As a stream of golden power flooded into Logan’s body, he tried something he’d been thinking about for the last few days. He only had one chance before the rat escaped, so he decided to make his attack as deadly as possible. That was why he tried to push the energy into his spear to make it catch on fire.

Flames erupted from Logan’s body like usual. His robes and armour were unscathed by the radiant power, and so was his spear. Energy surged through his body, but as he tried to push and control it, nothing happened. The rat slammed into James’ chest a second later, his dagger failing to land as his arm was pushed aside by the rat’s body.

The golden energy refused to be moved. Logan didn’t know why he couldn’t control it, but it was too late to ponder on the issue or try to fix it. He was already stepping forward, his body twisting as he got into the correct stance to use Piercing Thrust. He mentally went through all of the steps needed to execute the technique.

The rat pushed James down to the ground. As his back slammed onto the rocky floor, it leapt off him and began to soar through the air. When it landed, the rat would be out of their encirclement entirely.

A surge of panic gripped Logan’s mind. He pushed on the egg, desperate to keep the rat from escaping. If his current strength wasn’t enough, then he needed to steal more from somewhere else. The cost would be higher once the fight was over, but an expensive victory was much better than a cheap loss. The rat may come back later and ambush them for revenge, or if they were really unlucky, return with a horde of its relatives.

A thicker surge of golden energy filled Logan’s body, but it still refused to enter the spear. It didn’t even spread over the shaft either, the flames only rising out of his skin and nowhere else. The only explanation was that Logan did something wrong. He was pushing on the energy to move with every ounce of his concentration, yet it refused to do anything besides randomly move around inside his body. He was trying so hard that he neglected the technique he was halfway through attempting, his body moving without thought of what came next.

The technique broke down into a simple thrust as he pushed on the spear with all his might. When one used a weapon, they had to account for what came next. That was the most basic rule that even amateurs would be able to follow by instinct. If Logan thrust his spear without maintaining his balance, he would fall flat on his face and promptly be killed by the enemy.

He was currently experiencing that first-hand. Logan gave up on everything else to land one final attack, which should’ve been enough to turn the tide. When the rat was too injured to run, he would trip and fall, allowing the others to run around and surround it while he got back up. That was why Logan put every ounce of strength into thrusting his spear. The technique was a failure, and so was the egg. If he couldn’t cover his weapon in flames, he could only try his best to slow the rat down.

As the spear moved towards the flying rat, Logan foresaw what would happen. The results were unfortunate. His spear was pointed at its heavily armoured ribs. The crystal head would skitter over its fur and bounce away. Even if his weapon caught aflame, it still wouldn’t be enough to get through the crystal hide.

Logan mentally sighed. The beast was going to escape, he would trip and fall onto his face, and the rat would likely alert the rest of its nest that there were enemies. The entire trip was a failure. Still, he refused to give up. Attempting to use Piercing Thrust, Logan executed the technique again despite failing his first attempt. To get into the proper stance, he shifted his grip while still thrusting the spear, the weapon still spinning from when he messed up the first time.

Once it was in position, he tried to reverse the rotation despite knowing it would be too hard to make it spin mid-thrust. Shockingly, his looser grip allowed the spear to snap back like an elastic band. The energy of the two opposing rotations combined, making the shaft spin much faster than it should’ve been able to.

The technique clicked into place as some kind of mystical force wrapped around Logan’s spear. The air began to distort around the spear, folding over itself and forming lines that trailed out from the point like threads of silk dancing in the wind. Logan barely sensed the change mid-thrust, but he knew it was the Heavenly Law of Piercing, the manual clearly describing what would happen upon success.

Logan didn’t hesitate, his spear growing faster as it pierced the air. The tip disappeared into the rat’s heavily armoured fur without a sound, but that wasn’t all. He lost control as it flew out of his hands. The weapon’s momentum carried it deeper into the rat’s chest and out the other side, the impact blasting it away. With the rat still impaled on the shaft, it was thrown against the wall and pinned there as the tip buried itself into the wall.

Logan stumbled and fell to his knees. He looked up and watched the beast struggle to pull itself off the shaft. The rat gasped for air and scratched at the wall, but it was useless. Seconds later, it died and went limp, its heart and lungs destroyed. A trail of blood dripped down the spear as it hung off the shaft.

