His body was working against Dante here. His eyes struggled to stay open and the text blurred before his eyes. To ask the current him to analyze the pros and cons of each specialization was impossible. To do so, he would need to get some sleep. And to get some sleep, he needed to pick a specialization. It was a paradox, a famous one that he couldn’t remember the name of. Dante was screwed either way.

  The thought struck a chord in his sleep-addled mind, and maniac laughter erupted out of him before he could stop it. Pauwna gave him a concerned look, and he waved her off. When it died down, he explained, “I got the [Aura Manipulation] specialization.”

  The knowledge didn’t seem to diminish Pauwna’s concern.

  At the end of the day, he needed to pick whichever option would allow him to rest. There was no avoiding that. Even if it came to bite him in the future. Which was a shame, because [Nimble Aura] appealed to him the most. His aura was always lagging behind his commands. The options that would help him in his current predicament would be [Aura Molding] or [Synchronized Aura].

  After rereading [Synchronized Aura], Dante couldn’t help but feel it was a trap. From what Pauwna told him, it overlapped heavily with the [Aura Reinforcement] skill he was hoping to unlock. Which left [Aura Molding]. Even in his current state he could think of a few ideas of how to use that one.

  [Aura Manipulation] has acquired the specialization [Aura Molding]

  Time to see if his investment payed off. Dante designated his himself and his companions as off limits, then loosened his grip on his aura. He immediately noticed a difference. Previously, he had enveloped Pauwna and Ren’s upper bodies in the air pocket to save on his mental energy but now the auraless volume expanded to include the rest of their bodies without any input. It was not perfect, ripples frequently ran through the separation and cause it to briefly enter their bodies, but it was workable. However, all other areas of the air pocket began to collapse, forcing him to reassert control. The end result was that he still had maintain the air pocket, but a fair part of the mental load had been reduced.

  It was not enough, Dante still had to be awake to connect air to the auraless pockets around them.

  He had expected this to a certain degree, though he could still not help but be disappointed. It was good that he had other ideas. Next, Dante tried to exclude the air and breathed a sigh of relief when it worked. He had not been confident that such a general designation would work. The general shape of his aura did not change, there was air all around after all, but his air tube tried to expand. That was fine, though he did clamp down on the entrance and kept it small enough that the spawn could not enter. It was something he had noticed recently, Dante could change the shape of his aura but not the volume. This was better, but not good enough.

  Dante had one last idea and he hoped that it would work, though it was the riskiest one yet. Otherwise, it was back to suffering and praying that he would unlock [Aura Reinforment] soon. Preparing himself, he exclude the canyon walls.

  His aura surged forward as it was forced out of the stone around him. The pressure on his body increased as more spawn came in contact with it. Thankfully, it leveled off as his aura filled the canyon and could only expand upwards, where the area contacting the swarm didn’t change. Dante was back into the firmly uncomfortable range, but it was livable. Once he confirmed that, his attention went back to the new borders of his aura. Like with his companions, it hugged the stone walls roughly and frequently dipped into it. The important part was that there was plenty of gaps where air could travel. Better yet, the pockets around each of them merged with those gaps.

  Tentatively, he released his grip on all of his aura constructs. The air passage that he had been holding for days collapsed and yet they could still breathe. Air was successfully traveling between the interface between his aura and the canyon stone to their auraless pockets. Dante pumped a fist into the air. He had done it. He could sleep now.

  “Given that display, I take it you have figured something out?” asked Pauwna, looking around the newly revealed parts of the canyon. Dante had perhaps doubled their traversible area.

  Dante grinned widely at her. “You could say that. I am a genius and figured it out without that damn skill. I can finally sleep!”

  A great deal of tension seemed to leave her and she returned his smile. ”Oh that’s good. That’s very good. I didn’t want to tell you before, because it would make you worry needlessly, but working with aura for that long is dangerous. You are displaying the early symptoms, a fever, bloodshot eyes, and delirium.”

  He would have very much liked to know that earlier, but that conversation could wait. Dante gave her a quick nod of acknowledgement, then turned over and got as comfortable as he could with two thin blankets and stone as a mattress. Even so, sleep was upon him as soon as he shut his eyes.

  Day 3.

  The last rays of light were already fading by the time he woke up. Despite his sleeping arrangements, Dante felt pretty good. The benefits of having good fortitude and constitution he supposed. Looking around, he noted that Ren’s bandages had been changed during the day. Pauwna was still crouched by the barrier boundary, methodically killing spawn. They had killed so many by this point that the canyon outside the barrier was half full with their pieces. With a careful flexing of his will, he pushed the shards outside and the weight on him diminished.

