Under the dim light of two moons, Lev reached the corner of the outer wall. A small fortress stood atop it, entirely shrouded in darkness and many concealment formations. Only the entrance token he was holding in his hand allowed him to bypass most of them and see its gates. Two scouts observed him from their watchtowers as he floated closer.

The metal gates swung open soundlessly, and an attendant immediately motioned for him to follow.

Spooky place, Lev smiled to himself, liking the ambiance. It was strangely peaceful.

Small ceiling lights illuminated their path as they passed several wards. Neither spoke, and Lev was left to his own devices when they reached an obvious office. Knocking twice, he waited for permission to enter.

"Come in," came a woman's voice.

Lev closed the door behind him when stepping inside. The woman behind the desk straightened, immediately becoming serious.

[Strategist - Level 209]

"Hey, I'm here to ask about my patrol shift. It's close to starting already."

Her shoulders slumped a little. "Oh. What section are you covering?"

"A-5."

"That's a difficult one. Are you solo?"

"I am," Lev nodded. "Was assigned by guildmaster Varun himself," he added to answer her questions.

"I see. Please take a look at this," she summoned a map from her ring. It depicted Whitefall and the outer wall, along with all the regions surrounding it.

To the south was the seemingly endless grand forest, only a tiny portion of it present on the map. Every other direction was grassland with a few more landmarks, primarily some hills and clumps of trees.

"From here," she pointed in an empty green spot to the southwest, "to here," and finished a bit higher up. "Wraiths, panthers, thornling fiends, and some other monsters are the most common. We have relays installed to track the start and end point of the patrols, and your task is to do it in circles. Keep an eye out for anything unusual. Return immediately if you find anything."

"Anything?" Lev repeated.

"Yes," she nodded. "Do you have any equipment that dampens your presence? Wandering third-threshold monsters are rare, but not rare enough to rely on luck."

****

The bubble silently glided forward, its speed purposely kept slow. In Lev's hand was a compass made mostly of infused copper, its needle guiding him towards the patrol route's relays.

Is it getting colder? he wondered, just barely feeling a temperature difference. If the bubble kept going in a straight line and accelerated to its full speed, Lev would reach the ocean in a few days. Perhaps the water's influence reached far.

Down below, flat grassland dominated his vision. Half an hour of flying and scouting later, he reached the first relay point, sitting exactly where it was promised. No monsters were visible anywhere close to it, and since the end point of his patrol was to the right, he started flying in a large clockwise circle.

Oddly quiet, he mused, constantly spinning in circles and occasionally glancing upwards.

The peace was shattered abruptly when massive forms smoothly glided forward, their massive limbs just barely touching the ground and producing no noise. Six long spider limbs sprouted from their back, dense with steel-like muscles and covered in hair that might as well be spikes. Their main bodies were like deformed dark monkeys, too long and lithe to be natural.

[Thornling Fiend - Level 332]

[Thornling Fiend - Level 299]

[Thornling Fiend - Level 320]

Big level difference, he noted, and just observed the monsters eating distance while flying higher. With as little mana usage as possible, he took three lances out of his bubble and aimed them. In a split second, their enchantments were powered up before they were fired.

Lev's lips split into a wry grin when his projectiles were dodged with some difficulty, yet dodged all the same. All three monsters roared at the top of their lungs and abandoned all pretense of sneaking towards Whitefall, immediately whirling on the descending human.

Stargazer's appearance made them pause for only a small moment. Unfettered, they charged on, the hair on their spider limbs rising like spikes.

Time to test the changes thoroughly.

With a grin, Lev dumped buckets' worth of mana into his enhancement formation, running it at full immediately. Only the durability portion was left untouched to practice activating that on a moment's notice.

Lightning followed next, imbuing his armor as the enchantments on his glaive slowly roused. First, a barrier blade was formed and was covered by the extreme sharpness formation, exponentially raising its lethality. Weight increase took place next, raising it to two dozen kilos. Decently heavy but not enough to impede his control.

Arcane and Mana Focus took over when the blade was imbued, giving it the properties of lightning on touch.

Four large, enchanted shields charged with him, as did four more invisible ones. Lev wanted to train both his willpower and test his limits in one go.

