The occurrence was rewarding in more ways than one. Beyond the haul of food and materials, there were other notable gains. I only managed to progress a single level in Wizard Battle Master, but the rest of the group made far more progress. As for my Healer class, I hadn’t anticipated much growth there—most of the injuries we dealt with were straightforward, nothing particularly taxing or new. Besides, we relied heavily on Al’s potions to help him advance, further limiting my opportunities to progress as a healer. My Bard class also stayed put. I tried using Arcane Lullaby several times, but it was useless against the creatures in the occurrence.

These creatures were a strange breed. They weren’t monsters exactly—we could harvest them, after all—but they didn’t quite fit the bill as mana beasts either. The clearest piece of evidence came in the form of notifications. I received one for every kill, which only ever happened with monsters. Their official designation was Manaspawns, though we started calling them spawnies after a while. The nickname stuck—it suited their strange, in-between nature perfectly.

Mahya gained two levels in her Bladesinger class and couldn’t stop grinning about it. The first level came less than a week after we entered the occurrence, so a good chunk of the experience likely came from the dungeons we cleared earlier. Her Dash ability maxed out at level 25, and she got a new skill—Momentum Slash. She couldn’t stop showing it off, darting past spawnies and slashing them in a blur. The energy she built up before each strike made the damage hit like a freight train.

“You’re unstoppable now,” I teased as she obliterated yet another spawnie.

“I know,” she said, grinning, the adrenaline lighting up her face.

The faster she moved before the attack, the more devastating the damage. Watching her zip around, slicing through enemies with pinpoint accuracy, I could see why she was so excited.

She allocated her free stat points into Intelligence and Wisdom, hoping they’d help her make sense of the vehicles we’d "collected" from the palace. Unfortunately for her, the stat boost didn’t seem to unlock any hidden mechanical genius, and she spent the next two days grumbling about it. Al and I thought it’d be fun to tease her over it—at least until she started describing in great detail the "severe physical harm" she’d inflict if we kept it up. Suffice it to say, we decided to let her vent in peace.

When she hit level 35, her excitement should’ve returned. Her new spell, Blade Echo, seemed perfect—summoning a spectral afterimage of her weapon to mimic her strikes.

“Amazing, right?” I said as she tested it on a spawnie.

She gave me a look. “It burns mana like there’s no tomorrow.”

“Well, it’s powerful,” I argued.

She wasn’t convinced, and for the next two days, I endured the full weight of her stink eye, mainly because I still hadn’t figured out how to create spirals to boost her regeneration.

That said, the occurrence turned out to be incredibly productive for her. If nothing else, it gave her plenty of spawnies to vent her frustrations on instead of taking them out on the back of my head.

Al gained six levels in his Warrior class, two in his Alchemist class from all the potions we drank, and five in his Mage class. He was less showy about his new skills or spells and more stoic in his excitement, but he couldn’t fool me. After every new level he gained, a quick smile would flash across his face every few minutes before he could stop it. He didn’t explain his abilities or spells, so we still didn’t know exactly what he got, but I saw one skill in action.

It happened when a spawnie—a nasty thing with pincers the size of my forearms—skittered toward him. Without hesitation, Al hurled his shield like a frisbee. It zipped through the air, slicing clean through the creature’s legs before ricocheting back into his hand. "Nice throw," I muttered, watching the spawnie collapse, its remaining legs flailing uselessly. He didn’t say much—just nodded, as if throwing a shield that could double as a razor-edged boomerang was no big deal.

I also caught a glimpse of a new spell from the fire discipline. During one particularly chaotic skirmish, flames erupted around him in a perfect circle, forcing the spawnies to back off.

“Gives me breathing room,” he said simply when I asked about it later.

He had a theory about the spell, guessing it had something to do with his fire affinity.

Rue also gained two levels, and to say he was thrilled would be an understatement. Thankfully, he didn’t grow in size—something I’d silently dreaded with every level-up. As soon as he got the notifications, he launched into his usual celebration: the bizarre “dog chasing his tail” dance.

“Rue more dangerous now!” he declared triumphantly, his telepathic voice brimming with pride as he spun in circles. The air practically buzzed with the waves of smugness he sent my way, like he expected me to hand him a trophy or something.

I just shook my head, grinning despite myself. “Yeah, buddy, you’re terrifying,” I said, though I was pretty sure my tone didn’t match the words.

