"Are those silk slippers?" Gladwyn asked after Adam had joined their conversation in the Tavern. "And where is your shirt?"

"I used my shirt as a shopping bag," he explained. "And I accidentally blew up one of my shoes… for science. I wanted to talk to you two about that, actually."

Beck nodded, popping off the cap of his beer with his spell staff and clinking it against Gladwyn's bottle.

Adam looked between them suspiciously.

"Are you two in the same dimension?" he asked.

"Don't look at me!" Gladwyn said defensively. "He just came here without saying anything in advance. Freaked me out."

Beck focused on chugging his beer and didn't look either of them in the eyes.

Adam shook his head with a grin. "I'll be right there."

A few minutes later, Adam was sitting in the Tavern across from them on the second floor around one of the small tables.

"I don't know how I feel about you coming to my dimension," Gladwyn remarked. "You both just waltzed right in…"

"I like it here," Beck muttered.

Between them sat Belamouranthe, who Gladwyn kept patting on the head as she ate dinosaur nuggets with rapturous glee.

"So what did you want to show us?" Beck asked.

"I'm not sure I should do it in here," Adam said.

"Don't worry, you can't actually hurt us on the island," Beck replied. "That's why the Challenge Stone exists, after all."

Adam wasn't so sure about that, since it was definitely possible to hurt yourself on the island. But he supposed that the logic was sound, since otherwise the Visiting Stone would have become another tool of murder like the Challenge Stone, and he'd yet to see any of the psychotic time-loopers visit others' dimensions for that purpose.

Still, as he made his demonstration, he did it far away from any of them, while also paying attention to where Charlie was standing. He chose to show them a primed invocation using the spell pattern for Bolt, drawing it on top of a round table and aiming it into a wall. Then he tossed his plate against the trigger part of the trap.

The table exploded along with the plate.

The large blood bolt it fired shot through two other tables, destroying them, and then it left a massive hole in the wall he'd aimed it at.

"Woops," Adam said.

"What the fuck are you doing to my Tavern, Adam!" Gladwyn exclaimed in outrage.

Beck went over to inspect the damage.

"Interesting," he muttered while pulling a table over to where the remains of the first one covered the floor.

"What are you doing?" Gladwyn asked him.

Before he could stop his friend, Beck used his staff to prime a spell onto the table as well. It looked like a glowing symbol drawn from Mana, but Adam couldn't really distinguish the spell pattern from it.

Then Beck grabbed his own plate and threw it at the table to trigger the spell.

Once again the table exploded, but the released spell was closer to Adam's push, since it created several projectiles that shot out in a wide arc. Unsurprisingly, four more tables and seven chairs were destroyed. The wall gained a few new holes as well.

"Is this why you came to my dimension!?" Gladwyn yelled.

"Don't worry," Charlie said as she arrived to survey the carnage they'd wrought. "Everything is replaceable in the Dimensional Tavern. Tomorrow, new tables and chairs will replace the broken ones."

"I told you it was fine," Beck told Gladwyn.

"I never should've agreed to let you come here," he replied.

Adam laughed. "Anyway, that was what I wanted to show you. I don't even have the ability to prime my spells, and the spell I used was actually one of the ones tied to the wand that Summoner starts with."

Beck nodded. "I had thought that spells in the Trials followed some kind of consistent language, since the last Stages all have hints of a sigil-based alphabet, similar to the stuff on your hands."

"You should pick Summoner as your secondary and get Alepheria's Mandate from Stage Seven," Adam told him. "That way you can pick up a bunch of new spells and have a huge advantage in your next loop."

Gladwyn frowned. "It's kind of uncomfortable to imagine you'll be coming back through again and I won't know."

Beck shrugged. "Maybe I'll let you have the Self-devouring Eye instead of me."

"You won't really lose your memories if he gives you the Scale of Remembrance," Adam pointed out.

"It's very expensive," Beck said apprehensively.

"I think it's worth it," Adam said.

