For the last part, Lev wanted to bring back chains in his arsenal to hinder the mobility of monsters without using as much mana as he usually did. More importantly, he had found a hopefully better way to utilize them.

While he still referred to them as chains in his mind, the current form was of a rope. Barrier threads came into existence in front of him, each nearly as thick as two fingers combined. With a focusing breath, Lev started weaving them together. He formed four pairs of six, each weaving their own bigger threads.

The resulting four were woven into one whole, giving birth to a thick and durable rope. To top it off, a large spearhead slowly formed on one end, completing the tool of impairment. His best sharpness formation appeared on the pointy end, amplifying its potential.

Now, for the moment of truth…

Grabbing the non-pointy end of the rope with his hand, Lev pulled. His mind resisted his efforts from the other side, putting it against his base physical strength. It let him test both the durability of the rope and his mental strength.

He started with a minor push to assess just how strong his mind was. Lev's body jerked forward for a moment but he controlled himself in time. Still, the sheer power left him surprised.

So far so good.

Slowly, the strength from both sides ramped up. Digging the soles of his feet into the stone ground, Lev gave it his all, except his mind barely even felt the effort. With a single yank, he tumbled to the ground, his body utterly outclassed by his brain.

The rope meanwhile, was completely unharmed, as it ought to be. Lev would've discarded them altogether if they showed signs of strain from so little.

For testing the rope's limits, Lev formed a simple sound ward in his bubble and created a barrier drill. It started spinning easily enough and dug into the ground without trouble, creating a hole two meters deep. As the drill vanished, Lev formed a huge pole into the ground and enchanted it with the durability rune. His rope coiled around it and tied itself, prepared to be tried.

Here goes nothing, Lev grinned and pulled with all his might. The rope grew dangerously taut but still wasn't close to breaking, and neither was the pole. Stone held too, which let him exert more and more mental strength, pushing past his limits.

Cracks spread through the dark gray ground before either of his constructs, but that changed after a few seconds. Hair-thin lines of damage started forming on the pole, proving that using threads as a base was much better than one whole chain. With a relieved sigh, Lev stopped pulling the rope and let it clink to the ground.

The test was a resounding success, which left the final hurdle of overpowering a monster's physical strength. Most of the time, he didn't need to, but exceptions were bound to show themselves, especially when he needed to conserve mana.

Beyond that, the sharp head's lethality was not in question. It was without a doubt enough to dig into a large monster's skin, allowing him to pull them with his ropes. Lev would have to be careful of what angles he exerted his strength from for the spearhead to remain lodged inside and not be dragged out.

Upgraded enhancement, vastly improved arrows, and a reliable method of restraining monsters in case of emergency, Lev took stock of his current progress, eyes closed to meditate on anything he may have missed. One last round of practice, then the delve begins in earnest.

****

Forty-eight or so hours later, the bubble surrounding him vanished as a relaxed and refreshed Lev walked out of it. The past seven hours had been spent on sleeping, which meant he was raring to go now.

A cart formed behind him, light and large enough to hold multiple stacks of his arrows that appeared one by one. Each was enchanted with lethality formation, preparing an arsenal worthy of being launched at second-threshold monsters.

Pillars were embedded in the ground several hundred meters away from the cave's exit. Long, heavy ropes were tied around them as Lev walked out of the underground and into the open, attracting all the harpies at once.

Dozens of screeches announced their captivated attention, the monsters higher in number than before. Instead of being worried however, Lev couldn't keep a huge grin off his face.

A lot of levels were in store for him.

Come get this tasty bite, you ugly fuckers.

With a loud crash, the first harpy landed on the ground at the cave's entrance, several hundred meters away from Lev. Wings spread wide, it roared to do… something, only for an overloaded yet uninfused arrow to hit it in the neck. A wet squelch could be heard from afar as the arrow tore deep into the throat, almost poking out of the other side.

Another arrow with its overloaded enchantment thunked into its chest, not killing it but downing it for good. The shower of blood from the impact ensured that it would not last for long.

Seven more landed in the next few seconds, and Lev prepared himself for some supremely taxing mental exertions. Each of his ropes, twelve in total, was over fifty meters long.

Bending barriers was easy, but only up to a certain point. He had to consciously change the shape of each bending point of the ropes, which required far more brain power than he ever had in his past life. Willpower helped here and there, but Lev held back from straining that particular resource too much.

When the first monsters entered the range of the ropes, four of them snaked forward, moving in zigzag and circular patterns to try and throw off their predictions. The tactic worked somewhat, as one of them was slapped away whereas the other three ropes successfully wrapped around their wings or bird legs.

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Immediately, Lev gave up control over them, and not a moment too soon. With a single flex of their wings, the impeded harpies pulled with all their might, straining the ropes enough that they started cracking like glass.

But they didn't shatter.

Just one moment of restraint was enough for lethal arrows to pierce their heads and chests, putting them down one by one. Some part of Lev whispered that he could further enhance his power with a bow to match the newly upgraded arrows, but he ignored that. Getting a skill covering all of his projectiles was going to be much more useful.

The remaining harpies entered not long after, and Lev finally turned serious as Stargazer appeared in his hands. All twelve of the ropes moved at once, and arrows gradually put down the untargeted monsters. They weren't weak though, and he started streaming mana into his glaive as the harpies neared.

Four of them were rushing him from the sides, and eleven of them were charging him straight-on.

Doable.

