Miles had barely finished reading the impromptu message when suddenly, with no thought or intention on his part, the message flickered and vanished away.

He leapt up from the cavern floor in confused surprise, trying to find the Message again but… the system status had changed, and that entire entry was missing.

‘What?’

Pushing a hand through his hair, Miles tried to make sense of what had happened, ‘That was a message from Pack?’

He began to pace around the small space once more, the action allowing a level of better focus. ‘But why…?’

The title of Evening the Odds suggested that something more, besides him being (Un)Balanced, was also lopsided and one-sided. Presumably, the trial or the state of this Doorway?

Consequently, if that message alone could even those odds, it was obvious there was something he was expected to learn from it.

Miles had ignored the Discipline Expansion and the Pending Reward Selection of the system status so far. That was partly because he wanted the best left for last, but also partly because he was unsure if he could afford to ‘strengthen’ the Vampiric aspect any further, when he was already suffering the consequences of failing to maintain balance.

The message seemed to speak on the topic, but Miles was sincerely unimpressed by the lack of subtlety shown.

Do not do the Discipline Expansion. For the Blood Inheritance Reward, choose Detect.

An extremely obvious suggestion.

While Miles wasn’t entirely trusting of either Pack or the phantom message, he would consider it either way.

He had been planning to forgo both rewards until he was confident that he could handle the repercussions, but if according to this message he could have the latter, he would.

Blind trust was a folly, but he felt he could trust the contents of the message.

Miles cast a wary glance at the hundreds of creatures scuttering about, their blooded silhouettes riling up a desire he hoped he would not have to satisfy.

Considering the unknown trial that lay ahead of him, just one additional edge could mean a difference between life and death.

So, he decided to take the leap of faith, valuing his instinct over logic. Well, that and the allure of new skills.

A familiar Ding! and the system screen opened.

||Blood Inheritance Rewards||

[The Vawulan may choose any one of the following, each adapted from that which was inherited by the blood of the consumed.

General Skill: (Telekinesis - Inferior) {+}

OR

Augur (Limited Discipline) Skill: (Detect - Uncommon) {+}]

Yes, the choice had been between Telekinesis and Detect.

To be honest, Miles didn’t know what Pack was worried about, to the point that they had sent a message.

Sure, there may have been a possibility of him considering discipline expansion, but the chances of him choosing an inferior skill over an uncommon was next to null.

Not to mention the fact that Telekinesis was an extremely common fae ability, one that he could easily afford in the form of a serum. Even if Xavier had gone and made Marionette Core out of it, that didn’t change the fact that the ‘base’ he had had to work with was absolute garbage.

It was true that Telekinesis was a multi-purpose skill that could be quite useful in his current situation, but Miles was not going to be making permanent life-altering decisions based on his presence within a trial Doorway.

Besides, the skill Detect even mentioned another Discipline. It was obviously the better choice.

Ding!

[You have unlocked Skill: |Augur (Limited Discipline) | - {Detect - Uncommon}]

Miles was far more familiar with the process of learning skills now, and this one manifested in an almost identical fashion. It once again appeared within the reach of his mind, forming into another tangible yet mental button. He breathed deeply and examined himself, but just like before, he found nothing wrong–

Akin to a strike of lightning, an agonizing current sparked through spine, bone and blood and he fell onto his knees, barely stopping himself from collapsing onto the rocky floor.

[Title: (Un)Balanced??? reacts.]

Miles choked, heaving in an attempt to get something stuck in his throat, but it was dry. This agony inducing gagging repeated in vain. It was an absolutely terrible, seemingly endless few minutes, until finally the substance stuck in his throat was vomited out, a ball of congealed black ichor that splattered onto the floor.

Instantly the venomous lightning crackling in his nerves dissipated.

Relief.

Pure, uncut relief injected directly into his veins.

It was as if a storm had come and passed, through him, finally leaving everything to recover.

If it wasn’t for the dark tar he had puked out, Miles had half a thought to collapse and relax on the floor again. Instead, he slowly pushed himself up, rising to his feet, and Miles could swear, he actually… felt better.

“Ugh.”

A far too deep breath, and his newly enhanced olfactory senses reeled at the gnarly stench of the ichor he had just vomited out.

Miles hurried to move away, careful to not touch any of it, but even as he did so, he could not help but flex his muscles, testing his body.

It really did feel different, as if an unseen wrongness had gone away, or rather, been reduced.

He may have been free of pain before, but there had been an underlying sense of trepidation, as if he were on the verge of falling off a metaphorical cliff. Now, Miles could feel that he had taken several steps back.

