Ashton sat down at the rooftop tables, with Clementine, Jacky and the others. The tables were covered up so even though it was raining, they could sit out here. It was a bit windy as well, but that wasn't a problem. The only important part was that it was quiet.

  He channelled the Backpacker and tagged all the items that he needed. Luckily, he basically had a complete awareness of everything in the bag whenever he did that, and he could trust that the spirit properly did what Ashton asked for.

  "All the bags are marked, I'll write down exactly what I need. Pick out the ones without any blemishes. That means, only the completely clear magic stones, and plants that are completely healthy," Ashton quickly said, grabbing his pen. He specifically had practice writing in the dark, so even if he was blind, it wasn't that hard to do. Maybe the lines weren't perfectly straight, but it should be legible.

  "... Why is your handwriting better when you're blind than when you're not?" Clementine asked, staring at the piece of paper. Ashton smiled and flicked the ashes off his cigarette.

  "I wonder. Now leave me alone for a moment, I need to concentrate," he said, calling over the wisp. Ashton had to somehow increase the precision of his ability to sense mana through the elemental. While he could write without being able to see, he couldn't draw a complex summoning circle like that. It was fine if it was a little fuzzy, but Ashton had to be able to sense the mana in the magic ink better than he did right now.

  If his spirit stat was a bit higher, Ashton would probably be fine. As your general volume of mana increased, your sensitivity should increase alongside it, and things would generally become more precise. He could roughly sense things written on paper, but it was mostly just blobs instead of precise shapes.

  But hell, with the wisp, there should be a way for his sensitivity to be much, much more precise. There was one way that Ashton was already considering. There was a particular spell that he knew about, but didn't know the spell circle of, that sent out a pulse of mana to get a precise idea of the area around you.

  If Ashton could find this spell through the Salesman spirit, he could place it into the wisp and hopefully shoot it out repeatedly to give him a better view of the world. Plus, that way, he might actually be able to 'see' beyond his channelling range again. Then again, whether that would allow him to read or not wasn't exactly clear, but that was left to be seen.

  But that was just something he was hoping for later. For now, he had to try out other things.

  First, Ashton wanted to test out his new 'Veil Mastery' skill more. It already allowed him to interact with his summons in much different ways, simply because of his new awareness of the veil. But that was just a base level. The one time Ashton actively tried to interfere with the veil, he managed to change the way that the wisp fused with other elemental magic.

  There had to be other things he could do. The veil still flowed around Ashton, and he could sense the world through it to some degree. Not particularly well, though. Just on its own combined with his spiritual sense, it was to the degree of being aware that 'something is there'. He could differentiate between walls, people, and cars and such. Ashton should also be able to tell an adult from a child, but he wouldn't be able to tell apart two adults or two children.

  But the veil itself was still there. It particularly seemed to react most strongly to the elementals. As beings that come from, and live within, the veil, that made sense. It seemed to react a little more to the spirits than it did to humans, too, but much less than elementals.

  Having the veil so clearly in front of him, Ashton ′could hold onto it well. He grasped it with his hand, and made it practically wrap around his fingers. For once, he was really taking his time trying to interact with it like this and figure out exactly what he could do.

  It wasn't like the veil was another source of energy, but it was still a mystical force with strong powers on its own. Ashton should be able to cast spells by interfering it, not that he had any idea how to make that happen. But it was a process that Ashton was happy to go through. Learning things about magic was always an exciting thing to him.

  And there was a hint already. What Ashton interfered with when turning the wisp into that special sort of air wisp was a part of the veil that seemed to exist within it. Well, not just the wisp, but all the other elementals, the spirits, the pen of insight, and from what he could tell, even the Spawn of Akrazoth.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  He could even feel bits and pieces of it in other people, and especially within himself. It was like a link that was connected to the veil directly, connecting his spiritual self to that part of the world.

  So, Ashton took hold of that link within the wisp. He could feel something. Some kind of potential for change. Like something was waiting inside of the wisp. Clearly, this was the 'advancement' stuff that he was going to deal with later. Ashton looked past that potential, instead focusing on the essence of the current wisp itself.

  The moment he did, and properly took hold of that link, Ashton was able to feel the wisp much more intensely than before. It was like he was aware of every individual tiny hair on his body, just that it wasn't his own form. He could feel each of the small particles of mana that made up the wisp's body.

