The next morning, Vin found himself leaving Terra and heading north with Lumel, Shia, Scule, and Reginald by his side. Shia had in fact wandered in early that morning, looking once again a tad disheveled and stating she didn't want to talk about the training she'd gone through with her master. Reginald and Scule had actually returned the night before while Vin and Lumel were out swimming and had been unconscious by the time they got back. Vin and Lumel had 'aww'd' over the sight of Scule and Reginald draped over one another, snoring adorably in a pile on their massive bed designed for a human before they'd each called it a night themselves.

The five of them had the option of taking the Underside straight to Alka's fragment and saving themselves a chunk of walking, but seeing as Lumel spent most of her time isolated in another dimension barren of any nature, they decided letting her experience the vast, green meadows of the Earther fragment was a good starting point.

The added time also gave them a chance to talk strategy and tactics as they walked.

"So usually, whenever we're forced to fight something, the four of us all cower behind the nearest rock and let Alka handle it," Scule said, standing on Lumel's shoulder as he informed her how things were. "It's pretty embarrassing, and that's why we have to ensure there are no witnesses. You would not believe how many bodies I have stored in my cape."

Scule was unceremoniously flicked off Lumel's shoulder by Shia, and the entire group kept walking as he hit the ground and began cursing.

"Obviously we all know how to fight, but he's not wrong in that Alka tends to be our primary fighter," Shia explained. "Vin and I both have spells that work well for offense and utility, and Reginald and Scule are crack shots with their blowgun and have poison that can have devastating effects on living opponents. If I have a few seconds to prepare, I have my Living Giant as well, which is probably our strongest option at the moment, but we try not to rely on it when possible."

"I saw your spell in action during the battle for wave four," Lumel nodded, looking at the Druid in awe. "I have a tier 4 spell, but I had all the resources in an entire palace library to draw from in order to learn it. I can't believe you managed to learn one without any of that before even hitting your second prestige."

"One of the benefits of having a genius as my master," she shrugged, clearly pleased by the praise. "Anyway, without Alka, we're down our front liner. In order to figure out how we're going to handle things, we need to know what you're capable of."

"Of course, that makes sense!" Lumel hurriedly nodded. "You've all already seen my Dimensional Shift and Mass Dimensional Shift, so you know I can transport people around rather easily. And of course, you know about my other-dimensional storage. I wish I could say I have a devastating offensive spell tucked away for emergencies, but I always focused on evasion rather than combat. The only relevant spells you guys should know I have are probably Disorientation, Barrier, and Dimensional Lockdown."

"We've already got extra storage handled," Scule sniffed, finally having caught back up to them and hopped up onto Vin's shoulder. "...but those other ones sound pretty cool. What do they do?"

"Disorientation shakes the very fabric of reality around a group of people or monsters, making it hard for them to move and often resulting in them just falling over, where Barrier is when I isolate and combine a large number of background dimensions in front of me, creating an impregnable shield. It takes a lot of mana to both construct and maintain, however, so I can only use it for a few seconds at a time. Dimensional Lockdown is kinda the opposite of Dimensional Shift. It lets me isolate the fabric of reality around a target and, rather than move it, I harden it instead, freezing them in space."

"Those are all excellent options to have at our disposal," Shia said, tapping her chin as she thought. While she contemplated strategy, Vin made his move.

"Any chance you could show us the spells really quick?" he asked eagerly. "I could always use the additional experience."

"Of course! Watch closely." With a smile, Lumel splayed out her fingers and cast before them. "Barrier!"

To Vin's surprise, a few different things of note happened all at the same time. First off, Lumel's spell went off without a hitch. A purple-tinged pane of force appeared before them that, despite looking like glass, would no doubt be able to repel just about anything. At the same time, however, Vin could somehow see both the multilayered dimensions being compacted together to form the barrier, as well as what was essentially a thin line of mana connecting Lumel to her spell. He'd never been able to see mana outside of someone before, other than when they were using it to purposefully draw a runic formation in the air for others to study, and he blinked and rubbed his eyes as Lumel dismissed her spell after a second. Yet before he could ask about that, he received a notification.

Missing a rather important part.

New spell witnessed! Tier 3 Spatial Spell (Barrier).

Minor Arcane Discovery! 1,000 exp gained.

"What?! I didn't get any experience for your spell!" he gasped, staring at his notification in shock. "What gives?"

"Remember, experience gains are more and more limited the higher you level," Lumel reminded him, giving him an apologetic smile as if his missing experience was somehow her own fault. "Add the fact that the amount of experience you need between levels keeps rising, and it's why leveling slows down so much around this point. On my world, few people ever manage to hit their third prestige within their lifetimes."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"I still got the notice about your spell, though," he argued, scratching his head. "It just seems a bit strange." There was the small chunk he gained from a 'minor arcane discovery' as well, but he wasn't sure what to make of that just yet.

"There's a chance you might still gain experience sometimes from witnessing new spells, but your free rides from asking friends or allies to show you their magic is almost certainly a thing of the past," Shia stated confidently. "Think about it. You're technically an Adventurer now, right? Why should you be handed experience on a silver platter just by asking for it?"

