Ark woke up to a bunch of notifications. He mostly ignored them. The notifications would probably be a log about the number of coins Ark spent and a number of coins Ark had gained in total. Ark looked at his status screen to see that he had a total of 164,000 coins. It had almost doubled since the last time he had checked. The tadpoles of Cthulhu had netted him over 70,000 coins. And the fact that he did not need to buy any weapons from the System shop meant that the entirety of the coins was now his. Ark really did not care about his coins though. They were merely a currency, a part of the Tower which was necessary.

Ark was far more excited about his level ups. It seemed like a long time ago that he had checked his status screen. He had grown a lot stronger than his previous self. The excitement of seeing his level ups made Ark forget about the pain he was in. The tentacles of the tadpoles were most certainly not a joke. Ark still had scars from the previous battle. His attire too was torn in some places. His natural healing had kicked in the moment after the battle was over and after the entire night of sleep, Ark had got lessened the pain. Ark would probably need to invest points into his Constitution stat when he got the chance.

For the moment though, Ark was completely focused on increasing his Arkana. If his Arkana increased, the duration of the magic body strengthening would increase. The amount of stat points he could get from it would also increase. Ark needed to prioritize the safety of the people over his own comfort. Ark was really not sure what the horde of monsters was going to be that night. The difficulty from the mold zombies to the tadpoles of Cthulhu had increased by a huge margin. There was no doubt that the difficulty would keep on increasing. The second scenario was meant for staying in the safe rooms after all.

Ark had two plans, one was to defeat all the hordes and the second was to not let a single causality occur in the subway station. For that, he needed something concrete that would help him. His level ups were already underway. Ark would buy the card he needed today but he needed something more. Something he would only be able to accomplish if he put in the effort.

Ark had already memorized the Arkana manipulation book by Merlin, Hecate, and Morgana. He needed to learn how to do the fourth technique by the time the horde of monsters arrived. It would require a lot of patience. If he did not learn it by today, he would not be able to prevent the deaths of the people. Some of the monsters would inevitably pass by him and there was only so much Adam could do by himself.

As Ark contemplated on how to go about learning the fourth technique, the notifications for the level ups finally came. The last time Ark had seen the whole of his status screen was when he opened it for the first time. He had certainly gotten a lot stronger than that. For the first three days, he had only leveled up three times. But on the fourth day, his level had shot up by 5 more.

[You have leveled up 8 times]

[You are now level 23]

[Your Strength has increased by 4]

[Your Agility has increased by 5]

[Your Constitution has increased by 2]

[Your Perception has increased by 3]

[Your Arkana has increased by 2]

[You have 5 unallocated stat points]

Ark thought that it was a good haul. Each level up took successively more Exp. The fact that he had leveled up 8 times in just four days was a good thing. As was the custom, Ark decided to dump all his unallocated stat points into Arkana. It was the only thing that showed the slowest growth. The rest seemed to increase naturally.

Ark opened up his status screen and checked the results of his hard work.

[Strength] [Agility] [Constitution] [Perception] [Arkana] 28 26 18 20 62

[UTILITY] [10 SLOTS] [COMBAT] [5 SLOTS] [STORY] [5 SLOTS] [GUARDIAN] [1 SLOT] [NO CARDS] [NO CARDS] [1 CARD] [NO CARDS]

He would probably level up a bunch of times that night too. The monsters could get as strong as they wanted, and Ark would always be able to do something to them. It was a belief that was ingrained into him after he had climbed up the floors of the Tower.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Setting aside his status screen, Ark still had some important things to do. Namely buying the utility card and practicing the fourth technique to perfection. The fourth technique was a priority case and he needed to do that right at the moment. Ark jumped down onto the train tracks and started to remember everything that was written in the book. The fourth technique was something Ark had never used in his life. He was mainly a close combat fighter, which meant that the three techniques he had mastered to perfection were all that was needed to win against a monster.

