Chapter 45 Aura

Lucas went off on his own.

'All we have to do is find a female spider.'

'Easier said than done.'

He started to move around silently, but that didn't give him the most success. After searching for a long time he finally found a monster, a Graveling Mole. It sneaked up on Lucas, but he had sensed the monster right before it could get the jump on him.

The mole was blind and could only see through vibration, the moment he stood still, Lucas started to create decoys by conjuring rock everywhere, making the mole attack random spots. The moment the mole's back was exposed Lucas destroyed it with fire and darkness magic, killing it in an instant.

'We've become a lot more powerful haven't we?'

'We're almost Rank 1 and you're fighting against a monster that was blind and at the bottom of the Rank 0 monsters, why are you feeling proud of yourself?'

'But if you compare it to when we arrived at the mansion, you can't say anything bad, can you?'

Searching further didn't reveal any other kind of monster, let alone a spider, 'Is it our presence?'

'Like what Venion has but weaker? Hmm, a reasonable deduction.'

Lucas figured his presence was known to the monsters in the cave and they had to be avoiding him. It wasn't strong enough to the point of Venion's aura, but it was noticeable from afar.

'Using darkness can mask our presence, but we won't be capable of moving around, or we need to figure out how to create a moving spell in darkness'

'And we don't have the fitting runes for that of course.'

'Surely there has to be a way, otherwise, Venion's aura would've pressured us back at the mansion.'

'The maids would definitely die if Venion released his aura all the time. How did he hide it in the first place?'

Stuck with this question, Lucas decided to sit down to meditate for a moment. He didn't find any monsters and they would stay away from him, so he didn't feel vulnerable placing himself in such a defenseless situation. He closed his eyes and calmed down.

The cave felt cool to the touch, the air was damp, filled with water particles, and the smell of coal permeated throughout the cave. The only living thing around him were insects that couldn't detect his small but persistent aura. He could hear them scatter around. Meditating came in a few forms but most depended on a focus on a certain something. Lucas always focused on his own breathing, envisioning it as a feather he needed to keep afloat. A few deep breaths later and his heart rate went down as well.

He felt a bug crawling up on his legs, his body wanted to make the reflex to flick the little critter away.

'Don't move, stay still and silent, think of your feather, only the feather, nothing else matters.'

The instect made its way from one leg to the other, but Lucas stayed completely still as a statue.

Only about half an hour and a few interruptions later was the first step completed, he was meditating and made sure to focus on his breathing and surroundings, letting nothing break his stance. He focused on his body and the aura it exuded.

'Look at the core, focus on the mana, perceive the particles'

In his meditative state, time was a meaningless concept, as he didn't register minutes anymore. Lucas kept trying to feel his core or its contents, but nothing happened.

'Let me help, if we both focus we might see it. It's clear you're too weak to do so alone'

Only after both parts of his brain started to focus on could he connect with his core.

He felt that some particles were leaving his body, creating a strange atmosphere around him. Like the smell, it was something bound to a person, you can't tell what you smell like except excretions of your body like sweat. On the other hand, you can immediately smell how another person smells without them doing anything. His aura was formed because of tiny energy particles that left the core unconsciously. That process was like breathing, completely automatic except when you force it to be automatic

Lucas had never learned how to stop this energy from leaking out of his core, but like breathing it became the most obvious thing once he did it himself. He stretched his aura as far as he could, it didn't go much further, but it did grow denser, the bugs on him scattered away out of fear.

'This feels like back then', he had already experienced using his aura, once when he visited his village and once during his fight with the Demonic Bear. Both times his emotions got the best of him and made him use a certain version of aura.

'That wasn't us, we didn't do anything, our subconscious was the one who forced it to spread.'

Next, Lucas did the opposite, he tried to plug the energy leak from his core. The particles slowly stopped flowing out of his core, he had to flex it like a muscle in order to close the hole.

'Do we have to keep up this movement the entire time? It's not the most difficult, but wouldn't we forget about it or get tired of it?'

'It's good enough for now, deal with it.'

'Hey, you're not the one in control, do you know how distracting it is?'

'What? Do you want me to be in control?'

'Absolutely not, you would impulsively kill everyone that annoys you.'

'Yeah, and? That would fix a lot of our problems you know?'

'And create even more dumbass.'

It felt a bit unnatural, but at least now Lucas found a way to temporarily stop his aura from spreading. The bugs started to approach him again, but not immediately making contact with him.

'So now we're seen as a normal human?'

Now that he had erased most of his presence he decided to move again. This time he had to find at least one spider.

This time it was a lot different, it didn't even take thirty minutes before he found traces of a spider. Following the tracks back to their owner brought him to a strange complex of tunnels. They had a lot of intersections and a bunch of big rooms hidden within. He still made noises that he couldn't avoid, so walking carefully and checking for any kind of sound became his habit.

The strange tapping noise started to play in his ears, 'Finally', he found one of them. Creeping further revealed two spiders standing next to each other. They had the corpses of the soldiers with them.

'So the ones who fled didn't find their way out, Liam will be devastated.'

'Just don't tell him and all will be fine.'

'No, he deserves to know the truth, although he probably already knows.'

Feasting on their flesh, they looked to be enjoying it, even though Lucas couldn't possibly tell the emotions of a giant spider. One of the spiders looked up in Lucas' direction, but Lucas had already cast his dark spell that should hide him. Once the spider didn't find anything it started to move the fangs in its mouth, clopping them together. To Lucas that seemed like a strange movement, 'It's just like that female one, is this how they communicate?'

'Looks like it, in the biology book it says that certain smaller lifeforms talk not through vibration but rather pheromones. Think of them like bees, if you snatch the queen away, the army will follow.'

The spiders moved the corpses to somewhere else, he could only follow while remaining vigilant.

He arrived at what seemed to be a feeding ground. Most of the soldiers' bodies were there, but they all were pushed toward a smaller female spider.

'So that's the so-called queen?', the arachnid in question feasted on the bodies at a pace insurmountable. Entire arms disappeared into the monster as if the stomach was a black hole.

'Is it just going to keep eating all these bodies? To create eggs? No, that should be formed naturally, or can it be forced?', the smaller had a monstrous appetite, it kept eating and eating, and even bones weren't spared. The room was filled with at least around forty spiders, way too many to handle alone.

'Forty in this room, how many are running around?'

'If our trap doesn't work we're going to have to fight our way out of here.'

'Before questioning the future, how do we even kidnap that little one?'

The female spider was in the middle of the room, surrounded by the bodies. On the edges of the cavity remained the other spiders, some were also clinging to the ceiling, waiting or protecting their only female. 'What is that one?', one of the spiders looked bigger than the others. Its legs had black tips and the normal gray had a shade of blue, 'Is he some kind of evolved version?'

'I don't know, but it can't be anything good.'