I shouted as I awakened. In my terror, I transformed into a Spiderilla and grabbed the nearest creature by the throat, threatening to squeeze the life out of it before the Dolosus Lupus wrenched my arms off of it and pinned me to the ground.

“subsidere, puer” one of the ancients called out, cutting through the mind-fog that came as I awoke.

“Sorry about that. Bad dream. I’m good now.” I said in gorilla-speak. The ancients thankfully seemed to understand and signaled to the Dolosus Lupus to let go of me. I shook my head to finish waking myself up as I stood. It didn’t take much, with all the adrenaline getting choke-slammed by a monster tends to bring.

What was that dream? Usually my dreams are nightmares of that night. But that dream was… Different. Maybe I’m over my trauma, and can dream like a normal kid?

Fat chance.

The ancient mentally transferred a mix of emotions consisting mostly of concern and amusement. Are they reading my thoughts again, or are those emotions regarding something that happened during my rank up?

Both, the ancient communicated, then gestured vaguely to the opening they had made to the terrarium edge.

No light poured in from outside as it usually did. The lights far in the distance that I assumed were meant to simulate starlight were dimmed, leaving the spell-ball as the only light source.

In addition, there was something weird about the air. Or rather, the mana in the air. It felt thinner. Less potent, but it flowed easier, as if something that was weighing it down was gone. Or at least lessened.

“So you’ve removed a portion of the black sun’s will from the subspace.” I said aloud. “And now you can directly control the day-night cycle within the subspace. That’s good and all, but we expected that to happen. You should be happy, if anything. Not amused. Not concerned. What am I missing?”

The reclamation of this subspace is a foregone conclusion. It will become what we need it to. What’s interesting, however, is what your own personal powers seem to be developing towards.

You’ll understand, given time.

Want to expand on that? No? Of course not. They’ll gladly put on a space opera in my mind for a history lesson, but when it comes to concrete explanations, they’re cryptic as always.

* * *

I left my subspace once I thought the hobgoblin was gone, making sure to take the expendable form of a wolf in case it was still here.

It wasn’t, but the mess they made remained. Bits of rubble and dents in the cave where the hobgoblin smashed his hammer. Blood — my blood, or at least the blood of the rock worm’s form I took — covered the walls along with chunks of burnt meat. The sight was almost as atrocious as the smell.

The voice really must have taken its toll on the hobgoblin to go this far. I completely understand. It can be debilitating, even for someone like me who was only E rank for a few weeks. Speaking of which…

I held my paws over my eyes as the voice’s onslaught returned, pounding against my head. It's been getting steadily worse since the Oil Toad incident. Now, even in a non-monster form, it roughly equals the volume of when I first took a D rank form. What will happen if I turn into a monster? Will I be able to handle it? How much longer will I be able to operate outside of my subspace? Will I —

I shook my head. Draxis warned about this. Don’t ruminate on the voice when it’s actively affecting you. It’ll just make things worse. Concentrate on something else. Something that forces me to think. Something that makes me happy. Something like… my rank-up!

I close my eyes and peered inward towards my subspace, a task that normally takes a few good seconds and most of my concentration just to get a vague glimpse of. Instead, just the vague thought of my subspace brought the image of it straight to my mind. It was foggy, certainly, but much less so than it had been. I could almost see the outline of the largest terrarium where the labyrinth cave was placed. It’s roughly as clear as when I used the D rank polypus’s form back at E rank, and I’m not even in a space aligned form right now.

I wonder, does my space mana sense scales additively or multiplicatively? I can’t check without suffocating right now, but I should at some point.

Next, let’s check the mana I have at my disposal. If what I’m told is correct, it should be roughly the same in terms of “volume”, but twice as dense. Meaning…

I gather my mana into my jaw, and in an instant enhance it with a mana barrier, greatly strengthening my wolf form’s teeth.

Fantastic! My space mana used to take a few minutes to condense, but now it’s already dense enough to use for enhancements / barriers and spells. I’ll be able to make mana crystals in half the time. I’ll be able to cast spells on command! The space bomb will continue to be useless against D rank foes, but quickly making portals is a godsend. I’ll be able to actually use D rank forms for a reasonable amount of time without constantly intaking mana crystals. Better yet, I’ll be able to actually block attacks with body enhancement regularly. My mana used to condense too slowly to block more than one attack with it, meaning I had to be much more evasive than a monster — especially a force aligned like the Spiderilla — usually would be. Now, I could take blow after blow from an E rank, even with a non-monster form.

Though this is all wonderful, a more condensed mana and better mana detection is expected. But what are the abilities I got with my specialization? The ancients did hint that something interesting was happening with my powers.

Draxis went over a few potential abilities to look out for. The obvious one would be summoning. It would make sense, given that I have a subspace I can pull monsters from.

For Rhannu’s sake, I really hope it’s summoning.

