I see the deepest spear trust entering any of the HLZ beasts to this day and it comes from Alex. The greatest injury, but after the instant, the beast still barrels into him and twists his arms at an unnatural angle. Bleeding with an injury that should have taken a good twenty percent damage to its HP it tries to disengage.

With a hole six inches deep, each of its tentative movements puts a strain on its muscles.

With Alex down, it might have managed to overwhelm us in only a few seconds, but I can almost feel its pain and hesitation with my perception field. The panther can barely keep moving.

Extending the perception field to Alex’s shoulder, I run to him and using the little I know of anatomy and mechanics get into position behind him. I grab his arm as he attempts to hold himself up and hold his spear in place.

“Hold for a moment,” I say as I attempt to multitask with shields and get the proper leverage. I put my shoulder on his back and yank his arm back.

I fear the strained ligaments but after a moment it becomes clear his humerus is properly back in its socket and even through the remnants of pain he manages to swing his arm.

Though it would perhaps be better to let him rest, he dives right in again though slightly favoring his right arm after his injury.

Something has changed. He in some ways moves even more precisely and fluidly than before and the narrow gap that separated a large group with magical support against a single one of the beast now becomes jagged as he hesitates to put strength in with his left arm.

After the injury and the limited time frame the Panther was working under, it tries to stay for a few more minutes, but we just barely manage to keep and it decides to break away. Moments before I finish a freezing formation underground, the beast runs off.

“NO, come back and die you @##%” Curses Greg.

I watch closely the system pull increased strength as the panther retreats.

“Do we pursue it?” One of the 8 yet uninjured fighters asks as a few more join from the village.

“No. Definitely not. It’s too dangerous even with Alex and whatever he managed to do. Most of you are injured.” Says Richard.

I nod while palming two Health potions from the inner world. I throw one to the fighter making its way back with a mangled hand and forearm while the other goes to Alex.

“Thanks, Nash.” They both say almost in sync which sends everyone laughing.

“Go by the healer, he can help you recover in hours instead of days for an injury like that,” I say to the fighter after the mirth has died down.

As everyone moves back I stay behind with Alex who is holding his arm. They're not the muscle spasm from the pain that I would ordinarily expect, but some pain remains even after getting his arm into place.

“That was some impressive fighting. What did you do?”

“I think…I hit level 100 in a skill.” He says and my eyes widen.

“You…. I think you are the first person in the instance given how hard it was. I could see your skill almost instantly improve your combat by a lot even with your injury.”

“I’m just thankful that we drove the beast off.”

“Well, now you just have to leverage what you learned into actual combat capability and heal up to full strength,” I say thinking of how much easier these encounters would be from now on. “Come on, which skill it was?”

“Let me look.”

He ruffles through his system interface for a few minutes back and forth looking and his for just gets deeper and deeper.

“What is wrong?” I ask concerned.

“Not really wrong, but I just… My skill … Level 100, but there is nothing else in the stat screen.”

“Really?”

He looks at my face and realizes he was talking nonsense.

“My Spear Mastery skill is level 100 now, but that is all that changed.” He says rifling through all the system screens looking for anything different.

“Really?”

“Yep, not extra stats, nothing new unlocked, not decent class upgrades, no rewards, no explanation, nothing. Just one more level in the skill.”

“Well, it is an impressive skill. Though why do you still have spear mastery? Didn’t it get upgraded to pole mastery after you started using staffs or halberds for practice?”

“Nah, I don’t train with other weapons. I dedicate the entire time to spears, though I make sure to vary their weight, length and my fighting style during my training sessions.”

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“Maybe there are advantages to the more specific skills,” I wonder aloud. “Eighter way, push forward for the rest of us and learn as much as you can after you get your arm healed up. As soon as you have something to tell, don’t delay, I have half a dozen skills stuck on level 99 and I want to progress.”

“Damn, that is… a lot of skills. Though I’m not sure about what to say. I only had one stuck at level 99 now that I increased it.”

I shrug my shoulders. “Well, take care, we will need you to get acquainted with your increase in skill if we are to have any chance next time.”

“Yeah, finally we do have a chance.”

I walk off looking at the beast through the network with my perception field. Even from the distance, I can faintly feel the pull of the system which get’s so much stronger whenever the beast is forced to retreat. Yet another small quirck of the system.

I ignore it, connect more fully to Aspen and start to look for any sign that he got injured in the fight. Just a small precaution considering his help is essential in my plans to battle the beasts from the HLZ.

“So, did you got injured as you hold the mana in the shields and fireballs that the Panther dissipated?”

The mental image of a giant green and brown Lovecraftian monster made of living wood comes back at me through our bond more clearly than most of our interactions. He may not have adrenaline, but acting directly against the black panther still forced him to start thinking a little more like ‘moving beings’ instead of his more ‘lethargic’ state.

