As our makeshift campfire blew its last breaths the ever-present gloom took over.

The room bathed in an inert silence breached solely by Jinhyung’s breathing. I summoned a small sphere of light to peek around. My body was still weak, but I slept enough to recover energy for such a weak spell.

Under its faint light, I examined Jinhyung. His hanbok, or whatever was it called, was torn apart under enemy strikes, but strangely, even without consuming a recovery potion, no wounds were left.

"Hey, how did you heal yourself? Is that a spell of yours,” I said gently poking his cheek.

"This is not quite a technique, rather a more efficient use of my spirit. While you slept, I precisely channelled the flow of Qi through my cells. It increased mitosis—a powerful way of recovery, but it's quite time and energy consuming.”

Mending wounds with simple meditation? Ridiculously powerful!

“Could you teach me?”

He nodded from left to right, “Even if I did, you wouldn’t be able to do it.”

"How come? I have a rather large amount of magic capacity and a pretty good head between shoulders."

"You used the 'empty grimoire' and your clever mind to achieve powerful feats, but you lack a basic understanding of Qi. You view a technique as a closed machine; you input energy, and it spits a result. This leads to an inefficient usage of energy. Instead of pushing a stick through a hole, you use a brick to hammer it in. You may push it stronger, but a lot more energy is lost moving the brick. Without a perfect control of your internal energy, it would be impossible for you."

"But how can I improve? What should I do to increase my magic efficiency and flow control?"

"Since you used the grimoire as a shortcut, in the short term you gained complex spells, but in the long run you never learned the true nature of a technique. Each time someone uses a Qi technique, it tells a story—a story about their life, their personality, their mastery—how did they learn it? Your techniques, on the other hand, are storyless; emotionless. You simply need to build your own technique if you desire true power."

What was he blabbering about? I was exaggerating, of course; I got the gist of the message.

He had a special talent for adding meaningless metaphors and proverbs making him sound like an old monk. Anyway, he was right; I knew next to nothing about magic.

No matter how useful the 'empty grimoire' was, I had to one day give it up and learn on my own. Urgh, there were not enough words to explain how much I hated doing stuff the hard, long, and right way.

"Do not worry about it; we should complete the challenge quickly, get the rewards, and you will have some time to hone your skills later."

He was right; worrying about being inefficient while our lives were under constant risk was foolish.

"By the way, did you try your new ice technique?"

I completely forgot; I opened the book on the second chapter. A new magic scripture appeared, this time way more complex.

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I infused some magic, and frost grew on my hands. I tried to move the 'origin' of the spell. But sparks arced from my palm to the book; the spell was dismissed.

Well, this wasn't very useful if I could only freeze stuff on my palms. Maybe I could use it in hand-to-hand combat or maybe as a tool. Sadly, making ice spears and pillars was clearly out of reach. I felt a little disappointed.

"I can't create sources outside of my palms."

He sighed, but he kept a positive outlook.

"This might still be useful; you never know the future."

I opened the first part of the book and made the light sphere appear again. We had to focus up and get done with this level. The gloomy atmosphere started to weight on me.

"We have 5 vampires left to kill, but what about Lillian? I still doubt we can face Lillian?"

"I have no idea how strong she really is, but if I manage to complete Dawnbringer's stance, I think we will have the upper hand. Right now, I cannot use it for more than a few seconds before fainting."

Dawnbringer's stance, a technique that allowed Jinhyung to dominate two full-equipped trolls with great ease. But the drawbacks were immense; I didn't really know why.

"Could you explain this spell to me? I don't know anything about it."

"The concept is pretty simple, although almost impossible to sustain it. I create a Qi field around my body by pushing out energy from all of my body, then its channelled around the blade. Apart from increasing my overall strength, the sheer amount of power focused on the blade shreds all physical and magical protective measures even before the hit lands. Also, all of the energy emanating from my body creates a thin layer of vacuum, reducing air resistance and breaking and blocking projectiles. To maintain this stance, a tremendous energy supply is required, otherwise I might suffer lethal exhaustion."

How scary... ignoring defence and granting defence to oneself. It sounded truly unbeatable, but the drawbacks were as strong as the spell. With such strength, we could surely beat Lillian, but where to get a 'tremendous energy supply'? Maybe I could prolong the duration by a couple of seconds, but he would still perish once it ends.

"Why is it called Dawnbringer?"

"White flames, as bright as dawn, envelop the blade..."

Jinhyung opened his mouth again but was cut short by a terrible sound.

The ground under us started to shake, and then the whole corridor started to crumble down. The walls were far away, and I couldn't grab onto anything. After a brief free fall, we landed on... a tree crown?

After breaking through some branches, I found equilibrium. My back ached a bit, and some lacerations could be found on my limbs.

It was still unfathomable how such a large tree could grow in a castle. And where were the enemies? Who trapped us in such a place? I couldn't sense any souls, but Jinhyung's around. Oh,

"Hey Jinhyung, Are you okay?"

I almost forgot to worry about him. Instead of an answer, I felt a burst of magic, followed by the sound of wood falling on grass. I was the one who had to be worried about after all.

"Can you help me get you?"

Another slash, and I felt the tree I was stuck in slowly drifting and eventually hitting the ground. This time I was prepared; I landed on my legs without hurting anything.

"Can you please make light?" That was quite a greeting after a seemingly deadly fall… an "Are you OK?" would've been better.

During the initial fall, I lost control over the light ball, and now we both stood in total darkness. I reached for the grimoire to summon a new light sphere, but before I could do anything everything flashed with blinding colours.

In a second, the place went from total darkness to bathing in daylight. We simultaneously looked up.

A giant sphere of fire was suspended under the ceiling. We looked around, and we were somehow in an endless looking forest, inside a castle.

The Castle of Nightmares would never stop surprising me. But still, why was such a place was there? Vampires wouldn't be able to withstand light this powerful.

"Behind you!"

As Jinhyung screamed, I immediately dashed to the side. A beast leaped to where I was a moment ago; it wasn't anything I ever heard of. No animal on earth had such a twisted nature. The monster had a feline body, a serpent head, hooves, and no tail.

"Chimera!" both of us exclaimed.