The snowy wind blew around me blanketing the mountain and the surroundings in snow. The magma slowly became solid making the mountain seem larger.

“Feel free to make yourself at home, I’ll be back to check on you after a year or so,” said the darkness as it slowly disappeared.

“A year!” I exclaimed incredulously, “How long exactly is this process going to take?”

“An evening. It seems you need an explanation, time flows differently here. I am in control of what happens, I am sending you back to where you were sent once I am done and it will only seem like an evening has passed. As such, you will not age here nor will you change. This way you can train to your heart’s content and worry not about the little things.”

“How can I trust you?” I asked suspicious about it.

“Because there is no one else,” it said as it disappeared completely.

I was then left behind at the foot of a mountain with a frozen wasteland all around me. I guess I should find myself some shelter, I thought.

I looked at the mountain more carefully and saw that it was filled with crags and stony ledges everywhere. There were some mounds of snow and ice spikes hanging down everywhere.

I don’t think it would be a good idea to use the mountain as it leaks magma from the top, I thought.

I looked to the wasteland around me and it was filled with snow. The ground itself looked to be very chaotic as small to large cliffs were everywhere. I saw a cliff that looked more hospitable than the others.

It had a curvature to it as I looked within. There was not a lot of snow on it as the cliffs blocked most of the snow. I went towards it and saw it get larger and larger.

Inside, it looked to be as large as a fifty meter long hallway. There were less snow near the cliff face so I made myself a shelter of cave in the middle of the area.

I carved myself a cave structure with my Earth magic. It took hours to create myself a bedroom, common room and dining room. The rock was made of a special material that made it a bit hard to command it with my magic. I had decided to leave detecting the mana until after I was able to live here.

Having finished my new home, I had to think of what to eat. I didn’t see any animals nor any plants so I had to create them. I decided to form myself a pig with Form magic and I inserted it with different types of mana.

Earth, water, wind as well as holy mana I inserted and created a plant creature that looked like a pig. It was inedible and leaked a strange green blood that I had to clean up and so I threw it outside my cave.

Holy, water, wind, and form mana I inserted next and it became an ice sculpture that looked like a pig that seemed to split apart and make another copy of it. Seeing it as a failure, I again threw it out.

After two tries, I was already running out of mana even if I tried to manage it completely. I tried one more time and this time I added Holy, water, wind, and spirit. The pig I created with Form magic then turned into a healthy pinkish color but it still stood there.

I killed it and red blood flowed out making me satisfied that I made a pig from mana. Of course, it couldn’t move or anything and the killing of it made me think of a slaughterhouse.

After killing it, I merely burned it as I had no experience in preparing an animal to be eaten. I cooked it until I had thought it was enough with my fire magic and ate heartily. There was no taste as I ate the pig but it was to be expected since it was the first time I cooked a live animal.

After eating my fill, since I made more pigs and experimented on them. I was actually able to make a pig that tasted like goat. That made me confused as to how it happened but this made me have an idea of making easy to form food to taste like anything I want.

After my experiments, I felt the mana around me with Spatial Recognition. The rocks were filled with Water mana and Earth mana with Fire mana gathering below it. After observing for a while, the Fire mana suddenly burst and replaced the Water mana.

The air around me also changed to become hotter and when I went outside I saw the mountain leak magma again. I felt the mountain and I was able to notice that there was a balance of Water mana, Earth mana, and Fire mana all around me.

The magma in the mountain was superheated earth from the top of the mountain that melted down and made the mountain much thicker when it cooled down. Then the fire mana inside makes the mountain thinner as it heats the summit and the cycle repeats.

The mountain was an environment of extreme cold and extreme heat in a cycle of renewal. I tried to imitate it so that I would be able to control the temperature within my own body.

While I was in extreme cold, I would heat up my body from the inside and when I was in extreme heat, I would cool myself from the inside instead. I did this for days until it became second nature to me.

It was already a month since the darkness left me alone in this wasteland. I was able to create a seed that could taste like any meat I wanted. I also was in the process of creating a seed that was very nutritious as I was a bit worried in that regard.

My body stayed the same but it looked as if it was a bit more resilient to temperature changes. Like the darkness said, I didn’t grow at all since my hair stayed exactly the same.

I finished the seed that I was making. It was a green seed that I hoped would have all the nutrition needed for a human. Since I had no idea what mana would be the most beneficial I simply added Arcane and Nature since Arcana mana when added to things increases a specific ability or effect that one wants. Nature mana when added to things will increase the power of an effect.

In this regard, I added Nature mana into the Arcane to increase the benefits the Arcane mana would add to the seed that had Water, Earth, and Wind mana.

Since I had no better test subject, I ate the seed and immediately I felt a burst of power within myself. I felt strengthened from the seed, I felt my mana recovering at an extremely fast rate and my fatigue from sitting down disappeared.

