Max watched the countdown on his window draw closer to zero, the moment when he would finally leave the dungeon. He leaned against the wall with all his spirits manifested around him. They were having a last-minute meeting, one that Max hadn't even realized he probably needed. In some ways, the wait before leaving the dungeon had been a blessing in disguise.

Out loud, he said, "Yes, it would be better if I could hide some of my abilities, but given what I might be walking into, I don't see any way to survive unless I go all out. To clarify, it seems to me like I have two choices: either go all out and probably make it obvious that I'm a three Path challenger, or just let myself be killed."

Lavinia was wearing a short ruffled skirt and a graphic midriff with a teddy bear holding a knife above the word, “badditude.” She pointed at the tall, foreboding figure of Saliron. "Can't you avoid using Bead Sorcery now that you have Saliron"

Max shook his head. "No, I'm still just a two-star mana body. That means that I need to focus a lot more on defense. If I was a three star mana body, then yes, using Saliron’s abilities would be a game changer. But some of the Mystic Spear Path students are really fast. I can probably defend myself against one of the more advanced ones, even if they're technically faster and stronger than me, but if there's a group, all bets are off. That's why the original plan focused on throwing them off balance."

Then he shook his arms at her, both of which had so many beaded bracelets it looked like he was going to an early 2000’s emo concert. "Bead Sorcery gives me a huge edge. It’s a little different than Blade Sorcery or Summoning because, given enough time and motivation, I can literally make myself more consumable weapons and utility. The more time I have to prepare, the more options I’ll have. And I've had a few months to do nothing but sit around making beads. There are enough explosive beads on this one arm now to take out an entire army of kobolds."

Saliron gave his trademark evil-sounding hollow chuckle, probably in response to the idea of Max killing an entire army of anything. Or maybe it was because he’d be using bone beads to break more bones.

Lavinia crossed her arms and made a face. "You're probably right. It just seems unfortunate that you've hidden your abilities before this, but now you have to reveal them. Especially since you're not particularly strong in any one of your Paths yet.”

She waved a hand and corrected herself. "Well, that's not entirely true. You're probably the strongest Summoner in the Quartet now, other than maybe some of the professors. There is no way another student has anything like Saliron."

Max didn’t respond verbally, just nodded and shrugged. Being the strongest Summoner student was not exactly a high bar from what he’d seen.

Saliron tittered as his name was said yet again. "If other Summoners desire a spirit of my caliber, perhaps they should spend more time developing an interest in beauty and art. After all, Max made such a stunning pile of bones. Down in the dark. All those bones, down in the dark. Just doing bone things. Waiting to be nibbled on. Admired. Nibbled."

Max ignored Saliron’s outburst. "Okay, Lavinia, you're right," he said. "And you know another way I know you’re right? Because I said ten minutes ago exactly what you just said now. But I still don't see a way around this. The fundamental decision is, do I go all out and try to survive, or do I act like I'm powerless and allow myself to be killed, or worse, just commit suicide?

“I have sat here thinking about it for the last few hours, and if the powers-that-be in the Quartet know that I am a three Path Challenger, the greatest risk is…I don't know what they'll do. My experiences in the Quartet haven't been the greatest so far. It’s possible they’d suppress me or try to take advantage somehow. Who knows? There is the chance that they won't care, but I highly doubt that."

He shook his head. "It could be that something fortunate could come out of it too. But there's no way in hell that I'm going to bet on that. No. The best choice I think I've got is to go all out, kill all the witnesses, and hope that none of them recognize I used three Paths. Like, maybe they'll think that the beads are the power of some weird powerful spirit they've never heard of before. Either way, even if they figure it out, if they’re all dead I'll have a week or two to try for some damage control before they respawn. Then even if they come back to life and try telling their professors that a three Path Challenger killed them, the fact it was me will complicate things. The professors or Quartet staff might not even believe them. That could lead to outright dismissal, or maybe going on a fact-finding mission. I don't know."

Max ran his fingers through his hair. "From the perspective of keeping my abilities hidden, I don't really have a lot of great options here either. I could develop a habit of letting enemies kill me in the future if they're stronger, at least until I’m stronger, but I'm just not the kind of personality to let that happen. I also need a bunch more mana units so I can keep training my mana body. Otherwise, my Blade Sorcery abilities will stagnate. Getting more mana units will require overall just winning in various ways, not playing dead."

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He sighed. "I've already basically made my decision, and we've only got three minutes left. so I guess that's it.” He frowned. “Actually, wait a second."

