Chapter 59: Upping the Difficulty

RIP

Sol's sword quickly jabbed into one of the puppet's shoulder joints, making its arm move slightly slower. The wooden puppet, unfazed by the damage, tried to kick him, but Sol was already out of its range by the time it could even attack.

"Oh my~!" 

Weaver sat by the metal door on a reclining chair, sipping a cold drink as he willed the puppet to move in a half-assed manner. Watching Sol land a fast attack impressed him; this was the third weak attack in a row he successfully did. It wore down the wooden puppet and made it move slower, making each attack easier than the last. If Weaver did nothing, then it was possible for Sol to eventually win, but as the young man still hadn't done a successful feint yet, he decided to increase the difficulty.

Taking one last sip of his drink, Weaver put it down as he used a skill on the puppet. Mana coursed through the near-invisible strings controlling the puppet as threads grew and entered the damaged areas. The strings then wrapped around the torn joints of the puppet and weaved into it, repairing all the damage. 

Once finished using the skill, Weaver produced a real sword from his spatial ring and tossed it to the puppet, who grabbed it and, with renewed vigor, faced Sol once more. Sol looked at the puppet fully fixed and with a real weapon in its hand, while he had a wooden sword, and couldn't help but feel the injustice.

"Hey! This isn't fair!"

"Life isn't fair~. If life was fair, you wouldn't be here in the first place, darling~."

Sol was going to refute, but before he could, the wooden puppet charged at him, and he had no choice but to focus on the fight at hand. 

…

"You're getting better, too bad you couldn't win today~."

Sol sprawled on the floor again, and he could barely respond.

"You… gave it… a weapon…"

"Well, it would be too easy if you won the bet that way, and that would be no fun. But congrats! You can now understand the fundamentals of a weak attack so all you have to work on is your feints!"

Leaving on that note, Weaver retrieved all the items, left a box on the ground, and left the cell, locking the door once more. Sol, still too tired from the training, stayed on the ground for a few minutes before getting up and retrieving the box. Upon opening the box, it was moldy black bread with broth, but this time it had a meat chunk in it, likely whoever was pouring it accidentally let it fall in.

Sol opened the box, knowing this was the standard of the food, and after seeing it, he tossed it into his spatial ring before taking out some dried jerky. It's been three days since he had been "trapped" in this cell, and at this point, Sol no longer cared about the food, but still checked because of his bad habit. He already knew what was in the box, but if he didn't open it, there would be a lingering thought at the back of his mind whispering that maybe it's not what he expected.

After finishing his jerky, Sol took out a piece of paper from his spatial ring and, after casting [Candlelight], he examined his work. It was a map that crudely detailed all the areas he had explored as he found it easier to draw a map than to memorize it. 

The map currently had a few areas he had discovered these past few days, each outlined with labels. There was the prison area that he and Rebecca currently had the pleasure of staying in. A halfway away was the showroom and shower which he found on the first day. On his second day, he traveled in the other direction and found a canteen, storage room, and kitchen. Yesterday Sol found some kind of lounge room and dormitories which he was only able to see because he found a new way to use [Burrow].

When Sol was sneaking through the halls yesterday, he saw the mana signature of a man running his way, and to hide, he used [Burrow] and jumped into the wall. As he watched the person run past the hallway, Sol leaned close to the stone wall, and he noticed he could very faintly see what's on the other side without using [Mana Perception]. He hadn't noticed before as he usually entered and exited the ground too fast, but now that he knew he could do that, there were more areas he could explore even when people were inside.

The only downside of using [Burrow] to lurk around was the mana cost. It cost 5 mana per second to maintain it, but with [Increased Mana Regeneration], Sol recovered a little over 4 mana per second. It meant he could maintain a burrow for only 8 minutes before he had to resurface and recover his mana.

Even with that time limit, Sol believed it was more than enough to explore a room he had been eyeing since day two. Sol used [Burrow] to pass through the wall and proceeded to walk down the hallway without worry as he knew no one was nearby. It was until he got near the dormitories that he used a burrow and traveled underground to a room he always saw someone in. People would enter and leave the room often, but there was a mana signature that always stayed in that room, and the few times they were gone were inopportune moments for him to check it out. Silently traveling beneath the floor, Sol arrived outside the room, and he slowly closed the distance between him and the wall so he could peek at what was inside.

Because there was a thin layer of stone between Sol and the room, it looked as if there was a gray filter put over his vision. Luckily the room was well-lit, and Sol was able to see what looked to be a personal study and an older looking man with neck-length hair sitting behind a desk as he wrote something down.