68 Unlocking A New Perspective

Earlier today, before his daily routine began, Isaac had explored the 19th floor and beyond. Initially, everything went as usual, with an entrance to the manmade labyrinth being found on every floor. But on the 21st floor, something finally changed - even after searching for multiple hours, he couldn't find a single hidden doorway. No matter how far and wide he searched, there was absolutely nothing.

Still, he didn't panic because of this and instead heaved a sigh of relief. There were a few things that could be the case, but one of them was by far the most likely. To see whether or not his assumption was correct, he backed up two floors and took a closer look at the entrances on them. When comparing them to each other, he finally found the puzzle piece he had been missing before.

The entrance on the 20th floor seemed to be far newer than the one on the 19th floor. If he had to attempt to date them, he would say that the one on the 19th floor was close to a hundred years old, while the one on the 20th floor was barely older than ten years. Of course, Isaac couldn't determine the exact years, but he could wager an educated guess. His clues were the varying degrees of signs of decay and abrasion on the stone, mostly caused by various footsteps over long periods of time.

In the end, all these vague guesses gave him only one conclusion: The last entrance that he had found was the newest. Therefore, someone was either still expanding this labyrinth… or they had at least been doing so up until a decade or so ago. Judging from what he had seen, it would still take at least a few tens of years for an entrance to appear on the 21st floor, so there was no need for him to worry about this for the time being. That meant that his search for secret entrances in the dungeon had finally come to an end!

But before he would report all of this to Finn, he still had to scout out a few places. There were undoubtedly entrances to the manmade labyrinth in Orario as well and because Isaac didn't want to allow for any fish to slip through his net, he would make sure that he knew about all possible paths of retreat in advance. In any case, exploring the city would have to wait until the expedition party had returned to the surface.

By now, it was already the early afternoon and Isaac had finished training everyone who was left behind in the camp long ago. The main force members were all out to slay monsters on the surrounding floors, so he didn't have any official duties to take care of at the moment.

All alone, with his eyes closed, Isaac sat in his tent.

He hadn't just been slacking ever since he had finished adding drops of mana to the channels in his mental layer. For a couple of days, he had thought about what to do next and realized that there were two massive problems that he had to deal with. One of them, he had already encountered, but the other one he would only come across in the future. Still, it couldn't hurt to be prepared.

The two problems were as follows: Firstly, how could he reliably extend his range of perception to make full exploration of the dungeon more viable? And secondly, how could he deal with enormous monsters with regenerative powers quickly and without destroying their magic stones?

After thinking about it some more, Isaac had realized that both problems could be solved by creating new Magics to specifically deal with them. So for the past two hours, he had been focusing on creating and researching one of them.

It all started with a simple hypothesis: What if he could use his mana to sense things?

To test this, Isaac had completely cut off all of his senses and slowly released small amounts of mana into the surroundings. Initially, nothing happened, as the connection between the mana and him would be automatically cut off if he didn't give it any active commands. But when he tried to focus on keeping the connection intact, the darkness around him suddenly lit up as if multiple torches had been lit! He was able to make out the immediate surroundings of the mana he had disseminated very clearly, while the further away from it he looked, the more vague and shrouded the scenery became. The area that was perfectly clear extended for a couple of meters from the respective mana source. As long as he kept up the connection, he could 'see'. But the moment he either used the mana to influence the world or cut off the connection by not consciously sending repeated signals to it, this sight disappeared, leaving him all alone in an empty void.

Of course, if Isaac actually used his senses, it wasn't difficult for him to clearly perceive all things in an area of hundreds of meters around him. But that really didn't matter, as that wasn't the point. It was entirely unrelated to this experiment.

A slight smile played across Isaac's lips now that he had confirmed his earlier theory.

From this point in his research onwards, he focused on finding out just how far bits of mana could be distanced from him while still keeping the connection stable. Very carefully, Isaac moved a single bit of mana further and further away from himself - and came across an interesting discovery.

