Chapter 28 Exploration

Breaking the very first rune of Venion's contract showed promise and was the first step to complete freedom. A normal person would not be capable of puncturing their heart so steadily and accurately. Lucas could only do such a thing because he basically grew through pain. Liam's training was hard and hurt his muscles a lot, then he got the potions that reconstructed his entire body. The process was so painful he almost lost consciousness multiple times. The most painful of all were the experiments to awaken his core. His body was manipulated to achieve a certain result. Living in pain was a constant for Lucas, he never felt safe after leaving his village. Not one moment could he do what he wanted, he could only plan for the future.

Through those experiences Lucas ate pain for breakfast, his pain tolerance was far higher than any other person of his age. All the life-threatening situations didn't make him any softer, he grew up with the teachings of a mage with a twisted mindset. Thinking like a mage and creating complicated schemes wasn't Lucas' goal, but he almost reached that stage. Perhaps the biggest reason for his change was the strange being inside of him, but Lucas couldn't pinpoint anything on him, everything felt like his own doing and growth.

Through the hardship, he could execute the craziest of plans. Puncturing his heart was his first idea, his next was to see if he could cut his heart in two or let it explode and drink the potion fast enough to heal it. He had multiple even crazier plans in his mind that could help him reach his goal. The fact that his least painful plan worked made Lucas very happy, he only had to puncture his heart a few more times and drink more potions before he could use dark magic. For Lucas, this wasn't a hard nor easy task.

The other runes were removed without too much trouble, only one of them was difficult because it was surrounded by lung tissue. He had to make sure not to puncture his lungs, after all, the potion wouldn't regrow those parts. Being as careful as he was he still scratched his lungs and had to use healing magic to save his lungs from filling up with blood. He got very lucky and Lucas knew that, if the blood did flood his lungs, no amount of low-level healing magic could save him. Yet, it did not stop him from continuing with his work. Once he was done he opened his eyes and saw what a mess he had left behind.

His magical energy was depleted from all the healing he had to do due to tiny mistakes. Nevertheless, he wanted to train his dark magic before going inside the cave. He had a lot of catching up to do. He needed to feel how the darkness flowed through him, he wanted to see the effects of the destructive power, he was excited. But first, he needed to destroy the remaining runes, but he didn't know how to do it. Using darkness magic in an experiment before learning to control it felt like a stupid idea.

'Just leave them, they can't do anything anymore, the trigger can still be activated, but there's no link to the explosion.'

Luckily he could use darkness magic now, the moment he activated the beginner's rune, the broken circle of runes on his heart disappeared into energy meant to be used to trigger an explosion, but nothing happened. The runes for the explosion were still there, but they were isolated, alone, so they couldn't act on their own.

"Finally, I can use Dark magic now.", Lucas was quite enthusiastic about dark magic, he didn't care in the slightest about the fact that it was banned or looked down upon. If he could use something to survive and gain his freedom, he would do anything to get his hands on it. He cleaned himself up, but the blood-stained all his clothes. Cleaning clothes wasn't his expertise, so he just left them bloody.

Going outside and resting for a moment, he regained his mana and started to look for a place to test his new powers.

'Hmm, if I just choose a random tree, they'll notice it. I need it to be hidden.'

If the miners returned and could see that dark magic was used he would be the perpetrator. The thing was that he didn't even know what darkness magic would do, it could be something small or devastating.

Moving deeper into the surrounding forest he chose a tree that was a little less inauspicious. "Whoo, here we go.", he started small and used the beginner rune to create a small ball of complete darkness.

He didn't know what to think of it, but he felt attracted to it like he wanted to be surrounded by it. The ball didn't look solid, yet wasn't complete air. Moving his other hand towards the ball his middle finger reached it first. It disappeared into the darkness, but the pain spike that suddenly occurred told Lucas that he wouldn't see the tip again when he retracted his hand. Looking at his middle finger it was perfectly cut off, it seemed that anything that entered the ball would be destroyed.

He looked at the ball again and could see it fading away, the light of the sun that came through the leaves of the trees made the dark fade away. When it completely faded away Lucas brought his hand to the space where it once floated and it was like the darkness was never even there.

'Or was it always there and we can just make appear?'

'It looks like darkness is the destruction or corrosion of everything like Venion said. Anything that enters it gets destroyed.'

'But if enough things enter it, it will disappear?'

'If the beginner rune is already that destructive I can understand why they banned it.'

After seeing what it could do he was almost scared of making offensive spells of pure darkness. Venion gave a few runes but didn't give any spells with the darkness. For Lucas though, the runes were enough, his inspiration bloomed and a plethora of ideas and experiments flowed through his mind. 'Darkness is clearly the most powerful element, any fight should be fought with darkness, winning would be a piece of cake!'

Lucas started to grin at what he could achieve with his power, but he didn't grow arrogant. Thinking back about when he was out of energy after fighting about two spiders and Venion killed an entire nest, he knew he was still weak. If Venion could also use darkness magic, where would Lucas' advantage lie?

'If an upgrade in power won't bring me any closer, I need something else.'