Tyler and Magda started cleaning the demon’s lab up from the explosion of his soul shield. It seemed the wall to Tyler’s left, the closest thing to him, had taken most of the force of the explosion. Apart from Magda, that is, who had gone flying backwards, but he looked relatively uninjured. The rest of the lab just looked a little messy, something a good few minutes of work would soon resolve.

  “Does this happen quite a lot with you?” Tyler said as he held up a wad of sheets in both hands and looked around the room. “Are explosions common in your type of research?”

  The demon laughed as he placed some metallic cubes, a little similar to the ones Malek was using, on a shelf that was probably too high for Tyler to reach.

  “You blow up your lab once… well twice now and everyone thinks you are some sort of deviant bent on destroying hell. When I first created my soul shield—well, to be more precise, in the attempts leading up to its creation—I may have experimented with other mana and had a little explosion. I mean it wasn’t even as big as this one. Still, I think it was worth it. Not only did it result in learning the ability, I also progressed and gained a level.”

  Tyler reflected on what the demon had just said before responding, noting the difference in words, in culture the demon used. Earth and Hell used in different contexts, a sign that the demons’ fear of humans was systemic and ran a lot deeper than just a story told to scare people. He was also interested in the demon’s admission that he had progressed through the system and gained a level and wanted to know more about this, sharing a little himself.

  “Interesting that you say you gained a level, it seems the system feels the same about me acquiring that skill. Have you gained many levels through your research?”

  The demon stopped what he was doing and turned to face Tyler.

  “I think I know what you are getting at. You want to know if my progressions have been through research or through combat. Did I get my levels through fighting, hurting, killing others? No, I did not. Over the years levels have come to me for all different reasons, but none through direct fighting. In fact, all but one of my levels were granted in this very room.”

  “I see, I’d love to know exactly how, or what you were doing to get these levels,” Tyler asked while placing the wads of paper on the desk, which now looked a lot more organised again.

  “Indeed, maybe we can help one another in this place, help one another along the path. It has been a while since I left home, resolving my path and reaching level ten. To go home would be nice.”

  Tyler smiled and was about to respond when Hipson’s voice sounded through the hole in the wall, followed by her head.

  “I thought you said last time was a mistake and it wouldn’t happen again,” Hipson said in a stern voice, but she was clearly joking by the smile on her face.

  “I’ll have you know this time it was not me!”

  Tyler coughed. “Oh, then who was it that kept firing demon bolts like they were going out of fashion?”

  The demon’s head snapped round, his eyes wide and his jaw clenched. He was about to say something but was beaten by Hipson.

  “Just as I thought. Do you know if I didn’t come over here, he’d never leave this lab. If his obsession only bled into other areas, I bet he’d be quite the charmer.” Hipson smiled at Tyler, then fluttered her eyes at the demon, obviously enjoying the demon’s discomfort.

  “I… I…”

  “It’s ok dear, I know.” Hipson continued teasing the giant demon. Well, not giant to Hipson, she herself was well over seven foot. “Shall we have a look at this hole then? Best to get it repaired in case the rains come. I don’t think I could take you moaning that your experiments were getting ruined by the rain.”

  Tyler smiled without knowing. Ok, it was a very unusual situation, a giant wood-like creature teasing an even bigger demon, but at the same time it felt very normal. The playful teasing, the way Magda seemed to shrink into himself like a child being told off. Clearly there was something more than friends between these two.

  “Why don’t you two go get some food? It shouldn’t take me much longer than an hour to repair this. It will be quite noisy and dusty. Then you can come back and experiment till your hearts content, safely that is, mind you. Oh and don’t forget, you promised me tonight—”

  “Yeah, yeah. We’ll do that. Tyler?” the demon said in a panic. Was the guy shy that a girl liked him? Magda started heading for the door, signalling Tyler to follow. Hipson just chuckled slightly as she stepped through the large hole and started inspecting the damage.

  Tyler shook his head in amusement and followed the demon. Yeah, he liked Magda. He was sure they were going to be great friends.

  Tyler and Magda ate some lunch, with Magda talking frantically about possible future experiments they should perform using Tyler’s mana. A lot of it required using several of the other residents in Pilton Hays and their unique mana signatures, to see how they interacted with Tyler’s.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Thankfully, Magda explained he didn’t need to be used so much as a firing target. A lot of the experiments could be done with small amounts of mana in controlled tests, monitoring the effects of the different mana interacting. Magda was also interested to find out Tyler did not know what affinity his mana was, as usually the system labelled such a thing. To find out Tyler’s description was just mana made the demon more determined to find out exactly what was going on with Tyler’s mana.

  Tyler couldn’t lie either, though he was interested just as much. Not so much in the revelation that his mana affinity was not directly stated by the system, but more in the inner workings. Finding out more would ultimately let him find his limits with his skills, and hopefully help him progress and get back home.

