Very quickly, I realize that my current skill at handling thermal energy is not enough. So, instead, a wave of disruptive mana explodes from me at the center, only further boosted by the surge.

For a long moment, the energies clash: blazing blue flames against an invisible force trying to cancel them out. Surprised, I push even more, feeding the skill with more and more mana until the flames finally dissipate, leaving burning pieces of wood from the ruined building nearby.

The young girl, Isabella, looks at me with a surprised expression.

“Oh, you are still alive.”

You what?

[Perception] fires up but there are only two of us as far as I can feel. Did Sophie not survive on the second floor?

“Where is your sister?”

“I don't know. I appeared here alone,” she seems to be surprisingly calm.

Sigh, I can't be dealing with kids now.

“Use difficulty change token and move to easier difficulty,” I just say, still shaken from the end of the second floor. I need some time alone to process it all.

“Sophie said that we will stay in Hell!”

Huh? That's surprising. Also, god damn it. What now? I can't leave her alone, she's just a kid. Even I am not such an asshole.

Haaa, so annoying!

“You know that your sister did something to your brain? She probably controls you or changed the way you think,” I say to her.

Just a short probe was enough and the girl didn't even notice my mana scanning her. What I found is something similar to the construct Sophie put on me so long ago. Yes, it's different and feels much more delicate, but the base is the same.

“I can remove it, you will get back to normal.” [Disruption] and [Mana Manipulation] should be enough to deal with it.

“It's fine, I know about it,” she is smiling at me while saying so, and with a few short steps, almost like small jumps, she gets to me, looking up, “You have your arm back,” she pokes my restored left arm.

That's another reason I can't be dealing with her. Lily still should be unconscious if she even survived the end of the floor. I already checked the community and the Hell Difficulty seems to have even more people than before. I blame it on dumbasses that have passed here from easier difficulties, a few of them already spamming the community.

What gives me hope is that Biscuit is one of them so hopefully, others are fine too. Tess also answered but there is nothing from Hadwin, Twins, and Kim, not even Sophie looking for her sister.

It's all one huge mess.

“Follow me,” I say to her and start walking while my [Perception] continues to fire up as far as I can. I even use [Redistribution] and energy from spinning mana orbs to get as high as I can, trying to see if I could spot anything.

The girl gives me an excited little scream asking me to take her and after a bit of thought, I take her on my back and start quickly moving through the desolate third floor. Propelling myself high into the air, I look for anyone.

The third floor seems to be one big massive city. It's stretching as far as I can see, even as I am high up in the air. Just building after building and streets that are either made of ground dust or cobblestones. A huge percentage of buildings, nearly all of them, aren't higher than two stories tall, and only once in a while a taller building appears.

The city is in a desolate state. Some of the buildings are crumbling, some are burned, others are destroyed.

Carefully watching our surroundings I open the notifications.

Congratulations! You have cleared the 2nd floor of the Hell difficulty tutorial. Welcome to the third floor: Saint's Eternal Bastion.

You have acquired:

Skill upgrade token.

Tutorial Difficulty change token

You have acquired 20 stat points.

You can now use Community with a time limit of 15 minutes per 24 hours.

“Hey, where is the cute small doggo that was always with you? I want to pet him.” Isabella pulls on the cloth of my shirt.

Are all kids like this? Trying to kill you and then immediately acting so friendly to the first person they meet? I can understand the first part, it might be Sophie's doing, trying to keep her little sister alive, but the second?

While investing all the stat points into mana, I ask her: “Didn't Sophie warn you not to follow strangers?” Even Biscuit understands that!

“She did! She also said something about you being a bad guy.”

She what? That's rich coming from her.

The little girl continues, “But Soph is dumb sometimes, I think you are a nice guy!” Her big eyes are looking at me and there is a small smile on her face.

Black hair, green eyes, and skin that seems to be tanned, she is a spitting image of her older sister, two girls easily recognizable as sisters.

“Where is the doggo...” she complains.

Sigh, this is going to be annoying.

Soph (Hell, group 4) - Isabella!

Soph (Hell, group 4) - Izzy!

Sophie continues to spam in Community while I continue to look and read the texts. Her desperation is clearly visible even in the texts she is sending and I believe I know how she is feeling. I have a sibling too, you know.

Plus, I still don't know anything about Lily. Everyone else seems to be fine all things considered. Broken limbs, deep wounds, a bit of trauma. Isn't that a cheap price to pay for surviving the end of the world?

The only ones not answering are Kim and Lily.

Right now it seems that everyone got split into smaller groups.

Tess is currently with Sophie and Aaron.

