Felix thought about it for a bit, and decided sticking to a slope was better than going vertical and making a ladder. He had dug a long ways down, and he wanted to maintain easy access to the river, for water, in case it took him a long time to climb back to the surface. Considering his only method of climbing was using Mold Earth, which was rather slow, it would probably take him at least a week to reach the surface even if he went straight upwards. He would probably lose a few pounds by the time he got back, since he didn't have any food, but it was much better than being dead.
He got a bit further from the river, and he instantly started feeling more comfortable, since now the only elements around him were darkness and earth, which he was obviously attuned to. Actually, he felt downright comfortable, like this is where he belonged. The feeling struck him as a bit odd, since he was a human who had lived on the surface his entire life, but he quickly realized it was better than despairing at the fact that his current situation was only marginally better than being entombed, so he stopped thinking about it too much.
As the darkness element rose around him to replace the water element from the river, the dark shroud which covered his core rotated excitedly, because the dark element here was very pure and rich, due to being so far from the surface. As it did, Felix had a strange feeling, as if his hand was an inch away from a rope, or a word was on the tip of his tongue. He purposefully rotated his dark shroud, but he couldn't pinpoint the source of the feeling, even after a few minutes of trying.
Felix decided to continue moving away from the river, but he didn't move upwards, instead maintaining his current elevation. As he got further away from the river, the feeling of being close to something grew in strength, as the dark element around him continued to replace the water element. Eventually, after about 20 minutes of moving away from the river, the amount of water element around him was negligible, and it was almost purely earth and dark element, bringing Felix to his maximum attunement with the elements in the environment. And finally, after he rotated his dark shroud as quickly as he possibly could, it happened.
It felt like he had pinged something. He felt a resonance within the darkness, as if he had found an old friend. Suddenly, the darkness around him shifted, and became excited, buzzing rapidly, this way and that, and supplanting even the earth elements in the area. He felt a presence calling to him from deep, deep below him. It was weak, but it was there. It felt like it was reaching out to him, holding out it's hand. And Felix got the feeling... that it needed his help.
Felix hesitated. He was already in a pretty bad situation, being miles under the earth, with no food, and he needed to get to the surface eventually, or he would die from starvation. In addition, well, even though he was of the dark element, he didn't really trust the darkness at all. The dark element was composed of death, decay, thievery, and evil. Anything that reached out to him composed of darkness could be something really bad. It was more than likely a trap, whatever it was. His memories of his time on Earth were a bit hazy, but even so, he had memories of stories of great evils, hidden deep in the planet.
The darkness around him seemed to sense his hesitation. Felix decided to watch the dark element around him to see what it did. To his surprise, the dark element itself began swarming downwards, and gave him a slight tug on his shroud in his magical core, causing it to swirl at the bottom and become thick, and to become light and wispy at the top. Felix wasn't sure, but the darkness itself almost seemed to be desperate to get him to move towards the presence.
Felix grit his teeth and decided to gamble. If the very elements of the world were telling him to help this presence, then he would be a fool not to listen, if only because he knew his curiosity on the matter would haunt him for the rest of his life. The presence seemed to be basically right below him, but very, very deep down. He began casting Pitfall and Mold Earth beneath himself as before, but in a slower, and more methodical manner than last time, when he was fleeing for his life. The darkness around him grew excited, and seemed to encourage him to continue.
He dug, and he dug, casting Pitfall and Mold Earth over and over. The darkness continued to grow thicker and thicker, and his resonance with the presence grew. Then, he heard it speak to him:
"Help... me...."
It was weak. Whatever the presence was, it was near to the point of death, it's whispered words so faint that even in the complete silence and isolation of his shaft deep in the earth, he could barely hear it. He continued to dig.
"Dark mage... I beg you to help me..."
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Felix kept digging, but didn't respond, if only because he didn't really know how to speak to whatever was speaking to him. He could tell he was getting closer to it now, though. He guessed he must be a full several miles below the earth, yet strangely, the temperature did not rise, instead, it fell, as the dark element continued to grow around him. Eventually, after much digging, he pinpointed the location of the presence. There was a small cave below him, that he could sense in the midst of the earth and the darkness. The cave was full of the thickest and purest darkness he had ever felt. Felix didn't bother hesitating at this point, since he had made up his mind to find out what was happening already. Eventually, he came level with the cave floor, and used Mold Earth to open a hole in it's side, and he entered the cave.
