Alex breathed heavily, sweat threatening to drip from his brow and into his eyes. He stopped next to Mark and Sam, who were already seated. He bent over and grabbed his knees while licking his lips between breaths. He tasted the salt of his hard work before wiping his brow and standing back up to catch his breath.

“Come on, sit down,” Sam said, patting the dark, rocky floor.

“Gotta do it fast, before you’re recovered. I still can’t believe how much longer it takes for you to get tired,” Mark added.

He nodded and joined the two on the floor. “I guess this is a pretty clear indicator that if there were such a thing as a Stamina stat, it would be tied most to Agility.”

The three of them looked to where Olivia continued to sprint, full speed, through the dark tunnel. Her long strides ate up the stretch of rocky terrain, her face pulled into a serious look of concentration.

“It’s only been a few days. Should she really be pushing herself like this?” Mark asked Sam.

Sam shrugged. “As far as I can tell, she’s totally healed. Has been since the day after we got back.”

Alex watched her, a bit concerned by some of her behavior since the group had gotten to the spinner colony. He’d hoped that she would love the magical creatures as much as he did, especially with their aptitude for spell work; however, it had quickly become apparent how uncomfortable she was around the large spiders.

Besides disliking the eight-legged creatures, Alex noticed a general mindset change. She was willing to push herself to the brink of collapse in their training sessions, but in the trip that they’d taken to the surface, she’d lost almost all of her previous confidence.

Where her past grace and deadly fluid fighting style had caused him to stare in awe, he now saw something more raw and brutal. She used less exaggerated movements, often opting to take a hit, rather than dodge it, using her own consume ability to increase her Vitality and natural regeneration temporarily. Nox had also become a clear part of her natural kit, and she relied on his power and ability to quickly assault from nearby shadows, almost more than she used her own weapons.

“Stop staring at her like that,” Mark whispered as she hit the midway point and turned to run back down the tunnel.

“I know, I’m just worried,” Alex responded.

“I get it, but she’s gonna get mad at you if you try to go all mother-hen mode again.”

“I did not—”

“Yeah, ya did,” Sam interrupted him.

Alex sighed. “Whatever. Let’s focus on getting this passive.” He reoriented his thoughts to the intent they’d all learned from Sarah. None of them had been able to gain her [Quick Recovery] passive skill, even with her very detailed notes.

The next ten minutes passed, and the only sounds in the tunnel came from the thrashing and one-sided combat that Sarah was experiencing a short distance away. The sounds echoed down the tunnel, and the group did their best to tune them out while focusing on gaining the skill.

When they recovered enough that they were no longer in the proper window to gain the recovery passive, they shifted focus to their personal projects.

Alex had created the plan to stay efficient, and the only thing he hadn’t accounted for was his girlfriend’s abnormally high Agility stat, which required her to do a lot more sprinting and training than the others in the group.

He looked over to where Valtherion lay next to Sam, curled into a tight coil. The Runic Apprentice amulet was wrapped and re-wrapped to fit around his neck, and he happily held a D rank mana stone in his mouth. Alex felt affection through their bond as he watched the suspiciously cat-like baby dragon slowly blink his eyes. With each flutter, they grew closer to being fully closed.

It grew quiet, and for several moments, all that could be heard was Olivia’s feet pounding against the rock. It wasn’t until they heard the shuffling of a second set of footsteps that they heard Sarah call out, “I got it!”

The group perked up as she rounded the bend and joined them.

“Nice, dude!”

“Congrats,” Sam added.

“What are you waiting for?” Alex asked, excited for his friend.

“Where’s Olivia? I want to wait for her to get back,” she said.

“Oh… that’s a great idea,” he said, laughing nervously.

It only took her a minute to turn around and join them. She pulled a bottle of water from her spatial pouch before giving Sarah a tired thumbs-up and some encouragement.

Sarah advanced to D rank right there, and the mana spinners were startled by the light show. Alex wasn’t sure if it was from the sight of the golden motes, from Sarah levitating a foot off the ground, or if they could tell that something had fundamentally changed about her.

Everyone congratulated her, and as Olivia sat to begin working on her [Quick Recovery] skill, the others took some time to help Sarah get used to her new stats. At Alex and Mark’s instruction, she did a few physical drills and stretches.

