Dark walls surrounded the place, stained with bioluminescent plants. Algae and moss of different kinds stained the walls, creeping up from the ground. If not for the orb of light he’d come with, the light within the cave would’ve been annoying to work with.

And this was enough for them to see with? Clerent wondered as he got up to his feet.

He would be lying if he said that he wasn’t impressed. In his hand was a small piece of rock. It was different from every other rock he’d come across in the cave so far. He’d found a very miniscule rubble of them, just scattered haphazardly in a particular area.

Holding the piece of rock up, Clerent studied it. It was oddly smooth to the touch. It was undoubtedly a piece of rock, just nothing like the other pieces of rock.

He frowned at it.

There were a lot of things that came with gaining the title of [Saint]. Most people didn’t know about most of them, and those who did, sat at the top of the hierarchy of the church.

One of those things was the ability to detect something without mana in it. It was an impossible thing to assume that a title gave the ability to detect things without mana since everything had mana, but the [Saint] title granted such a benefit.

And there was only one thing the scriptures taught those it did not consider the masses about things without mana; Gargoyles.

Clerent tossed the rock casually to the side. So there had been gargoyles here. But what was more interesting was the fact that the young Lord Lacheart and the princess had defeated them. Clerent licked his bottom lip very gently, an odd habit he displayed whenever he was thinking.

Both were less than level fifty, he thought. How did they win?

The princess’ level was not common knowledge, per say. But like many powerful organizations, the church had its spies everywhere that mattered. Sometimes even in places that did not matter.

Some priests, pompous and arrogant in their title, liked to claim that they knew the things that they knew because the gods revealed it to them or through some grand miracle or the other. They lied to exaggerate their importance. The truth was that if something truly wrathful happened in your area and someone from the clergy shows up not long after, it was a sign that they had a spy.

The gods did not pick it out and send a priest the piece of information. It was ludicrous to think that the gods had nothing better to do than to go around snitching on sins as grand as mass murder or the likes.

Yes, such a sin was grand on a human scale, but they were gods. It mattered very little or not at all to them.

Out of the corner of his eye, Clerent saw a line of ants crawling their way into a crack in a straight line. His current situation was the perfect analogy for how the gods viewed humans.

You did not care if an ant or two massacred ten to twenty other ants. In the grander scheme of things, human or not, it was ultimately unimportant. The gods didn’t care, and rightly so.

They left humans to handle human problems.

Besides, the presence of the gods hadn’t been felt by any bearing the title of [Saint] for the past month. The things they did that increased the benefits of their title no longer worked. They still did them, but there were no effects on their benefits.

It was a worrying thing. Not even the glorious act of hunting down those with the [Heretic] title.

So why now? Clerent asked himself, remembering the notification he’d gotten when he’d taken the hand of the young Lord Lacheart. Why him?

“Find anything?” a voice called out, drawing Clerent from his thoughts.

He frowned as he turned to the owner of the voice. “Magus Estabel.”

The [Mage] paused in her steps as she approached him with a rock in hand. Well groomed brows furrowed behind hand round spectacles.

“Why’d you say my name like that, priest?” she asked. “I’d think you were angry with me.”

Clerent wasn’t angry with her, but with all of the Mage Radiant as an organization. There was no one who was a true member of the church that did not know that the organization’s purpose was generally an affront to the holy order of things.

They were a necessary evil, looking into and investigating any and every natural thing for the wrong purposes.

Clerent casually pushed a strand of white hair behind his ear. “Perhaps I am simply not in a good mood.”

“Why?” Estabel walked up to stand beside him, looking at the cave around them and not him. “Is it because of the events of last night? Must’ve been tough having some nobody calling upon the gods to bear witness.”

Clerent’s lips pressed into a thin line. Now she was just trying to get a rise out of him. It was impossible to think that she wasn’t.

“It wasn’t as terrible as you make it sound, [Mage],” he muttered, turning away from her.

