Lewis marched behind Laurence, following him out through the building as he gestured at some people and exchanged a few words before continuing on. A few more people joined us as we walked down towards the fortress gates, where three people were lined up, all wearing silver armor, indicating them as soldiers of this other world. Morris and another person carrying a bundle of papers had followed as the group came to a stop.
"Good, everyone's here." Laurence said, clearing his throat as he dusted off his clothes and glanced around the gathered people.
"You all know the deal. A bunch of big bad orcs have been causing trouble, killing and kidnapping innocent people for no apparent reason. You lot are tasked with stopping them and recovering the kidnapped." Addressing the gathered group.
"Lewis here will be our main fighter, his abilities allowing him to do some serious damage, and he has the most experience dealing with these orcs. Morris will be joining him and provide support, firing arrows from the shadows to incapacitate them, while Fiona will act as navigator, working on hostage recovery." He said, pointing to each of us in turn.
"You lot have some of the highest levels and are the most compatible for this mission, so be it a success or failure will depend entirely on you. Volunteers will also accompany you as backup, since we have no idea how many of these orcs there are, but they are decidedly less powerful than you three and are ordered to retreat at the first sign of trouble."
He handed the only woman Lewis had spotted in silver armor the various maps of the southern region, the woman giving Laurence a strange salute as he did. A sort of clenched fist over her heart as she leaned forward slightly in a bow. Lewis was a little relieved that he was basically assigned as the spearhead of this mission; this Fiona soldier prioritizing the protection and recovery of the missing, while Morris would stay at a distance and support him from afar, leaving most of the fighting to him. Which meant using his skills, something he was required to do if he wanted any chance of recovering his spiritual boosting ability, not to mention leveling up in general.
"Alright then, everyone move out and stay safe. I would prefer everyone of you return alive and safe rather than die for a bunch of captured men who weren't strong enough to fight in the first place. It may be harsh, but you lot are some of the strongest currently alive, and we can't afford to lose you to a failed mission. Just keep that in mind if you encounter something unexpected. Oh, and if you have questions, I'm sure Fiona will be able to answer them." He exclaimed before gesturing them out of the gate, giving them a small wave as they began filling out of the fortress and heading towards the southern region, Fiona taking the lead.
All in all, twelve people were joining them, but most were acting as support and below level 5. Hardly enough to take on orcs of a similar or higher level, but hopefully useful for recovering the kidnapped if they happen to be injured and require to be carried back. One of them was a healer, but just like he had learned with Lee when she was tending to the lycan attack survivors, healing magic isn't all-powerful and can't simply fix all wounds; usually only good for minor injuries and requiring a lot of mana to speed up natural recovery. Still, it would likely be better than nothing, although Lewis had a creeping feeling that a healer wouldn't be able to help him at all due to his body's intolerance of mana.
Either way, he didn't plan on getting injured again, even allocating his sole free point into speed to allow him to better dodge attacks.
The group moved in relative silence through the forest as Fiona carefully studied the maps and seemed to be scanning everything around her at all times. After a while, Lewis decided to ask her a few questions.
"Hey, what's your class then? Some sort of warrior?" Lewis asked, his identify scan only showing that she is a level 7 human.
"That's right. I served the kingdom of Ellerand's watch order for most of my life. Tracking down vampire groups hiding within human territories was my job, and I was very good at it." She exclaimed, her heavy-built frame and large armor almost making her look masculine, as her face bore a prominent scar from the side of her cheek down past the ends of her lips, giving her a serious and intimidating look.
"Can you tell me a bit more about vampires? Laurence seemed to think I was some sort of vampire underling at first, not believing that my power was naturally gained." Lewis asked, the woman's face twisting into a frown at his words.
"It's true that people gaining sudden strength at unnatural rates is a clear indication of vampiric connections. It's strange to think that all people are now able to grow stronger through effort despite not having been born already blessed by mana, but I can admit that I enjoy being able to perform feats of strength I never dreamed of being able to do before. With this system helping us grow, we may even be able to fight back against the foul vampires instead of simply fighting to keep them at bay." She explained, clearly very passionate about the topic, having seemingly dedicated her entire life to securing her kingdom's people from these creatures.
