“Wait up! Where are you going?!”

  Larek waved at Nedira and the others to urge them on as he focused on the very faint wisp of magical power he could sense in the distance. His sense of it was so dim that he lost it a few times within the general miasma of killing intent that permeated the area, but he knew the general area where he detected it, so he kept running in that direction before he lost it altogether.

  The others followed after him as quickly as they could, but they could only move so fast. Larek left them behind within seconds, but he didn’t fear for their safety; while he was trying to sense magical signatures, he hadn’t picked up anything dangerous within a mile or so. What he did pick up, however, was just barely on the edge of his Magical Detection range, and the only reason he thought he had actually detected it was because of its nature.

  It was a Fusion – and not one that he had created.

  It didn’t take him long to run just over 2 miles to his destination, as he circled around a short mountain along its lower heights. Once he was close enough, the Fusion he’d felt was much stronger to his senses than before, but even then it was still somewhat obscured. If he was correct, then whatever Fusion he was feeling had a void carrier shroud on it, similar to the one on the Perceptive Misdirection Fusion that Shinpai had given him; it would hide the fact that the Fusion was there from anyone but its creator, but Larek wasn’t exactly “anyone”. Despite this Fusion’s attempts at disguising itself and its absorption of ambient Mana, Larek had still felt its presence.

  Though he couldn’t necessarily see it.

  “What has gotten into you, Larek? What did you find?” Nedira asked as she and the others finally caught up to him. It hadn’t been long since he stopped and started staring upwards at the cliff face above, as they all had improved their Martial stats a bit since unlocking them, but it still gave him enough time to admit that, for all that someone hadn’t been able to hide its presence from his senses, he couldn’t physically see the Fusion he felt was there.

  “Do you see anything? Feel anything?” he asked, pointing at the cliff face ahead of the group.

  Nedira paused for a moment before shaking her head. “The only thing I feel is an acute frustration that you’re not explaining yourself,” she chided, only half-serious. Norde, Verne, and the Volunteers all appeared equally confused by his question. He smiled apologetically at his betrothed, prompting her to sigh. “Alright, out with it. What are we missing?”

  “There’s a Fusion here, but it’s shrouded by a void carrier, making it nearly impossible to see. I think it’s an illusion Fusion, but I could be wrong. Either way, it’s fairly faint, making me think that it’s a few months old, but it’s still working enough to obscure its presence from everyone else.”

  “Are you sure?” Verne asked. “I don’t feel… anything.”

  “Oh, I’m sure. In fact, it’s not alone – there are more Fusions behind it.” Now that he was closer, he could feel even more Fusions, though they were also faint and distant. If he was correct, then they were located inside the mountain; to be more precise, they were actually below it. But first, he had to figure out what was going on with this one.

  “I’m going to take a closer look,” he said and began to move, but Nedira put her hand on his arm to stop him.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? What if this is a trap?”

  Hesitating for a moment as he thought that over, he eventually shook his head. “That’s unlikely. From all that I’ve learned, the Gergasi don’t use Fusions like this.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” she continued. “Whoever put this here obviously didn’t want it to be found. Whatever it is could be extremely dangerous.”

  “Probably. But I have a feeling that this will help us to find where the Fusionists in Sidleton have gone – or at least give us a better starting point than whatever was left in the ruins of that town. As for the danger, I’m more than a little dangerous myself, don’t you think?” he asked, doing his best to wiggle his eyebrows at her.

  The subsequent laugh was worth his attempt at trying to lighten the mood, and he practically watched the tension drain away from his friends and the Volunteers searching the area for any threats.

  “Fine. Just be careful.”

  He chuckled lightly before turning away. “I’m always careful; it’s only sometimes that I ignore safety altogether.”

  Larek didn’t stay to see her reaction, as he was already moving toward the cliff face. Once he was close enough, he could sense what felt like a static illusionary effect being projected upon the stone in front of him. Closing his eyes, he let his senses lead the way, cutting through the illusion to what was beneath it. With a few precise steps, he walked forward into what looked like solid stone, but his foot found a carved step. There were gasps behind him as the others saw his foot seemingly disappear into the cliff, but he ignored them as he walked forward, his feet finding the next steps as they moved sideways and up along the right side of the cliff. After approximately 20 steps, the path switched back and headed toward the left side of the stone edifice, before switching back again. Soon enough, however, it meandered back toward the center of the cliff, before heading straight up toward where he could sense the Fusion.

  Opening his eyes, his sight told him that his face was only inches from plain stone, and when he looked back and down, lower legs essentially disappeared just under his knees, as they were covered in an illusion. He waved at Nedira and the others approximately 100 feet down below, each of them with astonished looks on their faces, before he turned back to the seemingly blank stone cliff face.

