Once he had dispatched the skeletons, Eden found himself a bit lost. He had been forced to maneuver around the attacks of the skeletons, and sometimes hit from different angles. His senses might be good, but by the end of the fight, he did not know in which direction he had come from anymore.
Using his gun would not help either, since it was barely enough to see the silhouettes of skeletons standing right in front of him. And even if he could see more, he did not know what the cave looked like when he came in.
But as Eden collected his loot, patting around for any sign of the correct way forward, he suddenly felt a strange sensation fill him from his outstretched hand.
[Physique check…]
[Physique check overruled by 'Soul Overlord'!]
It was like something tickling his skin. His Talent resisted its effects, or Eden was sure it would be much worse than tickling.
The tickle quickly settled down to a subtle weight on his skin. It did not really bother him, but he was also constantly feeling it. Stepping in that direction, the feeling spread to his whole body, but that was it.
However, now that the feeling had spread, Eden felt something he had missed before. It was necrotic energy, which was the type of energy used in dark magic. Dark Bolt, for example, dealt necrotic damage.
It was easy for Eden to recognize, even in such small quantities, because he had played with it quite extensively while learning and crafting dark spells.
Necrotic energy, as its name suggested, was the energy of the dead. Where it would empower and heal the dead/undead, it would react violently to any form of life, and kill it. The efficiency of it would depend on the concentration, of course.
The necrotic energy around Eden would probably only be able to kill some plants through long exposure, but higher concentrations of necrotic energy, such as the Necronomicon's Copy, would deal harsher conditions.
For example, when Eden had first seen the Necronomicon Copy, because of his locked magical stats and still dormant Talent, this feeling had only appeared to him as a slight dizziness, and turned into various debuffs and straight up loss of HP when he touched it.
Considering he was searching for a dark item that was presumably filled with necrotic mana, and that he did not have any other leads, Eden decided to follow this lead and went deeper into the necrotic mana.
The environment felt quite similar to the Wisdom Training Room, all things considered. Although this comparison was probably unique to him, when one ignored the aftereffects of necrotic energy, it was indeed a source of mana, allowing for his MP to recover quickly.
Although the concentration was not at the level of the Wisdom Training Room, the deeper he got, the higher these became.
This made Eden wonder whether his MP regeneration would also be accelerated here. Although necrotic energy felt similar to mana, it remained to be seen whether it could be used as mana.
If it could, then this place might as well be hell for normal mages, as using any amount of magic would cause their body to naturally absorb the mana in their surroundings.
Necrotic energy was already bad enough when outside the body, so absorbing it as mana would probably lead to disastrous consequences. Eden did not know how exactly magic worked in his body, but recovering mana in this cave would probably corrupt the reserves of magic within one's body.
This meant that this cave was the bane of any mage or any person who had unlocked their magical attributes.
For Eden, thanks to his Soul Overlord Talent, it was a boon. Of course, that was if mana could be substituted by necrotic energy.
Fortunately, Eden soon found an opportunity to test it out, as while he was walking, he suddenly felt a sense of danger. It came totally out of the blue; he had not heard anything move, but his danger sense was never wrong.
He stepped back, dodging the attack aimed at him, and punched forward. He did not feel himself hitting anything, not exactly, yet at the same time, he felt a certain coldness around his fist.
[Physique check…]
[Physique check overruled by 'Soul Overlord'!]
Eden frowned. This one check had come from a different source than the ambient necrotic mana. He also felt another attack coming from his danger sense, but the danger felt from it was pitifully small, so instead of dodging, he decided to tank it and take out his gun instead.
The moment the attack was about to connect, Eden fired in the direction of what had attacked him, emitting a muzzle flash.
Eden did not see anything, even as another feeling of coldness, this one stronger than before, assaulted his forearm, accompanied by pain, and another system notification about a check being overruled.
Despite the check getting overruled, glancing at his HP, Eden noticed he had lost 2 of them. It was nothing compared to his full HP bar, but losing any HP meant that he had been attacked. Moreover, Eden could feel that several more attacks were coming, meaning there were several of them.
Most importantly, his own attacks did not seem to be affecting them in the slightest, nor could he even see them with the muzzle flash.
Even though they posed no immediate threat to him, the damage would accumulate over time if nothing was done, and they might potentially become deadly.
Since his fists and gun did not work, Eden first tried out Jason's Machete, and slashed at his invisible enemies. But even after half a minute of slashing around at the wind, the number of attacks did not seem to have lessened in the least, or even weakened in the slightest.
Fighting in the dark was frustrating. Eden had no idea how many enemies there were or if he was dealing any damage to them. He was pretty sure he was hitting at the source, his Talent having never failed him yet, but if that really was the case, then the enemies were either immune/extremely resistant to physical damage, or they were coming at him in droves.
Deciding that discovering which of the two was the case was the most important, Eden jumped back, slamming his back into one of the walls of the cave as he did so, but he ignored the pain and started weaving his mana.
Eden felt a certain sense of exhilaration at finally using a spell for the first time in a mission world. The feeling peaked as strands of fire converged in front of his hand, his index and middle finger extended and pointing at his target, as the strands converged into a ball of fire the size of a football.
This was the Strengthened Fireball Spell, a 1st Circle spell.
As the spell formed, the fireball illuminated Eden's surroundings, and unlike with the muzzle flash, he could see everything clearly.
This part of the cave had several exits, making for a veritable maze. The walls were orange, though that was probably because his source of light was a fireball.
There was also a faint miasma that lingered in the room; it was the necrotic energy. But hidden within this miasma, Eden also saw something else. Shadows that stood upright. Even with the light of the Strengthened Fireball, he could hardly see them, but it was enough to use Analysis on them.
