Monsters of Tyrm

"Perhaps killing humans isn't the only thing," Magnus realised a certain fact as he recalled the words of the bartender earlier. "There are monsters and beasts in this world, and killing them might benefit me more than massacring humans."

Magnus nodded to himself.

"Monster hunting will be a good start. Now I just have to make sure to avoid that lady expert. I can't have her finding out about me. I need to hide behind Klaris' masks and cover up my traces."

Magnus decided on a short term course of action and acted on it right away. He asked around and found out about the tunnels that led deeper underground.

He also bought a map that helped him if he ever got lost. Included in it were directional suggestions for earth elementalists.

He had a way out if he ever was victim to a cave-in.

"Hm," Magnus eyed one of the tunnels that led out of the central region of the city. It was vaguely circular, snaking downwards in a hiking route kind of way.

There were no stairs, and Magnus had to either take great care not to start sliding down uncontrollably or use Spirit Manipulation to give himself stairs.

He did the latter.

Well, he did half of both.

Unbothered by the soil that would dirty his new clothes, Magnus morphed the stone into a smooth surface.

He was going to slide his way down.

Swish!

Positioning himself as he would on a water slide, Magnus zoomed across the smooth stones of his creation. He descended at an alarming rate and the threat of not being able to see what was coming left Magnus on tenterhooks.

He was sliding down in dim lighting and fearing for any sharp objects in his way.

Splash!

Thankfully, nothing actually turned him into a shish-kebab. Instead, he found himself inside an underwater reservoir after half an hour of sliding and sliding.

The water was weirdly warm, and Magnus felt a sense of discomfort.

It turns out, there were tiny organisms squirming against his skin, making him cringe beyond imagination.

"GAH!"

Magnus called upon the earth to cover his skin in a layer of soil. He then hardened the soil with his Spirit Energy until it drew the characteristics of rocks.

With this, he successfully shielded himself from those organisms. His suit of rock was sufficient.

The way he kept himself afloat was through covering himself in his Spirit Energy to lighten his rock skin.

All in all, a good last second call to get rid of any discomforts.

"Now, do I want to see what those things wiggling against my skin were? Or shall I ignore this event entirely so as not to traumatise myself?" Magnus debated carefully.

He was just a moment away from creating a palm-sized flame for his viewing pleasure.

But he held back.

He could still feel those creatures drumming against his rock suit, but not intentionally. It seemed to be that wiggling around chaotically was their neutral state.

Like microorganisms swimming around in dirty water.

"Ugh," Magnus gagged as he decided not to stay any longer. He was getting the chills with every second he felt those things press against him.

It was an experience he would rather die than have for a long time. That was how bad it was.

Summoning the earth, Magnus created a ladder for himself to pull himself out. He grabbed at the earthen ladder and realised something bad.

"I can't get out." His pupils dilated. Something kept pulling him in whenever he tried to leave.

It was a bit like quicksand.

Just that, the things pulling him into the waters weren't anything natural, and instead some organism.

Some monster.

"Fire!" Magnus had enough and decided that a little heat could help out.

He poured out his Spirit Energy in a desperate attempt to create a fireball large enough to boil the waters.

BWOOM!

The sound of rapid evaporation and a miniature explosion of energy rocked the surface of the revealed murky waters.

Magnus saw what was grabbing him.

Worms.

Worms upon worms, upon worms.

It was an entire lake's worth of them, squirming like a scene from hell.

"Again!" Magnus roared.

And another forceful fireball was sent into the waters, causing rapid panic to spread among the worms. They rapidly fled into deeper waters as the surface grew warm with the pillars of steam clogging up the cavity in the earth.

"Hah, hah," Magnus was breathing heavily. The oxygen in the air had been consumed at a threatening rate, and it had thinned severely.

His lungs were searching for a breath of air.

"Thankfully, those worms are easy to scare..." Magnus shivered as he climbed his ladder. He decided that he would no longer walk around the area without some kind of armour.

He was keeping his stone skin on for as long as he could sustain it—which might be infinite, given the rate of his regeneration inside this earth energy-rich location.

After returning to his rock slide, Magnus decided that the thrills were not worth the chills.

He made a vow,

"If my thrill-seeking leads to something worse than death, I will reconsider."

He then started digging around with Spirit Manipulation based on the map in his hands. He discovered that he was rather close to where the monsters were rumoured to congregate.

"Ancient Catacombs?" Magnus pondered on the presence of such a place, "Could it be a remnant from a previous civilisation? The Personal Trial Scroll said that they just started their civilization... so for something to be ancient... it has to be 'ancient.'"

