[Skill unlocked: Chaos Barrier]

James activated his barrier, but he immediately screamed out in pain. A shriek so terrifying that his friends thought some invisible monster stabbed him. Repeatedly. In the gonads.

“What’s wrong?” Helios and Lunaris panicked.

“No, no, it’s working! This is what’s supposed to happen. When I cast the barrier, I sacrificed most of my HP. It’s the same concept as ‘Chaotic Healing’, I used my health as a resource to strengthen my barrier. Of course, in addition to that, I also used my mana to power the barrier, so it’s even stronger.”

James became encased in a crimson, shimmering bubble. Its strength could be sensed by sight alone. Unlike any previous barriers James had seen or used, the Chaos Barrier was almost opaque, to the point it was hard for him to even see through.

“And yet that’s still not all. Since my skill ‘Reckless Abandon’ increases my spell power, mana pool, mana regeneration, reaction speed and all that jazz when I’m low on health, any additional mana I put into the barrier now will have an even greater impact on the strength of the shield!” He said as he was barely able to stand, wobbling on his feet.

To prove his point, James sent another wave of mana into his barrier, which made it turn into an even darker crimson, becoming even more opaque.

“Well, that’s kind of annoying. I can barely see anything now.”

“It’s fine, I’ll teach you how to enhance your sight to deal with such problems.” Lunaris said with a smile, having grown accustomed to teaching James basic things. It still felt a bit weird to her how he could understand a complicated spell that took genuine expertise to learn, then the next day he would be clueless about an absolutely elementary thing.

“You see, that’s the power of an awakening. And you were disappointed at first!” Helios commented. “It was your awakening that allowed you to develop this skill, you can even consider it your third awakening skill. Developing it through further insight, that’s one way to expand your awakening.” Helios then nodded approvingly. “I’m proud of you, mate. Awakening skills are usually more powerful than regular skills, since they are deeply tied to your very being. Sometimes they’re even unique to your person, meaning nobody else has ever learned such spells before.”

James smiled and bowed his head to Lunaris and Helios. “It’s all thanks to you guys, I probably wouldn’t even be level 30 without your help.”

Helios and Lunaris blushed and quickly changed the subject. Even though they all loved each other like family, it was still embarrassing to display affection and gratitude all the time.

“By the way, how does ‘Reckless Abandon’ feel? Do you feel any stronger?” Lunaris asked.

“I didn’t say anything yet cause I wanted to show you the barrier. But now that you mention it, yeah, this Reckless Abandon skill is nuts. It’s the reason I was all wobbly and barely able to walk. It somehow … changed the way I see my surroundings. Everything looks like it’s slowed down, and I feel a great power within me. But I’m not used to it, it’s making me feel a bit sick.”

James then dispelled his barrier and drank a healing potion. “Well, I’ll get used to it eventually. Actually, as powerful as that barrier seems, I’m still not done. There’s one more thing I can do to make it stronger: healing! If I can heal myself, while continuously sacrificing that health to reinforce the barrier, that would just make it stronger and stronger during the course of the fight.”

Lunaris hastily interjected. “That means you’ll constantly be in pain! You screamed when you first cast the barrier, do you want to be in screaming pain for the whole fight?”

“That’s a good point.” James shuddered. He had been too excited about having a couple new spells, but that kind of pain was akin to torture. “But we have an important mission, and we need all the power we can get. I guess I’ll just have to suck it up for the greater good.”

“Anyway, now all I need is to learn some healing spells so I don’t have to solely rely on Lunaris healing me, and I’ll be good to go.”

Lunaris and Helios looked at James, and then they looked each other in silence. It was time to decide if James was truly ready to go on this mission.

The more they had been thinking about it, the more anxious they were about intentionally facing an entire squadron of agents, neophytes or not. They had to be absolutely sure James could handle it.

“One hit.” Helios said, holding his index finger up.

“What?” James asked, confused about the sudden change in mood.

“If your barrier survives one hit from me, then I’ll consider you ready. Well, not entirely ready, we should still take a week or so, for you to strengthen and stabilize what you’ve learned, and for us to make further preparations. But if your barrier survives one hit, then I’ll consider you ready.”

James smiled. “All right, I accept your challenge.” James was actually quite interested in just how strong his barrier actually was, and this was the perfect opportunity to test it.

Helios took out his sword and imbued his flames into it.

Noticing that the flames were dark blue, James realized that Helios was taking this very seriously.

“Wait!” Lunaris shouted. “You hotheads, I didn’t think you’d do it right away! He just sacrificed his health! Even if he healed himself with a potion, do you think his body will take another sacrifice gently? He’d probably be rolling around on the floor, screaming in pain.”

She then put her hands on James and healed him for a good 10 minutes.