Bottom line, those six months were incredibly profitable. Food, materials, levels—you name it, we gained it. But by the end, I was so fed up with fighting that even Mahya didn’t dare suggest we clear the remaining dungeons in the city. Not once. Honestly, I think she was afraid I might strangle her if she so much as hinted at it. And for once, I wouldn’t have blamed her for being cautious.

I reopened my house in its usual spot between the two hills, and we took a much-needed break for the next two weeks. Mahya spent her time buried in piles of wood she’d hauled out of the dungeons and the occurrence. Cutting, processing, examining—it was all a whirlwind of activity I didn’t pretend to understand, and she didn’t bother asking for my help, which suited me just fine. Al disappeared into his laboratory, resurfacing only for meals.

Rue, on the other hand, turned our downtime into a culinary negotiation marathon. He campaigned hard for me to cook or smoke the various types of meat we’d collected, using everything from telepathic persistence and puppy-dog eyes to strategic tail wagging to get his way.

Life was finally back to normal. Or, to be more precise, our normal.

The table was cluttered with scraps of paper, half-drawn schematics, and hastily jotted notes. Each one was layered with circles, lines, magic scripts, and rune diagrams. I tapped the pen against my chin, staring at a particularly stubborn section of the predator-harvesting spell. The occurrence taught me a lot about the creatures out there and the materials that can be harvested from them. But turning that knowledge into functional spells proved to be another beast entirely.

I leaned back, stretching until I felt the tension ease from my shoulders, and surveyed the mess of papers spread across the table. The first spell, meant specifically for harvesting predators, was almost done—at least on paper. The main structure was solid, but the finer details still needed work. I had a decent idea of what could be harvested from the creatures we’d encountered, thanks to the last occurrence, but there was a nagging thought at the back of my mind: there had to be others out there we hadn’t seen yet, creatures with materials I couldn’t even guess at. That unknown made the spell more complicated to pin down.

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Tying the harvesting spell to my Analyze ability was proving to be the biggest problem. Mahya and Al didn’t have Analyze, so I couldn’t rely on it as the foundation. With the snakes and herbivorous creatures we’d encountered, I’d managed to work around the issue. Enough knowledge about what was valuable in each species, paired with just a basic analyzing function, had been enough to make a simpler version of the spell. But this one was different.

Without knowing all the possible options for what predators could offer, I couldn’t just brute-force the design. This spell needed to be directly connected to my Analyze ability to detect value, which made it more challenging. Every adjustment to the magic script affected other areas—too much reliance on Analyze, and it wouldn’t function for Mahya or Al; too little, and it wouldn’t identify anything useful.

The second spell was even trickier. Harvesting bugs meant navigating the complexities of their oversized, armor-like exoskeletons and extracting mana cores without wasting valuable materials. These weren’t the tiny pests you’d swat at absentmindedly—they were massive, with chitin as tough as steel in some cases. My desk bore the scars of my struggles: shredded diagrams, crumpled pages, and half-formed spell schematics piled high, each one a reminder of just how stubborn I could be when faced with a challenge.

Finally, after days of trial and error, the schematics were complete. I knew from the start they’d be mana hogs—there was no avoiding that. But despite the high cost, I figured they’d still prove valuable in situations where we didn’t have the luxury of time to harvest as carefully as we had during the occurrence. Not every place came with the convenience of neatly divided zones for each creature. In a chaotic environment where speed matters more than precision, these spells might save us from leaving behind something valuable.

It took me five days to build the predator harvesting spell—it was very complicated and had many parameters—but finally, it was done.

Congratulations, Wizard!

Through your skill, intellect, and mastery of the arcane arts, you have successfully created a new spell for Harvesting Predators—one that has never existed in the annals of magic. The arcane forces have recognized this extraordinary achievement.

Please name your spell to finalize its creation ______________.

I named it Harvest Predator. When I checked my profile, I noticed that as soon as the spell appeared on my Wizard Spells list, the Harvest Game [In Progress] entry vanished. Apparently, the system had finally given up on me creating one spell to rule them all—a universal harvesting spell.

“Lack of faith,” I muttered, sticking my tongue out at it.

I got a faint ripple of amusement from the permanent connection point in my mind.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” I said, crossing my arms. “You’ll see. One day I’ll make a universal loot spell.”

This time, I didn’t get a response. What else is new?

The bugs’ spell took another three days. There were fewer variables.

Congratulations, Wizard!

Through your skill, intellect, and mastery of the arcane arts, you have successfully created a new spell for Harvesting Arthropods —one that has never existed in the annals of magic. The arcane forces have recognized this extraordinary achievement.

Please name your spell to finalize its creation ______________.

