Resolve

Mike was in the basement of a crappy tavern in the middle of the slums tied to a chair unable to get away and escape from the three men that had kidnapped him and subjected him to various forms of torture and pain. Now Mike had his head down while his mind was wallowing in the self-pity and madness of what happened a few hours ago as he tried to make out what he could do.

Abbey did try to help console him as best she could but a voice inside his head that only hear was not really helping him deal with his newfound problems and mental scars from being subjected to torture in various forms and ways for a few hours. Eventually, Mike's mentality changed from wallowing in self-pity and tears to instead thinking of how he would kill those three to whom he was now captive to. People will always fall while going through life as it has no favorites or favors anyone so when it happens will you lie on the ground or get up?

Mike wanted to get up and out of this place.

So he attempted to escape from his bindings first with a couple of ice blasts onto his bindings made them freeze over but it was still not enough if it was only one [Ice Blast] and using two of them at the same time repeatedly would not help either as he might kill himself in the process on accident. So Mike was finally going to use his mana to increase the potency of his cantrips.

It was a weird feeling of using mana for the first time in such a manner as cantrips used little to no mana usually, but now he drew on the amount he had available he felt like he was able to do anything he wanted to and no one could stop him. An indescribable feeling of warmth and comfort seemed to stem from inside him as he started to use some mana to improve his [Ice Blast] to make it more powerful.

'Mana can be used in spells but is that all it can do?' Mike thinks as he instead directs his mana towards his body instead of to his spell

His body felt better as if he had taken a dip inside of a hot spring to relax his sore and stiff muscles but that feeling only lasted for a fraction of a second before it disappeared from his body. Still, that gave Mike hope that he could escape once again and what could those three sadistic creeps do that they already had done to him. There is a saying that the most dangerous man in the world is a man with nothing left to lose.

Mike tries drawing out his mana again and focusing on his arm muscles and hands. They instantly start feeling stronger and a bit warm with the mana that Mike is using and before it disappears like last time Mike jolts his hands away from the chair to which they were bound. With a loud ripping sound, Mike's arms are now free from his binding. With that Mike opens his system and goes to the inventory and withdrawing his short sword from it. Carefully he cuts the rope binding his legs to the chair and is now free from the constraints of the chair.

With that taken care of Mike starts stretching his stiff muscles and joints that had been stuck in the same position and tortured for the past few hours. Since Mike was stuck in this place but free from the chair he needed to figure out when he was and if there was another way out instead of the door that those three went through when they came from wherever it led to. Since Mike was in the dark he could not see anything but he wanted to try something out to see if it was even possible.

Mike had cast plenty of cantrips and was able to hold a cantrip at the ready to use against something and since Mike only had [Ice Blast] he wanted to see if he could a different offensive spell that can help him out.

Mana was an invisible force that could be found anywhere and everywhere. Mana is naturally attributeless and only when a magic-user gathers mana in themselves can change in the mana be made by adding some sort of element to then cast spells through complex patterns and do almost anything. Anyone can access various elements through training and hard work but with the system, Mike has a cheat where he can immediately cast a spell as long as he reads a manual on how to properly cast a spell then he can be able to cast it almost instantly without fail.

What Mike was trying to do was a lot different and dangerous. He was trying to create a flame spell that he has never seen before and never learned before. More accurately he was trying to recreate the classical [Firebolt] spell from D&D or something similar to use that to see his surroundings to make sure he does not miss anything important. Going off of D&D Mike knew that [Firebolt] a simple cantrip so he could defiantly use that without a problem but the fact that he was trying to make his own spell out of the concept was extremely risky with even cantrips but Mike had nothing to lose. So he tries to collect his mana inside his hand and tries to think of how he can make a firebolt.

Since Mike had no idea how other magic users created fire spells Mike goes off of the process of combustion since that is the only thing he can think of. Plus reality and physics will have to stay relatively the same regardless of what world that Mike is in. So he decides to make the mana in his hand become fire through the process.

Gathering oxygen in the air is easy since it is everywhere on the planet and is how anything can survive on the planet so with that done Mike next gathers carbon dioxide from his surroundings as well. As to how he is able to do this he is not really able to but by expending his mana reserves he is able to let it collect what he needs and it puts it in his hand to create what he needs. Then all he needs to do is increase the heat of his palm and it should work.

After a few seconds, Mike feels like it is time to try it out so he instantly creates a small spark and a bright blue flame leaps from his hand alive and burning strong as he keeps it alive with his mana.

