He was a man. Just a single man. And as far as regular history goes such a detail wouldn't hold any value less the Level of the individual was known. In fact, it was reported that when he was sighted he seemed not to care too much of his personal details. He hailed from a strange culture indeed, but not necessarily a rare occurrence. The man hadn't even reached his first milestone, but it was said with nothing but a [Blacksmith's] tools, he could bring anyone from the brink of death.

He was the first [Doctor] in the medical field. The origins of the Class are unknown. In times past, the Class had many associated rumors as the field of study is closely analogous to necromancy. At times, the man was oft suspected, but his naivety to such things was reportedly genuine. Now, the medical field blooms, that was centuries ago.

- Book of Legends, the [Doctor]

Jayke was running.

Something scored against his armor - the magical sheen enveloping his body - and he turned around, slashing. The insect exploded in a splatter of acidic blood that Jayke did well to avoid. It ate through the immediate foliage around him.

There was a gentle buzzing around him. He knew what that meant. Lingering acid from a previous encounter slid off his armor and he was thankful he had the tools to circumvent that particular hazard.

Any moment now, another of those enlarged mosquito-hornets would launch from the foliage like a missile, aiming for his head or heart. As long as he was looking the right way their forms were obvious outlines in his vision. His code magic came in handy for these camouflaged foes.

The problem then became eliminating them before his magic ran out.

His legs pushed off of soil and rock. He was running. Whether that meant ducking under tree branches or scrambling across rocky terrain. When he came to a section of forest thick enough, he turned around and held his sword and staff up.

He pushed magic into the shield sphere orbiting around his head and let it free from his control. It let loose with a faint effect of digitized pixels.

Then the mosquito-hornets, predictably, shot forward out of the brush. Jayke had seen them coming. His staff stretched forward and blocked a handful of the large insectile stingers. His other hand directed his sword through the abdomens of two more of them. Acidic blood splattered.

He jerked and turned as he felt some crash into him from behind. His armor waned and he grunted at the small blunt forces. He'd felt the sharper impact of their stingers.

Falling forward, two more of the insects buzzed with higher frequency and plunged towards him. He flipped over and tried to whack them away with the flat of his sword. 

Just then, his programmed piece of magic slammed violently into both of them. Ping ponging between the two with unerring accuracy and as much force as the magic could manage. The two bugs were knocked out of the air, crippled in more ways than one. The shield sphere dissipated right after. Jayke stabbed into the bugs before they could take to the air again.

Jayke breathed a sigh of relief and plucked their stingers.

He'd been on his own for a while now. Two days alone. After an equal amount of preparation in the city. Some people were taking less time than that, and for all he knew people were still preparing back at Nublium. After their way forward had been announced it was another caveat that they only had two weeks to complete the task. But, by the time they were done with it they'd almost immediately be tested again. If possible, Jayke wanted to finish earlier so he could explore the city.

The task was a simple one. Delve into the local Dungeon and return with something that would prove your competency. Simple for the fact it was straightforward in its goal. Complex in everything else. For one, Jayke was having trouble finding the damn thing. He'd been out traveling for a long time and after having been flown to one of the many uncolonized mountains Jayke hadn't found anything other than the reason no one bothered to live here.

There were dangers at every turn. If Jayke didn't have a single one of his tools he'd be long dead. It was a stupidly difficult task that was only necessary because of the other smaller branches of the Coterie that had arrived prior to Hucobb's own. Apparently, whatever test they'd be issued had revealed hugely talented individuals. Unfortunately, the nature of that particular test was one that pitted the groups against each other - survival of the fittest between all those migrating branches. It was why their standards were appropriately raised.

Thus, in order to prove that Jayke's crop was reasonably worthy of the same success, then they'd have to complete a test to match the difficulty that those other testers had triumphed. The logic of the Coterie was explained like a cold truth. Only the truly talented and promising advanced. Spots of accepted members were competitive and largely, one's chances were determined by those they tested with. 

This lack of standardization was only present as the tests progressed further. It was the reason the Coterie was so low in members but so high in talent. The harsh testing environment was a necessity in keeping the Coterie true to their roots. They were the bastion of magical progress and to stand on the front lines of magical research and advancement one had to be the very best or possess the potential to be.

