Chapter 15 - The Test 5

Night soon came, and I dropped some weight after escaping the firefight. I only have a bandaid, a camera, a flare gun and a hatchet on me. I managed to encounter a rat whilst trekking, and I swiftly captured and killed it.

I was used to blood in my previous life, but I still vomited a little when the smell came up my nose. I hurriedly gathered some sticks and dug a small hole to throw it all in. I didn’t know if it was safe to eat the rat, but I had no choice.

I chopped the rat into halves and tore off some of the meat inside. I still had some vines left, so I wrapped the meat around a stick after cleaning it using my shirt. I used some of my mana to light a fire. I didn't pay too much attention to magic because of my studies, but I did store up some mana.

I carefully held the stick over the campfire to cook the rat meat. A few pieces of meat fell off, but I didn’t move to catch it since I might drop the others if I moved too much.

After around 30 minutes, the meat looked cooked enough to eat, so I stopped the fire by kicking some dirt in.

I slowly removed a handful of meat and ate it all in one go. I could taste the dirt mixed in, but I ignored it and just savoured the meat. Rat meat wasn’t as bad as I expected; it was pretty juicy.

“Oh wait, I have water magic! If I remember correctly, it should be… Autriqian Le Feste?”

A small blob of water, about 5cm in diameter, appeared in front of me, but it quickly dropped to the ground as soon as it appeared. I should be able to cast this 8 more times with the amount of mana I have left. When I return, I should visit a nuclear power plant and absorb some energy from there.

Magic can be converted into energy, and vice versa. The magic to energy ratio is 2000:1 at my current level, so gathering enough energy, to convert into mana and manifest something is quite difficult. There are multiple tricks when using magic, especially with non-elemental magic. For example, if you have an explosive material like gunpowder, and you want to cast an explosion spell, you can channel mana through the gunpowder to reduce the cost of mana required to cast an explosion spell. But, after casting an explosion spell with gunpowder, some of it will disappear.

“Thinking about it, my magic theory class was horrible. It did help me understand magic, but still horrible.”

Anyways, I took a picture of the rat carcass and continued forth.

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“A cave!”

After a long trek, I found what looked like a cave, with water flowing into it. The cave entrance was smaller than me, but I quickly took out my camera and snapped a picture. As for the rest of the creature quest, I just snapped some ants. They didn't taste good, but they were easy to capture and plentiful in numbers.

Either way, I finally finished all of the quests, I just need to survive until morning. I grabbed my trusty hatchet and began hitting away at a nearby tree branch. I need to build a shelter.

A few more hours passed, and I built nothing. I just have a bunch of branches, and I’m freezing from the cold.

I tucked myself into a nearby tree and used the branches to act as a sort of shield and blanket. I sat with my knees up to my face to keep warm and tried to sleep. I wonder if there’s magic to keep me warm. I never paid much attention during magic theory class, and magic language class, so I don’t know the magic word for warmth. The only magic words I knew were for attack spells.

“Marque Non... Ti Ebreque... Le Feste.”

Marque Non Ti Ebreque; it was an insult the nobles used to throw at me for being an orphan commoner. I suddenly felt my mana pool draining; it seems I’ve found the spell name. I'm not sure if I should feel happy, understanding what it meant. I suppose I have to thank those overbearing noble kids this once. The magic language or Magrica wasn’t like English; Magrica was an SOV language. It's so long since I use chanted magic. If I use my otherwordly power now... No, I need to save it for an emergency. I wonder if it comes with mana as well.

Anyways, I should sleep now. Goodnight.

[Goodnight]