Unchosen Champion-Chapter 336: Weeping Forest

Coop tried his best to guess how they would reach the fifth level of the Coral Forest. As he followed Hai Yun into a tubular tunnel that angled down from the larger cavities of the sea sponge, flanked by protective guards, his expectations for a longer journey quickly changed. The tunnel opened up to some dim light at the end, causing Coop’s anticipation to increase as they drew closer.

If there wasn’t too much distance, would there be another magical barrier? Perhaps there would be a shroud of darkness they would have to break through, or shifting obstacles that would force them to vault across gaps with perfect timing. There might even be some kind of trial, with a floor guardian occupying a particularly potent mana bath, allowing it to grow substantially compared to the rest of the mana well inhabitants.

If he was designing a dungeon, there would definitely be more puzzles, as they would be a much bigger pain than simply grinding, but he had to remind himself that the Coral Forest mana well wasn’t really a dungeon. It was more of a natural formation caused by the presence of a mana seed. The structures and monsters were essentially just mutations influenced by a significant burst of growth caused by the introduction of foreign mana. Nothing was by design, but that’s what made it special.

In the early days, before they had understood that the Eradication Protocol would knock them off the regular path of integration, he had learned that the Primal Constructs weren’t a permanent invasion from the contracted residents. At the end of the assimilation, the manifestations were supposed to disappear, letting the victors keep their territory. The planetary sponsor was attempting to claim ground, but all across the world, and especially in the regions that they failed to take hold, regular mana mutations would eventually take their place.

In the future, once they kicked the Primal Constructs off their planet, mana would obviously still be present, and it would result in its own local mutations. The Coral Forest was kind of a super potent hyper-progressed example of what might come about after the assimilation concluded. Various natural forces would allow mana to establish its own habitats, creating natural pockets of monstrous growth depending on concentrations of energy. As he understood it, elemental constructs would be the most common, with planetary features concentrating mana and opening up the opportunity for lesser and greater constructs to form.

At least, that’s what they could have expected if the planet wasn’t already occupied by species that were able to harness mana themselves. In Earth’s case, Coop fully expected regular animals to reclaim their natural habitats, though he wouldn’t put it past them to incorporate some new abilities as they did so. If mutated environments were going to appear on the surface, they would almost certainly be isolated, much like the mana wells that were already in place. He thought it would be nice to preserve the planet as it was, but some amount of change was inevitable, especially with the actual forces of mana scouring the world for remnants of humanity.

“We’re here.” Hai Yun stated, presenting a sandy expanse after just 20 seconds of adventure.

Coop had barely started letting his imagination run free and they were already done. It was a bit disappointing, really. He stopped and looked around, confused by the lack of eventful transition. There was no mana bath, and not even a long rock climb or hike across stone edifices. They literally just walked down a ramp.

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“That’s it?” Coop wondered out loud, unable to hide his disappointment at the lack of proper presentation.

In a real dungeon, level transitions should have been more poignant, demarcating a clear evolution of the adventure. The twisting sky bridge of a coral that they hiked to reach the second level was a good start, then the climb through clouds of condensed mana raised the stakes as they ventured toward the third level, and finally the mana bath dunk tank had been a suitable test of courage to reach the fourth. The absence of an adequate gateway barricading the fifth level made the progress seem invalid. Coop’s sense of adventure was unfulfilled. He grunted at reality.

Rather than acknowledge his bafflement, Hai Yun respectfully ignored his expression in favor of presenting the fifth level of the Coral Forest mana well herself. She shifted to the side, extending her arm forward to draw Coop’s attention to the environment, already anticipating his interest after just a few conversations.

Coop’s expression lit up as he gazed upon the fifth layer, finally looking past his expectations. The landscape was like a perfectly symmetrical tricolor flag. Dark green on top, nearly black in the middle, and a slightly luminescent, pale yellow quartz on the bottom. Coop stepped forward, glancing at his feet before taking it all in.

A vast sandy plain extended as far as the eye could see, but it was no desert. The surface was the same consistency as that of a submerged beach. Soft sand revealed tiny ripples like an undisturbed sandbar in calm shallows. It was wet, as if all the water that was percolating through the porous coral rock and across various coral structures accumulated at the bottom and sank past this particular surface.

