The attention of the Space Elemental, as it turns out, was not something to desire. After my first attack had not just failed but been turned around on me, I felt myself fall onto the back foot. The creature itself was uncomfortably silent as the spatially attuned energy suffusing the room began to grow in power and threat. Its silence alongside its impossible to describe appearance made the Grade One being seem much more sinister.

  Slightly deterred, I still tried firing another, more focused Magic Missile but that, too, was returned to me violently. I grit my teeth as my own mana whipped across my thigh painfully. Mana Barrier protected me from my own energy well enough, but there was additionally mana from the Space Elemental which buried into my leg. Immediately, I was rooted to the spot. A small portion of mana was sent to the area to deal with the invasive space magic which broke apart surprisingly easily.

  Tag cursed from inside the Mind Palace, unable to get a read on the strange power before it vanished. I wasn’t complaining and I didn’t have the attention to spare as the elemental started attacking in earnest. Like my own Magic Missiles, small rifts in the air appeared. They looked like perfectly symmetrical flowers blooming in seconds. Those surprisingly beautiful rifts gathered the dense space mana from the air and then-

  BANG.

  A combination of luck and reactions kept me from getting my shoulder ripped apart as a dimensional bullet shot through the air. One of the flowers had snapped shut and fired at me. It literally sounded like a gunshot and left my ears ringing slightly. I was immensely grateful that a sound had preceded the attack, or I wouldn’t have been able to dodge at all. It was an insanely fast projectile and the way it ripped into the durable stone of the tower gave me pause.

  Nearly a dozen more of the elemental’s space bullets were hovering in the air as I recovered my posture from the dodge. When they didn’t shoot right away, I paused also. Then I frowned as I felt the already uncomfortable ambient mana increase its aggression. What started as a manageable weight on my shoulders and hips soon became chains that made moving quickly difficult. The blossoming flowers of spatial energy began gathering power once more.

  I didn’t know how intelligent this creature was, so I hid my smile as I watched the rifts for the exact moment they would shoot. When the instant came, I was ready. My waiting mana burst into action and I activated Infusion. The small room filled with loud cracks as the elemental’s barrage was unleashed. It was a deadly assault if I couldn’t avoid the incoming damage. These were no Magic Missiles though and I easily moved out of the way once I tore the fetters away.

  With a focus on speed and avoidance, I pushed my mana into overdrive to take control of the area directly around myself. It wasn’t easy and I could feel the high quality mana all around me fighting back at my influence. “Not a problem,” I snarled, simply releasing even more of my own energy in response. I had the mana to spare and quantity allowed me to overpower quality for now.

  I did start the timer in earnest, though.

  “Alright,” I grunted, “no more messing around.”

  “You were messing around?” I ignored Tag’s question as I dashed forward and tried to engage with the elemental physically. This was an exercise in frustration for multiple reasons. Much like the Magic Missiles, the tip of the Jingu Bang found it impossible to actually strike the core of the elemental. This was made all the more difficult by the fact that I couldn’t really look at the thing head on. Doing so was like looking into an infinite hallway and hurt both my brain and eyes.

  The damn thing floated away from my attacks like a tiny fly dodging on wind currents. Only, this wasn’t a fly, it was an eldritch and unknowable chunk of natural existence turned unnatural and trying to kill me. The metaphor would have been more apt if the fly had the ability to shoot a gun, too, perhaps. The void bullets continued forming in the air, forcing me to keep moving as I tried to connect with a single attack.

  A dangerous type of stalemate formed in which both myself and the elemental could land no damage but in which any mistake from myself would mean death. I didn’t feel especially pressed but I would once my mana began to dwindle. The elemental’s attacks were fast but linear, they weren’t hard to dodge while I kept the heavy aura of the room away.

  “Any suggestions?” I asked inwardly. This couldn’t last forever and I couldn’t find any way to change the quickly formed status quo. The elemental would be quite content with this situation and in no need to change things up. It would outlast me as it was, so it was down to me.

  “Yeah, I have a plan… but you might not love it.” Tag waited for me to respond in the affirmative, which I begrudgingly did. I didn’t like the sound of this. “You might have to let yourself get hit.” As though punctuating his joke and creating a punchline, one of the void bullets barely missed my eye and took out a chunk of the tower wall.

  “Are you fucking messing around?” I was genuinely worried. As I dodged the continuous barrage of attacks from the Space Elemental, I had the additional concern that Tag had lost his version of my mind.

