《Epoch: A Berserker's Rise》


 Chapter 1: A Failed Reincarnation?

    Chapter 1: A Failed Reincarnation?


    Adam looked at the cabinying in front of him, different emotions shing on his face. But there was mostly excitement in his eyes. However, Adam had a great control over his emotions, as they all disappeared from his face as he sat on the edge of his cabin.


    Let''s make some introductions: Adam Collins, 20 years old boy who lived through a hard life and died from exhaustion. Adam Kent, 50 years old man who died and used a book to reincarnate his soul.


    Adam Collins lived in a rather poor family. Both his parents worked in a fancy restaurant, and had always been short of money because of Adam''s little brother who was sick.


    Adam wasn''t the brightest kid, and although he had the motivation he just couldn''t make it and barely passed his graduation. He was refused from all the big schools, and thus lost opportunity to get a high sry job. But he still has one hope, and that is gaming. His family is very supportive as it is no longer a secret that video games can make people rich.


    But they couldn''t buy him his cabin, because they still needed to pay the hospital''s fees for his brother, Matt. That''s why, in order to finally being able to afford his brother''s cure fee, he started working tirelessly, ignoring everything else to buy himself a cabin.


    After two years, he was finally able to buy his own cabin. Unfortunately, that spelled disaster for him. Those two years of endless work put too much stress on his body, but his mind forbade him from stopping. Then, once he got his cabin, the relief finally made his body give up, and he died at 20.


    Adam Kent lived a very different life. He never got to know his family, the only thing he ever learned was that his mother was 15 when she got him, thus why he got in the orphanage. Adam basically grew up reading novels, and before long cultivation worlds had be paradise in his childish mind.


    When he was 12, he found a strange ck book that imed being able to reincarnate him into another world with cultivation elements in it. He doubted at first, of course, but was convinced of its magical origin when he actually had a conversation with the book.


    With some more convincing, the book told him that it would reincarnate him on his 50th birthday, and send his soul into a new body. That''s why, starting from 12, Adam started training in martial arts. The orphanage encouraged the children to find activities, so they obviously didn''t mind him studying martial arts.


    Like that, going from dojo to dojo, Adam learned martial arts, as well as the way of the sword. He trained in the greatsword, never using another weapon, believing it to be the greatest for him. He had always had a big build, and he found it interesting to mix the power of his body and sword with the speed and agility of martial arts.


    Finally, his 50th birthday arrived, and Adam Kent died, his soul absorbed by the book. Then, the book crossed dimensions and dropped Adam Kent''s soul into Adam Collins'' body.


    However, as Adam Kent was about to assimte the body, something unexpected happened. Adam Collins, who just died, had his soul still in his body. The books disintegrated, and a contest of strength began between the two souls.


    As he was older, Adam Kent should have had the advantage, but Adam Collins died, thus the nature of his soul had changed to a dead person''s. And a dead person''s soul was way more powerful than a living one. The thing is, a dead soul cannot enter a body.


    But Adam Collins didn''t want an unknown person to enter his body, and he would rather die than let Adam Kent into his body. Using his stronger soul, Adam Collins killed the soul of Adam Kent.


    And that''s when something interesting happened. Normally, it is impossible for a dead soul to meet a living one, because the soul appears in the body at birth, and cannot ever exit it. The soul only leaves the body when it dies, and thus isn''t alive anymore when it leaves the body.


    On the other hand, a dead soul cannot approach a living soul, so it is indeed impossible for a dead soul to meet a living one. And yet, because of the mysterious book this was made possible. The impossible situation of having a living soul outside a body was realized by the strange book. That''s why, an unprecedented event urred: the dead soul of Adam Collins absorbed the living soul of Adam Kent.


    By doing so, Adam Collins absorbed all of Adam Kent''s memories, experiences, the power of his soul, and most importantly, changed his nature. Because he absorbed a living soul, Adam Collins'' dead soul was able to revive, and be alive once again.


    No longer rejected by his world and own body, Adam Collins was able to control his soul once again and entered his body back.


    In the end, Adam Collins came back in his body with a much stronger soul, as well as all the memories and experiences of a 50 years old man.


    As he entered his body back, Adam was greatly exhausted, and went to sleep directly. Only the next day did he realize how close he hade from death. No, it wasn''t even close, he had transcended it.


    But this death experience didn''t discourage him. Instead, he saw in this that not even the heavens could stop him from saving his brother. Even death couldn''t stop him.


    Since that incident, Adam had changed. And for the good. First, his sickly looking body recovered. The fact that he had stopped working helped his body rest and recover. But most importantly, a more powerful soul also stimted his body, and helped it recover.


    During the four months following his death and resurrection, Adam did a few things. First, hepletely recovered, and some more as he was able to get in shape. Secondly, he proceeded everything he received from the old Adam. Third, he searched the benefits he got from a stronger soul.


    He was able to conclude that it had enhanced his memory, his learning capacity, his thought process, his instinct and his reaction speed. Adam wished he had those advantages when he was in High School, he could have easily obtained a schrship in one of the grandest universities on Earth


    Well, no need to regret. VRMMO games could bring him a lot more than even the best job in the world if he became one of the strongest. And his stronger soul would help him with that.


    Topletely assimte old Adam''s skill with the sword, Adam had used his cabin to join an old VRMMO, Lore. Lore wasn''t the best, as the NPCs weren''t really realistic and the mechanics of the games weren''t the best as it restricted the yer in his actions.


    But he still chose it, because that was the most suitable for him. Soon, the biggest VRMMO ever made would be released. It would also be the most realistic every made, the yers would control their every actions and NPCs would really be human like. It would even be guarded against any cheater thanks to the AI supervising the game.


    That''s where old Adam''s skills with the sword woulde in handy, Adam would already know how to fight when others struggle to master their weapons.


    Back to Lore, it was a useful game because although the actions of the yers would be limited, fighting was way less assisted and one could fight with only their skills.


    That''s why for the next four months he used the time dtation to its utmost to train as much as possible, helping him get to the level of Old Adam.


    Now, four months had finally passed, and Adam was sitting on his cabin. Adamid down in the cabin, and shut it on himself. His consciousness left his body, and he found himself in apletely ck environment.


    Then, a beautiful scenery appeared before his eyes. He was flying in the sky, and below him was a city at war. Even from afar Adam could see how devastating the battle was. Dragons and Phoenixes flew around, scorching the ground and attacking each other.


    But before he could see much, his vision started flying up, and the time passed much more quickly. As he went through the clouds, the night had fallen, and the stars were shining above Adam.


    As he looked up, he saw something curious. The stars were forming a word. Epoch.

 Chapter 2: Creating a character

    Chapter 2: Creating a character


    [Wee to Epoch! Please customize your character!]


    Before he knew it, Adam disappeared from the sky he was in, and found himself back in that ck space. In front of him he found a panel, on which he first had to choose his race, then his ss and finally change his appearance.


    In Epoch there were 12 yable races grouped in 4 categories. Each race would offer one passive and would distribute Attribute Points every level. Everytime a yer levels up, they would get 5 Free AP which they can put to any stat, and another five from their race.


    The four categories were: Humans, Elves, Beastmen and Mutants. Although Adam had already read about the advantages of each race, he still checked to see whether anything had changed or not.


    [Humans]


    - Northman: +3 Strength, +1 Agility, +1 Endurance. Snow is cold: 50% resistance to frost damage and frost attacks are 50% stronger.


    - Kartian: +2 Strength, +2 Endurance, +1 Agility. Potioneer: Potions are 10% more likely to be brewed.


    - Inder: +2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom, +1 Agility. Researcher: Skills are easier to learn.


    [Elves]


    - Wood Elf: +3 Agility, +2 Intelligence. Nature''s Chosen: Mana regenerates 50% faster.


    - Light Elf: +3 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom. Mana Body: Health can be used to fuel spells if the Mana is depleted.


    - Dark Elf: +2 Strength, +2 Agility, +1 Intelligence. Preparation: The first strike on any enemy ignores 50% of his defense.


    [Beastmen]


    - Catkin: +3 Agility, +1 Strength, +1 Wisdom. Silent Steps: Moving makes less sound depending on the terrain.


    - Foxkin: +3 Wisdom, +2 Intelligence. Magic Tail: Tail can be used additionally from the hands to cast spells.


    - Lizardkin: +3 Endurance, +2 Strength. Hard Scales: Defense is enhanced by 20%.


    [Mutants]


    - Orc: +3 Strength, +2 Endurance. Sand is hot: 50% resistance to fire damage and fire attacks are 50% stronger.


    - Dwarf: +3 Endurance, +2 Strength. Forger: Equipments have 10% more chances to be crafted/enhanced.


    - Fae: +2 Wisdom, +2 Intelligence, +1 Agility. Friendly: Beings rted to nature are friendlier towards you.


    Because of the attributes and the racial skills, certain races would be more appropriate to y certain sses, but there was no absolute. In the end, even a pure magic race like the Light Elf could be a physical ss fighter, and it wouldn''t necessarily be bad if they are capable of getting the right skills and items.


    To choose the right race, considering the ss one would take was important too. There were a total of 10 sses in Epoch, each with their specialty.


    -Monk, they use a pair of gauntlets and focuses on defense. Heavily focuses on defense.


    -Knight, uses the spear and the heavy shield to defend their allies. Can either focus on defense or on attack.


    -Pdin, a warrior of the church. Uses physical and magic attacks. Can heal small groups of people.


    -Swordsman, uses swords to fight. Two fighting styles are possible, dual sword or lone sword with a possible light shield. A good mix between Assassin and Warrior.


    -Berserker, use two handed weapons for a low attacking speed but high damages. Good defense, but weaker against crowd control effects.


    -Assassin, stealthy and has high burst damages, uses daggers. Low defense and strength, but good resistance against crowd control effects.


    -Cleric, low damage against the living, but high damage against the undead. Can heal and resurrect big groups.


    -Elementalist, mage who wields one element. High damage and AOE. Low defense, health and speed.


    -Summoner, user summons monsters to fight for him. Low damage and defense, and summons are unsummoned at the caster''s death.


    -Ranger, uses a bow to fight from far away. High attacking speed and range. Good control skills. Weak in closebat.


    Adam did not even hesitate to choose his ss, after all only one of those sses would allow him to fight with the weapon he had been familiarizing himself with, the Greatsword.


    Once he selected and confirmed his ss, Adam looked back at the races, and went for the Northman. For his ss the two best races were Northman and Orcs, and choosing between the two wasn''t easy as their passives were as useful as each other.


    But in the end, Adam felt that evening Endurance and Agility was better than just having Strength and Endurance. Moreover, since he had the choice Adam would rather be human than orc.


    Now that he had chosen his ss and race, Adam had to personalize his character. The base character was his own body, which he would be able to some extent.


    He had always been tall but because of his work he had been skinny in the past two years. However, since he absorbed the soul of Old Adam he got buffed, and he looked like a body builder now. His arms were bigger than his thigh from 6 months ago.


    He also had short blond hair with a well grown beard. He looked quite fierce, and Adam smiled when he saw himself. He had always liked Vikings, and he looked like one now. He would even y as a Northman


    Adam decided not to change anything, he was fine with his appearance, and he would be in armor most of the time so it didn''t really matter.


    [No modifications done to the character. Please select a name.]


    Adam input a name he had chosen for a long time, and was happy to see it was still avable. However, he received another message telling him the game would only start in a few minutes, and that he had to wait until then. So with nothing to do Adam opened his status.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 1 (0/100 XP)


    Title: None


    Race: Northman


    ss: Berserker


    Rank: Iron


    HP: 130/130


    MP: 70/70


    Strength (+3 per level): 15


    Agility (+1 per level): 10


    Endurance (+1 per level): 13


    Intelligence: 7


    Wisdom: 5


    Free AP: 0


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E, Level 1/10)


    -Charge (E, Level 1/10)


    At the start of the game, every ss began with two skills. The E meant it was Rank E, the lowest rank for skills in the game, and the level showed how much one uses the skill. The stronger the level, the stronger the skill.


    Adam clicked on his skills to make sure of what they did.


    Mighty Strike (E): Dig into your hidden strengths to deal 120% of your normal damage. Cooldown: 3 seconds.


    Charge (E): Ram into your enemy to knock them over, stunning them for half a second. Cooldown: 10 seconds.


    The skills were not very powerful, but it was enough for Adam. After all, they wouldn''t give out the strongest skills at the beginning of the game


    Adam closed all of this and waited for the counter to hit zero. When it did, he received another notification.


    [You are to be sent in a neutral kingdom. Generating a random beginner vige You will be sent to Rosewatch. Good Luck, Valiant Heart.]


    Adam suddenly found himself into a white beam of light. When it disappeared, he was surrounded by yers. He was in the middle of a vige.


    As he looked around, he saw the yers split in several groups. Some headed directly out of the vige to go hunt monsters directly. Most of the rest headed for the NPCs.


    The vige itself was quite big, with many buildings and facilities. Rather than a vige, it would be called a Town. In the center, was the vige chief''s house.


    Surrounding it were the different guard barracks. Seeing the level of these guards, no one dared to cause a ruckus in the vige. They were all Level 5 guards. It would only take one hit to kill a yer, or even multiple yers if it were a mage.


    In Epoch, there are 300 Levels, but they aren''t the only thing that determines a being''s strength. There was also the ranks: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Heroic, Legendary and Godly. Those ranks stood for both the yers and the humanoid NPC, they were the ss advancements.

 Chapter 3: First Quest

    Chapter 3: First Quest


    Other than the guards barracks, there was also several shops, for different professions: cksmith, Alchemist, Engineer And of course, there were the inhabitants of the vige. In total, there should be around 600 NPCs in the vige.


    At the start of the game, there were two ways to level up: kill Monsters, or do Quests. Quests rewarded way more XP, but there were only a few of them. And some asked certain requirements. That''s why, some chose to hunt instead of doing quests.


    That was especially the case for guilds. If enough guild members gathered in a town, they could form groups and huntrge amounts of monsters.


    But that was none of Adam''s concern. Right now, he would rather do quests. Every NPC had a yellow exmation mark above their heads, so it was easy to find a few quests.


    But they were several hundreds to have spawned in this vige, so the few NPCs Adam could see were already swarmed with yers, and he would waste a lot of time if he queued waiting to get the quest.


    So, Adam headed for the vige chief''s house. As the most important person in the vige, he would also give the best quests. Unfortunately, Adam was disappointed. The vige chief didn''t give out any quest, he couldn''t even speak with him.


    As Adam was about to leave the vige to hunt for monsters, he saw a big group of yers leave a NPC. Adam was curious, he could understand if yers who got the quest left, but here even those who didn''t get it left.


    That''s why he approached one of the yers who left and asked "Hey, may I ask what''s the problem with this NPC?"


    The yer looked at him and said "Don''t waste your time, his quest is impossible and has a time limit. If in an hour no one haspleted it the quest will disappear."


    Adam asked "Why not try? Even if you fail you will just have wasted an hour." The yer rolled his eyes and said "If you fail the quest you will be reset to Level 1. Moreover, you won''t be able to level up for one natural day. Now, if you want to waste your time, feel free to do so, but stop wasting mine."


    Seeing the yer''s attitude, Adam wryly smiled. He was just asking a question, no need to get upset Adam looked at the old NPC who was looking at his feet, while sitting on his tool, and decided to go see him. Others may see this as a waste of time, but he didn''t. The harder the quest, the better the rewards.


    As Adam approached the old man, he was able to see his name, his level and his HP. Above the head of every NPC and monster, those three stats would appear, as well as their rank. For example, this old man.


    [Harold] (Level 5, Iron)


    HP: 200/200


    NPCs and monsters had different ranks to them. For NPCs, their ranks represented their jobs'' advancement, while for Monsters it simply represented their strength. And the first Rank for yers and NPCs was Iron, followed by Bronze. As for Monsters, they begin at Common, followed by Elite.


    Adam arrived near the old man, and saw a few peoplee too. Apparently he wasn''t the only curious one. Harold lifted his head and sneered "Still here? Get out of my sight, you bunch of cowards!"


    The yers were surprised, this NPC was able to hold a grudge over the other yers? A young guy on Adam''s left side tried to calm him down "Chill old man, we just want to hear about your quest. It won''t harm you to tell us, right?"


    Harold groaned something iprehensible, but still said "It''s my son. He wants to be an adventurer, and he isn''t a coward like you bunch of Anyway, Arno went to hunt a monster in the forest, a strong one, but I fear he is in danger. Bring him back alive, and I''ll reward you."


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Save Arno''!]


    Quest Detail: The old Harold asks you to save his son and bring him back.


    Quest Level: 5


    Quest Difficulty: B


    Objective: Bring Arno back, alive. Can only be done alone.


    Deadline: One hour


    Reward: [Hard Fists], ??


    Failure penalty: Reset Level at 1, and makes it impossible to harvest XP for 24 natural hours.


    The yers around sweated. The quest itself was very difficult, as it was B. In the game, every quest, like the skills, has a rating to it. The lowest being F, then E, D But this difficulty didn''t take into ount the strength and level of the yer.


    So this was B difficulty, assuming the yer is Level 5. That meant, for a Level 20 yer this quest wouldn''t even be F difficulty, but for a Level 1 yer it is at least A, or S, maybe SS (Definitely not SS but he''s a newbie.)


    And with the time limit of 1 hour, they wouldn''t have the time to level up. Just going to the quest location anding back would probably take at least 30 minutes.


    Coupled with the terrible penalty in case of failure, no one would ept this quest. After all, the yers'' perception of time was modified by a factor of two, meaning 24 natural hours was 48 hours in game. Although yers needed to make pauses and couldn''t go and y for two days straight, they would still get far behind if they couldn''t get XP for 48 hours.


    That modification of the perception of time was a big revolution in gaming, and it had been instated for years already. At first it was problematic, because the modified perception of time gave headaches, but since then it has been perfected, and for those who really wanted to y on extended periods of time there existed special nutriments that nourished the mind like the body.


    As not to make their games pay to wins though, the price of those nutriments is quite low, so what people dreaded the most was still buying the 9000$ cabin. Fortunately, you only got to pay one in your whole life as after that the cabin could just upgrade itself through updates.


    Back to the game, the yers dispersed because they would lose too much by epting this quest as recreating an ount during the first week was impossible.


    Seeing this, Harold lowered his head again, but didn''t say anything. Even though he called the others cowards, he knew that his quest was too much for those rookie adventurers. But the life of his son was on the line, so of course he was disappointed.


    "I can help you." Harold lifted his head in shock, one of them actually stayed behind? He looked at the young man up and down, and immediately recognized him. The adventurer in front of him was easily a head or two taller than the rest.


    So he asked "Is your dad a giant or what?" Adam was shocked by the question, he had read the realism would be pushed by a notch, but that was a whole other level. It really looked like the NPCs were people, and not just rows of data.


    Still, he shook himself out of his shock and said "He is no giant, just that I drunk a lot of milk. About your son, can I have some more information?"


    [Ding! Quest ''Save Arno'' epted!]


    Harold sighed and said "He went in the forest to hunt an Elite Monster, but I fear it is too much for him"


    As Harold finished Adam saw an orange point appear on his mini map. That was his quest''s objective. He nodded to the old man and said "I can''t promise you I will bring him back, but what I can promise you is that I''ll try my hardest. See you soon, I hope."


    However, before he could leave Harold got up from his stool and took out a bag "Wait a second Here, take this."


    Harold presented a small vial filled with red liquid to Adam.


    [Basic Health Potion]


    HP: +100


    Adam epted the potion, putting it into his inventory, and said "Thanks, that will help me fetch your son. Now, I shall go before its toote."


    Harold nodded and started shooing him off, making Adam smile. Harold actually reminded him of his grandfather. Thinking of him, Adam couldn''t help but sadden. He hadn''t seen his grandparents for a long time as they got in an argument with his parents when he was young. Adam didn''t remember why they fought as this happened when he was a young kid, but he still remembers he liked his grandparents a lot.


    Adam shook his head and stopped thinking of that, and instead opened his inventory. In there, there was of course the [Basic Health Potion], but also some other things.


    There was 10 [Bread] regenerating 25HP over 7 seconds. This was something everyone would get, and mages would even get 10 [Juice] additionally for their MP. Even though he had MP too, Adam would only use itter in the game if he gets magical skills.

 Chapter 4: First Fight

    Chapter 4: First Fight


    Finally, there was Adam''s weapon. When they started the yer would have a set of trash equipment. Trash rank was a special rank for the clothes one would get when they spawn. They are indestructible but they offer no defense, their only purpose is to avoid making people naked when they spawned.


    His weapon though wasn''t trash, but instead would be amon one. If it breaks, then he has to repair it, buy a new one or fight with his fist. But for now, he hadn''t even taken it out. In his inventory he could see a sword shaped totem, and as he took it out he received a notification.


    [Please choose your weapon: Sword, Axe, Hammer, Spear.]


    Adam chose Sword, and a new weapon appeared in his inventory.


    [Iron Greatsword] (Common, Level 1)


    Requirements: Level 1, Warrior


    Attack: +5


    Adam immediately equipped it and then proceeded to look at the stats of the item he would be rewarded were he to seed.


    [Hard Fist] (Umon, Level 5)


    Requirements: Level 1


    Defense: +22


    Strength: +10


    Adam was impressed, this was exactly the equipment he needed, the additional 10 Strength would be really helpful. As for the possibility of failing? Adam didn''t think of it. Although this quest was very difficult, it was just fine for him. After all, with difficultyes rewards, and he needs those rewards to be stronger, get famous and get money for his family.


    Outside the vige was a big in, where plenty of Level 1 Common monsters spawned. The yers were using those to level up, and most of the quests needed materials from them anyway. The problem was, it was very difficult to kill them because of the sheer number of yers.


    Of course, one could go try to kill the higher leveled ones, but they mustn''t be afraid to lose their XP.


    [You have discovered Rose Forest! XP +10]


    Adam''s map led him past the in and into a forest. There, the number of yers drastically lowered, and only groups were present. After all, the lowest leveled monsters here were Level 3.


    In Epoch, fighting higher leveled was very rewarding, but also very difficult. If an average yer fought a Level 3 Monster at Level 1, they would get killed in two or three hits, without the power to retaliate.


    That''s why, they need to form parties, mostly with their guild members. This would make the fight easier, but the XP would be shared so the reward would be lesser.


    At first, the groups of yers fighting the monsters allowed Adam to avoid fighting, but at some point the number of teams dropped drastically, as he entered the zone of Level 4 monsters.


    He barely walked a few meters in when he was aggroed by a red furred monster.


    [Red Boar] (Common, Level 4)


    HP: 400/400


    The boar growled at Adam, and straight out rushed at him, using the skill Charge. Adam knew that if he was hit, he would die as this would stun him, making him unable to move.


    But the developers weren''tpletely ruthless, they set the fight into a forest of thick trees. As the boar approached him, Adam waited until only a few meters were left, and jumped to the side.


    Charge had a weakness, and that was the turning speed. That''s why it was very difficult to change one''s trajectory once the skill isunched, and why yers would rather use it in short range rather than long range like this boar.


    The boar missed Adam, and before it could stop charging it hit a tree.


    -23 HP!


    It turned out that charging the tree inflicted damage. However, it didn''t stun the boar. But Adam got it covered. He activated Charge, and rammed into the Red Boar''s side with his shoulder.


    The boar stumbled and it was stunned. Adam didn''t lose the opportunity and directly shed at it, before activating Mighty Strike and hitting it again.


    -12 HP!


    -15 HP!


    Adam was only able to strike twice before it got out of its stun. He wanted to strike once again since he was on its side, but he saw its muscles twitch, and felt the danger iing, so he jumped back.


    And just on time as the Red Boar''s tusks turned into a blood like red color as it swung its head toward Adam. He didn''t doubt that if he proceeded with his attack, he would have received this attack, and certainly died from it.


    The Red Boar roared as it missed its target, but this time it learned from its mistakes and didn''t use the skill Charge and just ran toward Adam.


    -11 HP!


    As Adam narrowly dodged the attack and shed the monster, he finally understood the developers'' words. Killing higher level monster was really hard, he would die in a single hit or two whereas he would have to hit it almost 40 times to kill it.


    He hoped the reward would be worth it Fortunately, his skills didn''t cost any MP and only had a cooldown time. Otherwise, he didn''t know how he would have done.


    After two minutes of constant shing, the Red Boar was finally on itsst stand, it only had about 20 HP remaining. Adam charged at it, dodged its tusks, activated Charge, stunning it, and attacked it twice.


    -12 HP!


    -13 HP!


    The boar growled, and fell to the ground, dead.


    [You have defeated ''Red Boar''! XP +40!]


    Adam finally got to stop. That fight was intense! Even with Old Adam''s memories, he thought he might lose it. Just the concentration needed for the fight was incredibly high. However, thanks to his powerful soul he wasn''t mentally tired.


    Adam looked down at what the monster dropped, and picked it up. Unfortunately, it only dropped materials, two [Red Boar''s Tusks] and three [Red Boar''s Pelt].


    Adam put them in his inventory and continued on his way, not wasting any time. But soon he was met with another problem, two actually.


    [Red Boar] (Common, Level 4)


    HP: 400/400


    [Red Boar] (Common, Level 5)


    HP: 450/450


    The two were calmly walking next to each other when they suddenly turned toward Adam. When thetter saw the Level 5 Boar he couldn''t help but curse.


    They rushed at him without any warning.


    Adam was able to dodge the two, but he couldn''t hit them. Now though, they weren''t aligned anymore, and instead were on two of his sides, making it more difficult to track of them both.


    The two Charged again, and Adam decided to try out something. As they approached, Adam suddenly jumped. The two Red Boars looked up at Adam like he was already dead, they could still hit hit after all.


    But then, Adam used the tree just behind him to jump away. The two boars followed him with their eyes, unconsciously slowly altering their trajectory. Then, the two felt they hit something.


    -21 HP!


    Critical Hit! -66 HP!


    As he looked back, Adam saw that it was indeed possible for the two to hit. Moreover, the weaker one got a critical hit, and was stunned.


    When two beings use a Charge skill at each other, the one with the higher strength will stun the other one, but still receive damage. Here, the level 4 Red Boar was weaker and thus took damage, and was stunned.


    But what was interesting here was that the Red Boar suffered a Critical Hit, so the duration of the stun should have been lengthened. Adding in the fact that the Red Boar''s charge was more potent than his own, the boar should be stunned for at least 3 seconds, or more.


    Adam stepped toward them, and activated Mighty Strike on the stunned boar.


    -14 HP!


    -11 HP!


    -12 HP!


    Adam was able to strike it thrice before the higher leveled Red Boar attacked him, forcing him to dodge. However, it hit its fellow boar again.


    -65 HP!


    Adam opened his eyes wide, this boar really dealt a lot more of damage! And that was a casual strike!


    Looking at the health bar almost half emptied, Adam continued attacking the stunned one while dodging the Level 5, and was able to make the boar''s health bar fall below 200.


    Then, Adam was forced to move back again. The two boars were aligned once again, and this time they formed some sort of strategy. The Level 5 boar charged first, while the second one waited, so that it could charge at Adam when theter couldn''t dodge a second time.


    Seeing this, Adam smiled. As expected, he dodged the first one, and the second one was charging at him. Adam activated Mighty Strike, and he could almost see the ridicule in the boar''s eyes. And it was right, with how much stronger the Boar was, if Adam tried to stop its charge with his Mighty Strike then he would die.


    But Adam didn''t do that. Instead, he hacked his sword into the ground, making dirt fly everywhere, including in the boar''s eyes, and used the sword as a way to propel himself up. Then, he released his sword''s handle.

 Chapter 5: The Dangerous Elite

    Chapter 5: The Dangerous Elite


    The result was that Adam jumped above the charging boar, perfectly unharmed, and the boar was blinded. It couldn''t see the sword nted into the ground and thus charged at it. The sword couldn''t stop it and was uprooted from the ground, but it still dealt significant damage to it.


    -43 HP!


    As it was blinded, the boar thought it was Adam swinging his sword at it, and thus thought it was about to hit him, so it activated another skill, one that made his tusks glow red. It didn''t hit Adam, and instead hit its fellow boar''s butt!


    Critical Hit! -183 HP!


    Adam opened his eyes wide, he didn''t expect thest part. He just intended on making the boar charge at the higher leveled one, but the intent wasn''t really to hurt theter. But the level 4 Boar had unexpectedly activated a skill and made a Critical Hit!


    And from the looks of it, it wasn''t finished. Still thinking it was Adam as it was blinded, the boar attacked the higher leveled boar twice more before recovering its sight, realizing its mistake. Meanwhile, Adam arrived behind it, his sword in hand again, and used Charge against its rear side, stunning it, following by two attacks.


    -16 HP!


    -10 HP!


    Adam moved back and looked at the two''s HP bars. They were both more than half empty, especially the Level 5 Red Boar, it was only a quarter filled. That only served to show Adam how much stronger they were than him.


    Even monster of the same level had higher attributes than him, so ones multiple levels higher than him were way stronger. That was to cope with yers and NPCs'' equipment.


    After all, monsters couldn''t equip Equipment and could only use their own body and skills. That''s why they tended to have more powerful base attributes. For yers and NPCs, if they wanted toe close to the monsters, they would need to get stronger equipment.


    Back to the fight, the two Red Boars roared, enraged against Adam for humiliating them like that, while thetter smirked. Although he was weaker, he was more intelligent, and that''s what would allow him to win.


    [You have defeated ''Red Boar''! XP +40]


    [You have defeated ''Red Boar''! XP +60]


    [You are now Level 2! AP +5]


    [Your skill ''Mighty Strike'' has leveled up!]


    It took Adam four more minutes to kill both monsters. As soon as he was done, he checked their loot, and this time there was something interesting, a piece of equipment.


    First, Adam pocketed the materials, they were the same as earlier but in different quantities. Then, he looked at the equipment that dropped.


    [Red Furred Cloak] (Common, Level 5)


    Requirements: Level 5, Swordsman


    Defense: +18


    Adam was disappointed when he saw the equipment''s requirements. This was fated to be sold at the auction house.


    Having put everything in his inventory, Adam went on his way again. He was surprised though because he saw less and less monsters, to the point he was able to dodge all of their aggro, and a few minutester he saw he was nearing the orange mark. But as he approached he suddenly heard the howls of wolves.


    And they wereing from his quest''s objective. Adam rushed there and he began hearing fighting noises. He hid in a nearby bush and looked at the ongoing fight. He saw a snake, three wolves and a human fight each other, all three races belonging to different camps. The human had his skin turning cker every second, it was quite peculiar.


    [Scarlet Fanged Snake] (Elite, Level 5)


    HP: 650/800


    [Dark Wolf] (Common, Level 5)


    HP: 250/400


    [Arno] (Level 7, Iron, Poisoned)


    HP: 300/600


    Adam now understood the B difficulty. NPCs were also generally stronger than yers of the same level, as they had better stats and ess to better equipment, and yet this Level 7 NPC was on the losing ground against the snake despite the difference in levels. It showed how strong an Elite monster was.


    And for Adam, even the three wolves were a danger. Despite all three of them having only 250 HP left, they were Level 5, and unlike the Red Boar who focused on Strength and Endurance, the wolves seemed to have the same value for every stat, making them more deadly for Adam.


    Moreover, they weren''t fighting among trees Adam could use, but on a little clearing free of trees. That''s why, Adam didn''t immediately jump in, and instead observed the fight.


    The snake suddenly striked at one of the wolves, and Adam was barely able to follow its movement. The wolf tried to dodge, but it still got hit, although the fangs didn''t enter its flesh.


    -50 HP!


    The attack was more of a brush than an actual attack, and yet it still took so much health of the wolf, and that''s taking into ount its higher defense.


    Adam looked at his status, and decided how he should put his AP. He put 3 in Strength, and 2 in Agility. Now, why did he do that?


    It was obvious that the Scarlet Fanged Snake''s main attribute was Agility, so why didn''t Adam put his points in Agility? It was simply because of the snake''s superiority. Adam knew that even if he put all 8 of his AP into Agility he would still be slower than the snake, so he only put enough point to reach the bare minimum to react to the snake, and sorted the rest into Strength.


    He was a Berseker after all, he should specialize in dishing out damage. Moreover, he wasn''t alone, the NPC was his target, thus his ally, and he could make use of the wolves.


    Making the less noise possible, Adam walked around the battlefield until he found himself behind the snake, and rushed at it. The snake didn''t even care about him and just sent a whip strike with its tail.


    Adam lowered himself and used his sword to push the tail up. All the strength from the whip attack dispersed in the air, and the snake lost its bnce for a moment. Then, Adam rushed behind it and used Charge on its back.


    Stunned!


    Then, Adam charged his Mighty Strike, which had gained 10% additional damage due to its level up, and shed at the snake''s back. At the same time, the NPC and the three wolves didn''t lose the opportunity and attacked too.


    -8 HP!


    -73 HP!


    -42 HP!


    -41 HP!


    -42 HP!


    It was obvious to whom each attack belonged. Adam was shocked at the snake''s defense, and d he had enhanced his strength. If he hadn''t he might have only done half the damage, or worse!


    Adam didn''t attack again and instead moved back, barely dodging the fangs of the snake who suddenly turned around. As expected, like in Lore, higher leveled monster were more resistant towards stuns and other simr effects.


    Adam rapidly fell back, he couldn''t get hit even once by the snake. The NPC seemed to be his quest''s objective, and the time limit should be rted to the poison, so that means the poison can even kill a Level 7 NPC. If the poison can do that to Arno, then Adam knew he would die for sure too.


    Fortunately, the snake knew who the biggest threats were, and turned back to the wolves and the NPC again.


    This time, it was really angry after losing more than 200 HP. It ignored all defense and bite at one of the wolves.


    -190 HP!


    The wolf painfully cried and moved back. Although it had some HP left, the snake had just released its venom in it.


    Moreover, it seemed the snake had activated some kind of defensive skill as it only lost a little more than 40 HP from the other three''s attacks, cing its HP at 400.


    As the fight between the others continued, Adam rushed at the wolf. The wolf bared its teeth at him, but Adam wasn''t afraid. The wolf only had a few HP left, and although its Agility and Endurance were obviously higher than his, Adam was confident in his strength.


    The wolf understood it couldn''t scare Adam away just by growling, so it jumped toward him, opening its mouth wide, ready to take a bit. This time, Adam didn''t dodge but he activated Mighty Strike which cooldown just ended, and smashed it against the wolves'' head.


    -20 HP!


    [You have defeated ''Dark Wolf''! XP +80]

 Chapter 6: Are you really a Berserker?

    Chapter 6: Are you really a Berserker?


    The wolf''sst HP disappeared just like that. But it wasn''t finished though. Because he used Mighty Strike, Adam''s strength was strengthened again, and allowed him to send the wolf''s body flying.


    Moreover, it was already in mid air, full of momentum, so Adam just had to deviate its trajectory a bit, and push it that way. The result was the wolf''s dead body flying in the Scarlet Fanged Snake''s direction.


    The snake threw a side nce at the wolf''s body and used its tail to smash it away, sending it back with even more force. That allowed its head to continue fighting with the three.


    But that also allowed Adam to arrive behind it. He didn''t sh his sword at it as it wouldn''t be effective, but instead tackled it!


    Obviously Adam wasn''t strong enough to make it fall, but it was enough to disorient it for a fraction of a second, and that was enough for Arno and the wolves to attack it once again.


    Adam had to jumped away quickly though, to escape the snake''s wrath. But just as he thought he had escaped danger, he saw that one of the wolves didn''t attack the snake, but instead tried to avenge its fallenrade!


    This time, even with Old Adam''s skills, Adam wasn''t able to dodge the bite.


    -85 HP!


    Adam retreated in a fright. Had that been a critical hit, he would have died without a doubt. The wolf tried to attack him once again, but that was a bad decision as it left its guard open. The snake, enraged because it lost 150 HP from Arno''s and the wolf''s attack, took its revenge upon the unguarded wolf.


    Critical Hit! -326 HP!


    The snake had even used a skill! Of course, the wolf died right away, and Adam didn''t receive any XP. Though, he was able to stay out of the battle for a moment. He retreated a little bit and started eating bread.


    +25 HP!


    +25 HP!


    In 14 seconds Adam was able to recover 50 HP, cing him into afortable zone once again. Recovering any more would be useless. Any of the snake''s attacks would empty his entire HP bar, and a wolf''s attack would either let him survive, or do a critical hit and empty his whole bar.


    As Adam returned to the fight he looked at the different parties'' HP.


    [Scarlet Fanged Snake] (Elite, Level 5)


    HP: 347/800


    [Dark Wolf] (Common, Level 5)


    HP: 210/400


    [Arno] (Level 7, Iron, Poisoned)


    HP: 248/600


    Arno was still somewhat safe, but he absolutely couldn''t be hit by one of the snake''s direct attacks. Even if it isn''t a critical strike and he doesn''t die, the little health he would have left wouldn''tst him all the way back to the vige.


    Adam rushed back into the fight and aimed for the wolf this time.


    -15 HP!


    That was a normal strike, just enough to get its aggro. It followed Adam out of the fight, letting it be a one vs one between the snake and Arno.


    Arno began panicking, but Adam cried out "Hold on, I have a n!" Arno gritted his teeth and activated a skill that enhanced his speed. Adam seemed to be his ally, so he might as well listen.


    Adam dodged one of the wolf''s attacks, and kicked its side, pushing it away.


    -3 HP!


    Adam then rushed toward the snake, and attacked its side again.


    -4 HP!


    The snake turned its head and sent a venomous look at Adam. Thetter grinned in provocation and fell back, while saying "Retreat!"


    As he said that, he threw his sword in the air, confusing everyone present. But Arno listened and retreated, transferring the snake''s aggro from Arno to Adam. The snake tried to take a bite out of Adam, but without his sword Adam was much more nimble.


    He lowered his body, bending it backwards, dodging the bite, and then pushed the ground with his hands, jumping feet first upward. Although Adam was very weak in its eyes, the snake still dodged Adam''s feet, making it raise itself straight.


    As it prepared to attack Adam, who couldn''t dodge midair, it suddenly felt a pain on its abdomen. It turned out that when Adam dodged the snake''s attack, the wolf had tried to attack him from behind. But when he jumped, the wolf lost him, and thus attacked the snake in front. Moreover, it was undefended and a bigger threat so it activated its skills and bite the snake.


    -75 HP!


    -74 HP!


    It was able to attack twice before the snake bit down in rage.


    -170 HP!


    Because it bit down, Adam, who was in mid air, was able to use its now t back as a tform tounch himself even higher, and he was able to grab his sword in the air.


    Because of its weight, he fell with an even bigger speed, and as the snakeunched its second attack against the dying wolf, he activated Mighty Strike and hacked on its head. As he did so he cried out "Attack with everything you can!"


    -180 HP!


    Critical Hit! -16 HP!


    Adamnded, and used Charge against the snake, stunning it. Arno arrived, and attacked as well using his skills.


    -80 Hp!


    -105 HP!


    The snake only had 3 HP left! As the snake woke up, and was about to bite Arno, Adam shed its back.


    -4 HP!


    [You have defeated ''Scarlet Fanged Snake''! XP +600!]


    [You are now Level 3! AP +5!]


    [You are now Level 4! AP +5!]


    [Your skill ''Mighty Strike'' has leveled up!]


    [Your skill ''Charge'' has leveled up!]


    [Congrattions for being the first yer to kill an Elite Monster in your kingdom! Your achievement shall be spread around thend! Do you wish to show your name?]


    Adam was ecstatic hearing the sound from all the notifications, he had defeated it! He killed it! He then looked at all the notifications, a smile hanging on his lips. That was by far the most intense fight he had ever been in. He had to thank the Old Adam from learning those tricks from Shaolin masters!


    As he looked at thest message, Adam did not hesitate. Wasn''t that his precise objective? Getting fame to join a big guild and earn money for his brother?


    [System Message: Congrattions to ''Valiant Heart'' for killing the first Elite monster in Azure Sky Kingdom! Reward: 100 Fame in the Azure Sky Kingdom, 5 Silver Coins!]


    This message was heard by every yer within the Azure Sky Kingdom. Instantly, various reactions swarmed the chat.


    "Hey, who is that ''Valiant Heart''? I never heard of him? Is he a pro?"


    "Never heard of him either! Maybe a pro who changed his ID?"


    "Guys, he''s cheating! Elite Monsters are only supposed to spawn after an hour in game!"


    "Right, now that you mention it I remember reading about that! Report his a**!"


    "Haha, yer above, you tried to curse? No can do here! But still, ban his a**!"


    But as the yers started protesting for Adam to be banned, the system disyed another message in the chat.


    [After checking, it had been verified that yer ''Valiant Heart'' did not use any bug or hack. Please celebrate for the rise of a new hero!]


    "WTF, he really killed an Elite Boss by himself? Impressive! Valiant Heart, I invite you in my guild!"


    "B******! You think you can poach him like that! Come in my guild, I have a lot of advantages I can offer you!"


    Adam read the messages gleefully, that was exactly what he was waiting for! But he didn''t answer to any of them, and instead closed his chat. The guilds he aimed for wouldn''t take him in just for that achievement, and even if they did they wouldn''t contact him by the kingdom''s chat.


    As he closed the chat Adam looked at Arno. Thetter who bing cker and cker, but right now he was looking at Adam in shock.


    Adam tilted his head and asked "Can I help you?" Arno blinked and asked "Are you really a berserker? Or are you an assassin in disguise?"

 Chapter 7: Village Quest

    Chapter 7: Vige Quest


    Adam chuckled and said "I''m a Berserker. But enough chit chat, I don''t want you to die. Your father asked me to bring you back home, I don''t want you to die from the poison."


    Even though he said that, Adam wasn''t really worried. Arno still had 230 HP left, they had more than enough time to get back to the vige.


    When he heard Adam mention his father, Arno dryly smiled and said "The old man knew I would get myself in danger Can''t me him, I would have died without your help. Thank you, Valiant Heart."


    NPCs, just like yers, could see the name and level above every being unless they were hiding. Adam nodded and said "Wait a minute, I just need to loot these corpses. Then, we will go."


    The loot was great, especially the snake. He got materials of course, but also equipment, and a skill book.


    There was a pair of boots which came from the wolves, a pair of daggers from the snake, and the skill book from the snake too.


    [Leather Boots] (Common, Level 5)


    Requirements: Level 5


    Defense: +12


    [Venom Piercer] (Umon, Level 5)


    Requirements: Level 5, Assassin


    Attack: +16


    Agility: +10


    Wind de (D): Sacrifice a part of your mana to summon the Wind Spirits around your weapon to enhance your attack speed by 100% for 5 seconds. Cost: 20 MP Cooldown: 30 seconds


    Adam immediately equipped the Leather Boots and put the daggers in his inventory. Then, he learned the skill. He had lucked out this time, [Wind de] was a really good skill. It suited him even more than any other ss. He learned it, and a new skill appeared in his mind.


    Adam looked at Arno and said "We can go." Arno nodded and took a step forward, and fell.


    -1 HP.


    Adam facepalmed. Damn quest. Arno blushed and said "Huh I think the poison had paralyzed my legs I should by able to crawl"


    Adam rolled his eyes and grabbed Arno and threw him over his shoulder, earning a cry from him. "Put me down! Hey, I''m not kidding! Put me down!"


    Adam shook his head and said "Stop behaving like a child, I won''t let you die just because you don''t want to be carried. Here, take this." Adam took out a piece of bread and offered it to Arno, who reluctantly took it.


    As he walked Adam looked in his inventory. Each time he killed a monster it dropped some Copper, but it was so meager that all 6 Common monsters he killed only gave him 36 Coppers each. And the Elite snake gave him 18. That means he only got 54 Copper from all the monsters he killed.


    Fortunately he got 5 Silver from the Server Message. Like in most games, currency in Epoch was split in Copper Coins, Silver Coins and Gold Coins, with each of them being a hundred times more valuable than thest.


    However, Adam could understand why the monsters dropped so little coins. After all, there was the possibility to exchange coins for real money, so every coins is real money. Adam didn''t look at the conversion rate yet though, he would need to look into itter. But 5 Silver should be quite the sum, right?


    Anyway, as he made his way through the forest with Arno on his back, Adam first looked out for any monster but curiously none attacked them. So Adam looked at everything he got.


    First the attributes points from the level up. Since he would be going to the vige, he decided not to ce them as he might find an equipment that demands a certain stat, like 30 of Strength or something like that.


    Then, there were his skills that leveled up.


    Mighty Strike (E, 3/10): Dig into your hidden strengths to deal 160% of your normal damage. Cooldown: 3 seconds.


    Charge (E, 2/10): Ram into your enemy to knock them over and deal 5% of your normal damage, stunning them for a second. Cooldown: 10 seconds.


    Both had a qualitative upgrade, and his Charge now started doing some damage. Although it wasn''t much, as he leveled up the skill it would be better and better.


    As he thought back about the fact, Adam couldn''t help but start believing that the biggest advantage he got from Old Adam wasn''t his skills, but the strengthened soul instead. Because even with his skills, he would have died multiple times if not for his strengthened soul.


    In Adam''s eyes, the world flowed slower than for others. That''s how he was able to follow the snake''s movements. He doubted someone with a normal soul could have followed the snake''s movements. Also, Adam felt lucky his opponent was a monster. Had it been an NPC, all his aerobic tricks wouldn''t have worked, and would have been way less useful.


    Now, Adam wondered what rewards he would get from the quest. He already knows about the Hard Fist, and there would be XP. But maybe there would be something else?


    As Adam left the higher leveled area, he saw that more groups of yers had entered the forest, but strangely none of them were fighting at the moment. One of those groups stopped him.


    There were five yers in the group, three of them being level 2, and the two others level 1. The one who stopped him asked "Hey, did something happen in the forest"


    But he stopped and looked at hisrade, who was shaking his shoulder. "What?" The other gulped and said "Look look at his name."


    The leader frowned and looked, before freezing. Adam smiled and said "I doubt I am the reason this happened, the monster I killed didn''t seem to be a leader."


    Having said his piece, Adam walked past them, on his way to the vige. It was strange though, why did the monsters disappear? Did something happen? He was pretty sure he wasn''t the one who did it though, because he himself observed theck of monsters before his fight.


    When he arrived in the in, he saw monsters again though. But they were only level 1 or 2. Any monster level 3 or higher had disappeared. Adam felt this was weird, but he didn''t pay any particr attention to it, and instead headed for the za.


    As he entered the vige, Arno said "Thanks for saving my life out there." Adam smiled and said "My pleasure."


    When Adam reached the za, he saw Harold suddenly get up from his stool, and run toward Adam, uncaring of the gazes of those around. The yers had already been looking and him and whispering earlier, either because of his name or because of the fact he was carrying an NPC.


    As Harold reached him Adam took Arno off his shoulder and said "He is alive, and conscious, but he has been poisoned, and the poison has paralyzed his legs."


    Harold frowned at his son and said "You really attacked a venomous monster?" Arno lowered his head and said "I could have won, but I was ambushed by wolves."


    Harold seemed about to say something but didn''t say anything in the end, and just took Arno in his arms. Meanwhile, the vige''s alchemist, Jerome, came next to them and asked "You talked about a venomous beast, which one was it?"


    Arno replied "An Elite Scarlet Fanged Snake." Jerome nodded and gave him a vial filled with a transparent liquid, and said "Drink this, it will cure you."


    Arno epted the potion and drunk it once. As he gave the empty vial back though, he began coughing. Neither Harold nor Jerome seemed worried, so Adam just watched too.


    After a moment, Arno''s skin returned to a healthy rosy skin, and he spat out a ck matter, which began eroding the ground as it fell on it.


    Harold patted his son''s back and said to Adam "Thank you adventurer, for saving my son."


    [B Quest ''Save Arno'' Completed!]


    Rewards: [Hard Fists], 700 XP, [Steel Greatsword], 100 Fame in Rosewatch vige, 1 Silver Coin.


    [You have leveled up to Level 5! AP +5]


    Harold took out a pair of metallic gloves and a sword, and said "Ken, the cksmith, owed me one. And seeing how you are still going around with that basic sword of yours, I asked him for this sword. Use it well, Valiant Heart."


    Adam smiled as everything was transferred into his inventory. Adam nodded and said "Thank you, I sure will." Harold smiled and said "Now, I think the vige chief has something for you. He must have heard of what you did."


    Adam smiled. That was what the fame was for. It looked like the vige chief indeed had a quest, but it was only for those who could have 100 fame. Or maybe 200? After all, he had to take the kingdom reputation into ount.


    Before doing anything, Adam equipped Hard Fist, and the Steel Greatsword. Then he looked at his status to see the change.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 5 (30/5000 XP)


    Title: None


    Race: Northman


    ss: Berserker


    Rank: Iron


    HP: 170/170


    MP: 70/70


    Strength (+3 per level): 30 (55)


    Agility (+1 per level): 16


    Endurance (+1 per level): 17


    Intelligence: 7


    Wisdom: 5


    Free AP: 15


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E, Level 3/10)


    -Charge (E, Level 2/10)


    -Wind de (D, Level 1/10)


    Just two pieces of Umon equipments, and his Strength had almost doubled! On a sadder note though, the XP needed to level up had increased once again. The first few levels were easy to pass, after all if one spent hours grinding the first levels, people would just stop ying.


    But once one reached Level 5 it started getting harder. That was because every 5 level represented a special barrier. When someone fought a monster 5 levels higher, they would suffer a penalty. The next suppression came at 10 levels of difference, and was also why there would be another difficulty upon reaching level 10. Here for example, at level 4 he only needed 800 XP, and yet he now needed more than 5 times more XP.


    [System Message: The yers in White Eagle Vige have activated a Vige Quest and have failed in protecting the vige, which has now been wiped out. Please prepare to defend your vige as the monster tide will attack every vige in the Azure Sky Kingdom until it is stopped.]


    Adam looked around in shock. What was happening? Looking at other yers'' reactions, it looks like they read the same message. Adam reactivated the chat and looked at the various reactions of the yers.


    "Which idiot activated a Vige Quest so early!?!"


    "What''s a Vige Quest?"


    "To the one above, since a few games new types of quests have been added. Now, most quests are split between the ranks of F to SSS, but there are special quests, such as this. A Vige Quest means it involves to whole Vige. There also exists City Quests, Kingdom Quests, World Quests They give out incredible rewards, but are incredibly hard to clear."


    "So we have to stop a monster tide by ourselves? That''s crazy!"


    "Hey, I''m a yer from White Eagle Vige, I just revived. When the beast tide will attack, every yer in the vige will receive a quest thirty minutes ahead. Tell us in the chat so we cane take our revenge!"


    "You from White Eagle, how strong is the tide?"


    "There are hundreds of monsters, the weakest of them being Level 3 Monsters, and the strongest are Level 5 Monsters. Additionally they are led by 10 Level 5 Elites."


    As Adam read, he felt that this was just impossible. Not right now. Only the expert yers able to kill monsters above their own levels were Level 3 right now, but most yers were still Level 1 or 2. Within each vige there was only several hundreds yers, meaning there are about as many yers as monsters. Just dealing with the weakest monsters would be difficult for the vige.


    And even if they could take care of the Common monsters, there was still the ten Level 5 Elites monsters. For the current yers, it was simply impossible to take care of those monsters.


    [Ding! A Vige Quest has been forced upon you!]


    Quest Detail: A beast tide is about to attack your vige!


    Quest Difficulty: Vige Scale


    Objective: Destroy the beast tide and protect the NPCs from your vige.


    Reward: ??


    Failure penalty: Lose 2 Levels.


    Time before the attack: 30 minutes.

 Chapter 8: Mysterious Assassin

    Chapter 8: Mysterious Assassin


    The yers around Adam suddenly started shouting, chaos took ce. How unlucky could they be? They began flooding the Kingdom''s chat with screenshots of their new quest. Soon, everyone knew that the next vige that would be attacked, would be Rosewatch.


    Adam suddenly saw rows of ''f'' in the chat. Adam closed it and shook his head. They were really unlucky. The first viges attacked would be destroyed, because of the levels of the yers. But the ones who would be attackedter had more luck, as their yers would have the time to level up and would thus be able to defeat the tide and even get the rewards.


    Adam clenched his fists. That was unfair. That was too unfair! He would lose two Levels and a lot of time just because someone else had made a mistake!


    But then Adam shook his head and refused to let despair take a hold of him. He could survive this. He didn''t know how, but he knew he could. The developers wouldn''t just put something unreasonable like this.


    Adam quickly concluded he needed equipment. He needed almost 5000 XP to pass to the next level, so leveling up would be difficult. And the power given by equipments was better than the one given by levels.


    Adam rushed toward the auction house, and once he arrived there he began looking for equipments. He also put everything he got on sale.


    He was surprised though, because before he could even find a good piece of equipment for himself he received a notification.


    [Auction House: ''King yer'' has bought your ''Venom Piercer'' for 5 Silver.]


    Adam was surprised. When selling in the auction house, one needed to put a minimal price, and a price to buy the equipment immediately. And he had actually set 1 Silver for his materials, and 5 for the daggers as the maximum price. But as Adam decided to ignore the matter and take it as someone needing it for a quest, he received another notification.


    [King yer has sent you a friend invitation.]


    Adam looked at the ID carefully. He didn''t remember hearing about this person. Was he a member of some guild who recognized his name and wanted to recruit him?


    Adam thus epted the invitation, curious.


    Immediately after, Adam received a call.


    The first thing King yer asked was "Are you in Rosewatch?"


    Adam asked, surprised "How do you know?" King yer replied "I am in Rosewatch too. When I heard your name in the announcement, I was quite sure I remembered seeing your name earlier."


    Adam was surprised, this man had a really good memory. He asked "What about it?"


    King yer said "I have a quest with great rewards, ones that could help with the vige''s attack. But I won''t be able to do it in less than 30 minutes if I''m on my own. That''s why I need help."


    Adam asked "Your quest can be shared? Why with me?" King yer replied "It can only be shared with another person, and who would I choose other than you? You are the only one who killed an Elite Boss."


    Adam smiled, that was true. King yer said "Where are you right now?" Adam replied "At the auction house." King yer said "Good. Join me in front of the vige chief''s house."


    Adam said "Okay." and then hung up before walking in the chief''s direction. He only needed thirty seconds to reach there. There weren''t many people, so he easily found King yer. And it was hard to miss him anyway.


    King yer was a Level 4 Dark Elf Assassin, with several equipments on him. He was the first Level 4 Adam saw, and he had several pieces of equipment on him, which was quite rare.


    King yer waved at him and Adam approached him. They shook hands as King yer said "I didn''t think you were this tall. Truly befitting a Berseker. Now, ept the quest, we must hurry."


    [King yer has invited you to join a quest!]


    Quest Detail: You found a letter on a dead knight about an important member of the Azure Sky Kingdom being captured.


    Quest Level: 5


    Quest Difficulty: S


    Objective: Save the mysterious person trapped.


    Deadline: 24 hours


    Reward: 3000 XP, 40 Silver, ?


    Failure penalty: Forbidden from entering Ember City, lose 2 levels.


    Adam looked at King yer in shock. How lucky was he to find an S Rank Quest? Still, before epting Adam asked "This quest only seem to benefit you. 3000 XP isn''t enough for me to level up before the tide."


    King yer nodded and said "I know. But this is an S Quest, do you think you won''t get some equipment? As a quest bes more difficult, it doesn''t increase the XP primarily, but the items you will get. Although it isn''t said here, I found in the letter that if we can seed we will get a powerful skill of our choice, as well as a ss Armor."


    Hearing him, Adam suddenly felt excited. The skill could be disappointing if he was unlucky but the ss Armor couldn''t. A ss Armor was a special kind of armor that was literally made for one ss, and that was stronger than other equipments of the same level.


    Adam no longer hesitated and epted the quest. Adam looked at his map, but was surprised to see there was no objective. As if he was reading his mind King yer said "There is nothing on your map because we can''t go there by foot. I picked up a teleportation crystal next to the letter that will lead us to the quest. Do you need anything before we go?"


    Adam checked his equipments durability but saw they were all at 100% of durability. The only things he used were his sword to attack, and his boots when he was bitten by the wolf, but he reced both, so Adam nodded and said "We can go."


    King yer nodded and took out a multicolored crystal. That was the first time Adam saw something like this. King yer clenched his hand, crushing the crystal. Then, just next to them a tear appeared in space, and King yer said "Here, we need to enter in here to start the quest."


    However, just as he said that a nearby yer rushed toward the tear. Adam wanted to stop him, but King yer shook his head. Adam thus watched, curious. The yer was about to enter the rift when suddenly he was sliced in two.


    Adam saw him blink his eyes before dying, not understanding what happened. King yer said "Not just anyone can enter a tear in space, we can enter because the quest protects us, but at our level anyone who didn''t receive the quest will die."


    Adam felt pity for the Level 2 Assassin. His level was now reset to 1 because of his greed. King yer said "Come in."


    Adam nodded and the two entered. When they passed to the other side, the portal closed itself. Adam looked around, curious. They hadnded into a strange room, there was no door nor window, only torches on the sides that emitted some mana.


    King yer said "We can only get in here through a teleportation crystal. Come, we need to hurry to save the princess. But first, ept the invite so we can share XP from the kills."


    [King yer has invited you to form a party!]


    Adam epted and as they started running he said "I''ll tank in front while you attack them in their back." King yer smiled and said "Of course, you don''t expect an Assassin to tank do you?"


    Adam smiled back and looked forward to their first opponents.


    As they ran, Adam fell behind because King yer was faster than him as an Assassin, and as he looked at his back he felt the man was an expert. The way he was moving showed he had a great control over his body.


    After a moment King yer took Adam by surprise when he asked "Do you have any AP left?" Adam replied "Yes, 15 of them."


    King yer turned around, with some shock on his face, and asked "What Level were you when you killed the Elite?" Adam replied "Level 2. Killing it raised my levels by two, and the quest associated by another level. I didn''t really get the time to put in my levels though."


    King yerughed and said "This will be easier than I thought then. You should put 10 of your AP in Agility, and use the other 5 as you wish. This way, we will be able toplete this quest faster. Moreover, even for a Berseker Agility is important. For your Strength and Endurance, the ss Armor will give more than enough points for each."


    Adam thought about it, and in the end nodded. His strength was already high enough, and to get any substantial change he would need to put all 15 of his AP into Strength. But doing so would make of him a ss Cannon, and he didn''t want that.


    Adam first put 10 AP in Agility, then 3 into Intelligence and thest two in Endurance. He immediately felt his speed double. King yer smiled and elerated. He was actually holding back?

 Chapter 9: Blitz through the dungeon

    Chapter 9: Blitz through the dungeon


    After an entire minute of running into what seemed to be an endless tunnel, they finally spotted the first opponent. Three of them actually.


    [Fire Demon] (Common, Level 5)


    HP: 500/500


    [Cultist Fire Elementalist] (Iron, Level 5)


    HP: 300/300


    There were two Fire Demons, who were merely red skinned demons, and one Elementalist. Among the three, the Elementalist was no doubt the most dangerous despite his lesser HP. If he was allowed to keep the distance, then he could dish out insane amounts of damages.


    Adam saw King yer starting to fade away, he was probably using the [Sneak] skills all Assassins spawned in. It wasn''t hard to guess his intention.


    Adam grinned, and as the monsters started spotting him Adam released a battle cry. In Epoch, monsters didn''t only rely on their aggro range, if someone shoots at them or attacks them, they would still attack, even if the other isn''t in the aggro range.


    As soon as he finished roaring, Adam saw the two demons were running his way, and the cultist had raised his staff, red magic swirling on its edge. He was preparing a spell.


    Adam used Charge on one of the demon, stunning it, and dodged the ws from the other demon. Then, he saw a fire ball heading his way. It was surprisingly fast, but not enough for Adam.


    He kicked the free demon away, and grabbed the stunned demon by the neck and used it as a meat shield.


    -25HP!


    -23 HP!


    It looked like [Fire Demons] had a certain resistance towards fire attacks, as a fireball from an Elementalist would do way more than 23 of damage to him.


    Adam quickly looked at the Elementalist, and saw that he was preparing another attack. However, in the middle of his casting King yer appeared behind him, and used [Stab], a skill that allowed to stun the victim.


    Now he didn''t need to worry. Those two demons weren''t much of a threat to him, with his two Level 5 Umon equipments that both focused on Strength, and the points he added to Agility, his stats were higher than them, especially his strength.


    Just one of his kicks had taken 25 HP from the demon, so a sh from his sword would take much more than that.


    The demon he had kicked came back to attack, its ws forming mes, but Adam just used the stunned demon to take the hit for him, again.


    Critical Hit! -61 HP!


    Adam grinned, their skills were a mix of physical and fire attacks, so they didn''t have much resistance. However, the stun on the demon ended, and it got out of his grip. Taking a step back, Adam dodged another w and finally took his sword out.


    The two demons rushed at him unafraid, but that didn''t change anything. Adam activated [Mighty Strike] and shed at the first demon''s neck. The blow was so powerful that the demon was swept off its feet and sent flying to the wall of the cavern.


    Critical Hit! -250 HP! (Author''s note: If you wonder how he did so much damage, his Strength is at 55, meaning 55 base damage. His sword adds 25 to go to 80. It is a Mighty Strike, and at its level it deals 160% of damage so 80*1.6=128. Also he hit on the neck so that negates pretty much all of the demon''s defense and allow Adam to deal a Critical Strike, so 128*2=256. To even that out I decided to take away some damage, it''s the demon''s defense on the neck.)


    -25 HP!


    Meanwhile the sword continued on its course and shed at the second demon, who could protect itself with its arm. Still, he got sent flying all the same.


    -50 HP! (Author''s note: For the record, if he hits multiple people with one Mighty Strike, the 160% effect only applies to the first one hit. However, the special effect of sending people flying is applied to all those hit, because its funnier.)


    -27 HP!


    Adamughed out when he saw the damages he just did. But he didn''t let the two breath as he attacked the one to whom he dealt a Critical Hit. He was able to attack twice before he had to dodge a w.


    -50 HP!


    -48 HP!


    As the demon only had slightly more than 30 HP left, the other one attacked. Adam dodged its w and kicked its legs, making it fall.


    -38 HP!


    He then turned his attention to the other demon, who was about to attack. He quickly shed his sword at the demon''s neck, and actually beheaded it!


    Critical Hit! -155 HP!


    Although he was stunned from all the blood, Adam didn''t stop and attacked the other one. He had already ustomed himself to such gory stuff, after all how could a VRMMO im to be realistic if there wasn''t this kind of stuff in it?


    That was also one of the main reasons it was forbidden to y for those under 18. When this first appeared in a VR games some years ago, people were outraged and protested, but after some time they got used to it, because there was no other way to go.


    Adam then began attacking the other demon, who was on the ground. It took him less than 10 seconds to finish this one off.


    [Your party has defeated ''Fire Demon''! XP +35]


    [Your party has defeated ''Fire Demon''! XP +35]


    [Your party has defeated ''Cultist Fire Elementalist''! XP +40]


    As expected, the XP he got wasn''t much, since it would be split in two.


    King yer, who had the dead Elementalist at his feet, asked "How do we do with the loot?"


    Adam proposed "If an item is needed by one of us he takes it, and for the rest we split the profit once outside?"


    King yer raised an eyebrow and asked "How do we know the other will really split the money?" Adam smiled and said "Take the items. I trust someone like you won''t cheat me out of my money. And even if you do, it will only amount to a Silver or two at most, and in that case I would know I can''t trust you in the future."


    King yer smiled back and said "You are interesting, Valiant Heart. Still, the Coppers that drops, let''s split them directly."


    Adam nodded and took half of the Coppers and King yer took the other half as well as everything that dropped. There were materials, and a staff for Elementalists that boosted fire damage.


    Now that they had finished splitting the loot they continued on their way. They eventually discovered that they were actually in a big temple, and were fighting a sect that was summoning demons. They crossed three other simr groups as they bolted their way through the dungeon. As the two set the XP system to be split between the two of them for every monster killed, Adam got 220 XP out of this. In term of equipment though, they weren''t able to find anything good for themselves.


    After that, they found a big wooden door, which was guarded by a squad of 5 demons, and one Cultist.


    They stopped out of their aggro range and began whispering to each other. King yer asked "How many of them can you take?"


    Adam looked at the demons, and seeing all five were level 5, he said "I can definitely take care of the five for some time, I don''t know if I can kill them, but blocking their aggro on me is easy."


    King yer nodded and said "Good. I''ll kill the mage and give you a hand." King yer disappeared, and Adam moved into their aggro range, and did the usual battle cry.


    The five demons charged at him, all of them swinging their ws his ways, some of them using their skills. Adam didn''t use any skill and instead for them to be on him before acting. He nted his sword in the ground and lowered himself, sweeping his leg in a crescent, making three of the fall to the ground.


    Then, he used [Charge] on one of the remaining two, and dodged thest one''s attack before activating [Mighty Strike] and shing on its shoulder, making it fall to the ground too. As they tried to get up, Adam activated [Wind de] for the first time and started shing at them like crazy, every attack hitting at least two or three.


    Even when they got back up, Adam attacked so fast that they couldn''t even defend themselves. As the skill duration ended, two of the demons had died, two had about 200 HP, and only the one he stunned in the beginning had 400 HP.


    The three demons suddenly started breathing in, and seeing this Adam hurriedly moved back. Then, the three suddenly breathed out mes. Fortunately, Adam was prepared for this and was able to get out of range. Currently, he was really a ss cannon, so getting hit by those attacks would probably kill him. He really needed that ss Armor.


    But suddenly, one of the fire breath stopped. A few secondster, the other two stopped too, and Adam saw that one of the low health demons had died. He two others looked in confusion, leaving their defense open.


    Adam activated [Mighty Strike], and shed out. The two were sent into the wall, losing a big part of their HP. And just as theynded King yer appeared and finished them.

 Chapter 10: Arda

    Chapter 10: Arda


    Adam and King yer both received multiple notification, as well as XP. King yer even leveled up. As he did he smiled and said "That''s good, it will help us."


    Adam nodded and after taking half of the Coppers he waited for King yer to pocket all the loot. Adam was curious about the Assassin. He looked young, about his own age. How did he get so good at fighting then? He himself had the experience of a 50 years old man who trained in martial arts for almost 40 years, and yet this man looked like he was almost as skilled as him.


    Now that he thought about it, Old Adam had learned that this world would have some cultivation elements to it. Did that mean there were cultivators in this world? They were probably low leveled and quite weak, but it would still be amazing none the less.


    But even if there existed some cultivators and King yer was one of them, it wasn''t his ce to ask, not yet at least. He would rather stay polite with the assassin and keep the party up, or it would be a pity.


    He liked working with King yer though. In general, be it in VRMMORPG or even the older MMORPG games, mages were strong against warriors, who are strong against assassins, who are strong against mages.


    That''s why, dealing with mages was more difficult for him than to deal with physical troops. After all, a mage was extremely powerful at long range, but also extremely weak at short range. The problem is, for a warrior they are too slow to approach, but an assassins majors in Agility, so they deal with mages easily.


    "I''m done, nothing good. The hostage should be behind this door, as well as the boss." Adam nodded and approached the door and pushed it open.


    As the two passed through the door, they entered a big room. Several pirs stood erected, and the ceiling was made of what seemed to be marble. The ground was marked with a gigantic array that emitted a lot of mana, and it spread from the middle of the room. There, a beautiful woman was tied up with several magical chains, unable to move.


    As the two entered, a voice resonated in the room "So you are the two ants who infiltrated the pce, you must be here to save the nobledy Too bad, my master sealed her powers!"


    A tall man appeared from behind one of the pirs, talking to the two. He looked quite creepy, he was garbed in a long red robe, and only his arms and his face were showed. His skin looked dry and about to fall off his flesh, and he had a red tissue covering his eyes. Yet, he seemed to know exactly where they were.


    The man smiled, showing his rotten teeth as he said "You two shall die for going against the master!" As he said that, he rose the staff in his hand and started casting. The two tried to stop him, but found they were blocked by a barrier.


    So, Adam looked at the NPC''s status.


    [Crazy Summoner] (Iron, Level 5)


    HP: 500/500


    Adam was surprised. Was that the boss? Even though he was a summoner, at his level he couldn''t summon anything dangerous. However, as he began to rx he heard a fairy like voice say "Don''t let him summon a monster, his staff has been handed to him by his master"


    Before she could finish though the summoner startedughing and said "Toote! I offer my life to the lord to summon his powerful creature!"


    As he said that, his HP started draining, and in a few seconds he was left with none. He fell to the ground, and his body started disintegrating into dust. What was peculiar though was his staff, that was floating in the air.


    The dust from his body moved by itself and flew in front of the staff. There, a familiar thing happened. A tear opened in his space.


    A foot passed through the portal, followed by a hand, then the entire body. A three meters tall demon appeared before their eyes, its horns were as big as Adam''s arms, and fire burned around their tip.


    [Arda] (Lord, Level 20)


    ???/???


    The two yers opened their eyes wide. Were they supposed to fight such a monster?! In terms of monster ranks, first were Common, followed by Elite, then Chieftain, and Lord.


    At this point, the two of them would easily defeat an Elite of the same level, but a Chieftain would be a stretch. As for a Lord, even if it were Level 1 it would one shot them. Now, it was level 20?!


    And it wasn''t all, it was even a named monster! NPCs all had names, but monsters didn''t. Those with names were stronger than the others, and by arge margin! Was that the difficulty of a Rank S quest?


    However, as Adam started despairing, King yer said "Look, the woman!" Adam looked and saw the problem. One of the chains was shacking violently. Adam followed its body with his eye and found its origin. It came from below the portal! It turned out that the tear in space had damaged the array!


    The demon noticed the problem too, but was toote to react as before it could do anything the chain broke, and a powerful pressure started being emitted by the woman in white.


    She clenched her teeth and said "I can only weaken it, but you must defeat it Don''t kill us."


    As she said that, she moved her hand slightly and a white beam of light wasunched from her hand,nding on the demon.


    It roared in pain, but there was nothing it could do. When the beam disappeared, arge part of the pressure it emitted was gone.


    [Arda] (Chieftain, Level 5)


    HP: 2000/2000


    Although it had been weakened, it was still a monster. This was the terror from a Chieftain Monster. Compared to the demon, the same leveled [Scarlet Fanged Snake] was a joke.


    Adam now understood the terror of an S rank quest. Still, he couldn''t let ce to despair, he needed to fight, he needed to win.


    He unsheathed his sword and raised it in the air, before releasing his usual battle cry and start rushing at the boss. That woke King yer who looked at Adam with a smile. He said "You crazy bastard"


    Despite saying that, he disappeared from where he was and started heading toward the boss too. Arda looked at Adam with disdain as he straightened his arm, and opened his palm. Then, a longsword made of fire appeared in his hand.


    He shed at Adam, who didn''t even try to block and instead rolled forward, and activated [Wind de].


    Arda grunted and tried to kick the rolling Adam, but before it could King yer appeared behind him and used [Stab], stunning it. Adam activated [Mighty Strike], which now dealt 160% of his damage as it had leveled up, and King yer activated his own skill.


    -85 HP


    Critical Hit! -112 HP!


    Adam was relieved when he saw his damage. At least the boss'' defense wasn''t too OP. It still shaved away one third of his supposed damage, but it was still eptable.


    Before the boss could wake up, they were both able to deal another attack, although they were weaker this time.


    -53 HP!


    -30 HP!


    The boss roared as it woke up, but as soon as it did Adam used his [Charge], stunning it once more. He was able to hit it twice once again while King Killer was able to hit three times.


    -52 HP!


    -53 HP!


    -29 HP!


    -28 HP!


    -28 HP!


    The difference between the two sses was quickly shown. In term of damage, King yer''s first attack was way stronger than Adam''s but then for the normal attacks Adam dished out more damage.


    As Arda woke up from its stun, it roared out angrily and made a whirlwind strike with his sword, but both yers sessfully dodged. Adam then went back for the offense, and fainted an attack. Arda took the bait and swung his sword at Adam, missing.


    Then, King yer tried to hit him in the back, but Arda did something unexpected. Using his free hand, he conjured a firence and threw it at King yer. Thetter dodged thence, but as it fell on the ground it exploded.


    -65 HP!


    King yer suddenly found himself in a dangerous situation, he focused on Agility and thus only had 8 of Endurance, meaning he only had 15 HP left.


    He quickly fell back and started taking consumables for his health. Adam didn''t expect that either, he clearly had the boss'' aggro and it was midway swinging its sword, and yet he was able to attack King yer too.


    That wasn''t without consequences though, as Adam was able to sh Arda twice, with the second strike being a [Mighty Strike].


    -53 HP!


    -Critical Hit! -170 HP!

 Chapter 11: Princess stuck with the demons...

    Chapter 11: Princess stuck with the demons...


    Arda roared but didn''t swing his sword. This time, he jumped on Adam, seemingly trying to bite him. Adam shed upward, his sword shing Arda all over its chest, and when the tip of his sword reached Arda''s throat Adam crouched, holding his sword firmly.


    -55 HP!


    Then, as all of Arda''s momentum was stopped, Adam threw him upward. Arda tried to attack Adam but he couldn''t do anything in mid air. As he fell back towards the ground, he was met with Adam''s sword once again.


    However, Arda was stronger than Adam so he wasn''t sent flying, and just smashed into the ground.


    -52 HP!


    -2 HP!


    As he got back up, Arda roared and his body seemed to shine a little bit. Adam looked at his HP bar and saw it was at 75%. What was happening?


    Still, Adam didn''t intend on letting Arda do whatever it wanted to do, so he attacked him. However, Arda dodged the sword and punched at Adam. Adam had to bend his body backwards to dodge the punch.


    +20 HP!


    Adam was shocked. How did the boss get healed? But after five seconds another heal of 20 HP appeared. Was that his natural healing?


    Until now Adam thought bosses in Epoch didn''t have that mechanic of being able to heal themselves over time, but it looked like only Chieftain bosses had it


    Adam couldn''t just let Arda recover though so he rushed at him. Arda sneered and shed his sword towards Adam. Adam activated [Mighty Strike] and feigned to block Arda''s sword. The demon grinned and put even more force into the sh.


    However, at thest moment, Adam lowered himself, dodging an unexpected de of fire thrown out of the fire de, and shed at the wrists of Arda''s hands.


    -82 HP!


    Arda''s was forced to drop his weapon, which immediately disappeared, and before it could take its revenge Adam used [Charge]. Arda was sent into a stunned state and could only receive another two attacks from Adam.


    -53 HP!


    -53 HP!


    As he woke up, Arda tried to attack Adam, but it was sneak attacked by King yer, sending it into a period of stun once again.


    Although Arda had gained a natural regeneration that healed him every 5 seconds, the damage Adam and King yer were dealing to it were too big.


    After two more minutes of fighting, Arda fell below 10% of HP, and entered Berserk mode. Since now Adam had almost died a lot of times, but he had received a nice surprise. The woman who was held prisoner had thrown a few heals on him.


    However thosest 10% of health were the most difficult, because Arda was mad he couldn''t be stunned anymore and he had be stronger, faster and had a better defense. Still, after another twoplete minutes the two were able to take away Arda''sst 200 HP.


    As Arda fell to the ground, they both received several notifications:


    [You have defeated ''Arda''! XP +1500]


    [Your skill ''Mighty Strike'' has leveled up!]


    [Your skill ''Charge'' has leveled up!]


    [Congrattions for being the first party to kill a Chieftain Monster! Your achievement shall be spread around the world! Do you want your name to be shown? If so name your party.]


    Adam looked at King yer and said "I''m definitely showing my name. What about you?" King yer seemed to hesitate, but after a moment he smiled and said "Why not? How should we name our party?"


    Adam thought for a moment before saying "A mix of our names?" King yer asked "Valiant yer?" Adam smiled and replied "King''s Heart?"


    King yer nodded and said "Good name Let''s put that." King yer was the leader of the party they were in so he was the one who put the name.


    [System Message: Congrattions to ''King''s Heart'' for killing the first Chieftain monster in Azure Sky Kingdom! Reward: 200 Fame in the Azure Sky Kingdom, 10 Silver Coins!]


    [System Message: Congrattions to ''King''s Heart'' for killing the first Chieftain monster in the world! Reward: 200 World Fame, 1 Gold Coin!]


    Suddenly both yers'' pockets seemed to have be much heavier. Of course it was only in their mind, but knowing they had gained so much money was just great. Adam was tempted to look in the chats and see what the reactions of the different yers would be, but decided not to as it wasn''t time yet.


    While King yer started collecting the loot, Adam headed toward thedy who was bound by the chains, and as he arrived in front of her he bowed a little and asked "Mydy, thank you for your help. How could we help you out of your chains?"


    Thedy looked at Adam in the eyes, and quickly said "Destroy the base of every chain Be quick, the master of this ce wille back if you can''t be fast enough."


    Adam looked around and saw there were 11 chains that were still intact. Adam headed for one of them himself as King yer went for another one. The chains were resistant, but damaging the magical array was easier.


    It only took five seconds of normal attacks to destroy one chain. They were able to destroy them swiftly, until only one remained. At that moment, there was a great disturbance in space, and Adam saw a giant hand was heading towards them, trying to tten them.


    They both dodged, and attacked the node with their strongest attack, directly destroyed the chain. As thest chain got destroyed, the seal on thedy disappeared, and a holy power started drifting out of her.


    A rough voice that seemed toe from the void itself cried out "Impossible!" However, thedy extended her hand and a holy beam of light wasunched from her hand.


    It was stopped midair where a mirror suddenly appeared. The mirror tried to resist, but couldn''t do anything and was destroyed.


    Once the mirror was destroyed, calm regained the room, and all traces of enemies had disappeared.


    Adam and King yer looked at each other relieved, they had almost died too many times for this quest But it should be worth it. They both turned toward thedy.


    She was dressed in long white robes that weren''t least bit dirty despite being held prisoner in that seal. Her face was extremely beautiful and had a Holy feeling.


    [Princess Victoria] (Gold, Level 140)


    ??/??


    As for her identity, the two expected it. But it was her level and rank they didn''t. She was this powerful? How strong was the one who imprisoned her then? Her level was impressive, but again NPCs and yers had ranks, and Gold was really high.


    After a moment she looked at them and asked "How did you find me?"


    King yer walked forward and said "I found a note on a dead knight, talking about you and your circumstances. I then asked my friend for help."


    Victoria looked at Adam curiously and after a moment she asked "Are you really a Northman Berseker?" Adam smiled awkwardly and said "I have already been asked the question. I am one, but I learned other skills in my life too."


    Victoria smiled and said "You are special, Valiant Heart." She then said "But where are my manners. You two saved my life, I should give you two a reward. What could I offer you"


    She looked at the two and after a moment said "You two seem tock good equipments, and skills. Here you go."


    As she said that, two books, a blue heavy metal chest armor and a ck light leather armor. Adam received one of the two books as well as the heavy armor, while King yer got the other book and armor. Adam immediately checked the two items.


    [Vest of Everwinter] (Rare, ss Armor, Level 5-20)


    Requirements: Berserker


    Defense: +50 (53 for level 6- 70 for level 10- 150 for level 20)


    HP: +500 (530 for level 6- 700 for level 10- 1500 for level 20)


    Strength: +30 (32 for level 6- 45 for level 10- 90 for level 20)


    Endurance: +30 (32 for level 6- 45 for level 10- 90 for level 20)


    Everwinter: Forms a blizzard that freezes everything in a five meters radius (the number of meters depends on the level of the equipment). Frozen enemies are 70% slower, and all their attributes are 30% weaker. Cooldown: 2 hours


    Just this armor was enough to satisfy Adam, but the skill wasn''t any less better.


    Lunar Smite (C): Deal 4 attacks instantaneously, each of the four dealing 100% of frost damage to every opponent with a small chance of reducing their Agility by 30%. Cooldown: One minute.


    At first Adam was scared he would get another skill that demanded Mana, as he could barely use Wind de already because of the mana it takes. Fortunately, this was just the right skill for him. It was even of the frost attribute, meaning he would get 50% of additional damage.


    Adam learned the skill and equipped the armor. As he did so Victoria said "It suits you well. If you are ever bored, you cane find me in the royal pce I''ll let the guards know about you."


    Adam was stunned. Was an NPC flirting with him? A princess at that? Whatever he thought though, he wouldn''t dare say no to her. She was Level 140 after all.


    So he bowed and said "It would be my pleasure, Princess." She smiled satisfied and took out a crystal, and disappeared from where she was.


    [Your reputation with ''Princess Victoria'' is now: Friendly]


    [Quest Completed!]


    Rewards: 3000 XP, 40 Silver, +500 Fame in Azure Sky Kingdom, ss Armor, Lunar Smite (C).


    [You are now Level 6! AP+5]


    As she left, Adam looked helplessly at King yer who was making a strange smile. He asked "What about Arda? Don''t tell me he didn''t drop anything good?"


    King yer smiled even more as he said "There''s one skill, three pieces of equipment, a forging design and some materials."


    Author''s Note:If you are thinking Adam is way too naive to let King yer just pick up the loot and tell him what they got, Adam isn''t actually that naive. Although he can''t see exactly what it is, Adam can still see the number of items King yer picks up, as well as their rarity.

 Chapter 12: Storm Release?

    Chapter 12: Storm Release?


    King yer first took out two books. He said "I am interested in the forging design, so if you are okay with this I take the design and you take the skill."


    Fire Lance (D): Fire ance that will explode upon impact, dealing 220% of your damage as fire damage to every enemy in a 5x5x5 meters zone. Cost: 300 MP


    Unfortunately, this skill could only be learned by Elementalists. And even if it wasn''t, Adam would only get 300 MP in a long time as he doesn''t really intend on boosting his Intelligence.


    Still, Adam epted the deal since he could sell the skill for a good price, or use it as a bargaining chip too. It was only of a slightly lesser valuepared to the forging design, so he didn''t really lose out in the deal. As King yer was about to show the equipments they received a notification.


    [Attention to all yers from Rosewatch vige, the monster attack will take ce in 10 minutes! You can teleport back to Rosewatch for free during the next 10 minutes.]


    King yer brushed it off and said "Don''t worry, we still have plenty of time. And we need to find and open the chest of this dungeon."


    He then said "Equipment wise, it wasn''t so bad either. There''s a pair of metal boots for Warriors and gloves for assassins. They are umon and both level 5." He took out a pair of boots which he handed to Adam and gloves appeared on his hands.


    [Elven Boots] (Umon, Level 5)


    Requirements: Level 5, Berserker


    Defense: +20


    Strength: +5


    Agility: +3


    King yer said "Those two equipments aren''t bad, but the best one is thest."


    He took out an amulet.


    [Arda''s Pendant] (Umon, Level 5)


    All attributes: +5


    Fire Breath: Breath out fire that burns everything three meters ahead of you for three seconds. Each second you deal 150% of your natural damage as fire damage. 1 minute.


    King yer threw it over to Adam and said "Here, take it. Although you got a skill, I will use my forging design whereas you won''t use the skill."


    Adam epted and put the pendant on. Then, he looked at his stats, curious.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 6 (75/6000 XP)


    Title: None


    Race: Northman


    ss: Berserker


    Rank: Iron


    HP: 1080/1080


    MP: 130/130


    Strength (+3 per level): 33 (100)


    Agility (+1 per level): 27 (35)


    Endurance (+1 per level): 20 (57)


    Intelligence: 10 (15)


    Wisdom: 5 (10)


    Free AP: 5


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E, Level 4/10)


    -Charge (E, Level 3/10)


    -Wind de (D, Level 1/10)


    -Lunar Smite (C, Level 1/10)


    His status waspletely crazy, Adam was pretty sure that if he showed it on the kingdom''s chat he would get insulted for being a cheater. His strength had reach the threshold of 100, his health was above 1000, and it wasn''t shown but both his attack and defense are abnormally high because of his equipment.


    (Author''s note: If some of you like to count every bonus from every item, then maybe you have noticed that there is 2 points added to both Strength and Endurance that shouldn''t be there, as well as 30 points of health. That''s because the version of [Vest of Everwinter] you saw was level 5, and he has leveled up since then. I''ll show the evolution of the equipment at the end of the chapter. I hope you enjoy the novel.)


    King yer pointed at the only other door in the room and said "The chest should be over there, let''s go."


    Adam nodded and they headed for the door. It was much smaller than the big gate from before, and yet it seemed so much more heavy, it was strange. Still, they didn''t have any problem opening it. What greeted them was a simple wooden chest.


    King yer approached it and began opening it. In Epoch, chests couldn''t just be opened, they needed a certain amount of time, to make sure no one could just sneak past the boss and grab the loot.


    After ten seconds, the chest opened. King yer suddenly startedughing. Adam looked at him curiously, what did he get?


    King yer turned around and said "With what we got, this monster raid is going to be a joke!" He showed a withered scroll to Adam.


    [Storm Release Scroll]


    Allows the caster to use the spell Storm Release once.


    Adam looked at King yer and asked "Is Storm Release strong?" King yerughed and said "Strong? It releases a tornado, of course its strong! I assure you this is worth more than a level 10 Rare equipment!"


    Adam nodded, but he was septic inside. The Rare rank was above umon, how could a single use scroll be above a rare equipment in value? King yer shook his head with a sigh and said "Sometimes you look like a rookie who never yed a game. You will seeter how powerful this is. Apart from that though, there isn''t anything great."


    Adam asked "About the materials, will you use them for forging?" King yer nodded and said "I''ll use some, yes. Don''t worry, if I make an equipment and sell it I''ll give you a share."


    But Adam shook his head and said "You don''t need to, they are barely worth a few Coppers anyway. Come, we should go back to the vige."


    But King yer stopped him and said "Wait, what do we do about the party?" Adam looked at him confused, so King yer said "Do we keep the party for the raid? Then how do we share the XP?"


    Adam shrugged and said "Let''s keep it the way it is for the raid." Then, the two teleported out of the chamber, into the vige.


    The two appeared on the main za, and from where they were they could see wooden walls had been built around the vige. There were more and more yers arriving every second too, teleporting in the town.


    King yer went to put everything they got in the Auction House, as well as everything Adam had gotten until now and he didn''t use, except for the [Basic Health Potion] he got from Harold, and Adam headed for the vige chief''s home. There were guards there though.


    But the door was then opened by a tall man wearing expensive clothes. When he saw Adam, he said "Valiant Heart, here you are, I''ve been searching for you! Come in,e in."


    The guards made way for Adam as he entered the house, curious about what the chief wanted with him. Apart from the chief, there was surprisingly also Arno, who hadpletely recovered from his injuries earlier.


    The chief pointed at a chair next to Arno and as Adam sat the chief said "As you both know, a monster tide is on our way. It is very dangerous, and they have already destroyed the White Eagle Vige." As he said that, Arno started frowning.


    The chief continued "We need to organize our defense. Arno, you are the strongest in the vige, I want you to take themand of the guard. Valiant Heart, you are the strongest adventurer in this vige, I want you to lead the adventurers to battle. If some are reluctant, tell them there will be rewards to those who perform the best."


    [Do you ept taking the position ofmander of the defense of the vige?]


    Adam replied "I ept." Arno did the same. The vige chief nodded and waved them off. The two got out of house, and once out Arno said "Good luck out there, try not to die." Adam smiled and said "I see you are now Level 8, don''t die either."


    The two separated and Adam saw King yering his way. Thetter asked "How did you be ourmander?" Adam smiled and said "I have a few tricks in my sleeve."


    King yer shook his head and said "Whatever, if you don''t want to say it then don''t. Now you should go to the West side of the vige, that''s where the beasts will attack. Everyone is there already. Oh and if you are ourmander, you should take this. I trust you should make good use of it." he took out the scroll for the [Storm Release] and gave it to Adam.


    Adam put the scroll in his inventory and the two made their way to the west side of the vige. As he arrived, Adam was outstanded by the number of yers gathered out of the vige, waiting for the monsters.


    Adam walked past the wooden barrier and made his way through the crowd. As they saw his name they all made way, and they started bing silent. By the time Adam arrived in front of the crowd of yers, they had all be silent.


    It was then that he realized he needed to make a speech. That wasn''t part of the n, but it was toote to step back now. Honestly, Adam didn''t really believe in their chances of passing through this tide.


    Although they had the help of the Level 5 guards, so did White Eagle Vige. And yet, they were wiped to the ground. The only difference between White Eagle and Rosewood was the presence of Adam and King yer. But there were only two of them, could they really change anything by themselves on a fight of this scale?


    That answer was no. Although King yer boasted the scroll was powerful, Adam knew better than putting his hope on an unknown item. That''s why, the yers needed to give everything they had. And in a war, the moral of the soldiers is very important. If he just stays silent and appear defeated, the mindset will spread and the battle will be lost before the fight even begin. That''s why, he needed to rally the troops, raise the morals and transform these yers into war machines ready to use everything they had against the monsters.


    For those who want to see the stats of Everwinter:


    [Vest of Everwinter] (Rare, ss Armor, Level 5-20)


    Requirements: Berserker


    Defense: +50 (53 for level 6- 70 for level 10- 150 for level 20)


    HP: +500 (530 for level 6- 700 for level 10- 1500 for level 20)


    Strength: +30 (32 for level 6- 45 for level 10- 90 for level 20)


    Endurance: +30 (32 for level 6- 45 for level 10- 90 for level 20)


    Everwinter: Forms a blizzard that freezes everything in a five meters radius (the number of meters depends on the level of the equipment). Frozen enemies are 70% slower, and all their attributes are 30% weaker. Cooldown: 2 hours

 Chapter 13: Rally

    Chapter 13: Rally


    Adam looked at the several hundreds of yers in front of him, silent. He could see it in their eyes, most already thought the battle was lost.


    He began by saying "Let me present myself, I am Valiant Heart, first yer to kill an Elite Monster in the kingdom, and part of the two members party ''King''s Heart'' who killed the first Chieftain monster in the game!"


    He began walking in front of them, left and right "I understand your doubts. White Eagle Vige was wiped out, and what do we have more than them? Let me tell you, we do have something. It''s not me. It''s not you. IT IS US! WE, ARE, HERE!"


    He said thest few words especially loud. Seeing the moral was starting to kick up, he continued "Why did you join this game? For fame? For money?"


    He saw many heads lower, so heughed loudly "Don''t be ashamed, brothers and sisters! But tell me, what do you think will happen once you die here and the vige gets destroyed? Let me tell you, your name will never be remembered, and you will fall behind. So why don''t you show everyone else who you are, by destroying the enemy? To achieve your dreams, you must win!"


    The yers started getting worked up, Adam''s words resonated in their hearts.


    He added "Why should you settle for mediocrity? Because some dumb yer failed his quest?"


    "NO!!" A few voices rose in the crowd.


    Adam frowned, and asked "Then, is it because others expect you to lose?"


    "NO!!" This time, the number of voices increased.


    Adam said "Then why did youe here? To lose?"


    "NO!!!" Finally, everyone in the crowd answered. Their voices resonated far and wide, and the NPCs in the vige looked out with surprise.


    At the same time, a couple dozens of men walked out of the city, all of them were Level 5 guards, led by the Level 8 Arno.


    Arno and Adam nodded to each other, then Adam looked at the timer of the quest. He had 5 minutes before the arrival of the monsters. That should be long enough.


    He cleared his throat before shooting "As yourmander, I promise you victory! As long as you follow my n, we shall WIN!"


    The yers, who were already in high spirits, cheered. Adam kept a serious face as he continued "All of you, I want you to formbat units! I shall lead the charge, I want every Monk to form the first unit who will closely follow me. Gather up, and I want the higher leveled yers in front!"


    In the eyes of the yers, Adam seemed to have be even taller. His voice carried a strange force that pushed them in following his orders. Somewhere in the mass of people, King yer looked at Adam with a smile and said to himself "A true leader"


    All the monks in the crowd quickly walked in front of Adam, forming one big mess. They weren''t trained as an army after all, they didn''t even know each other. Still, Adam was satisfied with the results.


    He continued "At the start of the battle, I will pierce into their lines while you are to draw the aggro of all the monsters. Don''t bother attacking, I want you to defend! Don''t worry about XP, you will receive rewards depending on your achievements!"


    He then turned to the rest of the yers "Once the Monk Unit has taken the monsters'' aggro, two units will nk them! Knights and Swordsmen will form Unit KS, and Bersekers and Pdins form Unit BP! Unit KS, on the Monks'' left! Unit BP, on the Monk''s right! CHOP CHOP!"


    This order was a little moreplicated, but the yers were still able to do it quickly. There were a few who were ced in the wrong units, but those were rare cases.


    He added "Following behind Unit KS and BP will be Rangers! I want all the Rangers to split in two half, Unit Ranger 1 behind Unit KS and Unit Ranger 2 behind BP! The Assassin called King yer is my second inmand, he will help the Rangers split in two. DO IT NOW!"


    Adam couldn''t even see King yer in the crowd, but he received a message in the party, and a notification. The first message was a thumb up emoji from King yer, and the notification was King yer transferring the leadership of the party to him.


    He didn''t react to the messages and turned his attention back to the crowd. While the Rangers were trying to split in two units, Adam continued with his n "I want Unit Elementalist to group up behind Unit Monk and bombard the monsters as much as they can. Unit Monk, you must absolutely not let any monster pass by you. AM I UNDERSTOOD?!"


    Unit Monk shooted with more synchronization than before "YES SIR!"


    Adam almostughed when he heard how they called him, but he kept a straight face and continued "Behind Unit Elementalist is Unit Cleric! Your role is to heal Unit Monk! I don''t want to see a single one of you heal anyone else than a Monk! Unit Monk is the core of the formation, they are not allowed to fall! GO!"


    Another chunk of the crowd walked off, leaving slightly more than a fifty yers remaining. He finished his n by saying "Unit Summoner, you stand in the back lines! Just summon as many monsters as you can and support the other Units! Unit Assassin, spread through the battlefield and use hit and run tactics against your opponents! NOW ALL OF YOU BETTER BE IN PLACE BEFORE THE MONSTERS'' ARRIVAL OR I SHALL PERSONALLY SEND YOU TO HELL!"


    Thest part was especially loud, and it worked wonders as the yers really hurried. As he watched the chaotic scene Adam opened the party chat and sent a message ''When you are finished with the Rangers,e with me. Are you confidant in charging the tide in front of the monks?''


    A few secondster King yer asked ''Why would we do that?'' Adam quickly replied ''We are going against an army of probably several hundreds monsters, maybe even a thousand while we barely have 500 yers here. When they see the tide of monsters some will lose their morals, so seeing the two of us tear through the monsters will help.''


    King yer answered ''Alright, I''m confidant I can do that. I''ll join you when I''m finished with the Rangers.''


    Adam nodded and closed the chat, and looked as the seconds passed on the timer. The yers were actually oddly efficient. Adam didn''t realize it yet, but although it was the first time he yed a VRMMORPG, it didn''t mean it was the same for the others.


    Most of them had already participated in grand scaled wars, and although those games weren''t as realistic, they still had some experience. Most of them were parts of different guilds who had fought wars before. Actually, some of the more experienced yers in the crowd were surprised how Adam had made the yers listen to him, most people would have been ignored.


    Thanks to the yers'' efficacy everyone was in ce more than a minute before the start of the battle. King yer walked up to Adam and whispered "I spotted two interesting yers, they are quite renowned. They are sisters, the older sister is a Level 4 Elementalist and the younger one is a Level 3 Cleric. Moreover, they aren''t in any guild."


    Adam looked at King yer surprised and asked "Really? That should help us. You said they didn''t belong to any guild, you want to invite them in the party?"


    King yer nodded and said "An Elementalist should add quite a few kills and the Cleric good contribution to the party, and if this goes well we could even keep the party for the future."


    Adam was quite pleased inside, it seemed that he and King yer both had the intention of staying together in the future. They indeed formed quite the good team.


    Before King yer could go though Adam said "Here, take this. If they agree to join the party, give this to the Elementalist." Adam took out the skill book for Fire Lance and gave it to King yer, who merely nodded and walked off.


    Adam turned toward the edge of the forest, where the monsters would appear, his back straight and his arms crossed. Many yers would have refused giving out a skill like Fire Lance to a stranger, but Adam knew his priorities. He would rather lose a skill and increase his chances to win this war than be selfish. After all, if he lost this war, his losses would be far direr than a D Rank skill book.


    As the counter hit 30 seconds, he received another notification.


    [yers ''Burning Lotus'' and ''Holy Lotus'' have joined your party!]


    The two sent a ''Hi'', so Adam sent back ''Nice to meet you. You know your roles in this battle.''


    He then closed the chat, and as the counter neared zero, King yer appeared at his side.


    5


    4


    3


    2


    1


    0!!!


    Author''s note: Hey so I quickly drew a battlen, for those who want to check it out I''m leaving the link here and in the /gallery/DOLMudz

 Chapter 14: Wiped

    Chapter 14: Wiped


    The timer hit zero, and the yers started feeling the ground shake. In the distance, they could see shadows under the tree, charging their way. The shadows began multiplying, and suddenly one of them left the forest, followed by another, and another


    All the shadows quickly left the forest, entering the in between the forest and the vige. As the monsters started appearing all the yers received a message.


    [Vige Battle has begun!]


    [500 yers, 51 Level 5 NPC, 2000 Level 3-5 Monsters, 10 Level 5 Elites.]


    As they read the message, every yer''s face became ashen. Despair shed on many people''s face. Adam clenched his teeth and closed the message. 1000 monsters, 2000 monsters, he didn''t care, he would not lose.


    As he prepared himself for a bloody battle though he received a private message from King yer ''Use the scroll.''


    Adam hesitated, the first attack was very important. If the scroll ended up being useless, then the morals would hit an all time low, and the battle would be lost.


    Still, Adam decided to trust King yer for this one.


    More than a thousand monsters had already left the forest and wereing for the yers, and yet there was still an endless swarming out of the forest.


    As the monsters entered within a hundred meters range of them, he felt the fear of the yers, some were about to either flee or leave the formation.


    So he yelled "KEEP YOUR FORMATION! YOU ARE ONLY TO ATTACK AFTER I ATTACK!"


    Then, he took out the scroll, and unfurled it toward the monsters. Adam felt a shift in the surrounding mana despite being a berserker, and the magical sses behind began feeling a terribly suffocating felling.


    The scroll within Adam''s handsbusted, but he didn''t worry as he knew this meant the scroll was used. At the scroll''s destruction, Adam felt the force of the wind gather in front of him, simr to when he used Wind de, except the intensity was much bigger this time.


    The monsters didn''t fear though, they kept charging and entered within a 50 meters distance from them. When they entered within twenty meters, the skill finally finished charging.


    In the middle of the clearing, where Adam had aimed the scroll, a little tornado appeared. This tornado quickly grew in size as it began sucking everything around. Even the monsters who were nearing the yers and were within 50 meters slowed down considerably.


    As for the monsters closer to the tornado, they were absorbed by the tornado directly. But the spell was far from over. The tornado quickly grew in size, until it reached a diameter of 25 meters.


    When it did, not even the monsters who were nearing Adam could escape from the pull and were sent flying toward the tornado, which had turned red from the blood of the monsters it killed. Despite the incredible pull though, none of the yers were affected.


    The tornado continued on for five seconds before losing its intensity as quick as it gained it. When the tornado totally disappeared, the in was finally shown to the yers. It was painted red with the blood of the monsters, but no piece of monster could be seen. More than a thousand monsters had been killed, just like that.


    Everyone was silent, looking at the battlefield in silence. But then, aughter started somewhere in the crowd. Then another, and all the yers began cheering.


    The monsters weren''t scared though. Although half of their army just got oneshoted, they continued charging from the forest. This time though, two Elites monsters were leading the charge. This group of monsters was way faster than thest, and it took them almost no time to reach the yers. It looked like they had gotten rid of the weaker monsters.


    Adam unsheathed his sword, and raised it high in the sky. He then said "ATTACK!"


    He began rushing toward the army of monsters, with only King yer on his side, and the Monks about ten meters behind. As they ran, King yer said "One Elite each?"


    Adam grinned and said "Let''s do that."


    Adam activated Mighty Strike, and as he did so he suddenly received a notification about the skill leveling up. His [Steel Greatsword] began glowing with a white light, and they finally reached the monsters.


    Although the yers were in a state of euphoria earlier, seeing another simr army which was even stronger made them go back to silence, and they all watched the two figures about to sh with the Elite Monsters.


    Most expected the two yers to get killed by the monsters, after all Elites were really powerful. However, those who had faith were sure the two would stop the monsters in their tracks.


    What happened next astonished everyone though. King yer shed past the Elite Tiger, and then back to the front of the Elite Tiger. Four deep red lines appeared on the tiger''s fur as it dropped to the ground, dead.


    Critical Hit! -920 HP!


    Critical Hit! -450 HP!


    Meanwhile, on the other side Adam''s [Steel Greatsword], which was glowing in a light white light, suddenly gained a bluish color to it. Adam had activated [Lunar Smite] for the first time!


    As Adam''s sword crashed into the Elite Bear, it stopped dead in its tracks and got sent flying backwards to crash into the monsters.


    However, the bear wasn''t only hit once. When Adam''s sword shed out, three bluish afterimages followed behind it, all of them hitting the bear before it flew away.


    Critical Hit! -750 HP! (Author''s Note: So, again, how exactly did he reach such an absurd amount of damage? First, his Strength is at 100, and his sword is at 25, so that means he does 125 of basic damage. Then, there is the level 5 Mighty Strike which deals 200% damage, so the damage with Might Strike bes 250. It got Critical Hit so it jumps to 500. Then, he activated Lunar Strike, which makes his attack turn to the frost attribute, meaning another 50%. 500+500*0.5=750. Here is how he did so much damage. As for the bear''s defense, it has be negligible in front of such an absurd amount of damage.)


    -150 HP! (Author''s Note: For this strike, his base damage is 125, but Mighty Strike''s effect isn''t on anymore as it is the second strike. The frost effect though adds 50% more. 125+125*0.5=187.5 Because the damage is slightly below 200 the bear''s defense does affect the dmg here.)


    -155 HP!


    Critical Hit! -375 HP! (Author''s Note: Here he starts at 125, the critical strike takes him to 250, and the frost effect brings this to 375. This overwhelms the bear''s defense.)


    The yers couldn''t believe their eyes, what were those damages. Were they really yers like them?


    Adam and King yer both rushed into the tide of monsters, hitting as many monsters as they could. King yer was capable of dodging almost every attack from the monsters despite how packed they were thanks to his incredible agility and techniques.


    As for Adam, he knew his movement technique wasn''t good enough to do that, even if he had the same Agility stat as King yer. So even though he still dodged some attacks, he would just tank most of them and focus on hitting as hard as he could. Everyone of his swings would hit multiple monsters, shaving off arge part of their health. The only ones he was wary of were the boars or all those monsters who could send him in a stunned state.


    When he entered the crowd of monsters, he was quickly surrounded by five wolves, who all lunged at him. Adam didn''t care though and made a 360 sh, hitting all the wolves at once. The wolves were able to hit him too.


    -11 HP! (*5)


    -125 HP! (*5)


    The wolves, who took off 85 HP with one attack when he was level 2, now were only able to deal 11 damage to him. Meanwhile, one of his attacks took off more than a quarter of their health.


    Adam quickly finished them off and continued fighting in the crowd of monsters, his health lowering very slowly.


    Actually, every yers had a regeneration for both health and mana, even while inbat, but when one doesn''t have a lot of health the regeneration didn''t really matter because of the small number of HP. The higher the HP, the more HP would be regenerated every second. One would regenerate 1% of both their MP and HP every ten seconds, so someone with 100 HP would only get 1 HP every 10 seconds.


    However, for Adam his regeneration was really interesting because he would get 10 HP every ten seconds. It wasn''t enough to negate the damage from the monsters, but it still helped him lower considerably the speed at which his health points lowered.


    Meanwhile, when he started his charge, the other yers weren''t just doing nothing. The Monks all activated their ''Provoke'' skills, drawing the aggro of every nearby monster. They followed the orders and did not attack. They activated their skills to defend, and every time their provoke was avable they would use it.


    They allowed Unit KS and BP to attack the monsters almost without getting attacked back. They would still get hit and some died, but even the more fragile Swordsmen amongst the four units didn''t die in big groups because they were with Knights, the ones with the best defense after the monks, so they were taking the hits for the Swordsmen. When they were on low health, all they had to do was to get near Unit Monk, and they would be able to get healed.


    Cleric used AOE heals, so if one approached the edges of the monks they would be able to get healed.


    King yer would often get within the Monk formation, like many Assassins, to both get healed and kill the monsters attacked the Monks. For Adam, he would get to Unit BP when his health was low, and ask a Pdin to heal him. Still, as the battle raged more and more yers died, and since the reanimation had been deactivated for the raid, each yer that died was an irreparable loss.

 Chapter 15: Desperate Situation

    Chapter 15: Desperate Situation


    At first, the fight went really well. In five minutes the yers were able to y many monsters, and barely lost anyone. But that''s when the formation reached its limit.


    The Clerics had never worked together before, and so they were almost all sending their heals at the same time. This allowed Unit Monk to not even lose one member, and they were all at full health. However, the Clerics had no MP remaining, and MP potions were too costly to have.


    The same situation happened to the Elementalists, who killed many monsters but didn''t have any Mana left. The magical sses used the [Juices] they had left to get some MP back, but for those who still had some, they didn''tst much longer.


    Without the support of the magical sses, the Monks started losing their health even faster, and the Pdins tried to heal them but they soon ran out of mana too. The Monks started going down, and some monsters began to target the Elementalists. That forced the Assassins to back up and protect the Elementalists.


    As time passed more and more Monks were killed, so more and more Assassins had to retreat to protect the Elementalists. At some point Adam ordered the Summoners to send their monsters to rece the Monks, and to focus on attack this time.


    30 minutes into the fight, both sides had suffered great casualties when Unit Monk got destroyed. Some Monks were still alive, but the formation was broken apart since the few remaining monks were unable to bloke the remaining monsters. Unit KS, Unit BP and the two Unit Assassins did their best to protect the mages, but they didn''t have any provoke skills so some monsters were still able to pass through.


    That''s when the more skilled yers really shone. By now, the weaker yers unable to manage their mana or who just used their weapons like amateurs were already dead.


    But even though most of the yers had been killed, the same could be said for the monsters, and so the yers knew they had a chance.


    Moreover, all the kills they were getting allowed the yers to level up, meaning they got a little bit stronger.


    40 minutes in, and the battle was nearing its end. On the vige''s side, only a few remained. For the NPCs, all the guards had died and Arno was the only one still alive, but he was in a bad shape.


    For the yers, the losses were far worse than 50. Actually, there were only a few remaining.


    Adam''s party of four was still alive, since Unit Monk got destroyed Adam had joined the two girls and he had been protecting them while Holy Lotus healed him and Burning Lotus supported him. Both girls were Light Elves so they had huge reserves of MP which regenerated quickly.


    As for King yer he was moving all around, ambushing monsters and disappearing again. He would hit a different monster each time so as to activate the Dark Elves'' racial ability that bypassed 50% of their enemy''s defense on the first strike. As for Adam he was using his skills as soon as he could, except from Wind de since he had run out of MP long ago. Until now he hadn''t used his Everwinter skill though as the cooldown was of 2 hours, but he had used the Fire Breath from his Pendant a lot since it didn''t cost anything. It was too bad it was a fire attack and not a frost attack.


    Apart from the four of them, there was two other groups still alive. The first was made up of a Foxkin Elementalist who used her tail along her hands to throw many spells at once. The three were part of a guild called [Night Wolves] which was a First Tier Guild, thus how she was able to have so many potions.


    Being a First Tier Guild wasn''t just anything, it meant this was one of the best guilds in the world. There were literally tens of thousands of guilds, but many didn''t have a rank to them, they were just small guilds. After that, were the Third Tier Guilds, followed by Second Tier Guilds. If a Third Tier Guild could be said to be a big guild, then a Second Tier Guild was a true power capable of influencing thousands of people.


    And yet, above them was the First Tier Guilds. They were great powers in the video game industry, and most of them were backed up by the most famouspanies and military groups in the world. And the top of the top, the legendary Super Guilds. They were the true peak powers of the Video Game industry, and even in the real world they had a great influence. They were powerful to the point where they had more influence than many countries. So being of the Elite Team of a First Tier Guild meant this was a really powerful person.


    Anyway, Nima, the Foxkin Elementalist, was apanied by Arin and , respectively a Lizardkin Monk and a Dark Elf Swordswoman. All three of them were part of the [Night Wolves] elite squads, with Arin being a captain.


    As for the other group, all of them were of the First Tier Guild [Dragon Temple].


    They were led by 69420, a Catkin Ranger, he was the captain of an Elite squad too. With him were Silver Sword, a Kartian Swordsman; Steel Lungs an Orc Knight and 2Fast4U a Dark Elf Assassin.


    Facing the sole NPC and 12 yers, were slightly more than a hundred monsters. Among all those present, Adam was the one looking the oddest. The reason was, unlike all those veteran yers, he never participated in such a war, and so he didn''t know he would need a Sharpening Stone to repair his weapons.


    Adam was the one who had killed the most monsters in this battle, by far, but that meant his weapon was the one that was the most used too, and so it''s durability had dropped to a few points above the breaking point a few minutes ago.


    Because he didn''t want his weapon to break and lose it, he had stored it and had been fighting with his fists and feet since then. It was indeed weird to see a Berseker punch monsters, but it worked very well.


    By losing his sword, Adam had lost 25 base damage, meaning he has less than 100 points remaining since he also lost the Strength points from the sword. Or at least, that''s if he hadn''t leveled up. Like many other yers, he had leveled up despite being already level 6, and he had be level 7. His skills had also leveled up a few times, and he continued to use them since they didn''t need a weapon to be used. Thankfully his armors were much tougher and thus had had been able to keep them on as most of them still had enough durability to finish the fight, and his [Vest of Everwinter] had barely lost anything.


    He wasn''t even able to pick another sword from the monsters because even though they gave XP, they strangely didn''t give any loot.


    Anyway, Adam had wanted to put his points in, but all the fighting made him unable to use his free AP. However, as the number of monsters remaining dropped to 100, they suddenly retreated.


    The remaining yers looked at each other, confused. Clearly, they didn''t expect that. Still, that allowed Adam to look at his status.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 7 (100/7000 XP)


    Title: None


    Race: Northman


    ss: Berserker


    Rank: Iron


    HP: 530/1160


    MP: 20/150


    Strength (+3 per level): 36 (90)


    Agility (+1 per level): 28 (36)


    Endurance (+1 per level): 21 (60)


    Intelligence: 10 (15)


    Wisdom: 5 (10)


    Free AP: 10


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E, Level 7/10)


    -Charge (E, Level 5/10)


    -Wind de (D, Level 3/10)


    -Lunar Smite (C, Level 2/10)


    He had used Mighty Strike literally hundreds of times, and yet it had only leveled up twice, it served to show how hard it was to upgrade skills as they leveled up. Still, the effects were very good.


    Mighty Strike (E): Dig into your hidden strengths to deal 120% (240%) of your normal damage. Cooldown: 3 seconds.


    Charge (E): Ram into your enemy to knock them over (and deal 10% of your damage), stunning them for two seconds. Cooldown: 10 seconds.


    Wind de (D): Sacrifice a part of your mana to summon the Wind Spirits around your weapon to enhance your attack speed by 100%(120%) for 5 (7) seconds. Cost: 20 (24) MP Cooldown: 30 seconds


    Lunar Smite (C): Deal 4 attacks instantaneously, each of the four dealing 100% (110%) of frost damage to every opponent with a small chance of reducing their Agility by 30%. Cooldown: 60 (57) seconds.


    For each of his skills, the values not in brackets were the values at level one, while the ones in brackets were the actual values with the level of his skills.


    Back to his attributes, Adam spent his 10 AP. He put 4 in Strength, passing the Pure Attribute to 40 and the real attribute to 94. He used another two on Agility, passing the pure attribute to 30 and the real one to 38. For thest four, he put everything in Intelligence, passing the pure attribute to 14 and the real one to 19.


    Now he felt ready for whatever was toe. The monsters gathered near the edge of the forest and stopped, doing nothing. Thinking this was a pause until thest effort, everyone began taking consumables to recover.


    Unfortunately for them, it wasn''t the case. From the forest a man dressed in a dark robe appeared in the middle of all the monsters. Although they couldn''t see his status, the yers knew this was an NPC. When he saw him, Arno, the only NPC present, cried out in shock "Aemon''s Cult!"


    Adam looked at Arno in surprise, it seemed this person was from a famous organization, or rather infamous seeing his reaction. He looked at the other yers and they seemed to be as confused as him, they didn''t know who this was.


    King yer said, loud enough for everyone to hear "Aemon was presented in the Lore as a Great Devil, the equivalent of a God amongst the demons. Aemon is one of the strongest, evilest and most influential Devils as he rules over the undead."


    Everyone nodded, it was good to have a knowledgeable teammate. As they were still recovering though Nima, the Foxkin Elementalist from [Night Wolves], eximed "The mana is being pulled toward the monsters, I think the cultist is preparing a spell, and a big one. Careful."


    Everyone tensed at her words and stopped recovering, although most of them were already back to full health and mp. Adam had even used his [Basic Health Potion] to get back to full HP. He felt something was wrong.


    And indeed, something was wrong. A big magic circle formed beneath the hundred remaining monsters, too quickly for anyone to actually go there and interrupt it.


    Another pulse of mana wasunched from the cultist, much more powerful this time as even Adam felt it. Thend on which the magic circle was drawn turned into what looked like a sea of blood. The monsters began falling in the pit of blood, slowly getting drown as if they were in quicksands.


    In the [Dragon Temple] party, the assassin 2Fast4U looked at his leader, the only Ranger in the remaining yers, and asked "Boss, maybe you should attack them?"


    69420 shook his head though and replied "Even if I can hit them, I won''t be able to do anything. There will either be a barrier or maybe one or two monsters missing doesn''t matter. Let''s watch."


    As the monsters fully disappeared in the sea of blood, only the cultist remained, in the center of the sea. Then, tentacles of blood surged from the sea and enveloped the cultist. At the same time, bones and shredded flesh rose from the ground before getting enveloped too.


    For the next ten seconds the group couldn''t see what was happening, but they knew something was wrong. They weren''t prepared for what came next though.


    The sea of blood disappeared as a being walked out. It was the ugliest thing they had ever seen in this game, as well as the most dangerous. It was five meters tall looked like a bulky mess of flesh and bones, and it emitted a great danger. As a Ranger, 69420 was able to see its status before the others, and his face paled.


    A few secondster, the rest saw it too, and had the same reaction.


    [Evil Abomination] (Chieftain, Level 10)


    HP: 10000/10000

 Chapter 16: Fighting the boss (1)

    Chapter 16: Fighting the boss (1)


    The five meters tall ghoul slightly bent its knees and it released a roar toward the yers. The roar itself created a shock wave which exploded against the yers. They weren''t pushed back, however they felt the power of the boss as well as fear. In this game there wasn''t a fear effect, but facing a powerful being one would feel a suppression, and only those mentally capable of going past it could ignore it.


    Among all the yers, Adam was level 7, King yer was level 6 and the rest were level 5. As for the boss, it was level 10, and was more importantly a Chieftain. Still, the yers were no average people. For the members of the First Tier Guilds, although the were weak right now, they had be beings of incredible power in past games.


    King yer had yed multiple games too before and he was ustomed to this, and so were the two sisters. As for Adam, although it was the first time he faced something like that, his soul was much more powerful than the average people, so he dispelled the fear easily too.


    But that was only the beginning. The boss began running in the yers'' direction, far quicker than any previous monster.


    Adam looked at Arin and 69420, the other two leaders of the groups. They didn''t need to use words to define their n, because there wasn''t really one. Arin and Steel Lungs, the only two remaining tanks both ran toward the boss. Meanwhile, 69420 and the other long ranged DPS were ready to attack the boss at any moment.


    The two Assassins disappeared and the Swordsmen were waiting for the tanks to take the aggro as they would probably get oneshoted. As for Adam, he simply followed the two tanks, ready to act as a DPS or take the ce of one of the tanks if needed. He might be focusing on DPS, but his defense was really good thanks to his ss Armor.


    As the boss approached 69420 fired multiple glowing arrows at it, probably from a skill of his. Everyone had seen how powerful his arrows were, but when they saw the damages he did they paled once again.


    -40 HP!


    -36 HP!


    -32 HP!


    69420 had actually used two skills, Triple Shot and Mana Arrow, which he had already used a few times before. When used against normal monsters, his damages would be around 90, meaning he only did one third of his usual damage.


    Of course, as a Catkin Ranger, his focus wasn''t on damage but rather on high attacking speed and movement speed, his damage was high for a Ranger, higher than most DPS focused yers. That was the effect of good equipments.


    Still, 69420 showed his real strength after that. When the boss reached the two tanks, he had already shot the boss 10 more times, with some of them having skills that lowered the boss'' defense, speed, and strength.


    That was the true strength of a Ranger, instead of doing a lot of damage, they would kite their enemies to death by slowing them down. This was possible because this wasn''t a magical ss and thus the skills didn''t cost mana, but only had cooldowns.


    All skills had ranks and levels to them, but they also had a third dividing factor to them, and that was for which ss they are meant. For example, the skills of a physical ss would cost 0 MP, but would have a cooldown to it, while the skills of a magical one would work in the opposite way, with no cooldown but an MP cost.


    Of course, this was only for low rank skills, as Adam already had [Wind de] that had both an MP cost and a cooldown. Generally, those skills would be more powerful. For example, his [Wind de] doubled his attack speed at its basic level, which was incredible since attack speed was a berserker''s weakness, and this was only a rank D skill, the second worst rank.


    As the two tanks reached the boss, the Evil Abomination''s arm suddenly transformed rapidly into a mace, which he swung powerfully toward the two tanks.


    Seeing this, Steel Lungs, the Orc Knight, raised her shield and bashed it against the mace. The shock between the mace and the shield created a shock wave which stopped both of their advance.


    However, despite the higher strength of the boss, using the shield allowed Steel Lungs to avoid getting sent flying backwards like it would normally do. This was one of the many hidden mechanics of the game, which weren''t in any tutorial and had to be found by the yers themselves.


    For Steel Lungs to find this mechanic so early was as impressive as it was advantageous to her. If she were to fight against a Berserker like Adam who could send her flying with his Mighty Strike, then she would have no chance. Once on the ground, he would only have to activate Wind de to finish her, and she would be defenseless on the ground.


    Of course, there was a limit to this. If the one striking was much stronger than the one holding the shield, then the one attacked would still be disarmed and get sent flying.


    Actually, to decide whether someone would suffer a knock back effect, there were several calctions made by the system with multiple factors as to ensure the game''s realism. Among those factors could be attributes, equipment, skills and environment. Those would be the main factors that determined the additional effects following a strike.


    Then again, the way one was holding the shield mattered too. Here, although Adam didn''t know it, the way Steel Lungs had used her Shield helped her absorb most of the shock. Had a normal yer with the same stats as her tried to do the same thing, they would have been crushed. This was a match up between a level 5 yer and a level 10 Chieftain boss after all.


    As Steel Lungs'' shield and the Evil Abomination''s mace shed, both stumbled back and Steel Lung took damages.


    - 52HP!


    Those were crazy damages for a strike against the shield. Had that mace struck a body, the damages would have been in the hundreds for sure.


    Still, as the two stumbled back, this left an opportunity for the close ranged DPS to attack. King yer and 2Fast4U, the two Dark Elf Assassins, both appeared behind the boss and attacked its two legs, the heels in particr, their des shining with a red hue.


    Normally, against a level 10 Chieftain boss, a level 5 or 6 Assassin would be unable to apply any effect of stun or simr debuff because of the level difference. However, here was another hidden mechanic, certain spots of the body made debuff more effective.


    -502 HP! Cripple!


    Critical Hit! -720 HP! Cripple!


    The Evil Abomination seemed to lose the strength in its legs as it fell on its knees. Like a real being, having its heel''s tendons severed made it unable to walk. The Crippling effect was a debuff that would make the one affected unable to use a part of their body for a certain amount of time. Had they aimed for the eyes, it would have be blind.


    Now that the Evil Abomination had lost control over his feet, it had be unable to walk and its strikes would lose some of its power. This was only temporary of course. Everyone near enough could see its tendon regrowing quickly.


    Still, the others took the opportunity. After all, the reason those two had sessfully crippled it wasn''t the area they targeted nor the skill they used, but instead the racial skill of the two Dark Elves that allowed them to ignore 50% of its armor. This meant it wouldn''t get crippled again, not by the assassins at least.


    Now that it had be unable to move, although it could still attack the Evil Abomination''s mobility had been severely restrained and so allowed the rest to attack.


    As the two assassins attacked once again the boss, Arno, Silver Sword and  attacked it upfront. A swordsman was a good mix between Agility and Strength, and so the three were able to dodge the boss'' attacks and attack it.


    Silver Sword shed its neck, and as he did so his sword seemed to be trembling. As for , as the only Dark Elf who hadn''t attacked yet, she aimed her sword at the tendons on the armpits of the mace-arm. As for the only NPC here, and the highest leveled one, Arno shed it on its chest.


    -210 HP!


    -180 HP!


    -200 HP!


    Critical Hit! -430 HP! Cripple!


    -400 HP!


    Four numbers appeared around the boss as it got attacked by the four at the same time, and its arm fell helplessly to the ground. Now, the boss was only capable of using one of its arms to attack, and Adam came in.

 Chapter 17: Fighting the boss (2)

    Chapter 17: Fighting the boss (2)


    As the boss was on its knees, it''s head was at Adam''s level. He activated his Charge skill and rammed his shoulder into the boss'' nose, throwing its head to the back.


    Then, he activated [Mighty Strike] and [Lunar Smite] at the same time. Unfortunately, he couldn''t activate [Wind de] because this skill worked more like an enchant on the weapon, so one needed a weapon to use it.


    Nheless, Adam''s fist shone with a white and bluish light as the boss'' head recoiled. Adam smirked and punched its throat.


    Critical Hit! -700 HP! Freeze!


    -92 HP!


    -93 HP!


    Critical Hit! -280 HP!


    The four damages appeared the boss'' head as it''s outeryer became bluish, and its movements turned sluggish. The group of closebat DPS wanted to continue attacking, but now was the boss'' turn to attack. As they were about to unleash their normal attacks, some of the members felt something was wrong and retreated.


    Everyone retreated except the young 2Fast4U who stayed behind and attacked once more. He was the youngest of the whole group of survivors, as well as the rashest. He was a powerful assassin for sure, he fought really well, but this time his rashness andck of patience costed him dearly.


    As his de came in contact with the boss, dealing barely a few tens of damage, bones emerged from the ground in the surrounding five meters. 2Fast4U tried to dodge but it was already toote. Several bone spears pierced though his body.


    Several damage values ranging in the hundreds appeared above the Assassin''s body, emptying his health bar instantly, meaning he died. This reminded everyone that what was in front of them wasn''t a weakmon monster, but instead one of the strongest monsters yers could fight at this stage of the game.


    69420 looked at Holy Lotus and asked "Have you learned the resurrection spell?" Holy Lotus shook her head, meaning that they would have to do without 2Fast4U for now.


    Still, even without him they were confidant they could beat the boss. Their earlier assault had put the boss'' health at slightly above 5800 Hp, meaning they were at 58% of its health. Of course, as they were below 75% of its health, the boss had his auto regen which gave him 100 HP every five second.


    So that meant they had to keep a DPS of at least 25 on the boss to keep it from recovering. This wouldn''t be too hard since one arrow from 69420 could do the trick and his firing rate was below 1.


    Actually, the damage wouldn''t be the problem. What would be problematic though would be their own defense, as the boss had already almost recovered from its crippled state and was trying to stand up.


    Seeing him do so, the Elementalists fired many spells on it, while still keeping at least enough MP to defend themselves.


    When the boss was able to rise back to its feet, its health had just reached below 50% because the Freeze was slowing it down a lot, although the effect ended by the time it got up. However, the close DPS yers had recovered most of their skills, so they could defend against a powerful skill.


    It was a trend for bosses to have multiple phases, phases which would be determined by the health bar. Here, passing the 75% meant activating auto regen. There would also be several other checkpoints, being 50%, 25%. Some bosses also had Berserk skills, which would often activate at 10%, but it wasn''t mandatory.


    Once its health reached below 50%, the Evil Abomination roared once more, but this time not to scare them. Instead, it sounded like it was in pain?


    While the yers wondered what was happening to the titan of flesh and bone, the bones on the body of the boss extended and quickly warped the boss inside them. In barely a couple of seconds the bones had formed an armor around its body.


    When the armor finished creating itself, the boss roared once again and charged toward the yers. Doing their job, the two tanks rushed to the boss and stood in its path. Steel Lungs once again raised her shield against the charging titan, and even activated additional skills on herself.


    As for Arin, he took a special looking stance as his gauntlets glowed in yellow, facing the charging boss. Seeing the two tanks in front of it, the boss elerated and the front of its armor morphed to create spikes.


    Be it the dead yers on the battlefield or the few remaining alive, they were shocked by what happened. When the boss and the two tanks shed, the Evil Abomination was stopped in its tracks.


    However, both Steel Lungs and Arin were sent flying backwards, stunned and suffering damage in the hundreds. Moreover, apart from being stunned and thus unable to do anything, both suffered from a bleeding effect which took some of their health every second.


    The two tanks fell harshly on the ground, losing some more HP, and the boss looked ready to charge at them once again. Adam however yelled at Holy Lotus "Heal them, don''t let them die!"


    He rushed in front of the Evil Abomination and activated the two skills he had avable, [Charge] and [Mighty Strike]. As he came in contact with the boss, although his [Charge] wasn''t able to stun it, it allowed him to stop it in ce.


    Then, using [Mighty Strike] he kicked the side of the boss'' knee, making it bend a little and stopping it further. It was only unable to move for an instant, but this was more than enough when dealing with experts.


    The close range DPS once again attacked it with as many skills as they could, further damaging its health bar.


    However, this time there was one less member, it wasn''t the first strike for Dark Elves and the bone armor had upgraded the boss'' defense by a lot so it only lost 1500 HP, setting its HP to 3100.


    The Boss recovered from its stun and punched toward Adam, but thetter was able to dodge it. Although the bone armor had upgraded the boss'' defense by a lot, as well as its strength, it had also lessened its Agility and made it slower.


    Thanks to this, Adam was capable of holding its aggro while the other two got out of their stun and were healed. Adam only used his [Charge] and [Mighty Strike] to keep the aggro, but never used his [Lunar Smite] because he didn''t want to make damage here, but to defend. [Lunar Smite] was only useful to damage, while the first two could help him negate the boss'' skills.


    Of course, Adam couldn''t have a perfect defense, and so his HP was going down really quickly. By the time the boss reached 25% of its health, Adam only had slightly more than 100 HP remaining even with Holy Lotus support, and the two tanks were back to full health so they switched, and Holy Lotus began healing him, still looking at the two tanks in case they needed heals too.


    As the tanks switched the bone armor, which had received multiple cracks from the fighting, finally got destroyed and fell off its body. However, the yers didn''t see what they expected to see underneath.


    Instead of the five meters tall giant they had fought at first, the abomination had now be much slimmer and shorter. It was still three meters tall and bigger than any yers, butpared to earlier it looked more humanoid.


    It looked at the two tanks and suddenly rushed at them, way faster than before. This didn''t surprise them though as they had guessed what happened when they saw the boss. At first, the boss would be normal, then it would get its Strength and defense strengthened, but its Agility would be lesser.


    Now, its Strength and defense were probably low, but its Agility was high. Moreover, as it reached the two tanks a pair of bone spears appeared on its fists.


    However, both Steel Lungs and Arin were prepared as they used the same tactic they tried with the bone armor state. Steel Lungs had her shield high up and Arin was in his special stance, his hands glowing yellow.


    Adam hadn''t recognized it at first, but he felt familiar with it. Only now, seeing it once more did he remember where he knew this from. It came from Old Adam, and this was a stance in Tai Chi.

 Chapter 18: Fighting the boss (3)

    Chapter 18: Fighting the boss (3)


    The boss and the two tanks collided with each other, and this time the result was different. The boss was stopped and both tanks stayed where they were, taking barely any damage.


    However, before they could even move another punch came, followed by another one, and another one. Like that 5 consecutive punches wereunched at both the tanks, each punch pushing them back a little. Moreover, each punch was stronger than thest.


    The boss was only stopped when Burning Lotusunched a [Zap] spell at it. This allowed the two to take back the lead and push the boss back. The other yers went for the attack too, but the boss took them by surprise.


    Until now it hadn''t used many skills, it looked like it had five of them. But here, it used another one. It suddenly became much faster and took back the lead. It became so fast that it could attack the two tanks and push the other yers back at the same time. It would even dodge the arrows and spellsing from the long ranged fighters.


    Ten secondster, its speed dropped, but Steel Lungs had died, and Arin was low on health. Adam took Steel Lungs'' ce, and along with Arin they didn''t even defend but instead made as much damage as they could. In this form the boss was doing less damages, so with the constant heals of Holy Lotus they were able to keep this long enough.


    However, the situation changed once again when the boss jumped on Arin. Because of the proximity Arin couldn''t react in time and the boss tackled him to the ground and its teeth bit the Monk''s neck.


    Blood sshed out but none of the yers were phased, they continued damaging the boss. The boss didn''t care though and continued sucking Arin''s blood, which gave it some of its HP back.


    Even though their DPS was higher than the rate at which it regenerated, allowing them to damage its HP bar some more, they lost theirst real tank.


    Once Arin died, they couldn''t use Provoke skills anymore, and the aggro in this game was more realistic so the boss didn''t attack Adam who had the highest defense. Instead, it went for the other yers, the mages.


    Once they saw the bossing, they knew they wouldn''t be saved, not the Elementalists at least. Every close ranged yers went near Holy Lotus as she absolutely couldn''t die now, and the two Elementalists spammed everything they could at the boss.


    However, Adam could see that with the boss'' speed, it would absolutely destroy them before they could empty their MP, so for the first time he activated his Vest''s skill, Everwinter.


    A st of ice wasunched from Adam''s body and covered everything except his allies in ice in a five meters radius. The skill could onlyst 10 seconds, but during those five seconds the boss''s speed was reduced by a lot, and so were its attributes. Unfortunately, because it was a Chieftain boss that was 3 levels higher than Adam, it''s speed wasn''t reduced by 70% but rather around 40-50%. However, it was enough for the girls.


    Nima, as a Foxkin, was faster to empty out her MP, but Burning Lotus was able to use not only her MP but her HP too tounch her spells. Thus as Nima used all her MP she jumped in front of the boss and tried to contain it long enough for Burning Lotus to use all her spells.


    Unfortunately, even with Everwinter and Nima acting as a human shield, the boss was still able to finish Burning Lotus before she could burn all her HP. This was a problem because every time the boss hit someone with its red shining fingers it would heal HP. It was obvious to everyone now that it had used a lifesteal skill, a rare and coveted skill by yers.


    When the two girls were killed, the boss only had 10% of its health remaining. As for the yers, there only remained 6 of them, with one being a healer, another a ranger, an assassin, a berserker and two swordsmen. As for the NPC, Arno, although he wasn''t dead, he had fainted some time ago and only had a few HP left.


    However, Holy Lotus didn''t have any MP remaining, meaning she would have to use her HP from now on as she was a Light Elf.


    The boss looked at the yers carefully but didn''t move, it was regaining its HP. The yers couldn''t let that happen though, so Adam had to take the lead and attack. Unfortunately, he was too slowpared to the boss, who was able to easily bypass him and attack those behind.


    The two swordsmen attacked in unison the beast, only activating their most basic spells as the others were on cooldown. The two were only able to deal a few shes before dying too, cing the boss'' HP to 8%.


    Again, it tried to go for the only healer, and King yer stood in its path. However, the monster once again surprised everyone as it shed with King yer. It actually let itself be attacked and used the strength behind the blow to jump toward 69420.


    As a Level 5 Ranger, he wasn''t even able to defend himself against the Level 10 Chieftain in closebat. The boss didn''t leave him any chance as apart from its life steal skill, it used another skill that allowed it to one shot the ranger.


    It allowed the boss to regen back to 10%, but King yer appeared before it and shed it multiple times. The boss reactivated the skill from earlier which made it much faster though, and the two got in a standoff.


    However, King yer wasn''t able to hold on long enough for the skill to end and died too, leaving the boss with 5% of its health.


    The boss looked at Holy Lotus with a murderous gaze. It knew it had won, with its speed it would be able to kill the healer, and then thest one wouldn''t be able to defeat it, as although it was low on health, so was the berserker.


    As it was about to rush at the girl though, it felt two arms grab it at its waist. It looked behind it in shock, only to see the berserker grinning madly as he yelled "SUPLEX!"


    The boss felt its feet leave the ground, and the next instant its back was mmed in the ground, making it shake. It couldn''t understand what just happened, he had suffered from an otherworldly technique after all.


    While King yer had been keeping the boss busy, Adam had sneaked up behind it and made the move. It didn''t do much damage as that wasn''t really considered a real attack, but that immobilized the boss.


    With an unnatural agility Adam moved to sit on the boss'' chest, blocking it on the ground, and he began punching its face. As he did so, the boss understood it wouldn''t be able to best the berserker in strength with this form, and thus began punching him madly.


    All the dead yers looked at the scene in silence, their general sitting on top of the fiercest boss and exchanging punches with it.


    One would expect the boss to be on the winning end, because even though it made less damage it had the life steal effect on, making it that it gained some hp with every strike, and it punched more than two times faster than Adam.


    However, Adam had the support of Holy Lotus, who was emptying her health bar to heal him. Only a few secondster, she dropped to the ground too, dead. There was only Adam and the boss left, punching each other madly.


    Adam continued punching, punching and punching, his mind was filled with one word, punch. At some point though he was stunned to hear a notification ring in his ears.


    [You have defeated the Evil Abomination! XP +1750!] (Author''s note: This amount of XP may seem very little, but there are reasons. Upon death this boss gives 10 000 XP, but because there were several parties that contributed to its death 70% of the XP goes to the party which killed it, and the other two share the 30% remaining XP based on their contribution. That means King''s Heart gets 7000 XP. Now the way XP is shared between the members of this party is totally equal, meaning they shared 7000 in four parts, and 1750*4=7000)


    [Charge has leveled up!]


    He looked down and saw that the boss had stopped moving. Actually it couldn''t, because its head had been turned into a mess.


    Adam remained in the same position for a few seconds, too tired to move. This day had just been too tiring, be it physically or mentally. However, now wasn''t yet the time to rest. However, as he was catching his breath, he felt something tremble below him. Looking down, it came from the corpse.


    Adam reached his hand where the vibration came from and easily plunged his hand in the boss'' chest, grabbing the object that was vibrating. He yanked it out of the corpse and saw it was actually a ck heart, which had now stopped vibrating.


    [Godyer''s Heart] (Common, Quest Item)


    Description: A strange artifact found in a low leveled ghoul.


    Adam was curious about what that was, but since no quest was activated he put it away in his inventory.


    Adam then heard a loud bell like sounde from the vige, and as he turned to look at it he received another notification.


    [Vige Quest Completed! All the monsters have been defeated and Rosewatch has been saved!]


    [Respawn back on!]


    [Rewards: As themander of the forces, go see the vige''s chief to get yours and everyone''s rewards.]


    Adam got back up and walked up to Arno. He had to walk over the corpses of both monsters and yers as in this game the corpses would disappear only after a period of time.


    Throwing Arno on his shoulder like a sandbag, Adam made his way back toward the vige. As he reached the walls of the city, he could hear the yers which had already respawn talking, however there were way too many voices to understand what was being said.


    In front of the three meters tall wall, Adam was able to jump high enough to grab the top of it and then raise his body. Upon entering the view of the revived yers, everyone stopped speaking, and looked at Adam.


    Looking at the sea of yers, Adam noticed a simrity between the different yers: the respect in their eyes as they looked at him.

 Chapter 19: Monster Slayer

    Chapter 19: Monster yer


    As Adam scanned through the crowd of yers, he spotted the ones who fought along with him. He grinned and bellowed "My friends! I promised you victory, did you think I would go back on that promise! We, the yers of Rosewatch, have won, together!"


    As soon as he said that everyone in the crowd cheered in delight. Adam looked at the crowd of excited gamers with his grin, they had really gone past that cmity. He may have kept a brave front in everyone''s eyes, in the inside he was the most scared. He couldn''t lose, his time was limited.


    The cheering gradually quietened and Adam said "Now, if you would allow me, I need to join the chief and im our rewards."


    He walked down from the wall and began making his way through the crowd. His fellow yers made way for him, and soon Adam was able to see the chief''s house. The chief was waiting in front of it, with a smile on his face.


    When Adam approached the chief''s house, he saw Harold, Arno''s father, on the side. He first walked to him and handing Arno to him he said "Your son fought well, unfortunately he was the only one who survived amongst the inhabitants of your vige."


    Harold bowed to Adam and said with tears in his eyes "Thank you! Thank you!" Adam smiled and patted the man on the shoulder, and then walked up to the chief.


    The chief nodded to him so Adam ced himself next to the chief and stood there, looking at the crowd. The main za was filled with both yers and NPCs. The yers looked the most happy, but some of the NPC had sad faces.


    That was to be expected, after all those guards weren''t just mindless drones with no history or memories, each of them was also a member of this vige, and their families were here.


    The chief started speaking "Chosen Ones and inhabitants of Rosewatch, together we were able to join hands and save this vige. Losses were made on both sides, but in the end we prevailed and were able to live through this. Nheless, I would like to express my deepest thanks to the Chosen Ones who helped us, you could have fled, but you didn''t. That''s why we will do our best to reward you."


    At that moment, every yer on the square received a notification, including Adam.


    [Vige Quest Completed!]


    [Rewards: +1 Level, +1 Gold, +1 D Rank Skill, +500 Fame in Rosewatch, +200 Fame in Azure Sky Kingdom.]


    That was only the beginning though. The Chief turned to Adam and said "As themander, I will let you distribute the rest of the rewards to your men, ording to their contribution."


    Adam nodded and once again he received a notification. Although he was told he would be the one to distribute, that wasn''t really true. What he received, along with everyone else, was the chart of everyone''s ranking in term of contribution.


    There were two lists, a Party one and an Individual one. Different ranks would mean different rewards, and so the ones who put their all in the war were rewarded the most.


    For the Party Chart, everyone knew who the three parties would be, just not the order. In the third position, was the [Night Wolves] party. It was impressive because the party only had three yers, and all of them made it to the end boss.


    For the third ce, the rewards were per individual: +1 Level, 1 Gold


    In the second ce, came the [Dragon Temple]. Unlike the [Night Wolves] party, they had more members, but they were rather average so they didn''t make it to the end boss. Still, their contribution allowed their party to ss one ce higher.


    For the second ce, the rewards were per individual: +1 Level, +3 Golds.


    Lastly, much to everyone''s surprise, the ones in the first ce were [King''s Heart]. They were surprised because despite being only four individual yers, they had managed to rank higher than parties formed by the elite members of First Tier Guilds.


    For the first ce, the rewards were per individual: +2 Levels, 5 Golds.


    This was a particrly big reward at this stage of the game. On the current market, 1 Silver Coins equals one Dor, meaning 1 Gold is 100$ and 5 Gold is 500$. And that was only for one event!


    Next, was the Individual list. At once everyone looked at the top, and without surprise, the name there was Valiant Heart.


    Adam almost couldn''t refrain himself fromughing when he saw his reward: 1 Rare ss Weapon, 1 C Rank Skill, [Monster yer] title.


    Adam already knew the power those two rewards could grant him. After all, he was this powerful thanks to his ss Armor, and his C Rank Skill was no doubt a powerful one. As for the title, its effects were disyed and could make many people jealous.


    [Monster yer: While fighting against a monster, said monster has its stats weakened by 10% and yours are boosted by 10%.]


    Tailing him in the second ce was King yer, his teammate. Although he didn''t show himself a lot on the battlefield, he would be attacking monsters every second. His reward were: 1 Rare ss Weapon, 1 D Rank Skill.


    Then in the third ce was surprisingly Arin, the MT from Night Wolves. He got 1 Rare Armor and 1 D Rank Skill.


    A Rare Armor and a Rare ss Armor were pretty simr, but the Rare Armor would have a fixed level while the ss Armor could grow with the user. In term of attributes though, there wasn''t really much of a difference. There was one big difference when the equipment reached level max, but Adam would discover this in the future.


    Anyway, now that every reward was distributed, the chief looked at Adam up and down and said "I see you have grown strong, strong enough to head out of this vige. If you want head to the capital of our kingdom, Ember City,e see me. I need someone to go deliver something for me there."


    Adam nodded and said "I cane right now, I don''t have anything else to do here." The chief smiled and entered the house. Adam followed him in, he didn''t expect to end up bing the first yer to leave the vige, nor that there would be a questing with it. All he knew was that to leave the vige one needed to be level 10.


    Anyway, Adam followed the chief in the house, and the two went to his office. The chief sat and began to write a letter as he said "As happy as I am to have survived through this, all of our guards have been killed, and they can''t be revived. You Chosen Ones will soon all leave, and although new ones wille, they might not be as noble as you and have evil intentions, not to talk about the asional monsters who will attack the vige. Normally I would only have to ask the mayor of the nearest city, but in our case the closest city is the capital, so this will have to be bought to the King himself. This is no easy task though, because not just anyone can go speak to the king, and our time is short. If you ept this request of mine, you must deliver this letter as soon as possible, the fate of the vige depends on it. Can you do it?"


    [Ding! New Quest Detected! ''Reinforcement''!]


    Quest Detail: Following the attack on Rosewatch the guards of the town have been decimated and they need reinforcements.


    Quest Level: 10


    Quest Difficulty: C


    Objective: Find a way to deliver this letter to the King of Azure Sky.


    Deadline: 24 Hours


    Reward: 5000 XP, 1 Umon Equipment.


    Failure penalty: -5000 XP


    Adam immediately agreed to the quest, it could be hard for others, but for him it was the easiest quest. After all, he already had ess to the Royal Pce thanks to the Princess he saved.


    The Chief, Frank, looked relieved when he saw Adam ept. Before Adam could go, he said "Valiant Heart, you have truly saved our vige, we will forever be in your debt." Adam smiled and turned to him to say "I only did the right thing."


    Frank was shocked, and only when Adam left the house did he regained his bearings and smile happily.

 Chapter 20: Plans for the future

    Chapter 20: ns for the future


    Once outside, Adam didn''t search for his teammates nor did he go for his quest, but instead he looked at his rewards.


    In his inventory, two skill books and a weapon had appeared. Of course, there was also the 6 Golds.


    First, his skill books were [Parry] and [Crushing Blow].


    Parry (D): Block one of your enemy''s physical attacks. Cooldown: 19 seconds.


    Crushing Blow (C): Deal 110% of your normal damage and lowers target''s defense by 5% for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.


    Neither of the skills asked for MP, and that was good. However, it was a bit surprising for him to receive a skill like Parry as a Berserker, but he epted it nheless. After learning both skills he turned to the sword.


    [Champion''s Sword] (Rare, ss Weapon, Level 5-20)


    Requirements: Level 5, Berserker


    Attack: +150


    Strength: +60


    Agility: +30


    Brutal (Passive): In a contest of Strength, you be 10% stronger.


    For Adam this was the perfect weapon. It allowed him to enhance both his attack and strength by a great deal, as well as his Agility. He didn''t need more Endurance because his armor was already giving him enough of it, but it was his Agility that wascking. Thankfully with this weapon the issue was solved, and he would now probably be as fast as a Swordsman while dealing the damage of a Berserker.


    As for the passive, it wouldn''t add damage to his attacks, but for example if he crosses the sword with someone who is 10% stronger than him, he will be able to stay in ce and not step back. In the same fashion, someone as strong as him would get pushed back. So for someone like Adam who liked to thrash his opponents around, this was really good.


    He immediately switched his weapons and saw a rise in his attributes. With his current equipment and stats, he was pretty sure he could solo a Chieftain of the same level, and that was really crazy. Normally at this stage even veteran yers would struggle to survive against an Elite of the same level, and only the best yers could hunt them on their own. But a Chieftain? The amount of people capable of soloing one was very, very small.


    Anyway, Adam looked up from his status and saw that King yer hadn''t moved, but the two girls were nowhere to be seen, and looking at his system they had left the party. Burning Lotus had left a message though, saying she would repay him for his skill, as well as two friend requests from the sisters, which he epted.


    As he arrived King yer smiled and said "I see you are level 10. Are these goodbyes?"


    Adam nodded and said "I''ll be on my way to the capital of the kingdom, I have a quest. I think we should add each other as friends."


    King yer smiled and nodded. However, there seemed to be something behind their smile, but Adam didn''t say anything and as he was about to go see the members of the [Night Wolves] and [Dragon Temple], King yer stopped him.


    "Do you really intend on just stopping here? Will you really let go of this opportunity?" Adam asked, lost "What opportunity?"


    King yer rolled his eyes and said "Look at the forums, everywhere in the world people watched us fight that tide of monsters, watched you lead and win. Some yers broadcast the event, and we are now known worldwide. YOU, are known worldwide."


    Adam asked "Am I?"


    King yer nodded and said "People are crazy about you. And that''s an incredible opportunity for you, for us!"


    Adam asked "What do you mean?"


    King yer''s eyes shone as he said "We should create our own guild!" Adam was stunned by his partner''s words. Before he could say anything King yer continued "We already have a name, and the fame will bring many yers to us. We won''t have to go through the struggles of beginner guilds and could directly be a Third Tier Guild!"


    Adam frowned and replied "Not interested." King yer was stunned by his words and asked "Why? It''s the dream of many people to create a guild."


    Adam shook his head and said "I would rather join a First Tier or even a Super Guild."


    King yer replied "As the saying goes, better be the head of the chicken than the tail of the phoenix. Moreover, I''m sure that we could make our guild into a Super Guild with enough time."


    Adam sighed "That''s the problem, I don''t have time." King yer tilted his head and asked "What do you mean you don''t have time? You are barely older than me."


    Adam replied "Family problems, I need money, lots of it, and quick. For that, the best way is to join a First Tier or Super Guild."


    King yer suddenly asked "How much do you need? And what''s your time limit?"


    Adam shrugged and said "I don''t know, at least a hundred thousand. And I think I only have a few months left."


    King yer said "And you think you will get this much as a member of a First Tier guild? Even an elite member of a Super Guild would find it difficult to gather such an amount, there are just too many of them in such a little amount of time. Do you expect to be a Core member of a Super Guild in a month?"


    Adam''s face turned ashen hearing him. However, King yer said "If you be a guild leader though, then it''s a different situation. If the two of us start a guild right now, I can promise you that we can gather a hundred thousand dors in a month."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and asked "What are you, some second generation brat?"


    King yer shrugged and said "I''m a normal person, the money wouldn''te from me. However, as you know right now a Gold Coin in game is valued at 100$, and I can assure you that I can get us 10 000 Golds in less than a month."


    Adam asked "If we create it together then we would have to split 50/50, and that''s assuming we don''t give any share to anyone. Can you get 20 000 Golds in a month?"


    King yer smiled and said "I''m pretty sure I can actually, but even then I can help you pay for it with my share. You can repay meter if you really want to, although I assure you that in the future even a million would be pocket money for us."


    Adam smiled too and said "It sounds really cool, and you''re enticing me, but I really don''t see how we could gather so many coins."


    King yer asked "The game has beenunched about two hours ago. Now tell me, how many Gold Coins do you have?"


    Adam replied "7 Golds, 56 Silvers, 56 Coppers." King yer smiled and said "I have 6 Gold and about 50 Silvers. That means that in two hours, we gathered 14 Gold Coins, and although there was the Vige Quest let''s say that in a day we can gather 5 Gold coins by the two of us. Now if we have a guild with 1000 members, and that all of them are capable of gathering 5 silvers in a day, then it would take us only 18 days to gather 10 000 Gold."


    Adam said "We can''t just take all their money." King yer rolled his eyes and said "I''m making an example, when you are a Guild Leader, even the Guild Leader of a 3rd Tier Guild, making a hundred thousand bucks isn''t that difficult. Moreover, I know some ways to get a lot of money early game."


    Adam asked "And why would you think I would trust my future on your promise?"


    King yer replied "Easy, you already saw what will make us rich. Do you remember the forging design I got in our quest?"


    Adam nodded, so King yer said "It is a design to create a Level 10 Umon Chest te. How much do you think that would be worth?"


    Adam said "You tell me." King yer replied "20 Silver Coins, it''s a level 10 equipment and for 99% of yers, Umon rarity is incredible to get below level 20. Even those elite from First Tier Guilds would pay for this."


    Adam shook his head "Even if it sells for a high price, the materials to create it will cost us money, and even the best cksmiths in the game right now would have a sess rate of 20%."


    King yer raised a finger and said "Yes, if it weren''t the two of us." Adam asked "What do you mean?"


    King yer replied "I have a certain item that allow me to boost my sess rate on such an equipment by 30%, meaning I would have 50% chances to seed in forging it. So the ingredients of one armor is 1 silver coin, it means that with 10 Silver coins we can get 5 armors, or 1 Gold."


    Adam raised an eyebrow, he was starting to get interested. He asked "Is that all you got?" King yer smirked and said "Of course no. But let''s say that I can make 50 pieces of armor every day and still y as usual, then that''s already 10 Golds a day, or 3000 Golds in a month."


    Adam said "The armors will only be worth this much for a few days, then everyone will have gone past level 10."


    King yer smiled and said "You got me. But seriously I can focus on making armors for the rest of the day, and tomorrow as well. Forging gives XP so it won''t even slow me down. If I spend all day making armors then I can make at least a thousand of them. That''s 200 Golds in two days. It''s a great start already, isn''t it?"


    Adam nodded, and King yer continued "Then there is also you, I''m sure that with the speed at which we level up, you will be at least level 50 in a month. You already got so much gold at in the first two hours, don''t you think you will be able to get much more in a month? There will also be new opportunities like this one, skills to sell"


    Adam stopped him "Alright."


    King yer grinned and asked "Alright? Do you mean, you agree?"


    Adam rolled his eyes and said "I agree." King yerughed and said "Haha, what great news! Now all you have to do is to find how we can create a guild in this game, and make yourself the Guild Leader!"


    Adam nodded and looked at the sky. He asked himself, was he making the right choice? But thinking about it, he didn''t really have much of choice. This was the real world, not some fairy story. People wouldn''t give him 100 000 dors like that, he needed to earn it himself.

 Chapter 21: Geppo Pass

    Chapter 21: Geppo Pass


    Once King yer''s golden tongue sessfully brought Adam in, the two added each other as friends and separated. Then, Adam went to talk to the members of [Night Wolves] and [Dragon Temple]. As expected, the two extended invitations to him, but he refused them politely, although he did add Arin and 69420 as friends.


    It was a little hard for him to refuse their invitation, but King yer was right, what was he expecting. Even the richest guild wouldn''t give him 100 000 dors in the first month of the game.


    After talking to them, Adam readied himself to depart for Ember city, the capital of the Azure Sky Kingdom, when he saw the surrounding yers disconnect in groups. In less than a minute more than a third of the yers had left.


    Adam was curious about why they did that until his felt it too. Opening the options, he saw that it was already noon. Adam hesitated a little, should he go eat or first go to Ember city?


    A momentter he disconnected himself. He had 24 hours, or 12 hours in the real world to finish his quest, meaning the game expected yers to enter the pce in 24 hours without having a pass like Adam''s, so he figured he would be fine. Although he had the nutriments in his cabin, it was still better to fight with a filled stomach rather than an empty one.


    As Adam disconnected from the game, he consciousness came back to his real body. The cabin was already opening itself as Adam opened his eyes. Adam took off the various captors he had to put on his head before sitting up.


    Adam thought about thest 2 hours, or rather thest hour in the real world, he never thought he would go through so many things in barely a couple of hours. He now understood why so many people were obsessed with video games, it was even better than a second life for many.


    Adam felt like he had gone though more excitement in those two hours than in his entire life. The feeling of battling monsters was just divine.


    The young man got out of the cabin with a smile on his lips, and stretched a little before heading out of his room. It was currently the middle of the week, so his parents were both working, so no one was home as his brother was at the hospital.


    Once in the kitchen, Adam began cooking himself some spaghetti meatballs while browsing the inte on his phone. Unfortunately, with the time dtion in game, streaming had be impossible, and even if it were not many would do it to protect their secrets.


    However, that did not stop people from making videos. And currently, the trending ones were all about Rosewatch, and Valiant Heart.


    That made Adam smile, the more attention was drawn to him, the better. Even if his goal wasn''t the same anymore, fame was still a useful tool to him.


    Once he finished eating, Adam went for some exercise before diving back into the game. He appeared in the same spot he left, except that now there were way less people in the vige. Looking around, Adam noticed that the average level hadn''t changed, after all he was only gone for an hour in game.


    Adam didn''t waste any time, he opened his map, and saw that his map wasn''t limited to the vige anymore. His map had erged to show the entire kingdom, and it was huge!


    Inparison to the map of Rosewatch and its surroundings, the kingdom was hundreds of times bigger, if not more!


    Moreover, that wasn''t even the biggest map, there was even the world map! However, as Adam tried to look at it, all he saw was a clouded map with a tiny rocky area, which was the Azure Sky Kingdom.


    If he wanted to remove the clouds from his map then he would either need to discover personally those areas, or get a map from the game. The thing was, as the map featured an entire world, maps were very expensive.


    Adam went back to the kingdom''s map, and searched for the capital. Thankfully, it wasn''t far from Rosewatch. Actually, it was the closest city, like Frank said.


    Between Rosewatch and Ember, there was only one map, a level 10-15 map. It looked like most yers wouldn''t get to leave the vige as soon as they get level 10. After all, for most people fighting monsters above their levels was too hard.


    Anyway, Adam closed his map and set off. Adam had to walked for 20 minutes before he reached the new area.


    [Geppo Pass]


    As he entered this new area, all Adam could see was a mountain. It was that tall, but it was veryrge and extended on a great area.


    The tricky thing was, it was impossible to get on the mountain, there was only one path, and that was the dark tunnel going through the mountain. It looked quite long as every ten or so meters was a torch, and he couldn''t see the end.


    Despite the torches, the tunnel was very dark, and looked quite scary. Even if there weren''t any monsters in the mountain, there would probably be some yers who wouldn''t dare enter here and would rather go around the mountain and take more time.


    But Adam wasn''t one such yer, and so he entered the dark tunnel leisurely. Even though the atmosphere was ominous, Adam couldn''t see any danger.


    The path in the tunnel wasn''t just a straight line through the mountain though, Adam had to take many turns before meeting the first living being. It wasn''t a monster though, but astonishingly a soldier sitting below a torch.


    [Geppo Pass Guardian] (Level 15, Iron)


    HP: 1200/1200


    The soldier looked at Adam with a bored face and said "What are you doing here? Don''t you know it''s dangerous in here?"


    Adam looked at the NPC surprised and said "I want to reach the capital, Ie from Rosewatch Is it really dangerous? I haven''t met a single monster yet."


    The NPC raised an eyebrow and asked "Not a single one?" Adam shook his head and the NPC suddenly got up and approached Adam, looking at him up and down before saying "Follow me."


    Without even waiting for his answer the guardian turned around and began walking away. Adam decided to follow him but still asked "What are you doing here, sitting under a torch? And are you the only one protecting this pass?"


    The soldier shrugged and said "It wasn''t really by choice, I was chased by the monsters here." Adam asked "What kind of monsters?"


    The soldier turned around, and for the first time he had a scary gaze as he replied "The kind of monsters that wipe out an entire unit."


    Adam was stunned by the sudden change of the NPC, but thetter didn''t care and continued walking. Adam asked "Then why are we going there? Do you want to die?"


    The NPC replied "You said you didn''t see a single monster, so now is the best moment to try to get through this tunnel. If we are lucky we won''t encounter any monster, or maybe we will stumble upon the ones who killed my unit who knows these days."


    Adam felt this NPC was very weird, and for several reasons. "You seem quite indifferent to the death of your unit."


    The NPC said "Well, there is a reason for that, but I don''t think you want to know why. A great adventurer like you don''t care about those stories"


    Adam smiled and said "Of course I am interested, tell me. Or should I ask one of your friends around?"


    As he said that, the NPC in front of him made a weird sound, a strange cackle that didn''t sound human at all. However, he was cut short when Adam mmed his sword on his legs, making it trip.


    -356 HP! Cripple!


    As its legs was broken, Adam had the time to strike to more times, both times aiming for the neck.


    Critical Hit! -712 HP!


    Critical Hit! -712 HP!


    The NPC''s health bar was emptied out and as it did he shrieked loudly, its body trembling and his bones and muscles shifting around.


    At the same time, the presences Adam had felt surrounding them all jumped toward him at the same time, revealing seven big lizards. With a quick look, Adam saw that the NPC he had killed had transformed into one of those lizards, except that its head wasn''t on its body anymore. Along with the physical transformation, its status changed too.


    [Geppo Lizard] (Common, Level 15)


    HP: 0/1080

 Chapter 22: Geppo Pass (2)

    Chapter 22: Geppo Pass (2)


    The lizards jumping on Adam all had levels varying between 10 and 15, but most of them were nearing 15 rather than 10. Even Veteran yers wouldn''t be able to deal with them on their own, it looked like this Geppo Pass would take many lives.


    But even if they had all been level 15 and been ten jumping at him, it wouldn''t have been a problem for Adam.


    As the monsters entered his attack ranged he activated both [Mighty Strike] and [Wind de], before shing out.


    He made a circr sh, hitting all the lizards at once and sending them flying against the walls, hard. The first lizard he hit was killed on the spot, and although the others survived, they all had a deep sh on their bodies from which green blood flowed down. Moreover, they had taken a lot of damages from crashing into the walls.


    After all,paring Adam''s strength to Common Level 15 monsters which specialized in stealth was just pure bullying. Adding in the knock back effect from Mighty Strike, the 10% bonus to his stats and 10% decrease to their stats from his title and the additional 10% from his weapon''s skill, all the lizards got many bones broken from the collision.


    And they had barely fell to the ground that Adam used his Wind de to cut all of them some more. Only one of them was capable of getting back on its feet, and tried to flee. This was another unique feature from Epoch, monsters weren''t just dumb beasts that would attack anything within sight until death.


    If a yer was much higher leveled than a monster, then said monster would flee the yer. In the same fashion, when the lizard saw all itspanions getting crushed by Adam, it wanted to flee.


    However, Adam felt that if it entered the darkness killing it would be a real pain, so he threw his sword at it, something a Berserker absolutely shouldn''t do in normal times. However, there wasn''t any threat surrounding Adam, and even if he were surrounded by enemies he could use his fists.


    His sword hit the lizard and impaled it into the ground. However, it still wasn''t dead, this lizard was more resilient than the others.


    Adam approached it and saw that its HP had reached below 10, it had been lucky. Adam took his sword out of the lizard, killing it, and wiped the blood off of it before sheathing it and looting the corpses. He only found some materials and Common equipments which he threw into his inventory.


    From the very start Adam had felt something was very wrong with this guard, after all what kind of guard would just sit on the ground like this? Moreover, the way it talked, it sounded way too weird, as if the soldier didn''t know how to talk to people.


    So when Adam felt the presences of several beings appear around them, he didn''t hesitate and killed the NPC. Still, Adam was impressed by the lizards, he had only been able to detect them when they had already surrounded him and released their killing intent.


    On his way through Geppo Pass, Adam encountered multiple more lizards, which he killed, but the more he killed and the more the lizards hesitated to attack him. It was as if the lizards could feel the amount of lizards Adam had killed, which was actually not very far from the truth.


    After walking for an entire hour in the dark, Adam had killed quite a lot of lizards, and by now they were all avoiding him like the pest. Unfortunately, the amount of XP needed to get to level 11 was quite a lot, so Adam still hadn''t leveled up, although he wasn''t far from leveling up.


    It wouldn''t be for now though as Adam could finally see the end of the tunnel. It hadn''t been much of a challenge for Adam, but he knew for sure most yers would struggle in this tunnel. Only a party of Level 15 yers could pass through this without much of a problem.


    As Adam neared the end of the tunnel though, he suddenly felt the air shift a little behind him. This was a skill that could only be learned after countless battles, but it was essential for a martial artist. It allows them to ward off assassins who were able to hide their presence and killing intent to the point of bing invisible.


    Adam had suffered many ambushes on his way through the tunnel, and although every time he would feel their presence and killing intent first, he had still learned how the air reacted when they jumped.


    And here, Adam could feel that whatever was jumping on him was bigger than the earlier lizards, but had a simr shape. It didn''t take a genius to guess this was an Elite Geppo Lizard since this map''s monsters capped to level 15 and Chieftains were too rare to just bump into them.


    Anyway, Adam immediately unsheathed his sword, activated [Mighty Strike] and [Lunar Smite], and shed at the monster attacking him.


    -1410 HP!


    Critical Hit! -1177 HP!


    -588 HP!


    -589 HP!


    Almost 4000 damages were dealt with one attack, and when the Elite monster crashed into the wall, the damage officially went past the 4000 barrier. The Elite had died in a single attack.


    With Adam''s new equipment, skills and title, even an Elite monster that was five levels above him was oneshoted. That was to be expected though, Adam''s equipment and status was an abnormality right now.


    His skills should have never been this high leveled, but thanks to the battle of Rosewatch he used his skills hundreds of times and leveled them up to very high levels. As for his equipment, except from his helmet he was covered in Umon equipment, except for his weapon and his chest te, the two equipments that give the most stats, that were Rare.


    Until level 20, Rare quality was the strongest quality one could get. And a ss Equipment was the best equipment one could get for their ss, so Adam was really an abnormality for a level 10. And that was without even counting his martial art skills.


    Anyway, now that he had killed the mini boss Adam went to loot it. Until now, from all the Geppo Lizards he had killed he had only found materials and Common equipments of varying levels.


    He had sent a screenshot of the materials he had found, and sent it to King yer, asking whether he needed any of them, but he didn''t need any of them.


    Back to the boss, it dropped quite a few things, including an Umon ring.


    [Geppo Ring] (Umon, Level 15)


    Requirement: Level 15


    Agility: +25


    Improve Stealth: The wielder is 20% harder to spot in dark areas.


    There were two kinds of equipments in Epoch. First were ''normal'' equipments, which were the Helmet, Gloves, Boots, Armor and Weapon. Most of the equipments for those five categories were restricted to a certain ss.


    There were special equipments though, being the ne, cape and rings. A yer could put two rings, one amulet and one cape at a time, and those were special because they had no requirements for the ss of their wielder.


    Still, even if there weren''t any requirements some were more suited for certain sses like the ring he just got. The +25 Agility was the standard for a Level 15 Umon item, and the improve Stealth was useless to Adam.


    Despite that, Adam decided to still keep the ring. Even though it would be in better hands if he sold it to King yer, Adam still wouldn''t spit on a +25 to his Agility. Only if he found better equipments would he sell it.


    Thinking of this, Adam was starting to feel the need of changing his equipments, his gloves and his boots to be precise. The two were only level 5, and even though they were Umon, a Common level 15 equipment was better. And he also needed to find himself a helmet.


    Unfortunately, the lizards in this cave tended to drop light pieces of equipment for sses like Assassins or Swordsmen.


    Now that he had everything with him, and that he had killed the boss of the area, Adam could finally leave. He felt several presences when he made his way to the end of the tunnel, but they were exuding fear instead of killing intent.


    When he exited the tunnel, Adam couldn''t help but close his eyes painfully. He had spent an hour in a dimly lit tunnel, so seeing the sun once again hurt his eyes a little.


    And as he was blinded by the rays of the sun, a woman appeared beside him and attacked him.

 Chapter 23: Chased

    Chapter 23: Chased


    Adam wasn''t a noob though, he didn''t have time to unsheathe his sword and judging from the aura the one attacking him released, it was stronger than the Elite boss.


    Adam blocked the strike with his arm guard while using the newly acquired [Parry], the collision between the sword and the metal gauntlet created sparks. Adam didn''t move a centimeter though, and the collision didn''t even immobilize him, so he had barely blocked the strike when he used [Charge] at his attacker, stunning them.


    As he took his sword out, he was finally able to open his eyes, and saw his attacker. She was a beautiful looking girl dressed in green clothes. She was a Dark Elf, and looked quite good despite her broken nose from his [Charge].


    However, when Adam checked her status he decided to end her as soon as possible.


    [ckheart Assassin] (Level 15, Iron)


    HP: 933/1000


    Although Adam didn''t have his 10% bonus from his title since she was an NPC and not a monster, his stats were still overwhelming.


    However, as he activated Mighty Strike and was about to hit the girl, she left her stunned state and barely dodged the attack.


    In Epoch, monsters were troublesome because their HP and MP had bonuses. NPCs weren''t weaker though, because their stats tended to be stronger, and most importantly their martial skills were much better, such as how this girl was capable of dodging an attack not even a Chieftain had dodged.


    Of course that depended on which NPC it was. This woman was especially skilled, but most NPC weren''t that skilled. For example a bandit would have never dodged that.


    Adam wasn''t just a normal person though. Although he missed his first strike, he used the momentum from his sword to give himself speed and charge at the woman. She seemed shocked because in a normal human''s eyes, what he did looked like he defied physics, even using the momentum of his sword shouldn''t boost his speed so much.


    But that was 50 years of training with the sword for you. Old Adam had learned for his entire life how to mix martial arts and swordsmanship into a new style, which Adam was now using.


    Thanks to the boost in speed, Adam reached the woman and this time, he hit her with his sword.


    -777 HP! Cripple! Heavy Bleeding!


    Adam''s sword hit the woman''s legs, and her flimsy build didn''t help her. His sword cleaved both legs, cutting them off. She fell to the ground, crying in agony as blood rapidly flowed out of her body.


    Adam saw her remaining HP dwindle down quickly so he put he stomped his foot on her chest, hard enough to hurt her but not enough to kill her, and asked "Why did you attack me?"


    Although she was only an NPC, in this game NPC''s behavior was as real as any human, so she wouldn''t have targeted him out of nowhere. And he didn''t believe she was a mere bandit, she was too skilled for that.


    However, in response all she did was look at him with cold eyes. Seeing her HP nearing 0, he sneered and attacked one more time, this time decapitating her.


    [You have defeated ''ckheart Assassin''!] (AN: There won''t be the amount of XP anymore.)


    [You are now Level 11! AP +5!]


    Adam had killed an NPC for the first time, and although the feeling was simr to killing a true human, Adam had already killed, or rather old Adam had.


    After all, living a life of martial arts, the best way to learn was by fighting, not practicing in a dojo all day. And some of the time, fights would go off hand and there would be deaths. Or it could simply be a grudge between two individuals or two dojos.


    Her loot was different from monsters, there were no materials that dropped. Actually, only two things dropped. The first thing was an Umon hood for Assassins, and the second was a piece of paper. Adam looted the two, and saw that he could activate the letter.


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Chased''!]


    Quest Detail: You have already offended two powerful cults of Great Devils, they have thus put a price on your head! Everytime you level up, an assassin will be sent on your tracks!


    Quest Level: 20


    Quest Difficulty: SS


    Objective: Don''t get killed until your promotion to Bronze Rank.


    Reward: +5 Levels, +200 World Fame, +800 Fame with all forces enemies with ckheart Alliance, ??


    Failure penalty: -4 Levels, -200 World Fame.


    Oh sh*t.


    Adam paled when he saw the level of the quest, a level 5 S Rank quest made him fight a Level 5 Chieftain, so a Level 20 one would already be nearing the limit. But what he got wasn''t an S Quest, but the more difficult SS one.


    However, although this was a Level 20 Quest, Adam realized this was probably a quest that would get more difficult as he levels up, as he only got a Level 15 Assassin. Then, if he had just leveled up, did this mean another Assassin wasing his way?


    Having a price on his head was never a good thing, because if NPCs were a problem, then yers could potentially be worse were they to hear of his bounty and were able to poach it if they killed him.


    However, if he was capable of surviving until he gets promoted to the next Rank, then he would be rewarded. The +5 Levels reward wasn''t that good for someone under level 10, but then the higher leveled someone was, the better the reward was.


    After all, the amount of XP needed to go from level 5 to 10 wasn''t the same as going from 20 to 25. One would take hours, while the other would take days.


    The World Fame was good too, if he was capable of getting enough of it then he would be considered a World Noble, meaning whatever kingdom he goes in, except if it is an enemy kingdom, a specialnd or simply one where he has a bad reputation, then he would be considered a noble.


    As for the fame with the forces hostile to ckheart Alliance, he didn''t even know what the Alliance was. Still, it didn''t mean it was worthless. And finally, there were even other rewards, but he couldn''t see them so they would probably depend on his performance.


    Adam was about to go when he saw something strange. The head of the female assassin, which he had just beheaded, was glowing. He hadn''t paid attention to it before because it had rolled away, but now that he turned to walk away, he saw the familiar glow from pickable items.


    He took it curiously and indeed it was an item.


    [Assassin''s Head: Hand over to authorities for the bounty.]


    Well, what an irony. It was bad news though, since he could take his assassins head for their bounty, then the yers would probably attack him to take his head.


    Adam shook his head and stored the head away and finally set off. Soon, Adam left the region of Geppo Pass, and entered within Ember City area.


    Next to him was a small camp with a few soldiers blocking the road. A merchant had his carriage stopped and currently had his papers checked.


    Behind him and the guards, Adam could see a massive city in the distance. It was bigger than anything he had ever seen. On Earth, cities weren''t the same as in old times, they weren''t as awe inspiring.


    Ember City was surrounded by walls, and in the middle of it stood a big castle which towered over the whole city.


    As Adam looked at the city in the distance one of the guards approached Adam. He looked at his status, curious to see how strong the guards of the city were, but he was shocked by what he saw.


    [Ember City Border Guard] (Level 70, Silver)


    HP: ?/?


    This was by far the most powerful being Adam had ever met. He had no doubt that if the guard wanted to kill him, he wouldn''t even be able to react.


    Thankfully, this was a guard who was only here to make sure no monster approached the city. He came up to Adam with a smile and asked "Are you heading to the city?"


    Adam nodded and replied "I am an adventurer." The guard, who was rather old, said "You are the first Blessed adventurer we came across, you didn''t take long to reach us. Where do youe from?"


    Adam replied "Rosewatch, sir." The old guard raised an eyebrow and said "The vige across Geppo Mountain? Must have been dangerous to cross the pass."


    Adam shrugged and said "Not so much, the monsters weren''t much of a problem. I was attacked by an assassin though, and I heard I could get a bounty for her head. Who should I give it to?"


    The old guard seemed surprised at the mansion of the assassin and said "Depends. Do you know where the Assassin came from? And what level was she?"


    Adam replied "She was level 15, and she had a letter with her, shees from ckheart Alliance."


    The moment Adam pronounced the name ''ckheart Alliance'', he saw all the guards turn their heads to look at him, with pressuring gazes.

 Chapter 24: Ember City

    Chapter 24: Ember City


    The old guard had the same reaction as the others, but he still said "Are you sure about that?"


    Adam was feeling really bad right now, the pressure brought by a group of Level 70 Silver guards was too powerful. This may be a game, his mind was inside.


    Still, his mind had been strengthened by his soul too, so he was able to keep his calm and answer "I am, I offended two cults worshiping two Great Devils, and they put a bounty on my head."


    The Old Guard frowned and said "You were able to kill this assassin by yourself? You do indeed seem to have good equipment on you. If you want to get the reward for this head, you need to go to the guards'' barracks. Come, I''ll lead you there."


    He then turned to the others in the squad and said "I''ll go with him, keep working." They all nodded but Adam could still see them steal nces at him.


    The two left the outpost, and as they walked Adam couldn''t help but ask "What''s the ckheart Alliance, exactly?"


    The guard replied "They didn''t tell you? They are the Kings of the Underworld, one of the racial powers."


    Adam repeated "Racial Powers?"


    The guard looked at Adam and said "You really don''t know much about the world don''t you?" Adam shook his head so the guard said "Boy, where do I begin There is a certain hierarchy in Epoch, the powers form a kind of pyramid. At the very top of the pyramid, the strongest power in our world, is the Holy Temple, or the Temple of the Gods. Unlike the Racial Powers, they don''t differentiate between the different gods and serve them all. However, they don''t really have any political impact, their sole purpose is to fight against the evil forces."


    The guard continued "Following them, are the Racial Powers. All races have created organizations to protect their kind, some doing it alone and others teaming up. For example, Northmen us have formed the Colnds Empire in the far north of the continent, but the Fae and the Wood Elves have teamed up to create Feynwoods. ckheart Alliance is one of those Racial Powers, it is an organizations that deals with assassins and was formed by Dark Elves and Catkin."


    Adam asked "Which one is stronger between ckheart Alliance and Colnds Empire?" The old guard replied "There are a total of 8 Racial Powers, and they all are as powerful as each other, just that they are different. If you intended to seek protection from Colnds, then I''m sorry to tell you it won''t make a difference."


    Adam shook his head and said "It wasn''t my intention in the first ce. And what about the Azure Sky Kingdom? How does itpare to the Racial Powers? And are the races here mixed are will depend on who you work for?"


    The guard replied "Officially the kingdom is under the Colnds Empire, but all races are epted here. But there are some kingdoms where they don''t ept certain races. As for how wepare to the Racial Powers? We aren''t anythingpared to them. They literally have tens of kingdoms like us under them."


    Adam smiled and asked "Then why be a guard here? Why not go to the Colnds?"


    The guard scoffed though and said "Lad, what do you think I would do there? Even here I am only a border guard, if I went there I would have nothing to do."


    Adam asked "Then at which level do you reckon I should go?"


    The guard replied "Level 20." Adam frowned and asked "Why so low?" The guard smiled and said "How do you think you will be a Bronze Rank?"


    Adam shrugged, he really had no idea. The guard continued "Once you hit level 20 you will be able to rank up, and the only ce to do so is the Racial Powers. Only your races'' power may allow you to take the tests to get a new ss."


    Adam nodded, this was a very useful piece of information. From there, the two continued walking in silence, until they finally reached the gates of the city. They were currently in the middle of the day, and there were a lot of people queing to enter the city. However, the guard led Adam past them all, and they were able to enter the city without having to wait.


    Inside, Adam couldn''t help but feel d he had killed that assassin, there were way too many people wishing to enter the capital.


    And it didn''t get better inside, the streets were filled with NPCs, all with varying levels and ranks. What Adam found impressive though was the guards. Unlike the old guard escorting him, the ones in the city were [Ember City Patrol], and were Level 100 Silver Guards. They were even more crazily powerful than the border guards.


    Soon, Adam stood in front of a huge building only bested by the Royal Pce. Unlike thetter though, this building wasn''t fancily decorated, it wasn''t decorated in gold and silver, but made of wood and steel, this was a true fortress. Those were the barracks.


    The old guard stopped in front of the building too and said "You go inside and give them the head. I''ll go back to my post for now."


    Adam nodded "Thank you for your help." The old guard smiled and nodded before leaving.


    Standing in front of the building, Adam titled his head to look past the barracks. There, was the Royal Pce. It was quite normal after all for the guards'' barracks to be near the pce. This made things easy for him, finding the pce would be a pain were he to search through the city. Well, finding it wouldn''t be very difficult with how big it was, but getting there would with how big the city was.


    But that was forter, and Adam set foot in the building.


    The two guards standing in front of the entrance nced at him for a second before looking away, he didn''t look like a danger and he was even brought here by a border guard.


    Once inside, Adam couldn''t help but be amazed by what he saw. The interior was much bigger than it seemed, and in the distance Adam could see several important areas.


    First was what he sought, an office to greet anyone who wasn''t from the guards. There was a beautiful secretary there who was probably here to handle anyone who had an appointment or give out quests.


    Past her office, Adam could see recruits being trained. A Level 120 Silver instructor was teaching young men and women, who had levels varying between 10 and 60.


    Other than them, a few people could be seen walking by, each and everyone of them being important and powerful people.


    "Mister, can I help you?"


    Adam heard a sweet voice call out to him,ing from the secretary. He smiled to her and said as he approached her "Sorry, I was a little lost."


    The secretary smiled and said "It''s alright, you are the first blessed individual we see. What are you here for, do you wish to join the guards?"


    Adam was surprised, he didn''t know that was an option. However, he shook his head and said "I am not here for that. I have been attacked by an assassin, which I killed. I am here for the reward."


    As he said that he took the head out of his inventory and showed it to the woman. She looked at the head curiously and asked "Do you know where shees from? It would help to find how much her head is."


    Adam replied "She''s from ckheart." She raised an eyebrow and looked at Adam surprised. He smiled and said "Two cults have ced a bounty on my head in the ckheart Alliance, so expect to get a few more heads."


    The secretary let out a little smile and said "Quite confidant aren''t you?" Adam leaned in closer and said "It''s because I have what it takes."


    The secretary leaned closer too and said teasingly "Do you?" Adamughed and put the head down as he said "It won''t take long before you hear about the heroic deeds of Valiant Heart, guild leader of King''s Heart and greatest blessed guy!"


    She chuckled and said "You are the first one to get here at least, maybe you aren''tpletely wrong. However, I wonder how you became a Guild Leader, I don''t remembering registering you in?"


    Adam froze for a moment before looking away and saying "What do you know, I just haven''t officially created the guild. Speaking of this, could you help me create it?"


    She smiled "I can do that, but what do I get in exchange?" Adam asked "Does it cost anything to create a guild?"


    She shrugged and said "It depends on my mood, so you tell me, does it cost anything?" Adam got back in front of her face and said "I think I should be asking you."

 Chapter 25: Meeting a King

    Chapter 25: Meeting a King


    Hearing his words, she stroke his beard seductively as she said "I think I might have an idea, but would you be interested?"


    Adam acted like he was reluctant and said "Sigh, I really want to create my guild, so I guess I have no other choice, miss."


    She said "Call me Sarah. Tell me, are you free right now?" Adam replied "Unfortunately, I have to meet the King."


    Sarah was genuinely surprised this time, and asked "Why would you? No offense, but you are a little too weak to have anything to do with his majesty."


    Adam didn''t mind what she said and replied "Ie from a vige called Rosewatch. There, a cult initiated an attack, they sent two thousands monsters to attack the viges. From what I heard, a vige was destroyed already."


    Sarah opened her eyes wide, all traces of seductiveness disappeared as she said "Are you sure about this? Where is the tide now? What level are they?!"


    Adam shook his head and said "Don''t worry, they are between level 3 and 5, with ten elites." Sarah shook her head and said "You don''t understand, a beast tide initiated by a cult grows in levels and numbers everytime it destroys a vige, we need to stop it before it grows too big to be stopped."


    Adam smiled and said "Don''t fret, the monsters attacked Rosewatch, but along with the help of other blessed individuals we destroyed them."


    Sarah''s eyes grew a little wider as she said in disbelief "What?"


    Adam smiled cheekily "I was actually themander of the forces, I led the others into battle, including the guards of the vige. We were 500, and the monsters 2000, but with my great leadership we sessfully destroyed them."


    However, his face turned a little more somber as he continued "Almost everyone died though. I was the only blessed individual to survive, but it doesn''t matter as the others were revived. However, almost all the guards from the vige died, except for one guy, and that''s why I am here, to tell the King about the attack, and request for guards to protect the vige."


    As he exined himself Sarah was looking into his eyes, searching for any trace of lies. However, she was shocked to discover he was telling the truth. She suddenly jumped over the counter with great agility and said "Come, we need to go to the pce right away!"


    Adam looked at her dumbfounded, and said lowly "But my reward" She frowned and said "We will do thatter." He sighed and stored it away before Sarah grabbed him. As she touched him he felt space constrict all around him for an instant before abruptly stopping. He wasn''t in the guards'' barracks anymore though, he was in the middle of a giant hall.


    In front of him was a set of stairs, on top of which stood a golden throne. A middle aged man was sitting on it, looking at Adam and Sarah with a surprised face. Next to him was another throne, on which a younger girl was sitting.


    Adam recognized the girl as Princess Victoria, the girl he had saved back with King yer.


    But she wasn''t of any importance, because of the middle aged man. Adam didn''t need to look at his status to know who this was, but Adam still looked.


    [Azure King Henry I] (Hero, Level 205)


    ??/??


    Adam smiled wryly, that was another way to meet the king. He looked at Sarah who was next to him, and this time her status had changed, the question marks disappearing, and a title was added to her name.


    [Marshall, Sarah Azure] (Hero, Level 190)


    ??/??


    Seeing her status brought much more shock to Adam than seeing the King himself. Did he just flirt with one of the most powerful beings of the Kingdom, the f*cking Marshal of the armies?! Moreover, she wasn''t just a Marshal, but also part of the Royal Family!


    Sensing Adam''s shocked looked, she winked at him before looking at the King. The King, Henry, looked at Adam briefly before turning back to Sarah and saying "We believe something important happened for you to appear before us, sister."


    Sarah rolled her eyes and said "More important than entertaining those idiots at least." It was now the King''s turn to roll his eyes as the people already present looked at Sarah vehemently. All except one, Princess Victoria, who was hiding a smile.


    As for Adam himself he nced curiously at the different people present, and noticed that all of them were nobles of varying power. Still, none of them even approached the King or Sarah in power, at most they were somewhat more powerful than Princess Victoria, who was a Level 140 Gold Cleric ss.


    When Adam looked at Victoria, he noticed she was gazing at him, with a fond smile. As a polite person, he smiled back, but the King noticed.


    He immediately changed his focus from his sister to Adam and asked "Young man, you seem to know our daughter yet we do not know of you."


    Adam smiled awkwardly and was about to speak when Victoria said "Father, he is one of the adventurers who released me from my shackles."


    Henry raised an eyebrow and said "You saved our daughter?" Adam bowed while replying "I was helped by a friend of mine."


    Henry nodded slowly and said "You shall be rewarded for your help But first, We believe you are the reason why Our sister interrupted this gathering?"


    Adam nodded and looked at Sarah, who said "Your Majesty, a beast tide has appeared in our kingdom. They destroyed a vige but thankfully were stopped."


    The King frowned and said "How?"


    Sarah looked at Adam, who continued his story "We faced an army of 2000 monsters, with levels varying between 3 and 5. At the end of the fight, when about 100 monsters remained, they retreated and gathered around a cultist, who sacrificed them to create a ghoul."


    The King sighed, relieved, and asked "Did you see which cult he was from?" Adam nodded and said "I didn''t recognize him, but someone from the vige recognized him as a follower of Aemon."


    As Adam uttered the name of the demon, everyone in the hall suddenly tensed, except for the King who looked excited and asked "Are you sure? Aemon?"


    Adam nodded and said "If that helps, the cultist had a dark robe with a bone hand on his torso."


    The King nodded his head and said "Aemon''s cult indeed. What happened to that ghoul?" Adam shook his head "Although it killed many of us, in the end I was able to put it down, with the others'' help of course."


    As he mentioned the death of the boss, the King noticeably straightened up and asked "Did you happen to find something special in that ghoul?" As he finished his sentence the King nervously gulped.


    Adam shrugged despite the tense atmosphere and said "I don''t know if you deem this as special, but the only thing this ghoul dropped was an item called ''Godyer''s Heart'' here, that''s it." He took the quest item off his inventory and showed it to everyone.


    The King''s eyes brightened seeing the heart and he said "As We thought"


    Adam was given a scare when he suddenly felt the heart in his hand start to beat. The King took a simr looking heart from nowhere, and it mysteriously left his hand to levitate in the middle of the room. Next, Adam''s ck heart left his hand too to join the one in the air.


    As the two heart came in contact a blinding light appeared around them, forcing everyone to close their eyes for a moment before disappearing as quick as it appeared.


    Only a single heart remained, and it didn''t look different from before. However, it remained in the air, not going for either Adam nor the King.


    And the King didn''t seem surprised as he beganughing loudly, confusing everyone. After a moment he calmed down and said "Oh, how much fun must the gods have watching us mortals! Hahaha, spread the word, a grand banquet is to be organized tonight!"


    Everyone looked at the King like he was mad, but Sarah released some of her aura, frightening everyone, and said "Your King has given you an order, so now SCRAM!"


    The pce shook for an instant from her shoot as everyone hurried outside while Sarah huffed. No matter what was making her brother so happy, she understood that it wasn''t for those nobles to know.

 Chapter 26: Godslayers Heart (1)

    Chapter 26: Godyer''s Heart (1)


    Once everyone except the Princess, the King, the Marshal and Adam had left, Henry looked at Sarah and said "Sister, as fierce as ever! Truly my fearsome Marshal!"


    Sarah frowned and said "Spit it out, what''s making you so happy?" Her earlier politeness and etiquette had disappeared, but once again Henry showed no surprise, he knew that his sister broke the decorum while in private, and so did he.


    He rose from his Throne and began stretching his stiff body as he said "Valiant Heart, quiet the title you gave yourself. Tell me, why?"


    Adam bowed a little and said "Please, call me Adam, your Majesty." However Henry waved his hand dismissively in Adam''s direction and said "Good, then call me Henry while we''re in private. And don''t talk about honor or standing or whatever bullshit you can find to refuse, you saved my daughter and did a great deed to my Kingdom, so if you see yourself as a proud son of the North then ss me Henry."


    Adam was perplexed by the King''s personality, but he then smiled, this was the kind of person he liked. He nodded and said "Henry it is then. As for my title, I named myself as such because nothing can stop me from my goal, be it fear, gods, devils or even death."


    Henry smiled brightly hearing his answer and said "Good, I believe your actions have already proven your words to be true."


    Next to him, Victoria crossed her legs as she asked "Father, you still haven''t exined why you are so happy."


    Henry nodded "Right. First, a little story. Victoria, did I ever tell you how I met your mom?"


    Before Victoria could say anything a woman''s voice echoed from the backdoor of the hall "You already told her a million time."


    Everyone turned toward the woman and Adam saw an astonishingly beautiful woman. She looked like an older version of Victoria, except that she had light blue hair.


    [Skade, Queen of Azure Sky] (Hero, Level 200)


    ??/??


    Henry turned to his wife and said "Dear, I believe you felt it too."


    She nodded and walked next to her husband. However, her eyes were on Adam as she asked "What is he doing here?" Her words may sound aggressive, but Adam felt no hostility but surprise.


    Henry replied "This is Adam, an adventurer who goes by the name of Valiant Heart who saved our daughter as well as destroyed a beast tide in its early stages, and he brought one of the hearts here."


    Skade widened her eyes and said "Impressive. So you saved our daughter, young man?"


    Sarah didn''t let Adam talk and said "He valiantly protected the little one and he even got a bounty on his head for saving her! He is getting chased by the ckheart Alliance for what he did!"


    Victoria looked guilty, Henry looked thrilled and Skade was impressed. Adam rubbed the back of his head and said "Well it isn''t that bad, I''m not really getting chased, they just put a bounty on my head until I rank up, and it wasn''t just from the cult who attacked the princess, Aemon has a hand in this too."


    Skade smiled and said "Still, you deserve a reward, although I guess my daughter already gifted you something. How about this, as a fellow Northmane seek me when you are ready to rank up, I will bring you to the Empire myself."


    Adam nodded, he didn''t really know what to say, for him he never really had a choice, he saved Victoria thanks to a quest he epted to get stronger for another quest which was forced upon him. Still, he wouldn''t say no to additional rewards.


    At the same time, he looked at Sarah will a thankful look as he understood she said that to get him other rewards.


    Back to the King, he said "Enough about that, we have more important matters. This heart, it isn''t just any heart. I picked it up when I was only an adventurer in a dungeon. There, I met my wife, but we also acquired this item. We presented it to Empire, and learned more about it."


    Skade nodded and said "This is an incredible item thates from far back in the past when the gods still roamed our realm. Back then a mysterious item fell in the hands of a mortal who decided to fuse the item with his heart. He seeded and became known as the God yer. However, turning from a weak mortal to an almighty god in an instant turned him mad, and he began killing gods, thus earning his title. In the hand our Patron, Enya, acted personally and killed him. However, upon the Godyer''s death his heart mysteriously split in 25 lesser hearts and disappeared, being spread out all over the world."


    Adam asked "Are all the hearts on Epoch?" Skade shook her head and said "Most of them are in our realm, but some are spread in the lesser realms."


    Adam frowned "The lesser realms?" he had never heard about that term.


    Skade waved her hand and ice coalesced in front of Adam. He could see a big circle. Skade exined "This is our realm, Epoch. This is the biggest realm in existence as well as the origin of life. In the beginning of times, only this realm existed. However, as the gods grew in power and numbers, the Tmesis took ce, and Epoch was split in several lesser realms."


    As she said that, the big circle became smaller and two others appeared, one above the middle one, and the other below. Skade continued "The top one, the Heavenly Realm where the gods reside. The bottom one, Hell, where the devils reside. And finally, the middle one, Epoch, where mortals live. Those are the three main realms created after Tmesis."


    The circles erged and several small ones appeared on the sides of Epoch''s circle. Skade said "Not much is known about the Heavenly Realm nor the Abyss, but we know that several lesser realms were created around the mortal Epoch. At first those realms were uncountable and varying in size and power, but this led them to be unstable, and thus as time passed only the strongest were able to persevere. Although the total number of realms is unknown, all of them are inhabited by powerful beings. Most of those realms are governed by special races, but that''s not for you to worry."


    The mana manifestation in front of Adam disappeared and he was left speechless. He was only here to ask for reinforcements and get the bounty on an assassin, but he ended up learning much about the lore of the game, and was probably going to receive one of the best yet hardest quests in the game.


    Henry smirked mischievously seeing Adam''s mindblown expression, and said "Now, it has been the dream of many to gather all the hearts, to gain the power of the legendary Godyer. But this is far too hard, to collect all the hearts one would need to travel through all the realms. When I was younger I had this dream too, but even after years of search I wasn''t able to find any, and thus decided to settle down and created this kingdom."


    Henry''s smirk turned into a mocking smile as he said "Who would think that I would find another heart when I stopped roaming the world? Fate truly ys with us mortals."


    Adam couldn''t help but ask "I guess this heart was in the possession of Aemon''s Cult Howe they nted it into such a low level ghoul, from what I''ve seen this seem to be a strong cult, strong enough to know what this was and not lose it in such a way."


    Henry shook his head and said "Aemon''s Cult is truly powerful, they are way stronger than this kingdom. I suspect them to have several of those hearts. However, one of the low level cultists found a heart, and because he didn''t know what it was he told others. With a few tricks I was able to make him desert the cult, making them lose the newfound heart, but this little cultist was capable of hiding from even me. So he escaped with the heart, knowing it was valuable but not why. Then, he created this beast tide to escape while they created chaos, but his little beasts lost to you, and so he used the heart. He created the ghoul you defeated, and died at your hand, giving you the heart."

 Chapter 27: Godslayers Heart (2)

    Chapter 27: Godyer''s Heart (2)


    Adam suddenly beganughing, stunning everyone around. Realizing what he just did, Adam excused himself "Sorry, it''s just fate."


    Of course, Adam knew better. This so called Fate, was nothing else than the system pushing him into a quest. He was rewarded for going against near impossible odds and winning the battle.


    Henry smiled and said "True, fate can be quite tricky Anyway, in all my years I may have only found one of the hearts, I found something else, something much more important, and something I wish to give you."


    As he said that he disappeared and appeared right in front of Adam.


    Adam was taller and buffer than the King, but he had no doubt that if they were to ever fight he would get his ass handed to him.


    Henry said "Your hand."


    Adamplied and showed his hand, which Henry grabbed. Adam suddenly felt his hand burn, and almost took his hand back, but seeing he wasn''t losing HP and Henry didn''t have any killing intent, he gritted his teeth and endured.


    A few secondster the pain disappeared, and Henry took his hand back. A tattoo had appeared on the back of his right hand, it represented a me.


    [Godyer''s Mark: Reacts when it senses any of the Godyer''s Heart fragments.]


    Adam suddenly felt a strange feeling, which made him look at the heart. He could feel its presence, the feeling was very strange, but no doubt useful.


    As if it had recognized its owner the heart floated to Adam, stopping in front of him. On the side, Henry said "Here is my reward for saving my daughter, use this to find the others and recreate the heart."


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Godyer''s Heart''!]


    Quest Detail: The Azure King Henry I has given you the remains of a powerful artifact and has tasked you to find the remaining fragments to recreate the heart.


    Quest Level: Irrelevant


    Quest Difficulty: SSS


    Objective: Find all the fragments of the Godyer''s Heart to fuse them together. 2/25


    Reward: Godyer''s Heart, ??


    Failure penalty: None


    Adam nodded without hesitation, this quest didn''t even have a failure penalty, even if he failed he would lose anything. As Adam epted the quest, the heart finallynded into his right hand, and he saw its attributes.


    [Godyer''s Heart] (Common)


    All attributes: +8%


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 4 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 7 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 10 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 13 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 16 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 19 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 22 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 25 hearts.


    Fusion: For this artifact to regain its power all the pieces must be fused back. Fusion rate: 2/25.


    (Can''t be stored)


    (Dropped if killed by another owner of a Godyer''s Heart.)


    Adam''s face was all smile as he looked at the heart, this was without a doubt the strongest Common item he had ever seen, and it had so many powers sealed.


    However, Adam knew that gathering all the hearts would be no easy task, moreover he couldn''t die or his efforts would be for naught. And the item couldn''t even be put in the bank to make it safe, one could only keep it in their inventory or drop it.


    As Adam willed to put the heart in his inventory though, the heart didn''t and fused into his tattoo instead. Adam simply shrugged it off, it wasn''t his concern whether the heart sat in his inventory or his hand, as long as he got the bonus.


    Henry then said "Make good use of this, and maybe you really will be able to find them all. Now, you should go, I still have a long day in front of me."


    Adam nodded and took the letter out of his inventory and said "Right. Before that though, I have this letter from the chief of Rosewatch, this was my original reason foring here."


    Henry took the letter and read it quickly before handing it to Sarah with a nod. Sarah nodded back to the royal family and grabbed Adam before teleporting away.


    Adam and Sasha appeared in the guards barracks once again, except that this time there was another woman acting as the secretary, and this one was only Bronze Rank.


    She was stunned seeing her big boss appearing in front of her, and unconsciously straightened up. Sarah didn''t mind her and said "Well that was unexpected. Now, give that head to the girl there, she will give you your money. If you need anything in the future, or want to continue our conversation my door is opened. And for your guild,e see me when you reach Level 15 and I''ll register your guild for free."


