Odyssey of the Blind God

When the echo of the thunderous roar had finally subsided, Nial and the cadets were finally able to breathe properly once again.

Neither of them were aware of the fact that their breaths had caught in their throat and looked at each other in fear.

Meanwhile, Nial continued to release his mana currents, and felt oddly calm after the short moment of shock was over.

'There are definitely beasts that are stronger than petrification rats in this dungeon….' He thought, but that was quite obvious.

In the end, there had to be at least one boss, and there could also be rare bosses and other types of beasts than the petrification rat lurking in the dark.

As such, the dangers of the dungeon were not surprising to him.

Nevertheless, the thunderous roar was not even amplified by mana or initiated by the utilization of an ability, yet, it shook him and the cadets to the core.

This meant that they were innately weaker than the beast that had just let out a booming roar.

Because of that, Nial knew that he had to be careful of the dangers inside the cave.

However, instead of letting himself be affected by his surroundings or the cadets' nervousness that had intensified after they realized that the dungeon was more dangerous than they had previously predicted, Nial used his senses and mana perception to get to know the surrounding area.

Thus, without wasting any more time, he turned around and left the cavern entrance, ignoring the confused gazes of the cadets who were staring at him.

"Looks like he is too afraid to follow us inside the cave…and here I thought that I might have underestimated him..."

One of the cadets said in a mocking tone, only for one of the other cadets to nod approvingly while replying,

"Our prediction was correct, as always! Are you guys brave enough to enter the cave with me or will all of you cower in fear just like this blind little fawn?!"

Listening to the oldest of them, the other cadets felt reassured as they saw how brave the strongest of them was.

Little did they know that they were forcing each other to be encouraged, and not lose their morale, fight, and overcome the hindrances that would obstruct their paths towards becoming strong soldiers.

Since they were young, their parents and teachers had taught them that determination, fearlessness, bravery, and ambition were the strongest characteristics higher authorities of the military would seek in potential candidates after innate talent, which was the most important.

However, once their new teacher, Nina Melion, had been appointed, she taught them many new things that were different compared to what the cadets of other military units had been taught.

This had confused them, and even their parents after they had gotten wind of it, extremely.

Yet, after asking their new teacher why exactly she felt that knowledge, survival skill, and everything else that had remotely to do with surviving longer was necessary for their kids, she had not provided them with the required explanation.

Instead, she told them that their first mission would allow them to clearly understand everything she was teaching them as long as they paid attention to everything she taught them beforehand.

Unfortunately, Nina seemed to have miscalculated the entire situation, and grossly underestimated the stubbornness of parents to teach them what they thought to be the correct way.

This alone wouldn't be problematic, but it was followed by the naivety and ignorance of children who were barely 12 years old to understand why certain things were important yet boring to learn.

Meanwhile, other topics were less important even though they seemed fascinating for young teens.

In the end, her underestimation of these two variables turned into the reason why the young cadets had entered the cave without reassuring them that there were no other beasts that could backstab them or heavily injured students on the surface area.

While they were ignorant, Nial had thought about the possibility of beasts being at the surface, even if his senses didn't provide him with any substantial proof to verify his assumptions.

Nonetheless, he was not able to sense the vast surface of the entire two-element dungeon at once, which meant that he couldn't be certain if there were beasts anywhere, or possibly even other students who were huddled in some dark corner, and unable to move due to severe injuries.

With that in mind, he began his investigation of the surroundings before he would even start thinking of entering the cave!

As he was slowly walking through the muddy and damp soil, Nial had lots of time to think about the current situation.

Five days had passed since the dungeon emerged, and owing to the restrictions and uniqueness, many young Originals had presumed that they would be able to find treasures inside the dungeon and claim it for themselves.

Because of that they had entered the dungeon, ignoring all the warnings they had been given by other Originals, and their school.

Their haste and greed made them ignore the most basic instruction which was that they were supposed to stay away from newly emerged dungeons that looked like anomalies.

Yet, instead of paying heed to the advice, they not only disregarded it, but some students had also convinced their classmates to enter the dungeon with them.

This was a grave mistake, and also part of the reason why many students had been needlessly killed inside the two-element dungeon.

Nial hoped that Shana was fine because she seemed to be nice when he had met her at the Originals' association, which was most likely her part-time job, but the chances were slim.

Even if it was frustrating, and would most likely turn the blacksmith, who was already extremely worried, into a living corpse, he could somehow understand Shana's eagerness to explore the dungeon.

He had been the same when he had realized that the slime dungeon had manifested in their backyard and had been unable to hold himself back from entering it.

Luckily, he had faced relatively harmless beasts and had emerged from the dungeon without any injuries.

However, that wasn't the case with Shana, who had been overconfident.

Meanwhile, Nial was able to remain relatively calm as he focused on his surroundings while accessing the spatial ring.

He wanted to see what items other than the few serums and other miscellaneous items he had requested had been thrown into the spatial ring.

In fact, blacksmith Arnold had dumped almost everything Nial could make use of into the spatial ring, hoping that it would be helpful to rescue his daughter.