He gave her staff a casual glance, fully aware of how choked with mana the orb at the heart of it was. With all the spells her abomination of an organization had researched and developed, she probably had enough knowledge and mana to level this entire place if she wanted to.

No matter how annoyed with her he was, picking a fight with her would have annoying consequences.

“I’m glad you all handled it well.” She tapped the butt of her staff against the ground and a very slight tremor went through the ground. “This cave continues to amaze me. I keep getting odd feedbacks.”

Clerent frowned as mana moved from her staff into the ground. It spread all along it, causing the slight tremor before returning to her.

It was abominable, expended mana was not supposed to be called back. It was supposed to be allowed to return to nature. Pulling it back was nothing but greed.

“But talk about the young lord,” Estabel continued, moving away from him as whatever she’d done took effect.

Small rubbles and sand lifted off the floor by at least a few inches. As they hovered in place, she walked up to the things that did not. She picked up a single rock as large as her hand and peered at it through her glasses.

“Rock with no useful properties,” she muttered to herself. “It has all the things that make it a rock but none of the things that makes it a useful rock. Even my interface categorizes it as a rock. It’s amusing.”

Clerent did find it amusing. Not the rock, though. It seemed that for all their abominable researches, the Mage Radiant didn’t know everything.

“Anyway,” Estabel slipped the rock into a pouch at her waist, “how is the girl in your custody.”

“Fine enough.” Clerent turned and started walking down the path of the cave, deeper in.

Estabel hurried to catch up to him.

Clerent continued to keep a neutral expression when he heard her footsteps draw closer. He was beginning to think that his dislike for her wasn’t just born from his dislike for her organization. Currently, he was beginning to realize that he had a problem with her colors as she came to a walking pace beside him.

She was just too colorful. From her pink hair to her bright yellow cloak and her slightly glowing orb. She was too much for his eyes.

And history had taught him that when a person’s presence was that distracting, it was because there was something else about them that they didn’t want you paying attention to.

They continued their walk down the cave and Estabel took it upon herself to deliver commentary. She pointed out almost every and anything. She named the algae, explained why some rocks were formed this way or that, why there was a crack here and not there.

She filled Clerent’s ears with so many words that he wondered how a person who spoke so much had managed to rise to the rank of Magus within the Mage Radiant.

At this rate, he was beginning to question the organization’s choices. If she ever made it to the title of Grand Magus, he would lose it.

Why was I late? He groaned.

If he had gotten to the cave before her, maybe he would’ve been able to explore alone. Sadly, he had not. And the woman had gone the extra mile to actually speak with the adventure society so that they made sure the cave was vacant for the entire day.

When he had arrived, she had been more than happy to share the day with him. If he had been the first one there, he certainly would not have extended the same offer. It wasn’t because he was rude, although he had been called rude a few times over the years, but it was because he liked to do his things alone.

“I wonder how they were able to navigate this place so comfortably with so little light,” Estabel commented. “It would’ve been very annoying. How do you think they did it?”

“No idea.” Clerent turned his attention to a crack in the wall and placed a hand against it.

It hadn’t been naturally formed.

“I think the young Lord has promise,” Estabel said. “I wonder what his class is.”

“[Weaver],” Clerent answered absently.

Estabel paused. “How do you know this?”

Clerent gave her a look. “I see you have never officiated a duel before.”

It was his right as the person officiating the duel to know the class and level of the duelists. Unfortunately, the young Lord, being the challenged, had taken up his right to accept the duel without declaring his level. Such a thing would normally not be allowed, however, he had the favor of a man of repute vouch for him that his level was within the acceptable threshold.

And since the challenger—stupid woman that she was—was fine with it, there was no stopping it or pressing for more information.

“You’re saying a [Weaver] beat a soldier in a duel?” Estabel asked, confused.

