Suddenly finding himself with thousands of Aura to spend, John focused on picking out what would be immediately useful for survival as he ran. First, he delved into the Spells and Skills menu, having all but forgotten he'd upgraded Arcane and Talent a while ago to heal himself.

Level 2 Spells:

Sigil Detonation: 1000 Aura

Earthen Armour: 1000 Aura

Scouring Steam: 1000 Aura

Burning Gale: 1000 Aura

Ice Grasp: 1000 Aura

Illusory Clone: 1000 Aura

Astral Projection: 1000 Aura

Phantom Hand: 1000 Aura

Force Push: 1000 Aura

Force Pull: 1000 Aura

Level 2 Skills:

Inhuman Stamina: 1000 Aura

Iron Fist: 1000 Aura

Eagle Eye: 1000 Aura

Danger Sense: 1000 Aura

Dual Casting: 1000 Aura

Athlete: 1000 Aura

Thief: 1000 Aura

Engineer: 1000 Aura

Rider: 1000 Aura

Ventriloquist: 1000 Aura

It took no time at all to process that information, since it was injected directly into his consciousness. He wasn't so much reading the interface as immediately knowing what information it held.

And so his eyes widened a fraction of a second after he'd mentally opened the Skill menu, and he immediately acquired Dual Casting without a second thought, praying it would do what he thought it would.

Dual Casting unlocked!

-1000 Aura

Something in his mind shifted. The energy that copied the shape of his brain warmed up, seeming to target certain areas in his grey matter, picking out specific neurons with surgical precision. Simultaneously, it sent a tendril down through his spine until it reached the area around where his sphere of mana was stored. A connection was established. Two areas in his mind sequestered themselves, and it suddenly felt like there were two mana sphere overlaying each other in his navel. A beat later came the familiar feeling of foreign information being implanted in his mind.

Pure triumph coursed through his veins, and it was only due to awareness of the people running behind him that he didn't let out a grin or cheer. That'd make him look weird.

Drawing on that new ability, John dedicated one part of his mind to Mana Sense, while with the other he cast Shadow Stream, trying to preemptively cover areas it seemed likely approaching monsters might cut them off from. Oily smoke streamed out from his outstretched arms, billowing out into small clouds wherever it struck. For a moment, he was tempted to upgrade it, but figured he had other priorities in that area.

Upgraded Soul Vision (Level 0 -> Level 1)

-500 Aura

Upgraded Soul Vision (Level 1 -> Level 2)

-1000 Aura

Upgraded Mana Sense (Level 1 -> Level 2)

-1000 Aura

Increased Vitality (Level 2 -> Level 3)

-400 Aura

Increased Strength (Level 2 -> Level 3)

-400 Aura

Increased Agility (Level 2 -> Level 3)

-400 Aura

Increased Mind (Level 2 -> Level 3)

-400 Aura

Energy thrummed through his body, working to accommodate all the upgrades. He felt like his soul was on fire, and the discomfort of his body shifting around was horribly distracting, forcing him to briefly slow his run. Doing so many at once without any time to adapt to the others had perhaps been reckless, but he felt justified.

In the circumstances, there was no time to wait around. Having people around was a double-edged sword; evidently, he could accumulate a hell of a lot more Aura if other human beings were around to see him do cool shit. He'd been expecting that from the beginning.

But he was also expecting that having people around to see him fuck up would also add a modifier to how much Aura he lost. And John was sure he was going to fuck up. It was inevitable. He just wasn't good around people. He'd accepted that years ago. Hell, he'd already messed up a couple of times in the course of their brief interaction, and only hadn't lost any Aura because he was still a mysterious stranger who'd bailed them out right now. That wouldn't last.

So John endured the rapid changes to his body and ran without looking back. He kept Mana Sense on at all times, blasting out omnidirectional waves of mana that gave him a radar-like understanding of what direction enemies lay in and how far they were.

With the other half of his brain, he switched between Soul Vision and Shadow Stream. The latter blasted out constant torrents of darkness wherever he felt was best at any given moment. Sometimes it was behind them to cover their retreat. Other times he shot it to the side, trying to cut off potential lines of sight when he knew a monster would be moving on an adjacent path to them.

