Two days later, Lev landed in front of the dungeon's entrance again. It was situated above ground in a random patch of grassland, which made the warrior guard on rotation look quite out of place. No words were exchanged as Lev was waved inside.

Immediately, he activated the mana concealment and illusion enchantments on his armor, vanishing from both sight and mana perception. The first order of business was to create a fully invisible and unnoticeable bubble, which took less than a minute.

Once inside, Lev waited. His eyes constantly scanned the ceiling and walls near the dungeon portal, hoping no monsters had detected him. When ten minutes passed without any signs of movement, he nodded to himself and went to work.

Firstly, stock check.

His ring had a few new additions. Primarily, the huge spiked ball of iron stood out in his mind, but there were ten high-quality healing potions as well. They were beyond expensive, each costing five golds.

Thirdly, there were all the materials he had brought from Runespires. The goal was to improve the mana capacity and transfer of his armor as best as he could to avoid channeling much mana with his body.

More time passed in silent contemplation without any monster attacking or even wandering close to the bubble. Feeling he was in the clear, Lev summoned one of the huge containers of sap and started on the container he had been mentally developing.

Barrier armor as a skill was extremely impressive, possessing both insane durability and endless potential for advancement. It sometimes made him wonder just how badly he was underutilizing his class. The human mind could only do so much at once, and he wasn't some heaven-defying talent either.

Around his armor, a thin film of barrier was tracing its form. There was little space between the armor-shaped container surrounding him and the actual armor. Infused sap was supposed to improve the conductivity of any barriers that were rinsed with it, along with a bit of mana to spread the positive effects, and Lev wanted to know just how effective the treatment was.

To set a baseline, he first tried channeling mana through the armor. It streamed into his skinsuit first to be converted into lightning mana, which Lev dumped into his armor.

Usually, he either teleported the lightning mana into Stargazer or his projectiles using his class skill, or imbued the armor itself to further improve its speed and reactions.

This time however, he kept adding more. When it was holding nearly 5% of his total mana, the armor started to show signs of destabilizing. That was fine and all, as Lev never needed to store that much into the armor, but the problem remained. His body suffered even with that small portion, even if the damage was limited to aches in his arms from where he channeled the mana.

The much more glaring issue was that the damage to his body mounted quickly. It didn't help that every bit of reduced bodily integrity sped up how much damage he took, making going all-out even harder.

To combat that, Lev needed the armor to store his mana to readily access it without needing to move it through his body in large amounts. He could simply slowly refill the armor instead, and since it was his mana, he could use it for all of his skills without problem. No ambient mana was involved to take it away from his control.

Alright, let's see how bad the transfer capacity actually is, Lev thought, and proceeded with the test. All the stored lightning mana slowly gathered in his right hand, which threatened to explode long before that. Even worse, all the mana kept weakening the armor in its wake, yet the amount was far from the amounts he used in serious battles.

That was not a good sign.

If things went according to plan, Lev's armor was only going to become more durable after the next evolution. It was a defensive skill, which meant he needed to force secondary measures to increase its reception of large amounts of mana. Enchantments were going to be a staple, and further semi-automated moves were going to be the norm. Lev needed his armor to be able to handle all of that.

Even ignoring the evolution, his mana pool was going to grow considerably before that as he gained more Wisdom and leveled his Wisdom Boost. His armor was not going to keep up with the increasingly intense channeling.

Lev sighed. Let's focus on the now and try to use the sap.

When the barrier mold was ready, Lev created a tube connected to the small opening at the bottom to not let any of the fluid go to waste. It ended in a closed container that he planned to recycle the sap with.

From above, he created a bowl and filled it with the infused sap to drop on his head. It was thicker than water and non-sticky, and flowed down his armor rather quickly. Remembering Welsh's instructions, Lev streamed pure mana into his armor and expelled tiny puffs of it into the sap, giving it the mana necessary for the treatment to take place.

The change was immediate but negligible. As the sap got its mana, it became more potent and sent a portion of the mana back into the armor. A profound change took place on an unnoticeable scale, where his armor's structure improved ever so slightly.

Seeing that it worked, Lev poured even more over the armor while it collected in the container from the bottom. When that filled up, he shut off the exit and created a new container to store it. The previous one was dumped back on his head, and the process was repeated again and again.

Minutes passed in the gradual cycle as Lev tried his best to observe the effects. More than his understanding, it was the treatment's effects being undecipherable that stopped him from learning anything, turning the process into one of waiting.

Fifteen minutes later, the sap's increasingly lowering benefits came to a halt. Lev had reached the maximum mana conductivity improvements he could get, and they would even remain as long as the armor remained intact and wasn't dismissed.

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Only, he could feel that it was not a success. The test hadn't failed, of course. Infused sap worked as advertised, meaning his armor was considerably better at handling mana, yet that didn't solve the main reason Lev was going through the trouble.

Pure mana.

His colorful destruction skill only worked on different mana types, but he didn't use those for enchantments. Enchantments were the second most mana-hungry part of his arsenal, and they might even overtake infusion after evolving. He had a ton of formations at his disposal, after all.

Mana left his pool in a steady but large stream and was stored in his armor. By the time he reached 10% of his total, it was already stressed to the limit. The amount was not small, but he still shook his head.

A sound similar to the shattering of glass echoed in the bubble when he began the next test. Lev had merely gathered all the mana in the upper half of the armor and moved it to the lower half quickly. The result was his armor unable to keep up and being reduced to bits.

Titles, class levels, and skill levels. Three sources of increased mana, but only one armor to handle them all.

