Newly raised jagged stone walls enclosed the camp on three sides, with the fourth side opening into a narrow passage that could turn into a funnel for any creature trying to chase them back into their base.

  The ground was still stained in places where blood had soaked into the dust, but that wasn't a primary concern right now, as they’d been busy rebuilding the defenses.

  By midmorning, the place was almost unrecognizable.

  “We need two choke points,” Raphael said, tapping the canyon map. Nick had added a few details by scouting with the owl figurine, and now they had a good idea of what changes the dungeon had made. “There is a risk of being locked in, but that still exists with just one. I want them both trapped to hell and back anyway, so we might as well give ourselves more room to maneuver.”

  Willow grunted and began modifying the ward scheme she had been working on.

  Nick looked down at her work and saw that, as he had come to understand was her preference, she was building a series of layers. Kinetic barriers to buy them time against sudden attacks, sensory wards that extend deep into the ground and high into the sky, and magical protections designed to keep them safe from anything the dungeon might throw at them.

  It was an ambitious project, one he would have normally thought was beyond her, but with a leyline so close to the surface, she only needed to anchor the wards to the ambient mana, and they’d barely require maintenance.

  Lina, Joran, and Mikel managed the trapping, transforming the entire area into a murder zone.

  Clay disks, invisible pressure mines, and beads of green fire were concealed within rocks, beneath bushes, and even tucked into folds of space that Raphael opened for them.

  In terms of raw power, none of them could compare to Nick, but watching them work together made it clear why Tholm had chosen them.

  They were all artificers of some kind, and while they were skilled enough mages to fight as frontliners if necessary, their true strength was in preparation.

  Malik and Yvonne followed Raphael’s orders, dragging slabs of stone into waist-high walls and bracing them with scavenged timber, setting angled barriers at choke points so anything charging in would be forced to split and slow.

  Monte and Terence were acting as lookouts, standing above the canyon to make sure nothing would interfere with their work, since they had little to contribute.

  And Nick sat on a boulder, keeping an eye on the energies of the dungeon. The sudden surge from that morning had settled over time, but he couldn’t forget it or what it signified.

  That was probably an adventuring party being wiped out to the last man.

  He took a deep breath, cycling the [Stalking Gait] to stay calm, and extended [Empyrean Intuition] outward. This time, however, his goal wasn’t to track monsters. Others could do that for once. No, he wanted a clearer sense of what their team was capable of before they went any further, so he focused his senses on them.

  Since familiarity made it easier to recognize different energies and get more accurate readings, he had only achieved a surface understanding so far. Now, however, he was confident he could gather precise data, so he focused on Raphael first.

  His aura had grown even more since they left Long Reach, as had his mastery over space. He’d always been skilled, but gaining some battle experience helped him smooth out the rough edges.

  He’s just reached level sixty. His mana is the second highest after mine, and his refinement is incredible, but that’s expected from an Archmage’s senior apprentice. He’ll do well.

  Willow was next. She, too, had grown, gaining more mana, but more importantly, becoming more solid, probably because she had focused on her strengths instead of wasting time expanding into other fields.

  High forties, he decided. Forty-eight? Forty-nine? Close enough that the next big fight might push her over.

  The other apprentices were a different matter. They weren’t bad, but it was obvious they wouldn’t become titans anytime soon.

  Lina’s mana had a steadiness to it now that told him she was in the low forties.

  There was a faint hollow in Mikel’s aura that suggested he had pushed his mana beyond his comfort zone more than once and wasn't operating at full capacity. Also in the low forties, but increasing faster.

  Joran was the most unique of the group. His mind possessed a certain viciousness that would have been impossible to notice from the outside, and he seemed to take great pleasure in burning his enemies alive, which allowed him to break away from the others a bit faster.

  All in all, Tholm’s apprentices were an exceptional bunch. A group of highly talented young mages, who, when working together, could handle just about anything the dungeon could throw at them.

  Malik’s presence was sturdier and older by at least a decade. Even with his age, he was just slightly above the average apprentice level, but he also lacked the resources that the Tower’s best could count on, so it was understandable. Yvonne was similar, but focused more on agility and lethality than survivability.

  Monte and Terence had kept up surprisingly well. Not that they lacked talent, but noble boys weren’t exactly known for enjoying slumming it in the wild, yet they’d endured and put in the work.

