Before Frey could fully orient himself after waking from the concussion, Moon walked up to him and pressed a rune onto the restriction rune already on his chest.

"W-What are you doing?" Frey’s voice hitched.

The rune adhered to the surface of the previous inscription and began to glow faintly. The restriction rune immediately became stronger.

Frey’s eyes widened.

As a runesmith who specialized in this field, he naturally recognized what had just been placed on him.

’T-This... there is no doubt about it.’ 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

The bonding, the secondary overlay, the way the inscription meshed with the existing rune beneath it...It was an enhancement rune.

His mind raced, looking for an answer. Moon hadn’t used enhancement runes before. Not once during their entire time together. If he had them in stock, he would have applied them to his own equipment long ago.

There would have been no reason to wait.

Which meant he had acquired the ability recently.

The thought of Moon leaving him here unconscious, traveling back to Earth, purchasing enhancement runes, and returning was absurd. Moon knew about his boss, about the base. He wouldn’t risk the trip for something this minor.

That left only two possibilities.

Either Moon had crafted the enhancement rune himself, or he had been holding one back this entire time, waiting for the right moment to use it.

But the second option didn’t hold up, Moon’s surprise when he first learned about Frey’s Rune Enhancement skill had been real. His curiosity, his questions, the way his eyes had lingered on Frey’s work. He hadn’t known about it beforehand.

Which meant...

’He made it himself.’

Frey’s shock broke through to the surface. His eyes shrank, his mouth parting slightly as the consequences of finding this piece of information crashed over him.

Moon had watched him work.

Studied his technique. And in the span of hours, while Frey was unconscious, he had learned the skill well enough to produce a functional enhancement rune.

That was something entirely new to him.

As Frey’s mind went through various phases of disbelief, Moon was looking directly into his eyes. He could see every thought passing behind them as clearly as reading a book.

A faint grin formed on his face.

’Frey. You are too smart for your own good.’

Frey seemed to have connected the dots, the Enhancement runes required a specific class skill. Moon was registered as a mage. To have both meant...

’It seems like you will really die when the time comes.’

Frey’s heart skipped a beat. His face had gone pale, paler than when the spirit had charged at him.

This was the fear of understanding exactly what kind of person had captured him.

’How...’

The blood drained from Frey’s face completely.

"Are you okay? You seem to have lost all color." Moon tilted his head, as if worried. He reached into his storage ring and took out a bottle of water. "Here, do you need some water?"

"I... yes. Thank you." Frey gulped down the lump in his throat and took the bottle with trembling hands. Water sloshed over the corners of his mouth as his fingers shook.

Moon watched him drink with a thoughtful expression.

"You really do look sick. It must be whatever keeps making you fall unconscious." Moon said, shaking his head slowly. "It’s been happening a lot lately. This is the second time? It’s very concerning."

"..."

Frey stared at him over the rim of the bottle.

"Maybe it’s a vitamin deficiency." Moon continued, his tone perfectly sincere. "Or stress. The Second Sanctuary can be very taxing on the body."

"...Right." Frey managed.

"You should really get that checked out later. Falling unconscious two times in two days isn’t normal."

"It... it really isn’t."

"Very strange."

"Very."

The two of them looked at each other. The silence lasted exactly three seconds.

Neither of them acknowledged a single thing.

"Drink more water, it will help," Moon said. "You’ll need the energy. We’re going hunting again."

Frey closed his eyes and took a long, slow sip.

The two of them left the crevice and stepped back into the forest. The canopy above filtered the sunlight into pale shafts, and the air was still.

There was no spirits coming out, looking for the killer of their kin this time. Moon concluded that they were probably searching places they haven’t checked out yet.

Of course, given their intelligence they would likely check back on these areas again, but for now, Moon believed that the chance of them coming back was low enough for him to proceed with his hunt for the time being.

They hunted for several hours.

Moon pushed deeper than their previous runs, targeting beasts in the level 29 to 31 range. The kills continued to climb alongside his lives, and spiritual energy.

His second acupoint was slowly accumulating spiritual energy, and with his current strength, he was confident in dealing with these beasts without losing an eye on Frey.

His elements hit harder, responded faster, and the synergy between them created combinations that he couldn’t have pulled off two days ago.

The pseudo-magma attack he had been experimenting on was doing amazing damage, stronger than pure fire, but it was more taxing. It was a middle ground between normal elemental attacks, and more advanced attacks like Ignite or Thunderclap Rariju.

"A level 30 Armored Bear not bad. This will be a good target." Moon smiled, as he prepared his pseudo magma attack.

Crackle!

The bear took it to the chest, but held his ground, albeit heavily injured. Before it could retaliate, the second attack landed... and the armored bear didn’t get back up.

The molten rock burned through its hide and kept going, melting through muscle and bone before settling inside the wound.

Moon stared at the result in satisfaction.

Frey stared at it with quiet horror. ’He is getting stronger at an alarming rate...just what kind of monster is he. How could he already reach the level of a First Star Evolver two days into being an Evolver!’