Titan: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 4) Jez Cajiao (top ten books of all time TXT) 📖

“So you froze me to stop or slow the bleeding, then injected me with a healing potion?” I asked, rubbing at my neck. I could feel raised bumps where something had pierced the skin, then been healed over, and even as I rubbed them, the dried blood flaked away, leaving healthy skin.

“Yessss,” he said grudgingly.

“What about shooting him with your crossbow? Hell, I lost you downstairs; how did you get up here?” I asked.

“Climb,” he said flatly. “Oath make meeee nott helppp down belllowww, but here? Nooooo riskkk to partyyyy. Could shoooot.”

“Fuck. Fine, we’ll look at the Oath again. Sorry for that, but you’re batshit,” I muttered, rubbing my face and licking my lips. “Why the hell does everything taste like… purple, suddenly?” I asked, then shook my head. “I don’t believe I just said that.”

“What does purple taste like?” Bane asked me quietly, and I shrugged.

“No idea, I just know I can taste it. Weird shit you gave me, Tang. Yen’s right, we’re going to have a chat about this later, but I know you did it for the right reason, and did it knowing you’d be in trouble for it as well, because you were trying to help.” I shook my head again, and the world tilted suddenly before coming back into focus, and I pulled up the details I could see for the group, noting that everyone was alive, even if most of them were well below half health.

“Right, look, I’m going to meditate, get my mana up, and hopefully let this shit wear off as well. How about you get the others up here, and we all get some rest? It’s been a long-ass day,” I said, getting some weary agreement from them all, bar Giint, who stomped forward and cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Myyy people… they neeeed helppp…” he said hesitantly.

“I know, and we will heal them, don’t worry, but I’m out of mana potions now, and it’ll take a lot. Let me recover, and we will come up with a plan, maybe capture a few at a time and heal them up? I don’t know… I need to rest; I’m sorry Giint,” I apologized, and he nodded, looking determined, then moving off.

I sat down on the floor, pressing my back against the side of the bed, not wanting to stay sitting next to a corpse, or the bloody sheets. I shook my head a few times and breathed deeply, trying to wake myself up as my mind seemed to scatter from one thing to another, and I noticed suddenly that the dead woman’s toenails were painted and carefully manicured. Staring at them, I wondered about the life she’d had, here, with that thing, and… I shook myself again, harder this time. No. I had to meditate.

I began to build the structure around me, visualizing the box, even as I started relaxing my body and mind… when Bane knelt next to me and started to speak.

“Jax… I… I’m sorry…” he began, and I opened one eye to glare at him.

“What for?” I asked. “Interrupting me while I’m meditating, or trying to kill me?”

“Ah… both?” he said, shrugging, and I nodded, closing my eye again.

“For trying to kill me… don’t be so damn stupid, mate. You weren’t in control. Don’t worry about it; hell, he even got me, and I practically forgot everything trying to fight it. I was damn lucky that Tang spoke up when he did and made me think. As for interrupting me while meditating, I’ll let you off this once; next time, you can join Grizz in the punishment exercises.”

“I…” Bane started to say, and I cut him off with a raised hand.

“Bane, shut the hell up and let me meditate, please.” I whispered, and he grunted, then stood up and walked away, not spotting me watching him go and smiling until he reached the entrance to the balcony.

He caught me smiling and nodded in response, relaxing before moving out and patrolling the area, as Tang got more of a dressing down by Yen.

I ignored them all, focusing on my muscles and working down from the top of my head, locating every muscle I could and individually relaxing it. By the time I was forcing my toes to relax, I felt like I’d wasted a load of time, but as I mentally constructed the box around my image of myself, and then tried to build another, twisting the streams of ambient mana as they poured inside, I felt my mana regeneration shifting and speeding up.

I tried again and again to construct a second box, but each time, it failed, and I’d feel the first one shaking and starting to come apart as well.

Finally, after at least an hour, with my mana building and dropping as Oracle used it, I managed the second box, finding, unlike the first, which I visualized as making a six-sided box and simply enclosing myself within it, the second box had to be constructed with two ‘panels’ at a time. It fell apart again and again before finally becoming solid, and I felt my mana regeneration leap upwards again.

I eventually blinked back into reality, seeing the world again, rather than the mental image of the boxes surrounding my glowing form, and I breathed a sigh of relief at finding the group settled around a small campfire in the middle of the main room. Where I was seated, I had some privacy in the bedroom, and the others were gathered next door, still in sight, but giving me enough space that they wouldn’t distract me.

They were sat joking and relaxing, with the silent form of Bane on the far side, looking out over the cavern, and Arrin watching down the stairs.

Grizz was helping Lydia with her armor, and I noticed a few new dents in it, and surprisingly, a matching series of dents in Grizz’s, suggesting she’d given as good as she got.

I smiled at Oracle, knowing immediately where she was, and that she was