Chapter 66: Mana signature

Just like that, Julian was gone. It took a single, agonizing second for it to completely sink in.

Then everyone immediately went into an absolute panic. Everything had happened so fast that none of them saw exactly what had happened or where Julian had been violently taken. The pitch-black darkness of the suffocating swamp canopy closed in around them, the thick sulfur fog swallowing their remaining sightlines entirely.

"What do we do, Tom? Do you think that maybe he is alive?" Lina asked, her small frame trembling violently from the sheer physical shock of the ambush.

Thomas did not know what to tell them. He too was not quite sure what had just happened beneath the muck, but he had a powerful tool in his arsenal that he hoped could help him track down the missing noble. Keeping his farm-boy mask perfectly smooth as glass, he mentally addressed the interface behind his eyelids.

’System, do I have tools that can help me track someone’s mana signature?’

The mechanical blue notifications instantly crackled into his conscious mind, responding with cold efficiency.

[ DATA ARCHIVE LOGGED: RECORD DETECTED ]

* Status: Target entity ’Julian’ has a verified mana signature recorded within the database due to extreme physical proximity and mana exposure during the Freshman Tournament finals.

[ SKILL ACTIVATION MATRIX ]

* Directive: Deploy the [Eye of Khepri] to lock onto the stored signature paths.

Thomas’s brow furrowed slightly in the dark. He was thoroughly confused on how he was supposed to track a signature through feet of thick, stagnant swamp water when his line of sight was completely blocked.

Right then, Ryan, who had been standing directly behind Julian before the strike, aggressively knelt down into the mud. His fingers brushed against something solid beneath the wet grit, and his wind core subtly pulsed. "Guys, I found something!" Ryan yelled in a tense whisper, pulling his hands out of the mire. He showed them the unlit artifact Julian had used as their hovering lamp. "How can we use this thing to light up the way?"

The moment Thomas saw the crystal ball in Ryan’s grip, and immediately connected the pieces. He rushed over like an absolute bullet, violently yanking the stone device straight out of his friend’s hand.

’Can I use this to lock onto his mana?’ Thomas demanded.

The system agreed, confirming the heavy residual energetic trace remaining on the physical housing of the artifact from Julian’s constant use. Thomas didn’t waste another microsecond. He steeled his resolve and immediately activated the Eye of Khepri, locking directly onto Julian’s unique mana properties.

FLASH.

The darkness of the swamp was instantly broken as Thomas’s right eye violently flared to life with a brilliant, glowing golden light. A crimson rune appeared etched right below his right eye illuminating through the grey fog. Mina, Lina, and Ryan all gasped in raw shock, their bodies freezing as they looked at his face.

"Why do you have a rune inscribed beneath your right eye?" Mina asked, her voice cracking as a deep, primal fear evident in her eyes took hold.

Thomas ignored her question entirely. Looking down at the exact place where Julian had been dragged, his crimson-tinted vision cut cleanly through the black swamp. He could see Julian’s glowing mana signature forming a distinct, bleeding trail that stretched deeper and deeper into the uncharted marshland.

"I can track him," Thomas said flatly, his voice carrying an unyielding, razor-sharp grit that brooked no argument. "Let’s not waste any more time.

Thomas threw Ryan back the crystal ball.

"Pour mana into it and it will light up the way, but I must advise you not to do that right now because we might end up drawing unwanted attention," Thomas advised.

Ryan nodded and gestured for Thomas to lead the way. Thomas began walking, following the trail of mana.

The journey was quite long and it led them deeper towards the uncharted land they had chosen to check out. Thomas began worrying about the nature of their enemy. He wondered just what type of mana beast had taken Julian, why it had taken only him, and also why it was taking him directly into the uncharted land.

The journey was grueling, and they constantly had to escape and hide from wild mana beasts that had caught their scent in the dark. Eventually, the temperature dropped to insane, freezing levels. The suffocating mud level also began to recede, allowing them to finally walk properly on semi-dry, hardened ground. But the path had turned monstrously foggy. At one point, Ryan suggested they make a physical chain by tightly holding hands so that no one could get lost or separated in the heavy, blind fog.

"Tom, are you sure we are on the right path?" Lina suddenly asked, her voice shaking slightly from the cold.

"Yes, why do you ask?" Thomas murmured back.

"It’s just that we have been following behind you for some few hours now, and I think we might have officially ended up deep in the uncharted lands still. If so, then I believe Ryan should light up the crystal ball before we step into an abyss," Lina answered calmly.

Thomas had noticed it too. They were probably well past the border between the known region of the marshland and the forbidden uncharted territory. But he did not know what to tell them. Julian’s glowing mana trail beckoned for him to go further and further into the uncharted land, and the further they went, the denser the grey fog got, and the quieter the world became. It reached a point where the silence was total, so absolute that they could clearly hear the wet, ragged sound of their own internal breathing.

And then, all of a sudden, the atmosphere shifted into something deeply disturbing. 𝘧𝓇ℯℴ𝓂

A heavy, invasive weight pressed against their skulls, and they began to feel like they were being watched by several eyes peering out from the grey void. Then, the voices began.

It started as a wet, clicking sound in the dark, before twisting into distorted, skin-crawling whispers that echoed right inside their ears. The voices did not sound human; they carried a sickening, dual-toned pitch that giggled and wept simultaneously, repeating random words they had spoken hours ago in the cabin. The heavy fog around them began to subtly twist, shaping itself into pale, faceless silhouettes that drifted just inches away from their shoulders, their cold, invisible fingers scraping softly against the fabric of Thomas’s dark jacket as the absolute terror of the uncharted land settled over their frozen bones.