  I should have done that earlier. Being tired made me careless.

  There was nothing to do but to keep on getting stronger. Dante created a passageway within his aura to allow the spawn to get closer to him and began the days grisly work. However, a problem arose after he crushed the first one.

  Level 1 [Spawn] has been slain

  Your Participation: 100%

  You have killed an enemy five levels below you

  A penalty of 50% will be applied

  That was going to be a problem. Most of the spawn were level one with the occasional level two or three. This meant that this problem alone would double the time it would take him to get to level seven. Given that had taken about three days for the last level up, he estimated it might be about a week until level eight. Dane wasn’t sure if they wanted to be down here for a week more, Ren had still not woken up.

  When he shared these concerns with Pauwna, she snorted. “You are upset that it will take a week to get to level seven? By the Empress, may she burn forever, I think you would send a farmer into a rage if they heard you. Most of them don’t reach level fifteen within their entire lifetime. A level like that would be the work of years, though I suppose a farmer doesn’t have to risk their life.”

  She hesitated, glancing over at a feverish Ren. Despite her best efforts some of the wounds had grown infected. Pauwna was doing her best, but Ren would need a doctor. The sooner the better.

  “I suppose you have a point. All we really need to leave is for you to acquire aura compression. Aura reinforcement is no longer needed with this trick you figured out — though I still suggest you learn it. It would allow you to reduce your aura’s size and not get crushed. When that happens depends on you, I have no idea how to do it myself. Good luck, for both of our sakes.”

  No pressure huh? Ok, I can figure this out. The name itself is a clue, I just have to force more aura to occupy the same space. At least I can dedicate my full attention to it. Night has fallen and I shouldn’t keep farming these spawn in the dark unless I want to lose a finger.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Dante activated [Hyper Focus] and got to work.

  Day 4.

  Failure. Dantee had worked through most of the night, pausing only to take a nap. No matter what he tried, aura of the same kind simply refused to be in the same area. No matter how hard Dante willed it. He had even tried accelerating two tendrils at each other but all that did was combine them into a loop. No matter the angle or environment, it simply refused. To. Work.

  I must be missing something here. Brute forcing it obviously isn’t working.

  Sighing, he removed the problem from his mind. At least the entire process had not been fruitless. During the night, [Hyper Focus] had increased to level 2. It was a frightening ability. The entire night had passed in a stupor and he had been surprised when the sun arose. As soon as it broke, a wave of hunger and tiredness so intense it had made him dizzy passed over him. Even with his enhanced stats. Yet his focus during that time was unparalleled.

  With the light provided by the sun, Dante began killing spawn again. He had gotten fairly good at it and rarely got cut anymore, which was good given that both hands were still criss crossed with many stinging lines. He had figured out a new trick to it. By excluding one of the spawn from the effects of his repelling field, Dante was able to isolate it from its brethren. Not only that, but due to the imperfect nature of the exclusion, it was still slowed from his aura. Which made it easy pickings.

  Dante activated [Hyper Focus] once again, then got to work.

  Day 5.

  It was amazing what could become boring given enough time. It turns out that five days of crushing these [Chausus Spawn] was the breaking point. He rarely got cut these days, baring one exception. After interacting with the insects for so long, Dante had began wonder how they had managed to cut the likes of Ahzi. If even his low leveled attributes combined with a low leveled skill like [Martial Arts] largely resisted their attacks, then what hope did they have against the likes of her?

  He got his answer when he attempted to grab two spawn at the same time. Greed had overcome his caution, supported by a healthy dose of complacency. Dante was getting impatient with his current leveling scenario and so let two spawn into his field this time. To his surprise, the pair stuck together and advanced on him, but Dante paid no mind to it. He had plenty room in his hand for both of them.

  He plucked one, then the other. His first sign that something was wrong was when he felt a vibration pass through the spawn along with a faint chiming sound barely audible over the background noise. Then his hand erupted in cuts.

  Cursing, he slammed both to the ground, shattering them, and then examined his hand. To his relief, none of the cuts were deep, though they had easily doubled his previous number. What in the world had happened?

  As Pauwna scolded him for his negligence and tended to the new wounds, he set about investigating. First, he allowed two more inside his aura, then trapped them in an isolated bubble. Unfortunately, Dante had figured out early on that the insects had no need to breathe, or else he would have come up with a far more efficient system of killing them. Then, he trapped one inside a similar bubble and brought them before him. After examining the two groups, the difference between them quickly became apparent.