I spent an hour finagling with the portals, trying to push or pull various creatures outside of my subspace, then trying to phase them out like I could objects, but to no avail. It’s not summoning. Damn it.

How about partial shifting? What happens if I try to shapeshift just a part of me? Say, switch out one of my wolf paws for a Dolosus Lupus paw?

...Evidently, nothing. Either it’s not partial shifting, or there’s some kind of condition to it. I’ll come back to that later. What else was there? If it were an unconscious form enhancement, I’d already know, but what about conscious form enhancements? There was a book at the library about space-aligned specializations. I skimmed through most of it, but it did mention a few things I can try out.

I visualized my paw expanding in place, then pulled at my mana like I was shapeshifting. My paw felt tingly, but ultimately stayed the same size. I expanded the parameters, trying to increase the size of my whole body, then repeated the process, trying to decrease my size. Finally, I tried to phase myself, parts of myself, and Rhannu (just in case) into or out of my subspace.

There goes that theory. Maybe I can cast spells of other alignments now? I’ll have to take a monster’s form, first… I really don’t look forward to finding out what the voice is like as a monster now, but I’ll have to deal with it regardless. I might as well try it now.

I concentrated on one of the uninjured D rank Spiderilla’s forms, and moved my mana to shift into it. My shapeshifting has been getting significantly faster as of late, but I still expected it to take a full minute for the process to actually start. Instead, my body started morphing within seconds.

Before I even had the chance to process that, the voice’s onslaught shattered all semblance of thought.

I tightly shut my eyes without pause, then started my mantra. The voice does not control me. The voice does not control me.

Quickly, focus on my breathing. Focus on something else. What was I doing, again? Testing powers? Sure. Let’s go with — The voice does not control me.

Geistig was right. Draxis was right. The ancients were right. I’m not ready for this. I need to slow down, find my bearings before my mind shatters. But it’s too late to go back. What can I do right now? Think, Sylas, think!

I pulled at my space mana, then constructed a portal. Not a large one, but big enough to fit my head into. I thrust my head into the subspace, hyperventilating for a few seconds as the voice dissolved from my mind.

When I opened my eyes, I was staring at an ancient.

“Yeah, yeah. I get it. You were right.” I belched. “Just give me a minute to get my bearings.”

If the ancients were petty enough to think ‘I told you so’, they didn’t show it. They only transferred some vague thought of sorrow to my mind.

“No need for pity. Whatever you’re doing to this space is help enough.” I said. It’s nice just having any place of refuge. I just wish I could use whatever they’re doing in here out there. Maybe make a shell of it around my brain… Wait, is that possible?

Before I could ask the question out loud, the ancients were already clearly deliberating. I overheard some stray thoughts of danger and unstable and it will know, which were eventually drowned out by temporary solutions over no solutions. They then turned their attention to me, and gave the affirmative.

With the plan in mind, I waited for the subspace’s neutral mana to gather into my head, separating it from the space mana that was already acclimated to the outside, crystallizing it around my brain in a mind barrier as it passed through, then pulled my head out of the portal.

The mind barrier held. The voice leaked through a bit, slightly louder than it was when I wasn’t in monster form at all, but it held. I could feel the mana that made it dissipating and destabilizing, and it would only last a few minutes, but it would at least hold.

Good. I thought my labyrinth adventure was over there, but it seems I’ll be able to keep going. Unfortunately, a bit of the voice is still leaking through. If the pattern holds, I’m guessing the voice’s influence will strengthen past the point this can handle it soon enough, but this at least buys me time to deal with it. Now where was I? Right, spells. Let’s see if I can make a force bolt.

I felt for my force mana, and moved it to my palm. It hummed, nearly glowing as it rose to the surface, but never left. I concentrated to push it out, but it just wouldn’t leave my body as my space mana could. My concentration did, however, shatter my mind barrier, forcing me to stick my head back in the subspace to reconstruct it.

Okay, so I can’t retain the subspace mind barrier in the same way as I can a regular enhancement. It’s just too fragile to handle while also concentrating on other spells. Also, casting other spells clearly wasn’t my specialization.

So then what is my rank-up specialization? I might discover it later, but there’s a chance I didn’t even get any. My powers were mostly designed to supplement the subspace, so perhaps the changes I saw in the subspace are all I get.

Still, I can’t really complain on the lack of qualitative changes. My biggest weaknesses were my small mana pool, my lack of consistent defenses, and my slow transformation. And now they’re gone. Just like that.

Sure, qualitative changes would have been nice, but quantity has a quality all its own. And I’m sure Geistig would say efficiency is the best quality of all.

But I still feel like I’m missing something. Like I’m forgetting something about rank ups. Something important.

Oh well, I’m sure if it were important, I’d remember it. In the meantime, I wonder how Prinkipas is doing?