Imri left the convention center, ready for a fight. He didn’t waste any time using Blink to reposition himself, teleporting into a nearby high rise several floors up. It was a good thing he had, as acid splashed all around where he had stood just a moment ago.

Its source was an enormous Azala, standing over three meters in height. It looked only vaguely humanoid, with dark veins standing out throughout its body. Instead of its arms ending with hands, it was hollowed out like a hand cannon. It opened its maw, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth. A quick Identifiy told him it was a level 38 Azala Despoiler. It also wasn’t alone, as dozens of Azala Drones in various states of transformation flanked the Despoiler.

Despite Imri not leaving any trace of where he had teleported, the creature immediately looked directly at him and raised its hand cannon arms toward him. Fortunately, the creature's movements were somewhat sluggish, giving him a moment to react before it launched the projectile.

Imri teleported a second time, appearing midair above the tallest building. He started to plummet toward the ground but quickly constructed a Reorient Gravity. The effect of gravity changed, so he fell at a trajectory that took him up and forward across the city. He used a strong enough amplitude that the forces were even more substantial than conventional gravity, as he didn’t want to present an easy target for the Azala below. While the mana expenditure was significant, it was still preferable to the constant use of Blink.

Imri maintained the Reorient Gravity spell for several seconds, allowing himself to build up considerable speed. A few projectiles whizzed by, but none even came close. When he eventually released the spell, his forward momentum continued, though it was slowed by wind resistance. Conversely, his upward momentum slowed as normal gravity began reducing his speed until he reached the zenith of his arc.

He continued cycling through Reorient Gravity to travel. His subsequent uses were always at different angles and amplitudes, making it hard for the Azala to predict his movements. Despite those countermeasures, the Azala still attempted to bring him down. They fired beach-ball-sized sacs that detonated midair, spraying acid in every direction, forming a flack-like mist. Imri attempted to avoid them, preventing himself from being struck by a direct hit. When the clouds became unavoidable, he used Blink to change his position.

In addition to the acidic mist, several flying Azala, each with two pairs of insect-like wings and wicked-looking claws, came hurtling towards him. Imri considered increasing the amplitude of his Reorient Gravity but dismissed that as too inefficient. He also didn’t want to go too fast and discourage his pursuers; each Azala that went after him was one less attacking the city. Instead, he reduced his acceleration, allowing them to close in.

Once they were close enough, he summoned an assault rifle from his Inner Domain. There was only open air between him and his target, making this a relatively easy shot. Imri squeezed the trigger several times, firing a burst directly into the oncoming Azala. The results were incredibly lackluster, with most of the bullets bouncing harmlessly off its carapace. The few bullets that penetrated the Azala were little more than minor irritants to the system-enhanced creature. Pre-integration weaponry had quickly reached its obsolescence cliff. Hopefully these Azala weren’t typical of the invasion force, or the soldiers in New Chicago would be decimated. With a sigh, he returned the firearm to his Inner Domain and formulated a new plan.

Imri waited till the last possible moment when the flying Azala had committed to its attack. A stationary tear in dimensional space about a meter long was interposed between them. The Azala, unable to adjust its trajectory, passed through the tear, and a moment later, its body split into two pieces. A second Azala, trailing just behind its comrade, fared only slightly better. It managed to avoid a direct hit, but its long dragonfly-like wing clipped through the tear. It immediately started spinning through the air, plummeting toward the street below.

The last of his assailants managed to evade the trap cleanly. The Azala continued towards Imri, unperturbed by the death of the other two flying Azala. Unfortunately for the Azala, Imri had expected this, and a Reorient Gravity enveloped it like a river current through spacetime. This particular current sent in careening into the void it had just avoided.

With Imri’s pursuers taken care of, he slowed his pace even further. His brief flight through the city had used up his mana at an alarming rate. Fortunately, he had reached his destination. He used a final Reorient Gravity to slow his relative velocity to almost nothing, then used a Blink to return to the ground.

He stood in a mostly abandoned part of the city. Large swathes of the area were covered in hastily constructed shanties, built simply to complete the settlement quest. Many had been built on top of each other, making unsteady towers that would make even the most lax building inspector cringe.

