Once Nick began absorbing energy from Ether Stones, the stones depleted faster than usual. About 10 minutes later, Nick opened his eyes and smiled.
By now Nick had internalized the energy from the Ether Stones and regenerated the magical energy spent. With the combination of the two, he improved his magical energy and power by a significant margin.
Nick could feel the magical energy coursing through him and immediately opened his status to check his level.
‘Status’
‘Nick’
‘Mage Name – Epsilon’
‘Level 9 – Prive Level Mage Middle’
‘INT – 9.1’
‘Physical Level – Prive Beginner’
‘Magical Abilities’
‘Life Siphon – Completed.’
‘Energy Bolt – Completed.’
‘Sonic Bullet – Self-Created.’
‘Poison Bullet – Self-Created.’
‘Silent Bullet – Self-Created.’
‘Wave Rader – Self-Created.’
‘Summon Anubite – Self-Created.’
‘Portal Teleportation – Self-Created.’
‘Passive Abilities.’
‘Iron Blood Energy Shield’ (300+ Magical Protection Bonus + 50+ Physical Defense) (Prive Level Spell)
‘Space Continuum’ (Due to “Portal Teleportation” (%10 Resistance Against Space-Natured Attacks)
—
Once Nick saw the rise in this status, he smiled with satisfaction.
The increase was not average by any standards. Nick’s last checked status showed him at a Level 6 Prive Level Mage Beginner. Now, he had jumped several levels to reach Level ‘9’ Prive Level Mage Middle. Given the information he had about the levels a mage had to achieve before upgrading, once Nick crossed Level 16, he would reach Provec Level.
Rabial, after more than 100 years of hard battle experience under his belt, was only a Provec Level Mage. This was evidence that reaching this level was not child’s play.
However, Nick’s couple of weeks as a mage proved to be enough to get closer to this level. He had researched, battled and studied under some tough conditions. Despite this, however, this achievement was extraordinary from every perspective. Given the extremely short duration, the intensity and the speed of his progress were not easy to explain.
After the other members of the newly created team were rested and prepared, Rabial came over to Nick and started talking.
The air was fresh and sunlit by now. The forest breeze had washed away the smell of blood and corpses slowly, restoring the calmness of mother nature.
The Werfurs did not do anything to the demons’ corpses. Since these creatures were not inhabitants of this continent or their world, once dead, without the protection of magic, they would cease to exist after some time. This world would not let strange beings stay on its ground unless there were external conditions.
—
The team commenced its journey, moving towards the Underbroom Cave. They did not focus on anything else but headed right for the entrance. It was officially the first time in Nick’s life to enter a cave such as the Underbroom.
He had been around here many times but never entered the cave itself. Nick was mostly unaware of the many secrets of this magical world. But he knew that, right now, there were countless possibilities of him being killed just because he was somewhere that he should not be in, in the first place.
After about a three-minute walk, they were at the entrance of the unknown ruins. Earlier, they believed they had basic information about the ruins but the demon invasion from the last time proved that they had no idea what challenges awaited them.
Rabial took a deep breath, injected his magical energy and opened the Underbroom Cave’s door.
The door appeared full of darkness, bereft of any energy. At this time, Nick warned the group.
“I feel space energy emanating from this darkness. We may be separated as soon as we enter through the door.”
Rabial trusted Epsilon’s intuition. The team members looked at each other meaningfully. If this was the case, and there was a chance they would be separated, the one member who should not take the risk to enter this darkness was Rindy.
Rabial knew others could still protect themselves from unknown threats, but it was not the same for Rindy. She had average battle capabilities and most likely, on entering an unknown area, she would die without enough amount of power on her side.
Rindy did not argue with this decision because she knew herself better than others. She left the Underboom Cave. Without her, the others looked at each other and slowly went through the darkness. The first to enter was Rabial, followed by Nick.
Stepping into the darkness, Nick felt light-headed. The dizziness was spreading around his head but in a second, it vanished, and he opened his eyes.
The place had no source of light, and Nick had zero visibility of his surrounding. He instantly used his magical energy to set himself up with a pair of night-vision goggles.
With his magical energy, he could do several things, most of which, he did not even need a spell for anymore. The more control and power he had, the more he would be capable of doing with just basic magical control.
With the use of his magical energy, the darkness lightened and Nick was capable of seeing around with ease.
The first thing he noticed was that this place did not have a version of the ‘sky’. He looked above himself and saw stones and rocks covering the ‘sky’.
There were small-sized mountains and tunnels most likely opened up by some crawling creatures.
He could not see any plantation, but with the use of his Wave Radar, he could locate some creatures.
The weird thing was that these creatures were not ordinary. They had a dog-like form but with no eyes, mouth, ears and only three legs.
“It is exciting!”
Nick whispered. From the first look at these weird creatures, their size was most likely around a jackal but with more weight and a circular body type. They were the kind that moved in a pack.
Nick located four of them; three of them were on the ground most likely sleeping, and one was awake, looking around, like keeping a watch.
Nick wondered why these seemingly dog-like creatures had magical energy in them. The magical energy they had was no low amount either — at the very least, these creatures were at Imper Level Peak.
Nick did not waste any time and memorized this place in his mind. He needed to do this so that he could teleport here in case if something he could not defend against, came up.
