Ethan lessened Jolly's speed when he saw the Serene Depths between two mountains. Looking at the biggest lake of Azora, might as well be an ocean, he thought. Even with his improved sight, he couldn’t see the end of it. Behind him, Evelyn was peeking over his shoulder and gazing at the beauty of nature as well.

Blue and green were mixing into a mesmerizing scene on the shore, while the sunlight glittered on the lake's surface. Ethan really wanted to go for a swim, but the possible horrors in the water held him back. Deciding to change the destination slightly, he rode Jolly toward the lake and tried to find a parallel path before starting a conversation so that he could suppress his desire to go wild. ‘’Eve, I was thinking about that healer. The healing ability she used was something like a mana skill. Do you know anything about it?’’

‘’Yeah, that’s one of the rarest mana skills, [Mana Conversion],’’ she replied. ‘’It takes a lot of mana and converts it to a small amount of health. At rank 1, it's not really worth it, becomes pretty good at rank 2, and I don’t know much about rank 3, but at rank 4, you can even regrow a limb with it. Though, the conditions to awaken that skill differ for every person.’’

‘’Sounds great. I thought the healing skills were in the hands of powerful families. It's good to know that we can also have it, even if it's rare.’’

‘’There are even better healing skills, especially the wood and water element ones. My family has one skill, for example, it allows a wood mage to create a wooden bracelet, and anyone who wears it gets a ridiculous health regeneration for a minute. Even for extremely generous offers, they never think about selling it.’’

Ethan found the perfect route for the Wish Well as they spoke, just a mile away from the Serene Depths. He changed their direction to the north with Jolly slowly trotting among the pine trees, allowing them to enjoy the scenery and the smell of refreshing woody-spiciness.

‘’Why didn’t you take it for yourself? Even if you don’t have any talent in the wood element, you could use it as a rank-1 skill at low tiers.’’ Noticing Evelyn’s hand got a little tighter around him, he changed the subject. ‘’I mean hoarding rare skills is a dick move, but hoarding healing skills is just wrong. How was living in the Union for you? I know the life in the free cities more or less, how is it comparing to the Union?’’

‘’Well, you know the Union has seven regions, right? Even if you put four free cities together, it barely makes one of those regions,’’ she explained, looking far in a daze. ‘’There are all kinds of people. One of the regions only consists of dark elves, for example. They have their own rules and traditions. The Cloud region and a few more have every kind of race living in it, so they are a bit more open-minded.’’

‘’Oh? I thought all the regions had slavery. Are they really open-minded?’’

‘’What’s that got anything with open-mindedness? Do you mean the people who are cruel to their slaves?’’ she asked, confused, and continued when she saw Ethan’s nod, ‘’It’s like I said, there are all kinds of people. Some treat their slaves admirably, offering them better conditions than others' servants, but of course, there is a minority who torture them for fun. However, that's something frowned upon, and if the word gets out, their reputation gets damaged to an extent where they can no longer conduct business.''

He didn’t actually think much about this topic, but now he realized that maybe he was being childish by judging people without any facts. Weren’t there also all kinds of people on Earth? It’s really not that different here. If every person on Earth had superpowers as well, what kind of order would be established? ‘’What did you mean by open-minded?’’

‘’As in, they are respectful of every race’s wishes, no matter how absurd they are. Not many people are religious since we’ve all been taught that everyone can become gods, but even if they are, people of the Union accept the fact without batting an eye. Or like many married couples have separate lovers, they take marriage as a business and seek love and enjoyment in other places.’’

Ethan raised an eyebrow, ‘’Huh, I thought there might be polygamy, but both men and women having lovers wasn’t something I considered,’’ he commented with a weird look. Well, slavery and orgies, that sounds like a Roman Empire to me.

‘’All kinds of people, remember? There are many concepts that people of free cities would find difficult to accept, but the people of the Union don’t really care. There is one thing everyone accepts, though. Power,’’ she said. Once again, her body got tense, and her words came out mechanically. ‘’If you are strong enough, everything you say gets listened to, everything you do leaves an impact, you might even change the priorities of the people who live at the top.’’