  Within that, he could also feel the force spell that he had placed into the wisp. He was able to change the spell like this, and would be able to do so even at a distance. If Ashton practiced this well, he might be able to change out the spell within the wisp in the middle of a fight.

  But there was more. Now that he was channelling the wisp like this, there was an intensity about the world that wasn't there before. It wasn't that the mana he could sense through the wisp got clearer, just brighter. If before, it was like looking at the world through a night illuminated just by the moon, then now, it was like the sun had just risen.

  Frankly, it already helped a ton. He could more easily tell everyone sitting at this table with him apart, and he had a good idea of which material on the table was which, just from the mana they exuded. But the precision was still a problem.

  So, Ashton decided to add his other idea onto this. He took control of that sphere around him that represented his channelling range, compressing it.

  Almost immediately, he could see the change that he wanted. The world as seen through the wisp became smaller, but clearer. Once his channelling range was barely this table he was sitting at, he could recognise the faces of the people sitting beside him. It was still blurry, but barely so.

  As Ashton compressed it even more, things became perfectly clear. Of course, it was still just the mana. He couldn't see colour or shadows, just that magical essence. Regular writing was still invisible, and specific were hard to recognise, but the slightly magical ink that he used to write the note for the others earlier was legible.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Ashton placed his hands over his face.

  "Thank god," he groaned, leaning against the back of the bench.

  "Hm? What's up?" Clementine asked. His channelling range was too small to see her, so he extended it slightly to see the whole table again. She looked concerned. And only now did Ashton notice that she had bandages on her arm that weren't there when she left earlier.

  "... Did you get hurt when you ran away?" he asked her, and Clementine looked at her arm surprised.

  "Yeah, just a scratch though... it wasn't poisoned, either, so it's all good. Wait, can you see this?"

  Ashton smiled, mentally asking the Backpacker to get out a potion and some bandages. "A little. I'm not sure if I've explained it precisely, but by channelling my summons, I can use their powers, but just within a specific range. Right now, I'm using the 'Lesser Wisp' to sense all the mana within that range, though it's extremely blurry and dim." He grabbed Clementine's arm and started unwrapping the bandage, without even saying anything about it. The wound was definitely more than just a scratch, as he thought. He applied some of the healing potin to a gauze and bandaged her up again, while she was just sitting there confused. "By reducing the size of my channelling range, it looks like I can see things a lot more clearly. That means I can at least 'see' you guys for now. But well, nothing more than you guys."

  "Wait, so..." John leaned onto his hand. "You're not 'seeing', but 'sensing'? Like, everything around you?"

  "Mm-hmm."

  "... Everything?" Oliver asked with an anxious smile, and Ashton shrugged.

  "If you're asking if I have some kind of x-ray vision, then no. It's not that precise," Ashton said, slightly turning his head toward him. "But if you mean the magic stones you snuck into your pocket? Then yes, I could tell that even beforehand. Don't worry, you guys are helping me, and I've got plenty. Well, I lost out on like four hundred because I didn't have time to harvest them at the costco, but you can still keep some."

  The table grew silent, and even Paul, who had been diligently sorting through everything like it was the most fun he's had in a while, stopped what he was doing.

  "Wait, did you really take out all of them? You didn't just kill the 'boss' or whatever?" Clementine asked, startled. She already wasn't paying attention to her arm anymore.

  "Yeah, of course. The way I am right now, numbers are more of a threat than any single opponent. I couldn't have them all swarm me while I was fighting the boss, could I?"

  "... Huh. How strong are you?"

  Ashton thought about it for a moment. "Hm... If you want me to be honest, then I'll say that I'm at least the strongest person in the country. I mean, I was within the first hundred people to reach level 10."

  "Wait, what? You're within the first hundred people in the country to reach level 10?" Jacky let out, surprised. Of course, it was a bit surprising even to Ashton. It wasn't like others were too far behind. Everyone in their party, beside Oliver, should be roughly level 7 right now. It wasn't a huge gap, but it was a a gap nonetheless. But well, they were wrong, anyway.

  "Well, technically. But I actually meant that I was within the first hundred people in the world."

  The group stared at Ashton.

  With slightly narrowed eyes, Oliver grabbed a handful of magic stones on the table, and pushed them into his pockets.