Before they get to react, the orb filled to the brim with thermal energy leaves my mouth and floats near me. Then I start releasing short bursts of concentrated flames from it instead of exploding it at once.

The already darkening area lights up with the yellowish glow of my flames, and monster after monster is set ablaze and killed immediately.

Entering deeper [Focus], I methodically change my position and continue to search for and attack the invisible ants that are all around me. As with most of the monsters with skills that allow them to hide, they are fast but physically weaker. Every time they try to get closer, they just get burned by a blast of flames.

I continue to jump, dodge, and improve my hold over the orb that floats nearby. It's still so filled with an immense amount of heat, and I only use a little bit to kill the Phantom Ants. I do not stop until they are all dead.

All twenty-six of them.

I even spent some time obliterating their bodies using kinetic energy.

Then I feel a touch of Gravity Ants and just resonate mana on my skin, removing the effect of their skill from me over and over again, no matter how hard they try or how many of them do so.

I lift off and start flying around while feeding my heart with more mana and keep converting kinetic into thermal energy.

Yellow flames continuously explode from me. Sometimes as a flamethrower, sometimes like a short blast of heat. In other cases, mixed into my mana projectiles and shot over long distances.

Then, just before finishing the side quest requiring me to kill 300 ants, the strongest one so far appears. One with immense mana that reaches out toward me and tries to dissipate my flames and the orb still floating near me.

For a moment, our mana clashes against each other and I push against him with my [Resonance] and stop him from doing that. Immediately after, I shoot projectiles at him. A javelin that I fill with thermal energy that the monster dissipates before it reaches him.

Another javelin appears and this time filled with kinetic energy, the ant dissipates it as well.

[Mana Harvester Ant - lvl ??]

I start releasing heat all around my body, burning the ants that get closer to me, and dash at this one. Yellowish flames light up the side of the mountain and throw flickering flames all around us while I continue to focus on the monster in front of me.

I study him, watch the way the monster moves its mana, and when it tries to dissipate my flames again, I reach out and this time my mana resonates. The monster loses control over his skill.

It's just a short moment, but it's enough for a blast of now more concentrated golden flames to blow off his head.

[You have defeated a Mana Harvester Ant - lvl 158]

The moment the monster dies, even more of them replace him. With more ants of the same variation, all of them reach out to me to cancel my skills.

My Mantle totally blocks their attempts to mess with the mana inside my body, but my flames weaken and I feel my heart thump loudly.

I slip deeper into [Focus] and lower a bit of its hold over my emotions and feel myself getting fired up as more and more monsters surround me. Wordlessly, and with only the sound of their chitin-like legs hitting the rocky surface of the mountains.

Then all the sounds disappear, and the world loses even more of its colors, and mana starts shining even brighter.

I throw myself right against them while releasing all the heat stored inside of the orb in a brilliant explosion of golden flames that lick the entire side of the mountain, melting the stone and killing dozens of the monsters.

A bit later, I don't even bother hiding and just sit at the top of one of the mountains and wait for ants to group up before they push me again.

This situation reminds me of Beyond a bit, yet it doesn't feel that dangerous. Ants' biggest advantage is numbers, and individually they aren't that strong, even with levels well into the hundreds. Sure, they have big bodies and are most likely really durable, but I counter them pretty well.

I am faster than them, my skills do more damage, and their skills don't affect me as I can disrupt them. And my mana pool is massive.

Fighting for a few hours, I more and more appreciate the 1st stage of Mana Amplification. I already did have a high amount of mana before, and doubling it still feels like cheating. Every time I invest stat points into mana, it's as if I leveled up twice and got 6 stats in the attribute instead of three.

So yeah, the ants are weak against me, and if they don't pull out some stronger, named ants, I will continue to farm them for levels.

Sensing another Phantom Ant sneaking up on me, I let him get closer, and when he nearly reaches me, a yellow flame sets him ablaze and a push with kinetic energy sends him rolling down the mountain while burning.

Who told you to be so flammable, you dumbass?

Finally, the ants seem to be ready as they start climbing up the mountain at the same time as the flying ones join the attack.

Hundreds of giant ants silently start their attack.

First, I blow off the side of the mountain, and the first wave gets hit by the landslide and avalanche. Then dozens of projectiles boosted with kinetic energy pierce the most annoying variations.

And when more of the melee attack ants attack me, [Redistribution] envelops them and affects dozens of the monsters, slowing their movements slightly. There are too many of them, and their stats are too high to do more, but even that is enough.

I grab that energy; I change it, and the golden flames light up the night again.

