Lev stretched with a huge yawn as he woke up, well before dawnbreak. His increasing constitution was reducing his need for sleep by more than half now, which was both lovely and annoying.

  The latter was because he'd much rather sleep 8 to 10 hours once every few days instead of sleeping a little every day.

  Let's see, what do I need to accomplish today? Heavy Lifting will be the key to letting me fight in melee range, which will in turn make it easier to level Nimble. Guess I'll have to fly on my shields and shoot from afar.

  The plan was simple, just like it had been for more than a month now. It was starting to get pretty boring, really. Lev knew exactly how to spice it up but he would only risk it with Inna or Alec by his side.

  Getting into the illusion armor after a light breakfast, he made for the inner gate again. Lev expected to pass without any interruptions but one of the guards waved him over.

  [Warrior - ??]

  "You there, you're a Classer if I'm not mistaken," Lev nodded to show he was. "Be careful out there. The wave was larger than anything we expected so the area is still a mess. The training region has been restored but the rest is being fixed slowly.

  "That wouldn't be an issue normally but some first-threshold monsters might've been missed or left buried in the aftermath. Make sure to keep your eyes open and head on a swivel."

  "Thank you for the warning," Lev bowed his head slightly. "I'll be careful."

  The guard looked pleased with his serious reply and respect, which Lev wasn't really aiming for. It was a nice thing, nonetheless. It must suck to be a guard with improved memory from evolutions. To see young faces take the first steps only to never return again.

  Outside, he took a deep breath. The grassland was torn apart. Lev doubted even modern bombardment would've ripped it open so thoroughly. Craters with several meters of depth were commonplace, and so were burnt and charred patches of ground.

  Despite that, a bit of grass had survived. Not only that, but it was spreading to the damaged ground with fascinating speed. It hadn't been even a day but some of the shallower craters were already half-covered.

  Wonders of Monarch.

  To test out his earlier idea, Lev created two of his dense shields. With his level having hit the limit already, his Intelligence was at its highest unless he took some extreme risks.

  Which was also part of his agenda but he'd have to find Inna after a few weeks for it.

  Shrugging off the thoughts of the future, Lev put his right foot on one of the shields. Instantly, a weight was put on his mind. He could vividly feel the pressure put on by gravity on the shield, and how much it would take to counteract the weight of his foot.

  Which isn't as much as I had feared. The skill is doing a fine job.

  Putting weight on his right leg, he put his other foot on the second shield. This time the weight was exponentially worse, requiring him to close his eyes with steadying breaths to get used to it.

  It's bearable… and so is the mana cost. I can keep this up for an hour at most, much less if I start shooting arrows rapidly.

  Lev had to admit, standing on two floating shields was far more exciting than he had expected. With a simple mental nudge, the barriers started ascending.

  Ten meters, then twenty. Lev was too scared to go higher and fall to death. The illusion and barrier armor would at least keep him alive from this height.

  Moment of truth.

  Slowly, the shields started moving forward. He avoided any jerky movements, letting them accelerate gradually. Lev could see the rocky terrain in the distance which he started flying towards.

  How the fuck do people calculate speed at a glance? I have no idea how fast I'm going except it is nowhere near the top speed I can run at.

  To his best estimates, Lev was currently flying faster than an average adult could run. It was slow, sure, but any faster would surely see him falling like a flailing fish.

  Heck it, I want to know how fast these can go.

  Strapping his feet with the shields with barrier threads, Lev started to accelerate. Gradually. He couldn't feel the wind on his face underneath the two armors but that didn't diminish his joy in the slightest.

  The ground passing below his feet turned more and more blurry as his speed increased. By now, he was going faster than any Olympic runner.

  Thankfully, balancing himself turned out to be quite simple. His Nimble skill pulled its weight again, letting him nudge his barrier armor to stay upright without much issue.

  Okay, this is freaking awesome. Why did I wait so long- Never mind, let's not go down that line of thought. There's still a lot I need to try and only now do I have enough attributes to do them reliably.

  Crouching slightly, Lev mimicked the most common forms he had seen on the internet whenever someone was flying on a sword or hoverboard.

  He had no idea if it helped. Such feedback was beyond the barrier armor as it was right now. It all felt the same to him, which was limited to 'he was not at the risk of falling'.

  Shrugging, he straightened again. That was working fine for him too. Instead of heading to the training ground directly, Lev decided to test the range of movement first.

  His plan of shooting arrows from atop his shields was sound but the ease at which he could fly on the shields changed things. The endeavor was mana-intensive, which limited his testing time to ten minutes at most. His mana pool would still be sitting around 75%.

  More than enough.

