God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

"My Lord, what exactly is this secret?" Alveera stared straight at her lord in anticipation.

"Well even if I explain it, it will be quite impossible for you to understand it. In fact, despite already discovering these secrets, I doubt the boy understands the gravity of it all."

"What do you mean my lord?"

Starting at Cain deeply, Azazel waved his hand and retrieved a strange artifact from thin air,

"It took me a thousand years to grasp these secrets. However, this human hasn't lived a day over twenty years. Do you know what this means?!" Azazel exclaimed with excitement.

"A prodigy?!" The giant exclaimed out loud.

"Spot on!" Azazel said with a nod.

"But he is a human? They have one of the worst affinities for mana in the universe."

"Hehehe... You don't need to worry about that. I have my ways." Letting out a chuckle, Azazel let go of the object in his hand and drew a strange sigil in the air.

"To even begin understanding the secrets of the soul, three individual requirements must be met. Without it, your efforts will be nothing more than beating around the bush."

"Hmmm... What are these requirements, my lord?"

With a smile, the demon spoke a few words that would make Cain pause for a second if he heard them,

"To understand the secrets of the soul, one must possess eyes that can see through the secrets of the world, an extremely high affinity for the elements, and a {Sorcerer's Mind}."

***

With his body asleep, Cain let his mind function at full capacity. This was a technique he had learned when he was being pursued by the {Lythoran Wyrms}. By doing this, he was able to make up for his physical fatigue, but his mind was able to stay alert so he would be able to react on time if he was attacked.

Since the system interface was directly linked with his mind, he was able to access it even when his body was asleep...

***

Name: {Cain Lenosi}

Level: 54.

Strength: 1,670. (locked)

Agility: 1,821. (locked)

Stamina: 1,083/1,083. (locked)

Vitality: 1,221.

Defense: 992. (locked).

Control: 85.6. (locked).

Perception: 80.8. (locked).

HP: 10,050/32,600.

MP: 17,000/40,500.

Magic: 2,006.

Ki: 57,274. (locked)

Spirit: 1,114.

Resistance: Poison- 90%. Fire- 50%.

Skills:: Golden Body, Mana Blade, Lightening Edge, Burst Step, Metal Creation Lvl.2, Golden Severance, Metal Manipulation, Blood Regeneration, Azure Burst, Mana Heart, Seal, Hollow Judgement, Devil's eyes: Eye of Clairvoyance, Elemental Body, Abyssal Dragon Blade Mastery Tier 1, Abyssal Crimson Slash, Spirit Sense, Gravity Defying, *Charge, *Pure Energy Strike, *Evil Devouring.

Spells: Art of Fire: {Flame Orbs, Imploding Star}, Wind Weaver, Dark Cloak, Blue Lightning, Blink, Golden Halo, 7 Golden Stars, Frozen Paths, Frost Temple, Poison Arrows (Unavailable).

Titles: Champion of Ashur (locked), Sorcerer's Mind, Blessed by Mana, Pioneer, Devil Hunter.

Free attribute points: 52.

System points 171,009.

{Inventory}. {Shop}.

***

"The challenge is to get to the bottom of the volcano and retrieve an item. However, the greatest problem is getting into the volcano. Even at my strongest, I wouldn't be able to bear such heat. Now, most of my stats have been locked away."

Recalling what Azazel had told him, Cain realized that the demon wanted him to use only magic to complete the challenge or die trying...

"What a pain..." Cain thought to himself as he continued to look through his skills.

"I could try using {Wind Weaver}- No... The oxygen is just going to make things worse. I might end up turning this volcano into a nuke." Cain said as he quickly scratched his first idea.

"Water and Ice are out of the equation. Metal will do close to nothing, which means I am left with only two options. Either I activate {Blood Regeneration} and jump into the mouth of the volcano and hope my rate of regeneration can keep me alive, or I fight fire with fire..."

Thinking about the pain he would have to endure, Cain immediately scratched the daredevil idea of jumping into a volcano unprotected.

"Guess that leaves fighting fire with fire. I'll need a spell that protects me from the flames of the volcano. From what I can tell, the flame element in the volcano is many times greater than the earth element. If I can find a way to take care of the fire element, this challenge is as good as done."

