Magic Breaker [Enby MC Anti-Mage LitRPG]

Warm, wet air hits me in the face. Instantly, I can taste salt on my tongue, and the way it sticks to my hair. It’s humid and oppressive, but luckily for me, Kuro quickly shifts their shape to shield me from the worst of it. The shadow becomes a cool, light garment on my shoulders. 

Inu sighs, and the armor around her turns liquid, then seeps into her [Reservoir]. How she managed to hide armor in there is something I don’t quite understand, but I respect it. Despite the heat, Opal does not take off their trenchcoat, and Thatch seems to almost bask in it. 

Salty water drips from the top of the cave down to its bottom, filling shallow little puddles at the cave’s ground. The mana here is about as thick as on the fourth floor, though not as violent as on the fifth. And, being here, a weight finally falls off me.

There’s no more reason to hide. I can finally fully use all my skills again - healing, anti-magic, debuffing, all of them. Kuro gives an almost disappointed hum that they’ll be less important to my kit, but I reassure the little critter with a mental poke, letting them know they can still contribute just as much as before.

Eager to see more of the cave system, I reinforce the cruncher on myself, making sure that I walk about as fast as a mundane human might, and then moving forward. [Observation] brushes along the walls of this place, unveiling the structure of this place and building a mental map. Actually, that does make me think.

Lifting up a hand, I cast [Solidification]. It doesn’t take a lot of mana to make something solid - I’ve already used the skill to make knives, swords, spears, and barriers, floating needles, chisels and more. I can clearly control and shape the solid mana. So, then, what’s stopping me from…

[Observation 19 > 20]

I feed the information from my scans right into [Solidification], and above my hand, something begins to take form. It strains me, and I feel the way it pushes against my brain. There’s so much detail to capture about the walls, where stones just in and out; so I filter it all. 

My mind stretches as I push. My eyes bleed.

“Oh, Snow’s at it again,” Sylves comments with a snicker. 

“Been too long, I guess,” Opal says.

“Are you really making that your gimmick?” Thatch asks with a faint frown, as Inu just sighs.

Despite their admonishments, I smile. I push upon the boundary, wanting to feel the freedom now that I’m no longer being seen. There’s nothing to hide. I feel a dozen eyes on me, but I still cast. My mana grows into tubular spirals, cascading outwards bit by bit as it crystallizes. And then, after a moment where I taste iron in my mouth, I stop.

[Solidification 24 > 25]

I’m holding what is by far my most detailed mana working yet. A map. A full, 3D scan of the surrounding area where my mana touched it, complete with eleven figurines for where we stand. Like an echolocation survey, the surroundings mapped onto it. I smile faintly, then hold it hovering there with my will alone.

Very slowly, I move it over, in front of Thatch. He looks confused for a second, then his eyes widen and he looks around. His eyes glint green. “Oh damn,” he says. “You made a map?”

“I made a map,” I nod. It’s a bit crude, but it does show the tunnels for the next… fifty, maybe hundred steps or so. There’s a chance I could push it further, but I’m already bleeding, so I don’t. Instead, I decide to walk.

After all, there is something moving in one of the tunnels down the line.

- - -

Very carefully, I hand Trey a long spear. It’s lightweight, made entirely from mana, and imbued with my skills. It should make things a lot easier on him.

Inu holds down the thing in front of us. It’s a worm, though it has little fins that extend from its side, and its mouth is filled with ringed teeth. It’s also as thick as my legs, so I truly don’t want to stand in front of it. Yet, despite that, Trey swallows and does just that.

Metal ripples out from Inu, forming a solid grip around the monster. Her authority, void, brushes against it, synergizing with her class, and she steals its momentum. The monster screeches, but it can’t thrash, and I make sure the sonic attack is [Suppressed] until it doesn’t hurt. 

My headphones would have been lovely for this if they still had battery, but instead, they’re just safely tucked into my backpack. I don’t trust anyone with them but myself, so even if it’s dangerous, they come along.

“A-are you sure?” Trey asks, holding the spear awkwardly.

