Chapter 31 – Dungeon Prison

I woke up with an awful headache. One of the guards had clocked me from behind after we had disarmed. The stale air had a strong smell of mold and urine. As I opened my eyes, I noticed metal bars. I was in some kind of prison. Why didn't they just walk us to the prison? Carrying us would have been more of a pain. Unless they didn't want to be noticed by other guards. Could they have carried us here to get us out of the way? The princess may still be in danger!

I looked around and discovered that I was shackled. Arms were wearing cuffs with a red gem inside them. My legs were bound in metal as well. It was very solid. When I pulled against them with all my might, they barely even creaked. Dwarves were good with craftmanship, that is for sure. I tried observing my surroundings, but I did not find anything interesting. Stone walls, metal bars, and a bucket. The quality of my royal accommodation had decreased dramatically.

"Midnight? Can you hear me?"

"Sir Airey? Yes, I am here. It is good that we are in neighboring cells."

There was a solid wall between us on my right side, but at least I knew that my friend was nearby.

"Sir Airey, uh, we are here too!" I heard Lilly's voice from a cell further to my right. Pepper and Poppy each had their cells further down the dungeon as well. All five of us had been thrown into this dungeon prison with no warning. I decided we needed more information.

"Was anyone given reason for our being tossed into these cells?"

Lilly was the first to answer. "No, uh, we were grabbed by palace guards with no explanation. I, uh, tried to ask but they wouldn't respond to me."

This sounded like a coup. Perhaps the crown prince has acted against the rest of the royal family? But why? The crown prince was the oldest of the children. He would eventually become king! It didn't make sense to me, but I was no expert of Vando politics. Thankfully, my time in reading up on this world had prepared me for quite a lot. The cuffs on my wrist would restrain my mana and the steel bonds would be made to restrain us indefinitely. To my knowledge, it was already clear that we wouldn't be getting out of this place with our own power. I tried using my skills. Apparently, I could use a skill that was limited to 5 mana or less. A person could not live long if they kept mana at zero, so the cuffs would limit every person with 5 mana. I tried each of my skills. The ones I could actively use were Presence Detection, Analyze Vision, Hiking, Fast Mental Processing, Fast Learning, Emotional Intelligence, Improved Natural Healing, Improved Perception, Mental Fortress, Pain Resistance, Smell Acuity, Social Intuition, Sound Sensitivity, Tracking, and Trade Negotiation. Also, if the item was quite small, I could manage something small with Storage Vision and Engineer Vision. However, anything the size of my hand and the skills would not activate due to lack of mana. Flame Vision, Barrier Vision, and Teleport Vision were all too costly with mana. Basically, anything I would use in escaping this place was unavailable, but I was left with my improved senses and resistances.

"Don't worry, my friends, I will come up with a plan. You'll just have to be patient. It may take us a few days."

"Uh, don't worry Sir Airey. We believe in you!"

The rabbitkin Lilly's voice was a good assurance.

"What about Bliss?"

"She was taken too," responded Pepper, "I believe they took her into a different captivity chamber where most familiars are kept."

I considered that. I tried reaching for my familiar bond internally but received an adverse reaction. I guess neither of us had enough mana to connect with each other. I started to become concerned for my little flowkra. While my friends and I were being kept alive and simply imprisoned, I was scared that Bliss would have experiments or mistreatments upon her. My fear for my bond was giving me a painful ache in my chest. I tried to focus on my immediate surroundings for now. Trusting the guards had been a huge mistake. They were not acting on the king's orders but likely the crown prince. I couldn't believe that Monte had been hired by the prince the whole time! Everything suddenly made sense. The lizardman was given full access to the blacksmith building with no guards or disruptions. Even in the heat of our battle, we didn't receive any assistance to protect Princess Danika.

Before I started blaming myself, I turned to my Fast Mental Processing to start working out our options. I came up with very little. I thought about pretending to have died so that the guards would release me, but they apparently had a rare "Analyze Stone" used in the dwarven kingdom which would work like my Analyze Vision. This stone was made hundreds of years ago by Hero Lachish. He was apparently the last known hero of Vando, and he spent his last years on this world developing different genius inventions. There were 4 Analyze Stones in the world – one for each nation. The beastkin had lost their stone over a hundred years ago in a civil war. They believe it was destroyed but some writers suspected that a cunning beastkin may have run off with it. The other three stones remained with their royal families (Human, Dwarf, and Elf). The purpose of the stone is to help identify threats and to better assign people to help where their skills would prosper. As far as I knew, the dwarven nation had never used their Analyze Stone on me. However, I was aware that it was kept near the great hall of the palace. I expected them to use it on me soon since I had many mysterious powers. My only hope was that my own Analyze Vision would be able to interfere or prevent the scan. Otherwise, they would be able to see my entire set of skills.

Having used most of my options, I tried an exercise that I often did in my free time. I was trying to detect mana. I would use a skill and then try to feel the mana leaving my body. Some of my skills were automatic like Improved Perception and Improved Natural Healing. Others needed to be activated like Hiking and Analyze Vision. I would analyze something and then try to feel the mana running to my eyes. Since the skill was instantaneous, I assumed that the mana would flow very quickly. I compared the process with blood cells running through blood vessels. Blood would be pumped from my heart to every area of my body. If I knew where the mana was sourced, I would likely have a better way of detecting it. I believed that better control of mana would give me a tremendous advantage against others. I focused my fast mental processing to help me identify any flow or movement in my body. The silent and stagnant air was already unpleasant. Occasionally, I would hear the catkin siblings speaking with each other from their cells, but it was rare.

Sitting cross-legged, I focused on my mana movement and its flow. Using Analyze Vision repeatedly was making my eyes hurt so I started using hiking and tracking. I tried sensing the mana running to different areas of my body. I assumed the mana would originate somewhere in the core of my body. I imagined the mana flowing from my core to my legs and feet when I used hiking. I tried to picture how my senses improved with tracking. I repeated the process repeatedly. It would wait about 20 seconds for my mana to replenish. During that time, I pictured how the mana would flow in my body. Keeping my focus on my practice, I tried to zone out everything else. Guards would occasionally walk by or deliver some dry bread and water for us to consume. Midnight seemed to be in silent meditation of his own as I hadn't heard him again since our first conversation. I continued to focus on my practice. I realized that the mana-binding cuffs were helping my exercise since my mana was getting limited. It helped me to better picture my limited flow of mana. Every 20 seconds, I activated a skill and tried to feel the change to my body. Experts said that it would be impossible. Some had experimented their entire lives to feel it. Yet I still insisted that there must be a skill of some kind. Days went by quickly since I had a task at hand. I wasn't sure how many days it had been in the dungeon, but I was starting to grow a scruffy beard. I usually trimmed my facial hair with precise barriers. I had counted at least 22 pieces of bread that had been delivered to our cell. Lilly claimed that we would receive only one piece per day. Does that mean 3 weeks have already passed? I drilled my mind into focus. I tried picturing the channels of mana I had observed in the mithril walls of the palace. I imagined lines of mana running through my body when I was interrupted by a message.

Skill Acquired: Mana Sense Lv. 1