Rules of Biomancy: A LitRPG Healer Fantasy

A second later, the branches stilled in movement, the monsters having hit their designated positions. After that, it was a simple act of screeching loudly before jumping down at the pair of old men.

Two worms the size of dogs, as predicted by Aleksi.

Elijah stepped back to avoid the lunge outright. The giant took it head-on, axe in hand as it was swung with force.

The first to reach Aleksi was crushed mid-air, the dull axe breaking the chitin apart outright. A horrific death for a horrific creature. Nobody felt pity for the beast.

Neither did they deserve it. With the axe already swung to the first, the second monstrous centipede could land on the giant’s shoulder and sink its hollow teeth into their shoulder. Something could be heard tearing before Aleksi got his free hand onto the beast and ripped the body off, the head firmly stuck onto his flesh.

Yet again a brutal death.

Yet again little to no care, Elijah merely noting the injury before hearing a warning.

“Above you.”

Barely a second passed before he spotted the reflection of light on the chitin flying towards him. A third and fourth had been biding their time, moving to Elijah without his notice.

And now he paid the price of ignorance.

He side-stepped their flying bodies just in time, the creatures landing on the floor next to him, but the fall didn’t bother them. Instantly they leapt towards him again, trying to latch onto him. The first got a kick in the head, withdrawing for a moment, but the other got past his legs and lunged onto his stomach.

Ten years ago, he would have withstood the hit, but the momentum and energy pushed both him and the second crawler on the floor, the thing sitting on his stomach. Elijah didn’t hit his head going down, but the wind knocked out of him, and he could do little against the creature at first, allowing it to try and sink its teeth into his chest.

Hollow fangs weren’t enough of a matchup against the old leather armor, though, the weapons of choice getting stuck on the material instead of going through.

An opportunity that Elijah didn’t squander. His knife came through the air, into the weak point between the head and neck of the centipede, and along as much flesh as he could get to. The pain was incredible for the creature, the beast thrashing around instantly to get unstuck, but by the time it did, it was too late.

Blood was spilled, and a third monster had fallen. This time by Elijah’s hand.

Normally that held no difference, but this time it did, as he felt the rush of energy surrounding his magical core.

So it was true after all.

The fourth and final centipede tried to sink into his lower body, but a well-timed kick got it away for long enough for Aleksi to come around. A single chop from the giant’s axe was enough to feel the creature, allowing silence to once again rule the dungeon floor.

“Any wounds?” Aleksi asked, helping Elijah up from the floor.

“None,” he replied after getting in another breath. “You had, though.”

The head of the second centipede had already been ripped out, but the damage done was still there. Rows of teeth had been sunk into the giant’s shoulder, a line of flesh taken away. It didn’t bleed too heavily, but it was still enough to make normal men require instant medical treatment.

For Aleksi, however, it was an optional step.

“Not deep enough to get the muscles,” Aleksi assured Elijah, though that meant little now. They could both see it when green lines began to travel down from his eyes to the neck and then to the wound itself. The small amount of blood seeping out steadily thinned until it was almost entirely gone. “This isn’t going to be fun.”

“It’s going to get worse, if I don’t help whatever remnant of elixir is still in your blood,” Elijah added, looking around the immediate area. While the golden flowers on the layers above were more than enough to make common-quality healing pastes, anything more rapid in results wasn’t as easy. To do that, they needed the help of the more powerful version, one that he knew was located on the layer they currently stood on. “See any golden flowers?”

“I… fifty meters ahead by one of the tree trunks,” the giant replied. The man clearly hadn’t seen anything of the sort until that instant, not able to see so far in such detail before. Elijah knew why he could now, the gray pupils gaining a distinct green emission that mirrored the sprouted veins. “Another group a hundred meters to the right.”

“The first will be enough,” he said, the two walking to the spot before carefully plucking the new golden flowers. These were rather fickle in nature, after all. Instead of having the generic petals of the brother variant on the upper floors, this one instead imitated the final-stage version of a dandelion, with tens of little seed heads that could be blown away at the mildest wind.

So fragile yet so powerful as well. Elijah was easily able to connect to the flower head as he plucked another handful of them. He felt their intentions, their purpose, their cravings, their ideal life to spread further and further, and… Though he already knew how, they told him how to use their boons.

