After Kevin left I could have dispelled the barrier, I also could have done that with him there but that would have been no fun. I was getting tired of using magic to solve anything at all because it made things boring, and so far I was not content with how art was going. But I speak from experience when I say that the more powerful you get the more things open up to you and the more fun you have with your powers, as long as you have beings that can challenge you of course.
I looked around for a bit and didn't find anything. When entering the dungeon I had stopped using my mana sense which was why I didn't notice the barrier around the key platform at first. But even if I wanted to stop fully it was hard, which was why I was able to notice that Kevins presence disappeared. Not leak out like he was killed just vanished like he was stolen away. Along with a very faint yell.
I started to Jog down the hall to see what was up and very quickly I noticed a missing torch and some strong mana that I couldn't ignore. I decided that it was in Kevin's best interest if I started to use my mana sense again. Even though I had not deactivated it for long it felt like I was taking off a blindfold that I didn't know was on me, even though I had put it on, anyway. A complex weave of spells surrounded one area in particular and it was right next to where the torch was missing. I couldn't sense anything in particular past the wall though so something must have been blocking my senses. I also could hardly feel what was happening with the spells in the wall so I took a seat. The walls shook briefly. 'I sure hope Kevin isn't fighting something that can make the walls shake like that, I don't think he's quite ready for that,' I thought.
Now that I had an incentive to move even faster than I was already planning on, I kicked my mana sense into overdrive and started to improve rapidly. It did not take more than a minute and a few more wall shakes for me to get to a good enough level for me to see what was going on with the spells. It was more complex than even the core of my tower, which made no sense for some random wall in a 'dungeon' I thought. But I got to work weaving my mana around the spells to temporarily hijack their controls. At first I couldn't even condense my mana to be dense or thin enough to be able to properly wrap around and inside the spell, but again, it only took a few minutes for me to get myself to that level. Around halfway through that process there was one last very large vibration before everything went quiet. 'That either means that Kevin died, he got away from the thing, or he killed the thing. I can only hope it to be one of the latter two and I doubt it's the third option,' I thought worriedly.
After getting to the point where I could actually mess with the spells without worry I took a few minutes to understand how it worked. I knew that this body didn't have nearly enough mana to do anything to the spell but luckily for me with my new levels of mana sense and control I could pretty easily draw in disgusting amounts of mana from the dungeon, island, and atmosphere to get the job done. My hair and the fringes of my clothes started to lift around me as my eyes turned an even icier blue than normal. The walls and the very air started to emanate a deep oceanic blue. I was forcing torrents of mana into the wall to swiftly yet intricately bring down the defences of the dungeon wall.
I stopped and everything returned to normal at once. "Open" I commanded. The wall opened and I stepped into a short hallway with braisers and 4 doors. A lot of the walls had small craters in them too. 'That must be what the shaking was,' I thought. There were also some light bloodstains that I sensed but nothing too bad, and most importantly I could feel that Kevin was somewhere in the room. 'Unbelievable' I thought, 'Did he defeat whatever was making those craters?!' I wondered with excitement. I stopped using my mana sense and stepped into the room. 'I'm never going crazy with magic stuff again unless Kevin needs saving again, or… at least when I think he needs saving' I thought. Because this time I had likely overreacted. There was a reason I didn't include myself in the criteria to use magic. Because it would be no fun if I knew there would never be any true danger to myself. Danger inspires growth, but that is secondary to having fun.
*buzz buzz. The book was moving again so I took it out of my pocket and opened it. There were three main things that I noticed, one was that my level was now 19. I read from my book earlier that there were ways to get experience just from training and I think that the brief surge of mana that I summoned was enough to boost my level up by 4 or something. I also noticed that I had gained a new skill called 'Mana Pull V' With no level or anything attached to it. Lastly, I noticed that there was something wrong with my skills. Two of them to be exact. Mana control and mana sense were both flickering. What I mean by that is that their prefixes were changing frequently, their levels were changing in weird ways, and sometimes they were just complete nonsense. 'I think that it is probably better to not think about the implications of what that means, or what I have just done,' I thought.
As I had already stopped using my mana sense I had no Idea which room Kevin was in at this point, and the reason I didn't feel it earlier is because all the walls have the same mana blocking capabilities as the one that I 'hijacked'. I just felt that he was fine, and that he was near. I walked over to the nearest door on the left and went into it.
