Stygian Mage

Soren slowly moved through the rough terrain of the forest. He had already told Isaac to record everything and create a rough map so that he wouldn’t get lost easily.

He was continuously observing his surroundings as he moved; he checked the herbs, fruits or any trails left behind by anyone.

Sometimes he had to cut branches and sometimes he had to move them aside to walk forward; he used his survival knife for that which was not really suitable and made it a tough work. He did not have even a little bit of survival experience before coming to this world but he was learning very quickly—He needed to learn quickly.

He sometimes used the vines or sometimes had to crawl and climb an elevated area.

Soon, he saw a yellow colored flower, halfway on a small cliff. It was one of the required herbs he had to collect—though he didn’t know its name and didn’t care for it right now.

He climbed using the vines, which were hanging from the cliff, and picked the flower carefully. He then jumped down from there directly as it was not that high.

After keeping the flower in his backpack safely, in a container given by the Hunter’s Association for the herbs, he again continued his journey while staying alert: He had been on alert from the moment he had entered the forest.

………….

Suddenly, he heard a voice in front of him. He stopped his footsteps and focused on that direction. Crouching down, he slowly made his way forward. As he neared, he heard the sound more clearly.

It sounded like someone was nibbling on something. He carefully walked forward with light steps and used his hands to distribute his weight evenly.

He was in the jungle to train and earn money so he couldn’t run from danger this time. He closed in and moved the bushes for a clear view.

He saw a brown beast standing there and eating something that was lying on the ground. As Soren looked carefully, he found that it was a boar; a big brown boar.

It was 2 meters tall and around 1.5 meters long. Its brown fur looked like hard needles. It had two sharp tusks that felt more like lances. Those tusks had completely turned red right now. It also had a small bulge on his head like something was growing there.

There was a corpse of an animal that looked like a common wildebeest lying down on the ground in front of the boar.

Soren’s heartbeat increased slightly upon witnessing the scene but he managed to calm himself down: This was not the first time he had faced a beast in this world.

Soren controlled his breathing and lifted his right palm and quickly released his Soul Form: His Stygian Grimoire.

It had an effect of highly amplifying his spellcasting ability: Increasing the spell power and decreasing casting time.

Although it might have more effects, as of now, Soren only had knowledge of these two.

He quickly cast ‘Shadow Chain’: A black chain, with a sharp end, came forth from the shadow and rushed towards the brown beast.

Swoosh!

The chain then pierced the boar’s thick left front leg successfully and entangled itself around the beast.

The boar roared in pain and anger and turned towards the source of it. The chain was not strong enough to stop it completely and was broken very soon as it rushed towards Soren at full speed with those tusks in front of it acting like two deadly lances.

Soren was already prepared though: He dived to the right doing a roll and shot an ‘Ice Arrow’ at the beast during the process.

Swoosh!

The ice arrow pierced the boar in the side of his neck with force.

Although it did not pierce deep enough to kill it, it was enough for Soren. The boar wailed and cried in pain and started to thrash around. Soren quickly stood up and took the battle position again. He looked at the beast with calm eyes and then….snapped his fingers.

Boom!

The Ice Arrow exploded and destroyed the beast’s neck completely. Bloody pieces of meat, flesh, windpipe, and bones splattered around and fell on the ground with a dull sound. Blood sprayed everywhere and the green grass on the ground turned red.

A silent cry left the beast’s throat as it took its last breath: It fell down on the ground with a thud.

Soren finally released his breath that he was holding until now and cleaned off the dust from his clothes. He then walked towards the beast while staying alert at all times.

Soon, he saw dense white mist slowly rising from the corpse. As he focused his eyes, he noticed the same dense, but a little sparse, white mist coming from the corpse of the dead wildebeest: He already knew it was mana.

He also knew that mana would get visible to common people’s eye once it gets dense enough but the amount released by the beasts was nowhere near enough.

He knew the reason he could see it was because of his eyes.

His Primary Bloodline had given him this ability that was related to his eyes. He didn’t see any explanation for this ability yet so he had decided to call it---‘Powered Vision’.

