James skimmed the books like a filthy animal with no appreciation for the fine things in life.

Back on Earth, even though he was a recluse, he did go to college. And in order to maximize the time he could spend reading fantasy and mindlessly browsing the internet, he mastered the art of doing as little studying as possible for maximum results. And it worked, he always had good grades.

As Lunaris and Helios were watching him, they couldn't believe their eyes. They were extremely confused, not sure at all how to react to the situation.

These tomes, these … precious, invaluable gifts of knowledge that great minds spent years working on. Tomes that people spend months studying, analyzing every word, trying to decipher the great wisdom that the authors embedded within the pages.

They were now seeing those tomes ... defiled. Even though James was very careful not to physically damage or dirty the books, what he did with the contents really couldn’t be described as anything else but defilement.

James was zooming through the books. Just a few hours had passed and he was already done with several books.

Many of the tomes at Hedonia were infused with mana by their authors, allowing the reader to go into a trance and actually commune with the remnant of mana left by the author, to receive proper guidance.

But James defiled even these sacred, invaluable gifts.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, can you just cut to the chase and explain this thing to me? Use as few words as possible.” James was usually a very polite person, but he didn’t see the need to be polite to a mana remnant. It wasn't an actual person, it was basically an automaton. Why waste time with the polite bullshit when it’s just a program that you can get answers from? Just because it was made out of mana doesn’t make it anything more than a program.

Helios was happy that James was making progress, but he wasn't exactly sure what to think or feel. “If this actually works out and word of it gets out, we can say goodbye to a utopia. The next generation would all be lazy, impatient, know-it-alls like him. Society would collapse! We need to keep this hush-hush.”

Lunaris hurriedly agreed. “Yes, if it works out, I’ll believe he’s some sort of ... lazy, sloppy, clumsy genius. But no matter what, we can’t let anybody know of his unorthodox ways of doing things. It would plunge us into anarchy.”

It only took a day for James to complete his research. When they picked out the books, Lunaris had estimated that it would take at least several weeks.

But James was a weird guy, a living contradiction. A hard-working type of lazy person. He was so lazy that he wanted to be done with everything as quickly as possible. But also so neurotic that he would be too stressed out if he left his work unfinished.

The weird mix of unflattering traits actually made him quite hard-working, in a way that meant he would take any shortcut he could think of to get things done as quickly as possible, so he could go back to being lazy. Any details that weren't crucial would get tossed aside.

James then took a few hours to internalize all of his research. He had taken very brief notes to keep track of key concepts.

Slowly, the puzzle was being put together in his mind.

When he closed his eyes, he could see the spells, clear as day. His overactive imagination developed from years of reading fantasy paid off yet again. The images in his mind were so vivid that it was basically a realistic simulation. With each new piece of information, the tableau only became more realistic.

With his eyes closed, he saw himself in battle, dodging deadly hits by sensing them a second before they happened. A transparent mana exoskeleton would activate from his subconscious signals and push him out of harm’s way. And when a hit that was impossible to dodge would almost hit him, he’d teleport several feet away.

[Skill unlocked: Combat Clairvoyance]

[Skill unlocked: Subconscious Arcane Reflex Module]

[Skill unlocked: Blink]

“Well, I’ll be damned! He actually did it!” Helios then clapped, genuinely impressed.

“I don’t get it. Sometimes he’s like a genius, and other times he’s like a clumsy child.” Lunaris laughed, even though part of her almost felt like crying. But those worries were quickly cast aside and she clapped as well, genuinely happy for her friend.

“Let’s try this out! Who would like to do the honors?” James asked, excited to play with his new toys.

Helios grinned and stepped up.

“All right, don’t put a lot of power in your hits, but make them as fast and unpredictable as you can.” James said.

Helios then lifted up his fists, ready to rain blows upon James. If James couldn’t dodge every single one of his punches, then he definitely wouldn’t be ready for the Soul Grinder. If he landed just one punch, it would mean that James would need to spend more time developing additional defenses.

James was ready. He had to consciously keep Combat Clairvoyance up. But with enough practice, he predicted that it could become active at all times without him even activating it, if he could level it up enough.

Helios lunged at James. Instead of hitting him directly, he used his incredible speed to strike James from behind. It was so fast James couldn’t even see it. But he could sense it a split second before it happened!

The Subconscious Arcane Reflex Module, SARM, activated before his muscles could, throwing his entire body to the side.

James avoided the hit, but SARM launched him with such power that he was thrown several feet away, and was now lying on the floor.

Before he could even scramble to his feet, Helios attacked again, trying to deliver a kick to his abdomen. Helios had to push James to his limits. Showing mercy now could cost them dearly later on.