There were multiple entrances to the local Dungeon apparently. On every major mountain, you could find one. The size of each of those mountains was almost unthinkable. At times, Jayke could easily forget he was floating miles above the ground. It was like he traveling an entirely new terrain and land. The proctors weren't so nice as to give them any clues.

Jayke along with the rest had been left to their own devices as to how they were planning on locating the Dungeon and how they were getting there. In Jayke's case, he'd grabbed a ride from Bezial who conducted transport and delivery across the Mountains of Rune as a career. When Jayke had specifically asked for him at the Wisav Rest, he had happened to be free, available, and present. He'd dropped Jayke off at one of the uncolonized mountains with fair warnings but with an expected acceptance of the Coterie's trials.

As for finding the Dungeon, even the Practitioner's Coterie could not keep a reasonably accurate map of their locations. He'd learned from the natives that the local Dungeon liked to morph the landscape which it inhabited - the mountains. That meant local wildlife became dangerously strengthened, and unluckily, also meant shifting terrain and hazards. To such a degree that any local knowledge of the entrances was useless, the mountains were always changing slightly. The locals called it the Will of Rune, the being that first unearthed the mountains and forced them to ever float among the clouds. A force of change and movement that permeated the entire mountain range.

[Dungeons] were something that Jayke had no prior experience on. Terk had once mentioned discovering one, but only to warn Jayke about it. The myconid had even marked it on Jayke's map. Apparently, they were areas of great power that rewarded any who triumphed over them. Dangers and hazards were par for the course, but that was something Jayke had already experienced through the mosquito-hornets. And a handful of other events. Even so, he was determined to be really careful. He'd barely any knowledge on the subject.

He sat on a log and sighed. "No books on Dungeons, unfortunately."

His mana was low from so many magical actions. Between maintaining his magical armor, the detection program, conjuring shields, and finally being able to grasp the connections between his magic enough to program an orb of his protective magic - he was exhausted. Just from those tasks. That didn't take into account the cardio and combat.

The mental strain had forced him to disconnect the shield sphere from his immediate control as well as the accompanying program despite the usage of his staff as a focus for both. Leaving them to dissipate as their mana did. Further, he wasn't sure the method was currently feasible. Currently, it would've been more optimal to not do so at all. The combination of both magics seemed to be an exponential interaction. The drain on his reserves was immense. He hadn't had such a terrible case of mana fatigue since the last time he experimented.

In that at least, he found some reprieve in the form of his [Safehaven]. Using the Skill was one that brought him an easy peace in the wilderness. He was eternally grateful for the sanctuary and spent the nights comfortably. Some part of him felt bad for the others who had no such Skill, but they all knew the risks, turning back from the task was an option some had taken advantage of. A metal door appeared and Jayke walked through and into his [Safehaven]. 

He'd been collecting things. In his two days in Nubilum, he, like any tourist, had been most attracted to the shops. There was actual currency here, although he didn't get to handle any. At first, he'd been looking for actual armor. Something light like leather, but no one was really inclined to trade for anything that he had on him. Despite currency existing, people were more than welcome to offer other trades.

The general store sold everything under the sun. Apparently, they bought most everything and had an easy time redirecting resources where they needed to go. If you needed something non-specific you started there. At least, according to Bezial. A lot of wisav riders had deliveries that were sourced from the general store.

That was why Jayke had a number of monster parts laying in open crates. After asking for his empty crates Bezial had given him an odd look but Jayke promised he could have whatever caught his eye from what Jayke collected and that he'd return the crates. The wisav rider was only too happy to comply.

The general store had an open request for items like these.

He dropped some stingers into an open crate and sat on his chair.

He'd long ago found that meditation helped recover his mana faster. It was a state of introspection Jayke easily fell into and was perhaps why his mana had rarely strained. He was always calmly thinking about things, relaxing, and enjoying his surroundings when he could.

He reflected on his magic.

He'd been able to finally envelop himself in full armor with relative ease. Affording the magic any powerful durability was an entirely different story. However, he was happy to be able to have a foundation upon which to work. He'd practiced daily with it until the task was less of a mental strain and more of a mana strain. It was a boon that acid did little to eat at it.