After the distance in meters had reached a number one higher than the amount of mana drops he had added to the circulation in his mental layer - 5331 - the focus required to keep the connection stable multiplied by tens of times. Even though he had only used a very small amount of mana for his research, he still felt a negligible sting in his mind. This only lasted for a moment, then he had grown used to the feeling and the accompanying strain and was capable of fully disregarding it. While the mental load he had to endure right now was enough to make a regular person faint, he could practically disregard it. Even though his mind was currently heavily restricted by his weak body and brain.

Following the pattern from before, at a distance of 10661 meters, the mental load increased by tens of times again, which caused Isaac to sweat uncontrollably. Even for him, it was somewhat annoying to deal with this. To keep up the connection, his mind needed to constantly calculate an exact path through all of the surrounding elements and mana, straight to the bit of mana he had sent out. Only that way could he contact it without any interruptions.

During the first 5330 meters, his Magic stat, supported by the very laws of this world, had supported a huge part of these calculations. Following that, with every multiple of 5330, the support the Magic stat was able to provide to him was stripped away more and more significantly. Had it been a gradual incline, it would have been relatively easy to grow accustomed to it - but as it was extremely abrupt and steep, it was difficult to deal with.

While other people might have gotten exasperated at this, Isaac only grew more excited. Such small obstacles weren't able to douse the roaring flame that was his research spirit!

When the bit of mana finally passed over the 15990 meter mark… Isaac's mind completely blanked. Moments later, he realized that his connection to the bit of mana had been lost. It didn't take long for him to figure out that his currently restricted mind had just acted out of instinct. It had wanted to protect itself on a subconscious level. Had the connection not been cut off… well…

Even though Isaac was sure that he would have been able to deal with the resulting pain and suffering, the sudden increase in mental load would have led to some ugly scenes. The most harmless thing that could have happened would have been his body bleeding uncontrollably from all orifices. A more severe consequence could have even led to parts of his brain turning into literal mush and trickling out of his nose… yeah, it wouldn't have been pretty. He wouldn't have died from it - mostly because he couldn't die in the first place - but it wouldn't have been the most joyous thing in the world either.

With a small frown on his face, Isaac lamented the fact that he seemingly couldn't explore any further for now. The word 'further' referred to the distance, of course - there were still many things left that he could look into.

He sent out more and more bits of mana, trying to test how many of them he could stay connected to at the same time in the different zones. Thankfully, he had already figured out long before this that he could let mana return to his mental layer if he stayed connected to it and didn't actually end up using it. Even if he used it to 'see', it would not be reduced in any way, so he didn't need to worry about using all of it for his experiments and running out of it.

Isaac referred to the area starting directly next to his body up to 5330 meters away as the 'first zone'. 5331 to 10660 meters away was the 'second zone', 10661 to 15990 was the 'third zone' and beyond that was the 'fourth zone'… and definitely far more than that, he just couldn't even touch those zones yet.

In the first zone, Isaac could stay connected to all of his mana - 5330 drops worth of it - without a problem, while in the second zone, he could stay connected to a little more than 2000. In the third zone, this number dropped all the way to 20, while in the fourth zone… well, he couldn't even handle a single connection there before, so there was no need to test it again at this point in time.

During his tests, Isaac noticed a peculiar thing - if he kept all of his mana within the first zone, a sphere of 5330 meters in diameter, he could perfectly 'see' all of it at the same time! Absolutely nothing could escape his sight. All of his mana was just enough to leave no blind spots in this entire zone. This vastly exceeded his usual range of perception.

The mental load of keeping up this sphere was negligible - but there was a problem. Should he ever need to use any of the mana, he would have to shrink the sphere. On the bright side, he could also use the mana at the very spot he had placed it at within the sphere as well, casting Magics over there. In a sense, it was quite similar to a minefield. Or rather, a magical minefield that Isaac had a constant, perfect vision of.

When using all of the mana he could handle in the second zone, he could barely keep up the surface of the sphere at a diameter of 10660 meters. This could act as a kind of warning system, but nothing more. As soon as someone passed through the very edges of the sphere, he wouldn't be able to 'see' them anymore.