Ethan caught a fleeting desire in her voice but didn’t pry on it. They traveled along with the beautiful scenery and fought with all kinds of monsters, although none of them was much of a problem. When they finally arrived at the location, he was a little excited because all this time, he didn’t even get to level 32. The problem was the distance between every battle. Most of his time was spent looking for monsters. If this Wish Well was indeed like a dungeon, then it was the perfect place for grinding some levels.

‘’You sure about the location?’’ Ethan asked, looking around and seeing nothing but some bushes and trees.

‘’He said; it's in the middle of the west side of the Serene Depths, inside a small valley, and close to the lake. This place fits perfectly,’’ she replied, sounding slightly unsure.

After looking around for a while separately, Ethan called Evelyn. ‘’Hey, Eve? I think I got it, but I’m starting to doubt that this guy was just fucking with you.’’

Evelyn came over immediately. ‘’No! This is it,’’ she said excitedly, looking at the small ancient well between the bushes. ‘’But we are not going to jump in it, right?’’

‘’Well, I have a long rope that I got from Ehrendil, but Jolly would barely fit here,’’ he said, looking at his horned companion with a frown. He walked toward him before petting its neck. ‘’You stay here, buddy. If I find a way, I’ll come back to fetch you. But if not, you’re on your own. Thanks for everything.’’

He felt bad about leaving Jolly out here, but there wasn’t any other option. Tying his rope to the closest tree, he started going down slowly, with Beet on his shoulder. The well was quiet and seemed to be endlessly long. After going down about a hundred yards below, he felt brief mana fluctuations, but before understanding where they were coming from, he got teleported to another place. Even though he sensed the void aspect mana from the teleportation, he couldn’t resist it at all.

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Ethan called his daggers at once and checked the dark corridor he had appeared in. The low light hindered his sight, but even with [Mana Sense], he didn’t detect any monster around. The corridor was wide, and the walls were high. As he was debating whether to venture further, Evelyn also appeared next to him, with Paprika on her shoulder.

‘’Good, at least we didn’t get separated,’’ he said with a smile.

‘’Anything dangerous?’’ she asked, looking around.

‘’Not yet. Let’s go deeper and see. Stay alert for traps and ambushes,’’ Ethan warned and started walking in the front.

The corridor went with a curved line without any other paths. They followed it through for five minutes and finally discovered the denizens of the place. Bats, big and ugly bats.

Thankfully, they were only mid tier-3, and in this place where there were shadows everywhere, Ethan was the king. Before letting the creatures surround them, he killed the majority with [Shadow Spikes] and left the others for Beet, who could also fly, and Paprika, who had a semi-ranged skill. All the while, Evelyn was following from behind, strolling casually like she was in a park.

It took them four hours to arrive at the end of the corridor, where the largest bat stood in front of a door. It was still mid tier-3 but Ethan felt it was a bit more dangerous than the others, not because of mana but because the beast carried itself like a boss. That’s a damn dungeon, alright, but I hope there are higher-level monsters.

This time Evelyn also helped, and they killed it in only two minutes. Ethan looked everywhere for something like a chest or some item but didn’t find anything. ‘’What nonsense is a dungeon without a prize?’’ he asked, frustrated.

‘’Maybe there will be some on the other floors?’’ Evelyn commented. ‘’This one was pretty easy anyway.’’

‘’Wait!’’ Ethan called Evelyn back who was walking toward the door. ‘’Let’s fill our resources first. We might not find another chance on the second floor.’’

After a few hours of meditating, they resumed to the second floor, where they found the salamanders, who had slightly higher mana than the bats. Is it two levels higher? 36 became 38? Perhaps the dungeon calculated Evelyn’s and my level before giving us an average foe, but how long do we need to keep this up? There is no option of going back yet, only forward…

This time Evelyn also got more involved because the salamanders had poison. Even though the damage was relatively low, killing them without getting any damage was hard. It took them six hours to clear the whole floor, and they decided to take a rest in the boss’s room.

‘’How are you still not out of mana after using so many skills?’’ Ethan questioned as he was getting the already cooked food from his ring.

‘’Because I only use mana for the wind skills, blood skills only make me tired. I'm at the limit of both, but after a good sleep, I’ll be good as new,’’ she replied, taking a bowl for herself.

Huh, blood skills use stamina. Interesting. I wonder what kind of talent Beet has, he thought, looking at Beet, who was stuck at the peak of tier-2. Paprika became tier-3 on this floor, while Ethan was getting closer to the next level.

