I let out a sigh of relief when I don't feel the Mind Eater intruding upon my soul. I am safe. Now I need to return to the Rodent Den and check on the others.

Memories begin to resurface as I take out the waystone key, memories of my past life. I was introverted, and talking to people always filled me with anxiety. I would tell myself, 'It's fine, they wouldn't like me anyway' or 'we probably don't share the same interests', and I would always walk away.

The fact that I didn't walk away this time only proves that I am not the same person. I am successful, motivated, and strong-willed, not the lazy, complacent, and cowardly person that I was… before.

I shake my head, clearing it of the stray thoughts, and, with only a slight hesitation, I teleport back to my hiding spot, making sure to not have my vision extended too far. The others seem to be making their way back to me, fighting through groups of monsters, so I send a clone to meet up with them and to explain what happened.

"Alysara! You're back. What happened?" Chyzu asks, hugging my clone.

Tana looks relieved to see that I came back while Irela huffs, probably annoyed that she has come back for nothing.

"There's a really dangerous monster at the last floor of the Gargoyle Ruins, a powerful mind mage," I explain.

"It seems that your suspicions were right, Esofy," Kadona says.

"There's not a clone that has been taken over, is there?" Uloru asks, clearly remembering the last time something like this happened.

"Hmm, no, one of my minds is not being controlled..." I say and shudder at the thought of having Mind Eater tentacles intruding into my soul. "It was more interested in stealing a mind instead. I don't know how many minds it has, but it has a lot, way more than the Mind Slime. It's probably best that we stay away from the Gargoyle Ruins for now."

"Is it really that dangerous?" Jowaru asks.

I nod, probably too vigorously.

"Well, if you're that sure, then we should go to the next den," Esofy says and starts leading the group back to my real body so we can teleport to the Arachnoid Den.

I keep my vision at a short range even as we leave the Rodent Den; chances are that there will be at least one mind mage monster somewhere here too, although that doesn't always mean I am at risk of retaliation or being controlled. The Mind Slime didn't really have a retaliation skill, but it did sense my mental presence through my clairvoyance.

"Let me prepare first," I say before the group leaves to kill monsters. "If there is a mind mage in here too, I would rather get it out of the way first rather than stumble upon it when you guys are deep in the den."

"Are we going to have to stay away from this den too?" Irela asks, clearly annoyed.

"It's better to play it safe; if Alysara needs to run away from it, then it's probably too much for us to handle it too." Esofy retorts.

Tana looks even more determined while Uloru swings her hammer and takes a side glance at me, my tails specifically.

Feeling a little self-conscious under Uloru's glances, I make another, more powerful scapegoat – three actually, just to be extra safe. As the others rest, I also take some time to make a more powerful mental resistance helmet. It takes a few hours, but now I feel safer.

I slowly expand my vision, encompassing the first floor, then the second, until on the third floor I find another ruin entrance with what looks like serpentine statues on both sides of the entrance. Looking a little further into it, I see large snakes in the rooms. We aren't going in there yet, so I continue searching the fourth floor of the Arachnoid Den. Suddenly, my perception seems to get stuck right as some webs come into view. The webs appear to have been spun into the form of a dream-catcher.

Interesting. If these webs can 'catch' my clairvoyant field, then I don't want to know what the Arachnoid can do. I try to pull away, but feel glued to the webs. I pull harder and harder, feeling my perception slowly peel off the webs. As I am about halfway off the webs, I see a large Arachnoid come into view, and I [Analyze] it.

Dream Weaver Arachnoid (Grand), Sight Eater (Grand), level 484 Poison Bond

The Arachnoid rears back, then, with a lunging motion, sinks its fangs into my perception! Pain assaults my mind; I easily ignore it and try turning off my [Sense Magic], but am unable to. I pull back as hard as I can, my vision blurring as the Arachnoid somehow seems to 'eat' my clairvoyance! With a final tug, I pull my perception back, hoping my vision will be restored.

I turn my perception off and on again, but it remains slightly blurry. Panic creeps up as my vision doesn't immediately return to normal. My skill's magical framework doesn't seem damaged in any way; it shouldn't be able to damage my vision!

I feel [Clear Mind] kick in and calm me, allowing me to take a breath and sort through my thoughts. It's possible that my vision will return to normal, or maybe I can take it back by killing that Arachnoid. Still, this is another lesson; it's not just retaliation and mind mages I need to be wary of; there are other things out there that can cause trouble, and I should try to find a way to deal with them.

I should ask Kayafe about cases like these, but for now, we should try to kill that monster. I report what happened to Esofy.

"I'm not sure if we can get to the fourth floor," Esofy says, "But we'll try. It's not Heroic, so it should be doable.”

As we fight through rooms infested with monsters, I try to think of ways to counter the Dream Weaver's abilities. How does it 'eat' my vision? Is it a type of poison? Is it stealing my vision? Is it temporary? My best guess is that it is a type of conceptual damage, and if that's the case, then conceptual restoration should heal it, right? But how do I heal my skill? How did it even hurt my skill in the first place? It is undoubtedly a magical effect, a powerful Class skill, so do I need magical healing, or will my Bond work?

I pump [Blessing of Wholeness] into myself, but my vision remains blurry. It seems like I need to specifically target my skill... How the hell do I even do that?! [Clear Mind] kicks in and calms my frustration while [Inquisitive perfection] whispers to me. I have [Magic Sense], I can see my magical frameworks and their skills; they exist somewhere, so they can be targeted. There's only one problem; I don't see anything wrong with my magical frameworks! It's possible that it's so minute that I don't notice it, however, or that there’s something else that I don't see and I need another breakthrough.

