(Chapter 3) Determination

From all directions howling gusts of winds assaulted me. I couldn’t see anything as there was no light and everything was pitch black with only the demonic howls of the wind keeping me company. I had my arms folded into my chest and was walking around aimlessly in this abyss. I don’t know where I was and yet for some reason I couldn’t stop moving my body forward. There was some sort of force compelling me to keep moving……

Then all of a sudden a large amount of candles appeared out of nowhere and made a row in front of me and near the end of the row, far off into the distance I saw a door….

My body stopped moving and again, some sort of mysterious force slowly affected me and made me look down…

From the small light of the candles I noticed that underneath my feet was also a candle, only that it was extinguished.

Then all of a sudden bright red smoke started appearing from the first candle in front of me and slowly took the shape of a giant demon and rushed at me!

“No!”

-“Gasp!” my body slowly rose into a sitting position as I woke up, my dream still fresh in my mind.

“What…. A strange dream…” I muttered.

I looked around still a little confused from my dream and noticed that the body of the cyclops lay not too far away from me. I remember that I had collapsed on the floor of the ruins after my fight with the monster.

 I noticed that most of my body was caked with dirt and dried blood and that I was aching all over. When I went to stand up I found that I couldn’t do so as pain shot through my body from the simplest of movements.

I probably have a few cracked ribs, they are the biggest problem because over time all my other injures will heal but cracked ribs will take at least two or three months to heal without magic…

I smiled bitterly, the fact that I had passed out after killing the monster meant that its soul had long since left. Without a soul I wouldn’t be able to do any death magic…. As for using my own spiritual energy to use death magic, that would be impossible without the necromancers ritual initiation first. The main requirement for the ritual was a fresh soul too.…

“Soul… I need to kill something and use its soul… it can’t be anything weak either…”

This meant that I would somehow need to defeat the second guardian and be in a good enough condition after the battle to do the ritual…

Suddenly I was hit by a wave of dizziness and started feeling hungry all of a sudden. Ugh, I need to eat something before doing anything else. After that I will think about how to proceed from here.

I looked at the body of the cyclops. Hmmm…. If I have something sharp I can cut it open, eating raw meat is disgusting but I don’t think have any choice right now and I’ve done it before…

I started crawling slowly to a fallen pillar nearby and after reaching it, I used it as leverage to slowly lift myself up. There was some pain but when I got onto my feet it became easier. I then shuffled forward to the other side of the cyclops’s body and found what I was looking for.

It was the giant axe that the cyclops used as a weapon, the axe was way too heavy for me to lift but at the end of its handle was a chain attached to a sharp bladed ornament similar to a handle-less dagger.

I then knelt down and unattached the blade from the chain and moved towards the body of the monster. Now was the gruesome part. I didn’t want to eat much raw meat, just enough to sate my hunger for now.

--20 minutes later—

Ugh, that was gross, monster meat in general tastes bland but this monster tasted just like fleshy cardboard….

Now that my hunger was somewhat sated out from just a small portion of leg meat, it was time to inspect my spiritual energy.

Earlier, due to hunger and because I was underestimating the trial I hadn’t bothered with training myself a little so I could at least utilize some elementary magic. But now that I knew how difficult it was going to be for me to advance I had to do it

I couldn’t use death magic as the nature of the magic was violent and you needed to absorb the soul of another too withstand it. But simple elemental and law magic at least I would be able to train myself to use. It would take me at least three months to cultivate my mana to be strong enough to defeat the cyclops one on one without being so desperate but at the moment I had no options but to be patient and slowly grow my strength.

At the same time I also had to wait for my ribs to heal. Okay let’s see here, being a specialist my understanding of magic other than death magic was actually really pitiful. I knew how to use fire magic the best, second was my proficiency with ice magic.

As for healing magic, water magic, and earth magic, I had no insights or knowledge in those. It’s really ironic that I had never bothered learning any healing magic since my death magic had its own ability to repair the body using the souls of others….

It was actually just conceited of me, thinking back, I was being far too over confident. Since I lived in hell and was surrounded by countless souls to use Soul Restore I never bothered preparing for situations where I would be in a place with no nearby souls like this Heavens Dungeon….

I also wasn’t able to manipulate my soul energy, as the requirement to be able to manipulate it and cultivate it also required you to absorb another soul first….

