The first orc reached them in a flash, swinging a massive, rusted iron club aimed straight for Marcus's head. Marcus managed to bring his weapon up to block, but the sheer, raw strength of the beast completely overpowered him. He tried desperately to hold the line, but the force cracked his blades. Marcus's defense broke instantly. His weapons shattered to pieces, and the impact sent him staggering backward. The club barely missed his head, but his chest wasn't so lucky. Marcus collapsed to the floor, coughing up blood as he fought desperately to breathe. Before Maxwell and Jaxen could even adjust, the second orc lunged forward. It thrust a jagged spear straight through Maxwell's shoulder, pinning him to the stone wall behind them. Elena screamed in horror. Jaxen moved in. His C-Rank agility kicked in as he slashed his daggers across the third orc's throat. Dark blood sprayed, but the beast didn't even flinch. It backhanded Jaxen so hard his vision went completely black, sen

"It's just one problem after another, huh?" Jaxen wiped the sweat from his forehead with a blood-smeared hand. "They must have felt the sudden surge of mana from the earlier explosion," Jaxen warned, his eyes darting back toward the cave tunnel. "I'm sure as we speak, more hunters from Astra will be here soon. Once they're here, they'll probably kill us to hide the evidence." Everyone else in the room looked completely paralyzed with worry. Captain Bradley was the only remaining survivor from the elite vanguard squad. All of the hired mercenaries had been slaughtered as well. The only survivors left standing in the entire cavern were Jaxen, Marcus, Maxwell, Tobey, Elena, and three other miners. The rest of the mining crew had been completely wiped out. Jaxen knew the horrific predicament they were in. It was already highly unusual for a couple of E-Ranks and a single D-Rank to be the sole survivors of a high-casualty C-Rank dungeon. "We need to do something!" one of the su

The door to Jaxen’s cramped apartment clicked shut, the lock sliding into place with a heavy metallic thud. Finally, he was alone. He didn't even turn on the lights. He just leaned his back against the peeling wallpaper of the front door, let out a long, ragged breath, and willed his interface to appear. *Looks like I have better control of the system now,* Jaxen thought to himself. *Back in the dungeon, during all the chaos, I realized something. You can't just interact with the system by talking to it. You have to mentally visualize your actions, and it requires a small amount of mana to actually trigger the interface.* As an E-Rank scout, he had never really understood the concepts of mana control. He could perceive mana, yes, but controlling it was a completely different story. But after watching the C-Rank swordsman fight back in the dungeon, something had suddenly clicked. The man's breathing, his posture—all of it heavily contributed to his mana flow. Jaxen had simply i