They ended up having to enact a lower intensity repeat of the previous night's escape. It turned out plenty of monsters had been alerted to their presence, and they came running. Without a bastard of a centipede monster calling for reinforcements, however, it was relatively easy to evade the monsters that rushed to the site of their previous battle. There were plenty of houses to hide in along the way, and Mana Sense proved its worth yet again.

Thus, they came out the other end relatively unscathed, and the grind continued. John directed them to stray blues and greens where he could as they made slow progress north. They kept to side streets and alleys for the most part, but on the occasions where they had no choice but to cross over main roads they confirmed via signs that they were transitioning from Harrow to Stanmore, and Watford was only a few miles away.

Soon, suburban London would give way to relatively open fields that separated the capital from its neighbouring city, and John wasn't entirely sure how to approach that. Was it better to take on exposed fields, or wide main roads? He didn't know the area well enough to say, and uncertainty was problematic in this situation.

In better news, combat with only two more greens—an ice golem he melted with Fireballs and Burning Gales while throwing out a bunch more ripped off Mr Freeze puns, and a dinosaur-like chicken thing which had no answer to a Force Push and Soul Arrow combo—brought him back up to 10,000 Aura, leading him to believe his decision to unlock the Inventory was the right one. It felt like less of a waste, at least, knowing he could win that much Aura back within a few hours of work. He could have done without the strange looks the others kept sending him after each battle, though.

He wasn't the only one making gains, either. Jade levelled up, and was finally granted a Spell she felt comfortable using—she hadn't elaborated on the Spells she refused to unlock, and John didn't think she ever would. The new Spell let her project a large, ghostly red version of her hand, much like she could with her machete. Using it to hold down a monster while she chopped it with her machete easily doubled her combat effectiveness, especially since the hand seemed to deal acidic burns to anything it touched.

Lily gained green crossbow bolts that apparently poisoned enemies. Loading her crossbow was as simple as thought for her, and switching to the new bolts required no extra attention. She was under the impression that her system would mostly be granting her a wider and wider variety of ranged weapons and ammunition as her levels rose, and the smile on her face seemed rather force when she said so.

Even Chester made some improvements, though he wasn't happy about it. The shining white nimbus that surrounded his body granted him vastly increased durability and strength, but at the 'cost' of…well…being extremely eye-catching. It was hard to look away from the guy when it was active, and monsters seemed especially enamoured with it. Drawing any attention away from Chester when his armour was active proved nigh impossible.

After hours of work, they stopped in a small, ruined café to eat a very late lunch—it took them a few tries to find one that wasn't covered in bloodstains. No one wanted to eat in a place where they were surrounded by reminders of so many gruesome ends. There was plenty of food available, since the apocalypse had only disrupted supply chains and all that stuff a day ago. Before long, food and drink left lying around in restaurants and supermarkets would perish. For now, they could indulge themselves in whatever was available. They didn't think they were going to be chastised for stealing any time soon.

Settling around a table by the window, the other three chatted quietly as they munched on rolls and sandwiches and pastries and packets of crisps. John sat himself at an adjacent table and tuned them out, delving into his Aura menu. Having upgraded Talent in the fight with the skeleton monster, he had new Skills available.

Level 3 Skills:

Titan Tendons: 2000 Aura

Unstoppable Charge: 2000 Aura

Catfall: 2000 Aura

Intuition: 2000 Aura

Speed Casting: 2000 Aura

Hypnotist: 2000 Aura

Tamer: 2000 Aura

Bookworm: 2000 Aura

Polyglot: 2000 Aura

Druid: 2000 Aura

John thought those options over as he chewed on a sausage roll. At this point, he expected every level of Skills would follow the five specialist and five generalist abilities template, with each specialist Skill corresponding in nature to one of his stats.

The new Skills were a mixed bag again. He had no doubt every single one of them would be useful in its own way, but for 2000 Aura he was really expecting them to wow him. There was nothing on that list that jumped out and demanded to be unlocked immediately, like Dual Casting had, though he had to admit he was tempted by Speed Casting, just to see what it meant. It wasn't as if his Spells had been particularly slow, thus far, since they almost all relied on his body movement, and his Level 3 Agility probably put him in the top 10% of human beings.