    She winked at him and disappeared, leaving Adam with the real secretary. He closed the notification aboutpleting his mission and went for the secretary.


    It didn''t take long for her to find the bounty and gave him 1 Gold in exchange of the head.


    Now Adam was free from his duties, finally. He headed for the Adventurer''s Guild first as this was the best ce to get a good quest.


    Fortunately for him his map had already uploaded the whole city so following his map he was able to find the guild''s base.


    An endless flow of NPCs came in and out of the guild, all of varying levels and ranks ranging between Iron and Gold. Adam joined in too and once again was impressed by what he saw once inside.


    The Guards Barracks exuded might, the Royal Pce exuded majesty, and this Adventurer''s Guild had a the free spirit of the adventurer to it, with several beautiful paintings of either heroes ying beasts or simple works of nature.


    Adam tried not to gawk at those for too long though, he had already experienced how advanced the AI of the NPCs was, and his instinct told him that if he acted like a country bumpkin, he would be treated as such.


    Theyout of the guild was simple but big. Here, on the first floor, there was a corner in which four boards stood, one for each rank: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold. On theses boards were quests of varying levels, the lower leveled ones were at the bottom while the higher ranked ones were above.


    Once one had chosen their quest, they would then need to head to one of the counters and register their identity to the quest. Apart from that, there were also tables in another corner where NPCs sat around, they were there to look for possible teammates for hard quests.


    Speaking of them, Adam saw one of them get up from his table and head in his direction. Adam didn''t care at first, he was literally in the middle of a crowd of dozens of people, and so just went for the Iron Board when he felt a hand on his shoulder.


    Adam acted against his reflex which almost made him send his elbow in the guts of the one holding him, and turned around. This was the guy from the tables.


    [Eddy Grun] (Level 20, Iron)


    HP: 1500/1500


    Eddy was a Kartian, and a Swordsman judging from his twin scabbards. Eddy was a head or two smaller than Adam, but he had a smile on his face as he asked Adam "Are you searching for a good quest? If you do thene with me, my friends and I are searching for a Berserker like you for one of our quests. Interested?"


    Adam shrugged and said "Lead the way." Adam wasn''t sure what to think of this. In any other game it would have been weird to have an NPCe up to you and ask to team up for a quest, but once again the AI was so advanced that Adam knew they could really be searching for help.


    Eddy led him to the table at which he sat before. A party of five was sitting there, all of different races and sses. There was one Cleric, two Monks, one Assassin and a Knight.


    Eddy picked a chair for Adam and the two sat down, with Eddy introducing everyone. He then said "So, Valiant Heart, as you can see all six of us are at least, not far from bing Bronze Ranks, so I will be straightforward with you, I didn''te to you for your power."


    Adam nodded, he wasn''t offended but actually d he said that, if he hadn''t then this would have most definitely been a trap. He still kept his guards up though, they weren''t free of doubt.


    (Author''s Note: For the ranks and levels, one needs to be at least Level 20 to try to Rank up to Bronze Rank. However, this doesn''t mean one can''t XP once they hit Level 20. For the weaker yers who can''tplete their rank up at Level 20 then they can wait to be higher leveled. However, this will lessen their potential and strength. For example a Level 100 whopleted his Bronze Quest at Level 20 and his Silver Quest at Level 50 will absolutely ughter a Level 100 whopleted his Bronze Quest at Level 30 and his Silver Quest at Level 60. You will understand this more when Adam does rank up.)

 Chapter 28: Questing with NPCs?

    Chapter 28: Questing with NPCs?


    Eddy sighed in relief when he saw Adam wasn''t offended by his statement and thus continued "My friends and I picked up a Quest on the Bronze Board to clear up a Goblin infested fortress. Any Bronze Adventurer can pick this up and do it on his own, but because we are of a lesser rank and don''t have any aplishment to our names, we need to be at least seven to ept the quest."


    Adam asked "What would I need to do? How would I be rewarded? And why do you take the risk ofpleting a Bronze Quest?"


    Eddy replied "All you need to do is to do is to follow us in the fortress, you don''t even need to fight. For your reward, we can offer you a seventh of the reward for the quest."


    Before he could continue Adam interrupted him "A Seventh? For doing nothing? I will get as much as you, by doing nothing? I don''t think I shoulde then."


    Eddy panicked and said "No wait, you misunderstand, let me exin." Adam frowned but stayed sat. Eddy swallowed and exined "I know the reward sounds too big to be true, but this is because we don''t care about money. Finishing this quest would give us an item that would make us stronger and thus help with our Rank up quests."


    Adam asked "What is this item?" Eddy replied "I can''t tell you if you don''t join us, what if we tell you and you refuse to do the quest with us? Then you can tell anyone else about that item and send thieves to steal it from us."


    Adam nodded, if he were a despicable person, he could really do that, or just kill them himself.


    As Adam was thinking, the Cleric, who was an Inder Girl slightly older than Adam, said "The goblins we will be facing will have around 100 in Strength and Agility, if you feel confidant you can even help us fighting. If you contribute to our mission we can even offer you additional rewards."


    Adam looked at her and said "But I''m only Level 11." The Cleric girl shrugged and said "As I said, it is if you are confidant in your strength, you can just follow us if you want. But tell us now whether you want to join us or not, don''t make us waste time."


    Adam remained silent for a few seconds, thinking about the situation, and after weighing everything in his mind he decided to ept and thus said "Show me the quest."


    Everyone around the table was overjoyed to hear his answer, and all got up. Adam apanied the group as they picked up the quest and began queuing to register.


    Meanwhile, Adam had received a new notification.


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Goblin Fortress''!]


    Quest Detail: A group of adventurers has approached you for your help, and you have epted to join them in this quest.


    Quest Level: 20


    Quest Difficulty: A


    Objective: Kill all the goblins in the fortress and bring their chief''s head to the guild.


    Reward: 50 000 XP, Depends on contribution.


    Failure penalty: -1 Level, Unable to take any quest above your rank for one week.


    As he had suspected, there really seemed to be something wrong with this quest, apanying them shouldn''t be a A rank Quest.


    Even for the rewards, following NPCs around wouldn''t give 50 000 XP at level 20, there was bound to be something strange happening.


    Now came the question, what would go wrong? Would his teammates betray him? Or would there be something unexpected within the fortress? Adam had no way to know which one it was, but he still decided to go.


    As he epted the quest the priest next to him said "We will prepare potions and sharpen our weapons today, so we will meet at the East Gate at the first lights in the morning, alright?"


    Adam nodded calmly, but inside he was excited. He was already confidant to take on this quest at Level 11, but if he had the whole day to level up and strengthen himself then this quest would be easy.


    Although time in the game passed quicker in game than in reality, one day in game was one day outside, and the reason was simple. There weren''t 24 hours in a day, but instead 48, so the days and nights were longer here. That''s why as long as it was day outside, then it was day inside.


    As the group was queuing Adam left the group to search for his own quests that he would do for today while they waited.


    Adam nned to grind for today, he would head to the cksmith and Alchemist associations to take their assignments and gather resources.


    Adam ended up picking five different quests on the Iron Board, the five asked him to kill monsters from two different areas, and the monsters from the first area were between Level 10 and 15, while those in the second area were between level 15 and 20.


    Adam went back in line with group of adventurers. The six of them were apparently good friends, which served to relieve Adam as the probability of people capable of having such bonds shouldn''t betray him.


    Ten minutester it was finally the group''s turn, and they seemed familiar with the worker from the guild. When the moment came to register themselves though, they realized Adam wasn''t registered within the guild, so they had to do that first.


    It didn''t take long and once Adam was registered as an Iron Adventurer, they were able to confirm taking on the mission. The group left and Adam confirmed the quests for today.


    Once that was done, he asked for the two others guilds, and learned that instead of two separate entities, they formed a single one.


    Alorge Association, gathering both Alchemists and cksmiths. This was actually a branch of the much wider Alorge Mountains, which was one of the Racial Powers.


    Alorge Mountains had two races, Dwarves and Kartian, one race has a racial bonus with smithing and the other with Alchemy. The best Alchemists and cksmiths in the world gathered there.


    The worker from the guild was kind enough to take the time to exin the different racial powers to Adam.


    The cold Colnds, the creative Alorge Mountains, the dark ckheart Mountain, the natural Feynwoods, the beautiful Aldeneid, the harsh Cassifon, the hot Buwog and the mysterious Citadel.


    Colnds belonged to Northmen.


    Alorge Mountains belonged to Dwarves and Kartians.


    ckheart Mountain belonged to Dark Elves and Catkin.


    Feynwoods belonged to Wood Elves and Fae.


    Aldeneid belonged to Light Elves and Foxkin.


    Cassifon belonged to Lizardkin.


    Buwog belonged to Orcs.


    The Citadel belonged to Inders.


    Adam was also able to learn something important, and that was despite the fact that those were racial powers, everyone (almost) was epted within them. And that was to ensure fairness.


    That''s because to Rank up to Bronze, one needs to pick up a special ss, and they weren''t all the same in power, the weakest ones were E Rank sses while the best were SSS rank sses.


    And each racial power specialized in different sses, so if a Wood Elf was a Berserker and wanted to try to get an SSS ss, Feynwoods had none, that''s why the other nations were opened to others.


    But this was aplicated subject, the politics in Epoch were quite realistic and so a Northman would still have an easier time than a Dark Elf in the Colnds Empire.


    And it went even deeper than that, because every race received different treatments based on their race, because of the alliances between the different powers.


    Among the racial powers, there were three factions: Light, Dark and Neutral. The Light Faction was formed by Colnds, Feynwoods and Aldeneid. The Dark Faction was made of ckheart Mountain, Cassifon and Buwog. Finally the Neutral Nation was made of Alorge Mountains and the Citadel.

 Chapter 29: Grinding

    Chapter 29: Grinding


    The Alorge Association wasn''t far from the Adventurer''s Guild, and so within ten other minutes he was all set as he had repaired all his equipment while he was at the Association.


    Adam first headed for a location known as Serpentine Lake. The area in itself wasn''t very dangerous, there were only monsters between level 10 and 15. However, he must absolutely remain on the city side of theke and under no circumstance go to the other shore as beyond the Serpentine Lake was another map with monsters above Level 50.


    Theke served as a natural barrier against those monsters, and so as long as he didn''t cross theke they wouldn''t attack.


    And Adam had no intention to do so. He had several missions within this area, he had to kill 100 [Lakeside Serpents], 60 [Bullet Frogs] and 15 [Red Striped Alligators]. He also had corresponding missions for their materials, for example the scales on the snakes.


    Although the snakes might look like the easiest of the three because of the number he needed to kill, it wasn''t actually the case for Adam, it was only the case for the average people.


    Of the three monsters, the snakes were Level 10, the frogs were level 13 and the alligators level 15. All of them were majority Common monsters, so their strength depended on their level.


    However, aside from their level, their skills and stats were to be taken into ount. The Alligators were seen as the most dangerous because they had a great defense, the skill [Death Roll] that allowed them to immobilize their prey and great damages thanks to the strength of their jaws.


    This was the most dangerous of the three for lower leveled yers, or even yers at the same level. However for someone stronger than the Alligators, then the unbreakable defense became as thin as silk, its Death Roll wouldn''t work and it wouldn''t do damage. Adam was in such a case, and so the most dangerous alligators became easy prey for him, it was going to be more difficult to find them than kill them.


    The frogs had lesser defense and attack, but their main skill, [Bullet], allowed them tounch their tongue like a bullet. The attack was very fast, it would be difficult for Adam to dodge it, but the damage wasn''t anything to fear.


    Finally came the snakes, seen as the less dangerous. They didn''t have a good strength, a good defense or any special skill. But they were the most dangerous because of their venom.


    Adam didn''t know the attributes of the venom, but one snake shouldn''t be a problem. If multiple snakes were to attack him though, the venom would stack, and that''s where it would be dangerous. Theoretically, if enough snakes were to bite someone then they could even kill a god.


    Of course, that wasn''t actually the case, even if the god were to let them bite him all day. The secretary at the Alorge Association told him that their venom had no effect on Bronze Tier Adventurers, he didn''t exin why though.


    But back to Adam, he would have to make sure he wouldn''t be ganged on by too many snakes.


    [Serpentine Lake] was right next to Ember City, he exited the city from the South Gate and looked for his preys.


    Then, for the following two hours he killed every monster he saw before being able to fulfill his assignments on the area. It had taken him less time than he thought he would need, and that''s because he was the only one in the area. Normally there would be more yers and thus less monsters as they would get killed.


    Moreover, he had gotten the first kills so he had more loot.


    This hour of grinding had also allowed him to level up once, and to level up some of his skills too. He also used this opportunity to ce his AP which has stocked up to 25 now. After making every arrangement his status looked as such.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 12


    Title: Monster yer


    Race: Northman


    ss: Berserker


    Rank: Iron


    HP: 1830/1830


    MP: 200/200


    Strength (+3 per level): 60 (206)


    Agility (+1 per level): 40 (109)


    Endurance (+1 per level): 40 (99)


    Intelligence: 15 (20)


    Wisdom: 5 (10)


    Free AP: 0


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E, Level 8/10)


    -Charge (E, Level 7/10)


    -Wind de (D, Level 5/10)


    -Parry (D, Level 3/10)


    -Lunar Smite (C, Level 3/10)


    -Crushing Blow (C, Level 2/10)


    Adam could be seen smiling foolishly on his way to his second zone of grinding as he looked at his status, seemingly without a care in the world.


    However, he suddenly jumped to the side, barely dodging an arrow. As the arrow hit the ground behind Adam it created a small explosion.


    Adam looked at the origin of the attack. A figure was standing in a tree ahead of Adam, hidden. As the figure missed though it said "I get why she died now. Your bounty is deserved."


    Adam tilted his head at the figure, who turned out to be a male from his voice, and said "A good assassin wouldn''t speak with his target. What makes you think you can take me on?"


    The man sneered andunched another arrow at Adam while jumping from the tree. Adam dodged that one too and began rushing at the assassin with a grin on his face.


    The assassin firing arrow after arrow, but Adam was now blocking them with his sword. Because of his shooting the assassin was slower than Adam and thetter was quickly catching up.


    However, as he reached the tree upon which the archer had first attacked him, he activated Mighty Strike and shed behind him. There was seemingly nothing behind him, but as his sword reached behind him a person suddenly appeared, an assassin had been hiding.


    Said assassin couldn''t do anything though as the moment he appeared the sword had already made contact with his neck, and decapitated him.


    Critical Hit! -2087 HP! Decapitation!


    The archer was shocked and Adam said "Good teamwork, but it was obvious you were baiting me, I know you aren''t that slow"


    As he said that the archer bolted off, way faster than before, but Adam smirked and finished his sentence " but so am I."


    He disappeared from where he stood and quickly caught up with the ranger. As he did he sheathed his sword and tackled the assassin to the ground.


    The archer tried to resist and get out of his grip but nothing could be done. He might be Level 17, he was a Ranger who focused on Agility first, and in front of Adam who had among the best equipments, his struggles were useless.


    Adam grabbed the archer by his neck in a choke hold and got back up. Since he was taller than the assassin thetter''s feet didn''t touch the ground, so he had loosened his grip on his throat as not to choke him to death.


    But as he tried to walk to the body of the other assassin who tried to sneak up on him, the archer suddenly took out a dagger and attacked Adam''s arm, making him drop the archer.


    -130 HP!


    Unfortunately for him, Adam was angered by that, so the archer had barely made contact with the ground when Adam''s foot hit his temple, stunning him.


    Critical Hit! -443 HP! Stunned!


    Adam calmed his anger and stomped on both of the archer''s arm, breaking them. His HP was low, but unlikest time he wasn''t bleeding so he wouldn''t die.


    [ckheart Ranger] (Level 17, Iron)


    HP: 215/1100


    This time, Adam didn''t take him in a choke hold but instead took off the ranger''s hood, revealing him to be a Wood Elf, and grabbed his hair before dragging him to his dead colleague.


    The other assassin was a Catkin Assassin, and he had really been silent when he approached Adam. Unfortunately for him, Adam already knew he was there before he even moved.


    When Adam first looked at the Wood Elf, he saw that he was Level 17, but Adam''s theory was that with every level his assassins would also gain one level, so although that was only a theory it wouldn''t hurt Adam to be more cautious.


    Then, when he saw how slow the Ranger was, Adam''s suspicions were really high. What sealed the deal though was the arrowing at him. Except from the first arrow that would have stunned him with the explosion, none of the following arrows had any skills to them, if they hit Adam they wouldn''t slow him down at all.


    But a Ranger''s way to fight was to kite his enemies, so it became obvious to Adam that he was being baited. So as he was on his guards, he stopped paying attention to the ranger and instead focused all his senses on his surroundings, and waited for any unusual shift.


    That''s why when the Catkin Assassin sneaked up behind him, he immediately felt it and turned around while shing, instantly killing the assassin and decapitating him.


    In Epoch, there were two ways to activate a Critical Strike: Luck, and hitting vitals. Because he had hit the neck, it had been a critical strike. And since his damage value was above his target''s remaining HP, he decapitated him.

 Chapter 30: Azure Insignia

    Chapter 30: Azure Insignia


    As Adam looted the dead Assassin, the archer winced "Kill me! I won''t say anything!"


    Adam raised an eyebrow at the archer and said "What are you talking about? I''m not keeping you alive for information, I already know who is targeting me."


    The assassin ranger was confused, but the pain made it hard for him to think. Adam thus decided to exin to him "You see you aren''t the first to attack me, another Assassin from ckheart Mountain attacked me. I killed her and brought her head for the reward. But only after that did I learn I only got 66% of the reward because I brought her dead!"


    Adam shook his head and said "Apparently you have some juicy information for them, so I will deliver you to them, alive."


    As he heard that, the assassin began fearing for his life and tried to bite his tongue. However, Adam appeared before him and punched him hard in the face, breaking almost all his teeth, bringing his health to a single digit, and sending him unconscious.


    Adam sighed and said "I would rather not do something like this, but I can''t have you die on me, I want my gold."


    He left the poor archer alone and went back to the other assassin. Adam pocketed his head in his inventory as well as the loot he got from him. The looting system in Epoch was quite realistic, way more than in other games as the loot one would get was influenced by what monster or NPC was killed.


    Because this was an assassin, Adam knew he wouldn''t get anything for himself. It was the same for the monsters he had killed the entire day, they only dropped light equipment made from scales.


    His only hope were the special pieces of equipment like rings or amulets, but those were rare and even with the first kills, he didn''t get any.


    However, his second hunting location would have monsters that dropped equipment for Berserker, Knight and Monk sses. But before going there, he needed to pass by the city, to repair all his equipment, and hand over the two assassins.


    When he was on his way back from the hunt though, he was surprised to receive a message. Opening his system, it wasing from King yer. Adam read the message and replied.


    ''Did you go through Geppo Pass or went around it?'' King yer


    ''I went through it. The only monsters I met inside were lizards who could hide in the shadows and transform. If you meet a guard NPC at the beginning of the tunnel, don''t trust him, that''s a lizard. The real guards are Level 70 Silver Rank, at least. Also, I killed an Elite Lizard at the end of the tunnel, I don''t know if it respawned.'' Valiant Heart


    ''Thanks for the info. Did you manage to create the guild?'' King yer


    ''Nah, I need to be Level 15.'' Valiant Heart


    ''Do you have enough Gold to establish the guild, or should we meet so I give you enough Gold?'' King yer


    ''Ipleted a quest that allow me to create it for free.'' Valiant Heart


    ''Good, contact me when you create it.'' King yer


    ''Sure.'' Valiant Heart


    Adam then closed the chat and began thinking. He needed to find a way to advertise his guild when he creates it, so that yers would join. The best way for that was probably to get the first clear on a dungeon.


    To enter a Dungeon one needed to be at least Level 15, so Adam would probably have to wait until tomorrow to raid one.


    Most of the low level dungeons were 5-men dungeons, with a few 10-men ones. As for 20-men dungeon, they were higher leveled.


    And that''s why, Adam didn''t know whether he should wait for teammates or not. Dungeons had several difficulties, Adam didn''t know what difficulties there was in this game since no one entered a dungeon yet, but normally the lowest difficulty dungeon would be made so that a team of 5 casual level 15 yers should be able to clear it with some difficulty. And Adam was pretty sure that by the time he turns Level 15, he would be able to crush 5 casuals of the same level.


    But for the higher difficulties, it may not be the case Adam decided to stop thinking about it, he didn''t have enough information. When the momentes to enter one, he would have enough information to make a decision.


    Soon Adam reached the gate of the city, but as he expected to pass without a problem likest time, he was blocked by a guard. He looked at the guard in confusion, who just shook his head in direction of Adam''s shoulder.


    Adam looked and realized that the assassin was there, and the guard saw the bloody smashed face. Adam grinned and said "My bad, I was thinking and forgot about this guy. He is an assassin, from ckheart, I''m bringing him to the guards barracks. I also got his friend."


    Adam took out the other head off his inventory before putting it back. The surrounding guards looked at him weirdly, and the one who stopped him decided to go with him to the barracks, just to be sure.


    Adam was helpless about it, he indeed looked suspicious, but what could he do, he didn''t want to lose his reward!


    Once he entered the barracks, the same secretary was still there. She recognized Adam immediately, they saw each other slight more than an hour ago after all. So she looked at the guard and asked "Paul, did he break anyw?"


    Paul, the Level 100 Silver Guard who had been apanying Adam, shrugged and said "I don''t know, he entered the city with this elf on his shoulder, iming it was an assassin. To make sure he was telling the truth, I apanied him."


    The secretary shook her head and said "He is a friend of the boss." Paul tilted his head and asked "Which boss?" The secretary pointed upwards and said "That boss."


    Paul was shocked, and he immediately saluted toward Adam and "I''m sorry sir, I"


    Adamughed and patted his shoulder saying "Don''t worry, you were doing your job. And you don''t need to be formal with me, I''m nothing but an adventurer."


    Paul sighed in relief and said "Thank you for your understanding. I''ll be going now." As he said that he left, and Adam couldn''t help but sigh. Truly, be it the real or virtual world, having connections was really the way to go. To have a Level 100 Silver Guard bow to a Level 12 Iron Berserker


    Adam approached the secretary and said "I was attacked, once again. There were two of them, and I caught one alive." As he said that he ced the unconscious archer down and took the head out, cing it on the counter.


    The secretary began looking inside one of her drawers and took out an insignia, and said "The boss forgot to give this to you, so she told me to give it you."


    Adam took the insignia curiously and inspected it. It was round and had an azure blue crown on it.


    [Azure Insignia]


    Description: Token of the royal family of the Azure Sky Kingdom.


    Adam was stunned he was getting such a valuable item, and the secretary said "This can be used in various ways, if you show this to any noble in the kingdom or any soldier, they will be respectful. Now for the two of them, here is your reward."


    Adam received slightly more than 2 Golds, bringing his total wealth to slightly above 10 Golds, or 1000 $ in the real world. Adam didn''t expect his SS Quest would give him so much money.


    Adam nodded to her and left the building to repair his equipment and buy some health potions. Once done, he headed for the next area, the Level 15-20 [Edea Jungle].

 Chapter 31: IRL (1)

    Chapter 31: IRL (1)


    [Edea Jungle] was bordering [Serpentine Lake], so Adam didn''t have to walk for a long time to reach it.


    Even though it would only take a few hours toplete his missions here, Adam decided to stay here for the rest of the day.


    This was because this was the best area for him to grind, the monsters above level 20 would be too strong for him to really grind, Adam would be able to kill in them in a duel, but he would lose a lot of HP and thus waste money on potions. And if several of them came at him, he might even get killed.


    And so, Adam really spent the rest of the afternoon in that area. In the middle of the jungle a young berserker could be seen, surrounded by dead tigers. That was Adam.


    He was looking at the system''s clock, and noticed that it was almost 8 pm in the real world, so he decided to go back to the city, with two assassin''s heads in his bag. He had no choice but to kill them, they had attacked him when he was battling Level 20 Elite monsters. Once back in Ember he got all his rewards and logged out.


    With today''s grind, he had already reached level 14, a great result for one day of grind. Right now, only the elite yers had reached Level 10 or above, and fewer had reached the cities. Although Adam could continue ying, he still had a real life.


    Even during those two years of hard work, he had spent some time with his friends. Of course it was limited because of his goal, but he hadn''t severed all ties with his friends.


    When Adam logged off, he heard soundsing from the kitchen. This was quite surprising since his parents normally worked quitete.


    Adam got up and stretched a little before heading out.


    The house his family lived in was a small one, there was one room for Adam, another for his parents, a bathroom and a living room/ kitchen. When Adam''s brother was home he would share a room with Adam, buttely he was spending more and more time at the hospital. Although no one admitted it, they knew that his time was getting shorter and shorter and that if he didn''t get his surgery, it would soon be toote to do anything.


    In the past, thinking about his brother would depress Adam, but today it only hardened his resolve. No matter what, he would earn his hundred grand.


    As Adam left his room he was greeted by a familiar sight. His mother was cooking while humming a special song she used to use as a luby when he was a child.


    Meanwhile, his father was reading the newspapers, sitting in front of the TV. They both turned their head seeing Adame in and smiled.


    The two of them had actually met in their working ce, they both worked for a famous restaurant. Adam''s mother, Elizabeth, was quite the beautiful woman despite her age so one would tend to think she would work as a waitress or a hostess, but she was actually one of the cooks.


    As for his father, many people could guess his job in the restaurant after seeing his build. Jean was a tall and buff man, much like Adam, and so he worked as a doorman. His job was more than weing clients and leading them to their seats though, if anyone were to cause trouble in the restaurant, they would have to face him.


    Unfortunately, although the restaurant they worked in was rtively famous, it wasn''t famous to the point of allowing a doorman and a sub cook to gather 100 000 dors.


    Actually, Elizabeth had been vying for the head chef job for quite some time now, but she remained unsessful until now.


    Anyway, as he saw Adam Jean immediately asked "Son, finally out of the machine. So, how was it?"


    Adam grinned and said "Good, very good." He stopped there though, he didn''t say he actually had a good shot at achieving his goal. After all, if he were to fail, then having given them hope would be worse, and he didn''t know if they would be able to support it.


    Adam began setting the table as he asked "Howe the two of you are here so soon?"


    Adam saw his father smirk and say "There was an incident today but I''m sure your mother will exin better than me."


    Adam turned to his mother who said "Today an important client came to the restaurant, I heard he was an important French guy, he asked for a ''Steak au Poivre''. Because of who that was, that pig of a chef was asked to cook it on his own, the boss didn''t want any of us ''assistants'' to mess up the steak!"


    Adam naturally understood that the ''pig of a chef'' was actually the head chef, she called him like that because hisughter sounded strangely simr to a pig''s snort, something Adam himself had witnessed but he was going off track.


    His mother continued with augh "The boss was all smile, and so were we! Can you imagine that pig''s face though? For all those years he has been iming our work as his, painting himself as a ''Grand Chef''."


    Jean intervened "Honey, he isn''t that useless, he does know how to cook or he wouldn''t get his job in the first ce."


    Elizabeth grunted while cutting vegetables "Well obviously he never learned how to cook a steak! I''ll admit, the sauce was quite good, but his steak! Haha, his steak was fucking overcooked!"


    Elizabeth was cackling madly while Adam and Jean were looking at each other with a small smile. She truly hated that guy, he was taking her hard work as his after all. Although, the story sounded a little suspicious, no matter how ipetent the chef was, overcooking a steak was a mistake only a beginner would do, someone probably did something to the stove or something. Well it wasn''t their problem.


    But there was also something deeper behind the cackling and the small smiles. They all knew that this was much more important than just a job, a few years ago she actually didn''t give a damn about him taking her achievements as his, but since Matt''s situation became more and more critical, they were in dire need of money, and that job was one such opportunity. It may not allow her to get all the money, but it would sure make the process easier.


    Tragedy could really change people. Had it been in the past, she would have neverughed at someone else mistake, even if that someone had done her wrong, but with one of her sons'' life on the line, it truly did change her.


    And the same could be said for both Jean and Adam. When Adam was young, his parents had often taught him to be the better one, not to lower himself to the ones who couldn''t control their anger.


    But Adam had noticed that in the past few years, his father had be more irritable toward outsiders, maybe even colder. He had seen his father almost beat up people a few time weren''t it for his mother defusing the situation.


    And the same could be said for him. Although Adam''s fusion with Old Adam''s soul had changed him somewhat, his main personality was still him. Hadn''t it been for his brother''s condition, he probably would have never done something like breaking someone''s arms and teeth like he did to one of his assassins.


    Even before his soul''s fusion, he had been in quite a few fights himself, and drinking with his friends never helped. He had been cklisted from a few bars already.


    Those changes weren''t reversible, even if he could save his brother, he knew their life would be changed for the rest of their life, maybe his parents and himself would be less aggressive in the future, but it would still be there, somewhere, and if someone were to push the wrong buttons, their inner, violent side would surge out.

 Chapter 32: IRL (2)

    Chapter 32: IRL (2)


    Adam finished setting the table and asked "What about it then? How did that french guy react?"


    Elizabeth''sugh deepened as she replied "Oh he was angry! He spat out whatever he began eating and asked for the boss. The boss was even more pissed off than that guy, so after licking the french guy''s boots he stormed in the kitchens. The boss then ''finally'' discovered the truth about that pig, and fired him out of anger!"


    Adam was stunned, wasn''t that too harsh? But Elizabeth then added "Although we didn''t learn the details, the client was here for a business opportunity with the boss'' sister, who owns a bigpany. The sister of the boss sent the french guy to us as a favor to her brother, so serving an overcooked steak doesn''t just impact the restaurant, it may even impact the deal with thepany of the boss'' sister. So the boss was extremely pissed off, and so was his sister, so he got fired."


    Adam smiled and asked "What about it then? Who is going to be promoted?"


    Elizabeth shrugged and said "No idea. But whoever gets the promotion will still be better than him. But enough about me, how was your first day, you didn''t say much but you look especially radiant today."


    Adam was stumped, then smiled ruefully. He couldn''t hide his change to his parents. He sat down and said "It''s too soon to be sure of anything, but I made quite an impression"


    His father asked "What''s your ID?" Adam looked at his father, who had put down the newspaper and taken out a tablet. Adam said "Valiant Heart. If you don''t find anything then search for Rosewatch"


    However, he was cut short by his father''sughter. Elizabeth stopped what she was doing and approached her husband, curious about what he saw.


    As she saw the tablet, she also burst intoughter. Adam tilted his head and asked "What''s so funny?"


    His father replied teasingly "Oh good question, My General!"


    Adam was utterly confused, what was he talking about? He approached his father too, and saw that he was on an article. When Adam read the title, he froze.


    THE VALIANT GENERAL OF ROSEWATCH!


    Below the title was an image of Adam when he was making his speech, the point of view being from one of the troops at the front.


    Adam knew what made his parentsugh so hard, it was the pause he had taken while he talked. It was oddly simr to a superhero he had almost worshiped when he was younger, Mr General. Aii that was embarrassing


    Adam returned to his seat and went on his phone, his face blushing a little. After a moment his mother returned to cooking and said with an unusually worried and serious voice "Adam don''t push too hard, okay?"


    He was stunned for a moment before hurriedly saying "Don''t worry, I''m not! I''m really not! I really like the game, and I do intend on bing a pro!"


    His father asked "Did those two guilds approach you?"


    Adam nodded and said "They did.. but I refused their invitation." His father smiled and said "ying hard to get I see You n to join a Super Guild instead?"


    Adam once again shook his head though, and said "I will create my own guild."


    As he said that his parents fell silent, and that was understandable. Nowadays creating a guild while going pro meant a lot, it was like creating one''s ownpany. What Adam was doing was like refusing the invitation from the biggestpanies in the world to create his own startup.


    After a moment his motherughed "Really my son, you would rather be the head of the chicken than the tail of the phoenix!"


    This diffused the tensed atmosphere and the two joined her in herughter. Still, Adam added "Mom, dad I''m really confidant on this one. I have a partner with me, and the two of us were among the first worldwide to reach the cities. Heck, I may very be the first worldwide myself. And we also got an achievement, we were the first to kill a Chieftain Boss in the entire world!"


    Had it been in the world of Old Adam, or simply a hundred years in the past, speaking of video games like that with one''s parents was simply unthinkable, but nowadays even the elderly knew about video games, and Epoch was even more important than sports like Football worldwide. As for Adam''s parents, although they didn''t y the game, they did know a few things about it.


    Adam''s father got up and went to sit next to his son as he said "Adam, we believe in you. And we support you. Show them all who you are, and dominate them."


    Adam looked at his father, touched, and nodded with a smile. After that their talk became a little more mundane as Adam''s mother finished cooking and they ate together.


    Once done, Adam decided to go out with some friends, well his only friends. However, even after he sent a message on their group, none of them answered so Adam didn''t leave his house.


    He didn''t go y either though. Today had been really intense, he had yed for many hours and went through multiple difficult fights. If he really needed to he could continue ying, but he would rather rest his mind than force it.


    He had already forced his body beyond his limits for two whole years, and although he had achieved his goal, he had died as a result so he would rather not push his mind this time.


    So that''s why, he would rather take it slow. For now, even though it had already been 4 months since his ''death'', his body hadn''t fully recovered, and he thus still wasn''t at the max of his form, he would still need some time.


    Of course, despite this temporary weakness, he was still incredibly energetic, more than the average person at least. Since it was only his mind that was tired, Adam decided to work on his body, after all even though there were the nutriments and some electroshock sent to the body as to stimte the muscles, in the end he hadid unmoving for the better part of the day, and so physical exercise was advised by the developers.


    Adam switched between different exercises and ended up working out until midnight. At that point, his body was so tired the slightest move had be impossible, so after drinking an entire bottle of water he went to sleep.


    As if he had a clock in his brain, Adam woke up at 7.00 am, exactly. As he did he saw several notifications on his phone, and realized they came from his friends.


    As expected, the reason they weren''t there was because they were ying Epoch. At first he had been confused as to why none of them would answer, but while working up he suddenly remembered that they already had cabins in the past, just that they didn''t use them much.


    From what he remembered they weren''t bad in VR games, but they never joined any guild, they were more casual yers.


    Anyway, after answering the messages and asking about their ID in-game, Adam painfully got out of his bed and ate a little before brushing his teeth and taking a shower. His sore muscles made everything painful, but he was used to it since he was pushing his bodytely.


    It wasn''t as hardcore as before though, he was barely hitting the limit before stopping, and this time the nutriments added to his body while ying reinvigorated his body, allowing him to muscle up quicker without any side effects.


    Once in game, Adam first checked his notifications and was happy to see that most of what he put on sale was bought. He still made a quick trip there though to refresh all his announces.


    When he was done, he finally headed to the Northern Gate where he had nned to meet with Eddy''s team the day before. They had said they would meet early in the morning, but they didn''t specify any hour so he guessed slightly after 7.00 am in real time would be a good time.


    And it seemed to be the right choice since as he arrived there he saw that only Eddy and the Cleric from the group, the Inder named Louisa.

 Chapter 33: Goblin Fortress (1)

    Chapter 33: Goblin Fortress (1)


    Adam quickly reached the two as he observed them carefully. This mission was intriguing him, questing with NPCs was definitely a first, in past games one could have the assistance of an NPC but it wasn''t the same, it would be way different than with yers.


    But here, he was basically getting carried by NPCs, and although there looked like there would be a problem mater down the quest, it still was a unique experience.


    When Adam reached Eddy and Louisa, the former had a weing smile on his face while thetter was looking at him up and down clearly judging him. He decided to ignore her and he greeted Eddy.


    "So, what''s the n once inside?"


    Eddy replied "The fortress used to belong to a powerful warrior and his army, way more powerful than any goblin we will encounter. However that warrior was defeated by an enemy and the fortress was partially destroyed. That''s why, theyout of the fortress is notplicated.


    There are threeyers, with stairs between the differentyers. All the goblins in the firstyer are the basic goblins fighting with short swords and a few with bows. The firstyer isn''t really much of a challenge.


    The next one is more dangerous though. Apart from the basic goblins, there will be some Elite Shamans who canunch offensive spells or buffs and boons. There are also some Elite fighters the hobgoblins, they are basic goblins who evolved."


    Adam asked "This sounds quite risky. How many monsters are there in there?"


    Eddy said "It is hard indeed. There are tens of goblins peryer, maybe even above a hundred in each."


    Adam nodded, he intended on fighting, and although the number of monsters would make the task hard, he had 6 Level 20 NPCs with him.


    Adam suddenly felt a presence sneaking up on them, and his hand suddenly shot up to grab the head of the hidden assassin. Louisa and Eddy were stunned to see Adam suddenly move, but even more so when they saw someone appear in Adam''s hand.


    However when they saw who it was they facepalmed at the same time. Meanwhile, Adam looked at the assassin whom he was holding by the throat, he knew that face, it was the assassin from the team, who was now desperately struggling out of his grip.


    Adam now understood that this assassin may be higher leveled than the assassins after him, he was way less skilled. He had felt himing from meters ahead and even when he caught him he wasn''t able to free himself.


    For the assassins sent against him, there was one of them who left asting impression on Adam because of what she did. She was thest one sent, a Level 19 Assassin.


    She was the hardest one he fought, she was faster than him, but in the end the difference in Martial Arts was way too big and he quickly got her. However, he had to catch her three times in total, as the first two times she had sessfully wriggled out of his arms despite being unarmed, and while being weaponless.


    Inparison, this Breyn, despite being a Dark Elf Assassin, his first reaction being held in a choke was generic, he wasn''t able to extract himself.


    Adam let the poor elf go, and as he left his grip Breyn fell to the ground while holding his throat. Louisa sighed and crouched next to the Dark Elf and said "Breyn, I already told you to try to prank people you don''t know."


    Breyn pointed at Adam and said "You weren''t supposed to be this strong! And how did you even notice me!"


    Adam shrugged and replied "I''ve had stronger Assassins than you attacking me, if I couldn''t detect someone like you then I would be dead already."


    Next to him, Eddy patted his shoulder and said "You are strong, stronger than I thought. Despite being Level 14 you were able to defeat Breyn instantly. Will you fight with us?"


    Adam nodded and so Eddy said "Good, we will be going now."


    Adam looked at his right and saw that the remaining members of the team were heading this way. There was the twin dwarfs, Vodmir and Vastrik as well as the Orc Knight Baugh.


    It was quite the funny sight seeing the tall orc next to the two short dwarfs, but in this world it was amon sight. On the inside though Adam couldn''t help but wonder about the yers who chose to be Dwarves.


    They had nice bonuses, but barely reaching everyone''s hip didn''t help with pride. However, their short build allowed them to fight in a special way, and the dwarves were way more agile than anyone thought.


    As everyone was already there the group finally hit the road. The Goblin Fortress was quite far from the city, and the group would have to go though several maps before reaching the fortress.


    On the road, Baugh and Breyn took care of all the monsters they crossed, but because they were walking on the roads instead of deep in the maps they didn''t encounter too many monsters.


    An hour and a halfter, the group of adventurers finally reached the Goblin Fortress. They couldn''t help but sigh once their eyes set on the fortress. It had once been a majestic fortress that awed countless men, but it had now fallen to a dire state.


    Vines grew across the walls, destroying them even further. At the entrance, two goblins stood guard, but they still hadn''t seen them.


    The group had stopped across a little hill which allowed them to hide themselves. Eddy turned to the others and said "Unfortunately our only long ranged fighter is gone, so we will have to make without her."


    Adam nodded, he had already asked why they didn''t have any long ranged fighter, after all this was a huge w in a team to only have melee fighters. Their only Ranger however had already gone back to her ancestralnds, Feynwoods, to take her test for Bronze Rank.


    However, unlike her, the others wanted to uplift their chances for their promotions.


    Unlike thetter promotions, the promotion to Bronze Rank couldn''t be said to be hard to pass, anyone could literally pass it. However, the Bronze Rank Promotion was unique in the sense that depending on their results they would get a different ss.


    So even if someone does their absolute worst, they would still be Bronze Rank, but they would get the worst ss and in the future it would be hard to even rank up to Silver.


    The worst ss someone can get is E ss, and the best was SSS ss. Most people would get a C ss, with the elites of this world getting B ss. From A ss on though, only the best would get them.


    An SSS ss was extremely rare, but it wasn''t actually the rarest ss. Actually, the rarest ss was E ss, because of how bad someone needs to be to get the worst E ss. Of course, despite it being rare, it doesn''t mean one would get a secret transcendental ss for daring to force an E ss, it would really be trash.


    Anyway, back to the adventurers, their Ranger was confidant she would at least get a B ss, while the others didn''t know whether they would get a C or B rank, and thus wanted to acquire the item in the Goblin Fortress, which was said to be of help for one''s promotion.


    As for Adam, he had no idea what the trial for his promotion would be, and even after he asked the others they wouldn''t tell him. He wondered if that was because they didn''t know themselves or the system wanted to hide it to him.


    Eddy then exined his n "For the first twoyers, our formation won''t beplicated. Vodmir and Vastrik take the lead, I will take the back. Adam and Baugh you take the sides, and Louisa is in the center to heal anyone who needs to be healed. Finally, Breyn you stay within the formation, and wait for the long ranged goblins. In the firstyer you can just kill every archer you see, but in the secondyer you must be careful, and don''t try to take the Shamans by yourself, push them to us or immobilize them while Ie to finish them off. For thestyer, we will think about that when we get there."


    (Author''s Note: If you are wondering, Eddy calling Adam by his name isn''t a mistake, but during the trip Adam told them his name, once again he isn''t afraid of other people discovering his real world''s identity, he wants them to, and it is easier to yell ''Adam'' than ''Valiant Heart'' if one is in danger)

 Chapter 34: Goblin Fortress (2)

    Chapter 34: Goblin Fortress (2)


    The others nodded to Eddy, and Breyn disappeared from the spot, only to reappear a few secondster behind the two goblins. By the time the group reached the entrance the two were dead, and Breyn entered the formation, sticking close to Adam.


    Even though he had been shaken by Adam, he acknowledged his strength and instead of bearing a grudge he realized that the safest ce would be next to him.


    Breyn actually wasn''t that bad of an assassin, he could be considered quite good, but the assassins sent after Adam were the best of the best, all of them had a good shot at bing A ss. It could be said that with every assassin Adam killed, he was eliminating one more potential powerhouse.


    Once the group entered the fortress, they almost couldn''t see anything, it was way too dark in there. There were a few torches but they didn''t help much.


    It was because goblins, as night monsters, had a better night vision than the adventurers, and so for them the barely lit fortress was as bright as daylight.


    Adam wasn''t bothered though, although vision was important, for someone of his level in martial arts he could rely on his other senses, especially on hearing and touch.


    The group expected this though and Louisa''s staff glowed with a bright light, lightening the path ahead. Adam looked at her and asked "Isn''t it too expensive to keep such a spell on?"


    Louisa replied "It''s not like we really have much of a choice, and I have MP Potions. If you are worried about my mana running out then don''t get hit and give me your potions."


    Adam smiled and said "Hay ma''am."


    The others snickered and Louisa rolled her eyes as they continued deeper in the fortress. They finally met their first goblins after some walking, it was a team of warrior goblins, the most basic ones.


    [Warrior Goblin] (Common, Level 20)


    HP: 2000/2000


    They screeched and rushed madly at the group. Adam saw his teammates turn abnormally tense, but he didn''t understand why, this was only a small group of goblins


    As if he jinxed it, the next moment another group appeared from the darkness, and rushed toward the group, followed by another one, and another one.


    A group of around 50 goblins now appeared in front of Adam and his group, with only loincloth hiding their genitals and blemished weapons.


    The tide of goblins crashed into the dwarven twins, who were about as tall as the goblins, but they didn''t move and instead were able to push the goblins back, allowing Eddy and Adam to attack the goblins ahead.


    This was one of the advantages of fighting with Dwarven Monks, one can attack from above the dwarves instead of going around them.


    Once the initial wave was pushed back, and the ones in front were injured, the goblins became one big crowd of goblins sticking to each other. The odor was honestly terrible, goblins weren''t known for their hygiene.


    However, because of how close they were to each other, the dwarven brothers couldn''t block them all and thus had to push the goblins to their sides. Adam and Baugh were prepared for this, and stood in their way.


    Five goblins came at Adam, and he activated [Mighty Strike]


    -1321 HP! Cripple!


    -500 HP!


    -495 HP!


    -510 HP!


    Critical Hit! -1000 HP! Cripple!


    The entire group of Goblins was sent flying back from where they came, crashing into their fellow goblins and lifting some stress from the brothers.


    The rest wasn''t long though as the goblins came back, angered, and hacked with everything they had at the group. The Dwarven Brothers, Baugh and Adam were able to hold the entire horde of goblins, and even if a few were able to go past them Eddy''s sword was there to wee them.


    Whenever anyone''s HP would get below 40%, Louisa was there to provide some healing, and as he fought Adam felt himself invigorated. It came from one of Louisa''s supporting spells.


    Ten minutester only the group of adventurers was left, all the goblinsying on the ground, dead. The team had now left the formation and were looting the corpses. Another thing Adam discovered, the loot was shared with the NPCs, meaning that even if a lucky yer were to find two powerful NPCs fighting, they wouldn''t be able to get the loot of the loser as the winner would take it.


    As he took the various ores and equipments Adam looked at his XP bar which had made good progress. By the look of it, he should level up to level 15 by the end of the fortress.


    Adam did find a nice surprise though, and that was the goblins had a good drop rate for equipment destined to Berserkers, Knights and Monks.


    They were all Level 20 Common Equipments though, so they weren''t really interesting for him. However deeper in the fortress he might find enough equipments to rece the ones he had once he hits Level 20.


    Unfortunately, it looked like he wouldn''t get his helmet anytime soon. He was actually quite unlucky for not having found any helmet for himself yet. When he spawned earlier this morning there were already a few yers in the city, and all of them had helmets.


    After a moment Adam shrugged, he looked cooler without a helmet anyway, and the defense he would get from a Common Helmet wouldn''t really change much.


    Until now Adam noticed that Common Equipments only gave either Defense or Attack, Umon added AP to that, and Rare equipment came with skills. Only a special Umon essory like the Geppo Ring added a skill and broke the rule.


    Now that they had finished looting the corpses, they got back in formation. As they advanced deeper in the fortress Vastrik said "Adam, I am d you are here to fight with us, or I fear this fortress would have proved itself impossible to be conquered!"


    Adam smiled, he liked the dwarves. He replied "My pleasure, I would feel bad sitting there and doing nothing."


    Vastrikughed unnaturally quietly for a Dwarf, but he didn''t want to aggro too many goblins because of his gruff voice. No matter their age, all dwarves seemed to have deep voices, probably something in their genes. For example, the Dwarven Brothers were barely older than 18 and still had deeper voices than most male adults on Earth.


    "The Sands always said Northmen were fool headed barbarians, but you proved them otherwise Adam." Baugh suddenly talked. If Dwarves had deep voices then Orcs had raucous ones, even one as young as Baugh.


    Actually everyone in the team was young, this was another thing Adam noticed, and that was that every Iron NPC was barely older than 18, except from the ones at the vige. The only old ones he saw were at least Bronze Rank. This was because the Bronze Promotion couldn''t be failed, and that one needed to do it at the lowest level possible. The more levels passed, and the weaker one would get.


    Back to reality, the group continued walking in the fortress and fought against groups of goblins after groups of goblins. There were many more goblins than they initially thought, and it took them two entire hours to get to the end of the firstyer and reach the stairs leading to the secondyer.


    They had left the corpses of many goblins behind them, and got a lot of loot. Adam had even leveled up to Level 15 already, and got plenty of Level 20 Common Equipments. Fortunately for him the inventory was really big and kept getting bigger with his level.


    Apart from his level his skills had also all leveled up by one level except for Charge which he didn''t use. He also got a Gold Coin from all the monsters he killed, but the nicest surprise was the multiple heath potions he got along the way, as well as the mana potions which they gave to Louisa.


    Once they reached the stairs Eddy asked "We will stop here for now and repair our equipment with the sharpstones we bought. Adam, do you have any?"


    Adam shook his head and Eddy took out a stone and gave it to Adam saying "Use this to repair your equipment, next time you are in the city don''t forget to buy a bunch, they only cost 10 Coppers the piece and can be lifesavers."


    Adam nodded and began sharpening his de which had taken the most damage as he used it the most. He wished he had it back when he fought the Evil Abomination, he wouldn''t have had to finish it with his fists.

 Chapter 35: Goblin Fortress (3)

    Chapter 35: Goblin Fortress (3)


    Once everyone was ready, they entered back into formation and began climbing up the stairs. While they did so Adam was keeping his focus on the are around him, now that he had leveled up to Level 15 a new assassin shoulde, a Level 20. Now the question was, would the assassin be an Iron ranked or a Bronze one?


    However, it looked like his question wouldn''t be answered any time soon as the assassin wasn''ting, and that scared Adam. Once again, NPCs in this game weren''t dumb, and so the assassin would know when would be the best opportunity to attack them.


    Attacking him while he is in the middle of a formation with other Level 20 would be dumb, and so the best course of action would be to wait for them to be facing enemies. If he is in the middle of a crowd of goblins with Shamansunching spells at him and archers firing their arrows while he fights Hobgoblins, then it would be harder to defend.


    But Adam actually wished the assassin would attack him, because they could do worse than that. If he got attacked Adam was confidant he would survive, but what if the assassin attacks Louisa, or even anyone else in the team.


    Losing any of the members would cripple the formation and they could very well get overwhelmed by the horde of goblins. That''s why, Adam kept his focus on his surroundings, and maybe if he was lucky enough he would spot the assassin ahead of time.


    Of course there was still the possibility of the assassin not entering the fortress, but Adam couldn''t find any reason for the assassin to do that.


    Unfortunately he didn''t sense anything amiss even when they reached the secondyer. But then he had an idea. He leaned toward Breyn and began whispering in his ear.


    At first his face turned shocked before a sly grin appeared on his lips. He nodded to Adam and as the group passed by the door leading to the secondyer he whispered to the other members who nodded too.


    Then, Louisa stopped fueling her illumination spell and the group walked into the darkness, disappearing.


    A couple minutester, a shadow hiding in the shadows in the stairs sighed angrily and passed by the door. However, as soon as it did a dagger appeared from nowhere and stabbed into the shadows kidneys.


    The shadow never saw the dagger and only knew it was attacked when it felt the pain into its backside. The shadow form vanished revealing a ckheart Assassin, although this one looked somewhat unique she was a Kartian.


    The kidney stab stunned her, and thus the one who attacked her was free to finish her. The one who attacked her was Breyn. However, as his dagger was about to hit the girl''s throat she awoke from her stun and dodged nimbly the dagger.


    Breyn clicked his tongue, the ring Adam had given him was really great for hiding, but it was a shame he hadn''t managed to finish her by himself.


    The two assassins faced each other warily, a dagger in each hand. The two had hoods hiding their upper face, and their body was tensed, ready to move at any moment.


    After half a second, the girl was the first to move as she jumped at Breyn. She was slightly slower than before because of the paining from her kidneys, but she was still very fast. Breyn knew that if it weren''t for the ring Adam had given him he wouldn''t have been to follow her moves.


    She shed upwards with one of her daggers, which Breyn easily dodged, but then swiped at his legs. Breyn first instinct was to jump, but a certain memory came back to his mind as he crouched instead and blocked the leg with his left dagger.


    As soon as he did a dagger appeared right where his throat had been, as if it had always been there. Breyn sweated, had he not crouched he would have gotten killed, no doubts about it.


    He had no time to rest though as the dagger fell toward his head after missing his throat. He grabbed her legs and forced her to fall while he stabbed her hand.


    The girl growled in pain but still managed to kick Breyn in the face and push him back. She then pped the hand that was stabbed on the ground, forcing the de out and regaining her bnce at the same time, before dealing a roundhouse kick.


    Breyn didn''t even see iting and was hit right in the nose, breaking on the impact and falling backwards while his hood was pushed back.


    The girl jumped on him and was about to stab her daggers in his neck when she abruptly froze and then hurriedly protected her side with her two daggers.


    She defended herself just in time as a greatsword appeared there and crashed into her with the force of a car. Despite putting up her daggers in defense, it only allowed her to avoid being bisected, she was sent flying into a wall.


    Despite the pain she felt, she got up as soon as she hit the ground and looked around for an escape route. The bounty offer was messed up, the target was way stronger than expected.


    However, she felt despair when she saw her target was standing in front of door leading to the firstyer. She would rather go deeper in and face the hordes or goblins than face this guy.


    But even that wasn''t a viable option as the path was blocked by a group of adventurers.


    "Here you are little girl. Wanna dance?"


    She turned her gaze back to her target who just taunted her. She gathered her courage and prepared to face him, which made him smile. As she was about to jump toward the escape she suddenly felt her heart stop beating and her blood freeze, and froze. She felt it. She felt death. She knew that if she took a single step forward, her head would leave her shoulders.


    Seeing her freeze, Adam raised an eyebrow and said "Interesting, to think someone like you would develop their danger sense to this point, interesting?"


    Now she waspletely terrified, someone like that shouldn''t exist. It was impossible. What she was feeling came from a kind of 6th sense developed by strong fighters, or martial artists, and it was called the danger sense. If one''s mind and technique reached a certain level then they would be able to feel the danger emitted by someone, and what she was feeling now wasn''t normal, it wasn''t possible.


    But when she thought her target was a monster, he suddenly took a step forward and asked "If you have developed your danger sense, then you should understand that all resistance is futile."


    As he said that the danger he emitted suddenly skyrocketed, and she felt her legs grow weak. All hope of life disappeared from her mind and she only hoped for a quick death now WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!


    Her mind suddenly shook as she jolted awake and jumped back, all her senses seemed to be in a hyper stimted stage as she breathed heavily and her eyes werepletely dted as adrenaline pumped through her body. The person in front of her had been so overwhelmingly powerfulpared to her that she began giving up on life.


    Adam raised an eyebrow and said "Who would have though you would make a breakthrough right now. Well, it won''t change anything anyway, but it''s nice to see our martial arts are simr. You can die now."


    As he said that he disappeared from where he was and appeared in front of her, his sword centimeters away from her neck. However, at the moment Breyn cried out "WAIT!"


    Adam''s Greatsword instantly froze, resting upon the girl''s neck. No, it wasn''t even the case. A drop of blood appeared right where Adam''s sword was, and driveled down the sword. The sword was actually a centimeter inside her neck, and the slightest move would cut her carotid open.


    He looked toward Breyn and asked "What''s up, you want the kill for yourself?" It surprised him a little, he didn''t think Breyn was this kind of person.


    He misunderstood the situation though as Breyn said "No, you can''t kill her, that''s my girlfriend."

 Chapter 36: Goblin Fortress (4)

    Chapter 36: Goblin Fortress (4)


    Adam tilted his head and looked back at the girl. She was still in the same position, not daring to move a muscle, or maybe she was unable too. He took his sword off her neck and took back his savage aura. As soon as he did the girl''s muscles softened and she fell on the ground, breathing haggardly. Thankfully she didn''t piss herself.


    But she froze once again when she felt the cold metal of the sword against her skin, but then realized Adam was simply lifting her hood, revealing her beautiful face.


    Adam had a strong will, and he had seen even more astonishing beauties, but he had to admit this girl looked really good. Her fiery scarlet hair matched well with her blue eyes, and her skin was rather pale.


    Adam asked "Are you sure it''s her?" Breyn didn''t answer and instead ran in front of the girl and crouched in front of her. He asked "Jude, are you okay?"


    Jude awoke from her stupor and looked at Breyn, lost. After a moment she asked unbelievably "Breyn Is is really you?" She couldn''t help but doubt, she had barely seen his face when she was on top of him, before she could even process the face she saw her instincts had red up against Adam.


    Breyn took her in his arms and said "It''s me."


    She was stunned for a moment before epting his hug and hugging him back. As she tried to hug him though she realized both her wrists were broken, probably from Adam''s first attack.


    As she remembered the monster she just met she looked at him and said "I I" She found herself unable to talk, the terror of near death had terrorized her. Adam rolled his eyes and said "It''s fine, I won''t kill Breyn''s girlfriend, as long as you stop trying to kill me."


    He may have sounded dismissive, in reality he was ready to chop her head off at any moment. She looked genuinely scared, but she was an assassin, she would soon ovee it.


    Breyn back off a little, and as she saw his face Jude eximed "Breyn! Your nose, I''m sorry!" He smirked and said "It''s alright, I''m sorry for your kidneys."


    Jude smiled a little, but winced from the pain. Breyn looked back at his group and said "Louisa, could you heal us up please?"


    The Inder girl nodded and approached them as she began healing their wounds. At the same time they took out health potions and their bodies began healing up. Most of the time, as long as one gets to full HP their injuries would disappear.


    There were some exceptions though, such as the loss of a limb that wouldn''t grow back or a deep cut which would leave a scar, or a bone so badly broken it can''t be healed. Those type of injuries could only be healed by strong healers or expensive potions.


    Thankfully none of the two had such injuries, the only injury that would leave a mark would probably be the stab wound at Jude''s kidney.


    Once she was fully healed Adam approached her, scaring her, and said "Now I would rather not kill you, so would you abandon the contract?"


    She hurriedly nodded and said "Of course I wouldn''t dare keep on trying!" Adam nodded and walked back to the group while Breyn sat next to his girlfriend and said "You said you wouldn''t pick any contract."


    Jude lowered her head and replied "I was greedy." Breyn sighed and said "What if I hadn''t been here nevermind, it''s in the past now. Could you please avoid taking any contract until we both get promoted."


    Jude nodded "I promise. But can you tell me who that Northman is?"


    Breyn raised an eyebrow "What, should I be jealous? Did he beat you so much you fell in love? Or is it because he is human?" Jude hit his shoulder, making him yelp in pain.


    A few meters from them, Adam said "I can present myself if you want. I am an adventurer who goes by the name of Valiant Heart, but my friends call me Adam."


    Jude nodded and said "My name is Judith Skyward, thank you for what you did." Adam shrugged and said "Don''t thank me, you brokethrough on your own. How does it feel?"


    Jude stopped for a second, as if she was thinking, and said "Wonderful. I never felt so free and unfettered in my life. Is this the rumored Gate of Opening?"


    Adam nodded as some envy passed by his eyes before disappearing just as quickly as it appeared. He said "You have indeed opened the Gate of Opening, enhancing all your senses."


    Jude tilted her head and asked "Senior, I know it''s not my ce to ask, but why do you feel so strange? I felt like I was facing someone who opened multiple gates, but at the same time not really"


    Adam sighed and said "It''splicated and I don''t want to speak about it. But your situation is more important, you just brokethrough, and as the saying goes, you should strike while the iron is hot. I can spar with you if you want."


    Jude instantly became excited and bowed toward Adam "Thank you for your guidance, senior."


    Adam waved his hand dismissively, but inside he felt sour. The gates those were terms he heard for thest time in Old Adam''s memories.


    Although there didn''t exist any Qi within old Adam''s world, baring him from bing a cultivator, theck of Qi was actually a blessing for the Martial Artists who focused on the path of Martial Arts, and eventually discovered the Gates.


    The Gates are one of the greatest wonders of the human body, and are also called Limiters by some. The Gates do not grant any additional power, but instead allows one to perfectly master and exploit the power they already had.


    They were inside the human body, but weren''t physical objects, no one was 100% sure of what they were exactly, but the most epted hypothesis was that they were locks hidden within the human genome, and opening those locks allowed one to master their body.


    The first of those gates was the Gate of Opening, and it allowed one''s senses to go into a state simr to hyper stimtion, except that it was permanent.


    For Old Adam, back in his past life, the best experts had unlocked up to the 7th Gate, while he himself had opened the 5th Gate, which was really good for a 50 years old man who started Martial Arts after 10 and never really had a master.


    Unfortunately for Adam, when he had gotten Old Adam''s memories he didn''t open his gates, because his body was different from Old Adam''s, on several levels.


    The fact they weren''t from the same reality made them have some slight differences in their bodies, but even if they were from the same world he still wouldn''t have opened them directly because everyone''s body was different, even in the same reality.


    Of course, Adam still had a huge advantage over others, and even though he knew people in this world also had discovered the Gates, they didn''t seem very advanced in them.


    The only ones he crossed and who had opened their Gates were the Elite members of the First Tier Guild with whom he fought against the Evil Abomination, along with King yer.


    Back then he didn''t say anything though, as they had only opened the Gate of Opening. For an expert it wasn''t that hard to detect whether someone had opened their Gates or not, at that time Adam had been able to fake himself having opened the Gate of Opening, but that was only to exin his martial art prowess.


    However, the truth was that he hadn''t opened any, and was still trying to open the first one. Thanks to Old Adam''s experience, although he wasn''t as good as Old Adam, he was still ahead of most people and was able to emte the Gates in other people''s perspective.


    Through pure martial arts alone he was able to fight as good as someone who opened the second Gate, the Gate of Healing, but that was his limit. If he crossed a martial artist who opened the Third Gate, then even though his martial arts would be better, he wouldn''t be able to win because of the other side''s advantages.

 Chapter 37: Goblin Fortress (5)

    Chapter 37: Goblin Fortress (5)


    The first three Gates were: Gate of Opening, Gate of Healing and Gate of Limit. The Gate of Opening allowed one to enhance their senses dramatically, the Gate of Healing was the one Adam really wanted because it allowed one to enhance their recovery speed and lessen the stamina used in every move, and the Gate of Limit was especially powerful because it allowed the user to use 100% in their every move, without negative side effects.


    And that''s why Jude had felt he was strange, that his case was impossible. The danger he emitted felt like it came from an expert above the Gate of Healing, but he hadn''t even opened the Gate of Opening.


    He had stimted the Gate of Opening around other yers as not to raise too many questions, but he didn''t feel the need to do it around NPCs, and even now he didn''t feel like it.


    Anyway, the reason he had been training for the past four months was to open the Gates, and regain his power. Now that he had discovered the Gates could be used in the game, he knew he needed to master them as soon as possible if he wanted to be ahead of others.


    His biggest advantage was that even though he was unable to open the Gates because of his different and weakened body, his still knew what guide lines one needed to open them, and he had the experience using them so as soon as he opened a Gate he would be much stronger.


    As for how to open them, he had already been training one the ways to open the first three for the past four months. The Gate of Opening was the simplest to open, one only needed a life and death situation to lit up a spark, the spark of enlightenment. For example Jude, she had been on the verge of opening the Gate, but never found the opportunity to lit the spark. Adam''s strength had allowed her to break through.


    For the Gate of Healing, one needed to have opened the Gate of Opening and stimte as much as possible their body. Adam was already doing a good job at that as he had recovered from death and a skinny body, he knew that once he opened the Gate of Opening the Gate of Healing would soon follow. However this Gate didn''t grant much fighting power, it enhanced one''s durability and regeneration only. In a 1vs1, an expert who opened the Gate of Healing wouldn''t necessarily win against one who opened the Gate of Opening, and most of the time the victory woulde from a battle of attrition.


    The Gate of Limit of harder to open though, one needed to first have opened the previous Gates to open this one. They then need to push their body to its utter limits and let the Gate of Healing''s healing factor restore the body. This would slowly strengthen the muscles, tendons and bones and allow them to support more stress, as well as slowly enhance the healing factor. Once they be strong enough, the Gate will naturally open.


    The reason for that was a bit more scientific. Most of the time people say that an average human can only use 20% of their strength, which wasn''t technically false, but many misunderstood what that really meant. Using 100% strength didn''t mean using all the muscles in the body to make an action, this was impossible.


    If all the muscles are used then they will all be stiff, and movement will be impossible, so it wouldn''t result in additional strength. There was a strict amount of muscles needed to be used when executing a move to enhance it to its maximum, but this wasn''t hard, one needed to have mastered this to open the Gate of Opening.


    Instead of using 20% of their muscles, people actually ''gather'' 20% of their muscles'' fibers, as using any more would snap their muscles, tear their tendons and break their bones. Athletes and martial artists would train to push that limit up, but they would only be able to use more than 20% of their fibers for a few seconds, and that''s because they rely on external nourishment.


    For example Adam had trained to the limit the day before, and then entered the cabin where his body was getting healed by the cabin. This, however, didn''t help him much for the Gate of Limit, he estimated that his muscles could only use 25% even though he trained for 4 months.


    That''s because one needs to use natural healing to enhance their muscles and healing factor, using external sources impeded natural healing and stagnated the progress. That''s why, only when one gets the healing factor from opening the Gate of Healing can one start training for opening the Gate of Limit.


    The rewards from opening this Gate though were incredible, it not only allowed one to strike five times ''stronger'', but it also allowed one to perform moves normally impossible for the human body. Many of the martial arts Adam had learned were actually only usable once he opened the Gate of Limit, and so for him opening it would mean a much bigger power up than the opening of the previous two.


    Once he sessfully opened those three Gates once again, he would turn his attention toward the following ones, but that wouldn''t be for a while.


    Back to the real world, or rather the virtual world, Adam looked at Jude who was preparing herself for the fight, and couldn''t help but wonder about the future assassins that would be sent after him. Jude herself was Level 20, but still Iron Rank, so the following ones would probably be Bronze Rank, he doubted assassins of simr skill would level up past Level 20 and waste their strength.


    Although he heard Bronze Ranks were significantly stronger than Iron Ranks, he still was confidant he would be able to fight them. However he wondered what skill level they would have.


    Would they be at the verge of opening the Gate of Opening, or would they have opened it? If they haven''t opened it then it would be manageable, but if they do then their martial prowess wouldn''t be far from his, and their attributes could very well match his. Fighting Bronze Ranks who opened the Gate of Opening was still manageable, but if they also opened the Gate of Healing then they would certainly be able to tire him to death.


    Adam shook his head, it was an SS Quest, of course it would be difficult, if any casual yer could finish it then what would be the point?


    Adam crossed his arms and asked "Do you want to fight bare handed or with weapons?"


    Jude''s eyes traveled to the greatsword resting on Adam''s back, she could only see the hilt above his shoulder and the tip below his hip, but she still gulped in fear remembering how it had crashed into her body.


    So she shook her head and said "Barehanded, please." Adam smirked, leaving his sword unsheathed would halve his attack power, but it didn''t matter, they were here to spar, not to kill each other.


    So Adam raised his fists and said "You are an assassin, attack first." Jude nodded and charged toward Adam. The footwork she used was special, and she looked like she was fading between illusory and physical form. This kind of footwork looked impressive for anyone who never opened their Gates, such as the group of adventurers who sat near them and opened their mouth wide in surprise.


    However, anyone who opened their Gate of Opening had such good senses that this technique could be easily seen through. Although Adam hadn''t opened his, he still had a great deal of experience, and thus knew how to deal with it.


    As she approached him Adam suddenly moved his head to the side, seemingly for nothing, then elbowed the area just above his shoulder. An arm appeared there, and its palm was where Adam''s head was. The audience cheered in awe, in their eyes Adam had dodged an invisible strike.


    Jude tried to step back once she missed but because Adam striked her directly after she could dodge the elbow strike and felt all sensations leave her arm. Adam then striked her jaw with a palm, making her step back with some blood trickling down her mouth.


    However, she had an excited face as she eximed "AGAIN!"


    Adam rolled his eyes, but he did so to hide the small smile that appeared on his lips. She reminded Adam of himself back in Old Adam''s life.

 Chapter 38: Goblin Fortress (6)

    Chapter 38: Goblin Fortress (6)


    For the next ten minutes Adam absolutely beat the shit out of her, even though he was only dealing small injuries to her Louisa had to heal her multiple times.


    Even though Adam only had the fighting prowess of someone who opened the Gate of Healing, he was at the very peak of that realm, and only someone who opened the Gate of Limits would be able to beat him with simr stats.


    That being said, that was only if he fought an expert one on one. Against crowds, the senses of someone who opened the Gate of Opening would best him, and so even though he was beating Jude here, if they were to be ced in a crowd of monsters she would have more chances than him to survive. Back to the battle of Rosewatch, he had been able to fight in the midst of the monsters because his attributes were way higher, but the others who survived all had survived thanks to their enhanced senses that allowed them to dodge most attacks.


    Compared to him in a one on one though, the experts from the First Tier Guilds were still weaker, including King yer, and Jude was even weaker than them as she just opened her Gate of Opening.


    However, because the Gate of Opening was rted to the brain, the short period of time after opening it actually had the brain into a hyper stimted stage too, and this resulted in a higher learning capacity for a short while.


    Jude was especially grateful to Adam for he not only allowed her to open her first Gate, he also trained with her following that event, making her gain as much as possible from the encounter.


    Now that ten minutes had passed, her brain returned to a more normal state, and so they stopped their training, but the results were astonishing. Adam had to admit Jude was a rare genius, perhaps even better than Old Adam originally was.


    She was like a sponge for knowledge and using Adam''s guidance which could be said to be top grade, she had already reached the level of the Elites of the First Tier Guilds, and was only below King yer who was slightly above her.


    And that was only in term of martial arts, if they had simr stats, but Adam discovered through their spar that her stats were quite good, she was faster than him, Adam was pretty sure that even after he gets his ring back she would still be slightly faster than him. Of course in term of strength he overwhelmed her by a great deal, but he was abnormally strong.


    Once they finished their little training, Adam was ready to go back to the dungeon when Jude suddenly kneeled in front of him, shocking everyone present. They didn''t understand what she was doing, but Adam recognized this posture, and it wasn''t good


    "Please ept me as your disciple!"


    As he feared, the customs of this world were simr to his own. Adam sighed internally and as he looked down at her he asked "Why would you take me as your master, I am barely stronger than you in martial arts." Well, barely maybe wasn''t the right word, but he wasn''t that overwhelmingly powerful eitherpared to her, if three people of her skill teamed up they would be able to defeat him.


    Jude didn''t raise her head though and said "Senior, you have spared me when I tried to kill you, you allowed me to breakthrough and taught me in your earnest, so I would be ashamed to simply leave without a thank. And for senior to be so strong despite being younger than me, I feel like if I need to have a master, then it must be you."


    [Ding! The Non yable Character ''Judith Skyward'' wishes to be your disciple!]


    Adam stayed silent for a moment before saying "I won''t have a lot of time to teach you." Jude felt her heart beat faster and faster as she replied "It doesn''t matter!"


    Adam again stopped talking, making the atmosphere even tenser, even the others on the side looked tense despite not understanding what was happening.


    When he felt Breyn was about to burst out in anger at him for dragging this out, he said "I ept."


    [You have epted ''Judith Skyward'' as your disciple! Rtionship enhanced to Worshiped! Your disciple will listen to your orders as long as you don''t cross her limits, and you may exchange items with her. But your job is to teach her, and do it well or you will lose her respect!]


    The world turned silent for an instant before Jude kowtowed but Adam stopped her and said "No need for that with me."


    Jude nodded "Understood, Master." Adam rolled his eyes and turned back toward Eddy and said "I think we can go now, we have dyed for long enough, and we even have a new member with us now."


    As he said that he left everyone stunned as he began walking away. After a couple of seconds Eddy woke up from his stupor and ran up to him along with the Dwarven Brothers and Baugh as they asked in unison "WHAT WAS THAT!"


    Adam looked at them and chuckled "Tooplicated to exin, go ask that disciple of mine. And don''t shout like that, you will nevermind, they are already here."


    In front of the group a crowd of goblins appeared, it looked like there were about 70 of them this time, it was the biggest crowd they faced yet. But more importantly, there weren''t only Common goblins among them, but Elite ones too.


    There were three Shamans on the back and five Hobgoblins in the middle of the crowd. They were easily recognizable as the Shamans were the ones with the most clothes on while the Hobgoblins were taller than the rest and even had armors on them.


    Eddy looked at his teammates and said "Into formation! Breyn, you attack the Shamans first!" Eddy nodded and disappeared as the rest entered into formation. Adam looked at Jude, who was left alone behind, and said "Follow Breyn and y the Shamans and other long ranged fighters."


    She nodded and disappeared as well. After that Adam didn''t have the time to check what they were doing as the goblins reached them. The Shamans threw spells that seemed to power up the goblins while they got weakened a little, and they even started firing spells at them.


    Despite that, the Common goblins weren''t hard to fend off for the group. However, once the Hobgoblins reached them it became harder. The Dwarven Brothers could barely keep them in check and had no choice but to send two of them on the sides for Adam and Baugh to fight.


    Baugh struggled to fight off the Hobgoblin, but Adam was much finer. He was originally stronger than the Orc, and now his skills had leveled up, and he became Level 15.


    The hobgoblin in front of him had 6000 health, or 5400 HP because of the 10% reduction to its stats from the title. Seeing this Adam smirked as he first used [Charge], ramming his shoulder into the goblin''s face, and then used [Crushing Blow].


    -702 HP! -15% Defense!


    Then, he activated [Lunar Smite] and [Mighty Strike] as he swung his sword toward the huge monster.


    -3176 HP! Heavy Bleeding!


    -1134 HP!


    -1130 HP!


    Critical Hit! -2262 HP!


    The strong Hobgoblin, an Elite that was 5 levels above Adam, was killed with a single attack. No one around stopped what they were doing though as they had already seen what Adam was capable of doing earlier on.


    Even though it was dead, the corpse of the Hobgoblin still was useful as right after it was killed it was sent flying toward the goblins rushing on the side, along with the other goblins who got killed in the aftermath of Adam''s strike.


    The corpse crushed a few goblins to death, but most importantly the dead bodies actually formed a kind of wall that bared the path of the goblins to the left, leaving Adam''s side empty for a moment.


    Since it was the case, Adam began attacking the three hobgoblins attacking the Dwarven Brothers and which they were holding on just fine, and three secondster when his [Mighty Strike] was off cooldown once more, by some coincidence the Shaman who was weakening them got killed.


    Because of that, Adam was able to send a full powered strike at the three hobgoblins, who were sent flying backwards, slivers of HP left.

 Chapter 39: Goblin Fortress (7)

    Chapter 39: Goblin Fortress (7)


    On the other side of the goblin tide, two of the three shamans had died. The first hadunched a spell empowering the other goblins but its death wasn''t felt by Adam''s group because another Shaman immediatelyunched another spell.


    However, the death of the second shaman released the spell weakening Adam''s group. The two couldn''t kill thest shaman though because thest Hobgoblin had retreated to protect thest shaman, and a tank was the worst opponent for an assassin.


    Of course, with Jude''s recent breakthrough she would be able to kill the hobgoblin, but not with the Shaman next to it and the countless goblins right next to them.


    So the two assassins decided to kill all the archers instead, and then help with the goblin warriors. A single shaman wasn''t much of a threat to the group, not with Louisa healing them, and the hobgoblin protecting it was even worst. And they knew it wouldn''t move because the moment it did, thest shaman would get killed.


    Back to Adam''s group, even though the goblin warriors they faced was slightly enhanced, it wasn''t enough to make a difference in the end, they had already swept through the first floor and they now knew how to fight the goblins the most effectively.


    That''s why it only took them 15 minutes to kill all the goblin warriors, leaving only one shaman and a hobgoblin. This fight was even easier. Adam simply used [Charge] on the hobgoblin, which it dodged, and Adam rammed into the Shaman instead.


    The next instant, the two assassins appeared behind the Shaman, and killed it in one assault. Then, thest hobgoblin was beaten to death in a few seconds.


    Once they were done, Adam looked at the rest of the adventurers with a hidden smile. Right now, even if they didn''t finish the fortress and didn''t get the item that makes a rank up trial easier, they would still have benefited a lot from the encounter.


    The members of the group were all young, and yet they were already quite good fighters. But thanks to this constant fighting in the fortress, they were visibly getting better. They didn''t see it themselves, but back when they fought the goblins for the first time they could barely be called experts, but through the fights they improved to be stronger and stronger. Although they were some distance away from reaching June''s level, they were really close to her level before her breakthrough.


    Speaking of her, now that the threat of an assassin disrupting their fights against the goblins, Adam was much more rxed and advanced with less hesitation. He kept his guards on but wasn''t as worried as before, he had June be the sentry instead.


    After all, her senses had be better than his, and although he used his better, the wonders brought by the Gates couldn''t be matched with mastery alone.


    The secondyer of the Goblin Fortress turned out to be even easier than the firstyer, and that was thanks to the addition of June. Breyn was a good assassin, but Judith was just better, the goblins would fall in only a strike or two under her de, almost all of her strikes were Critical hits because of her precision.


    Despite being easier, there were more monsters, and so it took them 4 hours to clear thisyer. By the time they reached the stairs leading to thest floor and the boss, the group decided to make a stop and recover their stamina as well as repair their equipment.


    In term of stamina consumption, although Adam hadn''t opened any Gate, he still knew how to better move his body as to preserve stamina and so he wasn''t as tired as the others. And he didn''t really have to worry about mental fatigue, so he was the one in the best condition in the group. The same couldn''t be said for his de though


    Even though it had a great durability thanks to its Rare rank, Adam was the one who used his de the most, and the blood of the goblins kept sshing on it over and over. Compared to his sword, his armor was much cleaner though, goblins didn''t have a lot of blood in their bodies.


    The durability wasn''t used for nothing though, as even though he didn''t level up, his skills did. [Wind de] and [Charge] had both leveled up once.


    Not as many skills leveled up as the run before, but it was to be expected, after all the higher the level of the skill, the harder it was to level up. Adam had used his level 9 [Mighty Strike] literally hundreds of times on thisyer, but it still hadn''t leveled up.


    As Adam was repairing his sword back to full durability, June moved next to him and asked "Master, do you have any advice for me to open the next Gates?"


    Adam nodded and asked "Were you taught what the next Gates are?" June shook her head so Adam began exining the Gate of Healing and the Gate of Limit to her, their effects and the best way to open them.


    Once he did, she couldn''t but ask "What about the fourth Gate?" Adam chuckled "Open the Gate of Limit first and we will talk about the next ones. Some people have spent their whole lives without being able to open the Gate of Limit, so don''t be greedy and focus on what you know."


    June nodded and Eddy said "Alright people, I think we are all well rested. On top of those stairs should be the boss of this fortress, as well as the treasure we are searching for. However we don''t know yet whether the boss is alone or not, so we will climb the stairs while being in formation. If there is an army of goblins upstairs, we first dwindle their number using the formation. If there is only the boss, Vodmir and Vastrik take the front and tank the boss'' attacks, while Adam and Baugh take its sides. June and Breyn sneak up behind it, and I attack behind Vodmir and Vastrik. Louisa, you know what to do. Let''s move out now."


    With that said Adam''s group moved up the stairs carefully but once again there was no ambush or any kind of attack while in the stairs, and they were able to reach the top of the stairs without fighting.


    There, they stood in front of an opened gate, beyond which a big room could be seen. They were on the top floor of the fortress, the room was circr and in the center the remains of a table could be seen. Next to it, two ugly creatures wereying down.


    When the team entered through the opened gates though, the two seemed to wake up as they scrambled to their feet and looked at the team with surprise.


    [Troll] (Chieftain, Level 20)


    HP: 30000/30000


    [High Shaman] (Chieftain, Level 20)


    HP: 20000/20000


    The one on the left was a three meters tall humanoid with grey skin. It was dressed in a metal armor and had a weapon in each hand, a big hammer its right hand and a bulky cleaver in the other. This was the legendary beast known as a Troll.


    Next to it was a smaller creature with green skin, it was slightly taller than a Hobgoblin and was dressed in furs. The furs had some dark runes drawn on them that looked like they were drawn using blood. It held a staff as big as itself which was mainly made of a dark wood with a crow''s skull on top of it.


    The Troll said "I will have to teach these guys a lesson! Since when do you serve a meal still wearing their armor!"


    The High Shaman on the side hit the Troll on the head with his staff and said "Fool! They obviously killed the rest!"


    The Troll scratched his head and said "They killed the rest? They killed the rest. They killed the rest THEY KILLED THE REST!"


    The High Shaman shook his head while the Troll started raging and roared "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!"


    The High Shaman pointed his staff at the group and said "They killed our tribe, so go kill them. And use your head more."


    The Troll grinned showing his rotten teeth as he took a helmet behind him and put it on. The helmet was one of metal, like the rest of his equipment, but also had spikes on top, somewhat resembling those of a bull.


    The Troll hit the ground with its weapons and roared "SURE THING BROTHER!"

 Chapter 40: Goblin Fortress (8)

    Chapter 40: Goblin Fortress (8)


    Eddy and his team of adventurers were frozen in shock, only Adam and Judith were in a better state. Adam could understand their fright though, for the average low level person, or NPC, a Chieftain Boss of the same level was frightening.


    Even a team of 5 would have barely any chance against such a boss if they didn''t have some good equipment or good martial skills.


    Had there been a single one of them, then they wouldn''t have panicked, had they been on their own they probably would be able to kill it by losing a member or two, but with the addition of Adam and Jude they were confidant on taking a Chieftain Boss without a single loss.


    However, they were talking about two Chieftain Bosses, one being a physical one and the other a magician, the worst kind ofbination they could have.


    And even though there was Adam and Judith who had proved themselves to be way stronger than they initially thought, they didn''t believe this was going to be enough to fight those two bosses.


    And even with the far fetched possibility where they yed the two bosses, they were bound to lose some of their members, and even if they only lost one member, it could be any one of them, and so the fear of death paralyzed them.


    As for Adam and Jude, one could resurect and the other was eager to test her new strength. Seeing the state of the others, Adam knew it was time to step in. Despite his leader personnality and skill in leading a team, he had let Eddy make the decisions out of respect, but now if he didn''t do anything they would have to fight two angry bosses without any tactic.


    So Adam yelled "WAKE UP!"


    His loud voice as thankfully enough to make them jump back to attention so he followed with "We split up. Jude, Breyn, Eddy and Baugh fight the mage! Vodmir, Vastrik, the three of us take the Troll! Louisa, stand behind and heal the two groups. I have a special skill that freezes my surroundings, attack only when it is activated. Jude, immobilize the mage!"


    Jude nodded and disappeared as Adam rushed toward the Troll. The Troll roared inhumanly and raised its cleaver before attacking toward Adam. However, he easily dodged that attack, then kicked the side of the Troll''s knee.


    -150 HP!


    This forced the Troll to stop in ce and slightly bend one of its legs, but it also enraged it as it swung its second weapon at Adam. He once again dodged the attack despite the close proximity, and kicked its other knee.


    -160 HP!


    As he did so, he saw his disciple appear behind the High Shaman and attack it, stunning it. Adam internally sighed ''Finally.''.


    Adam first activated [Wind de], enhancing his attack speed by 170%, then [Charge], stunninng the boss.


    Now that it was unable to react, and more importantly couldn''t keep its bnce, Adam activated [Crushing Blow], in an upercut motion forcing the Troll off the ground. It barely moved up, but it had still left the ground. Once it did, using his enhanced attack speed Adam striked once more, using [Mighty Strike] this time.


    -600 HP! -15% Defense!


    -1400 HP!


    The second strike was powerful enough to send the Troll flying backwards, and crash into the High Shaman who barely recovered from Jude''s attack.


    When the two shed they were both out of their stun, but the hard body of the Troll was enough to send the mage back into a stunned state, while the Troll fell to the ground.


    Meanwhile, Adam did something that looked incredebly weird in the other''s eyes. He was jumping forward while shing at the air, but he hit nothing and just advanced forward.


    The speed at which he was advancing was scary though, he was much faster than anyone here, even the assassins who had proved to be faster than him before.


    What Adam was doing was actually using the weight and momentum of his sword to move his own body. This was an incredbly advanced technique which Old Adam had developed toward the end of his life, when he had opened the 5th Gate.


    This was one of the few techniques he was able to reproduce as someone who didn''t open any Gate, and it could be very useful. Even without any boost using this technique to move allowed him to move faster than normal, but with [Winf de] on he moved even faster and was thus able to reach the two bosses before they could even get back up.


    Once he red within the right range he activated [Everwinter], his chest armor''s skill. With him as the center, everything within 15 meters froze, including the two bosses. The skill was supposed to slow them down by 70% and weaken their attributes by 30%, but because they were 5 levels above him and were Chieftains, the weakening was somewhat lesser.


    Despite this, the effects were still amazing, and they visibly slowed down in frnt of everyone. But Adam wasn''t finished. Now that the two were in such close proximity, he used his other equipment''s activa skill, [Fire Breath].


    The two monsters were engulfed in mes and wailed in pain as the torment continued for the three seconds.


    -750 HP!


    -750 HP!


    -750 HP!


    -700 HP!


    -700 HP!


    -700 HP!


    The two bosses suffered some damage, but theyer of frost on their bodies had thinned. Adam wasn''t worried though as he wasn''t finished yet.


    [Wind de] was still active and since three seconds had passed [Mighty Strike] cooldown had ended. Adam first used [Parry] to block the cleaver from the Troll, and then ced himself in the perfect position for what he wanted to do.


    He activated both [Mighty Strike] and [Lunar Smite] at the same time, and his sword struck the two monsters. The first to be hit was the Troll, so he was the one who suffered from the extra damage and knockback effect, but the High Shaman then followed.


    The two then got hit by the three following ethereal des of frost created by the skill. The Troll got sent flying far away from the area while the High Shaman was still smacked to the ground. Even though it didn''t suffered from the knockback effect from the skill, its Strength was lesser than the Troll, and was even slightly below the Hobgoblins. It was a mage after all.


    Now that Adam''s incrediblebo was finished, the two bosses had suffered substantial damage. The Troll and the High Shaman had respectively lost 8850 and 6340 HP!


    [Troll] (Chieftain, Level 20)


    HP: 21150/30000


    [High Shaman] (Chieftain, Level 20)


    HP: 13360/20000


    Adam was impressed by his performance, but that didn''t make him rx as he used thest few seconds of [Wind de] to reach the Troll. At the same time, the others in the group had already formed into two teams as they began attacking the two bosses, holding them off.


    Despite the damage they took, those were still bosses, and getting handled like that didnt make them happy as they began activated skills and spells of great destruction.


    The two Darven Brothers were holding the Troll as well as they could, and they were doing a rather good job as their health bar were still quite high, but the problem came from the Troll himself.


    Except from their great strength, Trolls were renoknwed for their incredible self recovery. Adam didn''t know the exact percentage, but the Troll had already recovered a good part of its health. Without a good enough DPS, killing a Troll was impossible as its healing rate would be higher than the DPS of most parties.


    But Adam was confidant in his DPS, which is why he set himself as the only attacker on this team, leaving all the others to the mage.


    As Adam reached the Troll and attacked it, the battle entered its second stage.

 Chapter 41: Goblin Fortress (9)

    Chapter 41: Goblin Fortress (9)


    [Before the chapter starts, I kindly ask you to add this to your library, drop a review as well as a chapterment, and give this story your power stones, it would be really kind of you. Enjoy the chapter.]


    The Troll wasn''t a defenseless creature so when it saw the sword that sent it flying around previously, it swung its heavier weapon, the hammer, to sh with it. Adam and the Troll weren''t far in Strength from each other, but thanks to Adam''s sword passive skill, the hammer was forced back while the sword continued its course.


    -200 HP!


    The strength behind the sword had lessened a lot despite winning against the hammer, and thus the damage dealt wasn''t that impressive.


    The Troll''s eyes turned red with rage, it couldn''t believe a puny human had overwhelmed it in term of Strength. It took a single step back to dodge Adam''s following attack, but failed to do so.


    It''s rage heightened as it roared toward the ceiling and its arms muscles suddenly became slightly bulkier. It waved its two weapons with more speed than before and pushed the Dwarven Brothers back and then attacked once again toward Adam.


    Theter let his body fall to the ground, dodging the cleaver. The Troll almostughed seeing this as its hammer was stilling for the human''s head. However, before it couldugh it felt paining from its leg.


    Adam had just pierced his sword into its thigh, his sword a few centimeters inside the flesh. Moreover, the sword was ced in such a way that it protected his body against the hammer. Still, he activated [Parry] which had just its cooldown ended.


    The hammer shed with the sword, an unprecedented force behind it. Adam himself barely had any contact with the ground, and so even though the blow didn''t cause him any damage it still sent him flying.


    It was exactly what he wanted though. Adam gripped his sword, which was in the Troll''s thigh, as he was sent flying, and so a huge gash appeared on the Troll''s thigh, travelling all across its length, tearing through both flesh and armor.


    Critical Hit! -2000 HP! Heavy Bleeding!


    This was way above the damage Adam should normally do with no skill, but this was because the strike had mixed Adam''s Strength, his sword''s damage and the Troll''s own strength. Moreover, it seemed the anatomy of a Troll wasn''t that different from a human as he had cut at least one big artery, resulting in the Heavy Bleeding.


    The Heavy Bleeding was big enough to negate the Troll''s natural regeneration, and even deal some additional damage every second.


    At the point, the Troll was absolutely furious against Adam, and wanted nothing more than shred him into pieces. It ignored the two brothers, even though they used provoking skills, and rushed toward Adam.


    However, Adam ran behind the two brothers, and so the Troll was forced to deal with them first if it wanted to attacked Adam. The three of them then began circling around the boss, dealing damage to it every second.


    Unfortunately for them, at some point the Troll recovered from its Heavy Bleeding, and so their DPS lowered a lot. Still, its HP was nicely going down, and a few minutes into the fight its HP was only at 30%.


    However, the situation was getting grimmer as Louisa''s heals were getting scarrier, MP was going down fast too. Adam quickly took a look at the other group, and was relieved to see they were all still alive, but lthe High Shaman only had 20% of its health left.


    Turning back to the Troll, Adam was in a pinch. Every time it used a skill, Adam would lose some HP, even though his sword allowed him to stay firmly in ce, every time his weapon shed with its own, the difference in strength would damage him.


    And dodging its attacks was impossible since if he did, the brothers would be the ones suffering.


    The Troll was visibly getting annoyed too, and it seemed to hesitate for a moment before doing something unexpected.


    Using one of the skills it used the most often, its muscles erged. Adam was ready to receive its attacks with his own [Mighty Strike].


    However, the Troll didn''t attack, but instead threw one weapon at each brother. The weapons were sent with such strength that the surprised brothers barely had the time to protect themselves before the weapons crashed into them.


    Despite protecting themselves, it looked like the Troll had used another special skill. Vastrik was hit by the hammer, and even after putting up his arms in protection, a loud crunching noise was heard as he flew away.


    As for Vodmir, the cleaver collided with his gauntlets, stopping the de from ripping his chest apart, and directed it slightly up, making it sh into his shoulder.


    The Troll then rushed at Vodmir, but before it could reach him Adam appeared next to the Dwarf and kicked him away, next to his brother.


    With the bold move from the Troll, the two brothers had been taken out, and Adam was now on his own against the boss. The good thing was that it had lost both its weapons, and cool only fight with its fists and teeth now.


    But even now, Adam wasn''t sure he could take the boss on his own. The Troll was five levels higher than him, a meter taller than him, its Strength was matching his and its Endurance was above his.


    Adam''s advantage over the Troll was his speed, that it lost its weapons, and the fact it only had 30% of its health left. His DPS was big enough to negate the boss'' regeneration rate, but now the question was, would he be able tost longer, or would the Troll win this battle of attrition?


    Adam rushed toward the Troll and dodged both its fists when an idea came to his mind. He baited a strike toward the Troll''s head, which it splendidly took, and then used [Charge] against its left knee.


    With the short period of stun, Adam had arge window to attack the Troll and lower its health bar by a huge chunk.


    In fact, it wasn''t the first time he had this opportunity, using [Mighty Strike] and [Lunar Strike] at the same time was deadly, but Adam knew he wouldn''t be able to kill it in one strike.


    Instead, the Troll''s health would fall below 15%, and it would very possibly activate a Berserk State. Once ites to this, Adam would be forced to put his all against the empowered Troll. If he wasn''t able to kill it, then the Berserk Troll would have its regeneration boosted enough to gain multiple % in seconds, and it would then attack the others, killing everyone.


    Of course there was the probability of the Troll not having a Berserk State, but Adam would rather not take an unnecessary risk. In fact, he was confidant he had a chance against the Berserk Troll, but that was only a chance, and he didn''t want to put his fate on a chance.


    That''s why he decided to take the second path, the safer one. The High Shaman was losing more and more HP, and would soon fall below 15%. Even if it had a Berserk State, Adam was pretty sure the others would be able to kill it and survive.


    After all, one of the most important rules in this kind of game is the Golden Triangle. The rule of the Golden Triangle was simple, each corner was a type of warrior: Mage, Assassin and Warrior.


    A Mage was strong against a Warrior, a Warrior was strong against an Assassin, and an Assassin was strong against a Mage.


    Any good leader would have to base their tactics on this rule, if they didn''t want to die. Despite its lower HP, Adam knew his chances against the High Shaman were way lower than against the Troll. And it was the same for the Dwarven Brothers and Baugh.


    On the other hand, June, Breyn and Eddy were stronger against the High Shaman, and weaker against the Troll. June and Breyn were assassins, while Eddy was a swordsman, the middle ground between a Berserker and an Assassin.


    That''s why, right from the beginning, Adam''s tactic wasn''t to kill the Troll. Instead, he had taken the brothers with him to upy the boss while the others killed the High Shaman. Once it was killed, they woulde help with the Troll, and it wouldn''t have a chance to survive.


    In thisposition, the only misfit was Baugh, he should have been with Adam and the brothers because he was weak against magic too, but the Assassins couldn''t be left alone, although they were strong against Mages, this was a Chieftain Boss, so they needed someone to take damage for them while they kill the boss.


    Actually, most of Louisa''s MP had been used on Baugh, so that he would die.

 Chapter 42: Goblin Fortress (10)

    Chapter 42: Goblin Fortress (10)


    [Before the chapter starts, I kindly ask you to add this to your library, drop a review as well as a chapterment, and give this story your power stones, it would be really kind of you. Enjoy the chapter.]


    The fight continued raging as the two sides struggled. Adam was holding off the Troll on his own by making sure not to lower its HP by too much, while not taking too much himself. The Troll was annoyed by him, it couldn''t understand how a Berserker was so nimble.


    On the other side of the room, the High Shaman was trying to fend off the four attackers, especially the three that were injuring it so much, but no matter what all its attacks were tanked by Baugh.


    Adam was relieved to see that it didn''t enter into a Berserker''s State when its HP went past 15%, but he still didn''t dare to do the same with the Troll. A Berserker like boss such as the Troll was way more susceptible of having a Berserk State than a mage after all.


    The adventurers were getting excited as the High Shaman''s HP was lowering dangerously, but the Troll was getting more and more frantic. It wasn''t just panicking, it was getting angrier and angrier, but it changed nothing.


    Adam just wouldn''t let it go, it had tried ignoring him to rush to help its brother, but that proved to be useless too. It still continued trying, and Adam was happy the Troll was doing so as his HP stopped dropping and the Troll''s HP was lowering quickly too.


    Quickly, the High Shaman''s HP reached below 5%, below 1000 HP in other words. Adam grinned and stopped blocking the Troll and yelled "Jude, Breyn and Eddy, move back! Baugh, push the Shaman toward the Troll!"


    They immediately obeyed and the two bosses almost collided with each other. The Troll was relieved as it finally reunited with its brother, together they were invincible, they would kill those puny human


    However it was stopped in the middle of its thoughts when its brother, the High Shaman, pushed the Troll behind him. Then, the Troll felt a cold stinging pain in its back. It immediately recognized this as that Berserker''s most powerful attack, and was pushed forward because of the strength behind the stab. It then turned in rage but froze upon seeing what was in front of it.


    In front of its eyes was a nightmarish scene. Its beloved brother, with whom he had spent thest decades, was impaled by arge sword. Holding the sword was the berserker, who clicked his tongue and said "Damn, I missed."


    Adam was truly pissed, his tactic had been to put the two bosses together and use hisbination of skills on the two of them, by dealing the first blow to the Troll so that it would be the one to take the additional damage from [Mighty Strike].


    However, at thest moment the High Shaman had burst with a previously unseen vigor and jumped in the way of the sword. The sword had impaled the Shaman and still hit the Troll, but the additional damage was wasted on the High Shaman who would have died either way.


    Adam swiped his sword to the side, throwing the corpse off his sword, and looked at the Troll. It HP was at 16%, but there seemed to be something wrong with it.


    The Troll followed its brother''s corpse with its eyes, being disposed of as if it was nothing but trash. The world slowed down to a stop as the Troll felt despair and immense grief overtake its mind.


    However, in the next moment it all disappeared. Every emotion was pushed aside, destroyed, along with its mind, only to let ce to one thing, rage.


    The Troll''s eyes focused on Adam,pletely red.


    Adam frowned as he made eye contact with the Troll. There was something wrong going on. The next instant, he felt something hit him in the face and he crashed into the ground.


    He blinked in confusion before hurriedly moving his head to the left, dodging a fist thatpletely destroyed the ground.


    He jumped backwards and looked at what had attacked him. It was still the Troll, but it had changed, its skin had turned red, and vapor wasing off its body. Those were the signs of a Berserk State.


    What surprised Adam though was the nature of this skill. Instead of being activated when the monster''s HP passed a certain level, it would be activated when one of the two brothers died. This meant the correct strategy with them was to kill them at the same time.


    Adam massaged his jaw which had just been punched as he grumbled. Looks like he had been fooled. But it wouldn''t change anything, the Troll may have be stronger, it had lost its mind, it was closer to a beast than a Troll now.


    Adam sidestepped and used [Parry] by cing his sword behind his head. As if he had read in the future, the Troll appeared where he had been in the next moment, but missed its first attack as he had moved away.


    It then attacked once again, and hit Adam''s sword, the damage getting negated by Adam''s use of [Parry]. The Troll didn''t care though, or rather it couldn''t, and it continued attacking, but every time it attacked Adam seemed to be one step ahead and was able to fight it off.


    As he yed with the Troll Adam couldn''t help but shake his head. The Troll had be stronger, way stronger. The buff to its stats was higher than what a Berserk skill should give.


    It was so fast he couldn''t even see it move, and parrying its attack had made his entire arm painful. But despite that, the fight had be even easier than before, and the reason was simple: It had been numbed by a great deal.


    When they fought earlier, Adam was able to dominate it with Martial Arts, it was only at the level of Eddy andpany when they first met, as expected of a Chieftain humanoid monster. But even though the gap in Martial Arts was big, the boss was still able to fight with Adam as it managed to not be too predictable.


    But now, even though its attributes were much higher, its fighting skills had be null, and so Adam was able to predict its every move.


    Of course this was limited to dodging, Adam hadn''t been able to lower its HP even once in thest 15 seconds. Still, now that his skills had finished their cooldown, he was ready for action.


    He stopped moving and used [Parry] once again, nullifying another strike, and used [Charge] at point nk. The Boss wasn''t stunned, but it was still unable to move for an instant.


    An instant was enough for the others to attack though. All of them used their skills on the boss, dropping its HP slowly. Entering Berserk State had strengthened its defense by a lot, and even when they all used their most powerful skills they hadn''t yet killed it.


    The Troll was about to attack Adam once again when it was finally his time to attack once again. He ignored the fisting from the Troll, and used [Mighty Strike] to stab the Troll in the heart.


    Critical Hit! -1500 HP!


    -1400 HP!


    Both Adam and the Troll suffered a big amount of damage, with the Troll taking the Critical Hit. Adam''s sword was piercing through the Troll''s heart, while his nose had been destroyed by the Troll''s punch, lowering his HP to less than 200.


    [Congrattion for killing the lords of the Goblin Fortress andpleting your Quest!]


    Rewards: 100000 XP, head to the Adventurer''s Guild for the rest of the rewards.


    [Your skill Parry has leveled up!]


    [You have leveled up to Level 16! AP+5]

 Chapter 43: Goblin Fortress (11)

    Chapter 43: Goblin Fortress (11)


    Adam took his sword out of the Troll''s body and took out a health potion before sshing it on his nose. A part of his HP was recovered and his nose was repaired.


    He then looked at the rest of the team and said "Everyone is okay?"


    They looked around themselves, checking everyone was okay, before bursting out inughter. The group gathered next to the Dwarven Brothers and as Louisa healed them and Adam, they were finally able to breath.


    After a moment of silence Eddy sighed and said "That was intense. Honestly, I''m surprised we are all alive. Hell, I thought we would all die!"


    Next to him Jude haughtily snorted and said "With master here, there was no chance for those monsters to win!"


    The group looked at her speechless, she sure was good at licking boots! Still, they couldn''t deny that without Adam, they would have died countless times over.


    Eddy suddenly bowed toward Adam and said "Adam, you have done so much for us" Before he could finish Adam said "Don''t be like that, I had fun during this little adventure. If you want to thank me, then let me take their loot."


    Eddy immediately nodded, and said "That''s the least we can do." He looked at the others and they all nodded back, they shared the same opinion.


    But Adam then said "What about that thing you came here for? That should help you with your graduation. Don''t tell me it was the journey?"


    Eddyughed and replied "Of course no! Although we don''t know what exactly we are supposed to get, we know it is an actual item that will help for the promotion test."


    Adam shrugged and said "I''ll check the bodies, I will tell you if I find anything that could be what you are looking for."


    Eddy nodded and Adam strode toward the corpses, nearly unable to hide his excitement. While he had been fighting he had already seen that good loot had dropped from the two bosses, loot he knew he would put to good use.


    He first headed toward the Troll, as he knew the armor d monster would give him the best loot.


    Adam approached the dead boss and looked at the loot around the corpse. There were multiple kinds of items, with different glows that meant they were of different ranks.


    ording to the colors he was seeing, there were items ranging from Common to Rare rank, the Common items shining in White, the Umon in Grey and the Rare in Green.


    The Common items were five different kinds of materials, which Adam pocketed directly as they didn''t have much value. For the Umon, there were three pieces of equipment, as well as a Troll''s Toe, a material for alchemy.


    The final two items were both Rare Rank, and were respectively a Hammer and a Helmet. Adam easily recognized them as the weapon the boss used as well as its own armor. Adam immediately checked their attributes.


    [Smash Sorrow] (Rare, Level 20)


    Requirements: Level 20, Berserker, 70 Strength, 50 Endurance


    Attack: +350


    Strength: +60


    Endurance: +60


    Concussive Smash: Launches an attack that ignores 30% of the enemy''s defense. Cooldown: 10 Minutes.


    [Massacre Helmet (Replica)] (Rare, Level 20, Set)


    Requirements: Level 20, Berserker, 60 Endurance, 40 Strength


    Defense: +100


    HP: +1000


    Strength: +60


    Endurance: +60


    Massacre I (1/5 set effect): Heal 20% of your HP instantly, three charges every two hour.


    Massacre II (3/5 set effect): All attributes +50.


    Massacre III (5/5 set effect): Use the sorrow and pain of your enemies as your energy. +30% to all stats for 10 seconds. Activation Requirement: Kill 1000 enemies for one activation, non stackable.


    The hammer was interesting on its own, it was quite powerful, unfortunately Adam didn''t use a Hammer, so he would never get to fight with it. Instead he would have to sell it.


    For the Helmet though, this was exactly what he was searching for. Although it needed him to be level 20, once he does hit that level he will be able to equip it. What was even more astonishing though was the fact it was a set equipment.


    The set effects were really good, especially thest one. Although it was only a boost that wouldst 10 seconds and would need him to kill 1000 enemies to activate it again, bing 50% stronger for 10 seconds was more than enough to win most fights.


    It was also quite interesting as this was the first Berserk skill he acquired, despite them being his ss'' core skill. This was exactly what a Berserker was, a warrior who unleashes their strength for a short period of time.


    But this one was even more interesting because it didn''t even have a weakening effect. Most berserk skills in games would dig into the user''s strength and thus weaken the user after the boost is over, but because this skill was using the energy from in enemies his body didn''t weaken in the slightest.


    Two question weighed on his mind though. The first was, since this was a replica, did this mean there existed a better armor out there? What rank would it be then?


    But more importantly, where was he supposed to find the other parts of the set?


    Unfortunately he couldn''t answer either questions, so he put the items in his inventory and beheaded the Troll, taking its head in his inventory too. He still had to deliver their heads to the guild after all.


    He then headed for the corpse of the High Shaman, less hyped than before. There was bound to be good loot, but this was a mage, there wouldn''t be much for him.


    Much to Adam''s surprise though, he was wrong. The Common and Umon items weren''t anything particrly good, the pieces of equipment would go for sell, and the materials would either go to King yer or the auction too.


    However, there were three interesting items on this corpse. The first was a key to open something in this room, although he didn''t know what. But more importantly, the other two were two Rare Equipements, a pair of daggers and a ring.


    [Star Glitter (Left)] (Rare, Level 20)


    Requirements: Level 20, Assassin, 50 Strength, 50 Agility


    Attack: +150


    Strength: +60


    Blind: Brightens up the weapon to be blindingly bright for anyone looking at it. Looking at the dagger provokes a 3 second blind status.


    [Star Glitter (Right)] (Rare, Level 20)


    Requirements: Level 20, Assassin, 50 Strength, 50 Agility


    Attack: +150


    Agility: +100


    Heat up: Heats up your weapon to deal 100% additional fire damage for one attack. Cooldown: 30 seconds.


    [Massacre Ring (Replica)] (Rare, Level 20, Set)


    Strength: +120


    Massacre I (1/5 set effect): Heal 20% of your HP instantly, three charges every two hour.


    Massacre II (3/5 set effect): All attributes +50.


    Massacre III (5/5 set effect): Use the sorrow and pain of your enemies as your energy. +50% to all stats, HP +2000 for 10 seconds. Activation Requirement: Kill 1000 enemies for one activation, non stackable.


    The mage''s loot was even better than the Troll''s! The two daggers were really good, absurdly so, and would provide an incredible power up to any assassin who would equip it.


    And the ring, it would provide an instantaneous power up to Adam, and a really big one. He wouldn''t even have to take off one of his current pieces of equipment as he still had an empty slot for a ring.


    He immediately put the ring on and the sent pictures of the two daggers to King yer, asking if he was interested. The reply came almost instantly, and it was quite a surprising one as he replied in the negative, saying he didn''t need them.


    Adam shrugged and stored the daggers in his inventory, and looked at his status, he already knew his Strength attribute would be incredible, but he still wanted to see it. Upon seeing it, first a wide smile stered his face before he froze, and almost facepped.


    His Strength was at 380, and that was without the enhancement of the Godyer''s Heart. However, further down in the status he saw something that made him flinch, and that was his unused AP. He had 20 of them, that means he had 15 of them during the Boss fight, and he had forgotten to put them in


    Although it probably wouldn''t have made much of a difference, it most certainly would have helped. He used them on the spot, adding 6 to both Agility and Endurance, and the remaining 8 to Strength.


    With everything set, his new status looked monstrous, Adam was ready to bet he was the yer with the best Strength in the whole game right now.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 16 (0/100 000 XP)


    Title: Monster yer


    Race: Northman


    ss: Berserker


    Rank: Iron


    HP: 2450/2450


    MP: 200/200


    Strength (+3 per level): 80 (388)


    Agility (+1 per level): 50 (131)


    Endurance (+1 per level): 50 (127)


    Intelligence: 15 (20)


    Wisdom: 5 (10)


    Free AP: 0


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E, Level 9/10)


    -Charge (E, Level 8/10)


    -Wind de (D, Level 7/10)


    -Parry (D, Level 6/10)


    -Lunar Smite (C, Level 4/10)


    -Crushing Blow (C, Level 3/10)

 Chapter 44: Goblin Fortress (12)

    Chapter 44: Goblin Fortress (12)


    [So I want your support, you know what to do.]


    Adam closed his status while looking a little proud before walking back to the group. He showed them the key he had just gotten and said "I found this on the High Shaman, it was the only thing that could be associated to the treasure you are after. All we need to do now is to find the lock, which is most certainly in this room. Let''s all search for it."


    They nodded and the group began their search. Ten minutester though, none of them had found anything. They continued searching for another 20 minutes, but there was nothing, they had been patting the walls and the floor in search of a hole but they found none.


    Adam looked at his key, with howrge it was the hole shouldn''t be hard to see, so why couldn''t they find anything?


    "Master!"


    Everyone looked at June who had just eximed. She was standing in the middle of the room, next to the smashed table. She pointed her finger up and said "Look."


    The group turned their eyes to where she pointed, it was on the ceiling. The room was circr, and the walls weren''t straight, but rather curved gather in a single point, right above where Jun was standing.


    June then said "I can see there seem to be a hole hidden there, but I don''t know how to reach it" Indeed, the closer to the center one was, the higher the ceiling would be. On the edges of the room, the walls were only five meters or so, but in the center of the room the ceiling was about twenty meters in height.


    Adam nodded and replied "We can try, although I don''t really see why there would be a key hole on the ceiling. As for how to reach up there, I can throw you up. Once up there you will have to nt your daggers into the wall as not to fall."


    June looked a little embarrassed as she said "I don''t think that will be possible master"


    Adam tilted his head and June showed her daggers and said "They aren''t sharp enough to cut into the stone making this room."


    Adam approached her and said "Show me your daggers." She nodded and gave them obediently. Adam nodded to himself, those were Level 20 Umon Daggers.


    He took out [Star Glitter] and gave them to her. She opened her eyes wide and Adam said "Keep them, you are my disciple after all, if I can''t even gift my own disciple a weapon then I would be a pathetic master. Use them well in the future, and don''t get killed."


    She bowed "Disciple thanks master." Adam shook his head and said "I already told you, don''t be so courteous. Now, are you ready to go up?"


    She nodded so Adam gave her the key before he grabbed her and used [Mighty Strike] to throw her in the air. He hadn''t used his entire strength though as he would probably have made her crash into the ceiling, what he needed was to use just enough force for her to stop right below the ceiling so that she could nt her daggers into the wall.


    This was considered a really difficult task for a normal person to precisely control their strength, but for Martial artists of Adam''s standing it wasn''t that hard.


    Jude reached the right height and shed her dagger at the wall. Unexpectedly though, her dagger wasn''t able to pierce deep enough in the stone to nt itself.


    As the group thought she would fall, Jude shed out again, with her other dagger, and this time it was lit up as if it had burned in a fire, the greenish metal had turned white.


    This time the dagger had no trouble piercing into the wall, and allowed her to stop her body from falling. She then looked down and said "I was right, there is a key hole here!" She didn''t have to speak loud because the room had a good acoustic.


    The group were full of joy, they would finally get what they hade here for. Jude inserted the key in the hole, and turned it. As she did so they heard a loud click, and the room started rumbling.


    The roof started moving, retracting toward the walls. Jude hurriedly jumped from the ceiling making a double back flip andnding gracefully. A 20 meters fall wasn''t much for a Level 20 Assassin, especially a powerful martial artist.


    The group looked up, wondering what they would discover. They first saw another roof, it looked like a hidden room was above them the whole time. This hidden room had many chains, all converging to one point, a man.


    The adventurers were shocked upon seeing the man hanging in the air, stuck in the chains. When the false ceiling finished retracting to the walls, the imprisoned man started moving, the chains lowering him down.


    They moved backwards as the man appeared where they were, his head lowered and his clothes in tatters. The group couldn''t see the man''s face, but they instantly understood he was a Northman, and probably a Berserker since he had a body build simr to Adam''s.


    He was tall and muscr. The special thing about him was his hair though, they were blue, a light blue. When he first saw him in the air, Adam thought he was dead, but now that the man was at his level he actually saw there was a status above his head.


    [Johan] (Iron, Level 20)


    HP: 650/650


    Seeing his level and HP, Adam was confidant enough to approach the man. If the man only had 600 HP while being Level 20 then the clothes he wore couldn''t be hidden armors, he really was in tattered clothes.


    Adam stepped in front of the bound man and said "Wake up."


    However, there was no reaction from the man, so Adam crouched to look at the man''s face. His face was shadowed because of his position, but Adam was able to see that he was young, like every Iron Rank he met.


    His eyes were closed, he was unconscious. Adam was about the grab his chin when Johan suddenly moved and tried to bite Adam''s fingers.


    Adam immediately retracted his fingers, he was far faster than Johan with his equipment after all. Adam looked at the man''s face, which was showed nothing but hate.


    However, as the two stared at each other in the eyes, Johan started showing confusion, and his earlier hate disappeared as he looked around and saw the two in bosses. Adam smiled and said "Looks like you have cleared your mind. Care to tell us your story?"


    Johan snapped back at Adam and asked "Were you sent by father?" Adam shrugged and replied "I don''t know who your father is, but no one sent us here, we are adventurers, and we got a mission to exterminate the goblins here. Now, who are you, and what are you doing here?"


    Johan began talking "I am Johan Clearwater, son of the mighty King of the North, and I was captured by the Goblin Kingdom, imprisoned here. Thanks to you though, I will be saved. May I know where we are?"


    Adam replied "In the Colnds Empire, the Azure Sky Kingdom." At his words Johan beamed and said "Great! Great! My eldest sister is living here! Haha, those mongrels really picked their prison well!"


    Johan then continued "Mister, I have an item that will send a rescue signal to anyone from my family as long as they aren''t too far."


    Behind Adam, Jude asked a little suspicions "And the goblins didn''t take it away from you?" Johan looked at her and said "Don''t you know about bound items? As long as I don''t want it, no one can touch it except me."


    He then looked back at Adam and said "Look under my shirt, I have an amulet. It is made of gold with a ruby in its center, its the item I''m talking about. The chains block me from using it, but can you do it for me?"


    Adam shrugged and searched for the amulet, and there it was indeed. Adam wasn''t really too suspicions toward Johan, he was imprisoned by the goblins so he should be on their side, and except for him there wasn''t really anyone to give them the item for the promotion.


    Adam took the amulet out of the shirt and Johan said "That''s it. Press the ruby please." Adam did so, and the amulet suddenly started shining with a bright red light which was directed toward the roof.


    Adam dropped the amulet which began crumbling, and Johan said "My friends, you saved my life and I still don''t know your names. May I know what your names are?"


    They nodded and each of them began presenting themselves to Johan. Adam was rather surprised to see that all of them looked respectful, each bowing after their presentation. Looks like the King of the North was someone important.


    When they finished presenting themselves, they heard a loud rumbling outside, and in the next moment the roof above them was frozen before getting destroyed, revealing two individuals which Adam knew, King Henry and Queen Skade.

 Chapter 45: Goblin Fortress (13)

    Chapter 45: Goblin Fortress (13)


    [Gimme yer stones]


    All the adventurers except from Adam immediately went on their knees as soon as they saw the rulers of the Kingdoms. Henry and Skade looked down and analyzed the room in an instant.


    Skade''s eyes immediately went to Johan, while Henry looked at Adam with an amused gaze. The two disappeared and appeared next to Adam and Johan.


    Skade was in front of Adam while Henry appeared next to Adam and put an arm over his shoulder and said "Adam, would you mind exining to me what happened here?"


    Eddy and the others were shocked seeing a King act so familiar and close with Adam, but Adam wasn''t fazed as he began narrating what happened to his group of adventurers, omitting unnecessary details.


    When he was finished Skade suddenly said "You saved my daughter, and now you saved my brother. I don''t know how to thank you."


    Adam waved his hand and said "You already thanked me for Victoria, and I''m sure I will need help some time in the future, by then you can repay me if you really want to, but you seriously don''t have to."


    Skade smiled and turned back to Johan and said "Now, let big sister remove those chains for you." Johan nodded and Skade began levitating and attacked the chains. She was holding a beautifully made staff and showed her status as a mage as she did so.


    However, after a single attack she suddenly stopped. After a few seconds she said "Henry,e see this."


    Henry raised an eyebrow and floated toward her, curious why his wife still hadn''t freed his brother inw. She pointed at the chains and said "Try to attack it." Henry nodded and drew out his sword, and dealt a magnificent attack.


    The green sword light hit the chains, and he abruptly stopped, just like Skade did before. He then shook his head and said "I''m afraid we can''t destroy the chains."


    Hearing this, Johan, who had been beaming happily until now, paled and said "Brother-inw, why are you saying this?!"


    Skade sighed and said "These chains are special, they can''t be broken by mere power, the power of the Gates needs to be used."


    Johan frowned and asked "But sister, haven''t you opened the 4th Gate, the Gate of View?" Skade scowled and said "I have, but this chain needs a prowess at the 5th Gate. In the family, only father would be able to open this chain, but he isn''t here."


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Chained''!]


    Quest Detail: Johan, the son of the mighty King of the North, has been imprisoned by the Goblin Kingdom to threaten the King of the North, but you have discovered his location.


    Quest Level: None


    Quest Difficulty: SS


    Objective: Free Johan


    Reward: ??


    As Adam was looking at the chains curiously, he suddenly received a notification. But upon seeing it, he felt helpless, how was he supposed to open this?


    On the side, both Skade''s and Johan''s faces were heavy, but Henry suddenly said "Adam, how many Gates have you opened?"


    Adam looked at Henry and said "None, why?"


    Henry raised an eyebrow and said "None? For now, maybe. But what I''m asking, how many have you opened, even before."


    Hearing his question, everyone except Skade seemed confused. For Skade though, hope reappeared on her face. Adam was surprised by the question too, they didn''t seem confused by his condition, but rather seemed to know it. Were there other people who had their Gates opened and then shut in this world?


    Still, Adam decided not to lie and replied "I opened the Gate of Life, the 5th one."


    After the 3rd Gate of Limit, came the 4th Gate of View and the 5th Gate of Life, thest Gate Old Adam had opened in his past life.


    When they heard his words, Henry''s and Skade''s expressions turned fiery, and Henry asked "This is an extremely important matter, I need you to swear a life contract!"


    [Character ''King Henry Azure I'' has initiated a lifeblood contract with you. If you ept it, breaking it would kill you and make you lose 100 Levels. The cabin on which you are connected is granted a restricted and exclusive ess to your brain waves to see whether you are lying or not.]


    Adam couldn''t help but be astonished by the penalty. Still, he wasn''t lying so he epted. Henry showed him his palm and made a cut on it, dropping a single drop of blood, and told Adam to do the same.


    He did, and the two drops of blood fused together and then expended to transform into a parchment. Henry then asked "How many Gates have you ever opened?"


    Adam replied "I opened up to the Gate of Life."


    A couple of seconds passed, and the parchment of blood suddenly disappeared. Henry sighed in relief and said "I don''t know how you opened so many Gates at such a young age, but it sure is impressive. I hope you can understand why I doubted your words."


    Adam nodded and said "I understand. But why did you ask me? Even if I opened them in the past, they have been locked away, and I need to unlock them once again."


    Henry nodded and said "Johan has been missing for 3 months now, and his family has been searching for him since then. One of the rewards for information on his location is an incredibly precious scroll that if used correctly can enhance one''s odds for their Bronze Promotion. I will show you in a moment, but before that I need to bring two people here."


    As he said that he disappeared from the spot, and ten secondster he appeared with two girls, the first being Sarah, the Marshall of the Kingdom, and Victoria, the Princess.


    Upon seeing Adam, the two smiled and greeted him, while Eddy''s group was simply too astonished to even react ordingly. Well, except for Jude who was being smug.


    Now that everyone was gathered, Skade took out a scroll and said "This scroll is a rare treasure that allows one to create an illusory realm. In this realm, they can recreate their bodies, as well as the ones of others. This means one can give directions to others for the Gates. Originally I should be the one activating the scroll and showing to those who saved my brother the way to the 4th Gate. But since you have opened the 5th Gate in the past, even if they have been locked you can still recreate it in the illusory realm."


    Adam said "So you want me to teach you how to open the 5th Gate?" Skade and Henry bowed toward Adam and said "We know this is too much to ask, especially when we are the ones owing you, but we have no choice but to ask you."


    Adam then looked at Victoria and Sarah before saying "And if I teach one of you, I might as well teach the others Well, why not if there isn''t a limit to the numbers of users for this scroll."


    Skade and Henry smiled, clearly excited, and said "There is no limit except for space. Here, the scroll."


    [How to open the Gates? (Special)]


    Adam took the scroll in his hand and looked at Eddy''s group and said "Come over, this is what you came here for after all."


    As he said that though, Adam felt this was weird. How did they know they would get something good for their promotion here, but did not know Johan would be here?"


    As if he read his mind Eddy said "We stumbled upon a powerful seer during one of our quests, and she told us that this ce had an opportunity for us."


    Adam nodded and then said "Is everyone close enough to get in the illusion?" Henry nodded "We are, you can activate the scroll."


    Adam looked down at the scroll, and activated it. Suddenly a dome formed around him, enveloping everyone inside.

 Chapter 46: Goblin Fortress (14)

    Chapter 46: Goblin Fortress (14)


    [I heard a rumor you supported me... if you got the reference you must drop a 5* review]


    Adam felt an incredible sensation, it was as if he could control everything around him, like a God. But he quickly shook that idea off his mind, it wasn''t time for this.


    He focused on his body, and felt like he could change anything he wanted. With a single thought, his bodypletely changed, the exterior was still him, but his insides changed a lot, to resemble those of Old Adam.


    Then, he tried to open the 1st Gate. The world around him suddenly became clearer, it had really been opened!


    Adam then opened the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th and the 5th. His body began releasing a powerful aura as everyone around felt suppressed. Adam couldn''t help butugh, the feeling was incredible.


    The 2nd Gate allowed one to have an enhanced regeneration and vitality, the 3rd one allowed the muscles to be used to their limit safely.


    As for the 4th one, the Gate of View, it perfects one''s sense of space and bnce, as well as give a perfect equilibrium. In Adam''s past life, this Gate was believed to be the least useful one, but now that he was in this new world Adam understand it was one of the most important ones, and that''s because one can fly.


    Flying wasn''t easy for an human, it wasn''t in their genes to fly by themselves, and fighting in the air would be almost impossible to do. However, the 4th Gate would allow one to be asfortable in the sky than on the ground.


    And finally, the 5th one, the Gate of Life. This one was probably one of the most useful Gates, because it allowed one to create a domain around them. This was something that went past the senses, almost nothing can hide inside a domain. Moreover, if the one entering the domain doesn''t have one too, then they would be suppressed.


    At the same time, this was a very difficult Gate to open, and even in Old Adam''s world many, many people were stuck at the peak of the 4th Gate, unable to go forward like Henry''s family.


    As Adam was reveling in the feeling Henry suddenly said "Could you help us?"


    Adamughed and said "Sorry, I got caught up in the moment. Here you go." He focused his attention on the others and began changing them. Henry, Skade, Sarah and Victoria had all opened the 4th Gate, with the first three being at the peak. Jude and Johan had both opened the 1st Gate, and the rest didn''t open any.


    So he made the Royal Family go straight to the 5th Gate. For the rest, he slowly showed them all the Gates, how to open them and ended up by pushing them to the 5th Gate too. Two minutester, everyone in the illusion was at the peak of the 5th Gate.


    Adam then said "That''s all I can show you, I hope this will be enough for you to open your Gates."


    He then let them in their own illusion and started working on his own body. This illusion was actually a great way for him to experiment. Since he had already opened the Gates, all he had to do was to find how to recreate it on his current body.


    It was actually the same thing the others were doing, but they couldn''t experiment on their body because this was Adam''s illusion, they could only do so in their mind.


    5 minutes went by, and the illusion faded away. Everyone was now sitting on the ground, meditating to earn as much as they could from the opportunity. Adam was the first the open his eyes, joy overwhelming his face.


    He had done it! He had opened the Gate of Opening! The world around him was now translucent and felt like it couldn''t hide anything from him. Of course this wasn''t the case, but the power he suddenly obtained was incredible.


    Enhancing the senses didn''t limit to just seeing and hearing better. The enhancement was so significant that he could feel the shift of the air around him, something very useful inbat. This was something he could already partially do before opening the Gate, but it was very limited. If he was back at the battle of Rosewatch in his current state, even with his stats back then, no monster would be able to hit him except the boss at the end.


    Moreover, the moment he opened the Realm of Opening, he instantly skyrocketed to its peak, because he was already used to it and had already developed his martial arts to the max of this level in the past. And that wasn''t all, Adam could feel he was about to breakthrough and open the Gate of Healing very soon, it was a matter of days!


    This was because he had been training his body''s healing factor for the past 4 months, and while in the game he would always let his body regenerate by itself when he lost HP.


    Also, the moment he opened the Gate a notification appeared in front of him.


    [Congrattions for opening the Gate of Opening! All senses enhanced!]


    Adam didn''t even have to look at the others to know they were still meditating. Feeling the power he currently had, Adam understood that he may have overestimated himself in the past when he thought he would be able to match someone who opened the Gate of Limit by the time he opened the Gate of Opening.


    Right now, Adam could feel that he could probably defeat someone who just opened the Gate of Limit and still didn''t know how to use their power well. However, someone experienced would defeat him easily.


    There was a wide margin between someone who just opened that Gate and someone at the peak. After all, opening this Gate allowed one to be about 5 times stronger, this allowed a lot of new opportunities for martial arts.


    And that''s why the gape between the first two Gates and the third one was very wide. Still, Adam had opened the 5th Gate in the past, he was confidant he would be able to fight most experts who opened the 3rd Gate by the time he opens the 2nd one.


    After all, even though healing didn''t seem to be very good during a fight, the longer a fight is, the more difficult it is to focus for a fighter, and thus the higher the chance of making a mistake will be.


    For Adam though, the chances were a lot lesser because of his strengthened soul, meaning that if he opened the 2nd Gate he would be as enduring as his enemies physically, but even more enduring mentally than them, and this would allow him to defeat them in a battle of attrition.


    Of course, against a peak 3rd Gate expert, he would have no chance as long as he doesn''t open the 3rd Gate himself.


    In the end, Adam was incredibly happy right now, the pleasure brought by recovering a part of his power was great, and it was permanent.


    After Adam, the next ones to wake up were Eddy and the rest of the adventurers who didn''t open any Gate yet. With a nce, Adam was able to see they had all opened the first Gate of Opening.


    This wasn''t really a surprise. Although they had been quite a distance from opening it, it was the easiest one to open, they just got a walkthrough up to the 5th Gate, and they just went through a difficult fight. It was the best time for them to learn, and it allowed all of them to breakthrough.


    When they broke through, Adam got up and quietly told them to follow him. Like when Jude had broken through, this was the best time for them to train and advance in the realm. It wasn''t the case for Adam because he was already at the peak, but they needed it.


    Had it been ten minutes ago, Adam would have to spar with them one by one, but now that he had opened the Gate himself, he fought them all at once.


    For the next ten minutes, Adam fought a 1v6, but still held the upper hand. The six worked together but they felt helpless against Adam, he was just too powerfulpared to them. Both his stats and martial arts was above them, and sine they relied mainly on martial arts to spar he was just too strong for them.


    Still, it also allowed them to progress quickly, and ten minutester they all had reached afortable level. However their talent was lesser than Judith''s as their martial prowess was still slightly below the elites from the First Tier Guilds, whom Judith''s was stronger than when she sparred against Adam.

 Chapter 47: Goblin Fortress (End)

    Chapter 47: Goblin Fortress (End)


    When they finished their training, Jude and Johan had waken up, as well as Victoria. Jude and Johan had both broken through and opened the 2nd Gate. This was understandable, the 2nd Gate needed one to heal by themselves to prepare for it, and since they lived in a world at constant war contrarily to Earth, they had to heal from injuries way more often than people on Earth.


    That''s why, with Adam''s guidance, they were able to breakthrough on the spot. However, this breakthrough only allowed them tost longer in a fight, they still weren''t at the peak of the 1st Gate. Right now, someone at the peak of the 1st Gate could defeat them without opening the second one. Still, it was better to breakthrough now.


    As for Victoria, she didn''t breakthrough, nor did she reach the peak of the 4th Gate yet, but when she reaches it in the future her chances of breaking through would be higher than the rest.


    Seeing that the three Heroes of the Royal Family were still immersed into their meditation, Adam approached Victoria. Since he saw them together, a question had been burning his mind, but he found no opportunity to ask it, until now.


    Adam sat next to her and said "Can I ask you a question?" Victoria nodded and Adam asked "Howe the difference in power between you and your parents doesn''t seem veryrge?"


    Victoria raised en eyebrow and asked "You noticed? Impressive considering you are only an Iron Rank."


    Adam replied "I wouldn''t be so smug in your position. You may be stronger, I can be considered your teacher since I taught you how to open the 5th Gate. Moreover, I am the one who saved your life."


    Victoria blushed and looked away as she said "I wasn''t being smug" Adam smiled and asked "Whatever. What about my question? I saw a few Gold Ranks in the city, they were rare but I saw a few, and they were way weaker than you."


    Victoria became more serious as she nodded and said "What do you know about the promotion to Bronze Rank?"


    Adam shrugged and replied "Almost nothing, except that it needs to be done in one''s racial power." Victoria nodded "Since you are a Northman, you will need to head to the Capital of our Empire. I heard mom say she would lead you there, it''s better than using the teleportation gates, they can be quite expensive."


    She then said "For the test itself, it will vary depending on the sses, but since your ss is Berserker then it will be simple. You will have to face waves of enemies, and the longer youst, the better your result. It will actually test your martial arts, and the better they are, the better your ss will be. Then, depending on your score, you will be chosen for a ss. The worst ss one can get is E ss, and the best is SSS ss, but it has been centuries since an SSS ss appeared."


    Adam asked "Is the difference in power great between the sses great?"


    Victoria nodded and said "It is, for example I am the holder of an SS ss myself, while my parents are both S Ranks. We only are a single ss level apart, but I am almost as powerful as them despite being one rank below them. For the Gold Ranks you saw, most of them only had B or A rank sses, and I could literally fight tens of them despite being a Cleric."


    Well, that was impressive. Adam asked "Which Gate had you opened back then?" Victoria replied "I opened the Gate of Healing, like Johan and your disciple. For you, seeing how you were able to fight against the six of them, you might actually have a shot at getting an SSS ss. However be careful with that."


    Adam tilted his head, and Victoria said "Although having a higher ss makes one stronger, it also bes more difficult to advance in the ranks. For example, my quest to promote from Gold to Hero will probably be almost as difficult as the quest my parents will get for Legend Rank. The reason my parents are stuck at the Hero Rank despite having passed Level 200 is because it is impossible to seed in the Legend Promotion Quest with only the 4th Gate opened, as S Ranks at least."


    Adam asked "What if they were A Rank?" Victoria replied "If they were then they would already be Legends, but they would be very weak Legends. However, for me, my Hero Promotion will be impossible unless I open the 5th Gate too. If I was an SSS ss, then passing the Hero Promotion would be only possible if I opened the 6th Gate."


    Adam said "Those are very harsh requirements."


    Victoria nodded "It is, but the power you would get would be incredible. An SSS Hero can defeat an S Legend, and it wouldn''t be that hard."


    Adam became silent, he had already made his choice, he would do his utmost to get an SSS ss, he wasn''t afraid he would be blocked at a Rank, he believed his talent was good enough to allow him to go to the max level with an SSS ss.


    The group then waited for another 20 minutes for the three Heroes to wake up. Sarah was the first to wake up, followed by Skade. The two of them hadn''t broken through, but they knew it wouldn''t be long until they would.


    As for Henry, hested longer than the two, and when he woke up everyone suddenly felt something press on them. Both their body and mind were being suppressed. Everyone understood Henry had opened the 5th Gate.


    With this revtion, it was hard to know who was the most happy between Johan who knew he was saved, and Henry who had a chance to enter the Legend Rank, the goal he had fixed for himself back when he was a homeless child.


    Henry didn''t forget about Johan though, and with a move he appeared back next to the chains. Then, he delivered a single strike, which looked even grander than the one before.


    The sword light collided with the chains, which broke with a single strike. He had to sh a few times to destroy all the chains, and free Johan from his prison.


    [SS Quest ''Chained''pleted!]


    Rewards: +1 Level, Friendly Reputation with the Clearwater family including the King of the North, +20 AP, Exalted Reputation with Azure Royal Family.


    [You have leveled up to level 17! AP +5]


    Adam felt surprised but mostly happy by the rewards he got. He didn''t want to win too many levels since he wanted to open his second Gate before challenging his Bronze Quest, so this reward was really good for him, especially the extra AP.


    Freed from the chains, Johan fell to the ground, but then immediately got up as he started jumping around. Three months of imprisonment was a rough thing to go through, especially in a dark ce with only two goblins to talk to.


    Once he finished he ran up to Adam and kneeled on the ground, before saying "Senior, I beg you to take this one as your disciple!"


    [Ding! The Non yable Character ''Johan Clearwater'' wishes to be your disciple!]


    Adam resisted the urge to roll his eyes, did he really look like such a good teacher? Adam looked down at him and asked "Why should I take you as a disciple?"


    Johan replied "I promise to honor master by my actions and be as strong as my father, the King of the North! Moreover, once people know you are my master, you would have a higher status than most people in the entire Colnds Empire!"


    Adam raised an eyebrow, this was actually a really good reason to take him in, and he wouldn''t let it pass. He looked at Judith and said "Since the two of you opened your 2nd Gate at the same time, I guess there is some fate between you two. And giving you a rival wouldn''t be so bad."


    [You have epted ''Johan Clearwater'' as your disciple! Rtionship enhanced to Worshiped! Your disciple will listen to your orders as long as you don''t cross his limits, and you may exchange items with him. But your job is to teach him, and do it well or you will lose his respect!]

 Chapter 48: Smash that face!

    Chapter 48: Smash that face!


    Johan jumped up to his feet and said "Your disciple definitely won''t shame you master!" Adam nodded, and his gaze fell on Jude''s daggers. He asked "Since you are a Berserker, what weapon do you use?"


    Johan replied "Unfortunately I don''t use the sword like master, but rather the hammer." Adam nodded, Johan was lucky then. He took out [Smash Sorrow], the weapon that dropped from the Troll, and threw it to Johan.


    Once he caught it, Johan eximed "Thank you for this great gift, Master!" Johan was really happy, despite his father being very powerful, this weapon was one of the strongest of its level, and suited him well.


    Up in the air, Henry said "I think we all are finished with our business here, since we are quite far from the city I will bring you back. Johan, will youe with us or Adam?"


    Johan looked at Adam, who said "You don''t have to follow me at all times,e find me if you need anything. If I need anything, I will call you."


    Johan nodded and said "I''ll go to the pce then, before heading back to father. I already made the old man worry for long enough."


    Henry nodded and his domain spread out, enveloping everyone before making them disappear. The next moment, Adam found himself in front of the Adventurer''s Guild along with his initial group and Jude.


    As for the Royal Family, they were back in the pce.


    Back in front of the Adventurer''s Guild, Adam took a quick look at his real time clock by opening his system, and saw it was only 10.30 am. In only 3 hours and a half, so much had happened. He got two disciples, cleared out a whole fortress and opened the Gate of Opening.


    Of course he had spent 7 hours in reality, but even then that remained a lot. But now was time was the rewards. Adam looked at Eddy and said "We still have to hand in the head of the two bosses to the guild, do you want to give it to them?"


    Eddy shook his head and said "Without you, we would have died in there, you should be the one doing it."


    Adam shrugged, it didn''t matter to him, his rewards would probably be the same. They all entered the building together, and Adam was surprised to see that most of the people inside were actually yers!


    He had seen some yers earlier this morning, but there were more yers than NPCs now. Adam couldn''t help but think of how crowded the maps around the city would be right now.


    When Adam''s team entered, everyone turned their head, be it yers or NPCs. Seeing a team of 7 Level 20 led by a Level 17 yer was quite a sight for the yers, who all opened their eyes wide upon seeing Adam''s ID.


    As for the NPCs, most of the ones present were either high leveled Bronze and Silvers of all levels, and almost all of them had opened at least the Gate of Opening. Seeing 8 Iron Ranks who all opened at least the Gate of Opening was a sight they would only see once in their life.


    As the yers began recording the moment everyone unconsciously made a path for the team to the counter. Even the guy who was handing in his mission, a Level 11 yer, looked at Adam in awe before moving to the side respectfully.


    Adam took a quick look at his ID and said while patting his shoulder "Thanks Azudal." Azudal nodded excitedly as he moved back. Adam looked at the secretary and took out the heads of both bosses. When the surrounding yers looked at the description of the heads, they couldn''t help but pale seeing the level and rank of the bosses.


    The secretary looked at the two heads and asked "Are those the leaders of the Goblin Fortress?" Adam nodded and said "My friend behind was the one who epted the quest yesterday."


    The secretary took both the heads and examined them before returning to Adam, and putting a heavy purse on the table and saying "Here is the reward, good job."


    Adam picked the purse and looked at the others who immediately said "You helped us more than we could ask for, keep everything." Adam nodded and pocketed the purse. There were 30 Gold Coins in there. This was an incredible reward for a single A Rank mission, but this should have been split in 7 parts normally, or he wouldn''t even have gotten anything if he didn''t participate.


    The group then went outside the guild and headed for the tavern before sitting around a table and drinking together. Adam had a fun time sitting together with them, so much that an hour passed by. Despite drinking a few mugs the sneaky yers recording him didn''t escape his senses, but he simply didn''t care.


    Adam was feeling a little tipsy when he excited the tavern, Epoch even simted this. If one wanted to clear the ''drunk'' debuff they would need to ask a cleric to heal them, and that''s why Adam was heading for the local church.


    On his way though a group of yers appeared before him, there were 15 of them, all of them being between Level 13 and 15, which was actually quite impressive. Although grinding as a group was faster, not just any group could reach this level this fast.


    The leader of the group, Tarkhu, moved in front of Adam and said "I challenge you to a duel!" Everyone in the street suddenly turned their heads to look in the direction of Adam and Tarkhu. In a city, fighting was prohibited, unless it was a duel.


    Adam looked at the man in annoyance and asked "Who are you?" The question seemed to annoy Tarkhu, but Adam really didn''t know who the man was.


    One of theckeys behind sneered and said "Don''t y dumb, who doesn''t know the great Tarkhu, Guild Leader of the mighty Blue Cemetery Guild!"


    There were both NPCs and yers in the street. The yers seemed to know who they were, but the NPCs werepletely confused as to who exactly they were. NPCs would only know of guilds who ere registered


    As this came to Adam''s mind, he suddenly remembered he had forgotten something. Creating his Guild! Sarah had told him she would help him create it for free once he bes Level 15, and he has just missed the asion when they saw each other in the fortress.


    Adam''s mind cleared a little, he couldn''t waste time with this. The longer he took to create his guild, the more yers would miss the opportunity of joining him. Adam looked at the man in front of him in annoyance and said "Move, I''m in a hurry."


    Tarkhu''s face turned red being shooed off like that, and he unsheathed his one handed sword as he said "Is the mighty Valiant Heart a coward! I knew it, you aren''t as strong as people think, co"


    Tarkhu was interrupted in the middle of his sentence though as a fist glowing with a white light hit his temple. This was Adam punching him with [Mighty Strike].


    Tarkhu''s face was smashed in and sprayed blood everywhere as he fell to the ground, dead.


    Critical Hit! -2509 HP!


    Right now, Adam''s strength stat with the heart on was of 448, using [Mighty Strike] would deal 1254 damage on someone with 0 defense. Tarkhu was a swordsman with 900 HP, so even without the Critical Hit he would have died.


    Adam didn''t care about the man though and walked past his corpse, hurrying toward the guards'' barracks. When he approached the other members of Tarkhu''s guild, they all scattered away while shooting for the guards.


    It took a single second for a group of guards to appear next to them, and as they began exining what happened and pointed at Adam, thetter merely showed the Azure Insignia.


    The guards immediately bowed and arrested the members of Blue Cemetery, as including Tarkhu who had just respawned at the church.


    Quickly a video of what happened began circting, and people understood two things. First, Valiant Heart was even stronger than what people thought. Second, don''t piss him off, especially in a city.

 Chapter 49: Sovereign Kingdoms

    Chapter 49: Sovereign Kingdoms


    Adam didn''t bother going to the church, it the opposite way of the guards barracks, and he wasn''t that drunk. And he didn''t need to be sober to speak with Sarah.


    On his way Adam saw that the yers looked at him weirdly, but he didn''t bother about them and hurried to the barracks as fast as he could. When he did reach there, he went up to the secretary and showed the secretary the Azure Insignia while asking "Tell the Marshall that Valiant Heart is here."


    The secretary was a different one from the one who handed him his badge, and so when she saw him enter she didn''t pay much attention, but the moment she saw the badge she straightened up and immediately sent the message.


    Meanwhile, Adam looked around and saw that there seemed to be a new batch of trainees among the guards, and among them was someone Adam knew personally, Arno, the man he had saved during his first quest.


    Adam didn''t have time for pleasantries though, not right now. Sarah appeared before him, and looked at him with a sneaky smile as she asked "What is it, we already saw each other earlier. Do you miss me that much?"


    Adam rolled his eyes and said "Don''t overestimate yourself too much woman. You said you would help me register my guild when I get past Level 15."


    Sarah was surprised by how direct Adam was, when they previously talked he was more elegant and had a way with words. With a sniff though, she understood the situation, he was drunk. He waved her hand and Adam felt an energy pass through him, cleaning his inner system.


    Adam''s drunk state suddenly disappeared, and his eyes regained their lost rity. He then realized what he just said and eximed "Sorry for that, but can you help me?"


    Sarah nodded and grabbed him by the shoulder, disappearing from the spot. Meanwhile, the few yers who hade to the barracks to find quests or enter the guards looked at Adam being familiar with such a powerful NPC. It seemed that every time Valiant Heart made a public appearance, he would stir up a storm.


    As the yers began posting on the medias what they saw, Adam appeared with Sarah into an office, which he guessed was hers. She waved at the seat in front of the main desk and said "Sit here." while she herself went to sit behind the desk.


    Adam discreetly opened his status and sent a message to King yer, asking him about the name of the guild. Adam personally thought of naming the guild ''King''s Heart'', like how they had called their party.


    King yer''s answer came quickly, and surprised Adam. King yer said to find another name, one that wouldn''t associate King yer with it. Adam asked why, but King yer said he would exinter as he was busy right now.


    Adam himself didn''t care much, it was but a name, but he knew many people would have never passed the opportunity of having their name in a guild''s name.


    Adam found King yer to be more and more mysterious, but as long as he kept his promises then Adam didn''t feel the need to pry into his secrets.


    Now, he had to quickly think of a name, one that would represent his goals, as well as the way his guild would act in the future.


    Sarah opened a file on the desk and said "What do you know about Guilds?"


    Adam snapped back to reality and said "They are big groups of adventurers who team up to form a powerful organization." Guilds actually weren''t exclusive to yers, there also existed NPC Guilds, after all not every NPC wanted to blindly follow a kingdom or a racial power, some wanted to have their independence, and it came in the form of guilds.


    Sarah nodded and exined "This is a good definition of a guild. Normally, you should have gone to the Adventurer''s association to create a guild, to fulfill some requirements as well as pay a definite fine to create your guild. Since I''m the Marshall of this kingdom and am personally powerful, I can do it in their stead and send in a report."


    She continued "Guilds are numerous in numbers, and vary in strength. Some Guilds are made of only a dozen or two Iron Ranks, while some others are even more powerful than the Azure Sky Kingdom."


    Adam tilted his head and asked "How powerful are theypared to the Racial Powers?"


    She replied "It depends, some are less powerful than this kingdom, and some are only below Racial Powers in terms of experts. As I have already exined to you, in this world the strongest power is the Holy Temple, followed by the Racial Powers and then kingdoms like Azure Sky. However, there is another special power that stands equal to the Racial Power, and that is the coalition of the Sovereign Kingdoms."


    Adam asked "Sovereign Kingdoms?" She nodded "This is the name given to the strongest independent kingdoms managed by guilds. Individually, even the strongest Independant Kingdom is weaker than the Racial Powers. Racial Powers are said to each have at least 3 Legends at their top, while the strongest Independant Kingdoms only have one at best. Actually, there only exist 5 Independant Kingdoms with a Legend Rank in them. They are known as the Sovereign Kingdoms."


    Adam said "Then this coalition came from the pressure caused by the Racial Powers, who felt threatened?"


    She replied "Exactly. For the Racial Powers, any Legend Rank rising in a foreign power is a source of worry. So when the Sovereign Kingdoms showed their Legend Ranks, the Racial Powers tried to threaten them. The only way for Sovereign Kingdoms to thrive, was to form a coalition, and stand together so that in case one of them is attacked, every other Independant Kingdom would team up and attack the Racial Power."


    Adam said with some doubt "But I don''t believe Racial Powers only have 3 Legend Ranks each, they must have more hidden. Would they really feel threatened?"


    Sarahughed "Of course they have more than 3! Just counting the Legends they have in the sub powers, there are more than 3 Legends. For example if my brother bes a Legend, the Colnds Empire would still only be said to have 3 Legends, but if the Empire were toe across any danger, he would definitely stand with them. And there are the hidden ones. But the same can be said for the Sovereign Kingdoms.


    The Coalition should have more than 10 Legend Ranks in their midst, but this isn''t their greatest strength. Instead, it is their great number. The Coalition has way more people in it than any of the Racial Powers, and so having the whole Coalition fight a single Racial Power would most certainly lead to the Racial Power''s demise.


    And even if the Racial Power were to win, the losses incurred would be too big, because the Coalition is the Big Sister of the Adventurer''s Guilds through the world, and losing them would be a disaster for the various powers. That''s the current status quo in the world, and how the Coalition rose to be the equal of the Racial Powers."


    Adam asked "Thanks for enriching my knowledge, but what does it have to do with me?" Sarah looked at him with a strange gaze and said "Everything, actually. Creating your guild is easy, I only need the name you want to give it. But you have an important decision to make, and that which side you want your guild to be in. Do you want to enter the Coalition, or instead be under the Colnds Empire?"

 Chapter 50: Tale of the North

    Chapter 50: Tale of the North


    Adam frowned, this was a big choice to make, each power certainly provided different advantages, but he didn''t know whether it would be possible to change allegiances after the guild has been created. After all, the two sides were in more of a cold war than anything, so it wasn''t sure a side would ept traitors from the other side.


    It was like on Earth back during the actual Cold War, if a country standing with the USSR were to suddenly change sides and tried to ally itself with the US, the US probably wouldn''t ever trust that country in fear they were actually a Trojan horse, or simply spies.


    That''s why, this was a difficult decision to make. But like with every decision, to make a good choice he needed to know what each side offered.


    Adam thus asked Sarah, who replied "First is the resources, the Coalition has a big inner market shared between only the members of the Coalition, while the Colnds Empire has their own resource but can also ask for the allied Racial Powers for resources."


    Adam said "Even though the whole Coalition is only as strong as a single Racial Power, they have more members. Wouldn''t they have a bigger market?" Sarah nodded "They do sell more items, but that stands for lower quality items. The Empire does sell less items, but the quality is better."


    She added "Apart from the resources, there is also the matter of political alliances. Entering the Coalition gives you ess to every Sovereign Kingdom for free, but entering any of the Racial Powers''nds would either cost some money or even be impossible to enter. If you are under the Colnds Empire, you will have ess to thends of every Racial Power allied to us for free, but pay to enter the Sovereign Kingdoms."


    Adam nodded, he already knew what the alliances were between the races, split in Light, Neutral and Dark side. Serving under the Colnds Empire would then mean free ess to Feynwoods,nd of Wood Elves and Fae, as well as Aldeneid,nd of Foxkin and Light Elves.


    He didn''t know how big thend of the Sovereign Kingdoms was, but it shouldn''t be far from the three Racial Powersbined, after all even though they were weaker the Coalition had more members.


    So for now, the two powers were near equal in term of advantages, but Adam had ast, important question. He asked "What can I hope for my guild if Ie under the Colnds Empire? If I join the Coalition, the stronger I am the better my guild''s position will be, but what about the Empire? Will they really ept for a Guild to be so strong?"


    Sarah replied "Honestly, whatever power you decide to serve, be it the Coalition or any of the Racial Powers, the moment you threaten their authority they will react. Only if they are absolutely sure of your allegiance would they let you grow more and more powerful. But if you do earn their trust, then topping the Coalition would allow you to be one of themanding powers.


    In the Empire, if you ever be a Legend then your guild would have different rights depending on your ss, but even if you be the weakest kind of Legend your guild would still be granted a status only below the King of the North. If you are a powerful enough Legend, and your guild is powerful, bing the second King of the North wouldn''t be impossible."


    Adam scratched his head and asked "You keep talking about the King of the North, but who is he?"


    Sarahughed and said "You never heard of him? Remember when I said there are three official Legends in the Colnds Empire?"


    Adam nodded so she said "First is the Emperor, second is the King of the North, and third is the brother of the Emperor. Both the Emperor and his brother are S Rank Legends, but the King of the North is the most powerful as he is the only SS Rank Legend in the Empire."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and asked "And he never wanted to take the throne for himself?" Sarah shook her head and said "The King of the North is even closer to the Emperor than the Emperor''s own brother. You never heard of the tale between the two of them?"


    Adam shook his head and Sarah started looking nostalgic as she said "A few years ago, some terrible events shook the whole Empire, and by extension most of the world through various means. They took ce slightly after Henry created this kingdom.


    It all started when the Emperor was still a Prince, and the King of the North was an adventurer. The King of the North is called Conan Clearwater. Conan was a great adventurer as he was one of the rare holders of an SS ss, and he fought only with his sister, a beautiful maiden known for her beauty and fearsome mastery of her Cleric spells.


    When Conan was a Hero Rank, because of his ss and equipment he was one of the strongest Heroes,parable to a Legend, and so he epted the hardest missions, one of which allowed him to meet the Emperor, who was only a Prince back then. Conan and the Prince became brothers, and the Prince fell in love with Conan''s sister.


    For years everything went well for the three of them, the Prince also became a Legend and became one of the pretenders for the position of Crown Prince. Unfortunately, it was at that time that the old Emperor finally perished, and the War for the Throne began.


    The Prince didn''t especially want the throne, all he wanted was to live with Conan''s sister for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, the Prince''s brothers and sisters didn''t agree with this, and tried to kill him. They assaulted his mansion, trying to kill him, but since he was a legend and Conan was nearby, they were able to survive. Unfortunately, Conan''s sister died.


    A monthter, Conan brokethrough to be an SS Legend, and the two of them stormed through the Imperial Pce, killing everyone involved and avenging the dead sister of Conan. Since then, the Prince became the Emperor, and Conan became known as the King of the North, the right hand of the Emperor."


    Adam smiled, this was indeed a good story. A sad one, but a good one nheless. He couldn''t help but ask "Which of the two is considered more powerful then? Is it the King of the North for his individual might, or the Emperor for having him at his beck and call?"


    Sarah shook her head and said "Neither really is. If I to name the most powerful individual in the entire Empire, then it would be the Crown Princess. When Conan''s sister died, she left behind a child, whose father is the Emperor. Both the Emperor and the King of the North would be ready to give up their life to save the Crown Princess were she to ever be in danger."


    Adam asked "The Emperor never married again after his coronation?" Sarah shook her head and said "The Emperor never epted any other woman, and probably won''t But we''re getting sidetracked. Now tell me, do you want to create your guild under the Coalition, or under the Empire?"


    Adam remained silent for a few seconds before answering "I choose the Empire. The son of the King of the North is my disciple after all, joining the Coalition would put him in a difficult ce. Moreover, I already have several connection with powerful people in the Empire while I know no one in the Coalition."


    Sarah smiled and said "I''m happy you made this choice, now I know we are on the same side for sure. I only need one more information, and that is the name you want to give your guild. I think I remember you called yourself future Guild Leader of King''s Heart?"


    Adam smiled slightly and said "Yeah, I did say that, but I won''t be using this name in the hand. For some reason my partner doesn''t want to be associated with the name of the Guild."


    Sarah didn''tment and simply asked "What shall it be then?"


    Adam looked down, remaining silent for a couple of seconds before raising his head and saying "Divine Predator."

 Chapter 51: Divine Predator

    Chapter 51: Divine Predator


    Sarah looked at Adam curiously and asked "Why this name?" Adam smiled and said "A personal reason."


    In fact, this name came from his ss, the berserker. On Earth, Berserkers were violent warriors who could enter into a deadly rage by using mixtures of drugs. More importantly, their namees from the way they dressed, they always had the hide of a bear on them.


    This signified that they transcended humanity, that once they entered their berserker''s rage their body would be controlled by the god of battle Tyr, who created them, to kill their enemies and be divine predators.


    This little bit of knowledge hade back to his mind earlier, and he found that Divine Predator was a good name for his guild, and would represent well what his goals would be.


    Sarah noted down the name and said "Alright, it''s your guild. Now, I need to exin the rules to you, and if you agree to them then your guild will be officially created."


    Adam nodded and Sarah said "First, there is no limit to the number of members your guild can have. Second, if you ever want to construct or conquer a town, city or even Kingdom, you need to obtain the rights from the Empire. The rights are free most of the time, but are to be earned. Most of the time, your guild simply needs to have enough reputation. If you do conquer a territory without the appropriate rights, then it will go to the Empire. You can try keeping it for yourself of course, but for that you would need your guild to be powerful enough to fight against the whole Empire."


    Adam smiled, that wasn''t really an option, not for now at least. Sarah added "The final rule isn''t really a rule, but rather a warning. Even though we are all under the Colnds Empire, it doesn''t mean there can''t be infighting. So be wary of other guilds and kingdoms under the Colnds Empire, they might very well attack you with the intention of swallowing you up. Although, I''m not too worried for you since you were granted near immortality."


    Adam smiled sheepishly and said "It is a fine boon. For the rules, I ept them all." Sarah nodded and gave him a contract, saying "The moment you sign this your guild will be created."


    Adam nodded and didn''t even bother to read the contract as he signed it. If there was anything to be worried of in this contract, she would have told him. Moreover, it was a simple contract, even if he broke it the consequences would be like those in the real world.


    [Congrattion for creating your own guild, Divine Predator! You are now capable of recruiting yers and NPCs into your guild.]


    Adam grinned at the notification, and Sarah said "Go now, I still have work to do." Adam couldn''t even answer as he was teleported out of the guards'' barracks. He continued smiling though and opened his messaging tab.


    He sent a message to King yer, saying ''The guild has been created. Let''s meet when you are free.'' After sending the message, Adam then walked toward the Alorge Association. As he walked his way there he felt like everything was going well for him right now, and it was such a pleasant feeling.


    He also took the asion to use his 25 AP now, so he wouldn''t forget about them like he did for thest ones. Looking at his three main attributes, Strength, Agility and Endurance, Adam felt like adding his points to them was a little meaningless.


    His pure Strength, Agility and Endurance were at 83, 51 and 51 respectively, and with the bonuses from his equipment his Strength was above 400 and both his Agility and Endurance were above 130.


    That''s why, while adding 25 to any of them wouldn''t really be felt. Thus, Adam decided to add all 25 of them to his Intelligence, boosting it to 40 in pure attribute, and 45 with the boost from [Arda''s Pendant].


    Without counting the effects from the Godyer''s Heart, his MP was now at 450, meaning he more than doubled his MP. This was a useful addition because he had felt in the raid on the Goblin Fortress that hecked MP to continuously use [Wind de]. If he picked up more skills that needed MP in the future then his measly 200 MP wouldn''t ever be near enough.


    For Wisdom though, he couldn''t care less since the attribute waspletely useless to him. Now that this had been dealt with, Adam entered the Alorge Association happily as he searched for a mission. However, the moment he entered he received a message from King yer.


    ''Sure, I''ll be avable tomorrow. But are you busy today?''


    Adam replied ''Yeah, I was about to go grinding.''


    King yer said ''Perfect. I need arge amount of a material to mass produce a potion that should help us earn a lot of money, but the monsters who drop it are inside a dungeon that is Level 20-30, so there are none for sale.''


    Adam asked ''Can I enter the dungeon being under Level 20?'' to which King yer replied ''Don''t worry, I checked and everyone can enter the dungeon. If you feel like you can finish the dungeon, the dungeon is called ''Venomous Web''. The monsters inside are all the same, they are spiders. If you enter in Easy difficulty then the boss will only be an Elite. What I need from them are their eyes.''


    Adam said ''Alright, I''ll go there. How is your business doing?''


    King yer said ''I have created quite a few armors and potions, but I have yet to sell them. After selling them though we should be able to earn around 50 Gold.''


    Adam was surprised, that was a big amount of Gold. If King yer was able to sell them then that would already be a good step toward his goal.


    Adam decided to ass ast message before closing his message tab ''I know you opened the Gate of Opening. Don''t rush to get your promotion to Bronze Rank, the ss you will get will vary in strength depending on your martial arts, so try to open as many Gates as you can before attempting your promotion.''


    Despite already getting a target for his grinding, the spiders wouldn''t only drop the eyes he needed, but other materials. In the Alorge Association a few cksmiths and alchemists yers had already appeared, posting requests, but they were only for low level materials.


    However, Adam was able to find a resource quest from an NPC Tailor who needed the spider''s webs, which was another drop. Adam epted that quest and set off from the association.


    He didn''t get out of the city yet though, as he still had something to do. His guild was created, but he was the only one in it. He wanted to invite King yer in, but since thetter didn''t want to be in the name he decided to wait until they met before doing that.


    There were also the sisters, Burning Lotus and Holy Lotus, but he would invite them when he start the recruitment for his guild. So he didn''t have any yer to invite. However, there was a group of adventurers he wanted to invite, Eddy''s group, as well as his eldest disciple, Judith. He also wanted to invite his second disciple but they would need to talk first, Adam wasn''t sure his father would allow his son to enter a guild.


    Had it been in any other game, it would have been a pain to find and contact the NPCs at this stage of the game, but fortunately Epoch was special.


    The system actually wasn''t exclusive to yers, but was also essible to NPCs. Of course it was more limited, but basic functions were avable for NPCs, one of which was to send messages.


    Again, there were more limitations for NPCs which Adam didn''t know of, but it allowed them to have long distance conversations between themselves and with yers. So before separating Adam had gotten them as friends in his system, and was now able to message them at any time.


    So he sent a grouped message to Eddy, Louisa, Breyn, Baugh, Vodmir, Vastrik and Judith, asking them if they wanted to join his guild.


    The responses didn''te immediately, so Adam started heading for the dungeon. The dungeon was some distance away from the capital, but was still closer than the Goblin Fortress. In 30 minutes he was able to reach the dungeon, and by then everyone had answered his message, all of them giving him the same answer: yes.

 Chapter 52: Bad luck

    Chapter 52: Bad luck


    With the addition of seven individuals, the guild could now really be called a guild, although it was still only a small one. One interesting feature though was that it allowed them to discuss in a group chat, so Adam asked them ''When are you going to attempt your Bronze Promotion?''


    Eddy quickly replied ''Each of us aren''t that far from breaking through to the second Gate, and thanks to the experience we got from your help, we will all be able to breakthrough quite quickly. That''s why we will stop adventuring and focus on breaking through before graduating.''


    Adam asked ''What about you Judith?''


    Jude replied ''I want to open my Gate of Limit, but it will take too long, and I''m confidant I can get myself an SS ss with my current capacities. SS ss is the limit of my talent, if I were to get an SSS ss even getting beyond the Silver Realm would be incredibly hard. So I''ll leave it to my talent, if I can breakthrough before they do, then I''ll have a shot at SSS, but otherwise I will just attempt my graduation when they do.''


    Adam nodded to himself and sent ''Wise. But Eddy, I remember you talking about a missing member who was going through their promotion. How is that person?''


    Eddy replied ''She is going through some difficulties''


    However Louisa was more direct as she said ''That'' b*tch has deserted us for another guild.''


    Adam raised an eyebrow, what a timing. He asked ''What happened?''


    Eddy replied after a few seconds of silence ''Lily has gotten an A ss, and was recruited by one of the Five Sovereign Kingdoms.''


    Adam said ''Too bad for her, she just missed the opportunity of her life.''


    Baugh couldn''t help but ask ''What do you mean? She took it rather than miss it, she joined the strongest powers in the Coalition.''


    Adam smiled and said ''She has, but the Coalition is nothingpared to what my guild will be. Think about it, even if your team didn''t enter this guild you would still be one of the strongest adventurers team in the world in future. For now you are only Iron Rank, but all of you will at least get an S ss, with a big probability of getting an SS ss. Adding in the experience you got from me, you are assured to reach at least the 5th Gate.


    For example, the princess of the Azure Sky Kingdom is an SS ss, and she said that opening the 5th Gate would allow her to be a Hero Rank. Now tell me, can the Coalition even put together a team of 7 SS Heroes?''


    The chat remained silent after that, they were shocked by what they saw. Until now they still hadn''t realized how much their future had changed. But thinking about it, their team really had the potential of bing the strongest in the entire world.


    In this world, S ss were considered true elites, while SS ss were the ultimate experts. A group of 7 SS Heroes was simply unthinkable, even the Racial Powers didn''t have that many of them individually, even counting the hidden ones.


    Adam then added ''And that''s only counting you 7. For me, I will be reaching for the SSS ss, I am stronger than all of you so me getting an SS ss is already a fact, and my chances for the SSS are not extremely high, but they are there. I will at least open 5 Gates, and very possibly 6 or 7.''


    If SS ss were known as ultimate experts instead of SSS ss, it''s because of a simple reason: breaking through as an SSS ss was just too hard. First, the requirement of opening 3 Gates as an Iron Rank was very hard to meet, and opening the following Gates would be even harder.


    That''s why, there was actually a few SSS ss appearing every few years, but the vast majority was forgotten because they would get stuck at a stage and die with regrets.


    However, for the very rare few SSS ss that managed to get at least to the Gold Rank, they were absolute legends. In front of an SSS ss, even a dragon of the same level would be cautious.


    Had it been anyone else, Eddy and the others would just have taken them as an SSS ss who would fall. However, they had witnessed by themselves the power Adam would get to in the future. He was already at the peak of the 5th Gate, so it was almost certain that with enough time he would open the 6th Gate.


    Finally, Adam said ''Even if that isn''t enough, the guild still hasn''t started recruiting people. There are bound to be talented people joining the guild in the future, and that will make us even stronger.''


    After some time Louisa asked ''Did you join the Coalition or the Colnds Empire?''


    Adam replied ''The Colnds Empire. My second disciple, Johan, is the son of the King of the North, and when I get my ss in the future I will need to do so in the Colnds Empire, so it was better for me to join them. Does it make a problem to any of you?''


    Baugh was the first to reply ''Even though Buwog has taught me many times Northmen weren''t to be trusted, I have left my homnd many years ago, and I owe you too much. So no, it doesn''t pose a problem to me.''


    Baugh came from Buwog, one of the Dark Racial Powers, who are enemies with the Colnds Empire, so he was the one with the best reason to be reluctant, but since even he didn''t hesitate, neither did the others.


    Adam grinned and said ''Good, now focus on your training, your entire future depends on the following days.''


    After that, Adam closed his system and couldn''t help butugh. Originally, he had entered this game with confidence, but there were still doubts in his mind as everything could be over easily if something went wrong somewhere.


    But now, Adam''s future in the game was pretty much assured. He already had a high level of influence in the Azure Sky Kingdom as well as the Colnds Empire, making it so that even if in the future he were to get his guild destroyed by an enemy, he wouldnt be over as a yer.


    Adam now understood why the beginning of the game was the most important phase. Had Adam started ying the game even a week after the game''s release, he wouldn''t have been able to grasp so many opportunities and his path would have been rockier.


    So it was with a happy attitude that he approached the dungeon, which was supposed to be too high leveled for any yer right now.


    However, there was one thing that was on Adam''s mind, and that was the assassins. He had already leveled up twice since Jude attacked him, so there should have been two assassins, but they didn''t approach him yet.


    After thinking for a bit, he concluded that the ckheart Alliance had finally understood that he wasn''t just any normal target, but instead a highly dangerous one. So it had eitherpletely stopped assassins from attacking him, or wanted to send even stronger assassins.


    Whatever the answer was, it didn''t matter to Adam, as he was confidant that with his current strength anyone who only opened the first two Gates would be stomped by him.


    Even if the opponent had be a Bronze Rank and had several levels ahead of him, Adam was still confidant that the one who would grant him his first death was going to wait for a while.


    Anyway, Adam observed his surroundings as he stood in front of the dungeon''s entrance. This dungeon was actually an abandoned mine that was infested by the spiders, who had been proliferating ever since then.


    There were two old wooden doors forming the entrance of the mine, which was going down quickly. When Adam approached the doors he received several notifications.


    [Congrattion for discovering ''Spider''s Nest''!]


    [yer''s level detected to be several levels below the standard for this dungeon, advance with caution.]


    [To enter the dungeon, please choose one of the following difficulties: Easy, Normal, Hardcore, Nightmare.]

 Chapter 53: Spider Nest

    Chapter 53: Spider Nest


    Dungeons were special ces in Epoch, as their rules were different from the outside world. For example, one of the most fundamental rules, the space-time rules, were significantly different.


    If one entered the dungeon alone, then no interference from the outside world were possible, or at least it would be very difficult for anyone outside the dungeon to reach someone in the dungeon.


    This was a special space effect known as Mirroring. A ce affected by Mirroring would create parallel version of itself, the number of versions depending on the strength of the space rule present.


    But that wasn''t all as time as special too, the dungeons were put in a Temporal Loop, or a Time Loop. This meant that the instant someone entered the dungeon, they would enter into a special time, and the moment they left would be a special time too.


    This had two effects. First, whatever was changed into the dungeon would be restored to its original state, including the terrain and the living beings. Second was that anyone entering the dungeon and got killed wouldn''t actually die, but rather be sent back to their original state before they entered.


    Those two effects, Mirroring and Time Loop, were extremely powerful and put together made dungeons ces of incredible wonder.


    However, there were still limits to them. First, the Mirroring and Time Loop would vary in power and intensity depending on what were powering them. The variation of power of the Mirroring would determine the number of parallel version that could be created.


    As for the Time Loop, the power set would determine the items it could restore. A Time Loop with a weak Time Rule would be able to recreate a piece of iron or a Common monster, however it wouldn''t be able to bring back a piece of Divine Crystal or a God monster.


    And for a dungeon, the power of its internal Rules would depend on what was powering it. That''s why, no matter what, some items and people would never be found in any dungeon, or even if they were there they wouldn''t ever be recreated.


    Of course, this wasn''t something Adam knew himself, but rather something he would learn in the future. Even that though was but a part of the truth, as the Rules were not something for mere mortals to understand.


    For Adam, all he knew was that each of the difficulties would make him fight monsters of different strengths, like every game. Since the monsters inside went from Level 20 to 30, Adam decided to first go with the Easy difficulty.


    This was a 5-man dungeon after all, meaning that normally 5 Level 30 would be needed to finish this dungeon on Normal difficulty. Adam wasn''t even Level 20 and was alone. So even though he was confidant in his strength, he preferred to go with the Easy difficulty first.


    Moreover it wouldn''t even be a waste of time because an Easy difficulty would change the strength of the monsters and the rarity of their drop, but what Adam wanted was basic materials that would be dropped even in Easy difficulty, it was just that there would be less of them.


    Now that he had chosen the difficulty he wanted, the doors in front of him opened. The abandoned mine inside didn''t actually look that creepy though because there were lit torches.


    Adam entered within the dungeon as the doors behind him closed themselves. He also received a notification.


    [You have entered the dungeon ''Venomous Web''! Death penalty reduced to 10%, XP reduced to 10%.]


    Adam was surprised by the special effects from the dungeon, but they actually made sense, the second one at least. The number of monsters within dungeon was much more than in the outside world, in one run one could kill more monsters than someone else who grinded in the outside world for an entire day. Moreover, when monsters in the outside world were killed, they would either disappear forever or take a long time to respawn. This XP reduction only made it fair.


    This also made Adam realize that the drops in the dungeon would probably be lessened too, both in number and rarity.


    But an even more important point was the value of dungeons. They were the perfect training grounds for training martial arts. In here, one could fight against hundreds of monsters, not caring about death, nor about leveling up past the level for a promotion.


    Adam''s eyes shone, this was exactly what he needed himself!


    Since Adam had been able to open the 1st Gate in the virtual world, then it meant opening the next ones was also possible. Fighting against waves of enemies until he reaches his limit and then let his body heal by itself would make his training so much faster, he would gain days of training!


    With a brightened face and a happy heart Adam took his first steps inside the dungeon. The interior of the dungeon was quite cold, colder than the sunny in outside at least.


    There was only a single path down into the earth for now, which was only as wide as two or three people. This would make it harder for adventurers to fight, especially the ones using big weapons like Adam as the weapons would collide with the walls and the ceiling.


    It wasn''t a problem for Adam though as he could wield his sword efficiently in an even smaller space if he had to.


    It didn''t take long for him to feel the first monsters. He could hear multiple legs tapping against the walls, advancing toward him. A couple secondster, a brown spider appeared against the wall. It''s color served as a natural camouge, but once again this didn''t work against Adam.


    [Cave Spider] (Common, Level 20)


    2000/2000


    The HP of the spider was the same as the goblins, this was going to be easy. Before the spider could jump at him he instead jumped at it, stabbing the spider with his sword in the next instant, [Mighty Strike] activated.


    -1870 HP! Cripple!


    Almost its entire HP bar was emptied out with this single strike. Moreover, the sword had pierced through it and the earth wall behind it, impaling it on the wall. It tried to move but that only dealt additional damage that killed it quickly.


    Adam took his sword back and the spider suddenly disintegrated, leaving nothing behind. Adam didn''t feel bothered by this as he expected it and instead decided to move on.


    The dungeon had a simple outline at first, with only a single path in the beginning. However after some time several smaller paths appeared on the sides. Every time one appeared Adam would take it and it would lead him to a big room with many spiders having nested in them, and in some of them there were chests.


    Adam concluded that the main path was going straight forward, while the smaller paths were additional rewards for those who felt confidant enough to take them.


    It took three hours to Adam to reach the very end of the dungeon. However, in those three hours, he had made sure to visit every nook and cranny of this dungeon, killing absolutely every spider in it and opening the additional chests.


    The spiders he killed dropped three items. [Spider Eyes], [Spider Webs] and [ck Iron Ore]. As fro the chests, in most of them Adam picked up [ck Iron Ore], but he also found some Common equipment, nothing too fancy. Moreover, despite the amount of chests he opened and the number of spiders he killed, he barely got anything.


    In term of loot, this run really wasn''t that good, three hours in the outside world would have given him more. However, it wasn''t worthless. He had been keeping his health at around 50% for the whole run, and always let his natural healing heal him.


    When he met spiders, he would let them hit him until he fell to 50% health, and then let himself recover to around 70% before taking damage once again. In those three hours, he had felt considerable progress in the opening of his 2nd Gate.


    Unfortunately, he wasn''t even once at his limit, they simply weren''t strong enough.


    Finally, his skills were what got enhanced the most. His [Charge] was now Level 9, his [Wind de] level 8 and his [Parry] level 7.


    After Adam''s health got back up to 100%, he entered the boss room, which was separated by doors made of [ck Iron], the metal one would get once they smelted [ck Iron Ore].


    Once past the doors, Adam saw arge room which looked like the main storage room for the mine when it was back in working condition. There were many chests all around the room. However, all of them were opened and empty, except for one.


    However, that one chest was different from the others who looked like each other. It looked like a better treasure was hiding in that chest. Unfortunately that chest was hiding behind a spider. This spider was as big as a car and was standing menacingly in front of the chest.


    [Big Cave Spider] (Elite, Level 25)


    9000/9000


    Unfortunately for the spider, it just wasn''t enough to impress Adam. He unsheathed his sword and sprinted toward it, his sword lighting up.


    The spider boss angrily squealed and lifted one of its front legs to stab Adam, but thetter dodged it and attacked the spider.


    -4640 HP!


    -1650 HP!


    -1650 HP!


    -1650 HP!


    The spider, which was supposed to be the boss of this dungeon and who was supposed to be very strong, crashed backwards with a single sh, dead.

 Chapter 54: Orin

    Chapter 54: Orin


    Adam looked down at the dead spider boss and took what it dropped in his pockets. Honestly it was a little disappointing as it only dropped two sets of each of the materials along with a Common dagger.


    Adam then set his sight on the chest behind, and quickly opened it, but he didn''t have any expectations. And as expected, there wasn''t anything interesting in the chest, only some more materials and Common equipment.


    After Adam opened the chest, he felt space around him warp as he suddenly appeared outside the dungeon. As he appeared outside he looked around and saw that he had appeared at the entrance of the dungeon.


    Adam had already decided he would go through this dungeon for the rest of the day, but not right now as he was getting really hungry right now.


    Adam opened his system and left the game, his avatar disappearing.


    When he got out of his room he saw that neither of his parents were here, as expected they were working. While he took the rests from yesterday''s dinner out of the fridge and into the microwave, Adam thought about his brother.


    He hesitated whether he should go visit him or not, but eventually decided not to. He wanted to go visit him when he would finally start aplishing something really significant in the game, and by when he would be 100% sure he would be able to save his brother.


    His determination and will, that had a little waned after three hours of grinding, were renewed as he quickly ate and went back in the game to grind the dungeon.


    This time, Adam selected the Normal difficulty before entering the dungeon. It didn''t take long for him to see the first change. He saw a spider approach, and looking at its status that hadn''t changed one bit in his past run, this one now had a slightly different one.


    [Cave Spider] (Common, Level 25)


    2500/2500


    The difference wasn''t much, but he could see the difference between the two difficulties. It wasn''t really felt when he fought it though, as he killed it as easily as he did back then.


    Like that, another dungeon run started for Adam who began ying with the spiders. This run actually changed somewhat from the first one.


    The dungeon was still split in one main path and several smaller ones leading to mini rooms. However, the small rooms now had more spiders in them, and all of them had spiders in them, when earlier some of them had been empty.


    The biggest change though was the appearance of a mini boss room, in which there was a Level 30 Elite Spider waiting for him.


    Despite the changes, Adam was still capable of reaching the doors leading to thest boss, it just took him 4 hours this time, but the number of resources he got was bigger. His inventory wasn''t even half full though, the drop rate was just too little.


    The dungeon still wasn''t finished though, as he now had to face thest boss. Adam opened the doors and was greeted by the sight of an even bigger spider than earlier. Moreover, not only its size changed, but its color changed too as it it changed from brown to a mixture of ck and brown strips, which made it look deadly and a little funny at the same time. It''s status made any notion ofughter disappear though.


    [ck Stripped Cave Spider] (Chieftain, Level 30)


    66000/66000


    This time, Adam decided to be more careful, but he still went for the attack first. In a fight, one should always start by attacking, as being sent on the defensive could sign one''s defeat.


    This boss acted in the same way as the one from earlier as it tried to stab Adam with one of its front legs, except that this one was sharper, faster and stronger.


    Still, Adam was once again able to dodge it before striking the monster, making it lose about 7000 HP this time, instead of the normal 9000+ damage he should do. This meant the boss'' defense was quite good.


    As soon as his attacknded Adam stepped to the side, dodging another attack and shing at the leg that just attacked him. He wasn''t able to sever it, but he still made considerable damage to it.


    The spider was angered and spat out a white substance at Adam. This was a new skill, or maybe the Elite Spider had it but just didn''t have the time to use it


    Anyway, Adam didn''t take any chance and used [Charge] to rush under the spider''s body and collide with one of its legs, stunning it, before activating [Crushing Blow] and performing a circr sh, hitting each of the spider''s 8 legs.


    In the middle of his spin he saw that the area where the white liquid had sshed had corroded, this must have been acid, he thought. After his circr sh that shaved off about 3000 HP from the spider as well as 15% from its defense, he jumped away, just before the spider crashed into the ground.


    Feeling nothing under it but the ground, the spider knew it had missed it''s tentative to crush the human bothering it. But before it could move again a de coated with a green wind appeared before its eyes.


    The next moment, the entire left side of its vision went dark.


    Critical Hit! -1052 HP! Cripple!


    In a short confrontation, Adam had already taken out 17% of the boss'' HP, and crippled half its vision. Even though this boss was strong that the Troll he had fought in the Goblin Fortress, he had changed a lot since then.


    First, his stats had simply be better, his strength to be exact. Although the spider boss seemed to be stronger than him in stats, it wasn''t that bad thanks to the boost he received. But more importantly, he had opened the first Gate, the Gate of Opening, and now his senses were much better.


    That''s why, he was able to deal with this spider boss easily, and it didn''t pose much of a threat to him. The minutes went by, and although the spider was strong, its HP continuously went down, and even as it tried to use its different skills, it fell to the ground, dead, after five minutes of fighting.


    Adam looked at the corpse with a sigh though. This fight had been too easy. With how big the difference in martial arts was between him and the boss, the gap in attributes needed to be bigger than this to give him even some difficulty.


    The only reason he had taken 5 minutes to kill it was because its regeneration was quite good and it had a big amount of health.


    The corpse disappeared into dust like the other spiders, but it did leave some loot. First were the usual materials, but there was one additional one here, and that was a piece of [Dark Gold Iron Ore]. From its description Adam concluded this was the enhanced version from the [ck Iron Ore].


    There was also an Umon Helmet, but it was Level 30 and for Assassins only. Then, Adam turned his attention to the chest, which became even bigger in this difficulty. Opening it, Adam was stunned by the treasure he got.


    There was 1 Gold in there, as well as a Level 30 Rare pair of daggers. Adam took them in his inventory and exited to dungeon.


    Once he appeared outside, as he was about to enter back in the dungeon, he was surprised to feel a presence behind him. He turned around and saw an old dwarf was sitting on a nearby rock, looking at him with a smile.


    Adam was confused as to why he was smiling, but decided to smile back to be polite as he looked at his status.


    [Orin] (Bronze, Level 50)


    HP: 4400/4400


    This dwarf could be considered average for a Level 50 Bronze, having 4400 HP without any equipment was average for a Monk. With how old the dwarf was though, he probably wouldn''t be Silver Rank in his life, but die before. Reason as to why Adam thought this was that the old dwarf hadn''t opened any Gates yet.


    Still, for the current him, this old dwarf was stronger, even without any equipment on. Although he could deal about 9000 damage with his strongest attack, that was when he overwhelmed his opponent''s defense.


    For this dwarf to have 4400 health meant its Endurance was at an impressive 440, so his raw defense would allow him to survive Adam''s strongest strike with probable ease, and that was without activating any skill.


    Of course, the two had no reason to fight, as the dwarf looked friendly.

 Chapter 55: Evolved Spider

    Chapter 55: Evolved Spider


    Adam approached the old dwarf and asked "Can I help you?"


    The old dwarf''s smile receded a little as he said "You came from within the mine, right?" Adam tilted his head, and after a moment he nodded.


    Orin looked delighted as he asked "Did you get any [ck Iron Ore]?"


    Adam asked "Why are you asking?" Orin replied with augh "Do you know the history of this mine?" Adam shrugged and said "Didn''t it use to belong to the Azure Sky Kingdom?"


    Orin nodded and said "It did, but they didn''t own the entirety of it. Actually, some of the earnings from the mine woulde to my vige, because we are the cksmiths who worked with the metals excavated to create armors for the Kingdom. Most of the armors for the guard trainees were made by us."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and said "I don''t mean to be rude, but why are you telling me this? If you don''t have anything else to say, I would rather go back in there."


    Orin shook his head and said "Back in the day, we would use this mine as our livelihood, my vige has always depended on the earnings from this cave. However, three weeks ago a tragedy struck us."


    Adam scratched his head and said "I''m sorry for you, but I honestly don''t know how I can help you." Orin replied "There are actually two ways. If you got any [ck Iron Ore] then please sell it to us."


    Adam asked "Why would I do so?" Orin replied quickly "If you sell the ores to us, we will pay less gold, but we will let you buy from the equipments we have in store. Those equipments are better than any other you can find in human smithies."


    Adam asked "Fine, but what about the second way?" Orin then said "Have you ever heard of the [Dark Gold Iron Ore]?"


    Adam shook his head so Orin exined "This is a rare evolution of the [ck Iron Ore] that is much more precious and that can be used to create armors for Silver Rank experts. If you find any then please sell it to us."


    Adam asked "How precious is it?" Orin replied "This mine always had [Cave Spiders] in it, but they were never a threat to us, to mine in ck Iron one needs to have a powerful body, so the spiders were never a problem. However, [Cave Spiders] grow stronger by eating minerals."


    Adam now understood why the boss room was the storage room. Orin said "We don''t know how, but one of the spiders was able to get in the storage room and stay in there for a considerable amount of time, slowly growing. It became strong enough to evolve into a Lord."


    Adam couldn''t help but ask "Is a Lord Monster that strong? You should be able to defeat it since you are Level 50, and you weren''t alone."


    The old miner sighed and said "No, a Level 50 Lord would have decimated us. And although this one was only Level 30 by then, as a Lord it was still stronger than the miners. That''s why the mine was deserted for a short while for the guard toe here and kill the beast."


    Adam said "And it didn''t go well?" Orin shook his head and said "A few days ago the guards came in the mine, but they were killed by the beast despite there being ten of them. Fortunately it was a dungeon and they were able to revive outside."


    Adam raised an eyebrow "Silver Guards? What level was the monster?"


    Adam shrugged and said helplessly "They don''t know, they were killed before they could see what level or rank the beast had reached. But seeing how quickly they were killed, even a Level 50 Lord monster wouldn''t be strong enough, so it probably evolved once again."


    Adam said "I''m not even Level 20, I''m but an Iron Rank still. Moreover, what''s the purpose behind killing it? It is inside a dungeon, it will just revive."


    The old man shook his head and said "I know I am asking a lot, but no one wants to hear us out. Since the guards got killed, the lord who owned this mine decided to abandon it, and no one sees any point in spending resources to kill it. After all, even though revival is possible, that''s only up to a certain point."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and asked "Is it?" Orin nodded and exined "This dungeon can only revive people who are Level 50 Silvers at best. For the beast to kill them so quickly, it is stronger and thus won''t be able to be revived. However, the same can be said for anyone with any hope to kill the beast. Moreover, the guards died before seeing how strong the spider got, so no one even knows who to send in. Permanently losing a Silver Rank is too heavy of a price for the lord of this mine, so he decided to abandon it."


    Adam shook his head and said "I wish I could help you" Orin waved his hands hurriedly and said "Just let me finish. As long as you promise us to kill this beast once you be strong enough, then we will ept you in our vige as long as you sell some ores to us. And if in the future you manage to kill this beast, we would owe you our lives, ours and our children''s. We can even offer you part of the mine''s shares!"


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Spider Nest''!]


    Quest Detail: A vige of dwarves has lost its main way to earn money, from the hands, or rather legs, of a monster.


    Quest Level: 30


    Quest Difficulty: SSS


    Objective: Kill the final boss of Spider''s Nest on Nightmare Difficulty.


    Reward: Worshiped rtionship with Orin''s vige, 10% of Spider Nest''s earning, ??


    Adam''s eyes widened when he saw the reward, wasn''t that exactly what he needed? If he owned part of the mine then money would never be a problem anymore. He had doubts though, even if the reward was promised by the system, how could Orin offer him so much?


    As if he could read his mind, Orin said "After losing the mine, the managers of the mine decided to give us the entire ownership of the mine, as pensation''. The truth is that they didn''t want to waste time and resources into saving this mine, so they gave us the mine, which became worthless."


    This made Adam frown, although a kingdom as big as the Azure Sky Kingdom ought to have corruption in it, seeing it from his own eyes made Adam frown. He asked "Who owned this mine?"


    Orin replied "Viscount Malo. This mine is within his territories." Adam then said "Good. I ept, I promise you I will kill this monster when I be a Silver Rank, or earlier if I am able to. Shall we make a contract?"


    Orin shook his head and said "I believe you, your promise is enough." Adam raised en eyebrow and Orin exined awkwardly "Paper is expensive, if I had to make every adventurer a contract the vige would be broke even faster."


    Adam smiled, and said "I see. I have several Iron Ores on me, can I sell them to you or should I bring them to your vige?"


    Orin shook his head and said "I will buy them here. My price is 12 Coppers for a piece, while market price is 15. How much do you have?"


    Adam checked his inventory and replied "35." Orin smiled and said "Wonderful. Let me do the calction"


    Adam stopped him though and said "3 times 12 is 36, so 360, plus 5 times 12, 60. That is 420 Coppers, or 4 Silvers and 20 Coppers."


    Orinughed and said "You have a sharp mindd, must have been well educated. Here you go." The two made the exchange, and Orin said "The higher the difficulty, the more ores you will find. Now, it is time for me to go, but before that hand me your map, I will mark the vige on it."


    Adam nodded and a map appeared in his hands, it was simply a manifestation created by the system to make deals easier. Once done, Orin walked away while Adam returned to the dungeon.


    Then, for the rest of the day Adam went through the Normal difficulty of [Spider''s Nest]. By the end of the day his inventory was full, and he had leveled up to Level 18. His [Lunar Smite] was also now level 5.


    But that was unimportantpared to the rest. First, he was able to open the 2nd Gate. Secondly, his skill [Mighty Strike] had reached Level Max.

 Chapter 56: Gate of Healing

    Chapter 56: Gate of Healing


    His Second Gate opening wasn''t that unexpected, it was a little early but Adam knew it would either be opened today or the day after with how much his healing factor was stimted by the constant fighting.


    The concept of having his Gates opened in a virtual world and also open in the real world at the same time was an iparably strange concept to Adam, this shouldn''t be possible.


    After all, his body in real life and his body in the game wasn''t the same, and yet they were able to strangely connect and resonate. Adam had a theory about why that was possible, but he wanted to wait for further proof before making any hasty conclusion.


    Anyway, it had happened when he was on hisst run, he had already killed the entire dungeon except for the Chieftain Boss, and he was resting to heal his HP naturally. During the entire afternoon, the only times when his HP had been full was when he was fighting the boss and when he left the dungeon.


    While his HP was about 70% done, he felt something in his body click, and he received a notification.


    [Congrattions for opening the Gate of Healing! Heal up to 5% of your health every 5 seconds!]


    On the paper, this was a very strong attribute to have, but it did have a drawback that wasn''t mentioned. The body couldn''t just heal on its own. If one tried to abuse the healing rate while fighting then they would only fasten their deaths.


    To heal itself, the body would take the energy from within itself, the energy one would need to fight. So even though one could heal at 1% of their health every second, one would quickly be unable to fight, or even move if it is abused.


    That''s why, a good martial artist wouldn''t just have this healing factor, but would also be able to use it in a way that allows them tost longer inbat.


    On the other end, someone who didn''t know how to use it may die even faster than they would have had they not opened it. This wasn''t a problem for Adam of course.


    After he had opened it, Adam had looked at his wounds heal up at a fast pace, and noticed that he had opened two Gates in the same day.


    This was quite crazy, but not absurdly so. The first three Gates were very closely connected, even for Old Adam who had less potential, no guidance and only his real world body to train, it had taken him only a year and a half to go from opening the 1st Gate to opening the 3rd one.


    Now, in this life it had only taken him a day to open the first two, and the third one would soon follow.


    Compared to this, having leveled up his [Mighty Strike] to max level may seem insignificant, and Adam would have thought so as well weren''t he the one to max it up.


    Every time Adam leveled up his skills, he would grow more familiar with them, and he would be capable of understanding them more. However, as they grow in levels, his skills also receive subtle changes, and [Mighty Strike] had received the biggest one.


    When he first used the skill, all Adam did was use the strength of his entire body to strike harder. However, as he leveled up the skill something else starteding into the mix to make it even stronger.


    After all, from level 1 Adam was already using his entire strength to strike, so how was it constantly getting stronger?


    Well, the answer came in the form of the white glow that formed around his sword. In thetter levels of the skill, the weapon he used would start glowing with a faint white light, which grew stronger with each level.


    Now that it had been maxed, the light had turned really bright, and using the skill made him look like he was using a sword of light. Adam couldn''t name this energy, but he understood that it was present in him, and that it was making his sword stronger.


    Now, if he wanted to find out more about the secrets of his skill, he would need more fighting, but he was done fighting for today. He would soon disconnect, but first he had something to do, and that is meeting up with King yer.


    Earlier when Adam was grinding he had sent a message and the two agreed to meet in a tavern in the city slightly before 8 am.


    Seeing he had some time before that, Adam first headed to the dwarven vige, where he was warmly weed as he sold them his ores. However, he didn''t want to sell his [Dark Gold Iron Ore], not yet at least. It was quite rare as he had only gotten a single piece in all his runs.


    After selling his ores andpleting the quest from the Alorge Association, felt like this had been a really fruitful day. Most of the other yers were between Level 15 and 16, with a few being Level 17.


    Soon, Adam arrived at the tavern they had agreed they would meet in. He wanted to wait silently, but the moment he stepped in everyone quickly shut up.


    The first to do so were the yers, who recognized his name, followed by the NPC who either felt he had already opened the 2nd Gate.


    Adam ignored them all and walked to a table where he sat. Soon after the tavern became lively once again, and Adam had a few mugs offered to him from both NPCs and yers. Adam smiled and epted as he waited.


    Adam could see a few people were hesitating whether they shoulde to him or not, but in the end they were too scared and before they could try anything King yer entered the inn.


    The moment he saw him, Adam couldn''t help but be surprised. King yer was already Level 19, and he had opened the 2nd Gate. Adam raised his hand and waved at him.


    King yer ignored the others who also became silent once they saw him, and walked toward Adam, sitting at his table. Surrounding them, the yers began gossiping, some with the NPCs.


    Meanwhile, Adam looked at King yer eye to eye and said "You have be stronger." King yer smiled and replied "If my senses are right, the one who had the most progress wasn''t me."


    Adam smiled back but didn''t say anything, King yer''s senses were sharp. He then asked "Now tell me, why don''t you want to be in the guild''s name?"


    King yer moved his hand in front of him, and a secondter Adam received a private chat invite. Adam epted and King yer finally talked, now unable to be eavesdropped on "How much do you know about the politics in Epoch?"


    Adam was surprised by the question, but still answered "Quite a lot, for the current stage of the game. Why?" King yer replied "If my guess is right, the guild is under the Colnds Empire, not the Coalition, right?"


    Adam nodded, so King yer said "My race is Dark Elf, and I''m an Assassin. We aren''t really weed in the Colnds, may we be yers or NPCs, and even if you vouch for me, I still wouldn''t really be able to do anything there. And that would be the same for all the assassins in the game."


    Adam asked "But isn''t it the same for all the guilds?" King yer nodded "It is, but they are big guilds, their members are already there, so even if they have to enter an enemy territory, it doesn''t matter. However, for a newly created guild recruiting yers from the opposing factions will be hard, very hard."


    Adam frowned "What does this have to do with the guild''s name?" King yer replied "Everything, actually. The reason I don''t want to be associated with the guild''s name is because I won''t join the guild."

 Chapter 57: Massacre Set

    Chapter 57: Massacre Set


    Adam felt a fire lit up in him, but before he forced himself not to smash King yer''s head against the table. King yer continued "We will do something even better, I will create a sub guild."


    Adam''s anger was reced by confusion, so King yer exined "On the surface, you will only have created your guild, what''s it''s name by the way?"


    Adam replied curtly "Divine Predator." King yer smiled and said "People will only see the creation of Divine Predator. Your guild will wee all the members of the Light Side. As for me, I will create a second guild under the ckheart Mountain that will recruit members of the Dark Side. People will think we created two different guilds, but the truth is that we will form a single guild!"


    King yer continued "This way, you will have a whole guild as a trump card, and that should stun more than one enemy. Also, we will be able to extend in two of the Racial Powers. If we can get influence in both powers then we would be invincible!"


    Adam leaned back against his chair and asked "What about my goal? And how will our two guilds interact? Will our finances be shared?"


    King yer replied "At first, both guilds will do everything to collect the money you need. After that, our guilds will be two separate entities, but if one needs the help of the other then they will offer support."


    Adam finally smiled and said "I like the sound of that. How will you name the sub guild?" King yer shrugged and said "I don''t know yet, I was waiting to know what name you gave the main guild. We can''t have names that are too simr though. I will send you a message when I find a good name. Now, do you have the resources?"


    Adam nodded and opened a trade. Once they were done, Adam''s inventory was back to being almost empty, and King yer was about to get up. Before he could though Adam said "I have onest thing to ask."


    King yer nodded and sat back down. Adam took out the helmet he got from the Troll and asked "I got two pieces of this Massacre Set, but I have no idea where to find the others. You wouldn''t know where they were, would you?"


    Adam knew the chances of King yer having heard of the set were incredibly low, but theter always seemed to know everything, so he decided to test his luck.


    And most to his surprise, King yer had a shocked face as he asked "Where did you find this?" Adam shrugged and replied "A quest of mine, only the first one who entered the city can have it."


    King yer replied "So that''s where it was You got two pieces, right?" Adam nodded and asked "So you know of it?"


    King yer nodded and said "I do, and most people I mean NPCs, would know of this set. Did you hear of the Goblin Kingdom?"


    Adam nodded, so King yer said "They are one of the biggest monster kingdoms in the entire game. They are so powerful that they have been at war against the Colnds Empire for multiple generations now, and they aren''t even losing. Their strongest fighter, their king, has a Legendary Set of armor, the Massacre Set, which allows it to match the King of the North. For the Goblin folk, this set of armor is simr to holy relics on Earth. And so through the years, cksmiths have made replicas. You got one such replica."


    Adam nodded and said "Nice background, but you have any idea where I can find the rest of the set? I need a Chestte, Boots and Gloves."


    King yer stroked his chin and said "I''m not certain, but I have an idea as to where they could be. You see, there are three low level goblin dungeons in the whole kingdom, quite coincidence since you need three pieces of equipment. You might want to go there."


    Adam said "Thanks for the info. Let''s keep in touch for the guilds." King yer nodded and walked off, their private chat disappearing. Adam took a quick nce at the people around and decided it was time to go for him too.


    Normally the best ce to sleep was in a rented room in an inn or in one''s house as it would offer an XP boost for the next connection to the game. However it was expensive so most people didn''t do that.


    Adam could do it though without really feeling anything to his wallet, but he decided not to as he didn''t want to gain too much XP.


    Once out of the game, thest bit of doubt Adam had about his Gate of Healing disappeared, as he immediately felt the change to his body. His 2nd Gate had really opened in both real life and in the game. He couldn''t understand how this happened, but it was very real, he could feel that his body had already recovered a little from his past ill state.


    Adam then walked out of his room, and joined his parents. They ate while talking, well it was mostly Adam''s mom talking, her story about her job was still progressing, apparently she had a good shot at getting the main chef position.


    After eating, Adam went back to his room and began training. Having opened the 2nd Gate, the Gate of Healing, gave him a much bigger stamina, and it took him a long time to reach his body''s limit. And even there, he was able to persevere for longer than usual.