Thinking hard about it, Cain ran through a few simulations in his head. He had all the basic fire, spatial, wind, metal, blood, darkness and lightning runes, arcane symbols, and sigils memorized. These were the foundations of all spells, and we're used to create and activate spells.

Now that he didn't have any help from the system, he would have to piece these magical symbols and runes together to activate any spell.

With these magical catalysts, there were numerous ways to avoid the flames of the volcano.

"I could start by creating a flame barrier. Such a spell is quite simple, yet will be incredibly efficient."

As such, Cain began to bring the pieces of the spell together. By relying on his incredible memory, he was able to formulate the spell in a bit over thirty minutes. Since it is a defensive spell, it would take more time to create as opposed to attack spells that could take as short as a few seconds, and as long as a day or a week.

In the end, he was left with a rune that resembled a Phoenix shield. It was within a rhombus, and the delicate runes and symbols at the edges of the rhombus gave the rune the aura of a Phoenix.

"This should be enough..." Cain thought to himself. The spell was a very good one and utilized a concentrated shield of flames created with his mana to dispel the flames.

"Hope this works..." Cain thought to himself as he roused his body from sleep.

Without wasting time, he immediately moved toward the mouth of the volcano upon waking up. Standing before the volcano, he wasn't able to look past all the soot and ash, but he was still able to feel the heat radiating from it. Thanks to his flame resistance stat, the heat was within his tolerable limits....

Standing at the mouth of the volcano, he took a moment to absorb the grandeur of this beast of nature. It could easily take his life, yet all it had to do was exist. Clenching his fists, Cain let the mana within his circulate rapidly.

His {Mana Heart} began to beat violently as he stretched his hands forward,

"Infernal Wings."

Runes appeared around him, and exploded, revealing a pair of wings that wrapped around his body. The wings were huge and were made of hundreds of flaming feathers created from concentrated fire elemental mana.

***

Infernal Wings: Creates wings that shield the host from attacks from all directions. Protects the host from 90% of any incoming attack by consuming mana from the host's mana pool. Attacks that cannot be stopped will be deflected. If the wings take damage that exceeds a certain limit, they will lose their feathers until they disappear.

Costs 500MP every ten seconds to maintain, and 1000MP for every attack that is deflected.

Cooldown: 5 hours.

***

Taking a step forward, Cain took a deep breath as his eyes shone brightly with the power flowing within his body.

BANG!

He released a jet of mana from the soles of his feet, plunging into the volcano with the speed of a bullet. In the blink of an eye, the heat envelopes him, but thanks to his shield, he wasn't harmed.

'Here goes nothing!' With that thought in mind, Cain plunged into the sea of lava.

***

A sea of viscous red...

That was all Cain could use to describe his surroundings. Looking at his status screen, his brows furrowed when he saw the rate at which his mana was being consumed. Although {Mana Heart} was working overtime, it still wasn't enough to offset the damage his {Infernal Wings} were taking. Feathers of flames kept disintegrating into the stream of lava.

Diving deeper, he also realized that the deeper he went, the greater the temperature. After just traveling a few meters down, the damage his {Infernal Wings} were taking had increased.

'I won't be able to last like this. I have to get out now.' Seeing all this, Cain decided to make a quick decision. He could always return to complete it after he had created a stronger spell, but if he continued to dive, he had no doubt that he would be killed by the lava.

Just as he made up his mind, and was about to return, he felt an indescribable force pulling him down.

Instantly, his expression turned ugly...

"Fuck!" Cain exclaimed loudly as the force began dragging him down instead of him going up.

'That damned demon!' Cain knew he had been set up by Azazel, but right now, he couldn't dwell on it too much as he now had to think of a way to preserve his life.

For every meter he descended, the number of flame feathers that fell off increased.

'No you don't!' Telling internally, Cain poured even more mana into the spell. As it turned out, the spell wasn't strong enough to bear the heat of the flames. It also didn't help that as he descended, the heat of the flames also increased. All he could do now was pour as much mana as he could and hope for the best...

However, this way of thinking didn't last long...

Almost immediately, he felt something slam into his {Infernal Wings} smacking him against the walls of the volcano.