Chapter 168: A Familiar Face

’How deep is this pool, actually?’ Magna had already stopped counting how much time had passed, still sinking through water that seemed to have no bottom.

The faint red light reaching down from the surface had long since vanished from his sight. Only golden light remained, the dense mana around him filling his entire view.

Not that he had much of a working pair of eyes to see with anyway, since the boiling water kept scalding his whole body and stopping many of his functions from working, even with his active spell healing him rapidly.

After a while, he even forgot about the pain as he only started to get bored of this sinking that seemed endless.

He called up his status panel, the only entertainment he currently had, and started watching his stats rise.

Strength: 225

Agility: 207

Reaction: 198

Stamina: 653

Mana 95.5%

Seeing his Stamina already triple his other stats gave him a very satisfying sense of growth, enough to make him forget his boredom and pain.

His mana was also almost full, thanks to his active spell constantly absorbing the mana from the boiling water.

However, there was a problem with that. Even if it became full, Magna wasn’t sure he could go through his mutation in this state, since the moment he started it, his mana reserve would drop to 0, which would force him to stop his active spell.

Since he was underwater and couldn’t chant the honorable names again, he didn’t want to get himself killed by his own greed.

Not long after, his mana reserve reached 100% as expected and stopped there. Every extra bit of mana he gained flashed up as 100.1% for a moment, then scattered back into the surroundings right away, since his body couldn’t hold it.

’What a waste...’ He thought bitterly. There was practically an unlimited source of mana all around him, and he couldn’t make use of it.

At least to let off some of that frustration, he decided to check the options for his 16th mutation. Before he could, however, something in the water caught his attention.

Instead of seeing everything dark, he was currently seeing everything golden because of the dense mana, but somewhere far off inside that color, a silver glow seemed to be drifting around.

’What’s that?’ His eyes were being scalded every second and restored to normal by his spell again and again, but he still tried to make out its shape.

The silver light drifted closer and closer until he could finally see what it actually was.

’Wait... A ghost?’

The silhouette was completely humanoid, though its body was quite strange. It had a short body, a round head, and quite pointy ears.

It was actually a goblin.

When Magna tried to make out its features through his blurry vision, he got quite a shock. They were more than familiar to him.

She was someone he knew very well.

—

At the mountaintop settlement, most of the Shadow candidates had started returning to their huts now that night had fallen.

Under the light of the campfire, some of their faces wore worried expressions, since they still hadn’t figured out why they kept falling asleep at night.

Some were hopeful, having worked hard during the day to prepare themselves for the night.

Others were simply confident that this time they would stay awake until sunrise and pass the trial.

Among them was a tall boy who shared none of those expressions, with only worry written across his face.

Matrim was hurrying back and forth with quick steps, checking behind every tree he could find and asking every boy he saw the same question.

Grabbing a boy by the shoulder before he could go to his hut, he asked in a rush. "Hey, did you see Magna?"

The boy clearly didn’t like being grabbed so suddenly and turned his head to glare at him.

Realizing his mistake, Matrim quickly pulled his hand back. "Sorry. I’m looking for that guy. You remember, the last one who arrived here on Lord Arthas’s shoulder."

"I don’t know." The guy at least answered before going to his hut and closing the door behind him.

The worry and tension on Matrim’s face didn’t fade. If anything, they grew. "Don’t tell me he fell down while returning."

The worst thought that came to mind was that, since the cave entrance was right at the edge of the cliff, Magna might have fallen down while climbing down the steep slope.

But knowing the guy wasn’t that careless, it seemed unlikely.

Lost in those gloomy thoughts, trying to work out where he could have gone, his attention was caught by another Shadow candidate just now returning to the settlement.

With the cloth mask covering his entire face, it was the Drakon guy.

Without hesitation, Matrim rushed over, thinking maybe he would know something. "Hey, did you see Magna? The guy who arrived here last, on Lord Arthas’s shoulder."

He didn’t have much hope of getting an answer, since he had never heard the guy speak before and had even started to wonder if he was mute. But to his surprise, the Drakon actually stopped.

After looking at Matrim’s face for a few seconds, she said coldly. "He is dead."

Hearing that, Matrim felt so shocked he couldn’t even question the fact that the voice of the person he had thought was a boy was actually quite feminine.

"What do you mean, dead?" He asked right away, thinking he might have misunderstood.

But the Drakon girl had already started walking.

"Hey, stop." Matrim couldn’t let her just walk away after words like that.

He quickly caught up from behind and grabbed her shoulder to stop her. "Tell me right now. What did you mean by dead?"

He was expecting an answer, but only a cracking sound echoed through the air.

"Aghhh..." The next moment, he pulled back from a sudden pain he felt in his arm.

When he looked at the arm that had been gripping the Drakon girl’s shoulder a moment ago, it was now cleanly broken in the middle, dangling, held together only by skin and muscle.

He hadn’t even managed to see when she attacked.

When he looked back at the Drakon, she was already walking again toward her hut like nothing had happened.

Matrim was too afraid, after witnessing her speed and strength, to chase her again. But thinking of his friend, he buried the fear and hesitation inside him and rushed after her again, clutching his broken, dangling arm.

"Wait... Please at least tell me..." While he called out from behind her, he suddenly stopped, his words dying in his mouth, as the whole area was suddenly swallowed by darkness.

He instantly looked at the campfire, which had burned nonstop every night so far, but for some reason, for the first time tonight, had suddenly gone out.

Normally, Matrim wouldn’t have cared about something like this, since a campfire going out was nothing to make a fuss over, if he hadn’t known this campfire wasn’t any ordinary fire at all.

Even the Drakon girl was taken aback. She had been about to enter her hut when she suddenly stopped, turning to stare at the extinguished fire.

Soon, the doors of the other huts opened one by one, and the other Shadow candidates came outside with confused faces, looking at the fire that had given them light and warmth every night, now extinguished.

They had no idea what the fire suddenly going out meant, but as they felt confusion and, instinctively, that something bad was about to happen, the last hut door in the settlement opened.

Everyone’s gaze turned to the old man, trying to make out his face in the darkness of the night lit only by the moon.

But they didn’t need to see his face, since his words were enough to tell them something bad was indeed about to happen.

"All of you, return to your rooms, light your fireplaces, and never come outside until sunrise."

There was quite an urgency in his voice, along with something that sent a chill down everyone’s spine.