"They're breaking through!" Keith hollered as he did his best to reinforce the glowing runes directly through his magic while simultaneously sustaining the largest barrier he had ever created.

Five days passed without incident, and the quartet of conscious students managed to gain a few Levels each by farming, though Nathan remained unconscious through it all. Then, in the middle of the night, a G-2 suddenly led a force of monsters against their wards when it realized it couldn't break through.

While it couldn't handle the ward on its own it knew that it would probably break through sheer force, and so rallied others. Four G-2's were fighting, along with nearly a hundred other monsters, including a dozen G-3's. All of the G-ranked monsters were flying, assaulting the barrier and warding with their magics and fists while the lesser, nonmagical monsters below attempted to break through.

It had begun two hours previously, and the four students were exhausted and at their limits. Samantha and William had already accessed their Points Shops again before the fight began, and Keith and Michael quickly tapped into theirs to acquire Mana Potions for the mage so he could continue to protect them. It was nearly the sixty-six hour mark after Samantha and William had accessed their Points Shop, but they doubted they would make it to that point, at this rate.

Keith knew he could handle the entire horde on his own, but his main issue was that it required pulling out his familiar, which he absolutely did not want to do because of its species. If the flying monsters weren't around, he'd be fine, too.

Unfortunately, he could only handle one or two at a time, but fighting them took his focus off the barrier, and they learned fast that wasn't a good thing to have happen.

Samantha and William could both handle the horde as well, but only without the fliers around. The fliers stayed out of their reach, meaning the pair of warriors couldn't touch them while having to defend against aerial assaults at the same time they dealt with the ground forces.

If they could reach the fliers, they would have no issues taking them out. Instead, they were forced to perform swift attacks outside the barrier and retreat back inside to avoid being blasted by the fliers and surrounded by the horde.

Michael himself was mostly useless, as he couldn't handle more than ten or twenty a time, partly due to inexperience, partly due to lacking the stamina for a prolonged fight.

The combined situation led to their current predicament, with the only person able to handle the fliers focusing on sustaining the ward to protect his teammates as they recovered. A ward that was quickly failing.

A few moments after Keith called out, the glowing green runes dimmed, turning inert.

"They've overpowered the wards!" Keith hollered. "I can't hold out much longer! I've got maybe ten minutes' mana left! I'm not casting anymore spells!"

Michael burst through the barrier, recovered enough to strike at a few more of the monsters before jumping back through the spell and evading a fireball from a flier. It didn't matter how many they killed – more just took their place. With only five students there, the monsters were at the limit of capacity, and it seemed to them as if they'd all come to invade the space.

According to Keith and their own exploration of the school, there were roughly three thousand monsters, meaning the capacity had been two thousand outside of their increased Challenge. And it certainly looked as if three thousand monsters were in the room, though thankfully, there only seemed to be the dozen or so G-ranked monsters. Those were the worst of the problem.

Cracks began to form in the shimmering blue veil of the barrier, and Keith dropped to his knees, gasping for breath.

"Five minutes!" He called out. "No more magic!"

Samantha and William jumped through the barrier and took out a few more monsters until they didn't think it was safe to stay anymore, then returned. They'd already attempted getting to the stairs, but that had failed. If they were able to get to the roof, things would have been so much, much easier.

Once again, they cursed the fact that their Points rewards hadn't increased. The Stat Points they'd bought with the last round hadn't helped them enough. An H-2 went from having around 15 Endurance to around 40 Endurance – a huge jump. And while they were the weakest and beatable, they still had large numbers and even stronger monsters. Most of the G-3's ended up with 200 or so Strength and Endurance, making it so that only Keith could even hurt them.

The G-2's were a completely different story entirely. All Keith could do was agitate them.

The two martial artists jumped back through the barrier and Michael charged out, swinging his sword and cutting through more, returning once he started to get swarmed again.

"We have six until our Shops are open again," Samantha said. "Can you push it?"

"This is me pushing it," Keith gasped as more cracks formed. "Fuck. Two minutes. Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

One of the G-2's created a large fireball between its hands, then threw it at the barrier, which cracked even further.

"That was even stronger than before!" Keith clutched his chest. "It just-almost-"

"Samantha! William! Michael! Catch!"

