By the time his team had gone to sleep, Lev leisurely walked to the orphanage, enjoying the dim light of the three moons hanging in the sky. Unlike Earth's moon, these ones were always full and round, somehow keeping the massive oceans from devouring the continent.

Sherron and Orianna were inside, as usual, so he tiptoed through the hall and into their office, careful not to wake up any of the kids. It was already past midnight, and they were all sound asleep.

"There isn't much to steal," Orianna grinned at him when he entered, covering the room in a sound ward. "You'll have more luck robbing the flower shop a few buildings away."

Lev simply exhaled through his nose and took the empty seat next to Sherron, both of them now seated in front of Orianna. The fire mage put her elbows on the table and leaned forward, cupping her head in her hands.

"You alright?"

"Yeah," Lev replied softly, trying and failing to give her a smile as the earlier experience truly settled in. He had almost died, only surviving because of the benevolence of a creature far beyond him. "The party came pretty close to getting wiped out," that caught Sherron's attention immediately. "But hey, I met my first sentient non-human. It was quite the experience."

"Where?" the Exalted immediately asked, tenser than Lev expected her to be.

"Calm down," he gave her a long glance, deducing a few things from the reaction. "The being didn't even expose its aura, let alone launch an attack. I doubt there's any trouble on the way."

"Are you certain?"

"Probably?" he chuckled. "How am I supposed to be certain in case of a fourth threshold being? Monarch knows how their brains operate."

"How did you find one, even?" Orianna interjected, her expression loosening after Lev's reassurance. It was always sobering to see how seriously they took the safety of the city, something he needed to get used to as well.

"Have you guys been to the giant silver tree, a few hours into the eastern side of the forest from here? I was only going to clear the monsters on top…"

Explaining the event took up a few long, comfortable minutes. There wasn't much to tell, and yet Lev could probably talk for hours about how majestic that eagle was. Fourth-threshold creatures were always a treat to learn more about, regardless of how much danger they posed.

"Varun asked for you to check it out," Lev said, his eyes showing his firm dislike for the idea. "Something about your eyesight and speed."

"I'll go see him later," she answered seriously, ignoring his silent plea. Lev sighed— that much was expected.

"Will you go alone?" he tried.

"Yes," came the absolute answer.

"Alright," Lev almost pouted and rested his head on the table, changing the subject. "How long do you think until the next wave happens?"

"A week, at most," Orianna answered as Sherron left the room, probably off to the guild. Then she smiled a little. "You're planning something flashy, aren't you?"

"Oh, you know me so well," Lev smirked playfully, mentally making some adjustments to his plans for the wave even as they spoke. "Nothing extreme, of course. I'll just deal with as much of it by myself as I can."

"And that's not extreme?"

"No? I mean, other than you, Sherron, and Varun, who even knows of me or my level?"

"A few," she answered without hesitation. "Duke Fabian has also announced you as the next solo adventurer candidate. There are many eyes on you, though only inside the city."

"Solo adventurer candidate?" Lev echoed thoughtfully. "I'm assuming that means someone strong enough to become an adventurer without a team."

"Correct."

"Well, damn. I'm in a team now, so the Duke only made things harder for me for no reason."

Orianna blinked a few times. "It's not what you think it is. That is not a token or a badge, just a recognition of strength. It doesn't matter if you were gonna become a solo adventurer or not, you were simply deemed worthy of qualifying as one."

"A medal, basically."

"Yep. A very rare one— something you probably don't care about."

Lev shrugged awkwardly, his front resting on the table still. "I mean, it is to be expected, no?"

"Perhaps," Orianna answered, her mood souring slightly. It seemed she still wasn't comfortable with Lev realizing just how daunting his future was.

"Anyways," Lev changed the subject, smoothly skirting the 'bad' topic. "Can I Identify you?"

"Yes?" she gave him a weird look. "You still haven't?"

"Nope," Lev answered. "Didn't feel right."

[Fire Mage - Level 493]

"493…" he breathed out. He was expecting something like 450, not a few steps away from the Exalted rank. Curbing the desire to ask why she wasn't rushing to the massive evolution, he just gave her a gentle smile.

"I'm gonna take my leave too," he got up and stretched. "Haven't slept in nearly a week. See you later."

It didn't come as a surprise when she didn't let him go without a hug, something he cherished deeply.

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****

As the suns slowly started peeking over the horizon, illuminating Whitefall in the gentle glow of dawn, Lev sat atop the city's walls. The hundred-meter drop below him might have been scary once, but by now, it was a small height. He was used to flying a kilometer or higher above ground.

After contentedly enjoying the scenery and the cool morning breeze for a while outside his armor, he picked up the cannon he was designing once again. Unlike the previous design, it was simple and relied on a single rune, the one he had picked up from the gecko.

Flame Breath.

The rune was exactly what it sounded like. By funneling fire mana into its form, the rune shaped it until it was condensed into a beam as wide as his arm, ready to be fired faster than he could track. A very strong rune, even by his standards. Except, there was one issue.

It was a three-dimensional rune.

On the surface, it seemed like a straightforward jump in difficulty. Like two-dimensional runes, he simply had to make the construct thicker until it could accommodate the long and wide rune.

Then he thought of the required mana conductivity. The task immediately jumped a few tiers in difficulty, only remaining possible because of his extremely good fire converter, boasting an efficiency of over 95%. He could waste a lot.

Thinking he had it in the bag, Lev excitedly carved the whole rune, which took several hours of practice before he could manage it in ugly doodles. After dozens of attempts, it finally counted as a proper rune, and he quickly filled it with fire mana.