“Hold still,” Elijah ordered the giant, Aleksi wordlessly obeying as he leaned down to allow easy access to the injured shoulder. More of the flesh had already been regrown, the blood stopping entirely, but he still had a window to assist with the regeneration. “Should’ve brought more water.”

He muttered as much as he crushed the delicate flowers in his hand, the small amounts of juices within covering his palms more and more. A wasteful method of refinement but it didn’t matter. With the liquid reaching the naked air, the effects had already started as it all began to expand, making Elijah hurriedly press his palms against the wound.

Aleksi hissed in pain but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except making this work.

You can do better than this.

He pushed against the wound harder, as the lines of mana escaped the skin of his palms and entered the now-golden liquid.

Channeling of [Plant Bond] has been activated! Current cost: 9MP/sec

A low cost in comparison to how much Elijah pushed for the liquid to improve in its effects. He didn’t want a simple alleviation of pain or a lessening of swelling but an outright visible effect on the reknitting of skin.

And that’s what he got, the breath of relief from Aleksi signaling the end of the treatment. Hands were removed from the shoulder, and the only sign of the previous injury was the red spot and the still-green veins pulsating around it.

“I think that helped with the heart as well,” the giant commented, holding his chest while taking deep breaths. “Lessened the pressure a little.”

“Is that so?” Elijah said, eyeing the flowers once more. Maybe they were useful in yet another way.

While Aleksi had been physically enhanced to the near-peak of human ability, it had come at a rather steep cost. The elixirs taken during the old war weren’t supposed to help a person in the long-term, instead focusing on the short-term. By taking them daily, the body would grow stronger than ever, the senses would become sharper, and the mind ready for combat at every turn. Yet the internal organs, mainly the heart, weren’t able to take the extra work as easily. It was strained more and more, having a harder time going back down to a slow rhythm after being riled up, and whenever another infusion of elixir activated in the bloodstream it got a little slower at adapting.

There was medicine to account for such, of course. It was the main reason that he and Elijah were still sticking together after all these years. Elijah knew the recipe for the heart medicine that made it easier to deal with the effects of the elixir, and he was the only one between the two that had a knack for alchemy. Many attempts had been made at teaching Aleksi how to do it himself, yet they could never produce it at a quality that would work in the long term.

And, honestly, Elijah hadn’t been able to produce it with high enough quality to allow for straining moments like these either.

Until now. Maybe. The stronger plant variant being added into the recipe, along with Elijah using the Plant Bond spell to further enhance the effects of the finished product, could perhaps allow for some greater strain without Aleksi needing to fear his heart giving out.

Maybe the giant could even use some of his emergency elixir without knowing it would be a last-stand effort.

“We can test it out when we get back home,” Elijah promised, adding another set of plants to their needed harvest tonight. If they were hoping to experiment, taking more of the required herbs would help a lot. “For now, we have six more bags to fill.”

The giant had no complaints about that plan, getting back up on his feet after a minute of rest. His heart was back under control, the green veins fading steadily, and they could move without fear of sudden death.

At least from their own bodies, as the environment was still more than happy to bite into them if allowed. As another hour passed by, four of the six remaining bags being filled with various leaves, petals, and thorny stalks, Aleksi gave the warning of another group of monsters.

The same type as last time. No surprise there, since the carrion crawlers were the only constant beast that roamed this floor. They certainly made sure of that, the fat-bodied centipedes diving at any foe that thought to come here. They were perhaps not the fastest or strongest, but their bite was hard to break out of and their numbers were impressive if given the chance.

Not at the very top of their territory, luckily. A floor or two down, the duo would need to fend off several dozens of the crawlers each time they approached, but up here it was limited to three or four of them. Low numbers that made for an easier fight. Especially when it was possible to avoid trees that could be used hide.

“Do you want to kill them this time?” Aleksi offered as he put down the half-filled bags and brought out his axe.

“If you can avoid getting injured in the process, then yes,” Elijah replied, knife in hand in case it was needed once again.

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”

The giant stepped forward as the four monsters approached on the rocky ground. They’d been waiting for the duo to approach the thick group of trees where they had been hiding, but the obvious detour to avoid it had forced the creatures to leave their vantage point. Not a problem at all for the giant, since it allowed him to have his eyes on all of them at once.

It was the closest to his old life he’d been in many years. Elijah was sure of that.

