Cleaning Up

Mana was the energy, the mind was the switch, and the body was the conductor carrying the energy across. Currently, Gerald's mind was strong, at least compared to an average person, and his Mana stores were big, even giant. However, his body was weak, even frail by some standards.

When too much electricity runs through a thin wire, the wire melts, and when too much Mana runs through a weak body, the body breaks down.

Although Gerald's mind was strong enough for extremely powerful spells, his body wasn't. Unfortunately, he didn't know that, and so he had to pay the price. But anyway, even if he knew, the results would probably be about the same…

***

Gerald woke sometime later with a splitting headache and an aching body. He slowly dragged himself from the icy-cold ground, closer to the dead Queen. Before doing anything more though, he cast a healing spell on himself with a painful expression and drank a Healing Potion.

Then, taking out a knife, he climbed on the mass of flesh and blood and tore open the Queen's chest and cut out her heart as well as the Crystal beside it.

The Crystal was dark brown in color, with streaks of red in-between, reminding him of burning charcoal.

"Heh, evolving towards a fiery being, huh? Not on my watch!" Laughing like a madman Gerald took a bite of the heart and then stored the rest of it in his pouch together with the Magma Crystal. He dissected the carcass and stored away the pieces he deemed worthy.

The Queen was probably nearing the middle Gold Rank, but since she was disrupted during her long transformation, her defense was close to zero and her energies at a minimum, granting Gerald an opportunity to kill. Her flesh would serve him well on his road to becoming stronger.

Before dragging his damaged body out of the room, Gerald gave the Ice Phoenix Magma Flowers a long look and then sighed, "Okay, I'll just take one just in case, you never know…" Though he knew he couldn't use this, he scooped the flower up with the little soil that it grew in and immediately transferred it to his Space Pouch.

"Time doesn't run there, so it should be fine, right?" Waiting for a few moments, he finally relaxed after there was no reaction.

Tearing off the burnt pieces of armor, he took out a spare piece of clothing and put it on. The fiery spell that came from the Minecrawler Queen completely obliterated anything he had, including partially melting his iron hand.

"Just a few seconds of extreme heat and it was already able to do so much damage. Was I struck by a small sun or what?!"

He was genuinely surprised he survived that fiery explosion. The ancient Combat Arts were no joke, and they saved his life more than just a few times already. He felt so lucky to be able to understand those languages and be capable of casting the spell.

Luckily the Space Pouch also seemed to be fine, otherwise, it would be a real tragedy if it was destroyed.

Gerald dragged his aching body up the stairs and towards the exit. However, when coming up, he remembered that people would probably come to explore this place soon…

"Shit, I need to close this door somehow! I can't let them find out what happened here…" He looked nervously around the door, and this one also had some writing like the first one.

But differently than the first door, it didn't react to him reading it out loud.

"Oh! Maybe closing the door has to be done manually?" he wondered after seeing a palm imprint on the wall near the massive door.

Indeed, it was just as he guessed, the magic mechanism that controlled the door was hidden behind it. Like any other, it was old and weak, ready to crumble at any moment.

Gerald sent his Mana inside and the doors started to close. Before they were completely closed, however, the mechanism completely broke, making the door unable to move a single millimeter in any direction. But at least the opening became small, about ten centimeters or so.

"Damn! Oh well, I guess this will have to do, people can't squeeze through anyway."

He limped and staggered his way out of the Phoenix Temple and then sneaked around the edge of the cavern back to his hiding spot. The reason as to why he didn't use magic, was because his body would erupt with pain every time he did so. Just sustaining the Stone Body to escape from the heat was excruciating.

***

The fight seemed to be already over, and many people gathered around the remains of the Minecrawler King.

The battlefield was covered with flames burning the corpses, and people were cleaning up the bloody remains. The human casualties numbered a few dozen but wounded or maimed made up almost a hundred.

Almost half of the fighting force suffered some sort of injury, from simple scratches and bruises, all the way up to broken bones and torn limbs.

Anyway, the Minecrawler King was currently being dissected and distributed among the survivors as a part of the compensation for joining the fight.

Almost half of the massive body was given away, each person getting a few kilograms of meat. Although the taste was not exactly pleasant, the beast was almost at the Gold Rank. Nobody complained about getting this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to consume some of it.

"Gerald!" Elly was first to notice him walking towards them. "You look terrible! What happened?"

Loudly grunting while sitting down, Gerald simply brushed it off, "It's nothing major, I just had an accident with a bunch of flames…"

"Wow, you must have had a hard time! Getting burned while hiding in a corner, that's some crazy impressive skill, haha…" Of course, it was Cot who would mock him loudly in front of everyone. Although it was only he who spoke, many others had the same thoughts.

Gerald simply ignored his blabbering and closed his eyes to rest. 'What is this prick's problem? Just leave me alone!'

After a while, a delicate hand tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hm? Oh, Elly, what's up?"

"Here," she handed him a big piece of meat, saying, "This is your share of the Minecrawler King."

Gerald looked at it for a second, before pushing it back to her, "You keep it." He had already taken as much meat as he could and his pouches were full. Taking more of the inferior product would make no sense.

"Eh? But this is for you, I already got my share!" she meekly protested.

Gerald closed his eyes and quietly sighed, "How do you expect me to take you as a student if you can't even accept a small gift? Are you going to be like one of those untamed students that can't follow orders?"

"Ah?" She looked at him with confusion at first, but then her face formed a bright smile, "Does that mean you finally accepted me as your student?!"

Gerald, still having his eyes closed waved her away, saying, "Eh, what? Sure, whatever, just let me rest, for now, I need to recover…"

"Yay!" Elly became ecstatic and even jumped a little. She stored the meat in her pouch and then left with a smile.

'Finally some peace!' Gerald's face scrunched up when he moved his body on the rocky floor, trying to find a more comfortable position.

'Damn it, this healing magic is so slow! It's more of a fatigue-removing or recovery magic…' He secretly cast another Recovery on himself even though it was painful to do so. Unbeknown to him, the whole interaction between him and the girl was seen by a certain person.

"Damn it! That prick is speaking with Elly again! And she brought him the beast's flesh! What is she, his servant?!" Cot became red in the face with anger.

But then he saw something that made him gnash his teeth in rage, "What?! She is so happy receiving his meat? He didn't even deserve to get it in the first place, this coward!"

Squeezing his fist hard, he watched the two separate while his eyes filled with blood as he wanted to tear Gerald apart. "He's waving her away like some dog and she is happily prancing about?! That's it, this guy deserves to die! Nobody can treat my girl like this and get away with it!"

"Your girl?"

"Boss!" Cot jumped up. "By Innos! Don't just sneak up on me, I'm going to die from shock one day!"

Belmar placed his hand on Cot's shoulder and sighed. "Cot, I'm worried about you. Ever since Elly joined us you have been losing touch with reality. It doesn't matter if you like the girl or not, but you need to stop obsessing over her so much…"

"I know boss, I know… I have been stressing over her too much lately..." Cot answered in a humble manner.

"It's good that you know… Come, let's go celebrate our victory! We are not going to sleep sober tonight!"

"Hehe, boss you sure know what to say!"

Both men left in a good mood and went to prepare for the evening. The battlefield cleaning was almost done and it was time to return to the surface.