Chapter 178: Vesselforging

The safe room is a pretty place. It matches the theme of the spire - this one, namely, is faintly water-aligned and seems to generally prefer wet environments. So, its safe rooms are beaches. Very calm, sunny beaches, with lots of sand leading up to faint ocean waves. There’s a single palm tree in its centre.

A single tree with eleven coconuts growing on it. 

“Hm,” I hum, looking at the tree. Slowly, I walk closer. Safe rooms are finnicks - according to the little pamphlet Elli gave us, killing in them incurs the Monolith’s Ire. Which is kind of like the Tower’s Wrath but on a smaller scale. It just makes everything in the monolith harder and more miserable. Same goes for not having the “correct” amount of party members.

Of course, monoliths also have a growth and recovery mechanism included - otherwise, climbing without a healer would be death. Now, of course, the church of Respitia still makes a lot of money by renting out healers to people climbing the monos, but it’s not impossible to reach the top without them. Because of safe-rooms.

With smooth steps, I walk up to the tree, and hold out a hand. 

“No way this works,” Opal snarks.

“Watch,” I say simply. Another moment passes, and then, one of the coconuts falls. It even slows down faintly before touching my fingers, letting me easily catch it. 

Opal’s jaw drops open. “That’s way too cool,” they say. They [Blink] next to me, stretching out their hands. The coconut falls, and Sylves makes it smack into their forehead with a quick application of wind. Then, Opal catches the fruit.

For a moment, they stare at it in indignation. Then they look at Sylves, and both of them laugh. It’s nice, and I smile.

Then, I sit down in the sand. I lean my back against the palm tree, feeling its rough husk against my back, though muffled by the layers of fabric - and Kuro, of course. I turn the fruit in my hands, then poke at it with my mana. In an instant, I crack it open - and find a second, smaller coconut inside.

Of course, I know who it belongs to. With a gentle motion, I press it up against my cloak, and Kuro swiftly devours the sweet treat. A small shudder runs through my cloak, and the darkness in it grows a little deeper, as the power suffuses them. 

This is the reward for climbing a floor in a monolith. A permanent enhancement to one’s base. The coconuts will make me think faster, improve my vessel, my heart, my power, everything. They’ll make me intake essence more easily, let me control mana more easily, enhance any future upgrades I get, and even increase the base power of my skills.

It’s a tiny increase, since it’s so universal - and also slightly impacted by a mono’s affinity - but it’s there. Kuro felt it, just now. 

Also, they have a healing effect.

Now, of course, if I were a smart person, then perhaps, I would simply accept that I don’t need healing. I’m in good shape. Entirely okay, really. I’m not injured, and surely there’s no injury rapidly approaching my location. If I were smart, I’d simply eat this, enjoy the boosts, and keep climbing with a reasonable stat distribution that doesn’t threaten to blow me up.

A thin smile spreads on my lips. “Hey Inu?” I ask quietly.

The girl turns to me, between bites from her own coconut, and tilts her head, black hair framing her face. “Mh?” she hums, her mouth full.

“Disconnect your [Empathy] from me. This’ll hurt.”

Her eyes narrow, and she’s about to argue, when she catches my eyes. A single heartbeat passes, and I feel that passive connection fade away. Then, I turn inwards.

My mana suffuses my vessel. There’s a ton of it, enough to break my vessel entirely if not for my attunement loop. It’s a torrent of power, far, far greater than anyone at my level should have, and it’s a chore to even control. It wants to be free, to tear me to pieces and escape into the surroundings. 

But I refuse to let it. 

Instead, I take that absolute horrific torrent of mana, and pour all of it, every single drop, into the walls of my vessel. 

[Vessel Construction 11 > 12]

A heartbeat later, a million tiny cracks spread through that ethereal organ, and I wrestle my mana into the cracks. They mend. Then it breaks again. Then it heals. Then it breaks again.

Within a minute, I’ve cracked and healed my vessel a dozen times over. Blood pours from my skin, where leftover mana ravaged my insides. Lacerations cover my muscles, blood pools beneath my skin. Everything hurts, every part of me is in pain.

I shatter my vessel again. Then I suffuse it with mana. Then I shatter it.

My ribs crack, my mana trying to tear out of my chest. My skin cracks like cobblestone, fissures arcing across it like lightning. My vessel fills with mana. It heals.

Then I shatter it again.

[Vessel Construction 12 > 13]

[The Vesselmaker watches you with horror… and fascination.]

