From outside, the garage had appeared big enough to store maybe a dozen double-decker buses length ways, with enough width to perhaps fit in six rows of buses, assuming space had to be left between the rows for people to walk through. That was a seriously impressive fleet of buses, and made for an enormous building by most standards.

Inside the portal, the bus depot seemed to go on forever. The building they were in vaguely mimicked the one from the real world, with ceiling windows carved out of the zigzagging warehouse roofs letting in hellish light that bathed the uniform rows of red double-decker buses in their maintenance bays. Except said rows went on so long that he couldn't see the end of them from his position, and looking left and right in either direction yielded much the same result. The portal they'd come through was positioned at the 'back' wall of the vast complex at least, so they wouldn't have to worry about even more beyond it.

The place was eerily quiet and still. The aroma of motor oil hung in the air. John hadn't been thinking about temperature much recently, but it was noticeably warmer in here than it had been outside. And yet, his breath fogged in front of his face. How did that make any sense?

John glanced back at the portal over his shoulder. The pile of monster corpses they'd created was already well on its way to dissolving. Little wisps of blue vapour curled up from the fading carcasses, mingling with the marginally deeper blue of the portal.

He wondered if it was worth risking a peek through the portal to check if the green-souled monsters were out there waiting for them; there was no way to know from here, with Mana Sense cut off from the outside world. That set his mind down another track, pondering what exactly stood beyond the walls of this false depot, if anything existed out there at all.

His musings were interrupted by a cleared throat. Inspecting his companions, he saw the rest of them were doing the same, just… looking at each other, meeting eyes one by one, with expressions that conveyed varying levels of disbelief.

Jade was the first to find her voice. "It worked, eh?"

"That it did," Doug said, smiling a little dreamily. "We'll have to keep that trick in the back pocket. Course, you need someone with good ranged abilities to actually make it work. And a bait."

Chester sighed. The muscular young man slowly lowered himself to the ground and bowed his head. There were scuff marks all over his armour, and much of his new clothes had already been torn up, but his skin was unblemished underneath—a level up, presumably. John hadn't thought to ask whether the others received healing with levels, but the answer was plain before him. Looking closer, there was an unmistakable bleariness in Chester's eyes. The levels didn't deal with exhaustion, emotionally speaking.

Lily crouched down next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder and whispering something John probably wasn't supposed to hear, but the enhanced hearing granted to him by whichever stat governed such things picked it up anyway: "I know, sweetie. I know."

"I don't know if I can keep—"

"That sensing ability of yours picking anything up?" Alissa asked, voice flat, inadvertently cutting off the rest of whatever Chester had been saying. Enhanced hearing didn't mean much if there was something louder drowning out all else.

"Nothing," John said, cutting his gaze towards the false bus depot that stretched out far before them. "No monsters within about 1000 metres of us."

"Think that means there's nothing here?" Lily asked. "Maybe they were all outside, but we wiped them out."

"I'd be willing to wager they're all just further in," Jade said.

"I certainly hope so!" Doug said, regaining his grin as he too scanned the endless rows of buses with a sharp gaze. "This party's only just getting started, kids. You're not going to let an old man like me show you up, are you?"

-400 Aura

John held back a sigh as he eyed the old man. Doug's Adonis body was just as covered in blood to show the aftermath of cuts, but, like Chester, there was no actual damage on his skin. Doug caught him looking, and flashed a toothy grin.

"I don't know about that," John forced himself to say as nonchalantly as he could, "You'll be wanting a nap soon, surely?"

+400 Aura

John's words applied to him as much as anyone. He hadn't slept since his Spell-induced Rest back at the bloody mansion, and he was feeling the groggy weight of sleep-deprivation even now. Not much he could do about that, though. No way was he risking a Rest in the middle of enemy territory.

"Let us focus on the matter at hand," Alissa said, shooting Doug a warning look that had the old man lifting his hands in mock surrender, still grinning. "The portal," she continued, "is to be destroyed, yes? That is our aim?"