    Moreover, normally when he finished his training he would straight go to sleep to recover, but this time he focused on recovering. Not from his tired state, but rather from his condition from when he died. His body had been in a weakened state ever since he ''died''.


    It wasn''t all bad though. With the incredible healing factor of the 2nd Gate, Adam could feel his inner weakness get better and better, and by the time he finished all the nutrients avable in his body, his condition had already been enhanced by 10%.


    Normally it would take him ten days to recover from his condition, which was already incredible, but he could go even faster, thanks to his cabin.


    For the yers who yed for long periods of times, several functions had been added to supplement the body with nutriments. Although one couldn''t live on this, it still allowed one to y for hours or even days without feeling much hunger.


    In Adam''s case, the nutriments were very useful right now. He moved his tired body to his cabin and closed it on himself. Then, he felt several small needles pierce through his skin, but it wasn''t painful.


    Without his enhanced senses Adam wouldn''t even have been able to feel the needles, they were so small that they didn''t leave any trace behind. Once in his body the syringes supplied Adam''s body with nutriments.


    Once his body had been refilled with nutriments, Adam began consuming them once again, healing his body. However, he quickly emptied his body from nutriments once again, and the flow wasn''t fast enough for him to continuously heal himself.


    Still, he just had to wait for a few minutes for his body to refill.


    In the end, it took Adam an entire hour for him topletely heal his body, and three bottles of nutriments. The sensation of apletely healed body was incredible though. For thest few months he had always felt his body was heavy, and any effort would be harder.


    Now though, as he healed his body, he had also recovered from his tired state and began training once again, going for the limit of his body.


    Five hourster, Adam wasying in his bed, sweating heavily, with a frown on his face. His body was being weird.


    Having ''died'' from the stress on his body had actually been the best possible training for opening the 3rd Gate, as his body had been on the limit for two years straight.


    And that''s why, after healing his body he should have been very close to opening his 3rd Gate. But it was even better than he thought, and weird at the same time.


    From what he could feel right now, his body should have already opened the 3rd Gate. Training to the limit hadn''t made him improve at all. But there seemed to be something blocking him from opening the Gate, just that he couldn''t understand what.

 Chapter 58: Schemes

    Chapter 58: Schemes


    That night, Adam didn''t get to sleep a lot, but it was fine for him. With his enhanced stamina from opening the 2nd Gate, he could go for three days without sleeping and be able to focus at 100%.


    So getting a few hours of sleep was good enough. After waking up, he ate a quick breakfast to get some natural nutriments and then entered the game.


    Once in it, Adam walked toward the adventurer''s association and looked at the top of the iron board. After a few minutes of searching, he was able to find the quests for three Level 20 Goblin Fortresses. King yer said there were only three of them in the whole kingdom, so Adam guessed those were the ones he was searching for.


    The three quests were B Rank quests, all Level 20. They would probably be easier than the Goblin Fortress Adam already went through.


    The three fortresses were located in the Southern part of the Kingdom, the three fortresses weren''t far from each other. They were called alx, Kribs and Eznit.


    For the three of them, the closest city was Ebony City, so Adam used the capital''s teleportation array to teleport there.


    Epoch''s world was big, bigger than Earth, and that''s why without teleportation arrays one would spend their days walking. Of course, teleportation wasn''t cheap, and most yers at the current stage of the game couldn''t afford it, and even those who could would rather walk.


    However, when Adam showed his insignia to the guards at the array, they let him use it for free as long as he wanted to teleport within the kingdom. Being a close friend of the Royal Family was really useful.


    As he appeared in Ebony, Adam took a good look at the scenery. Ebony City was very different from Ember City. The city was actually situated on a small mountain, and overlooked vast ins. The city itself wasn''t very big, but heavily fortified.


    Looking around, Adam didn''t see many yers. This area looked like it was pretty high leveled. Adam didn''t tarry in the city and headed for the first fortress, alx.


    To got to alx, Adam needed to pass through a Level 30 forest, which was quite dangerous. If he had wanted, Adam could have fought his way through, but that would make him lose time, and he didn''t want to get too much XP, so he sneaked through the forest.


    For that, his [Geppo Ring] was very useful, he could hide in the shadows of the tall trees. As for the few that were able to detect him still, he would either kill them or flee.


    It didn''t take him long to reach alx after that. This fortress wasn''t as big as the one he went through with Eddy and his group, but it still did look impressive.


    As he walked in it, Adam actually secretly hoped he would find some kind of secret boss or another extraordinary thing, but unfortunately for him, he did not.


    This fortress was indeed easier than the one he already went through, but it took him a lot longer to clear it because he was on his own now, so killing the monsters was longer. Then for the rest of the day Adam blitzed through the goblin fortresses, killing all the goblins he saw.


    Meanwhile, far far away from where Adam was, in the east. A man was sitting in a dim cave crossed legs, his eyes closed.


    A few momentster, smoke suddenly appeared in front of him, and two men appeared from the dark smoke. One of them wore a ck robe with a skeletal hand on it, he looked like a young man with his bright golden hair. As for the other, he had a red robe with a ck goat''s face painted in the middle. He was older, and he looked like he was devoid of life energy.


    Those two were the cult masters of the Aemon Cult and Demon Cult. They were two very powerful people and were feared through the world, and yet as they saw the cross legged individual they both bowed sincerely to pay their respects.


    This was because the person standing in front of them was a legendary character who was even more feared, and who could kill the two of them without them even knowing. This middle aged man was actually the Cave Master of ckheart Mountain.


    The Cave Master opened his eyes and asked the two "What are you doing here?"


    The two looked at each other before answering "We came to ask about the man we want to be killed."


    The Cave Master stayed silent for a second before saying "Still alive."


    "What?! How?" the two eximed.


    The Cave Master chuckled and said "The kid is stronger than you said, you made me lose many assassins with good potential"


    The two cult leaders felt a chill pass through their body as the Cave Master talked. Thankfully, he wasn''t finished.


    "He was stronger than you two thought. But I wonder, why would the two of youe here to ask about a mere Iron Rank? I''m sure he would be ttered to know he got the attention of two mighty Legends?"


    The Cult Leader of the Demon Cult, who was called Max, said "He and his friend stole something important from my organization" "A person. Princess Victoria Azure, from the Azure Sky Kingdom, isn''t that right?"


    Max gulped and said "Indeed. She would have made a powerful subordinate, and a potential candidate for the position of the next Cult Leader. He has to be killed."


    Following him, Lin, the Cult Leader of Aemon''s Cult, said "He also stole something from me, something precious. But more importantly his personal strength is even more rming."


    The Cave Master showed a toothy grin as he said "Exin yourself."


    "First, he is strong, he will at least be an S Rank, very possibly SS Rank from what I''ve seen. And since he was able to kill the assassins you sent, he might actually have a shot at bing an SSS Rank. That''s why he must be killed."


    The Cave Master nodded and said "There you are. Honestly, I don''t care about whether he lives or not, he won''t have anything against my organization, we are but assassins. The ones he will target is you. But you both know that an an otherworlder, truly killing them is nigh impossible, so what will you do?"


    Max revealed a sly smile as he said "Although we can''t kill him, we can still make him suffer. Do you know what this is?"


    He took out a green me and showed it to the Cave Master. Once he saw it the Cave Master nodded and said "I see, that is indeed a clever n. But this will cost you a lot, you know that right?"


    Max greeted his teeth as he took back the me and asked "How much?"


    "Depends on you. You can only select Iron Assassins about to be promoted. You can hire as many as you want, you know you will need a lot of them, but know that each one you hire will be considered wasted, so it is your choice."


    Max looked at Lin, and after a moment they both nodded to each other and took out a golden key each. The moment he saw the two keys his shone and he said "Never would I have thought it would take a simple boy to get those. You can hire as many assassins as you want with those two keys. Although, if I remember well the limit of this me is 50 people, right?"


    Max looked at the key in his hand with grief as he said "If we give you those two keys, we can pick any assassins you have for our 50 men team?"


    "Anyone." Once again, the two cult leaders looked at each other, and then gave the keys to the Cave Master.


    Back in the Azure Sky Kingdom, Adam was joyfully blitzing through the fortresses, unaware of the dangering for him.

 Chapter 59: Muscle Increase

    Chapter 59: Muscle Increase


    It took Adam the entire day to clear the three fortresses. There weren''t any surprise in any of them, but he did get the remaining pieces of his set. He also leveled up to Level 20, his skills leveled up quite a bit too, he now had 50 Gold on him and the quests rted to the fortresses gifted him 5 additional AP.


    Overall, this was a very good trip. When Adam got back to the Capital, although it was almost night already, he first went to the bank and in his personal vault, where he stored everything he didn''t want in his inventory nor to sell.


    He decided to put the [Everwinter Vest] in there, because it was a gift and it had helped him a lot. After that, he looked at every piece of the Massacre Set like they were the most expensive treasure in the world and put it on.


    [Massacre Helmet (Replica)] (Rare, Level 20, Set)


    Requirements: Level 20, Berserker, 60 Endurance, 40 Strength


    Defense: +100


    HP: +1000


    Strength: +60


    Endurance: +60


    Massacre I (1/5 set effect): Heal 20% of your HP instantly, three charges every two hour.


    Massacre II (3/5 set effect): All attributes +50.


    Massacre III (5/5 set effect): Use the sorrow and pain of your enemies as your energy. +50% to all stats, HP +2000 for 10 seconds. Activation Requirement: Kill 1000 enemies for one activation, non stackable.


    [Massacre Ring (Replica)] (Rare, Level 20, Set)


    Strength: +120


    Massacre I (1/5 set effect): Heal 20% of your HP instantly, three charges every two hour.


    Massacre II (3/5 set effect): All attributes +50.


    Massacre III (5/5 set effect): Use the sorrow and pain of your enemies as your energy. +50% to all stats, HP +2000 for 10 seconds. Activation Requirement: Kill 1000 enemies for one activation, non stackable.


    [Massacre Boots (Replica)] (Rare, Level 20, Set)


    Requirements: Level 20, Berserker, 60 Endurance, 50 Strength


    Defense: +100


    HP: +500


    Strength: +60


    Agility: +60


    Massacre I (1/5 set effect): Heal 20% of your HP instantly, three charges every two hour.


    Massacre II (3/5 set effect): All attributes +50.


    Massacre III (5/5 set effect): Use the sorrow and pain of your enemies as your energy. +50% to all stats, HP +2000 for 10 seconds. Activation Requirement: Kill 1000 enemies for one activation, non stackable.


    [Massacre Gauntlets (Replica)] (Rare, Level 20, Set)


    Requirements: Level 20, Berserker, 50 Endurance, 70 Strength


    Attack: +100


    HP: +500


    Strength: +100


    Massacre I (1/5 set effect): Heal 20% of your HP instantly, three charges every two hour.


    Massacre II (3/5 set effect): All attributes +50.


    Massacre III (5/5 set effect): Use the sorrow and pain of your enemies as your energy. +50% to all stats, HP +2000 for 10 seconds. Activation Requirement: Kill 1000 enemies for one activation, non stackable.


    [Massacre Chestte (Replica)] (Rare, Level 20, Set)


    Requirements: Level 20, Berserker, 60 Endurance, 60 Strength


    Defense: +150


    HP: +1500


    Strength: +100


    Endurance: +100


    Massacre I (1/5 set effect): Heal 20% of your HP instantly, three charges every two hour.


    Massacre II (3/5 set effect): All attributes +50.


    Massacre III (5/5 set effect): Use the sorrow and pain of your enemies as your energy. +50% to all stats, HP +2000 for 10 seconds. Activation Requirement: Kill 1000 enemies for one activation, non stackable.


    Once he was done, Adam felt a newfound power course through his body, the upgrade he had just received wasn''t small in any sense. From now on, even a Chieftain of the same level would be swatted like a fly.


    Adam then looked at his inventory, after putting his AP he had left.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 20


    Title: Monster yer


    Race: Northman


    ss: Berserker


    Rank: Iron


    HP: 6250/6250


    MP: 950/950


    Strength (+3 per level): 100 (715)


    Agility (+1 per level): 60 (260)


    Endurance (+1 per level): 60 (275)


    Intelligence: 40 (95)


    Wisdom: 5 (60)


    Free AP: 0


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E, Level 10/10)


    -Charge (E, Level 10/10)


    -Wind de (D, Level 9/10)


    -Parry (D, Level 8/10)


    -Lunar Smite (C, Level 7/10)


    -Crushing Blow (C, Level 5/10)


    With the power he just acquired, Adam was confidant that even a Lord monster wouldn''t be too strong for him to take on, even if it was Level 30. However, although the feeling of power was exhrating, Adam knew he had more important stuff to do.


    His goal was to get as much money as he could, 10 000 Gold to be precise. In three days he only got 50 Gold, that was only half a percent of the total amount he had to get, and he had fixed himself a limit of 1 month. If he didn''t pick up the speed then he would never get his 10 000 Gold in a single month.


    However, if he could take 10% of the mine''s earnings, then he would most certainly be able to get much more money than that. To get those 10% though, he needed to be stronger, and the only way now to be stronger was to promote to Bronze Rank.


    He would leave to tomorrow though, because it was already night and he didn''t know how long it would take him. Moreover, Skade had said she would take him there, and he would rather wait for the next morning rather than drag her out of her bed. She might be grateful to him, getting dragged out of bed really was a terrible feeling.


    So that''s why he left the game after putting on his extremely strong set. Once out of the game he directly went for his kitchen, but saw both his parents in the living room, on their tablet. He had stopped yingter than usual today, so he missed dinner.


    When he got in the kitchen his mother said "Look in the fridge, there''s a sd."


    Adam smiled, he preferred that over something made in the microwave. Adam ate at lightning speed before going back to his room. Although he was happy he was about to be a Bronze Rank, there was one thing worrying him.


    For the entire day, he forced himself to the limit several times, sometimes by taking off some of his equipment to lower his stats and thus face some challenge with the fortresses.


    However, through the day he always had this weird feeling that something wasn''t right. His body clearly had reached the appropriate state for opening the Gate of Limit, but it was like there was something missing, stopping it from opening, and it frustrated him to no end.


    But no matter how much he searched for a reason in his memories, he couldn''t find any exnation. He should have already opened the Gate of Limits, but he wasn''t making any process no matter how many times he pushed his body to the limit.


    It was with this frustration that Adam went to sleep, not noticing his screen lighting up.


    It was only the next morning that he realized he missed a message from his friends, asking whether he wanted to go out or not. After promising them they would do something the next evening, Adam ate a quick breakfast his mother made and entered in the game once again.


    When he got in Epoch, he went straight for the Royal Pce. It was actually his first time seeing the entrance of the pce. In front of the gates stood a toon of guards.


    They were all Level 100 Gold Rank guards, they were really powerful. However, the moment Adam showed his Azure Insignia they made a path for him, while being as respectful as they could.


    While in the pce Adam saw several toons of guards, all of them being at least Level 100 Gold Rank. Even a Hero would have to flee in front of so many Gold Ranks.


    Adam then reached the main hall, where he could see Henry sitting on his throne, looking bored as a noble was speaking to him. When Adam entered the hall, he didn''t get much attention, except from the guards to whom he showed his insignia, and Henry who smiled.


    Adam smiled back and waited where he was. A few secondster, he disappeared from where he was.

 Chapter 60: Fjora

    Chapter 60: Fjora


    Adam appeared in a luxury room, which he immediately associated with the bedroom of the King and the Queen. The room was big, much bigger than Adam''s apartment on Earth, and there were several pieces of interest.


    First, the bed looked veryfortable, but most importantly it seemed to release a mysterious kind of power, which Adam had never seen before. But since he couldn''t understand what it was, he looked away.


    There were several paintings, some depicting people while others were ofndscapes, but all of them gave an incredible feeling just by looking at them. Adam felt like he was standing in front of the people in the paintings and was directly gazing at thendscapes instead of just watching paintings of them.


    There was also some very expensive looking furniture, several doors and finally a library, with two opposing chairs in front of it. On one of them was Skade, reading a book.


    Adam approached her and she said "I see you have reached Level 20, and you have some fine equipment. Are you here for you promotion?"


    Adam nodded so she put the book back in its ce and said "We need to go to the Capital of the Colnds Empire for you to get promoted. There is a temple there dedicated to this. Before we go to the Promotion Temple though, we will make a stop."


    Adam once again nodded, and Skade said "I have the teleportation array ready already, grab my arm." Adam did as he was told and the two teleported away.


    This time, Adam found himself in a smaller room. There was a set of runes painted on the pristine white floor, which dazed Adam just by looking at them. Those were teleportation runes. At the edges of the runes he could see a bright crystal at each end, which seemed to be powering the formation.


    Skade smiled and said "Teleporting is quite expensive, especially to a ce far like the capital. Ready?" Adam didn''t even get to answer when he felt the familiar sensation of teleportation.


    A momentter, he found himself in a simr looking room. The difference here was that the runes were bigger, more numerous and the crystals were bigger.


    "We are in the Clearwater Estate, my family''s estate. Come, some people are waiting for us." Skade said.


    Adam obediently followed her while looking at everything around him with a curious attitude. They passed by several servants, who looked at Adam funnily, probably because he looked like a country bumpkin, which he actually was.


    But Adam didn''t have time to take any offense, as he was shocked by the level of the servants. Those were supposed to be mere maids, but they were all Level 100 Gold, at least.


    A minuteter, they arrived in front of a closed gate, guarded by two guards. They were both Heroes. Moreover, Adam could tell that they weren''t the weak kind of heroes, but probably A Rank since they felt somewhat weaker than Skade, who was an S Rank Hero.


    Upon seeing Skade, they opened the gate, revealing a library. The library was enormous, but Adam''s attention didn''t go to any of the books, but rather to a desk, where a man sat.


    The man was tall, if he was standing he would probably be at least two meters tall. He had long light blue hair tied in a braid on top with shaven sides. Adam could only see his profile but he looked like a kind man, despite the scar on his jaw.


    There was two things that grabbed Adam''s attention, and it wasn''t the man''s identity, which was obvious, but rather the feeling he gave. The moment he saw him, Adam knew this man had opened the 6th Gate, the one Adam never got to open.


    The other thing that grabbed his attention came from the tattoo on his hand.


    As they entered, the man turned his head, revealing his face to the two.


    [Conan Clearwater, King of the North] (Legend, Level 240)


    ??/??


    As he looked at them, Conan revealed a smile and said "Daughter, you are finally visiting your old father?"


    Skade rolled her eyes and said "Father, I''m not a child anymore"


    Conan ignored her though and said "Too bad youe here for someone else." His eyes then turned his eyes from his daughter to Adam, and said "So you are the one who was daring enough to take my son as a disciple?"


    Adam looked at him straight in the eyes and replied "I am."


    The two stared at each other intently for a couple of seconds before Conan burst outughing and said "I see, interesting! So you did save both my son and my granddaughter?"


    Adam nodded, and Conan took out an item which Adam had already felt. It was a Godyer''s Heart. However, after taking the first one another one appeared, and the two flew toward Adam.


    Conan said "I heard you are searching for them, and I got two of them. Coincidentally, you saved two members of my family, so consider this as a thank you gift."


    Adam had no intention on faking not wanting it, he directly absorbed the two hearts with the ones in his hand already, and said "Thank you."


    As he did so, Adam also sent a quick look to the attributes of his new version of the Godyer''s Heart.


    [Godyer''s Heart] (Common)


    All attributes: +12%


    Sealed Power: Ignore Levels +10. (4/4)


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 7 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 10 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 13 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 16 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 19 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 22 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 25 hearts.


    Fusion: For this artifact to regain its power all the pieces must be fused back. Fusion rate: 4/25.


    "Are you here for your promotion?" Conan asked.


    "Indeed." Adam replied to him. Conan smiled and said "Then you have to meet your disciple first." As he said that Adam felt someone appear behind him and as he looked back he saw Johan.


    [Johan] (Bronze, Level 21)


    HP: 5000/5000


    Adam smiled and said "I see you have been promoted already. You got an SS ss?"


    "I have, Master." Johan did a short bow to Adam as he replied.


    Conan said "Johan and Skade will apany you to the Promotion Temple. By the way, wee to Fjora, grand capital of the Colnds."


    Adam smiled and bowed before leaving the library with Skade and Johan. Once out they led him out of the estate, and Adam finally got to see what Fjora looked like.


    The Clearwater Estate was ced higher than most of the city, and so Adam could see most of the city from where he was, and it was gigantic.


    Johan pointed at a big castle some distance away and said "This is the Imperial Pce, where the Emperor lives. It is exactly 10 kilometers from us."


    The Imperial Pce looked very beautiful, Adam couldn''t see most of the details but he still could see that there were many carvings on the walls, depicting epic battles. On top of the castle was a big tower, with arge tform on top of it.


    As they walked through the streets of the capital, Adam got to learn more about the capital. It had a radius of 100 km around the Imperial Pce, and it was said that none of what happened in the capital could escape the Emperor''s perception. That was debatable, but still that made most people too afraid tomit any crime in the city.


    Apart from that, Adam also got to see quite a few guards along the way, and all of them were at least Level 150 Gold Ranks, meaning that any single guard inside the city was higher ranked than Princess Victoria. Of course, the guards were only A Rank whereas she was SS, but still, this showed how strong the capital was.


    After some time they were able to reach the Promotion Temple. The temple looked quite simr to the Parthenon, be it inside or outside. The biggest difference was the size, as well as the main statue which wasn''t Athena, but rather of another goddess, Enya, Main Goddess of the Colnds and Northmen in general.

 Chapter 61: Ritual

    Chapter 61: Ritual


    As he looked at Enya''s towering statue, Adam felt a pressure he had never felt before. It didn''te from the size of the statue, even though it was higher than the one in the Parthenon, mere size couldn''t impress him, but rather it was the aura the statue emitted.


    For the first time in his life, Adam felt helpless in front of a living being. Adam had been scared and had felt helpless in the past, such as his brother''s condition, but those obstacles came from nature itself.


    However, this was a god, and considering the fact that yers can actually be gods themselves, the legends about the Divine Era probably weren''t just legends, but rather history.


    Despite feeling this way, Adam did feel something else. Determination. Pure and sheer determination. His number one goal was of course to save his brother, but he knew he couldn''t center his life around this.


    One day, whatever happened, he won''t have to take care of his brother anymore, and by then, be it because he failed and his brother died or he sessfully saved him, Adam perfectly understood that his life wouldn''t stop there.


    That''s why, he had to aim for something bigger, for something that went past his brother. Seeing this statue, and feeling the aura it emitted, allowed Adam to perceive a glimpse of what he could wish for, what he could strive for.


    "Impressive, isn''t it?" Adam turned to the side to look at Johan, who said "Even though I have seen it many times already, it never ceases to amaze me."


    Skade said "You are lucky, the ceremony is about to begin. Let''s not tarry." She led the way and the two boys followed after her.


    The group of three walked to the feet of the statue where a group of youngsters already gathered. The oldest ones in the group were barely older than 20, and all of them were at least Level 20 Iron Ranks.


    When Adam, Skade and Johan arrived, they bowed in unison, Adam was confused for a second before guessing that the two next to him were renowned in Fjora. At least, people knew their face.


    Skade said "We will leave you here. All you have to do is to wait for one of the Volva toe. Listen to what she says, and obey. Good luck."


    She smiled as she said thosest words, and walked away. Johan wished him good luck too before walking away. Now left alone, Adam once again felt the gazes of those around him, probably because of whom he came with, but he couldn''t care.


    What was on his mind was the Volva. He knew about them, on Earth they were considered the witches amongst vikings, they would listen to the voices of the gods and transmit their wills to the mortal ne.


    While they waited for the Volva, although they were curious about him, no one dared to approach Adam and ask who he was. And Adam was perfectly fine with that, presenting himself to the whole world wasn''t in his ns.


    They only had to wait for ten minutes before the Volva finally came. Five other youngsters had arrived in the meantime, making the number of Iron Ranks 22.


    The Volva was dressed in animal furs and had white paint forming runes on her bald head. She carried a staff and walked slowly. She arrived in front of the group and looked at the faces of everyone present before saying "Children of the North, for our Mother has called you, here you are to answer her call, and partake in your ritual of adulthood."


    Well that was a surprise. This was the first time Adam heard of the Bronze promotion being the ritual for adulthood. Still, Adam wondered whether this was only for Northmen or if the entire world was governed by those rules.


    Adam didn''t have much time to think though as the Volva hit the ground with her staff and said "Sit, children."


    Remembering what Skade had told him before going away, Adam didn''t hesitate and did as he was told, as well as the other ''children''. The Volva smiled kindly, like a mother looking at her children, and said "Bring the sacrifice."


    She seemingly talked to no one, but barely ten seconds after she talked a guard came from behind the statue, along with a man dressed in a simple white robe. The man was old, and had a missing eye. However, Adam was shocked when he saw his status.


    [Lodin] (Silver, Level 100)


    ??/??


    This was supposed to be a sacrifice? Such a strong warrior? Maybe he wasn''t that strong for the Colnds


    Lodin went to his knees in front of the Volva, while the guard half kneeled to present a curved runic dagger to the Volva. She took it from him and turned to Lodin while the guard walked away.


    She caressed the man''s face gently and said "Lodin, you can no longer see any use for your life, and thus decided to gift it to the gods to serve them in death. May Enya embrace you, and these young warriors carry on your will."


    The Volva brought the dagger to Lodin''s throat, who smiled and said "Be strong to bring honor to my death."


    The Volva then slit his throat with a slow move, and ced a bowl below his opened throat. As for Lodin, he died very quickly, suffering only for a little time.


    Once the bowl was filled, the Volva gentlyid him on the ground, and approached the group with the bowl. She dipped her fingers into the blood and said "Everyone, take off your upper clothes."


    Adam took off his Helmet, his Chestte, and his Gauntlets, as well as his essories. The rest did the same, and when everyone, including the women, were top less, she walked toward the closest one and began drawing on his body with the blood of Lodin.


    She did this to everyone, one by one, and when it was his turn, Adam simply closed his eyes. The blood didn''t feel dirty or gross, like the blood of his enemies he killed to violently, but rather it felt pure, holy and blessed.


    Everyone had almost the same runes on them, except for the ones situated at the bottom of the belly. There, they could have two different runes, depending on their gender.


    When the Volva finished drawing runes and symbols on everyone, she approached the dead Lodin and cut open his chest with the dagger. This allowed her to take the heart out of his chest, and put it in the bowl with the leftover blood. Then, she added some herbs before making the bowl levitate in front of her.


    Finally, a magical fire appeared beneath the bowl and began burning what was inside. It took seconds for everything to melt, and then turn into a gas. The Volva then started chanting "Enya, mother of our kin! I offer you the blood of your child!" As she finished her short incantation, the blood smoke seemed to gain life as it transformed into threads and flew to Adam and the others.


    Adam and the rest breathed in the gas, and they began feeling their senses get disrupted and blurry. Adam saw his surroundings distort and the temple began fading away.


    Before he realized it, Adam hadpletely left the temple, he was outside, he could see a beautiful aurora above him, hiding a pitch ck sky. Adam looked down and saw a big pce far away, and a vast clearing in between.


    [Your Bronze Promotion has started! Get as close as possible to Roskha!]

 Chapter 62: Bronze Trial

    Chapter 62: Bronze Trial


    Adam revealed a smile as he read the notification. The Bronze promotion was one of the most important events in the game for a yer, it would determine their future achievements as well as their influence in the world.


    From the looks of it, Adam needed to reach the pce in the distance, the Roskha. Adam opened his inventory and was surprised to see that all his equipment was in his inventory. What was he wearing then?


    He looked down and saw that he only had pants on, and they didn''t provide any armor, they were there only for an aesthetic purpose. Adam reached for his back and grabbed a handle, but it felt strange, the weight of the weapon was off.


    He took it off his back and saw that his weapon wasn''t really a weapon, but only the handle. However, as Adam thought about a sword, steel magically appeared from the handle and formed a true greatsword.


    [Are you sure you want your weapon to maintain this shape?]


    Adam was surprised by the notification, and decided not to confirm but to experiment with the weapon. It turned out that it could only transform into the weapons avable to the Berserker''s ss, and there was only one version for each weapon. So he took the sword.


    If his armor had been taken off, what about his stats?


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 20


    Title: Not Avable


    Race: Northman


    ss: Berserker


    Rank: Iron


    HP: 600/600


    MP: 100/100


    Strength: 100


    Agility: 65


    Endurance: 60


    Intelligence: 10


    Wisdom: 5


    Skills: Not Avable.


    [For the Bronze Promotion, all participants have the same amount of AP. Your stats have been distributed based on your previous choices.]


    That made sense, if they really wanted this to be a test of martial art then everyone needed to be as strong as each other. Now that he had his weapon and knew his stats, it was time for him to start his journey to Roskha. Adam jumped from the tform he appeared on,nding on the in.


    It didn''t take long for Adam to meet his first obstacle, a man had appeared in front of him, blocking his path. While he was on a clearing, there were rocks and holes in the ground that allowed one to hide, such as this man.


    [Unworthy Spirit] (Iron, Level 20)


    HP: 600/600


    The spirit had a solid body, but his face was distraught, and filled with regret. He charged toward Adam, his axe raised in the air. Adam shook his head and as the spirit approached within his range, he jumped forward.


    Despite having the same stats as the spirit, Adam looked much faster than him as before the spirit could even sh down, Adam appeared behind it, sword raised, and it''s head slide off its shoulders.


    Critical Hit! -800 HP!


    Adam looked at his sword, astonished. Howe he made so much damage? His Strength attribute was at 100, and he had made a Critical Hit. That meant his weapon dealt 600 damage, without the critical hit his weapon has a damage of 300!


    That is as much damage as his [Champion''s Sword], a Rare Rank weapon. Why would they give him such a powerful weapon for his test? Adam tried to think of a reason, but nothing came to his mind so he shook his head and decided to move on.


    After killing this first spirit, Adam continued walking toward Roskha. Again, he crossed yet another enemy. Adam didn''t know how skilled it was, because in his eyes it looked as amateur as the other one, and he killed it before it could attack even once. However the moment he did so another two appeared right away, jumping at him.


    Unfortunately for them, they died withoutnding a single hit. Adam was troubled though. Despite having opened the Gate of Opening, he couldn''t detect his enemies, it was like the rocks were capable of hiding the spirits until they attacked, meaning Adam was forced on the defensive.


    As Adam gradually approached the pce, the number of spirits started augmenting, and so did their skills in martial arts. At the same time, Adam was pretty sure there were some milestones when killing the spirits.


    There had been several times when the skills of the spirits got upgraded suddenly, forming several waves of spirits based on skills. Passing a wave would then allow one to have a ss one rank higher.


    For Adam, when Roskha started really getting closer instead of being something far in the distance, the level of the enemies he had to deal with had reached the level Eddy and the others had when they first met.


    When Adam reached within one kilometers of Roskha, the spirits got upgraded once again, and this time they all became as strong as Judith had been when she tried to kill him. It probably meant that as long as one reached within one kilometer of Roskha, they would get an A ss.


    Now that he had reached this point, it was like he was facing tens of Judith, all attacking him with everything they had, not caring whether they will die or not. Most yers in the world would barelyst a few seconds, but Adam was walking through them like a breeze, making the spirits fall in groups.


    For someone who opened the Gate of Opening, facing groups of enemies wasn''t that scary, although he needed some concentration they didn''t pose much of a threat.


    And Adam didn''t even have to worry about tiring up anymore. Thanks to the opening of his Gate of Healing, his physical stamina in the game had be monstrous, and his mental stamina had also increased amazingly since he healed his old injuries in the real world.


    Slightly more than an hour after he arrived in the testing grounds, Adam had finally killed all the spirits sent after him, finishing the first part of the trial. While he had been killing them, Adam had also been experimenting a little, as plowing through the spirits wasn''t funny in itself.


    He had tried to use his favorite skill, [Mighty Strike], a few times. Of course, it never worked, but Adam felt like he was holding onto something. He had decided to test this particr strike because it was the skill he understood the most and also the only one that was ''natural''.


    By natural he meant that this was the only one humanly possible, or at least it was in the beginning. After all, at the first level, the concept of [Mighty Strike] is simple, one only needs to use the power from all their muscles to unleash a bit of additional damage.


    And that''s why, Adam tried to do as such. However, until now he couldn''t seem to get a grasp on it, he knew how to use his entire strength into one strike, but that only allowed him to deal 100% of his damage.


    That''s when Adam realized that he was wrong about this skill, even the first level wasn''t really using only the body, but an additional source of strength.


    Normally, upon realizing that, Adam would have given up, after all the skill wasn''t humanly possible. However, when he finished fighting and started heading for the gates of Roskha, an idea came to him, and as he continued thinking about it, his face brightened.


    What an idiot he had been! The answer was under his nose all the time! He finally knew what he needed to do!


    As he was in the middle of his realization though, a shadow appeared next to him, and the cold gleam of a de appeared near his neck.

 Chapter 63: Science of deduction

    Chapter 63: Science of deduction


    Adam''s pupils dted so much that they seemed to turn into needles and his hair rose up all over his body. His body went into hyper drive at the unexpected danger and time seemed to slow down as he moved his body slightly.


    This allowed him to narrowly dodge the dagger, and then kick the attacker in the stomach, but he surprisingly remained in ce and only grunted a little as he attacked once more with both his daggers. Moreover more than ten arrows came flying at him and eight more daggers were attacking him.


    In a split second, Adam understood that he had been ambushed, and this level of difficulty couldn''te from the trial. The next instant, Adam used everything he had to dodge the arrows and redirect the daggers.


    In the short moment he used to counter all his opponents Adam got very little time to think, but he was still able to deduce a few things. First, his opponents all were stronger and faster than him, because they had their armors on!


    Secondly, there were 50 assassins, ten of them were Rangers while the rest were all Assassins. The Rangers had all been able to attack him at once because they were long ranger but the Assassins could only attack him by five, and so their were 8 daggers since each had two daggers and he had sent flying one earlier.


    Thirdly, apart from being many, the assassins were very skilled. Of the 50, five of them had opened the 1st Gate, while the rest were all at Judith Level before their fight. Those were peak Iron Assassins!


    To sum up the situation, Adam didn''t have any equipment except for Rare Sword that only added damage, and he was going against 50 fully geared assassins who had either opened the first gate or were on the verge.


    This was catastrophic. Adam knew that the only way for him to survive was if they somehow decided to let him go or kill themselves.


    Most would fall prey to despair upon finding themselves in this situation, but Adam instead revealed a grin! While they were stronger, his martial arts could be said to be unrivaled amongst those who opened the two first Gates.


    Adam had to change from his usual ''smash them all'' style and y with his enemies instead. He hit a few daggers and arrowsing at him with his sword, and dodged the rest. The assassins couldn''t help but open their eyes wide in shock, Adam hadn''t taken a single damage!


    Moreover, the daggers and arrows had hit the assassins instead, and Adam himself had kicked the faces of the five assassins, using them as steps to jump out of their encirclement.


    However he didn''t have time to rejoice as before he could even touch the ground another volley of arrows came at him, as well as another set of ten daggers. The 5 who opened their 1st Gate looked like the team leaders, one of them was a Ranger and the rest were assassins.


    The Ranger had all the other Rangers under hismand, while the other four had 9 Assassins each. Adam was able to guess their tactic in a moment, they would take turns to encircle him, sending an team leader every time.


    Adam was able to defend against the first assault, the second, the third But he was rapidly getting overwhelmed. This was an experts'' fight, in merely thirty seconds Adam had already fought back ten assaults, and they weren''t going to let him rest.


    In term of endurance, he was better than every single one of them, but they could take turns, and he couldn''t. Also, while he hit them many times, they would only need one or two hit to kill him, so he couldn''t get hit a single time.


    This was something that both sides perfectly understood, so the assassins couldn''t help but wonder why the hell Adam was grinning like a bloody demon!


    Unbeknownst of them, this was exactly what Adam had been waiting for! The high sense of crisis, the constant assault, the hyper drive state he was in It was all there, and yet he didn''t open the Gate of Limit yet!


    Had it been an hour ago, he would have despaired. From what he learned from Old Adam, if he hadn''t opened the Gate now then he probably never would be able to. BUT! There was something new! Something that wasn''t there in his past life! That is Qi!


    Actually, Adam didn''t know for certain whether Qi existed on this Earth or not, he didn''t have any proof, but the clues came from within the game.


    It alles down to the moment Henry opened the 5th Gate, the Gate of Life, back in the Goblin Fortress. Normally, for someone who only opened the 5th Gate, the domain should have a radius of ten meters, no exception. But Adam was more than ten meters away from him, but he still felt the domain.


    Back then, he hadn''t really thought much about it, he just thought that because Henry was stronger he had a bigger domain, and left it at that.


    But that actually implied so much more! At first, Adam thought that only a person''s body would be strengthened as they level up and rank up. But if that was the case, then Henry''s domain would have had a radius of ten meters, but it did not!


    Then, Adam associated this information with his thoughts about his skill, [Mighty Strike]. He already confirmed that he needed an additional source of strength for him to activate the skill. This energy, had to be inner energy! Or in other words, Qi!


    Of course, that wasn''t enough to associate Qi with the Gates. After all, maybe Henry''s physiology was simply slightly different from Old Adam''s, and so his domain was slightly stronger.


    But a final piece of information allowed Adam to confirm his previous theory. No, it wasn''t even an information, it was a rumor he heard beforeing in the Temple.


    The capital span exactly 100 kilometers around the Imperial Pce, and the rumors said that the Emperor could feel everything within the capital.


    Why 100 kilometers? Why exactly 100 km? He had asked, it wasn''t 100 and some, it was exactly 100 kilometers. This was a weird thing to do. And assuming the rumors are true, how else than using his domain would the Emperor be capable of feeling everything in the capital?


    But the domain as supposed to be only 10 meters in size, not 100 km, so Adam had taken it as a mere rumor before. But with his new hypothesis, what if Qi strengthened the domain? Then it would make sense, everything would make sense!


    That means that when one ranks up, they won''t only have their body strengthened, but they would also get ess to inner energy, to Qi!


    Now, back to his situation, if he couldn''t open the Gate of Limit it was because his body hadn''t truly reached the limit yet. Before, Adam couldn''t understand why he couldn''t advance because he had reached what he thought to be the limit, but he hadn''t.


    This world and Old Adam''s world are different after all, and so even though his body could have been said to have reached the limit of humans, he still missed something, and that''s Qi. The Qi he was unconsciously using every time he activated a skill.


    That meant he already had this Qi, and that all he had to do was to learn how to master it. Going further down this road, not only he, but every one who ever got an SSS ss had to master their own usage of Qi before breaking through to Bronze rank.


    And Adam only knew of one way that would allow him to do that, his skills. When his [Mighty Strike] reached Level Max, he still felt like hecked something, the power was at its maximum, but he still missed something, and that''splete mastery of the skill.


    All that thinking led Adam to a conclusion. If he wanted to open his 3rd Gate before Bronze Rank, then he didn''t only need his body to reach the limit, but also to perfectly master one of his skills.


    Of course, Adam couldn''t be 100% sure, this was all theory, the probability of him being right was high, but there could always be a variable he didn''t take into ount thatpletely countered his theory.


    But Adam didn''t have time for doubt. His only hope of surviving the current cmity was by opening the 3rd Gate, so he decided to put everything he had into trying to replicate his skill despite the restriction set on him.

 Chapter 64: Limit

    Chapter 64: Limit


    While the 50 assassins were slowly tiring him out, Adam was holding them back while trying to add Qi to his sword. He already knew the feeling, but he couldn''t find the origin of his Qi, he needed to stir the base to bring out the Qi.


    Two minutes into the fight, one of the leader assassins yelled "Fall back!" The moment he did, every assassins jumped away from Adam, but they were still encircling him.


    Adam looked at the one who yelled and asked with derision "And here I thought you were going to be a threat, I wonder how many of your assassinations are lies?"


    At his words, a few of the assassins looked ready to jump on him, and interestingly they were all catkin, but they were held back by the others. Inside, they were all very frustrated.


    The reason Adam was able tost so long against them was because they had their skills locked too. Since they were young, they had always trained with their skills, and they had grown so ustomed to having them that they were struggling to fight without them.


    As for Adam, Old Adam never had any particr skill but rather specialized into his diversity, he never constricted himself to singr moves like most martial artists.


    That''s why, despite Adam being much weaker physically, he was able tost for so long against them, and train. The leader who yelled before looked at the Rangers and said "Block his movement, don''t focus on shooting him."


    Then, he looked back at Adam and said "Today, you will die, and I will make sure to make it as painful as possible!"


    Adam grinned and said "Not if I kill you first!" The moment he said that he used the weight of his sword to cross the distance between them in an instant, and striked at the leader''s head.


    As for the assassins, they were so stunned that most of them didn''t even react. Adam was supposed to be finding a way to flee, not attack them head on! What kind of mad man were they against?!


    Despite being stunned, the leader attacked still had opened the 1st Gate, and so he was able to block the sword. However, the moment he did so he felt something hit his throat hard, then stab his eyes before finally smashing his groin.


    The damage done by Adam wasn''t much, but the pain was immense. Despite being a strong individual, the leader''s body froze, leaving him opened for Adam to attack.


    The three other Assassin leaders all jumped toward Adam, and the archers shot him, but he was still able to sh his sword against the injured leader''s face once. Once again, the damage done wasn''t very high, but Adam was able to sever an ear.


    After shing once, Adam raised one of his legs from the ground and used it to rotate on his other leg, and sh behind him. This allowed him to parry the daggersing for his back, and use the strength of their wielders to jump away from the arrows'' trajectory.


    Then, he rushed toward the remaining assassins and began attacking them like a devil, he wouldn''t stop for a second and even when he was defending himself he would make sure to hit at least one assassin.


    Thanks to this, Adam was able to switch from the defensive to the offensive, and train even faster. However, the expenditure of his energy was much bigger than earlier, and that''s something both sides knew.


    So while the assassins were confused as to why he would do something like that, they weed it and decided to follow his lead. After all, in the state Adam was in, although he could overpower them in term of skill, he would never be able to kill them, their HP and defense were simply too highpared to his damage.


    But they didn''t know that this was exactly what caused their deaths. Five minutester, the assassins were putting less energy into defending against Adam, they were waiting for him to tire down by himself and finish him off after.


    And it wasn''t a bad strategy, since Adam was already very tired because of the constant concentration and use of almost all his muscles. However, amidst his tiredness, Adam could feel it. He wasn''t far from breaking through, his body was finally advancing a little, meaning he wasn''t far from unleashing his Qi.


    Another minute went by, and now Adam was visibly tired, he was sweating so much that he could probably fill a bucket, and it was getting harder and harder to take a breath.


    However, it was in this critical moment, when Adam was once again approaching death, the oh so sweat death, that enlightenment struck him.


    Adam jumped back from where he was, surprising the assassins, and struck at one of the leaders. The leader thought that Adam was finally about to breath hisst, and was trying to bring him down with him, so he was rather nonchnt when he parried the swording at him.


    The sword and the dagger collided, and the dagger didn''t budge. Adam hurriedly jumped back, but he was sporting a huge grin. The leaders looked at each other, what was wrong with him. They looked at the one who was attacked, but seeing he waspletely fine, they couldn''t understand why Adam was so happy.


    What none of them was able to see though, was that when Adam had struck earlier, a thin white mist had coated his weapon, and had made his strike a little stronger. He had only used a very small amount of his Qi, but it was enough as Adam immediately felt his very core shake intensely, and then an energy stormed out of the center of his body, spreading everywhere in his body.


    Adam''s body began shaking as it was getting transformed, but the assassins misunderstood what was happening. They thought Adam''s body was finally too tired to go on, and the shaking came from extreme fatigue, so they didn''t move and looked at Adam.


    The transformation was extremely quick, but Adam was able to feel and understand what was happening to his body. Normally his muscles should all tear open and get healed immediately after, letting the muscles reach their limit and remain in that stateter.


    However, this time it was different. Instead of the muscles ''opening'' up by themselves, the Qi in Adam''s body was doing the work for him. Normally, the Gates shouldn''t strengthen his body, only allow him to use it better.


    However, Qi seemed to change everything. Adam''s muscles were pushed to their limit, but they wouldn''t need a constant heal from Adam''s Second Gate. Instead, this strengthened state had be their natural state, and thanks to hi Qi''s help, they had stabilized in this state.


    And it was the same for his tendons, joints and the rest of his body. He became stronger and more flexible, and he could feel his body much better than before.


    The Gate of Opening allowed one to have a better perception of the outside world, but the Gate of Limit had a hidden effect which was to allow one to have a better perception of their insides.


    But all of this wasn''t the best improvement. Instead, it was the new energy Adam could feel in his body, his Qi. Before, he struggled to use it because he didn''t even know where it was, but now that he knew his inner body like the back of his hand, and could perfectly understand everything happening within it, his control over his Qi had be perfect.


    When Adam felt the changes inside him finally finish, only a second or two had passed, but he felt like apletely different man. And so did the system apparently, as it sent him two notifications.


    [Mighty Strike has been perfectly mastered!]


    [Congrattions for opening the Gate of Limit! All stats multiplied by 5! Aura Control perfected!]


    The moment he received the notification, Adam started emitting an incredibly dangerous feeling. In the assassins'' eyes, Adam had transformed from a dying man to a powerful dragon. The aura he was emitting was so powerful that it felt choking to them.


    One of the leaders wanted to signal hisrades to attack, but before he could even emit a sound Adam appeared in front of him, his glowing sword already smashing against the leader''s throat, gruesomely beheading him and sending blood, bones and other substances everywhere.


    Critical Hit! -8400HP!

 Chapter 65: Roskhalla

    Chapter 65: Roskha


    After the death of the leader, the assassins understood that they had messed up. They couldn''t understand how this happened, but they knew that if they didn''t work together, they were dead.


    Adam saw ten arrows head for him, and although he was perfectly capable of dodging them, he simply waved his sword once, destroying all the arrows.


    Then, he smashed his sword against the five assassinsing at him. They tried to block him, but the sheer strength behind the sword was simply too powerful and cut the first three in half, and still killed the other two.


    -4200 HP! (*5)


    Blood showered around Adam, their death had been so gruesome that they blood sshed on him and covered him in blood. He didn''t care though, he raised his head and roared like a beast before rushing toward the other assassins.


    After ten of them died, and only thirty plus of them remained, they understood they had no chance against this monster, and decided to retreat.


    However, the moment they showed the intention to step back, everyone heard a loud clicking sound,ing from Roskha. Adam and the assassins turned their heads toward the pce, and saw that the two front gates had opened. From within the pce music spread outside, the war horns struck fear into the assassins while they empowered Adam.


    The assassins wanted nothing more than to escape now, but streams of light appeared from within the pce, and an army of warriors appeared around the group surrounding them.


    All those people were tall warriors in armor, and they all felt more powerful than the other. They were obviously Northmen Berserkers, and they had their weapons in hand, blocking all the assassins from escaping.


    Adam looked at the Berserkers with glee as he startedughing loudly, before rushing toward the assassins. The Berserkers from Roskha watched as Adam ughtered the assassins, dismembering three of them with each strike of his sword.


    Thest one to survive turned out to be the one who had threatened to make him die a painful death. However, now that Adam was standing in front of him, his bearing as an expert fell down, and he was stammering on the ground, bathing in his own piss.


    Adam sneered as he looked down at the man, and his earlier rage began to dissipate as he kicked the man on the temple, breaking his neck.


    Critical Hit! -5000 HP!


    When Adam finished thest assassin, he stood in the middle of the warriors of Roskha, drenched in the blood of his enemies. Then, the warriors started hitting their weapons against their armors while hollering.


    Adam watched silently, not moving an inch. He was actually ''healing'' his tiredness away, and was surprised to find out that instead of using his nutriments, healing now used his Qi, or Aura, instead.


    Since the beginning, Adam had been calling his internal energy Qi, but the system had decided to call it Aura, so he would go with that.


    Gradually, the warriors stopped their mor, and a voice came out of Roskha. The voice sounded powerful, but delicate as well, and Adam felt close to its owner, as if they had known each other for years.


    "The blood of your enemies shall not taint you." Following those words, a golden radiance appeared above Adam, and he felt his Aura be full once again and the blood on him washed off his body. Adam was quite grateful for that, blood in the hair was a pain to wash


    When the radiance disappeared, one of the warriors surrounding him approached Adam.


    [King Tori] (Hero, Level 200)


    ??/??


    King Tori approached Adam andughed "It has been a long time since we saw such a satisfying fight! Come, she is waiting for you."


    Adam nodded and started following King Tori. He didn''t need to be told who was waiting for him, it could only be one person. As Adam and the Brave Warriors entered within Roskha, the gates closed again, and the outside became quiet once again.


    Roskha was gigantic, the insides were much bigger than what they looked, and very luxurious. Everything was made of gold and silver, with other rare minerals that felt powerful. Yes, felt powerful, Adam could literally feel that inside those metals dwelled an energy stronger than himself.


    In the center of the Hall, was a gigantic table, capable of holding thousands of people. When they entered, there were many people at the table, eating whileughing, and others were fighting, killing each other before reviving andughing like idiots.


    As they walked forward though, many of the warriors behind Adam didn''t follow but instead walked toward the doors around, looking at the table with envy. As Adam was wondering what they were doing King Tori said "This table is the main table where only the bravest and strongest are allowed. But every Northman who died a brave death is sent here. Do you think there is enough ce on this table to take them all."


    Adam shook his head and said "Then there are other halls? What makes this one special?" King Tori replied "Wait and see."


    They walked for two minutes before Adam could see the end of the table. King Tori could say whatever he wanted, this Main Hall could still take many people in it.


    At the end of the table, Adam could feel so many powerful presences that he couldn''t feel anything else.


    Adam sent a few looks at their status, and saw that the majority were legends, with the rest all being Heroes.


    But the most impressive was the one standing at the very end of the table. She was a woman, a beautiful woman with blond hair and who looked very familiar to Adam, since he saw her statue back in Fjora.


    [Enya] (God, Level 300)


    ??/??


    Enya''s eyes were fixated on him, and Adam felt like she could see through his entire self as she did so. After a moment, she smiled and he saw her lips move. She was hundreds of meters away from him, and yet he heard her like she was standing in front of him.


    "In the end, you really were able to reach this ce. I am impressed."


    The moment she talked, the entire Hall became silent, and everyone''s eyes moved toward Adam. Enya then said "I don''t think he needs further testing. Before he departs to the world of the living, let''s wee a new Sovereign."


    As she said those words, the entire hall bursted with noise. Some shouted, other whistled, and others mmed their weapons together.


    Adam smiled, and when they were finished Enya said "Now is the time for you to choose your way. Choose carefully."


    Then, Adam was teleported away. This teleportation was very different from any other he experienced though. Normally, he would either go through a hole in space, a small scale wormhole, or have space contract around himself.


    This time however, the feeling was different. He didn''t feel anything, he had just appeared, ignoring space itself.


    Adam reappeared in another room, where there was anyone. He was surrounded by many altar like formations, and each of them emitted a powerful feeling. They weren''t all equal in strength though, as the ones further in the back felt much more powerful.


    [Congrattions for passing your Bronze Trial! You must now choose your future ss.]


    So that''s what the altars were for. Adam immediately ignored the weaker ones, and headed for the stronger ones. The altars were split in three categories, the first category had 1000 altars and they were the weakest. The second one had 100, and they were the middle ones. Finally, thest ten were the most powerful.


    As Adam reached thest ten, he could feel an attraction from them, as if they wanted him toe to them.


    Those altars were special because they all were more than just a stone construct. One was madepletely of metal, another had a dark cloud above it with miniature lightning strikes hitting the rock, another smelled like blood


    All of them were special, but as Adam looked at them all, he felt one of them was different. It didn''t feel more powerful, but the attraction he felt toward it was even stronger than the others.


    Adam approached this altar, and sent ast look at the ones before putting his hand on this one. This altar had a waterfall in the middles of it, its edges were frozen, and the base of the altar was releasing Vapor.


    As Adam ce his hand against the stone, he received a notification.


    [Are you sure you want to change your ss to Aqua Sovereign(SSS)?]

 Chapter 66: Aqua Sovereign

    Chapter 66: Aqua Sovereign


    When Adam confirmed his choice, he felt a burst of energy stream out of the altar into his body. Quite simrly to the opening of his 3rd Gate, Adam felt the energy strengthen his body.


    However, this change was much more thorough, his entire body was strengthened. Moreover, his body wasn''t just getting to its limit of strength, rather it directly strengthened it.


    Not only his fleshly body upgraded, his Qi was also getting strengthened. Adam also felt the very nature of his Qi was changing, but he didn''t know into what.


    Half a minuteter, the stream of energy finally waspletely absorbed by his body, which was now much stronger than earlier.


    [Congrattions for changing your ss to Aqua Sovereign(SSS)!]


    [All attributes +100%!]


    [XP Gain: -66%]


    [Cold Resistance is changed to Aqua Resistance, and is now valued at 75%.]


    [Cold Damage Multiplier is changed to Aqua Damage Multiplier, and is now valued at 100%.]


    [Basic Aura has been changed to Aquatic Aura.]


    [Intelligence and Wisdom Attributes disappear, all AP refunded.]


    [Will Attribute inserted.]


    [Learn skills ''Icy Stomp(C)'', ''Misty Escape(B)'', ''Totemic Rage(B)'']


    [SS Quest ''Chased'' Completed!]


    Due to an increase in difficulty, your quest rewards are one rank higher!


    Reward: +5 Levels, +500 World Fame, +1500 Fame with all forces enemies with ckheart Alliance, -1000 Fame with Demon''s Cult and Aemon''s Cult, Barbarous Roar (B).


    The list of notifications was long, but it served to show how much stronger he had be. However, the negative XP Gain was a surprise, and not really a great one. That meant he would have to collect three times as much as other yers to level up. That was probably put in ce to bnce out the game.


    Despite that, there were a few things he had to check, positive ones this time. As he was about to check though he heard a ripping sound behind him, and looking back he saw that space itself had ripped apart.


    "Pass through this rift when you want toe back to my temple in Fjora. Also, the sword is a gift. Take it with you and it will reveal itself to you when you return to Fjora." Enya''s voice sounded in his head. Adam smiled and took a look at his status first. Even without his equipment, it had be incredibly strong.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 25


    Title: Monster yer


    Race: Northman


    ss: Aqua Sovereign


    Rank: Bronze


    HP: 6500/6500


    Aura: 8160/8160


    Strength (+30 per level): 1150


    Agility (+10 per level): 650


    Endurance (+10 per level): 650


    Will: 816


    Free AP: 275


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E, Perfectly Mastered)


    -Charge (E, Level 10/10)


    -Wind de (D, Level 9/10)


    -Parry (D, Level 8/10)


    -Lunar Smite (C, Level 7/10)


    -Crushing Blow (C, Level 5/10)


    -Icy Stomp (C, Level 1/10)


    -Totemic Rage (B, Level 1/10)


    -Barbarous Roar (B, Level 1/10)


    -Misty Escape (B, Level 1/10)


    Adam had be a literal monster with this upgrade. Even without any armor, his stats were stronger than his past self''s stats when he entered the temple. Moreover, the addition of the four skills and the perfect mastery of [Mighty Strike] made him even more powerful.


    Icy Stomp (C): Strike the ground deal 120% frost damage to every enemy within a 5 meters radius, as well as lowering their movement speed by 5% for 5 seconds. Cooldown: 60 seconds.


    Misty Escape (B): Transform your body into Vapor to be invulnerable to physical damage for one second. While in Vapor form, movement speed increased by 10%, and touching any enemy deals 110% of vapor damage. Cost: 1000 Aura. Cooldown: 1 hour.


    Barbarous Roar (B): Use your voice to project your violent will onto your enemies and empower your allies.


    Totemic Rage (B): Summon the power of your totemic animal to be strengthened for a short period of time. All stats +100%, Damage +100%, Defense +100%. Duration: 10 seconds. Cost: All stats -30% for 4 hours. Cooldown: 6 hours.


    Aqua Aura (No Rank): Every attack dealt using Aqua Aura is two times more powerful.


    As expected, the skills he got were very powerful, although the [Barbarous Roar] was unique since its description was unlike any other skill. Then there was also his Aqua Aura, which wasn''t a skill but rather a new attribute he got.


    His Will attribute, which reced Intelligence and Wisdom, couldn''t have any points put in it. Instead, it was an average of the three other attributes. Using his Aqua Aura would lower his Aura stat.


    Mighty Strike (E): Dig into your hidden strengths to deal 300% of your normal damage. Cost: 10 Aura.


    His [Mighty Strike] has also changed. Now there was no more cooldown, but everytime he used it he would lose 10 points in Aura. The cost was negligiblepared to the amount of Aura he had.


    For his stats, they were able to be this strong thanks to the several upgrades he got. For example, his Strength. In the beginning, it was at 100. Opening the Gate of Limit pushed it to 500, and then the bonus from promotion made that number go to 1000. Finally, the 5 levels he got each gave him 30 AP to his Strength.


    Normally, an Iron Rank Northman gets +3 to their Strength every level, and a Bronze Rank gets +6 every level. But since everything was now multiplied by 5, every level gave him +30.


    Finally, thest change were his Resistance and Damage Multiplier.


    Aqua Resistance: All damageing from Water type (Solid Ice, Liquid Water, Gaseous Vapor) attacks are reduced by 75%.


    Aqua Damage Multiplier: All damage dealt with Water type (Solid Ice, Liquid Water, Gaseous Vapor) attacks are doubled.


    Adam couldn''t wipe off the grin on his face, he was just too happy. This upgrade was so massive, he would be able to kill anything that is Bronze Rank. He was confidant he could take on even a Level 50 S ss Bronze Rank right now.


    Adam looked at the sword in his hand, this sword was even more powerful than he thought. Somehow, when he opened the Third Gate, not only his body, but this sword also became stronger and sharper. Moreover, its de hadn''t dulled at all despite all the killing.


    With the sword resting on his shoulder, since he had no sheath, he walked through the rift in space.


    Back in Fjora, in Enya''s Temple, the Volva was standing next to a group of people, all waiting for the participants toe back from their Promotion Test. Amongst them was Johan and Skade.


    As time passed, the first participant came through a spatial fracture. He had only received a C ss. After him a few more appeared, all of them only getting a C ss.


    Those people didn''t have much of a future as warriors and would mostly work in different conditions. Out of the 22, 14 of them got this ss rank.


    Then a second wave arrived, this time they were all B ss. Those could be considered to have potential, they would mostly be the average members of their organizations. This time, there were 5 of them that were B sses.


    Finally, a third wave, this time much smaller, arrived. Everyone expected there to be 3 of them, since there were three remaining, but were surprised to see that only one came, with an A ss. This A ss was a noble from the capital and he had the potential to be an elite member of a kingdom.


    Then, after some more waiting, another fracture appeared in space. The participants who had finished earlier were stunned by the powerful feeling this participant gave them. He was a young man, seemingly a peasant, who had actually gotten an S ss! He had broken through while inside the realm.


    Everyone was impressed as an S ss was the real deal, anyone with such a ss could be considered an Elite no matter where they went, and he would be given a high position in the Empire with enough time and contribution, if he didn''t die of course.


    As he was feeling good about himself and visualizing his future though, the young S ss heard a rip behind him, and before he could even turn around he felt all his hair stand up. He felt an incredible danger behind him.


    He turned around slowly and saw a bare chested youthe out of the rift. He could feel that if he ever tried anything against this man, he would die before even seeing himing. The peasant youth felt like even his Silver Rank uncle who had trained him since he was a child wasn''t as powerful as this man!


    This was of course Adam, who had juste back from the Bronze Promotion testing grounds. He was stunned to see so many people, but as he was looking for familiar faces, he felt a strand of energying from his sword. Looking at it, runes had appeared on it, and under his eyes one of them broke apart, before revealing the sword''s attributes to him.

 Chapter 67: True Class Weapon

    Chapter 67: True ss Weapon


    [War Sovereign''s Greatsword] (Exceptional ''Evolvable'', True ss Weapon, Level 20 ''User Level'')


    Requirements: Belongs to Valiant Heart.


    Attack: +1650


    Strength: +510


    Agility: +255


    Endurance: +255


    Self Weapon (Passive): This weapon''s grade and level evolves with its user''s Gates and Levels, respectively.


    Invincible (Passive): This weapon has an infinite durability and thus can''t be broken.


    So the grade after Rare was Exceptional? Adam wasn''t that shocked by the weapon''s attributes, as he expected them to be this high, but he was rather interested to learn another grade for equipment.


    The two passives of the weapon were very good too, one made it invincible while the other made it able to evolve, meaning he would never have to search for a weapon again.


    As he examined his sword a sheath magically appeared around the sword, which was very convenient. He then straddled it to his back before putting back all his equipment on, boosting his stats even more.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 25


    Title: Monster yer


    Race: Northman


    ss: Aqua Sovereign


    Rank: Bronze


    HP: 15200/15200


    Aura: 14980/14980


    Strength (+30 per level): 1225 (2230)


    Agility (+10 per level): 750 (1095)


    Endurance (+10 per level): 750 (1170)


    Will: 908 (1498)


    Free AP: 0


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E, Perfectly Mastered)


    -Charge (E, Level 10/10)


    -Wind de (D, Level 9/10)


    -Parry (D, Level 8/10)


    -Lunar Smite (C, Level 7/10)


    -Crushing Blow (C, Level 5/10)


    -Icy Stomp (C, Level 1/10)


    -Totemic Rage (B, Level 1/10)


    -Barbarous Roar (B, Level 1/10)


    -Misty Escape (B, Level 1/10)


    Right now, Adam was pretty certain he was the most powerful yer in the entire game. He knew this was an arrogant statement, but Adam couldn''t really see anyone possibly matching him. He felt that at the limit maybe there were a few who could match him, but that was only a possibility.


    That meant he had things to do though, such as clearing the mine for the dwarves. Adam looked at the crowd and saw Johan and Skade''s dumbfounded faces, so he joined them and said "Should we go?"


    However, Adam felt a hand on his shoulder, and turning around he saw the Volva. She asked with a shocked face "Did you Did you meet Enya?"


    Adam looked carefully at her and said "She talked to me, but I couldn''t really talk back. I was in Roskha, truly a wonderful ce."


    The Volva''s face turned fanatic, hearing about the famous Hall of the Brave seemed to make her happy. Adam then said "However, I encountered a team of assassins on the way, they were trying to kill me."


    The Volva''s face turned shocked, and asked "Who dared?!"


    Adam shook his head and said "Assassins from ckheart, 50 of them. All of them were Elites, but I killed them all. Actually, it''s thanks to them that I met Enya, since she was impressed by how I ughtered them all."


    This seemed to appease the Volva a little but she still looked furious as she said "Those underground rats really have no boundaries I must speak with the head." As she said that she turned around and walked off.


    Adam was about to speak with Skade and Johan when he suddenly felt the surrounding space contract around the three of them. Another teleportation.


    Adam, Johan and Skade all appeared in the study of the Clearwater Estate, and could see Conan still sitting at the same spot. He looked up from his book and said "Children, I need to have a talk with Adam."


    Johan and Skade nodded and walked out of the study, leaving Adam alone with Conan. Thetter smiled and asked "You must have entered Roskha, beautiful isn''t it?"


    Adam nodded, and Conan said "It has been more than a hundred years since I went there, and yet I still dream about it. But even I couldn''t go as far as you. A Sovereign, an SSS ss"


    Conan sighed and continued "Do you know when thest Sovereign appeared in our Empire?"


    Adam shook his head, so Conan said "Officially, it was before my birth. However, there was actually one that appeared very recently. However, we had to hide who it was"


    Adam said "Strange, this should serve as a demonstration of power, even though said person would be targeted by all your enemies, a Sovereign will need constant battle to improve through the ranks. If you hided the information then you must hold that person dearly Except for your children, which obviously aren''t, I guess this other Sovereign is the Crown Princess?"


    Conan smiled and said "Truly a sharp mind, you are indeed right. And it''s why I want to speak to you. I know it''s a lot to ask, but I want you to"


    "Sure." Adam replied nonchntly. Conan looked at his stunned and said "But I didn''t even exin" Adam rolled his eyes and said "You want me to put a target on my back and tell everyone I''m a Sovereign, so that the enemies of the empire will focus on me rather than the Crown Princess. So my answer is, sure. Yes if you want."


    Conan stayed silent for a moment before asking "Why? You don''t even know her Do you intend to court her?!!"


    Adam had to refrain from smiling how fired up Conan looked as he reached his conclusion, but he said "It has nothing to do with her, I''m sure she''s sweet but I don''t know her. If I epted it''s because I intended to do that even if you didn''t say anything. I don''t care even if the whole worldes at me, they will only be training partners for me."


    Conan suddenlyughed "I see now how you became a Sovereign! Such courage, you impress me!" Adam smiled and said "Not to brag, but I even impressed Enya Whatever, I don''t mean to be disrespectful but I have things to do, a vige to save and a spider to crush, so can I go?"


    Conan grinned, not bothered by his tone at all, and said "Sure, I''ll bring you back to the Azure Sky Kingdom myself, it will be faster than waiting for the teleportation array to start working."


    Then, the familiar sensation of space warp appeared once again, and Adam found himself in the sky above a rocky in. All signs of the capital had disappeared, all Adam could see were the monsters on the ground, and in the sky were Conan and Skade.


    Before he could ask anything a bubble appeared around him and Skade and they began following Conan in the sky as he flew at supersonic speed.


    A couple minutester, they arrived at Ember City, and Conan finally stopped. He smiled at his daughter and said "Since I''m here, I''ll go check on my granddaughter. Adam, where do you want to go? I can drop you off anywhere within the kingdom."


    Adam replied "The Spider Nest Dungeon, a few kilometers from the capital" He didn''t get to finish his sentence as he disappeared from the sky, and appeared in front of the dungeon. He smiled, all the experts he had met weren''t what he thought they would be, instead of the stuck up asses he expected, they all were very outgoing.


    He wondered whether this was the case for most experts or if it was just Northmen being like that in general.


    He looked around himself and saw that there was no one here, it looked like the yers still hadn''t reached the necessary level to attack such a dungeon.


    It wasn''t a problem for him though, he had such a power up that this dungeon didn''t look that strong anymore.


    Although he was tempted to directly go with the Nightmare difficulty, Adam knew that pride was a terrible sin, and so he entered the Hard difficulty first.

 Chapter 68: Is 1 versus 1000 fair?

    Chapter 68: Is 1 versus 1000 fair?


    It didn''t take long for Adam to discover his first monster, a Level 30 Common Spider. As expected, this was going to be easy. Every spider he saw would die with a single blow, boring Adam a little. However, he still took the trouble to search every nook and cranny of this dungeon.


    As he was going through the dungeon though, he received an interesting message from King yer.


    Apparently, a guild called Blue Cemetery was chasing after him. It took Adam a few seconds to recall the man he had called, a certain Tarkhu, who was apparently the guild leader of a Second Tier Guild.


    They had been searching for him for more than a day now but because they couldn''t find him they had challenged him publicly, advertising their challenge everywhere. Adam looked it up himself and couldn''t help but find this manughable. He had posted everywhere that Adam was a coward for not going against him and his guild.


    Tarkhu had of course been insulted quite a lot for challenging a single man with his entire guild, but some others were actually supportive of him, as they wanted to see the demise of the ''Hero of Rosewatch''.


    After some debates online, Tarkhu had decided to post the following challenge online. Adam could bring whoever he wanted, but he would have to face 1000 yers from Blue Cemetery.


    Adam felt like this man was the biggest idiot of all time, any sane person would just ignore him. But Adam felt like this was a good opportunity. He wanted to officially start the recruitment for his guild, and what was better than a big ughter to show his guild''s strength.


    So he decided to answer to Tarkhu publicly too. He wrote a message that shocked everyone reading it.


    ''I wille. But not for you. I wille to show everyone that I am not to be challenged, but I am to be feared. Show me your best, I''ll enjoy ughtering them tomorrow.''


    The whole world was shocked by how bold and arrogant he was. In their eyes, Adam was an idiot to even ept this challenge. But this message wasn''t just directed at Tarkhu, but at everyone else. Shortly after Adam''s message, many influential people scoffed at Adam, making fun of him. He couldn''t care less though.


    After sending that message, he remembered he had forgot to do something, and that was sending his second disciple an invitation to his guild, so he did as much.


    And it looked like Johan was free since he epted right away. Now, the guild had Adam, Judith, Eddy, Louisa, Vastrik, Vodmir, Baugh, Breyn and Johan in it, with Adam being an SSS ss, and the rest were still unknown for most so he asked in the guild chat ''Has everyone passed their Bronze Promotion?''


    Adam was d to see a unanimous answer of yes, followed by their grade. As expected, all of them were now SS ss. They had been quite fast at that, showing they were quite talented themselves, even without Adam''s boost.


    Since they all had advanced, he said ''I advanced too, I am a Sovereign. Now that we have all advanced, it''s time to recruit some members. I have been challenged by a guild of otherworlders, we will use their ughter as a show of strength. I can take care of the 1000 men they will send, but I want you to be here in case they hide additional forces nearby. Is everyone free?''


    No one talked for a moment, they were quite shocked by what he just said. First, bing a Sovereign was amazing, yet he talked about it like it was just a normal feat. Then, he talked of killing a thousand man strong army like he was stealing candy from a child?


    Something important to know about Sovereigns is that they are so rare that no one really knows how strong they are, apart from those who personally witnesses their grandeur.


    Still, they already knew Adam was a man of miracles, so they quickly sent back ''Yes.'' But Eddy also added ''I know of adventurers who would be interested in joining a guild, what are the requirements for entering the guild?''


    Adam had already thought of this, so he replied ''If they are Iron Rank, they must at least have a shot at bing B ss. If they are Bronze Rank, then they must be B sses. Anyone below that is too weak and has no potential.''


    Those were harsh requirements, but every member in a guild costs money, be they yers from Earth or adventurers in Epoch/


    For the guilds in Epoch, one had to either go with the quantity or quality. For the quantity, only bigpanies are capable of starting out with quantity. However, for most guilds they can only start by recruiting strong experts, earning themselves more money to employ more guild members.


    Of course, for any big guild, they needed to have both numbers and strength. On Earth, there were two kinds of guilds: Ranked Guilds, and the rest. The rest weren''t really much to talk about, those were casual guilds.


    For Ranked Guilds, they are split in Third Tier, Second Tier, First Tier and Super Guilds, going from weakest to strongest. To go from one rank to another, different requirements had to be met, one of which was the number of members.


    Only a guild with 1000 active members could be ssified as a Third Tier Guild. Then, every tier multiplied that amount by ten, meaning that a Super Guild would have at least 1 million active members.


    That was only one of the requirements of course. One also needed to have a stable economy, a good overall strength, and feats and achievements to their name.


    But no matter what rank he wants his guild to have, a solid foundation was required, and so he didn''t want to ept anyone below B Rank. Anyway, B Rank wasn''t that hard to achieve, most veterans gamers on Earths are around this rank.


    As for the fight for tomorrow, he would need to prepare, and those additional recruits would be a good addition. His response to Blue Cemetery wasn''t a rash decision, but rather a well thought one.


    Him fighting against 1000 opponents wasn''t that hard to imagine, most yers were still Iron Rank, and probably 99% percent of Blue Cemetery would still be Iron Rank. As for the 1% remaining, that is only 10 Bronze Ranks.


    As a Sovereign, Adam could dominate SS Ranks with ease and take several ones at a time, and S Ranks would need to form a team with really great teamwork to bring him down.


    But Blue Cemetery was only a Second Tier Guild. Even if they brought their best tomorrow, which they probably won''t, they would have at most 50 A Rank.


    So that''s why, Adam was perfectly confidant he could kill them all on his own, which would be th greatest publicity for his guild.


    And because he didn''t want to take any chance, if Tarkhu were to be more careful than he thought, or if someone were to pull some strings to see him killed, there could very well be the entire Blue Cemetery hiding nearby the fight, that would be 9000 additional men.


    If once he finishes the first 1000 thosee too, then Eddy and the rest would appear to help him kill them. As SS Ranks themselves, their stamina is incredible thanks to the second Gate, and fighting against groups is easy thanks to the first Gate.


    That''s why, Adam''s response wasn''t a fool''s response like most people imed, and Adam would make sure to prove them wrong tomorrow.


    And even in case something did go wrong, Adam had one additional life saving measure, one which was easy to prepare and that he could prepare while going through this dungeon.


    Of course, even after he destroys Blue Cemetery in this battle, his guild won''t be a Second Tier Guild despite being stronger than one, but that will be to his advantage since joining a forming superpower was easier and brought more benefits than joining an already formed one.

 Chapter 69: One eared prideful idiot

    Chapter 69: One eared prideful idiot


    While Adam was killing spiders, testing his new skills and ustoming himself back to his skills only usable with the flexibility granted by the opening of the 3rd Gate, the Demon Cult Leader Max and Aemon Cult Leader Lin gathered in front of ckheart''s Cave Master, their faces cloudy like the storm.


    Lin said "Cave Master"


    Unlike the two Cult Leaders, the Cave Master''s face was bright like the sun. He said with a smile "What can I do for you?"


    Lin replied "That Valiant Heart! He became a Sovereign! What about the assassins?"


    "Speaking of this, what a tragic loss. I sent flowers to their families I would have at if they had any. Is this why you are here? I don''t know if that''s appropriate though, the flowers growing in Hell Well you know." The Cave Master said with an even brighter face, which looked like the most annoying face in the world for the two Cult Leaders.


    However, no matter how angry they were, they knew better thanshing out at this seemingly harmless man. The man was feared through the entire world after all.


    So they forced their anger down and Max said "We gave you such an amazing treasure Cave Master, how could you send weak assassins?"


    The Cave Master shook his head and said "You didn''t give me those keys, you paid with them. As such, I sent assassins whose lives were equal in value to those keys."


    As he heard those words, Max began unconsciously releasing a demonic aura as he asked "If that is the case, then how could they fail!"


    Despite trying his best to hold his temper, Max was unable to contain himself. That was because of his power. Max was a human at first, but he had decided to serve demons for power. While this power did make him a very strong S Legend, it was demonic in origin after all, and as such wasn''t suited for him. That''s why, his mind, amongst other things, had been corrupted by the power.


    But Max''s aura suddenly disappeared, along with his left ear. In front of him, the Cave Master said with an unusual cold voice filled with disdain "Don''t corrupt this ce with your dirty power, demon dog!"


    Max began sweating and his ear was hurting like hell, but he didn''t even dare to make a sound. Next to him, Lin looked at the Cult Leader with some glee and amusement before saying "While old Max has been disrespectful, Cave Master, he does raise a point. With the value of those keys, the assassins sent would even be able to kill someone who opened the Third Gate."


    When Lin spoke, the Cave Master''s face returned to its earlier countenance, and said "Indeed. I have something for you though, a recording of their fight."


    Lin made a surprised face as he asked "How? This is Enya''s World. I don''t mean to insult you, but while I believe you can hide your assassins from her sight for some time, bringing their memories back is"


    The Cave Master exined "Indeed, it''s impossible. Unless Enya''s lets us."


    Lin''s face turned shocked as he asked "Why would she allow us to do such a thing?" The Cave Master replied "To grow, a Sovereign must face countless challenges. By sending this back, she actually made a very clever choice. You will either pressure him into a corner many times and give him those countless challenges, or just give up chasing after him."


    Lin nodded, this made sense. The Cave Master waved his arm, and a screen appeared in mid air. He said "Watch this."


    The struggling and dazed Max as well as Lin both turned to look at the screen, and saw the fight between Adam and the assassins. When they saw how much he struggled at first, they showed two different emotions. Max had a somber face, while Lin looked impressed.


    After all, for someone who didn''t open the 3rd Gate yet, Adam was able to stand against them for a very long time.


    A few minutester, they reached the moment when Adam finally opened the Gate of Limit. They expected as much, but when they saw what happened after that, their emotions went on a roller coaster.


    As the video ended with the sight of Adam entering Roskha with the Brave Warriors, Lin and Max were too shocked to speak. Only after a few seconds did Lin ask "How? Is he the reincarnation of a god?"


    The Cave Master smiled and said "I have information on him, but there is a price to everything. However, I can tell you this, he is not the reincarnation of a god."


    The two looked relieved when they heard the revtion, and after some hesitation Lin said "I will pay for the information." The Cave Master nodded and turned to look at Max, who simply looked down.


    The Cave Master smiled and turned back to Lin and said "What can you give me?"


    Despite the Cave Master speaking out loud, Max couldn''t hear anything, and only Lin was able to. He asked back "What is your price?"


    The Cave Master said "I want some Netherworld Ashes." Lin nodded and with the wave of his hand he transferred what the Cave Master wanted.


    The Cave Master smiled and said "As you might know, this Valiant Heart, whose real name is Adam, is one of the Otherworlders."


    Lin nodded, so the Cave Master continued "The reason we know he isn''t the reincarnation of a God is because of his Gates. Although he reached the peak of strength for someone in the Third Gate in an instant, he struggled to open this Gate, and after some research we concluded he didn''t know how to open it."


    Lin frowned and asked "But how?" The Cave Master shrugged and said "No idea." Then, the Cave Master proceeded to say everything he had learned about Adam to Lin, including his rtionships, his two disciples, and his guild.


    When Lin finished hearing what the Cave Master had to say, he said "You said earlier Enya gave us this recording to either push us to intensify our assaults, or give up Against such a man, is there even a choice?"


    The Cave Master smiled grimly and replied "Well, for example that prideful idiot of a demon will continue attacking because he decided his money was more important than this information. For you though"


    Lin nodded and said "Thank you for your time, it is now time for us to go." The Cave Master nodded and waved his hand, teleporting the two out of his cave. Once alone, he retrieved the recording of Adam and went back to his activities.


    Meanwhile, on top of a big ck mountain both Lin and Max appeared in the sky, floating. Max said with a maddened voice "That bastard dared to cut my ear!"


    Lin looked at him mockingly and said "You moron." Max began releasing his demonic aura once again as red fumes swirled around his body and he said "Do you want to die old man!"


    Lin rolled his eyes and said "Careful with your words, dog, or you won''t live for long." After he said his piece he disappeared too, teleporting away and leaving Max on his own.


    Max gritted his teeth and a pair of red and ck fleshy wings appeared on his back before he too disappeared.


    It didn''t take long for them to reach their respectiveirs, and once in his temple Lin called off all rewards on Adam''s head, and sent a messenger to apologize to Adam. Moreover, Adam was to never be antagonized, and he made all his cultists memorize his face so that they wouldn''t find trouble with him.


    At the same time, Max did the opposite, and sent orders to his cultists. Adam was to be killed at any cost, and he also made his cultists memorize his face, but so that if any of them saw him they could kill him.


    While all of this happened, Adam had almost finished his run on the Hardcore difficulty, he had killed every Common, Elite and the mini boss Chieftain monster.


    Now, he was standing in front of the door leading to the final boss, who was most probably going to be a Lord, and so he decided to first recover his health and aura before going in.

 Chapter 70: Smash a spider

    Chapter 70: Smash a spider


    Once Adam recovered to his peak form, he took a step toward the door, and kicked it open. Adam''s kick had been so powerful that the door flew forward, hurling toward the boss.


    The boss was an even bigger spider than the Chieftain, it waspletely ck in color. As the door flew toward it, the boss used one of its legs to smash the door, pushing it aside.


    [ck Blood Spider] (Lord, Level 30)


    250000/250000


    Adam had to admit, the difference in strength between a Lord and a Chieftain was really big. Not even talking about Martial Arts, most yers in the world right now wouldn''t even be able to deal enough DPS to ovee its natural healing rate.


    And that was only one problem. The spider looked scary, and standing in front of it Adam felt like he was drowning into a sea of blood because of how thick the spider''s killing intent was.


    Most yers would freeze in fright and wouldn''t even be able to attack the boss. Adam wasn''t one such person though. His damage was giganormous, and his will was stronger than ever.


    Adam smirked and suddenly roared at the boss, using one of his new skills, [Barbarous Roar]. If the spider was emitting killing intent, what Adam projected with his voice was pure violence. The sound waves mixed with some aura crashed into the killing intent, destroying it, and hit the spider, making it flinch.


    Adam could see some fear in its eyes, but it still leaped at him, two of its legs trying to pierce a hole in his body.


    Adam smiled and easily dodged the two legs, and activated several of his skills. He first used [Wind de], which consumed aura instead of mana now, and jumped forward, shing out by activated both [Lunar Strike] and [Mighty Strike].


    Adam was already very fast with his Agility stat, way faster than this boss, but adding the power behind his attack he became so fast that the spider could follow it with its eight eyes.


    In truth, Adam''s sword turned to a mild blue, the light wasn''t as blindingly bright as before, but rather it looked like there was a film of water on his sword. His sword crashed into the boss, the sword dealing considerable damage. However, before blood could spill out three other ethereal swords of ice crashed into the wounds, freezing it.


    -46536 HP!


    -46536 HP!


    -46536 HP!


    -46536 HP!


    Before perfectly mastering the skill, [Mighty Strike] would only activate for the first strike and then Adam would have to wait for three seconds to activate it again. However, the effect now applied on all four of the strikes, but the expenditure of aura was three times bigger since he had to use the skill on three more des.


    That''s why almost 75% of the boss'' health suddenly disappeared, while Adam arrived behind it. The boss'' was shocked by the damage it was dealt, and the pain was immense, but so was its fear and anger. Despite Adam being too fast for it to see, it knew where he would approximately be, and so it tried to attack him.


    Adam hadn''t seen it before, but the boss actually had a stinger hidden on its behind, and it was currentlying for him. However, he was simply too fast, and he dodged the strike as he rapidly shed at five of its legs, cutting all of them off.


    -12441 HP! Cripple (*5)


    In barely a couple of seconds, only 1651 of the original 250000 health points was left, and the spider couldn''t even stand anymore.


    The spider was now at Adam''s mercy, and both of them knew it. Adam once again used [Barbarous Roar], although a bit unconsciously this time, projecting his intense inner violence onto the beast''s mind, before preparing himself to kill it.


    Before he could kill it though, the spider squealed and he received a weird message he didn''t expect.


    [''ck Blood Spider'' wishes to be your pet!]


    This made him freeze, that was possible?


    Everyone knew yers could have pets. All sses were restricted to a single pet, except for Summoner sses who could have many more. But for most sses, one could only have a single monster under them.


    However, taming a monster was a difficult process and required rare items as well as the presence of a summoner. And yet, the skill he had received from a quest actually allowed him to get a pet so easily?


    Moreover, it wasn''t just some weak Common pet, but a Lord Rank Monster! A very low amount of yers could kill Level 20 Lord monsters right now, and even less could kill ones that are level 30.


    This was an opportunity Adam felt he had to seize, and so he epted. He expected the monster to directly be his pet, however he received another notification.


    [The monster you are taming is part of a dungeon, and is affected by its internal rules. If you decide to take it as a pet, it will lose a major part of its strength.]


    Adam felt like cursing, but this was to be expected. If one could tame pets in dungeons and have them keep their whole strength, then a guild could just farm the same monster and have all their members have it as a pet.


    It looked like that if he wanted to get a monster as a pet, then it would have to be a unique pet with a single life. In this dungeon, only a single monster fit the bill, and that was the boss on the Nightmare difficulty, the one that drove the miners out.


    Orin had told him it had a single life before, so if he tried to tame it then he would most certainly get the full powered version of it. However, he would have to defeat it first, and sessfully tame it. If he was unlucky then he would fall on a monster that didn''t fear death.


    Adam wondered whether this would allow him toplete his quest with Orin though.


    But now wasn''t the time to worry about this, he had loot to plunder. Through this whole run, he had gained much more than before thanks to the increase in difficulty. And now was the best reward of the whole run.


    First was the loot left by the dead boss, and there was also the chest behind it. Adam wasn''t disappointed by what he saw. Apart from the usual materials, which were a rank higher than normal, there were several Umon Equipment as well as a skill for Clerics, a C Rank one.


    C Rank skills were very rare right now, and B Rank ones were yet to be seen in public. However, Adam decided not to sell this, but instead give it to Louisa. The skill was called [Poison Nullification], and consisted in injecting a poisonous mana into a person''s body to destroy the poison already present.


    Adam stored the skill to give it to Louisa tomorrow when they get to see each other, and opened the chest. Once again, he found some Umon equipments, two of them, but he also found the rare [Dark Gold Iron Ore].


    As Adam eyed the rare mineral he couldn''t help but wonder what this metal was made of. Iron and Gold were two different metals, two different atoms, so was this a mixture of both metals, or was it just because the color was dark gold?


    With those questions in mind, Adam left the dungeon, prepared to dive back in as soon as he was out. However, once he got out he was surprised to see there was someone else present.


    Adam became rm when he saw how the girl was dressed though, she was part of Aemon''s Cult. She wasn''t much of a threat herself, she was a Level 50 Bronze Rank, but if she was here then there could be others nearby.


    However, she didn''t look like she was here for trouble, so he didn''t attack her immediately and instead asked "What are you doing here?"


    The girl, who was quite young for a Level 50, bowed, shocking Adam, and said "I am here on my cult''s ount to clear the matters between us."


    Adam frowned and said "What do you mean?" Is she wanted to fight then she wouldn''t have bowed.


    The girl replied "You stole something from us and destroyed a monster tide we started. In return, we paid ckheart Mountain to send assassins after you. We want to stop our enmity here."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and said "I thought Aemon''s Cult was feared through thend and was a powerful organization Why do you to make peace?"


    The girl shook her head and said "I don''t know, but orders are orders. In exchange of making peace, we can agree on stopping any attack on the Azure Sky Kingdom."


    Adam was even more surprised, but found no reason to refuse so he said "Sure, let''s make peace."


    The girl smiled and said "As a step toward friendship, I can also give you additional information for free. We weren''t the only ones to pay assassins for your death, but another cult, the Demon''s Cult, did so as well, and unlike us they don''t intend on stopping their chase, so be careful of them in the future."


    Adam nodded but still said "Even though we set the records right this time, I don''t like your cult. I won''t attack you out of nowhere, but if you get in my way, know I will kill you."


    The girl sneered and said "Don''t overestimate yourself" She didn''t get to finish her sentence though as Adam appeared in front of her and grabbed her in a choke hold.

 Chapter 71: Overlord

    Chapter 71: Overlord


    She was shocked, how could he appear so fast in front of her? She was a swordswoman, and had 500 Agility, and yet she couldn''t even see a Level 25 move?


    Seeing her shock, Adam grinned and roared at her face. She went from shock to terrifying fear, and the immense stress created from the fear blocked her brain from working for a second.


    This is an interesting reaction humans had when faced with stress. Stress is a physical reaction, which secretes a substance that shuts off the front of the brain, and enhancing the reptilian brain, which is ruled by reflexes.


    That''s why many people would get paralyzed when they are stressed, why students would forget everything they learned in front of their test, why most people would freeze in front of danger instead of running away.


    Adam squeezed some more, and saw her HP start to dwindle down, and her consciousness started waving. He mmed her against the ground, and approached his face to hers as he said "Don''t. Provoke. Me!"


    He then kicked her away, starring her down. The girl sat on the ground and touched her throat with a scared expression. She took out a crystal and made it fall twice before sessfully crushing it and disappearing, leaving Adam alone.


    [Rtionship with Aemon''s Cult set back to Neutral.]


    Once again alone, Adam turned to look at the dungeon behind him. Being a Sovereign really made his strength go off the charts, this should be a dungeon for level 30s, and yet he was able to solo it as a Level 25, and he was about to go through its hardest difficulty.


    While his chances of sessfully clearing this difficulty, his chances were pretty high, but for normal yers even a team of 5 Level 50 Silvers wouldn''t necessarily be able to kill the monster.


    Fortunately for the other yers he had his XP debuff, or he would truly be invincible among other yers. But even with his debuff, he believed only other Sovereigns would be able to equal him.


    Adam eventually entered the dungeon in its highest difficulty, and received several warnings doing so because of his level. He ignored them though and walked forward. As soon as he entered he noticed something was strange, this wasn''t the same mine as earlier.


    This mine was much wider and bigger, and Adam couldn''t see what was supporting it since all the pirs had been smashed apart. This looked like a bigger deste version of the dungeon.


    It didn''t take long for him to find the first monster, although it wasn''t alone by apanied by several tens of monsters, all of them having the same status.


    [Big Cave Spider] (Elite, Level 30)


    12500/12500


    Each of the spiders were bigger than Adam, but they were still able to swarm on him thanks to the new width of the tunnel. Adam now understood why this was called ''Nightmare'' difficulty.


    No matter the difficulty though, Adam was just stronger. He wanted to test his new skills though, and so he first used [Barbarous Roar].


    The roar was so mighty that the spiders stopped in ce, looking at Adam in fear. He smirked and jumped toward them as he activated [Icy Stomp] and tried to apply [Mighty Strike], but found himself unable to so he stuck with only [Icy Stomp].


    -10948 HP!


    All the spiders more or less received the same amount of damage, almost emptying out their health point in a single strike. Moreover, the crash against the walls of the tunnel took away some more damage.


    Adam once again roared, and the spiders that could still stand lowered themselves. Adam received multiple notifications about him subduing multiple monsters, but more interestingly he had leveled up the skill.


    [Barbarous Roar has leveled up to Level 2!]


    Adam tried to find any difference in his status, but the description of the skill. As he roared once again thanks to theck of cooldown though, he felt that his roar was even louder than before, and now all the spiders that hadn''t submitted yet did so.


    Unfortunately for them, Adam had no interest whatsoever into taking them as pets, and so he killed them all.


    Following this, Adam began his conquest of the dungeon. Every time he crossed spiders, he would first make them submit before killing them. That made his throat a little soar, but he had a fun time shooting around, and killing the spiders like that somehow made him excited.


    As for the dungeon, it was really quite different from the three other difficulties. There was a difference in size, but there were also more paths to be followed, as well as more monsters. The spiders he met on the main path were all Elite rank but there were two to three more of them.


    As for those in the paths, while the majority were Elite Rank, there would always be at least two Chieftains in each. Unfortunately, their drop was lessened like every other monster, so despite the rarity of the monsters he killed, the loot he got wasn''t that great.


    Another difference was that the ores he could see before had now disappeared, and the only ore he got was out of the spiders, all the chests were empty.


    Finally, there was also the mini boss, who turned out to be a Lord, the same one as the final boss of the ''Hardcore'' difficulty, which he killed with the same ease.


    By the time he reached the final boss'' room, his XP hadn''t moved that much, but his skills had leveled up a few times.


    His [Icy Stomp] got to Level 4, while his [Barbarous Roar] was now Level 3. The only skills he hadn''t used were [Totemic Rage] and [Misty Escape] because of their cooldowns. He kept them for emergencies, so maybe for his fight against the final boss.


    The door leading to the final boss was one of the only things left intact, and so Adam pushed them open. He figured there wasn''t really any use into kicking them open since the mini boss was able to stop itpletely.


    As he entered the room, Adam expected some changes, but he was mindblown by how different the room was. This wasn''t a storage room anymore, it was only an enormous cave.


    The only thing Adam could see in the room was a chest as well as eight pirs. Looking up, those pirs turned out to be the legs of a ten meters tall spider. Great.


    [ck Heart Spider] (Overlord, Chosen, Level 30)


    750000/750000


    Upon seeing the additional ''Chosen'' tag Adam frowned. What was this supposed to mean? He didn''t have much time to think though as one of the thick legs came crashing toward him with an incredible speed. A speed not inferior''s to Adam''s in the least.


    Moreover, the size of the leg and the power behind it bended the air around it, forcing a strong wind onto Adam that made him slow down and so unable to dodge and forced to block in the end.


    Adam mmed his sword against the leg, using [Mighty Strike] and [Crushing Blow].


    -10000 HP!


    Adam was able to push back the leg and deal some damage to it, but the damage wasn''t big enough to really damage the boss.


    The boss took its leg back and screeched at Adam, releasing an enhanced version of the killing intent from the Lord Boss. Adam countered and overwhelmed it by using his [Barbarous Roar], and activated [Wind de] to jump toward the spider''s head.


    Adam looked like a super human as he made that impossible jump, and he activated his strongest skills for thisbo.


    -27900 HP!


    -27900 HP! Cripple!


    -27900 HP!


    -27900 HP! Cripple!


    With his attack, the four des from his [Lunar Smite] were able to destroy two of the spider''s eight eyes, and deal a remarkable amount of damage.


    However, Adam was now in the air and couldn''t dodge any attack. He expected the spider to attack him once again, and he was prepared for it, but instead the spider screeched even louder than before, and Adam felt his inside shake and his ears bleed. That was a sound wave attack!


    Adam hurriedly circted his Qi through his body, stopping the sound wave from making any other damage, but he had already lost more than half his health.


    But he had no time to rest as he saw another leging for him, a leg bigger than his body. He wanted to parry it, but found out he was unable to move!


    One of the Berserker''s biggest weakness was their weakness to status effects, such as stuns as they were more effective on them than on other sses.


    Adam hadn''t noticed right away, but that sonic attack had forced some of his muscles to stiffen and made him unable to move, and so he had to take the full brunt of the boss'' attack.


    Right before he was hit though, thanks to an extraordinary quick thinking, he activated his set''s first skill, which instantly healed 20% of his HP.


    Then, the spider''s leg mmed into his body.


    -9000 HP! Cripple!

 Chapter 72: Tough fight

    Chapter 72: Tough fight


    The leg first crashed into his body, then sent him crashing into the ground, losing even more HP. Adam had mmed so hard into the ground that he had formed a small crater around him.


    But he didn''t care about that, the paining from his left leg was the only thing he could feel for a moment. It was broken, obviously. Very badly so.


    He looked at his HP, and his eyes opened wide when he saw what was left of it. 2000 HP!


    With all his equipment and the bonus from the Godyer''s Heart, Adam''s HP stood at 18600HP! Meaning that without his timely heal, he would have died from that attack.


    Adam regained his bearing and saw the spider going for another attack, so he hurriedly jumped to the side while healing himself once again, which also fixed his leg.


    +3720 HP!


    He was able to barely dodge the leg, but the moment it touched the ground it sent a shockwave at Adam that injured himself further.


    -5000 HP!


    His health was now down to 700HP, but he managed tobo the spider''s leg thanks to his [Wind de].


    -7000 HP!


    -7000 HP!


    -7000 HP!


    -7000 HP!


    -35000 HP!


    Thest attack was an [Icy Stomp], which not only allowed him to deal a lot of damage, but also to lower its speed by 8%. Since their speed was in the hundreds, the difference would be felt.


    After Adam''sbo, the spider once again tried to smash him apart, but Adam dodged and activated his level 5 ne skill, [Fiery Breath], which allowed him to deal 150% of his damage every second for three seconds.


    -3500 HP!


    -3500 HP!


    -3500 HP!


    The ne was bing more and more useless. He couldn''t apply his [Mighty Strike] to triple the damage, nor use his Aqua Aura on it to double the damage because that was an equipment skill.


    (Author''s Note: The use of the Aqua Aura is confusing, so let me clear that up. Although it was said using Aqua Aura doubles the damage of an attack, that''s only for normal attacks, as long as he uses a skill then that bonus disappears.)


    While he was attacking, Adam had also activated his Healing Factor to its maximum, healing 1% of his health every second, but his Aura was quickly going down, so he stopped when he reached 30% of his health.


    Adam was able to separate from the [ck Heart Spider] for a moment, allowing him to take a breath, but the spider once again screeched and mmed the ground with its legs.


    Adam felt a dangering from the ground and so he jumped away, just in time as spikes of earth appeared where he was previously standing. He smirked and jumped toward the spider once again.


    It repeatedly tried to smash him to death, but he was able to dodge the legs and the asional shock waves and jumped on its legs, using them as tform to then reach the abdomen of the spider.


    The spider unraveled its secret stinger, but Adam already guessed it had one and so he was able to dodge it before unleashing both [Mighty Strike] and [Lunar Smite].


    Critical Hit! -70000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -70000 HP!


    -35000 HP!


    -35000 HP!


    Thanks to Adam''s effort, the boss'' HP was now at 350000 HP, although he had dealt more damage than that the boss had a great recovery speed too.


    Adam was in a bad spot now though, as after having attacked he was once again again in mid air, and the spider once again attacked with its sting. However, Adam used his sword, which had prated into the spider''s abdomen, as a support to ram into its bottom, using [Charge].


    This forced the spider into a stunned state, and although its incredible strength made it only stunned for an instant, it was enough for Adam to use its abdomen to jump toward the ground at full speed and not make himself vulnerable again.


    Right as it woke up, the spider mmed its body toward the ground, trying to m into Adam, who smirked. He didnt move but applied [Mighty Strike] to his sword before inserting the handle into the ground, making the sword stand straight.


    At that moment, the spider was about to smash into Adam, but to do so it would have to m into the sword''s de. Confidant in its armor being harder and sturdier than the sword, it decided to continue smashing downwards to kill the man that had been fighting it.


    However, the moment the spider''s body was about to smash into him, Adam used one of the skills he gained when he became a Sovereign, for the first time, [Misty Escape].


    Adam transformed into vapor as the spider mmed into him. However, it did no damage to him and instead burned itself, while Adam appeared a secondter on top of it.


    -2000 HP!


    -150000 HP! Moderate Bleeding!


    The damage from Adam''s Vapor Form didn''t do much damage, but the sword plunged right through the spider''s body.


    The spider screeched in pain and anger as it started thrashing around, trying to get Adam off of it. Now weaponless, Adam used his legs to sturdy his position on the spider''s back and punched its back like he was in a frenzy.


    Adam was able to punch it ten times before it was able to get him off its back. Adamnded into the ck blood of the spider, and was shocked to see it was poisonous. He hurriedly jumped away from the blood but his HP had taken a hit.


    Looking at the spider again, he was surprised to see it had dipped the tip of all its legs in the blood. It once again used its sound attack, but Adam countered most of it with his [Barbarous Roar]. Even when its skill was canceled off, he continued roaring at it, pressuring it.


    At the same time, he was feeling an excitement like never before, the thrill of fight was making his blood boil!


    Seeing its attack had no effect, the boss once again screeched and began bing smaller and smaller, until it was only five meters tall. Only 150 000 of its HP was left, so it shouldn''t be using its berserk skill so soon, but this boss was smarter than any monster Adam ever saw, and it had that ''Chosen'' tag.


    Since the spider had activated its berserk skill, Adam knew it was time for him to do so as well. He didn''t activate his personal skill though, but rather the one from his armor.


    Red steam appeared around Adam as he felt himself getting strengthened. Sensing the danger Adam was emitting, it jumped toward him with an unseen speed. It was so fast that Adam wouldn''t have been able to see it at all in his normal state.


    Now however, his stats were all enhanced by 50%, making him much stronger. He dodged its attack and appeared where it was just before. Thereid his sword, which the spider had ejected out of its body before transforming.


    After all, if it shrunk its body with the sword still in it, it would have probably killed itself with the sword.


    Picking up the sword, Adam and the spider looked at each other. Adamughed loudly with [Barbarous Roar], followed by "SUBMIT!"


    Adam''s voice and violent aura had be even stronger with the berserk skill activated, and so the spider began feeling afraid once again despite its berserk state.


    Adam then jumped to the spider, attacking it, but it attacked back. Adam''s sword and the spider''s leg collided with each other but no clear winner could be seen. For the next three seconds, Adam and the boss exchanged more than ten strikes, but every time they wouldn''t be able to get advantage over the other.


    Adam didn''t know for how long the spider would be able to hold on, but he only had 7 seconds left. That''s why he decided to use the final skill he had, the one that ced everything on the line for seven seconds.


    Adam separated from the spider and roared "SUBMIT!" As he did so the red steam around his body slowly fell back to let ce for a bluish mist.


    The spider felt the damage Adam was emitting, and couldn''t help but get scared, and it tried to move back. However, it barely moved one of its legs when Adam disappeared from where he was and appeared on top of it.


    The spider didn''t actually see him, but it felt the heavy sword crash into its back, breaking its outer shell, and destroying everything in its path.


    Critical Hit! 109692 HP!

 Chapter 73: Clingy

    Chapter 73: Clingy


    The spider still had around 50 000 HP left, but it was in a terrible state, it''s back was broken and Adam was still on top of it.


    He roared "SUBMIT!" before punching its back multiple times. He only stopped hitting it when it had less than 1000 HP.


    At that point, he jumped in front of its head and pressed his hand on it, making it hit the ground. He could see a single emotion in its eyes, and that was fear. He grinned and roared at it for the remaining of his double Berserk State.


    Even when his skill ended, and his body became weaker, the boss didn''t even dare to move. Adam stopped roaring for a moment, to get a deep look of its eyes. Despite the spider having 8 ugly eyes, with two of them destroyed, Adam could see a terrible fear in them, and yet it wasn''t submitting.


    Adam hesitated for a moment before letting go of its head. The spider looked at him confused, and he said "I don''t know if you can understand me, but if you can, I am warning you, if you don''t submit, you will die. Why would you want to die, when you can juste with me?"


    The spider lowered its head, as if it could understand him. Adam slowly patted its head, and said "Submit little one."


    [''ck Heart Spider'' wishes to be your pet!]


    Adam smiled brightly, finally! He directly epted, and was worried when he heard a new notification, he feared the boss would also be weakened. He was relieved when he read the message though.


    [You have tamed ''ck Heart Spider''!]


    [Pet Space unlocked!]


    [Spiritual Connection unlocked!]


    Adam continued stroking the spider''s head when he suddenly heard a young girl''s voice in his head ''Master.''


    Adam looked at the spider in shock, so that was what the Spiritual Connection was? He replied in his mind ''Do you have a name?''


    ''I don''t, can master give me one?''


    [Your pet wishes for you to give her a name!]


    Adam smiled and after a moment he said ''Neith.''


    ''I like the name, master. From now on, I shall be known as Neith.''


    Adam then said ''Rest for now, we will talkter.'' Neith nodded and Adam sent her to the pet space, where she began healing.


    Adam then walked toward the chest, for which he had great expectations since he didn''t get the loot from Neith. But even if the chest turned out to be empty, he wouldn''t care. Getting Neith as a pet already made the whole adventure worth it. Actually, taming Neith was even better than he could think, but he would learn thatter.


    Adam approached the chest with obvious greed in his eyes, but before he opened it he kicked the chest, just in case it was actually a hidden monster, a mimic. It wasn''t.


    Now sure there weren''t any danger, Adam finally opened the chest, revealing several items in it. First was five pieces of [Dark Gold Iron Ore], as well as several uninteresting resources.


    For the most important items, the equipments. All of them were Level 30, five of them were Common Grade, three were Umon and thest one was a Rare equipment. Unfortunately there weren''t any Exceptional equipment, but that was to be expected since this was a dungeon. If he had killed Neith then he would have most assuredly gotten one, but again, taming her was even better.


    Adam didn''t even bother looking at the Common and Umon items, they just weren''t worth it anymore. However, he was happy to find out the Rare equipment was a Ring!


    Although he would have preferred a ne, since it was his weakest piece of equipment right now, but he also needed a new ring, since the [Geppo Ring] was made for assassins and was too low leveled right now.


    So Adam stored everything in his bag and only kept the ring in his hand, examining it.


    [Clingy Ring] (Rare, Level 30)


    Agility: +250


    Clingy (Passive): Be capable of clinging on any hard surface.


    As expected, this was also a ring more fitting for an assassin. However, it was much betterpared to the [Geppo Ring], and not just because of the attributes, but also the skill. Hiding in the darkness could really only be useful to an assassin, but walking on walls could be useful for other things than fighting.


    Adam immediately swapped the two rings and headed for the exit of the dungeon. Then, he immediately headed for the dwarf vige. There were some monsters on the way, but even while weakened he was stronger than before his promotion, so he had no problem reaching there.


    Dwarven viges could be easily recognized because unlike most viges in the world, the houses weren''t made of wood, but rather metal and rocks. Adam didn''t really know why that was the case, he didn''t find sleeping in a metal housefortable, but maybe their dwarven physiology made it better for them.


    Anyway, once in the vige Adam immediately headed for the vige leader, Orin, house. Once there, he actually met Orin who was getting out of his house. The old dwarf smiled at him and said "I see you got your promotion. I hope you got a satisfying ss."


    Adam nodded and said "I did. And the spiders in the mine are no longer a danger."


    Orin asked "How? You couldn''t have killed it." Adam smiled and said "I didn''t kill it, indeed." Orin nodded but then Adam added "I tamed it instead."


    Orin looked at Adam in shock and said "Are you joking with me? What are you, a Sovereign?!"


    Once again, Adam smiled but said nothing. Orin rolled his eyes and said "If you tamed the beast, then show it to me."


    Adam shrugged and retrieved Neith from the pet space. Neith already had the time to recover, however she too was in a weakened state after having used her berserk skill.


    Some dwarves screamed in fright upon seeing a ten meters tall spider appear in the middle of their vige, but they calmed down after seeing it didn''t attack anyone. Adam looked at Orin, and found out the old dwarf wasn''t moving at all. He wasn''t even blinking.


    ''Master?'' Adam looked up at Neith and said ''Those are the dwarves who used to work in the mine you upied. They must be scared seeing you.''


    ''Sorry'' Adam smiled, she was shier than she looked. Adam walked to Orin and patted his shoulder, awakening him from his daze. Orin did wake up, but he muttered "Impossible."


    Adam asked "What''s impossible?" Orin said "How did you tame a Chosen monster?!" Adam scratched his head and said "Well, we fought, I won, she submitted. What does being a Chosen mean?"


    Orin turned to look at Adam and asked "You don''t even know how lucky you are?!" Adam shrugged, and after a moment Orin said "For humanoids, our potential is determined by our sses, and Sovereigns are the strongest. For monsters, their bloodline determines their talent. Chosen monsters are the equivalent of Sovereigns."


    Adam looked at Neith, so she was that talented? That meant good news for him. He asked "Is she stronger than other Overlords?"


    Orin said "She will, but there''s more. Chosen monsters have ess to evolution stages that normal monsters can''t get too. For example, for normal monsters, after bing Lords, the next stage is Noble. But Chosen monsters have an intermediary stage, the Overlord stage. Once in this Intermediary stage.


    That''s why, nurturing such a pet is very, very hard, and even in the wild most Chosen monsters die before growing to their full potential, like Sovereigns. But if you can nurture her well, then as an Overlord she is as strong as a Noble Monster of the same level, and if she bes a Noble too then she will be unrivaled amongst monsters of that rank."

 Chapter 74: Serpentine Lake

    Chapter 74: Serpentine Lake


    After finishing his exnation, Orin darted a nce at the spider before sighing and saying "I never would have thought you would be the one to save us Anyway, thank you, you are our greatest benefactor. To reward you, we will give you what we promised. Moreover, if you need equipment don''t hesitate to ask us."


    [SSS Quest ''Spider Nest'' Completed!]


    Rewards: Worshiped rtionship with Orin''s Vige, 10% of [ck Iron Ore].


    Adam nodded to the old man and said "Here, let''s add each other through the system for future transactions. Also, if you need help in the future, don''t hesitate to contact me."


    The two added each other and Adam left the vige on top of Neith. She was his pet after all, so with her size it was normal to make her carry him.


    Adam didn''t head back to the capital has he didn''t have much to do over there, he didn''t feel like going for a quest at the adventurer''s association. That''s why he decided to get to a high leveled map, an unexplored one, and stumble upon a quest if he was lucky.


    With how strong Adam was, and the addition of the equally strong Neith, a level 30-40 map wouldn''t make it, he was just too powerful. Level 50+ Silver guards were unable to kill Neith while teaming up, and Adam was slightly stronger than her, so they should be going for a Level 50 map.


    However, Adam decided to go to a Level 45-50 map because he was currently weakened, but more importantly because Adam had been curious about this map for some time.


    A few days ago, he had trained in a map called [Serpentine Lake], near the capital. There, he had seen there was a Level 50 map beyond theke, and now that he had the level to get there, he decided to do so.


    On they way over there, Adam casually chatted with Neith, while she effortlessly killed the monsters crossing their way.


    He was curious about her origin, since she had such a good bloodline, but after asking her he learned she didn''t know anything from before the mine. Her earliest memory was waking up in the mine, and she had been attracted by the stock of ores. She was able to evolve after eating the most precious [Dark Gold Iron Ore].


    Once being reminded that, Adam showed her the ones he had gotten, asking her if she was interested by any of them, but she wasn''t. Apparently, she now needed more precious materials to evolve once again. Adam shrugged it off, he had been told nurturing such a pet as expensive.


    An hourter, they reached the map Adam wanted to visit, [Serpentine Canyon]. He couldn''t see it before, but there was actually a canyon behind theke, well hidden from sight. Before even entering it, Adam could see many snakes hiding in the canyon, and he could only see them because he was above them for now.


    Seeing how colorful most of those snakes were, they were probably venomous, but Adam didn''t care about the danger and decided to enter along with Neith. He got down from her back and the two started fighting together for the first time.


    The snakes didn''t prove to be much of a challenge, there were mainly Common and Elite snakes, all of whom were one shot by Adam and Neith. Neith was even better than Adam to fight groups, she had many skills that allowed her to fight against crowds.


    Speaking of her skills, Adam found it a shame he couldn''t get to look at her attributes and skills, that would have allowed him to use her even better, but the system didn''t make it that easy.


    After a few hours of fighting, Adam and Neith only had explored a small part of the canyon since it was so big, much bigger than the capital, but they had made some interesting encounters.


    He thought he would only see monsters in the canyon since yers were barely Level 20, but he had forgotten the NPCs, they were also adventuring through the world.


    He crossed quite a few of them, who were shocked by Neith and him being so low leveled, but they were oddlypliant and polite as they warned him about the various dangers of this canyon and told him about special spots that could gather his attention.


    Adam was disappointed to find out this map had already been explored, but thinking about it, the map was only level 50 and so close to the capital, there were bound to be many peopleing here.


    There weren''t any super special boss or loot here, but there were some ces where he could find many monsters, which could drop interesting skills.


    The ces he learned about would vary depending on the people he asked, but if there was one thingmon to everyone''s speech, that was the Serpentine Gang.


    The Serpentine Gang was a giant group of ex soldiers and adventurers who formed a gang. They would attack anyone entering the canyon and rob them of everything they had.


    Adam had asked why they hadn''t been exterminated by the capital, and the answer baffled him. The gang was used as a training tool by the army of the capital.


    The royal army would regrly send soldiers to the canyon and test them. The further in the canyon they were able to go, the better their result would be.


    And yet, despite hearing so much about this gang, Adam had walked for hours but he hadn''t met them yet. His weakening period had already ended, making him at full strength once again, and the night wasing.


    Instead of meeting this gang, Adam had found something more interesting. He hadn''t really followed the advice of the NPCs he met, but instead searched on his own to get surprises.


    He had then found a cave where many snakes were guarding the entrance, and it was well hidden from sight. Adam had to leave Neith stand guard outside as he entered on his own, because of her size.


    He first had to go through a big tunnel, fighting different kinds of snakes, before reaching a big cavern. There, many small snakes blocked his way, all of them being Elites. Slightly behind them were twenty Chieftains who were all bigger than Adam, and finally two entwined snakes were at the end of the cave.


    [Fire Bead Snake] (Lord, Level 50)


    HP: 350000/350000


    [Ice Bead Snake] (Lord, Level 50)


    HP: 350000/350000


    One of them werepletely ck with a shiny red gem between its eyes, while the other waspletely white with an icy blue bead between its eyes.


    The two snakes were more than fifteen meters long and were at least twice as thick as a tiger. Adam felt his fighting spirit lit up, he never would refuse a good fight, not even if he wasn''t sure to win.


    After all, those were Level 50 Lords. Even if they were Level 30, facing two Lords at the same time was different from facing a single one, they wouldn''t just be twice as strong since those two seemed to be partners.


    But those were Level 50 monsters, meaning they attributes most likely would be above Adam''s, so he would have to rely on martial arts rather than pure strength.


    However, all this thinking was for naught because the snakes had no intention to attack. At first the Elite and Chieftain ones had tried to rush at him, or rather slither to him, probably because they smelled the slightly poisonous smell of their kin''s blood on him, but the ck snake had hissed loudly, stopping all of them.


    Although Adam was disappointed they didn''t want to fight, his thirst for battle was reced by his curiosity. What did they want with him?

 Chapter 75: Stealer of eggs

    Chapter 75: Stealer of eggs


    Adam looked at the snakes between him and the two Lords, and walked toward them. He looked like a madman wishing for death, but as he approached them, although the snakes were initially threatening him by hissing, they still made way for him.


    He stopped in front of the two big snakes, staring into their eyes. After an intense stare, the two snakes both lowered their heads to Adam, shocking him.


    The two snakes then started separating from each other, and it turned out they weren''t just expressing their affection for each other, but rather were protecting something dear to them, eggs.


    Two eggs had appeared in front of Adam, and they looked weird for eggs as their shell was blue and red respectively. Adam took a quick peek at their status, but he already knew what to expect.


    [Fire Bead Snake Egg: Egg of a powerful ss 4 Monster.]


    [Ice Bead Snake Egg: Egg of a powerful ss 4 Monster.]


    He did expect the names, but what was the ss stuff about? It was the first time he ever saw it, it looked like he would have to ask some NPC about monster Grades. Or maybe Neith would know the answer?


    But now wasn''t the time, as the two Lords had to ask him something, which he would probably have to figure out since they couldn''tmunicate.


    After a moment of staring at the two eggs though, Adam couldn''t find what they wanted from him. Then, the [Ice Bead Snake] advanced and spat out ice at the ground. There wasn''t a big impact, so Adam wondered what it was doing, before finally understanding.


    The snake had sculpted a third egg with its ice, one slightly bigger than the two in front of him. He now understood, there was a missing egg.


    The moment he understood this, the system sent him a notification.


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Missing Egg''!]


    Quest Detail: Two monsters have mysteriously decided to ask for your help to find their egg.


    Quest Level: 50


    Quest Difficulty: SS


    Objective: Find more about this egg, and if possible bring it back to the two bosses.


    Reward: ??


    That was definitely weird, even the system had used the word ''mysteriously'', this clearly wasn''t a normal situation. Moreover, for him to find an SS Quest in a map already explored by many adventurers, he must have something special that made the quest trigger only to him.


    After thinking for a bit, Adam concluded it could only be two things. They had either sensed he was a Sovereign, or they had smelt Neith on him. Whatever it was though, he decided toplete this quest. After all, it wasn''t everyday he got such quests wait, now that he was thinking about it, he was getting such quests every day.


    To be able to trigger so many of them, it wasn''t just his luck, but his ability too. Before he got to Bronze Rank, every one of his high rank quests were acquired because he had achieved something considered incredible, and now that he had be a Sovereign, he was even more entitled to such quests.


    And Adam was right in his thinking, there was a corrtion between the rank of quests and the strength and achievements of the yer. For most quests, there were different prerequisites to be fulfilled for the yer to see that quest, but Adam''s strength and status were great enough to bypass many of those.


    For example, Orin. Adam didn''t know it, and probably never would, but his encounter with Orin wasn''t exactly random. What had happened was that Orin had learned about Adam''s incredibly fast growth, and of his achievement in the Battle of Rosewatch, and so he had sought him out.


    Of course, Orin had been lucky that Adam was training at the Spider Nest when they met, but even if Adam had chosen a different dungeon, Orin would still have appeared to him, and simply used a different approach to give him his quest.


    However, if it was another yer, one who didn''t have anything to their name, and was unknown, then even if they harassed Orin they wouldn''t have gotten a quest.


    Some might see this as unfair, because it was pushing the strong to be stronger and the weak to be weaker, but it actually wasn''t the case. Each and every one of those quests were reallyplicated, and failing in a single one of them would result in a drop in reputation, and the yer would lose their momentum.


    Once it was lost, they wouldn''t get as many quests as before, or the loss in reputation might even make their attraction to NPCs with quests lesser than average yers.


    This might sound like a dumb mechanic, but it was actually a good parallel with the real world. Even if one does many great things in their life, a single bad one would taint their reputation and turn them into devils, thus bing more hated than the average people.


    But he was going off track, he focused back on the real world and looked at the two snakes. He knew he had to find an egg, but it was easier said than done, especially when he didn''t have any info on who stole it.


    The [Fire Bead Snake] let out a hiss though and a momentter one of the Chieftain snakes slithered toward him before opening its mouth wide. Adam was disgusted by the smell, despite being kind of used to it, but he didn''t move since it wasn''t trying to eat him.


    After a few gurgles, Adam understood the snake was trying to vomit something out, and a few secondster Adam saw a breathing man fall in front of him.


    [Serpentine Gang Member] (Bronze, Level 50)


    HP: 100/4000


    All the equipment on the man''s body had disappeared, probably digested by the snake seeing the burn marks on his body. The man was also unconscious, and wasn''t about to wake up.


    However, Adam didn''t care, since this was already enough for him. He knew what he had to do. He nodded at the two snakes and walked out of the cave, the sound of his steps shadowed by the man getting eaten once again.


    Once out of the cave, he patted Neith leg, making her lower herself, and he jumped on top of her. As he did so, he heard her voice in his head ''What was in there master?''


    ''Snakes, they want me to retrieve their egg for them. It won''t be for today though, only tomorrow. But before I go, do you know about grades? I saw snake eggs that were said to be Grade 4?''


    Neith replied ''You never heard of this master? Grades are like sses, they are a ssification of potential.''


    Adam raised an eyebrow and asked ''Does it work like sses?''


    ''Kind of, but there are differences. Humanoids and monsters don''t grow in the same way. Even the humanoid with the less potential of his race could potentially reach Legend rank, but a Grade 6 monster has almost no chance of ever going past Chieftain Rank, unless they can find a new bloodline. However, they are sure to be Chieftain in their lives, while a human could remain level 1 for their whole life.''


    Adam patted her and asked ''What Grade are you?''


    Neith let out a childish proudugh as she replied ''I am a Chosen, I am outside of grades, meaning I can reach any rank. A Grade 5 monster will definitely reach the Lord Rank as long as they don''t die, and a Grade 1 will reach Legendary Rank, even if they never fight for their entire life. However, for a Chosen, they can stop as Chieftains for their whole lives and live in mediocrity, or reach the special rank between Legendary and Godhood. But like Sovereigns, most of the time we never reach that stage.''


    Adam asked ''Then I guess most people would rather have a Grade 1 pet rather than a Chosen? How shortsighted.''


    Neith chuckled and said ''I''m d master doesn''t intend on swapping me for a Grade 1.''


    Adam looked at her with squinted eyes and said ''You seem to have adapted to your situation really well.''


    Neith replied ''If I chose to ept your offer, it wasn''t because of fear, although I was scared. It was because I''m bored in my cave, and I wanted to explore the outside world. Moreover, as a Sovereign you are worthy of bing my master, I would rather die than serve a weakling.''


    Adam raised an eyebrow upon discovering this secret pride of Neith, but didn''t say anything as they continued making their way out of the canyon. This time, because they weren''t fighting everything they met, it only took them an hour to get out of the canyon, where Adam recalled Neith back in his Pet Space and disconnected from the game.

 Chapter 76: Cultivation

    Chapter 76: Cultivation


    Once out of the game, Adam once again found his body had changed by a great deal in the great world, it was much stronger than before.


    What shocked Adam though was the energy he felt in his body. He felt Aura in his body!


    Actually, Adam did kind of expect his real body to have Aura since he had been blocked from opening the Third Gate in the real world too. However, expecting it and feeling it was different, very different!


    That meant cultivation was real in this world then! Now the question was, had people already discovered cultivation before him, or was he the first one?


    Adam held no doubt that if such an energy existed in humans, they were bound to have found it already. However, even if there really are cultivators in this world, they mustn''t be very strong, or they wouldn''t have been able to hide.


    Despite not even really starting cultivation, Adam could tell a cultivator could be really strong really fast, because of his current power. He could feel his body was already as strong as it was back when he opened the Third Gate in Enya''s Realm.


    In other words, he was as strong as a Level 20 Iron Rank who opened the Third Gate The more he thought of this, the more convinced he was. Epoch wasn''t just any game, but it was actually a guide to cultivation!


    Uponing to this conclusion, Adam took his phone and searched for information about thepany that made the game, Gaia Inc. He tried to find any information about them that could somewhat rte to cultivators, but he couldn''t find anything, as expected.


    Adam shook his head and then looked down at his hand. He was curious about something, could he replicate the skills from within the game?


    His hand began shining in that familiar white glow as Adam felt a strong power in his hand. It worked! He dispersed the Aura and tried his other skills, but found out he was unable to activate them, probably because he didn''t understand them well enough.


    That added a worry to Adam though, and that was about cultivators who yed the game. If he could activate skills from within the game into the real world, then could skills learned in the real world be used in the game? That would make cultivators have way more skills than anyone else, and it would be perfectly mastered skill from the beginning


    Well, he would have to discover by himself, there was no use in worrying too much about it now. For now, what Adam really wanted to do was to try cultivation.


    After all, Adam was a mix between this body''s soul and old Adam''s, and even though his main personality came from this body''s soul, Old Adam still had quite some influence on him, including his love for cultivation.


    If what he went through in Epoch was really a good guide to cultivation, then he had already reached the peak of the first realm, thanks to opening the Gate of Limit, so what he needed to do now was to replicate what his ss change did to him.


    Adam sat cross legged on his bed and closed his eyes, focusing on his insides. Since he had opened the third Gate, he could almost ''see'' his inner body, and he could feel a set of an additional vein-like system go through his body. If he was right, then this was his meridians.


    However, they were empty right now, as all his Aura gathered in a ce in the center of his body. That ce wasn''t the Dantian though, it was just a ce where all his Aura was stored.


    To enter the next realm, what Adam needed to do was to make his Aura travel through all his meridians to construct his Dantian. It wasn''t simple though, because he couldn''t just do them one by one, he had to fill all of them with his Aura at the same time.


    And with the subtle amount of Aura he had, none of it could be wasted, meaning he needed a fine control over his Aura. That''s why, Adam guessed that even when other people discover cultivation is real, it will still take a long time before people start cultivating.


    Luckily for him, he was different from the average people as he had already opened the Gate of Limit, which granted him perfect control over his inner energy.


    In moments he had already spread his Aura through all his meridians, dividing it equality. This allowed his meridians to form a strange connection together and turned them ''alive''.


    The Aura in them began to pulse as it converged toward a spot in his low abdomen. There, the Aura formed a sphere that gradually became bigger and bigger.


    While it grew, the Aura that was going in the sphere to help construct it would push the aura already present back in his meridians, in a strengthened version of itself that strengthened the meridians.


    It took five minutes for the sphere to stop growing and his body to stop strengthening. Adam opened his eyes and smelt a terrible stenching from him. He looked at his body and saw his clothes were wet, and tainted.


    His uncovered arm revealed a ckyer of filth had appeared all around his body, which Adam identified as the impurities of his body. The smell was so disgusting that Adam immediately took off all his clothes and entered the shower connected to his room, and washed off the filth from his body.


    As he did so, he took the time to appreciate the new strength he had. Even if he didn''t use any Aura, his body was now much stronger than before, his strength had reached in the tons at least.


    He knew that if he tried to punch the wall next to him, he would inevitably make a hole in it, and won''t hurt his fist. Hell, he could probably stop a speeding car if he used Aura.


    He now had entered a new realm, the second one, which was equivalent to the Bronze stage in the game. His body was strong enough to be called super human, and his Aura was mainly stored in his newly formed Dantian, with some wisps of Aura contained in all of his meridians.


    If he wanted, like in the game, he could use his Aura to strengthen a part of his body, making his defense or his attacks stronger, consuming some amount of Aura with every strike.


    But that was only the rawest use of Aura, probably used by the average cultivator with no skill. For Adam, he had mastered a skill that allowed him to better manage and use his Aura, [Mighty Strike]. Using the same amount of Aura, his punch would be stronger than someone who just covered their fist randomly.


    While showering, Adam also thought about the yers he met and who had opened their gates, especially the members of First Tier Guilds.


    If they had received the guidance to open the Gate of Opening before the game even started, then did that mean they were cultivators? After all, he knew it was possible to reach his current realm without opening any Gate, since it was the case in Epoch Well, he didn''t know it, but he was pretty sure he was right.


    That meant he would have to go to the dojos behind First Tier guild or stronger to find cultivators. If he wanted to meet them, it was because he had questions. Did they know about the game? Were they the ones tounch it? If so, why would they do so?


    So many questions filled his mind, but Adam came back to the real world when he heard he received a notification. He quickly dried his body and found out his friends were asking him if he could go out tonight.


    Adam smiled and replied to them. He needed some fresh air, he hadn''t left his house since theunch of the game.

 Chapter 77: East Wind

    Chapter 77: East Wind


    Adam put on some clothes, his shoes and his jacket before walking out of the house, locking behind him.


    He lived in a big city, in New York. He was born and raised here, and so was his mother and his brother. Only his father, Jean, didn''te from New York, but from France instead, which was why Adam was able to speak both English and French.


    In this age, New York was one of the most influential and popr cities in the world, and with this came severalpanies. There are a total of two Super Guilds, as well as eleven First Tier Guilds. This was a record only beaten by Paris, who had three Super Guilds.


    Since there was less than a hundred Super Guilds worldwide, having multiple ones in a city was amazing. Only the biggest cities such as New York, Seoul, Rio de Janeiro, London, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Sidney, Moscow, New Delhi or Cairo.


    Having two Super Guilds in a single city was a sign of power, as Super Guilds were, in a sense, multi millionairepanies. While this was a sign of power, it also brought rivalries.


    Many, many people followed the gaming scene, and so the different guilds had fans, who would sometime go so far as to fight in the name of their favorite guilds.


    It could be said that the guilds had reced the sporting clubs, football, baseball, ser, basketball and hockey had almost disappeared by now, everyone cared about VR now.


    And it was understandable. One could experience impossible things such as flying, recreating past events such as Woodstock, or even godhood!


    Inparison to that, inparison to the epic battles of swords and magic, sports like football really seemed boring.


    And with the ever growing realism of games, this pushed many people toward dojos and gyms, to learn how to fight. 50 years ago, parents were worried their children and grandchildren would know nothing about manual work and get weak bodies.


    But humans had never been so fit, it was in the era of peace that humans became the most powerful. It wasn''t an exaggeration to say that the elite teams of a First Tier Guild could rival the legendary Spartans, and a Super Guild could probably crush the Roman Empire of old.


    Of course, that didn''t mean they were above thew. In the past there had been a Dark Super Guild that had overestimated itself and tried to take over a city for themselves, not hesitating to kill. Their status in games had gotten to their heads and they thought they were invincible.


    They did take the city, but 6 hourster the army came in with half the men the guild had, but all armed with guns. That Dark Guild disappeared, and all the guilds around the world received a severe warning.


    No matter how good one is with martial arts, it is nothing in front of a rifle.


    Now that he knew about the existence of cultivators though, Adam doubted that it would be this easy to stop a Super Guild. He suspected the government had sent cultivators too, as bullets had limits.


    Either that, or cultivators were stuck in low realms and even the leaders of Super Guilds weren''t that strong. Anyway, Adam nned to visit one of the dojos of First Tier Guilds or even Super Guilds tonight, since his friends and him would probably go there anyway.


    Adam didn''t take long to reach the city center, where young people would often gather as that''s where there were the most bars and restaurants, including the one Adam''s parents worked at.


    After walking a bit, Adam finally saw his friends. Three of them had already arrived, and as it seemed they had already ordered drinks for them. As he walked toward them though, he turned his head to the side, squinting his eyes.


    On his right, a gorgeous woman had just exited a store, and as she appeared in front of everyone they quieted down, and looked at her with admiration.


    As for Adam, he could feel she was strong. She had opened the 1st Gate, but she was also stronger than a normal human. She had broken through to the Bronze Rank, and she was quite advanced at that.


    As Adam looked at her, she too fixed her eyes on Adam. She could feel his strength, or at least part of it. The capacity Adam had to hide his strength was something he gained from opening the 5th Gate in his alternate life as Old Adam, to control one''s aura to such an extent could only be done by a 5th Gate.


    Even though he hadn''t opened it yet, the experience was still there, and hiding his true strength was one of the things one could only learn by opening the Gate of Life, but could be replicated by someone who didn''t.


    That''s why, in that woman''s eyes, Adam looked like he had opened the Gate of Opening and the Gate of Healing, and had just broken through to the Bronze Realm.


    What shocked her was that she didn''t recognize him. There were plenty of cultivators on Earth, although most were very weak, they still existed, but for someone to be barely older than 20 and have opened the first two Gates, he was bound to be known as a talent worldwide, especially if she could meet him in the middle of a street in New York.


    She herself was renowned in the cultivatormunity through the entire world because she had opened the First Gate at 20 years old.


    So for her to meet this man, who looked even more talented than her, and not to know him, she felt shocked.


    As for Adam, he looked at her in the eyes but he focused on what the people around them were whispering, and was able to learn of her identity. East Wind, the greatest talent of the First Tier Guild Aeolus.


    She was a celebrity, both for her extraordinary beauty and her fearsome strength. Moreover, the Aeolus guild she was in was in the middle of a change of guild leader, and she was the favorite candidate. If nothing unexpected happened, then she would be the next guild leader of Aeolus.


    So seeing her in the middle of the street was inconceivable for all those people. That made Adam smile though, it looked like he was right. Guilds looked like they were the sects of cultivation worlds, where cultivators gathered.


    Also, it gave him an idea of how strong cultivators of this world were. Thanks to having opened the 3rd Gate, Adam held no doubt he could beat her, no matter what skills she had mastered. If such a person had serious chances of bing the Guild Leader of a First Tier Guild, then Adam doubted even the best experts of this world had gone beyond the third of fourth Gate.


    As the two stared at each other, the surrounding people noticed their idol was locking eyes with another man, and although some of them felt some jealousy and hostility at first, when they saw what Adam looked like, those feelings vanished away.


    Some of them had recognized him as Valiant Heart, since his appearance in game was identical to his real appearance. But even those who didn''t recognize him, they got scared by his build.


    Since Adam had broken through to the Bronze Realm earlier, he had gotten a little skinnier, but that was only his muscles bing morepact. Despite this transformation, he still looked like a tank.


    This weird atmosphere continued for a few seconds before Adam looked away and started walking toward his friends, who had heard themotion too. Their shocked faces as they stared at East Wind made him chuckle, had it been anyone else, like the people surrounding him, he would have found them dumb, but those were his friends, and to him, their faces right now was priceless.

 Chapter 78: Qi Gathering? Bronze?

    Chapter 78: Qi Gathering? Bronze?


    Adam sat with his three friends, bringing back their attention to him. After a moment, Joe, one of his friends, pped him and on the shoulder and said "Look at you, drawing everyone''s attention. A real diva!"


    Adam rolled his eyes and Joe got pped behind the head by his girlfriend, Sarah, who sat next to him. She smiled at Adam and said "Don''t listen to this idiot. Care to exin though? Did you join Aeolus?"


    "What do you mean? How could I possibly join them?"


    Adam''s third friend, Laura, snickered "You didn''t even hide your face, did you think we wouldn''t find out about your achievements, Valiant Heart?"


    He smiled and said "I guess I should have expected it. But to answer your question, no, I didn''t join them. In fact, I am creating a guild myself. Divine Predators."


    Laura whistled "Wow, impressive big man. I''m sure mommy''s proud of her little boy!"


    Adam sneered back "She sure is. What about you, I heard they run speed datings in a nearby bar. Is that why you''re here loner?"


    Laura clicked her tongue and said "Not my fault if they don''t have taste." Adam replied "Even a masochist would get scared of you."


    Laura screeched "What did you say!" Adam quickly raised his coaster, blocking a spit from Laura, and took a sip of his beer before saying "That''s what I am talking about. You can''t just spit at people, you''ll get arrested once again."


    She crossed her arms under her chest, making it a little bigger as she said "I didn''t do much"


    Joe intervened "You broke that guy''s knee Laura." She looked away and didn''t say anything, she was ignoring him.


    Joe said "You little" But Sarah patted his arm and said "Don''t be a child. So, let''s" She was about to speak when she suddenly halted, looking at the sit next to Adam, as did the others.


    There, East Wind had taken a sit, handing her hand to Adam. She said with her graceful voice "Hi, I''m Samantha."


    Adam felt it was quite rude of her to just sit next to him, but because she didn''t seem to have any bad intention, and maybe, maybe, because she was beautiful, he didn''t break her hand but rather shook her hand.


    As expected, she didn''t try a vain contest of strength because of what he allowed her to sense, so he said "Adam. What can I do for you?"


    Samantha smiled and said "I want to know you. Or rather, I want to know why I don''t know you." Adam replied "I would say because we never met. And you probably haven''t been paying attention to the news recently."


    She crossed her legs and wiped out her phone, which looked more expensive than Adam''s house, and said "What should I search?"


    Adam replied "Valiant Heart. Be quick, you are making this awkward." She looked up from her phone and said "Who cares what those people think, they''ve got nothing better to do than gawk at celebrities. Since you game me an ID, I guess you are ying Epoch. Which guild are you in?"


    "Divine Predator."


    Sam was confused, she never heard of that guild either. She knew the names of all the Super Guilds in the world, and although the same couldn''t be said about First Tier Guild, she was at least familiar with the vast majority of them.


    She quickly found everything about Adam on the, and after a moment she said "So you are the neer who has been making waves recently Interesting. My ID in game is East Wind, send me a friend request, in case you ever need help. Well, it was nice meeting you. Good night to you and your silent friends."


    She got up and walked away under the stares of everyone, while Adam smirked inwardly. She was obviously talking about tomorrow''s fight, offering her help in exchange of a favor. What she didn''t know was that he didn''t need her help at all.


    Once she was gone, thest two of Adam''s friends joined them, the were two guys, a Japanese and a Tunisian, Saito and Sami. They sat next to Adam and Saito asked "How? Why? What?"


    Adam shrugged and said "It just kind of happened. And you don''t need to be shocked, she''s just the member of a First Tier Guild."


    Saito took his head between his arms and said "She''s not just the member of any guild, she is a member of Aeolus, and its potential guild leader. My guild is under Aeolus!"


    Adam raised an eyebrow, so that''s what the fuss was about. Since the moment he had created his guild, he hadn''t even thought of inviting his five friends in it even once, because they already had their own guilds, and he knew they cared about them, and putting them in a dilemma by asking them to join his guild would be cruel.


    All five of them were elite members of Second Tier Guilds, Saito was in Ronin, Joe and Sarah in Chrisan, Laura in Savage Land and Sami in Exodus.


    Now all sat down, Sami said "The guild you are going against, Blue Cemetery, my guild is actually at war with them. If you want, I can ask my guild leader to help."


    Adam shook his head and replied "I''m thankful for the help, but I really don''t need it. I would have ignored them in normal times, but I epted the challenge because I want to use this as an ad for my newly formed guild. Asking help would make this useless. And don''t worry, I''m fully confidant I will win."


    His friends looked at him with some doubt, but said nothing. They knew Adam had his pride, and he would rather fail than ask for help for such a matter.


    Moreover, with his recent achievements, they actually felt like he could pull off a miracle. After all, they had seen too what he did in Rosewatch, including pulling off that super powerful spell from within the scroll.


    Following that they all talked about the start of their own adventures in the game, which were smoother than Adam''s since they already had guilds to help them, but they mainly got low ranks quests.


    After some time, they decided to go home as it was gettingte, and thus bade their farewells to each other.


    Once back home, Adam saw both his parents were home, but they were already asleep. Adam walked to his room and started training.


    He had two things to train in. First was the 4th Gate, the Gate of View, which he needed to open. Then, there was also his cultivation which he needed to improve.


    For his Gate of View, he already knew how to train it. Once opened, the Gate of View would give its user a perfect sense of space and bnce as well as a perfect equilibrium. Adam believed that this Gate was like the first two and the conditions to open it would be no different from those he already knew.


    That''s why, all he needed to do was to train his bnce to the max. But that wasn''t the only thing he needed to improve, he also needed to improve his cultivation.


    Right now he was in the Bronze Realm, and in game one needed to gain XP to level up and get stronger in the realm. However, this wasn''t an option in the real world.


    Adam still had an idea though about how he could strengthen his cultivation. The name he had given his current realm was Bronze rank, but since he entered the realm a name constantly came back to his mind, and that was Qi Gathering.


    In many novels Old Adam had read, the first two realms were Body Strengthening and Qi Gathering. And from what he saw, that was exactly what was happening. The Iron Rank would make someone strengthen their body to the max, and then the Bronze Rank would be about umting more and more Qi.


    That would mean he is currently in the first level of the Qi Gathering Realm, and Samantha was probably in thest level.


    What made him think like that was that she had just a little less Aura, or Qi than him despite not having opened the Third Gate.

 Chapter 79: Undercover

    Chapter 79: Undercover


    In Cultivation, foundation was the most important. That''s why, in game the more Gates one has opened before their promotion to Bronze Rank, the higher their ss. Someone who has a body five times stronger than others can also store five times more Qi.


    Samantha probably had broken through to Qi Gathering when she had opened the First Gate, so she had an S grade Talent, and would have the strength of someone of that rank. This means at the same stage, Adam would be five times stronger than her since he was an SSS Talent.


    For her to be just a little below in him in Qi quantity, then she was five times stronger than a normal person who just broke through, so that''s why he believed she had reached the top of the realm she currently was in, and was probably waiting to open her Second Gate before breaking through.


    But he was going off track. If he really was in the Qi Gathering Realm, then what he needed to do was simple, he had to gather Qi.


    Normally he would need a cultivation technique, but he didn''t have any, and couldn''t get any. If he asked for one in the dojos, he would be forced to join them. And there probably didn''t exist any in game, since all they needed to do to grow stronger was to kill other beings.


    That meant Adam had to create his own cultivation technique. The problem was, experimenting with his Qi could be very dangerous, he didn''t want to suffer from Qi Deviation, but it''s not like he had any choice.


    First, he would just try to absorb the surrounding Qi, if that was even possible, and then slowly try to make the process smoother and smoother.


    For the rest of the night Adam trained relentlessly, not sleeping at all. But it''s not like he needed to anyway, just opening the Gate of Healing made him capable to go on days without sleeping, and opening the Third Gate and breaking through had pushed that limit farther.


    Next morning, once connected Adam summoned Neith back and the two of them once again ventured into [Serpentine Canyon]. This time they were quicker than yesterday since they didn''t have to check all the small passageways and just focused on going deeper.


    For today, Adam''s goal was to find traces of the Serpentine Gang, and possibly the egg in the morning, then at lunch he would have to go fight against Blue Cemetery.


    Honestly, the more the moment approached, the more Adam felt like this was a waste of time. But he had to do it, his guild needed the advertisement.


    But he had to do things in order. First, find the egg.


    It didn''t take long for Adam to reach the cave where he had met the snakes yesterday, and was surprised to see a group of adventurers in front of it. It was a team of five Level 50 Bronze, and they didn''t seem that powerful.


    Adam shook his head and said "I wouldn''t go in there if I were you, only death awaits for you in this cave."


    The five turned around to look at him, they were a group of Lizardkin. Their leader hissed "Who are you, a seer?"


    Adam replied "I don''t need to see the future to know you will die if you enter that cave. What''s inside will kill you."


    The leader sent a nce above Adam''s head and was about to make ament when one of hisrades said in a barely hearable voice "Captain, look at his mount"


    The Captain looked down and looked at Neith status, and was shocked by what he saw. One had more chances to see a dragon than see a Chosen monster, exining why he was so shocked.


    After a moment he bowed toward Adam and said "Thank you for your advice!" This time, he really looked grateful, so Adam nodded to him and he ordered Neith to continue advancing in the canyon.


    As for the group of Lizardkin, one of the subordinates asked "Captain, why did you bow to him? Even if his mount was good, there was no need to go to such an extent"


    The Captain suddenly started emitting a powerful aura, one more powerful than what Adam had been able to feel earlier. At the same time, a ring on his hand started turning a little blurry, and his rank changed from Bronze to Silver.


    He said "You idiot, we are here undercover, we aren''t supposed to get sighted around here. And especially not by this guy."


    The subordinate asked "What''s up with him?"


    The Captain hissed and took his aura back as he said "Will it hurt you to think for a moment? This was a Chosen, they are normally impossible to tame, and they absolutely wouldn''t serve someone weaker than them, which means he defeated and tamed this monster on his own. Only one kind of person is capable of doing this, and news about one such person spread through the entire world recently."


    The other Lizardkin remained silent for a moment before putting on a shocked face and saying "Captain, are you saying this is the Sovereign that appeared in Fjora?!"


    Another subordinate rolled his eyes and said "Of course that''s who Captain is talking about. I swear, if it weren''t for your strength I would wonder what you are doing here."


    The Lizardkin scratched his head and said with a goofy smile "Mom said I should be proud to be a simpleton because that means I''m always honest!"


    The Captain patted his shoulder and said "And she''s right. Come now, we mustn''t stay here."


    Another Lizardkin asked while looking at the cave "What about the mission captain?"


    The Captain replied "This isn''t our main goal, we were told toplete this one only if we can do it discreetly. The Sovereign has already gone inside, so if by chance hees back and sees something is missing, he will connect it to us, and that could endanger our identity, we aren''t supposed to be strong enough."


    The rest nodded and the team of five walked away, gradually creating a mist as they walked, slowly disappearing.


    Meanwhile, Adam had no idea the NPCs he had just met weren''t what they seemed. For the moment, he was focused on finding traces of gang while killing the monsters standing in his path.


    Despite having killed many snakes, both today and yesterday, neither Adam nor Neith had leveled up yet, although Adam was getting there.


    From Level 20 on, leveling up bes much harder, especially for Adam since he was three times slower than the average yer. If he wasn''t hunting Level 50 monsters, but ones of his level, it would probably take him more than a week to level up even once, and that was him being optimistic.


    That didn''t bother Adam in the least though, because he needed that time. He had to open the 4th Gate before leveling up anyway, and he would need time for that to happen.


    After four hours of search, Adam felt like he had been cursed, and his luck stat had be negative, if there was one such attribute.


    The Serpentine Gang was said to be an active gang, and that in normal times it would be hard to avoid them. But here he was, searching for them for four hours, and yet no trace could be found.


    So it was either his bad luck, or something was going on with the gang, which was actually probable since they stole what seemed to be a special egg.


    Because it was made of ice, Adam hadn''t seen what color the egg was, but he knew it was bigger than the other two that were actually present. Now, Adam was pretty sure a bigger egg meant that this snakes'' grade would be higher than the other two eggs, and that was probably why it was stolen in the first ce.


    Anyway, four hours of exploring had allowed Adam to go deep in the canyon, and he could see he was getting near the end, meaning he probably would soon get to see his prey.


    And as he thought, a few minutester, he saw a group of three Wood Elves, whose name tags all showed they were part of the Serpentine Gang. Adam grinned, he would finally get to have some real action.

 Chapter 80: Come at me!

    Chapter 80: Come at me!


    They were level 50 and plus, all three of them being Silver Rank, meaning they were way too strong for someone of his level. But Adam simply didn''t care, he wasn''t an average Joe.


    Before they could see him, Adam jumped from Neith''s back toward the three, andnded between two of them.


    As he reached them he grabbed the back of their head, one head in each hand, and mmed their face into the ground as hended on his feet.


    -5000 HP! Stunned!


    -5000 HP! Stunned!


    Before the third one could understand what was happening, Adam used [Charge] on him, stunning him too, and punched him hard enough to make him fall to the ground.


    Now with the three of them on the ground, Adam randomly picked one and used [Mighty Strike] and stomped on his head.


    Critical Hit! -15000 HP!


    The gangster''s head was smashed as his brains spluttered around, especially onto his two fellows gang members. They barely woke up from their daze when they saw their friend get killed, and although they wanted to scream and run, they knew they didn''t have a chance, and their experience allowed them to remain rtively calm and not say anything.


    As for Adam, he squatted between the two and said "You have no idea how long I searched for you. Are you having a good day? Well, I guess no, unless you didn''t like this guy Anyway, has your gang stolen an egg from snakes recently? Lord Snakes. The egg should be above Grade 5."


    Adam saw some shock on their face, which was quickly hidden as they shook their head. Adam smiled and stomped on the head of a second one, killing him as gruesomely as the one before.


    He then looked at thest one in the eyes, and used [Barbarous Roar] before grinning and cing his foot against his throat and saying "Don''t lie to me bastard. Where is the egg?"


    The gangster grabbed Adam''s foot, trying to lift it as he couldn''t breath, but Adam kept on pressing, until his face turned blue. When he was on the verge of falling unconscious, Adam stopped, and the gangster rolled to the ground, coughing hard.


    Adam pushed him back on his back and pped him, making him lose a few teeth and a couple thousand HP, and asked again "Where is the egg?"


    The gangster spat out another teeth and said "At the base."


    Adam pped him once again, this time puncturing his eye and making him scream in agony, but he didn''t care and asked "Where is your base?"


    The gangster began crying and said "It''s just ahead! You didn''t have to torture me for it!"


    Adam shrugged and said "I didn''t have to, but I didn''t know that. And I don''t feel pity or mercy for your kind. Say hi to Hell for me."


    Before the gangster could speak Adam crushed his head like a watermelon and turned to Neith "Are you hungry?"


    Neith approached with a giggle and began eating the bodies while Adam jumped on top of her. With her size, it took less than a minute for her to gobble them up, and so they started walking forward.


    As the gangster had said, the gang''s base couldn''t be referred to as hidden. It was actually a little town at the end of the canyon, in which only gangsters gathered, and maybe their family if they had some.


    From the size of the town, Adam would say there are 5000 of them in there, meaning a head on assault was out of the question. Even with Neith''s help, it was impossible for him to take on 5000 Level 50+ Silvers.


    But that wasn''t really in Adam''s ns to do that from the beginning. This was a Level 50 SS Quest, meaning a Level 50 SS ss should be able to aplish it, and destroying an entire gang of level 50+ was beyond even SSS.


    No, Adam obviously had to find another solution. So he first analyzed what he could see.


    The town took the entire width of the canyon, meaning there was a wall going from one cliff to the other. One way to get in would be to jump from the cliffs, but that would need him to retrace his steps and thene back here on top of the cliffs of the canyon, which wasn''t a solution.


    Moreover, they wouldn''t let such an obvious weakness for all to exploit, so this would be a waste of time. So there wasn''t any apparent weakness in the external structure, it was just a big wall after all. He could jump above it with Neith''s help, but he would be turned into a porcupine by the time he reaches the other side, and he would have to fight against 5000 of them.


    Sneaking in didn''t seem possible either, it was just t ground between him and the town. The only reason he hadn''t been spotted was because he was standing far enough to see them but not being seen.


    Since the external structure didn''t have any weakness for him to exploit, then he would have to go for the inner structure. This world was rather advanced for a medieval fantasy one, and people in this world definitely had toilets that delivered to sewers, and this town had to have sewers, so that was one way to sneak in.


    But Adam didn''t feel like doing this either, it was disgusting, and he had a better solution. He couldn''t fight them all at the same time, but if he managed to split them up then it wouldn''t be that hard, it would just take longer.


    But he would rather spend hours on doing this than go in the sewers. Moreover, he would have to waste time searching for the entrance, and for all he knew the entrance could be on the other side of the town, so his other solution was better.


    Adam got off Neith and talked to her by telepathy before advancing on his own.


    A few thousands of meters farther, on top of the wall, two of the gangsters were chilling, sitting on chairs and looking in the distance. Their job was pretty rxed, except from the attack from the guards once a month, no one dared to attack them. They weren''t necessarily here to stop threat, but more to wee guests.


    One of the two squinted his eyes and after a moment he hit his friend on the shoulder to wake him up, and said "There''s a figureing toward us. He looks like he is alone."


    The other guard got to his feet and squinted his eyes too, and said "I don''t recognize him. Wait, what is he doing Fuc..."


    He didn''t even get the time to finish his sentence as a rock flew through the air and hit him in the face. The rock broke his hand and damaged his nose, forcing tears into his eyes as he and his friend protected themselves with the wall.


    The one injured said "That''s an enemy! We got to warn the rest!" The other nodded, but before they could do anything they heard a roar that sent down shivers in their spine "COME AT ME FUCKERS!!"

 Chapter 81: Trap

    Chapter 81: Trap


    The uninjured one looked behind him, into the town, and said to another gang member who was nearby and hade hearing the other one scream "There''s an intruder, looks strong. Gather a unit, we are going to kill him."


    The one below blinked and asked "A whole unit?"


    "Do as I say!"


    He nodded and ran off to warn the others. A few minutester, 100 of them got passed the gates. Adam grinned and threw another stone at them, hitting one of them, before bolting off.


    The gangsters roared in anger and followed him like dumb minions, away from the town. Adam had to lower his speed so he wouldn''t loose them, but not by much, showing how strong those NPCs were.


    Actually, Adam knew he didn''t much a chance even against 100 of them. Maybe if he activated all his skills he would be able to win, but that would make him waste more time than anything.


    Instead, he had a n. After covering some more distance, Adam revealed a smile as he looked ahead. He ran a few more meters and stopped, staring at the gangsters after him.


    The ones in front looked at him confused, but they didn''t stop and continued running. A few stepster though, the ones in front all started falling, forcing those behind to stop.


    However, it was toote, they had fallen into the trap. What had made them fall was an invisible thread Neith had specially made. It had lost its stickiness but had an incredible strength which allowed it to make them fall, instead of breaking.


    The ones on the ground tried to get up, but before they could numerous spears of earth rose from the ground, impaling them. As for the ones behind, Adam appeared behind them and used his incredible strength to push them toward the spears of earth.


    They tried to attack back, but Neith soon appeared from the ground and using her eight legs she was even faster than Adam to kill the gangsters.


    In under a minute, the ground was littered with corpses, with big holes in their bodies or missing limbs, depending on who killed them.


    As for Adam and Neith, they were almost unscathed, especially Neith since she had a much bigger vitality. Adam wasn''t much hurt, but he was covered in blood from head to toe, making him look especially fearful.


    He looked at Neith and asked "You can make tunnels in the earth? Can you sense what is above you?"


    ''I do.'' He smiled and said "Wish I had known earlier, it would have made everything simpler. I want you to travel underneath the earth and search for the egg."


    ''But they will sense me if I move underground.'' Neith replied.


    "Don''t worry about that, I will grab their attention. When arge part of them has left the town, find the egg and take it out safely. Go."


    Neith nodded her gigantic head and burrowed underground, not leaving much of a trace despite her size. Magic.


    As for Adam, he looked at the corpses and began his work. After losing a hundred of their members, they obviously won''t get out of their safe fortress easily. That''s why, a little provocation was needed, and their friends'' corpses were perfect for that.


    Adam first decapitated all of them, and then attached all the heads together with Neith''s web. Then, with one hundred head dragged behind him, Adam walked back toward the fortress.


    When he came back in sight, the gangster he had injured earlier gritted his teeth and warned the others, and as expected none of them came out of the town. After all, for all they knew an army of thousands could be hiding.


    Instead, the rangers of the gang gathered to the wall and were ready to shoot Adam as soon as he came within range.


    However, as if he knew their exact range, Adam stopped right outside of it. Then, he took one of the heads and threw it toward the town. He didn''t really aim, all he wanted was for the head to get inside the city.


    Then, he threw head after head into the town, infuriating the gangsters, and by the time he was throwing thest ones, the gates finally opened. Unexpectedly, a single man hade out, he was on top of a fierce looking tiger and had a spear in one hand, and a tower shield in the other.


    As they approached Adam was able to see his and the tiger''s status.


    [Ludo, Serpentine Gang Leader] (Silver, Level 75)


    HP: 70000/70000


    [Iron Fur Tiger] (Lord, Level 60)


    HP: 400000/400000


    Those two were strong, Adam could feel Ludo had opened the Gate of Healing, meaning he was probably an S ss, and the Tiger was a Lord. No wonder he could create such a big gang, with such a strength.


    As he approached Ludo sneered "At least you didn''t run you rat. What are you doing here?"


    Adam smiled and replied, as if they were friends "Nothing much really, all I want is to take back what you have stolen Well not everything, I can''t store a whole town, but the snake egg will do."


    At first Ludo looked angry at Adam for mocking, but when he mentioned the egg his pupils dted as he pped the tiger under him, making it attack Adam.


    This surprised Adam, Ludo didn''t even know if he had allies with him but he attacked straight away. The two were also quite fast, faster than Adam at least, he wondered whether it came from a skill or if the tiger''s agility was just higher than his.


    Anyway, Adam admitted that this was a dangerous situation, and taking the two of them on would be dangerous, so he activated his berserk skill from his armor set. It would onlyst 10 seconds, but that was enough.


    Now 50% faster and stronger, Adam also activated [Wind de], which was already Level 9, and once again used his special movement technique by using his weapon''s weight to jump at the two.


    Ludo was shocked at Adam''s speed, this was only a Level 25 after all, and he didn''t even have the time to react as Adam swung his sword against one of his mount''s front legs, creating a deep sh in it, followed by three ice des thatpletely severed the limb.


    -50250 HP!


    -50250 HP!


    -50250 HP!


    -50250 HP! Cripple!


    Ludo didn''t even have time to get off the tiger as it fell to the ground due to the hit and the missing limb. Having lost half it''s health, the tiger became scared of Adam, but it barely got back on it''s feet when it sensed something crash into the back of its head, and a wave of frost erupt from there.


    -70 500 HP!


    -5200 HP!


    That was an [Icy Stomp] from Adam, which was able to hit both the tiger and Ludo. However, the damage they took waspletely different.


    That didn''t surprise Adam much though, as this was how this world worked. Monsters had way more stamina and health than humanoids, up to absurd point. For example, Neith had 750k HP despite only being Level 30.


    Even an SSS Knight or Monk wouldn''t even near that amount of HP. However, Neith''s defense was bad, and she would take the full strength of every hit, whereas a yer or NPC would only take a fraction.


    This was also the case here. Adam''s damage on 0 defense was of around 72k with this attack, and the tiger had taken 70k out of its 400k HP. As for Ludo, he had only taken 5k damage, but that was out of 70k, not 400k.


    Still, that was a lot of damage, and that made Ludo look at Adam in shock, but thetter didn''t care. Hisst attack had slowed them down by almost 10%, so they were even slower than before. He roared due to how much he enjoyed the fight, activating [Barbarous Roar], and jumped to the tiger once again, first using [Crushing Blow], before hammering it down to death with his sword.


    -29 000 HP!


    -16000 HP! (*7)


    In his current state, Adam was so fast that the tiger didn''t even have the time to counter attack before it died. As for its master, Ludo, he was so shocked by what he just saw that he didn''t even move to protect his mount, but rather began to run away, shooting at the guards at the gate to open the gates and shoot him.

 Chapter 82: Madness

    Chapter 82: Madness


    Unfortunately for Ludo, Adam still had a couple seconds left on his berserk skill, making him faster for a couple seconds, enough to catch up.


    Adam used [Charge] on Ludo, stopping him in ce, and swung his sword to his neck. However, before he could hit him Ludo shone with a white light, which awoke him from his stun, and allowed him to raise his shield in time.


    Adam was about to attack once again when he suddenly jumped away, dodging two arrowsing for him. While he had chased after Ludo they had entered within the attacking range of the archers, making killing Ludo even harder.


    Moreover, his berserk skill ended, turning him back to normal. Ludo didn''t know that though, and thus still tried to flee.


    Adam stomped the ground, using [Icy Stomp], and roared at Ludo as the ice reached him. Roaring wasn''t just for the fun of it, Adam also did so because he found out that the more he used it, the more effective it would get, and his enemies were starting to get slightly weaker with his roars.


    When the ice hit Ludo, he was once again slowed down because of the impact, and the skill''s effect lowered his speed by 9%. This left enough time to Adam to reach him and attack.


    Adam used both [Lunar Smite] and [Mighty Strike], as well as [Wind de]. Ludo was able to put up his shield, blocking some of the damage. However, even using his shield didn''t counter all the damage, and so he was only left with 30 000 HP.


    Moreover, the freezing effect of [Lunar Smite] had activated, reducing Ludo''s Agility by 30%. Feeling his frozen joints, Ludo knew he had no chance of escaping, and so he yelled to his archers "Make the arrows rain! Don''t worry about me, kill that son of a bitch! If he kills me, I want everyone out to kill that bastard!"


    Adam grinned, perfect. He rushed at Ludo, and they began battling. Had Ludo been in a perfect state, their fight wouldn''t have been totally one sided, Ludo would have been able to put up a fight as his attributes were stronger than Adam''s.


    However, with 30% of his agility gone, not only was his movement speed slower, his attack speed was too. Adam was able to dodge the spear thrusts as easily as he would if he were facing a child, and Ludo was wasting his Aura by activating skills on his spear.


    His shield was annoying, because with how big it was it was hard to go past it. However, it also allowed Adam to dodge most of the arrows as they would hit the shield instead.


    By the time the 30% debuff on Ludo''s Agility wore off, he only had 5000 HP left, and most of his Aura had depleted.


    While fighting him, Adam had found something shocking though, and that was about his skills. Ludo didn''t have many, only three. However, all of them were perfectly mastered, just like Adam''s [Mighty Strike].


    What made him think that was that every time he used a skill some Aura would be spent, and he didn''t seem to have any cooldown.


    Adam concluded that this could be a feature made so that NPCs could stand above normal yers. Or maybe this was just to increase the realism in game, that NPCs didn''t have the system to help them execute skills they don''t understand.


    Whatever the answer was, this made NPCs both more dangerous and less dangerous. More dangerous in the sense that they knew perfectly how to use their skills, not only would the power be at its maximum but they also know when to use it and not to use it.


    But that would inevitably lower their adaptability. For example, Ludo. He had three skills. One to use with his spear that would shoot a spear of light out of his spear, another on his shield that seemed to absorb almost all the damage from several attacks, and the final one was a buff to his own stats.


    Of the three, the offensive one was useless because Adam fought in such close range that the spear of light would always miss as he never stood in front of the spear''s tip.


    Nevertheless, this was still the path he himself sought. He would rather have a fewpletely mastered skills than more skills, but unmastered ones.


    Adam looked at the retreating Ludo and walked toward him, dodging the arrowsing at him, when Neith''s voice sounded in his head ''Master, I have found the egg! I''m bringing it away!''


    Adam smiled and said to Ludo "You should just have given me the egg straight away, you would have lived."


    Ludo spat and said "You idiot, I don''t even have the egg anymore, someone you can never touch already has it!"


    Adamughed and said "First, know that for me, no one is untouchable. Secondly, I already have the egg, so I don''t know who you are talking about."


    Hearing his words, Ludo''s face turned ugly, and he wanted to exin himself further, but Adam has wasted enough time, the gang members were already leaving through the gates.


    He jumped toward Ludo, and swung his sword. Ludo tried to block the blow, but his shield, which had already suffered a lot of damage, finally cracked, and was cut in two.


    The sword didn''t stop there, and cut Ludo''s head at the same time.


    [Congrattion for killing the leader of the Serpentine Gang! Go to the guards barracks of Ember City to im your reward!]


    Well this was surprising. Adam picked up the glowing head as well as the rest of the loot Ludo dropped, then the one the tiger dropped.


    Ludo had dropped a Rare Chest te as well as a skill book, and the tiger had dropped materials as well as Rare Gauntlets, but Adam didn''t have the time to check any of it in detail since an army of 5000 Well 4900 wasing for him.


    Adam was about to just flee since he already got what he wanted, but he stopped. There was something holding him from fleeing, his surging thirst for battle.


    This was a good opportunity to make progress for his Gates, this was a battle against an opponent much stronger than him, and his bnce would be tested at all times fighting against an entire army on his own.


    Moreover, if he wanted to flee, then all he has to do is to activate his ultimate skills, [Misty Escape], or even [Totemic Rage] if needed.


    And even if he was unable to flee, so what? This was a game, he could die, he would only lose some XP.


    That''s why, instead of making the more logical choice, running away, Adam turned back toward the army running at him, and said to Neith telepathically ''I''m fighting this army. If you want to help then you are wee, but make sure you always have a path of retreat.''


    ''Understood master.''


    Adam smiled, and focused on the army in front of him. There were about 5000 of them, and they were currently screaming their lungs out as they charged. Adam took a deep breath in, and as they approached he released the loudest roar he ever did.


    He didn''t say any word, because he didn''t feel like saying anything. Rather, this was a beastly roar, one that served only one purpose, to show his thirst for battle!


    Due to how the canyon was shaped, the sound of his roar resonated far and wide, and all adventurers and monsters in the surrounding kilometers heard the roar, and felt the violent aura it emitted. Everyone thought a powerful monster had appeared.


    As for the Serpentine Gang, they were shocked by it, and it quieted them all down. However, their numbers allowed them not to stop, and continue their charge toward Adam, who jumped toward them with multiple emotions.


    The overwhelming one was his thirst for battle, but there was also some surprise. Just then, his Barbarous Roar had leveled up four times in a row!


    But this was a matter for another time. For now, he already had one thing to do, and that was a lot of killing!

 Chapter 84: Ember General

    Chapter 84: Ember General


    Next to him, Neith appeared from the ground, she had quite a few injuries too, but she had seemingly gained something out of this fight as she had leveled up too, and she was giving off a slightly stronger feeling, she ought to have strengthened aspects of herself he couldn''t see.


    Despite not knowing, he didn''t ask. He sent ast look at the defeated army and said mentally ''Where is the egg?''


    ''Underground. Do you want me to fetch it now?''


    Adam nodded and Neith disappeared for a moment, and when she came out again she had a purple egg with her.


    Adam took it from her and curiously looked at its status.


    [Nether Serpent: Egg of a powerful ss 3 Monster with a powerful lineage.]


    Adam now had two choices. He could either abandon the quest and its rewards to get the egg, or he could get the quest. At this stage of the game, and eventer in the future, most people would just take the egg, this was a ss 3 Egg after all.


    A ss 3 Monster would go all the way up to the peak of Hero Rank without much of a problem, and this one was even said to have a powerful lineage, meaning it could potentially awaken it''s bloodline even further and be a Legendary Beast.


    And even Adam was hesitating. He didn''t want the egg for himself, he was plenty satisfied with Neith and could only have one pet anyway, but for his subordinates.


    But he didn''t linger for too long, he could get better eggs in the future, or they could get them by themselves.


    Adam stored the egg in his inventory and jumped atop Neith and the two moved back toward the Snake Cave.


    This fight hadn''t just been good for his skills, but it also directly helped for his main goal, getting money for his brother. He had been able to get some equipment, and every equipment he got was good as they were a majority of Level 50 Umon equipment with some Common ones.


    Adam made a quick count, and saw he had gathered 27 pieces of Umon Equipment, and 12 Common ones. It looked like as they leveled up, the trash equipment would start disappearing. Level 300 Common Equipment was probably rarer than Legendary Equipment


    Unfortunately he had been in the middle of a fight and he didn''t have the time to pick up the equipment from all the gangsters he killed, or he would have hundreds of pieces of equipment.


    Even those he had picked up, he had done so at the very end when he was waiting for his cooldowns to reset and to activate his [Totemic Rage].


    Speaking of his [Totemic Rage], Adam would be weakened for four hours, but that didn''t worry him. It was only 9 am in the real world, meaning the fight would be in more than three hours outside the game, or six in game, meaning not only he wouldn''t be weakened anymore by the time the fight would take ce.


    And with what he just did, Adam was confidant he would be able to kill all 1000 of them even in a weakened state.


    But there wasn''t any need to take an unnecessary risk. While he and Neith made their way to the snake cave, Adam first wanted to kill enough monsters to fill his armor''s berserk skill condition, but they saw no monster!


    Actually, it wasn''t just monsters, but no adventurer could be seen either, which made the Serpentine Canyon unusually quiet.


    However, when he wasn''t far from reaching he was stunned by what he saw. Hundreds if not thousands of soldiers were walking in a formation, and Adam easily recognized them as guards of Ember.


    Adam could see all of them were between Level 70 and 100, and they were led by a Level 150 Gold Rank.


    [Ember City General] (Level 150, Gold)


    HP: ?/?


    The general waved his hand, making the army behind stop, and he made the horse upon which he saddled move toward Adam and Neith. Adam told Neith to lower down to their level, and the general said "Are you perhaps the Sovereign from Rosewatch?"


    Adam nodded and quickly showed his Azure Insignia before asking "What is someone like you doing here general? Moreover, with an army?"


    The general made a surprised face as he asked "Didn''t you hear? There was a terrifying roar that came from deep in the canyon, it made every monster and adventurer flee, we think there is a powerful monster above this map''s level that appeared."


    Adam was stunned, so his roar was that powerful? He smiled and said "Sorry to disappoint you, but you made the trip for no reason general. There was no such beast, it was only me fighting with the Serpentine Gang. Speaking of them, since you have an army at the ready, they are now leaderless, and they are missing about a fifth of their numbers."


    The general was shocked by what he heard, but after a moment he shook his head and said "I would rather move out needlessly ten times than ignore the call once and have deaths on my mind. But you''re right, I might as well turn this trip into a useful one. Stay safe."


    Adam nodded "Stay Safe." and made Neith walk pass the army as the headed in the Serpentine Gang''s direction.


    Apart from them, Adam didn''t cross any other adventurer or monster on his way to the cave, even the snakes guarding the entrance of the cave had retreated inside. Adam jumped down from Neith and entered the cave.


    But when he entered he finally saw them, but there were six of them instead of the usual two, and not far behind was one of the Chieftain bosses.


    Adam walked past them all and entered the center of the cave, where he could see the two Lord Snakes were still coiled around their eggs.


    When they saw him arrive they did something that surprised him though, as they uncoiled their bodies and bowed their heads to him.


    Why would they do that? Did they somehow smell the scent of their egg on him? But an egg doesn''t have any scent Did they know he was the source of the roar?


    Adam shrugged it off and took the egg out of his inventory. The moment he did the two lords hissed in what seemed to be relief and happiness. Adam put the egg down next to the two others, and looked at the two lords.


    The [Ice Bead Snake] coiled its body around the eggs as it began shining, while the [Fire Bead Snake] hissed loudly at the other snakes. The Chieftain snakes hissed back before slithering toward some of the holes around the cave.


    After a moment he saw one of theme back with a glowing amulet on top of its head, followed by another one who had a parchment on top of its head. Before he could pick any of them, he received a new notification.


    [SS Quest ''Missing Egg'' Completed!]


    Rewards: 1 Level(/3), 30 AP(*5), Hydra''s Amulet, Whirlwind sh.

 Chapter 85: Power Growth

    Chapter 85: Power Growth


    A smile appeared on Adam''s face. He picked the two rewards, the amulet definitely was an Exceptional equipment since it shone with a blue light, but he didn''t know yet what rank was the skill.


    So that''s what he looked at first.


    Whirlwind sh (C): Rush forward for 10 meters at a 100% faster speed and deal 120% of wind damage. Cooldown: 60 seconds.


    Adam immediately learned the skill, it was just too good to pass on. This would be a good skill for attack, but also a good evading skill, the increased speed could get him out of very dangerous situations.


    As the parchment on which the skill was writtenbusted on it own, Adam turned his attention to the amulet, and although he was expecting something good, he didn''t think it would be this good.


    [Hydra''s Amulet] (Exceptional, Level 50)


    Requirements: 350 Aura or Mana


    All Stats: +1000


    Ecdysis(One time use): Activate to recover your HP, Stamina and Aura to 100%, and reset all your cooldowns.


    Friend of the Snakes(Passive): All monsters belonging to the Serpent Race will be friendly to you.


    Just the stats it gave were incredible, and so were the skills. One would allow him to make a fulleback, and the other would allow him to go through any area with snake monsters in it without fighting.


    There was something surprising though, and that was the presence of a requirement. Until now all the essories he had seen didn''t have any requirement, but this one did. This was certainly to avoid having Level 1 yers killing Level 20 yers with ease.


    If none of the special equipments had any restriction, then if a Level 1 got his hands on a Level 300 Legendary Amulet he would be invincible to anyone below Level 200, or maybe even more.


    However, it was clear the limits set for those equipments are meant for average people. Since Adam had five times the attributes of others, he could equip equipments of a much higher level. Of course, he had to find them first, and that was the hard part.


    Now that he had his rewards, Adam nodded to the two snakes and walked out of the cave. Outside, Neith was patiently waiting for him, so he jumped on top of her and the two began making their way out of the canyon.


    As Neith walked, Adam decided it was time to use his AP. Back when he was only an Iron, it didn''t matter much whether he used them or not because of how little stronger he would get with every level.


    However, he now got 50 AP per level, so he would experience a huge power growth during his Bronze Rank.


    Actually, every ss had their own huge power boost, and that''s when they open the Third Gate.


    Normally, an Iron yer gets 5 AP every level, a Bronze 10 AP, a Silver 20 AP, a Gold 40 AP, a Hero 80 AP and finally a Legend 160 AP. This means every Rank would push the difference of strength between two levels by two times. That''s why, the growth of the yer in strength would remain rather static.


    However, opening the Third Gate means pushing the difference by 5, so they will be stronger than their fellow yers of the same Level, but also be stronger faster. For example, let''s say Adam''s attributes are as good as a Level 65 while being a Level 25. If he levels up to Level 26, he won''t be as strong as a Level 66, but even stronger than that. That''s why the Bronze Rank is the biggest growth period for Adam.


    A Sovereign would open their Third Gate just before breaking through to Bronze Rank, so their growth period was the Bronze Rank. An SS ss growth period would be Silver, an S ss would be Gold, and an A ss would be Hero.


    Of course, that''s only a growth period. Even if one open their Third Gateter, their attributes still will be multiplied by 5, so every attribute they gained before will also be multiplied by 5, meaning that if one doesn''t count the bonus in attributes during promotions, a Level 200 Sovereign who opened his Third Gate at Level 20 will have the same attributes as a Level 200 A ss who opened his Third Gate at Level 200.


    But of course, in reality they won''t have the same attributes. The earlier one open their Third Gate, the better their foundation will be, and so the more their attribute will be enhanced by their promotion. For example, Adam had all his attributes doubled when he reached Bronze Rank, but that''s because he became a Sovereign.


    An SS ss would have their attributes raised by only 75%, an S ss by 50% and an A Rank by 30%.


    This power growth would also be the more important the more powerful the user was. Someone in their growth period can cross levels to defeat enemies, but that''s only with enemies of a lower ss. Right now, Adam has a bigger growth than any SS ss or lower who is between Level 20 and 50, but to reach Silver Rank an SS ss would need to open the Third Gate, so they would enter their growth rate too, and so he wouldn''t be able to defeat them easily.


    That''s why, Adam could defeat that Level 65 S ss, but he would have been crushed by a Level 50 SS Silver.


    Anyway, all of that to say, Adam would need to input his AP as soon as he gets them if possible as every level up would represent a pretty significant power gap, and this would onlyst for his Bronze Rank.


    So Adam now had 200 AP to ce, 50 from his level up, and another 150 from the quest reward. Adam didn''t hesitate much to ce them, and so his status transformed to something incredulous.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 26


    Title: Monster yer


    Race: Northman


    ss: Aqua Sovereign


    Rank: Bronze


    HP: 25800/25800


    Aura: 26880/26880


    Strength (+30 per level): 1375 (3405)


    Agility (+10 per level): 800 (2430)


    Endurance (+10 per level): 800 (2230)


    Will: 992 (2688)


    Free AP: 0


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E, Perfectly Mastered)


    -Charge (E, Level 10/10)


    -Wind de (D, Level 10/10)


    -Parry (D, Level 10/10)


    -Lunar Smite (C, Level 10/10)


    -Crushing Blow (C, Level 8/10)


    -Icy Stomp (C, Level 8/10)


    -Whirlwind sh (C, Level 1/10)


    -Totemic Rage (B, Level 1/10)


    -Barbarous Roar (B, Level 10/10)


    -Misty Escape (B, Level 1/10)


    Every day, Adam was getting stronger, and so he was getting closer to his goal. Actually, he very well might reach his goal sooner than he thought.


    After all, he was about to face 1000 yers, possibly 10 000 if they didn''t want to take risks, all around Level 20. Even though the drop rate from yers was lower than monsters, they will all drop at least one thing from their inventory, and if he sells everything they drop, then that will be a considerable amount of wealth.


    Adding the money he would get from selling the Level 50+ equipments he got, today he would really get a huge amount of gold. Then there was also the earnings from the mine, which he should see in about a week, he would have gathered a good part of what he needed already.


    And it''s not like he really had to gather 10 000 Gold on his own, his parents weren''t inactive, they would also contribute, they couldn''t pay everything on their own, but if he was able to contribute enough then they would too be able to pay a rather significant part.


    And the 10 000 Gold was an upper limit. The first surgery his brother needed costed 100 000 dors, meaning only 1000 Gold. However, if that wasn''t enough to cure him then there would be other surgeries, and the maximum they would need to pay would be slightly below a million.


    Right now, Adam had 55 Golds on him, and the money he would get from selling the equipments he got as well as those he would get against Blue Cemetery, he would go beyond 100 Gold, at least, and very possibly could reach 200 or 300 Gold!


    For the equipments from Blue Cemetery, he would just sell them through the worldwide auction, so that even if he puts 10 000 pieces of equipment the order wouldn''t surpass the demand.


    But for the Level 50+ equipment, there was no such equipment on the market, so selling more than 20 of them on the market would lower their price. But he didn''t have the time to sell them one by one, so he would sell them in a bulk to a First Tier Guild.


    Coincidentally, he had the contact information of two First Tier Guilds.

 Chapter 86: Striking a deal

    Chapter 86: Striking a deal


    Adam had to choose between Dragon Temple and Night Wolves, and the choice wasn''t really hard for him. The one with the higher offer would get the equipments.


    He thus sent the same message to Arin and Silver Sword, the two elite team captains. He didn''t make any offer, he simply sent them the details of what he wanted to sell.


    Then, he went on his merry way on top of Neith, toward the Capital.


    Meanwhile, in the Aldeneid Empire, in a Kingdom called Nera, a team of 56 Bronze Ranks were fighting against a five meters tall ming alligator. The yers were all between Level 20 and 22, while the Alligator was Level 50, and was a Lord.


    And yet, the one on the losing side wasn''t the group of yers, but the monster! The yers worked exceptionally well together, they formed ten formations that took turns with the boss, slowly decreasing it''s HP.


    The boss was getting more and more frustrated, it was stronger than all those yers, but like ants, every time one fell, another would rece him. And here, they wouldn''t fall, they would simply step back when they are injured.


    This was the Night Wolves Guild, and here their best yers were fighting. Ten Elite Squads were here, along with an Elder.


    In most guilds the hierarchy was pretty much the same. At the lowest rank would be the normal members, followed by the Captains, then the Elite members, the Elite Captains, the Elders and the Guild Leader.


    Elders wereparable to generals, and in the absence of the Guild Leader they were the ones who would give the orders.


    The Elder here was Fascinating Light, a Light Elf Elementalist. She was one of the most famous yers in the guild, and was known as one of the best Elementalist worldwide. She was an SS Elementalist.


    Among the 55 Elite members, the ones who fought at Rosewatch could be seen. Out of them, Arin was their Captain, and he had an S ss.


    As his squad was retreating, he heard a notificationing from the system. This surprised him, most of his contacts were within the guild, and they knew he was on an important quest.


    But he didn''t look straight away who was contacting him, as this boss was more important. Slowly, they lowered its health to below 15%, and the mes around the Alligator began burning even hotter, and became wilder.


    Arin and the other squad leaders said to their team "Careful, it''s entering it''s berserk state. Fall back!"


    As the elite soldiers moved back as one, Fascinating Light, who had only beenunching normal attacks until now, moved forward and waved her staff in the air, disrupting the ambient mana.


    This immediately got noticed by the boss, who roared and jumped toward her using a jumping skill. Fascinating Light smiled and said "Toote lizard."


    The boss was stopped mid jump as it crashed into a wall of fire. The fire making this wall was different from the one surrounding the boss, it was blue in color, and it was cold instead of hot. The boss fell toward the ground, stunned by the collision, and its scales were getting a bluish tint because of her attack.


    She wasn''t finished though, she gulped down a mana potion andunched another spell, that nearly dried her entire mana pool. The effects were terrible though.


    The boss barely woke up from its daze when it fell its body get colder and colder. The mes that danced around it''s body, that had been healing it and giving it strength, had now turned blue, and were hurting it.


    It tried to lit them off, to roll on the ground to make them disappear, but they stuck to its body, and seemed inextinguishable. Seeing they wouldn''t disappear on their own, the alligator turned toward the mage that was making it suffer, and rushed toward her. It could feel she didn''t have any mana left.


    However, it was barely able to advance a few steps before a row shields appeared in front of it, the elite members had all cast skills on their shields to turn them bigger and block impacts. The boss tried to break through it, but it was like they had been feigning weakness earlier, and were in fact much stronger than it


    It suddenly looked at another mage, and gritted its teeth. A Cleric was buffing them. However, this realization came toote. A group of Elementalists appeared behind it, and allunched the same spell at the same time, a lightning bolt. The different bolts unified into one bigger bolt that hit its back with huge strength, dealing immense damage and shocking it immobile.


    This was thest time it got to move, as the mes stuck on its scales finally killed it, and disappeared as the loot appeared in front of everyone.


    The yers cheered and went to gather the loot as Fascinating Light began recovering her mana. As for Arin, he finally got to look at his messages, and was surprised to see the name of the sender. Valiant Heart.


    This yer had made a big impression on him because of his young age and formidable strength, as well as his leading capabilities. All of that, and the fact he didn''t belong to any guild. That made him wonder how he opened his Gate of Opening.


    Moreover, there were news about him fighting against a Second Tier Guild, Blue Cemetery. He too thought a 1 versus 1000 was a rash and foolish decision, but he had been young and impulsive too, so that didn''t surprise him much.


    However, when he read the message he was shocked by what he saw. He ran toward Fascinating Light "Elder Light! Elder Light!"


    Fascinating Light looked up and said with a scowl "Stop calling me elder you old man, you are old enough to be my father!"


    But Arin didn''t care about her ramblings and said "Elena, whatever! I got a huge deal!"


    Fascinating Light rolled her eyes and got up and asked "What''s making you this agitated?"


    Arin grinned and said "You remember Rosewatch, right? I told you and the Guild Leader about that brat, Valiant Heart."


    Fascinating Light tilted her head and asked "Did he agree to join us? He wants us to save his sorry ass from Blue Cemetery?"


    Arin shook his head and said "No. He sent me a message about equipment he wants to sell. Actually, he didn''t give a price, he only sent what he was selling. I suspect he sent this message to both me and Silver Sword, seeing what the merchandise is."


    Fascinating Light said "Seeing you so hyped up, I wonder what it is he is selling." Arin reopened the message and said "27 Level 50 Umon, and 32 Level 50 Common."


    (Author''s Note: Last time it was said he got 27 Umon and 12 Common. The twenty additional equipments are those dropped by the snakes in the canyon, they are Level 50 too.)


    Fascinating Light frowned and asked "How did he get that? He could have gotten a single one by muck, but 59 of them Even we would have to put some effort to get those."


    Arin nodded and said "That''s why, we need to have a good rtionship with him. But more importantly, getting those Level 50 equipments right now would make us invincible under Level 50!"


    Fascinating Light frowned for a moment, not understanding what he meant, before suddenly smirking "Eros."


    Arin nodded excitedly "If we can get those equipments, with the item Eros discovered, we could equip those now, and this would allow us to take a big advance on that boss."


    Fascinating Light said "We need those equipments. Negotiate with him. But be careful with the price, if he is selling those high level equipment then he probably wants something else than money, they are too important."


    Arin nodded and sent a message back to Adam. In it, he proposed several prices, such as the annihtion of Blue Cemetery, among other things.


    However, he was shocked by the answer he received. Adam only wanted Gold or Dors. When he told Fascinating Light, she was stunned likewise.


    In another kingdom, Silver Sword was also discussing of this with a higher up of his guild, and they were as shocked as them by Adam.


    As for the one who shocked them, he was already out of Serpentine Canyon.

 Chapter 87: Meridians

    Chapter 87: Meridians


    Both of the First Tier Guilds had proposed different kinds of ways to pay him, but Adam didn''t care about any of them, because he didn''t need much. The only things that interested him for the moment was money, and a cultivation method.


    But he knew perfectly well that what he offered wasn''t near enough to buy a cultivation method, so he asked for money.


    Moreover, since he met the Ember Army, he had been practicing on his body. He was trying to create a cultivation method by himself. And it turned out, it wasn''t nearly as dangerous as he thought.


    Because of the cultivation novels he had read, or rather Old Adam read, he thought that any mistake in practicing a cultivation method would be dangerous, but it wasn''t true at all.


    Actually, cultivation was only a matter of circting Qi into the meridians, and if one was able to find the corresponding pattern, then they would be able to absorb Qi from the world, and thus be stronger.


    It sounded simple, but of course it wasn''t. When one infused Qi into their meridians, those meridians would form a connection between themselves. However, the density of the Qi infused would change the connections made, and every meridian had a different reaction.


    That''s why, there was a nearly infinite number ofbinations that could be made. Still, there were some things to help cultivators create cultivation techniques, or they probably would have never been able to cultivate.


    One way was to imitate monsters, as their cultivation was more instinctual, and so if one was able to replicate them they would also be able to create a cultivation technique.


    Another way was to establish rules. Even though thebinations between meridians were near infinite, some of them were obviously impossible to work. As long as one of the meridians involved in a pattern didn''t work well, then this pattern was impossible to work, so it allowed to narrow the range of possibilities.


    If one creates enough rules, then it bes possible to understand one''s meridians, and so to create a cultivation technique. If the cultivator is talented, then they can even work on enhancing their cultivation method, making it better and better.


    However, one must be very careful as not to create false rules. If one creates a false rule then a whole range of possibilities disappear, and creating the cultivation technique can be impossible.


    Because he had no guidance, Adam had to start from scratch, and he was still testing, he didn''t have time to create the rules yet.


    One could actually endanger himself by experimenting like Adam was, but it wasn''t hard to avoid such dangers. To endanger the body, one needed to form aplete pattern, and one could feel the dangering beforepleting the circle, so it wasn''t hard to stop before hand and to change the patterns.


    While Adam was experimenting with his meridians and his Aura, the two First Tier Guilds were rejoicing. If there was one thing they didn''tck, it was money!


    Moreover, had it been Gold, they could have felt it, but dors? They literally had millions of them. Both of them made offers, Night Wolves offered 30 dors for every armor, while Dragon Temple offered 25.


    Adam smiled and didn''t ept straight away. Instead, he created a group, with himself, Arin and Silver Sword in it. Then, he said ''Highest bidder wins it.''


    They both wrote their initial offers, and Dragon Temple sent a second one. ''35 dors per unit.''


    Night Wolves quickly followed ''40 dors per unit.''. Then, after some hesitation, Dragon Temple wrote ''45 dors per unit.''. Unfortunately for them, Night Wolves were way more interested by those equipments, and so as soon as they made their offer, Night Wolves added another five ''50 dors per unit.''


    30 secondster, Silver Sword from Dragon Temple said ''Forget it, you can take it. If you are interested into selling something else, consider us.''


    Adam replied ''Sure will.'' Silver Sword left the conversation, and Arin said ''We will buy every level 50 equipment for 50 dors the unit, be it Common or Umon. If it is Rare, then 100. Exceptional, 500.''


    Adam smiled and said ''Sure. Until when?'' Of course, it couldn''t be 50 dors until the end of time. Arin replied after a moment ''When the average yer gets to Level 25. Until then, every Level 50 equipment is 50 dors. Where do we meet?''


    Adam replied ''Ember City. We can meet before or after the battle. I''m pretty much free today.''


    Arin said ''I won''t be able toe right now, so let''s say after the battle You sure you don''t want help with that battle?''


    Adam smiled and asked ''Do you know of anyone who could win this fight?''


    Arin didn''t say anything at first, but after a moment he said ''Some of the Elders of my Guild, and my Guild Leader.


    This surprised Adam, Arin seemed very confidant with the strength of his guild. Arin ought to know the strength of a thousand yers banded together, especially if they are from the same guild. Adam doubted even an SS Mage could take them on, only Sovereigns could do so, and he doubted First Tier Guilds had several Sovereigns when the Guild Leader of a Second Tier Guild didn''t even open a single Gate.


    The two finished their discussion and Adam went back to trying to create his cultivation technique. Time passed quickly, and even when Neith arrived near the city, they didn''t enter, but rather she sat some distance away from it, under the watchful eyes of the guards, and Adam didn''t pay any attention to the outside world.


    6 hours trickled by, when Adam was suddenly awakened from his trance by the rm he had set. He opened his eyes and looked at the time with surprise. He had been so absorbed by the discovery of his meridians and the way they worked that he didn''t feel the time pass. The best thing was, he had actually made some progress!


    He patted Neith while sending her mental probes, to awaken her from her slumber. She had fallen asleep from all the waiting. As she awoke Neith asked ''Where do we go?''


    Adam smiled and replied ''To ughter.'' Neith asked excited ''Who will we kill this time?!''


    Adam shook his head though, much to her disappointment ''Sorry but this time, it will only be me'' As he felt her disappointment, he added ''However, if they are sore losers, they may send additional troops. If they do, I will tell you, and you are allowed to kill as many as you want.''


    Neith asked ''Really?'' Adam confirmed by a nod ''Really. Now let''s go, I don''t want to bete. The fight will take ce in the Sunflower Valley. I will hide you in my Pet Space at the entrance of the valley.''


    But Neith asked back ''Can''t I just hide underground so I watch you?'' Adam shrugged and said ''If you want. But we really need to go, or people will jeer at me for being a coward. Do you want that to happen?''


    Neithughed and began walking as she said ''Who cares about what they say, I''ll just eat them.'' Adam rolled his eyes, he didn''t like to admit it, but he had a certain pride, he knew it was a weak point, but he couldn''t help it. As for Neith, although she had one too, it was different, she didn''t care about how others saw her, it was more of a personal thing.

 Chapter 88: Battle of Sunflower Valley (1)

    Chapter 88: Battle of Sunflower Valley (1)


    The Sunflower Valley was a map near Ember filled with well, Sunflowers. This is actually one of the few maps where the monsters were passive. The only monsters one could find in this map were Sunflower Butterflies.


    Some yers had tried to use those butterflies to XP easily, but the butterflies didn''t give any XP once killed. Instead, the yers would be hunted by the guards and sent to rot in a cell for a week. This was a terrible punishment, especially for killing mere butterflies, but that was thew, and so no one dared to attack them anymore.


    In the middle of this map, there was a t terrain, where an army of a thousand yers were waiting for their opponent.


    Some distance from them, many yers gathered, some hidden, other not. Most of them were simple spectators, but one could also see important people from time to time, there were even a few elders from First Tier Guilds.


    Be it Blue Cemetery or the spectators, they all were waiting to see whether Valiant Heart would actuallye or not. In their eyes it was suicide, but since he had said he woulde online, there was a chance for him toe, thus the number of people who came.


    Tarkhu, the Guild Leader of Blue Cemetery, who was standing at the front of the 1000-men army, had a radiant smile on his face. Actually, he was quite scared of Valiant Heart, thetter had killed him with a single p, and he was bound to have be stronger since that happened.


    This had left quite the trauma, and that''s why even though he had challenged the man with 1000 men, he had taken special measures just in case something went wrong. Next to him, a person dressed in a ck robe, that blocked his status from others, said "I really don''t understand why you were ready to go so far for a single yer. He doesn''t stand a chance against you."


    Tarkhu looked around, at the audience, and said "There are literally tens of thousands of people watching us right now, be it those present here are those watching the live streams. Losing here would be a disgrace, and could be the end of my guild. I won''t take any chance."


    The ck figure shrugged and said "I''m notining, you offered something great to my guild, I''m just wondering whether it was worth it to exchange such a treasure just to be sure. Well, anyway, you can be sure we will follow the agreement."


    Tarkhu nodded with a passive face "That''s all that matters."


    As the minutes passed, the time for the battle neared, and suddenly someone from the crowd cried out "He really came!"


    Everyone turned their head toward the lonely figure in the distance. As he approached, his status was revealed to every, confirming who the figure was.


    [Valiant Heart] (Bronze, Level 26)


    HP: 28896/28896


    "What is that monstrous HP! Isn''t he a Berserker? Even a Monk or a Knight wouldn''t have so much HP! Just what kind of equipment does he have?!"


    Countless reactions appeared, both in the live streams and on ce. The average yers, or even those of Tarkhu''s caliber, they only expressed their astonishment. However, the real experts, those from First Tier Guilds or higher, they weren''t just astonished, they were shocked.


    The man in ck standing next to Tarkhu was one such person, and his face was grave. All of them understood what this HP meant. Even the best equipment at his level wouldn''t allow him to reach such a value, only opening the Third Gate and multiplying by five one''s stat would one be able to have so much HP at this level.


    He approached Tarkhu and whispered to him "Immediately use everything against him!"


    Tarkhu looked at the man in shock, he had never seen him so agitated, he always acted like he was out of this world, as if he was above everyone else, but this time, he could hear panic in his voice. And this only served to worry him more, what kind of monster was Valiant Heart?


    The man in ck hurried him "Didn''t you hear me? He will destroy your army in a matter of seconds! Send everyone against him if you want to win!"


    Tarkhu said "You''re kidding, no one is that strong" However, he didn''t even get to finish his sentence as a loud roar echoed through the whole valley "COME AT ME COWARDS!"


    Tarkhu felt like the world became very cold in an instant, and he saw a lion like beast look down him from the sky, which forced him to step back. The same thing happened to the whole army, creating the ridiculous scene of a thousand men army moving back at the same time.


    Adam showed a toothy grin upon seeing this, they really were weak, they couldn''t even stand his [Barbarous Roar]. That was understandable though, Adam usually fought against much stronger enemies, and even they would be intimidated by his roar.


    Here, he was only facing a majority of Iron and some Bronze, none of which was above A ss, and his [Barbarous Roar], a Tier B Skill, was maxed out. Although it didn''t deal any damage to them, the Aura present in the roar was what created the illusion of the lion looking down at them, which was simply a manifestation of Adam''s Aura in their mind.


    Tarkhu was one of the first to regain his mind as he yelled in his guild''s chat ''Attack! I want everyone to attack! The entire guild!''


    This helped the ones behind him wake up, and although they were scared by that roar, they reassured themselves by telling themselves it was only a single yer. They yelled on their own, trying to boost their spirits, and they began advancing, as an army.


    At the same time, thousands more of them appeared from the sides, they had been hiding in the crowd of yers watching, and now they had been called, they gathered. Quickly, an army of 10 000 appeared in front of Adam, all marching toward him.


    Feeling their numbers, their earlier fear disappeared, reced by a slight bravery. But it still wasn''t enough for Tarkhu, who said to the man in ck next to him "Deploy your troops too! I want everyone on this fucker!"


    The man in ck replied "Take that tone with me again and I''ll make sure no ever hears of Blue Cemetery again." This calmed down Tarkhu, but he wasn''t finished "I will send my own troops if your yers aren''t enough to deal with him."


    Tarkhu nodded, but he didn''t like it. That roar had seriously messed with him, a single man had suppressed his whole guild with a single roar, how powerful was he. He didn''t even dare to go to the front of his army anymore, but was in the middle of it, the ce where he had the best protection.


    As for Adam, he stood in front of the army, de in hand. He asked "Is that all you got?" This stunned everyone who heard him, wasn''t this already enough for him?


    But Adam used his [Barbarous Roar] once again "IF YOU ARE DONE, THEN LET ME SHOW YOU THE MIGHT OF MY OWN GUILD!!"


    This scared everyone present, did he join a guild? With how strong he was, he could only have joined a First Tier Guild, or even a Super Guild!


    But contrary to their expectations, it wasn''t either choices. Rather, they saw NPCs appear around the army. There were eight groups of them, there was about thirty NPCs in each group, and all of them were between Level 20 and 30.


    All they did though was encircle the great army, they did not take action. Adam tapped on the ground, and the earth next to him shifted as Neith appeared from within the ground. Once again, her appearance shocked everyone, but Adam didn''t care about their reaction.


    Adam pointed his sword toward the great army, and using [Barbarous Roar], hemanded "ATTAAAAAAAACK!!!"

 Chapter 89: Battle of Sunflower Valley (2)

    Chapter 89: Battle of Sunflower Valley (2)


    With Adam''s mighty roar, Neith screeched and the eight groups of NPCs, each led by one of his guild members, roared too as the melee sses charged and the mages bombarded the army.


    Neith and Adam rushed at the front of the army with such a fast speed that the one in front didn''t even understand how they died as they either got sliced in two or pierces through by a leg.


    Adam was massacring the enemy like chicken, none of them were even able to touch him, nor were they able tost for more than a strike. Adam made his way through the army, and arrived at the Elementalists very quickly.


    Normally, one should attack the Clerics first, but since none of them were able tost for more than a blow, he decided to go for the Elementalist who had a lot of AOE, and thus was harder to hit.


    As for the mages, when they saw him appear, they didn''t even care about their guild mates anymore as they spammed their spells on him.


    Unfortunately for them, Adam was able to dodge most of the spells, and even those that hit him, they didn''t do much damage. When he arrived near the mages, he stopped for a moment, ignoring the des that fell on him, and jumped toward the center of the Elementalists.


    They tried to flee, but it was all toote. As Adamnded, every yer within 13 meters suffered an absurd amount of damage.


    -20 000 HP!


    Even though the yers weren''t as packed as the NPCs he had faced earlier this morning, he still killed hundreds of them with this attack, which was enough for him to activate his equipment''s Berserk skill.


    Red fumes appeared around him and he disappeared from the spot. Having killed the majority of the Elementalist with a single attack, he now went for the Summoners. With the berserk skill activated, his Agility had now reached 2830, and the Godyer''s Heart boosted this to 3169. Meanwhile, even the best Summoner had less than 50 of Agility.


    No, even in the whole grand army, the one with the best agility was an Assassin, who had 260 of Agility. Compared to them, Adam was simply too fast. They couldn''t even see him, all they could see was a path made of corpses, and a blood sshing in the sky.


    For the first time, everyone understood just how strong Adam was. Even Adam himself, he didn''t know he would be that strong against those yers. He had thought he would struggle at least, maybe that the huge number of yers would make itplicated but he was wrong, he was simply too strong.


