Chapter 719 (2/2)

But the longer Randidly spent in Tellus the first time, he realized that was just the area that he was exposed to. There were other industries, including things like farming and leatherworking.

And some of Darke’s words were somewhat confusing. From what he was saying, it seemed that the Engraving Guild believed that Randidly had some information they wanted. Or that Randidly was somehow related to the Wights in the past, and that was why he was able to Engrave.

Which did much to explain why he was left alive, but it was difficult to figure out what such a thing meant for Tellus. Were the Wights really free to do as they pleased so far into the past that they could monopolize the Engraving Guilds…?

There just wasn’t enough information available in here. So Randidly continued to crawl. Somewhat, it reminded Randidly of those times as a child where he was in a swimming pool and he had held his breath and dropped to the bottom. Immediately, he would push off the wall and swim wildly forward, aiming blindly for the other side of the pool.

Eyes clenched shut and ears covered by the thick barrier of liquid, there was only the strange sensation of water on skin. Isolated, there would often be times that the fear that he wouldn’t reach the other side of the pool would spiral out of control. With no sort of feedback, emotions could warp far beyond their usual size.

Eventually, however, his head with a thunk into the far wall and Randidly would explode out of the water gasping for air. That was how this snail’s pace crawling felt.

Except Randidly wasn’t sure what to expect when he reached the far edge.

As the minutes continued to drag by, Randidly began mentally reviewing his Skills. Most notable among them was Inspiration. It empowered the next Mana Skill used and took all of the Mana Randidly had for a day. But if the effect was similarly reduced based on Mana cost, was it possible that Inspiration would result in just a regular powered spell?

That thought was a disturbing one to have. In addition, Randidly also had the dilemma of either outcome of using Inspiration would probably still attract attention. Could Randidly escape Darke, or even the combination of Darke and a Propagator, with basically depleted Stamina and an empty Mana pool? Even if the spell broke the effect of the room, they wouldn’t just sit back and allow Randidly to recover before they struck.

It was still very possible that Randidly could escape no matter what, but that was a tougher sell. The opponent was capable. If his fight in the deserted district of Hastam had taught Randidly anything, it was that failing to give your all in most situations was asking to be punished by fate.

No, Inspiration would be a last-ditch resort. That sort of volatility of result was not very attractive to Randidly.

Other than that... Randidly’s main lead would be to use one of the small seeds in the pouch at his throat with Grasp of the World Seed. After he had explored the area as best as possible, Randidly would attempt that.

Other than that… there was little that seemed feasible to Randidly. All of his sort of summon Skills cost so much Mana underneath the influence of the room that none of them were possible. Without using Skills that cost Stamina or Mana, two backup options came to mind. The first was using the caustic property of his blood to break out of here and the second was to create a Soulseed designed to break out while he was here.

The former seemed like even if it was effective, it would take too long for Randidly’s situation. He truly didn’t know why he was here, and how long he would have before someone would check on him. Hell, they could be watching him now, as he crawled what was like 10 meters over an hour and a half.

The latter was unappealing because it was possible that the room would affect Soulseeds as well. Even if he created a perfect plant assistant, how useful would it be if it was just as restricted as he was in this place? And again, the time frame for making the Soulseed grow…

Randidly paused in his crawling. The ground in front of him fell away. His hand was touching the sharp 90-degree corner that signaled a cliff. Over five minutes, Randidly shuffled closer and felt around with his hand.

It was water.

Randidly was on an island surrounded by water.

Good thing I can float, Randidly thought with a morose smile.