Astor and Bel were buffing the pool, and the effects felt immediate as his itching washed away. Unable to stay any longer due to embarrassment, Cayn went out, all bloodied up.
“That’s metal as fuck,” Bel said.
Cayn glanced at her in confusion.
She continued, “I’m going in too.” She jumped in.
At least someone was having fun.
Dietrich went in after, then Astor, and people started going in one by one, as fast as possible.
The trio maintained the pool’s viability by boosting it at all times. They’d refill the pool every so in a while and repeat the process until everyone was cured. It took a long time as many were affected, but soon enough, it was over.
Quelling an epidemic wasn’t so hard after all. That said, it wasn’t totally over yet, as the Great Coral and its correlation with the event had to be cleared too. And they had to deal with it before the eukaryotes started getting stronger and damaging the immune system again.
The trio left Dietrich and Uncle to deal with the rest. Their presence wasn’t required anymore as there were enough people willing to offer their robust blood. Heading to the Great Coral with his teammates, Cayn wondered what the next steps should be.
He gathered his information. One, the World Boss is an eukaryote previously found on the Great Coral. Two, it started getting aggressive recently so the mana corruption must have happened not long ago, or perhaps it took time for it to brew into the massive outbreak. Three, the Great Coral is dying as its pearl-white color showed.
Put like that, it became evident that the World Boss was attacking the Great Coral before, probably causing it to retaliate. The Great Coral had a particularity; it used [Element] to create and manipulate water at all times to survive out of the sea surface. It might have used the skill to drive out the World Boss. Or perhaps, could it do it naturally?
At the port, people were unaffected by the epidemic. Guards prevented them from going inside the barrier and even asked for help, like going to other Lands and getting persons with healing skills. The trio got special permission to get out, as Cayn was known to be his uncle's assistant before going on a Journey. Nepotism had its advantages sometimes.
Standing before them was one of the Great Coral’s structures. Corals are colonies of multiple animals called “polyps”, consisting of a central mouth with tentacles around. Cayn touched a polyp. No reaction, usually tentacles latched on a prey for the mouth to eat it, like a carnivorous plant. But no reaction meant no sign of life. How long has it been since it died like that? Can they even use [Resurrect] on them, or is it too late?
“What do we do green-eyes, speak to us.”
Cayn’s neck twitched as he woke up from his thoughtful state of mind. “I am not sure myself. I was hoping to buff the Great Coral’s colony so that it can erase the eukaryotes but it all seems dead.”
“Can’t we call your Uncle to pump it back to life?” Bel said.
“We would need a lot of mana to [Resurrect] so many polyps.”
“So many what,” Bel asked, “can’t we just use it on the whole thing?”
“We cannot, like I said, the Great Coral is not one animal it’s multiple ones.”
Astor added to the conversation, “Aren’t they all connected by the coenosarc? We can just count them all as one thing.”
“The coe—” Cayn bugged, “you mean the living tissue connecting every polyps, right?” Astor nodded.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
He was right, the logic was kinda stretchy for Cayn but there was no harm trying. Using [Ghoul], he attempted to move multiple polyps. Impossible.
“It is not mov—” The Great Coral moved in accordance to Astor’s will. “How?!”
“Change your way of thinking, Cayn. One Great Coral.”
He tried again. Moving multiple polyps as one— No, moving the Great Coral. Only one animal, only one body. To the right, and the structure followed.
[Ghoul] skill mastered.
It wasn’t as hard as he thought, sometimes you just have to change your perspective. “Thank you Astor.” Astor nodded back.
Bel tried herself and played around with the structure making it move as she liked.
“Bel, temper down,” Cayn told her.
She pouted, “It’s fun though.”
Now they needed to resurrect the Great Coral, buff it and get rid of the World Boss once and for all. Cayn went back to the church, leaving his teammates to study the Great Coral further.
***
At the church, the situation was faring better. The pool of blood, still disgusting as ever, was proven effective. Many persons were thanking Cayn for his efforts and he was too humble to brag about it, so he just politely deflected their compliments. He didn’t think of himself as worthy of those, never.
