After the flattest look and biggest eye roll he could imagine from Ashley, Leo immediately got in a position to try his new magic.

  Although he wasn’t exactly sure on how to activate it, there was a bit of instinctual help from the System. Facing the solid metal wall of the hallway, arm extended with his palm open, Leo tried to cast his first spell.

  His eyes were closed as he searched for the power within him to use the skill. Taking a deep breath he tried to concentrate to the fullest extent.

  His focus was taken from him, leading him through the pathways that he felt surge when he used Mana Strikes, down to where he assumed his mana pool was housed. This strange, alien feeling felt very natural, like he was navigating his own mind and body. Touching upon it, he could feel power come from within like answering a call and flow down into his hand.

  Returning to the real world, eyes open, he could see a spike of ice the size of a small knife coalesce in front of his palm. It took less than a second to form and then fired towards the wall. It impacted the metal and broke apart, the wall proving much too hard for the ice to penetrate.

  Looking closer, the impact point had a small indent and a bit of frost that started to expand. If it could do that much to a wall then it should be pretty effective on any other beasts roaming this place.

  After firing the Ice Spike a few more times and seeing it quickly take a small chunk of his mana, Leo couldn’t help but feel elated. He could actually use magic.

  What surprised him was that after being able to cast this magic or perhaps the act of following the actual mana that travelled his channels, his perception of mana, whether it was in the air, or in his body, grew a bit clearer. It wasn’t that he suddenly gained a new mana sensing ability, but more like he had been wearing blinders this whole time and now had them slightly removed. His world expanded once again.

  The more he cast, the clearer it became. Mana moved through him, shifted, and became ice.

  The dungeon they had found themselves in had the mana he would call darkness and death—if those were types of mana. It gave Leo an uneasy feeling, as if the air itself was rotting.

  He also had an instinctual feeling telling him that this deadly darkness mana was not one he could easily interact with, if at all. Leo asked Ashley if she could feel the same thing when using her healing skills but she looked at him inquisitively as if she didn’t really understand what he meant. Perhaps it was something one was meant to discover on their own, he’d do his best to teach what he could.

  As soon as he figured it out himself.

  Leo finished up practicing, not wanting to spend all his mana that was still regenerating. The pair decided to look a bit further in.

  Leo approached what once used to be a door, now more like a crumpled mess, wondering why they hadn’t had any additional beasts show up during the fight or in the time after spent resting and playing with his Ice Spike.

  He didn’t get an answer exactly, but what he did see through the door was another hallway. Almost as if the door that had been busted down was some sort of defensive extra structure, further giving secret agent facility vibes. At the end of the hallway there was another fully closed door, identical to the one that was destroyed.

  “Well, it looks clear so far,” Leo said casually. “Think it’s just endless doors with things behind them?”

  “I don’t know, that doesn’t seem like something they’d call The Beast Pens,” Ashley said. She was still nervous.

  “Should we take a look further in? At least try the door?” Leo’s curiosity was piqued and he desperately wanted another fight.

  “Can’t we just sit here for 24 hours?” Ashley replied, hopeful.

  “We could, but think of the power we have already gotten from fighting that one wolf. We could get out of this place at a way higher level,” Leo reasoned excitedly. “I think we should explore at least a bit more to see if we can find anything of value. Worst case; we run, hide, and wait for the timer to pass.”

  Ashley took a while to respond but eventually just nodded, Leo smiled in response and the pair moved towards the second door.

  The door wasn’t locked, it slid open fairly easily after Leo placed his hand on it. The door somehow disappeared into the wall like magic. What lay before them was certainly not a repeating hallway. It was a massive forest with large, thick trees stretching into the sky, creating a canopy above them that let through a bit of sun.

  The trees were wrong, similar to the wolf. Strange fleshy growths bulging from them. The air was a mild, sickening purple that spread everywhere. The smell stung his nostrils as the air filled his lungs, forcing him to shield his face with his hand as he got used to it.

  Whatever the corruption was had clearly spread, not just into beasts, but into the forest too.

  Unless it always looked like this… but he doubted it.