  Magda’s eyes dropped slightly as Tyler explained he needed to pop back to his house before they continued any more testing as they left the common hall. He mentioned he just needed to freshen up, but he really just wanted to spend a little time going over his gains and reading through his notifications before he did anything else.

  Magda reluctantly agreed to meet at his in a few hours, and Tyler made his way back to his house, surprised to see that Seshka was still not back. She was probably out training or fighting some beast. That woman was definitely dedicated. He sat down at the table and looked at that space behind his eyes and at the first notification.

  Congratulations new skill acquired

  Lesser Soul Shield

  You have trained your core and tempered your soul. Through interaction of both you are now able to generate a soul shield that can directly stop outside mana from affecting you. This shield can only absorb 3 times intellect plus core stability multiplier. Once exceeded the shield will explode, dealing damage in a short range.

  Cost: 25% of current mana pool

  Tyler read through the description once more. Again it never stated what mana he was using, just that it was mana. It did however clearly state that his soul shield absorbed outside mana. Does this mean that no matter what mana is sent his way his shield will absorb it? Well, until limits were reached.

  He was glad to note it relied on intellect, an attribute that always increased with his level, as one attribute point was always assigned to it.

  He wasn’t sure how core stability affected his shield, but having a more stable core was most likely a benefit from what he had previously. Was this the reason he found it easier to learn the skill, that and the help from Al that is. What would happen if he upgraded his core, would it have any other effect on his soul shield other than increasing its absorption rate?

  Feeling pretty happy with his new skill he also checked his other notification, his level gain.

  Congratulations you have gained a level

  Level 8 — you have two free stat points

  A little underwhelming, Tyler thought. It was just as it said: he had gained a level and was now level eight. Nothing else had changed apart from the fact he had two free points to distribute among his attributes. One had automatically gone into intellect, giving him 14 base points plus 1 additional point, which he guessed was due to the plus 10 percent from his epic title. Shame it must round down. Still, a total of fifteen points in this stat made it the highest by quite a margin.

  Tyler thought about these points for a long moment. It felt natural still to increase his strength or dexterity to make him stronger, a better fighter, but he wanted to try a different way. He wanted to progress without killing, without becoming the monster Magda thought he was.

  His two points went into vitality, putting him up to a total of seven. His health points also increased to 350 from 250, which was an incredible increase, forty percent he calculated. Could he just keep levelling and stacking this attribute, making him near impossible to kill? A thought to keep at the front of his mind as he kept levelling.

  Standing back up away from the table he decided he wanted to try out his soul shield skill before heading back to Magda, maybe do a little less destructive testing on his own. He reached for that space inside where his core was, focused on the mana rotating around, and a flood of mana washed out from him and his soul shield held in place around his body.

  Tyler froze for a second trying to feel everything around him and inside. This, this was nothing like the first time he tried to summon a soul shield. The first time was quite the effort, pushing at his mana, locking it down to his soul space, but here he merely started to attempt the process and it just flowed, like someone checking your reflexes and your leg flicking up. His soul shield just sprang into place.

  Was this the effect of having the skill? The same happened when he used infusion bomb. Having the skill just made the whole process reflexive. It hadn’t even taken that long to activate, maybe a few seconds. Interesting, if in danger he would most likely have time to form it in a pinch.

  Nodding to himself, pleased that this was the case, he decided to test a few things out. The first was what could actually pass through this barrier. So he sat back down on the chair, and nothing happened. He just sat, the chair passing through the soul shield as if it wasn’t there. It now in fact covered most of the chair apart from the lower part of the back two legs.

  He summoned his pole from his spatial sack and found he could easily wield it and hit himself, apparently, with it without any noticeable effect from his soul shield. It looked like anything physical had no effect on this shield, good to know, he thought.

  Next he used infusion bomb in his pole, trying to use the smallest amount of mana he could. He definitely didn’t want to blow another hole in a wall. To his surprise the pole still easily moved through the soul shield as if it wasn’t there. Maybe because the mana was inside the shield. He put the pole back in his spatial sack, noticing that the infusion bomb stayed in the pole even while stored.

  Next he summoned a small ball of mana in his hand and gently tossed it through the shield. There was no real power in the mana he shot, and he didn’t think it would last very long once launched, but long enough to see the effect on the soul shield.

  His mana went sailing towards the tabletop, passed straight through his soul shield without any resistance and landed on the table, dispersing a few seconds later. Tyler cocked his head in thought, then summoned a larger mana ball.

  Only when the table formed a large crack in the centre of it did Tyler stop forming larger and more powerful mana balls. It seemed his mana was free to pass through his soul shield without effect. Was it some inert feature of the soul shield? Did it know it was his mana? Or was this some system-affected ability? Either way it was very useful. If needed he could still attack while being defended.

  Dismissing his soul shield and stretching, he decided it was time to go back to Magda. He was feeling quite excited to dig back into some research, discover some mysteries and learn his limits. This was going to be fun.