Magnus couldn't even find the words to describe how archaic it had to be.

Gurgle, gurgle.

A gurgling resonation tickled Magnus' ear as he was about to arrive at a certain location on the map. He discovered a blob of mud sifting through the earth, looking like a relative of the legendary slimes... but dirtier.

"...This should be considered a monster, right?" Magnus shot a stone bullet at the mud blob and witnessed his attack go straight through without doing a thing.

"Right." Magnus facepalmed, "Something about Spiritual Affinities..."

Magnus switched to fire. He created a palm-sized ball of combusting flames in his hands and threw it forward like a baseball.

Vwhoom!

There was first an impact, then an explosion, and then an increase in ambient temperatures.

The mud blob had been turned into dried and hardened earth.

Eliminated.

Magnus then felt his Spirit Energy reserves get refilled slightly. He felt rejuvenated.

"This should work even better if I had full reserves..." Magnus muttered to himself as he basked in the new feeling.

From his earlier hikes with Mallow, Magnus learned how one nurtured their Spirit Energy. Although it differs from beast to human, the main concept was in requiring a full tank of Spirit Energy. Without the full tank, nothing you try will work.

Once Magnus had a body filled with Spirit Energy, he could start cultivating in whatever method he had. Back then, he had simply allowed his Spirit Energy to slosh around like an ocean experiencing a storm.

It was chaotic, but he could feel it working.

Later on, though, Magnus realised the subtle interactions that occurred with his Blessings.

If he cycled his Spirit Energy in and out of his Blessing's Molecular Text, without invoking them at the same time, he could stimulate something within them. From an intuitive sense, it was likely that he was supplying his Blessings with energy, and allowing them to grow.

The same could be said for his Curses.

On the other hand, when it came to tempering the body and soul, Magnus had no idea how that worked. As mentioned, all he knew was to leave his Spirit Energy be.

He needed to find a suitable technique for himself.

Back to the monsters of Tyrm.

Magnus burrowed into a room of a few metres cubed in size. It was quite cramped, with a ceiling that almost touched his head. A pool of magma was sitting there, unattended.

The first thing anyone would do, and of course, this included Magnus, was check his corners.

FPS games had too much of an impact on his life that now that he was in combat-ready mode, it had become a physical instinct to do so.

GrRrrRAaaAA!

And lo and behold; a distorted growl sounded from a creature that instantly lunged for Magnus' throat.

Shiiing!

Nails grated against his stone-covered arm, as Magnus instinctively ducked.

He backed off a few paces and lobbed a fireball.

Bwoom!

There was a shockwave, but no shrill scream. Magnus knew he missed.

Ting ting!

He felt it on his back. Something scratched him twice in the span of a split second.

Magnus spun. His hand shot out in a punch. In his vision was a blur of brown, with sharp claws and a feral glint in its eyes.

He hit the monster with the back of his hand. And across the room did the monster fly, like a ragdoll punted by a child.

Splash!

Into the pool of magma, it went.

Magnus did not even know what happened. All he knew was that his heart was beating and that... there were more enemies.

"Haah!" Magnus pumped out his fist, using the earth element to fling flaming rocks straight out of the magma pool.

Chaos descended on the few monsters in the room. They avoided the magma like the plague as they pranced around like little brown goblins.

Walls of earth appeared around Magnus, shielding him from his own creation. The heavy sound of the magma hitting stone echoed across the room like a sizzling rain.

Magnus then stopped flinging magma into the air, seeing the agility of the monsters dodging them. He stepped out of his shields and unsheathed the sword he had never used in his life.

He slashed out just like he would with a baseball bat.

Shhriik!

Some damage might have been dealt, but the monster was still alive. It counterattacked, and Magnus stepped back to dodge.

Another monster struck at him, tearing through his clothes, but not his stone skin.

Magnus blasted that one with a palm of flames, making the monster writhe in elemental pain.

Four pairs of claws were now slashing towards him, forcing Magnus to parry one, block another, and dodge the rest.

"Thank the heavens for my command over earth," Magnus muttered. Although Jistill's memories weren't present anymore, he already had a lot of time to study them.

He had an [Advanced] proficiency when it came to the earth element.

The fifth rank out of ten proficiency ranks, where [Unskilled] is labelled as the first, and [Perfection] as the tenth.

Casting such a thought aside, Magnus counterattacked. He successfully stabbed his sword into the body of one of the monsters, causing it to squeal in pain.

A manic grin appeared on Magnus' face.

"Finally!"

He was happy to finally make a proper melee attack with something he had never practised with before.

But his happiness was only momentary.

There were still three more monsters...