James woke up with a pounding headache, though he was lucky he woke up at all. Who snorts magical ingredients?

Whatever, it was worth it. His demonic side has gotten stronger, and that was the goal, wasn’t it? His spells will be stronger, his affinity with the Darkness has increased. The only downside for now seems to be that spells will cost more mana as well.

It was now time to train.

First of all, James read through the spellbook Helios gave him. Fireball was a good spell, but he needed to be versatile in order to face the dangers ahead. [Jack of all trades, master of none] helped him quickly learn all the spells in the book.

Though even with Jack of all trades, James decided to postpone any other plans for a week so he could get a good grasp on all these spells, otherwise he’d be a defenseless baby out there. Besides, acquiring spells can be just as satisfying as leveling up.

After the week passed, he now had a basic spell for every possible need. Helios chose the book well, it gave James a good foundation. Tens of spells, from healing to mobility to scouting, James was now a proper mage. Though these are all spells for beginners, he’ll have to learn better spells soon.

He then checked his phone. Helios had sent him a message telling him where he could train next, along with some basic information about this world.

Hedonia is an independent entity, located in the northern hemisphere of the planet Beatus. Not belonging to any country, it is allied with all the countries surrounding it. There's free trade, free movement of people between the allied countries. Apparently there’s no point to borders when there are all kinds of spells that can circumvent them.

There was a lot more information, but since it didn’t seem very important, James’s impatient recluse brain just glossed over it.

One part that caught his eye was that the Darkness had taken over more than a third of the planet. That was a lot worse than he had previously thought. So when Cadmus was telling him that there’s no rush, he was still just trying to not put too much pressure on James.

It doesn’t a make much of a difference though, James was planning on getting powerful as quickly as possible anyway. But the feeling of impending did make him feel a bit anxious. Perhaps that’s why Cadmus was trying to soften the blow, knowing that a third of the world has been taken over can be quite demoralizing to say the least.

Maybe after he died he didn’t choose this world. Maybe this world chose him. They need one another. Beatus is the perfect world for James, it’s literally everything he ever wanted. And if he can do anything to help, he gladly will.

According to Helios’s message, James now had two options. He could either train in a blazing desert, or in some frozen caverns. The choice was obvious to James, he’d rather freeze his balls off than be hot for even a second.

Out of all the spells he learned from the book, James took a liking to the earth spells. He had a feeling those could be overpowered so he put extra effort into practicing earth magic. Earth spells basically have built-in crowd control! Fire spells don’t have that.

And since earth spells are much harder to cast when all that’s around you is sand, the frozen caverns were the definite choice for the gentlemen with a patrician taste.

James headed to the portal that would take him to the frozen caverns, but for some reason he had an odd feeling, like he was being watched. He was used to having the arcane observers fly around him, but that wasn’t it. He had an eerie feeling, like someone was following him. For a second he thought maybe his cat awakened, but it was still sleeping soundly in the tattoo on his hand.

Remembering the observers, James activated them, but this time he chose not to do a livestream, instead he’d just record himself and then send the video to Lunaris once he’s finished with the training.

After arriving at the frozen caverns, James immediately regretted his decision. It was so cold his toes were going numb, even though he had put on so many fur coats he looked like a furry pufferfish.

The caverns were really dark too, so he couldn’t even use a fire spell to warm himself up, lest he expose his location to every monster currently lurking in this god forsaken place. Besides, a fireball uses too much mana, and it would be too hot as well. Usually you launch the fireball away from you immediately, holding it next to you would burn you.

This cold was unbearable though, he had to figure something out right away. So James closed his eyes and thought about how he could warm himself up without attracting attention. Magic in this world was very versatile, it can do pretty much anything, so there had to be spells that could warm one up.

How hard could it be to make your own spells?

James imagined the feeling of just the heat of a fire, without the flame. He focused on that feeling, forcing his entire consciousness into imagining that there’s heat in the palms of his hands. And while holding that mental image, he decided to send mana into his palms.

Of course, that didn't work.

The genius ended up setting his palms and gloves on fire. He started howling so disturbingly, that if any monster did have thoughts of attacking, they had probably fled far away by then.

He didn’t even fight anything yet and he was already chugging down a potion. Thank god for Lunaris, the fool would’ve probably come here without any potions at all if not for her.

After the potion healed his wounds, James gave the spell another try. This brave perseverance was caused by the cold that felt like it was seeping into his bones.

James focused really hard. He imagined the warmth of the fire in his hands, but this time he didn’t rush to send mana into his hands. He held that mental image. And then he realized his mistake. He still inadvertently imagined the fire, the flames. Even though he was trying to visualize the warmth without the flames, the concepts were linked in his mind, it wasn’t that easy to separate them.

Screw it, it'll take more mana, but he decided to add another aspect to the spell. At the same time as imagining the warmth, he started imagining a very thin layer of mana covering his skin, protecting it from the flames. He also imagined the flames as thin and as gentle as possible, with yet another opaque layer of mana over them that made them invisible. He then sent mana into his palms.

[Skill unlocked: Skill crafting]

[Skill unlocked: Mana shield]

[Skill unlocked: Small flame]

It worked! He then used the very thin mana shield to protect all the spots he was planning on warming up.

Being in the caverns was now tolerable. Though the mana shield and warming himself up used some mana. Being level 10, he now had a mana regeneration rate of 0.33/s. To make himself as warm as possible, he made the mana shield cover as much of his body as he could, but that meant he hit the consumption rate of 0.33/s fairly quickly. He couldn't use any more, he needed mana for combat. But he was warm enough.

It was time to fight, he was jonesing for more levels.

But James had to be careful. There are many places where monsters could hide in these caverns, one could jump out from a crevice at any moment. All the monsters around here were pretty strong, mostly around level 18.

That’s another reason why he chose these caverns instead of the desert, he wanted the level difference to be as high as possible, so the monsters would give more xp. His goal was to take them down one by one though, otherwise he would be overwhelmed instantly.

With the cold taken care of, he could now focus on his movement. James didn’t dare move too quickly, lest he made too much noise. He moved at a snail’s pace, with his back against the walls of the cavern. He looked forward, back, up, down. He made sure nothing was around him.

[Skill unlocked: Stealth]

Now that was a sweet skill. In every game he played, if a stealth build existed, he would definitely try it. Stealth is overpowered, especially when it’s life or death. How fair is a fight where the other guy already stabbed you in the neck before you even knew he was there?

James knew he had to level up this skill as much as he could. If he combined it with some other spells, he could even be invisible. And with that, the possibilities could be endless, both inside and outside combat.

As he was fantasizing about the wonders of stealth, James heard a noise. Immediately, four ice goblins lunged at him.

James barely reacted in time, quickly using a basic wind spell to push them back for only a second. He then ducked and used earth magic to raise walls from the cavern’s floor. He was now encased in these stone walls, safe from the goblin’s attacks.

But that didn’t stop them. They kept attacking, snarling and shrieking while clawing at the walls.

Unfortunately the noise was so loud that it must’ve attracted other monsters. James could hear heavy footsteps approaching him from all directions.