I was expecting to wake up and feel different from the time of the simulation.

That simulation was made in an artificial reality after all, and it was ought to have flaws.

Surprisingly, this wasn’t the case. I felt as I always did.

*Chomp*

Rolling away with practised movements before I even saw the beast, I sprang up while jumping to the side, because I knew in what direction it would go immediately after.

Simultaneously I started casting the explosion spell. The way I cast it was different from how I normally did it and instead of manipulating the mana around me I was manipulating the mana inside my body.

If I cared enough I would try to develop this way of casting as it was indeed faster, if not a bit more burdensome but my only objective was to get out of this situation.

*Chomp*

As I leapt away, the creature bit the air where I was less than half a second ago.

It was fast, but it couldn’t fly and it was heavy, so this gave me a second of time to cast the spell further while setting my body to move out again.

*Chomp* *Chomp*

I bent my body as the creature aimed for my head and jumped away with practised ease.

I spent around 13 days with only 2 four hour breaks in between the gruelling training. No matter how untalented I was in the ways of battling in close quarters, I would have to admit my absolute incompetence surpassing common sense if I couldn’t learn to survive long enough in this situation.

5 seconds till cast complete…

The creature was very close, which was bad.

I’m pretty sure that while it was very nimble, it was also very good at defence. Its skin and scales were harder than rocks, maybe harder than iron so having anything to do with it close up was not a luxury I could afford.

*Swipe* *Swipe* *Swipe*

Occasionally it would use its claws to swipe at me instead of biting. It didn’t do it too often as its body was rather too big and long but it did so at times. Lucky.

It twisting its body brought it to an awkward position allowing me to manoeuvre a tiny slither away, to a more advantageous position yet again.

“Raaaa”

*Smack* *Chomp* *Chomp* *Swipe*

4 seconds left…

It also headbutted me when angry. Not the best idea. This attack isn’t as dangerous as its bite and isn’t as fast as its claw swipe. It would still kill me if I got hit, so I pushed my body away with legwork that I would call impressive and very painful if I cared enough.

“Raa Raa!”

*Smack* *Chomp* *Chomp* *Swipe*

My goal is not just avoiding – it’s to force the creature to use the kinds of attacks that would yield me enough time to complete casting the spell.

That meant I enraged it all the time, so it would start attacking chaotically and kept it at close enough distance for it not to stop trying to attack me all the time.

Some might say it was a suicidal strategy. And it was. I died literally hundreds of times making it usable.

But not having it inside my cave would only spell doom for me at this stage because if it had enough space to move, it would require a superhuman to shoot it down.

What else did I have to do at that time?

*Swipe*

Bending my knees as it went for a bite in the head and jumping backwards just enough not to lose my footing and avoid its claw swipe all the while taking care of the timing of the jump was nothing short of an acrobatic feat.

I only had to hold on for only six seconds for now, but on the other hand, I had to hold on for a whole six seconds.

Well, 3 seconds now.

*Chomp*

This one almost got my shoulder. I must be very careful not to cramp my muscles or give in to the pain as a single moment of delay will kill me.

*Smack*

This one is good. The claw swipe damaged the wall of the cave, letting dust fall on this creature’s face. It will give me a moment enough time to jump back.

“Raaaa”

Flying mid air for even a whole second is a stupid move. Not having stable ground is fatal most times as the creature is fast but…

*Smack*

This was the sound of my back hitting the floor of the cave and…

*Boom*

“RAAAAAA!!!”

This was the sound of the creature’s eye exploding. Immediately starting casting again while ignoring pain, I jump on my feet while making just enough distance. This time will take me about 8 seconds.

The reasons are – physical pain messing with my concentration despite me using my multitask skill to my fullest and light paralysis caused by the death attribute mana in my body from the previous explosion.

But I can leisurely (in comparison to before the first explosion) avoid the creature as it spends precious 3 seconds raging without attacking while aiming and the rest of the five seconds…

*Chomp* *Swipe* *Swipe* *Chomp*

It fights more slowly and less precisely. Probably because of shock or a concussion. It’s legs are partially damaged too. They’re bleeding, though I was close enough to the explosion to have hurt myself some too. It can barely move really. But so can I.

*Boom*

“Raaaa!” This time its voice I barely hear is raspy. Very much so. It looks very bad through my blurry vision and it doesn’t move.

I can no longer cast the spells inside my body because everything hurts too much but I let some parallel lines care for the pain and begin casting a stone spear with Death attribute mana from the atmosphere around me.

Because of the previous explosions, the Death mana here is plenty. Takes 10 seconds to finish casting and 2 to charge (Charging would take much less time if I wasn’t as damaged as I am now)

Steadying and aiming is hard when your body shakes from pain and your vision is blurry but…

*Whrooom*

“Eerrrk Raaaa”

The creature is dead. I hope. I begin casting another stone spear just in case and carefully fire it in the other eye. It’s hard as my body is going limp.

This is enough for now. Time to clean out the Death attribute mana poisoning.

I begin crawling out of the cave. The cave has too much Death attribute mana.

I expel what I can while crawling but it barely helps.

“Is it dead?”

“Yes”

After hearing what Ralph said, I can hear my heart calming down just a little. It had worked hard this time. Thankfully, I never died from a heart failure in the simulations.

I finally crawled out of the cave and can now begin expelling the mana in earnest.

It is a bit painful but it’s the easiest part so far because I don’t have to move.

Creating a parallel line of thought to stop me from falling asleep, I close my eyes and concentrate...

Ralph taught me how to handle mana inside my body when I first tried learning magic.

I can feel it clearly inside of me, moving along my blood vessels...

There are many vortexes along my limbs, coiling my muscles and bones, with mana flowing in them like liquid sugar.

I can’t accurately tell where the Death-attribute mana is, I can only vaguely feel it out.

It’s like a tiny drop of paint in honey, spreading slowly. Not that I ever dropped paint in honey, so it may be just my imagination of what would happen.

I just have to expel all mana inside me. it’s similar to breathing out. I can feel as if light is escaping through my skin every time I expel contaminated mana.

It takes some time, attempts to expel it faster would only hurt me.

After all of it is done, I crawl away even further and try to take in Life-attribute mana.

It’s a small help, but it certainly does help me revive the dead tissues and heal my wounds. The big downside is, I have to clean my mana of other attributes in it beforehand or it won’t work. And by cleaning my mana of attributes I mean drain myself of mana and, consequently of MP.

MP is basically the stamina of my mind. It’s harder to work magic when MP is low just how it’s hard to run after you get tired.

Since I have to spend a lot of MP, it’s not a choice of healing I would use if I could. Just using my own mana like how Ralph told me is much more cost-efficient but healing in the way I’m doing now is more thorough which is what I need in this case.

It takes even more time but it’s pretty easy.

After I am done, I choose to fall asleep. There won’t be any beasts trying to eat me as the creature maybe scared them away.

G’night.