruding from the length in four directions. It also had a curious round shield on its back. Cale suggested this machine would get on all fours and lash out with the blade-tail when engaged.

  He positioned himself by the door he had entered the room to assess the situation.

  “Good move to take a step back,” Aura said. “You are not completely hopeless.”

  “Don’t worry,” Cale said. “I’ll get us killed yet.”

  “That is precisely why I worry.”

  “What is all this stuff?”

  “Those Crystals over there? They are Manastones. Nevani used them for currency.”

  “Wait… You’re saying those things are full of mana?”

  “Yes, and— Don’t you dare take another step, Cale!”

  Cale stopped himself with great effort. The greed flared within him. There were hundreds of manastones in those two piles. And the big ones must have had a massive amount of Mana in them. The greed was strong in him, compelling, goading him. But he had to suppress it. For all they knew if he touched the treasure, the murderbot would activate.

  Cale swallowed and nodded to himself. He was in control. For now.

  “What’s that big item on the pedestal?”

  “Oh that?” Aura said offhandedly. “It’s a mana attuner. Looks to be a fairly advanced one as those things went. They’re used to process incompatible Mana and make it something a cultivator can use.”

  “Sounds useful,” Cale said. “Could I use it?”

  “No,” Aura sniffed. “I would not permit you to use such crude imitations of perfection. I am a state of the art mana attuner, Cale. And while these crude prototypes have limitations on their mana type, bandwidth and capacity, I am as close to perfection as you can hope.”

  “I’d say you’re only excellent at giving me a hard time,” Cale remarked.

  “Hmph. I suppose I will have to try harder.”

  Cale chuckled dryly. “Okay, here’s the plan. I grab one of the big crystals and bolt out of the room. If the guardian wakes up, I’ll have time to escape.”

  “Surprisingly sound thinking.”

  “I know I’m so smart.”

  There was nothing else to plan so Cale made his move. He crept towards one of the large crystals on a pedestal that shimmered with an orange-golden light.

  “These are quite high grade. Even with your atrocious efficiency rate, we will be able to push you to the peak of Body Tempering.”

  With keen enthusiasm grabbed the crystal. Something clicked inside the pedestal and suddenly two things happened. First, the giant guardian woke up. The glaring red lenses fixed on Cale. That was fine, Cale had planned for this. He turned and bolted, but the second thing caught him off guard. The door had been sealed by a shimmering energy field, similar to what had protected Cale when he had integrated with Aura.

  Crap.

  Cale spun and jumped up into the air instinctively as the guardian swiped at him with its massive tail. It crashed into a supporting pillar, sending stone spraying out.

  Cale knew he was outgunned, but he had to do something. He inhaled and drained the energy from the crystal. It felt natural and easy. Very different from draining a murderbot. The energy didn’t fight him, but it still wasn’t his. It didn’t make him sick either, but it did make him feel sluggish.

  Better than I expected.

  Cale routed some of his natural power to his body, energizing it, enabling him to dodge another tail swipe. The energy from the crystal he expunged. A violent beam of cracking energy struck the guardian, making it stumble and groan. But that was all the damage Cale could inflict.

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  “This is a tier three murderbot, Cale!” Aura explained frantically. “It is manifold stronger than you. You need to escape.”

  Cale looked around but found no exits. The murderbot fell on its front legs and a latch opened, imitating a mouth. The mouth whined and gathered energy, and Cale’s instincts gave him just enough time to drop the crystal and dodge, when a surge of fiery red energy blasted where he had just stood.

  It was close. Close enough to singe the shoulder and set fire to the jumpsuit. Cale rolled on the ground and darted behind a pillar. Another blast followed, and the blast from the destroyed pillar sent Cale flying and tumbling on the hard floor.

  The bladed tail lashed out and smashed into the ground. Cale rolled towards the enemy, making the strike miss. But when the tail withdrew, it cut Cale on the back. A hot white pain lanced him and he gasped in pain at the laceration. The gash on his back was deep and was bleeding profusely.

  No! This is not where I die!

  Cale lunged towards the crystal on the floor he had abandoned. Dodged another tail swipe, drank in the Mana and immediately blasted the guardian with a spike of mana energy. It barely flinched.

  Cale did it again, dodged an energy blast or a tail swipe and kept attacking. The lumbering tortoise-monster of a murderbot did slow down, but Cale was on his last legs. Not only did the physical exertion and his gaping wound wear him down, the constant draining and blasting of raw mana was making him really sick. Mirthlessly he wondered if he had gotten even this far, if the mana in the crystals wasn’t so refined.

  Eventually, Cale collapsed on his hands and knees. Aura was shouting frantically in the background, but Cale could not hold out any longer. There was no escape and he was out of cards to play. He closed his eyes and waited for the hammer to fall.

  It never came.

  Instead a tremendous crash shook the chamber as a red streak violently blasted into the treasure chamber, sending rubble flying in every direction. In a stroke of luck, just as the guardian was swinging down its bladed tail on Cale, the red streak tackled it.

  Cale almost pissed himself when the bladed tail crashed next to him before it flew away.

  Eyes wide with shock and the thrill of being alive, Cale stared at the foot deep gash on the ground next to him.

  “Cale! FOCUS!”

  Instinctively Cale grabbed the half-drained crystal next to him and shuffled into safety behind a broken pillar.

  The sound hit first—a deafening crash as stone and steel exploded inward. Cale’s head whipped around just in time to see a red streak barrel into the room, slamming into the guardian like a wrecking ball. The murderbot’s tail lashed out, but the red figure dodged with brutal efficiency. Scarroid. His claws tore into the murderbot’s torso, sparks flying as he ripped through layers of armor. But his movements were sluggish, his strikes growing weaker with each blow. On his skin were thin spiderwebs of black and purple veins.