For a moment, Imri worried that the Azala were no longer pursuing him, but then he spotted several more of the fliers. Instead of attacking him, they simply kept a visual on him. They were undoubtedly providing his location to every nearby Azala. Imri smiled, certain they were still coming. He took advantage of his momentary reprieve to pull out an Espeonite crystal, topping off his mana pool. As he absorbed the mana, he casually walked further into the shanty town, moving closer to its center.

He quickly downed a couple of potions, ignoring the nausea from drinking them back to back. The first was the tried-and-true mana regeneration potion, this particular one having less of a duration but a stronger percentage increase. It didn’t have much of an immediate effect, but if the fighting dragged on, it would be invaluable. The second was a stat-increasing elixir, with this particular variant raising his willpower by several points for two hours.

When Imri reached the approximate center, he manifested his domain. Information flooded his mind, revealing every Azala within the 243-meter radius. There were dozens, ranging from insignificant drones to Despoilers and a new variant, Titans, nearing his level. However, this was only the beginning of his opponents, and with each passing second, more crossed the domain’s boundary. As the numbers crossed into the hundreds, Imri knew he couldn’t win in a conventional fight, no matter how efficient he was with his mana. Unfortunately, he couldn’t use area spells with his domain, and his usual trick of stacking temporal buffs and debuffs wouldn’t be enough this time.

Imri smiled as the numbers continued rising. When the nearest Azala started converging on his position, he activated his domain spell. The Azala stumbled, convulsing in pain. Their bodies began visibly shifting and mutating, growing more tentacles or large cancerous growths seemingly at random.

Imri had used his Aging spell, pumping in as much mana as possible while still being efficient with the spell. Within a minute, the Azala had aged considerably, and their own bioengineering was working against them. Their ability to grow at such a prodigious rate came at a cost. They required a constant source of nourishment, usually at their hosts' expense. If they grew too fast or too much, it was just internal cannibalism, a cancer.

Over a hundred Azala had died, extinguished by their own growth. Large portions of their bodies were unrecognizable blobs of flesh. Unfortunately, the higher-level and larger Azala seemed somewhat resistant. However, they had been weakened considerably.

Imri used the last of his available mana to reposition himself with a Blink, narrowly avoiding being trampled by a Titan that was larger than the ramshackle dwellings. It continued forward, easily demolishing the buildings into rubble.

Imri began to reabsorb more mana, still having plenty of charged Espeonite in his Inner Domain. However, he was nearing the beginning of the over-channel debuff, which would start physically fatiguing him while reducing his mana efficiency. Over-channel was a minor nuisance at its lowest severity, but it would quickly become a significant problem at the rate he went through his mana.

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Fortunately, the Azala seemed unwilling to continue charging headlong into his domain, as he doubted he could pull the same trick off twice with his dwindling effective mana supply. If he could deal with the final few Azala, he would hopefully have time to recover.

To conserve mana, he switched to relying primarily on his enchantments. He wasn’t a physical combatant, having learned that lesson the hard way, but he could be effective when stacking buffs and debuffs. He activated his Temporal Expansion ring at a high enough amplitude that it would last less than a minute. At the same time, he stacked Temporal Collapse on the remaining Azala as his new domain spell, albeit at a relatively low amplitude, to conserve his mana.

He sprang forward, to him appearing to move with the speed of a pre-integration professional athlete. However, to the Azala, he was a blur. Imri easily evaded a swipe from a Titan, its attack seeming to move in slow motion. For the Titan's trouble, it lost the limb, which the Dimensional Saber easily dismembered. Imri got in close and followed up with a pair of quick slashes that made short work of the tier 2 Azala.

Imri continued through the remaining Azala, seemingly moving like a dervish of death. Despite their high level, the remaining Azala were cut down with the mechanical efficiency of a farmer threshing wheat.

When it was done, Imri breathed heavily from the physical exertion. Both his personal resources and enchantments were nearing their limit, and he now had the over-channel debuff. He knew that no Azala was within his domain, so he collapsed, thankful for his momentary reprieve. A slew of system notifications that he had ignored were now vying for his attention.

Imri Padar has reached level 45 (+2) in Celestial Mage (2E) Imri Padar has reached level 45 (+2) in Manifestation of Gaia (2F) Primary Stats Strength 156 (+1) Agility 128 (+1) Constitution 153 (+1) Intelligence 299 (+6) Willpower 241 (+3) Charisma 130 (+1) Secondary Stats HP 345 (+9) FP 256 (+5) MP 1698 (+94) Mana Efficiency 1307 (+71) Crafting Efficiency 1710 (+93)

Trait Rank Up Time Manipulation E to D Time Manipulation has improved to Temporal Control Temporal Control (2F): Gives an instinctive control over temporal concepts, helping improve the rate at which spells and abilities related to the concept of time are learned and improved by 5.5%. Increases the effectiveness of temporal spells and abilities by 2.5%.

