Magic Breaker [Enby MC Anti-Mage LitRPG]

/If you want to survive the third floor, then the rules are very, very simple. Remember them.

If you’re in danger, go up. If you can’t go up, go far. If you can’t go far, dig deep.

Treat the forest with respect, because its guardians will kill you. The soil is not your friend. The plants are not your friends. Most climbers on the third don’t die from beasts - they die from having desecrated the forest, and getting hunted down by guardians.

So, go up, because the canopy is out of the reach of the forest. Run far, because distance is safety. And dig deep, because if the roots can still reach you, so can the forest. 

But there is one upside to this. If you’re running from something other than the forest, then you’re being hunted. And there is nothing the forest favours more than prey on the run. 

Understand this. Understand what fairness means, understand that your best friend may change on a dime, understand that if you wish to rest, be strong or hide. You cannot trust the forest, but you must rely on it, anyway. So make sure you are in good standing./

-Windwrought, level 85 Galebringer, entry in the Climber’s Compendium.

- - - 

Bile digs us a hole to rest in.

He digs it deep - much deeper than the last one. Deep enough that we can just barely still see the roots at the top. But we do still see them. 

Poking up from above is the reminder that this is the third floor. The undergrowth runs deep, but currently, according to Bile, it means us not harm. We’re prey, on the run from a predator, and the forest respects the chase. In fact, it is more likely to protect us than sabotage us here.

After all, it provides for all life in it. Whether that be wolves, bears, mice, or carnivorous plants and mushrooms. And currently, we are rats. 

I sit in the cramped room, feeling tiny bits of earth occasionally crumbling off the roof of our crappy above and lodge itself in my hair. The air is stale already, and we’ll run out eventually, but for now, we can last. We can last for a little while, at least. 

Even though it’s cramped, that’s not the worst part. It’s me, Norman, Amelie, Opal and Bile. The worst part is not knowing how the others are doing. But it’s fine. It’s fine. I wear my headphones, and I play music. I breathe slowly, until the feelings simmer down. 

Right now, I can’t save them.

That’s the truth. The ugly, horrid truth. I hate it. There’s disgust twisting in my stomach at the powerlessness. But despite that, there is only one thing I can do about it: Get stronger.

Opal’s realized it, too. I know it, because I can see that the smile has faded from their face. They sit, legs crossed, blade in their lap, with both hands on the broad side of the sword. Magic pulses between them and item. I watch as the runes on the blade pulse, almost breathing.

At first, Bile had hissed for us to stop, scared that the magic signals would reach the surface, but there were two things stopping that. The first was Norman - his [Unassuming], by nature, is different from most stealth abilities, in that it’s imperfect. It made eyes glance over something, see it as natural, and move on. This also means that the ability itself is nearly undetectable.

By now, Norman can expand the ability to other people around him, sort of like an aura. I can feel it laying on my shoulder, tamping down on the mana signals that would otherwise radiate from us.

The second part is… me. I break any errant magic that drifts off, consuming the fragments of mana and using them to practice. I toy with my new ability, [Memorization], especially. It keeps a better record of everything that I break now that I have it, but here are also some records of what I did before.

And I’ve broken a lot of spells from Respitia’s followers.

So I analyze them. I take a look at how they tick, how they cast, how they channel, and what they do. Ezekiel is different from most priest, that much is obvious from his class name, but he’s also still an avatar of Respitia. His class is most likely a sponsored one, so it must have some similarities.

And so, in that underground bunker, I use my magic. I cast broken, blasphemous bits of magic, stealing from an Eye of the tower, modifying them to see how powerful they’d grow, and then breaking them apart, reabsorbing the magic. I do it over and over and over and over again.

[Memorization 1 > 2]

I learn. Bit by bit, I learn. Each modification I break is added to my mental library, each node and weakness I find market, highlighted, and categorized. My new skill is imperfect, of course. I know that already. It sometimes hurts when I register new information, and the runes twist in strange patterns that are probably due to the butchered half-integration of Bay’s and Inu’s storage skills. But it works.

Even as my head hurts a little, I practice, burning through my mana as I learn, and break. I follow my [Intuition] and my memory, trying to reconstruct whatever skills Ezekiel used from scratch, just so I can learn how to break them. We spend the entire night there, and I catch a few hours of sleep before morning comes.

With Bile’s help, we dig up a few roots to chew on. They taste bad. Bland syrup coats the inside of my mouth, but I eat them anyway, even though they feel disgusting, because I need the energy. Then, we crawl back out of our hole and run some more. The forest parts before us, Bile trusting his senses as he uses them to trace a path.

He checks the earth, he smells at the air, he closes his eyes and just listens. It’d almost be serene, if the knowledge of what we’re running for wasn’t on our minds. But, still, I feel curious, so I ask. “Hey, Bile?”

“Hmmm?” he hums, opening his eyes and facing me. They glimmer with a faint freen light, and he smiles. “Yes, saviour?”

“Okay, yeah, no. Please just use my name,” I say, stiltedly, making Opal huff with amusement. “I wanted to ask why minotaurs are good at finding their way through mazes. See, in our mythology, there was just one minotaur, and he was locked in a maze to keep him away from people.”

Bile snickers. “Snow, did this minotaur of yours also eat people?”

“... Yes,” I admit.

“Things change, things are exaggerated. The maze-story is popular propaganda by minotaurs, so we don’t get locked in cages. If we’re in a maze, finding our way out isn’t too troublesome. In fact, they’re our preferred habitats. Labyrinths have plenty of room to roam, and often find themselves attracting plants and creatures that are reasonable for us to coexist with,” he says. “This floor, this… green maze,” he says the words almost reverently, “should be perfect for us. But the wayfarers,” he spits, “have ruined that. And for that, I will never forgive them. And for that, I will always be grateful to you, Snow.”

I blink at the impassioned speech. I’d never seen him string together more than a few words until now. There is just one more question. “How did minotaur propaganda find its way to Earth, though?” I wonder out loud.

Bile chuffs in amusement. “Stories have a magic of their own. Knowledge exists to be known. Cursed, dark magic will never be extinguished, and neither will the stories people have told. So the tower wills it,” he says, then bows his head. A moment later, the reverence drains from his bovine face. “Now, if you don’t mind terribly, let’s keep moving. I will not be laid in chains again.”

Nodding slightly, I follow him along, as do the others. As we walk at a brisk pace, I continue making and breaking spells, one after another.

[Deconstruction 17 > 18]

[Class up! Nullmage 16 > 17]

My attunement loop keeps running, even as I keep my vessel at about three-quarters filled, practicing as much as I can. Despite that, my mind wanders a little. If minotaurs exist inside the tower, what other myths can we find? I wanna know. I wanna know, dang it.

But at that thought, a small smile blossoms on my face. Knowledge exists to be known. The tower wants me to see all of it, huh? That’s fine by me. My curiosity burns bright enough to make me forget the hate for just a second.

I’ll reach higher. To the very top. And anyone who wants to stop me… they’re obstacles to be removed, simple as that. Even if it means scurrying around.