I was starting to hate tiering up my skills. The idea of becoming more powerful was awesome, of course, but with every decision you made, you would abandon two more.

[Mental Fortress] would aid me in my defence from outside influences, which was impressive. Sadly, it didn't look like it would help me with my affinity in any way. Considering that my affinity was basically an ever-present insidious poison, I would need more help defending against it than against outside influences.

[Mental library], on the other hand, protected against neither. It would instead give me the ability to store my memory in a more intangible way, but prevent any of my memories from becoming distorted or losing detail. Mental library could be fantastic for any caster class, but for me, I wasn't so sure. I couldn't really think of any immediate application, anyway.

Finally, there was [Mental palace], the vaguest option of the three. How would 'retreating into my own mind' look, exactly? The time dilation didn't make much sense either. Could I technically practice my skill progression forever in my mental palace if I chose the skill?

And what about 'healing mental wounds'? Did the aftereffects of my rising affinity count as a 'mental wound'? I certainly saw it as such, but I wasn't sure if the system would agree with me.

On top of all these considerations, I also had to think about how my skills could evolve at the next tier. [Mental fortress] would most likely give me more defensive options, while [Mental library might enhance my memory. Neither of these options seemed particularly synergistic with my build so far, though I could see the uses of protecting one's mind.

[Mental palace], on the other hand, might turn into a very useful skill. Any 'time dilation' evolution could seriously help me both in combat and out of it. The 'healing' part of the skill could similarly turn into something very useful, like healing any damage dealt by internal mana or something, which would enhance my current 'overloading' build.

In the end, I chose [Mental palace]. It just felt like the skill with the most future potential.

I mentally commanded the skill to be chosen.

Ding! [Mental resistance] skill reached tier 2! [Mental resistance] has become [Mental palace].

[Mental palace](N/A)

Tier 2 skill.

Your mind becomes better protected.

Your mind becomes your palace. Retreat into your mind to experience time at your own will, healing mental wounds in the process.

Increase wisdom to the next milestone to increase skill tier.

I sat down in the lotus position to get comfortable and tried to empty my mind. Instantly, I felt like I was being sucked into my own head.

The sounds of the cave and Cerion's breathing gave way to deathly silence. My vision went black, only to then turn a blinding white.

I blinked several times, trying to clear the haze, and found myself in my small room in the shack back in the village. Had I teleported to our old house?

I ran into the living room in search of my parents, but I couldn't find them. Despite being abandoned two years ago, our little cottage sure looked to be in a good state... It looked exactly like I remembered it.

In a rush, I ran outside to go find the other villagers. As I left through the front door, however, I found myself in an endlessly white landscape. No hills, mountains, rivers, or valleys in sight. Just a white, rocky landscape, like I had seen in my tier-up trial.

Then it dawned on me. This was my mind. Or at least, this space represented my mind. It sure was empty though.

I sat down and leaned against the cottage's wall to find a comfortable seating position.

If this was my mind, then I should be experiencing time differently, right? This was the perfect time to test my skill-practice theory!

I activated my [Dark Radiant core] and [Dark Form] skill. They were the two skills that would need the most amount of practice to improve, and they hadn't grown much, skill progression-wise, since they had tiered up last. In other words, they needed the practice.

Even in my newly christened mindscape, I could feel dark mana entering my body. I couldn't see any though, so I concluded that I was drawing it into my body in the real world as well. Now the only question remaining was: 'How effective would my practice be at a different speed in time...

I closed my eyes and meditated for a few hours by keeping both skills active. Well, I couldn't really call it 'meditation' anymore, since I had combined the skill into a new one, but the idea remained the same.

After what felt like three hours, I decided to quit. This would be enough for a first test. I opened my eyes expecting the great white landscape stretching out in front of me, but I was instead greeted by a single tree. It looked like a large oak had grown out of the white rock in just a few hours.

What was going on? Well, I did like nature, so it wasn't like I minded this new development.

I mentally pushed myself out of my mind. The feeling was foreign to me, but I was getting better and better at it.

I opened my eyes in the real world and my sense returned to me.

The musty smell of the cave and the blood of our fallen enemy, the cold air touching my skin, the sound of drops of water falling onto the floor and the feeling of being shaken back and forth by Cerion.

"What the hell are you doing?! Stop shaking me like that!"

Cerion seemed relieved at my return, because he looked at me like I had nearly died or something.

"Arthur! You're back! What happened to you?"

Realisation dawned on me. I had overestimated the [Mental palace] skill, it seemed.

"I got a new skill and wanted to test it out. It lets me retreat to the back of my mind. I think I lost track of time. How long has it been?"

"You've been sitting still, completely unresponsive for at least half an hour!"

I had spent several hours in my mindscape, which had translated into half an hour in the real world. I had extended the way I had experienced time severalfold. Was there a way to shorten this time as well? I would have to experiment more...

"Thanks for looking out for me, Cerion. How did your stat-growth go?"

Cerion still looked a little worried, but he gracefully accepted the change of topic.

"It went well, I think! I get a lot of stat points in dexterity and intelligence each time I level up, so those are my most powerful stats right now. My skills also improved a little! I'm hopeful in making [Raging Torrent Sword] tier 4 in a few months! How about you? Your class focuses on all three physical skills, right?"

