After Caleb recovered from the fall, he and Bog travelled through the caverns. Caleb listened to his wind sense, trying to figure out if there were any creatures flying around, but out in the larger tunnels, the amount of eddies and drafts was much greater than back in his little room, making detecting the movement of creatures too difficult.
The rough-hewn mining tunnel was constant and narrow, a curving tunnel about two meters wide and high, with hollows cut where the miners branched off after whatever vein theyâd been chasing. From the small particles he sensed that were missed by the miners, the ore here had been the same cold-aspected iron he was used to. Bog kept sniffing at the air, but they found no more caches of magical ore.
Calebâs wind sense alerted him to the widening of the cave before they reached it, and the pair slowed as they reached the end of the mine tunnel. He sent caution through their bond. Bog went ahead on his own when Caleb turned the lantern down as far as it could go.
Bog was far from silent, but the cavern ahead was loud enough to cover the scruffing of his metal claws on stone. Ahead Caleb heard the wind and flowing, rushing water interspersed with the clatter of falling stone, all heavily echoed.
Caleb knew Bogâs location through his metal sense, though he could track his companion far beyond the range of the ability thanks to their bond. When a sense of awe and wonder came flooding through, he knew that his dragon had reached the opening. From the dragonâs emotions and the way he stood still, Caleb gathered it was safe and followed after with his light still low.
The tunnel grew brighter as he went, a faint white light coming from the large space ahead. Caleb picked up his pace, squeezing through a narrow opening before running into Bog. The sight that had awed the dragon was visible to him.
The shaft ended with this rough natural-looking crack, and opened into a massive cavern. Calebâs wind sense couldnât reach the top or the far wall, or the bottom of the chasm beyond. Light illuminated the cave via ice flows that pushed through cracks in the walls, flowing towards the edges of the cliffs and down into the abyss below like streams of water frozen in an instant. The light was dim, but there was enough present in the ice to make the shape and size of the cavern evident, and it was enormous.
Caleb inspected an ice flow near them more closely. Motes of light speckled the source of the glow, and once Caleb had the presence of mind to use his new senses, he realized each was a tiny piece of essence-infused ore.
He was pulled from his reverence by a new emotion felt through the bond. A mix of longing and sadness.
âYou okay?â he whispered.
Bog whimpered a little, reminding Caleb that the dragon was extremely young. He felt the most nuanced emotion through the bond heâd yet sensed.
Homesickness.
âI know,â Caleb said, sending reassurance. âI want to go home tooâthough my home looks nothing like this. Are you from a big cave?â
Caleb felt something through the bond that wasnât an emotion. Bog was trying to send something more complicated than that, and the idea fell apart in the attempt.
âLetâs find something to eat,â Caleb said, changing the topic.
Bog nodded, and began sniffing the air.
âSomething we both can eat,â Caleb amended once Bog began eyeing the ice flows and their bits of ore within. âWeâll look into those later, they arenât going anywhere.â
Caleb used the lamp to light a torch before leaving it on the floor near the opening of their crack so they could find their way back, and they set out along the ridge theyâd exited onto. The fear that theyâd find nothing at all to eat was partially relieved when Caleb found large mushrooms growing near the ice flows. He was wary of eating strange mushrooms, but they had definite signs of chewing, suggesting they were edible to something. Heâd rather find what was eating those, however.
They continued on, and not much further along, a familiar musty smell greeted him, only far stronger than before. His air sense told him there was a small cavern off to the side, and his nose told him it was full of bat-like creaturesâor at least their droppings.
Bog proved that he could smell nonmetals at least as well as Caleb as he too stopped and smelled the air, wrinkling his nose in disgust. Before the pair could decide on a course of action, Caleb sensed the bats taking off as the air within burst into motion and became swirling chaos to his mind.
They both retreated from the opening just as a swarm of black flooded out of the crevice, but instead of attacking the pair as theyâd expected, they flew up, disappearing outside the range of his senses.
âWhat wasââ Caleb began, but then he too sensed something coming from within the crevice.
From the chaos of the batâs flight, rhythmic thrusts of wind arose in chase. A huge black shape wriggled out of the crack and took off into the air after the bats.
