Making modifications, it didn't take me long to find a second room, in the opposite direction, and this time a little upwards. There was no monster; the room was smaller, like a natural crack, between walls of something similar to salt. I slipped to the bottom until I found a singular stone, this time black.
There were no surprises, or anything like that, just patience in handling the 50 torches.
I tried many combinations, but none that solved the problem of going up or down went anywhere. Without much of a solution to provide, I proceeded to modify the entire tunnel so that it would always preserve the marble outline.
The room at the end did not provide many surprises, 5x5 with ceilings of another 5 meters and a text in an ancient language.
"Following the path of the stone is easy; understanding the stone is the true mystery. Put your hands on the scales and see what rewards the weight of the stone gives you."
Another ball of energy the size of a large coconut, this time brown, formed and hit me in the stomach. I absorbed it as always while meditating.
"Affinity with the mana of the created earth. 1/6100"
"Congratulations on completing the main earth mana core during the tutorial."
"Congratulations on being the first to partially complete the hidden quest in the Earth room 2/4 completed."
"Congratulations on being the first player with three cores of level 3 or higher in the tutorial"
Earth Mana Core, Level 3. 1/12000
I tried to create a spear that came out of the ground; it came out, but it was too slow to skewer anyone.
I tried to make a small ladder, and it supported my weight.
Manipulating the earth didn't consume much earth mana or concentration; the problem was the speed of the transformation.
I would have to think about how to use this mana in combat.
I walked back, thinking about the rest of the players. It was very likely that many others would complete it.
When I arrived at the statue room, I saw clearly that my next path would be space.
The hallway was made of sand-colored marble, as I had expected. The complications came with the first torch; a three-meter gap opened right in front. I looked over the edge, beyond the distance where the light reached, the abyss, and continued. 3 meters was not that much.
I took a run and jumped as high and as far as I could. I landed on the other side without problems,
I reached the next one; the abyss was a little bigger, 3.5 meters, but it was still acceptable and I jumped, although To continue, I left the backpack and the armor, and I was left alone with the sword and the ax on my belt and the spear.
Each torch increased the distance by half a meter; my limit was 5 meters. Without equipment and despite my renewed physique, jumping further was dangerous.
It was time to get creative. I concentrated my energy to make a small bridge to the middle of the chasm; I didn't want to waste the mana. I ran and jumped, reaching the other side.
The operation was repeated several times until it reached 8 meters. The bridge had to be thicker and used more mana, the space for running was shorter.
When we reached ten meters, the difficulty changed. A 50x50 column was at a distance of 2 meters, and after this, there was another one at a distance of 2 meters.
Jumping from column to column quickly and without running was another story, more risky. I concentrated on jumping as much as I could, to save as much mana as I could. When the distance between columns increased, the voice of data resounded.
"Congratulations, player, for creating the common jump skill."
Jump*1/1000*Common* The player has perfected the jumping technique both while running and standing still.
With skill, the process was easier; I was not worried about jumping three meters together; however, nothing lasts forever, and this advantage disappeared as the distance increased, and the columns became smaller.
The frog jump had to be finished. I deformed the column where it was to bring it closer to the wall, and in this I made a small ledge appear every few meters and a handhold. In this way, with my body pressed against the wall, I continued moving forward.
The mana expenditure was not high, but it was continuous. I don't think I could travel more than 10 meters like that when I had advanced another 4 meters something caught my attention on the wall.
I felt it and hit it with a hollow palm. This time the wall gave inward when I pushed it. I entered the new tunnel.
I didn't expect what was in the room, this was a room about 4 meters wide, by about 10 meters long, on each wall there were several paintings. Maybe it would be better to say a photo, or a hyper-realistic image, but the strangest thing was not that, It was that I knew the scenarios that were represented in the paintings, at least most of them, since every three known paintings there was a strange scene:
My parents' house where I was born and raised
My grandparents' house
The apartment where I went on vacation when I was a child
An empty room that I didn't recognize although because of the marble on the wall it must have belonged to the sanctuary
My school
The park where I played on my childhood
The hospital where I was admitted for breaking one arm
A paradisiacal beach that I don't recognize,
My high school
The pub where I met with friends.
The comic book store.
The next was a broken space as if it were apocalyptic.
The university classroom.
The company where I did the internship after university.
The hotel in Rome where I went with my ex-girlfriend.
A strange room with mirrors.
The supermarket where I always shopped.
The bar where I stopped to have a drink,
My house and finally the image of a room with a scale
On the other side of the entrance was another tunnel. I did not advance much since it made a U, returning me to a little more than 10 meters from where I had entered.
Further ahead I could see a strip of floor about 50 centimeters long that went from wall to wall. I created a small ledge just like before and some handholds and I moved there, reaching the columns seemed very risky from my position.
