I slowed my pace down as I took in the blue screens from the Weave.

  [ Rank Up!

  Your Spirit and Thauma Attributes have risen by one Rank.

  Your Illumination, Flare, Ritual, and Leadership Aspects have risen by one Rank.

  Spirit: Gold IV

  Thauma: Silver VI

  Illumination: Silver VI

  Flare: Silver VII

  Ritual: Silver V

  Leadership: Iron IV ]

  I whistled low. For all that I had expected to go up, Leadership wasn’t one of those. Had I even done anything leaderlike? I supposed I had sort of taken charge of the situation and resolved it myself. Maybe that counted?

  The other side of it was that I could feel the way I was being regarded by others. There was an extra layer of sensation accompanying me now. It wasn’t just the looks I got or the whispers I heard. Rather, it was almost like my Leadership Aspect was creating a weird link between me and everyone else there, through which I got some sort of “feedback” on how they all felt.

  It took me a few moments to understand that the link was a strange sensation of the level of morale everyone was experiencing. I could only describe it as a muted sort of excitement, an upbeat energy that added a minute spring to my step. Basically, morale was high right then.

  “You could have said you were going to do something crazy again, mageling,” Khagnio said.

  I smiled, glad to see they were all alright as the expedition finally relaxed from their battle positions. “Sorry. It just came to me all of a sudden, so there wasn’t much time.”

  “Excuses, excuses,” Cerea said. “For once, I’m on Khagnio’s side.”

  “Not you too, Cerea.” Ugnash was giving me a strange look, so I looked at him questioningly. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.” He smiled, though there was something a little wistful about it. “You’re outgrowing our little party here.”

  “Pfft, no way. You’re all Gold-ranked too. You and Khagnio can do stuff I couldn’t even dream of. Seriously.”

  “Ross.” Cerea’s voice was surprisingly gentle. “You’ve literally got the aura of one of those Gold-ranked monsters around you. You have its power. And that doesn’t even take into account the way you do your Rituals and everything…” She shook her head. “At a baseline, a minimum, your Aspects and Attributes are all a rank tier higher than what they should be.”

  “Why don’t you pat him on the head and give him a little prize too?” Khagnio said. “I don’t think mageling has been puffed up enough yet.”

  Cerea ignored him. “And that doesn’t even begin to account for how fast you keep growing. I remember you mentioning you got Compound Aspects—which in and of itself is an amazing achievement so quickly—but I had no idea you could do this.”

  She was staring around us, where all the dead bugs lay burning and melting. Where their remains were still falling from the sky.

  I didn’t know how to answer that. On the one hand, her effusive praise and awe made me kind of flush a little. On the other hand… was I really outgrowing Ugnash and the others too quickly? I wasn’t sure what the implication of that was.

  We were called into order pretty quickly. The expedition needed to move on. We couldn’t let more monsters arrive to impede us.

  I was pretty sure I looked extremely weird to the rest of the expeditioners when we all met back together. Cerea was right about my aura. Ghostly metal bug-dragon plates and wings were really making me stand out. My feet crunched through the burned and molten remains of the Steel Lurkers as everyone else relaxed.

  We didn’t have to worry about the Steel Tyrant. Se-Vigilance had taken care of it. She might not have been able to kill it, as the monster had performed a tactical retreat, but she had wounded it enough that it wouldn’t be an issue going forward.

  Even I had seen the tail end of her fight when the Steel Tyrant had rushed off into the Netherthreads’ embrace, streaming blood and bits of itself.

  The expedition regrouped quickly. Casualties were minimal, and the few who were too wounded were easily taken care of by the healer. That was why they were here, after all. The alchemists and other adventurers had already started the harvest though I got quite a few looks that weren’t awed. I had torched the monsters a little too much, unfortunately.

  “It isn’t an issue,” Se-Vigilance said to me while we waited to get going. “Most were hoping for loot to raise their profits from the expedition. However, safety comes first and foremost. I’d rather have many safe and poor expeditioners than a few rich and many dead ones.”

  That was a pragmatic way of seeing things. And I shared her viewpoint. Safety over profits, always.

  The Councillor looked at me knowingly. “As I said, I knew you would step up when you needed to.”

  I shrugged. “I’d have done it no matter where we were or who was present.”

  “I’m well aware.”

  We got going soon after. I didn’t fail to note a lot of the changes around me as I walked with my party. There were more people closer to us, more looks thrown in my direction. Khagnio joking about being a celebrity was really starting to make me feel self-conscious.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Not that every look was awed or impressed or some variation thereof. I was absolutely sure I saw some that were very calculating, and others that were almost predatory in a way.

  And then there were those that were outright challenging.

  “Say, Cultist Moreland.” The adventurer I had spoken with at the Adventurer’s Guild, the one who had wanted information about the Nether Vein, had come over. What was her name… right, Amiratha. “When this is all done, how about you and me go for a friendly little spar?”

  “This is the worst time to bring up something like that,” Cerea said, hissing almost as much as Khagnio, which impressed the Scalekin a great deal. He was looking at her like the proud master of an apprentice who had finally gotten something right.

  “How about we discuss that later,” I said.

  “Why should he?” Ugnash asked.

  “What was that?” Amiratha asked. “What do you mean, why should he?”

  “You heard me, Ami. Why should Ross fight you? What does he stand to gain?”

  She growled, not answering immediately for whatever reason. “Fine. We’ll make it worth your while. If you can beat me, that is.”

  “I’m going to hold you to it. If you don’t cough up at least thirteen thousand gold—”

  “Thirteen thousand? Are you nuts, you big oaf? Is your brain the size of your thumb to make up for how big the rest of you is?”

