After being attacked without warning by a literal lake, Ibras felt a bit shaken. He had already died in a fire and been temporarily enslaved by an evil magician, but at least those were plausible scenarios. Well, the whole evil magician thing wasn't, but at least the threat came from a person then. Now he was being attacked by freaking nature. That's definitely worse. People, you can at least talk to or — in Ibras' case — serendipitously land on an opportunity to kill them. He'd like to see someone killing an entire lake, however. Especially when the lake fights back.

Trying not to go look at the surprisingly murder-oriented lake, he moved back towards the tower's entrance. His body felt rather weak after having been hit repeatedly by that water-tentacle, but he was already feeling that he was starting to recover slowly. His body, currently in the shape of a cloud of mana, seemed to absorb the mana particles that were ubiquitous around this lake and the tower into itself, quickening his recovery even more.[https://imgur.com/RHgu3qG]

[https://imgur.com/RHgu3qG][https://i.imgur.com/PqbLpOW.png]

When he neared the doors to the tower, they opened by themselves just like before. He didn't look back as he floated up the stairs and entered the first floor. He hadn't gained much by exiting the tower now. All he'd learned was that he was seemingly in the middle of nowhere and that he couldn't leave this place because then he'd be beaten into a pulp by an angry lake. The only thing he could do right now was, take it easy for a while until he had recovered. In the meanwhile, he could explore more of this place.

He started out by exploring the first floor. There wasn't much to see, to be honest. Except for the pillars and statues that surrounded the floor, it was almost entirely empty. The floor had some cool patterns on it, but that was about it. The first floor almost felt like a reception, just without any sofas and fashion magazines. Except for the two spiral staircases at either side of the floor, there was only one door on the entire floor. He was about to open it to see what was on the other side when he remembered that he currently lacked the ability to properly touch anything. The only reason he could leave the study earlier was because that door had been left open.

While Ibras was once again lamenting the fact that he couldn't interact with objects as he wanted, an idea entered his mind. His current body was like a liquidy gas, and the door had a keyhole in it. Shouldn't he be able to pass through that keyhole?

If this works, I could consider my options for becoming a prospective burglar. Everybody'd be too busy accusing the butler to consider that the floating cloud committed the crime. It's brilliant! Ahem... Not that I'd ever steal. Stealing is bad.

Ibras moved his body towards the keyhole and tried jamming it through the hole. As he had assumed, his body slowly moved managed to pass through the keyhole. What he saw on the side of the door was a stone staircase that moved further down. The walls and ceiling were also made out of stone; nothing special at all. Compared to the other areas he had seen in this tower, this place looked certifiably boring. He also realized that none of the walls looked to emit any light as the walls did in the main hall, but he could still see without any problems, albeit everything did have a bit of a darker hue about it.

Maybe whatever way I'm using to see right now doesn't require light to work? Acquiring night vision has always been on my bucket list. Too bad I died before I could check it off.

At the end of the stairs was a stone corridor. On either side of the corridor were several cells with thick iron bars. Inside the cells, he saw several different huddled figures.

A large dog-like creature with three heads and sharp, white teeth.

An even larger bear-looking creature with feathers and a long beak.

Several small human-like creatures with green, almost transparent skin and ethereal wings.

The cells were filled with all kinds of exotic, dangerous-looking creatures that Ibras could only have dreamed about seeing before. But they all looked to be in a sorry state, probably not being fed much. Some of the creatures seemed to observe the floating cloud of mana as it moved through the corridor, but most just lay in their cells without paying it any mind.

Ibras eyes stopped on one of the cells. Inside, he could see a small human figure slumped to the ground. It was a child, seemingly around ten years old. He had a hard time telling its gender. It could either be a boy or a girl, but he was leaning toward it being a boy. The child was staring right at him with hungry eyes. His attention was caught by those eyes. They were purple-colored, and the child's neck-long hair was grey. To him, that just looked weird.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Gray hair on a child? And what's with those eyes... It looks like the kid wants to eat me. Creepy.

Seeing a child being stuck in a cell like this, Ibras first impulse was to let the kid out. But he paused as he moved nearer that cell.