My stone mana was about to run out when I arrived. As soon as I stepped foot on it, several rifts opened in space. Through it I could see different places, mountains, rivers, castles, meadows, medieval cities, but only one.
One of them represented a familiar place, my parents' house... I advanced through it and came out in another part of the corridor with another 50 centimeter strip of floor.
Just as before, multiple rifts were in front, forests, cliffs, a rough sea, but I could only recognize my grandparents' house, I repeated the process to appear later in the sanctuary, I directly looked for the apartment that I had seen in the room.
The next rift brought a small dilemma. On the one hand, I could recognize my school, but there was also the image of the empty room... My instinct and my experience led me to choose the empty room; otherwise, they would have given me the clue.
After passing the rift I appeared in the room represented, a five-by-five square, with nothing more than the same pink marble. I was alert, holding the spear and with my senses in my surroundings.
An almost imperceptible noise like static electricity was heard behind me, I turned in time to dodge the attack of a sword that I could barely deflect with my spear, forcing me to step back.
A dark elf? No shit, he was exactly the image the RPGs gave of this race, five foot six, muscular but thin, pointed ears, blue-black skin, white hair, an evil smile and murderous intent in his eyes.
After failing the attack he did not advance, he jumped back into another rift. He appeared to my right, this time my spear was of little use to me, and I only avoided being impaled by falling on my ass.
However, he did not continue the attack, opening a dimensional rift to his left and crossing it. I rolled on the ground instinctively, leaving the spear on the ground, since it seemed that it would not give me an advantage in this fight. I got up, barely avoiding the sword that had hit me. He was stabbed to the ground, where he was just a moment before.
He smiled even more evilly, I wasted no time and drew my long sword, jumped back into a rift, and although another attack was waiting for me from behind or my flank just opened a dimensional rift at the back of the room in front of me.
The throw of the dagger was quick, I managed to deflect it with the sword and turning my body a little to get more in profile.
He jumped again into another rift that took him to the opposite part of the room where he threw another dagger with his left hand, however before I reached the height to be able to dodge or repel it a small rift swallowed the dagger.
By instinct I crouched down, only for the sharp blade to graze me over my left shoulder, and reach the feet of the dark elf, who picked up the dagger slowly and with the same smile on his face.
I pushed forward as fast as I could to reach him, but he quickly jumped to another dimensional rift, I turned following my instinct, just to collide my sword with his, he was not as strong as me, and he did not want to lock swords, retreating a few steps.
He slashed out fully, even though he was out of range, but a rift swallowed the tip. I had noticed the noise of static behind me so I turned in time to hit the tip of the blade and have it graze my right side.
He withdrew the weapon through the rift, before I could compose myself and reach him he had already jumped to another dimensional fissure.
From the back of the room he threw a dagger at me again. However, it did not open any dimensional tunnel, it let me block it with the sword, or so I thought, since I felt that static electricity on my knees, instinctively I jumped, causing only the toe of my boot to be cut off when the rift closed.
It had been dangerous; the bastard wanted to cut off my legs.
The dagger that I couldn't intercept well cut me on my left arm. The fight was not in my favor, even though I only had a couple of minor cuts.
I activated my "bullet time" because, although I was not on full reserve, it would at least give me a three-minute advantage.
With time passing slower, reacting to subsequent position changes and attacks was easier; he was physically faster than me, but at half speed, reacting wasn't a problem. The fissures only remained open for three seconds before closing; there was little margin.
In one of the exchanges, I felt a rift begin to open to the right of him; if I wanted to jump through it, I would do it now.
He actually jumped, and although I had time to throw one of the daggers that I had at my waist, I launched it not to his body because hitting it while moving was complicated, but at the rift.
The cry of pain was heard on the other side of the room where he had appeared, although the dagger had not been fatally stuck in his left leg.
"Congratulations, player, for creating the combat skill "dagger throw" 1/1000
My first throw was a success.
He continued attacking by surprise, trying to trap my body in the fissures and throwing daggers. How many did he have on him? Jumping into the dimensional rift to retreat, or using the fissures to insert his weapon.
This was The key, when launching an attack outside the distance revealed its intention. In one of them, I managed to see where the rift was opening; the sword came out without touching me, but at the same time, my left arm passed through the crack, grabbing it by the wrist and pulling him to my side.
In just three seconds, the dark elf's face went from surprise, to fear, to pain when the rift closed, cutting his arm at shoulder height.
I will not describe the gore movie spectacle to you, nor will I say that I finished him off out of mercy.
I ran my sword through him from one side to the other with viciousness and strength, and then, in order not to waste the scene, I meditated in the middle of a red carpet...
I did not complete the blood core, but I got a little ahead of myself...