Alec got rid of his incense and chugged a low grade cleansing potion. After getting tested, he waited in line for about half an hour. Although there wasn't much of a line, even a single run seemed to take a long time.

The entrance of the illusory training area was simple. It was a double-doored hatch made from solid marble. There were intricate carvings on it, which made Alec feel like they had been carefully crafted. Though, he wondered when they had actually been placed there. It wasn't that much of a concealed entrance. Obviously, it could have always been under an anti-memetic shroud to prevent entry. Which wouldn't be uncharacteristic for this place.

Taking a deep breath, Alec pulled on the hatch and opened one side before jumping down. A relatively short fall, approximately five meters later, he found himself landing on a solid and rocky cave ground. With his stats, such a fall wasn't enough to disorient him, especially if he was aware of it coming.

The hatch was closed by the attending professor, which cut off the single light source that illuminated the place. Now, Alec was left in absolute darkness. His pupils largened and adapted, still, dark... Then, he was blasted in the face with a sudden wave of light. There were torches adorning the walls of the cave. An underground opening roughly the size of a tennis court. A ceiling high enough to accommodate three Alecs.

With a deep breath, he looked around. 'Nothing of importance,' he thought. Feeling confident in Professor Howard's words, he took out The Author's Pen. With it, he felt confident in winning. Lately, his research into gravity magic had progressed by leaps and bounds. Once he figured out the first magic circle, a whole new world of spells had been unlocked. Mixing and matching the leftovers of ancient gravity magic, coupled with his overpowered artifact and the scientific knowledge he had from Earth made it undoubtedly easy.

And also, he had understood why many mages struggled so much for gravity magic, and why it was told to be a horrifyingly strong branch...

Alec heard a guttural growl. The structure of the cave caused his footsteps to echo as he turned around. From the wall came out a humanoid creature with green skin. About a head taller than Alec himself. It carried muscles of unnatural vigor, with pulsing veins and clearly defined muscle fibers. Long, white tusks adorned the sides of its mouth. As opposed to Alec's expectations, the thing didn't look ethereal. There was nothing 'illusory' about its looks.

Still, he didn't feel intimidated. Instead, there was curiosity in his heart. 'Is that an orc? So those kinds of fantasy species exist too... At least conceptually. Though, I haven't seen anything about them before,' he thought while checking his mind.

Now, though, was the time to focus.

In the dusky lighting of the room, seven shiny, handleless blades floated up from behind him. His mana brain fully focused on managing those blades while his main brain calculated the distance.

The orc, on the other hand, carried a brutish club, as thick as the upper leg of an adult man. It flourished the thing with a proficiency unexpected of a brute.

Alec made the first move. His legs a piston, and his body barreled forward, directly toward the monster. The daggers followed him closely before spreading, attacking the thing from every direction.

The creature didn't have the time to react before Alec was already in front of it. A clean blow to the stomach, the sound of Alec's fist splitting apart the air, the orc folded, falling on the ground while holding its stomach. Then, cold metal joined the fray. Seven blades plunged in, skewering the thing from every direction. The orc dissipated, turning into white fog, reabsorbed into the walls.

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'Weak,' Alec made a single mental comment. While waiting, he noticed a small amount of fog to remain, forming a new shape.

[+10]

'Hah. Neat. They actually made it look like a game.'

Once the growls returned, Alec turned around and surveyed the cave with his eyes. This time the growls were numerous. So much so that it seemed omnidirectional. Without knowing where the monsters would come from, Alec dashed back to the middle of the cave and distanced himself from the walls.

Five more monsters came out the walls, two orcs, and three of what Alec could only call gnolls. Hyena-headed humanoids. Unlike the orcs, the gnolls were equipped with short swords.

'Not enough,' Alec thought, raising his hand. The seven blades split, dashing in different directions. Seven clean cuts and lacerations later, the five monsters dissipated. 'When will it get harde– Oh shit did I just raise a flag? Fucking Edward... This is all his fault.'

As expected, the number of monsters quintupled, reaching twenty-five. This jump in amount seemed a bit absurd. 'Is it because I killed the first ones too fast?'

Nonetheless, his goal hadn't changed. He had to take down the monsters and he had to do so fast.

As the blades dashed in different directions, Alec crouched and wrote with The Author's Pen.

[Anti-memetic Shroud]

Alec's mana drained, and the magic circle appeared and covered the ground. This wasn't a spell to hide himself, but one to win time.

The monsters around first looked around in confusion, then started shaking. They looked down in terror, stepped down hard, and tried to reach out and hold onto stuff.

Then, they realized that the floor hadn't disappeared suddenly. Still, it was too late.

[Gravity Dash]

A purplish magic spell of the second circle appeared around Alec. It distorted and warped, taking an awkward shape. The world around Alec seemed similar. His vision was severely restricted as light orbited him in awkward directions, but what remained was enough to make out the monsters.

Space was pulled and stretched, and the distance between Alec and the monsters ahead shortened.

[Adrenal Boost]

His skin heating up, Alec blasted off from his crouched position. The shortened distance was covered in less than a second. Nothing too fancy, he simply collided with a gnoll and caused it to be hurled to a nearby wall, exploding into several pieces.

Without wasting any time, he turned on one foot and dashed in another direction. Using this tactic, it took him less than ten seconds to demolish the entire monster army.

Once again, he returned to the middle and looked around. 'Quintuple again? The next one won't be resolvable with brute force.'

One reason why his gravity magic was this strong was related to his location. While manipulating gravitons to his will was easy, he couldn't create them out of nowhere. Being on the surface of a planet was the bare minimum for the utilization of gravity magic. He needed matter and a lot of it. While the effectiveness would be immensely weakened in the depths of space, it would be unbelievably strong and easy to cast next to a black hole. At least that was what Alec could theorize from his relatively limited knowledge.

Crouching, he brought down The Author's Pen and readied himself.

Once again, the walls birthed monsters for him to face. 125 of them to be exact, just like he had guessed. With a smile, he wrote down the third circle spell he had readied.

[Gravity Amp]

The gravitons communicating the planet's pull energized, causing the monsters to become heavier and heavier. As they had reached about halfway from the wall, they had lost their ability to move completely.

However, the spell was draining. Pumping the gravitons full of pull spent a lot more energy than just changing their behavior. He didn't have much time before he would expend his entire mana pool.

Obviously, Alec had a plan to solve that.

[Gravity Well]

Suddenly, the gravitons surrounding him started changing in spin value. What was supposed to be a downward slope became something else, creating a valley of sideways push. However, unfortunately for the monsters, these gravitons had been amped. They were ready to push with all their might.

The sudden change in direction, a 90-degree bend, caused the monsters to fall back toward the cave's wall, exploding into a fog as soon as they made contact.

With a sigh, Alec dismissed the spell. He had spent quite the amount of mana and still seemed to have some time left. He had to push further to see what would happen in the later stages, so he could devise a plan for his next runs.

Thus, he readied himself...