Hadwin is with Dennis and Maya.

Biscuit is most likely alone, yet he seems fine for now, seeing him spam the chat.

There are three guys from Hard Difficulty that used the difficulty change token to get here.

No other people joined our group, most likely meaning that you can change difficulty only by one level up or down, meaning easy or normal can't join hell. Others have also confirmed that it's not possible to use the token to change the difficulty to a higher one than "Hell."

I also confirm my suspicion that no one from Hell difficulty is normal. The reason?

Everyone is still fucking here. Not a single person decided to change the difficulty to lower, that would give them a much higher chance of survival.

Noname (Hell, group 4) - I'm with your sister. She is sleeping right now.

Finally, Sophie pauses her spam.

Soph (Hell, group 4) - I swear if you hurt her.

Well, didn't things get solved for me? I just need to babysit her sister a bit and then I have a mind mage on my side, right? Right? Like it matters... I already know I won't be able to leave a little kid here alone, but Sophie doesn't need to know.

Noname (Hell, group 4) - I will keep her safe. You will owe me. You will owe me a lot, okay?

I will get as much use as I can out of you. And this is your only chance. At this moment I'm about to ignore the fact that you played with my life and I will even take care of your precious sibling. Even you should know that I had to take a step back two times, so don't trample on my pride. Even I am at my limit and probably only [Focus] allows me to push my feelings to back of my mind.

Soph (Hell, group 4) - Yes. I will owe you. Just... please, keep her safe. I will continue to look for you, try to find us...

Then her connection cuts off and I also turn off the community, decided to check it a bit later.

Okay, time to check the rest of my notifications.

Ability to identify item rarities unlocked!

Well isn't that interesting?

I pull out one of the mana stones from my pocket. The mana stone that Ruby kept making fun of me over so often and with such laughter. I freeze for a second, memories roaring through my mind. For that short moment, I let them. All these feelings, all these useless, dumb feelings.

I hate feeling like this.

[Focus]

I push them out and then look down at the stone in my palm.

Emberstone (uncommon) - A small, smooth mana stone that emits a gentle warmth when activated. Perfect for keeping hands warm in cold weather.

Could be useful, I'll see later how can I use it, now then, let's upgrade one of my skills.

Focus (Dual Focus) - Lvl 28Mana Manipulation (Advanced Mana Manipulation) - Lvl 28Perception - Lvl 22Oscillation - Lvl 18Redistribution - Lvl 13Armament - Lvl 23Mana Surge - Lvl 10Disruption - Lvl 12

First, I try to use it on Focus and Mana manipulation.

Impossible to upgrade already upgraded skills at this moment!

Obviously. This is the system I both hate and love. There is no way it would be that easy.

Damn it.

Well, there are 6 skills over level 10 so 24 options?

Step by step! First, I need to check [Redistribution], [Perception], and [Disruption].

Congratulations! You can now upgrade your level 10 skill by using the skill upgrade token. Currently, there are six skills available for upgrade. Choose wisely!

[Redistribution]

Surge Absorption: Enhance your ability to absorb larger, more potent surges of energy, increasing the limit of energy you can store.

Symbiotic Transference: Learn to transfer the stored energy directly into physical strength, endurance, or speed, increasing combat prowess.

Force Field Creation: Learn to release absorbed energy as a protective force field, offering defense as well as attack capabilities.

Energy Imprint: Develop the ability to leave an imprint of your absorbed energy on objects or areas, creating traps or delayed effects.

[Perception]

Mana Echo Reading: Enhance your skill to perceive the residual trails of mana, enabling you to track past magical events or spells.

Kinesthetic Perception: Hone your ability to perceive the movement and position of your own body, increasing agility, balance, and accuracy in combat.

Perception Shielding: Upgrades the skill to mask one's own mana perception, making it more difficult for others to detect or trace your mana-sensing activities.

Mana Flow Analysis: Develops the capacity to identify nuanced patterns and rhythms in the movement of mana, offering deeper insight into how skills are invoked and controlled.

[Disruption]

Disruptive Echo: Master a technique to leave a lingering disruption in an opponent's mana flow, causing intermittent disruptions even after the initial contact.

Disruption Infusion: Improve your ability to infuse your own spells or physical attacks with disruptive energy, adding a disruptive effect to every action you make.

Disruption Wave: Increase your ability to disrupt mana over a wider area, affecting multiple opponents or a larger magical structure.

Mana Lockdown: Enhance your skill to create a sustained disruption that prevents the opponent from using their mana for a period of time.

Damn it, this is going to be a hard decision.