An empowerment seed, I thought, instead of a nutritional seed, I made an empowerment seed... it works I guess?

I succeeded somehow, the results were not what I expected to happen but it should do something nutritionally since it empowers and I never felt any negative effects.

I decided to then search around with my mana since the last time I did this was right before I started regulating my own temperature.

The environment around me changed. It felt still the same wasteland and the mountain as well but now there was a mass of mana all around me. I slowly crept outside my own cave and saw them flying through the air.

They were dragons!

Dragons of a myriad of colors of blue, red, green, gold, silver and many others. When I looked to the ground there were also more dragons there. These dragons did not have wings like those in the sky but rather instead they had bulkier frames and even though they were far away, I could feel the shaking of the ground even if slightly.

All of these were of course not of the Dragon race but rather looked like a group of greater and lesser dragons. Lesser dragons are as large as a small mansion but are more beast than men. Greater dragons are as small as a small hill and were of a higher intelligence than the lesser dragons.

I watched them fly and climb the mountain ignoring the changing temperatures and making their homes within it. They were creating large caves for them to live in while those that can fly made caves as well as a area to land and take off. There was a clear separation of those that can fly near the top while those that cannot at the bottom.

I went back into my cave and used Spatial Recognition to understand these dragons as much as I could.

They stayed there for months and soon it would be nearing the time that the darkness will come back. During that time, I have had conflicts with the dragons.

One time I was cooking a rather large pig as I was getting tired of eating seeds when a young lesser earth dragon visited my cave. It was large enough to only get its head inside of the cave as it tried to get the pig. This lesser Earth dragon had yellow brownish spikes and scales on its head. Its eyes were like large crystal balls as they stared at me. It had small fangs that leaked out of its large mouth.

It saw me and the pig and it opened its mouth to lick its lips with its tounge. Feeling that I was going to be killed by this dragon I casted “Earth Spikes” by manipulating mana in me as well as the surrounding mana. I learned to be able to use the mana around me when I wanted to cook the pigs. The Earth spikes that I casted came from all around the cave as it pierced the neck of the dragon.

It roared as the spikes slowly dug into its scales but it wasn’t enough. I then casted another spell “Stop”. This was a time magic spell that I had not much proficiency in so it was only able to stop it for not even a second. But that was enough as it was stopped from struggling long enough for the spikes to get inside the scales.

It roared and started thrashing about as it slowly died from the spikes killing it. It couldn’t move anymore and just slowly died as it stared at me, it was unable to do anything as the spikes caused it to not be able to get its head out of the cave and that the cave was too small for it to try to get its claws inside.

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When it finally stopped thrashing, its head slumped down and died right in front of me. This was another creature that I had killed only this time I had no wounds as I was able to kill it from afar.

I buried the dead dragon right where it was by using earth magic and fixed the spot that it had thrashed in. I went outside and saw that the dragons were actually living right where I was now. They all stared at me, large purple dragons that had scales that flared behind it. Large black dragons with veins of red all around it. More of those yellow earth dragons right in front of my cave and white bony dragons that flew in the air with their flimsy looking wings.

Each dragon was staring at me and I knew that I had to run. There were hundreds of them and I had merely only killed one dragon due to luck. I ran back inside my cave and then they all started coming after me.

I could feel the shock of the ground and I wondered why I wasn’t able to hear them before. I was way inside the cave that I had no other way to run to and I could hear them tearing down the walls of the cave trying to get to me.

Having no other way out, I started creating a new spell. I had to be able to affect a large area to get all of the dragons nearby. I had to make up a spell that would kill them as soon as possible once they were hit with it.

I frantically thought of many different mana combinations and I settled on one. I clasped my hands together in front of me, both hands parallel to the ground then I combined Wind, Dark, Holy, Space mana and casted it.

Furious winds gathered around my hands and small distortions could be seen within it, as if it was resonating with the raging winds. I slowly increased the space between my hands and more and more wind gathered and more and more distortions appeared still small in scale but more. My mana was draining at an alarming rate and when I almost had no more mana, I instantly clasped my hands together releasing the wind all around me.

The cave walls slowly turned to dust revealing the surprised expressions of the dragons as well as glee to finding me. Their expressions turned to fear as they slowly disintegrated by some unknown force. Even the white dragons that were a hundred meters up in the air were affected and they too disintegrated.

No sound was heard as they just disappeared quietly. It was a surreal experience as they died slowly without any knowledge of dying. This effect was different than the “Disintegration” of void. Disintegration causes the target to break apart just like what I was seeing but it was different as what I was seeing now, even their voice was affected.

This event made me think that each mana was interconnected. Even though I already knew that there was some connection between each of them, this just revealed to me that I had the possibility of recreating a specific affinity if I combine the right affinities.

