As Yuichi stepped into the dungeon room, he was taken aback by the icy spikes hanging from the ceiling. It was like a scene straight out of a fantasy novel. This was unlike any dungeon he had ever seen before.
The room resembled a cell more than a dungeon. The hallway was lined with cell doors made of iron bars, some covered in metal, while others were simple bars.
Yuichi couldn't help but feel intrigued and a little intimidated by the strange new place. He began walking down the hallway, peeking into each cell as he passed by.
As he walked by, a shiver ran down his spine, and he couldn't help but feel a frosty chill that seemed to emanate from the air around him. The atmosphere in the room was eerie and unsettling, with sharp ice spikes jutting out from the walls and a fading blue mist that obscured his vision.
As he peered into the dark cell room, he couldn't help but feel a sense of unease wash over him. The room was devoid of any signs of life, and the cold, lifeless air seemed to cling to him like a haunting ghost.
Within the confines of each cell blocks, one can observe that some of the cells stand vacant, while others contain the grim and unfortunate remnants of those who perished there.
This particular dungeon room seems to be shrouded in mystery, with an air of the unknown lingering about it. It's intriguing because dungeon rooms are usually distinguishable based on their location and level of difficulty, but this one defies expectations.
Not only this dungeon room Yuichi had encountered, or even way before, every dungeon room is full of mystery.
The origins of dungeon rooms and the dungeons themselves are unknown. Dungeons have been in existence for several centuries. The first explorers of the dungeon were intrigued by the discoveries they made and the resources they found but also recognized the presence of danger.
It is unclear how or why dungeons suddenly appear on the surface of the world. According to the history of Eldoria, dungeons began to appear after the death of the first Demon Lord. In addition to the appearance of dungeons, mysterious black magic also emerged around Eldoria.
Yet these two phenomena haven't been solved where their origin came from, which made some of the people in Eldoria paranoid.
'So cold around here...' Yuichi felt that feeling.
'This dungeon seems to be based on an old prison, judging from the iron bars and heavily guarded doors. But it looks like it was abandoned and left to the cold temperature at this place.'
'There might be monsters that are made out of ice, or maybe, I saw a few skeletons around here so they might get resurrected and attack me.'
After he contemplated, to his front, he saw a huge block of ice that was blocking the way. Yuichi stopped and thought for a moment, thinking of a plan for the next move.
'A giant block of ice... Just great. There's no way I can melt this thing without anything that has heat.'
Knowing that he can't melt it, he sighs and scratches his head like he is about to give up immediately. He felt lazy after seeing the block of ice blocking his way.
But then, he suddenly realized and thought, 'Maybe there's something in my inventory that can help me.'
He summoned a screen of his inventory and scrolled through, looking for something that he could use to melt the ice. As he did, no item could produce heat or help him melt the ice.
All he had was a bunch of mana crystals, wolf fur, mushrooms, and a single Crystalized Shard.
Just as he thought it was hopeless, he remembered that Crystalized Shard was said to be abundant in mana and could be released if it broke.
Normally, after releasing a small amount of mana from the source it can make a reaction that collects a lot of air pressure and eventually releases gradually. It's safe and normal.
But when releasing a lot of mana from the source like mana orb, the reaction will become acute and the combustion effect will make an impact. Air pressure is like a balloon, the smaller the balloon is, the smaller it releases an air inside upon popping.
But it doesn't matter if it's small or big, as long as it has a lot of mana inside, it will be dangerous if it gets released.
'I wonder if it's going to explode like I imagine? One way to find out,' he thought and started backing away a little.
He grabbed out the Crystalized Shard on his inventory and it immediately materialized on his hand, glowing in blue.
He stiffs his body and prepares his hand to throw the Crystalized Shard to the block of ice with all his might. He gazed into the ice and, in that moment, he threw the Crystalized Shard into the block of ice.
With the shard rapidly propelling into the block of ice, it hit the ice and bounced off with a "ting!" sound. Yuichi thought it didn't work and he was disappointed, letting his guard down when, suddenly, the shard cracked and blinded him with sharp blue rays.
The shard broke into pieces and it exploded like a grenade. The mist of mana covered the vicinity around Yuichi who was standing on his feet, trying to not fall from the gusty impact.
Yuichi lowered his hand and saw the block of ice cracking into fragments, slowly falling its ethereal sound of debris on the ground. Yuichi was surprised by this as his plan worked and never thought it would be effective.
'That was scary... I thought I'd messed up. Well, it works anyway.'
Surprisingly, he had an instinct that his plan might work eventually.
Yuichi is not a genius and is only average throughout his entire life in school days. His comprehension and evaluation are quite weak, even decision-making causes him trouble. He's not dumb either, he can understand the basics of common logic of knowledge and ethics.
While being modest and average of all, he couldn't improve himself to become much better than that. His grades will often be stuck in the same number for a few years, and then somehow, it decreases or increases.
But he had this thought for a while, his reliability to his instinct is purely peculiar as he never knew what could happen. But he will do it anyway as his instinct told him so.
'I guess I should go forward and explore...'
He started walking again and went through the path where the giant block of ice was previously placed.
Roughly around five minutes of walking in the densely cold temperature hallway, he stumbled across a door that was surprisingly isolated from the rest of the cell room.
If Yuichi had to see the distance between the door in front of him and the cell room from afar, it would be around 230 meters or 251 yards away. It's isolated from the rest.
Though, he never knows why it's separated from the rest of the cell rooms around. It's redundant for him to think and speculate.