The visible shields were given a simple order of 'protect me' to see how they would react. It was his own subconscious taking control of them, after all, so they would probably move to intercept limbs.

He wasn't going to rely on them, however. Their task was to teach Lev how willpower worked and if it was possible to improve it rapidly in combat. He wanted to see if actually doing the same as the order side by side would improve the influence of willpower.

Gripping Stargazer tightly enough for it not to be yanked out of his hands, Lev opened with a weak lightning slash. All three monsters swiveled around it with ease, dodging the blast. Lev took note of their speed and reflexes, quickly understanding that getting pincered would get dicey.

Instead of getting in melee, he glided backwards, planning out his next steps. Just bombarding the monsters would be easy, but it was not going to be feasible after a certain point. The executioner beetle had proven to be a foe that could handle his massively enhanced pool, setting a concerning precedent.

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With a deep breath, he channeled fire mana into the glaive and fired two concentrated slashes, the attacks impacting in a blink. Both of the targeted monsters had dodged only to be swept up in the explosion, leaving the last to reach him.

Steeling his mind, he went in and blocked the first appendage with a shield. Stargazer was thrust forward, expertly avoided with a small tilt, before Lev had to face a whole gaggle of hairy limbs. Shields deflected a couple, and he hacked at a few others, failing to cut off any.

The thornling pounced on the occupied Lev, managing to duck underneath a thrust in the nick of time when he accelerated with a large burst of imbuement. Seeing that his simple plan had failed, he kicked things up a notch and fired a point-blank lightning slash.

Rushing forward, he parried another set of appendages and let the last one hit him on purpose. Keeping half an eye on the monster, he noted how the sharp hair cut alarmingly deep scratches on his armor, even when he enhanced the durability of that portion in time.

Deciding he had seen enough on that front, he darted to the side and swung Stargazer diagonally, catching a limb properly for the first time. The inherent sharpness of his barriers and the enchantment combined, sheared through flesh and bone with little difficulty, easily lopping it off.

A warbling roar washed over him as the monster staggered from pain, somehow still coherent enough to swerve out of the glaive's path, letting her open a gash on its chest instead of skewering it. Only, the lightning mana stunned the monster for a brief instant, in which Lev reversed his swing and beheaded the monster.

No more than ten seconds had passed in the intense exchange, plenty of time for the other monsters to reach him. The one he had killed was the middle one in levels, the second strongest in the trio of thornlings.

Shields hastily zipped around, blocking and deflecting the long spider limbs while taking constant damage from the hair spikes. Lev repaired them just as fast while preparing himself for what he was about to do next.

With a sigh questioning his life decisions, he engaged both of them at once in melee. Slapping away two of their long limbs, he ducked underneath another swipe and brought Stargazer around in a low sweep. The lower-level monster failed to dodge in time, losing one of its feet and tumbling to the ground, stunned by the agony. A shield bashed its face in, further debilitating it.

Lev and the last monster squared off again. It wasted no time in rushing in, and he knew the moment of testing was upon him.

Protect me, he commanded his four visible shields and glided backwards, weaving between the monster's attacks. Stargazer moved with him, always at the right place and shoving away the sharp limbs with its increased weight.

His shields were behaving as if they were drunk. The invisible ones followed his commands smoothly under his control, but the visible ones barely wobbled to where they were meant to be. When they did get in the way of the monster, a limb contemptuously slapped the shields away.

All in all, it was beyond useless to rely on his willpower right now. There was a lot of training in store for him.

Up above, the four wind cannons mounted on his bubble slowly came alive. Despite being at the edge of his manipulation range, which was close to two hundred and fifty meters, the monster immediately glanced up at the mana usage.

Lev's eyes relaxed in disbelief at the obvious opening but he didn't take it. Instead, the cannons fired at once and obliterated the crippled thornling he had left behind. The bubble jerked from the recoil, manageable but quite intense. More than fair for the sheer power packed in his cannons, he supposed.

The next ten minutes passed in a whirlwind of spindly limbs trying to skewer him or shave off his face with the spiky hair. Despite the monster's impressive speed and reflexes, it wasn't that strong overall due to its lack of intelligence, which turned out to be a boon for his willpower training.

