James’s spell was triumphant, and thus they were able to defeat the dark figure. But everything in life had its price, especially a potent spell that could pull you out of such a desperate situation.

His hands were mangled, with barely any skin left on his palms. But that could be fixed with some healing magic. The real problem was the state of his mana channels.

His mana channels, which ran along his body like a person’s veins do, felt just like how he imagined a snake would feel if it swallowed and passed an elephant through its body.

The Chaos Javelin was powerful enough, put it was a rather precise attack. He couldn’t use it against the dark figure that he couldn’t even see, much less pinpoint and hit accurately.

He needed a spell that could hit a larger area. But that meant an even larger mana expenditure. However, even though he had used the entirety of his mana pool in one go many times before, and he never had such problems. There was just something about Chaos spells that demanded too much. They were spells way above what someone his level should have been capable of. His insight and ingenuity were able to unlock the usage of these spells, but his body couldn’t really handle it.

The Chaos Javelin was bad enough, leaving him weakened for a few hours. But what he felt when he cast the Chaos Javelin was nothing compared to what he was going through now. This spell had been much more intense, much more violent.

He wouldn’t be casting this spell again anytime soon. But that was the least of his worries.

His mana channels were already weakened once, but now he doubled down and did something even worse to them.

Now that the immediate danger was gone, James really started feeling the pain.

Having healed Helios to the point he was stable, Lunaris looked at James. She noticed his anxiety and pale face immediately. Inspecting him with her eyes, she noticed his hands.

“Oh my God, why didn’t you say something sooner?!” She leapt at him, rushing to heal his hands as soon as possible.

As soon as hear healing magic touched him, it felt like a wave of relief washed over him. He hadn’t really noticed it, but his hands had been shaking involuntarily. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so hurt normally, he was suspecting that his hands were this damaged because the curse amplified the damage.

“You’re crazy, you know that? Silly man.” Lunaris shook her head and sight. “You shouldn’t hide your pain from us.”

Helios, having finally regained a bit of his strength after pushing himself way beyond his limits during the fight, approached James as well.

“You proved to be a tough son of a bitch as well. A real man. Well done, mate.” Helios smiled and wanted to shake his hand. But it was too damaged for that, so they just looked at each other and nodded. They could see the mutual respect and admiration for their willpower and strength of their character in each other’s eyes.

Lunaris healed James and Helios for a while, alternating between the two of them. As eager as they all were to leave this damned place, she wouldn’t let them leave until she was happy with the state of their wounds.

Once Lunaris was mostly done with the healing, she hugged the two of them.

“You crazy boys need to be a lot more careful from now, ok? I’m tired of having to repeat myself over and over. I’ll kick your asses harder than the monsters did if you don’t take defense more seriously, ok?” She smiled and jokingly gave each of them a light slap.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your mana channels.” Lunaris added. “They hurt, don’t they? Try to use some magic.”

James tried conjuring a simple fireball, but he couldn’t. He almost collapsed from the pain.

“I knew it. Damn it, you keep surprising us with your power, but I wish those were the only kind of surprises you were giving us. Instead, you also find brand new ways to injure yourself!”

Lunaris admonished James, but then she smiled and tussled his hair. “All right, you did what you had to do. But seriously, be more kind to yourself in the future. If not for yourself, do it for us, ok?”

Even with Lunaris’s healing, James felt like he had been run over by a truck. Every inch of his body was sore. Every few minutes it felt like a bolt of lightning was running through his every nerve, making him spasm uncontrollably for a few seconds.

Lunaris was so worried that she kept inspecting him. “There is some good news. There’s no permanent damage it seems. But you’re going to feel awful for a few days.”

Having been healed to the point Lunaris was happy, the trio could finally leave that wicked place.

They didn’t have to walk far. The dark figure had been intentionally blocking the way to the elevator.

