Alex’s Mind Palace trembled as he drank in power from the magic he’d condensed into his basin. Meiderly’s advice had yet to fail him. Nearly all of the biggest advantages he’d gotten within fights had come from having his foundations filled to the brim. There was no reason to change what worked. Now that he was at the Adept Stage, he could finally advance the Mind Palace once more. The splash of waves against the base of his basin was broken only by the rumble of structures breaking free from beneath the lake to rise up around him. He didn’t have the faintest idea as to what they were. Alex didn’t let his attention waver yet. His focus remained entirely on drawing the freezing water into himself and letting it infuse into his soul and body. It wasn’t long before all the magic had drained away and the bottom of the basin was nothing more than plain white marble once more. Only then did Alex allow himself to relax. He let his hands lower and craned his neck back, starring up into the star-dotted sky through the fingers of the marble hand rising above him. The core of his Visualization spun far above, a cube amidst a black vortex. Beautiful enough that he could have sat there for hours, simply staring. No more stars had fallen since the one he’d just caught. That was probably for the best. Alex could feel the new power burning within himself more than well enough to realize that trying to draw even more was likely to exceed the capacity of what he could control. Every star that fell from the sky seemed stronger than the last by a pretty wide margin. The next one was liable to crush him at his current level of strength. But, even if he did manage to catch it, he already had so much new power for his body and soul to adapt to that his efforts would probably end up being wasted and the excess strength would just spill out somehow. No, he was quite satisfied with how things were right now. Alex finally rose to his feet and turned away from the basin to look down upon his soul so he could see what had changed. “Whoa,” Alex murmured. A new pillar had begun to rise from beneath the water. It was identical to the three that he’d formed in the Initiate Stage, carved from smooth marble, though he couldn’t yet see if there was a slot for another gem within it. He was surprised to find that the pillar had only emerged a few feet above the lake’s surface. There had been a hell of a lot of noise for the extents of his results to only be a little shorter than he was. A search around his soul revealed that there indeed weren’t any other new things emerging from beneath the lake — but that wasn’t to say nothing else had changed. Two more pillars, spaced between the other existing ones, were already nearing the surface of the water. They weren’t alone. Deep within the lake were dozens of marble specks. It was too murky to make out much about them beyond their presence, but it seemed that there was another similarity to when he’d reached the Initiate Stage. All of that must be building materials. But for what, I wonder? More hands? Alex glanced up at the huge palm rising above his basin. A hand made up entirely of other, smaller hands grasping onto each other like some strange piece of modern art. His soul certainly did seem to have taken quite a liking to hands. Quite the significant liking. Could be worse. At least it isn’t feet. Googlᴇ search NoveIＦire.net Alex approached the new pillar and examined it for a few seconds, but there really wasn’t anything of note yet. It just seemed to be a marble pillar. If it had been outside of his Mind Palace, he’d have assumed it to be entirely mundane. But here… it was anything but. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on NovelHub. Report any occurrences. No point wasting too much thought on it right now. I probably have to reveal the entire thing before I can start trying to figure out how it works. I’m pretty sure these pillars are all tied to my domain. The previous three took the gemstones that let me unlock my Partial Soul Manifestation… So maybe I unlock the full thing once these new pillars are out and, if the need happens to be there, completed. Alex chewed on the insides of his cheeks as he pondered his Mind Palace. He now had 2 points to spend, but that wasn’t enough to advance any of his skills yet. The stronger he got, the more difficult advancing them became. A thought poked at the back of his head. That’s the benefit of hunting other Anomalies… or the other people who got Nexus Shards. If I killed just one or two of them, the rewards I’d get would probably be enough to advance one of my skills. Be that as it may, I’m not letting the System turn me into its personal hitman. It doesn’t like something about Anomalies. And, given the fact that I myself am one, it’s probably a good idea to keep my wits about me instead of just tweaking out on a search for kills. Either way, he got the feeling that there would be more than enough people to fight soon enough. The deeper they got into the Ancestry, the more likely it was that they’d run into powerful enemies. Those would come with their own host of rewards. We’ve only gone up against a bunch of nameless goons so far. The real jackpot would be to stumble along some higher-ranking member of a Great Family just after they’ve gotten their ass handed to them by a powerful monster. If I could clean up a fight and take loot from someone who was actually carrying something worthwhile… That alone would probably make this whole dungeon worth it. Alex shook his head. Letting himself get lost in possibilities and what-ifs was fun, but it wasn’t a very efficient use of his time. He took one last glance around his soul. All the power he’d gathered had been spent. He did have two Title Fragments that hadn’t been combined yet — Poacher and Spawncamper. It didn’t seem like their synergy would be awful. The skills were definitely at least vaguely related. But he already had 5 Titles active. Ascending Forerunner, Unbound Mirrorlander, Unmaker, Anomaly, and Sovereign Cataclysm. That meant every single active slot he had for a Title was full. Unless he removed any of them, he couldn’t actually equip a new title in their place… and he wasn’t keen on removing any of his titles at this point. It’ll be better to hold onto these Title Fragments. I don’t get the feeling that the System would put such a strict cap over how many titles I have. Even if you can only ever have 5, there’s almost certainly a way to evolve or improve existing Titles by using Fragments. Nobody would ever care about getting new Titles after a certain point if that weren’t the case. There was something a little more exciting than Titles that currently had his focus. Reaching Adept 1 had done more than just unlock his Mind Palace to be upgraded again. It had done more than providing the pathway to unlocking his proper Soul Manifestation. He’d gotten another Spatial Mirror. Fuck yes. I’ve been waiting for this. As soon as I get a chance to swing by the Mirrorlands, I can start hunting for a new monster. A rattle drew Alex’s attention to the side of his soul. Berith sat, the demon’s cold eyes watching him from behind the mask covering his face, chin rested upon a hand chained by heavy white links. “Finally reached Adept,” the demon said. His voice rolled through the Mind Palace like distant thunder. “You certainly took your time.” “It’s barely been a few weeks,” Alex protested. “You cannot possibly mean to say that I was slow.” Berith yawned in response. “Slow. Fast. All subjective. For this world? Blindingly fast. For many others? Slower than a snail. Potential is only perceivable when held in comparison to the standard of what you know. And you know nothing at all, boy.” Alex’s eyes narrowed. It was hard to argue with that. Especially when Berith was probably right. If someone had the resources of a Great Family behind them… surely they could advance all the way to Adept in just a day or two. “Better to advance at a fast pace than trip and die at a breaking one,” Alex said. “I don’t think there’s much I’d change about the actions I’ve taken thus far.” Berith’s laughter echoed all around Alex. “Good. Good. That, at least, you have right. Regret is a chain. It holds you back. Keeps you from achieving the heights that you must climb to. And now would be a poor time indeed to slow. Things are finally starting to get interesting. It shouldn’t be much longer, now.” “What do you mean by that?” Alex asked. In response, Berith’s laughter just grew louder. And then Alex noticed something. There was a tiny vein of something dark running along the white chains binding the hand that Berith was using to hold his chin up. Almost as if he were showing it off. He took a step forward. And then his blood ran cold. It wasn’t a vein at all. There was a crack in Berith’s bindings.