Alex’s boots echoed through the narrow tunnel as he followed behind the mana spinner. It moved silently along mana threads that magically dissolved as it passed, making it look like a mix of Alex’s movement skill and ice skating. Alex thought it was mesmerizing to watch through his Heavenly Eye.

He ducked under a curtain of magical webs in the tunnel, noting how frequently the rituals and layers of strands seemed to be laid as he moved deeper.

Alex was surprised by how deep the spinner territory extended into the Night section of the Rift. They descended through steep declines and branching tunnels until the ground finally leveled out beneath them.

That tunnel suddenly widened and opened into a vast underground chamber that caught his breath. The ceiling disappeared beyond his vision, and the space had to be larger than a stadium. It was the only vast open space that he could think to compare it to, and if it weren’t for the small lantern he held and the webs covering most of the walls, he wasn’t sure he’d even be able to sense the general space around him.

Mana coursed through the room’s many webs in a pattern that reminded him of the beat of a pulse.

"Incredible," he whispered, turning to look around the space.

The large hunter-spider he'd been following extended a mana-tendril toward Alex. There were intense feelings of pride, protection, and... mother? He felt the hair on his body stand on end as the spinner made a chittering sound with its small mandibles. It motioned for him to follow and began moving toward the center of the cavern.

In the dense darkness, Alex relied completely on his lantern's reflected light to see with his right eye, though the webbing-covered ruins helped him track his surroundings through peripheral vision. At first, he thought that the ruined buildings were stalactites that created a sort of maze, but as they moved between the sections, he saw that they were man-made walls of stone.

They had more carvings on them, similar to the ones in the underground tunnels leading toward Eura's resting place, but his guide didn't slow or respond to further attempts to communicate.

As they rounded a final bend, and he could see the large open space at the center of the chamber, he let his lantern’s beam scan the space before stopping in his tracks. There she rested… the Spinner Queen.

She was easily four times larger than the normal spinners, which already came up to Alex’s waist. Her body was pale and almost translucent in some places, as he could see mana coursing through her body. It was fascinating enough that Alex nearly forgot himself, wanting to look closer at how different her body was from the normal hunters. The spinners he’d known could pull their mana into their body and prevent any of it from leaking out, but the queen didn’t seem to bother. He suspected that some mana could be seen through her semi-translucent body even if she did bother to try.

Alex attempted to gently prob at the queen with his mind, curious if he’d be able to scan her, and was surprised that he could with ease. He wasn’t sure if that was from his Willpower being so much higher than hers, or perhaps she just allowed him to scan her, as the first mana spinner he’d ever run into had.

Alex was intimidated by her level, though a more rational part of his mind couldn’t help but to see that she wasn’t at the peak of D rank.

But I guess her power doesn’t come from her levels… if she leads all of the spinners, then that’s a ton of power.

The queen was nestled in a large bed of webs that clung to nearby ruined walls and the sides of the cave itself. The webbing hung low to the ground in a way that reminded Alex of a hammock that had been set up with too much slack. However, on closer inspection, he saw that each of her eight legs was touching parts of the large throne in certain places, and if he watched through his Heavenly Eye, he could see that each pulse of mana was timed with a small movement of her legs. It then traveled through the entire room, as he’d noticed before.

Age was clearly taking its toll on the powerful creature, as her movements were slow and deliberate as she slowly came down from her position. He could see tiny fractures in her carapace that made him wonder if she’d always been that color or if it was due to aging, like the changing of human hair.

He gulped and had to force himself to stand still as the queen slowly moved down to ground level and approached him. Despite her age, power still radiated from her, and his guide bowed so low it looked like he was lying on the floor.

As she moved, Alex saw many other smaller shapes move from the corner of his normal vision. They looked like shadows moving along the ground in the dark, and he moved his lantern to see the tiny forms darting around.

Baby spinners?

The small spiders skittered about by the dozens, no larger than Alex’s palm. He focused his eye on them to see what information they offered.

He blinked in surprise. They were so small and fragile that it was hard to think they existed here in the Rift compared to the powerhouses that he’d fought against on the surface over the last week.

The queen raised her front limbs slowly as she faced him. She didn’t extend a mana tendril. Instead, her entire presence seemed to fill the chamber. He could feel her awareness settle over him like a physical weight, and it was obvious that she was curious and evaluating.

Having felt this several times now, not just from Rylan and his use of auras, but this reminded him much more of Eura’s use of the technique as if she could feel and sense everything within, rather than just attempting to smother those caught in the magic. As much as Alex appreciated the spinners, he felt that this was wrong.

A test? Or a show of force?

He wasn't sure if it would cause issues to fight back or resist, but at the very least, Alex felt he should be able to represent his own small space, even if this were the queen's chamber.