The rest of the specialist Skills were easier to grasp, relatively speaking. Titan Tendons would probably make his joints stronger for a time, though what effect that would have in a practical scenario, he didn't know. Unstoppable Charge sounded like it would grant him some degree of durability as he ran forward, bowling anything in his path out of the way. Catfall brought to mind that uncanny feline ability to land on their feet and survive falls from impressive heights. Intuition seemed like another flavour of Insight, but he doubted the system would double up on an ability, so it was likely something deeper than analytical observations.

The Level 3 generalist Skills pretty much didn't interest him at all right now, though he could imagine their utility. Hypnotist sounded creepy. Tamer probably just meant animals, but he didn't have time for training pets at the moment. Bookworm, if it meant enhanced learning from reading, could be left for later, in a more stable situation. If he needed to learn another language, he'd think about Polyglot. And Druid… Well, he didn't have any good guesses about that beyond the impression it would give him some insights into plants and nature somehow. Useful in theory, but not worth the Aura at present.

So, overall, Level 3's Skills were a bit disappointing. Not that they were bad or anything, but he'd really been hoping there'd be some standout ability to get excited about. His shoulders slumped a bit as he delved back through the menus, refreshing himself on what else was available to unlock.

Level 2 Skills:

Inhuman Stamina: 1000 Aura

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Iron Fist: 1000 Aura

Eagle Eye: 1000 Aura

Danger Sense: 1000 Aura

Athlete: 1000 Aura

Thief: 1000 Aura

Engineer: 1000 Aura

Rider: 1000 Aura

Ventriloquist: 1000 Aura

Sadly, nothing massively stood out to him in Level 2 Skills either. He knew he was just looking for an excuse to unlock something for the sake of the dopamine hit of a new ability, at this point, but he didn't particularly care. In spite of the end of the world and all the horror that came with it, or perhaps because of all that, he found himself clinging to the childish wonder of all these Spells and Skills a bit. They were a light in the darkness. A bright point. While everything was falling apart, he desperately needed the small spark of joy that lit up within him at the thought of gaining more superpowers.

But that didn't mean he was willing to spend his Aura recklessly, no matter how much he'd accumulated. His current total of 11,400 seemed like a lot, but with how much everything was going to start costing as he grew, he needed to keep plenty banked in case there was something game changing waiting for him among the Level 4 Skills and Spells.

Just that thought alone almost tempted him to shove some Aura straight into upgrading the stats, but he held off. The healing that he got from upgrades was too crucial.

Instead, he checked Level 2 and Level 3 Spells out again. He'd already cleared out Level 1—and could admit he was a little salty that there was no special bonus for doing so.

Level 2 Spells:

Sigil Detonation: 1000 Aura

Earthen Armour: 1000 Aura

Scouring Steam: 1000 Aura

Ice Grasp: 1000 Aura

Illusory Clone: 1000 Aura

Astral Projection: 1000 Aura

Phantom Hand: 1000 Aura

Force Pull: 1000 Aura

Level 3 Spells:

Heat Vision: 2000 Aura

Ice Breath: 2000 Aura

Thunderous Roar: 2000 Aura

Steel Skin: 2000 Aura

Air Bubble: 2000 Aura

Necrotise: 2000 Aura

Animate Blood: 2000 Aura

Dominate: 2000 Aura

Summon Undead: 2000 Aura

John caught himself chewing his lip as he assessed his options, and quickly stopped before the Aura system could punish him for the nervous tick. He wiped his expression blank and forced himself to slouch in his chair, slipping his shades over his eyes.

Fuck it. I want to unlock something new. What looks like it'd be the most awesome, out of these?

He'd already speculated on what they did, and felt his suppositions were solid. One could never be 100% sure of anything, but so far none of the Spell or Skill names had been misleading, that he could think of. That left him to consider what would be most visually impressive, and how they might synergise with the current abilities he possessed.