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  “Not by one of the instant death bullets, obviously,” Tag explained, “but we need to analyse that space magic somehow.” I breathed a sigh of relief as the logic of that plan sounded much more sensible than what I had assumed. Still, I didn’t take Tag’s advice straight away. I tried first to catch one of the attacks with the Jingu Bang. Using Catalyst as I did so would mean I could steal the space mana from the attack directly.

  Predictably, with the speed and force at which the Space Elemental’s attacks were fired, the result wasn’t ideal. My arms screamed and the staff was nearly ripped from my hands as I held onto it with all my strength. I had placed it in the path of one of the bullets and the resulting punch put a new level of fear into me. I shook it off as quickly as I could but damn.

  That was some potent mana.

  The Aspect of the Dragon opened one of its eyes from within me as we resonated. I felt its gaze upon me as I fought. Greed and pride were the dragon’s bread and butter after all, and I was full of both right then. That space mana would be our’s.

  Mine.

  “Okay, I got it,” I told Tag. I normally wouldn’t bother with assurances but it was partially for me, too. This was going to really hurt. The void bullets were still firing and forming, so I matched the number with a Magic Missile for each. Firing them off quicker than the elemental’s attacks could form, my projectiles smashed apart the floating spatial blossoms.

  As I expected, the Space Elemental didn’t take too kindly to this and grabbed my remaining Magic Missiles from the air to throw back at me. It was likely just an ultra efficient way to fight, so the elemental saw no reason not to continue. In its view, I seemed to agree as the air around me was positively filled with Magic Missiles. These tiny sparks didn’t even cost a full unit of mana each. There were hundreds.

  I could almost swear I felt the Space Elemental’s shock at the display. The space mana in the room froze for a second as though it were deciding what to do. I realised that in a real sense, I wasn’t just fighting the being in front of me but the entire room around me. Then, the retaliation began. I might have sensed some shock from the creature but it was clearly capable of handling even this level of assault.

  Every Magic Missile I had fired started to swirl around the elemental like a massive school of tiny fish. As the elemental took the energy for itself, it changed it slightly. The amber colour of my mana dimmed, replaced with a hardness I couldn’t create myself. The crystal-shaped missiles became more like arrows in form before returning my way with ferocity.

  Catalyst.

  The world turned amber as the wave crashed over me. I wanted to scream as the pain arrived but I kept my eyes and mouth shut. I had Mana Barrier acting as a net to stop my own mana but it didn’t protect me from the spatial energy by design. Even as I felt Tag clutch and grasp at the wisps dangerous mana, I didn’t place any of the understanding he was able to glean into the barrier. It would just hinder us.

  So, I gritted my teeth and bore the pain while Tag worked. It was like standing in the blistering cold outside, as though the air itself was trying to kill me. Which I supposed it was as the force contained within the assault pushed me back. I slammed the Jingu Bang into the floor and the weapon aligned with me by making itself heavy. My backslide ceased and I waited for the moment. Even with my eyes closed, I could still see my System windows. I watched as my health and mana totals continued to drop.

  “... Done!” Tag finally finished analysing the energy and we flicked a switch. Draining the large cage of pure space mana just a little, Mana Barrier became indestructible. As the invisible film of power spread out over my body, the effects of the ambient space mana vanished. While he might have been cutting it close, I couldn’t argue with the results as I began to wrest control of my Magic Missiles back from the elemental.

  Like the icy mana from before, I couldn’t make it myself but as long as I had access to a supply I could use it. A slight tug-of-war occurred but I held all the advantages. Not only was the base of the attacks my own mana by far, the spatial mana which had taken control was now under my jurisdiction as well. Most of the missiles had been spent attacking me, so I created a few more of my own.

  The spatially charged Magic Missiles were joined by even stronger ones, also touched by the high quality magic. For the first time in the whole fight, the Space Elemental’s main body began to move. It tried to run away from me, even as it created void bullets to fire in my direction but there was no escape.

  Its attacks were too slow to form before my own salvo was unleashed. A dozen gleaming missiles danced amongst the ocean of smaller ones, all of them aimed for the core of the mini-boss. From the way it tried to flee, I knew the attacks would land this time. Like the boss from the third floor, it wasn’t ready for this kind of retaliation and the barrage destroyed it easily. The weight on my shoulders disappeared as the experience from the victory descended on my core.

  I had thought that being level thirty would stop me from gaining any, but it still arrived. The experience began to fade, unable to find purchase in my soul. I frowned, unwilling to let anything of value, anything of mine, disappear like that. It seemed someone else had the same idea as the energy was directed into the ground of the draconic world like nourishing rain. I hadn’t planned to do so, but I was glad that it seemed Tag had the same idea as me and I left him to it.

  I was too busy focusing on the quest completion which had just occurred.