“Let’s see what you can do then,” he heard Aleksi mutter as the biggest of the centipedes approached first. Its fangs were longer, tendrils even growing out from the front of its face. They seemed to taste the air, the large eyes honing in on the giant. “Come on now.”

As if spurred on by the giant’s words, it screeched and leaped at him, the fat body moving at an unexpected pace as the built-up tension snapped. Head-first, teeth ready to dig in, it went for his legs.

Yet bugs were never known for their intelligence, an axe being swung and taking out a good chunk of the neck. Not enough to be lethal, but enough that the pain made it screech at a higher pitch and flop to the ground. Bad attempts came to make itself into a ball, but the body seemingly wasn’t working cohesively anymore.

The other monsters had no care or thought regarding the first’s fate, however, and they charged in like they previously intended to. Another instantly suffered the same consequences, a swing taking out the lower half of the head. Still alive, it recoiled, giving space for the final two that had gotten dangerously close.

Close enough that an axe swing couldn’t be prepared in time, forcing Aleksi to outright kick the one in front away, the one right behind getting stomped on to keep up the momentum. The weight of the giant pressing down on the chitin left little to the imagination on which side would win, the bottom of the boot going right through the upper body of the centipede, green blood splattering on Aleksi’s pants. Nothing that anybody cared about, however, as the third centipede lunged for the legs again.

Another kick pushed it back, causing it to screech in frustration for just a second until an axe came swinging down and took off most of the head. Elijah wasn’t sure that hit had been meant to be so devastating, yet the relatively blunt axe hadn’t been able to cut through the chitin and had more just… obliterated the spot hit along with everything close by.

“I hope two is still fine,” Aleksi commented as he nudged the second centipede with the blood-covered boot. It twitched at the touch, making some attempt at a screech that failed halfway through.

“Better than nothing,” Elijah replied, tightening the grip around his knife as Elijah kicked the two half-dead bugs closer together. Both were still thrashing around, suffering from what could only be terrible amounts of pain.

No point in prolonging it.

With the open spot in the first centipede’s armor on the neck, he dug with his knife. The internal tubes were already filled with blood, making the normal sound of torture impossible. Not like it could've been done for much longer, Elijah pressing the blade deeper into the spot and twisting the weapon. The beast stilled a moment later, at the same time granting him a rush of energy that shot into his chest and surrounded his magical core.

Leaning over, he repeated the process with the other monster, a knife to the neck a mercy for the beast. There wasn’t as much of a rush this time, however, cementing the fact that it was dependent on what attributes the felled enemy possessed.

“So?” Aleksi said as Elijah rose from the ground. “How does it feel?”

“First a wave of mild euphoria, though it later just turns into a mild, omnipresent pressure in my chest,” Elijah explained to the curious man. Aleksi didn’t possess a magical core himself, after all, and had no real frame of reference for the experience. “I don’t feel more powerful, however. The energy around me doesn't feel like my own either.”

“Would be cheating if it did,” Aleksi commented with a grin. “Imagine if all it took for a mage to grow powerful was simple murder. We’d have a dozen gods for every country by the end of the year.”

“A nightmare, that is,” Elijah said, a wave of shivers going through his body as he considered the thought. “The world would be a hellscape of warfare and little else.”

Though… the concept of murdering for magical power wasn’t entirely unfounded. It did do something, after all. The energy that surrounded his magical core hadn’t come from nowhere. The mana present were the remnants of the magical beasts that he had killed recently, a sign of his work that could further assist him.

Not in many ways, of course, but progressing in the mana-related arts was one of them. At the moment, Elijah’s magical core could hold 356 units of Mana at the maximum. If he forced it, he could perhaps get in some more units, but that process would be a painful one and do little else but hamper his long-term efforts.

No, the path to power was different than that. To increase how much his magical core could hold, he had to modify it. To improve its design and shape. With enough time and effort, it would be perfect for Elijah to push and stretch his core into any shape that he could imagine. Simple ones, at least. Without an understanding of how the structural integrity of the core worked, it was very possible to make it shatter and permanently cripple oneself or outright die from the experience.

It wasn’t a fate many aspiring mages wished to have, meaning that most awakened out in the wild just… never progressed past their starting point. When even the mildest experimentation carried the possibility of death, few wanted to push their luck without a guiding hand to help them.

The aforementioned guides could easily be found for those in the academy, of course. The mages at the top were expert at the practice, with their techniques from other kingdoms along with a healthy dose of theoretical expertise. With their guidance, it opened up a path for beginners to grow into their power and reach heights previously unattainable. A dream to beat all other dreams.