The door opened to a hallway with something barely visible at the end. The door shut behind me. 'It doesn't look like Kevin is in here,' I thought, and turned to leave. But as it turns out the door was locked, and I wasn't about to unlock it. As I looked down the hallway one thing was pretty obvious to me. 'If all my years have taught me one thing, it is that long empty hallways with something at the end are going to have some traps,' I thought. And could there be a more fun way to deal with one of these hallways then running down it with something in hand to hit aside all that comes at you?! NO! Of course there wasn't. The adrenaline that one experiences from this is sensational. I brushed a baton of ink into existence before taking off as fast as my 7 minute mile time body was capable of.
I stepped on lots of pressure plates and many darts flew past me. It did not take long before a few got lodged into my arm. Without any magic I was essentially a normal person. But this is what I lived for! Overcoming danger and becoming stronger for it was just so much fun. I realized that the bat would be of no help, I could not even really perceive the darts as they came at me, which after thinking for a second made complete sense. Another dart hit me, but I wasn't about to stop moving. Time seemed to slow as I quickly thought of a solution to my current predicament. I couldn't use magic per my own rules but there was one thing that I could use, my soul. The soul was not really a realm that I had delved into before, mainly because I did not know it existed really. But ever since I put some stat points into 'soul' I could feel it. I scraped together any ideas that I had of art and the soul and one thing came to mind. The first thing that I had read about art in the first place. Part of the description on the art door in the cathedral stated '...increasing the strength of their soul along with the quality of their work, while using their imagination to conjure various things into this world.' 'imagination…' I mused. Another dart hit me, glancing at my health I noticed that it was at around a quarter and a dart or two more would be it for me. I smiled and reached into the depths of my soul and reached a weird half conscious state.
As everything went fuzzy I imagined 2 tall shields appearing on either side of me. The ink I had stretched itself thin, and in an instant I was protected from either side. Before I knew it I had reached the end of the hallway, and when I looked to my sides I noticed a lot of arrows sticking mere inches from my face, still quivering for some reason. I stepped out of the way and willed the ink to fall back into the bottle. As soon as the ink stopped touching the arrows they flew into the walls opposite them. In astonishment I muttered "that should not be possible!" I had no Idea how I managed that and I honestly did not think that I could get any ink shields to do that again. I glanced at the book out of curiosity. I had gained two new skills. Soul Awareness I lvl 3 and Beginner artist lvl 5. 'How exciting,' I thought.
A new skill suddenly filled in too. It was called 'Sleep Status Resistance'. I remembered the rope around my waist now, the one I got a while ago that makes you not wake up, 'Looks like I was right, subjecting yourself to something long enough will cause you to gain skills,' I thought.
Kevin had made me take a few health potions so I drank one and watched my health increase to full and all the darts remove themselves from my arms. 'Much better,' I thought. I remembered why I ran through the hall in the first place and looked down. There was a small metal box with glowing concave sides and a lid that I carefully opened. Inside the box was a small flask. I picked it up. Inside the flask was a liquid, or maybe a mist, it was always hard to tell with this stuff. This stuff was called Aether as far as I was aware. When I first started dabbling in making magical devices this was what I used to power them. Color wise aether was a swirled mix of light and dark blues with the darkest blues having hints of purple. The color differences and occasional changes was due to the energy state of a grouping of aether changing and releasing different colors, but when it was powering something it glowed a steady blue as the energy assumes its highest output but lowest frequency. Kinda weird and I do not totally understand it but that is how it works.
Regardless, I looked around and saw that I had not missed anything and ran back to the other side. No traps went off this time however, as it seemed that I had already set all of them off.
Name: Winter
Age: 22
Level : 19
EXP: 7,900/10,000
Beginner Artist
Stat Points: 20
Stats:
Vitality : 10
Mind : 15
Endurance : 10
Strength : 10
Intelligence : 11
Soul : 28
Instinct : 5
Tinkering : 5
Luck : 0
Skill Points: 14
Skills:
Language
nieadnMansincelasdbjkas(lvasdjkh111)
asdhjksamnacntrlasjkdhacn(askdlv2938)
Mana Pull V
Elementary flame magic (level 4)
Elementary ground magic(level 4)
Elementary light magic(level 2)
Elementary water magic(level 3)
Soul Awareness I (level 3)
Beginner artist (level 5)
Sleep Status Resistance (level 1)