[

  Your Group has slain [Harpy Juggernaut - Level 503]

  ]

  Huh, even lower than expected.

  The level explained why they had so little trouble, though that could also be attributed to the great teamwork shown by the humans. Lev was quite happy to see that their strength was nothing to scoff at, but a nagging thought kept prickling his mind.

  As usual, the difference in might was ignored. He didn't particularly care how far ahead he was compared to everyone else, excluding Melvine, and neither did the others.

  "Oh, hey," Lev sent to everyone, grinning. "Turns out you two are rather good at fighting monsters."

  "You just wait, punk," Elias replied. "I'll show you how to be a proper Master."

  "Are you calling me otherwise?"

  "Let's be real, it's not like you fit any standards."

  … Why do you have to put it like that?

  "Fair enough. How was it?"

  "Surprisingly difficult," Viktor answered, contemplative. "I had to spend a lot of mana to stay on my feet, and just as much to dodge its wing swipes. Those would've easily sent me flying."

  "My barriers might not've been fast enough to catch you, so good call on your part," Lisa added.

  She and her team stepped into the bubble not long after, and Lev made the construct rise. All sounds were drowned by the roaring river of stone and dirt below them, and its loudness served as an excellent monster attraction.

  Already, he could see several shapes fly off the mountains, and not all of them looked like easy prey.

  "Get ready," Lev sent, preparing Stargazer.

  Two holes opened in his bubble. Hunters stepped out of one on an intact flat region, and lances of lightning flew out of the other. Notifications chimed in the back of his head, ignored in favor of scanning the area.

  The mountains were positively vibrating. Whatever was coming, they had to be very careful.

  "What do you sense?" he sent to Melvine.

  "Nothing."

  That's not ideal, he noted. Monsters don't usually hide their auras.

  Aryan quickly dipped into stealth when trolls became visible near the base of the mountain. Lev couldn't detect anything above level 300, so he let the rogue go fight them alone.

  From above, harpies once again descended, only for Isabella's whips to smash past their dives, quite literally making some of them implode in fiery impacts. The ground also parted beneath her as ground shapers emerged, though her team was prepared for that.

  Zack's gauntlets shone, used for the first time. Fire was compressed in his palms before it shot outwards, extending into a small yet deadly lance. Several monsters were pierced, their torsos blackening immediately.

  Cutting through them, he swung the lance in a circle, using it like a bat. The construct had enough cohesion to slap aside a lone harpy, the impact leaving a long, sizzling wound on its wing.

  Satisfied, Zack let the lance dismiss and exploded forward. His right fist landed on the harpy's chest, too fast for it to block or deflect. The result was an explosion of gore as the monster's upper half exploded, which he pushed aside with a pulse of flames.

  Not slowing down at all, he whirled onto the ground shapers, smashing them to paste with singular punches. Bursts of fire were released with each hit, tearing craters in the dirt ground, revealing stone underneath.

  Aryan's battles were not going as smoothly. He weaved between the trolls, leaving gashes everywhere in its wake, yet the venom wasn't cutting it. The trolls weren't able to regenerate, but the venom's effectiveness was still drastically reduced, countered by the healing.

  Regardless, the rogue still flitted between them due to his speed advantage, cutting open arteries to cripple the monsters with maximum efficiency. Sounds simply slid off his stealth, the roars not affecting his momentum whatsoever.

  Now, what the hell are you?

  Lev refrained from looking at the invisible giant monster that was circling them, not a single blade of grass disturbed in its passage. It moved smoothly, as if one with the wind, and slowly approached Elias's team.

  "That's a Light-bending Serpent," Melvine informed him. "Below level 600, though definitely too much for you alone. Start preparing before it strikes."

  He was already doing that. Lances were infused en masse, still hidden inside the bubble. Lev's eyesight just barely managed to locate the monsters, and that was enough to know that being reactive would be a horrible idea.

  The serpent's head was the size of a large house. Teeth quarter the size of carts leaked just a slight amount of mana, the sheer amount too high for the monster to control fully, and that was the only reason he even saw the lunge in time.

  [

  Advanced Mana Perception has reached 2nd Level 10

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Gaze of the Marksman has reached 2nd Level 8

  ]

  Shieldwalls dropped in front of the serpent, stacked on top of each other, and hastily melded together. The serpent tried to bite them in two, but the constructs persisted. Torn and bent, the lunge was delayed enough by them for Stargazer to smash into the serpent's side, but it swiveled out of the way, preventing any meaningful injury.

  Mana rushed out of Lev in droves, fixing the shieldwalls and recalling Stargazer. Most of it was converted, infusing his armor with lightning and blue fire.

  He refrained from engaging, making sure everyone was alright. The monster's size also became visible, and its sinuous body just kept going… and going… and-

  Shit, Lev cursed, releasing a massive wave of lightning around him. A pained hiss sounded behind him, and he realized just how close he was to being swallowed because of the illusion.

  "Need help?" Melvine offered immediately, still in the bubble above them and ready to move.

  "No, I'll lure it away. Can you make sure the others are fine?"

  "Be reasonable."

  "You've never seen me fight at full strength."

  "… Fine," came the reluctant answer.

  Lev smiled and formed a barrier platform for her to step out. The bubble immediately flew with him, and he only had time to send one last glance towards Aryan to confirm the rogue's safety.

  Alarmingly, a part of the serpent's massive body wasn't that far away from Aryan. Seizing the opportunity, the rogue dipped two knives in a black vial before throwing them at the monster with all his strength. Both knives sank deep, parting scales, and he quickly ran away after observing the result.