James’s body didn’t do anything, but SARM flung him away yet again. This time he was at least expecting to be flung though, so the landing was a lot more graceful, although he still fell to his knees.

Helios didn’t stop at all, he kept coming at James at full speed. In half a minute, James was flung around the room 20 times. He felt dizzy, but it was good practice, he was starting to get the hang of it.

When Helios went for the 21st hit, James was finally able to fully land on his feet, completely in control of his own body.

“Not too bad. I admit, this thing isn’t totally useless.” Helios grinned. “But in the Soul Grinder, you won’t always have the luxury of fighting only one opponent. Lunaris, it’s your time to shine.”

Lunaris immediately joined in, not giving James even a second to rest. She started throwing water balls at him. They wouldn’t hurt him if they hit, but they were quick as hell.

Right as James’s SARM dodged the waterball, Helios threw a kick at James the moment he landed.

James dodged again, but as soon as he landed, a waterball was coming right at him, and Helios was already preparing a kick from the other direction.

Right before the moment of contact, James teleported away, landing on the other side of the room, tens of feet away!

He successfully dodged the onslaught without being hit even once.

“All right, you have my approval.” Lunaris smiled. These spells he developed were really weird, but apparently they were effective, which made her very happy. She and Helios had been worried sick since James was cursed. “How much mana did Blink use though?”

“Not as much as I thought it would, just around 1/10th of my total mana. And the mana is regenerating fairly quickly as well. I guess leveling up through training magic alone isn’t a completely terrible idea.”

“I still think you should train your body a bit.” Helios said. And before James could answer, he threw 5 waterballs at him.

Even though James didn’t expect it at all, SARM reacted before his legs could.

When James landed, Helios was already behind him. But instead of attacking him, he patted him on the shoulder.

“Danger doesn’t care if you’re ready or not. Remember that when we’re in the Soul Grinder.”

James had been suspecting it, but that’s when he truly realized that Helios hadn’t used his full powers. If he had used his real, undampened speed, it would’ve made the whole exercise completely futile.

A chill went through James’s spine. Helios was absolutely right, if he could surprise James like that, an intelligent monster with nefarious intentions would have killed him before he even realized something had happened, clairvoyance or not. His new skills were great, but with a sufficiently big gap in power, they wouldn’t do much at all.

Seeing the look on James’s face, Helios was satisfied. He didn’t want James to get too complacent, so he taught him a lesson by using his full powers. Complacency and a feeling of security meant death.

“You’ll need to practice these new abilities of yours till they’re second nature to you. But you also have my approval.” Helios said, satisfied enough with James’s display.

Even though James was eager to get to level 100 as soon as possible, he took Helios’s words to heart, having been shown that he shouldn’t be overly confident. He diligently practiced for an entire week, not daring to show even an ounce of laziness. He practiced his three new defensive skills, which took up most of his time. But offense was important as well, so he practiced his Magmafrost Bullet, Mana Drain, Mana Chains and most importantly, his Razorice Saw.

But that wasn't nearly enough, if he went in there with just these spells, he'd be completely useless.

But his mind was full of designs for new spells, his thoughts were almost haunted by the spells he wanted to unlock. Unfortunately, he couldn't dedicate any time to actually unlocking any of those spells.

His time would be much better spent practicing his defenses, and he didn't really have any way to confirm which spells would actually work in real combat against powerful enemies.

So he let those ideas marinate in his mind, ready to be used when the time was right, when life and death was on the line.

One could call this approach careless, lazy, or even crazy. Any sane person would take some more time to actually experiment with those spells. But that was how James always did things, he preferred jumping into things and figuring it out in the heat of the moment. He had faith that when push came to shove, the designs in his mind would work out splendidly.

Compared to when he first came to this world, James didn’t really feel much fear anymore. He fought so many monsters by now that he didn’t think twice about it, he was ready to jump into combat at a moment’s notice.

There was a tiny bit of hesitation in him though. It took a while to fully process it, but he was now cursed, and as a result took more damage than usual. He was also going to a place that even Helios had second thoughts about.

But he didn’t allow himself to think like that for very long. He had to be strong. For his own sake, for his friends’ sake, and for the sake of this entire planet.

James was able to eliminate any feelings of fear quite easily by reminding himself of everything that motivates him. But he also knew that there was another cure for fear – competence.

If he were confident in his own abilities, in his own competence, there wouldn’t be any reason to fear.

So by the time the trio was ready to go into the Soul Grinder, James had sketched out ideas for dozens of new spells. It would’ve been nice to spend weeks actually unlocking and getting used to some of the skills, but they didn’t really have the luxury of time.

But he did feel a lot more confident, knowing that at any time during combat, he could choose to unlock a skill that he already fully envisioned in his mind.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Lunaris asked.

“Yes, let’s go!” James answered with no hesitation.