Solar Mage

Chapter 44: Molten Gold

Shit, that hurt!

"Hahaha..."

I push myself out of the wall, weirdly full of energy.

Ah, the adrenaline feels quite nice, but I guess they weren't awake like I thought.

Blood flows out of my cracked head like a river as I lay, shivering, with my back on the wall. My eyes open, though staring at nothing.

It's bearable, but it hurts. I want it to end... let me fall asleep already...

My body quits its trembling as my muscles relax and my heart rate slows.

Looks like the adrenaline finally wore off. I can sleep now. Did I leave my arm back there without putting it in my inventory? What a shame, I might've been able to re-attach it if I was fast enough, but hey, at least the bleeding has stopped! Haha... I can let my automatic body regeneration handle the rest and hopefully Rachel will wake up soon to heal me better.

I close my eyes and try to relax my already loose muscles, that has no effect.

I sit still and quiet, waiting for my consciousness to doze off. But it never does.

My force open, with a face full of hate I scream out,

"Why won't you let me rest?! You've already taken my blood, and control over my body! Even the adrenaline that lessened the pain is gone! Just let me sleep..."

I begin to sob tears of pain, alone.

Or rather, that was what I wished to say. But the reality was that even the muscles in Arthur's face had relaxed. I could not open my mouth or even instruct my eyes. All but a single tear fell as he laid in silence, with a single word repeating endlessly in his head.

Why?

Arthur tried, tried to do what? Who could possibly know? But he tried. Still, only one thought echoed across the empty void.

Why?

His sight had already been lost, or perhaps, someone had simply placed a bag over his head and there was just no light reflecting back into his eyes, for him to see, but he could see nothing.

After a seemingly endless amount of time, he realized he could no longer hear– differentiate silence from silence– as he started to imagine sounds.

As time continued to pass, he realized he could not smell or taste anything. Finally, he also lost his ability to feel and fell into a state of complete sensory deprivation.

The man no longer felt lain, or the blood flowing down his face.

If you had asked this man how long he had been awake, in pain, he would not be able to answer. He had lost his senses. How could a man who does not know the concept of time, explain to you how much time had passed? How could a man understand?

Suddenly, Sagey flies out of Arthur's cloak and hovers in front of his seemingly dead corpse, it's core brightly glowing red, instead of its normal blue light.

"USER STATUS ABNORMALITY DETECTED"

"WOULD YOU LIKE TO RETRIEVE SENSES?"

It hovers up and down, for ten seconds, patiently waiting for a response, before it flies close up to Arthur's near-dead corpse.

"NO RESPONSE DETECTED"

"ACTIVATING AUTOMATIC FUNCTION"

A section of the stone ball opens and numerous small, flexible, orange, copper wires shoot out of the opening, spread in the air before they extend further and connect to parts all over my body.

"EMERGENCY TREATMENT PROCEEDING IN THREE. TWO. ONE."

"EXECUTING SHOCK THERAPY."

In an instant, all the orange copper wires glow blue as it shocks my still body continuously, with lightning flying out of my hair and fingertips, the primary area of shock, blackening.

...

"COFFCOFFCOFFF"

I try to open my eyes, but I notice that I can't, so I try, and fail, again.

Why can't I open my eyes?

I try to move my arms to interact with my eyes. There was a slight resistance moving the left arm, but I felt my right arm unable to move at all.

Huh, that's weird, I can't open my eyes or move my right arm. Have I been that lazy with my training?

After trying harder, my left arm releases from whatever shackles it and moves according to my will, as I feel some kind of hard coating fall off my arm, now feeling a slight, cool wind blow over my hot arm.

What? Did I have shackles holding me down? Why is my arm so hot?

I move my arm up to my head and feel all over my face, trying to find my eyes.

What the hell is this on my face? Why is it so hard?

I continue trying to find my eyes across the rough, hard skin. Ultimately I lose my patience and decide to just punch myself in the face to break the hard layer covering it.

Ugh, it smells so bad!! I still can't see, but whatever was covering my face was hard and sharp, I feel cuts all over my face now!

I then locate my eyes by finding the area on my face that's still hard and brush it off of my eyelids.

Ugh, some of it got into my eyes.

After rubbing the hard substance off, I slowly open my eyes, and the first thing I see is Sagey with its single eye glowing blue.

"He– coff– coff– hello?"

"EMERGENCY TREATMENT COMPLETE"

"What?"

I loom away from Sagey and at my left arm, that's still being stood up.

Why is my arm red? And what are the black parts scattered across all of it?

Then, my gaze lowers, from my left arm, to my torso.