Silhouetted by the glowing ice rose the two-meter wingspan of the monster. It had a long serpentine tail and looked to have no neck. It flew up out of the range of Calebâs senses before it circled around, giving up on its pursuit of the bats as it found less mobile targets in Caleb and Bog.
Bog looked helplessly from the creature to Caleb as he pulled out his hammer in one hand and a piece of metal in the other. He sent the metal shard flying up toward the creature, but he didnât need magical senses to know heâd missed.
I really should have practiced with this, he chastised himself.
Caleb put his back against the wall, and the monster altered its path to skirt the ridge and come at him from the side. Bog clawed up the wall to get between the monster and Caleb, and as it was coming in close, he leaped off at it. The monster pulled its wings in close and spun out of Bogâs reach.
It continued toward Caleb, its mouth of needle teeth opened wide enough to take his head off in a bite. At the last moment, Caleb fell backwardsâintentionally if not gracefullyâonto his butt, and put his full mental might into his Imperium Ventorum.
The sudden gust took it by surprise, sending it flying into the wall. The magical draft was short-lived, however, and the creature recovered before it struck the ground, lashing out with its tail to cut Caleb badly across his chest.
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Caleb checked his mana. After such a large burst of his magic, heâd fallen from 195 to 160. The ambient mana in the air, however, was high, and heâd recover what he lost thus far in just ten minutesâif he lived that long.
Bog climbed the wall once more, preparing for another attack as the flying monster came around again. Caleb managed to get to his feet using the cave wall as a support. As the monster returned, he grabbed a fistful of the metal fragments Bog had prepared, cutting his hand on the jagged edges in the process, and threw them at his attacker, propelling as many as he could manage.
His mind saw each one clearly, but he didnât have time to focus on landing a single good hit. Instead, he borrowed the working principle from his Imperium Ventorum, which pushed at areas rather than discrete objects, and pushed the cloud of metal away. His mana pool billowed out from him, and where it struck metal, it sent the shard flying. Moving the cloud of mana itself came with a small cost, but with each piece it sent, he lost even more. The closer the shard was when his mana touched it, the faster it flew and the less mana it needed. The first three were the most lethal.
The fatal impact occurred outside Calebâs range of metal perception, so he wasnât sure which fragment did the job, but through his wind perception he knew the exact moment the creature was struck as its wings fell limp and it began to plummet.
Bog jumped for the monster, not realizing it was already dead, and crashed into it from above, arresting its forward moments with his own and sending it to the ground in front of Caleb.
Caleb collapsed, exhausted from the brief encounter. Bog bit into the monsterâs head for good measure, and then essence rushed into Caleb. Heâd not detected the essence of the creature while it had lived, but as soon as it had died to Bogâs bite, the energy had appeared in his Magical Perception and heâd felt it fly into himself and into Bog, though he received a much larger portion of it. Immediately after, words filled his vision.
Juvenile Cloaker (uncommon) has been killed.
Imperium Ventorum has increased to level 3.
Imperium Metallorum has increased to level 4.
Dragon Bond has increased to level 5.
A small part of the energy rushing into himself disappeared at the level-up messages, and in its place, he gained a sliver of understanding for each skill that had increased, beyond the revelations heâd had in battle. In the fight, heâd used the skills on reflex and instinct. Now he felt his understanding furthered. He knew the âhowâ behind what heâd done after the fact.
It was as if heâd been rewarded for his inspiration with more.
Or, I was rewarded for my kill with more inspiration, he realized.
âThis is why Master Dimel is only level 6,â Caleb said to himself.
It isnât just that you have to use the skills for their intended purpose. You have to use them to gain this essence.
This was a rather big revelation, in Calebâs opinion, but this couldnât be some unknown secret. Heâd happened upon Magical Perception rather easily. Certainly other people outside his small little backwater knew this.
The question was, why had that information not reached them? For that matter, why had they never even heard of essence before?
Juvenile Cloaker⦠Caleb read the name again.
Heâd never heard of anyone getting a kill notification with the slain creatureâs name before. People spoke of killing other initiated and getting notices of their class and level, but when monsters were slain, the system gave a general message with no information beyond the number of creatures killedâand even that only if the creatures met some unspecified parameter.
Essence! Caleb realized. That must be the difference.
Heâd felt the rush of energy enter him almost just as the messages appeared. If that energy was what separated mundane animals from monsters and beasts, that would explain why the initiated didnât receive a thousand notifications for stepping on an anthill.