Yet there was, of course, another obstacle to fight against. Modification of one’s magical core was possible for any awakened person, yes, but the further away from the standard they went, the harder it would become. Even with the greatest guides in all the worlds, another limiting factor was the willpower of the person. If they couldn’t push their cores into the documented positions and forms, they couldn’t progress. A soft-cap.

But not a hard cap. Like with spells used in the empty air, the lack of mana around increased the requirements to make the effects stick around. If the air itself was filled up as well, the difficulty was lessened.

And… the death of magical beings by one’s hand covered one’s magical core with residue for a few hours or days, depending on the power of the victim.

While war alone didn’t allow men to grow into gods, it allowed those with the needed knowledge to accelerate through the ranks of power and attain previously impossible heights. It’s how Serenova, the country so recently founded, was still standing. The mages who had fought for their independence had been in the ideal situation for growth, and they had taken the opportunity with open arms.

And now… if Elijah knew the techniques to modify his magical core, he could potentially use the residue of the murdered monsters to progress at a smaller scale.

If.

“Let’s finish up,” Elijah said, after confirming that the core was much more malleable with the residue. He didn’t try to experiment with it, however, not finding the possible rewards worth the risk. “It’s getting late.”

“Sure,” Aleksi replied.

Bags were filled quickly after that, with no monsters deciding to pay them a visit. The trek upwards was perhaps the hardest thing about the entire journey, the steep angle nearly making them both fall multiple times. Maybe it was their advanced age, but the entire tunnel upward seemed steeper going up than down.

A trick of the mind or is there truth to this?

The dungeon was alive, after all, though all past endeavors into the concept had concluded that there was no real mind behind the living structure. It was alive in the same sense that an ant was alive. Able to feel pain, able to know that its life was threatened, and able to follow instincts that it didn’t care about the origins of. Not that anybody actually knew where dungeons came from, but that was an entirely different debate.

The fact of the matter was that the tunnel felt steeper and steeper, to the point where Elijah had to stop to breathe for a moment.

“Is it the change in mana density again?” Aleksi asked, the giant completely fine while also carrying twice the amount of bags. Sometimes Elijah did feel a little jealous of that physique, even knowing what costs came with it.

“Just age,” Elijah assured the other, resting for a moment to hopefully let tired legs regain their strength. “Give me a minute.”

Aleksi kept quiet, a sign that he didn’t mind the wait. Maybe he was tired too. Elijah didn’t ask, just letting his body rest while he leaned against a flat part of the wall. While the jagged edges continued down through the dungeon, there were a few spots that were safe to rest against.

Looking inside while he had the time, he noted that some pieces of residue from previous killings had started to fade away. Not out of nowhere of course, the remnants of the dead simply traveled through his veins before being spat out once they reached the nearest patch of skin.

It was a curious sensation once he truly focused on it. Elijah was able to pinpoint the individual pieces through their journey, seeing where they flaked off at the core, looking as they flew along the internal pipelines, and finally being expelled into the naked air. Even then, if he focused enough, he could see it floating through the air right in front of him, the residue steadily turning into nothing.

Until it wasn’t moving around peacefully, a sudden talon removing the residue from the air at a speed impossible to see if he hadn’t been focusing.

What.

With the minute of rest still not over, Elijah studied as more of the residue was picked out of the air by an unseen force. Again and again, the process repeated itself, the air around him being cleaned of the dead remnants and brought… somewhere else.

It was as curious as it was horrifying. He hadn’t seen something like this in the past, though his only chance at such an experience was back during his younger days where he never really participated in the killings. Yet this couldn’t be normal. He could see the distinct reptilian shape moving through and removing it all.

…

This wasn’t an act of the natural world.

This was an act of an entity capable of action. An entity capable of thought.

And who it could be wasn’t hard to figure out, seeing that the entity in question had been omnipresent ever since they’d walked down into the underground.

The dungeon was alive, harvesting the residue that was there for the taking.

Elijah’s knowledge of supposed research into the magically dense locations tried to argue against the conclusion, but his eyes couldn't ignore what was so blatantly in front of him. He could see it, could feel it, could… Elijah didn’t know what to truly call it, the Core inside his body pulsing words not his own. A construct of Mana recognizing another.

