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Chapter 332: Coral Theater
🕑 Added 2025-01-15 16:11:01 +0000 UTCHai Yun revealed the route that would take them on their journey toward the lower levels, guiding Coop into the depths of the Coral Forest along with her massive entourage. Though she hadn’t spent much time in Ghost Reef’s mana well, she had already established her proficiency within such alien formations, having been one of the primary individuals who conquered the first mana well on the planet. It was one of the few achievements that Coop hadn’t accomplished himself, not that it had ever been on his radar.
Her experience combined with the knowledge base generated by the residents of Ghost Reef created a level of comfort in the challenging domain that sent her group to the top of the charts for the Adventurer Guild. The same could be applied to Irina, the reformed Banshee, and the Kitawa party, but for the time being, Hai Yun was the one seeking to validate her acceptance into the Lighthouse by contributing within the Coral Forest. The others had taken on their own missions in the subjugation of the Fallen Zone or by joining the residents in the expansion project of the fort.
Together, Coop and Hai Yun’s party left the main platform, using the coral colony as a temporary walkway before leaving it to be reclaimed by the Ones That Hunt. Coop watched as scattered monsters rushed from the depths, climbing up the coral exteriors, hoping to initiate their expedited growth before the real competition set in. It wouldn’t take long before the dominant pyramid shaped coral was a well-stocked hunting ground for the Adventurers of Ghost Reef.
If he had known that the Coral Forest would be reset, he wouldn’t have been so conservative toward his return. If the monsters were deleveled back to their base values, he could have entered at least 50 levels sooner, but then again, he never would have predicted the consequences of the settlement upgrade. They had traded an energized leveling zone for a massive boost of reinforcements.
Coop followed as Hai Yun led the way down a wide spiraling pathway that curled in on itself before spinning away from the larger colony, like a frozen party streamer, bypassing the few scrambling monsters that stuck to the core of their desired territory. The coral offshoot collided with the base of the purple coral platform, carving a small tunnel before emerging from the other side.
As Coop entered the tunnel, the weight of the structure could have fooled him into believing he was following some kind of grand mountain pass. Thick walls and a solid ceiling pressed on the narrow space, giving substantial heft to the experience. The breezes that constantly flowed through the mana well were rejected from the tunnel, making it seem like an isolated cavity that clearly delineated two different atmospheres, like an airlock on a larger ship.
Dim light emerged from familiar wall sconces, lighting the way, but the small crystals that powered the illumination had been influenced by the environment. Instead of a warm golden color, the lights flickered with blue and green energy, giving the path an eerie alien appearance that matched the rest of the mana well. Jutting edges cast long shadows along the walls, and Coop glanced at his guide, but she seemed completely at ease, making him wonder if the sense of foreboding was unique to his imagination.
When they reached the opposite end of the purple platform’s broad base, after descending within its interior, moving back into the open air felt like stepping onto the balcony of an unnecessarily tall skyscraper. Wind rushed upward, clearly visible as it carried dense clouds of faded turquoise mana toward the upper level of the Coral Forest, rising as if it was more buoyant than the rest of the atmosphere. The strip of coral beneath their feet blocked the turbulence, making the flow of mana seem like an interactive art feature, barely separated from their position.
Coop couldn’t help himself, sticking one of his hands out into the current, as if he was a child letting his hand glide in the wind of an open car window. He watched as his fingers left long strips in the upward current before the mana coalesced back together far above. All sorts of smaller bits of debris and tiny creatures cycled throughout the mana well, sinking in other portions then rising back to the top through such elevators where he guessed they hoped to get caught by the horizontal currents in the upper levels. Other coral platforms created an erratic ceiling that was only partially masked by the haze of mana, making it difficult to determine exactly how deep they had gone.