[You have slain a Mortal at the Second Step, Ore Rat.]

No one spoke. Logan closed his gaping mouth and looked around, noticing that everyone had a similar expression. He quickly healed Amelia and Tom before cutting off the egg. As a gentle stream of life force soaked into his flesh, Logan silently noted that he didn’t have to pay off any kind of debt. He must’ve drunk an excess that last time, allowing him to bank some energy for now.

It also helped that he only used the egg for less than a few seconds.

Once all the tedious details were finished, Logan borrowed a spear from Stephanie and began to train. He immediately attempted to use Piercing Thrust while it was fresh in his mind. With a looser grip and an improved understanding of how to snap the spear into a spin, he felt relatively confident that he would succeed.

After ten failures in a row, Logan realised that he was being naive. He occasionally took breaks and thought about what he was doing wrong. The others were resting while James processed the rat. He kept it impaled on the spear and cut open an artery to bleed it. That also gave Logan a chance to discuss his thoughts with the others, giving him some ideas as to why he couldn’t pull off the technique again. Their descriptions of what they saw also helped to jog his memory.

He soon went back to trying the technique, spending nearly an hour before finally pulling it off a second time. He even managed to hold onto the spear this time and keep it from flying out of his hands! However, the third successful attempt refused to come. With everyone sitting around and watching him for nearly another hour, Logan felt too embarrassed to continue and decided to lead them back down.

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It took less than ten minutes to get to the staircase. Still, the entire journey was awkwardly silent, Logan not getting much of a response from anyone when he tried to speak. They were all being short with him and were quite upset about something.

During the walk back, his mind raced from one reason to the next as to why they would be angry with him. Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, he only came up with one answer that made sense: they were upset that he made them sit around and wait while he practised, which Logan felt was reasonable.

Despite earning their ire, Logan felt he was much closer to mastering the technique after practising for nearly two hours. Doing so while it was fresh in his mind was definitely the most intelligent decision he could’ve made. He would just have to apologise for wasting their time and hope they accepted it.

Coming out of the hallway and entering the cavern, Deon stood up and ran over to them. “Ah, I’m so glad that you’re all okay. I was praying the entire time that you would be safe.”

His enthusiasm cut through the atmosphere.

Amelia and James smiled at the man while Tom remained glum. He glared at Deon but said nothing. Logan noticed all this and realised Tom might’ve been embarrassed about falling over. Still, he didn’t understand why the others were miserable despite their victory.

But while everyone remained on edge, Stephanie walked over and smacked Deon on the shoulder. “Don’t worry! We have the immortal monster himself with us! If anything, we were nervous that you all wouldn’t be okay when we came back.”

Logan and James carried the beast, using his spear to cart the rat down. Both of them had either end on their shoulders, making it much easier to haul it long distances. They left Stephanie and Amelia to chat with Deon as they approached Ron and Betty. The old couple were happy to skin and process the rat.

Food was getting low. After that, everyone chatted briefly before separating and going to their rooms to rest. Even though Tom scowled at him for doing it, Logan still waved Amelia over for a private conversation. Tom liked it even less when he brought her down into the cells.

Logan was originally going to apologise to the group for delaying them, but now it seemed like there was something else going on behind the scenes. He barely knew these people. After two weeks of being around them, he picked up a lot about each of them, but that didn’t mean he knew their years-long history in detail.

Amelia shivered when they stepped into the hallway. Three of the ice flame braziers had been brought down to make the cavern warmer while the last had been tossed into the pit, providing light for the whole cavern. The only problem was that it made the prison cells colder than a walk-in freezer. It would be terrible to sleep there, but the cold air made it very pleasant to train in.

“What’s up?” She said, crossing her arms from the cold.

“I should be asking you that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone was super cold to me after I stopped trying to learn Piercing Thrust in the caves.”

“Oh, you misunderstood,” Amelia said, chuckling at how nervous he probably looked. “We aren’t angry at you. We’re pissed off at Tom.”

Logan sighed in relief. “Tom? Did he say something while I was training?”

“Yes, but this is about his mistake in the fight. Everyone could see he was causing problems. If the rat wanted to, it might’ve killed James before it ran away. We don’t really know much about the egg yet, so if he died a third time, that might’ve really been it.”