True to her nature, though, she looked at Alex with a shine in her eyes. “Can I try a few of my aura skills on you? I want to see if they feel different to you. I’ve already got a baseline from where I was at in E Rank, I’m hoping there’s a noticeable shift in their effectiveness.”

Alex held up both of his hands. “Why me?”

She gave him a look of mock consternation. “Because you’re most in tune with your aura. Now, come on. Let me test this out.”

“All right, all right.” He waved for Sarah to start her testing. With his split consciousness, he watched Olivia, who kept a skeptical eye on the mana spinners. “Liv, you okay?”

Her head jerked toward him. “Y-Yeah.” She opened her mouth as if to say something else, but clamped it shut before shaking her head and resuming training.

The group spent another half hour in the same spot, working on their own tasks. Sarah stretched her muscles and chatted with Olivia, who still sat on the floor with Nox recovering in her shadow. Mark and Sam both worked on gaining their next skills. Their tank was still working on gaining an earth-style movement skill, while Sam had pulled the old vine of thorns from his pouch that he’d previously been trying to create a skill with.

He smiled at his friends, watching all of them engrossed in their growth. It still made him uncomfortable that they were progressing so quickly, but the fact that everyone was now past D rank felt like a huge milestone. It felt silly to say it, so he kept his thoughts to himself.

Everyone is changing and adjusting well to the rapid progression. Olivia will heal in time, I’m sure of it. Now we just need to keep training and start making preparations over the coming weeks to help Olivia and Nox.

Nearby, a spinner wove webs against the wall in a pattern that was looking more and more like a spell circle by the day. Releasing a breath, Alex put his hands on his hips and didn’t try to stop the smile that spread across his face.

Three weeks later, the caves and tunnels of the mana spinner colony felt more like home than a hasty escape plan and refuge from the Night above.

Alex sat in his spot, his back comfortably cushioned by the mana silk that he’d been given by one of the spiders. As they spent more time in the colony, the team saw more of the pedestrian mana spinners, rather than only interacting with the hunters.

He’d learned that there were very few female spinners around, though there were plenty of male spinners not focused on hunting and combat. These were the ones that had gradually begun to bring Alex gifts.

At first, it was a point of teasing that Mark had a lot of fun with. The spinners would bring Alex small rolls of mana silk or pieces of driftwood from distant caverns. Occasionally, they’d also offer him plants, herbs, or mushrooms, but most of these he passed along to Sam.

It wasn’t until, in some of their downtime, that Alex had fashioned a small chair out of the wood and silk, that Mark had quickly stopped all teasing. As casually as possible, his large friend had asked oh-so-politely for a chair or a comfortable place to sit.

“Come on, man. Two weeks of sitting on this cave floor has been horrible!” he’d said. All of them went through a brief spurt of crafting, doing what they could to whittle the dead wood of the forest to create shoddy furniture.

As the weeks passed, they’d made small changes to the cavern to make it feel homey while falling into a grueling routine. The only sense of comfort that came from their training regime was that they knew what was coming and that things could be worse than they were.

That being said, Alex was shocked that no one had complained. Not once.

So now, he sat in his spot, flipping through the rapidly filling notebook pages. He removed a ballpoint pen and made a mark in the front of the book, as he did every morning. The tally marks reminded him of some prison movie scene where the character would scratch marks in the wall in an attempt to avoid losing their sanity.

A shuffling to his right drew his attention, and he looked up to see Sam rubbing his eyes and looking around. When they made eye contact, Sam stood quietly and made his way over to where Alex sat. “You’re already up?”

“I got the sleep I needed,” Alex said. “Why are you up?”

“I feel like I’m so close to getting my skill. Couldn’t sleep, just too excited.” Sam sat on the ground next to him. “How’s the new spell going?”

“I finished it last night. I just need to do some testing today.”

“Want to do it now?”

“Works for me. I was going to work on studying the sun elf ritual some more until you were up, but if you want to do it now, I’m game.”

Sam nodded. “I’ll supervise. What rune are you going to use?”

“I’ve only got the breeze and spark options at the moment. The setting pattern for Anchor is proving to be a bit harder than I thought. I think I’ll try Spark, and see if with the self-cast circle base, it will allow me to charge my body or muscles. If I could get something that would increase my reaction speed, that would be pretty perfect.”