Once the path was back in the open atmosphere, it became lined with scattered patches of regular-sized sea anemones. They made themselves at home in the cupped coral formations that sprouted along the edges of the route. The way their tentacles clustered, superficially resembling flowers bouncing in the brisk upward breeze, made the track seem something like an alien garden, lit by soft, moody lights, in a vast overgrown forest. The thick mana was similar to the kind of light fog that might settle in the shade of a forest canopy, but the way it drifted from beneath, thinning as currents extended its reach toward the different ceilings was unusual.
Steam and tiny bubbles were rising from below as well, making it seem like they were walking through dying clouds that never quite coalesced once broken by the lower corals. When Coop glanced up, he thought there must have been a distinct barrier between the top layer that he was most familiar with and the next layer that they were heading into that was delineated by these currents of mana. When he tried to see other formations on the same level as they walked, it was like peering through a shifting curtain of thin white cloth, wafting in a breeze. He could only focus on the long spiraling coral as they followed its exterior and all the smaller growths that had found suitable surfaces to colonize on the sides.
The path swung away from the coral colony and underneath the rest of the platform used by the Adventurer Guild while angling further down into the Coral Forest. Seaweed-esque strips were hanging from the bottom of the platforms, filling the few gaps not occupied by corals as if they sought to bathe in the trapped clouds that couldn’t quite reach the upper level. Bodyguards led the way, watching the blades of seaweed above, peering over the edges at their sides, and protecting the rear, leaving Coop to Hai Yun’s personal company.
The level of security they provided made it seem like Coop was strolling through some kind of artistic landscape feature, the type that an eccentric business tycoon might have installed to impress visitors with a one of a kind experience. He thought it kind of ruined the sense of exploration he normally felt when venturing into the unknown. It was a bit too safe, not that he felt like complaining.
He ended up checking on the auras of the various bodyguards, feeling curious while lacking the sense of danger that usually kept him on his toes. At first, he thought they were surprisingly weak. On the whole, the entourage was often 50 to 100 levels beneath Hai Yun, meaning they were really just barely high enough level to contribute within the mana well. Monsters in the most generous nooks and crannies would easily outpace them, becoming too dangerous to individually challenge.
Of course, that meant they were all around Coop’s level, and given their combination of confidence and dedication, he wouldn’t question their abilities just as he wouldn’t doubt his own. Still, when he noticed Hai Yun idly gazing off to the other side, fidgeting with her gown, he decided to ask her about her combat strategies with such a large group of people, wondering if it was more like the defensive Siege tactics he had experienced or small group strategies with overlapping roles. As if she silently detected his attention, she turned toward him as well.
“Do you–” “How do–” They both broke the silence at the exact same time, speaking over each other before abruptly stopping to let the other continue.
“My bad, you–” “Apologies, I–” They repeated their exchange and Coop laughed out loud as Hai Yun covered her smile with the back of her hand. He was struck with the vision of two kids on their first date, young enough to have to be chaperoned by their parents. The fact that Hai Yun had over 100 guardians just added to his amusement.
“I was just wondering how you actually hunt with so many people.” Coop finally cleared up his thoughts, somehow always focused singularly on the grind.
“Ah.” Hai Yun expressed her surprise. “In that case, we can demonstrate.” Hai Yun directed his attention forward, where a group of her guards had already stopped, awaiting their leader.
They were flanking what was effectively the end of the path, though it actually split, weaving further down and around yet another massive coral formation, before narrowing to smaller ribbon-like points that would be impossible for a person to traverse. He supposed they had made it to the second level, though if it was just him, he would have jumped off the edge up top and reached it in seconds.
The platform was a dozen feet below the edge of the path, but the Adventurer Guild had anchored a simple knotted rope between the two. Ahead, a massive table coral had grown in tapered layers, giving the edge of the platform the same appearance of grand steps, leading up to a centered top level where One That Waits was doing its thing: waiting.
Coop recognized the mutant hermit crab monster, protected by an oversized shell that imitated a bubble-like helmet, and swirled with barely concealed vapors, like it was actively capturing the mana clouds that filled the second level atmosphere to consume at its leisure. It was as large as a small elephant, and Coop let Presence of Mind sweep across its aura, unable to suppress the imaginary hearts in his eyes at the sight of a potential grind target.