'Ding'

Host has learned [Beginnner Cantrip Creation] skill

Please name new spell

"Burning hands"

Name is taken

"Then, Burning Blue Palms"

Accepted, [Burning Blue Palms] is now a low-grade cantrip spell and is now usable by the host. The new spell has stats that are associated with it

...

[Burning Blue Palms] - Cantrip

Allows the user to coat their hands with blue flames that burn anything they make contact with

Duration: 5 seconds with both hands and 10 seconds with one hand

Mana Cost: 1

Damage: 5-8 burning damage

[Increased damage against those wearing metal]

Every 1 mana point used will increase the duration and intensity of the flames

...

The spell would serve its purpose for now as the flames danced around the room Mike was able to see what exactly was around the room now.

Besides the chair and table that Mike saw before there was nothing else that he could see in the room so Mike moves towards the walls of the rooms to see if there was anything that could help him.

2

The dice was a real help as Mike was now barely able to make out anything in the room due to the fact that the flame in his hand was flickering way too much from some sort of invisible wind that was appearing from nowhere no matter how hard he looked around. So with no choice Mike goes up to the metal door of his room and puts an ear up to it.

Hearing nothing he tries the door and finds it locked from the other side probably no matter which way he pushed or pulled it. Not wanting to deal with it he instead looks towards the hinges of the door to see what their condition is. The hinges only allowed the door to swing towards Mike so that was good as he could see that he could just tamper with them now.

The hinges were very old and rusty looking so Mike just had to grab onto them and give them a hard yank and they were pulled off easily without a problem. With the hinges out Mike tries the door and it swings open without a problem as it swings open the other way on a lock that was on the door. With that Mike is now out of his room and after putting back the door in its original position Mike is now standing in a hallway leading down to the left and to the right.

Mike is able to hear a bunch of noise coming from the left that sounds muffled so Mike starts moving to the right to see if there is another way out besides the way to the left. The hallway is not that long and before Mike knows it he is standing in front of another locked metal door.

Putting his ear against the door Mike is able to hear no noise on the other side of the room so he just decides to make a bit of noise. He uses some more mana and the flames on his hand starts to burn a lot brighter and hotter than before. After coating his palm with the flame Mike brings it near the lock but even after a few minutes of waiting Mike is running low on mana and all he has managed to do was make the lock glow a dull red color. So Mike cancels the spell and tries to think about what he could do to be more cost-effective with his mana.

Light Bulb

Mike creates the flame again but his time as it bursts to life he instead compresses it so that the flame is only above his forefinger. He then adds all of his remaining mana which causes the flame to burn even brighter and Mike moves his finger flame towards the lock once more but now that the flame is stronger and more compressed than last time Mike essentially has created a blow torch for which to cut the lock in half.

The flame now easily cuts through the lock and it falls to the floor with an audible clank.

Mike does not care since all the ruckus coming from the other side of the hall was so far away that Mike could not hear it anymore so he just does not worry about it now. He opens the door and enters it. However, Mike was now out of mana and could not use it to create a flame to see so he just starts looking around the room for some sort of lantern or torch in the dark.

11

Somehow Mike's hand bumps into a stick with a cloth on it and picking it up Mike had now gained a torch. Still, without anything to light it, he was still blind but thankfully he got another idea of using the still hot lock to light the torch instead of by magic. Mike had just left it lying on the ground before he entered the room but now that his spell had ended he was able to see that the lock was indeed a possible source of a flame as it was glowing in the dark from the heat. The lock was still hot so when the torch rag made contact with it the torch burst to life allowing Mike to see once more the hallway where the lock was lying on the ground. Entering the room once more Mike is able to see that he had entered a storage room of sorts.

There were a lot of crates stacked up neatly in a corner of this small room with some barrels as well. As for what was in them Mike did not know but he did not care enough to find out as he just wanted to find a way to leave this place so he started to scour the room for a possible exit.

20

Dear god a natural 20 Mike was so relieved that this happened at the right time as he knew what it would entail with that number. Literally, as Mike went up to the wall to the right he saw not on the wall but on the ground scruff marks as if something heavy was moved out of the way. With the only thing heavy being the boxes in the corner Mike starts moving them out of the way to see what they were hiding.

_________

As you may have noticed Mike did not roll to cast his new spell but I am going to say that I skipped his fails which led to the spell not being cast and him losing mana as a result.