Alex sat cross-legged on the rock that was becoming "his spot" during their training. He liked the small ledge, which allowed for some support for his lower back, and, more importantly, it had a great view of the entire cavern.

He'd slept fitfully the previous evening, his dreams filled with large spiders and universe-spanning magical webs. Deciding then that he had things he could do to improve himself, he abandoned sleep.

It was odd to know that it was early morning, just on his body’s internal clock, not having seen the sun for more than a day at this point. The absurdity of his situation wasn’t lost on him as he sorted through his spatial storage items. With Eura’s inheritance, he could abandon his other storage items altogether if he wanted to.

Before letting himself become completely absorbed in the items, he used [Mirage] to create an illusion of himself, letting his second consciousness slip into it and urging that version of himself to continue practicing the unstructured mana shaping exercises.

Won’t be much longer now. Once I can make threads with the illusory copy, things will get a whole lot more interesting.

He stared at his own back as it moved away, and he thought for a moment that he wanted to test more of the combination's limitations. There were so many things to test—so, so many things to test. However, what was most important now was to get the mirage to where it could do something other than scout. All the other questions could wait.

Instead, he turned his attention to the inheritance that Eura had left him. Marveling at the steely-grey item, Alex sent his consciousness into it. Previously, he'd compared their sizes to storage spaces that he could relate to. The ring was similar to a dresser, meaning that it was the smallest of the three items, but it had the added convenience of easily dropping items directly into his hand. It was also the least conspicuous of the items, even if he felt a bit odd wearing a golden ring on his index finger. He decided to keep his more practical and frequently needed items there, such as his wand, jian, and some backup pouches of ritual ingredients, just in case he needed to use them.

His pouch was the one he felt like he might begin to phase out. While it was larger than the internal space of the ring, he roughly compared it to the size of a closet. Not a walk-in bedroom sort of closet, but one of the small ones that people had in their hallways. It was still more than he would be willing to carry on his back, but compared to the bracer, it felt small, more inconvenient to dig through, and much easier to spot. He decided to keep backup goods in the pouch, such as extra leather journals, spare weapons, and armor that he didn't plan to use, but wanted to have just in case.

The bracer was the most interesting to him, though he wasn't sure if that was because it was the newest or because it seemed like a true marvel all over again. The magic seemed fresh and powerful, and orders of magnitude larger than the spatial pouch. It was the easiest of the three items to hide by a large margin. He could wear it under his shirt sleeve, and no one would be the wiser. Not to mention that it was firmly attached to his forearm in a way that made him comfortable in the fact that no one could easily steal it. In the bracer, Alex wanted to keep his more valuable items and survival necessities, like food, fire starters, rope, mana stones, and more.

He glanced over at his friends to see them still sleeping and decided to take a few minutes to test the limitations of the new item. They'd all learned some time ago that items coming from the storage couldn't have any momentum. Even if he threw a rock into the pouch, when he pulled it out, it had no momentum at all. The best he could do was drop it into his hand as he was going through the throwing motion.

What he was curious about with the new one, though, was how he could remove items from it.

Alex picked up a rock in his right hand and pressed it to the bracer to send it into the spatial item. With another thought, he removed it with the same hand, working as it had several times before. This was the baseline for how to use the item so far and how he’d inserted and removed things before. He tried similar deposit and withdrawal methods in several scenarios.

Alex held the rock several inches from his left arm and tried to push it into the item. It didn't budge. He touched the rock to the item to deposit it, then tried to remove it to his right hand while several inches away. Still no result. He knew it was wishful thinking, but moved on to the next test. Both inserting and removing the rock were also impossible when his sleeve was in the way of contacting the item. At first, that thought frustrated him, but then he realized it would likely also prevent others from trying to use it.

How does that even work?

He removed his notebook and took a note to get one of the others to test it with him.

In the end, the main limiting factor seemed to be that he needed to have contact with the item to use it properly. The one benefit to this seemed to be that he could remove items from it into his left hand. He didn't have to touch his right hand to the outside of the bracer; instead, he could drop an item directly into his left hand, likely because it had constant contact with his skin.

