novelraw Chapter 95: Scenario Completion
Chapter 95: Scenario Completion
What I meant was to use Scenario Manipulation to shorten the remaining time. However, if I suddenly cut hours, Boris and Michelle would find out, and it would be a bit expensive. Instead, I figured out a more subtle way of doing this.
“Scenario Manipulation,” I whispered under my breath.
You have activated Scenario Manipulation.
Please select an effect or variable to alter.
As a translucent blue menu flickered into view before my eyes, I immediately searched through the list of possibilities, outcomes, and narrative branches. It didn’t take long for me to find exactly what I needed:
[Objective Adjustment – Timer Override (2x)]
Cost: 50 Plausibility
Forces the scenario’s timer to progress at twice the natural speed, subtly accelerating completion.
Without hesitation, I confirmed the adjustment, careful that neither Boris nor Michelle noticed a thing.
You have selected Objective Adjustment – Timer Override (2x).
50 Plausibility has been consumed.
At once, the digits of the scenario timer began to accelerate, ticking down at twice their normal pace.
Time Remaining: 22 hours 34 minutes 48 seconds → 22 hours 34 minutes 46 seconds → 22 hours 34 minutes 44 seconds…
The countdown moved subtly faster, the difference so slight that only someone staring intently would notice. To Boris and Michelle, everything would seem perfectly normal—they wouldn’t sense anything strange until the scenario concluded earlier than expected.
Perfect.
This way, the sixth scenario would end much sooner while leaving me with enough time to rest, and more importantly, to use that extra time to train or something. If I had recklessly forced the timer to skip entire hours at once, suspicion would’ve been inevitable. But with this quiet acceleration, the only explanation they might imagine was a minor System glitch, even though Divine Will was perfect.
Having done this, I allowed myself a moment of respite, leaning back against the cavern wall. “I’ll rest for a while. My mana reserves are shot after what just happened.”
Michelle nodded without protest. “Sure! Please take as much rest as you want. I’ll keep watch and prepare the bonfire. Just tell me if you need anything.”
“Haha! Rest is as important as training.” Boris thumped his chest with a grin. “I’ll handle the camp. We’ll be spending the night here, after all.”
I smirked faintly before closing my eyes, letting the cavern’s calm embrace me. The steady trickle of water and the faint rustle of underground air lulled me into a shallow, dreamless sleep. Hours passed—or what felt like it—until the dull ache in my head and my lightheadedness vanished, telling me that my mana reserves had replenished in my core.
Fully awake, I drew in a long breath before opening my status screen to confirm that my mana had fully recovered.
Your Mind has increased by 1.
Your Magic Power has increased by 1.
“I feel better,” I muttered, stretching out the stiffness in my joints.
Glancing around, I found Boris dozing against a rock while Michelle perched nearby, nibbling on dried fruit. Both of them noticed when I stirred.
“I’m going to train my magic a bit,” I told them. “No point wasting the downtime.”
Michelle tilted her head. “Train… magic? Didn’t you just—?”
“I picked something new up,” I cut in, not elaborating further. There was no need to explain how.
Moving a short distance away, I stopped near an open patch of stone beside the underground stream. Drawing mana into my core, I activated the newly acquired skill: Basic Cryo Magic.
Frost gathered at my fingertips, forming into tiny shards that glittered faintly before dissipating. I clenched my hand tighter, channeling more mana, and a small icicle materialized in my palm. With a flick, I shot it at the cavern wall. It cracked on impact, shards scattering harmlessly.
Thanks to my experience in magic as well as the lingering impressions from both Merlin and Eirwen, the control of the magic came to me swiftly. But mastery was another matter. To wield it properly, I had to start with the fundamentals.
So, I spent an entire hour in a steady repetition: forming ice, shaping it, controlling its stability. Each attempt taught me something: how to steady the mana flow, how to keep the frost from fracturing, how to compress it sharper and stronger. The cold thrummed in my veins with a strange familiarity, as though Eirwen’s presence lingered faintly, guiding me.
“{Frozen Icicle}!” I chanted. An icicle streaked through the air and struck the cavern wall, piercing into the stone before shattering into a spray of glittering frost.
Your Magic Power has increased by 1.
Basic Cryo Magic has leveled up.
Basic Cryo Magic has leveled up.
You have learned a spell: {Frozen Icicle}.
{Frozen Icicle}
Rank: Common
Mana Cost: 7 MP
Fires a condensed shard of ice at the target, dealing minor piercing and frost damage. Effective for precision attacks but limited in destructive power.
“It’s not bad, but this isn’t enough,” I muttered to myself.
If I were surrounded by stronger monsters, a weak, single-target spell like this would hardly make a difference compared to what I already had. And I couldn’t keep relying on Fabled Vessel to resolve every crisis—it was too costly, and without an endless well of plausibility, reckless overuse would only dig my grave.
Then the thought struck me.
Weapon Manifestation—the skill that allowed me to manifest weapons of the lowest uncommon grade directly from mana… What if I combined it with this elemental shaping?
