Unease

Na-yeon's mana growth was the first thing that jumped out. Her stamina wasn't lacking for this stage either, but her mana sat considerably high. I'd heard the dungeon reward had raised it by four points, and she seemed to have squeezed out another point through combat on top of that. She'd also succeeded in contracting a second spirit inside the dungeon. I'd expected her to bind a second Casa — instead, she'd formed a contract with the wind spirit Sylph. For a human, she possessed an extremely rare dual-element affinity.

The skills I recommended for her were Spirit Speech and Communion. Communion grows slowly as a Normal skill, so I used Skill Synthesis to elevate it to Rare — I wanted her bonding quickly with the Ancient Spirit she would obtain later. A basic level of communion is possible once a contract is formed, but it's nowhere near enough. And if she could speak the spirit tongue, she would be able to communicate with spirits on a far deeper level, which is why I put it forward.

I left the remaining slots empty. There would be skills waiting for her when she claimed the Ancient Spirit, so keeping the blanks open was the right call. Once I finished with her window, I moved straight on to Na Seoyun.

Na Seoyun was the person I watched most carefully in the entire party — our most important core — and I had poured correspondingly more attention into her.

I'd used Skill Synthesis to fuse the individual elemental overviews into a single 4-Attribute Overview, so she could wield all four elements. I'd also built her High-Speed Incantation with her future as a Magic Swordsman in mind. Once High-Speed Incantation grows into Super Rare, and she obtains magic theory and Mana Circuit Operation above a certain threshold, the skill can transform into the Legendary-grade Non-Chanting. Even ordinary mages treat Non-Chanting as indispensable. Magics earned through one's own effort — not the ones registered as skills — can be loosed almost like skills through it. High-Speed Incantation can approximate the same thing, but it doesn't begin to compare. Skill-registered magic receives a power correction, true, and magic expressed through Non-Chanting does not. Even without that bonus, though, being able to fire self-taught spells the way you fire skills is in a different league entirely when it comes to versatility and handling the unexpected.

Combat is always dangerous, always full of variables, and always brutally fast. Weathering a crisis with a fixed list of skills alone is hard. That is why mages have to study the skill-registered Basic Magic Theory without rest, and why they have to claw the rank of Mana Circuit Operation upward by any means they can. Only then can they function as mages at all with a half-empty skill window.

The problem is that obtaining even a single elemental overview is already difficult — and Basic Magic Theory, Mana Circuit Operation, and Magic Affinity are all mandatory mage skills. Early on, nobody has money, and the untalented don't have the slots either. So you class-change to mage — and then what? The skill they hand you at the start is a single one, and even that needs training. People who switched to mage either had to be carried until they learned the essentials, or fight with their bodies like warriors. Even if you want to learn magic itself as a skill, the prerequisite is an elemental overview or Basic Magic Theory. Even Energy Bolt — a non-elemental spell that doesn't need an overview at all — is locked behind Basic Magic Theory. And without Magic Affinity or Mana Circuit Operation, even a skill-registered spell damages your own body with every cast and burns mana so inefficiently that you fire once or twice and then gasp yourself dry.

That is how useless an early mage is, and how little help they are. Without a talent for the sword like Na Seoyun's, or the right connections, becoming a great mage is brutally hard. Right now, almost nobody even understands how formidable a mage can be, so for a good while mages are going to be treated as literal trash.

Joo Ha-yeon was short on skill slots, so she specialized her mana into Holy Power. Do it that way and Mana Circuit Operation becomes unnecessary — a kind of loophole that only works with Holy Power and Dark Mana. You save a slot, and the effect of holy magic jumps considerably. The tradeoff is that you lose mana's versatility. You get a correction on holy magic, but if you try to reinforce the body with Holy Power, you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠take a penalty. The efficiency is abysmal compared to mana. Body amplification the way we used to do it is, for practical purposes, off the table.

Since I had already claimed Heal and Purification, Ha-yeon decided to serve as a support priest for the time being, focused on shields. Every Hidden Class has its own unique skills, and Gaia is no exception. She is Earth's Administrator, and she calls herself the Goddess of the Earth — and the unique skills she provides are enhanced shield-type abilities. I raised that skill to Rare and passed it to Ha-yeon as Solid Shield of Earth.

For now she would work as a priest supporting the tanks. How she grew from here would decide whether I handed her Legendary-grade priest skills or not.

Most of those, of course, I intended to take for myself.

Nam Eun-ju had the lowest potential of anyone in the party. Potential: Low. Three skill slots, and that was all. Her unique skill, Wellspring of Vitality, kept stamina from draining quite as fast and nudged recovery speed up a little — similar to the Regenerative Body I had once possessed, and yet not the same.

Her first skill was Survival Instinct, which let her instinctively dodge a crisis or find a way to live through one. When she class-changed to warrior, she took Shield Arts as her free skill. I had built her Powerful Taunt just before she learned the shield work — with only two slots left I had to develop it in stages — and that was the ceiling. Her stat growth was slow. Her skills were thin. Even if she scraped by for now, she would not keep pace with the rest of us forever.

When that day came, she would have to choose: leave us, or find some other way to contribute. The party probably wouldn't be able to cast her off easily. I had no intention of doing so either. She leaned on me a great deal, and betrayal wasn't even a dream she was capable of — my side was the safest place she knew. Once I built a faction, I would most likely put her in an administrative role.

