Rainer stood across from Gunthar, the Sun Elf now looking every bit like an Undead [Devil King]. There was a giant bone-like sword in his hand, or rather extending from it. Clearly, he had learned to use more than one Soul at a time.

“Careful, Sorcerer,” Gunthar said as he vanished, distorting the air in a shimmer of shadow.

Rainer’s eyes widened. So it was three Souls. A huge boon when you considered his Shadow-being Soul he merged with perfectly. The speed and impermanence of a Shadow-being combined with the raw power of a massive Devil was a terrifying sight.

[Arcane Awakening] surged to its maximum as he covered his eyes with [Arcane Revelation]. He barely dodged with a Void-walk as a Aura-covered bone sword - half the length of his body - stabbed out from nothingness.

But the short-range escape did nothing as another came swinging. Rainer sought to meet it with an [Arcane Blade], only to be blown backwards. The bones of Rainer’s arms creaked and despite Gunthar only having a single Tier 2 class, Rainer was far outmatched in raw strength. Even that Narianian Empire descended Divinity didn’t hit as hard.

Gunthar appeared fully from the shadows, his [Devil King] flesh covered in a purple miasma. The sword disappeared as Gunthar attacked with only an [Aura Blade].

As Rainer tried to Void-walk again he realized how forcibly stable the space around him was. What sort of Soul was that? While he couldn’t Void-walk without a high cost, a [Blade of the Void] was easy enough. And in testing Gunthar’s strength, there was little point in using [Void Hold] and just bombarding him. Whether an ant or most Tier 2 Experts, that method did the exact same thing.

To his utter surprise, Gunthar ignored it and let his arm be removed, before a sword of bone grew out from the cut off limb and nearly beheaded Rainer. Only a last second [Arcane Awakening: Shield Mode] saved him.

He flew backwards, 8 [Arcanum]s appearing behind him before the violet beams tore through Gunthar, leaving nothing more than a Soul.

Gunthar only laughed as he reformed his body, remaining as an Undead. The body he had formed in here was his old Sun Elf one, not the immortal flesh ritual of the [Arch-lich]. It couldn’t handle his Aura of Arcane-Death at all.

“At least I got you to go somewhat serious, Sorcerer.”

“You have any Soul and skills you need to test out?” Rainer asked.

“Many.”

“Good, use me as a punching bag and keep hitting my Shield Mode until I level it up. Let’s see if I can learn anything from your Souls in the process.”

“Happy to help.”

Rainer snapped shield mode into place as a whip made of bone and miasma snapped at him. The long, segmented chain wrapped around him and the pieces of bone stabbed into the violet shielding as it grew tighter and tighter.

It was in his awe he noticed how efficient all this was. Despite being an otherwise taxing skill of manipulation, the cost was shared with a strange synergy of Aura and Soul. But the skill itself was easy enough to see.

A few seconds later, his shield mode finally ran out of steam and the bones stabbed into flesh; a small pause occurred as the sharp segments went through his high Constitution. To do such a thing, either the bone itself was modified by a skill or force behind it was truly outstanding.

Rainer slipped out a use of [Blade of the Void] and then Void-walked.

“Give me a second to copy your skill, and we can try again,” Rainer said, staring at the wounds as he tried to improve [Arcane Invigoration] while healing them.

“As expected… Sorcerer.”

Rainer grimaced for a moment before taking out his [Arcane Blade] and chopping off his left hand. After a quick yell to reduce the pain he set to work. First he healed the burnt skin to reduce any pain he felt and then he focused on regrowing the bone without help from anything else. He knew if he didn’t finish this before the adrenaline wore off, the pain would be substantial.

He remembered the flow of energy and copied it with his Mana with the express goal of growing anything resembling bone from his now removed limb. After several more limb removals it was to his dismay that he had gotten the bone to grow backwards, sharp spikes of bone penetrating into his flesh from within far surpassed whatever adrenaline he had.

[Skill Gained: Bone Manipulation lvl 1/10]

He only saw the message when he refreshed his body. Flexing his hand a few times, he realized he may as well go for what he viewed as the final manipulation skill for the body as [Flesh Manipulation] covered several things beyond just ‘flesh’.