"I suppose that's better than nothing," Gladwyn remarked. "But still uncomfortable to think about for too long though."

"If you survive to the end with me, then we can progress together and ignore the time-looping Relic," Beck told his friend.

Adam paused.

Wait, what if that's what's destined to happen in this universe already?

If neither of them take the Self-devouring Eye, then the next layer will never exist, creating the scenario where I was the only person alive.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Maybe Beck isn't destined to die in this loop.

While Adam wanted to go with his friends to the end, winning would feel hollow without all of his friends. Without Emelia.

He couldn't prove it, but he had a sneaking suspicion that they wouldn't come back from Nwetrou's abyss even if he completed the Trials.

It's too early to think about this sort of thing right now anyway.

Once I know I can make it to the Singing City, then I can start worrying about what I'll do.

Adam pulled over another table.

"Can you show me how you prime a spell again?" he asked Beck.

Gladwyn glared daggers at him.

Adam spent the last bit of the day practising with Flesh Shaper in the Player House.

Something he hadn't made much use of against the goblins in the last Stage was the fact that he could harvest their flesh similar to their blood, allowing him to float it out in front of himself and manipulate it at will. With the upgrades to sigil responsiveness he was also able to control the two different elements with quite a lot of fluidity and flexibility.

Flesh functioned differently than blood and was more arduous to shape however. It was somewhere between blood and the barriers of Warder in terms of the strain required to make it take shape. Unlike barriers, flesh didn't try to spring back to some default shape, but it wanted to adhere to itself in a structured way, forcing him into making limb-like shapes out of necessity. If he tried to shape it into something abstract or to replicate swords, bolts, and spears, it simply wasn't very strong. But he could strip the flesh off the goblin dummy and reform it into a simple arm with claws, which would mysteriously deal way more damage.

I need more knowledge of anatomy, he thought to himself. Maybe I can find a surgeon or someone with specialised knowledge about tissue to ask.

After breaking apart dozens of goblin dummies, Adam also found that there was a limit to how much of their 'resources' he could lift into the air at once. By volume it seemed to be something like 20 litres for each of the three spells he could wield simultaneously, which was a ball with about 35 centimetres in diameter. If he tried to merge two of these maxed-out balls of flesh and blood, then the excess simply slouched off and fell onto the floor. As a result, his Player House was absolutely foul with gore, though the Eye dutifully cleaned it up each time he told it to.

He thought it was strange that the dummies disappearing and resetting didn't remove the flesh and blood that he'd collected, but it was a good thing since otherwise his practice would've been pretty much impossible.

After getting a good feel for some simple ways to use Flesh Shaper offensively, Adam finally tested out his special skill, Princely Raiment.

The moment he activated the skill, he felt the energy and warmth drain from his body and seep out through his pores as Mana-infused blood that immediately latched onto the three orbs of goblin material he'd collected from the dummies. There were at least two seconds where he was fully exposed with 90% of his Health missing while the skill pulled the flesh and blood around him to form a shell. He knew this meant that timing the skill would be important since otherwise he could easily be defeated.

It was an uncomfortable feeling as the foreign substance caked itself onto the skin of his upper torso where the Bone Armour didn't cover, as well as when it applied itself on top of his jeans and silken slippers. Like he'd thought, it created a suit of flesh and blood, but he hadn't truly understood what the Eye meant when it said the 'nature' of the material mattered. As the skill finished, Adam had grown 20 centimetres in height and about 40 in width. His arms, legs, and chest were bulked out with the goblins' flesh, which had coiled and shaped itself into approximations of muscle, over which a filthy-red skin had formed, making him resemble the Hobgoblin boss, except a roided-out hulk variant. Everywhere except for his head was covered, although a crown of blood hovered above his hair and spun around lazily.

It was not lost on him that his Raiment's appearance was due to the fact that the dummy he'd been using was made to look like the Hobgoblin.