“Look, he hasn’t been the nicest to me since I met him, but I can’t really blame the guy for being afraid of death.”

Amelia’s eyes widened. “I thought you would be the last person to defend him. After all, you had to use the egg to fix his mistake. If he hadn’t messed up, we could’ve saved more of its power for when we really needed it.”

“I’m not defending him so much as I understand why he acted the way he did. If you were in his place, would you have allowed the rat to bite your leg off? Did you not make any mistakes today?”

Amelia opened her mouth but didn’t say anything, her eyebrows furrowing in thought.

“Also, he’s different from the both of us. I’m functionally immortal as long as I have the life force to sacrifice, and you have a shield covering half of your body. The spear also helps since it gives you more reach and is easier to learn than the sword. From what I’ve read, it takes years to gain basic proficiency due to how versatile it is. Meanwhile, we only need a few months to learn the spear.”

Amelia took a deep breath.

“Look, we’ll probably be stuck with each other for months at this rate. I also understand it might be annoying, but we can’t bicker with each other over stupid mistakes and what-if scenarios. If someone messes up, we have to support them and ensure that it doesn’t happen again. The last thing I want is to spend three months with everyone being cold to each other.”

“Yes, I understand where you’re coming from, but you don’t know why we’re angry with him, do you?”

Logan shook his head.

“When you started training, we tried to calmly discuss how we can all improve for the next fight. We went around in a circle, but when it was Tom’s turn, he refused to admit that he had made a mistake despite messing up his slashing attack. Instead, he got upset and blamed you for attacking the rat when he wasn’t ready to engage.”

Logan blinked. “He blamed me?”

“Yeah,” She said, shaking her head. “I told him that I would’ve stabbed it a second later if you hadn’t, but he claimed that the extra second would’ve been enough for him to react.”

“That’s… a problem.”

“Which is why we are upset with him. Tom refuses to accept that it was ultimately his own fear that caused the issue in the first place. Either way, I also don’t want to be even more miserable for the next few weeks, so I’ll talk to the others about ignoring him.”

“Do you mind also talking to Tom?”

“Why me?” Amelia said. “He says it’s your fault he made the mistake, so shouldn’t you sort it out?”

“Come on,” Logan said, giving her a look. “He hates me and has a crush on you. Who do you think will get a better response out of him?”

“He doesn’t have a crush on me,” She said, looking genuinely confused. “We’re just friends, I promise.”

“Uh huh,”

“No, really. I told him a while ago that he isn’t my type, and he said I wasn’t his either.”

“Yeah, I believe you,” Logan said, changing the subject. “Just have a chat and tell him that no one blames him for falling over since it was ultimately a silly mistake. Also, tell him that he should calm down with the smack talk for everyone’s sake, alright?”

After their chat, Amelia went upstairs to talk to all five of them, leaving Logan to practise with his spear. It took him nearly two hours to use Piercing Thrust for a third time. In that period, he spent half of it reading the manual again and again while pondering over what he was doing wrong. The other half was spent on swinging his spear. Only when he accidentally used the technique again did something click, allowing him to get more comfortable twisting the spear.

He managed to execute Piercing Thrust around ten times over the next hour. His rapid successes invigorated him, pushing Logan to keep training. He started off with only being able to use the technique around one in every five attempts. As the hours ticked by, his ratio of successes to failures began to dramatically shift. While he couldn’t say why he couldn’t use the technique with complete success, his body was gradually picking up on his mistakes with every thrust, bringing him closer to that feeling of completeness that he felt when using Piercing Thrust the first time.

Logan eventually reached fifty-fifty odds that the technique would work. It was late into the night, his body dripping with sweat and his arms aching from exhaustion. He wanted to keep going, but he didn’t have the strength or focus to continue.

That was when he thought about muscle soreness and what it really was. Modern scientists believed exercise would create micro-tears, strengthening muscle fibres once the body recovered. Under normal conditions, muscle soreness would only go away in a day or two, forcing an ordinary person to rest in the meantime.

It was a good thing that Logan was anything but normal.

Focusing his tired mind on a whim, Logan pulled a strand of power out of the egg and allowed it to spread around his body. The raw skin on his hands began to callous, the aching in his shoulders and arms slowly faded, and his back straightened out as his body filled with energy. Staring at his hands in shock, Logan began to wonder if he even needed to sleep any more.