The smell of blood condensed in the cave's air.
Adriel was on his knees before a weapon stuck in the stone; his completely broken katana had been wedged into the stone. 'It's probably impossible to recover it.'
He didn't bother thinking that he could recover his weapon. The semi-oni's body was still there with its ribcage wide open.
'I hope I'm close to the boss,' he thought as he summoned the system; before him appeared the window that seemed to tear through space, with that white color as pure as the emptiness of space.
He went straight to the shop section and began searching. 'I still have some money...' His eyes shone at the sight of food; he was quite hungry, but it was bearable, so he searched until he found healing potions.
'Damn, this is all I have left.' He bought only one and drank half of it.
His sides closed together and many of his minor wounds disappeared, leaving him in an optimal state to fight again.
He let himself fall to the ground, sitting far from the corpse. 'Lately I've used dash a lot, and even so, I don't feel tired. Following this, it's likely that the skills are more powerful than I thought; they're capable of creating momentum and stopping it.'
'There are no stats for stamina or magic, maybe there are for magic, but I still don't have magic...'
Adriel remained in total silence while observing his hand intensely; he felt a strange tingling in his body. 'Skills are obtained by wanting something a lot or getting a package; these have to do with your class, but what would happen if I discovered how magic works and fervently wished to have it?'
He smiled from ear to ear; his heart beat harder than before; a tremendous emotion he hadn't felt in a long time took over his body.
His breathing remained calm, though not completely regular.
The hunter's excitement made him close his eyes and lean against the nearby stone wall. 'There must be a magic core somewhere in the body, but first I must decide what magic to learn.'
A hunter—what magic does a hunter need? 'It would be very unlikely to get complicated magic; I'd better focus on a base element... Lightning.'
'Hunters must be lethal and fast as lightning; therefore, that element is perfect.'
He simulated the feeling of the discomfort of an electric discharge machine in his body, passing that feeling inside himself through various places, searching for the core of magical power.
Soon it reached his heart; mentally he kept thinking the same thing: I want lightning magic.
A real discharge struck his heart, knocked the air out of him, and made him open his eyes in fright.
"Congratulations, you have received a Passive skill: Electrifying Heart. Description: The source of your magic is in your veins, blood, and mainly in your heart, being able to use only lightning magic."
"Hah. I'm a genius."
He opened his fingers wide, thinking about how an electric discharge passes between them. The image came true and somewhat hot energy came out from the sides of his fingers, connecting them.
"I lose one thing, but I get something much better. I think buying another weapon once I get out would be a good idea."
He continued forward with a smile, touching a wall and opening the third room of the dungeon.
This time a gigantic landscape was seen upon passing the threshold; the smell of burning was detectable everywhere.
It was gigantic, an irregular battlefield with a large rise like stairs toward a particular place.
Darkness covered the rest; everything that could be a mushroom was charred and the moss went through the same story.
The young man's brow furrowed; on the ceiling there was something strange, a pair of large eyes staring at him fixedly.
He felt a hunch and dashed to the right, then summoned his bow and shot an arrow where he saw the eyes.
A crack was heard through the cave and the arrow fell to the ground split in two.
The ceiling rock fell little by little while a constant pounding vibrated in the rock.
A thing with big eyes and a small nose without a trace of hair settled in front of Adriel. 'What is that?'
It opened its small mouth and spoke; its voice was old and raspy. "A human? Strange..."
'The system is translating it; there's no way that thing is speaking a known language.'
The creature's large claws pointed at the hunter. Soon, fire magic appeared at the tips of its nails. At first they were small balls, but they grew to the size of a human head in seconds.
Adriel ran to his right; the thing aimed and fired the balls. With a jump he activated his dash skill to go diagonally left and pass over the attack.
He aimed with his bow and fired another arrow. Without complicating things, the creature cut the arrow with its nails.
"Tsk." The young man discarded his bow and summoned his scythe in his left hand.
Two of Adriel's fingers rose and were pointed at the monster. 'This will be the first test.' He channeled a large amount of magic into the tips of both fingers together, concentrating the magic at the union of both.
Suddenly he couldn't channel any more and the attack launched in a second.
The lightning traveled at a speed imperceptible to the young man. A scream from the creature suddenly resonated and a giant fireball was created; along with this, the lightning didn't reach its target.
As a consequence, the hunter was hit in the face by the ball, striking him directly.
He began to scream in pain; his entire body was in flames.
"You have lost your vanity object." A system notification reached him when the fire consumed him.
'It's not the first time, it's not the first time... It's not the first time!'
He growled forcefully and resisted the pain of the burns; he used his dash to dodge another attack from the strange creature, extinguishing some of the flames.
'I have a ridiculous amount of magic; that attack is all I can do. The good thing is that it recovers quickly because of how little it is.'
Adriel dodged more attacks; little by little, the fire went down, but his mobility was the same story.
When the fire on his body disappeared completely, he saw himself; everything was burned. 'I'm sure all the spells are to defeat the boss; I have to find some way to kill it without needing to use them.'
His body began to tremble slightly as he thought: getting close represented too great a risk; attacking from a distance was impossible and magic was useless.
'Will I die like this? I have no options...'
'Options... options...'
Adriel suddenly summoned the lighter he got from the Pheasant and looked at it carefully. 'I have an idea.'
He discarded his scythe and firmly held the lighter. Magic began to accumulate in his index and middle fingers.
He ran like crazy toward the creature; it charged another fireball. Adriel feinted to the right, but he didn't fool the creature, who threw the ball directly at him.
Adriel jumped and used his dash upward, then threw the lighter toward the creature and fired his lightning at the lighter.
That lightning had a clear trajectory, but at the same time it looked somewhat unstable, creating a beautiful and vibrant light.
The object broke on contact; the gas inside exploded in milliseconds, breaking the creature's chest and part of its face.
"Your lighter. Phase: Initial. Category: A has been destroyed."
"Congratulations, you have killed a Surce. Phase: Initial. Category: A. Description: A race born in the deep and dark caves, capable of enduring the light of fire and only fire, with large and sharp claws to climb the caves and move, capable of resisting what using fire in a reduced space implies."
"Congratulations, you have obtained a fire spell. Phase: Initial. Category: A. Description: A large explosive fireball with great range. Uses: 1"
"That thing?" Adriel looked with narrowed eyes at the corpse in front of him; a Surce was definitely something he had never seen before.
'How scary, I must practice my magic and get new things; this dungeon has made me lose a lot... Besides, I think I'll survive only a short time like this.'
He inspected himself again, but now in detail; from the collarbone down, most of his body was charred; the pain was bearable to him, but in the long term it looked lethal.
He sighed. "I need to defeat the boss, get out quickly, and go with my companions to see if they can heal me."
He summoned the scythe and saw the stairs, long and large, going so high that they seemed to lead to the exit of the pit he had entered at the beginning, the end of the dungeon.
'Time to continue.'