Onward

Having located the general direction of the power source being in the ceiling that was about 10 feet high Mike had to find a way to get to it.

"What are you looking at?" Sarenthia asks with a puzzled look on her face from where she was on sitting on the chair

"I need to borrow that chair for a bit," Mike says as he drags the chair through Sarenthia's incorporeal form and positions it in the center of the room

"Hey, I was using that!" Sarenthia shouts out as she sees Mike take the chair away from her

Mike pays her no attention as he stands on the chair and is now almost touching the stone ceiling with his head as he stands up. Mike takes his hand and starts knocking on the stone and tries listening for some sort of hollowed-out area in the stone ceiling. Eventually, he knocks on an area of the stone and it sounds a lot different than the rest of the ceiling that he had been checking before. With that Mike takes his sword and with the hilt of his weapon slams it into the part of the ceiling, chipping off some of the stonework with the metal hilt.

A few more strikes and Mike can see that his work has paid off and was able to reveal a hollowed-out section of the ceiling which held a crystal that was glowing a dull blue in color as it was powered on. Mike reaches towards the crystal and with a slight tug, he can take out the crystal from which it was placed. Mike can feel the mana in the crystal and from what Mike could see it was not a small amount, to say the least.

'Do I have to destroy this?' Mike asks

"Actually you don't I just thought that these people would have at least put some sort of defense mechanism on the crystal to prevent it from being turned off like how you did it," Abbey replies

'Alright then into my inventory you go'

The crystal disappears from his hand and is placed into his inventory for him to use later on. Mike could absorb the mana inside it to increase his mana supply rapidly and restore the expended mana that he has used, but now was not the place or time to do so. So Mike just puts it off for now until he is back outside and at the inn.

With that Mike gets off from the chair and presents his sword to Sarenthia which has a slightly malformed blade hilt.

"I believe you can leave now but as payment for my time and efforts freeing you I ask for your service as my blade," Mike says

"I highly doubt that you have done anything, but I will still go with you to show you that you have done nothing," Sarenthia says in an exasperated voice as she moves towards the sword and touches it

In the blink of an eye, Sarenthia is no longer there floating in front of Mike and he feels something reaching out to him through his mind.

'Sarenthia that you?'

'Yep it's me I can talk to you through your soul for now' Sarenthia says

'Alright then is the door unlocked now?'

'It should be now'

With that Mike walks over to the door and tries opening it again and this time it actually opens up as it is now unlocked as Sarenthia said.

Opening up the door Mike sees that the hallway that was once full of the freed people was now empty of anyone.

'Guess they left and I can't blame them as I would probably do the same as them' Mike thinks she moves back down the hall.

After moving down the hallway for a certain distance Sarenthia reaches out to him again.

'This is as far I can go without being forced to leave the object that I am inhabiting'

'We'll see about that' Mike replies as he continues forward towards down the hall

Eventually, mike ends up at the four-way stop once more and looks at his sword.

'What were you saying about my efforts being useless?' Mike asks smugly

'Okay I get it I was wrong about you doing nothing... I guess for now I will be your sword' Sarenthia says reluctantly

"Excellent"

Mike moves straight ahead as the right leads back to the area where the would-be slaves were being held before Mike freed them, which only left going straight ahead or going left. Since he went left the first time he decided to change things up a bit by going forward this time.

Moving out Mike does not hear anything and continues onwards for a good while in the same direction with the occasional right and left turn that he needs to do. Seeing as how the hallway was not really changing much Mike decides to take a look at how his word has improved with the addition of Sarenthia.

...

Shortsword (Inhabited)

Grade: Uncommon

Damage: 10-22 damage

Effects:

5% of causing bleeding which causes 2 damage per 30 seconds until the wound is closed

Each strike of the blade will allow the inhabitant to take some of the life-force of the victim, +5 damage to each successful hit

Skill: ???

A vampiric like sword that is in the hands of probably the worst swordsman in history

...

'Ouch system that really hurt' Mike sarcastically thinks to himself as he reads the remarks

He knew he was a terrible swordsman but once he got a teacher then he would be able to learn more and improve to the point where he might be the strongest. Still, this sword had a skill?

***Dike***

Dike was hurt quite a bit as he was now standing out in the middle of the street with the destroyed tavern in front of him reduced to rubble. When he and the other wizard kicked down the door of the room in the tavern they entered upon a man and woman having at it. The woman yelled out in surprise and tried to hide but the man did the opposite and actually cast a spell at both Dike and the wizard. The spell was quite powerful to the point where Dike had to cast a shield that encompassed the room to prevent the entire building from blowing up and killing the people below. The spell that the man cast exploded in the room and everything was engulfed in flames and burned to ash. That included the inhabitants as well. Both the man and the woman were killed and all that was left were piles of ash and soot throughout the room.

