You know how I said it burnt like hellfire? I knew it because I experienced it first-hand. The pig struck the axe straight through the part in between my shoulder and neck.
Teigra took care of it, but I was out of action. The pain was just getting worse and worse. We somehow managed to take care of the pig monsters, by clearing all of them in the immediate vicinity.
But there was now a much, much bigger problem. Flying monsters started appearing. Apart from the red-hot bats, there was also a fly demon. It had red skin, horns, wings, and a tail, the typical demon appearance.
It also occasionally lobbed magic scythes at us, with enough speed to behead a man.
Now the reason it was a much bigger problem than the pig monsters was because it liked to keep its distance from us. And the best person who had the ability to fight range was Artana.
And she was out of action. You must be asking, "But Lucian, you can also attack from a range, right?"
And to that I say, "Yes, but remember I am in an incredible amount of pain and got a really bad wound, which essentially means I am out of action too! Yay!"
And then I passed out.
When I woke up, I found myself still on the ground, just somehow under a roof. I started looking around. I was inside a small cave, barely lit up, with the weird red flooring.
Going outside, I saw Khon, Horus, Artana, and Teigra talking about something. Looking at where I came from, it looked like some dug a crevice into a red coloured mountain.
Going closer to them, I heard Artana say, "Are you sure? I mean how are we going to survive here?"
"Do you have a better solution? After all, the boss of a B-class dungeon is impossible for us to defeat.", Khon said.
"Well, I don't know, maybe we can try beating it?", Artana said.
"Are you that desperate to die? Almost half our team got destroyed just fighting a bunch of normal monsters.", Horus said.
"Yea, no, sorry Artana, I am going with Khon for this one.", Teigra said.
"What are you all are talking about?", I asked, confused.
"You woke up already?", Teigra said.
"Yea but what were you all talking about?", I asked.
"About our plans for what we are going to do.", Artana said, not so happily.
"Soo, what is the plan?"
"Get yourself at comfortable, this is going to be your new home", Horus said.
"What?", I asked.
"You heard him, this is where you are going to be living from now on", Khon said.
"What do you mean?", I asked again.
"Well, you see, since the boss, and the mobs later on are insanely hard to beat, we are going to be living here. That's the plan. After all, there is no time limit, is there?", Khon explained.
"But.. well.. I mean…", I said bewildered. How, just are we going to live in this hell hole? The theme itself is hellfire. How are we supposed to live in here?
"Anyway, let's get going."
"Soo, wait we never going out of here?", Teigra asked.
"Yea we will… eventually.", Khon said.
And then we started the trek.
We went through the red wasteland, avoiding confrontation with any and all monsters, especially those flying demons.
I still couldn't understand how Khon, Horus and Teigra managed to either evade the demons or kill them, back then.
A very long trek later, we came across and weird place. It was different from the red wasteland behind us. It had orange coloured grass, and there were trees that were growing from it.
The trees were also orange, and it seemed to be pulsing with energy. There were new horrors in this orange pasture, like for instance, the giant chickens running around, that hit like a semi-truck and send you flying 2 metres into the air.
How do I know? Don't even ask..
"Perfect.", Khon said, looking around the area.
"What perfect??", Artana said.
"Well, let's go in further!", Khon said.
Walking a little more, we found ourselves to be at the start of a mountain. The orange grass all over the place started to make me nauseous. Every step I took felt heavier and heavier, and my legs felt like lead.
"All right, so, anyone want to volunteer to help me dig this-", Khon said. "What the-. Why are you all looking half dead??"
I started to look around and realised I wasn't the only one who was feeling nauseous. Teigra started to limp around, and then, she fell.
Then another wave of nausea hit me, and I fell to my knees. Horus and Khon seemed unaffected for some reason. There was a rustling of grass behind me, so I turned around, and found myself in between Horus and a giant chicken.
"Sh*t", I thought to myself, as I felt face first into the ground. I tried getting up but I wasn't able to move even a limb anymore. "What? Why? How?", I thought to myself. Then I fell asleep. I didn't faint this time. I just involuntarily went to sleep. I think that sounds like fainting.