Long story short, the poor barrier construct lasted all of a few instants before the massive strain made it crumble to dust, which led to him gazing at the sunrise with contemplative eyes, both enjoying the view and dreading the cost of activating the rune.

Mana conductivity was surprisingly fine. Lev started creating mental notes. The real hurdle was the strain it put on my barriers. Even if I had managed to activate it, the rune would've easily melted the construct. Launching the beam with rudimentary stopgap measures would've ended with the cannon spectacularly blowing up in my face.

There was a lot to consider suddenly, chief among them being the difficulty of carving three-dimensional runes. Just that single, short burst of activation had revealed several things about the new challenge.

Firstly, simply carving them was far from enough. Unlike two-dimensional runes, these variants didn't let him simply call upon their power and required both deep understanding and a high degree of control over mana. Lev had just enough of the latter, which left the former and him scratching his head.

How was he supposed to understand flame breath better? It was a skill only found in strong monsters that could easily kill him.

Secondly, the amount of mana required was also almost exponentially higher. Just to activate the rune at the lowest power, Lev needed to fill it with almost a twentieth of his mana pool. That didn't sound like much until one considered that he could kill several second-threshold monsters with the same amount.

And lastly, the rune was inefficient. Not because of its own form— far from it. The issue lay in the fact that it was merely a single function out of a whole skill, one that facilitated a monster to efficiently and quickly release a massive breath attack.

Lev didn't have those passive effects and other aspects of the skill aiding his activation. More than half of the fire mana had been wasted to activate the complex rune, one which didn't really work anyway.

Truly, the road of enchanting was the ultimate trial. He shuddered while imagining just how much the likes of Jimmy had to practice their craft and train all their senses.

Oh well, he destroyed the construct with a thought and stepped into his bubble. Amelia is still far from strong enough to make use of that rune. I have time.

He was mostly messing around with Kayla in the park, but he still planned to provide them with items. Lev was already preparing to buy a weight increase rune from Dennis, and also to inquire about any advanced formations of the same nature.

First, sleep.

****

Another four days passed without incident. Lev watched over his team, killed a few dangerously strong second-threshold monsters during his patrols, and just spent the rest of his time either crafting different weapons or messing with the three-dimensional rune he had.

For the former, he now had longswords that were sharp enough to easily shear through monsters below the second threshold with weight increase enchantments. When sharpness was added to the mix, things became more interesting.

No final iterations had been crafted yet, and he was preparing for that after sleeping for a full four hours. The scout patrol was coming to an end in an hour, and he was slowly seeing fewer and fewer monsters. That was an early sign of an imminent wave, something he was eagerly waiting for. It was exciting to think about going fully all-out again, if he had the chance to.

Harun's presence and the sheer resilience of the beetle made the whole experience outside Timberhold feel… disconnected from his actual strength. Much of what he had accomplished back then was far beyond anything he could manage by himself, Kayla's presence or not.

Somewhat disappointingly, no strong monster showed itself in the remaining time. Lev killed a few thornlings and wraiths, as well as second-threshold stone hounds, and made his way back to the Whitefall after giving the report.

His team was still sound asleep, probably, so sleep it was. It wasn't like Lev ever pried into their rooms with his senses. Taking a quick shower and changing into more comfortable clothes, he was out just as his head hit the pillow.

Waking up exactly four hours later, he stretched lazily and just stayed there for a few seconds. A wave was coming— he could feel it somehow. Which meant that he also needed to give it his all in a few hours, and that required a few minutes of mental adjustments while staring into empty air.

Fifteen minutes later, he entered Kayla's room. His team was already enjoying a hearty breakfast, not sensing the changing atmosphere as much as Lev did.

"Good morning," he absently greeted, eyes fixed on the food. The toast looked especially nice.

"Morning," Jack greeted back, eyes lingering on Lev's own. "Is the wave today?"

… Damn, a bit too good at reading people.

"Yep," Lev casually answered and savored the first bite, lost in the sweet goodness. "Are you guys ready?"

"We're going to fight?" Kayla asked, not hiding her nervousness at the idea.

"No, of course not," Lev snorted. "I mean, you're gonna want to observe from the wall anyway, right? That's gonna be pretty difficult with all the strong auras present. My quest also requires a high level of contribution to pass, so…"

"Are you going to fight from the wall?" Amelia questioned, her interest obvious.

"That honestly depends on where they want me to be stationed. It's pretty unlikely."

"Do you think they will want me to help?" Kayla asked.

"Probably not," Lev replied thoughtfully. "You've yet to hit the level cap, so keep your passives turned off. Don't want a meaningless contribution from just standing there."

"What about you?" Jack asked, and hearing his tone, the other two fell silent too. "It's the first time you're going to fight like that in front of everyone, right?"

Lev didn't reply for a few seconds, thinking it over properly. "I don't think Varun would ask me to go all out without reason. Hakim is already aware of my quest and surely knows of the requirement. Whatever they're planning, it won't be detrimental for me. Sure, popularity sucks big time, but morale is something they understandbly need to keep as high as possible."

"So… you're being turned into a distant role model. A Master who is usually accompanied by the Exalted?"

Lev tilted his head, wondering why Jack had jumped to that conclusion. Then he remembered Drakys wanting him to accompany him and do rounds to support all the groups, precisely what Jack was hinting at.

"… How the hell did you connect the dots so fast?"

"I've been thinking about it," Jack grinned. "The way you sneak in and out of the city didn't make sense at first."

But now it does? Lev grinned back, not at all annoyed at being found out like that. If anything, Jack being understanding was great.

"Then I'll leave the fame up to you two, hunters," Lev's grin turned teasing. "A romantic couple creating waves will definitely attract more eyes and attention."

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