Free Web NovelMatt was lying on the bed face up, not moving, staring at the ceiling.
Or at least toward where the ceiling should have been.
The rest room was smaller than the previous combat halls, but still large.
The red stone walls shimmered softly with golden lines, the forges were cold, the tools rested neatly on the tables, and the fountain in the center kept releasing warm steam.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
Matt breathed slowly.
His body didn't hurt — the fountain had healed all his wounds. Even the horrible taste of the flying demons wasn't as present in his mouth anymore, though he still remembered it, unfortunately.
Matt kept staring upward.
'I could stay here.'
The thought appeared with a dangerous clarity.
From what he remembered, the rest areas of the Forge Cave had no time limit, so a person could stay as long as they wanted.
Matt turned his head slightly and looked at the fountain.
The water glimmered softly, as if mocking all the suffering that had come before it.
'I could stay here forever.'
No Iris.
No queen.
No Eleonora calling him a coward.
No guards calling him princess.
No customers ordering coffees with ridiculous names.
Just a bed, a healing fountain, and silence.
It was almost perfect.
Too perfect.
Matt closed his eyes.
Then he thought of his sister.
Her voice.
Her annoyed expression.
The way she had made him promise he'd be at her graduation.
Matt opened his eyes.
"Damn it."
He couldn't stay.
He couldn't allow himself that.
His mother was probably already worried.
His sister probably too.
And if the queen tried to do something strange to cover up his absence…
Matt didn't even want to imagine it.
"I'm going to kill that old woman."
The threat sounded weak. More like a long-term personal goal.
Matt sat up on the bed with a sigh. Then he looked at the bow resting on a nearby table — or what was left of it.
The golden wood was cracked in several places, reinforced with lines of hardened blood. One lateral section looked slightly warped, and the string, although still intact, seemed to be on the verge of giving up from overwork.
Matt got up and walked toward it, picked it up carefully, and the bow creaked.
Matt went still.
"Don't start."
The bow didn't respond. Matt set it on the work table.
One rule of the Forge Cave was clear.
Once you chose a weapon at the beginning, you couldn't change it.
The selected weapon was the foundation.
The path.
The seed of the ego weapon.
That meant Matt was stuck with that bow.
A bow.
Like Selene.
Matt felt the urge to be sick for reasons other than demon blood.
But then an idea settled in his head.
He couldn't change weapons.
True.
But…
"Nobody said I couldn't modify it."
Matt looked at the tools.
Hammers.
Pliers.
Blades.
Metal wire.
Dark bone fragments.
Red stones.
Leather strips.
Strange materials he didn't recognize, but that glowed with mana.
The cave had left it all there.
Too convenient.
Matt narrowed his eyes.
'This is definitely a trap.'
Even so, he picked up the tools.
First he repaired his clothes.
Not for the sake of appearance.
No.
His black shirt was torn in several spots, his pants had cuts in them, and part of the fabric was still stained with dried blood.
Under normal circumstances, Matt would have thrown all of it in the trash.
But he was in a death cave.
Fashion could die later.
He used dark thread, a needle, thin leather, and a few patches reinforced with mana.
The result wasn't pretty, but it closed the holes.
That was enough.
Then he turned back to the bow.
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Matt sat in front of the table and started taking it apart — carelessly at first, then more carefully when a section almost snapped.
"Damn, no. You have to hold together more…"
Matt removed the string, cleaned the cracks, scraped off the hardened blood he'd used in an emergency, and inspected the wood.
The bow was bad. But not as bad as it looked — because there was something in the center.
A kind of thin core, hidden beneath the outer layer, that absorbed mana with a certain ease.
Matt touched it.
Hmmm!
The bow vibrated.
Matt raised an eyebrow.
"So that's what you are."
It wasn't an ego weapon.
Not yet.
But the cave had already started changing it.
That was good.
Matt got to work.
His idea was simple.
Or at least it started simple. He wanted to lengthen the bow, make it larger and more stable with more power. But as he adjusted the structure, another idea appeared.
Part of him didn't feel safe with a purely ranged weapon.
The eighth room had made that clear.
When something got too close, the bow became a liability. And he had no desire to try defending himself against a giant serpent by hitting it with a bow like an idiot again.
So he extended the tips further, reinforced the center, added metal pieces to both ends, sharpened the points, and joined the wood with a dark flexible material that looked like bone — though he didn't want to know from what.
