So.

What did Lucas learn today?

He learned not to ever do anything fun in this world, because it will always find a way to screw him over. Lucas wanted to blame his dumb decision on that mysterious mind magic, but frankly he didn’t think that egregious magic was what caused him to come back here. The decision to go back into the cave was his and his alone, he hadn’t felt like anyone tried to force him back in here. At least, that’s what he thought. And he’d have to believe what he thought for now, because as soon as he doubted his own thinking, he’d go crazy, and mental insanity was the last thing he needed right now.

Wait, was he going to run out of air here? The latest earthquake did collapse the tunnel behind him after all. His breathing became erratic, his hands began to shake, he felt light-headed, and a small laugh escaped his lips. How could this have happened to him? Seriously? Was this how he was going to die? Ha. Hahahaha.

Haaaa.

The panic didn’t last too long, and he calmed down quickly as he noticed that he wouldn’t be running out of air any time soon. The cavern was more than large enough to have air for, what, at least a day or so? Maybe? He didn’t know how air worked, he had a Master’s in English not a Master’s in… air. Point being, the cave was large and oxygen probably wasn’t a problem. Plus, the boulder blocking the tunnel didn’t even completely cover the entryway- there were small gaps here and there, and they were plenty large enough for air to circulate into the cavern. Why did he even think air would stop flowing in here? Was he stupid? No, no, he was just panicked. Of course he wasn’t stupid. He knew that.

The earthquake also introduced a steady stream of water to the room; A tiny hole had opened up in the ceiling on the opposite end of the room, creating a tiny, sink-faucet sized waterfall. It wasn’t crystal clear like the water earlier had been, instead it looked murky green. Also, it bubbled and smelled sickly sweet, like overripe fruit.

Hmmm, that wasn’t water, was it. It was probably some fantasy cave fluid that killed someone as soon as they took a sip. Luckily there wasn’t a lot of it coming in right now, so it wasn’t really a problem yet. Ha, luckily. Was a non-immediate threat really something to be considered lucky now? Ha. Haha. ha.

How the hell was he going to get out of this one?

There was still a healthy amount of mana potion in one of the canteens. When he drank about half a cup before it completely restored his MP, and there was definitely a bit more than 3 cups left.

Suffice to say he could try blasting his way out with an [Ice Lance]. Last time he tried using it it did use up some of his HP, though, so maybe not. From what he inherently knew about the spell, he couldn’t just make it cost less, either. It wasn’t as simple as that, apparently, but he didn’t know why he knew that. That knowledge could really only come from two places; either the system gave him that information when he learned the spell, or it was a holdover memory from Xandrious. Considering Lucas couldn’t remember anything specific about Xandrious' life though, he figured it was more likely the former than the latter, but if the system was responsible, he felt like it should have given him a message or something. Or an explanation. Or an actually useful tutorial. Or anything, really.

Instead, he just knew that he couldn’t put less MP into his [Ice Lance] and make a less powerful version. And of course, that knowledge wasn’t useful here.

If only he could still use [Ice Arrow] or [Ice Spear], maybe one of those would work.

[Skills added: [Ice Arrow III], [Ice Spear III], and [Ice Shield III]].

The message came out of nowhere, as if listening in on his thoughts. While it was great he had access to those spells again, he hated that the system took them away in the first place. It made no sense in hindsight, really. Why had the system felt the need to take away his skills when they evolved? Thinking about it, he couldn’t come up with a reason other than that the system was screwing around with him. Which, to be fair, it probably was considering how his new life here has been going thus far.

A gut feeling told him to flip the birds into the air. Yeah. That’s what he thought of the system, and whoever was behind it.

After waving his arms and hands around and hoping whoever made the system saw his insulting gesture, he felt a bit better. Not by much, though, since he was still stuck here and had his work cut out for him.

Now that he had access to his previous spells, the “blast away the rocks” plan was looking a bit better. Ah, but his access to his previous spells brought up another question- if he evolved those spells again, could he get [Ice Arrows] and [Ice Spears]? Or maybe even [Ice Aura], if he ever learned exactly what that did. Questions for another time, preferably when he wasn’t trapped in some dank cavern.

Now it was time to try and get out of this creepy cavern. That coffin was still closed, but he hated being in here with it, and he hated being trapped in a room that was slowly filling up with water, and he hated this stupid cave. He needed to get out.