There had to be a reason the kid was in there. All of the other creatures that were locked into cages down here looked to be dangerous in their own way, and the same might be true for that child. After all, he was in a world of magic; for all, he knew that child could be a damn vampire. Just look at how the child was staring at him right now.

But just leaving the child there left a bad aftertaste in his mouth. He thought about it for a while, before he decided to at least try and let the kid out. The child would have a hard time hurting him as he was just a cloud of gas. Even if the child had some way of hurting him, Ibras could use that fire spell he knew to defend himself. While the flame itself wasn't too impressive — it was slightly bigger than a fist — he could just summon a few dozen of them like he did last time. For being a supposedly primitive spell, it sure was useful as long as you used it right.

Ibras moved closer to the iron bars and looked at them. When he observed them closely, he could see that a thin barrier made out of mana existed between the bars. At the base of the bars, he could see what looked to be circuits etched into the ground, glowing very softly. When he tried moving his body through the barrier, he was stopped by it. Not entirely unsuspected.

The child inside the cage was still staring at Ibras with those hungry eyes, making him feel an ethereal shiver down his equally ethereal spine. Perhaps he should just leave the kid be?

There was definitely something off about that kid, but without being sure if there was something wrong with the child or not, he couldn't ignore it. He turned towards the door of the cell, which was also made up of iron bars. Inspecting the entrance, Ibras found that there was no keyhole. Perhaps one had to know a specific spell to open the door, like a fantasy version of a keycard?

Unfortunately, Ibras didn't know many spells at all. He knew the circuit and circlets necessary to create that small flame. He also remembered the circuit he had used to kill Salamar. However, he was relatively sure that that spell was worthless without having access to that circuit that was etched into the floor upstairs. Maybe it was just parts of that circuit that were necessary, he wasn't sure, but it wasn't of any use to him at the moment.

That meant that his only option was to try and use the fire spell that he knew to destroy the iron bars. He really was trying to milk that 'primitive circuit' out of everything it had to offer.

Ibras conjured the same red circuit that he had used to fight the water-tentacle earlier next to the door. A fist-sized flame appeared and started burning the iron bars of the cell's door. Sadly, Ibras quickly realized that the flame was far from hot enough to melt iron. He tried conjuring a few more flames next to the original one, but all that did was heat up a larger area of the bars. It did nothing to increase the intensity of the flames.

Seeing his attempts to open the door, the child's eyes had opened wider and the kid looked even more hungry now. Ibras sighed inwardly and extinguished his flames. He thought about it. With him only knowing a single circuit to cast spells with, was there really no way for him to open this door? Then realization struck him.

He didn't know just a single circuit. He knew a circuit and the circlets that made up the circuit. Salamar had originally created a flame with just one circlet, and then he had used two other circlets to modify the flame.

Ibras remembered the first circlet that Salamar had conjured, and replicated it. A minute amount of mana moved from Ibras' body, and in front of him, a red circle with several odd characters covering its borders appeared. Above the circle, a small red flame formed. He thought of one of the circlets that Salamar had added and created a replica of it inside the existing circlet. When the second red circlet formed, the flame suddenly more than doubled in size. It was now the same size as the other flames that Ibras had created.

Ibras then added the third circlet, and with it, the flame's color changed into a clearer red. He had now reproduced the flame spell that he already knew.

So one of the circlets increases its size and the other one increases its temperature. Then I should be able to do this.

Suddenly, two more identical circlets appeared inside the circuit, and the color of the flame changed, from a clear red to a deep orange. He had tried also tried creating a circlet outside the original circlet but noticed that the mana he used to create that circlet just faded away. It appeared that any additional circlets added to a circuit had to be inside the original circlet.

He managed to add three more circlets to increase the flame's temperature before there was no more space left in the circuit, and the flame's color had then changed into a scorching white. Satisfied, Ibras conjured up a few more similar flames and let them eat away at the bars of the door.

After a minute or so, the iron bars of the door had started glowing a bright red where the flames touched it and were slowly starting to lose their form. The child glanced at the cell door for a moment, before once again turning its attention to Ibras.

It took him a few more minutes, but eventually, the majority of the door had been destroyed along with the circuits that were etched into their base. On the ground was now a melted puddle of liquid metal. Having dismissed the flames, Ibras warily floated through the opening and into the cell.

The moment he did, the child pounced at him.