Carly was satisfied with the situation she currently found herself. It felt comfortable, but just because it felt that way did not mean she was going to relax, not in the slightest. Instead, she was going to use this early period of time, to examine the [Extant Upgrade Store] far more thoroughly than she did for the 20-minutes prior to this event getting underway.

Calling it up, Carly began to toil through the [General] list. It was the utility option, lots and lots of skills, nothing to significantly assist her presently. There was camping gear, cooking wares, tools, food, drink, potions, skills, miscellaneous items and so on. Most of the stuff was somewhat irrelevant to the event for her. Thanks to Anne and Roy, she had plenty of food and a decent supply of water. If the event lasted that long she would probably have to get some more water, that was down the track, not a big concern for now.

Potions offered convenient assistance as the resistance potion proved, but she spotted those before the event started. Knowing about stuff like potions, Carly could only be grateful that Ross insisted she played some RPG games as well as read fantasy novels. Being aware of such things already proved to be invaluable.

After seeing her [Personal Skill List], Carly could only really consider [Jog] useful under current circumstances, and she was doing it all the time, including now as she moved to the next slime. After a bit of searching, she found what she wanted, [General Movement Forte]. Carly snorted at it, a group of skills the assisted her to move forward, like she couldn't do it already. Calling up details on it, it listed a number of movements, [Backpeddle], [Backstep], [Jog], [Sideskip], [Sidestep], [Sprint], [Run], and [Walk]. To gain the forte, Carly only had to gain access to 5 of the listed movement skills. 'Now that is an excellent piece of knowledge to hang onto. If I have spare DP in the future it could be handy depending on what the activated skill does, compared to the unactivated one, I wouldn't mind getting the [Jog], just to try,' Carly thought. She continued to trawl through the stores [General] area.

< You have performed the action [Numeracy] for sufficient time and proficiency. [Numeracy] is now available for activation in the [Personal Skill List] >

Reading through the lists was sufficient to add another skill which was useless to Carly right now, she ignored it as with the previous ones.

By the time she finished looking through [General], two more laps had passed by, and she was almost to the end of the enzyme buff with only a minute left on the thing. It did not hold Carly up though. She forged ahead stoically killing as many slimes as she possibly could with it still active.

As with the idiom, 'All good things..,' so too did the goodness of the [Enzyme Resistance Potion] run out of duration, and coming to an end. It served its purpose though, allowing Carly to accumulate substantial DP in the 30-minutes it was in effect.

With it ended, Carly was ready to face the next slime. She was not willing to waste her DP. She added a single point to Enzyme resistance. At this moment she wasn't going for the core, it was time to apply DP efficiently. With her left hand, she dipped it into the goop that was the slimes outer body then instantly pulled out. Stepping back, she paid close attention to the slimes damage.

Carly added a single DP.

Another DP.

Again, she added a point into Enzyme Resistance, then dipped her left hand into the slime once more.

Again Carly added a DP point.

That was it; the resistance was set as high as it needed to go.

For 5 DP it was an acceptable cost, considering that was the DP amount she earned just from the first lap, which took 10-minutes, 32-seconds. A far cheaper use of time-currency than the 30-minute costing resistance potion.

Carly still had 13 DP available to spend, but she chose to be a complete spendthrift, right now. No need to be spending when she was busy learning, and hopefully if they exist, finding hidden gems in the store.

Gradually working her way through each category, she was at the end of lap 10 before she knew it, and could immediately see there was a change of creature to some black headed, white-bodied worm thing. Getting nearer, the body had lots of stubby little legs attached to the hairless fleshy body. This mob like the slime was not going to be much of a mover. It was over a meter long, and its head was a shovel-shaped exoskeletal shell 50-centimeters across with what looked like 7-eyes on each side of its head. Underneath showed off a set of imposing jaws that looked like they could cut through an arm or leg with little problem.

Time to analyse, Carly stepped to the side of the creature, as she suspected it was not particularly responsive despite her close proximity. Unless it had some special ability, skill, or damage type like the slime, Carly did not believe it would present much danger to herself. She stepped onto its fleshy round body just behind its head, that's how snake handlers do it, yeah?

Standing on the grub Carly was disappointed with the result. It did nothing to the creature, which reacted by rolling to the side to get her off its back. She smoothly stepped off then moved out of reach. It attempting to bite her with those scary mandibles, it was far too slow, posing no threat. She stomped it on the side of its head, but the combat notification tasted bitter.