Finding his uncle, he asked, “I need you to [Resurrect] the Great Coral.”
“Cayn…” his uncle paused for a second, “I reached my mana limit.”
Mana limit was what happened once someone used too much mana, in order to not get corrupted by mana and become a monster themselves, they had to stop, or rather the System locked away their skills. Bad timing. Cayn glanced over at him and saw a pile of dead people waiting for treatment. His uncle’s barrier was still up though, so it’s not like he was actually at the mana limit. It was not over until Cayn said so.
“Remove your barrier,” Cayn asked of his uncle.
Uncle looked up, wondering if he should. It didn’t take long to decide. “You know I can’t refuse you anything.” Cayn knew very well, his uncle had never moved on from Nyac’s death after all. And neither did Cayn.
“System, cancel [Barrier].”
The yellow dome slowly rose down, leaving a trail of sparks in the air.
“Cayn,” his uncle called. Cayn turned to him. “You’ve changed quite a lot, I was worried you wouldn’t want to go on a Journey, but I’m glad you did because you’re much more confident in your capacities now. I’m proud of you.”
Cayn stared at his uncle’s gentle smile. He was speechless. For the first time in his life, he felt proud of himself. He closed his eyes and said, “You’re an amazing Uncle too.”
His uncle laughed, “No I’m not, there is a pile of corpses behind me!” Dietrich’s humor definitely tainted him, it’s a good thing.
Cayn laughed back then dragged his uncle toward the Great Coral. No time to waste!
Arriving, Cayn saw Astor and Bel inspecting some more samples.
“Good timing, we found some stuff,” Bel said.
Astor proceeded to explain, “The World Boss is actually just a zooxanthellae with a mana core. We managed to retire some mana cores with a lot of effort.”
Zooxanthellae are algae, they are usually in a symbiotic relationship with corals, one giving nutrients to another and vice-versa.
Cayn said, “So we don’t have to kill them?”
“Yeah, but it takes time and that might be risky,” Bel said.
All regards were on him. Did he really have to make the decision? He was the most passionate about coral, and one of the few that could impact the future of the Great Coral right now, so it made sense. But that was a lot for his feeble shoulders. In hindsight, his decision was pretty easy to take. If you can save a life, save it, that’s what he swore to himself that fateful day.
“Let’s try to save the Great Coral,” Cayn said, hand pressing his heart. “If it turns out to be catastrophic, I will take responsibility.”
They all agreed with him, his uncle being the most adamant. The trio switched to [Necromancer] and used their skills to move the Great Coral’s structures away from the Third Land, so that the danger of it possibly falling down disappeared. And on that note, his uncle activated [Resurrect] on the Great Coral.
***
Weeks have passed since the epidemic. Cayn had been diligent in making sure everyone, every , were in good health. At first, it was complicated to cure the Great Coral, as mana kept spreading. But once it was explained that Zooxanthellae got corrupted due to human’s activity and their extensive use of mana, things got easier.
People didn’t overuse their skills anymore, mana became rarer and the Great Coral was showing its color again, as an obvious sign of recovery. Some were worried about sea monsters attacking them on the archipelago, but before the debate got too tidy for Cayn's uncle, the Great Coral did something it hasn’t done in decades: it protected the Third Land.
A new symbiotic relationship came to fruition. System’s users used less mana, which resulted in healthier zooxanthellae. That way, the eukaryotes could feed the Great Coral properly, and in return it protected everyone. Harmony was found again. And the System comforted him in this idea.
World Boss vanquished: 3/9.
During those weeks, Cayn learned to control his fear of death. As long as his friends and family were here, he would feel at ease, for they would never let him down and neither would he.
Not far away, Cayn visited his brother’s grave and told him about his Journey so far. He even showed him his status.
Cayn
Class: [Priest]
Level: 47
Skills mastered: 2
Title:
Mana: 100/100
Skill sets:
[Class switch] skills.
[Priest] skills.
“I will come back, Nyac. See you again.”
Coral reefs inhabit 25% of all marine species! ask your money for charity
Coral Restoration Foundation
Save Nemo's home!