“Makes sense. Your mind is already running fast with your Willpower.”

He nodded in agreement. “Yeah, the leveling has slowed down a bit, but it’s only going to climb higher.”

The healer shrugged. “Slowing down is probably worth it to let Sarah and Mark catch up.”

Alex just grunted in response, but stood and moved into a position that would be easier to move. “I’m going to give it a shot.” When Sam confirmed he was ready, Alex began to weave the spell.

Creating the base was a bit slower than normal, as the shape of the self-cast spell was created with intricate lines similar to the construction of the body tempering ritual he’d gone through. He’d also taken inspiration from the modified ward draining spell circle that he’d made. Rather than making a smaller spell circle with a hole in the middle for his hand, he created one large enough to ring around his body.

The spell formed, and he completed the final step easily by filling and setting the spark rune into the catalyst node. He pulsed his mana to activate it, but was confused as nothing happened.

There was a moment’s delay. Just long enough for his face to scrunch in confusion and for him to relax his body. “Why didn’t it—”

His entire body tensed, with every muscle from head to toe flexing at once. It took several excruciatingly long seconds for his body to stop twitching and his face to relax enough to open his eyes. When he did, he saw ethereal leaves falling around his head.

Groaning, he realized he was on the ground, only then hearing Sam’s laughter.

“Well,” he said through bouts of laughter, “at least you know it works.”

Despite the pain he felt, Alex couldn’t help but smile. Sam was trying so hard to keep the volume of his laugh down that it came out high-pitched, slipping through his teeth. Holding it back only seemed to make things funnier, and soon, Sam was laughing so hard that he was crying on the floor of the cavern.

All of them had become lighter sleepers, and soon Mark, Sarah, and Olivia joined them. Their large friend rubbed his eyes, and when the situation was explained, the others shared in Sam’s amusement.

“You really thought it was going to give you some sort of speed ability?” Olivia asked.

“Dude, that’s too funny. You made a taser spell and tried it on yourself first?”

This book was originally published on NovelBin. Check it out there for the real experience.

Sarah just covered her face with her hand.

“Yeah, you know… like fast-twitch muscles or something? I don’t know. Okay? I thought it made sense. Especially with the intent that goes into the rune and all…” He tapered off, hearing how dumb the idea was, even as he explained the thought processes.

When they calmed down, Olivia asked, “What’s the next step?”

“What do you mean?”

“What are you going to do next with the spell circles?”

“Well, there’s a ton of testing I can still do with this new circle base. Namely, see how it interacts with other runes.”

“Can you cast it on me?” Mark asked.

“I don’t think— actually, I don’t know.” He adjusted the hat on his head. “I’ve been thinking about it as a self-cast spell this whole time because the body tempering rituals are used on the person inside of them. But I guess if I build the spell circle around you, then it would focus on you?”

Sarah made a “hmm” sound.

“Maybe it’s better to call it a ‘targeting’ spell, then?” Olivia offered. “If it’s just focusing on the person within the circle, then target seems more appropriate.”

He nodded in agreement. “Yeah, I like it. Mark, want to let me try?”

“Oh, no, no, no. I was just asking the question, ya know? Hypothetically.”

The group got another laugh until Olivia asked, “What about if you make the spell large enough to cover a group? Does it hit multiple people?”

“Now, that… sounds like something worth testing,” Alex said, with an evil glint in his eye.

Sarah turned around and returned to her stuff without saying anything, very intentionally ignoring the conversation and any possibility of being pulled into testing. Mark followed her lead, whistling innocently as he walked away and pretending not to hear Sam call after him.

“On a more serious note, are you ready for next week?” Alex asked Sam, keeping a close eye on Olivia’s reaction as well.

“I think so. I don’t think I can be much more prepared. [Cure] hit Journeyman proficiency, and if I can finish creating this new skill, I’ll be as ready as I can be.”

“How are you feeling, Liv?”

She gave him a thumbs-up. “Good to go. Nox could use the Night source to feed on, so it’s pretty good timing. Even using [Consume], he’s only going to be able to fight off the curse on his own for so long.”