  Lev unconsciously crouched a little again. Tilting slightly sideways, he maneuvered the shields to turn in a wide curve. From the feedback of heavy lifting and Nimble skill, the tilt was completely safe. He was not at the risk of being sent flying.

  This stuff keeps getting easier and easier. I know skills level faster if you discover their facets yourself but damn, I would've loved a little guidance. It would've made flying second nature by now.

  But there was guidance, so Lev refocused on his flight. For the next few minutes, he lowered himself every time the cut became smaller, and the lean, deeper. He was having too much fun to stop.

  The shields were tilted at nearly ninety degrees now as Lev flew in a circle at full speed. He cut sharp arcs with surprising fluidity, courtesy of two skills working in tandem.

  It was exhilarating.

  His childish yet immensely satisfying testing stopped when he noticed a spectator observing him with crossed arms.

  Inna looked mostly the same, just pouting lightly. Lev lowered himself with much more confidence than he had first ascended.

  The Master stayed silent, though Lev could see that she was considering something. Maybe he had done something wrong? His thoughts were thoroughly silenced when she spoke.

  "I want to fly like that as well," She said, eyes a little wide in an attempt to plead. It was fake as hell, and similarly unconvincing.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Lev had no qualms about granting the request anyway.

  He stretched his shields till there was enough space for both of them, which was around two feet in diameter. Spacious by most standards for something to stand on.

  Lev took a half-step back, motioning for Inna to step on. She did so quite excitedly, which made Lev wonder about her circumstances. He sure as hell wouldn't ask, but where was she born and raised? Was the terrifying part of her the real Inna or was it the childish part?

  Lev shook off the thoughts and mentally prepared himself for Inna to step on. He didn't know if it was feasible to fly with two people if he alone was so taxing on the mind.

  … It was far less than he expected, which almost made him facepalm.

  Of course, the Illusion armor is like five times my own weight. How did I forget about that?

  "I have a request in exchange," Lev began, rolling his eyes when she glanced at him with an obvious warning in her eyes. "Just catch me if something goes south. Falling from this height should be inconsequential for you but I might snap my neck at a bad angle."

  "Sure," she grinned. "I'll try to."

  Lev gave her a sour look but didn't press further. Surely, she wouldn't let him die like this, right?

  Surely.

  The shields ascended more confidently than before, and they shot off at full speed from the start.

  "I'll have to strap your feet to the shield just to be safe," Lev said over the wind.

  "Shield?" Inna asked, shifting her feet to let them be strapped comfortably.

  "Uh, this version of the disk. They are thicker and are meant to block attacks."

  She giggled at that for whatever reason. Maybe she was just happy. Either way, Lev started limit testing right away, tilting halfway to horizontal from the get-go.

  ****

  "That was fun," Inna remarked as they landed on the ground. Lev simply nodded, preoccupied with something else.

  25% or so mana left… RIP training time.

  The fun activity wasn't without any gains either.

  [

  Heavy Lifting has reached Level 8

  Heavy Lifting has reached Level 9

  Nimble has reached Level 9

  ]

  Close to getting every skill to second rank now. Next up will be using every skill in tandem, leveling all of them as fast as I can. That will be fun.

  "How was the wave yesterday?" Lev tried to create small talk as they entered the rocky terrain.

  "I don't know," she shrugged. "It got too dangerous with The Galvanic Sniper and The Silver Night joining the fray. Most Masters left the battlefield, not wanting to become minced meat in the crossfire."

  The Sliver Night? Sherron mentioned someone named "Hakim" joining them. He is probably my mentor's mentor. My grand mentor. Lev thought with a chuckle.

  "What's funny?" Inna asked, peering at him.

  "Nothing, just wondering if I'll ever be as strong as them," Lev blurted the first thing that came to mind. He was never going to admit calling The Silver Night his grand mentor.

  "Definitely," Inna said immediately, causing Lev to look at her in surprise. "You have much more mana than any Classer ever should. There's only one explanation for that. Not only that, but you have the perfect matching element. So, if you don't ever slack off, you definitely can be."

  "Huh… thanks. I'll do my best to live up to your expectations."

  Lev's smile as he replied was hidden under the armor but she definitely heard it in his words if her light snort was any indication.

  "I see, you didn't mean that question anyway."

  Lev wisely shut up after that. Masters were scary, able to read minds to an extent for some ungodly reason.

  ****

  Lev hid behind a boulder as a troll passed by, oblivious to his presence.

  I can kill it instantly, which is a great sign of progress. But I need to level my skills. Nimble will only ever level if I fight in melee range or fly circles around the troll. The latter is not gonna happen anytime soon.

  He sighed and prepared himself to brawl with a troll, the monster notorious for its extreme physical strength and regeneration.

