“I’m afraid this is where we part,” Rainer said, noting the [Leaderboard] also showed the number of points each member had. In other words, who they should kill first.

Fai’Etah nodded, inwardly relieved. It wasn’t so much that she minded helping him, just that she felt sure she would die in doing so. The strength he displayed was far above her own. If he needed any help it meant the situation was beyond her abilities. She had quickly realized the use of the [Leaderboard] as well.

“At least this means you will be able to gather your members.”

Rainer nodded and took a few moments to explain the use of a [Soul Mark] and put one on her. Her soul seemed a bit different than what he was used to, but it was close enough to not truly matter. Something to investigate later.

As if becoming a moving shadow, the woman seemed to melt into a flat object before dashing away at an incredible speed.

Rainer glanced outwards, feeling the distance between his party members. They were closer than he expected. Which wasn’t necessarily good news. If they were the distance of an entire planet away, it meant ganging up on them wouldn’t really happen after he gathered everyone. But as it was he had more than enough Void Will and Mana to reach all of them without running out.

Had he been more formulaic in his search for them, he might have actually found at least one rather than just randomly [Void-traveling] and hoping for the best.

Rainer suddenly frowned as he felt Amer contact his Avatar. How had he been so stupid? In his panic he hadn’t even considered to reach out to the Devil’s Avatar and discuss the Dungeon.

“How are your Avatars still working? Did you reach level 8 and decide to be evil about it?” Amer had planned on seeing just what the secret that provided all this Mana was. It was good he decided to check on Rainer’s Avatar’s first. It wasn’t as if he was planning on stealing anything, but he couldn’t help his curiosity. Though he doubted Rainer would have bought that explanation.

“What? I’m still at level 7.”

“You… you can still communicate with your main body?”

“You can’t?”

“No… in fact… this is quite odd. I’m quite sure my pools are still connected, given the decreases in Mana on occasion. But it feels… strange. The ‘second brain’ isn’t so much another brain as it is an additional power of the original Soul to think parallelly in an automatic way when controlling an Avatar. So “I” shouldn’t be able to function alone.”

“Did you just make yourself a sentient clone then?” Rainer asked jokingly, guessing either his more powerful Soul, altered Soul, or his [Bone Manipulation] and [Blood Manipulation] were the reason he could still access his Avatar. His main body in the Dungeon was currently using [Void Seer] to check on his party members.

“Hopefully not. It is for the best if the System is just erasing my memory of the connection to my main body. That is certainly within its capabilities is it not?”

“Then I have no idea why I’m not affected by that.” Now Rainer could only guess it was the [Sleep Learning] space in his Soul somehow affecting things. It had changed according to Talvara when he was training himself to resist Arcane Power and Void Will. It wouldn’t be outside of reason for it to affect his Soul in a myriad of ways in return.

“It is best not to ask why in your case, [Archon], as it’ll often begin an endless chain of questions that result in ruminating on the unfairness of life.”

“If you say so,” Rainer said, refocusing on his main body as he headed to Sarah.

Sarah paced quietly in the forest. She knew some of the people fighting the wingless dragon had to have noticed her. But it didn’t particularly matter. Even a casual glance at the surroundings would indicate that she wasn’t the only person sleuthing in the background, hoping to gain an advantage as they fought this dragon-look alike for the treasures inside its well-guarded cave.

Her sensor ability had made it easy enough to gather points. The lessons she learned while in the company of the Wolf King’s sensors were exquisite in that regard. Whereas Detection skills allowed one to see as a radar to view the local area and seer-type skills mainly allowed one to see a small area at long range, sensing was a mixture of the two. The picture shown was nowhere near as clear but both the sensing range and total area covered were quite impressive.

Perfect for rapidly searching massive swaths of land for valuables of any sort.

So here Sarah was, not waiting for the death of the lizard like the others, but rather waiting for an opportunity to Void-step into the cave and sweep up the valuables. In that regard, the [Dungeon Inventory] was quite troublesome. It was provided by this Dungeon as a way to hold your collections, but came with the flaw of having to have the object in your possession for at least 10 seconds.

Briefly glancing inwards, Sarah saw her Soul growing ever different. And now she felt the Mana slowly drifting into her body, before that prior step was even done. It had been happening for quite some time. It seemed she’d reach the end stage of this transformation far earlier than Rainer. Though given his explanation, as he was leaving a part of his body as a ‘buffer’, he wasn’t technically changing his whole body in any case. So what the end of that would be was unknown to him especially.

She crept forward, her body tensing as [Enchanted Body] swam through every inch, making her stronger and faster. The power of her passive skills flowed through her and her legs glowed through her armor with a Body Enchantment as she vanished in a series of Void-steps. The magically silent means of teleportation left no one noticing her tracks until their detection abilities sensed her in the cave itself. With a powerful monster in the way, it wasn’t as if that discovery mattered.