[Ice Spear III] only took 4 seconds to form as compared to [Ice Lance]’s 10. It safely hovered in the air over his right shoulder once it formed. It was only about 3 feet long, which wasn’t even half as long as [Ice Lance] had been. And when he cast that spell, it had been a smaller version, too, since its normal size had been to large for that cabin’s dinky basement. [Ice Lance] was definitely starting to look like it was the magical equivalent of bringing an AK-47 to a fistfight.

Ah, but now wasn’t the time to be thinking of hypotheticals, now was the time to leave this place. Lance apologized to the [Ice Spear III] that was patiently floating above his shoulder. But the fact it waited on him to cast it showed some utility promise, too, and-- wait. He was getting ahead of himself. Again, he had to remind himself that experimenting with his fun magic powers would have to wait. Now was the time to act.

With nothing more than a thought, the [Ice Spear III] obeyed his will and launched itself as hard as it could at the buried tunnel. The result was nothing fantastic. It made a 2-fists sized hole. Great. Now, Lucas knew he was slightly shorter than average (at least, he had been on Earth, and Xandrious’ body seems to be about what he was used to), but he definitely couldn’t fit inside the hole he made. Plus, the hole didn’t even punch all the way through the rock, it only went about three feet in then stopped.

In essence, [Ice Spear III] had been smaller and less powerful, but it didn’t cost nearly as much MP and cause him catastrophic pain like [Ice Lance] did. It still, however, emptied his MP.

[MP 0/38]

[HP 29/55]

And it took 1 point of HP to boot. What a petty spell. Did it really need that 1 point of HP? What could 1 point of HP even amount to, anyway?

Although, if 1 HP was worth 2 MP (this was a stretch, since it wasn't like he had any proof that 1 HP = 2 MP), then [Ice Spear III] would cost 40 MP to cast. Following that logic, then, [Ice Lance] cost a whopping 136 MP. Oof. He wasn’t going to be able to cast that any time soon, was he. Or maybe he could. Maybe this world had a bloated sense of value, and one day he’d have 10 million MP. That likely wasn’t the case though, considering 1 point of Int only gave him 2 MP. And while he hadn’t seen how many stats he got on level up, his intuition was telling him he wouldn’t get many – definitely not nearly enough to let his mana get into 7 or 8 digits.

Alas, his power fantasy of becoming a one man army that intercontinental armies couldn’t kill would never be fulfilled.

Bahahaha. Imagine actually having dreams like that. He was 29 years old, his childish fantasy of lording over people was long gone now- all he needed was enough power to get by. Having actually experienced the "overwhelming" power of managing people at his old job, it wasn't something he would ever want again. People never did what he wanted, even when he made their schedules and signed their paychecks. It would likely be the same if he became a magic death lord or whatever. He could reign supreme, sure, but there would always be someone that would go against him. And in the case of being a magical death lord, it would probably be some god-chosen hero. Hahahaha.

Haha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

He'd laughed too much, and now his sides hurt. Ow. The laughing-pain on top of only having half his HP didn't make for a great feeling. Hopefully the village would have some HP potions or something. If he even got to the village, which right now his chances weren't looking great. What the hell was he supposed to do? That [Ice Spear III] did nothing for him, and he was all out of ideas. The boulder that blocked the tunnel definitely wasn’t something he could move out of the way, and he wasn’t about to start desperately clawing at the stupid rock like some sort of primitive madman.

Wait. Idea. What if he drank his MP potion while he formed an [Ice Lance]? Could his MP be recovered while he was casting a spell? This was an avenue worth investigating, but he definitely didn’t want to try it out with [Ice Lance] first. Worst case scenario, it failed, and he’d accidentally die by draining all his HP trying to cast a failed spell. [Ice Arrow III] was also out of the question, because it would only take less than a second to cast it, let alone its minuscule mana cost. Probably. What was its mana cost, anyway? Why didn’t the system tell him that? Curiosity got the better of him and led Lucas to drink enough of the gross potion to top up his MP and cast [Ice Arrow III].

