Lev and company didn't leave immediately, knowing the newcomers needed to first see the Strategist to be updated about the situation in depth.

  Instead, he brought up another thing worrying him. "Do you think my team will be allowed to accompany us?"

  "Levels?" Isabella asked immediately.

  "Still not gold-ranked probably, but close," Lev replied, unaware of the exact levels.

  "Lev," she began, taking a moment to gather her words. "I don't think it's a good idea to let them come so early."

  "I know that, of course. What if we wait until they're like level 170 or somewhere around that?"

  "You know very well how horrible that idea is," she countered, though not unkindly. "Be realistic."

  "Fine," Lev breathed out, shoulders slumping slightly. "Let's discuss crafting again. I've designed some bombs for us to utilize in a rush."

  "Bombs?" Jared echoed.

  "Bombs," Lev repeated with a grin. "Basically, I have slotted some expensive cores in a few of my orbs and carved lightning and fire converters on them. The cores will be drained rather rapidly to fill up the bombs if things get sticky, and once the orb enchantments are fully powered up, the entire creation will be sacrificed for a decent explosion. If I'm in the vicinity, they should also get the full bonuses from my class."

  "That does sound good, though, can't we just escape with your bubble?" Isabella asked.

  "We can," Lev shrugged. "I have even added a few new features to assist in keeping monsters away while we retreat. The bombs will be more useful in scenarios where we don't need to run away, but only to clear a path to advance further without letting things get dicey."

  She nodded once, seeing his point of view better now. "What about your constructs? Do you have a full stock?"

  "I don't have space for more," Lev chuckled and waved a hand. All of the invisible shields, walls, and shieldwalls were revealed, amounting to several hundred in total. The two larger variants even had cores slotted in them, representing a large amount of wealth.

  Besides them were bundled cables, each enchanted with invisibility, durability, and weight enhancement. If too many monsters showed up, he planned to redirect them into the cables to slow them down while they secured their positions.

  "That's… a lot," Jared slowly remarked, eyes roaming the stacks of barriers. "Something tells me they aren't enough, still. Should I put in a request for anything else?"

  "Just cores," Lev answered, a bit embarrassed. He already had plenty, but now that he used them for his creations, the core stock in his ring depleted at an alarming pace. It was actually impressive in a twisted way, seeing dozens being used up for each third-threshold creature he faced alone.

  His barriers were still too weak to block their attacks.

  "I'll relay that to Grand Strategist Wayne," Jared said, descending into the fort.

  Left alone, Lev and Isabella shared a glance. She 'innocently' looked away, electing to ignore the earlier shout. He squinted at her, then decided to follow along.

  "How's your team doing, really?" she asked abruptly.

  Lev paused, caught unprepared. "They're… fine. Alive, at least. All I know is that they are pushing themselves too hard, and that worries me. Not that I don't believe in their capabilities, it's just…"

  "You do realize you can't take the choice away from them, right? It's not you who made them rush like that. I'm willing to bet that if they were here, they would ask you to stop worrying and focus on your own task, just like they are doing for theirs."

  "And that is to chase my ridiculous advantages and hope to keep up with me. Who will be to blame if something goes wrong?"

  "No one," she replied without missing a beat. "It's the way of the world. High risk, high reward. Stopping them from doing what they want will only hurt their potential."

  "That is not what I wanted to hear," Lev mumbled, sinking back into his seat. They both went silent after that, taking a break now that no strong monsters were coming to eat them alive, nor were the wards showing any unusual movement.

  Minutes passed peacefully, and before long, someone entered his bubble again. Lev opened his eyes with a big smile, immediately walking up to Orianna and grabbing her in a hug.

  She reciprocated with the same fervor, still in the dark about what had transpired. Lev had refused to talk about the Tyrant encounter until everyone else was present, though he also wasn't willing to admit that the real reason was that he missed them all too much.

  Alec ascended the stairs next, waiting on the side for Lev to extract himself. His mentor sent a nod towards Isabella, who did the same with a smile. Sherron was greeted much the same, and then the two were enveloped in a similar hug.

  Done with his fix, Lev sat back down in his chair and summoned more for them.

  "Took your sweet time," he began with mock offense, clicking his tongue. "I just barely managed to survive without any danger to my life whatsoever. How rude."

  No one spoke, so he continued. "Anyways, I have a question," Lev finished looking at Alec. "Did you know about the existence of time mana?"

  "Time mana?" he echoed, ignoring the implication for now. "Theories suggest that it should be real, since space mana is a well-known type. Why?"

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "Well," Lev said, then paused. How was he even supposed to explain something like being carried outside of the flow of time?

  "Let's start from the start, actually," he changed his approach. "After fighting the ghouls, I flew up and waited on a platform to see if something rushed out of the second layer. That was when everything stopped.

  "Gravity suddenly stopped existing, the atmospheric pressure vanished, and it was basically like a vacuum but with air. Like, I took a step and just flew ahead instead of falling. Anyways, I immediately checked up on that frozen princess, of course, as well as Drakys," Lev said, grinning, while pointing at Sherron.

  She raised a brow, not at all amused. No one would be in her situation, which he slowly realized.

  "Sorry," he coughed lightly. "All three of them were frozen like everything else, so I waited. Even the monsters I could feel deeper inside were not moving, and I took that time for some last-minute training. Unlikely for it to amount to anything, but hey, I didn't want to die without doing my best. My flight skill leveled once during that time as I jumped from platform to platform while pushing my speed as far as I could, and by the time I was too tired to continue, my control slipped, and I tumbled my way to the second layer."

  Lev looked at Isabella, whose gaze promised that she would keep it a secret. Seeing that, he continued. "Well, someone was waiting for me there. I guess I'm the living proof that fifth-threshold creatures also exist in our world, and the moose was actually quite friendly.

