Two threads of magic flowed through the air. One of them a metallic grey, the other, a soft, shifting blue. They connected two more spirits to Ryan. And the moment the threads fully formed, he could feel his mind become overwhelmed for a moment. Though he had tested this out at home already, it was something that was pretty hard for him to get used to.

  Right now, he had activated his 'Spirit Link' skill for three spirits. First, Maximus, who had already been linked to him for a few minutes now. Though, at the moment, the connection had weakened again since Ryan had taken off the necklace that Silvia made for him. It seemed like, even though the whole 'synergy' effect strengthened his connection to Maximus, it, in turn, weakened his connection to the other spirits, so that was pretty counter-productive.

  And now, since Ryan and the small knight had worked together to quickly take down one of the mascot monsters, he wanted to link to all three combatants to practice a bit against more of the mascots. But with the additional connection to Gregor and Jester, two additional sources of sensory information were pushed onto Ryan. Just one more of those was a bit disorienting at first, and though he got used to that pretty quickly, doubling that again was a bit much for Ryan.

  He was quite literally seeing the world from four different places. Three from the spirits' perspectives, and one from his own. The information of every single sound was overlaying itself, and so did the information on what Ryan was seeing. And sure, it was all just the raw information being fed into Ryan's brain, but that made it even harder.

  When he had one set of normal senses and one set of those 'raw information' senses, it was easy to distinguish between everything, but three sets of those 'raw information' senses was way harder to sort through. Which of it belonged to Maximus, which to Gregor? Was he seeing himself through the eyes of a robot, or the eyes of a clown? Whichever it was, it took Ryan a moment to adjust.

  This would probably get a bit easier with time, as Ryan continued to level up and grow stronger, and most importantly, as he continued to use this ability.

  He didn't expect that it would be this hard to deal with, considering that he already did something similar with Gaia and her sub-golems, but probably because those sub-golems were controlled through Gaia's own skills, there was some kind of filter put on that which made it easier for Ryan's mind to handle. He just had to find that sort of filter and apply it to his own mind.

  "Okay, everyone... let's get started," Ryan took a deep breath, looking at the mascot at the end of the road. He grabbed the handle for one of Gregor's machines hanging on the side of Gaia's backpack, ready to put it down whenever the robot told him to. Right now, the party made up of only the spirits was surprisingly balanced.

  Maximus was a great vanguard, being able to deal damage and tank attacks. Gregor was the long-range attacker, able to barrage the target with high precision, while Jester should be a great supporter that could additionally buff those two while de-buffing the actual target. They even had Gaia as a porter. Theoretically, Ryan should be able to leave everything to the four of them, though that obviously wasn't really what he wanted. He wanted to become more involved in combat as well. If he could work together with all of the spirits the same way that he worked with Maximus earlier, then they would be an amazingly efficient team.

  "Jester, you start."

  The harlequin spirit nodded his head excitedly, vaulting forward over the ground until he stood in the middle of the road. He held his finger to his mask's chin for a moment, tapping it thoughtfully, before finally holding that finger forward like he just got an idea. Jester pulled back his shoulders and twisted his neck a bit, before holding two hands in front of where his mouth would be if he had one, as if he was holding an instrument there.

  Jester's fingers started pushing down an invisible trumpet's pistons in a rhythmic pattern, as he started to march forward. Ryan didn't quite know what he was doing just yet. Frankly, he had no idea what the spirit could do. He tried asking, but Jester just kept dodging the question and basically refused to show Ryan his arsenal.

  That being the case, he figured it was going to at least somewhat useful, all in all. Ryan could feel the flow of mana pouring out of Jester, and saw those shifting blue flames spread through the air. The mana was waving around melodically, and Ryan could start to hear music. At first, it was just the sound of a trumpet, but soon, flutes and drums and all other sort of parade instruments were added into the mix.

  As the magic grew louder, Ryan could feel a wave of strength come over him. Like that exact moment after finishing a set of dumbbell curls, where you put down the heavy weights and pick up your water bottle. For those first few seconds, everything just felt like it didn't weigh anything at all.

  [Jester has cast -War Parade-]

  -[5% boost in entourage's physical strength and defence]

  -[5% reduction in enemies' physical strength and defence]

  Ryan grinned lightly as he saw the effects pop up. He quickly pulled out his phone and added the info to his note app so that he wouldn't forget. Any info that he could keep on the spirits' abilities that weren't immediately provided to him were great.