Clerent had been expecting the young lord to be the corpse when he’d heard their classes. The events of the duel had stunned him as much as they currently stunned her. But there had been something more interesting that had happened during the duel. Something he’d missed because he hadn’t been paying attention.

The young Lord had done something that Clerent had missed. Even now, it continued to annoy him that he’d missed it.

There had been a moment during the fight when the boy had experienced a slight increase in mana that was only possible through the use of a spell or an item of enchantment or an artifact. Being an [Enchanter], however, Clerent had a small sense for enchanted items, and the boy hadn’t had any on him.

That was going to be a secondary part of the questions he would ask him once he was done with the cave today and returned to the Lord’s manor.

For now, there was more to the cave to explore.

A natural enchantment to study.

There was also something else to deal with. Casually, just because he could, he pulled up a notification that continued to bother him.

[Congratulations! You have met your first ????]

Those who held important enough positions in the church to give those with the [Saint] title pieces of advice all gave one simple advice. There was only one kind of person that their interface would not be able to identify now that they were [Saints]. If they ever met someone like that, which was very unlikely, it was always safe to run the other way as fast as possible.

Or just bow down and hope they don’t wish to kill you.

Given, a lot of [Saints] went their entire lives without running into such a person. But Clerent had run into one once. It had been during his time outside Bandiv. He’d gotten wind of a [Heretic] movement near him and had gone to exterminate their existence.

On his trip, he’d run into an elderly man. He had a simple beard and long hair. He wore a green cloak perhaps to mask his presence by blending in with the greenery of the forest. But what stood out the most about him had been his bow that had no string.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

He’d seemed unimpressed by Clerent in anyway, treating him like a young child while asking for directions out of the forest. In the end, they’d shook hands before parting, and Clerent had gotten the notification.

But much unlike this one he’d gotten after shaking Lord Lacheart’s hand, his notification had called it a warning not a congratulation. Then it had gone the extra mile to tell him to avoid hostility with [????].

That had been a month and a half ago.

Clerent couldn’t lie to himself as he took a turn down the path they were walking while Estabel continued to talk about things he was not listening to. If there was anything Clerent could say for certain, it was that the last month had been a very interesting one for him.

…

Aiden ducked another swinging black tentacle. Even though he had avoided it, he dived into a roll and came up a good distance away from the group of anomalies around him.

The first thing he was thankful for was that there were no other anomalies popping up. The second thing he was thankful for was how fast his movements were.

Eight minutes, he thought. That was how long it would take for his interface to contact whatever these system admins were.

The creatures all turned to face him, slowly swaying as if being caressed by some nonexistent breeze. Aiden remembered to keep his eyes on them and not on the horizon that was possibly to the side. The last thing he needed was its attention right now.

If he added the effect of its attention to fighting these things, he could very certainly die here.

[Dimensional Mana detected]

Aiden frowned at the notification. What now? You’ve already detected it.

[Weave of Lesser Speed is now Weave of Lesser Void Speed]

Aiden had no idea what that was. In fact, he was very certain that he’d never heard of it before. Still, he could feel its effect as a different kind of power started flowing through him. Where he had once felt fast and active, there was now a part of him that felt as if whatever task he wanted to achieve wasn’t just possible anymore, it was inevitable.

A tentacle snapped at him, covering the distance in a split second and Aiden moved.

In the blink of an eye, he was standing in a different location. He hadn’t even felt his feet on the ground when he moved.

What the hell?

He looked around him, realizing he’d gone a little too far. As for the creatures, they simply turned in his direction. Considering the fact that they had no faces, it was no surprise that they had no facial expressions. No look of surprise.

Do you really want to run into whatever comes of this system Admin? Aiden asked himself as he considered his options.

This entire space was wide and vast. He could just run. At his current speed, he could run for more than eight minutes. But there was also the problem of the real world. What happened if he strayed too far away from where he’d appeared?

Would he appear elsewhere? Would he simply get lost and stuck here?

The last time he hadn’t ventured anywhere.

