“What took you so long?” Wanyi’s voice pulled him out of meditation. He had heard approaching footsteps half a minute prior, but it was still good having Wanyi confirm that the other two had returned.

  “Look at this.” Shinnya grinned, revealing a spherical object in her palm. “Not of the highest quality, but it’s a core. I have a good feeling for this delve …”

  Her voice got lower and lower at the end seeing Wanyi pull out two cores. Seseguri’s face went from having a beaming smile to filling a distorted expression in a second.

  Looked like the reason they didn’t come back sooner was because of that core. Zalanir wouldn’t want to ask for the details, as that didn’t matter. Those two were still in one piece, small bruises and freshly blood smear on their armor, but overall, their conditions were no different compared to the start of the attack.

  He was enjoying their bickering with Wanyi over the cores when Shinnya turned her attention toward him.

  “So it’s your skill that nets us the two cores? The one which humiliated Seseguri?”

  A soft grumble and a tsk came from the man’s position, but that was it. Shinnya, on the other hand, used her hand to half cover her grinning mouth after finishing the sentence.

  “It’s all luck. Wanyi seized their attention, so I had time to charge the attack.”

  “That had nothing to do with the fact that you had a ludicrous powerful skill,” Shinnya pressed.

  “Same for your fire magic.” Zalanir shrugged.

  “No, it’s not. My skills are strong, but they burn and can’t one shot a monster. We have to sync our attack perfectly, and only at the sixth try did we get this core. Even so, luck played a major factor.”

  Wanyi joined in the conversation as well. “My thoughts exactly. That lance attack of his did a number on those rats. Maybe …” She paused for a second, then shot him an intense look, like a customer who just got their first five-star meal served on the table. “How many times can you use that attack, full-power?”

  “Consecutively? Six to seven, I guess?” He got a sense of what they were at, and honestly, he liked that as well.

  “Great. Rest now, and let’s hunt the next horde of rats.” Wanyi clapped her hands, a devious look perched on her face.

  Zalanir stayed focused, not only on the shimmering lance, which was getting bigger and bigger by the second, but also on all the specks hovering around like glowing ambers hovering around a campfire. This time had to do. So close. He could taste it.

  Stop being stubborn!

  Sound affinity. From the moment he picked Sound Sense, this formless and tasteless magic had become the air to him. Accessibility became a non-issue, as he could grab it from his heartbeat alone. Never a moment that there wasn’t any sound swimming inside his ear canals, to the point he had learned to filter junk passively just to keep himself sane.

  But that was all he did. Being stupid and ignorant to recognize its potential. Up until now. Buying these four books had been his best investment to date, hands down, as now he knew why his ambient magic practice was abysmal.

  All the sounds had been dancing around him all the time, begging him to grab and utilize, but all he did was ignore them for affinity-less, pure magic. No wonder it was hard to control them.

  With a strong jerk of invisible threads, finally, the specks answered his call. They flocked into the gleaming magical weapon floating above his right shoulder, feeding it energy and effectively reducing the process of charging the skill.

  Mimicking a serve motion, he sent the orange lance straight into the pile of rats being restrained by his groupmates. They synced well with his motion, spreading out in time — perhaps a bit slow — to avoid the ground-shaking crash. Dust and pulverized rocks surged up, glided, and then scattered, revealing a collection of mutilated and crushed brown rats. Some still clung to their lives, but most didn’t.

  “Is it just me, or did you just cast that skill faster than usual?” Seseguri asked while patting his light vest. Each tap released a small burst of dirt, as if they had been clinging there waiting for this action to spring into the open air.

  “You aren’t wrong.” Zalanir grinned, not just for the praise, but for a particular notification as well.

  [Sonic Lance] modifications available

  Urgency — Uncommon: Allows the user to speed up the channeling time through the absorption of sound magic while leaving the damage unaffected.

  Essence: +17%

  Mana cost: +17%

  “Faster good, but I would appreciate it if you give us a warning earlier next time.” Wanyi dug through the carcasses and hoisted another core. It vanished right away as soon as it came into her hand, as if it wasn’t there in the first place.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “The next bit though, we would have to precook the enemies in advance. Need to pound them softer before the main chef arrives.” Shinnya incinerated the rest of the rats with a steady beam of fire until only crispy coal remained. The air was filled with a heavy, burned scent because of the action, but Zalanir had gotten used to it.

  For some reason, his red-haired friend — yeah, they were friends, right? — just preferred these over the reeking smell of decomposing rats. Both were equally bad, in his opinion.

  “What’s next? Need me to join now, or we can still go on with this?” Zalanir asked.

  “Not necessary yet. There are still rats in this area, but occasionally we will be greeted by some snakes and pangolins. Big ones, if we’re lucky.” Shinnya eyed forward.

  And lucky they got. After about an hour of continuously delving deeper into the dungeon and two hordes of rats later, Zalanir was now observing his groupmates having a bout with a black, dining-table-sized pangolin. Scales neatened and layered on its back like solar panels installed on a vast green farm. Every time an attack struck true, one of them glowed, deflecting the attack and registering no leftover marks. At least, not yet.

  Its attack pattern rotated between bouncing on the wall and swiping with its obsidian claws. Occasionally, it also stomped the floor, creating some kind of tremor effect to slow down its attackers.