With Draconic Magic as the background, he really should have achieved [Blood Manipulation] far earlier.

Now focusing on it in the event of healing and creating new blood rather than control, it was easy enough to gain with a few more removed limbs.

[Skill Gained: Blood Manipulation lvl 1/10]

[Title Gained: Manipulator of the Body]

The title surprised him as he could think of several more possible things when it came to manipulating the body, but figured these three covered a wide enough range. Or, it was simply a matter of getting enough rather than getting all of them for the Tier 2 title.

[Experience Gained: .01%, 14%]

His level 16 [Harbinger] was now halfway to the next level. Not that he really worried about leveling with the Dungeon coming up.

Staring at the mangled stump of awkward flesh, bone, and blood, he would definitely not use these skills for any sort of personal healing. Who knew what magically created blood would do inside a body? Unless...

“Ready to go again, Sorcerer?” Gunthar asked as he saw Rainer just staring off into space.

“Almost, one last thing to try,” Rainer said as he cut off his hand again and Gunthar went back to training on his own. The pain shot through him as he quickly brought his mind back under control. He had never leveled [Arcane Invigoration], even considering his class bonus. But what if the three manipulation skills could help with that?

Using [Arcane Invigoration], he tried to push the healing faster with his three manipulation skills. Rather than letting the Arcane invigorate his body to heal on its own, he influenced it further.

But numerous attempts only had the [Arcane Invigoration] working on it own, quickly healing the hand.

“What exactly are you trying to do?”

Rainer took a moment to explain.

“Why not cut it with your Void Blade then?”

“Yes, that’d be cleaner, but it makes it far harder to heal afterwards. Even a Divinity struggled, let alone the current me.”

“That is my point, Sorcerer.”

Rainer’s eyes widened. He’d never have considered making things harder. Rather, he had always focused on giving himself crutches to progress forward until they were gone.

Now using his [Blade of the Void], he started again. When he attempted to use [Arcane Invigoration] it was if he was pushing against a wall. A wall he now could hammer at with his manipulation skills woven into [Arcane Invigoration]. He burst out with a level of Mana and Arcane that far exceeded his current limits.

Several things snapped into place, and the healing started. Rather than used separately, it was as if he was operating the manipulation skills directly with [Arcane Invigoration]. The hand formed almost instantly as opposed to the dozens of seconds it would take otherwise. It was an amazing result, given to him so quickly by his [Archon] class bonus. In fact, he even felt he could speed up his Soul healing with [Soul Manipulation]. Perhaps this could be the answer to healing permanent Soul damage… and that scar on his cheek. The result was truly outstanding.

[Arcane Invigoration has reached level 2].

‘Outstanding’ if he was a cartoon character with only four fingers that bent like sausages rather than properly jointed bones. It looked like he wouldn’t be testing on his Soul for a very long time.

“Sorcerer… that…. looks disturbing.”

Rainer nodded, fully agreeing. Missing a finger wouldn’t be enough for either of them to consider it disturbing. Rather it was that it looked like it was meant to have weird-looking four fingers that bothered them so much. They belonged.

“Any reason you have yet to get rid of it?”

“No… just trying to accept the reality that this is what I’ll have to deal with as I practice the skill…”

“Duel again?”

Rainer nodded, “Duel again. But first, it’s time to recreate my Avatars for the night.”

[Blood Manipulation] was nowhere near the level to help with setting up the ritual, even if it was better at manipulating blood than its flesh version, but Rainer wondered if he could add the two new manipulation skills the same way [Flesh Manipulation] was used in the Avatar Ritual.

It was two Avatars later that Rainer realized his connection to the two of them was far greater. The Avatar ritual was written in less a tome of magic and more a journal after all. It was perfectly possible there were missing elements.

[Avatar Control], while technically unchanged, felt far stronger. While still not giving him the feeling of having two brains, it took far less work to control them and what they could do automatically improved.