'Just from the act of unlocking Detect? But why? ...The source of the skill?'

A skill that came from Devil Seeking, one that was built against the Vawul and lessened his (un)balance.

Maybe that was it.

Or it was a trick of his mind, simply borne of the vanishing of a sudden onset of pain.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Miles heaved out a heavy breath. While the skill may have had a probable benefit, it had also been torturous.

His eye fell upon the strange yet familiar tar-like substance that he seemed to be throwing up whenever the Balanced title was not… well, balanced.

An inadvertent shiver caused him to accidentally taste his mouth, and he started to gag again, that mild touch tasting like death liquified.

Miles began to spit in an attempt to clear the taste.

It didn’t help.

‘Gah, I need to rinse my mouth with a grenade or something.’

Too bad he couldn’t.

Eager to distract himself, Miles decided it was time to experiment with the new skill. To that effect, he settled himself in that corner of the cavern, as far away from the black ichor as he could be, while also trying his best to not breath too deep.

Sensing the presence of the skill within his mind just like before, he followed the instinctual pull and… pressed.

Miles was tense, waiting for more–but nothing happened.

‘Huh? The skill is named Detect. But what is it supposed to detect?’

Following that line of thought, Miles glanced at the cavern wall, and pressed the skill to activate again.

Nothing.

He shifted his gaze to the blobs of blood, the strange creatures that he could see through the walls when he maintained Blood Vision.

No reaction.

Narrowing his eyes, Miles shifted his gazes towards his hand, at the Lykaon Ring. It was almost pitch-black inside the cave, but his enhanced vision and the shades of red of Sanguine Aspectus allowed him to see well enough.

Miles pressed upon the skill again, and finally, there was an effect. The very air just a bit above the ring began to shimmer, and from it, formed a line of glowing words.

[Insignia Ring of the Heir - House of Lykaon - Unique]

Miles’ eyes widened. ‘Is Detect supposed to be an identification skill of some sort?’

The information revealed was limited, but still, this skill would be extremely helpful with the task at hand, and even beyond this trial.

It seemed Pack's message had led to some good. Perhaps the agony had been worth it.

The prowess of Detect was also good enough intention to justify not performing the Discipline Expansion as advised in the message.

But despite the promising discovery, Miles found himself letting out a wavering breath. He grit his teeth and stood up once more.

Now that he was done with the System analysis, yes, he was done, it was time to consider inventory. Detect could be experimented with at the same time.

Again, his hands shivered for a moment, but Miles formed fists out of them.

Yes, it would be two birds with one stone.

***

A few minutes of focused breathing later, Miles was glancing down at himself, and his suit lined with an ogre’s skin. Well besides the area where he had been pierced through the shoulder. It too had resulted in a response from the skill.

[Suit - Rumple and Bertrada Bespoke Original - Rare]

Miles had to give the skill, despite its obvious limitations, credit where credit was due. Of course, his clothing would be classified as rare, what else could it be? The fact that the skill focused on the tailor rather than the effects was interesting, but he didn’t fault the skill.

It was also true that it was a suit, and not armor. Even with utility features such as self-repairing and self-cleansing, this suit was not one meant for battle. It was casual clothing meant to be classy first, and effective second.

Had Miles had the slightest clue he would be stuck inside a potentially dangerous Doorway, he would have placed an express order for proper battle-ready armor, but such was the way of life. Unexpected events came when they were least expected.

At least, he had Zhan Shen’s Caucon.

Miles analyzed the compact yet heavy weapon, currently deactivated, pulled from the confines of his suit.

[Tech Pistol - Caucon - Lykaon Armament 9 - Epic]

He couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the rarity of the weapon.

Sure, the Caucon was one of the best hand-held weapons designed and manufactured using proprietary technology that was several decades away from being actually commercially viable.

Sure, it was one of his mother’s last original forging designs, but… if it were Epic that meant this pistol was at the same level that Princeling was among the evolutionary classes!

More than slightly impressed, Miles unloaded its magazine, still carrying fourteen out of sixteen explosive rounds. He also had another backup magazine.

That was thirty confirmed kill shots for anything that did not have a defense beyond the Epsilon tier, assuming he could hit it of course.

That was all well and good, but there were some limitations to the use of the Caucon though. The gun was extremely loud.

Where Miles was right now, surrounded by hordes of unknown creatures, whenever it was preferred to remain discrete, this was not a wise weapon to use.

The Caucon would have to be a final reserve, to go in for the kill, or a tool for a last stand when his back was to the wall.

