Chương 30: Chapter Thirty: Levels Please

"Run that by me one more time, please."

"Well, I mean they aren't technically free, but your trainer has been taking you out to level up so you can't get your class, right?"

"Elaborate."

"Eh…I mean you know, because we get our class at level 25 and we need it for the monster wave coming up."

"Go on."

"…I mean there isn't much else to say. We need the strength from the extra levels and the class to survive the fight. Bertrum said that the wave happens every six months and is basically a huge onslaught on the Veil that we have to help defend against alongside the guards at the wall."

"Continue."

"…"

"Keep going."

"Are you alright man?"

"Don't stop now."

"…"

"Please, I want to hear more about what you learned so I can fully understand just how much I am being screwed over by my mentor." The group just sits in awkward silence while I work on restraining the overwhelming frustration that currently threatens to overtake me. Wade no longer responds to my questions, so I turn to Nikki, who visibly recoils underneath my gaze.

"Just how much progress have all of you all made? What is your level?"

"Um, uh…" I watch as she pulls up her Status while struggling to respond. I already know the answer will set me off, but I also started Floor Two with a higher level than the rest of them, so if it is just a little difference, then maybe I can manage.

"I'm at level 21 right now." …Eh? I leave the barracks immediately and head back to the basement. I don't want to hear any more propaganda from the traitors in my group. If they want to power level without my consent, then they can do it all they like. I will become something incomprehensible to them. I will push all of my skills higher than their entire level. By the time the asshole-warlock comes back tomorrow morning, I will reach level 10 with four of my skills.

POV: Wade Bruesnen"Wade, your friend is weird." I shrug as Nikki waits for Sebastian to leave the room before speaking again. This isn't the first time I have heard this exact same comment from Nikki. In fact, I think almost everyone in our group has said something similar over the course of the time we had been waiting for the trainers to arrive.

"Give him a break, Nikki. Sounds like he is having a rough time with his mentor. I mean, you saw how they treated him during the selection process." The girl brushes a long lock of dark hair behind her ear before crossing her slender arms. So far, the entire time I have known Nikki, she has been more outspoken about her thoughts than everyone else. I still don't know exactly why she was in the hospital at the time we were taken, but I can safely say that she has adapted better than most of us in the group.

"The only thing I remember about the selection was the results Garf mentioned after that guy was tested on the mana analyzer. It doesn't really seem like he was having too hard a time on Floor One if he came out at level 11."

"So what?"

"What do you mean, so what? Sebastian is a freak-show who still hasn't even told us how he got through the first floor. All we know about the guy is what you have told us. Even when we talk to him, Sebastian looks like he is on the verge of losing it. You are trying to tell me the guy who's literally a walking heater isn't a bit unstable?" Nikki continues to air out her obvious suspicion while the others stay silent.

Kathryn doesn't seem like she disagrees with what Nikki is saying, but watching Angus work up the courage to speak up against her is endearing. Before he finally gets the nerve to do so, I interrupt the younger girl's tirade.

"My buddy has been in a hospital dealing with who knows what for the last few years. Don't you think we can give him a bit of slack for behaving a bit strange? Also, didn't you notice? There was no heat coming off of him this time. Clearly, he got a hold of whatever skill he was having a problem with." I attempt to rebuttal in a way that should stem her unease for a little while longer.

I know that most of the group doesn't really trust Sebastian yet, but I can tell that my friend has been trying his best to get along with everyone else. I just have to wait until he has a chance to prove himself when we need him later on the floor. After that, everyone should be a lot more accepting and realize he is a genuinely good guy. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

"Great point Wade. How about we talk about his skill then? Are we ever going to talk about the fact that we left him in the cave on purpose? How his loose skill gave us some sort of mana radiation poisoning that we didn't even know about until seeing that creepy nurse that works here? With his erratic behavior and that freak skill of his, that guy is basically a bomb waiting to go off. Also, no one here seems to be wondering how the goddamn cat in your hands got here either!

I mean, are we seriously just going to ignore 'Pawl' all the time? What kind of name is that anyway?" This argument seems to make Angus's growing rebuttal die off, and the boy slumps a bit and walks back over to his bed. It seems that Sebastian's efforts to befriend Angus haven't been enough to get the other boy to defend him just yet.

Nikki's continued efforts to trash talk Sebastian have begun to annoy me, but I don't let my feelings get the best of me as I can easily recognize that the entire situation has been bothering her for a while now. At this point, I don't think it's just a matter of Sebastian and Pawl's appearance, but rather the entirety of The Pillar that is wearing at her patience.

"If you care so much Nikki, just talk to the guy. Sebastian isn't the type to attack someone just for being honest with him. In fact, I'd guess that it would make him happy. Also, you heard Nurse Sella. That mana poisoning was nowhere near strong enough to do anything to us, especially with the stats we have now. Plus, you saw how he reacted when you told him your level, right? You should be a higher level than him now, so there isn't anything to worry about."

