Jen made good time at first. With a clear beacon to help orient herself she was able to focus on moving quickly and drawing steady channels with her fingers in the ground. Her initial guess of direction was slightly off, and Jen reached the rough part of the cavern system without running into the lines of rock she had made when she had first made her way towards the pool that was now her base.

Jen kept her eyes peeled, but between the lack of physical detail that Infrared Vision gave her and the fact that she had built her system of stone markers in complete darkness, Jen ran out of mana without finding anything. She activated Meditation while she slowly made her way back to her camp, ready to put the second part of her pathmaking into practice. The grooves she had made were continuous and unnatural, two features she wanted for any system of navigation. However, While she would be able to feel them with either her hands or her bare feet if she was to encounter them, at the moment they were almost invisible to Infrared Vision. What Jen was working on now was an idea that would hopefully correct that flaw. Back at her base Jen began to scoop water up into the stone bowls she had fashioned earlier, before heading along her path once more, pouring a steady stream of water into the channel she had just carved. In infrared the black water sharply contrasted with the reddish stone, clearly showing her path even from a distance.

Jen had almost finished with filling in the channels with water when she managed to spot what she thought was her path of rocks. It was still hard to make out, but she felt that the rocks piled together with a sparse area surrounding them was probably one of her markers. With nothing better to do with her time, Jen made her way over to the haphazard rock pile, stacking it more neatly and looking around to try and spot the next pile in the line. This one was put together a little better and Jen quickly made her way over, grabbing a few errant stones on her way.

With two piles now identified, Jen had a good direction to search in and easily spotted the next pile in the line. Moving with confidence now that she had stumbled upon her path, she made her way back, making a new pile of stone where it intersected her water path, before once more retracing her path. Being able to see her surroundings made a huge difference, and Jen easily picked up and piled stones to clean up the markers, marvelling as she did so that she had managed to accomplish anything at all in total darkness. The stone path was remarkably usable, even if it did have the drawback of requiring enough loose stone in the area to arrange into markers.

Jen paused at that thought. Where exactly had all this loose rock come from? Most of the cave was relatively smooth, but this section had enough rubble for her to pile up into markers. She looked up at the ceiling. It was too far away for her to actually see it, but she imagined something must have happened up there to leave all these rocks lying around. It wasn’t like the ground had been broken up to form them after all. Jen added exploring the ceiling to her mental list and switched focus back to moving forwards.

Being able to see what she was doing let her work relatively quickly and Jen soon arrived back at the stone pillar she had been teleported next to when the System arrived. She decided to take a short break and did some mental comparisons out of curiosity. While arranging piles of rocks took far more time than using Stone Shaping to carve a trail, the efficiency ratio flipped once regeneration time was added into her calculations. A minute of Stone Shaping cost ten mana and Jen could cover five times the distance while it was active, but it would take her over thirty minutes to regain that mana, even with Meditation active. Taking that total time into account meant that physical labor was six times more effective.

Jen knew her mana related skills were powerful, but it was frustrating to be so limited in their use. She wanted to wave her hands and create a tunnel straight to the surface, but instead even doodling on the ground was an activity that had to be carefully rationed and managed throughout the day. Jen knew her expectations were unrealistic; the System hadn’t even existed a month and likely had enough depth and capacity for progression of skill and power to last a lifetime. As such Jen still had high hopes of eventually achieving her escape on the back of her earth related spells, she just needed to get more out of them. Even though her idea of absorbing ambient mana had turned into the failure that was Devouring Void, Jen had a few plans going forward to improve her spellcasting capability.

The most straightforward method available to Jen was simply raising her Skill Levels. The skills weren’t clear as to what would improve as she leveled them, but increased power or duration, or decreased cost would all be helpful. Alongside raising the level of her Skills Jen was also interested in raising her skill level. The more familiar she became with her spells the more efficiently she would be able to use them, more quickly crafting things with Stone Shaping, or utilizing better positioning for creating Stone Spike architecture.

The slightly more difficult option was to increase the amount of mana that Jen had available to cast spells. Levelling Meditation was a confirmed method of doing so, as was raising her Stats. Raising her stats relied on completing Paths, and while Jen was earning Plot Points, she was rather low on paths to spend them on. More than that, she wasn’t sure how to earn paths related to magic. It was obvious that paths were earned for accomplishing unusual feats. Based on the paths she had already earned, Jen had a couple ideas for paths to try and unlock. The problem was that all the paths that she was capable of thinking of were related to physical accomplishments. Going without sleep, or food, or water were all things that might lead to a path, but it was unlikely that any of them would reward her with increased magical capabilities. Most of Jen’s mental growth had been earned off her fluke achievement of making light without System help. Jen had hoped to earn a path for her testing and trials that lead to Devouring Void, but nothing had revealed itself. Given the surprising complexity of Devouring Void, Jen had her suspicions that her reward had been the skill itself, with the system assisting her in turning her fumbling attempts into an actual skill. The lack of any path from that attempt left her without any way forwards in pushing her magical skills. She had no great enemy to take down with her spells, and a good portion of her mana still needed to be spent on helping her survive instead of experimenting randomly in hopes of unlocking a path.