The shield spheres had been a rather intuitive manipulation of his. Unlike flat planes, willing a sphere into dynamic movement was much easier. He still couldn't control two at once, no matter his practice, so he'd been working on automating the singular one.

The program was one of his few projects that weren't immediately scrapped. A work of practice that had the potential for the practical. In theory, it was no different than attaching his magic to a slime. In application, many many more hurdles than expected. Foremost, it was magic being applied to magic. His code magic easily melded to his protective magic, that was the only easy thing about it. He actually hadn't been surprised, it was one of the few things he was expecting and he gathered the notion on a hunch. From there, however, there was nothing so direct.

A construct of protective magic was a non-thinking one. Nothing governed it but Jayke. It was a problem he felt solvable though and so began his many experiments. The idea eventually came from the creation of his potent healing paste Terk had helped him create. He recalled the way that his code magic, unbidden, had been able to manipulate errant particles of impurities. His code magic had actually been able to invoke some aspect of his other one. It was a small window of an idea that he linked to his own control of magic. After that, Jayke's discoveries tipped the dam and things began to make sense.

Feeling some of his mana returning to him, he scaled down his magic and reproduced what he had done previously.

The components were quite simply his two magics.

First, the easy one. A globe of protective magic. A spherical shield no different than a soap bubble. He kept it easily sustained in the palm of his hand. It was transparent to the naked eye, a consequence of the minimal amount of magic to maintain it, but glaringly obvious to Jayke's own sense.

Next, the harder component. Without his [Lesser Data Sense] it would've been a nightmare. Directing his sense of data to his protective magic was almost blinding but he was able to glean the minimum enough to intuit the rest. Data members of his protective magic that his code magic could manipulate. In essence, the controls that Jayke used himself, exposed to his other magic. He couldn't achieve the same fidelity using this system than his own control, but the barebone operations were there. That was the missing piece he'd been without, the cornerstone of their interaction, the method of communication between the two magics.

Even though the sense of manipulating the sphere around him had become second nature, programming that intent into his code magic was gruesomely difficult. Having had nothing better to do during long boring intervals - specifically over the latter portion of the month spent traveling - Jayke had been able to figure it out. After having discovered the method for his code magic to manipulate his protective magic he remembered having slumped at the next necessary task.

Detecting a target turned out to be much harder. It was what he considered jury-rigged code. Sloppy and slapdash. Functional, yes, but disgustingly inefficient. He simply tracked movement. Specifically, movement in a certain area. A gross expenditure of mana necessary for something without eyes. Generally, it was the space around which the sphere was initially programmed.

The little bubble of magic floated peacefully over his palm. Then, digitized pixels surrounded it and the bubble began to move. Jayke twitched a finger and the bubble raced towards the movement, dissipating before it could even reach his index. At this scale, the magics died out at drastically different rates, but the idea was illustrated.

The project had been good practice if nothing else. It highlighted the interactions between fields of magic, mana consumption, and some technical hurdles. In truth, he understood he was punching above his weight class with these complex programs. An intermagical program, if nothing else, sounded complicated. He promised himself he'd return to it another time.

Mentally, he scrapped the project and left nothing of it except the lessons it taught and anything he thought would be applicable elsewhere. He had gotten to the end of his rope on it, and honestly, he could confidently declare that all the time spent on it was informative. Then, somewhat satisfactorily, he set a ragdoll on his desk, pressed magic into it, and watched it dance.

He smiled. "Damn right." He said to no one in particular.

----------------------------------------

Water dribbled down Jayke's neck as he gasped from taking such a great chug. The cool water down his front was a welcome feeling. He was sweating and panting from having walked the entire morning. More often than not Jayke was exposed to the constant wind that suffused the floating mountains, other times, he was cold and wet from passing through clouds. The entire morning, however, he was between a small valley sandwiched by twin peaks. The sky had been clear and thus the sun beat down mercilessly.

He sat on a rock, as he often did, took another sip of his flask, and rubbed his eyes again.