…………

Soren quickly used ‘Devour’ as he didn’t want to waste this opportunity.

The white mist surged and soon rushed towards the black book. Then it turned into a black mist which surrounded Soren and slowly entered his body.

He stood there, enjoying the feeling of mana filling up his body and soul. The counter started rising slowly.

3%...7%.....15%.....30%…..37%

It slowed down around 37% as the white mist became sparse and dispersed in the air.

He was already content with this amount though. He had just started his hunt and this was his first prey. Though, he was a little regretful about not having any spell that could seal the mana in the Beast Core which could save him the trouble of staying around his kill and cultivate before the mana disperses.

He dispersed the Grimoire and walked towards the beast. He took out his survival knife and cut open the boar’s head trying to look for a core; he was looking for the Beast Core.

A Beast’s Core was its Mana Source.

When someone died, the mana in their Mana Source dispersed in the atmosphere with time unless someone sealed it before that happened.

An empty Mana Source was not useless though, just less precious than the Mana Source filled with mana.

Before when Soren had killed that black beast in the forest, he had no idea about this stuff so he had missed on the core, if the beast had any.

But now he had a moving information bank with him: Isaac.

Soren forced open the skull, the blood and brain matter getting all over his hands and face, and took out a bean-sized yellow colored core.

He cleaned it with his T-shirt and stored it in his backpack. He then removed the brain matters from his face and got up; ready to leave.

He opened some messages that he had ignored when he was practicing spells before while walking. 

[Spell Mastery increased. Ice Arrow – Level 3/10.]

[Spell Mastery increased. Cold Touch – Level 2/10.]

[Spell Mastery increased. Acid Splash – Level 3/10.]

[Spell Mastery increased. Shadow Chain – Level 3/10.]

He had leveled up all his spells except for the ‘Create Undead’. After looking through the messages he opened his status.

 

Status: Healthy
Rank 0: Layer 2 [37%]
Name: Soren Farrow	Species: Human		Attribute: Darkness & Ice
Health: 100%	Stamina: 80%		Mana: 35%
Strength: 0.90	Agility: 1.20		Vitality: 1.66
Intelligence: 3.20	Spirit: 2.80		Resistance: 1.11
Spells:
Spell Vessels: 5/5		Innate Spells/Skills:
Ice Arrow [6/7] – Level 3/10.  Mana Cost – Average. ------------   Cold Touch [4/4] – Level 2/10.  Mana Cost – High. ------------   Acid Splash [6/6] – Level 3/10.  Mana Cost – Average. ------------   Shadow Chain [3/4] – Level 3/10.  Mana Cost – High. ------------   Create Undead – Low Tier [3/3] – Level 0/15.  Mana Cost – Very High. ------------

 

So the mana that I absorb using ‘Devour’ and the mana I use for spellcasting are different?

If we have to make an analogy, it would be that it’s similar to a glass of water. The mana that was cultivated using ‘Devour’ was used as the energy to develop, upgrade and strengthen the Mana Source: Mana Source was also called Mana Core sometimes.

And the mana he used afterward was like the water that filled the glass. As the Mana Source got stronger, the quality and quantity of his mana would increase.

……..

Soren moved along the forest while thinking about this topic.

He also found a few herbs he needed for the job. While moving, his mana reserve also slowly recovered.

After reaching a considerable distance from his battle site, he suddenly stopped and remembered something.

Fuck!!

Soren soon cursed as he knew the mistake he did—He had forgotten to take out the Beast Core of the already dead beast. That beast was still releasing mana so it still had a core but Soren completely forgot about it. Although the beast was quite weak and its core without mana would not sell for much, it was still an income for Soren.

Now, he couldn’t go back as some time had already passed and he knew he would have to face more trouble if he went back.

Cursing a bit more, he decided to forget about it and move on.

……..

Walking forward, he soon saw some trails. They looked like that of a small human but with only three toes; he found three trails in total.

Although he wasn’t an expert on trailing someone from just by their footsteps, neither was the other party on erasing them.

Soren followed the trail as it looked fairly fresh. Slowly he reached a small clearing.

