Sand exhaled steam as he pushed himself up with his thumbs for the hundredth time. With a stronger thrust, he pushed himself upright. Flexing his aching hands to relieve the fatigue, he cupped them behind his head and began his set of sit-ups.

It was the third straight hour he had been exercising – beginning at dawn. Or, at least, what his biological clock told him was dawn. In his windowless cell, it was impossible to tell. His meticulously followed routine at the mines was helping him tell the time now. His body woke him automatically when it was time for his morning run, currently his exercise regimen.

Despite the strenuous exercise, there wasn’t a single droplet of sweat to be seen on his shirtless body. The consequence of him sealing each and every one of his pores. His skin roughened and browned by his years in the harsh environment of the desert was flushed with the heat contained within. Periodically, the flush would recede and his body temperature would fall as the trapped heat was condensed into mana, replenishing his reserves depleted by over-exertion.

To hide his top ranked talent, Sand had decided to convert his mana into physical strength instead of simply discarding it. As he repeatedly pushed his body beyond its limits, the muscles would fray and the bones would fissure under the strain, triggering his mana’s healing property. As this cycle of destruction and regeneration continued, his muscles would grow tougher and his bones denser. The benefits were nearly imperceptible and extremely slow to accumulate – but they were there and that was all that mattered to Sand. As for the excruciating agony involved; compared to wasting mana and therefore his time, it was nothing to speak of.

The only thing he had to be careful about was his food intake. While becoming a mage had vastly increased his efficiency when it came to tapping into the energy locked within food (a leap from ten percent to over ninety percent with his talent) it hadn't removed his body’s need for nutrients. His demand for meat was especially urgent given the hell he was putting himself through. Not to mention the blood price his shard levied upon him each day.

Thankfully, the wardens were quite accommodating towards the dietary demands of the prisoners. After all, starving warriors didn’t make for entertaining fights. Twice a day, mornings and evenings, the door to his prison would be lifted slightly and a plate heaped with boiled beans, a chunk of meat and a jug of camel milk would be pushed in. The empty utensils from the previous meal would be received, and with the rattling of chains over a winch, the door would slam shut again.

Eat, sleep, exercise – that had been the gist of Sand’s days for the week since Kreg had shoved him into the cell and seemingly forgotten about him. But he didn’t mind. In fact, he quite enjoyed these days of monotony where he could focus single-mindedly on strengthening his body and magic, observing progress with each passing day. He knew it wouldn't last so he treasured it all the more.

Concluding his routine with a set of stretches designed to limber every joint and muscle and allow his mana to permeate into the deepest recesses of his body to alleviate his fatigue, he checked the state of his body with his perception of his mana.

Currently, every corner of his body was dyed a rich crimson – the colour of his mana. In some spots, the mana demonstrated a scarlet tint indicating his proximity to the next stage of magic. Each of the five tiers of magic was divided into three stages, initial, middle and final. The transition was indicated by the alteration of the colour of one’s mana. A Red Mage had crimson mana in the initial stage, scarlet mana in the middle stage and vermillion mana in the final stage before, with another condensation, the red mana transformed into the yellow mana characteristic of the next tier.

The importance of talent made itself known once again because the percentage of red mana that could be condensed into yellow mana was determined by it. A mage with top grade natural talent could condense ninety percent of it, one with high grade talent could condense eighty percent of it and so on till a mage with low grade talent who could only condense sixty percent of the mana. As for those with barely passable talent – they couldn't condense it at all, their path of magic blocked by this near unsurmountable obstacle.

Scanning his body with his mana also revealed the traces malnutrition and overexertion had left on his young body during his time as a slave in Gura’s caravan. His growth was stunted and his stomach had shrunk to compensate for his perpetual state of hunger so that he could be satisfied with very little. While an advantage for a slave-child, this was a deathblow to a mage who relied heavily on his digestion to fuel his magic. These few days, Sand had to fight to keep his food down each time he gorged himself.

‘In my previous life, I used an Iron Gut shard to remedy the situation and even raised it all the way to Tier 4 by the time I found the Blood Gourmand inheritance. It had a much better method but by then, it was too late to change it.’

To swap a bonded skill, a mage would need to use a Dissociate shard of equivalent level. Not only were the shards rare, they were monopolized by major influences and families and were nearly impossible to find on the market. Not to mention the dangers inherent to the removal of shards. As they bonded to some particular organ (the Phlebotomy shard with the heart for example) the removal damaged the organ. The higher the Tier of the shard, the more integrated they were and the riskier they were to remove.

Thankfully, the Iron Gut shard was one of the most commonly used shards in existence. Its utility and ubiquity resulted in nearly every mage using one at some point of time. After all, better digestive faculties meant faster magical progress and the broad palate it opened up for the mage was mandatory for those with skill shards that required exotic diets such as Kreg’s sandy diet. It didn’t hurt that it saved a pretty penny in food expenses.

As such, the original Blood Gourmand had created his Dungeon with this shard as a component. But before his death, he had vastly refined and improved the Dungeon formula, leaving it behind to posterity in the hope that they would be able to realize the fruits of his research. Unfortunately, Sand had to settle for following the original Dungeon formula in his previous life. It was one of his foremost regrets.

‘This time, I can create the optimal version. Really anticipate it.’