  Exiting into the forest, Leo turned to see that the doorway was carved into a large rockface. When closed, it would look like nothing more than an unsuspecting rock. A giant boulder in the middle of a forest, so not that unsuspecting. Still, enough for an enraged beast to miss it.

  A distant howling carried on the wind, one that sent shivers down their spines and had the small hairs on their arms tingle.

  “I don’t like this, it makes me feel really uneasy,” Ashley said, nervously scanning her surroundings.

  “I get what you mean, it’s like the world is sick. Let's be careful.” He wasn’t ready to turn around just yet.

  Traversing the forest, they found that the ground was fairly even and easily walkable. They kept their heads on a swivel as they progressed steadily and safely. But it wasn’t long before they stumbled upon another entity.

  Poking its head out from behind a thick, corrupted tree was a deer, it had a calm expression and just looked at them curiously.

  “No signs of corruption on it,” Leo whispered to Ashley.

  “It looks kind of friendly.” She got a little closer, “Hey there, we aren’t going to hurt–”

  As if reacting to a threat, the antlers on its head suddenly morphed into spikes. Its jaw unhinging, revealing a deadly set of teeth. Leo identified it, kicking himself for not doing it sooner.

  Corrupted Young Deer - Level 9

  Lesson learned. Always identify everything.

  The deer began closing the distance between them, stalking like a predator. Very unlike deers from Earth and more like the wolf they had just fought.

  Leo did not sit idly, putting himself between it and Ashley. This was a perfect chance to test his new magic.

  He held up his hand, turning the mana in his body into ice as it travelled up through his channels and formed a frosty spike of ice, then fired it at the deer. The deer saw the highly telegraphed attack coming and easily dodged to the side.

  Not dumb, then, Leo thought.

  The spike was a bit too slow to be used from this distance. Changing tactics, he closed the gap, firing another Ice Spike, the cooldown low enough to use it regularly. It grazed its side causing a gash to open up, blood spilling into its fur—coating it a sickly purple colour.

  The beast recoiled slightly, growling from the pain but kept its charge. The clash was quick but decisive. Its spiked antlers were designed to kill the enemy in front of it, they were sharp and deadly. Not something he wanted to get hit by.

  His body twisted around the antlers, his fist ready to counter, but somehow the antlers followed his dodge, impaling him right through his arm. Even Ashley wasn’t able to react in time as he was lifted in the air by the deer, surprised by its strength.

  Other antlers moved to impale him. It was like this thing could freely control them—moving like snakes.

  Leo began forming another spell to shoot down at its face with his free hand. It reacted and began flailing him about, thankfully dislodging his arm but not without injury, savagely tearing part of his muscle.

  Leo didn’t stop his attack, aiming the whole time as he was thrown. The Ice Spike shot out like a bullet and fully embedded itself into the side of the deer.

  He hit the ground with a thud, not catching himself at all as he rolled. Quickly standing up, he squared off against the deer once again. This thing was trickier than the wolf, even at a lower level.

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  Time for a new approach.

  With only his left arm available he needed to try and land some more hits on this thing. Its antlers were shifting and reforming back to their original shape, cracking like bone.

  Leo charged towards it once again, the beast doing the same. He pushed his agility to its limit. Steam rose from his body as stamina was poured into Fuel the Fire.

  Dipping low enough to almost slide, his glowing fist swung out towards its crooked face.

  The speed proved just quick enough to outpace the deer and connected square into its jaw. The power of his strike was far too great for the deer to stand, its stats being more likely into Agility, Leo imagined.

  It was sent tumbling into the dirt, body rolling until its antlers stopped it. Its lower jaw was entirely disconnected from its head as it slowly raised it up. Leo aimed his hand towards it and fired an Ice Spike, directly into its head. The spike proved lethal, a notification following shortly after it crumpled onto the ground.

  You have slain: Corrupted Young Deer - Level 9

  Experience increased for defeating a higher-level enemy

  +18 Store Credits

  Your Pugilist class has reached Level 9

  Stat points distributed

  +1 Free Point

  Ashley ran up to him after the fight, immediately channeling her healing on his arm that had a large sickly hole through the bicep that bled all over.

  “Sorry for not shielding you in time,” she apologised profusely, not meeting his eyes.

