The group started to set up for a fight. Alice prepared on her own by pulling her enchanted items out of her storage Perk. Normally, Alice wouldn’t have worried very much about it, since there were three Immortals here. That was equivalent to the strength of several hundred [Soldiers], or perhaps even a few thousand.

But there was still a limit to how much an Immortal could handle, especially when the creatures they were fighting could resurrect themselves. With several hundred undying monsters attacking them, all of unknown strength… Alice felt far more uneasy about the fight than she otherwise might have.

Alice scanned their surroundings, looking for some sort of clue. Some sort of hint that would make the fight easy, or fix everything, or… or something. She didn’t want to fight a horde of bizarre monsters that had unusual abilities. Alice found herself profoundly wishing that the group had simply managed to outrun the damn creatures. But wishing that reality was different wouldn’t make it so.

Ethan took his father’s sword out of his storage Perk, while Allira started singing. Just like when Allira had helped Illa’s expeditionary force quell the Vinebear swarm all those months ago back in Cyra, the group’s surroundings started to change.

Much like before, Alice saw their surroundings transform into a city. Unlike the first time Allira had used this Perk, the city that Alice could see in Allira’s illusory reality was… different this time. It was more populated. The streets were denser, and the city didn’t give off a feeling of being war-torn or under siege. Instead, it was filled with people happily moving about their day, bustling to and from an area in a marketplace as they bought food and supplies. Children played on the side of the street, and workers and Mages hauled supplies. It looked like a prosperous city in the middle of a construction boom.

Alice frowned. Last time, Alana had set up an illusion that actively attacked monsters. She was sure that Allira was up to something this time, but Alice just wasn’t sure why Allira had set up this peaceful-looking city. It seemed… odd… to her.

Still, Alice decided not to ask. Immortals didn’t reach Immortality by having no clue what they were doing. If Allira was trying to set up a seemingly peaceful city, she must have some sort of reason for it. With that, Alice turned her attention towards Jonathan, and resisted the urge to grimace.

Unlike Ethan and Allira, Jonathan wasn’t doing very much. He had taken a few seeds out of his pockets, and started to ‘till’ the surrounding swamp… but Alice was noticing that there really wasn’t much rainbow mana in his surroundings, unlike Ethan and Allira’s attempts to set up for the battlefield. The crops he planted were growing unnaturally quickly, and it looked almost like he was trying to build a corn palisade. Unfortunately, the crops he was planting didn’t seem particularly unusual, as far as corn went. It might slow the monsters down a bit, but Alice doubted the corn palisade would really stop a determined charge of monsters.

Alice sighed, and didn’t say anything. Truthfully, she suspected that Jonathan simply couldn’t contribute much to this battlefield. Immortals may be incredibly powerful, but they all had specialties. Jonathan’s clearly wasn’t combat. She just hoped that he could help the rest of the group stay alive.

Alice laid out all of her own enchantments, pulling them out of her storage Perk one at a time to make sure she couldn’t spot any problems with them. She had manufactured quite a number of her consumable enchantments, and with Doll’s armor, she would also be incredibly hard to kill in a fight. The biggest danger would come from protecting the noncombatants. Jonathan’s family had lived up to Alice’s initial impression of them – they had almost no capacity to fight. Cecilia was also looking distinctly nervous at the prospect of fighting for her life, and had started burying blast crystals around the camp. Alice wasn’t sure how useful those would be when the monsters came, but it was worth a shot.

Then, she looked at her Status Screen, to remind herself of her options in a battle.

Name: Alice Verianna

Age: 16

Strength: 120(122%)

Perception: 145 (165%)

Dexterity: 121 (144%)

Intelligence: 172 (128%)

Endurance: 137(141%)

Willpower: 153(109%)

Charisma: 133 (107%)

Magic: 171 (192%)

Primary Classes: 6/6

Survivor: 66 -> 67

Explorer of Magic: 81 -> 85

Scholar: 62 -> 67

Scientist: 66 -> 68

Kinetic Manabinder: 51 -> 52

Careful Enchanter: 36

Evolved Classes: 2

Student of Kinetic Magic: 25

(Apprentice) Enchanter: 25

Secondary Classes: 4

Fisherwoman: 3

Student: 9

Legendary Organic Mage: 1 -> 7

Courtier: 1 -> 3

Secondary Evolved Classes: 1

Student of Organic Magic: 25

Perks:

Survivor Perks:

Foraging (Survivor 5)

Microbe Resistance (Survivor 10)

Extremophile (Survivor 15)