  Shutting his eyes again, the lack of visual sight helped him to focus on what his Magical Detection Skill was telling him. This close to the Fusion, it was impossible to miss it, and as he concentrated on his feelings, he began to make out its formation placed upon the stone just below what he thought was an opening in the cliff.

  The more he looked at it, the Fusion tried to push back, with a subtle urging to look away or ignore it – but it was going to have no luck in such an endeavor. Instead, once he locked onto it, he couldn’t stop perceiving it.

  New Fusion learned!

  Illusionary Perception Ward +5

  Activation Method(s): Permanent, Reactive…

  The sudden learning of a new Fusion was unexpected, but he dismissed it after a cursory examination that revealed it was simply an illusionary image with a pulsing mental effect that urged anyone looking straight at it to ignore its presence. It also used a void carrier shroud, like he thought, not only for the illusionary image of a blank cliff face, but for the mental urging, as well. It wasn’t anything revolutionary, though combining the two effects had been well thought-out and well-executed.

  The formation, in fact, looked practically perfect. It was nearly as well made as his own Fusions, if lacking on the permanency side of things – as he could tell that it was only a month or two away from fading away – which told him that whoever made it really knew their stuff. Its presence also told him that someone had likely replaced it fairly recently, at least compared to the destruction of Sidleton, so there was at least one Fusionist who had survived its fall.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  He was banking on there being even more than one, however.

  After ensuring that he wasn’t missing anything that could be harmful, Larek used his Pattern Manipulation Skill to subtly change the formation, so that it used three times more Mana than usual, and then he plugged the Mana Cost section with his Pattern Cohesion to starve it out. Within a few seconds, he could see it already starting to fade, as the balance between the incoming ambient Mana and its power expenditure was disrupted; and a few seconds after that, it fell apart, unable to sustain itself any longer.

  As soon as that happened, the cliff face was revealed, showing a set of neatly cut steps in the stone, exactly where he had walked up to arrive at what was apparently a perfectly circular hole, approximately 4 feet in width. When he looked inside, he could sense that the passage inside, which he could vaguely see from the light streaming in from outside, led downwards, and it went deep.

  “What? How did you—? Never mind, let’s go see what’s inside,” Verne shouted up to him from below, before he started taking the stone steps two at a time. The others weren’t too far behind him, and soon enough they had joined him at the top, right outside the hole leading into the unknown.

  Nedira looked impatient. “Well? Are you going to go in?”

  “Yes; I was just waiting until you all got here. I’m going first, just in case there is anything dangerous along the way.”

  Larek’s warning turned out to be fairly prophetic. After crawling inside the hole, he was somewhat glad that the original height of the 4-foot-tall, circular tunnel opened up a bit, as he’d had to literally crawl through it, but it only topped out at 6 feet. Having to hunch way over wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was better than crawling.

  The tunnel was also quite dark, but one of the few spells that everyone was taught was Light Orb, so there was plenty of light to see by once they all cast it. He nearly brought out his halberd and Multi-Purpose Arsenal Fusion to use its Directional Illumination effect, but he could see well enough with the floating orbs following behind him. It also would mess with his night sight somewhat, and he was able to maintain a little bit of it as all the light sources were coming from behind him.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t prepared to pull out his weapon when he needed it, but for the moment it would be more of a hindrance than a benefit, given its length and the narrowness of the passage they were moving through.

  Approximately 2,000 feet through the downward-sloping tunnel, Larek stopped everyone with a hand out in warning. Crouching down at another Fusion, which was not concealed by any void shroud, it took him only a second to discover that it was a Reactive Weakness Fusion, designed to collapse the stone floor underneath whatever was passing over it.

  “There’s a pit with sharp stone spikes underneath this section of the flooring. If anything were to walk past this, the stone and dirt would crumble away and drop it into the pit.” It was actually a fairly rudimentary trap, but he had to admit that it would certainly work against many monsters, if they somehow made their way inside. Against anyone with the ability to sense the Fusion, however, it would likely fail.

  Eliminating the Weakness Fusion was easy enough, but upon further evaluation, he wasn’t sure if the pit covering would actually hold his weight; it appeared to be designed for those much lighter than him. After a few seconds of looking around for another route, of which there were none detectable, he shrugged and knelt next to where the pit covering began to thin. It took the work of a few seconds to place a Strengthen Fusion on the stone and dirt flooring, which he thought was more than enough to handle him now.

  Despite his confidence, he still cautiously walked over that section with delicate steps. He wasn’t exactly worried about hurting himself if his path crumbled away and he fell in, as he could easily hold himself up with a Pattern platform underneath him; instead, he was more concerned about the added annoyance it would be to transfer everyone else over the 50-foot-long section of the tunnel, and when they returned this way, it would be yet another annoyance.