Already, the suit was losing its volume as he stood idly admiring its appearance.

With a single punch of his hulk form, Adam crushed the dummy into the floor, and as it died its flesh and blood were pulled into his suit, replenishing the lost volume and adding onto it with the excess.

He pummelled his way through nine dummies before the entropy inherent to the suit became too rapid for the kills to replace.

As it fell away from his body in large pieces that turned darkened and exhausted of Mana, Adam was glad to find that his body was not covered in gore. In fact, even the skin of his torso was pretty much spotless, perhaps even slightly exfoliated after the fact.

It seems to last about a minute with a kill every 5 seconds.

I'm not sure what the Damage is like or how exactly it's calculated, but my normal punches right now are not that strong, while in the Raiment they one-shot the hobgoblins.

Perhaps it's a volume-based Damage boost.

Regardless of how it works, I'm willing to bet that the initial amount of material is a big factor in how long it'll last and the damage it'll do, so if I can find a way to increase the amount I can hold, then it would probably get stronger.

I should be able to combo it with the Beckoning Crimson spell I bought from Sylvia, allowing me to incorporate the flexible armour that the spell forms with the excess blood not used for healing. Depending on how the healing works, I might be able to get all my Health back if I time the skill and spell properly.

Just a shame that learning it costs 18,000 Points…

Adam continued practising into the night, changing the dummy into the blue goblin variant.

When he'd recovered his Health and accumulated three floating balls of flesh and blood, he activated Princely Raiment again.

This time he grew 40 centimetres taller, but not any wider, and the suit was slimmer than before. As he moved around, he found that it also made him faster.

Adam went through the other goblin variants, but the standard green one was just like a less powerful version of the red hobgoblin, and the yellow type seemed similarly underwhelming. But then he remembered that the yellow goblins were archers, and when he applied that logic to the Raiment's transformation, he found that any spell projectiles he made became more powerful, gaining both an impact boost and more speed.

Okay, there's a lot of depth to this skill. Makes me wonder how many skills I never fully explored.

He really regretted not practising more with Necromancy, since it was sure to have a lot of powerful secrets to it.

Once I've unlocked the Builder, I should probably get Summoner. Beast would also be cool, but I feel like I need more fundamental spell knowledge to properly utilise the blood sigils.

I guess I'll just see what I can get when I reach that point.

Adam concluded his training session with a bath.

Unfortunately, the exact moment he got into the hot water Yenna came through the door to the Player House.

With some quick thinking, Adam had the Eye create a curtain around the bathtub to obscure him and he avoided flashing the wasp all his flappy bits.

For her part, Yenna seemed to not really care, and while she waited for him to finish soaking, she played on a harp to pass the time.

Adam never made it out of the bath, because her music lulled him right to sleep.

< < Now Entering > >

< Stage 3 >

< Forest Escort >

< 5 Waves >

Adam awoke seated inside the carriage heading through the forest to the Elphin Sanctuary.

Somehow, despite experiencing it several times, he was surprised to find that he was wearing the shirt and silk backpack that Weaver had made for him, even though he'd fallen asleep in the bath.

As soon as the cutscene ended, Adam exited the vehicle and looted the necklace and healing potion from the dead drivers.

< < Secret Relic Obtained > >

< All-Mother's Wrath (Rare) — When the wearer is damaged by an attack, curse attacker with Lethargy for 30 seconds. 1-minute cooldown >

He stuffed the necklace into the backpack, since he wasn't sure whether he could trigger it on himself by using his blood magic.

The Hardmode orb floated in front of him, but he left it toggled on, since he wanted the double Points from the Stage. He hadn't experienced it before, but Emelia had told him that it meant all summons were tripled and that the boss had more moves.

He was about to start summoning blood, but then he spun around and looked at the dead drivers.

I hope Belamouranthe won't get upset about this…

With the drivers harvested of flesh and blood, Adam walked down the slope in the sunset-lit forest to where the first Wave's enemies would spawn.

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