Enhanced Training (Survivor 30)

Adrenaline Rush (Survivor 45)

Enhanced Senses (Tier 2) (Survivor 55)

Extended Tissues (Tier 2) (Survivor 60)

Dimensional Camouflage (Tier 2) (Survivor 65)

Explorer of Magic Perks:

Enhanced Regeneration (Explorer of Magic 10)

Seeds of Magic (Explorer of Magic 25)

Broken Seed (Upgraded) (Explorer of Magic 35)

Combat Seed (Tier 2) (Explorer of Magic 60)

System's Ambition (Tier 3) (Explorer of Magic 80)

Magic Modelling (Tier 3) (Explorer of Magic 85)

Scholar Perks:

Accelerated Thinking (Scholar level 15 (-5))

Rhetorical Flourish (Scholar level 20)

Photographic Memory (Scholar level 25)

Improved Multitasking (Scholar level 30)

Scholar of Magic (Scholar level 35)

Lesser Organic Vision (Scholar 40)

Sleep Reading (Tier 2) (Scholar 55)

Delve Memories -> Memory Experimentation (Tier 2) (Scholar 60)

Scientist Perks:

Precise mana Measurement (Scientist level 5)

Sample Collection (Scientist level 10)

Safety Analysis (Scientist Level 20)

Shared Memory (Scientist Level 25)

Advanced Mana Measurement (Scientist Level 30)

For Science! (Scientist 45)

Speed Experimentation (Tier 2) (Scientist 55)

No_Mana -> Anti-Magic (Tier 2) (Scientist 60)

Kinetic Mage Perks:

Object Control (Student of Kinetic Magic 5)

Above Average Mana Sight (Student of Kinetic Magic 10)

Folds of Magic (Student of Kinetic Magic 15)

Split Mind (Student of Kinetic Magic 20)

Improved Object Control (Sensory Enhancement) (Student of Kinetic Magic 25)

Mana's Binding (Kinetic Manabinder 5)

Enhanced Focus (Kinetic Manabinder 10)

Vastly Improved Kinetic Vision (Kinetic Manabinder 15)

Overclock (Kinetic Manabinder 20)

Kinetic Enchanting (Kinetic Manabinder 25)

Reflection (Kinetic Manabinder 30)

Kinetic Tendrils (Kinetic Manabinder 35)

Speed Analysis (Kinetic Manabinder 40)

Kinetic Combatant (Kinetic Manabinder 45)

Tendri____ of Kinetic Mage -> Tendrils of Kinetic Magic (Kinetic Manabinder 50)

Enchanter Perks:

Enchanter's Vision (Apprentice Enchanter 5)

Monstrous Enchanting (Apprentice Enchanter 10)

Faster Enchanting (Apprentice Enchanter 15)

Faster Mana Regeneration (Apprentice Enchanter 20)

Speed Enchanting (Apprentice Enchanter 25)

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Repurposing (Careful Enchanter level 5)

Blueprint (Careful Enchanter level 10)

Enchanter's Basic Magic Seed (Careful Enchanter level 15)

Pride of a Craftswoman (Careful Enchanter 20)

Enchanter's Armory (Careful Enchanter 25)

Seed Enchanting (Careful Enchanter 30)

Mana Detection (Careful Enchanter 35)

Organic Mage Perks:

Improved Organic Manipulation (Organic Mage 5)

Patient's_Yes -> Lesser Patient's Consent (Organic Mage 10)

Skills

Academic Skills:

English (Language Proficiency): 100

Illvarian (Language Proficiency): 100

Sigmusi (Language Proficiency): 7

Russian (Language Proficiency): 1

Verinthian (Language Proficiency): 1

Basic Mathematics: 125

Intermediate Mathematics: 82

Advanced Mathematics: 22

Basic Human Biology: 43

Mana-biology: 26

Magic Skills:

Kinetic Manipulation: 80 -> 82

Mana Control: 56 -> 58

Mana Precision: 58 -> 60

Kinetic Force: 58 -> 60

Projectile Awareness: 37 -> 40

Divided Attention: 40 -> 43

Basic Enchanting: 48 -> 53

Broken Mana Purification: 24

Mana Filtering: 36

Seed Formation: 26 -> 30

Crafting Skills:

Weaving: 27

Woodworking: 28

Cooking: 12

Stoneworking: 11

Physical Skills:

Dodge: 36 -> 40

Etiquette: 21 -> 28

Spearmanship: 19

Sprinting: 22 -> 23

Riding: 15

Climbing: 9

Fishing: 9

Digging: 8

Stealth: 4

Basic Medicine: 3

Dancing: 6

Magic Seed: 1/1

Kinetic Seed 165%

Healing mana seed 65% (Deactivated - you may link this to a Perk if desired!)