  And considering that Jester was still just level 1, and the 'Harlequin's Act' skill was barely level 2, the effect was even more impressive. Of course, Ryan didn't know how long Jester could keep this particular spell up, so it was about time to get started with the actual battle. The monster that Jester had targeted with the spell was already moving toward them, as its attention had been drawn.

  Ryan placed down the first cannon in the place that Gregor wanted it, glancing over at the other two machine-cubes hanging off the backpack. All three of these guns were created from completely new blueprints that Gregor had been developing based on modern guns. One of them was a sniper, another one was a semi-automatic machine gun, and the third was a slightly altered version of the 'Fortified Grenade Launcher' blueprint that Gregor got from this dungeon's gift shop. Instead of just taking regular grenades, it allowed modern smoke grenades or flashbangs to be added into the chamber as well. Those were also smaller than the regular version, of course, and couldn't be manually activated, but they seemed pretty effective, anyway.

  Those grenades just used a lot more materials, so Ryan figured it was better to save them for other places in the dungeon than here. It would be a lot more useful for crowd-control, so saving them for at least the petting zoo seemed like a good idea. The one that Gregor had set up now was the sniper. It even had two modes that Gregor could swap between depending on the situation. Basically, it was just a 'silent' mode that heavily decreased volume while also decreasing bullet speed. It was better in places like this where you wanted to keep attention to yourself down. Luckily, Jester's act seemed to be a special phenomenon that only those that were directly targeted could hear, so no unwanted monsters were called here either.

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  Gregor loaded the sniper-cannon's chamber with a bullet, pouring a swig of liquor down his mouth before taking aim. The robot's light jitters relaxed, and a moment later, the first shot was fired.

  The targeted mascot pulled back its head, as the cloth skin covering the left side of its face became soaked in dark blood. It seemed like the bullet managed to destroy part of the skull and brain, causing some lost motor function in the mascot. Though, that mostly just meant its left leg was being dragged behind it a bit more than before, and its left arm couldn't be raised as well.

  While Gregor reloaded the gun and Jester kept marching down the middle of the plaza's road, Maximus was sprinting straight at the mascot. He was the only one that was unsealed right now, being the only one that really needed to be for the time being. And with Ryan's current mana regeneration, he could always have one of them unsealed without running out, but a second one would slowly drain his mana. And after linking with the three guys, he had no more mana to spare.

  The weakened mascot tried to take a swing at Maximus, but the knight skilfully dodged out of the way and cut off the mascot's already limp leg. Unable to stay upright on just one leg, the mascot fell down onto the ground, trying to crawl toward Maximus, just to be hit with another bullet from the sniper. This time, it hit the perfect spot and simply killed the mascot.

  [You have killed a Level 2 -Wolf Mascot-]

  "Hm..." Ryan was a bit dejected. This was too easy at this point. They had gotten strong enough, and had fought enough mascots, to not struggle against a single straggler. Maybe if they could find the boss, they'd have a challenge, but right now, this was absolutely not good enough to practice the party's synergy. So... maybe Ryan had to take a bit of a risk. He didn't have anyone watching him anymore, so it was a little scary, but it would probably be worth the risk.

  "Jester... and don't tell me you don't have one, because I know you have to, but do you have a spell that can call the attention of the nearby monsters?" he asked, and the harlequin immediately snapped his head around. As if he was excited, he hurriedly nodded his head.

  Sighing lightly, Ryan looked at Gregor, Maximus, and Gaia, "Would you guys be fine if we fight a whole horde of them at once?"

  For once, it seemed like all the spirits agreed; they were happy to do so, "In that case, let's go somewhere else than here. Somewhere we can position ourselves better," Ryan suggested. This really wasn't the best place to call a ton of monsters. They could be surrounded from any direction, and monsters could come here from inside the buildings and sneak up on them.

  No, instead, they should hurry and get to the an important part of this dungeon's 'plaza' biome, the place where the fountain was set up. The only bad part was that by the time they were properly set up, the spirit links he had set up to all of them would be inactive, but it wasn't like he could make proper use of them right now anyway. He could still act as the 'overseer' and help the spirits navigate.