He nodded in acknowledgement. “The next month, we can focus almost completely on picking smart fights and working on our teamwork. Now that those two are D rank, no one should feel like a weak link. We need to get into our roles and learn to rely on one another.”

After discussing anticipated challenges and ongoing training, the group dispersed to focus on their individual projects. Sam planned to cultivate a garden in the cavern, and Olivia wanted to toy with the ability to incorporate Nox into her movement skill as a shadow, hoping to enhance her combat mobility and versatility.

The jagged cliffside bore the faded scars and scorch marks of their past battles. It had served as a perfect strategic location to lure creatures of the Night away from their native area in the swampy forest to have a more controlled battle.

The group’s movements were crisp and sharp after the weeks of grinding live drills on small monster packs. Their teamwork had solidified, and their levels continued to increase. They went on several hunts each week, but the real increase in their team’s power came from something else.

“Mark!”

“On it,” he responded. The large warrior lunged forward and rammed his shield into the flanking creature. Using him as the point of the formation allowed the rest of the group to easily pivot and pull back.

While the individual beetles posed little threat, experience had taught them that one beetle meant an incoming swarm.

“Shit,” Alex mumbled to himself. “Mark, Val is going to need a second. Is your shout off cooldown?”

“Yep,” Mark said, stomping hard on the tire-sized beetled at his feet.

“Swarm coming from the left.” His mirage had been destroyed only seconds before, and he knew they’d need to buy time before Val had enough mana.

Sarah played her flute and buffed the group before quickly switching to her bow and knocking an arrow. At the same time, Mark used his favorite new skill. The earth beneath the soles of his feet softened and enveloped the soles of his boots before tunneling in the direction he desired.

From Alex’s vantage, it looked like he was skiing on the dry, flat ground. Somehow, the movement looks graceful despite Mark’s size. He spaced his feet in a staggered manner and leaned forward with his shield to slide across the open space.

Alex felt a sense of calm wash over him and felt that nothing in the world could move him unless he wanted it to. His heartbeat began to slow, and his breathing came easier. The incoming group of monsters would be easily handled. He looked to his right and saw Sam holding his staff in front of himself, gripping the wooden token tied to the top with his free hand. A circle of mana-formed grass bloomed in a thirty-meter radius around him as his trait activated.

They nodded to each other, and Alex scanned the area once more before the threat arrived. Nox hunched over the beetle Mark had just finished off, and he knew Olivia was nearby. In this situation, he didn’t expect to see his girlfriend participate, as large numbers of monsters weren’t her specialty. Instead, he knew that she’d be running interference for other beasts that may be drawn to the mana of the fighting.

There was a tug on his consciousness, so he looked up to see Valtherion flying overhead. The powerful beating of his wings kept him aloft. It was becoming almost impossible not to notice the amphiptere, as he’d begun to grow once more.

Not exactly the stealthy overhead support anymore, huh, buddy?

The distance was too great to see clearly, but he was sure that his bond rolled his eyes.

“I told you, I would get more big.”

Bigger. The right way to say it is ‘I would get bigger.’

“I would get bigger,” his companion echoed seriously.

To Alex, it didn’t matter that the various tones that Valtherion had started to take over in recent weeks; hearing him learn how to speak in full sentences had been exciting for everyone. The group's attention and encouragement fueled his enthusiasm for learning.

Good job. Now, make sure to conserve your mana. Listen for the signal, then the rest is on you.

There was no mental response, but a clear cry could be heard from overhead. It sounded somewhere between an eagle’s cry and a human whoop of excitement, which reminded Alex of a kid who was so excited they didn’t know how to express it.

He breathed deeply, enjoying the moments of silence before the fight. Over the previous week, the air had grown colder once more. It was no longer the stale, humid air that it had been when they entered the Rift two months before.

A horrible, deep buzzing could be heard well before the cloud of large bugs appeared. They spread out as they approached, seeking revenge on their murdered hive-mate. Alex, Sam, and Sarah stood together, calmly watching the approaching swarm.

It made his skin crawl not to move, prepare, or lay spells as dozens of monsters approached, but he knew there was only one spell he needed to prepare. The tactic revolved around one of Mark’s advanced skills, and the one he’d gained with his class evolution. Despite Mark’s important role, Valtherion's [Mana Breath] was the linchpin of their entire strategy.