Nikki grumbles for a minute about me being too close to the situation to see the truth, but afterward she and Kathryn head back out for training. I am thankful to have calmed her down again, but I really wish that she and the others would get over this suspicion. Vince himself said to trust Sebastian at least for now, but it wasn't enough to satisfy everyone else just yet. They always ask how I can trust the strange and skinny man that appeared out of nowhere.

But how can I explain to them that my old middle school friend is the very reason I am still alive to defend him today?

I find myself in the basement much sooner than I had planned. What was supposed to be relaxing evening without the presence of the asshole-warlock has quickly become a solo training session. Without the constant badgering of a man telling me to shift the emission vent to my ass or something, I plan on pushing myself beyond normal. Making my way straight to the testing room, I wave my access gem over the panel and march straight to the Mana Blueprint Archive on the wall.

It doesn't take me long to find the array that I was specifically banned from using. Unfortunately for Lirin, I am well aware that the archive has a backdoor key that the trainer uses on occasion after I would steal the main key to use at night when he was away. I wave the backdoor key over the lock panel, and quickly activate the array while changing the settings to the highest setting I can handle currently without it affecting my practice.

Instantly, the room's atmosphere becomes heavy as dense mana waves saturate the space. The process itself doesn't affect my skills as one might think, but rather my body. I have used this array to the point where I barely acknowledge its effects and instead turn my attention fully toward my newest experiment attempt. Moving to the center of the room, I shift my emission vent to the spot between my two shoulder blades.

I had found out during one of the exercises that this was the spot in which it took the least amount of focus to release my radiation. After I'm done, I slip into a deep concentration using <Fixation> and shift my attention inward. Just as I had many times before, I draw on the filtered mana now coursing through my Augment. Faster than ever before, I cycle the mana through my network to complete the loop that Lirin had originally taught me.

I can feel the array bearing down on me, observing and documenting the way my mana moves and how I swap from skill to skill to manage the load. Feeding more and more filtered mana through the cycle, I carefully use <Infuse> on my hands to pool the excess mana that is sent through the loop and down into the rest of my body. I can only use the skill sparingly to keep the mana in the general area of hands, as constant activation along with my other skills in effect is near impossible for me still.

When the cycle contains around 60% of the filtered mana at my disposal, I cut off the flow and isolate the loop while allowing the rest of the mana to flow normally through the rest of the network. It takes significant effort to keep the two flows from interacting, and I can feel the control I have on my emission slipping. < Fixation Lvl. 8 -> Fixation Lvl.

9 > Before the unfiltered and volatile mana can slip through due to my lapse in concentration, I drop my control over <Infuse> entirely and allow mana to seep back toward my loop before quickly re-adjusting my emission rate. It only takes me a second or two to manage the swap, but by the time I can finally turn my attention back to the pooled mana in my hands, it already is partially connected to the loop and I feel a bloated feeling in my Augment.

Forced to release the hold on the loop, I instead channel the large surplus of mana into <Infuse> as a last-ditch effort to expend the large buildup of energy before it collapses my entire network. Mana rages through my muscles and bones, and before I can stop it, the mana forces itself into my skin as well like a glass bottle getting filled by a powerhouse.

I fill my body as much as I can, but the gathered mana is still not contained enough, and cuts open up all over my body as I clock <Emit> into overdrive to expel the deadly buildup. < Infuse Lvl. 6 -> Infuse Lvl. 7 > Just as I think I'm about to burst, the mana recedes, and I am left on the ground covered in blood with my body aching. After a few minutes spent recovering mentally, I get back up and go to the archive.

Shutting off the suffocating array, I pull out the metal sheet that had been recording the entire experiment. Lirin never taught me how to read the sheets, as the asshole usually keeps them documented for his own purposes. However, given the ample amount of literature stocked in the main room, I had been able to find a basic manual for the archive array that runs through the entire testing room.

After that, it was just a matter of finding the right chapters and I was able to figure out how to transcribe the archaic data the sheets stored. Running a small amount of mana through the sheet, I read through the reports of my experiment with interest. What is so great about this array is that the higher setting it is on, the more in-depth analysis it provides.

The manual says something about high settings of the array causing possible cognitive decline and leading to mana poisoning or something along those lines for people with too low of a BDY stat. Too bad for the manual and the wannabe-warlock, as I don't care about a little pain and possible long term health problems, so I crank that thing as high as I can handle the strain. When I finish with the metal sheet, I re-slot it into the machine before restarting the array once again.

With the new information offered by the analysis of my practice, I have identified several problems with my method and will amend them in order to successfully achieve my goal. By the end of this session, I will not only have pushed four skills to level 10, but I will also have a new skill. The power to create mana chairs will be mine.