In a cylindrical room made entirely out of glittering silver sand, Jayce took a slow, deep breath. Seeker appeared in his hands and he fired at the target in front of him. Without pausing to see the result, he spun 90 degrees and fired again. Four gunshots rang out in quick succession as Jayce shot at targets placed in different spots around the room. He kept turning in a circle while shooting, trying to reduce the time between his shots as much as possible. Four gunshots quickly became eight, eight became sixteen and soon Jayce had fired over thirty times without stopping.

Finally exhaling, Jayce stopped to check his results. Some of the targets in the cylindrical room were humanoid while others were ringed circles. This kind of training was several times more difficult than shooting down the lane at a firing range. As one would expect, Jayce missed more often than he hit. In fact, when he tallied everything up, he found that only 20% of his shots hit their mark.

Jayce wasn’t discouraged by these results at all. It had only been a week since he escaped from the Frozen Expanse and started training like this. More importantly, this training was designed to be impossible. After researching Marksman abilities and consulting with Caesar and other teachers, Jayce had decided to orient his training towards a certain ability. This was known as affinity training. If he succeeded, he would get the ability that he wanted when his Marksman class reached level 20. The downside to this training was that it required one to challenge their limits and fail constantly. Only by being aware of his deficiencies could he get abilities that covered for them.

Even after doing this kind of training, it was still possible to be unlucky and not get the right ability. Because of this, many people only focused on improving their skills and didn’t attempt to game the system. Jayce, on the other hand, wished he could do this kind of training for all his classes. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any information about the ability pool for Bloodragers and Soul Forgers.

“If I could find Mize or one of her siblings, they should know every possible Bloodrager ability,” Jayce mused as he stretched his arms. For now, this was just an idle thought. Even if he found his former owner, he didn’t know how he’d convince her to give him such precious information.

Leaving the cylindrical room, Jayce thanked the trainer who’d set it up and watched it collapse like a kicked sandcastle. Soon after that, he found Yule’s two teammates who were watching their leader duel an older villager.

“Oh, hey Jayce,” the catgirl, Naya, greeted him with a smile. As a self-proclaimed lover of chaos, she had warmed up to him the fastest. This was because it had become well known that Jayce only challenged people above his level, which created many interesting scenes.

Very few of these scenes involved Jayce actually winning a fight, but that didn’t bother him much because he was learning a lot. Sparring was very different from fighting to the death, and fighting sentient races was very different from fighting monsters. Jayce’s shallow combat skills were picked apart by these villagers who had been sparring against each other their entire lives. He was also handicapped by hiding his special classes, but their abilities weren’t much help in spars anyways. By the time Bloodrage and Bloody Vitality could come into play, Jayce would be trapped in a sure-loss situation. Flesh Control and Explosive Blood were more proactive, but the latter was difficult to control. He had already resigned himself to practicing these abilities outside the training field. As for his Soul Forger abilities, Soul Strike could easily be explained as an artifact’s effect while the others were useless in direct combat.

“Jayce, we should spar,” Leon, the third member of Yule’s group asserted. His blue feathers puffed up a little as he stepped in front of Naya.

“Which artifact are you curious about?” Jayce replied.

Leon’s face remained stoic, but his eyes were gleaming with a covetous light. “Spirit Nail. That weapon is a true work of art.”

“Sure. Just like the other times, I’ll give you ten minutes to examine it if you beat me.”

Leon nodded smoothly, clearly unworried about losing this one-sided bet.

It didn’t take long for them to contact a trainer and get a platform set up. As the platform rose, Leon shrugged off his enormous backpack and took out several pieces of armor. This armor was a pithy black and the forging wasn’t beautiful. It gave off the image of a canvas that had been painted over many, many times. Jayce had been surprised to learn that Leon was actually Egan’s—that angry artifact refiner’s—son. He was a Tool Specialist who created his own armor after learning from his father.

Jayce reflected that, from a certain perspective, the two of them should be rivals. Egan was a very proud craftsman who didn’t get along with old Verne or any other refiner. As his son, it would be natural for Leon to dislike Verne’s apprentice. Conveniently, while Leon had certainly inherited his father’s pride, he never showed any competitive spirit around Jayce.

As he watched Leon’s armor click into place, Jayce decided to amend that thought. Leon’s entire combat style was specially designed to counter a certain ring-tailed Trickster. That was enough to prove that this taciturn boy had a competitive streak.

The match started and both sides opened with gunfire. Leon’s weapon was a bulky machine gun that fired quickly but wasn’t particularly accurate or powerful. Nevertheless, it quickly filled the space between them with bullets and dealt severe damage to the barrier artifact that Jayce had borrowed from a trainer. Before he was completely exposed, Jayce fired Seeker at Leon’s chest. The bullet tapped ineffectually against Leon’s barrier, but the boy still grunted and doubled over in pain. The combination of Acceleration Tag and Soul Strike was perfect against heavily armored enemies.

