"Lightning Shock!" I shouted, desperately trying to point at one of the charging raptors. Then I screamed, because as bright as the bolt of lightning may have been, it was nothing compared to the flash of mana that accompanied it.

  The bolt harmlessly grounded itself into the soil, not having been on target even without the additional blinding. Not that it made any difference. Even if I'd taken out one raptor, there were at least a dozen more on their way, and I didn't have time to charge another spell.

  ... No, wait. I did. As I tried to think rationally through the panic—helped by the bonus from [Erudite II]—it occurred to me that the first lightning bolt had fired with far greater celerity than I was used to. The upgrade from [Mana Manipulation] to [Mana Mastery] had greatly improved my casting speed.

  Not that it would help. Even if I took out a second raptor, there were still a dozen more.

  I was not in a fit state to fight. Thankfully, now that I'd slowed down to think things through, I realised I didn't need to. I was still right next to the dungeon entrance. All it took was a quick roll...

  ... And I was in.

  I just hoped that it helped.

  It was a well-known rule that monsters didn't cross into dungeons, but was that because they wouldn't or couldn't? Presenting them with helpless prey within arm's reach of the border was not the way I wanted to test it.

  Besides, it was an equally well-known rule that monsters didn't leave dungeons, and yet dungeon breaks were a thing.

  Thankfully, nothing ate me, despite the raptors congregating around the entrance, so close that I could feel their breath on my face. I was treated to a background of snarling and growling as I stared up at the false sky, trying to make sense of the information my eyes were feeding my brain. It wasn't helped by the way my brain was preoccupied filing away my odd memories of memories.

  I'd always thought the false skies and environments of dungeons were pretty impressive. Yes, I'd never seen one with a realistic day/night cycle, but without staying there for a protracted length of time, or comparing inside to outside, it hadn't been obvious that things were fake.

  It was pretty damn obvious now.

  The sky was shrouded in mana. An odd shade of... something, that stretched from horizon to horizon. Were there words for colours of mana? The closest I could get was a sort of swirling purple-red-black-green, which I didn't feel was a helpful description. In any case, unlike outside the dungeon, where the mana overlaid physical things, the sky wasn't. The layer of mana was too close. The wrong shape. The sky and the sun were not there. It was all just a big illusion. I'd strongly suspected that, of course—why would dungeons go so far as to recreate full-sized suns and moons? But suspecting was rather different from being able to see it.

  A sort of yellow-black-pink hovered over everything, but was especially concentrated around the entrance, and it was the wrong shape, too. It gave the impression of being the wrong size. As if the cloud of mana was only a few metres across, and yet it filled the entire dungeon, which was rather more than two metres in size.

  At least, it was more than two metres across on the inside. Did it even exist on the outside at all? The entrance was via portal.

  It was the fact that I could see the same colours wrapping around my storage ring that clued me in on the source of the discrepancy. The mana must have something to do with spatial expansion, or perhaps spatial shenanigans in general.

  I could see how this new ability would be useful. I could spot illusions, tell the elements of spells before people cast them, or guess at the function of enchanted items. I just hoped it would become a little less overwhelming with time.

  Better mental Stats would help. Hopefully. At least in the long term. In the immediate term, dropping a full hundred points into them in one go just made me feel a bit light-headed and giggly.

  I tried to force down the feeling. I needed to move. To get further from the entrance. The raptors were still there, and even if something prevented them from personally entering, I didn't want to give them time to consider such possibilities as throwing rocks through the entrance.

  But I couldn't get too far from the entrance. From my previous visits to the dungeon, I'd learnt that leaving and re-entering caused the monsters to respawn. The trees would be full of acid crawlers. I needed to remain on the beach.

  Still too thoroughly in the grip of vertigo to stand, I crawled slowly away, much to the incredulity of the monsters, which roared in anger at my glacially retreating form. Perhaps I should fire a few lightning bolts back through? I wasn't sure if that was possible, but I also didn't have sufficient confidence in my aim right now. Perhaps if they were still there once I'd recovered enough to leave.

  For now, I simply moved a short distance away, and also around, so that I wasn't visible from the other side of the portal, then I flopped onto my back and stared up at the false sky.