Since his Perception was rather high, he could track the monster's attacks reliably. The key to training his willpower turned out to be just that. When he figured out where his shields needed to be without actually moving them, the back of his mind had a clearer picture of what it needed to accomplish.

The entire time, he had managed to block about ten attacks through willpower alone. That was a massive improvement from the zero he had started with. Lev considered it time well spent.

To end the fight, he simply let Stargazer slide forward in his grip, tightening it when his hands were at the edge of her pole. Now wielding it at the maximum range, he swung the glaive in a wide arc, hacking off two spider limbs and stunning the monster with a burst of lightning released inside.

Four wind bullets immediately took advantage, riddling it with holes.

[

You have slain [Thornling Fiend - Level 320]

You have slain [Thornling Fiend - Level 299]

You have slain [Thornling Fiend - Level 332]

]

No levels? he mused with a raised brow and harvested the cores. It didn't really matter, as he was going to face many monsters on the same night.

****

Hours passed as Lev killed all manner of monsters, earning no more levels for his troubles. Monsters as strong as the thornling fiends were far and few between. He had only found two felines of the same level, which disappointingly died to his first lances. The cores were probably worth a decent bit, at least.

An hour before the suns started to rise, he was stalking a peculiar monster. It seemed… more shapeless than not, constantly switching between a long, wiry body and a blob of dark gray smoke. Identify revealed its nature, as well as a concerning detail.

[Dusk Wraith - Level 401]

I don't think I should risk it, Lev thought naively, already counting all the projectiles stored in his bubble. There were nearly a thousand arrows and lances combined, all ready to wreak havoc down below.

Just to be safe, he also stayed more than five hundred meters above the barely visible monster. Two large shields also started receiving a stream of lightning and fire mana each, making them shine and attracting the monster's attention.

A jolt of panic cut through his plans when the monster released an ethereal shriek that boomed in his mind. It's flight was also far faster than he anticipated, eating a quarter of the distance in a blink.

Without hesitation, he launched dozens of lances and arrows at the approaching screen of smoke. Minimally infused that they were, he didn't put any hopes in them and channeled more mana into the remaining lances as quickly as he could.

The projectiles cut through the wraith's body without any indication of hurting it, not slowing it down at all. Lev gritted his teeth and abandoned the bubble, flying higher at full speed, still slower than the monster's.

Buying himself a precious few seconds, he waited until it was inside his manipulation range. The moment it stepped close enough, he fired a huge volley of lances and arrows infused with fire and lightning, commanding them to explode the moment they got close to the monster.

Like extreme fireworks, they erupted into a fiery shower one after another, the blasts slowly getting closer and closer to Lev as the monster powered on. When it was only a few dozen meters away, still blinded by his streak of explosions, he pulled the overloaded shields in front of its path and waited.

They were both enchanted with mana concealment, and the monster noticed too late when it stepped within a few meters of them.

Night turned to day as red, orange, and blue, combined into a hauntingly bright release of destructive mana, its light illuminating the grassland far and wide. All types of monsters were attracted by the display as Lev quickly darted downward and grabbed the falling core.

His bubble quickly scooped him up after that. Sitting down on his seat, he Identified the core.

[

Dusk Wraith Core

Possesses high mana conductivity and decent mana capacity. Useful in crafting.

Displays minor properties of shadow and stealth.

]

Huh. That's gonna fetch a sky-high price.

Two wind cannons fired at once, instantly killing a troll warrior. Lev barely looked at the corpse, curious about the nature of the foe he had just bested. Due to the little effort involved, he barely got any essence from the kill. As a result, it had only given him a single level.

[

You have slain [Dusk Wraith - Level 401]

Arcane Maelstrom has reached Level 255

]

The trend was worrying. He was already getting so little essence from monsters dozens of levels above his own, yet it was only going to slow down even further. A glaring downside of his class was presenting itself as the lack of 'struggle' with most kills, reducing the essence gains considerably. He tried to imagine what the consequences of that would be, and that line of thought was not reassuring at all.

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