"The knights and mages used to be the only ones capable of fighting them, since the vampires are creatures of blood and magic, able to regenerate their bodies and manipulate blood to their will. But the worst part about these creatures is their ability to infect humans, turning them into thralls. Corrupted humans who become addicted to blood follow all of their new master's commands. They gain some of the abilities of their vampire masters, including stronger bodies and the ability to regenerate to a certain degree, but they lose their free will and sometimes even sanity in the process. It's why we call them demon spawn, beings that have lost their humanity to the vampires, reduced to little more than puppets." Fiona ranted, a heat present in her voice as she explained this to him. Lewis wondered if someone she loved had been turned into one of these thralls or if she was simply that passionate about protecting her people.
Either way, he somewhat sympathized with the people of this other world. He still didn't like that they were ready to attack him the moment he claimed to have killed those orcs, something they had decided on their own, made him suspicious, but he at least understood the idea of enemies walking around in plain sight, maybe even in the form of a friend or family member. It would be like a zombie apocalypse, but far more insidious, and evidently makes people a little paranoid, and for good reason.
But her words made Lewis wonder about another change that the system may have brought. After all, just like Fiona was now able to grow stronger despite not having been 'blessed by mana', so too would the vampires. He didn't much want to think about what a high-level vampire might be capable of, but got a feeling that it wouldn't be anything good. He decided not to share his thoughts, though, preferring to avoid causing a panic in people who had clearly already lived under the heavy and constant threat of these vampiric menaces.
After the group had walked deeper into the southern forest, they started encountering a few creatures, most of which were easily dispatched by Morris and the other volunteers since all were of a fairly low level. Lewis had been surprised to find a sort of living vine at one point, the thing swinging from side to side as if dangled from a tree. It was only when one of the silver armored soldiers with them hacked at it with his sword that he realized it was actually a long snake, the creature letting out a long hiss as it tried to loop around the branch it was slithering over to attack the soldier, but an arrow from Morris impaled its head to the tree before it got the chance.
But the creature was so well disguised as some sort of harmless vine that it made Lewis wonder what else he might have seen which turned out to be some camouflaged beast. Bears and wolves were pretty obvious, but he reminded himself not to grow too complacent despite his newfound powers. If he had been taught anything by these orcs, it had been that he isn't invincible. A fact Laurence had strongly hammered home after tanking an unravelling strike to the gut.
Even with his anti-magic field surrounding him at all times, a simple magicless arrow from Morris could easily put him out of commission if he wasn't careful. As such, he began stretching his senses to the limit as they ventured deeper into where the attacks took place. And not only his mana detection, but his mundane sense too, something he found to be significantly more powerful than before, thanks to his increased stats.
Perhaps it was a result of his heightened intelligence, but he found himself able to focus on specific things far more easily, including scanning his various senses, allowing him to switch his mind into high gear almost on command, as his increased brain power pulled and analyzed as much useful information from his surroundings as possible.
Sensing the presence of mana was something he had gotten used to extremely fast, even if he knew what he was able to detect was only the very tip of the iceberg. His experimentation with mana frequencies proved that there is much more to this ability, but his mind wasn't yet powerful enough to perceive that huge amount of information again. What he could sense, however, was the passive flow of mana that each being emitted.
It was something that he had only just begun to touch upon inside the dungeon when he was able to detect the mana cores of the stone spiders, except doing such a thing required him to focus all his other senses rather than rely on his most dominant one, that of sight.
By opening himself up to the world, he was not only able to notice the mana from his group as they were closest, but also the faint presence of some creatures, mostly smaller critters and the occasional bird. Their bodies radiated a minute amount of mana, but enough that it became noticeable when he looked for it. However, relying primarily on the sight aspect of mana detection was far less useful in a forest with plenty of hiding places and obfuscating trees, which was why he was discovering that he could also seemingly 'hear' and 'smell' the mana, allowing him to detect nearby presences without direct line of sight.
