I stealthily move towards the second section.

As I'm about to enter the section through the entrance, the same sense of crisis from before comes back, quite strongly at that.

I suddenly feel that my life is in danger. I don't how and from where I'm getting this feeling, but it feels like the moment I put my foot down, I may die.

Instead of foolishly ignoring these warnings, I move back and began to think what's the cause of this crisis that my instincts are screaming at me about.

Hmm.

I only felt my danger sense spike when I was about to step into the section. Nothing of that sort happened when I entered the other one.

So, either the enemy in the section is so powerful that I may die immediately without offering any resistance. Or there is some form of trap at the section's entrance that can kill me.

I don't know if it's the first option, but I can easily check if it's the second one.

I start carefully scrutinizing every inch of the area around the section's entrance but, there is nothing out of the ordinary there, just a lot of dust.

As I can't seem to find anything physically wrong with the place, it can only mean that there is something magicky going on here.

I don't have the Mana Perception skill on my list to instantly perceive the magic in the surrounding area. So, I sit down a little distance away and start meditating, like I did when I first unlocked the Mana Perception skill, and carefully feel the surrounding area around the entrance.

Just like before, the whole place is filled with a mixture of different vapors, some hot, some cold. But when I start to focus on the floor at the section's entrance, I feel what seems to be a large concentration of fiery mana.

Whoa!

What in the hell is that?

When I look at the floor with my eyes, I can't see anything on the floor at the entrance, but I can feel it with my mana perception. It's as if there is a pit of lava underneath the floor.

Is that some kind of land mine or a pressure plate bomb or more of a medieval pitfall?

Whatever it may be, that concentration of fiery mana feels dangerous. I don't want to go anywhere near it.

What should I do?

I can't deactivate it as I'm not even sure what in the hell is that.

I'll brute force my way through it.

I move a little distance away from the entrance and look around to find a piece of debris.

After finding a piece of debris, I throw it right on top of that concentrated fiery mana with as much force as I can manage after coating it with mana.

Boooom

The moment it lands on the ground at the section's entrance, there is a huge boom, and I was blown away due to the shockwave.

It took a few moments to gather myself and to check my surroundings.

The moment I do that, I'm astounded by the damage that blast has done to its surroundings.

Damn!

There is a large pit where the section's entrance was supposed to be, and the surrounding area is charred black with lava splattered everywhere.

I would be dead by now if I didn't listen to my instincts that were screaming bloody murder and entered the section.

Thank god.

It looks like my instincts helped me once again, and listening to them unlocked a skill.

Skill Unlocked : Danger Sense

I guess this skill is the manifestation of all those times my instincts were informing me of the incoming danger. I should add it to my skill list as soon as possible.

Now aware of the magical traps, I move towards the entrance and look inside and search for the damn skeleton that tried to blow me up.

I can see that bastard leaning against the wall, scratching something on it.

First, I appraise him.

Fren, Corrupted Engraving Master - Lv.31

Engraving master, huh, what does that entail?

He's also an elite. That's the sixth one in this building.

Aren't they supposed to be rare?

And his level is the highest among all the ones I've faced until now.

But what is he doing?

Looks like he is writing something on the wall, but I can't see what it is as it is invisible.

Wait a second.

Is that what engraving is?

Then was that floor trap something he engraved?

If so, is he booby-trapping the whole place now?

Before going in, I should once again check the area with mana perception.

Better to be safe than sorry.

Once again, I settle down and start meditating to feel the mana in the surrounding area.

Apart from the regular mixture of vapors that are always present, I can feel that there are some places in the surrounding area of the section's entrance where a single type of mana is dominating it.

And all of these spots don't feel fiery, some ice-cold, some feel like solid earth, and some like breezy wind.

Fuck

It looks like the area around the entrance is booby-trapped with all four common types of mana, and this is just in the area around it.

The whole section is a lot larger, and I can't perceive the whole area in my mana perception from the entrance as my perception's range is limited.

I would need to move into the section to check the other areas. But I can already guess that the whole place is booby-trapped, as that skeleton bastard is already adding more of them by the minute.

Now, how do I fight him in this trap-filled place?

Also, I need to be careful. If every one of these traps is as powerful as the first one, I'll be dead before I reach the skeleton.

Maybe I can detonate them like before?

I try to detonate the nearest trap by throwing another piece of debris coated with mana, but no dice. It seems like the skeleton did something so that the traps can't be triggered remotely.

Then why was I able to trigger the one at the entrance?

No idea.

I really need to get someone to teach me about magic from the basics.

As for the fight, I can Blink next to him and kill him, but I don't know whether any of these traps will be triggered by spatial movement.

Although the skeleton noticed me, he isn't attacking me. He is adding more traps in the section. I don't want to go into that section, not until I kill this guy.

Fine, if he plans on hiding behind the traps, I can also attack him from outside here.

I guess this is as good as time as any to try and unlock a ranged skill.

After watching all these skeletons throwing different shaped projectiles like bolts/arrows/darts/missiles of different elements, I should be able to use that as a reference to unlock a ranged attack of my own. But as I didn't have any open slots, I planned to unlock the skill after the class upgrade.

But now, if the skeleton isn't planning on coming out, I can use him as target practice while being safe.

I retrieve the magic book from my storage to confirm the theory once again.

Okay.

First, I need to condense my mana as much as I can into an orb and then throw it at the target I want to hit. This is the basic version of any projectile spell.

Here, I can either condense non-elemental mana or elemental mana.

As for changing the shape of the projectile spell, first, I need to be able to quickly form a condensed mana orb anytime I please without spending more than a few seconds.

After that, I can look into changing its form.