The former, on the other hand, let him gauge what they were running from. Having skipped Level 1 and went straight to Level 2, his new and improved Soul Vision was much clearer, affording him a considerably easier time of assessing his opponents without physically seeing them, as long as he knew precisely where they were. Combine this with the fact he didn't have to swap it back and forth with Mana Sense, and his little trick was vastly improved.

Unfortunately, it only really let him see that their only chance of surviving the current crisis was to avoid conflict altogether. That wasn't to say there were zero enemies they could have defeated. There were blues and greens aplenty. In fact, those weaker monsters were considerably in the majority.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

But there were hundreds of monsters prowling this quasi-night just in his 500~ish metre range. Under the darkening curtain caused by the abyssal circle floating over central London, countless monsters had come out to play, and an alarming number of them appeared to be heeding the red-eyed centipede's call to arms.

It didn't matter that most of the monsters were blue and green when said monsters surely numbered in the thousands just within his new range. There were surely more beyond. The weaker ones would overwhelm them by pure numbers, holding them down long enough for the yellows, oranges, and reds to close in and surely eliminate any chances of escape.

Fortunately, John had anticipated this. He'd known from the moment he'd realised what the red-eyed centipede was doing that there was no fighting all this. That was why he'd put all his newly-gained Aura into the Spells and Skills that would let him avoid a fight altogether.

His Mana Sense was constantly blasting out as he ran. Picking out safe routes when the world was suddenly so densely populated with murderous beasts was no easy feat. He was constantly doubling back on himself, stopping to hide, going in circles, being forced to take unintuitive turns. They spent far too much time being herded back east, towards the city centre, when John only wanted to get out west.

More than a few times, the others questioned him. He didn't dare risk replying to any of it, lest he say something wrong again. After already screwing it up twice, he didn't want to jeopardize his Aura again. There was even a hushed argument between the trio when John stopped for a whole minute, hiding out in yet another back garden as a horde of monsters was passing them by on the other side of a hedgerow. Their foot falls chimed like bells, and John couldn't even imagine what they were from the sound. Their souls ranged between blue and yellow, with one orange bringing up the rear of the pack.

"What the fuck are we doing here, Jade?" Chester hissed.

Jade told him, "Shut the fuck up, like. If you want to leave, then leave. I'm sticking with the mad bastard who killed three monsters like it was nothing."

Lily, the taller one with the chain mail and crossbow, seemed to be the designated mediator between the two. They had huddled together a little ways away from him—or, more accurately, Chester had crouched next to Jade and started complaining to her, and Lily had joined them to intervene. "No one's leaving. We need to keep together."

"He's taking us in circles, Lily," Chester whispered.

John silently wondered if he would've been able to overhear this with his stats at Level 0. None of the upgrades had specifically targeted their energy on his ears, but he supposed Vitality and Strength had been rather broad with their improvements, and Mind was close enough to his ears it might have had an effect.

Either way, it would be way too awkward to let them know he could hear them after all that.

"He clearly knows what he's doing," Jade growled back. "Notice how we haven't actually had to fight a monster since we escaped that fucking house?"

"Some people just adapt to this kind of shit, I guess," Lily murmured. "Like, when a crisis goes down there's always certain people who step up and thrive, y'know?"

"Well, we don't know, because he barely fucking says anything," Chester said. "One of you's got to ask him."

"Why don't you do it?" Jade asked.

"Did you see him earlier? His eyes were fucking glowing because he was so pissed. He clearly hates me."

"Maybe if you weren't a whiny little pissbaby all the time…"

"Jade, come on. That's not helping," Lily admonished.

Now, it was absolutely decided that he couldn't say anything. Eugh. He was just going to have to endure this conversation until the monsters were far enough away.

Stoic and mysterious, he told himself. Can't fuck up a conversation if you don't get involved in one. Better to have an aloof, quiet, composed persona.

Easier said than done. Sweat was beading on his forehead, and the anxiety was making him feel like a hamster was using his stomach as a wheel. This was the worst. Why the hell had he involved himself in this? They surely would have escaped.

John thought of the red-eyed centipede on the rooftop and sighed.

No they wouldn't, he thought glumly. It felt like every second the risk of doing something dumb and losing a ton of Aura was getting higher. But what could he do? If he straight up ran away from them, that would also be pretty fucking lame. Maybe Ninja could let him sneak away…

He shook his head minutely. That would probably be lame, too. Ninja had helped him out, but it was still only Level 1. His golf clubs still clacked and his leather jacket still creaked.