I didn’t like the fancy-sounding designation Arthropods—it felt too pretentious for what it was. So, I shrugged, slapped the name Harvest Bugs on it, and called it done. Simple, clear, and to the point. No need to overthink it.

I found everybody in the living room. "Alright, the spells are done," I announced. "If you want your versions, I can create them for you."

Mahya looked up from the wood she was carving, her brow furrowed. "How much mana are we talking about?"

I shrugged. "Not sure yet. I didn’t have a creature to test it on, but it’s going to be a lot. These aren’t exactly low-cost spells."

She mulled it over for a moment, then shook her head. "I’ll pass. Your spells have a crazy mana cost."

Al, sitting off to the side with a book in hand, glanced over. "I would like one of each," he said, his tone steady.

Mahya raised an eyebrow at him. "Really? It’s gonna suck your mana dry."

Al’s lips twitched in a faint smirk. "Mana is a resource meant to be used. Besides, the utility outweighs the cost."

I gave him a thumbs-up and headed back to my spell room to get started. Al’s spells weren’t quick work—six days of careful crafting, tweaking, and testing. By the time I finished, I was more relieved than proud. The effort didn’t earn me a level, not even a blip of progress in my Wizard class. Still, I figured I’d get some credit when Al actually cast the spells in the field.

Honestly, I was getting numb to the lack of progress in my wizardry. The levels came slower now, each one a slog. Mahya’s words echoed in my mind: The higher your level, the more time and effort it takes. She wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating.

My house was bursting at the seams, crammed with everything we had—both from our Storage before the occurrence and from the deserted castle, palace, and noble estates we’d cleared out. Every room felt like a chaotic maze of goods, and I’d already asked the core to create more and more storage halls to keep up with the overflow.

To make matters worse, we had to empty our Storage completely to make room for the meat and other perishables that couldn’t just sit around. It got so absurd that I second-guessed every decision, even hesitating to let the core absorb materials as it normally did. The thought of hitting some unknown capacity limit loomed over me like a bad omen—what if, when I tried to close it all down, it couldn’t hold everything? I wasn’t willing to take the risk, and decided to broach the subject at dinner.

Dinner was quiet, save for the clink of utensils on plates, until I broke the silence. "We should head out and find a city to offload some of the stuff we collected," I said, gesturing vaguely toward the nearest storage hall.

"Not Tolarib," Al replied without missing a beat, his tone clipped.

"Of course not," I said, rolling my eyes. "I’m not that desperate."

I activated the Travelers’ Map, pushing mana into it to make it visible. The grid appeared clearly before me, and I scanned the area, my gaze settling on a cluster of icons near the far side of the mountains that bordered the peninsula we were on. I pointed to one of the larger markers—a city.

"There’s this place," I said, zooming in with a thought. "It’s close."

Mahya tilted her head, her eyes narrowing as she focused on the map. "Yeah, but the question isn’t how close it is; it’s whether it’s any better than Tolarib."

"Based on the world info," I said, tapping the city’s marker, "none of these cities are ideal. Each one’s bad in its own way. But if we approach through the front gates as merchants this time, we might manage to offload some of the stuff and keep moving without getting dragged into their messes."

"And if not?" Mahya asked, raising an eyebrow.

"There’s a Gate near it," I said. "We could check where it leads and maybe move on. I just want to clear out some inventory, see a bit more of this world, and then get moving to the next one."

Mahya crossed her arms and gave me a pointed look. "More dungeons," she said firmly, leaving no room for argument. "That’s the only reason we’re here."

I sighed, shaking my head. "Right now, I need a break from fighting. But yeah, in the near future, there will definitely be more dungeons. Enough to satisfy your insatiable hunger for loot and danger. I just… I don’t want to stick around here for too long. This world is depressing."

I turned to Al, silently asking for his opinion. He paused, setting down his fork as he met my gaze. "I am fine with whatever you decide," he said evenly. “This world has been depressing, yes, but also profitable. So, I am fine with leaving or staying."

"Great," I said, throwing my hands up. "Thanks for the definitive answer."

Al smirked faintly and returned to his dinner, leaving the decision entirely in my hands. Mahya kept her focus on the Map with a calculating expression. She was probably already planning our next dungeon run. Typical.

Rue, ever the opportunist, rested his massive head on my lap, looking up at me with those big, expectant eyes. Whether it was a show of solidarity or a ploy to beg for more food, I couldn’t tell. Either way, I obliged him with an ear scratch. “You’re not subtle, you know,” I muttered, earning a soft huff in response.