  The question of 'what next' arose unbidden in my mind. Not in the what-to-do-about-the-raptors sense, but in broader terms. I had my Path now. Was it time to head deeper into the jungle, to find the tower? Would [Mana Mastery] let me see the illusion that shrouded it? Honestly, I doubted it. It was still only a B-rank Skill, and while it was qualitatively different from the C-rank version, I shouldn't expect it to pierce illusions cast by higher-rank Skills. While I had my doubts that what surrounded the tower came from a Skill, whatever its source must be equivalent to A-rank, right? I should assume it would only let me see low-rank stuff, or illusions that deliberately didn't try to hide themselves.

  Besides, I still didn't have the weapon I wanted against the braccus tyrants. I needed to evolve [Lightning Shock] or [Wind Blade]. One more level would be sufficient. The pack of braccus raptors outside would be a good start.

  Ideally, I wanted to evolve everything and get all the new Skills to their final stage, including [Mapping] and [Adept Foraging] to see if I could get a new B-rank Skill out of them. I hadn't had the chance to put [Sixth Sense] through its paces yet, but with a name like that, I had high hopes. A B-rank version would be even better, especially if it incorporated [Mapping] and [Adept Foraging]. What sort of Skill would that even create? Some sort of generic solo survivalist thing? A Skill for safely hanging out alone in monster-infested jungles? I had the feeling it would be exactly what I wanted if I wanted to make myself at home in the Jungle of Braccus.

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  It was just a shame how many points it would need. Twenty-eight to advance [Mapping] and [Adept Foraging], plus whatever the Skill merge cost. Probably another five. That was a lot when I wasn't even sure what the result would be. In the short term, dropping two points each to evolve [Lightning Shock], [Wind Blade] and [Stab] would be better. Heck, so would five for [Heal], or even just the one for [Noise].

  I needed another forty to get [Dagger Grandmastery] and [Mana Mastery] to their final stage, and then a bunch more to advance my evolved spells and [Pierce].

  As a guild receptionist had once told me, having too many skill points was likely a problem that had afflicted zero people across all of history. Despite my advantages, I was certainly no exception.

  I couldn't hang around on the jungle outskirts forever. I had substantially higher Stats than the last time I'd faced a braccus tyrant, and [Dagger Grandmastery] would aid me in defending against one, even if my daggers weren't sufficient to actually harm them. One more level to evolve [Wind Blade]—I didn't want to risk casting [Lightning Strike] in the middle of the jungle—and I'd begin my search for the tower.

  It took another half-hour of simply looking at things until I felt confident enough to stand, and another hour after that before I felt sufficiently coordinated to fight. In the interest of safety, I headed deeper into the dungeon rather than out of it. The bugs were rather less dangerous than the unpredictable braccus raptors.

  When the inevitable head-drop of an acid crawler came, my hand swung around practically on its own, neatly slicing through brain while avoiding the acid sac.

  The dead monster splattered on the ground.

  "Hmm..." I said as I inspected the damage. That reaction had been a bit of a double-edged sword. I'd moved on instinct, far faster than my Processing should have allowed. On the other hand, my move was predictable. Too clean and precise. Too optimal. I could see an intelligent opponent—one with a high-ranked weapon Skill of their own—being able to exploit that predictability, in much the same way as I'd once baited an orc chieftain.

  I'd need to be careful not to rely too heavily on the new instincts. Maybe they'd be great if caught by surprise, but in a longer battle against a peer, I'd need to be careful.

  Not that I was likely to get caught by surprise too often. [Sixth Sense] had pinged at me before I'd even set foot under the tree in question, alerting me to the fact that it was dangerous. It hadn't said why, exactly, but even so, the warning went beyond [Danger Sense], which only reacted to incoming attacks. I didn't know when, exactly, the acid crawler had spotted me, but [Sixth Sense] may well have pinged before. Even if it hadn't, pinging before an enemy made any offensive movements was a major qualitative upgrade.

  Not that I'd needed [Sixth Sense]. The leaves of the trees made for good visual camouflage for anything hiding in them, but that mattered little now that I had [Mana Mastery]. The acid crawler had been obvious from the beginning, an elongated blob of dirty brown-red-yellow shining out like a beacon from within the green-blue-white of the tree.