A lull in the conversation caught his attention. He'd let it fade into background noise as his mind habitually drifted, and he turned back to see what the interruption was. He found all three looking at him.

John went still. What was happening? Why were they staring? He tried to think back on the last few moments, but he was pretty sure he hadn't moved a muscle, not wanting to do anything weird. Was that weird in and of itself? People had called him creepy before, and he never understood why. He was just… there, existing, and apparently that was enough to discomfort people. His very existence was disturbing, apparently.

Something caught his attention, Soul Vision letting him see a hint of a red-souled monster moving around in the distance, behind but far beyond the trio in front of him. He narrowed his eyes.

+200 Aura

John blinked, losing sight of the distant red. What?

For reasons far beyond his comprehension, Chester let out a little yelp and stumbled back, falling on his backside. Jade stiffened. Lily held up her hands, eyes going wide, and sputtered out words in a quiet, soothing voice, "Woah, woah. I didn't mean anything by it. We just want to know so we can make longer term plans and stuff."

Know what? Had she asked him a question? Shiiiiit. He'd been spacing out and hadn't registered it. This was something that happened a lot to him too, getting lost in his own little world and missing parts of a conversation. There was a particularly bad incident where a teacher had addressed him three times unsuccessfully before storming over and slamming a heavy textbook down on his desk. The shock had made him fall out of his chair. The entire class had laughed.

John activated Accelerate to give himself time to think, trying his best to lock his body in place so it wouldn't be too noticeable to the others. The question he had to figure out was: what question had she asked him? Asking her to repeat the question was out of the question. That would just make them question his competence. With this Aura system attached to him, he couldn't take any action that might make them doubt his coolness. By some miracle, he'd managed to cultivate the aloof and mysterious persona he'd been aiming for, but it was a fragile image, ready to shatter at any time.

What were the clues?

Firstly, Lily had clarified that the answer they sought would let them determine their long term plans, implying she'd asked for his own plans.

Next, he recalled the conversation he'd been awkwardly listening in on. Chester had wanted to know what they were doing, expressing frustration at the roundabout route John had been silently leading them on. There'd been hints, from the replies, that he wanted to split up from John.

John would've been just fine with that. Then he wouldn't have had to deal with taking those two clues and formulating just what, exactly, Lily had asked him. They'd kept talking for a while longer after that, but John had tuned it out while thinking. He also had to account for the fact that they may have had other hushed conversation at other times when he was distracted, like when he was upgrading himself, or those moments where he deeply focused on his Mana Sense to make sure to avoid any monsters.

The way he saw it, there were a handful of likely options:

One, she'd asked him on what his plans were long term.

Two, she'd inquired as to where exactly he was taking them.

Three, she'd wanted to know how he was leading them away from monsters, and if they could replicate it.

There were other possibilities, but those seemed most likely. Now, he had to figure out how to answer them without cluing them in to the fact he didn't actually know precisely what they'd asked.

It all came down to what his aloof persona could get away with. Theoretically, he could choose not to reply at all, implying that he had no interest in answering their questions—which was even true, though they'd probably misunderstand his reasons for it. This Chester guy apparently thought John hated him. Hate was a strong word, but John definitely didn't appreciate his presence.

If it weren't for that third possibility, he probably could have answered with something simple like "away from here" to match the first two. But replying 'away from here' when someone asked you how you were avoiding monsters would probably look dumb, unless they thought he was implying he'd answer later?

Actually, that was a good idea.

"Questions later," he said, turning away.

+200 Aura

It was all he could do not to breathe a sigh of relief when no reply came from behind him. He'd be relying on that one a lot in the future, he reckoned.

John steeled himself, putting social discomfort out of his mind. Mana Sense was telling him there'd be a window of an opportunity in a moment, then they'd have to jump over the hedge and leg it across the road and into the next garden across. After that, they'd have a clear run for a little while.

There were alarming developments in the other direction, though. Monsters were really starting to bunch up a few hundred metres behind them, and he didn't like the look of that one bit. It was about in the same direction he'd spied a glimpse of a red-soul monster sneaking about. He imagined the red-eyed centipede was somewhere in that horde, coordinating a patterned search. They couldn't stick around much longer.

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