  On the other hand, Wanyi kept on taunting the big beast by flashing her holy aura and the constant clanging from clapping her sword onto her golden shield. And she timed them well. The scaly anteater had just tanked two of Seseguri’s saw blades with its bulky arm and was almost on top of him when Wanyi intercepted. Like a rat, she ducked a tail sweep, slammed her shield onto its rear, and when it wheeled on her, repeated the clanging motion again.

  Zalanir knew she was strong going around with that massive shield, but her agility was impressive as well. She just didn’t need to display that much, always being the tank for the team and charging on ahead, but whenever she did, it was a treat seeing her maneuvering around the not-so-smart pangolin.

  The heat source on his right was strong enough now to prompt him to look over where a certain fire mage was conjuring twenty-ish fireballs. They were all floating behind her back, and he had no doubt that a simple command would send them all to rain upon the stout enemy.

  How long would she hold on to those? He wondered.

  As if being fed up with Wanyi’s trick and Seseguri’s mediocre massage, the pangolin shrieked; its war cry moderate but piercing. Something punctuated deep into his mind, rendering him shivering and paralyzing for a second. Then, the beast curled up, turning itself into a massive orb of death, braking and spinning for a few rounds, and then it balled.

  You motherfucker!

  Zalanir dashed to a nearby wall, perpendicular to the enemy’s attack, though didn’t look like he was its target. It was Shinnya with her mass of levitating fireballs. Zalanir was simply in the course of the bulldozing ball for being close to his friend.

  Shinnya, who was the slowest of the group, couldn’t make it out. Not like she intended to. Instead, she conjured another ball of fire — the twenty-third — and bombarded the beast with all of them. It was a showdown between those two, with the fireballs kept on hitting and the pangolin continuing its roll.

  Zalanir braced and readied himself, bending down with his hands patting the floor and his right foot pressing against the wall. When there were only ten of them fireballs left, he activated Wind Rush and lunged his body forward, hugging Shinnya and dragging her out of the way. The big spinning orb was in the air now, and it was obvious that she couldn’t stop the charge. Where his arm was, her skin soft, her body light, and a diffused yet luculent lychee flavor wafted into his nose from her short, cropped red hair.

  A loud bang, reinforced by a violent shake of the floor went off where they were just a second ago. A shroom of dust and dirt formed, populating the air and washing over their spot.

  “Thank you, but can you let go of me?” The slim body in his arm twitched, and a tender voice rang.

  “Oh, right, sorry.” Though reluctantly, he had to loosen his arm. Not gonna lie, it had been a while since he felt anything similar. Hard to find skinship in a fighting pit, and definitely not when a bunch of cultists were chasing and imprisoning him.

  He snapped out of the sensation. The fight wasn’t over yet.

  Wanyi charged in, slamming the shield down and bathing them in her warm, holy aura. Now he knew this was a restorative buff to hasten their natural recovery, kinda similar to Meditate but with lesser effectiveness, he nodded and shot her a grateful smile.

  “Keep on attacking. It was weakened now,” Shinnya shouted and erected a ring of fire, trapping the monster in the middle.

  True to her word, after the dust settled, he could see some of its scales were peeled and shredded. A particular patch right on its left collar had turned dark red. Scorched? Had to be.

  The beast wailed, but before it did anything, four saw blades sliced its back, driving it snugging down and squealing even louder. Scales felt off one after another, exposing the pinkish skin underneath.

  If it was a somewhat even fight prior, now the pangolin was just a sitting duck waiting for the eventual moment to come. Instead of just annoying the beast and keeping a distance, Wanyi lurched into point-blank range, pressing her shield and limiting its movement. There was a moment when the pangolin tried to dig into the ground with its obsidian claws, but Wanyi just rammed her shield onto it, giving the beast no chance to accomplish that.

  “Charge your attack and keep it for five seconds,” Shinnya said, her hand maintaining a beam of fire sticking to and scorching the defensive anteater.

  Zalanir started the channel, proactively delaying the absorption of ambient sound magic as he counted down the second, and then skewed the beast through the exposed neck with a gleaming lance.

  After the dust cleared up, with no scales there to protect — Zalanir was sure that even with the scales, Sonic Lance would still penetrate, just not sure about the kill — the beast ceased any motion, and cocked its head to the side while blood spraying out from the big hole and numerous wounds on its body.

  You have slain [Sandspin Anteater — Level 61]

  Seseguri cut open its lower body and took out a gleaming black core. Instead of a sphere, this one had the shape of a scale, much bigger but looked exactly like those on the pangolin’s back.

  “How’s everyone doing?” Wanyi asked, leaning onto her massive shield.

  “Let’s rest for a bit. I need to recoup some of my mana,” Shinnya said, then dropped down on her butt and started meditating immediately.

  Zalanir went there hoping to find a piece of soul left from the monster, but there was nothing. Perhaps this one was still too low-level to have its soul manifested, or that it did have but too weak to withstand his Sonic Lance? Maybe these three souls from the birduomera, the blazethatch stag, and the creature of darkness that he caught in the final summon had more than what met the eye.

  Zalanir was also a bit sad that he didn’t gain another level, considering how high level the anteater was. Being in a group like this guaranteed the kill, but the reward sucked.