Evelyn tilted her head. ‘’Do you think there will be tier-4s on the third floor?’’

‘’Mm.’’ He nodded before swallowing the food. ‘’We shouldn’t enter the center of hordes anymore, but as long as we fight with a few, we should be okay even against mid tier-4s.’’

‘’And above?’’

‘’I’m not sure, depends on the beast, but with good luck and a good strategy, we might even handle some early and mid tier-5s.’’

‘’It seems we’re thinking alike. Not many could talk about going above two tiers, though. You are pretty good, maybe even compared to the geniuses of the union,’’ she commented, clearly curious about his origins.

‘’Oh, I’m no genius, you can be sure of that,’’ he affirmed, rolling his eyes. ‘’I have an average talent for void and below average for shadow. It’s just that I have some close combat training and some cool skills. That’s how I can punch above my weight.’’

‘’Fine, don’t tell me where you got that close combat training,’’ she said, pursing her lips. ‘’Or how did you come to leading an organization as a teenager and even disband it after your mindset had changed.’’

Ethan was amused by how she couldn’t hold it anymore. ‘’I see, that must be pretty weird to you, huh.’’

Evelyn snorted after seeing he had no intention to explain.

He continued to eat his meal in a daze and thought about the times when he died thousands of times before making a proper parry.

In an old and ruined warehouse, 14 years old Ethan was standing with two knives, encircled by a dozen people, all holding a different weapon.

‘’Come!’’ he called.

All of them attacked at the same time. He sidestepped before cutting the man’s arm but got a kick from behind. Rolling to the ground, he slashed his dagger at one of the other's leg, but the man’s sword gave him a deep injury on the shoulder. Just when he was about to get up, a spear came for his throat. He tried to parry, but it was too fast. Changing the course of it saved his throat. Sadly there was nothing he could do but watch the spear as it pierced into his heart. With wide eyes, he gave his last breath before finding himself standing in the middle of the warehouse again. Still breathing heavily and terrified with the experience, but without any pain.

‘The dagger you chose, Gladius, is a tad too long for you. May I recommend a custom design Bowie knife?’ Ani asked with a cheerful voice.

‘’Sure,’’ he replied between breaths. ‘’But after I’m at least passable with Gladius. Also, could I possibly evade that spear at the end?’’

‘Of course! There are many ways, but the one that’s most suitable for you is a technique from krav maga. It goes like this,’ Ani said before opening a hologram to show the technique.

The training option of Ani was never popular among the people because many found it boring compared to the limitless possibilities VR offered. But like a few others, Ethan was obsessed with his own progress. He enjoyed every step of his growth and didn’t care about anything else.

He watched the hologram repeatedly as he tried to imitate the technique. Once he was done, his grip on his daggers tightened, and he sounded first to Ani. ‘’Keep the pain reduction at 90% and change half of them to spear users.’’ Then, turned to the crowd who were waiting silently. ‘’Come!’’

‘’Come on! I’ll tell you everything once I get the information I need. It’s not a big deal, but you probably won’t believe me after hearing it,’’ he said with a chuckle. As his meal finished, he got up and walked toward sulking Evelyn before pointing her weapon. ‘’Can I have a look at that?’’

‘’S-Sure.’’ She passed it hesitantly. ‘’Apply some mana and change its weight by adding or pulling back more of your mana.’’

He did as he was told, and the crimson pole got a lot heavier suddenly. After some playing around, he figured out how it worked. ‘’That's a neat toy. I could use that ability for my daggers as well. Also, this was even heavier in your hand at the boss fight, right?’’ He threw a confused look while swinging the stick.

‘’Because I have more strength than you,’’ she said with a predatory smile. ‘’That’s the beauty of this artifact: the upper limit of the weight is connected to its user’s strength. It’ll become even more dangerous at the higher tiers. As a tier-9, I can conceivably level a small mountain with it.’’

Ethan shivered a bit by the thought of it. The stats didn’t work linear, he had about 10 times more stats than before, but he was perhaps 50 times stronger. If Evelyn tripled her STR, she could’ve wielded this pole with the weight of tons of pounds. ‘’Mhm, I feel pity for your enemies.’’

He pulled his mana back and passed the pole back to Evelyn. ‘’Let’s try to get some sleep. We’ll finally have some challenge, tomorrow.’’