Judging from how his Magic stat, which was always equal to his amount of mana drops, was also used as a demarcation line for the different zones and how everything else worked out, Isaac came to a conclusion. As his brain would also be improved when his Magic stat rose, he would always be able to keep up perfect surveillance of the first zone, while only being able to keep up a perimeter surveillance of the second zone - both of those had their uses. The only difference compared to now would be the size of the zones, which would continuously increase.

He had been worrying about something else before slightly: Would the dungeon or other solid objects interfere with this 'mana vision'? Thankfully, they didn't really do so. While the mental load was very slightly bigger when he positioned the mana anywhere within or beyond the dungeon's walls, there wasn't much of a difference. Normal objects didn't pose any additional load at all. The reason why the dungeon's walls were different was that they contained a lot of mana, enough to make the calculations Isaac's mind had to perform a bit more difficult. Still, it was basically negligible, so he could just disregard the walls of the dungeon - for the most part.

Anyway, now that he had concluded all of these tests, Isaac determined that it wasn't necessary to spend all of his mana on maintaining surveillance on the entirety of the first zone. During normal daily life, it would be absolutely overkill. Still, it would definitely be useful when exploring, so it felt like he had finally taken a small step into the right direction regarding his dungeon floor mapping related problem.

Under normal circumstances, it would be better to have a bit of mana at hand just in case of an emergency. While he could always use the mana he had sent out into the surroundings to do so, that would mostly not be even close to an optimal solution. In case he wanted to use his Anemoi Steps, he would first have to gather quite a bit of mana in a single spot, which would waste a lot of time.

With all of this in mind, Isaac reduced the size of the sphere to exactly five kilometers in diameter, pulling the more than 1000 drops of mana that weren't needed outside anymore back into his mental layer.

All this while, Isaac hadn't used any of his senses and his eyes were still closed. So there was still another hurdle he had to overcome. Having learned from his experience when he sent mana beyond a distance of 15990 meters, he became a lot more careful and slowly re-enabled his senses, one by one. It always took him a few minutes to adapt in between, but about half an hour later, he finally re-enabled his sight - the last one of his senses - and opened his eyes.

It felt a bit confusing to have his usual sight and the 'mana vision' enabled at the same time. For a couple of seconds, his head felt quite uncomfortable. Having two ways to 'see', two 'senses' who were responsible for very similar things, was quite… well, weird. Still, after adapting to it for a short time, Isaac was perfectly fine.

Finally, a system notification appeared, signifying his initial mastery of this self-created Magic.

[ The Magic 'Eyes of Hermes' has been obtained. ]

[ Eyes of Hermes: Enables the perception of a large area via mana. Will require 50% less focus if activated via the chant.

Chant: "Maidens of the world, it is I, thy lord of splendour. Fear not, for I shall protect thy honour! No scoundrels shall be able to approach thee without me knowing. I shall keep thee secure, I shall keep thee safe. Thy beauty shall be a secret scenery privy to only me." ]

Although he had already planned to lock the chant of any new Magic before this, when Isaac saw the name of what he had just acquired, coupled with its chant… he was speechless. Not only was it a long chant for a relatively simple, minor effect… but it was also completely shameless. What the hell was this? A stalker's or peeper's manifesto!? Did the laws of this world truly expect him to speak such words!?

'System, please lock this chant. And increase the cost of unlocking it by a billion times.'

-----

While walking down an empty alley somewhere in Orario, a certain carefree god suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. With a shocked but intrigued look on his face, he looked into the distance, his eyes completely out of focus.

'Someone derived a Skill or Magic from my Arcanum?'

Whenever someone obtained a new Skill or Magic and the one whose identity or power was referenced in its name was still alive, they would have the opportunity to notice the laws of this world reverberating slightly in a peculiar manner. Many gods and goddesses were already intimately familiar with this phenomenon and would instantly know what was going on. They wouldn't be able to pinpoint who was the cause for this and the Skill or Magic would actually be completely independent from their Arcanum - their Divine Power. Still, the laws of the world would inform them that their name or power had been used as an inspiration and there had been a momentary connection between the two.

A knowing smile spread across the god's lips and the eyes hidden in the shade of his hat exuded a certain profoundness. With utmost respect and sanctity, he nodded to himself.

