Second World

'Are you sure? He always called you out before the stairs and at the lobby to make sure about your position,' Peniel said.

'He is pretending. He doesn't want me to know he has the ability,' Jack said.

'But he is not a martial artist,' Peniel said.

'One doesn't truly need to be a martial artist to utilize mana, especially in this world rich with mana,' Jack said.

This reminded Peniel. Many high-grade natives of this world also had mana sense and mana manipulation even when they didn't know martial arts. She herself had mana sense even if not too proficient. She had spent too much time with players that she got used to associating mana abilities with martial arts.

Jack thought perhaps Master was similar to John, who was not good when learning martial arts but excelled in learning mana sense and mana manipulation. Master probably self-taught himself after seeing Long and Wong exhibited these abilities.

Jack was crestfallen by this revelation. Aside from his speed, the other things he could exploit to beat Master were his martial arts and mana abilities. If Master had mana abilities as well, this put his already few advantages even more limited.

Even so, he felt lucky he found out about this now rather than later. It would be a disaster if he only found out during a critical moment when he was fighting Master. He wondered if Master could also do mana manipulation.

As Jack had predicted, they managed to reach the sixteenth floor in less than half an hour since they started using invisibility. Jack still had enough duration to go up another floor, but Master's spell had less than three minutes left.

Jack told Master that he could go up first and waited for Master up there. Master replied that they needed to stay together. If fighting occurred, he needed Jack to take care of the melee confrontation.

Jack was just joking. If he went up first, what if Master decided to stay back and let Jack do all the work? Master originally wanted Jack to go after the main node alone. He came along because Jack forced him to, so Jack had to keep him close.

They communicated using whispers and took the side door to enter the maze of corridors. It took a few seconds for Master's God-eye monocle to do its sonar magic and map the corridors' layout around him, but he could see the red dots from the start. The number of night hunters roaming around this floor's corridors was alarming.

After spending several seconds pondering and studying the red dots' movement pattern, Master touched Jack and ended their invisibility.

This further proved Master's mana sense ability. Master probably knew his secret was revealed when Jack almost bumped into him on the fourteenth floor. There was no need for him to pretend anymore.

Jack thought the reason Master needed to end their invisibility was so Jack could follow him properly. Jack had no mana sense at the moment and it was not practical to keep on using whispers to communicate. However, Master instead signaled for them to return to the lobby.

Back in the lobby, Master whispered to Jack, "The corridor pathway is getting too complicated and there are too many patrols. If I am alone, I should be able to sneak past with enough patience. But with two people, the difficulty increased significantly."

"Then what do you propose?" Jack asked.

"I bet before we reach the top, we will encounter another floor with no corridor pathway," Master replied. "When that happens, we will need to use invisibility to pass through the hall again unless you want to fight those night hunters."

"But the spell is still on cooldown," Jack reminded. "Even if we activated the spells using tools, the cooldown system still applies."

"Who do you think you are talking to? Of course, I'm aware. The cooldown of Invisibility is three hours. With how complex the corridors are, I suspect it will roughly take us the same time to sneak through the remaining floors. Doing that has a very high risk of us getting found out, so I suggest we wait here until the cooldown ends."

Jack thought about Master's suggestion. It made sense. He just didn't like waiting and doing nothing, but he guessed it was better to be prudent. He agreed to Master's plan. They waited inside the lobby.

The two sat on opposite sides of the lobby. They didn't talk to one another.

Jack would love to practice mana manipulation or his sword art while waiting, but he couldn't because the first was sealed while the latter might cause noise and attract the night hunters' attention. So, he just spent his time meditating and practicing the sword's heart.

Jack opened his eyes and peeked at Master. That guy seemed to also be meditating. Jack wondered if that was the case, he couldn't know for sure since he had no mana sense at the moment.

After three hours passed, Jack took out another skill-free stone while Master took out another item-free stone. Another magic scroll appeared in his hand.

"You have a lot of those, huh?" Jack asked.

Master didn't respond. He activated the scroll and vanished.

Jack used his stone and cast the invisibility spell. Now that he knew Master had mana sense, he didn't need to ask Master to wait and let him go first. Master would take care to avoid bumping into him.

The same as he did on previous floors, they passed through the hall without alerting the night hunters. They continued until they reached the nineteenth's floor lobby.

'One more floor,' Jack thought.

In this lobby, Jack saw that there was no side door. This lobby was the same as the one on the tenth floor. The only path was through the large hall. Master's prediction had been correct.

His invisibility spell was still halfway through its duration. There was plenty of time, so Jack walked through the hall without rushing. He took care to not make a mistake when he was so close to his destination.

The stairs to the twentieth floor were already in front of him.

He was about to step onto the first step of the stairs when he bumped into what felt like a solid wall. He reeled back from the collision and saw that a layer of bluish light appeared around the stairs.

"Ba… Barrier…?" Jack muttered.

Due to the collision, his invisibility ended. He heard growling voices. He turned and saw the night hunters from various mounds staring at him with hostile eyes.