Sarah quickly collected all she could, stuffing it under random parts of her armor until she could put it into the [Dungeon Inventory]. With great pain she ignored the gold everywhere and only took things that provided points.

Her ability to ignore it, however, faltered and she fell into the pile of gold coins, hoping this counted as possessing them. It was ten seconds later she managed to put a good part of them in the [Dungeon Inventory] and, with a tearful goodbye, left the rest behind.

She vanished in a Void-step, conserving her Mana as she then sprinted as fast as she could.

[Congratulations on reaching 1000 points.]

[Luna’s Party has reached 1000 points first.]

[Bonus reward will be given at the end of Stage 1.]

[Activating Leaderboard]

[Leaderboard]

[1. Luna’s Party 1004]

Sarah glanced at the messages that went by, before her jaw dropped as she looked at the list of party members.

[1. Rainer: 604 Points]

[2. Sarah: 172 Points]

…

She had thought with her sensory abilities she’d certainly win, and that their high points was simply the result of a group effort. But Rainer’s points… it just wasn’t fair. He likely used that ‘stupid’ sight of his to cheat and gather far more points than her.

Nearly tripping mid-step, Sarah suddenly realized that when she focused on Rainer’s name she could feel what direction he was in. It wasn’t hard to guess that this wasn’t a feature exclusive to their party. She felt cold sweat dripping down her forehead. This was not good. Especially since the people chasing her likely realized one of the people on this list was right by them.

Sending out a tendril of her sensory abilities, it took only a few moments to discover she was being chased by a veritable horde coming from every direction. The most dense being from the direction of the fake dragon’s cave.

She glanced at her Mana, knowing Void-stepping rapidly wouldn’t be a good answer. They would catch up to her, and they would catch up to her soon. She had yet to really test out her power as a level 3 [Sage-Fist], but she knew even with all her enhancements she was likely weaker than an old monster that had been at the double Tier 2 level 24 state for who knew how long. Not to mention she wasn’t level 10 and didn’t have any powerful class skills.

Sarah’s eyes widened as a fist was launched at her back. It quickly overpowered [Passive: Zan Mirror] into uselessness. Why did she even waste Mana on that when it had such a low limit for the type of attack it could partially reflect?

The errant thought did nothing to help as she smashed over a tree with her [Enchanted Body].

That would leave a bruise.

The shining bronze armored knight behind her didn’t even bother speaking a word to her, perhaps knowing that others would be coming soon and wanting to collect the 200 points for himself.

She grimaced as she barely dodged his withdrawn halberd, the blade cutting a few strands of hair. But she failed to notice the butt of the weapon swinging around and smashing her in the stomach. It was a difference in strength she couldn’t cross.

All she saw was a shining blade covered in some sort of magic as she lost her first life.

All Rainer saw as he Void-walked to his sister was the falling blade. [Arcane Awakening] was already at its maximum as a hilt ported into his hand as he descended. An [Arcane Blade] struck down the middle of the halberd as the armored man quickly blocked. Despite damaging the powerfully enchanted steel pole, the [Arcane Blade] was deflected up. The fracturing of his own bones went unnoticed by the [Archon].

Rainer extended his left hand as he grabbed the helmet of the man and a powerful surge of gravity descended, smashing his foe into the ground. The heavy armor only made the situation worse as the two sank several inches and a burst of force destroyed the ground around them.

Two beams of [Arcanum] cut at the man’s arms as he tried to fight back. An outpouring of Arcane quickly shattered the armor, and with a roar, a blast of raw Arcane Energy from his hand and [Arcane Domain] blew up the head of the man.

Rainer breathed heavily as he stared at the man’s soul with [Arcane Revelation]. Before anything else could happen he latched onto it with [Soul Manipulation], extending an [Arcanium Descent] in case an errant Divinity came knocking.

He tore at it and forced it to remain as he tried to stuff it into his ring. But the Dungeon was a step ahead of him, protecting the Soul of the fallen man and quickly stripping Rainer of his system-given attributes.

It was a clear sign to back off, but he ignored it entirely.

Rainer’s fury only grew as he used his powerful soul to descend the Void. The two forces of the Arcanium and the Void collided and ruptured space itself as they clashed over the still held Soul of the armored man. Powerful bursts of wind destroyed the trees around them, blowing back some of those who arrived just now.

The Dungeon, or perhaps the system, extended its reach again, repairing the damage to the Soul and protecting it. But right when it healed the Soul, everything changed.

An impossible light formed and reality sundered. The ground vanished, and Rainer could only watch as his outstretched hand was torn apart at its very core.

A wave of power destroyed all its surroundings, leaving Rainer to only see a trace of the title he gained and lost as he tried and failed to dash backwards out of the blast radius.

[Title Gained: Holder of Transcendent Power]

[Experience Gained: Deferred, Deferred]

[Title Lost: Holder of Transcendent Power]

[Experience Lost: Deferred, Deferred]