Jayke had been following a small river upstream. The decision was a result of the lack of any better ideas and an idle curiosity about where all the water was coming from. He was on a floating mountain, after all. The notion to act upon that curiosity was further vindicated because the river was coming from a higher altitude. Perhaps there he'd have a better vantage point, in addition to saying his curiosity. And so his decision was made.

His curiosity hadn't been sated, but an entirely different question had been answered. He'd arrived at a waterfall. The same one he was staring at from inside the cavemouth which it concealed. The rocks beneath his feet were slick and he had to watch his step. The wet cave entrance had been partially hidden, and there it had been. Right behind a wall of water. Hidden in a cave.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Wall-clinging plants sucked at the moisture from the falls but they'd steered clear from the only source of light in the cave. A circle of symbols that pulsed with blue light. Patterns were drawn - no, carved - right into the stone floor. Something about it seemed ancient. And the silence of the cave was somewhat fitting in its permeance. 

The cave fell into a dim light, then pulsed bright as if a glowstick had been cracked before returning to dimness once more. It was nothing but a thick circle of symbols. A number of overlapping motifs and markings. Jayke's [Lesser Data Sense] was going off like crazy. He looked at them and it wasn't a large leap of logic.

"Runes." Jayke knew.

Dungeon: [Runic Skies] (Epic)

A vast sky, one so high and distant, even those with wings to challenge it could never dream of nearing its heights. Floating islands within the [Runic Skies] orbit each other eternally, their movements have been ever solid, yet so long that none have ever documented their patterns. Each island, separated from all others in its orbit, features a unique biome, and combined with the ambient magic of the runes which lift their very habitats the inhabitants have become only more deadly for it. 

Note: Dungeons garner a particular aspect, characteristic, or theme that is derived from the source of their power. They are System-manifested areas that form from the importance, grandeur, secrecy, meaning, glory, or otherwise impactful sentiments of prominent events. Naturally occurring dungeons enrich the environs in which they are found and function separately from regular space. The surrounding habitat may incur notable effects through this influence. As a consequence, Dungeons are places of great riches and spoils. The rewards within which are attainable only by those determined to brave exceptional danger. 

He wasn't surprised at the Rarity. In fact, he'd been expecting just this rank. Anything less than Epic from a Dungeon located on a floating mountain range and he'd be disappointed. He was quietly astonished though, that he'd run into something so rare so early in his time here. Twice. But, truthfully, he hadn't taken any part of his arrival in this world as ordinary, especially the first view of the floating mountains. So it was with an anticipated acceptance that he absorbed the information.

Musings aside, he hadn't really thought about what it meant for him. "It might be overly cautious, but I should be prepared to retreat from most encounters. If I encounter anything like that [Giant Pincer Shell Burrower] I won't be able to anything to it. In fact, I should probably avoid all Creatures." He was acutely aware of the fact they hadn't even taken the lobster in its home turf, they'd essentially beached it and it still took lives.

He was grateful for the included note. It filled many missing details in Jayke's perception of the Dungeon. Purely speculating, he assumed whatever force had ripped these floating landmasses from wherever they belonged had also formed this Dungeon. As a result, the theme had somewhat taken to that event. It was interesting since the characteristic of the Dungeon that might've altered the surroundings didn't seem to differ too much from the regular nature of the Mountains of Rune.

Truly, it had earned the right to its Rarity. He wouldn't argue that. He was, however, irritated at the present danger.

Jayke stared at the circle of runes. He had a week and change to prepare further. The problem with that was that Jayke was already as prepared as he was going to get. He had all his equipment on him. He'd made it a habit of walking with both sword and [Gnarled Rootstaff] equipped. His [Sand Rabbit's Foot] was barely any weight at all so he was content to carry it in one of his pockets. He afforded himself three healberries in one of his other secured pockets.

All that was left was to perhaps practice his magic. The idea, though probably sound, was not the most appealing. But Jayke had already promised himself to live as he pleased. He stared at the rune circle. The Dungeon entrance. He almost walked in just then. 

Then he sat back down. He sighed. "That never meant being stupid about it though."

