It was important to note though, that the quests I needed still had to be shown and completed. Along with that, there was only a chance I would be rewarded with food and water. It was a pretty finicky system of acquiring supplies.

But it was still better than nothing!

I didn't really have a place to put the bundle of food, so I just decided to carry it. It was kind of heavy, but nothing too bad.

Something else that was bothering me was another thing I had seen on my character profile.

I hadn't been paying attention to my mp, since hp was the most important thing at the time, but looking at my profile I saw something strange.

I had zero mp! None at all! I had no magic!

Was I just magically insufficient? Was I a muggle, even in this world?

No magic school for me?

In a world with demons, a game system, and all sorts of things, I couldn't use magic.

I was devastated.

Well, I supposed it just wasn't meant to be. Some part of me still wanted there to be a way, maybe some ritual to awaken my magic, but the rational part of me didn't want to get my hopes up.

In my opinion, it was better to always expect the worst. I had mistakenly overestimated myself and others too many times. Better to think of the bad possibility and be happily surprised than the other way around.

But anyways, I had to think about my current situation. First thing to do was figure out how to get out of the cave. More things to do outside means more quests given.

So I once again walked up near the cave entrance with my new food bag. I was around twenty feet below the opening, sitting on a ridge. My feet were somewhat hanging off the edge and I was staring upwards.

I could only really think of one thing I could do now, but that didn't make it any more appealing.

Time to level up heat resistance!

It was boring and very painful, but if I was going to get out of here, it was really the only thing that would work. If I could make sure that I was resistant enough to the heat outside, I would actually be able to go outside. Easy.

So I left my bag on the rock and clambered up to the top of the cave. Crouching right inside the opening, I stuck my arm up and grunted as the heat hit it.

Since my heat resistance was at level 2, it took around ten seconds before my arm started to actually burn, and a few more before it stung enough that I was forced to pull it back inside.

Looking at my hand, it seemed like my level up was already showing its use. Overall, my skin was much less pink and burned then before. The increase in hp didn't exactly increase pain tolerance, just a reduced amount of damage.

At least it would be easier this time.

Still didn't make it more fun, though...

I wasn't sure why at the time, but it took a very long time to level up my heat resistance again. It must have taken at least fifteen minutes of burning my hand and 5 hp before I finally saw a system message.

Persistence: Level 1 Acquired

Not exactly the thing I was hoping for, but it was nice regardless. After that, it took another few minutes to get the level up.

Heat Resistance: Level 3 Acquired

Finally! It seemed like it was taking longer and longer to level up skills the higher level they were. Hopefully they wouldn't plateau at some point, that would be upsetting.

I wasn't sure how good the effect was with the level increase, but I was glad I had gotten anything at all.

My hand was covered in burns again, but they didn't look as bad as last time, which was very nice.

I gripped underneath the ledge hesitantly. I was preparing to look around the outside once again, but I kept envisioning those crazy huge demons over and over.

What would I do if one of those massive things was right outside? What if I came face to face with not just a single Keilatrix, but a dozen?

I would obviously die.

What the hell, I should've gotten over this a long time ago. Now I was getting new types of uncertainties? Now it's not just more people with guns I'm thinking are going to kill me, it's demons. This place is already getting into my mind.

No good. I'm a stronger person than this.

I rose my head above the cave entrance, happy to notice that the feeling of the heat had lowered even more.

Quickly peering around the immediate area, I saw no noticable demons. Wonderful.

My location was the same as I had saw last time. On top of some sort of hill overlooking an absolute hellscape. Huge piercing cliff-pillars, orange dusty dunes, huge monsters in the distance. Everything was the same.

Due to the lack of too much stinging pain, I had the ability to look around more closely.

I was surrounded mostly by boulders and the rising hill. The ground outside was not extremely steep but definitely sloping. I wasn't on top of a hill, I was on the side of one.

There seemed to be some sort of light coming from uphill. There was a very dim blue radiance stemming from there. It was hard to see, especially due to the fact it was impossible to view the top of the hill from the cave, but there was something there.

I still wasn't feeling burnt. It was surprising, I had expected burning within fifteen to twenty seconds but it felt like nearly a minute had passed and although it was incredibly hot, it wasn't burning my skin.

Staying out there for another twenty seconds, I looked around for any details previously unnoticed.

I ducked back underneath and reveled in the the cooler air before thinking about what had happened.

Obviously, the most important discovery was that my skin hadn't been burnt immediatly by the outside air. That was extremely good.

The air felt like it was around a hundred degrees, while the first time I went outside with no heat resistance, it felt like a hundred and thirty, or maybe more. It seemed like with every level of heat resistance, my tolerance went up by around ten degrees, which meant at that moment, the extremely hot air only felt like roughy one-hundred degrees. That temperature was obviously quite unpleasant, but survivable.

There was also a dim blue light coming from uphill. That was interesting.

Now, let's think. Some strange new discovery I was curious about, and the fact that I wasn't being burnt from the outside...

That seemed like as good an excuse as any for my first excursion into the world!

Time to head outside.