Hold up. How lon—Aiden’s thoughts were interrupted and he ducked to the side, narrowly avoiding another tentacle.

It seemed the reach of the creatures was not limited.

If that was the case, then running didn’t seem like the best idea. Can I fight?

Aiden had never seen or heard of creatures like this before. Then again, he’d never been in such a situation in his past life, and he doubted he’d ever come across anyone who had been in such a situation either.

Test run? He asked himself, eyes still on the undulating creatures. The answer came to him as they slowly shuffled forward.

Hit and run tactics, he thought to himself. I’ve got the speed for it, after all.

He placed his attention on the space in between the gathered creatures, all five of them, then dashed forward.

The skill [Dash] carried him forward and he was gone in the blink of an eye. The movement speed was disorienting, surprising him even as he arrived at his destination. But he did not let it throw him off balance.

The moment he came to a stop, his fingers were already moving, weaving a new sign.

[You have used class skill Walking Canvas]

…

[You have used Crystalized Dimensional Mana]

Aiden didn’t feel his mana pool out of him, instead, he felt his body draw mana into him. Somehow he served as a conduit, amplifying the dimensional mana from the crystal in his pocket.

The moment the mana burst out of him as [Walking Canvas] took effect, he realized how stupid his action had been.

Electricity shot out of him, charging the air around him. The creatures were caught up in his reach. Electricity ran through them, crackles as black as the world around them sparking all over.

Aiden moved his feet, and he was gone from their midst as quickly as he had arrived.

That was very stupid, he scolded himself.

The plan had been to use [Walking Canvas], and while everything had gone as he had intended. He had not calculated the possibility that his mana would not work.

What would’ve happened if you didn’t have the crystal?

But even as he asked himself, there was another thought crawling up from the back of his mind. What was the possibility that he wasn’t using his mana simply because the crystalized dimensional mana was on his person?

What were the chances that his body was simply taking from an external source because it could.

Low, he told himself. I had it on me when I was escaping the cave and didn’t use it.

Whatever the true answer to his ability to use his own mana was, it would only be answered if he threw the crystalized dimensional mana away. And that was not an answer he was eager enough to risk his life to find.

To Aiden’s surprise, as he fixed his eyes on the creatures in front of him, they had each developed an indicator above their heads.

Each indicator was simple above them. They had a name and what looked like a health bar beneath said name. And while the bars were of varying lengths, all the names were the same.

[Spatial Crack]

Aiden had always thought a spatial crack would be an actual crack in space, not some creature.

[Warning! You have dealt damage to a Spatial Crack]

[You have now been designated as a Hostile]

[Hostile]

You are an enemy of space.

It was so simple a description that it was so worrying. The interface hadn’t bothered to go into detail. He was an enemy of space. It was as simple as that.

The question, though, was if he was an enemy of space for now or if it was a title that he would find attached to his personal detail.

Wouldn’t that mean that I’ll have to deal with these guys every time I teleport?

That was a terrifying thought.

Aiden braced himself, keeping [Walking Canvas] active. With the skill still in effect, it meant that everything around him would be in a constant state of electrocution.

I’ll just burn the crystal until it’s out of juice.

One of the cracks disappeared from where it was and appeared in front of him. Its movement was so abrupt that Aiden had almost missed it. A single tentacle shot out of it when it appeared and Aiden dodged it by the skin of his teeth.

Black electricity went through the creature and the bar above its head reduced further.

Aiden didn’t have the luxury of paying it much attention as he moved again. He swayed to the side as another [Spatial Crack] appeared beside him, tentacle shooting out as well.

It was as if they didn’t care for the electricity currently killing them.

Aiden hopped backwards as a third [Spatial Crack] appeared in front of him. Aiden frowned when it did not attack. He was in a terrible situation, facing off against monsters he knew nothing about without a weapon of any kind.