He resolved to perfect one of his longest projects before heading into the Dungeon. His detection program. His code magic liked to do as it pleased if not given specific instruction. Jayke's rigid implementations often restricted the magic from forming into a less technical and more freeform program. For functions like moving this was fine, Jayke didn't need perfect precision. He'd been connecting the sense of random things to the program in order for it to identify mundane items to Jayke's eye.

The problem with that was that it tended to consume a lot of mana for every item. 

If Jayke's mana pool was just that - a pool, then the program was a running faucet that sourced directly from it. That was with only a singular item to identify. Mosquito-hornets for example. Adding plants to the program turned the faucet into a hose. It became a problem as more features were implemented.

It was an obvious inefficiency. In an actual piece of written code, he'd have tracked the down the inefficiency to some unnecessary usage of resources. A constant loop that checked unneeded conditions for example. For his magical program, the debugging was much more complex.

He ran the one-item program many times over the course of the hour. Debugging was a tedious and draining task, one that was often helped by various brain breaks. Between sessions, he'd spend a few minutes adding more moves to his ragdoll's dance, if nothing else it was good idle practice for his intermagic skills.

The program worked by parsing through his visuals - the raw data of whatever he was perceiving with his eyes. When he squinted, the program drained less mana. He stared at the waterfall so that half his field of view was the rocks he was looking for and the other half was the waterfall. Then he squinted his eyes again.

"No, not that then." Jayke groaned. "The program can't help checking the waterfall since it all it has to work with is my visual input. There's no avoiding that step." He mumbled.

Eventually, with his [Lesser Data Sense] and general knowledge he was able to pinpoint the inefficiency as it happened. He'd been combing through the entire algorithm until he started looking through the basic building blocks of the program structure. At this low component-level of the magic, things were easy to overlook as his intuition abstracted most of the process. With his [Lesser Data Sense] he was able to not only understand what was happening but also relate the process to some of his technical knowledge. He'd been unconsciously doing it the easy way, that was to say, the more intuitive and easily understood method of matching data. The more efficient method was more complex but within his knowhow.

He spent about thirty minutes revising the algorithm which detected a match from visual recognition. The idea behind the problem and the solution to it was one that was clear in his mind, but the reproduction of the code was hard to recall with any clarity. He had to piece out the bits of it he remembered and then test them. Within thirty minutes, and his eyes almost ablaze with random motes of lights and figures that played across them as his program failed time and time again, he was able to implement the algorithm correctly.

He ran the program again.

Immediately, many different rocks lit up in his vision, highlighting themselves blue in his vision. He glanced around, flinching in fear of another bright failure, but, pleased, found nothing forthcoming. He ceased the magic and added both water and the wall-crawling vines of the cave.

With all of those parameters and following his earlier analogy, he'd reduced a three-item detection program to a half-turned faucet of water. Whatever runtime he'd had before had been drastically reduced.

He spent some time playing with the program, adding features and usabilities he hadn't had the time for previously. Among them, the ability to change the indicative color of certain items. He'd also sunk a lot of time rewriting the terrible code before it got any worse, making the entire program modular and able to be quickly added to or tweaked.

He found working on the singular program let him remember its 'feel' more. It was a feeling that stemmed from his innate understanding of the magical program's workings and the constant sense of its data, all combined with the hours spent on it. He'd found himself able to reproduce large parts of it with accuracy and without thinking too hard. He'd complained before about a save feature and he wondered if this substituted it. Not that magic even complied with the rules of computers from his world.

After washing himself and his clothes in the waterfall, he finally found the opportunity to sleep in his own bed without fear of it getting too dirty. His [Safehaven] was easily the most comfortable place he'd ever stayed in the past year bar none. At times, he loathed to leave it.

When he woke up he spent a good amount of time staring at the entrance to [Runic Skies]. "No," He sighed. "Not yet."

The next day, more programming. He loathed to waste time but he still had upwards of a week to bring back something notable from the Dungeon. There was no need to rush it. He fell into a rhythm So much so, that an unavoidable sense of normalcy and routine had snuck up on him. Usually, that was before he craned his head and found the pulsing circle of runes or his ears keyed into the sound of the waterfall. Then he'd easily snap out of it.

