Before someone could come check up on him, Lev hopped on a few barrier platforms and moved out of the surprisingly deep crater. A few tugs were enough to fix the wrinkles in his suit, the enchantments ensuring it returned to peak condition immediately.

  "I'm fine," he announced with a chuckle, walking towards Jared, whose jaw remained dropped.

  "… I-"

  "I agreed to the test too, you know?" Lev cut off the gravity mage. "Besides, I'm completely unharmed."

  He spread his arms out to prove the point. The jacket and pants were clean and pristine, courtesy of the self-repair enchantment, and there were no wounds on his visible skin, either.

  "Let's just… not do that again," Jared shook his head, a smile finding its way to his lips. "So, how did I do?"

  "You still have to ask that?" Lev laughed back. "My strongest defense fucking exploded. How do you think you did!?"

  The gravity mage just shook his head again, more regretful than anything. Lev wanted to say more, but then decided against it. If his armor was even 90% as strong as it currently was, he very well could've died from that attack.

  Banishing those thoughts, he reformed his base armor, took flight, and landed near Jared. "How much mana did you use?"

  "About half," came the quick reply. "That went way better than I expected."

  "Mhm," Lev nodded, similarly lost in thought. "Why is your mana so offense-oriented, though?"

  "Ah, my skills have become more flexible, but they remain the same at the core. My class started with kinetic energy and used that in small, fixed patterns. The gravity mana also works on those 'rip and tear' principles."

  "Rip and tear," Lev echoed, liking the term. "So, anything else you want to test?"

  "Not right now. I would rather save mana and let it regenerate. It takes way longer now, apparently, because I don't have any boosts to regeneration."

  … That completely slipped my mind. How the hell?

  He didn't let the thought show on his face and nodded. They both then turned to Asta, the final member of the team, who just shook his head. The mage wasn't interested in testing himself against Lev, and he wondered why.

  The choice wasn't his to make, so he put the matter out of his mind.

  ****

  The next few days passed in peace. Lev let the Master team fight to their hearts' content, testing the ins and outs of their evolutions.

  He himself refrained from taking part, letting the non-combatants earn levels through the cannons and the other platinum hunters through fighting normally. Instead, Lev worked on training with his orbs and with shadow mana.

  So far, he had made zero progress in anything meaningful. Shadow mana didn't work with his mana slash skill, it was strangely useless for his barriers even when imbued, and it required very specific tools to be used in general. Given the lack of skills that could utilize it, he wondered how to use the exotic mana.

  What is shadow mana known for? Stealth first and foremost. Other than my Shroud of Darkness rune, I have nothing else that I can use it on. Maybe imbuing my armor with shadow mana in tandem will improve the stealth, but that's overkill for my current level. What's next? Shadow bolts sound nice and all, but that's a general skill of questionable usefulness. The attack will no doubt be pretty strong. It will just require far too long to gain that skill.

  It was pretty disheartening how little he could do with such a valuable converter. Lev's hopes of finding a matching light converter were also dwindling, chiefly because he couldn't think of any uses for that either beyond illusions.

  The use he did have, though, was improving the mobility of different things. Shadow mana, when imbued, made his flight smoother by counteracting some of the resistances. For individual barrier constructs, that was far too costly.

  His armor was the perfect candidate. Creating a second layer on top of it with the best runes and formations for increasing speed would allow him to also utilize shadow mana for the same purpose, finally letting him actively use the converter.

  One training orb hovered in front of him as he considered his options. Fifteen small lightning darts were flying around in its fourth layer, the highest he could manage with his current attributes and skills. Keeping fifteen of the bolts running through the layer for just as many minutes was also the last milestone before he added more orbs into the mix.

  Seven minutes had already passed, and his mind was starting to feel the strain. Lev didn't even register the pressure as his focus sharpened, banishing all distractions completely.

  Ten minutes passed before the strain could no longer be ignored. It pulsed in tandem with a growing headache, which was pushed to the back of his head all the same. By the time he reached the fifteen-minute mark, Lev felt… relatively fine.

  That brief scan of his mind almost made it all fall apart, though he quickly dove back into the task with renewed focus. The exercise lasted for another two minutes before tiredness saw the bolts all smash into each other, almost destroying the layer completely.

  Seventeen minutes with fifteen bolts. Pretty damn nice.

  A system notification chimed when he was done, fueling the satisfaction even further.

  [

  Consistent Mana Channeling has reached 2nd Level 9

  ]

  The skill was almost at the level cap, but Lev knew that it was going to take ages to evolve again. While he expected it to do so during the Master rank, the achievement was still years, if not decades, away.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Before he could think about trying with multiple orbs, a communication message cut through his musings.

  "Lev, report."

  That's sudden, Lev thought to himself, replying immediately. "All clear. Nothing unusual has happened in the past few days. No signs of any impending danger, either."

  "Good, because something else came up. Where are you right now on the map?"

  "About a third of the way to the stronghold's location after the hills," he answered.

  "Melvine has already been informed about a natural treasure that has dropped in your Northwest. Two fourth-threshold monsters were battling above the continent, and a single feather found its way to the plains. Your task is to retrieve it and face all the bird-like monsters fighting over it."

  "How many, and what level?"

  "Expect a few weaker third-threshold monsters, none above level 600. They probably came here from the forest, otherwise, you would only face second-threshold monsters."

  "Why are you so sure that there will be monsters from the forest?"

  "Because they always show up. The ship's landing was also ruined by them. Never expect them to ignore you."

  The refugee ship? Lev wondered, noting that new tidbit. "I understand. How long until we reach it?"