The bow became longer and heavier.
Matt lifted it with both hands. It was awkward.
But it had potential.
Then he channeled mana into it.
The weapon responded.
Hmmm!
The tips extended.
The bow stretched even further, the metal pieces shifted, and the sharpened ends aligned like a double blade.
Matt's eyes went wide.
"Oh."
The bow had become something like a spear.
A long, thin spear with curved, sharpened ends.
Matt moved it a little.
It weighed more.
But it was manageable.
Then he withdrew the mana.
The weapon contracted back.
Crack!
The string snapped.
Matt stared at the broken string.
Then closed his eyes.
He had created something like a spear-bow, but the change of shape was breaking the string.
That was a problem.
Matt tried using mana to create a temporary string and it half-worked. The mana thread connected both ends and let him draw the bow.
Matt formed an arrow and fired.
Fwip!
The arrow came out.
Weak.
Very weak.
It hit a nearby wall and barely left a mark.
Matt looked at the wall. Then at the weapon.
"If I go out with this I'll die."
On top of that, maintaining the mana string, forming the arrow, and stabilizing the bow at the same time demanded too much concentration.
Too much even for him.
Matt set the weapon on the table and ran a hand down his face.
"I went too far."
That was obvious.
He had turned a mediocre bow into a problem shaped like a spear.
But he didn't want to revert it either.
Not completely.
The spear form could save his life if another enemy got too close. And now that the fountain had healed his wounds, his body was in better shape.
He could afford to fight a little closer.
A little. Not much. He wasn't that far gone.
Matt picked up the weapon again.
"Let's fix this…"
Then the room shook.
RUMBLE!
Matt went still.
The tools vibrated on the table.
The fountain rippled.
The red lights on the walls flickered.
Matt's eyes went wide.
"What?"
The tremor lasted only a few seconds.
Then stopped.
Silence.
Matt looked around.
Nothing had changed.
The fountain was still there, the bed, the forges, the tools. Everything the same.
Matt swallowed.
"That didn't happen last time."
Matt looked at the weapon. Then at the walls.
'Is there a time limit now?'
The thought made his stomach tighten.
Maybe there was.
Maybe he was misremembering.
Maybe you could stay in a rest room, but not forever.
Maybe the cave was hurrying him along.
Maybe he'd done something he shouldn't have by modifying the weapon too much.
Matt looked at the fountain, then the bed, then the tools.
"Just one day, I need one day to fix it."
The cave didn't respond.
That was worse.
Matt got back to work, faster this time.
First priority: the string.
He needed one that could survive the change of shape.
He tried metal wire.
It snapped.
He tried reinforced leather.
It burned when he channeled mana through it.
He tried a silver fiber he found on one of the shelves.
It held through two transformations.
Then it exploded in his face.
Pop!
Matt was left with a black line across his cheek.
"…"
He breathed slowly.
"Damn it."
The room shook again. freёwebnovel.com
RUMBLE!
Softer this time.
Matt looked up.
No ceiling visible.
Just darkness.
"Is someone watching me?"
The cave didn't respond.
Matt frowned and kept working.
Every time he modified the weapon too much, the room shook.
Sometimes strongly.
Sometimes barely at all.
At first it made him nervous.
Then it irritated him.
Then he started ignoring it.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. You don't like it."
Matt adjusted the bow's core, reinforced the tips, changed where the string attached, added channels so the mana could flow without breaking the structure. Cut. Filed. Rejoined. Used blood in small amounts to seal certain sections.
Not much.
Just enough.
Royal blood worked as both glue and catalyst.
That was useful, but also disgusting.
After many attempts, Matt found a combination.
A black fiber that looked like braided hair.
A red metal thread. And a thin coat of his own hardened blood.
Together they formed a string that was flexible, durable, and capable of surviving the change of shape.
Matt installed it. He channeled mana and the bow extended.
Hmmm!
It became a spear.
The string retracted into a groove along the side.
It didn't snap.
Matt's eyes went wide.
He withdrew the mana.
The weapon returned to bow form.
The string came back out, taut and intact.
Matt stared at it. Then smiled just barely.
"Good."
He tested it again.
Bow.
Spear.
Bow.
Spear.
The string held.
The room shook once more.
Very faintly.
Like an annoyed sigh.
Matt looked up.
"I win."
The cave's silence felt offended.
Matt kept sharpening the tips.
He honed them as much as he could.
