Stanis walked up the boulders, the cold stone smooth on his soles, as he headed towards Serb's cave. Using Sil as a test subject he had created a mana circulation method better than his previous one, meaning it was also far better than anything the original tier-twos and Serb was using. But the Jaguars weren't under his control yet and thus Stanis had to check with Serb before going ahead with his plan.

It was dark in the cave, although this was not a problem to the Jaguars nor Stanis. Stanis entered without proclaiming his visit and came upon Serb mating with another Jaguar. Stanis vaguely knew the other Jaguar, she was called Niss and was the second strongest in the camp, her fur half between pure black and white with black spots.

"Stanis, don't you know not to interrupt a mating couple" groaned Serb as he fumbled over Niss and came to eye-level with Stanis. "Any problems?"

Stanis looked at the scene stoically and answered, "I've made a new way to circulate mana which is more efficient, far more efficient than anything you guys are using right now. If you are to eradicate the Spectres, you need to able to use the limited mana you have efficiently. Just checking if you're ok with that."

Serb stared at him with his matt-black eyes, watching Stanis for any discrepancies between his speech and act. Satisfied with what he saw, Serb said: "That's fine by me, I'll tell them to organise themselves so they come to you in an orderly manner. In fact, how about you do Niss right now?"

Stanis was fine with that and so the peak tier-two Jaguar came over, sitting on her hind legs in front of him. Stanis held her hands and told her to circulate her mana.

It came as no surprise when he realised that her circulation was horrendous, much worse than even what he taught the golden Jaguars. This was fine though as Stanis got to work, fixing mistake by mistake as he injected more and more of his mana, fixing up her circuit. It was close to 20 minutes later that he let go of Niss, the Jaguar's eyes gaunt and fearful as she looked at Stanis.

Serb seemed amused by this as he prowled over, playfully knocking her over as he took her place. Stanis gave him a toothy smile before starting, catching Serb off guard as the Jaguar cringed at it.

If Stanis was classified, he would be a solid tier-three, edging towards the higher ranks of the tier. Serb was only a bit behind him, meaning that once Stanis improved his circulation, Serb would be able to take him on and possibly even kill him. This was why as Stanis was fixing Serb's circulation that a very malicious thought came into his mind. However, it stayed as a thought and had no chance to grow as Stanis refocused his attention back to his work, after all, he was trusting that Serb would become a powerful force under him. And in the case that Serb betrayed him, well, he was sure that he could kill Serb, even if it would cost more after this.

Stanis also investigated the Jaguar's body during this time, wanting to know the reason why he was so powerful. For Stanis, it was because of the training he had undertaken on the mountain-top, but what about Serb? His question was quickly answered as he noticed how unnaturally tough the Jaguar was; he had injected his mana into so many people that he was now at a stage where he could vaguely read their attributes, and thus he could tell that Serb's strength looked to be a similar level to his, whereas the Jaguar's constitution was about 20 points higher…

In total, due to a tier-three's circulation being harder to fix, the whole process took close to 40 minutes. Serb loudly groaned in joy at the end, stretching his body.

"ARRGHH, I feel so good, so strong" roared Serb, his voice echoing through the cave. He looked at Stanis with a wary eye before patting the man out of his cave, "I've got business to do boy, gedouddahere!" It was only after he had left that Serb leapt back onto Niss, playfully snuggling her while whispering, "Be careful of him. Don't piss about with him unless I'm near!"

"I know, I could feel it while he fixed my circulation. There's something different about his mana, something dangerous…" Niss whispered back.

Satisfied with her answer, Serb went back to lazing around with Niss, the day quickly passing by.

And so the days passed by. The average day for Stanis would be having a short nap, before fixing the circulations of around 30 Jaguars, taking that group to practise, then training himself before finally going out with Caleb, Orena and Sil. He had already fixed all of their circulations and thus began training them up as well, to a standard higher than the Jaguars.

He had decided that these three would do well as his subordinates and thus was now tempering them into a standard befitting that position. All three of them were geniuses when it came to fighting anyway and so their progress was fast as he forced them to break past their limits.

What Stanis had realised ever since coming down the mountain was that the Humans had been focusing on the wrong thing. The only way to survive in this world was by getting stronger, but most Humans had gone about it the wrong way, focusing on pure strength instead of mana. And even then, the ones who did focus on mana went about it far too much, ignoring physical strength for it.

Luckily, he had been found by Zelgard and Yils and they had allowed him to walk down a smoother path earlier than others, allowing him the advantage he now had. He'd be damned if he let others catch up to the head-start he had, instead his plans being to train himself to failure so that he could further that lead: he just had a few things he wanted to sort out before going into seclusion.

In about 16 days, Stanis had finished upgrading the circulation technique of all the Jaguars. Following this was just a hard-core grind as all of them began throwing themselves against the Spectres, training themselves up so that they could be ready for the big raid.

The stronger people in the camp also gave pointers to the weaker ones, the most popular instructors being Stanis and Serb.

Orena looked across the grassy floor, her opponent standing calmly in ripped, plain clothes. She had once thought him as a weakling, a person below her, and yet he had somehow exploded beyond her horizon before she had even realised. Now she was struggling just to catch up, not that she minded though: she loved the feeling.

Sil acted first, shouting as she cast a fire-bolt towards Stanis. He merely side-stepped it while coming face to face with the charging Caleb, using his palm to strike the man-mountain back. Orena used this moment of distraction to charge forward.

Her feet exploded with energy as they burst her forwards, her spear crossing metres within a second as she violently swiped at Stanis. He ducked below the spear, although she had guessed he would do such and thus had already kicked forwards.

He caught her leg and was about to take her for a spin when Sil used Wind's embrace, distracting Stanis for a second as he was raised into the air. He broke the spell in the next second but that was enough time for Orena to leap back, her eyes of a viper as she looked at him.

"Flying blade" yelled Caleb while dashing forwards, his long-sword escaping his grip as it flew towards Stanis. He dodged it by the breadth of a hair and noted down in his mind to dodge it once more as it arced back. That was all the time he had to think as Sil had already shot 3 fire-bolts in a row, Stanis dodging two and using his left arm to take the last one, before sweeping his leg across the floor against the attacking Orena.

He forgot to check the note in his mind as the longsword stabbed into his back, Stanis thrown off guard as he stumbled to the ground. Caleb saw his chance and leapt the final step, his fist crashing down with the added momentum.

Stanis ignored the pain coming from his back and caught Caleb's fist, a shockwave travelling through his arm but failing to stop him as he twisted the tattooed arm. Caleb roared out in pain as Stanis moved onto Orena, catching her sword before slapping her onto the floor. She had used Dominance to try and escape but it fared useless against Stanis.

He looked over at Sil and saw that she was charging up a powerful spell, one that would injure him if it hit. It was a pity that it wouldn't have that chance as Stanis placed his right foot in front before lobbing his spear, the spear-head piercing through the air before biting hard into Sil's thigh. She screamed in pain as the spell was dropped, exploding over her body as she was flung into the air, before crashing into the ground.

"You're all strong, but you need to learn how to work together. You could have beaten me if you forgot your egos and learnt how to share the spotlight" said Stanis while pulling the longsword out of his back.

They weren't quite up to the job yet but that was certain to change over the next few days, just as Yils had done for him…