His newest project was also one he'd been tinkering with over the course of his free time. With a new perspective and understanding of the interactional nuances between his two magics, he opted out of anything complex. Independent sphere-protectors were a thing of fantasy currently. Instead, he derived the idea from having watched his peers perform something which was commonly known as a 'bolt' spell.

It was considered a very basic spell for any field of magic, especially the less specialized, but Jayke thought he'd try his hand anyway.

He'd gotten some context for what comprised a spell. It was essentially any piece of magic that was constantly reproducible. Technically, his detection program would be considered a spell, and so would his shield spheres, but usually to be considered as such they'd have some type of notable effect. This was more on a  'Hey, that's a spell!' basis than anything else. The term was slung around loosely, but for the sake of documentation, he'd apply it only to specific effects he could produce when the time came.

It was little like abstracting the magical process. Quickly going through his set of capabilities, he found the only thing specific enough for him to personally consider a spell was his detection program. His regular shields and barriers were perhaps more useful but their effects were too general to be considered spell worthy, he thought.

Initially, he'd named the spell he held in his mind 'shieldbolt' but later revised it to 'forcebolt' as a weaponized shield didn't hit the right notes. The problem was one that arose much faster than any hiccups he'd anticipated. He spent long moments feeling at the magic, understanding its flow, to come upon the reason why an offensive application of the same principles he'd been working with was out of his grasp.

Truthfully, it was a bottleneck that humbled him.

He was proficient in [Protective Magic]. Protective. It was the reason why shields and barriers came easily to him. Using the same principles of his magic and applying it to combat was outside his field of expertise. What should've been a simple spell was in fact, very daunting. It was a humbling realization that most of his progress was heavily influenced by these Skills. Still, in his heart, he knew they were as part of him as anything else, so he didn't linger on the feeling too long. After having the initial thought, he had the odd impression that it was like complaining that picking up things was easier because he had a thumb. The logic made no sense.

He had wanted an improved method of launching a shield sphere against an enemy. Simply pushing a preexisting sphere of protective magic into a foe could only generate the force of a solid punch. That was in the best conditions, or so he'd found, and it wasn't the best application of magic he'd come across.

He'd opted for something that omitted the sphere and focused on the pushing aspect. A concentrated blast of forceful energy. But that was the point the magic was considered outside his field of competency. Things became harder. He couldn't figure out how to generate a large infusion of momentum, nor did he land upon an epiphany regarding the generation of pure force. Both effects were nothing he'd ever found necessary in his magics. Even with his [Lesser Data Sense] perusing the information coming to him wasn't helping him.

"There's almost certainly a better way to intact this." He griped. "But... it's not within my grasp of the magic." He rubbed his chin before leaning back.

It was in that defeat that he reluctantly went back to his shield sphere project. With a fresh mind after he'd scrapped the project, he went in with a renewed perspective. The detection of enemies was too much for this spell. That, combined with the logic needed to pinpoint their locations and direct the orb, was a job Jayke hadn't found an efficient way to implement.

Instead, he focused on the movement. Forward was the only thing he needed. The first round of testing shot the orbs horizontally and Jayke spent half an hour devising a way to track where he intended the orb to go. In that, he spent extra time fine-tuning the precision, taking the magical program by the reins for that particular function so to speak. That was much easier to implement with all the knowledge of his failures, the catch was that the orb couldn't redirect itself. Homing orbs were a thing of the future. 

Still, the velocity was such that it would pack the force of a solid punch and likely dissipate. In practice, as it was, the spell was much more worth its mana cost than before. From the tip of his staff, he shot the spell and tested the speed at which he could loose them consecutively. Similar to the formation of two shield spheres, he could not perform this task simultaneously. The only reason he could combine the magic without the mental strain was the fact he could leave the shield sphere static in the air, as a barrier that ran on its own battery. Because of that, Jayke didn't have to maintain his focus on it. Then from there, it was only him working on the programmable aspect.

The two components were the same as the previous, and bringing them together it took around four seconds. The delicate combination of the two magics was a necessary time sink. It was an entirely different type of cost to the spell. Time. Fortunately, with practice, he was confident he could reduce it.

