“Oh?” Mio tilted her head, clearly amused by the developments, “And why’s that?”

Brock sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as his aura retracted and the surroundings lightened, “Cause I might kill you by accident one day.”

A silence followed, before Mio scoffed.

Briefly, the man considered resuming his aura manipulation experiments, as he felt himself overcome with impatience to continue strengthening himself. Fortunately for time’s sake, a stream of blood – dark but not black – dripped from his nose and reminded him of the matters at hand.

“Let’s get moving.” Mio nodded, and he recalled the direction of the nearest Treasure. They began speeding toward it.

Oddly enough, Brock felt a sourness settle over him as the trees blurred and the grass rustled beneath them. There was so much more he wished to test out. That passive ability he’d learned about during his fight with Zin Keene. Improving his physical enhancement and testing other methods. Everything really. His mind was brimming with ideas.

Although, he did suppose that he could try practice along the way. The only problem was that with the amount of concentration aura manipulation and weaving the shell required, he doubted he’d be able to run and do it at the same time.

He had no doubts that eventually it would become second nature, but currently, even with his immense Intelligence, aura manipulation took too much mental space to be done reliably. While he’d certainly try, he didn’t hold much hope that he’d be able to use it in combat. Baby steps, Brock.

That certainly didn’t stop him from pondering on improvements in his head, however. Though that did come with its own problems as they ventured further and further into the wilderness.

Naturally, the level of beasts seemed to be climbing, not just where they were but all over the world. And, of course, that made for more dangerous fights and more aggressive monsters. Brock remembered when at one point, he was fighting creatures at level 10 to 20.

Now, anything above 60 was common, and anything below it was a rare sight.

Brock did fear for the populace as a whole, although he was aware that the level of beasts generally weren’t equal to that of humans; humans had the favour here. And, in turn, humanity was growing stronger too. He honestly wouldn’t be surprised if a few people were already approaching E Grade. Even before he was crippled, Brock didn’t truly believe he was the strongest human on the planet.

It was oddly… relieving to know people didn’t have to wholly rely on him to save them from the world’s issues. The mantle could fall to others now.

What those progressively more powerful monsters affording him, however, was a chance to hone his aura manipulation. On the beginning of the first day, he could barely enhance his arm without taking ten seconds and earning a few wounds in the process. And usually, those wounds broke his concentration and shattered the shell instantly.

By the end of it, as night fell, he’d halved the time it took and learned to split his attention enough to at least dodge any sort of basic attack. If it crossed a certain threshold of speed though, he knew he wouldn’t be able to react to it in time.

Amongst those boons of practice, he also managed to streamline his technique a lot. While before, the shell had encapsulated his arm akin to a bubble, the intent infused aura flowing beneath, he’d learned that that was inefficient, and took far more aura from O.M. than it needed to.

Instead, upon the remembrance that aura didn’t actually interfere with physical matter, he tried creating the shell of Oppressive Might inside his arm, and as he had no intent to interact with the physical world using it, it worked. Using the principles of the aura compression that he was practicing, he made the shell slim and tight, allowing the intent-infused aura – simply intent for short – to compress, granting the blow more power and making him use less concentration to create it.

Of course, the matter of delay activation still plague him with no solution that he could find yet, but it was certainly a step in the right direction. Overall, it boosted the power of the blow from only a 20% boost to a 30% one, just from the compression. It did, however, let him realise that what he was doing wasn’t actually enhancement, but instead the application of force upon contact.

He sighed, and Mio looked over. This stuff… is super complicated…

Brock had no idea what actual enhancement would entail, but for now, he was satisfied. On another note, he’d made the decision to give up on force projectiles for the time being. Oppressive Might could do the same sort of thing in its base function, and it was far more reliable and powerful that way.

The second day passed by quickly, although they found they had taken a detour due to his neglection to check the map. He’d made good progress. As he glanced to the sky and saw the sun dipping beyond the horizon, he grinned. They’d arrived.

He shelved his thoughts on aura practice for another time and pierced the veil of dimness, looking direct at the cave that awaited them. Brock had no idea how Genesis found places like these, especially so far out from New Paris, though he had a sneaking suspicion that had technology far surpassing what he had thought them to have.

As he peered down the dark cave mouth, Brock scratched his chin. Sounds waves? Super energy sensors or something? It’ll be something like that. Maybe I’ll just ask Adam next time I see him.

Mio walked past him and chuckled, “Scared?”

Brock snorted and followed her down. The cave floor quickly became steep, “Only of you.”

It was rather cold within the earth walls of the underground, safe from the rays of the sun above. Despite the fact that his Constitution eliminated any discomfort it could have brought him, Brock felt it only served to add to the eerie environment of the cave. Noises echoed within it, unrecognisable and muffled, though he had no idea whether it was from their footsteps or something else.

