[STT] Chapter 54: Gains (Patreon)

Aiming the staff at a wolf, Ben poured mana into the staff, and a bright sphere of energy shredded through the air toward the target near instantly.

But a streak of green wind zipped past it before his attack could land. Piercing the wolf directly through the skull, the wind arrow dropped the beast.

Ben's [Mana Cannon] merely slammed into the beast's already dead corpse a fraction of a second later, blowing it apart uselessly.

No system notification appeared to confirm his kill, as he hadn't been the one killing it. Frowning deeply, Ben adjusted his aim and targeted a cluster of monkeys.

He fired again.

And three separate arrows made of compressed air whistled past his attack, sinking into the monsters' chests.

He didn't get any points for those either.

The kid's attack speed was just way too high.

Floating on his little platform of wind, the noble kid was effortlessly drawing and firing his bow so fast he was outpacing Ben.

And every single time Ben picked a target, the kid simply snapped his bow string and stole the kill.

Ben was literally bleeding potential points right in front of his own eyes.

And he hated it.

"That makes seventeen for me. Oh, wait, eighteen now. Are you actually hitting anything over there? If you drop the staff and leave now, I won't report you for theft. Look, I'm even making you a generous deal. You're clearly struggling to keep up, and that staff is obviously stolen goods. I can tell by the way you hold it."

Ben just stared blankly at him, processing the audacity. Here he was, hunting alone, not bothering anyone, and that apparently bothered this brat enough to come annoy him.

He didn't actually care about being called a thief, and he definitely didn't care about this kid's massive ego or his weird one sided rivalry.

But he was fundamentally opposed to losing his potential points!

Those monsters down there were his points. He needed those points to get great rewards.

The math simply didn't work in Ben's favor here. The noble had a ridiculously high fire rate with his wind magic. The wind arrows were simply faster and more numerous, too.

Every single target Ben picked, the noble sniped first.

While Ben had a lot of mana on his side, he couldn't actually utilize it all properly. His body couldn't bear it if he pulled out too much, nor his mana channels.

Realizing standard fire wasn't going to cut it, Ben gripped the staff tighter. He couldn't shoot multiple projectiles like the bow, so he needed to change the nature of the attack.

I need a higher fire rate.

Or, alternatively, he just needed one really, really long shot.

Looking down at the swarming horde of beasts below, Ben stopped trying to pick individual targets, and grasped the magical staff tightly with both hands.

He pointed the tip straight down toward the absolute thickest part of the monster wave.

And he opened his mana channels completely.

The world slowed down slightly as he began forcefully dragging mana out of his core, pulling it through his channels far faster than his body was meant to handle.

It felt like trying to shove a river through a garden hose.

An ache started blooming in his chest, but he ignored it. Pain was temporary, and he had his healing bomb anyway.

Veins immediately popped out across his forehead.

More.

Shoving far more mana than his body could safely process straight down his arms, he ignored the burning agony completely.

This was what the system wanted, didn't it? Why else would it reward reckless self destruction and new ways of skill usage as well as make leveling up faster while in danger?

He didn't care if he ruptured a few blood vessels.

The world around him disappeared. There was only him, the staff, and the mana he was trying to wrestle, compressing it with will alone.

[Focus].

He shoved all that compressed mana straight into the staff and kept the valve completely open. He didn't let the [Mana Cannon] release yet and kept feeding it more mana.

The staff started to vibrate.

"What are you even doing?"

A voice brought him out of his world, but he ignored the noble. The brat was irrelevant. This was never about him in the first place.

Pushing past his normal limits, Ben channeled an overwhelming amount of mana.

And then, he let go.

A beam of heavily concentrated mana erupted from the tip of the staff. 

The recoil of the beam instantly blasted him backward through the air, the staff almost falling out of his hands.

But he quickly sparked [Fire Burst], flaring twin jets of roaring fire right behind his heels, forcefully pushing his entire body weight forward to counter the massive kickback.

Hovering in the sky while sandwiched between two opposing forces of immense magical thrust, Ben completely stabilized his aim, locking his arms.

And then he swept the staff across the monsters.

The death beam carved a glowing trench through the earth, instantly vaporizing everything in its path.

