Vance couldn't be sure how long he'd spent in his little cave. He'd yet to hear any more rumblings from his demonic foe, but he imagined that it was busy doing whatever fiendish ritual was required to summon things.

Vance was fairly confident that he'd purged himself of all dark mana, but there was always room for error, especially in his current state. Vance was waiting for the bare minimum of his willpower to return so that he could act. He had a list of priorities, which he tackled one at a time as he felt he had the will to do so.

First, Vance needed to regain proper control of his fire core. Secondly, he needed to find out how far underground he was. To that end, Vance sent out his mana sense as soon as he felt ready and, by his best estimate, found himself to be about thirty feet below the surface. Originally, he was going to use the roots as guides to find the surface. If he had done so, that might've provided him with a more solid frame of reference, but he found very little wood mana to follow.

Vance waited another short time. He was becoming increasingly nervous about his air supply, but he hadn't had to gasp for breath yet. Vance held on for as long as his nerves would hold out before he got to work.

Vance cast his senses inwards and took stock of his newly formed wood core. Unlike his fire core, this one did not stir or fight him. It did not seem to be gathering momentum on its own, nor did it seem to be a threat. It was truly, unequivocally, his. The mana inside was sturdy and dense, naturally far more dense than most other mana types, except perhaps metallic mana.

It gave Vance a feeling like he was standing amongst a grove of tall, ancient trees. Each of them was decorated with hundreds of limbs, sprawling out in all directions. It was a vastness at his fingertips that made Vance both excited and nervous.

Vance reached out for a tiny piece of that mana. It answered his call with an eagerness that he didn't expect. It was hard to tell with his will in shambles, but it seemed even easier than controlling his fire mana. He brought the tiny mote of wood mana out of his body, then directed it towards the ground.

Vance set it in place with his will, then reached out to the mana and commanded it to stretch upwards. He only loosely controlled shape to conserve his willpower, and it grew from the ground, leaving a tiny wooden stalk poking out of the ground, half an inch wide, a few inches tall.

Vance had never controlled a large amount of wood mana like this before. Now, it was so incredibly easy to manipulate it that he finally began to understand just how great, or dangerous, its uses could be.

New confidence swelling, Vance put his plan into action. After his little test, he was confident he had enough mana for this. He gathered a much larger portion and compressed it ever so slightly. Then, he set it to work. He rooted the mana in the earth. This time it was so much that he felt the rocks below shift beneath his feet ever so slightly as it settled into place.

Vance stood back as he directed the mana to flow upwards. As he did, the ground split open and a much thicker, much stronger, trunk-like creation pushed its way upwards. Vance began feeding more mana into the base of the tree he was forming, growing it piece by piece. In moments, it was as tall as the chamber and pressed against the ceiling.

Vance looked at the first stage of his handiwork with pride. He couldn't wait to show this off to Leon, he'd lose his mind. That thought was a welcome distraction, as this next piece would be dangerous. Once he pressed much further, there's a good chance this little chamber of his would collapse.

Vance controlled the wood mana in the centre of the trunk. He caused it to flow outwards, to the sides of the 'tree', hollowing it out. He parted the mana on one side, then moved inside of the trunk. It was cramped and barely big enough to hold him, but it would do. He sealed the entrance he'd made behind him and made sure that the sides and top were solid, especially the top. He compressed the mana there as heavily as he could and made it somewhat pointed, hoping that anything falling from above would slide off to the side, rather than crush it.

Then, with all of the force of his barely recovered willpower, he pushed more mana into the base of the tree and commanded it to grow. Slowly, he started to hear cracking above him as the stone was slowly forced to part as both a supernatural, underground tree and accompanying arcanist began their ascent.

As he went, Vance used his mana sense to very carefully monitor the situation above him. He was delighted to find that there wasn't actually too much stone above him, and it soon gave way to dirt and loose rock, which was much easier to push through. Though, as he expected, that loose dirt and rock took the first chance they had to slide down the side of his tree and fall into the cavern below. Coming with the construct had been the right move.

Slowly but surely, he travelled upwards. Every few moments, he would stop and inspect the surrounding mana. He looked for weaknesses, breaks, cracks or other signs that something was going wrong, or that something outside was likely to cause a problem the next time he spurred his tree onwards.

