In a humid dark room, a young man with messy dark brown hair in torn clothes sat on a small stool as he took a bit of preserved jerky. It was a bland salty taste that made him wish he was eating anything else at this moment.

‘In the end, they didn’t bring any food…’

Sol was grumpy as he waited for three hours, hoping they would bring him anything to eat, but he simply couldn’t wait any longer and retrieved the ring hidden under the stone. From the spatial ring, he took out two jerky strips and a wooden stool so he could at least stave off the hunger until they remembered their prisoner needed to eat too.

‘If no one is coming till tomorrow, then maybe now is a good time to explore a bit.’

Finishing off the last chunk of jerky in one single bite, Sol stored the stool back in his spatial ring and checked his surroundings with [Mana Perception]. Since Weaver left him here, Sol had yet to deactivate the ability in fear of being caught red-handed, and it was starting to hurt his eyes a bit. Even so, he ignored the strain in his eyes and made sure there was nobody moving about in the base.

From what Sol could see, there were at most 8 other mana signatures besides Rebecca’s that were also underground with him. For now, Sol only planned on exploring areas void of people while also remembering the unique mana signatures of all the people he saw.

‘Alright, no more delaying it. I got this!”

With a quick mental pep talk, Sol walked towards the iron door and used [Burrow] to phase through it. He appeared in a narrow hallway lit by crude wall sconces. The passage was not much different than his cell, save for the fact the air was much more bearable. Still humid but overall preferable compared to his cell.

Sol saw that besides his cell and Rebecca’s situated next to his, there were 3 more cells. He knew for a fact there was nobody held in them from his [Mana Perception], so he ignored the cells for now and headed down the passage that only had one exit.

Outside the passage was a much nicer hallway that extended to his right and a door on the opposite side of where he left. Since heading right was where all the mana signatures were, he decided to just head forward for now. Maybe some other time he would check that area when there were fewer people or no other place to explore.

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There, he found two more rooms. The first was a shower, which Sol was very tempted to use but managed to hold back. He didn’t want to touch anything as he didn’t really know how attentive the captors were. Besides, if he truly wanted to wash himself, he knew a good water spell to clean his body. Since they knew of his ability to use water magic, it wouldn't be an issue if he used it when he was back in his cell.

The next room was much larger, almost four times the size of his cell, and in it was a fancy stage with red velvet curtains. The stage itself took more than half of the room, and the other half there was a simple stand with a crystal ball on top. Curious to know what it was, Sol used [Analysis] on it.

Transmission Orb

Rare

Skills:

[Image Transfer] Lv EX, [Sound Transfer] Lv EX

‘It’s similar to the communication gem I got from the Guildmaster, but this one also sends images. This should be where we are going to get auctioned at.’

The room was too small to accommodate the buyers of the auction, but with the orb, Sol surmised that the attendees all watched remotely to maintain anonymity. It made him wonder how many people attended this event and how deep this went.

Having nothing else to do here, Sol was going to explore other parts of the base but stopped as he saw a mana signature moving down the hall. They were heading towards the cells, so Sol quickly dived underground with [Burrow] and returned to his cell.

Back in his cell, Sol waited as the figure approached his cell, but before reaching his door, they entered the one next to his. Worried of what they planned to do to his cellmate Rebecca, Sol watched through the wall as he saw the light purple mana burst towards the dark brown mana. An exchange could be seen from how the mana flowed from each person, but Rebecca’s purple mana signature was blown to the back wall.

Although worried for her wellbeing, Sol knew they wouldn’t go too far based on how much Weaver emphasized his value. He doubted they would do anything permanent. Sol still kept watching as the two figures interacted based on the movement of their mana, but it was overall very hard to make out what he was looking at.

From the movements of mana signatures, he guessed they were doing similar training to what he did a while ago. Sol wanted to watch more, but the pain in his eyes from constant use of [Mana Perception] was starting to really hurt. He had no choice but to deactivate the ability for now and get some rest.

Storing his spatial ring under the stone ground again, Sol decided to clean himself before sleeping and casted a cleaning spell. There were a few spells to pick from, but Sol simply chose the one that left the least mess.

“Watery mist sweep away all dirt and grime, [Cleansing Mist].”

The water from the humid air gathered into a small misty cloud that passed through Sol’s body, picking up any dirt and dried blood from not only his body but his clothes as well. After the spell was done, he felt much cleaner and ready to finally get some rest. Sadly, with no furniture of any kind, he had to settle with sleeping on the cold hard ground.

After finding a good spot, Sol laid down as he closed his tired eyes and gently drifted to sleep.