  Both hovered in the high thirties range, likely having gained a few levels since entering the dungeon.

  They’re all growing much faster than they would in controlled training. It’s easy to see why dungeons are so highly valued.

  In the end, his teammates were strong enough to survive and weak enough to reap the benefits without taking too many risks.

  Nick, on the other hand, was in a somewhat different situation.

  He’d leveled up to seventy-one last night, and the satisfaction of it still lingered, but the pace had become brutal. Hundreds of thousands of exp were now barely enough to register, and if what Calder had taught him was correct, it would remain that way for quite a while.

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  It wasn’t just that he needed more exp. The makeup of his very soul needed to change, and that required a lot of energy. Until the crystallization was complete, he’d have to grind for every level.

  His father had crossed the gap to Prestige within months of deciding to train hard again. That seemed impossible on paper, since if an eighty-something veteran could suddenly reach Prestige without outside help, everyone would have done it. Hell, Calder would have had no reason to betray them if that had been the case.

  But it was true Eugene had been stuck for years despite the long hours of training and the many monsters he faced from the Green Ocean.

  Most of the crystallization, Nick suspected, had happened during those long, frustrating years when growth sluggishly ground to a halt. Then, once the foundation was in place, the final steps could be taken with enough risk, conflict, and blood.

  The truth is, how many people who have essentially given up would want to go back to a life of bloodshed and constant danger? Not many; that’s why, even after their crystallization is complete, they don’t move forward. They forgot their Path.

  Levels, Path, and soul. All three elements had to be achieved simultaneously; otherwise, no matter how much effort people put in, they could not advance to Prestige.

  Now that he had a clearer understanding of what he needed to do, he decided that the first step would be making sense of the mess that had become his spell arsenal.

  The list looked good. He was ignoring all the one-time rituals he’d cast, of course, but those were more situational and wouldn’t help him to figure out what he could use at any time.

  And yet, he felt the same cold certainty crawling up his spine that he had felt when facing the overwhelming presence of the Greater Demon back in Inari’s temple.

  No matter how wide-ranging his spells might have been, or how talented he might have been, achieving a high level of mastery in a tenth of the time the average mage would have needed, it still wasn’t enough.

  His traits only solidified that sensation.

  His status was no small achievement. Reaching level seventy-one provided him with enough mana to power most of the rituals he had created, as well as many he learned about in his previous life, and his Trait gave him the control needed to wield them effectively.

  Perhaps it’s time.

  He closed the interface and stared at the canyon walls.

  The figure guarding the Well in Calder’s memory had been blurry, but its presence made Nick’s instincts recoil.

  He didn’t have the time or the luxury to grind his way into Prestige and match its raw power, not before House Hone sent someone they couldn’t handle, or the dungeon stopped messing around with its food.

  This meant the answer remained the same as it always had been.

  Do what other mages won't do. Break any rules necessary to win.

  He looked down at his hands. He’d been cautious in this world about bringing too much of Earth into it.

  Earth’s occult traditions had always been full of longing, hunger, and terrible beauty, and the powers they invoked were uncomfortably close to demons.

  He’d used fragments of those concepts before, symbols, but only once had he dared cast a Greater Ritual, and that was only because the circumstances provided as much safety as possible.

  I justified my choice by thinking I was too weak at first and that there was still too much of the local magic to learn later. But those excuses no longer hold.

  He now had tools his grandfather could only have dreamed of.

  [Blasphemy], to keep his mind his own. [Arcane Circuitry], to endure the strain. The Shard, to safely wield powers that could tear apart any mortal.

  And, tucked away in his spatial ring, where he had hidden it after realizing what it meant, was the Rose Cross, an artifact that imposed Law onto chaotic concepts.

  Nick’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, suddenly aware of how close he’d been to crossing a line he hadn’t wanted to recognize.

  [Call of the Void] was a good start, but it wasn’t enough alone to face the horrors.

  He needed to delve deeper into the Abyss, and he didn’t even have to rely on ancient traditions to do that. His grandfather’s masterwork would suffice.

  Ten points.

  Ten names.

  Ten anchors.

  The Tree of Life.

  The Sephiroth.

  He could almost hear his grandfather’s voice, amused and sad at once, talking about the Great Work as if it were a joke the universe told at humanity’s expense, how he’d understood its mechanisms only when Earth could no longer sustain it.

  Here, it might not be quite so impossible, Grandpa.

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