Chapter 6 Cave

Without making a single sound, Nial tried to hear and smell if there were any immediate dangers around him.

At the same time, he used the few mana particles inside his body to figure out more about his surroundings.

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't be able to sense much even with the [Mana Perception(Poorest)] ability consistently activated.

However, what Nial didn't know was that the Odyssey seed would further enhance the ability that was bound to it, making it more potent.

This was extremely helpful and gave Nial the necessary push to allow him to sense everything in the radius of slightly more than a meter.

It was, by no means, a lot, but after adding his other senses to the mix, he was only required to visualize what was immediately around him.

Because of that, he could 'see' the bushes of grass he had stepped on.

Everything was visualized in his mind, moments after his mana swept past it.

As such, for Nial, mana worked like a tool to scan his surroundings and transmit the data to his mind, where the information would be quickly digested and made use of.

Owing to this, Nial didn't feel that his blindness was a major hindrance anymore.

In the end, this was but a lie that he told himself to feel even better about his ability.

After all, a sight limited to the radius of one meter in comparison to tens, if not a hundred meters made a devastating difference.

Even a single arrow shot at him from a distance would be enough to kill Nial after all!

However, Nial knew this quite well, and he was already thinking of a way to counter such seemingly normal scenarios that could occur at any time.

It was common to encounter dungeon beasts that had the capabilities to attack over a long-range, and Nial would certainly die if he had no countermeasures to deflect or tackle such attacks.

With that in mind, he couldn't help but feel glad that slimes were relatively harmless beasts he didn't have to be afraid of.

Given enough time, and slimes as his opponents, Nial first wanted to improve his spearmanship, the utilization of the [Mana Perception] ability.

But more than that he had to pay special attention to his control over mana which had improved drastically.

Nial had yet to assess the potential of his mana vein and mana core, let alone register his awakening at the Originals association.

But that could wait for now.

First, he wanted to be able to understand the changes in his entire being, including his physique, and most importantly, his behavior!

After that, he would face the government, knowing that they wouldn't really care about him, even after his awakening.

Crippled Originals were mostly seen as demolished and unwanted goods, after all…

Wielding the crudely forged spear, Nial tried to distract himself, preventing anxiety and other negative emotions from influencing his mind.

Silently sneaking in the cave, he took small steps, while he had his ears perked up to not miss even the faintest noise.

At the same time, his acute sense of smell pointed out where he would find something.

Beasts had their own unique smell which would usually make things easier for him.

However, he was unfortunate that it was not exactly easy to find traceless slimes in a cave full of moisture.

Despite that, Nial quickly found his first target that approached him at a slow pace, making weird squelching noises.

Piercing out with the crude spear, he penetrated the slime's liquid jelly-like outer layer without much resistance.

However, Nial noticed only a moment later that he had missed its core. But, he had managed to severely injure it.

Because of that he had to retract the spear before taking a small step forward.

Planting his feet firmly on the ground, he aimed for the core and thrust forward the spear once again.

This time, he hit the slime's core, and the spear's pointed tip penetrated it without any issue, ending the beast's life.

All he heard was a squelch as the body of the slime fell apart.

Even if there was no blood splattering through the surrounding, or painful screams bouncing off the walls of the cave, there was no denying the fact that he had just ended a life.

As such, he should feel remorse, guilt, or at least a little bit sad for killing an innocent being.

Yet, despite being a first-timer and a rookie Nial felt nothing, which could only be described as abnormal.

But without minding it too much, he simply continued to walk ahead.

Through the [Mana perception] ability, most of his initial problems had lost their meaning.

It was not perfect, by any means, and still needed work and polishing.

But, as he was already in an unknown and dangerous territory, he had to make use of this opportunity.

It would serve as a live tutorial for him to train his combat prowess, and improve his combat experience, spearmanship, mana control, and his perception.

The dungeon's dangers were not life-threatening because even mutated slimes wouldn't be much stronger than the two he had already encountered.

As such, Nial was able to challenge himself by fighting multiple slimes at once.

At the same time, he stayed focused on the remaining things that had to be improved.

'Please let it be a large-sized dungeon!' He thought, hoping to encounter hundreds of slimes in the next few hours.

Money was a necessity and the bare minimum everyone required in the modern era, and Nial was desperate to earn it, more so for his sister than for himself.

