Keynes’s return to the semi-soul space was brief. His encounter with the giant gnawed at him—something he didn’t want to alert others to; not necessarily because he liked to pretend that everything was fine but more because he needed to think.
And the more he thought about the Level 7 rift and the giant, the closer he got to a chilling realisation: the difficulty scaling of rifts looked more brutal than he’d anticipated.
He’d breezed through previous Levels with marginal effort, and had expected a similar small uptick in difficulty at Level 7 but the fight with the common rarity giant put a question mark over that.
But as he delved deeper into the issue, he saw it more as an opportunity than an obstacle. Aggressive difficulty scaling was going to slow down everyone, not just him; and where others didn’t benefit from the added difficulty, Keynes did.
Vitality (II) mastery went up by 2% to 3% from a single fight. However, he had to acknowledge a particularly annoying bottleneck—mana. Spending 70% of his mana against a single rift foe was not going to work.
Alice, he inquired. I must solve my mana issues. He didn’t need to elaborate further; she’d seen the state of his mana after the fight.
I’m positive that the Technique of Meditation can expand to encompass increased mana regeneration, but that isn’t what you have in mind, she said, seemingly speaking to herself. You need MORE mana and MORE passive regeneration. So, items—but then you’ll complain that items slow your Attribute Mastery down, which they do, but that is the trade-off. There is no way around it. Mana potions are no-brainer, but the current supply and quality you have access to is… bad. Not to mention permanent potions…
She kept talking, detailing items they should have at hand in the base or possible ways to refine mana potions. She didn’t mention plants because Kora’s garden wasn’t ready yet to explore mana-enhancing flora, and Keynes had put a stop to his own gardening efforts.
A bond… she mentioned as if it was a necessary evil. But to find a mana-boosting bond?
Keynes actually knew the answer to that. He had access to the System’s cheat code—the Greater Shop.
Too bad he had no currency to purchase anything in it. Without a doubt, there were attributes that increased mana and its regen, and likely more than that.
Eventually, he relented and compromised. Being stubborn when it yielded no benefits made no sense. So, before returning to the Level 7 rift, he went and asked Natalia for any mana-enhancing items, but without any boost to attributes.
Such items weren’t common as most had some attributes, but they found a few. They were nothing worth mentioning other than the enhancement of mana—which by itself was a sought-after quality but Keynes had his privileges.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
They boosted his total mana to 446 from 371 and his mana regeneration to 25 points per hour—natural regen of 19 and an added of 6 as mana regeneration behaved strangely and was always calculated per 24 hours. This system benefited ascenders because by just increasing the total mana pool, the mana regeneration was automatically increased. Any additional mana regen was listed separately. Overall, Keynes needed 18 hours to fully recover his mana. He didn’t want to wait that long, so he asked Rell for some of his mana potions. They cut the time to 12 hours.
It was an improvement, but to go beyond that meant wearing items with attributes, which would interfere with Attribute Mastery.
Twelve hours was a long time though, and Keynes wasn’t going to waste it. Alice’s earlier rambling got his attention, especially the Technique of Meditation that could increase mana regeneration. He had one more thing to check on, but it would have to wait until he was done with the Level 7 rift.
-
He found a second giant a few kilometres from where he’d killed the first one. A few kilometres didn’t sound like much until one realised that Level 4 rifts were only 4 square kilometres. This rift was 8 times larger. A Level 10 rift would be about 256 square kilometres if scaling remained unchanged. Not that he believed anyone in his group, including him, was ready for such a place.
This time around, Keynes stayed up in the air, the only place the giant couldn’t catch him off guard. It still noticed him though and hurled rocks, but at such a distance, Keynes didn’t mind it; the rocks lost most of their momentum before reaching him.
Still, the giant had noticed his presence from a half-kilometre away. Something that was beyond Keynes’s ability, and he didn’t like that.
As he flew closer, he decided to test things out. He activated [Spirit Form] and turned himself invisible. The effect was immediate. The giant lost track of him, at least until Keynes hung five metres above its head.
Even so, the giant didn’t seem to understand what was going on. It craned its neck, looking up, but its face showed confusion.
It either senses residual spiritual energy of [Flight] or its [Spiritual Master] is broken.
To test out his theory, Keynes landed softly next to the giant. The moment [Flight] was deactivated, the giant’s body relaxed.
It was at ready? That was some insane instinct. These things are unfair.
A test with [Telekinesis], [Night Sight], and even [Create Water] showed a similar reaction. As for the last one, well, Keynes learned that water was something these things were unfamiliar with and very, very curious about.
Seeing a stream of water appear out of nowhere drew the giant’s face right in front of Keynes—followed closely by two conjured barbed spears.
Despite [Spirit Form], this fight brought Keynes to 25% of his total mana. These giants were simply walking meatsacks of vitality.
Perfect for training. Forcing him to pay attention to things he’d never had reason to pay attention to.
In the following days, when he fought the third and fourth giant, Keynes started to recognise minute leaks of spiritual energy while using [Spirit Form] together with other abilities.
When he reached the fifth and last giants, he was still not able to hide his abilities from [Spiritual Mastery] enhanced senses.
But his improvements weren’t limited only to hiding his presence. It turned out that making abilities ‘invisible’ decreased their mana cost.
With the exception of [Chaos Aura]; that one was one hungry beast.