  Ugnash wasn’t deterred one bit. “You’re trying to take the time of someone who’s way above you, Amiratha. And you know it too.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Let me remind you that this is the man who opened this whole Nether Vein.” Ugnash’s voice shook with real pride. “This is the bastard that finally ended the threat of the Blight Swarm for good. The one who—”

  “Alright, alright, shitting Pits.” Amiratha scowled. She turned back to me, horn glinting threateningly. “I just want to make sure you don’t grow too big a head, no big deal, right? Just a friendly spar. But we’ll wager, like your big bodyguard wants—you beat me, and I’ll fork over half my profit from our current Nether Vein expedition. Sound good?”

  “And you don’t want anything in return?” I asked.

  “Beating the crud out of you is going to be satisfying enough, friend.”

  “…fine, then.”

  With a fierce smile, Amiratha tipped her head at me before leaving.

  “Best watch out,” Ugnash muttered as she disappeared. “She’ll pull out all the stops to get one over you. Her pride’s on the line.”

  Cerea and Khagnio were both staring at Ugnash. Even I was looking at him weirdly. It took him nearly a minute to register that.

  “What?” Ugnash said. “You never saw someone stick up for their friend?”

  “I also never saw you disagree with the bodyguard moniker.”

  Ugnash just grinned and continued walking.

  I shouldn’t have been too surprised. With the attention I was garnering, it made sense I was now in the crosshairs of others who had something to prove, for whatever reason. At least I hadn’t sensed any malice from Amiratha. Just a weird sense of determination.

  Our travels continued to be peppered with more and more fights. Different kinds of monsters assaulted us from within the covering of the Netherthreads.

  One of the most memorable was when we were attacked by slimy creatures that began and ended nowhere. They were more like a living flood of corrosive, gelatinous matter than an actual creature. I couldn’t damage them normally, though someone discovered they were weak to fire, so then I brought out Flare to torch as much of the monster as I could.

  There was another instance where we were attacked by strange puppets. They looked humanoid, if with a few too many limbs. The real issue was that they ranged in size from child-sized to easily twice as tall as the Councillor.

  With the way those ones rushed in and attacked us, with how chaotically they moved with no rhyme or reason, we all had to step up to fend them off. Revayne was the star of the show, pulling out all the stops to create an army of her own summons to counter the enemy’s seemingly endless tide.

  By the time several battles were done and we came to an actual pause, I had received some more rank-ups.

  [ Rank Up!

  Your Power Attribute has risen by one Rank.

  Your Gravity, Illumination, and Leadership Aspects have risen by one Rank.

  Power: Gold VI

  Gravity: Gold V

  Illumination: Silver VII

  Leadership: Iron V ]

  Hmm. I felt like it had been a while since I had received a new rank in Gravity. When was the last time I had received one for Sacrifice? I couldn’t recall. Gold really was a pain to get through.

  I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when we finally paused to take a proper break. According to the historian accompanying the expedition, it was over half a day since we had entered the Nether Vein. I wasn’t sure it really felt like that. We had only taken intermittent breaks here and there. Shouldn’t it have felt longer?

  Still, I was glad for the break though. I got to rest. In between the tension and the fighting, I could take some time to focus on just myself.

  “How’s your second mana core coming along?” Cerea asked.

  “I’m still trying to manifest it,” I said. I smiled. “Even now, actually. I’ve got a big store of mana right inside my head that I’m constantly feeding, and when I Sacrifice it, I can make it essentially redouble in intensity. I used to think of mana as like, regular matter, you know? Like you can only fill up a glass with so much water.”

  “Ah, I see. You’ve finally discovered you can fit more mana into one location if you’re capable of compressing it.”

  “Right. Exactly.”

  The benefits were pretty nice too. With more mana compressed into the same location, I was able to amplify the effect of my Aspects. That was, in effect, what I was doing with my Starburst Compound Aspect. Just instead of compressing regular mana, I was compressing Aspected mana before unleashing the overly potent cocktail.

  And it was that potency I was hoping to achieve with regular mana to kickstart my second mana core. I was a little insistent about it too. The power of breakthroughs. I might need it.

  A location like the Nether Vein was prime for a breakthrough.

  “Good idea to get it here if you can, mageling,” Khagnio said sagely, like he knew everything about it. “Farm the Pits-cursed Nether Vein for all its worth.” He glanced at Cerea and Ugnash. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of these nincompoops while you’re busy with your mana core crap.”

  “Hey!” Cerea said. “You’re the one who needs looking after, Khagnio.”

  “Please. I’m not the newbie here.”

  Cerea growled, unable to refute that point. I just laughed. It wasn’t often that Khagnio got one over her.

  In the middle of waiting and focusing on training up my mana core, I received a summons from the Councillor. Apparently, there was something I could assist with.

  “Would you mind going with the alchemists and a few other adventurers?” Se-Vigilance asked. “They wish to recover some more of the monster bodies before we head off, but it’s beyond the veil of the Klevacite torch we have.”

  I didn’t need long to connect the dots. “I see. You need me to repel the Netherthreads.”

  “If you would be so kind,” said the leading alchemist. “Strangely, there are others among us who possess Aspects related to light, including the Aspect of Light itself. Yet we’ve never had as much success in fighting back the Netherthreads.”

  “Alright,” I said. “I’ll go with you.” I grinned. “Provided you’ve got some ideas on why my Aspect of Illumination is so special.”

  “Illumination?” The kindly Ogre’s eyes widened. “That might explain it… How about we speak more as we travel?”

  Kindly, but still shrewd. I could appreciate that.

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  The adventurers accompanying us both bowed their heads just a bit at me.

  “We’ll follow your lead, Cultist Moreland,” the other adventurer said.

  I nodded. Time to head out.