Chapter 10: Unidentified footsteps

Suddenly while going through the contents of the system, Lucius's eyes perked up as something piqued his interest.

"Mana!!"

Lucius murmured, his tone sounded extremely flabbergasted while the face he made right now, gave away his emotions.

Deprived of mana in his past life after that betrayal, he had to rely on runes to execute magic. And most the times, runes weren't as much reliable as mana. Unlike mana which could replenish on its own after a certain period of time, runes burrowed the mana present in the nature and were easily susceptible to decay after certain uses.

Also to draw runes special materials were needed, not to mention about the knowledge and mastery it needed to construct even one simple rune. Also, different people had different kinds of affinity which made it even more hard to construct runes.

And because of such drawbacks, runes were rather unpopular in the kingdom. Yet having no choice than to depend on runes, Lucius was forced to study runes and use runes for his vengeance.

But now, upon finding the availability of mana within him, he couldn't help but feel exhilarated.

While Lucius's eyes twitched uncontrollably, he felt a tingling sensation rising within his body. Right now, his body was etching to try using magic.

But regardless, he controlled his urge to use magic as there was a bigger matter pressing on his hands at the moment— he had to get out of this ominous looking forest alive.

Who knows what kind of danger this forest houses? And based on the corpses lying all around him, he could tell just by looking that staying here meant trouble. Thus, despite his urge to try out magic after so long, he suppressed his desire to focus at the more important matter.

Lucius then started to analyze the clues present at his hands.

"Strange, every single one of them looks so young and most of them are dressed quite well as well."

Indeed, as mentioned by Lucius, those whose corpses were in seemingly slightly better condition that it could at least be recognizable looked rather young and well dressed. But most of the corpses were in such a horrible state that it was even hard to recognize.

They were mangled and tattered beyond recognition.

It was as if a savage beast had shredded their body apart. Upon closer inspection Lucius also found traces of wounds inflicted by weapons and magic as well.

"Is it done by a man or a beast? But do beasts use weapons? Or had a war broke out in this place?"

The more he thought about it, the more he felt confused. The clues present at hand was rather misleading. And it seemed that without any concrete evidence, he wouldn't get anywhere with his investigation either. Thus, after analyzing for a while, he decided to leave this place.

But even so, he couldn't afford to be careless despite not sensing any living entity around him.

Lucius then started to scavenge anything he could find useful from the corpses. While looting one of the dead bodies, he found a bead sized shiny jewel which looked like ruby. However strangely enough, he could feel mana pulsating through this stone.

Feeling a faint sensation of mana coursing through this jewel, Lucius became extremely curious, "Are these magic stones?"

Although magic stones were available in the world from where he came from, however they were rather rare just like the artifacts. And although he had possessed some magic stones back then, it was rather crude and unrefined filled with many impurities.

But this one which he was holding in his hands right now was rather refined. It's almost as if there were no impurities present in it.

[Would you like the system to investigate this object in your hands?]

The system offered to investigate the stone he was holding. And since he himself wanted to find out about the stone, he readily accepted the offer put forward by the system.

Almost in the blink of an eye, the system analyzed the stone and presented a report to him.

[Fire stone]

[Rank: C]

[Purity: 61%]

[Category: Elemental stone]

[Capable of harnessing the power of fire, enabling the user to control flames, generate heat and create fire-based spell]

Since elemental magic was quite common among the mages in his previous world, it didn't take Lucius long to understand the effect of this fire stone.

"So, it's basically a magic stone with affinity to fire huh?" Lucius murmured after reading the report provided by the system, "But if even such fine stone's purity is only 61% then I wonder what kind of effect, a stone of higher purity and grade would have"

"But would it be even useful for me though? Like previously I had affinity with air and not fire" Lucius contemplated.

All of a sudden before he could conjure the uses of this magic stone which he had found by chance, Lucius became alerted as he heard sounds of footsteps closing in toward him. Although a bit far away from the location where he was positioned, nevertheless he could still audibly hear those footsteps.

Lucius then immediately grabbed the short knife which was embedded on the chest of one of the dead body and started looking for a spot to hide.

'Are they the people who killed the previous owner of this body? But why have they returned? Is it to check on the corpses or is it destroy the evidence? But what if they're stronger than me? Since I myself am strong than a normal mortal, if they could kill these many people then shouldn't they be stronger than me? If so, would I even be able to hide?'

Several thoughts run amuck in his mind. Yet no signs of trepidation could be seen on his face. Even with the ongoing situation, he was rather calm and was thinking of solutions for tackling this situation by taking every worst possible outcome into consideration.

Although he knew nothing about the personality, motive or the identity of the unidentified being that was closing towards him, yet instead of being optimistic that he might get rescued, he was thinking of the worst possible scenario and also taking a realistic approach for this situation by thinking that enemies were closing in towards him.

Even so, against masses, he was only a single person. There was only much he could do.

And as much as he hated to admit it, despite there being countless trees all around him, it was rather open around him and there weren't much hiding places where he could hide himself.

Thus, out of desperation, he chose to bury himself among the corpses.