Mike’s POV

“Well? What the situation?” Yeong-Gi had returned and I quickly voiced what was on all our minds.

“The illusions are gone, but the caves have been overrun with monsters.” He responded as he sat down next to the fire.

“What about Hella?” Yuuto, the leader of the moon party asked.

“I haven’t seen her, though I did find something odd…” Yeong-Gi fell silent but continued after a few moments; “There was a large amount of food at one of the cave entrances, barrels of preserved meats and bags of wheat. Not something that could have been placed there by those monsters.”

“You think she’s somewhere in those caves?” I asked.

“I don’t think even she can survive in there. It’s impossible to tell those illusions apart from real enemies, you saw what happened to Mikhail and Gianna.” Yuuto responded as he threw some more wood on the fire.

“Just because we haven’t found a way, doesn’t mean there isn’t one. And besides, what do we really know about her; She says she’d been here a month when we came, but why should we trust her? We’ve been here about a month now and we’re nowhere near as strong as her, it doesn’t add up.” Natsumi, the archer of the moon party interrupted and voiced what we’d all been thinking for a while now.

We fell silent for a while and I eventually spoke up. “Whether or not she’s lying to us isn’t important right now. No matter how you look at it, we won’t survive without her help; We need to reclaim those caves and get enough food to survive.”

“More, actually, the pit is opening in a week. We’ll need to feed whoever gets out.” Yeong-Gi jumped on the new topic and continued; “We have to get that food I was telling you about, there is enough there to last us at least a month.”

“… I suppose we’ll have to. Do you have a plan?” Yuuto didn’t like listening to others, but he had no choice to give in.

“Most of the monsters near that area are nocturnal, so we should move in at dawn, they’ll be the least active then. If we can get Tia to join us, we won’t have any trouble securing the food safely.”

I frowned at Yeong-Gi’s words, although she wasn’t actively hostile like Mikhail had been, Tia wasn’t what you would call ‘cooperative’; She was almost always by herself and refused to help out with anything that needed to be done. She was always off somewhere training with her quarterstaff or practising her magic.

Regardless, Yeong-Gi was right; If we could get her to help us, we’d be able to secure that food without issue. I didn’t know exactly how strong she was, but she was probably around the same strength as Yeong-Gi.

“How are we supposed to convince her? She won’t even talk to us.” I voiced my concerns and Natsumi responded after a few moments.

“…Maybe your sister could talk to her, they seem to get along alright.” I thought for a while, but realised she was right; Among everyone, Emma was the best at magic. This caused Tia to occasionally talk to her. I didn’t know just how well they got along, but she was our best chance.

“I’ll ask Emma to talk to her, you guys tell the others to prepare.”

 

From where I was sitting, I could see the sun rising over the horizon.

As the rays of light reached me, I spoke up: “Give the signal.”

Next to me, my sister, Emma, raised her hands to the sky and closed her eyes.

She was silent for a few moments until, eventually, white vapour started appearing from her palm.

The vapour condensed into a ball of ice the size of a golf ball and, without any sound, it fired up in the air.

It ascended quickly until, a few seconds later, it exploded into a large white cloud.

The explosion wasn’t loud and it didn’t contain a lot of power, but it served its function well.

As Tia, who had been crouched down next to me, silently moved into the clearing, I could see Yeong-Gi do the same on the opposite side.

I stood up from my sitting position and got ready to rush into the clearing if anything went wrong.

Although I couldn’t see them, I knew the moon party was doing the same thing.

We agreed on this plan beforehand after all; Yeong-Gi and Tia would first sneak close to the food to make sure there weren’t any monsters around and would then give us a signal.

If something happened they’d hold off whoever was attacking them until everyone arrived to support them.

The most dangerous part was happening right now; If Yeong-Gi or Tia were to be discovered now, they couldn’t help each other to fight off the enemy. They’d have to do it alone.

They’d be fine if there were just a few goblins or wolves, but if a family of those giant bears lurked in the cave behind the food, they’d be screwed.

“They’ve stopped” Emma whispered and I started moving forward.

I anxiously watched them and didn’t notice the figure that had appeared from the cave.

“It’s a girl!” When Emma exclaimed quite loudly, I finally spotted the blonde girl standing there.

“Why would…” Before I could continue, another person entered my vision.

With her blood-red eyes, those claws that shouldn’t appear on a human and that killer figure and that dark-red hair, I easily identified the person who’d appeared.

“It’s Hella!” Before I could finish my thought, I could hear a yell from the other end of the clearing.

“Let’s go” I spoke and Emma and I entered the clearing.

 

Hella’s POV

A short while after I returned with an elf in tow, things got back on track.

Lots of monsters had spread out through the caves as they ran from the zombie vine’s illusions, but, now that it had been defeated, clearing them out was quite easy.

With the food from the lizardmen, we could focus more on security.

The caves that we lived in were divided into rooms with some simple doors and the caves leading deeper underground were properly blocked off; There wouldn’t be any monsters entering from there.

Ryan, who hadn’t had much to do thus far used all his time to direct the work.

We had planned to build a sturdy fence around the area, but we decided to postpone it until after the new people arrived from the pit.

Hestri, however, also proved useful.

