It took many hours but finally! I’m done! I had sharpened 10 rocks and enchanted them all with Mana Poisoning. The longest part of the whole process was waiting for my mana to regenerate. I learned a lot during this whole process and my Novice Enchanting skill leveled up quite a bit, all the way to lvl 8 now. I noticed that even though my level in enchanting rose, the 3/3 uses stayed the same on every rock I enchanted. It must have something to do with the quality of the item I'm enchanting and the level of the spell I enchant it with. I also noted that even though I’m enchanting the rocks with my Mana Poisoning skill, it never once leveled up.

So now I’ve got 11 rocks, all enchanted with Mana Poisoning and 3 uses each. I’m not really sure how I’ll be able to continue to use them if I throw them, unless I retrieve them. That’s why I made extras and I’ll have to use them sparingly. I should always keep at least two as close range weapons and only throw the rest when I know I can get a good hit in.

I also noticed that when my mana gets below 10%, my mind gets very hazy and I start seeing a lot of blurry images and almost hear weird whispering sounds. This scared me the first time it happened so I tried my best to keep a close eye on my mana and not let it drop below that 10% threshold.

It also occurred to me that if I’m unable to cast spells at will and only able to enchant things to expend mana, then any time that my mana is at max, that means I am wasting any excess mana I could have, as I regenerate about 5 mana per minute. The solution to this would be to wait until my mana reaches max capacity and then enchant something and repeat the process every time I reach maximum mana. The problem with this is that I could end up with a thousand rocks enchanted with Mana Poisoning as an example and I kind of think that’d be a waste.

I had a theory that I really wanted to test. Pulling out a Lesser Mana Crystal from my Void Storage, I let it rest in my hands.

*Used skill Inspect*

*Lesser Mana Crystal: A rock purified by a small amount of mana.*

Hmmm.. no change there, but what if I inspect the general term Mana Crystal?

*Mana Crystal: Rocks or Minerals that have absorbed enough mana to become a Mana Crystal. Mana Crystals are often used by locals to store mana. The size and quality of the crystal changes it’s capacity for mana.*

Cha-ching! That’s exactly what I was looking for! So Mana Crystals are formed by rocks absorbing mana and can therefore act as a type of storage unit for mana. Thankfully for me, I have tons of mana crystals on me!

Since my Large Mana Crystal is far too large to carry around leisurely, I bring out one hand-sized piece of Lesser Mana Crystal. Not only will this serve as a nice little storage to dump any excess mana into, it’ll also provide me a decent light for when i'm exploring the rest of this cave! Killed two birds with one stone! How useful!

Before taking off, I decide to test my Void Storage capacity a bit more and break off more pieces of mana crystal to take with me. Now I have well over 100 pieces of both crystals and shards. This Void Storage could store quite a lot.. And it's only level two!

Well, now is as good a time as any to press forward. Clutching the glowing green crystal in my hand, I start my trek forward.

…

I had been walking for what seemed like hours and so far nothing has changed. The cave walls still look the exact same and the floor has been oddly straight for some time. The tunnel I’m in is only about 8 feet wide and probably about 15 feet tall, with an arched ceiling.

I stop to rest my feet a bit and let my Stamina regenerate. Walking doesn’t seem to take very much stamina but it does go down enough that it’d be wise to rest every few hours. Sitting down, I peer forward into the darkness. I’m only able to see about 10 feet in front of me at a time, although I notice that my light seems to end after about only 5 feet...Hmm how odd… did the strength of my light go down? I look backwards and check the distance my light goes to where I came from. Nope, still about 10 feet behind me. Then what has changed in front of me?

I get up and creep closer to the edge of where my light ends..

Holy crap. H - O - L - Y.

I’m standing on the ledge of an entrance carved into the side of a GIANT ravine. I mean this thing is MASSIVE! It’s far too dark to see specific walls or how deep it goes, but looking up I see what looks almost like a night sky full of stars?

Wait… no.. those are clusters of Mana Crystals? Woooowww.

For as far as I could see, there were spots of mana crystals scattered throughout the ceiling and walls of this cavern. Miles upon miles in every direction, this thing was absolutely insane. I whistled out of curiosity and the echo I heard back was quite satisfying. Although, listening a little closer, I could hear a faint clanking sound that was somewhat familiar...

Looking closer at one of the mana clusters, I could faintly see movement around the cluster…

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My eyes widened a little bit as I stared in disbelief. Checking other mana clusters proved that they were all in a similar situation. Each mana cluster was infested with swarms of Mana Scorpions. I mean there were probably thousands of these things, climbing all over each other and on the walls of the cavern. None of them looked quite the same as the one I faced before and they were all different colors and various sizes.

Feeling a shiver down my spine, I noticed I had only been looking up and at the farther end of the cavern. Taking a look around my immediate vicinity, I luckily didn't seem to have any unwelcome visitors close by. In fact, the entire cliff face that I was on didn't seem to have any clusters of mana crystals, which seemed odd considering it was plentiful in all the other areas.

It didn’t take long before I found out why.

Still peering over the edge of my little hole, I start hearing skittering, like from a Mana Scorpion. Except it was coming from behind me. From the direction I just came from. From the sound of it, there was only one, although the depth of the sound sounded quite a bit deeper than before…

Taking out a few rocks, I turn around to try my best to put up a fight against this one. If it’s alone, I probably have a decent chance at winning. If nothing else, I can just use the same tactic I used the first time.