Melee weaponry was something Miles was drawing short of, for all he had were his fists. He did have the infernal steel tips on his boots which could be good enough to kill but they had their own limits. In its current form at least...

[Combat Boots - Infernal - Uncommon]

Miles eyed the walls of the cavern, even searching the floor in the vicinity. There were some rocks, that could do well enough as a weapon, maybe? He would do a thorough search later.

Well, besides that, he didn’t have anything much of note.

[Gloves - Goblin Leather - Common]

[Hat - Inferior]

Though Miles had tried to refuse the objectively inferior headwear, Zhan Shen had made him keep the hat on his person after their experimentation with the sun. Perhaps it had been for the best.

At the end of all that, barring the ineffectiveness of the detection skill on the cavern and the cold iron walls, there was one other thing he had not tested the skill on.

The black ichor he had vomited out, barely managed to, under--

It actually returned a result.

[̸̹̉Ḁ̶̾b̸̼̏e̸̩͂#r̵̬͛å̴̻t̷͔͐i̸̤͐#ǹ̴͎]̷̲̽

Seemed anything that had anything to do with the (Un)Balanced title were destined to be glitched. It was a nonsensical bunch of symbols that made little sense, and Miles had no idea what to do with it.

As wise men should with problems beyond their current scope, he decided to ignore it.

With that, Miles had experimented thoroughly with the new skill Detect.

He had successfully confirmed that the skill only identified single and directly observable items. It failed when the expanse of the item was too large, like walls or the cavern rock. He had tested on random shards of stone and cold iron, and that had worked well enough.

Miles presumed the skill would work on living creatures, but that remained to be seen for it hadn’t worked when he had tried it on himself as a whole.

Regardless, he was done with his testing, and that was about the extent of his inventory as well.

He carried little when he was on the move, for even in the case that Zhan Shen was not present, the Lykaon Ring could deliver anything he would need through courier or robot. Well, when he did not have to worry about being discreet or was not trapped inside a Doorway.

On that note, it truly was a pity that the ring while still functional, had no access to the Lykaon Network. It would have been a formidable tool, even beyond the Caucon, as it would have allowed access to a wide variety of enchantment frame algorithms.

But… the Lykaon Ring was not that simple, for while its make was not entirely technological, it did come with a cache memory of sorts.

Miles lifted the ring to his eye level, “Cadmus, what enchantments do you have cached for offline access?”

He already knew the most recent two, but prior to them, honestly it had been some time since he had used the ring for enchantments…

“CACHED ENCHANTMENT FRAMES AVAILABLE - 3

ENCHANTMENT FRAME #1: Absolute Zero Fae Resonance - Fae Energy Wave Signature of Cold Iron.

ENCHANTMENT FRAME #2: Obliviation (Identity Distortion, Presence Scrub) - Traced from the Amathaka Fairy.

ENCHANTMENT FRAME #3: Burning Touch - Traced from the Gini Salamander.”

Ah. Well, that seemed about right.

The most recent enchantment frames had been used in just the last few days. The final was an industrial grade heating enchantment, one that had been used over a week ago, to… warm up some tea.

Was it Miles’ fault that he was rarely in combat scenarios besides sparring?

Then again, even if he had something better, the level and capacity of enchantments usable by the Lykaon Ring were greatly limited by size constraints and energy capacity.

While an enchantment frame like the Ghost Blade would have been useful, it would also mean five minutes of a manifested blade capable of cutting through anything, at the cost of emptying all of the Lykaon Ring’s reserved energy.

At least Burning Touch should run, even if left continuously activated, for a few months. While it was not fast enough for combat use, there were a few useful applications he could think of.

Still, it would be wise to ration the Lykaon Ring’s energy, considering he had no idea how long it would be before he would be capable of charging again. On that topic, a quick inquiry confirmed that Cadmus had shifted to energy saving mode the moment Lykaon Network Connection had been lost.

With that, Miles was fully done going over his inventory and capabilities, covering everything he could use. Originally his plan would have been to bunker down in the cave for a while and practice all the old and new skills, before he ventured out.

There was also something else he probably should do, some actual meditat--

But he ignored all of that.

Miles had begun to feel restless after just a few hours of being inside this cavern. Though the darkness felt like home, even with night vision, staying inside of a pitch-black cave wasn’t entirely easy.

Even then, he had intended to push through the discomfort. But now that Blood Vision allowed him to see the presence of all blooded creatures, and Detect allowed him to discreetly gather information, the risk was drastically lessened.

Miles stood for a final time, dusting his pants.

Yes. Forget staying here, forget mediation.

It was time for a preliminary scouting into the metallic hallway. It was time to explore this Doorway.