  There seemed to be a kind of … resonance between the insects. The pair emitted the faint humming reminiscent of the constant back ground noise of the swarm. Their wings seemed faster and sharper too. Which he confirmed by hitting them with rocks and comparing the score marks. The effect was amplified further when he allowed a third, then fourth spawn to join them — though the increase seemed smaller with each addition. Looking out at the swarm beyond his aura, Dante could scarcely imagine the strength of the resonance out there.

  No wonder the high ranks feared them.

  At this point, Pauwna had finished binding his wound and she disposed of the excess bloodsoaked bandages by letting his aura catch it and fling it away. As the bandages entered the swarm something strange caught Dante’s eye before they were whisked out of sight. He could have sworn that a pocket had opened in the swarm. It had happened so quickly that Dante thought he might have imagined it.

  Dante peeled the remnants of his glove that had been similarly shredded by the accident, excluded it and slowly extended it into the swarm. As it crossed the barrier, the bloodied glove flapped around in his hand and the swarm was pushed back a few inches. All without him doing anything.

  “What is on your mind?” asked Pauwna, noticing his shock.

  Dante pointed at the glove, now firmly beyond the boundaries of his aura and yet was untouched. “I am not doing that.”

  She stared at the glove, confused, before comprehension dawned on her face. Pauwna took it from him and tested herself. When the same results occurred, she stared at it for a few long minutes.

  “What did you say your ability was called?” she asked, looking as if she knew the answer already.

  “[Warding Flesh].” Dante said slowly, then it struck him. Warding. Flesh. “My aura comes from my body? My blood alone still can repel?”

  “So it seems. This is just …” Pauwna shook her head instead of answering. “You can never let anyone else know about this, Dante. You will never see the light of day again. Likely, you would be strung up and harvested for the rest of your life with breaks only to kill the occasional prisoner.” She sighed, the resolve seemed to fill her. “Let us never speak of it again. There certain abilities out there that can pick up that sort of thing.”

  Dante nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and they returned to their respective tasks in silence. A few hours after, Dante was rewarded for his diligence. Though after reading the notification, he wanted to laugh.

  You have acquired [Aura Reinforcement]

  Dante could feel the change. It was like his aura constructs had weight now. That they could settle into their new shape and resist the pull for a time. He tried it now, pulling his attention from maintaining the inverted cone he used to funnel the spawn towards him.

  It held.

  For a time, Dante had the luxury of relaxing without the need to focus on anything in particular. For a few minutes at least. He could feel the aura construct losing its shape and was forced to reassert his will to keep it from collapsing.

  This is useful enough, though my immediate need for it has lessened due to the [Conforming Aura] specialization. Good thing too, my rest would have been miserable having to wake up every few minutes to fix it. At least I can focus on other things while actively using it. Like figuring out this damn [Aura Compression] thing.

  Day 6.

  Dante had gotten this insect farming thing down to a science. He would alternate grabbing them between hands, smashing the insect with one hand while acquiring a new one with the other. With this method, he near doubled his rate. He quickly noticed the improvement

  Congratulations! You have advanced to Level 7

  [Martial Arts] has advanced to Level 8

  [Temporal Reactions] has advanced to Level 6

  What an incredibly fruitful day. He wasn’t surprised about the first two, he had been earning a constant stream of experience and he had been using his fists to do it, but the last caught him offguard. He had been activating it whenever he could, but hadn’t been seeing much progress from it. Perhaps individual spawn didn’t rate as much of a threat? Whatever the reason, he was happy to see it increase. Dante assigned his attributes as he had last level.

  +1 to Constitution, +5 to Fortitude, +2 Endurance

  Fortitude was now his highest attribute, at 28, and the difference was noticeable. Being pressed against the stone was no longer uncomfortable and Dante no longer woke up sore from sleeping on the ground. Even the [Chausus Spawn] no longer cut him unless he was very careless.

  Day 7.

  They had been in this canyon for a week. A solid fifth of his time in this world has been spent here. Surprisingly, not the worst week of that time. They were running low on food. Dante’s and Pauwna’s supply had been exhausted and they had dipped into Ren’s reserves. This was despite them eating the bare minimum, they gave Ren extra. It was fair given how they had saved her and provided ongoing treatment.

  Pauwna had started skipping meals, saying: “When you reach a high enough constitution, you need less sustenance. A few days will be nothing.”

  Dante couldn’t bring himself to disagree and so they had a few days more supply. He was getting frustrated. No matter what he tried, he could not seem to acquire [Aura Compression]. And yet he had to keep trying.

  It was the only way they were getting out of this.

  Day 8.

  On the eve of the eighth day, Ren woke up.