As the buzzing monsters descended on their group, Mark threw both of his arms out wide and yelled. It wasn’t a taunting call like he’d used before. Instead, it was something more aggressive. Alex had to admit, how the mana flowed through Mark’s vocal cords and allowed him to release a bestial roar was downright cool.

The dirt on the rocky ground around Mark was pushed back as a small gust of wind accompanied the skill’s activation. In unison, all the bugs turned toward the armored warrior. Their descent slowed, and through Alex's vision, he saw faint waves of purple rippling around each monster's wings.

Sarah drew in a breath and shifted her weight, straining her neck to see Mark as the buzzing black cloud surrounded him. She drew her bow and loosed several arrows, each one hitting a beetle in the side, just below its wings, and causing it to fall from the air. The sound of the wings and chirping grew uncomfortably loud and caused Alex to wince, unintentionally hunching his shoulders.

“Not yet… now!” he coached himself through the timing, waiting until all the horde was clumped up nicely over and around Mark.

He held up both of his hands and let threads of mana flow from them. He forged a large spell circle in the air over them, creating the same spell circle he used when firing his wand bolts through them. Normally, the bolts of mana were augmented by the spark rune in the spell circle, but they reused a plan that had worked more than once now.

While he worked, Sarah loosed several more arrows before switching back to her flute and playing several long notes. He didn’t feel any change in his mental or physical state, so he knew the buffs were meant for Mark.

Valtherion descended and flared his wings to stop just shy of the spell circle. Rearing his head back, he activated [Mana Breath], allowing it to pass through the alteration circle. The invisible cloud of mana mist transformed as it crossed the threshold.

Long, spindly arcs of lightning spread out in a continuous wave. It flashed bright enough to cause Sam to raise his forearm over his eyes. The small storm of lightning continued for several seconds.

When the skill was finished, they observed the carnage and enjoyed the kill notifications as they rolled in.

A mound of black carapace corpses covered their friend, and the trio observing the scene moved closer. “That one always makes me nervous,” Sarah said.

“I know what you mean. I like the other swarm plan… at least I can see and help him in that one.” Sam kicked at the ground as they moved.

Alex cast the directional spell base with a breeze rune to create a similar effect that he normally got with the gust ritual. The only differences were that he didn’t need to blow through the back of the spell circle to activate it, and the new spell was much stronger.

He pulsed mana through the spell, and a blast of wind surged from behind them. The gust was strong enough that he had to hold on to his hat as it whipped at their clothes. The wind continued past them and over the fallen beetles, pushing the corpses off the mound and back against the cliff face. Looking at the rock wall, Alex noticed fresh scorch marks mingling with the older, faded ones.

When the bugs were cleared, they saw Mark.

He rested on one knee, with his shield braced on his shoulder in front of him, angled at a 45-degree angle up toward the sky. It looked like a dramatic position, especially with the number of bugs that had descended upon him. At least… it looked like that to the normal eye.

Through his Heavenly Eye, Alex could see a dome of grey-blue mana that surrounded Mark. It started an inch or two in front of his shield and spread out to fully engulf him.

Ending the skill, Mark let out an explosive breath. “Man, it’s hard to hold the skill that long. Sam, you just like the other plan because it uses your new [Thorns] skill, and you get more experience. Plus, that one hurts way, way more than this. I’ve actually got to take hits for that one to work.” He gave the younger man an exasperated look as he joined the group and bumped Alex’s fist.

“Nice job,” Alex said.

“Well, yeah… the experience is way better on that one. But it’s not like I like to see you get hit or something,” Sam said, color flushing to his cheeks.

“Good one,” Olivia called as she emerged from the wood line to join them.

Nox reemerged from her shadow and trotted over to the pile of Night creatures to consume them.

“Thanks, dude,” Mark bumped her fist too as she joined them.

Val joined them and attempted to wrap around Alex's shoulders. Despite having grown too large for such a position, the young amphiptere stubbornly continued to claim the position.

The group laughed as his wings and thickening tail knocked Alex's hat off his head. Alex simply smiled at Val's preening noises. He was clearly proud of his performance in the fight.

“I like that plan,” he said aloud to Sam.

