Pov: Cal

So I am now just jumping through the grasslands with the winds fluttering through my hair. I decided that I was no longer running when I had to periodically jump about 5 stories every time I touched the ground in order to avoid some nasty plant monsters. The blood red grasslands stretched out for all the way to the horizon. I couldn’t see the end to be honest. It was pretty depressing after seeing that because it only showed the true magnitude of that battle. The amount of death, destruction, and blood was enough to taint the entire grasslands and curse it into a hell-hole for carnivorous plants.

Afterwards, I got tired of jumping around continuously. My leg muscles were pretty strained, and I was at my limit. I bet you guys were thinking that I could just continue jumping just by supplying my legs with magic and healing any discomforts. Well… SORRY. Just having magic doesn’t make you freakin superman. There IS a limit on how much your physical body can get saturated with energy.

When I found a spot that seemed more or less safer judging by how there was less vegetation there, I readied a spell to burn down that area. I began to gather the magic power within me and laid out a path for the flame to follow and burn. Once that path was laid out, I slid my hands against each other to trigger the spell. I converted the mana into heat energy and essentially blowtorched that entire area. When I landed in the ashes, I felt a little woozy.

“Damn. I guess I am not used to using magic yet. Whew. It feels nice to have a break.”

Of course, I flipping jinxed it. As soon as I said that I felt the ground rumble.

“FFFFFuuuuu”

Immediately I jumped into the air when a whole forest of roots shot out of the ground. Well shit. I seemed to have forgotten that plants had roots. Sue me. I was tired. Sheesh. The roots were flailing wildly as it searched for the perpetrator. Thankfully, there seemed to be a limit on how far it could reach. I could have used some magic to manipulate the air so I could get out of here, but I was really tired. I REALLY wanted to take a small nap, and I was sick of these plants. I blowtorched the entire area again, and when I landed on the ground, I converted the latent left over mana from the spell to cause a chemical reaction in the soil causing it to harden and increased its salinity. It seemed that the plant lost it motivation to keep tracing its prey after that so I felt the ground rumbling as the remaining roots began retracting away from my area. I face planted into the soil since I used a crap ton of magic on my first day back in Terr, covered my surrounding with a small detection aura of magic, and fell asleep.

I wake up when I felt a disturbance in my mana field. It was around noon when that happened. Guess what disturbed my mana field? If you guessed plants, Ding Ding Ding, you get a point! If you guessed vines of a plant, Ding Ding Ding, two points! If you guessed “I don’t give a shit. I am running away while half awake”, you…………………………………. don’t get anything even though you guessed what I am thinking right now. I am not in the mood of giving away anything for guessing my thoughts regarding a crappy awakening.

Off I go on my jumping adventure again. Tears man. Tears. Dodging plants that want to eat me as my hunger started to gnaw at me. I haven’t eaten for a whole god damn day. I was also pretty thirsty too. I landed on the ground and tried to take a few minutes to catch my breath. Immediately, the plants starts attacking me with vines and roots so I had to jump once more. I couldn’t continue like this so I decided to gamble on something really stupid. I had to get out of this grassland fast. I highly doubted that there was anything edible in this place and probably no water as well. The plants probably made sure of that. So, I decided to………………….try my shadow walk again. I am not making much progress trekking through this grassland. I can’t even see the end in sight.

The backlash from the shadow spell is going to hurt a lot more than before because of the distance, but it is better than dying here. A cave formation that has a healing spring is my destination. It is the closest place that I can think of when I take into consideration my estimated (very rough) location, and I could use the healing spring to help treat my wounds that are bound to appear for traveling through a large amount of space by converting my body into a mana form and sliding through a manual bend of the space fabric facilitated by magic. The biggest gamble is that the cave formation still exists or else I am gonna be in some deep shit.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I prepared the spell and dived into the shadow that I cast onto the ground as I fell. When I reappeared on the other side, I started to cough out some blood, and my vision was clouded with the color red. My muscles were pretty messed up, and I am pretty sure that my leg isn’t supposed to point that way. So the good news is that I am still alive, out of the grasslands, and the cave formation still exists. The bad news is that the healing spring nearest to me is almost gone. The pool is pretty weak for I can’t sense that strong mana that a high quality pool gives off. At most, it would only heal part of my wounds.