He moved forward with light steps and pressed himself against a tree. He peered out slightly to spy on the creatures that had left the trail.

He saw three green creatures sitting around a campfire and roasting something that looked like a rabbit.

The green creatures had sharp teeth and pointy ears. They were around 100~120 centimeters in height and had wooden clubs as their weapon that was the same size as them.

Goblins!

Soren knew about them from the information he had gathered before. They were one of the intelligent beings but had very low status—barely counted as an intelligent being.

Most of the intelligent species were hostile to each other outside of any settlement and would attack on sight.

Soren also didn’t hesitate had already decided to kill them to increase his own power.

Soren adjusted his position and quickly released the Stygian Grimoire. He then tried to cast Shadow Chain stealthily but this time….he failed.

As he lifted his palm, a Goblin sitting on the left suddenly noticed him and screeched in a high pitch voice.

SHRIEK!!!

Only one word went through Soren’s mind upon hearing that screech.

Shit!

The three Goblins quickly got on their feet and picked up their wooden clubs. They screeched sharply and shot towards Soren.

“KILL!!”

“KILL!!”

“KILL!!”

They shouted in unison while dashing forward.

Soren quickly backed off a few steps and casted Ice Arrow towards the ground in front of the three.

The ice arrow flew straight at a high speed and pierced the ground right in front of their path.

The three Goblins were startled at first but soon laughed and mocked Soren. They didn’t care about the ice arrow anymore and again dashed towards Soren.

As soon as they got closer to the ice arrow though, Soren snapped his fingers and made it explode.

Boom!

Small shards of ice blasted around and pierced their bodies at high speed. Although it didn’t do much damage, it was enough for buying Soren some time.

“Ahhh! I’ll kill you human!”

“Fight fairly--you coward“

The Goblins shouted in pain.

Soren again backed off a little and cast Shadow Chain.

Swoosh!

As the Goblins were flustered from the small ice shards, they didn’t see the black chain coming for them. It pierced one of their legs and then bounded and entangled all of them, making them unable to move.

“AHHH!”

A scream came out from one of the Goblins.

Soren didn’t let this chance go. He again casted Ice Arrow and as soon as it got closer to them, he made it explode again for the AOE damage.

Boom!

He decided it was more important to decrease all of their ability slightly than to highly damage one and leave the other two completely intact.

As the shards again pierced their bodies, they screeched in pain and hatred.

SCREECH!!!!

Soren gritted his teeth and tried casting ‘Acid Splash’ but this time what welcomed him….was a severe, stabbing headache: He was running low on mana.

He was left with no choice now.

The Goblins were still bound with the Shadow Chain and were struggling hard. As he had used only one cast of the shadow chain for the three of them, it was not going to hold them for long.

“Tch”

He clicked his tongue in frustration and ran, fighting off his headache.

Soon, he heard high pitched screeches closing in his direction. He knew that the Goblins were free now.

He ran at full speed trying to think of any measure. He dodged the trees and evaded them in a clumsy manner. He wasn’t athletic to start with and adding on the headache made him unable to perform well. He even used all of his limbs at one point to run where the ground was elevated. He panted and gasped for air while running and kept looking back at the ones chasing him from time to time.

Soon he reached a cliff.

He stopped there while gasping for air and then noticed some vines hanging off it.

He quickly formed an idea in his mind and after gathering his breath slightly, he started to climb that cliff using the vines.

He used all of his remaining strength to climb the cliff. It took him a while but he finally reached halfway.

As he reached there, he found a rock platform.

He latched onto it with his hand and pulled himself up. After struggling for a moment, he finally got up and rolled on the platform in a pathetic manner, getting dust all over himself.

After gathering his wits, he finally noticed that there was a cave behind that platform. But he didn’t have time to think about that right now so he quickly focused on what was urgent.

He peered down from the platform slightly to check on his pursuers. It didn’t take him long before he spotted them.

They had just arrived at the bottom of the cliff. They noticed him too and soon started jumping and shouting in anger.

“Get down here--you coward.”

“Get down here or I will kill you--you asshole.”

“Get down here, human scum!”

This went on for few minutes.