“There, now you can do it. Crazy boy, why don’t you care more about yourself? You really deserve your awakening’s name.” Lunaris pinched his cheeks and walked away.

Now truly ready for the test, James sacrificed most of his remaining HP and around 5% of his mana.

He could’ve used much more mana, but he didn’t want to cheat, nor would it be wise to. This test was for his own sake. In actual combat, he’d need to use a lot of his mana offensively. Even though he could use his Overloading Mana Prongs to feed mana into the barrier, that wasn’t always a reliable option.

“Ready?” Helios asked.

James nodded and braced himself. He had to consciously remind himself not to use SARM. He had grown so accustomed to dodging. If this barrier was strong enough, he’d actually be relieved to not have to constantly run and dodge so much. It was the one thing about having such a glass cannon build that he really hated. It made him feel like a feeble mouse.

Helios grabbed his sword and jumped high into the air. He wasn’t planning on just giving the barrier a little tap. When he said one hit, he meant an actual full-fledged hit.

With the power of gravity on his side, Helios slammed down towards the barrier.

As soon as the sword hit the barrier, Helios’s skill activated. Red and white flames spread in all directions, running wild across the dojo, while the hotter blue flames focused on hitting the barrier.

Helios only said he’d hit once, and so he stopped and walked away. But the fires raged on.

The deep blue fires enveloped James’s barrier. The fires almost seemed to have a will of their own, spreading and covering every single inch of the barrier surrounding James.

The barrier held for a while. But the flames just wouldn’t die out. They seemed to even be getting stronger, like they were feeding on the barrier.

Before long, cracks could be seen along the barrier, and the crimson was getting paler and paler.

With one final crack, the barrier broke. Helios then waved his hand and the flames vanished.

James seemed disappointed. But Helios smiled.

“Congratulations, you passed!” Helios laughed and clapped.

“Really? But the barrier cracked.”

“I know. But look at my level. I didn’t even dampen it, that was an actual maximum power hit. To be honest I never expected it to actually hold, but the fact it was able to resist not only the initial hit, but to even repel the fires for a while, that makes it a pretty formidable barrier!” Helios announced.

James smiled brightly, and so did Lunaris. The fact that he finally had a powerful defensive skill was a big step forward. It had been one of his biggest weaknesses, one that he promised to work on time and time again.

Over the following week, the gang trained at a moderate pace, using the time to stabilize and perfect their skills, as well as to mentally prepare and strategize for the mission.

Lunaris focused solely on her support and healing skills. She was a powerful combatant in her own right, but combatants were a dime a dozen. A good support is worth his weight in gold. So she decided to focus on healing from now on. Especially with these two hotheads that couldn’t keep themselves from getting hurt, her healing would be the only thing keeping the group alive.

In addition to practicing his newly acquired skills, James learned two healing spells that he desperately needed, especially now that his build involved sacrificing his HP.

[Skill unlocked: Regrowth. Skill description: Continuously restores minuscule amounts of HP to the target]

[Skill unlocked: Swift Heal. Skill description: Instantaneously restores a small amount of HP to the target]

Unlike his usual prowess at magic, he wasn’t very good at healing. It was too far outside his wheelhouse. Healing was something that required patience and stability, while he was a chaotic, impatient mess.

Being bad at healing was a bit of a bummer for him. He’d have loved to have the ability to heal his friends no matter their injuries, but he’d have to settle for vanquishing his enemies before they even got to hurt anyone.

Although he really would have liked to be able to heal himself up to full just to sacrifice his health over and over. Now he’d have to sacrifice the little health he regenerated on his own.

Over the course of the week, Helios had been leaving the dojo quite frequently, and Lunaris seemed to be on the Aetherweb a lot, talking to people. James didn’t know what they were doing or who they were talking to, but he didn’t want to intrude, he wanted to give his friends some privacy.

When they finally finished training, James found out what they had been up to.

“James, you know how dangerous agents are.” Helios stated in a serious tone. “And we don’t fully know what awaits us. So we’ve been thinking about how to make this whole venture less foolhardy. Naturally, dad’s suggestion of hiring a mercenary was the best solution.”

“It’s hard to find people willing to go on such missions in these trying times.” Lunaris added. “Especially since everybody already has their assignments. Hedonia is a lot freer than other places, the people here can do pretty much whatever they want, but everyone is busy with their research or training. Especially since we don’t know when the war will break out again, the people with skills to go on such missions are deep into their own endeavors.”

“So we had to dig deep.” Helios continued. “We had to resort to people who were unoccupied … for one reason or another.” Helios sighed.

Helios was about to say something else, but the doorbell rang.

“Well, there he is. Our first mercenary.” Helios went to open the door.

“He’s a nice guy, but … don’t say anything about the smell. As I said, we had to find someone who was not already busy. And that limited our options.” Lunaris said, and then she took James to meet the mercenary.