"Well, it activates after the bullet had covered a certain amount of distance, inside target's body. I honesty don't know what triggers the explosion, but it explodes right in the center of targeted segment, so, my bets are on the presence of a constant mass density point, inside the target's body. It'd help me a lot if I figured this out, but that's for later." Alec said, looking at Jace, still silently listening to him.

"Imagine you have a ball." Alec said, causing Jace to shift his face.

"Hmm."

"Whenever, it comes in contact with a certain object, it explodes, turning into thousands of its smaller counterparts. Now these balls would repeat the same mechanism: contact, explode and repeat. The intensity of explosion decreases, as the number of explosion increases. Eventually balls would get so much smaller that they would just fade into the surrounding mana."

"And that's how your skill works... But I'm still unable to comprehend your reasoning behind telling me all this." Jace said.

"It's simple really. Every skill follows a pattern, or a mechanism, to be more precise. And that's the main point. The 'skill' that you were hit with, showed no such pattern. It just felt like your body was just... overcharged with blood mana." Alec said.

"Overcharged?"

"Yep, that's exactly what it felt like. Your veins were literally circulating the blood mana. And your body was repelling the natural mana around you. There was no skill effect in action there, it just followed the natural property of blood mana, that repels the natural mana around you. This even might be the reason why humans have low affinity to blood mana. The comparison between-"

"..... Pfft- "

A sudden chuckle interrupted Alec, as he glared at Jace.

"Hey!"

"No.. It's just... I just wonder sometimes... the time you have spent here, your thought process... your knowledge, how do you even know this much? Having a high mind stat is one thing, but is there even an end? Looking at the painful expression on your face." Jace said as he stood up, now gazing at small kitten, "I can tell that there is still so much, that you've skipped, because you knew that it would just go over my head."

"I guess I did... ", Alec said, now staring at the darkness shrouding the ceiling. "Ever felt that every single moment of your life, you have lived until now, was just a dream."

"... Where did that come from?'' Jace asked, as his gaze met the empty emerald eyes of kitten.

Empty eyed, as the emerald gaze shifted, along the humungus bookshelves, towards the high ceiling.

"Ever felt like chasing after something, that doesn't even exist, yet every time you chase after it, your heart races, you can feel the warmth erupting inside you, as the blood rushes through your veins." Alec said, raising one of his paws, as he laid on the cushion, trying to reach the high ceiling with his small hands, "An endless chase, nothing lies at the end of it, yet every step you take, urges you to take another, then another and another."

"Such a thing is curiosity. Take a step back and return to the normal life, you have lived till now, never question what's happening around you, and the curiosity just vanishes, like it never existed before. But run along with it, questioning everything.

And feel the urge.

An urge, to learn the truth of the world.

To understand this truth.

Never being satisfied with what you know.

Growing up thinking of curiosity as a value, a virtue.

And watch your curiosity, turning into a hunger, a pursuit.

A hunger for knowlege.

When the world feels too large and your time on it, too short to ever remain fully satisfied in any of your pursuits.

When the thing that satisfied this hunger is no longer with you, the same curiosity would haunt you for eternity."

Jace moved, picking his azure longsword, as he moved towards Alec.

"... I honestly can't relate any of them", Jace said, raising his eyebrows, as he now sat beside the Kitten, "You want to tell me something?"

"Man, I really miss the Internet.", Alec said, as he stood up, "Are there any psychiatrists in your city?"

***

"HEY! BEHIND YOU!" Jace shouted, causing Alec to turn back.

A barbed tail, easily bigger than his whole frame, rushed out of darkness behind Alec.

"Like I would fall for that." Said Alec, dodging, as a crimson chain rushed past him, whistling past the incoming tail, before it strangled and mutilated the blood centipede's head.

The tail dug into stone floor, as the headless corpse fell and laid lifelessly in the pool of sticky blood.

Defeated [Sanguis Scolopendra lv23]!

Additional experience provided for defeating the opponent higher level than you!

Level up! 15→16

STRENGTH +4

ENDURANCE +1

VITALITY +3

MIND +5

CLARITY +2

AGILITY +4

ADDITIONAL STAT POINTS +4

SKILL POINTS +1

Quest progress: 16/16

Before the second chain moved to disintegrate the corpse, lower ends of Alec's mouth curled up as he looked up to a green screen, appeared with a sudden ding, now swimming across his vision.

Evolutions available!

Proceed? Y/N

Alec, restraining his urge to mentally smashing the yes button, smiled, as he moved towards Jace.

"Seeing that smug look on your face, sounds like you finally did it." Jace said, scurring past the half torn centipedes, his tattered leather armour, now smudged with the centipede gore.

The obsidian floor was loitered with crimson blood, the organs of armoured creatures smudged the walls of the spacious hall.

"You look disgusting, my dude." Alec said, now moving along with Jace, towards the exit of the hall, "Three days, 89 centipedes under level 10, 67 under 20 and 14 under 30. Yeah, level requirements are kind of insane. Even you gained a level yesterday."

"Wait, you actually counted all that?"

"Not yours, only mine. And yes, I actually needed to make a base structure of experience points required to level up, assuming the centipedes provided experience points, corresponding to their level-", Alec said, looking up, only to find Jace, rolling his eyes, "yeah, I'll think about that later."

"So? What next?" Jace asked, as Alec stopped his rambling.

"I think I want to be safe while I evolve, so, yeah, let's return to the third floor. We can stay inside the library, but, nope. Even you need to recover you mana at some point.", Alec said, as they reached a junction.

The small levelling up session, that had been proceeding smoothly, finally reached it's end without much trouble, something Alec was exceedingly grateful for.

It would've ended yesterday if the things were a little rushed, but in order to avoid the attention of the floor guardian, or any other higher level centipedes like blue boy, they moved with caution.

It was then, when Jace scurried past another junction down the bloody asile, carrying Alec on his shoulder.

They heard it.

"CRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Jace's eyes widened, the sudden scream pierced through his ears. Losing his balance, he fell on his face.

Getting up, he shifted his gaze, only to see a small fluffball rolling down the asile, drenched in sticky crimson blood.

Alec groaned as he slammed against the wall.

".... You could've warned me, dude. But what the hell was that?" Alec asked, getting up on his paws, as his body shook, trying to get the sticky blood off him.

"I'm pretty sure that was a centipede's screech."

"But... the intensity... It was even higher than the blue boy...", Alec said, looking up to Jace, before they both nodded.

There's no point in moving towards a certain death.

Jace picked Alec, as the black cat activated Mystic. Emerald eyes glistening, as the Mana Sense washed over his vision. A final nod as Jace looked at Alec, before finally treking his way back, away from the source of loud screech.