[MP 35/38]

It only cost 3 MP. It was actually kind of neat that he had a spell he could cast a dozen or so times before his mana hit 0. It did look kind of pathetic compared to his other two spells, though. [Ice Arrow III] looked less like an arrow’s and more like an icicle that would form on the overhang outside his apartment after it snowed. [Ice Spear III] and [Ice Lance] also looked relatively simple, since they were just larger forms of [Ice Arrow III], but they had size going for them. [Ice Arrow III] had nothing going for it as far as largeness was concerned.

Couldn’t complain about the power he got from it, though. He felt a nice heft to it as he magically chucked the [Ice Arrow III] against the wall of the cave. It didn’t leave any real mark, but it shattered nicely. It would probably pierce someone’s clothes and skin if he cast it at them. Although its speed also left something to be desired, so if someone saw it coming, they could easily dodge out of the way if they were competent.

Eh. A spell is a spell. It was better than not having one. He was sure there would be a use for it at some point.

With that distraction out of the way, he could now work on his primary goal; which was getting the heck out of here.

So, it was [Ice Spear III]’s turn again. Lucas held the canteen to his lips and began to cast the spell. As soon as he felt a drain on his mana, he chugged that foul potion. After 4 seconds of sustained drinking, his experiment proved to be a success. His MP was full, he hadn’t taken a single point of damage, and an [Ice Spear III] was once again hovering over his shoulder. Nice. He didn’t need this one though, so he chucked it at the wall and made another sizable hole.

Alright. Now time for the big one. Deep breath. He had this in the bag. All he had to do was not mess it up.

Guzzling (actually, perhaps guzzle wasn't the right word, since he had to keep this liquid in his mouth and slowly drip it down his throat at a precise speed. Maybe drizzle was the right word? Eh. Words. What a pain.) a MP potion wasn’t something he would ever recommend to anyone, it tasted so bad; In fact, he felt like it was beginning to taste worse than it had before. It still tasted like dollar store black-raspberry flavored cough medicine, but now it tasted like it had been left to fester on a shelf for a decade. Keeping that disgusting fluid in his throat and mouth for the 10 seconds it took to cast the spell wasn't fun, and he had to fight the urge to vomit it all back up.

But it worked. The spell formed, and as soon as it did, he immediately spat out what was left of the potion. A waste, to be sure, but there was no chance that he was going to spit it back into the canteen and then drink it again later. It was disgusting enough when it wasn't mixed with his spit, he didn't even want to begin to think how rancid that thing would taste if he saved what was left of it for later.

His canteen was empty and his MP was full, so he probably drank more than necessary, but he didn't care. A gigantic [Ice Lance] was hovering behind him. At 9 feet long and 3 feet at its largest diameter, this spell was a beast. There was no way this boulder could stop him anymore.

“Go!” Lucas screamed unnecessarily. He didn’t need to say anything to launch the spell at the boulder, but now it just felt right.

Not only did the [Ice Lance] pulverize the boulder at a car-like speed, but it kept going and going until the tunnel turned, and at that point it punched through the tunnel wall.

“Yes!” he let out a hushed victory cry as he pumped his fist. Yes! No more cave for him! Alright!

“That was superbly done.”

“Thanks, I really did my best there,” Lucas said. Finally, someone who appreciated all his hard work in this world!

Ah. Wait.

Who said that?

Hold on. Oh come on. Please no. Please no. Please no.

“Shit biscuits,” Lucas muttered to himself as he slowly turned around.

A pale man stood in the now-open coffin and stared at him. His black-but-graying hair would have been an obvious sign of the stranger being in the latter half of his years, if it weren’t for the fact that Lucas already suspected as much since he just came out of a coffin. The tip of his nose was slightly pointed, as was the tip of his chin, but the pointiest thing about him had to be the rapier that was hanging at his hip. The clothes he wore looked like they had once been elegant and the height of class, but now they were nothing more than ancient rags. Thankfully his clothes covered up everything from right below his shoulders to right above his knees, because he didn’t know how he would have dealt with seeing undead unmentionables.

At least, the man didn’t look very much alive, anyway. Plus, this guy looked comfortable standing in that coffin, and he doubted just anyone could look comfortable doing that. At the very least, it was a safe bet to assume this guy was a vampire.

“I am Salamanon Bloodwyrm,” the man introduced himself. His voice was both rich and deep, and although his name was just as silly as Xandrious', Lucas couldn't help but shake at the knees. There was quite literally power in this man's voice, and its force rattled his nerves.

“And who might you be?” Salamanon asked.