  "The first thing we talked about, after I was certain that my life wasn't in danger, was time."

  Alec straightened at that, and everyone else was also listening with rapt attention, questions held back for now. They gazed at the floating barriers that formed the result of his Identify skill.

  [Immortal Spectral Tyrant - ??????]

  "Time is, according to the tyrant, a force that flows through the universe based on unknown laws. Those could be exactly as they seem, or they can be something completely incomprehensible. We have no way to know.

  "The main reason why time is so important is that it keeps the universe stable. Like a river, the constant flow ensures that nothing stagnates, and according to the moose, even mana and souls are affected greatly by that. Without the passage of time, the universe would be uninhabitable and truly fucked."

  Taking a deep breath, Lev summoned himself a glass of water and took a sip. "The way we were outside the influence of time is still a mystery to me. Based on the Tyrant's hints, space and time are deeply interconnected, and we were likely in an isolated pocket of both. No one else was affected, only us two.

  "Regardless, once the initial suspicion died down, and I accepted my powerlessness, things went pretty swimmingly. I asked the most important question on my mind, which was related to its antlers. They had an aura unlike anything I have ever seen before, and I refuse to believe that they weren't something beyond imagination."

  Lev wasn't expecting anyone to speak, though he had to pause in surprise when Alec turned to Sherron. The latter's eyes were clouded for a moment before she nodded, agreeing with whatever Alec was implying.

  None of the information came his way, so Lev put the matter to the back of his head. If he needed to know, they wouldn't keep it from him.

  "I only wanted to know what the antlers were, but the Tyrant casually scooped me up and deposited me on his head," Lev explained, blinking twice at the memory. "Yeah, that happened. Still don't know why he was so friendly with me. I also wasn't thinking straight, I think. Turning on my Perception skills to look at the antlers immediately made me pass out.

  "Next thing I knew, I was on the ground. Even the Tyrant indirectly called my curiosity stupid. Very rude, I know. Which brings me to this thing," Lev dramatically held out his hand, showing the open palm.

  Everyone focused on it with manic intensity, waiting. When nothing happened for a few long seconds, he held back his smile and smirked.

  "Oh, I mean the ring."

  [

  Storage Ring - Superior

  Disguise: None

  Enchantments: Impeccable Stability, Enlarged Space, Disguise.

  ]

  "What?" Sherron reacted first, the grin on her face more bewildered than surprised. "How'd you get your hands on that?"

  "I tried to summon my water canteen," Lev shrugged. "It didn't work, so he upgraded my ring. Then it worked just fine."

  "Just like that?" Alec asked, leaning back in his chair.

  "Just like that," Lev agreed, toning down his antics. "The Tyrant looked at it, and suddenly it was of Superior rarity. I didn't feel even a whiff of mana, nor can I deduce anything from the ring itself."

  "Just like that," Alec repeated with a sigh. Orianna was still silent, patiently looking at him. She somehow knew that Lev had more to tell.

  "After that, I was carried on top of its antlers again. Not finding anything interesting or special, I flew back down and bluntly asked why he was here."

  Isabella inhaled sharply at, perhaps, the stupidity, though Lev merely shot her a grin. "The Tyrant just questioned me back about my guesses. Remember back when I first evolved?" he glanced at the trio in front of him. "I learned a name."

  "You did," Orianna voiced, not saying anything else.

  Lev once again glanced at Isabella, no hints of mirth or smiles remaining on his face. She looked back just as seriously, which he deemed enough.

  "Now we know about the identity of two gods on Monarch," he dropped that bombshell casually. "The Goddess of the Moons, and another god somewhere unknown. For security reasons, I'm still not willing to say the name aloud."

  "Lev," Orianna interjected, her voice stern enough to give him pause. "What happened?"

  He looked back at her, and a single glance was enough to tell that there was no point in hiding it anymore.

  Uneasy, he looked to the side and scratched his neck.

  "I have a title," he slowly spoke. "It… marks me, as a… chosen of sorts."

  Pin-drop silence reigned in the bubble. Lev observed the different reactions in a blink and immediately felt bad about trying to withhold the information about his title.

  Orianna gazed into his eyes with undisguised shock, her gaze clouded by dread and hidden implications. Sherron sighed silently, dejected, whereas Isabella struggled to understand what she was hearing.

  Alec, meanwhile, spoke while running a trembling hand through his hair. "What… what does it do? Are you in trouble?"

  "No," Lev answered immediately. "There's no danger, not now, nor in the future. It just states that I have the favor of the god, and that my achievement as a reincarnator is very special."

  "That's something, at least," Orianna sighed, slumping into her seat. "Is that why your class is so strong?"

  "No," Lev said again. "It explicitly states that the title is not relevant to my class and evolution. It's literally just a mark that singles me out as the favored of that specific god."

  "So it does… nothing?" Sherron questioned, frowning. "Why do you even have it, then?"

  "I have no idea. My knowledge about it is as vast as the title's description. Before meeting the Tyrant, I wasn't even sure if the name belonged to a divine being. It calls me favored, so it's like a… supportive tap on the back? Like, go, be successful or something."

  "Don't be ridiculous," Isabella spoke for the first time, and he raised a brow when she started chewing on her nails. "There's no way such a grand title exists without a reason, let alone repercussions."

  "Yeah," Lev shrugged. "Imagine if you knew I was the favored of a god and had the opportunity to fight me without drawbacks. What would you do?"

  She stared at him flatly, not deigning him with an answer. The other three also realized the same thing, and Sherron's exhale captured his own emotions very accurately.

  Getting challenged out of the blue was going to be so bloody annoying, though he wasn't sure if he was even going to live long enough for that.