Not caring about the price of items was quite helpful in this situation because it allowed Nial to use everything he had as long as he would be able to rescue Shana.

However, Nial also knew that he should use the items inside the spatial ring sparingly for now because he couldn't be certain that she was even alive at the moment.

Thus, he made notes about what items the spatial ring had stored within while continuing to investigate his surroundings.

The items in his spatial ring were useful, and there was even one serum he hadn't expected the blacksmith to store inside the spatial ring because it wouldn't directly help him to rescue Shana.

Yet, after thinking about the use of the serum, he could roughly gauge what the blacksmith had meant.

'Basic Improved mana absorption' was the label on the vial, allowing Nial to get to know what exactly the serum's use was, to begin with.

The name was nothing special, and it was simply shortened to [BIMA potion] but neither of these names were fancy or truly great.

However, that didn't matter because the usage of the potion was important.

In fact, it did exactly what its name suggested; improving his mana absorption, and Nial was relieved at the blacksmith's forethought.

The mana inside dungeons was much denser, purer, and of a higher quantity than the faint mana that permeated Katu.

Thus, one could absorb and annex mana inside dungeons the best, and with an additional potion that increased the mana absorption, one didn't even have to absorb the mana from origin crystals.

It was a great potion whose effect would last approximately for 24 hours, but unfortunately, it was extremely expensive.

As such, it was not something Nial wanted to use, even less because he had yet to truly start absorbing and annexing mana, to begin with.

Since he had awoken his origin, the amount of mana he had annexed was extremely shallow, and he hadn't even done that while being in a fully focused state.

Because of that, he had yet to figure out the limits of his mana vein without the use of a potion to enhance his mana absorption.

With that in mind, he decided to test his strength and limits and for the time being ignored the temptation to take it right away so as to increase his chances of finding and rescuing Shana!

While he was deep in thought Nial realized that there was not much to see in his surroundings.

In the end his prediction about the outskirts of the enclosed area being a forest, while the existence of a cave which could be found in the inner part of the dungeon that was a muddy plain seemed to be correct.

Owing to the rain he was not able to use his sense of smell much, but with the use of his other senses and his mana perception, it took him only two hours to complete investigating the surface in its entirety.

Because of that, he was able to be sure that there was not a single being, except the trees and bushes around him, or at least he didn't find them for they were experts at hiding.

Nial knew that there were existences that could hide their mana fluctuations to an almost perfect degree, but in that case, his mana perception would detect the lack of mana in a specific area, indirectly outlining the existence he was unable to perceive.

Thus, there was nothing he should be worried about as long as he was not missing out on some important facts which he was supposed to be aware of.

Fortunately, there was nothing inside the two-element dungeon that he could be missing out on, but that was his great luck as his lack of knowledge brought forth many issues.

It was one thing being unsure about something, but another to be oblivious to things and the latter was definitely risky.

While being unsure would allow him to know that something could be wrong, or that specific beings were able to transmute their mana, and adjust it to the surroundings while they were hiding, being oblivious to these possibilities was extremely dangerous for himself and those around him!

Nial was the second, the oblivious kind of person not because he did it intentionally but because he was lacking the fundamental knowledge.

Nevertheless, he was thorough with everything he did, which allowed him to make up for the lack of knowledge to a certain extent.

Thus, when he returned to the cavern entrance, he was reassured that nobody could stab him in the back.

Tightly holding the Fang spear, he slowly entered the cave that was wider than and in some places even higher than what his mana perception could reach.

This was disadvantageous, but still, something Nial could cope with by moving in a zig-zag pattern, or inserting tiny traces of mana into the [Mana Perception(Poorest)] ability.

His hard work had paid off as he could now make use of it much better than the very first day on which the Odyssey seed had pulsated once.

Slowly approaching one of the several tunnels he could roughly gauge, Nial slowly descended the tunnel, entering the depths of the cave within a few minutes.

The pungent smell of urine, blood, and excrements filled the air, and it was extremely difficult to stay unaffected by them. Nial wrinkled his nose in disgust and tried his best to ignore it.

By remaining fully focused on the surroundings and possible attacks of beasts that the other students from five days ago, or the young cadets might have missed out on, Nial was able to decrease the effect of the horrid stench in his head.

And that was necessary because not much time passed before loud screeching sounds bounced off the cavern walls, as multiple groups of rats emerged from holes inside the walls all around him.

The wall appeared no different than a sieve with holes everywhere, and Nial had already assumed to encounter beasts sooner or later, but he had hoped that his first group of opponents would be a handful of petrification rats, and not a large group of them, at once!

This was a big problem because he had yet to understand the petrification rats' combat strength, attack pattern, and everything else, he would like to know before encountering any kind of large beast group for the first time.

Sighing deeply, Nial knew that he couldn't change his situation anymore.

With that in mind, his expression turned serious as he entered a combat stance that allowed him to attack his opponents as well as defend himself against them!

'I guess it's time….let this nightmare begin!'