Chapter 17: Sandstorm
A young boy was roaming around an empty field, filled with nothing but soil and dirt everywhere. His eyes were calm and calculative, staring around the rock mountains with unreadable expression.
"How unlucky of . Out of all the bios, I had to spawn on the earthy one." He cursed, feeling unfair.
The elental island was a large-sized island with countless bios inside it, each representing a certain elent. The bio that he was currently roaming through was the earthy bio, an inhabitable place filled with only sand, soil, dirt, and rocks.
No trees, No lives, No vegetation, nothing else. Just a barren piece of land with nothing exciting inside it.
"Thankfully, I had prepared a lot of food beforehand. Starving is the last thing I want inside here." He muttered, drinking so water from the bottle that he had taken out through his ring.
The Trial prepared by this island was quite complicated. It could beco incredibly easy or extrely difficult depending upon your understanding of mana. Unlike general trials that test the challenger's strength, this one tested the challenger's understanding of mana, especially elents.
"I should approach the central area first." He rembered that the central area was where all the elents surrounding the whole island converged together, forming extrely condensed mana inside.
Nodding slightly, he channeled his mana around his feet and started sprinting across the rocky terrain. His hobbies of hiking, trekking, camping, etc in his previous life ca out to be quite invaluable in this world.
"Heh, and they thought that it was just a waste of ti." He thought, happy for his decision not to listen to his parents during that ti.
"It's all in the past now." With a lancholic look on his face, he suppressed those mories inside so corner of his mind.
zap
zzz
Electric sparks flew from under his feet, evident from his careful usage of the lightning elent. While moving, he felt bored so he decided to master the mana manipulation thod and also learn so basic elental spells while he was at it.
The skill that he was currently practicing was called [Lightning Dash], a basic skill mainly used to increase speed for a short term. It was one of those skills he had acquired as a reward from the system after the quest got updated.
"No matter how many tis I try, it still feels cool." He smiled, impressed by his performance. Just like flying, gaining superpowers was also a lifelong dream for the boys and he had fulfilled this dream so his happiness was evident.
He passed through a massive rock canyon, showcasing his hiking skills with firm footsteps on the cracked rocks. The rocks were in different shapes and sizes, so sharp, so dense, and so quite comical.
crack
bang
"Woah there!" A startled voice resounded within the empty canyon. He had almost fallen down to death cause of his silly mistake. Due the the high electric discharge under his feet, the rock he was about to step into broke down and fell apart.
"I'm getting too excited now." Taking careful steps, he stopped channeling the lightning elent on his feet. It was too damn risky.
The intense sunlight lingered around his body, pressing him down with its heat. It was extrely hot out here, almost like he was wandering around the Sahara desert.
gulp
gulp
haa
"How I miss the cold and refreshing cola now."
The water inside the water bottle had been completely finished during this journey and he wasn't even halfway there yet. The central zone was far away on the horizon, its shadows looming before his vision.
"Hmm? What's that?" The sudden movents of the sand and soil atop a rocky mountain caught his attention. They were swirling around intensely forming sothing...dangerous?
"A sandstorm? That's bad. I need to quickly get outta here or find so shelter soon. Sandstorm is the worst disaster that could possibly happen in this current situation. The sudden shift of the dirt and sand might cause to lose the sense of direction. I can't even utilize the mana sense properly thanks to the dense earth elental mana surrounding this area." A sense of urgency appeared on his face as he stared at nature's phenonon before him.
"Thankfully, it's just forming and I have so ti." He concluded after watching for a while. The sandstorm was rapidly forming at the top of the mountain, spraying dust and sand all around its captivity.
Cassian sensing its movent, covered his body with his mana and dashed in the opposite direction. He couldn't care less about the broken rocks beneath him as he fully utilized his lightning elent.
A thunder armor slowly encased his body, emitting dense electric sparks. The sparks tore through the rocks surrounding him like a tofu. Lightning elents were one of the few versatile elents with powerful offensive and defensive skills.
His body felt light and agile after using the [Thunder Armor] skill. Hopping from one rock to another, he swiftly escaped the sandstorm's range of assault.
"This is so cool!" He laughed, feeling like Spiderman, a movie character from his previous world with superpowers.
Sadly, he couldn't maintain the skill for too long due to his low mana capacity. His radiant rank Starseed couldn't handle the pressure and he couldn't just let it suck him dry as he had to reserve so mana for ergency situations.
After feeling that he had run far enough, he canceled the skill and took a mont of rest.
He could still see the raging sandstorm, slowly moving around the whole area, destroying everything in its path. Stones flung away, clouds of dust ford around it as he gazed at it with a hint of amusent.
Squinting his eyes, he stared at the eye of the storm, finding a shadow of so figure. The dusty clouds made it harder to see but the figure definitely looked humanoid in shape.
"Impossible." He lightly whispered. "The dungeon's entrance is sealed. I just witnessed it myself. No one should be inside here, unless..."
A sudden information sparked inside his mind, causing his eyes to widen. "If it is what I think it is, then this might be a big opportunity." He licked his dry lips, feeling excited at his own conjecture.
A fla of desire burnt within his eyes as he stared intently at the sandstorm. His previous hesitant expression was nowhere to be found, replaced by desire and resolve. He went into deep thought and started planning on how to carefully approach the eye of the storm without dying.
"I could use the defensive artifact but, I don't think I could manage it long enough to approach the storm's eye. If the barrier gets destroyed then I'm screwed." He thought. His body involuntarily shivered at the scene of his body getting ripped into shreds by the storm.
Shaking his head, he pondered about so more alternatives.
"First, I need to get close enough to peek at the creature inside it. If my guesses are correct only then will I act."
He rested for a while and recovered his mana. The [Thunder Armor] had absorbed quite a bit of it so it took around fifteen minutes to prepare everything. He had put on goggles and a mask to prevent the dust from entering his body. His body was covered by a dark cloak and a cap rested on his head, protecting his hair from getting dirty.
Feeling ready, he jumped down and approached the sandstorm, maintaining a close distance from it.
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