    He sent a quick message to the members of his guild, telling them to retreat, and make sure none of the army would be able to escape. As for him, he didn''t care about who he was chasing after. He just went to the most dense area, and shed through them.


    Before his berserk skill even ended he had already filled the quota to activate it once again. That meant, in less than ten seconds, he had killed a thousand yers. That''s how fast Adam had be. His strength? His Strength stat was at 4092, and the Godyer''s Heart boosted it to 4583. This was even higher than his speed.


    If his 3000+ of Agility made him so fast he could literally go from one end of the army to the other in five seconds, his 4000+ of Strength messed badly with the bodies of his victims.


    Adam didn''t even have to use skills. All he was doing was using [Mighty Strike] on his sword, and every time he hit someone, he wouldn''t just kill them, he would hit them with such force that their corpses would beunched into their allies, and kill them. He was using his enemies'' corpses as projectile just by hitting them!


    As for Neith, she had even more AOE attacks than Adam, and even without any berserk skill she was killing at a speed only slightly below Adam''s.


    The fight, which everyone thought would be over in a matter of seconds, actually did take less than a minute to end. However, it wasn''t the lone Adam who had lost, but the 10 000 men army!


    Adam was using his armor''s berserk skill for the 6th time in a row, and he already had unlocked the seventh activation, when his enemy was finally defeated. There probably were a few of them still alive, but they were hiding among the many corpses, which wasn''t a difficult thing to do due to how many there were.


    No, there was one person still standing. Adam looked at thest remaining man of the army. He recognized him as the one standing next to Tarkhu before the fight. The red fumes around him slowly disappeared, and the man said "That was one scary fight."


    Adam asked "Is that all you got to say after seeing you guild getting annihted?"


    The man in ckughed and said "Please, I don''t belong to such a weak guild!" Adam shrugged and said "Sam for me." The appeared to anger the man, but he held it in, and instead said "I am from Cosmo, the First Tier Guild. I invite you, today, to be an Elder in our guild. What do you say?"


    Adam chuckled "Go home before I smash you down." He then looked at the audience and said, with a louder voice "I am creating my own guild, Divine Predators! You already saw what my guild is capable of! Since I just started the guild, I am recruiting members! Everyone who wants to join the guild, go to Ember City! We only ept B sses or more."


    The man in ck gritted his teeth and said "You have some nerve Don''t think just because you defeated this guild that you are invincible! In front of Cosmo, YOU EITHER BEND THE KNEE, OR DIE!"


    Thest part was cried out, but Adam just looked at him coldly. Seeing his gaze, the man took off his hiding hood, revealing his true identity.


    "That''s Gctic! That''s one of the core members of Cosmo! Oh my god, what is he doing here!"


    Gctic looked proud as he heard everyonement about him, he didn''t seem to fear Adam at all. Adam scoffed and even though he didn''t have his berserk skill anymore, he moved so fast Gctic couldn''t even see him.


    He appeared in front of Gctic, and grabbed him by the neck, as he raised him high enough for his feet to leave the ground. Gctic was looking at Adam in shock, how dared he!


    Gctic said with a choked voice "If you dare harm me, this will be your grave!" Adam smiled and said "I''m doing this for your own good. If you are this arrogant in this future, then you will die young. And you don''t want to die. Here, look, that''s how it feels." By the end of his sentence he crushed his neck, killing him on the spot.


    The whole valley became silent, they couldn''t believe what they saw. Gctic, a core member of Cosmo, had been killed so easily!


    But soon, the silent was broken by the cheers from Adam''s guild. All the NPCs that had joined, they had heard of Adam''s might, which was why they had decided toe, but they never expected him to be this strong.


    They thought Eddy was bragging, but this man their guild master, he was even stronger than they were told. And so they cheered, loud enough for everyone to hear the sound of it.


    The yers were whispering among themselves, and the people on the live streams were going crazy, this was the first time they saw such power! Usually, the really strong yers would just keep their fights between themselves, but they finally got to witness how strong a peak expert was.


    Adam started walking away, followed by his guild, as the was going crazy.

 Chapter 92: Search for a new armor

    Chapter 92: Search for a new armor


    If Adam wanted to have really good members in his guild, there were two ways. He either had to recruit from other guilds and steal their talented members, or he would have to take a ce for himself, such as a city, and train youths there.


    And that was valid for both the real world and the gaming world. A Super Guild couldn''t just rise in a year or two, each one would take at least a decade of development, if started from scratch. The only shortcut to be a Super Guild was to merge several guilds together, but then the loyalty of the members would never be 100% sure.


    That was also why Adam had told his brother that even if he was 16, he would get to y the game, and he would probably be considered of the early generation on the game.


    After all, this game was really like a second world, just reaching the max level and rank would take years. And even if one reached the maximum rank, there would still be a lot of things to do. There had even been rumors recently of yers starting rtionships with NPCs.


    All in all, even though there had already been a lot of games in the past, Epoch was really unique for its realism that pushed beyond every barrier, and it was effectively changing today''s world.


    But no matter how big this game''s life would be, if Adam wanted to matter in it and to be someone of importance, he needed to always keep getting stronger and stronger, and today that was exactly what he wanted to do.


    Although he liked his set equipment, they were only Level 20, and he was Level 28. The gap of attributes between those two levels wasn''t that big, but Adam had the Godyer''s Heart first skill unlocked, which allowed him to ignore ten levels on an equipment.


    That meant he could get himself Level 38 Equipment, and the difference was to big not to be cared about. The Level 38 Umon Equipment were already stronger than his equipments in terms of attributes, and the only reason he kept his set was because of the skills.


    However, if he had found a Level 38 Umon set then he would have clearly swapped. That''s why, it was clearly time for him to change. Fortunately, he wouldn''t have to change his sword.


    So from today onward, Adam decided he would hunt for better pieces of equipment. He didn''t aim for a set, it was too hard to find those, but he wanted to find equipment that was at least of the Rare quality, and possibly Extraordinary.


    Moreover, he would search for Level 40 equipment, first because it was a round number and it felt better, but more importantly because he clearly wouldn''t be able to find the perfect match of equipments in a single day, so he would probably level up once or twice before he gathered everything.


    To find his new equipment, Adam decided not to leave it to chance, but to actually ask a forger to forge the equipments for him. He had already decided he wouldn''t ask a yer, because they weren''t high leveled enough to make something satisfactory for him, so he would have to ask NPCs.


    That''s why, in the past few days he had asked his NPCs friends and subordinates everything there had to be known about forgers, so that he would find the right one.


    And he was d he did, or he would have regretted it. In the game, not every cksmiths were the same, there were different styles of smiths that would create different kind of equipments.


    There were four styles, and each of them could be described as such.


    Cloud Style: Armors made with furs and nts that focus on Intelligence or Agility.


    Moon Style: Armors made with thin and flexible metals that focus on Agility.


    Sun Style: Armors made with thick and flexible metals that focus on Strength.


    Rock Style: Armors made with thick and hard metals that focus on Endurance.


    The style would change the attributes and aesthetics of the equipments, but there also could be equipments that mixed different styles, but those were special cases.


    But the style wasn''t the only factor that mattered for the attributes of an equipment, the type also mattered. The primary attribute of a Sun Style armor would always be Strength, but the secondary would depend on which type of armor it was.


    For example, boots would offer Agility as a secondary attribute, while gauntlets would strengthen the Strength bonus. But through special forging techniques, even the type could be ignored, so that''s why finding the good cksmith was important.


    The best equipments in the world were made in Alorge Mountains, but it didn''t mean the other Racial Powers didn''t have anypetent cksmiths, which was why one didn''t necessarily have to go to Alorge Mountains to ask a cksmith for equipment.


    Different races mastered different styles. For example, the best Moon Style cksmith in the world wasn''t actually a member of Alorge Mountain, but actually a Light Elf in Aldeneid.


    However, not just everyone could ask this cksmith for help, because there weren''t many cksmiths of such level in Aldeneid. However, if one went to Alorge Mountains, although one wouldn''t be able to send amission to the world''s best, the chances of hiring a high rank cksmith was more likely.


    What Adam wanted was a Helmet, Gauntlets, Chestte and Boots of the Extraordinary Grade, and if possible he wanted equipment that could level up from Level 40 to Level 50. Even though those were low levels equipments, making a level 40 Extraordinary equipment was harder than making a Level 100 Extraordinary equipment, and adding the growing attribute to the equipments would be very hard.


    That''s why, although several races mastered the Sun Style, he had to go to the power that had the most chances to be able to ept his demand.


    The races that mastered the Sun Style were: Northmen, Orcs and Dwarves. This means he either had to go to Alorge Mountains, Buwog or stay in the Colnds.


    Adam had asked the dwarves from the dwarven vige he helped if one of them could make him such an equipment, but as expected it was too difficult for them. Their strongest cksmiths were Level 50, so it was way too difficult for them.


    Adam had also made a trip to Fjora and searched for the greatest smiths he could ask for, which was actually a whole lot of them because of his importance to the Empire. Heck, if he wanted he could probably ask the equipment to the best cksmith in the whole Empire since he had epted that task from the Emperor to hide his child''s talent.


    However, he didn''t have the money to ask the right cksmiths for his equipment. Every cksmith capable of granting him his request were renown and respected cksmiths, and so their price was too high for him to afford.


    Even if Adam went to gather the ingredients himself, which he intended to do either way, just themission was too much for him because they all were vastly overqualified for the task as they were mostly around level 200.


    That''s why, Adam had to find a cksmith that wasn''t too high leveled, preferably under level 100, who could make him his armor and not charge him too much for it.


    Adam had quite the budget, since he didn''t need to convert his Gold into credits anymore. Arin from Night Wolves, who had made that deal with him for the Level 50 equipment, had asked him if he wanted to switch the payment from credits to Gold after he heard of his real identity and that the problem with his brother was solved.


    Adam had refused, because they had already made a deal, but he didn''t forget they were ready to switch, and so he now ssed them as friendly, and if they needed help in the future, he would help.


    But back to his money, since he didn''t need it in real life anymore, all the money he got in the game was either for his guild or for his equipment.


    Right now, aftering back from his brother''s hospital, Adam had 120 Gold Coins. This was far from enough to buy his armor, because if he had to get an armor, it would be the best.


    Another advantage from asking for an armor to be specially made for himself, was that he could get the perfect dimensions for the armor, and thus gain the [Perfect Fit] bonus that would enhance the effects of the armor by 20%. This bonus would only be in effect on him, but it would make it even more expensive.


    If Adam wanted this armor to be made for him, then he would have to pay in the hundreds of Golds. Thankfully, he had the mine.

 Chapter 93: Planning for the trip

    Chapter 93: nning for the trip


    The mine was a really fruitful business, it would earn him 500 Gold Coins per week, and he didn''t even have to pay any tax thanks to his rtionship with the Royal Family. Also, because the vigers were dwarves, they had a special status that allowed them to work without getting too much taxes either.


    Before, it was the noble who owned the mine who took most of their money, but since he had abandoned it and didn''t do anything to save the mine, he had lost all his shares of the mine. Adam had also been expecting that noble, Viscount Malo, to try something to get the mine back, but until now there hadn''t been anything.


    Well, better for that noble. If he could bear to lose a Silver guard, and couldn''t even take back that mine, he was a minor noble whom Adam could crush in term of strength, be it the noble himself or his troops.


    If his information as right, then the price of his equipment would definitely be below 1000 Gold, between 300 and 700 Gold, depending on who the cksmith was. But to request equipments from such a cksmith, he would have to prove himself, and then fetch the ingredients himself, so it would take several days, or maybe even a week.


    That''s why, money really wasn''t much of a problem, all he had to do was to find apetent enough cksmith, and then it would be easy.


    Adam had asked around where he could find such a talented cksmith, and he was troubled by the answers. He really, really wished they had told him Alorge Mountains, it would have made sense and it would have been easy


    But no matter who he asked, they all told him that the only forger talented enough to meet his standards was a young Orc in Buwog.


    The problem was, Buwog did not really wee Northmen. The factions of Light and Dark are said to be enemies, but they almost never fought through history, it was more about their beliefs and customs.


    But Buwog and the Colnds even before the factions were created, the two powers were enemies. Hell, even before the creation of Buwog and Colnds, the Orcs and Northmen had waged many wars against each other.


    In the whole world, their races were among the ones that hated each other the most, probably only equaled by Light Elves and Dark Elves. But even for them, they were now part of bigger powers, Light Elves had allied themselves with Foxkin and Dark Elves with Catkin, so the conflicts between the two powers were minor.


    That''s why, Adam was reluctant to go to Buwog Well, not Buwog itself, but rather Yam, it''s capital. Most of the kingdoms within Buwog were mix, and so they were more wee toward Northmen. However, in the capital, just to earn the right to enter the city he would have to prove his valor, and once inside it would be even harder to meet the famous Orc cksmith, Morbash.


    It was actually the same in the Colnds Empire, Baugh, who was an Orc, was able to live and work as an adventurer in Azure Sky Kingdom, despite being an Orc. However, if he wants to enter Fjora, then it will get much harder.


    Unfortunately for Adam, Morbash was in Yam, so he had no choice but to enter there. At first, Adam had thought asking Baugh for help, since he is an Orc and as an SS ss he should have some authority there, but apparently he couldn''t help him, he wanted to avoid the Capital as much as he could.


    Adam didn''t poke his nose into his matters, only telling him he could ask for help if he needed any. Baugh help would have made it easier, but he would still be able to do it, even without his help.


    It''s just that it would take more time and be more difficult, but it would also be a much funnier adventure. Anyway, since his brother was on the way of recovery, time wasn''t one of his problems anymore, and thus he didn''t worry about it too much.


    Since he had learned his brother was definitely going to be saved, Adam felt such a heavy weight had been thrown off his shoulders, he was much more free now, and the world regained its lost colors. Even his parents looked so happy, more than they ever did in the past few years.


    There was a happy atmosphere in their house that had long disappeared, even when theyughed before there always was this strange feeling that something wasn''t right. But now, it was all gone.


    Now in the game, Adam headed for the teleportation array. Once again, this would be annoying. Teleportation arrays weren''t just all connected to one another, they each led to specific destinations, and the distance and numbers of destinations would depend on the array.


    The biggest array in the kingdom was the royal array, which was capable of sending someone to Buwog, and it could only be activated by the king, Henry. Normally, Adam would have been able to use it, he and Henry were friends after all.


    However, Henry was currently on his promotion quest to be a Legend, and so he wasn''t avable, meaning he had to take the moremon array, which wasn''t able to send him to Buwog.


    Instead, he had to first go to Fjora, which he did. As he arrived in the city, the cold air of the north made him smile. Because of his ss and race, the cold never felt bad, it invigorated him instead.


    But now wasn''t the time to enjoy the weather. The teleportation array in Fjora was definitely powerful enough to send him directly to Buwog, into Yam. Actually, this array as connected with the Capitals of every Racial Power in the world, as well as the capitals of every major power such as kingdoms within the Empire.


    However, because Colnds Empire and Buwog belonged to different factions, one needed a special pass to go from one capital to another, which he didn''t have.


    The Colnds Empire was on the extreme north of the continent, and Buwog was at the extreme South. In the South East, there were Cassifon and ckheart, with Alorge above. This meant he couldn''t go to Alorge, he would either have to wall through the entire ckheart Mountain or Cassifon, both of which were much bigger than any continent on Earth.


    However, the two regions were separated by the Kloss Canal, which would allow him to go all the way down south, to the Mirage Desert, which acted as a natural defense for Buwog.


    But again, this would be a long ride on a boat, and it would be quite long.


    However, a little up North of Buwog, slightly to the East, there was Aldeneid, to which Adam could teleport. Aldeneid and Buwog were only separated by the Mirage Desert, so all he would have to do would be to go through this desert to reach Buwog.


    This was the shortest way, but also the most dangerous. The part of the desert where he wanted to go was filled with monsters that are at least Level 70, and some go even above Level 100. If he didn''t stick exactly to his road, which was hard because of the many mirages, then he would face Level 150+ monsters.


    On the contrary, the part of the desert Adam would have to cross if he used Kloss Canal would be way less dangerous.


    So Adam had to choose between time and safety. After a few minutes of hesitation, he closed the map Queen Skade had given him with a sigh, and paid for a trip to Eleyrius, capital of the great Aldeneid Empire.

 Chapter 94: Fame of a Sovereign

    Chapter 94: Fame of a Sovereign


    Eleyrius'' architecture was very different from Fjora. In Fjora, most of the buildings were made of different types of wood and the roofs were triangr.


    Inparison, most of Eleyrius'' buildings were made out of white marble, and looked like they were carved directly into it. The houses looked less sharper, and there were more curves in the way they were built.


    The other big difference was, of course, the inhabitants. While in Fjora one would mainly see rough, tall and muscr Northmen, mostly dressed in either armors or furs. Northmen were more scary than weing, when you didn''t know them.


    But in Eleyrius, the poption was a mix of Light Elves and Foxkin, the two races recognized worldwide as the most beautiful. If the first feeling when seeing a Northman was fear, then the one when first seeing either of those two races was bliss or even lust.


    Also, another major difference between the two races is that Northmen were a mix of warriors and mages, but almost every Light Elf and Foxkin were mages.


    Northmen had the attributes of warriors, but the bonus in damage also applied to magic, so they had a lot of Elementalists too. However, Light Elves and Foxkin both had attributes meant for magical sses, and their racial skill was for magic too.


    This difference in sses changed many things in the city too. This city had an ethereal feeling to it, for a human from Earth. One could really feel like they were in a magical city while in Eleyrius, with the mage towers that floated in the sky and the mana being overwhelmingly denser than in other locations. This was really a blessed locations for mages.


    Inparison, Fjora just looked like a big Scandinavian city of old, and was more down to Earth. Even though Adam really like Fjora, he had to admit Eleyrius looked better.


    Unfortunately, he wouldn''t get to stay for too long within the city. This would just be a small stop in his journey south, as he now needed to teleport to the Kingdom that was the closest to Buwog.


    Now that he had teleported into Eleyrius, his map had been uploaded, and he although he couldn''t see all the maps, he could see the different kingdoms, and now knew that the Kingdom where he wanted to go was Silenond.


    Adam paid for another transfer, and disappeared from the beautiful capital.


    The moment he appeared in the capital of Silenond, he noticed something was wrong. He could see several soldiers surrounding him, but also yers, and all of them were armed to the teeth.


    He ced his hand on his sword''s hilt, ready to attack if any of them showed any sign of threat. He didn''t worry about the yers, they were all below Level 30 and none of them had even opened a single Gate.


    However, the NPCs did worry him. They were all Silver sses above Level 50, and there was one Level 100 Silver among them, which worried him the most.


    [Commander Tiarsus] (Silver, Level 100)


    HP: 30000/30000


    In term of pure stats, without any equipment on, Adam was actually about as strong as a Level 100 Silver who did not open the Third Gate. However, he only had ess to equipment below Level 40, while this NPC had Level 100 Equipment.


    A Level 100 Common equipment was definitely stronger than a Level 40 Rare equipment, and much stronger than a Level 20 Rare equipment. And he was pretty sure that this NPC didn''t have Common Equipment, but either Rare or Extraordinary


    Apart from that, there were also the skills, this NPC would have much more skills than him, and probably of a higher level. His only advantage was the fact he had opened the Gate of Limit, while the NPC had only opened the Gate of Healing.


    But Adam felt like he had a chance, because this was a Light Elf, and he was a Swordsman. His attributes were probably a little lesser than normal as he should mainly rely on his equipment.


    However, as Adam was getting ready to kill as many people as he could, Tiarsus stepped forward and asked threateningly "What do you want?!"


    Tiarsus didn''t think much when he first saw Adam, he was only a level 28 after all. However, for some reason this Berserker became hostile, and released a powerful aura. Although he was definitely weaker than him, Tiarsus knew he would lose men if they fought, and he himself might get injured. That''s why he decided to negotiate.


    Hearing his question, Adam frowned and said "I just want to go south, but the moment I appeared you surrounded me with your men, so what do YOU want?"


    Tiarsus looked stunned for a second before he waved his hand and said "That''s a misunderstanding, we weren''t waiting for you, we were about to use the array ourselves. One of our cities is being attacked, and we are the reinforcements."


    Adam took his hand off his sword''s hilt and said "I see, good luck with this then." As he said that he took look at his map to see which city he needed to go to. Neve Dorei.


    As he did so though, he heard the yers that were with the NPCs whisper among themselves, and speak about him. They couldn''t believe they were seeing him in person, and they also wondered what he was doing here.


    Tiarsus, as a Level 100 Silver who opened the first two Gates, he obviously heard them, and froze when he heard the name, Valiant Heart. He turned back toward Adam, and this time paid attention to his status. He had just looked at his level before without really minding his name because he was below Level 30.


    However, upon confirming the name, his eyes shone with a strange light. He now understood why he was so strong.


    Tiarsus approached Adam as thetter closed his map, and asked "Are you the Valiant Heart from Sunflower Valley? The Sovereign?"


    Adam looked at him surprised, his fame was really great, his guild members had really done a good advertising job, even elves from Aldeneid knew about him. He nodded and said "The one and only."


    Tiarsus clearly looked excited as he asked "Where are you going, if it isn''t too indiscreet?" Adam hesitated for a moment, before deciding he didn''t really care about them knowing where went. Those who could really endanger him could find where he was by themselves, so there wasn''t really any harm into telling him "I''m heading to Buwog."


    Tiarsus'' though looked even more excited once he heard that, and said "So you must be going to Neve Dorei, right?"


    Adam scratched the back of his head, he didn''t really understand why this elf was so excited, didn''t he have other things to do? But he still nodded his head.


    Tiarsus sighed this time and said "Neve Dorei is our destination too. An army is heading toward the city right now, and is threatening it. The city is currently closed, only reinforcement had been granted the right to teleport to the city. If you help us push the assants back, then you cane with us."


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Siege of Neve Dorei''!]


    Quest Detail: You have met with Commander Tiarsus and he has asked for your help to defend Neve Dorei!


    Quest Difficulty: City Scale


    Objective: Defend Neve Dorei from its invaders.


    Reward: Depends on your achievements.


    Failure penalty: Disappearance of Neve Dorei


    Reading the new quest that popped up, Adam blinked his eyes in astonishment. What kind of joke is this? Of all the cities in Aldeneid, it had to be that one that was attacked?


    But after a moment, a smile formed on his lips. Although it surprised him, he wouldn''t say no to such an opportunity to earn money and XP. And to fight and kill, of course.

 Chapter 95: Siege of Neve Dorei (1)

    Chapter 95: Siege of Neve Dorei (1)


    Adam shook Tiarsus'' hand with a grin and said "We are allies, aren''t we?!"


    Tiarsus smiled back as he shook his hand, and a notification appeared to Adam, confirming he epted the quest.


    Tiarsus looked back at his men and the yers and said "Prepare to go! Once we reach there, enter the ranks!"


    There were about thirty of them, and from what he could feel there was one A ss and all the others were B sses.


    From what he could see, they were all Asian, Japanese he would bet. Their leader, the A ss called Ghash, bowed slightly to Adam and said "It is our honor to meet you."


    Adam waved his hand dismissively and said "Don''t be, we will be fighting together soon. So, are you from the same guild?"


    Ghash shook his head and said "We don''t want to be part of a guild, so we became an adventurer team. We call ourselves Dream Raiders."


    Adam patted his shoulder and said with a smile "Good luck for the iing fight." Ghash smiled back and the group entered the array.


    When he appeared in Neve Dorei, Adam was astounded by what he saw. Teleportation arrays were always in the middle of the city, near every shops, auction houses and popr spots, so there always was a lot of noise, and many people talking.


    But when he and the group arrived, they saw no civilians, the shops were closed and the only thing they could hear was the sound of metal boots against the ground.


    Rows of soldiers walked in organized formation through the city, not minding the group that just arrived. Everyone was heading to the south of the city.


    However, what intrigued Adam wasn''t really the change of atmosphere, it was to be expected. However, it was the soldiers themselves. Almost all of them were either Light Elves or Foxkin, and yet their were many physical sses.


    Adam began to understand there was something he probably forgot, if it had just been Tiarsus who had been a Swordsman then it could be a coincidence, but here tens of soldiers were also physical sses.


    But Adam refrained from asking anything, and followed the soldiers to the South of the city along with Tiarsus and the others. As they reached the gates, Adam saw the NPCs with him as well as the yers go through the gates, but Tiarsus grabbed Adam''s shoulder and said "Follow me."


    The two climbed the stairs to the top of the ramparts, and Tiarsus said "Nice army isn''t it?"


    Adam nodded, impressed. From the top of the ramparts, he could see hundreds of thousands of NPCs and yers, split in different groups ording to their sses and levels.


    Adam turned back to Tiarsus and saw they were heading for a group of high leveled NPCs, all of whom were mages. Before they reached the others, who were looking at him with narrowed eyes, Adam asked "Isn''t your race a magical one? Then howe so many of you forsake magic for a physical ss?"


    Tiarsus looked stunned at the question, before he smiled and said "Who said we ever did such a thing?" Adam tilted his head, not really understanding, but he said nothing and the two joined the other high ranking NPCs.


    However, as soon as they arrived, a tall Light Elf Mage who was in his 70'', or probably older considering Silver Ranks had longer lifespans, said with a scowl "May we know why you brought a low level here?"


    Tiarsus looked at the old man and replied "I present the Aqua Sovereign, also known as Valiant Heart." The others looked shocked, and Adam wondered how Tiarsus knew he was an Aqua Sovereign.


    He had told to no one his ss was Aqua Sovereign, only that he was a Sovereign. Maybe he met someone who had the power to see his ss, and that person revealed his ss? Well, it didn''t really matter, but it did spark his curiosity.


    Following Tiarsus'' words, the highest ranking person, both in strength and status, extended her hand toward Adam and said "I heard about your feats, thank you for lending a hand."


    Adam nodded and took her hand, and as he did so he checked her status.


    [Governor Liara] (Gold, Level 100)


    HP: 50000/50000


    She was the only Gold Rank present, and although there were several other Level 100 who were Silver Rank, they were far weaker than her.


    The difference of strength didn''t juste from the rank disparity, but because Governor Liara had opened her Gate of Limit, making her much, much stronger.


    Judging by the fact she looked like she had only opened it recently, she was an S ss who had just elevated to Gold Rank. The second strongest here was Tiarsus, who was only Silver but also an S ss, and who probably only waited to open his Gate of Limit before attempting his promotion.


    Then, there were three A ss Level 100 Silver, who had only opened a single gate, and four others who were B ss Level 100 Silver and who didn''t open any Gate.


    But there was a simrity between them, and it was the fact they were all mages. Actually, the only two who weren''t mages among the ten of them, were Adam and Tiarsus. Although Adam didn''t understand what Tiarsus meant by not forsaking magic, there was still a vast majority of mage among this race.


    As Adam finished his analysis of his allies'' strength, and took back his hand from Governor Liara''s, another old A ss sneered "Your father never would have needed help."


    As soon as he said that, Liara looked at him with dangerous eyes and said "I''m not my father." This look sent chills in the old man''s spine as he bowed and said "My apologizes Governor."


    Liara clicked her tongue and said "Our enemy, the undead, has one big advantage over us, and it is their numbers. An army of about a million ising toward us, meaning we are outnumbered more than three to one."


    They nodded with grave faces, while Adam was surprised by the sheer number of Undeads. By the way they were speaking of it, it didn''t sound like this was a special case, the undead had many dead, among them.


    Liara continued "The reports say they are led by a Level 80 Elder who is also a Chosen. I will engage it when it starts to attack, but I will need your cooperation to deal with it."


    Everyone''s face turned darker, they knew how strong a Chosen was. Instinctively, a few gazes turned toward Adam, who was a Sovereign, and the rumors said he had a Chosen Monster as a pet.


    And from what they knew, an Elder Chosen was stronger than any other Elder of the same level, and a Level 80 Elder Chosen was definitely a match for a Gold Rank, and would overpower the newly promoted Liara.


    After a moment, Liara added "The levels and ranks of the undead will vary from Level 30 Elite to Level 100 Elder. The Level 100 Elder is not a Chosen, but is the second inmand of the army. Commander Tiarsus, you shall deal with it."


    Tiarsus nodded, he was a Commander of the guard of the capital, and he had been sent here in reinforcement. Normally they would have sent a stronger Commander, a Gold Rank one, but as a young S ss, Tiarsus was a talented and valuable subordinate, and so he had been offered this opportunity in hope he finds the inspiration to open the Gate of Limit, and thus manage toter promote to Gold Rank.


    Liara sent a look to the area where yers gathered, and said "For the monster ranging between Level 30 and 50, the otherworlders will be in charge of fighting them" She looked at Adam and said "Although I heard you were a good leader, you won''t be needed on that battlefield. There is already another Sovereign there, leader of a Guild."


    This didn''t really surprise Adam, big guilds wouldn''t miss such an opportunity. But the question was, was this a First Tier or Super Guild?


    Liara continued "Valiant Heart, you will lead this city''s guards and fight the Undead ranging between Level 50 and 70. The rest of you, you will be managing the Level 70-100 battlefield."

 Chapter 96: Siege of Neve Dorei (2)

    Chapter 96: Siege of Neve Dorei (2)


    She had barely finished when several of the Level 100 protested "Have you lost your mind?!"


    "The Level 70-100 area is the most important!"


    "That''s where the majority of our men will be!"


    "You can''t hand their lives to an outsider!"


    Liara frowned and released her Mana outside her body. Instantly, everyone present felt like they were shocked and paralyzed by a bolt of thunder. Liara kept her Mana suppression for a few seconds before taking her mana back in her body and saying "Do you think I like it?! We don''t have a choice!"


    She then pointed at the left part of the army and said "The undead army has 200 000 undeads above Level 70, 500 000 between Level 50 and 70, and 300 000 below Level 50. We only have 40 000 men above Level 70, do you think we can afford for any of you to leave that battlefield?!"


    Realization hit them as their mouth hung wide open. They thought the undead wouldn''t have many monsters above Level 70, since they highest leveled member was only level 100, but they were wrong in their assumptions.


    Now that the interrogations were dealt with, Liara asked Adam "Do you feel ready to lead the troops for us? You won''t have to do much, our guards already know their battle formations, it is more about their morals. But nheless, it is an important role in this battle and lots of lives, maybe even the city, will depend on it. So if you feel like it is too difficult for you, don''t be ashamed and say it now. Just don''t let a city fall because of pride."


    Adam nodded and said with a serious voice "I am confidant. My battlefield won''t fall to the hands of the undead. Since I have the most soldiers, many mages, and myself, despite having to face the most undead we will most certainly be finished first. If the men and women under me are still capable of fight, I will help with either battlefield that needs the most help. If they are too spent, then you can still count on me. As for the morals of the troops, don''t worry, I have a skill that allows me to boost the morale of our whole army."


    She nodded, looking relieved, and continuedying out their ns for the following battle. Once she exined everything, everyone except her and Tiarsus jumped down from the ramparts and walked to their assigned area.


    For Adam, he walked through the ranks of Light Elves and Foxkin who were looking at him weirdly, until he reached front of the army. He could feel all the gazes directed at him, but he didn''t bother exining for now.


    When he reached the front of the army, he looked at his right, where the lower leveled yers were gathering. Coincidentally, someone else was looking back. A tall Light Elf Elementalist was looking right back at him.


    However, they were too far from each other to see each other status, or even sense how strong the other was.


    The Light Elf knew who this was though, as Adam was one of the most famous yers of the moment, and he still had the same armor since the battle of Sunflower Valley.


    This Light Elf was actually the Sovereign among the yers here, his name was Searing Light, and he was the guild leader of the First Tier Guild Final Judgment.


    They were the biggest guild in Neve Dorei, and so they had gathered the lower ranked guilds to defend the city. Neve Dorei was actually quite an important city because it was the first line of defense against anythinging from the Mirage Desert to attack Aldeneid.


    The only reason the city was this weak was because a huge battle had recently taken ce among the highest ranked people in the city. The old Governor, who was a peak Gold Rank, fought against several of the heads of the Noble Families in the city as they wanted the power for themselves.


    This fight ended with the death of the Governor and his Son, as well as the death of the heads of all the Noble Families.


    Then, the old Governor''s granddaughter, Liara, promoted to Gold Rank and became the only Gold Rank in the entire city. Thankfully, she wasn''t an average Gold Rank, but an S ss, or the city would have been doomed.


    As for the other Level 100 that remained, the ones who were at the meeting on the ramparts with Adam, Tiarsus and Liara, they were the new family heads of the Noble Families who ascended. To avoid theplete extermination of their families because of their rebellion, they epted to vow and sign a magical contract baring them ess to the Gold Rank.


    And of course, many guards from the royal family and the noble families had died too, especially the higher leveled ones. All of this, umted together, led to this weak and vulnerable condition for the city of Neve Dorei.


    As for the attack of the undead, it was unknown whether this was an event brought by the quest of a yer, or if they had just felt this was the best opportunity to attack the city.


    The undead were a major threat to the world atrge, their numbers made them a huge threat to the world. Fortunately, they weren''t all united together.


    There wasn''t just one Undead Kingdom like there was a Goblin Kingdom, but they had many different kingdoms instead. There were multiple Undead Kings known to the world, who were hostile to each other. Despite that, every undead army under those different Undead Kings were among the biggest armies in the world.


    All those Undead Kings were Legendary Monsters, and so were among the most powerful in the entire world. However, there had been one time when a disaster took ce. A worldwide disaster known as the Undead Uprising devastated the whole world.


    The eight Racial Powers and the Holy Temple hadn''t always been the strongest powers of this world. Slightly after the War of the Gods which split Epoch in the Divine, Mortal and Hell realms, the world was unified by a power known as the Heaven Defying Dynasty.


    They sessfully brought together all the major races of the mortal realm, and ruled on the entire world. Moreover, by then the experts were many times more than today, because it was just a few hundred years after the War of the Gods, there were thousands of Legend experts under the Heaven Defying Dynasty.


    Inparison, all the Racial Powers and the Holy Templebined had less than 50 Legend Ranks they acknowledged, and even those they hide, there were only a couple hundred Legend rank currently alive.


    This Heaven Defying Dynasty was destined to rule for a long time, and could have very well ruled to this day, if it hadn''t been for the Undead Uprising. The Undead Uprising started with a weak undead that seemed normal.


    However, this undead managed to be a Chosen Monster, and then climbed up to the rank above Legendary despite everyone trying to kill it before it could reach that point. However, it really managed to reach that incredible realm, and it became literally as powerful as a god.


    Using its power and influence, it became known as the Undead Emperor, who brought all the Undead Kings together and united the Undeads from all over the world under its banner, and then attacked the Heaven Defying Dynasty that had tried so hard to destroy it while it was growing.


    The Undead Emperor ultimately died, but it wasn''t a victory for the Heaven Defying Dynasty. The thousands of Legend Ranks were killed, absolutely all of them died, and the only Legend Ranks that remained were those hermits that didn''t join the war.


    Because of the death of all those Legend Ranks, the Dynasty crumbled apart and disappeared from the world.


    That is how dangerous the Undead were. If another Undead Emperor were to appear to this day, it would be able to take over the world easily.


    Fortunately, it wasn''t such an opponent that Adam and the city of Neve Dorei had to fight. It wasn''t even an Undead King, but an army led by an Elder Rank Chosen.

 Chapter 97: Siege of Neve Dorei (3)

    Chapter 97: Siege of Neve Dorei (3)


    The army waited in front of the city, in formation. A few minutes after Adam had arrived to the front of the army, he along with the other yers received a notification from the system.


    [The event ''Siege of Neve Dorei'' has started! Reanimation within Neve Dorei have been disabled, teleportation array has been disabled. You will receive rewards depending on how many undead you kill, and their strength.]


    After the unusually long message, Adam felt the ground tremble a little. It was very minute, and he almost missed it. Then, it shook again, with a little more intensity.


    The intensity of the tremor quickly began to build up as more and more people felt it. From the top of the ramparts, Liara said with a magically amplified voice "The undead is upon us! Activate the cannons and the magic towers!"


    As she said that, Adam saw rows of cannons appear on the ramparts, and the two towers near the ramparts lit up. He had wondered why no mage stayed on the ramparts, he knew now.


    Adam turned back toward the battlefield, and saw something in the distance. An army, running toward them. The Undead Army.


    It didn''t take long for the others to see them too, although they were a few kilometers away, everyone here was above Level 50, and so they had an incredible vision.


    Adam could already feel some of his soldiers getting nervous, by now they knew the tremor came from this undead army. For them to feel it from kilometers away, only showed how strong and numerous the undead were.


    So Adam knew it was time for him to use his precious skill, [Barbarous Roar]. When it was only level 1, the only thing he could do was a wordless roar, but as it leveled up he became able to form words, and sentences.


    By the time it reached level 10, he became able to say full sentences, but it would be enough. Fortunately, he had managed to perfectly master the skill, and now he could speak as long as he wanted using it. Of course, it would cost him Aura to do so, but the expense of Aura was very little.


    Adam still had a higherprehension than the average people after all. Since he had discovered he needed to understand his skills to make them level up faster, all his skills had received a boost. A huge boost.


    And this was thanks to his strengthened soul, which he already knew gave him a betterprehension. This strongerprehension helped him with leveling up his skills, but also in his creation of his cultivation technique, in which he was making absurdly fast progress.


    Thanks to thest two days of hard work, Adam had managed to bring several of his skills to level 10, after hours of grind, using his skills during fights and doing his best to understand them.


    -Mighty Strike (E, Perfectly Mastered)


    -Charge (E, Level 10/10)


    -Wind de (D, Level 10/10)


    -Parry (D, Level 10/10)


    -Lunar Smite (C, Level 10/10)


    -Crushing Blow (C, Level 10/10)


    -Icy Stomp (C, Level 10/10)


    -Whirlwind sh (C, Level 4/10)


    -Totemic Rage (B, Level 1/10)


    -Barbarous Roar (B, Perfectly Mastered)


    -Misty Escape (B, Level 2/10)


    Now that all those skills were Level 10, all he had to do was to bring them to the next level, perfect mastery, and he would receive yet another boost in strength.


    Back to his army, Adam used his [Barbarous Roar] to talk to his soldiers.


    "I am Valiant Heart, Aqua Sovereign from the Colnds Empire, and I am here today to fight alongside you, my friends, against the Undead!"


    Following his words, the whole army became silent, as they looked at him curiously.


    Having gained their attention, Adam continued with "I know I''m not one of you, and never will, but I can promise you that I will fight until my very death for this city! If I, an outsider, am ready to go so far for this city, will you people be cowards in front of the undead?!"


    "WE WON''T!!"


    Adam was surprised by how many of them answered, he thought he would have to do more build up to rile them up. Well, maybe it was just his charisma acting


    "I''m not asking you to fight for me, after all, who am I for you? Just some stranger. Today, I may be one of your leaders, but I don''t want you to fight for me."


    Adam took a deep breath and said "FIGHT FOR YOURSELF!"


    "FIGHT FOR YOUR FAMILIES!"


    "FIGHT FOR YOUR CITY!"


    His voice echoed in the ears of every member of the army, and they felt their heart pump blood at a never before seen speed. The close ranged began hitting them weapons against their shields or their armor, while the magical sses tapped the ground with their staves.


    Adam said "The undead may have more soldiers, but we shall still win! And that is because"


    Adam made a short pause as the ground below him shifted, and Neith appeared. She appeared from under Adam and quickly stood tall, and Adam was now towering over the whole army as he finished "FOR WE ARE ONE!"


    "WE ARE ONE! WE ARE ONE! WE ARE ONE!" The army repeated after him, and chanted the three words as the undead army approached.


    Unfortunately, the undead were immune to fear effects. Had it been a living army in front of them, the effect of a whole army shooting at them ''We are one'' would have applied a fear effect.


    Adam unsheathed his sword on top of Neith and roared "ATTACK!!!!"


    ROAR!!!!!!


    The army didn''t repeat this time, but shouted as loud as they could as the close range sses began rushing forward. Moreover, not just the army behind Adam, but even the army of yers and the NPCs above Level 70 all attacked at the same time.


    This made them look like a unified wall, about to crash into the undead army. Adam jumped down from Neith and began running alongside her as the impact with the undead army came closer and closer.


    However, when the living army were 20 meters away from the undead army, they all heard loud booms behind them, and the first rows of the undead army exploded, getting annihted by the power behind the explosions.


    Those were the cannons which had been fired. They were defending their city after all, their soldiers weren''t the only weapon they had.


    The living army ran through the smoke caused by the explosions and shed with the second row of undeads. As they shed, the whole undead army seemed to move back at the same time, they had been pushed back because of the living.


    As he crashed into the first undeads, Adam also looked at their status.


    [Skeleton] (Elite, Level 50)


    HP: 25000/25000


    [Skeleton] (Elite, Level 70)


    HP: 50000/50000


    [Zombie] (Chieftain, Level 50)


    HP: 125000/125000


    [Zombie] (Chieftain, Level 70)


    HP: 250000/250000


    [Ghoul] (Lord, Level 50)


    HP: 500000/500000


    [Ghoul] (Lord, Level 70)


    HP: 1,000,000/1,000,000


    The lowest rank monsters were Elites, and they were all Skeletons. Of course, there were different types of skeletons, some were swordsmen, other archers, mages but they were simply a stack of bones.


    Next were the Chieftains, the Zombies. They were essentially the same as the skeletons, but they had flesh on top of their bones. They looked like every NPC present, except that their flesh and their equipment looked rotten.


    However, the Ghouls were different.


    Ghouls are masses of flesh that are several meters tall, and wide. Some of the Level 70 ones were even as big as Neith.


    Something else to note was that the HP of the Level 70 was exactly twice as much as the HP from the Level 50, but Adam wondered if it was the same for their attributes.


    The undead''s tactic was also the same as them, they had split their armies in three sub armies, and each one had a leader. However, it looked like the leader of the army Adam was facing wasn''t a tall or big monster, because he couldn''t see it behind the big army.


    Now that he knew what he was facing, Adam activated his armor''s berserk skill, red fumes surrounded his body as he jumped above the first undeads.


    The skeletons looked at him with the blue fire within their eye sockets, wondering why a human being broke the rank and jumped in the midst of their army.


    However, Adam used the different undeads'' heads to jump deeper and deeper in their ranks. There were two reason he did this. First, this was training him to open the Second Gate. Secondly, he had an AOE attack to use, and he didn''t want to hit his allies.


    When Adam was fifty meters deep into the undead army, he finally faced the first Ghoul, having bypassed all the Zombies and Skeletons easily.


    Hended in front of it and used [Mighty Strike] and [Icy Stomp].


    -120 000 HP!

 Chapter 98: Siege of Neve Dorei (4)

    Chapter 98: Siege of Neve Dorei (4)


    Everything within a fifteen meters radius suddenly got covered in ice. Unfortunately, the undead army wasn''t as densely packed as the other armies he had fought, and thus he had only hit about two hundred units.


    However, the damage he did was very high. All the skeletons died instantly, their white bones turned bluish as they fell to the ground. As for the Zombies, the lower leveled ones were on the verge of dying, while the higher leveled ones had still taken a heavy hit.


    As for the Ghoul, it had used a defensive skill, and shrugged off most of the 120k damage. Adam then jumped at the Ghoul, his sword raised above his head.


    The Ghoul roared and prepared itself to counterattack, and Adam roared back, overpowering the Ghoul''s shout.


    He activated [Mighty Strike], [Wind de] and although he would usually activate [Lunar Smite] right away, this time he didn''t. Instead, he feigned his attack and swung his sword early, totally missing the monster.


    However, thanks to the weight of the sword, his trajectory waspletely changed and he fell back to the ground, dodging the w of the ghoul. Then, he activated [Lunar Smite], and shed at the defenseless ghoul.


    -60 000 HP!


    -60 000 HP!


    -60 000 HP!


    -60 000 HP!


    The Ghoul lost half of its total health in a single strike, shocking it. It tried to strike back, but it was still slowed down from the effect of Adam''s [Icy Stomp].


    At the same time, he felt a warm energy invade his body, and the undeads around him began burning. With a quick look, he saw his army didn''t just stay behind, the Clerics were the ones who acted.


    Clerics were the strongest ss against the undead. Normally a Cleric doesn''t really have much attack spells, and they are very weak against the living. However, if they tried to apply a healing spell on an undead, they would damage it instead.


    That''s why, while Adam had felt a warm warmth surge in his body, the undeads began burning. Most of the zombies that had lost a lot of HP were finished off, and even those who survived were on theirst leg.


    And this didn''t only happen with the undeads around Adam, all the Clerics in Adam''s army began the battle with their biggest AOE healing spell.


    Following this first barrage of spells, the light elves swordsmen made their move. Their swords glowed with different colors as they shed at the first row of undeads.


    However, Adam was surprised by what happened. They didn''t just sh at the undeads, instead arcs of light shot out from their swords and hit everything in front of them.


    But what surprised him the most was the feeling those arcs of light gave him. Those weren''t shot using aura. Instead, it felt closer to the feeling Adam felt when Liara used her aura to scare the heads of the Noble Families.


    This meant those swordsmen were using Mana, and not Aura. Adam didn''t even know this was possible. But now he understood what Tiarsus meant by not forsaking Mana.


    Adam smiled at the swordsmening toward him and turned back toward the ghoul. He had been dodging its attack while he looked at the army behind him, but now it was time to end it''s life.


    As the ghoul''s w, which was clenched into a fist, swung toward him, he shot his sword back, using both [Mighty Strike] and [Crushing Blow].


    -10 000 HP!


    It didn''t do much damage, his t damage was of 30k, but because the ghoul was also attacking most of the damage was nullified. However, 25% of its defense was removed.


    Moreover, the ghoul''s arm was moved back and it staggered backwards. His Strength was way above it''s own Strength, so adding the additional strength and knock back effect from [Mighty Strike] staggered it and even injured its shoulder.


    As it was staggered and its defense was lowered, Adam began madly shing at it. He first shed at it six times, then jumped to m his body into it''s chest using [Charge], before dealing another 8 shes.


    This brought the ghoul''s HP to less than 10 thousand, and blood had sttered everywhere. Unlike skeletons, who didn''t have blood, and zombies who had almost solidified blood, ghouls were a big mix of flesh of actual living beings, which was why it was really bloody.


    Some chunks of flesh had fallen to the ground, and the ghoul was kneeling, it knew it was about to die. Adam could see something he never thought he would see in the eyes of an undead, tiredness. Weren''t undeads supposed to never tire?


    But at the same time, the ghoul wasn''t physically tired. The reason it was kneeling was that Adam only reached its knee, so its legs were his main target.


    No, it was more of an emotional tiredness. It didn''t care it was about to die. It''s as if it expected to die, and couldn''t care less.


    Well, in a sense, it shouldn''t fear death, as it would eventually be revived anyway. But that wasn''t it. Adam couldn''t quite describe what he saw, he just felt something was wrong.


    But he didn''t care, he was only here fighting because it coincidentally happened when he was here, and he would rather fight than go around the city.


    But once the fight was over, he would enter the desert and head to Buwog. He didn''t have time for conspiracies, especially in a foreign empire. He first needed to get his armor, and maybe by then he would poke his nose in, if everything wasn''t already over.


    Anyway, Adam didn''t feel pity for the ghoul, maybe it and all the other undeads were used as baits, Adam didn''t care, he wouldn''t let free XP live.


    Adam activated [Mighty Strike] and [Whirlwind sh]. His [Wind de] and berserk skill were still on, so the ghoul, which was slower than Adam, didn''t see him move at all. He just disappeared from its sight, and it felt its life fade away as its upper body slid off its lower body.


    Moreover, every undead behind it now had a more or less deep gash on their chest, the skeletons had their armor destroyed while zombies bled a little.


    At the same time, Adam''s berserk skill ended, and his [Wind de] had a few seconds left. With no other ghoul near him, Adam began ravaging the undeads, advancing deeper and deeper in their army.


    Adam liked to fight on his own, in the middle of the enemy army. With the gates he opened, fighting in the middle of a group of enemies didn''t matter much, and like that he didn''t have to worry about friendly fire.


    After some time, Adam finally saw another Ghoul. With how strong he had be, Chieftains weren''t really threats anymore, even the Level 70 ones had 250k HP, only half of what a Level 50 Lord had.


    The most annoying about fighting in the middle of an undead army were the skills, they didn''t care about friendly fire as it seemed, he was too big of a threat, and so they were trying to stun him. If he was hit by a stunning skill even once he would die, as they would start stacking. Moreover, he didn''t have much health, so he really wouldn''tst long.


    However, every time he dodged a stunning attack, another undead would take it, and it allowed him to use said undead to decrease the number of attackers.


    This new ghoul was a Level 60, with 750k of health. Moreover its stats would be higher than thest one. From a nce, its Endurance was the same as his, and its Agility was slightly lower, so its Strength should also be lower.


    Ghouls all had a simr distribution of attributes. Their Strength and Endurance would be their main stats, and Agility would be lower. The Strength and Endurance would only have a difference of a maximum of 5%, and Agility would be 25% lower.


    Adam and the Ghoul looked at each other, both eager to fight. The undeads weren''t just dumb walking soldiers, they could speak and think too, and they had already ryed information about Adam, and he had be a primary target.


    The other undeads moved away from Adam, and no longer attacked him. The Ghoul was so big that its every attack was an AOE, and they knew they would only drag it down if they intervened.


    Adam was actually quite curious to see how well he would do against the Level 60 Lord without any berserk skill on.

 Chapter 99: Siege of Neve Dorei (5)

    Chapter 99: Siege of Neve Dorei (5)


    As always, Adam didn''t let himself fall on the defensive, so he attacked first. It was slower than him, but only by a slight margin, so as Adam''s sword fell on it, it was able to react.


    However, Adam was surprised because it put its knee forward, but this was a weak part of the body, he didn''t understand why it would do this. However, as his sword made contact with the knee, a red shield that seemed to be made of blood appeared in front of his sword, parrying it and pushing it back.


    Adam''s sword bounced from the shield with the same strength and speed as when he attacked. Any average yer would have their sword go over their head and hit the ground behind them, leaving them open for attack, but Adam wasn''t an average yer.


    Seeing the ghoul ready to attack, Adam jumped and used the inertia of his sword to make a back flip, dodging the bone w of the ghoul. However, Adam thought he would get to attack the ghoul as he finished his back flip, but three flying shes of blood left the ws, which he blocked with his attack. Had he been hit in the first ce, he would have been hit by the physical attack and the three shes, an attack not too different from his own [Lunar Smite].


    However, thanks to his higher strength, Adam didn''t step back, and so as soon as he had blocked the attack he was able to sh it''s thigh. The ghoul didn''t even try to defend, and instead threw its head forward, trying to smash Adam with a headbutt.


    Adam responded by a roundhouse kick while applying [Parry] to his leg. A bluish film appeared over his leg as it shed with the ghoul''s head, stopping it''s movement. Then, Adam turned the other way around, and made a roundhouse sh using both [Mighty Strike] and [Lunar Smite].


    The ghoul had its head at Adam''s level, and so he aimed at its throat, which it wasn''t able to block or dodge.


    Critical Hit! -160 000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -160 000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -160 000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -160 000 HP!


    The Ghoul let out a guttural sound as it felt its HP almost empty out in a single strike, the strike had hit one of its weak points and thus the damage had been doubled, dealing almost 650k damage to it. Only 100 000 HP was left to it, fortunately it couldn''t suffer from a bleeding effect.


    Although it was in pain, the ghoul didn''t stay idle, waiting for Adam to finish it. It roared and suddenly exploded, sending pieces of flesh everywhere. Many hit the undeads around them, but none touched Adam.


    At first, he thought it had killed itself, but discovered it hadn''t. Instead, there was now a much smaller zombie standing in front of him, about his size, and it had a big gash on its throat. Moreover, it was aplete body, not just a mismatch of flesh and limbs.


    Having already fought a ghoul before, even though he never saw this kind of transformation, he guessed it had to be some kind of berserk skill, although the bonus granted certainly was smaller since there was a big AOE before the berserk skill itself.


    The smaller ghoul jumped toward Adam with an impressive speed, but it was only as fast as Adam now. Adam feinted an attack, making the ghoul jump to the right, and bing defenseless for a moment, which Adam used to sh it''s already injured throat.


    Critical Hit! -40 000 HP!


    The ghoul hurriedly moved back, but Adam activated [Wind Strike], [Mighty Strike] and [Whirlwind sh] before chasing after the ghoul. With his new speed, he caught up with the undead in an instant, and cut off its head.


    Critical Hit! -73 000 HP!


    Adam stopped fourteen meters farther, and seeing there weren''t any undeads surroundings him, he took the time to take the loot this time. It was always hard to pick up loot in the middle of a battle, but thankfully they had moved away to let them fight.


    It was the ghoul''s biggest mistake to show its weak point to him. Because of its size, attacking its weak points for double the damage would endanger himself, but that headbutt had shown its weak point to him, and bing smaller, although it made it stronger, it also made its throat even more essible.


    Once more in the horde of undeads, Adam activated [Mighty Strike] and [Icy Stomp], killing a whole bunch of undead and filling up his armor''s berserk skill''s condition.


    But he didn''t use it right away, but waited instead. He had discovered that spamming the skill was actually wearing the armor, and the damage wasn''t repairable. The max durability of his armor was getting lower and lower, he hadn''t noticed it at first, but when he had repaired his equipment before the battle he finally realized.


    Even though he wouldn''t use the equipment for long, he would be able to earn some money by selling it, so he decided not to damage it too much.


    Instead of staying among the undead, he headed for the tanks that had taken the ces of the swordsmen in front and began sweeping at every undead attacking them. Now that he was closed to his allies, he focused less on dodging and instead attacked.


    As he did so, he found something peculiar. Almost every close ranged unit had an attack that was long ranged. For example, the flying sh of the swordsmen.


    Even the undeads used it, so it seemed to be a generic skill for Silver ss. Thus, Adam decided he would try to learn it.


    Hecked means to attack enemies at a distance, and when he faced mages this would start to limit him greatly. Moreover, the attack seemed quite simple to reproduce.


    Adam first tried to put his entire strength into his strike, but only reproduced a lesser version of [Mighty Strike]. He shook his head, it was probably possible to create a sword of light just by using row power, but he wasn''t there yet, nor were those Silver Ranks.


    Instead, he needed to think. To activate [Mighty Strike], he would need to make his Aura circte around different meridians in his body to dig as much strength as possible.


    That''s why [Mighty Strike] worked with all attacks and was a great skill forbinations. However, he couldn''t use [Lunar Smite] and [Crushing Blow] at the same time, because both were a skill that involved the weapon rather than the body.


    That''s how Adam understood, to create a flying sh, the strength didn''t need toe from his body, but from the sword itself.


    He had already been working on applying Aura on his sword for the past couple of days, since his [Lunar Smite] had reached level 10 he wanted to push it to perfect mastery, and to do that he had to really understand the skill.


    [Lunar Smite] was quite aplicated skill, it had several effects: It strengthened the attack, turned it into ice based, created three additional des and asionally slowed down the enemy.


    Inparison, what Adam wanted to do was much simpler. All he wanted was to create a single de that would be a simple extension of his own de, it didn''t need to have any element or to even make the strike stronger.


    If he wanted to make the skill, he had to go step by step, and only then would he be able to create the skill.


    Since he didn''t have to create any additional des of aura, the only thing he wanted to do was make his strike gain range. But yet again, there were different roads.


    He could try to make the air in front of his sword somehow disappear or stop exerting force on his sword, so that the wind created by the swing of his sword could create a sword light.


    Or he could use pure strength to overwhelm the air in front of his sword, but he still needed to find a way to gain that distance.

 Chapter 100: Siege of Neve Dorei (6)

    Chapter 100: Siege of Neve Dorei (6)


    Two hours quickly went by, and the battle was still on going. There were literally more than a million undeads, and hundreds of thousands of living people.


    Adam had stopped fighting since some time now, recovering before going back. The army would take turns to fight against the undeads, but the undead didn''t need to rest, because an undead couldn''t get tired. This was another of the undead''s advantages over the living.


    Adam had now been resting for twenty minutes, and he hadpletely recovered. Most soldiers would try to dy the moment they would have to go back to the battlefield, but Adam was the opposite.


    First, he liked fighting, it made his blood boil and made him feel alive. But more importantly, his skills were advancing quickly, and although he hadn''t crossed the big gap between Level 10 and perfect mastery for any other skill than [Mighty Strike] yet, they still made good progress, especially [Lunar Smite].


    But what he had focused the most on was trying to create a flying sh attack. Lunar Smite had the most advancement because that skill and flying sh were somewhat rted.


    As Adam was about to go back to fighting though, he heard a stranger''s voice "Never would I have thought I would meet the legendary Valiant Heart here."


    Despite this being a stranger''s voice, Adam didn''t have to look to know the one talking was the other Sovereign on this battlefield, after all the only people who had opened their Third Gate in this whole battlefield were Adam himself, Governor Liara and this unknown yer.


    But Adam still stopped and looked at the man. Searing Light didn''t look very powerful or threatening. He was actually an old man, who looked like he was in his 70''s, he was short and didn''t have much muscles. However, assuming this old man was weak would be a terrible mistake, the mana he was passively emitting was oppressing.


    Adam also noticed something interesting, and it was that Searing Light was only Level 24. The 5 levels he had gotten when he got promoted were really a good way to take a lead on others. Fortunately it hadn''t been split by three because he got his level up at the same time he was being promoted.


    Adam smiled and said "Neither would I have thought I would ever meet you, and even talk to you." Searing Light smiled back and sat on top of the rampart.


    Adam, who was about to jump and join the battlefield, instead sat next to the old man and said "If I''m not being too indiscreet, you have always been a swordsman, and was renown for having created an exquisite sword technique. So why would you be an Elementalist?"


    Searing Lightughed and said "I''m not shameless enough to call my swordsmanship exquisite after having seen yours. Your sword contains so much violence, and yet there is still some grace to it I''ve never seen anything like it, did you really create it yourself, or is your master an old hermit?"


    Adam made a small smile and said "I never had a teacher, and probably never will. I indeed created this sword art, and I am quite proud of it." Searing Light nodded "If I may ask, what is the name of this sword art?"


    Adam replied "Eternal Rest, as anyone who faces it shall stop moving, forever."


    Searing Light looked pensive for a moment before he chuckled and said "A great name for such a powerful sword art."


    This sword art was something Adam had created in his life by sparring against many experts, and it wasn''t something someone like Searing Light couldprehend. When Adam finished creating this sword art, he had already opened the 5th Gate and had made some progress in it. It wasn''t meant for someone who only opened the Third Gate.


    The techniques used by someone who only opened the four first gates were only mortal techniques, and that''s why the sword arts used by them were only ways to wave the sword around and trick the opponent. There wasn''t anything supernatural.


    However, once one opened the Fifth Gate, even without any Qi one would be capable of adding special properties to their techniques. For example, lighting their sword on fire. Sending a wind de after a sh. Punching with an earth fist.


    But those were only usable by those who opened the Fifth Gate, and so it also could only be created by them. For Adam, although he already knew a powerful sword art, he could only use a fraction of its power.


    The more gates he opened, the more power he could ess. When he had no gates opened, he could ess ten percent of it, and opening the first two gates didn''t make much of a change. However, opening the Gate of Limit made a big difference, and allowed him to use up to 50% of that sword art.


    That''s because with a stronger body, he can also make movements impossible to make with a normal body, and a big part of his sword art needed this stronger body.


    But to use the remaining 50% of his sword art and truly bring out the might of Eternal Rest, he needed to open his Fifth Gate. If he even wanted to use the first real move of the sword art, he would need to open the Fifth Gate. Every move he could do right now weren''t good enough to be called as such inparison to the real moves.


    If Searing Light knew what he was thinking, the old swordsman would feel like killing Adam on the spot, the moves it held in the highest regard were thought as subpar by this brat?


    Adam had actually tried to use his Aura to replicate the first move of his sword art but even his aura wasn''t powerful enough to replicate the effects brought by the Fifth Gate.


    Back in the world of Old Adam, skills that reached the level of Eternal Rest didn''t have much power, because the wielders themselves weren''t very powerful. However, Adam suspected that if he was able to use his Qi, then the skill would be much more powerful.


    For example, a man Old Adam had once fought was able to shoot out fists of fire when he punched. Those fists made of fire were quite powerful, but they were at best at the level of a fireballunched by a Level 20 Iron Elementalist, so quite strong for an ordinary human who didn''t have any Qi, but not transcendental.


    However, if Qi were to be added, then the fist would be much more powerful depending on who wielded it. But let''s take a Sovereign, following the rate at which he was opening the Gates, Adam would need to open the 4th Gate to rank up to Silver, and then the Fifth Gate for Gold.


    So, anyone who opened the Fifth Gate would either be at the end levels of Silver Rank, or an early Gold Rank. Someone with such a powerful Aura/Qi would totally transform the power of the fist of fire.


    It would go from something that wouldn''t hurt a tank to something that could wipe down a whole street, or possibly even better. That''s why, Adam had high expectations for Eternal Rest.


    Anyway, even though he didn''t have ess to the whole sword art, what he could use was still beyond everything anyone on Searing Light could experience, and so it looked so much better in his eyes.


    Searing Light said "If I became an Elementalist, it is because of my cultivation." Instantly, Adam looked at the old man with sharp eyes. It was the first time someone actually talked about cultivation with him, and so openly, as if it wasn''t a secret


    Well, as someone who opened the Gate of Limit, it was supposedly impossible for him to have no experience with cultivation, so hiding it would be a little meaningless.

 Chapter 101: Siege of Neve Dorei (7)

    Chapter 101: Siege of Neve Dorei (7)


    Adam''s change in attitude did not escape from the old man''s eyes, who merrily smiled and said "How much do you know about cultivation young man? Which realm are you in? How advanced are you in it?"


    Adam scratched the back of his head and said "To be honest, I don''t know much. I''m in the beginning of the Bronze Realm."


    This made Searing Light smile even more, and he said "You really are an incredible prodigy then. Did you open your Gate of Limit before breaking through?" Adam nodded, so Searing Light eximed "Congrattions, you are the first Sovereign to ever appear on Earth!"


    Adam was surprised, was there really no other Sovereigns before him? None? With a small frown he asked "What is the highest Gate anyone ever reached on Earth? And if you don''t mind, could you tell me more about cultivation?"


    Searing Light nodded and said "You have a lot to learn then. First, only the four first Gates have been discovered so far."


    Adam nodded, he expected this. Still, he had a question that needed an answer "Are there only the first four Gates in Epoch then?"


    Adam already knew the answer was no, as he had sessfully simted the Fifth Gate thanks to the scroll he earned when freeing Johan, and Henryter demonstrated the powers of the Fifth Gate. Then, he also felt the power of the Sixth Gateing from the King of the North.


    Even though he never opened the Sixth Gate, he had met a few experts who opened it as Old Adam, and so he was very familiar with it, and knew the King of the North had really opened it.


    Searing Light didn''t answer right away, he seemed to think of an answer. Only a few secondster did he say "Epoch is special. There are all the gates, but I can''t tell you why. Only if you be stronger will you be able to find an answer to your questions."


    Adam sighed, he wished he could have all the answers now, but this would be against the rules. Searing Light, seeing his disappointment, said "Although I can''t tell you this, I can tell you about cultivation. First, the realms."


    This brought back Adam''s attention to the old man who said "Cultivation in the same world, as you may have noticed, is simr to the leveling system in Epoch. The way to level up is different, but the realms are the same, just that the names are different.


    In Epoch, the ranks are Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Hero and Legend. In real life, those are Body Strengthening, Qi Gathering, Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul and Golden Idol. Then, each of those realms are split in Early, Intermediary and Peak level. You are an Early Qi Gathering Cultivator."


    Adam nodded and asked "I guess that to level up for me, I need a way to bring Qi inside me, and I need a cultivation technique to do that."


    Searing Light nodded "Indeed. There are two ways to get a cultivation technique, you either get one from someone else, or you create it yourself. Creating it yourself is extremelyplicated, but as the first Sovereign of humanity your chances are high. As for receiving one those techniques are considered very precious, and one would only share it with the most talented and loved ones of their family."


    Adam sighed, he already suspected this would be the case. But that didn''t affect him too much, as he had already made considerable advancement into creating his cultivation technique.


    Recently he had realized that he could take the experience of promoting to the Bronze Realm and apply it to his cultivation technique. After all, at that time his body had absorbed a lot of Aura.


    Although he absorbed the Aura stored inside the altar instead of the space around him, there were still a lot of simrities, and so this boosted his progress.


    Adam looked at Searing Light in the eyes and asked curiously "Which realm are you in? And in which realm are the strongest humans?"


    Searing Light grinned and said "I can answer that! I''m an Intermediate Nascent Soul, and the strongest cultivators to ever exist are the gods, who are Golden Idols."


    Adam froze, and repeated "Are?" Searing Light showed a toothy grin and said "Yes, are. Not were." Adam fell silent, gods were real and still alive? And they still hadn''t managed to open the Fifth Gate after hundreds if not thousands of years? How talentless can they be?


    Adam sighed and asked "So, why did you be an Elementalist?"


    The old man replied "For experience. I have been stuck at the Intermediate Level of the Nascent Soul realm for decades now, so there is obviously something wrong with my cultivation. If I just became a swordsman in Epoch too, then I would make the same mistakes and I wouldn''t get to see where my mistakes lies. That''s why, I am cultivating from scratch with a different power system, in hope I can find the way to advance again."


    Adam then asked "But why did you be a Sovereign? Even though you are powerful now, if you have remained unable to open the Fourth Gate until now you probably never will, and so you will never reach Silver Rank."


    It was Searing Light''s turn to sigh now as he said "I know that, and that''s why many of the older cultivators decided to pick sses going with their own talent. But I want to experience a perfect foundation as I believe only with such a foundation could I really see my shorings. Moreover, I think you are mistaken about my ss."


    Adam asked "How so?"


    Searing Light pointed at Liara, who was on the wall watching the two armies fight, and then at the army before saying "The Governor of this city, she must have held you in respect when you met, right? And this army, they epted you as their leader right away. This isn''t only because of your achievements, the bigger reason is that you are a True Sovereign."


    Adam asked "True Sovereign?"


    Searing Light nodded and said "Many, many Sovereigns appeared as we old fellows promoted to Bronze Rank. But you and us aren''t the same Sovereigns. You are a True Sovereign, while we are False ones. The game could feel our true talent, and that''s why we aren''t treated as Sovereigns should. The NPCs know we don''t have much talent and will never go beyond the Bronze Realm for most.


    But you, you are a true Sovereign because you are also one in real life, and so your status is very high. The NPCs only treat us old fellows as ordinary yers, but you have an exalted position. And it is also why, although you will meet a lot of other strong Sovereigns in Bronze Rank, the vast majority will disappear for Silver Rank, and if you ever reach Gold Rank, you will be the only Sovereign from Earth left in that rank."


    Adam chuckled and said "You want to make me nervous or something?" Searing Lightughed "Of course not, just keep it in mind. But I have taken enough of your time, it is time for us to go back to the battlefield, don''t you think?"


    Adam nodded, and after a moment of hesitation he asked "Is you guild based in this city?" Searing Light nodded, so Adam said "Be careful, I feel like there is something weird going on. Even if nothing happens during the battle, you should watch out."


    Searing Light nodded with a serious face, for experts like them intuition was a powerful tool, and they were often right. So it was with caution that the two of them went back to the fighting.

 Chapter 102: Siege of Neve Dorei (8)

    Chapter 102: Siege of Neve Dorei (8)


    Adam looked at his soldiers who were fighting, searching where he should go. As he looked at all the soldiers fighting, he saw a unit that needed his help.


    One of the swordsmen unit had been breached, and the undead now had an open path toward a Cleric''s unit. Clerics were the bane of the undead, but they remained magical sses, and so at close range they would get annihted by the undeads.


    As the undeads were about to make contact with the Clerics, Adam made his way through the mages assisting the close range units. When the undeads were about to strike the mages, Adam jumped in between and sent the undeads flying with a swipe of his sword.


    At the same time, the unit that had been breached turned around, and pincer attacked the undeads with Adam. The undeads barelysted for half a minute before getting all killed.


    Adam looked at the Clerics, to check whether any of them had died, but was relieved to see there were none.


    Wars including NPCs were very different than yer wars. yers could die as many times as they wanted, they would be able to respawn. However, NPCs weren''t the same. Every single one of their unit was important, and that''s why they needed to lessen as much as possible their casualties.


    Adam also saw the Clerics were looking at him with gratitude, and devotion. He turned back toward the battlefield and jumped above the swordsman unit, into the enemy ranks.


    He headed for the nearest Ghoul, and began fighting it. However, as he was in the middle of his fight, he felt a sudden danger and quickly jumped away.


    A momentter, a spearnded where he had been with such force that half of it entered the ground. Adam first thought he had avoided the attack, but the moment the spearnded a wave of darkness sted out of the spear, and crashed into everything surrounding it, including Adam.


    He felt a disgusting energy enter his body and hurriedly used his Aura to suppress it and destroy it, and even though he was quick to do it, he was still damage. About 10% of his Aura had been consumed just to defend, and he had lost 7000 HP.


    When Adam finallynded on the ground, he used his sword to stop his body from going any further, and looked around him. Every undead in arge area had been hit by the energy, but they hadn''t been hurt. Instead, they looked stronger.


    Well, all except the Ghoul. The spear had actually hit it before touching the ground, and because Adam had already dealt considerable damage to it, it had been finished off by the spear itself before it could be healed by the dark wave of energy.


    But there was something else that bothered Adam, and that was the ck mes that had appeared. The dark wave that came out of the spear not only hurt him and healed the undead, it also left ck mes all around the area, which were healing the undead even further.


    Adam thought about what he could do, but before he could do anything arge figurended near the spear that had been thrown. He was dressed in a ck heavy armor that didn''t look as broken as the other undeads'', and the undead looked livelier than most undeads.


    He had hair and a beard, as well as some skin, but itcked any eyes. Instead, two blue lights were in his eye sockets. He was massive, but only about as massive as Adam himself, it was within human''s sizes.


    [Wight] (Elder, Level 70)


    HP: 3,000,000/3,000,000


    Adam had already guessed that this was themander of the army he was facing, not the grandmander of course, but the equivalent of Adam among the undead, the leader of the undeads between Level 50 and 70.


    Adam prepared himself for the fight, but was stunned when he heard the undead in front of him speak "I have seen you fight, you shall be a worthy opponent for me."


    The Wight''s voice was guttural, and quite scary. However, his words intrigued Adam. He asked "If I may ask, do you remember your life?"


    The Wight, unlike the other undeads, was capable of speech, and was intelligent. So, he answered "Some parts of it. Are you ready for our fight?"


    Adam approached the Wight, ignoring the mes licking his boots and dealing damage over time, and asked "Were you a Northman? If so, do you have any request for your corpse, once I deal with you?"


    The Wight grinned and said "Isn''t it a little arrogant of you, to already think your victory is granted?" Adam shrugged and said "Arrogance, or confidence, we shall see." Adam had to admit, the boss seemed, and felt, strong. However, if Adam was really pushed too far, he would have to activate his Berserk Skill, and his chances of winning during those ten seconds were high. At least, he thought so.


    The Wightughed and said "Well, I was indeed a Northman. My name is Holdir, and even if you do win, you do not have to worry about my body."


    Adam nodded and said "Then, let us fight. But first, let''s get rid of those annoying mes of yours." Adam stomped the ground, and using [Icy Stomp], the dark mes were extinguished, and the ground became icy. Unfortunately, his skill didn''t allow the ground to be slippery.


    Holdir was also hit by the wave of frost, which damaged him a little, but with a health bar as big as his, it was nothing to worry about.


    Holdir then grabbed his spear from the ground, effortlessly taking out of the earth, and took it with both his hands. Adam also readied his sword, and went for the attack, as always.


    He hurled his sword at Holdir with a downward sh, and the undeadmander attacked back with his spear. The sword and the spear shed, both coated in Aura, and in an instant they both understood who of them two was stronger, Holdir.


    Adam stepped back as his sword rebounded against the mighty spear, while Holdir quickly sent another stab at Adam. As it was about to pierce through him and impale his body on the spear, his sword mysteriously appeared in front of the spear, and nullified the damage by using [Parry].


    Moreover, only the damage had been nullified, which was usually the limit of this skill as although it would cancel the damage from an attack, if the difference in strength is too vast the one defending would still be knock backed.


    But in this case, Adam used this knock back effect created by the difference in their strength to move out of Holdir''s range.


    Once out of his reach, Adam looked at Holdir with a dangerous smile. Holdir was stronger than him, and it had been a long time since he had been searching for such an opponent. Holdir immediately followed with another attack, but this time Adam knew he was weaker in physical strength, so he used another strength of his.


    Holdir was quite skilled with his spear, but his skill with the spear was nothing in front of Adam. It was way weaker than the skill of someone like Searing Light, so for Adam it was easy to read the attacks and attack with his own sword art.


    As the minutes passed, Holdir grew frustrated. He was stronger and faster than Adam, but for some reason each and everyone of his attacks failed. He wasn''t really taking much damage himself, but it annoyed him.


    It wasn''t only his normal attacks, but even when he was using skills, Adam managed to redirect them, including the AOE skills.


    After ten minutes of fight though, Adam made a new discovery. Right as he redirected another of Holdir''s attacks, he shed at Holdir''s chest, leaving some damage. However, a flying sh exited his sword just before hitting Holdir.


    Both Adam and Holdir eyed the flying sh of blue Aura as it crashed into an undead twenty meters away from them, killing the poor skeleton in a single attack.


    [Congrattions for creating a new skill! Please name your skill!]


    Adam grinned, finally! He already knew of he wanted to name it.


    Flying sh (E): Creates apressed air de, allowing to attack at a long distance. Distance depends on the strength of the attack and the Aura consumed.

 Chapter 103: Siege of Neve Dorei (9)

    Chapter 103: Siege of Neve Dorei (9)


    Adamughed loudly, once again unconsciously activating his [Barbarous Roar] in his joy. He had managed to create his skill, finally!


    All this time he had tried to apply his Aura in different ways, and he had finally found how to rightfully circte his Aura. As it turned out, it wasn''t just his sword that needed to be involved, but his whole arm.


    At first he thought changing the way he was circting his Aura in his arm would cancel the effect of [Mighty Strike], but it didn''t! Instead, it was recreating the effect of [Mighty Strike] with different pathways.


    This opened a whole new set of possibilities to Adam for creating his skills, and this would serve him well in the future.


    Adam activated [Wind de] and frantically shed at Holdir from a distance. The flying shes crashed into Holdir, who didn''t have to put much effort to block them. However, everyone of them was still hurting him, and some of them also went past him to crash into the undeads behind him.


    This wasn''t just to kill undeads, but Adam was already working on the next part of his skill. For now, it was only an E Skill, the lowest rank in skills. As such, it''s effects were pretty basic, and the damage done wasn''t that big, only as big as a basic attack along with [Mighty Strike].


    To make [Flying sh] go from E Rank to D Rank, Adam had a good idea, and that was to multiply the amount of shes sent with an attack. Like that, he could do multiply by two, three or even four his damage.


    He already knew this was possible, because his [Lunar Smite] used this too. After losing a couple percents of his health to Adam''s shes, Holdir had enough and he jumped toward Adam to stop him. This opened his guard, allowing three shes to hit him in his unprotected chest, but he also managed to make Adam stop.


    The two began shing once again, and Adam had changed his fighting stylepared to earlier. Before, he was fighting slowly, but with great precision to redirect Holdir''s blows.


    However, this time Adam was striking as fast as he could, and was many times more aggressive than before, and even allowed himself to take a few hits.


    At the same time, they both heard explosions above them, and with a quick look they understood the end of the war was nearing. Above them, Liara and an undead had began fighting. More importantly, both of them were flying, something only achievable by Gold Ranks.


    Curious, Adam looked at the undeadmander''s status.


    [Superior Wight] (Elder, Chosen, Level 80)


    HP: 6,000,000/6,000,000


    Another few minutes went by, and the fight between the two wasing to an end. Adam was all bloody, his armor was shredded in multiple ces and the only thing that held it in ce was thin threads under the armor. He was also missing an ear, and his HP was below ten percent.


    As for Holdir, he was in a much better state. He had around 60% of his health left, and his armor was still in a fine state. However, he was missing three fingers on his left hand, which made his blows weaker than before.


    Adam quickly applied a special pomade he had bought a few days ago on his missing ear, gritting his teeth at the pain, and then used hisst healing charge from his Set armor, making his HP go back to above 25%.


    Holdir pointed his sword towards Adam''s throat, and said "You were definitely a powerful opponent, one of the strongest I ever fought. Unfortunately, in the end you weren''t powerful enough, and couldn''t deliver me from my state."


    Adam readied his sword, and said "I think you are the one getting arrogant, you still haven''t won. But you were definitely a powerful opponent, and I will never forget you But before we end this battle, tell me, what do you mean by delivering you?"


    Holdir seemed to struggle for a moment before he sighed and said "I guess there is no need to hide this from you. I never wanted to be an Undead, I wanted to go to Roskha and feast with Enya. But as I reached the gates of the Great Hall, my soul was sent back to this rotting body."


    Adam''s grip on his sword tightened as he asked "How could you be freed? And why don''t you do it yourself?"


    Holdir shook his head and said "You can''t free me, the only way for me to be freed would be for the one who rose me from the dead, and that would be the Chosen one who leads this great army. And the control he has over his minions, over us, is much bigger than you think. The weaker ones have be dumb to the point they can only follow orders. The only reason I was able to keep my mind is because I was stronger than him when I was alive?"


    Adam raised an eyebrow and asked "Were you? Tell me, Holdir, how strong were you?" Holdir smiled as he replied "You arrogant brat, I was known as Holdir, the Merciful Pdin. I used to be a Hero, but that was a long time ago. Now, let''s finish this fight. Send my regards to Roskha."


    Adam grinned and prepared himself to finish this fight. Holdir did the same, and pointed his sword toward Adam''s neck. As the two were about to pounce on each other though, a huge change took ce.


    Until now, the three battlefields were going fairly well for the living. The yers were dominating the undeads below Level 50, Searing Light, as a Mage Sovereign, was even stronger against crowds than Adam.


    For the battlefield above Level 70, both sides had suffered, but none of the leading Level 100 had died. As for Adam''s battlefield, it was the most tense, and although Adam''s side had the upper hand for now, if he were to be defeated by Holdir then they would most certainly lose.


    As for the most important fight, the one taking ce in the sky, both the Superior Wight and Governor Liara had taken damage, and their magic shield were in a bad state.


    But it was at this moment that something unexpected. All the leaders of the noble families suddenly fired powerful spells at Liara''s back, taking her by surprise. Fire, Wind, Lightning and Ice mixed into a catastrophic spell that hided Liara from everyone''s sight.


    This stunned the living army, who looked up in despair. They had been betrayed, and they would soon be forced to join the undead because of this.


    The big ball of mixed elements in the sky disappeared, and everyone saw Liara. Surprisingly, she wasn''t dead. But she had deep wounds all over her body, and after a moment she said with a weak voice "Flee"


    Her voice was weak, but she seemingly used thest bit of mana she had to make it loud enough for everyone to hear. Then, when she had said what she had to say, she closed her eyes, and no one knew whether she was still alive or not.


    The army was silent as she fell from the sky, and when she was about to crash into a spot that wasn''t far from where Adam was, Tiarsus appeared near her and caught her. But as soon as he caught her he began speeding toward the city.


    The soldiers panicked and also began retreating, while the undead and the traitors killed as many as they could. Adam could see Holdir clench his teeth in fury in front of him, he said "Damn them all, using such trickery."


    Adam squinted his eyes and said "This is not over. NOT UNTIL I DIE!"


    Adam tried his best to slow down the undead army, but there were too many of them. At the same time, the soldiers had their backs against the ramparts, but they couldn''t get in the city, not all of them, the gates were not big enough.


    And to make everything even worse, the Superior Wight flew over the army and used a spell against those who fled inside the city, instantly killing them. Right then, was the moment they knew they had lost.


    What remained of the army looked at the approaching undead army, resigned, and they dropped their weapons. Even Tiarsus, who had ced Tiara against a wall, had dropped his weapon. Those were Elves and Foxkin, not Northmen. They had a different culture, and they would rather surrender than fight to the death.


    Even the yers were the same, they knew they had lost. And in this game, although they could revive, they could still feel pain, and death wasn''t a pleasant feeling. It hurt, to be pierced through by a sword. A lot.


    That''s why, everything should have been over. The undead should have already won, and the first step of the Superior Wight''s ns should have been achieved.


    Well, that would have been the case, if it were not for a stubborn, and furious, Northman, who was the only one who still had his weapon in hand.

 Chapter 104: Siege of Neve Dorei (10)

    Chapter 104: Siege of Neve Dorei (10)


    The Superior Wightnded in front of his army and made them stop. The hundreds of thousands of undeads left looked at the survivors who had dropped their weapons with no emotions. They just stood there, waiting for their next orders.


    Well, except for the three Elder Rank monster, Holdir, the Superior Wight and the Level 100 Elder Tiarsus had been fighting. Only the three of them were looking at Adam.


    Holdir was looking at him with pity, but the other two with ridicule. In their eyes, this was just an ant they needed to crush.


    But the Superior Wight stopped caring about Adam, seeing he wasn''t attacking. Instead, he said with a much clearer voice than any other undead "Surrender, there is no way for you to live. Yourmander has already been defeated, and your strongest warriors are already on my side."


    As he said that, the heads of the different ns walked next to the boss. They stood in line and yelled "nsmen,e stand with us!"


    Many looked hesitant, but the vast majority of the members of those ns came forward. Only a few brave ones decided not to go. They knew that joining the undeads would mean eternal life, but was it truly worth it if they had to be abominations?


    They decided to stay behind, in case a miracle were to happen. And even if there weren''t any miracle, they would rather kill themselves. Now the question was, would they be strong enough to actually do it when the moment came?


    As for Adam, he was looking at the elves and Foxkin with despise, by now he had truly embraced his new identity as a Northman, and was more and more acting like one. In his eyes, this new identity was just so much better than his previous self.


    The Superior Wight finally looked back at Adam and asked "Why don''t you put down your weapon? Do you actually think you can win? You are a fine warrior, that''s for sure, but not that great."


    Adam sneered and replied "Who knows, maybe I still have something for you." The Superior Wight rolled his eyes and said "Don''t be stupid, you will die a pointless death. Why don''t you join me instead? You shall make a fine warrior, in no time you will be my greatest general! Together, we could rule the world!"


    Adam had both his hands on his sword''s handle, and said as he looked backwards "Why would I do that, I''m sure I can rule the world on my own. But let me help you, I can teach you a very important lesson today."


    The Superior Wight gritted his teeth, he was absolutely furious, and the Level 100 Elder was about to attack. But the Superior Wight stopped him, and said "You arrogant Northman, I really want to see what you can teach me."


    Adam readied his sword as he said "There are two things actually. First, never underestimate your opponent, they might just be strong enough to kill you. Secondly, raw power alone isn''t enough to win a fight."


    He walked toward the three undeads, and only stopped when he was exactly 14 meters away from them. He then activated both [Totemic Rage] and his set''s berserk skill, shocking everyone present.


    They already expected him to have a berserk skill, he was a berserker after all. However, he should have never received such a huge boost in strength.


    Because of the shock from Adam''s new strength, the three undeads didn''t feel the ground below them tremble, and when they saw ck shadows head toward them, it was toote.


    Eight spears appeared all around the three undead, and before they could protect themselves they were impaled by the spears. Only the Superior Wight had had the time to activate a shield, but it didn''t help in the end. His shield had already been badly damaged in his earlier fight, so the spears just impaled him too.


    As for those spears, they weren''t actually spears, but they were Neith''s legs. While Adam had been talking to the undead, Neith was hidden underground. When he used his berserk skills, he used them to distract the undeads.


    Meanwhile, Neith was right below them, her upside down. She also had activated her Berserk skill, as well as several other skills that made the undeads unable to move, and also lowered their defenses by a lot.


    Now, the three leaders of the undead were impaled by the legs, and they were stuck to each other as all the tips of Neith''s legs joined on their tip.


    The three frantically tried to move, especially the Superior Wright. Despite being the strongest being on this battlefield, he was the most vulnerable of the three. Holdir was a Pdin, and the Level 100 Elder Undead was a swordsman, both were physical sses.


    However, the Superior Wight was a mage, and as such he was weak in close range. If he didn''t have ess to his mana, he was literally a sitting target.


    But the three barely had the time to do anything when a sword appeared before them. Adam had activated both [Misty Escape] and [Whirlwind sh], boosting his already boosted agility to the point he crossed those ten meters in an instant.


    His sword crashed against the three undeads, hitting them all in the chest.


    -90 000 HP! (*3)


    Then, they also received damage from being in contact with Adam as he was in his vapor form, dealing an additional 60 000 damage.


    They barely received those damages that Adam had already struck again, [Wind de] was already activated, and this time he used [Mighty Strike] and [Lunar Smite]. Had they really been fighting, it would be hard to even hit them, but because they couldn''t move, he was able to hit the throat of the three of them with this powerful attack.


    Critical Hit! -416 000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -416 000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -416 000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -416 000 HP!


    Holdir, the Level 100 Elder and the Superior Wight all had 60% of their health left when they arrived. Also, they respectively had 3 million, 5 millions and 12 millions health points in total.


    Hence, when they stood in front of Adam, they respectively had 1.8 million, 3 million and 3.6 Millions. When Neith impaled them with her legs, they all lost 1.2 million HP. With berserk skill on as well as all of her skills, each of her legs could deal 150k damage each, and all three had been hit by all eight legs.


    Then, Adam''s first attack took off 120 000 HP from them, followed by [Lunar Smite] that dealt 1.6 Million damage. This was thanks to the Critical Hits of course, as he was hitting weak points.


    By the end of Adam''s attack, Holdir was dead, his head flying in the sky, and the Level 100 Elder was about to die as he only had 80 000 HP left. As for the Superior Wight, he had 680 000 HP left, but he had been affected by the rare freezing effect that lowered his agility by 30%.


    The Superior Wight wanted to speak, but he barely opened his mouth when Adam''s boot hit his jaw, breaking it and knocking off all his teeth. But a frost shockwave also appeared,ing from the activation of [Icy Stomp].


    Critical Hit! -600 000HP!


    -300 000 HP!


    The Level 100 Elder Undead was finished by this attack, left to transform into an ice sculpture. The Superior Wight had suffered a critical hit because the frost shockwave was in his mouth, and instead of hitting the outside of his body, it turned everything inside him into ice.


    But the two weren''t the only ones hit. The moment Adam had started attacking, the undead troops behind had started rushing toward Adam, and this time they were all stuck to each other. Hundreds of undeads turned into ice sculptures too, and the few Ghouls that survived were too slow to approach anymore.


    Now with only 80k HP left, the Superior Wight wasn''t much of a threat anymore, especially since he was immobilized, but Adam didn''t want to leave him any chance. Maybe he would only deliver a final clich viin threat, but maybe he would also activate a skill simr to Adam''s Ecdysis, that would allow the user to recover to 100%.


    That''s why, the teeth from the Superior Wight that were knocked out of his mouth didn''t even have the time tond on the ground that Adam pierced his sword through the Superior Wight''s forehead, killing him.


    Critical Hit! -100 000 HP!

 Chapter 105: Siege of Neve Dorei (End)

    Chapter 105: Siege of Neve Dorei (End)


    With the three big bosses dead, the whole atmosphere changed. The elves and Foxkin who betrayed the city now looked panicked, while the ones who had given up hope, started taking up their weapons.


    Adam didn''t pay much attention to them though, he still had things to do. First, he picked all the loot from the three bosses, with such speed that he didn''t even see clearly what he got. But since it was now in his inventory, they wouldn''t disappear, unless he died, but even if he did he would need some real bad luck for one of them to drop.


    Once he had grabbed everything, Adam and Neith both jumped toward the family heads, the traitors. They were quite strong themselves, and they wouldn''t ept their death like that. The seven of them were absolutely stronger than Adam and Neithbined, even with their berserk skills.


    However, as they were about to attack, they were suddenly attacked themselves. A big dark cloud appeared above them, filled with lightning. The ground under them turned intova, burning them, and was then transformed into ava whirlpool, immobilizing them. Then, an icy wind hit the upper part of their body.


    They put up shield, to protect themselves, but then seven thick lightning bolts fell from the cloud, destroying their shields in a single strike. They tried to put a second shield, but before they could a sword appeared before their neck, decapitating them.


    The mages who had attacked were Searing Light and three of his Elders, who were SS sses. As for the sword, it was of course from Tiarsus. Adam noticed Tiarsus was much faster than before though, and he killed the seven mages with such simplicity It looked like the elven swordsman had opened the Gate of Limit during this battle.


    Everyone wanted to cheer, but there were still the undead that needed to be taken care of. Adam raised his sword for all to see, coating it with his blue Aura, and used [Barbarous Roar] to say "Retreat in the city!"


    The soldiers, who had regained hope, were confused. They had killed the leaders, now killing the minions would be simple. However, in their mind Adam had already be their leaders, and so they headed to his words without a word.


    Every yers and NPCs rushed into the city, except for those who had betrayed the living of course. The undeads chased after them, but Adam ordered the mages to slow them down.


    It took five minutes for everyone to get in the city, but they were, Adam climbed on top of the ramparts and ordered for the cannons and towers to finish the job.


    The cannons and magical towers were defending tools that could deal arge amount of damage over a very big area. Moreover, the cannons here were especially powerful because of the position of the city.


    However, they were only usable in the beginning of the fight, since after that the attackers and defenders would be mixed, and any cannon shot would kill as many allies as enemies.


    But now, they were facing undeads whosest order was to kill Adam, and so they tried to do that. They were attacking the walls of the city, forming an enormous crowd of densely packed undeads.


    So when they started firing the cannons, they were literally wiping out thousands of undeads with every shot, and so in barely five minutes all the undeads had been wiped out.


    In the end, there only remained a few hundreds of undeads that were stuck to the wall, they were too close to be hit by the cannons, but Adam brought several mages on the ramparts, and thest undeads were wiped out. As for the traitors, they hadn''t been able to flee fast enough, and they were killed alongside with the undeads.


    When thest undeads were killed off, everyone heard a loud sound, and received a notification.


    [Congrattions for defending Neve Dorei against the undead army! You havepleted the City Quest ''Siege of Neve Dorei''!]


    The army, be it yers or NPCs, raised their fist in the air and cheered. This was over. This was finally over. However, among the cheers, a few voices rose, and instead of cheering, they were chanting a name.


    Before long, the whole army was chanting the same name. "VALIANT HEART! VALIANT HEART! VALIANT HEART!"


    The sound they made was so powerful that it could be heard from kilometers away, and anyone hearing them could hear their euphoria.


    As they were chanting though, a strange phenomenon appeared. Outside the city, the corpses and ashes of the undeads lit up with a silver light, and after a moment grey ghosts appeared above the corpses of the defeated army.


    The golden ghost rose in the sky, and the army finally saw the strange event. They lost their voices, amazed by what they saw.


    The ghosts rose higher and higher, before vortexes appeared above them. Soon, all the ghosts had disappeared, and so did the vortexes. However, as they thought the phenomenon was over, an ethereal voice echoed through the entire city "I, Strith, Son of Skymother Enya and Norse God of War, name Valiant Heart my Champion!"


    A golden light descended from the sky onto Adam, bathing him in it. The temporary weakness from using his Berserk Skill disappeared, making him recover back to 100%. But that was only the beginning of the change. He felt something invade his mind, which he guessed was the God of War himself.


    After a moment, he received a lot of information, too much for him to understand. He would have to digest itter. He thought it was over, but a parchment appeared in front of him, before forcefully entering his inventory, shocking him. He didn''t know you could force something in an inventory. Then, was it possible to force something out?


    The light then began disappearing, returning the city to its calm. Then, Adam received other notifications.


    [You have received the title ''Strith''s Champion''! Do you wish to equip it?]


    Strith''s Champion: Reputation set to Exalted in all the territories of the Colnds Empire. Damage against enemies boosted by 50%. Anyone under yourmand will receive a 10% boost to their attributes in a battle.


    Seeing its effects, Adam immediately epted. This was probably one of the best titles in the whole game.


    Once he epted, another notification appeared.


    [You have ranked first in both individual and party achievements! Rewards: Worshiped Reputation in Neve Dorei, +6 levels, +150 AP, 100 Gold, +1 B Rank Skill.]


    Adam instantly took two levels, pushing him to Level 32. He had already leveled up to Level 29 during the fights, and killing the three bosses at once, which were so much higher leveled than him, made him reach Level 30. So those 6 levels were transformed into two levels, making him Level 32.


    The 150 AP turned into 750, and the Gold and Skill were pushed into his inventory. Adam didn''t look at them directly, but instead prepared himself to go. This was a nice battle, but he still had to go to Buwog, this was his original intention after all.


    But before he could jump off the rampart, Tiarsus approached him and said "Thank you, you saved us all." Adam waved his hand and said "I already got a lot of rewards, don''t bother thanking me."


    Tiarsus shook his head and said "I still have to thank you. But I won''t take much more of your time, I have my promotion quest waiting for me. Farewell, Sovereign."


    Adam nodded to him and jumped off the ramparts. Meanwhile, some distance away, Searing Light was looking at Adam with a smile. One of the elders of his guilds approached him and said "He is quite amazing, this first Sovereign of ours."


    Searing Lightughed and said "Those old fools feared this young man wouldn''t be up to the task In the future, the whole of humanity will rest on his shoulders, and I think he is more than ready. Don''t you think so?"


    The elder, who was an older woman, chuckled and said "Maybe."

 Chapter 106: Into the Mirage Desert

    Chapter 106: Into the Mirage Desert


    Outside the walls, Adam was already walking toward the desert. He had only begun his trip, and the journey would be long, so he had no time to lose.


    The Mirage Desert was the biggest desert in the world, and it would take him the whole day to even get to the closest city. Of course, there would be a few oasis on the way, but he didn''t want to waste time so he wouldn''t stop at any of them if he didn''t need to.


    Once Adam reached the desert, he looked back toward the distant Neve Dorei, and checking no one was there, he took a step in the sand. At the same time, he finally checked what he had gotten from the bosses and the event itself.


    What first came to his eyes was the skill book, a B Rank Skill he had gotten because he ranked first in contribution. Without any further ado, he took the book in hand, and inspected it.


    Great Ice Breath (B): Breath out a wind so cold everything it touches is turned into ice. Deals 140% of frost damage to every opponent within 5 meters. Surfaces hit by the cold breath be slippery. Cooldown: 30 minutes.


    Adam took this as an enhanced version of the Ice Breath, the equivalent of the Fire Breath he got on Arda''s Amulet in the past. This would be a powerful skill in the future.


    Adam learned the skill, and as the skill books turned into ashes he turned back to his inventory. Multiple equipments and resources had dropped from the bosses, as well as several potions.


    Among everything he had picked, three pieces of equipment really stood out, and interested him.


    [Corroded Staff of the Undead] (Unique, Level 80)


    Requirements: Mage ss, 800 Intelligence, 800 Wisdom.


    Intelligence, Wisdom: +5000


    Agility, Strength, Endurance: +3000


    Death Empowerment: Drain the power from a nearby corpse to boost your or one of your allies'' strength. Cooldown: 10 minutes.


    Death Swamp: Turns the surrounding 50 meters into a swamp of death. Deal 100% of your normal damage to all enemies in the swamp, and reduces their Agility by 50%. Cooldown: 1 Hour.


    [Mace of the Merciful Pdin] (Exceptional, Level 70)


    Requirements: 300 Strength, 200 Intelligence, Physical ss


    Attack: +11000


    Strength: +2400


    Wisdom, Endurance: +1200


    Merciful Light: Brings down a holy light around the caster, healing allies and burning enemies. Damage and healing are at 100% of the caster''s Wisdom. Cooldown: 30 minutes.


    Blessing of the Light: All targets have their Strength boosted by 20%. Up to five targets. Cooldown: 10 minutes.


    [Moonstone Boots] (Unique, Level 100)


    Requirements: 1000 Strength, 1000 Agility, Physical ss


    Strength: +7000


    Agility: +7000


    Grace of the Moon: Ignore gravity for ten seconds. Cooldown: 10 minutes.


    Moon Presence: Make an illusory moon appear above you. None of your enemies shall hide under the moonlight. Cooldown: 1 Hour.


    He had been quite lucky, getting two Unique Equipments. Well, the Corroded Staff of the Undead was to be expected, after all he had killed a Chosen Elder, but the Moonstone Boots were really a lucky pick.


    Moreover, he would have to give the Staff to someone, or sell it, but he would be able to use the Boots in the future.


    But as he looked at the Mace he got, he felt somewhat bad, Holdir had been a brave warrior. He took it out of his inventory to take a good look at it, but was surprised by the notification he got.


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Lost Legacy''!]


    Quest Detail: You have found the weapon left by a powerful expert, whose disappearance has left his n in turmoil.


    Quest Level: 70


    Quest Difficulty: B


    Objective: Bring this mace to the n of Holdir the Merciful Pdin.


    Reward: ??


    The B Difficulty was intriguing, but Adam decided he wouldplete this quest after he gets his armor made.


    While Adam was examining the mace, Neith, whom he had summoned, stopped for a moment, and sand rose in the air.


    Adam put the mace back in his inventory and looked down. Neith had impaled a five meters long worm with one of her legs, and it was wriggling under her, trying to escape underground.


    Neith said mentally ''It''s blood is venomous, but it''s nothingpared to my own venom.'' Adam smiled and inspected the worm.


    [Desert Worm] (Elite, Level 70)


    HP: 30000/50000


    Neith was about to finish it, but Adam told her ''Don''t, I want to see something.''


    Neith nodded and stopped herself. Meanwhile, Adam punched toward the worm. A fist of blue light exited his fist, and struck the worm.


    -22000 HP!


    Just now, all Adam had done was to use [Mighty Strike] on his fist, and also apply [Flying sh]. As it turned out, he didn''t necessarily had to use his sword to attack at distance, any of his basic attacks could now strike at a distance.


    Moreover, the damage was quite good, partly due to his new title. He patted Neith and asked her ''Are you interested by this skill? I could try to teach you.''


    Neith snorted ''I don''t need it, I can just do that.'' She threw the worm in the air, and as it was about tond ten meters away a spear of sand appeared under it, impaling the worm and killing it on the spot.


    This surprised Adam who said ''I thought your skill allowed you to create earth spear, not sand.'' Neith replied ''I''m not restrained to earth or sand, as long as it is rted to earth then I can use it. If we were on a mountain then it would be a rock spear.''


    Adam asked ''Do they differ in power?'' Neith replied ''They don''t. My Aura make them as strong as each other. So I don''t need your skill to strike from a distance, this is more than enough.''


    Adam asked ''What if the enemy is above?'' Just as he said that another sand spear appeared before them, but this one was much bigger than thest one. Moreover, it left the ground and flew in the air, going more than twenty meters in the air before dissipating. Adam nodded and said ''I''ll shut up.''


    Adam was feeling quite hot because of his armor, but he still took this opportunity to meditate and look at the final reward he got from this battle, the information put in his mind by the God of War.


    When he decided to unlock the knowledge hidden in his mind, he suddenly felt a mild headache, due to how much information he got all of a sudden. This was quite shocking as his soul was more powerful than other humans, and so if a normal person had received this the pain would be much more.


    But even more shocking was, how could something in game provoke a headache? Just what was this game?


    Adam focused back on what had been inserted in his mind, and he was shocked by what he saw. Information about cultivation had appeared in his mind, lots of it, along with a message.


    ''My mother saw potential in you, and I must say today''s battle was quite impressive, so I decided to make you my champion. Also, it was rude of my to read your memories, but I had to if I wanted to give you a good gift. As it seems, cultivation in your world is different from ours, and your need cultivation techniques. I would have dly given you one, but there is no better method than the ones we create, so I have you the knowledge to create your own technique. Good luck on your journey, and grow strong, Adam Collins.''


    Wh What What the fuck?!

 Chapter 107: Knowledge

    Chapter 107: Knowledge


    So what did he just read? Thought? Saw? Well, what was that message? Was that a prank from one of the developers?


    How could that god, know so much? Had it really read his mind? How could this be possible?


    Well, he had sessfully added knowledge to his brain, so maybe reading wasn''t much harder. But even then, this was a god damned game! He was supposed to have fun, get money and enjoy the game.


    Adam cursed Strith in his mind, what kind of asshole was that god to only tell him this much? This was only living with questions. Moreover, Adam didn''t know how, but he was quite sure Strith knew this would puzzle him, as he could almost hear his damnughter in the message.


    But he still hesitated a little to curse, that was a god, with unknown knowledge, and who was able to scan through his memories Fuck him, he was an asshole.


    But as much of an asshole he was, what he gifted Adam was very convenient. Of course, he would test everything he had just learned before dumbly applying it, the god didn''t seem to be hostile, but who knows, a being capable of reading his thoughts and memories effortlessly could hide his hostility from him.


    Adam coursed through all the knowledge he had gotten, he didn''t go in full detail of course, there was too much for him to do so, but he was still able to get familiar with what he received.


    And it was even better than he thought. What he had received was a guide to meridians and how they worked, exining the thousands of uses every one of them had, and what thebinations would result in.


    There was so much information, this couldn''t have possibly been found by a single human. Even if a man were to spend his entire life searching the meridians, assuming he works from ten years old to one hundred, even those ny years wouldn''t be enough to get everything he had just gotten.


    Hepared what he had learned by himself with what he had received, and now understood how shallow his knowledge had been. What he learned was right, of course, but mostly iplete.


    But this was only subpar to the second thing he discovered. This knowledge, about the meridians, couldn''t just be used to create a cultivation technique. It would also allow him to master and even create skills of his own way more easily.


    For example, if he had this knowledge before fighting this battle of Neve Dorei then he would have mastered Flying sh in a matter of minutes.


    And even to enhance the skill, if what he had received was right, then he would be able to get those multiple des, and do much more.


    He shook his head, this was really a great gift, if what he had received was true. But there was something on his mind, about the attack. He had once again stopped an undead attack, would that Aemon''s Cult be made at him for once again foiling their ns?


    Meh, probably not. He dismissed the idea and began experimenting with what he been put in his mind. What he didn''t know was that in some dark cave deep underground, in an unknown location, Lin, the Cult Leader of Aemon''s Cult, was watching a recording of the battle through a crystal.


    A few minutester, every member of the cult in the underground base began trembling in fear, and so did the caves. One of the older members said to his fellow cultist "What do you think angered the Cult Leader so much? If he continues he will bury us all."


    The other cultist replied "Who knows That would really be a sad way to die. But well, I guess we would be reborn into undeads. Miner Undeads, trapped in mines for the rest of eternity, ving away for the powerful"


    He was pped behind the head by the old cultists who looked at him weirdly and asked "What the fuck is wrong with you?"


    Back to the Mirage Desert, Neith could feel Adam''s mind, and the emotions he was going through. At first she was worried, because of the pain, but then she sighed when she felt the confusion and happiness.


    She felt like he was acting like a child, changing emotions so quick. Nheless, since he was okay, and so absorbed in his meditation that he didn''t notice she had stopped, she decided to continue advancing in the desert.


    There were a lot of monsters in this desert, she had already killed tens of them in about a dozen minutes in this ce, and they were getting stronger.


    Adam had showed her the map of the desert, and the path they had to take to encounter the lowest leveled monsters. But even then, the level of the monsters she was facing had now risen to 75, and it was still going higher.


    For the low rank ones, such as the Elites and Chieftains, they weren''t much of a problem. However, she had encountered a Level 75 Lord.


    Had it been before the Siege of Neve Dorei, it would have been hard to kill the monster without waking Adam up from his meditation, but thankfully Adam wasn''t the only one who had gained from the fight.


    She had secretly eaten the bodies of the three big bosses, as well as those Level 100 Elves and Foxkin. The living were old men and women, and the bosses were undeads, so the meat didn''t taste very well. However, because she was a monster, this allowed her to level up a few times, and reach Level 40.


    Even though her power growth in the Bronze Realm wasn''t as big as Adam''s, since he was a Sovereign and just opened the 3rd Gate, as a Chosen her growth was always bigger than others, so those seven levels she got made her much stronger.


    She had been Level 33 before the battle, and eating all those high levels had allowed her to reach a new peak of strength, one powerful enough to crush this Lord.


    Since she had been picked up by Adam, she had grown a bit, and now was 15 meters tall. As for this Level 75 Lord, it was a ten meters tall Scorpion which looked impressive.


    However, looking impressive wasn''t enough. The main weapon of this scorpion was its poison, which was rendered useless against Neith. Actually, this was a very good environment for her, because her venom, although she rarely used it, was very powerful, and thus her resistance was high too, too high for those monsters.


    Since it''s main weapon was useless, the scorpion had wanted to flee, but it''s second best asset, it''s hard shell, was rendered useless too. After Adam killed the three bosses and she jumped toward the bosses, she saw the spells used against them.


    One of them turned the ground into a Lava Whirlpool, but it wasn''t a single spell. Instead, one had turned the surface of the ground intova, and a second mage had turned the earth below theva into a whirlpool, creating abined spell, the Lava Whirlpool. Of course it was possible for a single mage to create a Lava Whirlpool with a single spell, but this wasn''t the point.


    This spell had awakened something in her, something that came from her bloodline. A skill, Earth Swallower. This was an enhanced version of the whirlpool, which would create a much bigger and powerful whirlpool. Moreover, the edges of the whirlpool would turn into des, meaning that if one wanted to get out of the Whirlpool, they would literally have to crawl on des.


    And she had done just that with that Lord. The ground under it had suddenly dropped by five meters, creating a cone in the earth, with the sand rolling down in the center. When it had tried to get out, its legs were met with sharp sand sword, their des rotating in circr like a saw.


    Meanwhile, Neith was chuckling with her weird spider voice, looking down at the poor Scorpion.


    While it was suffering, Adam had been awakened from his meditation, because he felt the sadistic feelings of Neith, but when he saw the scene that seemed to be straight out of a horror movie, he decided to just shut up and go back to meditation, making a silent oath he would never piss her off.

 Chapter 108: Head Chief

    Chapter 108: Head Chief


    As the hours passed, Adam meditated for the whole time, circting his Aura through his meridians following what he had learned. When the sun began disappearing, and the cold night slowly approached, Adam had the time to test many of the knowledge he got.


    It would take more than a man''s life to find everything he had found, but simply testing it took much less time. In this half day, Adam had managed to test more than a couple thousand of thebinations between meridians, as well as their individual use.


    And for now, everything he had tested was true, so it looked like what had been inserted in his mind was true. Adam decided he would trust the god, he didn''t want to waste too much time testing those. Even though testing was less time consuming than researching, it would still take months or years to test everything out.


    Until now he had randomly picked everything he tested, and so for him not to fall on even a single wrong one, the chances were that this god''s intentions were indeed good.


    So now he had to create his cultivation technique, which he would make the best possible, with what he knew, but not for now. Since the night wasing, they would need to stop somewhere, and for him to log out.


    The Mirage Desert was very dangerous at night, not only because of the monsters who became more active and stronger, but also because of how cold the night was.


    Of course, the cold wasn''t a problem for Adam, he was a Northman, and as the Aqua Sovereign, so he wasn''t afraid of the cold. But he didn''t want to face the monsters at night, so he needed to log off.


    But as he opened the system, he suddenly received a notification.


    [Salutations, yers. The system will now receive it''s first patch. The update will take 60 minutes in the real world, during which the game will be unavable. For those in the middle of important quests, the time within Epoch will be stopped for those 60 minutes. We advise you to connect back in the game as soon as the update is over, or you might miss something important. The update will begin in ten minutes.]


    Adam was d it came right now, although he was curious as to why they would advise to connect straight back when the update was over. Well, he would first eat, and if by the time the update is over he has finished eating, he would go see what the game had for him.


    Adam patted Neith and asked her to check if there were any enemies hiding in the sand, and confirming they were alone, he put her in his Pet Space and logged out.


    Once out of the cabin, he stretched a little before joining his parents in the living room. As his mother cooked, Adam sat in front of the TV with his dad, and they listened to the end of Elizabeth''s story about her job.


    "You know, today the boss chose the new Head Chef." Just from her expression, Adam already knew what she was going to say, but he wouldn''t take away the pleasure. So, he asked "Really? Did you get it?"


    Her smile widened so much it looked like her cheeks were about to tear open, and she said "The new Head Chef of the Orchid is cooking for you tonight!"


    Adam smiled at her and said "Congrattions mom, you deserve it, you worked hard for the job."


    She nodded, but after a moment her smile slowly receded as she said "Although I would like to say it was only because of my talent as a cook, I would be lying to myself. Although they didn''t say anything, my coworkers know about you, I heard them already."


    Adam sighed and asked "You think he took you for the job because of me?"


    She nodded once again and said "I don''t think so, I''m sure. Since that incident, the boss'' sister has been mad at him, and there has been talks of closing the restaurant just to lessen that French business man''s anger. But both his sister''s and the French guy''spanies are involved in the game, Epoch, and I think that they business was initially about the game. Maybe he hopes that having the mother of the famous Valiant Heart would save the restaurant."


    Adam said after a few seconds "I can have money now, a lot of it, if I want. If I didn''t know you weren''t interested I would propose you to quit your job, but that''s not it, right?"


    She smiled and said "Indeed. I like my job, and I would feel useless sitting at home all day, doing nothing. All I want is to cook, and earn what I deserve."


    Jean, who had stayed quiet until now, said "It is going to be impossible now, Adam has already be a worldwide celebrity. His normal life is over, and so is ours."


    Adam looked down and said "Sorry for that"


    However, his mother threw the wooden spoon she was using at him, which was still hot, and she said "Don''t be sorry, it''s great you idiot!"


    Adam smiled, he knew his parents would prefer a tranquil, normal life, with no one to bother them, but he also knew that they were proud of him, and that for them, his feelings were far more important than their own, they would never dare to drag their son down just for their own sake.


    And so would any parent, Adam knew it. Even if he didn''t have a child yet, he knew that the day he would be a father, that child would take all his love, and be the most important thing in the world.


    This belief came from his parents, who had taught him this. Actually, he remembered about something he had asked them when he was younger, when he learned his mother was pregnant and he would get a sibling.


    As he had already been told by his parents that all their love went for him, he had wondered, would they like him less than after his sibling was born.


    And the answer they gave him marked him, and he remembered it to this day. Love wasn''t quantifiable, your first child would take all your love, for sure, but you would like your second born as much as the first, and the same was true for all the others that could follow.


    Your love for your first child wouldn''t be split in half, you would just create more love, to love your next child as much as those before. That''s why, love wasn''t quantifiable.


    But enough philosophy for now, Adam had to eat, and he was quite famished. He couldn''t help but notice though that as they ate, the atmosphere was much heavier than usual, his parents'' muscles were crisp. Didn''t he know the reason, he would think his father was trying to flex.


    However, as they were in the middle of their meal, his mother''s phone rang, and she dropped her cutlery in her te as she immediately picked up her phone.


    She epted the call, and put the phone next to her ear. Adam focused his senses, easily picking up the caller''s words. Normally, he should have been able to memorize the entire conversation by listening only once.


    However, by the end of the conversation, when his mother put down her phone, Adam could only remember a few words.


    Ma''am, your son has made a sessful recovery.

 Chapter 109: Oruis Oasis

    Chapter 109: Orui''s Oasis


    When Adam got back in his room, he was still stunned, processing what happened was hard. Although the chances of recover were high, they were 100% sure, there was still a chance that it had been toote, and recovery was impossible for his brother.


    They had been expecting the call, which was why they were so tensed, but now that Matthew''s recovery was assured, thest burden disappeared, and he could now truly rx, and nothing held him back anymore.


    When he checked the time, he saw he still had ten minutes before the end of the patch, so he decided to wait until then. Adam meditated in the meanwhile, forcing himself back to a calmer state.


    After ten minutes, Adam entered his cabin, curious about what the new update would bring to the game.


    When Adam actually entered the game, he looked around, trying to find any difference with before, but he couldn''t see any. He also looked at his attributes, his status page, but nothing had changed from chat he could see. Since he was unable to find any difference, and he couldn''t see any kind of surprise, he wanted to log out.


    But when he clicked on the button, he received a warning, and once he read it, his face became cloudy. Those fuckers.


    Adam, like many other yers, found this ''surprise'', they had been trolled by the game developers. They also found one of the things changed by the patch.


    [Be careful of where you log out, as your avatar will sleep where you logged out. Find a safe ce to sleep at, or you might get eaten by monsters.]


    Because people had wanted their surprise, they had logged in, and everyone, like Adam, who was in a dangerous location, wanted to curse at the developers. Adam closed his system with a sigh and summoned Neith. They would have to find an oasis, and sleep there.


    This was actually a good update for the game''s realism, but it would make the game much harder, and probably lengthen the gaming session of many yers.


    Neith was surprised when she was summoned by Adam, but he quickly exined to her why they would be traveling at night. Of course, he reced every gaming term with otherworlder stuff, for example it wasn''t the game having an update, but the gods that sent him here changed their ways.


    Well, it didn''t really matter much in the end, as the NPCs and monsters seemed to be unable to understand anything rted to a mention of a video game, yers had already tried to tell the NPCs they were just that, NPCs within a game, but the NPCs were hearing different things, the yer''s speech would be transformed in their ears.


    Anyway, Adam was quite lucky. Only an hour after setting out, he saw a settlement in the distance, and as he approached he confirmed this was an oasis.


    Neith and him strode toward the entrance of the vige, a group of six orcs approached him and Neith. When they saw his face, Adam saw them tense a little, but the leading orc still said with a rather neutral voice "Are you perhaps in search of a shelter for the night?"


    Adam nodded and jumped from Neith''s back,nding in front of the Orc. Orcs had a rather simr build to Northmen, except that their skin was greenish, and they had a lot less of hair.


    Actually, orcs were depicted as really ugly in most games and movies, but in Epoch they didn''t differ too much from human standards, and many orcs were quite attractive.


    Adam said to the leader "Do you wee strangers? Northmen in particr?"


    The leading orc replied "As long as you don''t cause any trouble, then you can stay. It won''t be free of course."


    Adam grinned and said "Good, as long as you don''t try to rip me off then I will leave as soon as I have slept"


    The orc seemed to hesitate a little before he said "I''m not sure you will want to sleep though. Don''t you know where you are?"


    Adam shook his head and said "No idea. I found this ce by ident, I was just searching for a roof for the night." This seemed to shock the orcs, and one of them even said "Liar! You can''t have found this ce by yourself!"


    Adam looked at the orc weirdly and said "It''s just an oasis, what''s the big deal about finding it? And I would advise you to lower your voice, I won''t cause trouble, but I won''t let myself be insulted either."


    The orc was about to retort but the leader gripped his shoulder, making him shut up, and said "My friend didn''t mean to insult you, it''s just that finding this ce is very hard Have you ever heard of Orui''s Oasis?"


    Adam looked at the leader shocked, and asked "You''re kidding. Don''t tell me this is where we are?!" The leader orc nodded with a helpless expression, he really didn''t know what to say. Countless orcs would spend years to find this ce, and this Northman found it without even meaning it.


    Orui''s Oasis was one of the most famous ces in the entire Mirage Desert, partly because of it''s mysteriousness. It was a very hard ce to find, because it was covered with illusions and spells that made it impossible to be ced on maps.


    There were only two ways to find this ce. One was to stumble on it randomly like Adam had done, but people had already searched for their entire lives without finding it. As for the other way, there existed a special item that could guide someone to the Oasis, but those items were very rare.


    Actually, they were so rare that there were said to be less of those items than there were Legendary Items in the world. That rare. So of course, Adam was stunned to find this ce by ident, and understood why the orcs were confused by his presence, and why they didn''t believe him when he said he came here by ident.


    A Northman shouldn''t have one of those items, only the highest ranking Orcs had them, and some were even lost.


    But this ce mysteriousness, although intriguing, wasn''t the reason why this ce was known worldwide and literally everyone dreamed for a chance to get in.


    It is because of the Oasis itself, which was said to have been blessed by the Orcish God of Knowledge himself, Orui. The name came from that God. And thus, if one soaked in the water of the Oasis, they would enter a deep enlightenment state, a state of epiphany, which would strength the person by a great deal, and allow them to master their skills.


    Even monsters desired to soak in this Oasis'' water, because it would also make them stronger, awaken their bloodline and what was hidden in it, like the skill Neith had unlocked recently.


    Adam and Neith followed the Orcs inside, excited. They thought they wouldn''t see anyone other than the guards, who were actually priests of Orui, but they were surprised to see another Orc. That Orc also looked at them in confusion, but Adam was quite shocked when he looked at his status.


    [Yokgu] (Bronze, Level 40)


    HP: 35000/35000


    Being Level 40 wasn''t anything amazing by itself, but the power this Orc was releasing was much more powerful than it should be. Adam could feel this Orc was about as strong as he was himself


    This could only mean one thing, he was facing another Sovereign. The Orcish Sovereign.

 Chapter 110: Phobia

    Chapter 110: Phobia


    Adam and the guards joined Yokgu, who was waiting patiently. The leader of the guards then said "Strangely, two people stumbled on our camp today What a coincidence. Both of you need to wait for half an hour before entering the water. Why don''t you get to know each other in the meantime? However, I must warn you, fights aren''t allowed here, and if any of you start a fight, you will be killed."


    Adam and Yokgu both nodded, and Adam sat on the ground. As for Neith, she decided to go underground, because there wasn''t much space for her and her size was making her ufortable on the ground.


    Yokgu sat in front of Adam and said "I heard a lot about you, Aqua Sovereign. They say you are very strong."


    Adam nodded and said "I also heard about you, Fire Sovereign." Yokgu grinned, showing hisrge tusk like teeth, and he said "I still don''t have many feats to my name, my family won''t let me out of my house. Actually, this is my first trip out of Yam."


    Adam asked "Where are you headed?" Yokgu didn''t even hesitate as he replied "The Holy Temple. What about you?" Adam replied "Yam."


    Yokguughed out, so loud that he startled the surrounding guards, and he eximed "You will see, Yam is a beautiful city! And it''s even warm all year I don''t understand how you can live in a ce like Fjora, it''s always cold over there."


    Adam shrugged and said "I don''t live there, but even when I went over there I didn''t mind the cold. I guess your race prefer hot weathers while we prefer cold ones."


    Yokgu pped his thigh, making the ground tremble a little, and said with his still loud voice "That''s right, you are one of those otherworlders! You are quite different from the others I met, most were disappointing."


    Adam smiled helplessly, Yokgu seemed to be a direct person, who had trouble hiding his emotions. He said "My world is very different from this one, we don''t live simr lives over there But I can''t tell you much, our gods forbade us to."


    Yokgu nodded and said "The gods can be mysterious at times, and understanding their will can be hard. I''m sure there is a reason for them not wanting you to reveal too much about your world."


    Yokgu then looked toward the ground, and his face turned a little paler as he said "You have a nice pet"


    Adam squinted his eyes before he asked with a yful smile "I do. If you want, I can ask Neith toe up and say hi"


    But he didn''t even finish his sentence that Yokgu paled even more and he hurriedly said "No need! No need! Nice spider!"


    Adam chuckled and said "Are you perhaps scared of spiders?" Yokgu became flustered as he got up and took out his great axe and roared "I am a mighty Sovereign, I am afraid of nothing!"


    This only made Adamugh louder at the orc, who tried to look as valiant as he could, but it only made him funnier. After a moment, Adam calmed himself down and he said "It''s alright to be scared of something you know."


    Yokgu, who was flexing his muscles and was all puffed up, suddenly deted as he sat back on the ground and he said "I am supposed to be my race''s future, how could people rely on me if I am scared?"


    This made Adam smile slightly, Yokgu was only a kid after all. Adam was a special case, although he was 20, he had also all the memories of Old Adam, who was 50, and thus his mentality was very different from other people of his age.


    Adam still retained some of his youthfulness, but in many ways he behaved like an older person, especially when he talked to other people. And that''s why, seeing Yokgu being so stressed about his future, made him smile.


    He knew what stress was, he had lived through it, and died because of it, so Yokgu reminded him of himself, in a way.


    So he patted the Orc''s shoulder and said "I''m not a specialist, but from what I know, the best way to go past your fear, is to understand it. If you want, I can ask Neith to show herself, she won''t do anything to you."


    Yokgu seemed to hesitate, but before he could answer Neith emerged from the ground. She didn''t expose her entire body though, but only the upper part of it, most of her legs were still in the ground.


    Yokgu paled once again as he was being stared at by eight eyes, but Neith stayed immobile, under Adam''s order. Adam then said "Try to pet her. Be gentle."


    Yokgu slowly moved his hand toward Neith''s head, and both Adam and Neith could see his hand was trembling, a lot.


    So, as Yokgu was slowing more and more the closer he got to her head, Neith moved by herself and ced her head under his hand. Usually she would have been quite annoyed by this, but thankfully for Yokgu she was in a great mood because they had discovered Orui''s Oasis.


    Yokgu jumped like he had been shocked by electricity, and he almost took his hand off of her, but he found out he couldn''t move his hand. Adam had grabbed his wrist, and he looked at Yokgu in the eyes and said "She won''t eat you. Come on, pet her."


    He let go of his the orc''s wrist, who stared at Neith, obviously ready to away the moment she did something out of the line. But contrarily to his expectations, she didn''t move, and allowed him to pet her, she even closed her eyes as sheid half in the ground.


    Adam smiled and said "See? Spiders aren''t that scary. They are simply another kind of living being, just like you, me or any other monster."


    Yokgu remained silent, but he continued petting her. The minutes passed, and Yokgu didn''t seem to want to stop. After ten minutes of continuous petting, Neith had to move her mandibles threateningly to make him back off.


    Adamughed at the shocked Yokgu and he said "What did you expect, would you like to have someone scratch your head for ten minutes?"


    Realization dawned on Yokgu as he silently apologized to Neith. She ignored him and went back to her nap, but as she tried to get a quick sleep she could feel Yokgu''s eyes were glued on her. Sheined to Adam through their minds, threatening to eat him if he didn''t stop being creepy, but he calmed her down, Yokgu looked like a nice person, he didn''t want to traumatize him.


    While Yokgu was processing what had happened, Adam asked him "You are from Yam, so you should know more about this Oasis than me. Do you know why the guards I mean the priests are so weak?"


    Indeed, this was something that surprised Adam a lot. The guards were all around Level 80-90, and even though there seemed to be around a hundred of them, this wasn''t enough to protect the ce at all.


    Yokgu was brought back from his stunned state as he replied "We don''t know much about this ce, but I think that the arrays hiding this ce from everyone is also capable of attacking. Even a Legend could die trying to forcefully enter or steal the water. Maybe the strongest Legends would be able to get away, but not without stealing some of the water. That''s probably why, the priests don''t need to be very powerful."


    Adam nodded, this made sense. Orui''s Priests present here would live here their whole life, and their life would be dedicated to worshiping Orui, so they didn''t really care about Strength, but more about knowledge.


    Orui himself was the God of Knowledge, and his priests in his Oasis were said to be among the most knowledgeable people in the entire world, aside from the Citadel of course.


    The group of three didn''t have to wait for much longer before a priest came to them and said "The pond is now ready, you may follow me to enter it."

 Chapter 111: Unexpected

    Chapter 111: Unexpected


    Adam and Yokgu both got up when they heard the priest, and Neith, who had been napping, alsopletely got out of the ground.


    Yokgu flinched a little when he saw her ten meters frame, but he was far calmer than before. His fear hadn''tpletely disappeared, but he was capable of facing it now at least.


    The three followed the priest to the pond, and saw that all the priests gathered around the pond, seemingly praying to Orui. The three stopped in front of the pond, and the priest said "You can go in."


    The three turned their sight onto the pond, the water was purple and they couldn''t see through it. Neith didn''t even hesitate and jumped into the pond. Mysteriously though, the water didn''t even ssh, it was as if she had entered into a pond of slime instead of water.


    As Adam and Yokgu were about to join her though, Neith cried out in Adam''s mind ''Don''te in, it''s poison! It''s a trap!''


    Adam hurriedly stopped his body from moving, and he saw Yokgu about to enter the pond. He had no time to tell him this was a trap, Neith had told him fast enough because speaking through the mind is many times faster than speaking.


    Adam wiped out his leg and struck Yokgu, who was caught unprepared. Yokgu was sent flying backwards, but thankfully he hadn''t touched the water.


    Yokgu was stunned, but he was a Sovereign too, and thus had opened Three Gates. Although he had been caught unprepared and was unable to defend, he took out his axe in an instant and struck the ground, stopping himself from flying far away.


    The Orc was about to attack Adam back when he saw something shocking. Adam had grabbed one of the priests by the neck and threw him into the pond. This shocked him deeply because the priests were considered very important in his culture, and harming one of them wasn''t very different than spitting on the face of every Orc in the world.


    But what followed was even more shocking. As the priest made contact with the ''Holy Water'', the priest''s body began dissolving as it morphed into an ugly looking lizard. Yokgu immediately understood he had been tricked, and looked at Adam thankfully.


    The priests around the pond screeched with a sharp voice as they all began morphing into three meters long lizards one after another.


    [Mirage Lizard] (Chieftain, Level 80)


    HP: 320000/320000


    [Mirage Lizard] (Chieftain, Level 90)


    HP: 370000/370000


    Fire condensed around Yokgu''s axe and Adam''s greatsword shone with a blue light as they prepared themselves to defend against the monsters.


    But they suddenly covered their ears as they heard a loud screech. Neith, who was in the middle of the venomous pond, had used her sound wave attack. However, it was even more powerful than thest time she had used it. The lizards were immobilized and a few even had blooding out of their ears.


    Even after the sound wave attack was finished, she continued screeching, and both Adam and Yokgu could hear how angry she was. She stomped the ground and the surrounding fifty meters turned into a cone shaped whirlpool, at the center of which was a whirlpool.


    The ground, which was made of earth and not sand, looked as easy to manipte as sand, and the lizards tried their best to get out of the whirlpool, but they felt like every time they made a step forward, they would make two others backwards.


    And it was only the beginning. des of earth appeared below the lizards and pierced through some, andcerated the others.


    The lizards were stuck between two dead ends. They were able to stop themselves from falling too much, but doing so would allow the earth des tocerate them to death. But if they dodged the earth des, they would fall faster into the pool of venom.


    On the side, Adam looked at Neith dumbfounded, he didn''t think she would be able to take care of so many lizards at once. He looked at Yokgu next to him, and sighed seeing his ghastly face. Maybe his fear wouldn''t disappear so quick after all.


    Adam turned back toward Neith and couldn''t help but be impressed by the skill. However, although the skill was very powerful and could affect a huge area, it also had an obvious weakness.


    Neith couldn''t move while she used the skill, so she either had to draw in all her enemies or she would would be a big target for her enemies.


    And among the lizards, one of them stood out. It was five meters long, and it sessfully climbed out of the whirlpool.


    [Mirage Lizard] (Lord, Level 90)


    HP: 1,300,000/1,500,000


    The lizard looked ready to attack the vulnerable Neith, so Adam punched lightly Yokgu''s shoulder and said "Let''s help her and kill that lizard."


    Yokgu nodded and the two of them jumped onto the Level 90 Lord. The lizard''s right w had turned invisible, but from the movement of it''s arm Adam understood it was about to strike toward Neith, so he predicted where the w would be and shed out.


    A flying sh flew out of his de and hit the area just in front of the Lord, as if Adam had missed it. However, it stopped just in front of it, it had shed with the invisible w and stopped it from attacking.


    The Lord looked at Adam annoyed and said "Go die already!" This was definitely a unique experience, to see a monster actually speak, Neith couldmunicate with her mind, but she couldn''t speak yet.


    Adam ignored what it said though and shed out once again, forcing the Lord to once again strike to defend itself. It had barely countered the flying sh though that Yokgu appeared next to it, and his brought down his ming axe onto the monster''s neck.


    Critical Hit! -550 000 HP! Burn!


    The lizard cried out from the pain, the axe had cut half into its neck, almost reaching it''s spine. Moreover, the flesh inside it''s neck was was set afire, dealing even more damage. It wiped it''s tail toward Yokgu, trying to break him into two, but Yokgu punched the iing tail, stopping it.


    At the same time, Adam appeared above the lizard and shed down his sword into the ugly wound.


    Critical Hit! 275 000 HP!


    Critical Hit! 275 000 HP!


    Critical Hit! 275 000 HP!


    Critical Hit! 275 000 HP!


    Adam''s sword crushed the lizard''s spine and exited the neck through the other end,pletely severing the head from the body, and killing the lizards. The wound was ugly to look at, there was some burned flesh and some frozen flesh, and no blood spilled out because of the two elemental effects.


    A few items dropped from the corpse, so Adam asked "Do you fancy anything?" However, even after a couple seconds all Adam could hear was the screeches from the dying lizards.


    He looked up and saw Yokgu was looking at the scene next to them with a pale face, Neith had already killed almost all the lizards and there only remained about ten of them, who eventually fell into the purple venom.


    Speaking of the venom, the light purple water had now be much darker because of all the monsters that had dissolved in it. Adam was a little worried at first about Neith since she had remained in the venom since the beginning of the fight, and although she had a great resistance to venom it applied to poisonous ones, and he didn''t know how much she could resist against acids.


    But from what he could see her resistance to acids was as high as poisons, so he was relieved. Adam used the tip of his sword to poke Yokgu''s shoulder and said "Do you want anything?"


    Yokgu briefly looked at the loot and shook his head. He was from a very powerful family and money wasn''t a problem to him. And the equipments that dropped were Level 90, but they were only Rare at best so he had no interest in it.


    So Adam pocketed the equipment as well as the materials that came from the boss. He then looked at Neith and saw she wasn''ting out, so he asked ''Won''t you get out?''


    Neith replied, with a less angered voice ''This venom is beneficial to me.'' Adam nodded, at least the monsters were useful. All the lizards had dropped loot between Level 80 and 90, which could fetch a few coins, but all the items had also dissolved into the liquid.


    Adam was about to ask how the liquid could be useful to her when he felt an overbearing presence appear. The three looked up into the sky and saw a figure had stopped above them. That figure released an extremely powerful pressure onto the three as he projected his killing intent.


    This pressure was only inferior to the pressure he had felt when Henry had broken into the Fifth Gate back in the Goblin''s Fortress thanks to his help. As such, it was obvious to Adam that this was a Hero, a powerful one at that, and he wanted to kill him.


    A simple looking de appeared in that man''s hand, and as he raised it above him a red energy swirled around the sword, and created a red energy sword that extended for a hundred meters. The figure in ck didn''t say anything and brought his sword onto the three Bronze Realms.

 Chapter 112: Yokbo?

    Chapter 112: Yokbo?


    Adam knew perfectly well that if he was hit by this attack, he would definitely die. He tried to move away, but found out his body had frozen, he couldn''t move at all. The sword, before even descending onto them, had made all resistance useless.


    Adam tried to send Neith into his Pet Space, and was relieved to see this wasn''t blocked. But even though she was saved, Adam and Yokgu were about to die.


    But as the sword was about to hit them, a metallic shield appeared above them. The sword struck against the shield with an incredible strength, and the two felt the ground shake and the earth around them was split open.


    "Never would I have thought I would meet you here." The shield above Adam and Neith disappeared, and they understood it was only an Aura materialization, a skill.


    Above them, an orc appeared in front of the ck figure. The ck figure, who had been silent up until now, asked "Why are you stopping me?"


    The orc grinned and replied "Boy, you just tried to kill our Sovereign. I don''t care whether you are from ckheart Mountain, you better run."


    The orc hadn''t even finished his sentence that the ck figure hurriedly flew away, but the orc didn''t look like he wanted to let her go. A gigantic palm of fire appeared in the sky, it was so big that Adam couldn''t even see both ends.


    The palm fell down with an incredible speed and smashed the ck figure into the ground, and ttened the desert around them.


    Yokgu looked up at the orc and said with a small voice "Grandpa?"


    Adam was awestruck by the power disyed by this orc, and hurriedly looked at his status.


    [Yog] (Legend, Level 230)


    ??/??


    This was to be expected, thought Adam. Only a Legend could show such power, and it probably wasn''t even his limit. Also, before he had panicked because the situation was so sudden, but it was obvious the orcs wouldn''t just let Yokgu go on his own in the wild, with no protection.


    Adam wanted to thank the old orc when he saw something surprising in the distance. The ck figure who had been ttened against the sand of the desert actually got up; The figure immediately took the sky, whether it was to flee or because the sand was burning intensely.


    But as the figure escaped Yog didn''t look like he wanted the figure to escape, and he unsheathed his broad axe, and shed toward the assassin.


    A giant flying sh of fire that was thousands of meters tall exited the axe and traveled through the air, the extreme heat of the flying sh was evaporating some of the sand it went next to, and the air itself was starting to burn around the flying sh.


    The ck figure knew he wouldn''t be able to dodge this attack, so he turned around and shed out too, sending a red flying sh. This flying sh was dwarfed by the giant ming one, and so it barely did anything to the giant flying sh when it hit it.


    However, although itcked power, it was followed by multiple other red shes, which weakened the giant ming sh, but didn''t disperse it.


    When the ck figure was hit by the ming sh, he allowed himself to be hit and used the strength of the attack to fly at an even faster speed. However, it also destroyed a part of the figure''s armor, as well as his mask.


    When Adam briefly saw the face underneath the mask, he realized this wasn''t a he, but a she. A beautiful she.


    But then she flew off at top speed, disappearing from his sight. Yog looked ready to follow her, but tens of smaller red flying shes appeared all around them, not targeting Yog but Yokgu and Adam.


    Yog scoffed and dispersed the attacks effortlessly, but this allowed the woman to go even farther in the distance. Yog hesitated to follow, but he looked at Yokgu and decided that chasing the assassin wasn''t worth it.


    Now that they were safe, Yokgu approached his grandfather and said "You were following me?" Yog crossed his arms and said "It''s a coincidence we met." Yokgu rolled his eyes at his grandfather''s shamelessness, and knowing he would be able to make him admit anything he turned back toward Adam and said "Grandpa, this is the Aqua Sovereign, Adam I believe his name is."


    Adam cupped his fists and said with a short bow "It is a pleasure to meet you." Yog nodded to Adam and said "Had you been any other Northman, I wouldn''t even speak to you, but you are different, aren''t you?"


    Adam nodded, thinking the Legend was talking about the fact he was a yer, but Yog surprised him when he asked "How is Yokbo doing?"


    Yokgu looked at Adam with wonder and asked "You know Yokbo?"


    Adam frowned and asked "Who is Yokbo?" Yog scratched his head for a second before he eximed "Right, he changed his name! Baugh, how he is doing?"


    Adam raised an eyebrow and said "He is doing well, he entered my guild and he is one of my Division Leaders. Is he part of your n?"


    Yokgu asked back "He is, he didn''t tell you?" Adam shook his head and said "I knew he wanted to avoid Yam, but he didn''t say way, and I didn''t press him. Why is he running away from your n?"


    Yog looked like he wanted to avoid the question, but Yokgu said without hesitation "Our n is split in multiple branches, and he, like myself, is from the main lineage. A lot is expected out of us, and even more so since I appeared. But Yokbo was never really talented, and he went through hard things."


    Adam frowned and said "What did you do to him to make him flee to the enemy empire and change his name?"


    Yokgu was about to reply, but Yog shut him up with a nce, and he then asked "What would you do, if we wronged him? If he was humiliated by his peers? If he went through a deep trauma in the n in the n that he may never recover from?"


    Adam''s frown hardened as he heard the question. Although this was a question, Adam didn''t need to be incredibly intelligent to understand what Yog was really saying.


    He said "I would first tell you that Yokgu is much stronger than you think. Then, I would warn you. He is one of my Division Leaders, one of my most precious subordinates, and he is at the same rank as my disciples in my heart, so if he asks me, I won''t even hesitate to wipe out your n or even your whole empire in the future."


    Adam''s rational mind was kicking his rash mind so hard that Adam was literally starting to get a headache, but he didn''t care, he let his emotions speak.


    Yokgu was looking at Adam shocked, and Yog said with squinted eyes "Are you really the Aqua Sovereign? You are quite fiery for someone attuned to water If I were you, I would watch my mouth when I talked to people who can kill you with a breath."


    Adam replied "I am grateful to you for saving me from that assassin, but don''t even think of pressuring me. You might be stronger than me for now, that won''t be the case forever."


    Finally, Yog let out a small smile as he said "You should check out your constitution, you might be surprised I am relieved Yokbo found such a person to follow, you might be the one needed to change his destiny. When you see him, tell him the Yok n will forever be his home."


    Yog sighed, he looked like he was lost in his memories. After a few seconds, he grabbed Yokgu''s shoulder and said "As for you, you are wee toe in Yam any time you want."


    After he said his piece Yog disappeared alongside Yokgu, leaving a golden coin behind. This coin wasn''t a normal Gold Coin, as it was a few times bigger, and a me was engraved on one side, and an axe on the other side.


    [Yok Insignia]


    Description: Token of the Yok n.

 Chapter 113: Perfect Equilibrium

    Chapter 113: Perfect Equilibrium


    Adam pocketed the coin and turned to Neith, and asked "How long will you need to absorb this venom?"


    Neith replied ''Probably all night. Is it a problem.'' Adam shook his head "Of course no, take your time. But I''m curious, how can this help you?"


    Neith said ''Although I have some venom myself, it is difficult for me to use it, I don''t have enough of it. This is because my venom sack was injured.''


    Adam was surprised by this information, and he asked "How did it happen?" Neith replied ''I don''t know, it was already in this state when I awakened in that mine It probably happened when I was younger, before I lost my memories.''


    She then continued ''I don''t know how those lizards got this venom, but I can feel it is familiar, as if it was part of me I think this belonged to someone from my n, although I don''t know from which n I am from. Moreover, this venom doesn''t just eat what it touches, it absorbs it. This made the venom even more potent to heal my own venom sack.''


    Adam nodded and said "Good then, focus on absorbing it. I will meditate in the meanwhile." Adam didn''t really mind staying up all night, it wasn''t like he couldn''t. Moreover, he would be meditating for the whole night, so it wasn''t that far from sleep.


    He took out his sword and inserted it in the ground, and then jumped on it. There was barely enough ce to putt a single foot on the handle. Adam ced himself so that his weight was distributed equally in all directions, and closed his eyes.


    This was to train his gates, since the next gate, the Gate of View. The Fourth Gate was quite hard to master, as it took many hours of practice and some luck to unlock. To train it, one needed to reach a state of perfect equilibrium to have a chance to even have a chance to open the Gates.


    Only when this special state was reached could one have a chance to create a resonance within their bodies and use this resonance to open the Gate. Theoretically, if one was lucky enough, they could activate this resonance the moment they entered into the state of perfect equilibrium, but as far as Adam knew, this never happened.


    Instead, the longer one stayed in the state of perfect equilibrium, the higher the chances of opening the Fourth Gate were. This state wasn''t so easily achieved though, as one didn''t only need to stand on something and bnce themselves. Otherwise, any circus artist could open the Fourth Gate, if they had opened the first three.


    To reach this state, the first step was indeed to find a way to stand on something. Of course it couldn''t be the bare ground or something bigger than the body, it must be a narrow object like a rope or the handle of a sword, where there is barely enough ce to put a feet.


    Then, the martial artist must find the exact position that would allow them not to fall, andpletely stop moving. A single movement would break this state.


    First, finding the right position was extremely hard, as there were actually several ways to do it, but that''s wasn''t considering outside factors like the wind. One needed to find a position that could resist those kind of things.


    And finally, staying unmoved was extremely hard, be it for martial artists or mundane people. It was impossible to remain unmoved for over even two second for the untrained person, so to do so for hours is impossible. Only a trained martial artist could achieve this, with years of training.


    Fortunately for Adam, he had already trained to remain unmoved in his past life, and he could even remain in this state of extreme stillness while thinking and meditating on his cultivation. This extreme stillness was the hardest thing to achieve if one wanted to open the Fourth Gate.


    But now that he knew about Aura, or Qi, Adam actually thought of a way to make opening the Fourth Gate much simpler. The problem of outside interference and even extreme stillness could be resolved.


    First, for the outside problems, one could ask someone else to create a shield around themselves to block anything like wind, dust and anything that would bother the cultivator. As for the extreme stillness, a skill could be created to stop oneself from moving, forcefully.


    Since Adam had all this new knowledge about his meridians, he knew for a fact that some of these could be used to block the body''s movement. Adam could research those skills, and try to create them, but he didn''t need them for now.


    They would be useless for himself, but they could be used to avoid years of training for the people he knew, mainly his Division Leaders. And even on Earth, from what Searing Light told him many, many experts were stuck on the Third Gate, and only a few had opened the 4th Gate, so if he ever needed something from Earth''s experts, he could exchange those skills.


    But for now, his disciples and Division Leaders were far from opened the Fourth Gate, they were still working on the 3rd Gate, and even with the guidance he gave to them every now and then, as well as the experience from using the scroll, it would take a few weeks for them to open the Gate.


    So Adam decided to meditate things that would be more interesting to him.


    As such, two hours after having started his training, Adam suddenly shed out with his hand, and arge [Flying sh] appeared out of his hand. However, instead of the usual blue de of light, this time it wasn''t just light, but an actual de of water. Adam then waved his hand two more times, sending out a de of ice, and another made ofpressed vapor.


    [Congrattions for upgrading your skill ''Flying sh'' from E to D Rank! Do you wish to change the name?]


    Adam contemted for a second before changing the name.


    Aqua sh (D): Creates a de of water, ice orpressed steam to attack at a long range. Deals 200% of water, ice or steam damage. Range of the attack determined by the Aura consumed, but at least superior to 10 Aura.


    Then, Adam went back to his meditation, happy with his progress. His goal was to use this skill to better understand [Lunar Smite], and perfectly master it. Then, he would also transform it from a pure ice skill to an aqua skill that could take all three stats of water, and allow the skill to attack from a distance.


    The hours went by, and no monsters came to attack Adam and Neith while they were doing their own things. Of course, they were ready to defend themselves in case something came to attack them, but it turned out to be unnecessary. What they didn''t know was that all monsters in the vicinity had been killed by Yog''s ming palm, and even the ones who were farther away and survived, fled away.


    About 15 hours after Adam upgraded his [Flying sh], Neith finally finished absorbing all the venom. Her shell, which was entirely ck before, now had purple strips on it, and formed strange patterns that didn''t seem to make any sense, and they probably didn''t make any.


    Another change was her level, she went up from Level 40 to 43, so it was quite the upgrade for her. As for her venom sack, although it wasn''tpletely healed, it recovered to around 50%, and she was capable of using her venom to fight now.


    Finally, thest change was to her venom itself. Before, it was more of a poison that would impair on the system (not system as in the game system, as in the body) of her enemies, but now it had also gained an acidic property that would also destroy her enemies'' armor.


    Despite her having finished absorbing the venom, they didn''t immediately depart. First it was still night, and Adam also wanted to continue his meditation, he could feel he wasn''t far from sessfully creating his cultivation technique.


    Some time after upgrading his [Flying sh], Adam had decided to work on his cultivation technique. Now that he had all the elements already, all he needed was to select the ones he needed, and put them together in the right order. However, doing so would still take some time, and since he had a lot of time in front of him, he preferred to do it in one go instead of working on it now and then.


    Three hours after Neith finished absorbing the venom, Adam finally opened his eyes as he received another notification.


    [Congrattions for creating a new skill! Please name your skill!]

 Chapter 114: New Contract

    Chapter 114: New Contract


    Adam swiftly chose a name for his cultivation technique, and read the description of the skill with shock.


    Flowing Water Art (B): Absorb the energy of the world into your dantian. Capable of passively absorbing energy, but the speed is ten times slower than when used actively. Affinity to water rted skills upgraded by 200%.


    He didn''t expect the art to only be B Rank. He had used what he knew were the absolute best pathways to create this technique, but it was only B Rank?


    But as he continued to think about it, he suspected he found the reason. As far as he knew, it was impossible for a Bronze Rank to use an A rank skill, not even Sovereigns could do so. Maybe that was why his skill was ''only'' B Rank.


    Nheless, B Rank or not, Adam was quite curious about the effects of this technique. He didn''t know what the increased affinity would bring him, nor by how much his Aura would be able to recover when used passively and actively.


    Actually, at first he wasn''t even sure whether the technique would have any effect in the game, since cultivation was different in the game, but those effects were a nice surprise.


    Adam got down from his sword and used it to quickly send out fives shes, all of them being abination of [Mighty Strike] and [Aqua sh]. Each one of those shes took 20 Aura from him, so he expended 100 Aura Points.


    Normally, the regeneration rate for Aura was of 1% per minute, meaning one would take more than an hour and a half to recover from 0 to 100%.


    For Adam, who had about 36500 Aura, he was able to recover 6 Aura per second. But now, with his cultivation technique used passively, his dantian was absorbing 20 Aura ever second! That was more than a three fold difference!


    And that was only when he used passively. If he meditated and used the cultivation technique actively, it would jump to 200 Aura per second, meaning he could get from 0 to 100% Aura in slightly more than three minutes!


    Of course, he would need to be out of a fight to use it actively, as he would be unable to fight back, but even if he used everything against an opponent, he would be able to recover his Aura in only three minutes to fight again.


    This not only made him much more durable in a fight in term of Aura consumption, but it also allowed him to be much more durable in term of health.


    At max efficiency, Adam could recover 5% of his health per second, but that would drain his Aura way too fast and made him unable to fight. That''s why until now, the best ratio was still 1% every second, which allowed him to heal without feeling the cost.


    Now though, he could recover 3% of his Aura every second, and it wouldn''t cost him anything, as the Aura he recovered every second was bigger than the cost of this healing rate.


    All in all, this was really incredible and allowed Adam to be even stronger than before. If he were to fight against Holdir once again, Adam felt like that he might actually win by attrition, even without using Berserk Skills.


    There was one thing that confused him though, and that was the 200% bonus to water rted skills. At first he thought it would make his water skills stronger, but he found out that it didn''t, he didn''t feel any change in his [Aqua sh].


    In the end, Adam shrugged helplessly and decided to leave it for now, he would find outter. He got ready to finally go back on the road since the morning sun had already risen in the sky, but he was surprised when he felt the presence of someone hiding nearby.


    Adam shed out with his sword, sending an [Aqua sh] toward the approaching person. Adam heard a cry as sand fly in the sky from the impact with the flying sh.


    Both Adam and Neith looked in the direction of the cry, and saw a person in ck clothes was holding his chest in pain, arge bloody gash could be seen on his chest.


    [ckheart Assassin] (Silver, Level 80)


    HP: 3000/25000


    Adam approached the figure, who was bleeding out and in deep pain, and asked curiously "Is there a new contract on my head? What gave such a weak assassin as you the confidence to chase after me."


    Actually, this assassin wasn''t that weak, but he really had no chance against Adam. First, following the rule of the Golden Pyramid, an Assassin was weak against a Warrior. But more importantly, an assassin''s strong point is their stealth, but the assassin''s stealth was useless in front of Adam''s senses.


    And finally, Adam''s flying sh took the assassin by surprise, there were very few Bronze Ranks capable of flying shes, normally this was a skill reserved for Silver Ranks.


    The assassin didn''t say anything and tried to run away, but the ground below him caved in and became like quicksand, trapping him where he was. The assassin, in his desperation, was about to use a skill to flee out of the skill''s range, but before he could Adam appeared next to him and grabbed his shoulder.


    The assassin looked at Adam terrified, he knew it was over. Adam grabbed the mask hiding the assassin''s face and teared it away, and pulled down the hood, revealing the face of a middle aged man. Adam smiled and said "I prefer to know who I am talking to. So, is there a new contract on my head?"


    The middle aged man nodded, with a pale face. His chest was hurting him greatly, and if it wasn''t taken care of soon, he would die of blood loss. But he knew that this probably wouldn''t happen, he would die well before he ran out of blood.


    Adam looked at the assassin with a deep look as he asked "Do you know who put this one on my head?"


    The assassin replied "Our clients are anonymous" However, he didn''t get to finish his exnation that Adam crushed his shoulder bones, making the assassin cry out in pain. Strengthening his grip on the broken shoulder, causing the assassin even more pain, Adam said "I didn''t ask your client policy, I asked you who ordered my death."


    The older man clenched his teeth and amidst the terrible pain, he managed to blurt out "Demon''s Cult." Adam raised an eyebrow, and said "So that''s how it is. They just cant'' let gost question, do you know a female swordswoman in your organization, who is a Hero and has a red energy?"


    The assassin''s howled "I don''t know!!" Adam sighed and his hand, which was grabbing the shoulder, moved up a little, and he broke the man''s neck.


    Adam looked at the loot disappointed, and ripped off the man''s head from his shoulder using his bare hands, and put the head in his inventory.


    Neith then approached and ate the body with a single bite, and the two finally left the fake Orui''s Oasis, heading for the nearest Orc city.

 Chapter 115: Olog

    Chapter 115: Olog


    The Mirage Desert was really big, and as thus Adam and Neith were only able to reach the nearest city by noon. At that time, the sun was high in the sky, releasing a burning hot heat. Even Adam, who was a Bronze Rank Sovereign, was feeling bothered by the heat.


    His avatar was a Northman, and as thus was ustomed to cold temperatures, and he was having a harder time with hot weathers. An Orc would feel the opposite the first time theye to Colnds, cultivation didn''t matter.


    But that was only a slight difort. Moreover, Adam didn''t have time to focus on his suffering, as he was too busy admiring the Orcish city.


    At first, Adam thought the Orc City would be build with a simr style to Northmen cities, that the architecture would be rough. But he couldn''t be farther from the truth. While the cities in Colnds were seemingly built out of the dark rocks already present, this city was made with reinforced concrete and steel.


    But that wasn''t the most shocking thing for Adam. Instead, it was another material used, that he had barely seen anywhere else in this world: ss.


    There were windows in other cities, of course, but ss seemed to be vary rare, the only ces he had seen some were in Enya''s Temple in Fjora, and in Aldeneid. But even then, they were only in small quantities.


    However, here ss was much more widespread, evenmon living houses had ss windows. Adam couldn''t help but wonder why, he didn''t know how ss could be made, but it looked like the Orcs were the only ones capable of producing it.


    Adam had already recalled Neith in his Pet Space as he toured the market ce of the city, and as he had thought it was very different from other ces he had been to. Even the yers, the way they behaved, the way they dressed


    But that was to be expected. Although it wasn''t an absolute truth, most of the yers had still been dispatched through the world depending in the region they lived in. This was done so that everyone could y during the day.


    After all, while it was noon in New York, they were already nearing the evening in Europe. As such, if the cycle of day and night of the whole game followed a certain region, then some yers would be force to y during the night.


    That''s why, the different regions around the world had time differences. If a yer wanted to visit another Empire, then they had to be ready to y during night time in game.


    Fortunately, Adam didn''t have this trouble. While the Colnds Empire and Buwog were at the opposite ends of the world map, they were on the extreme North and South, and time varied from East to West.


    To use a real worldparison, the north of Sweden and the South of South Africa were extremely far from each other, and yet they had no time differences. The situation was the same between Colnds and Buwog.


    However, the Empires were so big that from one end to another there would indeed be time differences, but the city Adam was in didn''t have anypared to Azure Sky Kingdom.


    However, once he reached Buwog there would be a two hours difference, it would be 10 am there instead of 12.


    Anyway, this ce was very different from what Adam was used to, and it was quite enjoyable for him. Unfortunately, he didn''t have the time to slowly savor the new vors he discovered in this city, as he had somewhere else to go.


    Originally, his ns were to reach this city, take a rest, and then teleport to the closest city to Yam he could teleport to, and find a way in the capital.


    However, the update and meeting Yokgu had changed a lot of things, and now that he had the token of the Yok family, he didn''t need to worry about entering the city, he could directly teleport there.


    As he had said before, to enter Yam a Northman would need a special pass, but the Yok Insignia was even better and would allow to him to teleport in the Capital from any other Capital in the world, so doing so from this city would be as easy.


    Moreover, Adam got an additional benefit from his token he didn''t expect. Normally, he would have to wait for the teleportation nned every hour, but showing the token actually allowed him to skip the waiting, and be teleported right away.


    This was quite a nice advantage, as Adam would have to wait 40 minutes otherwise.


    Once in Yam, Adam looked around himself, trying to spot the differences, and was absolutely dumbstruck by what he saw. The buildings and houses around him weren''t very different from the previous city, but there was a particr building in the distance that made him doubt his eyes.


    A giant pce made of ss stood high in the sky, it was as tall as the Imperial Pce in Fjora, but one was made of ss, and the other of rock.


    Even Adam found this to be extravagant, to create an entire pce out of ss Where did they even get so much ss from anyway? Were the materials so cheap they could afford to use so much of it.


    Moreover, this ought not to be normal ss, but a more precious kind that was resistant to attacks. After all, this was the ce that represented the best the power of the entire Orc Race.


    Just like the Imperial Pce in Fjora, although it was made of rocks, it wasn''t just any rocks, they were all filled with rich minerals and made those rocks very sturdy and resistant to magic and aura attacks. This ss should be the same.


    Another difference with normal ss was that the ss making the pce was more opaque, meaning one couldn''t easily see through. And it didn''t reflect the light of the sun like normal ss should


    The more Adam looked at the pce, the more question sprouted in his mind, so he stopped thinking about it and turned to the crowd around him.


    As his eyes swiped around the passerby, his gaze stopped on a guards'' patrol. He walked toward them and greeted their leader, an older orc "Hello, do you know where I can find Morbash, the cksmith?"


    The squad leader seemed surprised by his question, but he answered nheless "You should be able to find him at his master''s workshop You just arrived in the city didn''t you?"


    Adam nodded, so the squad leader said "If you came here because you wanted Morbash to make you a weapon or an armor, you should know before hand that it is very difficult to take amand from Morbash. A month ago thatd even refused the order of a Hero And don''t think about forcing him."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and said "Don''t you mind the fact I am a Northman? You seem very open minded."


    The old orc smiled and said "I don''t think one''s race is important, the mind is more important."


    As he said that, one of the younger guards behind him, whispered to another guard "How shameless can that traitor be"


    Adam saw the old orc''s face change a little, but he said nothing, and kept his smile. As such, Adam cupped his fists at the old orc and said "Thank you for your cooperation. Tell me, what''s your name?"


    It was Adam''s turn to surprise the old orc who said "I am Olog, what''s your name young man?" Adam smiled at Olog and said "Olog, know that from today, I consider you as one of my friends. If you ever need any help, use this."


    Adam threw a little t rock of a deep blue color at Olog and left the ce. Olog, as well as the other guards around him, all looked at the rock with curiosity.


    However, when they saw the rune drawn on the rock, they all shuddered. They realized that the Northman they had just met was the legendary Aqua Sovereign!

 Chapter 116: New Sovereign

    Chapter 116: New Sovereign


    Adam couldn''t wipe out his smile from his face, this was the first token he had given to someone. Having this token meant that one could ask for one favor out of him.


    He had made those tokens during the couple days between the Battle of Sunflower Valley and the day his brother was cured.


    Actually, this idea didn''te from himself, but from his partner, King yer. He and King yer had met during those two days, and Adam had been quite shocked.


    King yer, who had previously only been an expert of the First Gate, had turned into a Sovereign who opened all three Gates! Adam had no idea how he had done it, normally it should take at least a year or two to a talented individual to go from the 1st Gate to the 3rd, without the experience of the Gates Adam had.


    Even though King yer had just turned into a Sovereign, as he was still only Level 20 when they met, he shouldn''t have been that fast.


    In the end, Adam had been too curious, and he asked King yer directly how he had done it. He could ept that the assassin was mysterious at times, but this was just too much.


    Even though he asked the question though, he didn''t really hope for an answer, this was a private matter after all. But much to his surprise, King yer had answered, and the answer was even more surprising.


    King yer had opened the 2nd Gate normally, after thest time they met. Then, when he reached Level 20, he didn''t directly go for his promotion, but instead waited to unlock the Third Gate because he knew of the existence of Sovereigns.


    And while he was Level 20, he stumbled upon an incredible artifact during one of his quests that allowed him to unlock the Third Gate. This item was so incredible that it didn''t just show him the way to unlock the Gate, it forced the Gate in his body to open.


    No need to say, Adam had been thoroughly shocked when he first heard this. He had no idea this was possible, he thought one could only rely on themselves to open the Gates. The existence of the scroll he used to help his Division Leaders, two disciples and the Royal Family of Azure Sky had already deeply shocked him, but this item was even beyond that.


    Of course, Adam was interested by such an item, and tried to ask King yer where he could get such a thing. Unfortunately, King yer''s answer was disappointing.


    First, this item was a consumable so it could only be used once. But more importantly, King yer got that item in a Level 230 Map which he had only been able to enter thanks to the quest, and that if Adam wanted one of those items then he would have to snatch it from the hands from a Legend.


    In term ofparison, the capital of the Monster Kingdom, the Goblin Kingdom, which the Colnds Empire was fighting, was also a Level 230 Map.


    Adam immediately lost all interest in the artifact, he had no way of taking it. This item would be useful for lower ranked yers and NPCs, but at the moment he would be able to get that item it would bepletely useless to him.


    ording to King yer, this item was capable of forcefully opening the Gate an expert was stuck at, but the limit was the Third Gate. And by the time Adam bes powerful enough to beat Legend, his important subordinates would have all already opened the Third Gate, and even more.


    Anyway, apart from this great news, King yer also informed him that he had finally created his guild, which would be the hidden face of Divine Predator. He had named it Blood Moon.


    Adam had asked King yer how he intended to recruit members in his guild secretly, and keep the guild hidden from the rest of the world. After all, recruiting yers without advertising would be very hard.


    But King yerpletely went around the problem, as he decided not to recruit any yer, as he did not trust anyone except from Adam. While this ttered Adam, he also understood why he would do so.


    He was the same, although he recruited yers, it was only to make his guild bigger. The top members of his guild were all NPCs, and that wouldn''t change unless he really found someone to trust, like family.


    The reason as to why he made such a choice was that NPCs had different goals and living situations than a yer. For a yer, a guild is just apany, a job, and they would enter a guild for the sry it offered. As such, it wasn''t hard to steal yers from another guild.


    But NPCs were different. Although they were as intelligent as any yer, or even smarter for some, for an NPC a guild was much more important, each of the members would be their brothers and they wouldn''t hesitate to die for the guild.


    Of course, there still could be traitors among NPCs, but to sway them would be countless times harder than a yer.


    Actually, many yers would like to follow Adam''s example and recruit many NPCs into their guild, but it wasn''t that easy to convince them. Adam was a Sovereign, and he already had several aplishments to his name, both before and after he became a Sovereign.


    As such, when Eddy went to recruit members for the Guild, there had been several hundreds NPCs who ad willingly joined the guild, and after the Battle of Sunflower Valley, even more had joined, including A sses.


    But to achieve this, Adam had already be the most renown yer in the entire world, and so it wasn''t a feat easy to reproduce.


    Moreover, NPCs were good for their loyalty, but they also had shorings. A big one, was the fact that they only had one life. A yer could die as many times as they wanted, they would always be able toe back.


    But for an NPC, once they died, there was noeback. Well, there was one way for them toe back, but it was even worse than death, as it was to be an Undead. In this world, the existence of gods wasn''t something debatable, as there were proofs they existed.


    And with those gods, there also existed ces simr to Heaven, ces where their soul would ascend when they died, if they lived or died well.


    Adam himself had gone to Roskha, the equivalent of Valha, which only brave warriors could enter. When he fought against Holdir, thetter wished he could have gone to Roskha, but he rose as an undead.


    Thus, almost everyone in this world would rather die and join their gods than stay in the mortal ne as an undead.


    Thankfully for the undeads that were beaten in front of Neve Dorei''s walls, their gods had epted their souls in their Godly Territories, but this wasn''t the case with every undead. Some undeads had been undeads for so long that their souls had be tainted, just like the Chosen Undead who led the army.


    Anyway, back to King yer, he had used his new fame from bing a real Sovereign to recruit assassins from ckheart, and created his own faction within the Racial Power.


    But apart from showing Adam he had be a Sovereign and telling him he had created his guild, he had also informed Adam of something else, something King yer had discovered by himself and that wasn''t known by anyone else.


    That was the tokens. Anyone could make a token. But if a yer had enough fame, then giving out tokens could actually result in quest. Only the most famous and strongest yers could do this though.


    For example, Olog. He was a Level 150 Gold Rank, even if he received the tokens from thousands of yers, could anyone of them resolve his problem? Adam may not be as strong as the old orc right now, but he most certainly would one day, and even if he didn''t, Adam still had a level of influence unmatched by any other yers.


    That''s why, King yer advised Adam to give out those tokens to people he liked. Moreover, those tokens could also be used as a currency as they represented a Sovereign''s promise, and for many, this was much more valuable than any amount of Gold Coins.

 Chapter 117: Klints Workshop

    Chapter 117: Klint''s Workshop


    After giving his token to Olog, Adam walked through the huge capital to find the Workshop of Morbash''s master. He had already asked who that master was, and it seemed that person was quite renowned, his name was Klint.


    Since he had entered Yam his map had updated by itself, and Klint''s Workshop was on his map.


    The capitals of the Racial Powers were incredibly big, all of them had at least a radius of 100 km, and most were circr. At least, those he had seen were shaped like this.


    It took Adam half an hour to reach the workshop, and he was surprised by what he saw. He expected a big and extravagant shop with tons of peopleing in and out of the shop, like the ones he had seen before. Normally there would be tons of attendants showing the equipments to the countless customers, and the forges would be behind the shop, hidden from everyone''s sight.


    But Klint''s Workshop was very different. The shop had zero customers, and no gold and silver could be seen. Instead, there was a simple forge,id out in the open, lit off. Next to it, an old orc was sitting on a wheelchair, his eyes closed.


    Adam couldn''t help but doubt whether he hade to the right location, but after checking on his map he was sure this was where he wanted to go. So he entered the shop.


    As the door opened, the old orc opened his eyes and looked at Adam with a clear eyes and asked with a slow voice "What are you doing here?"


    Adam replied "I want tomission an armor. A set to be precise."


    The old man nodded and asked "Who are you?" Adam tilted his head and asked "Does it matter?" For the first time, the old man smiled as he replied "For yourmission? No. But isn''t it basic manners to introduce yourself?"


    Adam was stunned, before he smiled and said "You are right, my apologizes. People know me as Valiant Heart, but my name is Adam."


    The old man''s eyes shone with a bright light for a second before returning to normal, and he said "I am Klint, and this is my workshop. Unfortunately, I don''t forge anymore."


    Adam looked at the back door and said "I came from the Colnds Empire because I heard of your apprentice''s renown, and he is the only one capable of forging what I want. Once I arrived, I was told your apprentice was here."


    Klint pointed his hand at a chair next to his own and said "Why don''t you sit?" Adam didn''t want to lose time for nothing, but offending the master of the one he came for wasn''t a bright idea, so he decided to sit.


    Once he sat down the old man asked "What do you know about Morbash?" Adam shrugged and replied "Not much, all I heard was that he was the most talented Sun Style cksmith of his generation. Other than that, only rumors."


    Klint raised an eyebrow and asked "What rumors?" Adam replied without hesitation "People say he is arrogant, mostly because he recently refused an order from a Hero Rank." Klint chuckled "And yet you still came?"


    Adam said "I went through quite a bit to reach here, so even if the rumors were to be true, I still had to try."


    Klint nodded and muttered "I see" He looked at Adam in the eyes and said "Morbash isn''t here, he should be at the Nek n. Let''s go fetch him."


    Klint tried to make his wheelchair move, but his arms weren''t in a good state either. Adam hurriedly got up and got behind him to push the wheelchair out of the shop.


    As they left the shop he noticed that the old orc didn''t bother locking the shop, but thinking about it, Adam guessed that no one would daree and steal here. Not that there was anything to steal.


    As Klint was guiding Adam through the city, toward the Nek n, he could feel the gazes of many people on him and Klint. At the same time, he could also hear a few them.


    "Isn''t that the old cripple?" An orc said to his friend. His friend looked over and said "What a shameless old man, he is nothing but a cripple. I really can''t understand why Morbash took him as a master."


    The two didn''t make any effort to lower their voices, and as such everyone could hear them, including Adam and Klint.


    Adam looked at Klint''s face, but he was ignoring them. He looked like he didn''t hear them. But unfortunately for the two speaking, this wasn''t the case for Adam.


    Adam was feeling a rage he hadn''t felt for quite some time, one he hadn''t felt since he died and revived. His brother, Matt, was a cripple too, and had to always be in a wheelchair. Although most people on Earth were educated and knew better than to mock a cripple, there still were a few that would speak bad about his brother from time to time.


    So hearing those two orcs, Adam felt a rage he long hadn''t felt. His eyes narrowed at the two orcs and he straightened his palm before using it as a de to sh at the two.


    He used both [Mighty Strike] and [Aqua sh], sending out arge flying sh made of water. The two orcs, who were Level 70 Berserkers, were stunned they were getting attack all of a sudden, but they quickly reacted and crossed their arms in front of themselves, trying to defend against the sh.


    -23000 HP!


    -23000 HP!


    Fortunately for them, they had defended themselves and that allowed them to lower the damage by a third. Had they not defended, their 30 000 HP would have been emptied out, and they would have died just like that.


    They looked at Adam in fear, and as if he was a madman, but when they saw his Level they were even more shocked. Before they could say anything, Adam roared at them "PISS OFF!"


    It had to be noted that back when he had used [Barbarous Roar] in Serpentine Canyon, Ember City had dispatched a small army because they thought a monster had emitted that roar. So for those two Level 70, when they felt the tremendous violent intent contained within the roar, they fled at top speed despite the bad state their arms were in.


    As they fled in the distance, Klint said "You didn''t have to do that, I''m used to it." Adam continued helping the old man walk as he said "I just felt like doing this. But tell me, I''m curious, have you ever forged something?"


    Klintughed and said "Of course, what would I be teaching that brat otherwise? I used to forge, and I was a famous cksmith, and I was quite strong myself. Unfortunately, I was crippled, and I have been unable to lift a hammer since then?"


    Adam couldn''t help but ask "You don''t have to answer me if you don''t want to, but I can''t help but ask. Who exactly crippled you? Not only did you lose your Aura, your Gates were forcefully closed too."


    Klint looked at Adam surprised and asked "You are able to see this? Impressive. And me getting crippled It wasn''t someone who did this to me, but an item. I was greedy, and I overestimated myself, causing my own injury."


    Adam asked "What was that item?" Klint smiled mysteriously and said "A Divine Artifact."

 Chapter 118: Inheritance

    Chapter 118: Inheritance


    Adam abruptly stopped the wheelchair, and looked around in rm, trying to stop anyone nearby. But he was surprised to see there was no one nearby. Klint smiled and said "Don''t worry, there won''t be anyone on our way, we can speak freely."


    "Then, what do you mean a Divine Artifact?" Although Adam was curious as to how the street could be empty like this, he guessed that even if he asked he wouldn''t get an answer.


    Klint chuckled and said "Continue advancing, I''ll tell you." Adam immediately started pushing the wheelchair and Klint said "A few centuries ago I found an ancient ruin. Back then, I was only a young Orc, I was a mere Silver Rank."


    Adam''s pupils suddenly dted when he heard the first part of what Klint said. A few hundreds years ago?! Although he expected cultivation to lengthen a cultivator''s life, hearing someone speak of hundreds of years so easily was stunning Then what about the cultivators on Earth, are some of them older than Jesus Christ? Older than Mesopotamia?


    Before Adam could lose himself in his thoughts, Klint said "This was probably the most dangerous ce I have ever been to, and I was a peak Hero in my prime."


    Adam asked puzzled "How did you survive as a Silver if it was so dangerous?" Klint replied "I wasn''t alone. I discovered that ruin thanks to another artifact I had found earlier. The artifact I first discovered was actually one of the ten keys required to enter that ruin. So we were ten to enter that ruin. I was the weakest, as a Silver Rank. There were also five Gold Ranks, three Heroes, and even one Legend."


    Adam couldn''t help but assimte this to the inheritance grounds left by experts in cultivation novels. And indeed, he wasn''t far from the truth.


    "All ten of us had to go through a series of tests, and each of them were different depending on our Level and Rank. In the end, everyone died, including that Legend Rank, and I was able to survive through sheer luck, a lot of luck. Passing those tests allowed me to enter the final area of that ruin."


    Adam asked, enthralled "What was in thatst area?" Klint sighed and said "Something that changed my life. It was actually a ruin back from the Era of the Gods, it was a pce that used to belong to a God. A cksmith God."


    Adam''s eyes widened as he asked, a little out of breath "Which God?" Klint chuckled at Adam''s reaction and replied "You wouldn''t know him, this is an ancient God that died during the War of the Gods, and he has been long since forgotten. But he didn''t want his art to disappear, so he left his inheritance behind, which I acquired."


    Adam frowned a little, and said "So you are telling me you inherited the forging techniques of a God of cksmiths Why are you telling me this?"


    Adam couldn''t help but be vignt, who in their right mind would tell such a huge secret to someone they didn''t know. Moreover, Adam was sure Klint didn''t say this to anyone else, otherwise other people wouldn''t mock him like they did, even if he was crippled.


    Once again, Klint chuckled and said "One thing at a time, be patient. Apart from that inheritance, there was also a piece of armor, a Chestte. ording to the inheritance, this was a Divine Artifact, and a part of Divine Set. This was the masterpiece of that God."


    Adam''s face turned unsightly as he asked "You really aren''t afraid I would kill you to get that armor are you?"


    Klintughed and said "I believe I am quite good at discerning the true face of people, and I am confidant you wouldn''t do such a thing. And that Divine Artifact, you wouldn''t have any use for it, because it is broken."


    Adam sighed "How unfortunate." Klint nodded "Indeed. And thest wish of that God was precisely for me to repair that Chestte. When I was a Level 200 Hero, I was greedy, and I tried to repair this Chestte, thinking I was already strong enough. The result is, I have been crippled for 50 years already."


    Adam asked "Are you teaching Morbash in hope he takes the mantle over and repairs the Divine Armor?" Klint nodded and said "Indeed. And that is also why I am telling you this."


    Adam frowned "What do you mean?" Klint replied "Twenty years ago, when I adopted Morbash, I met a Diviner. I was told a prophesy, about Morbash, and about ''he who rules the tides''. ording to that Diviner, Morbash will never be able to repair that Divine Armor, not alone."


    Adam asked "He who rules the tides You think it''s me?" Klint scoffed "Who other than the Aqua Sovereign could rule the tides?" Adam smiled and asked "I didn''t know you knew it was me." Klint replied "I may be old, I''m not cut out of the outside world. Do you think I didn''t inform myself about someone called the Aqua Sovereign?"


    Adam nodded, that made sense. Klint continued "ording to the prophesy, three items vital to the repair of the Divine Armor shall be brought by you, and without them, Morbash will end up like me." Adam asked "I imagine getting those items will be incrediblyplicated, right?"


    Klint nodded and said "Indeed, all three items are things that even the Racial Powers are unable to get. Even if the Leader of Buwog were to try to get those items, the entire might of Buwog wouldn''t be enough to get them."


    Adam was shocked, what kind of items did he need to get? Klint said after a moment "The first item is the Dragon King''s Heart. The Dragon King is the ruler of the entire Dragon Race, which is stronger than any of the Racial Powers." This didn''t really surprise Adam, Dragons were known to be very strong, and everyone of them was a Grade 1 Monster, meaning they would reach the Legend Rank at maturity.


    Klint said "To take the Dragon King''s Heart means killing him, and the Dragon Race wouldn''t stand by as their leader gets killed, so that means probably fighting the whole Dragon Race. This is only one of the three items, and I assure you the other two are as hard to get as this one."


    Adam said after a moment "This looks like a very hard task, time consuming and almost impossible to finish. Tell me, why would I agree to help?"


    Klint said "Do you think I want to repair the Divine Armor just to let discard it in a corner, never to be used? If you can supply those three equipments, then you will obviously be gifted the armor, and get to use it."


    Adam couldn''t help but feel some greed, wearing a Divine Armor sure sounded nice Adam shook his head and said "Why would Morbash gift me the Armor. I don''t think any normal person would let a Divine Armor go."


    Klint shook his head and said "Not just anyone can wear such an armor. This is an armor that is supposed to be worn by a God, how could a mere mortal use it? Just like you can''t wear a Unique Armor, a Legend can''t wear a Divine Artifact Unless they are a Sovereign. If an ordinary Legend were to try to use a Divine Artifact, they would explode without a doubt."


    Adam said "That sounds really enticing, but whether I ept or not, this is a matter for the far future. For now, I need a set of armor for my current Level and Rank. Do you think he will agree to make it for me?"


    Klint said "He doesn''t know of the prophesy, nor of anything I have just told you. He only thinks that I am an old man who knows a lot of smithing. As such, you will not receive a special treatment. You will probably have to prove yourself before he agrees to make a set for you."


    Adam asked through his teeth "Can''t you just tell him to make me the armor?" Klintughed and said "Where would the fun be? You are young, you ought to work hard to get what you want!"


    Adam gritted his teeth at the old man''s attitude, but he knew that pouring his anger on the old man would be useless.

 Chapter 119: Another Token

    Chapter 119: Another Token


    Adam still had a few questions, but before he could ask any of them Klint said "We shall talk about this again in the future."


    Adam looked ahead and realized the street in front of them finally had some people in it. Adam couldn''t help but look at the old man with doubt. How did he do that? But if he was crippled, then he shouldn''t be able to do such a thing Maybe there was a third party was involved.


    As they entered the crowd Adam couldn''t help but ask "Who is the Nek n? And why is Morbash there?"


    Klint replied "The Nek n is one of the Five Great ns of Yam. Those ns are the Nek, Yok, Mal, Vil and Tan ns. They are the five strongest ns within our Great Tribe, and the leader of our race, our Tribe Leader, is always chosen amongst those five ns. Currently, our Tribe Leader is Vm."


    "As for Morbash, he went to the Nek n for a particr reason. A reason that caused the downfall of many empires throughout the ages."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and said "A woman?"


    Klint smiled and said "Quite sharp, for a Northman. Yes, he went there for a woman. My disciple wishes to obtain the favors of the heiress of the Nek n, Nekli. However, there is a lot ofpetitions. This might be a good starting point if you want Morbash to forge you something."


    Adam asked "How muchpetition?" Klint replied "Nekli is acknowledged as the most beautiful orc in Buwog. You tell me, how muchpetition is that?"


    Adam sighed and said "I see Why did you ask me to bring you there? What brings you to the Nek n?" Klint said "Isn''t it obvious? My disciple of course." Adam rolled his eyes and said "This isn''t what I''m asking. What could heading there bring to you or him?"


    But Klint only smiled mysteriously as he said "My judgment wasn''t wrong, your mind seems as sharp as your de." Adam scoffed and said "I doubt that"


    Before long, Adam and Klint arrived in front of argepound. It almost looked like a small vige within the city. Several Gold Ranks were guarding the entrance of thepound, they felt as strong as the guards one could see in the capital.


    But when Adam and Klint arrived in front of one of the biggest house in the entire n''s grounds, although the guards were still Gold Ranks, they felt much stronger. They had gone past Level 150, entering the Hero Levels, but they hadn''t ranked up.


    Theoretically, an Iron Rank could go all the way up to Level 300, the highest level in the game. This would make them very strong Iron Ranks, but they would still remain very weak as each level up would only give them 5 AP, not counting the AP from their race.


    Most people would forcefully stop themselves from leveling up once they reach the transitional levels, Level 20, 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250. This was because even leveling up once before ranking up would make them weaker.


    For example, if a Bronze Rank levels up to Level 51, they would only earn 10 AP. But if they first rank up to Silver Rank, and then Level Up, they would gain 20 AP. This means every level up would make them lose 10 AP, and it only goes up the more they rank up.


    Although the difference might seem small, even such a small difference could differentiate between life and death. Maybe those lost points could make them unable to wear a certain equipment, and this would make them even weaker. That''s why, most people would rather remain stuck on the same level for years than go past the transitional level.


    And remaining stuck at a rank didn''t mean bing inactive, because there existed items that could stop someone from leveling up, so that the user continue fighting and killing without gaining XP.


    But the guards in the Nek n had ignored this, all for the sake of protecting their n. This was quite the selfless action, but Adam didn''t know whether they had a choice Anyway, it wasn''t his business.


    Adam and Klint were stopped by a pair of Level 190 Gold Ranks guarding the entrance of the big house "Do you have an invitation?"


    Klint looked at Adam with a smile, wondering how he would deal with the situation. Adam looked at the old man weirdly, was that fossil so bored? Until now, Adam had been concealing himself, revealing an aura only as strong as a normal Level 32 Bronze Rank who didn''t open any Gate.


    That''s why, no one was recognizing him as a Sovereign, and those guards had stopped him. But Adam didn''t release his aura, as he wanted to test something. He took out one of his tokens and asked "Is this enough?"


    One of the guards took the token curiously, and turned it to read the rune on it. When he read the rune, he looked at Adam in a new light and asked "You know the Aqua Sovereign?"


    Adam smiled and said "Sort of. Is this enough to enter?" The guard nodded as he gave back the token "Of course. Watch out once inside though, as not even this would save you if you offend those inside."


    Adam was about to go in, but when he heard thest sentence he asked "Who exactly is inside? Arrogant people?"


    The guard smiled helplessly and said "Today our Eldest Miss is having fun with members of the other Great ns, as well as some other important people I can''t speak bad about any of them, I like having my head on my shoulders, but I would be careful if I were you."


    Adam smiled and said "Thanks for the warning." Adam flicked the token to the guard, who looked at him confused, before he released his aura. The guard didn''t have to be brilliant to understand who Adam was.


    But before he could say anything, Adam pushed Klint''s chair inside, who finally stopped retaining himself fromughing.


    The other guard, the one who had remained silent until now, looked at the token in envy as he said "I swear I will answer the questions of every damn visitor from now on!"


    The first guard patted his shoulder as he pocketed the token and said "Come on, tonight''s my treat." The other guard rolled his eyes and said "I would rather pay for the whole next year and get this token."


    Meanwhile, Adam pushed Klint''s wheelchair toward the main hall of the big house, from which they could hear voices. Adam decided to release his entire aura right away, as he would rather not be mistaken for amon person.


    While in some asions hiding his strength might be good to understand the nature of some people, facing those arrogant second generations, he knew that he would be met with despise if he concealed his aura, and create endless trouble.


    From what Old Adam read in cultivation novels, most conflicts of the main characters either came because of how beautiful their wife is, or because they hide their true strength and only reveal it when the other side haspletely offended them.


    In Adam''s opinion, this was quite the terrible behavior, as it was basically inviting trouble on oneself, and it even usually ended up with the other side being crippled or dead. Then, the older brotheres, gets humiliated, then the elder and the patriarch, and the whole n ends up dead in the end.


    Maybe he went a little too far in his thoughts, but nheless, Adam decided to show his strength and identity right away so that he could avoid as many problems as he could.

 Chapter 120: Young Generation

    Chapter 120: Young Generation


    Adam and Klint entered the main all, where they saw a group of orc gathered together. All of them were young, all of them below 30. As Adam pushed Klint in, they all quieted down, they were clearly unexpected.


    However, after the initial silence, someone eximed "Master!? What are you doing here?"


    Adam turned to look at the origin of the voice, and saw a Level 70 Orc was the one who spoke. He had a Mohawk, and was in the center of the room. Actually, after a second nce, he realized that everyone present wasn''t dispatched randomly in the room.


    At the center of them all, there was an orc girl, a beautiful orc. Even Adam, who was human and thus had human''s standard of beauty, he had to admit that she was prettier than most women he had seen in his entire life.


    He didn''t have to look at her status to guess that she was today''s host, Nekli. However, no matter how beautiful she was, she wasn''t the reason he was here today. Adam''s eyes turned to Morbash, and heard Klint say "I was bored at the workshop, and this fine young man agreed to take me here. Actually, he wanted to meet you."


    Morbash''s attention had been on his master since he saw himing in, but hearing his words he looked up at the young man who was pushing his master''s wheelchair.


    At first he didn''t think much, although that person made him feel danger, they were in Yam, where even the guards were peak Gold Ranks, so there were many people who could make him feel danger.


    However, when he saw the status of that young man, his eyes widened. Valiant Heart, Level 32. As Morbash was stunned by Adam, thetter greeted him "I finally get to meet you, Morbash. I have literally traveled the whole continent to meet you."


    Morbash nodded and said "I Are you the Aqua Sovereign?" Adam showed his thumb at the cksmith and said "Exactly. I came all the way here because I want you to forge a set for me. But I see you are in the middle of something"


    Adam looked at Nekli, the main host of today, and asked "If I''m not wrong, considering the guests, the decoration and the mood It ought to be your birthday, right?"


    Nekli wasn''t any better than Morbash, she was as stunned as he was. Actually, everyone present couldn''t believe what they were seeing. This made Adam realize that maybe he had underestimated his own fame and influence.


    After a moment, Nekli nodded and said "It is my 22nd Birthday Do Do you want to join in?" Adam smiled at her and replied "That''s nice of you, and I wished I could, but unfortunately I am busy"


    One of the orcs, who looked like one of the youngest ones present, asked "Were you really at Neve Dorei?"


    Adam looked a the Orc who just spoke, he looked even younger than himself, between 18 and 20, and yet he was already a Level 45 Bronze Rank. Leveling up wasn''t as easy for NPCspared to yers, because yers weren''t afraid of death and had a lot less to worry about in life. An NPC would have to worry about where they would sleep during the night, what they would eat, and where they would get the money to do all that.


    But except for this one orc who was a Bronze Rank, everyone present was a Silver Rank, and the older ones were even at thest levels of the Rank.


    But despite their level and rank, Adam could feel there was something amiss. Even though everyone present was at least A sses, with a majority of S sses, they had all opened at least one Gate and ought to be good fighters.


    But he could feel that they were unbelievably weak. Even with the strength of their body and the powering from their Gates, they were weak. It didn''te from ack of power, but it felt like he was facing kittens, and not battle hardened warriors


    Adam finally understood what was wrong. They allcked the fierce aura that would appear in someone who went through life and death. It felt like everyone present had never set foot on a battlefield, had never been in a perilous situation.


    And he believed that was most probably the case. Before, when he met Yokgu at the fake Orui''s Oasis, the situation was the same. Although he was a Sovereign, Yokgu didn''t feel as dangerous as he should have been, and he had even said that this was his first time outside Yam.


    That''s how Adam realized the problem of Yam''s younger generation, they were being overprotected! The Five Great ns, being the strongest powers in Buwog, they most certainly didn''tck extraordinary items like the one Adam used to help his Division Leaders.


    They probably had the means to help their younger generation to level up and open the Gates without even facing the outside world. But it seemed it had consequences. Adam felt like even a B Rank could destroy anyone present at the same Level, or maybe even a few levels lower.


    Combat experience was a very important aspect of someone''s strength too. Even if someone were to open all the Gates, if they never fought then they wouldn''t know how to use them.


    And this wasn''t something that only happened in Yam, but in every power in the world. The elders of the great ns had two options on how to educate their children. They could either give everything to their children, and although they would be weak, they wouldn''t be in any danger.


    The second option was to lessen their help, and to help their children properly temper themselves. However, this was a dangerous world, and their children could be killed at any time. Most of the elders are people who had to temper themselves at some point in their lives, and they knew better than anyone how brutal life was.


    That''s why, in every noble n one could differentiate the members in two categories, those overprotected, and those tempered. For every parent it was a difficult decision to make, let their children be endangered or allow them to live a carefree life.


    Funnily, it was usually those parents who led a carefree life that would want their children to be tempered, and those that were tempered that want their children to live a carefree life.


    A parent who led a carefree life would never attain a high position in their n because of the life they led, and as thus they would want for their children to live a better life and achieve something, even if that means endangering their lives.


    On the contrary, those that were tempered with, although they are usually in high positions, they had seen through their whole lives their friends die one after another, and know how hard it is to really be someone important.


    That''s why, even to this day, there were people of both categories everywhere, and this affected everyone. Yokgu, for example, his parents had dotted on him for his whole life, and even though it had already been a few years since he became 18 and capable of leveling up, he had never gotten out of Yam until recently.


    And the only reason this happened was because his grandfather, who is a Legend, recently came back from a long trip, and using his influence as a Legend he forced Yokgu out of the Capital.


    Actually, there were many young people who wished they could fight, truly fight, but most are afraid, and if they don''t have anyone to push them they will never dare to go against their parents.


    Yokgu was scared when he first left Yam, as he didn''t know his grandfather was watching him, but as the fights went on he became a little more confidant until he met Adam.


    And it was the same for the people in Adam''s room. The one who had just asked Adam about his Neve Dorei, Adam could see his eyes bright up, he was almost looking at him like he was a hero or something. And he wasn''t the only one in the room, he could see that most admired him and his feats.

 Chapter 121: What can I do for you?

    Chapter 121: What can I do for you?


    Adam could see that the vast majority of those present were looking at him with shiny eyes, including Nekli, the host. Coincidentally, Adam felt that she was a mage, most probably a fire mage.


    A smile appeared on his face as he said, looking at the young man who asked him "I was at Neve Dorei, it was a great battle, although too many fell"


    The room seemed to be a little darker as Adam''s words fell into their ears, and they could almost feel the aura of the battlefield. However, Adam then finished his sentence, this time facing Nekli " I personally yed their general, and I got this."


    Adam took out the [Corroded Staff of the Undead] from his inventory, and taking a step toward Nekli he said "Although it is the first time we meet, since this is your birthday, and I hope to form a friendship with Morbash, I shall gift this weapon to you."


    Nekli took the staff with wide eyes, and Adam could see that she was holding it so hard that the staff would surely break, were it made of normal wood.


    From Level 50 to Level 99, the Unique Quality was the best quality for any equipment. For Nekli, a Level 82 mage, this Level 80 Unique Staff was one of the best she could possibly get, and even though she was in arge n, even they may not have given her such a weapon. They would most certainly give her the best weapon for her rank up quest, but that would be a Level 100 Equipment of the quality just above Unique.


    But even if her n had given her a weapon as strong as the one Adam just gifted her, the true value of this staff did note from it''s power, but rather from it story. Taken from the general of the undead army, while in the middle of a great battle that shook an entire kingdom!


    As for Adam, giving out this staff didn''t really bother him. If he were to sell it he would most certainly be able to get hundreds of Gold Coins, if not more than a thousand, so giving it out for free might seem like a loss.


    But in Adam''s eyes, it wasn''t. Everyone present had seen that when Adam stated his reason for giving out the weapon, apart from her joy, she also sneaked a nce at Morbash, and blushed.


    Morbash was now grinning like a fool, while most young man had ashen faces, wishing Adam hade to see them instead.


    After a moment, the staff in Nekli''s hands disappeared, which made Adam move his eyes toward the fingers of Nekli. A magnificent ring with beautiful runes carved on it was on her left middle finger. Normally, only yers could make an object disappear, by sending said item in their inventory.


    This was one of the big differences between yers and NPCs, along with reincarnation. An NPC had no inventory, and as such they had to store everything they had on themselves. Except if they had a Spacial Ring.


    Spacial Rings weren''t a foreign concept to Adam, and he knew pretty well how they worked, it was simply a magical ring with a piece of space inside it. The space inside the ring was a limited vacuum which could be used to store pretty much everything except living things.


    Well, not every livings things, as most nts could also be stored in the ring, as long as they couldn''t move.


    Spatial Rings could also be used by yers to increase the space in their inventory, but they weren''t easy to find. To make a Spatial Ring, one would need to find an extremely skilled magician who is at least at the Hero Rank.


    Moreover, not just every Hero Rank could make a Spatial Ring. After all, although Hero Ranks weren''tmon cabbages, there were still thousands if not tens of thousands of them in the entire mortal realm of Epoch.


    If every single magician amongst them was capable of creating a Spatial Ring then they wouldn''t be so rare. But only a magician with great control over their Mana and who studied magical runes for years could create Spatial Rings.


    Those special kinds of magicians were called Enchanters, and they did not only make Spatial Rings, but also the arrays in magical cannons, defensive towers, everything rted to formation and arrays were made by them.


    There were ten main sses for fighters in Epoch, and there were three main jobs. Those three main jobs were: cksmith, Alchemist and Enchanter. Anyone capable of achieving something in any of those three fields could literally be richer than whole Kingdoms without much of a problem. Well, of course this was only for low level kingdoms.


    Anyway, although Adam was interested by those Spatial Rings, he didn''t say anything, he would get to examine themter on. After nodding to Morbash, Adam walked back to Klint and asked with a voice so low that no one except Klint could hear it "So, what are we doing now? They are making me ufortable, looking at me like that."


    Klint smiled faintly and said "We can go back, I had my fun." Klint then raised his voice and said "Morbash, enjoy the party, but be back at the workshop in a couple hours at most. You have a customer waiting."


    Morbash nodded and Adam led Klint out of therge house. The two of them quickly returned to the workshop, and there Adam meditated silently while they waited for Morbash toe back.


    Since Adam had already sessfully created his cultivation technique, he got back to work on his skills. What Adam wanted to do the most was to raise his [Aqua sh] to C Rank, but he held back. He knew it wouldn''t be hard, as all he had to do was to make it as close to [Lunar Smite] as possible.


    But instead of doing that, Adam decided to go for something better. He would first perfectly master [Lunar Smite], and then fuse the two skills together. If he wasn''t wrong, this should allow him to raise the skill to B Rank, and it would be perfectly mastered.


    Of course, this wasn''t something that could be done in a short amount of time, and so even after two hours passed, Adam still hadn''t made much advancement.


    But he still stopped his meditation because the orc he was waiting for hade back from his party.


    As he entered the shop, Morbash looked at Adam with an amiable smile and said "I wille in a second. I just need a minute to freshen up, I sweated a lot."


    Adam nodded without a word, and looked at the nearby Klint. He was surprised to see that he had fallen asleep, staying true to his identity of an old man.


    Adam didn''t care to wake him up, and instead waited in silence for Morbash toe back. When he did, Adam was surprised to see he hadpletely changed his outfit, and the finely made expensive clothes he had earlier had disappeared, and he was now in a much simpler outfit, befitting of his status as a cksmith.


    It wasn''t that Adam looked down on cksmiths, but seeing a cksmith in fancy clothes was really weird, as one would expect them to be in simpler clothes in which one could sweat without fearing they would ruin their clothes.


    Morbash''s amiable smile was still on his face as he asked "What can I do for you?"

 Chapter 122: Damn you brat

    Chapter 122: Damn you brat


    Adam looked at the armor he had on, it was a good set that had served him well, but it was time for a change. The armor had already deteriorated in some ces, even though it was at full durability.


    He then said "I wish to change armors. But I don''t want just any armor. I have several demands for my equipments."


    Morbash nodded and took out notebook. Seeing Adam''s questioning look, he said "I don''t have the best memory, I don''t want to risk ruining an armor."


    Adam shrugged and said "I want the armor to be a set, either a set of four with Helmet, Chestte, Boots and Gauntlets, or a set of five with an additional ring. The set also needs to be capable of leveling up, if possible going from Level 40 to Level 50."


    Morbash nodded and said "Those are hard effects to produce, I can see why you came to me."


    Adam smiled helplessly and said "I also want the equipments to all be at the Extraordinary Quality, and with an affinity with Water, Ice or Steam. Is that something you can make?"


    Morbash finished writing everything, before he sat down and said with aplicated look "I think I might But I don''t advise you to take such an armor."


    Adam frowned and asked "Why?" Morbash replied "The leveling function on an armor or a weapon isn''t really good. While it''s convenient because it allows you not to swap equipments, it also weakens the equipments. A Level 50 Set would almost always be stronger than a Level 40-50 Set that was leveled up to max. Well, almost always."


    Adam asked "What do you mean?" Morbash replied "To make an equipment level up once again, it isn''t something a cksmith can do, but only an enchanter. But the energy in the runes left on the weapon or armor by the enchanter will enter into a conflict with the energy of the cksmith who made the equipment, and so it will be weaker. Only if one is simultaneously a cksmith and an Enchanter can they make a Leveling Weapon without weakening it. Unfortunately, from what I know, there is no such person anymore."


    Adam sighed "Then is it impossible to find a good leveling set?" Morbash shook his head and said "Not exactly. There exists relics of the past known as ss Equipments, those are the good leveling equipments. But to find an entire set of them is almost impossible, even with the best luck in the world, so don''t count on that. That''s why, I advise you to order a Level 50 Set, so that you might have the best equipment possible for your Promotion Quest. Until then, you can find separate pieces of equipments to rece the one you are wearing."


    Adam wanted to silently ponder on the matter, but Morbash said "I heard the Promotion Quest for Sovereigns are incredibly hard, and that many Sovereigns died from them over the years. That''s why, I advise you to get as ready as you can be, because you might very well fail it."


    Adam asked "Can''t the set be at the Unique Quality if it is Level 50?" Morbash smiled helplessly and said "It can, but that would be a waste of great materials. The materials used to make it could also be used to make a Level 100 Unique Equipment."


    Adam asked "Then I want a Level 50 Four Piece Set at the Extraordinary Grade, and with an affinity to water. Can you make that?"


    Morbash shrugged and said "I can, but there would be big chances I would just fail."


    "Why?" Morbash said "The materials I will need to use to make that set will be very hard to manipte. For any forger, not only their skill matters, but their forge and hammer too. Even the best cksmith needs a good forge and hammer. With the forge and hammer I currently use, it will be almost impossible to forge what you need."


    He then added "And that''s not even the only problem. The materials are very expensive, and getting them will be hard, and will take some time"


    "Just tell me what you need, and I will get them."


    Morbash turned to look at the forge on the side and said "Fine if you get the materials For the forge, fortunately I already have a great one here, but it''s fire has long been extinguished, and no ordinary fire can lit it up. You will need to go fetch a powerful me to do so. Then there is also the hammer"


    "How much will I have to pay in the end?" Morbash looked back at Adam and said "I have several options for you."


    Adam nodded, showing he was listening, and Morbash said "First, you only get the materials. You will then be charged for the forging and there will be a high chance it won''t even work. If you bring the hammer too, then it will be for free. Even if it fails once, you will only have to bring back more materials and try again, and it will still be for free. Finally, you can also bring the materials, the hammer and the me. If you can do that, then it will be free, and I will most likely seed on first try."