He grabbed the hilt of the door and opened it, peering in with his cautious behavior. Upon entering the isolated door, he was shocked to see something unexpected for him to expect.
At first, he thought that he would find a treasure room if he opened this door, a common mindset for most adventurers, well, not exactly for Yuichi as he is not an adventurer in the first place.
But on second thought, he saw a wall of thick ice and, on the other side, there was a human shape of a girl that was frozen inside the wall of ice.
Yuichi was surprised to see this, at the same time, he couldn't think of anything straight. He saw what he had witnessed.
'A... A girl? Why is there a person inside this ice? What is going on in this place...'
The girl on the ice seems to be a young teenager, around 16 years old. Her appearance is quite vague, but the clearness of the ice says otherwise. She was wearing a plain rugged shirt and shackles around her hands and feet with nothing else apart from that. She also had pointy ears, assuming she might be an elf.
Yuichi gazed at the girl with his concerned face. He wasn't sure why, but he could tell, this girl was stuck long before this ice froze her.
'Anyone would find a way to save her, but there's no way to save her with my current situation. I don't have the equipment to particularly destroy this ice.' Yuichi thought as he wanted to do something about the girl.
He touched the ice with his palm for a few seconds before wincing in the cold, he felt that on his palm directly.
'Just as I thought, this ice is not easy to penetrate. Also, I can feel a muffled sensation of mana around this ice.'
There are two ways to create ice magic: one is to make it naturally in nature, and two is manipulating the law of magic and creating it.
'I could guess this ice was intentional. Maybe there's something I can lift the magic around here...'
Yuichi starts looking around as he leisurely explores the cell room. There was an empty plate on the ground with a broken sharp spoon with a spilled residue on the floor. To his right, looking directly into the wall, there were scribbles of some kind of weird symbols.
Yuichi gazed into the scribble and found out it was an ancient hieroglyph that he would never know what's the meaning behind those pictorial characters yet.
But, for some reason, the system showed a screen that caught Yuichi's attention to get intrigued by the hieroglyphs.
｢An unidentified language has been detected. Do you want to translate it into your preferred language? Y/N｣
Yuichi didn't waste a moment and immediately answered. "Yes."
The hieroglyph began glowing in bright blue and it looks like the content was scanned by the system accordingly. With single characters on the wall slowly getting scanned, the system finally learned what the ancient language was and showed it to Yuichi.
｢Language: Herlorian - A language that was used by the ancient people 5000 years ago. This writing mostly contains two to nine segments in each character and different forms of shapes. It has 27 characters.｣
After the system showed him some details of the hieroglyph, the system translated what the writing said on the wall.
｢"By the chilling breath of the northern frost, I bid thee, retreat to whence thou came, for I, by the guiding light's wind, must journey, and reclaim the strength thou dost possess."｣
'Reading this is reminding me to study English again...' Yuichi pondered upon reading the translation.
Magic in Eldoria does not require full incantation to work properly, not exactly applied to most modern magic. For example, basic offensive or defensive spells require one phrase incantation to make it work like Lightning Bolt or Wind Gale.
But some magics like conditional or nullification spells are required to be incant in long phrases. This also applies to high-class magics like Transmutation or Alchemy.
To be exact, upon saying the spell name is considered to be a one-phrase incantation, though, all spells do originate from long incantation of rune language. Because human civilization and knowledge about magic kept evolving throughout the centuries, the one-phrase incantation is normalized for basic spells or magics.
Otherwise, the advanced or more difficult spells or magic to handle still required to cast in long incantation. The purpose is to serve and work properly. However, due to some individuals having talents, even high-class spells or magic can be manipulated in a single phase of rune incantation.
But of course, the System defies this rule. No matter what your magic or spell is, the System will always suggest that using magic or spell doesn't require incantation but rather directly use it because.... what's the point if you can just activate it even without incantation?
Otherworldly people are just a different breed, unlike the people in the world of Eldoria.
Yuichi felt something after reading silently the translation of the hieroglyph. It was a feeling that somehow made him do what he needed to do, especially when his case was with a frozen girl who needed to be saved.
'I'm not exactly sure why, but I feel like something will happen if I say this message out loud. Though it bothers me so much that I'm getting more desperate than before.' Yuichi whines in his thoughts.
He turned around and faced the wall of ice with his reflection on the blue facade. At this moment, he realized that he was more stubborn than before, sighing in slight relief that he would laugh about it.
'I just can't stop helping people, huh... I have done this before, isn't that right, Kenji?'
Yuichi closed his eyes and put his right palm to the wall of ice, facing the frozen elf girl with mana power surging in the atmosphere.
After some time, he opened his eyes and said; "By the chilling breath of the northern frost, I bid thee, retreat to whence thou came, for I, by the guiding light's wind, must journey, and reclaim the strength thou dost possess."
And then, out of nowhere, a magic circle appeared from his right palm after he said the incantation.
It was a bright yellow of rune language that was circling the magic circle. The magic circle then was placed on the wall of ice and it made a reaction.
The ice was beginning to melt as it sweated upon getting affected by the rune magic circle. Eventually, the wall of ice was gradually disappearing and it was gone to thin air.
Yuichi was surprised by the results. He wasn't expecting that, he, could perform an incantation spell. He never knew why, but it somehow worked for him.
With a little glimmer to his eyes, a surprise and awe expression, he looked at his eyes and was proud of what he'd done. Nevertheless, he stepped aside and focused on one thing that made him do this in the first place– the elven girl.
Yuichi promptly approached the unconscious elven and gently carried her delicate pale body.
"I gotcha."