  Happy with my improved Skills, I moved deeper into the dungeon, picking off a path through the mobs for the fourth time. Launching [Wind Blade] at the acid moths confirmed my casting time had improved substantially, perhaps by a third or so. With that and my improved dagger handling, I scythed through the monsters in a fraction of the time my previous clears had taken.

  Between [Ancient Soul], [Fragment of the Past] and [Solivagant], I gained four skill points for the level. Four! And yet it still wasn't anywhere close to enough.

  The boss was sitting in its usual place, coiled around a tree at the centre of an acid pond. [Mana Mastery] once again spoilt the illusion, a rim of green-purple-black bleeding it away from the edges to keep the level constant. The boss itself was horrifically complex to my mana sight, with an outer layer of the same brown-red-yellow as the smaller monsters, but with whiffs of other 'colours' within. Some clusters were probably responsible for acid production, but most I couldn't identify.

  I triggered the boss with a [Wind Scythe] to a spawning sac. The new spell was simply a scaled up version of the old. Bigger, longer range, and a deeper cut. A longer casting time and greater Mana cost, too—the single spell drained fifty points, the same as a [Heal]. It slammed into the monster, and, as usual, the pustules burst, releasing their cargoes of acid crawlers into the pool below. Unlike before, the blade actually cut into the flesh of the monster, pale blood joining the green acid in the rain upon the lake.

  ... Wait.

  What if that was the challenge to this dungeon? If so, [Wind Scythe] wouldn't be enough.

  "Lightning Strike!" I yelled, launching a much thicker bolt than before. Once again, the spell was pretty much just a scaled up version of [Lightning Shock]: louder, brighter, hotter, slower, and, of course, more expensive. Way more expensive. The single shot drained a hundred Mana! I hadn't consumed too much mana on my way to the boss, but even so, I could only manage another twelve shots. Maybe thirteen at a push, although that would leave me low enough that I doubted I'd be able to run away effectively.

  Not that I really had anywhere to run to. If I ran out of Mana, my only option would be to flee the dungeon, but if the pack of braccus raptors was still outside, I'd need to face them without Mana. That would be unideal.

  Nevertheless, given the size of the bolt, and the way it scorched a hole into the matriarch's flesh, I calculated twelve would be enough. The only question was whether I could cast quickly enough: the evolution had more than undone any improvements [Mana Mastery] had made to the casting speed.

  "Lightning Strike!"

  I fired a few more bolts while dodging the spit of the spawn, and that was enough to get the boss to start unwinding from its tree. I didn't stop, though.

  "Lightning Strike!"

  A bolt tore through its wings, the improved spell being sufficient to leave holes. Another struck a section of thorax that had pushed away from the tree, causing electricity to arc down the body. The monster convulsed, but continued unravelling.

  "Dammit. Hurry up," I complained as I charged the next bolt. "Lightning Strike!"

  The mana within it was weird. There were threads reaching out, linked with ground and sky. Perhaps it was, to some extent, being puppeted. I'd need to compare how it looked to monsters on the outside.

  Not that it mattered. For as long as it kept moving, I kept blasting it. With [Sixth Sense] and the instincts of [Dagger Grandmastery], dodging the attacks of the spawn took very little concentration, freeing my focus for aiming. A second bolt struck the same location as an earlier one, blasting a spray of charred flesh into the air. Another hit the base of a wing, disconnecting it entirely. And, on the tenth:

  Awesome. I'd made it in time. The trick was simply to defeat the boss before it could begin its second phase.

  The acid pond solidified, which I'd never seen in person before having been too busy running for my life. Not that it would have looked the same without [Mana Mastery]. I saw the way the acid was removed, the same magic that wrapped the pool's edge filling its entire volume. The monsters within decomposed in much the same way as the body of the matriarch. Soil was brought in from nowhere.

  I flopped over onto the fresh soil, ignoring both teleporter and chest. Spending that much Mana so quickly left me feeling rather drained. What time was it, anyway? Probably long past bedtime. I needed to eat something, too...

  In the end, it was tiredness that won out. Just a short nap to let my Mana recover. I brought out my warding stone and swiftly fell asleep.

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