“So I do it like this,” Lily lifts up her hand, and in a burst of white light, her pinkie disappears. At the same moment, I feel mana in her body rise up, even if only slightly.

I'm not jealous at all, not even a little bit.

What she did now is [Sacrifice] her finger to raise her mana a little bit. Her skill allows her to do that and probably more. She can regrow the sacrificed finger, and it will cost her more mana than she gained from it, but the main advantage is that she can get mana immediately when needed, even if she is out of her reserves and catch an unsuspecting enemy by surprise.

Heck, she can sacrifice her entire arm to get much more. In the future, she might be able to sacrifice items or even people… okay, this is getting weird, but there are so many options.

“Lily, that's cool as heck,” I say honestly, and the petite black-haired girl laughs.

“Right?” she says. “It doesn't even hurt, so that's another bonus. I'm currently trying to apply it to strengthening my skills instead of turning it into mana.”

“Good idea. Also, just by the way, aren't you getting a bit taller?”

“Oh, you noticed! Do you remember when I told you that I was able to make my arm a bit stronger as I restored it? I did something similar, and I'm slowly making myself taller.”

“Oh, that's a shame. I thought you were cute as you are,” I say absentmindedly while also thinking about the ways I would use her [Sacrifice].

Puppies, kittens, and other animals are all cute when they are small. I bet even the Cinderbear would look cute as heck if he was as big as Biscuit. If Lily grows taller, pinching her nose and teasing her won't be as much fun.

“Anyway, continue doing what you do. I will go and practice on my own for a bit,” I wave at her before leaving.

“I won't mess with my height anymore!” I hear her shout as I leave the room.

“This is what we found. Edwal saw us looking around and taking stuff, but he didn't seem to mind at all, so we went all around the city looking for blacksmiths, armories, and places like that,” Hadwin points at a bunch of weapons and armor on the ground. Every single one of them is of an uncommon rarity at most; nothing higher.

“Edwal's armor seems to be rare or most likely even higher, and there might be good stuff in the tower, but the city is either cleared, or it's limited by the system,” Hadwin scratches his hand while turning to me.

“Well, it's something, so just take whatever you want,” I say, and to be honest, I'm quite disappointed. I expected some great loot, maybe even mana stones which I could observe, yet everything is just uncommon.

“As for other stuff, we already packed a lot of food, clothes, some valuables, and we split them into multiple stashes that we put all over the city—some closer to the wall, others closer to the tower,” Hadwin says.

Yup, that's how we spent our time. Well, Hadwin and Tess did. I wasn’t joking when I said I would just leech off them while only practicing. Anyway, the idea is to gather food, water, clothes, and small but super valuable items like jewelry and have them prepared. Then we can take them to the 4th floor. Maybe we will need food, or maybe we can sell valuables to buy nice stuff on the 4th floor. We don't know yet, but it's nice to have such options.

The stashes are big but easy to throw through the entrance with our strengthened bodies. Damn, now that I think about it, we could be super rich, looking at the stuff we stole from all over the empty city.

It was Hadwin's idea, and I confirmed that there shouldn't be a problem with Edwal, “How are you progressing with your skills?” I ask him. Maybe I can offer him a piece of advice or two. I really like that he came up with the idea of collecting all these things.

“Tess already told me about the training regimen you recommended, and even though it sounds weird, it works surprisingly well. It helped me focus my skill on smaller parts of my body. I can now save some mana, and the practice improved my activation speed.” the older man says.

Yup, Hadwin's [Strengthening] skill allows him to strengthen anything he holds and his body—his skin, muscles, bones. All this kind of stuff. He decided to focus on this skill and on his weaker self-healing skill. This combination is slowly turning him into a really durable man.

Heck, if he gets good armor, and on top of that strengthens it, and also makes his weapons durable while improving his self-heal? Hadwin might be close to impossible to kill.

He also got an upgrade token and is saving it a bit. With the information we shared, he decided that he will reach level 100, get his body upgraded, and then use the upgrade token to enhance his Constitution.

Love the idea. A more durable Hadwin means I might actually be able to try creating some constructs for him. I could learn so much, and it could make him even more tied to me and cooperative. It's not much of a bother, and I can gain a lot, so I don't mind.

Hadwin is also capable when it comes to dealing with people and has good ideas. Obviously, I still don't trust him fully, but right now, I'm much stronger, so it's quite a bit easier to treat him somewhat… gentler when I know he is almost no threat to me.

Another thing is that he understands my priorities. For example, if someone ever came and forced me to pick between my sister, Victoria, or the entire group 4, I would save Victoria without any hesitation.