This time though, Ark was fighting against hordes of monsters and ones that were much stronger than him. The fourth technique was something the support fighter used a lot. The fourth technique was a crowd control technique that relied on one’s own Arkana to make a wall-like structure that prevented monsters from passing through. When Ark had seen one of the fighters attempt this technique,m they had made it look so seamless that Ark had almost believed the ‘net’ was easy. When Ark himself had tried to do that though, he had realized the futility of his attempts.

To do the fourth technique known as net, you needed to have a strong foundation of Arkana. Luckily for Ark, his 60 points in Arkana were just that. The second step was to slowly gather Arkana in a place just above the place where his Dantian should have been. Gathering the Arkana was the easiest part. The second part was what distinguished a good Arkana manipulator from a great one. Slowly like tiny strands, spread out the Arkana radially out of your body. Ark tried to do it but failed pathetically.

He had managed to gather his Arkana very well but when it came to spreading it radially, Ark did not know how to. It was a completely different concept than the rest of the techniques which only required the spreading of Arkana over to distant body parts. Ark did not feel ashamed nor did he feel like a failure. He was trying to learn a technique. Failure was just a part of it.

Ark took a deep breath and started trying again. He had a goal in kind. He needed to spread the net between the two tracks so that the monsters could not get away like last time. To do that though, he had to first stabilize the ball of Arkana that grew rapidly in size. After about twenty minutes of constant trying, Ark somewhat realized what he was doing wrong. He had forgotten what was written in the book.

To do this technique, one needed a strong foundation. Ark had assumed that the strong foundation was only his amount of Arkana. Ark realized that he was very wrong about the notion. The foundation was the building block from which the net would emerge. It could not grow fast in a short period of time. It would become wobbly and unstable. Instead, Ark opted for another method.

Ark sat in the lotus position and slowly breathed in and out. Patience was a virtue. He needed to remember that, Now he slowly gathered his Arkana from all over his body. Drop by drop Arkana began to drip down to the very place Ark wanted. But that was not what Ark did as the end result though. His Arkana now became single strands They weaved around each other, forming a sphere. At first, it was slow but gradually, as the strands increased so did the speed. The first step was complete when Ark realized that no more strands could be produced.

Now it was time for the harder part. Ark knew that he couldn’t do it on the first try himself but he was determined. He would be able to manage just fine. Slowly, ever so slowly, one strand began to move outwards. As soon as it did though, the foundation became wobbly again and Ark had to restart the process once again. Each time Ark failed at the process of forming a net, he learned something brand new. Ark knew that if he had to make something like the net again, he would be able to do it without putting in much effort.

The first part of the process was learning new skills which could synergize well with each other. That was primarily what Ark was trying to do. Learning the net was a necessity, absolutely but he needed to do the advanced techniques which were based on the basics of the net technique too. If Ark did it halfheartedly, he would probably be able to learn it in half the time. But if he took his time, the fifth technique was going to be as seamless as breathing.

Ark tried again and again and after what felt like eternity, something happened. The small strands of Arkana slowly left the core, still attached to the original. This slowly, ever so slowly attached to the train. The train accepted the intrusion of Arkana too. Just like that, like a net structure, the Strands of Arkana flowed from one place to another. The end result kind of looked like a fence made of pure glowing Arkana. The monsters who tried to go past it would probably fry to ash.

This was the purest form of Arkana. The techniques Ark used for the first three somewhat diluted the Arkana that was found naturally, but this technique was a solid barrier. Only monsters with the highest of Arkana resistances would e able to safely ignore them. Ark was pretty sure that the monsters which were capable of such feats were yet to come. Ark felt relaxed for the first time in the entire day. This day was spent well. He had managed to learn a new technique and night had already fallen.

The hordes would attack soon. Without delaying any longer, Ark bought the utility card for 50,000 coins. This would help in combat tremendously too. Just like the previous nights, Ark stood alone between the two trains waiting for the horde of monsters to come. This time there were certain changes. The darkness was no longer there as the fence-like structure made of pure Arkana glowed brightly.

[The Fifth horde of monsters is approaching]

[The Tower wishes you the best of luck]