But it’s not all that bad. My understanding of law magic was also fairly narrow but I was an expert in body strengthening magic, using your mana to enhance your strength! This was the most important magic to me right now and because I was also a martial arts I had learned this magic. Body strengthening meant that my weak body would have exponentially better attack and defense! This was vital!

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I walked into the center of the ruins and sat down on the floor with my legs crossed and began to meditate.

My spiritual energy was very weak… I remember that as soon I absorbed the soul all those years ago it tripled my mana but right now I have even worse spiritual energy than when I was 5 years old in hell. This was because the god-blood was removed from me and I am just a normal mortal now.

This meant that it would be even harder to cultivate and grow my mana….. But at least the way to cultivate was very simple!

All you had to do is use any sort of magic till your mana was completely exhausted! I took a deep breath and focused my mind, using magic the first time was always the hardest…

Deep within myself I had to first sense my spiritual energy, I already knew what its presence felt like so I had an advantage over a total novice but…..

Only after 10 whole minutes did I finally reach my goal! Yes! I slowly started converting my mana into magic by willing it to obey my command and make what I was visualizing a reality. And then….slowly….. A small flame appeared in my hands!

--- 2 Months later ---

I look around at all I have accomplished and feel a little proud over all my work, after I managed to use magic it had been slow progress but I had now reached a decent level.

I had used ice magic to slowly freeze the entire body of the Monster to preserve it and then I ate it slowly, little by little every day. There now was only a small amount of meat left as using mana constantly had increased my appetite.

Also, using fire magic and the nearby sticks from the trees I had been able to cook the meat and only had to eat raw meat for the first 3 days, but the biggest improvement is that I managed to make myself a weapon!

I was currently wrapped in a cloak that I had managed to make from the cloth that was on the cyclops and had a large spear tied on my back! The spear took me a lot of time to make and the process was also exhausting.

Using ice magic I slowly froze the monsters axe and then broke it into three parts. I used the bottom most part of the handle to work on making myself a spear. The handle was also too thick for me to use so I had to cut it in half!

Using ice magic, body strengthening and the blade as a pick I was slowly able to cut the handle through the middle but now came the hard part!

I had to hammer away at one of the halves of the handle until it caved into itself using a hammer like tool made from another part of the axe attached to a stone from the ruins using some cloth as rope.

It took hours to complete but finally I had a piece of metal that I could hold in my hands! Then I had to figure out some way to attach the blade to the handle….

I didn’t have any rope but I remembered that rope was made from fibers found within plants. After that it took me a whole month to figure out how to make rope. I had to constantly experiment using the leaves from the trees nearby and plants I found but I managed to gain a few insights into where the fiber was and using both magic and effort I managed to eventually make enough rope to work with.

Then I used the rope to attach the blade onto my spear…. Now I had a weapon and I was also I able to use body strengthening magic too lift around 150 pounds with both hands, albeit with a lot of effort…

My strength was lacking considering I was only as strong as a normal mortal man but… my defense was considerably better! I was confident now that I could at least exchange blows with the cyclops using magic, body strengthening and my martial arts insights!

As for my magic, I could freeze things, but very slowly, I was able to create a small fireball but unable to throw it as that required insights into either special magical incantations or wind magic…. Mortal mages might know the incantations but I knew of none besides those involved with death magic.

But although right now my magic didn’t seem very practical for battle I was confident that it would be helpful!

Imagine if somehow I was able to get in contact with my enemy, I now would be able to burn or freeze them! My magic could end up saving my life, it’s all about how it’s applied, even the smallest fireballs or the slowest ice magic if used effectively can mean the difference between life and death.

I had also practiced a lot with my spear and got more used to my body and how strong I was, I am now able to use the spear very well and although my body was slow to adjust to all the fast movements and techniques I was trying to execute, using body strengthening magic I was able to achieve good results.

Now it was time. There was nothing else left for me here so I decided that…..it’s time to challenge the next guardian!

I stood silently in front of the rope bridge, before clearing my throat and saying

“Death, just you wait and see, I promise that I will kill every single guardian and earn my right to a second life…..this is my determination! I will win and come out alive!”

I smirked and then with my cloak billowing all around me, I entered the mist...

---Yuzu here, sorry for the short chapter but I felt like this would be a good part to end it, tomorrow most likely double chapters! Maybe more! Hope you’re all excited for the battle that is too come….