The panoramic landscape lacked any obviously unique markers, instead only revealing the anchor points of what might have been thousands of absolutely gigantic corals: clearly the base structures of the branching platforms located up top. There were also scattered sponges and soft corals distributed among the hard corals, but they were few relative to the gargantuan pillars, as if they lacked the strategic advantage of rigidity that benefited this particular deep well niche. Hundreds of different species had cemented themselves in the sandy ground, but all of them reached upwards, quickly masking themselves behind the even more prominent dark green obstruction above.

In between the mountainous stone trunks, within thousands of feet of empty damp desert, it was as if the sand had been swept clean. The most notable feature of the ground was that it had a slight gradient, tapering lower in one direction, presumably toward the actual core of the entire dungeon-like habitat. Judging by the vastness of the landscape, Coop felt like Ghost Reef was lucky the mana well had been growing away from the island. If it hadn’t extended away, it would have eventually undercut the fort, interrupting their access to the Underlayer and stifling the chasm. The Coral Forest was truly massive, encompassing miles of space. From his position, he got the sense that the entire domain was roughly shaped like a right triangle, though the actual angles would be a closer match for the trajectory of the original meteor that crashed into the shallow reef.

Despite the grandness of the sandy expanse, he couldn’t actually see beyond the horizon as it was blocked by a curtain of dark green vegetation hovering above the surface, making the thick coral bases seem like the trunks of weeping willow world-trees. It created an artificial ceiling to what was clearly an open area incomparable to any other layer of the mana well.

While Coop took it all in, the sand seemed to dance with slight, almost imperceptible fluctuations. Dim turquoise light leaked from the Coral Forest floor, shifting with oscillations in the mana that rose through the habitats. It gave the whole region, as large as it was, the appearance of a self-contained nighttime pool, tucked away beneath a lush grotto of manicured willows. Coop had the urge to frolic, feeling like he would inevitably find elves and fairies relaxing in comfortable natural baths.

“Keep your eyes up.” Hai Yun directed, seeing Coop’s delight at the space. “The Gliders attack from above.”

Coop watched streamers of mana rising from the fine sand and finally took in the detail of the willowy forest of deep greens with pops of yellow, red, and brown, growing like a hanging garden. They resembled a beaded curtain with all of the pneumatocysts providing buoyancy and balance.

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Forest seemed like a perfect descriptor for the mana well, but his perspective of such an environment had to be flipped. The pseudo willow trees were actual giant blades of what he could only accept as something similar to kelp hanging from far above. A thick canopy of leaves, interspersed with small gaps that hinted at a hidden world of shaded hollows and lissome beds of vegetation, reached toward the sandy ground, as if believing it was an open sky.

Coop couldn’t help himself, tilting his head to try and look at the hanging forest from upside down. It nearly matched his memories of viewing the Belizean rainforests from the top of a rocky cliff in the twilight hours. Mists seemed to be drifting beneath the canopy, though he knew that in this case, it was a thick soup of mana rising from the depths of the well, leaking through the sands as it started a journey all the way to the coral platforms.

“Are those growing from the algae mats?” He ventured, referring to the hanging seaweed, though no one could answer for sure. He had his perspective shift once again, reimagining the last three layers of the mana well in reverse.

The way the sand ramped down, gently, but insistently sloping toward abyssal darkness meant that at the higher points beyond the sponge, the hanging seaweed drew closer and closer to the ground. At the highest point, seaweed, sandy bottom, and solid coral rock met. The nearly right angle of the corner of the Coral Forest closest to both Ghost Reef and the connection to the surface combined various elemental structures like a lazy person’s attempt to clean their room by shoving loose fabrics out of the way. If he was going to mistjump through the layers, his best bet was probably along that interior wall.

Given the undaunted growth elsewhere, the narrow gap between the surface and the tips of the seaweed made Coop curious what was preventing it from growing even a few meters further down to touch the sand. It was almost like there was a specific depth that established a hard limit, much like how the actual ocean followed a strict gradient based on pressure and light penetration. He wasn’t sure what would cause a similar behavior in the mana well, but he decided it was probably mana, as usual.

“We usually stick to where the seaweed is more distant from the surface, granting us more time to react to monster attacks.” Hai Yun explained. “However, the sand drops off rather abruptly if you move too far in that direction.” She added, indicating the darker depths that the low angle of the sandy substrate rolled toward.

“Gliders and Faders…” Coop recalled. “Those are the only two left.”

“We have avoided engaging with Faders as they represented an uncomfortable leap in levels. This has been the limit of our exploration. The sixth level was too dangerous for us to continue further.” Hai Yun explained, speaking like an official ambassador of the well.

