"...It really is hot here."
Indeed it was.
Thus, what Magnus first tried doing was looking for a way to keep himself cool. He thought of Javelin, and how his ever-accompanying gale seemed to always stay at the same temperature no matter what.
He searched through the leopard's memories, and indeed, that gale had a constant temperature.
Which was interesting to think about.
Magnus tried copying it and discovered that the air he generated around his body was more-or-less around his body temperature. Wherever he went, he would feel the warmth of the magma, but due to the presence of his wind, things started cooling down.
Unfortunately, things did not cool down as fast as Magnus wanted them to.
His shoes would still burn the moment he stepped onto the hotter rocks. The only option was flight if he wanted to solve such an issue.
But flight seemed to a special ability—one that Javelin had yet to comprehend.
"Should I try mixing up earth and wind? Can I apply this wind technique to the earth that I control?"
Magnus felt a lightbulb appear in his mind.
He spread his Spirit Energy into the hot earth around him and discovered a certain response: He could will the earth to calm down, and thus cool down as well.
It was as if he was controlling the excitement of atoms themselves within every stone and pebble.
"Again with a scientific concept," Magnus muttered to himself, "I wonder how many more of these tricks I can discover?"
Thinking of such things, he walked forward. His Spirit Energy left him in pulses. It cooled a region down around him enough for him to survive.
The hot air in the area experienced a similar phenomenon upon getting into contact with his Spirit Energy.
Thus, Magnus now had the ability to operate in such an extreme environment, allowing him to go exploring.
He skirted the boundary of the magma, searching for a monster with an edible body.
He searched for an entire day and night with nothing to call a find.
It was all hot rock and more hot rock. Even as he burrowed and crafted his own path, there was nothing to see.
That was until he came across a huge cavern with a sea of magma and bridges of earth.
"Whoa," Magnus caught sight of sparkling diamonds as his own eyes sparkled.
"WHOA!" His astonishment was kicked up another notch.
Like stars in the sky, diamonds littered the ceiling of the cavern. Somewhere in the centre of the cavern, there was a chimney where all the toxic gases were escaping.
That was when Magnus realised something.
"I am within a volcano right now..." He marvelled at yet another wondrous scene.
"Just what had happened to create something like this?" He wondered.
Bubble bubble!
It was then that the moment Magnus had been waiting for occurred.
"Monsters!" He beamed as he made a grabbing motion with his hand.
A pincer made out of earth emerged and snapped at the magma, causing a blazing splash to rise into the air.
A wall of stone protected Magnus at that moment.
"Krraaaah! Kraaah!"
Something was caught within Magnus' earth pincer. He then made a motion to throw the catch towards him.
Splat!
The monster landed head-first into one of Magnus' walls, creating an imprint of its skull.
And then when the monster fell, Magnus was there waiting for him.
"Ha!"
Magnus lunged out, wielding his sword like a rapier and stabbed into the immobile monster. He skewered it into the wall as a small shuriken of water appeared in his hand. He flung this shuriken and let it spin as fast as he could make it.
Whiiiiiiisk!
The sound of the shuriken spinning at a high speed created a piercing cry.
Shhhhhh!
The shuriken dug into the monster with a great sizzling sound before it then evaporated completely.
A small nick appeared on the monster's skin.
Magnus frowned, "Admirable defence,"
Four more shurikens appeared in his hands and he let all of them loose.
He showered the monster with strike after strike of bladed fast-moving water.
The earth that lay behind the monster had even eroded over time, and so did the monster's skin, flesh, and bone.
After over half an hour of this torturous sight, a shuriken finally embedded itself in the monster's skull, silencing its sad cries forever.
Magnus was much more tired than he expected after this little ordeal.
Thankfully, no other monster appeared to bother him the entire time—which was quite suspicious in and of itself.
With this peace and quiet, Magnus was able to study the monster he had just slain.
"It's basically a lava fish with frog legs." He smacked his lips, "Can they be eaten right away? Or do I have to do the opposite of cooking for them and cool their flesh down first?"
Blood was flowing from the lava fish, but it looked even more viscous than slow-moving lava. It bubbled with waves of heat just like the magma of its home. Its flesh was a bright white as it emitted heat and energy.
It was a strange experience to analyse such an organism.
It was even stranger to think about how to eat it.
Magnus thus tried to make things barely edible first. He used his wind to cool the body down to the same temperature as his body.
It took another half an hour, but at least it worked.
Magnus could now touch the carcass without burning himself. It felt so incredibly soft, and the scent of cooked food already reached his nose.