âHow does it taste?â Caleb asked Bog, who was finishing what his bite to the head had started.
Bog gave the mental equivalent of a shrug and continued on.
âNot great, but still food,â Caleb said. âI think we should head back.â
Bog gave Calebâs injured hand one look and sent affirmation through the bond.
âItâs fine,â Caleb told him. âIt was my own fault for grabbing too hard at the metal shards.â
Bog walked to the creatureâs tail, picked it up in his mouth, and began dragging it away.
Caleb limped after him by dying torchlight, still exhausted. He contemplated his stat allocation thus far. Any blow from that beast could have easily killed him. Heâd been lucky his only injury had been minor and self-inflicted.
What good would all my magical strength do me if I just get stabbed and die?
***
When he walked back into his temporary home, Caleb finally began to relax, ready to serve himself up a plate of what was technically food.
On the way back, heâd harvested the mushrooms heâd found growing near the ice melt. Right away he began testing them for poison by first rubbing a mushroom on a few parts of his body. While he waited to see if it caused a reaction, he started a fire in the woodstove.
He also dressed the cloaker theyâd killed. While he was a blacksmith by tradeâif not by classâhe knew enough to prepare the hide to make it usable. That is, if a cloaker hide could be used for anything.
The killing piece of metal had gone through the creatureâs open maw, so ignoring the section of its head Bog had eaten, the hide was mostly intact. The creature had been two-toned, with a dark-gray underbelly and wings and a midnight-black top. The skin on the bottom was tougher while the top was more supple. The hide didnât have scales, but was rough and textured similarly to a scaled creature. It was more like lizard skin than any leather Caleb had ever seen, though lizards were not exactly abundant up in the mountains, so his experience with them was purely academic.
He set Bog to work removing the remaining flesh from the hide, a task he excelled at with his rough, almost metallic tongue. While Bog worked, Caleb collected the brain matter of the cloakerâsomething Bog had not enjoyed the taste ofâand mixed it with water and lamp oil to start the tanning process.
After that, he checked the mushroom test spots on his body. Finding them not irritated, he put a small piece in his mouth. It tasted earthy, and he waited with it there for a few minutes before trying again with a larger piece.
He continued this test as he cooled the cloaker meat on the wood fire stove, and by the time it was done, he was confident enough that the mushroom wasnât poisonous to eat a little.
Cavern Mana Mushroom ingested.
You have recovered 1 mana.
âWhat in the Elderâsâ¦â Caleb said, staring at the notification.
Heâd never heard of anyone getting a message notifying them of what they ate, and he was fairly certain heâd have heard about it if itâd been common. The few stamina and mana potions the village had stored were used occasionally when the dragons, ice folk, or other monsters from the mountain attacked, and they only notified the users of the points recovered without revealing the source.
Part of my elevated access, maybe?
Since it hadnât said âPoisonous Cavern Mana Mushroom,â Caleb took a risk and ate a larger piece and his mana recovered by 5 that time. The amount wasnât significant enough to be useful in battle, as heâd need several mouthfuls to restore the 30-odd mana his two kinesis attacks had cost, but these would be handy to keep on himself for recovering quickly after battle.
âWhere did the mana come from?â he asked, turning another piece of mushroom over in his hand while using his magical perception. He saw mana steadily streaming into him from around the room, but nothing came from the mushroom.
He tried to look deeper within it as he had with the metals heâd seen mana in, but nothing appeared no matter how he struggled. He pulled a piece of ore from his bucket and immediately saw the essence within and the mana flowing out of it.
âMaybe I need a mushroom affinity?â he mused.
Caleb put the mushroom aside, deciding to save it for an emergency when next he went out into the caves.
While he was busy with that, Bog got busy himself making a mess.
Caleb sniffed at the air. The familiar sulfurous smell of slag filled his nostrils and his eyes jumped to the still-cool forge.
âWhatâs that smell?â Caleb asked, turning to Bog, who was squatting in the corner.
âNo!â he shouted.
Bogâs eyes grew wide, and he sent confusion through the bond, unsure what was wrong.
âPoop outside!â Caleb said, pointing out the door.
Bog tried to comply, but that only made matters worse.
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