Second Eternal Gem

Ellis's eyes opened to a dimly lit, long hallway. Behind him, the hallway extended as far as he could see before it dimmed to black. The hallway in front of him was the same. As he looked down the hallway in front of him, he saw his mom and sister standing at the end of the hallway.

"Mom? Solara?"

Ellis began walking toward them, but no matter how much he moved, he wasn't getting any closer to them. He began walking faster down the hall but again they stayed the same distance away, and even when he began running, he never got any closer. They frowned at him before turning around and walking away, fading into the blackness of the hallway.

"No! Don't leave me!"

Ellis began running with all of his strength, but he couldn't reach them. As he ran, he tripped over himself and fell face first to the floor below. As he laid on the ground, he squeezed his eyes shut and slammed his fist into the ground in frustration.

When he opened his eyes again, he was staring at rocks and snow on the ground. Ellis tried to move but he couldn't, it was like his body was glued to the ground. Soon he began feeling a warmth overcoming over his body and filling him with strength. The warmth grew stronger as it filled his body up with energy and allowed him to move.

Ellis managed to lift his head from the ground and look around at his surroundings. He was laying down near the burning corpse of the Ironbark Evil Tree and all the snow around him had melted away. The flames in front of him danced around in front of him as Ellis managed to check his HP and saw that it was at 3%. As he checked his HP, he noticed he gained a new skill called Cold Resistance.

I guess I lived. Good thing I got this Cold Resistance skill.

Ellis pushed himself up from the ground slowly and sat upright. As he moved his leg throbbed in pain. When he looked down, he saw that he still had a wooden spike in his leg that he had to deal with.

I'm not going to be able to heal with this thing sticking out of my leg.

Ellis reached down and wrapped his hand around the wooden spike protruding from his thigh. Just touching the spike sent pain shivering up his body. With one quick movement, he pulled the spike out and blood spurted out. With one hand Ellis quickly applied pressure to the hole in his leg while his other hand took off his backpack. He then pulled some cloth out of his bag and tightly wrapped it around his leg to prevent any further bleeding. With his wound wrapped it would be able to heal quicker and keep pressure applied so he didn't lose any more blood in the meantime.

Ellis propped himself up on a nearby rock and ate some of his smoked meat as well as drank some water to regained some of his HP. He knew if he just took care of his wound and made sure he was eating and drinking, he would be able to recover HP slowly.

I'm going to need to rest a while to recover my lost HP and heal back up to full. For now, I can just find some stuff to occupy my time while I heal.

Ellis pulled out his armor and weapon repair kit and went to work on his equipment. After a day of cleaning his armor and sharpening his weapon, his health had already risen back up to nearly half. As long he rested the next day as well, he should back up to full health soon. Ellis set up his bedroll and went to sleep. The next day after training some basic anima practices for the majority of the day he was back to full health. After gathering his stuff and making sure he had full range of motion, Ellis looked forward to the path ahead.

I still have a long way to go and now I have to worry about trees attacking me, so that's great.

Ellis huffed as he began his trek up the rest of the mountain. As he journeyed up through the pass ahead of him, headed toward the top of the mountain he looked over his new skill. With his new Cold Resistance skill, he could easily traverse through the snowy pass without much problem as his health wasn't slowly ticking down anymore. The trip up the rest of the mountain was a long and hard one. Any monsters he ran into in the past were taken care of relatively easily or he just ran past them if they were too strong or there were too many. Whenever he was tired, he would make a small camp and then begin again the next day. After four days, he eventually made his way up to an opening and saw the flat plateau at the top of the mountain in front of him.

"Ahh… I finally made it!"

Ellis collapsed onto his knees in happiness. He had been traveling up the mountain for over a week and was happy to have finally made it to the top. He looked around the flat top of the mountain to try and find whatever it was up at the top. As he looked around, he assumed a strong monster or something would pop out and destroy him, but no, that didn't happen at all which he was very thankful for. Instead, what he found was a small ornate pedestal in the center with a glowing red object on it. As he got closer to the object, he could feel a heat radiating off of it. When he was finally right in front of the object the warmth was so strong it was making him sweat in his armor. Ellis more closely inspected the object on the pedestal and discovered it was a gem similar to the gem that he had pulled from the eye socket of the statue. It also had the same shape as one of the slots in the secret room below the ruins.

[Eternal Gem]

Another Eternal Gem? I guess this must be the second jewel needed to open the doors. Now all I need is the key and I can finally open that bronze door.

Ellis picked up the gem, which surprising wasn't too hot to the touch, and put it in his bag. He was now one step closer to clearing the second floor. Now, all he had to do was make his way down the mountain and somehow figure out a way around that Ice Naga, but he figured he could come up with a plan as he made his way back down the mountain. After confirming there was nothing else at the top of the mountain, such as another way down, which there wasn't, he began the long arduous journey back down the mountain.

The trip down the mountain was the same as when he went up the mountain, exceptionally long and boring. The only scenery he got were the various tree monsters and golems, but other than that there wasn't too much variety in scenery. The ground was rocky and snowy along with the cliffsides surrounding him. After only a couple of days, Ellis was already halfway down the mountain. As it turned out going down a mountain was a lot easier than going up one. Just in front of him was the frozen lake and his nemesis, the Ice Naga.