Hours passed in comfortable silence until Lev had to leave for his patrol in a few minutes. Getting up, he looked at Orianna, who was sound asleep, before glancing at Sherron. She understood quickly and summoned a silencing ward around the asleep fire mage.

"I only now remembered that you mentioned I couldn't take my team away anytime soon," Lev began, sorting out his memory. "Has that issue been resolved yet?"

"Nope. Give it time."

"How long? My quests are only for a single month."

"That's fine," she replied. "Someone will come to see your team in the next few days. After that, you are free to do whatever."

With a nod, Lev stepped out of the orphanage and boarded his bubble, swiftly flying off to the scout castle to report. The sky was once again only illuminated by two moons once he landed. Showing up and then leaving to the patrol route took less than a minute, only required because he needed to mark his attendance.

Now then, he thought, half an eye on the horizon and the other on the equipment in front of him. Time to do some real crafting for once.

The items were the ones his team was using currently. Using the excuse of keeping them as backup, Lev had bought several of each item. It was unlikely for their durable steel to break under the hands of dormant monsters, but the possibility was still real.

Never letting his eyes stop scanning his surroundings, Lev grabbed a longsword and started walking in circles inside the bubble. That way, he would scan every direction during his musings.

It's a sword, he sighed silently, and turned it around in his hand. I doubt I can learn that much just by looking at it.

Only time would tell if that was true. Like a proper crafter, he started with the extremities to slowly make sense of the whole structure.

First up was the hilt. Covered in some dark leathery material, it provided a solid grip for both hands with its long length. Since the sword was meant to be used against monsters and not humans, the crossguard was also of a small size, not meant for intricate swordplay.

Above that was the actual blade. It was long enough to easily peirce 3 Levs arrayed in a straight line, and he seriously wondered why his brain had to come up with his own body as a unit of measurement.

Shrugging that oddity away, the cannons above his bubble fired a few times, downing a small horde of trolls as he remained engrossed in his observation. While the length and width were simple, the weight left him scratching his head.

Lev knew the swords of this world were larger than Earth's standards. The weight also followed the same trend to accommodate the superhuman strength of the average warrior, which meant that the 10kg blade in his hand was quite light. It was intended to be swift and precise, yet the weight wasn't concentrated uniformly.

The upper half of the sword was slightly heavier than the lower half, something that made no sense to him. Common sense dictated that there was definitely a reason behind it, and the best guess he could come up with was that the added weight allowed for more force and momentum. If he wanted his glaive to be heavy, it would mostly be to utilize the inertia to chain attacks more easily. Only, his enchantment worked on the whole weapon.

Or does it? He wondered, suddenly curious. Summoning Stargazer, he filled her blade with a barrier one and focused on the gravity core enchantment. With some mental manipulation, he tried to only increase the weight of only the blade… which worked flawlessly.

The more you know, he snorted and stored her back. There was much in his weapon he still hadn't discovered.

Returning to the sword, he took note of how it was crafted in its admittedly simple shape. The more detailed nuances were lost on him, and he didn't care much for them either. Learning about the basics of blacksmithing could wait.

Holding it up with his left hand, a barrier hilt started taking shape in his right hand. It was the exact same except for the obviously different material, one much lighter.

Minutes passed as he took several second long pauses to gaze at the surrounding land, making sure no monsters were lurking around. His bubble was hidden from both sight and mana perception, which meant that he now had to look for monsters instead of the opposite.

Seeing that nothing was moving anywhere near him, he returned to the slow and steady formation of the barrier sword. Nearly ten minutes later, he was holding a replica that had the same weight distribution, except that since it was made of barriers, the weight was much lower overall.

To counter that, he enchanted the blade's base with a minor weight increase formation. Paired with the best non-willpower connector runes he had, it easily covered the whole weapon.

Putting a small amount of mana inside, the enchantment was powered to full in a blink. Throttling the potency, Lev slowly increased the weight until it matched the steel sword in his other hand. Just that much required nearly half of the enchantment's maximum effect, adding another formation to the list of runes he needed to buy or find in the future.

As it stood, the swords were almost completely identical in weight and shape, the remaining inconsistencies negligible to his inexperienced mind. Storing the steel weapon, he gripped the barrier sword with both hands and swung it a few times.

Hmm, he looked down at his creation, an amused smile tugging on his lips. I have no idea if this is good or not. It's pretty much the same as the other sword, so it's probably fine.

Storing it in his ring, Lev brought out the shield Jack was currently using. It was simple in design, a large round shield. That made things easier for him. Creating a barrier replica took another ten minutes, mostly because he didn't want to go any faster.

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Enchanting the shield with the same formation, Lev formed a barrier hammer and tested its durability by repeatedly smashing it while gripping the handle, enarme. Predictably, it resisted the onslaught easily without showing any signs of damage or even scratches. His barriers were quite durable now. If Jack was to wield the shield at his current level, his arms would give out long before the barrier structure.

That left equipment for Kayla. Lev exhaled a long breath and sat down on his chair, having reached the endpoint of his patrol route. Turning back, the bubble started flying in a semi-circular path while he let his mind wander.

What can I even make for her? There is literally no equipment for aura mages, as no one knows how to interact with auras besides the side effects of some super strong enchantments. Which leaves healing. Cores with healing mana are ungodly expensive, and finding one with the same mana type as her class will be much more difficult. The cost is fine… after I hunt in some reasonably safe region. Killing second-threshold monsters isn't exactly a difficult task now.

