Fifty meters into the forest, Neo loses sight of his target as Tetsu moves behind a tree and remains concealed for over an hour. Neo, leveraging his agility, ascends a nearby tree to gain a vantage point for scouting ahead. Although his expertise guides him to Tetsu’s general location, his lingering suspicion compels him to verify.

Many skills remain undiscovered, any of which could lead to their downfall. While Xania is someone he trusts, her skill is not foolproof; like a lie detector, clever wording or belief in a lie can circumvent her abilities.

Taking Xania’s skill at face value is not an option. If anything, the condensed bubble only intensified Neo’s suspicions. Nobody is entirely forthcoming, especially not within the heart of enemy territory.

Neo positioned himself around his target, within the optimal range to either take him down or decipher his next move while hidden. But to his horror, Tetsu was nowhere in sight. Yet his skill told him the target remained at the spot. It even pinpointed the location after he used a token to upgrade the skill, yet Neo stares at a simple tree trunk.

“Fuck these skills,” Neo grumbles and leaps down.

Either he used another skill or the target is still present at the location, which defies logic. The latter might be impossible after the system’s interference, yet what does one believe? Their eyes or their intuition gained by the system?

Neo activates [Archer’s Eye] to survey his surroundings, but everything appears normal. In frustration, he lashes out on the floor, and in an unexpected response, the world responds in kind, swallowing him whole.

Neo stared in disbelief at Tetsu, who was squatting on top of him. ‘How can he be squatting and still be so tall? Not possible,’ Neo thought, attempting to move, but the world seemed to hold him back. “What the heck?” He looked down and realized, except for his head, the rest of his body was missing. Neo calmed his mind, reassuring himself there wasn’t any blood. His body must be nearby. He just had to find it.

Tetsu stepped closer, and Neo followed his leg upward to see the towering figure frowning down upon him. “Cross the line again, and not even your head will remain,” Tetsu warned. “The only reason you’re alive now is because you’ve allowed me to live another childish dream.” He smiled as two fangs descended, and with a swift strike, he knocked Neo out cold.

Tetsu gazes at Neo, still stuck in the ground with his mouth agape, eyes wide open, and foaming. With swift precision, Tetsu shoots two arrows, piercing a nearby trunk. He then creates a makeshift stand by hanging the bow and two more arrows on the pierced trunk. Every tree surrounding the archer now bears arrow marks, all pointing toward him. Tetsu spent ten minutes carving them, a task he deemed necessary before moving on, determined not to return to inform the others.

“I’ll be taking the rest of your belongings as annoyance fees,” Tetsu declares, retrieving potions and two peculiar tokens from Neo’s pouch. “In the first ten minutes, I got so many good things. This hunt is going to be very fruitful; I can just feel it,” Tetsu remarks, retracting his fangs.

Puzzled by the pouch, Tetsu wonders, “How did he fit so many items in this?” as he pushes his hand into the pouch. To his shock, his entire hand sinks in, and he screams in amazement.

“That’s so freaking cool.” He tries to fit his head inside, only to be rejected by the pouch. “Probably not a good idea,” he concedes, before succumbing to further experimentation.

Tetsu targeted the archer with foreign mana, hoping to exhaust him and gain a suppression skill. The initial part of the plan went without a hitch; the archer fainted with no resistance, yet the system didn’t offer him any skill. “Maybe no physical attacks? Hmm… Trail, error, and morons.” Tetsu hummed, his eyes fixed on the pouch, which held even more secrets.

His entire being urged him to solve the mystery and claim the essence of space, while his fangs itched for a bite. “After I’m done, it’s all yours,” he declares, making a pact with the fangs.

Tetsu emptied the pouch, revealing two healing, two mana, and two stamina potions. Alongside them lay two tokens resembling the one he possessed, a pair of daggers, four arrows, and some meat.

After devouring the meat, he attempted to cram the pouch full, but it couldn’t accommodate more than a hundred pounds.

Which by now is equivalent to a snack for Tetsu.

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Oddly, the added weight didn’t disrupt his balance or increase his overall load. Tetsu even slipped his boxers into the pouch, yet its weight remained unchanged. Once the boxers were inside, the pouch refused any further items, but who cared about those useless artifacts anyway?

“How does this thing work? Send me this divine contraption,” Tetsu implored to the heavens. “I’ll toil away for years, decades, polish your mansions, and study hard to pay you back. Please!” Despite having angered two ultimate gods, Tetsu clung to a sliver of hope and felt compelled to make the plea.