Opal gives an encouraging nod. “It’s the easiest way! This’ll give you a level or two for sure, even if you’re not the main contributor.” Which is true. After all, the worm isn’t exactly weak.

[Boneburrower lv. 32]

In fact, it could quite easily tear the little kid limb from limb if we let it. But it can’t. Anna watches carefully, and Bofoy looks on with interest as Trey bravely walks forward. His hands shake a bit, but he does it nonetheless. The spear stabs down, piercing the worm’s flesh, spilling cloudy ichor onto the stone floor.

[Suppression] tightens on it like a noose. I force the worm to stay still as Trey stabs it again. The spear sinks in easily, applying a whole host of sinister effects. A small shiver runs through the boy, but when the worm thrashes once, and its teeth get closer to him, he musters up his courage.

With a violent motion, he stabs the boneburrower a final time, and it falls limp. I nod quietly to myself, even as the boy stands there, panting, looking at the corpse. Already, the environmental mana is tearing at it. The effect is even more pronounced here, despite the mana in the air being thinner.

That might be because… well, this is fake. Floors here get terminated and reset all the time. That’s how monoliths work. They’re populated by mana and mana-borne creatures, usually reflecting some region that the tower scanned in the past. Now, things can be taken outside from them, still. We also deposit mana by using abilities inside.

It’s a strange little exchange that I don’t quite understand yet. But despite everything, I know that the worm would have been reset anyways. It’ll be here again once this floor is completely empty, and might show up later for someone else. But for us, it did its job.

“Level four…” Trey whispers, his eyes glinting. “I’m level four.”

“Remember what we talked about,” Anna says gently, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Heart and vessel. Make sure to start with a few points in heart.”

Trey rolls his eyes, as if he’d heard it a hundred times before. “Yes, sis,” he says quietly, and I watch as he interacts with the invisible menus. Thatch walks off for a moment and there’s a small noise of violence down the tunnel, but I ignore it to watch what happens within the boy.

[Observation 20 > 21]

The mana patterns are beautiful. As always, it is astonishing to see the Tower at work. It’s so efficient - the changes that happen in the kid’s body are entirely powered by the pitiful haze of mana that surrounds his cracked vessel. The Tower even assimilates the little needles I left inside him to keep the mana suppressed.

All of those tiny wisps of energy, worth little more than a dozen points of vessel, change his body entirely. His skin mends, all the micro-deficiencies that plagued him suddenly washed away. I see scars disappear as his heart doubles from its base value. He grows so much in but an instant as his system properly awakens.

And then, it streams into his vessel.

[Vessel Construction 9 > 11]

I watch, and instantly understand. I break a threshold. 

[Annexation 3 > 4]

My eyes bleed horribly in an instant. The patterns are too intricate for me to comprehend, and they sear themselves into my mind anyway. I look at the tiny pieces of them as best as I can, staring to see runes so tiny I’d need a microscope to properly take them in, yet locking them in my archive anyway. Piece by tiny piece, I look at the spells that weave through Trey, ever-changing and beautifully powerful.

His vessel fuses back together. The crack is melded into one with that tiny amount of mana. A pitiful thing, yet so perfectly integrated that the ethereal organ crystallizes over the gap. The mana creates a lattice structure for the vessel to naturally grow around, like reinforced concrete. 

More blood spills from me as my brain boils slightly. I strain my supernatural mind, healing myself to give myself a chance to watch just for another moment. The tower’s beautiful magic fills his newly reinforced vessel, wipes away the scars on his body, and strengthens him. I blink for a moment. 

[One of your minor requests has been consumed for the information you took.]

A smile spreads on my lips, but it’s entirely eclipsed by the radiant expression on Trey’s face. He jumps at Anna, wrapping his arms around her, and both of them tear up. 

I look at the notification and nod. Once again, stealing truly is the most efficient way. The Tower never would have given me this info for a minor request, but since I took it instead of asking, it can’t properly refuse. So, it takes a smaller price than usual.

I love stealing.

“Come on, I think I found the way forward!” Thatch yells from down the tunnel - and so we follow him.