Electromagnetic Seed (15%) (Deactivated)

No_Magic -> Antimagic 40% (Created by Perk - does not consume seed Slot)

Lesser Magic Seeds

(Base Max 30%, Achievements now apply as usual)

Compound Seed 1 (Display/Filtration/Meaning/Pure Mana/Math/Communication) 61 -> 182%

Organic Seed 84%

Pure Mana Seed 54%

Dimensional Seed 45%

Achievements:

Outworlder (Rarity: 10)

Seeker of Truth (IV) (Rarity: 10)

Baptized by Broken Mana (Rarity: 6)

Survivor of Winter (Rarity: 3)

Monstrous Encounter (Rarity: 1)

Monster Slayer (III) (Rarity: 2)

Well Trained (Rarity: 4)

Murderer (Rarity: 4)

Bookworm (Rarity: 3)

Kinetic Manabinder (Rarity N/A)

Careful Enchanter (Rarity N/A)

Capable Enchanter (Rarity: 5)

Seed Creator (Rarity: 8)

In Pursuit of Science (Rarity N/A)

Immortal's Apprentice at the battle against the Society (Rarity: 4)

Legendary Healer (Rarity: 7)

Creative Healer (Rarity: 4)

System_Teacher (Rarity: 7)

First Steps (I -> III) (Rarity: 6 -> 8)

Battle with an Immortal (Rarity: 9)

Royal Crisis Analyst (Rarity: N/A)

With her use of {First Steps}, all of her broken Achievements had returned to normal. Alice wasn’t sure how much it would help, but she was grateful for any advantage she could get right now. With her enchantments prepared and her abilities ready, Alice sat down to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Despite the fact that Allira had made the approaching monster swarm sound imminent, Alice was surprised by how long they were taking to arrive. It almost felt as if they were deliberately approaching more slowly, giving their pretty time to –

Alice shut down that train of thought before she could continue. She realized, with a thrill of terror, that perceiving the enemy as being stronger would change their strength. Alice focused, and started thinking about how weak the monsters surely were compared to the Immortals. Ethan and Allira didn’t seem very stressed – they looked annoyed, but they didn’t look worried about winning. That meant that they were confident, right?

Now that Alice knew her thoughts could influence reality, she tried very hard to hypnotize herself to believe that the oncoming fight was about to be easy. She wasn’t sure how much impact a single person’s beliefs would be, but it was surely better than nothing.

And then, not quickly enough and also far too soon, the first monsters arrived.

It was a horde of strange, flying creatures that Alice had a hard time understanding. Allira had said that the monsters were odd, and she hadn’t been kidding. They looked almost like someone had taken a patch of fog, cut it into the shape of a monster, and then added in dozens of extra pairs of eyes for no reason. The monsters smelled like fetid swamp water, and Alice had the urge to cover her nose as the creatures drew closer.

Even more unnerving, Alice could see strands of mana that connected the monsters to the swamp itself, almost like puppeteers wielding strings. She couldn’t help but think of the fact that the swamp had constantly seemed to be watching them, and shuddered. Perhaps these things were the reason that the swamp always seemed to be watching them.

Allira fired the first shot of the battle. The strangely peaceful city that she had conjured when she had started singing changed instantly. All of the children who were playing in the streets, the merchants clamoring for coins, and the people going about their days took on a strange, dreamlike quality as Allira hummed. As one, the townsfolk all turned towards the monster horde with empty, angry eyes. They grinned eerily, and charged.

This distracted quite a few of the monsters, but more of them simply ignored Allira’s illusions as they sprinted towards the rest of the group.

Ethan immediately grabbed every single branch of free material in their surroundings. Dead tree branches, stones, globs of mud – anything that could be thrown was launched towards the first few monsters in a barrage of projectiles.

It was as if he had launched a whirlwind of trash at the creatures.

The monsters responded far more quickly than Alice had expected. Dozens of the mana ‘threads’ connecting them to the rest of the swamp danced and shivered, before the pieces of swamp detritus froze in midair. Alice narrowed her eyes at the creatures.

Somehow, the monstrous patches of fog were controlling the swamp itself. Perhaps they had swamp-based mana?

Ethan also grimaced.

“They have too much control over swamp materials! Don’t bother trying to use them! It’s more likely to backfire!” he yelled, as he started ripping out golden-colored ears of corn from Jonathan’s efforts. Just like the tree branches from the swamp, Ethan launched them at the monsters.

