Jackson volunteered for first watch, there were a lot of reasons, but most of all he had a lot of spell Ideas to try. 

I really should focus more on watching but these ideas have been clawing the back of my head a while now.

Dungeons, as previously stated, have been confirmed to manifest in places of high mana density, those dungeons, as a result, have control over anywhere their mana touches, things like forming mazes, artificially producing monsters, along with traps, if the dungeon core is more sapient, then this happens to an even greater degree.

Mana itself, is also classified as an extension of your body, what if Jackson took that 100% to the max?

He started slow, making an false aura of "loose" mana around himself, just mana, no spells. On it's own, the mana would eventually disperse, his next step would hopefully remedy that. He focused on stabilising the mana to stay in a certain amount of area around him. Then, he focused on the image of himself, forcing to make the mana connected to him, like another pair of limbs. It wasn't easy, obviously, it's hard to imagine youself as a rock. After about an hour of trying to reinforce the image, he tried casting a spell, away from him, he tried to cast Increase Temperature on a rock he spotted. 

All the spells he knew he worked by touch, to use it without touch, he had to extend a tiny mana construct to what he wanted to cast it on and then cast the spell, and most of the time it failed. 

His Local Temperature Control spell worked on the same premise, it was still attached to him, or else he'd be unable to properly sustain it, same with Mana Shield. But if he were to put his own mana in a passive state in an aura around him, he'd be able to directly manifest a spell within that aura, hopefully.

He got up, and walked over to the rock, and it was, sadly, cold.

Drat, my aura's gone. Hmm, maybe use more mana this time? How much do I have left?

Hmm, I'll wait till it gets up to 60, then cast it with about 50 or so, I'm gonna get a horrible headache from this.

He started to use Prioritize Mana Regen then had an unexpected guest.

"Hey Jackson, whatcha doin?" Barry was speaking quietly.

"AHhhh- oh, sorry, you scared me, hope I didn't wake anyone." his cheeks started to get red.

"What are you doing? You looked like You were in a trance, and I don't have the best mana sense but it felt like you were doing something?"

"Ah, sorry, I've had this spell I've been wanting to try out for a bit, I probably should keep watch, why are you up?"

"I dunno? My brain wanted me up? Don't feel that tired so I thought I'd join ya."

"Ah, ok, I think I'm close to getting the spell, though. So, i'm gonna try to finish it, if you could keep watch for me while I do it?"

"Sure, don't have much else to do."

"Thanks!"

"No problem."

This time he made his mana more dense putting 50 mana into it, but, he noticed something off. It was as if... the spell was being surpressed? 

Maybe it's interfering with the dungeon? And in turn it's being surpressed, the mana density is greater here. Maybe I should compress it around me to up the density?

He compressed it up to around half a meter from his body. It felt like his aura was stable now, so he set a pebble within the radius and used Increase Temperature.

Now comes the moment of truth.

He touched the rock, and it was warm, his spell wor-

"Uh, Jackson? We've got company!"

Frick

A rat started running at him, looking strangely enraged.

Frickfrickfrick

He retracted his aura, intantly gaining his 50 mana back, to be exact, 2 points less.

He drew his sword, no time for an arrow.

Then he quickly buffed himself with Boster Dexterity and used Dash for a quick speed increase. And just in time, dashed to the side barely avoiding a claw coming his way, the rat was focusing solely on him, strange. He gave a swift cut to the side of the rat, followed by another, deeper one on the side, it was originally ment for it's head but the rat moved just in time, combined with the weight of the sword and Jackson's comparatively low strength, it had enough time to easily move, not dodge, but move. Before the rat could get a hit in, he stabbed it in the stomach, effectively ending the fight, then stabbed it's neck.

No time for rest though.

"I could use a little help over here!"

He ran over to help dispatch the other two rats, but strangely, they diverted their attention to Jackson immediately. Even stranger. He had to barely parry a claw strike, and still got hit by the other rat. All in two seconds.

Both Barry and Jackson were pretty surprised. Thankfully, Barry quickly ended it with a few strikes as he was a proper swordsman.

"What was that about? Are you okay? Why did they just attack you like that?"

"I don't know, th- oh wait, oh no, sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

God I'm an idiot.

"Are you guys okay?"

Everyone was up by now, this is embarrassing.

"Yeah we're fine, Jackson got swiped though."

"I'm sorry."

"What are you apologizing for"

"I, um, I- I think I may have attracted them here."

I feel so guilty, geez, I'm an idiot.

"How would you do that?"

Geez barely holding back tears here, okay, in, and out, feel bad later.

"Ok, phew, I was practicing a spell that works kind of like how a dungeon does, and I think that brought them over here..."

The silence was deafining, his stomach hurt

I wanna hide in a hole and never come out...

"Really? Well be more careful next time."

"You're not mad?"

"Well, I didn't get hurt, you did, I think that's punishment enough. And if I got on other people for their mistakes I'd be a hypocrite."

Then the moderator gave a little bit of reassurance

"In the adventuring business, everyone messes up, we adventure, we don't look at every detail. And besides, messing up is very common with adventures, we don't necessarily train our people often."

"Ok, um, thanks, that makes me feel better, sorry for waking you all up though." 

"I'm not a morning person, but eh, I'll sleep again eventually, I don't care, well I don't mind, I'm still really tired." Sarah was still groggy, even after the rude awakening. "What's the spell supposed to do anyways?"

"It's supposed to let me cast things from far away, like how dungeon cores control things without touching them directly."

"Hmm? Teach me sometime, I've heard of people using spells like that and they help tons. I'm going back to sleep now, and please, don't wake me up this time."

Barry, gave Jackson a concerned look. "Uh, your arm?"

"Oh, yeah, ouch, probably should get to that."

...

Domain of Authority will be useful for sure, it was a shame he'd be unable to practice it a bit before the boss battle, but at least he had it now.

There is a healing spell I want to learn but I should get back to watching, it'll take a while to learn that though, all the spells I've been learning aren't complicated really. Don't know how I'd do it though, STEM cells are gonna be a bit hard to just make, maybe it'll be easier than expected, who knows. Maybe I could do something else, like learn a healing spell based off intent? Nah, healing is really precise, in a way, all magic is, it's a science after all, you never need intent, it just makes it a whole lot easier, I don't need intent to use Increase Metabolism cause I've used it so much It's like second nature and I have a great understanding of it.

...

Time for sleep, I don't need as much lately cause that ability, but sleep is nice. Who has watch next? Yeah it was Marshall, he didn't wake up earlier, must be a heavy sleeper.