The massive bird that had grabbed him was practically invisible to his senses. If not for the fact that he could feel its talons circling around him, he wasn’t sure he would have known it was there. No wind cut across its feathers. It didn’t smell like anything. Even the essence and mana in the world seemed to flow through the space it occupied without so much as a distortion in the pattern.

How in the hell… That’s got to be the best stealth skill I’ve ever seen.

In the bare seconds since he’d been snatched up, they’d already left the shell of metal teeth far behind. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to be following them, electing instead to sink back into the sand and disappear. Velik reconsidered that idea immediately, though. It was unlikely he’d run directly over a stationary monster, but he had a hard time imagining something that big moving through the sand without notice.

A glance up at the bird reminded him not to underestimate the stealth prowess of monsters outside the wall, and also that he was still in a lethal predicament. He hadn’t been saved; he’d just been snatched up by some other monster instead.

Even held in its talons, it was hard to pay attention to it. Everything but his sense of touch insisted there was nothing there, and his eyes kept trying to slide off it to look into the horizon. He got a vague impression of white feathers tipped with black, a long neck, and a sharp beak that glimmered like molten gold.

His first instinct was to twist in its claws and stab his spear up into its body. Then he remembered that he no longer had [Air Walk] to save him. He might survive the fall anyway, but he wouldn’t walk away uninjured. If and when the bird monster, which he was growing more and more certain was a divine beast, came after him, he wouldn’t be in a good state to fight back.

Without warning, the bird spun, whipping him through the air in a big circle. Two rotations later, the talons around his torso opened and he was flung into a free fall. The instant he was no longer physically touching the monster, he completely lost track of its position. Velik spent the next few seconds untangling himself from a dizzying spin. Once all his limbs were coordinated and he was falling in a straight line again, he turned to scan the sky.

Nothing. Okay, that’s a problem for later. Gotta figure out how to not splatter across the sand in the next fifteen seconds.

He knew how [Air Walk] worked. He’d used it extensively. The mana pattern wasn’t simple, but he could easily picture it forming in real time. He had mana. He had [Mana Control] as a skill, or an essence configuration now. Working frantically, he accessed his LPS and pushed his desire to remake the skill at it.

[Commencing Essence Configuration.]

Velik could feel essence flooding out of his pool, constructing the skill the way he remembered it. The essence didn’t make the skill so much as it formed a scaffold to contain the mana needed and hold it in shape. If not for the dire circumstances, he would have been fascinated to watch it happen in real time. This was how the system made skills, after all, and there were no doubt dozens of scholars who would have given anything to see what he was seeing.

He just wanted the LPS to finish it before he hit the ground.

The giant bird had thrown him at an angle parallel to the sand instead of directly into it, which had given him a few extra seconds and probably an extra thousand feet of distance from that metal mouth. If he hadn’t known any better, he’d have thought it had chosen this angle on purpose. More likely, it was just using gravity as a vector to kill him and would swoop down to feast on his remains.

Spots of essence bloomed in the interface, misty white threads connecting them. More and more essence drained from the pool, but not fast enough. Come on, Velik urged. I showed you where the mana goes. Just slap the essence around it and be done with it!

It wasn’t that simple, unfortunately, and the ground was getting worryingly close. The LPS churned away, slowly—to Velik’s eyes, at least—completing the connections and forming the constellation. Finally, the last piece finished.

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[Saving new configuration: Air Walk.]

Velik tried to pull on the skill, flooding it with mana to activate it. Nothing happened.

[Integrating new configuration.]

Velik hit the ground, throwing sand a hundred feet into the air from the impact.

[Congratulations! Your new configuration is ready for use.]

Piece of shit system.

Velik laid there for a few seconds, just absorbing his failure to avert impact and marveling at the fact that he was still alive. He wasn’t exactly surprised, but it wasn’t something he’d ever wanted to test. Even before he’d switched from the actual system to his LPS and been infused with tons of essence from Morgus, he wasn’t entirely certain a fall could kill him.

Oh, it hurt. There was no debating that. His skin was shredded from skidding across the sand and he’d definitely broken a bone or two. Everything still in one piece was one giant bruise, and he’d left a line of gold blood staining the ground fifty feet long. It was a crippling amount of damage for any normal person, and that was after he’d reinforced his body with probably the equivalent of 300 physical.

Mana was already flowing through [Awakened Blood]

. He didn’t even have to do anything to activate the skill’s regeneration. Torn muscle regrew. Bones snapped back into place. Skin was made whole again. A few teeth he hadn’t even realized had loosened on one side of his face tightened back down.

It wasn’t instantaneous, but it happened over a minute or so. That was much faster than usual, a fact that he attributed to his newly enhanced mystic. He had a lot more mana to burn now, and his body was using it a lot faster. By the time he’d located and dug his spear out of the sand, he was back in perfect physical condition.

Good to know I won’t die from a high fall, I guess. But now what do I do?

The way he saw it, there were only two real options. He could keep going toward the butte out in the desert where there was probably a sky bridge. That was where Tesir’s scent trail had pointed him, though it had faded away soon after he’d gotten into the desert. Velik was starting to suspect divine beasts were far better about hiding their presence than regular old monsters could hope to be, and after his first encounter with one of the guardians of the sands, he could see why they’d go through the effort out here.

The other option was to chase after that bird, but that didn’t much appeal to him. He wasn’t sure where it was or how to stop it from just flying away even if he did find it. Besides, it was probably a divine beast as well, which meant the best way to find it was to keep going to the sky bridge. If it wasn’t there, he’d have to figure something else out.

Since both options led him to the same place and staying still wasn’t likely to accomplish anything besides getting attacked by the next monster to see him, Velik didn’t see any good reason to delay. He started running again and dove back into the LPS interface to see if he could isolate the parts of [Awakened Blood] that contained his old [Stealth] skill. That wouldn’t necessarily get him to the level of power that bird had displayed, but it was a good start.

The first thing he noticed was that he’d lost a little over a thousand essence from his total pool, and that [Air Walk] had been added to his list of configurations. Unlike his other skills, it had a big fat zero next to it. “Where’d the rest go?” he muttered to himself.

To his surprise, the LPS had an answer for him.

[Your limited personal system is powered by your own essence. Some is consumed to maintain it, and more is used whenever you make modifications. Spend your essence wisely.]

That wasn’t unfair, but it would have been nice to know the rules before he’d started using essence. He had no idea how to even go about getting more. Once again, the mere act of thinking about it prompted a response from the LPS.

[Essence is generated by all living creatures over time. It can be harvested, stolen, or gifted from other creatures.]

Just like the system I’m used to then. Kill monsters, get essence, grow stronger. At least this version answers questions.

Experimentally, he ran a few steps into the air just to make sure [Air Walk] still worked like he wanted it to. Unfortunately, that was as high as he could get before the skill exhausted itself. Worse, the immense weight of his spear seemed to break something in the hardened air, and the steps shattered almost instantly. He could still use them, but he needed to be blindingly fast, which left no room for pivoting or timing a dodge.

He could work with that, though. He was fast enough now; the new restriction just meant he needed to be even more precise than normal with his timing. Now, how do I improve this thing? Is it like a normal rank up?

Velik ran on, the miles rolling past and his progress unimpeded, while he tinkered with the LPS. Despite the differences, he was quickly piecing things together. And that was good, because he was pretty sure he was running directly at a divine beast. He’d need to be at his best to kill it, which meant spending his last four thousand free essence.