"Should we go on a hunt?" Aster asked Ash, who was sitting beside him. Ash was munching on meat which allowed him to become stronger.

"Aren't our stats maximized?" Ash asked.

"They are, but our skills aren't." Aster grinned.

Yesterday, Aster and Ash finished maximizing their stats, bringing all of them to 4.99

Aster had also maximized his mana. Just like the rest, the maximum was 4.99.

It had been two weeks since the party had left the temple.

They were currently in a survivors' camp.

Yes, it had the same name, except that it wasn't a corridor but the camp. Aster felt like laughing when he heard the name of the camp.

"Alright." Ash nodded. It was decided. They were to go and hunt again.

As they left their tent, Aster kept thinking about ways to power up himself. 'To break through the limit of my physical stats, I need to become a knight apprentice, activating my inner fire or whatever that is.'

'To become an apprentice mage, I need to form a fake core.'

Aster had read about the fake core inside Zoroaster's Way Of Magic manual.

Fake core was a sphere formed of mana, but it couldn't contain anything.

Anything except mana, that is.

Once an apprentice formed a fake core, they could keep storing mana inside until they doubled their mana. Or until they reached 9.99 points, according to Aster's System.

Once an apprentice had reached the maximum, they could attempt to break through and become a full-fledged rank 1 mage.

Until then, they could only use elementary magic with limited effectiveness.

But even with that, Aster was one of the strongest in the camp.

"Who do you think is the strongest of the three knight apprentices in the camp?" Aster asked Ash.

"Probably Rois. She is most likely close to breaking through to an actual knight. After her, it's hard to say. Both Tyke siblings keep their abilities hidden, only revealing that they became an apprentice." Ash answered.

"But we are stronger." Ash grinned.

"We, as in my coin, and you using it?" Aster shook his head while chuckling.

"That's what you call team play!" Ash showed Aster a thumbs up.

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"Yeah? And what about the after-effects? That misfortune is no joke." Aster asked Ash, curious about the optimistic man's reply.

"We'll survive somehow." Ash showed Aster a dashing smile.

Aster laughed at Ash's answer. Of course, he never revealed that he was infinitely close to being an apprentice mage.

Along with his physical stats, Aster believed that he could rival Tyke siblings without any problems. Rois was someone even he had to be careful about.

The survivor's camp consisted of a hundred tents. There were three leaders. Namely, Rois, Mira Tyke, and James Tyke.

Coincidentally, all of them were young.

Rois just turned twenty, while Mira and Tyke were thirteen.

Yes, Tyke siblings were kids.

And yet, because of their power, they were leaders of the camp.

"I just can't believe that we can't leave again." Aster shook his head.

Just as they had escaped one prison, they learned that they were actually inside an even bigger one.

The Holy Land Of Darkness was known as a forbidden area because it was almost impossible to leave or enter.

To leave, one either had to fight hordes of monsters that could kill the whole camp with a simple snort.

Or teleport out with a magic circle.

But the Holy Land had been abandoned for hundreds if not thousands of years. So, what functioning magic circle was there even?

And how were they supposed to power it?

Because of that, the camp decided to have a group called Excavators.

Just like explorers, Excavators explored temples and their surroundings in order to find something that could help them leave.

"Yes, but it's better now." Ash grinned. "Earlier, we were trapped inside a single corridor with no way of going out, but now, we have many other options."

"Like flipping the coin enough times?" Aster looked at Ash with a weird expression.

"Yes." Ash nodded.

"Ash!" Aster looked angry and concerned. "Can't you understand that it's impossible to survive so many flips?"

"I am just saying that it's an option." Ash shrugged.

"Well, either way, I really hope that we can leave soon. I feel suffocated."

For the last two weeks, except for mastering magic, Aster had also opened the programming manual.

He had finally decided to stay true to the option's title, Programmer Mage.

Aster had learned many things, one of which was Variables.

Variables were, in simple terms, containers. They were containers that contained whatever Aster wished.

Well, not in this case.

The System's variables were indeed containers, but all they could currently hold was magic that Aster had used.

In other words, Aster could use Enhancement, activate the Variable, and the magic would stop. Instead, Enhancement would be stored inside the Variable, waiting for Aster to use it.

It was basically a portable storage for magic.

And there was another thing Aster had learned.

'Character.' He called out inside himself.

[ Asher

Difficulty: Decent. ]

It was an option he had acquired once he left the temple.

It allowed him to check the character windows of people with less mana than him.

As Ash wasn't even close to being an apprentice, even though he had mana stored up, it wasn't even able to hold a candle when compared to Aster's.

Therefore, Aster could see Ash's character window.

Currently, all Aster could see was the System's classification when compared to Aster.

If the difficulty said Decent, Aster knew that he could defeat the opponent as long as he put his mind and body into it.

However, Aster knew that Ash's rating drastically changed once he held Gold Pile.

'It's as if that damn coin is made for him, and it feels frustrating since I had waster a Rare Ticket for it!' Aster always felt dejected when he remembered his inability to use Gold Pile during fights.

But it had its own uses, even outside fights. The only thing Aster had to be careful about was backlash.

Because they were busy in the new environment, Aster couldn't use the Rare Ticket he had received after leaving the temple.

'I think that it's the perfect time now. If something bad happens, I have Ash to help me.' He thought. It was also the reason he had wanted to leave the camp.

If anything happened, no one but Ash would see it, and Aster honestly didn't mind Ash seeing something weird about him.

'System, use the Rare Ticket.' Aster ordered. He wondered what he would get.