As the system remained unresponsive to his entreaties, Tetsu abandoned his quest to join any Order and redirected his efforts towards unraveling its secrets by himself. The true depths of the multiverse might forever elude him, but he pressed on as there was nothing else to do but try.

Tetsu conjectured that a mini-dimension lay fixed within the pouch. The idea sounded preposterous, but no other theory accounted for the many plot holes that comprised its functions. For instance, a vial within the pouch would not break even if the pouch were smashed from the outside, and based on the items’ value, the dimensions or storage capacity changed.

Once Tetsu infused the pouch with mana, it became his property and a mental storage space unfolded within his mind. A multidimensional shelf manifested within his head, accessible through physical touch or mana. Whenever he wished to retrieve, store, or rearrange items within this space, Tetsu simply touched the pouch and executed the action with a mental command.

“This is so fucking awesome,” Tetsu grinned, swinging around as he embraced his inner ape.

He stashed and retrieved items on the move, finding that the spatial mind-shelf didn’t hinder his other actions or movement. While these small experiments proved successful, his primary objective remained elusive. The lack of runes or symbols adorning the pouch only added to Tetsu’s confusion.

“Space affinity?” Tetsu attempted to extract information from the Saint. But Saint remained a dreadful teacher, leaving Tetsu to unravel the secrets of space on his own.

This time, Tetsu refrained from blaming the Saint. Space affinity held the potential to unravel one of the multiverse’s most significant mysteries. It could also render him invincible by providing an escape from any situation, addressing his primary weakness: long-range fights. The chicken’s existence validated such an anomaly in this world, and the pouch further solidified Tetsu’s conviction. Now, all that remained was to decode the mysteries and attain invincibility.

“To running away,” Tetsu toasted, raising the pouch instead of a glass.

Moving on, Tetsu turned his attention to the archer’s arrows. He left the bow and two arrows behind as markers. Even if he possessed a bow and the potential to become an archer, it would only divert him from his current path, and not to mention the significant weakness. While long-range skills might present themselves, Tenco Ten provided him with confidence in short and mid-range battles.

After the encounter with the Dandralith, Tetsu viewed a weapon as a hindrance rather than a boon. Carl excelled with a shield, Alcer became invincible with a sword, and Neo could strike from a mile away. But once disarmed, what can any of them do?

Tetsu aspired to become a weapon himself rather than rely upon one. Though it would take longer to train than the alternatives, as the marathon progressed, others would become dependent on their weapons, while Tetsu could triumph with pure technique. Of course, this had nothing to do with the fact that he cannot bind an artifact due to his class.

As Tetsu passed by, he activated a rune on a stone. It hurtled towards his head, but at the last moment, another rune activated on the side, causing it to pivot and head straight for a tree. Another rune intervened, altering its trajectory towards Tetsu. Just before it collided with his forehead, it changed angle and soared into the sky.

No alluring bell sound greeted Tetsu, but he didn’t require one to relish these minor victories. With his heightened senses and the addition of spatial awareness, Tetsu unlocked the fail-safe he had devised during the scout experiments.

Yet, one achievement was never enough to satisfy his desire, so he took it a step further and infused more mana into the stone, increasing its speed and final impact.

After further experimentation, Tetsu discovered that increasing the power output at the last moment not only conserved his reserves but also elevated the impact to an unprecedented degree.

The impact’s limitations depended only on the amount of mana infused, his control, and the durability of the object used.

Expanding the curve radius, Tetsu also augmented the projectile’s speed rather than diminishing it at every curve. To enhance efficiency, he combined the runes of [Pluck & Fix] with the skill [Pave Path]. This introduced a semi-condition where the fixed object neither approached nor moved away from the [Pluck] rune. This combination allowed the projectile to achieve higher velocity with minimal control, freeing up Tetsu’s mind to focus on other tasks.

———<>|*|<>———

“Waiting for Prince Charming?” Tina teased as she splashed water onto Xania, who sat on the riverbanks, lost in thought.

“Hey! I don’t have any other clothes,” Xania complained.

“Then remove the ones you’re wearing and join us.”

“Since that guy came, you’ve become a bit—.”

“Horny,” Hana interjected, completing the comment.

“Says the one who ran this far to see him,” Tina retorted at Xania and then turned to Hana, all out of words.

“What?” Hana sunk deeper, knowing Tina well enough to anticipate her next move if she didn’t have a good comeback.

“Suffer my wrath of love!” Tina pounces onto Hana and starts tickling her.

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