The day before, when my Mental Power went up, there was something strange I sensed in my room.
Actually, I never properly examined my cell before.
I looked around. 'Everything normal…except for that corner.
'Assistant, you've also sensed that yesterday?'
[I sensed an abnormal flow of raw energy near that corner. There might be something in there.]
I examined the corner and the wall nearby…' There is a bit of airflow…'
I gathered a bit of dust…there was a lot of it in my cell…and threw it…' The dust was sucked behind the wall…'
I was sure that there was something behind…' Another room maybe?'
Anyway, I had some training with Vlad now.
[…]
Punch#1 went from 43% to 47%
Palm Strike#1 also arrived at 2%...very low, but this is some progress.
Energy Control improved from 0,00009% to 0,0001%
It was satisfying to see some progress.
I also decided to change the names…after I master them. For now, I didn't feel it was right.
This time I had a small hammer.
Tentatively I hit one brick. 'Nothing…let's try this one then.'
The second brick also brought no results.
But the third one, when I hit it, moved slightly. 'Oh, that's something!' I pushed the brick with my hand and a small space opened in front of my eyes.
'What a fu…'
The space was very little. One cubic meter or even less.
The only notable thing was a circle shining with silver light right on the floor. 'It would be strange if this was some sort of trap. Who places traps in hidden spaces in slave-cells?'
I touched the circle.
The scene around me changed suddenly.
I found myself at the beginning of a stone corridor. I turned around and found a wall with another silver circle which I touched and was transported back to my cell.
'Let's explore…' I thought and returned.
The corridor was spacious and seemingly ancient.
There were inscriptions on the walls, but I didn't know the language and just went forward.
The first room was small and nearly empty. Right in the center, I saw a human skeleton that stood up and ran towards me the same moment I exited the corridor.
It had no weapons, but I was without weapons too. This was the moment I discovered the shortcoming of my punch.
'It can't…no, I can' shatter bones.'
Fortunately, there was another solution for now. Slowly I started dismantling him. First, I took his right arm. The left one was even easier. The last thing I took was the head.
Inside the skull, there was a small flame burning.
I recalled the thing about 'energy sources' that my new Assistant has told me and asked.
'Is this flame useful to me or to you?'
[It can be absorbed.]
I nodded. 'How do I do this?'
[Squash it in your hand. I will do the rest.]
I followed the instruction. My mind felt refreshed.
[Your Mental Power slightly increased. Too small to quantify.]
'Didn't you calculate my Energy up to millesimal?'
[Mental Power has a different quantification method.]
'Oh…ok.'
Suddenly a thunderous voice flooded the room. – "Hi! I am God of Mysteries! Welcome to one of my passive creations!"
The voice stopped without explaining anything else, but my questions multiplied.
"God of Mysteries? Passive creations? What?"
But no one answered, and a new door appeared in front of me.
Since I had the time and wasn't injured, I decided to explore a bit more. 'Maybe there will be some more skeletons?' I hoped.
The second room was identical to the first one, but the skeletons were two.
"I don't like this type of increase…"
I managed to dismantle both after ten o so minutes. Squeezing their flames made me recover and the Assistant decided to add [Grappling] to my techniques.
The next room, as I suspected, had four enemies.
'This one is new.'
Three were skeletons, and one was…' Zombie?'
There was definitely some flesh on the bones, but clearly not enough. 'If other skeletons are nude, that this one has some summer clothes…'
I suddenly noticed how strange was this line of thought and stopped.
The zombie had a rusty spear in his hands.
This time I had to do some punching to push the skeletons back while I took their companion leg.
Suddenly I felt some pain.
The mother*ucker with the spear managed to stab me.
He was surprisingly quicker than his 'nude' companions. Fortunately, he lacked intelligence so stabbed randomly and only scratched my shoulder.
I became more cautious and dismantled all the skeletons. – "You are the last, buddy."
I decided to verify the patches of flesh on his body were something more than simple armor to his bones.
Punch#1 (47% --> 48%)
'Nice.'
After I destroyed his flesh the zombie became slower…he couldn't even use the spear now.
'I down-graded him…'
I absorbed the flames of the skeletons, but after I finished with the zombie the Assistant gave a piece of very good news.
[Mental power 10-->11]
This alone made my whole exploration worth it.
Anyway, I decided to return for now.
//From "Gods. Chapter 4."//
- God of Mysteries is considered a second-generation native god of Astria. But some scholars think that he is an external god.
He is one of the most known gods as he is the reason for the formation of Mystery Spaces across all the world.
Mystery Spaces have no pattern and are impossible to categorize with precision.
Some adventurers found warehouses full of treasures, or multileveled dungeons filled only with monsters and nothing else, while others discovered entire castles or cities and many other things.
Some common points were that only the people who first entered could re-enter the Mystery Space and that many spaces collapsed when completely cleared or that all the participants die.
No-one knows why exactly God of Mysteries creates his spaces, but many think that he does this to stimulate all kinds of adventurers, reshuffle treasures across the world, and create more reasons for people to explore.
He is the representation of a lucky chance in Astria.
'Or of eventual death.' I thought while closing the book. 'For now, space seamed a dungeon with monsters…tomorrow I will continue my exploration.'