The cave was damp but not with moisture. The floor and walls of the cave were covered in a sticky fluid that smelled like rotten food submerged in water for a few weeks. Lucian pinched his nose as he walked through the caves while paying attention to any possible danger ahead. It would have been difficult for Lucian to see even two metres ahead in the cave had he not learned the Fortify Sight II when Cecilia gave him the Tier-2 versions of the spells he had already learned. As a result, the path, which was pitch black to any average human, was clear as day for Lucian. Lucian also used his Mana Sense to survey further into the cave, and in doing so, he found out that there were multiple tunnels that led to god knows where.
I don’t like this. I have no clue whether something else is lurking in those tunnels. I hope by the time I sense something beyond my league it’s not too late.
Lucian trudged ahead with the strange fluid hampering his steps until his Mana Sense finally picked up something.
Fifty metres ahead. Looks like a worm or something.
As soon as he sensed it, it snapped what seemed to be its head back in Lucian’s direction. It had felt that there was something foreign in the cave. Not missing a beat, the thing squirmed erratically to Lucian’s position. As the thing closed the distance between it and Lucian, he could finally see what the beast looked like. The beast was a Sand Worm. The worm looked like any typical worm, except that the worm was gigantic in comparison to normal worms and that this type of worm hunted prey for its food, unlike its lesser counterparts.
That’s one ugly motherfucker. As the Sand Worm gnashed its teeth while approaching Lucian, he thought of what to do in this situation.
I can either attack first or defend. I only read about the worm’s description in the encyclopedia, so I’ll have to poke the worm with the weak spells to know how it reacts.
Lucian hurls Spark spells at the worm, but it dodges each attack. And with each dodge, the worm counterattacks with its tail with a frightening speed he barely had any time to react to.
This thing is way too fast. I’ll have to keep it in place before I commit to an attack.
With beads of perspiration dripping from his forehead, Lucian would cast Air Flick at the worm to create some distance between them. Since the Air Flick spell could be controlled to have a large area of effect, he didn’t have to worry about being accurate. The spell flung the worm a few metres away, enough to allow Lucian to start casting his next spell as the worm recovered and rushed him.
Earthen Bind.
The ground started to protrude in the shape of ropes as thick as an elephant’s trunk and wrapped around wherever Lucian pointed. With him concentrating on the spell, Lucian wrapped the ground around the worm as it flung its body in an attempt to kill Lucian. As a result, the worm was suspended mid-air like a piece of art in a museum, and while the worm was shrieking as it attempted to free itself, Lucian attacked the worm with Incinerate. However, the worm didn’t die from the spell in one hit.
As expected, it’s gonna take more than one spell to kill this thing.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
After another Incinerate spell hit the Sandworm, it finally stopped its squirming as life left its body. With the worm finally dead, Lucian took out his dagger to take apart the beast, albeit somewhat clumsily. He would usually take the beast's corpse with him in his enchanted pouch because the beast’s body parts were valuable, and making a mistake while taking them apart could significantly reduce the price of said body parts. So he left the skinning part in the hands of professionals, the Eithar Guild, the mercenary-and-adventurer guild hybrid that spanned across kingdoms in the continent of Ithyllius, who were responsible for handling a multitude of jobs ranging from small jobs like gathering requests in safe areas to big jobs like mercenary contracts with a particular kingdom.
But the only thing Lucian would take from the Sandworm would be its mana core, as the rest of the body was worthless; the scales of the worm were too weak to be made into armour, such that leather armor would be better. Its flesh was disgustingly bad in taste no matter how you cooked it, and no other body part could be used as ingredients for alchemy.
I really wanted to use Area of Effect spells. Guess I’ll have to wait until I find a pack of beasts. Otherwise, it would be a waste of mana to cast one.
It would only take Lucian five minutes before the subsequent encounter. A group of five Sand Worms noticed Lucian as he picked up their locations through Mana Sense.
A pack of Sand Worms? It’s as if the Gods themselves heard my thoughts. I’ll start with Earthen Bind to stop them from moving before I use the spells.
The pack rushed at Lucian with no less intensity than the first worm he encountered. Lucian had cast Earthen Bind in advance and let it loose onto the oncoming pack. With him directing the earth as precisely as he could, he bound three of the worms, but the remaining two didn’t let down a single bit as they continued on with their attack. Lucian readied himself to fight with sweat dripping down his forehead. One worm was more than enough to keep him on his toes, and two would be a ticket to heaven if a single mistake was made.
The two worms tackled him in succession. One worm would always cover the attacking worm, and as such, Lucian would have few chances to counterattack. The first worm struck Lucian in an attempt to knock him down, but he dodged it. However, the second worm didn’t give him a chance to rest as it attacked as soon as it realised the first worm’s attack had missed.
He would cast Ignition in his counterattacks instead of any offensive Tier-2 spell, as casting one Tier-2 spell took two-tenths of his mana at his level and missing one would be a significant loss. But a Tier-1 spell had an insignificant cost, so he could use them frequently to poke his enemies.
Shit. I can’t dodge this one. I’ll have to take the hit and get into a better position.
He would take the hit as planned. The speed of the worm combined with its scales would cause significant pain with each hit. After taking three hits, he realised that the only chance he would have would be a single moment where a mistake would be made by the two worms.
Fuck… All right. Time to corral them into the position I want them to be in.
Lucian readied an Air Flick spell as he waited for the first worm to attack again. The first worm would tackle him, and he would dodge it. However, when the second worm attacked, Lucian would intentionally take the hit at a position where both the worms would line up in his direction. After taking the blow, he would painstakingly cast Air Flick at the second worm, which would cause it to collide with the first worm. As both the worms stood there, dazed for a few seconds, Lucian took this opportunity to drive his short sword through them. The worms would squirm frantically in pain, but he would not let them go. With the short sword still binding the two Sand Worms in place, he would then cast his spell through the short sword.
Lightning bolt.
Bolts of lightning would course through the short sword and into the two worms. The flesh and scale of the worms would fry from the intense heat of the lightning, and after a second, both the worms would drop dead at Lucian’s feet. He then checked his body for wounds, to which he found multiple bruises from the hits he had taken earlier. He took out a health potion from the enchanted pouch and drank it, sighing a breath of relief as the bruises disappeared from his body. He then checked his short sword, and he found that its gleam had faded. It was now starting to show minuscule cracks.
I should use that tactic only as a last resort next time. If I use it and my weapon breaks down in the middle of combat, I’ll be screwed.
After completing the checks, Lucian would carry on in his journey deeper into the cave, where he would fight more of the worms, sometimes in packs and sometimes one-on-one. However, this time he would have an advantage over the worms since he would cast Muffling Stride, which concealed his presence to some extent and doing so gave him an easier time wrapping the worms with his Earthen Bind spell. He would then finish off the worms by casting a spell and forcing it down the mouths of the worms he bound.
However, this period of easy hunting would prove to be fleeting, as Lucian would encounter a beast far stronger than he had ever faced before. One who would test Lucian’s skills to the limit in a near-fatal encounter.