"Hmm... I wonder if this is why Eura always stood with his hand clasped behind his back or in his robe sleeves. Was he always keeping a hand on a similar spatial item?" Alex mumbled to himself.

It wasn't long after this that Mark woke and tapped Sam on his way over to join Alex. The young healer grumbled once, but within a few seconds, he forced himself to sit up, look around, and join the two of them.

"No Sarah?" Alex asked as Mark sat down across from him.

He shook his head as he rubbed his face and clicked the knob on the top of the lantern next to Alex, letting out just a bit more light for their normal vision. "No, she was up late last night trying to work on that passive skill idea she's got."

"What about you and Sam?"

“Sam already got his movement skill, so he’s helping me with that.”

“And Mark already got running, so he’s helping me with that,” Sam said with a tired smile.

“Perfect. Keep working on those. I would have died quite a few times already if it weren’t for my movement skill.” He was about to tell them how well they were working together, but one of the mana spinner hunters approached and caught his attention. “One sec.”

He moved over to the spider, who was already extending a mana tendril to communicate. The flash of images that came across the link was quick and hard to understand.

Frustration? Frantic? Panic?

The last two seemed too drastic for the emotions he felt from the mana spinner, but he parsed out the message best he could. He nodded and asked for a little time to prepare his team.

It only took the team ten minutes to get up, and Alex was surprised that Sarah was much easier to wake than expected. He had them pack their gear and come to the entrance to prepare to leave.

“What’s going on, dude?”

“Did they find Olivia?” Sarah asked.

“No, not yet. Apparently, the tunnels aren’t naturally safe. They’re not overrun because the spinners have been holding them off with the layering of web traps and rituals.” He felt a bit of pride come into his voice at that.

“They need you to help fix them?” Sam asked.

“Yes, I’m going to help fix the rituals and show them more about the barrier spell circle. But you guys are coming to get some experience,” he said, turning to them with a grin.

All three of his friends seemed to realize what he was saying at once. “They’re going to boost us, too, huh?” There was a glint of greed in the tank’s eyes as he clearly thought about Alex’s early and rapid growth.

Alex laughed and had to prevent himself from rolling his eyes as he just knew that Mark was rubbing his hands together in his head. “They’re going to let you kill the creatures in the webs. Get ready, though, they’re going to want you to drag the corpses that were caught back with us. We’ll consider it part of your training. Mark, you can drag them behind you and practice [Running] while Sam and Sarah try to keep up to get the skill. Whenever one of you gets it, you can take some of Mark’s load and join him.”

They all nodded seriously in response, though it was clear Mark’s excitement at the outing was dimmed with the prospect of cardio.

It wasn’t long before a group of four spinners returned and motioned for them to follow, but the lead spinner did make a point to have Alex dissolve his mirage. It refused to move or budge until Alex did so. The group moved quickly through the dark cavern, using only one lantern with one of the plastic, dome-like covers that went over it, meant to dim the light to a smaller radius. The spinners moved ahead, gliding easily along the webs of mana that they spun. The way the movement worked looked similar to his [Feather Step], but they had much more control over their direction. Alex led his small group from behind the spinners, able to follow the recently laid mana webs with his mana sight.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on NovelBin. Report any occurrences.

Even though they lagged behind, his group pushed hard. Sarah even gained the [Running] skill before they reached their first trapped monster. Mark seemed relieved when she announced it. From there, Mark, Sarah, and Alex continued down the tunnel using the channeled [Running] skill until they ran out of mana, allowing them to get used to the increased speed. Sam jogged behind them, trying to gain it as well. He would use his own [Dash] skill to catch up to the skill-enhanced runners periodically. Valtherion rode on Sam’s shoulder, which added weight to his run, but also allowed the bond to push mana into Sam so that he could continue to practice.

“How much mana does yours use?” Alex asked the other two suspiciously.

Mark replied first, speaking words between heavy breaths. “Mine uses three mana every second. That’s why I can only go in short bursts.”

“Mine is the same,” Sarah added.

Alex nodded and thought to himself that it confirmed his suspicion. He pulled up the description of Willpower, which he hadn’t looked at for quite some time.