Using his Willpower, Alex pushed the mana from his skin. He created something of a shell around his own body, intentionally, and quite easily pushed back the queen's presence. The ease with which he pushed her back made him certain then that she wasn't attempting to push down on him. In turn, he didn't create any more space than was necessary. He stayed still and kept the shell around his body, as if claiming the personal space as his own, acknowledging that everything else in the chamber was hers.

The queen's presence withdrew slightly, acknowledging his statement rather than challenging it.

She rose higher onto her rear legs and leaned closer to Alex. Without the mana tendrils that most of the spinners used, he expected there to be silence. However, a flood washed through him. It wasn't words in a clear sense, but the meaning behind her emotions and images was more complex and, in many ways, easier to understand than the other spinners.

The images, memories, and feelings gave him a sense of gratitude, recognition, and his teaching nature when it came to rituals.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

In some ways, the complexity of her mind and the speed with which the communication came through were too much for his mind to process. While there might be a simple meaning like gratitude, she managed to layer meaning into dense pieces of barely digestible information. But when she stopped sending the signals, he knew that she was thankful for her teaching with her children and watched the entire colony through them.

No… through the webs?

He steadied himself against the rush of thoughts. In his shock, he almost spoke his response out loud, even though he was certain it would either startle the queen or the hatchlings, which he didn’t think would end well. Instead, he extended his own Mana Thread, and she seemed to look at it with amusement before extending her own to meet with his.

I’m glad I could help them. I owe them for their help when I needed it most.

The movement was almost so small that he didn’t catch it, but the queen dipped herself forward the barest margin before her attention shifted. She made a series of rapid clicks with her mandibles and sent her thoughts toward the hunter that had guided Alex. He could tell by the hunter’s body language that he was excited about something.

She focused back on him and sent through thoughts of a world-name.

World name?

The planetary title? Oh, the card! You want to see it?

One of her front legs tapped a few times as if in anticipation.

Alex shrugged, knowing that the card itself was there to represent his title and on top of that it was bound to him through the System. Even if she did have some sort of evil plan to steal it from him, he didn't think such a thing was possible.

He activated the [Manifest Planetary Title] item and felt warmth bloom in his chest as the golden light began to shine through his shirt. He reached up and pulled the card from his chest before holding it out in the air between them.

The effect was so immediate that it startled Alex. Every mana web in the chamber flashed simultaneously. Light rippled through the woven ceiling, and every single hunter in sight froze.

The queen herself remained motionless, but she did send him another mental pulse that was stronger than the first.

An image appeared in his mind. He could see a human figure that seemed impossibly large, standing at the center of an endless web in the void of space. The threads of the web extended outward from his fingers to pin distant stars in place. The lines formed patterns that reminded him of a ritual circle in some ways, but he thought he could see the faint shape of large spiders sitting on top of each world.

His breath caught as he thought of magic that had the potential to span worlds.

A single phrase came through clearly.

“A man of magic, we follow.”

He felt both important and uncomfortable at the same time. It was hard to tell if the queen expected him to be the man in the vision and was showing him a possible future, or if it was meant to be someone from long ago. Suddenly, he felt as if he’d stumbled across some sort of cult activity of magic worshipers and wound up in front of their leader, respected through some ceremony that he didn’t understand.

Dismissing the card, he looked around at the few other spinners who’d gathered around. The queen settled back to her normal posture, and much of the blue magic beneath her carapace seemed to have dimmed. Just as slowly as she’d descended, she repositioned herself on the throne of webs, signaling the end of their conversation.

The mana spinner who had brought him down to the cavern nudged Alex’s leg gently, gesturing toward the rear tunnel.

Time to go?

Without making a connection for communication, the creature moved off ahead of him. As they left the chamber, Alex glanced back at the queen with one thought running through his head.

What the hell just happened?

He couldn’t understand the recent events. Why would the spiders bring him all the way to the queen’s chamber, just for her to see the card and share the vision? Then, without further discussion, she returned to her throne, and he was ushered to leave. The encounter felt like it should be significant, but he couldn’t help but be a bit disappointed. Asking himself the same question over again.

As they cleared the chamber and entered the tunnel leading away from the queen’s space, the questions continued to stack. Hoping for some answers, Alex began to push some of his mana into the amulet around his neck.

He followed behind the hunter but paused as his lantern’s beam swept across an opening he hadn’t noticed on their way in. The light had caught on something etched in the stone, past the entryway. Craning his neck to look further in, he whispered to the mana spinner that had been guiding him. “Wait a sec…”

The hunter-spinner hesitated and moved forward and back as if in irritation, but allowed Alex to approach the smaller room. It was only a fraction of the size of the queen’s space, but closer to the large cavern he and his friends had been given to stay in.