  “That was the work of a Geomancer,” Nedira said as soon as they were clear. “In fact, this entire tunnel appears to be the work of one, or even several. Do you think…?”

  She trailed off, and he shrugged. “That there’s someone living down here? All signs point to yes, but I really don’t know. Could be a few Mages and a strong Fusionist, though.”

  “Or it could be just one. Fusionists are Mages, after all; they can be a Geomancer or a Pyromancer and still be a Master Fusionist.”

  What she said shocked him a bit. It wasn’t that she was wrong; it was more that when Larek thought of a Fusionist, that was basically all they were. Since he wasn’t able to cast spells, his mind naturally reasoned that no other Fusionist could cast spells, but he already knew that was absolute nonsense. It was just that he hadn’t spoken to a Fusionist whom he hadn’t personally been training as a student in a long time, and he was making some assumptions that were incorrect.

  “You’re right, of course. Still, I have a feeling that all of this was done for the benefit of just one person.”

  As they progressed further down the tunnel as it subtly curved while still descending, they encountered a number of other Fusions that would trigger additional traps, including one that would cause the tunnel to collapse from above, and another one that would propel an ingenious rack of stone spikes out from the walls. The latter was interesting because the Fusion was a simple Weaken one, but instead of weakening the floor or the ceiling, it would weaken a bar of stone holding up the lattice-like stone rack of spikes, with a counterweight sunk into the floor. When the Reactive Weaken Fusion would trigger, the thin bar of stone holding up the rack on a swivel would crumble, and the spikes would swing forward, pushing through holes located in the wall of the tunnel.

  It was a unique blend of non-magical knowhow and Fusions that he hadn’t thought of before. His own creations almost fully relied on the Fusions doing the heavy lifting, but there was obviously so much more that could be done if he used something such as what he was encountering in the tunnel.

  Unfortunately, there wasn’t much variety in the types of traps they encountered, though they did increase in number as they kept going. A few more Illusionary Perception Wards made everyone but Larek think that they had hit a dead end, and it was only when Larek eliminated the Fusions that his companions turned back from their involuntary retreat, heading deeper down underneath the mountain.

  After a while, they had gone so deep that there was an absence of something. He wasn’t sure how long it was gone, but the killing intent that had been so prevalent on the surface was no longer detectable, even among those who didn’t have the same immunity to it that Larek did.

  After hours of cautiously making their way down the tunnel, with a single break to eat and drink something – which he was thankful for because his back was aching from being perpetually bent over, despite his high Body stat – something finally changed.

  “Cancel the Light Orbs;” he told everyone in a low whisper, “I see something ahead.” A few seconds later, as the downward progression of the tunnel leveled-off, Larek could now clearly see a faint illumination coming from ahead. It took another 15 minutes for it to be enough to flood the tunnel, but that wasn’t what caught his attention.

  It was the voices. A lot of them.

  I think that’s a good indication that there’s more than just a single person down here.

  His excitement got the better of him as he rushed ahead, not detecting any other Fusions nearby in the tunnel – but he felt hundreds, if not thousands of Fusions up ahead. The glorious feeling of so many Fusions not of his own creation, as well as the brightness coming from the end of the tunnel, which was almost blinding after the darkness he’d been walking through, was enough to dull his senses somewhat.

  Which was why he didn’t notice the two swords stabbing toward his throat as their wielders emerged from dark, side alcoves in the tunnel. The blades, of course, were instantly swallowed up by his Protection of the Void Fusion covering him, and even the sudden build-up of Stama, which was then released in a Battle Art of some kind, didn’t do much more than disappear into the void.

  The pair of Martials, as that was who Larek decided they were as soon as he stopped to look at them, immediately pulled back after their failed attack; and before he could stop them, 2 whistles screeched loudly enough to hurt his ears, had he not been protected from such. It wasn’t an attack, however, but a warning, and Larek could sense a brief pause among the hundreds of people inside the larger, illuminated space ahead – before dozens of them reacted by throwing themselves toward the tunnel, likely as extra defenders.

  A series of Fusions near the tunnel exit were activated a second later, as Larek backed up a few steps. Extremely bright lights shined down the tunnel, nearly blinding him again, but it didn’t take more than a few seconds to become accustomed to them. When he could see clearly again, he found that he was now facing a dozen Martials, all with their weapons raised toward him, and another two dozen Mages were piled up behind them, ready to fill the tunnel with so many spells that it would be a miracle if they didn’t bring down the entire tunnel on top of them.

  “Uh… hello?” he meekly greeted them, startled and frozen in place after this sudden turn of events.

  The opposing people weren’t likewise frozen into inaction, as Larek heard a feminine voice shout, “A Gergasi! Kill it!”

  Whoops. This was not exactly how I hoped this would go….