What?! What is this black stuff? It's no wonder why I couldn't move!

I use Body Enhancement and Iron Body. Then, I force myself up, cracking the black covering over me and freeing my body, first the legs, then the torso.

Okay, now the arms.

I try to force it up. Just as I did with my legs and left arm, but it doesn't budge. I look over at my right arm in horror, my face turning to terror as I stare.

"Tin!! Rachel!!"

Neither respond.

What the hell happened to my forearm? Half of it is gone!!

I look to the right, over at Tin, and then to the left, over at Rachel.

Are they both dead? No, I can see their chest retracting and expanding as they breathe, they're just unconscious.

My entire head aches in pain as the memories, or rather, the memories of the years of nothingness and pain surge back into my head, all but a few minutes, of the years of memories I felt, were returned to me. As a coping mechanism, or instead, an automatic reflection of my body's current emotions, my head sets aflame in a titanic fire, hot, but not burning my body.

"Ughhh..."

Those memories of me groveling in sensory deprivation are... um... painful? Why can't I form words on it? I might just be imagining it, but I feel all of my senses having become more sensitive. I was able to see Tin and Rachel even from this distance, without activating Heightened Senses and I can smell much better. ... which may be a curse because the smell of burnt skin isn't exactly pleasing to me.

I look at my body again.

I want to wash myself, and eat! But the food and water are both gone, left on the trapdoor, but maybe it's still there and I can get it?

The trapdoor swings open, the body of the homunculus and bag both falling.

Well, there goes that idea.

I should wear some clothes though, it seems that either the emergency treatment or my flames burned through my previous ones. But– I didn't put any clothes into the Inventory! But, maybe I did and just forgot?

"Sagey, give me some clothes."

There is a pause for a moment.

Ah, just as I thought, it didn't work.

Suddenly, a fancy, dark green mage robe, lined with platinum and having the symbol of Wolkan Academy appears on the coat.

Woah– is this Luke Wolkan's robes? They feel so comfortable!! Is this silk? It's so smooth!

I quickly throw the robes over my charred, naked body and slip my head through.

Wow, this is even more comfortable than it felt in my hands! Not only that, but the robes don't make me too cold, or too hot, they're just right! They're a little bit loose, but other than that, it's amazing!

"THOSE ARE THE CASUAL ROBES OF GREAT SAGE, LUKE WOLKAN, MADE FROM ELDER WYRM SILK."

Uh, I don't think I needed to know that, but Elderwyrm silk?!?! That's the rarest form of silk, made by Elserwyrms in the Desert of Death, only during their larvae state! So amazing!!!

"Alright, now that everything's been set in place, there's just one last issue to discuss."

Monologuing is so cool!

"How is my arm like that?"

"If I remember correctly, the entire arm, up to my shoulder was cut off. So how is my arm now like this? Everything but the forearm and hand have already been healed! Is this another power of the Heavenly Martial Physique? Limb regeneration, huh? This body of mine keeps getting more and more amazing."

"And factoring in that around seven or eight minutes have passed, since the trapdoor just triggered again and my fight with the homunculus lasted around one or two minutes, this limb regeneration is extremely quick! However, that means the state of deprivation I was in only lasted for seven minutes... wow, that is really just, damn."

My disappointed face abruptly shoots up into a smile.

"Well, time to wake these two up!"

I swiftly get up and slap both of them on the forehead.

Both of them are slightly covered in blood which is a little concerning, but I don't see a wound, and their heads are, thankfully, completely untouched.

The both of them begin to move and make grunting sounds.

Great, looks like they'll be up soon. I will take this chance now to take a look at what the next room will be like, Zinc said it would be full of treasures! And this smell, it's the smell of gold!

I comedically make my way over to the entrance, hiding behind the wall next to the door, before taking a peek over, through the door, into the dimly lit room.

ooooOooh, it's even greater than I imagined, there's even a river of molten gold! This can't be the Zidden Dungeon, this has to be the tomb of the Gold King, Greed!

Drool begins to exit my mouth and flow down my face, though I quickly wipe it away.

I could buy Tin's loyalty millions of times with this much gold!

My smile suddenly fades.

Wait– how could there be something hot enough to melt gold and keep it melted in an old dungeon, underground? Is it a volcano? Or could it be...

A giant black and red figure begins to emerge from the far end of the river of gold increasing in size more and more as it rises, eventually getting as high as the ceiling and melting stones that fall off from it.

What the hell is that?!?! A lava axolotl?

I quickly duck back behind the wall before it sees me and hides, while trying to control my breathing.

So... so cute!!!