[One That Waits (Elite Level 201)]
[(Body)]
[Of The Restraint]
Coop nodded at the monster, glad to confirm it was perfectly within the bracket of levels he hoped to find. The fresh spawns in the mana well would be ideal for his current self. The real test would be how long they could match his pace.
On the opposite edge of the platform, behind the idle monster, was a series of gigantic pillar corals that didn’t quite reach the top layer to join the other fully matured coral platforms. They framed the platform with an imposing background of dark green, shrouded in mists of mana, turning the platform into a natural grand cathedral. In the distance, he could barely make out similar coral platforms through the mana clouds, each occupied by a single crab monster. This level seemed to be an intermediate place, not quite sunken enough to be entirely distinct from the coral platforms of the first level, but far enough to be largely different in terms of terrain.
One look at the environment and Coop could tell why Derek and the others had decided his grind was better suited for other locations. The monsters were excessively sparse. Even mistjumping wouldn’t save the second level from its obvious deficiency in monster density. He grunted as he tamped down on his eagerness.
On the other hand, he could see why they called the second level the Coral Stages. Each monster stood in the center of the dominant table corals like they were at the top of a set of auditorium stairs. The bulbous coral platforms of the first level gave the impression of luxurious ornamented ceilings and the stalks of stone that propped them up were like majestic columns that could have held up private balconies for the ultra rich and famous. The Ones That Wait were dignitaries in their own empty amphitheaters.
Hai Yun had sauntered forward while Coop assessed the arena, and after leaping through the thin curtain of rising mana that separated the path from the stage, she began climbing the steps. Two dozen of her guards followed directly behind her while the rest took up the perimeter, all with serious looks on their faces. Obviously for them, battle was not the time for fun and games.
Coop politely observed as Hai Yun and a portion of her entourage engaged with the defensive monster. Her many companions filled half a dozen different roles, but none of them were damage dealers. The primary attacks all came from Hai Yun’s manifested elemental dragons. She was the crown jewel of their entire apparatus.
In the meantime, there were teams of guards who distracted the monster with melee attacks, but one look made it clear that they had taken skills that transformed them into pure tanks, focused on keeping enemy attention, but dealing little damage. It was a vision of what the Revenant could have been if Coop had one-dimensionally focused on survivability.
The rest of the entourage was similar in that they had concentrated entirely on supporting Hai Yun, whether it was through enhancement of her summons, buffing her person, redirecting resources toward her, or keeping protective spells on the tanks. They rotated among themselves, forming vast arrays of flashy spells while making sure that they never lost any individual contribution, whether it was the tanks, healers, batteries, or other supporters. Only Hai Yun was consistently engaged in combat. The rest were small parts of much larger invocations.
Rather than think of Hai Yun’s tactics as a rotating 25 person party with a single figure at its helm, it was more like four or five manifestations of power coordinating together to maximize their effects. Hai Yun was solely responsible for one, but the others were equally important and guided by groups. Coop had the answer to his question in that they had found a way to pack simple party dynamics with the power of cooperative synergies.
They had clearly ended up with a specialized hypercarry composition where success or failure was entirely contingent on Hai Yun’s ability to defeat the monster in a timely manner. Coop turned his attention to the massive group that accompanied her to battle and recognized the pressure that she was under, even in this rather controlled scenario. It was no wonder she had felt so much responsibility for those that joined her caravan. Without her, he doubted they could function whatsoever. They had so thoroughly committed to specific roles, they would have been borderline useless on their own.
Coop smiled to himself as he watched the battle, finding himself amazed by their coordination. It was carefully contained such that they didn’t waste energy, much like how he often conserved his stamina for future engagements, but it was so precisely attuned, he couldn’t help but admire their proficiency. The crab-like monster struggled to escape their confinement, recognizing the danger that the lone damage dealer represented, but it was constantly rebuffed by individually empowered attacks. Individual weapons exploded in illumination, glowing among the squad of tanks as they shared each other's power and generated magical manifestations.