After considering it for a bit, Jen decided to put the effort into unlocking some more physical paths. Going without food and sleep until she was rewarded was straightforward enough, and while Jen assumed she would likely earn physical stats and skills for her efforts, those were still improvements and the possibility existed of earning free points that she could assign as she pleased. Beyond that, simply unlocking a path didn’t mean she had to invest in it, as the stubborn existence of the Path of Hibernation proved.

More than increasing her stats, Jen was interested in earning more skills that would improve her mana usage. Devouring Void might have been a failure, but there was no reason that skills couldn’t overlap. Jen had managed to earn both Whip Mastery and Ribbon dancing while flailing about with the same piece of improvised rope after all. It might be more difficult to form a skill separate from Devouring Void, but Jen knew it was possible to absorb mana from her surroundings now. Trial and error would hopefully earn her such a skill eventually. A skill along the lines of Mana Efficiency was also something she was interested in either earning or creating, something that would allow her to form and use her skills with less mana needed than was listed.

One of the more unlikely methods of improving her mana usage was to learn spells that didn’t cost as much mana to use. Plant Growth only cost three mana each time Jen cast it, even though it had tremendous effects on the mushrooms and fungi she had cast it on. If she could unlock other cheap spells and find or create ways to utilize them effectively it would greatly improve her position. Of course, this relied on Jen earning a path, getting a skill from that path, having that skill be a spell, having that spell be cheap, and finally finding an area where that cheap spell could effectively be utilized.

The final option available to Jen was to find a resource in these caves that would help her out. Mana Potions were a staple of fantasy games, and Jen already knew that there were plants that interacted with Mana. She wasn’t sure what form exactly any mana restoring item would take, but she was still determined to keep her eyes peeled and leave no stone unturned.

Speaking of stones left unturned, Jen looked at the rock wall she was next to. It quickly left her sight range as it climbed upwards, but Jen had a feeling that there was something up there. Something that was responsible for the stone rubble scattered around the ground.After a moment she shrugged, then took off her shoes. Her sneakers had held up remarkably well, but they really didn’t provide enough grip for her to want to try climbing in them.

Even though Jen hadn’t focused on her physical stats, she had still earned enough points to greatly increase her capabilities. Jen felt like her stamina was limitless, that she could keep climbing forever without running out of energy. Her hands and feet were protesting a little, but it was only minor discomfort. Jen had more than enough strength to leverage her body upwards, and there were enough ridges, bumps, and cracks for her to hold onto. Jen paused for a bit once she no longer was able to make out the ground, but continued her journey upwards.

It didn’t take long for her situation to change. Until now the wall had had a slight angle, letting Jen lean into it and more easily carry her weight. That incline was now gone, and the wall was now almost completely vertical, with signs that it was going to start forming a hanging incline eventually. Jen found a comfortable spot to hang her weight from and considered her options. She could head back down. At the very least she had likely earned a climbing skill and some Plot Points from it, and she know had a better idea of just how massive the cave was, given that she had probably been climbing for a good sixty some feet without any sign of the roof yet. On the other hand, the System rewarded people who pushed their limits, and Jen still didn’t know what the ceiling looked like. She still had a few tricks she could use as well to hopefully make her journey a little easier. The risk of falling and hurting herself would continue to increase, but Jen was probably already high enough for any accident to be deadly. The trick was to not think about it and focus as much attention as she could on remaining safe and in control.

It was a tough call to make, but Jen was feeling confident. She pulled her left hand away from its handhold before casting a spell. While she had a dream of using multiple castings of Stone Spike to create a grand staircase leading up the wall, she went for the more economical option. Stone Shaping soon covered her hand, and she quickly got to work, scooping out handfuls of stone to make a slowly rising ladder of hand and footholds. The softening effect of Stone happening faded quickly once her hand had left the area, and the indentations left behind were large and deep enough for Jen to put her weight onto.

Racing against the clock of the spell pushed Jen to go faster than she would have otherwise, but it paid off, with red lights appearing in the air above her. As Jen got closer she saw that they were the remaining ends of broken stalactites, shattered by some event that rippled across the ceiling. A couple of dark cracks were visible, but Jen decided to leave them for another day. While she had managed to climb a wall, she knew she wasn’t yet capable of hanging from the ceiling to reach those cracks to explore. Before she made her way back down to the ground, Jen paused for a bit, stretching out her senses. However, unlike Gandalf, she was unable to determine if the air was lighter up here. Not sure if that was because the cracks didn’t lead anywhere or if she just didn’t have the talent to sense the difference Jen mentally shrugged and made her way back down to the ground. Upon reaching the ground Jen opened her status screen and was happy to see a new Path as a result of her actions.

By climbing a distance over 100 feet without the aid of tools the Free Climber Path is now open to you.