"Everything is going fine on that front. My stats are coming along nicely and I finally got my wisdom milestone, as you've no doubt noticed. I just need to put some more points into intelligence to make sure my overall perception can keep up with my physical stats."

"Ah, right. You need 25% mental stats, right? I kind of forgot about that, because my class already increases intelligence and dexterity on its own. My wisdom could use some improvement, however. I'm afraid I neglected it a little, for the past while."

I smirked at him.

"You don't say..."

Unfortunately, the joke flew over his head, because he just nodded, smiling.

"Well, with our business here done, we should get started on the clean-up. How about we kill the leftover spiders first, and ask the guild for help processing the corpses afterward?" I proposed.

"That sounds good to me. I don't think the guild will want the tier 1 corpses, though."

"Well, we'll let them decide. Let's go, the day is still young."

A few days later, Cerion and I were relatively sure that we had killed most of the spiders. We didn't know for sure how these tsuchigumo created brood mothers, but with some luck, the guild would.

We couldn't really find any more tier 1 spiders, let alone tier 2, so we took some corpses and stored them in our spatial items as proof of our mission completion and headed back to Reito.

We had managed to store most of the front end of the brood mother's corpse in Cerion's absurdly large spatial ring. I can't describe how jealous I was of his wealth when he just casually wave his hand and absorbed a large part of the now-dead spider. Unfortunately, living creatures couldn't be stored in spatial items, otherwise, we could've just used that ring to kill the brood mother from the start.

As we rode Revan and Alia back to Reito, Cerion and I made conversation.

"So how do you think this tsuchigumo colony got so big so quickly? Doesn't the kingdom itself crack down on monster populations when they start to attack the kingdom's citizens? The alchemist guild was acting like the colony was just messing with the local wildlife, why didn't they mention anything about humans?"

Cerion looked pensive.

"I think you're being a bit paranoid, to be honest. While there are certainly cases of corrupt nobles or guilds letting monsters get out of hand, they're rarer than you think. The alchemist guild most likely spoke the truth, since lying could get their guild banned and possessions seized by my father. It just seems like too big of a risk, compared to the possible rewards. The tsuchigumo colony probably just grew far more quickly than the guild expected because of their shape-shifting skills and impressive size and speed for their tier. Instead of attacking villagers and travellers, they probably lured them into the forest instead, which allowed them to stay hidden."

I nodded along to Cerion's explanation. That did make more sense than the conspiracy theory that my mind had turned to at the first sign of foul play. Not everything that went wrong had to be an evil plan from some person in power. At least, I hoped that wasn't the case.

"So nobody knew about these spiders and their capabilities? You'd think they would do proper research on any invasive species entering the kingdom. How did they get here in the first place?"

"Well, they probably got here by escaping a travelling exotic monster trader. It's not the first time such a thing happened. My father had to deal with a family of tier 5 chimera one time. Even as a tier 6, he got poisoned badly. As for that research you mentioned, we just don't come into contact with the far east very often. In the rare cases where we do enter into conversation with an eastern country, the last thing our diplomats would think to ask about are spiders, of all things."

I could see his point, but still felt like it shouldn't have been our job as tier 2s to inform the kingdom about the deaths of several thousand civilians. It wasn't a big number in the grand scheme of things, with our country having a populace of more than 50 million people, but it was still a frightening number of dead. At least to me, it was.

"I agree with you, but this situation still feels like it wasn't properly handled to me. The kingdom shouldn't have underestimated any invasive species, let alone one that lives in giant colonies."

"On that point, we don't disagree. Someone will have to be held responsible."

"So you're telling me that this colony of spiders grew so large that they started killing villagers by the thousands in just a few weeks of establishing itself?"

"That's exactly what we're telling you, unfortunately."

We had reached Reito after a few days' travel, and had decided to report to the guild master before doing anything else.

He was rubbing his temples in frustration at the news he had received.

"I can already feel a headache coming on. The kingdom is going to have to hold someone accountable for this tragedy. Considering invasive species fall under the jurisdiction of the royal monster regulation department, this is just going to be one big, bureaucratic mess."

"We'll leave the politics to you, guild master. Just make sure the right people are punished."

Andross gave me a sad smile.

"If I had that kind of power, I would have used it a long time ago. I'll stay on top of the situation, however. On a happier note, your first mission as a team went incredibly well. You exterminated the threat at its roots, which makes my job a lot easier. Just a shame so many people had to die before anybody found out what was happening. That being said, I don't agree with your handling of the situation. If that tier 3 brood mother had been any stronger or had had a build focusing on combat, both of you would be dead right now. Even worse, the guild would be none the wiser about the growing threat near Reito, allowing the colony to grow to kingdom-threatening proportions. Is that what you wanted?"

Both Cerion and I were a little shocked by his criticism. Unfortunately, he was totally right. We hadn't just taken a personal risk when we decided to face the brood mother, we had also risked the population of the nearby regions.

"Standard procedure when encountering an unexpected threat is retreat. We have this procedure because without it, the guild would be left in the dark about half of the problems near Reito. I can understand that you two are still inexperienced, that's the only reason I'm willing to let this go in the first place, but you nearly made a blunder of epic proportions that could have cost a lot of lives. Do better next time."

With nothing to counter his argument with, Cerion and I could only nod and stare at the floor in shame.