A new window popped up in Max's vision. It read:

Preparing to leave the dungeon.

[Bonus rewards being calculated.]

Dungeon completion: five hundred mana units.

Giant Warlord killed: five hundred mana units.

Giant Shaman killed: five hundred mana units.

Bonus Monster Groups killed: [one]: five hundred mana units.

All giants dead at time of departure: five hundred mana units.

“What happened?” asked Lavinia.

Max's eyes bugged out as he read the messages and added up his bonus haul. "Okay, uh, I just got an extra 2500 mana units from the dungeon. With this extra amount, I guess money and mana units won't be a problem, at least for a while. At least I think it will get me closer or maybe even the rest of the way to a three-star mana body. After that, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

He rolled one shoulder, stretching it. "Okay, gang, get your game faces on. We're probably walking into a fight for sure. Thirty more seconds."

All three spirits vanished. And when the countdown timer hit zero, the world went black.

***

The moment Max's consciousness returned and he found himself back in the Quartet, inside the dungeons terminal building. He immediately threw his hands wide, willing smoke screen beads to fly off of the strings on his wrist. His recently developed technique of willing the beads off their string made deployment much faster.

Almost immediately, the entire area was covered in smoke. He’d thrown the beads without wasting any time, before even looking around or taking stock of the situation. But now that visibility was effectively zero, he had the advantage.

Lavinia dumped information into his mind through the quick reconnaissance of her spirits. There were two figures in the large building with him. That by itself might mean that he actually wasn't in danger. However, there were no personnel behind any of the dungeon counters. Neither figure was shouting or asking questions. One person was far away, outside the actual doors to the building, and the other was heading directly for him despite the smoke. On top of that, the person aggressively approaching was holding a spear.

Shit, thought Max. He remembered the powerful students that had utterly destroyed his body back in the Mystic Spear Path Academy.

Spirits, he thought. It looks like Regal hired an assassin or something.

"Saliron, tag this person with one of your spirits, please. Let’s light em’ up."

With pleasure, drawled the dark Bone Lord. Oh my. Thes are some very strong bones.

Suddenly, even through the smoke, Max could feel the location of the person approaching him. He wanted to see what they'd do. A second later, all of the uncertainty was removed from the situation as his connection through Saliron’s bones revealed the figure rearing back to throw their spear.

Max dove to one side just in time to avoid being impaled. The turbulence of the spear was so powerful, it dragged an obvious trail of smoke after it. Max’s takeaway was grim. It seemed he was not the only one with ways to see through the smoke.

He cursed and threw a handful of wind vortex beads to either side. Almost immediately, the smoke began to clear, and Max got sight of his opponent just in time to see the man lazily rearing back for another throw.

With a powerful explosion of movement and help from Slick, Max avoided the screaming missile as it sailed past. He didn't hear it hit anything behind him, and with a flicker, the spear reappeared in the man's hand.

Oh, this is great, thought Max. Now that they could see each other, his instincts were screaming at him that this was an extremely powerful opponent. Apparently, Regal had pulled out all the stops, probably buying the best killer he could afford. It made a certain sort of sense after their repeated run-ins with each other.

Pity, thought Max. He'd really wanted to kill the Prince again. He’d also been hoping for an easier fight. So far, he was concerned. He couldn’t get a good grasp on this man’s power.

Max drew his sword, and the other man watched him with a smirk. He was tall and rangy, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a goatee. Although the armor he wore was abbreviated, without total coverage, it was obviously of extremely fine quality. And the spear he held was a work of art. In fact, the man was wearing the best equipment that Max had ever seen anyone own in the Quartet so far.

The two of them stared each other down for a moment.

Okay, all, he told his spirits. This is definitely going to be a tough fight. Maybe even tougher than I thought it would be against Regal and all of his friends. No, actually, definitely tougher. So we're gonna get serious. Not that we weren’t serious before, but you know what I mean. Are you ready?

All of his spirits sub-vocally indicated they were ready to fight.

Okay, let's do this, thought Max.

He broke the staring contest, flinging five explosive beads at his opponent, mainly to test the enemy’s reaction. The man didn't move, just waved his hand after the explosions, clearing all the smoke with one supernaturally-empowered gesture. It clear that he was absolutely untouched. His dark eyes glittered as he gave Max a mocking smile.

The explosive beads were not as powerful as Max would like, not for a fight at this level, but they were still plenty strong enough to blow a vanilla mortal apart. Meanwhile, it looked like the man’s armor wasn’t even smudged.

Okay, this might be even harder than I thought, Max thought grimly.