"So you really did bring it with you... Huh?"

Prince greeted Lee Shin-Woo when he returned a few hours later riding on Jin. She tilted her head at them.

"Strange. The energy coming from the horse is a lot stronger than before."

"You see, whenever I get stronger, this guy is affected too, allowing him to run even faster on the battlefield. I believe it may be because of my skill."

"That's freaking awesome!"

Of course, it was a lie, as Jin had gotten stronger all on his own, but Prince fell for it and was amazed. It was easier to convince her that there was a skill that would allow a horse to become stronger under the influence of its master, rather than it had absorbed bones and raised its stats by almost 1,200 in a short period of time—it sounded incredulous to Lee Shin-Woo as well when he thought about it.

'My body still feels stiff... I’m hurting all over. I want to lie down and sleep even though I can't sleep.'

'There’s still some time before we go into the next fight; you should get used to your changed body.'

Whenever Lee Shin-Woo's stats increased, he would adapt to his new body through combat. Jin had increased his stats too much at once, so it was natural for his body to feel stiff for the time being. Since it wasn't something Lee Shin-Woo could help with, he had no choice but to leave that to Jin.

"Shin-Woo, before we go in, I analyzed the condition of the facility."

"Oh. How?"

"Let me explain."

Lee Shin-Woo got off of Jin's back, and after he'd told Jin to move freely, he approached Kratia and Prince.

Rem sat on his shoulder. Like Jin, it had absorbed countless bones and become incomparably stronger than before, but Prince still hadn't noticed it. That was how scary a disguise exploiting a person's fixed perception was.

"I sounded confident, but honestly, I wasn't able to figure out everything."

"How about destroying a bit of it from the outside?"

Lee Shin-Woo believed in brute-forcing the issue when going about it smartly didn’t do the trick. Kratia seemed to have considered that route already. She laughed softly and shook her head.

"That’ll have a negative impact on the subspace."

"That bastard Royal Mage Leader designed everything so particularly."

"It's out of that man's hands; the place has grown on its own. While I acknowledge the thought and plan going into the facility, in terms of the important facets of magic, namely safety and stability, he gets a zero in my book."

Kratia's assessment was merciless. Prince, who thought that attacking with everything they had was their best move, attempted to offer a counter-argument. She puffed up her cheeks when no one acknowledged her. It seemed like she had completely given up on trying to act like an adult male.

"But because the facility's system was continuously exposed as we fought, I was able to backtrack and look into the system, allowing me to roughly map out the structure and the number of monsters inside the facility."

"Huh!?"

"So what you're saying is..."

The 'system' that Kratia was talking about was also Lee Shin-Woo's objective: the artifact. She had wanted to conquer the facility and take the artifact. That was why she had taken care of the magic traps and analyzed the training facility’s magic; the artifact was already within their reach.

"That's plenty,” Lee Shin-Woo said. “I don't even know where it is yet."

"You just couldn't focus on anything else when you were facing so many monsters, Shin-Woo."

"Well, you're not wrong."

He had planned on training Mana Bone, Bursting Thunder, Lightning Shadow, and Lightning Sprint from the very beginning, and it made him wonder if he really should follow her plan. However, Lee Shin-Woo had put her trust in Kratia, for her magic control was on par with Lee Shin-Woo’s… And his trust ended up well rewarded.

But there was one person who couldn't follow their conversation.

"Wait a sec. Are you saying that you hacked into the artifact, which is controlling the entire facility?"

"Yep."

"How did you... I'm pretty sure a level 8 Archmage created that artifact!"

"You can't do anything if you're only concerned about levels. Anyway, look at this."

Kratia’s firm rebuttal made Prince go silent. Kratia then reached down at the floor and started drawing a rough map of the facility's interior. Her movements were so precise that it was as if she had scanned and printed a cross-sectional diagram.

"As you can see, the space is quite narrow. Because they used a spatial technique that is one level higher than the ones they used on the previous facilities, I believe the density of the mana in that limited space is increasing across the different facilities. Perhaps it being a training site is just a facade, and a new subspace was created whenever Feotane Von Seldin made progress in his spatial magic and wanted to test it out."

"The density of mana is increasing... Is it like how mana is strengthened in a dungeon?"

"Yeah, but there are more than twenty of them here... If we take into account the distortion caused by the passage of time, the increase could be much higher."

It was astonishing. The reason Lee Shin-Woo had been able to use as much magic as he wanted was because of the unique characteristics of the facilities. If more mana was amassed in a narrower space in the last facility... Just the thought of it made him dizzy.

"The density of mana is so high that contrary to our calculations, our magic might not activate. Our top priority is to adapt to the mana density inside as quickly as possible and regain our control efficiently. Remember that."

"Okay. You’re like an expert in spatial magic by now."

"He's right…” Prince grumbled. “It's frustrating, but you're better than me. Spatial magic is considered a level higher than elemental magic. It’s an Archmage-level magic with great offensive capabilities."

Lee Shin-Woo had come to the same realization again as he got through the training facilities: there really were many individuals who were well out of his league. Lee Shin-Woo still didn't understand how spatial magic worked in the least.

Would he understand spatial magic, at least a little bit, if he absorbed the Bone Gate? But he couldn't even get a feel of when that would be possible. It seemed like Prince was feeling that same uneasiness as well.

"...Will we be able to clear the final training facility, the one he planned out and created, and was then left to develop in an unfathomable way for decades? Ouch!"

