Zac sank down in the center of the cavern, his head in hands. Tears starting to run down his cheeks. He couldn't believe it, of course he would end up with a useless Augmentation.
'Wait, what's wrong with me? Having this Mana Core means I can at the very least take on Tier 0 missions. That'll be miles better than working another minute in that damned gas station.' Zac shook his head, after an entire year of feeling sorry for himself and moping about, his natural instinct was to be negative. It wasn't easy to change one's mindset, even though something good had finally happened.
'Hold on.' Zac thought for a moment, then began to laugh. 'That stupid gas station is probably in the middle of another world!' Day after day of repetitive scanning items, cleaning the filthy bathrooms and hearing all about 'team spirit' from his manager had resulted in Zac developing a fierce loathing for his workplace.
Still chucking at the thought of his manager showing up to work to find a Transition Zone in the place of the gas station, Zac picked himself up, brushing the dust and dirt off of his uniform.
'I'll never have to wear this ugly thing again, either.' He smiled as he looked at the ugly bright yellow shirt.
Zac looked around at the glowing Mana Crystals filling the cavern, now that he had some chance of earning more than the peanuts he was paid at the gas station, he decided it was no longer worth trying to smuggle a Mana Crystal out of the Transition Zone.
After all, he might just end up being one of the people working to mine them, and he'd get paid the finders fee as well.
"Alright. Time to get out of here." Zac said out loud, clapping his hands together as he often did to jolt himself into action.
With one last look at the treasure trove, Zac walked back up the tunnel he had initially run down, the light from the crystals fading away as he found himself back in the darkness of the tunnel.
His mind going wild with dreams of what he would do with all the money he would earn from taking on missions from the ITC, the walk back up the tunnel passed by in a breeze.
Zac splashed through the water at the entrance of the tunnel, blinking in the bright light and orange glow of the magma field outside.
'That wasn't so bad. I got away from the blasted Flame Fennec, and now I've even got a Mana Core.' Zac decided to try being positive, pushing the insane amount of pain he had experienced when his Mana Core had formed to the back of his mind.
'Alright, from now on, I'm only going to look on the bright side of things.' He told himself, forcing a smile on to his face, looking back toward the forest.
But even as Zac's smile started to form, a high pitched whistling noise, like the sound of steam coming from a kettle, sounded out from his left.
Straining to keep the smile on his face, Zac turned to his left, and saw a rounded fin moving thorough a pool of magma about fifty meters away.
'Oh, it's just a Magma Newt, that's only a Tier 2 Magical Beast, that's no problem at all!' Zac tried out his new positive outlook, but it disappeared quickly, along with his smile.
'Oh f******* s***! Not this again! I knew Transition Zones were dangerous, but this is getting to be a little too much.' Zac groaned, and ducked down into the mouth of the tunnel, hoping the Magma Newt would pass him by.
"Squelch, squelch, squelch." Zac heard the moist noise of the Magma Newts enormous webbed feet slapping onto the rock only a few meters away from the tunnel.
This was bad. Zac knew that if he ran down the tunnel, the newt would follow, especially since they favored dark and damp environments.
"S***." Zac murmured under his breath, and ran out of the tunnel, hoping to surprise the newt and make it to the trees, where it might not follow him.
Immediately, there was a high-pitched squeal, as the newt spotted the blur that was Zac darting across his vision.
Zac turned his head, and once again, the adrenaline flooding his body made it seem as though everything had slowed down.
He looked into the black, beady eyes of the newt, shining out from its dark red moist skin, that was covered in cracks that glowed bright red. Multicolored patches of red and orange across its back helped it camouflage itself among the magma, and a large flat tail with a flowing fin swung at his back.
The newt screeched loudly, a high pitched noise that made Zac want to cover his ears, and launched itself toward Zac, pushing off the ground with its stubby legs, which were surprising powerful.
At that moment, Zac was certain that there was no way he was going to run past the Magma Newt, it was moving too fast. He looked into the gaping mouth that was flying toward him, large blunt teeth within, wisps of boiling hot steam wafting out of it.
But as he stared into the certain death that was the newt's mouth, Zac felt that rather than curling up and trying to minimize the damage, he should reach out and touch the newt.
It felt right. More than anything that Zac had ever done, and so, he reached out, touching the scorching hot skin, placing his hand directly on the newt's snout as it prepared to bite him.