All of his senses were in constant use when using his [Mana detection] skill, but by limiting them one by one and focusing on them individually, he was able to better understand the function and limit of his senses in relation to mana.
It was only because of his extra efforts-and honestly, his fascination with his new ability to do-that he finally spotted something unusual.
While taking deep breaths, his nose twitched as he picked up the faint and almost ethereal scene of something different. It was like smoke tickling his nose, with a lingering feeling of something slippery hidden inside. If not for his extra effort in identifying everything he was sensing, then he might have just dismissed it out of hand, but a small part of him warned him to pay closer attention.
Closing his eyes, Lewis stopped walking, his senses spreading out as he looked for the source of this strange new sensation. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. The faint lingering mana seemed utterly uninteresting, his mind having already dismissed it as nothing important before he could even analyze it, defeating the entire point of focusing so heavily on his mana detection ability. It was as if something inside of him wanted to look away, to ignore this new presence, but his scrutinizing mind caught the interference before he could get fully affected.
What is this? Some sort of mind affecting mana telling me not to look any closer? Lewis thought, sensing where the mana was coming from as he traced it back to its source with great effort. He vaguely heard his name being called in a whisper, people having stopped moving when he had as they tried to get him to tell them what was wrong, but Lewis couldn't afford to get distracted for even a moment, fearing he would lose this slippery mana scent if he looked away for an instant.
Instead, he began walking towards where he felt the slippery mana most keenly, bringing him off the rugged trail they had been following and down a small step hill covered with pebbles. At the bottom of the hill, just off the trail they were walking, was where the source of this strange slippery mana was located. A bubble of space where his mind refused to focus on, making his gaze slip away every time to tried. There didn't appear to be anything there, simply a patch of ground, but Lewis could feel something was here as he flexed his control over his arcane nullfield, expanding it outwards with a thought as it began dismantling the strange space before him.
Skill: Mana detection has reached level 11
Skill: Mana detection has reached level 12
Reality seemed to crack and fracture before him, like space itself was being broken, reflecting the surroundings like a broken mirror, but unlike most times he used his anti-mana, this bubble of space refused to disappear, fighting back against Lewis's nullfield as it attempted to reconstitute its clearly fake space around itself. Refusing to reveal what was hidden within.
For the first time, Lewis was able to properly observe what his arcane nullfield was doing to the magical construct before him, as he found the dark cloud of his skill to be attempting to overpower the bubble, but being seemingly pushed back, similarly to how the royal knight had done it. By stopping the nullfield's advance with a sort of external layer of mana, it was able to extend outwards like a growing balloon with a lower layer, pushing the eroded section outwards and the anti-mana with it, the cycle repeating itself as it was bathed in his nullfield.
Clearly, his skill wasn't as powerful as he wanted it to be; mana still managed to outpace its destruction. He assumed it would eventually run out, but who knew how long that would be. And besides, if he couldn't use mana, then he best have the best anti-mana instead, and seeing something resist him felt like a clear challenge.
Then, Lewis suddenly got an idea. His arcane nullfield was a constantly active skill, which meant it didn't use up any mana; the bubble of look-away magic only managed to remain standing from contact with the passively exuded aura around him. But what if he pushed more mana into the process? Surely that would overwhelm it, just like he did in the goblin den to block all those flames.
Deciding to give it a try, he tapped into his mana pool and pushed more of his anti-mana out towards the resisting magic bubble. His nullfield suddenly became far denser, and the world darkened to his magical senses. His mana-eroding field drastically increased in potency as it rushed the bubble and utterly shredded it. Ripping its energy apart before it had time to push back, the bubble of space flickered a few times before blinking out of existence, revealing what it was concealing within.
Skill: Arcane nullfield has reached level 3