For a while she would drift into something like a pack mule, a trainee handling the odd jobs that supported the party's fighting. Temporary, of course. The moment I started forming a real force, she would become an administrator and back us from behind in earnest. Being as timid as she was, she would actually welcome it. And that day was not far off. I would start laying the groundwork ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from the 11th floor.

Last of all, I checked my own status window.

The power of a Legendary elixir really was something. My mana, which had lagged well behind the rest, had closed the gap right up to my chin. It piled up by the day. I had no intention of specializing it into Holy Power the way Ha-yeon had. I'd considered it back when slots were scarce. Not anymore.

My body itself was a cheat, so even when I used Great Heal or Body Cleansing — both classified as holy magic — the damage they dealt to the flesh was milder than ordinary spells. My body was sturdy enough that that much damage wouldn't even register, and I had mana to spare, so casting holy magic wasn't a problem either. I couldn't spam them, of course, but from here on we were only headed into the Lower Floors. I'd prepared the skills just in case. Honestly, I wasn't sure I would even use them.

Once the class changes and skill allocations were finished, everyone threw themselves into practice, getting a feel for what they had. We sketched out a light formation and redistributed roles.

"Ha-yeon, now that you're a priest, you'll be in the back line with ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Na-yeon."

"Yes."

"That makes your role all the more important, Eun-ju. Lean on Powerful Taunt and buy us as much time as you can."

"...Yes."

Nam Eun-ju looked anything but confident, but she answered anyway. She seemed to understand she'd been handed a critical job. She was probably feeling the full weight of how short her skill and talent ran, and the pressure that came with it.

I found myself thinking I would need to recruit more talent on the next floor. Whatever Nam Eun-ju made of that, the shortage of people was a fact.

"Seoyun, you're in the vanguard with me. As of now, you're basically our main damage dealer."

I would be doing most of the tanking myself. Not having a taunt skill was no reason not to hold the line. Aggro management was perfectly possible without one. Taunt skills failed to land often enough as it was — and when they landed too well, everything in sight decided to die with you. It was not a skill you threw around carelessly.

I put together a training plan and wrung every spare hour out of it. We still had a fair amount of time before the next party arrived here. I intended to finish the minimum of adaptation in that window, then head for the 11th floor — the Labyrinth. There were things up there I needed to claim first.

From the 11th floor through the 20th was Labyrinth territory, a zone you could not re-enter once you left. No NPCs. No Tower residents. That was how the Labyrinth had become a lawless hell, a worst-of-the-worst stretch of ground where gifted trainees died in droves. Mages most of all. This was the region that had buried more mage talent than anywhere else.

I planned to scout people here, and to lay the first bait for the connections and the faction I meant to build.

For two days we kept up a brutal pace. Drills where they treated me as the enemy and tried to break through. Crisis scenarios that forced them to react on a snap. Work to make the new skills sit naturally in their hands. Timing. Limits. The things they actually needed, taught one by one.

By now the party didn't even think twice about the way I taught this kind of thing as if it were the most natural thing in the world. I asked them about it once — knowing I was poking a hornet's nest — and the answers I got were something else.

"It's because you're a genius, Party Leader."

"Well. That's true enough."

"Oppa was always like that. And I trust you. You're telling us to do it because we need it, right?"

"...I just decided to listen to whatever you say."

They were halfway to deifying me. Fair enough. When someone you traveled with stood out this sharply, you either shut them out or you accepted them. This party was never going to shut me out, so they had settled on treating me as an incomprehensible genius. That arrangement worked in my favor, so I didn't correct them.

I kept the training going. Once I judged they had the basics down, I went to find Epathos.

"I think it's about time we headed for the Lower Floors."

"...Well. It was about time, at that. You lot should manage just fine as you are."

He wasn't wrong.

"Then we'll be heading up. Until we meet again."

Ordinarily, you could not come back down. I told him anyway that we would see each other. He nodded without any particular question. We both already knew there would be another chance.

I was turning to leave when Epathos caught my arm.

"One thing, though. Before you go, let me ask you something."

"...? What is it?"

He hesitated a moment, then put the question to me with a face that had gone hard.

"...You. Why are you pushing those women away — your party, I mean?"

"...Excuse me?"

How?

"Don't play dumb with me. When I met your party on the 8th floor, and when I met them here on the 10th — your manner had changed. On the 8th you looked as if you'd opened the door a little. On the 10th, you'd drawn a line instead."

There was nothing curious in his expression. He wasn't wondering. He was sure.

"If 'pushing away' sits poorly with you... fine. Why won't you let them close to you? You don't give them an inch."

"...There's no need for that. This is enough. They rely on me, and I've accepted it. Anything deeper than a certain point..."

"Is necessary."

"...It is?"

"Yes. It is. Have you ever seen your party when you weren't there?"

"...I haven't."

Unless I hid and watched them, that wasn't the kind of thing you got to see.

"Your party is uneasy right now."

"What..."

"Women are more sensitive than you'd think. They're picking up on that change in you the instant it happens. And they don't let it show in front of you. Even the youngest — even Na Seoyun — knows you won't let her in."

A heavy pressure closed over me all at once. It wasn't Epathos. It came from inside my own body — the mind bearing down on itself.

Epathos delivered the verdict with a face like ice.