"No way..." Magnus' mouth was agape, "Why does it still smell like chicken?!"
"Does it really taste like chicken or is there really something wrong with my constitution? I almost forgot that Alice mentioned the meat tasting horrible. Just why do I taste chicken instead?" Magnus muttered in thought as he summoned Klaris and Javelin.
"What do you guys think?"
The two sniffed excitedly only to realise what Magnus just realised. Their expressions morphed into disappointment and then into confusion.
"Right?" Magnus said, smug.
He was glad that his Hivemind members had the same brain cell as he did.
"Come, let's eat. The Spirit Energy, at least, is fresh." He said. "There's a little spice to it."
.
.
.
Days passed.
Magnus was still throwing water shurikens at fish-like magma monsters within a volcano's innards. Over the course of those days, his proficiency in the water element had grown. Instead of drinking monster blood, he could now supply himself with his own water on top of it, although it was pretty difficult in the area he was in given the heat.
Of course, he never stopped drinking monster's blood given how spiritually refreshing it was to do so. It was just that he had been craving normal water for a long time already.
Crack!
"That should be the fiftieth one," Magnus sighed as he called his shuriken back and poured it into a jug at his hip.
A small pile of lava fish carcasses was sitting at his side.
"Time for the final feast before I head up,"
It was almost time for Magnus to enact his plans. Javelin was more or less fully healed, and so was Klaris. He himself had once again inched towards being as strong as Klaris.
His Spirit Manipulation proficiencies had grown, and even his Spirit Energy reserves were extended a bit too. Together with Javelin's Spirit Energy reserves, Magnus could command ten lines worth of a Curse's Spirit Energy.
"If only my regeneration was this rapid on Thare," Magnus once again sighed at the thought of being greatly weakened the moment he stepped foot on Thare.
"Magnus Avary?"
A familiar voice suddenly echoed, giving Magnus a chill.
He spun around in a hurry and discovered a familiar head of long grey hair and a face of gentle ferocity.
"You..." Magnus coughed, "Miss Asphell, yes? Why do you want to know?"
.
.
.
Asphell squinted. If before she was 80% sure of who the person in front of her was, then now she was certain of it.
"I have a few questions to ask you, you see..." She said, and as her sentence trailed off, she shot out like a bullet.
Flying over the magma and into Magnus' zone of survivability, Asphell arrived in front of Magnus, eager to capture him.
But an earthen wall suddenly separated her from her target.
She swerved to the left, only to be met with a large fireball.
"What?!"
Magnus was stronger than she imagined. Dual elemental proficiencies at that level and the Spirit Energy capacity to pair with it? That was the definition of strong.
Wind blades flew out, chopping up the fireball into pieces. But more fireballs were already following after the first.
Asphell had to unleash volley after volley of wind blades just to keep those fireballs dissipated. Earthen walls kept appearing out of the magma, barring her flight ever so slightly.
She decided to fly higher, but when she did,
WHIIIIIIIZZZZ
Wind-heightened spinning water shurikens flew towards her at ghastly speeds.
"...Impossible!" She exclaimed in a dire whisper.
Asphell's soul almost left her body in shock as she tried her best to dodge. Her wind abilities were astounding, allowing her to weave through the shurikens despite a few bloody cuts here and there. Although terrifying, those shurikens lacked finesse and control.
'He's strong but inexperienced. I can win this if the fight drags on.' Hope erupted in Asphell's heart.
But then, as if to extinguish all that which she hoped for, a car-sized blur shot towards her from an elevated earth platform.
Asphell's eyes dilated.
'Another beast!'
GAWWWRRRRAAAAH!
A roar shook her eardrums as her sense of balance wavered. A terrifying set of fangs swept towards her neck.
Fwooosh!
Desperate, Asphell used a blast of air to evade. She made it past the fangs by a hair's breadth but now, Javelin's claws were chasing after her.
She arched her body to dodge again, but it was not a perfect attempt. Blood sprouted from a wound in her arm.
"Hello there," To make things worse, a voice suddenly whispered in her ears.
Asphell whipped her head around as she was greeted by an unfamiliar face.
Jet-black hair and a complexion akin to that of a corpse.
Klaris joined the fight as he used his superior physique to grapple Asphell and weigh her down with the earth chains attached to his limbs.
"There's no escaping us, Miss Asphell." A voice rang out from below.
It was Magnus, and he was grinning from ear to ear.
"I have some questions to ask, you see."