Valthar's legs shook like a newborn fawn by the time he reached the sixth floor.
In front of him a large hallway stretched out with five rooms on each side.
A large contrast to the lower floors who had up to two dozen rooms squished into each side.
Trembling he dragged himself to the end of the hallway and finally reached room 606.
The door was a soft brown and on its surface a few magical runes could be seen.
With a lost gaze Valthar stared at them with a frown.
Had it been a few days ago he could identify what they did in minutes, but now without mana veins he could only watch their glow wax and wane.
'From their shapes there are runes from all four basic elements; water, fire, air and earth.'
And sadly, that was how far he could understand them.
If they served for temperature control, air purification or mana conduits for runes inside of the room, it might be any of those or none of them.
And the worst part was Valthar had the knowledge of each and every one of those runes, yet without his mana veins this knowledge was kept out of reach.
Like a part of himself was just gone.
Frustrated, he pressed the key into the lock.
A pulse of magic rippled through the door before the lock opened for itself.
*tch!
"One of them is a magical lock then." He clicked his tongue and mumbled.
The door opened and a cozy apartment revealed itself.
Made mostly out of wood the room had a mix of soft and dark browns that felt comfortable in the eyes.
With a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen and even a meditation room it was miles better than the simple small room on the second floor.
Valthar liked it very much… except for one thing.
A marble fireplace built beside the bed, just seeing its white color brought a sour taste to Valthar's mouth.
A symbol of the Church, one many believed to bring protection against the demon kind.
With a shaky breath Valthar limped to a balcony that stretched from end to end on the apartment front.
His eyes stared to the sky as the sun slowly approached the horizon.
Looking down he saw the city stretch a few tens of kilometers further before it hit the sea of trees that surrounded it.
To the center of the city he found the commerce area, a few bustling streets filled to the brim with tents and people.
Not very far from there he could see the Church, built in imposing marble with numerous priests moving about.
'Emberheart city is bigger than I thought.' He thought, watching as people walked around as if the demon extermination a week ago had never happened.
But Valthar knew it was just an illusion.
On his way to Warmheart Inn he heard many talk about it in hushed tones and some with thicker skin even dared to brag about fighting corrupted animals with their bare hands during the lockdown.
'Emberheart city, hopefully the rest of my stay here won't be as bad as my first impression.'
Valthar scoffed and trudged to the bed.
Though he had been in a coma for a week and just woke up a few hours ago his body already felt as heavy as a rock.
Worse yet since the church didn't serve food and Valthat refused to pull life energy from innocent people, his life energy reserves had long been completely assimilated by his energy ring.
With that the ring formation had slowed to a crawl but right now he could barely move his body much less go out to collect life energy.
In quiet rest afternoon and night gave way to a new morning.
*
Under morning light Valthar trudged his way to the forest.
His body felt weak and heavy, each step was a struggle and after every few minutes he was forced to score against a building and catch his breath.
It was uncomfortable, painful even and to top it off he could feel eyes following his walk everywhere he went.
If he had not his life sense he might worry someone discovered him, that maybe the Church only released him as a test.
But sensing the life energy in those who stared Valthar didn't detect suspicion or alarm, but pity.
With a scoff he did his best to ignore them as he made his way towards the forest.
*
At the edge of the forest Valthar sat by the roots of a tree.
It had taken him more than an hour just to drag himself here and he knew this was just the start.
With closed eyes he leaned against the trunk and carefully commanded a slice of its life energy into himself.
While in theory he could suck a couple trees dry and be done with it, Valthar simply did not dare to.
He had paid enough for stupid decisions and he refused to make the same mistake again.
With shaky muscles he rose up from the tree roots and limped to another tree.
Then another and another.
Not daring to enter deep in the forest, Valthar slowly moved around the edge of the city.
With time to sit and watch he could see how different this place was to the area around Church, even the area around Warmheart Inn was leagues above this place.
In many words, the people with money, strength or connection all lived close to the center of the city.
In the center you could find the Church, the city guards quarters and even the adventurer's guild was built there.
Needless to say the streets there were cleaner, safer and comfortable to the eyes.
On the other hand the edge of Emberheart was where the poor, weak and sketchy people lived.
Houses were a rare sight as poorly built shacks filled every street.
Here and there one could see groups of people chit chatting and drinking on the street.
Not a few were the times Valthar saw people laid down on the dirty street, he guessed they were either homeless or hammered.
In a few words, the edge of the Emberheart city is a slum.