It wasn’t one of the more obvious qualities from how the description read, but he was certain that Willpower adjusted the cost of mana for skills used through the System. He’d seen it more than once with the use of his spell circles through the spell storage, but having the same skill and skill level as the other two allowed him to directly compare.

While they use three mana per second, I’m only forced to consume one. That has some pretty huge implications.

He’d been worried for months now that he’d be limited in the types of spells he could cast or skills he could use, for fear of not having enough mana. Even with Valtherion doubling his mana pool, without his titles, he knew that his own score would be abysmal.

“What are you thinking?” Sarah asked during one of the breaks.

“I’m wondering if Willpower is actually a broken stat,” Alex said in disbelief. Mark laughed through his wheezing, but Alex continued. “I’m serious. It looks like it helps cut down on the actual cost of spells. It’s only costing me a single mana point per second while using the [Running] skill.”

“That makes sense, though, doesn’t it?” Sarah responded. “If Mana is how much resource you have to cast a spell, and Wisdom is how quickly it comes back. Intellect is the power behind a spell, and your ability to remember or learn high-level concepts; it should make sense that Willpower is more than just being stubborn and casting speed. You said it was the mental or magical equivalent of Agility. Agility doesn’t just make someone fast. It makes them more flexible and graceful, too. If they really are similar, then what you’re seeing could have physical implications, too, if we reverse the logic.”

Alex raised an eyebrow, surprised to hear her get this into a discussion about Stats.

“If you’re Willpower reduces the mana cost for a skill, then it would make sense that Agility generally reduces the ‘Stamina’ cost for a physical action or skill. I think part of that is also linked in with Vitality, but I’m not sure.”

“But there’s no Stamina stat,” Mark said, slowly catching his breath and speaking more normally.

“True, but we’ve got to assume that your actual stamina is there, or else you wouldn’t get tired at all. If Liv were here, I’d bet she’d be running laps around all of us with her Agility.”

They all walked in silence for a few minutes and were pulled from the mood when Alex sensed a pulse of mana come through the webs they were following. The group got back into the proper formation and moved quickly to find one of the mana spinners standing next to a trapped creature. It twitched its legs toward it and bobbed up and down in front of Alex before drifting away and leaving a trail for them to follow when they were done.

“All right, Mark and Sarah, you’re up.”

They both nodded, and Sarah used her various skills and flute to buff up Mark, who moved forward with [Charge] and began swinging his hammer repeatedly. Seeing how long and how much effort it took Mark to kill the creature, which was identified as a Level 36 Night Crawler, reminded Alex of his own experience in these tunnels.

Alex tossed Mark a rope when they were finished and showed him how to tie the creature so it would be easy to drag while running. Within half an hour, they reached the next mana spinner, who was waiting for them.

When Alex approached, wiping the sweat from his brow, the spider skittered away before making twitching motions with its arms. It sent some communication to Alex that took more than one back-and-forth to understand.

“I guess they don’t want the Night creatures. We only need to bring it back if it’s one of the regular cave creatures,” he said to the group.

Mark groaned loudly and dropped the rope to the ground. “Sarah, you’re carrying the next one.”

“If you’re strength isn’t enough, how am I supposed to carry it?”

Alex stepped in to keep the group moving. “Back when I did this, I had fewer stats than Mark, but probably more than you do, Sarah. I was able to drag several of them. Just drag it until you feel like you can’t anymore. Push yourself hard, but toss it in your spatial pouch when it's too much. Mark, just grab aggro on this one with [Taunt] and let Sarah finish it with her bow.” He turned back to her. “I saw you practicing it while moving in the cavern, but now you have [Dash]. Practice using your movement skill and firing at it as quickly as you can, wherever you end the skill.”

Mark made a teasing remark as he rubbed some dirt on his shield. “Back in my day…” he covered his teeth with his lips as he said it and didn’t have to fake the wheezing.

“Stay serious, come on,” Alex said as he pointed at the trapped monster. While they all tended to joke with one another, his mind constantly went back to Pete’s death and how easily avoidable it would have been if he’d just taken things more seriously.