    Adam extended his hand and said "Deal." Morbash took his hand and said "I will need to do some research first, to see which materials will be the best to use Meanwhile, you can go look for the hammer and the me."


    Adam nodded and asked "What can you tell me about the hammer?"


    Morbash''s face seemed to brighten up as he said "The hammer I want is called the ''Forger''s Dream'', and it has been stuck inside a ce called the ''Phantom Mansion'' for a few years now. You will need to fight against multiple Specters as you go through the mansion, and find the hammer. Be careful though, many tried to enter that ce in the past, but none got out alive"


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Forger''s Dream''!]


    Quest Detail: If you want to get a set for free, then you will have to put in some effort!


    Quest Level: 70


    Quest Difficulty: SS


    Objective: Retrieve the hammer from Phantom Mansion!


    Reward: Forger''s Dream


    Adam epted the quest and asked "What about that me?"


    Morbash said "The me is easier to getpared to the hammer, much easier, because there are several mes you can get. You will need to go to a ce known as the Everburn Mont, which is an ancient volcano. It is infested with countlessva monsters, with different levels."


    "The deeper on goes into the volcano, the stronger the monsters be. At the entrance of the volcano, the monsters are only Level 50. But in the deepest parts of the volcano, it is said there are monsters above Level 200. You can get the me from the entrance of the volcano, but the deeper you go, the better the me will be. At the same time, the better the me is, the more the forge will be awakened."


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Everburn Mont''!]


    Quest Detail: An ancient forge needs an extraordinary me to be lit up once again.


    Quest Level: 50


    Quest Difficulty: B


    Objective: Bring a me back to the forge. The stronger the me, the more chances Morbash will have to create the set.


    Reward: Increase the probability of the set being sessfully forged.


    Adam once again epted the quest, and said "I will go search for them right now." Adam got up from his own chair and said "I should be back by the end of the day, or maybe tomorrow Take care of yourself until then. Say goodbye to the old fraud for me when he wakes up."


    Morbash nodded, a smile appeared on his face when he heard how Adam called him. What they didn''t see was that Klint almost coughed in anger when he heard how Adam called him.


    ''Damn you brat!''

 Chapter 123: Abandoned City

    Chapter 123: Abandoned City


    Once out of the workshop, it actually didn''t take too long for Adam to find where exactly the Phantom Mansion was.


    Adam had decided to first go for the hammer, there wasn''t really any reason other than the fact he wanted to see what the ghosts would look like.


    As it turned out, the Phantom Mansion was inside an abandoned city west of Buwog. Not every city won like Neve Dorei, and this city was one of those cities taken over.


    He didn''t know how this city had been taken over, but this wasn''t a unique case in Epoch. While the Racial Powers weren''t at war with each other, many coveted what they had. And of course there were some internal fights between the kingdoms, or even the cities.


    For example, Neve Dorei wasn''t attacked just because the undead wanted the city, they wouldn''t have dared to attack if it weren''t for the n leaders negotiating with them and betraying the city.


    That''s why, there were a myriad of possible reasons as to why and how this city fell. Two hours after noon, Adam arrived at the abandoned city while on top of Neith.


    He had teleported to the closest city, and once out of the city he summoned Neith toe here. The city was small, and as such he had seen a few yers, but it was also night time, so he only saw a part of the amount he should have seen.


    When he arrived at the abandoned city, while it was 1.00 pm in the real world, it was only the end of the night in the abandoned city, if Adam guessed right then the sun should set in an hour or two at most.


    Although there were more monsters at night, and they were a little more ferocious, Adam was a little excited because of the mood. The ruined city looked quite beautiful in the night, and the moonlight barely illuminated the streets, making them look spooky.


    While Adam entered the city with glee, the way here wasn''t so pleasant. From the city to here, he had to go through a big Level 50 Area, and although the monsters were of absolutely no threat to either him or Neith, the area looked nd and boring.


    So after more than an hour of boring travel, finally entering the city was quite exciting.


    The area outside the city was Level 50, but when he entered the city he noticed that the city was actually a Level 60 Area.


    It didn''t take long for a pair of monsters to appear before him, and after a look he realized that those weren''t actually monsters, but members of a Special Tribe, Centaurs.


    Special Tribes were intelligent races who did not belong to a Racial Power. Special Tribes could either be intelligent humanoids who couldn''t open the Gates, but who had special talents, or powerful monsters.


    For example, Centaurs had their horse lower body, which can be used as weapons, and they are one of the fastest races in a straight line. But they can''t open the Gates, so they never got a Racial Power of their own.


    Another simr case is the Giants. They are one of the most powerful races in Epoch, but although they look very humanoid, they can''t open their Gates either. However, their strength is more than enough to make them one of the top races in the entire world.


    On the other hand, the most powerful monsters have also formed Special Tribes. Adam had already interacted with one of them, and it was the goblins. The Goblin Kingdom is a Special Tribe. Although the goblins'' bodies are among the weakest in the monster world, they are capable of using equipments, allowing them to rival opponents much stronger than themselves.


    Of course, there are other races capable of bing Special Tribes just based on their powerful bodies, with Dragons being the best example. Their raw strength and talent is so great that any pure blood dragon can be a Legend, and one of the strongest legends too. They also have a special talent, their Dragon Language Magic.


    Every Special Tribe differentiated in power, with the weakest ones being only stronger than a Kingdom, and some others stronger than Racial Powers.


    The Centaurs weren''t very strong individually, in term of strength they belonged to the lower rank of Special Tribes, they barely had any Legends in their midst. However, very few are those ready to provoke them.


    That''s because the best seers in the world are among the Centaurs, and many, many people want to know what their future will be. A such, the centaurs were able to establish many friendships with different powers around the world.


    When the two centaurs saw Neith, they immediately went on guard, both drawing out their bows. However, before they could shoot Neith and kill themselves Adam spoke out "Don''t shoot, we are friendly!"


    The two centaurs looked up, but Neith was so tall that they couldn''t see Adam. Neith lowered herself a little, and Adam entered their view. They also nced at Neith status, and they couldn''t help but sweat seeing it. As Special Species, they also followed the monster system, be it with the Grades or the ranks.


    As such, they knew that as two Level 65 Lord Rank Monsters, they would have been oneshoted by this Level 43 Chosen Overlord. After looking at Adam, they didn''t take long to guess who he was, and they both slightly bowed at him "We meant no harm, Sovereign."


    Adam nodded at them and said "I didn''t expect to see you here, are you here to hunt?" One of the two centaurs shook his head and said "We came here to retrieve someone, but our team split up when we entered a strange mansion"


    Adam''s eyes shone as he asked "Were there specters in that mansion?" The centaur looked at Adam surprised and said "Yes, how did you know?"


    Adam chuckled and said "That was the Phantom Mansion, it is why I came here in the first ce. Can you bring us there?"


    The two centaurs looked at each other with hesitation, and after a moment they nodded to each other. The centaur who hadn''t spoken until now, the female centaur, said "Of course we can But our teammates are inside the mansion, could you help them?"


    Adam shrugged and said "I''m going in anyway, I might as well help them." He jumped from Neith''s back to walk side by side with them as they led the way. As cool as it was to be 15 meters above the ground, it wasn''t the best way tomunicate.


    As they walked through the streets, the two presented themselves. The male centaur was Menius, and the female one was Cilliore. They came to this city to save Ajetus, Cilliore''s younger brother.


    They came here alongside their team, led by Cilliore''s lover, Agera. After a few inquiries, Adam actually found out that Agera was a female too. That was quite interesting to Adam as Agera and Cilliore were the first lesbians he had met in the game.


    In Epoch, many problems from Earth had no ce to be. Gay rtionships weren''t frowned at, and they weren''t really special. Although they were in the minority, they had existed since forever, so it wouldn''t shock anybody.


    However, some other issues were way more hardcore within Epoch, with the main case being Racism. Adam didn''t have any problem because he was a Sovereign, but normal Northmen wouldn''t be able to enter most shops. And Adam had also been lucky, as he fell on nice Orcs.


    The Elves were also pretty hardcore amongst themselves, especially the Wood Elves and the Dark Elves, who hated each other''s guts


    But now wasn''t the time to think of those things, he had other things to do. While the politics and social issues of Epoch interested him, he was about to enter a ghost house to retrieve a bloody hammer, it really wasn''t the appropriate time.

 Chapter 124: Phantom Mansion (1)

    Chapter 124: Phantom Mansion (1)


    When the group arrived in front of the mansion, Menius said "We entered together, but arge group of wraith ambushed us and forced us to leave the mansion. When we met, we were thinking of how we could enter the mansion without alerting the wraiths."


    Adam said "There''s no need now. What can you tell me about the wraiths inside?" Cilliore looked relieved when she heard what he said, and she quickly replied to his question "The wraiths we saw were all Level 70, and they aren''t very strong. However, you must watch out for your Aura consumption once inside, as the Wraiths are impervious to physical attacks and can only by hurt using Aura or Mana."


    Adam nodded, this was a big advantage for the wraiths. At least, against normal people. Adam''s passive Aura Recovery was at 20 Aura per second. Even if he takes hits, to recover one percent of his health he needs to spend 6 Aura, meaning that if he recovers 3% of his health every second he would still recover 2 Aura every second.


    And that was if he was injured. If none of the wraiths could deal damage to him, then he wouldn''t need to waste Aura to heal himself.


    As Adam was about to lead the group in the mansion, they all heard a roar echo somewhere in the city, and it was quickly followed by several others. They all turned to look in the direction of themotion, and after several seconds they started feeling tremors in the ground.


    Adam looked up at Neith and asked "Take care of them, while I go with them inside. It would have been ufortable for you inside anyway."


    Neith purred, which was quite unusual of her ''Sure, I''m going to have some fun'' Adam realized that the purr he heard wasn''t a good sign, and he hurriedly entered the mansion with the two centaurs.


    Well, it was called a Mansion, but it was enormous, it looked more like a pce than anything from outside. But this was the case for most of the ns'' homes in this world.


    On Earth, even the kings and emperors of ancient times only had a few hundreds people living with them at most, with all their servants. But the ns in Epoch, even the smaller ones, had thousands of members each, which was most of the n''s mansions were bigger than pces.


    And for appearance sake, the bigger ns all have even bigger mansions, whether they have more or less members. The most exaggerated were the Imperial Pces, or their equivalent in the different Racial Powers. They were literally kilometers tall, and in width they were as big as a town, reaching hundreds of square kilometers.


    So even though this ce was called the Phantom Mansion, it wasn''t a small area by any means, and it would take time to search through it.


    When he entered the mansion with the two centaurs, he half expected this to be a dungeon, but was proved wrong as a group of specters appeared some distance away from them.


    [Lower Wraith] (Elite, Level 70)


    HP: 30000/30000


    [Hungry Wraith] (Chieftain, Level 70)


    HP: 150000/150000


    Both Cilliore and Menius took out their bow, but before they could shoot any of the wraiths, Adam had already acted.


    He unsheathed his sword so fast that it became a blur, and apressed de of vapor exited the sword, shing with the ethereal enemies.


    -164000 HP!


    The flying sh went through the entire group of wraiths, killing all of them in a single blow. Adam couldn''t help but smile, it had gone as he expected. Normally, his damage should have been around 135k, but he remembered something about the wraiths.


    They were beings of extreme cold, as they were undead beings, and so fire, lightning and holy damages would deal extra damage, whereas they had a resistance to ice and dark damage.


    The Water element could be split in Water, Ice and Steam/Vapor, and they all had different proprieties. For steam, it was extremely hot attacks, which was why he had dealt additional damage. If he was right in his calctions, then he should be dealing 20% damage to them by using steam attacks.


    As for Cilliore and Menius, they were dumbfounded by what they saw. The wraiths that had sessfully split their group, were actually killed with a single blow by Adam? They knew he was strong, from the rumors, but this exceeded their expectations.


    However, the two didn''t take several factors into ount. First, while their intangibility allowed them to ignore normal physical attacks, it had a secondary effect, and that was that attacks could just pass through them.


    The Wraiths had close to no defense, so even after killing the first wraith Adam''s flying sh did not lower in power, and all the wraiths suffered the full powered blow from Adam.


    If it had been actual living being of flesh and blood in front of Adam, with the same amount of HP as those Wraiths, the sh would have killed the first people it touched, but the others directly behind would barely be injured, and those in the back wouldn''t even have been hit.


    The group of three were able to quickly peruse through the mansion, Cilliore being the one who led the way. She said she had an intuition, which told her the approximate location of her lover, and thus the rest of the team.


    However, on the way they had crossed the dead bodies of two centaurs, which were part of Cilliore''s and Menius'' team. From their faces, their death hadn''t been a nice one. The wraiths did not leave any remains behind, as they were mere spirits. Even for Adam, they didn''t drop any items, but they rewarded more XP than monsters of the same level.


    The group of three walked through the house for an entire hour, shing with wraiths between Elite and Lord Rank. All of them were dealt with by Adam, but Agera, Cilliore''s lover, and her team obviously didn''t have an easier time.


    During this hour they had seen two more corpses other than the first two, and ording to Cilliore and Menius, the only survivors of their squad was Agera, and the two of them.


    Soon after, a desperate looking Cilliore and a lost Menius arrived at a big room, alongside Adam. Inside the room were hundreds of wraiths, surrounding a single centaur. The centaur carried a spear and a shield, and looked like she was on herst leg.


    When Cilliore saw Agera, her eyes widened and hope reignited in her eyes as she rushed straight into the Wraith army. Adam looked at Menius, and seeing his face he couldn''t help but sigh.


    Cilliore still had her lover to save, but Menius didn''t have anyone who stood out among the group, they were all family for him. And discovering their dead bodies one by one had been a terrible blow to his mind.


    Even Cilliore had been hit hard, but she still had Agera so her mental state was a little better.


    After a moment, Menius''s eyes turned red all of a sudden, surprising Adam. Menius didn''t even bother taking out his bow, he straightforwardly rushed into the Wraith army. However, unlike Cilliore, he did not rush to Agera while ignoring the wraith.


    Instead, Adam saw his hoofs shine slightly, and he began stomping every wraith he could see. Adam didn''t rush into the army though, and instead looked at the other side of the room.


    Hiding behind the army of wraiths was another wraith. However, this one was different from the others. The other wraiths looked blurry, and had no feature of their own, they looked like copies of each other. This wraith though had a clear face, and he was also holding a spirit sword.


    Next to him was another Centaur, who looked younger than the ones Adam had already seen. If he wasn''t wrong, this was Ajetus, Cilliore''s little brother, whom they hade for. Unfortunately, he was nothing but a cold corpse. Cilliore hadn''t seen him yet as it seemed.


    But more importantly, on a wall at the other end of the boss room, a one handed hammer hung on a wall, beneath of which was a skeleton. The Forger''s Dream.

 Chapter 125: Save them or end them?

    Chapter 125: Save them or end them?


    Looking back at the three centaurs, Adam realized they probably wouldn''t make it. Menius had rushed into the crowd of wraiths and although he killed many, he didn''t defend at all. The damage left by the wraith were bluish w marks and some bite marks, and Menius had tons of them on his body.


    As for Cilliore and Agera, they were the only ones who had a chance, but Adam could see from where he was that Agera had pretty much lost her mind, she barely defended against the wraith. As for Cilliore, although she was fighting fiercely, once she saw her little brother


    For a moment, an idea came to Adam end their sufferings. Even if they survived today they would probably only be shells of themselves, gued with either guilt or endless sorrow.


    What would be more cruel, try to save them and let them live with their emotions, or end everything here?


    In the end, Adam sighed and rushed toward the centaurs. Menius was on hisst leg, but Adam reached him before he could die. He dispersed the surrounding wraiths and grabbed Menius and threw him across the room to safety.


    As he did so he could see his eyes, and there was no gratitude in them, only sorrow. But Adam steeled his mind and rushed toward the two female centaurs. He was currently in despair, and his rational mind was being suppressed by his emotions. If after this he still can''t go on, then he can take care of it himself.


    Adam reached the two females without much of a problem, and did the same for them. Agera, although she didn''t know him, didn''t even struggle as he grabbed her and threw her across the room. As for Cilliore, she was the only who looked grateful.


    As shended crashed at the entrance of the room, Cilliore first looked at her two teammates, making sure they were alive before looking at Adam.


    However, as she did so she saw something she hadn''t seen before. At the other end of the room was another wraith, a different one, as well as


    She froze when she saw the body, the cold, motionless body. She tried to get up, but immediately fell. She looked down and saw two of her legs were injured from thending.


    In the middle of the crowd of wraiths, Adam shook his head seeing this. He didn''t save her so that she would rush to her death. That''s why when he had thrown her over he had made sure to put more power into his throw so that she wouldn''t be able to get back up immediately.


    Back to his case, the wraiths weren''t much more intelligent than the low level undeads. All of them were rushing at him, all stacked into a big crowd.


    Adam had a perfect skill for this situation, and although it would only deal half the damage because of their resistance, most would die anyway.


    Adam stomped his foot on the ground, using [Mighty Strike] and [Icy Stomp], and a wave of frost instantly spread to the surrounding 15 meters.


    -86000 HP!


    Although he had done less damage than he thought, all the Elite Rank Wraiths had been killed by the attack. Unfortunately he only had the ice version of this skill, otherwise even the Chieftains would have died.


    Since he couldn''tunch a second [Icy Stomp] because of the cooldown, he took out his sword and made a 360 sh, using [Mighty Strike] and [Aqua sh], using the steam version of it.


    What came out wasn''t exactly a circr flying sh that hit all the enemies at the same time, because he couldn''t make a full turn instantly, there was a smallpse of time between the beginning and the end of the turn.


    But it didn''t make much of a difference in the end, as all the wraiths were hit, and theirck of defense made those behind suffer too.


    Another circr shter, only the Lord Ranked Wraiths were left, but even they had suffered damage. They only had 600k HP, and there were only twenty of them so a minuteter all the wraiths had been killed, except for thest one.


    What surprised Adam was that thisst wraith hadn''t attacked even once since the beginning of the fight, and had instead waited for Adam to finish his small army. However, Cilliore, even though she was injured, she still had her bow, and she had fired a few arrows at the wraith, but he had parried them rather easily and ignored her.


    This was a strange behavior for a monster, so Adam didn''t attack directly, and instead walked closer to the wraith. Seeing this, Cilliore stopped shooting her arrows too.


    As Adam approached the wraith, it suddenly said "Why did youe here?" Adam was surprised this Wraith could talk, and as he saw it''s status he realized something.


    [Sword Wraith] (Elder, Level 70)


    HP: 1,800,000/1,800,000


    The only speaking monsters he hade across were the goblins, but they had a close resemnce to humans so it was understandable, and the Elder Rank monsters. Maybe that the Elder Rank was the specific rank for a monster to be able to talk? And then maybe they would gain true sentience when they reach Lord Rank, which was why Neith could already speak to him mentally?


    Of course, this was only a conjecture, he would have to see in the future if the pattern repeated itself.


    "I came here for that hammer. As for them, they came here for this centaur." Adam pointed at the hammer, then the dead centaur he presumed was Cilliore''s brother.


    The Sword Wraith looked at the dead body and said "This one attacked us for no reason, and we had to kill him I can''t let you take the hammer."


    Adam shrugged and replied "It doesn''t really matter, whether we fight or not I will get it in the end. It''s your choice, whether you want to disappear or not."


    The wraith looked at it''s sword with a seemingly lost look as it said "You can''t take the hammer"


    Adam couldn''t help but sigh, it looked like not all monsters were equal in intelligence. This wraith seemed to have a broken spirit, it could speak but it almost looked like it was left with instructions and had to follow them as well as it could.


    The Sword Wraith looked back at Adam and asked "Can you fight me? I want to see your swordy." This surprised Adam, but he still pointed his sword at the Sword Wraith and said "If you want."


    A hint of a smile appeared on the ghostly face of the Wraith as it rushed toward Adam, shing his sword at a quick speed. Adam parried the blow to the side, but the Wraith quickly followed by another sh, which Adam parried once again.


    As he was about to counter attack though, he saw the Wraith sh once again, but with more speed. He parried, but the wraith gained even more speed. Adam understood this was the Wraith''s swordy, each attack was followed by an even faster one, and if one didn''t break the rhythm the sword would only be faster and faster.


    This surprised Adam a lot, because from what he could see this swordy could be considered a High Heaven Grade Swordy. Back in old Adam''s world, the swordys were ssed in two big categories, Earth and Heaven Grades. Heaven Grade Swordys were those only achievable after opening the Fifth Gate, and the Mortal Grade ones were all those below.


    For the Earth Grade Swordys, they were split in Low, Middle, High and Top. Adam''s Eternal Rest is in reality a Heaven Grade Swordy, so even without opening the Fifth Gate his swordy was already a little stronger than even a Top Earth Grade Swordy, but this was an exception.


    For someone who didn''t open the Fifth Gate, learning and using a Top Grade Swordy was incredibly difficult, and even a High Level one would need a great talent and years of learning. Even Searing Light, who was an old cultivator who had lived for many years, his swordy was only a High Earth Grade Swordy.


    But this Wraith here, who couldn''t open any Gates, had actuallyprehended such a swordy. This surprised Adam quite a lot. Unfortunately for the wraith, Adam had already fought against simr swordys, and his own was even better.


    With three powerful shes, the sword in the Wraith''s hand was sent flying, but because it was a spirit sword it disappeared and reappeared in it''s hand. However, it stopped fighting, and looked down at it''s sword in shock.

 Chapter 126: Chilly Spirit Ring

    Chapter 126: Chilly Spirit Ring


    Although the Sword Wraith had be an easy target since it had stopped moving, Adam did not strike it down but waited.


    A few secondster, it raised its head and asked "What swordy is this?" Adam unhurriedly replied "Eternal Rest." The Sword Wraith nodded slowly and said "Good Did you create it yourself?" Adam nodded, so the Sword Wraith said "Thank you for showing this to me. Unfortunately, we still have to fight. Show no mercy."


    The Sword Wraith took a few steps back and entered into a new stance. This time, Adam went for the offensive, but did not use any skill other than [Mighty Strike] to be able to hit the undead spirit.


    The wraith tried to defend itself, but without using any skill Adam easily dominated it, lowering it''s HP quickly.


    Five minutester, it''s HP fell below the 1,000,000 HP. It moved back, and said "I will start using skills." Adam shrugged and dodged the flying shing at him before rushing at the Wraith.


    He had decided he wouldn''t use any of his skills for this fight, because he didn''t need to. Although this was a Level 70 Elder Monster, because it was a Wraith it was far from being able topare to Holdir, despite being at the same level and rank.


    The advantage Wraiths had over other monsters was their intangibility, and deadliness in groups. However, their attributes were much lower than other monsters of the same level. That''s why, in a 1vs1 scenario, a wraith would be much weaker than a same leveled monster.


    With his current attributes and all his bonuses, Adam believed he was as strong as Holdir right now, and he should be able to win against the Pdin using his swordy, but it would be close.


    But for this Sword Wraith, he was stronger, faster and was more skilled, so even without using any skill he was able to overpower it.


    Most of the Wraith''s skills were sword skills, for the single target skills Adam simply dodged them, and even the AOE skills he was able to cancel the skills by either parrying or stopping it''s movement.


    The Sword Wraith was only able to hit Adam only once with every skill, because he didn''t know what they would do, but after that if it repeated a skill Adam would know the effect, and how to counter it.


    Ten minutester, the boss'' health reached below 270k, or 15% of it''s health, but it didn''t activate a berserk state. Thus, it only took Adam a couple minutes to finish it.


    As the Wraith''sst HP disappeared, it didn''t disappear right away like the other wraiths, but instead half kneeled because of it''s injuries, and said "I am happy to die from your Eternal Art. Thank you."


    Adam nodded and swung his sword onest time, dispersing the Wraith. A torrent of XP entered Adam and pushed his level to 33. Unfortunately, as expected, nothing dropped. Adam sent a look at the three centaurs, and saw they wereing his way. No, toward the dead centaur.


    Adam left them to their grieving and walked to the hammer on the wall and took it off the wall. It wasn''t a weapon so he couldn''t see it''s status, but from how heavy it was Adam knew that smashing something with this hammer would deal a lot of damage. He put it in his inventory and walked toward the back room. At the same time, he attributed his AP, putting all 50 of them in Strength.


    As expected, a chest wasying there, and Adam hurried to go open it. But as he started to open the lid of the chest, it suddenly swung open, and teeth appeared on the edges of the chest. This was a mimic!


    The mimic tried to bite Adam''s head off, but theter sneered and grabbed the upper and lower part of its mouth with his hands, forcefully keeping its mouth wide open.


    But he went even further as Adam slowly opened it wider and wider. Then, using [Mighty Strike] on both his hands, Adam suddenly pulled with all his strength, and the mimic was torn in two.


    With the horrible death of the mimic, the items in it fell on the ground. There was a ring, multiples chunks of ore, thirty Gold Coins and a sword.


    For the Gold Coins and the chunk of ore, he stored all of them in his inventory. The chunks of Ore were all quite good, he would give them to Neith as she liked eating ore as much as eating meat. Then, he looked at the attributes of the sword first.


    It was a one handed sword that looked like a scimitar, but the de was of a weird silver color, much clearer than a steel sword. If he wasn''t wrong, this sword was made of some kind of silver.


    [Silver Laced Sword] (Exceptional, Level 70)


    Requirements: 250 Strength, 250 Agility, Swordsman ss.


    Attack: +10000


    Strength, Agility: +2500


    Silver Sword (Passive): +50% damage against undead beings, werewolves and vampires.


    Sword Draw (Passive): While drawing, the first attack is 100% faster.


    Adam put the sword in his inventory, he thought it was actually quite good. It was too bad Eddy was only Level 30, and quite far from Level 70, he would gift it to him.


    Just like him, SS sses needed more XP to level up, and although their penalty wasn''t as big as Adam''s, it still made it harder for them to level up.


    Adam decided he would hold on this sword until he found someone who deserved to get it, or maybe use it to exchange for something else, like he did with the [Corroded Staff of the Undead]. If by the time Eddy nears Level 70 he still has this sword then he would give it to him, but that would be at least a few weeks from now.


    Finally, there was only the ring left, and so Adam looked at its attributes.


    [Chilly Spirit Ring] (Exceptional, Level 70)


    Requirements: 1000 Aura


    All Stats: +1500


    Ice Touch: Upon contact deal 200% ice damage. Cooldown: 10 seconds.


    Spirit Snake: Summon a snake spirit to fight by your side. The snake is a Level 70 Lord, and can only be summoned for ten minutes. Cooldown: 1 hour.


    The ring was actually better than he thought it would be, the additional stats were weed, and the two skills could be useful. Ice Touch didn''t deal much damage, but it had a very low cooldown. As for Spirit Snake, although it wouldn''t help him much inbat, he could use it as a scout.


    Obviously, Adam wanted to equip it, but he already had two rings, meaning he would have to take one off. His [Massacre Ring] was weaker but allowed him to use the berserk set effect, while the [Clingy Ring] gave him more AP and allowed him to easily climb anything.


    After a moment, Adam decided to take off the [Massacre Ring], because it was starting to be more and more useless, and the stronger he was, the more his armor was getting destroyed as he used the berserk skill.


    As Adam put on the ring, he felt himself be even stronger than before, he became much stronger. If he were to fight Holdir right here, right now, Adam was 100% sure he would beat him in less than ten minutes.


    After all, the ring he had gotten was a powerful one, and not just everyone could put it on. To have 1000 points in Aura at only Level 70, unless one opened the Third Gate, it was quite hard to have this many points.


    After all, the requirements for every items only took the raw stats, so even if one had 990 of pure Aura stat, and their aura was boosted to 3000 by their equipments, they still wouldn''t be able to use the ring.


    After putting on the ring, Adam received a message from Neith ''An army has invaded the city, they are otherworlders like you. They are here for you. They call themselves Cosmo members.''


    Adam raised an eyebrow and asked ''How many of them are there?'' Neith replied ''100 000. But I have a n.''


    Adam felt troubled when he heard how many of them there were, he didn''t know even if he would be able to take care of them all. And even if he were, it would waste a lot of his time.


    But when he heard Neith had a n, he listened to her carefully. When she finished, Adam couldn''t help butugh out loudly in the back room. The three centaurs in the main hall wondered what made Adamugh like that.

 Chapter 127: See, no problem with this...

    Chapter 127: See, no problem with this...


    Adam exited the back room, stillughing. However, when he gazended on the three centaurs, hisugh halted. What was he going to do with them?


    He approached them and said "There is a big army outside, do you have any way of leaving the city without being seen?"


    Cilliore nodded and took out a crystal. She said "We got this teleportation crystal leading to the tribe Although many of my friends died today, and my brother Thank you, Sovereign. You are wee toe to our Centaur tribe any day."


    Adam was surprised it was Cilliore who had the crystal, and not Agera, maybe this girl''s status was bigger than Agera''s


    Cilliore turned toward the entrance they came from and said "We can''t just leave their bodies here." But Adam said "Don''t worry, I will bury their bodies after I have dealt with that army."


    Cilliore nodded in thanks and began chanting. The crystal in her hand started glowing, and ten secondster a portal appeared in front of them. Cilliore, Menius and Agera left through the portal, taking Cilliore''s brother''s corpse with them. Then, the portal closed behind them.


    Now that they were out of the city, Adam didn''t have to buy any time in the end. Thinking back of Neith''s n, a sly smile formed on his face.


    Instead of going all the way back outside using the path he used, Adam preferred not to waste time, so he sent a powerful water flying sh against one of the walls. This wasn''t enough to destroy the wall, but some cracks appeared, and the water from the flying sh entered it.


    It was immediately followed by an icy flying sh, which further cracked the wall and froze the water. Adam looked at the damage he had done, and in the end he nodded his head, the wall was damaged enough. He ced both his arms in front of himself and used [Charge] to m into the wall.


    The wall couldn''t take it anymore, and it bursted into pieces as Adam passed right through it. But then, something astonishing happened.


    Gctic, a core member of Cosmos, and the one who initiated the conflict between Adam and Cosmos, was walking alongside a few other core members, Elders, and most importantly, their guild leader.


    Sky Devil was the Guild Leader of Cosmos, and was reputed for being a great expert. Of course, all the Guild Leaders of First Rank Guilds were great experts, but even among them Sky Devil could be considered mid tier.


    Now that their their forces had besieged the abandoned city, all they had to do was to find Valiant Heart, and his death woulde quickly. Although they didn''t bring all of their members, they still brought half. A First Tier Guild had at least 100 000 members, but only the weakest had only so much. Most of them had several hundred thousands of them, and Cosmos had 200 000 members in total.


    As they were searching in a street, Gctic said with a disgusting smile "That Valiant Heart, I hope his pain censors are at max, I hope he will feel our 100 000 sword pierce through his body!"


    Many of the elders looked at Gctic with disgust, but they couldn''t say anything because Gctic wasn''t someone they could offend. Actually, no one wanted to enter in a conflict with Valiant Heart, that monster had already shown his incredible might several times.


    They knew perfectly well that even though they would win and kill this yer, it really wasn''t worth it. So what if Valiant Heart died once? He just had to hide his identity and they wouldn''t be able to find him.


    But even if they killed him, a few tens of thousands of their guild members would also die to bring him down. No sane guild elders or guild leaders would trade a fifth or a quarter of their forces in exchange of a single man, just for the sake of face.


    Unfortunately, Gctic wasn''t just a member of their guild, but more importantly he was the grandson of an elder from Heaven Abode, the Super Guild above Cosmos. And this wasn''t just any elder, but the one who was in charge of collecting fines from subservient guilds.


    The reason Super Guilds were so powerful wasn''t just because of their millions of members and the strength of those members, but also because of the guild they govern.


    The way guilds worked was actually a but simr to how nobles worked in the dark age. Knight are vassals of Barons, themselves vassals of Viscounts, all the way up to the King.


    In a simr way, Third Tier Guild served Second Tier Guilds, who themselves served First Tier Guild, who were the vassals of Super Guilds.


    The higher ranked guilds would protect the lower ranked guilds, in exchange of fines, which could be money or resources,ing from either the real world or the game.


    So Gctic had used the influence of his grandfather to push Cosmos to fight against Valiant Heart, and they had no choice but to ept if they didn''t want their fine to double.


    Of course, there were limits to what Gctic could do. Cosmos was still a pretty powerful First Tier Guild, and provoking them too much would be bad for Heaven Abode. If they were able to bully Cosmos as they wanted then the other guild would feel threatened and could go to a different Super Guild. No Super Guild would refuse the allegiance of a First Tier Guild.


    That''s why, even though he was the grandson of an elder, Gctic couldn''t force an all out war. Instead, he negotiated to get what he wanted. Half of Cosmos ambushing Valiant Heart, and they would only kill him once.


    Of course Gctic wished to kill Valiant Heart all the way back to Level 0, but Sky Devil just wouldn''t agree, and only he knew that if the matter was brought to his grandfather, he would be the one being punished.


    It wasn''t because he offended Valiant Heart, but because he was the one at fault in the matter. When he was killed by Adam, Gctic was actually making secret deals with Blue Cemetery, stealing money from the Guild.


    That''s why, Gctic knew he could only do so much without involving his grandfather, anymore and Sky Devil would do something reckless.


    Gctic didn''t miss the disdain in the eyes of his ''guild members'', but he didn''t care, people had sent him way worse stares in the past. They may be angry, in the end Gctic wasn''t afraid of them.


    But the stares stopped when they heard a heavy noiseing from a nearby wall. Looking over, they saw that the sound came from one of the biggest mansions in the city.


    Hearing the sound, Sky Devil frowned and said "Move back, stand behind me." As he said that he ced his heavy shield in front of himself, protecting his whole body. Sky Devil was a Knight, so defending his team was his job.


    Everyone trusted their guild leader and knew from seeing his face that he was serious, so they all went to stand behind him. All except one.


    Gctic clicked his tongue at them and said "What a bunch of pussies." As he said that, a second heavy sound came from the wall, a little louder this time. Gctic approached the wall to inspect it.


    He put his hand on the wall and patted it before saying "See, no problem with this"


    Gctic never got to finish his sentence as the wall suddenly burst into pieces, the heavy boulder crashing into Gctic and crushing him into the ground.

 Chapter 128: Climbing the tower

    Chapter 128: Climbing the tower


    Despite being crushed by the rocks, Gctic didn''t die immediately, he still had a few HP left and was blocked under the rocks.


    However, before all the rocks could even fall to the ground, Adam appeared. Because he was using [Charge], each of his steps extremely heavy, and so without even noticing he applied even more pressure onto the rocks on top of Gctic.


    Before anyone could react, Gctic finally died, in a terrible manner. The extreme weight crushed his bony so hard that his muscles liquefied and his bones were grounded to little pieces no bigger than sand.


    Even with the pain parameters at the lowest, the yers would still feel 1% of the pain, and even 1% of the pain from such a death was traumatic.


    When Adam got out of the mansion, he was surprised to see a group of people standing in front of him, moreover he could feel their leader was quite strong, and he was probably the Guild Leader of Cosmos.


    He wanted to say something to him, but he felt his feet were sticky, and so he looked down. Seeing the deformed corpse impossible to recognize, Adam couldn''t help but pity this person, for having such a terrible luck.


    He stepped out of the bloody mess and looked at the strongest person here, Sky Devil, and asked "Are you Cosmos'' Guild Leader?"


    Sky Devil regained his senses as he said "I am." Adam nodded and said "Are you sure you want to fight against me? You won''t be able to kill me." Sky Devil replied, with neither anger or scorn "I would like to see that."


    Adam grinned at that and unsheathed his sword, sending out a steam flying sh before sheathing it again.


    Sky Devil already had his shield in front of him and his guild members behind him, so he thought they would all be safe, but when the flying sh hit his shield he lost his countenance.


    The sh was much stronger than he thought, making him stumble back, but he was able to keep his shield standing despite the 2000 damage he took from the vibrations alone.


    Adam, as soon as he shed out, he sheathed his sword back and ran away. Sky Devil frowned and said "Contact our members to surround him. Let''s chase him."


    The team ran after Adam, trying their best to follow him, but he was unexpectedly quick for a Berserker.


    Adam headed for the center of the city, but a team of yers appeared in front of him, blocking his path. The streets were quite big, and from what he could see there were between 30 and 40 yers blocking him, from all sses.


    In a split second, Adam decides to stomp the ground with [Icy Stomp]. He didn''t need it to kill them, but he had to attack them before they attacked him. A Sovereign and several SS sses were chasing behind him, and if he had to defend himself against the attacks of the group in front of him they would most certainly catch up to him.


    A wave of frost burst from under his foot, and in an instant the group in front of him turned into ice sculptures, the stomp dealt almost 60 000 damage, so even the few Northmen among them who had ice resistance lost all their health.


    Aside from killing all the yers, the surrounding 15 meters was covered in ice. Adam didn''t even stop after stomping and continued running, the ice on the ground did not slow him down in the slightest, neither did the dead yers who burst into pieces as Adam ran through them.


    A few secondster, Sky Devil and his group arrived too, but they were forced to slow down because of the ice so they wouldn''t slip. This allowed Adam to widen the distance between them.


    Adam was heading for the center most edifice in the city, a big mansion with a tower in the center of it.


    As the center mansion, probably the mayor''s mansion, entered his vision, another group appeared to block his path, but there were only 10 of them this time.


    Since his [Icy Stomp] was on cooldown, Adam acted differently this time. He continued running toward them, as if he wasn''t going to attack, and checked the sses of those in front of him. From their weapons Adam quickly concluded there were 6 Elementalists, 2 Assassins and 2 Swordsmen.


    A n formed in his mind, and so he ignored the two assassins who disappeared and the two Swordsmen rushing toward him. Even as they prepared to strike him down he continued running.


    However, the mages also fired their spells toward him. The spells fired by Bronze Elementalists were very quick, not as fast as a bullet, but at least as fast an arrow, and so most people wouldn''t be able to dodge them.


    But Adam wasn''t just anyone, he had opened 3 Gates and his stronger Soul made his brain activity faster than other people, so he was able to react better to the spells.


    The moment they left the staffs and wands of the Elementalists, Adam activated [Whirlwind sh], bing slightly faster. This allowed him to dodge the two swordsing for him, as well as the six spells.


    At the same time, the two Swordsmen and six Elementalists he passed by were all hit by wind des, all losing 13 000 HP. As Level 30 yers who didn''t open the 3rd Gate, all of them died on the spot, cut in two by the wind des.


    When Adam''s [Whirlwind sh] boost of speed ended, Adam was closed enough to the mansion, but he didn''t want to enter it. Instead, he jumped on top of it. The 7 meters jumped looked surreal, but Adam''s stats were more than enough to allow him to do such a jump.


    Jumping on top of the roof of the mansion allowed him to have a better vision of his surroundings, and he saw many yers were converging toward his position. Adam then continued going for the tower at the center of the city.


    The tower was quite high, about five hundred meters tall, and the higher one was, the thinner the tower became.


    Adam jumped at the tower, but instead of gripping his hand and his legs to the tower, he only ced his feet against it, as if he wanted to walk on the tower like it was the ground.


    And that''s exactly what he did. Thanks to his [Clingy Ring], climbing was easy for him, as he could run vertically on the tower.


    When Sky Devil and the others reached the tower too, they all looked at Adam in wonder. Why was he doing this? All he was doing was destroying any path of retreat for himself, he just made killing him annoying.


    On the side, one of the elders asked "Do you think he might have a flying mount? Maybe he is going up there to fly away?"


    But Sky Devil shook his head and said "It has been confirmed his pet is a spider, and a Berserker can only have one pet. Come on, let''s follow him." Unlike Adam, they were much slower as they had to climb like normal humans. Of course, their strengthened bodies made them better climber than any climber on Earth.


    As for Adam, when he was about 200 meters up the tower, his [Icy Stomp] was off cooldown, and so he once again used it. No one was hurt, but the area 15 meters below him and 15 meters above him was frozen, making climbing much harder.


    Even if they went around the 30 meters frozen area, they would lose a lot of time. After that, Adam was able to quickly reach the top of the tower thanks to his [Clingy Ring]. As he did so, he used his skills to freeze many spots, making climbing much harder.


    The top of the tower was pointy, and thest 50 meters of the tower was barely three meters in circumference.


    When he reached the tip top of the tower, Adam steadied himself against the strong wind, and started to meditate! While Sky Devil and the others were trying their best to climb the tower, he was already in a state of perfect equilibrium, working on his 4th Gate.

 Chapter 129: Now

    Chapter 129: Now


    Despite their stronger body, none of the people climbing the tower were climbers in real life, so they were taking a lot of time. Adding in their reluctance to climb the tower, and the ice parts Adam created, two hours after Adam reached the top of the tower the experts still hadn''t reached him.


    The ice hadn''t melted because the higher one was, the stronger and colder the wind was, so the frost remained.


    As for Adam himself, the position he was in actually allowed him to enhance his chances of opening the 4th Gate by a lot. This was because he was standing on something even smaller than his sword''s handle, and he was very high. And the strong wind also helped a lot, although it was very dangerous.


    If Adam''s position wasn''t perfect then he would fall to his death, from an outsider''s point of view Adam looked like he was defying physics, ignoring the strong winds.


    Despite making progress with his 4th Gate, there wasn''t any indication of it starting to open yet, but the longer he stayed, the better his chances of opening the Gate were.


    Another hour went by, and Sky Devil and the others had just reached the 400 meters mark. Despite their strong bodies, they were quite tired, and the higher they came, the harder it was to climb as the ice would cover a bigger part of the tower.


    One of the Berserkers said "Can''t we just shoot him down from here? I really don''t want to climb those 100 meters."


    Sky Devil replied angrily "How are we supposed to shoot him down with this wind!" Even Sky Devil, who usually was a calm person, was annoyed by the long climb.


    But what he said was true, the wind was too strong. They were struggling to remain stuck on the tower, and to shoot him down they had to either be a mage or an archer.


    Archers and mages had the weakest bodies, and they were the ones struggling the most. Archers would have to use both hands to shoot their arrows, but they knew the moment they took their hands off the tower they would be blown away by the wind.


    As for the mages, their bodies were even weaker than the archers, and even taking one hand off would make them fall. Even if they decided to give up their lives, jumping to throw one spell at Adam, it would be impossible to hit him, their aim would be off, and even if they had a good aim the wind would deviate the strike.


    And so as they looked up at the meditating Adam, they all couldn''t help but gulp, thinking he was a monster. How could he do that?!


    At the same time, they wondered why he was doing this. Was he showing off to them? They couldn''t warp their minds as to why he would do that.


    This was because none of them knew how to open the 4th Gate. This was a strictly ssified information among cultivators on Earth, and usually only the top members of Super Guilds would know of this information.


    Searing Light was an exception, because although he was only the head of a First Tier Guild, it wasn''t just any First Tier Guild. Instead, they were head of a big alliance of First Tier Guilds who wouldn''t lose out to a Super Guild.


    Of course, his identity in the real world was also very high, and even the Guild Leaders of Super Guild would try not to offend him.


    But none of the people here were in the know, so they couldn''t understand. Another hour went by, and they had been climbing the tower for four hours now. The sun was already setting in the distance in this part of the world, and Sky Devil was 20 meters away from Adam.


    Sky Devil was making a temporary stop, and seeing Adam meditating he cried "Valiant Heart!" The wind was so strong up here that it was difficult to hear anything, but Adam still heard Sky Devil since theter was shouting really loud.


    But Adam was inclined on answering, the guy was trying to kill him, he wasn''t going to break his perfect equilibrium state by answering. With how dangerous the situation, just talking would make him fall.


    Sky Devil, after seeing Adam wasn''t answering, gritted his teeth and decided to send a friend invite to Adam. Receiving the invite, Adam could help but be stunned.


    Since it wouldn''t harm him to speak through messages, he decided to ept. As soon as he did, he received a message ''I just want to exin myself.''


    Adam said ''Do it then, you don''t have much time left.'' This made Sky Devil frown, he felt something was wrong. Still, he answered ''I don''t want to be here, I was forced. Our orders are to attack you this time, but I hope that in the future we won''t be enemies again.''


    Adam said ''Who forced you?'' Sky Devil replied ''The Super Guild above us, Heaven Abode. The one you killed alongside Blue Cemetery is the grandson of a powerful elder in the guild.''


    Reading the message, Adam couldn''t help but smile. That was the famous young master trope, he never thought he would experience it. As expected, those young masters could really be annoyingly obnoxious.


    After a few seconds, Adam said ''What you want to say is that none of us should bear a grudge, no matter what happens?''


    Sky Devil was once again feeling something was wrong, terribly wrong, but he still couldn''t find what. So he said ''I hope we can remain on friendly terms.''


    Adam asked ''So if you kill me, in the future we won''t fight if we see each other. But if I kill you all, will you fight me when we see each other?''


    Sky Devil was stumped, was this guy really that arrogant? But once again, his intuition was warning him. He didn''t want to ignore it, but since he didn''t know what it was warning him from he didn''t know how to react. He said ''I promise on my honor that whatever the oue of this battle, I won''t try to take my revenge in the future.''


    As Adam read the message, a bigger smile appeared on his face as he said ''Good, I hope your honor is worth something No offense of course.''


    Sky Devil was a little angry as he read the message, but he didn''t say anything. He finished resting and looked at the area above him. The next ten meters werepletely frozen all around the tower, so he had to melt the ice to pass.


    A ck me appeared around Sky Devil and attacked the ice, quickly melting it and allowing him to pass. This ck me was a very powerful me which Sky Devil had gained ess to thanks to his Sovereign ss, the Purgatory Knight


    Meanwhile, on top of the tower, Adam heard Neith''s voice sound in his mind ''Everything is ready.''. Adam replied to her with a calm voice ''Now.''


    Sky Devil, who was about to melt another piece of ice, suddenly felt a great danger. At first he thought Adam was attacking him, but then he realized the danger came from downstairs.


    Looking down, he saw a scene he would never forget, for his entire life.


    Starting from the ramparts, the city started crumbling apart. As if a ss 10 earthquake struck, the entire city began sinking! The 100 000 members of his guild, who had been waiting for more than 4 hours, were being buried alongside the city.


    Soon, the entire city was buried, and only the tower remained, but not for long as Sky Devil felt a powerful vibration shake the tower, and it started to fall too.


    Sky Devil looked up, at the silent, meditating young man on top of the tower, and muttered to himself "The crazy bastard"

 Chapter 130: 4th Gate

    Chapter 130: 4th Gate


    Even as the tower started falling, Adam did not move a centimeter. Even as the high ranking members of Cosmos fell to their death one by one, he remained sited in meditation.


    The reason was, he could feel the 4th Gate opening! All the tremor, added with the tower starting to fall, the 4th Gate finally had a reaction!


    This was all in Neith''s n. While he was in the Phantom Mansion, Neith had killed the monsters that approached the mansion, and discovered that they were almost all worm type monsters.


    So after finishing the attacking worms, she went to take a look at the underground. As she had expected, the underground of the city was ravaged, and only a few foundations were keeping the city standing.


    Knowing about the army above, an idea came to her mind, to bury the city with that guild. After Adam epted, she spent the four hours Sky Devil took to climb the tower to ce many traps all around the underground of the city.


    Then, when everything was finally put in ce, and Adam agreed, she blew everything up! As a result, the entire city had been destroyed, and even the tower was on its way to get destroyed.


    Halfway in the fall, Adam finally opened his eyes to see a couple new notification. No, three new notifications.


    [You are now Level 34! AP +50!]


    [You are now Level 35! AP +50!]


    [Congrattions for opening the Gate of View! Sense of space, bnce and equilibrium perfected!]


    Adam looked at below him, and saw that the tower had alreadypletely broken, although he was still on the very tip of the tower numerous chunks of the tower surrounded him.


    He noticed that now standing on the tip of the tower was many times easier than before, and he could even afford some movement without falling.


    Adam had already been falling for 5 seconds, and there remained 5 seconds until he would fall to the ground. The tip of the tower under him was starting to really tilt and soon the tip would face the ground, so Adam ran across the chunk of the tower, and once he arrived at the other end of the chunk, when his feet were facing the ground, he jumped.


    This had for effect to slightly slow his fall, and elerate the fall of the tip of the tower.


    This slight deceleration wouldn''t make the impact any less dangerous, but it allowed him to make sure every piece of the tower would fall before him and none would crush him even after he fell.


    Then, he used [Great Ice Breath] toward the ground, and the strength behind the skill allowed him to slow down a little more.


    Following that, he turned his body around, and once his back was facing the ground he activated [Wind de] before unsheathing his de and using [Whirlwind sh] to sh toward the sky.


    While this skill normally make him faster by manipting the wind around him, because he was using ti in the opposite direction wind currents started slowing him down.


    Then, Adam attributed all 100 AP he had just earned, putting 60 in strength and 20 in both Agility and Endurance.


    By then, there were only 50 meters left, and slightly more than a second before his fall. Adam shed with his sword as he rotated, creating a powerful flying sh toward the ground as his back was facing the sky once again, and the friction between his sword and the extreme wind actually produced mes!


    This slowed Adam even more, and gave him ample time to react for what came next. When he was ten meters from the ground, Adam activated [Misty Escape], not for the speed boost as it was useless here, but to transform his body into steam.


    [Misty Escape] gave him a body simr to the Wraiths, and so the fall damage would be negated. But the problem was, [Misty Escape] only allowed him to transform for two seconds, and that created several problems.


    He couldn''t just activated it slightly less than two seconds before the fall because his fall would be slowed down by the transformation, so doing that would make him turn back into flesh and blood before finishing his fall, killing him.


    But he couldn''t just calcte in his head the effect his transformation would have on his speed, which is why he could only activate it at thest possible moment.


    But another problem came, the speed of his fall. With the heavy armor he was wearing, and adding his own weight, and his sword''s, and considering the height from which he was falling, the speed of his body at the time he falls would be almost 100 meters per second.


    And even with his enhanced soul, although the chances of him reacting quick enough were high, he didn''t want to take any chance, which is why he decided to slow his fall.


    And in the end it paid off as his misty body crashed into the ground, but the steam merely spread a little around before congregating back into Adam''s fleshly body.


    Now out of danger, Adamid on his back, thinking. He was happy he had gotten the hammer, and opened the 4th Gate, but it still troubled him. Hadn''t it been for Neith''s discovery, surviving would have been quite tough.


    It had been so easy for them to find him, he thought he should try to fix that. While he enjoyed the dumbfounded stares from yers and NPCs alike in the beginning, he was growing indifferent to them now, and if that was even bringing trouble to him, then he thought maybe he should stop showing his face around and hide his status.


    While this could bring other problems, Adam didn''t want to be easily traceable by all his enemies. He let out a small sigh as he sat up. At least this time he got something good out of it.


    The ruined buildings next to Adam shifted to the side as Neith appeared next to Adam. He looked at her and said "Good job Neith."


    Neith let out a lightugh as she said "That was quite the fall master!" Adam smiled at her and the two began moving.


    However, just as they began walking, they heard a grunt. They both turned their heads toward the sound and were shocked by what they saw. Sky Devil was still alive!


    He was in a terrible state, of course, both his legs were broken and he was all bloody, but he was still alive.


    Adam patted Neith''s leg to make her stop and approached Sky Devil before asking "Does your promise still hold?"


    Sky Devil was obviously in great pain, but he still looked back at Adam and said "It does." Adam was surprised to see no hatred or killing intent in his eyes, only loss. Half of the members of his guild were killed in less than ten seconds, by a single man and his pet.


    Even if they didn''t fight face to face, Sky Devil had to admit, they had wholeheartedly lost. A crushing defeat.


    Adam jumped on Neith and said "I won''t kill you then. If you have enough being led around by superiors, I advise you to leave that Super Guild''s dominion. But it''s your guild in the end, the choice is yours. Farewell."


    Neith walked away as Sky Devil looked pensive. But it wasn''t Adam''s problem anymore. As he and Neith exited the city, Adam said "Maybe we should buy items to hide our status, or they are going to be really annoying."


    Neith didn''t say anything, which Adam took as consent. After that, it didn''t take long for the two to get back to the closest city. On the way, Adam took a look at his sword. ording to the description, it would be one grade stronger every time he opens a Gate.


    As expected, the sword''s appearance had changed a little, the broken runes looked moreplete, and the sword as a whole looked more refined, the de sharper and it had even be a tiny bit bigger.


    Of course, the biggest change wasn''t in its appearance, but with its stats.

 Chapter 131: Innate Strength Potion

    Chapter 131: Innate Strength Potion


    [War Sovereign''s Greatsword] (Unique ''Evolvable'', True ss Weapon, Level 35 ''User Level'')


    Requirements: Belongs to Valiant Heart.


    Attack: +6500 (+300 every level until 50)


    Strength: +1600 (+60 every level until 50)


    Agility, Endurance: +800 (+30 every level until 50)


    Self Weapon (Passive): This weapon''s grade and level evolves with its user''s Gates and Levels, respectively.


    Invincible (Passive): This weapon has an infinite durability and thus can''t be broken.


    Sword Cry: Deep vibrations from the sword create a sound wave attack, dealing 300% damage to every enemy within 50 meters. Cooldown: 30 seconds.


    Normally, getting a Level 35 Unique Weapon was impossible, Unique Tier was only for Level 50+ items. However, the [War Sovereign''s Greatsword] was special, and because it was originally one of the best weapons in the Divine Realm, those resistances did not exist for the weapon.


    Theoretically, if Adam were to open all the Gates in the Bronze Realm, his weapon would probably return to its former glory, just that it would be below Level 50


    Anyway, Adam was quite happy with this new power up, and he had finally unlocked the first active skill of his sword. It was even an AOE attack, and unlike [Icy Stomp] this attack would also include the attack stat of his sword.


    Another thing Adam noticed in his inventory was how his [Godyer''s Heart] was bing more and more useful. At first the 12% increase to his stats didn''t change much, he would barely get an additional 10 or 20 AP per stat. But now the bonus was in the hundreds, and wouldn''t take long to reach the thousands.


    Since he had the [Forger''s Dream], Adam''s next destination was the Everburn Mont. Adam was actually quite excited going there, going inside a volcano definitely was a unique experience. At the same time, his damage against thoseva monsters should be quite high.


    But first, when he arrived in the nearest city to the one he and Neith destroyed, Adam went to buy a pair of Shadow Cloaks. Shadow Cloaks were also special equipments, but they couldn''t give out any attributes, their only function was to hide his true identity.


    His status would be filled with question marks to others, and his body would be shrouded in a ck shadow mist that would hide his appearance. The same would apply to Neith.


    Once they activated their cloaks, Adam chuckled when he saw Neith. She looked even scarier now that she was covered in that ck mist, he himself looked mysterious, but her big size made her look absolutely monstrous.


    But people were used to see such things, after all a lot of people didn''t want their identity to be known, and preferred to travel using cloaks, so no one even spared a second nce to Adam and Neith.


    Like this, the two used the teleportation array to head to Everburn City, the city right next to the volcano.


    Everburn Mont was a famous spot, because of it''s beauty and also the treasures it contained. That''s why, a city had been created next to it, and had its name. The mayor or governor of this city definitely was very rich. And powerful.


    However, much to Buwog''s leaders annoyance, this city didn''t belong to Buwog, despite being situated in Buwog. It belonged to the Coalition of Independent Guilds.


    Entering the city was more expensive than most other cities, as one had to pay 5 Golds to use the teleportation array, which was much more expensive than most other cities.


    Since there were millions of people teleporting here every day, then it meant the owner of this city was making at least 5 million Gold Coins a day that was quite terrifying.


    And that was only from the teleportation array, the profits of the city was probably much more than that. Of course, there were also the fees of the guards, and the maintenance of all the runes in the city, but their profit should still be incredible.


    Everburn City was quite big, of course it wasn''t as big as the capital, Yam, but it was definitely bigger than a city like the one he had just destroyed, or Azure Sky Royal Capital.


    In this part of the world, it was daylight, it was probably around 10.00 am here, while it was 3.00 pm in the real world. But even during the night, there would still be as much light here.


    Everburn wasn''t really different from any other Orcish Cities, but the volcano next to the city was giving out natural lighting.


    Everburn was much bigger than any other volcano on Earth, and also much more dangerous. Were it to erupt, the damage would be astounding. The entire western part of Buwog would probably be covered in ashes, and even Yam would be affected.


    Finding his way around the city wasn''t hard for Adam, as there was a special road that led directly into the volcano, it was the most used road after all. But before heading to the volcano, Adam bought a few Fire Jars of different qualities.


    Those Fire Jars were jars in which one would contain mes, as simple as that. The better the quality, the stronger the me that could be stored. Just to be sure, Adam had decide to buy all the qualities of jars, so that he wouldn''t fall on a great fire but be unable to store it.


    It costed him 170 Gold Coins, because the best jars were quite expensive, especially the best one, but Adam didn''t care much, he didn''t need as much coins as he originally thought since he had the hammer and would thus get his set armor for free.


    Only after buying the jars did he head for the volcano. He had thought about calling his disciples and other Division Leaders, but in the end he decided against it. They weren''t strong enough yet. Although all of them were SS sses, they still hadn''t opened the 3rd Gate so fighting higher leveled opponents wasn''t easy for them.


    Although he didn''t see his disciples much, Adam was surprised at how good of a master he was. Any question they had they would ask them through the system, the only thing that could need them to meet would be teaching skills, but they weren''t there yet as none of them used the sword like him. That''s why, they didn''t even need to see each other.


    Anyway, Adam and Neith only had to walk for ten minutes before arriving in front of the main entrance of the volcano.


    There were many people in front of the entrance, some were forming teams and once in there were many different pathways.


    At first Adam intended to go alone, as he didn''t need any protection, but as he was about to enter a random pathway he heard a voice say "Hey."


    Normally he wouldn''t have stopped, as it could be directed to literally anyone else, but he had a feeling this was for him. He turned toward the voice and was surprised to see another person with a Shadow Cloak.


    Adam had already unsummoned Neith because she was simply too big to enter the volcano, so there was really no way for anyone to know his identity, unless they saw him arrive on Neith from far away.


    So he asked "Do we know each other?"


    As expected, the other person shook their head and said "We don''t. Would you be interested to go inside together? I need to get a me inside but I''m not strong enough to go there on my own."


    From the voice Adam could determine he was talking to a female, but he had no idea what race she was, he could only guess she was about the same age as him, and weaker than him ording to her aura.


    After a moment Adam asked "What is the payment?" The female took out a potion for Adam to see. Adam didn''t take it from her hands, that would be rude, but he was still able to see it''s attributes.


    [Innate Strength Potion]


    Requirement: 1000 in every attribute.


    Effect: +1000 to all attributes, permanently. Can only be drunk once.

 Chapter 132: Thalia

    Chapter 132: Thalia


    Reading the description of the potion, Adam couldn''t help but be shocked. However, because she couldn''t see his face the female misunderstood his silence and said "Is it not enough?"


    Adam came back to his senses, and couldn''t help but smile wryly. Indeed, for the average people this potion was kind of useless.


    Although +1000 to every stat was a good bonus, the requirement was too high. On average, someone who did not open the 3rd Gate would need to be Level 120 to have 1000 in every stat. But Level 120 Equipment gave out much better stats, the stats of those equipments were in the tens of thousands, so one thousand more wasn''t a big deal.


    However, for someone like Adam, this potion''s was much more precious. This was because he had opened the 3rd Gate at a lower level, meaning he could consume the potion being only Level 35. For now, a boost of 1000 to every stat would make him quite a lot stronger.


    After a moment Adam said "I can ept this payment, but I need to get the potion before bringing you in."


    The female replied "If I pay you in advance, how can I be sure you will protect me?" Adam shrugged and said "I guess you will have to trust me then. But first, to which area do you want to go to? If it''s too high leveled I won''t be able to bring you there."


    The female said "I don''t want to go to a specific area, so you can bring me as far as you can go." Adam smiled and said "Good, that was what I intended to do too. Now it''s your choice to make, you either trust me and give me the potion right now, or you wait for someone else."


    The female seemed to hesitate for a moment before she said "I can give you the potion right now, but I want to put a mark on you."


    Adam looked at her weirdly and asked "A mark?"


    She replied "In case you don''t follow our agreement, or harm me, then my family will be able to follow your trace anywhere in the world."


    Adam raised an eyebrow, that was quite the scary ability. And for her to use such a mean, she must be from a powerful family. Adam asked "Are you a young miss from a n who fled home to adventure the world?"


    As expected, she looked away, and Adam was pretty sure that under her cloak''s mist she was blushing. Adam finally said "Alright, you can mark me. But won''t your family know you are here if you mark me?"


    She shook her head and said "The mark will be deactivated, and will only activate if I will it, or if I die. Once activated, no matter where you go, you will be found. What do you say?"


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Mercenary''!]


    Quest Detail: A mysterious person has asked for your help in exchange of a potion.


    Quest Level: 50


    Quest Difficulty: B


    Objective: Protect your client until she captures a special fire in the volcano.


    Reward: Innate Strength Potion, ??


    Adam shrugged and said "You seem confidant in your family Fine, but you will have to erase it when we are finished."


    She nodded and said "Of course. Come, I will put the mark on you." She approached closer to him and her hand shone for a moment. Adam felt her mana wriggle it''s way into the skin of his arm, but it did not go any further after that and justid dormant. Adam tried to circte his Aura around this area and saw he had no problem doing it.


    She said "That''s it. Here you go." She gave Adam the fiery red potion. Now that he had a clear look at it, Adam couldn''t help but think it looked more like magma than anything else.


    He looked at the girl and asked "Is it really safe to drink this?" The female nodded and said "I concocted it myself, I am 100% sure it is safe to consume Well if you have the right stats, of course."


    Adam nodded and uncorked the bottle. A spicy smell assaulted his nose, almost making him sneeze. After erasing thest trace of doubt he had in his heart, he drunk the whole bottle in one go.


    He felt the thick liquid turn into liquid and then energy as it went down his throat. The energy quickly spread to his whole body, and he felt like his veins and meridians were on fire. But this onlysted for a second, after which a cool wave spread from his dantian, neutralizing all the heat.


    Adam could feel his body had been changed, somehow. With a quick look at his status, he confirmed he had received 1000 AP to every of his stats, a major boost.


    Although, he had to admit, there was some disappointment. A part of his mind had hoped he would gain 1000 raw AP to every attribute, which would be 5000 thanks to the Third Gate. Unfortunately, it wasn''t the case.


    The girl said with a surprised voice "You absorbed the potion really quickly. Last thing before we go in, what''s your name? I know you are hiding your identity, but only telling me your name won''t hurt you. I''ll go first, I''m Thalia."


    He replied "Adam. What is your ss, and what is your level of strength?" Thalia shook her head and said "I won''t be able to help you much inside. I am a Fire Elementalist, they probably have a high resistance against my attacks."


    Adam nodded and said "Then I will do the fighting. Come on, let''s go. I heard it takes a long time to reach the high level areas in this volcano."


    Thalia nodded and together the two of them entered the volcano. It didn''t take long for the first monster to appear.


    [Magma Slime] (Elite, Level 50)


    HP: 25000/25000


    However, Adam barely had the time to read it''s status when a flying sh hit the slime, followed by three others. The slime was able to survive the first three, but the fourth one emptied it''s HP bar, killing it.


    Before Adam and Thalia''s eyes, four men appeared from a sub branch, and walked toward them.


    [Robber] (Silver, Level 80)


    HP: 30000/30000


    The four had more or less the same status, with a small difference in their HP and Level from one another, but they were all around those stats. They were all swordsmen too, and they didn''t bother to hide their identities.


    The leading one pointed his sword at Thalia and said "You daree back in here? Do you think he can protect you?"


    Adam sent a nce at Thalia, who said "I tried entering on my own, and those four tried to rob me." Adam nodded once and looked back at the four robbers and said "Don''t stand in our path, I don''t want to waste time."


    The four snickered and one of them said "Don''t me us if we hurt you then, you shouldn''t have tried to y the hero." The four prepared themselves to attack, but they heard a sigh, and then nothing.


    -45 000 HP!


    -45 000 HP!


    -45 000 HP!


    -45 000 HP!


    The four of them were bisected by a flying sh sent by Adam, who had just sighed. The reason he had sighed was because no one had dared to try to rob him since the beginning of the game, but he had barely put on a cloak for ten minutes that they already tried to rob him.


    Now the question was, was it more annoying for all his enemies, which consist of superpowers in the majority, to know his position, or for random people to annoy him?


    Adam walked to the four and looted everything they had. There were quite a few [Magma Slime Core] on them, probably robbed from other yers, and it was honestly the only thing that interested Adam, but he still took everything as a Bronze Coin was still money.


    He turned to look at Thalia, and saw her frozen. He asked with azy voice "Is it the first time you see someone die?"


    His words seemed to awaken her from her daze as she asked "Did it have to be so violent?" Adam snorted hearing her and he replied "There is no gentleness when you kill someone. You better get used to killing if you want to survive in the outside world."


    Thalia gulped, and she couldn''t help but feel that asking Adam for help was maybe more dangerous than going alone


    On the other side, Adam rolled his eyes, although he couldn''t see her face he could see from her movements that she was starting to get scared. She was probably going to be a pain to protect if she doesn''t toughen up.

 Chapter 133: Everburn Mont

    Chapter 133: Everburn Mont


    After the little incident with the four robbers, although the two did see other humans, the majority of the beings they saw were magma monsters, most of them being magma slimes.


    Adam found out his ice attacks were stronger against the slimes because they were beings of extreme hotness, being made of magma.


    As he used his different skills, Adam also confirmed something he had been thinking about recently. When he created his cultivation technique, he had a bonus to water proficiency, and until now he didn''t know what it meant.


    But through experience he finally found out what the use of this bonus was. Every time he used water rted skills, they would appear much clearer than before.


    The level of his skills depended on how well he mastered them, and to master them he had to understand how to manipte and mold his Aura to achieve the effects intended.


    And to learn this, he would have to repeatedly use the skill to learn the pathway used, and how much Aura he should be using. This was quite a long and arduous task, which was why perfectly mastering a skill was hard.


    Of course he could also repeatedly use it, forcing his body to remember how to use the skill by imprinting it into his body, but this could only push a skill to Level 10, and it was very limited for higher leveled skills.


    And here came the Water Proficiency. Since he created his cultivation technique, every time he used a skill rted to the water element and which he did not perfectly master, Adam was able to feel much clearer the Aura used, and thus allowed him to memorize more easily how to use a skill.


    This had already allowed him to push his [Misty Escape] to level 3, and his [Great Ice Breath] to Level 2. The magma monsters had made great targets to practice.


    Other than that, Adam also realized that the volcano was much bigger than he thought. It took Thalia and him ten minutes to get to the other end of the area. Knowing there were also a Level 60, 70, 80 area and so on until Level 200, and that there were multiple areas for each level, this Volcano was bigger than any that ever existed on Earth.


    At the end of each zone, between the current one and the next one, there was always a rather safe area where one could collect a fire if they wanted.


    Adam and Thalia did not stop at the first rest area of course, as the fire present here was barely any better than a campfire.


    From that point, several hours went by, during which Adam and Thalia made their way into the volcano. Other than the level of the monsters, the temperature was also gradually rising.


    By the time Adam and Thalia reached the zone between Level 80 and 90, the temperature was so high that an Iron Rank would lose health every second.


    Once there, Adam looked at Thalia and said "Do you want to take your fire here, or should we go on?" Thalia replied "You didn''t seem to have any difficulty dealing with those Level 80 monsters, so I say we go on."


    Adam nodded and the two started moving again. Every area seemed to be bigger than the previous one, and so even though it only took them 10 minutes to clear the Level 50 area, it had taken them an entire hour to clear the Level 80 Area.


    Another hour went by, and the two were already nearing the end of the Level 90 area. Since now, they didn''t encounter any difficulty, most of the monsters were either Elite or Chieftains, with a few Lords here and there. Thalia never had to lend in a hand, and probably wouldn''t have to do it at all since if a monster could trouble Adam, Thalia would most certainly bepletely overpowered by it.


    At first Thalia was keeping a certain distance with Adam, although she had put a mark on him the way he had killed those four robbers had its effect on her.


    But through the different zones, although the two didn''t speak much as they didn''t want to reveal too much about themselves, she couldn''t help but feel like Adam had something special.


    She couldn''t really exin it, but she felt like she was safe next to him. And well, it''s not like she had much of a choice, she knew that if she tried to go back on her own she would probably die on the way.


    When the two were able to see the end of the dangerous zone though, something unexpected happened. Adam and Thalia weren''t alone but instead apanied a group of three Kartian Swordsmen whom Adam had saved from another band of robbers.


    Those three were Level 95, and were quite good when they fought by three, which is why Adam and Thalia took them with them.


    The group of three looked at the safe zone like it was heaven, they had been struggling in the Level 90 area for quite some time and they weren''t like Adam who had opened the 2nd Gate or Thalia who didn''t have to fight at all, so they were quite exhausted by this point.


    Seeing no monsters nearby, the three began running toward the safe zone, leaving Adam''s protection. Adam himself didn''t say anything to them as he could see they were tired.


    However, just before they could reach the safe zone, a torrent ofva suddenly engulfed them. They didn''t even have the time to scream before they got covered by the magma. This magma wasn''t like the surrounding magma either, it was even more viscous and it would be much harder to get out of this magma.


    But as to whether they would be able to get out of this magma before dying, Adam and Thalia would never know, because a second after the magma appeared, arge beast appeared and swallowed all the magma.


    [Magma Fiend] (Elder, Level 90)


    HP: 5,000,000/5,000,000


    The Magma Fiend was about 5 meters tall and 3 metersrge, and looked like a giant dwarf made of magma. It''s arms were abnormally big, but more importantly it''s mouth could be bigger, big enough to swallow half a dozen people at the same time.


    The Magma Fiend crunched the magma it had just swallowed, as well as everything in it, and looked at Adam and Thalia with its big eyes Well they weren''t exactly eyes, more like two fireballs in eye sockets. But it seemed that this Magma Fiend was somehow using those to see.


    Adam looked at the nearby Thalia and said "I will hold it back while you run to the safe area." Thalia wanted to say something but before she could even speak Adam and the Magma Fiend were already rushing at each other.


    Adam saw the boss opening it''s mouth, and instantly he jumped to the side and opened his mouth toward the boss''s mouth.


    The 4th Gate main use was the perfect bnce, but there was actually a secondary use for those proficient in using it. Normally one would need to use the 4th Gate for years, or even decades to use this ability, but Adam was able to use it as soon as he opened the Gate thanks to his experience.


    This ability was the ability to predict trajectories. If someone threw a ball in front of Adam, he now would be able to predict where it would fall the moment it left that person''s hand.


    Another example is the Magma Fiend in front of him. The moment it''s attack started, Adam already knew where to ce himself to dodge it.


    Of course, this ability wasn''t omnipotent. There were limits to the ability. The most obvious one was speed, even if he could predict the trajectory of something, if that thing was too quick then he wouldn''t be able to dodge it.


    Also, if there were too many objects moving then predicting the trajectories of everyone of them would be painful to his brain, although Adam''s limit in this life was many times higher thanks to his powerful soul.


    There was another weakness toward living beings as well. The trajectory of a ''dead'' object, like a stone being thrown, wouldn''t change once in the air unless an external factor changed the trajectory.


    However, for a living subject, for example a sword being swung, the trajectory could be changed by the swordsman if he was skilled enough.


    So while this ability gave Adam an edge over his opponents, it wouldn''t allow him to outss all his opponents effortlessly. For this dumb boss though, it was more than enough.


    After dodging the fire breath, Adam fired his own [Great Ice Breath] at the boss'' opened mouth.

 Chapter 134: Elemental Weakness

    Chapter 134: Elemental Weakness


    Critical Hit! -420 000 HP!


    As the [Great Ice Breath] hit the boss in it''s mouth, it roared painfully. Because it was a fiend, it''s exterior body had no weak spot, cutting of it''s head wouldn''t matter. Rather, the only way to deal critical hits was to hit the interior of it''s body.


    While it roared in pain, Adam appeared next to it and used [Lunar Smite] as well as [Wind de].


    -410 000 HP!


    -410 000 HP!


    -410 000 HP!


    -410 000 HP!


    The boss roared once again in pain, and it''s body started emitting an even higher heat. Feeling the change, Adam hurriedly jumped back and sent a flying sh at the boss.


    At the same time, a wave of magma exploded from his body, incinerating everything within ten meters. However, it didn''t hit Adam because of his flying sh.


    Right after this attack, the boss roared once again, and Adam saw the magma on the ground was forming mini versions of the boss. After checking Thalia was more than 50 meters away from him, Adam used his sword''s skill [Sword Cry] for the first time.


    The monsters didn''t even get topletely form before their inner organism was shattered by the sound attack. The boss grunted as well and muttered something, but Adam couldn''t understand what it was saying. It was the first time he met a being speaking in anothernguage.


    All NPCs would speak the samenguage, tranted to the yer. It was the same for every yer, the people listening to them would hear them in their ownnguage. The wonders of technology.


    Adam knew it was far from over and he couldn''t stop attacking because the boss had a great regeneration speed.


    Since his [Wind de] was still active, Adam fired five flying shes at the boss while he was rushing toward it. However, the boss easily parried each of the strikes. Adam understood that the reason he made so much damage in the beginning was because it had underestimated him.


    But now Adam was in front of it, and the boss grinned with a fire smile as its mouth opened wide. Adam lowered his body, dodging the monster''s bite, and kicked the lower part of it''s jaw from underneath, using [Icy Stomp] as he did so.


    Critical Hit! -900 000 HP!


    The part Adam kicked turned into ice, and the frost then infiltrated the boss'' body through the many cracks, hitting it deep inside.


    The kick also sent the boss flying into the air, and while its feet were off the ground Adam fired another five flying shes at it.


    The boss couldn''t even protect itself as the first four shes prated deep into it''s body, and the final fifth sh bisected it in two, vertically.


    As the boss'' remains fell to the ground, Adam looked toward the safe area and saw Thalia was safe and unharmed there. However, although he couldn''t see her face, she seemed pretty shocked by what just happened.


    Actually, this ce was very good for Adam. All the monsters, including this boss, had an elemental weakness to ice, making him very strong against those monsters. Normally, had it been any other Level 90 Elder Boss, Adam would have struggled more to kill them.


    Unfortunately for this boss, everyone of Adam''s ice attacks were dealing 50% more damage, so killing it really wasn''t really hard.


    Adam turned back to the remains of the boss and perused through it''s loot. There was an item called a [Magma Core], which looked like an expensive material, and there was also a big shield. The shield was of the Unique Quality and was for a knight. It also had good fire skills.


    Adam stored it, decided he would treat it the same as the sword he was keeping for Eddy, except this would go for Baugh. Unless he found a better use for those items, he would give them to Eddy and Baugh when they reached the necessary level.


    There was also some other materials and equipments, but he only took the materials as the rest of the equipments weren''t very good and he didn''t have much ce remaining in his inventory.


    Adam then joined Thalia and said "Do you want to take this fire? I heard it''s very good because we are in the junction between Level 90 and 100. It''s quite a big change in level."


    Thalia though didn''t answer and instead asked "What Level are you?" Adam tilted his head and asked "Does it matter?"


    Thalia frowned, which Adam couldn''t see, and said "You don''t seem to be able to fly so you shouldn''t be Gold Rank, but to beat a Level 90 Elder and to be able to drink the [Innate Strength Potion] while being under Level 100 Are you an SS ss?"


    Adam couldn''t help but look at her weirdly. If she was so shocked, he wondered what her face would be if she knew he wasn''t just under Level 100, but was a measly Level 35


    After a moment he said "You didn''t answer my question. Should we collect the fire here or risk going in deeper?"


    Thalia finally reacted to his question as she sent a look to the tunnel leading deeper in the volcano before saying "After Level 100, there won''t be any Elite left, the majority of the monsters will be Chieftains and Lords, and there will be a few Elder Rank bosses as well I think we should take the fire here, it is already better than I expected."


    Adam nodded and the two of them took out their jars to collect the fires. Once done with that, the two started walking back on their path, to outside the Volcano.


    This time they didn''t have to explore the different zones they went through so they reached they did the trip faster.


    Once they finally got out of the volcano, Adam sent a look to his clock and saw it was already 8.00 pm outside. He looked at Thalia and said "It was a fun adventure, but it''s time to leave each other."


    However, Thalia asked "Why did you collect a me? I did it because I am an alchemist, but you don''t really look like either an Alchemist or a cksmith."


    Adam shook his head and said "I''m not. I collected it for another cksmith so he can make an armor for me."


    Thalia asked "Then are you going back to that cksmith? Where is it?" Adam replied "In Yam, he''s quite renown, he''s called Morbash."


    Suddenly, Thalia drew closer to Adam as she asked "Can Ie with you? Please?!"


    Adam was surprised by the sudden request, and as he thought of her request he hesitated. While they grew a little closer during their time inside, they couldn''t really be considered friends, rather acquaintances.


    But as he was hesitating she said "Please, I never went to Yam, and it''s such a pain to get a pass. I promise I won''t annoy you."


    In the end, Adam sighed and said "Fine." Thalia grinned "Thanks!"


    The two walked off the volcano together and headed to the city. As they walked Thalia asked "How is he? I mean, Morbash."


    Adam shrugged and said "We don''t know each other very well, but I would say he is a fine guy?" Thalia asked "You must be quite someone to convince Morbash to make an armor for you. Is that why you are hiding your identity?"


    Adam nodded "You can say that Aren''t you the same?" Thalia shook her head and said "I hide my face because I don''t want my family to find me, and also to avoid girl problems You see what I mean?"


    Adam looked at her surprised and asked "I do so you consider yourself beautiful? Isn''t that a little narcissistic?"


    Thaliaughed "I know it sounds like it, but I really do look good. Aren''t you curious as to how I look like? You never asked me to see how I looked like. Most people do."


    Adam replied "I am curious, but I know how to respect your privacy. I don''t want people to see me, so I can understand you don''t want to either. Oh, here we are."


    The two reached the city earlier, and quickly they arrived to the center of city where the teleportation array. However, unlike during the day, there was almost no one present. Thalia said "Oh no, the teleportation array is closed at night!"


    Adam rolled his eyes and approached the one in charge of the array. He took out the Yok n''s Insignia and said "We want to go to Yam."

 Chapter 135: Different Affinity

    Chapter 135: Different Affinity


    The Orc nodded and after getting the payment from Adam he activated the array. Adam and Thalia disappeared from the city.


    When they got out of the space tunnel, they were back in Yam. Looking up, Adam noticed that although it was already night here too, it wasn''t as dark as in Everburn City.


    Thalia looked at Adam and asked "Are you going to see Morbash? Can Ie too?" Adam shrugged and said "You can follow me, but it depends on whether he wants to see you or not."


    Thalia beamed hearing him, and the two headed for Klint''s Workshop. On the way, Adam also looked at the quest he had just finished, ''Mercenary''. Apart from the [Innate Strength Potion] Thalia had given him before going in, he had also gained some XP and an improved rtionship with Thalia.


    Soon, the two reached Klint''s Workshop, but it was closed. Adam scratched the back of his head, he hadn''t thought of that. But before he could say anything Thalia said "Can you help me book an inn?"


    Adam asked "Why do you need my help?" Thalia replied "Some Inns are exclusive to Orcs or people of high rank. If you use that badge of yours I can pay for both of our rooms."


    Adam nodded and epted right away. With the new update, being disconnected meant the avatar would be asleep, and so he couldn''t just disconnect in the middle of the street.


    And staying in a good inn had it''s advantages. While the night would be costlier, the safety would be better, and more importantly one would gain an XP boost for the next day if they slept in a good inn.


    Now that Adam had opened his 4th Gate, and that he would get a custom made armor for Level 50s, all he needed was to reach Level 50 to get his Promotion Quest and be promoted to Silver Rank.


    Adam and Thalia went to the best Inn in the entire city, called the Slumbering Dragon, and they were able to get a room each. Thalia was actually quite rich, but Adam didn''t know whether it was because of her job as an Alchemist or if it came from the n behind her.


    Before separating, the two agreed they would meet early in the morning tomorrow, and only then did they enter their rooms.


    Once in his room, Adam took off his cloak and immediately reached for the bed,yingfortably against it and then logging off.


    Back in the real world, Adam got out of his cabin and stretched his body. He had been in the cabin for two days non stop, and although his body could take much more than that, his muscles were a little stiff.


    While he stretched, Adam also felt the difference from thest time, with his 4th Gate now opened. If anyone else knew that he had gone from no Gate opened to the 4th Gate in slightly more than a week they would probably beat him for telling lies.


    Adam wanted to try his cultivation technique in the real world, but from what he could smell dinner was about to be served, and if he wanted to eat he better join them now.


    Adam left his room and saw his father sitting at the table, his mother had a tray in her hands. Lasagna.


    The two turned to look at Adam, who said "Sorry for yesterday, something happened in game." His father nodded and said "We saw, the update. I didn''t take a te for you, I thought you wouldn''t join us."


    Adam nodded and took out a te and cutlery before sitting at the table with his parents. Soon, everyone was served and they began eating.


    After a moment, Elizabeth said "We are really proud of you Adam." Adam looked at her surprised, but then his heart warmed. His father nodded too and said "You did something great."


    Adam smiled and said "You could join the game too you know." The twoughed but shook their heads "We don''t have the time with our jobs."


    Adam replied "But you don''t need to work anymore, I can earn more than enough money for all of us. If you are ever tired of working, you can stop whenever you want. And if you join the game, I can help you have a nice start."


    Elizabeth took his hand and said "Thank you honey, but we''re fine for now, we like working at the restaurant. Maybe in the future we will change our minds though. But for now, I think you should think more about your brother, he will definitely join once he is old enough."


    Adam nodded and said "It''s fine, I still have slightly less than two years. I will have achieved a lot of things in two years."


    His parents smiled at him, for two years they had seen their son struggle to earn enough money to buy himself a cabin, those were two dark years. But now, everything was going well, and the more time passed, the more stable and unshakable this happiness was bing.


    Once he finished eating, Adam went to take a bath, something rare for him. But it was because he wanted to try a few things.


    Before going in the water, Adam activated his cultivation technique, and immediately noticed something was wrong.


    His cultivation was feeling different than from in game, slower. He immediately stopped and checked his inner condition, to try to understand what was going on.


    Adam checked his meridians and after a few minutes of searching, he believed he found the answer. His body was different from in game.


    Not just in term of strength, but the width and arrangement of his meridians were a little different. Nothing major, he could activate all his skills like in the game and they worked in the same way as in the game.


    However, in the game the meridians rted to water were twice bigger than the ones rted to the other elements because of his affinity with the water element.


    But in his real body, he found out that his water meridians were actually of an average size, and that it was his fire meridians that were bigger instead.


    This meant that Adam''s cultivation with a fire cultivation technique would be twice as fast as one of another element. This also meant that he would have an easier time using and mastering fire skillspared to the other elements, in the real world at least.


    Of course, he wouldn''t have the same resistance and bonus in damage for fire which he has in game for water, because those bonuses came from his ss.


    Despite learning he had to use another cultivation technique, this didn''t trouble Adam too much, the cultivation technique he had created, the Flowing Water Art, could easily be changed into a fire version of itself thanks to his knowledge about his meridians.


    But Adam didn''t start working on that right away. Instead, he wanted to experiment something. He entered his bath, and sat in the middle of water before activating his Flowing Water Art once again.


    This time, his cultivation was much faster than before, he could feel he was absorbing Qi much faster. He stopped and smiled to himself. As expected, the environment did influence his cultivation.


    While surrounded by water, his cultivation was faster than when used in water than outside of it. This meant cultivating next to a fire would probably be more efficient for Adam if he wanted to cultivate in the real world. But he didn''t know how he was going to do that, he could just lit his room afire just to cultivate faster right?

 Chapter 136: Raging Fire Art

    Chapter 136: Raging Fire Art


    Once out of his bath, Adam returned to his room. There, he cultivated for most of the night using the new cultivation technique he created, which he had decided to call [Raging Fire Art]. He also took a short nap of 2 hours to rest his mind.


    After cultivating for a single night, Adam could feel he had made some advancement. Of course it was nothing major, but he had grown stronger. It wouldn''t take long for him to reach Intermediate Qi Gathering Realm.


    While he cultivated, Adam had also wondered if there were equipments on Earth. He wasn''t sure because he didn''t think there were any metals good enough to make a good equipment. If that was the case, then Adam would be much stronger in the real world than in the game, or rather, he would be able to battle much higher leveled opponents.


    In term of raw stats, Adampletely dominated the average Gold Rank, or even the Hero Rank. Only someone who opened the 3rd Gate could rival with him. But from what Adam knew, it was only the peak experts in the entire world who opened the 3rd Gate, and even fewer of them who opened the 4th one. Even for those who opened it, their mastery of it wouldn''t even near Adam''s mastery over it.


    Moreover, there were only a few Legends. For a Legend who opened the 4th Gate but didn''t master it, without any equipment Adam estimated that the moment he reached the Gold Rank, or Core Formation Realm, he would probably be the strongest person on Earth.


    Although his attributes would be lower, to be promoted to Gold Rank he would need to open the 5th Gate. And from his experience, once he opened the 5th Gate, for someone who didn''t open it they would need to be many times stronger than him to defeat him, and without equipments, not even a Legend would be able to match him.


    Of course, in the game it would be different, but this was a matter for another time.


    When Adam connected back in the game, he was relieved to see he was still fine. He couldnt help but fear his avatar would get killed while he was disconnected, it would have been defenseless after all. Thankfully, no one knew he was here.


    Looking at the time, there were only five minutes until his appointment with Thalia, but he didn''t immediately get out of his room. First, he used his new cultivation technique, and gained a new skill.


    Raging Fire Art (B): Absorb the energy of the world into your dantian. Capable of passively absorbing energy, but the speed is ten times slower than when used actively. Affinity to fire rted skills upgraded by 200%.


    Although the affinity was the same, Adam could feel the effects of the skill in the game were lesser than in the real world, so he kept the [Flowing Water Art] on. Only then did he leave his room.


    However, he was surprised to see Thalia leaning against the wall opposite of his room, she looked like she was waiting for him.


    As he opened the door he heard her say "You otherworlders really sleep a lot." Since days were twice as long, nights were the same. But humanoids in this world slept as much as people on Earth, so they would still be awake for more than half of the night. Thankfully people in this world were stronger and they were able to stay awake for more than 36 hours straight without a problem, or their sleeping pattern would be really weird.


    Adam didn''t say anything about her words, and instead said "Since you are already here, let''s go there right now Do you want to eat breakfast first?" Adam didn''t really care, but he was being polite.


    However Thalia shook her head and said "I already ate, we can go already." Adam nodded to her and led her outside, to Klint''s Workshop.


    This time, the shop was opened, and Adam could see Klint was in his wheelchair, in front of the shop, and Morbash was reading a book inside.


    Adam approached Klint and said "You didn''t die in your sleep yet?" Klint grunted "Have some respect for your elders punk!" Adam rolled his eyes and said "I got the hammer and the me. Also, I brought this girl, she said she wanted toe."


    Klint was shocked when he heard Adam, neither him nor Morbash thought Adam would be able to get the two before a few days at least. He then looked at the covered Thalia and said "Who am I speaking to then?"


    Klint hadn''t recognized the two at first, because of their Shadow Cloak, but only recognized Adam when he spoke. And when he did, he immediately wondered who this second person was.


    Thalia said "I am Thalia, I heard of Morbash many times in the past, and when I heard Adam wasing here, I decided to tag along."


    Klint nodded and said "Alright. Please remove your Shadow Cloaks beforeing in, it''s rude." Adam shrugged, now that he was here he didn''t care about people knowing he was here, he would just put it back on when he moved out.


    Adam took of the Shadow Cloak, revealing his true appearance. On the side, Thalia hesitated a little, and while she took her time, she saw Adam. She wasn''t really surprised by his appearance, but when she saw his name and his Level, she couldn''t help but open her mouth in shock.


    Seeing Thalia frozen, Klint snickered "You didn''t tell her who you were before?" Adam shrugged and said "I did, I told her my name."


    Thalia pointed at his face and finally said "You You''re that guy! You''re a Sovereign!" Adam nodded "I am. Now I wonder who YOU are."


    Thalia took back her finger, and after a moment she took off her own Shadow Cloak.


    As the shadows disappeared, her true appearance appeared. Aplenty of red hair were hiding one of the most beautiful faces Adam had ever seen no, it was the most beautiful face he had ever seen. Three whiskers on each cheeks, a small mouth, big eyes


    The fox ears on top of her head twitched, stunning Adam, before eight tails appeared behind her, moving along with the small breeze.


    At the same time, a fresh scent entered Adam''s nostrils, Thalia was releasing an enticing odor, but it wasn''t some kind of aphrodisiac, she seemed to be the embodiment of nature itself


    Thalia pushed the hair in front of her face with her hand, and said "Can you stop staring?" Adam was stunned before he looked away while blushing, his heart palpitating.


    He couldn''t understand what was happening to him, this was a first. He had always been able to keep his calm in the past, even the most beautiful women on Earth couldn''t get much of a reaction from him. But Thalia had mesmerized him with no effort


    On the side, Klint said "So it is Her Imperial Princess, forgive this old man for being rude earlier." Adam looked at the old man stunned, was this really the Klint he knew, how could this old fossil be so polite.


    But then his words registered in his mind, and Adam looked at her status.


    [Thalia, Princess of Aldeneid] (Bronze, Level 50)


    HP: 25000/25000


    He now understood which n she was running away from Seriously, what kind of luck did he have to randomly bump into the princess of Aldeneid?


    Moreover, she wasn''t just a person with a lot of influence, a mere second generation, as he could feel she had opened the 3rd Gate. With her being a Level 50 Bronze Rank, this either meant she was a Sovereign waiting to open her 4th Gate to go through her Promotion Quest, or she was an SS ss and fled from Aldeneid to do her promotion ss.


    As if she could read his mind, Thalia said "I''m not a Sovereign, I''m only an SS ss." Adam nodded and turned to Klint "Can we go in now?"


    Klint nodded and led the two inside. Morbash looked up from his book hearing the shop''s door being opened, and was shocked seeing Adam, as well as Thalia.


    Klint said "Adam came back with the Forger''s Dream and the me, and he is apanied by Her Imperial Highness Thalia."


    Morbash couldn''t help but look at Adam like he was some kind of divine being.

 Chapter 137: Water Dragon Set

    Chapter 137: Water Dragon Set


    Morbash looked at Thalia and said with a short bow "I am honored to meet you, Princess. I heard about your achievements in Alchemy! Truly wonderful!"


    Thalia chuckled and said "I heard you aren''t any less talented in Smithing than I am in Alchemy. When I heard Adam say he wasing here, I decided toe too. I hope I''m not intruding."


    Morbash smiled politely and said "Of course not. Please sit."


    Adam''s face twitched when he heard Morbash''s words. Not only was she an Imperial Princess, she was also an Alchemist as talented as Morbash? Truly heaven''s daughter


    Adam looked at Morbash and said "I got your things." As he said that he took out the Forger''s Dream and the Fire Jar from his inventory.


    Morbash''s eyes widened as he looked at the two items. A couple secondster, he said "You really are efficient aren''t you? I hope you didn''t take a low grade me just to be quick"


    However, Adam said "I took it from the area between Level 90 and Level 100 in Everburn Mont." Morbash once again looked at him in shock, before turning his eyes toward Thalia and saying "I guess if you had help"


    But once again, his thoughts were disrupted as Thalia chuckled "He carried me through the dungeon. He fought alone."


    In the end, Morbash shook his head and said "I guess Sovereigns are beings I can''t understand Fine, I already listed the materials I will need to make your armor anyway. As per our deal, I will make it for free since you brought back the hammer. And with the power of the me you brought back, I I''m confident I can forge it in a single try."


    [Ding! B Quest ''Everburn Mont''pleted!]


    [Ding! SS ''Forger''s Dream''pleted!]


    Adam noted the two notifications in his mind before asking "Good. What are those materials then? How many of them are there? How much do you need? And where can I find them?"


    Facing Adam''s multiple questions, Morbash replied "Slow down There are four main materials I need you to get. 50 Water Dragon Scales, 10 Dark Gold Iron Ores, 10 Blood Metal Ores and 20 Hell Tiger Ligaments. With them, I will forge you the one and only, Water Dragon Set."


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Water Dragon Set''!]


    Quest Detail: As long as you can collect the right materials, Morbash will definitely make you the armor you want.


    Quest Level: 50


    Quest Difficulty: SSS


    Objective: Collect: 50 Water Dragon Scales, 10 Dark Gold Iron Ore, 10 Blood Metal Ore, 20 Hell Tiger Ligaments.


    Reward: Water Dragon Set, +10 Levels, +500 AP


    Adam was stunned when he saw the quest. This was the second SSS Rank Quest he got, of the same difficulty as his search for the Godyer''s Heart. It showed how difficult it would be to find those materials, even though he already had one of them. But the rewards were worth it at least.


    He took out arge part of whatever Dark Gold Iron Ore he had left, since he had 12 left he was able to take all ten needed. He had collected a good amount of those ores in the mine he now owned a part of, but almost all of them had gone to Neith as snakes. She loved ores almost as much as meat.


    Morbash was naturally surprised to see Adam take out some of the ores needed, but he quickly said "Good. For the remaining three materials, I will exin to you where to find them."


    "First, the Water Dragon Scales. They are the easiest to find, but maybe the hardest to collect. You need to travel to the Dragon''s Valleys and kill a Water Dragon there. Killing one of them should be enough for 50 scales. I don''t think killing a dragon of your level should be too difficult for you, but beware as killing a dragon has consequences."


    "Secondly, the Blood Metal Ore. This is trickier to get ess to. To find this ore, you must find the Land of Eternal Night, home of the Vampires. They like their privacy so finding theirnd will hard. Once you have found their home, you should be able to find the ores without too much difficulty, I think"


    "Finally, for the Hell Tiger Ligaments, you need to find a Hell Tiger. A Hell Tiger is a powerful monster, but it isn''t as powerful as a dragon so it shouldn''t be a problem either. This is the easiest material to find, alongside with the Dark Gold Iron Ore, all you need is to go near the Demon''s Cult headquarters and you should be able to find plenty of Hell Tigers."


    Adam sighed and said "Your armor set better be incredible for it to be so difficult to be made." Morbash grinned and said "It''s not just incredible, it''s going to be the best armor! I actually found a way to make it stronger than any other armor of the same level and rank. This armor is going to be 50% stronger than a normal Level 50 Extraordinary set, it can be considered a half step Unique quality."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and asked "Half step Unique? First time I heard of this." Morbash shrugged and said "It doesn''t surprise me, I don''t know anyone else capable of doing it. Moreover, it isn''t as good as sounds. Although the bonus it gives is strengthened by 50%, the requirements be many times harder. Actually, this would be considered a failure for many cksmiths, as only someone who opened the 3rd Gate could wear this and actually benefit from it. That or a much higher leveled person."


    Adam nodded, that made sense. This technique probably came with the inheritance Klint had found many years ago. Adam got up from his chair and said "I will be on my way then."


    But as he was about to get out, Thalia abruptly got up and said "Can Ie with you?" Adam looked at her strangely and asked "Why do you want toe? This is going to be incredibly dangerous."


    Thalia rolled her eyes though and said "That''s exactly why I came out, to actually live through something real, to go through an adventure that could actually kill me."


    In the end, Adam shrugged and said "You cane if you want, but you better not slow me down By the way, can you erase the mark you put on me?"


    Thalia chuckled happily "I already did. Thanks for epting me in." As she said that, Adam received a couple of notifications, one was a friend request from Thalia, and the other was her trying to join his party. He epted both and said "Morbash, Klint, take care of yourselves while I''m away."


    The two nodded to him and Adam put on his Shadow Cloak. As the dark cloak appeared on his back, dark mist emerged from it and enshrouded Adam, quickly hiding all his features.


    Thalia did the same, her tails disappeared from view and her features were hidden too. Together the two got out of the workshop.


    Once out, Thalia felt like she needed to be a little useful at least, so she took the initiative to say "I know where the Demon Cult''s HQ are."


    Adam nodded, that was good. He intended to search for them, but it was more convenient if he could have a guide. Maybe he would actually benefit from letting that princesse with him.

 Chapter 138: Sudden Change

    Chapter 138: Sudden Change


    It didn''t take long for Adam and Thalia to reach the teleportation array. Once there, Adam sent a look at Thalia, who understood his meaning and said "The Demon Cult''s HQ is in a dangerous ce, and it is quite hard to get there. We will have to walk a lot to get there."


    Adam nodded without a word, clearly not minding this, so Thalia continued "Their base is near the source of the Kloss Canal, between Alorge and ckheart Mountain."


    Adam frowned and said "We can''t go to ckheart, so should we teleport to Alorge first and go east?"


    Thalia shook her head and said "While this would be the safest route, it is too dangerous. There are a few powers too strong for us The best itinerary would be to sail on Kloss Canal. It will take us a long time, but it will be rtively safe."


    She added "So if we want to take the Kloss Canal we either go to Cassifon and go through the Great Swamp, or we walk through the Mirage Desert. If we decide to go through the Mirage Desert we should be rtively safe considering your strength, but we will need at least a couple of weeks of travel since we will have to sail the Kloss Canal from one end to another."


    Adam asked "What about Cassifon then?" This time Adam didn''t have to worry about the restrictions due to his race. The teleportation between a member of the Light Faction and a member of the Dark Faction was regted and needed a special badge, but since they were in Yam the could teleport to Cassifon while keeping their identity hidden. However, if they wanted to teleport to Aldeneid or Colnds, they would need a special badge or show their faces.


    Thalia contemted his question for a moment before saying "Going to Cassifon would make the travel faster, we should be able to go through the Great Swamp in about four days, and we would then need three other days of sailing to reach the Demon''s Cult HQ All in all, that''s one week of travel, or half the time required if we want to use the Mirage Desert. But it will be much more dangerous this way."


    Adam asked "So we have to choose between a long but safe itinerary, and a shorter but more dangerous one. Do you have an opinion?"


    Thalia said "Well, I came with you to live an adventure, so I feel like going to Cassifon would be funnier." Adam smiled and said "Good, this should be interesting, I never visited a swamp."


    Like that, the two of them decided to take the teleportation array to the capital of Cassifon, Kusak. And as they waited for the array to be ready, Adam thought about his armor. He didn''t expect collecting the materials would take him so long.


    If just gathering one of the three materials took him a week, then by the time he gathered every material and got his armor, he would be approaching Level 50, if not having already reached it.


    By then, getting a Level 50 armor would be a bit of a waste, since he would already be able to use Level 60 equipment thanks to his [Godyer''s Heart]. After thinking about it, Adam decided to contact Morbash, and asked him if he could create a Level 60 Unique armor with the materials he asked.


    It didn''t take long for Morbash to reply ''I think you should get a Level 50 Armor to help you in your Promotion Quest, the Promotion Quests for Sovereigns are said to be incredibly hard you know''


    But Adam pressed on ''Don''t worry, I know what I am doing. So, can I change the order?''


    After a few seconds Morbash said ''It shouldn''t be much of a problem for me to make the armor, but I will have to change the materials a bit. Actually, it''s just the main material, the Water Dragon Scales. Instead of 50 Water Dragon Scales, I would need you to bring back 50 Water Dragon Reverse Scales.''


    Adam was relieved, if it was only that. This meant he wouldn''t have to bring more materials. He asked ''Are you sure there is only that?''


    ''ONLY THAT?! Do you even know what you are saying?'' Adam was surprised by the Orc''s outburst, what did he say?


    Morbash said ''Those are Reverse Scales, every dragon only has a single one. This means you will go from killing one dragon to killing 50 dragons. If you only killed a single dragon, maybe the Dragon n would forgive you because of your identity, but to kill 50 of them They will hunt you down for sure.''


    Adam''s face turned a little dark, that would be a problem. But after a moment, his face returned to its calmness. If he ever wanted that Divine Armor he would have to kill their king, so he was fated to be enemy with them anyway.


    He said ''It''s alright, I will handle it. Anything else?''


    Morbash said ''Onest thing. I won''t be able to give this equipment the 50% boost I could give to the previous version, because it would need to be Level 100.''


    Adam nodded to himself and said ''It won''t be a problem, a Unique Set is better than a half step Unique Set anyway. Thanks for the trouble.''


    As he closed the message window, a notification appeared before him.


    [Quest content''s changed!]


    Quest Detail: As long as you can collect the right materials, Morbash will definitely make you the armor you want.


    Quest Level: 50


    Quest Difficulty: SSS, Promotion Quest, World Quest


    Objective: Collect: 50 Water Dragon Reverse Scales, 10 Blood Metal Ore, 20 Hell Tiger Ligaments.


    Reward: Water Dragon Set, +15 Levels, +1000 AP, Promotion to Silver Rank when Level 50 is reached.


    Clear Condition: You must be at least Level 45 before you can clear this quest and have your armor forged.


    What? No What? What? Hey


    ''WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON SYSTEM!!!''


    Adam''s mind was in turmoil, what did he just read? SSS Quest, Promotion Quest, World Quest. Anyone of those terms would turn a mission into something incredibly hard, and push anyone to despair. HE HAD THREE OF THEM!


    The most worrying of the three was the World Quest, back when he started the game, just a yer having failed a Vige Quest had created an event that could have potentially wiped out an entire kingdom, so what about this quest? From his understanding of those quests, be it a sess or a failure, the impact on the world would be as devastating.


    Although he asked the system what was going on, he didn''t expect any answer. But as he was processing the information, he heard a familiar voice say "Adam Collins, you never fail to meet my expectations."


    Adam''s eyes widened as he heard the voice, but something even more shocking happened. The world around him suddenly stopped. The ever present buzz of the capital disappeared in an instant, and everyone around him stopped moving. As if time froze


    Slowly turning around, Adam spotted a familiar figure. A woman dressed in a blue and green dress was standing behind him. This was obviously the CEO of Gaya INC, Sofia Davis.

 Chapter 139: Revelations

    Chapter 139: Revtions


    Adam asked the woman with wide eyes "What are you doing here?!" Sofia looked at him funnily and asked "Can''t I appear in my own game?"


    Adam froze, before asking "So you can just stop time? What about the other yers?" Sofia replied "I have frozen the area around us, including the yers. You don''t have to worry about them, it''s all fine."


    Adam nodded slowly, before asking "What are you doing here?" Sofia replied "I think it''s time for you to know some things."


    Hearing her, he couldn''t help but frown as he asked "What do you mean? Searing Light already told me a lot."


    Sofia smiled and said "He told me about it, but that''s only the tip There are too many things you ignore, and I think this is the right asion to tell you about it. Well, not everything of course, where would the fun be in that."


    Adam shook his head and asked "Is my quest so special?" Sofia actuallyughed in response "In a way, I''m just using this as an opportunity. Anyway, you were told quite a few things about cultivators, right? But do you know of their origin?"


    Listening to her, Adam caught onto something and he asked "Their? Aren''t you one as well?" Sofia revealed another smile as she said "One thing at a time. About cultivators origin, we have to go all the way back to the formation of the Earth. You know about that, right? And what followed after."


    Adam nodded, and Sofia said "Well, wipe everything out of your memory since it''s a fabrication, an illusion." Adam was shocked, did she really say what he heard? After a moment he asked "How?"


    Sofia replied "Have you never been curious about the name of mypany? Gaya Inc doesn''t it ring a bell?"


    Suddenly, Adam opened his eyes wide. Sofia saw this and said "You got it then Yes, my real identity is Gaya, Mother Nature, Earth itself But you can call me Sofia."


    Adam asked "So you are telling me you are a goddess Then, do the other gods exist too?" Sofia said "They do, but not like you think You heard about the Golden Idols, right? Well, those are the gods of the legend. One of the advantages of bing a Golden Idol is immortality. Anyway, they are Golden Idols, but I am the only real God on Earth."


    Adam waved his hand and said "Wait wait Then about the origin of cultivators of humans, what happened exactly?"


    However, she didn''t answer his question, and instead began looking around with a strange gaze as she asked "What do you think about Epoch? What do you know about the history of this world?"


    Adam replied "Well I like the game, it''s fun As for the history of this world, I guess you can say I discovered the big historical events, or at least some of them."


    Sofia nodded and said "Good. Then you must have heard about the War of the Gods that split Epoch in three realms?"


    Seeing Adam nod, she added "Well, here''s the thing. Epoch is not just a game. It is a real world. And this is where wee from."


    As Adam was obviously getting agitated, she said "I am a Goddess from before the War of the Gods, I did not partake in this war, but I had to suffer the consequences As a result, I was ejected out of the mortal realm too. But I didn''t have the best rtionship with the other gods, and bringing my Divine Kingdom in the Divine Realm would have been too dangerous. That''s why I decided to separate myself from Epoch."


    Adam blinked, and said "That''s a lot to take in So, Earth is your Divine Kingdom?" Sofia, or Gaya, nodded and said "It is. After the War of the Gods, I took the members of multiple races with me and left them to proliferate in my Divine Kingdom. Most of the legends of today''s societye from this period of time."


    "Among all those races, humans couldn''t really be considered as very strong, and they almost were annihted. However, your ancestors used a special technique to win the war of the races, and be the dominating species on the, annihting almost everyone else."


    Adam couldn''t help but ask "Special Technique?"


    Sofia nodded and said "Although the strongest of humanity are Golden Idols They aren''t really Golden Idols either. They did not achieve this level of power through cultivation, but rather thanks to the power of faith. This allowed them to be much stronger in a short period of time, but in exchange it also destroyed their potential and sealed their Gates forever."


    Adam said "Howe the way to cultivate here is so different from within Epoch?" Sofia replied "Because you are apletely different race from any other human within Epoch. You aren''t Northmen, Kartians or Inders. You are a different branch of humans with a different constitution than those in Epoch."


    Adam asked "Then howe we can cultivate like the inhabitants of Epoch while entering it like a game? And how can we be immortal?"


    Sofia said "This game actually sends your consciousness into an avatar I create for you. This avatar can be revived thanks to my Divinity, although there are limits. But since I created those avatars with my power, I am also capable of making their body be like the ones of other races."


    Adam asked "What are those limits?" Sofia replied "If a God, or even a powerful Legend proficient in Soul attacks, kills you then you will die for real. Also, I can''t make avatars too strong. Once your avatar in the game reaches a certain level of power, it will stop bing stronger or I won''t be able to revive it and the yer will really die."


    Adam asked "What will happen at that time then?" Sofia said "You will have to create your own avatar. At that time, you won''t have any second chance, dying in game means losing your avatar forever, and injuring your soul. But you don''t have to worry about that for now."


    Adam then asked "Why did you let humans kill every other race?"


    Sofia sighed and said "For the same reason many gods banded together to banish me Unlike what you are thinking, I am not the Goddess of the Earth. Instead, I hold a special title, a special Divinity I am the Goddess of Life and Death. As such, even if almost all the other races were killed, I did not intervene, because it was the natural order of things."


    Adam frowned "Goddess of Life and Death? You Were you the one who" Before he could finish his question, a sly smile appeared on Sofia''s face as she snapped her fingers, and a ck book appeared next to her.


    Upon seeing this book, Adam was shell shocked. He recognized this book with a single nce, because it was the book that brought Old Adam''s soul to this body!


    Before he could ask anything, Sofia said "This is my Divinity, the Book of Life and Death. I first used it to send your soul to an alternate reality I created to make you learn the Gates, before bringing your soul back to this world. And you, Adam, are my Champion."

 Chapter 140: Champion

    Chapter 140: Champion


    "I am your Champion? But wait, you said you brought my soul to that alternate world and brought it back here Does it mean Old Adam and my current identity share the same soul? But how?"


    Sofia sighed and said "As the goddess of Life and Death, although I have many enemies, I also have friends, and among them is the God of Fate. He is the one who told me about my own fate, or rather the fate of my subjects. Of you, the inhabitants of Earth."


    Adam asked "Then may I ask what is this fate?" Unconsciously, he had started bing more polite toward Sofia, she was literally the God of his world after all.


    Sofia said "In a few years, the three realms will make one once again, and all the Realms will be brought back together. This includes Earth. I was told by the God of Fate that you would all be exterminated if I did not anything. Hence, I used my powers to create myself a Champion."


    Adam asked "You ept humans killed all other races on Earth, but you don''t ept us being exterminated?"


    Sofia shook her head and said "It''s not the same. It was a natural selection that made you be the dominant race on Earth, a fair fight. As thus, it entered the natural cycle of life and death. However, your original extermination after the Reunion of the Three Realms isn''t something natural. Instead, my enemies want to weaken me by killing you all and then kill me."


    Adam then asked "Why do so many gods want to kill you, aren''t they Immortal themselves?" But Sofia said "It''s not exactly for themselves You have been to Roskha, you saw the souls of the brave dead warriors there, right?"


    Adam nodded, and Sofia continued "Normally, this shouldn''t be possible. The natural cycle of life and death should have brought their soul to reincarnation. This is my duty as the God of Life and Death. However, having souls in one''s Divine Kingdom allows one to use them to gather the Power of Faith. I originally made it impossible for them to use this power, but they were greedy for power and banished me. Only now, after so many years, have they realized how big of a mistake they have made. Unfortunately, it is toote for them."


    Adam asked curiously "Do you hold a grudge against them for what they did?" Sofia shook her head and said "What would be the use of holding a grudge? Every action has it''s consequence, and they have already paid for their actions. Believe me, bing unable to advance forever is a far worse punishment than death."


    "Back to your question, after learning of your extermination, I decided to use my powers to help you. I created multiple alternate realities, and sent several ''Candidates'' to each of them. For each of these candidates I split their souls and sent a part of their soul into those alternate worlds, and left a part in this world."


    "After several generations of testing, you are the one who came out on top. One important thing to know about those split souls is that each of them were only able to live up to 50 years, and they would only be able to open the 4th Gate."


    This made Adam frown as he said "So that''s why I would be reincarnated after 50 years but what about this limit? I clearly opened 5 of them."


    Sofia grinned and said "And that''s exactly why you are the one who passed my test. You were able to open the 5th Gate and strengthen your split soul to the point of bing as strong as your original soul. Once you passed my test, I sent every split soul back to their origin. Because of the weakness of their souls, they lost all their memories and they would have to start back from the beginning. Only you, who had a strong soul from the beginning, was able to keep your memories and your progress."


    Adam asked "So You decided to put the fate of humanity no, of everyone of Earth''s living beings on me. How can you be so sure I can even save them all."


    Sofia replied "Don''t worry about this, just let fate do it''s work. You can continue ying as you did before, just try to be as strong as you can. You don''t have to worry, you still have many years before you will have to worry about all of this."


    Adam replied dryly "You are telling me not to worry, but do you even understand the responsibilities you gave me?"


    Sofia said "Of course I do, I know it''s not easy, but you had to know one day or another. Anyway, the reason I came here today isn''t just to stress you out Wait, actually it is. Well, second information anyway. The Quest you got, it got all those tags because of the consequences they will have. This quest of yours will shake the world, so that''s why there is all of this. And I realized it would be a good asion to make it your Promotion Quest."


    Adam asked "If this avatar is bound to disappear, isn''t it a waste to make it so strong?" But Sofia shook her head and replied "It won''t disappear, it will just lose my power of reincarnation inserted inside it. It will be your true avatar. Don''t worry, trust me, just be stronger."


    Adam had many more questions to ask, but Sofia waived her hand and said "Later. You already know enough. Go back to your quest, and finish it. When you have finished your quest and be a Silver Rank, we will talk again."


    And with a move of her hand, she disappeared, and the world regained its liveliness. Thalia, who was the only one barely paying attention to Adam, was shocked to see him suddenly teleport.


    But after a moment she took it as her eyes ying tricks on her, even if he could teleport, why would he use it to just turn around?


    As for Adam, as time started flowing once again, he sent back a look at his quest. Reaching Level 45 in a few weeks wasn''t going to be much of a challenge, he wasn''t going to be fighting against low level monsters, this was an SSS Quest after all.


    Even without considering the dragons he would eventually have to kill, just the monsters in the Great Swamp would actually be challenging to beat, the Kloss Canal wasn''t a safe ce and the Demon''s Cult Headquarters was definitely a bad ce.


    And the Land of Eternal Night, just the name sounded ominous. There was a reason if they were hidden, they didn''t really like others, and although getting there would be a challenge, surviving there would be one even more.


    That''s why, he was pretty sure that his Level wasn''t going to be a problem in the following weeks.


    The quest itself was going to be very hard to do though. Surviving while being near the Demon''s Cult HQ was going to be hard, since they were actively chasing him, or so he heard, and even though he was hiding his identity, there was still the possibility they used a special item or skill to divine his position or real identity.


    And there was a new worry, if the Cult Leader was a Legend with Soul Attacks then Adam could actually die, something which he really didn''t want to happen.


    Anyway, even though this was going to be a dangerous quest, the reward was definitely worth it. The 15 Level would turn into 3, but the 1000 AP, which honestly was already very good, was going to be 5000 AP. Those AP were vital, not just because they would make him stronger for a moment, but more importantly because they woulde just before the Rank up.


    When he got promoted to Bronze Rank, all his attributes doubled. Now, ranking up to Silver Rank would most definitely at least double his attributes, or maybe even more than that. This means those 5000 AP too would be multiplied, making them much more worthwhile.


    "The array for Kusak is ready! 1 minute before teleportation!" Adam was awakened from his thoughts by the loud voice of the woman in charge of the array. Adam looked at Thalia and said "Let''s go."

 Chapter 141: Into the Great Swamp

    Chapter 141: Into the Great Swamp


    Kusak was very different from all the other ces Adam had been to. The moment he arrived he immediately felt the wetness of the air, and yet the sun was shining on them in all it''s glory, making the ce almost as hot as Yam.


    It also looked like Lizardkin didn''t share the same love for tall buildings as the other races, as Adam couldn''t see any tall pce or anything like that. Instead, the tallest thing in the whole city was probably the ramparts.


    Also, Kusak was closer to naturepared to the other cities Adam had been to, and it was a lot greener as a whole.


    Lizardkins looked devious and ill intended from their looks, but they were actually one of the most peaceful races, and most Lizardkins were nice to outsiders. However, one shouldn''t take them for weak peace lovers, as history had proven time and time again they were not to be trifled with.


    However, they weren''t here for sightseeing. Thalia said "The good thing is, the Capital is already the closest city to the Great Swamp, or at least where we want to go."


    Adam couldn''t help but ask "Howe you know so much since you never left your home?"


    Thalia let out an exhausted sigh as she said "You have no idea how boring my education was. I was forced to learn geography, history, poetry A lot of useless stuff just to look refined in front of suitors. Being a princess definitely isn''t as great as people think."


    Adam said "Then would you rather lose your position and influence to live a normal life, or keep your currant life?" Thalia snickered "Keep my current life. I''m not the only one involved, lots of people depend on me."


    Adam asked "You do realize you just fled from the pce right?" Thalia rolled her eyes "I''m just taking a break, I''m not giving up. And what kind of ruler would I be if I never left the pce?"


    Her words intrigued Adam so he asked "Are you the only heir to the throne?" Thalia shook her head "I''m not, but my Eldest Brother is a fool, my Second Sister is married to a prince from Feynwoods, and my Third Brother is interested in nothing but magic."


    Adam asked "You don''t have a good rtionship with my family?" She shook her head "I do love my parents, but they were absent for most of my childhood. As for my siblings, my eldest brother has been aiming for the crown for more than a hundred years already, and after he thought the throne was his for sure I appeared, so he always was distant."


    Adam asked "What about the other two?" She shrugged "My sister is very different from me, she''s a ''real'' princess, and she never fails to give her opinion about me, who''s not fit to be a princess. As for my third brother, he is my favorite, he''s not good at showing love, but I spent arge part of my childhood with him. What about you?"


    Adam smiled and said "I only have a single brother, and I love him unconditionally. Actually, he is the reason I am here." Thalia raised an eyebrow "How so?"


    Adam replied "My brother has had a disease since he was a child, and my family didn''t have the money to heal him. And for me, the only way to earn that money was toe to this world."


    Thalia asked "If you need money I can give it to you if you want. If there''s a thing I can spend without minding it''s gold coins."


    Adam was surprised, and then smiled "Thanks, really, but I''ve already taken care of it. I joined this world for him, but then I continueding because I took a liking to Epoch. For now well, I like this world."


    Thalia couldn''t help but ask curiously "So you aren''t going to leave this world?" Adam smiled wryly, maybe he had this choice before, but with what he just learned, he couldn''t leave anymore. He said "I won''t."


    Adam couldn''t see it, but Thalia smiled under her cloak''s shadow. Although she was a little scared of him at first, she grew curious about this man. She had only seen one other Sovereign in her entire life, and it was her Third Brother, so she thought this man would be simr to him.


    However, he waspletely different. Actually, he was different from anyone she had ever met, and so her curiosity grew. That''s why she felt it would have been a shame if he already left.


    Soon, the two reached the Northern Gates. The area around the gates, inside the city, was actually quite popr with many different stores. This was because there were many adventurers who would head in the Great Swamp.


    Unlike the Mirage Desert which was only a dangerous spot and a natural defense for Buwog, the Great Swamp was a big training spot as well as a treasurend for Kusak or Cassifon on a whole.


    There were also several bodyguard businesses and tourism agencies who had created paths through the forest to make foreigners discover the swamp. One could even pay to cross the entire swamp.


    Adam and Thalia could pay for that, but they decided to head in by themselves. Adam chose to do so because he wanted to level up, as well as reveal Neith without worry, and Thalia epted because she wanted to really experience this adventure, and not just be carried through it.


    She hadn''t been able to do anything when she was in Everburn Mont because what she aimed for was out of her reach, but now that they were entering the Great Swamp she intended to get some fighting.


    When they entered the Great Swamp deep enough so that they couldn''t see the city anymore, Adam summoned Neith, who released a yawn as she was summoned. She asked ''Where are we?''


    Ignoring how weird it was to see a giant spider yawn, he replied "We are in the Great Swamp, in Cassifon. This girl here is ourpanion for this travel, can shee on your back?"


    Neith threw a nce at Thalia, who was looking back excited under her cloak, and said ''Sure, why not.'' Adam turned to Thalia and told her Neith was okay with hering up before jumping, soon followed by Thalia.


    Fortunately the tress and the vegetation in the Great Swamp was taller than the Lizardkin''s architecture or Neith wouldn''t have been able toe out.


    Thalia asked "Does it bother you if I kill the lower leveled monsters?" Adam asked "How strong are you?" Had it been anyone else she wouldn''t have told them the truth, but since she knew Adam she decided to say the truth.


    "I am a Level 50 Fire Elementalist Don''t you know what the number of tails of a Foxkin means?" Seeing him shake his head, she said "It actually represents the potential, or in the words, the ss of the Foxkin. When they are born a Foxkin has a single tail, and when the others will grow when they be Bronze Ranked. An E ss will have 2 tails, a D ss 3 tails, all the way up to a Sovereign who will have 9 tails."


    Adam said "Then you are a Level 50 SS Fire Elementalist. You should be as strong as a Level 80-90 Lord."


    Thalia tried to argue "But my stats" Adam cut her off "I do understand your parents most certainly fed you many different kinds of potions like the [Inner Strength Potion] and such things to make you stronger than people of the same level, and you opened the 3rd Gate But in a fight between life and death, even someone ten times weaker than you can kill you if you have no experience."


    Thalia pouted a little, but she didn''t say anything, deciding to prove herself by her own means. And the opportunity quickly arrived as a group of five Level 100 Chieftains appeared in front of them. Thalia decisively jumped off Neith''s back, eager to prove herself.


    What she didn''t realize was that just this single action strengthened Adam''s decision.

 Chapter 142: Rookie Mistakes

    Chapter 142: Rookie Mistakes


    As she touched the ground, Thalia waved her staff above herself, and five fireballs were sent at the five monsters. The five monsters were about to dodge, but with another wave of her staff, Thalia showed her incredible control over her spell as the five fireballs suddenly converged toward one of the monsters.


    Everything happened too quickly for the monster to quickly react, and the five fireballs hit the monster at once, engulfing it in mes. The impact pushed it to the ground, but it didn''t get back up nor did it make any sound. Obviously, it had already died.


    The other four members of the pack though were still very much alive. Seeing the dead monster''s condition, two of them whimpered sadly as the two others roared in madness as they rushed toward Thalia.


    Thalia moved her staff, and sent three other fireballs, but this time all three fireballs missed, only burning a few hairs of the two charging monsters. Seeing this, she grit her teeth as the mana around her became thicker in an instant and her 8 tails were revealed from under her cloak.


    All 8 tails were pointing at the monsters, and a tornado of fire was sent toward the monsters. This time, they had no chance to dodge as the tornado wasn''t just powerful, but it also had an attraction force.


    The four remaining monsters were burned to a crisp by the powerful fire spell, burning their skin and their flesh alike, leaving only white bones behind.


    Thalia let her tails fold back into her cloak''s shadow as she looked at Adam, a little proud, but she couldn''t see his expression because of the cloak. As she about to jump back onto Neith''s back though, a shadow shed from within the forest, rushing toward Thalia.


    She hastily tapped her staff against the ground, creating a fire shield between her and the shadow, which stopped it, revealing a monster simr to those killed, except that it was bigger, and this was a Lord monster.


    [Vamir] (Lord, Level 100)


    HP: 1,650,000/1,700,000


    Right after having been stopped by the fire wall, the monster jumped right back at her, and this time wind des were being formed around it, and were quickly fired toward Thalia.


    Her tails emerged once again as she parried each of the wind des with a fireball, but because of how close the monster was, and the fact she had been surprised, two of the fireballs missed their target.


    Even as the wind des were approaching her though, Thalia wasn''t worried because she was sure Adam was going to help her. However, even as the des were about to hit her, Adam still wasn''t moving. She understood toote she was on her own.


    One of the des teared the cloak on her left shoulder, slicing into her shoulder too, while the second one hit her ribs. Blood sshed from the two injuries and Thalia faltered backwards because of the pain and the powerful impact.


    She was still stunned from the attack and only saw the monster when its long ws were about to sh her in two.


    For the very first time in her life, she felt death. Her brain suddenly became much faster, but her body was frozen. Instead, all her brain was capable of doing for the moment was visualize how her sliced body would look like.


    She wasn''t ready, she couldn''t die here, but her body, her mana refused to answer to her. Just as the ws were about to hit her, the monster suddenly disappeared from her view, as if it had teleported away.


    The feeling of death faded away, and she finally regained control over her body. She stepped back until her back hit a tree, and finally saw where the monster was.


    Ten meters on her left, the monster wasying against a tree, arge hole in its body. On her right, she saw the big spider move toward her, with the tip of one of her legs covered in blood.


    On top of Neith, Adam who was sitting in a meditative pose said "Are you stilling, or are you bailing?"


    Thalia clenched her fist, and as she jumped back on top of Neith, she said "You asshole." Her cloak had already disappeared since one of it''s characteristics is that it disappears the moment the user is hit by something.


    Adam looked back at her calmly and said "You should heal your cuts before you die of blood loss." Thalia''s face had already paled because of the blood she lost with those two cuts.


    Vamirs were creatures unique to the Great Swamp that looked like a mix between a boar and an ape, with unusually long and sharp ws. Those ws were a Vamir''s main weapon, and apart from being unusually sharp, they had the effect of intensifying the bleeding of a wound.


    Thalia became silent before she asked with a small blush "Do you have any bandages?" Hadn''t it been for the blood loss, her face would already be tomato red due to her embarrassment.


    Adam looked at her weirdly "You decided toe out on an adventure without bandages?" Thalia lowered her head and said "Can I have bandages please?"


    Adam sighed and threw a small bandage at her while saying "Use this to stop the bleeding, and heal yourself using the healing power of the second Gate."


    Thalia nodded and began trying to bandage herself up, but seeing how clumsy she looked he sighed and took the bandage from her hands. She asked surprised "What are you doing?!"


    Adam replied "This is something your family should have taught you." He began quickly bandaging her two wounds, if he let her she would probably die before she sessfully bandaged herself.


    In a couple of minutes her wounds were bandaged and she had recovered all of her lost health. However, there would be scars left for some time. Also, although she had all her health back, she wasn''t back to 100% of her fighting capacity.


    While the healing power of the 2nd Gate was very powerful, it still had it''s limits. Wounds would be healed, but the lost blood couldn''t be reced by the healing power, and instead would need to be restored with time. Of course, the blood regeneration of someone who opened the 2nd Gate was way faster than someone who didn''t.


    Still, opponents like Vamirs who could use attacks that dealt massive blood losses were the worse opponents for humanoids who could open the Gates.


    As Neith continued making her way through the jungle, Thalia suddenly asked "What did I do wrong?" Adam looked at her with genuine surprise, and shock. He never expected her to let go of her pride and actually ask someone of her age about her faults.


    Despite being surprised, Adam still replied quickly "First, you jumped off of Neith. Had you been a close ranged fighter, it would have made sense to close the distance with your opponent. But you are a mage, and you deliberately left the upper ground to approach the monsters."


    "Then, you didn''t even both verifying your surroundings, you assumed there were only the five monsters you were seeing, and thus didn''t notice the stronger oneying in ambush."


    "Lastly, you used way too much mana trying to impress me, and because you were impatient. You could have finished the first five using only fireballs with the control you showed over your spells. Even if there hadn''t been this sneak attack, the mana you used to kill only those four monsters was way too high."


    After listening to his exnation, Thalia asked "Can I see you fight? I mean, seriously. Even if the next monster we cross is weak, can I see the difference between us?"


    Adam was once again surprised, but he shrugged and said "If you want, but before I go, let me tell you, my stats aren''t even as strong as yours, but I have opened the 4th Gate."


    Thalia''s eyes widened, and asked "You already opened your 4th Gate?! But you are only Level 35" Adam chuckled "Don''t try topare yourself to me, your frustration would know no end"


    Below them, Neith snorted when she heard him. As strong as he got, his pride was always catching up.


    A few minutester, Adam said "Looks like you are about to see that demonstration."

 Chapter 143: Demonstration

    Chapter 143: Demonstration


    On Neith''s right, about forty meters away from them a group of seven monsters made their way toward them. Those weren''t Vamirs, but another creature.


    [Grootng] (Lord, Level 100)


    HP: 2,000,000/2,000,000


    All seven of them had the same status, and looked quite impressive. They were very simr to elephants, except that their trump was turned into a snake.


    Adam jumped down from Neith and unsheathed his sword. Grootngs weren''t stealthy creatures by nature, so when they saw Adam was going to fight them, they began stomping their way toward Adam. The trees standing in their way fell on after another, offering no resistance against the huge beasts.


    Adam readied his sword, and sent out arge flying sh at the first Grootng. Grootngs weren''t agile monsters, but tanky ones, and as a quadrupedal monster moving to the side while charging was very difficult.


    -10 000 HP!


    However, the attack dealt almost no damage because the Grootng lowered it''s head and parried the flying sh with it''s front tusks.


    Adam activated [Wind de] and started rushing toward the Grootng. When he was about to collide with the one in front, he activated [Whirlwind sh], and used the boost in speed to bypass the first six Grootngs, taking 120k of their health each.


    Stopping in front of thest Grootng, he was in the middle of the Grootng formation. Thest Grootng lowered it''s head, and the snake on it''s face screeched as it tried to bite Adam. At the same time, the Grootng didn''t stop charging, as this was their best attack.


    ''Looks like my amulet only work on entire snakes'' Adam thought in his mind as he dodged the snake and jumped past it. He gathered power in his right leg and forcefully stomped it on the Grootng''s face, right where the snake''s body started. To do so, he used both [Icy Stomp] and the usual [Mighty Strike].


    Critical Hit! -1,100,000 HP!


    -550000 HP!


    The Grootng on which he stomped hollered in pain as it was sent flying in the other direction, the snake it had for a trump had beenpletely frozen and fell off it''s face.


    As for the other six, although they didn''t suffer from a Critical Hit, they still lost a quarter of their health, and their charge was forcefully stopped.


    Right as the Grootng who lost its trump was sent flying, Adam followed it at a quick speed, and he sent four quick flying shes at it''s exposed belly.


    -275000 HP!


    -275000 HP!


    -275000 HP!


    -275000 HP!


    The shes were all made of pure water, and each one prated a little deeper into it''s body, until the fourth one snapped the Grootng''s spine, and killed it.


    Adam then turned toward the remaining six monsters. For most monster packs, standing in the middle of their pack was not a good idea, as it make the danger much worse. However, for Grootngs whose main attack was a charging one, standing in the middle of their pack was actually the safest position to be.


    Being Level 100 Lord Monsters, they were quite smart, and they knew that if they charged at Adam, they would most likely charge into each other.


    Adam didn''t wait for any of them to attack, and since his [Wind de] was still active and had most of it''s activation time left, he rushed toward one of the Grootngs, using his weapon to move faster.


    Arriving in front of the Grootng he was aiming for, he dodged the snake''s thrust and slid under the Grootng.


    As he was sliding he was also rotating around himself, and he used this opportunity to send four flying shes, all of which hit one of the Grootng''s legs.


    This attack shaved off more than a million of the monster''s HP. Moreover, the four flying shes had prated into the legs and severed the tendons, forcing the tall monster to fall as it couldn''t stand on its legs any longer.


    Adam saw the nearest Grootng was charging toward them, with an eager look. This made Adam raise an eyebrow, didn''t he care about the fallen one? It almost looked happy at the opportunity


    Adam then felt the impulse tough. Were the two actually enemies, and was the second Grootng using this opportunity to kill the other one?


    A grin appeared on his covered face, and he didn''t move from where was. Only when the charging Grootng was close enough did he react. He first threw his sword into the snake''s mouth with all his strength.


    Critical Hit! -80 000 HP!


    The sword went through the entire snake''s body and impaled it against the Grootng''s face. At the same time, Adam jumped toward the Grootng''s face, and using it''s sudden pain it didn''t even see Adam as he punched at its two eyes.


    Critical Hit! -310 000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -310 000 HP!


    He used [Mighty Strike] and [Aqua sh] on each of his fists, and his punches exploded both of its eyes, and hit its brain. Thanks to his great speed, Adam was also able to grab his sword and plunge it into one of the destroyed eyes too, and pierce into the monster''s brain.


    Critical Hit! 550 000 HP!


    A Level 100 Lord had a great vitality, and was even able to survive such a big injury. However, even if Adam didn''t do anything it would soon die with an injured brain. But he didn''t want to wait, so Adam twisted his sword as it was already into its brain,pletely destroying the brain and finishing itsst HP.


    However, despite being dead, because Adam had controlled his power not to affect the Grootng''s speed, it continued it''s charge even after dying, and impaled the fallen Grootng''s with its tusks, killing it too.


    Adam looked at the remaining four Grootngs. Because he had thrown his weapon his [Wind de] had been canceled, but it wasn''t a problem for Adam as he charged toward the remaining monsters.


    The four Grootngs also started charging toward Adam, this time very close to each other so that if he jumped, he would have to dodge four snakes at once, which was pretty much impossible in their book.


    However, what they didn''t know was that Adam didn''t need to dodge them. As he jumped, and saw the four snakes attacking him, he took a deep breath and used [Great Ice Breath].


    Critical Hit! -275000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -275000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -275000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -275000 HP!


    The four snakes began frosting as they were hit by the cold wind, and their movements became stiff and much slower. Adam wasn''t finished though as he swung his sword, using [Crushing Blow] and [Mighty Strike] this time.


    Critical Hit! -275000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -275000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -275000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -275000 HP!


    The four snakes finally bursted into pieces of cold flesh. The [Great Ice Breath] had turned their body fragile because of the frost element, and [Crushing Blow] was a skill made to break shields, so the four snakes were destroyed into tiny bits.


    Adam stepped on one of their heads, and used the support to make a secondary jump. Although all four had their snakes destroyed, they continued charging forward, and by now their heads were very close to each other.


    Rotating around himself while in the air, Adam activated [Mighty Strike] and [Lunar Smite]. Four des of ice struck the neck of the four monsters.


    -1,100,000 HP!


    -1,100,000 HP!


    -1,100,000 HP!


    -1,100,000 HP!


    All four of them received four strikes, which totaled to more than a million damage each. Unfortunately their neck was quite thick so it wasn''t a weak spot and he hadn''t dealt Critical Hits, but now they all had lost more than 75% of their health.


    Adam then expected them to charge into each other, but much to his surprise they bumped into each other in such a way that they all corrected their trajectories and didn''t harm each other. Had Adam not been able to dodge them, they would have dealt the damage of four charging Grootngs without even taking a hit themselves. That was great teamwork.


    Unfortunately for them, they were facing Adam. After missing Adam, although they lost three of theirrades, as well as their own snakes, they didn''t stop running and tried to flee. Adam, who was falling toward the ground, would have none of that though.


    He sent a couple of flying shes at each of them, and they all fell to the ground, dead.

 Chapter 144: Random luck

    Chapter 144: Random luck


    As all the Grootngs were dead, Adam started looting their corpses, and although he didn''t find anything great, he should still be able to sell the loot for some gold coins.


    Then, he jumped back on Neith''s back, and Thalia asked "Is that the difference between someone who opened the 4th Gate and someone who didn''t?"


    However, Adam shook his head and said "This is the difference between someone who has experience and someone who doesn''t. While the fourth Gate is good, it starts bing useful in all fights only when you master it. Until then, you will only be able to use it for special kinds of fights."


    Thalia then asked "Have you mastered the Fourth Gate?" Adam merely smiled though and said "What do you think?" Thalia looked away and pouted, she understood he wasn''t going to say anything.


    Adam patted Neith back and she started walking forward. After a moment, Adam asked "Do you have a pet? Your family should be able to provide one for you, right?"


    But Thalia shook her head and said "I never wanted to have a pet, I can''t see the difference with very." Adamughed and said "Good values. But having a pet doesn''t mean enving them. Look at Neith. Do you know how we ended up together?"


    Thalia looked at him curiously, so Adam said as he tapped lightly on her shell "I received a mission to clear a mine that had been infested by spiders a week ago. In the end, I fought with her, and I beat her. After that, although I did try to make her submit, she wasn''t one to bow her head."


    Neith let out a spiderugh, which, while sounding scary, Adam had grown used to. He continued "In the end, my incredible charisma still made her ept her situation, and we were able to talk. Thanks to me, she was able to get out of that dungeon, and we became friends, not master and ve."


    Neith and Thalia both snorted while listening to him, and Thalia said "Do you n to take another pet in the future then?" Adam tilted his head and asked "Isn''t it only Summoners who can have multiple pets?"


    Thalia shook her head and said "The number of pets you can have depends on the strength of your soul. A Sovereign generally has a much stronger soul than the average. Moreover, once one opens the 5th Gate, their soul will receive a big boost, enough for most people to ept a second pet."


    Adam raised an eyebrow, but also felt Neith getting tense, and her mind was bing a little chaotic. He patted her shell with some more strength, enough for her to feel his touch, and soothed her mind through their soul contract before saying "For now, I do not have that intention, I''m perfectly happy with Neith."


    He felt her calm down, and Thalia nodded. Adam said to Neith mentally ''Don''t worry, even if I get another pet, no one will ever rece you. Moreover, if I do get a second pet, you would be the oldest one, and they would have to obey to you.''


    At his words, he felt Neith''s earlier disheartened mood be better, and he even felt some eagerness emanate from her. He let out a chuckle and went into a meditative mode.


    Since he had already opened the 4th Gate, although he still hadn''t promoted to Silver Rank, he figured this was time for him to start working on opening the 5th Gate. In his past life, this was the highest Gate he had opened, and also the one that took him the most time.


    If he didn''t want to remain stuck at Level 100 and be unable to promote to Gold Rank, then he needed to start working on it as soon as possible.


    For the first three Gates, they were rtively easy to open, since they were a continuation of each other. As for the 4th Gate, it wasn''t that hard to open either, and he had a great opportunity as well as some good luck.


    But for the 5th Gate, even with his past experience and all the luck in the world, it would take him months to open it. To open the 5th Gate one first needed to understand oneself, then to understand the world.


    Back in Old Adam''s world no, back in the alternate world, understanding oneself was the easier part, and understanding the world was the more difficult part. However, in this world, understanding oneself was as hard as understanding the world, which was also harder than in the alternate world.


    Understanding oneself became harder because of the much stronger bodies, as well as the presence of Qi and Mana. At the same time, having two bodies, one in the game, and one in the real world, turned this task twice as hard.


    As for the world, it was also much richer and harder to understand, it seemed moreplete than in the alternate world, harder to predict.


    That''s why, Adam will need to work a lot. Thankfully though, this Gate didn''t need him to meditate for big periods of times, so unlike when he was working on his 4th Gate, he didn''t have to leave all the efforts to Neith and could enter and exit meditation easily.


    As for Thalia, she had barely opened the 3rd Gate, and although she wanted to start working on the 4th Gate already, Adam advised her against her and told her to first perfect her mastery over the 3rd Gate before thinking of the 4th Gate, as a stronger foundation led to better results.


    As such, she could also enter and exit meditation and was taking care of the weaker monsters on the way, learning from the fights and quickly gaining experience.


    Time passed, and three days went by. Adam had stayed connected to the game for three days straight, after warning his parents of course, and so he had advanced with great speed through the Great Swamp.


    During those three days he met multiple kinds of monsters that were very interesting, with a majority being exclusive to this area of the world. He didn''t make any tangible progress for his Gate training, but he became Level 38, and he was able to push [Whirlwind sh] to level 7, and his [Great Ice Breath] to Level 4. At the same time, he had also made great progress to push his [Aqua sh] to merge with his [Lunar Smite], but he wasn''t there yet.


    As for Neith, she was able to level up to Level 45. Finally, Thalia got more experience, and she could be considered to be a pretty good fighter.


    However, Adam''s biggest gain was an unexpected one. It happened a day ago.


    As they were walking toward their destination, Adam suddenly felt a weak pulsee from his hand. He was confused at first, before he finally remembered. It was the Godyer''s Heart. Adam had made Neith follow the pulse, as the closer he got to the other heart, the stronger the pulse became.


    Eventually they were able to find a hidden cave in the middle of the swamp, in which a Level 100 Elder was sleeping. It was a powerful monster, but thebination of Adam, Neith and Thalia was simply too much for it, and they killed it in the end.


    They got a staff from it, which was intended for Fire Elementalists. Adam decided to give it to Thalia, since she had helped in the fight, and he got something much better. Hidden behind a wall, Adam found a Godyer''s Heart. It would have been nearly impossible to find without the pulse of his Godyer''s Heart, as no sane person would just destroy a wall for fun.


    While finding this single heart didn''t allow him to unlock another one of the heart''s abilities, it allowed him to change the boost to his stats from 12% to 15%. Three percents may seem insignificant, but since Adam''s stats were in the thousands it did make a difference.


    Apart from this incredible discovery, the rest of the journey was pretty calm, and as they exited the Great Swamp they could see the Kloss Canal in the distance, which was so big that it looked like an ocean.


    But on the bank they could see, there was a small coastal town. This was their destination, where they would get a boat.

 Chapter 145: Marbles

    Chapter 145: Marbles


    Marbles was a little coastal town bordering the Kloss Canal, and was one of many. It had a small poption, and not many people came here because of the Great Swamp, so they didn''t even have a teleportation array.


    But ording to Thalia, this was the perfect starting point for them as they would be able to sail on an upward stream that would shorten their travel time by half.


    While in the town, Adam didn''t bother hiding Neith in his pet space. First, because this was a boring ce for her. Moreover, unlike in bigger cities, there was no restriction toward mounts. And thest reason was, he didn''t need to hide.


    Since Thalia had lost her Shadow Coat, and didn''t have a spare one, anyone could know who she was. And Adam was pretty sure the amount of people targeting her was definitely higher than the ones targeting him.


    That''s why, he had also taken off his own Shadow Coat, and allowed Neith to walk in all her splendor.


    Because this was a small coastal town, the level of the inhabitants wasn''t anything impressive, most of the vigers were around Level 10, with some going up to Level 20, those beings the guards. But overall this was a peaceful town with close to no fighter.


    Not that they needed any, as a coastal town of the Kloss Canal they had the protection of ckheart Mountain. No one was dumb enough to offend the most dangerous power in the world just to attack a poor coastal town.


    While ckheart Mountain weren''t necessarily the strongest among the Racial Powers as all of them were pretty much equal, they were indeed the most dangerous as they were all assassins. You could hide from a Berserker, a Mage or a Swordsman, but hiding from an Assassin this was much harder.


    As for the Kloss Canal, it''s name actuallyes from the first leader of ckheart Mountain, the first Cave Master, Kloss. As such, the canal, and all it''s business, has always belonged to ckheart Mountain.


    So even though Neith was a Level 45 Overlord monster, the vigers didn''t panic upon seeing her, and instead warmly weed Adam and Thalia. While they weren''t afraid, they were still respectful, and in the end Adam and Thalia were even personally weed by the vige chief. Adam could also see some yers from different origins, but some among them recognized him and for some reason decided to hide when he arrived. He didn''t mind them though, as long as they didn''t annoy him then they were cool.


    The vige''s chief was an old man, just like every vige chief in the world as it seemed, and he had a kind face. He was a Catkin, like most of the vigers, and as Adam and Thalia jumped off Neith, he said "Wee to Marbles! Are you here to get across the canal?"


    Adam nodded and said "Yes, we want to go up North, to Kalem." Kalem was the name of the ce they were heading to, where the Demon Cult''s headquarters were located.


    The Vige Chief, whose name was Sachi, said "I see. It will take a while for us to prepare the boat, why don''t you be our guest while you wait?"


    Their hospitality sounded a little suspicions, they seemed too eager, but Adam eventually nodded after sharing a look with Thalia. They would ept their kind intentions, and if that was it, then they would have gained something. Otherwise well, even though ckheart Mountain was dangerous, he was on a quest to kill dragons.


    The two were led to the town''s inn while Neith decided to go soak in the water of the canal and sleep. Soon, Adam and Thalia were presented with a white liquid, and Sachi said "This is our town''s specialty, the Sukaini. Here, give it a taste."


    Adam nodded to him and first smelled the liquid, but even with his enhanced senses he only sensed alcohol, so he decided to try it. As the alcohol entered his mouth, and driveled down his throat, Adam felt a pleasant feeling spread in his taste buds. He circted his Aura around the alcohol as it traveled through his body, but in in the it turned out to be just that, alcohol.


    Adam opened his eyes and said with a smile "It''s really good." Sachi, as well as the surrounding vigers, all cheered at his words, as if they meant the world to them. It seemed he had underestimated their love for their beverage.


    On his side, Thalia, seeing Adam drink the Sukaini and nod to her, decided to give it a go too. Adam was a warrior so even if there was poison in it he could have dealt with it easily. However, for her, as a mage, if there was poison there her weak body would suffer much more.


    But as she tried to drink the liquid, she began feeling how it tasted like. While it tasted good, it was also burning her throat. She forcefully gulped it though, but then entered a coughing fit.


    Adam and the vigers beganughing seeing her, making her blush as she coughed. The first cup had been offered to them, and Adam decided to pay for a second one before following the vige chief for a visit around the vige.


    Most of the vige was generic, they had things that could be found in any other vige. However, there was one interesting thing he never thought he was going to see here.


    At some point Sachi led Adam and Thalia to a big stone monument, on which golden names were written, alongside a number. Sachi looked at Adam and said "You are an otherworlder, right?"


    Seeing Adam nod, he pointed at the stone monument and said "This appeared when the lot of you appeared. Apparently, there lies a special power in this monument, only essible by your kind. You should give it a try."


    Adam raised an eyebrow, it was the first time he heard of something like this. He walked to the monument, and looked at the golden lines on it. There were 100 golden lines, eachposed of an username, and of a number.


    Perusing through the different names, Adam was surprised to find a few he was familiar with. Silver Sword, 2Fast4U, Steel Lungs and 69420. The four of them were elite members of the First Tier Guild Dragon Temple, with whom he had fought at the Battle of Rosewatch.


    Silver Sword, Steel Lungs and 2Fast4U were respectively ssed 21, 33 and 87. As for 69420, he was 11. Adam guessed that this was some kind of ranking, and their ranking was determined by the number next to their names.


    The numbers varied, but they ranged from the thousands to the tens of thousands. Adam''s eyes wandered to the top of the monument, where the highest name rested.


    1. Kaze- 93211


    Adam knew quite a bit about the gaming world, and as thus knew that Kaze was the Guild Leader of Dragon Temple. Adam wasn''t yet sure of it, but it seemed that this monument had only been used by the Dragon Temple, maybe they were the ones who discovered this vige. It didn''t surprise Adam no other yer had discovered this location yet, after all to get here one had to either be very lucky while sailing on the Kloss Canal, or go through the Great Swamp.


    Considering the current level of the yers worldwide, he could cross out going through the Great Swamp, so they had probably been lucky.


    After a moment, Adam decided to put his hand on the monument, and as he did he received a notification.


    [Do you wish to take part in this challenge?]


    Adam was quite curious about the monument, and he didn''t have much else to do anyway, so he epted. As soon as he did, his body disappeared from Marbles, shocking Thalia. However, Sachi quickly reassured her that this was normal.

 Chapter 146: Different rules

    Chapter 146: Different rules


    [You have entered an area with a different time flow Enough nutrients detected.]


    Had it been before Sofia''s, or Gaya''s, visit, Adam would have been worried about an over activation of his brain, after all for a game to use areas with a different flow of time, the brain will have to work twice, or thrice in this case, as fast as it normally should.


    But this wasn''t just a game, his soul itself was sent in this avatar, and had Sofia''s protection, so he wasn''t worried this might harm him.


    For now, he was just curious as to what kind of challenge he would be presented with. But as soon as he closed the message, and actually entered the challenge area, Adam felt a big change. With a frown, he tried to activate his system, to look at his status, but received a notification instead.


    [System has been shut off in this area.]


    The change Adam had felt came from his vitality. As close to reality the game was, it wasn''t perfect. It didn''te from a problem with realism, since this was a real world, but because of the different rules, namely, the system.


    The system wasn''t something unique to yers, and as thus hadn''t been introduced by Sofia. Instead, a long time ago the gods grouped together to create this system for all living beings. Sofia had just pushed it a little more to make it seem like a game.


    But Adam had a theory, an hypothesis, which he was pretty sure was urate. It was that when Sofia''s power and protection left his avatar, and it truly became his, his system would also change to be closer to the one NPCs, or rather the real inhabitants of this world, had.


    Anyway, he had felt the change because his vitality in the real world was simr to a regr human, his heart, his brains, his organs was what made him live. But in the game world, every being was protected by the system, and the physical damage one suffered would go along with the HP one has.


    One of the consequences is the damage one receives, but also the degree of injury. To lose an arm in Epoch, for example, no matter how much strength is behind the blow, the blow only needs to deal more than a certain percentage of the target''s HP to cut the arm, making it much harder to dismember someone than in the real world.


    However, receiving damage was also very different. Whether one hit the tip of the finger or the middle of the chest, the damage received would be the same. The only exception was the weak points, but even then the damage was only doubled.


    When Adam had fought the Grootngs, he had hit and impaled the brain of one of them, but it hadn''t been killed thanks to the vitality added by the system. Had the exact same monster been hit in the same way in the real world, it would have died without a doubt.


    And even dealing fatal injuries was harder. For a person in the real world, their defense at different spots in the body wouldn''t be the same. Piercing through someone''s tummy was way easier than through their leg or their forehead. But in the game, the defense was the same all around the body.


    But when he entered this challenge area, he felt like the system''s protection had disappeared. While this was still his avatar''s body, he knew that if a de were to target his heart, he better protect it or dodge or he would die, no matter how much HP he has.


    The system''s shut off was actually a good thing was Adam, because the system actually weakened the ability of someone skilled killing much stronger foes, and privileged strength the most. In the game world, even if one over skills his opponent so much he can''t be hit, if the other has too much HP then the skilled one has no chance.


    But in this world, unless the difference in strength was so high that their skin was too tough to pierce for his de, not many could rival his skill.


    However, it wasn''t all positive. Losing the system''s assistance also meant he could only use the skills he had perfectly mastered, and he couldn''t use his inventory, so taking any loot from this world was going to be hard since he didn''t have a bag or anything simr.


    Thankfully he always had his sword on his back, unlike some yers who preferred to have it in their inventory because it was heavy. Had he been one of those yers, he would have to fight with his bare hands.


    Anyway, he stopped those useless thoughts and looked around himself, wondering what he had to do. He had spawned on top of a mountain, or rather a hill, and he had a great view of his surroundings. Actually, this could be a great spot to meditate, he could feel he was really surrounded by the world, by nature.


    But it wasn''t time for this. He could see a city in the distance, it would take around an hour for him to reach there. Bordering the city was a forest, which extended over arge area, toorge for him to see it''s end.


    Assuming the city was north of his position, and he was facing it, the forest was going from North to South West, going through West.


    South would then be a bigke, South East a small vige, and East to North East was a real mountain this time, with the top covered by the clouds, but clearly d in snow.


    So Adam had different choices, and with no indication, he didn''t know whether finding the right destination was part of the test. Thinking about it, Adam decided to just go to the location that attracted him the most.


    The forest was a big no, he didn''t like forests that much in the first ce, and with how big it was he didn''t see any point going in there unless elves or fae inhabited it. As for the mountain, it wasn''t really much of a choice either since it looked quite perilous, and although his great vision allowed him to see a path leading up the mountain, it didn''t look like an enjoyable climb.


    So that left him the city North, theke South and the vige South East. After a moment, he decided to go North. This was because he felt like that once there, he would be able to gather information about the other locations.


    And chances were, this choice didn''t really matter. Maybe that whatever directions he went to, it wouldn''t change anything and he would be led to the same location in the end. Well, only one way to know, go to the city.


    Adam tried to summon Neith, but found himself unable to. Apparently, the Pet Space was considered part of the system. Left with no other choice, Adam began walking toward his destination.


    When he was on the hill, he wasn''t able to see the path to the citypletely, and didn''t see any lifeforms from where he was.


    But as he walked toward the city, he met his first monsters. A pack of wolves. There wasn''t any official path leading to the city, at least not where he was, so it wasn''t very surprising for there to be monsters.


    The wolves didn''t attack immediately, but quickly surrounded Adam first, making sure not to leave him any space to flee.


    But Adam wasn''t worried and let them. He may have lost the system, he still kept the majority of his strength, only losing some of his skills, and so his senses were as good as before.


    And from what he could feel, those wolves weren''t a threat, they were about as strong as a newly promoted Silver Rank, a Level 50. If converted to the real world, then they were monsters who had just broken through to the Foundation Establishment Realm. Since Adam himself was about as strong as a weak Gold Rank, which is a weak Core Formation, those wolves didn''t threaten him in the slightest.

 Chapter 147: King Harold

    Chapter 147: King Harold


    Adam''s arm muscles tensed as he grabbed his greatsword, and when the first wolf jumped at him, Adam unsheathed his sword and performed a drawing sh. He also activated [Mighty Strike], making his de stronger, but also faster.


    The de entered through the wolf''s opened mouth, and shed all the way through it''s body, severing it in two from it''s mouth to it''s tail.


    Blood sshed everywhere, dying the grass red, and the wolves around him took a couple steps back. Except one, who was a little bigger than the others. This wolf growled at Adam, and jumped at him. Adam sent a look at it, and guessed this was the alpha of this pack.


    Turning his sword around, he faked a stab, which made the wolf stop to try to dodge the fake stab, and so it was unable to do anything when Adam made his real attack, and swiping attack that crushed the alpha''s head.


    This time, the wolves were too scared to do anything, and they ran with their tails between their legs. Adam didn''t chase though as it would be useless. He had noticed that he didn''t earn any XP when he killed those wolves.


    After the wolves ran far enough, Adam sat on the ground and tried to activate his cultivation technique. It did work, but he couldn''t get any stronger, he couldn''t cultivate like he would on Earth. Nor could he like he would on Epoch.


    Adam''s Aura filled back to full in an instant, and he got back up. His destination was still the same, the city he had seen.


    On the road he did meet a few more monsters, but none of them were a threat for Adam, they were only as strong as the wolves he first killed.


    The nearer he was to the city though, the less monsters he saw. When it finally entered his sight once again, no other monsters were in the vicinity, which was understandable, if monsters were right outside the city then it would be worrisome.


    As he approached the city, Adam saw a boy around six or seven years old standing on the wooden ramparts. When the boy saw him though, he immediately disappeared from Adam''s sight, probably going deeper in the city.


    And as expected, before he even reached the gates, they opened by themselves as a toon of soldiers came out. 50 men and women, all with spears in their hands, came out and faced him.


    Since he was here to seek help and find information, Adam didn''t show any sign of hostility and made sure his hands were away from his sword, although if needed, he could quickly draw his sword.


    When the soldiers were about ten meters from Adam, they stopped, and the leading one said "What are you doing here stranger?"


    Adam harmlessly smiled and said "I got lost, and somehow ended up here. I have no idea where I am, would you be kind enough to tell me?"


    The leader narrowed his eyes, before saying "Follow us in the city. Our king will decide what to do with you." Adam raised an eyebrow and asked "Do all strangers get to meet your king?"


    The leader sneered "You really have no idea where you stand do you?" Adam shrugged "It''s what I said."


    The soldiers opened up a path for Adam, who walked past them, noticing the strange gazes he was receiving. But he said nothing and walked into the city.


    The city was different from the ones he had seen in Epoch, or the ones on Earth. It was much more primitive, there was barely any metal other than the weapons of the soldiers, the roads were mud roads, and the smell in the city was terrible.


    Adam felt like he was visiting a city in the middle ages, where people would throw their shit through the windows and no knew how to read.


    Adam also found out that his armor was probably making him stand out as the people in the city were looking at him with the same eyes as the soldiers.


    The Massacre Set looked quite good and borate, the marksmanship was definitely above anything Adam had seen in this city. Actually, none of the soldiers had any kind of armor, they looked more like a bunch of militiamen than a real army.


    Quickly, Adam and his escort arrived in front of arger house, with more soldiers guarding it. Behind Adam and the soldiers who apanied him, arge crowd of civilians had gathered, all of whom were looking at him with curiosity, and strangely some kind of hope?


    Adam decided to ignore them for now as he entered therge house, which was most certainly where the king lived.


    And as expected, as he entered the house he saw a crude throne made of branches and what seemed to be mud. On it sat a fat man with a golden crown on his head. Next to that man was a person dressed in a metal armor, the first Adam had seen since he arrived in this ce.


    A tall and skinny man standing on the fat man''s, who was probably the king, left, said "King Harold wees you to his pce. Who are you, stranger?"


    Adam knew one should normally bow in front of a king, but Adam had no respect for this ''king''. First, the strongest person in the room, the one in armor, was only about as strong as a Level 80. Secondly, even though he did not say a word, Adam could feel greed and arrogance in this king''s eyes.


    Still, he was the stranger here, so although he did not bow, he was still somewhat respectful as he said "I am Valiant Heart, Champion of Strith and Gaya."


    The people around seemed to react to his words, and the skinny man asked "Champion? Who are Strith and Gaya? Kings from othernds?"


    Apparently, they didn''t know of either gods. After a moment, Adam said "You can say so I guess." Well, they each possessed a Divine Kingdom, so in a way they were kings, of their Divine Kingdoms.


    The skinny man was about to say something when King Harold grunted. The skinny man stopped himself from saying anything and bended next to the king, bringing his ear next to the kings mouth.


    The king muttered something to the skinny man, which made Adam roll his eyes as he was able to hear them. The skinny man then repeated his king''s words "We have use for a warrior like you. We are at war with a neighboring kingdom, and we would need the might of a Knight like you."


    Adam shrugged and said "I can help you with your war, but it will depends on my payment." The skinny man narrowed his eyes and said "Your payment will depend on your strength Here is our finest warrior, King Harold''s mighty Knight, Lyndon. Fight against him, and your payment will depend on your strength."


    Adam couldn''t help but sigh hearing him. He didn''t want to humiliate this knight, but he wanted to earn a good enough reward, who knows, maybe he will be able to take something out of here and into the real world.


    The Knight, Lyndon, stepped forward, and drew out his two handed sword. Adam raised an eyebrow and asked "You want to fight in here? Aren''t you afraid we will break things?"


    Lyndon sneered and said his first words, which echoed his soon to be crushed arrogance "Not if our fight onlysts for a couple of moves."


    Adam rolled his eyes and asked "What are the rules?" Lyndon replied "ssic rules, first blood or submission."


    Adam nodded and took his sword out. Lyndon sneered and rushed at Adam, and shed out with his sword. However, Adam was floored by what he saw. That strike was literally garbage. There was no skill behind that sword, only strength.


    Using barely a portion of his strength, Adam shed out with his sword. The next moment, Lyndon''s sword was sent flying, and Adam''s sword had pierced through the armor in front of Lyndon''s neck, the tip of his de had already pierced through Lyndon''s neck skin.


    Adam took his de back, and showed the tip of his sword, which had a little blood on it, and said "I win."

 Chapter 148: Morons

    Chapter 148: Morons


    Adam had won, but apparently, Lyndon didn''t think the same. Despite having lost his weapon and having been injured, he took out a big dagger and rushed at Adam.


    This made thetter sigh. Someone like this will never achieve anything in his life. Everyone had their pride, for some it was bigger and for some it was smaller. It could lead to a myriad of different personalities, and unfortunately, this Lyndon seemed to be one of those bad ones.


    Adam sent a look at the king and the skinny man, but none of them seemed to want to stop this match. He dodged a stab from Lyndon, and used his elbow to smash him in the chest. Despite his armor, Lyndon was sent back, and he lost his breath for a moment.


    While theter was trying to catch his breath, Adam looked at the skinny man and asked "What''s up with your kingdom? Does your king and the king of that other kingdom hate each other?"


    The skinny man looked at his skin, but thetter didn''t say anything, so he said "Indeed, our kingdom is at war with our closest neighbors, the Anil Kingdom."


    Adam kicked Lyndon, who hade from another assault, and then stomped on the man''s chest forcefully as he fell to the ground. His armor caved in and Lyndon coughed blood, but it was stuck in his own helmet.


    He then asked the skinny man "Don''t you care about your knight?" The skinny man replied "We have no use for a weak warrior like this. Since you have defeated him, you shall rece him. For your service for your king, you will be given gold,nd and women."


    Adam looked at the two dumbfounded, what the fuck was wrong with them? He thrashed their knight in front of them, and they were now ordering him around? He even told them he worked for other ''kings'', are they so dumb, or are they confident in their resources?


    Adam asked "If I directly bring you their king''s head, will you reward me well?" The skinny man''s eyes shone with a greedy light as he said "If you can do so then you will be given your weight in gold!"


    However, contrarily to his and the king''s expectations, Adam didn''t jump in joy. Instead, he rolled his eyes under his helmet and said "You really are morons. While at war, you don''t kill the enemy king, they will just crown another one. You need to capture the king to win a war."


    Adam could see the people around him were getting agitated, but he shut them up with a simple gesture. He raised his foot and brought it down on Lyndon''s head. Despite wearing a helmet, the metal was ttened as the head it was protecting bursted like a watermelon.


    Then, Adam punched out in the skinny man''s direction, sending a full powered [Aqua sh] in his direction. However, the skinny man was even weaker than the King, he wasn''t even a Bronze Rank, so he didn''t even see Adam move.


    He only felt a great pain in his chest, and as he looked down, he saw a hole where he heart was supposed to be, the edges were even frozen. Behind him, the wall had also been smashed, with blood and ice remaining on what was left of the wall.


    However, the skinny man never got to see this as he fell to the ground, dead. As for the King, who had remained silent until now, finally revealed an emotion. But it wasn''t fear, instead it was rage. He said with a rough voice "You dare assault my men?! Guards, arrest him!"


    The other guards in the tent were hesitant though, they had seen how strong Adam was. But there were always exceptions. One soldier who wanted to be seen in a good light by his king charged at Adam, shouting for him to die.


    The next instant, that soldier''s head just disappeared. He continued running for a couple steps before he fell to the ground, also dead.


    A few meters behind him, was Adam, his fist covered in blood. He didn''t bother with the soldier and advanced toward Harold, slowly.


    Harold still wasn''t panicking though as he yelled "I am a King! I have been chosen by our almighty god! You can''t heart me or our god will kill you!"


    Adam smirked, and said "Don''t worry, I won''t kill you." He then took a deep breath, and once he was near enough, he used his [Barbarous Roar]. He didn''t say anything, but simply focused on pouring all his nefarious intentions and experiences into this roar.


    The next instant, the entire city heard the roaring from the king''s pce, and the city quieted down in an instant. The soldiers in the room backed down as they kneeled, sweating heavily. As for the king, he was the weakest here.


    His eyes widened as fear finally settled in, but before long he fell unconscious, he had been too shocked. At the same time, he began bleeding from his seven orifices.


    Outside, the soldiers were pushed back a few meters back, while themoners who had gathered near the pce in wonder had also fallen unconscious. As for the others farther in the city, they heard the roar, and were scared, but they didn''t suffer from physical damage. This was because Adam guessed their would be children or even babies in the city, and even the echo from him using [Barbarous Roar] would kill them.


    When Adam saw Harold was bleeding from his seven orifices, he was worried for a moment he had been too heavily handed and had killed him, but then was relieved as he checked the king''s pulse.


    Once sure he was alive, Adam picked up the fat king''s body effortlessly, throwing him on his shoulder like a mere bag, and asked one of the soldiers "Where is your king''s horse? Or Lyndon''s?"


    The soldiers gulped, and one of the soldiers eventually said "In the stables, behind the pce" Adam nodded to him and walked toward the door somewhere behind the throne.


    He found a bedroom, with a big bed. There were multiple golden ornament, as well as a small mountain of gold coins.


    There was also a back door, toward which Adam walked. As he opened it, he was really led to the stables.


    There were two horses, one of them being obviously stronger than the other. The two were also scared, because of Adam''s earlier roar.


    Adam approached the stronger one of the two and calmed it down. Once it was once again serene, Adam threw the king on it, before mounting it himself. Then, with a swing of his sword, the horse was freed, and Adam guided it outside.


    Thankfully Old Adam had learned how to mount a horse in his past life. This was for Old Adam''s training to open the 4th Gate. It had led to great results, and although he didn''t use the same method in this life, it still ended up bing useful.


    As Adam led the horse toward the exit of the city, he saw the crowd ofmoners who had fallen unconscious, as well as the soldiers. He asked one of them "Where is the kingdom you are at war with?"


    The soldier looked up and said "Why would I tell you? You will destroy our kingdom with your actions." Adam looked down at the man, and said with a cold murderous voice "If you tell me, that other king will assimte your kingdom. If you don''t tell me, I will exterminate your kingdom, killing men, women and children alike. So you tell me, extermination, or assimtion?"


    The soldier''s eyes widened, and he stuttered "You You monster!" Adam rolled his eyes and said "Yeah, and the monster is going to eat you if you don''t tell him what he wants."


    The soldier relented and told Adam what he wanted. Adam smirked and led the horse out of the city. Of course he would never do something like exterminating an entire city for such a petty reason, he was just threatening that soldier.

 Chapter 149: Weird Royalty

    Chapter 149: Weird Royalty


    Two hours hourster, and some killing, Adam arrived to the neighboring kingdom. Although they called themselves Kingdoms, they all had only a single city under their rule, and had close to nond they could call their own.


    The soldiers'' reactions were pretty simr to the ones from Harold''s Kingdom, but when they saw who Adam was carrying on his horse, they silently led him to the royal pce.


    This city was a little more prosperous than the other one Adam had been to. As he arrived in front of the new royal pce, Adam got down from his horse and took the fat king on his shoulder.


    A butler was waiting for him, and opened the door for him. This made Adam sigh. In the end, people would only respect him if he showed his power.


    As he entered the pce, he saw a scene quite simr to Harold''s court, except that the king was a queen, the Knight a Mage, and there was no skinny man.


    The queen, who was a great beauty, Adam noted, smiled brilliantly and said "Brave warrior, you have done a great dead for our country, and we thank you for this."


    She then waved her hand, and a soldier approached Adam, looking at Harold. Adam gave him the fat king, and the queen said "But mere thanks wouldn''t really be a reward good enough for what you did. Tell me, what do you want?"


    Adam replied "I don''t care about gold." That was true, gold was a pain to carry without an inventory. Hearing him, the queen grinned and said "Not Gold? Then do you want us?"


    Adam was stunned, and then he opened his eyes wide as he asked "Excuse me?" The Queenughed and with a wave of her hand, the only ones left in the room ere the queen, her mage and Adam.


    She said "I can consider your proposition You are strong, our children would be powerful kings, and with your aid, our family could bring down the Holy Empire and take their ce"


    But before she could go any further, Adam shook his head and said "This is a misunderstanding. While I am not interested by Gold, I am not interested by a rtionship or sex either."


    But she was having none of that as she chuckled "Don''t say that, you will hurt my heart" As she said that, she used her fingers to push her robe down her body, and there she stood,pletely naked, showing her body to Adam.


    He had to admit, she was really beautiful, and hot. He could feel a reaction in his lower body. But she was just too weird. He took a step back and said "As I said, I really don''t want this kind of reward. Just give me a weapon or an artifact."


    But the queen shook her head as she bit on one of her fingers, and used her other hand to snap her fingers. As she did so, the mage, who had remained silent until now, suddenly used a spell, and numerous chains appeared around Adam, and bound him.


    The queen once againughed "I think this is going to be wonderful"


    As she approached Adam though, thetter sighed and muttered to himself "I meet two royalties, one is an arrogant fool, and the other is a rapist Where there fuck did my luck go?"


    He looked away from the naked rapist and sent a look at the mage. He could break the chains, but seeing they were connected to the mage, an idea came to him.


    Suddenly, Adam''s body burst with power as he forcefully pulled all the chains in one direction, opposite the mage. The mage and the queen didn''t expect this as the chains were supposed to suppress his strength and hold him down.


    And in a sense, the chains did work as Adam was unable to use his Aura. However, his body itself was a great weapon, and even without using Aura, he could break those chains.


    But he didn''t do so. Caught by surprise, the mage was pulled toward Adam, and before he could back away, Adam jumped toward him.


    Then, he moved his head back a little, before giving a powerful headbutt to the mage who couldn''t control his body. Normally, a headbutt would at most end up with one person getting a bruise, but this wasn''t just any headbutt.


    The power behind this one vastly overpowered the mage''s body, and there was also Adam''s helmet. As a result, when their two heads hit each other, the mage''s head offered no resistance, and exploded under the might of Adam''s headbutt.


    Adam''s head was covered in blood, making him look like a terrible devil, but he didn''t care. He looked at the stunned queen, who was backing away. She said "You can''t"


    But Adam didn''t even let her finish herst words as he appeared next to her and pped her. Although her head didn''t burst like the other, her neck still made a 360 turn around itself, killing her on the spot.


    The chains had disappeared when the mage was killed, showing it was a skill, rather than an equipment. Still, he looked through the mage''s belongings, but the only thing he found was a magic tome. It was probably the skill book for this spell. Adam decided to pocket it, and left the room.


    He saw a few soldiers waiting, and who looked at him in surprise. Adam looked at the three and asked "Who among you know where the maps are?"


    Although they were stunned, one of them raised his hand. Adam looked at him and asked "Do you know how to read it?" The soldier once again nodded, so Adam grabbed his shoulder and said "Lead me there."


    The soldier looked like he had questions, but one look from Adam was enough to make him nod and lead the way. The other two soldiers were dumbfounded, and although they didn''t receive the order they still decided to enter the royal hall to see whether everything was alright.


    But when they saw what was inside, they were shocked, and they quickly cried for the other soldiers to gather and capture the murderer. The soldier with Adam also heard them, but the hand on his shoulder became even stronger as Adam said "If I could kill your queen, capture that king and kill that mage, how long do you think you willst?"


    The soldier gulped, that was true. How could their enemy just let this man bring their king here? They had obviously fought. But this man threatening him did not have any injury, nor did his horse. This meant he had killed the enemy king''s easily


    A shiver went through his body as he hurried his steps. Soon, they arrived in a big room with a big table, on top of which arge map was spread out.


    The soldier said "This this is the map of the entire Holy Empire." Adam approached the map with an intrigued face and asked "Is the Holy Empire the local Sovereign?"


    Although the soldier was floored by this seemingly dumb question, he didn''t dare point it out and he said "The Holy Empire is the strongest force who rallied the entire world."


    Adam was surprised, were they so strong? He pointed at the map and asked "So this is the world map?" The soldier nodded and said "The Holy Empire used their 100 000 men strong army to conquer the world years ago, and now use them to hold peace."


    Adam nodded and asked "Show me where we are, and where that king Harold''s kingdom is." The soldier nodded and did as he was told.


    As it turned out, Adam''s random guess of the cardinal directions was actually right. Harold''s Kingdom was really North of his initial position. He then found out that the Imperial Capital was actually all the way down South, he would have to go by Harold''s Kingdom once again, and go around theke he had seen.


    As for that vige, it was actually a haunted vige where ghosts dwelled and attacked anyone who entered the vige.


    Thest piece of information Adam learned was the reason why Harold seemed to think he was invincible. Actually, every king under the empire benefited from their protection, and anyone who harmed those kings who be hunted by the 100 000 men army of the Holy Empire. Learning this, a smirk appeared on Adam''s lips.

 Chapter 150: Exploration

    Chapter 150: Exploration


    Having learned everything he needed, Adam et the soldier go and looked around for anything he might use. After a moment, he decided to take a few Gold Coins, maybe he could use themter.


    After that, Adam left the pce, and saw an army was waiting for him outside. 200 soldiers, spears and swords in hands, were waiting for him. The one leading them pointed his finger at Adam and said "Kill the murderer!"


    The 200 soldiers roared for Adam''s death as they came charging at him. Seeing the armying toward him, Adam decided not to use his sword, but his feet instead.


    In thest few days, not only had he been working on his [Lunar Smite], but also on his [Icy Stomp]. Adam jumped toward the soldiers and his foot crashed into one of the soldier''s heads.


    The head first froze before exploding into pieces, killing the soldier. However, the ice didn''t spread to the surroundings. Adam had be able to replicate the ice damage with the kick, but not the AOE effect.


    Actually, if he really wanted to deal with those soldiers, he could just use the [Spirit Snake] skill from his new ring or even his sword''s [Sword Cry], but he wanted to use them to train himself.


    The soldiers were frightened seeing what happened to their friend, but they still attacked, they had orders. Unfortunately for them, it was too easy for Adam to dodge their attacks. Going from one soldier to another, they turned into ice statues before exploding.


    Soon, almost all the soldiers had been killed, and the remaining twenty finally understood they stood no chance and started fleeing. As for Adam, he sighed but didn''t chase them.


    He went to retrieve his horse, and led it outside the city before starting to head south.


    Since the horse wasn''t going very fast, they had a few hours of travel before they reached the abandoned vige and theke.


    Adam decided to head in the vige because he was curious. At first, there wasn''t anything, but a few minutes in, as Adam went from house to house, a transparent figure appeared behind him. It''s ethereal body was covered in red blood, and it looked quite horrifying, the faint hearted would be terribly scared by it.


    Adam spotted it, but decided not to do anything. The ghost reached out for his shoulder, but the moment it came in contact with Adam, it''s whole arm, followed by its body, froze.


    This came from Adam''s Chilly Spirit Ring too, and it was the skill [Icy Touch]. This skill, usable once every 10 seconds, would deal 200% ice damage to anything he touched, or was touched by. Adam had actually used this equipment''s skill as a reference to work on perfectly mastering his [Icy Stomp].


    As the ghost was frozen and it''s now hard body shattered against the ground, Adam continued touring around the vige. However, the ghosts didn''t appear anymore. They were scared off by the death of their fellow ghost. If they couldn''t even touch him, what was the point of attacking him?


    So it was quite a rxing visit for Adam. Half an hourter, he left the vige with his horse, as some of the ghosts watched him leave from their hidden spots.


    After the vige, Adam decided to go to theke. After all, he was waiting for the Holy Empire''s army, as he had the feeling this army was rted to his challenge. He would first kill their army, and if it wasn''t the original objective then he would continue searching.


    As he reached theke, he saw no one around. However, it wasn''t very surprising, he had learned that terrifying monsters dwelled in thiske''s depth.


    Still, he was bored and curious, so he walked on theke. That''s right, walked on it. Every time he stepped on the water, he would use his iplete [Icy Stomp] to freeze the water below hit foot and walk on it.


    Of course, it wasn''t as simple as that because theyer of ice under his feet was thin, and the water around would sway it so not falling off of it was a hard task. But since Adam had mastered the 4th Gate, it was no problem for him and he was able to stroll on theke without any difficult. For him, it wasn''t very different from walking on the ground.


    Adam finally stopped in the center of theke, and there he created a bigger and thicker tform for himself. Although this replicated the AOE of [Icy Stomp], it wasn''t the skill because he was simply channeling an excessive amount of Aura in his foot to forcefully freeze a bigger area. He was wasting too much Aura for this.


    As the tform was created, although it was rocking around, it still held, and Adam was able to sit on it and meditate a little to recover the Aura he had lost to create the tform.


    But as he was doing so, the water around him suddenly started to darken. Adam opened his eyes, and jumped from where he was.


    And it was just in time as after he jumped, a giant mouth suddenly swallowed the entire tform. From his higher point Adam could see a set of giant teeth, as well as scales and big eyes. This was a giant piranha.


    Adamnded a few meters away, and this time decided to dive in the water. He was the Aqua Sovereign, was he going to be afraid of some water?


    Although entering water didn''t strengthen Adam, he felt no constraint from the surrounding water, it didn''t weaken him in the slightest.


    Normally, if someone enters water they would find every movement to be harder and they would tire themselves, but for Adam, it was like the water around him followed his every movement, he could go anywhere he wanted and he wouldn''t be slowed down.


    Actually, this felt a bit like flying, and thus turned this battle into a three dimensional one. One piece of information Adam had learned in his time in the game was that someone could start flying when they brokethrough to Gold Rank.


    However, even though everyone became able to fly when they became Gold Rank, many wouldn''t use it in fights. This was because humans aren''t supposed to fly, their brain doesn''t allow them to fight well in three dimensional fights.


    Only when someone opened the 4th Gate would they be able to perfect three dimensional fighting. That''s why, even if Adam was now fighting a three dimensional fight for the first time, he didn''t have any difficulty.


    The big fish swam toward him, but he easily dodged and sent a palm strike against the fish''s side. The area around his hand turned into ice, including it''s insides, but it wasn''t enough to kill it.


    Just then, Adam hadn''t used [Icy Touch] but the iplete [Icy Stomp]. Although it was originally a skill to be used with his feet, it could actually be used from any limb.


    As Adam''s palm hit the fish''s side, it ignored the pain and used it''s tail end to whip toward Adam. Adam could easily dodge it, but something unexpected happened. The water surrounding the tail formed a whirlpool like power that slowed down Adam.


    With his strong body, he was still able to break through this whirlpool power and dodged, but Adam was intrigued by this power as he felt that it somehow resembled his [Icy Stomp] in the way Aura was dispelled.


    So Adam allowed himself to be hit by the tail. In the short instant where his body and the fish''s tail were in contact with each other, he was able to feel the way the fish was using it''s Aura. However, it was only a short moment and Adam was only able to understand and memorize a part of it.


    Then, his body reeled back from the heavy impact and Adam felt pain through his body, but he didn''t care. Using his 2nd Gate, he healed from the damage. Since he was in the middle of water, his Aura Regeneration was many times faster than normal, so he was able to heal from damage very quickly.


    Actually, if he was fighting underwater, Adam believed the only way to kill him was either to make him lose all the blood in his body, or kill him in a single attack. Otherwise, he would be able to heal 5% of his health every second.

 Chapter 151: Intensive Training

    Chapter 151: Intensive Training


    As Adam got hit for the eighth time, he really wished he had opened the 5th Gate. Had he unlocked it, he would have been able to avoid those painful ps and directly understand how the fish''s skill worked with his domain.


    Unfortunately for his rattled bones, he hadn''t yet opened the 5th Gate, and so he had to endure. But now, after those eight ps, he had finally understood how the fish''s skill worked.


    This allowed him to understand why he seemingly couldn''t replicate the AOE effect, and he simted the skill in his mind, with his new correction.


    He then looked at the iing fish with an evil gaze and dodged it''s tail whip. Until now, since it had worked everytime, the fish had continued using the same attack and clearly didn''t expect Adam to dodge.


    But before it could move away, Adam pped his palm against the fish. In an instant, ice spread from his hand and froze it''s entire body, in and out, killing it.


    And yet, despite having frozen the fishpletely, the water around Adam hadn''t been affected in the slightest.


    Actually, now that he had grasped the [Icy Stomp], because of their simrity, he also mastered the [Icy Touch], and even enhanced it.


    Adam decided that when he got back the system he would change [Icy Stomp] to another name, as it wasn''t really an icy stomp anymore. Icy Stomp and Icy Touch had fused to make a better version of the skill. He felt like [Ice Statue] was a good name since that was how his enemies would end up.


    This new skill had a single target attack and an area of effect attack. If Adam wanted to hit multiple enemies then as long as a part of his body was in contact with the ground, he would use the ground as a medium to freeze everything in a radius he could change.


    As for the single target attack, as long as Adam could touch them with his body too, not his sword though, then he would send apressed wave of frost energy into their body, that would burst out.


    If they were weaker than him, then they wouldpletely turn into ice, in and out, like the fish, and even if they were a little stronger, the effects of the skill would be devastating. The only bad point was that with the system, the amount of damage this skill did would be a set value, so as long as the enemy had enough HP, even if they are weaker they would still be able to survive.


    Still, Adam was happy, he had gained powerful skills, and they would be especially powerful in this world, and even useful in the real Epoch. The only drawback now was the use of Aura. Since he had perfectly mastered the skill, he ahd to use Aura every time he used it, and this skill was particrly costly as it had taken more than a tenth of his Aura to be used.


    Now that he had killed the monster in theke, he could have gotten out and continued exploring, but he didn''t feel like it. Ultimately, he wanted to wait for the Empire''s army, and they would need toe through this area to go to Harold''s kingdom.


    Moreover, he liked being in water, probably because of his ss, and he felt like he could figure out skills faster here.


    So Adam ultimately decided to wait here for the army. The first thing he did was to learn how to breath underwater, which wasn''t that hard.


    To a normal human it might sound impossible, but for Adam it wasn''t that hard. This was a skill that already existed and had been grasped by many people who lived near water bodies in Epoch, be it NPC or yers.


    It was only an E Rank Skill, showing how easy it was. And as the Aqua Sovereign, it was even more easy for Adam. Following the steps he had read about online some time ago, Adam was able to recreate the skill in under ten minutes.


    After mastering [Water Breathing], Adam could stay underwater as much as wanted. This was also a very good spot for him to train as his Aura regeneration went through the roof, and even when he used his [Ice Statue], using more than a tenth of his Aura pool, he would recover in slightly more than a minute and a half, and that was only his passive regeneration.


    Adam had already guessed that training while being surrounded by water would help his training, but he never guessed it would be this effective.


    As such, Adam began an intensive training, and only stopped an entire dayter when he saw what he was waiting for in the distance, moving toward him. An army of 100 000 men had reallye for him, and they were quite quick!


    Adam got out of theke, and started rushing toward the army. With his speed, although they were quite far, he was able to reach them in half a minute.


    The army suddenly stopped when they saw a man in armor appear before them, and an officer came forward and asked Adam "What are you doing here?"


    Adam looked at the officer and said with a smirk "I killed two kings, are you here to kill me?" The officer was dumbfounded by Adam''s cheekiness. He came to them by himself? Couldn''t he see the 100 000 men behind him?


    He felt something was amiss, but he still unsheathed his sword, and pointed it at Adam as he shouted "KILL!"


    Then, the army behind him responded "KILL!" The entire army formed a formidable killing intent, and their simultaneous shoot was scary.


    Unfortunately, they were facing Adam, who didn''t fear them in the slightest. Normally, he would have answered in kind, but this time he didn''t, because that would use some of his Aura, and he wanted to have every bit of it essible.


    As the army started rushing toward him, he jumped toward them. He had made a simple n, and he he would test his new skill.


    Adam made an estimation that his new skill used around 10 000 of Aura to deal 500% percent damage to everyone within 50 meters. But since he had perfectly mastered the skill, he could change some of it''s effects.


    He could change the area of effect either by spreading the same amount of Aura on a wider area, which would make the skill have the same cost but the damage dealt would be lesser. Or the other solution was to pump more Aura into the skill.


    As for the damage, he couldn''t make it bigger, unless he was touching his target and used the single target version, but other than that, even using more Aura wouldn''t make the damage he deals bigger.


    But Adam felt his damage was already more than enough. From the aura the soldiers released, they were only level 50, like the other soldiers he had met. Actually, their only real strength was their numbers.


    Maybe they had a few experts in their midst too, but it wasn''t anyone he needed to worry about. In the end, the strongest in the army were probably only somewhat stronger than Lyndon.


    Adam arrived next to the army, and he easily dodged their strikes as he entered through their ranks. Although they tried to block him, Adam was easily charging through them. One of the things he had done was to finally perfectly master his skill [Charge] and even enhance it a little.


    It was really easy to do as this was only an E Rank skill. The only reason he hadn''t done so yet was because he didn''t feel the need to. But it was quite useful for his n.


    Although Adam wanted to have all his Aura, he still used [Charge] because his passive Aura recovery was enough to allow him to use the skill freely.


    The soldiers tried to block him, but they quickly understood that wasn''t possible, as everyone who stood in his path was sent flying, vomiting blood. They also tried to use their weapons against him, but they were all close to each other so attacking was hard.


    And Adam even allowed himself to take a few hits as he didn''t care. He only stopped when he was in the middle of the entire army, which was the best ce to use his skill.


    As he reached the center of the army, he finally stopped, and looked at the surrounding soldiers who had drawn some distance with him.


    He smirked at them, and provoked, they began walking toward him, their weapons toward him. Then, as they were drawing closer and closer, and they were about to attack him from all side, Adam gathered all the Aura in his body, and stomped the ground.

 Chapter 152: End of the challenge

    Chapter 152: End of the challenge


    As the weapons of the soldiers were about to hit Adam, a wave of frost and an icy wind erupted from his foot. At a speed too quick for the soldiers to react, the frost spread on the ground, and anyone in contact with it was frozen in a Popsicle.


    In merely a second, the ice traveled for five hundred meters in all directions before stopping. Anyone within those five hundred meters was dead, and had turned into a statue of ice.


    From his point, Adam could only see ice everywhere, even the sky above him had taken a light bluish color as a freezing wind appeared.


    The scene around him looked quite poetic, but Adam still had things to do, and couldn''tst here for too long. This attack was very powerful, and had probably killed more than  of the army, or maybe even more.


    But general of the army, alongside his strongest soldiers, most probably stood out of the field of ice as they were standing at the back of the army like the cowards they were. At least, this was his assumption since he hadn''t seen any of them when he made his way over here.


    Adam''s initial n was toe here, set off his skill, and retreat into theke to recover his Aura. With how much theke allowed him to recover, it would take less than two minutes for him to recover all his aura if he recovered actively.


    But he had a slight change in his n as the ice field appeared around him. He hadn''t expected it, but being surrounded by this ice actually had the same effect as theke. Even though there were still enemies, if they had to find him across this field of ice, they would take at least five minutes.


    Still, just to be sure Adam moved from where he was initially before sitting down and starting to meditate.


    Meanwhile, in the back of the army, the general, alongside with his closest Knights, was looking at the countless ice statues in terror.


    A few seconds ago, he was confidant he wouldn''t even see the corpse of their enemy after he got stomped on by his army. But suddenly, a chill made it''s way across his army as he saw countless of his soldiers turn into ice.


    Now, he wanted nothing but to flee from here, how were they supposed to fight a monster like this? Was the one who killed the kings under the Empire''s protection the one who did this? Were they chasing a man or a beast?


    However, as he was panicking and about to give the order for a retreat, one of the mages following him said "Sir, no matter how strong our enemy is, to release a spell of such an intensity, they must have used all their energy. Even a Saint Mage, who has the almighty power of flying in the sky, would need to use all their mana pool as well as a treasure to cause such destruction."


    The general looked at his mage and asked "What are you implying?" The mage replied, meeting the general eye to eye "I think that this is the best moment to strike our enemy. If we let him recover his energy, then all he has to do is step into our Holy Empire''s capital, and he would be able to destroy our city using this skill, leaving only the Saint Masters to survive."


    On the side, a knight caught on what the mage was trying to do, and he said "Our opponent is most certainly a Saint If general was able to kill a Saint, then losing the army wouldn''t matter, the Emperor would even reward your Excellency."


    The general''s fear was finally reced by greed as he looked at his remaining men and said "FIND HIM! QUICKLY!"


    His men, although they were scared of approaching the deadly field of ice, still decidedly walked toward it. But only when they entered the field of ice did they understand what cold meant. Shivering from the cold, the soldiers still began their search, but they were losing a lot of time trying not to touch their friends.


    Although they had all been turned into ice, there was still a chance for them to be alive, they just needed to wait for the sun to thaw the ice covering them.


    However, what they didn''t know was that those soldiers had already been killed by the initial wave of frost. Although their inside hadn''t been turnedpletely in ice, their blood had already turned solid and their heart had stopped beating.


    Although the AOE version of [Ice Statue] wasn''t as brutal as the single target version, which literally turned their inner body into ice, meaning their blood and flesh isn''t just hardened, they are TURNED into ice. But even if it wasn''t to this degree, it was more than enough to kill those soldiers.


    Two minutes went by, but because the soldiers were trying to avoid touching their friends, they didn''t even close in to Adam.


    However, Adam had already recovered all of his Aura, unfortunately for them. As he stood up, he started moving toward the back of the army.


    Because he didn''t want to waste time, Adam used [Charge], and every ice statue he hit exploded into bits of frozen flesh. The bodies that littered the ground looked like meat that had been abandoned inside a freezer for months.


    Quickly, Adam started seeing soldiers. When the soldiers saw him make their friends explode, they were furious, but they couldn''t attack him because they would kill their friends doing so.


    Bad mistake though, as Adam didn''t care and sent a few [Aqua sh] using his fist toward them, hitting them all in the chest, and punching a hole through them from afar.


    When Adam left the field of ice, he finally saw what remained of the enemy''s army. A poor ten thousand men. He had hit them harder than he first thought as it seemed.


    Adam also spotted the enemy general, as well as his men. Adam approached toward them, and saw that none of the soldiers were attacking because the general had raised his hand.


    As Adam approached closer the general asked "Where is the one who did this?" Adam tilted his head and said "Aren''t I standing in front of you?"


    The general scoffed "Don''t take me for a fool, only a Saint Mage could have caused such destruction, and you are obviously neither a Saint, nor a mage."


    But Adam only shrugged as he said "I don''t have to prove myself to you anyway." Before the general could say anything, or any of his strongest warriors could prepare for the fight, Adam once again stomped the ground.


    When they saw him about to stomp the ground, they didn''t even prepare any way to protect themselves, because they couldn''t see what this warrior could do to them by simply stomping his foot.


    And this was what killed them. Had they been prepared, the mages could have raised magical shields, and the warrior could have protected themselves, or they even could have simply jumped, but because they underestimated Adam and didn''t know how his attack was executed, they couldn''t even react as the frost invaded their bodies and froze them to death.


    This time, Adam hadn''t used his entire Aura, but only the normal version of the skill. Still, this allowed him to kill the general alongside his strongest men, as well as a few thousands of the ten thousand left.


    Adam saw the survivors finally wanted to flee, but before they could make a step, they all shuddered, and their eyes turned hazy, before they started rushing toward Adam. This made Adam smirk, now he was almost certain that the challenge was fighting this army, and the reason they weren''t allowed to flee was because they had to fight until either all of their men died, or Adam himself died.


    Five minutester, fresh blood was added to the frozen scenery, and Adam felt a force envelop him as he left this challenge world.

 Chapter 153: Star Chains

    Chapter 153: Star Chains


    [Congrattions for scoring a perfect score on your Challenge!]


    As Adam left the stone monument, he received a message from the system. He looked around and realized he was back in Marbles, and a few people were waiting for him. One was obviously Thalia and the vige''s chief, but there were also other people.


    Those people, were yers. There was quite a big amount of them, and the looks they were sending him weren''t very friendly.


    But before anyone could say or do anything, the stone monument behind Adam started shining as a group of people were flung out of the monument. From their names, Adam recognized them to be members of Dragon Temple.


    What was shocking was that among those people, none was an ordinary member. Instead, they were all at least captains of the elite squads of the guild, and most were Guild Elders. And among all those people, was Kaze, their Guild Leader.


    Kaze was, or at least looked, pretty young,pared to the other Guild Leaders of First Rank guilds. He should be in histe twenties, although his actual age was probably far more than it seemed. Kaze was also a Northman, and an Elementalist.


    Adam looked at Kaze up and down, and thetter was also doing the exact same thing. But quickly, Adam''s attention went back to the stone monument, which was getting brighter by the second.


    After a moment, it began rising into the air but, and as it did it also started getting smaller. Slowly, it levitated toward Adam, and by the time it reached him the big rock had be much smaller, and the light was disappearing.


    As the light went out, Adam found out that the stone monument hadpletely disappeared, and it had been reced by what seemed to be parchments.


    Adam took them in his hands and inspected them.


    [Epic Flying Vessel ns]


    ns to construct Epic Grade Flying Vessels. Unable to see more because you do not possess any of the following professions: Master Engineer.


    Adam raised an eyebrow but swiftly put the ns into his inventory. If they were what he thought they were, then those ns were definitely good enough of a reward.


    "You have some nerves,ing here and stealing from us." As Adam was about to join Thalia and ask her how much time passed, he heard a voice from the side.


    He looked at the speaker, who was Kaze, and asked with a raised eyebrow "You got a problem weakling?"


    Kaze and his guild elders opened their eyes wide, who dared to call Kaze a weakling in this world?! After a moment, their shock turned into anger, but Kaze held his hand.


    Seeing this, Adam grinned and said "That''s what I thought." He then joined Thalia and the two left the scene. As they entered back in the vige, Thalia whispered "Do you know each other?"


    Adamughed "Who doesn''t know me?" Thalia rolled her eyes and then asked curiously "What happened in that monument? And what did you get?"


    "I was sent to some strangend and I had to fight an army of 100 000 Level 50 Silver Rank soldiers." Thalia opened her eyes wide and asked "You were able to kill so many soldiers? On your own?"


    Adam scoffed "Of course I did, I''m very powerful you know. Anyway, I got a book from that world, as for the parchments Unless you ever be a trusted member of my guild, you won''t get to know what they are for."


    Thalia then asked "A book? That''s all? And you can forget about me joining your guild." Adam smiled and took out the book he had taken from that man. When he came back, other than feeling the system back, he could also feel the book was still on him.


    And as expected, it really was a skill book.


    Star Chains (B): Creates 10 chains of starlight to bind down an enemy. As long as the enemy''s energy pool is not two times bigger than the caster''s, then the enemy will be sessfully caught. Enemies bound by the Star Chains will be unable to use their energy and their Strength will be halved. Cost: 10 000 MP.


    This skill book was only for mages, which was good for Adam since he had Louisa in his guild, who led all the mages they had. Despite being a Cleric, she could also deal out a good amount of damage with her ss.


    Like everyone of his Division Leaders, she was an SS ss, she was a Lord of Light. This ss gave her ess to incredible skills, some for healing, but others also allowed her to dish incredible damage with light attacks.


    It was just that most clerics didn''t have ess to those skills, and could usually only heal, but not attack. As for why he thought it was a good idea to give her the skill, it wasn''t just because of her personal might, but because of the way she fought.


    Unlike himself, who was mostly alone with Neith, all his Division Leaders would hunt and level up in groups. Sometime they would be training their men, or when they faced a tough boss they would team up with the other Division Leaders. If he gave her [Star Chains], she would be able to stop their enemies from using skills, which was a very powerful ability to have in a group fight.


    But he would only be able to give it to herter, since he was busy for the moment.


    "Can I see the skill book?" Thalia suddenly asked him on the side. Adam, who was just about to store the book in his inventory, was surprised by her question. However, he directly handed it to her. Unlike yers, to learn a skill, the inhabitants of Epoch had to read the book and learn from it. And even when they learned it it wouldn''t disappear.


    Thalia flipped through a few pages and soon she had a stupefied expression. She asked "How much for this book?" Adamughed and snatched the book from her hands as he said "I''m not selling it."


    He thought she just casually asked, but she then said "Then just lend it to me, just long enough for me to learn it! I promise you a great reward for this, as you wouldn''t just be making a deal with me, but with my entire imperial family! As long as I can master it I will give it back to you and you will still get your payment!"


    Adam asked "Is it that valuable?" Thalia grabbed her face and said "Valuable? That''s a skill of the Star series for god''s sake! Of course it''s valuable!!"


    Adam was still surprised by her outburst, but after a moment he said "But I don''t need anything"


    However, it looked like he had underestimated her resolve to get the book as she said "I can offer you a guide on how to open the Gates! It goes up to the 6th Gate! And that''s only a base reward!" In her mind, she was sure this would be enough, but much to her shock Adam shook his head and said "Don''t need it, I already got that."


    This shocked her even more as this was something as valuable as this skill. As far as she knew, the Holy Temple were the only ones who had such information, and everyone who opened the 6th Gate had to pay a big price to the Holy Temple to get the way to open the 6th Gate.


    The only reason her family had it was thanks to a book they had found in ancient ruins. But this guy was telling her he already had it?!


    Adam shrugged and said "I know how to open the 6 first Gates, and I know a few things about the 7th Gate, so I really don''t need your thing." This was true, since he had been working on the 6th Gate in his previous life he already knew how to open it.


    The only reason Old Adam hadn''t opened it was because it took a certain amount of time to open it, and there was no shortcut to that. As for the 7th Gate, in Old Adam''s alternate world there was a legend about there being someone who opened the 7th Gate, and Old Adam had learned through various people clues about the 7th Gate.