  Once again, the world sort of stilled to Lev's senses. There was nothing different, nor was anything behaving oddly. If he weren't looking for it, he would've never guessed that he was trapped in an illusion so quickly.

  Remembering the serpent's last location, he darted to the side and started flying away without looking back. A rush of air signified the missed lunge, though before the monster could go after the other humans, Lev let out all of his aura.

  It was far too early to be attracting attention, but a grand opportunity had presented itself. He had some new tools to test, and the recently improved mana pool was just begging to be used.

  Moreover, there was also another aspect of his class he wanted to test, and if the tiny hints of the monster's aura weren't leading him astray, the serpent could also manipulate stone.

  Lev wouldn't ever miss the chance to train against that.

  The thought was proven when a large brown spike of stone rushed towards him, only for an invisible shield to deflect it. Undeterred, over a dozen more followed, and yet again, there was a shield present for all of them. In fact, his floating defensive constructs numbered way higher, but it at least confirmed that the monster couldn't peer past the concealment enchantments.

  Alright, I hope this doesn't bite me in the back.

  Today's target of practice was ambient mana. Everyone knew that using it to cast was not at all worth it, and similarly, there was no way to absorb and claim it. That was a death sentence.

  In the same vein, monster cores were also not considered a viable source of power, for they also operated on ambient mana. Converting it, however, was a sub-optimal source of usable mana, exactly what Lev wanted to test.

  A small pedestal had been prepared inside his bubble for that purpose. A dozen cores, ranging from pure second-threshold cores to two of the strongest third-threshold cores he had, were slotted at the base, and the middle of the small structure was hollow.

  Stargazer flew into his bubble and smoothly slid inside the pedestal. Several runes flared immediately, detecting two different inputs. All of the cores were immediately strained to the maximum, pulling in ambient mana as fast as possible.

  Matching the regeneration, a steady stream of mana was taken out of each core and dumped into the lightning and fire converters in equal measure. Their outputs were channeled into Stargazer's blade, from which Lev could freely teleport the mana types into different barriers.

  Frankly, it was a ridiculous waste of money. Burning gold was no longer enough to describe what he was doing. Willingly throwing coins into an active volcano would be more fitting. The cores that would normally last weeks or months in a controlled environment were going to crumble in less than an hour, all for an unknown degree of boost to his capabilities.

  Unknown for now. He grinned to himself, already feeling a decent amount of mana in his glaive. Taking a deep breath, he powered up all of the enchantments in his armor to full, particularly those responsible for increasing its receptivity to fire mana and durability.

  Blue flames then streamed into the armor, carried to his left arm. Runes struggled to shape it into a fireball, and when the barriers started to melt from the strain, he changed his approach.

  Several pre-prepared orbs floated out of his bubble. Flameforged Constitution turned their capacity for fire sky-high, and bathed in regular high-quality sap, they could hold a lot of mana. The constructs swiftly turned blue, resembling miniature suns before they shot forward.

  All of that happened in a few seconds, during which the serpent continued to give chase. Mounds of stone rose to deflect the dense fireballs, but such a flimsy defense could never hold against the amount of mana Lev had infused in the orbs.

  Then they landed, and he paused. Blue flames did their thing, creating a beautiful and messy explosion, showering the surroundings with flaming debris. Except, the blast barely did any damage beyond a few cracks, and neither did the flames pack the same heat as usual. Even as he watched, they rapidly turned back to normal before dissipating.

  Not unexpected, if disappointing. Time to kick things up a notch.

  Just as barriers were severely weakened when formed with ambient mana, the converted mana was also way less potent. To combat that to a significant degree, Lev channeled all of his regeneration into the conversion as well, mixing both ambient and personal mana.

  Immediately, the output's quality rose. The flames and lightning burned way hotter, and the difference between his current attempt at shaping a fireball through his armor and the previous couldn't be more stark. Blue flames threatened to explode his limb in moments, and he had to hastily teleport it out into orbs.

  The serpent displayed a remarkable level of patience. Its gaze never once left Lev's floating form, waiting for him to make a move as a large amount of stone gathered underground. He wasn't oblivious to that, though a small bit of worry had taken root in his mind due to how much the region around them was shaking.

  Letting the monster prepare for longer would not end well.

  All of the orbs descended at once, blowing apart all the erected defenses before blowing up in a brilliant flash. Lev shielded his eyes and ascended even higher, ready to bombard the monster, just as he used to do back when he was an Adept.

  Illusions, stone, speed, and sheer size. Let's do this.

  A pulse of mana went through the surroundings. Sounds stopped, and three different serpents rushed out of the flames. All of them were connected to the same, singular body, so Lev shot a lance at the obvious weak point.

  His brows rose when it turned out to be an illusion. The body faded into nothingness, and panic spiked slightly when the serpent was nowhere to be seen.

  Perception pinged him about an incoming projectile. Shields failed to react in time, so he launched an overloaded lightning bolt from his right arm. More of the converted mana immediately streamed in to refill his armor just as the bolt landed on a floating piece of stone, stopping it in its tracks and shearing off a large portion of it.

  It was oddly smooth, yet the side facing him was shaped into a curved, sharp edge, not dissimilar to a claw-

  Shit.

  The moment his brain registered the detail, a wave of lightning erupted from his armor, utilizing all of the converted mana. All the fire mana was hastily evolved into blue flames and dumped into several orbs as the illusions were washed away, revealing an enormous stone pillar and the serpent coiled around it, devouring the distance between them.