So far we had no clue about how magic worked and how to use it, but with her knowledge and experience, we finally started progressing.

Although we’d been directly manipulating mana so far, this wasn’t the proper way to use magic according to her.

Proper magic was only possible through spell formulae; by weaving mana into patterns and symbols, it would allow you to manipulate the surroundings and unleash true magic power.

It was possible to replicate the magical effect by directly manipulating mana, but it would strain the brain more; anything past simple elemental manipulation, like creating a small fire, was considered impractical and overly complicated.

Hestri taught us a few simple spell formulae and they were automatically recorded in the grimoire I’d gotten with my ‘Prime Magician’ title.

The grimoire turned out to be something amazing: when I send mana into a spell’s page, it would instantly call forth the effect.

It wouldn’t strain my mental energy and, especially with high classed magic, it would greatly reduce cast time.

At last, I also learned the identity of the purple coloured mana that I could control; It was mana of the void element.

According to Hestri, it was considered rare and not a lot was known about it.

Since I now knew the identity of this mana, I was much more successful in manipulating it.

When I made it rotate rapidly in front of me, it would create a small space in which I could store object, like my bag of holding.

At first, it took a long time to create even a crack, but now I could open a space of one cubic metre in just a few seconds.

Although it didn’t have close to the capacity of my bag of holding, I could keep bigger objects in it.

We’d managed to do more than we’d planned to prepare for this month’s pit, so I had nothing left to do but to wait.

With four hours left, I took an object from my item space and started studying it.

Since I got it, I hadn’t had any time to do so and I quickly discovered how to use it.

I led my mana into the ‘ball of specialisation’  and a window popped up.

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Current class:

Adon’s advisor

Challenger

Available class changes:

               Warrior

               Magician

               Priest

               Elementalist

               Hunter

               Rogue

               Assassin

               …

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 A huge list of all kinds of classes appeared.

When I interacted with any of them a small explanation of the class appeared.

After looking through several, I figured out roughly how classes seemed to work:

All classes had some influence on how quickly you’d be able to earn status points through both training and levelling up.

For example, someone with the class warrior would earn strength and endurance points quicker than a priest or a magician, whilst a ranger would more easily increase his dexterity.

Apart from that, most classes also had some kind of effect, like granting a skill or increasing the power of certain abilities.

Elementalist, for example, would increase the power of element-based magic, like fire magic.

I researched a bit more and realised that I’d be able to change my ‘Challenger’ class with another if I used this sphere.

If I changed my class, I wouldn’t be able to do so again for at least a year.

I searched through the list of classes and eventually narrowed it down to the most powerful classes available to me. 

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Limitless mana handler

Description: You are adept at directly utilizing mana and aren’t bound by spell formulae. You have obtained a shard of divinity. 

Effect: Increase mana sensitivity and mana control greatly. Weaken the mana boundary of the skin, making it easier to expel mana from your body. When a certain level of mental strength is reached, your ability to manipulate mana extends to the energies the world is built upon.

Level-up: +1% Strength, +1% Endurance, +4% Dexterity, +25% Mental

 

Limitless core champion

Description: You have condensed a mana-core without assistance. You have created a working mana circuit without assistance. You have obtained a shard of divinity.

Effect: Increase mana sensitivity and mana control greatly. Allows the use of other kinds of energies. Increases mana’s effect on the body. Increases the mana growth speed of the body. Teaches knowledge of advanced grade mana paths. Removes racial growth limit.

Level-up: +5% Strength, +5% Endurance, +5% Dexterity, +15% Mental

 

Dragon blood magician

Description: You have learned to use magic. The blood of dragons courses through your veins.

Effect: Increase mana sensitivity and mana affinity to the racial limit. Increases mana control greatly. Able to construct spell formulae with less mental strength. Increases magic resistance to the racial limit. Teaches all known spell formulae up to advanced grade.

Level-up: +1% Strength, +1% Endurance, +2% Dexterity, +25% Mental

 

Immortal king

Description: You have the ‘The pioneer’ title. You have obtained a shard of divinity.

Effect: You won’t age. Physical and magic resistance is increased to the racial limit. Effect of title ‘The pioneer’ is increased massively. When your mental stat is at double that of someone, they will be put under the ‘dominated’ effect. Your offspring will obtain the ‘Child of the immortal king’ title.

Level-up: +2% Strength, +10% Endurance, +2% Dexterity, +10% Mental 

 

World wanderer

Description: You have been to multiple worlds. You have obtained a shard of divinity.

Effect: You are able to bypass dimensional boundaries. You will learn all languages of any world you visit. You are able to stabilise dimensional rifts, creating gates between dimensions. No world will be hazardous to you by nature.

Level-up: +2% Strength, +2% Endurance, +6% Dexterity, +20% Mental

 

Primordial smith

Description: you have ‘the first smith’ title. You have obtained a shard of divinity.

Effect: any item you craft will be legend rank or higher. You can craft divine rank items. Item effects will be twice as effective for you. You’ll learn how to make any item when you come in contact with it. ‘Divine transfiguration’ skill granted.

Level-up: +5% Strength, +6% Endurance, +10% Dexterity, +3% Mental

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