I think I wouldn't like it because some of the members have kind of grown on me, but I still know who is more important to me, and I think most people are like that. It's just that I'm more honest with myself or weird enough to think about such stuff.

Anyway, if I get strong enough, there won't be any need for such bullshitty situations. I will just do whatever I want, and it will be me screwing over some other guy.

“I will go. I have some training with Kim, and then we will be going through a few more buildings that seem interesting.” Hadwin picks the bag from the ground as he says so.

“Sure, just do whatever Edwal tells you, and do not piss him off. He seems like he is about to snap at any moment.” I warn him.

“Totally, I already noticed it.” Hadwin leaves, and I get back to my training. I'm carefully weakening my passive that fortifies my body the more mana I have, and I'm trying to take control of my recently doubled-up mana pool.

Unlike back on the first floor, I know much better what to do, and with the help of Mana Cycling, I rush mana through my body and continue to improve my hold over it.

I practice, enjoy the shower, eat some hidden sweets, and practice more. I do not join others anymore, staying closed in my room, I continue working on my skills. A day and a half passes like that.

It's enjoyable as always. I put in effort and get rewarded, either by learning something new or by notifications. My level itself doesn't increase, but it doesn't matter. My mana doubled so that itself is like over 100 levels.

So I work on getting used to this power. I would like to go for another round of active tempering, but I can barely handle my mana when I weaken passives or constructs, so instead, I just slow down.

I continue to improve my control over what I already have.

I check my stats after a long while.

[Name: Nathaniel Gwyn]Difficulty: Hell Floor: 3 - Saint's Eternal BastionTime left until forced return: 4y 231d 23h 33m 16sTraits (1/3): Mana Circuit (Passive)

Lvl 124Strength: 46Dexterity: 43Constitution: 115Mana (Stage 1/3 - Vast Mana): 372 + 372 [Primary Class: Mana Channeler][Sub-class: Unavailable] Active skills:Focus (Dual Focus Consolidation) - Lvl 34Mana Manipulation (Advanced Mana Manipulation) - Lvl 37Perception - Lvl 32Redistribution (Symbiotic Transference) - Lvl 35Armament - Lvl 32Mana Surge - Lvl 24Mana Infusion - Lvl 26Resonance - Lvl 19 Constructs:Reinforcement (Construct)Kinetic Mana Heart (Construct)Mana Regulator (Construct)Mana Sovereignty Mantle (Construct) Passive skills:Mana Flow (rare)Cerebral Harmony (rare)Mana-Fortified Resilience (rare) Tokens:[Beyond Difficulty entrance token]

There are no new side quests and the only thing that's left is to wait, and I do just that. The silence of the big room feels refreshing after a few days of helping other members of the group or just talking or listening to them.

So the last night in the manor, I do not sleep and continue to move my mana while the room is lit only by a few orbs that I keep moving around and filling with bits of thermal energy. Soon two become five, five become ten, and then I end up with around one hundred of them.

Some of them are smaller, and others are bigger, all of them glowing in a similar dark yellow color that lights the room as they float around.

At some point, I pull them all towards me and join them into a single orb as big as a basketball. I push, and the ball becomes smaller, and the light starts changing a little bit. The big orb shrinks and becomes as small as a golf ball, the color turning golden. The thermal energy is lazily swirling inside and emitting pretty light while threatening to explode at any moment. It's not radiating any heat anymore; instead, all of the energy is stored inside.

Without any hesitation, I resonate mana along my finger and cut into my belly, and before the wound heals–under the influence of the saint's aura–I push the orb inside. Then the wound closes, and the orb stays in the space between the organs.

I shift my Mantle a little bit to cover it, then I sacrifice part of my [Focus] to keep [Resonance] surrounding the orb while turning the kinetic energy my heart generates into thermal energy and feeding it to the orb. Another part of my [Focus] then puts a hold on the orb and keeps it from exploding as I feed it more and more energy.

I do it through the night. I continue even through the morning, and when Edwal comes to take us to the tower, the small ball is filled to a terrifying degree. Yet I continue even as we walk through the streets and toward the tower.

The tower is even more imposing up close. Tall and seamless, with a lone door at the bottom. The door opens, and another man steps out. He introduces himself as Aias, one of the three warriors of the last king, the same as Edwal. Aias is much taller than any of us, easily towering over us and looking down at us. He is also wearing armor similar to Edwal's, but I don't feel the same connection Edwal's armor has toward the tower from his. Instead, the sword on his waist has such a connection. A beautiful silver blade with simple ornaments. Simple but deadly-looking.

We enter the tower, and the doors slam shut behind us.