The new creature attacked the moment Aiden’s feet touched the ground. Aiden was already moving, evading only for a second tentacle to slam into his side like a vicious kick.

It sent him staggering where he felt he should’ve been sent flying. Pain erupted in his head instead of his side and Aiden bit down on it, scared to make a loud sound.

[You have been dealt an Existential Blow!]

…

[Health 72% --> 33%]

Aiden’s eyes widened at the notification. His health had been seventy-two percent after the first blow he’d defended against. Shock and fear pierced through the pain in his head, and he raised his hand instinctively as he came to a stop.

He grabbed a tentacle before it stabbed him in the face. Black electricity blasted out of him even as new pain filled his head. It ran through the tentacle to engulf the creature that it belonged to.

[You have been dealt an Existential Blow!]

…

[Health 33% --> 13%]

Fear took Aiden by the heart and squeezed.

He heard each beat in his head. It filled his ear as the realization that one more contact with any of the [Spatial Crack] would kill him. His eyes grew wide with panic even as he tried to control himself, releasing the tentacle and jumping away.

[You have used skill Leap]

He cleared a distance in a single jump. The moment he landed, his hand clutched at his chest.

Calm down! He scolded himself. Panic will kill you faster.

He doubted he’d even been here for up to five minutes and he was already almost dead. Tears streaked from both eyes, and while they could’ve been tears, he knew that they were not. Just to confirm it, he wiped at the tear on his left cheek.

His hand came away bloody.

Just my fucking luck.

He was crying tears. He was leaking.

In the distance where the cracks were slowly catching up to him, one of them suddenly twitched. Aiden was aware of it, it was the one with the tentacle he’d caught, at least he thought it was, since its tentacle was still reaching out from it in his direction.

It twitched twice more before the tentacle shot back into its black head. Then its remaining tentacles did the same. Its head increased in size, then suddenly shrunk out of existence.

[Congratulations! You have sealed a Spatial Crack]

…

[Congratulations! You have gained situational title Spatial Seal]

[Spatial Seal]

You have proven yourself capable of inflicting damage upon the cracks in space.

[Effect: +20% damage increase to Spatial Cracks]

[Effect: +30% damage resistance to Spatial Crack]

…

[Spatial Seal only takes effect in the presence of Spatial Cracks]

Aiden took in a deep breath as he read the notification. The distraction calmed him down a little. It gave him something to focus on apart from the fact that he was just one hit away from dying.

In front of him, the [Spatial Cracks] had taken a moment to free him from their attention as they seemed to turn in the direction of where their companion had been only but a moment ago.

Run.

It was all the thought that came to Aiden’s mind. It didn’t matter that he could get lost in this place and not appear with the others on Nastild because he’d ventured too far away.

So, he turned and fled.

It didn’t matter that he could end up appearing back on Nastild but in a completely unknown location.

All that mattered was that he needed to survive a little longer by whatever means was necessary.

He just needed to—

Aiden turned at the last moment. He was fast, but not fast enough. He could not avoid the tentacle that was suddenly in front of him at the last minute. He raised his hands and clapped his hands together in front of him and caught the tentacle.

Regret filled him as he did so, and his interface flashed in front of him. There were still so many things he still hadn’t done.

Will Ted mourn? He wondered. Will I appear dead in the carriage, or will I simply never appear?

[You have been dealt an Existential Blow!]

…

[Health 13% --> 7%]

…

[Threshold exceeded]

Aiden had no idea what the last notification meant.

And it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he still had a chance to survive.

He just needed to—

…

Everything crashed into Aiden in one swift motion. It was like stars colliding. One minute he was staring at the impossible, the next he was back in a world.

The air around him trembled and he sucked it in with every breath. He filled his lungs, dying even as he did. He could smell blood. He could taste blood.

Pain was in his head, taking his mind and unmaking it.

There was sound too. A lot of sound. He felt other things around him, but he couldn’t react. He was terrified of moving. His fist held on to a piece of something that dissolved into black smoke in his hand.