"Doubts don't help in the pursuit of magic. If you start to think negatively now, you'll never be able to advance forward."

"My specialty is fighting, alright...!?" Prince blurted out seemingly in reflex before saying softly, ”So you can leave the monsters to me.” Then she asked Kratia about the monsters they would face.

She had boasted about how great and smart of a mage she was in the chatroom, yet in front of Kratia, she couldn't say a thing, which was both adorable and pitiful.

Kratia seemed well aware of how nervous Prince was. She firmly nodded and said, "We'll be stronger in that space, but the monsters and the magic traps will probably become even stronger as well… The biggest problem will be the monsters."

What? Is there gonna be more than 100,000 monsters this time?

But then Kratia explained to the anxious Lee Shin-Woo and Prince, "I think there are only three of them."

"...Shit."

It would’ve been alright if she had said there were 30,000 monsters, but the fact there were only three…

Lee Shin-Woo said stiffly, "If there’s a level 8 monster..."

"If that's the case, we should just blow up the facility and hope that the monster kills one of the twelve generals!" Prince interjected hysterically.

With a wry smile, Kratia said, "Don't worry so much. The reason there were so many monsters in the previous facilities was because the space was warped, and a good number of monsters were led there."

"But it doesn't seem like it'll be that easy."

"Yeah. So..."

Kratia undid the magic and explained it simply. Feotane Von Seldin had gathered elite monsters from a few of the dungeons and left them in the final facility. The maximum number of monsters was limited to three, so the monsters would fight each other, and only the strong would survive.

At this point, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the training facility was created by monsters rather than a mage! In any case, the monsters that had repeatedly fought each other for decades would be...

"They're all level 7 elites. Each of them is probably as strong or stronger than the Metal Ape Chimera that you fought before."

There were three high rank level 7 elites that were proficient in combat and had spent decades in a super dense mana zone. Even Lee Shin-Woo would hesitate with those odds. Taking down a general might be easier.

No, he had thought the same thing when facing off tens of thousands of level 6 monsters earlier.

"...I'm game."

"You can't win as you are,” said Kratia. “That's why I'm planning to use the magic traps."

Both Prince and Lee Shin-Woo tilted their heads in confusion. However, Prince soon shook her head and yelled, "The magic traps are aiming for us!"

"My plan is to turn those magic traps onto the monsters. If that happens, there's definitely a chance we can win. No, actually, it may be our easiest win yet."

"That isn't even possible! Fine, so we defeated the level 7 monster before. Let's say we could do it because you're a level 7 mage and Lee Shin-Woo has unbelievable stamina and an amazing skill. But you want to take on three of those monsters at the same time? You're going to use those magic traps, which are meant to kill us, on the monsters?!"

"If you don't want to do this, you can stay out of it."

Things would be more difficult without Prince, but she wasn’t integral to their plan. Prince looked at Kratia and became even more despondent because of her never-faltering composure.

"You can relax a bit, you know. You're already plenty stro... From my point of view, you're so strong that I can't understand it. If there's an insurmountable wall, can't you just go somewhere else, and slowly and safely build your strength?"

"If you don't want to do this, you can stay out of it."

Kratia declared once more. It was an obvious reaction, as she had never thought that they wouldn't be able to clear the training facility.

However... Lee Shin-Woo couldn't figure out where Kratia’s overflowing confidence was coming from. Was it because they were in a magic training facility? There seemed to be a lot on her mind ever since they stepped into this place.

"Kratia, I can understand you wanting to hack the magic traps, but there are so many of them. How are you going to..."

"Rem," Kratia said concisely.

"Mm... Ah."

"Huh?"

Prince couldn't understand her at all, but...at that moment, Lee Shin-Woo figured out what she was planning. In fact, he was questioning why he hadn't thought of that earlier.

'Is it possible, Rem?'

'I told you before that there were several magic traps that used a Golem's system. Of course, there are several that do not use such a system, so I cannot hack all the traps by myself. However...'

Rem looked at Kratia and confidently nodded.

'If that human helps, then... Yes. It's certainly possible. But I think that we need to see if we can work together first.'

'Alright.'

Lee Shin-Woo gave Rem the go-ahead, and Rem flew from Lee Shin-Woo's shoulder to Kratia's. Once she realized that, Kratia nodded in satisfaction and stood up.

"I'll practice and come back. In about three days."

"Okay, I trust you. My horse and I have to train from the beginning anyway."

"Wait, what's going on? What is a Rem anyway? What, is that some sort of code that only you guys know about or something?"

"Senior."

Kratia and Rem went back to the facilities they'd already cleared, and after he saw them off, Lee Shin-Woo calmly called out to Prince.

"I will help you so that we can clear the training together, and you’ll reach level 7… In exchange, I would like you to enter a contract with me."

"W-What's with this all of a sudden! Did you use your magic on Kratia as well!?" Prince yelled in fear when Lee Shin-Woo approached her with a sudden change in attitude.

"It's not really a strict contract, Senior."

"I-I'm saying this in advance, but my heart already belongs to someone else...!"

"Yes, I know that already, so don't worry. Shall we start with a clause of confidentiality, Senior?"

He smiled gently with darkness mana covering his hand. It seemed that Prince had instinctively felt the darkness and started shaking! This is a pretty good way to make every hero take my side, Lee Shin-Woo thought and smiled once more.

Thirty minutes later, their contract was safely established.