He didn't want the spear to just push.
He wanted it to cut.
Not like Eleonora.
He wasn't going to get that from an improvised tool. But he could make it pierce flesh, scales, and maybe softer stone.
After hours of work, the weapon was something else entirely.
In bow form, it was still slightly golden, but now had red lines along the body, sharpened ends, and a longer structure.
In spear form, it extended with a clean sound, forming a double blade at each end.
It was ugly, but elegant in an accidental way — and highly impractical for anyone without experience.
Matt spun it in his hands.
He almost hit himself in the face with one of the tips.
Matt went very still. Then slowly lowered the weapon.
"Heh."
Matt had never used a spear.
Not really.
He'd used a sword — learned it in that castle, by force.
Blow after blow.
Cut after cut.
Insult after insult.
Eleonora screaming in his head.
But a spear…
No.
Still, the logic was simple enough.
More or less.
Distance.
Point.
Keep the enemy away.
Don't let a giant serpent decide to bite him in the abdomen like he was a snack.
Matt made a test movement.
Clumsy.
Another.
A little less clumsy.
Then he switched to bow form.
Drew.
Formed an arrow.
The power had improved.
Not as much as before with a purely physical string, but enough to be useful.
And if he wanted more force, he could channel mana through the core.
Or blood.
Matt set the weapon on the table.
"If I could master a sword in this place, I can master you too."
The line sounded confident, almost inspiring — but Matt didn't fully believe it himself.
◇◆◇
After hours of work, Matt stepped into the fountain.
He took off his repaired clothes, set them to one side, and slipped into the water. The warm liquid covered his body.
Matt closed his eyes.
The last aches disappeared.
The tension in his muscles eased.
The exhaustion didn't vanish entirely, but it became bearable.
"This is way too good."
That was also suspicious.
Matt sank his shoulders in a little deeper.
Then he looked at the water.
'Can I take some of this with me?'
The question was logical.
That water healed wounds.
Removed venom.
Restored energy.
And if he drank it, it also eliminated the feeling of hunger.
Matt had tested that a while ago.
Because he was desperate.
And because after drinking blood from flying demons, drinking water from a magic fountain was practically a gourmet experience — even if part of him felt vaguely disgusted about drinking water from the same place he was currently bathing in.
But compared to the taste of those demons…
Nothing.
It was spring water served by angels.
Hygienically questionable angels.
But angels.
Matt cupped some in his hands and drank.
Cool.
Almost sweet.
His stomach stopped protesting.
Matt looked at the water seriously.
"I need you."
He tried forming a water sphere with mana and pulling it out of the fountain.
It worked for two seconds. Then it evaporated.
Pshhh!
Matt stared at the steam.
"No."
He tried again with more focus.
Same result.
Pshhh!
Matt gritted his teeth.
He tried filling a small bottle he'd found among the materials.
The water went in and Matt smiled.
Then the contents evaporated inside the bottle.
The bottle was empty.
Matt closed his eyes.
"…"
He breathed slowly.
"Of course."
The cave wasn't going to give him something that useful.
No.
That would have been kind.
And the cave wasn't kind.
The cave was garbage with nice architecture.
Matt climbed out of the water after a while.
The liquid slid off his skin, but barely a step from the fountain, the drops remaining on him evaporated.
Pshhh!
Matt watched them disappear.
"I can't even dry off normally."
He got dressed again.
The repaired clothes weren't perfect, but they were clean.
The fountain cleaned blood and grime too.
Matt looked around with suspicion.
The place was still silent.
The forges.
The tools.
The materials.
The bed.
The fountain.
Everything orderly.
Everything available.
Everything waiting.
During the hours he'd spent working, he'd used quite a bit of material.
Fibers.
Metal.
Small stones.
Leather.
Strange parts.
But after sleeping a little, Matt had noticed something.
The shelves had been restocked.
Not by much. Not obviously. But enough.
A piece he'd used was back in place.
A thread he'd spent had reappeared, coiled up.
A broken red stone was whole again.
Matt walked to one of the shelves and picked up a metal piece.
He looked at it.
"Who puts this here?"
Nobody answered.
Matt set the piece down. He looked upward and the darkness still showed no ceiling.
His throat went dry.
The Forge Cave wasn't normal.
He already knew that.
But now the question was worse.
Was it just a trial?
Or was it something alive?
Matt swallowed.
'Am I really alone in here?'
