I tried supernova.

It didn't work.

I tried hell serenade.

It wasn't enough.

I tried armageddon.

I died to it as well.

...

What do I do?

This is just impossible.

He is too strong.

I didn't even see any weaknesses.

Dark magic doesn't work.

Fire magic barely hurts him.

Air magic is literally like a breeze for him.

He can dodge any phantom or hell attacks.

...

I lie on my back motionlessly with legs and arms spread wide.

Staring at the ceiling, my head is buzzing with ideas on how to approach this.

But I already tried all of them.

...

Do I really have no other choice than to give him my heart to get past him?

...like hell I will do that.

That still wouldn't be my win.

I would still die in few hours after that.

Ugh...

Think.

There must be something...

Something I maybe forgot.

Something that could work here...

...

I can't come up with anything anymore...

...

I get up, walk up to the table and start searching through the books.

Air magic...fire magic...anatomy...

...

Finally, I get to the book at the very bottom.

Illusion magic...

That's right.

Phantom magic is the combination of dark and illusion magic.

I learned illusion magic a long time ago, but it was useless.

When I made an illusion of myself, the monsters would always know who the real me was.

Back then, I just concluded it was unusable.

...

But could this possibly be useful?

Maybe I was doing something wrong back then?

Let's try again, I got nothing to lose.

|= Many days and hours of relearning, testing and practicing later =|

Hah, the me from before was so simple minded.

I should have kept learning this.

Useless?

Far from it.

If I make an illusory rock, monsters will walk around it like it was real.

It isn't like they can see through the illusions.

So why can they tell who the real me is, when I make illusions?

Obviously, they sense the presence of the mana in my real body, which the illusions don't have.

I guess I didn't know much about sensing mana back then.

Furthermore, back then I only got up to learning about visual illusions.

After all, that's all the book was really about.

But later, when I learned the phantom magic, I kind of had to learn a little bit of audio illusions by myself.

Since phantom magic makes those illusions real, there needs to be the visual, the audio and the smell part included.

However, since all I did with the phantom element was just cutting, crushing and looking intimidating, I didn't need the smell part.

The audio was also minimal up until I learned phantom annihilation.

But since I have more experience with illusions now, it also makes the range of my phantom abilities wider.

Now, I can do things like this.

[Phantom mimic: Fake slime tulip]

In my hand appears something that looks and smells exactly like the fake slime tulip.

Of course, it's just a counterfeit made from mana.

I have to keep supplying it with mana so it doesn't disappear, but it still works.

The colossal purple slime is in front of me.

I carefully approach it with the flower in my hand.

It starts retreating.

Yeah, that's right, go to hell you stinky bastard!

Ugh, I hate this smell so much.

The slime surrounds me, but leaves about three meters of distance between us.

It's like I'm in some sort of safety circle.

I walk all the way to the hole, which leads to the spider maze, and slide down.

After shooting the spider at the bottom with fire dart, I look back up.

The slime isn't pursuing me.

This is amazing.

I don't need to waste mana on using armageddon here anymore.

Nor do I need to wait for anything.

|= One death later =|

I open my eyes.

...

As expected...

Illusions didn't work on that skeleton too well.

Even if I suppressed my leaking mana, he could still tell, who the real me was.

He could even see through the rocks and fake attacks made out of illusions.

...

Well, at least I have confirmed he is using lightning and electricity.

That flash of light, which caused me to stop thinking straight was a bolt of lightning.

It most likely affected my brain when it struck me.

As for his mysterious dodging abilities, it seems he can turn his body into pure electricity.

I really don't know how it even works.

How can he still sense things?

How does he turn back?

I have no idea.

Well, by improving my illusion magic, I also improved on phantom magic.

With that in mind, let's try thinking up a new strategy for this.

|= A few more days of planning and practicing later =|

Yet again I stand in front of the tunnel, which leads to the door room.

This will be hard.

And it will most likely cost me almost all of my mana.

But it will probably...no, definitely work.

[Phantom mimic: clone]

And then, I start with the hard labor.

Creating bones, muscles, organs, skin, clothes.

Finally, after several hours, I managed to create a copy of me.

Completely out of pure mana.

She has the same black hair and ears.

The same blood red pupils.

The ragged robe with mantis shell armor.

The spiked mace in her right hand.

The blue mantle and the bracelet on her left arm.

She looks exactly like me.

But it cost me a tremendous amount of mana to create.

And it's not like the fake bracelet and mantle do anything.

