87 – Troll Cave

Alexandra really wanted enchantments to be interesting.

She sat at her desk, fiddling with the disk the teacher had given her, trying to understand how she could make it float.

She was just out of her third class on the subject and didn’t feel like she was making progress.

With a thread of her mana, she seized control of the ambient mana flow inside the wooden disk, and it lifted off her hand.

She clicked her tongue. Making an object fly with magic would have been a monumental achievement just a month ago, but now…

She dropped her spell. This wasn’t an enchantment.

“How the hell do I make this fucking disk want to fly?” she whispered.

Her general Mana Manipulation was improving rapidly. She was now capable of casting simple spells and could even come up with a few very basic ones on her own. Making the disk hover in the air was one of those.

Unfortunately, spells and enchantments were two different things, and she hadn’t cracked the latter. In particular, the negotiation with ambient mana completely eluded her.

She tried again, reaching with a thread inside the disk. This time, she didn’t try to interact with the ambient mana, she just watched. It was flowing along the wood. No, it was wood. The more Alexandra studied ambient mana, the less the difference between it and the material it flowed through was clear.

It wasn’t something Professor Bird said, but an instinct she’d developed on her own. Ambient mana was wood. When it flowed inside wood, anyway. If she followed this logic, her mana was her. She thought it made sense.

Her mana was her. A part of her, at least. In the same way her heart, her arms, and her legs were all her.

She frowned. How this instinct would transition into an enchantment still eluded her.

She put the disk on her desk, exhaled, and stood up. Then she remembered to put Clarity of Mind back in its drawer, lest someone see it.

Alexandra left her room, and as she walked down the corridor toward the armory, she read her journal.

Spear Mastery 1 -> 2

Sword Mastery 1 -> 3

Axe Mastery 1 -> 2

Life Curse 11 -> 12

Reading 4 -> 5

Basic Hygiene 1 -> 2

Mana Manipulation 6 -> 7

Daily quests summary: Five Quests Completed -> +50 exp, +2 PER, +1 STR, +1 CON, +1 DEX, Skill Quest Unlocked: Axe Mastery

Daily Quest Streak: 30 -> 35

It had been five days since she reached level four, and she hadn’t stopped progressing. It was getting slower. Without the pressure of the malediction weighing upon her, she was able to relax a little. But even a slower pace for her would be considered fast for everyone else.

Completing her weapon mastery skill quests hadn’t been too complicated, now all she needed was to continue accumulating them and level them up to ten.

Today’s daily could only be completed at night, which was why she allowed herself some self-study time before getting to it.

Quest Journal

Daily Reset: 06:00 | Streak: 35 Days | 2% All Stats, 2% Skill experience

Next Milestone: 50 Days

Daily Quests:

• Enter the Troll Cave (0/1).

When she first read the quest, Alexandra was thoroughly confused. She knew what a troll was: a large humanoid creature with regenerative powers. But enter a troll cave, and not just any troll cave; The Troll Cave?

She’d had to ask Willow for clarification, and the answer still made her uneasy as she walked into the armory. The blue-robed Keeper in charge of the place greeted her. She was starting to become a regular.

“What will it be this time?” the man asked, wiping a blade with a cloth.

“I need a spear.”

He walked to the spear rack and sifted through the weapons. “Kashin isn’t going easy on you, eh?”

“It’s not Kashin this time. I’m going to the Troll Cave.”

The man looked back. “The Troll Cave. You realize the monsters there are all Bronze rank, right?”

She nodded. “I know.”

He picked a spear for her. “The spear’s a good choice. You’d have a hard time reaching the troll’s face with a sword. Not enough reach.”

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She grabbed the spear and walked to the stairs going down from the Iron Library to Kator.

Dark clouds hung overhead, casting more shadows than there should be at this time of the afternoon. The night was hours away, but Alexandra left early.

It was a quest she was talking about, being late wasn’t an option. Furthermore, the cave was thirty kilometers away. This sort of distance didn’t mean the same as it used to, but she’d still need at least two hours to make her way there if she didn’t get lost.

Alexandra reached the city and went west. She ran through empty fields along the paved road that linked Kator with the interior. She wasn’t sure what kind of crop they grew in this region, and she didn’t really care.

Here and there, she crossed paths with farmers, traversed one of the numerous villages dotting the countryside of Kator, or a section of wood that hadn’t been cut down. The area was relatively flat, with a few low-rise hills.

The cultivated lands extended much further from the city than they did around Esmera. It took her an hour to reach the edge of the forest. The road cut through the trees without stopping. She followed it for thirty minutes more before stopping at a cairn.

Five large stones placed on top of one another on the roadside marked the point where she had to steer away from the road and into the forest.

Thankfully, there was a dirt path carved by years of passage from all the Bronzes looking to hone their skills in the cave.

She didn’t meet anyone on the way, and she hadn’t expected to. She was early. If other people wanted to explore the cave, they’d follow after her.