Adrian wakes up to a banging on his door.

  He groans and turns, stretching his body to rid of all the aches, and all throughout, the banging continues, drumming in his ears like a march for war.

  “I’m coming!” Adrian yells, quickly getting up on his feet and opening the door to an excited Matt.

  “Good morning!” They yell before walking to the door beside him and continuing the same.

  “You’re so dead to me,” Adrian mutters to himself, and glares at them. A few minutes later the door opens, and Matt is sent flying into the wall.

  A tired and similarly downcast Ji-a floats out of her room, giving a deadpan stare at Matt whose excitement seems to have not dampened even after the blow.

  “You are finally up! C’mon let’s go! We have to complete this floor today! Quick quick quick!” Matt says before bolting through the corridor and down the stairs.

  Ji-a and Adrian both stare at each other for a while, seeing their dead tired eyes, and realising that neither of them have had a good night’s sleep after the psychic attacks last night. Adrian is still having a much better time with his talent, but he can only imagine what she must be going through. The beg bugs have not made the night any better.

  “Tough night?” Adrian asks.

  “Ugh,” Ji-a just whines before floating back in, an invisible force shutting the door behind her. Adrian shrugs and heads back in to wash up and get refreshed. Fortunately their new rooms come with a personal bathroom.

  #

  A good long cold shower and some refreshing assortment of fruits and ice cream later, they are finally on their way to the boss fight. Adrian still feels a bit tired, but it probably won’t have much impact on his performance.

  Probably.

  “The day is still young, and yet to reach the scorching heat of midday. I don’t think we need to hurry too much,” John says to Jarad who for some reason has decided to tag along once again. Adrian is kind of sure that he is using Matt for his own treasure hunting, but he is starting to doubt it a bit.

  “I don’t really mind to be honest. I wanna test one of my new upgrades in a proper one-on-one fight too, before having to use it against the main boss,” Matt concurs.

  “I can use something to get back into a more battle ready state I suppose,” Adrian shrugs.

  The others look at Ji-a–who is still being carried by her hidden hands, floating above the ground–who shakes her head, “Don’t even look at me. Just let me relax for now. You guys do whatever you want.”

  “Are you sure you should be wasting mana like this?” Jarad asks.

  “Don’t worry priest, my hands only cost mana when casting them. After that they don’t really use much mana till a level of load,” Ji-a waves her hand in dismissal.

  “Well if you say so.”

  #

  “You sure you can handle it?” Jarad asks John who is about to head into a basilisk’s den. Finding a basilisk’s den is hard, but once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

  It’s a dune bigger than any you will find around you; unmoving, static, and resilient. The clouds above it will also never change, keeping the same shape and structure for years to pass, unless the basilisk moves away.

  This power to freeze anything it sees is one of the reasons it is said to be so dangerous, especially against single targets. And although a basilisk is an exceptionally strong creature with strong magics, it also comes with its own weaknesses.

  “In fact, it is the perfect opponent for me. Basilisks are partially blind at long range and use sound to detect their magic. Also every subsequent cast has a cooldown. That will be more than enough time for me to get into range and bombard it with my conflagration,” John states, moving forward, his blade in one hand and a fire burning on his other.

  It is his normal fire, the red-orange one which burns so bright in his hands.

  “Why does he still use a blade? I thought he was more of a long range with his conflagration?” Matt wonders idly.

  “I don’t think he really likes being long range, to be honest,” Ji-a replied.

  “Why do you say so?”

  “Just a gut feeling.”

  The chatter stops almost instantly at that point, as the fire on top of his hands vanishes until a sudden explosion rocks the dune in front of them. The dune moves, sand sliding off like a giant shedding its slumber to wake up once again.

  The clouds overhead too move for the first time in a long long time, stretching their wings after years, dispersing into freedom.

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

  In between all of that, a giant snake, dozens of metres long with a thickness which can accommodate three Johns at the same time, reveals itself. Its dark beautiful scales clicks into place so seamlessly that the patterns can enchant someone for ages.

  It shakes its large head, shaking off the sand and its drowsiness. It has no ears, but somehow Adrian gets a feeling that the snake is listening. It is listening for who dares to attack its head and aggravate it.

  Adrian watches with sweaty palms, wondering how he’ll face the same titan if he has been the one. Using a Prison will be foolish, as he might have to completely exhaust his mana pool to cast one as big as this, and he’ll be causing noise either way with his avatars. But without any means to deal high damage, he can only hope to overwhelm it with the sheer number of his avatars.

  Adrian forgets his musings as John moves.

  His fingertips glow pink for a moment as he brings it to his right ear, and then pops it off just like that, hurling it far into the desert.

  He then does the same to the fingers on his left hand, removing them one by one before throwing them away in random directions. The others watch in fascination, while the basilisk, who is just about to lock into John’s position, when his steps suddenly disappear.

  And then the desert roars.

  Hundreds of micro noises like the gurgling of your stomach, beating of your heart, clicking of bones as the body moves, and the loud deep steps of a man walking on sand.