 Chapter 154: Concept

    Chapter 154: Concept


    Although she was shocked, Thalia was still determined to learn this skill. Unfortunately, it was impossible to copy this skill book, for several reasons. First, a skill book didn''t only contain simple writings, but the mage who wrote it had also infused his understanding of the skill into his writing, which was indispensable to learn the skill.


    The only way for some to write a skill book was to perfectly master the skill, and have great experience using it. That''s why, she only had to learn it.


    So she searched for something that would entice Adam. He didn''t care about women, obviously, she had seen how he looked at her when he first saw her appearance, and although he had obviously liked her beauty that did not change his view of her in the slightest.


    If her beauty wasn''t enough to sway this man then it was more than probable than he would never be interested in only a woman''s looks. So buying the book with women was impossible. He also told her he didn''t care about her gold.


    Thalia shook her head as they continued walking through the vige. She had to analyze his personality to learn what he wanted, or even better, what he needed.


    From the days they had spent together, she had learned a few things about him. If she had to describe him in a sentence, then it''s would be a prideful but careful warrior.


    Many in history had fallen because they were prideful, and had it been anyone else, Thalia was sure she could have bought them using that. However, this man wasn''t like the others. While he was prideful, he didn''t care much about fame, certainly because he already had it.


    Another approach one might think of would be threatening, but it would be a very dumb thing to do. Not to talk about Adam, threatening someone to get something out of them would always end bad.


    But against Adam it wouldn''t just end bad, he would simply end you. If she were to try to threaten him, not only would he not be afraid, he would kill her on the spot. As for her family? As powerful as they were they weren''t stronger than the Dragon n, but this was man would soon provoke their entire n.


    After a moment, her eyes lit up as she said "I have something that could interest you." Adam looked at her nonchntly, actually it wouldn''t cost him much to lend it to her, it would even be beneficial to him.


    As he saw it, although this skill would do good to Louisa, she didn''t absolutely need it, and if he was able to only lend it then he would even be able to get it back.


    More importantly, this skill seemed to be very precious to the Imperial Family of Aldeneid, and other than the reward he was promised, Thalia would be under his debt. Not because of the item itself, but because of the contribution it would bring.


    She was currently fighting for the throne, and bringing back a book that would strengthen her whole family, while it might not directly win her the throne, it would at least boost her chances by a lot. So helping her was potentially helping the future Empress of Aldeneid. Anyone would be ready to exchange a B Rank skill for a favor from the future Empress, not to talk about just lending it.


    But since he could earn something else, then he might as well let her propose. Who knows, she might really find something he wanted.


    So when she said she had something that would interest him he looked at her and waited for her to talk.


    "I can give you a part of my family''s research on the water element. Not only would it help mages create their skills, but it would also help warriors. You might not know this, but even for warriors, they have to start understanding their elements."


    Adam asked "What do you mean?" Thalia looked a little cheered up as she exined "As you might have discovered by yourself, to master and create skills, you only have to understand which meridians to use."


    Adam nodded, so she continued "However, this is only the case for skills going from Rank E and Rank D. If you try to master a C Rank or higher skill, you will also need to understand how an element works to master a skill."


    Adam tilted his head, and stopped next to a tree in the middle of the vige. He turned toward a nearby viger and asked "Is this tree important?"


    The viger looked at Adam weirdly and said "It''s just a tree" Adam nodded and he activated [Ice Statue]. In an instant, the tree turned into a cold statue of ice. From the roots to the leaves, the whole tree had turned into a big piece of ice.


    When he used his skill, Adam had been inspecting his own body, and indeed, the way he was moving his Aura did not change from when he was failing to use the skill. Then, what he had been studying under theke, wasn''t really the way the fish was using it''s aura, but rather the way water behaved?


    He turned toward Thalia and said "I didn''t even notice, but that is indeed the case." Thalia looked at him gobsmacked and asked "What rank is this skill?" Adam shrugged and told her "B Rank."


    Thalia said "You are telling me you learned a B Rank skill without even noticing you started understanding the concept of ice?"


    Adam replied "Well, it was the concept of water, not ice but yeah, I guess." Thalia let out a sigh as she said "Sovereigns really are weirdos My point was, if you want to master C Rank or higher skills, you will have to start understanding the concept of the element you use. For example, here you understood a part of the concept of water, and somehow used it to power your ice concept."


    Adam nodded and asked "Then what are you proposing?" Thalia replied "I am willing to exchange my family''s research on the element of water in exchange of borrowing this book. Our research is so advanced that it will help you understand the concept of water in it''s entirety, and even take a step into understanding it''s essence."


    Adam asked "What''s it''s essence?" Thalia replied "Let me put it like that if even the most average Bronze Rank were to understand even 1% of the Essence of let''s say fire, then no one under the Gold rank would be his match. Hell, even most Gold rank would be wiped out by him."


    After a moment, Adam nodded and gave her the skill book and said "I ept the deal. I let you borrow the book and you give me your research on the water element"


    Thalia let out a squeal as she grabbed the book "You won''t regret this! Haha, I knewing with you was the right decision!"


    Adam rolled his eyes and said "I''m curious, how can I know how much of the concept I have understood?" Thalia replied casually "Just open your status, a new line should have appeared."


    Adam did as he was told and opened his status.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 38


    Title: Strith''s Champion


    Race: Northman


    ss: Aqua Sovereign


    Rank: Bronze


    HP: 68680/68680


    Aura: 73620/73620


    Strength (+30 per level): 3440 (7930)


    Agility (+10 per level): 2300 (5970)


    Endurance (+10 per level): 2300 (5820)


    Will: 2680 (6573)


    Free AP: 0


    Rules: -Sovereign Concept of Water (0.1%)


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E, Perfectly Mastered)


    -Aqua sh (D, Perfectly Mastered)


    -Charge (D, Perfectly Mastered)


    -Wind de (D, Level 10/10)


    -Parry (D, Level 10/10)


    -Lunar Smite (C, Level 10/10)


    -Crushing Blow (C, Level 10/10)


    -Ice Statue (B, Perfectly Mastered)


    -Whirlwind sh (C, Level 7/10)


    -Totemic Rage (B, Level 1/10)


    -Barbarous Roar (B, Perfectly Mastered)


    -Misty Escape (B, Level 3/10)


    -Great Ice Breath (B, Level 4/10)


    Adam felt a little stunned seeing how little he had understood, but that made sense, he didn''t feel like he knew all that much. Though he was curious as to why it was said to be a Sovereign Concept.

 Chapter 155: Wonders of Water

    Chapter 155: Wonders of Water


    Adam closed his status and asked Thalia "Are there different grades to Concepts?"


    Thalia, who had pocketed the skill book now, nodded as she took out a manual and said "Everything you need to know about Concepts is in there. Of course, there are also the teachings about the water element. However I do have to warn you, you won''t be given the answers, this manual will only show you the way."


    Adam nodded and took the book.


    [The Wonders of Water]


    There was only a title, but no description. Adam opened the book and saw exnations about concepts. Apparently, Concepts were the first step toward understanding the world itself. One would first start with a Concept, which would transform into an Essence, beforepleting into a Rule.


    Those were the three stages ofprehension. A Concept wasn''t limited to elements either, as there existed such things as the Concept of Strength, or the Concept of the Sword.


    Right away, this made Adam doubt Thalia''s im that every skill above D Rank needed a Concept to be understood. After all, although he had mastered [Barbarous Roar], he didn''t get any Concept out of this.


    Following that, Adam also found out about something interesting. Not all Concepts were equal. This would actually depend on someone''s strength, or more precisely, on their ss.


    First, it was many times harder for an A ss or lower to start understanding a Concept. It wasn''t impossible, but it wasplicated.


    When they are born, every humanoid would have a certain affinity toward certain concepts. For example, Orcs have an affinity for the Concept of Fire, Northmen for the Concept of Ice and the other races were the same.


    But unless one''s talent was very good, then relying on this initial affinity toprehend a Concept was very hard. And this is why sses were created by divinities, they were made to give humanoids a better affinity toward the different Concepts.


    Actually, that was only the case for the best sses, those S, SS and SSS sses. This is because even though the gods are very powerful, forcefully changed the inner bodies of beings, changing their affinities and strengthening them was veryplicated, and limited.


    That''s why, the better the talent, the better their affinity to their new Concept would be. A Ranks'' talent wasn''t good enough to gain a new affinity, and so they would have to rely on their initial affinity.


    As for S Ranks, they would be able to connect with the weakest kinds of Concepts, the Basic Concepts. SS sses would connect with Advanced Concepts, and finally SSS sses with Sovereign Concepts.


    The difference in strength between those different levels was quite big too as it was of the order of 10. This meant a Sovereign Concept was 100 times stronger than a Basic Concept. Moreover, it would be capable of countless transformations. For example, Adam could not only use liquid water, but it''s other two forms too and apply his Concept on them.


    This also meant that Adam''s 0.1% understanding over the Sovereign Concept of Water was as strong as 1% of an Advanced Concept, or 10% of a Basic Concept.


    And this led to the next point, the skills. To master most C Rank Skills, one would need to understand 1% of the Basic Concept rted to it. For a B Rank skill, it would be 10%, and for an A Rank one needed to fully understand a Basic Concept.


    At the same time, 0.1% of an Advanced Concept was enough to use a C Rank skill, and so on. This also meant that to use an A Rank, imagining one has ess to a bottomless source of Aura, then even a Bronze Rank couldunch an A Rank skill if they wholly understood a Basic Concept.


    It would also work in the same way for the higher realms ofprehension, be it for Essence or Rules.


    Adam also noticed that the power ofprehension was closely rted to the Gates. More precisely, for the Gates starting from the 5th Gate. Once one opened the 5th Gate and opened their domain, this domain''s strength would vary on two things.


    First was the cultivation of the caster, and secondly was theirprehension. However, only an Essence could be used alongside a Domain. The power of a Concept was notpatible with the power of a Domain, no matter the rank.


    This meant, to use the power of theirprehension alongside their domain, one had toprehend at least 1% of an Essence, so those who understood Basic ones would be advantaged at first. However, it also meant that the moment one was able to understand even 1% of a Sovereign Essence, then the power added to their domain would be as strong as the power added by a basic Essence that had been fully understood.


    Finally, after that came the teachings on the water element. After a moment of reading, Adam asked Thalia "Is this waterproof?"


    Thalia looked confused, before she looked at the canal and said "It is. I will send you a message when the boat is ready to leave."


    Adam nodded at her and left toward theke. There, he jumped into the water and quickly moved away from the shore.


    He saw a lot of sea life under the water, some were harmless, and others not as much but they were all in the weaker levels.


    Adam gradually reached the seabed, but he did not read the manual. First, he wanted to really grasp and understand what he already understood.


    Because he had understood what he did without realizing it and integrated it into a skill, although the system said so the knowledge didn''t really belonged to him. If it did, then with his current understanding he would be able to master [Lunar Smite] in a matter of seconds and fuse it with his [Aqua sh].


    But for now his current understanding of the Concept was too attached to his [Ice Statue] skill, so he didn''t really know what he had understood and what was part of the skill.


    Adam wanted to start training, but he remembered Neith. Unlike the Gates, every being had ess to the power of understanding, and only now did Adam realize Neith had been using it in the past. He tried to reach out to her mind, to tell her about everything he learned, but discovered with a light probe that she had fallen asleep.


    So he decided to let her sleep and began his training. He could still tell herter.


    Instantly, Adam''s entire surroundings were turned into ice, the water forming an ice prison around him. But Adam didn''t care, this was his own ice.


    However, the surrounding wild life wasn''t the same. Because he was at the epicenter Adam was only covered in ice. However, as it extended the ice formed into spikes out of the surrounding water, and many being were killed.


    Adam recovered the Aura he spent quickly and changed the ice surrounding him into water once again, before using the area of effect version. This time, everything within a 50 meters radius was turned into ice.


    Onnd, only the surface he hit and those connected would have the frost power transferred through them, but while in water every bit of water would be frozen. After thinking about it, maybe that the next step for this skill, to turn it into an A Rank Skill, would be to learn how to freeze the air as well.


    But that would be forter. Adam had mentallypared the two times he used the skill, and was thankful he had understood a skill with two versions. Because they were inherently the same skill, to execute those two skills the Aura had to be manipted in the exact same way.


    But since the two had different effects, then there was obviously something different about the way those skills wereunched. This ''something'' was his understanding over the Sovereign Concept of Water.


    Having started to identify his understanding of the Concept within the skill, Adam turned the ice around him into water once again as he wanted to test onest thing that should help him as well.


    He got a little further away from the shore, and also deeper into the canal. However, even at it''s absolute lowest the canal was only 600 meters deep, and that area was far from where he was. But he would do with what he had.

 Chapter 156: Relations

    Chapter 156: Rtions


    Meanwhile, within the vige, Thalia was leaning against a tree, looking at theke. It looked very beautiful from where she was, and it was a scenery she couldn''t see in her originalnd.


    She was also thinking about Adam, and the deal they had made. Inwardly, she felt that the value of the skill book for [Star Chains], even if only lent, was far more valuable than the manual she had given him.


    This was because this skill book held insights on the unique Concept of Stars, which was a Sovereign Concept. Most Sovereign Concepts, like the Water Sovereign understanding that Adam was learning, was very hard for someone not attuned to it like he was to understand because the Water Concept not only had a Sovereign version, but it also had an Advanced one and a Basic one.


    That''s why, even with guidance on the water element like she just gave him, a normal person would only be able to grasp the Basic or at best the Advanced version. But because the Concept of Stars had a unique Sovereign Version, one would be assured to learn a Sovereign Concept were they to grasp the skill.


    As a result, the skill book, even lent, was much more valuable than the manual she gave him. The worrying thing was, although Adam obviously didn''t know the uniqueness of this skill book, he did understand for sure through their exchange she had had won in the end, and she owed him one.


    Still, she was d she had to deal with Adam. She didn''t feel like it was a bad thing she owed him a favor. On the contrary, it could even be beneficial for her.


    From what she knew, he wouldn''t involve her into dangerous problems. For example, if he really kills those dragons and things escte politically, he wouldn''t use the favor to seek asylum in her family. Rather, it would most certainlye in the form of materials, skills or equipment. And while she owed him, they would be able to be closer with each other.


    An outsider would think Adam was the only one winning out, getting closer with the most probable (in her mind) future Empress of Aldeneid, but the truth was Adam would most certainly be even bigger than her in the future.


    She had made her research on Adam before they even met, because of how famous he was. In their current world, Adam could actually be said to be among the, if not the, most famous people in the world.


    This was because he was the only Sovereign who was not hidden and who would do something incredible almost every day. And he was especially popr among young nobles like her who wanted nothing more than leave the pce they were confined in since birth and adventure the world.


    Actually, it wasn''t a coincidence she came to him. Well, it was one they met at that volcano, but she also had a certain artifact that allowed her to see what his cloak hide, and so she knew right from the beginning who he was.


    As for her reaction when he took off his cloak well, acting sses took a rather big part of all the lessons she had learned as a child. As Adam said, those teachings aren''t as useless as they seemed.


    Anyway, after making research on him, she learned he started a Guild. Although it wasn''t anything big today, under the lead of a Sovereign not bound by a Racial Power, it would most certainly rise up to be an incredible power.


    And even if that wasn''t the case, if Adam were to be a Legend Rank Sovereign, then he would probably be invincible in this world. Well, maybe not invincible, but he sure wouldn''t ve far from it. After all, the legend of the Undead Emperor was still fresh in people''s mind, and they knew how much it took to bring him down.


    That''s why, creating further ties with him may not be a bad thing. But as Thalia was silently thinking, she heard someone on the side say "Are you with Valiant Heart?"


    She turned her head and saw the otherworlders who questioned Adam earlier. She could hear malice in their voice, but she didn''t care and said "I am."


    Some were scared by those otherworlders because they were undying, but she didn''t. Those people weren''t as invincible as they thought. As long as one damaged their soul they wouldn''t be able to revive for some time, and she even heard that one family had been so angered with a particr otherworlder they hadpleted erased his soul, truly killing him. It seemed they didn''tmunicate well with one another


    Actually, she was only partly right. While that particr yer had really died in real life, if she had wanted Gaya could have protected his soul. However, this yer had raped the daughter of a powerful noble, who was underage, so when his soul was threatened with extinction, she didn''t step in.


    This was one of the biggest issues with Epoch since the game had beenunched, the freedom given to yers. Theoretically, they were allowed to do anything they wanted. Any crime they couldn''t do in reality, they could do it in the game world.


    Of course this would always result in terrible punishments in game, but the issue still existed. But this was a matter for humans to figure out themselves.


    Seeing Thalia wasn''t afraid of them, Kaze said "Aren''t you afraid we will attack you since we can''t attack him?"


    Thalia rolled her eyes and said "You have no reason to do that And I don''t think you would dare." Kaze instantly frowned, but everyone suddenly heard an explosioning from the canal.


    Everyone, be it the yers or the inhabitants of Marbles, they all looked toward theke. There, they saw something astonishing.


    Several hundred meters of water had suddenly been turned into ice. Thalia was as shocked as the others at first, but then she guessed this was the B Rank skill Adam had mastered. She looked at Kaze and said "This is his doing. Are you really going to challenge him? Before you do, I would suggest you take a look at the situation in the water."


    Kaze and his Guild''s elders were shocked learning this was Adam''s doing, but they couldn''t help but be a but suspicious. So a few of them decided to go check things out.


    They were shocked speechless when they entered inside the water and saw the situation in there. Although several hundred meters of the surface water had been frozen, it was nothingpared to the huge block of ice underwater.


    Even from where they were they could see giant aquatic monsters like 20 meters long alligators were trapped into the ice, an expression of fear frozen onto their face.


    The most terrible thing was, they weren''t even all dead, some were still alive, but they were trapped inside the ice, unable to move, unable to breath, as the cold of the ice entered their bodies and quickly killed the few still alive.


    In the middle of this block of ice, Adam looked at his new notification with some surprise, as he didn''t expect to level up to Level 39, but remained focused on his skill. Adam began recovering Aura as he inspected his own skill. He had wanted to do it to see how it had evolved already, and it might help him.


    Ice Statue (B): If used as an Area Of Effect attack, deals 500% damage to every opponent within 50 meters. If the area of effect is extended, the damage will also be lowered. If used against a single target, deal 1000% ice damage upon touch. High chance of dealing Frost Bite effect, and 100% chance to weaken the Agility of those hit by 80%. Cost: 10 000 Aura.


    As expected, the skill was quite strong. However, even though the skill multiplied his damage by a lot, he couldn''t use it alongside his weapon so even though the single target attack would be stronger. The strongest part of this skill was probably the slowing effect as the opponent would be slow as a snail.

 Chapter 157: Aqua Smite

    Chapter 157: Aqua Smite


    For the next few hours, Adam continued meditating within the water, and he kept arge part of the ice around him so that no one, be it humans or monsters, could annoy him. After those few hours, he had finally been able to distinguish what was the Concept of Water, and iste it from [Ice Statue].


    As it turned out, the Concept of Water in itself was quite a powerful tool as Adam could attack using it, even without the use of skills. The Concept''s power, if not used alongside skills, was not very powerful, much weaker than one of Adam''s physical attacks, but because it drew on the power of the world, it had no consumption.


    The way skills worked was simple for E and D Ranks one. All they made use of was the internal power of the user. However, from C Rank onward, the skills'' power wouldn''t rely on the Aura pathway used, but rather on the outside world''s power.


    For example, when Adam used [Ice Statue], he would first use the power from his Concept to form the attack, and then multiply that power using his own Aura. If he only used his own power, then he wouldn''t be able to affect the outside world well, resulting in ack of power.


    That''s why, he could also use his Concept to directly attack with the world''s power, but because he only understood a small part of his Concept, the power was very weak.


    Of course, it was still very good as it meant that numbers couldn''t win over someone with a good grasp over a Concept, as if the opponents didn''t possess at least a specific amount of power, then even if there were millions of them they wouldn''t be able to do anything.


    For now, with only 0.1% of understanding over his Concept of Water, Adam felt like he could only use it against Iron Ranks, which was already quite good since he could use it for as long as he wanted.


    After separating and understanding what the Concept of Water was, Adam didn''t start meditating on the Concept though, and instead decided to finally master his most used skill behind [Mighty Strike], [Lunar Smite], as well as [Aqua sh].


    It didn''t take long for him to finish, because he had already perfected his mastery of the skills themselves, the only thing that held him back was theck of understanding over the rted Concept.


    And so while bathing in the cold water in the middle of the great iceberg, Adam finally mastered his skill. However, he wasn''t happy as he could be as he looked at his skill.


    Lunar Smite (C): Deal 4 flying attacks simultaneously, each of the four dealing 200% of frost damage to every opponent with a small chance of reducing their Agility by 30%. Cost: 100 Aura.


    Aqua Smite (B): Deal 5 flying attacks simultaneously, each dealing 200% of frost damage and reducing their agility by 30%. Cost: 8 000 Aura.


    First, he had mastered Lunar Smite, and the result was to be expected. Moreover, it was a good skill with a satisfying price. However, what frustrated him was his [Aqua Smite], the upgraded version.


    It was a very good skill too, but Adam knew it wascking. If others heard him, they would feel like stomping on him in anger, but that''s because they didn''t understand the skill like Adam did.


    As he mastered those two skills, he understood something. The cost of the skill depended not on his understanding of the Concept, but rather on his real mastery and experience with the skill. For example, Lunar Smite.


    Normally, it should have costed 1000 Aura, but because he had mastered it really perfectly, it only costed half the price. It was the same with Aqua Smite, although it wasn''t half the price because the skill was different, since it was inherently the same as the lower skill, he got a discount of 2000 aura, or 20%.


    But here wasn''t the problem. Instead, it came from the effects of the skill. He knew perfectly well that it hadn''t reached it''s full potential, and he wasn''t talking about the boundary of A Rank skills. Even though he had only mastered a little, he knew that further improvement could be made to the skill even if he didn''t master his Concept to 1%.


    But his 0.1% wasn''t enough either, so he concluded he needed 0.5 or even 0.9% ofprehension before he could better master his skill.


    For example, for now Adam was only able to use the ice version of the skill, but he knew he could create a de of ice, water and steam at the same time while keeping the skill within B range. And it was the same for the damage of each de, it could be pushed to 300% while remaining in the B Rank.


    That''s why, Adam was not satisfied, and he wanted to better master his concept so that he would be able to make it much more powerful, and perfect it.


    Once perfected, his skill would really be a powerful one, and he would be able to use it cross ranks to kill his enemies.


    On another note, Adam had also made a decision. He would stick to his [Lunar Smite] for his normal fights. Although his [Aqua Smite] was more powerful, it''s consumption was too great to be used casually, he would keep it for strong bosses.


    Finally, when he finished dealing with his skills, Adam started meditating on his Water Concept. What he didn''t realize though as he meditated was that the ice around him had risen little by little. Although the sun was hot in this part of the world, the piece of ice was too big to be quickly melted.


    And as time passed, because of the weird shape of Adam''s block of ice as well as it lower density, it slowly rose from the surface.


    A few hourster, when the boat for Adam, Thalia and Neith was ready, the iceberg had truly be one as it had risen more than fifty meters above the water, and even though an evenrger part was hidden underwater, anyone who saw it couldn''t help but be filled with awe.


    This was particrly the case for the yers from Dragon Temple. For the weaker vigers, a strong person and a very strong person didn''t make much difference, and although creating such a phenomenon didn''t mean much.


    However, for the yers who were strong themselves and knew of their own strength, they knew that they were very far from creating such a phenomenon. For another yer to be able to do this it was simply too overwhelming.


    So a few yers were taking pictures or even recording what was happening, as they decided to share it on online medias or simply with their friends.


    Meanwhile, Adam, who was inside and in the middle of meditation, suddenly received a message from Thalia. They had added each other as friends while they were traveling. She was telling him the boat was ready.


    Since that was the case, Adam stopped his meditation. As he looked around, he also knew he had to dissolve the iceberg. It would probably slow down their ship if he just left it there.


    So using the power of his concept, Adam quickly turned the entire block of ice back into water. Had it been natural ice, he would have been unable to do this, or it would have taken much longer, but because he had been the one who created it, he was able to change it easily.


    Meanwhile, the ones outside were astounded to see the iceberg quickly melt, except for Thalia of course since she knew this would happen already. She understood the power of Concepts, and she had been the one to warn Adam.


    As the iceberg disappeared, everyone got a view of a man standing there. It was Adam, in his usual armor. But the ones watching, the yers, were stunned. Adam was walking on water. For the inhabitants of this world, this was prettymon ced, but for the yers, even the higher ranked ones, seeing someone walk on water


    One of the yers, who had recorded the entire process, including Adam walking back to the shore, then left the game and released the video online, giving it a simple name.


    Jesus Christ?

 Chapter 158: Out of the Hospital

    Chapter 158: Out of the Hospital


    Adam saw the gazes of the yers, but he ignored them. Actually, he had done this on purpose he had to admit, one of his bad points was that he was a show off, but it was fun to see the look on their faces.


    He joined Thalia and woke up Neith through their mental connection. When the yers saw Neith get up from the ground though, they couldn''t help but be scared. Not because of her appearance, they had already seen her for most, but because they didn''t even know she was nearby.


    This meant she had quite good hiding capabilities, and made her much more dangerous than she already was in their eyes.


    As for Neith herself, she was yawning because she was just awakened, and the moment she arrived next to Adam and Thalia she began stretching. Adam found the gesture cute and even patted one of her legs, but the people surrounding them were horrified when they saw thoserge pir like des of legs stretching out.


    Not far from the group, the captain of the ship looked at Neith and said ufortably "Kind sirs I fear my humble boat isn''t big enough for your friend."


    The man was careful with his words as he was one of the vigers who traveled the most, and he knew that while some would treat their pets as just that, pets, others saw them as friends, or even family for many.


    The captain was relieved when Adam smiled at him and said "Don''t worry, she and I will follow you." The captain didn''t ask how, as he too saw what Adam just did in the canal, and there was indeed no need for such a man to use a boat to go across the canal, except for the most dangerous areas maybe, but they didn''t n to get there anyway.


    Soon, the boat sailed off the vige, but only Thalia was on the boat, while Adam and Neith were following behind underwater.


    Adam had quickly taught Neith [Water Breathing], even though she was attuned to the Earth Concept she still learned it in a matter of minutes, it really wasn''t hard to learn. After that, Adam used the power of his concept to create a current of water that would always keep them close to the boat.


    This also had the effect to make the boat a little faster, but the difference was very minute, and none of the sailors even noticed. Then, using the time they were traveling, Adam taught Neith everything he knew about the Concepts.


    He wished he could have just left her in the vige and summoned her once they reached the other end of the canal, but this wasn''t possible. Their spirit connection had a limit, and they would be too far away tomunicate or have Adam summon her if they really did that.


    Only when they both grew stronger would they be able tomunicate from longer distances. When they both got promoted to Silver and Elder Rank respectively, they would already be able tomunicate over great distances, probably from an end of the canal to another.


    Then, when Adam opened the 5th Gate and Neith advanced to the next intermediary rank they would be able tomunicate even from different empires, and finally, when Adam turned into a Gold Rank and Neith into the rank after Elder, they would be able tomunicate and be summoned from wherever they were in the world.


    Two days went by as they trained, and the boat was still in the middle of the canal. For the past two days, he and Neith trained underwater, while following the boat, and they did not take a rest. However, it had already been five days now that Adam had been ying nonstop, and in the game world it was the equivalent of 10 days, so even he was starting to get tired.


    But more importantly, something important was happening today, in the real world, and that was his brother finally leaving the hospital!


    Since he wouldn''t be able to guide Neith while he was asleep, Adam took her back into his Pet Space and let her rest in there. Although it wasn''t a great ce to be in, she could bear with it since she would mostly sleep anyway.


    So Adam himself jumped back into the boat, but made sure no one saw him and hid himself before he logged out. While he was offline his game character would be totally vulnerable, and he would rather not have people around him if he could prevent it.


    Back in the great world, although Adam was a little tired mentally, his body was fully awake, and he could bear with this degree of tiredness. Same as usual, once out of the cabin Adam first stretched beforeing out of his room.


    He quickly greeted his parents before going to take a shower. Five days while staying inside a cabin made him stink, him and his room, which is why he also opened his window as wide as possible.


    The shower allowed him to wake uppletely and be energized once again. Fortunately, he had already told his parents he wouldn''t get out of the cabin for some time, or they would have most definitely been worried since he stayed in there for five days straight.


    Once everyone was ready they left the house and went to the hospital. There, after some wait, they were finally able to see Matthew without a hospital gown. Although the doctor told them Matt would have to remain in a wheelchair for a month, they were reassured that he was now in good health, and that he waspletely cured.


    However, as the family of four left the hospital, in high spirits, they were all surprised when they heard a sweet voice call out to Matthew. All turning their heads, they saw a cute girl the same age as Matthew, who was leaving the hospital too with her parents.


    Instantly, Adam sent a quick look at his brother''s face, and was astounded to see him blush as he waved back. One had to know that among the two of them, his brother was definitely the colder one of the two.


    He didn''t have many friends well, he didn''t have any, and he never had a girlfriend in his life. It wasn''t just because of his condition, but because he had always been very wary of outsiders, even when he was a child, and he would often stick with his brother.


    The reasons for this were multiple. One was obviously his condition, even as he a kid, even though he was in better health and could walk, he would get tired more quicklypared to other children, and in a group of energetic children being unable to run for more than a hundred meters before starting to pant made socializing difficult.


    But that wasn''t the only reason. Another reason was that he was abnormally smart. Even though Matt was four years younger than Adam, for most of their schooling the two had actually been in the same ss.


    It wasn''t because Adam was dumb, he was average at school, but because his brother crossed years. Matt started school when he was only three, because he already knew how to read, write, count, and even make addition and multiplication.


    Then, the next year, when Adam was eight, his four years old brother joined his ss. This had most definitely shocked the entire family, as well as the medias as Matt had been interviewed despite his young age and many were very expectant of his results.


    Their parents refused most of those people though, as they wanted Matt to have a normal childhood, but it was inevitable he would have a weird childhood, being with people four years older than him.


    Actually, Matt could have perfectly skipped even more grades, but because he wanted to stay in his brother''s ss he didn''t. And their parents probably wouldn''t have agreed either.


    Because of his special condition, Matt was quickly left alone, and the only one who would spend time with Matt was Adam, but even Adam couldn''t always be with him either. He had friends himself, and he couldn''t just abandon them.


    This all resulted in Matt bingpletely paralyzed socially, as he would subconsciously or not reject people he didn''t know.


    So when Adam saw his cold little brother act like this in front of someone else, he was indeed quite shocked. But after a moment, a wide appeared on his lips. He was happy for his brother. But at the same time, as he looked at the girl, he felt a little cautious.

 Chapter 159: Back

    Chapter 159: Back


    The girl was tall for her age, which Adam estimated was simr to his brother''s, and was in a good shape. But Adam could feel something more, and that was something only he could feel. The power of Gates.


    The girl had opened the First Gate, and that wasn''t all as even though she did not have any Qi, Adam could still feel her body was stronger than any athlete, she was probably an Intermediate Body Refinement Expert.


    One has to know that even an Early Body Refinement martial artist was slightly stronger than even the top athletes of this world, they would have world record speed, strength and better senses than any other human.


    That is to say, the only way for one to reach this realm was to receive a special training, or open the Third Gate which would automatically push the body to it''s first limits and allow the user to reach the peak of the Body Refinement Realm.


    The girl wasn''t here alone either, as she was apanied by two older people who bore a striking resemnce with her, most probably her parents.


    Both of them weren''t normal either as the father had opened the 2nd Gate and the mother the 1st Gate. In term of strength though, the father felt like he was a Level 45-50 Bronze in the game, meaning he was most probably a Peak Qi Refining expert, while the mother was a step further, and so certainly an early Foundation Establishment martial artist.


    If he had any doubts before, they wiped them away as they could only be martial artists. Moreover, they were likely part of a powerful faction.


    From what Adam knew, the few Legend Rank, or Golden Idols, were all the gods from the legends, and they had attained their power through faith power, so it was safe to assume that humans were only capable of reaching the Nascent Soul Realm, and there shouldn''t be much more of them than there are Legends.


    If the Nascent Soul Realm was the absolute peak humans had trained to, then Core Formation experts were certainly the elders of the powers created by the Nascent Soul experts, so this meant even a Foundation Establishment Realm expert had a rtively high position in those powers.


    All of this made Adam wary of this family. He wasn''t scared though, as he was already standing near the top of this world in term of power. He wasn''t there yet, but not very far either. Although he was only an Intermediate Qi Refining cultivator, he had opened the 3rd Gate, making his raw power much higher than his actual cultivation realm.


    Since not many had sessfully opened the 3rd Gate, the ones who didn''t would need to be quite strong in the Core Formation realm to defeat him, this was even more exaggerated than in the game. But there was a reason for this. In the game, the gap in attributes would be shortened by equipments, but there was no such things on Earth, as far as he knew.


    That''s why, unless one was a Gold Rank, or Core Formation realm, or had opened the 3rd Gate, their raw power would be below Adam.


    And that was only talking about raw power. Adam had also opened andpletely mastered the 4th Gate, which was an unparalleled feat on Earth, his sword arts were the best too, and he had even begun to understand a Sovereign Concept.


    For all those reasons, while he was on Earth, the only ones capable of defeating him were probably peak Core Formation cultivators, or even Nascent Souls ones.


    That''s why, even if the other side were to find problem with him, he could manage. And if they were shameless enough to send a Nascent Soul or higher after him Sofia, or Gaya, was still there, and she would most certainly not let her Champion get bullied.


    On the other side, while the girl only had eyes for Matt, her parents were looking at Adam with shock. They owned this hospital, and their daughter was sent here because she had gone a little too far in her training and injured herself.


    It was nothing unusual, many youngsters in their world would push themselves beyond their limits for their training, and here it had even been a good thing since their daughter had opened the First Gate, bing a top genius in the human race overnight.


    So when they heard that their daughter, who turned out to be an S Grade Talent, took fancy of a cripple in their hospital They immediately investigated that cripple.


    So they were shocked when they discovered this cripple was the one who had all his charges paid by Gaya Inc, he had made quite a wave. Or rather, his brother had.


    Having learned this, and that the cripple would be able to stand and live a normal life in the future, their displeasure slowly disappeared. They didn''t believe a cripple could make their daughter happy, but since he would be able to stand in the future, their problem disappeared, and they decided to let their daughter continue talking to the boy.


    After all, if that boy had sessfully seduced their daughter despite being crippled, ignoring physical matters, then they certainly had an affinity.


    More than that, they were also curious about the famous Valiant Heart, they yed the game themselves and were part of a First Tier Guild, so they had heard plenty of him, they were curious about how he would be in real life.


    But now that they met him, they were stupefied. They felt such power emanating from the young man much, much stronger than them. They finally understood what a Sovereign was. If the difference between them in the game wasrge, in the real world it was beyond huge.


    While Adam and the girl''s parents were gauging each other, the girl approached Matt, walking quickly, and finally looked at his family. While she did that, Adam also decided topletely hide his aura, to appear as a normal person. He didn''t want to scare off his brother''s girlfriend.


    But still, as the girl looked at Matt''s family, she was a little surprised too. While Matt was thin and only slightly taller than her, her family members


    The woman, whom she assumed was Matt''s mother, was about as tall as Matt, but she had great forms, and although she was far from fat, she wasn''t thin either.


    But the two others they both towered over her, one young and one older, they looked very imposing, despite their friendly smiles. Even she, who was a martial artist, felt a little dwarfed in front of the two.


    The older man, who should be Matt''s father, was fine, he looked imposing, but that was it. However, for the younger one, Matt''s big brother, whom he would often talk about when they discussed Although he was smiling fondly too she felt something weird.


    She couldn''t feel any impressive powering from him, but for some reason her instincts were telling her not to piss him off.


    The reason for this was because Adam was only able to emte the effects of the 5th Gate a little, but in the end he still hadn''t opened it so wisps of his true aura would warn people with good senses.


    Despite what her instincts were telling her, the girl didn''t lose her countenance and sweetly smiled at them as she said "Hello, I am Flora, I met Matthew in the hospital and we became friends. Nice to finally meet you."


    The three smiled back to her and introduced themselves. Meanwhile, Flora''s parents came too and introduced themselves, but the three then quickly left.


    On the way back home, Matthew was harassed by his family in the car, it was a mix of teasing and inquiries. Although they were pestering him to no end, Matt was happy to finally be back to his family.

 Chapter 160: Truth

    Chapter 160: Truth


    As the Collins family came back home, Elizabeth took out a delicious looking cake. She hadn''t made it herself, since she wasn''t a baker, but had asked one of her old friends who was one.


    This was a custom cake, with meringue and raspberries as the main ingredients, which was Matt''s favorite fruit.


    As they ate the cake, Matt suddenly asked "Adam, is Epoch good?" Adam chuckled "Better than you can ever imagine. You would thrive in that game."


    Matt''s eyes shone a little as he asked "You think?" Adam nodded and said "With your brain, I believe you will be able to be one of the best mages'' to ever exist."


    Matt nodded, and after some hesitation, he asked "Was it the game that changed you so much?" Adam asked "Changed? Have I?"


    Matt replied hurriedly "Nothing bad, you grew more confident, and you have a peculiar aura to yourself Seeing your achievements, I can understand the first point, but your aura are the rumors true?"


    Adam was surprised his brother was able to feel the change that happened inside his body, but he still asked "What rumors?"


    Elizabeth and Jean also looked a bit curious, they obviously knew what he was talking about. Matt said "There has been rumors about the game. ording to those rumors, the techniques in the game can be used in reality, if mastered."


    Adam looked at the three, and first hesitated, but after a moment he concluded there was no use in lying to them. Adam''s eyes went toward his drink, and with a move of his finger, the water in the ss started floating.


    With his current mastery, although he could use it to deal with Iron Ranks, that was only if there was a water source nearby. He wasn''t yet able to condense the water elements present in the air.


    As his family looked at the phenomenon with wide eyes, the water began to take star shapes and then turned into ice. Then, he turned them into steam, and turned it back into water, and put it back into his drink.


    Then, he said "There are many secrets you do not know of But yes, those rumors are true." Jean and Elizabeth were silent, but Matt asked "Is Epoch a real world, instead of just a game?"


    Adam looked at his brother surprised, and Matt exined himself "Looks like I was right Right from the beginning, it was weird. Although VR games have already been created, and good ones already existed, the jump in term of realism and IA was too big, a singlepany couldn''t be so far ahead of all the others."


    Then, Adam nodded and said "It is indeed a true world, and the people in it are real. But you should keep this to yourself, those are secrets."


    After a moment, he continued "Since you know about it, there are other things you should know. Super Humans already exist in this world, and there are two ways to be stronger. One is cultivation, and the other the Gates."


    Then, Adam slowly exined to the three many things about the two. For the Gates, he only spoke of the first three, but he said everything he knew about cultivation, except from the powerhouses of the human race. Still, he told them he was stronger than the majority.


    After more exnations, Adam didn''t even have to tell his brother he had to start training as theter asked Adam himself. As for his parents, they didn''t really care about such things, for them as long as their boys were strong then it was enough.


    Adam thus introduced his brother to the Gate training. From his own experience, Adam inferred that opening the First Gate should be quite easy for his brother, more than other people, because he already had a good mastery of his brain, through his intelligence.


    It would also be the same for the Second Gate, he should be able to activate it more easily than others because his body has already been fighting against a deadly disease for years now.


    This should allow him to catch up to other, so that even if he didn''t train from childhood, using those two years should be enough for him to open those two Gates, he may even take less time.


    However, the Third Gate would be a great hurdle for him, because of how weak his body was. It wasn''t like Adam who could quickly reeducate his body, the reason he was able to do this was because he was in a good shape originally and lost his muscles because of overwork and stress.


    But Matt always had a weak body which is why he would first have to strengthen his body and then push it to the limits.


    In the end, it would be up to Matt as to how much progress he would be able to make. And even if he were to give up, although Adam thought that was extremely unlikely knowing his brother, even if that were to happen, it wouldn''t matter, Adam believed he could protect his family.


    Adam finally returned to Epoch, and was relieved to see he was still safe in his hiding spot. As his avatar woke up, Neith sensed the disturbance and woke up from her nap.


    Adam jumped back into the water, which no one even noticed, and summoned Neith back in the world, as they went back to their training.


    However, this time Adam didn''t train as intensely as the first two days and would often distance himself a little from the boat to kill a few monsters.


    The more they advanced, the stronger the monsters were bing. Going from Level 50, they climbed all the way up to Level 100, but Adam had no problem taking care of them. First they weren''t of a very high rank, and while in water his strength was multiplied.


    Apart from the Water Concept and his skills, Adam also worked a little on his sword, and worked on understanding and mastering his sword''s skill, [Sword Cry].


    The reason for this was that Adam believed he had understood a bit of Sword Concept as Old Adam when he created his Sword Art in the past, but he had merged his Sword Concept with his sword art so well that he didn''t really master the Concept.


    But the only way to use his sword art''s moves was to open the Fifth Gate, so to research and iste the Sword Concept he had understood, he first had to open the Fifth Gate.


    From what he had guessed, the Sword Concept he understood was extremely high leveled, and could very possibly be a Sovereign Concept as well, and it was even in the bigger percentages. It might be in the tens of percent.


    But Adam didn''t want to wait to open the 5th Gate before starting to understand the Sword Concept, which is why he decided he would start with his [Sword Cry].


    The skill came from a sword made for a Sovereign, so the skill might very well lead to understanding a part of the Sword Sovereign Concept.


    Still, it was easier said than done. Elemental skills and weapon skills were quite different from each other, and so were the concepts. For an Elemental Skill, one would need to synchronize the body and the elements to use a skill.


    However, for a Weapon Skill had to understand the weapon as deeply as the body, and synchronize the body with the weapon instead of the elements.


    Those were two very different things, and also why Adam wasn''t able to make ster progress by the time they arrived to their destination.


    After four days of sailing, their boat had finallynded on the shores of the Hellish ins, the closest ce to Hell on Epoch, as well as the headquarters of the Demon Cult for thest 1000 years.

 Chapter 161: Back to Eleyrius

    Chapter 161: Back to Eleyrius


    Actually, rather than being the headquarters of the Demon Cult, the Hellish ins was the region within which the headquarters were located. Although they were the strongest power in the entire region, they weren''t it''s absolute overlords.


    That''s why, the boat of Adam and his group could stop at a port without a problem. Once onnd, Adam and Thalia got on top of Neith as she walked straight through the little vige they hadnded in.


    The Hellish ins was known as the closest ce to Hell for a reason, and that was the overwhelming Hell Aura that existed in this ce. This Hell Aura would strengthen and allow demonic beings to prosper.


    That''s why one could find monsters from Hell like Hell Tigers, but also nts, minerals and other specialties from Hell.


    Adam had already inquired about Hell Tigers, and found out that if one wanted to find them the best spots were small mountains, they would gather there in groups that could be rtively small or big, depending on one''s luck.


    It didn''t take long for Neith to arrive to one of those small mountains, and start ughtering Hell Tigers. Those were only Level 60 Monsters after all, even though they were Elder Rank Monsters, they were far from Neith in term of strength. Neither Adam nor Thalia had to lend a hand to kill the fearsome tigers.


    After all, during their trip on the water, or rather underwater, although Adam had hunted some monsters and leveled up to Level 40, Neith had killed and eaten many more than him, and she had reached Level 45.


    For the Level 45 Neith, a Level 60 Elder Rank monster was nothing to fear, she could kill them easily despite them having two million HP each. A single attack of hers would wipe out almost half of their total HP, if she used a skill of course. Even when they attacked her in groups they wouldn''t be able to do anything more than a little damage.


    Adam himself had also grown a lot stronger, as he had gathered Level 50 equipment from some of the monsters in the Canal, and now that he had turned Level 40, thanks to the Godyer''s Heart he could equip them.


    Adam had now reced his entire Massacre Set, but he did not throw it away because he had grown attached to the set, he would store it in a safe bank when he had the time, he didn''t want to just throw it away.


    Now Adam''s Helmet, Chestte, Gauntlets and Boots were all Level 50 Rare Equipment, and even though they didn''t make him much stronger, it still allowed him to feel a small increase in his strength.


    Anyway, now that this had been handled, Adam had already gathered half of the materials for his set. However, the remaining half was the one harder to get. One would be very dangerous to get, and the other might be as dangerous, and he didn''t even know of to get it.


    While he traveled, Adam had thought about which material he should go for, and after some thinking he had decided he would send a message to King yer, to ask him whether he knew where the Land of Eternal Night was.


    After all, this friend of his always seemed to know a lot of things, so Adam bore the faint hope the assassin would also know where the ce the Vampires called home was.


    And Adam wasn''t disappointed when King yer replied to him.


    ''I know how to get there, and I even intend on going there However, I will probably cause a ruckus once there.''


    This made Adam smirk as he replied ''I''m about to shake the entire world, some ruckus isn''t going to scare me.''


    King yer replied ''Good. However, I am kind of stuck in a dangerous ce, and I will only be able to leave in a week. Make sure you are free in a week''s time.''


    Adam told him he was cool with this, and closed his chat. In the end, he didn''t have to choose. It would be the Dragon Scales first, and then the Blood Iron Ore.


    But as he thought about what he was going to do, Adam couldn''t help but feel some apprehension. He was going to piss off the entire Dragon n, and that may bring big trouble to him, to his guild, and maybe even his allies.


    However, he did not falter in his decision. Adam would sooner orter lose Gaya''s protection, meaning losing his immortality. If he didn''t want to die in this world then he had to get as strong as possible. He couldn''t just hole up just to stay ''safe''.


    His confidence burning hot, Adam looked at Thalia and said "I think this is where our paths will separate from each other."


    Thalia looked at him shocked, but Adam said "I am going to do something very dangerous, that will piss off the entire Dragon n."


    Thalia, who knew what the materials for his armor were, naturally understood what he wanted to do. She sighed and said "It''s time for me to return to my family then I can give you a lift to Eleyrius, the capital of Aldeneid. I have a teleportation crystal."


    Adam nodded, that would be more convenient than walking out of here. He could also take the canal, but whatever way of travel he used it would probably take him around a week to get to Dragon Valley, and he didn''t want to waste too much time.


    Adam looked at Neith, and seeing her nod he and Thalia jumped from her back, and he put her in the Pet Space.


    Then, he saw Thalia take out a crystal that shone with a white light. She showed her hand to Adam and said "We need to be in physical contact to both be teleported."


    Adam nodded and took her hand, and the two disappeared from the Hellish ins.


    A momentter, Adam and Thalia appeared in a dark room. The crystal in Thalia''s hands turned into powder and fell to the ground through her fingers. Thalia looked at Adam and said "This was fun I will message you when I am finished with the [Star Chains] skill book."


    Adam nodded so Thalia said "Come, I will get you out of the castle." Adam dropped her hand and she led him out of the room.


    The Imperial Pce of Eleyrius was as beautiful as it was big, and that was something to say. Although one may think otherwise, art was something very respected in this world, and as they walked in the corridors of the huge pce Adam saw the most beautiful masterpieces of his life.


    No piece on Earth could rival with anything he was witnessing, not really because of a difference in talent but more because artists in this world had extraordinary means to make their paintings or sculptures better, say magic, enchantment and such.


    But Adam wasn''t an art connoisseur, although it looked beautiful that was it for Adam. He couldn''t understand the deeper meaning in those pieces, if there was any.


    As they walked through the pce Adam also saw the looks of surprise on the faces of the guards on patrol, but none of them dared to say anything more than ''Your Highness'' as they knelt down.


    Soon, Adam and Thalia reached the wide doors of the pce, and as they stopped Thalia took out a small token. Adam immediately pocketed it, he didn''t need to be told what it was to understand.


    However, he didn''t give her his own token. His token was for strangers, but she had him as a friend with the system so if she really needed something she could directly ask. And he didn''t think she would need his help for something her family couldn''t resolve.

 Chapter 162: Holdirsons Clan

    Chapter 162: Holdirsons n


    It was his second time in the capital of Aldeneid, and the first time he had been in a hurry and didn''t take the time to enjoy the capital.


    But this time he had some time for him. Going to the Dragon Valley would take him about three days, anding back from there three other days. Killing the dragons shouldn''t take much time either, so the entire trip should take around six days.


    Hence, he intended to enjoy the capital first, before finishing his ''Lost Legacy'' Quest, to give Holdir''s n the pdin''s mace.


    As he walked in the streets of Eleyrius, Adam didn''t put on a shadow cloak as he felt there was no need. He had tried using it, but he just didn''t like it, maybe his enemies would know where he was, but he just didn''t care.


    Adam saw many yers in the capital, many more than he used to. This could be exined by the increase in the average level of yers across the world. Entering a capital city required one to pay half a Gold Coin as a fee to enter the city, and entering the capital was useless for a Bronze Rank, there would be nothing for them.


    The quests given in the capital needed at least a Silver Rank strength to be finished, and most yers were far from this level of strength. However, now that it has been slightly more than a couple of weeks since the game has been released, the yers are starting to approach Level 50.


    There were already a few Silver Ranks across the world, and although they were the top yers in the world, even the average yers had already reached Level 45.


    yers and NPCs should theoretically be able to progress as fast as each other, but yers were able to be much faster because they lived a different life.


    An NPC would have to care about their expenses, to always have a roof above their head, to have their weapon sharpened, maybe some time their family or friends would need help, or they would just be tired.


    However, a yer didn''t have to worry about all of this, at all. A yer could aplish quests all day, kill monsters and help people. This was because this was a game for them, so their mentality would always be at top form, they wouldn''t get bored of it, and don''t need vacations.


    But the biggest factor was that they didn''t fear death. An NPC would hesitate to visit a dangerous location, would make sure not to offend powerful people, and avoid anything that could bring harm to their life, because they only had one life.


    But yers could respawn, which is why they didn''t have any of those worries. Sure, dying would make them lose a level, but oftentimes the rewards would be even better than a single level. That''s why, yers had been able to go all the way to the peak of Bronze Rank in two weeks, whereas some NPCs would spend years to do so.


    However, there were also consequences. Because yers thought of this as a simple game, most didn''t care about their promotion to Bronze Rank and got low ranked sses, even B sses were considered elite yers.


    An A ss could be a core yer in even a Super Guild. Considering there were less than a hundred Super Guilds worldwide, this was pretty damn impressive. As for an S ss this would depend, actually.


    Starting from S sses to SSS sses, there was a distinction between genuine and false ones. A false S ss would be someone who only opened the First Gate after they broke through the Qi Gathering Realm, but were able to be an S ss in the game because this was the second time they cultivated.


    As for a genuine S ss, it would be one who really opened the First Gate while in the Body Strengthening Realm in the real world.


    Because of this distinction, the two types would receive different types of training. A False S ss wouldn''t be much more important than an A ss. However, a genuine S ss would stand at the peak of even a Super Guild, bing eligible for the Guild Leader position.


    But there were very few such people, which is why although yers leveled up faster than NPCs for now, they also were weaker at the same level. A hundred average NPCs could absolutely destroy two of three hundreds average yers of the same level.


    A couple of hours went by as Adam visited Eleyrius, and he had to admit, this was really a beautiful city, magic allowed the elves and Foxkin to build magnificent structures.


    Although he enjoyed himself visiting the city, it was time for him to return to Fjora. Although the city was less beautiful, it was still a great wonder to look at, and Adam felt closer to this citypared to any other, it looked closer to nature.


    However, as he appeared in the streets of Fjora, he was surprised by something else. He saw a lot of people recognizing him, and that wasn''t just the yers, but even the NPCs recognized him, and most looked at him with fervor.


    Those yers ranged from Iron Ranks to Gold ones, even people stronger than him were admiring him. Adam had to admit, this felt good, but he did his best to not care about it, and instead headed toward the grounds of the Holdirsons, the n Holdir left behind.


    They were a rather small n, but as a n residing in the capital, they were still very strong. Holdir himself hadn''t been that strong, he was merely a strong Gold Rank, but his children and descendants were even more talented as many of them were able to be Heroes.


    Soon, he reached the n''s grounds of the Holdirsons, and he had to admit, he was quite impressed. For a small n, they were much bigger than he first imagined. Holdir would most definitely be happy if he knew his descendants grew up so well. Now, he was left to wonder what kind of attitude they would have toward him.


    When the guards standing at the entrance saw him, they looked surprised, and hesitantly stopped him. One of the two asked "Greetings, Sovereign. May we know the reason for your honorable visit?"


    The guard was obviously scared Adam would get angry because he was stopped. However, Adam didn''t mind as he said "I found something belonging to your n, so I came here to return it to you. I need to see your n leader."


    The guard was relieved Adam was calm, and he said "Fine. Head toward the central longhouse, you should see other guards there. Tell them why you came, and they will speak to the n Leader. If he is free, I believe he should receive you."


    Adam nodded and walked in between the two guards, leading in the n''s grounds. As he walked he looked at his surroundings. Compared to the Clearwater Estate, where Johan and his family lived, it was a littleckluster, but that was to be expected.


    Even though the Clearwater family was way smaller than the Holdirsons n, the head of the Clearwater family was the second strongest person in the empire in term of political strength, and the strongest in term of martial strength.


    When Adam reached the central longhouse, he saw there were indeed guards, and all the doors were closed. However, Adam could still see light inside, and faintly hear voices even from a distance. There were probably a big amount of people in the longhouse.


    The guards in front of the longhouse looked as surprised as the others when they saw him, but when they heard what he came for they looked relieved. No one wanted to offend the Sovereign.


    One of the guards entered the longhouse, and a minuteter he came back, and said to Adam "The n Leader will see you."

 Chapter 163: Cant be bothered

    Chapter 163: Can''t be bothered


    Adam followed the guard inside, and saw that there were indeed many people inside the longhouse. However, the atmosphere wasn''t as festive as he thought it would be. Instead, it looked like two sides were bickering with each other.


    On one side, sitting on a big chair and surrounded by fierce looking Gold Rank Warriors, was a surprisingly young looking man. However, this young man was a Hero Rank, and probably the n leader, seeing he was in the main seat.


    [Ulf Holdirson] (Hero, Level 152)


    ??/??


    Adam had recently be capable of seeing the HP of Gold Ranks, but it looked like he was still too low leveled to see a Hero''s HP. Well, they were more than 100 levels above him after all.


    Standing across him, was an old man, surrounded by other warriors, as fierce as those surrounding Ulf, and he also looked like he was of a high standing.


    [Bram Holdirson] (Hero, Level 170)


    ??/??


    To Adam, this looked like a ssical conflicting from power, and session. The old man was weaker than the old n leader, so when thetter died he wanted to take the power, but the young Ulf, being the talent he was, became the n leader instead since he was the right sessor


    Whether he was right or wrong, Adam didn''t care, he was just here to give the mace back, he didn''t want to involve himself in their n''s affairs.


    So, before any of the two could ask him why and what he was doing here, he took out Holdir''s mace, and said "You probably heard of the battle of Neve Dorei One of the undead generals was your ancestor, Holdir. He fought bravely, even in death, and now his soul rests in Roskha. Hisst words were to ask me to bring his mace to his descendants."


    They all looked shocked at the revtion, and seemed like they wanted to say something, but Adam put the mace in front of Ulf and said "Deal with it the way you want, I''ve done my task."


    With those words, Adam left the longhouse, and as he passed through the doors he received a notification telling him he hadpleted the quest.


    As expected, the quest rewards were only XP and AP. Adam was pretty sure that if he stuck around just then, they would have offered himpensation such as Gold Coins and equipments, and that would have lowered the XP and AP he got.


    However, Adam didn''t care for the rewards of a Level 70 B Rank quest, he would rather take more XP and AP.


    As he left and put his 100 additional AP into his Strength, no one tried to catch up with him. The members of the Holdirsons n weren''t dumb, and they could understand too why Adam didn''t stay. He was here to grant a dead''sst wish, not for a reward.


    Once out of the n, Adam decided to walk around Fjora, and hopefully find some interesting things. However, while he was in the middle of the market ce, he received a message from Louisa, asking for help.


    Adam quickly asked what was wrong, but was relieved to hear they weren''t in danger. Instead, the issue was much more trivial.


    While he had been training himself, and gathering materials, they had trained themselves, and also followed the instructions he had given them.


    They were pretty simple, as long as they were able to gather 100 000 members for their guild, then they would need to message him. Of course, those recruits couldn''t just be anyone, they could only be either Iron or Bronze Rank, and they had to at least be B sses.


    Those were harsh requirements, and people might think of him as a madman for asking so many people of such talent so early in the game.


    However, this wasn''t the Earth, with only 7 billion people on it, but Epoch, a gigantic world many times bigger and thus more popted than the Earth. Actually, there were so many people on Epoch that no one really knew nor had the resolve to count how many people there existed in the world.


    But there were estimates, and they said that the value was at least in the tens of billions, maybe even hundreds. There were many, many races after all, not just the main ones who belonged to the Racial Powers.


    Adding in Adam''s increasing fame, gathering those 100 000 recruits hadn''t been that difficult actually. And this was one of the reason why Louisa sent him a message.


    First, they had finished their mission, so they needed to know what the next part of the n would be. And their second issue came from their training.


    Thanks to the opportunity given by Adam that gave them ess to the feeling of the Gates, all eight of them had sessfully opened the Third Gate except Eddy.


    While the 7 others only had to level up some more to reach the Silver Rank, Eddy hadn''t been able to unlock the 3rd Gate until now. Everyone had tried to help him by telling them how their breakthrough happened, but no matter what, he couldn''t open it. That''s why, other than asking for further instructions, they also wanted to ask Adam if he knew any way to help Eddy.


    After asking some more questions about Eddy, Adam told Louisa to start moving with the other guild members toward a certain location, and tell the others he had ordered it. Then, he would intercept them, but do so while hidden and attack them.


    She couldn''t tell Eddy, but she could tell the others. Adam''s n was simple. His suspicion was that Eddy''s bottleneck came from his mentality, and so the best way to allow him to breakthrough was to push his mind to the limit to.


    And what better way to do it than beat his friends and guild mates in front of him as he remains powerless? Moreover, it would be like hitting two birds with one stone as he would also show his new guild members his power, and steel their resolve.


    So with those new instructions given, Adam teleported out of Fjora with a new shadow cloak, and teleported to Ember City, the capital of the Azure Sky Kingdom. This was where his guild''s recruitment was done, and he had decided to carry them over there for several reasons, one of them being giving Henry a favor as this increased the number of peopleing to his kingdom, and indirectly strengthening it.


    When he arrived there, Adam directly left the city, hidden, and only summoned Neith when he made sure he was alone, and had her run toward the interception point. There, he told her to hide underground, and took out a random hammer instead of his usual sword.


    This would better hide his tracks, and he would also teach something to Johan. While his favorite weapon was the greatsword, he had still learned how to use other weapons, and he mastered the hammer to some extent, definitely much better than Johan.


    Adam didn''t have to wait for too long before seeing a literal army march toward him in the distance. Although they hadn''t yet started their training, Adam was surprised to see they were quite coordinated with each other, far from the level of a real army, but at least they didn''t look like a bunch of peasants fleeing their vige.


    As they approached toward him, Adam saw Eddy raise his fist in the air, and the whole cortege slowed down to a stop.


    Leading the whole guild were his eight division leaders, among whom were his two disciples, Judith and Johan.


    Adam didn''t really like having his guild members forming a huge line like this as if those in the back were to be attacked, by the time those in front learned of what happened it might already be toote. The ideal formation would have the eight divisions split and led by their leader, but they had only been recruited so it wasn''t time yet.


    Eddy sent a piercing nce at Adam and asked "What do you want?"


    Adam, hearing this, put on his best performance as he putted on a wicked grin they couldn''t see and said with a distorted voice that reeked of madness "I wonder how that Aqua Sovereign will react when he learns of the deaths of his littleckeys!"

 Chapter 164: Fighting Subordinates

    Chapter 164: Fighting Subordinates


    The eight instantly went on guard as Adam started releasing a powerful aura. Meanwhile, they also made the recruits behind them move back as they understood they weren''t strong enough to fight their enemy.


    Well, that and the fact Adam ordered them to. Only Eddy didn''t now his true identity. Once the weaker members had retreated far enough, Adam suddenly jumped toward the eight, and brought down his hammer with all his strength.


    He had told them to fight with all their strength as this would also be a test toward them, and now he wanted to know how they would fare.


    As his hammer was going down, none of them tried to block it and they all dodged, starting to get in their position. When Adam''s hammer hit the ground, mud sshed in the sky all around as the earth trembled, making them lose bnce for a second too.


    Adam could have used this second to attack and take out a couple of them, or Louisa who was standing behind, but he did not, he didn''t want to take away their chance to perform.


    When they got into bnce once again, they finished their formation. Louisa was standing in the back, buffing her allies, with Vodmir and Vastrik standing in front of her, protecting her from any attacks.


    Eddy, Baugh and Johan were surrounding him in a triangle, and finally thest two assassins, Breyn and Judith, were hiding, waiting for their opportunity to strike.


    This was a good formation that would allow them to fight against enemies stronger than themselves. Their weak point was the time it took them to enter in the formation, but once they were positioned then they could even threaten Adam in his current state.


    To make sure his identity remained hidden, he would use a hammer instead of a sword, and not use any elemental skills. Also, he was using a modified footwork and had to conceal a part of his Aura. In this state, he was only as strong as a very strong Silver Rank, but far below a Gold Rank. There was a big gulf between the two ranks after all.


    Unfortunately, that would only be the case if there was no weak link in their formation. The problem did not lie with the formation itself, but the ones forming it. In those circumstances, it really wasn''t hard for Adam to break it.


    A warrior''s first instinct would probably be to defend against such a formation, because there didn''t seem to be any long range fighters, but Adam knew better than this.


    First, there were still the guild members left behind who could act. But more importantly, he knew Louisa was gathering her mana to attack him.


    So he decided to attack. Of the three surrounding him, one was a Knight, one was a Swordsman and the other was a Berserker. The obvious weak link in this formation for a Berserker like Adam was the Swordsman, in other words Eddy, because of his inferior strength.


    And this was even more the case since he was much weaker than the others right now. Although Adam didn''t want to take advantage of that, if he realized it after seeing the formation once, they should know it too, and if he didn''t attack Eddy he would look suspicious.


    Activating [Wind de], his hammer became a little lighter as he jumped toward Eddy and struck him with his hammer. Normally, Eddy should be faster than a same leveled Berserker, but since he didn''t open the Third Gate, Adam was much faster.


    Eddy barely had the time to protect his chest with his sword when the hammer hit. He got sent flying backwards coughing blood, and as he rolled backwards, he only stopped twenty meters away. And even then, he could barely move, he had been gravely injured.


    Louisa stopped gathering mana for her attack, which was almost ready, and started to heal Eddy. This made Adam sigh. If she had been gathering mana for this long then it meant she was preparing herself to fire a very powerful spell that was beyond her mana capacity.


    That, in itself, wasn''t a problem as a powerful magic attack was a good way to deal with a warrior. But stopping the process meant starting all over from the beginning, and no opponent would let her.


    Eddy also seemed to see the problem and cried out "Ignore me!" But while he shouted, Adam was already rushing toward Louisa, his hammer glowing with a threatening blue light.


    Adam was able to run past both Johan and Baugh easily since they were too far away from him and Louisa, and the only ones standing in his path were the two dwarven brothers.


    Adam arrived in front of the two, and prepared himself to strike with his hammer. Seeing this, the two crossed their arms, ready to defend against the strike with their special gauntlets that served as weapons and shields for monks.


    But to everyone''s shock, Adam didn''t hit either of the dwarves, and instead swung his hammer above the two''s heads. Because they were short dwarves, it wasn''t hard to do so.


    As his hammer went past the two, it continued on it''s trajectory and the immense force behind it allowed Adam to turn around. Then, his hammer first hit what seemed to be thin hair.


    But as his hammer slowed down a little, a ck figure was revealed, and crashed to the side, into another hidden figure. Those two were Breyn and Judith, the two assassins.


    They had formed a good tactic, when Adam hit the dwarven brothers, although the two would have suffered damage from the impact, Adam would have been stopped, and most probably stunned by one of the basic skills of monks.


    Then, being stunned he would have been unable to defend against the two assassins, who would have been able to kill him in a moment since they both possessed high burst damage.


    Unfortunately for them, it didn''t work on Adam. It wasn''t that he had sensed the two assassins, on that they had done a marvelous job, but it wasn''t hard to see through the tactic for someone like Adam.


    While assassins were good at stealth and high burst damage, they also had a low health and defense, so a single strike from Adam was enough to incapacitate them both.


    In a moment, Adam had been able to deal with three of them, and it was far from over. While Adam had struck the two assassins, the two dwarves were now ready to attack or contain him, while Baugh and Johan were already standing on the other side, ready to attack.


    Adam was now surrounded in a squarish formation, but there weren''t enough of them now. Adam simply hammered down on Vastrik, and let the three others attack him. Although he took damage, he only lost a quarter of his health, and was slowed down by the spear that pierced through his side.


    But those weren''t serious injuries, and Vastrik was now out of the fight. Louisa tried to heal herrades, but now Adam was able to attack her, and that''s exactly what he did. He once again ignored their attacks, losing half of his health, so he only had a fourth of it left.


    However, even a fourth of it was still more than 20 000 HP. Moreover, Louisa was now unconscious, so she couldn''t heal her allies, and all those who were incapacitated wouldn''t be able to get back up.


    Adam finally turned toward thest three remaining, and circted his Aura at max speed through his body, recovering 5% of his HP every second. Not only this allowed Adam to heal quickly, but it also started forming a pressure on everyone present.


    When Adam had been hit his Shadow Cloak had disappeared, but it was still impossible to recognize him because he had a different armor than usual, with a helmet covering his face. Also, he had bought a potion that would turn his status into a blur, which was why Eddy had no way to know who he was.


    Now, Johan, Vodmir and Baugh were feeling stifled in Adam''s presence, and even though they knew his real identity, after having seen him take care of them all so easily, and with his aura ring at them, they couldn''t help but be a little scared.


    Recently, they had all started feeling good about themselves, no one at the same level could match them and they had even been able to kill a Level 80 with their formation when they were only Level 30. They felt like they had really be strong ones in this world.


    But Adam''s thrashing brought them back to Earth. There was always someone better, and it was why they had all submitted to him.


    For a couple of seconds, no one moved, and this allowed Adam to recover 10% of his health. He could wait and recover more, but he didn''t need it. He suddenly rushed in the center of the three and swung his hammer toward Baugh, but with little strength, and he oriented it a little toward Johan.


    A normal person wouldn''t have seen anything and just thought Adam was going to attack Baugh. But the three still had some experience and were good at fighting, so they understood from the way he attacked Adam was going to attack Johan in reality.


    So Baugh stepped toward Johan and put his shield to protect both of them. Unfortunately, Adam was at a level beyond them, and his hammer made a strange curve in the air as it swept past the two, and headed toward Vodmir''s legs.

 Chapter 165: Berserk Skill?

    Chapter 165: Berserk Skill?


    None of the three were ready when Adam''s hammer smashed against Vodmir''s legs. The blow swiped at his legs with such force that he fell to the ground, and his legs were already bleeding. But he wasn''t finished as he immediately followed by another smash on Vodmir''s side, which propelled him backwards, rolling while shouting in pain.


    Adam turned around to look at his two remaining subordinates, and threw his hammer toward Johan. There was so much power behind the hammer that Johan did not dare to block it and moved to the side. However, this forced him and Baugh apart from each other.


    Using this opportunity, Adam made use of his strong close quarterbat skills. Adam first used a grappling technique to push the shield out of the way, and then with a couple of quick jabs to the chest Baugh felt like his lungs couldn''t work anymore, stunning him.


    Then, a chop to the back of the neck was all that needed to knock him out. Although it wouldn''tst for long, he was no longer a threat. That only left Adam and Johan, the master and his apprentice.


    Adam''s first hammer had flown too great of a distance because of the strength he put behind it, Adam couldn''t just go and take it. So he took out another hammer from his inventory, this one was even more low leveled, but it didn''t matter to Adam.


    He looked at Johan up and down, and said "I expected more from the ones behind the famous Aqua Sovereign. I didn''t even have to use any skills to beat you all. If you really are this weak, then I guess he won''t be that mad if I just kill you all."


    Although he looked like he was speaking to Johan, he was actually speaking to Eddy, who was clenching his fists hard, and the one in the best condition. Johan roared though and a red light started appearing around his body. This was a sign of the activation of a Berserk Skill.


    However, before it could even be fully unleashed, Adam appeared next to him and smashed his hammer against his head. Johan didn''t even have the time to react as the hammer smashed onto his head. He fell to the ground, and the red light around him disappeared.


    Now, only Adam was left standing, the bodies of eight SS Ranks wereying all around him. One might even think they died if it weren''t for the pained grunts they were releasing.


    Adam sent a look at Eddy, but then turned his head with a sneer, and started walking toward Louisa. Eddy had clearly seen his eyes, and had seen the disdain in them. Hadn''t it been for his rage against his uselessness and his shock, he might have recognized the familiar blue eyes of Adam, but he didn''t.


    With each step Adam took toward Louisa, Eddy felt not only his fear, but also his rage grow. Adam reached Louisa, and put his hammer against the side of her head, and turned her head toward him. He muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear "She could make a good ve."


    That was finally it. Eddy felt hisst mental limits shatter as he roared in rage and unwillingness. He ignored his wounds and got up, his eyes turning red. Adam looked at Eddy, and was stupefied.


    He could feel he had opened the Third Gate, which was a good news, but he also felt something else. His eyes had turnedpletely red, and his face had lost all it''s sanity.


    Adam couldn''t help but think of berserk skills, but weren''t those skills reserved for Berserkers? However, Adam had no time to think as Eddy was already rushing toward him.


    He was moving at an incredible speed, and Adam could see that each of his steps produced massive footprints on the ground.


    In a moment, he reached Adam, and swung his sword. The sh was so fast that even the fastest in the group, Judith, may not have been able to dodge it. But Adam was able to.


    Not just because he was faster, but also because there was a big w in this strike. If he had dodged the strike with ease, then he was able to follow it with literally no problem, thanks to his enhanced reaction speed and dynamic visioning from his strengthened soul.


    And this allowed him to understand that while Eddy had gotten faster and stronger, he had totally lost his mind and wasn''t able to use his sword techniques.


    After dodging this first blow, Adam used a powered down [Ice Statue] by stomping lightly on the ground. This was just enough to freeze the area up to Eddy, and the ice crawled up his legs, freezing him up to his knees. The skill had lowered his Agility by 80%.


    Eddy tried to break free from the ice, but Adam delivered a full powered hammer strike to the side of his head. It shook his brain so hard that he immediately fell unconscious.


    Adam exhaled, and looked at the guild members watching from a distance. From what he could see, he had scared the shit out of them. However, much to their surprise, they weren''t getting ready to flee, but instead looked like they wanted to fight.


    This made him smile as he put his hammer back into his inventory, and circted his Aura in his body to clean the effects of the potion earlier, turning his status back to it''s normal state. The ones standing in front of the army were shocked when they saw the name, but their panic disappeared and got reced by admiration.


    Adam looked at the guild members and began talking with [Barbarous Roar] activated.


    "Members of Divine Predator, let me present myself. I am Valiant Heart, the Aqua Sovereign. What you just saw was a test for my Division Leaders, your future generals. Don''t panic, and stay in line. Although we just met, I have to say, I quite like you, you didn''t flee. Now, wait for a moment, I need to wake up thosezy asses."


    As he grew stronger, his voice was also getting louder with the use of this skill, and the deterrence effect was also getting stronger. There were actually many standing in the middle of the crowd who had wanted to flee, as they didn''t really believe this was their guild leader, but the roar just now had scared them so much they didn''t dare to now.


    Adam equipped his usual equipment back as he woke up the ones who fell unconscious one by one well, those he could. For the rest, Louisa took care of them. In the end, the only one still unconscious was Eddy.


    Although they all had opened the 2nd Gate and could heal themselves, status debuff like broken bones and such things took much longer to heal than just damage, so having a Cleric healing them made this much better.


    If the healing prowess of the 2nd Gate was really able to heal all injuries so fast then Clerics would have disappeared from Epoch altogether as they would be quite useless. But they hadn''t, because the 2nd Gate had multiple limits.


    Apart from not being able to reproduce blood instantly, the 2nd Gate was also unable to heal broken bones instantly either, and if the user wasn''t conscious the effects would also be lessened. That''s why, even in a party where all the members had opened the 2nd Gate, Clerics were still very much needed.


    With Louisa''s help, everyone was quickly healed back to 100% HP, and their injuries had all disappeared. However, they were looking down, feeling ashamed.


    This made Adamugh as he said "Don''t pull such faces!" Johan sighed and said "We couldn''t even do anything." From the looks on all the others'' faces, they all thought the same.


    Adam shook his head and said "There is no use being like this, you simply weren''t experienced enough to fight against me. And I don''t ask you to be able to match me. My advice for all of you is to spar against each other, this will allow you to learn each other''s strengths and weaknesses to better your teamwork, and it will also help you be more experienced with fighting."


    They sighed and said nothing. Inside, they were still dejected. Soon, Eddy awoke too, and although he looked confused at first, the others exined to him what happened. In the end, he too sighed, and although he was happy he opened the Third Gate, he was upset he wasn''t able to do anything either.

 Chapter 166: Guild Arrangements

    Chapter 166: Guild Arrangements


    Adam was curious about Eddy''s berserk skill, and even wondered if Eddy had been conscious he used it. However, after asking Adam learned that Eddy was able to use this skill thanks to his SS ss which allowed him to use Berserk skills.


    Although Adam was a little disappointed, as it could have meant producing berserk skills for all their members, he moved on and took the lead of the guild. After some reassuring from his eight Division Leaders, all the rookies in the guild had been convinced this was really their guild leader.


    It was definitely very impressive to see 100 000 people moving out together, even the Azure Sky Kingdom would have to gather all the guards within the capital to gather such a big army. Of course, their soldiers would be higher leveled, and there were still the soldiers present in the other cities, but it still showed how impressive it was.


    Adam didn''t tell anyone what his ns were, and just lead everyone to a destination he had chosen for a long time. However, as they arrived near a big river, everyone behind him looked troubled.


    There was a big river in front of them that was twenty meters in width, and there were no bridges in sight. Although most of the guild members knew how to swim, the current was strong, and there would be monsters underwater.


    But Adam didn''t stop, and as he ced his foot on the water, instead of diving, his foot stopped on the water. However, at the same time ice spread out, and in an instant the 50 meters in front of him had been frozen.


    An ice bridge appeared in front of everyone, resolving their problem. The rookies looked at their guild leader with even more admiration than before, while his Division Leaders looked even more depressed, the gap between them was even wider than they originally thought.


    They were even more surprised when they found out the ice wasn''t slippery at all, which was something that would have been worrying considering they were all very heavy since they all had armors on.


    As the army left the river behind, the ice began quickly melting and Neith appeared from underground. As she appeared, she began training. Adam had asked her to create a permanent bridge so that they wouldn''t have to worry about how they woulde back.


    Back to Adam and the rest of his guild, they quickly arrived at a big area. Here, one could see monsters going from Level 10 to Level 60, and of different kinds. Adam stopped his guild members before entering the area, and finally told everyone what his training n was.


    Adam preferred quality to quantity, and that''s why the training program of his guild was going to b ruthlessly hard. Every guild member would have to train in this area until they reached Level 50. When they do that, they would be allowed to start their promotion quest, and only those who sessfully became Silver Ranks would be allowed to leave the training grounds.


    But the training itself was going to be very hard. Every recruit would have to start fighting monsters that were 2 levels ahead of them. While they fought, no help would be provided, meaning that even if they were on the verge of dying, even if they were SS sses they wouldn''t be helped.


    When they heard this, many of the people in the crowd paled, obviously scared. But Adam didn''t care about them and simply continued.


    If they were able to leave with their life, they would be allowed to rest and recover before being sent back to fight against the monsters. Only when they were able to kill monsters two levels higher than themfortably would they be allowed to fight against stronger opponents.


    While they were in the training period, the guild members would be treated as nothing but cannon fodder. Only when one became Level 50 and was able to fight enemies 5 levels ahead of themselves would they be allowed to take their Promotion Quest.


    If they seeded, then they would be promoted to the Elite Status, and be allowed to join the guild and leave the training grounds. Then, if one wanted to go higher up the ranks one would need to have a good talent.


    The ranks above Elite was Captain, Commander and Division Leaders. However, only the Guild Leader could appoint a Division Leader. As for Captain and Commander, one would have to show sufficient talent in a certain area.


    But that wouldn''t be for now, as none of them were even close to reaching Level 50. Following Adam''s instructions, the highest leveled ones in the crowd were Level 30, ignoring his Division Leaders of course.


    As for their living expenses, they would have to find food by themselves, their training consisted of hunting monsters after all. As for the Vegetarian ones, there was a big forest nearby within which they would be able to find food too.


    The guild would also pay for their sleeping arrangements though, at first they would sleep in cheap hotels in Ember City, although there were 100 000 people here, one tenth of them, almost all the yers, had already left because they felt asking them to fight monsters five levels stronger was unreasonable.


    For 90 000 members, Adam was receiving 500 Gold Coins every week from his mine. Although 90 000 people was a big number, 500 Golds was actually quite a sum, it was like 5 millions Copper Coins, and a night in a cheap hotel was between 1 and 3 Copper Coins.


    Moreover, that would only be for the beginning of the training. Adam expected at least half of the rookies to die by the end of the week, meaning from the 2nd week on he would only have to pay for the amodation of less than 50 000 people.


    If he could, Adam also wanted to start building a small settlement near the training area, so that his guild members wouldn''t have to go to and from Ember City every day. Getting a permit for starting to build from Henry shouldn''t be a problem, and Adam wasn''t even sure he would need it since it was only a temporary settlement anyway.


    When Adam finished giving his instructions, almost all the yers had left, leaving 90 000 people, but for the NPCs none of them had left.


    This was because this wasn''t surprising to them. Actually, it was a good opportunity. Although Adam had said they wouldn''t be able to receive anyone''s help, it was still much better than training by oneself in the wilderness.


    While one couldn''t get help from someone else to deal with the monster they are facing, they won''t have to worry about other monsters ambushing them in the middle of their fights.


    If they wanted to train in the wilderness, there were many things that could kill them, like running into a higher leveled monster or a big pack. But here, they would be able to train freely. As for those who would die the vast majority of rookies were Northmen, and they would rather die trying than leave now.


    As the rookies began swarming the area, Adam had his Division Leaders start observing the ones who had the best talents, and form their own divisions. They would be free to select who would be able to be Captains and Commanders.


    Once he was done giving all his instructions, it was already night, so Adam returned to the City with the rest of his guild, and gave a few hundred Gold Coins to his Division Leaders and let them arrange everything for the guild members, before joining an Inn himself and logging out.

 Chapter 167: Olyvalone

    Chapter 167: Olyvalone


    Back in the real world, not much happened. Adam followed his usual routine as he took a shower, changed, ate with his family before returning to his room to meditate. While in the real world, Adam worked not only on his cultivation, but also onprehending the Fire Concept. To do so, he just took a lighter, and burned himself.


    It was painful, but it was the best way he had found to understand fire. For most of the night, he just kept burning himself, but toward the end of the night, as the sun started appearing in the sky, Adam began feeling a connection to the fire.


    Using this connection, Adam felt able to slightly control the me, and make it burn hotter, or cooler. Once he found this initial understanding, Adam also began finding strange connections to his Water Concepts.


    It wasn''t simrities, but instead drastic differences, and yet Adam felt like those were like the two sides of a coin. This was a very strange feeling, but nheless Adam felt like his understanding over fire advanced by leaps and bounds thanks to the weird connection he felt between the two elements.


    When Adam logged back into the game, he sent a look at his status. As it turned out, his Fire Concept had reached 0.1% and was a Sovereign Concept, just like his Water Concept.


    Like the Water Sovereign Concept, the Fire Sovereign Concept had several forms. Pure fire, smoke andva. However, he couldn''t shift between the three forms like he could with water.


    Liquid, solid and gaseous were three forms of water, but were essentially the same. However, fire, smoke andva were very different from each other. This meant the fire element had less adaptability than the water element.


    However, while there were drawbacks, there were also advantages. First, Adam could use his concept to now create a me out of thin air, unlike water that needed him to use an already existing source of water.


    Although Adam felt like he would be able to to create water from the particles in the air, he would need to reach a much higher level for his water concept, or maybe even reach the Water Sovereign Essence level.


    If Adam wanted to use the magma form of the Fire Element, he would also need to mix fire and earth, meaning that if there weren''t any mud near him then he wouldn''t be able to use it. But again, while this made using magma attacks much harder, magma element attacks were among the ones that dealt the most damage amongst all the elements.


    Still, if Adam wanted to really use his Fire Concept, he would have to create skills for it. However, even if he did so, he would try to only use it on Earth, because of how his body was made.


    Because of his ss, the body of Adam''s avatar in the game was affiliated to the Water Element, and so his meridians rted to water were much wider than those of the same element, which resulted in attacks from other elements costing much more Aura, if he wanted to use them.


    For example, if he used a Fire skill of the same power as Ice Statue, it would cost 16 000 instead of 8000.


    Anyway, Adam summoned Neith back to him as he reached the teleportation array in the middle of Ember City. She wasn''t far from the city so he had no problems doing so. He directly put her in his Pet Space as he teleported to Fjora.


    Now, his destination was the Dragon Valley, which was located between the Colnds Empire in the North and Feynwoods in the East. If one wanted to go there, they could use either path, the time used would be pretty simr.


    Because he never set foot in Feynwoods, and that it was an allied force to Colnds, Adam decided to teleport there, which would allow him to discover a new region of this world. A bit of tourism was going to be great before doing what he had to do.


    Actually, Adam felt a little reluctant in killing all those dragons, although he was set to fight against them in the end, he still felt like this was too early. Bing an enemy to the whole dragon n was obviously going to burden all his allies, and it would throw the world into a political mess.


    Although in the end the Colnds Empire will most probably be able to protect him, his guild and other friends might get targeted by the dragons.


    And all that for an armor he would only use for the Silver Rank. During the past few days he had already asked Morbash about enchanting the armor, and thetter told him that if he went to see a good Enchanter he should be able to include a leveling function to the armor.


    But even then, because of the materials used, the strongest this armor could get to, even with enchantments, was Level 100. Risking so much for an armor that would be useless as he reaches Gold Rank didn''t feel right.


    However, he didn''t have a choice, even if he didn''t want the armor, it had also turned into his Promotion Quest, meaning that if he wanted to be Silver Ranked he needed toplete this mission.


    All in all, Adam felt troubled, and so visiting the great Feynwoods should alleviate his mood.


    So Adam used the array in Fjora to reach out to Olyvalone, the capital of the elves in the West. As his surroundings changed, Adam was stunned by what he saw. He expected the capital to be close to nature, those were Wood Elves and Fae after all.


    But Olyvalone was not just close to nature, it WAS nature. Of course there were houses and shops, but they were in the trees, the trees had been morphed to form them. This was a sign of the famous Nature Magic they were famous for.


    Moreover, one could see many monsters here, all of various sizes, and more importantly, friendly. This was due to the races making this Racial Power, namely the Wood Elves and the Fae.


    Wood Elves were naturally good at Nature Magic and Archery, while the Fae were the best summoners in the entire world. Actually, summoners were looked down upon by most yers, because in their early period they were very weak, they couldn''t fight themselves and their summons were weak. So there were very few Fae among yers right now.


    However, a good summoner could be a one man army, and the inhabitants of Epoch knew that perfectly well, which was why no one dared to attack Feynwoods despite it''s apparentck of defense.


    Adam left the teleportation array and summoned Neith. As expected, despite the appearance of a nearly twenty meters tall ck spider didn''t surprise or frighten anyone, she just passed as another monster. Moreover, no one would just look at her status for no reason, so she was just a monster among many here.


    Adam had Neith walk toward one of the nearby shops as he had asked around where he could find a map. Adam needed to teleport to a city in the north of the nature empire, so he wanted to update his map.


    Maps of entire empires were costly, costing several tens of golds, but Adam still bought it as having a map of the entire world could be quite the advantage in the future.


    After buying and extending his map, Adam decided to explore the capital a little bit as he was curious about the strange ce. As someone who lived in the present world, nature had already started disappearing from his world, as humans destroyed the inch by inch every year.


    Although there still existed natural forests and beautifulndscapes, less and less people would go there, as the life there wasn''t asfortable as in the cities. That''s why, Adam took a liking to Olyvalone right away.


    However, no matter how he felt about the capital of Feynwoods, it was time for him to leave, as he had dragons to y.

 Chapter 168: Lesser Holy Water Fruit

    Chapter 168: Lesser Holy Water Fruit


    After teleporting to a city in the North of the gigantic forest of Feynwoods, Adam had Neith head toward the East, to the Valley of Dragons.


    Although monsters were not all treated as enemies and even weed into the cities of Feynwoods, not every monster was friendly too. Many of them were hostile to others, and just like other monsters in the rest of the world.


    Moreover, as Adam approached the border between the Valley of Dragons and Feynwoods, he started seeing monsters that looked like hybrids between dragons and other races.


    This was one of the characteristics of dragons, they were known for their lust and procreation need. The reproduction rate of dragons while in-mating was low, but when breeding with other breeds their fertility was bigger than any race, which resulted in many hybrid races known as Drakes.


    Drakes had strange genes though, and were often very hostile monsters that would attack everything that wasn''t dragon, and were generally disliked.


    Although dragons were one of the strongest races, if not the strongest race individually, not many people liked them, because of the drakes. Even a Gold Rank Dragon had the ability to transform, meaning they could change into most races to mate, including those of the Racial Powers, and create drakes within their ranks.


    Drakes would be used as ves or servant within the Valley of Dragons, but in the outside world, no matter what they did, be it ughter, **** and scavenging, the dragons would not take responsibility.


    This was also why Adam dared to do what he was going to do. Even if he yed so many dragons, he would most definitely be protected by all three racial powers of the Light Faction. And even the Dark Faction powers most probably wouldn''t support the dragon n to kill him since he didn''t offend any of them.


    As usual, Adam let Neith take care of the monsters on the way as he focused on his meditation. Of course he would still kill quite some monsters as he practiced with his skills, meaning he still got some XP.


    The monsters on the way were mainly between Level 80 and 110, with some slightly higher than that. They even met a Level 110 Elder Drake at some point that had needed Adam and Neith to work together to defeat.


    Three dayster, Adam and Neith finally entered deep into the Dragon Valley, where the true dragons were. To be more precise, they were appraoching the region where Water Dragons resided. After all, dragons were a wide race, and had many sub races among them, and what Adam needed was a Water Dragon''s reverse scale. Well, 50 of them


    The point was, they were about to meet and y the dragons. Adam also found out that the more he approached the valley, the more reluctant he felt. Wasn''t it for his promotion quest, Adam definitely wouldn''t kill those dragons for just an armor.


    But he had no choice now, and so he had begin to think about ways to protect his guild. The obvious way was to strengthen them, but it was more of a long term solution. Well, maybe he would find a solutionter on.


    The Water Dragon territory was a giganticke with many inds of various sizes here and there. The closer one came to the center of theke, the bigger the inds would be. The waters were upied by, of course, the Water Dragons and their Drake subordinates, and no other monsters were allowed. If one saw a being that wasn''t of either races, then they were either a guest, or an invader.


    Dragons were very territorial, so they didn''t take it well when people came in uninvited. Unfortunately, they were set to be upset today.


    With Adam''s help as he created a current, Neith swam on the surface of theke. From time to time, they would stop on inds and observe their surroundings, to spot dragons as soon as possible.


    But even an hour in theke the only things they had met were drakes, and no signs of dragons were spotted.


    But it was when they passed by one of the smallest inds that looked quite inconspicuous that Adam felt a familiar pulseing from his hand.


    In a moment, he understood he had located yet another part of the Godyer''s Heart. He had Neithnd on that ind and followed the pulse.


    The ind was very small, and no drakes or dragons lived on it. Adam then had Neith excavate the ground, as she was the best at doing that.


    The two had to go five meters in the ground to finally reach what they sought. A firmyer of ores blocked their way to the two hearts. Adam guessed those were special ores, maybe magical, or enchanted, as he couldn''t feel anything amiss even from where he was.


    Adam sent a look at Neith, to order her to remove the crystals, but he saw her gaze was fixed on the crystals, and some saliva dropped from her mouth.


    ''Neith?''


    Neith woke up with Adam''s telepathic message as she regained her bearings and replied ''Sorry, it''s just those ores. I have to eat them. They are very precious to me. They can make my promotion to the next rank much easier.''


    Adam was surprised, but he didn''t care about the ores himself anyway so he dly told her to eat as much as she could. Neith happily did as she was told, and soon, a hole had appeared in the barrier formed by them.


    With this hole, Adam started to feel a strong energying from the hole. Hadn''t it been for the pulse, he would have never known there was anything here.


    What excited Adam was that he could feel there wasn''t just a Godyer''s Heart in there, there very might well be a second one. But more importantly, there was a third energy source, which didn''t lose out to the two hearts in the least.


    Instead, it felt even stronger than the two hearts in term of energy. Once the hole became big enough, Adam was finally able to see the situation inside.


    It wasn''t just a small space, as Adam had originally thought, but instead a big room like space surrounded by the strange ore. The room was even bigger than Neith herself, which was impressive by itself.


    The room was filled with Gold Coins, there were literal mountains of them. And in the center of the room, was a small tform, on which three items sat: Two Godyer''s Heart, and a blue fruit.


    Seeing the gold mountains and the fruits, Adam was iparably excited or so he thought. Next to him, Neith was even more excited as she nearly couldn''t restrain herself.


    With a frenzied voice, she said to Adam mentally ''I can use this room to level up to level 50 and promote to the Elder Rank!''


    Adam''s mind was brought away from the literal mountains of gold as he looked a Neith with surprise. During their three day travel, from Feynwoods to Dragon Valley, Adam had leveled up to Level 42, while Neith was now Level 45.


    To go from Level 45 directly to Level 50 and even get promoted, this room must be very important to Neith. Adam quickly took all the gold coins in his inventory, leaving only the three central items.


    The two Godyer''s Heart would allow him to unlock another sealed power from his Godyer''s Heart, as for the blue fruit


    [Lesser Holy Water Fruit]


    Requirement: Affinity to the Water Element.


    Effect: +1000 to all attributes, +1% understanding over any Water Concept. Can only be eaten once.


    Adam''s eyes went round as he saw the fruit''s attributes. It was definitely better than the elixir Thalia offered him. Although it gave out the same amount of stats, the requirements weren''t as nearly hard to meet. But more importantly, this was one of the rare treasures that would allow one to deepen their understanding over their concept.

 Chapter 169: Xilzror

    Chapter 169: Xilzror


    Adam had already read about those rare natural treasures in the manual he had, people would mostly use them when they were nearing the peak of understanding their Concept.


    This was because the more one understood a Concept, the harder it would be to go on, meaning that going from 1% to 2% was much easier than going from 99% to 100%. And yet those fruits allowed one to get a bonus percent, no matter how much they understood.


    And Adam intended to wait too. He wouldn''t wait until he reached 99%, but rather just before he was going to be promoted to the next rank. This was because the 1000 additional attribute points would be much more useful if he used it before his promotion.


    Actually, if he took it right now it would be a great power up, not just because of the AP, but because he would be able to create A Rank skills. However, Adam didn''t want to do that, because he didn''t even master all his B Rank skillspletely yet.


    So with some reluctance Adam put the fruit into his inventory, and turned to the two Godyer''s Hearts. He had no reservation for those two though. He directly took them both and fused them with his own Godyer''s Heart, and looked at the new description when they finished merging together.


    [Godyer''s Heart] (Rare)


    All attributes: +28%


    Ignorance: Ignore Levels +10. (4/4)


    Deep Wounds: Attacks deals bleeding effect, intensity based on the attack and the difference in strength. While bleeding, healing power halved. (7/7)


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 10 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 13 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 16 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 19 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 22 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 25 hearts.


    Fusion: For this artifact to regain its power all the pieces must be fused back. Fusion rate: 7/25.


    It looked like the rarity of the heart was changing every time he got a Sealed Power, and if the math was right then once he gathered all the hearts and merged them together, this would be a Divine Artifact.


    As for the power he had just unlocked, it was a very powerful skill. This would make his DPS even higher than it was, and the ones he hit would hardly be able to heal themselves, or get healed.


    The boost in attributes was weed too as it allowed his HP to finally get past the 100k limit.


    What was great about the boost attribute of the Godyer''s Heart was that it didn''t just boost the pure attributes like other equipment, but they also took in the attributes added by skills and equipments.


    Now that he had swiped the room and nothing was left but the ores, he left his ce to Neith as she began her promotion process. As for him, he sat on the water next to the ind as he admired the number of Gold Coins he had.


    One zero, two zero, three zero, four zero well, they weren''t zeros, but the point was, he had slightly more than 10 000 Gold Coins. This was a great wealth for someone like him.


    If he were to be foolish enough to turn them into real money, first he would break the economy, but he would be able to get hundreds of thousands of dors in exchange.


    Of course, Adam didn''t care about ''real world'' money, he had way better uses for it in the gamepared to Earth. Adam intended to work on his guild more when he got his armor and promotion, so that they wouldn''t be at the mercy of all his enemies.


    Four hours passed by, and Neith was still in the process of evolving. As for Adam, he had been spending his time meditating on the Water Concept, as he found the environment to be very suitable for this.


    For the past hours nothing hade to bother them, but now Adam could see a figure flying toward them at a quick speed in the sky.


    From the distance Adam could see it was a dragon, but now he needed to know how strong it was.


    But as it approached closer and closer, Adam was relieved to find out it was small, it was only ten meters in length, meaning this was a young dragon. As expected, a few secondster it approached close enough for Adam to see it''s status.


    [Fire Dragon Prince] (Elder, Level 50)


    HP: 100,000/2,000,000


    Now, Adam felt troubled. Not because of the dragon''s identity, he couldn''t care less about that. What troubled him, was the fact it was injured. For it to be injured so gravely inside dragon territory meant he was probably fleeing from his enemies, who would be led here.


    The problem was, Neith couldn''t move, but Adam didn''t know if he would be able to push back the ones who harmed the dragon n.


    The dragonnded crashed into the water near the ind, and quickly the water started turning red because of the dragon''s blood which fell from it''s wounds.


    Adam looked at the dragon in the water, and realized it was still conscious, but couldn''t move. Since it was a Fire Dragon, it very might drown if it couldn''t get out of water. So after a moment he decided to take the dragon out of the water and dragged it to the little ind.


    As the dragon was pulled out of the water it coughed because of it''s injuries, and after a moment it opened its mouth, and much to Adam''s surprise, spoke "What are you doing here, Northerner?"


    Adam also heard despair in his voice, so he said "I''m here to kill dragons."


    The dragon sighed andid powerlessly against theke''s bed "To think I would die by the hand of a mere Bronze Rank after being betrayed by my own kin"


    Adam perked up when he heard it''s words, and asked "Betrayed? Tell me about it, and I might not kill you. We might even be allies."


    The dragon sneered "Who are you to speak those words? And here I thought dragons were arrogant" Adam snorted in response "I am the Aqua Sovereign, and you are standing in my domain. So even if I kill you, you should be able to consider it a good death. Now, tell me."


    The royal dragon was obviously surprised, and after a moment he said "I guess it doesn''t matter whether I tell you are not The Dragon King has gone mad, and ordered for our Fire Dragon Tribe to be exterminated pathetic, isn''t it? Dying of infighting."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and said "You are much more cool headed than I thought a dragon would be"


    The dragon smiled depressingly and said "Whatever Since you are so powerful O Mighty Sovereign" Adam could hear sarcasm in his rough dragon voice, but he didn''t say anything and let him finish.


    " I have a quest for you. y the Dragon King. y the tyrant. Do you dare?"


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''y the Tyrant''!]


    Quest Detail: The Dragon King has presumably gone mad and you have been asked by a dying Dragon Prince to y the old dragon.


    Quest Level: 250


    Quest Difficulty: SSS


    Objective: y the Dragon King.


    Reward: ??


    As he said that, the Dragon Prince looked at Adam expecting to see shock and embarrassment, but in the end he was the one shocked by the greedy smile that appeared on Adam''s face.


    Adam subconsciously rubbed his palms together as he said "I can definitely do that but it will have to wait. In the future, I will definitely kill this Dragon King. Now, since you are an ally, I can''t let you die here. Do you need my help to heal?"


    The Dragon Prince was shocked Adam had epted his quest, and after a moment he said "You are the bravest person I have ever seen or the stupidest. But I don''t think even Northerners are stupid enough You are worthy to know the name of I, Xilzror, Royal Prince of the Fire Dragon Tribe Unfortunately, you won''t get to know it for a long time"


    As he said that, Adam heard roars in the distance. He looked at the sky with shock. Flying toward them at a great speed, were a hundred blue dragons simr to Xilzror, except that they were all twice as big.


    [Water Dragon Executioner] (Elder, Level 100)


    HP: 10,000,000/10,000,000


    Adam muttered to himself "Fuck."

 Chapter 170: Die!

    Chapter 170: Die!


    Adam was more than troubled. A single one of those dragons was as strong as a Level 100 Silver Rank SS ss, or a Gold Rank S ss. Fighting anyone of those dragons would prove to be a tough challenge to Adam, but there were one hundred of theming here.


    Adam looked at Xilzror, who said "We have no chance of surviving I would have been sorry to have implicated you, but since you came here to kill dragons, I guess you can call this karma."


    Adam sorted "Karma''s a bitch." He then looked at the hole where Neith was, still absorbing the minerals inside. He had to buy enough time for her to finish her promotion, and then they would get out of here. Even if he died, as long as he could take her inside his Pet Space it would be enough.


    Adam looked back at Xilzror as he asked "Can you fight?" The dragon prince shook his head and said "I am too heavily injured."


    As Adam sighed, the dragons stopped right above them, and one of them took the lead.


    [Water Dragon Princess] (Ancestor, Level 100)


    HP: 20,000,000/20,000,000


    The Water Dragon Princess roared before speaking with a terrifyingly loud voice "For our King has ordered your death, you shall cease to exist from now on Anyst words, worm?"


    Xilzror snorted back "Stop the theatrics bitch." The Water Dragon Prince was seemingly enraged as she roared once again, exuding a violent killing intent. Suddenly, all the dragons flew into a formation as they opened their mouth toward the little ind.


    Adam''s face changed, and so did Xilzror. However, it was toote to escape, not that Adam would have escaped since he couldn''t let Neith on her own. Water gathered in all the dragons mouths as they suddenly released a hundred terrifying Water Dragon Breaths.


    There was a central beam of water twice as big as all the others, belonging to the Water Dragons Princess, and it was surrounded by 99 other beams of water. Any one of those would be enough to kill a Level 100 Silver Rank, and when they were all gathered together, even a Peak Gold Rank would undoubtedly die.


    Adam greeted his teeth as he activated [Totemic Rage] and jumped in front of the terrifying attack and punched toward it. As the water made contact with his fist, he activated [Ice Statue], using a tenth of his Aura doing so, and then hurriedly used all the rest to protect his body as much as could.


    A big part of the water attack was frozen, but unfortunately it wasn''t enough in the end. Breath attacks were the skill dragons were renowned for, and everyone knew this was their most powerful attack.


    So even as a part of the attack was frozen, it was quickly smashed apart, and hit Adam. He crashed into the ind, and so did the breaths. In an instant, the ind was smashed to pieces by the joined attack.


    Up in the sky, the Water Dragon Princess and her subordinates stopped their attack as the ind waspletely destroyed, but as she was about to call for the retreat, she was shocked to see the Bronze Rank human that dared to take their attack head on was still alive.


    Indeed, Adam hadn''t been killed by the attack, and wasying on the remains of theke''s bed. He was in a bad shape, but his injuries were recovering at an astonishing speed.


    Although that attack was powerful enough to kill a Peak Gold Rank, Adam had a 75% resistance to Water Attacks. Moreover, he had used an Ice attributed skill to lessen the power of the attack, which resulted in Adam weakening the attack, and hence surviving.


    Laying against the sea bed, Adam felt his body was painful, but it was still alright. He turned his head to the side, and was extremely surprised to see Xilzror was still alive, although his condition was even worse than before.


    He looked at the other side with panic, but couldn''t see anything. He began panicking, because he couldn''t feel his telepathic link with Neith anymore. The sensation was very ufortable since he had grown ustomed to feel her mind at all time.


    And although he didn''t want to think about it, the only reason as to why their link would be broken Adam''s emotions began turning into a mess as many bad emotions appeared in his head.


    After a couple of seconds though, his [Totemic Rage], which was still activated, had a strange reaction as it seemed to enter his mind, and among all the emotions he was feeling, his anger and wrath started boiling.


    Adam knew something wasn''t right as his killing intent began building up uncontrobly, but feeling the missing link, he just couldn''t care anymore. And so, he let go.


    The moment he did so, the already building killing intent skyrocketed as Adam released a beast like roar that dwarfed even the ones from the dragons. The Water Dragon Princess felt fear for the first time against the human, and knew that if she just let him do whatever he wanted to do, she would be in danger. So, she ordered for another attack.


    While the dragons charged up for another attack, Adam finally lost his mind as he rose from the water. His killing intent, that had been building up in his body, erupted out of his body like water out of a broken dam and crashed into the minds of everyone present.


    The world seemed to be turning red as the dragons began shivering unconsciously. However, none of them stopped their attack, and in a moment, they unleashed their attack. Standing on top of the water, the beastly Adam saw the iing attack, but he didn''t seem to care as he released another roar, and his body started expending.


    While it grew at an astonishing speed, his hair started growing and turned white. He was transforming. But before he could finish the transformation, the attacks hit him. He had already expended to be a thirty meters tall giant, and the beams hit him in his unprotected belly.


    The attack was so powerful that it directly drilled a hole into Adam''s body, destroying all his internal organs, including his heart. Although Adam had lost his mind, the system hadn''t, and in his status his HP dropped to 0.


    The transformation was suddenly stopped as Adam''s HP dropped to 0, and he began tumbling down. Xilzror, who thought there was hope, sighed at the gigantic body. In the end, it was still going to die.


    The Water Dragon Princess in the sky released a sigh of relief, she didn''t know how it was possible, but as the human transformed the danger he gave out was building higher and higher too.


    "DIIIIIIE!!!!!!!!"


    When she felt that it was finally over though, a screeching from under theke''s ground echoed through the earth and the water, and finally into the sky. The dragons began writhing in pain as the screech carried a sonic attack with it.


    As they wondered what was happening, the earth suddenly exploded, as if a bomb exploded under it, except that there was no bomb, but a 50 meters tall spider bursting out of the ground. This was, of course, Neith.


    She jumped out of the water and rammed her body into the crowd of dragons and waved her legs around. Her eight legs smashed into two different dragons, and although they were known as the kings of the sky, they couldn''t even resist as they were killed.


    Then, instead of falling, Neith was shockingly able to float in the air as her eight red eyes looked at the dragons in absolute rage. She once again screeched, and the sound of the attack was so powerful that the dragons started bleeding from their ears.


    "Die! Die! Die!" Apart from being able to fly, she was even able to speak. Actually, earlier the reason the telepathic link had been broken was because she had finally seeded in breaking through and promoting to the Elder Rank, and the great change in power had also strengthened her mind.


    And when a monster''s mind was strengthened, they would gain nor memories from their bloodline, and so they mind would be changed a little bit, which was why for a moment the link had been broken. But for Neith, she had no doubt, she had seen Adam get hit and killed by the attack, enraging her.


    As Neith began fighting the dragons in the sky, everyone''s attention was on the fight up there, and so no one saw that the amulet hanging around Adam''s oversized neck started glowing with a green light as his skin started shedding.

 Chapter 171: Monstrous Fight

    Chapter 171: Monstrous Fight


    Back into the sky, although Neith was slower than the dragons and had trouble moving around, she was ughtering them with ease. Anyone who even approached her would get pierced through by her legs.


    Moreover, she was spraying deadly poison in the air, and an acid rain had already started forming above the dragons. As they got hit by the venom, it would not only eat away their scales and destroy their defense, but also slow them down.


    Among all the dragons, the only one still in a good condition was the Water Dragon Princess, who had a shield of water around her body protecting her.


    She was looking at Neith troubled, this was a Chosen monster, moreover a spider. The spider n was a powerful n as powerful as their dragon n, and although she didn''t know why the spider was with Adam, she didn''t want to offend the n behind her.


    But it was starting to look like it wasn''t going to be possible for them to peacefully talk to each other. Although she was reluctant to kill the spider, she wasn''t afraid.


    She charged another dragon breath and fired it at Neith. Neith tried to move out of the way, but she had turned into a fifty meters tall spider, and was too big of a target. However, even though she was hit, although she felt pain, she was fine in the end since this was only a single dragon breath, and she had created ayer of rocks on top of her body as an armor.


    After more or less brushing off the attack, Neith turned her head toward the sky and opened her mouth wide. The dragons thought she was going for another sonic attack and so they stopped moving for a moment to take the time to protect their insides from the sonic waves.


    However, Neith didn''t screech, but instead shoot out a huge amount of white webs, literally covering the sky with them. What was strange with those webs though was that at some point they stopped falling and began hovering in midair, forming a huge spiderweb in the air.


    The spiderweb severely restricted the mobility of the dragons, and any who got stuck on a web would suffer. At first, the webs were just sticky, but the acid rain was still falling, and every time a drop hit one of the strings, it would stick to it before flowing down onto it.


    So quickly all the webs also got covered in acid, and they would cut into the dragons'' bodies. The harder they struggled, the deeper they would go. Only with the help of other dragons were they able to get off of it.


    While the dragons were struggling, Neith used another skill to create hundreds of Earth spears using the ground under the water. All those spears were five meters long and one meter thick, and were definitely weapons of mass destruction.


    So when Neith threw them all at the same time toward them, they started panicking. They couldn''t even dodge because of the webs.


    But when the spears were about to hit the dragons, a thick water shield appeared in font of the spears. The spears entered the water and created huge sshes as they did so, and although they lost most of their velocity, they still went through the water shield.


    Many of them hit the dragons, but thankfully for them the spears had lost enough powers to only slightly hurt them. Moreover, as the shield was destroyed by the hundreds of spears, it didn''t just fall back in the water, but instead turned into numerous smaller water des that shed at the many webs, cutting them.


    Now freed, the dragons roared as they flew to be farther from each other. As for Neith, she looked at the Water Dragon Princess, the one who used the water spell, with hate and annoyance. By now, she had already recovered her mind and she remembered that Adam was capable of reviving, and so she wasn''t as furious as she was before.


    She knew that she better find a way to escape rather than kill them all, but that female dragon most probably wouldn''t. It didn''t cross her mind even one second though that the opponent was wary of her identity and would definitely let her go were she to try.


    Because of this misunderstanding, Neith decided to continue fighting, and she started targeting the Water Dragon Princess since she was the only one capable of threatening her anyway.


    While chaos was ensuing in the sky, Xilzror was silently recovering from his wounds deep in theke. He was astounded by the power Neith was disying, and couldn''t help but tremble thinking back of the aura Adam had started releasing earlier.


    The most fearsome thing was that even when he died, his aura was still building up, meaning he would be even more powerful than they could think.


    What he didn''t know was that the presumably dead Adam was showing signs of recovery. The hole in his chest was already half healed, and his HP, which had fallen to 0 earlier, hade back to 1, and was quickly getting back up.


    Back to the sky, Neith suddenly started plummeting toward the water, and she dived in it, creating huge waves. She didn''t stop until she hit theke''s bed, where she heavily stomped her feet. As she did so, pirs of rocks rose one after another, and started forming walls several meters thick.


    Neith jumped from theke''s bed onto one of the pirs, now she wasn''t at a disadvantage for the terrain. What none of them saw was that the sudden change of theke''s bed made Adam''s giant body fall into a crevasse, which closed quickly after swallowing up.


    As the fight above continued, Adam was finally revived, and he continued undergoing his transformation, although slower than before.


    In the sky, Neith stabbed her foot toward a pir, sending a wave ofpressed air toward into the pir, destroying it into smaller rocks. However, before the rocks could fall into the water a strange scene took ce.


    First they turned into sand, and then it looked like gravity had suddenly been reversed as instead of falling into the sea, the grains of sand began rising up.


    The dragons felt something fishy was going on, but Neith didn''t give them the time to think about it as she used another sonic attack. The dragons protected themselves, but they didn''t see that as the sound waves passed by the different grains of sand, thetter starting gathering closer to each other.


    When they realized what Neith wanted to do, it was already toote. The grains of sand were now sticking to the dragons body, and as they did so they seemed to be much heavier, slowing them down a lot.


    But the worst off in this situation were the ones injured as sand infiltrated their wounds and entered their bloodwork. Some dragons tried to wash off the sand with water, but they found out that each grain of sand was tightly stuck to their body, and were very hard to pull of.


    Even the Water Dragon Princess was having trouble getting rid of them, so she decided to take care of the one controlling them directly. With a p of her wings, she appeared next to Neith, and before the spider could react she violently bit her.


    The dragon''s fangs prated the spider''s armor shell without a problem and sunk into her flesh. However, as she did so the Water Dragon Princess understood her mistake as she felt her fangs as well as her lips corrode as they came in contact with the spider''s blood.


    She hurriedly let go, but before flying away she used her tail to pierce a hole into Neith. Neith screeched in pain, but the dragon was too fast, and too strong for her. Moreover, since the beginning of the fight she had been using her Aura madly, and she had only a little remaining.


    Even for her skill with the grains of sand, it was pumping a lot of Aura every second.


    And the Water Dragon Princess knew it as well, as she took her distance she prepared herself to deal an overpowered Dragon Breath.


    But as she was about to do that, all the dragons, as well as Neith, were petrified. From under the sea, a terrifying roar came out. That roar did not carry any sonic wave attack, but the sheer might of the sound injured everyone.


    But they couldn''t care less about those injuries, as they felt the might of the one releasing the sound. The roarsted for five seconds, and everyone here felt like they were facing one of the deadly leviathans of the Neverending Sea.


    The moment after the roar was released, a huge white arm punched through the ground and quickly reached the height of the dragons in the sky. Before anyone of them could react, the white paw smashed against the Water Dragon Princess.


    She couldn''t even offer some resistance as the paw smashed her into pieces.


    Moreover, the paw wasn''t done as ws appeared from it, and numerous flying shes were sent from them, heading toward the dragons. They tried to put on protection, but no matter what kind of shields they put up, they ended up sliced in half.


    As all the dragons in the sky died, the arm went back into the earth, disappearing from everyone''s view.

 Chapter 172: 9th Division

    Chapter 172: 9th Division


    The world quieted down, and Neith and Xilzror felt their breath return to them as the arm disappeared. After a moment though, Neith felt the mind connection with Adam reappeared, and it was much stronger than before. The strange thing was, it came from the hole where the giant arm disappeared.


    Neith began carefully approaching the hole, but as she peeked into it she was relieved to see that no trace of the giant monster could be seen, and only Adam was there, alive.


    Seeing him, Neith felt like herst doubts were vanishing away. It wasn''t that the monster had left, but it had actually transformed back into it''s original form


    Her first instinct when she felt the incredible might of that arm was to disassociate it from her master, as it was just too powerful.


    But thinking about it, Adam was already in the middle of transforming, and although she didn''t know how he turned out fine in the end, it was only obvious that arm belonged to Adam after he transformed. But now she wondered, in what he had transformed exactly to be so powerful


    Meanwhile, down in the hole Adam was feeling sore all over his body. He had just regained consciousness, and even he didn''t know exactly what happened, but thest thing he remembered were the moments before his violent rage.


    Still though, he was relieved to see Neith was safe and much bigger. Curious, he tried to look at her status.


    [Neith, Titan Spider] (Elder, Chosen, Level 55)


    HP: 4,500,000/4,500,000


    Neith had sessfully advanced, and she had be much more powerful. Adam felt that she had be even more powerful than him, which was quite impressive on its own.


    Adam swam out of the hole and looked at Neith in her entirety. Now that she had turned into a 50 meters tall monster, she had be a lot more intimidating. Traveling would be even better too.


    Adam began talking with her mentally, and learned of what happened. When he learned he had transformed into a monster, he sent a look at his status.


    He discovered a few things, first was the fact that he was weakened, all his stats were 20% weaker. Also, he saw a notification telling him about having used the one timed Ecdysis from [Medusa''s Pendant]. This was how he survived.


    Another important thing was that Adam had somehowprehended another concept, the Sovereign Concept of Self, and it had even reached the 1% mark.


    What was interesting about this concept was the fact it wasn''t an elemental one, and so it worked in a very different way. This one didn''t allow him to use the power of the elements without a cost like his Water and Fire Concepts do.


    Instead, they make him directly stronger. His attack and defense were now 1% stronger than his Strength and Endurance attributes, and they would be twice as big when hepletely mastered the concept. That meant double damage and defense.


    Lastly, he also saw that his [Totemic Rage] had changed a lot, as it was now A Rank, and perfectly mastered.


    Totemic Rage (A): Transform into your totemic self for up to one minute. Cost: All stats lowered by 50% for a day, loses mind while transformed.


    After thinking about it, Adam felt like the reason for his weakness being lower than what was written in the cost section was that he had been revived to perfect condition in the middle of transformation, so arge part of the damageing from the transformation had been healed already.


    Adam was also surprised to learn that Neith was actually able to fly now, which was supposed to be something reserved to flying monsters or Gold Ranks, but she was neither of those. She didn''t know the reason, but guessed it was because she was a Chosen, and chances were Adam would receive the same treatment.


    Adam sent a look at the Fire Dragon Prince, and walked toward him. The fallen dragon was still recovering his wounds underwater, and he didn''t seem to have a trouble breathing underwater.


    However, as Adam approached the dragon, he was shocked to see it suddenly bow his entire body before him, and say "I have witnessed your might, and I believe only someone like you can be my master. I am willing to be your mount."


    [Xilzror, the Fire Dragon Prince, wishes to be your mount!]


    Adam felt Neith be nervous, as well as a little insecure, which made himugh. He looked at the dragon and said "Sorry, but you are not worthy to be my mount. Besides, I''m already satisfied with Neith."


    Adam felt Neith sigh in relief, while Xilzror looked like he had swallowed a bitter lemon. He asked "Don''t you know the prestige of riding a dragon? Don''t you want to be a legendary Dragon Rider?"


    Adam snorted "I''m already a Dragon yer, as well as a Sovereign, so I don''t really need that to be ''legendary''."


    Another benefit Adam found from this fight was his new title, Dragon yer.


    Dragon yer: Dragons takes 20% more damage from your attacks, and be 10% weaker while facing you.


    It wasn''t that bad of a title, and could be quite useful against dragons. Unfortunately, Adam''s current title, Strith''s Champion, was much better, hence he didn''t equip it. Still, he would be known as a Dragon yer throughout the world whether he activates the title or not, and the reputation could be of help.


    Back to Xilzror, he was dumbfounded. For a dragon, acknowledging someone as their master was a big deal, and people would die to be a dragon''s master. And yet, this guy had refused him instead


    After a moment, Adam said "While you can''t be my mount, you can work under me if you can prove yourself."


    Xilzror looked at Adam with curiosity and theter said "I have a guild, split in multiple divisions If you can manage to be acknowledged by the other Division Leaders, you will be the Ninth Division Leader, and be in charge of a division full of monsters. Would you be interested?"


    Xilzror thought about it for a moment, before he sighed and said "I will get killed if I stay here, and I don''t really have anywhere to go Where am I supposed to head to?"


    Adam began walking toward the corpses of the many dragons recently killed as he said "Azure Sky Kingdom, once there if you can''t find arge army training outside the capital of the kingdom, just ask around for the Divine Predator guild."


    Xilzror nodded "I will first recover, and then head there."


    Now, Adam could finally focus on the dragons. One hundred dragons was an impressive number, and he would have much more materials than he needed. But he would still take everything.


    Adam looted all one hundred dragon corpses, and damn those dragons were rich. First, all one hundred dragons had a kind of inner space that acted like a spatial equipment, and they mostly use it to store gold.


    The mountains of gold within the cave from before numbered more than 10 000, and he got another 10 000 from all the dragons, pushing his wealth to 20 000 Gold Coins. However alluring gold was though, the other stuff Adam got was also very interesting.


    First was 100 Reverse Scales, meaning he would still have 50 spare ones once he created his armor. As for normal Dragon Scales, every dragon dropped between 20 to 60. In total, he had gathered 4000 of them. Those 4000 Dragon Scales, if sold, would be worth much more than 10 000 Golds. There was also a lot of dragon meat, which should please many cooks around the world.


    There were also tons of Level 100 Equipment, and there were as many Unique and Extraordinary Grade. Theirbined value was worth in the tens of thousands of golds too. However, he didn''t intend on selling them, he would keep them for his guild so that when his guild members reached this level, they would have ess to great equipment.


    There was also a few Level 100 essories, and there was one particrly great one that dropped from the princess.


    [Wintry Night Ring] (Unique, Level 100)


    Requirements: 10 000 Aura


    All Stats: +5000


    Wintry Night: Form a dome of ten meters around the user within which enemies are blinded and receive 200% frost damage every second for five seconds. Cooldown: 1 Hour.


    Cold Resistance: Resistance to frost attacks: +20%.


    Adam decided to equip it and rece the [Clingy Ring], which he decided he would keep to learn the skill that allowed one to stick their body to a surface, that was a useful skill.

 Chapter 173: Threatening to go to war

    Chapter 173: Threatening to go to war


    Adam''s final gain from this incredible fight was a parchment. A City Building Permit, something one needed towfully construct a city. Moreover, it was a Superior one, from the Colnds Empire.


    This meant that the city Adam could create using this permit wouldn''t be under the jurisdiction of any Kingdom, but directly under the Empire. This also meant this city had the potential to one day turn into a kingdom.


    Even the Basic City Building Permits were considered expensive, and something that only a strong Gold Rank would be able to acquire. As for a Superior City Building Permit, if one wasn''t a Hero Rank, then one could only count on luck to get one.


    However, even though he had the City Building Permit, he couldn''t build one just yet. First, one needed literally millions of gold coins to first build the city. Even if he had the gold, he also needed to find the workers needed for this, which includes many, many people. Finally, he also needs to make his guild bigger and more powerful, so that they will be able to protect the city.


    Still, despite not being able to use it for now, this was going to be very useful for the future. Putting the City Building Permit in his inventory filled to the brim, Adam felt lucky he had emptied his inventory beforeing, or he would have been forced to leave many great things behind.


    Since he had already picked up everything, Adam had Neith quickly leave the area to head to the Colnds Empire directly.


    Although Adam had killed nearly all witnesses, and the only one left was now his presumed ally, he knew the dragons would easily be able to determine he was the one who did it. That''s also why he didn''t hide, as it would have been useless.


    When the dragons realized all their children, as well as the princess of the Water Tribe, died, they would use fate magic to find out who the killer was, and Adam had no way to hide from this.


    But for now he should be okay. By the time the dragons realized what happened, he would already be far, and when they started searching for him he would be with King yer in the Land of Eternal Night.


    Now that Neith was capable of flight, although she couldn''t fly for too long, it still allowed them to bypass many natural obstacles they would originally need to walk around, and so the three days trip turned into a two days one.


    When Adam reached the first city in Colnds, he felt everything was different. Most probably because he was on top of a 50 meters tall spider. If Neith and him worked together, they would most probably be able to kill most people in the city, were he to ever need to do that.


    It wasn''t because he was able to take Neith in the city though that he would do it. It would just cause a mess, with her size. So he took her back in his Pet Space as he entered the city.


    Adam also knew that there was another reason as to why people were staring at him, and that was because news of what he did to the dragons already spread, and the one who spread the information was the Dragon n itself.


    They had spread around that Adam had killed many of their dragons, including one of the princesses of their tribe, and abducted the prince of another tribe. One had to know that the Dragon n was split in several tribes, and each tribe had a Prince or Princess, which were eligible to seed as the next Dragon King.


    So Adam killing one and abducting the other was a big matter. Moreover, the Dragon King had demanded, not asked, but DEMANDED the Colnds Empire to deliver Adam to him or he would attack the Empire. And until now, the Empire still hadn''t answered. So people were indeed looking at Adam weirdly.


    Adam quickly walked to the teleportation array, and when the woman in charge of it saw his identity, she didn''t even ask any payment as she immediately set up the array to Fjora.


    When Adam appeared in Fjora, barely a second passed when a space portal appeared in front of him, and a majestic voice said from within "Come in." Adam, as well as the surrounding people, recognized this voice as the Emperor''s.


    While the people around him were prostrating toward the portal, Adam walked into it. The next moment, he appeared in a big room, at the center of which was a long table.


    Adam felt stifled when he first appeared, because of the immense pressure he felt. Around the table sat 9 people, of which three he recognized. One was the Emperor, another was Conan Clearwater the King of the North, and the final one was Henry, who was now a Legend!


    Although Adam wanted to congratte him, he recognized this was neither the time nor the ce to do so, moreover looking at his face, he was more troubled than happy right now.


    Of all the people in the room, the weakest was Henry, who was a Legend, meaning this was a room full of Legends. Having 9 Legend Rank stare at him at the same time, as brave as Adam was, he still felt a little stifled.


    After a moment, the Emperor said "Valiant Heart You have in front of you all the Legend Ranks of our Empire, and we all gathered just for you. For your information, thest time this happened was when I became the new Emperor, not even the start of the war against the Goblin Kingdom needed us to reunite."


    Adam froze for a second, was he trying to pressure him? He knew what he did was a little inconsiderate, but he didn''t have to destroy the mood as soon as he came in


    The Emperor continued "News of what you did came to us, but the dragons can''t really be trusted for this matter. Tell us your own version."


    Adam nodded and began saying everything that happened, including the fact that he was going there to gather Reverse Scales for his promotion quest. His pride wouldn''t allow him to lie about his true intention and push all the mes on the dragons, that was a cowardly move.


    When he finished saying his story, the Emperor sighed "Is that how hard the Promotion Quest of a Sovereign is? Killing dragons really is a hard quest."


    However, Adam coughed as he said "Killing the dragons and getting their scales is only a fourth of the quest, actually"


    The Emperor froze and all the Legends around the table looked at Adam weirdly, and with some pity. After a moment, the Emperor said "Before we take any decision, since this problem was caused by you, what do you think we should do?"


    Adam thought about it for a moment, before saying "I don''t really need your protection, personally, as long as they don''t send in any Heroes or higher, but since they are in the middle of a civil war I don''t think they can afford to send Heroes or Legends."


    Everyone around the table looked at him even more weirdly, but he continued "I am confident no Gold Rank is capable of killing me, and if it''s just me being overconfident, that''s my problem. That''s why, you can simply tell the Dragon n that I can defend myself. They won''t have any reason to attack you, and will only go after me."


    Adam saw the faces of a few Legends change as he said that, so he added "To keep the Empire''s face, it''s not that hard. I will first challenge publicly the Dragon n, and nder them publicly, and say something like ''I don''t need the Empire''s help to deal with you'', so you will have a justification to not help me."


    One of the Legends Adam didn''t know said "People aren''t dumb, they will guess the reason you said that was to protect the Empire."


    Adam replied "That''s why you will also say that all my close ones, including my guild, will be under the Empire''s protection, unlike me, and that if they dare to touch any of them then you will dere war against them. As such, I won''t have to worry about them, and the only way for the Dragon n to attack me is by an upfront attack."


    The Legends looked at each other, and began thinking about his words. Actually, those weren''t exactly his words. He had already learned of the fact the dragons had spread the information and challenged the Colnds Empire while he was traveling, and when he was offline he had asked his brother for advice. This was what he had concluded was the best solution.

 Chapter 174: Troublemaker

    Chapter 174: Troublemaker


    The Legend Ranks began talking among themselves, but strangely Adam wasn''t able to understand what they were saying, their voices were all muffled and stopped him from understanding whatever they were saying.


    After some time, the Emperor finally said in an audible voice "That can be done You can go now." As he said that, another portal appeared in front of Adam, which he directly walked into. He didn''t have anything else to say.


    Back in the center of Fjora, Adam walked to a nearby inn, and ordered a drink. The people inside were obviously a little weird when they saw him enter, but after some drinking some opened up and soon Adam was telling his tales to everyone willing to hear, meaning everyone in the inn.


    After some time, as he was getting ''drunk'', he also talked about his recent adventure in the Dragon Territory, followed by a bunch of insult, and finished by a challenged. He weed any dragon toe attack him, he would wee them with his sword.


    When he was finished, he left the inn and directly took the teleportation array to Yam. He didn''t need to repeat his words to any other inn, because he knew the word would spread very quickly. It wasn''t because of the drunkards, but rather because of the bards.


    There were bards in about every city in the world, and they were all under the Bards'' Guild, which was an organization under ckheart Mountain, which was on the surface a guild for all musicians in the world, but covertly was the greatest spy organization in the world.


    Anyway, he didn''t even have to pay them to have them spread the news about his challenge. Him challenging the dragons were precious news, and any bard who spread the information would be more popr for a moment. They might secretly be spies, they were musicians before everything, so they wouldn''t say no to fame.


    Once in Yam, Adam directly headed towards Klint''s Workshop, where Morbash was using the forge in the store, which had been activated thanks to the mes Adam bought back a couple weeks ago. Next to him was the Old Klint, whose eyes were threatening to close every second.


    However, as Adam entered the shop, Klint opened his eyes fully, while Morbash sent a look while continuing to hammer on the armor. Seeing it was Adam, the young Orc smiled and said "You made quite the ruckus."


    Adam grinned and replied "But I got the reverse scales, as well as spare ones, and thousands of normal dragon scales. And a lot of Gold. It was definitely worth it."


    Klint sneered "Show off." Morbashughed "It''s good you were able to get everything you needed. Now, all you need is the Blood Iron Ore and I will be able to forge your armor. Do you have a way to enter the Land of Eternal Night?"


    Adam began taking out the massive Water Dragon Reverse Scales one by one as he replied "I have a friend who does, I''m leaving tomorrow."


    Morbash nodded and stopped for a moment his forging to take the scales inside his spatial ring. Then, the two continued chatting for a while before Adam left the Orc''s capital, back to Fjora. There, he left the city and headed toward a nearby mountain.


    Thends surrounding the capital werepletely free of hostile monsters, as the only ones left were high level monsters that were intelligent enough not to attack anyone, and the lower leveled cubs would follow their elders.


    So as Adam quickly climbed onto the side of one of the surrounding mountains on Neith''s back, even though they met many Level 100+ monsters as well as Level 150 ones, none attacked them, and many actually greeted them back.


    Adam didn''t go to the peak of the mountain though, as that would be disrespecting the beast owning this mountain, and that would give them a reason to attack him. Instead, he stopped when in a particrly cold area where he felt his Aura regeneration was ten times better than normal.


    Then, for the rest of the day Adam worked on his skills as well as his Concepts. The day quickly passed by, and when Adam reconnected in Epoch, he was ready to go to the Land of Eternal Night. King yer had already contacted him, and they had agreed to meet at 7.00 am in the real world in the Azure Sky Kingdom.


    As the groggy Neith walked down the mountain, inwardly cursing about Adam''s nature as a Northman, Adam checked on his progress. For now, he had already sessfully understood the Water Sovereign Concept up to 0.6%, which in turn allowed him to make his [Aqua sh] even better.


    Although he could only use ice based attacks, now instead of dealing 5 shes that each dealt 200% damage, they would each deal 300% damage, which was quite a good increase.


    By now, Adam''s and Neith''s capabilities were definitely top tier. Adam could take on about any beginner Gold Rank, except SS sses or higher ones, and should be able to take on a Level 120 Elder Rank monster.


    As for Neith, since she had gotten promoted, she was even stronger than Adam right now. Even a Level 100 Gold Rank SS ss, or a Level 100 Ancestor like the Water Dragon Princess, couldn''t match her. The only reason the Water Dragon Princess was able to take the upper hand against Neith was because Neith fought thoughtlessly in her rage, and there were also 99 Level 100 Elder Rank Dragons fighting alongside her.


    Although in that fight they had looked weak, that was only because the others were way too powerful. Even with his recent upgrade, Adam could only deal with them one at a time, and id two if them were to attack him simultaneously he would probably lose.


    Anyway, if it were a normal monster, instead of a powerful one like a dragon, then Neith could probably fight against monsters that were Level 130-140. That was almost a hundred levels difference.


    Actually, the terrifying thing was that amongst Sovereigns and Chosen ones, Neith could be considered quite good, as not all of them were equal. But even though she was ''quite good'', at the same level, she had absolutely no chance against Adam, showing he was at least a top tier Sovereign.


    This meant that by the time he reached the Silver Rank, it was absolutely possible that he would directly be one of the strongest among Gold Ranks, and only Hero Ranks would be able to match him.


    After that though, his ability to cross levels and ranks to fight will quickly go down. This was because there were close to no Hero Rank that hadn''t opened the Third Gate, and many even opened the Fourth One.


    The Third Gate was what allowed Adam to be much stronger than other same leveled warriors since his stats were five times higher. But the 4th Gate didn''t allow one to be much stronger than someone who didn''t open it. If two warriors are as strong as each other and one has opened it while the other didn''t, the win would go toward the one who opened it.


    But if the one who didn''t open it was stronger in term of attributes and skills, then opening the Fourth Gate wouldn''t help much.


    And even the Fifth Gate wouldn''t help much either, at least at first. The raw domain was more of a sensory domain at first, and although it allowed to suppress the ones in it, it wasn''t great for cross level fighting. Only when it became powerful enough, or when one developed an understanding over an Essence, would it be a really useful tool for fighting.


    Some timeter, a few minutes to 7.00 am, in an inn in the Azure Sky Kingdom, Adam was sitting, slowly sipping on a cup of bear. Despite the hour being early, there were already many people, because while the days here were twice as long, so were the nights, but people needed to sleep even less than on Earth.


    But amidst all the noise, Adam heard the sound of the door of the inn being opened, and he saw a familiar figure, King yer.

 Chapter 175: Urdreth

    Chapter 175: Urdreth


    As King yer walked toward him, Adam noticed something strange. King yer was barely releasing any aura, and the people around him didn''t seem to notice him, and yet they were unconsciously avoided him.


    This really fit the mysterious expert vibe King yer was always giving out. The assassin sat next to Adam and said "Long time no see." Adam nodded wordlessly, and King yer ordered a ss of wine. Adam didn''t miss the hint of disdain in the bartender''s eyes, but seeing King yer was with Adam, he didn''t say anything and served the ss.


    After a moment, King yer initiated a trade with Adam, surprising him. Still, he epted. As soon as he did, Adam saw 1000 Gold coins were added by King yer, who then said "This is your part, from the investment you took."


    Adam silently epted the deal, and an additional 1000 Gold were added to his inventory. Had it been in the past, he would have most probably been super excited, but now they didn''t seem to be much actually.


    He looked at the assassin and asked "Let''s not waste time, you know of a way to enter that ce?" King yer nodded and said "I do, and I have wanted to head there for some time now, but I was unable to until now."


    Adam asked "How so?"


    "I''m not strong enough. Without the strength of a Gold Rank, going there is impossible." Adam frowned and asked "Does one need the battle prowess of a Gold Rank, or needs to absolutely be Gold ranked?"


    King yer smirked "Battle prowess, of course, or I wouldn''t have called you." Adam nodded as he sent a nce at King yer''s status. King yer was only Level 40, which was quite good, but that was indeed a little bit low to reach Gold Rank Strength.


    Seeing his action, King yer smiled ruefully as he said "This is the reason why I want to head to the Vampire Territory, I am even weaker than you think."


    Adam titled his head and King yer said "Let''s talk somewhere more private." Adam nodded and the two got up after finishing their drink and paying up. Well, King yer paid, the bartender didn''t dare to make Adam pay.


    The two headed toward the teleportation array, and went to Fjora. There, King yer asked to go to the capital of ckheart Mountain, Urdreth. This was an unusual teleportation, and King yer had to reveal his identity to be allowed to actually go there. However, before they were teleported, the guard had warned Adam, making him smile wryly.


    Adam had been chased multiple times by ckheart in the past, and there might still be a bounty on his head, so going there could seem dangerous. But Adam was with King yer, and he didn''t see any reason for King yer to send him into a trap.


    As the two appeared in the capital of assassins, Urdreth, Adam was surprised to find out the city was much more prosperous and right than he thought it would be.


    Urdreth, the unpronounceable city, was on a mountain. It was a gigantic one though, and was very well protected by the surrounding mountains, which formed a natural barrier against enemies.


    Anyway, what surprised Adam was how bright and open the city was. You would expect an Assassins'' Organization Headquarters to be dark and scary, but this was the exact opposite.


    However, as Adam was looking around, King yer said "This is only the public area, the main base of operation is actually within the mountain, within where there are many caves."


    Adam raised an eyebrow, so that was why the leader of ckheart was called Cave Master?


    The one in charge of the teleportation array, a rather young female Catkin, seemed to be familiar with King yer. Although she was normally bright and smiled to everyone, after King yer whispered something to her, she became unusually serious as she began adjusting the array.


    King yer looked at Adam and said "It''s going to be much easier this way, no one will know where we are going." Adam nodded as he said "You are being careful. How have you been doing recently?"


    King yer smiled and said "Great, actually. Don''t be mistaken, I''m not doing this because I''m afraid MY enemies will trace us, I''m scared of your enemies. Shit, the Dragon n, really?"


    Adam smirked as he replied "Thinking back, it was actually rather exciting. Even on Earth dragons were always seen as beings of incredible power in fiction, and in this world they are revered as the strongest race in term of individual power. ying such powerful beings really good for my ego."


    King yer rolled his eyes and said "I don''t im to know you well, but not even the dumbest Northman would go kill dragons because of pride. Not openly at least."


    Adam shrugged and said "While it wasn''t the main reason as to why I went there, it really was great for my pride. But yes, I had a purpose to go there"


    King yer put up his hand and said "As I said, let''s wait for us to be in a more secret ce to speak about this, you wouldn''t know the number of people listening to us right now."


    As he said so, there didn''t seem to be anything strange, but Adam indeed saw that there were some people that had remained quite close to them ever since they appeared, but he didn''t know whether it was a coincidence or spies.


    Soon, the girl came back and led the two to the middle of the teleportation array. Everyone else had been moved away, including a Hero Rank Dark Elf, but even he had noints. Only a mad man would say something to two Sovereigns, especially those two.


    The array under their feet glowed up, and both young men disappeared from the spot.


    A momentter, Adam saw that they hadn''t appeared in the middle of a city, but instead under a big cliff. Adam looked down at his feet and saw an array was quickly disappearing.


    King yer said "This is called a Beacon, an array that allows you to connect a ce to a teleportation array."


    Adam asked "Can I learn how to do this?" King yer shook his head though as he said "This can only be created by an Enchanter. And this is the best I can do, and yet it''s only a low level array that disappears after being used once."


    Adam felt this was a pity, but if he couldn''t do it himself he only had to find someone who can, and take them under him. And worst case, King yer was technically his subordinate, so if he really had a need for a Beacon, he could ask him.


    King yer pointed at the cliff and said "The entrance to the Land of Eternal Night is hidden in this cliff, but before we go in, let''s make things clear. Let''s state our objectives now."


    Adam nodded and said "I am making an armor well, someone is making it for me, but I''m gathering materials. One of those were the Reverse Scales of those dragons, and thest materials I need are Blood Metal Ores, ten of them."


    When Adam said those words, King yer visibly sighed in relief and said "Good, very good." Adam asked "What about you?"


    King yer replied "I talked about my strength earlier, mycking strength Although I am a Sovereign, I am one of the weakest to ever exist, even the Fake Sovereigns are stronger than me, because I too forced my way into the rank."


    Adam asked "Why would you do that?" King yer replied "For today. I am not very skilled, and I know that even opening the Fourth Gate will need me years and ever going farther than that is just hopeless for me."


    "That''s why, being a human being isn''t the right thing for me. Now, the answer to my problem is simple. If I want power, I just have to let go of my humanity."


    Adam looked at him strangely, which made King yerugh "Don''t worry, I''m not mad. By now, you should know the true nature of this game, right?"


    Adam frowned, and said "I do It surprises me you do too." King yer waved his hand and said "It doesn''t matter. What matters, is that we need all the power we can get, and me bing a monster is one of those ways And don''t worry, I''m bing a vampire, I won''t be that different from a human being."

 Chapter 176: Transformation

    Chapter 176: Transformation


    King yer looked down and continued "For a human, or any ''humanoid'' for that matters, they need skill and technique to be stronger, they need to master their strength perfectly. I am not fit for this path, so I will be a Vampire. Bing a Vampire means I won''t have the Job Advancements anymore, no Silver Rank, but I will instead gain ess to the Grade System and Monster Ranking."


    Adam crossed his arms and said "Are you ready for your true body to also be a monster?" King yerughed "Of course I am, Vampires aren''t as bad as you may think. While they do have this tendency of drinking blood, the sun won''t kill them, just weaken them. I will also have weakness against Holy energy, but the advantages will far outstrip the disadvantages."


    Adam sighed "It is your decision to make in the end So, will our goals contradict each other?" King yer shook his head and said "It won''t. We"


    However, he was cut mid sentence as a terrifying Aura washed over them. They instantly went on guard, and Adam felt it. As King yer had said, his aura wasn''t much stronger than even an SS ss of the same level, considering they opened the Third Gate.


    But then his attention was directed to the sky, where he saw something terrifying. Instead of the vampires he expected, what he saw was a gigantic web floating in the sky, on top of which was a gigantic spider.


    "Aqua Sovereigne." As the voice of the spider traveled all the way down to them, Adam felt a force constrict around him and bring him toward the sky. However, he could feel that he could easily destroy this force and escape.


    However, he did not do so. He felt like this was a gesture of a good will from the opposing party, moreover if they really wanted him harm, they could simply crush him with their overwhelming domain.


    Also, Adam had a guess as to why such a gigantic spider came all the way here to meet him. Still, despite knowing all this, he still sent a look at the spider''s status.


    [Titanic Spider] (Legend, Level 220)


    ??/??


    As expected, she was of the same species as Neith and she was a Legend.


    As Adam reached the web, hended on it, and was able to easily stand on it, not because the Fourth Gate gave him a perfect equilibrium, but because each thread was bigger than a damn road. Above him the giant spider said "You have one of our people with you. You are quite daring, taking one of our own as your pet."


    Adam frowned and said "Don''t think you can badmouth me just because you are stronger. You are much worse than I, ethically speaking."


    The pressureing from the spider spiked, and it started bing smaller and smaller. After a moment, the spider actually turned into a woman, with dark long hair and she was quite a beauty. However, she looked angry.


    She said "Do you think your ss makes you superior?!" Adam sneered and didn''t budge under the pressure, and instead said "You almost killed Neith and abandoned her inside a dungeon, trapped in there until she would one day be killed. If I hadn''t taken her in, she would already be dead, so shut the fuck up."


    Adam knew it wasn''t wise of him to speak like that to a Legend, especially one representing a tribe as strong as the dragons, but when it came to Neith, although they knew each other for only two weeks, Adam treated her as family.


    This was mostly because their minds were connected and they could feel each other''s emotions at practically all time, when Adam is in game, so of course she was very dear to him.


    As expected, as he said those words, the woman became angrier, but after a moment Adam realized the anger wasn''t directed at him anymore. She suddenly punched the air next to her, and something unbelievable happened.


    As if she had hit something solid, her fist prated not the air, but space itself, creating a hole in space. Moreover, cracks expended from the hole everywhere in the air.


    Some distance away, an unassuming bird passed through one of the cracks, and it''s body was suddenly split in two as it fell toward the ground, dead. Cracking open space was an ability Hero Ranks had, but even using most of their power they could only make a small passage.


    However, that woman''s punch had just destroyed space for hundreds of meters, and she had even created a hole in space. There was a big difference between a crack and a hole.


    As the surrounding space was breaking, the woman eximed, gritting her teeth "Those bastards" Her eyes, which had turned red, fell back to Adam as she said "Release her, I just want to talk."


    Adam would have refused, but Neith, who could feel everything he thought, already knew what was happening, and she asked him to get out to. So, without much of a choice, he released her out of his pet space.


    As he did so, the surrounding air also started healing, quickly leaving enough ce for Neith to stand. She could fly, but she instead went on several threads. The woman looked at Neith up and down and said "Lhirtis"


    However, Neith instantly interrupted her "My name is Neith." The woman frowned and said "Your mother named you Lhirtis."


    Neith shook her head and said "For me, my only parent is Adam, and he gave me the name Neith." She didn''t sound angry, but there was a tone of finality in her voice. The woman looked at Adam with a scary face, but Neith said "Why did youe here?"


    The woman looked back at Neith and said "Your ce is at the spider''s n, not this Northman''s side." Neith squinted her eight eyes as she said "As he said, you abandoned me to my death, and he saved me. The choice isn''t that hard."


    The woman shook her head and said "You don''t understand, there was a traitor in the tribe and" However, Neith once again cut her off "I don''t care about excuses or your backstory, I am happy by Adam''s side."


    The woman crossed her arms and said "You have a duty to fulfill." Both Adam and Neith were confused, and thetter asked "What do you mean?"


    The woman said "You really don''t remember? Your real identity is Lhirtis, Princess of the Spider n, and daughter of the almighty Spider Queen, Lhirtee. As a princess, you have a duty toward your people."


    Neith was shocked and said nothing, however on the side Adam said "What a cheap trick, using her conscience to bring her back."


    The spider woman looked at Adam but said nothing, and returned to Neith and said "If you refuse toe back, your title as the Princess of the Tribe will be revoked, and you will be exiled from evering back to the tribe."


    Neith remained silent for a moment, before she suddenly beganughing loudly, stunning the woman. However, on the side Adam had a small smile too.


    As sheughed, Neith said "Why would I care about being a princess? Princesses are boring and must always sacrifice for the sake of others, I''m not interested in such a life. I would rather stay with Adam for the rest of my life."


    The woman looked stunned, but after a moment she was enraged and she said "FINE! Lhirtis, Princess of the Spider Tribe, exists no more. You, Neith, are banned from ever setting foot in our tribe!"


    As she said that, she turned back into her spider form and disappeared, alongside with the numerous webs in the sky.


    Adam started falling, but Neith, capable of flight, quickly caught him and put him on her back as she floated in the air.


    On her back, Adam patted her shell and asked "Are you sure about your decision? You could have discovered your family."


    Neith shook her head and said "I have never been so sure of myself Although there is something"


    Adam raised an eyebrow and asked "What is it?"


    Neith lowered her head a little as she asked in a low voice, inside their mind "Instead of calling you Master, can I, from now on, call you dad?"

 Chapter 177: In the Land of Eternal Night

    Chapter 177: In the Land of Eternal Night


    Adam looked at Neith stunned, that was unexpected. But after a moment, a smile appeared on his face as he replied "Sure, daughter."


    Then, Adam felt pure bliss from their telekic link, and then relief. He patted her back and told her it was time to go down. She flew down from the sky andnded next to King yer, who looked at her up and down before greeting her.


    "Hello to you." Neith''s eyes locked on King yer before she replied to his greetings. Adam jumped down from her back, a fifty meters tall fall wasn''t much for him, as long as it was controlled. He just lost a few hundred health points from the fall, but he already had almost 200k HP.


    King yer then said with a strained smile "You really are a ma for trouble." Adam smiled back "Well, I have to admit, while I met quite a few Legends already too many, I admit, this was the first one actively threatening me."


    King yer scratched his head and said "And she won''t be thest As I was saying, before I was interrupted, our goals won''t go against each other, but we will even be able to help each other."


    Adam said "I''m listening." King yer said "The Blood Metal Ore is precious, and the mines are controlled by the Royal Family, meaning if you want ten pieces of it, you will have to ask or steal. As for me, I aim to be a Chosen Vampire, which is why I forced my body to be a Sovereign first. But even as a Sovereign, if I want to be a Chosen Vampire I must receive a special transformation from the Vampire King."


    He continued "But first I need to be tested, my worth to be exact. I know of a challenge that will allow me to get the help of one friend, and if we are able to go through their challenge we will get what we want. Me, the transformation, and you, the Blood Metal Ore, maybe even more."


    Adam nodded to him, so King yer turned toward the cliff and said "Follow me." He walked toward the cliff, but did not show any sign he was going to climb or avoid it. Instead, just as he said, the entrance really was behind the rock, as when he was about to collide with the cliff, he mysteriously went through the cliff wall.


    Adam and Neith followed right behind him, and as they entered through the cliff they both felt the familiar sensation of spatial transportation teleportation, that is.


    A secondter, they appeared in a new ce. Adam''s first impression of this ce was big.


    In the sky, there was no sun, but only a moon, one much bigger than either Earth''s or Epoch''s. The light with which it shone was almost as bright as the sun, but wasn''t as blinding.


    Unfortunately, they could barely see the sky between the rocks above them. They were currently in a long tunnel like passage, they were blocked by rocks and had only one choice: go forward.


    Well, that would be if they were normal people. Neith began moving toward one of the walls, and seeing this, King yer said with a sigh "It''s not use, those rocks are harder than magical steel."


    However, Neith continued advancing, and Adam just jumped onto her back. As Neith approached the wall, she put her first foot on it, and King yer expected to see the foot scrap off against the wall.


    However, much to his shock, the foot entered the rock like a hot knife in butter, and even more shocking was that she didn''t break the wall at all, her foot just phased through the rock.


    But it wasn''t that either as she was actually able to use this foot to star climbing the wall, and she began quickly climbing the rocky side.


    In under a minute she was able to climb several hundred meters and arrive next to the roof. King yer had climbed along when he saw she didn''t have a problem moving up.


    When she reached the top, Neith put on of her feet above them, touching the finalyer of rocks blocking them from the sky. The rocks started moving around, leaving a hole big enough for Neith to pass, and as she did so it closed behind her.


    King yer blinked and said "That was anticlimactic." Adam and Neith chuckled as they looked at the scenery in front of them.


    They were on a rocky desert, and they could see a thin crack along the earth, which was the path they were supposed to take.


    There were no monsters in sight, and the only thing they could see in the rocky desert was arge city in the distance.


    Adam looked at King yer, who said "This is our destination, the headquarters of the Vampire Race. Normally, we would have to fight against many monsters, among which the majority are Gold Ranks, and the crack would eventually lead to the entrance of the city. But your pet made this much easier."


    As he said those words, King yer felt two powerful pressures bore onto him, mixed with killing intent. The two auras were so powerful that he felt like he was suffocating.


    Adam then said with a warning voice "I adopted her as my daughter, you would do well to remember that."


    King yer was surprised, but he nodded quickly as the two auras receded. Adam knew what the reaction of most yers and even NPCs would be if learned he had adopted a monster as his daughter, but he didn''t care.


    After this little incident, Neith, Adam and King yer began following the crack, heading toward the city in the distance. King yer felt helpless though when Neith refused to take him on her back and forced him to walk.


    It took them about an hour to finally get close to the city, a trip that would have taken much more time if they hadn''t been able to avoid all the fighting, ording to King yer.


    When they reached within a kilometer of the city, they got back inside the crack, and this time Neith did help King yer to get down, she wasn''t that angry originally since he couldn''t know, but she felt she had to do this to make sure he wouldn''t forget. She believed an hour of walking was enough of a punishment for something that wasn''t really his fault.


    For thest kilometer in the crack, the three did not cross any monsters, and were able to arrive at the end of the crack without fighting even once.


    At the end of the crack, two huge gates were waiting for them, with a single person waiting outside. This person looked simr to an Inder, but his eyes were red, and he was a monster, a vampire. Thinking about it, calling them monsters was kind of rude maybe not in this world, the world probably didn''t have the exact same meaning behind it.


    [Vampire Earl] (Elder, Level 100)


    HP: 5,000,000/5,000,000


    The Vampire was clearly surprised, but after a moment his became cold again as he stared at the group. But once again, when he was able to see their status, he waspletely stunned, so much that he almost dropped his spear.


    Vampires, like Goblins, were among the only monsters capable of wearing equipment, because their bodies, while stronger and filled with more vitality than other humanoids, they were still weaker than monsters.


    So they had ess to equipment which allowed them to join the strongest races in this world in the race for power.


    As for his title, although he might sound like an important noble, nobility among Vampires was different from the human world. Blood purity determined a Vampire''s rank in society, as well as strength.


    Among Vampires, except from the weakest Minor Vampires, who could barely hope to level up past Level 20, the second weakest Vampires were Barons, and the strongest were the Royals, who were 1st Grade monsters, in other words, as strong as dragons of the same level, or SS sses.


    Of course, there were also the legendary Imperial Vampires, who were Chosen ones, but there only appeared one every few generations. Well, if King yer seeded in doing what he wanted, he might turn into the next Imperial Vampire But reaching the top was as hard for a Chosen one than for a Sovereign, mostly because of how people would chase after them.


    Something else that needed to be understood about Vampires was the fact that one wasn''t born a Vampire, they became one. Vampires were still, in essence, undeads, and were unable of procreation. That''s why, there were no ns or such things among the Vampires, except for the royals.

 Chapter 178: Internal War

    Chapter 178: Internal War


    King yer approached the Vampire and said "I''m bringing those two friends into the city, is there a problem?"


    The Vampire Earl gulped and shook his head "Of course not, your Excellency. Come on in." Much to Adam and Neith''s surprise, the vampire was actually acting subservient to King yer, and immediately had the gates opened.


    When they entered the city, Adam couldn''t help but ask King yer about the earlier interaction. When he heard the question, King yer replied "Vampires and ckheart are very close to each other, and many vampires are among our assassins. This is one of the only ces where my reputation is actually greater than yours."


    Adam nodded, that was understandable. However, King yer wasn''t finished as he added "Moreover, the current situation of ckheart is tensed. An internal war is starting to take ce, and two sides have already started being drawn."


    Adam looked at the assassin with surprise, first because an internal war within a Racial Power was a big matter that would affect the entire world, and secondly because this was the kind of things that should be kept secret at first.


    King yer added "It''s not the Dark Elves fighting against the Catkin, fortunately, but rather a dissatisfaction toward the power in ce. The first faction is the Cave Master''s faction, which I''m part of, and the second faction are those unhappy with his rule. Vampires are also in the first faction, so we are close allies currently."


    Neith suddenly asked from upstairs "And you told us that because?"


    King yer looked up at her and said "To ask whether you wille to my faction''s help if we need it."


    Adam replied with a question "What were our deal, when I created Divine Predator and you created Blood Moon?"


    King yer raised an eyebrow and replied without hesitation "Blood Moon would be the dark, hidden face of Divine Predator."


    Adam nodded "As long as you don''t forget this, then you are part of my guild, and I will help you with whatever you need, as long as I can."


    King yer nodded, and Neith couldn''t help but ask "Why did you decide to be father''s subordinate?"


    King yer chuckled and said "I''m not a good leader, and I''m the one winning out in our deal." Neith looked at her father, who said "I advise him from time to time on how to run his guild, and I am able to finance his researches."


    Neith titled her head cutely and asked "What researches?" King yer replied this time "I''m a Forger, as well as an Alchemist, and an Enchanter. All those professions gives a lot of money, but one also needs a lot of money to start."


    Neith was disturbed though by the first part of what he said, and repeated "Forger, Alchemist and Enchanter? How can you have the time to study so many things and still train?"


    King yer revealed a smile as he replied "That''s the thing, I don''t have the time to train, and that''s why I am here. Turning into a vampire will allow me to skip training and still allow me to be very strong."


    Neith said "But even if you don''t train, you can''t have achieved much in either field if you work on all three. Each one of them demands an entire lifetime to master."


    King yer replied "Or even more But you are making a mistake, youngdy." Neith blushed internally as she was called youngdy, because this change in the way she was being called made her feel much closer to Adam. She much preferred youngdy to miss, or monster, pet


    King yer continued "Smithing, Alchemy and Enchantment are much closer to each other than people think. There is an art called Science in our world that envelops all three professions, and even more. Our world is inferior to Epoch in many ways, but our advancements in Science are pushed much farther than any of the three professions I am practicing, and I am able to use my knowledge over science to learn those three professions quickly, and link them to learn all of them at the same time."


    Neith sent a questioning look at Adam, who said "I don''t know much about the rtionship Smithing, Alchemy and Enchantment have, but Science really is very advanced" He searched his words for a second, before finally talking.


    "Science is basically the umtion of the understanding of nature every human being ever had on our." That wasn''t entirely true, but he felt this was a good enough exnation for Neith.


    King yer nodded and added "And among human beings, I understand a lot about science, and I am able to use this knowledge with the three jobs I told you about."


    Neith began thinking about his words, while Adam said "I didn''t know you were a good scientist." King yer shrugged "Not many people do, I research on my own, I never really had any diploma, but I assure you that I know more than enough."


    Adam nodded and asked "Do you have any big projects recently?" King yer replied with a short nod "That was why I could onlye here now, I was working on a big experimentation, I was trying to associate the chemical, magical and physical proprieties of materials to try to replicate materials from Earth, and thus in the end reproduce products from Earth."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and asked "Did you seed?" King yer shook his head though "You don''t understand, it''s not something that can be done in a week or two But if I do seed, the results should be amazing."


    Adam asked "Any examples?" King yer replied "The electromaic waves in this world are different from Earth because of multiple factors, which is why phones, radios and everything simr won''t work. Same for missiles, they need a target tond. However, explosives still work. For example, if I can learn how to make one, I would be able to recreate a nuclear bomb, or a hydrogen bomb, probably."


    Adam remained silent for a moment, before saying "That sounds good, but by the time you make them, they would have be useless. I''m not sure even our most powerful bombs would be able to kill a mid Hero Rank, and they would definitely be useless against a Legend. They can''t really be used a deterring force either as a Legend is even more dangerous than a bomb."


    However, King yer shook his head and said "Of course I understand that, but those wouldn''t be for us, but the next generations."


    Adam frowned, so King yer looked around, and said "Come with me, I don''t want to speak of this in the middle of this crowd."


    Adam nodded, they were currently walking toward the big castle some distance away, and were surrounded by many vampires.


    King yer led Adam to a darker alley, and took out a stone. Adam told Neith to wait for them outside as they talked, so she decided to sit in front of the alley, so no one could enter or see them. King yer then crushed the stone, and a transparent dome enveloped them. Then, he started talking.


    "This will allow us to talk without fearing of others eavesdropping It will shock you, but I found about something disturbing. In the future, and I am a hundred percent sure of this information, Earth will merge with this world."


    Adam asked with an even bigger frown "How can you know this?" However, King yer asked shocked "You know about it too?"


    Seeing Adam wasn''t talking back, he said "I had some disturbing encounters, which led me to this conclusion. What about you?"


    Adam shook his head and said "I''m not sure I can say, but you will discover with time." King yer shrugged and said "Anyway, the day Earth merges back with Epoch isn''t very far away from us, and from Earth''s current evolution, the only true powerhouse that could appear by the time the merge takes ce, will be you."


    "You and I are the only ones with the potential to reach the top of the world before the merge, but my area of expertise is research, not fighting, so only you will be really strong enough to protect humanity."


    Adam grimaced and said "Talk of a big responsibility."


    King yer replied with a smile "My research''s goal is exactly to allow you to lighten this responsibility. There will be two levels of danger for humans when our merge with this ne."


    Adam said "I''m listening."

 Chapter 179: Vampire King

    Chapter 179: Vampire King


    King yer showed a single finger and said "First is the obvious danger, the powerhouses in this world, every Legend Rank, and a few peak Hero Ranks and the corresponding monsters too, of course."


    He continued "Those can only be countered by other Legend Ranks, as although there exists magical weapons capable of killing Legends, they are not good for defending. Only a Legend Rank or a Hero with an especially powerful domain can protect our people from other Legends. That will be your role to fulfill."


    Adam nodded, so King yer raised another finger "The second problemes when the first problem has been resolved. While the other Legends won''t dare toe attack our people if you are strong enough, the same will apply to you against their people."


    "That''s why there are usually contracts between the Legends of the different powers to stop them from interfering in fight with lower ranked citizens. A Legend is only allowed to fight another Legend, otherwise the losses would be too heavy and the wars would always end in two sided destruction."


    "That''s why, although you will be able to protect us form Legends and Hero Ranks, you won''t be able to protect humans from lower ranked people. This is why they will need weapons, and heree my creation. Most humans won''t even be Bronze Rank when they arrive, but our enemies will have Silver and Gold Ranks among them, so fighting fair is impossible."


    "Hence, we will give them better weapons that can be used by anyone. For example, we can destroy an army with a hydrogen bomb, or on a lower scale give our men firearms. That will solve the second danger."


    Adam said after a moment "You thought about this a lot." King yer shrugged and said "I had to, I don''t want the other humans to just die Now, the Vampire King must be waiting for us, let us go."


    Adam nodded and the two left the alley as Neith got back on her feet, and together the three headed toward the castle.


    The city was in quite dark, as expected of Vampires, and had a Gothic style, which made it look beautiful and cold at the same time. Probably because this was a monster city, they didn''t care about Neith walking in the street, despite her size.


    Soon, they all arrived in front of the castle, and this time Neith had no choice but to wait for them outside. She couldn''t fit in the entrance, it was only ten meters tall, which was quite big already, but no one in their sane mind would build a fifty meters tall entrance when they were less than two meters.


    So she didn''t even have to try to know she couldn''t fit. But she was fine with waiting outside, fortunately, and with her connection to Adam she couldn''t more or less follow what would happen inside.


    The guards first wanted to check on Adam and King yer, but when they saw King yer''s name they immediately stopped and let them pass, he really was quite influential here, thought Adam.


    As they entered the castle, they arrived in a big hall, with a throne against the opposite wall. Sitting on the throne was a middle aged man with no hair on his face and long dark hair. Adam didn''t have to check on his status to understand this was the Vampire King.


    Next to the king, was a smaller throne, upon which a younger female was sitting. She had simr features to the king, and emitted an aura as powerful as him. She was on his left, and her status revealed she was the queen. She was the one who took care of most matters, leaving only the most important stuff to the King.


    Finally, there was a third throne, on the other side of the king, but this one was empty.


    As King yer and Adam entered the room, someone at the door yelled "King yer the Dark Sovereign from ckheart and Valiant Heart the Aqua Sovereign have arrived!"


    Adam sent a look at the vampire who just yelled their arrival, he didn''t remember their name but he knew that most courts had them.


    As the two arrived in front of the Royal Couple, neither bowed nor kneeled, but this didn''t bother the King as he said with a smile "Young friend King yer, I see you managed toe all the way over here, and you brought some interesting guests."


    As he said that, his gaze turned toward Adam, and he said "Aqua Sovereign, I have long heard of your renown, it is a pleasure to have you here today."


    Adam nodded and said "It is my pleasure, I have long been curious about the home of the legendary vampires." The king raised an eyebrow and asked "Is that so?"


    He looked back at King yer and asked "Now I wonder, for what purpose did youe all the way here?"


    King yer looked at Adam before saying "Actually, we have requests, each of us. You have things we need, and we are ready to pay to get those things, as long as the price is reasonable, of course."


    The Vampire King titled his head, and he began tapping his finger against his throne in a rhythmic manner as he said "Well, it all depends on what you wish of me."


    King yer replied "My friend''s request is simple, he needs ten pieces of Blood Metal Ore. As for me I wish to be a Vampire. Not any Vampire, of course, but a Royal Vampire."


    The King stopped tapping against his throne all of a sudden, his finger stuck in the air. At that moment, not a sound could be heard in the entire hall, except from the beatings of Adam''s and King yer''s hearts. They weren''t particrly loud, they were very quiet, actually, but for some reason everyone in the room was able to hear them.


    However, that onlysted for a few seconds as the tapping resumed, and the Vampire King said "That can be arranged For those ten pieces, it is really not much of a problem. However, to ask to be a Royal Vampire there has only been three Royal Vampires for decades now, to suddenly add another one"


    King yer cleared his throat and said "Actually, I heard about a challenge, a tower created by an ancient vampire. I heard that if anyone was capable of climbing to the top of the tower, they would be rewarded with a wish from the Royal n."


    A smile appeared on the Vampire King''s face as he said "There is indeed such a tradition, you must be talking about the Blood Tower. But this is a very dangerous zone, and you must know that even Sovereigns and Chosen ones have failed to climb to the top. Other than the tower''s creator, no one knows what thest floor actually is."


    He then looked at Adam and said "For King yer''s request, trying to climb the Blood Tower is understandable, but you don''t have to do so. You can exchange the ores for Gold Coins or other materials. The test is an individual one anyone, so it wouldn''t be helping your friend to pass the challenge."


    King yer looked at Adam too, curious about what his answer would be. Adam smiled and said "I always wee challenges, I will try climbing that tower. Something that even stopped Sovereigns, if I manage to climb it that would be quite the achievement."


    The Vampire King seemed pleased with his answer as he grinned and said "I''ve always liked Northmen for their bravery and honesty. I''ve decided, if you manage to climb to the top of the tower, I will give you the ten Blood Metal Ores for free, and you will be granted one wish."


    Adam was surprised, but then he smiled and thanked the king.

 Chapter 180: Changes to the world

    Chapter 180: Changes to the world


    The Vampire King waved his hand, and a guard silently appeared next to Adam and King yer. The king said "Two challengers have appeared, and wish to take on the Blood Tower. Begin the preparations for the festivities."


    The guard nodded and disappeared. Adam was looking at King yer with a curious face too, as he wondered why the king talked about the festivities.


    King yer didn''t have to answer as the king said "The Blood Tower is a holy relic of our race, and every challenge to the Blood Tower has to be preceded by a full day of celebration. As such, you will have to wait for a day. Tomorrow morning, the celebration will start when you enter the tower, and end when you leave."


    "Until tomorrow, you are free to visit our great city, or do whatever you want." King yer and Adam nodded before they turned around and walked to the exit.


    Once out of the castle, Adam said "I will go to an inn and disconnect. What about you?" King yer replied "I have something to do here, so I will stay connected."


    Adam nodded, and headed toward a nearby inn with Neith. As he entered, he told Neith he would onlye back the next morning, so she was free to do whatever she wanted to do until then. She was clearly happy and walked off, shaking the ground with her every step.


    Back in the real world, Adam began training, and he also decided to sleep before reconnecting as he wanted to be in his best shape for his fight in the tower.


    Adam also made a few researches in the real world, and found that the fact skills from the game could be used in real life. This led to a massive increase in the number of yers worldwide.


    Not only this, people also started to discover Qi, but for some reason this subject was far less talked about, and wasn''t popr at all. Most peoplemented to those who talked about Qi they were trolls.


    At first, Adam was a little confused at why people wouldn''t know about Qi if they were able to use skills, but then he remembered that actually feeling Qi wasn''t easy. For him, he had opened the Third Gate when he perfectly mastered his first skill and as such he had perfect control over his internal energy and understood he had Qi in his body right away.


    However, for other people, even if they perfectly mastered a skill and used it in real life, they didn''t necessarily need to feel Qi, as long as their body understood how it worked.


    Instead of learning by heart the pathway of Qi, which needed some talent to aplish, all they had to do was to repeat the same skill thousands and thousands of times to force their body to learn how to activate the skill without even the brain''s help.


    This was good for low ranked skills, but this would severely limit them in the future when they tried to use higher ranked skills.


    Something else that Adam noticed was the steep rise of crime rate in the entire world. Now that some people had ess to super powers, they couldn''t resist and startedmitting crimes.


    There was a video that had gone viral of a man shooting a fireball at a vault in a bank and robbing everything inside. Another showed some shing a car in two with their sword.


    This led the different government to start creating special units for people with powers from the game, but the project had just been initiated and wasn''t ready to go. So for now, more and more people were using their powers to do evil.


    Interestingly, there were also many that tried to fulfill their childhood dreams and became heroes who fought against the people using their power for evil, but most of the fights between ''heroes'' and ''viins'' ended causing huge damage to their surroundings, and even kill nearby innocents.


    Some heroes understood their mistakes and either stopped or became even more powerful, but there were also some that didn''t care and proimed that sacrifices had to be made


    All in all, Epoch was bringing huge changes to the world, and if humans weren''t capable of coping with them then humanity very well might kill itself before Earth even merged with Epoch.


    After all, if they really killed themselves, by, for example, starting a nuclear war worldwide, then this would count as the natural cycle of things since they killed themselves, and Sofia wouldn''t help them.


    Unfortunately, until Adam could be powerful enough to suppress all of humanity by himself, he couldn''t do anything about the infighting, and he had to believe in humanity to get past this hurdle.


    On a lighter note, with the sharp increase of new yers, some stats appeared about the sses yed, and the poprity of each ss was associated with the power they could bring in the real world, instead of the power in game.


    As it turned out, the least popr ss was the Summoner ss, because it almost couldn''t be used in the real world. In the game the Summoner ss was one of the most powerful because a good summoner could literally be a one man army.


    But the problem was, to summon monsters one had to make contracts with them, and teleport them to oneself. But for some reason, none of the summoners were able to bring their summons on Earth, which made it the most useless ss in the real world. As such, less than 1% of all yers were summoners.


    On the other end, the four most popr sses were, from the fourth to the first, the Berserker, the Swordsman, the Elementalist and the Cleric.


    For the Berserker ss, it didn''t appear very good in the eyes of most yers, and wasn''t much better than the sses below it, maybe even worse. A Berserker was mostly a pure strength stat after all, there weren''t much superpowers.


    But Adam made the ss pretty popr, and this was enough to push it to fourth rank.


    As for the Swordsman ss, it was deemed as the coolest and strongest melee ss, and a capable swordsman would be recognized as an expert worldwide. However, the main reason the ss was Rank third was because of Asia, as they had the highest ration of swordsmen, especially the Chinese and the Japanese, making the ss very popr.


    Then, for the two most popr sses, the Elementalist was there because it allowed one to y with the elements and do literal magic, something which almost everyone dreamed of doing on Earth. Firing a fireball, zapping someone with a bolt of lightning or piercing them with a shard of ice, they all looked very cool, and were deadly.


    But even then, the most popr ss was by far the Clerics. First, many doctors around the world had be Clerics, for obvious reasons, and even more average people took this profession.


    This was because almost everyone had at least one person in bad health in their family, and even if that wasn''t the case, if there ever was, then being a cleric might solve the problem. That''s why, many had taken this ss.


    Moreover, Clerics weren''t stuck with healing only, they could also attack, and light based attacks looked shy.


    In the end, when Adam finished browsing, he couldn''t help but sigh. This would be the first generation of yers, and they would have to fight for the whole of humanity one day, so that the next generation may live. This was a little depressing to think about


    He shook those thoughts out of his head, and now that he was in his best shape, he went back to Epoch.

 Chapter 181: Sad Past

    Chapter 181: Sad Past


    Back in the game, Adam left the inn he was in and headed toward Neith''s location. He found her in arge za, with numerous vampires all over her. However, they didn''t wish her any harm, but were painting her.


    On his way here, Neith had exined the situation to him. For today''s festivities, because of her big size and her identity they had decided to use her s an idol. They had drawn numerous symbols with red paint all over her body, or were in the process of doing this, and they were there to wish Adam and King yer good luck.


    As it turned out, the Blood Tower was sacred to vampires because it was believed that the cure to their curse was detained on the top floor of the tower, which no one had ever reached. The problem with the tower was that it was, from what he heard, a divine artifact.


    The tower would generate different things inside the tower depending on the level and rank of the one entering, and so one''s rank didn''t matter. An SS ss Bronze Rank had as much chances to climb to the top than the Vampire King.


    Vampires were not a biological race, but instead a magical one, created through a curse. During the era anterior to the war of the gods, an evil god had created the vampires by cing a curse on a bunch of people from different races.


    No one really knew anymore why he did this, but the point was, this was a curse. Although bing a Vampire allowed for some advantages such as the great life expectancy, the strength and the ability to pretty much ignore talent by drinking blood, it came with even harsher counters.


    They could be under the sun, and wouldn''t be turned to ashes by the sun''s rays like in the movies on Earth, but they would be much weaker, and the powerful regeneration powering from their blood would be deactivated.


    Also, they were weak against fire, lightning and light based attacks, making them one of the races with the worst weaknesses.


    But for vampires, all those things weren''t the worst, it was actually their state of undeadness. Being undeads also allowed any vampire below the Hero Rank to live up to 1000 years, and for Hero and Legend Ranks, they were almost immortal. Well, for the corresponding ranks amongst monsters, obviously.


    But they were only almost immortal, as no mortal was really immortal. It was a popr belief that Legends were immortal, but that wasn''t actually true, it was just that they had a lifespan of 10 000 years, which was so long that people called them immortal. In reality, only gods were really immortal.


    Anyway, despite losing the lower lifespan of mortal men, they also lost the pleasure of life.


    Whatever they ate, if it weren''t blood, it would be tasteless. They could barely feel the touch of another, and carnal pleasure was non existent. Thinking about it, they were what most would define as perfect killings machines.


    Stealthy in the dark, they didn''t need to sleep, to rest, they didn''t fear poisons and diseases, and the only thing they needed to eat was the blood of their targets. Unfortunately, there was one w, and that was their mind, as they kept their mentalities and personalities from before they were turned into vampires.


    When they first appeared, almost every vampires would only follow the call of blood, as that was their only source of pleasure in this world, but this caused their race to nearly be extinct. That''s why many years ago an especially powerful vampire had led the remaining vampires into this realm and forced his fellow vampires to calm down.


    And that''s how the pacific Vampire Kingdom came to be through the years. They gradually discovered that apart from blood, they could also derive pleasure and ecstasy from emotions, and so they turned from a hated race to a well liked one. Because of this, 1500 years ago they decided toe back live on the mainnd of Epoch.


    For a thousand years their lives were happy, Vampires became a thriving tribe and were friends with pretty much everyone. However, five hundred years ago a tragedy took ce.


    A madman made a terrifying discovery, and that was that Vampire''s blood could be used a great magical conductor, as well as a great ingredient for potions, especially health potion. There was even a legendary potion called the Blood Potion that was said to be able to rise people from the dead, and it was made using a Legendary Vampire''s blood.


    Because of this, many people joined forces to attack the peaceful vampires, and almost the entire vampire race, including almost all of their royalty, were killed. In the end, it was Vald, the current Vampire King, who had saved his people by leading them back into the Land of the Eternal Night.


    And this escape had only been possible because Vald was friends with the current Cave Master of ckheart Mountain, who had faced against most of the other Racial Powers to protect the vampires. That was also the main reason why Vampires would always side with the current Cave Master, and were so friendly to King yer.


    However, Adam also learned something that baffled him, and that made him feel guilty. Amongst those who hunted the vampires, the Colnds Empire was actually amongst the most ruthless, and were the ones who killed the most vampires. This was done by the current Emperor''s father.


    The old Emperor chased vampires hard and killed most of their race. Before, the vampires could even form a whole empire by themselves, but now they could only fill a city that was barely as big as Fjora. More than 9 tenth of their race were exterminated, that was thetest genocide that took ce in Epoch.


    And yet, when they spoke to him, the people here, who had clearly for most suffered under the Northmen, spoke to him politely, and no trace of hatred could be seen in their eyes. Although Adam hadn''t taken part in the massacre, and the one who led it was the previous Emperor, anyone would have been antagonistic.


    The orcs and the Northmen, for example, were still hostile to each other despite not having ever fought such a deadly war against each other. Ironically, the vampires were more human than anyone Adam had ever met.


    Anyway, this led Adam to truly respect those people, and he had decided that he would do his best to help them with their curse, and if someone were to ever threaten them, they would have his whole support. This was a big decision, but they had earned his respect.


    Well, he kind of drifted off Back to the tower, it was a tower created by the god who cursed them to lock up their cure forever. ording to him, not even a Sovereign or a Chosen one would be able to get to the top of the tower.


    The tower would create obstacles within each floor ording to the challengers'' level and rank, so whether one was a legend or an Iron rank, it didn''t matter. Like that, for countless years the tower was in front of the vampire, with their cure inside, and yet they couldn''t even ess it.


    Moreover, the insides of the tower were very dangerous, which was why less and less people wanted to attempt to climb it. That''s for all those reasons that every time someone challenged the tower, the vampires would celebrate and wish good luck to the challenger. The paintings on Neith were here for this.


    After chatting with Neith for a little, Adam let the Vampires continue what they were doing, and walked toward the tower.


    When he epted to try entering the tower earlier, he had merely epted because he thought it was going to be fun, and he might earn some XP, so although he prepared himself a little, he didn''t take it too seriously.


    But now he had found a new motivation, and he was determined to reach thest floor and help the Vampire n.

 Chapter 182: Best Training Ground

    Chapter 182: Best Training Ground


    When Adam arrived at the foot of the Blood Tower, he saw King yer was already here, alongside with the Vampire King. When the two saw him, they stopped talking about whatever they were talking about, and the Vampire King asked "Did you have a good night''s sleep?"


    Ignoring how weird it was for the ruler of a whole race asking him this question, he replied "I did sleep well. I will definitely do my best to reach the top of this tower. Could you tell me more about the tower, so that I will know what I will have to face?"


    The Vampire King, Vald, nodded and said "I intended to anyway. The tower is split in exactly 60 floors. Each floor is actually a sub dimension within which enemies will appear. There will be two kinds of enemies, first are those generated by the tower, and secondly are the past challengers."


    Adam tilted his head, and Vald continued "Don''t worry, their strength will be restricted, but for example, if you manage to climb to the 49th floor, then you will have to fight against my phantom self, with lowered strength of course. Even higher you would start meeting the different Sovereigns and Chosen ones who entered too."


    On the side, King yer couldn''t help but ask "What is the highest floor anyone has ever managed to reach?"


    Vald''s face turned unsightly as he replied "55th Floor There is something you need to understand about the tower. Every 10 floors is a hurdle, a checkpoint. Usually, those with a C ss will reach between the 1st and 9th floor, B ss the 10th and 19th floor, and so on The weakest in their ss would reach the round number, and the strongest would reach the one ending by a nine."


    The two nodded, but a momentter they both frowned, and King yer said "Isn''t there a problem then?"


    Vald sighed and said "As you guessed, there is indeed a problem. Following this logic, Sovereigns will reach between the 50th floor and the 59th, leaving the 60th floor. Since no one ever reached that floor, we couldn''t be sure, but we fear that to reach the 60th floor, one would need a talent even surpassing a Sovereign"


    Adam put on a frown as he thought about Vald''s words, but King yer didn''t stay silent "Can you tell us more about the sub dimensions inside the tower?"


    Vald nodded and said "They are functioning sub dimension, or lower nes, that are each bigger than the city we are standing in. Each of them recreate different living environments, some are worlds of mes andva, others of snow and ice"


    "This is also one of the reasons why no one ever reached farther than the 55th Floor. Some of the most powerful beings to ever live visited the tower. For example, the one who reached the 55th Floor was the fearsome Undead Emperor of old. While he was strong enough to suppress the entire secr world with his power, the 55th Floor is a holy ne within which angels mingle. This was exactly his weakness, and so he was forced to leave."


    King yer sent a look at Adam and said "As far as I know, no one doesn''t have a weakness, but this guy should be quite good for the task" His eyes went back to Vald and he asked "How long can we stay in that ne?"


    Vald''s face turned shinier as he was asked that question. He replied with glee "As much as this tower made us suffer, we cannotpletely hate it, because it is one of the best training grounds. While it is extremely dangerous inside and one can die at any moment, since there are so many nes it allows one to train in any skill, Concept or Essence with the perfect environment."


    He looked at Adam and said "You train in cold based skills? Just stay in the cold nes longer and practice your skills there. You practice the sword? Go to a sword floor and battle it out with the swordsmen inside. I can guarantee that training in the Blood Tower will definitely allow you two to make great leaps in yourbat ability."


    He looked back at King yer and said "Back to your question, the duration of your stay will depend on which floor you are. For the first nine floors, you can stay for one hour, for the next ten, the limit is two hours, and it doubles every ten floors. In the end, you can stay for 32 hours on every floor for the ones between 50 and 59."


    Adam nodded and said "So we can stay for half a month in there But I guess no one would stay in there for so long." Vald smiled and said "Indeed."


    Inwardly, Adam intended to stay in there for some time though. He would linger in every ne that had a water environment, a sword environment, or a fire one. Unfortunately, he didn''t think that there were any good ones for his Concept of Self.


    After all, the Concept of Self wasn''t really something that he could train like he did with his other concepts, it was more of a matter of understanding his true self.


    Soon, the Vampire King left the two on their own as he went to organize the festivities. Adam couldn''t help but say to King yer, when they were left alone "He is quite nice to talk to, you wouldn''t think he went through so much."


    King yer replied "Don''t underestimate him. Let me remind you that he was the one who led his entire race to safety, and who fought against the entire world. Although he had the help of ckheart Mountain, that was only at the end of the conflict. For multiple years he protected his whole race on his own."


    He then pointed at the tower and said "King Vald is one of the strongest beings on the whole Mortal ne. He was one of the few who was able to reach the 49th Floor, which is right below the Sovereign Level."


    Adam nodded and said "Of course I wouldn''t underestimate him, I just find him respectable. Well, if today we are sessful, we might be business partners."


    King yer titled his head, so Adam said "Weren''t vampires also known as the best merchants in the world, because of their great social skills? If I can cure them of their curse, then they would be able to travel across the entire world, without the need to fear the sunlight. By then, if I can make them work for me, wouldn''t it be great?"


    King yer whistled and said "You are quite ambitious, nning for an entire race to be your subordinates."


    Adam shrugged and said "I''m not enving them, just giving them a job. Most of them were merchants five hundred years ago, before they were chased around, so if they are cursed they will most certainly turn back into merchants. If they do so, they might as well work under me, their ally. They will still have their freedom to do whatever they want to do in the end."


    King yer crossed his arms and said "If that''s the case, then I will take the rest as assassins." The two looked at other for a moment, silent, before grinning to each other.

 Chapter 183: Blood Tower (1)

    Chapter 183: Blood Tower (1)


    A couple of hours passed, and during this time Adam and King yer chatted. Adam learned a lot of things from this conversation, especially about the vampire n.


    A vampire came to greet them, and brought them away. Although they were already in front of the tower, it was the custom here to have the challengers walk a particr path, and receive the blessing of all the vampires present.


    This wasn''t just a ceremonial thing, as faith was an energy in itself. Only a few used this energy to strengthen themselves, because this was a taboo thing to do and would stop all progress of those who did so.


    However, cultivation wasn''t the only thing one could do with faith energy. Here, for example, the faith of all the vampire would allow the two to enter the Blood Tower.


    This was a divine artifact after all, and since none of them owned the artifact, a huge amount of energy was needed to enter the tower. Instead of wasting resources, using the faith of all the vampires was much better.


    Adam and King yer were led to the gates of the city, and were made to wait outside the city as the gates were closed. A few minutester, the inside of the city grew unusually quiet, and then the gates were opened once again.


    Adam and King yer took the cue to enter the city, and saw two long lines of vampires on both sides of the road. When Adam and King yer appeared, they raised a huge mor. Every vampire began cheering, no matter their age or their strength.


    They were also wearing special clothes, the women were dressed in long and elegant red dresses, alongside red make up. As for the men, they were dressed in yellow shirts and pants.


    ording to what King yer told Adam earlier, those clothes were meant to represent fertility, the greatest thing taken away from vampires. The red outfit of women represented love, while the yellow outfit of men was for happiness.


    If one of the two were able to reach the top of the Blood Tower, then the entire city would be painted in orange, the mix between red and yellow, to show that they had regained their fertility. And if they failed, the colors would remain separated.


    Under the sheers of an entire race, the two Sovereigns soon reached the vicinity of the Blood Tower, where the most important people were gathered. For one was the Royal Family, including the princess that had been away earlier.


    Adam though was shocked when he saw her, because he clearly recognized her. She was One Sword, the assasin who had almost killed him in the Mirage Desert. He didn''t expect her to be the Vampire Princess, and obviously, neither did she expect to see him here.


    However, neither said anything, and Adam also saw Neith on the side, covered in the red paint. When the two reached the bottom of the tower, they saw the Vampire King wave his hands above himself, and an astonishing phenomenon took ce.


    A bright energy seemed to take form above the heads of the surrounding vampires and flew toward the tower. And it didn''t juste from the surrounding vampires, as Adam could see the same energy alsoing from farther away in the city.


    The energy coalesced in front of the two Sovereigns and began forming a bunch of stairs. The two walked up the stairs, and saw that as the energy finally created thest step connected to the tower, a door magically appeared in the tower.


    The two quickly climbed the stairs, and arrived in front of the door. With a look at each other, Adam took the handle and pushed the door open. As soon as he did, they both felt an absorbing forcee from the tiny gap in the door, and they were sucked inside the tower, unable to resist the force.


    The gape widened a little, showing apletely dark interior, but as the two were sucked in, the door quickly closed itself and disappeared, followed by the steps.


    Vald looked at his people, and pped his hand. Quickly, the two ranks of people dispersed as they quickly began bringing over wide tables over, filled with a magnificent looking feast. All the food was being kept hot andpletely edible with magic.


    If one of the challengers was able to reach the top, then they would regain their sense of taste and share this feast. Otherwise, they would just give everything to their cattle.


    Inside the tower, Adam opened his eyes and saw himself in apletely different ce than before. But before he could take a good look around himself, the system sent him a notification.


    [You have entered the Divine Artifact: Blood Tower. All deaths inside the tower will result in the loss of ten levels. Moreover, killing the monsters inside the tower will not grant any experience points.]


    Adam was stupefied by the harsh conditions, but a secondter another notification was sent.


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Clear the Blood Tower''!]


    Quest Detail: An entire race''s hopesy on your shoulders, and you shall not disappoint them. Clear the tower.


    Quest Level: Irrelevant.


    Quest Difficulty: SSS, World Quest


    Objective: Climb to the 60th floor and clear it.


    Reward: Worshiped reputation with the Vampire Race, ??


    Adam was quite excited from this quest, as that promised additional rewards for him if he managed to reach the top of the tower, something he already intended to do anyway.


    Adam epted the quest, and looked around. He was currently on top of a small mountain, and could see the surrounding area pretty easily.


    There wasn''t much that could hide his sight, as thend around was t, without any big rocks or anything. He could see a few tens of monsters surrounding the mountain, and a portal farther away. This was the entrance to the second floor.


    Looking back toward the monsters, most were rock based monsters, meaning this would be a great training ground for anyone who tried to learn the Earth Concept, or it''s lower ranked derivations like the Rock Concept.


    Remembering he only had an hour on each floor for the first nine, he began rushing toward the portal. He would only spend the maximum amount of time in the areas useful for his training. For the rest, he would blitz through them.


    When Adam reached the first monsters, he finally saw their status, and as expected, they weren''t anything threatening.


    [Rock Monster] (Common, Level 45)


    HP: 4500/4500


    When Adam saw their status, he almostughed out loud. He had forgotten how weak monsters of his level could be. Of course, it wasn''t only because of its level, but also because of it''s rank, but still, when he thought back of that moment when he struggled against a Level 5 Elite


    As the Rock Monsters approached him, Adam swung his sword a single time, sending a blue flying sh that bisected all the monsters.


    -507000 HP!


    Walking past the severed bodies of the Rock Monsters, Adam thought he maybe overdid it But it wasn''t even that strong of an attack, he had just grown that powerful


    The only skills he used were [Mighty Strike] and [Aqua sh], and yet he dished out more than 500k damage. His strongest attacks would deal millions of damage. He could already be considered quite strong in the Gold Rank.


    By the time he got his armor and ranked up, he seriously doubted anyone within the Gold Rank would be able to match him, including SS sses maybe even Sovereign would need to be quite advanced in the Gold Rank to even hope of matching him


    In the end, Adam shook his head, it wasn''t the right time to think of those things. Stomping down on the ground, Adam let out a powered down [Ice Statue] that barely took any Aura from him, and froze the few tens of Rock monsters separating him from the exit.


    Walking on the ice, Adam reached the portal to the second floor, and didn''t hesitate to walk through it.

 Chapter 184: Taking his time

    Chapter 184: Taking his time


    For the next few floors, Adam was able to go through them very easily, none of the monsters were of any threat to him. Even when he passed by a Cold Floor he didn''t linger for long as he had to reach the higher floors to get to the interesting floors.


    It barely took him a few hours to reach the 30th Floor, things finally started bing interesting as he could stay for quite some time here. As a remainder, he could stay for one hour in the floors between the first and the ninth, two hours in those between the tenth and the neenth, four hours between twenty and twenty nine.


    Finally, he could spend eight hours in the floors starting from here. At the same time, those floors were tailored for S ss individuals, making the monsters he faced be a little stronger.


    The 30th Floor was again an Earth rted floor, but it was a coincidence, the floors didn''t seem to follow any pattern. But anyway, it wasn''t very interesting for him since he didn''t practice the Earth Concept.


    He felt it was regretful Neith didn''t enter, but she wasn''t able to. The reason was simple, it was because of her size. The door inside the tower would be created using the power of faith, and so making a bigger door would be much harder.


    And Adam couldn''t bring her in with his Pet Space either because the space within the Blood Tower was restricted and one couldn''t summon a monster from the monster pet. A Summoner would be able to use their summoned beasts though.


    After blitzing through the 30th Floor, he reached the 31st Floor, and he was d to see it was actually ava world. This was going to be great. Although his fire attacks wouldn''t be as powerful as his water attacks while in the game, hisprehension of the Fire Concept would be as fast as his Water Concept.


    Soon, a few monsters appeared before Adam, and all of them were the same Lava Monsters. He could also see a few contestants of the past in the distance too.


    [Lava Monster] (Chieftain, Level 50)


    HP: 125000/125000


    Well, they couldn''t really be considered a threat, but at least they would make great dummies for him to train in his Fire Elemental skills since they were resistant to fire attacks. He didn''t know any fire attacks yet, but with his understanding over the Concept of Fire, he could create a few quite easily, considering his great understanding of meridians.


    The past challengers were a little stronger inparison, but weren''t much of a threat either. For them, he didn''t have any patience and he directly killed them.


    Time quickly passed in the tower, and soon it had almost been eight hours since he entered the Magma Floor. Normally, only eight hours of training wouldn''t have allowed him to make any progress, but thanks to the great environment that bathed him in fire elements, he had been able to progress at an astonishing speed.


    Apart from understanding a little more about the Fire Concept, he was also able to create a few skills. One was the [Fire sh], which was basically the same thing as the [Aqua sh], but it was a fire version.


    A more original skill was [Lava Pool], or [Ash Spray].


    Lava Pool (C): Change an area of ten meters by ten meters intova. Enemies within theva will be 70% slower and suffer 200% fire damage every second. Cost: 500 Aura.


    Ash Spray (C): Blow ashes to cover ten meters in a 45 cone in front of you. Those in the ash will be blinded while in it, and standing inside will deal 150% damage every second. If anyone within the ashes breath, they will also suffer from internal burning. Cost: 500 Aura.


    Both skills could be very useful, but him learning three skills and advancing in his mastery of the Fire Concept showed how great of a training ground the Blood Tower was.


    If he had more time, Adam was confidant he could have even created B Rank Skills, and push hisprehension beyond the 1% mark but there were still higher floors.


    The next floor, at first nce, didn''t seem as interesting, as it was a Wind Floor. However, Adam then realized he had wind skills, so he might as well train them here.


    Like that, Adam began spending more and more time within the different floors as he climbed the tower, not because the monsters were growing difficult to kill, but because he would always find something to train. Faced with this incredible training environment, Adam couldn''t help but let his greed take over and he started practicing many, many skills.


    Outside the tower, as the hours passed, the vampires could see on which floor the challengers were, as well as their names. This came from the power of faith they had infused in the tower, and the name tags were actually based on the names they gave worshiped.


    Here, Adam was called Aqua Sovereign instead of Valiant Heart, but King yer was called King yer. But if one were to pose as either of them, and the vampires didn''t see anything, although the tower would know the real identity of the person, the name shown would still be the ones shown now.


    After an entire day, or 48 hours in this world, Adam had reached the 39th Floor, and had been there for some time, while King yer was already on the 51st Floor. This was because while Adam took his time, King yer was rushing quickly.


    Another twelve hours, and Adam was on the 41st Floor, while King yer reached the 52nd Floor. Adam had skipped the 40th floor because it wasn''t interesting to him, but the 41st was a floor filled with swordsmen, except for the past contestants, making this floor great for him to practice his swordsmanship.


    Another thirty six hours quickly passed, and King yer was forced to leave the tower with a dejected face. He had sessfully entered the 53rd Floor, but he didn''tst long in there and was forced to flee out of the tower, if he didn''t want to be killed. And something only he knew, was that he had only managed to reach this floor thanks to tricks.


    Had he been relying on only strength, then evening up to the 51st Floor would have been near impossible.


    As he exited the Blood Tower, the Vampires looked a little disappointed, but their faces quickly turned into smiles to wee King yer. That made the assassin smile and he turned around, to see where Adam was at. With a nce, he saw thetter was at the 44th Floor.


    This relieved him, he himself knew he didn''t have any chances of reaching the top floor, but Adam had all his chances. However, he was going to spend quite some time inside the tower, it seemed


    Since he would have to wait for a long time, he decided to spend that time doing something pleasant, and he walked up to the Vampire Princess, the terrifying One Sword. Unexpectedly though, the cold assassin whose face is forever cold, actually smiled at King yer.


    Meanwhile, inside the tower, Adam was learning the different Concepts at an incredible speed. He strengthened his knowledge of the Concepts he already knew, but he also learned now ones. Unfortunately, most of them were Advanced Concepts, not Sovereign ones.


    But Adam didn''t really care, as he could use his knowledge of the other Concepts to slowly transform this Advanced Concept into a Sovereign one.


    It wasn''t impossible to do so, but it was very hard, or even impossible to do for someone who never understood a Sovereign Concept, because they wouldn''t know what a Sovereign Concept felt like. But once someone understood at least one Sovereign Concept, it would be much easier to transform other Concepts into Sovereign Concepts.


    That was also why the Star Concept was so important to Thalia and her family, as this would allow them to grasp one Sovereign Concept, and use it to slowly push their Advanced Concepts to the Sovereign level.


    However, one shouldn''t have too many Sovereign Concepts. This was because even training a single one to the Essence Level was very hard, so bringing multiple ones would be even harder. Adam already had quite a few Sovereign Concepts, so he didn''t want to have too many either.

 Chapter 185: Sword Floor

    Chapter 185: Sword Floor


    It had already been four days since Adam entered the Blood Tower, and Adam had finally reached the end of the 49th Floor. Actually, passing every floor wasn''t that hard, but he wouldn''t waste such a great opportunity to train.


    But even though they didn''t endanger him, the floors he went through still allowed him to understand how the floors worked. The monsters, by themselves, weren''t very strongpared to the challenger, but they would always be gathered in groups.


    Apart from those monsters, there were also the past challengers that were very powerful. The reason why most failed wasn''t because of ack of strength, but rather because of fatigue. Some would have to spend almost the maximum amount of time on a floor to pass it, and this would wear one out.


    Adam had met some challengers on the 47th Floor, for example, who could most probably pass the 48th Floor, but that was because their ghost was at full strength and weren''t tired at all. That''s why, in every floor, the most dangerous beings would be the ghosts of the past challengers.


    As for his fatigue Although Adam had already been in the tower for four days, he had been meditating for most of the time, which was even better than sleep so he was totally fine. The only problem in the real world might be his smell, but no one would enter his room so he was the only one who would have to suffer


    Anyway, those few days allowed Adam to understand a lot more about all his Concepts, and now they all had went past the 1% boundary, making Adam eligible to learn A Rank Skills.


    Unfortunately, Adam hadn''t learned any yet, as he had focused on first mastering his B Rank skills before turning to the A Rank ones. Now, he was confidant he could do so, so he was only waiting for the floors from the 50th on to learn.


    As Adam set foot on the 50th Floor though, he was overjoyed. The floor''s appearance was very simple, he was in a metal cube. Within the cube were different kinds of houses and buildings, as well as individuals. From where he was, he could see that most of them looked human.


    Such a sight didn''t tell him much on the nature of the floor, but the sword elements in the air couldn''t lie to him. This was a Sword Floor, meant to practice with the sword.


    Not only would all the monsters here be Sword Monsters, allowing him to practice through real sword fight, but even the elements in the air would make his progress much faster.


    It was just like meditating in the ocean to practice water elemental skills, it would be much faster than meditating in a random ce. The tricky thing though, was that not every element was easy to find.


    If one wanted to search for a natural element like fire, water, wind or earth, then it was easy, one just had to head to an area where there were a lot of those elements in the material world. However, if one wanted to cultivate in a ce with abundant sword elements or saber elements, it quickly became much harder.


    That''s how Sword Sects, where only Sword Skills are taught, came to be, but even then they weren''t very popr. That''s because the only way to intensify the density of sword elements in the air was to have a lot of people practice with the sword in a certain area. But that was very hard to find.


    That''s why, finding an area like the 50th Floor was very hard, and one would have to practice for countless days to see progress when they searched for weapon concepts.


    And the best thing was that the elements weren''t just average elements here. After all, there were other sword floors in lower floors, but they were meant for lower ranked Sword Concepts, not Sovereign Concepts.


    Only on the 50th Floor would Adam''s swordsmanship level up faster. So without wasting time, Adam moved forward. He didn''t take long meet his meet his first opponent, who was, unfortunately, only a ghost of a past challenger.


    Faced with the Level 45 Vampire, Adam only needed five swipes of his sword to kill the vampire. This was obviously an SS Rank Vampire who had sessfully passed the 49th Floor and managed to get on the 50th Floor, but was killed just as he entered.


    This wasn''t very surprising, as a Level 50 Bronze Rank SS ss who opened the 3rd Gate wasn''t that far behind a Level 50 Bronze Rank Sovereign who didn''t yet open the 4th Gate, so the fact this vampire was able to climb here wasn''t very surprising.


    Of course, Adam didn''t know what level or rank it was at when it ascended the tower since it had been weakened.


    Anyway, after this first monsters, Adam finally got to see the Sword Monsters. It was a group of ten Level 100 Elder Rank monsters. Honestly, if he used all his strength then crushing those ten monsters would be very easy, but that wasn''t his goal.


    First, from what he understood, this would trigger the other monsters of this floor who would form much bigger groups, but he didn''t want to do that for now. His current aim was to fight using only his swordsmanship.


