He Didn't Die? Inconceivable! (1/3)

One of the first things Warden Prella does after she cuts Floor 33 off is have all the enchantments keeping that floor functional off. She may have the floor spatially sealed off, but she'd like to kill that monster off sooner rather than later.

With that floor being so deep, the underground heat would normally suffocate or burn anyone down there. However, the outer walls, ceilings, and floors have insulating spells on them to keep the heat out, and specially made heat dispensing crystals throughout the floor to keep the persistent body heat under control.

On top of these things is the air regulating vents, which have advanced spells to measure the content of the air built in, as well as alchemy spells to constantly change the air to keep it breathable.

After she gives the order to have these 3 enchantments turned off from the central tower she lives in, she finally sits back and breathes in deeply.

'I'm sure it'll take a few hours to die, with no air to breathe. If that doesn't kill him, he'll burn to death. If THAT doesn't kill him, then he'll just starve to death.'

She looks up and adds, 'Well, he has a few dozen prisoners there with him, so I suspect he'll cannibalize a few; I've seen people do worse in order to survive.'

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Over the following hours, Haalfrin walks around and checks on all the cells. In total, there are 34 prisoners locked up here – 27 men and 7 women, and when Haalfrin goes to check out their faces, they all have similar reactions.

When they look up and see what a boy far too raggedy, emaciated, and poor looking, they all light up seeing that a prisoner is walking freely. Without exception, they all try their best to bounce their heads around in excitement and croak out stuff like, "Let me out!" "I don't wanna die here!"

…Funnily enough, a few of them even offer to negotiate with Haalfrin – some offering to give him great wealth once they get back to their clans, and others even offering to be his meat shields on the fight back to the surface.

…Of course, 3 of the prisoners don't speak any language Haalfrin's learned so far, so he can only assume they were making pleas similar to the others.

Haalfrin doesn't release them immediately; instead, he tells them that he has to sort out a few things out first and think about whether it's worth releasing them. A lot of the prisoners curse Haalfrin out in fury – clearly having convinced themselves that the escaped prisoner is going to leave them to rot in hell.

Once Haalfrin counts all the prisoners and memorizes all their faces, he sits down against a wall and thinks. After that meal Freyya gave him, he's feeling a lot more clear-headed.

To be clear, part of the reason why he was muddle headed and ran around the 33rd floor during his escape attempt was because he couldn't think clearly. He never thought that this floor doesn't have any stairs at all; if he had dug up sooner, he'd be free under the sky by now.

Now that Haalfrin actually has some nutrients to spare for his brain, he can sit down and do some more deep thinking.

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The first thing Haalfrin does is carefully inspect every inch of the floor, finding all the surveillance enchantments and destroying them. Next, he notices that the hallways are getting hotter and hotter, and his shirt is getting sticky with sweat.

'Oh,' Haalfrin realizes, 'I'm really far underground, and since the deeper down you go, the hotter it gets… it's understandably scorching hot this far down.'

Haalfrin goes over to his hole he tried digging upward, and he feels most of the heat coming from here. During his climb up previously, if it weren't for his strengthened body, his hands and legs would've been scorched black, and he'd have died to dehydration due to sweat loss.

So, Haalfrin climbs into the hole and inspects the stone tiles coating the outer edge of the 33rd Floor.

'Huh,' Haalfrin notes, 'Insulating enchantments…' He curses. 'They turned the enchantments off. Coupled with the hole bored into the ceiling, no wonder it's getting so unbearably hot down there.'

If he had a source of mana, he'd be able to power the enchantments himself… but even with his large 5th gate mana pool, he certainly wouldn't last long enough to find a place to escape.

He looks up and wonders aloud, 'There has to be some cooling mechanism as well; with the floor so insulated, all the bodies inside would produce endless body heat… and with that heat having nowhere to go, the floor would just get hotter and hotter.'

He looks around a bit more and finds a closet he'd torn the door off of previously. Inside is a large, strangely carved net of mana crystal. Somehow, somebody used some craft to remold the shape of the stuff.

He examines the enchantment and notes the ingenious spell on the thing. 'It absorbs heat from the surroundings, and it uses this heat to continue powering the enchantment. Not only that, but it uses the excess heat energy to power the other enchantments on the floor…'

"Huh," Haalfrin mutters as he strokes his hand over the mesh shaped crystal, 'With this net shape, it'll maximize the surface area, meaning it'll be able to absorb more heat with less crystal. That's a good way to save on space and resources.'

'…Too bad these things aren't working either… Since they make their own mana, they must have some sort of off and on switch inside.'

Just to be sure, Haalfrin poke around some more, and he finds 8 other "heat absorbers", as he's decided to nickname them – 2 on each of the outer edges of the floor, and one in the center.

He then checks around some more and finds a few enchantments; the most major one is yet another deactivated spell spaced out on the ceiling that helps keep the air breathable in this enclosed space.

…So many enchantments without any mana sources… enchantments he needs to live.

He scratches his head in annoyance. How am I supposed to get mana? Sure, there's 34 other mages with their own mana pools, but barring starvation, they'd only last a couple extra weeks with this.

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Tapping his foot and pacing around, Haalfrin suddenly has a bright idea. "The heat absorbers were converting heat into mana… However, even if I manage to turn them back on, the mana they produce won't be enough without the external, supplementary mana that's no longer coming from above…"

'Hmm… I need to first find a way to turn them back on… then, in order to maximize their mana output… I need to stick them in something a lot hotter than this floor.'

He looks up at the hole in the ceiling, where most of the heat waves are coming from. 'I have an idea…'

Haalfrin considered getting the other prisoners free so they can help him with this job, since he knows it'll be very labor intensive. However, without a special Name power like his, they'll just flop on the ground uselessly until they can built their muscles back.

Instead, the mage decides to do it all himself.

First, he bends over and rips all the heat absorbers from their mounts on the ground. He then carefully uses his magic to saw a hole through the outer wall that's just the right size so that he can slide the heat absorber's thin mesh through.

With the crystal mesh completely encased in scorching hot rock, rather than air, it'll pump out a lot more mana than it did before… if he can find a way to get the heat absorber working again.

He knows he has other things to worry about, but getting a dependable source of mana up and running is his top priority.

Haalfrin spends a few minutes reaching his mind through the heat absorber and trying to understand the needlessly complicated enchantment. Some simple alchemy should be a simple spell… but they probably encoded it with traps for situations just like this one.

Finally giving up, Haalfrin turns to the open cell doors. 'In this top security section of the prison, there's bound to be some dangerous and competent mages here. Maybe some of them know something I don't.'