Foot by foot, he got closer and closer to the surface until eventually, he felt the welcome proximity of blessed, beautiful natural wind mana. Exhilarated, Vance became a little impatient and spurred the tree to continue its growth for a little longer, freeing himself from the grips of the earth. As quickly as he could, he reached out to the mana on one side of the tree, he didn't care which and tore it down. He tumbled out of the tree in a clumsy, yet purposeful manner and stumbled back from it.

Vance was surprised at how strongly he felt affected by the fresh air. He felt grass on the soles of his still bare feet. He cast out his mana sense and realised that there was essentially nothing around him. There were a few trees here and there that poked from the ground, the occasional bush or shrub, but nothing else. Disoriented as he was, the slight breeze felt wonderful, even with all of the tiny stabs of sharp pain reminding him of his wounds.

He stopped for a moment when he picked up on the trees around him. There were dozens of them, and they were all, for lack of a better word, dead. They barely registered to his mana sense as much more than a larger than usual twig.

They were almost totally devoid of mana. Of course, he couldn't see them, but he could feel the shapes. The roots were withered, the trunk was thin and the branches curled inwards on themselves, barren of all leaves. Vance wasn't the biggest advocate for nature, but he did feel a little bad, he knew that this was his handiwork. It worried him not about this particular instance, but the damage he might do in the future.

He shook his head and refocused his thoughts. He needed to get back to town and tell people about this place. He needed Nathaniel, Nicholas and the masters, somebody who knew how to fight a demon. He could worry about his potential for magical devastation later.

Unfortunately, Vance, once again, was incredibly low on willpower. He no longer had the force of will to use his mana sense to follow the tunnels below, and they sprawled all over the place.

Most awfully, there was nothing nearby to give him a sense of direction. Even with his mana sense, he was effectively blind. He let out a light chuckle to himself. After all of that, his inability to navigate properly would be his reason for failure. Ordinarily, in a situation like this, he'd use the sun as a rough form of direction, but he'd at least need an idea of where he was starting. Sure, he could head east, but no guarantee led back to the city, he could miss it entirely if he was too far south.

Then, Vance let out a sigh. Realising that actually, he wasn't out of options. Vance still had leftover wood mana in his core, and a core full of fire mana. This wasn't smart, nor was it a step in the right direction for avoiding magical devastation, but he didn't have many other tools to create a signal with, and it had to be a big signal.

Vance gathered every ounce of remaining wood mana he had and fed it to his new tree. It got quite thin, but it rose dozens of feet further into the air. If the average height of the other trees around here was anything to go by, it towered over them. Vance studied this decision in his head for a moment. It was, categorically, a bad idea. He was sure that there was some other, much better option that he just wasn't thinking of, but time was of the essence and he had the tools, so he had to act.

He called upon his fire core and set his newly conjured tree escape pod on fire. The flames took to the wood a little too easily, and the whole thing burst into flames within just a few seconds. Vance took a few involuntary steps backwards as the heat was much more than he'd expected.

As per usual with him, he found something to trip over and found himself sitting on much more comfortable ground than he had been for the past few hours. He didn't sense any encroaching, evil dark mana, so he decided to allow himself a break. After all, he'd just be wandering if he picked a direction at random. Vance sat and waited for a time, keeping the fire isolated to his tree and hoping somebody would see his signal. Likely, it'd burn for hours.

Vance felt when the warmth of the sun faded. He hadn't yet been pulled back down into the demon's lair, for which he was grateful. It did raise the question of what the foul beast might summon in his stead, but he only had enough room on his plate for his own problems at the moment.

Then, just as Vance was routinely checking the flames to make sure they'd stay under control, he heard a blessed sound, one which he would remember in the deepest parts of his soul for as long as he lived.

"Vance! Are you alright?!" Nathaniel's voice rang out from above, as Vance felt the rush of wind mana enter the range of his mana sense. He felt the breeze rush past him as the wind mana was dispersed with little care. He heard the footfalls of a man running in his direction, followed by several more bursts of wind mana in the air.

Vance felt the sudden impact as Nathaniel crashed into him, gathering him up in his arms and lifting him off the ground in a massive bear hug.

"You're alive, thank the gods!" Nathaniel said as he tried to squeeze the life out of Vance.

Vance wasn't sure if he was crying, or if it was Nathaniel. It was probably Nathaniel, maybe.