Dungeon exploration (2)

Leisurely walking around while firing mana darts at any straggling goblins on the way I mindlessly moved forward to where the winding cave takes me.

Periodically using [Scout] to see my surroundings and to keep an eye on everybody's movement.

There was nothing to gain by beating the dungeon master besides an extra academic score and the eye of someone demonic, but surviving was enough to give you possible points.

This test was about survival in the event of a unique crack transfer to anyone into it, not adventuring deeper and killing the source completely.

I occasionally bumped into some classmates who either had gone alone or were in a group but they ignored my presence, a coward that managed to survive by hiding was probably their line of thought.

"Ho ho ho look what we have here, a sewer rat" A familiar voice came from behind.

Turning around I sighed faintly to see who it was.

"Travis I don't see you have your little group where did they go?" I taunted while secretly casting [Scout] and found the two others were using the stalagmite spikes to go around.

'Sneaky' Thinking of a way to get rid of those two without raising suspicion it wasn't long before I thought of a way.

"You'll pay for what you did to Alan" Travis shouted trying to get my attention away from the surrounding area.

"Coming for revenge? I see, then I expect you to attack me right? then it's my job to protect myself"

I raised my staff and ran at him to the confusion of Travis.

"Haa! Ah-" 'Accidentally' slipping on a pool of water a fireball was shot backward into the ceiling above destroying some rocks and falling upon one of his sneaking teammates.

"Oww," I rubbed my head and dusted off my uniform.

"Y-you didn't see anything" I pointed at the dumbfounded Travis who was still processing what had happened.

Seeing the perfect opportunity I turned to run to which Travis snapped out of his trance and ran after me.

His teammate also ran after me, revealing himself between the stalagmite spikes.

"Shoot so you guys were hiding- I knew it! I'm a genius" I cried out loud in pride, earning the rage of those two behind me.

That resulted in them running faster eventually catching up to me.

"Paralysis: Edit" A spark of yellow appeared on the ground before disappearing 

Travis tackled me but I barely dodged it.

With nothing to stop Travis, he falls to the ground, and seeing an opportunity I pointed my staff at him.

"No, you don't-" Travis's friend rushed towards me but soon stepped on the invisible paralysis trap.

"Mana bolt" Both defenseless on the ground I shot a large purple projectile at Travis's head first eliminating him as he returned to reality.

Moving my staff to his friend he tried to open his mouth to say something but it was cut short by Mana bolt.

Casting [Scout] I realized I ran quite a long way but I paid attention to Liam's party which is fighting the goblin leader, the dungeon master of this crack.

Looking at the time on my watch I realized this simulation was about to end so I decided to sit still and wait for Thomas to port us out.

After several minutes of counting imaginary numbers, a voice came from all sides.

"Congratulations students you survived the dungeon for 30 minutes, all who survived will pass and the party who killed the dungeon master will get extra points," Thomas said.

After that, my vision became white before returning to reality.

Full dive Virtual reality or FDVR for short is a dream that I wanted to experience once but the feeling was unreal, to say the least.

"Alright class is over and there is no other lesson today, you're free to do anything for the rest of the day"

~~

Sitting in my room I folded my arm pondering, how to 'see' with my soul. The trouble that stumped me ever since I returned to my room.

The original reason I wanted this is to get rid of any remaining souls this body possesses but for that, I need to control my soul to 'see' but the akashic does not tell me how to do it.

If I can see souls I may be able to see the shift in my soul when I play around with it but it's as invisible as empty air.

It's a loop of needing to see my soul to control my soul to see.

Maybe it's a passive that Litches has, the same as humans with lungs. You don't think of breathing but you can do it instinctively.

I lay on my bed in frustration and deciding on a way to calm down I head to the public library of the academy.

Opening the door to the library I saw some students were quietly studying.

Without any commotion, I went through the bookshelf, only gliding my hand through the rows of books secretly activating [archive] and decided to put them in a category.

[Martial arts] section

[Magic theories] section

[Dungeon information& Monsters bestiary] section

[Spells] section.

The martial arts section describes how to utilize the body to its fullest potential by weaponizing the body itself, but it requires a high level of body training and a well-versed knowledge of weapons.

The other two are easily explained by their name but spells are the most interesting.

The obelisk freely gives their students common spells that are open to the public, as per their founder's motto "Knowledge is meant to be given and spread".

Thanks to this I learned a bunch of spells but most of them were weaker than Gram's ancient spells at the cost of a high mana efficiency from years of optimizing.

Unfortunately, soul theory or anything related was a banned topic, so any public library that had them was shut down by the government.

Mainly because of its destructive nature, any type of magic that was hurtful to oneself or the environment was badly looked upon.

With a final sigh, I touched the final book and stored it in the archive, that ordeal took almost an hour as each bookshelf had 10 rows of books and there were 16 bookshelves.

Anything unrelating to any category I made was placed into its separate category like mathematics, or history.

"What are you doing?" A voice came from behind.

Amelia who was studying before saw Ethan exploring the library, usually, she would pass it off and continue studying, but Ethan only glided his hand through the books not even looking at the title or anything.

Curiosity took over her so she decided to observe him quietly to see what he was up to.

But from beginning to end he only did the same thing which was suspicious, to say the least.

"Nothing, just looking at the books but none caught my interest"

"But you weren't even looking at the books you were touching"

"You can't prove I didn't look at the titles"

"Then what is this book called" She pointed at a book, I could see the cover color but the words were hidden

"Theory of how mana was created" I answered confidently.

Amelia looked over to the book to check but was dumbfounded by what she had found.

"You're.. right"

"See?"

"I.." Amelia was speechless and couldn't choose her next word.

"Anyway I'll get going, the sun is setting, bye" Before Amelia realized Ethan disappeared through the library entrance.