He just dragged the beam through the densest clusters of the horde, sweeping away dozens of monsters in seconds.

[Tier 1 Monkey slain. Essence gained.]

[Tier 1 Beetle slain. Essence gained.]

[Tier 1 Wolf slain. Essence gained.]

[Tier 1 Wolf slain. Essence gained.]

[Tier 1 Monkey slain. Essence gained.]

[Tier 1 Monkey slain. Essence gained.]

…

[Tier 1 Beetle slain. Essence gained.]

Gritting his teeth against the searing heat in his arms from mana over use, Ben pushed even more mana into the beam.

The blue pillar of light grew twice as thick and he dragged it across the tide of monsters.

Shutting off the mana flow before his channels literally melted, Ben let out a breath as the beam died down.

The blue beam vanished with a sharp popping sound.

Ben closed his mana channels, and let the fire jets on his heels die down to a hover, and slowly blinked the dark spots out of his vision.

The staff was smoking slightly.

And he felt the pain.

So he instantly tore open his construct, healing flooding into his body as he looked over at the noble.

Staring down stunned, the kid looked completely paralyzed. The condescending smile was entirely gone, and his bow was lowering limply in his hands, completely forgotten.

"Are you done now?"

Ben asked, and the kid flinched out of his stupor, snapping his head up to look at Ben.

"If you are, please leave so I can hunt in peace. Thanks."

The noble kid tried to say something, but stopped. Looking down again, he seemed to have come to a decision as he turned around and left without a word. And he honestly didn't care about the brat's bruised ego at all. Because the notifications were way more important!

He looked through them all. Dismissing the wall of kill confirmations, he zeroed in on the final notification at the bottom.

Oh, sweet.

Shoving his definitely-not-stolen staff back into his holding bag, he let himself drop toward the ground in sheer excitement.

Still, there was a dull throb radiating through his arms even with a healing mark used. He realized he had heavily overdrawn his limits. His mana channels felt raw, and his healing bomb was basically torn open and spent.

He had used almost all of it just patching up the worst of the damage.

What would he do without [Focus]?

Ben couldn't imagine handling all of this without it.

So he had a very clear checklist now. Rest, patch his body back together while he worked on his construct, refilling it and making some changes.

Ben flew straight toward the monolith. He had a working theory about this whole restricted zone thing.

The monolith had only stripped his flight skill when he actively tried to reach the top of the barrier earlier, not a single moment before. And as expected, crossing the threshold this time didn't rip [Fire Burst] away from him at all.

Makes sense.

That totally explained why Alice still had her gravity magic. The monolith only cared if you were using a skill to cheat your way up to the top.

Spotting Alice still sitting on her boulder, he cruised over to her and landed. She didn't look impressed in the slightest. In fact, she just gave him a completely deadpan, dry stare.

He raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

"You really are an idiot."

"I see."

"What do you see?! That was incredibly reckless! If that 'ethically' acquired staff of yours hadn't been able to handle all that mana, it would've exploded in your face!"

"I see."

"Don't you 'I see' me! Please tell me you at least got some levels out of that?"

Ben smiled smugly.

"Well, I actually got something better."

He pulled up his notifications, honing in on the important ones.

[Mana Cannon Lvl 5 > Lvl 6]

[Mana Manipulation Lvl 8 > Lvl 9]

[Focus Lvl 19 > Lvl 20]

Congratulations! [Focus] has reached the pinnacle of its current rank.

Evolution Requirements met. You have four paths you can walk forward in. Do you wish to proceed?

Yes.

The offered skill paths are based on your performance up until now. Choose carefully!

Knowing exactly how his own brain worked, Ben didn't even bother looking at the options. Because he knew if he looked at them, he would just feel awful about missing out. And his choice had already been made beforehand in the first place. He wanted the benefit of going all in on mana, and skills, so he could only go with one option for future proofing.

So he took the path of least resistance. He just clicked the basic evolution path and called it a day.

Because Hannah had told him so. And he trusted her. But he was surprised when the evolution actually showed more than he thought it would.

Congratulations! [Focus - Lvl 20] (Uncommon) has evolved into [Focus (Parallel Focus) - Lvl 1] (Rare)!

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