This time, the ears of corn weren’t blocked by the monsters. It seemed that their swamp-manipulation abilities couldn’t block Jonathan’s crops. Alice felt a moment of hope as she wished that the monsters would simply die from Ethan’s barrage… only for their bodies to turn as wispy as smoke.

Alice saw a wave of purple flashes, as the misty monsters teleported away. A few of them were still caught in Ethan’s barrage, but most of them escaped.

Many of the ones who were caught by Ethan’s barrage were set upon by frenzied villager illusions. At the same time, the hungry bits of shadows in their surroundings surged onto the battlefield. Alice caught glimpses of eyes and teeth that stretched and twisted unnaturally, and many of the wounded monsters died.

As the monsters died, Alice finally observed the monsters ‘reviving,’ as Allira had mentioned they would.

Each time a monster died, the mana tether connecting them to the swamp brightened up, while the mana from the nearby swamp thinned. It was as if the monsters were drinking the swamp of the mana in order to revive. Within about ten seconds, the creatures would return to life.

Alice suspected that binding the monsters wasn’t the only way to handle them. If the group just kept killing the monsters, eventually the swamp would probably run out of mana. At least, assuming that nobody started believing the monsters were unkillable – if that happened, the fundamental weakness of the monster’s revivals might disappear shortly afterwards.

That being said, even if the monsters were theoretically killable if they drained enough mana, Alice seriously doubted they had enough resources to outlast the horde. The rest of the monsters were still on their way, and even fighting off a group this large could be dangerous with the Immortals forced to protect weaker combatants like her and Jonathan’s family.

Luckily, Alice wasn’t completely helpless against this kind of tactic. Now that Alice had a rough idea how the monsters were revived, she used {Dimensional Camouflage} to start opening up a few windows to attack from. She needed free access to the monsters without getting counterattacked, and she was determined to get it.

Then, Alice started pulling at her antimagic seed. She chose a nearby monster that she had a good view of, and then flooded it with antimagic mana. The monster didn’t respond at all as Alice flooded it with mana – instead, it kept charging at a nearby illusory ‘villager.’

Alice started at the monster she had targeted, and frowned. She had been hoping that the monster would fall dead on the spot. If the monsters were reliant upon their connection with the swamp to stay alive, Alice had thought cutting them off would be instantly fatal. Sadly, the monster she had targeted was still very much alive and kicking.

A few moments passed, as Alice awkwardly stared at the monster. The creature finally realized that the ‘villager’ wasn’t real, and turned towards the next nearest target. Alice herself. It charged.

Alice sent a spray of bracelet beads into the creature… and it dropped dead. Alice waited for the creature to reform, or start reconstructing its body… but nothing happened. Instead, the threads of mana she had messed up using anti-magic mana just sort of… hung there in midair. It was almost as if it was a broken computer cord.

Alice realized what was happening a moment later. Cutting off the monsters from the swamp might not kill them instantly, but it seemed to create a different problem for them. She waited a few seconds, before she grinned.

Instead of the monster reforming, the thread of mana she had been messing with started to sink back into the swamp. A few moments later, the thread of mana simply dissipated. Alice got the feeling that the mana hadn’t disappeared – instead, the swamp had turned it into something else. Perhaps it had created a few new trees, or expanded a bit. But Alice didn’t care.

Regardless of what happened, she had permanently killed one of the monsters, and that was what they needed right now. A way to reduce the numbers of the enemy a bit and give the Immortals more breathing room.

“Ethan!” she yelled. “I have a way to stop them from coming back to life! Hit the ones I point out!” Then, Alice started finding the denser clumps of monsters and using her portal/antimagic setup to flood the area with antimagic. Each time she did so, she then started rattling random objects above the monsters, to make sure Ethan knew which ones she had targeted.

Each group of monsters that Alice cut off was quickly torn to pieces by targeted groups of projectiles. Thanks to Alice’s antimagic setup, the monsters had a hard time even portalling away. A disconcerting number of them still managed to turn their bodies into mist, or dodge Ethan’s projectiles… but the Immortal was an experienced combatant. Anytime an enemy dodged a missile, he simply sent another spray at them. Alice also assisted him from the side by tossing in her own bracelet beads whenever she had the focus for it.

However, the monsters didn’t just sit back and let the group kill them.

Once they realized what Alice was doing, parts of the ground underneath her started to twist and shudder. Alice had a fraction of a moment to remember what the city they had found looked like before a tree root ripped its way out of the ground and tried to spear her through her brain.

