The Insider System

Chapter 103: Going Deeper Pt.2

Finishing the first tunnel with no sign of any Undead Lake was actually more apprehensive than if there had been at least a few. He couldn't think of any reason none would be here other than there was some form of planning on the part of the undead to keep them away.

Lake had seen that undead could be as smart as people at least in some cases so it wasn't a stretch that there was some form of ruling class that told the weak and stupid to stay away from this part of the dungeon because they would be hunted. It made Lake wonder what form of society could possibly be down here.

It was hellish to him but he could see this being paradise for them and some of the rooms down here were pretty big so he could see them sitting down in big huddles and hanging out. There wasn't really anything down here for them to do other than use magic, so he could see them all slowly teaching each other new spells or something.

If that was the case he could see this being really dangerous because there was an abundance of the elements they would be using to cast spells down here allowing them to just fire strong spells nonstop. Thinking they should probably stop here Lake asked Joy what she thought. "Do you think we should keep going?"

Lake didn't like the amount of noise he made when he asked this because the room they were in was dead silent so even though he had whispered it made him feel like he had just given himself away. He knew it was just all the movies he had watched in his last life making him overly paranoid, but it didn't make it not possible.

"Of course I want to turn back. I didn't even think we should have entered." Lake had expected an answer like this and had really only asked to give himself an excuse to turn back without the only reason being he was a wimp. It was too bad though they were probably only 7 or 8 tunnels away from where he needed to go to see the Marks location.

Turning around to tell Joy to head back, Lake felt a fluctuation in the mana around him, and heard a voice call out to him. "I promise safety for you and your friend if you want to keep going, Lake." Lake turned around to see no one where he had felt the shift in the mana. He had thought that some undead or something had somehow teleported or used a skill to move behind him.

Now that he saw there was no immediate danger Lake tried to think about what had just happened with a clear mind. The name thing wasn't that big of a clue because he was inside the guild where everyone knew his name. The only thing he could really get from what had just happened was the fact that the voice had been in his head.

It fit the description of what he had heard about the Demon Lord, and how the Demon Lords wasn't extremely loud like other voices in your head. Lake had also been expecting this ever since Domare had called him by his name even though he had been in a disguise. Now he just needed to decide if he could believe what the voice had said.

While he did so he turned to Joy and said. "Did you hear anything?" Lake asked this for two reasons, the first just because he wanted to know if she had heard the voice as well, and the second was to make it seem there was a reason he had stopped abruptly like he had done when he heard the voice.

"No, did you hear something?" Lake could tell Joy was freaked out by his question because she started to move her head around like she was trying to look around. This was a funny reaction because she could only see like ten feet like him. "Calm down, I was mistaken."

Lake made up his mind and decided it was best for him to leave for now. He had no plans on giving up exploring the dungeon forever but the fact that he had no experience dealing with the Demon Lord made him think he would be an idiot to believe the first thing he ever said to him.

Lake was sure the Demon Lord would continue to speak to him from now on, and once he got used to it he would come back down here if he decided the Demon Lord was telling the truth. "Come on Joy, let's get out of here." Lake let Joy go first and followed her. He knew he was faster than her so this would allow them to go as fast as possible without him leaving her behind.

Once they were back to the torch he said. "I'm done for the day so keep going." She had stopped like he was going to start heading down all the tunnels around them to clear out the undead they could hear shuffling around but he wasn't in the mood anymore. Now that the Demon Lord was actually talking to him he felt like it was too dangerous to literally walk into somewhere he had the most influence.

Once they were outside the gate Lake told Joy to come with him upstairs. As far as he could tell he was kind of out of things to do so he might as well spend the rest of the day talking with Joy. It would probably make what he was about to do more entertaining. He planned to finally do a deep dive into Magic, and to do that he would need to spend some time in the library.

He wasn't looking forward to the amount of reading he would have to do to find the information he was actually looking for. He already knew the basics because the basics were in every book he had read but he needed to know how he was supposed to control the principles that made up magic.

So far all he had done was use the mana you could gather out of the air which was already ready to use for the most simple spells. Opening the library after climbing up the stairs, Lake walked over to a shelf he knew had books on magic from one of the past times he had been here.

Grabbing a book about the Wind element, Lake sat down and started to read it. Getting to a part about how to train control of the element Lake actually started to read instead of skimming. "Swirling the mana around in your palm is the best way to increase your control of the speed principle of the Wind element."

Lake saw a diagram that looked like a small tornado on top of someone's palm. This seemed to be something really easy he could do right now but he knew it was against the rules to practice inside a library. He moved on to see if there were any more things in this section of the book he should know before he went to practice.

"Solidifying the Wind element is one of the harder things to do with the element but is necessary if you plan to use defense spells. The best way to train this skill is to form a cube, and slowly stretch it into a larger and larger area. You will find after a while that you will no longer be able to make it any larger and once you find this size you should work on the toughness of the cube by condensing it to make it denser. Once you get it as small as possible, start the stretching again without letting the density drop."

The diagram was a little more complicated this time. It was a cube that grew and shrunk over and over again all while getting darker and darker. Lake guessed this was to show that the cube should get more dense with every round. Moving on now that he thought he understood, Lake saw another section about the principle that made the Wind element clear and how you could make it different colors if you wanted to but how there was very little reason, so it wasn't necessary to train the ability unless you wanted to be fancy by using pink wind or something.

The next section was about some of the best principles to add to the Wind element to make it better in fights and how the Wind element was one of the most simple elements which made it into a blank slate that was good for custom spells. With this he was almost done and just wanted to find out how he was supposed to fly.

Getting to a section on the spell that you used to fly Lake saw it wasn't the only way you could do it there were multiple ways you could fly using Wind magic and the spell was just the most simple way. Finished with his book, Lake turned to Joy and asked. "Where should I go to practice spells?"