The three warriors turned to find a pair of vials filled with a blue liquid flying towards each of them, the trio briefly wondering where Nathan had gone before catching the vials and hastily giving them to Keith.

Nathan, meanwhile, bounced off the wall, which he had leaped onto. The fighter soared up into the air, catching the nearby G-2 by surprise. He had woken a few minutes before and watched the fight long enough to get a grasp of the situation. The primary issue were the fliers, so he made them his first target.

With Spatial Mobility, he was able to move around a lot easier, allowing him to close the gap between himself and the fliers. What was twenty feet into the air when the walls counted as a floor? As soon as he dealt with the primary threat, his team would be able to assist in cleaning up the rest of the monsters.

"Impact!" He hollered, his right fist slamming into its face, throwing it back a little bit.

Nathan flipped backwards, then pushed off the wall again, catching the Seven-Pointer in a grip, his knees pressed against the thing's sides as he began pummeling its face, a vicious snarl forming in his throat.

"No! Touching! My! Girl! Impact!"

He finished his combo with a strong punch to the face with his right fist, then jumped off of the G-2, briefly noting the mending cracks of the barrier which signified that the Mana Potions were in use. He'd bought a little more time.

"You're next!" He jumped off the Seven-Pointer and rapidly approached the nearest one, which attempted to evade.

Nathan's launch had enough force behind it to throw the other Seven-Pointer into the wall and to catch the evading one, grabbing onto its leg and flinging it down. He followed with it, the monster landing on the others, then having the warrior land on top of it, performing a series of strikes.

"What the-" Michael cut off as he watched Nathan strike. "He's… pretty pissed."

"Probably saw Samantha's bruise," William commented, and Samantha touched her cheek.

One of the monsters had gotten her about an hour previously, breaking past her Health before she could jump back behind the barrier.

"You heard his comment about not touching his girl, after all," William said.

"It's a good thing he woke," Samantha said. "Talk about the cavalry arriving at the last moment. How in the fuck is he even moving around like that?"

They watched for a minute as Nathan continued his assault against the monsters, seeming to defy physics as he jumped up and down, off the walls and railings, taking down monsters. They had stopped their assault on the barrier to focus on stopping the powerful warrior.

A warrior who was growing more and more agitated as the fight went on. He wanted to know exactly why they weren't helping him – the only one he would excuse was Keith, who was clearly the most exhausted of them and who had clearly nearly run out of Mana, the sole thing he used to fight.

"Spatial Mobility," William said, and the others looked at him. "I unlocked it in the Skill Shop at Level 40."

"You hit Level 40?" Samantha asked.

"During the fight," he nodded. "With him moving like that, I got suspicious. It's in there for me."

Samantha pulled up her own Skill Shop, and confirmed that she had it available as well.

"I don't have it," Michael said.

"Probably has to do with how you move about," Keith answered. "Damn, that must have cost him. Six Mana Potions… 240 Points."

"It's at least enough to let you restore the barrier," Samantha said. "William and I will have access again in a few minutes, so we'll get you more."

Keith nodded, and they returned to watching Nathan, who was currently pummeling another G-2, which was attempting to throw him off using a mix of air magics and summoned stones. Nathan proved to be highly-resilient to the thing, however, and eventually killed it before jumping down and taking on more of the lesser monsters.

He was furious. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but he was clearly in a Challenge, and his girlfriend had been hurt. He muted his notifications so he could read them once he'd finished taking care of things.

With his increased mana, he was able to cast Impact and Stoneskin many times more, and he had far more stamina than the others from his time before the game began.

By the time he'd even started feeling exhausted, all of the Five-Pointers and Seven-Pointers had been slain. He was stronger – he'd gotten that much from his notifications before muting them for later – and the monsters seemed stronger, but he was much better than them.

His newly-increased Strength, combined with the 50% boost from Damage Dealer to all net Damage and Combo Strike and the Burst Knuckles, meant he was taking out anywhere up to 400 Health per strike. Needing two hits to take out a Two-Pointer had been a surprise to him, but he decided he'd sort out what was going on later.

Especially since he'd finally taken out the magic-using monsters, another surprise for him. He would definitely be asking the others there what was going on. And the fact that the top five – outside of Madeline – were there told him that either everyone was in one instance, or the strongest were given a tough Challenge for some reason.