  Joy.

  Just to make it less tedious and scary, he summoned two shields behind him. He was about to garner its attention when he paused mid-step.

  Hold on a minute. Can I infuse mana-types into my barrier armor?

  He backtracked, not hesitating to test out the idea. The barrier armor was layered atop the Illusion armor, which would stop any harmful effects of the infusion.

  Probably.

  Lev didn't let the fear delay him and grabbed the converter from his backpack. The armor accepted the lightning mana just as readily as his disks or arrows. He could feel the mana reach out to the Illusion armor to damage it, draining the already small amount.

  It increased the speed of my movements slightly, and I could use the armor as a battery to gather and release the lightning mana on impact.

  The idea was starting to seem more and more amazing when Lev ran into the first roadblock.

  His Mana Manipulation.

  To do what he wanted, it required him to pull a bunch of lightning mana from his armor to his gauntlets and then diffuse it back to prevent the erratic nature of lightning from damaging the armor. The more mana there was in one place, the faster it damaged the armor.

  Guess that's just another thing to grind. It will become second nature as my Mana Manipulation levels and hopefully evolves eventually.

  To solve the issue of charging his armor from his backpack, Lev simply created a small tube connecting an output of the lightning converter to the armor. The lightning mana traveled through that with minimal loss.

  The troll had covered a few hundred meters while he was testing. Lev jogged as his armor gradually accumulated lightning mana. His mana reserves were already low, so he limited himself to 5% of his total.

  The barrier armor handled that much without issue. The troll turned at the sound of his footsteps, causing cold sweat to break out on Lev's neck.

  From afar, the monster was not a threat. Up close, however, it could eventually turn him into a pulp. Lev could still deal with it easily, but the irrational fear remained.

  The monster's roar evaporated all those thoughts as his mind sharpened, his budding battle instincts not letting stray thoughts interrupt his focus.

  Lev backpedaled to avoid the usual wild swing of the wooden club he was used to seeing from every troll. Not letting the opening go to waste, he dashed in while gathering all the lightning mana into his right hand.

  The armor almost destabilized in that region from the power packed in one spot but Lev's little willpower clamped down it like an iron jaw. The lightning mana, primed to be released, rushed out like a tide as his fist connected with the monster's gut and the world turned bright.

  Lev didn't even realize what had happened till he flopped down on the ground a few meters away.

  Seizures wracked the troll's frame as it struggled to get up. Its belly was torn open, charred, and bleeding. Lev couldn't stomach the sight for more than a second as he beheaded it with a disk and moved away.

  What the hell was that? Was that even normal? I didn't even use that much- oh.

  Lev belatedly realized there was not a shred of lightning mana left in his armor. That single punch had released all of it at once.

  It makes sense but still, was it supposed to be that explosive?

  He looked for Inna, who suddenly appeared next to him.

  "Did you see that?" Lev asked.

  "Mhm, it was pretty impressive," She remarked with a raised brow, wondering why Lev was suddenly looking for compliments.

  "Not that. Was it supposed to be that explosive?"

  Inna nodded. "Every explosive mana type does that to some extent. The more there is packed in a small space, the more it will affect the surrounding area. Rare to see it happen to a Classer but well, that was not an insignificant amount of lightning mana for a single punch."

  "So, it did what, ignite the air?" Lev questioned back, not understanding.

  "That and ambient mana. Mostly air."

  Huh, the more you know.

  Lev digested that information, noting the reaction of lightning mana. It could be useful in a pinch.

  Scratch that, it will do pretty well for a surprise attack.

  [

  Mana Manipulation has reached 2nd Level 3

  Mana Manipulation has reached 2nd Level 4

  ]

  The levels in the General Skill were not surprising. Mana Manipulation was meant to be used as a foundation to evolve in different directions, so it leveled quickly. Lev expected it to evolve into some kind of Mana Channeling skill, the skill for handling large amounts of mana.

  Lev glanced at the troll's corpse a few meters away before searching for another monster to fight. He had discovered something useful yet obvious in hindsight today, but the road to evolution was still long.

  His currently low mana pool would see him spending the rest of the day in a library and the next few weeks brawling trolls and orcs in close combat. It was bound to become a chore but there was no other choice. With guardians reducing the risk of death even further, Lev was certain he would be begging for skills to level after the first week.

  Monarch bless The System for at least making the level-ups addicting.

  Lev wondered which one of the two was a greater existence. Both Monarch and The System were miracles to the likes of him, but The System was most likely far grander in scale.

  Either way, there were still weeks or months of fighting ahead of him. He mentally sighed as he found an orc in the distance before preparing himself to punch it with less lighting mana than before. Something he would be doing a lot more in the future.