And the dungeon responded, eyes that weren’t there staring through him and beyond. The feeling was so radically different from what it had been just before, as if Elijah had been ignored by the entity until this very moment.

‘Why have you changed?’

A voice in his head that wasn’t his own, along with enough pressure that he had to clutch at his head in pain. Aleksi must’ve heard it, with how the giant stood over him, saying something he couldn’t hear.

Everything was overshadowed by a loud ringing that just refused to end until Elijah tried to stand and nearly lost his balance, the tunnel shifting to become less steep.

“What the—” Aleksi began before a string of curses left the giant. “That’s not normal. We’re leaving.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Elijah replied, happily accepting an outstretched hand as Aleksi pulled him along to keep up the high tempo. In the meanwhile, the world had considered the idea long enough for a script to appear before his eyes. A message that surprised him to no end.

Spell learned! [Animal Bond](Tier 2) has been added to your spell collection.

This wasn’t the standard path to learning new spells, but Elijah didn’t curse the discovery, noting the differences to plant bond in the back of his mind before doing his best to keep up with Aleksi’s pace. His head still hurt, his heart was running wild, and the blood was rushing through his ears, but a truth above all other truths had been discovered.

An entity taking pieces of magical remnants from the air, an entity that had been able to invade his mind and ask a question verbally, and an entity that had forced Elijah to learn a new spell just to accommodate for that question.

Reality was so blunt sometimes.

“The dungeon is alive,” Elijah said while getting air back into his lungs, the journey up three floors in what felt like five minutes tiring out his body even more than before. There was still another 500 meters to the entrance, but he needed to share that tidbit before the guards were reached. “I noticed the remnants falling into the air were being taken by something. Saw… draconic claws. Realized the truth and that somehow caught its attention. Asked me ‘why have you changed.’”

“... When I agreed to help those two not die in an alley, I was not expecting this,” was everything Aleksi had to say to that, the giant needing a second to process his words. “So, the dungeon is alive somehow, and it knows you… Fine. What do you think it means with that question?”

What did it mean?

“If it can recognize me as an individual, it might’ve just been used to me not being awakened?” Elijah guessed. The difference between him a day before and the way he was now was extreme to anybody who primarily used the magical spectrum to see. And, if that was the way the dungeon did indeed see into its domain, then he would’ve looked like a completely different person until the point where he made contact. Maybe that was why he was afforded a full question. “It doesn’t matter too much now. We weren’t killed, and we have all the bags.”

“You’re not entering this place alone next time,” Aleksi said. Not a suggestion. A matter-of-fact statement. Elijah didn’t reject it, feeling the same way.

With that out of the way, they made the trek through the last part of the dungeon. The light of the moss was gone already, leaving them in relative darkness until the flickering of the torches by the entrance could be seen. While not as strong, they were beacons of what would come.

“There you two are!” Fred remarked as he and the other guards opened up the mesh wall to let them out. “Five hours on the dot. I was getting worried by the end there.”

“I apologize for the stress,” Elijah said, helping Aleksi get off the bags tied to his side as Fred and the other guards opened them up to examine the goods. “It’s the standard set of herbs as usual, though I did find a variant of the Golden Blooms.”

“Oh, yeah, I can see that,” the guard replied, picking up one of the golden flowers. With the sudden motion, and the calm wind in the air, the seeds on top instantly flew into the air. “Oh, shoot, sorry! I didn’t know these grew on the upper floors.”

“It’s alright,” he promised, taking the bags as Fred hurried along the process and wished them farewell. “Olivia can come by in the afternoon to get the supplies.”

“Not in the morning like usual?”

“I’d prefer it if she and I both got the chance to sleep before having to interact again.”

“... Fair enough.”

Just like that, they were herded away. With bags of herbs in hand, and tired bodies in dire need of rest, the duo slowly made the walk back home. When they got there, Aleksi helped unpackage the more vital bags before retreating upstairs.

“I’ll have a new version of your pills ready tomorrow morning, so don’t take from the usual bottle,” Elijah instructed the giant, getting a tired grunt of affirmation that he’d heard it. Some breaths later, he could hear a door close and Aleksi fell upon the bed. Snoring would soon come as well, but Elijah didn’t care to wait for them, instead walking back into the laboratory to look over the raw materials.

He had enough to last him a full week right here, and he had to get just about a quarter of it processed before the morning arrived.

This night was going to be very long indeed.