With his sick sister in mind, he grasped the spear's shaft tightly after wiping his sweaty palm on his shirt. Determination flickered in his eyes as he advanced towards the next batch of slimes he heard ahead.

A batch of seven slimes was ahead of him.

Sensing all of them through his mana perception, Nial was able to gauge their position, the speed of their advancement, and the path they were likely to take.

His mind was processing everything at a rapid pace.

It was fast enough for Nial to get a headache and make him feel dizzy but he shook his head once and aimed at the slimes, thrusting the spear into their mucus-filled bodies.

Hearing the familiar sound of the spear piercing in their slimy bodies, he pulled out his makeshift weapon before stabbing them over and over again.

While training in his backyard for years, Nial had worked on improving his attacks by using a simple, yet heavy and long metal pipe to train.

After all, they didn't have the money to provide him with a proper weapon.

Using the crude spear after he turned 18 was different. But even then, the difference was not enough to make him miss every single attack.

Many things had changed now once he was able to perceive mana. The biggest change was probably the vast amount of information he received.

As he was still learning how to use mana efficiently, his mind was unable to process attacking while simultaneously digesting the influx of information he received.

However, what astonished Nial was the fact that the Odyssey seed didn't even budge. It simply stayed as it was, unmoving and stationary.

After the [Mana Perception(Poorest)] ability was bound to it, the seed went completely silent.

However, that was not really something Nial felt like complaining about.

A single misstep would cost him his life!

That was also the reason his parents had told him not to go looking for dungeons, even after the awakening of his origin.

His parents were too worried that something would happen to him, and Nial could understand their concern.

From a rational point of view, he shouldn't even enter the slime dungeon because he could accidentally encounter a Large slime.

This kind of beast was probably the Boss monster of the cavern dungeon he had entered!

Every single dungeon had a boss, and what made them special were the rewards one would receive upon killing them.

The chance for the boss of a dungeon to drop one origin crystal was 100%. That meant that he would kill a boss monster, and he would definitely receive an origin crystal.

What made him more excited was the fact that it was likely to drop not just one but multiple origin crystals at once! This thought made a faint trace of greed flicker in his eyes.

Other than that, the dungeon's boss beast was also more likely to drop unique crystals such as ability crystals.

Despite that, Nial couldn't get carried away. There was an obvious reason why boss monsters dropped more rewards which were their enormous strength!

Normally, a Boss monster's strength was around five to ten times greater than the average strength of beasts inside the dungeon.

Thus, Nial didn't want to encounter a boss before increasing his combat prowess a little bit further.

He might not be much weaker in terms of physical strength, but his control over mana was most certainly weaker than the Slime Boss's!

In the worst-case scenario, the beast might even be faster, and devour him, as if he was a stalk of grass.

That was not something anyone would ever want to encounter.

While thinking about the possible scenarios, Nial finished off the batch of seven slimes.

It had been much easier than expected, and a bright smile emerged on his face as the last slime he killed turned into an origin crystal.

Picking it up, he felt the concentrated mana swirling inside it.

Through this sensation, Nial's hand began to pulsate as his veins grew desperate to devour it.

He was eager to absorb it to strengthen his body, mind, and vessel.

Draining it of its mana would leave it like a hollow shell. Unfortunately, this would empty the crystal, render it useless, and be valueless which was not something he wanted.

In order to become stronger, one had to absorb and annex mana.

To achieve this, there were two ways.

One could absorb mana directly from the dungeons or do the same with the use of origin crystals that had the most compressed, and purest mana of the same quality and rank.

An origin crystal was tens of times better than absorbing the mana from the surrounding, but at the same time, it was horrifyingly expensive.

There were also ways to improve the absorption speed of mana, which would further accelerate the speed at which one would grow stronger, using either of the two ways.

Despite that, Nial wouldn't be able to make use of either of these methods because they required even more wealth, connections, and talent.

Simply purchasing origin crystals would not necessarily make someone stronger if they didn't have the tenacity to do it!

Storing away the origin crystal that was of the poorest quality, Nial continued walking through the cave that was permeated with faint mana currents.

The further he went, the more slimes he encountered and the denser the mana currents in his surroundings became.

Through this, the amount of mana his mana veins passively absorbed increased, indicating that they had far higher potential than Nial thought.

At the same time, the extremely rich and dense mana around him made it possible for Nial to perceive more of his surroundings. It was also how he was able to visualize the massive number of slimes in front of him.

"That has to be a joke!"