    Only when he felt his swordsmanship was strong enough would he trigger arge amount of Sword Monsters and fight against all of them using what he learned, and all of his strength.


    By now, Adam had four Sovereign Concepts: Water, Fire, Self and Sword. Of the four, the one he had the less skills derived of was the Self Concept, as he only had his [Totemic Rage]. But this was because this was a very unique concept that wasn''t really made to create skills.


    Then, it would be his Sword Concept as he only had two Sword Skills. As for his Fire and Water skills, he had much more of them, and he had even perfectly mastered all of them. Well, now absolutely all his skills were perfectly mastered, as those he hadn''t yet mastered weren''t hard to master, and he had used those four days to do so


    But he was diverging. Although he only had two skills, that was a sane choice. He already had many B Rank skills, and he didn''t have much use for anymore. He would rather focus on A Rank skills now, and for his Sword Concept, as long as he was able to awaken his Domain by awakening his 5th Gate he would gate multiple skillsing from his Sword Art.


    But he couldn''t only count on that, so he was going to use those 32 hours on the 50th Floor to master one A Rank skill.


    Ten minutester, Adam was stepping on the corpses of the Sword Monsters. As expected, they weren''t very strong. But he was worried about ack of difficulty. This was only the earliest of the floors for Sovereigns, and he was much better than any other Sovereign he knew so he should expect difficulty only in the higher floors.


    Unlike the Elemental Concepts, Weapon Concepts didn''t need to be meditated much on to be understood, one rather had to fight. So although meditation was also a necessaryponent of understanding the Sword Concept, it wasn''t the main point. And what he was doing now was creating an A Rank skill, so he fought against all the opponents he saw.


    As the hours passed, the Sword Monsters began gathering in bigger groups while the ghosts became stronger and stronger. As they did, Adam gradually used more and more strength, but only on his sword, and somehow began creating his own skill as he understood more and more about his sword.


    Finally, it was 30 hours after entering the 50th Floor that Adam killed thest monster barring his way to next floor. Around him, hundreds of Level 100 Elder Rank Monstersid on the ground, all of them bisected. More shocking though, was the ground, as a gigantic split had appeared in it, and it was hundreds of meters long.


    This was the result of Adam''s new skill.


    Chop (A): Chop with your sword to deal 2000% of sword damage. Can be projected and can''t be dodged. Cost: 100 000 Aura.

 Chapter 186: Angels

    Chapter 186: Angels


    The skill was very simple, it was nothing more than a sh. And that was exactly all the skill''s essence. To search power in simpleness.


    There was no need for a show, no need to cover the sky with hundreds of sword lights and make the skill loo gorgeous. [Chop] had a single function, and it was to kill. It may look crude, but it''s power was indubitable.


    Moreover, his sword skills had be much more powerful thanks to the B Rank skills he had mastered. One of them was the [Sword Cry] from his weapon, it had been easy to master and wasn''t hard to master.


    But the second skill, [Sword Aura], was much more impressive.


    Sword Aura (B): Coat your sword with a special Aura to deal 500% damage. Cost: 500 Aura per second.


    [Sword Aura] had been derived from [Mighty Strike] and allowed him to multiply his sword''s damage. However, unlike [Mighty Strike] that could be used on every skill, [Sword Aura] could only be used on sword skills.


    Within the tower, Adam entered the 51st floor with a long stride, and saw many mountains in front of him. One might think this would be an Earth World, but it was actually a Wind World.


    Some of the mountain peaks were covered in lightning, some other were covered in clouds and others had tornadoes wreaking their peak.


    He could also see many birds and wind spirits, the monsters on the floor seemed much more diverse than any other floor he had been on. When he saw a nearby peak with arge number ofnd monsters on it though, he suddenly felt a strange inch.


    He approached the peak, and took out his sword. Gathering his Aura around his sword, he shed out against the mountain, using [Chop] and [Sword Aura] at once.


    A thick sword light flew out of his sword and shed against the mountain. The mountain was about fifty meters in diameter, but was quite high which was why many monsters could be on it. But the mountain peak was suddenly sliced off as Adam''s strike obliterated the part of the mountain it first hit, and shredded the inside of the mountain until it came out on the other end.


    [Chop] was an extremely powerful attack that relied on power rather than sharpness, and that was why instead of a clean and smooth cut, it shredded the mountain.


    As the mountain fell toward the ground, many of the monsters were crushed, and the few remaining ones alive were quickly killed by Adam.


    He didn''t intend on staying on this floor for too long. He didn''t want to raise his Gale Concept to the Wind Sovereign Concept as he already had more than enough Sovereign Concepts. He also had good skills already for the wind element, so he didn''t want to spend too much time here.


    Still, even if he wanted to go fast and not use all his time on training, it would still take quite some time to clear the floor, so he might as well try to create a skill. He wouldn''t spend extra time on it, so it would be up to his luck and insight.


    Since he already more than enough attack skills, and those of the Wind element wouldn''t be very powerful, he decided to work on a movement technique.


    Six hours quickly went by as he yed all the monsters and past participants. It was interesting to fight against the Sovereigns of the past, and he had even fought against another Aqua Sovereign.


    Unfortunately, the ones here were the weaker ones, although theysted longer than both the monsters and the past ghosts, they still weren''t able to endanger his life. Actually, Adam was fearing that none of the Sovereigns could endanger him Well, his usual arrogance. Now, it remained to be seen whether he was right or not.


    The 52nd Floor was one filled with creatures of the dark, including all kinds of undeads. Against them, lighting and light were the two best elements, followed by fire. As such, he used fire to burn the undeads to a crisp.


    The 53rd Floor was filled with spear men, and was made for the Spear Concept. Once again, Adam didn''t waste time here. However, something he noticed, was the presence of a certain ghost, which he recognized at first sight. King yer.


    As it seemed, King yer had failed and retreated when he reached the 53rd Floor. Actually, Adam expected the assassin to not even reach the 51st Floor, since he had said he was much weaker than an average Sovereign. He wondered whether King yer was stronger than he said, or if he had used some of his uncanny knowledge to climb up here.


    After that, the 54th Floor was much more interesting than the earlier two since this was a Fire World. Adam turned back into a training maniac as he trained in the Fire Concept for 32 hours.


    The 54th Floor had diverse monsters, just like the Wind Floor, with monsters representing each of the Sovereign Elements'' transformations


    However, as he was faced with the Sovereigns of the past, he couldn''t help but be disappointed. Those who reached the 54th Floor were supposed to be the best Sovereigns to have lived since the War of the Gods, only second to the Undead Emperor.


    And yet, they all were so weak Actually, they weren''t as weak as they seemed. It was just that some Sovereigns would be much stronger at a higher level. Adam was but a strong Sovereign when he first became one, but it was the different opportunities he came across, such as his title or his sword, that allowed him to surpass all the other Sovereigns.


    But for those he was seeing, they hade across those opportunitiester in life, but their ghosts were their past self when they were only Level 45. That''s why, they seemed to be very weak to Adam.


    Now that Adam had cleared the 54th Floor, and learned yet another Fire Skill, an A Rank one at that, it was time to enter the 55th Floor.


    As he arrived he felt something soft under his boot, and saw he was stepping on a cloud. It felt quite strange, to walk on a cloud. It shouldn''t be possible, but well magic.


    From where he was Adam could see a sea of clouds that seemed to form a strangendscape, and tall humans with big white feathery wings in their back flew around. Adam immediately recognized them as angels.


    Angels did exist in this world, but very few of them were left on Epoch. Most of the angels had followed the God of Light in his Divine Kingdom when he was banished from the Mortal Realm like all the other gods.


    Of course, the angels here weren''t real, they were only copies, but it still looked impressive.


    But Adam already expected something like this. He had learned from the Vampire King, Vald, that the Undead Emperor was the one who climbed the highest in the Blood Tower, and he had stopped on this floor, a floor filled with his arch-nemesis, beings of light.


    Adam didn''t really care about the angels, but the Undead Emperor did. Adam couldn''t see the ghost of the Undead Emperor, meaning he had managed to advance quite deep into the floor despite his huge disadvantage. That made Adam eager to find him. Who knew, maybe he would be a worthy opponent.


    As he began fighting the angels, Adam also understood that he was wrong to dismiss them so easily. While they weren''t dangerous to him, they still were a clear step stronger than the fire demons from the previous floor.


    As Adam reached the end of the floor, a few hourster, no angel was near him again. Instead, as he arrived at the end of the path, he saw thousands of them were gathered together near the exit. If he wanted to leave, he would have to kill them all.


    But Adam didn''t look at those angels. Instead, his gaze turned tower the man standing among the angels. He was the only one who didn''t have wings on his back, and instead of the holy white armor the angels were wearing, he had a deep ck armor on him.


    Adam moved closer and closer to them, but he suddenly stopped in shock when the man in ck, the Undead Emperor, said "You are quite something, making me wait for thousands of years."

 Chapter 187: Inferno

    Chapter 187: Inferno


    After the initial surprise, seeing the angels didn''te attack him, he smiled and said "Well isn''t that a surprise. May I know why you can speak? And why you were waiting?"


    All the ghosts he had seen until now weren''t dumb, but they had only kept their fighting intelligence, they couldn''t speak. But this undead was very different.


    The Undead Emperor walked toward Adam and said "Well, I wasn''t expecting you particrly, just for someone to reach here Before we can talk, I want to see if you are worthy. Kill them, and I will answer all your questions."


    Adam didn''t even have the time to say anything back as all the angels started flying toward him,unching light attacks from all directions. From a single look Adam knew there was no way to avoid this.


    But he didn''t care, they were too close for their own good. He sent a look at the Undead Emperor and said "If I were you I would step back."


    A momentter, just before the attacks could hit Adam, a torrent of fire exploded out of his body. The fire was terrifyingly hot and moving faster than even sound. The angels didn''t even hear the sound of the explosion when the fire had already spread around them and destroyed their attacks.


    -800 000 HP!


    -800 000 HP!


    -800 000 HP!


    All the angels, who were Level 100 Ancestors with 10 million HP, all lost 800k in an instant. Even though they lost almost a tenth of their HP in a single attack, they continued rushing, trying to continue attacking Adam.


    However, the attack wasn''t over. The mes didn''tpletely dissipate and a dome of a hundred meters around Adam had formed, within which the temperature had reached a terrifying level. The attacks of the angels, when they tried to form within this hot dome, were weakened to a great extent.


    Moreover, every second the angels lost 400k HP. This skill, was a terrifyingly powerful skill Adam had created in the Fire Floor, [Inferno].


    Inferno (A): Burn the air in a dome of 100 meters around you. All the enemies within the dome will receive 1000% of fire damage. After the initial attack, the area attacked will remain extremely hot and anyone still in it will receive 500% of fire damage for 1 minute. All your fire skills be 100% stronger while in the fire dome. Cost: 100 000 Aura.


    The inferno didn''t just deal insane damage, but it also transformed the environment, making the fire elements much denser, and so the other elements struggled to gather, making the attacks weaker. However, this only applied to his enemies as he controlled the fire elements. If he wanted tounch an ice attack, then he could.


    But he didn''t. Instead, he used the environment to recover his Aura at an astonishing speed. Each second, the angels lost more and more HP, and tried to attack Adam, but they would fail every time.


    Normally anyone would have escaped from the dome and waited for the skill duration to end, but the angels only goal was to kill Adam, and not to survive, so they stayed in the dome of fire, quickly burning up.


    Moreover, their wings had been badly burned by the mes, so using them to fly would be impossible, and even though they were able to fly as they were Ancestor Ranked, it would be too slow.


    It would take 23 seconds at a rate of 400k damage every second to deplete the angels'' HP, if they didn''t have a regeneration. But with their great regeneration, it might take more time.


    However, Adam didn''t stay idle as the angels burned. Since his fire skills had be even more powerful, and the angels were on the ground, he used [Lava Pool] multiple times, alongside with [Ash Spray].


    Under the torrent of fire,va and ashes, the thousands of angels died in under twenty seconds.


    Standing in the middle of thend of fire, unharmed, Adam looked at the Undead Emperor, whose appearance had changed quite a bit. His body, which used to be white pale like zombies, was charred ck in most ces.


    Moreover, a pair of ck wings had appeared behind him and were shielding him from the heat even though he had retreated from the dome of fire.


    Adam started meditating in the middle of the fire, and quickly his Aura recovered. When the mes finally disappeared, Adam had almost recovered all his 200k+ Aura and he stood up.


    Now that the heat had lessened enough to not be dangerous anymore, the Undead Emperor retracted his wings as he recovered quickly. As he saw Adam walking toward him, he said "That was quite the attack. You are the Fire Sovereign of your generation? I thought the Fire God disliked Northmen"


    Adam shook his head at the Undead Emperor and said "I am the Aqua Sovereign." The Undead Emperor looked stunned as he mumbled "What''s going on with this guy"


    He shook his head and said "You are very powerful, so you are indeed the person I was waiting for."


    Adam said "I think some exnations are needed first."


    The Undead Emperor nodded and said "First, do you know who I am?" Adam replied "The Undead Emperor."


    However, the Undead Emperor in front of him didn''t nod, but instead said "So that''s what he did My name is Ardrith, and I am the person whose body was used to be the Undead Emperor confusing, right?"


    Adam shrugged and said "Your body was possessed by something in this tower, probably the evil god who created it, and when it exited the tower it went on to be the Undead Emperor using your body."


    Ardrith looked stunned, before he said "That''s exactly what happened. But I''m curious, tell me about this Undead Emperor."


    Adam said "I don''t know much, he challenged the living and led the undead in a war against the power in ce at that time. He died, but destroyed the power in ce, letting ce for the Racial Powers."


    Ardrith looked relieved as he said "That''s good he died I guess it''s my turn to tell you my story. Unlike what you might think, I am not an undead creature. Instead, I am an Angel, or I used to at least. I came here because I wanted to test myself, but when I reached this floor I was attacked by the spirit of the evil god who created this tower."


    He continued "That god had died in the War of the Gods, but his spirit was saved within this tower of his, which was his strongest artifact, and he stole my body, killing me and making my body and spirit turn into dead ones."


    Adam nodded, he actually knew that. If he hadn''t merged the living part of his soul with the dead one, then both would have remained dead.


    Ardrith said "Thankfully, I was able to save myself by sealing my spirit on this floor, and I was turned into a Fallen Angel. And for all those years, I have been waiting for another Sovereign to reach this floor to save me."


    [Ding! New Quest detected, ''Save Ardrith''!]


    Quest Detail: Ardrith has asked for your help to free him from his bindings.


    Quest Level: 50.


    Quest Difficulty: SSS.


    Objective: Get Ardrith out of this tower and reconstruct his body.


    Reward: ??


    Although Adam was d he had received another SSS Rank Quest, he was still doubtful, and asked "Why would I believe you? What tells me you aren''t the Undead Emperor and you want me to free you so you may push the Mortal Realm under chaos once again?"


    Ardrith seemed prepared to answer his doubts as he replied without hesitation "I can tell you more things. If you can reach and clear the 60th Floor, you will have disabled every seal on this tower, which has be ownerless for countless years now."


    A glint appeared in the Fallen Angel''s eyes as he added "This means you can take possession of this tower, making it yours Or it least, you would be able to if that bastard hadn''t put self destruction seals in this tower."


    "If you really do get to the top of this tower, not only will you be unable to get your rewards, you will even get your soul obliterated."

 Chapter 188: 60th Floor

    Chapter 188: 60th Floor


    Adam''s face tensed when he heard about this obliteration. While any other gamer would think they werepletely immortal, he knew it was not the case. If his soul were to be injured, or killed, then this damage would be real.


    It was just that it was hard to find soul damaging means in the mortal world, which was why yers didn''t have to worry and almost no one died. But Adam was currently in a Divine Artifact belonging to an evil god, it was probable Ardrith was telling the truth.


    Seeing he now had Adam''s attention, Ardrith said "But don''t worry, with my help, you can go around that trap. Disable it, even."


    Adam asked "How? That''s a trap set by a deity." Ardrith replied "While I am only a spirit and that makes me less powerful than back when I had my body, it also gives me some advantages."


    He pointed upward and said "As a spirit I fused with a part of this tower to survive, after all not even a legend could have survived for so long. Only a god can live for millions of years."


    Adam found this curious too, but he also knew that there was a way for a Legend to be near immortal, and that was the power of faith. The human Legends on Earth used this to live for far more than 10 000 years.


    However, doing so on Epoch was almost impossible because all the faith went to the different gods and great devils, and trying to steal faith from them was near impossible.


    Ardrith said "I have be this artifact''s semi spirit, meaning we are both linked. While I cannot take control of it, I can still hold some power over it. One of which will allow me to disable the trap. In exchange, all I want you to do is to give me my a body back."


    Adam asked "Do I have to kill someone and give you their body?" Ardrith shook his head and said "Of course no, I don''t want to just possess a body, I want a body of my own."


    "The Blood Tower is a very powerful spatial artifact that can use the 60 sub dimensions in it to store whatever you want, including living beings. Another function is to create illusory monsters that can be as powerful as a Level 250 Legendary Monster."


    He added "To create a body for me, you will have to sacrifice the ability of your tower to create illusory monsters, as well as some materials."


    Adam shrugged and said "I ept." Although losing such a powerful ability was a shame, he wouldn''t be able to get the tower in the first ce without Ardrith''s help, so he didn''t feel reluctant to give away one of the tower''s abilities. Moreover, a nearly infinite inventory was quite the reward as well.


    Seeing Adam agree, Ardrith was ecstatic. He said "Then go on your way! You must reach the 60th Floor and clear it!"


    Adam waved his hand and said "Sure, sure."


    Adam walked toward the entrance of the next floor and disappeared.


    On the next floor, Adam saw a battlefield, with many ghosts roaming about. Usually, Adam would have cleared a floor like this as fast as possible, but when he saw the ghosts he decided to do otherwise.


    Meanwhile, outside, every vampire had be tensed when they saw Adam''s token had reached the 55th Floor, and every second seemed like a year for them. And when they saw the token light up and move to the next floor, cheers echoed out in the crowd as everyone cried in relief and happiness.


    Then, hours and hours passed, and Adam reached the next floor. And the next one. And the next one.


    A few days had already went by, and Adam had cleared the 59th Floor. Adam had found several interesting floors on the way, including this 59th Floor as it was actually a Water World.


    He made great advancements in all his skills and Concepts, and had even earned an unexpected reward. He also found out that Ardrith was able to follow him as went around, and could cross the different floors, except from the 60th one, or so he said.


    Adam had long ago told him to screw off though, as he wanted to be alone in his training. Only now, as he was about to enter the 60th Floor, did Ardrith reappear. That was only to warn him about the 60th floor though, and make sure Adam was going to hold onto his promise.


    Adam merely scoffed and entered the 60th Floor.


    Meanwhile, outside, the vampires couldn''t believe what was happening, and a few had actually fainted. The Aqua Sovereign had reached the 60th Floor They all looked at the food on the tables, when they set it they already expected to throw it away to the beasts, but as the days passed they felt like they could start to smell the alluring meat, the nicely grilled vegetables


    When Adam entered the 60th Floor, he found himself in a strange area. The sky was ck, thend was red, the air was hot. In front of him, was a literal army, of demons.


    While the other floors made an effort to ce somendscape and were great to train in a particr concept, the 60th Floor had nothing of a training ground. It was a battlefield. Nothing more, nothing less.


    As soon as he appeared, the demons started charging toward Adam, but were a few hundred meters away so he used a couple of seconds he had to look at their status, and he was spooked.


    [Demon] (Ancient, Chosen, Level 50)


    HP: 10,000,000/10,000,000


    The Ancient Rank was the one between Elder and Ancestor, a rank exclusive to Chosen monsters That meant Adam had to face hundreds of monsters, each as strong as a Sovereign.


    Adam now understood why the Blood Tower was said to be impossible to clear. Even if one reached this floor, clearing it was almost impossible.


    But the word almost was the essence here, as Adam knew he had a chance. He had reached a level that was definitely above the other Sovereigns, every ghost of a Sovereign he had met, he had killed them, and he didn''t even struggle to do so.


    Some demons were running on the ground, others were flying toward him, and they all released an Aura that was quite powerful. However, he knew those weren''t the most powerful kinds of Sovereigns either.


    Despite all being Ancient Rank demons, Adam was certain Neith, who was a rank below, could kill one of them, so despite those being Chosen Ones, they belonged to the lower ss. If they were to try to climb the tower, they would be stopped on the 50th Floor. That still made them fearsome opponents, but they were manageable.


    As the demons came closer and closer, Adam sped his hands, and the area started shaking. Suddenly, a gigantic wall of water appeared in front of him and quickly grew higher and higher as it began moving forward.


    In under a second, a hundred meters tall and five hundred meters wide wave of water had appeared, and it was heading straight toward the demons.


    The humans seemed smarter than the previous monsters as they tried to move away, but apparently it wasn''t enough as they were hit by the wave of water.


    All the demons lost over 1.6 million HP as they were hit, and the ones in the air fell to the ground. Steam also began rising from the ground as the water touched the hot ground, which covered everyone''s vision.


    The drenched demons, who all had a few broken bones, startedunchingrge scaled attacks, all as powerful as B Rank skills, but because of the steam they weren''t able to see anything.


    All the watering from Adam''s water tide had been transformed into steam, and what the demons didn''t know was that they had doomed themselves.


    Suddenly, all the steam in the area moved toward the demons, as if they were focal points that drew in steam, and although they didn''t fear the burn from the steam, as it umted around them it strated transforming into ice.


    They couldn''t even struggle as the ice gathered around them, and some even appeared within their bodies as they breathed in some steam. And the ice didn''t just imprison them as even as the steam turned into ice, the ice still continued shrinking on itself, crunching the demons within.


    Only after ten seconds were the demons able to react as they exploded in fire, vaporizing the ice within themselves as well as the one trapping them. This explosion skill was as powerful as a B Rank skill, and having hundreds of them activated at the same time created an explosion so big that it wasn''t so different from Adam''s [Inferno] skill, if not more powerful.


    As the demons were trapped, the surrounding temperature had dropped by hundreds of degrees and hit slightly under 0, making it a perfect ce for Adam to recuperate his aura.


    Altough it only took ten seconds for the demons to free themselves, because of the great environment Adam was able to recover 2000 Aura per second, thus recovering 20 000 Aura in those ten seconds.


    As the mes spread all around the area, Adam bore the brunt of the damage, instantly losing 150k HP, leaving him with only 40k + HP. However, it also allowed him to recover even more Aura as he switched his cultivation technique.


    Tanking this attack had even spiked his recovery at a never before speed, allowing him recover more than half of his Aura, pushing it to 150k.


    As the demons prepared themselves to attack him, Adam clenched his fists in excitement. As expected, thebo of the two A Rank Water skills he had learned worked well together, as all the demons had lost half of their health.


    Tidal Wave (A): Creates a hundred meters tall and five hundred metersrge tide of water. All enemies hit will receive 1000% of water damage. Cost: 100 000 Aura.


    Ice Crunch (A): Surround your enemies with steam, and transform all the steam in ice, and crunch your enemies bypressing the ice on itself. Deals 2000% ice damage and trap the target for ten seconds. Cost: 100 000 Aura.

 Chapter 189: Demons Fall

    Chapter 189: Demon''s Fall


    The demons had been hit quite hard by this one, and were furious. Adam also saw a problem he had already guessed about earlier, and that was the demons'' resistance to fire.


    Although they had created such a big explosion, the demons hadn''t taken much damage from it, meaning their fire resistance as very big. However, his Water skills used a lot of his Aura and didn''t allow him to recover his Aura quickly.


    His [Inferno] was better to fight such a big crowd, as it would allow him to deal a lot of damage and also recover his own Aura, but the effects would be lessened here.


    Still, he decided to use this skill as it was the best environment to use it. Normally, it would use 100k Aura to use his [Inferno], but because he was in a very hot environment, and the demons had already lit the whole area on fire, Adam was able tounch the skill by using only 50k.


    As the mes forcefully hit all the demons, they once again lost health, and they all only lost 200k HP. And even as the temperature remained extremely hot, it didn''t continue dealing damage to them, they simply didn''t care about the hot temperature.


    Despite dealing only so little damage, Adam didn''t care. His passive recovery speed had been boosted to 200 Aura per second, which was more than enough. Moreover, because of the environment he was in, the fire dome would remain for a much longer period of time.


    To make sure he wouldn''t disperse it, Adam didn''t use his Water Skills, nor his Fire skills as they were too weakened, so he went for his Sword Skills.


    Adam first activated [Swift Steps], a C Rank Wind Skill that made him two times faster, and only costed 100 Aura per second, before activating [Wind de], now perfectly mastered, that costed 10 Aura per second, and finally activated [Sword Aura], that made his attacks five times stronger, and costed 500 Aura per second.


    All in all, with those skills, he consumed 610 Aura per second, but also recovered 200, so he was only losing 410 Aura every second. Since he had above 100k Aura remaining, if he didn''t use any skills he would be able to stay in this state for more than four minutes.


    With a speed so quick he looked like he used teleportation, Adam arrived in the middle of the demons and used [Sword Cry]. However, he didn''t use his own version that would take some more of his Aura, but instead used the one engraved in his sword, that had a 30 seconds cooldown instead of a 10 000 Aura price.


    As he used the skill, his sword began vibrating at a special frequency as a sound wave that seemed as sharp as a sword echoed from his sword, hitting all the demons in a 50 meters range.


    -600 000 HP!


    -600 000 HP!


    -600 000 HP!


    A bunch of damage appeared above the heads of all the demons in his range, and they wailed loudly because of the pain. Meanwhile, Adam appeared like a ghost as he shed at the weak points of the surrounding demons.


    While he was in his boosted state, he was a little quicker than all of them, and although he was weaker physically, he used his speed and sword art to ovee that as he hit all their weak points.


    Critical Hit! -425 000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -425 000 HP!


    The demons'' HP plummeted down, and soon the first demons began dying. In a couple of minutes Adam had even killed more than a hundred of them, but the situation was getting dearer and dearer.


    Another two minutes passed, and Adam had been able to kill about half of all the demons. However, his Aura was about to disappear, and the remaining demons were the ones who were standing farther away, so while Adam killed the ones around him, those ones had the time to recover to full health.


    Adam''s current situation was him facing more than two hundred demons at full health and Aura while his own Aura had been depleted. He was forced to deactivate his skills, and he once again becamepletely weaker than the demons.


    He had less Aura than them, he was weaker than them and he was slower. Even though his technique was much better than those demons, it was far from enough.


    As the demons fired hundreds of B Rank skills at him, he knew he only had a single thing to do. He couldn''t hope on a miraculous breakthrough, or a random helper. He either had to die, or use his berserk skill.


    He didn''t want to use it, because he hated losing control. Moreover, using it would make him be much slower for a full day, and he didn''t know if there were any more danger behind those demons. And he was still apprehensive toward something but he had no choice. If he didn''t use it, then he wouldn''t even be able to face those dangers.


    Gritting his teeth, Adam activated [Totemic Rage]. As he did so, his body quickly began transforming as Adam gave out to his instincts. Adam tried to hold on to his consciousness, and was able tost longer thanst time, but in the end, as he was in the midst of his transformation, his mind gave out.


    As for the demons, they knew that great danger awaited them if they let this Northman transform, and they tried to interrupt the transformation, but a single roar of Adam in the middle of his transformation had sent them flying.


    What followed next was a terrible ughter, and a change in the localndscape.


    When Adam woke up, he was in the middle of a big hole, lying on the ground. Above him was the same ck sky. He slowly got up, and his body ached with everyone of his movements, but he forced himself to get up.


    Surrounding him were the ripped apart corpses of hundreds of demons, they had all died Adam closed his eyes and began a quick meditation, to recover from his empty Aura as well as the HP he had lost.


    He also looked at his condition through the system, and discovered that only an hour had passed since his transformation. When both his health and Aura recovered to full, which was right now half of their real value, Adam got up and jumped out of the hole.


    Only when he did so did he discover how much destruction he had created. The hole he was in was only one of many, and some were hundreds of meters in size. Adam tried to sh at the ground without using any skill, but he was barely able to destroy a small piece


    While strange, this transformation of his was really powerful. It was more than worth losing half of his attributes for a day.


    He ideal situation would be to now wait for his condition to disappear, but he knew he couldn''t. That was because some distance away, a portal had appeared. And every minute, this portal was bing smaller and smaller.


    Although it would be a few hours from now the portal would close, Adam knew that it would definitely be closed in less than 48 hours. Since it wouldn''t make any difference, Adam decided to enter the portal straight away.


    This portal was clearly different from any other he had entered, Adam couldn''t really say why, but he felt it.


    The next instant, Adam appeared in a new area, but before he could observe his surroundings, several hundreds of red lights fired toward him at a speed so quick Adam had no chance to dodge.


    However, right as they were about to hit him, they all slightly deviated and missed him.


    "You really were able to reach the 60th Floor." Obviously, it was the Fallen Angel, Ardrith.

 Chapter 190: Spirit

    Chapter 190: Spirit


    Adam looked above him and saw Ardrith with his wings unfurled, flying above him. His face looked exhausted, it had obviously taken quite a lot from him to stop this attack.


    Now that he was free of danger, Adam could look around him and he was a little disappointed. He expected a room full of all kinds of treasures, but it was nothing like this.


    They were currently standing in a ck cube like room, and the only thing in the room was a red vial on a table. Above him, Ardrith said "Don''t worry, the treasury of that Evil God has been ced somewhere else. Once you take control of this tower, you will be able to get everything he ever owned."


    Adam nodded and approached the table, and took the vial in his hand.


    [Xarnin''s Blood] (Quest Item)


    Description: Give this to the Vampire King for a handsome reward.


    Now sure this was the item he needed to bring to the Vampire King, the cure to their curse, Adam quickly put it in his inventory. Although he didn''t know how they were going to cure so many people with such a little vial, that wasn''t his problem.


    He then looked at Ardrith and asked "Now, how can I refine this artifact and make it mine." Ardrith got down to the ground and said "You need to fuse your spirit with the tower, just like I did. Normally it would take you years to refine a Divine Artifact, but because I already most of the job you only have to connect your spirit with mine, and I will be able to transfer the ownership of the tower to you."


    Adam asked "Don''t you only own a part of the tower?" Ardrith nodded and replied "I do, but I refined the hardest part. If you can control the part I control, you will naturally control the rest of the tower since you are a living person. Now, are you ready?"


    Adam nodded with a passive face, showing no excitement over acquiring a Divine Artifact. Ardrith felt Adam was a little weird, but he didn''t pick on it as he was too excited. He was finally going to get what he wanted for so many years.


    He approached Adam and moved his hand towards Adam''s forehead and said "All you need to do is to ept the link I will start to form." Adam nodded and felt something poke his mind.


    Although he never really used his mind in such ways and didn''t know how to use his mind, he instinctively knew what to do, and soon his and Ardrith''s spirit were connected.


    As they did, Adam started feeling a new connection form, over the room that surrounded them.


    However, as Adam was connecting deeper and deeper with the tower, he felt Ardrith''s spirit draw dangerously close to his own, and he asked "What are you doing?"


    Ardrith, who had maintained a smile until now, had his face turn crazed as he said "You fool, it is toote now. I will take your magnificent body and"


    However, he didn''t even get to finish his sentence when a giant transparent hand appeared on Adam''s back and grabbed Ardrith. Ardrith didn''t even see it move as it grabbed around him. The hand forcefully pulled Ardrith away from Adam, stopping him from doing whatever he wanted to.


    Ardrith tried to move away and destroy the hand, but he was paralyzed by the hand. If he were alive, his face would have paled as he felt the grave danger he was in.


    Adam looked at the spirit, and the hand started clenching harder and harder. Ardrith felt an indescribable pain as he shouted "Stop! Don''t!"


    Adam stopped the hand''s movement, and said "Indeed, I want to ask you something. First, who are you? Xarnin or Ardrith?"


    The spirit gritted his teeth and said "I really am Ardrith." Adam nodded, and said "So your n was to absorb my soul, strengthening your own, and take possession of my body Well, you can die now."


    Ardrith screamed "Don''t kill me! If you do, I will destroy this tower." Unfortunately for Ardrith, Adam was clear minded, and greed wasn''t one of his ws.


    "I don''t care." With those words, Adam clenched his hand forcefully, destroying Ardrith spirit, effectively killing him. As he did so, he received several notifications, but his surroundings also started trembling.


    Adam ran to one of the walls, and tried to make the exit appear. Unfortunately, no door appeared, making him sigh. He already expected this. But he didn''t have a choice.


    Letting Ardrith live would endanger his soul, while he only his body would die if he was destroyed alongside the tower. He would rather lose a level rather than endanger his soul and possibly die for real.


    However, as Adam was getting ready to die, the wall in front of him shifted a bit, and a hand print appeared. After hesitating for a second, Adam put his hand on the hand print.


    As he did so, he felt something pierce through the skin of his hand, drawing out a little blood. Adam couldn''t even take his hand off as it was firmly held in ce by a strange force, but he wouldn''t even if he could.


    After a moment, the trembling gradually stopped as Adam started feeling his connection with the tower deepen. He couldn''t exactly tell how, but he somehow knew he was now out of danger.


    Since his hand was still stuck to the wall, he decided he could now read the messages he had received from the system.


    [You have killed ''Spirit of Ardrith''!]


    [You have failed the quest ''Save Ardrith''!]


    [You havepleted the hidden quest ''Kill the Undead Emperor''s Spirit''! Head to the Holy Temple to receive your reward.]


    [You havepleted the quest ''Clear the Blood Tower''! Go see the Vampire King to receive your reward.]


    [You have formed a connection with the Divine Artifact ''Blood Tower'', binding in process.]


    As he read the five messages, Adam finally had a smile ster on his face. The hidden quest was a pleasant surprise, he wondered what he would get from it. From the start he hadn''t trusted Ardrith, it was the spirit of the Undead Emperor after all.


    That''s why, when he reached the Floor filled with spirits, he decided to train on one more skill.


    Spirit Hand (A): Form a hand with your spirit. Can be used to manipte still objects, if used against a living body stun them for two seconds and deal 200% of spirit damage, and if used directly against a spirit, they be defenseless if their spirit is weaker than yours, and suffer 5000% spirit damage if they are stronger. Cost: Spirit Exhaustion.


    This was a great skill to use against a spirit, and he had prepared it specifically for Ardrith. As for it''s cost, it wasn''t as bad as it sounded. All the skill did was form a hand with his spirit, so just like when he used his body, using it for too long would tire him.


    Here, [Spirit Hand] was the same, the longer he used it, the more his spirit would be exhausted, but he only had to rest to heal his spirit to it''s best state.


    Moreover, learning this skill indeed was a good surprise as it allowed him to grasp the Sovereign Concept of Spirit, an arcane concept that few people in this world mastered.


    Since it seemed it would take some time for the binding process to finish, Adam also sent a look at his status, which had changed quite a lot since he entered this tower. Not in term of stats of course, but rather skills and concepts.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 45


    Title: Strith''s Champion


    Race: Northman


    ss: Aqua Sovereign


    Rank: Bronze


    HP: 150000/150000


    Aura: 157578/157578


    Strength (+30 per level): 3900 (14400)


    Agility (+10 per level): 2430 (11140)


    Endurance (+10 per level): 2430 (11390)


    Will: 2920 (12310)


    Free AP: 0


    Rules: -Sovereign Concept of Water (3%) Elemental maniption


    -Sovereign Concept of Fire (2.2%) Elemental maniption


    -Sovereign Concept of Self (1.4%) Makes attack and defense x% stronger


    -Sovereign Concept of Sword (2%) Makes attack 2*x% stronger with a sword


    -Advanced Concept of Gale (1%) Elemental maniption


    -Sovereign Concept of Spirit (1.8%) Soul bes x% stronger


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E)


    -Water Breathing (E)


    -Aqua sh (D)


    -Charge (D)


    -Wind de (D)


    -Parry (D)


    -Lunar Smite (C)


    -Swift Steps (B)


    -Aqua Smite (B)


    -Crushing Blow (C)


    -Ice Statue (B)


    -Whirlwind sh (C)


    -Totemic Rage (A)


    -Barbarous Roar (B)


    -Misty Escape (B)


    -Great Ice Breath (B)


    -Tidal Wave (A)


    -Ice Crunch (A)


    -Spirit Hand (A)


    For his skills, the mastery of each skill had disappeared as he had perfectly mastered all of his skills. As for his stats, they were even better than they seemed since he also received a 28% boost to each of them thanks to the Godyer''s Heart.


    Ten minutes quickly went by after that, when Adam received one final notification.


    [Binding Sessful! The Divine Artifact ''Blood Tower'' is now bound to you! Do you want to see it''s effects?]


    Adam grinned as he epted readily.

 Chapter 191: Taking the Blood Tower away

    Chapter 191: Taking the Blood Tower away


    [Blood Tower] (Divine, Damaged)


    Storage (Passive): Store inanimate items within the 60 Floors. Because of the damage done to the tower, only beings with a spirit link to Valiant Heart may enter the tower.


    Size Change (Passive): Change the size of the tower at will, from a ten centimeters tall tower to a thousand meters tall tower.


    Resistance (Passive): Resistance to all elements +25% for the owner of the tower, also receives 10% less damage from any attack.


    Bloody Onught (Active): +50% damage to all allies within ten kilometers, and -20% Agility to all enemies for 10 minutes. Cooldown: 1 day.


    Heightened Flight (Passive): 500% flight speed.


    Adam already expected something good since this was a Divine Artifact, even though it was damaged. But this was beyond any of his expectations, truly worthy of a Divine Rank Artifact. To think such a thing was his


    Now that it was his, Adam could perfectly feel everything within the tower, as well as outside. He could see the thousands of Vampires waiting outside, looking anxiously at the tower. This made him chuckle, he shouldn''t tarry too much or some of them might awaken their heart for a second, only to suffer from a heart attack.


    Through his link to the tower, he knew one more thing it could do, and that was storing the tower inside his mind. Normally, one of this tower''s greatest uses was to protect the user from mind and soul attacks by cing the tower in their mind.


    However, the arrays in charge of forming those protections were gone, as well as multiple other ones, because Ardrith had destroyed them with himself as he died.


    Among those functions were those that would allow him to store any living being within the tower, and create illusory monsters. Others might think it was a coincidence the functions he needed the most for his guild were the ones destroyed, but Adam knew it wasn''t one.


    Now, he was sure Ardrith was capable of seeing everything happening outside of the tower, meaning he knew what the vampires would talk about everyday.


    And recently, Adam had made people talk about him a lot, and it wouldn''t be a surprise if a few vampires talked about his situation with the dragons in front of the tower. As such, Ardrith took away what would have allowed him to make his guild safe, as well as one of the main functions of the tower.


    Adam didn''t really know if Ardrith had said the truth about his story or not, or what was true in it and what wasn''t. He wouldn''t trust anything he said anyway.


    And even though the ghost of the Undead Emperor made him lose a lot, the tower was still incredible, and Adam would even be receiving additional rewards from the Holy Temple.


    Adam only had to think about it for the tower to start rapidly shrinking, and in under a second it disappear in his mind, leaving Adam standing in mid air, in the middle of the Vampire City.


    The Enhanced Flight from his tower allowed him to float even though he hadn''t been promoted yet. Flight could be achieved in two ways. First, reach the Gold Rank and force the space around one''s body to carry them. The second way would be to understand 1% of the Spatial Concept.


    One of the hidden boosts of the Blood Tower was from Heightened Flight as it had automatically gave him an initial grasp of the Sovereign Concept of Space, which could grow into one of the most powerful and useful Essences, or even Law.


    There was even a reason for him obtaining this concept. To use Heightened Flight, the tower would actually boost his body with the elements of spaceing from the 60th Floor. When one first entered the 60th Floor, like Adam they would think it was a Demonic Floor made to understand the Demonic Concept, but that was a misconception.


    The Great Devil, or Evil God, who set up this tower had simply decided to use demons as the strongest monsters, and so he put them on the top floor. But that floor, although it looked like hell, it was only a part of that floor.


    Anyway, flooding his body with such a concentrated wave of space elements had allowed him to understand 0.01% of the Sovereign Concept of Space.


    Adam felt a little helpless he had once again understood another Sovereign Concept, he was already at his 6th one, it was more than time to stop. Others would already feel understanding a single Sovereign Concept would take them their entire life, so understanding six of them at the same time was going to be tenuous. Fortunately, he could use the Blood Tower to train faster.


    Anyway, using his meager understanding of Space, Adam slowly floated down toward the Vampire King. Thankfully his flying speed was boosted by 500%, or else he would be flying at the speed of a crawl.


    After a few seconds, hended in front of the stupefied king, and he took out [Xarnin''s Blood]. He showed it to the Vampire King and said "Here you go."


    Vald looked at the vial with wide eyes, and took it with shaking hands. As he confirmed it was what he thought it was, he gulped, and the potion disappeared in his inventory. He then looked at Adam, and suddenly took him in a fierce hug.


    Adam was stupefied as he didn''t expect this from one of the most dignified and powerful beings in the entire Mortal ne, moreover any human from Earth would avoid being hugged by a vampire they had sharp teeth.


    But of course, he didn''t move away, and instead patted his back and said "There''s no need to be so emotional."


    Vald moved away, but Adam could see tears? However, Vald wasn''t sad, he was crying in happiness. He tried to wipe away the tears, but seeing he couldn''t stop crying, he simply let out a chockedugh and said "My people! WE ARE FREE!"


    Adam looked around, and noticed that Vald wasn''t the only one crying. Almost everyone was. They had all lived through terrible times, when they first transformed and became ostracized, when they found a new family in the vampires, when their new family was hunted to near extinction, and all this while, they could only feel pleasure in the pain of others


    Before he could react, Adam saw himself get lifted by the vampires as they began celebrating in a mix ofughter and tears.


    As he saw them in this state, Adam saw even King yer was tearing up a little. This went on for half an hour before they somehow calmed down, and Vald brought Adam away.


    At the same time, Vald had started the preparations to spread the cure to everyone, their alchemists had been preparing for millions of years now to distill [Xarnin''s Blood] to everyone in the shortest time possible, and today, the vampire alchemists would get the privilege to be the ones who would distill that legendary potion.


    While the alchemists immediately started working, Vald brought Adam and King yer to the vault of the entire race, and said "I said earlier we would owe you one if you managed to get the cure, but honestly you can take everything in the vault and no one would care!"


    Adam smiled but shook his head and said "I, would feel bad. There''s only a few things inside that would be of interest to me, and they are of no use to you too."


    Vald nodded, he was true to his words, he really wouldn''t mind if Adam took everything inside. On the side, King yer said "I don''t yearn for anything inside either. I have already made my request."


    Vald nodded once again and said "No problem, you were the one who brought our savior here, transforming you using Royal Blood is nothing. As a Sovereign, you even have the chance to be an Imperial Vampire. To boost your chances, the best time for your change would be during your promotion to Silver Rank. Come find me when you have reached Level 50."


    King yer nodded, and Adam couldn''t help but feel a little envious. King yer was a Sovereign like him, but he didn''t have to go through a Promotion Quest. Adam had to do so much to be a Silver Rank though.


    Of course, Adam wasn''t really jealous in the end, as it was those challenges and hurdles that allowed him to be much stronger than any other Sovereign and gain so much.

 Chapter 192: Holy Temple

    Chapter 192: Holy Temple


    When he got inside the vault, Adam took two kinds of items. First, was what he came here for, the ten Blood Metal Ores. With them in hand, Adam had finally gathered all the materials for his armor, his promotion to the Silver Rank was in sight!


    Aside from those ores, Adam also got something he expected to find here, but there were more than he thought there would be, and it was Godyer''s Hearts. There were four of them sitting quietly in the vault.


    When he started approaching the vault he had felt the pulse get stronger and stronger, but he didn''t expect there to be four of them. Still, he was happy as that allowed him to evolve the item to the next rank.


    [Godyer''s Heart] (Extraordinary)


    All attributes: +44%


    Ignorance: Ignore Levels +10. (4/4)


    Deep Wounds: Attacks deals bleeding effect, intensity based on the attack and the difference in strength. (7/7)


    World Chains: Form chains capable of incapacitating anyone below the user''s level. (10/10)


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 13 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 16 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 19 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 22 hearts.


    Sealed Power: To unseal this power fuse 25 hearts.


    Fusion: For this artifact to regain its power all the pieces must be fused back. Fusion rate: 11/25.


    Adam tested the World Chains, they looked like deep ck chains that were so dark they seemed to absorb the surrounding light and made the room a little darker. He didn''t know they would incapacitate someone, but they definitely looked fearsome.


    He easily made them disappear and left the vault with Vald and King yer, before he was tempted to take away the literal mountains of gold in there.


    The moment he stepped outside the vault, he also received a notification. From the mission ''Clear the Blood Tower'', he had also gotten 1000 AP as an additional reward, although he didn''t know whether it was because he took so little things from the vault or if it was a set reward.


    Since he had opened the 3rd Gate, those 1000 AP obviously transformed into 5000 ones, and he used the usual ratio of conversion, putting 3000 AP in his Strength, and 1000 in Agility and Endurance.


    After that, Vald invited Adam to stay in the Vampire City with them for a while, but Adam had to refuse because he still had things to do. While Vald was sad hearing that, he still let Adam go after some more thanks.


    Adam left with Neith in tow, but King yer had decided to stay a little longer as he wanted to learn a little from the alchemists here, they were among the best in the world after all.


    But as Adam and Neith walked out of the city, when he was about to ask Neith to get them up the cliff, someone appeared in front of them. Adam recognized her as the Vampire Princess, known as One Sword.


    While he was in the tower, he saw King yer and her seemed to be very close, and when he took out the cure, he even saw her and King yer hold hands. Adam would be a fool not to understand his subordinate''s intentions.


    So even though she was very beautiful, he wasn''t one to make his subordinates cuckolds, so he ahd zero intentions toward her.


    As he stopped in front of her, she was the first to speak as she kneeled and said "I apologize for attacking you in the past."


    Adam looked down at her and said "It''s fine, it was just a contract. And I tend to forgive my assassins, one even became my disciple. You can get up, you are forgiven, let''s be friends from now on."


    The Vampire Princess, which Adam knew was called Astrid from her status, got up and said "I thank you for your benevolence, but if I may" Adam nodded to her seeing her hesitation, so she continued "You shouldn''t forgive people who tried to kill you so easily."


    Adamughed and said "Don''t worry, out of all the people who attacked me, the only two I didn''t kill were you and my disciple, others all died."


    Astrid looked relieved as she too understood how this world worked, and knew that a person who was too benevolent would be taken advantage of.


    With a final bow, she disappeared, and as she did Neith said "I too tried to kill you, and yet I still live How sad, being forgotten by my own father."


    Adam smiled at her and said "Right, sorry. I have a gift for you, but you will only be able to use it once we are outside."


    Neith giggled and took the two of them out of the long tunnel, up above.


    An hourter, the two exited the Land of Eternal Night, and were back in the main dimension of the Mortal ne. Once out, Adam said "Can you feel what appeared in my mental ne?"


    Neith nodded, so Adam said "This is the Blood Tower, I gained ownership over it. Come, I will show you something."


    Neith nodded and Adam moved her inside the Blood Tower. Only beings with a spirit link to him could enter the tower, meaning only him and his pets coulde within the tower.


    Adam teleported inside the 57th Floor, which was the floor with the most Earth Elements in the whole tower. Neith was already in there, already half sunk in sand.


    Adam had appeared next to her, and he said "From now on, everytime you can''t enter a city, I will send you here instead of the Pet Space. You cane here whenever you want to train. Do you like the ce?"


    Neith squealed "I love it! Thanks dad!" Adam shook a little, it definitely felt weird to be called dad by a fifty meters tall spider, but he didn''t mind it as he saw her as his daughter too. He only needed some time to adjust to the situation.


    He decided to let her have fun here first and train, as he needed to go somewhere she couldn''te. He wouldn''t go straight away to Yok, as before getting his armor and being promoted, he wanted to head to the Holy Temple.


    He hadpleted a hidden quest to kill the Undead Emperor''s spirit, so the reward should be great. Chances were, he would once again get more AP.


    Adam first walked to the nearest city, then teleported to the capital of ckheart, Urdreth. As he came back here, he couldn''t help but notice the name was simr to the Undead Emperor''s name, Ardrith. Unfortunately, he didn''t know the origin of the name of the capital, so he didn''t know whether there was a link or not.


    Adam didn''t tarry much in the Assassins'' Capital and teleported to the Holy Temple.


    The Holy Temple stood in the center of the Mortal ne, and the easiest way to get there was to teleport from one of the capitals of the Racial Powers. One could also walk there as the area around the temple was devoid of monsters, but Adam didn''t want to waste time walking when he could simply teleport.


    When Adam arrived at the Holy Temple, his first instinct was to associate it to the Parthenon, except it was much bigger. Humans, or intelligent races if that mattered, seemed to all love grandeur and building high things.


    The only ones who didn''t care were the Lizardkin so far. But the Lizardkin obviously weren''t the ones who built this temple as it was as big as everything that belonged to the powerful in this world.


    There were no guards guarding the entry, but it wasn''t like there was any need for them. The Holy Temple was filled with Legends, so anyone who attacked would instantly be attacked by tens of Legends at the same time.


    Adam knew for sure the moment he appeared the Legends already knew of his presence, since their domains should be dominating the surrounding space.


    As Adam entered the Holy Temple, he was a little lost at what he should do. The system only told him toe here to receive his reward, but it didn''t tell him what to do once here. Well, it looked like he would have to find by himself.

 Chapter 193: Myrin

    Chapter 193: Myrin


    As he didn''t know what to do, Adam walked to the only staff member around, the receptionist. The Holy Temple was opened to the public as it was a public ce to worship the gods. If one was lucky, they could even get a blessing from the gods as they preyed.


    It was also the headquarters of all the Racial Powers, if one day something simr to the Undead Uprising were to happen, then the Holy Temple would be thest bastion. At the same time, the important decisions for the world would be held here, but it had been thousands of years since an Assembly had been held.


    The Assembly would gather all the Legends belonging to the Racial Powers and they would debate on the most important issues.


    Back to the receptionist, they were simply here to help out if one wanted to either see a Legend within the Holy Temple, or more simply ask for directions. The Temple was very big.


    As Adam approached the receptionist, he asked "Are any of the Legends here avable for a meeting with me."


    The receptionist had been staring at him since he entered the temple, and obviously knew his identity. But before he could say anything, a portal appeared on Adam''s left and a voice said from inside "Hop in."


    Adam looked at the receptionist, who shrugged, and entered the portal.


    Adam found himself in a forest, in front of a wooden house up in a tree. Adam could feel the elements of Nature were quite thick around here, and he easily recognized them thanks to passing through a simr level back in the Blood Tower, although the elements there were a little less concentrated. It was because it was only in the 30'' floors.


    The Concept of Nature was an Advanced Concept, and a derivation of the Sovereign Concept of Life. It was a concept, or in this case an Essence, mainly mastered by Wood Elves.


    And indeed, as he entered through the wide opened door of the house, he saw a female Wood Elf sitting in front of a bow, maintaining it.


    [Myrin] (Legend, Level 250)


    ??/??


    Myrin was a middle aged elven woman of great beauty. Elves were renown for their beauty after all. However, for her to show signs of aging, she was probably a few thousands years old


    As Adam was thinking of useless thoughts, Myrin looked at him and said with a smile "Aqua Sovereign. Why would youe here and ask for us old things?"


    Adam replied "Well, I met the spirit of Ardrith, the Undead Emperor." Myrin''s smile disappeared as her expression became serious. She asked "How? Did you find yourself in Hell?"


    Adam shook his head and said "Of course not. I met his spirit in this realm. It tried to possess me, but I killed it and destroyed his spirit. Did I send him to Hell?"


    Myrin frowned and stared at him intently, and after a moment she said "You''re not lying To think such a danger was hiding in this ce all this while"


    She then said "Gaya the Great must have been the one who told you toe here, right?" Adam tilted his head, and after a moment he realized that might be the case.


    He had already been told the system was created by the gods, and Gaya, or Sophia, had changed a few things for the inhabitants of Earth who woulde to Epoch. Maybe she really was the one who told him he would get his rewards here.


    So even though he wasn''t sure, he nodded in the end.


    Myrin still had her frown, but after a moment it eased as she said "You made a great contribution. There is no clear reward, so how about this. Do you need anything in particr?"


    Adam saw that he received an additional 5000 AP, and as he added them in the same way as the earlier ones, he said "You might have heard of my scuffle with the dragons?"


    Myrin nodded and said "You want the Temple''s aid to deal with the dragons? If that''s your request, you can forget it."


    Adam shook his head, a bit surprised by how direct she was in the way she refused him. Was there something he didn''t know about the Dragon n that made the Holy Temple apprehend antagonizing them?


    Most probably, but he shook those thoughts out of his head as he said "I am going to make an armor from the Dragons'' scales, and I would like for a capable Enchanter to enchant the set armor, to transform it into a growing armor. When forged, it should be a Level 60 Unique Set, and I want it to be able to level up to Level 100."


    Myrin looked relieved as she said "That''s not a problem, I happen to be a capable Enchanter. I can help you with your request. Here, take this." She took out a crystal glowing with green light and continued "When your armor ispleted, crush this and I will enchant your set armor."


    Adam looked at her with surprised as he asked "Doesn''t the Enchanter need to work together with the Forger to add such an enchantment?"


    Myrin smirked and said "I told you I was a capable Enchanter, didn''t I?"


    Seeing she didn''t have any intention of saying any more, he said "Thank you for your hospitality then. It''s time for me to go now."


    Myrin nodded and said "Your contribution to the living will be noted. See you soon then." As she said that, Adam felt a force surround him and forcefully send him away.


    A momentter, he appeared at the Teleportation array, with a weird face. Teleportation, just like flying, was an ability that could be activated in multiple ways.


    First, if one reached the Hero Rank, they would be able to tear space open, creating a path through space itself. This wasn''t really teleportation though, only a very fast way of travel.


    For true teleportation, one needed to reach the Legend Rank, only then would one be able to use their Aura or Mana to force the space rules to teleport. Of course, both for Portal Traveling or Teleportation, one could also understand the Space Concept and Essence to achieve both objectives.


    The point was, before Adam couldn''t feel anything when he was getting forcefully teleported by Legends, but even though he was still too weak, his initial understanding of the Space Concept actually allowed him to feel the teleportation taking ce. That meant that if his understanding of the Space Concept was good enough, most probably if he reached the Essence Level, then he might be able to resist from being teleported, even if it was done by a Legend.


    That helped Adam realize that the Space Concept might be even more powerful and interesting than he thought. It was already recognized as one of the strongest concepts already, because of it''s deadly abilities. But if it allowed him to counter Heroes and Legends even more easily, then it was going to be a great ability.


    Now that he had taken care of everything he needed, it was time for Adam to go back to Yok. As he teleported in the Orcish Capital, Adam could feel his excitement bubbling as he felt his promotion was nearing. For him, being promoted would represent a massive power up, massive enough to allow him to reach the higher strata of Epoch''s society.


    With swift steps, Adam arrived in front of Klint''s Workshop, and saw everything inside was the same as usual. Klint was in his old reclining chair, while Morbash was hammering a piece of iron.


    As Adam entered the shop, Klint looked at him with a smile, and Morbash almost looked fanatical when he saw him. He asked straightaway "Did you get all the materials?"


    Adam smiled at the cksmith''s glee and nodded as he said "I got all the materials. Do you need any preparation to start working?"


    Morbash guffawed "Impatient to get your armor? Don''t worry, I can start working on it right now! By the end of the day, you will be wearing your precious armor!"

 Chapter 194: Water Dragon Set (1)

    Chapter 194: Water Dragon Set (1)


    Adam grinned and took out the materials he still hadn''t given out, and Morbash took them with the same foolish grin. On the side, Klint was rolling his eyes. He understood their emotions, he felt them himself when he forged extraordinary pieces in the past, but seeing other people act this way made them really look foolish.


    Despite this, Klint helped Morbash set everything up for the forging. While Klint was too weak to forge on his own, he certainly was a great helper any cksmith would want to have.


    While the young and the old orc worked together, Adam entered the Blood Tower before disconnecting, only leaving a ten centimeters tall mini tower on the chair. Adam didn''t intend on announcing to the entire world he owned a Divine Artifact, that would be seeking trouble, but he trusted the two so he didn''t mind using it in front of the two.


    Because of everything that happened in the Blood Tower, Adam had already been online for many days on a row, and he was stinking.


    The moment his consciousness came back to his body, Adam went to open the windows to let the fresh air rece the stinky one.


    Then, taking clothes with him, he sprinted for the shower. Only when he started washing was he at ease. Even as a martial artist, remaining inside the game for several days had ups and downs.


    Speaking of martial artists, Adam made a new exciting discovery. He wasn''t absolutely sure of it before, but now he was certain he found something. Despite having been in the game for the past week, Adam''s cultivation had once again advanced, now reaching the peak of the Qi Gathering Realm.


    That meant his body was effectively cultivating on his own, and ying the game allowed him to advance faster in his cultivation. That was good news for the future.


    Once he had showered and was as fresh as new, Adam was surprised to see that there wasn''t only his family in the living room, but also Matt''s girlfriend. Adam almost made a weird face, weren''t the two of them going a little too fast, presenting to each other''s parents so soon?


    Thinking for a moment, he remembered her name was Flora, and only then did he go to say hello. It would be weird and rude to go greet her without knowing her name, since she had already presented herself.


    Then, for a good part of the day, Adam stayed with his family, chatting about this and that. He found Flora was quite a likable person, and his brother seemed happy with her, so why not leave her her chance.


    Anyway, little chats like those may sound trivial, but they were actually very important to Adam. It had already been a month since the game was released, and for this entire month had fought against and killed a lot of people.


    Moreover, he did so knowing full well he wasn''t killing data, but actual people. Until now his psyche was fine, but if he really did nothing else than killing then he might slowly turn crazy.


    Most of the time, speaking with Neith daily was a huge stress reliever, but in the end she was living the same life he did, and she was different from him. As a Titanic Spider, her mind was more suited to violence and killing, while he had been raised on Earth, where violence was prohibited.


    That''s why, being able to chat with his family allowed him to keep a sane mind. But the more time passed, the less he felt he needed that as he was amodating more and more to killingrge amount of people.


    Others would probably feel bad or even be horrified if they found out they were growing used to killing, but Adam was relieved instead. As long as he didn''t take a liking to it, then growing used to it was nothing bad to him, it was even an advantage


    Countless thoughts swirled in his mind as he casually talked with his family, and every people he killed came back to his mind. No matter what, he did not regret killing them. If he had the asion, he would even kill them twice.


    As he had this realization, Adam felt something click in his mind, and a frown appeared on his face. Did he just No, that can''t be.


    Adam excused himself after some time, and reentered the game. It was about time to get back in anyway, Flora left at the same time as he did.


    Back in the game, Adam appeared in the Blood Tower, and immediately checked on his status, and as he had thought, there was indeed a new entry which made him helpless.


    He had justprehended another Sovereign Concept, the Concept of ughter However, after a moment his face turned better. It wasn''t as bad as he thought. He was reluctant at first because he didn''t want to have to train on another Concept, but the Concept ughter was among the more unique ones.


    This concept didn''t need one to meditate to understand the profound truth behind it. Instead, all he had to do was to kill and his concept would naturally be more powerful well, it wasn''t just killing, what he really had to do was to make his killing intent more powerful, but the fastest way to do so was killing.


    After a moment, Adam took out the Lesser Holy Water Fruit, which had the effects of adding 1000 to every of his attributes and boosting hisprehension of the Water Concept by 1%. At first, he had wanted to take it before his promotion, but looking at it now, he decided otherwise.


    With his recent gains, adding only 1000 to his stats wouldn''t change much, so the fruit would be better used if he took it when he reached 99% of the Water Concept. Thus, he put it back into his inventory.


    Then, after talking to Neith for a little while, Adam left the tower and stored it back in his mind as he appeared back in the forge.


    When Adam returned to Klint''s Workshop, he saw that the two were already fully focused on the forging, and neither paid attention to himing back. He also saw that the shop had been closed, and he could feel magical restrictions had been set so that no one would interrupt the two.


    Adam didn''t know anything about smithing, but he could see that they had already created the rough form of an armor, so he guessed they were on the right track.


    Since Adam didn''t have much to do, he decided to meditate using his Raging Fire Art. He was next to a forge and the room''s temperature had risen a lot, so the fire elements were eclipsing the other elements'', so this one would be more useful than the Flowing Water Art.


    However, Adam didn''t meditate to try to understand the Fire Concept, he only did so to rest his mind. He wasn''t very tired from the multiple days of continuous gaming in the Blood Tower because a lot of his time had been spent in meditation, but he still preferred to be in mint condition when he would promote to the Silver Rank.


    A few hours went by, and the sound of forging intensified, until it reached a critical juncture. Adam felt a wave of power enshroud the room, and recognized it to belong to Morbash.


    Opening his eyes, Adam saw that all the materials prepared had disappeared, and a full-body armor was in front of Morbash. However, Adam couldn''t see it''s characteristics because it was glowing in a blue light.


    Morbash, using the Forger''s Dream, which Adam fetched for him in the Phantom Mansion, began to hammer the armor. Surrounding the hammer, was the fire Adam retrieved from the Everburn Mount, except that it had turned blue.


    Each time the Forger''s Dream hit the armor, blue sparks would explode, hitting the walls and the forge, while the blue fire would roar. Klint had already been forced to the other side of the room as his body couldn''t handle so much stress. Even Morbash was sweating and breathing heavily.


    Only Adam was fine, looking at the forging process with excitement. The hammering went on for an entire five minutes, and each time the hammer fell on the armor, the armor''s blue aura would disappear a little, being forced into the armor. At the same time, Morbash was looking worse off everytime, but he held on to the end nheless.


    When Morbash stopped his hammer, thest bit of blue aura had just disappeared into the armor, finally revealing it''s true form. At the same time, a tyrannical aura exploded out of the armor, making Klint cough in the distance while Morbash had to take a few steps back.


    Adam received a notification from the system, and started walking toward the armor.


    [You havepleted the promotion quest ''Water Dragon Set''! Reward: Water Dragon Set, +5 Levels, +5000 AP, Promotion to Silver Rank unlocked.]


    [You have reached Level 50! AP +50!]


    [Promotion to Silver Rank avable!]

 Chapter 195: Water Dragon Set (2)

    Chapter 195: Water Dragon Set (2)


    Adam was naturally excited as he read the notifications, but his attention remained on the piece of armor. With all the trouble he went through to get it, it better be something incredible. But before even seeing it''s stats, Adam knew from the aura it released it would definitely satisfy him.


    When Adam arrived half a meter from the armor, he took off all the pieces of armor he had on him, sending them back into his inventory. Thankfully he still had his underwear on. He touched the armor to inspect it, but as soon as he did the armor actually moved on it''s own.


    A Dragon''s and a Tiger''s roar echoed from the armor as it attached itself to him. The armor was a perfect size, and Adam felt a power greater than ever go through him. Drawn in the feeling of power, Adam also assigned the 5250 AP he got from the quest and his level ups, and it only intensified the feeling.


    Next to him, the two orcs felt a powerful pressureing from Adam, which would even make a beginner Gold Rank tremble. However, Adam was controlling his aura so that he wouldn''t hurt the two. But what they didn''t know was that it was far from over.


    Adam checked his armor, and he definitely wasn''t disappointed.


    [Water Dragon Chestte] (Unique, Level 60, Set)


    Requirements: Bound to Valiant Heart


    Defense: +4000


    HP: +40000


    All stats: +4400


    Dragon Dominance (1/4 set effect): You naturally exude a dragon''s dominance. Moral skills have their effects doubled.


    Strong as a Tide (2/4 set effect): Water elemental skills be 50% stronger.


    Blood Burn (3/4 set effect): Whenever your enemy is suffering from a bleeding effect, any healing will be 50% slower if you were the one who caused it.


    Hell Spirit (4/4 set effect): Stun every enemy within a hundred meters for five seconds. May be resisted. Cooldown: 10 minutes.


    [Water Dragon Helmet] (Unique, Level 60, Set)


    Requirements: Bound to Valiant Heart


    Defense: +4000


    HP: +40000


    Strength: +8000


    Endurance: +4000


    Dragon Dominance (1/4 set effect): You naturally exude a dragon''s dominance. Moral skills have their effects doubled.


    Strong as a Tide (2/4 set effect): Water elemental skills be 50% stronger.


    Blood Burn (3/4 set effect): Whenever your enemy is suffering from a bleeding effect, any healing will be 50% slower if you were the one who caused it.


    Hell Spirit (4/4 set effect): Stun every enemy within a hundred meters for five seconds. May be resisted. Cooldown: 10 minutes.


    [Water Dragon Gauntlets] (Unique, Level 60, Set)


    Requirements: Bound to Valiant Heart


    Defense: +4000


    HP: +40000


    Strength: +14000


    Dragon Dominance (1/4 set effect): You naturally exude a dragon''s dominance. Moral skills have their effects doubled.


    Strong as a Tide (2/4 set effect): Water elemental skills be 50% stronger.


    Blood Burn (3/4 set effect): Whenever your enemy is suffering from a bleeding effect, any healing will be 50% slower if you were the one who caused it.


    Hell Spirit (4/4 set effect): Stun every enemy within a hundred meters for five seconds. May be resisted. Cooldown: 10 minutes.


    [Water Dragon Boots] (Unique, Level 60, Set)


    Requirements: Bound to Valiant Heart


    Defense: +4000


    HP: +40000


    Strength: +8000


    Agility: +4000


    Dragon Dominance (1/4 set effect): You naturally exude a dragon''s dominance. Moral skills have their effects doubled.


    Strong as a Tide (2/4 set effect): Water elemental skills be 50% stronger.


    Blood Burn (3/4 set effect): Whenever your enemy is suffering from a bleeding effect, any healing will be 50% slower if you were the one who caused it.


    Hell Spirit (4/4 set effect): Stun every enemy within a hundred meters for five seconds. May be resisted. Cooldown: 10 minutes.


    The armor was light blue and was mainly made of dragon scales. His helmet was an opened one that revealed part of his face and was adorned of a pair of horns, which used to belong to the Water Dragon Princess.


    The Chestte was closely stuck to his body and almost looked like a second skin made of scales, showing off Adam''s powerful muscles. His arms were also covered in scales, and his hands were made to look like miniature dragon ws, capable of being used like a human''s, but also having terrifyingly sharp nails.


    As for his boots, there wasn''t much to say about them, except the word dragon. With this Water Dragon Set, Adam was covered from head to toe in dragon''s parts, making him look like a legendary dragon yer well, he was one.


    But his power scaling wasn''t over. Since this was a safe ce, Adam decided to undergo his promotion right here, right now. In his new armor, Adam sat on the ground and activated his promotion.


    The moment he did, Adam felt the world around him stop, and Adam remembered this sensation to be the same as when Sofia appeared to him in the game. However, instead of her appearing, Adam disappeared from the smithy and appeared in a white room.


    In front of himself, Adam saw Sofia, who was smiling at him.


    Adam looked at her and asked "What happened? I could promote on my own, right?"


    Sofia smiled and said "Had your situation been usual, you could have promoted on your own like many other yers. However, you have grown too powerful. There is no doubt I won''t be able to keep up with your avatar when you promote to the next rank. Hence, you need to form your own avatar."


    She snapped her fingers, and instead of half of the universe turning into ashes, Adam saw his body appear in the room. Sofia said "This is your real body, I took it away from your gaming cabin. Now, you need to fuse your current avatar with your body. Fortunately, your real body''s cultivation has reached the peak of the Qi Gathering Realm."


    This time, she sped her hands, and Adam felt a force act within his body as his real body began levitating. The process was much faster than Adam thought it would be though as it only took an instant for his body to fuse with the avatar.


    Adam was ecstatic to see his real body had be as powerful as his body in the game. Sofia then said "Before we go any further, there are things you need to know. First, please take off everything you have on you."


    Adam was stunned by her request, but still did as he was told without hesitation. Having taken everything off, Adam stood naked in front of Sofia, but he didn''t care. First, he was proud of his body, so he didn''t mind showing it off.


    But more importantly, he was standing in front of a literal goddess, it felt very different from being seen by a mortal. She was above this. Or so he thought.


    Adam was shocked when he felt her gaze descend from his face to his part below. Hey, aren''t you supposed to be an all powerful goddess?


    But Sofia clearly felt no shame as she looked at his member openly and seemed deep in thought. Only after a moment did her eyes climb back to Adam''s face as she shamelessly said "The next step is for you to promote to the next rank. Then, you will create your avatar. But first, I want you to move everything inside your inventory inside the Blood Tower."


    She had shamelessly ignored what she just did, but since she did this, Adam decided to also ignore it. Guessing what woulde, Adam emptied his inventory inside a part of the Blood Tower, and as expected, the moment he did he felt his inventory disappear.


    Sofia said "Breaking through to next realm, or the next rank, will bring many changes. First, your avatar will be mortal. To form your avatar you will have to split your soul in two, and your real body or your avatar dying will be permanent, and mean losing half of your soul."


    Adam''s face became grave, but Sofia wasn''t finished "I see you have started to understand the Sovereign Concept of Spirit, which is good as it will allow you to slowly strengthen both of your split souls back to your soul''s current level, and even beyond."


    "Having two bodies and minds will be very useful to you though. Both of your souls will be connected at all time and their thoughts will be shared. This means you can meditate on two concepts at the same time for example."


    "However, what you will form will not be a mere avatar, but a Yin Yang Avatar. This is the most powerful kind of avatars that will allow you to reach extraordinary heights in the future. For now, you will have to separate your body in a Yin half and a Yang half. Since your body''s main affinities are water and fire, you will have to give your Yang body the fire affinity, and your Yin body the water affinity."


    "This means that your Yang body will not be able to use any skill of the Water element, and the opposite for your Yin body."


    Adam scratched his head and said "That''s a lot to take in"


    Sofia was stunned, before she smiled and said "Right, there is no need for me to go on further, you will discover everything by yourself Well, time for you to breakthrough then. You should know how to do so, right?"


    Adam nodded and sat on the ground, starting his breakthrough.

 Chapter 196: Breaking Through

    Chapter 196: Breaking Through


    For promotions, the system in the game would assist everyone and allow them to smoothly break through. It would even give them all the information they may need. However, for some reason, Sofia had decided it was better for Adam to let go of the system, and breakthrough on his own.


    Adam actually had spections as to why she wanted him to not rely on the system. The system had been made by the gods, so depending on it meant to depend on the gods. Surpassing them while depending on them seemed hard.


    Moreover, for the millions of years since the war of the gods, not a single person had managed to ascend to divinity. There was definitely something fishy with this, and if Adam had to guess, he would say this had to do with the system.


    Of course, he had no proof, but this spection was enough for him to prefer breaking through on his own rather than relying on the system. Although it would make his breakthrough more dangerous and give it chances to fail, Adam had built an unbelievably powerful foundation, which made it almost impossible for him to fail.


    Adam took control of all the Qi across his body and flooded his dantian with it. The next realm was called the Foundation Establishment Realm on Earth, and there was a reason for that. That was because one would need to transform their dantian into a foundation when they brokethrough.


    As his dantian was filled to the brim, Adam didn''t stop sending Qi into it, and cracks began appearing on it. This would be a very dangerous situation if he weren''t in the process of breaking through as having his dantian destroyed was the same as losing all his aura. He would have to recreate it from scratch.


    However, it wasn''t as dramatic as being crippled for life. Having his dantian, foundation orter inner core destroyed only meant he would have to recreate them, and his body would remain as powerful so it would only take time to recreate them.


    Adam''s Qi was in a gaseous state inside his dantian, and as it was cracking open, the gas became more and more concentrated, until the dantian broke into pieces.


    Then, instead of dispersing, his Qi instead stayed in ce as it became thicker and purer, usingrge amount of Qi. Meanwhile, his body was sucking in the surrounding Qi at a frantic pace, pushing more and more Qi where his dantian used to be.


    As the minutes passed, the gas became so concentrated that it started changing into a liquid. For any cultivator, at Bronze Rank, their gaseous dantian would transform into liquid Qi as they brokethrough to the next rank/realm.


    Then, depending on the strength of their body, their Qi would be formed into a different number of pirs of liquid Qi/Aura/Mana. The higher the number of pirs, the stronger the foundation would be.


    This was also why this was known as the second most important breakthrough in this world. The first would determine one''s ss, and the second their strength within their ss. If their foundation was strong enough, even an SS ss, or an S ss, could rival with a Sovereign in the future.


    Usually, the number of pirs people would form would be under five, as even the average Sovereign would hardly go past five.


    But all of this was for normal people. Adam''s body had be so freakishly strong while he was Bronze Rank that his Qi was turning into pirs at an astonishing speed. Five, six, seven, eight


    For three hours Adam''s body absorbed an absurd amount of Qi which even shocked Sofia who was waiting on the side. In the end, as Adam formed his 15th Pir, he finally felt like his body couldn''t go on anymore, and he stopped.


    The fifteen pirs of liquid Qi stabilized, before sending out a mass of energy toward the entirety of Adam''s body, strengthening it at a quick pace.


    After some time, the Qi in Adam''s body started to calm down as it converged back into his pirs, ergo his foundation.


    Adam then opened his eyes, and a blue light shone in them. He looked at his hand, and clenched it. There was so much strength in that clench that the air in his hand had no time to move away and waspressed on the spot, and created an explosion sound.


    On the side, Sofia said "You always seem to surpass the expectations. Now that you have broken through, it is time for you to split your body and soul in half. I will help you with this, but you will have to bear through the pain."


    Adam nodded and said "I am ready." Sofia''s face became serious as she walked to Adam''s back and struck him with her palm.


    Adam felt his soul split open as immense pain flooded his body no, not just his body, his entire being, his entire existence felt the soul tearing pain. Then, a second wave of pain came from his body, and although Adam wanted to cry out, he couldn''t.


    Adam''s body began turning into ashes as his soul left his body. Once out of his body, his soul began splitting in two as his body was destroyed. Or at least, it''s what it looked like.


    Instead of being destroyed, his body had been transformed into ashes, and were turning into cells, before bing even smaller elements.


    However, the change was slow, and every second Adam felt a pain he couldn''t even describe anymore. But he held on, he gritted his teeth and persevered. What was a little pain to him, could it even hold on in front of his dreams, hopes and ideals?


    Adam''s will furiously battled against the pain as his being was being split and remade. Like this, several hours passed, then turned into days. However, they were currently in a room where the time rules were altered, and barely a second had passed in the outside world.


    Finally, after days of suffering, the transformation wasing to an end. Adam''s soul had been split in two, and his body had been transformed back into it''s macroscopic state, except that there were now two of them.


    With a wave of her hand, Sofia sent a half of Adam''s soul in each body,pleting his transformation. Now that his pain had ended, Adam had a peaceful face as both his bodies fused with the half soul injected in it.


    Adam felt a strange connection between his two bodies, they were separate, and yet at the same time they were one. They each had their own thoughts, but at the same time their thoughts were the same It was a truly weird experience.


    Then, the two felt their connection with the Blood Tower and Neith reconnect. Thankfully, time had also been put to near stop for Neith, or she would have freaked out when Adam''s soul disconnected from hers.


    When he had been in his transformation, the Blood Tower had been ejected from his soul and was floating in front of the two Adams.


    Then, Yin Adam and Yang Adam both opened their eyes at the same time, revealing a pair of blue and red eyes respectively. The eyes were said to be the window to the soul, and it was not a legend.


    Yin Adam''s blue eyes were calm like ake, while Yang Adam''s red eyes were fiery and mes seemed to dance in his pupils.

 Chapter 197: Making a choice

    Chapter 197: Making a choice


    Sofia said with a smile "Congrattions for breaking through." Both Adams nodded, and Sofia continued "There a few things you need to know. First, you have to decide which version of you will go to Epoch and which will stay on Earth."


    Adam didn''t even have to think about it as he said "Yin goes to Epoch, Yang to Earth." It felt weird speaking through two bodies at the same time, but that would only be for some time.


    Sofia nodded and said "Now that you have your own avatar, there will be no need for you to use the gaming cabin. Your Yin Half will be a true inhabitant of Epoch, you will be an NPC, and not be a yer anymore."


    Yin Adam nodded, that was to be expected, and it wasn''t a bad thing.


    Sofia said "You will still be different from the other members of this world though. From now on, you will no longer be dependant on the system. It will notpletely disappear, but be severely limited. For example, you will not be able to level up using XP, only through cultivation. Same for ranking up."


    Both Adams said at the same time "That means I won''t need to go through any other Promotion Quests?"


    Sofia nodded and said "Before the War of the Gods, everyone only had cultivation. However, to ''help'' people on Epoch, the gods designed this system. While it allowed everyone to gain a ss much more easily, and allow one to advance much quicker, it alsopletely blocks off ess to Godhood. There is only one way to be a God, and that is through cultivation."


    Adam shrugged, it wasn''t bad to grow stronger through cultivation. Sure, it took away a part of the gaming aspect, but this had grown far from being just a simple ''game''.


    Sofia then added "Your defence will be more realistic too, getting your throat slit open will do more than twice the damage of being shed in the foot. However, your attack will still work in the same way since others are still protected by the system."


    "As for the rest, you should be able to discover it by yourself. But before I let you go, you have another choice to make."


    Adam raised an eyebrow, and Sofia said "You have two bodies, and their minds are linked. The Blood Tower, as a Divine Artefact, is capable of ignoring World Rules and transfer between your two minds. That mean you can make the Blood Tower appear on both Earth and Epoch. However, you may not take any item from either world to the other as it will be instantly destroyed by the worldws."


    Adam was surprised his Blood Tower was capable of doing this, and although he felt it was a shame he wasn''t able to bring items from one world to another, it did make sense.


    Sofia said "However, one of the hidden functions of your Blood Tower is to split the floors. Normally it does not have much for someone with only a single body. However, for you, you can leave a few floors for your Yang Avatar while taking the major part of the Blood Tower with your Yin Avatar."


    Adam frowned for a bit, before he his face cleared as he said "The choice you were talking about, you mean my Concepts, right?"


    Sofia nodded and said "For now, you have 8 Concepts. The best thing for you to do is to split them between your two avatars, and give the appropriate floors to your Yang Avatar."


    Yin Adam nodded and said "My Concepts are Water, Fire, Self, Sword, Gale, Spirit, Space and ughter. Of those, only Gale is Advanced while the rest is Sovereign Level. But ughter and Self don''t need meditation, so I have to split Water, Fire, Gale, Sword, Spirit and Space."


    Yang Adam continued "The logic thing to do is to split them three by three. Obviously, I take Fire and Yin takes Water. I think Yin should also take Sword, since it needs a lot of fighting, and he will be much more exposed to fighting than I will."


    Yin nodded and finished "For now, our souls are weakened because of the split, so we also need to find powerful souls to heal our souls. Extracting and absorbing those souls will allow the Spirit Concept to advance."


    Sofia sped her hands and said "So it''s decided. Yang will take the Fire, Gale and Space Concept to meditate on, while Yin will take Water, Sword and Spirit. Here, this is how you will split the floors."


    As she said that, Adam felt a wave of information enter his mind, not unlike how he felt when Strith, the God of War, had imparted on him the title of Champion and information on meridians.


    Adam quickly understood how he should do, and soon three floors of the Blood Tower entered Yang''s mind while the rest went into Yin''s mind.


    Sofia then said "Before I send you back, there is also something you need to do, and which will be much more convenient if you do it here."


    Adam titled his head so Sofia said "Now that you ranked up, you must have felt your body has be very different."


    Adam nodded, apart from his Qi turning into fifteen liquid pirs, and his bones and muscles turning stronger, he also felt his meridians had multiplied in number.


    Sofia said "Every time you rank up, your meridians will be multiplied in number. It is a good thing you had aplete understanding of your meridians during Bronze Rank as this will allow you to understand your new meridians much faster. And doing so is very important for your cultivation techniques."


    Adam asked "Is that why my cultivation techniques couldn''t move up from B Rank?"


    She nodded and exined "Now that you have levelled up, a B Rank Cultivation technique isn''t going to do it. While obtaining such a strong body allows you to cross ranks to fight, it also needs much more energy than any other body to level up. Using a B Rank Cultivation technique you would need hundreds of years to rank up."


    She added "Using an A Rank cultivation technique will lower this to something around 10 years, which is a huge improvement."


    Adam asked, a little shocked "You are telling me I will need ten years to rank up to Gold Rank?"


    Sofia let out augh seeing his worried faces and said "Don''t worry, that is if you only stick to cultivation for ten years. Qi is thicker in certain parts of the world, and since you cultivate using elemental techniques, cultivating in a ce filled with water or fire elements will allow you to cultivate much faster."


    Adam was relieved to hear this. In ten years, Adam expected himself to have already opened the 6th Gate and be on his way to the 7th. Opening the 6th Gate in Silver Rank was a little too weird, considering the fact even the most powerful people on Epoch only understood up to the 6th Gate.


    Sofia turned back serious as she said "You time here is limited, we are inside my divine artefact and I am using it to slow down the time outside, but this takes a huge amount of divine energy to do so, so don''t waste time and start."


    Both Adams nodded and closed their eyes as they started exploring their inner bodies. Like that, time started to pass by quickly, or maybe slowly? Adam had no idea of how much time he spent cultivating because there were no sun or moon in this room, and he didn''t really care either.


    While he was cultivating, Adam had also try to meditate on his Concepts, but he found out that the elements here were very sparse, and he was making virtually no progress in any of them because of this. So he stuck to understanding his inner body.


    Exploring his entire body''s meridians took a lot of time, even when there were two of him, but as he went on he understood something that made him progress much faster than before. Every new meridians he had was connected to old ones, and so using them as reference he was able to find them all rtively quickly.


    After an unknown amount of time passed, both Adams once again opened their eyes and said at the same time "I''m done."

 Chapter 198: Back in Epoch

    Chapter 198: Back in Epoch


    Sofia nodded, and Adam could see traces of fatigue on her face. Keeping the artefact active really did take it''s toll on her as it seemed.


    She said "Good, you can go now Good luck, Adam." With those words, Adam put the Water Dragon Set on Yin''s body right before they were teleported over.


    Yang was teleported back into his bedroom on Earth, naked. Fortunately, there was no one in his room, so he was able to dress up without anyone seeing him. At the same time, Yang felt the weird sensation that was being only half of a being was.


    In a different dimension, Yin appeared back in Klint''s Workshop, in the same as before. Except that this time, the pressure he emitted was several times stronger than before.


    Klint and Morbash, who saw Adam disappear for less than a second, felt the overwhelming forceing from Adam and understood he had ranked up.


    Adam hurriedly retracted his aura, allowing the two orcs to breath, and said "This armor was definitely worth it."


    Morbash grinned and said "Of course it is But now, if you will excuse me, I think I need to sleep." As he said that, he went for the backroom with slow and heavy steps.


    Adam smiled, and turned to look at his status.


    Name: Valiant Heart


    Level: 50


    Title: Strith''s Champion


    Race: Northman


    ss: Yin Supreme


    Rank: Silver


    HP: 714,960/714,960


    Aura: 2,170,065/ 2,170,065


    Strength (+450 per level): 39000 (83400) [120096]


    Agility (+150 per level): 16500 (33650) [48456]


    Endurance (+150 per level): 16500 (33650) [48456]


    Will: 24000 (50233) [72335]


    Free AP: 0


    Rules: -Sovereign Concept of Water (3%)


    -Sovereign Concept of Fire (2.2%)


    -Sovereign Concept of Self (1.4%)


    -Sovereign Concept of Sword (2%)


    -Advanced Concept of Gale (1%)


    -Sovereign Concept of Spirit (1.8%)


    -Sovereign Concept of Space (0.01%)


    -Sovereign Concept of ughter (0.1%)


    Skills: -Mighty Strike (E)


    -Water Breathing (E)


    -Aqua sh (D)


    -Charge (D)


    -Wind de (D)


    -Parry (D)


    -Lunar Smite (C)


    -Swift Steps (B)


    -Aqua Smite (B)


    -Crushing Blow (C)


    -Ice Statue (B)


    -Whirlwind sh (C)


    -Totemic Rage (A)


    -Barbarous Roar (B)


    -Misty Escape (B)


    -Great Ice Breath (B)


    -Tidal Wave (A)


    -Ice Crunch (A)


    -Spirit Hand (A)


    -Flight (A)


    Seeing his status, Adam was obviously happy. He had gotten so strong after ranking up, those were the stats of someone who did not fear anyone below Hero Rank. But after a second look, Adam noticed there were a few things that changed.


    First was the most obvious and shocking, his ss. Wasn''t he supposed to be the Aqua Sovereign? Howe his ss had changed to Yin Supreme? Was his Yang half a Yang Supreme then?


    No matter what though, Adam was pretty sure this was a good change. Supreme sounded more powerful than a Sovereign. But did Sofia know about this? She didn''t seem to So, this change probably wasn''t brought by his separation into a Yin and Yang half.


    If he had to take a guess, then it was rted to his breakthrough, more precisely to the fact his foundation was made of 15 Pirs. This was unprecedented, even the best Sovereigns of all time were rumored to have created only nine pirs.


    Then, if he was a Yin and Yang Supreme, what would happen when his two avatars merged back together? His merge was something that he learned instinctively, the moment Earth merged back with Epoch, his Yang and Yin halves would merge together, bringing him the power of the two.


    By then, would he be a Supreme? What changes would this bring? Adam had many questions, but now wasn''t the time for them to be answered, so he looked at the other big change.


    It was about the way his stats were shown. First, there was now the boost added by the Godyer''s Heart written between hooks, before it wasn''t shown at all.


    Secondly, was the way his stats were calcted. Before, his health would be calcted in a specific order. First the system took his Endurance Attribute multiplied tenfold, including the bonus from equipments, multiplied it by his Godyer''s Heart bonus, added the additional health from equipments, and once again multiplied it by the Godyer''s Heart bonus.


    It didn''t really make sense, but it was one of the advantages of the system. But now that he had disconnected himself from the system, this advantage was gone. Now, his tenfold Endurance was directly added with the HP bonus from his equipments, and the whole was multiplied by his Godyer''s Heart Bonus.


    This made his HP lesser than it should be, but Adam didn''t really care much, it was still great enough to satisfy him.


    As for his Aura, the change didn''t have anything to do with his new independence of the system, but because of the change of nature of his Qi. Because his Aura had gone from a gaseous state to a liquid state, it had be thrice as potent.


    While in Bronze Rank, his Aura was his Will Attribute multiplied by ten, but now it was multiplied by thirty. This made Adam''s Aura reach heights taller than ever before.


    Moreover, those weren''t the only things he gained out of this. He had also unlocked the [Flight] skill, which should be exclusive to Gold Ranks.


    Flight (A): Enables the user to fly at 50% of your usual speed. Cost: 100 Aura per second.


    For the average person, using this skill would consume 10 000 Aura or Mana every second because they would rely on their energy to force themselves to fly. But since Adam had a small grasp of the Sovereign Concept of Space, the price had been split by 100.


    By the time his grasp of the Sovereign Concept of Space reached 0.1%, the skill would only cost 10 Aura per second, and finally when he managed to understand the concept up to 1%, the skill would be free to use as Adam would be able to fly using only his understanding of space.


    Another gain Adam had was more unexpected, and it was rted to the Gates. To open the 5th Gate, one needed to understand themselves and then understand the world.


    Initially, for Adam the first step of understanding himself would have been the harder one because of his new body, and understanding the world wouldn''t take long because it didn''t change much from his old world.


    But the training period in Sofia''s treasure had given him enough time to understand himself. It wasn''t really done on purpose, but as he learned how all his meridians worked, his understanding of himself grew at a quick pace, until he managed topletely learn about himself.


    This did not have much of a change on his direct strength while fighting, but it would certainly help him a lot with understanding skills, concepts and the such. And that had closed the distance between him and the fifth Gate by a lot.


    But it would still take some time of course, it wouldn''t be instantaneous. Adam nodded to Klint before he took the crystal Myrin had given him from the Blood Tower and crushed it, teleporting him away.


    Meanwhile, back on Earth Yang Adam didn''t immediately start training, but instead went to see his family. First, he had spent a long time in Sofia''s treasure, so he missed them, and secondly he wanted to tell them about his recent transformation.


    Obviously, they were shocked, but happy nheless. They hadn''t seen each other much for the past month because of Epoch, so him not having to be connected at all times would allow them to be together more often, even if Adam would spend a lot of time training.


    Back to Yin Adam, after crushing the green crystal, he was teleported back to the Holy Temple, in Myrin''s home. She was clearly surprised to see him, and after a moment he saw her eyes widen. She had probably felt his new power.


    Only after a few seconds did the middle aged elven woman''s face turned back neutral and she asked "Did you just breakthrough while you were gone? Was your armor your promotion quest?"


    Adam nodded and asked "Can you enchant it then?" Myrin nodded and said "Take it off and I will do it. It should take around an hour or so. If you ever need a particr enchanting, you can contact me."


    As she said that, Adam received a notification through the system, a friend request from Myrin. Adam was surprised a mighty Legend was being so friendly, and Myrin chuckled as she seemed to see through his thoughts and said "Even a Legend like me would take the time to befriend a promising Sovereign like you."

 Chapter 199: Losing some and gaining some

    Chapter 199: Losing some and gaining some


    Adam nodded, and silently epted her friend request. Having a Legend from the Holy Temple as a friend couldn''t be bad.


    Adam then started taking off his armor and finally gave it to Myrin, left in only his undergarments. Myrin grabbed the set armor and waved her hand. Between the two of them, a table appeared, upon which she put the armor.


    Adam also saw a few things, which seemed to be ink bottles. Myrin started preparing her things as she said "Enchanting is an art that is said to be reserved to mages, but that is absolutely false. Most people wouldn''t want to show their art to someone else, in fear their technique would be stolen, but I doubt you are going to imitate me, are you?"


    Adam smiled and said "I do not have the time to pick up Enchanting, I already have more than enough to do. The trust is appreciated though."


    Myrin smiled and said "You''re wee." Then, she started working. Adam first saw her infuse her Aura inside the different ink bottles, before taking out a brush.


    As she worked, Adam could also feel a feeling of intense powering from both the brush and the ink. And as she started using the ink, Adam understood it wasn''t ink, but blood.


    Myrin then said "I am going to paint runes using this ink to give power to your armor. The ink is a mix of crushed ores, nts and powerful monsters'' blood. Since your armor is in the 50-100 range, powerful Silver Monsters is enough."


    She then waved her brush and said "This, is much more precious. This is my personal brush and it was made using the hair of a Legend Monster."


    Adam listened silently, musing on how expensive learning Enchantment should be. He did know there was an academy for Enchanters in Aldeneid, where the best enchanters of the past thousands of years studied.


    The hours passed by as the night set in, and slowly red runes were drawn one after another on his armor. She wasn''t going very fast as she drew, and she didn''t seem to get exhausted, but Adam knew that it wasn''t because she was a master in the art that she could do a low level work any faster.


    It was easy for her, and wouldn''t tire her, but she had to take her time if she didn''t want to ruin her own work.


    It was a couple of hours past midnight when Myrin finally finished her work. The red runes that spread all across his armor started linking one another before they imprinted themselves in the armor. Then, their color began slowly disappearing, setting the armor back to it''s initial appearance.


    With a nod of approval of Myrin, Adam took his armor and put it back on himself, while he examined it.


    [Water Dragon Chestte] (Unique, Level 60-100, Set)


    Requirements: Bound to Valiant Heart


    Defense: +4000 (+150 every level)


    HP: +40000 (+1500 every level)


    All stats: +4400 (+140 every level)


    Dragon Dominance (1/4 set effect): You naturally exude a dragon''s dominance. Moral skills have their effects doubled.


    Strong as a Tide (2/4 set effect): Water elemental skills be 50% stronger.


    Blood Burn (3/4 set effect): Whenever your enemy is suffering from a bleeding effect, any healing will be 50% slower if you were the one who caused it.


    Hell Spirit (4/4 set effect): Stun every enemy within a hundred meters for five seconds. May be resisted. Cooldown: 10 minutes.


    [Water Dragon Helmet] (Unique, Level 60-100, Set)


    Requirements: Bound to Valiant Heart


    Defense: +4000 (+150 every level)


    HP: +40000 (+1500 every level)


    Strength: +8000 (+300 every level)


    Endurance: +4000 (+150 every level)


    Dragon Dominance (1/4 set effect): You naturally exude a dragon''s dominance. Moral skills have their effects doubled.


    Strong as a Tide (2/4 set effect): Water elemental skills be 50% stronger.


    Blood Burn (3/4 set effect): Whenever your enemy is suffering from a bleeding effect, any healing will be 50% slower if you were the one who caused it.


    Hell Spirit (4/4 set effect): Stun every enemy within a hundred meters for five seconds. May be resisted. Cooldown: 10 minutes.


    [Water Dragon Gauntlets] (Unique, Level 60-100, Set)


    Requirements: Bound to Valiant Heart


    Defense: +4000 (+150 every level)


    HP: +40000 (+1500 every level)


    Strength: +14000 (+400 every level)


    Dragon Dominance (1/4 set effect): You naturally exude a dragon''s dominance. Moral skills have their effects doubled.


    Strong as a Tide (2/4 set effect): Water elemental skills be 50% stronger.


    Blood Burn (3/4 set effect): Whenever your enemy is suffering from a bleeding effect, any healing will be 50% slower if you were the one who caused it.


    Hell Spirit (4/4 set effect): Stun every enemy within a hundred meters for five seconds. May be resisted. Cooldown: 10 minutes.


    [Water Dragon Boots] (Unique, Level 60-100, Set)


    Requirements: Bound to Valiant Heart


    Defense: +4000 (+150 every level)


    HP: +40000 (+1500 every level)


    Strength: +8000 (+300 every level)


    Agility: +4000 (+150 every level)


    Dragon Dominance (1/4 set effect): You naturally exude a dragon''s dominance. Moral skills have their effects doubled.


    Strong as a Tide (2/4 set effect): Water elemental skills be 50% stronger.


    Blood Burn (3/4 set effect): Whenever your enemy is suffering from a bleeding effect, any healing will be 50% slower if you were the one who caused it.


    Hell Spirit (4/4 set effect): Stun every enemy within a hundred meters for five seconds. May be resisted. Cooldown: 10 minutes.


    Myrin said "Here you go It''s time for you to leave now, I guess you have a lot to do" Adam nodded and entered the portal that just opened on his left. Back in front of the Teleportation Array, Adam took it to Fjora.


    Although he had achieved the power he sought, he was far from over, and he had a lot of things to do. Mainly, protecting his guild, setting a foundation for them and in the future, the whole human race.


    But as he was waiting for the array to be activated to go back to the Azure Sky Kingdom this time, Adam remembered he had forgotten to check something. Before, because of his race and ss, he had special damage and resistances. But now that his ss had changed, maybe they had changed too.


    And indeed, just as he thought, he indeed had new advantages.


    Yin Body: 100% resistance to water elemental attacks, 100% additional damage using water elemental skills, unable to use the Fire Concept. Every attack deals 50% more damage.


    The two changes were his resistance to cold attacks reaching 100% from 75% and all his attacks would now deal 50% more damage.


    The 50% additional damage to all damage came at a great time because of his recent change. One of the things he lost alongside his reliance to the system was the strengthing from titles. This was another strange concept brought by the system that wasn''t very realistic, and now that he abandoned it, his titles wouldn''t bring him any additional strength.


    This means he lost his title of Strith''s Champion, and the 50% boost damage that came with it. The second change was quite good too. A 25% difference might not seem that good, but reaching 100% resistance to water attacks was definitely a major change.


    Resistances never stacked, which means that even if he picked up and equipment that boosted his resistance by 25% and he already had 75%, it wouldn''t rise to 100%, but take off 25% of the damage that was already divided by the 75%.


    But now that he had reached 100%, it meant immunity. Even 99% wouldn''t save him from a Legendary Monster who used water attacks, but with a water immunity, even if a Legend struck with all their power, if they used a water elemental skill, they wouldn''t do him any harm. Of course, he wasn''t invincible, all they had to do was to punch him once and he would be over, but it still remained a great power up.

 Chapter 200: Phase One

    Chapter 200: Phase One


    Once he returned to the Azure Sky Kingdom, more precisely to Ember City, Adam realized the night had already passed here.


    He went for the nearby adventurer guild, one of the tallest buildings in the city, and climbed on top of it. Here, even the local Chairman of the Adventurer Guild was only a peak Gold Rank. Except from the Royal Family, whom he was friends with, no one could say anything to him.


    So it was without a care that Adam was able to climb on top of the building to watch the sun set.


    As he did, Adam felt at ease. Although he had that huge burden on his shoulders, everything was going fine. And he liked his current life much more than what it used to be.


    Before Epoch, his life was boring and hard, working for scums who took advantage of him because of his situation, and even when hended in some good jobs, it would remain boring.


    Thinking about it, maybe he could have turned bad, he could have used the power he gained in the game to get his revenge, but he was graceful he didn''t.


    It had already been a month since Epoch was released, and many secrets had already been revealed. Cultivation was possible, power could be earned, and the rumors about Epoch being a real world were getting more and more famous.


    Ordinary people gaining great power overnight was a bad thing in many ways, as they would use this power to resolve their conflicts, instead of using diplomacy, as they had been taught.


    Because of this, many evil people who hide behind thew, like those who took advantage of Adam, were killed, or at least hurt very badly.


    Of course, there were also the ouws or terrorists who suddenly became more dangerous, but even then they didn''t make any big ruckus. Others might think they were preparing something big, but Adam knew otherwise.


    Even though many people were gaining power, the truly powerful of this world were the ancient ns who have ''gods'', or more precisely Golden Idols among them. They were most probably the ones putting a stop to ughters and massacres.


    So right now, Earth was standing on a thin line like a tightrope walker. Below, was chaos, and yet somehow they hadn''t fallen yet. But honestly, even if the world fell in chaos, Adam couldn''t give a fuck about it.


    For he knew that if worse came happen, the Golden Idols would reemerge. Actually, they didn''t even have to hide anymore. In the past, they had to hide for the well being of society and let humans develop by themselves, but now that the Merge was nearing, they would have to appear on day or another.


    But those were problems for Yang Adam. Yin was in Epoch, and he had his own problems, namely, Divine Predators. He first established his guild as a way to make some money, but now it had taken a whole new dynamic.


    Those were his men and women, and he had to take care of them like any leader. And it wasn''t just a burden, as he needed them. As strong as he was, he couldn''t face the world on his own.


    That''s why, now that he had set the perfect foundation for his personal power, it was time to create a new foundation, but for his guild this time. Adam took out a parchment from the Blood Tower and looked at it.


    [Epic Flying Vessel ns]


    ns to construct Epic Grade Flying Vessels. Unable to see more because you do not possess any of the following professions: Master Engineer.


    Although he hadn''t found any Master Engineer, he had still made some research on the thing, and he now knew what it was about.


    A Flying Vessel was one of the greatest weapons in Epoch. They had several uses too. First they could be used to transport troops. After all, as quick a teleportation array was, it wasn''t convenient to moverge amount of troops.


    It needed a lot of energy, which costed a lot. For example, the battle of Neve Dorei which contributed to Adam''s fame, where he fought legions of undead in elven territory. Back then, the City Governor had spent the entire city''s assets to teleport so many soldiers over.


    And even if one could afford the price of teleportation for thousands upon thousands of men, they also needed a beacon to work. But most battlefields between true powers had their space locked to stop teleportation.


    For all those reasons, a Flying Vessel was very important just to move one''s troops around. But only the lower ranked vessels were limited to this.


    For the higher ranked Flying Vessels, they were literally flying fortresses. Energy Canons, Elemental Shields, Harpoons They could operate onnd, in water or in the sky, they would remain as deadly. For the most powerful ones, the Legendary Ranked ones, even a Legend would be helpless in front of it.


    And the Epic Rank was considered quite high, so the ships would be pretty powerful. However, for their might, one had to pay a huge cost. To build an Epic Rank Flying Vessel, even a Kingdom would bleed to produce a single one.


    And Adam intended to build several of them, tens of them, enough to support his entire guild. He didn''t know the exact resources he would need to build all of this, but it would definitely be consequent.


    And that wasn''t all. Adam also wanted to build his very own city, as he had the Superior City Building Permit, which would allow him to construct and for his people, anywhere within the Colnds Empire.


    It was said to be very difficult to get one of these, but building the city itself was also a tedious work which would need many workers.


    For now, Adam was working on a small settlement near Ember City, where his Guild Members were training, but that wouldn''tst for long. When his guild expended, their needs would expend too, so other than finding the materials, he would also need to find the right ce to settle


    All in all, Adam had many things to worry about, but that didn''t stress him. Instead, it pushed him to give his all, and gave his life a sense. He would grow stronger as he took care of his people he was definitely going to be a king someday.


    As a smile appeared on his lips, and he stored the ns back in the Blood Tower, Adam suddenly received a notification. But unlike most notifications, this one didn''t ask him whether he wanted it to open.


    [Phase One of the Merge activated.]


    [All sub dimensions will henceforth get ess to the main dimension of Epoch.]


    [You are also allowed to enter those sub dimensions, but beware, as some are ruled by beings with power simr to the gods. Only Gold Ranks and below may travel between the dimensions.]


    Adam''s eyes turned round, and a few words escaped his lips


    "What the fuck?"

 Chapter 201: Colonization

    Chapter 201: Colonization


    Adam was in the Royal Pce of Azure Sky, sitting with the Royal Family. He had been invited for dinner.


    As they were waiting for the main piece to arrive, Adam finally asked what he had been holding back since the beginning of the meal "As you all know, I stationed my guild some distance away from the city."


    Henry, Skade and Victoria all nodded at the same time, of course they had been told about this. Although Henry already knew what Adam was going to ask, he let him talk.


    And just as he expected, Adam asked "I want to build a temporary town to house my guild mates and train them. In exchange of the rights on thosends, I can buy the services of the builders in Ember to build the city, instead of building it on my own."


    If he wanted to, Adam could absolutely have his guild mates build the town on their own, although the quality may becking, it was more of a training camp than a real town, so it didn''t really matter.


    However, employing the builders in the city would give a lot of people a job as well and help the local economy.


    Faced with Adam''s deal, Henry smiled and said "You don''t have to, I''d be happy to give you thosends. And at the same time, I can make you a noble."


    Adam shook his head and said "I will pay for them, I can afford this Just consider it as a gift from a friend."


    Henry nodded and said "Then you have to ept bing a Duke in my kingdom." Many would kill, or rather had killed, to get such a rank. One had to understand that in term of influence, a Duke was only below the King and Queen, and even princes and princesses were below them in term of authority, unless they inherited the throne.


    But Adam didn''t have this kind of rtionship with the royal family, so he didn''t care about status. Still, he nodded his head and said "I guess I should be thanking you then Now, tell me, how does it feel bing a Legend?"


    Skade rolled her eyes and said "He definitely is happy enough to talk about it fifty times every day."


    Henry smiled awkwardly as he replied "Some call the passage from Hero to Legend Transcendence. I never understood why before, but now that I experienced it myself, I have to say, it really does feel like shedding from my mortal self. To understand this feeling, one has to reach that realm."


    Adam tilted his head and asked "Transcendence? Shouldn''t we be leaving that for bing a deity?"


    Henryughed and said "Many once dreamed of bing a God, but most of them are no more. Nowadays, bing a Legend is the best most can hope for Although, with the merge, this might change."


    Adam said "What do you think of the Merge?" As he said this, he turned his head toward Skade. Of the two, she was the one who knew best politics.


    Understanding he was asking her, Skade replied "The different racial powers will most certainly send emissaries in the different sub dimensions. For those where the strongest beings are Hero Rank or higher, the racial powers will try to befriend them. However, for those who don''t"


    Adam said "Colonization?" Skade nodded with a grave face. Many realms would indeed suffer from this, the sole reason for the racial powers to enter those sub dimensions is for resources, and they will trade for those they can''t snatch, and snatch those they can.


    As the atmosphere was getting gloomier, Victoria asked Adam "Aren''t you going to lead your guild in some of those realms? Gathering the necessary materials for your future city or whatever project you have will be simpler there."


    Adam had already told them about his project of building up a city and slowly developing it into a Kingdom.


    He replied to her "Not with them all. There still are the Dragons chasing after me, and the Demonic Factions too. I will only bring the best. But I won''t go right away, I would rather wait for the first explorers to find the interesting dimensions. I don''t really want to end up in a sub dimension ruled by a Great Devil."


    They nodded, and after a moment Victoria asked "Can I and a friende with you when you go?"


    Adam raised an eyebrow, Victoria was a Level 140 Gold Rank SS ss, and she wasn''t a pampered princess who never explored the world. As such, she was one of the strongest Gold Ranks in the entire world. She could even rival with some of the weakest Heroes.


    Inparison, with all the recent upgrades he received, including his armor, Adam could defeat even the average Hero Rank, as long as they were lower leveled. Moreover, Victoria could only go up to Level 150 before she went past the limit of the sub dimensions, so she couldn''t be much stronger.


    However, Adam was only Level 50 and in the Silver Realm. Just bing a Gold Rank would make him undefeated under the Legend Rank. Probably.


    Still, he couldn''t help but ask "Who is that friend?" Victoria only smiled mysteriously as she replied "You know each other, but you will have to wait until we go to see who I am talking about."


    Adam shrugged, and heard the sound of trails rolling toward them. The main piece wasing.


    The cooks in the Royal Pce were the best in the entire Kingdom, and the food they were making was great. It was the best food he had ever tasted. Well, except his mother''s, but it was different.


    When they finished eating, Adam left the pce and headed to one of the mason groups to order the construction of the town. After paying 10 000 Gold Coins, the workers agreed to start working the next morning, as the sun set.


    Content with the arrangements, Adam left off to Serpentine Lake. The monsters there, who were at best Level 50, didn''t dare to approach him.


    Swimming toward the centre of theke, Adam entered the Blood Tower and began cultivating.


    Ever since he had broken through to the Silver Rank, he no longer relied on XP to level up, but real cultivation, like on Earth.


    Thankfully, his new cultivation art was potent enough to allow him to meditate on the Water Concept and cultivate his Aura at the same time.


    Since Adam wanted to wait for explorers to discover the interesting sub dimensions first, he had quite some time in front of him. He could spend it on Cultivation, he wouldn''t even find that boring, but he wanted to discover the parts of the world he didn''t discover yet, namely Alorge and the Citadel.


    So the next day, as the sun set over the horizon, Adam returned to the city and used multiple teleportation arrays to first head to Alorge.


    Alorge housed two races, Dwarves and Kartians, the first specializing in Forging and theter in Alchemy.


    Their territory was actually an enormous mountain range which used to belong to monsters, but who had been driven out countless years ago.


    Nowadays, the Kartian Cities would be on the surface, up in the mountains, while the Dwarven Cities would be inside those same mountains.


    Well, actually, there weren''t really Kartian or Dwarven Cities, they were all connected, but it was just that each race lived in their own ce.


    Dwarves preferred the inside of mountains because it was where the richest ores were, while the Kartians would prefer the surface because that was where the nts they used for their alchemy would grow.


    The Capital of Alorge was called Fimdot, and Adam first appeared in the Kartian part of the city, on the surface.


    As he appeared though, Adam made much more of an impact than he thought he would. Before his promotion, the strength his Aura released was only in the range of Gold Ranks, which, while it was good in the rest of the world, wasn''t anything amazing in a Capital.


    However, now that he had ranked up, the aura he released had clearly surpassed the Gold Rank and reached the Hero Rank, making a significant difference. The guards in the different capitals were only at the peak of Gold Rank, and even the majority of warriors were Gold Ranks.


    As for Heroes, they were they leaders of the different organizations, and the n Leaders of the different ns, including the biggest ones, and were considered the true elite. As such, whenever people felt the presence of someone with the strength of a Hero, they would look in their direction.


    And that was the main difference with the past. Before, people would have to be curious enough to look at him and see his identity. Now though, EVERYONE turned around to look at him, and saw the famous Aqua Sovereign had entered their city.

 Chapter 202: Rumours

    Chapter 202: Rumours


    When everyone felt the presence of a Hero entering the city, everyone, including the guards, the citizens or the different nsmen, turned around and looked at the newer.


    What they saw was a tall man wearing an awe inspiring armor. It was obviously made of scales, blue ones to be precise, and some people among those watching recognized them to be dragon ones.


    But as impressive the armor was, what everyone wanted to know, was what the name of this Hero was. And as they discovered who it was, many opened their eyes wide in astonishment.


    [Valiant Heart] (Silver, Level 58)


    HP: 749520/749520


    It had been a week since Adam had broken through, and he had already reached Level 58. This was quite fast, but Adam knew for sure that as his level increased, it would be harder and harder to level up, and as he neared level 100 it would probably be hard to increase even by one level in a week.


    Many couldn''t even see what the his HP was, only disying question marks, but they didn''t care about that. The name, Valiant Heart, was one everyone in the world knew. The famed Aqua Sovereign who had in the dragons and earned the title of Dragon yer.


    Those people were shocked to discover that at only the Silver Rank, this man had managed to be as strong as a Hero, they knew Sovereigns were above others, but this was a little too much, skipping over two entire ranks and a hundred levels.


    Adam heard the people staring at him started talking among them, and although at first they were talking about his recent achievements, he was surprised to find out their topic quickly went off course.


    Instead of talking of his numerous battles and victories, they started talking about femalepanions. Like a bunch of gossipy wives, which some of them were, they began talking about who they thought would go best with him, which female was worthy of him, about rumours they heard.


    Even as Adam restrained his aura, the word about his arrival had already spread, and wherever he went he heard people talking about him, and staring at him.


    And once again, they were talking about the same things. What was going on with them?


    It was only after listening for some time that Adam understood why people had be so interested in his private life.


    Rumours had travelled around saying he had been in Princess Thalia''spany for a few weeks recently, and themon people started assuming things. Moreover, another rumour hade from within the Imperial Pce of Aldeneid, where a maid spread the word that the Aqua Sovereign had gifted a priceless gift to the Imperial Family to woo Thalia.


    This gift was the Star Chains skill book, which was priceless indeed. But the maid hadcked a lot of information, and filled the gaps with her imagination. He hadn''t gifted the book, he lent it in exchange of something, and it certainly wasn''t to woo Thalia.


    But the maid didn''t know any of that, and so the rumours quickly spread. Taking this as the truth, people started thinking Adam and Thalia had fallen in love with each other, and were about to get married.


    Learning this, many ns around the world who wanted to be acquainted with Adam became desperate. Some who were more reserved simply invited Adam to their n, to ''visit'', and others who were bolder had directly expressed their intention and offered their daughter''s hand in marriage.


    Even though the rumours said Adam would marry to Thalia, it wasn''t umon in this world for men or women to have multiplepanions, or have concubines. Although the ns wished their daughter could be Adam''s wife, bing a concubine was good enough too.


    But it had already been a few weeks since the rumours started spreading, and yet Adam hadn''t even made a move. So people began wondering whether he really loved Thalia, and the ns began feeling hope.


    All of this led to people starting to talk about who they thought would be best as Adam''spanion. This had even already started creating conflicts between many girls and women around the world, all of whom wished Adam would choose them.


    After all, Adam had everything a woman could want. Strength, Status, Money, Charisma, Looks and so much more. He was the dream man of practically every girl all around the world, and as such most women in the world becamepetitors with each other.


    Adam didn''t miss the many sweet looks the women began throwing at him as he visited Fimdot, and it came from every race.


    Also, not long after he arrived, apart from some of the bolder women, and men, who directly came and confessed to him, some n leaders also hurried to him and invited him to their estate.


    In the end, Adam wasn''t even able to visit the ces he wanted to visit and was forced to leave the ce as he was getting overwhelmed by the marriage propositions and girls in love.


    Adam made sure to conceal his strength when he teleported over to the Citadel, as he did not want another simr situation to happen.


    The Citadel was quite unique among the different Racial Powers as it was made of only one single city which span over a gigantic flying ind. It was called by some the City of Sages as this was where the biggest library was located at, and intelligent people woulde here to study.


    Overall, it was the biggest research centre in the entire world. If one had any question, they would most certainly find the answer within the Citadel, as long as they had ess to that information.


    Most Inders, the inhabitants of the Citadel, were Mages, as this path involved much more research than fighting,pared to the Warrior path. They were also one of the neutral Racial Powers, and could be considered the more reserved ones.


    But once again Adam had underestimated his own influence. Even though this city was mainly made of erudites, they still had hierarchy, ns, and many people who wanted to be acquainted with him.


    So even though he hid his aura, his name was still shown to all, and the news he entered the city quickly spread around, and before he had the time to arrive at the biggest library in the world, he was assaulted by n leaders.


    Even the Heroes, who stood among the strongest people in this world, were behaving submissively, fawning over him just so that he would visit them. In the end, Adam had to excuse himself and left the city, returning to Ember, the only ce where he could be at peace.


    Since Henry had be a Legend, not many would dare to send their men to Ember. And even for those who did, they would contribute to the local economy and wouldn''t even be able to meet with Adam, so it was like hitting two birds with one stone.


    Although Adam was disappointed he wasn''t able to visit thest two Racial Powers to his heart content, he still got to see what they looked like, that was better than nothing


    Another week went by, during which Adam cultivated, managed his guild and spent some time with Victoria.


    Adam easily reached Level 60, as the amount of Aura he needed to umte to go from Level 59 to Level 60 was the same as the one needed to go from Level 50 to 51.


    However, Adam found out that to go from Level 60 to 61, the Aura needed suddenly jumped to twice the amount. If his cultivation followed this trend, then Adam estimated he should be able to reach Level 100 in about a year.


    For his Guild, it had already been several weeks since the training had started, and the weak had already been weeded out. They had already stopped recruiting, only epting the asional A ss or S ss, which were very small in number, and stopped recruiting B sses as they had enough people.


    After almost a month of intensive training, fighting for their lives everyday, only around 40 000 people were left. With the people who joined midway, about 100 000 people had died during this training. This was much more than Adam thought would die, but the results were incredible too.


    All the remaining 40 000 had alreadye back from their Promotion Quest, and had turned into Silver Ranks, with an average level of 50. Moreover, they were all battle experienced and could face those of a higher ss who weren''t used to fighting.


    In addition, there was also the Ninth Division, led by Xilzror, who was training elsewhere. This Division was exclusively made of monsters, and they trained in a different way. For those monsters, Adam actually favoured quantity over quality because unlike humanoids, monsters were much more restrained by their Bloodline, and a Grade 6 Monster, even with the best training, wouldn''t ever be strong.


    That''s why, he simply had Xilzror control as many monsters as he could, and only seriously train the truly talented ones who were talented enough.


    Finally, spending time with Victoria once again started new rumours, but the two didn''t have this kind of rtionships, they were simply friends. Moreover, Adam had learned Victoria was seeing someone in secret.


    Back to Adam, after waiting for two weeks, news about the sub dimensions finally came back, and they were great ones.

 Chapter 203: Gods Resurgence

    Chapter 203: Gods'' Resurgence


    Multiple expeditions had been sent to all the different sub dimensions that had been discovered, and by all the Racial Powers, as well as other influential powers.


    Adam didn''t know the exact amount of sub dimensions, but he knew there were many of them. But among all of those dimensions, there was one that caught his attention no, the entire world''s attention.


    A sub dimension said to have two Racial Powers'' worth of resources inside it, with only a few Heroes to watch over them. Obviously, every power in the world was interested in this sub dimension, and wanted to take it for themselves. It had been named Providence.


    Adam had already decided he would be going to Providence, and he would bring his Guild alongside with him. He didn''t want them to be vulnerable here while he was there taking resources. Moreover, they would be able to help him.


    When he received the news, Adam first thought about it for some time, before making his decision and ordering his entire Guild to move out. They would be going for that dimension. Coincidentally, it was close to the Azure Sky Kingdom so Adam was able to move his entire guild without much of a problem.


    Soon, Adam was on the road, with an army of 40 000 fierce Silver Rank warriors behind him. His army was about as strong as a Kingdom''s, which was quite impressive since they only trained for a month.


    While he was on the road, feeling the strong wind that seemed to be pushing them forward, Adam couldn''t help but sigh. While he was meditating on the Wind Concept, which was of the Advanced Rank, he mistakenly linked it with his other Concepts, and somehow turned it into the Sovereign Concept of Wind


    Others would be ecstatic, but Adam was depressed, he had so many Concepts to work on, and yet another had been added to the list by mistake.


    But now that he had unlocked it, he had to admit it was quite good No, it was awesome, and definitely the best for speed. The Sovereign Concept of Wind included multiple forms, like the other Elemental Concepts. There was Wind and Lightning. Although there were only two, they weren''t to be underestimated.


    Both were a symbol of speed, and devastating powers at the same time. A tornado would tear everything in it''s path while lighting would obliterate it. Although he was unhappy with the increased work load, Adam had to admit he liked the powers of this concept.


    Meanwhile, in another realm Yang Adam was cultivating inside his room, or rather inside the floor of the Blood Tower he had.


    Since he had ranked up, two weeks went by already, and quite a lot happened. Not in his private life, he was cultivating all day, but on Earth.


    For some reason, the gods had decided it was the right time for them to appear. No need to say this had thrown everything into disarray. And them fighting each other wasn''t good either.


    Somehow, while Adam was fighting for the human race in Epoch, braving countless dangers and going through pains greater than soul splitting They were messing around.


    The mess all started with a gaming event between the different Super Guilds. They invited the top yers, including Adam of course, but he was too busy to even know he had been invited.


    Anyway, thepetition took ce, and for one reason or another some guilds had a beef with each other, and a fight started in the real world. They were all trained martial artists and fearsome cultivators so the damages were consequent.


    But then it became worse. Zeus showed up in Egypt and threw a fricking lightning bolt at a pyramid. A dayter, Venice dried up and locusts attacked the city.


    At the same time, a gigantic ray of light hit Osaka, obliterating the city and killing more than two million people. It was said to being from ''God'', as in the Christian God.


    Again, the next day the West Coast of America was hit by a Tsunami caused by a Kamikaze, or Divine Wind, sent by Fujin. At the same time, an enormous thundercloud caused by Raijin ravaged many cities in the South of the USA.


    Or the tragedy of Manchester, when a hammernded in the city, creating an earthquake that shook the whole of Ennd, and which was followed by lightning so powerful it ravaged the city. This obviously was Mjollnir, thrown by Thor.


    In response, a gigantic sword appeared above Oslo, and innumerable sword light wereunched at the city, killing many people once again.


    And those were only some of the many incidents. The entire world was ravaged by attacks from the different gods, killing many people in the process. When he saw all of this, Adam couldn''t help but feel powerless. They were killing so many people, and yet he was too weak to act against them.


    Quickly after, the world was split in several regions which the Gods believed to be theirs, and even more chaos ensued.


    Adam and his family were living in America, and this was now the territory of ''God'', the God of Light worshipped by Christianity. After a few days, ''God'', or Jehovah, even sent Archangel Michael to subdue him.


    Unfortunately for them, they overestimated themselves. Although Adam was only as strong as a beginner Hero, that was considering they were S or SS ss. But those old gods and holy beings were all beings whocked talent and rose only thanks to faith.


    So even though Michael was at the peak of the Nascent Soul realm, Adam was able to send him and his angel followers away from New York. The only ones who could threaten him were the ''Gods'', who were weak Golden Idols, and they wouldn''t even be able to kill him even if they tried.


    Anyway, Adam was quite disappointed with the ''gods'' of Earth, who were nothing but tyrants who stayed in hiding for many years. Moreover, for now everyone was shocked and surprised by the events, but it wouldn''t take long for the mortals to rise up, and for the governments to fight back.


    In all of this, New York was standing out as one of the only cities that wasn''t under the influence of gods. It would most certainly have many consequences, but for now people were too busy fearing for their lives. Other cities that were protected were the capital of the countries with nuclear weapons.


    Since the beginning of this mess, Adam''s brother, Matt, had made a little device to make sure nothing would happen to him or their parents. He created an rm system that was connected to a device he and their parents each had, and the moment they encountered a problem they just had to activate it and they would activate the rm in Adam''s room.


    Although Adam was almost all the time in the Blood Tower, his link to the tower allowed him to have a spirit sense over his entire room while he is in the tower, and so the moment it activates he would be able to know it and immediately track it to his parents.


    Fortunately, for now they didn''t have to use it, but that was mainly because they were forced to do some things.


    For example, Matt had been forced to stop school while their parents lost their jobs. Well, it kind of happened to everyone, and that was another reason for the chaos. Now, people would mainly go out to buy food, and that was it. But even that was hard.


    All in all, the situation on Earth was very bad, and thankfully no nuclear missiles had beenunched yet. As powerful the Golden Idols were, nuclear weapons were still a threat. Even if they could protect themselves, the explosion would have many terrifying consequences on Earth, and turn it inhospitable. Although the explosion wouldn''t kill them, the consequences would.


    Even though Earth was Sofia''s Divine Kingdom, it was a and if it was destroyed because of infighting, she wouldn''t save them. So everything was tensed right now.

 Chapter 204: Providence

    Chapter 204: Providence


    Back to Epoch, Adam and his guild didn''t take long to reach the entrance of Providence. Providence was situated within Colnds, in the middle of nowhere.


    And yet, as Adam and his guild arrived near the entrance point of Providence, the sub dimension, they saw a big settlement had already been constructed, and tons of people were already there.


    That was to be expected though, millions of people would be entering Providence, and all at the same time.


    When the different explorers came back with the news of this incrediblend, they were of course ecstatic, and everyone began feeling envy. But the thing is, none of them want to split the cake, they want the entire thing.


    With with how precious Providence was, even the strongest in the world wanted to have the entirety of it, but that wasn''t possible. If one power took advance on the others, it would initiate conflicts.


    So as to avoid a world war, a decision had been made. Entry within Providence was forbidden until all parties gathered. Then, they would all be allowed to send their men inside the sub dimension at the same time, so everyone would have their chance.


    And that''s why this gigantic settlement had been built at lightning speed.


    As Adam and his army approached the settlement, a man suddenly appeared in front of Adam. Adam immediately recognized him as the Emperor''s Brother, one of the Legends he had seen at that meeting after he killed the dragons and everything.


    Known as the Big Prince, Hjor Frost, the only member of the Old Imperial Family still alive. He was the only member of the Royal Family who did not care for the throne and wasn''t involved in the death of the Emperor''s wife. He was the third strongest person in the entire Empire, if not second in term of personal strength, and was the greatest mage of Colnds.


    Hjor nodded to Adam and said "You came, with your guild." Hjor stomped his staff, and an ice statue appeared next to him, and turned into a human form in an instant.


    Hjor pointed at his clone and said "Have your guild mates follow my clone, as for us we got to talk."


    Adam looked at his Division Leaders, who nodded to him, and Adam disappeared alongside with Hjor.


    Adam and Hjor were teleported within a private room, and as they were alone the Legend asked "Who do you intend to represent within Providence?"


    Adam replied "Myself and my guild first, and then the Empire. If I manage to get the resources inside the realm, I will keep a big part to myself, but still give some to the Empire Around 20%, depending on the situation."


    Hjor nodded and said "This is quite generous of you, but to be honest, this isn''t really what the Empire expect of you. You can keep the entirety of the resources you get, if you can do one thing for us."


    Adam raised an eyebrow in surprise, it was quite surprising they didn''t care about those resources. Hjor said "The requestes from the Emperor himself, and it is about the Crown Princess."


    Adam looked at him surprised and asked "Is she joining this expedition?" Hjor nodded and said "She is, and we are worried for her. Although she recently promoted to Gold Rank, she never had any real fighting experience, nor human experiences. We would like for you to help her, and possibly teach her."


    Adam crossed his arms and leaned against the wall behind him as he said, neither refusing nor agreeing "You are giving me a lot of power. If she bes my disciple, then the future Empress of the Empire as well as it''s most probable next King of the North would be my disciples."


    Hjor smirked as he said "The first phase of the Merge has already started, and it won''t take very long for the rest of it to happen. When the gods and devils return to our world, the realm will fall in chaos, and only a strong leader could help us. And so what if you have this kind of power? If you don''t die, I think the martial power you will aplish will be much stronger than your political pull."


    He added with a strange smile "After all, as powerful an official is, they would bend before someone who can possibly eradicate them."


    Adam remained silent for a little while before he said "Fine, I will protect her and try to teach her. But If I don''t like her personality, or if she is against it, then I will stick to protection."


    Hjor seemed happy as he nodded and said "I wish you the best inside Providence, it would be best if you could grab all the resources. Be careful though, everyone knows you are one of the strongest people to enter the dimension, so they might team up against you."


    Adam rolled his eyes and said "They can try, but they should not expect leaving in one piece." Hjor smiled and lightly tapped the staff in his hand on the ground, warping the space around Adam, making him teleport away.


    Adam was once again with his guild mates, who had been led to a certain part of the settlement, settled in big tents.


    Adam gave a few quick orders to his guild before starting meditation. They would only be able to enter Providence the next day.


    In a day, all the major yers would be able to reach this location. As for those who weren''t able to moverge forces across the continent in a day, they were neither important nor strong enough to be a nuisance, and their thoughts could be ignored.


    The sub dimension wouldn''t be closed to them, but they would arrivete, and in such a race, it couldn''t be good.


    A day quickly passed by, and Adam left the Blood Tower as his Eldest Disciple, Judith, entered his room. He looked at her straight in the eyes as she replied "It is time to move our master."


    Adam nodded, and as he did so he looked at her up and down. Since they first met, she had improved a lot. She looked more confidant, stronger and brighter. Back then, she was only Iron Rank, and yet now she was already in the mid levels of the Silver Rank, and she could totally fight against weak Gold Ranks.


    She stood among the strongest SS sses, and Adam didn''t doubt that if she had to take the Blood Tower Test before he did, she would have reached the 49th Floor.


    As her master was scanning her, Judith didn''t say a word and just stood there, waiting for his words. After a moment, he said "How are your Concepts going?"


    Judith replied respectfully "My Concept of Darkness has advanced quite a bit, just like my Soft Body Concept. However, it is my Dagger Concept that is falling behind."


    Adam nodded and said "Attack me with all your might."


    Judith didn''t even hesitate as she unsheathed one of her daggers and shed toward Adam, sending a flying sh at him.


    Adam reached out his hand and grabbed the flying sh with an Aura covered hand. The flying sh was forcefully stopped in ce as it couldn''t even deal any damage to Adam, not scratching his skin.


    This was another advantage of not relying on the system anymore, he wouldn''t take damage everytime he was attacked just because the rules were made like that.


    As Adam crushed the flying sh in his hand, he asked "I see your problem. You are trying to imitate me too hard. I use the Greatsword, while you use the dagger, don''t try to use my moves for your own."


    When he saw her attack, although her posture was totally different from his, and her approach was very different, he could still see traces of his technique in her own technique, and they were throwing her into a disarray.


    Judith bowed as she sheathed her dagger and said "Thank you for your advice master, I will be waiting for you outside." Adam nodded and watched her walk outside.

 Chapter 205: Old friend

    Chapter 205: ''Old'' friend


    When Adam exited his room, his saw his guild mates were already in ranks, forming nine big groups. The first eight groups all had around 5000 men in them, each led by a Division Leader.


    As for thest group, there was as many as 10000 monsters in them, and those were the troops under Xilzror. The Dragon had done a good job recruiting monsters, although they didn''t have as much discipline as the humanoids.


    Adam was secretly happy with his Division Leaders who had managed to instil obedience in their subordinates bones so quickly, and trained them to fight as a group.


    That was quite the achievement because his own orders were promoting individual fighting, although it was to pick the best members possible, achieving to bind them together with seemingly such strong ties was a great thing.


    Adam took the lead and led his men to the portal. As they walked through the settlement though they finally saw how many men would be entering the dimension. There were so many people they couldn''t even count them.


    They were several hundred meters from the portal and yet the area in front of them was packed with people, maybe the rumours about millions of people entering were true after all. Adam had his guild stop as he shed the air in front of him with his palm.


    His Division Leaders felt a strange power was surrounding their leader''s hand, but they didn''t think about it too much. However, the next moment they were shocked. Wherever Adam''s hand passed, space was tear open. That was a skill only Heroes could use!


    But Adam had understood the Sovereign Concept of Space. The three skills, Flying, Space Tear and Teleportation, each unlockable by entering the Gold, Hero and Legend Ranks were all skills rted to the Concept of Space but that could be emted by a strong power.


    For Adam, understanding 1% of the Space Concept allowed him to use Fly without any cost, and only using his understanding over the Concept of Space. It also allowed him to use Space tear, although it costed him Aura tounch. He could feel that he needed to understand at least 10% of the Space Concept to use use the skill using only his Concept, but he wasn''t there yet.


    Space Tear was a simple skill, in essence. If one wanted to reach a certain point in the shortest time possible, all they had to do was to travel in a straight line from one point to the other. In a three dimensional world, the simplest mean of doing so was flying.


    But theree the concept of teleportation many knew. Instead of drawing a straight line between two points, they would fold the paper and pierce the paper, interlinking the two points. This was the concept of teleportation seen by many on Earth.


    Well, Space Tear was simr. One would sh open space, but in reality would pierce two holes in space. Then, entering one of those tears, or holes, would lead to the other hole.


    As Adam entered the hole, he exited through the other, which happened to be a few tens of meters in front of the portal leading to Providence, ten meters above the ground.


    Everyone looked up when they felt space tear open. This was one of the downsides of Space Tear, the user would literally tear space open, and this needed a strong power to be achieved, so anyone capable of feeling energy even a little bit would feel the disturbance.


    And the people present in front of the gate were all the leaders of the different factions present here, so they all had some status and would have seen Heroes travel at least once. It was unexpected for a Hero toe here, so they looked up.


    However, they were shocked when they saw the status of the person who appeared. That wasn''t a Hero, but a Silver Rank! Had it been literally anyone else, they would have simply thought it was a junior who used the portal made by a senior and who wanted to show off, but this thought disappeared from their minds when they saw the identity of the man.


    Valiant Heart, the legendary Sovereign who had been stirring trouble with the dragons. Moreover, as Adam left the portal he began flying in the sky, and as the portal behind him closed they could feel that the power seemed to be attached to Adam, as they had the same feeling.


    Many began feeling pressure, was that really the man they would have to fight? In an instant, everyone present began treating Adam as their greatest enemy, they knew he was the one they would need to defeat if they wanted to have any resources.


    For many, they treated Providence as a dungeon, and Adam was the final boss for that dungeon. And the longer Adam floated in the sky, the stronger the pressure was getting in their mind.


    Adam didn''t do so to pressure them though, but because he was searching through the crowd. He saw several familiar faces, such as the ethereal beauty Thalia, the Orc Sovereign Yokgu Adam met in the Mirage Desert, or Cilliore, the granddaughter of the Great Elder of the Centaurs. He nodded in greetings to them all, but he did not join them.


    Instead, he began flying toward thest group, whom members surprised him. They were a group of ten, but of them only three interested him.


    One was Victoria, the princess of Azure Sky, another was a male standing close to her, and thest was the strongest in their group, a beautiful northwoman who could only be the Imperial Princess.


    But the one who surprised him the most was the malepanion of Victoria, because he did recognize him. He was Arno, the young adventurer he had to save during the first ever quest he did in Epoch, the son of the vige''s cksmith and who was bitten by a snake.


    Hended in front of the group, and as he did he looked at Arno up and down with a funny look, and finally said "It would really have been a shame for you to die that die, looks like I performed a good action. But I wonder how exactly you managed to be an SS ss."


    Arnoughed good naturedly and said "I didn''t expect to reach those heights either. We should talk about itter when we both have time." Adam nodded and looked at the other members of the group.


    He first nodded at Victoria with a smile, who returned the greetings, before he finally looked at thest member of the group. He extended his hand toward the Imperial Princess and said "Greetings to you, your Highness. My name is Valiant Heart, but you may call me Adam."


    Adam could see the faces of the other members of the group he hadn''t greeted had their face change, because of theck of respect Adam showed. As a member of the empire, he ought to bow before a member of the Imperial Family.


    But Adam certainly wasn''t going to bow before a girl who may be his disciple. Moreover, this could serve as a first test. If she really was so vain to trouble him over not bowing to her, then he wasn''t going to trouble himself with her.


    Thankfully, the princess seemed to have some manners as she smiled warmly and said without a hint of displeasure "It is an honor to meet you, I heard so many things about you. If I call you Adam, then you must call me Helena."


    She shook his hand with her warm smile, being smiled at really was a great feeling. Adam''s first impression of the princess was a good one, he would have to continue observing her though to decide whether she would be his student or not.

 Chapter 206: Its a trap!

    Chapter 206: It''s a trap!


    Helena took her hand back as she said, moving her hand in the general direction of the seven other people of the group, and introduced them one by one, making a short introduction of each.


    For the first time Adam paid some attention to them, but he was quickly bored. All seven of them were rather young men, and they were all the sons of dukes or other high ranking members of the Empire.


    This didn''t bother Adam, but seeing how they were even unable to hide their desire for the princess, and displeasure when he shook hands with her, they were obviously degenerates with no self control who couldn''t get a hold on their emotions and thought the world owed them something.


    So midway through her presentation, he simply looked away. This was considered a rude gesture, as he not only ignored them, but also ignored the princess, but he didn''t care. This bored him, those people had made a terrible first impression, so he wasn''t going to be tender with them.


    Helena was stunned, before she stopped talking, understanding what the gesture meant, and looked like she wanted to say something, but in the end she didn''t say anything and just wryly smiled.


    She couldn''t say she understood what was going inside his head, from the stories she heard about the man, he wasn''t someone with a lot of tact, he did piss off the entire Dragon race after all.


    Her upbringing as a princess, the education she received since she was a child all told her that this kind of person was barbaric and worthless, and that had been her first thoughts about this Aqua Sovereign.


    A dumb guy, an astonishingly powerful one, but still a dumb one who didn''t understand the ways of the world. But the moment she saw him in person, she understood she was wrong. It wasn''t that he didn''t understand how the world worked and how one should behave in society.


    He simply treated the rest of the world below himself. He didn''t even look at others in contempt, so he didn''t me others for their weakness. It was just like he believed himself to be so powerful that others had no pull over him.


    It was definitely a strange feeling, and was probably somewhat inurate, but that was the first impression Adam had made on Helena. Might. Power. Name it however you want, he was simply so powerful he probably felt detached from the world.


    The group from Colnds remained awkwardly silent for a few minutes, until a voice boomed in the whole square, putting a stop to all the chatting and putting others out of their social misery.


    "Since you are here, you obviously know what you should know. All of you are to enter Providence at the same time, and for that a massive spatial array has been painted below your feet. In ten seconds, you all will be teleported away. Good luck, and try not to die."


    The words were short but full of importance. Adam nodded to Helena, Victoria and Dorian as he opened a Space Rift behind him, leading him back to his guild. Two meters above them, to be precise.


    It was best to use this skill in the air because anyone caught where the rift was opening would be split in two. And if they were powerful enough to resist the space cut, it would be the one who opened the portal who could be in danger if they entered the portal.


    His men made ce for him as he flew down and his portal closed behind him. Adam eyed his Division Leader, and saw determination in their eyes. This would be the first asion for their guild to show their strength, and they couldn''t fail.


    Ten seconds quickly passed by, and everyone felt the sensation of the surrounding space warping around themselves.


    The teleportation this time took longer than usual though, about two seconds. But those two seconds were enough to throw off a lot of people. Mainly those who never had any experience.


    Teleportation not only warped space, but the body itself, and it was highly ufortable. But most of the time it was near instantaneous, so people wouldn''t feel that bad.


    But they had just crossed to another dimension through arge scale teleportation array that teleported millions of people. Thinking of this, that was an astonishing weapon to have in a war


    But the point was, in front of space warping, unless one was at least Hero Rank in strength, then all would be equal in front of it, and so among the countless people teleported, it wasn''t those who were the strongest who didn''t puke theirst meal, but those capable of controlling their organs.


    So most of the highest leveled people here, who were young masters and mistresses who only gained XP and never experiencing the world were the one to puke, while their ''lowly'' subordinates who lived a harsher live were able to contain themselves.


    Looking over his men, Adam was satisfied to see that not a single one of them lost their countenance. That was to be expected though, they all danced with death a few times already, and that was much more gut wrenching than space warp.


    Adam sent a nod to his guild, and as he was about to order them to move out, he felt a disturbance in the sky. Actually, everyone felt it, and were familiar with it because it was the type of space turbulence created from creating a portal.


    Portals through space couldn''t really be seen, they could be felt, but space had no color, all one could see was some light distortion, and even that would need a good vision.


    Everyone couldn''t help but be curious, was one of the Heroes of this realming here to probe things out? If he really was, then he definitely would be in trouble.


    But after a moment, Adam, who was the most proficient in the space concept, had his face turned awry. As a man exited the first portal, several others appeared around it, and they quickly multiplied, until they became hundreds


    Ten secondster, as all the challengers from Epoch looked up, all they could see were mighty Heroes bloating um the sky, and their killing intent. But most importantly, was that they weren''t humanoids. They were demons of all kinds.


    Everyone was terrified, and confused. Weren''t there supposed to only be a few Heroes? Weak ones at that? Why were there literally hundreds of them now? And with multiple of them at the peak of the rank!


    As they began panicking and wanted to start running, one of the demons, who had red skin, was three meters tall, and whom Adam found to be strangely simr to Arda, the demon whom he fought to save Victoria at the start of the ''game'', said with a cold voice "Kill them."


    As he said that, all the demonic Heroes began flying down, and prepared their attacks. Some among the crowd tried to run, others wanted to resist, but before anyone could really do anything, something not so unexpected happened.


    All significant powers had been invited here, and among those were powers who worshipped demons. And so, in a corner of the big group of people, were the members of the demonic faction.


    They, instead of being surprised an being panicked, had sinister smiles on their faces as they began tounch their own attacks at the people near them.


    Quickly, everyone understood this Providence dimension had all been but a trap since the beginning set by the demonic faction, to kill the talents of the godly faction or maybe take them hostage.


    Adam frowned at the attacks above him, and he dered with a killing intent filled voice to his guild mates "All of you retreat."


    Then, he shed out with his sword at the sky. A yellow sword sh exited from his sword, heading toward one of the Heroes. The Hero clearly didn''t think much of the attack, and tried to parry it. The moment he did, the sword sh suddenly split in numerous lightning bolts that spread among the different demonic heroes, not only dealing damage, but stunning them all.

 Chapter 207: Split and flee

    Chapter 207: Split and flee


    -18.750.000 HP!


    -3.750.000 HP!


    Thunder sh (A): sh out a thunderbolt in the form of a flying sh. Deals 1500% thunder damage to the first target hit, stunning them for five seconds, and splits in smaller thunderbolts that each deal 300% thunder damage and stun targets for two seconds. Cost: 100 000 Aura.


    This was one of the skills Adam had made since he had promoted to Silver Rank, and was of the Wind Element, since thunder was under Wind.


    Since the Heroes in the sky hadn''t been prepared for such a strange attack, even the strongest ones had been hit and were stunned, although Adam had no doubts the stun wouldn''tst for so long on them.


    As he prepared for another strike, Adam hollered using Barbarous Roar "SPLIT AND FLEE!!!" As he said that, he sheathed his sword and jumped in the air before he used both hands tounch a skill with each.


    His right palm hit against the sky, while his left palm hit toward the earth. Out of his right palm spirit waves were fired toward all the Heroes. The strongest among them who had managed to shrug off the stun already weren''t able to dodge those waves, and their own spirit was sent in turmoil, being damaged and stunned for even longer. As for those still stunned, they were hit even harder.


    -3.150.000 HP!


    -6.300.000 HP!


    Spirit Wave(A): Send a spiritual attack toward your enemy in the form of a wave. Enemies hit by the wave will receive 500% of spirit damage and be stunned for ten seconds, while those caught unprepared receive double the effects. Only works once every hour on an enemy. Cost: Mental Exhaustion.


    The Spirit Concept, especially the Sovereign Concept, was quite a terrifying one because unless the opponent also had mastery over this concept, it was nearly impossible to stop. That''s why, even for the strongest among the demons, they weren''t able to defend from the attack and were stunned, as well as received damage.


    As for his left palm, the air under it rippled as water began to form quickly, and in a second a gigantic tide of water had appeared, falling from the sky toward the forces of the demonic faction who entered with them.


    This was of course Adam''s [Tidal Wave] skill, one of the first A Rank skills he ever unlocked. This was a powerful skill, but here Adam didn''t use it to injure his enemies.


    Instead, the gigantic wall of water served as a barrier between the Demonic Faction and the others who entered Providence with them. This gave enough time for the people below to finally awaken from their fear and start running, for the slowest.


    Most of the forces of the strongest groups had already started running before Adam had even attacked. Given this golden opportunity, they started fleeing. This included Adam''s forces.


    Silver and Gold Ranks were all quite fast and could escape out of sight quickly, but even they would need more than ten seconds to escape from Heroes.


    Moreover, after one second, Adam received a bad surprise. The strongest among the Heroes were already starting to awaken, and that''s when he remembered something crucial. Hero Rank was Nascent Soul, and was the stage where cultivating was making the soul stronger. So the stronger Heroes had a better resistance against Spirit skills


    Adam gritted his teeth and approached his two hands to one another, and a ball of water appeared between his hands. It barely took a second for it to form, but more Heroes had once again started to appeared, and the strongest among them were flying toward him at a quick speed.


    Once the ball of eerily deep blue water was formed, although it was no bigger than a human head, Adam threw it toward the Heroes.


    The demon in the lead, who looked like Arda, didn''t underestimated Adam and threw a ball of fire of around the same size at it.


    However, as the two came in contact with each other, something strange happened. The ball of fire was swatted with an extreme precision toward the Demonic Faction, who entered alongside Adam, while the ball of water continued straight toward the demon.


    Just as it was about to hit into him, the ball suddenly exploded against an invisible shield, and burst in vapor, expanding all around the sky, burning all the demons it hit.


    -9.400.000 HP!


    As all the demons, including both those stunned and those who freed themselves, were within the vapor, it suddenly turned into ice.


    -9.400.000 HP!


    The hundreds of Heroes in the sky were frozen alive, and although it just happened one could see that several of them were already melting the ice around them using mes. But the attack wasn''t over, as the ice contracted on itself, crunching everyone inside.


    -18.900.000 HP!


    Three Line Sacred Ball(A): Concentrate the nearby water elements and the power of the Water Concept into a ball and throw it onto your enemy. Any enemy hit by the ball of water will receive 1000% water damage. After hitting an enemy, the ball turn into vapor, rapidly expanding in the surroundings, and dealing 500% of burning damage to every enemy hit. When the user wishes to, the vapor will turn into ice, dealing 500% of ice damage to all those hit, and finally will contract on itself, dealing 1000% of ice damage to those inside. Cost: 500 000 Aura.


    This was a skill Adam had also created, and was quite special as it mixed several skills together. Although it was ranked as an A Rank skill, it''s might was better than other A Rank skills, and was Adam''s current strongest attack.


    All the demons had taken a pretty heavy hit, all losing a lot of HP. Moreover, one of the skills from the Godyer''s Heart made all the enemies he hit suffer from bleeding effect, no matter what kind of damage he deals, and one of his set armor''s skills made recovery 50% slower. As such, the demons weren''t even able to use their incredible healing factor.


    After this bunch of attacks, all the demons had been forced back, all stuck to each other and entangled, giving Adam time to look at their status, and for the others to flee even farther.


    [Higher Demon] (Sage, Level 150)


    HP: 52,225,000/100,000,000


    [Higher Demon] (Sage, Level 160)


    HP: 132,225,000/180,000,000


    [Higher Demon] (Sage, Level 170)


    HP: 212,225,000/260,000,000


    [Higher Demon] (Sage, Level 180)


    HP: 292,250,000/340,000,000


    [Higher Demon] (Sage, Level 190)


    HP: 374,800,000/420,000,000


    [Half-King Demon] (Sage, Level 200)


    HP: 454,800,000/500,000,000


    As he looked at their status, Adam''s face turned grave. This was much worse than he initially thought. A Higher Demon was the equivalent of a hero, while a Demon King was a Legend Rank.


    The Half-King among them was the leader, and for him to have such a title, it meant he was on the verge of reaching the next rank, and be as strong as a Legend. Those were definitely terrible news for them.


    Battling against Heroes was already hard enough, only the few strongest Level 150 Gold Ranks could rival against the weakest of Heroes. A Level 170 Hero could already be said to be invincible against everyone who came in Providence, so a Legend would easily obliterate anyone


    Adam could feel that he had already used more than a third of his Aura to stall the demons for a few seconds and only deal them so much damage. He looked around, and saw that although there remained a lot of people, most had already left his sight, and that included his guild.


    Adam looked back toward the demons with a small inaudible sigh, holding them any longer was impossible. He had been able to stun and damage them all to this extent only thanks to his first attack which had taken them by surprise.


    If he tried to do it again, they would protect themselves and stunning such arge amount of demons would definitely be impossible Still, he couldn''t just let them die.


    Adam''s flying speed was very fast, for two reasons. First, his Concepts. His Space Concept made flying free to him, and his Wind Concept allowed him to use the surrounding wind to go even faster. Secondly, was the Blood Tower, which made him 5 times faster.


    He flew near the demons and punched the air toward them. A tornado quickly created itself and headed toward the demons. Adam knew it wasn''t going to do much damage, if any, but the dust on the ground flew in the tornado and blurred it, making it impossible to see through it.


    Then, he began flying in a random direction. They had definitely looked at his own status, and he had most certainly be their prime target since he was so strong despite being only a Silver Rank.


    And as expected, as he started flying away, the demons did not attack those below, but began chasing after Adam.

 Chapter 208: Fleeing

    Chapter 208: Fleeing


    Now certain the demons wereing after him, sparks appeared around his body as he once again boosted his speed. Lightning was the second fastest element in the world in a straight line, only bested by light.


    But the Light Concept was quite rare and those versed in it would rather use it''s illusions than it''s speed. It was much more difficult to reach the max speed with this concept.


    That''s why, the lightning skills were generally known as the ones offering the greatest boosts in speed, for linear movements.


    But as fast as Adam was with his different boosts, although he could lose the weaker Heroes, the stronger ones were still faster than him. Thankfully, he had quite some advance on them, and they were only a bit faster than him.


    In only ten seconds they had already flown so far away that they couldn''t see any more humans, and they weren''t even close to catch up on him.


    Trailing behind him, the leader of the demon, the Half-King Demon, who had been enraged by Adam''s multiple attacks, growled with his demonic voice "We have been baited! All of you, go back to take care of them, I will deal with this punk by myself."


    The Higher Demons nodded and flew back toward the humanoids they left behind while their leader went for Adam. However, ten secondster when the demons came back to the entrance of Providence, they found out that nearly every humanoid had fled already.


    The demons looked at the younger ones of the Demonic Faction who entered from Epoch, and descended from the sky chase the humanoids. Maybe some had seen where they went.


    Meanwhile, Adam was still being chased by the Half-King Demon, who was closing in on him. They had already flown for a few hundred kilometers already, leaving the entrance of Providence far behind.


    As the Half-King Demon was getting closer and closer, Adam knew it was time for him to leave. Being chased by a peak Ancestor Demon who was about to reach the next realm was very dangerous, and it would be quite hard for him to leave if he didn''t have a n. Fortunately, he had kept several trump cards.


    For the next few seconds, Adam began flowing slower and slower as he made his aura look weaker and weaker, to appear more exhausted than he was. The demon behind him didn''t have any doubt about Adam being tired, flying costed a lot of Aura.


    Finally, the demon entered within a kilometer of Adam, and he stopped. In an instant the demon crossed the kilometer and arrived about ten meters in front of Adam.


    He sneered and said "To think that I would get to kill a human Sovereign before ascending to be a King Demon The Devils have blessed Tazolos."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and said "So your name is Tazolos? Are you sure you can kill me though?"


    As he said that, he shed the air behind him with his palm, quickly creating a portal, and he began falling backwards into the portal.


    Tazolos was shocked. First, he never expected this human, who was so exhausted, to be able and have enough Aura to form a portal. Moreover, had the human opened it before, when it was flying after him, it could have sent a full powered attack at the human before he could enter the portal since his Aura was circting quickly through his body due to flying.


    But now that he had stopped andid down his guard, his Aura had practicallye to a stop. For someone of his power, he only needed an instant tounch a full powered attack, but in many fights, an instant was all that was needed. For example, falling in a portal.


    Still, even if it couldn''tunch a full powered attack, he could still use a part of his power directly. Tazolos sent its palm toward Adam, instantlyunching a flying palm toward Adam.


    As he fell backwards, Adam put his sword in front of himself and created several barriers using his different concepts, and arge part of his Aura at the front of his body, leaving the other part to protect his organs.


    Then, the palm strike struck him heavily, sending him flying even faster in the portal, and continued behind him.


    Not only people, but attacks could also go through portals. Tazolos saw Adam cough a mouthful of blood as he was hit, and was satisfied as he thought he killed the human. However, the next second he saw the portal was still opened, meaning the caster hadn''t been killed yet.


    What it didn''t know was that it had done exactly what Adam wanted it to do. He had created his portal several tens of meters underground, and using the portal would have been impossible as the other side was surrounded by rocks.


    And Adam wouldn''t be able to destroy such arge amount of rocks fast enough. That''s why, he had the demon destroy it in his stead. And since he couldn''t avoid taking the blow either, he had the demony down his guard, leading to him releasing only a part of his power.


    And as he appeared underground, Adam was d he made such a decision as his HP was almost depleted from a single palm strike, he was nearly killed. Adam then hurriedly summoned Neith and had her lead the two of them away.


    A secondter, Tazolos appeared underground, normally one would hesitate to enter someone else''s portal as they could be killed if they entered at the wrong time, but as a peak Hero, even if the portal closed on Tazolos he could shrug it off.


    When he took the portal, he appeared in a dark tunnel that had been created by his palm strike, and that went for several hundred meters. Thinking Adam had gone that way, he hurriedly followed the tunnel, reaching the other end in an instant.


    But as he reached the other end he didn''t see anyone, and at the same time the portal was closed behind him. Tazolos gritted his teeth as he felt he was yed with. He punched upwards, he was sure Adam was hiding in wait next to the portal using some methods and had made the portal disappear after taking it.


    However, as Tazolos appeared above the ground once again, Adam was nowhere to be seen. Unfortunately for Tazolos, he didn''t know that Adam had long left and was several kilometers underground, and far away from Tazolos.


    Even though Neith could perfectly cover her traces while underground, facing this unknown demon Adam had Neith continue digging for an entire hour before returning to the surface. Only then was Adam sure they had sessfully escaped.


    Adam and Neith then went on to find a ce to settle in before Adam began recovering. This time, his injuries were quite grave and he would need around a week topletely recover from them.


    Meanwhile, all the other people who entered alongside Adam split and hid around Providence.


    Days passed, and soon a week went by, and as it did, the people trapped received terrible news. Every sub dimension had a core, and controlling the core meant controlling the dimension.


    A few people had tried to go back to the entrance to flee and warn the powers in Epoch, but they found out that the portal had beenpletely sealed. Tazolos, the Half-King Demon had closed the portal as he had already refined this dimension''s core. The only way for them to leave would be to kill Tazolos.


    Finally, back to Adam, after an entire week of recovery, he was finally back to his top form and was ready to set off. He had to find his guild, and find more about the situation within Providence.

 Chapter 209: Sage Beast

    Chapter 209: Sage Beast


    Adam flew a hundred meters into the sky, looking over the horizon. Be it to find his guild or finding resources, Adam needed to search a wide area. As such, he decided to split up with Neith. She would search the underground of Providence as well as the rocky terrains such as mountains or deserts if there were any.


    As for Adam, he would travel as much distance as possible by flying. If any of them encountered danger, they could feel each other presence thanks to their spirit link, and they would never be too far from each other so with their speed they would be able to join each other very quickly.


    Adam didn''t know anything about this dimension, be it it''s size or who inhabited it. Sure, there were the demons who ambushed them, but were they really the only ones living in this world? Even if they dominated the realm, there could be other strong beings.


    After some time, Adam began flying in a random direction. This time, he did not transform into lightning, but only used his Concepts to fly. This allowed him to fly without a cost, and he was still very fast.


    His base flying speed was 50% of his agility, and the Blood Tower boosted this by 500%, pushing his speed to 2.5 times his normal agility. Using his Space Concept, Adam could offset a part of the gravity acting on him, and finally use his Wind Concept to ignore air resistance and even use wind to boost his speed.


    All of this contributed to make Adam''s flying speed be 5 times faster than his Agility, meaning he could fly with the speed of 316872 Agility. This converted to about 31.6 km per second in speed! Adam had already be far faster than anything on Earth.


    With this speed, it would take Adam only around 21 minutes to circle around the Earth. This was this kind of speed. However, Epoch was many times bigger than earth, and even Providence was much bigger than Earth. And Adam had to be careful when he searched around the ce, so he wouldn''t be able to search the ce as he quickly as his speed allowed him to.


    Still, it allowed him to find something pretty quickly. Half a day after he started his search, Adam found a monster.


    [Mountain Shattering Bear] (Sage, Level 155)


    HP: 140,000,000/140,000,000


    This monster was of the same realm as the demons, it was a Sage Beast, the equivalent of a Hero Rank. Evidently, it had broken through since only a short time, but it remained a very powerful monster.


    This confirmed Adam''s suspicions that other powerful lifeforms existed in this dimension. For him to fall upon a Sage Beast after only searching for half a day, there were most probably many of them, and stronger ones as well.


    Adam doubted there were any Legend Rank, or they would have already killed the demons. If the demons dominated the realm as they were it was probably because they were united, while the monsters were living solitary lives.


    After thinking it through, Adam approached their of the powerful Sage Beast.


    When he arrived a hundred meters from the monster, it opened its eyes and sent a ferocious re at Adam. After a moment, it growled "How dare a weakling like you intrude in this Sage''sir!"


    As a Sage Beast, it was obviously capable of human speech. Adam approached closer to it and said "I just arrived in this world. I have a deal for you."


    The gigantic bear snorted said "I don''t do deals with weaklings." As it said that, it sent it''s palm hurling toward Adam.


    It expected Adam to not even be able to see the pawing and be reduced to meat paste, but to its shock Adam unhurriedly moved his right hand and ced his palm in the path of the paw.


    As the two vastly different sized hands smashed into each other, the paw was stopped right in it''s ce, and Adam barely moved a meter back, his arm a little numb. Adam raised an eyebrow and said to the shocked bear "I guess it''s my time to strike then."


    As he said that, he took his palm back before he struck out with it. A powerful and incredibly cold air current was shot from his palm and hurtled toward the Sage Beast. The Sage Beasts didn''t have the time to dodge due to their proximity and was struck right in the belly.


    It was sent flying tens of meters backwards as it''s brown fur turned blue.


    -33.000.000 HP! Sever Bleeding!


    Although it''s fur looked find, it actually suffered from internal bleeding, which was caused by the Godyer''s Heart''s skill.


    The bear coughed a mouthful of blood as it extracted itself from the wall it had crashed in, and when it felt the state of it''s body, it looked at the tiny human in fear. How could a mere Silver Rank deal so much damage?


    That human didn''t even look tired, but the bear knew that if it were to receive this attack three more times, it would die. Moreover, the attack had caused it to internally bleed, thus losing more and more HP every second. Fighting would only aggravate this. Even scarier was the mysterious force lingering in it''s body that seemed to alter his healing process, making it much slower.


    Thinking that all of this hade from a Level 64 Silver Rank, the monster bear was shaking in fear. It looked around, and began thinking of a solution. It didn''t even consider fleeing, because behind it were it''s cubs, and the female bear would never abandon her cubs behind. She would rather die.


    However, Adam seemed to read her thoughts as he said "I am not here to fight you. If you are willing to sit down with me and talk, I promise I will leave."


    The Sage Bear was shocked by Adam''s words, but after a moment she remembered something as she asked "Do you have anything to do with the recent disturbance in space?"


    Adam smiled and said "I take it you are ready to talk?"


    The female bear seemed to hesitate for a little more before she eventually nodded and said "Fine, as long as you hold your promise."


    Adam grinned and approached closer before sitting in front of the bear. He then said "I''m not from thisnd, Ie from a vaster world outside of this world. I was sent here alongside many other people. But when we arrived, we were ambushed by demons."


    The bear, who was around five meters tall, had also sat down as she recovered her injuries and listened to Adam. She said "Must have been that bastard Tazolos? A Half-King Demon attacked you I guess?"


    Adam nodded and asked with a smile "Could you tell me more about this world''s situation?" The female bear nodded and began exining the politics of Providence.


    After listening for some time, Adam understood his guesses had been quite close to the truth. There existed many Sage Monsters, but they were all living in their own corner, with some being at the peak of the rank, but with no Legend.


    As such, the demons, who were united, were much more powerful than them, and this is how they ended up dominating this world.


    After learning a few more things, Adam had already made his ns. If he wanted to leave this dimension, then the only way was to kill Tazolos. He was confident he could kill him when he reached around Level 90, but the would still be his hundreds of Sage subordinates, all as strong as a hero.


    Adam wasn''t sure that even if he promoted to Gold Rank he would be able to fight against hundreds of Heroes at the same time who worked together their whole lives. As such, he needed helpers.


    The people who came inside the dimension with him were mostly useless, even the strongest among them, that is the Level 150 SS ss Gold Ranks, they would only be able to fight against a weak Hero each, and they weren''t even sure to win. There were only ten such people.


    As for the Sovereigns, the only two who could be useful were that girl, Helena, and Neith. If the two were able to reach Gold Rank, then they may be able to fight against mid tier Heroes.


    But there were hundreds of Sages, so this was far from sufficient. One of the reasons Adam hade here was to gather the materials for his Flying Vessels, but Epic Flying Vessels were only as strong as peak Gold Ranks, so that was useless too.


    In the end, the only help he could ask was from the inhabitants of Providence, the Sage Beasts.

 Chapter 210: Tazolos Intentions

    Chapter 210: Tazolos'' Intentions


    The Sage Bear looked at Adam like he was an idiot when he asked for her help. Being polite to a stronger person was a given, but did he really think she was going to fight for him? Others, way more powerful than him, had already tried before, but there was a reason if the demons were still dominating.


    The worst was that Adam didn''t just want her to fight for him, but also take her resources. Who exactly did he think he was?


    Adam said helplessly "Of course I won''t let you go unrewarded. In exchange of your resources and services, once that Tazolos has been killed, I will let you leave this dimension. Once in the bigger world, Epoch, I can even give you shelter. For you, and your cubs."


    The female bear frowned, now that was more fair She didn''t really care much about herself, she could live just fine, but she didn''t want her cubs to be restricted to this small dimension. And the chances of them dying in here were quite high with the demons chasing relentlessly after the resources.


    The reason the demons had so many Heroes was thanks to the boundless resources in this dimension, allowing the demons to level up with rtive ease. Seeing she was hesitating, Adam added "You don''t have to take your decision right away, the fight won''t be for now anyway. I wille back when the time is right."


    With those words, he got up and walked out of the cave, leaving a pondering bear behind. He was worried others would find this cave and take the treasures, since the bear was much stronger than what the people who entered could fight.


    Although the ten or so geniuses who entered with him were able to fight against weak Heroes, that was really restricted to the weaker Heroes. For Monsters, those of Ancestor Rank and below weren''t very strong individually.


    However, for Sage and Legendary Beasts, each of them wereparable to great human geniuses because they were either Grade 2 or Grade 1 monsters, meaning they were among the most talented in their level.


    Although those who entered alongside Adam were powerful, they were only Gold Rank and for the best they were SS sses. They could manage against a Level 150 Hero, but even a difference of five levels set quite the difference for them.


    Unless they decided to work together, it wasn''t possible for anyone else than Adam and the natives of Providence to harm the Sage Beasts in here.


    Anyway, since he now had made a n, Adam flew at a leisure speed, scanning attentively his surroundings. Although they wouldn''t help him with the final fight, Adam still wanted to find the people from Epoch.


    Quickly, two weeks passed, and they were quite fruitful for Adam. First, his biggest achievement was reaching Level 70. He only spent a small part of his time actively searching, for most of the time he was cultivating.


    Reaching Level 70 meant it would once again be harder to cultivate, but he became once again a little stronger. His mastery over his Concepts also became stronger, with all his concepts.


    Other than this, Adam and Neith were able to find various interesting things. Among them were five Sage Beasts. Of them, Adam was able to defeat four of them with difficulty, but thest one was surprisingly strong.


    Neith had found a volcano, and an ancient beast was sleeping in there. That monster turned out to be a Level 198 Sage Beast, meaning it was one of the strongest in the entire map. Thankfully, it was asleep so Neith was able to leave without having to fight.


    After defeating them, he gave them the same deal he gave to the Mountain Shattering Bear.


    Finally, Adam had been able to find people from Epoch. Neith had, to be precise. She found them hiding in a cave underground, too afraid to roam the world. Adam suspected that most of the people who entered alongside him were like that.


    They probably believed that the demons were on their trail and the Heroes were searching the entire dimension for their lives. They thought too much of themselves.


    Tazolos and his subordinates didn''t even care about them, most of them were still in the demon city. Adam had actually encountered one of the demons, but it was only Silver Rank. Using one of his news skills in the Spirit Concept, Adam was able to interrogate it.


    As it turned out, the natives of Providence had long been blocked here, and they were aware of Epoch, it was just that there was no way for them to leave. When the dimension opened up, the core of the dimension also appeared, and Tazolos was the one who absorbed it.


    Their initial intention was to leave, but by the time Tazolos refined the core of the dimension, the scouts of the different powers had already started to explore the world. Among them, were some demonic faction explorers.


    They concocted a n together, but Tazolos never cared about the geniuses of the different factions. It was the Demonic Faction of Epoch who wanted them dead.


    Moreover, Tazolos and his demons also learned they would be unable to leave for now because only those below Gold Rank were able to leave and enter Providence, so he decided to focus on bing a Legendary Demon before anything else.


    As for those people who entered the dimension? If they wanted to go back to Epoch, they couldn''t breakthrough from the Gold Rank, so they would always remain weaker than him. It didn''t make a difference whether he killed them or not.


    The only one who annoyed and, but he would never admit it, scared Tazolos, was Adam. He had clearly seen that Northman was only Silver Rank, and yet he clearly had thebat prowess of a Hero. If he was allowed to break through to Gold Rank, then he might very well endanger him.


    But that was only a single individual. Searching for him in the entirety of Providence was nearly impossible, and Tazolos had more important matters to attend. The rumors said that Tazolos would very soon be a Demon King, a Legendary Demon.


    Those were bad news for Adam, but there was nothing he could do against it. Back to the people he found, they were actually a group of Lizardkining from one of the powers under Cassifon. They were obviously relieved to see him, as they had all seen him fight against the demons to save them.


    After speaking a little with them, Adam learned that they actually had an artifact that allowed them to know the position of all the other groups under Cassifon who all had a simr device.


    The main group, those directly sent by Cassifon, had an even better device which allowed them to sense the position of all the other devices, but also send them a message. However, for now none dared to move so they were not moving.


    Since that was the case, Adam apanied this group to the main group. As expected, they had used the same tactic, except that they were hiding inside a mountain''s rocks instead of under the dirt.


    Adam didn''t intend on hiding himself, knowing Tazolos didn''t care about them, and thus he had Neith carve a small city out of the mountain they hid in. The Lizardkins were scared, but they didn''t flee.


    While Neith was doing this, Adam also got to talk with the leader of the group, who was a Level 150 SS ss Gold Rank. His name was Jafar.

 Chapter 211: Fortress

    Chapter 211: Fortress


    Jafar and Adam were sitting in front of each other, a cup of tea in front of them. As it turned out, tea was also a thing in Epoch, and Lizardkin were among the best artisans in the entire world.


    Adam also knew there were techniques to drinking tea to look refined and all of that but he had no idea of how he was supposed to look, so he simply sipped the tea a little before saying "I heard you have themand token for the rest of your group."


    Themand token was the device they used tomunicate with the other holders of the tokens. Jafar was starring at the cup in Adam''s hands, probably triggered by the way Adam was drinking, but he still said "I do."


    Adam put down his cup and said "I want you to call them all here and form a base. A fortress." Jafar frowned and said "Wouldn''t that be offering our lives to those demons? If they find this base, we will all die."


    Adam shook his head and replied "Their leader, Tazolos, is on the verge of bing a Legend, and so he can''t bother with us. I learned some things about the demons in this realm, they don''t really care about us. If we are split, they will be targets. Only if theye here can we protect them."


    Jafar''s face turned grave as he asked "A Legend? Are you sure about your information?" Adam nodded and said "A hundred percent. I don''t know how long it will take him to reach that realm, but while he is working on it, he won''t chase us. At most, he will send a few of his Higher Demons."


    Jafar sighed and said "So what? You will protect us? He has other peak Higher Demons." Adam nodded and said "He does, but he can''t send them. I discovered in the past two weeks that the demons aren''t the only forces in this world, there are also monsters at the peak of the Sage/Hero Realm. Sending a peak Sage at us means bing vulnerable, so he can''t. He can only send a mid tier Sage at us, something which I can manage."


    Jafar still shook his head though and said "Even if theye, would you really protect them? What''s in for you?"


    Adam replied with a passive face "The only way to exit this realm is to kill Tazolos. Among the people who entered this realm, only I can possibly defeat him while being a Gold Rank. Unless you want to remain stuck here, I am your only chance to return to Epoch."


    "As you said, there has to be something in for me. Except being a benevolent person who like to help others, all I need is for you all to work for me while we are in Providence."


    Jafar raised one of his nonexistent eyebrows as he asked, a little confused "Work for you?" Adam nodded and said "Although we have been trapped, some of the information we got was still true, such as the riches contained in this dimension."


    Jafar''s face changed as he said with a little anger "Do you really think we are going to gather the resources and just give them to you? You want to ripe the gains without doing anything?!"


    Adam''s face turned colder as he said "Nothing? Does fighting hundreds of Sages and a possible Legend nothing in your eyes?"


    Adam also began releasing his aura in his anger, which had be so powerful that Jafar felt a suffocating might. Seeing Jafar''s constipated-like face, Adam restrained his aura with a sneer, before talking.


    "Besides, even if you wanted to you wouldn''t be able to take the resources. As I said, there are also Sage monsters in this realm. There''s said to be two Racial Powers'' worth of treasures in here. One half is detained by the demons, and the other by the monsters. Of course it is the Sage monsters who got the resources. Are you confident of snatching resources from a Sage monster?"


    Jafar bit his inner cheeks in frustration but said nothing. Adam''s gaze and voice were still cold as he said "I want you to scour this dimension and search through it for me. If you find a Sage Monsters, report it and I will take care of it. If you find other survivors, lead them here, and they will be faced with the same deal."


    Adam got up from his chair and headed for the exit of the little cave, but before exiting the room he said "Those monsters, they are to be allies, not enemies. Don''t do anything stupid." And with those words, he left the cave.


    At first, he wanted to be nice and respectful toward Jafar, he was the leader of the Lizardkin here and could be problematic. However, only when they started talking did he understand that being nice wasn''t an option anymore.


    As his power grew, he was starting to meet with more powerful people, and with power, came arrogance, and pride. He could clearly see when they spoke that Jafar saw himself as Adam''s equal.


    Were it somewhere else, Adam wouldn''t mind, but in their current situation, they clearly needed a leader, someone above the others. So Adam changed his attitude throughout their meeting and clearly established his position as the superior one, to knock Jafar down a peg.


    Obviously the Lizardkin didn''t like it, but Adam didn''t care. Even if he refused now, without his protection they wouldn''t be able tost long in here. And even if they managed to hide for years without being found, when Adam defeated Tazolos, if he could, their only way to leave would be to beg him.


    In the end, they would need to rely on Adam, so even escaping wasn''t an option. Adam controlled them while in Providence, and it would extend to all those who entered alongside him.


    Adam didn''t have some kind of godplex or anything, ruling over others wasn''t something he particrly liked, but it was needed. Without a leader, chaos would ensue, and they couldn''t afford inner strife while being hunted by hundreds of Sage Demons.


    Also, Adam was originally here for a reason, and that was to hunt for resources. And so did everyone else. Their respective powers already expected them to kill each other, so what was some dominationpared to killing them?


    As long as they did their job well, they would be able to leave this realm safely and he wouldn''t bother them. Although they wouldn''t have gained anything, they could consider themselves happy to be alive after going through such a thing.


    And just as Adam expected, although Jafar was reluctant at first, when he took the time to think about his and his fellow Lizardkin situation, he realized that he didn''t have much of a choice. If he wanted to live, then submitting to Adam was the only solution.


    So, as reluctant as he was, he still ended up by calling for his subordinates. He didn''t like it, but they would have to work for Adam.


    Since he now had people searching the world for him, Adam didn''t have to leave anymore. All he had to do was to cultivate in their new base and wait for news from his temporary subordinates.


    Still, there was one thing he wanted to do, which he hadn''t yet told Jafar. Thanks to his rtively high attainments in the Spirit Concept, he could pretty easily detect lies from weaker people.


    Among the people who would enter the base, there were bound to be spies, and Adam could have them tell Tazolos about his base. The demon couldn''t send a peak Hero to search for an unknown amount of time, but if he knew where they were then killing them all wouldn''t take long and that Sage coulde back quickly.


    That''s why, once the batch of Lizardkin arrivedter, and the other racester, he would interrogate them all. It would take some time, but it was needed.

 Chapter 212: Damsel in distress

    Chapter 212: Damsel in distress


    Things went much better than Adam expected. After finding Jafar andpany, the Lizardman didn''t take too long to call for the rest of his subordinates and start building the base.


    As it turned out, Jafar wasn''t as prideful as Adam thought he was, since the guy was able to put aside his personal pride to help his people. He would definitely make a good leader for Cassifon if he managed to get out of Providence alive.


    Thus, Adam decided not to be aplete ass and just have them work for him, that was going way too far since they were even being nice to him, so he helped them construct the whole base and also took the time to give them all advice.


    That was the props of mastering 8 different Sovereign Concepts. A Sovereign Concept enveloped the understandings of many lower ssed concepts, so since Adam mastered some of the mostmon seen concepts, that is Water, Fire and Wind, he could give guidance to most people around here.


    And even for those with slightly more exotic concepts, the people here were almost all at a very low degree of understanding so using his own Concepts as a reference to guide them was easy for Adam.


    Anyway, a few days had passed since Adam met Jafar, and all the Lizardkin who entered Providence and were still alive had joined them. There were several tens of thousands of them, so a considerable number, but Adam had managed to interrogate them all, and he had killed about 100 of them who were spies for demons.


    It took less time than he thought it would, thanks to his mastery of the Spirit Concept. Just like his cultivation, understanding a Concept was easier in the beginning, but would get harder and harder as time passed.


    Something else that he had noticed earlier was that there seemed to be stages, or levels of understanding for his Concepts, setting pretty clear thresholds. For now, he had picked up the 10% and 50% thresholds.


    He had felt the difficulty spiking up at those values. His Water and Fire Concepts were the most advanced, both at 51% of understanding, and his Sword Concept came second with 50%.


    Something else he noticed was the power brought by the Concept, understanding 10% of the Water Concept allowed him to use C Skills freely, and understanding 50% now allowed him to lessen the cost of B Skills by 50%


    Anyway, Adam''s Spirit Concept was now at 40%, so detecting the lies of arge group of Gold Ranks had be rather easy for him.


    Something else he noticed was that the influence of the system in this sub dimension seemed to have be much lesser inparison to Epoch. For example, messaging others through the system was now impossible, and the Lizardkin people seemed to know in beforehand since they took those devices beforehand.


    Adam would have liked to know too, since he would have been able to contact his guild mates and find them right away, but unfortunately he wasn''t told about this


    Other than that, it was time for Adam to finally put in some real work. The base they were building was almost finished, and the Lizardkin people had even given him a good surprise, or rather Jafar did, as he had started understanding the Advanced Concept of Camouge.


    Even though he didn''t like receiving orders from Adam, since it was for his people''s well-being he used his skills to hide the base better so that it would be much harder for the demons to find it.


    Back to the subject, while they were finishing the base, some other Lizardkin had been out exploring, and they finally came back with some results. Some great results, to be honest, since they wereing back with a bunch of northmen, not of Adam''s guild though.


    After listening to their report alongside Jafar, who was here only because he didn''t want to lose all his influence in front of his subordinates, Adam understood the situation.


    Those Northmen were men under Helena. At first, they had been hiding like everyone else, but after more than a week of hiding and still no demon searching for them, they decided to crawl out of their hiding and find a way to escape.


    As they did so, they unfortunately stumbled upon their of a Sage Beast. The monster wasn''t a nice once either as it killed a ratherrge part of their group before they were able to escape from it.


    But only a few dayster, that is today, the Sage Beast came back to find them and attacked. The two Northmen that were found by the Lizardkin patrol were fleeing from that monster, who was apparently fighting against Helena right now.


    When the two reached this part of the tale, Adam grabbed them with a grave face and shed open the void, exiting the room, leaving three dumbfounded Lizardkin behind. Couldn''t he leave like a normal person?


    Up above the base, with the two Northmen in each hand, Adam asked "Where is the princess?" He couldn''t have her die, he promised the brother of the Emperor he would protect her.


    The two seemed to be anxious too as they pointed at the direction they escaped from, but then spoke no more. This was because Adam directly began flying in that direction at top speed.


    Adam''s flying speed was terrifyingly fast, faster than even many Heroes. Those two Gold Ranks obviously weren''t prepared for this, and they traveled several times faster than they ever had before.


    One moment, they were still pointing in the direction theyst saw the princess, and the next they were above a Sage Beast and the princess, still fighting. Adam could fly at more than 30km per second, which was much faster than the speed of sound.


    Below them, the princess was quite gravely injured from her fight with the ape, which was a Sage Beast. It was actually her first time seriously fighting against a Sage Rank monster, and only now did she understand how much her training partners were holding back.


    They had been fighting for only several minutes, and she already knew by now it was ying with her. It had already grabbed her several times, but instead of ripping her apart with it''s terrifying strength it would just smash her against a nearby tree and continue punching her.


    Normally, she would have long fled, but her men were behind, and she wasn''t one to flee, or she wouldn''t ever enter Roskha. She would even fight to her death if it meant saving herrades and honoring her country''s traditions.


    However, the ape in front of her was growing tired of her. It could see she was reaching her limits, and knew ytime was over.


    But as it prepared to deal thest strike, it suddenly heard an explosion above it, shocking it. Not only it had heard it, but the princess, as well as everyone else in the vicinity, had heard that explosion.


    The sound actually came from Adam, who had been traveling at such speeds that the air around him had bent, folded and finally exploded. He could have erased the air resistance and arrive silently, but that wasn''t his intention.


    Adam threw the two Northmen towards the ones lingering around, hoping the princess who kill the monster, before he himself looked at the ape and said with amanding voice "You will stand down."


    His voice was chillingly cold, although it wasn''t directed at them Helena and her men felt shivers when they heard his voice. As for the ape, who was the target of the voice, it felt even worse.


    Adam had just used a derivation of his [Barbarous Roar], this time filled with his killing intent, his Concept of ughter as well as his Concept of Spirit. Obviously, it dealt a heavy impact on the ape''s mind.


    But the ape was Level 150, so it was able to wake up from the daze it was in. However, as it did so it understood it had fallen upon a tough bone, and if it didn''t react quickly, it would die.


    So without any hesitation it moved as quick as the wind and tried to grab Helena. It knew that the human above was trying to save the girl, so it''s only hope was to take the girl hostage.


    Unfortunately, this was the wrong reaction.


    The ape barely got to move when a bolt of lightning fell on it''s head.


    Critical hit! -40.000.000 HP!

 Chapter 213: Luck

    Chapter 213: Luck


    The top of the ape''s head was charred ck by the unexpected strike. Adam couldn''t move as fast as lightning, but his strongest one on one lightning skill, Smite, definitely could.


    And the ape, who was taken by surprise, was far from being able to react to such a strike, and so it was struck down by the lightning.


    Not only it hurt it a lot, but it also paralysed it, turning it''s thoughts fuzzy and putting it in a daze because it struck it''s head, sending electricity to it''s brain.


    The Ape was only Level 150, and was quite old. It wasn''t very powerful. Even Helena was stronger than it by a small margin. However, her inexperience made her lose this fight. She was strong, and skilled, but she did not know how to fight.


    Normally, Adam would have spared a Sage Beast for the final battle, but in the moment when the ape was dazed by the lightning, Adam got ess to some of it''s emotions and thoughts thanks to its mental defences being reduced to close to 0 by the lightning in it''s brain.


    And what he saw was rage, destruction, treachery and all kinds of negative feelings. Adam wanted allies to fight alongside him to kill Tazolos and get out of this realm, so he sparred all the Sage Beasts he fought until today.


    But this ape was evil, and he didn''t want to be backstabbed so he wouldn''t spare such a problematic monster. Moreover, it was reaching the end of it''s lifespan and was one of the weakest Sages Adam had seen so it wouldn''t even be of much help.


    As the ape regained some of it''s bearings, it felt a terrible dangering from the left side of it''s head, but it barely got the time to register the information when a spear of ice prated from the left side of it''s head, piercing through it''s thick skull, it''s brain, and quickly flying out of the other side of it''s head, stabbing a hole in it''s head.


    Critical Hit! -130.000.000 HP!


    The ape couldn''t even release one final roar as it died, it''s brain obliterated in less than a tenth of a second. It''s twenty meters tall body fell to the ground, half of it''s head gone.


    The first strike had taken 40% of it''s health, and the second one was strong enough to one shot it even if it was at full health.


    Had it tried to fight against Adam, it would have been able to struggle a little, but it tried to go for Helena.


    Something to understand about the fights of this level is that a single opportunity is enough to crush the other. Here, for example, because the ape thought it could react to any of Adam''s sneak attacks, it went for Helena.


    But Adam sent a lightning based skill, which were the fastest offensive skills in the world, not counting light, and it had no time to react. Then, because it was stunned by the first attack, Adam was able tounch his other attack, which was slower, and kill it in one shot.


    Had it defended itself, it wouldn''t have been stunned by the first attack, and would have been able to put up some defences against the second attack.


    Of course, it would have still lost, but the defeat wouldn''t have been as humiliating and overwhelming.


    As his body passively absorbed the Aura in the surroundings, Adam flew down from the sky andnded next to the ape''s body. He stored it into his Blood Tower as the body of a Sage Beast was quite valuable, and even if he didn''t sell it he could eat from it, it''s meat should be quite good.


    Then, he turned to look at Helena, who unconsciously straightened up, and said "That was disappointing, but to be expected."


    Helena lowered her head in shame, had it been before she wouldn''t have cared much about his opinion, but only after seeing how easily he killed the monster she struggled so much against did she understand why Adam was who he was.


    But Adam wasn''t finished, and he said "Still, what you did was honourable. I ept to take you as my third disciple."


    Helena clenched her fist as excitement took her over. She bowed and said "I definitely won''t shame you, Master!"


    Adam nodded and said "Before anything, you should lead your men to my base, there they will be protected. Once there, speak to Jafar, and follow what he did, he will exin to you."


    Helena nodded and quickly gathered her men who were still escaping, unaware the monster had been killed. Meanwhile, Adam headed in another direction.


    When he flew over to save the girl and her men he had spotted what seemed to be this ape''s cave. He intended to go there and take it''s resources, since it wouldn''t need them anymore.


    Following the traces of the ape, which wasn''t difficult since all he had to do was to follow the fallen trees and the holes in the ground, he indeed reached the cave he had seen earlier.


    He remained cautious though as he entered the cave. Although he had killed the ape, maybe there were more of them inside, and they could even be stronger.


    But in the following minutes Adam understood that the ape was most probably a loner as he arrived in it''s living abode and found no traces of anyone else.


    The ce was quite beautiful, there was an unusually big sakura like tree in the middle of a pond, with fruits hanging from the branches and sprouting out of the pink flower.


    From where he was Adam could feel the fruits were overflowing with Aura, eating them would definitely help with his cultivation. But he set those aside for now as he proceeded to scan the rest of the cave with his sight.


    On a side, Adam could see what seemed to be a bed, but it was roughly made and was made of stones, so it probably wasn''t veryfortableying on that.


    And on another side, Adam could see what he hade here for, materials. Various ores could be seen, as well as precious nts. All the items in the pile were releasing Aura to their surroundings, but also absorbing some at the same time.


    But only when he saw this pile did he start to understand the real value of the fruits hanging on the tree. Even gathered together, all those materials were far fromparing to even a single one of those fruits, in term of Aura.


    Adam first moved toward the pile of materials and took everything inside the Blood Tower, before he moved toward the tree.


    It was easy for Adam to walk on the water now, and as he arrived beneath the huge tree he extended his hand toward one of the fruits. A suction force appeared from within his hand and one of the fruits was plucked off the tree, flying toward his hand.


    Adam then inspected the fruit which was now in his hand.


    [Sapling Rose Tree Fruit]


    Requirement: At least 10 000 in every Attribute.


    Effect: +1000 to all attributes, grants XP. After the fruit has been plucked, the longer it is exposed to the outside world, the weaker the effects be. After having eaten 12 fruits, the fruits will no longer give any attributes.


    When he saw that, Adam couldn''t help but get excited. First, the fruit''s effects were really good, and Adam could see a dozen of fruits hanging from the tree''s branches so that would represent a great power up.


    But more importantly, the tree was said to be a sapling. If the sapling could produce fruits this strong and be twenty meters tall, then the day it turned into a mature tree it would most definitely turn into something amazing.


    But he had to be careful when he plucked them, as he had to use them right away. And that''s exactly what Adam did as he bit into the pink fruit.

 Chapter 214: Spiritual Beings

    Chapter 214: Spiritual Beings


    The moment he bit into the fruit, Adam felt a strong and warm current of energy exit from the fruit and infiltrate his body. Adam could also feel it was trying to leave his body, but thanks to his perfect mastery of his internal energy he was able to keep all the fruit''s energy inside his body.


    At the same time, the fruit itself was quite delicious, and was definitely to Adam''s liking. It was the best fruit he had ever eaten. He couldn''t help but wonder what the Lesser Holy Water Fruit would taste like


    But it wasn''t time to think about this. Adam quickly began cultivating to assimte the new energy within his body. The minutes passed, and soon Adam had been cultivating for half an hour. Only then did he open his eyes, he had finally finished absorbing the fruit. He could feel he had gotten stronger.


    Adam didn''t hesitate to pluck out another fruit and eat it too.


    In the end, it took Adam six entire hours to eat and assimte all 12 fruits, which was the total amount of fruits there were on the tree. If he wasn''t wrong in his assumption, then there would only be twelve fruits for every harvest.


    He also noticed that although the tree was massive, it was made of exactly twelve main branches from which other smaller branches grew. But what was important was that one fruit was growing from each of the main branches, so the limit of the fruits were probably linked to that.


    Eating those twelve fruits gave Adam an unexpected surprise, as not only they gave him 12000 stats to all three of his attributes, but it also boosted his level from 70 to 81!


    Originally, it would have taken Adam a month of intense cultivation to reach this level, but the fruits had allowed him to skip this month and reach an even stronger level!


    Those were definitely good news as this meant less and less Sage monsters and demons could threaten him. Just in term of speed, Adam was pretty sure he was already faster than all the demons, including Tazolos.


    However, if he didn''t find other simr treasures then levelling up would be much harder than before since he had reached yet another cap. He had tried cultivating normally after eating all the fruits, and from what he could feel, it would take him slightly less than three months to reach Level 90.


    Three months of intense cultivation wasn''t something trivial, Adam could spend his entire day cultivating seriously because he liked it and he had to get stronger very quickly and he had enough willpower to do so, but for most people they wouldn''t be able to cultivate so seriously for so long and it would take them many more months, maybe years.


    Or at least, that was what Adam thought. Actually, for people in Epoch they didn''t face this problem as they leveled up by killing monsters, while people on Earth were too limited by their talent and absorbed Qi at a much lesser speed than Adam did.


    Anyway, those were great news, and that was all he needed to take of it. Adam had already looted everything from the cave, except what was most probably the most valuable thing, the tree, and the pond.


    He had also found through the month that the water wasn''t just regr water, it had allowed him to boost his cultivation efficiency. It would be foolish to leave those treasures here, so he used his Aura to form a big hand and scooped a handful of dirt.


    Of course, it was a gigantic handful, which allowed him to take both the tree and the pond without damaging the roots in the slightest. Then, he stored the tree on the 58th Floor, which was filled with the elements of Nature. This was the best environment for the tree and the pond as they would both get enriched with time.


    Although he didn''t know about the Rose Tree in particrity, he still knew about this kind of trees, called Spiritual Trees, on which wonderful fruits would grow. Some were like the Lesser Holy Water Fruit, allowing the user to boost theirprehension over a concept, and others were like the Rose Tree, allowing one to boost their level.


    Many wished they could possess a Spiritual Tree, but they were very rare, and it was hard toe across one. The pond was essentially the same, it was a Spiritual Water, and they also varied in effects. They were quite rare too.


    The most famous Spiritual Water was Orui''s Oasis, the famous Holy Land of Orcs which could only be found by chance and allowed those soaked in it''s waters to have a boostedprehension.


    The two fell under the category of Spiritual Bodies. Spiritual Bodies could be strengthened over time, and it was Adam''s intentions. He would let the two absorb the rich nature elements in the Blood Tower, which were the best nutriments for it and that could even be recharged, and cultivate the two until they became priceless treasures.


    Adam left the cave with a smile on his lips and flew back toward his base. He had be even faster with his boost in strength, and it took him less than a second to reach the base. This time though, he didn''t make any noise.


    He then flew down and entered the base. It had already been six hours since he had killed the Sage Ape, so Helena and her men had more than enough time to arrive.


    Jafar had already exined to her everything that needed to be exined, and she wasn''t nearly as reluctant as him apparently as Adam could see the poption of his base had increased already.


    After a round of mind scanning, Adam fished out three spies before he was able to rx for the day. Or so he thought. Helena didn''t take long toe find him in his room, to ask for cultivation advice.


    She didn''t have to worry about cultivation itself since she was under the system and only had to kill monsters, but she had to work like anyone else if she wanted toprehend the concepts.


    Adam first asked her "Which Concept have you started to understand?"


    Helena respectfully replied "The Sovereign Concepts of Wind and Sword, as well as the Advanced Concept of Ice."


    Adam nodded and said "You are luckier than your senior disciples, I can help you with all your concepts. Do you have any question?"


    Through this exchange Adam got to learn more about her. She was quite strong, just as he thought, all shecked really was some experience in fighting to fight against Sage monsters and Hero cultivators.


    After a few hours, Adam managed to answer all of Helena''s questions, and showed her several ways to use all those Concepts, and he also taught her more about the meridians in the body.


    After she left, Adam didn''t immediately start cultivating, but began thinking. While he taught her, Adam also asked her a few questions, and learned a lot.


    Apparently, the understanding of Concepts and Essences in Epoch was verycking. Barely any people had understand Essences, and they were all Legends. And even the few who managed to understand an Essence, it would be at most an Advanced one for the greatest geniuses, and Basic ones for most.


    And even then, most Legends were still stuck at the Concept level, barely managing to understand it to 100% for the major part. As a result, the skills people were capable of using were low leveled most of the time, most Legends were only able to cast A Rank skills.


    As for Heroes, the absolute best could also cast A Rank Skills, but most were using B Rank ones.


    Adam had witnessed how the Sage Beasts he fought mostly used raw strength to fight, but he simply thought it was because they were monsters and in a separate dimension.


    Apparently, even the Heroes from the Racial Powers in Epoch would mainly use raw strength. This meant Adam could potentially be much stronger than he used to think he was.


    Since he started fighting with Sage Rank beings, he always held back against those more than 100 levels higher than him, but if their fighting style was restricted to only using their pure stats then they really were much weaker than he originally thought.

 Chapter 215: Earths resources

    Chapter 215: Earth''s resources


    Days passed quickly and Helena had brought back all the Northmen who entered with her. After fishing out all the spies among them, a few came back with news of a Sage Beast they had found.


    However, this time Adam decided to change tactics to conquer this realm. Through the time he passed in here, he would often find himself interrupted in his cultivation to go for a Sage Beast, and it felt quite annoying.


    Moreover, he intended to take the girl, Helena, with him to train her, and taking her out every five or six days just wasn''t going to do it. But the worst thing was for the cultivation of his inner self, to open the 5th Gate. This needed long meditations to understand himself, and Adam could feel he was near that goal, so he couldn''t continue interrupting himself every 5 or 6 days.


    Thus, he decided to ''stock'' the information for some time and only do it all in one fell swoop.


    This gave time to Adam to meditate, and think about himself. After all, he not only had to cultivate his Aura/Qi and his Concepts, but also the 5th Gate, which needed him to understand himself before understanding the world.


    Through his inner introspection Adam noticed a few things about his cultivation, differences between his two avatars.


    First was obviously the difference in power, since one had the Rose Tree Fruits and the other didn''t. His Yin half had taken a lead on the Yang half. This presented a problem for the future.


    Adam already knew that the point of splitting in two was not to have a body in each realm, but to unite the two bodies in the future and gain never before seen might.


    However, for the fusion to happen he would need his two bodies to fuse together, and if one was stronger than the other then he might encounter problems.


    A difference in stats from eating fruits could potentially be ignored, but not a difference in cultivation. And Adam didn''t want to stagnate the cultivation of one of his bodies to wait for the other, nor did he want to stop consuming treasures that might elerate his growth.


    That left only a single option, find a way to strengthen his Yang half. Until now, it was near impossible for him to find a decent treasure for him to consume for multiple reasons. First the Earth, as a where cultivators were a minority and hid, finding treasures was harder.


    But more importantly, with the presences of the multiple Golden Idols/Legends on Earth, they had probably hogged the different treasures already and held control over them.


    That''s why, until now he had no power to fight for the control of those resources and was helpless, but that was no longer the case.


    And the other major thing Adam had noticed about himself is rted to this, to his growth to be precise. Although he cultivated at the same speed on Earth and in Epoch, the feeling of progression was much more present in Epoch than it was on Earth.


    In Epoch, a realm was split in 50 levels, so it was made of a lot of small power ups, making the cultivator feel progress quite often.


    On Earth however, realms were split in three levels only, early, middle and peak. Those were major power ups, with quite some difference in between every realm, and in the end the power was the same for both worlds, but on Earth one would often feel they were stuck at a certain realm.


    For example, Yang Adam was currently an Early Level Nascent Soul, and he had already been one for more than a month already. This meant he hadn''t made any progress in term of strength for an entire month, except for his Concepts.


    This also showed why cultivators on Earth were generally at a lower realm, it wasn''t just ack of resources, but also because cultivation was harder on one''s mind.


    Back to Yang Adam''s situation, he felt it was now time for him to hunt for treasures of the world. Unlike his Yin self, who was constantly interrupted in his meditations and had to stop every once in a while, Yang Adam had been able to meditate for long periods of time and had already understood his inner self, and was close to understanding the world around him.


    Normally, this would allow Adam to open the 5th Gate, but because he had two bodies he had to understand the inner bodies and outer worlds for both bodies, since they also lived in different worlds.


    Nheless, this was good progress. Although understanding his inner self didn''t directly impact on hisbat strength like boosting his stats or hisprehension, it still made him stronger.


    And understanding the world didn''t need as much meditation as understanding the inner self, so Adam was free to explore the world a bit while continuing to understand the world.


    As for his strength, Adam didn''t worry. In Epoch, he could be considered as one of the truly strong Heroes and stood near the peak of the realm. What separated him from Legends in Epoch wasn''t really pure stats either, but rather the difference in equipment as the boost Legendary Equipment gave was simply iparable to Adam''s own equipment.


    But on Earth, even if there were certainly some equipments like the legendary weapons of myths such as Mjollnir, Gungnir or Excalibur, the way equipment worked on Earth was different.


    It didn''t make much sense for equipments, especially armours to boost one''s stats. On Earth, an armor would allow one to resist strikes while a weapon would allow one to strike harder, and that was it.


    Considering the ''Gods'' of Earth were weak Golden Idols who relied on the power of faith to climb to their position, their stats were most probably near Adam''s own stats.


    Since they had used the Power of Faith to reach their current state, it also meant it was impossible for them to progress any further, so their understanding of Concepts had been halted, just like the opening of their Gates.


    The way the Power of Faith worked was quite simple actually. Everyone was enveloped by the Power of Faith, as everyone had at least one person believing in them.


    This power usually didn''t have any effect on the person, maybe boosting their luck a little if it was really big, but even that was debatable.


    But there existed a ceremony that would allow one to turn the power of faith surrounding them into their own cultivation.


    However, this was a one time thing. Once the ceremony is ended, it bes impossible for the user to ever grow, be it through cultivating Qi, understanding the Concepts or opening the Gates.


    From what Adam knew the Golden Idols of today were the ancient humans who struggled to survive in the old world when the different races from Epoch were abducted by Sofia from Epoch.


    At that time, if merely a few Golden Idols were able to wipe out all other races without leaving a traces, then the strongest races probably only had a few Nascent Souls among them. And in this old world, before their transformation, humans were struggling to survive.


    All of this allowed Adam to conclude that the Golden Idols were most probably Inner Core cultivators, which is the equivalent of Gold Rank, or were even below.


    This meant their understanding over the concepts could only be very low, or some of them maybe didn''t even start to understand a Concept, so the skills the Legends would be able to use would be very limited in strength.


    While Adam could use skills that allowed him to boost his strength by ten or twenty times, they would barely be able to double their strength through their skills.


    And it was for all those reasons that Adam felt very confidant against the gods of Earth. If they really had to fight, then he would most definitely win. Even if they tried to fight against him using their whole pantheons.

 Chapter 216: Safety Measures

    Chapter 216: Safety Measures


    Right now, the only thing that could hold Adam back on Earth was his family, as if he was away when he beat up the gods then they would attack them.


    Adam had a simple solution for that though, and that was to let them hide. When he first told them, they obviously weren''t d, partly because hiding in a remote ce far from all civilisation was boring, but most importantly because they didn''t want Adam to go fight against the gods.