Regardless, it's worth a try. I focus on the magical framework that is my [Sense Magic] in my Race's magic framework, and flow my Bond through it... Nothing changes; my vision remains the same. It's possible that my Bond just isn't powerful enough, or it's just not the way to heal my vision.

Uloru splats an Arachnoid against the wall, some of the blood dotting my clone's ‘clothes’. Tana is burning another and draining its vitality while Esofy expertly cuts one in half with her void scythe; she mutters something about her edge alignment being off.

The Dream Weaver didn't attack my magical frameworks, if that's even possible. It attacked the metaphysical perception of my ability, much like how mind mages can attack the metaphysical mind. [Inquisitive Perfection] isn't helping much, just giving me a shrug; it's great, but it only works off of what I know, and in this case, I don't know much.

I focus on the perception itself, the act of feeling for the mana and magic around me and the ‘idea’ of perception. I shrink my vision so all of it will be affected, and channel my restoration spell.

Once fully charged, I release my spell and feel a sort of... 'warmth', for lack of better words, flow through my vision. A wave distorts my vision for a moment, and it clears up. Elation wells up inside of me and I jump up and down in joy, glad that my clone accompanying the party isn't doing the same. However, my success is short-lived as I notice my vision slowly blurring again several minutes later. My heart plummets as I realize it's only temporary.

I let out a heavy sigh. I am on the right track, but there are a multitude of potential reasons why my vision didn't fully heal. One is that it just needs several healing sessions; it heals, but not all the way. The second is that I need to get more powerful in my Bond for permanent healing. Or it can be both; perhaps I only healed the symptom and not the cause. For now, I should just focus on getting to the next milestone in my Bond and see if my healing works then.

For each boss monster, I test their abilities before we take them on. On some occasions, I have to prepare some mana-woven armor, but soon we reach the third floor. All the while, I have two minds trying to figure out how to defend against attacks on my perception. Whether it's a skill or an item, I need some way to defend myself. [Inquisitive Perfection] is nagging me about something, something about the magic circles that make up the magic frameworks? It's not a solution, but a suggestion to try something: perhaps I can use a throw-away perception, so it doesn't matter if it gets damaged? It's not always correct with its suggestions – healing the frameworks didn't work – but just to shut it up I decide to follow its baseless suggestion. I weave a ribbon and embroider the shape of my [Sense Magic's] magic circle into it. Nothing happens.

It's as I suspected, you can't just draw the shape into something and grant it a skill. With its curiosity fulfilled, [Inquisitive Perfection] goes quiet, but it does leave me wondering… what if I were to flow mana through the pattern? After all, enchantments work the same way. I send my mana reserves to flow through the pattern and see it light up. It's not the same as my skill, that is very clear, but the influence it has on the mana around it is evident, burning away the mana as if fueling a magic process, although with no apparent effect. This, unfortunately, means that the mana making up the ribbon is also being burned away, and soon the magic circle is compromised and the process stops.

"That's... interesting," I mutter. It clearly can't be used near objects made of mana, and it doesn't seem to grant me any abilities. Chances are that it grants the skill to an object, or simply uses the skill on the inscribed object at the cost of mana. This could be a reliable way of using true magic, but is it actually useful? I will have to study this phenomenon in greater detail later; for now, I have other things to do.

I need to figure out how to hide my perception, make it go through a proxy, or somehow encrypt my perception so I can't be found through it, as that seems to be how mind mages find me. I wonder if there's a breakthrough for that? Even if it's an enhanced level breakthrough, I should be able to get it. Of course, this won't save me from what the Arachnoid did, so I also need a way to divert damage or attacks... Perhaps I just need a resistance skill.

While I work on a possible breakthrough, my second mind is helping the others fight a boss monster, a huge Arachnoid that shoots out porcupine-like quills. Tana and Jowaru easily defend against those attacks with their shields, but Uloru and Esofy are hit by a barrage of quills until Irela forms a metal shield in front of them.

Kadona chops a leg off but is kicked back, her ribs making a loud cracking sound. Chyzu shoots out ice bolts, aiming for the eyes, and one manages to hit, enraging the Arachnoid, which charges at the vulnerable mage. I jump in to deliver my charged attack as Jowaru jumps in front of Chyzu, her massive shield raised to take the attack. I hit the underside of the Arachnoid, the mana destroying the boss's organs and burning out a good amount of its vitality. The Arachnoid screams, its stridulation making everyone cover their ears in pain.

Taking advantage of the situation, the Arachnoid launches its quills in all directions, hitting several people. Irela screams as the quills sink into her while Esofy tries unsuccessfully to deflect the quills with a swing of her sword.

Uloru leaps forward, ignoring the quills digging deeper into her, and slams her hammer on the Arachnoid's abdomen, puncturing through the tough chitin with her heavy hammer. In a stroke of genius, Uloru doesn't remove the hammer, but instead forces it deeper in the monster's innards and then makes it expand as large as it will get. The Arachnoid's abdomen explodes from the sudden expansion, spraying everyone nearby in guts and blood.

Ting! Your party has killed a Quill Shooter Arachnoid (Grand), Level 385 Sharpshot; extra experience has been rewarded for being under-leveled.

Ting! Your Bond has obtained levels 494!

I gained the three other Bond levels while fighting the other bosses; it seems that, while dungeons are good for achievements, getting high level and high tier kills, they aren't actually good for leveling up once one is strong enough. The better one is at fighting, the less risk there is, and that is taken into account, so one will level up slower.

That said, it's still a very important resource for training and leveling untrained people, and there's something to be gained for mentors as well; even if they aren't in much danger, the risk of their wards dying or being injured raises the stakes, which helps with leveling. Perhaps we are going about this the wrong way? We may need to bring in other people to make full use of the dungeon, or maybe explore more into the other areas of it.

Now, to think about my perception, and how to stop this sort of thing from happening again.