Taking back his attention from the interior of his body, Sand seated himself on the hard, stone bed and waited for the door to open and the warden to deliver the first meal of the day. As though summoned by his rumbling stomach, the heavy door started rising with the clank of chains and the rumble of rock against rock. But instead of stopping a short way up, the door lifted all the way, revealing the form of Kreg tapping his foot impatiently on the other side.

Ducking into the cell before the door opened fully, the muscular orc strode up to Sand and roughly grabbed his arm. Probing him with his mana, Kreg’s frown stretched slightly as he noticed the progress in the boy’s cultivation.

“Not bad, boy. Not bad at all. Ye might just be worth all the hoops I had ta jump through to get ye into mah clinic,” he commended. “Well, be not gawking, boy. Ye’ve got a job ta do.”

Kreg nearly dragged Sand out of the cell, shooting a dirty glare at the warden – an albino orc with red eyes and white skin – who saw them off with pockets as heavy as his grin was wide.

“Ye better be worth it,” he grumbled for the fifth time in as many minutes as he brought Sand in front of his wife’s clinic and knocked on the door.

“Come in!”

Pushing the door open, the two of them were treated to the sight of Kreg’s wife lounging on her couch while the bed was occupied by the unconscious form of a human. A tourniquet was tightly wrapped around the man’s right bicep, the skin beneath discoloured a blotchy blue with his veins standing out in an inky black.

“How much mana does he have?” she asked.

“A full body of crimson going on to scarlet,” replied Kreg.

Nodding, she tossed a sheathed knife at Sand who caught it out of the air. “Me name’s Anya… that’s Mistress Anya to ye,” she said. “Now, go and cut a gash in ‘is arm.”

Walking up to the man on the bed, Sand obeyed, unsheathing the knife and drawing a line along one of the blackened veins with its honed edge. With a spurt, black blood gushed out, dropping into the stone vat placed beneath. Wisps of darkness rose from the liquid in the vat.

“Bring yer palm near the wound and push some mana into yer shard. It ain’t that hard just think ‘bout doin’ it real hard.”

Closing his eyes and wearing an intense look of concentration, Sand pretended to fumble with his mana while he smoothly grabbed hold of some of the ethereal substance with his mind and fed it into the blood-red crystal in his heart. Under his control, the brilliance of the active crystal was restrained within his heart, hidden from the eyes of the observing orcs.

Nearly a fifth of his mana was absorbed by the skill – setting him back by nearly a day’s worth of exercise. This was the first time he had activated the skill since he hadn't wanted to waste his mana. If he was a true novice, then he would have to use the skill several tens of times just to familiarize himself with it to the point that he was confident of using it in battle. Each attempt requiring a huge chunk of his mana.

This was the reason mages were so stingy with their skills. When one use required hours of laborious preparation, magic became expensive. Only if they supplemented their mana with special foods or pills would they be able to freely use their magic. Resources. It always boiled down to resources.

Thankfully, Sand had used the Phlebotomy skill several hundred times, if not a thousand times in his previous lifetime. He couldn't be more familiar with its usage. To allay suspicion, he had to fail the first time but instead of wasting his mana by botching it deliberately, he cast the skill secretly, using it to inspect the man’s arm.

The skill could aggravate the bleeding of a wound while at the same time detoxifying the bloodstream. As such, it had the auxiliary effect of being able to detect toxins that were present in the blood. And if one was adept enough in its use, one could get a general idea of the kind of poison it was. With a mere sweep, Sand could tell exactly what poison it was that plagued the man. His deduction a combination of his expertise and the knowledge of skill shards he had gained from his tour to the storehouse.

He remembered seeing an empty shelf with the plaque above it carrying information about its former contents.

“Tier 1 Shadow Venom shard obtained from a Nocturnal Scorpion. Advantages: Highly toxic. Extremely persistent, regenerating within the darkness of the body of the victim. Disadvantages: Susceptible to light skills. Heavy drain on mana.”

“Advice: Use at night or in conjunction with other darkness inducing skills to amplify toxicity and persistence.”

Opening his eyes, he showed an anxious expression as he emulated the reaction of someone who had just squandered several hours of effort away in vain. Kreg chuckled only to shrink as his wife shot him a withering glare.

“Try again!” Anya commanded sternly. “And if ye can't do it this time, it’s the whip for ye. I don’t tolerate wastrels in me ward.”

Clenching his teeth, Sand attempted the activation again and this time, he ‘barely’ managed to do it. His chest glowed with a soft red light that travelled down his arm to his outstretched palm. A bloody radiance shone upon the clotting gash on the man’s arm and the effect was immediate.

The wound split wide as though it was being ripped apart from the inside by the pressure of the blood and jet-black blood gushed out, spattering into the vat beneath. The inky liquid trundled in the vat, bubbles forming and bursting, releasing more of the wisps of darkness. Sand’s face grew pale from the heavy drain on his mana as the blood that flowed out grew clearer and the blotchy blue tint receded. Yet, in the absence of Anya’s permission to desist, he had to clench his teeth and insist.

Finally, the last drop of blood in the poisoned arm drained out, leaving it shrivelled like a dried raisin. Not a moment too soon as Sand’s mana hit the bottom at the exact same time.

Dizzy from the sudden waves of weakness assaulting him, Sand staggered back, tripped over his own feet and plopped down on his behind, hard. Breathing hard, he couldn't help but smile wryly in his mind.

‘Magic is hard.’