Xavier’s mind worked swiftly.

He was high up in the air, mid-leap, his consciousness expanding through the insidious dark substance that had just tried to take over his mind.

He had taken over its mind in kind, but his control over the strange, interconnected entity was not full. Not complete. If the entity discovered him, his control would snap like a twig underfoot.

If I influence it, will it push back?

He didn’t know, but he had to try—someone’s life was at stake.

My life might be at stake too, if I don’t get a handle on all this.

Even with his mind split into multiple parts, it was difficult for him to spread his attention everywhere it was needed. He had taken over many minds since he’d gained his Willpower Infusion spell. It had made the difference in countless battles he’d been in. Without it, he never would have gotten this far.

But he’d never touched a mind as powerful as this one, and being able to control such a mind?

It was difficult to believe.

His mind turned over and over in the split second since he’d seen the woman in danger—the black oozing entity had spread all across her skin and looked as though it was about to take her over completely. Xavier didn’t know if she would die right away, or if she would simply become this being’s slave—like all the infected monsters he was currently facing.

Xavier pushed his will, uttering a single command to the substance.

Release her.

He had expected push back. Expected the entity to fight him—to even notice him.

But it didn’t—it pulled back from the woman in an instant. The woman was surrounded not just by the oozing substance, but by countless infected beasts. Some of them lay dead on the ground, while others stood, making that strange gurgling sound.

The oozing substance receded. More of the woman’s pale skin was revealed as the dark substance dissipated, leaving her, flowing down her body until it pooled into a puddle on the ground and became seemingly inert.

The beasts ceased their odd gurgling and turned from her, walking away as though she wasn’t there at all.

Xavier activated Hover Dodge, slipping away from the dark owl’s attack with ease while he was still in mid-air. His mind was in two places at once—observing the woman and fighting these infected beasts around himself.

Xavier, feeling suddenly confident, instructed the entity to ignore him.

The owl, which had been swooping back toward him, suddenly turned and flew away, off into the night, becoming almost invisible against the inky black sky.

Xavier landed in a crouch, a dust cloud forming as the impact of his landing created a small crater. He held his scythe-staff before him, ready to fight—but he didn’t need to. The large, Infected Stag just stood there, its black eyes staring blankly into nothing.

The dark wolven pack that had been approaching lost interest in him completely. They sniffed the ground and walked back into the nearby cover of the trees.

Xavier tilted his head to the side for a moment and examined his connection to the dark, oozing entity he’d been controlling.

How was it he was still in control? He could feel how weak his control should be. Normally, if he were to have taken over something with a control that felt at the same level as this, then he wouldn’t have been able to pause the enemy for more than a mere moment. Perhaps only a split-second—perhaps less.

Yet the connection was still there. The strength of this thing’s mind had been immense. The mind itself was immense. It spread across the entire mountain—his awareness wasn’t large enough to take it all in, yet it hadn’t broken his control yet.

What the hell is this thing?

He blinked, wondering. Could the mind not truly be a mind? This entity was connected, through everything it controlled—and it controlled the very trees, the grass—yet did it even think?

Xavier shook his head. This was a puzzle he wished to solve, but it wasn’t the most important thing right now. He could see the woman—the lone Denizen somewhere up in the mountain. She stood, staring around at the infected beasts that had abandoned her, at the dark oozing substance that had flowed off her skin, her forehead creased. She breathed heavily, summoning a health potion to her hand and quickly downing it.

He needed to find this woman.

It didn’t take him long to reach the clearing. The woman hadn’t left. She had been staring into nothing—perhaps looking at her status—and periodically glancing around the area. But she hadn’t moved, almost as though she’d been afraid to.

Xavier, still connected to the dark entity, realised that having his mind expand into it had filled out the mini-map of the entire mountain. He had simply flagged her position then headed toward her.

The woman heard him before he appeared. That had been his intention. He didn’t want to freak her out and take her by surprise. Denizens would be punished for fighting on this floor, but she might not realise he wasn’t an enemy if she thought he was sneaking up on her.