As I'm still a newbie at magic, I'll go with a condensed mana orb for now. I can look into changing the shape later when I have more experience.

I start concentrating to condense an orb of space mana above my palm.

At first, it was easy, but as the amount of mana in the orb increased, the concentration required to maintain it also increased accordingly.

The moment I felt that I won't be able to contain the mana in the orb together anymore, I threw it at the skeleton, which missed him spectacularly and hit the wall a little to his left.

The moment that orb hit the wall, there was a second of silence, and then there was a whoosh sound as if the air in the surrounding area is trying to enter a small space of vacuum all of a sudden, and the small part of the wall at the impact zone was gone.

Holy!

What just happened?

I'll forget about my abysmal throwing skills for a second and focus on the damage that orb of mana did.

Did that orb swallow everything that was at the point of impact?

If that was the case, wasn't that too much for a simple projectile spell?

Ah, Shit, I don't know.

Until I can find some form of civilization, I need to bottle up all my questions.

For now, I should practice with the skill a lot to accurately control the trajectory of the orb after throwing it.

I want to badly hit that damn skeleton who still hasn't stopped engraving more of those traps.

By the way, how much mana does it cost?

When I check my mana, it was down by fifty points. I guess that answers the question.

After that, I tried controlling the trajectory of the orb, but it was a bit difficult.

Maybe it was because I haven't invested any of my points into Control - my mental dexterity attribute, it is a lot harder to flex my mind to control the trajectory of the spell.

That doesn't matter. I can slowly gain more control over the orb's trajectory by using it extensively.

With the stationary skeleton as a good target to practice on, I began using the spell extensively in order to gain control over its trajectory. And whenever my mana becomes low, I sit down and meditate to regain the mana and repeat the process all over.

The skill was unlocked after a few more tries, but I didn't add it to my list as I didn't have any open slots. And now I had to go through the whole process as above every time I use it.

Skill Unlocked : Spatial Orb

All the while I'm using him as target practice, I was checking the surrounding area with my mana perception to see if these traps are permanent or temporary, but it looks like they are permanent. I can only hope they fizzle out when he dies.

It took around twenty times before I was able to hit the stationary skeleton I wanted to hit from the first time I used the skill.

Unlike before when he didn't care when the spells missed, the moment the projectile was about to hit him, his body glowed blue and the orb was blocked by a blue mana shield. And he stopped engraving any more traps after that.

I guess that got his attention. I stood there waiting for his next move.

Why isn't he attacking back?

Does that mean he can't or won't?

It's not like it matters to me. I'll attack him from here.

After that, I keep attacking him. Attack, meditate to recover mana and attack again. That was my process for the next three or so hours. The fight wasn't long, but the time it took to regenerate my mana was.

The thing I don't understand is he didn't attack back even once during the whole ordeal.

You have defeated Fren, Corrupted Engraving Master

After killing him, I wait for a while and check the surroundings to feel that the clumps of mana settled at the different areas are slowly unraveling back to the original form.

After waiting for all the traps to dissipate, I check the whole room for any loot.

Apart from the mana core in his head, I found another item.

Engraving Tool

Grade : Uncommon

Type : Tool

A tool used for engraving. Made of Deep Iron.

This is the tool that the engraving master was using for engraving all those traps.

It looks like a metallic pen, dark blue, thin, its length is the size of my palm. When I infuse my mana into it, it's like ink is poured into it, except the ink is mana.

Once again, I check the whole floor to see if I've missed anything, but there is nothing aside from what I've already found.

Now that's done, I move on to the next floor.

This should be the last floor, but I'm not sure anymore due to the space being manipulated in here.

I move up to the next floor and start carefully looking around.

The floor's size is small, about half the floor below it, and it's divided into two sections.

It looks like this is the top floor as there aren't any stairs to the next one.

I check the floor for any enemies first.

Weird.

From what I've seen until now, this floor should be designated for the people who are above the master mages in the hierarchy, but there's no one here.

Now that there's no one here, I carefully go through both sections.

There are rotten remains of different pieces of furniture here and there in the second section at the back, and one of those remains looks like it was the part of a bed. Looks like this floor is the residence of the head of the building.

And as for the front section of the floor, it's empty. Except for a few layers of settled dirt, there is nothing in here. It looks like someone took everything from this whole section before leaving, just like the library on the floor below.

Did some loot this place before it fell into ruin?

If they did, then why leave everything else?

And where is the head who was supposed to be here?

To make sure that I haven't missed anything on this floor, I carefully scrutinize the whole place. And it was then I found an array arranged in the back section under a few layers of dirt.

What is this array for?

I don't know anything about arrays so I can't decipher what's it used for.

I should look into arrays. I do have that book that explains different basic crafting professions.

For now, I'll go back. I do need to go through that ritual to get my class.

Name : Janus Arthridge

Race : Human

Level : 8

Bloodline : N / A

Class : N / A

Level : 10

Health : 200 / 200

Stamina : 200 / 200

Mana : 290 / 290

Attributes

Strength : 10

Dexterity : 30

Vitality : 20

Endurance : 20

Resilience : 10

Perception : 30

Intelligence : 10

Control : 10

Wisdom : 29

Willpower : 10

Attribute Points : 11

Skills

Appraisal Lv.2

Stealth Lv.3

Meditation Lv.7

Space Mana Manipulation Lv.8

Blink Lv.1

Spatial Slash Lv.1

Longsword Mastery Lv.7

Corrupted Resistance Lv.4

Spatial Storage Lv. 1

Spatial Shield Lv.1

Skill Slots : 0

Perks

Otherworlder

Summoned Being

Polyglot