Elegy from Another World

After confirming that the cell was completely empty, without even the most basic clothing to cover my body or a blanket to keep warm, I couldn't help but feel a sense of absurdity about the imprisoner's intentions. If it weren't for my "immortality," the chill of the night alone would have been enough to kill me. I stepped barefoot onto the cold, rough stone floor, carefully running my fingers over every inch of the wall again. All I felt was damp coldness and hardness; there was no sign of any traps or weak points.

There seems to be only one hope left—that magic or supernatural power should exist in this world.

I sat down again, clearing my mind of distractions. Since the conventional methods were ineffective, I would try unconventional ones. I recalled scenes I had seen in various works in my past life, took a deep breath, placed my palm against the heavy stone wall in front of me, and whispered in a tone that was a mixture of anticipation and shame:

"Wherever I touch, scorched earth remains! Burn!"

Silence answered the air. The stone walls remained cold, not even a sliver of warmth rising. Indeed, magic couldn't be driven by a few melodramatic lines; it required something more fundamental.

I calmed down, abandoning my pursuit of flashy special effects and turning my attention to more fundamental principles. Conservation of energy? Elemental manipulation? Perhaps I should start from the more subtle details. I gazed at my palm, trying to construct an image in my mind: my palm was a tiny vortex, a greedy black hole, constantly drawing in the invisible moisture from the surrounding air.

At first, it was just pure concentration, without any tangible feeling. But as time went on, I gradually felt the air around my palms become slightly thicker, and a barely perceptible coolness began to gather. I held my breath, doing my best to maintain this concentration.

A few minutes later, a miracle occurred. Wisps of visible white water vapor rose from the air, as if drawn by invisible threads, slowly gathering in my palm, eventually condensing into a fist-sized, slightly trembling water ball!

It worked!

A surge of immense joy welled up inside me, and I almost cheered aloud. However, the instant the water sphere took shape, a sharp wave of dizziness struck me like a hammer blow. My vision blurred instantly, my limbs went weak, and I barely managed to glance at the status bar, only to see that my MP (magic power) had plummeted from half full to a glaring zero.

My strength seemed to be drained away in an instant. Before I could even do anything to the hard-won water sphere, my consciousness was dragged away by darkness once again, sinking into boundless chaos. The water sphere that had just condensed lost its support and splashed to the ground with a "plop," turning into a small puddle of water that quickly seeped into the cracks in the rocks.

Silence returned to the cell.