He stepped into the clearing with his hands raised. His Midnight Scythe was tucked safely away inside his Storage Ring—he wanted to appear as harmless as possible.

The woman relaxed when she saw her, though not completely. “Are you lost?”

Xavier chuckled. “No. I’m exactly where I mean to be. Felicia told me I might find you around the Dark Mountains.”

The woman’s forehead creased. Xavier wished he knew what her name was. That might make this a little easier. “Did she, now? That woman does like to spread information.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why, exactly, are you looking for me?”

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“I recently acquired a spell that can alter time. Felicia told me you are quite skilled in that area. I was hoping, perhaps, you might be willing to instruct me.”

The woman laughed. “You want me to teach you? Why would I ever want to do something like that? I didn’t come to this floor alone for company—and I certainly didn’t come here with the intention of teaching someone.”

Xavier raised an eyebrow. He supposed he’d have a similar reaction if someone came up to him, wanting his help reaping souls or controlling minds—he didn’t have time for such things.

It was a good thing he’d just saved this woman’s life.

“Did you happen to wonder why you’re still alive?” Xavier asked.

The woman blinked. “What?”

Xavier looked over at the seemingly inert puddle of black ooze on the ground. The woman had taken a few steps away from it, but it was still close by. “Mere minutes ago, that thing almost killed you. Then it just… stopped.” He tilted his head to the side. “Why do you think that is?”

The woman tensed. She carried a staff that looked to be made from a wood much like oak. Crystals were embedded along the shaft in a swirling pattern that curled around the staff until they reached the largest crystal at its top. Each of the crystals were clear, with a smoky energy coalescing inside of them.

The pale woman pointed her staff toward the dark puddle. “Do you mean to say you had something to do with this? Did you somehow influence the enemy to attack me? Are you not a Champion of your world? Fighting on this floor is punishable by the System!”

“You misunderstand.” He raised his right hand, slowly as so not to look as though it were in any way a threat and showed her the black dot just below his knuckle. “The entity tried to kill—or, I suppose, infect—me as well.” He lowered his hand and looked curiously at the black dot. “I have the ability to control an enemy’s mind. It isn’t always effective, but when it is…” He shrugged. “I took control of the entity. When I saw you were in danger, I pulled it away from you.”

The woman looked taken aback. She gave him a thorough once over, her gaze crawling up and down him. “That’s impossible.”

He frowned. His control over the beast still felt tenuous, but as it wasn’t being fought, it also didn’t feel as though it was about to break.

With that in mind, he instructed the oozing puddle to crawl along the ground toward the forest. When it did so, he smiled. “It’s strange. The entity seems to be in thousands of different places at once. Its mind is interconnected, almost like a computer network.”

“What’s a computer?”

Xavier shook his head. “Not important. Do you believe me now?”

The woman stepped over to the puddle as it crawled across the ground. She motioned to it with her staff. “You’re telling me that you’re able to do this, yet you’ve come to me for instruction?” Shock was written across the woman’s face, and she was looking down at the puddle in complete awe.

Xavier thought what he’d done was significant, but as every Champion on this floor was D Grade, he didn’t think it was that much of an accomplishment in the grand scheme. He explained the reason he was able to control its mind wasn’t his power, but rather that he was able to cut a small portion of the entity away from the greater whole.

The woman still stared at him funny after his explanation. “You don’t realise what you’ve done, do you?”

Xavier sighed. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

“This beast, this entity, the black ooze? It’s called The Nightmare.” The woman motioned toward the mountain around them. “It turned these mountains dark.”

Xavier dipped his head in a nod. “I had figured that part out—not its name, but what it had done to the mountain.”

“Did you also happen to notice that it’s a beast from the noticeboard? There is a Hunt Quest for it.”

Xavier hadn’t noticed that. “I thought beasts from the noticeboard appeared in separate instances?”

