Jake had only stood with Draskil for a few minutes while waiting for the last group to arrive, but it had been enough for him to establish himself. He did find the very purposefully built room interesting in that it had clearly defined levels. It was made for people to separate themselves into tiers of power by default, making some stand higher than others.He decided to go back to Reika and the others for the next part, and they all went through yet another teleportation gate. The good thing about these gates was that at least they showed the other side before entering, and there was no feeling of actually being teleported.They appeared within a new chamber that held a number of discs, somewhat reminiscent of the one below Haven. The demon ushered them all towards one of them, and the group silently followed. Jake made sure to inspect the people he was with, and one general mood seemed to dominate: nervousness.Nervous about what, Jake didn’t know. It was potentially the fact that t

It was coming from the walls!Mana seeped into the chamber passively as the Pylons also began giving off pure mana. The mana coming from the walls seemed harmless at first and began interacting with what the Pylons gave off, mixing with it.Nothing was absorbed, but Jake exerted his will and poured some of the mana from the walls into the Pylons, where it was successfully absorbed. He also tried to pour a bit of his own mana in and found that successful. The problem was that, by his rough estimates, he would only be able to fill maybe one Pylon with his entire mana pool.He began directing the energy coming from the walls, but a new type soon came. A small stream of dark mana suddenly invaded the room and went straight for one of the Pylons. Jake instantly took hold of it and directed it away, leaving it floating in the outer parts of the room.Then came fire, water, and even just pure light mana. Some affinities were difficult for Jake, especially the light mana, but he managed that

Jake was pretty sure he was actually shit at transmutation. The first part of the test had passed, and the second one had begun. A half-finished concoction had appeared before him as well as about twenty different ingredients, with his task being to identify the best one of them to transmute and put in the concoction.There was just one tiny issue.I have no fucking idea what I’m supposed to do.Okay, he knew he had to transmute an ingredient to put into the concoction, but he had no idea what to use. He quickly realized it was some mana-destroying poison, and he remembered lightning mana having the ability to "burn" other mana types, so should he add that?Was he even supposed to transform the energy into a different affinity? He tried to go with his initial thought, even if his intuition didn’t make him feel it was right. Because it wasn’t. The first concoction failed as he put the transmuted herb in.A new half-finished work popped up, and Jake was just as clueless. He stumbled and

The combat arena changed once more, and the forest was replaced with a mountainous valley. When it was done changing, the environment was bare and had a mountain range in the distance, making Jake think the room had also expanded spatially.Jake considered if he should head there, but instead, he saw movement. From atop one of the mountains came a mass of flapping insects that would no doubt look like a black cloud to someone with far less Perception. Jake used Identify on a few of them.[Soilwasp Swarmer – lvl 105][Soilwasp Swarmer – lvl 107][Soilwasp Swarmer – lvl 106]Each Soilwasp was about the size of a human, with a large stinger and, of course, wings. As they got closer, Jake saw them point their stringers skyward and release their combined attacks. A rain of small, black, almost diamond-like shards rained down upon him as he was attacked by thousands of D-grades at once.At the same time, Jake felt something not from the sky, but from the opposite direction. Through his Sphe

Manticores sure were interesting creatures. Clearly pretty powerful for their levels, based on how well the one Jake fought handled things. They even had mouth magic that impressed Jake, as they could both breathe fire and shoot a beam of pure energy.However, the most impressive was the stinger by far. Anything it hit was instantly petrified and turned to stone, and it could even shoot a weaker version of this effect out as bullets of petrifying poison. Physically, it was also monstrously strong, and even if it was a bit slow, it made up for it with its bulky build and ranged attacks.Overall, it was pretty strong. Jake, at least, looked back at the fight as a good time as he sat in meditation with the half-decayed corpse of the Manticore right behind him. It had taken him a while, but ultimately, it hadn’t even stood a chance. Jake had dominated from start to end, keeping a distance throughout as he slowly poisoned it to death before finally finishing it off with an Arrow of the Amb