After a few minutes the monster entered a frenzy, smashing heavy mace-like claws against bracers and gauntlets of the tanks, dislodging golden motes from their protective formations, but failing to push them out of the way. At the same time, the elemental dragons flashed through the gaps created by the disciplined guards, remaining a reasonable size for their particular opponent.
Hai Yun hadn’t channeled so much mana that her manifestations were gargantuan avatars of elemental divinities, instead keeping them closer to the size of lizard-like stallions. They smashed against the armored monster, scorching and shocking with debuffs before committing to attacks with more finality.
After several more minutes, when the monster was finally defeated, Hai Yun turned to Coop, sweeping her fingers over her shoulder as the dragons disappeared.
Coop nodded with approval. “I see. Very impressive. You must really trust each other.”
“Of course. Most of these soldiers had been the personal escorts for my grandfather. They have been fighting together since Day One.” She explained. “I am an inadequate imitation of his leadership, but I have done my best to avoid letting them and their families down.”
Coop caught several of her bodyguards subtly shaking their heads at her words, disagreeing with her underestimation of herself. They obviously thought highly of her, and though it wasn’t his place to say, by his judgment they were more than happy to dedicate themselves to her safety. If they weren’t, Ghost Reef was a wide open opportunity to seek something new, but none of them had left.
He could easily envision a future where the members of Hai Yun’s caravan found places within other groups around the settlement. Their specialized builds would be a boon to the various parties that hunted monsters within Lighthouse territory. Meanwhile, Hai Yun had the type of build that could anchor the broader defenses of the fort, much like Charlie. Coop was glad they were already feeling at home.
Coop briefly contemplated all the different ways he had seen humans rise above basic use of the system. There were the combination attacks he had seen from pairs like Sunny and Jett, Charlie and Camila, and Platinum and Neon. There were broader arrays like the ones Hai Yun’s guards implemented, but he had also seen such tactics among the phantom soldiers and smaller groups of casters. He had seen the physical manipulation of mana through sacrificial tools, magical idols, rituals, and tattoos, especially among the Cult of Chakyum, but also by Sila Tupua and the warriors of Aotearoa New Zealand. There was also the deep connection few were able to establish with animal companions, like Juliana and her jaguar Felix or Wangmo Thaye and her falcon. Then there was the broader cultural power that he himself used through the mists, though Gibson did the same with the Light, and Tzultacaj through blood. Mana was surprisingly dynamic once looking past the surface level skill activations and stat distributions provided by the system.
“Shall we continue?” Hai Yun prompted as he stared off into space, proud of humanity’s creativity.
“One sec.” Coop responded, breaking off the train of thought before turning and squinting at the nearest coral stage, hidden within a few hundred yards of rising mana clouds. He wandered closer to the edge of the platform as he found a suitable target.
His spear manifested in his hand with a swirl of mists, and he stepped into a powerful throw, stomping onto the coral to firmly establish the foundation of his attack. The ethereal missile shot forward, sliding off his fingers as his body leaned forward, and spun with his backswing. The spear pierced the atmosphere like a drill, leaving behind an expanding cavern of clear air that marked its path from Coop’s position across the Coral Forest in dramatic fashion.
When the spear connected with the shell of the One That Waits, the monster shattered like a porcelain doll, leaving shrapnel to splash across the stage, colliding with the adjacent stone columns, and dissipating into tiny streams of mana.
[You defeated One That Waits (Elite Level 203)]
[+2023 Basic Credits]
[Congratulations! Your profession has leveled up!]
[Fortune Seeker (23/50)]
“Okay.” Coop dismissed his spear. “Now I’m ready.”
Comments
Miriam Lucie
Thanks for the update!
PikaAndrew
Tftc
Tyromeinabox
Showoff! Tftc!
