After her fight with the Fractured Warrior, Hazel took a moment to address the wound she received. Although increasing her Endurance stat managed to mitigate the pain, the burning sensation was still present as it continued to irritate the mage.

Grabbing a piece of her robe, she tore it off until it was long enough to be used as a wrap. She then proceeded to bandage her wound with it until it was completely covered.

Because there were no first-aid kits in the town, or at least in Hazel's current location, and there likely weren't going to be in any other landmass in the purple space dungeon, Hazel would just have to make do with a piece of her robe until she found something better.

Maybe there were Healing potions in the dungeon. That would be an amazing find. If there were and these potions were like the ones in the RPG she played, her injury would be healed in a second. Sadly, Hazel hadn't come across such an item yet. But, considering that this whole place gave off a fantasy aesthetic, it wouldn’t be a stretch if potions were hiding around in this place.

Anyway, with her wound more or less treated for the moment, her next task was a bit more challenging. And that was finding food and water. A day hadn't even passed by yet, and Hazel could feel her hunger and thirst getting the best of her.

Her mouth felt dryer than a desert while her hunger gnawed at her stomach. She could feel her insides churn and writhe in protest, demanding Hazel to provide it with food and fast. And if she didn't find something soon, she likely wouldn't survive long.

"This place is a Tavern, right?" She mumbled to herself while struggling to pull herself off the ground. "That means this place has to have food or something. I'll take anything at this point."

Using her staff as a cane, Hazel proceed to explore the Tavern. More specifically, the kitchen. She limped through the makeshift walkway leading into the kitchen thanks to the Fractured Warrior who kindly provided her with a direct path into it. However, as soon as she entered, her hopes of finding anything edible were immediately gone.

Instead of walking into an area filled with food and supplies, all she found was a ransacked kitchen as if a thief entered and torn the entire place inside out. There were broken barrels and shredded rut sacks scattered all over the floor along with various pots, pans, and wooden utensils like spoons, forks, etc.

Despite seeing the state of the kitchen, Hazel didn't give up yet and continued to search the room, desperate to find something. She then proceeded to look through every nook and crevice she came across. However, after looking at everything, Hazel's head hung low in despair after concluding that there was not a single ounce of food hidden in the kitchen. There weren't even any buckets of water that she could drink out of to quench her insatiable thirst.

"Dammit..." Hazel swore. "Why doesn't this place have anything I can consume? I'll take a small chunk of bread at this point!"

In a fit of rage, Hazel hurled a Mana Bolt at a nearby wall, creating a small crater from the impact. The mage barely paid any attention to it before marching out for the kitchen with a sullen expression. Returning to the lobby, she then took a deep breath to calm her nerves.

"Okay, Hazel, this place might not have food, but there had to be other places that did. You just have to find it."

Although her hunger and thirst were slowly getting to her, she could tell that it wasn't as severe as before. Could it be because of the Endurance Stat? Hazel figured that it would only lessen the pain of her wounds and make her body a little tougher. Then again, hunger and thirst did cause pain to a certain degree. Especially hunger considering how her stomach was writhing around right now.

It seemed that increasing her Endurance stat was a good choice after all. Hazel made a mental note to try and increase her Endurance stat as much as possible without impeding on her more vital ones like Intelligence and Wisdom.

Putting that aside for now, since the Tavern had no food, there was only one option left; searching the town for sustenance. Even if the Tavern was barren of nutrients, there was a possibility that she could find a shop that did have it.

With that in mind, Hazel left the tavern in search of food. Her eyes scanned the nearby buildings, trying to discern which place could have what she needed. Walking through the streets, the mage continued to look at every sign she came across to see if they said something about food like Bakery or Grocery Store. Hell, at this point, she would've accepted a picture of an apple or a piece of bread if it meant finding a place that had either.

Sadly, her food search was stopped short as soon as she turned a corner and stumbled across a Horde of monsters.