The explosion was not quite, to say the least, and when it went off the other two rooms that had their doors closed burst open and two of the three robed individuals were now standing in the hallway looking down at Dike and the wizard with him.

What ensued next was an intense fight between one of the individuals who could also cast magic and his spells were just as destructive as the one that just perished before. The second individual did not cast any spells and preferred to attack with a blade that was pitch black and emitted an aura of bloodlust and death. Dike took on the task of dealing with the magic casting individual while the other wizard tried his best to deal with the second individual.

Eventually, the second wizard that Dike brought along came from downstairs and joined in the fight. With the fight going against their favor the individual using the dark blade stops attacking for a bit before taking out a potion and chugging it in one swift motion. With that, the figure's speed increases by tenfold and quickly dispatches one of the wizards that Mike came with and heavily wounds the other wizard within a second, seeing that the other wizard was not going to win and die soon he also does something drastic and overloads his mana capacity.

People can absorb mana all the time like Mike is doing but there is a major reason that no one does it. Mana overload is when a magic-user sucks in mana from their immediate surroundings and as a result of the quick intake, it can quickly overload their bodies causing them to explode due to the violent rush of natural mana. This was why wizards and other similar magic users meditate as they can control the process of mana and allow their body to filter natural mana into something they can use.

The overload causes the wizard to become a living bomb as his body started to bloat up from the mana in his body going haywire before he ran at the sword-wielding individual and take him down with him to hell.

Dike had to hastily construct a barrier to protect himself and the magic-wielding individual did that for himself and left his compatriot fend for himself. The wizard detonated and the force of the explosion caused the entire building to collapse as Mike and the other individual were flung out of the second floor of the tavern and both landed on the streets below.

Dike's shield held as he was not a Royal wizard for nothing and only was left with no life-threatening wounds. Still the same could be said for the guy Dike had been fighting as he was relatively fine like Dike. Both of them were disoriented by what happened but once the eyes were set on each other their confusion cleared and they started slinging spells once more at each other while guards in the surrounding area came to help Mike.

The fight was long and hard with the ultimate victor being Dike but without a cost, as this city had lost two wizards and some of its guards that were unfortunate to take a spell head-on from the individual. Still, Dike had been able to detain him and got mana restricting cuffs placed on him to prevent him from using magic. In this world, there was no true mana restricting items only ones that suppressed mana and even then those were far too few to be commonplace. The only reason that they were being used here was that Dike handed them to the guards to use as he was a Royal Wizard who tended to detain magic-using individuals to stand trial he had one on him.

Now Dike was helping make sure that this detainee was not going to try and kill himself as people from that group tended to be the kind that would rather die than spill anything. So Dike had to follow the guards to make sure that the man would not kill himself along the way cause with Dike he might be able to heal him with his spells and prevent their death at least until Dike was able to get some information out of them. Still, Mike was Dike's priority but the tavern collapsed so it would take a while for the rubble to be cleared without Dike helping with some spells he has. The individual was brought back to an interrogation room inside of the city jail where criminals that are involved with others are interrogated to leak information.

The individual was strapped down to a chair in a room with a metal door which was now shut closed with Dike being the only one being in the room and sitting down on a chair across from them.

"Where is Mike?"

***Mike***

Mike ended up at another door this time however it was metal and locked from the other side Mike wanted to break it down but he did not want to deal with draining the crystal he has of mana just to break down a door. He was about to just turn around but Sarenthia contacts him.

'I can open the door for you' she says

'How so?'

'Like this'

The sword trembles a bit before Sarenthia appears once more in her spirit form (Not a joke okay just did not know how to explain it). She looked a lot more see-through this time than when she was in the record room. Sarenthia goes through the door and before long the door is opened and Sarenthia is on the other side allowing him in.

Mike goes into the room and Sarenthia reenters Mike's sword once more.

The room had once more reverted from stone to dirt this time however there was a visible slope leading up so Mike had found the way out. However just as he was about to exit the underground the system sends him something.

'Ding'

New quest available and accepted

...

Savior:

You have stumbled upon a slave trader's lair and temporarily freed the people that were being held captive. You must help the people you freed escape.

Rewards: +1000 exp, +1 elven faction favorability, and x1 random technique

Time Limit: 60:00

Penalties: Minus one level and loss of random item

...

"What?!" Mike shouts