Another skill? Derek was excited but as soon as he saw the name and the details, he couldn’t help but feel a little deflated. Meditation was not going to help him here. He shook it off and continued with his exercise.

Even if he upgraded the same meditation skill, the experience points gained would still be useful. Time quickly flew by and to Derek’s surprise, he had a lot of it. There wasn’t another soul with him to distract him either. Not even a fly. Flies couldn’t possibly exist this far under the water. His captors did.

It was unsettling that Derek knew very little about his captors. They seemed half-snake, half-humanoid but all monster. He continued with his mental work which the system was kind enough to term as meditation. He heard a couple more notifications but they were both of skill upgrades of his meditation skill. He let out a sigh and once again got back into it.

As the hours stretched on, the struggle continued and even the meditation upgrades stopped coming. It was simply one failure after another. He just couldn’t grasp the feeling of manipulating water. Sure, he was able to mentally isolate and picture the feeling for lack of a better word. But that’s all.

In reality, nothing worked.

Soon an entire day passed by and Derek started to get really nervous. As if to confirm his unease, he now started hearing vivid sloshing sounds outside his door all of a sudden. It was almost as if someone was pacing back and forth, minus the footsteps, the same kind of sound he had heard when the snake man sloshed over to him.

Derek tried to crane his neck and see if he could find something out. He tried to listen intently but to no use. Fuck. He swore in exasperation and tried to get back into his meditation. Unfortunately, he couldn’t do shit this time because he was pretty agitated by the recent developments.

The constant sloshing sounds also did not help. He tried to do some breathing exercises to calm him down, another habit from his past. He opened and closed his eyes as he took a deep breath in and out. After ten of those he was about to somewhat calm down when he suddenly noticed something out of place.

There was water in his cage.

Derek was confused. He was pretty sure there wasn’t any water here before so how did it get here? That too in such small quality. He looked up to see if something was dripping and that was not the case either.

Derek's confusion deepened as he stared at the small pool of water that had mysteriously appeared at his feet. He could have sworn it hadn’t been there before. Damn it. Why was he even focusing on something so insignificant? He needed to get back into his meditation.

Two seconds in and he flashed his eyes open in shock. Could this have been the result of his attempts at water manipulation? Could it be that, after all those hours of trying and failing, he had somehow managed to summon water without realizing it? He mentally slapped himself for narrowly missing something so obvious.

Derek got back into it and this time his eyes were wide open. Instead of trying to do anything with the mana, he directly tried dealing with the water. Like he had already practiced in his mind so many times he willed for the water to move the way he wanted by grasping the vague connection he felt between the element and himself.

The connection was weak. It was extremely slight, like a thin thread that could snap at any moment. But it was there. Derek could feel it, even if it was faint. He had felt it back when he had used Wave Shift and during his meditation, he had managed to isolate it. However, was it strong enough for him to actually tap into it?

He had no idea. He had to do it to see it.

Derek took a deep breath, closing his eyes to block out the distractions around him. The sloshing sounds from outside, the oppressive dampness of the cave, the bars of his cage pressing against his skin—he pushed it all aside. All that mattered was the water, the subtle flow of energy between him and the element.

Slowly, carefully, he willed the water to move. It was difficult, like trying to move a heavy object with only the tips of his fingers, but he could feel the faint tug as the water began to shift. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

A tiny wave formed in the puddle at his feet, lapping against his ankles. Derek gritted his teeth, his focus sharpening. He tried to make the wave grow larger, to push it outward, but the connection flickered and wavered, and the water stilled once more.

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His heart raced with excitement, but he knew better than to let his emotions get the better of him. He needed to stay focused, to maintain that fragile connection. One misstep and he could lose everything he had worked so hard for.

“Come on,” Derek muttered under his breath. “I know you can do this. I just need a little more control.”

Again, he reached out with his mind, feeling the water respond to his command. This time, he tried to be more gentle with his approach, coaxing the element rather than forcing it. The water rippled once again, the wave growing just a little bigger this time.

Derek smiled despite himself. He was getting the hang of it. The feeling of connection was clearer now, stronger, though still fragile. If he kept at this, maybe—just maybe—he could eventually learn to wield it properly.

