I awoke confused with a terrible headache. As my eyes opened, nothing could be seen before my eyes.

Attempting to recall what had happened, I remembered that I had fallen into the collapsed tunnels of the golems. But that didn't make sense. Why was I alive and felt uninjured then? I assumed that either this was an odd dream, or I was somehow tranported into somewhere else as I fell. I tried the infamous trick of pinching myself hard.

Oww!

No effect.

Regardless of why I was here, I had to do something. First, I needed light, so I reached into my bag and rummaged for the magic lantern. It took a while, but I found the lantern mixed up within the chunks of scathil and the spellbooks.

I hit the switch of the lantern and the sudden light blinded me, making me advert and shut my eyes. Damn! It was very unpleasant to get my vision covered in spots just like that!

Initally shifting the lantern behind my back to keep it from blinding me, I thought of a better idea, stuffing it under my shirt at the front. The light was now toleratable abeit a little too bright, but it would allow me to slowly adjust to the light. Now that I had light, I needed to figure out where I was at.

I looked around, taking note of the environment. The ceiling was too far away to see, a giant spotch of pure black. It reminded me of a starless night sky. The ground beneath me seemed to stretch endlessly, and I was unable to see anything in the distance apart from dust, materials and the black rocky ground. The oddest thing was, there were hardened puddles of metal that had fused halfway with the dust. There were also intact chunks of Mithil occasionally scattered here and there in the powder as well.

I felt worried, was I going to be stuck in a pit without anything to accopany me until I starved to death? I would even have appreciated the company of monsters.

I grabbed the chunks of Mithil that dotted the ground. It might be uncertain if the Mithil was going to be any use after being trapped here, but only a fool would leave a valuable metal scattered around like that. Touching the Mitril and feeling the weak mana pulse from it, I felt mildly pleasured. I suddenly realised the cause of my nausea; there was not the slightest bit of mana in the air.

This was very odd as there should be many veins of mana coursing through the entire planet, especially deep underground, where the mana was meant to be denser. The pendant hanging on my neck was no longer emitting mana as well, shrivelled up, curling into a deformed ball of feathers from the lack of mana.

What was going on?

After trudging for what felt like an hour but was probably minutes, I finally saw a sign that this wasn't but a empty wasteland. A small cluster of mesmerising blue lights could be seen far in the distance. Could this be a sign of life? There was also a chance it was just a mana crystal, but I still felt excited!

As I neared my target, I suddenly felt a small surge of mana into my pores, and the density of the mana got stronger the nearer I was to it! The touch of the mana on my skin felt like heaven to me after deprivation for such a long time, akin to a man lost in a desert having a drink of water for the first time in days! But as I trudged further, the mana grew overwhelming. It was almost as intense as the scammer's aura! However, I had grown stronger. Such pressure would not be able to take me down!

I might have questioned why the mana had such strength in a regular situation, but I was distracted by getting the first taste of mana in a long time and my determination to push through.

Having reached my destination, I realised the source of the light was from a cluster of shrubs with branches entwined in a odd manner. The bushes looked fairly odd, having no leaves and small holes dotting the branches instead. There were four berries on the plants in total, pulsing with a bright blue light. A sign of life! What I was the gladdest about was that there was life here where I was, and that I wasn't going to die all alone.

I picked the berries off and took a closer look at them and realised they looked nothing like a regular fruit. The skin was composed of many flat surfaces, making it have a polygonic appearance. Despite the strange appearance, they aroused the hunger that I had not noticed earlier all the same.

I had the urge to bite into them right there but the mana density made me feel terrible, so I retreated to a spot with a tolerable amount of mana. The berries might be poisonous as well, but it wasn't like I had any say in what I could eat. I suddenly wished I had the foresight to stock up on food back in the capital, although I wouldn't even be here if I could see the future.

Having no choice, I dug out a small portion of the berry with my fingernail before eating it, not eating it all at once out of caution.

The berry was fairly tasteless, but a huge dose of active mana suddenly assaulted me, causing me to feel intense pain. Gah! Such a small chunk contained that much mana? I had let my guard down and wasn't prepared, the mana causing minor damage to my body.

However, this was simply incredible! A fruit that could pack so much mana would aid tons in breaking through ranks, making me sure this thing would have a incredibly high value. I might have drooled from the thought if not for my struggle to calm the mana.

In a minute, the mana was fully absorbed by the rice sized core in my heart, and a light mist floated around it, signifying that I was closer to rank 2! I felt overjoyed at the discovery of this fruit, although the thought that I might be stuck in this place forever dampened my mood right after that. Thanks negativity!

Either way, the fact that there were plants here meant there was a high likelihood monsters lived here as well, and I would need to raise my rank if I wanted to survive here. Monsters that have spent their entire life in such a mana rich zone would definitely be powerful.

I slowly prised off bits of the fruit and savoured it for an hour, rising up to rank 2. The impact of the mana surges affected me a lot less after the first bite now that I was prepared, so the rest of the tibbits didn't prove to be a problem. I put the seed into the bag, in hope of finding a place to plant it. I took out another berry, about to consume it, but I suddenly heard a loud shriek.

"Screeeeee!"

I could see something speeding towards me. Squinting my eyes, I made out a small and vague bat like figure. A monster! I stashed the berry back into the bag and held my hoe forward, preparing to block, activating Paralysing Hoe at the same time.

I didn't dare to underestimate such a small creature despite it's size, so I activated my newly learnt spell. A part of the reason was also that I was excited to see the effects of my new spell!

"Clunk!"

The blur of purple crashed straight into my hoe and I was sent flying backwards, my arms nearly twisted by the impact since I refused to let go of the hoe. Holy shit! As expected, the monster was very powerful. Fortunately for me, I didn't underestimate the creature and used my spell, causing it to fall to the ground, paralysed. The creature snarled weakly at me, with it's cold, beady, white eyes. It was very satisfying to not be on the recieving end of electrical attacks this time, but to the one dealing them instead.

The shape of it's body was exactly that of a bat, but it also looked vastly different, completely hairless and with dark purple skin. The eyes of it were purely white and slighty translucent, reminding me of glassy white marbles. It's forelimbs were tipped with sharp, deadly claws, with fangs just as vicious in it's mouth. What ruined it's creepy look was the nose broken inwards where I struck it, bleeding profusely.

I ignored my dizziness from getting flipped all of a sudden and activated Strength Up, slamming my hoe into the head of the bat on the ground, taking advantage of it's frozen stare. A very loud cracking sound could be heard as the bat shrieked loudly, falling unconscious. A lot of blood was gushing out of it's head at this point.

I congratulated myself, which was a mistake. I could heard the screechs of more bats the moment I did that. Life did not want things to go well for me.

A swarm of roughly a dozen bats flew towards me, snarling as they aim their fangs and claws at me. This was terrible! I tried to dodge quickly as they charged but one of them managed to bite me, ripping out a chunk of my arm with it's mouth.

This is when people say, be careful what you wish for.

I screamed, expecting to be torn apart by the bats, closing my eyes, not willing to witness my demise.

.....

But nothing happened. I opened my eyes gingerly, and saw the bats all smashed into small pits on the ground, bleeding and unconcious.

A golden light was illuminating from the palm of a beautiful young girl who looked a year or two under my age. Her hair seemed to flutter in the air even as the casting of the spell faded.

I couldn't help but stare, subconciously wanting to take a good look at her beautiful features. Her eyes were golden, extremely beautiful, matching her hair well. Each strand of her hair seemed delicate and refined, her nose perfect and-

"Give it back to me!"

"Ehhh?"

I snapped out of my daze, trying to recall what she said.