While Luke was fighting, Shalia still was in the fortress, attacking the enemies from her position with small-scale spells. It was really annoying for her to control her powers that much, but at least she was able to refine that feeling that she was having regarding the mana spreading across the field, and little by little, she was being to assimilate that mana and attack even faster than before. Still, she noticed that Luke’s mana never went down beyond a certain point... he was making sure that he wouldn’t use Magic Link. The reason for that was obvious, he didn’t want to be helped even on that level. Shalia couldn’t complain much since she was worse, but she felt like sighing about how much troublesome Luke could be when he wanted. Still, that was his path and he had chosen that, so she decided not to complain. Still, she decided to get some answers from the real source of the problem. The source was right behind her watching everything as if he couldn’t care less about anything.

"Hey, baldy," Shalia said. "What were your intentions when you said those things?"

"Are you referring to the fact that Luke now is trying desperately to prove himself after I told you that you two greatly outclasses him in terms of talent?" Aivern asked. "I didn’t have anything in mind when I said that. Aside from the fact that he is the leader of your group, and I owe him a bit for letting me stay and try to achieve my goal, I was just trying to repay that favor."

"By making him lose confidence?" Shalia asked. "If you really saw the things that happened in other universes, then you should know that he can achieve much more things beyond his talents."

"Perhaps, when he puts his mind to it," Shalia said. "However, he will need more than that if he wanted to survive until the very end. That was my way of giving him a hand with that."

Shalia wanted to complain more, but things on the battlefield were getting too tense for her to not keep her focus on helping. Some dark elves were daying, and while something like that wouldn’t bother her much, things changed now. Those people dying were her companions who decided to fight alongside her to save their world.

You have learned the skill Mana Magnet.

You obtained 05 status points.

Mana Magnet: After defeating an enemy, you receive ten points of their mana multiplied by the level of the skill.

Despite the situation, Shalia finally managed to turn that ability into a skill. She could tell the endless potential of such skill since it could do so much already at level one and at the lowest level of rarity.

"It seems that you finally succeeded. Now you can see why I said that," Aivern said. "It has even more potential than Weapon Augmentation." 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

"... it isn’t an offensive skill. It only gives me the chance to fight for longer periods of time," Shalia said.

"At higher levels, you will be able to keep fighting for longer periods of time while using your best spells," Aivern said. "Luke’s skill still has a limitation, and that is his strength. Not to mention his mentality."

"What do you mean by his mentality?" Shalia frowned.

"I tried to change that, but it seemed that it didn’t work," Aivern said. "At some point in the future, Luke will notice that he can’t keep up with the legendary overlords with strength, speed, or quality of their skills. So, he will try to become as tough as possible... Do you see the problem? He will literally neglect his strengths."

Shalia stopped to think about that. It made sense... Luke recently was acting weird, and he even bought that Cape to hide the fact that he has harming himself to level up his defenses. He was also the type that worries a lot, even though he hides that with his goofy actions. It was because he disliked showing any signs of weaknesses and because he didn’t want to make others worry about him. It seemed a lot of work for the usual laid-back Luke that complains about useless stuff, but that was who he was beneath that exterior facade.

"If you try to protect his pride by holding back, it will only make things worse," Aivern said. "He isn’t a genius, but he isn’t stupid either."

Shalia was starting to get mad at Aivern. He suddenly showed and changed the outcome of the entire game. Not to mention, it forced Luke to face his own insecurities. No people could survive the invasion of monsters and overlords without having some issues. Still, Luke acted like he was that type of person, but now after holding back his feelings for a long, they came at full power due to some very simple words. Still, Shalia realized that Luke had to fight by himself to win against his insecurities. The only thing she could do now was to help the dark elves. Hopefully, he will gain the strength over time to defeat that overlord. She just had to make sure that the battle would last long enough for that.

"There is one thing that I don’t get it," Shalia said. "You have experienced life many times through the other versions of yourself. With that in mind, why didn’t you try to help your friends by telling them what works and doesn’t work when it comes to fighting the Legendary overlords?"

"I did that, but in the end, it didn’t work," Aivern said. "You, Rina, Nambra, Cresta, Richter, and many, many more others, I tried to help with the knowledge that I have. However, you must understand that there is a reaction for each action. The overlords, the real troublesome ones, always knew what to do to reverse the result of my actions. Almost as if...",

"If they had the same power as you..." Shalia said. "Still, they always caused the end of their universes."