[Shadow Wraith]
[Title: N/A]
[HP: 6/10]
[MP: 10/10]
[Strength: 1]
[Agility: 2]
[Physique: 1]
[Intelligence: 1]
[Wisdom: 1]
Eden was able to stall the activation of his spell for a few seconds, during which he analysed all of the Shadow Wraiths. There were six of them, and they all shared the same stats. They had also all received some damage, which meant they might not be immune to physical attacks as Eden had originally thought.
Still, they had to be very resistant to them. Despite their extremely low stats, the Shadow Wraiths could be a great danger, especially in the dark.
Eden himself was fine even after taking a few hits because he was immune to the debuff, so all he took was the damage from their Strength value. But since Eden received a Physique Check every time he got hit, that had to mean they were trying to apply debuffs.
They were facing Eden, though, and as resistant as they could be to physical attacks, he doubted that would be the case for magical ones as well.
Eden stopped stalling his spell and fired it slightly more than two meters away from him, where he would not be hit by it.
The fireball flew quickly as it impacted the ground and exploded. There was no shockwave, or Eden would not have dared to use it in a cave. Instead, the flames instantly spread out in a circle, burning everything within a two-meter radius.
As expected, the Shadow Wraiths were not immune to fire damage. They dissolved instantly as the flames hit them, killing them all.
After the small explosion, the flames lingered behind for a few seconds before being snuffed out. These few short seconds allowed Eden to see that the monsters had not dropped anything behind, which was unfortunate, but considering their weak attributes, it should have been expected.
They were dangerous because of the environment, not because they themselves were very dangerous.
Still, even as the flames disappeared, Eden did not go, but instead sat down on the still-hot ground. Now, Eden did not know much about magic, but from his observations, Mana Points would regenerate themselves naturally over time, even if he was not in a Mana-rich environment.
But it was slow. Eden did not know what the exact rate was for MP regeneration, but he could tell it was slow while in a neutral environment. Still, there were ways to accelerate the process. Settling down and concentrating was the one way Eden had discovered.
Although Eden's mission had a time constraint, he would rather not go deeper into the cave with barely any MP left. The safer option was to hang back and recover his MP.
The good news was that as he sat down, Eden distinctly felt the necrotic energy from the surroundings be drawn into his body. He received several checks,
all of which were overruled by his Talent.
Having only trained for a few days, Eden could hardly be said to have a proper grasp of his mana, so calculating the exact rate at which it was regenerating was impossible. However, he could still feel that it was going much faster than it would in a neutral environment, confirming his earlier theory.
Eden did not know how long exactly it would take him to recover his MP in a natural environment, since he had not wasted time doing so outside the Wisdom Training Room back in the Nexus. However, he knew it should be counted in terms of hours, if not a dozen.
So, with the increased MP regeneration, it should only take Eden a few hours at most to recover all of his MP. Of course, it would become even faster the closer he got to the key, or whatever was emitting the necrotic energy, but he did not want to go any further without enough MP to cast a single spell.
If he encountered another group of wraiths or similar creatures, he would much rather have access to his magic.
In any case, since he could not move while his mana recovered, he figured he might as well try to figure out a way to accelerate the rate at which he recovered MP.
He may not have a perfect grasp on his magical energy, or mana, but that was not to say he had none at all. Both because of his practice, magical attributes, and possibly Talent, Eden was capable of feeling his mana coursing through his body at all times, but just without any precision.
He did not know how it moved exactly, or what kind of behaviour it followed. But now, he was offered a unique possibility, as while mana was hard to keep track of, necrotic energy was not.
If there was one thing Eden knew for sure, it was that his mana was neutral. It did not lean toward any element in particular. It was also an integral part of his body, which made it very hard to distinguish what was mana and what was not.
Eden was sure that his Mana Perception would increase with time and practice, but the necrotic energy presented a shortcut. After all, while neutral mana was hard to keep track of, necrotic energy was not.
He could feel the necrotic energy being assimilated by his body and turned into neutral mana for his use. However, this conversion was not instant, and the necrotic energy would swirl around his body for a time before being converted.
And while it did, it was very easy to sense. Although his Talent protected him, necrotic energy still tried to corrupt him at all times, and even with the protection, Eden was able to distinctly feel it, and by extension, everything that is around it.
So, Eden clearly felt it as the necrotic energy moved through his body, entering through his pores and filling out the emptiness of his body. More importantly, while it did travel all over his body, coming from every direction, all the necrotic energy traveled to one point where it would transform: his heart.
This made necrotic energy even more dangerous than Eden originally anticipated. The necrotic energy released by the Necronomicon Copy had been too faint for him to feel it, but a mage spent regenerated mana anywhere near a source of necrotic energy, then it would be led straight to their heart.
To lead an energy of death and decay straight into one's heart, that was a death sentence. Moreover, Eden did not know of any way to stop one's natural mana regeneration.
This explained why the Necronomicon was so feared. Maybe some would be able to pass the checks that came with holding the book, but who would dare use a spell with it in their proximity?
Thinking of this, Eden could not help but smile. His Talent truly was a wonder.
Back to the necrotic energy, once it reached his heart, it would undergo a gradual transformation. Every time it passed by it, a small quantity of necrotic energy would be turned into neutral mana, continuing its course through his body until it returned to his heart, resuming its cycle of purification.
He also felt that while his mana coursed through his whole body, the majority of it was stored in his heart.
Eden had already expected there would be a gathering center for his mana, but he thought it would have been his brain, with both his magical stats being related to it, though it did not matter in the end.
More importantly, since his heart was at the center of his Mana regeneration, it also held the key to improving it.