His senses screamed out at him, but it lasted only a moment before his mind was torn into another dimension. Or, that’s what it felt like. The amount of pain brought forwards by the evolution process severed all of his thoughts. He couldn’t think, couldn’t remember; he didn’t even feel human.

Body trembling, bones shaking, Levi was stuck in a perpetual loop of suffering. Blood seeped from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. The others, Bram, couldn’t help but keep their attention on him. It resulted in Bram receiving an injury he wouldn’t normally take. It took Gregory to give the command to focus, and only then did Bram rip his vision away from Levi.

The fight raged on. It was evident they were growing tired. Sluggish. Gregory was running out of bullets; the barrel of his guns were red hot and smoking. Bram was wraith thin, his previous muscles nowhere to be seen. Kara and Elias were barely able to keep up with their increased mana expenditure. Elias, despite being an offensive mage, was faring the best out of all of them.

Placing hundreds of caltrops on the floor and sticking to the trees, all of which were born from the coins in his jacket, resulted in most of the bats having torn wings. It made killing them so much easier. But because of the sheer number of them, they were swarmed.

At some point, the pain stopped. Levi found himself in his container of all places. The pool, which was once small, was now the size of a pond. It was shrinking fast; the mana wouldn’t last long. The grass beneath his feet, the walls and the ceiling of his container, throbbed red—as if it mimicked the panic of his heart. Perhaps it was. Levi looked around, but it was strange. He had no thoughts. Nor a recollection as to why he was even in here in the first place.

He tried to leave, but something restricted him. Was it his consciousness? Levi didn’t know.

What is going on? Levi thought as he sat down with a frown. He didn’t know what to do, so he decided to use the time Meditate instead of doing nothing. At the very least, he could use the time to reclaim the mana that was being stripped away from his pond at an alarming rate.

He fought against the expenditure, and because of his increased Star rank of his Skill, he battled the receding mana, replenishing it with fresh and pure mana.

Levi didn’t know long he had been going at it for, but he calculated that it had to at least be in the 2 hour mark. He still had no recollection of what was going on outside. He wasn’t worried. Should he be?

It was then that his body smashed into the ground, travelling at least 5 metres, he rolled to a stop. Something strong had struck him. His arm was bleeding and it lay at a funny angle. Strange, Levi thought, as not one twang of pain arrived with it. He grabbed it and yanked it back into position without a second thought.

Ignoring the strange event. Levi continued Meditating in a mindless trance. Something deep down was telling him to continue—so he did. After an incalculable amount of time, something changed. Three Ingredients descended from the ceiling, along with it, a Seed.

One of them was a stopwatch, another was a book with a metallic cage around it, and the last was a… corpse. They floated down, hovering in front of Levi. He heard something again. It told him to place them in the seed. He listened.

The moment he touched the seed, instructions flowed through his mind. He willed the entirety of the mana he had been working so hard to obtain within the pool, to gather around him and the seed. As if he was in the centre of a cocoon, the mana wrapped him in a gentle embrace. It turned red and throbbing; like an emergency light. Blood seeped from his face. He ignored it. He etched an unfamiliar pattern onto the seed, and on then did he peel it open with his consciousness.

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White light flashed and then darkened. Alien-like inscriptions from the seed projected outward as Levi brought the Ingredients to the Seed. They sucked inward, disappearing into the Birthright. At first, Levi’s entire body shook. But the pattern tightened, constricting the seed until it closed. The mana which was surrounding him, condensed, moving from him, to the seed.

***

Gregory loaded the last of his bullets straight into the barrel on his firearm. It had been expensive, he smiled in mockery. Not only had he used up all of his ammunition—which would cost a fortune to replenish. He was about to lose his life.

Everyone was barely hanging on.

Bram dodged a bat's claws, barely avoiding having his neck torn open. He latched on the beast's wing as it flew past him and slammed it to the ground. Exerting himself, he raised his tower shield and slammed it onto its skull, splattering bone and brain across the forest floor. Each one of his breaths was laboured and strained. Wounds had been carved into his flesh, and he wasn’t the only one.

Paul, Kara, and Elias, all had various wounds, most of which were grim. Paul was missing a couple fingers from having them chomped off. Kara had her ear lobe split open. Elias had a punctured shoulder.

Gregory couldn’t think straight. His mind was a mess from the overutilization of his foresight ability. He was reaching his limit. No, he had already reached that at least 20 minutes ago. He was running on fumes, as everyone else was. But they forged on. They had one mission. Protect Levi.

He glanced at him and noticed his broken arm. Gregory grit his teeth. A single lapse in thought had resulted in one of the stronger bats getting to him.

Something changed. Everyone noticed it, perhaps the mages first as Elias spoke up. “Captain, something’s happening with Levi.”

Honestly, what wasn’t happening to him. The lad was a husk. The pain had broken him. It was a miracle he was even still breathing. He’d bet that Levi would have passed away at least an hour ago. But here he was, still fighting.

You can do it, Gregory thought, but he knew it was a single strand away from being hopeless. And then something really did happen.

Levi’s body rose in the air with nothing but an all powerful swoop of mana.

“He’s—” Elias muttered in utter disbelief. “He’s done it?!”

“Protect him!” Gregory roared and practically threw his body in front of Levi. A bat tore through the air and latched onto Gregory. Bram was there to smash it off of him, but the damage was already done. Gregory’s arm lay limp.

“Captain—” Bram said.

“Protect him,” repeated Gregory with more severity in his voice this time.

Creating a close defensive perimeter, they watched as the incredible scene unfolded. Levi in an instant, grew older, taller. From a 12 year old boy, to someone at least 16 or 17. His hair grew longer, to the point it was touching his waist. Gregory gawked in amazement. It was the time Ingredient. His Mana thrummed around him.

Then the Blood Mage Ingredient took effect. His flesh turned pale and spotless, not a single mark out of place. There were no wounds. The broken arm he had suffered snapped back into place, not a trace of damage to be seen. His fingernails grew to a sharpened point. The mana all around him surged even further, his hair rose from the sheer amount that was coursing through his body.

Finally, the book of Magitech took hold of him. The mana engulfing him reached its apex as even the foliage in the surrounding area was swept away from him; as if he was the centre of a storm.

All of this was the sign that he had successfully broken through the 3rd Tier.

Levi’s eye shot open. His eyes shone with a golden lustre that befitted that of the time element, and red of the Blood element.

“Stop.”

A simple word, but the world around them halted at its might. The 14 or so bats that were approaching froze in place. The grass, the swaying tree foliage, the blood dripping from Bram’s wounds, all of it stopped at once.

At that moment, Gregory and the others slaughtered the bats. And then time resumed. Levi, who was floating, returned back to the ground. All of the signs of his breakthrough, the long fingernails, the luminous eyes, his height—all vanished. All apart from his longer hair that had a golden sheen now through it, a remnant stain of the time element.

Gregory flashed a weak grin. “Welcome to the 3rd Tier. How do you feel?”

Levi inspected his body and smiled. “Alive.”