During her search, she soon stumbled across the same horde from the last time and attacked them before they had a chance to retaliate.

Hazel fired a consecutive stream of mana bolts, firing into the horde indiscriminately, and mowing them down one after another. Her vision was flooded with kill notifications, but she simply moved them aside for later. Not that she expected to level up so quickly from this horde just yet.

With each bolt she fired, that was another fractured human getting cracked further before shattering into particles and disappearing in the air. Hazel continued her onslaught for quite a bit before she was hit with a wave of exhaustion along with a splitting headache. That was her cue to stop.

Thanks to her conflict with the Fractured Warrior along with her current scuffle against the Horde, Hazel figured out what was causing her migraines. She was running low on mana. The headaches first appeared after Hazel spammed Mana Bolt at the first horde she encountered. Then it got worse while fighting the Fractured Warrior, especially after she showered it with mana bolts to finally kill it.

At first, she believed that this was just a coincidence, which is why she waited for the migraine to pass to test her theory. And as soon as the migraine returned while dealing with this horde, Hazel finally came to a conclusion regarding the matter. These headaches kept popping up because she was using too much mana. Her headaches were like a warning sign for her. Telling Hazel that she was reaching her limit in casting spells.

And the more mana she drew out, the more the headaches persisted. Much like how her skull was in agony after dealing with the Fractured Warrior. Hazel likely exceeded what her mana was capable of holding by spamming her Mana Bolt spell and suffered the consequences as a result. A very painful one, at that.

However, with this information, Hazel was now aware of her limit. As soon as she started getting another headache while casting spells, that was her cue to stop and wait until her mana was replenished. Which was why she halted her spell barrage against the Fractured Horde like before.

Pulling her staff away, Hazel quickly scanned the hordes' numbers, realizing that she had taken down a good amount of them before turning around and scurrying off. However, she only put some distance between them while keeping her eyes on them. She had a plan to deal with a few more before heading back to the tavern and recuperating.

Rushing through the streets, her eyes darted around the town, looking for something to help her take out more of the Fractured Humans without using up all of her mana. She then spotted a worn-down catwalk connected between two buildings. It was supported by wooden planks and looked very fragile to the point where just one attack could make it collapse.

Seeing that catwalk, an idea materialized in Hazel’s mind and she made a devilish smile. She abruptly stopped and ran down the path between the building, moving past the catwalk before halting after a couple of feet.

As Hazel spun around to face the horde, they soon appeared around the corner, immediately spotting the mage and limped their way over to her. As they did, she glanced at the catwalk along with the horde, waiting until they were right under it to put her plan into action.

A few moments passed until some of the horde finally got under the catwalk. Once they were in position, Hazel lifted her staff and fired a couple of mana bolts at the structure, crippling its support. Unable to maintain its position, the catwalk collapsed on the spot, crashing down on some of the horde, and making a loud racket in the process. Dust kicked up in the air, preventing Hazel from seeing the remaining horde.

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Once again, Hazel got a stream of messages from her kills, but she put them aside for now and kept her eyes peeled on the remaining Fractured Humans, in case they emerged from the dust. Her assumption was right as she heard the Fractured start to groan while limping out of the dust cloud, marching their way over to her.

“Yeah, I figured that attack wouldn’t have killed all of you,” Hazel mumbled, turning her heel and running away from the horde.

She wanted to keep killing the Fractured Humans and farm their XP, but she could tell that her mana was running low. She could feel a wave of fatigue overcoming her as her hands trembled while gripping her staff.

Hazel knew that it wasn’t from her running around. This was something else. It was like every time she cast a mana bolt, a bit of energy was drained from her body in response. If this continued any longer, Hazel feared that she would collapse from mana depletion, and that was the last thing she needed.

Which meant that it was time for Hazel to leave while she could.