I take my first bite of the coconut. 

[Your stats have been reinforced!]

Healing power pours into me, mending my cracked skin, my broken bones, making blood return into my veins and arteries. My body stitches itself back together, into a fleshy cage for my mana.

I shatter my vessel again.

Mana pours into my bones, into the spaces that just healed, and ruins my insides again. I cough up blood, leaning forward to keep my shirt clean as I stain the sand red. Mana pours into my vessel, stitching it up. There’s so much of it, and by now, the construct is made almost entirely from my mana.

What used to be thin, malleable cracks lining a rigid structure has turned into a strange composite of crystalline power. I stitch back the pieces of my vessel, a material that I cannot recreate, naturally made by my body, and now so full of my mana it’s incredible. It brims with it, and all at once, I squeeze it with my mind.

The lattice I applied through it has broken. The multi-faceted dispersion thing I wove has shattered. My mana strains to escape its cage, but more and more of it pours into the vessel, as I hit a tipping point. I’m spending mana faster than it can try to escape. My vessel suddenly drinks it up like a black hole.

[Vessel Construction 13 > 14]

[Staring at your audacity, the Vesselmaker has no choice but to laugh. And watch on.]

Voyeur. They should pay me for the show.

Blood streams so steadily from my eyes they might as well be wounds. My insides are a ragged mess. I take another bite. And then, I let the dam break.

[Class up! Vesselsmith 6 > 9]

[Job up! Core Controller 7 > 9]

[Level Up! 83 > 85]

Instantly, all my points go into more mana. More mana, always more mana.

Vessel: 497 > 530 - Abiding Apathy

I smash through the next threshold. Crossing 250 increased my mana to a horrible amount, and this is even worse than that. So much mana pours into me, it’s enough to completely tear my body to shreds. Enough that I should explode into a blood smear on the spot. And yet, I smile.

My vessel, shattered, ruined, soaked in mana, drinks deeply. It becomes so malleable. My blood boils to heat the vessel, my body ignites itself to turn it as malleable as possible. It expands, it grows, the terrifying pressure turned into a crucible.

If I had been reasonable, the pain should have made me quit here. It doesn’t. I take another bite of the coconut.

My injuries stitch themselves back up. My blood refills - then boils again. Heat suffuses me and my vessel grows. Mana pours into its walls, turning them denser, fusing into them, building semi-organic support structures. It’s brutal, but it’s also powerful.

I take another bite, then focus. More and more and even more mana pushes into my vessel, suffusing the ethereal organ, reading it for more forging. And my will combines with the pressure, stretching it out, cracking it. Mana fills the gaps, keeping the walls uniform even as it grows, letting me contain even more in the future.

Another bite, and the fruit disappears in my hands. My blood boils so hot I feel my skin blistering. And still, I live. I survive. I smile, and I fricken thrive.

My vessel grows. I’m out of healing, so in a simple move, I pour every single bit of mana I have into tempering. All at once, instead of suffusing it, the mana curls around the walls, creating a second layer. The vessel burns so hot, it easily alloys with the mana, already so filled with it.

[Solidification 26 > 27]

My mana turns fully solid, organic, and into a permanent structure - just the same as my vessel usually is. The brutal torrent from the ascension past another threshold finally, finally stops.

Still, my blood boils. The heat remains. I let myself fall forwards, Kuro forming a mask to keep the sand out of my face - and drinking the blood that endlessly pours from me. I bury myself half-heartedly in the sand, letting it cool my skin. I try to speak, but my voice is muffled, ragged.

I have no mana. But luckily, Jean is there. His healing spell wraps gently around me, keeping my body together as it cools down. Slowly, terribly slowly, giving the mana-vessel alloying-fusion thing I did time to cool down. Bit by bit, it crystallizes, forming a solid, permanent structure. 

Then, my mana regeneration kicks in - and I hastily apply my attunement loop. A ragged, choked laugh bubbles from my throat, accompanied by more blood pouring into the sand. Even after this, after everything I did to make my vessel stronger…

It still isn’t strong enough to hold the mana that comes with the threshold. I would still shatter and break without the attunement loop. But despite that, a grin spreads on my face.

Because as long as I have mana, I can wreck every other skill and spell. As long as I have mana, I can protect my friends, I can learn more, I can indulge my curiosity, and I can use every drop of it efficiently.

And now? Now I have mana for days.

With that final, happy thought, I black out.