"There is no doubt about it, a promising brother-in-arms has been born. I really wish I knew who he was! We could go peek on the bathhouses together…"

The more he talked, the more perverted the god's smile became. Luckily for him, he was all alone and there was no blue-haired, bespectacled beauty around to scold him for his behaviour…

-----

In the evening, a group consisting of Tiona, Tione, Ais, Lefiya and Riveria finally made their way up a staircase and back to the 50th floor. They hadn't gone too many floors deep, mainly because they were responsible for protecting the relatively weaker Elf in their middle, but it had still been an exhausting day full of nothing but battle.

"Finally back… I need a bath!"

While stretching relaxedly, Tione spoke the words that were on everyone's mind. Nothing felt better than cleaning all the dirt off of your body after a long day of work.

Needless to say, Tiona was on board with this idea and even Ais jumped on the bandwagon immediately. And while Lefiya had initially been a bit shy, she honestly didn't care about that anymore. She had fired off far too many Magics today, she wanted nothing more than to relax - and where better to do that than in the water, while taking a bath?

Riveria was the one who needed this convenience the least, as her clothing hadn't even gotten dusty. Still, even if only to watch over the girls, she would surely follow along and take this chance to clean herself. Basic hygiene was an important aspect of life and it shouldn't be neglected.

Very quickly, the group arrived in the vicinity of the campsite - and Riveria immediately ground to a halt. While observing her surroundings carefully, her eyebrows furrowed and her expression became progressively worse with every moment.

'An inescapable net of mind is getting used to observe this area? Why did such a thing appear here!?'

Although it was her first time coming across such a Magic, Riveria instantly realized what was going on. In a way, the principles behind it were remotely similar to the way that magical formations operated. Still, had she not been a Level 6 adventurer with an exceptionally high Magic stat… and had she not been a High Elf, a race who were far more sensitive to mind than almost all other sentient races, she wouldn't have realized what was going on. Someone was using a continuous Magic that spread mind perfectly evenly into the surroundings - and that someone was undoubtedly observing them!

Right when she started to wonder about who could have possibly done this and began to worry about the safety of the campsite… the net started to move - in her direction!

Without saying anything, she tightly gripped her staff and was ready to start chanting at any moment. Noticing her unusually grave alertness, the girls didn't stand on ceremony either and got ready for combat - although they were really confused by what was happening.

A few moments later, the group could see a man approaching them from the direction of the campsite - it was Isaac. And accompanying him, his net of observation, his Eyes of Hermes, moved as well.

As soon as Isaac had noticed the girls' return thanks to his newly acquired ability, he left the campsite to welcome them. He didn't have anything of particular importance to do right at the moment, so he simply felt like doing so. Life felt quite boring to him here, so every additional moment that he could spend with Ais in his free time was something to look forward to indeed.

When she noticed him, all the misunderstandings were cleared up and Riveria hastily lowered her staff, signalling to the girls that everything was okay. Then she released yet another one of her famous sighs.

'Of course it's him. I should have known.'

The motherly Elf felt a bit stupid for not immediately linking this unusual phenomenon to the enigma in their midst. Whenever something unexplainable or out of the ordinary happened, the chance that he was connected to it was very close to 100 percent, after all. Back before he appeared, she would tend to link irregularities to the dungeon's whims… but nowadays, she wouldn't even be surprised if those were somehow connected to him as well.

Standing a few meters behind the group, while Isaac was shamelessly using Ais as a shield to escape from Tiona's fiery 'reunion hug', Riveria was carefully examining the mind around them. Very quickly, she got a rough gauge of the area that this net of mind covered… and her eyes widened in shock. The distance between a certain water source and the campsite flashed past her mind. And finally, she figured out what this new development meant.

By clearing her throat, Riveria interrupted the boisterous atmosphere and became the center of everyone's attention. Seeing all these puzzled expressions, her demeanour turned a lot more stern than usual and there even was a bit of iciness in the gaze she shot at Isaac.

"From now on, we should go to a lake far further away from here for our baths."