Leaving the horde before things got sticky, Hazel roamed through the fractured town a little more, curious about what else was there. Looking around, she only saw some houses and shops, none of which piqued her interest. There was a Bakery that caught her eye since it had food, but as soon as she stepped foot in the shop, she knew there was nothing in the building. Much like the Tavern kitchen, the bakery was ransacked. It was deprived of anything sweet or savory, which meant Hazel was once again back to square one in finding food.

To make matters worse, she was slowly beginning to think that none of the buildings had food. And if that was the case, what the hell was she supposed to do?

On a brighter but confusing note, Hazel somehow managed to level up. After leaving the bakery, she pulled up her previous notifications to check out her progress and soon found this.

[You have leveled up! You are now Level 5!]

[Mana Bolt is now Rank 3!]

“Huh…?” Hazel cocked an eyebrow. “How did I reach level five? I don’t think I killed enough of the horde to get to that level yet.”

While Mana Bolt reaching Rank 3 seemed plausible and welcomed, Hazel held some doubt about her reaching Level five so early.

The Fractured Humans were mostly either level one or level two. And because of their low levels, Hazel knew for a fact that she didn’t kill enough of them to reach Level Five this soon. Out of curiosity, she looked through her messages while also keeping her ears perked up, listening to any threats that were nearby.

After some digging, Hazel realized that a couple of the Fractured Humans she killed were also Level three and four, so she likely got more experience from them which attributed to her leveling up again.

At first, she believed that those Fractured Humans were Fractured Classes like the Warrior from before, but thanks to her previous experience, that was unlikely since they were a lot stronger than an average Fractured. Plus, if they were Fractured classes, she would’ve had a more difficult time fighting them. Not getting one-shot by a Mana Bolt.

Still, all that mattered was that she got to level five. Only a few more levels left and she could attempt to take on the Cyclops from before. It was level ten, so she hoped that reaching that threshold would be enough to test her mettle. And since she was now level five, that also meant she had more points to invest in. At first, she wanted to increase her Intelligence stat some more or maybe even wisdom, but the painful rumbling of her stomach told her otherwise.

Her body lurched over as she wrapped her arms around her stomach, trying to ease the pain. While hunched over, Hazel immediately put all three points into Endurance. Soon after, the indescribable pain in her gut slowly faded again, allowing her a moment to relax. Only for her to frown at her situation.

"Dammit," Hazel swore under her breath. "Because of my hunger, I'm wasting my points on keeping the pain from getting worse."

Although her Endurance stat was helping her mitigate her hunger pangs, she hated how reliant she was on it now. By investing more in Endurance to ease her hunger pain, she was also crippling herself by not increasing her Mana and magic ability through Intelligence and Wisdom. And as a Mage, magic was her strong point, so she was pretty much stunting her growth in the process.

As she fretted over this, a new panel materialized before her.

[First Marker has been met! New skills available!]

“New skills?” Hazel’s eyes widened.

So, this was one of the ways she could obtain new skills. Hazel was curious about how she could learn more skills or spells. Now, she knew. But, to think she would hit her Marker so soon at just level five. Though, as long as she could obtain more skills, that was all that mattered at the moment.

Curious about what was available, Hazel took a look at the skills listed for her.

[Current Skills Available for Player to Determine Path]

Rank: 1

A blazing lance that can burn through the caster’s enemy with relative ease. If not immediately killed, the flames from the spear will continue to burn the opponent, damaging them over time. The cooldown is ten seconds.

Rank: 1

The basic art of necromancy that grants the Caster the ability to raise the dead from the available corpses to follow their every command. The undead minions are absolutely loyal to the caster and spiritually connected, allowing the caster to see what they see amongst other features. They can act as scouts, soldiers, or laborers. It is all up to the caster.

Rank: 1

Allows the caster to cast mana over their bodies, creating a durable armor that can protect them from physical and magical damage that you can move around with. It only lasts for ten seconds and the cooldown is thirty seconds.

Rank: 1

Gives the caster the ability to fire a sickle-like blade at their enemies. The sickle is made of cursed energy that damages the enemy over time. It’s a skill that is highly used by Witches. The cooldown lasts ten seconds.