Carly had already used resists to make fighting the slimes incredibly easy, and now the situation was reversed. There wasn't much for it right now but to persevere and keep attacking the mob, she tried [Stomping] the fleshy body, but that did even less damage as its boneless musculature was able to absorb even more of the impact. So instead she sucked it up like a trooper and [Stomped] again, and again, and again. It turned out Lachtressia Grub's didn't just have high resists but also, much health. Somewhere between 1,200 and 1,250 meaning all that hard work Carly put into conserving endurance, was instantly undone with this new mob challenge.

She needed to find an answer and fast, once again calling up the [Extant Upgrade Store], she started looking at weapons, trying to decide on a weapon type for a minute, tossing up between axe, sword, polearm, poleaxe, spear. 'So many choices, I am unfamiliar with the use of all of them, what the hell should I pick, if I get something I want it to be useful for the length of the event, but these minute-costings make the choice a major investment.' She was currently looking at polearms and admiring a [Guandao], it kind of spoke to Carly. It said to her saying, hit stuff with me 'hard', and it would have known it was hit, accept it will be dead and so none the wiser.

Carly read the new combat message that appeared before her. She blinked a few times to make sure it was real. The message stayed visible. 'Was this Ross aiding her? Could she ask? How could she ask? Should she respond? Was this a trick?'

Carly was afraid to make a move either way.

A legit offer how could she trust that. She didn't, not at all. She scrolled up anyway. 'If I get in trouble what is the worst that could happen to me. No more than I have endured already.'

Carly scrolled down to [Sword], accessing the list. She selected a [Rapier], [Saber], and [Scimitar]. Closing the three she then selected [Machete], [Longsword], and [Sickle], closing them down again and exiting [Sword].

There was a pause for several seconds.

[Whip], [Halberd], [Axe], [Sword], [Tonto], [Whip], [Axe], [Sword], [Naginata], [Tonto].

Carly closed her eyes, weighing her options. If what was being proposed was true, she was being offered something that would probably be better than the first prize for winning the event. 'The source of magic, true power, tempting, very tempting.'

Opening her eyes up, Carly scrolled up. She didn't have an issue with gaining an advantage over everyone. So long as she gets a quantifiable benefit then fuck playing by the rules.

Carly followed the instructions creating each spell and sending them to the checkout. It took some time as there were a few hundred sou options and a several thousand options underneath it. They appeared to be exceptionally cheap in comparison to other spells she previously perused, costing a mere 180-minutes each.

Carly chose to individually purchase the one use spell if it started everything then using it should create some sort of result. Whatever it was she would soon find out, but she wasn't trusting enough spend all the minutes on the recommendation of some shifty person at the end of an anonymous text message. She walked back to near the start of the loop tunnel, at least 50-meters away from the next grub mob.

With the purchase brought the sound and visual effects as a chest arrived at her feet in the beam of light again. Crouching down Carly opened it, inside was a book which she picked up, standing at the same time as the chest crumbled into nothing. She looked at the front cover, it was bound in some sort of wood and not one she was familiar with. Apart from the wood grain, the cover was blank, the spine and back cover were the same. The page edge looked like they were made from the same tree also. Carly turned the book back to the cover side that was facing up, when inside the chest. She assumed that it must be the front cover and opened it.

It was stiff to open, the front and back halves formed a vacuum seal. After a moment they gave way to the separating force from Carly. The book wasn't a book, the front and back seated into each other on the inside. At the very middle was a marble-sized blue sphere of energy sitting in the hollowed out middle.

The message popped into her combat text as soon as the covers separated. 'I've gone this far, no point hesitating now,' Carly picked up this energy ball, put it in her mouth and swallowed. It had no taste or sensation on her tongue, but she could feel its passage down.

Carly could feel something gradually building, the ball seemed to be expanding and had situated within her chest.

With that warning came excruciating pain as Carly's mana went from full to empty in an instant

"What?" Carly said.

Carly didn't hesitate, calling up the [Potion] section in [General], of the store.

The thing pulsed, slightly expanding each time. It didn't damage everything each pulse. It just added damage to the expanded part.

Heal-Over-Time Potion (Tier 5):

Consumption of this potion will provide a set heal each second until the potion reaches the end of its duration.

[Purchase: 60 (Minutes)] Descriptors: Variables: Effect: Heal-Over-Time (HoT) Heal Amount per (Sec): 100 Requirement: - Duration (sec): 25

Going to the highest level Heal-Over-Time potion on the store she instantly sent it to the checkout and purchased.

The pain finally hit her and Carly collapsed to her knees while clutching her chest. The pain was beyond pain she experienced in her life, it was white hot as all colour dropped from her skin and sweat started pouring out of her.

The chest appeared but the pain incapacitated Carly.

She fought it with everything she had, clenching her jaw so tight it would hurt under other circumstances she forced herself to move. She only had seconds, opening the chest, yanking the wax sealed cork out and skolling it down all in one movement.