"Yes," John said, while he was thinking: I need a way to shut down any question of Doug being cooler than me, so the system stops constantly pushing me to battle for dominance. It's fucking annoying.

The others nodded in unison, Doug giving his motion exaggerated enthusiasm. Even Chester's head gave a jerky bob.

Alissa looked them all over one by one, but her gaze lingered on John the longest. "Alright. How do we do that?"

It was nice to see she wasn't questioning whether it was even possible. John wasn't even sure of that himself. He turned to Jade, who was looming over Lily, who was still crouched by Chester, who was staring at the ground with a vacant expression.

John spoke, "The Underworld was a warped copy of the London Underground, and I think we're seeing the same here."

Jade nodded, steely eyes turning thoughtful. "Decent odds this place will kind of resemble an actual bus depot in how it operates, you reckon?"

"Maybe." John shrugged.

Lily picked up their line of thought. "Fuck knows what a bus depot usually does, though, and how it'll be twisted into something different inside the portal. Do we think there'll be monsters further in?"

"If the portal really does keep to its theme, there'll be monsters working repairs on the buses, or something." Jade grimaced. "Or maybe the buses themselves will be monsters, somehow. Or the equipment. We've seen some fuckin' weird monsters out there, like. Wouldn't surprise me to see a toolbox come to life and grow teeth."

"Bloody hell," Chester whispered.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"That does sound like fun," Doug said cheerfully. He crossed his arms, which accentuated the sheer size of his bulging biceps. "There were three portals outside, all different colours, one on each door. You mentioned in your story earlier there were different lines running through some stations, with different power levels. What do we think? Something like that here, too?"

John found himself staring down one of the endless rows of buses. "Could be. It'd make things easier for us, that way."

He wished he felt as confident as those words implied.

"And what are we actually going to do?" Alissa said. Her arms were crossed beneath her chest, one finger tapping on the crook of her elbow.

John found it rather difficult to look at her in that absurdly skintight bodysuit, and the knowledge that she did not at all appreciate having to wear something so revealing only made him even more uncomfortable. She hadn't been completely forthcoming on the details of her abilities, but he figured she had something similar to him, except she had to look "sexy" rather than "cool", and she had thus far been less willing to give in to her system's demands than him.

He couldn't blame her, really. If there was one idea more mortifying than having to act cool, it was having to act sexy. He'd be dead already, if that was him.

"We're just going to have to figure out how these portal things works," John said, "and then find a way to tear them down."

"Hear, hear," Doug said. "Now then, no one bother me for a moment. I've got points to spend."

Jade blinked at him, then her eyes went distant. "Me too," she murmured.

Everyone else soon followed up with their own vacant expressions, and John figured they were taking the time to give their own powers some attention. He did the same, reminded not only of spare points, but the fact he'd raised his Arcane Level in the madness. There were Level 4 Spells to check out.

Level 4 Spells:

Pyroclastic Lance: 4000 Aura

Tempest Sphere: 4000 Aura

Voltaic Chain: 4000 Aura

Earth Wave: 4000 Aura

Verdant Hell: 4000 Aura

Gravity Snare: 4000 Aura

Levitate Object: 4000 Aura

Vector Lash: 4000 Aura

Orbital Well: 4000 Aura

Mass Manipulation: 4000 Aura

John nodded to himself as he read the five elemental abilities and five others. It seemed Level 4 carried on Level 3's theme of having…well…a theme. Level 3's had been edgy necromancer abilities, while Level 4 was geared towards telekinetic stuff, all of which seemed fairly straight forward.

And, damn, they all looked pretty good. Judging by the Spells he'd upgraded to Level 4 so far, they'd be potent too. Gravity snare sounded like it'd trap a target in an area of heightened gravity, presumably requiring him to reach out towards said target—pretty much every Spell so far had required some movement from him, and he didn't see why these would be any different.