A few moments later and he forcibly sped up the setting up of [Passive: Zan Haste]. His two Avatars went off to the side, one doing a very simple enchantment with the goal of doing it faster and faster, and the other to run laps with the same goal. Anything to try and level this spell for Sarah’s use.

After a quick explanation, Rainer and Gunthar had started their duel.

While an [Arcane Awakening]-fueled Rainer was trying to push both his physical and mental speed while gaining a dodging skill as he narrowly avoided whips of bone, Gunthar was trying to level up his control of his Soul and and the skill belonging to the one he was using. It was his job to use just enough force and skill that Rainer needed to dodge but not so much it was impossible to do so.

“You are aware there is no such thing as a dodging skill, Sorcerer?” Gunthar chuckled as his bone whip got a piece of Rainer’s hair during his distraction. He found he could move them through shadows without losing momentum. Combined with other skills, it could be a fatal thing.

“A good portion of my skills exist in the realm of ‘no such thing’,” Rainer said, well aware that any dodging ‘skill’ was included within one’s weapon or martial arts mastery-type skill, such as [Magic Blade Mastery]. But it was still worth a try to get one when his main goal was figuring out how to improve [Passive: Zan Haste].

“It seems I had forgotten why I call you Sorcerer.”

Rainer chuckled as he tried to pour Mana into the passive spell within his Mana Pool. The attempt seemed to only destabilize the spell. It nearly turned off in a catastrophic manner. He almost had to recreate an Avatar just a few minutes ago from just such an event.

It was a few unsuccessful hours later that Rainer awoke.

The next night was much of the same. Though any time Rainer got injured, he would try and heal it with his improved [Arcane Invigoration]. The result grew closer and closer to Human, even if it was still a realm away from normal.

Thankfully, the original version was unaffected and so long as he let it do its own work, it healed perfectly as always.

But leveling this would be a huge boon for the Dungeon Meet, as [Absolute Rebirth] was based of his skill in [Arcane Invigoration]. Not to mention increasing his own survivability always had merit.

Despite a whole night of trying, he had no success with either the passive spell or dodging skill.

At least [Arcane Invigoration] had ended up at level 3 along with all three body-related manipulation skills reaching level 2. A true testament to his failure in the others that he needed to heal so much. By that same token, [Arcane Awakening: Shield Mode] had reached level 4.

One week from the Dungeon meet, Rainer sat in [Sleep Learning] with the old men of his group, trying to get their advice on the passive spell. Given he was deeply paying attention to their discussion on the theory of it - the books he copied from the Farseer were strewn out around them - he left his Avatars to do something more mentally simple. The two of them juggled and played with their various manipulation skills as Rainer sought to level them.

He never knew when a certain element might come in handy. It might even help to level [Arcane Energy Manipulation] to level 10 if he got a variety of manipulation skills to level 9. From Francis, he had [Void Manipulation] at level 9, and that seemed to push up his [Arcane Energy Manipulation] ever so slightly as he incorporated things he learned from that.

And the envious looks were incredibly entertaining. As it turned out, even with the limitless Mana of [Sleep Learning], learning Manipulation skills outside of their talents wasn’t any easier.

“It can’t take in extra Mana, it can’t be manipulated by [Mana Manipulation]. Shall we just consider the spell as a wash and that it is flawed?” Amer complained.

“Then it wouldn’t have a maximum level 10. It’d be 15 or something and be a tier 1 spell,” Rainer added, “Or maybe it would just start at level 10.”

“We should begin with how the passive spell does what it does and work up from there. I’ll consider any more requests to give up as threatening my granddaughter with death during her Trial,” Frederick gave a ‘friendly’ glare to the Devil.

“I should have never agreed to this,” the Devil said - without really meaning it - before returning to the book he had just thrown to the side. Like most of the Mages in their group, he had chosen [Passive: Zan Haste] as part of the one or two passive spells he'd be using. With a base of around 10% total increase in speed and being affected by Mana Talents, it was a powerful spell. Only Rainer with his smaller mana pool was an exception.

“We’ll figure it out or explode trying. And then explode again,” Rainer said.

All of them sent disturbed looks Rainer’s way before looking back towards their books.

What had he said wrong?