Chapter 753 (2/2)

Only after several once-overs without any revisions to the feel did Randidly consider himself satisfied. Then he slowly reached inside himself. He felt his body and the way he was sitting above the ground. With much less care than the ground, Randidly added himself to the image. What was important wasn’t really his features, but what he was. He added the bindings to the imagined him. He added the Health, the Stamina, the Mana, and the Aether.

Then, like a seamstress guiding a thread, Randidly pulled a tiny bit of imagined Mana out of himself. And into that Mana Randidly injected the terrible, frigid cold he had earned in the Hall of Stances. The Mana was heavy and substantial, aided by that cold.

And then Randidly began to engrave. During the image engraving, he took his time. Although there was the looming threat of the wardens returning, Randidly lost himself in the simplicity of the image. Truly, he had built himself an immaculately crafted imagined home. It was possible to lose himself here.

Of course, this was his mind. So although he felt like he spent quite a long amount of time here…

Randidly opened his eyes. His torch only had about one-third of itself left to burn. His Skill informed Randidly that it had taken him nineteen minutes to finish that image. And in front of him, lightly glowing from the Mana fueling it, was a thin and pale rune.

It was a small thing. Even with Randidly’s Engraving in here, bound by the runes, he generally achieved a rune ten time as powerful as this one. But, that took much, much longer and during the making of such a rune, he would experience much more discomfort. Aside from the obvious pride bruising that Randidly had endured while he was here, he physically had to drag his body around like a sack.

Not pleasant.

It might be one-tenth of the power, but it would be enough to weaken the runes by interfering with them. And perhaps the weakening was better. That way, Randidly could weaken the bonds on him and make further preparations without alerting those who had trapped him. He didn’t want to walk out to find a trap that was laid by a Propagator.

Randidly pressed on the torch and the emerald fire flickered up. The whole cave was illuminated. It would burn through the remaining torch quickly, but Randidly also felt the stimulating effect of the Ignition of the Emerald Essence. Most of the steam he was building up was due to that fire’s influence, and Randidly wanted to cash in on that power.

This time Randidly glanced around and memorized the runes he would hopefully unmake. Then he breathed in and closed his eyes. On a much larger scale, Randidly once more constructed his prison.

Every inch.

Every struggle.

Every divet and scratch.

Every handhold and moment of his nose awkwardly pressed into the ground.

Every day of worry and helplessness

Every slow and jerky action to gather the pebbles.

Every grim triumph crushing them into powder.

Every second waiting for the plants to grow.

Every tremble of his hands as he felt his wonderful plants.

Every break as he assembled the torch.

Every image that haunted him here.

Everything.

Then Randidly began to engrave.