As he continued experimenting with the water, he noticed something strange. The sloshing sounds from outside the door had stopped. His senses heightened as he realized he wasn’t alone anymore. Someone—no, something—was watching him.

Derek’s heart pounded, and he quickly dropped his focus on the water manipulation, glancing around nervously. Had the creature seen him practicing? Did it know he was trying to escape?

A soft, wet hiss echoed from just outside the chamber, sending a shiver down Derek’s spine. The creature—his captor—was back.

The merman slithered into view, its yellow eyes gleaming in the dim light of the cave. It regarded Derek with a strange, almost amused expression as if it had been watching his pathetic attempts to manipulate water all along.

Derek’s stomach twisted with fear, but he forced himself to stay calm. He couldn’t afford to let the creature know how rattled he was. If he showed weakness now, it would only make things worse.

The merman stopped in front of the cage, its lips curling into a cruel smile. It hissed something in its guttural language, and though Derek couldn’t understand the words, the meaning was clear: it knew what he had been doing. And it was not impressed.

The creature’s webbed fingers wrapped around the bars of the cage, its grip tightening as it leaned in closer. Derek could feel the malice radiating off of it, the sadistic enjoyment it took in seeing him trapped and helpless.

Without any warning, the little puddle of water in his cage suddenly started roiling. It lifted up into the air like a ball of writhing liquid, swirling violently as if responding to the merman’s presence. The merman let out a guttural laugh, clearly pleased with its power over the element.

Derek clenched his fists, anger bubbling up inside him. This thing—this monster—was toying with him. It had been watching him struggle, enjoying his futile attempts at manipulating water, and now it was showing him just how weak he truly was.

Derek was frustrated for a moment but he quickly found himself watching the ball of water in awe. A few simple tricks had made that docile ball of water spring to life with incredible energy. That level of mastery was exactly what Derek needed—and what he lacked.

Watching the merman manipulate the water so effortlessly made him crave a power like that. Derek was certain he could learn to do the same. The merman hissed again, a taunting sound, as it twisted the ball of water into different shapes—a sphere, a spiral, and then something sharp, like a blade. It hovered menacingly near Derek as if to remind him of how helpless he was.

However, unexpectedly Derek found himself focussing on the water rather than the knife at his throat. If he had managed to summon even a small puddle before, there had to be more he could do. Was it the way the water moved? Did it need small currents to make it more powerful? How does mana play into it? His mind tried to grasp everything he could from the demonstration.

[Ding! Water Manipulation - lvl 1 > Water Manipulation - lvl 2]

[Ding! You have gained experience points]

Derek wanted to do a fist pump right then and there. Finally after hours and hours of training without anything to show for, he had some sort of a result. But he knew he couldn't reveal his emotions, lest his free demo abruptly ended. Keeping his expression twisted in frustration, he let the merman continue to think it had broken him.

The torture or rather the training lesson went on for a while until the creature finally seemed satisfied with the display of its power. He hissed once more before slithering away, leaving Derek alone again with his thoughts—and the pool of water now at his feet.

Derek's expression immediately shifted. Closing his eyes, he willed his mind back to focus. The water was responsive, but he had been too forceful before. Watching the merman showed him that finesse was key—control, not brute force. Slowly, he reached out with his mind again, feeling for the subtle connection between him and the element.

However, once again there was nothing he could bring out except for that subtle shift. After trying a few times, Derek let out a sigh of tiredness. He opened his status screen to see that his stamina had been depleted. Weirdly enough his mana was still more than half full.

Derek frowned as he studied his status screen. He did not have to be a genius to figure out what was going wrong. He was relying too much on his physical willpower rather than the magical flow of energy itself? Perhaps he was forcing the water to move with his mind or something like that, instead of letting his mana guide the element.

That would explain why the merman had such effortless control over the water, while Derek struggled to even summon a puddle. He sat back, leaning his head against the cold bars of the cage, and thought it through. He couldn’t just ignore the mana anymore. It was there and he needed it.

Unfortunately, it was just beyond his grasp. He really couldn’t sense it no matter how much he tried and there was simply nothing he could do. Except… Derek’s mind spun. What if he leveled up once more?

If he could just level up once more in the confines of this cage which was relatively a safe location for now, unlike the uncharted waters above, maybe, just maybe he could grasp the feeling of mana running in his veins.