There were four skills that Hazel could obtain, though only a couple of them interested her. Raise Dead was out of the question since she wasn’t trying to go down the necromancer route. Although her biggest problem was having no allies to help her fight, this skill wasn’t what she had in mind.

Even if she did, it was practically useless in this dungeon. The description for Raise Dead specifically stated that it could raise minions with available corpses. The monsters in this world shatter immediately after dying, leaving no fragments or remains, which also meant no corpses for Hazel to raise in the first place. If that wasn't the case, then she likely would've chosen this skill mainly so she didn't have to fight on her own.

Although the idea of raising the dead disturbed her, her main priority was surviving. Any else came secondary at the moment.

Next out would have to be Magic Armor. She already possessed the Mana shield skill, so having two types of defense in her current state would be pointless. The fact that she could move around with it active would certainly help her, but right now, she needed stronger attack spells. Plus, she was not a fan of the thirty-second cooldown.

She needed more firepower, which is why the last two skills looked more pleasing to the caster.

Flame Spear and Baneful Sickle. One lets you shoot a spear of fire, and the other allows you to cast a cursed blade that damages the attacker over time. Both were very solid options, in Hazel’s opinion.

Though, Hazel was curious about Baneful Sickle’s connection to witches. Since witches relied on curses and hexes, did that mean this skill was a type of curse? It did say that it was made of cursed energy, so that appeared to be the case. And that made this ability even more appealing for her.

Both spells caused damage over time, but there was something about Baneful Sickle that deeply intrigued Hazel. Almost as if she was drawn to the skill.

Regardless, she needed all the damage she could get to inflict on the Fractured creatures here, so this would certainly assist her in her future battles. Which meant the answer was pretty obvious.

“I choose Baneful Sickle.”

[You have chosen Baneful Sickle!]

[Baneful Sickle has been obtained!]

“Nice,” She grinned. “I’ll have to test this skill out soon.”

Looking away from her panels for a moment, her eyes spotted an interesting building up ahead. It was a two-story structure with a sign that said The Arcane Glyphs. Seeing the word Arcane, Hazel immediately deduced that this was some kind of magic shop as her eyes sparkled with anticipation.

Getting to the entrance, she opened the door and took a look inside. The first thing she saw was a cluttered mess with boxes, papers, and other materials scattered all over the floor; making it look like this place was ransacked during a robbery.

While entering the shop, to her left was what appeared to be a check-out counter with two bookshelves behind it; both of which were worn down and their shelves were broken, letting the books and other items placed on top collapse with them.

The interior of the shop wasn’t all that big. To make a comparison, it looked more like a small gift shop you would stumble upon at a hospital or something similar. Despite its size, that didn’t prevent Hazel from searching the store.

Who knew, maybe she’d stumble upon a magic book that could teach her a new spell. She already got Baneful sickle, but like the saying went; the more the merrier.

Hazel started rummaging through the boxes all over the room. She mostly found revenue papers regarding the progress of the shop along with shipping details for supplies and similar items like that.

Thankfully, she did find some magic books, but their contents mostly contained theories regarding magic. Still, the material was certainly vital for Hazel, so she still took them just in case.

She continued to scavenge through the shop, hoping to find something of use for her. After a bit of digging, she soon pulled out a crumbled-up piece of paper. It didn’t look interesting at first, but she still scanned the contents just in case it was something worthwhile.

And it certainly was…

Spell: Decay

A Grimoire page is a sheet of paper that only allows players of the Mage Class to obtain new spells without having to reach a Marker. Grimoire Pages are both rare to find and only possess one spell that a Player can learn, so you could find a powerful spell that could make you stronger or something completely useless depending on what kind of path a Player chooses.

[Would you like to learn the “Decay” spell? Y/N]

As soon as Hazel saw this panel, a wide grin appeared on her face. It looked like going into this shop was her best decision yet.