Black. Pure black. The darkness was so rich in the cave that the earth element which made up the walls was completely suppressed. It made him feel uncomfortable, like his eyes were gasping for air, but instead, for light. Felix activated Night Eye, and although the feeling didn't really go away, he could at least see now out of his right eye. He saw a mostly empty cave, and away from him, on the other side of the cave, he saw what looked to be a hole, and a spirit. The spirit was badly damaged and tattered, so much so that he couldn't even determine it's species. It lay limply on the floor, looking like a battered chew toy that had been mauled by an entire pack of dogs. Felix could tell this was what he had resonated with. He approached the spirit cautiously.
The darkness swirled excitedly around the spirit, and even felt like it was pushing him towards it. As he approached, suddenly, the darkness froze around him, and locked him in place.
"Fuck!" Felix panicked, thinking he had been trapped. It was too late though, he couldn't move, or even rotate the elements inside of his own body. He could do nothing but watch.
Slowly, very slowly, the spirit began to move towards him. Felix's panic continued to grow as it approached. Finally, it was before him. It reached out with some kind of ghostly appendage, reached in to his chest, and touched his core...and then it disappeared in a dark flash. Then, suddenly, Felix was able to move again.
He darted away quickly from the hole, and ran back to his "mineshaft" he had made, and began to climb, using Mold Earth to make indents in the wall to climb like a ladder. As he climbed though, he felt the mana and elements in the air around him beginning to shift, and they physically coalesced and prevented him from leaving. He only got a couple of feet up when he could advance no further, the darkness forming a physical barrier to prevent him from leaving.
Suddenly, the pure dark element in the area flowed into him, into his dark shroud. It didn't feel bad, and in fact, he quickly realized his attunement with the darkness was growing, as well as his magical grade. He saw physical phenomena form in the air, wisps and cracks in the ether around him, space bending, as the mana in the air flowed in to his core, but the darkness especially, flowed into him, strengthening the black shroud surrounding his diamond core.
Suddenly, the darkness paused, and to his surprise, the dark element almost seemed like it was annoyed, and earth element flowed into him, strengthening and growing his faceted diamond core. After it had grown for a while, the darkness continued to flow into him, and he felt much more powerful. He wasn't sure, but, he felt like whatever caused this phenomenon had catapulted him from an upper low-grade mage, to an upper middle-grade mage. Strangely though, there didn't seem to be much difference in strength between his earth and dark attunements any more. The earth was still his main element, but it almost felt like the darkness only allowed this begrudgingly, and was only a miniscule amount weaker within him.
Felix was deeply confused by these developments. He had never heard of a mage growing in grade after their initial mana baptism, and he had never heard of a mage who was so nearly evenly matched in elemental attunement. The standard distribution, as compared to the attunement all mages would have towards a neutral element, would be 10 times for the main element, and 8 times for their sub-element. This could deviate slightly, but having both elements be 10 and 9.999... attunement was unheard of.
Felix decided to check his spell space to see if anything had changed. And while he did see his spells, as expected, he also saw the spirit from earlier. It looked like it had taken up residence in his spell space. Felix was very confused, he had never heard of such a thing. While he didn't know too much about the mechanics of the spell space, to him, it felt like an integral part of him. It felt like as if something had somehow entered his imagination from the outside, and it was extremely peculiar. The spirit was resting, and it seemed to be recovering at a physically observable rate. The pure darkness of the cave flowed into his spell space incessantly, now that it was done strengthening his shroud, and seemed to be healing the spirit.
Felix was a bit nervous about this, but, since the darkness had strengthened him, he decided to bet on optimism, and decided to help the spirit some more. He sat on the floor, and began to actively assist the darkness, rotating his shroud of his own accord, and freely allowing the darkness to enter his spell space without resistance. The darkness surrounding him seemed to react positively to this, and darted into him excitedly.
Felix kept absorbing the darkness actively for hours, doing his best to help the spirit. The spirit grew and grew, and absorbed more and more of the darkness, and slowly, he was able to make out details of the spirit. It seemed to have a snout. It seemed scaly. It seemed really big. And eventually, after it continued growing and growing, Felix realized...
It seemed like a dragon.