  All of this echoes through the desert, originating from the place the fingers and ear is thrown.

  The basilisk spins in confusion, before stilling into a strategy of its own, perhaps already used to the wonders of sound magic. Its own magic swirls around it, the deep black colour of it shining on its scales, and it casts the magic at the loudest source of sound.

  The steps and the sound disappear for an instant, declaring its victory against the intruder, but then they return with an even louder declaration.

  This time the footsteps sound hurried, and the basilisk tries to cast its magic once again, but the mana moves slowly, roguish. The basilisk focuses its mind to bring it back into control and cast it once again, as it tries to look around it for the signs of the intruder, but the desert is just a blur of brown around it.

  It casts the spell again as the cooldown resets, the roguish mana finally under its control, stopping yet another source of the footsteps, but the footsteps come back an instant later. And then it feels something. It looks down, and by its magnificent body, stands a worthless human, a blade in one appendage, and another appendage caressing its blade like coating something.

  It lunges at the human, its ivory fangs sharpened over years, tears through the sky but misses the human. Black mana continues to swirl around it, as it redirects its lunge, feeling the intruder with its giant body.

  The ground helps it, the vibrations speak to it, and the mana is just about to come into its control, but then the human swings its worthless blade which clatters off its scales.

  The useless clang of the blade suddenly becomes extremely loud in the desert. A simple strike, useless as it looks, the human stops and looks at it. Its face, dismorphing into a wide grin in the basilisk’s eyes, and with a creeping horror it feels something slip into its body and crawl towards its mind.

  Only a painful hiss is heard after that, as the basilisk collapses into a seizing mess, its own mana ravaging its body, and tearing apart its beautiful scales.

  #

  Adrian watches as John goes around collecting his fingers and ear, dusts them off and then puts them back in place like they never left it.

  Beside him, the butchered body of a basilisk remains. Its core has been extracted, producing a Sound core. If Adrian had been the one to kill the beast and harvest the corpse, he’d perhaps have gained a Stationary core or something along the lines.

  This is the thing with cores. They change and adapt to the whims of its killer. Just like a human can’t be identified with a single emotion or memory, a magical creature can’t be summarised by a single core. It just depends on what its killer desires the most of the creature.

  John desires the sound magic, perhaps to enhance his weird body part flinging ability, or add another element to his conflagration. Adrian has to say that both of them could see a nice boost with a core like it.

  A few minutes later, they are back on the road, looking for something he can kill. As the day transitions into midday, they finally find a pack of Blood Hounds. Known for their sharp teeth and their ability to drain blood out of their opponents using the bite. They can also sense blood based creatures closeby.

  There are about 20 of them, sleeping on a rocky protrusion in a circle with the leader of the pack in between them. There is a very small pond of dirty water beside them.

  Adrian and the gang notice them from above, so with some cheers from the group, Adrian walks towards them with his own pack of avatars.

  As Adrian and the avatars travel downwards, the leader of the pack suddenly comes to life, waking up in an instant, barking in order to awaken its pack. It is about to run at him when Adrian looks at it, judges the distance, and snaps his fingers.

  The hound is encased in a yellow lantern, suspended in its substance, howling at him with furious eyes, and then Adrian tries the new feature. 10 mana points run through his body, and then the hound’s eyes go white.

  The rest of the fight is easier with his avatars, with the blood hounds lacking a leader. Since his avatars don’t contain blood, it only weakens the hounds even more. One by one, with whimpers filling the air, the last hound finally dies with a sword running through it.

  Adrian ignores the various messages of kill confirmation and level ups and looks at the lantern laying a little further away. The lantern has been pushed and scratched by the hounds in order to rescue their leader, but all their attempts faded to nothing.

  The leader inside can hardly be called alive. Its body twitches as if in response to the psychic damage, but even then the whimpers and whines have stopped a while ago.

  Adrian brings an avatar to stand in front of him, and then opens the prison, letting the body of the hound fall to the ground, still twitching, but no longer alive.

  Adrian decides to finish its sufferings by impaling it through its heart.

  You have defeated alpha blood hound (lvl 35)

  You have levelled up! Manifold Warden lvl 34

  The whole pack and he only gains 2 levels. Levelling up becomes harder and harder the higher you go, and although the level difference might not be too much in the future, the power difference only grows with every other upgrade and the synergies with your artifacts and other abilities.

  An avatar brings the Blood core out of the leader. Adrian stashes it away for future use. Could he use it for his avatars? Blood avatars? Perhaps…

  Adrian walks back to his party, who is already discussing their next move. Except Jarad, who looks at him with a weird gaze.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “That lantern of yours.”

  “What of it?”

  “... I forgot. I’ll ask later when I remember.” Jarad walks away after saying that, stuck in deep contemplation. He circles the area where the slaughter has just taken place, looking at the sand soaking in the deep red blood of the hounds.

  What is up with him?

  #