But this wasn’t an elevator like any James had seen before. It was unnecessarily tall, easily five times his own height. Its originally black doors turned an eerie shade of crimson by the bloodstains. There were even multiple large pools of dried blood on the floor. Which was great, comforting news for someone about to step inside it.

“I’m tired of this place, don’t tell me there’s another ‘kerfuffle’ waiting for us?” James sighed.

“No, I doubt it’s anything like that. The elevator is definitely a safe space. I wouldn’t worry about the blood.” Lunaris answered and winked. “The elevator must have been something that attracted every monster on the floor at some point or another during their existence in this realm. So it’s a spot where a lot of fights took place. Unsurprisingly, the strongest thing in this place made its camp next to it.” Lunaris had really grown to enjoy sharing her knowledge with James, who alternated between being smart as a whip and as clueless as a newborn baby.

Lunaris put her hand on the elevator and infused some mana into it. The elevator activated, the long dormant machinery started humming as soon as Lunaris touched it.

“We’re in luck, I’ve seen this kind of design before. Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how it works! It will open after it confirmed that we’re not any of the monsters locked in here.” Lunaris stated.

Helios and James were happy to hear the good news, and they were very impressed with how knowledgeable she was. They even started clapping for her. Lunaris smiled and blushed.

“Stop it you fools, that’s embarrassing.” She giggled.

The guys smiled. Although their clapping was genuine and respectful, the fact that it embarrassed her made it even better.

The elevator soon opened and they stepped inside. It seemed even taller from the inside than it looked from the inside. Although it was much narrower than James would’ve thought, it was barely wider than a normal elevator.

“Did they need to make it this tall? What’s the point? Are there races in this world that are tens of feet tall or something?” James exclaimed at the weird architectural decisions.

“I can answer this!” Helios replied, wanting to show that he too was knowledgeable. “It’s quite simple, actually. Some mages are just weirdos, that’s all.”

James looked at him and gasped incredulously. “You’re saying someone built an elevator so tall that I can barely see the ceiling just for shits and giggles?”

“Yep. You heard me, some mages are real weirdos. And the longer they live, the weirder they get.” Helios shook his head, remembering some of the crazy old bastards he encountered.

“This is nothing, you should see some guys’ houses. They most common weird thing is when they spend fortunes covering their rooms in gold or diamonds or whatever, and then they can’t even live there cause it’s impractical! But then you have guys that make their houses spherical, or they make them underground with huge windows overlooking nothing but dirt, some even build their houses upside down, having to levitate everything all the time so it doesn’t fall to the ground. Completely pointless, even actively inconvenient, but they do it for some unknown, incomprehensible reason. And those are still just the relatively normal examples. So it doesn’t surprise me that some guy decided to make a needlessly tall elevator. Wouldn’t have even thought twice about it if you hadn’t mentioned it.”

Lunaris nodded, all too used to the eccentricities of some mages.

“All right, let’s hijack this puppy so we can get out of this hellhole.” Helios said gleefully. “I believe in you, Lunaris!”

Lunaris got to work immediately, she was just as eager to get out of here already.

She closed her eyes and sensed the mana around her. She quickly noticed a unique mana signature near the doors, which seemed to have the distinct feeling of spatial magic.

“This must be the main enchantment. This is what I need to tinker with.” She said confidently.

Carefully, she stepped closer to it and sent her mana inside the enchantment. With her eyes closed, she could see the inner working of the enchantment.

She frowned involuntarily. While the complexity of the enchantment was to be expected, it was still unpleasant to have to deal with something like this after fighting monsters for this long. She just wanted to go home and rest.

“You okay, Lunaris?” James asked after seeing her frown.

Lunaris sighed, but then she clenched her fists confidently. “Yes, it’s fine! I can do this!”

James and Helios had no idea how to work that thing, so they let Lunaris take care of it.

“So… what do we do in the meantime?” James asked.

“Well, nothing we can do but eat I suppose.” Helios laughed.