Furthermore, I have to supply her with enough mana so she won't disappear.

And even more mana is needed for the mission, I will assign her.

I untie the red scroll near my thigh and hand it over to her.

That's right, it's armageddon.

The plan is to trick the skeleton with my clone to lure him out.

And after he is out, the clone will activate armageddon and take the skeleton down along with herself.

The clone cannot cast spells, but it can leak pure mana.

That's why, the scroll I gave her has the pattern for armageddon prepared.

All that's needed, is for the clone to supply the scroll with all of the mana and the spell will go off.

I'm done storing enough mana inside her to keep her from vanishing and enough for armageddon.

I feel totally drained.

Almost no mana left.

The clone sets off on her suicide mission.

I sit down near the tunnel and close my eyes.

I can sense it.

The clump of mana, that is my clone, walking toward the room.

I really hope no monsters attack me right now.

I'm really exhausted and almost completely out of mana.

I can't even use phantom presence right now.

She is in.

The clone has reached the door room.

Alright, come out you...

After a few minutes of waiting, I finally sense some mana appearing from the water.

He took the bait.

Now, do it!

A few seconds later, I sense a terrifying amount of mana explode in the room.

Even out here, I can hear the loud bang.

The wind pressure makes me topple over.

Now I just have to wait for the armageddon to dissipate.

I get up and return to the safe house.

|= Some waiting and mana regenerating later =|

It should be safe now, I hope.

Let's go.

I walk into the door room.

There is no more water, it has probably all evaporated.

When I look around, there are ashes scattered all throughout the room.

Of course, the door still looks untouched.

I don't sense the skeleton anywhere.

Now, where is the key...

I hope the key survived at least.

As I search the room, my eyes stop on a certain object.

...

It's the key...

..but...

It's only a broken piece of the whole key!

Shit...

Can I somehow fix this?

I search the room some more and eventually find three more of these pieces.

[Fire bubble]

I try my hardest to melt down the sides to reconnect these pieces.

But no luck.

Those things don't even glow red.

I can't melt them at all...

Shit...

Did I mess up?

I lost the key...

I sit down with crossed legs and arms and frown at the door.

Without the key, I can't proceed.

I screwed up.

I was too focused on defeating the skeleton and lost sight of the real objective.

...

Damnit...

If only there was a way to get another ke-...

...

Wait a second...

...

Hey...

This can't be.

Nonono...

This won't work right?

The solution can't be this simple...

There is just no way...

...

[Phantom mimic: Key]

I create a perfect copy of how the key looked like before it was broken.

Then I slowly walk up to the door, insert the key and turn it.

The door clicks and opens.

...

I stare at the opened door for a few seconds as the key dissipates.

Then, I put both of my palms on my face and fall down on my back.

...

I let out a deep sigh.

Bonus:

How exactly do the enchantments work?

There are two types of enchantments.

Passive and active.

Passive enchantments are things like resistances.

For these, you put elemental mana into an object.

In this case, the effect triggers automatically when appropriate.

E.g. when a fireball hits your fire resistant enchanted armor.

When that happens, the enchantment will trigger and counter the attack by using up some of the stored mana.

Eventually, the stored mana will run out and the enchantment will disappear.

However, an enchanted object can be resupplied with mana without the need to reenchant it every time.

For active enchantments, you usually require quite a bit more mana.

You store the elemental mana in your chosen object and prepare the spell's pattern.

Then, when you want to activate the enchantment, you pour in a little bit of pure mana into the object.

Unlike passive enchantments, you can't resupply it mana without reenchanting it.

It's because when enchanting, it's basically like loading bullets into a gun.

The gun is the enchanted object and the bullets are prepared spells.

You can't just pour liquid lead (elemental mana) into a gun (the enchanted object) and expect it to work.

You need to properly reload an actual bullet (a spell).

Luckily for our protagonist, she always enchants her weapon with about 20 uses of phantom force.

Which is more than enough for the entirety of the run.

Then what does it mean when she 'pours mana into her weapon' when preparing for some spell? Is that instant enchanting?

Some spells are complex and hard to handle even for her.

As such, she will use something in her immediate vicinity, the weapon, and store some elemental mana in it.

Without worrying about the huge amount of mana going out of control, she will then prepare the spell's pattern.

When that's done, she will then take the mana back from her weapon and supply it to the pattern, finally releasing the spell.

She basically does the first step of enchanting, but then reverts it.

"Heeeey!

You took up so much space, there isn't enough for me now!

You are so mean!"