Together, they descended further and further into the tunnel, and the air became thinner, icier. Mio didn’t seem to care, or even notice for that matter, but after feeling a similar cold right before Zin had come and almost killed him, it unnerved him greatly. Visions of his previous fight with the demon flashed in his mind, and he shuddered.

Brock furrowed his brows and scratched his shaven head, although it was beginning to grow out a bit once more. He didn’t give me PTSD or something… did he?

Nothing else had done so so far, so he found it strange that he was so shaken. In fact, simply because he hadn’t felt anything from his various near-death experiences, Brock was beginning to think that his time alone in the jungle-city drove him slightly insane. To be fair though, if he looked back on how he acts and views violence, he probably was a little insane.

An aura blipped in his sense’s direction a few hundred meters below them. Brock glanced at the cave walls hidden by darkness. The cave is spiralling downward…?

Curious, the man pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight. He almost dropped it then and there. As he sucked in a breath, Mio turned around and glanced at him, before looking up and around the cave. Her eye twitched, but she remained expressionless.

“Gross.”

“You’ve got to be joking…”

Spiderwebs, thick and sagging, clung to every portion of the cave ceiling and walls, baby spiders and caught insects roaming along the lengths. As if fresh, each strand glistened with moisture under his phone light. The tiny arachnids seemed to pause and look at him for a moment, before going about their little days.

Brock took a deep breath in and rubbed his neck. Whatever is guarding the Treasure’s gonna be a spider, isn’t it?

Deep down, he had thought all his experiences as of late would have cured him of his slight arachnophobia, but it seemed it had not. He glanced up at the tiny spiders crawling everywhere, and he shuddered.

A cackle resounded to his side, “You’re not serious afraid of spiders, right?”

She laughed again, like a shrill witch.

While Brock would lop his hand of if he touched them all himself, he had no qualms about letting Oppressive Might do so, and a clump of web and spider babies fell atop Mio’s head. Her laughing went dead silent, and she stiffed. Brock snorted at her and kept walking. He swear he saw a shiver go down her spine.

He snorted again. He sensed Mio activate a Technique, and she rose from his shadow, free from spiderwebs. A quick glance behind showed that it rested limply where she had teleported from. Hmm. Smart.

In silence, one Brock feared Mio was using to plot her revenge, they continued through the tunnels. Ever so slowly, the slope began to increase, and Brock felt himself correct in assuming that the cave spiralled down. If he was like Jane, he’d be able to use echolocation or something to be certain, but for now, assumptions were all he had.

On a side note, he’d placed his phone back in his inventory, content to leave the cave dark once more. The sight of the spiders spiked his nerves in a way he didn’t need before a battle. He had a feeling the protector was going to do so enough.

Step by step, the aura of the big bad spider came ever closer.

Until eventually, he felt the air change and noticed that the sounds of their footsteps no longer bounced off the close cave walls. With his senses, the could find the aura of the beast a dozen meters ahead of them. It twitched slightly, indicating it was at least aware of them.

“I think,” Brock kept his voice low despite that, hoping it’d soothe the beast’s urge to attack them, “we’re here.”

“No shit sherlock.” Mio’s voice echoed throughout the presumed cavern, and Brock wanted to snap his own neck. He glared at her, but froze when he heard the sound of something click on stone; spider footsteps.

Without wasting any time, he summoned his phone from his inventory and felt the soothing coolness of the solar panels on its back. Gulping, he turned on the torchlight and brought it up. In white illumination, and spider towering meters above them loomed, slowly tapping toward them. Its body was coated in a layer of thick, wiry fur in a colour not much different to the grey of the cave walls. Each leg was tipped with a jagged claw, and Brock swore he could see venom dripping from them.

As he gulped once more, sixteen crimson eyes were locked onto his form, intent on his flesh as it prowled forward. Almost hesitantly, Brock glanced at its fangs, the appendages chittering in hunger.

Or laughter at his visible stress. He had no idea. It’s just a scorpion without a tail. A scorpion without a tail, Brock.

[F] Subterranean Guragura (LVL 67)

Idly, he glanced at Mio, who had a disgusted sneer across her face. He looked back to the monster, and the name hovering overhead. Silently he came upon a decision. The beast was only at the peak of level 60, almost 70. It was killable by him alone easily, though with his arachnophobia, held doubt that it would be so simple.

It… it would be good to do some more testing for my aura manipulation. He let go of his breath. It came out shaky. At least this spider will give me an actual fight.

Breathing in, he handed Mio the phone and stepped forward. His nerves rose, but he suppressed them. Hopefully, he could beat his arachnophobia this way. That was the only way he could think of curing it; by beating the shit out of a massive monster spider.

“Hey Mio,” he looked over his shoulder at her. She appeared to be immensely amused by this development, “Keep the light on it.”

I’m going to regret this so hard.