Chapter 334: Experience Sponge
The route to the fourth layer of the Coral Forest was about as straightforward as it could get. It required minimal active involvement, unlike the previous long hikes and challenging descents. All they had to do was go a bit further down and they would arrive at their destination. It sounded easy enough.
Hai Yun directed Coop to just let himself sink through one of the nearby gaps in the algae, adjacent to the primary coral column, where the boggy mat had been dispersed by previous Adventurers. Before he took the plunge, they only warned him that while it was the quickest way down, it was unpleasant and he should brace himself for the landing.
Coop shrugged at the explanation, feeling like no matter how much they tried to elaborate, he would have to experience it for himself. It was enough that they assured him that it really was the way. They didn’t seem like the type to try and play pranks. He surprised them by volunteering to go first, eager to satisfy his sense of adventure and see things for himself.
When he gave the passage a shot, attempting to test the gap experimentally, he was immediately confronted with the fact that he couldn’t even tread water within the completely insubstantial barrier. Coop did his best not to panic as he was pulled below and fully engulfed in a soup of mana. It was more like the clouds at the top of the Underlayer than the pool that he expected. He couldn’t imagine how any Adventurers had pioneered the path as his face submerged and he completely lost sight of the third layer.
The thick stratified pools beneath the layer of algae weren’t exactly liquid, despite their apparent density, and flailing limbs did nothing to provide leverage. There was no buoyancy to be had when sinking through the almost foam-like mana that the algae and the Gulpers both feasted on. Without any breeze or friction, blinded by the environment, his actual velocity was completely up in the air, and without any perspective, he couldn’t determine if he was moving at all.
He had to imagine himself sinking, and without either the sense of gravity or any buoyancy whatsoever he almost immediately lost his sense of direction. It was disorienting, to say the least. Simple as the path was physically, it was a mental challenge that simulated drowning in a milky bath of condensed mana.
Coop had enjoyed free-diving among the reefs of Ghost Reefs before the assimilation began, and he hadn’t shied away from pushing himself to go relatively deep as he explored old shipwrecks and curious coral formations during the more peaceful times. Passing through the mana barrier reminded him of reaching the depth where his body would achieve neutral buoyancy.
While swimming, it was a distressing sensation to suddenly realize he wasn’t floating anymore, especially because it only occurred once he was approaching 30 meters down in the deep blue ocean. It always made the surface suddenly seem too far and his breath too limited. To immediately have that sensation combined with being effectively blind and deaf within the mana pool was the kind of scenario that gave people nightmares.
It wasn’t until Coop was sinking through the layer that he actually understood the algae mats above. The boggy fields were the Coral Forest equivalent of a thick, mana-infused sargassum patch. The mana that floated up from the lower levels was forced to pass through a giant strainer of floating seaweed, causing a build up underneath the barrier. There was nothing substantial below the surface, providing a foundation for the rootless algae, meaning that Coop was actually falling.
When Coop emerged on the opposite side after just a few seconds of blind descent, he almost face planted onto the ground, flipped around as he had been by the barrier and his ineffectual struggles. He caught himself with his arms, feeling the slight springiness beneath his palms, and pushed himself back to his feet. His ethereal shield solidified first, only to find himself presented with almost pitch darkness when he cast his eyes forward and found his footing.