Reaching level fifty came with a whimper, not with a bang. Day after day, we were hunting Withered, always vigilant to make sure their reactions didn’t change, even as we were pushing things, experimenting with ways to increase the damage we could deal to them.

If it wasn’t hunting individuals down to provoke a moderate response, it was breaking the mind of a Withered Skulker and using the broken thing as bait to lure large numbers into a trap. While setting up traps was a favourite pastime of Alex and I had some fun with it myself, we rarely used that trick. It just wasn’t worth it, not only was it incredibly dangerous but it was also plainly inefficient. If we wanted to break a Skulker, we had to hunt one down, stun it, carry it out of Racoon City while making sure that we kept enough of a margin of error to keep us safe, break the thing, taking hours of work, before carrying it back, setting up the trap until we finally got the fireworks.

It took almost two days, meaning we would have to kill some thirty, maybe forty Withered Hunters to draw even with the numbers we would put up by simply hunting them in smaller groups. As much as I enjoyed watching large numbers of enemies get torn to shreds by my magic, it just wasn’t worth it. At least not yet, maybe once I crossed the Divide things would be different.

The time spend hunting Withered was overall rather productive when it came to the acquisition of skill levels, though that might be due to my continuous efforts to study the Zevarra Agha, understand the spells within and improve my knowledge, alongside my attempts to learn proper enchanting.

By the time I hit the big five-oh, Ice Rune Mastery had reached level thirty-four, mostly due to continued usage against the Withered, Darkness Rune Mastery got to thirty-five, as one of my favourite ways to support my allies was inflicting rather unpleasant curses on my enemies, pushing the Mastery fairly fast. Blood Rune Mastery reached level thirty-two, allowing me to learn yet another Rune. I tried to regain the Hasten-Rune I had occasionally used on Mundus but because Rune was an advanced form of the Strengthen-Rune, I failed. Instead, I gained said Strengthen-Rune, which was nice but not quite what I wanted. It didn’t stop me from trying to use it in my enchanting, though sadly I wasn’t met with success just yet.

When it came to my primary non-Runic magic abilities, Darkness Magic made the greatest strides, mostly because I wanted to perfect the Shadow Stepping, putting a tremendous amount of effort into the skill. It was still incredibly difficult and draining, with severe limitations, but I was able to step most of the time, pushing the skill to level thirty-six with my attempts. Ice Magic fell a little by the wayside, only going up to thirty-four, while Blood Magic was used in conjunction with Death Magic to torture, gaining a few points and rising to thirty-three.

Similarly, all my other skills had progressed as well. Torturing creatures with Mind Magic into a state where they couldn’t do anything but scream and likely pray for their end was surprisingly good training, even if I was actively trying to limit my use of Mind Magic in that pursuit. Having it essentially lock itself into pure combat usage was not something I wanted to risk, even if the Lunar Madness had been useful on Mundus. I already had more than enough ways to end somebody, but permanently losing out on the possibly only way to heal a mind wasn’t something I wanted. Death Magic, on the other hand, was similarly useful and I doubted I’d ever be able to use it for anything not damaging, given that it was even damaging me, just by using it. So, I happily used it to break the Withered, though only in controlled circumstances. It was too dangerous a skill to use in combat, given how damaging it was to me.

Thus, Mind Magic only went up by one, though given that it had already been at thirty-six, now thirty-seven, that didn’t disappoint me. Death Magic, on the other hand, got up to fifteen and was progressing nicely, even with the limitations I had to put myself under.

But I couldn’t progress all my skills, there just wasn’t enough time. Neither Water Magic nor Water Rune Mastery had gained a single point, though given that they were merely used for showers and drinking water that wasn’t a surprise. Similarly, Wind Magic and its Rune Mastery had languished, gaining a single point each, but only because I used it to conceal us alongside my Darkness Magic. Still, sixteen for the Magic and eleven for the Rune Mastery wasn’t too bad.

But the biggest, numerical, gain was in the magic I used in my experiments to learn enchanting. Fire Magic, despite my dislike, was instrumental in softening the metal so I had an easier time manipulating the metal with Earth and Crystal Magic. It was rather fascinating, to explore the differences between those two related magics, and to see how the manipulation of the same material differed. Earth Magic felt rougher, or maybe rawer would be a better word, easier to create a larger difference with. On the other hand, Crystal Magic had an almost refined, incredibly structured feel to it, allowing me to create tiny changes though the precision meant I needed an incredible amount of effort to make a larger change. Still, it was fascinating and ultimately allowed me to raise Fire Magic to ten, Earth Magic to eleven and the newest Crystal Magic to eight, gaining a whopping six points.

Lastly, working with Alex had pushed Alchemy to level three while training with Li was now at the point that I was gaining skills myself, my Unarmed Combat rising to six and my Dual Blades to five. An interesting surprise but I wasn’t about to focus on that style of combat. Magic all the way.

The sensation of reaching level fifty was, however, somewhat muted. Destroying Withered Hunter number far-too-many wasn’t exciting, it had grown into a routine task. I had been contemplating trying and using large-scale magic to thin their numbers, maybe even wipe them out entirely, but there was always the fear that it wouldn’t work. Sure, I could harvest power with my Blood Magic but there were limits to that and limits to the amount of power I could channel, even with the help of a ritual circle.

In addition, there was a lingering fear that I might make things worse. We had yet to see Nethersprites on Mundus, but who knew what would happen if I used seriously large-scale Blood Magic? I wanted to destroy the Withered, not create another threat or push the Withered to become something that we couldn’t fight against. For now, limited fighting was the answer, repeated fights, as we gained EXP in a normally utterly impossible way, even if we had to be constantly on our guard.

But now, with level fifty reached, I was starting to wonder, should we try continuing on, maybe until Lia, or even Alex, reached fifty as well? Silva had it easiest, she was at forty-nine, though only just, leaving us with a day or three of killing. Lia, on the other hand, was only at forty-five, meaning at least another week of grinding. Sure, her lower level meant she gained more overall EXP, as the enemies were closer to her level, and also more by percentage because she needed less EXP to reach the next level than me. That allowed her to catch up but she had been weeks behind us.

And Alex, they were even further behind, though their progress had been rather insane, thanks to our constant battles, but it wasn’t instantaneous, thankfully. I remembered the incredibly unpleasant sensation of gaining too many levels too quickly, that wasn’t something I wanted to experience. Well, that wasn’t true, I’d love to gain the levels, just without the pain.

Alas, I doubted there was any enemy in our world that would give me enough levels to make me sick in that way, or rather I hoped so. It would make my plans to be secure through fear a whole lot harder, though it could possibly open up an opportunity.

Killing that enemy and making myself out to be the hero, to bathe in the adulation of the masses.

As quickly as that idea came, it died a quick and painless death. There was no way anyone would see me as a hero, my inherited traits made sure of that, even if I ignored my personality.

No, it was better to be seen as a monster too powerful to be attacked than trying to be the sympathetic hero. And with level fifty reached, and having retreated to our lair without trouble, I would challenge the first divide during the next Witching Hour, when the night was deepest. There was a part of me that wanted to wait for the Full Moon, or maybe a new Moon, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to try binding myself to the moon again.

There was another power, one that was far closer to me, the Touch of a Dragon, lingering on my body and soul. It would be the power I planned to seek out.