“So, you are the real monster and the panther is barely a kitten before your might?”

He takes that faint mental image and develops it further and further with incredible detail. Almost enough to be considered a mental painting, as a small entire black cat runs away with its tail tucked between its legs.

“Have you been interacting with Aster on your own and picked her flair for the dramatic?”

A sheepish feeling returns and I try to make sense of the convoluted mental image that accompanies it.

“How?” I ask ignoring his previous image. But as he morphs it, I go back to paying attention.

“You can use something that comes from me?... You… are using my telepathy skill?”

The feeling that comes back is undeniable. He not only can use telepathy, but he is also more advanced than I expected. He isn’t just slowly gaining control of mana, but also the perception field of telepathy and how to know what other skills do.

I start heading back unconcerned with the negligible feedback that Aspen suffered given how cavalier he is treating this whole thing, but as I enter the village, my perception passes over the fireball turrets, which shot throughout the fight.

With the mage operating it laying on the ground, I see signs of the feedback except even more dangerous than before. Concerned, I use my roots and climb the side of the towers like a gecko, though more slowly.

Getting to the top, I enter and see one of the most accomplished mages without counting Merlin trying to sit up.

“Are you ok?” I ask.

He turns his head at me and says:

“Ahh, yeah I’m okay. I pushed too hard for a little while, but I ate a healthy regen fruit already. I just need a few more minutes.”

“What do you mean?” I ask not understanding.

“When Merlin talked about the dangers of mana feedback from Beasts, I didn’t think that it would be nearly this intense.”

“It hasn’t seemed such a big problem until now. I thought that it was his high intelligence stat who was protecting him, now I’m not so sure. I never got this injured myself and your mental stats are higher than mine.” I say getting another pair of healthy fruits from the inner world and giving it to him.

He extended his arm to take them and retracting in himself I see him adjusting his legs to start meditating. That should increase his regen rate as both effects stack before its one-hour countdown runs out.

On the next, I walk the meter and half of the circular tower and drop from the 12-meters high window to the ground. Mana overflows from my pool to my active control and in the last half a second, a runic formation I had been practicing in the last week receives the pulse of mana. The floating rune or more precisely the repulsion rune slows my fall. At my speed it is not strong enough keep me in the air, my control and powers is still not at that level, but it’s enough that I don’t even feel the pain from impacting my feet in the ground.

Finding Merlin and talking about the discovery we work on the feedback that the others felt, especially the fool who kept shooting even as it was harming him.

“Nah, that only thing that makes sense is you Soul stat. Such a cheat.”

“Damn, if I didn't have it, then I would only be able to use mana indirectly against a beast. But if that is the case, the reason you can hold against the beast's attacks has to be something that you do, not a passive effect.”

“Yeah,” He says crunching his face, “I think… I kinda ‘flinch’ every time my will comes into contact with the disputing. Before it just seemed something everybody did, but it is the only thing I can think of that may be the cause. ”

“Maybe it is an innate understanding and reflexive action to reduce the damage.”

“Like almost letting go of a hammer or ax as it hits something.”

“Except in your case, it’s not about relaxing, but doing something to keep the control,” I say.

“If we figure it out next time I'm going to pay more attention. Still, slowly we are catching up. After Alex heals up we should have better chances.”

“You talked with him?”

“No, but it’s obvious he improved a lot right at the end. What did he do?”

I grin widely: “Level 100 skill, spear mastery skill. Not sure how things will develop in that front, but at least someone managed to cross that threshold?”

“Did he find out anything new?”

“No so far. Maybe he needs to hit level 101 or the increase in skill it’s one reward but even without this bringing anything more, it will make combating the beasts more feasible.”

“We are a long way from Solo combat against then, but at this pace, in another couple of weeks a group like the one we are sending should be enough to slowly eliminate the beasts being sent out.”

“Let’s hope so.”

We keep our talk for another few minutes, but eventually, we finish and I let Merlin get some sleep.

I, however, don’t have to go so early, not when I need just 2 hours of sleep a night and sometimes could push for even less.

I start training something else, something that I will have to increase eventually and now is as good a time as any. I start work on increasing the level of the system skill Perception field instead of relying on my own version of it.

Having improved the ‘base’ version of the skill so much should help me increase the level of the one granted to me by the system. I just had to hope that the system really didn't have a way of detecting my use of the skill, otherwise trying to acquire all the knowledge in the book store might be a very bad idea. But the gamble seemed to be worth it and I would not give up for the small chance it would go wrong.

I sit on the ground with the book in my hands and turn on the very intermittently used Perception skill level 40 something last time I checked. Most of the increase happened inside the class trial.

Underground, ground, sky.

Different materials.

Slowly cycling, going as fast as possible.

I follow a similar routine as I had gotten used to with the original version of the skill hoping to gain some insights into the skill from the system, unlikely as that seemed.