The sound of it approaching is getting faster but all I can see at the edge of my light is darkness. My hairs are starting to stand on end and I can feel my heartbeat start to get quite a bit faster. Okay. This thing does not sound at all like the first one did… It sounds….bigger. Like much bigger…

And I was right.

I only had a split second to react. It came barreling out of the darkness at a crazy speed. Like almost too fast for me to see clearly. The thing was massive. It filled out the entire 8 foot wide cave and towered as tall as the ceiling and it looked like it was made of pitch black metal.

Choking down my startled cry, I try my best to cover my head as the Mana Scorpion charged at me. All of this happening in a split second, I manage to use inspect on the scorpion just before it’s claw bashed my entire body backwards, off the ledge of the cave.

All I could hear was the sound of wind rushing past my ears and I could only see faint light above me from the mana crystals and the rest was darkness.

My own scream was the last thing I heard before I blacked out.

---

A loud pinging noise in my head woke me up.

What? What happened?

Then I remembered the scorpion and the crazy fall I just had.

Sitting up, I noticed that my mana crystal must have fell out of my hand when I landed, it laid a few feet away and I crawled over to pick it up.

My entire body felt extremely sore and I had a splitting headache, but I decided to open up my status screen to figure out where the pinging sound was coming from.

*Critical Condition*

*-10 blunt damage taken*

*-13 fall damage taken*

*User has 1 HP remaining. Healing is recommended*

*(Rare) Title Acquired: Leap of Faith - Fall more than 500 feet and somehow live to tell the tale!*

*Title Bonus (Rare): New skill acquired! Feather Fall lvl 1

*Feather Fall: Activate to slow down the user’s falling speed for 5 minutes.*

*+6 STR*

*(Baby) Lesser Phoenix lvl 1 slain. You have gained some experience.*

Woah. Uhhhh...what?

First, 1 HP?!?!? That would explain why my body feels like it’s been through the wringer.

Second… that title isn’t exactly fitting, since I didn’t willingly jump off that ledge. I was pushed… but I’ll take it anyways. I’ll have to come back to that new skill later when I have a chance to test it out.

And lastly… When did I kill a Lesser Phoenix?! I looked back where I had landed and my jaw dropped in amazement. Right there, in the imprint of where I landed, was a dark stone filled with a dark red light in the middle. Another Soul Stone. And I bet I know what it is.

*Used skill Inspect*

*(Baby) Lesser Phoenix lvl 1 Soul Stone: A very rare fire-bird type monster. Even the lowest of levels can be a nightmare to deal with, as their soul stone allows them to regenerate themselves.*

I must have squished the little guy with my butt when I fell. What a terrible way to die, I’m sorry buddy. In a way though, he probably saved my life. I’d be willing to bet I took less fall damage because I landed on him.

I picked up the soul stone and a familiar message popped up.

*Soul Stone compatible with Graverobber*

*Consume Soul Stone using Graverobber?*

*Y/N*

*Yes*

*Graverobber: New skill acquired - Flaming Regeneration lvl 1*

*Flaming Regeneration - Uses flames to heal over time. Level increases effectiveness and speed.*

Well that sounds somewhat painful but quite useful as of right now. I’d better get to it.

*Used skill Flaming Regeneration*

*Skill use failed; Enchanter Class is unable to cast spells.*

Oh dammit. Of course. How could I forget the one caveat to being an Enchanter class…

Despite the annoying downside of my class, I already had an idea.

Grabbing a decent sized rock nearby, I test my idea.

*Used skill Novice Enchant*

*Enchantment: Flaming Regeneration successful*

*Enchanted Rock: Flaming Regeneration 1/1 uses remaining*

Hoorah!! I’m a genius! Now with this I should be able to use it on myself?

Holding the rock in my hand I think of activating the skill it’s enchanted with. The rock bursts into flames in my hand and small flames slide onto my body. I panic a little at first but calm down when I realize the flames don’t actually hurt. After a few minutes the rock disintegrates and the flames on my body disappear. Time to check my HP..

*16/40 HP*

Hmm… okay. So one rock enchanted with Flaming Regeneration gives about 15 HP.

*15/85 MP*

Oh yikes. Just that one enchant used 70 MP. Looks like it will take a while before I’m back up to full HP.

I take in my surroundings and see that I fell onto a fairly large ledge of the ravine, about 10 feet wide from the wall to the next dropoff. Walking around with my light, it seems to go on for quite a ways in both directions. Looking up, I can just barely make out specks of mana clusters that I noticed before the fall. Whew, I did fall quite a ways. I also noticed that the ledge contained many puddles of water scattered along the path. This also raised another question. It’s been a fairly long time, yet I’ve had no urge to eat or drink anything… why’s that?

***As a Child of the Void, you do not need to eat or drink to sustain life, however you still require sleep.***

Oh thanks creepy robot voice in my head! And wow being a child of the void seems pretty convenient. I wonder if it gives any other benefits?

…

No response there? I figured it wouldn’t lay out all the secrets yet. Oh well, I’ll take what I can get at this point.

Finding a slight indent in the wall, I make a little home base for now and start enchanting rocks to get back to full HP.

I keep my ears and eyes on alert just in case anything creeps up on me, but for now, I’m safe.