He took a deep breath. Since the armor was also one whole barrier, Lev couldn't teleport the mana inside it from one place to another. It needed to cycle through the entire enchantments, which was the next test after the first failure.

Opening Draky's collection of runes, Lev started carving the advanced enhancement on his armor after resummoning it and treating it with sap. Due to all the previous practice, it took less than a minute to finish carving all the runes, covering nearly half of the armor's front.

Here goes nothing, Lev breathed out and cycled a small amount of mana through the entire formation. Like the previous one, a connection snapped into place, putting a significant load on his brain.

The formation started from his left shoulder, where the input runes were located. It snaked diagonally to his right thigh, empowering all in its path. Remembering the previous experience, Lev started small and empowered a flick of his finger.

Immediately, the difference became obvious. Where the previous enhancement formation was a general improvement, the current one asked for more detailed input, requiring instructions for each joint present on his armor. Most of it was seamless, but major joints were still present, such as fingers, elbows, knees etc.

Unable to do anything in time, the empowerment failed due to a lack of orders from Lev.

… I see why he wanted me to wait. In hindsight, I am nowhere near as smart as the Exalted, so I should've listened.

But he had the opportunity to start quicker and learn more. Lev wasn't averse to such risks, especially ones with great rewards.

Round two, Lev focused his all on the index finger on his right hand, and flicked the empty air again. His Perception was stretched to the limit as it slowly moved forward, intentionally not flicked at maximum speed, before the enchantment took over.

Separately, he had to empower each joint in the finger. The first one needed the least power, and the last one needed the most, as it went through the longest movement and was also going to impact whatever surface Lev flicked.

A small woosh of displaced air announced the success of his first enhancement. It was not that big of an upgrade in raw power compared to the previous formation, but Lev could now see that wasn't the point of the whole enchantment.

Where he had only enhanced every movement entirely before, Lev now had to consciously empower each part of his armor in much greater detail. Granted, his armor was far more basic than a human body, but it also lacked any sort of muscle memory or instincts.

If he wanted to empower a kick with the advanced enhancement formation, it required him to enhance each part of the armor leg one by one, all by his own mental efforts. That was like learning to walk all over again, except as an Adept.

With a sigh, Lev summoned Stargazer and adopted a stance. If he wanted to learn to manipulate his armor better, he needed an example to follow, and his fleshy body served as an excellent one. Filling up his glaive's blade with a dull, heavy edge, he started with the next improvised test.

An illusionary humanoid monster took form in his mind, the chosen foe for that training session. Every evolution brought with it a remarkable increase in brainpower, and he had been preparing for such an exercise for a while now, letting the monster form and move fluidly.

It charged forward, claws leading, and swiped at Lev's head. Stargazer rose up as Lev took half a step back, deflecting the attack and letting him retaliate. But the monster was strong, deftly evading the thrust and immediately attacking again, straining Lev's mind to simply keep up with the assault.

Of course, most of the strain came from observing how he moved. Shadowboxing was something he heard of on the internet and the concept encouraged him to try the same. There were no downsides, only more training for both his mind and body.

Minutes passed as Lev and the imaginary monster danced around each other, never able to land a hit despite giving it their all. He had to admit, it was quite fun. Improving had always been addicting, but doing so without a risk to his life could serve as a decent pastime.

If the others don't chew my ears off for wasting all my free time on even more training, that is.

He smiled. Just the thought of spending more time with Sherron or Orianna lifted his spirits. Alec would also be a part of the list if his mentor wasn't mysteriously cooped up in some lab.

The echoing yet quiet sounds of quick movements flowed in the concealed bubble for a while after that. Lev kept up his observations, half an eye on the conjured monster and another half on his body. From how his feet were positioned to how tightly his fingers gripped Stargazer without sacrificing flexibility, a picture was slowly taking shape in his mind.

Several seconds later, Lev found an opening to attack the blob-like monster. It lunged, leaning forward to minimize the area it could target while utilizing the full range of its long arms. Instead of defending himself, Lev brought Stargazer forward, aiming to skewer it.

With narrowed eyes, the monster dodged to the right, abandoning its attack to capitalize on the dumb move. Mid-thrust, Lev's enhancement flared, empowering his entire arm at once. Defying normal conventions, his attack morphed, and the glaive's direction changed, now moving slightly sideways and tracking the illusionary foe's evasion. The monster didn't stand a chance as the much faster and stronger attack passed through its head, dispersing it into black particles.

Lev wasn't faring much better either. His arm hurt from the abrupt move, and the muscles were stretched in ways they weren't supposed to be, but a grin still remained on his lips. The move was supposed to be a failure, as he had mistimed the enhancement and caused it to activate an instant too late.

Instead of messing up however, it had taught him something entirely new. The enhancement formation was supposed to be straightforward, but the advanced version had more control over its function. Which meant that it could now, to a small degree, adjust the course of his physical actions quickly.

That opened up so many new doors.

Even if the new tactic was wildly dangerous in how it would create bad habits due to overreliance, keeping it as a backup was going to be awesome. Lev needed his moves to be perfect first and foremost. The correction or alteration tactic was only going to be useful in a bind when everything else failed and he needed to sacrifice willpower to save himself.

After all, he was almost knocked to the ground because of the headache caused by the misinput. His body was performing something different than what his mind intended to empower, putting the two at odds. The latter, willpower, didn't even grow before Master and folded without providing any resistance, only altering his attack marginally for all its worth.

Regardless, it provided him with a promising new option. The testing and practice were a major success.

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