Using this opportunity, Jayce rushed forward and switched to his Tiny Hammers. Seeker could eventually break through Leon’s defenses, but Jayce had neither the time nor the accuracy to continuously fire at one part of Leon’s armor. Activating Bloodrage for a trivial boost to his leg strength, Jayce closed in just as Leon righted himself. Jayce fired his right pistol but held back with the left. Leon’s defenses were very tough and at his current distance, Jayce needed at least three shots from Tiny Hammer to break them. His left pistol was already empowered by Paralysis Tag, so he wanted to fire the right one twice before breaking Leon’s barrier and stunning him at the same time.

Leon remained calm as a golden barrier rose from his armor to block the first six bullets. Raising his free hand, Leon pointed at Jayce while golden light rippled across his gauntlet. A repelling force slammed into Jayce’s chest and sent him flying backwards.

Even though this force didn’t cut Jayce, a splatter of blood flew from his body and conveniently arced towards Leon’s eyes. This tricky application of Flesh Control was blocked by another outburst from Leon’s barrier. While he thwarted Jayce’s attack, Leon simultaneously pointed at Jayce with his free hand and aimed with his gun. Golden sparks erupted from the machine gun while his free gauntlet glowed and shot out a pulling force. Jayce was yanked out of the air and pulled straight into a hail of bullets that was noticeably more powerful than Leon’s initial volley. Fortunately, Leon shifted his barrel at the last second and fired at the sky. Otherwise, Jayce would have been seriously injured even with their sparring cuffs.

Marksman has reached level 19.

Breathing heavily, Jayce ignored the system’s notification and asked, “That last move was a combination of Overdrive and Parallel Coordination?”

Leon’s black helmet shook as he nodded. While Jayce sighed and waited for the dueling platform to be lowered, Leon released a quiet sigh of his own. Even while being pulled towards certain defeat, Jace had pointed his twin pistols at his opponent. He had only abstained from firing because Leon turned his own barrel away first. Leon was very aware that his barrier wouldn’t have held up against a second round from those guns, and his armor would have taken severe damage. His fighting experience, level advantage and self-made armor should have given him an overwhelming victory, but Jayce’s berserk fighting style meant that Leon could never relax until it was over.

Leon didn’t want to admit it, but he wouldn’t want to fight Jayce in a death match. He was also pretty sure that Naya and Yule felt the same way. Sometimes, there was an obsessive glint in Jayce’s eyes that scared him.

“Ok, I won. Let me see that weapon.”

“Sure, sure. Just don’t reload it.”

“Hey, Leon!” Naya called out. “Duel me too!”

“…No.” Leon resolutely turned away. For certain reasons, fighting Naya was much scarier than fighting Jayce.

Jayce handed over Spirit Nail before finding somewhere to rest. As he reflected on the results of his duel, he subconsciously glanced at the weapon in Leon’s hands. Having that gun would have made fighting the armored Leon much easier.

Currently, Jayce was unable to use two of his artifacts. Spirit Nail’s ammunition had been spent to seal the spirit in Jayce’s core, so he couldn’t reload it until he found a better way to store that dangerous creature. Meanwhile, the Bands of Freedom were still with Marin, but Jayce believed that would change in a day or two.

---

Jayce’s hotel room was a cramped place. There was a bed, a chair, a small desk, and a dresser all squished together with little floor space. Aside from that, there was also an outlet that barely qualified as a washroom. The colors were dull, and the room was undecorated. Most of the buildings in Snowdrift were built with silver sand, but their insides were covered up with colorful wallpaper. In some cases, only the foundation and supports were sand, and the rest was built properly out of wood, bricks, or other materials. This room did none of that, which made the entire place feel expendable, like something that could be hastily torn down and remodeled at any moment.

There was no kitchen in the room. Instead, there was a communal kitchen on the first floor of the three-story building. Even after a week, Jayce had only seen the sunken-eyed building owner cooking in there. The system translated it as a hotel but in some ways, this place was more like a hostel or a room rented through Airbnb.

The next morning, Jayce woke up earlier than usual. He often got up at the equivalent of 6:30, which gave him just enough time to wash up and scarf down a quick breakfast before heading to morning training. Currently, it was 4:30 and there was not even a hint of a sunrise on the horizon.

Dragging himself out of bed, Jayce stumbled to his bathroom and dazedly wiped off the sweat that had accumulated after a night of painful dreams.

The owner hadn’t unlocked the kitchen yet, so he skipped breakfast.