My eyes narrowed. I channeled mana again, this time activating both skills in tandem. Instead of envisioning a blade of steel into existence, I pictured one of ice—dense, razor-edged, honed by magic. Frost swirled and solidified, forming a crystalline sword in my hands, far sturdier than any icicle conjured with Cryo Magic alone.
The weapon felt incredibly rock-hard. Testing its strength, I swung down at a nearby rock, causing it to split cleanly in two, with shards scattering across the cavern floor, while the blade in my hands remained perfectly intact. Not only that, but the stone that was cut was also frozen solid from the attack.
Weapon Manifestation clearly had given it the durability of a true weapon, while Cryo Magic had infused it with substance.
A grin crept at my lips. “This… this could work.”
Of course, the power I had just witnessed was only a glimpse of what was to come. The true potential lay in the combination itself. By merging Weapon Manifestation with Cryo Magic—a conjuring branch of elemental magic—the weapons I created weren’t bound to my hands. They could be launched, propelled, and guided by mana.
I focused again as mana surged around me, swirling with frost. This time, I willed not a sword, but a spear of pure ice. Its shaft gleamed translucent, the tip honed to a needle point. As it solidified, I infused it further with Cryo Magic, layering it with condensed cold. Then, with a twist of my arm, I released it.
“Go.”
The spear shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow. A sharp crack echoed as it slammed into a boulder across the cavern, the frozen weapon embedding itself deep before shattering into glittering shards. A frosty mist spread from the impact point, coating the stone in a thin layer of frost.
Weapon Manifestation has leveled up.
Whoa. The force behind that spear is no joke. Its destructive power is comparable to Intermediate Cryo Magic. If I level up both skills further, how devastating will the results be?
I smiled in anticipation. This was nothing like normal Weapon Manifestation. Normally, the conjured arms were little more than substitutes for steel, weapons of mana-solidified metal with no special attributes. But this hybrid gave me not only durability but also the elemental force of Cryo Magic. A weapon that could be thrown endlessly, each one costing slightly more mana than a basic cast.
Still, I wasn’t done with the test yet. Calling on my focus, I formed several smaller blades—daggers of ice, each the size of my forearm. I hovered them in the air around me, threads of mana tethering them like extensions of my will. With a flick of my wrist, they shot out in rapid succession and struck the cavern wall, the impacts ringing out like chimes of glass breaking. Shards exploded outward, scattering across the stone floor, and each dagger’s residue spread into thin layers of frost, freezing patches of the rock solid.
Satisfied, I continued experimenting with the two skills, pushing myself to test every variation I could think of. Hours slipped by as I refined my control, finding new ways to channel mana, adjust density, and merge the Cryo element with manifested weapons. Despite the progress, I didn’t learn any new spell. What I was doing wasn’t true spellcraft—it was augmentation, fusing Cryo element on the manifested weapons rather than conjuring purely through Cryo Magic.
Your Mind has increased by 1.
Your Magic Power has increased by 2.
Basic Cryo Magic has leveled up.
Weapon Manifestation has leveled up.
The results brought a small grin to my face. If I kept this up, I would have another trump card that I could use.
Whenever exhaustion from overusing magic set in, I pulled back, leaning against the cool cavern wall to rest and chat with Boris and Michelle. Since there wasn’t much else to do while we waited, Boris filled the silence by recounting his days in the military. He spoke of leading a squad through the unforgiving deserts of the Middle East, surviving weeks with scarce rations and no reliable source of water.
“…And that’s how my squad and I managed to last two weeks with barely any supplies,” Boris concluded, his deep voice carrying a note of pride.
Michelle’s eyes widened with admiration. “Wow… Sir Boris, you sound just like the legendary adventurer told in storybooks.”
The big man chuckled, scratching his bald head. Once his tale wound down, he shifted back into training mode, hefting massive boulders as if they were weights. Michelle, on the other hand, practiced steady precision with her bow. As for me, I alternated between short rests and more practice, each of us pushing ourselves in our own way, preparing for whatever lay ahead.
Time flowed quietly in the cavern, broken only by the sound of our training. Slowly, steadily, the scenario timer ticked down.
And then, at last—
Time Remaining: 0 seconds
The time limit has been reached.
Congratulations.
You have cleared Scenario #6 [Endless Desert].
You have fulfilled the second extra condition of the scenario — Kill 100 desert-dwelling monsters. (104/100)
You have fulfilled the third extra condition of the scenario — Discover the Oasis of Memory. (1/1)
Basic Rewards: 3,000 Soul Coins
Additional Rewards: Two Gimmel-Tier General Lootboxes & Unique-Grade Armament Voucher.
Your Stamina has increased by 1.
Your Magic Power has increased by 1.
Basic Cryo Magic has leveled up.
The timer finally struck zero, and with it came the completion of the scenario. In an instant, the cavern dissolved around us as everything was gone, replaced by the familiar scene before the Rift of Scenarios in Fantasia.