The stone walls were unnaturally smooth, compared to the rough walls of everywhere else he’d seen in the spinner’s colony. They were also covered with carved inscriptions and imagery that reminded him of the etchings he’d seen in the tunnels that led to Eura’s resting place.

Two forces opposed one another on a vast field. The sun rose behind those on the right and the moon behind those on the left. In the middle was a single figure wreathed in stars, holding arms out toward both sides. It was clear that this showed the Celestials as a sort of mediator between the two opposing forces of sun and night.

His fingers traced the cool rock surface, and he mumbled to himself. “The nest is built over some old Celestial ruins?”

The spinner made no response beyond shifting slightly in the entryway.

Continuing to pour mana into the Runic Apprentice, Alex moved back from the wall and set his lantern on the ground while turning the dial on the top. It didn’t adjust the flame, but instead the slits on the lantern to allow more light to spill out around them, rather than the more narrow beam he’d been using.

He glanced at the spinner before activating the spatial ring on his hand and removing his leather journal to begin sketching the scene shown on the wall. One half of his mind focused on infusing mana into the amulet, while the other focused on the drawing and the strange language that was written along the bottom of the depiction.

He lost track of time, infusing mana into the amulet, sketching, and only taking brief breaks to use [Mana Siphon] and its new capabilities to pull mana from the saturated environment. It would have been quite easy for him to continue in the pattern if it weren’t for the spinner approaching him impatiently and tapping his pant leg.

By then, he’d made it through the largest of the drawings in the rooms and wasn’t sure what the more detailed pieces meant at the moment, though the imagery was consistent.

All right, all right.

Alex closed his notebook and stowed it back in his ring before standing and stretching. The return journey through the tunnels seemed faster since his thoughts were fully occupied with the puzzles he’d just been presented with.

When they emerged back into the main cavern, Alex spotted Mark, Sarah, Valtherion, and Sam waiting near one of the larger support pillars. Val spotted him first, likely sensing his location through their bond, and launched himself across the space to latch onto his shoulders.

At first, he thought they were relaxing, but he realized he was wrong as he closed the distance to the group. Sarah had some papers laid out and was going over something with them.

“What was all that about?” Mark asked as he got close enough to whisper to.

Alex shrugged. “Honestly, I have no fucking clue. I left there with more questions than I had before.”

“What happened?” Sam pressed.

“They took me to meet their queen. But… she basically just greeted me and showed me some creepy image before dismissing me? That was literally it. It somehow has to be connected to the planetary title. Maelis knows more than he’s been sharing about it, so I need to get some answers from him.”

They all looked at each other in silence for a few moments before Sarah gestured at her papers. “Well, I was trying to explain my theory to them about getting a passive. Want to check it out?”

Alex sighed. “Yeah, I might as well stop thinking about all of that for a bit. Val, can you charge up the amulet some? You also need to practice with [Mana Siphon] now that it can pull mana from the environment.”

“It can?” Sam asked, eyes wide.

“It advanced after the attack on the sun elf camp. That was what it got on the advancement, but it’s only in areas of high mana density. I’m hoping this counts. The surface on the Night side doesn’t have enough ambient mana, but the caverns are filled with it,” Alex said.

“Hmm... but I doubt that Earth does.”

Alex shook his head. “Not when I tried before. Show me what you got, Sarah.”

“Well, it’s a bit of a stretch, but I thought— if it works, it’ll be well worth the effort. You know how you gave Sam the manual to learn [Meditate]?” When he nodded, she continued, “Well, I was hoping I could apply some of those same thoughts, but instead of toward mana, toward the reset timer of my movement abilities.”

Alex quirked an eyebrow.

“She’s talking about trying to make a passive that reduces the cooldown of her movement skill,” Mark translated.

“Sounds overpowered.”

Mark nodded, and Sarah shrugged. “Again… no idea if it will work. But it might be a good test of how much we can direct with intent and some knowledge of what we want. I won’t spend all of my time on it, since there are other concrete things that I can learn. If it does work, though, there’s the potential that all of us could get this passive.”

He was already nodding again before she finished. “I like it. If it does work, that could be super useful.” Looking up, Alex realized that the spinners were cleared out of their cavern once again.

Mark caught his glance. “Looks like it’s back to training. Man… I know we only fought a few beasties up there, but it was almost more exhausting running around constantly wondering if we’d need to dodge a pack of them or hide. It feels nice to be down here.”

Alex narrowed his eyes at the tank. “Don’t get comfortable. I’m going to use this safety to make sure you’re all prepared to go back to the surface and fight for some levels!”

Sam and Mark groaned, but Alex could tell that they weren’t really bothered. He smiled at his friends as Val’s head lifted and looked at the two as they moaned about hard work before joining in with them. Everyone laughed then, and they took an hour to rest and relax before starting the training with renewed focus.