Clearing that from his mind, he returned to work taking on the monsters. As he began to wear down, so did the numbers of his opponents. Nearly twenty minutes passed before the others rejoined the fight, and from there, they managed to clean up everything, then returned to the 'safe space'.

Exhausted and soaked in sweat, the team relaxed instead of talking, and Nathan checked out his messages. The Challenge notification told him enough about the situation – and the fact that they'd probably gotten the notice either while he was in pain from the awakening and attempting to focus on it, or right after he passed-out.

Keith had probably panicked over the situation, resulting in a delay. That, or he reacted quickly, but took a minute to find the others. And the others ended up getting delayed because of helping get Nathan there.

Samantha and William, he had expected, but Michael sacrificing himself for that surprised Nathan. He supposed that the jock had changed plenty, if he was willing to help out Nathan – and Keith.

Once he sorted through the messages relating to the Challenge, Nathan looked at one of the other messages in his vision.

Due to your awakening of your magic, your stats have been increased. All stats have been changed to reflect this, however, it does not affect the stats earned through the System, only through your natural and worked-for stats. Your Mana and Magic were increased 300x as a result of your awakening. All other stats were increased by 3% of that (9x) as a result of your awakening.

That explains my increased Strength, Endurance and Speed, Nathan wondered. Keith didn't mention those would increase – is that not normal? And does this mean they think I'm even hotter, now?

Nathan dismissed that notification. He could tell what his Mana and Endurance were due to his Mana and Health being exactly ten times them. 211 Endurance and 3028 Mana.

That's a lot bigger boost than Keith said was possible, he thought. Well, other than in the case of Merlin. Fucking hell. I'm not a magician, I just wanted to learn to make barriers.

He looked over to the one of them who was, and watched as the mage started washing off the paint. A faint, violet aura shrouded Keith, and decided to ask about that in a few minutes. Once they'd recovered and once he'd finished processing his earned Levels and Points. Focusing a little, Nathan let the System tally up the totals into a single set of messages, rather than for every kill.

4 G-2's Slain – 28 Points Earned

12 G-3's Slain – 60 Points Earned

437 H-1's Slain – 1,311 Points Earned

1,536 H-2's Slain – 3,072 Points Earned

1,989 Monsters Slain – 4,471 Points Earned

In addition to the high amount of Points he earned, Nathan slaying nearly two thousand monsters by himself net him seventeen Levels. It was possible, he knew, that even though the Points hadn't increased, Experience amounts did – after all, he had tested the System and determined that it looked like, from what little he could tell, that Experience gains decreased the easier a fight was, and increased the harder it was.

And the System probably registered taking on two thousand monsters in an hour and coming out the victor as being very, very difficult. And it had been, towards the end, due to his physical exhaustion.

Then again, he hadn't even taken out that many monsters before, so it may have just been how much he got naturally for it, even with how easy the initial part of his fight had been. It did grow more exhausting as time went on, and he wondered why the rest never joined in. Without the fliers, they could have all helped him.

He knew for a fact that Samantha could handle the horde by herself without the fliers, and he was pretty sure Keith could. He gave the magician a pass, though, since Keith had clearly exhausted his Mana with the barrier that had been constructed.

The only downside, he saw to the situation, was that he wouldn't be able to access the Points Shop for another sixty hours. When he hit Level 50, the cooldown for it decreased by another six hours.

Deciding to not focus on that, and deciding that his teammates still seemed a bit too exhausted to talk much, Nathan opened up his Skills Shop to see his new Level. He'd hit not one but two ten-Level thresholds, after all, going to Level 61 during that fight.

There were a few good things in the Skills Shop, and he made a mental note to revisit it once he possessed enough Skill Points to buy some of them, then closed it and his eyes, resting and listening.

His senses truly had enhanced quite a bit, and his clothes did feel itchy against his skin, but he supposed that having spent time unconscious allowed his body to somewhat adjust, even if it was somewhat disorienting.

Briefly, he wondered if they noticed him fumble during the fight. He'd done so a few times because things had been unexpected. Such as realizing he could hear the monsters' hearts, the other students' breathing, or feel and smell the blood of the monsters in an entirely new way.

That last one didn't bother him, it just caught him off-guard.

After listening to his teammates purchase a Skill or two while thinking they were in private, Nathan decided it was time to see what had gone on while he was out.

That, and if Keith was able to eavesdrop on the others, too.