It wasn't going to be enough, Carly scrolled down to the Life Heal-Over-Time potions, quickly going down the list.

Full Heal-Over-Time Potion (Tier 5):

Consumption of this potion will provide a set heal each second until the consumer reaches full health, upon which the effect will end.

[Purchase: 160 (Minutes)] Descriptors: Variables: Effect: Heal-Over-Time (HoT) Heal Amount per (Sec): 125 Requirement: - Duration (sec):

80 or

Until Full Health

Finding what she wanted, she purchased it without hesitation. The chest arrived, and she immediately opened it up.

Carly was down to 73 health, she popped the cork and skolled it.

For a fraction of a second, she dipped to just 17 health before the heals brought her back up to 142 health. The white-hot chest pain continued endlessly along with the battle between the damage she took and the healing she received. Gradually her health improved second by second.

The pulses of expanding damage continued, after another 10 seconds she could feel they had wholly encompassed her chest and were now rising upward into her throat and neck, as well and down into her abdominal region.

By the time the pulses were into her jaw, her shoulders and arms were included in this expanding and searing pain scape while doing the same amount of damage each time.

The Heal-Over-Time ended a few seconds later, leaving just one heal keeping her going. It was slowly losing out on the battle against the ongoing damage.

A lifetime and 35 seconds after the blue energy activated consuming Carly's mana it completed its expansion up, reaching the top of her head. The next pulse spiked in damage as understanding erupted inside her mind regarding the process that was taking place throughout her body, awakening it to the awareness of mana. It also rendered her unconscious.

.

.

.

At 44-seconds the additional damage to Carly's mind ended.

At 45-seconds the pulse reached the ends of her toes, and the damaging pulses finally stopped. Her health had dipped to 438.

From the time the blue energy ball activated to the time Carly's health returned to its maximum of 1,702, thus ending the HoT potion effect. It took a total of 56-seconds, Carly remained unconscious, laying on the floor for just over 3 more minutes.

* * * * *

Floating in a void of tranquility. It was blissful compared to the pain Carly experienced just a moment ago. That was the physical world, the blast of mental pain ripped her into this nothing plane. Nothing hurt, there was no sensation at all. Her senses didn't work. It was fantastic for a moment. Scary the next, without senses she felt completely vulnerable. She went through them one by one, touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste. Utterly nothing. She couldn't taste the salt she knew was on her lip from sweat. She couldn't hear her own breathing. Was she even breathing in this place of nothing? Hard to say either way, disturbing.

She was here, wherever here was. There was probably a reason for being here. So what happened? That acute mental pain blast occurred spiking well above the pulse searing pain she had been enduring. There was a flood of information and, then here.

No, that wasn't right. There was a flood of information, that probably caused the mental burst of pain. So what did the information contain?

Carly gradually worked through what lead her to arrive in this void, this null of sensation. From there she began sifting through the information that had slammed into her. Gradually she gathered fragments. Arranging them in some semblance of order, before gathering more fragments. It was slow, like building a jigsaw puzzle, accept it there was no picture on the box, and this puzzle was more than three dimensional.

Collect, arrange, failure, breakdown, rearrange, collect, arrange, failure, breakdown, rearrange, collect, it was a process. There were so many fragments of information, they seemed endless.

Every time Carly felt she was finding a rhythm to the pieces, she noticed a fault in the structure and was forced to tear it down and start again. Yet, her understanding grew, and slowly she began to see the flow within the information. It was a feeling, bands of energy spreading out and circling back on themselves. Time and again she rearranged the structure, smoothing the jagged edges down to ripples. Placating the ripples into the expanding flow. As the flow expanded so did Carly's understanding.

Mana, it was amazing, absolutely versatile. The remaining fragments started to fall into the structure under Carly's guidance she could feel where they belonged now. It was easy. The pieces belonged where they belonged and could only fit where they were meant to be.

The structure solidified into its whole and with the whole, the body of knowledge washed through Carly. Yes, she was in this void of no senses for a reason. It cut through the distraction, the static, so she could embrace this new sense, this new understanding. The swirling energies, of mana running through her body moving across cells, wild and unharnessed.

It didn't have to be like that, it was there, it was unharnessed, but it was also malleable, waiting for someone to utilise. A person need only exert their will upon it. There were stats for it, [Attunement] was at the heart of mana, it aligned mana making it compatible. Then [Focus] to gathered the compatible mana together, and [Control] shaped the mana into a structure, and guide it towards its actualisation. Then there was [Wisdom], it managed the facilitation between the other three stats bringing them together. It created the harmony for the three instruments that manipulate mana into a result.

It was simple. Though, the intricacy and delicacy Carly understood, were vast.

* * * * *

With a groan, Carly gradually roused.