“I should buy food pills for times like these…They’re surprisingly expensive, though.” Grumbling to himself, Jayce walked through the quiet streets towards the village outskirts. It wasn’t long before he reached a fenced off area beside a familiar home. This was the home where Marin’s family lived and the first place in Snowdrift that Jayce had visited—while conscious, at least. Jayce gazed past the metal lattice fence that seemed to glow every so often and coincidentally made eye contact with a certain creature.

If he had to compare it to anything on Earth, Jayce would say it looked a bit like a yak. Curled and matted dark brown fur quivered as the creature dragged itself across the snowy ground, seemingly trying to move towards the person eyeing it. Sadly, it was too fat and could only inch along the ground with the speed of a common garden snail. A single wide eye stared at Jayce, conveying a pure and simple desire to devour the puny snack before it. With a body over 3 meters tall and 3 meters wide in any direction, this ball-like creature could definitely fulfill that desire if only Jayce stood still.

There was also the issue of its keeper.

“Morning, Jayce. What brings you here so early?”

A large, hairy-knuckled hand waved at Jayce, who returned the greeting with significantly less pep.

“Hello Stout. I was curious about the monsters you kept here, and I figured I could also ask if you wanted any help this morning.”

Large-eyed and wide-eared, Stout’s simian face slowly switched from a cheerful expression to one of worry. “Are you doing alright? I don’t mind paying you for a little work, but…”

“No, no. I don’t need money or anything. I just wanted to help you a bit.”

In his heart, Jayce felt a twinge of guilt. He did want to repay Marin’s parents for feeding him and offering him a place to stay, but he also had another reason for visiting.

Stout gave a slight shrug, a gesture Jayce found extremely familiar after spending time with Marin, and replied, “I won’t turn you away, but if you feel indebted to our family, then you should spend time with Marin instead of us.”

“I understand, and I will.”

After that exchange, the pair got to work. Just as Marin’s mother had once mentioned, the monsters that spawned on their family’s farm were extremely easy to defeat. Despite their girth, these one-eyed yaks had almost zero mobility. Apparently, their bodies varied quite a bit because of the unpredictable nature of mana, but their mass and sluggish nature were fixed constants.

Jayce watched Stout cull the one that had spawned this morning and helped him butcher and transport the meat. The hooks in Stout’s large kitchen which once held that glacial worm were now used to hang large slabs of monster meat.

Over an hour later, Jayce wiped sweat from his brow while Stout clapped him on the shoulder. Jayce thought he was about to be thanked for his help, but it seemed that he still had a ways to go before he understood the blue-furred race’s culture.

“By the way, have you two done it yet?”

“…What?” Jayce whipped around to face Stout.

“Tch, rumors can’t be trusted,” Stout grumbled, clicking his tongue.

“What rumors, exactly?”

“Forget about it. Anyways, that girl has always had a hard time making friends. As a kid, Marin was too arrogant and when she became an adult, she suddenly became…repentant. The other villagers are prejudiced, but the real problem is that she’s bought into it. Interacting with an otherworlder like you is very good for her.”

‘She used to be even more arrogant?’ Jayce thought doubtfully. From what he’d seen, Marin had a lot of pride when it came to her combat strength and engraving skills. It was just that, somehow, none of that pride factored into her self-esteem.

“Putting that aside for a moment,” Stout said, “You aren’t planning on living in Snowdrift forever, are you?”

Taken aback, Jayce replied, “No, I’m not.”

“When you decide to leave, please help us convince Marin to travel with you,” Stout’s tone dropped, and his face was so serious that Jayce found him unfamiliar. “This isn’t where she should spend the rest of her life.”

Jayce’s heart froze for a moment. “So, you also want her to leave?”

“Of course I do. My daughter is too talented for a tiny place like this. Although…”

After saying goodbye to Stout, Jayce’s eyes were unfocused as he walked through the village. The lock to his room was opened with a thought, and he lightly pushed the door closed before slumping down on a floor cushion. He couldn’t get Stout’s parting words out of his head.

“Although I hate to admit it, we can’t solve what Marin is dealing with. Even though we’re worried, we’ll be rooting for her wherever she is.”

Closing his eyes, Jayce thought back to the dream he’d experienced while challenging the first gate. Scenes of his parents and friends chatting happily floated through his head. Slowly, they were replaced with memories of them looking worried and asking him not to leave, speaking words he had cruelly ignored in order to pass the test. He clenched one of his fists and used the other to cover his face.

“Mom, dad, I hope you’re also rooting for me.”

Unwilling to wallow in sadness, Jayce didn’t allow his hands to stay idle for long. He brought out several materials and activated Soul-Guided Forging. Compared to his first three activations, Jayce’s eyes were far less vacant this time.