  The fountain they navigated toward was at the edge of the biome, and they had passed through it on the way here. It seemed that the monsters couldn't leave their 'home biome', so if something went wrong, Ryan could quickly pull in all the spirits and run away, and worst-case could leave the dungeon altogether in a matter of a few minutes.

  Ryan pulled out the horn of shapeless water and turned it back into a large hammer. With just a few swings, the already half-crumbling fountain was quickly torn down a lot more, to the point where a flat surface was created in the middle of the area. Since this place was at the edge of the biome, there was a semi-circle of directions the monsters could come from, and this was a place where they could all be seen. Plus, due to the added height, it was easier to hit the monsters while avoiding the other spirits.

  Gaia was waiting outside of the biome, in a safe place, while Maximus stood in a place where he could move wherever he was needed. And, right in front of the fountain, Jester was waiting eagerly to get the signal from Ryan.

  "Alright, you can start," Ryan smiled, and Jester excitedly got started. Once again, similar to before, he placed his hands in front of his mask to mimic someone playing a trumpet, and the sound quickly echoed out. More and more instruments were added into the mix, and before long, another sound came with it. Cheers from an invisible crowd. It continued on for a few moments, until finally, Jester pointed the invisible trumpet straight above him, and fireworks were shot into the sky.

  [Jester has cast -Festival's Glamour-]

  -[Nearby enemies will be alerted and lured]

  Almost immediately, Ryan could hear some distant groans. The mascots were being pulled straight here from all over the biome. Sure, it would take them a while to get here, so they wouldn't have to fight them all at once, but the first wave already seemed a bit scary at first glance. But Ryan knew that the spirits could handle it.

  The first attack came from Gregor. With the unsilenced rifle, he was able to kill one of the approaching monsters quite easily, shooting through its skull. It fell to the ground and started falling apart. And while Jester started moving away from 'Festival's Glamour' back to 'War Parade', starting to march in a circle around the fountain, Maximus ran toward all the closest monsters. With how strong he was with all his stats doubled, these monsters were taken down easily. Before long, a list of system messages were popping up in the corner of Ryan's eye, which he tried to completely block for a while so that he could focus on all the approaching monsters.

  There was really just one type of mascot that he needed Gregor to take down immediately; the dragon mascots. If they got close enough to use their 'breath', they could catch the other monsters on fire, making it harder for Maximus to approach and fight them. The mascots' skin, which was literally just fabric, was pretty flammable. More so than regular skin, at least.

  "One at 47 degrees. Another at 129 degrees," he called out, and the spirit hurriedly shot the rifle at each of the dragon mascots.

  "Maximus! A crowd to the left, take care of those guys!"

  One of the monsters in that group was an Armadillo mascot; they had particularly strong 'armour' on top of their fabric-skin that was tougher for Gregor's bullets to pierce through. However, with Maximus' precision, he could get into all the right gaps and tear them apart pretty easily, especially because they tended to be slower than the others. Right now, though, Maximus was on the left side of the fountain plaza, and a small crowd was coming from the right. Though Ryan was about to tell Gregor to use a grenade on them to slow them down, Jester used a new 'act' before Ryan could do so.

  He jumped toward them, acting like he was scared and shaking, trying to run away. But as he tried, Jester realized his foot was stuck in the ground.

  [Jester has cast -Sticky Footing-]

  -[Entities in the target area will be stuck to the ground for up to 30 seconds]

  Ryan raised a brow. That was a pretty useful spell, so he quickly made a mental note of it so that he would remember to write it down after the battle. These sorts of spells or skills could usually be broken out of depending on the target's physical abilities, and that seemed to be the case with the mascots as well. But it was long enough for more of the mascots to crowd together so that the grenade shot at them by Gregor could really do some damage. He bombarded them for a while, until the mascots scattered, and then quickly switched back to the rifle. He was continuously using some of his arms to aim, while two of them were used to reload the 'rifle cannon', so that he could efficiently target the monsters as fast as possible.

  They had a pretty good thing going for now. The mascots were either cut down or shot before they could get too close, but as time went on, more and more were gathering, and it was harder to hold them back. The only good part was that they weren't infinite; the monsters definitely had an end to them. But there was just one thing that Ryan was worried about. And that was the boss monster. It could change things a little, considering that it was much stronger than the others.

  Though, almost as soon as Ryan thought that, the boss monster came into view.

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