“You just like using that [Mana Breath] skill,” the healer responded.

“Of course!” Valtherion’s golden slitted eyes closed as he lifted his head, and the corners of his mouth naturally turned up in what looked suspiciously like a smile.

Olivia snorted. “I liked it more when you just said, Big Boom.”

The companion perked up and looked at Alex. “Can we do Big Boom?”

Alex gave Olivia a withering glare and said, “No, buddy. The fight’s over, and it’s going to get dark soon. We need to start heading back to the colony.”

“Wait,” Sarah said, reading a screen only visible to her eyes. “I got my class advancement offered… The evolution sounds weird, though.”

The whole group perked up at that and moved to congratulate her. Olivia gave her a hug and quick congratulations before moving back to the forest to watch for approaching threats. “Take your time,” she said as she waved over her shoulder. “This is a big moment! I’ll hear more about it when we get back.”

Sarah smiled at her and then shared her screen with the rest of the team.

“What?!” Mark dragged out the word, and his voice rose to a pitch that truly didn’t match his large size and muscular frame.

Sam laughed and stepped away from Mark.

“Bard?” Alex asked. “As in singing and telling stories? Maybe it’s more like the class in video games.”

“Video games?” she asked, her face scrunching up. “What do bards do in video games? I thought it would be more like the literal meaning.”

“No! Come on, man,” Mark held both arms out and bent his legs, looking at Sarah with wide eyes and a wider grin. “Bard as in the support class in games. It literally has to be that. They play instruments and buff up their teammates with the music.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, that’s essentially what you’re doing already, just mixing the bow in there to fill the downtime. You use your aura skills and the flute to give us buffs. I would bet you anything that’s why the System gave you this class.”

Alex thought about it and felt that he had to agree. “He’s not wrong. What you’ve been doing is extremely similar to how I’ve seen them portrayed in some games. My guess is, if you pick the class, you’ll get abilities more focused on the combination of your aura manipulation and music. It would also probably be a more flexible class, something geared toward either non-combat or combat. Empath seems like it’s almost full non-combat, from how you’ve described things, and focuses almost all the way into the aura side of things.”

Sarah read the message again as he spoke.

“I feel like that’s probably your deciding factor. I know you’re out here fighting right now, but I don’t know if you’ll always want to do that. You should give it some thought and decide—”

Sarah surprised them all by making her decision immediately, causing the window to wink out of existence.

The group was silent as they stared at her.

“Well?” Mark asked eagerly.

She smiled at them all. “I chose Bard. You were right. I think it’s perfect.”

Alex let out a dramatic breath. “We could have talked about a bit more. What if I was wrong? You’re usually the one to over-analyze things.”

“Ehm,” she coughed lightly. “I’ve already been giving this a lot of thought. I don’t want this to be a one-time thing. I want to be a part of the team.”

Mark grinned and gave her a hug.

“Well, I’m glad it’s a good class fit for you at least. What did it give you?”

“Whoa,” Alex and Mark said at the same time.

“That’s awesome,” Sam said excitedly.

Sarah smiled. “I think it fits well. When we get back to the colony, I’ll test out the skills.”

Alex nodded and gave her a high-five before looking at the rest of the team. “Let’s start moving. Normal formation on the way back. Everyone can work on their own projects tonight. We’ve got three more weeks until it’s time to head back to the HA camp and meet up with Edwin. I need to get a firm timeline from Olivia on how long she thinks that Nox can keep fighting off the infection. It could give us a big edge if he can hold out until we meet with Edwin. Fresh supplies and skill books could be the deciding factor in a fight with Unity.”

He scooped up his hat and dusted it off, the worn leather looking just like it always had. Everyone in the group was looking at him as he organized his thoughts. “We can start doing some recon before we go to meet Edwin. We’ll take a few days to rest and relax in the camp. While we’re there, we can finalize our plans and head out to find the Aspect. Sound good?”

Everyone agreed.

“Man, a break sounds so nice,” Mark said, dragging out the ‘so.’

Sam and Sarah agreed readily. “Yeah, a nice long shower sounds so nice.”

“Oh, do you think they have showers?”

“Definitely.”

They made idle chatter until Nox was finished, then returned to the spinner colony, with thoughts of a well-deserved break only a few weeks away.