The burnt smell of the level 75 monster's blood still lingered clearly in the air.
Kanos leaned casually against the cold cave wall. He took a deep breath, letting the damp air fill his lungs which now felt so much clearer. His body didn't hurt anymore. His wounds had closed up perfectly.
But his brain, used to being on high alert, refused to compromise. In a place this dark and deep, relaxing even a little could mean a stupid death. He needed a truly safe place to think.
'I need a fortress,' Kanos thought.
He raised his left index finger. No charcoal, no squid ink, no blood. Just an empty finger.
Kanos stared at an empty area in the corner of the cave. He pictured the structure of solid steel bars crossing each other, forming a half circle dome exactly like an anti-shark cage.
His left finger pulled four curved lines in the air. His strokes left a blindingly bright white trail of light.
A soft humming sound filled his ears. The air in front of Kanos instantly solidified, sucked into those white lines. In two seconds, a steel cage the size of a small tent was created with the heavy sound of clashing metal. It was steel gray, but the edges were still giving off remnants of white light.
There was no nausea. No blood coming out of his nose.
Kanos crawled into the steel cage, leaning into its corner. Safe. These bars were almost as thick as an adult's thigh. Even a monster like the ore centipede would break its teeth if it forced itself to bite this thing.
Kanos gave a faint smile. He summoned the system screen in his head.
The transparent blue box, which now had golden edges, appeared hovering in front of him.
[ NAME: KANOS ]
[ LEVEL: 12 ]
[ CLASS: ILLUSTRAMANCY ]
[ HP: 280/280 ]
[ MANA: 465/500 ]
[ STRENGTH: 24 ]
[ AGILITY: 22 ]
[ ENDURANCE: 20 ]
[ SKILLS: ART TO REALITY (TIER 2 - BLANK CANVAS), STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS (PASSIVE) ]
Kanos stared at those numbers without blinking.
'Two hundred and eighty,' he thought, his hand unconsciously rubbing his own chest. 'No wonder my breathing feels so light.'
Back at level one, his health capped out at sixty. Just getting nudged by a monster's tail shattered his ribs. Now, his endurance had multiplied several times over. But the thing that kept his eyes glued to the screen was the MANA row.
Earlier the system said his mana limit was 500. Now the number had dropped to 465.
'So that thick steel cage just now only sucked up 35 mana points?' Kanos's brain started spinning fast, calculating exactly like managing a project budget. 'In Tier 1, making a small knife instantly drained my actual blood until I almost passed out because the medium wasn't strong enough to hold the energy. Now, I can draw straight using the air, and the payment is mana.'
As long as his mana didn't run out, he no longer needed to sacrifice his own life. He didn't need monster blood. He didn't need rotten charcoal.
Kanos clenched his left hand tightly. His class was no longer the red ERROR text degrading him. This world had finally acknowledged his existence.
He shifted his gaze from the system screen, staring straight out the steel bars. Toward the corpse of the giant pale monster still impaled on his handmade pike.
'Level 75...'
Kanos looked up. Pitch black. The abyss up there had absolutely no visible end.
This afternoon, he and Belida had just entered floor six. The strongest monsters there were only level twenty something spiders. If the monster that just attacked him was level seventy five... how far down did he fall?
'This must be the bottom of the Marrath Hole,' Kanos thought. 'What floor is this? Thirty? Forty?'
The silence down here really pressed on his mental state. No sounds of other adventurers. No signs of life. Just him alone in a place filled with nightmare monsters whose levels were dozens of tiers above his current level.
Kanos touched his right palm. The hole from Garrick's knife stab had indeed closed up due to the level up effect, but his skin left a thick scar shaped exactly like a knife blade. His right fingers were still stiff, definitely unable to be used to draw smoothly anytime soon.
The memory of Garrick's face smirking when he drove that knife in returned to his head. Followed by the memory of Belida. The giant knight who stupidly chose to hold back the monster's jaws so Kanos could survive.
'That bastard, just you wait you motherfucker.'
Kanos took a slow breath. The cold air at the bottom of this abyss felt perfect for the temperature inside his head right now. His vengeance wasn't explosive anymore. His anger had turned into something much calmer, colder, and far more dangerous.
'I don't care what floor this is.' Kanos leaned his head against the steel bars behind him. His empty eyes watched the darkness outside the cage.
'I'm going to kill whatever is in this hole. I'm going to climb up, floor by floor. I'm going to get out of this damn well...'
The corner of Kanos's lips pulled up to form a faint smile with absolutely zero warmth.
'And when I reach the top... you're the first person I'm looking for, Garrick.'