"Could've let me prepare first, at least," Lev grumbled as they flew to the Dreadwoods. Further superficial complaints fled his mind as they neared the treeline. He hadn't ever entered the woods before, or even gone near it, but the close view was enough to render him speechless.

Each tree was over twenty meters in height, held up by a disproportionately thin black trunk. Dark purple leaves adorned their branches, eerily beautiful despite the haunting look overall.

"Quite the place, hmm?" Sherron quipped, breaking him out of the silent observation. "Wait till you see the monsters."

Lev stared at her flatly. "Thank you, for the warm and inviting welcome."

"My pleasure."

Putting the Exalted out of his mind, Lev thought about what to test first. His armor could wait, for he wanted to see how much better his projectiles were now. Not only had they gotten an additional speed and sharpness boost now, but he could also enchant them to his heart's content.

It also let him use the second formation, the other enchantment paired with the lethality formation. The Armorbreaker formation was, to put it mildly, badass. Despite the straightforward functions of simply making his lances spin at extreme speeds while exponentially raising their sharpness, speed, and penetration power, it was insanely strong. He had refrained from exercising it so as not to negatively affect his evolution.

For the sake of testing his new willpower and brainpower, along with the formation, Lev created thirty lances outside of the bubble. The increased manipulation range with his new class wasn't anything out of the ordinary, and it now reached well over two hundred meters.

A curious new detail stood out immediately. Where Lev had to carry his mana to a certain location and form barriers there, they now formed immediately without needing him to bother. The mana was taken directly from his pool and showed up where the barrier needed to be created, similar to the teleportation of different mana types afforded by his skills.

Too bad it is only applicable for forming barriers, Lev noted, still satisfied with the change. Focusing back on the lances, he grinned when they all formed much faster than before. Enchanting them took naught but a thought as runes appeared on them one by one, all without any of his manual input.

Lev gawked as he witnessed his vastly boosted Willpower at work for the first time. It was crude and untrained, no doubt, but he couldn't have cared less as his barriers were carved one by one. His subconscious mind gradually hollowed them out in the required patterns, messing up on more than one occasion and ruining the entire enchantment.

It wasn't completely automatic, however. Some of his unused brainpower was grabbed and utilized by the willpower, firmly cementing the process as one taking place because of his own mind, not because of any other alien power. It was his also dependant on his own mastery and understanding, as well as extensive practice.

"That title continues to prove itself extraordinary," Sherron's calm voice reached him. Like the rest of them, she was staring at the lances hovering above as they were slowly enchanted.

"I'm assuming this isn't normal?" Lev asked.

"It really, really isn't," Alec stressed his answer, engrossed in the display. "New Masters struggle to even control their willpower properly but you…"

Lev tapped his cheek, wondering why it was so abnormal before it clicked. "Wait, yeah, that makes sense. Watch."

Mana slowly entered his skinsuit and was converted into lightning and fire, which was then infused in his armor and teleported to the waiting lances. The process was far smoother than before, and Lev could control every bit of the mana with unprecedented precision, but the small amount didn't let him test anything else.

As the destructive mana was infused into five of his lances, he commanded his willpower to manipulate it all and gather it in the tip of the projectiles. Predictably, it only succeeded to a small extent before the operation collapsed and the mana was released from the willpower's hold.

"Just as I expected," Lev nodded and explained his thought process. "The only reason I can carve so easily just after evolving is because of routine practice. I never stopped working on improving my enchanting speed, and willpower was flexed with that every day. Little wonder it learned to carve runes before I even evolved."

"Plausible," Alec agreed. "But we still cannot rule out your willpower being beyond all the norms, regardless. Further testing will be necessary, and we just happen to have the stage in front of us."

Several minutes later, they were deep enough that monsters became visible despite the regular patrols and culling. It was alarming for them to show up so close to the edges of the Dreadwoods despite the effort put into clearing the monster numbers.

Alec had a destination in mind as they moved deeper in, either staying away from other teams or avoiding anything too strong for him to handle. Lev didn't know.