"I guess that makes sense," he grumbled. Despite how annoying the loss of what was essentially free experience was, Vin had to admit that it did in fact make perfect sense. He knew he'd gotten a lot of effortless experience over the past few weeks by asking people like Eithan to show off their known spells, but it still stung. Who knew what other alterations had been made to how he gained experience.

"I'd rather not use Dimensional Lockdown on you, but still want to see Disorientation?" Lumel offered shyly.

"Yeah… Sorry, I still think seeing new magic is really cool, I was just a bit surprised there," he admitted, giving her a warm smile. "Hit me!"

"Just prepare yourself," she said, stepping a few feet away and casting. "Disorientation!"

New spell witnessed! Tier 2 Spatial Spell (Disorientation).

The moment the words left Lumel's mouth, the entire world seemed to both shift violently around him, flip upside down, and start shaking. Scule tumbled off his shoulder and landed face-first on the ground for the second time that morning, and Vin himself stumbled, barely managing to stay upright by summoning his staff to his hand and leaning heavily on it. Yet even as the disorientation threatened to trip him up and send him sprawling to the ground right beside Scule, he felt his mind sharpen and work to fight off the worst of it.

Total Resistance increased to lvl 9! 1,800 exp gained.

"Talk about trippy," he laughed, grinning at the shocked look on Lumel's face as he managed to remain on his feet. "Total Resistance skill. Works on just about everything."

"Your high focus probably helped as well," she said, finally dropping the spell and returning the world to normal. She went to say something else, before pausing, her eyes going wide as she read over something only she could see. "Wow. I just got some experience for learning about the interaction between your skill and my spell. Guess that counts as a magical discovery!"

"Congratulations," Scule said from the ground, groaning as he pushed himself up and wobbled after them. "Next time Vin asks you to hit him with a spell, could you perhaps not include me in it?"

A weary squeak sounded from within Vin's pocket, and Reginald poked his head out, looking a bit green as he nodded his agreement.

"Sorry guys, you know how excited I get around new magic," Vin said sheepishly. Having Total Resistance level up was a nice surprise, doubly so after his disappointment in discovering that he couldn't evolve Runecraft despite the skill hitting level 20. He wasn't sure if that was because another evolution didn't exist, or the cap for evolved skills was simply higher, but he was determined to find out on his own rather than ask this time around. The convenience wasn't worth the risk of potentially disqualifying himself for the level 60 prestige.

Once the shock of not gaining any experience for Lumel's spells wore off, Vin finally remembered the other strange sight he'd witnessed.

"Just double checking, nobody else saw that strand of mana connecting Lumel to her barrier, right?"

"No, I didn't see anything," Shia confirmed. "That's also not how mana works. It can simply move from a person's core to wherever the spell is supposed to happen, there's no trail of it or anything."

"Shia's right," Lumel nodded. "With my new Magic Eyes passive, I would have seen such a trail of mana, and there wasn't anything there."

"Well if it wasn't mana, I definitely saw something connecting you to your spell… As well as the actual layers of reality you harnessed coming together under your spell somehow…"

"Maybe that's your Beyond the Veil ability," Lumel offered, looking curious. "From the wording, it sounds like it would let you see things the rest of us can't."

"See, this is why I like being a Rogue," Scule said, turning to address Reginald. "All we need to do is stab things and take shiny stuff that we find lying around. No need to worry about altering reality or weird, magic eyes. So nice and simple, right?"

Reginald nodded, squeaking a few times in what Vin could only assume was agreement. Having said his piece, he ducked back into the depths of Vin's pocket and presumably went back to sleep.

"Alright, we got a little off topic with you two figuring out how your new classes work," Shia admitted. "Back to tactics. Lumel, seeing as you don't have any offensive magic, try to keep your focus on our surroundings and be prepared to intercept any surprise attacks. With your Dimensional Shift and Barrier combination, you can basically be anywhere and block anything, so you'll be our first line of defense. Vin and Scule will handle ranged combat with Stone Shot, Fireball, and poisoned darts, and I'll take care of anything that gets close. We also have Blossom to rely on if we need another body to tackle stuff."

"Reginald is also more than happy to run as a diversion if needed," Scule reminded them, being entirely serious for once. "Neither of us like sitting around doing nothing while you guys defend us. If we encounter more enemies that are immune to poisons, we'll do what we can to distract them."

"Just don't go far. Remember, we actually have an escape plan now," Shia said, beaming at Lumel. "Mass Dimensional Shift means even if things get dire, Lumel can get us out of there in a split second. I think that's a pretty decent trade for not having Alka's stopping power."

"It's a shame her new body can't be teleported," Vin admitted. "We'll have to figure out what to do in the event we're all together and we need to teleport to safety."

"Bah. That's a problem for later," Scule said, waving his hand dismissively. "No need to worry about that now."

"He's not wrong," Shia agreed, peering at the giant trees and tall grasses of Alka's fragment as it finally came into view. "We've got other things to focus on at the moment."

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