Skill Rank Up Manifest Domain F to E: Create a domain within the physical world with a radius of 1.03 (+.03) meters/willpower. You are aware of everything within your domain as if you had identified it and instinctually know exactly where everything is while it remains within your domain. You may imbue the domain with the effect of one of your spells with a 5.15% (+.15%) increase in mana efficiency. The spell will drain mana at a rate equivalent to if you were targeting a single target. You may affect any number of targets within the domain with the spell's effects at no additional cost. You can manifest a domain for 1.03 (+.03) minutes/willpower/month. This time is reduced by 10 minutes/number of usages beyond the first each time a subsequent domain is manifested within the same month.

Spells Ranked Up Reorient Gravity F to E: 3% increase in the spell's mana efficiency Blink D to C Blink has improved to Teleportation Teleportation (3F): Instantly appear at a distant location that is visible or has previously been visited. Touched objects may also be teleported. Mana cost varies by distance traveled and mass of the objects being teleported. Aging E to D Aging has improved to Cycles of Growth and Decay Cycles of Growth and Decay (2F): Exert the forces of time, Increasing the age of the target. While the target is aging, it can be nourished with mana, applying only the beneficial effects of aging to the target. Conversely, mana can be used to improve natural breakdown due to aging, applying only the negative effects of aging to the target. Mana cost/second varies based on the amount of mass affected, amplitude of the effect, and distance from target to caster. Cycles of Growth and Decay F to E: 3% increase in the spell's mana efficiency

Imri smiled as he reviewed the improvements. He had been somewhat disappointed that he had only gained 2 levels, but he had mostly slain enemies that were considerably lower leveled. He hadn’t even improved his Butcher or Horde Slayer achievements, as most enemies hadn’t met the ‘near his level’ requirement. However, gaining two improved spells and an improved trait immediately switched his disappointment to child-like glee.

Teleportation was his first tier 3 spell, and it didn’t disappoint. The first thing he noticed was that he could now use Teleportation to travel to any location he had been, eliminating the sensory requirement. While his beacons made that less valuable, he could still foresee several potential use cases. Similarly, the ability to teleport other objects was invaluable. He had intended to use his Inner Domain to store objects and teleport, but not having to do that saved a step. It also gave him the option to teleport without sending himself. The final improvement was typical of tier improvements: the base cost had increased slightly, but an improved range increment offset this.

Cycles of Growth and Decay were a different matter. This tier-up came with significantly more flexibility. Using the decay aspect of the spell would improve it in the manner he had in the previous fight. In addition, he could now use the spell more supportively, such as growing plants. In a pinch, he could also use the growth aspect as a sort of natural healing spell. Even the exponential increase in the spell's cost was gone. However, all this came at a significant increase in base mana cost.

The rest of his improvements, including the tiered-up trait, were incremental increases in his efficiency. Nothing game-changing, but every little bit was starting to compound. This was especially true for his Manifest Domain skills, which had improved by 3% in all aspects, making his most potent skill even more effective.

Imri’s ruminations were interrupted when he felt a hostile presence. It wasn’t physical, as nothing had entered his domain; instead, it was a mental projection. It brushed against his mind, attempting to communicate with him rather than brute-forcing through his defenses. It was definitely an Azala, and a powerful one at that. Fortunately, it wasn’t anywhere near the queen's level.

In the end, Imri’s curiosity overrode his fear of another Azala psychic attack, and he accepted the connection.

‘What do you want, Azala? If you're going to attack, get on with it. I already defeated your queen; I’m sure you’ll be no challenge,’ Imri provoked it.

‘Defeated is a strong word for what happened. You stole from us like a thieving magpie. You are a minor nuisance, a pest, nothing more,’ the Azala sent back.

‘Well, that pest just defeated all the forces you sent after it, so…’ Imri continued taunting.

‘You won’t be so smug for long. We know everything about you, including what you value over your own life. Let’s see if your fiancée can survive as well as you,’ the Azala sent. With that, the Azala ended the connection.