“That is purely dependent on how strong the beasts are—C Grades, for instance, as multiple parties are expected to take them on, aren’t trapped in instances.”

Xavier nodded along as the woman spoke. Then, as the significance of what she was trying to tell him sunk in, his head stopped mid-nod. “Wait… are you trying to tell me The Nightmare is a C Grade beast?”

She couldn’t be telling him the truth… But why would she lie about something like that? What in the world would she have to gain?

“Yes. And you’re in control of it.”

After Xavier had stood there in shock for far too long, the woman took him to a small cave she said was protected from the infected beasts, and the entity that controlled them. The cave walls were made of salt—apparently that was something the entity couldn’t tolerate, which was why it was easy enough for Denizens to travel through the Dark Mountains when off to face things like the Stone Bear.

Why this woman had been caught unawares, he did not yet ask.

“It can’t stand salt? What, is it some kind of demon?” Xavier said, smirking at he spoke the words.

“Yes,” the woman replied. “It is.”

“Oh.”

The woman summoned a comfortable armchair from her Storage Ring and plopped down onto it. She let out a contented sigh, then held her head as though it were in pain.

Xavier remained standing. He had furniture of his own that he could summon, but he didn’t feel the need to sit. He was still absorbing the fact that he was currently in control of a C Grade entity.

He was also even more annoyed with Felicia than he already had been—the woman hadn’t seen cause to warn him about The Nightmare when telling him this was where he’d find the time mage.

Xavier examined his control over The Nightmare. It still felt weak, and it wouldn’t last forever—making the connection was draining his Willpower Energy. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but whenever he sent a command to the thing, he pulled deeply from his Willpower Energy reserve. Very deeply.

He should have noticed that. He hadn’t been paying close enough attention.

Xavier closed his eyes. He split his mind again, into yet another part, so one part of him could think of the consequences of controlling an enemy two grades higher than himself while the other did what he’d come to do and spoke to the woman.

“My name is Xavier.” He paused. If he was going to ask for this woman’s instruction, he supposed he might as well tell her his full name. If it spread, he would deal with the consequences then. “Xavier Collins. Felicia didn’t actually grant me your name—all she said was that you came to this floor without a party, same as I did.”

“Liana,” the woman said. She heaved a long sigh. “I suppose I’m in your debt. What do you wish to learn from me?”

Xavier had never been in a position to learn from a D Grade. There were gaps—many gaps—in his knowledge and training. And while he’d gotten this far without proper tutelage—and mostly, no tutelage at all—he was finally in a position where he could slow down and actually focus on bettering himself.

Since the moment the System had come to Earth and integrated them into the Greater Universe, he’d been like a man possessed, pushing himself harder and harder, with barely a pause to catch his breath. There were countless fundamentals that he knew he’d missed, simply because he’d always fallen back on what had worked for him, only having to improvise when his life was at stake.

If he’d known better, he could have been using Heavy Telekinesis to help him move around in the air a long time ago, or to help enforce his physical attacks—he wondered how many other things he’d missed simply because he’d been going too fast.

“I want you to teach me how to rank up my Time Alteration spell, and…” He frowned, swallowed, looking down. It felt strange, asking another for help in this way. It didn’t feel right, but he knew that was his pride at work.

“You’ll need to sign a contract with me,” the woman said.

Xavier blinked. He’d been about to ask Liana to do the same.

“You will keep secret everything you learn of me,” Liana said.

Xavier slowly nodded. “Agreed. And you shall do the same for me.”

They negotiated the particulars of the contract, and Xavier couldn’t be happier about the terms. It was clear this woman was hiding something—or perhaps simply hiding—and it turned out she wanted a contract even more than he did.

He found that he respected the woman—he may have saved her life, but that didn’t obligate her to train him.

And yet, here she was, signing a contract to that affect.

Once they’d signed, Xavier cleared his throat. Every single one of their conversations was now protected—which meant that whatever he said now, she would never repeat for fear of losing all of her levels.

“There is something else I need to ask of you.”