I have noticed it before, but the closer to level 40 my skills are, the harder they are to level up. Obviously, the higher the level of the skill, the harder it is to level it up, so it makes sense. It's nothing unexpected, but it's nothing I am happy with.

The being in the Beyond warned me not to get my skill to level 99, so maybe something special will happen then? As for that being, what levels are its skills? 99, the level it warned me about, or does it not rely on something like that? Or is the level much higher?

As always, the system won't tell me anything about it, so I just have to wait and find out on my own, and I will do just that. I was warned not to get any skill to level 99, and it sounded to me that having even one skill close to that level is a really big achievement.

So, obviously, my goal is to get multiple skills to that level! I won't let some creepy stalker-like presence hold me back!

But step after step, I need to reach level 150 and upgrade my Primary class; then I will return to the others and learn a bit more about this floor. They should be able to collect some useful information.

I look down at the monsters that slowly surround the area around the mountain I sit on. They just stand there, motionless, and stare at me.

The monsters are waiting for something or someone.

I breathe in the cold air around me and continue to fill the orb hovering near me with more and more thermal energy. It's easier to squash a lot of energy inside of it, unlike my body. Also, in case I lose control, I can just throw the orb away, unlike the energy I would be collecting inside of my body.

Snow continues to fall slowly; when it gets close to me, it melts and evaporates. A bit of the area around me is without any snow on it, and it gets bigger and bigger the more thermal energy I fill into the orb.

I found out it works better than kinetic energy or just compressing mana into tricolored mana. The ants seem to have lower defenses against fire, and even their mage-like variations defend against it much worse than against mana-based attacks.

That's why I continue to jump around like some pyromaniac with a flamethrower. Once again, I thank the sacrifice of all the monsters that died so I could learn to convert kinetic energy into thermal.

Slightly bored by waiting, I start examining my own feelings as well. Now that I am away from other members of our group, I can think properly, and there is some sense of freedom as well.

Yet part of my mind already misses that silly doggo, reliable Tess, extremely bullyable Lily, nosy Isabella, and even the cheeky boys. Heck, even Hadwin and Maya have kind of grown on me. I can't even pretend anymore that I don't care about them.

It's not like I see them as friends; that much old silly me still doesn't want to accept, but I think there are already some seeds of that.

When did it happen? When did I open up enough for them to find a way to me?

Dangerous, people from the Hell Difficulty are dangerous.

Anyway, I already decided to give it a chance, so that's what I will do. But knowing Tess and seeing her and Lily's attempts to improve my image, I already know it might happen sooner rather than later.

Finally, the monsters start moving, creating a pathway between their bodies. A new variation of the ant uses this pathway to move closer. It walks slowly, almost as if bearing some dignity, and the other ants silently and without moving at all, watch it pass.

The new ant stops, and then blue flames start to flicker all over its red carapace.

[Flame Legion Ant - lvl ??]

Right after, another ant crawls to its side.

[Flame Legion Ant - lvl ??]

And another. Soon, ten of them stand down there, blue fire burning around them. Their lifeless eyes seem to be looking right at me and at the orb next to me as their antennae continue to move in sync.

An orb appears in front of the group of ten Flame Legion ants, and flames from all of the ants start feeding it in a similar way I do to my orb.

The flame orb swells to the size of a beach ball as more and more of their fire enters it. It starts to illuminate the night with soft and flickering blue light that throws creepy shadows on the ground and lights up the hundreds of ants down there. The way they just stand there without moving at all is somewhat creepy. Like they are bus-sized statues made by some crazy artist. Extremely detailed and even creepier because of that.

The Flame Legion ants continue to only move their antennae and feed the orb.

And I do the same, compressing all the thermal energy that I feed it. It's smaller than theirs, much smaller, maybe the size of a baseball and it shrinks even more and gradually changes color from dark yellow to brilliant golden.

Come, show me what you can do.

As if hearing my thoughts, the ants do just that, and their orb flies high into the air. It then expands to the size of a smaller house, lighting up the entire side of the mountain in bright blue light, like a small sun. The air becomes dry. The snow melts, and the water from it instantly evaporates.

Then the giant orb flies at me and as it passes through the air, it elongates and changes from a round, globe-like shape to a more elliptical one. The front of the orb takes on a darker shade of blue, and its tail becomes much paler.

And I do not dodge, nor fly away, even though I easily could.

In the same way, the ants attacked me, I shoot my golden orb at them, much smaller in comparison to theirs, and then I [Focus] and reach out toward theirs.