Lev didn't know where he could even roam freely without fearing for his life. The Grand Forest was unbelievably vast, outclassing the plains with its sheer size, yet it harbored just as many harrowing monsters. Attracting the attention of even a single one would mean his end.

The gathering quest is in two weeks. He gazed at the clear skies with tired eyes, finding the act of letting his fears show oddly freeing. Only a certain Goddess potentially watched him from afar, one that likely didn't care about his person anyway. There was a lot about his past shrouded in mystery, and he had only ignored it all until now, something he was going to continue doing.

Instead, he straightened in his seat as several thornling fiends appeared in his vision. They were considerably larger than the ones he had killed, and the levels reflected that.

[Thornling Fiend - Level 345]

…

[Thornling Fiend - Level 348]

All five of them moved on their spider limbs with eerie quietness, their passing not disturbing the grass on the ground whatsoever. Lev took the job upon himself and left the bubble, Stargazer brimming with lightning mana.

Loud shrieks washed over his armor, trying and failing to deal any sonic damage. Just as the monsters turned to him, Lev swung.

Lightning roared out of the glaive in a crescent arc before it was launched forward. Despite the willpower and a strong skill pressing down on its form, it still remained slightly untamed, setting the very air alight in its extremely quick flight.

Two of the thornlings were caught directly, unable to dodge the attack in time. Lev narrowed his eyes as the expected explosion happened, yet there were no notifications. Powering up his enhancement formation to the fullest, he shot backwards, not letting the monsters out of sight while keeping them at a distance.

Summoning the old earth mana converter from his ring, he channeled the resulting mana into Stargazer's blade. It immediately turned light brown, growing darker by the second because of the increasing amount infused inside.

When he felt it sufficient, the glaive increased the total mana significantly as it was shaped into a slash. Without preamble, he launched at the leading thornling as fast as he could to test how his weapon handled earth mana.

The slash was fast enough to kill any first-threshold monster with ease, but the thornling was faster. Crouching, its legs touched the ground as its muscles coiled, before a mighty leap saw it easily jump over the incoming earth slash.

Lev happily took advantage of its inability to dodge mid-air, pinning it to the ground with an enchanted lance infused with lightning. It blew up a split second after impact, eviscerating most of the thornling's body.

All the while, he kept an eye on the result of the first slash. The fires slowly cleared to reveal a nearly dead thornling stumbling out of a crater. He had seen it form a net with its spider limbs to block the attack, and the outcome was obvious. The limbs were missing more than half of their length, and its body was just barely functioning. It would bleed to death soon enough.

His attention was brought back to the dodged earth slash as it powered on, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. A massive, long groove was carved on the ground as it refused to dissipate, and Lev's jaw dropped more and more when it just kept going.

Nearly a hundred meters of carnage later, its structure lost cohesiveness and crumbled, leaving behind a stretch of dust and stone clouds.

That's… going to be useful, he mused, still leading the monsters away at full speed. Clearing hordes of weaker monsters will be especially easy by doing that.

One by one, Lev tested the limits of his lightning slashes on the monsters. They didn't last more than a single attack, as even the first survivor was already dead by the time he returned to his patrol route with five new cores. They showed minor properties of Senses, useless to him.

He refrained from using fire slashes. Lightning was already risky enough with its explosive impacts, but fire was going to be visible from far away. Not only were the blasts way bigger, but they were also much brighter.

The rest of the patrol passed without incident. The suns were just barely rising when he returned to his rented suite, immediately jumping into a cold shower. Slight lethargy permeated his being, the consequence of not sleeping for a few days. He aimed to fix that before leaving with his team for another day of fighting.

Four hours later, Lev was fresh and ready to go. His teammates were already having breakfast in Kayla's room, the food delivered to them without issue.

He knocked on the door and waited. Jack opened it slightly to see who it was before pulling it all the way.

"Did you sleep in?" he asked and moved back to his seat, not even questioning why Lev needed to eat with them. The other two didn't seem to mind, either.

Pulling a chair out of his ring, he set it slightly apart from them and sat down. "Yep. I returned not that long ago, and it's not like we're gonna miss out on any time. I can always create a light source if you guys want to spend the night in the grove."

"No, thank you," Kayla immediately shot down the idea with a glare at her teammates. Neither Jack nor Amelia seemed to be against it as they considered the idea seriously. "The few hours we spent yesterday were already a lot. I couldn't sleep properly for a while, though the added Constitution made up for that."

"It won't get any easier," Lev remarked casually despite knowing the effect his words would cause. He didn't want them to have any delusions about how difficult life was going to be. "Learning to survive in the dark is also a necessity. Amelia already has the heat sense skill, and you can also earn one for auras with enough practice. Besides, no place above ground is naturally completely dark with the two or three moons that shine during the night. With enough Perception, that stops being an issue entirely."

"Doesn't mean we should start doing it immediately," she huffed, not hiding her exasperation from the other two. "We have the time. Several months, at least."

"About that," Lev gathered their attention. "Did you think about what I said on the first day?"

"That depends on you," Amelia said seriously, looking into his eyes. "What do you plan to make us do at the level cap?"

Was I that obvious? Lev thought to himself and answered. "Training. If I interfere with your initial leveling, it will affect the evolution. Once you hit the level cap however, that will no longer be true. I'll both spar with you and provide you with equipment to push your skills as far as possible. Right before evolving, you will face strong first-threshold monsters and try to earn titles to get the best possible evolution."

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