  “No worries,” Leo said casually. “It surprised me too. It's not too bad.” He tried to flex his arm but the pain caused his eye to twitch, which in turn caused Ashley to frown at him.

  “Idiot,” she muttered, but a small smile crept through.

  It took a bit of constant healing combined with his regeneration to heal him up fully. The deer also dissolved into bubbling flesh, but sadly no essence crystal was found in the puddle.

  This place was deadly, dangerous, and possibly would result in his death, but the level ups… they felt amazing. Three levels in two fights felt surreal, the second fight hadn’t even been all that difficult either. Ashley herself was level 7, likely close to level 8. Which meant he was sharing experience while still getting three levels. Who knew what level he’d get to by the end of it.

  It was possible another skill selection was waiting for him at level 10 and if not, then perhaps level 15. An exciting thought that gave him enough dopamine to rid himself of any doubt they’d survive and most definitely quash any thought of hiding until the exit became available.

  The pair continued exploring, finding another two separate deers, both at level 8 and taking care of them easily. Sadly not giving Leo a level, but increasing Ashley’s to 8.

  The forest was getting more corrupted as they progressed further. It gave a more sickening feeling to the mana. There was a surprising lack of beasts so far considering the name of the place, but it was possible that a lot of them had been killed or corrupted too far already. Or perhaps the forest was so large that they would have to explore every inch to kill everything.

  Suddenly, there was a change in the air, so tangible he could almost taste it. A cold, damp feeling began to wash over the area. Less than a minute later, a terrible downpour began. The rain was heavy and unrelenting. A veritable storm had taken the entire forest within moments.

  Leo shouted to Ashley as they were hiding under a tree.

  “We have to get out of this rain!”

  “No shit!” Ashley shouted in reply.

  Quickly scanning, he spotted a large rockface in the distance surrounded by smaller boulders. Getting Ashley's attention, he pointed towards it and she nodded. The pair ran with all they could, tripping over branches and slipping in the slick mud.

  Lightning struck nearby as the storm picked up even further, cracking one of the trees down the middle and causing fire to catch before it was extinguished under the unrelenting downpour. It was by far the worst storm Leo had ever witnessed. Wholly unlike the storm of emotion in his chest.

  They made it to the rocks and spotted a cave, collapsing onto the ground the moment they could. Both of them were soaking wet and freezing cold, shivering at the mouth of the cave.

  “That rain was s-so cold, it c-came out of nowhere,” Ashley chattered out, clearly freezing.

  Leo agreed, the cold was like nothing he’d felt before. It wasn’t cold like ice mana was when it ran through his body. More like the cold touch of death.

  An epiphany came to him as he felt the chilling bite creep further over his body, causing actual damage to his health.

  If he could form ice mana and subsequent ice magic. Then why couldn’t he do the same with his other Essences? Leo took up a bit of a meditative pose, crossing his legs and slowing his breathing, trying to fully channel his inner monk.

  He pushed his consciousness down into his core, following the same path that was used when first forming his Ice Spike, only this time he went further.

  Leo suddenly found himself within a bright open plain, mountains in the distance piercing the clouds. It felt endless. There was a storm just hidden behind the mountains, threatening to flood the plain with all its destruction at any moment. Within the plain, there were six orbs floating and pulsing gently.

  Two of the orbs were glowing, a string of what Leo felt, and assumed, was mana extended into the sky and beyond sight. The glowing orbs shone a dull red and a pale icy blue, Leo assumed those were his Fire and Ice Essences. Which meant that the other orbs were his Lightning and Earth.

  They did not glow, two of them being an unlit dark blue and another being a rocky brown respectively. The last 2 orbs were not coloured at all, almost as if their potential existed but were unavailable.

  “Must be the Essences that were locked by the system during the interview when I touched the orb,” Leo mused, surprised that he could speak aloud in this place.

  He sadly couldn’t even tell what kind of Essence they were. He could try and guess but there wasn’t much point at the moment with no way to actually access them.

  What Leo wanted was access to this fire mana that was clearly coming through like his ice mana was. He went up to the orb and put his hand out to touch it. The orb felt odd in his palm, giving off a slight heat. The warmth akin to being sat around a campfire started to spread throughout his body.