Coop was already intrigued by the next level, and her warning just made him more eager, but she wasn’t the first person to suggest he shouldn’t take it lightly. Everyone from Derek, Jones, Gibson, Emmanuel, and Madison had the same opinion on how much he should push the Coral Forest. The so-called Faders were a step too far when it came to difficulty. Camila and Charlie had failed to progress further, not even able to determine the enemy levels, and given Coop’s reset, no one wanted him to test himself against them just yet.

He nodded to himself slowly, hearing the repeated advice in the back of his mind as he closed his eyes, but when he opened them and the abyss was just over yonder, it practically begged him to check it out. With the Coral Forest reset, it was the perfect time to take a peek, but he refrained from giving in until he had exhausted the unculled Gliders. They would give him another boost of levels that he couldn’t just pass up.

“Alright.” Coop stated, getting the message and knowing when to take good advice, even if it was just echoing in his head. “First things first.” He agreed, deciding that he had to at least test the grind in front before letting his curiosity get the better of him. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, right?”

Hai Yun raised her eyebrows as if she was surprised by his decision, but he didn’t question it. Who knew what the other residents of Ghost Reef were actually saying about him when he wasn’t around.

After Hai Yun reminded him of the details regarding the native creatures, then demonstrated how her entourage slowly rotated across the region to counter the gas-based attacks, Coop wandered a bit further away from the sea sponge, seeking his own place in the layer. If he was being honest, he would admit that this level actually seemed like it might be easier than any of the others, based entirely on the specs of the enemies compared to his own.

When he determined his first target, ethereal trident already carried like a javelin about to be thrown, he allowed a split second to inspect its aura before testing the creature.

[One That Sails (Elite Level 252)]

[(Agility)]

[Of The Spore]

The creature was silently gliding between willowy seaweeds, far bigger than the descriptions had revealed. To be fair, he knew manta rays could be more than 20 feet wide, so even before mana had entered the picture, the potential for size was there. Still, it exhibited a level of graceful agility that made it seem majestic despite its almost ship-like size.

The hanging seaweed was almost completely undisturbed as the ray weaved across the sky, camouflaged by a two-tone pattern on its underside. To Coop’s surprise, it had detected him before he detected it, and its movement was actually an effort to enter his blindside.

When he rotated, it subtly changed direction, apparently keeping close track of the limits of his vision. Coop frustrated it a bit by making sure to keep it within his periphery, though he was pretty much locked in on its aura.

Before Coop committed to the fight, the monster launched a cloud of smoky green gas that was meant to choke him to death, but because Coop had spotted the creature, he shifted out of the way. The gas was a distraction that wouldn’t work either. The magic defense of the Revenant was much too strong to succumb to such weak damage over time abilities, not that he wanted to give it a chance to build up. This was just one encounter in what he hoped would be a series of thousands. Even small debuffs tended to add up when the scale was measured by one of his grinds.

The monster would have continued to circle, sending more and more toxic attacks from the safety of the canopy until it had the opportunity to dive at Coop’s back. At that point, it would use its broad, flattened hydrodynamic anterior like a guillotine blade to remove his head from his body. Coop didn’t feel the need to compete with the sharpness of its head, nor its pectoral fins. Instead, his goal was to turn himself into a mobile surface to air missile station.

He retaliated by slamming his bare foot into the squishy sand, planting his weight as he shifted forward and launched the trident up into the canopy of seaweed.

The monster was impaled in an instant, and even though the throw had been nearly supersonic, Coop had the notification of a kill before the projectile disappeared with his quarry.

[You defeated One That Sails (Elite Level 252)]

[+2286 Basic Credits]

[Congratulations! Your profession has leveled up!]

[Fortune Seeker (26/50)]

The hanging seaweed whipped with the wind created by the trident, parting like a patch of silky hair for a moment before returning to normal. Rather than swinging back and forth, the willowy leaves sank back into place, much more similar to something that was suspended in a thick liquid than the open air.

As Coop was surprised by the behavior of the environmental features, he noted that the upper portions of the gigantic coral pillars, normally hidden within the canopy, almost seemed to liquify after being exposed by the motion of the seaweed. Hundreds of the large Gliders were taking flight, as if he had disturbed a swarm of moths with a sudden flash of light and wind, except these moths were dozens of feet across, almost certainly upwards of 5,000 pounds, and built like solid wedges carrying payloads of gas attacks.

Coop returned his ethereal trident to his hand and prepared to contend with a swarm of the creatures, happy to avoid hunting them one at a time.