Training

The arrival of the giant worm was the turning point. After eating and cooking it, they threw it inside the underground city to make sure they could use everything. Not a single piece of the body was going to go to waste. They didn't have to worry about poison or anything. Kamil said that besides the teeth, everything else was edible.

With such a big body, they could finally put the bait plan into action. After two more days to recover their strength, Thanatos was full of mana again. He took a chunk of the body and went into the desert with Kit.

"Here should be good enough. I have heard some noises in this area, maybe more worms or something else." Kit gave him the signal to prepare. He was beside the small cartwheel with the meat, waiting for a predator. If this worked, they would have a reliable method to gather prey.

It took a long time. After almost an hour, Kit raised his ears from the ground and made a signal. Thanatos took out his claws and focused his senses. He could feel the light tremors below his feet. Without any preparation, a massive worm opened his mouth and tried to swallow him in one bite.

SLASH, he was far beyond a measly worm like this. He only had to reinforce his claws with magic. The worm's massive body felt like butter under his hands. He began to salivate, anticipating more food.

"Yes! We can use them to hunt, hahahahaha!" Kit laughed like a madman. They found a way to gather food in this terrible place.

"Don't get your hopes up. If we do this too much, they will notice and probably move to another area. I need you to keep honing your skills to track more worms around us."

"Yes!" They took their new catch to the ruins for another feast.

Neo was waiting inside the house that they assigned as a massive kitchen. "Did it work?" she asked, only having to smell the blood outside the house to get her answer. "Come on, I'm going to cut him with the other one…" She was already drooling.

Neo acted as the chef since she was the one with better cooking skills. Kamil was in the back using the last bit of salt they had to cure the meat. He was also in charge of the "Refrigerator" as Thanatos called it. It was basically a room full of ice spears and meat. This was so they could keep the meat fresh. When Kamil asked if he could keep using mana all day, he laughed.

"If we get food every day, you bet, I'm going to make it work!" After agonizing for more than a month, they finally found a way out. They could turn this predicament around and work to get out of this place.

***

With the food problem finally resolved, Thanatos took them inside the tower of the magic school. They were sitting at a table, and he was using an old parchment to write his plan. Since the ink was dry, he used some of the worm blood. After two minutes, he presented it to them.

"Our situation is not so dire anymore, but the truth is that we still aren't any closer to getting out of here. We don't have any clue about directions or how long it should take us to get back to Last Drop." They all nodded. It was painfully obvious. "We need to practice. If we combine our talents with the teachings and information in this place, we can find a way out of here." He pointed at Kit.

"Kit, you are the pillar of this team. Without your tracking skills, we're doomed to wander endlessly. Use everything you need to become better at reading the wind, the sand, the movements and tremors of the beasts and all you could possibly require."

"I don't know how long it will take me…"

"We have plenty of time here. We'll wait, no matter how long it takes you, because without you, we don't have any future."

Kit felt the trust in his voice. He finally got the thing he wanted since Thanatos saved his life in the underground fighting pit. A way to return the favor, but after meeting him. After seeing his battle in the Demi human council and the month here. Whatever Thanatos was going to do in the future, he wanted to be part of it.

"I promise. I will find us a way out of here!"

"I know I can leave it to you, but we can't just waste time and sit on our asses all day. Neo, you're going to practice your shamanic powers. Go to the library and see what you can use."

"What? You expect me to go and start reading all these books until I find something useful?"

"Exactly. I'm not going to ask you to learn a different discipline that could take decades, but you should push the limits of your power. We may have to advance several days and fight hundreds of beasts before reaching civilization."

"Ugh, fine I get it. I want to go back, so I'm going to work extra hard. I'm going to be a monster of a shaman!"

"I know, after going back to Underworld, let's go see Lia."

Neo looked at his earnest smile. Seeing it again filled her heart with power. So many things happened after leaving her village, but even after almost starving to death, she could say it.

"I don't regret going with you and Lia that day, but..." she punched him in the side. "Don't go getting lovey-dovey immediately. At least wait until we all catch up. I was the one who promised to bring you back in one piece, haha."

"Mmm, yeah, thanks." He rubbed his side and tried to change subjects as he blushed.

"Lovey-dovey?" Kamil asked to himself, but Thanatos heard him.

