Faust remembered seeing Jason’s Schema and having to cough to hide his shock. It was overpowered in a more direct way than Nirvana’s.

In a fight once he was stronger than you, you eventually became a plaything in front of him. He could reach you from anywhere and ignore your attacks.

Faust decided then that if he was ever going to face that guy, he would do it at a higher level no matter what. No wonder Jason leveled up so quickly! Once he passed level 2, most of the Bronze Jackals would be impotent against him.

While deep in thought, Faust retreated to another section of the wall and climbed up to watch the bright horizon.

Day and night make no sense here.

He took out his Golems and sat on the floor, reclining against a wall as he practiced controlling the golems. Controlling more than one at a time was hard. Using the ruby eyes to see was even harder.

His vision was split in three places and yet he could see all of them fully. It was disorienting to say the least. But he was getting better.

The spiders bumped into each other, and Faust made them comically wave at each other. His light smile faded when he noticed people approaching him. It was Nirvana and her friends.

"You shouldn’t beat William so badly," Greg started. Despite his great size, he had always been a soft guy. "He’s not very smart, but he’s...."

"Braindead," Thalia suggested, drawing a frown from her friend. "He deserved it. He’s an asshole. Maybe Faust shouldn’t hit him in the head though. His already damaged brain can only take so much after all."

The dark-skinned girl crouched down to study his golem with increasing interest. She took a pair of round glasses out of her Spatial bag and put them on.

"Is this a reward or...."

"A skill," Faust answered. "Like a crafting skill. It helps me make golems."

"How do you get such cool stuff?" Thalia muttered.

"I had to fight a giant spider that puppeted an army of stone golems and a monster designed specifically to kill mages for it, deep in the Mind’s Forest."

Zen regarded him with utter confusion, muttering, "You know, that sentence wouldn’t have made sense a week ago. Do monsters even drop skills?"

Shrugging, Faust held back on answering the question. "Did you come for any reason?"

Zen started saying, "Nirvana’s worried—"

But before he could finish, the blue-haired girl punched him in the back.

"Arghh!" Zen groaned, keeling over with a grimace.

Stuck between trying to shrink from Faust’s gaze and worry, Nirvana jumped back and forth in shock. "Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t—"

"You can’t just punch people with all your strength anymore," Spider commented from the top of the wall. She was walking on the narrow edge. "Especially against people as easy to break as Zenny."

"Yes," Zen growled. "This is my fault for focusing on strength and agility."

Immune to sarcasm, Greg nodded. "I agree. Upgrading Constitution is more important than strength. If you’re dead, how strong you are doesn’t matter. Look at Faust, he tanked that hit from William without even flinching and lived to punch again."

"I actually mostly add my points to Agility and Spirit these days," Faust commented.

All of them turned to him with annoyed looks. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

"Do you at least exchange essence to get points for Strength?" Thalia asked with a look that said she didn’t believe that.

Faust shook his head. "Now that I think about it, I should start exchanging Essence instead of just taking them all. My Strength and Constitution are falling behind."

"What happened back there was falling behind," Greg murmured to himself. "William hits harder than me and is even more durable."

Well, your Schema is a grade below his after all.

Spider shook her head. "Nah, he used a Schema or skill just before William hit him. I just can’t prove it..."

"What skill is strong enough to block a hit with your bare skin," Nirvana said to Spider, finally meeting his eyes and offering an awkward wave. "Even the Block Skill only works with a shield."

Glancing at Faust, Spider opened her mouth to say something, but turned away. She really didn’t want to talk to him for some reason.

"His schema isn’t even about physical strengthening," Thalia added nonchalantly. "He must have gotten a high grade skill from the Event rewards."

She said this while purposely pretending not to watch Faust, instead picking up one of the Golens and appraising it.

It was a basic jab that said she knew what his Schema was. But he was sure she just had a guess based on the appraising she did on his abilities. She didn’t know the extent of his abilities or how it worked.

And he wouldn’t tell her either. She would have to work for that.

"Did anyone get any good spear or axe weapons from the rewards," Faust said, ignoring Thalia’s jab and her incensed look. "Iron or Silver grade."

"Oh so the skill you got as a reward is Silver grade," Thalia inferred. "if the system gives those types of rewards... what will the event treasure chests even look like?"

Zen raised his hand. "I got a Silver grade battle axe, but it won’t be cheap."

"I’ll give you a Silver grade weapon in return," Faust reassured. "A rapier."

Zen blinked. "Okay, I actually want that. My goat Faust saving me from walking around looking for a trade."

Nirvana looked like she wanted to say something, but just exchanged a tense look with Zen.

"Oh come, Violet," Zen said. "You can’t collect all the shiny things."

Thalia glanced from Nirvana to Faust with a mysterious look, but didn’t dare say anything.

"Actually," Faust said, drawing everyone’s attention. "I would like to speak to you alone, Nirvana."

***

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews :) Don’t forget to use your Powerstones if you can.

Hope you’re still enjoying the story. We will soon enter dungeons.