Before Alice died, Jonathan appeared by her side. The tree root slammed into his outstretched arm… and bounced off. Jonathan grimaced, and his muscles rippled. Rainbow mana flooded out of his body, and then the man pulled something out of the ground.

Several nearby trees seemed to liquefy as they were dragged downwards. Rainbow mana arced through the tree root and into several of the nearby trees, rapidly consuming them and leaving behind piles of fertilized, freshly tilled soil.

“Got it,” said Jonathan, panting as he wiped sweat away from his forehead. “Tough ones.”

Alice had no idea how Jonathan had overcome the mana resistance the swamp seemed to have, but decided not to question it. Maybe it was due to the inherent belief most people had that System Perks just… worked? As long as no one questioned the internal mechanics of the whole process, maybe System Perks could totally ignore the problems they should have run into.

The monsters adapted to the group’s tactics, and rapidly found new ways to survive and fight back. Since Alice could only cover one area at a time with her anti-magic mana, the monsters spread out. Several of them also targeted Jonathan’s family, forcing the Immortals to divert more of their attention to keeping the noncombatants safe. Jonathan was mostly responsible for handling defense. His body was ridiculously sturdy, and his [Farmer] abilities were perfectly suited to handle sneaky attacks from tree roots and terrain manipulation. Meanwhile, Ethan and Allira’s illusions, summons, and projectiles helped swarm and kill every single monster that Alice could splash with antimagic mana. At a few points, Cecilia also detonated her blast crystals to keep the monsters from overrunning the illusions. For a while, the combatants formed an uneasy, tenuous balance.

And then the balance broke. Alice ran out of Antimagic Mana, and a crushing headache formed behind her eyeballs. It felt like someone was trying to drive nails through her eyeballs with a sledgehammer. Alice grimaced.

“I’m out of mana!” she yelled. She took a few moments to survey her handiwork.

Nearly a hundred of the monsters had been permanently killed. There were still over two hundred left, but with nearly a third of the combatants taken out, the Immortals were having a much easier time maintaining the situation. She might not have ended the threat, but she had certainly helped.

“Let us take it from here then!” said Ethan, grinning. He and Allira started working together. Ethan constantly used objects to herd the swamp monsters in specific directions, and then the workers in Allira’s city would… change things in their surroundings. Handiwork tools and construction materials would warp on the spot, before they would rapidly construct something totally different.

After a few repetitions of this, Alice finally realized what Ethan and Allira were planning. Ethan would herd the monsters into a specific area, and kill monsters that weren’t under the two’s control. Then, Allira would use her illusions to build a prison for the monsters on the spot. The two were experimenting with different types of prison, to see which one held monsters the most effectively… but Alice could see that they were getting results. After twelve variations of quickly built prisons, Allira grinned.

“That one works,” she said as she looked at the cube of solid stone and metal. There were no gaps at all in the prison, and the monster trapped inside was having a hard time teleporting out. Alice wasn’t entirely sure what was blocking it, but she could see a thin film of ‘extra’ rainbow mana covering the outside of the prison.

“All right, we’re getting there!” yelled Ethan. “Just gotta hold out a little longer!” After that, he and Allira got to work. Now that they had a working model for a prison, they constantly trapped the monsters in prisons. By the time another fifty of them had been trapped, the monsters were starting to realize the tides had turned against them. Without a moment of hesitation, they broke off their assault, and fled into the nearby woods. Ethan and Allira frowned, but they didn’t really have a way to stop the monsters from fleeing if they decided to escape. They had already wasted too many perks and mana on handling the first wave of attackers – Alice suspected that they might struggle to truly finish off the swarm of advance monsters.

Ethan sighed. “I wish we’d had more time to deal with all of them. They might harass us during our journey.”

“We did what we could,” said Allira, frowning. “I just hope they don’t return with reinforcements. That would be… troublesome.”

Jonathan nodded in silent agreement.

Alice quickly tallied up the losses of the group, and felt at least a bit of relief. The monsters that had escaped were a hidden threat… but the group hadn’t lost anyone, either. The worst injuries were all from Jonathan, and they were essentially papercuts. Even as Alice watched, the man’s injuries were healing up, and they would probably be gone in a few minutes.

It wasn’t a perfect conclusion to the battle… but it could have gone much, much worse. Alice just hoped that the monsters wouldn’t be back.

You have leveled up!

Survivor: 67 -> 69, Explorer of Magic: 85 -> 86, Kinetic Manabinder: 52 -> 54