I dragged myself over to the pool and submerged myself. At least, it was better than nothing. I breathed a sigh of relief as the depleted healing magic numbed my sense of pain and began to infuse magic into my body in order to speed up the healing process. But no amount of magic is going to set that leg back in place. I wedged myself on the walls. I got myself nice and comfortable so that even if I fell asleep I would not fall into the water. I prepped up my leg, braced it, and snapped it back in place. The last thing I remember thinking was “FUCK THAT HURTS” before I lost consciousness.

POV Third Person:

“Come on. I want to get this job over with. Let’s gather up that healing water and go back.” (Les)

“Jeez calm down. It isn’t like anyone is going to buy that stupidly expensive dagger. There isn’t any foolish reason to hurry.” (Adal)

“Adal is right. If we hurry, then we could might miss something and leave us vulnerable to ambushes. We are in the wilderness. You have to be careful.” (Trevor)

“There you go again Trevor. Preaching about constantly being on your damn guard. You know that this place isn’t known for having any dangerous or intelligent monster. I am confident that we can handle any ambushes from the dumbass monsters that live here. The only monsters we really have to worry about is the ones deep in the cave system. And speaking about the cave system we’re here.” (Blythe)

A group of four armed figures were approaching the entrance of a cave system. One was dressed like a ninja while another had a crossbow with a dagger hanging at her side. The man leading the front was equipped with a sword and a shield. The one leading up the back was equipped with what looked to be a staff and light leather armor.

“Hey Les. Can you scout out the position? See if there is any monsters.” (Trevor)

“If you get into any trouble, just rip that scroll that Adal gave. I’ll be sure to come running in with my crossbow.” (Blythe)

“You mean after Trevor marches in first. Right?” (Adal)

“Okay. I don’t want to hear that from a backline fighter like you.” (Blythe)

“Snort. I don’t always stick to fighting in the back. Sometimes I do fight in the front lines with Trevor.” (Adal)

“You mean after you waste some time to put layer upon layer of preparation spells. Right?” (Blythe)

“Guys. I’m back. You’re going to want to see what I found.” (Les)

The group slowly entered the cavern while Adal used [Illuminate] in order to light up the caverns. Water was continuously dripping down from the stalactite, and little streams were flowing throughout the narrow corridors. Suddenly, the cavern opened up into a large underground pond that had a soft atmosphere of mana.

“So what was it you wanted to show us our mysterious little Lulu.” (Blythe)

“Call me little Lulu again, and you are going to have a couple of dart sticking out of that head of yours and give you another pair of long ears.” (Les)

“Pfff. Are you still angry about what that drunk man said to you when he was trying to hit on me? Maybe you should try taking off that hood. Then he wouldn’t confuse you as a man.” (Blythe)

“No. And that guy was drunk. I don’t need to get angry at a drunk guy.” (Les)

“So. Les. What was that thing you wanted to show us?” (Trevor)

“Oh. It’s not a thing, but a he. I found a guy knocked out while half submerged in the pool.” (Les)

“Say what? Could you repeat that?” (Adal)

“Sigh. I’ll just show him to you guys.” (Les)

They walked around the pond until they found a guy wedged in between two rocks near the shore. He had black hair and was fairly well built. The only problem was that it looked like he had been through hell. His clothes were all ripped, and although his skin looked fine, the water surrounding him was completely dark red.

“Wow. I can’t imagine what this guy must have looked like before he was in the pool.” (Blythe)

“Shush. Hey Trevor. What should we do? Should we just leave him here?” (Adal)

“Hey. That’s kinda cruel you know.” (Blythe)

“Look. This guy is a complete stranger, and we don’t even know who the hell he is. Are you telling me that we should help him? Even though we don’t know a single thing about him?” (Adal)

“But obviously this guy needs help. Look, the pool here is pretty weak. If he lost that much blood, he must have been pretty heavily wounded. Also, I am pretty sure he has also sustained some internal injuries as well, especially with the way he is breathing right now. Look. We should help him.” (Blythe)

“Jeez. Why are you so adamant about helping him? Who cares about this guy?” (Adal)

“Cause I am curious about him! I have never seen those types of clothes anywhere in this region! I really want to learn more about this guy! Besides wouldn’t you say that it would be nice if this guy owed us a favor?” (Blythe)

“I highly doubt that him owing us a favor would do neither of us any good. Blythe.” (Adal)

“Guys. He is waking up.” (Les)