"Kamil, you're our healer. You need to make potions, use the alchemy lab and supplies, and build a big and potent stockpile for us to fight an entire army alone!"

"When I see the rest of you are so determined to do it, I can't keep hiding and waiting for a miracle. Even when we spent those days starving and waiting, the miracle didn't arrive. It was death in the form of a giant worm, and you turned that around into life. I'll make the best use of everything in this place."

"That's what I wanted to hear. I would like to learn with you, but there are matters more important that only I can do."

"What are you going to do?"

He took out the black book. "I need to decipher the secrets of this book. The only way for me to do it is to learn more about glyphs. I'll use my time to study them and then practice the spells inside this book until I find something that can help us. This is the reason I came here, Kamil. I'm going to learn this power and make it mine. Is that okay for you?"

"If I say no, I would be admitting I preferred to die here, which would be the biggest lie of my life. Go wild, just please do it away from my home. Oh, I'm talking about this desert. If we actually make it back, I'm using the gold you pay me to retire and spend the rest of my life in peace."

"After almost starving, you still want to live here?"

"What can I say? I like my homeland, but I never want to step so deep into the desert's heart again."

"Hahahahaha, pretty simple, I like it." He put his hand in front and everyone else did the same. "We aren't going to die. Let's climb higher than ever before and make our allies happy while destroying our enemies. In this place of the dead, Underworld is going to be reborn!"

***

BOOOM, another explosion came from the laboratory. After the first one, Kamil had to move from the tower into the other rooms to not destroy anything valuable. This was the fifth one, and everyone was used to it. They didn't even need to go check on him.

"Cof, cof... another failure." He murmured aloud as he stepped outside to let the smoke out and breath fresh air. While waiting for his laboratory to ventilate the toxic fumes, he did his usual routine.

He went to the kitchen to make sure that the meat was still fine and curated some of the catches from yesterday. Kit had become a good hunter and managed to grab small worms and other animals a couple of times a week.

"He must be tracking outside again. Uh, he caught a... what even is this?" He had lived his whole life in this desert, but on the table was a species that he had never seen. He took the knife and started taking it part by part, the meat from the fat and the bones.

After that, it was his turn to cook the meat. He wasn't the best cook, but Neo was busy studying, so they implemented a shift system to make things fairer. He left Kit's portion in the kitchen and took the others back to the school.

He went to a courtyard and saw a bunch of dead bodies with Neo in the middle. She was meditating. He was unsure whether it was part of her training. How does one improve his shamanic powers? The answer, according to Neo, was to get more spirits and do more things with them.

"Neo, I got your lunch."

"It's not here! Damnit!"

"W-What happened? Why are you screaming?"

"This worm doesn't have a soul. Thanatos ate it again. How many times is he going to take my practice souls and eat them!" She went to Kamil's face and looked like she was about to start fighting right there with him.

"C-Calm down. Why don't you go ask him?"

"Yes, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind." She took Kamil in her arms and busted open the door to the tower. "You glutton soul eater bastard, where are you? Three days I managed to keep the soul stable, and now it is all meaningless!"

She sprinted up the tower, but Thanatos was now nowhere to be found.

"Did he go to practice in the city again. Come back here thief!" Kamil watched she left and then a voice talked to him from behind.

"Uf, thank goodness she was mad because then she would have seen behind my handkerchief." He turned off the invisibility and welcomed Kamil. "Oh, you brought lunch. Thanks. I'm going to eat later. I'm on the verge of a new discovery. Follow me. I'll show you."

He remembered the first time he heard Neo complain about Thanatos eating souls. He almost choked on a piece of meat during the meal, and Kit had to punch him in the gut to save his life. Now it's a routine. Thanatos ate the souls that Neo used for practice to recharge mana, and then she would enact vengeance in some way. Like kicking him in the back or painting all over his research notes.

A part of him wondered if they still remembered to work to leave this place, but he knew deep down that they had not forgotten. Even after two whole months. He came inside the room, and Thanatos walked in front of him.

"Watch closer." He closed his eyes and the air around him changed.

Kamil didn't know what happened, but he could swear for a second he saw two Thanatos. "What did you do?"

Thanatos smiled. "Sorry, is a secret?"