A panther appeared in the distance, prowling the strangely even ground devoid of any roots or vines. Without needing to be told, Lev powered up the armorbreaker formation on one of his lances. It took a laughably inconsequential puff of mana for him to overload it to the limit, at which point the lance started spinning fast enough to produce a loud gale.

The panther, now much slower to Lev's senses as he let go of his Perception fully, had yet to fully turn its head when the lance blew a hole through its torso, sending it flying from the sheer impact and killing it on the spot by disintegrating multiple of its organs.

[

You have slain [Forest Panther - Level 198]

]

"Hmm, the effect of my barrier manipulation on speed is way higher than anticipated," Lev wondered out loud. "Didn't think it would be so good. The overall velocity of the projectile is much faster than the percentage boosts suggest, which means Intelligence is also more effective than expected. The end result was nearly three times as fast as before, which is kind of nuts, even if the formation did most of the work."

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"Correct on all accounts," his mentor remarked. "Everything gets a comprehensive upgrade from evolving to Master. This is just the beginning."

Several more panthers showed up, attracted by the smell of blood. Lev also put them down quickly with arrows, not wanting to dismiss his lances for no reason. Not like the panthers were ideal test subjects, anyway.

Many more easy kills later, they finally ran into an actual adversary. The massive spider hissed at them, able to feel the presence of the humans but unable to pinpoint their exact location under all the cloaking enchantments.

[Purpleback Spider - Level 403]

"Um…" Lev hesitantly voiced. "Surely I'm not going to fight that?"

"Thought you were stronger than that, wonderboy."

Lev wasn't falling for it. "That was beyond unconvincing. Let's move on, please."

Sherron just exhaled through her nose once, already expecting Lev to see through her pitiful taunt. She wouldn't have let him fight it anyway, and proved so by throwing a small, dense lightning bolt at the spider.

It reached the spider before the monster could even blink, disintegrating it into ash as the lightning seared into every corner of its body. Lev was also left blinking in surprise as his Perception utterly failed to track the attack. All he had seen was the bolt taking shape, then the monster perished in the next instant.

"… Okay," Lev shrugged. "Color me impressed. Shall we move on now?"

Orianna had been weirdly silent the entire time. Lev was debating asking what was wrong, but she didn't seem to be down or concerned, only taking it all in with her usual smile. Sherron and Alec didn't seem worried either.

"Slow down a bit. I'll create the spellcasting formations for myself."

Excitement surged within him as he finally put all the practice to good use. There were many admittedly basic but fun formations in Drakys' collection, and Lev couldn't wait to test them out.

Potential beam attacks were the first priority, one he had dreamed of for a long time. It was one of the goals Lev wanted to achieve with his class, and now he could finally put in the effort into his barriers without them disintegrating.

A barrel took form first. It was much wider than a gun's, more comparable to a tank barrel. With a slight frown, he reduced its width under the watchful gazes of his precious found family until it was sleek like a railgun.

"A firearm?" Sherron guessed, head tilted slightly. Lev merely nodded and continued tinkering with the barrier until it felt good enough. The construct was nearly two feet long and as wide as a water bottle's lid. Which was to say, it was pretty small overall.

Closed on one end, Lev put the start of the Fire Jet formation on that side. Focusing his all on the carving, the enchantment slowly trailed along the barrel's length, much smaller in size than his usual formations. He wasn't aiming for maximum efficiency, nor did he want it to be perfect in its function. Lev merely wanted to see if it worked or not.

Finishing the formation, a connection snapped into place as Lev cycled a bit of mana through the runes. With a nod, he streamed a minor amount of fire mana into it and observed its three functions. They were as simple as accepting fire mana, shaping fire mana, and accelerating the fire mana. No doubt there were many better formations out there for the same purpose, but he didn't want to skip the basics, nor the learning experiences.

His skinsuit was also in tatters. The enchantments still worked because the warg had somehow missed them, which was the only reason he still kept on the ruined piece. It couldn't handle his improved output, so he started small.