For Levitate Object, he pictured himself pointing at something below a given weight and lifting it from a distance. Vector Lash was a little tricker to picture, but he figured that designating two objects to either pull towards each other or one act as an anchor to pull the other was a pretty good guess. He imagined Orbital Well would manifest as an invisible force field that would draw objects into an orbit around him, perhaps requiring him to designate what the Spell would catch, too.

Of all the telekinetic Spells, Mass Manipulation intrigued him most. It was a power set he'd seen a few times before in media, drifting up into the air as light as a feather, then coming down with the weight of a meteor. The problem there was in what kind of damage it could do to his body, but maybe if his mass was dense enough he'd shrug off the fall. It was, as with all things in this system, a question of how cool he'd be able to look doing it. If he could plummet to the ground with his arms crossed and a stoic expression only to stand up none the worse for wear, it'd look pretty badass.

After a second pondering that image, he turned his attention to the elemental offerings of Level 4. Every one of them would be deadly—at least to blues and greens—going by the Level 4s he'd upgraded to so far, but it was still interesting to speculate as to just how that would manifest.

Pyroclastic Lance seemed somewhat of a redundant ability, when he had Mana Blade already, but he wouldn't necessarily write it off completely, since it would probably burn and cut at the same time. Tempest Sphere… well, not to be too much of a filthy weeb about it, but that sounded like a Rasengan from Naruto—in other words, a spinning orb of razor-sharp magical energy that cut whatever it touched like a spherical buzz saw. Useful in many circumstances.

Voltaic Chain would probably be a lightning bolt that jumped from target to target, ostensibly guaranteeing multiple dead enemies in one hit. Earth Wave gave him the impression of kicking up a tidal wave of dirt and rock, which had many obvious applications.

Verdant Hell, though. What the Hell is that?

Verdant implied a plant-based Spell. Hell was more nebulous, and left him guessing what this Spell would actually do. If nothing else, it was perhaps the most intimidating-sounding Spell on the list by dint of the second word, and it had him picturing a bunch of thorny bushes suddenly growing out of nowhere and entangling his enemies.

A nice image, but unfortunately he couldn't guarantee it wouldn't require the preexisting presence of plants. No other Spell had had such requirements so far, but the risk was above 0 in this case and thus lowered its priority a little.

John stared at all these new possibilities for a moment, deep in thought. There was plenty interesting stuff, but nothing immediately game changing enough for him to snap up right away. He had just over 10,000 Aura in the bank again if he felt like getting something new, but if he was going to spend anyway, he might as well assess all the options. Or so he told himself.

Increased Talent Level 3 -> Level 4

-800 Aura

Level 4 Skills:

Flash Step: 4000 Aura

Air Step: 4000 Aura

Thread Walker: 4000 Aura

Precognition: 4000 Aura

Combine: 4000 Aura

Ranger: 4000 Aura

Medic: 4000 Aura

Detective: 4000 Aura

Commander: 4000 Aura

Calculator: 4000 Aura

John's eyes widened.

Okay. Those first five are pretty good, and immediately so. Damn.

Flash Step, Air Step, Thread Walker, and Precognition all sounded incredible. Flash Step was a classic, Air Step meant leaping through the skies, Thread Walker implied balancing on impossibly thin surfaces, and Precognition required no explanation; it'd be useful as fuck even if it only granted him a single second's glimpse into the immediate future.

But Combine stole his attention and rendered the others irrelevant.

Combine. A simple word, one any English-speaking human with a primary school education would be able to understand:

To merge two or more things into a single thing.

And judging by previous Skill lists, it was in the spot that implied it was related to Arcane. To Spells.

There was no immediate crisis at hand, no desperate need for a boost.

But still, John couldn't possibly make that purchase fast enough.

-4000 Aura

He was sure he was grinning like a madman as new knowledge filled his brain, but he didn't care.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.