In a single, clean vertical swing, lightning left Stargazer in a crescent arc, aimed at the monsters to his left. The cave shook ominously as the crackling blast engulfed them all, leaving the front and the right to deal with.

More of them split up, and Lev lunged backwards. A barrage of arrows sheared through the two right in front of him, and a wide swing of his glaive collided with another monster's large wing. Lightning seared into it, jolting the monster enough to floor it.

Darting to the side again, another wide lightning slash got three of them, and arrows pincushioned two more, leaving only five to brawl with as his ropes were shattered one by one.

Tricky, Lev's eyes darted around, looking for solutions to end the melee quickly as more made their way to him. Enhancement formation came alive as he advanced, opting to not hold back.

Stargazer leading the charge, Lev thrusted at a harpy's face while ducking, dodging a horizontally swung wing, and spinning around. His glaive followed in a wide arc, releasing a lightning slash at another two monsters and colliding with the claws aiming to gouge out his neck, stopping them in their tracks.

Lev disengaged with a yank to the side and launched another wave of enchanted arrows, putting down both the stragglers and the now-freed monsters coming in. Four more fell with the attack, leaving just enough for him to dance with and train his enhancement.

****

Half an hour later, Lev was wheezing on the ground, both his hands cupping his head. An extreme headache wracked his reality, somehow pulsing with his heartbeat and sending waves of agony down his battered body. No wounds were visible on his being but the overtaxed bones and muscles were hurting all the same.

Note to self… Lev emptied his refillable canteen on his head, relishing in the splash of cold water that he also drank greedily. Do NOT push my willpower to that degree ever again.

He couldn't quite tell during the fight, but his mind was borderline mush. Every thought brought with it a new wave of pain, keeping him sprawled on the cold stone ground. Though, headache or not, small barrier walls kept all the blood dripping out of the dozens of corpses away from him.

[

You have slain [Mature Harpy - Level 267]

You have slain [Mature Harpy - Level 280]

…

You have slain [Mature Harpy - Level 276]

Mana Tempest has reached Level 202

Mana Tempest has reached Level 203

Mana Tempest has reached Level 204

Self-Taught Beginner Glaive Mastery has reached Level 6

Heavier Lifting has reached 3rd Level 5

Barrier Armor has reached 3rd Level 4

]

Quite the haul, Lev noted with a sigh. Healing mana was doing its job, slowly dispersing the headache. Too bad everything will slow down to a crawl again at 225.

All of the points were invested into Wisdom, bringing it up by another 15 and giving him a sizable increase in mana and regeneration. Going by his usual distribution, that counted for the four levels out of the current ten, and any new points were going to be invested in his other three attributes.

Several minutes later, his mind was back to being usable. Lev was far from competent enough to heal the mind directly, but restoration mana minorly healed it. He made up for the little healing by dumping bucketloads of mana into his body, careful not to overdo it by spreading it out. Even then, there was no indication of how the healing effects reached his mind. Strong mana types just worked like that.

Next up… Burrowers, Lev rubbed his armored chin as he walked out into the open, not seeing any harpies nearby. Guess I just practice aiming on them?

He couldn't see any other viable way to train against them. Stargazer was the size of a toothpick compared to their bulk, and explosives were frankly overkill. His new arrows were more than enough to deal with the tough but squishy hides.

Preparations were done swiftly. The bubble formed around him and was quickly enchanted with invisibility and mana concealment. Inside, Lev created arrows and enchanted them with lethality, whereas a singular lance appeared outside.

Lightning left his skinsuit and entered his armor, from where it was teleported to the waiting projectile. Once sufficiently infused, Lev launched it where he suspected a burrower to be. There was little indication, except a few patches of the ground being more barren, but he wasn't relying on tracks. The goal was to lure one out with the resulting explosion.

His bubble ascended, rising hundreds of meters above the cave's entrance, and nearly five hundred meters higher than the lance's impact. The bait was thrown, and Lev settled into waiting for something to bite.

Less than ten seconds later, three burrowers dove out of the ground, gazing around with their hungry eyes.

Three's a bit much, Lev thought as he started firing arrows anyway. Each of them shot downward faster than a bullet, reaching the Earthen Burrowers in less than a second. Lethality formation boosted their speeds to unparalleled heights, firmly making them the deadliest tool in his kit again.

They penetrated the thick hide with a faint ripple, shredding through the skin and flesh with minimum resistance. Even if their sharpness wasn't the greatest, the sheer speed backing them turned them into something entirely unstoppable for the slow monsters.

Wave after wave put more holes into the large monsters as they failed to find Lev, only knowing he was somewhere high above. The horrible matchup saw them dying pitifully in less than a minute.

[

You have slain [Earthen Burrower - Level 309]

You have slain [Earthen Burrower - Level 315]

You have slain [Earthen Burrower - Level 313]

Mana Tempest has reached Level 205

Mana Tempest has reached Level 206

]

Lev chuckled to himself and invested the points. More likely than not, he was going to be close to the second gap before exiting the dungeon, and he promptly summoned the blocking stone from Alec. Better off not giving away his rate of progress and attracting unfavorable attention.

Killing the three monsters had taken… far too little in terms of mana. It was the ridiculous enchantments that made the arrows too strong for his level. That wasn't entirely a good thing, and he was going to hold off improving more of his arsenal lest it degrade the quality of his evolution.

Which meant there was no more reason to wait. Another lance took shape outside his bubble, and Lev set about reaping more easy levels.

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