Hours passed, trading off between which of them would attack and kill the trapped creatures. They took down eight monsters total, with the highest being Level 48. Mark and Sarah continued to jump levels rapidly. While they moved along, Alex practiced with his raw mana shaping and studied the elven ritual pattern, but when they stopped at each site, he worked with one or more of the spinners to repair the rituals and help find weak points. Sam continued attempting to get his [Running] skill while traveling and worked with his vicious-looking segment of thorns while they were stationary.

It wasn’t until they were all beginning to drag that Alex saw signs of change. It felt as if someone had gotten a grip around his heart as he rounded the bend and saw two spiders on their backs, legs pointed up in the air.

“Stay tight. Mark, watch out. Something might be ahead.” The group slowed their pace and breathed heavily.

They kept their formation as they continued down the bend and passed the dead arachnids. Sam paused for the barest moment to check on them, but quickly shook his head and rejoined their group. Deep slashes and gouges marred the walls of the tunnel around the spinners, and it was clear that there’d be a fight.

Alex’s heart rate began to rise as he heard sounds from even further down the tunnel. “All right, let’s go. They’re fighting ahead, don’t get out of position.” With that said, everyone took off at a run, doing their best to stay close and in good fighting form.

The cavern at the end of the tunnel opened up, and Alex could easily see two creatures from the night, pushing in on two cornered spiders. The spiders were struggling greatly to both restrain the creatures and create an exit for themselves up the wall. Twice, they tried to use their movement ability to get around the creatures, but both were fast and close enough to cut off any hope.

In a desperate attempt to save the nearest spider, Alex extended his hand and mentally slammed the command to activate [Spell Storage: Barrier Spell Circle]. Just as the nearest shadowy creature closed the distance and lifted its arms to crush the mana spinner, his spell took effect. The two heavy arms crashed into the solid surface, rippling once, though it held even through the punishing blow. Before he needed to activate the second one, Mark crashed into its back, leading with his shield.

Sam and Sarah moved forward to support him, and Alex scanned the monsters’ levels to assess the situation.

His eyes widened as he saw that the furthest creature was at the top end of D rank.

“Mark!” he called as he used [Feather Step] to get closer to where Sarah stood at the back of the fight. “The one on two legs is high-level, be careful of taking a hit from him.”

Mark simply grunted in response as he braced his feet with a skill and blocked a backhanded swipe from the dark, inky gorilla monster. Sarah played several notes on her flute, and a buff flooded through the entire group.

Alex drifted to the left and did his best to draw the apostle's attention, forming a spell circle to throw lightning his way. Before his feet even touched the ground, his threads were finishing the final lines and setting the rune. Lightning arched out from the circle in front of his palm and slammed into the creature's side, causing small arcs to dance across its skin as it convulsed.

A bestial roar escaped its lips as it turned to focus on Alex, allowing him to get his first real look at the humanoid-like creature. Spindly limbs acted like a wake on a wave as they led his movements, trailing shadows behind them. It held a staff in one hand, and Alex saw mana gathering around the top of the black rod through his Heavenly Eye.

Alex’s mind worked in overdrive, and he felt like the creature was moving too slowly.

What the hell is it casting over there?

He used his split consciousness to pull his wand from the spatial ring on his finger and began throwing lightning-empowered bolts of mana at the beast.

Glancing at his friends, he saw them handling the first creature with perfect coordination and saw that they were coming out on top now that the spinners were rejoining the fight. He brought his attention back just in time to see the apostle release a bolt of dark energy from his staff. Fear clutched at him as the bolt flew toward an unaware Sam.

However, a bolt of black mana was easy for Alex to track with his Heavenly Eye, and he was ready for it. He flicked out his hand to place a barrier between Sam and the caster before exploding forward to close the distance. Mid-dash, he swapped his wand for his sword and flew toward the Crescent Warlock, prepared to end the fight swiftly.

He had only covered half the distance when he spotted the bolt in his peripheral vision. Horror gripped him as he watched it pass straight through his barrier spell as if it weren’t there, flying directly toward Sam’s back.