Eight minutes have happened since Adrian sat, instead of five. He didn’t tell his party, of course. He wanted to rest, and it was pretty stupid to say that he had rested three minutes more than he had said beforehand. Knowing the time all times made Adrian a bit paranoid and obsessed.

The Time Weaver entered the lair once again after he restored his stamina. [Rampage] had an absurd stamina consumption, and its restoring effect was minimal. At least it restored three types of resources: stamina, mental power, and mana.

‘Talking about mana…’ Adrian spoke to himself in his mind. Talking out loud would be a death sentence. ‘I don’t have any [Skill] that uses mana. I only have ones that consume mental power, stamina, or both. I wonder when I will have a true spell.’

Adrian left that train of thought as he progressed through the faintly illuminated cave. He quickly arrived at the T intersection where he had left before his intersection.

He wanted to slow his time perception to have more margin of error if a mantis attacked him, but he discarded the idea after a brief time. The near-undetectable echo that reverberated across the cave reminded Adrian of his physics class. He couldn’t afford to go to college because of his economic situation, but he wanted to be a telecommunications engineer. When he changed his time perception, he not only made light slower to his mind but also sound. If he remembers one thing right about his physics class is that sound and light were frequencies or worked like it. That meant that if time was extended, the frequency of that second would lower. Lower light frequency meant different colors of the light spectrum, but lower sound frequency meant lower volume. This messy physics lesson meant that if Adrian slowed his perception of time, he wouldn’t hear as well as he did at the normal time. The opposite would be also true. If he accelerated to an absurd point, he wouldn’t be able to listen anymore.

‘I actually keep a lot of knowledge in this rusty mind, uh.’ While Adrian was thinking mundane matters, he didn’t lower his guard and proceeded his way without a stop. ‘Or. A big or. I could be a fucking moron and I am misleading myself with the knowledge that isn’t true. That would make more sense, to be honest.’

Adrian started to hate this place. He was moving considerably fast for a quarter of an hour, but he still didn’t find any mantis except those two that were near the entrance. Mantis, according to the guild officer, weren’t nocturnal nor diurnal. That meant that they could be asleep right now, or awake, for that matter.

A beam of light moved before him and Adrian’s body swiftly stuck at the cave’s walls subconsciously. He hid at the first spot he found. From his hiding spot, he couldn’t see the place where the light deviated, but that meant neither the enemies could. Adrian breathed slowly and then hold its breath once the steps were getting closer. The pace was tranquil, it did not have any rush. That implied to Adrian that the creature didn’t detect him.

The steps became more frequent, not by the acceleration of one creature, but for the presence of various ones. Adrian wielded his daggers, away from any light beams, ready to go all out the moment he could see one of the mantises.

He could hear some clicking, they were communicating. The fact that the sound of the steps continued could mean that it was casual conversation instead of tactical discussion, that if mantises talked without a motive and had intelligence. All that speculation was founded by Adrian’s paranoia more than logic, but they did have sense.

The grip on his daggers was becoming constantly stronger, his tension rising. The steps were infinitely closer. Adrian still held his breath, reaching its limits. He was beginning to doubt his strategy. He wasn’t even hiding; he just was sticking close to the stone walls. He could insta-kill the first enemy thanks to [Assassinate] and [Rampage], but he doubted that the later ones would die fast enough if they were higher than level three.

Adrian was so distracted thinking that he didn’t even notice that the first mantis passed in front of him.

Congratulations! For avoiding the-

[Shadow Mantle]: As one becomes one with-

Adrian dismissed instantly the Record message as he looked the back of the mantis. Listening closely to the interval between steps, he guessed that there were two more mantises apart from the one in front of him. He waited until the second mantis had gifted his back to him. He used his new combo of [Assassinate] and [Rampage] to execute the mantis. Promptly after, he slowed by a factor of two his own time.

His mind was pumping a lot of dopamine as he threw his left dagger to the mantis in the front, killing it instantly as he triggered his second [Assassinate]. Then without hesitating he stab in the head the last mantis. His [Rampage] speed and damage bonus were at 15% now.

Adrian thought he had killed the last mantis, but he almost shat his pants as he found that there were two more about ten meters behind. Telling himself ‘fuck it’, he grabbed the dagger he threw as the distance was cut to six meters.

Taking advantage of his triplicated movement speed thanks to [Rampage] and [Celeratio], he dashed towards the two enemies. They were half as fast while he was one and a half times faster at this specific time perception.

His ichor-tainted daggers pointed at the necks of the mantises. He had no triple damage boost, but 15%. That wouldn’t matter to the mantises if their heads were separated from their bodies. Adrian’s right dagger cut through the monster’s neck, but his left one was slower. The mantis at the left achieved a deep cut on Adrian’s arm before it quickly died.

Adrian, now with a twenty-five percent increase to his speed and damage, was bleeding as he got hit for the first time since he arrived at Mundompio.