  "If things go well, not that long."

  Communication was cut off after that, letting him stew in his thoughts.

  A feather of a fourth-threshold monster, and who knows how strong it was. What is it usable for, I wonder?

  He assumed the bone or similar material in the middle would be insanely durable, and the rest would go to… something. Lev really needed to broaden his horizons.

  Maybe it could be turned into a cloth of some sort? Stargazer's pole cover is made of a similar material.

  The uses were plenty, which made the material worth harvesting. He wanted to ask Drakys why the man himself didn't come to take it, but more likely than not, the Exalted was already present at the location and scouting for anything dangerous.

  Jumping out of his bubble, he landed on the first cart and approached Melvine. She, contrary to his expectations, showed no signs of boredom, happily guiding the horses.

  "How far are we from the drop?" Lev asked, sitting down on the cart's edge.

  "A few hours at most," she replied. "The Runic Warlord wanted us to retrieve it so we could observe how it reacted with your aura."

  Lev blinked. "Treasures can do that?"

  "No," she refuted. "It's your aura that is special. Who knows how it will react with something that is already calling monsters to its location."

  … That sounds pretty fucking scary. What if a fourth-threshold monster catches my scent?

  He doubted even the Exalted would be able to save him at that point.

  Shaking his head slightly, he jumped back into the bubble. Preparations were in order.

  First, he finished his four stacks of walls. A hundred of them in total, all of them were enchanted with the best formations before he started working on the next project.

  So far, he hadn't messed with core-powered constructs, solely because he hadn't needed them. Whatever the costly barriers could do, he could do the same with two of the normal variants.

  Now, however, things had changed. Lev was on track to fight one or more third-threshold monsters at the same time during pretty much every encounter, and that demanded use of that precious resource.

  Granted, he had way too many cores at that point, but it kinda stung to use money in the amounts he was about to.

  The first wall he formed was thrice its usual size. Standing taller than an average house's height, it was wide enough for Lev to fit inside. Before anything, Lev mentally moved it around, finding the weight to be negligible.

  This time, however, that wouldn't cut it. Manipulating the properties of his barriers, he raised the wall's weight to the maximum. Now weighing nearly a hundred kilograms, the construct was way better at absorbing blows and stopping their momentum.

  He debated creating layers inside the wall. The idea was dismissed quickly, for he didn't quite need the layers. After ensuring that there was nothing wrong with the base material, he started enchanting.

  A hole was created in the middle first, and he slotted a gray ripper's core inside. Using supportive runes, he first created a connection to every corner of the wall before Porous Constitution runes were carved. Five of them total, they covered one side of the wall completely.

  Given the width of the construct, there was more than enough space for further enchanting. Behind it, Lev took inspiration from his armor and recreated the absorption formation, one targeting a very specific set of runes.

  Using the best weight manipulation runes he had on him, a brand new formation took form. It was, at the core, exactly what the name implied, except with a secondary function of making the barriers more durable, the heavier they were.

  In general, Lev wanted to connect the absorption formation to the weight formation for the highest battlefield control. The moment an attack landed on his new modified wall, a portion of the force would be absorbed to make it heavier and tougher, exactly like a wall. That was also the reason he had made them so large. Making them difficult to move would make the monsters swivel around them, right into his waiting traps and attacks.

  All in all, the multiple formations were not remotely complex enough to pose a problem. While the individual runes were quite difficult to carve at first, he now had more than enough practice to breeze past them.

  Ten minutes later, he gazed at the first finished prototype. Flaws were present as usual, and his carving skill was screaming at him to fix the efficiency loss in several places, but he ignored that for now.

  Instead, he ensured that the formations were completely functional and summoned Stargazer from his ring. Raising her weight to a few hundred kilograms, he mentally held the wall in place and slashed at it. The glaive landed on it with a loud boom, resisting the attack with only a tiny chunk of the barrier breaking off.

  Lev ignored the negligible damage and peered deeper with his above-average Perception. A decent portion of his force was absorbed, which was the only reason a mundane attack could damage the wall.

  Once inside, the force was swiftly converted into pure mana. It was streamed into the weight manipulation formation, where it was further divided into two portions. The pure mana was utilized to both increase the weight and durability of the wall at the same time, resisting the remaining attack with heightened defenses.

  The absorption is almost too slow, Lev noted, brows furrowed. I can't even make them faster because it's not a matter of conductivity. Enchantments just have a minimum time of activation based on my Perception.

  He suspected that most people wouldn't be able to utilize the type of enchantments he usually did. Somehow, his armor absorbed a portion of an attack in the same instant it landed, which told him just how special it was. The wall was considerably slower in comparison.

  Either way, it was working as intended, and improving the formations would further improve the timing and efficiency.

  Taking out the core from the wall, he let it disintegrate and created a new one, changing the design a little. He was starting to realize that something so big wouldn't make for a good defense mid-air, and that he had plenty of defenses for that already.

  To that end, he made the bottom side of the wall into a sharper edge. After fully enchanting it with the same formations, he flew out of the bubble and brought the wall with him. Increasing its weight to the maximum, he stabbed it into the ground a few dozen meters away from the moving carts.

  The construct sank several meters deep due to the power behind his mental manipulation and its weight. To test it, he fired a pure mana slash from his glaive. It landed true in a blink, surprisingly not producing any fire from the collision.

  Instead, a small chunk of the ground the wall was embedded in was destroyed, yet it was far from enough to uproot it. The construct was also still whole, showing no damage from the potent skill, even if it was launched at low intensity.

  Hmm, I think I can call this one a success.

  The shieldwalls would serve him nicely.