When I woke, I found Khon uprooting the grass near us. And Horus was digging the side of the mountain we found. Teigra and Artana hadn't woken up yet.
"What.. Why are you uprooting the grass here??", I asked Khon.
"Oh that? It took me a while to realise, but the reason half our team was knocked out was this grass", Khon said.
"Wait what? How?", I asked.
"I really don't know, but I think it rapidly drains your mana or something.", Khon replied.
"Then why weren't you and Horus affected?"
"We aren't that dependent on mana. We don't need mana to thrive, unlike most people, who have completely adapted to mana."
"Oh."
"Well, either way, this is a good opportunity!"
"How?"
"Well, we have food, the giant chickens, we have soon to be shelter, the side of the mountain that Horus is digging up, and we have wood, for fire and stuff"
"What about water?"
"Oh… uh.. well… hope you are good with what I am about to tell you.", Khon said, shuffling around.
"What is the water?"
"Giant chicken blood."
"iamsorrywhatnow?"
"It is water like, right? May not be good for your tummy, but it is manageable."
"…"
"Hey, don't blame me. At least better than getting dehydrated to death."
"Right..", I said, already contemplating my life choices.
"Anyway, so, get yourself to work."
"Wait what?"
"We are going to make this small corner Horus is digging out a habitable space! We need stuff though. Like wood. Start breaking a tree or something."
And so, I went to a nearby tree to examine it. The tree was orange, and had thick leaves. The trunk was also covered in a type of wax. Other than that, I found nothing else different. I was already starting to feel sick again. "The grass", I thought to myself.
Looking at my scabbard, I took my sword to give it a swing. Would you be surprised if I had told you that swords aren't meant to cut down trees? And that swords are meant to cut trees?
Either way, even a mana filled sword couldn't cut down the tree. Now here is the thing with mana. Mana is like honey. It is like an extremely viscous liquid. To temporarily infuse things with mana, there are 2 ways.
Number 1 is to fill the item with mana, or honey for the sake of this example. Number 2, and what is most preferred, is to pour your mana onto the item. This is because after getting control of mana, you can harden mana, and therefore, increase the tensile strength exponentially.
Now here is the thing. Ideally, mana is a viscous liquid. However, in an actual situation, it is more like either lava (too viscous) or milk (too watery). Depending on the person's mastery over mana, it can be either. The better the person in handling mana, the better the viscosity of mana near him.
How is this relevant? Since we had been taught that method number 2 of mana strengthening is better, it relies on the balance between viscous and watery, honey-like being the best. I wasn't a master in mana. And my mana control was extremely watery.
Do you see the problem here? Let me explain it once more. If you were to pour water onto a knife, would it stick? For a situation like this, lava like viscosity would be perfect.
I racked my brains for a minute. "What if I fill the blade with mana? It will be more effective, although it will still just be a strong sword. I need something like an axe.", I thought to myself.
And then it clicked. I wanted something like an axe, right? If I were to pour all my mana to the end of my sword, then it would be a makeshift axe!
A little later, and I finally cut down the tree. It was a lot harder than I first thought it to be, and it was a lot slower than if I had an axe, but I finally cut it. The falling tree trunk scared me, but nothing else.
I went ahead and started dragging the tree trunk back there, but the grass had finally caught up. I was feeling weaker and weaker. I went back there, and found the area around the place to be free of the grass.
"Holy moly, you actually uprooted that much grass?", I said, looking around. Teigra and Artana had woken up, but they were nowhere to be seen.
"Yup, took a while, but it all done!", Khon said. "So did you cut down a tree?"
"Yea I did."
"Wait what?"
"… I did…"
"I'll be honest, I didn't expect you to."
"What?"
"What? I really didn't expect you to, after all, you are still susceptible to the grass, and on top of that, you don't have an axe. This makes me wonder is trying to practice in the grass is a good or not…"
"You weren't expecting me to cut the tree?"
"Yea. I mean I thought you would come back and say you couldn't do it."
"…"
"Anyway, let's go get the log!"
"I can't. I literally don't have the energy to.", I said, as I fell to the ground, from exhaustion.
And so started the light of the eternal day.