They finally noticed the vines after shouting for a while and tried to climb using them but soon found out that it was impossible to do so while holding a wooden club in one hand.

The three Goblins then started to mock Soren hoping he would get down.

Alas…they didn’t realize that they were the stupid ones here.

Seeing that Soren had no intention to come down, they threw their clubs away in frustration and started to climb the vines.

“Hehehe. Wait for us—stupid human!”

“I am going to cut you to pieces when I get there!”

They laughed in an eerie manner while climbing and kept threatening Soren.  

Soren was sitting on the platform, trying to recover his mana all this time.

He had no time to accompany these three green idiots in their stupid play. He ignored their mocking and threatening comments and just focused on his recovery.

Before when he was casting the Acid Splash, his mana had reached a very low point -- 4%. After some recovery, it had reached around 29%.

As the Goblins climbed, Soren’s mana also recovered.

Soon it reached 36%.

At this point, Soren broke out of his concentration and finally focused on the three Goblins. They had already climbed quite far and were about to reach the platform.

Soren quickly took out his survival knife and went for the vines that the Goblins were using to climb.

“NO!!!!”

“Don’t do it human!!!”

“Fight us fairly—You Fucking Asshole!!!”

They quickly noticed Soren’s actions and wailed desperately, trying to ‘persuade’ him in their own words.

But Soren didn’t even pay attention to them and cut off the vines in one shot so as to not give them enough time to grab another one.

The platform itself was quite high but it was not high enough to kill anyone if they fell down but even then---it would hurt a lot and do some severe damage.

The Goblins started to fall down together with the vines that were cut off. They cried and wailed all the way down and fell down on the ground with a loud dull sound.

FA—THUD!!

Loud screams were heard, followed by some groaning sounds.

Soren quickly stood up and hurled an Ice arrow in their direction. It flew down at high speed and the moment it reached them, Soren made it explode again.

Boom!

The ice arrow shattered with a loud noise and the shards flew towards the already injured Goblins, piercing them without any remorse.

They were already damaged from the previous fight so this time they became severely wounded.

They were bleeding from all over their bodies and had multiple broken bones. They did not even have strength left to shout anymore.

Their injuries stacked together and finally made them completely immobile, unable to even shout.

Soren took a final look at them and then started climbing down using the vines. He tried to hurry up as he was quite anxious about their status and was worried they would heal by the time he reached them.

Of course, that was not possible unless they had extremely high ‘Vitality’.

He soon reached the ground and went towards them. He was constantly on high alert as he walked over.

He was finally relieved to find that they were severely injured and were unable to even say anything.

He then noticed the expression of hate on their faces: If they had energy left to move, they would have torn Soren to pieces.

Alas…the reality was different.

Soren released a long breath and then took out his knife. He then crouched down and held the first Goblin’s head back as he pierced his knife slowly in its throat.

One!

His hands were trembling and his breath was chaotic when he pierced the first Goblin’s throat. He felt slightly disgusted when warm blood sprayed on his face.

He then repeated the same process for the other Goblins too.

Two!

As he pierced the second one, his shivering lessened and his heart calmed down. His breathing also got into a rhythm but he was still slightly disgusted by the warm blood spraying on his face.

Three!

When he pierced the third throat, his hand was completely stable. He was breathing normally and his heart was beating at a normal pace. The blood on his face felt like lukewarm water to him; just with a iron taste.

He was slowly getting used to the killings. His hands and face were completely dyed red from blood. He then cut open their skulls and took out three different colored cores of bean size.

He wasn’t going to miss them this time.

The size of the core completely depended on their cultivation level: The creatures Sore had encountered all had Rank 0 cultivation level. They were not that much stronger than Soren: All of them were around 2^nd to 3^rd Layer of Rank 0.

Soren then cleaned and stored the cores in his backpack.

He bound the corpses together using the vines and got ready to climb up again. He climbed up slowly this time and took few breaks during.

He reached the platform after a while and sat there, trying to recover his stamina. He then bent down and started to pull the corpses that were bound by the vines.

He was going to do some research for his next spell ‘Create Undead’.