Out of everything he'd unlocked so far, Accelerate felt like it saw by far the most use, followed somewhat distantly by Mana Blade. Soul Arrow had started to leg behind, becoming more of a general use spell among the other ranged abilities. Fireball and Wind Shear probably rounded out the top five, if he didn't count the specialist Skills that were essentially passive knowledge rather than abilities, functionally always on.

His first inclination was to go for Force Pull, because he liked the idea of being able to thrust his arm out for a Push, then switch it out for a Pull as he drew his arm back in, keeping an enemy utterly unbalanced while he launched an attack with the other hand. It'd give him plenty of time to get his insults in, too. Maybe it'd feel a bit like bullying, but if there was anything that deserved to get picked on, it was a monster.

The thought of stealing an eldritch abomination's lunch money brought a smile to his face. He quickly wiped it away again, just in case.

The second Spell to capture his imagination was Heat Vision. Anyone who thought Superman was lame didn't deserve to have opinions on things, and one of the iconic hero's most famous abilities, flight aside, was the ability to shoot red laser beams from his eyes. There was no guarantee Heat Vision would manifest that way—it was entirely possible he'd just be able to create a spot of extreme heat at a point he stared at. But the idea was appealing enough to earn his consideration.

Furthermore, Ice Breath was another ability Superman had, though lesser known. If he got his Strength and Vitality up high, perhaps they'd grant him some approximation of invincibility, too. Accelerate already covered super speed, and that would only grow as he levelled it up. It seemed a fair bet that there'd be a flight Spell of some sort, eventually.

All in all, he felt confident he could do a pretty strong impression of Superman, eventually. That sounded pretty cool to him.

Except he had to acknowledge his idea of cool and the system's may not match.

Animate Blood and Summon Undead tied in third place. They were probably the edgiest abilities he'd seen on his list so far, but at this point it was more than obvious that the Aura system appreciated a bit of edge. He imagined himself standing at the periphery of a battle with his arms crossed, feigning disinterest, while his zombie minions or blood golems did battle on his behalf. It'd leave him plenty of room to throw out banter and taunts.

They were kinda evil-looking, though. There was no telling how other people would react to him using such Spells. Taking on the appearance of a villain among all this madness was probably a bad idea. If he were to unlock those 'darker' Spells, he'd probably have to use them when no one else was around. Doable, but not worth it right now.

John swallowed back a sigh as he finished off the last of his sandwich. So it was between Force Pull and Heat Vision, right now.

Well. I do have 11,400 Aura. Nothing says I can't have both.

Deciding to indulge himself, John cycled through the Aura menu.

Unlocked Force Pull!

-1000 Aura

Unlocked Heat Vision!

-2000 Aura

His sphere of mana rippled, radiating warmth into his belly. With it came new knowledge zapped into his brain; as ever, he now knew how to use his new Spells, but not, precisely, what they did.

Force Pull worked and performed as expected, though it had a little extra component to it that wasn't present in its Push counterpart: mentally targeting something was as simple as looking at it and raising his hand in that direction with his palm facing towards inwards. Pulling his hand towards himself in a sort of beckoning gesture dragged the object of his attention his way.

The others didn't appreciate him testing out his new Spell without warning. Admittedly, the wooden chair did make a rather loud scraping sound as he Force Pulled it halfway across the room before abruptly stopping. Jade surged to her feet, machete in hand. Lily backed away from the table, crossbow drawn. Chester just fell out of his chair.

"The heck was that?" Jade said, brow furrowed. She'd removed her helmet to eat her lunch, and it had left behind little crease lines on her face. Her gaze flickered between the chair and John, and it seemed to become heavier every time it fell back on him.

John had to fight the urge to awkwardly apologise. Admitting to making a thoughtless mistake undoubtedly wouldn't win him any points with the system. "I was testing my new Spell," he said, acting unbothered.

"A little warning next time, aye?"

"Sure," he said. He waited a second. "I'm about to test my Heat Vision."

Even though she'd just told him to warn her, Jade let out a weary sigh.

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