  “Look at him,” Aura said. “He’s been running. That disgusting manaburn engine is taking its toll. And those wounds…”

  Clutching the crystal, Cale crept to the blasted wall that Scarroid had broken through. He was about to turn a corner and dart the hell away, before he stopped at the last second and noticed he was staring at a bottomless abyss. The darkness below him continued into pure nothingness. And when Cale looked up he saw that he would have to make a fifteen yard jump to make it to a ledge.

  Okay, plan B. Damn, do I wish I had a plan B.

  “Drain the crystal. Quickly. I’ll heal you.”

  Cale rushed back to his little corner behind a pillar and started working with the Mana. It was a lot easier than with the mana he had drained from the murderbots. This one settled down in mere seconds and there was an abundance of it.

  He filled himself to the brim and felt the gash on his back knit back together. The pain in both his side and his back subsided. Even some of the fatigue he was feeling seemed to clear. But the crystal was emptied.

  “Whew. That was a lot of mana. I got you almost fully healed, and my sigils still have some energy left. Okay. What next?”

  Cale looked at the empty crystal and sighed. That mana would have gone a long way boosting his cultivation. But admittedly, it was more important to survive this situation.

  The problem was that whoever won this brawl would proceed to squash him like a bug. Cultivating to get stronger would take too much time, and he couldn’t advance far enough to challenge either of these two monsters.

  But if the guardian dies, maybe the energy field blocking the door will dissipate…

  Cale bolted towards one of the pedestals and grabbed another forearm-sized crystal and scurried back to a corner. Another corner this time, one with a clearer view of the fight and closer proximity to the door he had entered the room. He sat down in a cross legged position.

  He couldn’t help it. Call it pure instinct, call it absolute degenerate, unadulterated greed, but Cale cultivated. Just a little bit. Just an inch closer. Because he knew he was close. He kept his focus mostly on the Cultivation, but eyed the fight between the guardian and scarroid every few seconds.

  They were duking it out on full blast. Scarroid smashed the guardian with his monstrous claw, banging up the metal. Their tails whipped about them like two giant swords, sending sparks everywhere. The guardian blasted energy out of its mouth periodically, causing Scarroid’s flesh to sizzle.

  “You idiot! Why are you cultivating?!”

  Cale ignored her. He was so close. He had to do it. The energy was easy to tame and it flowed into him easily. He strengthened his bones, his muscles, his tendons. Cale sent the mana into his marrow and into his intestines. He felt a warm glow inside of him, and something broke through.

  [Body Tempering stage 3]

  “You absolute maniac…” Aura said in disbelief.

  Cale wasted no time. He clutched the crystal in his hand that still glowed with plentiful energy. He skulked to the side of the platform in the middle of the room to get a clear view of the fight. Both of the opponents were beat up. Scarroid was bleeding and burnt and breathing raggedly. He swung his claw at the guardian and fell on a knee.

  “His Beastform elixir! It’s almost spent. His vitals are weak too.”

  The guardian wasn’t much better off. It moved sluggishly and the bladed tail had barely any momentum to it. When Scarroid’s claw-punch connected, the guardian staggered backwards and fell on its back. Before it could use its tail to get back up, Scarroid roared and impaled the unprotected belly of the guardian with his tail. Sparks of electrified mana made fireworks and the guardian shook violently before going entirely limp.

  The red scorpion-man stood over the broken murderbot, his chest rising and falling in uneven bursts. Blood seeped from the gashes along his side, pooling on the floor beneath him.

  Scarroid groaned and slumped against a wall. He was really messed up. Burnt face and chest. Bleeding from nasty gashes in at least three places. He looked smaller somehow, emaciated. Maybe it was the Beastform elixir wearing off. There was also a strange blue and purple spider-web pulsing on his red skin. Scarroid groaned and breathed raggedly, eyes barely open.

  Where there had just a moment ago been a vicious raging battle, now there was a serene silence. Cale realized he would need to act, and act soon.

  Cale froze, his heart hammering in his chest. He could run. Maybe Scarroid wouldn’t chase him. But the other maybe was that he would be brutally killed. That was not a maybe he could afford. So he listened to his instincts. Cale started draining the energy in the mana crystal he was clutching.

  Scarroid didn’t seem to notice Cale—or the crystal in his hands, still alight with mana energy. The great beast of a man was too busy trying to breath evenly. He reached for his pocket for something. A pill.

  With painstakingly slow movement he managed to slip it into his mouth. For one fleeting second, Cale thought about running. He didn’t know what that pill was and it could mean his doom. But then Scarroid’s eyes flicked toward him, blood-red and feverish. Eyes filled with primal violence. Cale acted on his instincts.

  When Cale approached his head snapped up. “Y-you… The hell are you?”

  Cale looked into Scarroid’s eyes and he knew he could not hesitate here. He would have to be decisive. It was the only way to be certain he could survive. Cale found the decision surprisingly easy. But now was not the time to ponder that.

  The mana inside Cale felt like a star trying to eat him up from the inside. It burned. It hurt. Most of it was collected in his right arm. It felt like a million pinpricks were stabbing at it. He felt weak. His legs shook. Even as smooth as the mana was in the crystal, Cale had sucked it up as full as he could. The pressure was mounting and it would soon rip his arm apart. There was so much raw power surging inside him. He had to let loose.

  Cale extended his arm at Scarroid’s face. “Boom.”