In a blink, a large shield formed on the other side of the bubble, away from the humans. Alec expanded the bubble for his convenience, so Lev pushed the shield even further away and enchanted it with the durability rune. Sending mana to power it up, he aimed the barrel at it and filled it with fire mana.

Detecting the input, the formation took over and subdued the fire mana. Dependant on his willpower, it took little effort to take control and allow him to shape the fire mana however he wanted.

So far, so good, Lev noted with a huge grin and compressed the fire. Shaping it into a large rod inside the barrel to make it easier to utilize, he powered up the last function and fired it at the shield.

The formation demanded him to throttle the fire mana, so Lev only launched a little bit of it in the first few seconds. A bright and condensed beam of fire shot out of the barrel and impacted the shield in a split second, damaging the latter slightly where it landed. Each moment of impact on the same spot further empowered the destructive power as the shield's structure in the area weakened, raising its lethality a notch.

Lev had to pause when half of the stored mana ran out. He brought the shield closer and observed the result, finding it quite satisfying despite the little reward. All of the damage was fixed with a thought, but that was fine. Both the tool and the method were majorly flawed. The test was a success, regardless.

So, like the reasonable and cautious hunter that he was, Lev next formed a barrel similar in size to a large RPG and hoisted it on his shoulder. The barrel was several times wider, and the entire construct was first enchanted with a basic resilience formation that assisted with temperatures before he went ahead with the enchantments.

"Woah there," Alec held up his hands to try to stop him, whereas Sherron laughed at the 'obvious' next step. "Do you want to blow us all up?"

"No, of course not. I was going to use it from the edge of my manipulation range," Lev answered with a grin, knowing him putting the weapon on his shoulder was going to cause such a reaction. Orianna merely shook her head, already expecting such a prank.

"That's better," his mentor secretly breathed out in relief and went quiet to let him work.

Enchanting it was… not difficult. Lev had practiced these runes without slacking off, and adjusting their size was barely an issue. In less than a minute, he was holding another fully enchanted barrel ready to spew concentrated fire at his enemies.

Alec created an opening in the bubble for Lev to bring it out as they ascended. Several hundred meters above the Dreadwoods, he paused with a gulp as the scale of the region registered.

With his massively enhanced eyesight and much better Perception from evolving, Lev could see very far. Only, in the case of the Dreadwoods, there was no end in sight as it extended in a sinister line of even treetops forever.

"Do… do we know where the Dreadwoods end?"

"No," Sherron answered. "Only that it stretches to the western edges of the continent and meets the ocean. Its overall size is still unknown."

Figures, Lev swallowed and returned to his waiting barrel a hundred meters away. No point in contemplating such terrifying regions and the monsters hiding in them.

The enchantment was complete and ready to go. Like before, Lev put fire mana into his armor and teleported it into the waiting construct, this time far more than before. Channeling continued for several long seconds as the barrel glowed to his Mana Perception before Lev felt it was good to go.

With an effort of will, he grabbed all of the destructive mana and compressed it while pulling it to the closed end of the barrel. When it was condensed to a round ball waiting to be consumed by the enchantments, Lev mentally set the throttle to releasing it all in a constant beam and fired.

His new class additions were pulling their weight already. Moving the fire mana around was much easier than he was expecting, and keeping it in place was also only slightly willpower-intensive. He could comfortably do so for a long time, and the consequence of overreliance reared its ugly head immediately afterwards.

Things went wrong quickly as fire mana roared out in a large, wild, and uncontrolled yet somewhat compressed jet at extreme speeds, reaching the trees below them and the unlucky treants Lev had targeted in an instant. Only half of the mana had been released when the rest overpowered his mild control, blowing up on the spot in a large explosion of raw, deadly fire and barrier shards from the shattered barrel.

Thankfully, Lev hadn't used enough mana for the fiery shockwave to reach them. The blast on the ground was much more effective than the one in the air as the beam disintegrated the unfortunate treant it landed directly on, and charring the rest in the result's blast radius.

[

You have slain [Treant - Level 220]

…

You have slain [Treant - Level 221]

]

"… More testing is necessary," Lev deduced sagely, finally causing Orianna to chuckle.

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