  He felt connected to the flame, the feeling of strength, power and destruction emanating from it. Leo followed the string of mana coming from the top of the orb and it led his consciousness back to the real world, to where he found Ashley sitting against him, sleeping soundly.

  He felt warm, not like a comfort from human contact kind of warm but like he was sitting next to a fire. His plan to use fire mana had come to fruition even better than he could have imagined. He tried to make a flame appear in his hand but all that came was a small flicker of it from his finger. It would be enough to light a fire but he doubted that it would prove much use in combat currently unless the enemy wanted a cigarette lit.

  Was he secretly squealing that he could make fire appear on his fingertip without the use of a skill?

  Yes. Of course he was.

  Leo spent the next hour or so letting Ashley sleep, there wasn’t much they could do with all the rain still coming down, heavy as ever.

  He spent the time trying to meditate further and practice with his fire and ice. He discovered he couldn’t form both the little flame and his Ice Spike at the same time. Whether that was from the fact that ice melted under flame or some other reason, Leo wasn’t sure. He did feel that after a bit of practice, the flame had become slightly larger and easier to form. Still not enough to do anything but a happy increase nonetheless.

  The rain continued for hours. Surprisingly not flooding the area to the point of submerging the cave with how much water must have fallen. Thunder, both distant and near, echoed out as the whole forest was bombarded.

  Ashley had woken up around the two hour mark. Backing away from Leo in embarrassed apology as she realised where she was lying. She had sprawled out over his lap with her arms splayed out, as if a toddler had fallen asleep. Leo tried not to laugh as she did it and kept focusing on his mana training.

  “You better not tell anyone that happened,” Ashley threatened, eyes narrowed.

  “You looked comfy, nothing wrong with getting a little sleep.” Leo’s words were friendly but his tone was teasing.

  Her eyes narrowed even further.

  Leo held his hands up in defense before miming his mouth being sealed, locked, and throwing away the key.

  She nodded, an unseen smile coating her face as she turned.

  As if some kind of mechanism was turned off, or perhaps by magic, the rain didn’t just let up a little and peter out, but stopped entirely. The sudden silence was jarring.

  It was replaced instantly with a glaring sun and a warming, much welcomed heat. This whole area was definitely engineered. Built by someone to keep beasts for some reason or other.

  Whoever designed the death by rain setting needs to be fired though.

  The pair moved out from the small cave. The footing proved a little tricky as the muddy ground had been thoroughly drenched and not yet dried, although it wouldn’t be long before it did based on the heat.

  They continued their exploration into the forest again, just to see if they could find any source of corruption as the quest described.

  Before long, they had their next encounter, another wolf appeared, fairly injured as if something had taken a large chunk out of it. Leo used Identify.

  Corrupted Dire Wolf - Level 9

  It was slightly weaker than the previous wolf. Leo wondered what had injured it so severely. He almost felt bad killing an animal that would not put up as much as a fight. It was still dangerous however, so he would put it down all the same. A kind mercy.

  Dashing towards the wolf, Leo fired an Ice Spike at it. It shattered against its face. The penetrative power was not great enough yet to pierce fully but enough to cause damage and bruising underneath the fur. Perhaps slight bleeding if he was lucky.

  Using his speed, Leo landed a flurry of blows. Punches, kicks, elbows. Whatever he could land. He risked taking hits as he trusted Ashley to shield him from the glancing blows that he didn't fully dodge. To which she expertly blocked for him.

  The wolf was soon taken care of thanks to a finishing blow from a Powerful Haymaker.

  You have slain: Corrupted Dire Wolf - Level 9

  Experience Gained

  +18 Store Credits

  No level up again this time, but a nice bit of store credits to add on to his total. Not that they had any use as of now but perhaps by the end of the tutorial they would have some use. Store credits did imply there being a store afterall.

  “I think we're getting better at this,” Ashley suggested confidently.

  “I think so too,” Leo agreed.

  “Let's try and find some more, see if we can't both get up some levels. Cecelia will freak out if we come out at level ten!” Ashley said excitedly. Seemingly getting more accustomed to the fights against these corrupt beasts and this world in general.

  Leo smiled. He was more than happy to oblige.