The familiar brown floor of a roof stared down at him, clean and pristine. Between him and the carriage roof was a simple notification.

[Health 5%]

Someone rushed to his side, but Aiden couldn’t be bothered to check who he was or if he had appeared in the right place. All he could think of was the fact that he was still alive.

With more health than last time, he thought.

Then a smile touched his lips, and he started laughing. He laughed heartily and well. He laughed like a child laughing for the first time.

He laughed as if it was the only thing that could save his life.

I’m alive!

…

Elaswit watched, pale faced as Valdan tried to draw Aiden’s attention.

She’d never seen the knight so worried as he tried to coerce Aiden to drink the health potion in his hands. She had never seen a man move so prepared before. They’d appeared with Valdan already on the move, potion snatched from the pouch beside him.

But what left her pale was the sight of Lord Lacheart.

He wasn’t as bloodied as he’d been the last time they’d teleported, but he was still stained in blood. But what was worse was his hand.

When he’d appeared, he’d been lying still on the carriage floor but there had been something in his hand. Elaswit hadn’t gotten the chance to see what it was before it had evaporated into the air. However, what it had left behind was terrifying as it was.

Aiden’s left hand was a deep black, as if he’d dipped it in black ink. The color spread up from his hand to stop halfway up his forearm in growing streaks that reached for his elbow.

Elaswit had never seen a person go into a teleport and come back with something that they had not gone in with, and she had never seen someone get altered from a teleportation before.

“Lord Lacheart, drink,” Valdan pleaded, pulling Aiden into him, cradling him like a dying friend. “Drink, Aiden.”

His fear and panic cracked his voice and made him sound broken.

“You can’t die on me, Aiden,” he growled. “Drink.”

Lord Lacheart’s response to him was something that shook Elaswit to her core.

He laughed. It was loud and hysterical. It was the laughter of someone who laughed because it was all that they knew how to do.

The teleportation had done worse to him now than it had done the last time. It didn’t show in the amount of blood he’d spilled but in the sight of him. In his actions.

Whatever the teleportation had done to Aiden, it had affected his mind as well.

I shouldn’t have let him teleport back.

Aiden’s unblemished hand snapped up suddenly and grabbed Valdan by the hand that held the potion. The knight froze and so did Elaswit.

Aiden looked Valdan straight in the eye. “You ain’t getting rid of me that easily, Valdan.”

When he pulled the potion to his lips and started drinking, Elaswit let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

Everyone remained silent as he drank, waiting until he was finished. A jepat trudged up to the side of the carriage and Elaswit waved it away with a gesture before it got close enough.

The rider complied and turned away. They would not resume their return until she gave them the go ahead.

Silence remained until Aiden was done drinking the potion and he broke it with a satisfied sigh.

Valdan was already reaching for his pouch again, clearly reaching for the stamina potion.

Aiden waved him down, groaning. “There’s no need.”

Valdan stopped in his tracks. “Are you sure?”

Aiden pulled himself up so that he sat on the ground with his back rested against the seat. “I’m sure, Valdan. My stamina and mana are still good.”

Then he put his hand into his pocket, let out another sigh and took it out.

It was now that Valdan paid attention to something other than the fact that Aiden had almost died. Elaswit watched as his attention moved down to Aiden’s hand.

It was still black, but it was now developing subtle hints of red.

“Aiden,” Valdan said in a still worried voice. “Your hand.”

Aiden raised his good hand, the one he’d slipped into his pocket and looked at it. “What about it?”

Valdan shook his head.

“Your other hand,” Elaswit said, finding her voice.

Aiden’s brows furrowed on her as if just realizing that she was also in the carriage. Given her very little attention, he raised his other hand and looked at it.

The moment his eyes saw what was happening to him, he paused.

“Well,” he muttered, with far less worry than the situation demanded and no panic at all, “this definitely can’t be good.”