That was a couple months ago and soon it would be the time that the darkness would come. I’ve been living underground since that incident, experimenting with the mana and creating my own new personal theories as well as spells.

I had grown more powerful ever since the darkness left me here. I captured some dragons every now and then to experiment my newly created spells and I also created myself some armor as well as weapons from their bodies.

For armor, I used their bones as well as scales to make myself lightweight but durable armor that protected me from their attacks. I had to use form magic to manipulate it as well as some Inner, Space, Time, Dark, Light, Holy, Arcane, and Nature mana.

The armor itself was black in color, thanks to my Void magic in being able to separate the colors from the Earth dragon’s scales, it covered nearly every part of my body from below my neck to my feet. Small blue spikes protruded from where I could bend my joints allowing me different ways to attack.

For weapons, I made myself a sword and a crossbow with magic arrows. The sword was made from the bones of the Earth and black dragons which were Chaos dragons. The bones of Chaos dragons were too aggressive as when I had tried to make them into armor they started to contrict my body and I had to generate enough wind between me and the sides of it just to get out.

The sword was small to fit my height and could reach my elbows if worn reverse grip. A line of red separated the bones of the Earth and Chaos dragons. The side of the Chaos dragon was sharp while the Earth dragon side was dull. In this way, the aggressive nature of the Chaos dragon will be able to deal much more damage than the Earth dragon’s. A small pommel guard protected my wrist made also from the Earth dragon.

The crossbow was half the usual size. The base was made from an Earth dragon’s spine, the handle from its legs and the trigger from its fangs. It was also covered by the leathery skin of the Earth dragon. The limbs were made from a Wind and Holy Dragon’s wings. Arrows are not needed as it was enchanted with Form magic to create light Chaos Dragonbone bolts. Each bolt would increase the strength of what it hits to the point that it starts breaking itself apart.

Along with the bolts, I can also prepare magic to be released by this gun. The magic has to be sealed within the stock of the crossbow to have an affect.

Currently, I prepared one of my own personal spells onto it called “Haunter”. It was a combination of Dark, Nature, Chaos, Inner, and Spirit mana. Once cast, it would send out a fast moving orb of black mana that once it hits its target the target would start hallucinating and attack itself. The hallucination would be the target being devoured by what it fears the most and only being able to notice it and nothing else.

Also with my armor, I enchanted it as well and it is able to absorb mana from all around me, increasing my own personal mana over the limit. The armor also allowed me to slow time for two seconds as each piece of armor only allowed me to slow time for a quarter of a second. The armor would also repair any small damage made to it which also allowed me to be able to change its size to fit me once I get older. Since my physical abilities were weak, the armor would allow me to be able to move quickly and safely because of the enchantments placed on it.

The sword was also enchanted to be able to make my body move faster for as long as I keep pouring mana into it. For now though I could only keep it up for one second as the mana cost was too high.

I was unable to find a way to reduce the mana cost during my experiments but perhaps I would be able to do so in the future.

I had just tested another of my spells on a captured black dragon when I heard a large explosion outside. I ran outside of my underground retreat and saw that the mountain was gone as well as the dragons.

“You’re alive,” said a voice all too similar from behind me. I looked behind me and saw the darkness once more.

“It seems you learned many things during this one year. One more should be enough and I will bring you back,” said the darkness as he changed the scenery once more.

The wasteland turned into a grand arena like area. There were seats that stretched as far high as a thousand meters and I was right in the middle of a stage that was surrounded by these seats.

The stage was filled with blood and the smell of death was apparent all around. The lighting was red just like the sky which had a hint of black all over it. Spikes ringed the hundred meter wide stage clearly meant to make sure that whoever was inside the stage could not get out.

Bestial roars rang in the air and suddenly the seats were filled with shadows that had no form. Large shadows also appeared on the stage where I was, only instead of an innumerable amount, here there were nine of them.

“Welcome to the grandest and most famous form of entertainment that Hell can offer you! Welcome to the Hell Arena where your bloodiest, most gruesome fantasies are fulfilled and this is all thanks to your champions, the Nine Generals of Hell!” shouted the darkness as if he were a game show host.

Cheers and applause rang from the shadow audience while the large shadows just stood there looking just like a mass of shadow with no form.

“Here is the challenger, Zed Rigel. Will he succeed the trial that the ruler of Hell has given him or will he disappoint and become just another part of the darkness?” continued the darkness that called itself the ruler of Hell.

“You mean, these large shadows were...” I started to say as I pointed to each one of them.

“Yes they were also in your position,” said the darkness joyfully, “I am bored easily so this is my only form of entertainment. Do this and survive and we both will give each other what we want. Or else... I could use another shadow.”

He started laughing from there and I just stared at the shadows and wished that I was fighting the dragons instead.

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