They felt a bit guilty eating and taking it easy while Lunaris was working hard, but their wounds excused their behavior. The guys pulled out all the good stuff they still had left in their storage and started snacking.

“Oh, this stuff is really tasty!” James exclaimed. He could feel his wounds healing slowly because of the enchanted food. He still had jolts of pain all over, and he couldn’t cast anything, but the food was so good that it took his mind off it.

Helios smiled and nodded, stuffing his face as much as he could.

By the time Lunaris was done, Helios and James were lying on the floor of the elevator with their stomachs ready to explode, having eaten almost everything they had.

“My god, you’re pigs!” Lunaris said with a smile.

“Don’t worry, we saved you some.” Helios replied gleefully.

“Wow, did you succeed already?” James asked and burped, barely able to get the words out after swallowing such an enormous quantity of food. He justified his gluttony with the fact that he had been battling one strong foe after another, but by the third burp he knew he had pigged out a tad too much.

Lunaris chuckled at James’s incessant burping and then replied. “Yes, I’m done! Let’s get out of here!”

The guys with their oversized stomachs struggled to their feet. With a final touch, Lunaris sent some mana into the elevator.

“And we’re off!” She exclaimed.

The elevator shook heavily, almost knocking them off their feet. They had to grab each other to keep themselves from falling as the elevator shook uncontrollably for what felt like several minutes.

Lunaris was knowledgeable, but she wasn’t exactly an expert at spatial magic. She did what she could, but comfort during their travel wasn’t something she could guarantee.

The elevator was not only shaking, but it seemed to be rotating uncontrollably. Luckily, the two pigs that gorged themselves so much had strong stomachs. Once you’ve experienced the smell of burnt slime, nothing else can make you vomit.

The shaking and rotating of the elevator was extremely confusing. All they could do was hold onto each other and hope it would end soon. Helios was the most stable of the three because his whirlwind skills made him used to such spinning, so the other two held onto him.

Eventually, the elevator stopped. When it did, they all collapsed to the floor, their heads spinning. They didn’t even open the doors for several minutes, they just sat on the floor, waiting for their heads to stop spinning.

“I’m going to be really pissed if there’s some monster or something waiting for us when the doors open.” James said half-jokingly.

The doors opened and they found themselves outside, in the middle of nowhere. James had no idea where they were.

“Well, I guess I miscalculated a bit, we were supposed to be teleported to Hedonia. But this is good too, at least we’re out of that damned place. And it’s not that far from home actually.” Lunaris said cheerfully.

“Let’s just use some lesser teleportation scrolls to teleport back to Hedonia. I don’t feel like walking.” Helios said, tired from the all the fighting. “I just want to sleep as soon as possible.” They all shared that sentiment.

Lunaris and James nodded enthusiastically. Putting their heads on a pillow seemed like heaven on earth at that moment, and every second without a pillow seemed like torture.

They ripped some cheaper teleportation scrolls that took a while to activate, but they were finally back at Hedonia.

“We’re closer to my place, let’s just all crash there. I have plenty of bedrooms and I know for a fact you also don’t feel like walking another step.” Helios said.

They hurriedly agreed. As soon as they entered Helios’s house, each one of them went to a separate room and fell asleep in mere seconds.

Helios sent a quick message to his father through the Aetherweb. Even though he was exhausted, he had to inform his father about the agent that sabotaged them right away. Investigations had to be made immediately, although he most likely fled already.

James was very excited to finally have the time to go through his awakening. Usually, that kind of excitement would make him unable to sleep for days. But this time around, he fell asleep almost immediately, something nearly unprecedented for him.

With the trio’s journey to the Soul Grinder finally over, they slept like logs.

While James was sleeping, small mana discharges were radiating from him. Although his mana channels were heavily injured and he couldn’t even use spells for a few days, he had been ready to go through his awakening for a while. His power was almost bursting at the seams.