So then, happy with his current mana cost and cast time, he diverted his attention to the main problem. He needed more power. A direct hit from one of these could probably rip through those mosquito-wasps, but going through the types of enemies he'd so far faced, he doubted this spell would be effective.

He needed to increase its power. The generation of that forceful momentum that was required to increase the spell's damage was an aspect of magic that his competency did not seem to cover. However, it was nice to have a singular problem to work towards. Refreshing even.

That night was spent with crossed arms and a furrowed brow. He'd been alternating between hanging out in the cave and in his [Safehaven]. He didn't want to return to an occupied cave after all. And because of that paranoia, when he'd have spare mana he'd erect a barrier across the cave entrance when he'd go into his [Safehaven]. It never lasted long, less than five minutes, but the practice was something.

He took a perspective's step backward from his [Lesser Data Sense], and focused less on his protective magic, and more on the data surrounding it. Relaxing and not affording the problem any particular intensive thoughts he enjoyed the stream of data for what it was, raw statistic. It was fun to stare at in the same way the statistics of random things were fun to, except in Jayke's case most of it was unreadable.

That was, of course, until it was.

He adjusted himself and looked more closely at the ball of protective magic in his hand. There was something there buzzing on the edge of his perception. When he felt the magic in his metaphoric magic hands, to some degree, he understood what he was looking at. It was an aspect of the magic linked heavily to the manipulation of his shield spheres - movement. If he wasn't so familiar with the method he wouldn't have immediately picked up on what he was feeling. 

This whole time, he'd been stuck on a logical barrier. Everything made sense now. It was almost like there was an unspecified critical section that prevented too much acceleration in his mind. The truth was, his shields and barriers didn't like to move, they were protectors, not attackers. That much was certain.

His inherent knowledge of the magic, of the practice of the field, had been limiting his horizons on what was possible. Unconsciously, he'd accepted the limit of his movements to be absolute when in actuality it was a mental barrier imposed by the nature of his competency. In a few words, his own sense of his proficiency had been telling him it was never plausible to do something. But, if he was understanding it correctly, and he was sure he was...

He walked out of his room and into the cave. Forming the shield sphere, he pressed his magical program into it.

"I just need to let loose."

The shieldshot broke a decent chunk of rock from the wall, flashing out from the tip of his staff. He reckoned something like that would've at least cracked the shell of one of those lobsters. Certainly, it'd burst a mosquito-hornet. And no doubt, it would break the bones of past scorpion-dogs.

He smiled and finally deigned to check his flashing vision after it flashed once more. As a rule, he avoided checking these screens when in a potentially dangerous area. He would've got to them sooner but he had a habit of focusing on work and nothing else when there was a task to be done. Now that he was done, he took a look.

Level Up: Level 9 [Protection Mage] -> Level 10 [Protection Mage]

New Skill: [Reinforce] (Unusual)

The ability to drastically strengthen, support, fortify, and raise the durability of an existing shield, barrier, ward, or physical target. Any affected application of protective magic shall remain so until dissipation or failure. Any additional mana poured into affected applications of protective magic will influence the structure at diminishing rates. On other targets, this Skill's effects are temporary.

Level Up: Level 6 [Code Mage] -> Level 8 [Code Mage]

Jayke blinked and immediately formed a shield. A flat plane of grey-blue light formed vertically to him. He stared at it a moment before focusing.

A certain, unquantifiable power rose up from his depths. It shot through him faster than anything he'd experienced, surpassing every known level of himself and exposing his perception to something he'd never have fathomed. An entirely new aspect of himself he'd never been aware of since entering this world. He knew only the feeling, and he focused on it, the process took no more than a second.

And, Oz was right, the Skill he found bubbled up from his lungs of its own volition.

"[Reinforce]!" He shouted.

The magical shield became opaque instantly. The flat plane became a thick panel. Then it hung in the air with heavy, immovable permeance. Every defensive aspect of it had just shot through the roof. He couldn't have gotten anywhere near this level of defensive power before and he stared at it in shock. It wasn't like staring at a shield erected for combat. It was like staring at a god damn wall that had just appeared out of nowhere.

He stared at the Dungeon and allowed himself a small grin.

After some testing, he'd be ready within the day.