    Imagine one day your son came up to you and told you he was going to fight against literal gods, which parent in their right mind would ept that with a smile?


    But even if they didn''t like the idea, in the end they decided to trust Adam. They didn''t really have a choice anyway, as he was a grown man already and could make his own decisions.


    Speaking of his family, since the gods had made theireback, Adam''s parents had been chilling at home. At first they would still go outside because unlike in the rest of the world, New York was free from the tyranny of the gods, but they soon had to stop.


    It was because basically everyone in the city had informed themselves about Adam, and his closed ones, and everytime they would go outside they would be swarmed by people trying to please them or who would beg them to ask Adam to help a certain city where they had a rtive or something like that.


    Anyway, it was a really bad experience, so they decided to just stay at home. They didn''t really have any friends anyway because of Matt''s previous condition so it didn''t matter much.


    As for Matthew, Adam had been preparing him for cultivation. Since Matt had slightly less than two years before he would enter Epoch, Adam wanted to help him set the best foundation in the real world so he would be able to level up as fast as possible in the early period of Epoch.


    Other than training, he would be spending most of his time with his girlfriend, much to Adam''s distress. He liked her, she was sweet, but the two were 16 and they were discovering themselves. And everytime Matt would bring her over


    Let''s just say that with his strength, Adam''s senses were refined to the point where he could form a mental image simply by listening to something, like the sonars of bats. And god he heard quite a lot he didn''t want to.


    Back to the situation at hand, Adam had Matt warn his girlfriend they would be moving for a short period of time so she didn''t panic, but he didn''t tell anyone where.


    It wasn''t that he feared betrayal, but against a weakling like Matt''s girlfriend, anyone who mastered even a little of the Spirit Concept would be able to read her memories, and Adam was certain there were such people among the gods.


    Although Adam wouldn''t let them enter the city that easily, he didn''t want to take any risk with his family, so it was at night that he took them away to a location only he knew.


    That location was deep in the Himyas, where he built a cave quickly, and set many traps. Anyone who approached the cave would receive a full powered attack on their mind, which was strong enough to kill most or severely injure Heroes.


    This was the real world after all, where the rules of the world were different from Epoch. In Epoch, because of the system, every attack was rted to stats, and so even Spirit Attacks were rted to Adam''s Strength attribute, which didn''t make sense.


    But here, on Earth, when Adam used his Spirit Concept he would use his spirit for real. Adam had already long recovered from splitting in two halves, and his spirit for both halves had even be stronger than it used to be. As such, unless they were proficient in Spirit skills, even a Legend would be injured.


    And the Spirit trap was only the firstyer. It would stun or kill the enemy but also warn Adam. If the intruder tried to force further in, then they would have to go through five otheryers of traps.


    And if they finally managed to bypass all the traps Adam''s family would simply be teleported elsewhere. The Space Concept was quite useful.


    All of that was possible thanks to Adam''s profound understanding of Concepts, but it would be even stronger and more dangerous if he had learned runes.


    Enchanters were the ones who could make arrays, and an array could be exceptionally powerful. For example, in Epoch, thest line of defence of the various Racial Powers weren''t strong experts, but instead arrays.


    Unfortunately, Enchantment was a difficult art to pick up and Adam didn''t have the time to learn it, so he had to make do with his current abilities.


    He also set a fewyers of protection around New York, which would be activated if a Golden Idol were to appear. They weren''t too dissimr from those he used to protect his family, except that they were less powerful because of therge area they upied.


    When he was sure his family was safe, Adam finally could start his ns. Since he now had the power, he not only wanted to find treasures for his cultivation, but also put the gods back in their right ce.


    And what better way to start off than attack one of the most famous and powerful pantheons in the world, the Olympians?


    They were recognized as one of the most powerful forces in the world, and Zeus was one of the strongest gods, tied with a few others such as Odin, Amaterasu, Yahweh, Ah Well, he wasn''t going to list them all, but it was a fact they were recognized as the strongest.


    As for why he chose the Greeks among all the ones of this level, it was because he was pretty sure they had treasures that would please him. Ambrosia and Nectar, the food of the gods. The gods probably only had them for their taste since they couldn''t advance anymore, but they certainly were Spiritual treasures.


    So Adam flew toward Greece in a good mood. He would get to eat the food of the gods and thrash them a little. Who didn''t dream of putting an almighty god back in his ce?


    Well, maybe not as many people as he thought, but he definitely was going to have fun.


    It was a matter of minutes for Adam to arrive in the air, not far from Athens. From where he was, he could see thanks to his superb vision a lot of things.


    First, below him were the ''mortals'', the normal people who had been living here for most of their lives. He could see that most of them didn''t look good.


    Apparently, Olympus had spread their men through the city when they took the country over, and they acted as thew now. But they were ruthless and full of tyranny, so the living conditions of the people had be much worse than it used to be.


    If nothing changed, then it wouldn''t take long for arge scaled revolution to take ce. Unfortunately, even if it did, they probably wouldn''t be able to do anything in the end.


    Adam''s gaze then went to the middle of the city, where stood a hill and on top of which there used to be the Parthenon.


    However, the old ruins had been razed to the ground and were reced by a big stairway that led to the clouds. From the ground, one could slightly see a golden temple in the clouds at the end of the stairway, but it was quite far away.


    This was Adam''s goal, Olympus.

 Chapter 217: Olympus

    Chapter 217: Olympus


    Adam flew toward the heavens, quite literally, at top speed, not fearing for a single second he would be attacked. He was sure the gods of Olympus were aware of him, but he couldn''t care less.


    As Adam was in the middle of flying toward Olympus, a bolt of lightning suddenly appeared of seemingly nowhere above Adam, striking toward him.


    Seeing this, Adam only looked up with disdain. This wasn''t even real lightning, that bolt was far from a real lightning bolt in term of speed and power.


    Actually, conjuring a real lightning bolt asked a great power and deep understanding of the Advanced Concept of Lightning or Sovereign Concept of Wind.


    From the look of things, Zeus'' understanding of the Advanced Concept of Lightning was very shallow as Adam had absolutely no problem following that bolt of lightning and reacting to it. Inparison, he himself was able tounch a lightning bolt that had the speed of a real lightning bolt, with a slightly lesser power.


    As the lightning was falling toward him, Adam waved his hand once, sending another lightning bolt toward the falling one.


    Zeus'' attack was pierced through and barely offered any resistance as Adam''s attack went right through it and zigzagged toward the sky at a breakneck speed. The lightning bolt disappeared in the clouds as it made a loud sound, as if it had hit something.


    And indeed, in the next instant a few pieces of rubble began falling from the sky. A single attack of his had damaged Olympus, they had been quite cheap when they built it


    Annoyed by the clouds above him, Adam clenched his fist as mes appeared around it, and Adam punched toward the sky.


    The fire fist quickly erged itself as it flew up and it hit theyer of clouds. In front of the powerful fire first, the clouds dispersed in an instant, finally revealing the pce of the Greek Gods, Olympus.


    It looked quite majestic, as it shined in a golden color with precious gems here and there. However, Adam''s fire fist had also hit the pce, and it did quite some damage, melting theyer of gold below the pce as well as some gems.


    The pce suddenly turned a little uglier, and Adam as well as everyone within Athens heard a cold growl "Puny mortal, how dare you behave so atrociously!"


    Adam rolled his eyes and opened a portal next to him and entered through it.


    The moment he did, he extended his right hand and caught an arrow. He had appeared in Olympus, the pce of the gods. Adam could see several tables with aplenty of food on them, and a group of people were staring at him with different expressions.


    He turned toward one of the women who was looking at him in shock, and said "I guess you must be Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt." As he said that, he crushed the arrow in his hand and sent a powerful mind attack at the goddess.


    The moment she was hit the goddess'' face turned pale as she cried out in pain and fell to the ground.


    Adam sneered as he looked at the rest of the Olympians and said "Honestly, I expected more than that. Since you have to courage to call yourself gods I thought you would all be Golden Idols, but you turn out to be so disappointing."


    Indeed, the majority of them were only Nascent Souls, or Heroes! But on second thoughts, it wasn''t that surprising, the strength one gained from the power of faith depended on two things, the strength of the user before they took the power for themselves, and the amount of faith they gathered. Not all the gods could receive as much faith.


    Disappointingly, out of the Olympians, the only Golden Idols were Zeus and Poseidon.


    Lightning surged around Zeus as he said with clenched teeth and fists "How dare you attack my daughter in front of me!"


    Adam met the cold gaze of Zeus and said "An example needs to be made, and a rapist like you would be the best."


    As he said that, lightning also appeared around his body, but it was much more powerful than Zeus''. Before the god of the sky had the time to attack, Adam disappeared from the spot as he appeared in front of Zeus, a trail of lightning behind him.


    More importantly, Adam''s fist, which was covered in fire, was a few centimeters away from Zeus'' face. Zeus'' face turned into shock as he tried to defend himself but he wasn''t quick enough, and the fist smacked his face.


    Zeus'' silver eyebrows and beard were burned as he was sent flying backwards, a tooth and some blood falling off his mouth as he flew backwards. He smashed against the wall of Olympus which offered almost no resistance as he smashed through it and appeared in another hall.


    At the same time, Adam protected his right side with his arm, just in time as a trident was about to pierce his side.


    But most to everyone''s disbelief, when the trident was about to hit Adam''s arm, it''s tip seemed to distort and itpletely missed Adam, going past him. This, in turn,pletely opened Poseidon''s defence to Adam who grabbed his by the throat and crushed it.


    But Poseidon was a Golden Idol, and he could survive from such an injury, although it heavily injured him. As Poseidon tried to stab him, Adam threw him in the direction where Zeus was sent flying, just in time to shield Adam from a bolt of lightning as thick as a human.


    The Space Concept was really a rare one, and few knew of it''s effects. When he defended himself from Poseidon, Adam had used a skill he had created using the Space Concept which distorted the space around his body.


    Moreover, this was the real world where a single error could lead to one''s death. Were they in Epoch, since Poseidon would have been protected by the system, Adam would only have been able to deal a limited amount of damage.


    But here, on Earth, the damage Adam could deal and receive was very different, if the vital points were hit then killing the other wasn''t difficult.


    The only reason Poseidon had survived was thanks to his great vitality. But taking Zeus'' full powered attack had made his condition even worse and he was truly on the verge of dying now.


    Adam appeared next to him and kicked him with great force toward Zeus, who was flying in the sky behind him. As he kicked the god of the see he felt his ribs break from the impact and the god was sent flying toward Zeus.


    Zeus didn''t even try to catch his blood brother, barely looking at him with disdain before focusing back on Adam.


    Adam raised an eyebrow but said nothing. First he sent out a powerful spirit attack toward the other Olympians who were hesitating whether to attack him or not, sending them all to the ground crying in pain.


    On Earth, the effects of the Spirit Concept were much more potent than in Epoch as it wasn''t restricted, and it was of great use to Adam.


    Now that he was sure the other Olympians wouldn''t bother him, Adam flew toward Zeus and the falling Poseidon, and activated [Inferno], creating a dome of incredibly hot mes in a radius of 100 meters.


    Zeus, who was in a rtively good shape, put up a barrier using arge part of his power, but his barrier began melting at a visible speed.


    But Poseidon, who had his neck broken and his body still flooded with lightning, couldn''t even put up a protection as the mes covered his entire body and burned arge part of his body. Poseidon, the great god of the sea feared for hundreds of years had died a miserable death, not even able to put up a fight.


    Adam extended his hand toward the corpse of the god, attracting it toward him. Zeus tried to stop him, but Adam sent a fire fist toward him. In Inferno, all fire skills were twice as strong, so Zeus had to use his full power to defend from that attack, before he took a hard decision and let himself get hit.


    While the attack hurt him deeply, it allowed him to fly away from the dome of fire that had been destroying his barrier at a scary speed.


    Meanwhile, Poseidon''s corpsended in Adam''s hand, who confirmed he was dead by trying to put his corpse in the Blood Tower. When he felt the corpse enter, he understood the god was really dead.


    He couldn''t help but sigh at their weakness. They were much weaker than he had thought they would be. Even though they were the equivalent of Legends, they were actually weaker than Tazolos. Zeus would be second to Tazolos only, but Poseidon


    Any of the Higher Demons above Level 190 could probably defeat him if no one had any equipment on. This time, they had really disappointed Adam.


    However, it also had to be said that the element of surprise was what had really killed Poseidon.

 Chapter 218: Fighting the strongest Olympian

    Chapter 218: Fighting the strongest Olympian


    Adam looked at Zeus with a small frown. Another major reason he had killed Poseidon so easily was that theter wasn''t in his domain.


    As he mastered water skills, Poseidon would have been much more powerful in the ocean, and thus much harder to kill.


    On the other hand, Zeus'' domain was the sky, which was exactly where he was right now, and he was also stronger than Poseidon in term of raw power.


    But after a second, Adam''s frown disappeared, his expression easing up. While the sky was Zeus'' domain, Adam mastered the sky even better than him. Actually, in Yang Adam''s body, who was unable to use the Water Concept, fighting Poseidon in the water would have been much more bothersome.


    Adam slowly flew out out of the dome of fire he had created and looked at Zeus who was in a bad shape. Without a word, he suddenly took out a de from the Blood Tower.


    It was a Greatsword he had taken for himself in New York. It was only a normal sword, but it''s not like it would break even if he used it. In many novels he read in the past, the weapons would shatter in pieces or even turn into dust when used by a strong person.


    However, in reality it was quite the opposite. A strong swordsman wouldn''t destroy a sword with their energy, but instead turn it sharper and stronger.


    Something Adam had discovered was that he could actually temper his sword using his understanding of the Sword Concept, which would slowly turn it stronger over time. This though, was something that was only possible in the real world.


    In Epoch, it was impossible to nurture a sword, probably due to the system. If Adam was right about his earlier assumption that the Gods actually made the system so that no mortal would rise to be a god while they were away, then they probably made nurturing a weapon impossible in fear a mortal created a Divine Weapon and threatened them.


    Of course, those were only hypothesises.


    Adam hadn''t had the time to strengthen his sword for a long time, but due to the strength of his Qi and his high understanding of the sword, the weapon had already be strong enough to cut steel without applying energy onto it.


    Adam used his [Sword Aura], making a thick redyer of Qi appear around his sword. In Epoch, his Aura was blue because he was attuned to water, but on Earth it was red because he was attuned to fire.


    Zeus'' eyes narrowed as he felt danger emanate from the sword, and began attacking. ck clouds began forming all around the two, and one could see arcs of electricity dance among the clouds.


    At the same time, Zeus flew at a high velocity as a bolt of lightning appeared in his hand. Strangely, the bolt looked like it was confined to the area around Zeus'' hand, and straightened to form a kind of dius.


    Zeus was not only adept at using lightning, but he was also a great short ranged fighter Well, ording to Earth''s standards. As he neared Adam, theter couldn''t help but snear.


    Maybe it wasn''t to others, but it was to him. Zeus obviously hadn''t opened the 4th Gate, meaning he did not possess perfect equilibrium.


    Humans were not made to navigate on a three dimensional terrain, the average human already struggled to master their movement in a two dimensional battlefield, so including a third dimension of height made it very hard for them to control their movements.


    That''s why, although Zeus'' speed in a straight line was his maximum speed and thus quite high, the moment he tried to turn he would be greatly slowed down.


    Inparison, Adam had opened the 4th Gate and could move as he wished in the sky, makingplex trajectories in the sky was easy for him.


    Since he had such an advantage, he naturally wouldn''t waste it. Instead of attacking Zeus, he began circling around him at top speed while he sent lightning bolts after lightning bolts into the surrounding clouds.


    From a nce Adam had understood Zeus had summoned the surrounding clouds to store and strengthen his lightning in them. A simple way for Adam to go around this was to simply switch the ownership of those clouds by flooding them with his own lightning, which meant flooding them with his Qi and will, giving him control over them.


    Zeus quickly understood his n backfired, and outmanoeuvring Adam in the sky was going to be impossible, so he switched tactics and came to a stop. At the same time, the lightning dius in his hand was glowing brighter and brighter.


    Adam didn''t intend on letting him prepare an attack, so he rushed at Zeus from his back, preparing himself to sh him down.


    But as he grew closer and close to the God of the sky, theter revealed a sneer as a shield appeared in his hand, which he turned toward Adam.


    On that shield was a head, a beautiful woman''s head. Well, that would have been if her hair was real hair, instead of snakes.


    Adam didn''t have time to look away as his gaze locked into that woman''s own eyes, and Adam felt something attack his mind, stunning him.


    Adam''s mind was very powerful, but even he wasn''t able to shrug off the effects of that mental attack, resulting in his stun. Even though itsted no longer than an instant, it was more than enough for Zeus to stab Adam''s chest with his lightning dius.


    Adam woke up from his stun, and he could feel his body was sluggish, and his bones, muscles, organs and tendons were all solidifying. He quickly put a stop to it, but as he did hundreds of lightning snakes travelled through his body.


    They all came from the lightning dius that pierced into his body. Thanks to his body''s terrifying natural defence, and the weapon not being a stabbing kind of weapon, it only pierced through a very smallyer of his body, not even reaching his organs.


    However, it allowed the lightning bolt to send numerous lightning bolts directly inside his body, ignoring his external defences.


    Zeus had a triumphant look in his eyes as he felt victory was his. Not only did lightning do a lot of damage, it also paralysed those hit by it. As a result, anyone stabbed by his lightning bolt would find themselves unable to move.


    The only person who had ever managed to resist this was his father, Kronos. But then, much to his shock, he saw a hand grabbed the lightning bolt directly.


    One had to understand that his weapon was an actual lightning bolt that had been solidified, meaning it was as powerful as a natural lightning bolt. He could touch it because the weapon was his, but anyone else who touched it would be touching a lightning bolt.


    Adam felt his hand was burning and ckening, but he face did not show as sign of pain, and was instead terrifyingly cold. He used all the strength in his body to push the lightning dius out of his body, and then growled "I underestimated you"


    His expression turned savage as he continued "You managed to anger me. Fine! Time to die."


    Adam let go of the lightning bolt and shed down with his sword. The sword seemed to cover the entire world in Zeus'' eyes as it attacked him from point nk. He didn''t have the time to use his famous shield, Aegis, as the sword light hit his chest.


    Had it been any of the other Olympians, they would have been split in two by that attack. Although Zeus avoided this fate, a terrible looking gash appeared on his chest, from which blood erupted in a geyser.


    The next moment, Adam appeared in front of Zeus, and this time his sword had disappeared, and a ball of ultra condensed fire was in his left hand.


    Adam''s left hand moved toward Zeus open wound, and the mes were so hot and concentrated that even before touching it his wound began cauterising. Feeling the fireball was a threat to his life, Zeus hurriedly put Aegis in front of it.


    Unfortunately, Adam''s right hand came down onto the arm holding Aegis, in the form of a palm shop. Adam''s hand passed through Zeus'' arm with no effort at all, slicing through it. Actually, it not only sliced through his arm, but also space itself. It was a spacial skill renowned for it''s cutting potential.


    This second attack though slowed his fist attack, leaving Zeus enough time to dodge by quickly flying backward. However, the strongest Olympian nowcked his left arm.

 Chapter 219: Sun Spear

    Chapter 219: Sun Spear


    Adam grabbed the severed arm by the wrist, and looked at the shield it was holding. Aegis, a shield with the head of Medusa on it. Medusa was quite a famous mythological figure who had the incredible power of turning anyone who looked at her in the eyes into stone.


    However, at this moment, her eyes were filled with fear as she looked straight into Adam''s eyes, who seemed able to shrug off the effects of her gaze.


    Indeed, Adam had been stunned by the first attack because he didn''t expect it, but now that he was on guard, his mind was fending off her mental attacks and his Qi was dispersing the invading Qi trying to turn his body into stone.


    After a moment, he smiled and said "You are quite the interesting being, staying alive despite only having a head left."


    He could feel she was alive, because he was unable to put the shield inside the Blood Tower, meaning she was alive and had a will.


    Adam dropped the shield, but it did not drop and instead remained floating in the air. The reason for thus was that he had created a tform in the air, for the shield toy upon.


    Then, he looked at Zeus, who was clutching what remained of his left arm, forcefully stopping the blood cirction to stop losing his blood.


    At the same time, Zeus'' earlier arrogance and condescension had vanished, his face now portrayed a mix of reluctance, fear and regret.


    Zeus opened his mouth, about to say something, but Adam didn''t let him talk as he rushed at him at full speed. He was far too angry to even care about whatever he had to hear.


    Zeus tried to retreat, in a straight line, but all Adam had to do was to form a portal behind him. Unless he wanted to be teleported right in front of Adam, he had to dodge to the side, making him much slower.


    And Adam used exactly this timing to rush at him, his hand forming a spear as lightning covered it. His arm seemed to transform into a lightning spear, going straight for Zeus'' heart.


    The god of the sky tried to dodge, but Adam was far too quickpared to him, and so he was only able to change to targeted area from his heart to his right chest.


    As Adam''s hand connected with Zeus'' body, Adam felt how strong his body was. This was Adam''s attack with the strongest pration, and yet he wasn''t even able to pierce through his body entirely, his hand stopping after it pierced through Zeus'' right lung.


    However, Zeus, who knew he was going to get hit anyway, stopped trying to evade at thest moment and instead gathered power in his neck to deliver a strong headbutt.


    Adam wasn''t able to dodge the attack, and the moment he pierced through Zeus'' lung, Zeus headbutted him.


    Zeus'' body was definitely incredibly strong as Adam was sent flying, and his forehead started bleeding. But Adam only looked at Zeus with contempt. So what if he bled? Zeus had his right light pulverised.


    And indeed, Zeus coughed a mouthful of blood, mixed with some gory bits of flesh and organs. However, his Qi remained as strong as it was at the beginning of the fight.


    Zeus raised his remaining arm and pointed toward Adam, and lightning surged from the surrounding clouds, shocking Adam.


    How had Zeus used the surrounding lightning when he had already taken ownership over it?


    This lightning was much closer to real lightning than Zeus'' earlier lightning bolts, both because they were Adam''s own lightning bolts, and they had been strengthened inside the clouds. As such, Adam was unable to dodge and was smitten a few times.


    The areas of his body that were hit turned darker from the impact, and Adam felt the lightning destroy many of his already injured nerves. He gritted his teeth and once again formed a domain of mes around him.


    Zeus was within range too and was burned by the mes. However, this time he already had his defences on so the damage dealt was even lesser than the damage Adam received from the lightning earlier.


    However, this was only the first part of Adam''s attack as the moment Zeus tried to escape from the domain of fire, Adam opened his mouth wide and spat out a thick fire breath that would even put dragons'' to shame.


    The mes were very quick too and Zeus wasn''t able to escape from them as they covered him from head to toe. Moreover, the fire breath was strengthened by the domain of fire around them, turning them hot enough to raise the temperature in the city below by a few degrees at least, despite being at least 2 km in the sky.


    The fire breath continued for a whole five seconds before Adam stopped as he felt Zeus had escaped it''s reach.


    However, the damage done was astonishing. First, Zeus, despite putting on his strongest protections, had no more hair remaining on his body, and most of his skin was burned ck. He no longer looked like the mighty god of the sky.


    But the damage didn''t restrain to only Zeus. From his high understanding of the Wind element, Adam could also feel he had burned all the air avable in the surroundings. Most of it was consumed, and even the little that remained was literally on fire. Anyone weaker who entered here would be burned to ashes in a matter of seconds.


    Even Zeus had stopped breathing as he would quickly die were he to dare to breath this air.


    Speaking of Zeus, thetter was looking really bad, and his Qi had finally weakened, and by quite a lot. In contrast, even though he was injured too, Adam was in a much better form. Moreover, he was able to breath just fine as fire could not damage his body.


    He saw Zeus throw a reluctant look at Olympus before he tried to flee at top speed. Adam sneered seeing this, Zeus was ready to abandon his whole family to save his own little life. Unfortunately, Adam wasn''t going to let him.


    Actually, he was curious about something, and that was why Zeus hadn''t tried a single try to teleport during their fight. Normally, a Legend should be able to teleport, and this was considered one of their strongest skills.


    But even now, as he tried to flee for his life, Zeus did not even try to teleport, nor rip open space to form a rift. All he did was fly. Adam suspected he simply wasn''t able to, maybe because of the way he became a Golden Idol, but he couldn''t be sure.


    Nevertheless, Adam formed a space portal right in front of Zeus, once again forcing him to dodge and lose in speed. Like this, Adam was able to close up on him in a matter of seconds, and throw his final attack.


    A whitence that seemed to be as blinding as the sun appeared in Adam''s hand, and he threw it at Adam. The moment it left his palm, Adam felt a big portion of his Qi leave his body, but it didn''t matter as he didn''t need to use any more Qi.


    Thence travelled at a speed not so much slower than his earlier lightning bolts, and the remaining air around it was evaporated the moment it neared it.


    Zeus felt the greatest crisis in his life, but he could do nothing except watch as the whitence of mes hit his body.


    Unlike Adam''s earlier thunder spear, but very much like his space slice, thence encountered no resistance as it pierced through Zeus'' body, and continued flying through the sky.


    Zeus'' body finally stopped moving, all life had disappeared from is body. Despite thence being only a couple centimetre thick, almost his entire body had turned into cinders, leaving only his head intact.


    Meanwhile, Adam''s spear hit the ground a few kilometers away, and revealed the terrifying power it held. A fireball with a radius of a whole kilometer appeared in the distance, vaporising area it had hit.


    Although he was tired from this attack, Adam controlled the fireball to hold the damage to just this kilometer, or the nearby Athens may very well be destroyed by the shock wave of the attack, and the following rising temperature.


    Meanwhile, the mortals below living in Athens, had heard and felt the huge shocksing from the sky, but what shocked them the most was when a second sun appeared not far from the city. At that moment, they felt death wasing.

 Chapter 220: Killing Zeus

    Chapter 220: Killing Zeus


    Adam entered the Blood Tower quickly after he controlled the explosion, and quickly recovered inside the Fire Floor.


    His normal recovery speed was 1000 Qi per second, and in this floor it changed into 10 000 per second, allowing him to recover his lost Qi in a few minutes.


    However, he only recovered for fifty seconds, allowing him to recover 500k Qi, that is about a fourth of his Qi in the real world, before he left and flew toward Olympus.


    Thatst attack of his was Adam''s strongest attack, and was also an attack that he could only do on Earth. It wasn''t just because it was a fire elemental attack, but more because of the nature of the skill.


    Skills'' power were caped by their rank, and this was even truer in Epoch. In Epoch, the damage a skill would do was entirely dependent on the rank of the skill, and a hard cap covered every rank. For example, Adam''s [Tidal Wave] could only deal 1000% of water damage to his enemies, no matter what.


    However, in the real world it was possible to overcharge a skill to make it''s effects even stronger. For example, Adam''s [Tidal Wave] was limited to 100 meters in Epoch, but were he in the real world creating a kilometer tall tsunami was entirely possible, as long as he had enough mana.


    And this was exactly what his [Sun Spear] was about. The basic version of it would create a fire ball that was 100 meters in size, but Adam had managed to turn it into a 1km sized fireball thanks to his skill [Inferno] that made all fire skills stronger, and also because he pumped more than half of his Qi into it, which equalled to one million Aura in the game.


    In the end, this made his [Sun Spear] be as powerful as a nuclear bomb, but was also much more terrifying. This was because before the impact, all that power was gathered within the spear, so anyone hit by it would be hit by a concentrated nuclear bomb.


    This power had allowed Adam to burn Zeus'' body, that was even stronger than Adam''s, to ashes, with the exception of his head. But it did not even limit to this, as it even burned Zeus'' Golden Idol.


    The Golden Idol was something unique to Legends, and it was the strengthened version of a Nascent Soul. It held a great deal of power, and was the reason why most Legends were incredibly hard to kill.


    Even if a Legend had their entire body destroyed, they could survive by having their Golden Idol leave their body. Actually, this was something that even Nascent Soul experts were able to do.


    The main difference between a Nascent Soul and a Golden Idol was the Essence fused with the Golden Idol.


    When one understood a Concept in it''s entirety, and turned it into an Essence, it was not just a change inprehension, it was a change in the very nature of things. One would create an ''Essence'' within their souls. For example, a Sword Essence, or a Fire Essence.


    This Essence was of paramount importance as it was what allowed one to use their concept to really temper with the real world. For example, if Adam wants to use his raw Water Concept to attack, he had to find an already existing source of water and the power itself would be greatly lessened.


    But using the Water Essence, they could change the nature of their surroundings and create water out of nowhere, and attack with their Essence at near maximum power.


    When one understood a Concept, they would simply store the knowledge they had about the way a certain element of the world worked, and that was it. However, this knowledge would be tangible once it turned into an Essence.


    Anyway, one of the prerequisites for bing a Legend is to fuse the Nascent Soul with one''s Essence. This was the one step that blocked many people at the Hero Rank for their whole lives. But it was also what made a Golden Idol so much more powerful than a Nascent Soul.


    Destroying a Golden Idol was about as hard as killing the actual person, which was why killing a Legend was very hard.


    However, neither Zeus or Poseidon had formed an Essence. As thus, their Golden Idols, their source of power, was wed and much weaker than a true Golden Idol. Although it was stronger than an average Nascent Soul thanks to the Power of Faith, any talented peak Hero would have a stronger Nascent Soul.


    As for a true Legend, they could have absolutely one shotted both Poseidon and Zeus at the same time.


    In Cultivation, from the Body Strengthening realm to the Inner Core realm, or the Iron Rank to the Gold Rank, the source of one''s power was their Qi. It would first circte in their meridians, then turn into a gaseous dantian, then into liquid pirs before finally turning into a solid core.


    However, when one broke through to the Nascent Soul Realm, their Inner Core would fuse with their soul and form a Nascent Soul, which would be one''s source of power. Then, it would turn into a Golden Idol following the process exined earlier.


    As such, a weak and wed Golden Idol was the same as a weak and wed Liquid Foundation or Inner Core, meaning lesser quantity and quality of Qi, and which led to a weaker body and overall strength.


    But even if it was wed, a Golden Idol remained quite strong. For Poseidon, he was truly too weak and his Golden Idol was easily destroyed by Adam''s Inferno.


    However, Zeus'' Golden Idol could have easily survived inside Adam''s Inferno, and would have needed a strong attack from Adam.


    However, Adam''s [Sun Spear] was so powerful that his Golden Idol had evaporated with no chance of survival. But it did have an effect, and it was sparring Zeus'' head from turning into ashes.


    Anyway, this served to show the power of Adam''s strengthened [Sun Spear]. Hadn''t he controlled the after effects of the explosion, the eastern part of the city would have been destroyed by the shock waves, and the entire city would have been dried.


    However, there was a cost for such power. Adam had to overload his meridians tounch such an attack, and the ones he used had for the most exploded. Although Adam looked rtively fine, in fact he couldn''t use his right arm anymore, and it would take days to recover from such an injury.


    That''s why, while being a powerful attack, he couldn''t afford to miss as it could only be used once. It wasn''t only his right arm, even the meridians in the rest of his body were badly charred, and Adam''sbat prowess had be much weaker. Even Poseidon could proveto be a life and death fight.


    When he flew back toward Olympus, he took Aegis in his left hand since he couldn''t store it in any spatial treasure, and flew inside Olympus. Obviously, he hadn''t forgotten Zeus'' powerful weapon, his lightning dius, which he had stored inside his Blood Tower this time.


    When he got back inside Olympus, he could see they all wore shocked faces, and for a good reason. Their king, whom they had never seen suffer from any defeat, had been killed by Adam, and nothing remained except for his charred head.


    Adam still decided to store it alongside Poseidon''s body, as the two''s body were still considered quite strong and he could maybe forge a powerful artefact using what remained of their bodies.


    Adam didn''t speak directly, and instead went for one of the many tables to take what he hade for, the legendary food and drinks of the gods, Ambrosia and Nectar.


    Ambrosia looked like a rainbow candy that smelled heavenly, while Nectar was a purple drink with shades of blue. Adam could feel powerful Qiing from both, and understood he had been right in his assumptions.


    Adam first took a cube of Ambrosia, which tasted like the best food Adam ever had, meaning his mother''s food. But the taste wasn''t the most important, as Adam felt a powerful surge of Qi enter his body, allowing him to recover a part of what he had just used in his fight, but also strengthen his base as a whole.


    Adam concluded it''s effects were simr to the Rose Tree Fruits. It was much less powerful, but the limit of what he could hit was much higher, to the point Adam wondered whether there really was one.


    He then turned to the Nectar and gave it a try. He quickly understood it''s uses were different from the Ambrosia. This drink didn''t help with one''s cultivation, but it still had wonderful effects. First, Adam felt his injuries started healing at a quick speed.


    But what made Adam really happy, and it more important than even Ambrosia, was it''s second effect. He could feel a gentle energy travel to his very soul and slowly strengthen it.


    Spirit Strengthening products were very rare, but incredibly precious. A strong spirit was useful for many reasons, for example defending from spirit attacks. But that was only the rawest use of a strong spirit.


    A strong spirit also allowed one to possess a strongerprehension, for everything.


    This strengthening also wasn''t on the same order as the Spirit Concept, which also made Adam''s spirit stronger. The Spirit Concept only increased the quantity of one''s spirit, recing quality by quantity. This helped one to strengthen their spirit attack and defence, but that was about it.


    However, Nectar was able to better the quality of one''s spirit, meaning it was much more valuable. For example, Adam had been able to overpower many of his foes back when he was in the lowest levels thanks to his stronger spirit, not his stronger body.

 Chapter 221: Lightning God after Lightning God...

    Chapter 221: Lightning God after Lightning God...


    As Adam revelled in the wonderful sensations the two foods offered him, he abruptedly turned his head toward one of the entrances of Olympus. There, was thest Legend amongst the Olympians, the god of the underworld, Hades.


    Well, actually he wasn''t really an Olympian, but he was still a Greek god, and the brother of Zeus and Poseidon, the two he just killed.


    The thin ck haired middle aged man looked at Adam with aplex expression, before looking at the rest of the Olympians and sighing in relief.


    Adam asked "Are you here to take revenge for your brothers?"


    Hades looked back at Adam and said with a wry smile "Zeus was the most powerful among us, and I barely see any injuries on you."


    Adam obviously didn''t say that he was quite gravely injured and that if they fought Hades had an actual chance of winning. Instead, he asked "What do you want then? Rule on Olympus?"


    Hades shook his head and said "I am only here to beg you to spare them." Adam could see various expressions of shock on the faces of the remaining Olympians, and Adam understood why.


    He asked "Why would you want me to spare them? They are potential threats to me, and it''s not like you owe them anything. They didn''t even ept you as one of them."


    Adam could see the Olympians lower their heads, in shame or despair, but Hades said with a sigh "Whatever they did in the past, they remain my family."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and said "Who would have thought the god of the underworld would be such a selfless person. Fine, I won''t haggle with you, it doesn''t matter whether you all live or die. However, I have a condition for you to continue living."


    Hades nodded, with the death of his two brothers he had be the de facto leader even if the others didn''t agree, so Adam was speaking to him.


    "You will no longer force your rules onto the mortal world. From henceforth, you are to be their equals. Also, you have 24 hours to gather all your avable Ambrosia and Nectar, and send it to New York."


    Hades nodded without hesitation and said "It will be done." Adam nodded and with a swipe of his hand all the godly food in Olympus flew toward him before being absorbed into the Blood Tower.


    He sent onest look at the Nascent Soul Olympians, who lowered their heads in fear, and sneered in disdain as he finally flew off.


    Adam had to admit, he was massively disappointed. In the end, they were not different from mortals. Zeus proved himself to be a worthy fighter, but that would unfortunately be thest.


    Adam couldn''t directly go to the other pantheons right away as he first had to recover from his injuries, which should take a couple of days if he had Nectar to help healing him.


    Two days was more than enough for the news of what he did to travel all around the world. Not counting Sophia/Gaia, Zeus was second to none in term of strength, and tied with the other strongest fighters of the various pantheons.


    For him to be killed by Adam, no pantheon will dare toe into a fight with Adam for now. And with the rate at which Adam was evolving, it wouldn''t take long for him to be able to dominate even someone at Zeus'' level.


    For now, Adam returned to his house in New York, and focused on recovering from his injuries from thest battle. The Nectar was really wonderful in term of healing too, and Adam was able to quickly heal.


    The next day, Hades dropped by and gave him a spatial ring. Just as Adam thought, treasures did exist on Earth, they were simply hogged by all the major forces. Hades also reported to him the changes that happened in all of Greece overnight, as well as him taking hold of the leadership position.


    Adam simply nodded at him, the country did need a leader, and in his eyes Hades was more suited to be the leader than the previous ones.


    It wasn''t because he felt he was nicer or anything like that, but a bunch of other factors. The most important one was that Hades truly understood how strong Zeus was, and thus understood how strong Adam was so he wouldn''t dare to cause a ruckus.


    Another day went by, and Adam had finally recovered from all his injuries. Actually, he half expected the various pantheons to send a spokesperson to initiate contact right away, but no one showed up.


    So Adam still had to travel to the different countries and speak to them himself. He first decided to head toward Scandinavia, where the Norse Gods ruled.


    The reason he picked them was because they were among the mildest gods. Or wisest. Well, Odin was. And since he led them, they were among the ones who were the less tyrannical. Alongside the Japanese Shinto Gods.


    But that was rtive, and so Adam decided to start with those two, while he was at his strongest.


    Adam''s meeting with the Norse Gods was a littlecklustre, he gave them a warning, in particrity Thor, before leaving or so he thought.


    Before leaving he had a fight against Thor, the strongest god in the whole pantheon. Not the most powerful, the strongest.


    Actually, the Norse Pantheon only had two Legends, Thor and Odin. But both of them were as strong as Zeus, so they could be said to be pretty simr in strength to the Greek Gods.


    Adam''s battle with Thor wasn''t very different from his battle with Zeus, except that they didn''t go as far. Thor also used Thunder, and was a closebat fighter. The only real difference between Thor and Zeus was the weapons they used, one used a hammer while the user used a shapeshifting sword.


    That battle ended with Adam''s victory, and he found out after that battle that he hadn''t fought for nothing as Odin introduced him to the dwarves after he won, as a sign of goodwill.


    The dwarves were the best cksmiths in the entire world, and they were the ones who had built the strongest artefacts, such as Mjollnir, Gungnir, Zeus'' Thunderbolt, Poseidon''s Trident and many other ''godly'' weapons.


    Adam auditioned a weapon from them, a Greatsword, while he gave them Zeus and Poseidon''s weapons in exchange. His sword had to be heavy, sharp and be good at controlling fire.


    This was something else Adam had understood in his visit to Asgard. The reason Zeus was able to hold such control over the clouds and the thunder during their fight was actually thanks to his weapon, which was infused with understandings of the Wind Concept, that were stronger than the ones Zeus himself understood.


    Overall, the visit was rtively pleasant for Adam, they epted without much haggle to lower their presence in the world.


    Adam''s ideas for the different pantheons was to actually turn them into immortal sects, like in cultivation novels. They would be organizations that focused on grooming future cultivators, grooming them.


    They weren''t far from being sects already anyway so they wouldn''t be facing drastic changes.


    What followed was his visit to Japan, it was actually his first time there. He was received by the leader of the Shinto gods, Amaterasu, the Goddess of the Sun.


    She was a very amiabledy, and was very warm in the way she received Adam. But she was no fool, and exuded the aura of a leader. Well, the emperors of Japan were said to all be her descendants, maybe it wasn''t far from the truth


    Adam would have liked to limit his visit to Amaterasu, but unfortunately, her troublesome brother, Susanoo, and his twockeys, Raijin and Fujin, had to exist.


    Shinto was split in two parts in this world, one was led by Amaterasu, and the other by Susanoo. They weren''t really enemies, more rivals, and they operated in vastly different ways.


    Amaterasu''s faction strived to promote goodness of the heart and freedom, while Susanoo believed in the idea of an eye for an eye. And teasing people.


    Amaterasu agreed without hesitation to retreat in a more hidden spot, as they used to be in the past, but Susanoo and his faction didn''t agree as quickly, so Adam had to intervene.


    Shinto gods had four Legends, Amaterasu, Susanoo, Raijin and Fujin. Amaterasu was the strongest deity Adam had met, including Odin and Zeus, while Susanoo was between Poseidon and Zeus, and the two demon brothers were around Hades level.


    However, the differences between all of them were rather thin, so there wasn''t any god who was overwhelmingly stronger than the others.


    Anyway, Susanoo was quite a good swordsman, and he mastered the Concept of the Rain, which was a branch of therger Water Concept. As for Raijin and Fujin, one mastered lightning while the other mastered lesser wind.


    Adam fought all three of them, and although it was a difficult fight, he still won in the end, beating the three ck and blue. He didn''t kill or maim any of them, they didn''t really have any really bad intentions. He warned them though, that if they were to not follow orders, the consequences wouldn''t be nice.

 Chapter 222: Mojito in hand

    Chapter 222: Mojito in hand


    After those two Pantheons, Adam had almost resolved all the major problems of Earth, as in the strongest gods. From his talk with Odin, Adam had discovered, that there were only a few top tier pantheons in the world.


    Greeks, Norse, Japanese, Chinese, American and Egyptian. Adam already visited three of the five, and the strongest in the Chinese was Buddha, who had long retired himself from the secr world. Actually, even Adam didn''t know of his existence before speaking with Odin.


    As for America, it was governed by the God of Light, the Christian God. That one wasn''t a problem for his power, but because he dominated America with an iron fist, and was quite extreme. But he was weak, by his own fault. He was paranoid, and did not ept anyone else to be a Golden Idol, meaning all his subordinates, like Michael who came to see Adam, were Nascent Soul.


    The only one who defied those orders was Samael, who became known as Lucifer, his own son. Well, in reality he wasn''t sent to rule on hell, but directly sent to hell. In other words, he was killed. Adam felt nothing but spite toward this God of Light, and he intended to take care of him forst.


    This meant the only Pantheon still able to be a problem to Adam was the Egyptian, which was exactly his next destination. Once there, he quickly understood the problem, and it was called Amun-Ra.


    Using unknown means, Amun, God of the Wind, and Ra, God of the Sun, had merged together forming Amun-Ra, progenitor of the Egyptian Pantheon, and mad.


    Amun-Ra was really powerful, around Zeus'' level of power, but in the end Adam was able to separate the two entities who remained trapped into this fusion for thousands of years by beating them. Hard.


    After their separation, they became a lot chattier, and their spirit became clearer and less chaotic. Ra and Amun were originally a couple, who had their children, before they merged themselves to deal with the threat of the other races back in the day.


    Amun and Ra, as well as their descendants, were grateful to Adam for freeing the two from each other, and epted to retreat like the other pantheons, and to do so without unleashing a swarm of locusts on the poption. Another fit of madness of Amun-Ra back in the day.


    Speaking of which, one who was particrly grateful for Adam''s help was Anubis, the Egyptian God of the dead. Many of Amun-Ra''s crimes in its madness were stered on him. No one would be happy to be used of crimes they didn''tmit.


    Something else the Egyptian Pantheon had agreed to do, much to Adam''s pleasure, was to reign in all the deities of Africa, and pass on Adam''s orders. This saved him a lot of work.


    He really liked this idea, and he didn''t even have to ask the other pantheons to help him apply it. After all, if them, the biggest pantheons, weren''t allowed to rule on mortals, then why would the weaker ones be allowed to?


    Make no mistake, the only reason all of them agreed so readily to Adam''s terms was because he killed Zeus, and so without much of an injury, followed by the defeat of the three Japanese Golden Idols and Amun-Ra.


    Added to that the fact Adam didn''t show any sign of wanting to rule over them, they decided to ept his terms. But that didn''t mean they didn''t want to rule on mortals, just that it wasn''t worth it anymore.


    So they obviously wouldn''t let the weaker ones do so. Moreover, this was a good opportunity to subjugate them, and finally bring them under their rule. Any god who even hesitated to let go of their hold on the mortal world were quickly beaten and turned into subordinates.


    Meanwhile, Adam got back in New York, to finish the job. Thisst god, the God of light, was among the least powerful Legends, but apparently he possessed an artefact that allowed him to be much more powerful than he should be, allowing him to contend with the rest of the Pantheons.


    Adam rested for a while in New York, before he set off for the West Coast. The God of Light knew how to enjoy himself as he lived in Los Angeles, in California.


    Since Virtual Reality became a thing, Hollywood had turned into a big virtual reality centre. With virtual reality bing almost as real as the world, there was no need to act in the real world. Costumes didn''t need to be made either. Nowadays, the movies would be created within virtual realities, and the actors would be able to really enter their character.


    Back to the subject, god was somewhere in the city, but Adam didn''t know why. To a normal person that would have been a problem, but obviously not for Adam. The moment he approached the city he started to feel a huge source of power. Apparently, the God of Light didn''t fear him as he didn''t even try to hide himself.


    Well, Adam definitely didn''t mind. He quickly flew toward the location of the God of light, who turned out to be on the beach, drinking a Mojito. He really knew how to enjoy himself didn''t he.


    While hovering above him, Adam said "You know why I am here, I presume." The God of Light was a middle aged man with greying hair, and currently only had a shirt and shorts on, alongside a pair of flip-flops.


    He looked up at Adam and said "You mortal grew overconfident because you killed the rapist and beat the fool. Fools, my bad."


    Adam sighed and said "I don''t want to waste my time. You have two choices. Retreat from the mortal world alongside your forces like the others, or end up like Zeus."


    The ss in the God of Light''s hands suddenly shattered as he said "As I said, you were too confident in your strength. So much you fell in my trap."


    As he said that, runes suddenly lit up on the ground, forming a giant circle in the sand around Adam. As it formed, Adam felt the surrounding space constrict around him, blocking him from doing any movement.


    The God of Light pped his hands, and the next moment tens of people showed up. All of them had wings in their back, they were the famous Angels under the God of Light.


    However, Adam, who had seen real angels in the past, knew with a nce those were nothing but hybrids, and were far from real angels.


    The God of Light revealed a twisted expression as he said "Trapping you is really too simple. Be killed by your pride, what a shame."


    However, Adam showed no surprise or panic, and instead sneered "Do you really intend of killing me with them? They may be Nascent Souls, even a strong Golden Core could kill them one on one. It seems facing only trash gave you a wrong perception of what real strength is."


    The God of Light sped his hand as a wave of power exploded out of him, and he said "Form the Lightbringer formation and kill him!"


    The Angels began umting power as they took a specific formation. Meanwhile, Adam, still frozen by the nearby space, looked at one of the rings on the God of Light''s hands and said "So your famous artefact is this ring. It allows you to make powerful formations. Interesting."


    The God of Light''s face changed for a second, before he said "So what if you know? You are going to die anyway."


    Adam rolled his eyes and looked at the formation. The time it took to assemble the formation made it useless in a real battle, but the power he felting from it was quite impressive. However, coupled with the Locking Space formation that forbade all movement in it, it became a deadly weapon. Unfortunately for them, they used the wrong formation to trap him.


    A minuteter, the power finally reached it''s apex, and the God of Light clenched his fist. This caused the ring on his hand to emit a small wave of power that triggered the formation. A ray of light the size of a fist appeared in front of the formation and pointed toward Adam.


    The next moment, the God of Light''s head exploded, a fist sized hole in it.

 Chapter 223: Changing World

    Chapter 223: Changing World


    The Angels looked at the God of Light with shock. How did this happen?


    Meanwhile, Adam sneered and disappeared from the array, and arrived next to the God of Light''s body. His hand seemed to turn ethereal as it grabbed what remained of the God of Light''s head.


    Adam pulled his hand off his hand while grabbing what looked like a spirit. Actually, it was actually that, or rather, the Golden Idol of the God of Light.


    Another big difference between a Golden Idol and a Nascent Soul was how vulnerable they were. A Nascent Soul, in the end, remained nothing but a Spirit, and was thus very vulnerable to the world, as well as the Spirit Concept.


    However, a Golden Idol would actually be something fully corporeal, and wouldn''t be as easy to deal with anymore.


    Unfortunately for the God of Light, what he had wasn''t a real Golden Idol since he hadn''t formed an Essence, so his Golden Idol was still a spirit, making it extra easy for Adam, who understood the Sovereign Spirit Concept, to deal with him.


    The spirit Adam had grabbed from the God of Light''s head was a much smaller version of him, but it shone with a faint golden light. Normally, the stronger a Golden Idol was, the darker it would be. But for the God of Light, his Idol barely had a golden hue.


    The Golden Idol looked at Adam with great reluctance as it cried with a tiny voice "HOW?!" Adam scoffed and instead of answering it, he looked at the surrounding Angels.


    Thebined attack was very powerful, allowing a few tens of mutated humans who were only as strong as peak Gold Rank to y one at the top of the Hero Rank. However, doing so had emptied them of all their energy, they could barely remain in the sky.


    When Adam looked at them, they woke up from their stupor, but unfortunately for them, it was toote. Since the beach was empty, Adam didn''t restrain himself and used Inferno, burning their surroundings.


    The weaker Angels died instantly, and even the stronger ones were only able tost for a few seconds before falling to the ground too and dying. As the angels around died, Adam looked at the Golden Soul in his hand and said "I master the Sovereign Space Concept, using space to trap me wasn''t very clever."


    Actually, even if he wasn''t, Adam could feel he could break out of the trap using the raw strength of his body. While the array had solidified the space around him, he had grown strong enough to break space with his physical body, if he wanted to.


    But doing so was unwise as the God of Light would have attacked him, and Adam knew he couldn''t deal with him in under a minute, and with the threat of the Angels remaining an unknown variable, he decided to y weak.


    Then, when the attack of the Angels was fired, all he had to do was to create a portal in front of him, which led directly behind the head of the God of Light, who was unable to react to the ray of death from the Angels.


    Although it moved at light speed, and Adam was unable to react to it, all he had to do was to predict where the attack wouldnd. And just to be sure, Adam had created the portal to berge enough to cover all his vital parts.


    As for why the portal wasn''t felt by the God of Light or anyone else except Adam, it was because of the trap itself. Space was tricky, and wasn''t only made of oneyer, like most people thought. Instead, there were multipleyers to space. Normally, they would stay as a whole and when one tore a hole through space, they would tear all theyers.


    However, with the firstyer of space having been solidified, all the remaining ones stay in their normal state. This had two effects. First, manipting it was even easier for Adam as he didn''t have to cut through the firstyer, which was the hardest of them all.


    Secondly, the firstyer was the closest to the material world and thus hide the hole in space, resulting in it being undetected, even though a part of it was mere centimeters behind the God of Light''s head. Actually, had he moved his head backward, without any protection then his head would have been cut by space.


    Touching the edges of a space portal was a very bad idea too. To exin this, the easiest way is to use a three dimensional repair. A portal would extend on a certain area in term of length and heigh, but it would have no depth.


    As such, putting one''s hand through the portal will allow the hand''s length, height and depth to move while only moving it in depth.


    However, if one pushes their hand on the edge of the portal, then one half will plunge in depth to the other end of the portal, while the other half will continue going in depth in the entrance of the portal. That''s makes a total of six dimension, two different depth, length and height for the same object.


    That is simply impossible in term of spacial movement, there are too many dimensions, and space only has three, so the hand will be cut. As such, the two halves will be two separate entities. The six dimensions are also split in two, leaving three dimensions to both objects, as all things should be.


    Space was aplicated subject, which was also why it was one of the rarest among those understood. As one of the rarest, it''s capabilities were also among the ones that were the least understood, making fighting against a spatial expert something very dangerous.


    Adam looked at the Golden Idol, who was still asking questions, and he clenched his hand. However, the Golden Idol wasn''t cracked open, but instead became smaller and smaller. When he opened his hand again, it had gone silent. The Golden Idol had actually been sealed.


    Then, Adam put the corpse of the God of Light and took the sky to fly back toward the Himyas to pick up his family since all the threat had been taken care of. Manipting space was a great trump card for anyone to have, which was why he didn''t want to show it so he stuck to flying.


    In Epoch, he had made a mistake when he showed he could create portals, but at that time he didn''t understand yet how much of a trump card space maniption could be. Since he had made the mistake in Epoch, he didn''t want to replicate it here. And today proved him right as it allowed him to resolve what should have been a difficult fight in a single move.


    It only took a few minutes to Adam to reach the mountains, and he quickly arrived in the cave his family hid in. They were obviously surprised when they saw him, and they asked him if he was facing any problem.


    He smiled at them and said "No, actually, I took care of all the problems, you can go back home." The three were speechless, when Adam told them he was going to fight against GODS, they thought it would be very dangerous and take months if not years.


    But only two days had passed since then and he was already back, with no injury whatsoever, and he said the problems were over?


    Only when they really returned home and searched for news online did they finally believe. And as they did, they were shocked.


    Adam had made no secret of his battles, some were very close to mortal cities. Although for most fights people didn''t know how they ended up, what they knew was that after Adam came, the gods went back into hiding.


    But more importantly, news about what happened on the beach of Los Angeles was spreading. The charred corpses of angels littered the beach, of which a major area had actually turned into ss! This surprised Adam, when he left the sand had turned liquid. He finally understood how ss was made, and also understood why Buwog were the best ss makers. They had an entire desert at disposition!


    Most shocking though was the only non angel body on the beach. Although his face had been smashed open, the rest of his body was still visible, and since he had already revealed his appearance, coupled with all the dead bodies around, it wasn''t hard for people to conclude that the corpse was the God of Light''s.


    That day, the world changed.

 Chapter 224: Kings Aura

    Chapter 224: King''s Aura


    The hatred and resentment of mortals all around the world had been building up under the tyranny of the gods, but they had no way to express it. But now that they had either been killed or forced into seclusion, they regained their freedom, and a huge revolutionary movement swept through the entire world in a matter of days.


    They didn''t resort to physical violence, that would be useless as they couldn''t harm the gods. Instead, they went against what seemed to be the most important things to the gods, and that was faith.


    Yes, arge wave of boycott against the gods swept the world, and the different ces of worship were attacked. Although there were still some people who remained faithful, as they had earned power by following the gods, they now had to hide themselves in fear they would be beaten to death.


    After all, although the majority of the masses resorted to non-violent means, there were still many who had such hatred against the gods they would kill anyone who was affiliated to them.


    At the same time, Adam''s status rose, and became special. Some people had already started a religion for Adam, for they believed the only one who could suppress gods, was a god himself. But even for those who didn''t join this new religion, they still viewed him as a saviour.


    Adam initially didn''t care about that, as he stuck to training in his house alongside his family, but as the weeks passed mortals began bing absurd.


    A month after Yin Adam entered seclusion and Yang Adam started fighting the gods, many changes took ce in both worlds.


    On Earth, the neighbourhood in which Adam lived had turned into a Holy Ground, and the houses in it had been sold for extravagant prices to people who wanted to be close to Adam. As such, everytime his family members left the house, a crowd would surround them, some would even fall to their knees.


    At the same time, a statue of Adam had been built Well, more than one, but the one next to Adam''s house was actually made of gold.


    In the end, he had enough, and so did his family, so they decided to move out. Adam decided to really start living in seclusion, while his family would disguise themselves. It wasn''t hard for Adam to disguise them using his powers.


    Still, Adam remained close to the city, just in case something happened. There were also good news though, and the most important one was that Adam had finally managed to understand both his inner self and the world.


    That meant he had reached the requirement to open the Fifth Gate, the Gate of Life. If it weren''t for his two bodies, he would have been able to open it.


    But even though he still couldn''t, he wasn''t far from achieving it.


    The month of seclusion in Epoch had proved itself to be of great effect as Adam had managed to understand his Yin Inner self, meaning he was but a single step from the Fifth Gate. Or maybe even half a step, since he already understood it with his Yang body and could use it as a reference.


    Other than this, Adam also managed to improve his cultivation, now being at Level 84. It showed how increasingly hard it was bing to cultivate as he ranked up. An entire month of cultivation only allowed him to cross three levels, while before he could have crossed over twenty level in such a period of time.


    Other than his level, Adam also managed to enhance his understanding over the concepts, and the progression was quite fast as both his Water and Fire Concept had reached 80%. However, it wasn''t as impressive as it sounded.


    While 80% was good, Adam felt the power he held wasn''t much different from when he achieved 80% because it hadn''t received another qualitative change. However, he could feel he was approaching it, and the difficulty would once again change. If his hunch was right, then once his Concepts reached 90%prehension, they would receive a boost in power, but also inprehension.


    As such, Adam had created a ranking system for theyers of understanding. Between 1% and 10% was Early Level, 10% to 50% was Medium Level, 50% to 90% was High Level, and 90% to 100% was Peak Level.


    There would be a boost in power at each of those levels, resulting in much stronger capabilities.


    For his other Concepts, the Sword Concept used to be the second best Concept, but because of theck of fighting he didn''t get to develop it as much as the others. However, it was the Wind and Space Concept which caught up the most.


    But all of this was only Adam''s personal gains during this month. His base had also advanced quite a lot in the past month, through the work of his temporary subordinates. Something interesting he found out was how the two factions grew closer over his month of seclusion.


    He wasn''t sure whether it was because of themon enemy, which could be both Adam and Tazolos right now considering how he ordered them around, or if it was just prolonged contact, but they were able to work much better as a team.


    Something that saddened Adam though, was that he had discovered he maybe wasn''t fit for leading a guild. It wasn''t a problem of logistics or anything like that, but rather his nature and the way he behaved.


    More importantly, in a fight. The two reasons that pushed Adam to create a guild was money and power. However, he could get as much money as he wanted with his power, and if he was sessful this time, he would even earn two Racial Powers'' worth of resources.


    As for power Although when he was weak they could be of help, the stronger he grew, the more he became a one man army. It wasn''t just because theycked power, that issue would resolve itself over time. Rather, it was because they would restrain Adam more than they would help him.


    When he was alone in the battlefield, he could use all his AOE skills that spans for hundreds of meters without a worry and wipe out thousands of his enemies at once. However, having allies mixed in would force him to stop such attacks and go for personal attacks, which didn''t fit his fighting style.


    Still, he wouldn''t give up on his guild just like that, it was just that his rtionship with it would change. Instead of a general who lead them in battle, he would be a king. He would be their foundation, theirst hope, theirst line of defence. Or the psychological weapon, the nuclear bomb.


    Although those discoveries bummed Adam a little, if he hadn''t understood those things about himself then he wouldn''t have been able to understand his inner self. Anyone who opened the 5th Gate would be their true self.


    Moreover, it also meant that his Division Leaders and disciples would be his generals, turning each division into a singr guild. 9 generals under one king, 9 guilds for one kingdom


    Another surprise that came to Adam, and which he only discovered a few dayster, was that one of his skills had changed. His old [Barbarous Roar], an old skill of his which he had a great affinity with, had changed into a new skill by itself.


    King''s Aura (A): Your voice carries your intent, and you naturally emit the aura of a king. Those will lower will and mental defences will kneel in your presence, while others will be more inclined to follow your orders. Your allies will also feel more energetic when they hear your voice, given them more stamina and allowing them to use more strength. Your enemies will instead feel suppressed.


    This was a great skill, and it strengthened Adam''s decision for the future of his guild.


    Anyway, other than growing closer together, the people from Epoch had also discovered manyirs of beasts, as well as the traces of other refugees. However, they couldn''t lead them to the base as Adam was in seclusion and had given clear orders that no one was toe to the base without being scanned by him.


    However, today this would change. Adam opened a rift in space and teleported above the base, and using Aura to diffuse his voice to the entire camp he said "Today is the day we stop hiding. All of you, spread and bring back our friends from Epoch. As for the demons, there is no need to fear them anymore."


    The people below would have doubted had ite from any other person, but for some reason when they heard this voice they felt a warm feeling spread through their body, and felt reverence toward the speaker. They quickly formed teams and spread out, acting ording to the will of Adam.


    After he said that, he flew away at top speed, producing a sonic boom loud enough to be heard over kilometers.

 Chapter 225: Ruthless

    Chapter 225: Ruthless


    Adam''s speed while flying had be even more absurd than it used to be. If he didn''t use any skill other than Flying itself and the Blood Tower''s bonus, then he could move at 25 km per second. However, flying at this level of speed was highly ufortable if he didn''t remove air resistance.


    It wasn''t just because of the reaction force, but rather the huge friction. 25 km per second was more than Mach 70, and one would create a fire more than a 1000 degrees Celsius at Mach 5 In other words, moving at that speed turned him into a small sun.


    That''s why, removing air resistance was a must at that speed. Then, for travels in straight lines Adam could further boost his speed with lightning skills and reach 50 km per second. In other words, an insane speed.


    Still, Providence was quite big, and it took Adam a few minutes to reach his destination. The demon city. In the past, he had to avoid them because they were much stronger than him and even fleeing from them was hard.


    However, after the weeks of trainings he went through and the Spirit Fruits he ate Adam became strong enough to match even strong Heroes. But more importantly, he had be fast enough to escape even from Tazolos were he to give chase.


    So it was time to attack. The goal of this attack was to deal enough damage to make them understand he could hurt them if he wanted to, but they wouldn''t be able to kill him even if they wanted to.


    Adam stopped above the demon city, his arrival had been silent as there was no air around him, and he was hidden among the clouds so no one knew he was here. And that was perfect.


    Using his Wind Concept, Adam began to gather the clouds around him and slowly began charging them with electricity. What he could do himself would always be limited by the system because he was in Epoch, but the natural elements of this world were much less limited.


    Below, the demons didn''t even notice anything was wrong. Although the sky was turning dark, they just thought there was going to be some rain.


    Adam continued building up the electricity and the water in the clouds for half an hour, before he was finally ready to attack. Unfortunately for the demons, his attack wasn''t going to be a straightforward one.


    With Adam''s order, rain finally started to fall from the clouds. But once again, no one reacted to it, as it was nothing but water. Normal water. An intense rain, but that was it.


    The drops of water fell all over the city, and after a few minutes the demons finally started to notice something wrong.


    Even in mortal cities, a huge downpour wouldn''t do much damage because the earth would absorb a majority of the water, and only if an excessive amount of rain fell would it be threatening.


    In Epoch, or here Providence, special means had been created to allow the Earth to store even more water and even reuse itter on. As such, people didn''t have to worry about floods.


    However, today something was wrong. The rain had already reached their knees, which should be impossible. And the water level was still rising quickly.


    Actually, Adam had released Neith earlier and had her hide underground. When the downpour started, she changed the surrounding Earth so it wouldn''t absorb any amount of water, andpletely block the water.


    Seeing the demons were starting to get agitated, Adam finally began actively acting.


    Adam wished he could just flood the city with his [Tidal Waves], but unfortunately the city was most certainly protected by a huge number of arrays that would probably be able to defend from even a Legend.


    That''s why he had to flood the city using a different way, using natural rain. The arrays in the city would only react to attacks, and rain wasn''t an attack so it wasn''t blocked by the arrays.


    So while the city below was getting flooded, Adam created arge portal that connected the inside of the city with the area just below the lightning bolts. Adam was shocked though by the amount of Aura that took him.


    Such an action, with his mastery of space, should only take a few hundred thousands Aura to form, but it took 3 million of his Aura to form that portal.


    But after a moment he understood the reason. It was probably because of the arrays. It was only his wishful thinking to think he could just go around the protective arrays by using teleportation, that would be too strong.


    Although the arrays weren''t able topletely block him from manipting space, it made the consumption of Aura much higher than it should be. Fortunately, Adam''s Aura was much more potent than others of his level thanks to his incredible foundation.


    Even the strongest Heroes had around 2 Million Aura or Mana, so the array in the city would indeed be able to block the attacks from most Heroes. Unfortunately for them, Adam was an anomaly.


    The moment the huge space portal appeared, Adam immediately acted while thinking of all those things. He knew that it was impossible to hide something like that from the Higher Demons in the city, so he had to act quick.


    Quickly using up all his remaining Aura, Adam used the lightning that had been umting in the clouds to attack. However, unlike what he usually did, he didn''t create lightning by himself, but only used his Aura to activate and redirect the natural lightning.


    As such, the lightning would remain a natural element of the world and wouldn''t be limited in it''s speed and power by the system. Of course, if he didn''t use the portal the arrays would still have stopped it.


    Following Adam''s will, a huge lightning bolt was formed which contained more than 50% of the total lightning, and nine other smaller ones rotated dispersed around it and contained the remaining lighting.


    What most people didn''t know was that water itself didn''t actually conduct electricity, but it was the minerals in it. So strictly speaking, if someone just summoned a huge amount of water and made lightning fall in it, no matter how powerful the lightning was, it wouldn''t electrocute everything inside.


    However, the water Adam had used wasn''t one he hadpletely created himself, so it already contained minerals. Moreover, while Adam had Neith block the water from entering the Earth, he still had her infuse a huge amount of minerals into it from the Earth.


    Of all the lightning, the huge lightning bolt directed itself toward the area where the strongest Higher Demons, which should be the city''s pce where Tazolos lived, and the other nine went to the nine most popted areas of the city.


    In an instant, a cmity had struck the demonic city. Adam had no doubt he had instantly be a great sinner and what he did was worse than what the gods did back on Earth, but it had to be done.


    Demons were but another lifeforms, and like every other lifeforms, they started as infants, babies, children, teenagers and adults. And this city wasn''t a military city, it was the living ce of all the demons in this realm.


    The areas Adam had just targeted were those where the poption was the most concentrated. In other words, his target this time weren''t the warriors among the demons


    Had it been in the past, Adam wouldn''t have ever done anything like that. Killing millions of men, women and children, even if they were demons, wasn''t something to be proud of. But he wanted to be feared.


    Not only by the demons, but by the people of Epoch too. Until now, Adam had always acted as a saviour and helped other people, so he was respected by the masses, but he wasn''t feared by anyone.


    Even while he was in seclusion, he kept an eye on the Lizardkin and Northmen, and he had caught a few who were nning to use their influence in Epoch to deal with him when they exited this realm.


    That made realize he needed to act in prevention. Catching them and killing them wasn''t going to help, it would even help their cause. That''s why Adam decided it was time to show he wasn''t some benevolent person. He wouldn''t hesitate to kill an entire city to protect his people.


    And of course, it would have it''s effect on the demons. While he did kill many demons by targeting those areas, the city was simply too big and those he killed were only a fraction of the entire city. While the demons would be angry, they wouldn''t be in a frenzy.


    Like this, they would know the damage he could do, if they really angered him he would be able to slowly thin out their poption and kill their families, so their best interest was to leave him be, as long as he didn''t attack them.

 Chapter 226: The lion left the lair

    Chapter 226: The lion left their


    As Adam''s attack below finally stopped, he saw countless spirits start flying. This was a phenomenon that would happen everytime someone died, their soul would leave their body. If one wasn''t a Hero and didn''t master their soul, then it would be pulled to the domain of their deities.


    When it was special souls, for example undeads who rotted for many years, then even mortals could see those souls. However, for mortals'' souls, only someone with great achievements in the Spirit Concept could see them.


    As the souls began to rise up, Adam felt something within him change, and he didn''t even have to check his status to know what it was. His Concept of ughter had gone up. If what he felt was right, then it had gone up by a lot. With a look though, he was disappointed to see it had stopped at 89%. Indeed, 90% was an important threshold.


    Theoretically, the Concept of ughter was one of the easiest ones to level up because all one had to do was to kill. However, it was also very dangerous because the stronger one''s killing intent became, the more effect it would have on their mind. If one had a mind that wasn''t strong enough, then they would be mad and turn into a killing demon, one who doesn''t know anything other than killing.


    But Adam had a powerful soul, two actually, and he had the Sovereign Spirit Concept, so his mind should even be able to handle a ughter Essence.


    Back to the souls of the demons, one of the most frowned upon acts in the world was to destroy someone''s soul. It was something very hard to do, as the Spirit Concept was rare, but it was possible. For the truly powerful, it was almost impossible because their souls were protected by higher beings, like the yers who were protected by Gaia.


    However, for mortals like those demons, who were below the Silver Rank, Adam was able to obliterate a huge amount of those souls easily. Although this was a terrible act seen worse than even genocide, Adam had several reasons to do so.


    First, letting those souls join the Divine Domain of the Devils they worshipped would strengthen those Devils, and Adam wasn''t friend with the Devils. Although it was only a very small portion of the total faith power they received from the mortals, Adam wouldn''t let them be stronger.


    But more importantly, it was for Adam''s own power. One of the ways to strengthen one''s spirit was to refine the souls of others and absorb their power. Also, he could feel his ughter Concept would most certainly reach the next level if he killed those souls.


    So that''s exactly what he did. As his Aura was quickly recuperating in the rain, Adamunched a [Spirit Wave]. Although the power of his spirit was spread out on arge area, those souls were simply too weak and they crumbled apart. Only a few souls belonging to powerful people killed by the main lightning bolt that hit the pce were able to survive.


    The souls that crumbled apart didn''tpletely disappear though, as they released their inner energy, the energy of the soul. Normally, this type of energy would quickly disperse when faced with the outside world, but Adam was here to harvest it.


    When his [Spirit Wave] stopped spreading, instead of dispersing it Adam retracted it toward him. This wouldn''t allow him to recuperate the spiritual fatigue from using the skill, but he used his spirit''s energy as a whirlpool to attract all the Soul Energy in the surroundings.


    Although this took a while to describe, less than a second after Adam''s first spirit wave, he had already collected all the Soul Energy in the surroundings. All of it had entered inside his head and was surrounding his soul, slowly being absorbed by it.


    As he was absorbing the Soul Energy of millions of demons, Adam heard a beastly roare from the city below "MOTHERFUCKER!!"


    Adam looked down and saw hundreds of demons fly up toward him. The majority among them were Higher Demons, but there were even some Intermediate Demons, who were only as strong as Gold Ranks.


    Adam sneered and said "What happened to Tazolos? Too afraid toe up?" Adam''s [King''s Aura] was naturally activated at all times, and Adam would have to consciously deactivate it if he didn''t want to use it''s effects on others.


    However, against those demons, he had no reason not to use it. And about Tazolos, although he sounded cocky, he was quite curious about the Half-King Demon, why wasn''t he here?


    Obviously, the demons didn''t answer him, but Adam made his own ideas. And the most likely reason was the one Adam didn''t want to be true. Tazolos was on his way to be a King Demon, in other words, the equal of a Legend


    But then, a sinister smile appeared on Adam''s face. If the boss wasn''t home, then all he had to do was to switch from n A, to n B.


    With the presence of someone as strong as Tazolos, dealing big damage was impossible. But if he wasn''t here, then Adam didn''t have to just show them he could damage them. He could simply damage them directly.


    Adam used the little Aura he had recovered passively since he attacked to gather the clouds around him before he went into the Blood Tower and began recovering.


    When he was inside it, the tower could be turned into a miniature version that was only a few centimeters, so it would be hard to find inside the clouds.


    As he appeared inside the water floor and meditated, recuperating 10 000 Aura every second, Adam also had the Blood Tower move around.


    Although he would damage them, he couldn''t go too far, or his and Tazolos'' role would switch. When the Half-King Demon came back, he wouldn''t strike Adam and his base because doing so would free Adam of all his responsibilities, allowing him to attack his forces without fear.


    And the opposite would be true if Adampletely destroyed the demonic city, Tazolos wouldn''t have to fear anything and could simply attack everyone in Adam''s base.


    Well, actually even if he wanted to Adam wouldn''t be able to destroy the city. He couldn''t destroy the arrays above, and passing through them using a portal wouldn''t have any use as he would still be attacked by those arrays inside the city.


    As for having Neith attack from below, it was also impossible. Before, they weren''t on guard so the arrays weren''t activated and modifying the soil wasn''t really considered an attack either, so the arrays hadn''t done anything.


    However, now one of the demons in charge of the arrays had probably locked onto Neith''s Aura, and if it ever appeared near the arrays then she would be attacked and acting on the soil would be impossible too.


    Arrays were very strong, and extremely potent against almost all kinds of enemies. Adam had been able to use their ws once, but it wouldn''t be possible to do it twice. So the only way for Adam to destroy the city at his current power level would be to attack the arrays for hours to destroy them, or get stronger.


    But that wasn''t his goal anyway. As Adam was recovering his Aura inside the clouds, more and more demons got up in the sky, searching for him.


    After five minutes of search though, most of them gave up as they believed Adam had fled. The stronger Higher Demons were the first to go back to the city, to prepare in case Adam once again attacked the weaker demons, and after five minutes only the Intermediate Demons as well as some weaker Higher Demons were left.


    At that moment, Adam appeared. His sword in hand, Adam as soon as he appeared, using [Sword Aura] and [Sword Cry] at once. Sword Aura allowed his sword attacks to deal 500% damage, while his Sword Cry would deal damage onto an area.


    The demons were some distance from each other, so he wasn''t able to get all of them. To deal the most damage, Adam appeared in the area where the most Intermediate Demons gathered.


    -6.250.000 HP!


    -6.250.000 HP!


    Not only did the attack deal massive amount of damage, but it also afflicted all those hit with severe internal bleeding. And right after the skill activated, Adam once again activated it, this time not using his mana, but using his sword. After all, this was a skill on his sword before being one of his.


    Critical Hit! -12.500.000 HP!


    Critical Hit! -12.500.000 HP!


    The attack, although it dealt sword damage, was a sonic attack, and so it mainly attacked the enemy''s insides.


    All the demons who were hit by the two attacks died, with no exception. Even the Water Dragon Princess, a peak Ancestor, or Gold Rank, and one of the most talented beings among Grade One existences, only had 20 Million HP. As for other Grade One Dragons, they only had around 10 Million, so those demons, who weren''t even grade one, had less than that.


    And Adam''s two attacks had dealt 18.75 Million damage to them all


    They had no chance of survival.

 Chapter 227: Last Hope

    Chapter 227: Last Hope


    As the demons around Adam had their inner bodies destroyed by Adam''s double attack, the other demons all turned toward him and saw their fellow demons start dropping from the sky.


    They all roared and flew at a high speed toward Adam. Meanwhile, those who flew back to the city looked up and flew up.


    Adam shook his head and began rotating on himself, with such speed and strength his sword generated powerful winds which quickly turned into a tornado filled with sword lights.


    The approaching demons, who were quite weak, felt something was wrong and tried to stop and escape, but the tornado was already formed and began sucking them in. Meanwhile, Adam didn''t stop rotating and made the tornado bigger and bigger.


    But as he was doing so, he felt dangere from his one side, and he was forced to stop rotating to block. The next moment, he saw a demon had directly ignored the tornado and the sword lights in them, and punched through it.


    Adam blocked the blow, and the shock wave created moved in a bizarre way. A part of it headed for Adam''s innards, while the rest destroyed the tornado, saving the demons caught in it.


    Adam was forced to retreat as he had been hurt by the attack, and he looked at the demon who had attacked him.


    [Higher Demon] (Sage, Level 200)


    HP: 500,000,000/500,000,000


    As expected, the one who attacked him was one of the strongest demons under Tazolos. Although he wasn''t a Half-King, he was still a peak Sage Demon. From the blow just now, Adam guessed this demon was even stronger than Zeus, at least in term of body strength.


    Adam couldn''t help but sigh, it was time to go. They were stronger than he initially thought. Other than the demon who just attacked him, there were many more flying up, and some among them felt just as strong.


    Just to be polite though, Adam threw five [Three Line Sacred Ball] at then, using up 2.5 Million Aura doing so.


    However, the effects were definitely worth it as the surrounding area went through many changes in a matter of seconds, dealing millions of damage to everyone present. Those hit by the balls first received a lot of damage, then those in the surroundings were burned by vapor, before being turned into ice and finally together.


    The weaker ones died and the stronger ones were slowed down enough for Adam to flee out of their sight.


    The demon who had managed to hit Adam was the one who had received the less damage, and he saw Adam flee. From a nce he knew the Northman was faster than even their king.


    One of the other strong demons asked with a great deal of anger, but also respect "Great Elder, should we chase after them?"


    Although the demon known as Great Elder was reluctant, he didn''t hesitate to shake his head and say "It would be useless, he is faster than us. Moreover, our king is in the middle of his transformation. His orders were to protect the city, and it is what we shall do. If we leave, then those old monsters may take advantage of the opportunity. Retreat back into the city and begin repairs."


    The other demons looked disappointed, but they still headed to the orders of the Great Elder. As for the corpses of the dead demons The [Three Line Sacred Ball] had destroyed them.


    A few hundreds of kilometers away, Adam stopped and looked behind. He was a little surprised they didn''t chase him, but it was a good thing anyway. If he wanted to he could continue to harass them but there was no need, it would only further anger them and augment the chances of an attack on their part.


    Confirming he was safe, Adam sent a look to his status, and just as he had thought, he hadn''t yet passed the 90% threshold for his ughter Concept.


    Although killing so many demons and obliterating their soul did indeed allow him to strengthen his ughter Concept by a great deal, growing the ughter Concept and his killing intent wasn''t just killing, he needed some degree of understanding over killing too.


    It wasplicated to put into words what needed to be done to advance in this concept, one had to understand what is killing, but also why they are killing, and how


    It wasplicated indeed, but Adam knew he wasn''t far. Crossing to 90% would allow him to push his killing intent to the next level though, which was a great thing since at his level, killing intent could seriously affect the enemy''s mind.


    Adam closed his status and headed for his base. It took him a few minutes toe back, and once there, he directly teleported next to the highest ranking Northman he saw.


    The guy was obviously shocked to have a spatial rift appear right next to him, but when he saw Adam he calmed down. As annoying Adam could be, it was actually better than most nobles in Epoch.


    Moreover, Adam was the only one who could defeat Tazolos while remaining under the Gold Rank. They had already learned the truth about this dimension, as well as the only way to get out of here. Considering the talent of the other people inside the dimension, even a peak Hero wouldn''t be strong enough.


    Instead, the only way for someone else than Adam to kill Tazolos would be to promote to Legend Rank. Considering they had to go through a promotion quest, it would be very hard to promote twice inside Providence. Even in Epoch, with an entire Racial Power behind them, they weren''t sure they could be Legends, much less in here.


    And even without talking about the difficulty of climbing to the Legend Rank, going any higher than Gold Rank meant being trapped in here for an unknown period of time.


    The different powers had already guessed that the restriction on the power of the people entering the dimensions would lessen with the next phases of the Merge, but who knows how long it would take?


    Maybe Phase Two would begin in a year, but maybe it would also take a hundred, a thousand or even more years toe. And that was being optimistic. Who knows, maybe the restrictions wouldn''t even be lifted until the actual Merge.


    That''s why, no one wanted to exchange their freedom for the others. The only ones with a chance of achieving Legend Rank were the leaders of the main powers, they all had a bright future ahead of themselves and would be leaders of their entire generation. There were nock of future Emperors and Empresses.


    Would such people sacrifice their entire future just to save the others? The answer was obviously no. So everyone had already put their hopes on Adam to save them, so no matter how atrocious he could be, even though he wasn''t, they would put up with it, until they left the dimension.


    And this was even the case for Adam''s enemies, the dragons. They had already found their traces in the past month, and although they couldn''t bring them back to their base, they had already contacted each other, and even them who had entered with one of their goals being killing Adam, agreed they had to help him as much as they could in here.


    Adam had already killed one of their Princess, and made a subordinate out of another Prince. If they were to sacrifice any more sessors to the Dragon n to kill Adam then it would be really dumb and pointless.


    When he saw he had the attention of the Northman, Adam asked "Where is Helena?"


    Had it been anyone else who dared to call the Crown Princess by her name, he would have given them his fist, but the rumors of their Master-Disciple rtionship had already spread around. If even her master wasn''t allowed to call her by her name, then no one would.


    Moreover, even if he wasn''t her master, once again they were relying on him so he didn''t say anything about that and instead said with a tint of respect "She is helping build the training grounds."

 Chapter 228: Understanding of the World

    Chapter 228: Understanding of the World


    Adam nodded and disappeared from the spot. Although he wasn''t able to perform real teleportation, he could, using some tricks, do something that looked simr.


    Adam appeared above the training grounds, and saw his Third Disciple blowing hot winds on grey structures, quickly hardening them. Adam looked around and shook his head, the people working here barely understood any concepts, and for those who did their understanding was very shallow, including Helena, which was why they were working very slowly.


    Adam cleared his throat, and because [King''s Aura] was still active, everyone heard him and feltpelled to stop whatever they were doing and look up.


    Helena''s eyes shone up when she saw Adam and she immediately flew up as she greeted him "Master."


    Adam nodded at her and summoned Neith. He asked her "Daughter, would you be kind enough to finish their work? They are building training grounds."


    Neith, who was floating in the air, looked down and saw the people who had stopped working on the training grounds. She puffed "Bunch of amateurs." She used a single of her legs to touch the ground, and the earth around them turned into sand.


    The sand then quickly moved around to form grotesque and ugly looking facilities. As they were about to gloat at her though, the sand started condensing on itself and became rocks. As the rocks appeared, the buildings didn''t look ugly anymore.


    Most of the shapes were squarish, although there were statues of Adam and Neith killing enemies here and there. The people around were dumbfounded their hours of hard work didn''t even amount to anything in front of a few seconds of that spider''s leisurely work.


    Neith looked at them with a smug look, proud of her work and superiority. This made Adam smile, and he asked her mentally ''I will travel around with my disciple to teach her some things. There will be some fighting with Sage Monsters. Do you want to tag along?''


    Neith looked up at him and said ''But I can''t help you with the fighting'' Adam smiled and said ''Silly girl, it doesn''t matter.'' Neith looked a bit depressed, but in the end she still nodded.


    Adam grinned and asked Helena "Do you remember the locations of all the Sage Monsters?" Helena nodded, Adam had specifically asked her to do so before entering seclusion.


    Adam gestured toward Neith and said "She will bring us around, just tell her where to go." Helena nodded and flew down onto Neith''s back.


    Neith quickly flew off toward the direction Helena pointed at. Of course, Neith was nowhere near as fast as Adam was in the sky, but she was still rtively quick, and at her speed the wind didn''t feel that good.


    He turned to look at Helena and said "Do you know how to erase the air resistance around us? To make us faster and no cause friction at extreme speeds?"


    Helena shook her head, so Adam said "I''ll teach you then. First, tell me your hypothesizes." Helena nodded and said "I only see two ways to do so. First would be topletely erase the air around us, and second would be to make it flow in our direction at the exact same speed. The first should be easier, to do, but inconvenient."


    She felt confident what she said was right, but unexpectedly, Adam shook his head. He said "Completely removing the air around you is much harder than you think, I believe you would need topletely understand the Wind Essence to do so."


    Helena tilted her head and said "But I think I''m already able to do it?" Adam smiled and said to Neith "Keep going, we will be right back."


    Neith showed no response, but Adam knew from their link she understood. Adam then took the sky, quickly followed by Helena. Adam said "Show me."


    Helena nodded and closed her eyes for a second, and when she opened them, Adam indeed felt the oxygen around them almost disappear. Adam said "Do you consider this emptying the air?"


    Helena once again nodded and stopped what she was doing. Adam shook his head and said "Do you know what sound is?"


    Helena tilted her head and asked "What''s the link between sound and air?" Adam replied "Answer my question."


    She eventually said "I don''t know" Adam rolled his eyes and said "Sound is basically vibrations in the air. When you hear something, it is actually your ears'' picking up those vibrations in the air. Now you tell me, how could you hear me talking if there isn''t air to transmit those vibrations?"


    She looked a little bit shocked at the revtions, which made Adam smile a little. Helena received a very different education from his, the understanding the people of Epoch had of the world was also very different than those from Earth. It was also why Adam expected a lot from King yer, who was trying to bring the two together.


    Adam said "Air is a gas. You know that, right? Well, actually it is a multitude of gases. And what you did, was to eliminate only one of those gases, the one with the most quantity, called Di-oxygen. That''s about three quarters of the air. What you need to do is topletely erase all the gases, and that is something very difficult. Fly as fast as possible forward."


    Helena was getting more and more shocked at the revtions Adam gave her, but she still did as she was told. She flew as fast as she could, and she had to admit she was proud of her flying speed, because she had understandings in the Sovereign Wind Concept her flying speed was very quick.


    After a few seconds she looked back, to see if her master was able to keep her with her, but she was shocked to see he was leisurely flying next to her.


    As they flew he said "This is under the speed of sound. Tell me, if we go past the speed of sound, what do you think would happen?"


    Helena didn''t really understand his question, or rather, she had difficulty wrapping her mind around it. For anyone one Earth, the answer might seem obvious, even for someone who didn''t do any extensive studies, but that was because their mind was shaped in a certain way while in school.


    But in Epoch, things were very different, so Helena didn''t really understand what he was trying to say.


    Seeing this, Adam grabbed her arm and sped up to 350 meters per seconds, slightly above the speed of sound. As he did, the air around them began being unable to keep up and the sound they produced tracked behind, creating a sonic boom.


    Adam pointed at the shock wave right behind them to Helena, who was looking at it in shock, and said "This is called a Sonic Boom in my world. Since we are faster than sound itself, it can''t keep up with our bodies and is behind us. Actually, the only reason you are able to hear me is because I am using Aura to"


    After this point, Adam stopped using his Aura to carry his words to Helena, who became unable to hear him. He then said, this time using his Aura "This is what happens at the speed of sound, can you see what the shock waves are doing to our surroundings?"


    Helena looked around with some difficulty and saw the leaves and nts were swaying madly behind them, and even trees were shaking.


    Adam began elerating and stopped at Mach 2 before he said "We are currently flying at two times the speed of sound, or 686 meters per second. Can you feel your body get hotter?"


    Helena nodded with difficulty, the wind was starting to make it hard for her to move as she wished. Adam formed a bubble around them,pletely erasing the wind around them. He said, this time using his normal voice "I formed this for convenience and not to burn you."


    Helena asked "Burn me?"


    Adam smiled and sped up to Mach 5. As he did, mes appeared around the air bubble. Even inside, Helena could feel the heat. It wouldn''t hurt her much, but she would still feel the burn.


    Adam said "This is five times the speed of sound." Then he sped up little by little, with increments of 5 Mach every time.


    In the end, he stopped at Mach 50, conveniently stopping right above Neith. Actually, they hadn''t been flying in a straight line, Adam had been making circles in the sky.


    As they stopped, he said "Now you understand the effects of speed on your surroundings. I think we have alerted every monster in the surrounding area with the noise we made, and we arrived to our first one. I will deal with it using only the Wind Concept, and we will continue our lesson."


    Helena nodded, a bit breathless. But as she looked at him, she now had shining eyes. It wasn''t his power that impressed her, but his knowledge.

 Chapter 229: Lesson

    Chapter 229: Lesson


    They were a few hundred meters in up in the sky, and below them was a swamp. Adam looked at Helena, who said "This is the ce. This location is a little bit special as two Sage Monsters live together here. One is a Level 153 Frog, while the other is a Level 155 Alligator."


    Adam nodded and flew down with Helena and Neith. He made them stop a hundred meters in the air, high enough not to be targeted and low enough to see the battle.


    As for Adam, he flew toward the only Sage Beast showing itself, the colorful frog.


    Adam could see it was looking at him with some arrogance, and seemed please Adam was delivering himself to it. As he got about ten meters in front of the frog, it suddenly attacked.


    It''s tongue flew out of it''s mouth with an incredible speed, moving faster than sound. However, Adam was able to clearly see the tongue moving, and he could even see the venom that was being sshed around by the tongue.


    Adam slightly moved, avoiding the tongue with ease, and formed a small barrier just wide enough to stop the venom using air.


    Then, Adam used a drawing technique. It was a mix of sword and wind technique as lightning flickered around the sword.


    -30.000.000 HP!


    The sword went through the tongue easily, cutting a big part of it off, and burning the stump that had been created. The lightning that flickered around Adam''s sword naturally moved toward his body as a giant monster suddenly jumped out of the water.


    Normally, he would just dodge, but since he was showing off techniques he set the lightning around him berserk, sending it into the opened mouth of the alligator who had been hiding underwater.


    The shock of electricity paralyzed the alligator, as well as dealing some damage. Moreover, before it could close it''s mouth, a bolt of lightning descended from the sky into it''s wide opened maw.


    Critical Hit! -40.000.000 HP!


    As it tried to fall back into the swamp''s water, Adam flew to it''s side and punched it''s side. A hurricane formed around his fist, and as he hit the alligator it was sent flying toward the frog, wind des cutting deep into it''s scales and it''s bones were breaking under the might of the powerful wind.


    -20.000.000 HP!


    -20.000.000 HP!


    The wind was so fast the frog had no chance to dodge and it was hit too, losing another big portion of health.


    When the two monsters got off each other, Adam was already floating in front of them, and a giant punch made of wind hit the top of their head, and turned into a cage around them instead of dispersing.


    The two lost another part of their health, and they were dizzy from the blow. They tried to move away, but the cage around them pushed them back to it''s center.


    Adam then said "Stop struggling or I will kill you." The two immediately stopped moving, and looked at Adam in fright. After a moment, the frog asked "Sss Sir, what can we do for you?"


    The two were scared shitless, since when was there such a powerful Northman? And why did hee to attack them?!


    Adam said "You have suffered under the rule of Tazolos. I intend to kill all the demons and take possession of this realm to go back to my realm. I have a deal for you. I will let you leave this dimension if you agree to fight with me and give me all your treasures."


    The frog looked reluctant, but didn''t say anything. Beside it, the alligator sneered "Don''t try to trick us human. We also know only Gold Ranks can leave this dimensi"


    The alligator didn''t even get to finish it''s sentence when Adam''s de, now covered in ice, decapitated it, even freezing both separated parts of it''s corpse.


    Adam grabbed the head and pulled out the frozen Nascent Soul and crushed it using Spirit Hand, then absorbing the alligator''s Soul Energy.


    The Soul Energy from all the mortal demons Adam killed earlier still hadn''t been assimted, only half of it had been absorbed actually.


    And yet, even all this energy was lesser than the energy from one Nascent Soul. The Soul Energy from the mortals was much bigger in quantity, but the quality was too far apart. Something interesting though was that when faced with the powerful Soul Energy from the Nascent Soul, the Soul Energy of the mortals began topress itself, lowering the quantity but augmenting it''s quality.


    Since it was natural, Adam didn''t do anything and turned his sight toward the frog, who now looked like he had his soul sucked out of him.


    Adam''s powerful voice, enhanced by [King''s Aura], shook it''s soul as he said "While it is not possible for you to enter Epoch now, when the next phase of the Merge approaches, you may be able to leave. If you don''t ept my deal, you will die. If you do, you will have to fight alongside me against the demons when the time is right."


    The frog lowered itself and said "I ept." Adam nodded and said "Good. Show me your treasures. If there is anything good I will take it now, and I will leave you the rest until the fight."


    The frog nodded and jumped into the water. A minuteter, it resurfaced with a ring floating in front of it. Adam grabbed the ring and looked inside. At the same time, the frog said "I too the liberty of putting Arnold''s treasures in there too."


    Adam nodded, but he was disappointed by what he saw. Although what he saw wasn''t bad, it had no use to him, there were no spiritual treasures. Adam transferred all the precious ores inside to the 57th Floor, where Neith spent the majority of her time.


    Neith could either grow by cultivating, eating powerful monsters or precious ores. That''s why he gave her all the ores he had since he had no use with them. As for those cheaper ores well, she could treat them as snacks.


    The gains Neith was getting from those ores was no joke either, those were all supposed to be part of Sage Monsters'' collection, while Neith was only an Ancient Monster, the rank between Elder and Ancestor.


    This meant the ores were two ranks higher than those she should have ess to, hence boosting her growth by a huge deal.


    Adam was Level 84, and although he had consumed the fruits of the Rose Tree, he needed much more XP than Neith to evolve. On the other end, Neith was eating from precious ores and also got the corpses of the Sage Monsters who were reluctant to work with Adam.


    As such, she had already reached Level 92, and she was still evolving at a quick speed. Now, it was herprehension of the Concepts that was slightly behind, but it wasn''t as important for now. And it couldn''t be said to be bad either.


    Adam moved the alligator, or Arnold, corpse inside the Blood Tower, Neith would eat himter. Now that his business here was over, Adam flung the ring back to the frog and said before flying up "You can keep and use everything inside until the battle with the demons take ce."


    The frog nodded, and Adam left. Most people would have given it a warning about the resources, but Adam didn''t need to. Only someone dumb would use everything inside. It was already a great favor Adam was doing it to let it keep those and use them until the battle, if it pushed it''s luck and used more than necessary, then that would be provoking Adam, which he had just proved was a bad idea.


    Moreover, even if it used everything in the ring, it would get a little stronger, which was also good for Adam. He would still kill it after the battle, but it would be more useful during the battle.

 Chapter 230: Trap

    Chapter 230: Trap


    As he reached Neith and Helena, he said looking at theter "How much did you understand out of this battle?"


    Helena blushed and said "Not much" Adam smiled and said "When we are done dealing with those monsters, I will spare with you. That should help you. For the next monster, I will only use the sword."


    Helena nodded, and they climbed back on Neith''s back.


    The hours went by quickly, and when they reached the end of the list of Sage Monsters that had been found, night was about to fall. Adam had subdued 41 Sage Monsters, with three of them being above Level 190, while he killed 31 of them.


    This allowed him to absorb a lot of Soul Energy to feed his two souls. Soul Energy was very mysterious, and it was one of the only things capable of crossing worlds. Since Adam''s two souls were connected to each other, even though they weren''t in the same worlds, Adam was able to feed both souls at the same time.


    Actually, the Soul Energy he had absorbed proved to be a little too much, as his entire mind was filled with Soul Energy. It would take some time to absorb it all.


    Since he had already taken care of all the Sage Monsters that had been found, Adam decided to enter another fit of seclusion. He wouldn''t get out until he finished absorbing and processing all the Soul Energy.


    As Adam entered seclusion, several thousand kilometers away, in the Demon City.


    Tazolos, who had been in seclusion for several months now, finally exited his room. He was very excited because he could feel the barrier separating him from bing a King Demon was growing thinner and thinner. Although he wasn''t there yet, it was now but a matter of months.


    However, as he walked through his pce, he noticed something was amiss. All his subordinates had weird faces, they looked angry and powerless.


    This made the fire demon frown as he exited his pce. Once outside, he couldn''t see anything amiss though, so he took some altitude to get a look at the entire city.


    At first, he didn''t see anything, but as he turned around and saw his pce, he shouted in rage.


    "WHICH BASTARD DAMAGED MY GOD DAMNED PALACE!!!!"


    As his furious roar spread in the city, an old demon looked up and hurriedly flew up. He knelt in mid air and said "My King." This old demon was actually one of the generals of Tazolos, and the one who had managed to attack Adam.


    Tazolos'' cold gaze turned to the old demon as he asked "Kriar, what happened?"


    Kriar, the old demon, lifted his head and said "We were attacked. The Northman who fought against us to save the intruders from Epoch was the one who attacked."


    Tazolos sneered and said with a tint of amusement, but also anger "That Northman caused so much damage? Have you gone senile?"


    Kriar replied seriously "Through our spies we learned more about him. That Northman is called Valiant Heart, and he is a human Sovereign. Hisbat prowess though is unprecedented, and so is his growth. He killed millions of subjects, as well as some Intermediate Demons and Higher Demons. I shed with him personally, and I can confirm he is as strong as me. Moreover, he has enough Aura to create a Space barrier to bypass our arrays and still destroy the pce. I fear if we were to fight, he would kill me in the attrition battle. Moreover, he is fast, he is the fastest one in our world."


    Tazolos was shocked by what Kriar said. Kriar was a Level 200 Higher Demon, and was his greatest general. Not only was he the second strongest demon in Providence, he was also a master tactician. He was their n''s Grand Elder!


    As crazy a Level 84 Silver Rank matching a Level 200 Sage Demon was, Tazolos still believed it rather than Kriar being wrong.


    And that made everything even more shocking. In Providence, Tazolos was the second strongest being, only second to an extremely old monster that was stuck at the very peak of the Sage Realm.


    As for Kriar, he was most probably the fifth strongest being in the entire world, and now that brat had already be so strong despite being a Silver Rank?


    If that was the case, then he was a serious threat


    Seeing his king was thinking, Kriar didn''t say anything, and waited. After a moment, Tazolos said "We shouldn''t antagonize him for now, there is no need. I can feel I am not far from bing a Legendary Demon. By that time, he won''t stand a chance of escaping from me."


    Kriar looked ecstatic as he said "My Liege is destined to rule this world! Congrattions in advance!"


    Tazolos nodded and said "Have the repairs of my pce hastened. I will soon return to seclusion. Be at the ready for any other attack, and if that Valiant Heart once again attacks, don''t try to kill him, but force him into retreat. Anything else?"


    Kriar nodded and said "Actually, I think I should be able to trap that Valiant Heart and kill him." Tazolos raised an eyebrow as he said "There is no need to take any unnecessary risk against that Northman. I will naturally kill him once I reach the Legendary Rank."


    Kriar replied "It wouldn''t involve much risk. Earlier this day, some of our spies managed to enter the camp of those refugees from Epoch."


    As he said that, a disdainful voice came from the side "What, you want to assault that camp? Even I can tell this is a terrible idea."


    Both Kriar and Tazolos turned their heads to look at the side, where another demon was standing. This demon was a humanoid bull, known as the Minotaur. They stood among the strongest demonic ns.


    Tazolos looked impassive as he said "Eranan, put aside your childish arguments and cooperate for once."


    Eranan, the Minotaur, knelt and said "I shall obey my Lord." A momentter, an extremely beautiful woman appeared as well. She would almost look like a human woman if it weren''t for her pointy ears, her ck tail or the ck bat wings on her back. She was a Subus, the dream of many men.


    She knelt before Tazolos, showing off her incredible cleavage, as she said with a sultry voice "My King, I missed you!"


    Tazolos revealed a smile but quickly hid it as he looked back at Kriar and said "Tell me, what''s your n?"


    Kriar nodded and said "As I was saying, some of our spies managed to infiltrate the base of Valiant Heart. Indeed, attacking would be foolish. But our spies managed to find an interesting piece of information. Valiant Heart''s pet is a Titanic Spider, and it is not far from bing an Ancestor Rank."


    "I believe we can use this to our advantage. Not long ago we found a precious ore that would be an incredible allure to any Titanic Spider. Using it would allow them to break through any bottleneck very easily."


    The subus said "You want to bait his pet with that ore? How can you be sure he will follow?" Kriar looked at her and said "Although it is his pet, apparently they share a much stronger rtionship. If it falls in danger, he will definitely go rescue it. You should know better than anyone the ravages caused by emotions, Sultra."


    The subus let out a devious chuckle, which Kriar promptly ignored as he added "I suggest trapping that spider, wait for thatd''s arrival, and use the Heaven Locking Array. Since that Valiant Heart seems to have deep attainments in the Space Concept, this is the only Array that could trap him. Otherwise, with his speed, he would be more than capable of fleeing."


    Tazolos nodded and said "This is a good n, as expected of you. You have my authorization to proceed."

 Chapter 231: Bottleneck

    Chapter 231: Bottleneck


    Adam stretched his body, yawning as he did so. It had actually taken him two entire months to absorb all the Soul Energy he umted. For those two months, he had sat here, not moving at all for the two months.


    However, it was definitely worth it. Adam could feel his spirit had be much stronger, to the point he had managed to enhance the quality of his spirit a little through sheer quantity. This made the Concepts appear much clearer to him.


    As a result, even though Adam hadn''t meditated much on the Concepts, he still made much more progress in them than if he had cultivated normally. All his Concepts had now reached 90%. However, going any higher was extremely difficult. Even Adam''s Concept of ughter, the first one to reach 90%, had only reached 94%.


    His Level had also gotten better, as Adam had reached Level 89. Overall, he had received another boost in strength, although it wasn''t a major one, it was still better than nothing.


    Unfortunately, Adam hadn''t managed to open the Fifth Gate yet. Back on Earth, he had managed to understand the world with luck, but Adam was stuck in Epoch. He could feel he needed a strong stimtion to break out of this bottleneck.


    After a moment, Adam entered the Blood Tower, to the 57th Floor. There, he saw Neith was meditating. More importantly though, she had already climbed to Level 100 after eating all the corpses of Sage Monsters as well as some ores.


    Sensing Adam''s arrival, she opened her eyes and said with a cheerful voice "You finished your seclusion dad?"


    Adam smiled and nodded "I did. I see you had some gains as well. Are you ready to evolve?" Neith replied "I still need to umte energy for a while. Those ores can''t do though, they are too low in quality. I either have to find the corpses of a peak Sage Monster, an extremely precious ore, or just umte the energy myself."


    Adam said "Good. What do you say about another little venture outside?" Unexpectedly, Neith shook her head and said "I''m fine here by myself."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and muttered to himself "Is she already turning into a teen?"


    Although he would have liked to go out with Neith, if she preferred staying inside then he would go out alone. And she was in the Blood Tower anyway, so it didn''t really matter.


    When he exited his cultivation room, Adam was surprised by what he saw. The camp had grown manifolds since two months ago. He could also see there were many more people who hade here.


    Adam flew around and saw most of the changes. First, many houses had been created, but crops as well as some shops The base had actually been turned into a small city. It was definitely surprising.


    One could also see people of all humanoid races. Adam was sure he saw some of his guild mates, meaning they had probably reached here. Adam approached one of them, who immediately grew frantic.


    After asking a few questions while unconsciously releasing his [King''s Aura], Adam learned a lot about everything that happened during the past two months. The scouts had managed to find nearly everyone who had entered, except for the demonic faction.


    That even included the monsters, such as the dragons, the goblins and many more


    Normally, the Monster Faction and the Humanoid Faction would never coexist, and they would fight everytime they saw each other. It was even more improbable they would live together.


    But the crisis they were facing forced them to do so. Adam was the only one capable of protecting them, hence why they had to stick together under him.


    Actually, at first the Monster Faction was excluded from the camp, but it was Helena, Adam''s representative in the camp, who had solved the solution. Having a conflict among themselves wasn''t a good idea, although she didn''t know why Adam was protecting everyone, he had to have a reason.


    If he protected humanoids, then why not take monsters too? Moreover, the only reason Helena could find for Adam''s actions was to eliminate trouble. He would rather have them under his watch than roaming around, bing possible dangers.


    Actually, she wasn''t far from the truth, and although it wasn''t the only reason why Adam kept those people with him, it sure was one of them.


    After all, as they said, keep your friends close, and keep your enemies even closer.


    Another factor that helped the integration of the monsters in the camp was Xilzror, the Fire Dragon Prince who became Adam''s Ninth Division Leader. His whole division was made of monsters, and as Adam''s subordinates, they obviously had prime ess to the camp.


    Although there were some conflicts between Xilzror and the other dragons, in the end the monsters were still allowed in the camp.


    Anyway, Adam also learned where his Division Leaders were, so he headed there. He was relieved to see all of them were still safe, it was definitely a relief. Although they were quite strong and had a lot of potential, they were all only Silver Rank.


    Adam spent a couple of hours speaking with the nine of them, and was happy to see Xilzror had managed to enter the circle of friends and truly be one of them.


    For once, Adam allowed himself to take a break, spending most of the day with them, chatting and leading them on cultivation too.


    Although Adam had to get as strong as possible as quick as he could, the next great power up for him was the opening of the 5th Gate, which would turn him into an invincible existence under the Legend Rank in Providence.


    And Adam knew for sure it wouldn''t take long for him to open that Gate. By then, before Tazolos managed to cross to the Legendary Rank, no one would be his opponent, and he would be able to subdue the entire dimension, with the exception of demon city, which he would leave forst to make sure he would be able to kill Tazolos.


    After all, Adam''s goal in this endeavor wasn''t to exterminate the demons, all he wanted was to get back the core of the dimension to take possession of it. And to do so, he had to kill Tazolos. It wouldn''t matter if he destroyed Demon City if he couldn''t catch Tazolos.


    Hopefully, Adam would be able to kill Tazolos before he could be a Legendary Monster, but that was very improbable. When the demon understood Adam had be much stronger than him, he would hide in the demon city.


    And unless Adam managed to reach Legendary Power, he wouldn''t be able to kill Tazolos while he is inside the city''s arrays.


    Anyway, after spending most of his day with his friends, Adam went back to hunt for the Sage Monsters.


    Because of the huge number of people who entered the camp, many more people became scouts, and a much wider area was covered.


    For the five next days, Adam was busy all day chasing after those monsters, taking the resources and corpses of those who refused to yield, and striking a deal with the rest.


    Adam also absorbed a lot more of Soul Energy, but he could feel it would take less time this time to absorb it since his Soul had been strengthened already and it had be easier to refine Soul Energy.


    An interesting news came to Adam though during those five days. One of the scouts had found a piece of precious ore protected by a newly advanced Sage Monster.


    Adam decided to use it to test Neith, and sent her to take this ore by herself. She would have to kill that Sage Monster if she wanted to be promoted to the next rank right away.


    Of course, he secretly followed her, he was able to disturb their soul link with how strong his soul had be. Another benefit he had discovered from having plenty of unrefined Soul Energy around his soul was that it could be use to disturb anything that came in contact with his soul.

 Chapter 232: Ambush

    Chapter 232: Ambush


    The two didn''t take very long to reach the location of the precious ore spotted by the scout. Judging from how excited Neith seemed to be, there were good chances there was indeed a good ore there.


    However, just like the scout had said, a monster wasying guard in front of the cave housing that ore. That monster was a Level 150 Sage, a Mountain Devouring Worm.


    At the Sage Rank, every monster evolved into powerful species, and they would always have this kind of powerful sounding names. If that worm was named as such, it was because it was actually capable of eating a whole mountain. Not at once, of course.


    This was a great match-up for Neith though as she had a high resistance to Earth Elemental attacks, so this fight would be even easier for her. Of course, it remained a Sage Rank Monster, so it wouldn''t be easy for her either.


    The two monsters began fighting each other, and at first, neither used skills. Instead, they only used their bodies. The Mountain Devouring Worm was quite powerful, but Neith was massivepared to it, she had already reached the height of 100 meters, and she was still growing quickly.


    Size represented strength, up to a certain extent, and although the worm was powerful itself, it couldn''t even reach Neith''s abdomen unless it left the ground, and that would be a very dangerous thing to do considering Neith was able to spit deadly venom.


    Thus, the worm was the first one to stop relying only on it''s body, and started using skills. Four big pirs rose from the Earth next to Neith''s legs, making her lose her bnce. However, she immediately pierced her other legs into the earth to remain steady, and activated one of her own skills.


    The surroundings turned into sand, which rendered the worm''s skill useless, and even lowered the worm''s mobility for a moment. Using this moment, Neith once again solidified the surroundings, this time into rocks, entrapping a part of the worm''s body into the rocks.


    And finally, as the rocks beganpressing onto the body of the worm, sheunched tens of rock spears at the worm.


    But the worm didn''t seem to want to stand there and be a living target as a ten meters wall rose all around it, stopping the first spears. The next ones broke the wall, but the worm had already plunged into the rocks as easily as in mud, and dodged the attack.


    It arrived below Neith and tried to take a bite out of one of her legs. She could dodge it, but she decided otherwise. Gathering a huge amount of venom, Neith quickly spat everything on the leg targeted.


    Her venom wasn''t to beughed at, it was a powerful acid capable of melting almost anything, and it also parasitized living beings, paralysing them and eating them from both in and out.


    Her venom was a very deadly weapon which promised a terrible death. The worm didn''t know that though, and still attacked.


    It revealed it''s terrifying mouth, made of tens of rows of sharp teeth, rotating like a meat grinder. It took one of her legs into it''s mouth, and the teeth began grinding against her shell. Although her shell was very strong and couldn''t be easily breached through, the lower part of her leg was shredded in an instant.


    However, as the worm was feeling good about itself, the venom also flew down in big quantities into it''s mouth, directly going for it''s stomach. Everything in the way was getting eaten away by the venom though.


    The worm retreated as it started writhing on the ground in pain, but not for long. Neith, who also was in great pain as she had lost the lower part of one of her legs, used her remaining seven legs to turn the worm into a sieve.


    It tried to resist, but she was too quick and it was pinned down quickly. Even with tens of holes in it''s body though, it still wasn''t dead. It had a great vitality.


    But even then, Neith spat a few more globs of venom at it, finally finishing it off.


    Neith then swallowed the worm like one would slurp a spaghetti, and turned her attention toward the cave. However, at that moment, Adam, who had been hiding in the shadows and was happy about her victory, suddenly frowned.


    In the sky above Neith, multiple demons appeared, and all of them were Higher Demons of great strength. Neith looked up in confusion, what were they doing here?


    One of the demons, a Minotaur, flew down and said "Come here little spider, I''ve always longed to eat Titanic Spiders'' legs. I heard it was like eating a crab"


    However, before he could even finish his sentence, Adam appeared next to him. The Minotaur wasn''t a nobody, but actually one of the generals under Tazolos, Eranan, a Level 200 Higher Demon.


    He was shocked Adam was already here, but theter''s speed was to be expected. However, even though it was to be expected, it didn''t make it any less dangerous.


    As he was in the middle of lowering his head to block the iing blow with his mighty horns though, the demon suddenly felt a strange power invade his mind, and shook it hard.


    This paralysed Eranan, and while he was in a fainted status, unable to even think, his insides were starting to turn into stone.


    After killing Zeus, Adam had taken Aegis from him, and studied it. He found it amazing, especially the skill, which had managed to stun him despite his incredible Soul strength.


    Now used by Adam, who had strengthened his mind by a great deal, the skill had turned deadly, and even someone like Eranan was stunned by it, and would need at least a second to recover. A second was more than enough for Adam to strike him.


    The sword Adam wielded used his skill [Chop], but it was no longer the same [Chop] as it used to be


    Critical Hit! -238.165.000 HP!


    Adam''s sword had plunged half into the Level 200 Higher Demon''s neck, and even though the pain was immense, the demon wasn''t awaken.


    The other demons above finally noticed something was wrong, and tried toe to Eranan''s rescue, but it was toote. Before any of them coulde down to help, Adam once again swung his weapon.


    Critical Hit! -238.165.000 HP!


    The swordpletely severed the head of the demon, finally awakening him. Something worthy to note though was the fact that this demon had an especially great vitality, as even after his head was cut off, he was still alive.


    Of course, that wouldn''t be for long. The demon only had around 20 Million HP remaining, and although that seemed to be a lot, he was losing his HP at an incredible speed. Although he could survive for a time while being headless, that was only for a time.


    And Adam didn''t intend on making him suffer him any longer as he grabbed the head and crushed it in his hand, turning it into meat paste, while also crushing the Nascent Soul and absorbing the incredible Soul Energy contained inside the head.


    Everyone was shocked. One of Tazolos'' fiercest generals, the leader of the Minotaur n in this dimension, had been killed by Adam, without a chance to defend himself.


    However, unlike what Adam expected, he didn''t see despair on the faces of the demons above. Instead, he only saw amusement, and relief. Especially on the face of the old demon who fought against him two months ago, he seemed please. What was going on exactly?


    But if they didn''t want to move, then so be it. [Chop] had been enhanced by Adam, and he raised the skill to the limits of the A Rank, just like his [Three Line Sacred Ball], and costed 500k Aura.


    Although using it costed so much, the damage had been raised to 5000%, making his attack much deadlier.

 Chapter 233: Swordsmanship

    Chapter 233: Swordsmanship


    Adam sneered at the iing demons and flew next to Neith and sent her in the Blood Tower. Then, he waited for the demons.


    They came right when he needed them, they would be the little push he needed to open the 5th Gate. And escaping wasn''t really much of an option, Adam could feel an array had been activated around them.


    He didn''t really know exactly what it did, but with such a powerful line-up, they couldn''t just be here by coincidence.


    The old demon, Kriar, said "I never met any Northmen before, I only heard of you in our books. Just like they said, you really are an arrogant bunch of fools. You don''t even realize the danger you are in, do you?"


    Adam had spent a million of his Aura to kill that demon, so he was just fine with earning himself some time. He said "I just killed one of your strongest people, and only two Level 200 remain among you. Am I the one being arrogant?"


    Next to Kriar, the subus, Sultra, said "You think killing that bull will make any difference? What a pity, I would have loved eating you, but I''m afraid there won''t even be a body a left when we are finished with you"


    Adam grinned and said "I would like to see you try. Don''t worry, I won''t be so terrible to destroy your bodies, you should make great fertilizers."


    Adam could see many of the Higher Demons standing behind the two generals get riled up, and even the Subus'' gaze turned cold, but Kriar remained impassive, much to Adam''s disappointment. An angry opponent was generally much easier to face, especially inrge numbers.


    Kriar asked, a little curious "Do you honestly think you stand a chance against us? Do you think you are as strong as a Legend?"


    Adam replied "This is a vast overestimation of your capabilities. There are barely 40 of you. Do you think a Legend is necessarily needed to kill such a force?"


    Kriar finally frowned, not because he was enraged, but because he could here the disdain in the other''s voice. Were there really Heroes strong enough to kill them all? Although they didn''t have any incredible battle array that allowed weaker beings to challenge stronger ones, they still represented a major force that would endanger anyone.


    Adam scoffed "You really believe that! Oh, no Legend must have ever appeared in this dimension Well, there is no point in trying to exin to you bumpkins, let me just show you I am perfectly capable of crushing you."


    Although Adam hadn''t recovered all his Aura, he still had more than enough to fight. His max Aura approached 4.5 Million, and he was currently at 4 Million.


    Adam flew up toward the demons, and targeted the weaker ones. Demons did not have anything like the Gates, and so they didn''t possess the perfect equilibrium Adam had.


    Although they wouldn''t be as clumsy as a human like Zeus would be, Adam still dominated them in term of movement in the air.


    Adam only activated his [Sword Aura], which allowed him to multiply his sword damage by 5, and intended to only use his Swordsmanship.


    He did this for two reasons. First, the skill only used 1000 Aura per second originally, which was ten times his recovery speed in passive mode. However, understanding the Concepts also allowed one to use skills with less Aura.


    Understanding 10% of the Sword Concept allowed Adam to use C Rank Skills without any Aura, and rely only on the power of the world.


    Meanwhile, understanding 50% allowed Adam to lower the cost of B Rank Sword Skills by 50%, and 90% by 90%. As thus, [Sword Aura], a B Rank Skill, only used 100 Aura per second. In other words, even while using this skill, Adam didn''t lose any Aura, nor did he gain any.


    As for the second reason, it was because of the Fifth Gate. Adam needed a good stimuli to open it, but it remained hard to achieve, and so he decided to use a medium, his swordsmanship. When Adam had opened his Domain back in the alternate Earth as Old Adam, he only used it for his Swordsmanship, and he had even created his Sword Art based on it.


    Here, his idea was to use only pure swordsmanship to deal with those demons, and break through his limits. This was originally how he had opened it any way. The moment Adam managed to recreate his Sword Art of old, Eternal Rest, would be the moment those demons would die.


    In front of Adam, the demon mages had already prepared severalrge scale spells to deal with the terrific skills of Adam, which he had shown in their city. All the spells he had used were incredibly powerful and dealt damage onrge areas.


    However, when they saw him rush at them like he did, they felt lost. They couldn''t use theirrge scale spells now because they would hit their allies. Initially, those spells were prepared to cancel those of Adam, so the nullification of the two spells would make it so that the demons wouldn''t suffer ssh damage.


    Now however, if theyunched those spells at Adam, then they would injure many of their close range fighters.


    The mages and theirmander, Sultra, were frustrated, but Kriar kept a straight face as he ordered his unit and Eranan''s unit, the two tanks and damage dealers, to attack Adam.


    The bulkier demons in the bunch surrounded Adam quickly, forming a meat wall all around him, while the thinner, more agile one flew in circles around him, trying to confuse him. Meanwhile, the mages cancelled theirrge scale spells and began firing more concentrated spells.


    Adam didn''t let himself get bothered by their ns though and began swinging his sword. Anyone who was skilled with the sword would be astounded by what Adam was doing. Each and everyone of his strokes were useful, and would damage some of the tanks, and defend against projectiles at the same time.


    Moreover, Adam''s sword proved to be deadly as even Sultra, a Level 200, had her spells cancelled by the might behind Adam''s sword. As for the tanks while they tried to attack, they were reduced to nothing but mere meat shields.


    They were powerful, but their strength was far below Adam''s. They had powerful defence, but Adam''s sword tore through their bodies with ease. As for their speed not only were they countless times slower than Adam, it didn''t even mater, with the level Adam''s technique had reached, it was impossible for them, who mainly fought on instinct, to dodge.


    Quickly, Kriar gave another set of orders, and the meat shields began changing positions with the damage dealers. Although they were faster, they didn''t seem to care about death as they forgot all defence and focused on offence.


    This put a greater pressure on Adam as no matter how much damage he dealt to them, the mages behind would be able to heal the demons, turning them into near immortal beings. Although it wasn''t really the case as they were losing HP over time because of the numerous bleeding effects as well as Adam''s skill that halved the efficacy of healing spells on his enemies, with their massive HP bars they could hold on for quite some time.


    After a few minutes of intense fighting, Kriar once again frowned as he wasn''t content with the current situation. Although Adam hadn''t managed to kill another demon other than Eranan, they hadn''t managed to even deal damage to him even once.


    At their level, their stamina was monstrous, and Kriar doubted they would outss Adam in term of stamina.


    After a moment, he sighed. In the end, he had to take things into his own hands. A big de, even bigger than Adam''s sword, appeared in each of his hands, and he rushed at top speed toward Adam.

 Chapter 234: Danger

    Chapter 234: Danger


    Until now, Adam''s situation was fine. Actually, a little too fine.


    Although they outnumbered him, the demons were too scared to really go all out, and even the faster ones among them weren''t able to endanger Adam, to make him feel the danger.


    Without danger, then what he was doing was useless, he needed danger to stimte himself and breakthrough. And just as he was wondering how to make everything a little spicier, he saw the old demon rush toward him with two big ass swords.


    Well, he got what he wanted. Adam shed with extra force as he created a powerful wind with the force of his sword alone to push the faster dregs around him, leaving him enough ce and time to turn around and counter the charge of Kriar.


    Adam''s one sword blocked the demon''s two swords, and Adam didn''t try a typical swordsman stand off as it was just in stupid, so he slide his weapon alongside Kriar''s two weapons, before rotating on himself, dodging another salvo of spells and swords.


    Kriar narrowed his eyes and also decided to go all out as he didn''t even try to defend himself and hacked as much as he could at Adam.


    This finally pushed Adam into the danger zone as he started taking damage. In term of strength, Adam was around Kriar''s level, more or less, and if they fought one on one they would probably take some time to decide the victor.


    Adam was much more skilled, be it swordsmanship or Concept Comprehension, but the Old Demon had many tricks up his sleeve, and him being a demon granted him ess to some cool skills that allowed greater damage. And his stats were probably above Adam''s.


    And Adam was fighting him while being surrounded by many other demons, half of which were firing spells at him continuously. There was even a Level 200 among the mages, and although she was of lesser strength, she was still quite strong.


    So obviously, Adam couldn''t maintain the previous situation, and he started taking damage. Adam would first defend against Kriar''s attacks, as they were the ones that would deal the most damage, then those of Sultra, and all the others were the only ones capable of hitting him.


    Adam slowly but steadily fell, but as it did he also felt his swordsmanship was getting better and better. When he finally reached 30% though, Adam began recovering.


    Until now, Adam used 100 Aura every second to maintain [Sword Aura], which cancelled his recovery rate. This meant he didn''t regain any HP either as it used Aura to heal him.


    Now, he would use the tenth of seconds during which he wasn''t hitting anything to deactivate [Sword Aura], and used that moment to recover. Recovering 1% per second costed 30 Aura per second, so with his recovery he would recover 3% per second and still gain 10 Aura every second.


    Of course, this was split in many fractions of seconds, but it still allowed him to stop his HP from continuously decreasing, and it was even increasing at a steady rate.


    At first, Kriar didn''t notice anything, but when Adam''s HP returned to 50% he finally noticed, and he was shocked. How was this possible? Was he toying with them?


    But Adam did not care about their shock, as he could feel his breakthrough was imminent. As long as he fought for a little longer


    However, Kriar suddenly released a weird cry, and all the demons retreated, confusing Adam. Confused as he was though, he immediately began recovering his lost HP, no longer activating [Sword Aura].


    Kriar looked around at the surrounding demons, and his face turned ugly. Although they suffered no casualties until now, every demon who fought at close range sported numerous deep cuts all around their bodies which bled arge part of their blood, and that didn''t show any sign of healing.


    Meanwhile, even though the mages weren''t injured, they all had used arge part of their mana. Kriar couldn''t help but look at Adam with fear in his gaze. At first he, hadn''t believed it was possible for a Hero to overpower them, but at the rate they were going at they really were going to lose.


    But that wasn''t what caused him to fear. Instead, what made him fear the Northman was that he remembered the fact they weren''t facing a Hero, but a measly Silver Rank. On other words, they were facing nothing more than an Elder Rank monster, and yet they were losing.


    How could such a monster exist? Although Kriar never met any Sovereign in his thousands of years of existence, he was a cultivated man and he knew a lot about Epoch, their ancestral ce, and Sovereign weren''t supposed to be so strong.


    Unlike Epoch, who lost most of the real history books about the Era of the Gods, before the War of the Gods, because of the different ruling factions who destroyed those books to increase their own power, Providence never really changed rulers through it''s long years of existence, and so the information about the ancient era was still mostly intact.


    And Kriar had read about the legends of many, many talented beings, be they Chosen Ones or Sovereign. And yet, none of them even came close to the power Adam had been showing them. At most, they would be able to barely fight those two realms above theirs, and that was because they had Legendary or Divine Rank equipments to help them. After all, the restrictions on equipments weren''t as stringent before the system. As long as one was strong enough, they could equip even Legendary Equipment, they didn''t need a certain Level.


    And even those who were able of such feats, they were very few, and that was for the lower ranked ones. All those who were capable of crossing two ranks, even with the help of Legendary artefacts, crossed from Bronze to Gold Rank.


    This was because the distance between those two ranks was much lesser than the one between Silver and Hero. Heck, juts the difference in strength between a Hero Rank and a Gold Rank was bigger than the difference between a Gold Rank and a Bronze Rank.


    And despite all this, Adam managed to do that, and the scariest, he didn''t even seem to hold any Legendary Items. No, he couldn''t even have any, even if he wanted, as the gods forbid it and set the requirements on equipments through the system.


    This meant the Northman was able to cross two ranks relying only on his strength, and that made him much more dangerous. If he was allowed to continue growing, then it wouldn''t be long before they were all exterminated.


    So he decided to put his everything into killing Adam. He took out a strange looking g that reeked of the odour of blood from his Spatial Ring and said "He is too strong, we have to finish everything now. Everyone, we must activate this Red World g or we will die."


    He didn''t even let them think about it as he infused arge part of his own energy inside the g himself. Normally, he, and all other demons, would be reluctant to activate this.


    The g held an extremely powerful array in it, but to activate it they would have to sacrifice a part of their life force. This would weaken them for a long period of time, and even take a part of their lifespan away.


    But since Kriar had been the first one to infuse his energy in the g, despite being the oldest among them, the rest of the demons understood the situation was critical, and if they didn''t obey, they very might well die.


    One after another, all the demons input their energy in the g, which started releasing a powerful killing intent. A deep scent of blood spread in the surroundings, the odour was so strong that even a Gold Rank would feel dizzy from it.


    The very air around Adam started turning red, and he had to stop breathing as he had the feeling doing so would harm him.


    Adam would have normally tried to stop them from activating that g, but he could feel the power behind that attack. His instincts were telling him that if he didn''t manage to block this attack, then he would die.


    This excited him as he finally felt it was time for him to break through his limits. As the blood aura quickly gathered around the g, balls of blood started forming in the air. Each of them were even more powerful than Sultra''s earlier spells, and they were quickly growing in number.


    Meanwhile, Adam closed his eyes and pushed every unneeded thoughts out of his mind, keeping it clear. In that moment, only the sword figured in Adam''s mind, and anything that tried to enter his mind would be shredded apart.


    Kriar and the rest of the demons aged visibly as the blood orbs finished forming, a with a weak voice Kriar said "Die."


    With his words, all the blood orbs, which counted in the hundreds, fired with an explosive speed toward Adam.


    They were quick, even quicker than Adam when he flew at top speed, and they reached Adam in an instant.


    And yet, as they entered within ten meters of Adam, thetter opened his eyes. If anyone saw his eyes, they would be shocked, and scared by the absolute calm in them.


    Suddenly, everyone felt the world around them slow down into a crawl. Even the iparably fast blood orbs started moving at a crawl. The demons were shocked, they couldn''t understand how could time just stop.


    But then, opposite of them, they saw Adam swing his sword. The swing seemed slow, so slow that even a child would be able to dodge it.


    But none of the demons were able to move, and the red orbs were so slow they seemed to be immobile too.


    As Adam finished his swing, sword aura filled the sky.

 Chapter 235: Second Restriction

    Chapter 235: Second Restriction


    The sword light filled the sky and formed a barrier in front of Adam. The world seemed to regain it''s course as the orbs shed with the sword light.


    However, the hundreds of Blood Orbs, each of which was supposed to be equal to the attack of a Level 200 Demon, only managed to shake the barrier. Kriar was shocked, and he understood they had failed. No, they hadn''t just failed, they were dead.


    The moment Kriar felt the overpowering power surround him, he understood they were finished. That was a domain. They had no chance against a domain, they couldn''t even flee.


    As the sword light disappeared, Adam felt the power of his past life. The domain Although it was only ten meters in size for now, it remained extraordinary. Within those ten meters, Adam was the master of everything.


    Everything inside his domain appeared to him clearly, he was aware of all the enemies, their strengths, their weakness. Even the world surrendered to his domain, if he wanted, he could use his very domain to suppress his enemies with the might of the world.


    [Congrattions for opening the Gate of Life! Domain unlocked.]


    Alongside his Domain, Adam also felt his understanding over the Sword Concept rise, and he finally understood what height he had reached as Old Adam.


    Unfortunately, it wasn''t the Sword Essence. However, the Sword Concept held no more secret for him, he had understood the Concept to 100%. This, in turn, gave him ess to S Rank Skills. The sword light he used earlier was an S Rank Skill, one of the moves of Eternal Art.


    Eternal Art was made of four main moves of incredible power, all of S Rank. This was the first move, which was used for defence. It''s name was [Rising Pir].


    While inside his domain, the demons were weakened, and although Adam''s domain was only ten meters in size, they were all clustered together due to activating the Blood g.


    Adam appeared in front of them, he would let none of them escape. It wasn''t just because they were enemies, but also because Adam had felt something strange after opening the 5th Gate.


    He could feel his mind unlock something, he couldn''t really tell why, but he knew he needed arge amount of Soul Energy.


    He had absorbed so much Soul Energy left to refine with his hunt the day before he would have normally needed more than a month to absorb it, and that was under the condition he already had strengthened his spirit.


    And yet, all that Soul Energy had been absorbed in a second, and he could feel his Soul ask for more. As long as he absorbed enough, Adam felt he would gain something incredible. He didn''t know what, but he yearned for it.


    So the demons were right where he needed them to be. Although there were less demons than beasts he had hunted, those demons were all very strong, so they should be able to satiate his hunger.


    Before any of them could take the time to escape, Adam swung down his sword, using the second move of the Eternal Art, [Gravity Press].


    The gravity around Adam suddenly turned manifolds stronger, so strong the demons weren''t able to maintain flight, even Kriar. Moreover, some were hit directly by Adam''s sword.


    -450.000.000 HP!


    The gravity itself crushed the demons, and all those in the Domain suffered 450 Million damage. But for those hit by the sword itself


    -1.350.000.000 HP!


    The damage had gone over a billion They were deader than dead, they had no chance of even resisting. Adam had gotten almost twice as strong thanks to his sword ranking up, and the might of S Rank Skills was simply way too powerful. They had simply no chance of even resisting Adam.


    The attack had been so strong that all the demons died, except for Kriar. But even Kriar was in a bad shape, thankfully he hadn''t been hit by the sword itself, but he still had most of his bones shattered.


    Adam flew down to Kriar, who was coughing out blood. The old demon didn''t have despair in his eyes, but eptance. He said "I certainly don''t deserve it, but before my death, may I see your strongest strike?"


    Adam replied "My sword art is known as Eternal Art, and it isposed of four moves, all of them being S Rank Skills. I defended using the first move, Rising Pir, and killed them using the second move, Gravity Press. I have two moves remaining, one for crowds, and the other for singr targets. I shall kill you with my fourth move."


    Kriar smiled and looked at Adam intently. He was going to die anyway, if he could enjoy hisst moments then he would. He yearned to know what power Adam achieved.


    As for Adam, he swung his sword with both hands, putting all the power he had. The move''s name was [Sever], and it was the epitome of strength.


    As the sword began swinging down, Kriar felt the world itself lock around him. Even if he were at full power, he wouldn''t be able to move a finger. Also, he could see the space around them shatter into pieces, revealing the void hidden behind.


    Alongside the void, the grand array they had set to trap Adam shattered as well, no showing any resistance toward the sword. And the sword had just barely began moving.


    After space, time was affected. Time became slower, much slower, and swirled around the sword, turning it faster.


    Finally, the sword reached the apex of destruction, everything around the sword had been destroyed. Even their surroundings were destroyed, the earth was destroyed. As for the Nascent Souls of the demons, they were pushed out of Adam''s domain by him because he didn''t want to annihte them with this move, or not even Soul Energy would be left.


    Finally, Adam''s sword hit Kriar, but thetter had already died as his body and soul were destroyed.


    Strangely, no damage value appeared above Kriar''s body. He was annihted, soul and body destroyed and never to return.


    [Second Restriction broken through.]


    Adam raised an eyebrow at the strange notification, and suddenly he felt his body change. Then, Adam felt the strength of his equipment lessen by a great deal, they no longer turned his attributes stronger.


    As Adam was fearing he was losing too much power though, he then felt the world around him change, as if it opened to him. The power he lost from his equipment was reced by the power of the world, and some more.


    Even the Aura in Adam''s body changed, turning into something much closer to Qi on Earth. No, not just much closer, it was turned into Qipletely.


    The changes continued for an entire minute before Adam felt everything end. Curious, he sent a look at his status, and was shocked by what he saw.


    [Name: Adam Collins]


    [Rank: Silver]


    [Level: 89]


    [Title: Strith''s Champion]


    [Race: Northman]


    [ss: Yin Supreme]


    This was all that appeared. His attributes, the percentage of his Concepts, his Aura and HP Arge part of Adam''s status had simply disappeared. Over half of it had disappeared.


    Adam tried to inspect his equipment, and what was shown was vastly different from what he used to see.


    [War Sovereign''s Greatsword] (Epic)


    [Water Dragon Helmet] (Unique)


    [Water Dragon Gauntlets] (Unique)


    [Water Dragon Chestte] (Unique)


    [Water Dragon Boots] (Unique)


    The skills and attributes of the equipments had disappeared too, and only the name and rank were left. Moreover, while they were on him, Adam could feel their power had vastly changed from what they used to be.


    Now, Adam understood what had happened to him. Hisst strike had, for some reason, allowed him to break through the ''second restriction''. At first, he didn''t know what it was, but with everything he discovered, he was pretty sure it was the system''s second restriction.


    The first one had been destroyed when he ranked up to Silver Rank, and now the second one was broken, destroying arge part of the influence the system had on him.


    Now, he would no longer be limited by the system, or much lesser than before. His body now was fully freed, meaning he wouldn''t be protected by the system, nor would others be protected by it.

 Chapter 236: Craving for Soul Energy

    Chapter 236: Craving for Soul Energy


    If Adam swung his sword at someone''s arm, then no matter how much HP they have, they won''t die because of it, they will only have their arm chopped off.


    Normally, with the system, then if a powerhouse attacks a weaker person, then it doesn''t matter where they are hit as the damage will be spread all over their body. For example, with his previous stats, if Adam shed at the arm of an Iron Rank, he would kill them.


    However, now Adam felt that if he wanted to, he could simply cut their arm and not kill them. The applied to him naturally, he would only have himself to protect himself from now on.


    Moreover, the equipments also were a great change. They no longer could strengthen him, armours would block damage and weapons would allow him to deal more damage, like in the real world. He wouldn''t gain strength or any other stat because of them.


    Of course, the equipments would still have their skills on, as those didn''te from the system, but enchantments.


    Finally, thest big change was on the Concepts. Before, the power of Concepts themselves were limited by the system, the boost they gave to the user was quite meagre, and using a Concept only to defeat someone was hard.


    However, with this new change, Adam felt the power of his Concepts be much stronger. Of course, another reason was the power of his Concepts themselves.


    90% to a Concept was the start of the Peak Level, and even 1% of a Sovereign Concept was as strong as a fully mastered Basic Concept, so the power of that Concept was quite good. As for 100%, it wasplete mastery, and since Adam was able to use S Rank Skills, then 100% of a Sovereign Concept was as strong as 1% of a Basic Essence.


    Essences were the realm of Legends, the peak of mortals. Of course the power of his Sword Concept was overwhelming. The only weak point about his Concept was the fact he hadn''t condensed an Essence, meaning it couldn''t really merge with his domain as it should.


    Adam estimated that if he managed to condense his Essence, then the power of his S Rank Skills would at least double.


    But that was a matter for another time. Now, Adam had to satisfy his growing hunger. Adam attracted all the Nascent Souls to him, crushing them with ease. Before, his Spirit Attacks were under his Strength attribute because of the system.


    Now however, his Spirit Attacks would finally take their source from his spirit, meaning they suddenly became much stronger. In front of him, the Nascent Souls couldn''t even offer a bit of resistance as they were crushed and Adam absorbed their Soul Energy.


    The Soul Energy from 40 Higher Demons, all above Level 170, was very powerful, but Adam could see that at the rate it was going, it would take minutes to be absorbed. Then, he would once again have to absorb even more Soul Energy.


    Fortunately, Adam knew just the right ce the absorb plenty of Soul Energy, the demon city. Yes, he would be killing a LOT of innocents, demons weren''t ALL bad as people tried to portray them, but they were a chaotic race.


    And to reach their current position of ruler with no other race other than monsters in the dimension, the demons had exterminated all the other races.


    Finally, Adam couldn''t have those demons in this dimension as he intended to make it his, and he wouldn''t stand having demons in his base. So for all those reasons, Adam wasn''t going to show mercy to them, even if they were ''innocent''. And they would even be useful to him.


    Adam also thought of Neith, who was worried sick in the Blood Tower, so he quickly reassured her and told her a massacre was about to take ce.


    So Adam flew off at top speed, toward the Demon City. As for Tazolos Although Adam wasn''t confident in fighting against a Legend, he could easily flee from them if they were newly ascended like Tazolos.


    And that was worst case scenario. The demon most likely hadn''t even promoted to the next rank yet, so Adam no longer had anything to fear in Providence.


    It would have normally taken him several minutes to reach the demon city, but now all he had needed was thirty seconds to arrive above the demon city.


    Below him, the demons had no idea of what wasing for them. Adam flew down and soon came in contact with the barrier. As expected, it was very strong, and had it been before he opened the 5th Gate, even attacking it continuously for days wouldn''t help.


    After all, the array was powered by a strong energy source, and to deal with this kind of barrier, one had to destroy it in one strike, or it would recover quickly.


    And Adam did just that. First summoning Neith, he had her wait to the side before using Sever. The sky turned dark as arge part of space was shattered. The demons in the city, be they the mortals or the remaining Sages, they all looked up to see Space crack open, alongside the array that had protected them for their entire lives.


    Meanwhile, Neith looked at her father with reverence in her eyes, that sword strike was simply too beautiful to look at. For anyone who started understanding the Concepts, seeing someone use a Concept to it''s paroxysm was a pleasure, even if it was another Concept than the one they had mastered.


    With the array now destroyed, Adam closed his eyes before sending an overpowered Spirit Wave. Another change from breaking the Second Restriction was him being able to overcharge his skills like he did with the Sun Spear in Greece.


    Moreover, with his new power, Adam could probably wipe out the city with one skills if he wanted to, a strong Water Skill could crush the city or freeze it if he infused enough Qi. But he wouldn''t do that, because a skill that had the strength to wipe out a city would destroy the souls of mortals as well as their poor Soul Energy before he could absorb it.


    That''s why, Adam did something simpler. Overpowering the Spirit Wave allowed him to kill the souls of weaker beings while still keeping their Soul Energy.


    As the Spirit Wave spread out, everyone below Gold Rank fell to the ground, dead, while their souls were destroyed, releasing Soul Energy that was attracted to Adam like a ck Hole. As for Gold Ranks, they also died, but their Soul was strong enough to not be destroyed instantly.


    Unfortunately for them, Adam sent a second normal wave through he city, destroying their souls too. In a single second, every being below the Sage Rank had been killed, their souls destroyed, and even the Higher Demons were wailing in pain while holding their heads.


    As the Soul Energy of the demons below Sage Rank swirled into Adam''s body, he created a big barrier in the sky to block the demons from escaping. Then, transforming into a lightning bolt, he moved between the different demons, killing them with a single swing of his sword.


    Some demons tried to escape, but once they came in contact with Adam''s barrier they felt a huge headache, and their body began to get covered in frost. Although it didn''t kill them, it slowed them long enough for Adam to appear and finish them.


    In under a minute, Adam was the only survivor in the city. Apart from him there were only corpses around. Fortunately, he could feel he had finally absorbed enough, and when he finished processing the Soul Energy he would get to see a change.


    But before that, Adam headed for the pce, which had been repaired, and quickly flew threw it using his Domain to search. Unfortunately, it looked like Tazolos had fled, Adam had found his cultivation cave and saw an escape tunnel.


    On the other hand, he hadn''t had the time to take the treasury with him

 Chapter 237: Wonder

    Chapter 237: Wonder


    Adam didn''t have the time to look through the library as he simply sent everything into the Blood Tower. The tremendous Soul Energy he had absorbed was in the process of being refined, and Adam could feel his Soul get stronger and stronger.


    However, he could also feel something would happen when the Soul Energy finished being refined, and since he didn''t know what it would be, he had to do a few things first.


    He appeared on top of the city once again and quickly sent Neith into the Blood Tower before flying toward the ce where Neith had been ambushed. By the time he reached the ce, half of the Soul Energy had already been refined, and the refinement speed was getting quicker and quicker.


    Using his power to form a gigantic hand of Qi, Adam grabbed a huge chunk off the ground, destroying the mountain under which the cave Neith originally headed for was.


    It revealed arge tunnel leading toward a cave, so Adam carelessly threw the mountain away and rushed into the cave. Then, using the same move, he took everything inside the cave, not even minding whether they were rocks or precious ores, and sent them to Neith in the Blood Tower and told her it was time to evolve.


    Then, Adam flew out of the cave and quickly flew to the clouds before he finally on top of one of them. It was normally impossible to stand on a cloud, but with his power Adam was easily able to do so. Meanwhile, back on Earth Adam made sure he was in a safe ce.


    Half a minuteter, the remaining Soul Energy had finally been entirely refined, and Adam felt his new Soul. His Soul now radiated a raw might so powerful that if Adam were to have his soul leave his body, a mortal would probably turn crazy or even die simply by standing close to it.


    But Adam didn''t have much time to observe it as he felt like a lock on his Soul was opened, and his Soul began shining. Before he could even understand what was happening, he lost consciousness as his Soul began an extraordinary transformation.


    Even while he was unconscious, Adam''s domain was still active, and as the transformation took ce, his domain was turning stronger and stronger.


    Several hours quickly went by, during which Adam''s Soul went through a myriad of changes. Until now, because of the massive amount of Soul Energy his soul had absorbed, it had be massive in size, but the quality was a little behind.


    Adam''s soul had the form of a human, but used to be blurry and did not have any particr traits. However, it was several tens of meters tall, and it had eventually reached exactly 100 meters tall when he finished absorbing Soul Energy.


    Now however, his Soul returned to it''s initial size, the size of a normal human being. But the originally bluish Soul now was of a blinding white, and it exuded an overwhelming Aura. Moreover, it''s traits were no longer vague, and it had turned into Adam''s exact body. Before integrating with an Essence, a Soul would always be simr looking to their host.


    Before long, Adam opened his eyes, having finally regained consciousness. The moment he did, he was shocked. The first thing that came to him was his Domain, which now covered an area of a kilometer, forming a dome with a radius of a thousand meters around Adam.


    Moreover, it wasn''t only the size that changed, but it''s power too. Before, Adam could influence the world with difficulty, but now he could do so with ease. Now, using the same amount of Qi as before, his skills would turn much stronger than they used to be.


    Additionally, the world seemed to hold no secret for Adam anymore, and he felt the Concepts just became much easier to understand, their mysteries unravelling before him.


    Meanwhile, Adam also so a notification from the system. Although he had broken free from much of it''s influence, the system still existed.


    [Congrattions for opening the Gate of Wonder! Brain activity increased by 100 times!]


    As expected, those big changes were brought by the opening of the Sixth Gate. Adam never would have guessed he would open the Sixth Gate, which had blocked him in his past life, so easily. His domain bing much stronger was only a side effect of his Soul and brain bing much stronger.


    Adam then unsheathed his sword, and as expected, it had changed too.


    [War Sovereign''s Greatsword] (Mythic)


    Adam''s sword had now reached the second best rank after Legendary Equipment. In other words, it was only one rank away from turning into a Legendary Sword. As thus, great changes were brought to it.


    Although it was already very strong when it was Epic Ranked, capable of breaking arge array protecting a city, it was multiple times stronger now. It no longer looked like the decrepit old sword it was when he first got it too, and it had already regained a major part of it''s splendour.


    The sword was of an immacte white, with golden runes covering it. When he held it, Adam felt like it was the elongation of his body, not just a weapon. He had truly be one with his weapon, without even using the power of the Concept.


    Although he was below a Legend in term of power before, Adam was confident he could battle it out with a new Legend with his strengthened domain and sword. One had to understand the difference in power between a peak Hero and even the weakest Legend was very vast. If he wanted to, Adam could kill an average Hero using only the power of his domain.


    As for a peak hero like Tazolos or Kriar, although he wouldn''t be able to outright kill them, his Domain would still make them much weaker, weak enough to have them killed by an average Hero.


    His domain now one kilometer wide, Adam would also be able to search the world much more effectively. He flew down near the ground so his Domain would go a kilometer in the sky and a kilometer in the ground, making his search much easier.


    Adam then sped up toward his base. However, barely five seconds after flying off, Adam stopped as he felt a powerful monster enter his domain. Well, not really powerful for him.


    Adam appeared in an instant next to the monster, who shivered as it felt the overwhelming domain around it. Adam, who was in the sky, looked down at the shivering goat monster under him, and said "You have two choices, submit or die."


    The goat replied with difficulty "Please I submit." Adam nodded and said "I guess you have already heard of my conditions from the others Sages?" The goat nodded, so Adam added "I have already taken the Demon City, and Tazolos will soon join his fellow demons in oblivion. The war won''t take ce, so send your resources to demon city. You have one week."


    The goat nodded, it was reluctant obviously, but it would rather lose all it''s treasures than die. Moreover, with that strange power covering it, it knew it had no chance of escape. As for reneging on it''s promise after Adam left That would be even worse.


    Even if it was able to hide from Adam, living a life in hiding wasn''t a nice life to have. It would rather give up all it''s resources, which didn''t really amount to much, and live a good life, going up and down his mountain, rather than hiding in some grotto several kilometers underground.


    After subduing the goat, Adam flew back toward his base. It only took him a few seconds to reach the base, and just as he expected, Tazolos hadn''t dared toe and try to attack.


    That indeed had been a danger, Tazolos could havee and attacked the camp, exterminating everyone, if he wanted to as Adam was away. But Tazolos didn''t know, and it would have been very dangerous to get near the camp.


    But even though the chances of that happening, there were still chances for it to happen, and Adam would have been helpless. Fortunately, Tazolos hadn''t taken the risk, and everyone was fine.

 Chapter 238: World Domination

    Chapter 238: World Domination


    When Adam appeared next to the camp, he kept his Domain off, but it no longer exuded the oppressing might it usually did. Actually, the people inside the camp didn''t even know that their every move was under Adam''s scrutiny.


    In an instant, Adam located the leaders of the different forces making his camp, and using his domain, he transmitted them all a message only they could hear "The demons have all been killed, except for Tazolos. Send your men to the Demon City and clean the city. I want the city to be cleaned and repaired."


    After he said that, he left and flew toward the Demon City to collect the corpses of the Demons and sent them into the 57th Floor of the Blood Tower, where Neith was busy evolving.


    The reason he hade back to his camp first was because he was closer, but he didn''t want to just leave those corpses as they would be useful to Neith even after she evolved. Only after taking every corpse did Adam finally set down back in his camp and started meditating.


    Now that Adam had broken through those two Gates, not only had he be much stronger, but his rate of improvement would also be much faster. Moreover, his Spirit Concept had considerably advanced, and although it hadn''t reached the apex of the Concept Realm, it should be around 96-97%.


    As Adam started meditating on his gains, turmoil set in the camp. Although Adam had only spoken to the leaders of the different forces, they had to send people to scout the demon city, and when those people came back with the news of the demons having died, the news quickly spread to the entire camp.


    They began feeling respect, but also fear toward Adam. He had killed ALL the demons, not just their warriors. The scouts had entered the city, and they had seen the corpses Although everyone in the camp belonged to the strongest forces and would have done the exact same, it didn''t make the feat any less scary.


    Until now, although they had seen Adam''s absolute power, he never did anything that hunted to such barbarity. Now though, everyone knew that offending Adam could lead to a very bad ending for them.


    After that, things started quickly changing for everyone in Providence. The forces of Epoch had be the new ruling force of Providence, with Adam being the absolute leader. The demons had been almost exterminated, with the exception of some tribes that didn''t join the city and Tazolos of course.


    As for the monsters, Adam hadn''t been kind with them either as he forced them into submission, having them give him all their resources. With his Domain, Adam was able to scout much more efficiently, and it became extremely hard to hide from him.


    Tazolos though managed to do so through unknown means as the Half-King Demon seemed to have disappeared from the surface of Providence.


    Three months after the defeat of the demons, the forces of Epoch hadpletely rearranged the demon city, which had been renamed by Adam the Divine Capital. Although Adam hadn''t yet established his kingdom since he felt it was pointless without any subjects, he intended for this city to be the future capital of his Kingdom.


    Providence would make the best base for Adam as he was invincible in here, so he would be able to strengthen his forces without anyone interfering.


    During those three months Adam had been quite busy. The first thing he did was to wipe out the demonic spies among the forces of Epoch, and it had been quite easy. With his domain, he was able to read the rough emotions of everyone in it thanks to his Spirit Concept, or read their memories by focusing on them.


    Using those abilities, Adam not only fished out all the spies, he even destroyed the Demonic Forces who came from Epoch and trapped them.


    Trying to send spies to someone who mastered the Spirit Concept was in itself dangerous, even more so if that person was as strong as a Legend, had a domain and mastered the Sovereign Spirit Concept.


    But doing this took him three days, not three months. What took most of his time was to search through the entire Providence. Using his speed and domain, Adam had searched through the entire dimension.


    However, even after doing this, he hadn''t found Tazolos. He was either in a strange ce that was even capable of blocking Adam''s sight, deeper than a kilometer underground, or higher than a kilometer in the air.


    As for searching though the underground of the world it would just take too much time with his current abilities. That''s why, Adam decided to wait until he broke through to the Gold Rank, by then his Domain would be even bigger and allow Adam to search much more efficiently.


    Moreover, those three months of search weren''t useless as it had allowed Adam to find all the Sages in this dimension and subdue them, and kill the others. Now, after three months, only one Sage remained, and it was the strongest monster in this realm.


    This monster was the previous strongest being in the dimension, even stronger than Tazolos. It also had the most resources aside from Tazolos. Adam had purposefully kept it forst, for no real reason other than this feeling right. Beings under the Legend Rank didn''t really make any difference to a Legend anyway, so fighting that monster wouldn''t make any differencepared to the other Sage Monsters.


    But when Adam arrived to their of that monster, he actually had a nice surprise. Tazolos, whom he had been searching for the past three months, was sitting cross legged, next to the corpse of the monster Adam came here for, a Roc.


    Moreover, Tazolos'' aura was much stronger than it used to be, it was on the verge of reaching the Legend Rank.


    Although this surprised Adam, he was going to wait for his opponent. He instantly suppressed Tazolos using his domain, shocking the demon who opened his eyes in panic.


    He wanted to flee, but he felt himself unable to move. Then, he saw Adam''s sword swing down on him, resembling a ck hole as it did. Using all the strength in his body, Tazolos moved to the side, evading the sword.


    Unfortunately for him, Adam had perfect control of his sword, and redirecting it wasn''t a problem. Instead of cutting the demon from head to two, Adam moved his sword and bisected the demon at the waist.


    Tazolos cried out in pain, and his HP plunged down to 0. Tazolos felt despair, after all his efforts, he was going to die right before his ascension to Legendary Rank.


    However, as Tazolos thought he died, he found himself to still be alive, despite his HP reaching 0. then, he received a notification, telling him he had broken through the second restriction of the system.


    Tazolos was overjoyed, but he knew he still wasn''t out of danger. As for Adam, he was surprised Tazolos had survived that strike, but that didn''t stop him from shing once again.


    Tazolos gritted his teeth and suddenly bit down his tongue while speaking in the demonnguage. As Adam''s sword was about to crush and obliterate his head, it was suddenly stopped, shocking Adam.


    A rift had unknowingly appeared next to them, out of which a hand appeared. That hand had used two fingers to stop Adam''s sword, and it didn''t even look like it had used any effort.


    As Adam was shocked by what happened, the hand moved it''s pinky a little, and another rift appeared, which quickly absorbed Tazolos before disappearing.


    Then, a cold voice came out of the rift where the hand came from "You will pay for trying to kill my descendant, human."


    Then, the portal disappeared, but the hand was cut off. As for Tazolos, he had disappeared.


    Adam grabbed the hand that had fallen, and the demonic power flowing out of it was so powerful it nearly affected his mind. Thankfully, his Soul was much stronger than it used to be, so he resisted it.


    Using the system, he analysed it.


    [Great Devil''s Severed Hand]

 Chapter 239: Last Seclusion

    Chapter 239: Last Seclusion


    Adam was very surprised by the nature of that hand, it meant a Great Devil, a Demonic God, had gone out of his way to help Tazolos.


    Although Adam couldn''t be called an expert in demon knowledge, he knew some bits about demonic rituals and sacrifices, which was exactly what Tazolos had done. Using his body and probably even more, Tazolos had summoned the Demonic God to get save him.


    However, Adam wasn''t scared, as he knew Tazolos was still in this realm. Moreover, to bring a Great Devil, the price he had paid had to be enormous.


    Creating a portal toward Hell or the Divine Realm was very difficult, and needed big sacrifices or energy to be done. And that was in Epoch, which was a whole realm where space was intact.


    However, they were now in a sub dimension, and as such, creating a portal from Providence to Hell was almost impossible. Even if Tazolos sacrificed his entire body and soul, erasing his own existence forever, he would barely be able to summon the Aura of a Demonic God, even as a Legendary Demon.


    The reason that Great Devil had been able to get his hand in Providence was because he had sacrificed his own hand in exchange of saving Tazolos. Moreover, demonic rituals were vicious, and they wouldn''t hold any meaning if the ones performing them could simply heal. Even that Great Devil would have to pay a big price it might not even be able to afford to heal it''s hand.


    The same went for Tazolos, whatever he had sacrificed, it would nevere back. So even though Tazolos had managed to survived, he was now gravely injured, with possibly no way of ever recovering, and he was still in Providence.


    Also, even if Tazolos had fled, it wouldn''t have been really dramatic for Adam. As the owner of the dimension''s core, Tazolos would have toe back to Providence ever now and then to keep the barrier intact.


    The barrier Tazolos had created that barred the ess to the dimension needed energy, which was taken directly from Tazolos. Although it could power itself for some time, it would be limited to a few months. And that was if it was left alone.


    If Adam used his Space Concept to attack it, it would use far more energy. Hence, Adam truly did not worry about the intervention of that Great Devil, it would only dy his ns by a little. The worse that could happen now would be Tazolos opening the dimension to the outside world, which would fold some of Adam''s ns, but even that wouldn''t be dramatic.


    What truly intrigued Adam though was the fact a Great Devil had willingly sacrificed his own hand to save the miserable life of a Half-King Demon. Adam couldn''t help but wonder what kind of rtionship Tazolos and that Great Devil had for theter to step in.


    Well, he would discover it when he captured Tazolos. Moreover, since now it was a good thing as it had even allowed him to pick up the freshly cut hand of a Great Devil.


    The bodies of Great Devils were treasures in themselves due to how strong they were. One could refine them into weapons, armours or potions of incredible might. And there might even be other ways to use that hand, but Adam didn''t know them so he would keep this hand for now.


    Now that Tazolos had been deeply injured, the demon would probably hide while he recovered from his injuries. Adam didn''t want to waste his time searching for the demon, and now that he had plundered all the resources avable in Providence, he would focus on growing stronger in the Divine Capital while the forces of Epoch would work for him.


    Still, Adam wouldn''t forget about the monster below him. He quickly moved it''s corpse into the Blood Tower and created a rift toward it''s treasury, which happened to be within his domain.


    Once he was done, he left for the Divine Capital, ready to begin hisst seclusion before Gold Rank.


    When he arrived there, he gave a few quickmands to his nine Division Leaders, soon to be his nine Heavenly Generals, before entering the cultivation room Tazolos had been previously using.


    As for the city, if anyone were to attack it then they would first have to enter his domain, and he would be able to kill them before they even had a chance to attack.


    After that fateful day where Adam established his domination over the entire dimension, days passed quickly and turned into weeks, and months. Be it his cultivation or his Concepts, both had reached the peak of their respective ranks, and each asked a lot of time.


    Thankfully, Adam''s recent breakthrough with the Gates allowed him to earn a lot of time. Since he heavily injured Tazolos, five months had gone by, and lots of changes took ce in Providence.


    Tazolos had kept the barrier up, meaning he was really still in Providence, and so all the forces of Epoch were forced to stay in the Divine Capital, both for their own safety, and because Adam wanted to keep an eye on them.


    The countless monsters around the world had already been forced into submission, but that was toward Adam. When he spread his tyranny around the world Adam had killed a lot of Sages, meaning a lot of new territories had been created, which started a war among the Sage monsters for them.


    After those few months, the situation had gotten better, and the struggles were basically over. While Adam took their resources, there were still some in the fields, and it would regrow with time for most, which was why those territories were important.


    Moreover, midway through his seclusion, after Adam''s guild had determined the amount of resources they would need to repair and expend the city, as well as build the flying ships, he had decided to give back a part of the remaining resources to the surviving Sages, who now worked under the Ninth Division.


    Speaking of the resources, great progress had been made for the city too as it had been repaired entirely, and they were already starting to expend. Moreover, once Adam opened the dimension back, he intended to have mortals moved to Providence to finally form his kingdom. When he did so, he would create other cities and road for those mortals.


    While it only took minutes for Adam to travel around the world, it wasn''t the same for mortals, who would need days or months if the dimension was left as it was.


    The rest of the forces of Epoch had at some point also grown somewhat bolder, thinking Tazolos'' threat was over, and had tried to take back some of their rights. Their little ''rebellion'' had been quickly extinguished though when some of them had been frozen in the middle of the street from seemingly out of nowhere.


    Finally, for Adam, he had gained a lot during his seclusion. All his Concepts were now at 100%, a step away from Essences, and today he had finally managed to hit Level 100, reaching the absolute peak of the Silver Rank, meaning he was now qualified to enter the Gold Rank.


    But when he reached Level 100, something rather shocking happened. Numerous clouds started appearing above the Divine Capital, and through his domain Adam could feel they weren''t led here by any individual.


    However, he could also feel they didn''te here naturally. Moreover, those clouds hadn''t only appeared above the Divine Capital, but above New York too, back on Earth.


    Some time after they did, Adam finally received his answer as to what they were. Odin had made a special trip and personally told him about them. Apparently, when going through actual cultivation, one would go through a test, Heaven''s Test. One would be struck by lightning when they entered the Inner Core Realm.


    Actually, it would be those lightning bolts that would help one refine their liquid pirs of Qi into a Solid Core.

 Chapter 240: Incoming Tribulation

    Chapter 240: Iing Tribtion


    While the tribtion was unexpected, it could also be a good thing. No one else than him knew what it meant and how long it wouldst, so he had the liberty of choosing what others would know.


    A few minutester, Judith, Adam''s first disciple, came into his room and asked "You summoned me master?"


    Adam nodded and said "Have you seen the clouds above the city?" Judith nodded and said "I have, is it an attack of some sort?"


    Adam shook his head and said "It appeared because of my imminent breakthrough." Judith''s eyes widened as she asked "Are you about to enter the Gold Rank?!"


    Adam nodded, and seeing her excitement he said "Calm down, while those are good news, I need you to do something for me."


    Judith nodded, calming down. Adam said "I want you to spread rumours about the clouds. Tell everyone they are here because of my promotion, and I will be weakened while they stay in the sky. They will remain for one week, and in seven days will be the day I will be at my weakest. I want everyone in this dimension to know about it by the end of the week. After that, I will be a Gold Rank."


    Judith replied "It will be done." and she retreated out of the room.


    Him being weakened was obviously a lie, but he had her say this because he wanted to bait Tazolos into attacking him. Although five months had already gone by since he escaped from Adam, Tazolos couldn''t possibly have healed already, even in a hundred years he probably wouldn''t be able to, and that is considering he has resources.


    But Tazolos already went against Adam''s domain, and he should know that if Adam promotes to Gold Rank, then finding him would be even easier. That''s why, as long as he received the news of Adam being weakened, chances are he will rush to attack Adam. Even if he didn''t, then Adam would be able to breakthrough safely.


    As for attacking him while he was going through the Heavenly Tribtion That would simply be foolish, Tazolos would die before he would be able to hurt Adam. The Heavenly Tribtion, or Heaven''s Test, was a test made by Heaven for individuals, and thus it didn''t ept others'' presence.


    If someone else tried to interfere then they would be smitten by the full might of Heaven, something that would kill even a peak Legend.


    Here, Heaven wasn''t the Divine Realm, but rather the world itself. Going against a tribtion was like going against the world itself, which was suicidal. Although the power of the world was weaker in this dimension than in Epoch, it was still more than powerful enough to kill a Legend like Tazolos.


    Quickly, the news of the clouds'' origin spread around the Divine Capital, and the Sages who entered the city for various reasons quickly ryed the news to the other Sages around the world. In a few days, everyone around the world already knew about it, and many, not only Tazolos, harboured evil ns against Adam.


    The ones from Epoch, although they didn''t like Adam, didn''t have any scheme against Adam, and even wanted to help him as they didn''t know Tazolos had been injured by Adam and was much weaker than usual.


    It was the different Sages around the world who wanted to harm Adam. They didn''t have any hope of leaving this dimension anyway, and the way Adam treated them wasn''t much different from Tazolos.


    They would rather have Tazolos, who lost all of his people, govern them for a few thousands years and die rather than continue serving Adam, who still had the other humans who could seed him.


    Of course, not everyone of them wanted to take action, many were still scared by Adam''s power and intended to watch. If they had the opportunity, maybe they would attack, but if they didn''t then they would rather not have anything to do with this.


    Quickly, a week went by, and Adam would go through his tribtion today not. Even that wasn''t true. Actually, tribtion came after nine days, not seven, but people didn''t have to know that.


    Still, for his trap to be effective, and not to destroy his city in the iing battle, Adam flew out and chose a rtively hidden spot to breakthrough, which Adam wished he could have leaked the location, but having too many clues would deter Tazolos instead of bringing him to him.


    So Adam hoped Tazolos would be able to find him. To help him, Adam would keep his domain active. Now, Tazolos only had toe in a kilometer from Adam and he would find him.


    Even if Adam tried to hide his domain from Tazolos, he wouldn''t even be able. For Heroes or below, they were too weak to really sense the domain if he hid it, but for strong Sages and Legends, they could feel the domain even if it was hidden. Spying on such beings was hard.


    Hours went by, and toward the end of the afternoon Adam suddenly felt a strong person enter his domain. Tazolos had found his hidden spot, who knows how he found him.


    He felt Tazolos visibly stop, clearly hesitating, but as Adam didn''t rush at him, he moved toward Adam. Tazolos moved very slowly, obviously ready to leave at any moment.


    On the other end, Adam didn''t do anything as he feared Tazolos had some means to escape once again, and he wanted him to be as close as possible, to strike him down in an instant.


    1000 meters


    900 meters


    800 meters


    500 meters


    200 meters


    As Tazolos entered within one hundred meters of Adam, the two could already see each other, Adam being on top of a small mountain, while Tazolos was at it''s foot. Both of them could move through this distance in a fraction of a second, although Adam would probably be ten times as fast.


    The two looked at each other, Adam feigned anger, while Tazolos showed some confidence. After a moment, Tazolos said "You bared my path to the Legendary Rank. It wouldn''t be polite of me to not do the same."


    Adam replied calmly "I don''t understand how you managed to recover from your injuries. Summoning a god and surviving is already quite incredible, and now you even managed to recover from your injuries."


    Tazolos sneered and said "You understand nothing. It is now time for you to die!" As he said that, a powerful Aura gushed out of his body, followed by a domain.


    However, before it could really extend, Adam''s domain pressed on it, forcing it to regress, and in the end, it was only able to extend fifty meters around Tazolos.


    Adam raised an eyebrow and said "Looks like you haven''t fully recovered, despite bing a bona fide Legend your Domain only amounts to so much."


    Opening the Fifth Gate wasn''t exactly the only way for one to have a domain, reaching the Legendary Rank also allowed one to form a domain thanks to their Golden Idol.


    However, their domain would be less powerful most of the time, especially against humanoids who opened their 6th Gate.


    Humanoids walked the path of the elite while monsters went for quantity. There were many more Legendary Monsters then humanoids Legends. However, humanoids were generally stronger.


    There were some exception of course, such as the Dragon King, or other powerful monsters. But in exchange, their reproduction rate was much slower than others.


    But even if his domain was weaker than humanoids, as a Legend his domain should still be higher than Adam''s, who hadn''t yet promoted to Gold Rank. But apparently, because of his injuries, his domain was much weaker than it should be, and so Adam was able to overpower him by a big deal.

 Chapter 241: Baphomet

    Chapter 241: Baphomet


    Seeing he wouldn''t be able to rely on his domain much, Tazolos gritted his teeth and sent a big fireball at Adam. However, as it went past his domain and entered Adam''s, it quickly got weakened, and in the end it was extinguished before it could even touch Adam.


    Adam shook his head and said "Now I see what you have sacrificed. You no longer have your Essence, do you?"


    Tazolos'' face turned grave, but he said nothing and rushed toward Adam. Adam shook his head, he was best at melee fight, and Tazolos still chose to close up the distance.


    Domains would dilute a little with distance, and the closer one was to the origin of the domain, the stronger it would be. As such, Tazolos'' domain was getting weaker and weaker as he came closer to Adam.


    When he was one hundred meters away from Adam, his Domain had been suppressed to only one meter, and when he entered within ten meters of Adam, his domain could only stick to his skin.


    Then, Adam used the First Stance of the Eternal Art, bringing Tazolos to the ground.


    Gravity Press!


    Tazolos, even though he was very strong and could fight against the gravity, it would multiply his flying cost by many times, so it simply wasn''t worth it.


    However, the moment he touched the ground, Adam switched to the Third Stance of the Eternal Art, the one he hadn''t had the opportunity to use against the demons.


    Absolute Space!


    Suddenly, Tazolos felt as if he was cut by a thousand swords, he felt like every part of his body was being shed by a singr sword. The pain was immense, and in an instant Tazolos was covered in his own blood.


    The cuts weren''t deep, most were superficial even, but they still bled and made Tazolos look much worse than he actually was.


    But the real attack wasn''t in the immediate damage, as after the first sword strikes, another appeared. Tazolos tried to move, and found it especially easy. Moreover, as he moved forward, the cuts at the front of his body were nullified.


    However, he found out those in his back were doubled in power, making even bigger cuts. Tazolos growled "What kind of devious attack is this?!"


    He tried to move a few more times, but every try would result in the same way. Fortunately for Tazolos, Adam didn''t have infinite Qi, and so he was forced to stop so he wouldn''t have his energy depleted.


    When Adam stopped, Tazolos'' skin had alreadypletely, leaving his flesh bare. Even his flesh and his muscles were in a bad state. As the attacks ceased, Tazolos tried to heal, but he found out there was an energy that made healing himself much harder than it should be.


    Adam grinned and with a wave of his hand, rain began to fall around them. The moment one of those raindrops hit him though, Tazolos almost cried out in pain, and he understood those weren''t mere drops of water, but some kind of acid!


    He quickly used his domain to shield himself from the attack, sighing in relief. However, that could only be a temporary solution as every time a drop hit his domain, it would sap a little of his power. He couldn''t help but look at Adam like he was a monster, he didn''t understand how he could be so powerful.


    But what shocked him was when he felt the space around him freeze, he recognized this feeling, thest time he felt it was when Adam cut off his legs.


    Understanding he only had a few instants left, Tazolos hurriedly stabbed his own chest with his hand, and took out his still beating heart. Under Adam''s shocked eyes, Tazolos squeezed the heart so hard it turned into meat paste.


    As he did, Adam felt the surrounding space twist, and two rifts appeared, out of which a pair of doors appeared. Those doors were metallic, and adorned with jewels. They definitely would be beautiful if it weren''t for the carvings of demons eating humans'' insides.


    The doors were opened, and a demon of the same race as Tazolos appeared. Adam could feel a powerful auraing from the demon, but it was nothingpared to what was behind the door. Whatever was on the other side was vastly more dangerous than this demon, who could even make Adam feel danger.


    The demon''s red eyes turned to Tazolos, who looked like an old man now. Even his red skin turned paler, and the aura of his body turned fainter. Tazolos said with a weak voice "Lord, I sacrificed my vitality for you to kill this man."


    The demon grunted "What a useless demon, if it weren''t for themand of the Higher One, I wouldn''t evene close to your disgusting aura, even if you gave me all your life."


    Tazolos didn''t seem to mind the humiliation as he said "As long as my Lord kills this Northman, I will make sure to put in a good word for you in front of the Ancestor."


    The demon sneered "While you may be useless, you sure made a powerful enemy. I never heard of a someone breaking through the Second Restriction while being a mere Silver Rank. Before we fight, I wish to know your identity."


    Adam put his sword against his shoulder, he had already stopped his earlier blow, and he said "I am Adam Collins, strongest human on Earth, also known as the adventurer Valiant Heart, or the Aqua Sovereign."


    The demon replied "I am Baphomet, one of the Demon Kings under the Higher One, the great Sin of Wrath, Satanas. What you see is one of my clones, and I am here under the request of the Higher One."


    Adam nodded and said "I see. Before our battle" Adam''s domain contracted around Tazolos, who became much weaker because of the sacrifice, and sent him into the ground. He said "I don''t want any nuisance, nor do I want to search for him after our fight."


    Baphomet shrugged "As long as he is not dead." As he said that, a ck me burst out of his body, and Adam felt the dangering from Baphomet rise to an unprecedented peak.


    Baphomet threw a big ball of ck fire toward Adam. Theter could feel that this attack had gone way past the cap of Hero strength, it came from a bona fide Legend.


    With a wave of Adam''s hand, the space in front of him started to distort as it absorbed the ck me, making it appear right behind Baphomet.


    Baphomet raised an eyebrow as he dispersed the mes with another wave of his hand and said "Interesting, I haven''t fought against a spatial expert for quite some time. But weren''t you supposed to be an Aqua Sovereign?"


    Adam smiled and their surroundings started chilling as a snowstorm appeared around them. At the same time, a tide appeared below them, out of which one could see sharks swimming around.


    Baphomet said "Impressive, despite only being a Concept, you are able to use all the potential of your power of understanding to rival an early Essence. Unfortunately, that isn''t enough."


    As he said that, their surroundings suddenly turned hotter as the sea below them was evaporated, and the snowkes didn''t take long to suffer from the same fate. Recing the sea of water were now ck mes, while the snowstorm turned into a firestorm. In under a second, all the water elements around them had been turned into fire ones, and their power were even stronger now.


    Adam frowned and asked "Is this the power of an Essence?"


    Baphomet suddenly toward Adam, who was only able to see him thanks to his improved reaction time. Adam moved to the side, barely dodging a deadly punch. The space behind the punch had been ruptured open, and a huge rift several kilometers long had been opened in the sky.


    Baphomet said "While you may have achieved the power of an Essence, it is of the weakest Essence. This body only has the power of an Intermediate Basic Essence, but it is more than enough to leave you no chance of survival. Even an Early Basic Essence could defeat you though."

 Chapter 242: Fighting Baphomet

    Chapter 242: Fighting Baphomet


    Adam frowned and started releasing steam to his surroundings. Baphomet sent a few ming balls around, and although they burned the steam they went through, it would quickly be filled back.


    Unfortunately, Baphomet''s skin was used to burn damage, and the steam, while hot, wasn''t nearly hot enough to damage him. But it wasn''t Adam''s goal.


    The steam quickly got denser and denser, and it also had the effect of blocking Baphomet''s view. Although theter had a domain, one even stronger than Adam''s, if an area was filled with mist then the view would be blocked. Normally, he would be able to rely on the other senses, especially the sixth one, but Adam''s mist was special.


    While the steam intensified, Adam sent multiple flying shes all around him, as he too did not know where Baphomet was. Out of all his shes, he felt on of them being stopped, thus feeling where Baphomet was.


    He immediately fired a focused spirit beam, which hit the demon. As strong as he was, his spirit was still hit pretty badly, and he was forced to stop for a moment, long enough for Adam to close up on him and sh him with his sword.


    But the moment his sword was about to cleave him in two, Baphomet suddenly awoke from his stupor and blocked the blow with his arm guard, following which he used his ws to sh at Adam.


    Baphomet''s ws easily shed through Adam''s Water Dragon armor, ruining the armor with a single blow, shing open his flesh at the same time.


    He hurriedly retreated, but Baphomet threw several ck fire balls at him, surrounding him. He tried to dodge, but they all exploded before even touching him. As he thought he had dodged the attack, the mes of the explosion joined together to form a big dome around Adam, imprisoning him inside.


    The ck me were so hot that Adam''s whole armor started melting, so Adam hurriedly sent the armor into the Blood Tower. As much as it saddened him, the armor had now be useless to him.


    But he went through so much trouble to get it, he didn''t just want to leave it to melt, even if he couldn''t use it anymore, he could still keep it as a memento.


    Meanwhile, the mes around him began advancing toward him, and the temperature was getting hotter and hotter, his skin was quickly turning red. If not for theyer of Qi covering his body, he would most probably be burnt alive in a matter of seconds.


    For a moment, Adam wished he still had his berserk skill, but unfortunately. For some reason, when he reached 100% understanding for the Concept of Self, the berserk skill, [Totemic Rage], disappeared and became unusable.


    But it was as he took off his armor he felt something he never did before. All his Concepts had already been pushed to the peak, but none had yet condensed into an Essence. Moreover, for most of them, he didn''t have any idea as to how he was going to condense them.


    Unfortunately, he didn''t have the time to ponder on this new discovery. Although condensing an Essence would definitely be a great power up, he knew he had only taken the first step into condensing the Self Sovereign Essence.


    This gave him an idea though. His Sword was by far the closest to condense into an Essence, he had already reached the peak of the Concept for five months now, and he had already reached this level for years back in his life as Old Adam.


    He first used Rising Pir, forming a wall of sword light to cut the fire dome, before Adam had the steam transform into ice. As for the me dome, it rapidly repaired itself, burning through the ice. However, before it could fully close itself, Adam moved through the ice to get out of it.


    It was a new trick Adam had learned that allowed him to move much faster in water, steam or ice. What he did was not transform into ice, water or steam and move inside the element he created, it wouldn''t work with ice.


    Instead, he would fuse with the element he had created, bing part of it, which allowed him to move through it much quicker.


    Something interesting was that the matter he moved the quickest in was ice instead of water or steam. As a solid, logic would say it is much harder to move in ice than in the other two, followed by water, and steam would be the fastest.


    But it was the exact opposite, travel through ice was the fastest, followed by water, and steam was the slowest of the three. Since Adam didn''t know how quick the fire dome would reform, he had chosen the transform his surroundings into ice.


    Once outside, Adam didn''t just stand there, and quickly moved toward Baphomet, who still thought Adam was in the ball of fire. Only when Adam emerged from the ice, his sword already heading for Baphomet, did the demon realize with shock Adam had managed to leave the ball of fire.


    With a quick and decisive strike, Adam managed to make a big cut all over Baphomet''s chest, spraying blood all over. Baphomet looked a little shocked as he said "Are you a disciple of Enya?" As he said that, he punched at Adam.


    While he retreated, Adam was curious as to why Baphomet suddenly talked about Enya? Why would that demon talk about the main goddess of Northmen in the middle of their fight?


    So he asked "What made you say that?" Baphomet frowned and said "That was Enya''s technique, Ice Shift. Only her knows that technique."


    Adam rolled his eyes and said "I don''t have any master, I learned that by myself. You don''t have to worry about the consequences."


    Then, he sent a flurry of flying shes as he turned the ice into water this time, disappearing within. As he did so, he formed a clone to stand in his ce and moved next to Baphomet.


    He had his clone move his arms around as Adam manipted the water he was in, forming spears to attack Baphomet. Baphomet first was wary, and used ck mes to counter them, but quickly the numbers became overwhelming.


    So he changed tactics and used minimal force to deal with them. After a few seconds he said to Adam''s clone "Do you really think you are going to achieve anything with this kind of weak attacks?"


    Adam''s clone smiled and the water that had started umting on Baphomet was turning colder and colder, making him slower and slower. This made the demon frown as he turned a part of his attention toward making his skin hotter.


    The moment he did so, Adam hurled himself toward the demon in the form of a water spear, and like all the other spears, Baphomet stopped him with minimal strength. The moment he did so though, Adam''s two arms manifested from the water, alongside his weapon, and struck mightily at the throat of the demon.

 Chapter 243: Sword Essence

    Chapter 243: Sword Essence


    Although Baphomet was very strong, this body was a clone, and it mainly relied on it''s mastery over the Essence injected in it to fight, so it''s body was quite weaker.


    Adam''s surprise attack was too fast to properly react, and Baphomet was barely able to protect himself with one of his arms, but that arm was cut off, offering close to no resistance to the de.


    The de then entered Baphomet''s neck, this time meeting much stronger resistance. Baphomet had actually set the front part of his neck ame, allowing those to stop the sword from crushing his spine and cutting his head off.


    Those ck mes were the mes of hell though, and they were known for their destructive power. Even Baphomet wasn''t immune to them, and his injury would never be healed. With the massive amount of blood sshing out of his throat, he would take long to die.


    However, to him it was still better than being beheaded and instantly killed, as this was only a clone. Although he would rather have his clone survive and return to the main body, his main goal was to kill Adam.


    After dealing this severe injury, Adam hurriedly retreated, making sure to dodge every drop of ck blood and those mes. Although he didn''t know if the demon''s blood was harmful, it was better not to take any bets.


    Baphomet could regrow his arm if he wanted to, but since this clone would soon die it would be a waste to do so. Moreover, this clone''s body was quite weak and had no chance against Adam in closebat.


    Baphomet released a guttural roar as ck lines started expending onto his skin, and ck mes exploded out of his body. Adam sent multiple sword strikes at him, but the mes swallowed them all, dealing no damage to Baphomet.


    Since it wasn''t working, Adam manipted the surrounding space to create a small space storm. Space storms were very dangerous as anyone entering them would be struck with thousands of space cuts.


    A Legend may be able to resist a few of those, but being struck by thousands would hurt anyone. Hell''s Fire was strong, very strong, but even it couldn''t do much in front of space. The mes were quickly absorbed into the numerous rifts, whose exit points were between the severalyers of space, where it wouldn''t be able to hurt anyone.


    Baphomet''s body quickly turnedpletely ck though, and as the numerous space des were finished with the mes they struck his body. However, much to Adam''s shock, Baphomet barely received any damage from them.


    Baphomet then pointed his remaining palm toward the sky and a big ball of Hell''s Fire appeared above his hand. In a second it turned into a fireball that was one hundred meters in radius. Adam tried to send many attacks at it, but as they hit the fireball they were absorbed harmlessly.


    Blood started flowing from the demon''s mouth, and ck mes appeared around his body. Moreover, unlike earlier, they weren''t here to buff him, but were instead consuming him quickly.


    Adam understood this would be thest attack. From the size and power of the fireball, Adam knew escaping was not an option, so he had to face that attack. This meant it was hisst chance.


    Adam closed off all his senses,pletely ignoring the fireball, the wrecked space around them and the howling Tazolos who begged Baphomet to spare him.


    Adam''s perception became void as he concentrated on the Sword, and only the sword. All his knowledge of the sword, around forty years of experience with it, of fighting, he swept through all of it to create the best attack he could.


    Fusing his years of insights into one sword, one sword to cut a path, to cut Hell''s Fire, to cut life and death. One sword, to cut the world.


    While Adam was forcing a breakthrough, Baphomet was finallypletely consumed by mes, and the fire ball had reached 500 meters in size. He threw the fireball as his burning body fell toward the ground. Still, he kept his Golden Idol, which had been badly burned by Hell''s Fire, still on as he wanted to see whether he would kill Adam or not.


    Although the Northman was his enemy, he was curious as to whether he would be able to use this fight to his own advantage and rise from it, or like countless talents before him, fall to his demise.


    As the fireball fell toward him though, Adam didn''t even know it was falling at him. His whole body, spirit and soul were focused on the sword. As the fireball arrived on meters in front of Adam, it suddenly disappeared. Meanwhile, Adam''s eyes were no longer closed, but wide open, looking at the falling Baphomet.


    Baphomet, who was now in the form of his Golden Soul, a strand of Hell''s me, said "Amazing Did you just sh time apart?"


    Adam appeared next to the falling Golden Soul with extreme speed and caught it before he said "I did."


    Meanwhile, in his head, next to his Soul, a sword suddenly appeared. That sword was quite small, but exuded absolute power. It felt as if it could cut everything in the world, if not the world itself. This was Adam''s new Sword Essence. Despite being at the Early Level, it was already as a Late Essence.


    Like Concepts, Essences were split in Early, Intermediate, Late, Peak and Absolute Mastery, or Apex. Of course, this was the name Adam had given them, maybe others had different names for them.


    They were the equal of 1%, 10%, 50%, 90% and 100%.


    However, for Essences, unlike Concepts, an Early Sovereign Essence wasn''t as strong as an Apex Basic Essence, the difference in strength between the different stages of Essence was far wider than those of Concepts.


    Now, Adam''s Early Sovereign Sword Essence was as strong as a Late Basic Essence. But not all Essences were the same, and all their powers were different. Sword Essence was one of the essences with the greatest offensive power, but it wasn''t good for movement, defence or many other things.


    Admittedly, there were no stronger or weaker Essences or Concepts, as long as they were of the same rank, their uses were different, but their overall power were roughly equal.


    The only thing that truly differed was how much others knew about it, and the situation the person was in. Someone who only cultivated the sword would have an excellent fighting power, but would suck in a race.


    Anyway, it was a good thing Adam had managed to condense that Essence, as he now really stood as a Legend, as a being invincible to all those below his rank. Although his body wasn''t yet at the level of a Legend, merely the peak of Heroes. However, his strong Sword Essence allowed him to match with new weak Legends.


    But when he would go through his tribtion and reached the Gold Rank, then his body would enter the Legendary Rank too. By then, he would be even stronger than the new Legends.


    But for now he had other things to do. He first grabbed Tazolos and crushed him both physically and spiritually, obliterating him from existence, and absorbing his Soul Energy. As he did so, a sphere appeared in front of him.


    Adam''s Qi surrounded it, and as he infused his spiritual energy into it, he confirmed it was the core of the dimension, the key to the dimension.


    Adam quickly merged with it, grating him control over the dimension, and he felt the gate was still closed.


    Now that the troublesome Tazolos had been dealt with, Adam turned his attention toward the Hell''s Fire ember, Baphomet''s clone Golden Soul.


    Baphomet''s voice came from the Golden Soul "While losing a clone will weaken me for some time, that was an enjoyable fight."

 Chapter 244: Tribulation

    Chapter 244: Tribtion


    As he said that, Baphomet was ready to have this avatar''s Golden Soul destroyed, but, much to his shock, Adam said "Actually, I can spare your Golden Soul and allow it to go back to your main body."


    While he didn''t know much about other avatar techniques than the Yin-Yang Technique he used, he could guess that losing an avatar would always result in a weakened period, or it could even be permanent in certain cases. If Adam lost one of his avatars, half of his soul would be lost forever, alongside his understanding of the Fire or Water Concept.


    While shocked, Baphomet said after a short moment "Don''t think sparing my soul will save you."


    Adam smiled and said "If I didn''t know better I would almost think you want your avatar to be destroyed." Baphomet replied "Although I don''t know what you did, but you angered the Higher One to the point he set an astronomical bounty on your head. All demonic factions will hunt you down in the future, whatever happens to me. While I would like to keep this avatar alive, lying is below me."


    Adam raised an eyebrow and said "Lying is below you, a demon?" Hearing the doubt in Adam''s voice, Baphomet snorted "Demons aren''t a race, it is more of a denomination of various races, just like humanoids. Not all of them are the same."


    He added "Moreover, I am not one of those inferior demons, I am the Great Devil of Purgatory, holder of Hell''s Fire."


    Adam asked, a little shocked "Are you telling me you are the equivalent of a God in power? Would such a persona ept the orders of another demons?"


    Baphomet sneered though "Do you think all Great Devil are equal? Don''t you humanoids have Skyfathers and Skymothers? Aren''t they superior to other gods too?" Adam nodded, that made sense.


    The allegedly Great Devil continued "While I am under the Sin of Pride, you are right to say he can''t order me though. The only reason I epted toe here was because the prize he offered for your life is something I''ve wanted for long."


    Adam shrugged and said "I see. Well, knowing that, I can set you free, as long as you satisfy my demands." Baphomet said "I''m all ears."


    Adam rolled his eyes at the literal ember and said "First, don''t hunt me down in the future, that would be nice. But more importantly, I want information. You already gave me a lot, but I want to know onest thing."


    Baphomet said "I''m fine with not hunting you in the future, I quite like you. I''m fine with this, if you can trust me in not hunting you. As for information, it depends on what you will ask."


    Adam nodded and said "The first condition isn''t very important anyway. I want to know about Hell''s Fire. What you used was clearly the Fire Essence, and yet there seemed to be a twist to it, which I can only rte to Hell''s me. Is it possible to absorb a special me and change an Essence or a Concept?"


    Baphomet was clearly surprised as he asked "Is that all you are asking for?" Adam was surprised at the demon''s surprise too and asked what made him so surprised. Baphomet then said "It''s quitemon knowledge among the powerful, from what I know even Heroes from the Major powers know about this."


    Adam replied "I am not part of any major power." Baphomet hummed "I see. Do you know about Spiritual Beings?" Adam nodded, so Baphomet continued "They do not limit to fruits or liquids, they also extend to the four basic elements. For example, Hell''s Fire is a Spiritual Fire."


    "As for how to integrate them, it is actually quite simple. Once you have condensed an Essence of one of the four basic elements, that is fire, water, wind or earth, you will be able to absorb the Spiritual Elements into your Essence. However, once your Essences fuses with a Spiritual Element, it will be bound to it and it will be impossible for you to change."


    Adam nodded and said "I see. Thank you for the information. As per our deal, you may go." Baphomet said "I need your approval to form a spatial channel out of this dimension." As he said that, Adam felt a ripplee from the core of the dimension he had absorbed. He epted it, and a spatial vortex appeared near Adam and Baphomet.


    However, with their strength, the vortex was unable to influence either of them. Baphomet wiggled a little in his ember form as he said "Farewell, Adam Collins. May our next reunion be peaceful." Adam nodded without a word and Baphomet entered the spatial vortex, disappearing from Providence.


    Now alone, Adam couldn''t help but sigh. It was finally over. After a year imprisoned in this dimension, cultivating like a mad man in a race against time to earn a chance at survival, he had managed toe out on top in the end.


    For the past year he had been filled with a sense of urgency and crisis. Now though, he could rx. Providence was his, he held total control over everyone inside, and his next ns would be easy to put in ce. More importantly, he didn''t have to do everything as quickly as he always did.


    Until now, his growth had been incredibly quick, reaching a Legend''s level of power in slightly more than a year. Even with his powerful body, it had taken a toll on him. Now, what he needed to do was the exact opposite. He didn''t have to rush, but to stall.


    His personal power would grow at a much slower rate now, and his kingdom would need time to build up. Moreover, with his ns, it would be hard to establish his kingdom in any of the Racial Powers, and without their support it would take quite long for his power to grow.


    But he had no worries, for he was confident. Moreover, he would have years, even decades to grow.


    Before any of that though, he had onest hurdle to get pass, and that was his tribtion. Honestly, he wasn''t very scared of it, he was extremely confident of passing it. It was a tribtion meant for Silver Ranks after all.


    Although it would adapt to his power, it was only so for his physical body. It didn''t take into ount his Concepts and Essence.


    Since the tribtion would most probably be extremely destructive, Adam didn''t return to the Divine Capital and instead prepared for the tribtion in the wild.


    Going underground would be totally useless, so after two days of wait he sat on top of a mountain. By now, the clouds in the sky had reached hundreds of kilometers in size, and they exuded such might that no intelligent life dared to stay under it.


    And finally, the awaited moment came. From the clouds, a thick bolt of lightning fell on top of Adam''s head. However, upon contact, it did not even managed to crack his skin. Still, a major part of the force forcefully infiltrated his body.


    But as it did, Adam''s Sword Essence swept through the lightning, destroying it and transforming into energy that directly went toward his Qi Pirs. A transformation starting taking ce as an even stronger lightning bolt fell. But like the previous one, it harmlessly transformed into energy.


    Like that, lightning bolt after lightning bolt, they continued increasing in might. When they reached 50, a change took ce though. As the lightning entered his body, Adam felt it didn''t just spread it''s strength all around his body, but instead umted in certain ces to deal the most damage. He was able to disperse it, but it took more effort.


    When the 80th lightning bolt fell, all of it was concentrated into one point, finally showing the incredible piercing power of lightning.


    When the 90th lightning bolt fell, it couldn''t even be considered a lightning bolt, but rather a lightning beast. A tiger entirely made of lightning had struck Adam, and fought against his Essence inside his body.


    Various monsters were formed in the following bolts. Finally, the 98th one turned into a Divine Roc, the 99th one into a Dragon, and finally, the 100th one fell.


    Adam had taken a considerable amount of damage from the consecutive strikes, as they not only attacked his body, but his soul and mind too. However, he could feel that this would be thest one, the hundredth strike, the ultimate one, the one that would let him be reborn.


    And what better monster to incarnate such divine lightning than the Phoenix, the Divine bird of Nirvana?

 Chapter 245: Promotion

    Chapter 245: Promotion


    The lightning phoenix entered Adam''s body, and faced the Sword Essence, which stood in it''s way. Sword lights fired out of the sword, encircling the phoenix, but the Divine Bird manoeuvred out of the encirclement and tried to rush past the sword.


    The Phoenix seemingly teleported as it flew around the sword lights,pletely avoiding them, and Adam''s eyes shined as he watched. He could feel the insights of space in the bird''s movements!


    Adam quickly had his Sword Essence corner the bird and sent countless sword lights at it, forcing it to use it''s movement technique. Like this, a stalemate started, with the Sword Essence attacking and the lightning phoenix dodging.


    An hour quickly passed, and Adam almostughed out loud as a dark purple vortex appeared in his brain. Through observing the movements of the bird, Adam had miraculously managed to understand the Essence of Space!


    The purple vortex approached the phoenix, and it suddenly found itself unable to move. Adam''s Sword Essence, which had missed everyone of it''s strikes until now, struck the bird, and shed it in half with a single sword.


    Adam''s Sword Essence didn''tck power, but it was simply unable to hit the bird no matter how many times it struck. Originally, Adam would have been forced to spend weeks if not months to continuously attack the bird to exhaust it, but thanks to his new Essence, the bird''s extraordinary movement technique was rendered useless.


    The phoenix, which had been wrecking Adam''s body and healing it continuously, dissolved into energy as it struck Adam''s centre of power. His liquid pirs of Qi had long been dissolved and turned into a semi solid sphere. With the arrival of the phoenix''s energy, the sphere finally solidified.


    The clouds in the sky disappeared, meaning Adam''s tribtion, Heaven''s Test, was over, and he had officially been promoted to Gold Rank, the Inner Core Realm.


    But as Adam thought the transformation was over, something rather shocking took ce. His Sword Essence, which had been fighting until now, as well as his Space Essence, returned to his brain, and went straight for his soul. As the three came in contact with each other, they began shining, so brightly Adam couldn''t even see anything.


    All he felt was a strange feeling in his soul. Minutes passed, and the light slowly disappeared, finally letting Adam see what happened. Much to his shock, his Sword and Space Essences had merged with his Soul!


    His Soul had his appearance, and it looked exactly like him now, after the strengthening it went through many times now. But now, it was holding a sword in it''s hand, which was exactly Adam''s Sword Essence. Moreover, slightly behind it, was the purple vortex which seemed to absorb everything that tried to get near his soul, even light.


    This was weird on so many levels Adam nked out for a few seconds. Shouldn''t only Golden Idols be able to merge their Essence with their Soul? How was he, a Gold Rank, able to do so? As far as Adam knew, this was unprecedented


    Moreover, this was different from the soul merging Golden Idols would go through. The reason the souls of beings under the Legend Rank looked exactly like them was because their soul was still neutral.


    The moment a Legend merged their Soul with their Essence, the soul would take the form of the Essence. For example, Baphomet, whose soul was an ember of Hellfire.


    But Adam''s Soul still looked identical to his real appearance, his two Essences now stood around his soul. His Sword Essence was held by his Soul, and his Space Essence stood behind it, seemingly shielding it from the outside world.


    And here was another problem, a Golden Idol should only be able to merge their soul with a single Essence, but two of Adam''s Essences had merged with his Soul.


    Although he didn''t know how nor why this happened, Adam could feel it was a good thing, for now at least.


    His body previously gave him an increased affinity to the Water and Fire Concepts, allowing him to cultivate them faster at a lesser costpared to the others. Now, he could feel a simr affinity toward Space and the Sword, which was great for him.


    While was happened was strange, Adam felt his promotion went even better than he originally thought. Another change was his domain, which had be ten times bigger. He could also feel he could, if he wanted, merge one of his Essences with his domain, but first he sent a look at his status.


    [Name: Adam Collins]


    [Rank: Gold]


    [Level: 100]


    [Race: Higher Human]


    [ss: Yin Space Sword Supreme]


    [Inner Energy: 100 Million]


    Rules: -Sovereign Sword Essence Early


    -Sovereign Space Essence Early


    -Sovereign Concept of Water Apex


    -Sovereign Concept of Fire Apex


    -Sovereign Concept of Wind Apex


    -Sovereign Concept of Spirit Apex


    -Sovereign Concept of Self Apex


    -Sovereign Concept of ughter Apex


    Domain: 10 km in radius.


    As he looked at it, his eyes quickly went on his ss, and he couldn''t help but murmur to himself ''What kind of name is that?''


    He decided to ignore it and tried to infuse his Essences into his domain.


    After a few minutes of experimentation, Adam concluded he could only infuse one of his Essences into his domain at a time. When he did so, his domain would be bigger and stronger, and it became much deadlier.


    He now understood why Legends were thought to be invincible. Adam could feel that even if a thousand Heroes and Sages were to rush at him at the same time, he would be able to one shot them all if he infused his Sword Essence in his domain.


    Using only the power of his Essence, Adam could use a B Rank Skill without using any of his Aura. If he merged it with his domain though, he could use A Rank skills within he is domain. This meant that no matter how many people entered inside his domain, he could attack them all at the same time with his skill [Chop], and the only price he would have to pay would be the Qi to maintain his domain.


    Before a Legend, other people were no different than mortals. Only the strongest Heroes who opened their domain may resist. But even they would only be able to put up a fight against Legends who had a Basic Essence at the Early Level.


    As for Adam, he was invincible for those below the Legendary Rank, including Sovereigns. Adam was a Legend in all but name, his two Essences were as strong as a Basic Essence at the Late Level, and his body was just as strong.


    Moreover, Adam had the Space and Sword Essences, meaning he had ultimate attacking power and manoeuvrability. He could now teleport like other Legends, if he did not use his domain it would cost him some Qi, but if he infused his Space Essence into his domain then he could teleport anywhere within his domain with absolutely no cost.


    Infusing an Essence into his domain turned it 5 km bigger, meaning when he infused it with his Space Concept he could teleport anywhere within 15 km. Instantly.


    Also, Adam could set space beacons wherever he wanted, and teleport to them. The cost would depend on the distance, but with his 100 Millions units of Qi, Adam could teleport from one end of Providence to the other.


    He had already set one of those beacons into the Divine Capital as he was able to ce them back when he only had a Space Concept, as they were nothing more than a personal mark in space. Only he could use it.


    Using a meagre amount of Qi, Adam appeared above the Divine Capital, and was finally ready for the next phase of his ns.

 Chapter 246: Price to freedom

    Chapter 246: Price to freedom


    Now that his domain was ten kilometers in size, it could cover a good part of the city, more than enough to cover all the people currently residing in the city. There weren''t that many of them after all.


    None of the people in the city could even feel his domain, but suddenly they heard Adam''s voice in their ears.


    "Tazolos, newly ascended Demon King, has fallen. I now hold the core of the dimension." Everyone was stunned. That just came out of nowhere. Was the Aqua Sovereign pulling a cruel joke on them?


    But unbeknownst to themon masses, or so to speak, the eight leaders of the racial powers, the descendents of the rulers of the various monster ns as well as the representatives of the different smaller power who managed toe were all called for a meeting.


    A couple minutester, they all gathered in the meeting room that had been created in the past five months, and the room was a little too crowded because it wasn''t meant to have every leader present, but only the most important ones.


    As they whispered to each other, doubtful but also excited at the prospect of finally leaving this forsakennd, Adam appeared in the room, stunning everyone. With their power, they could easily feel it when space was ripped open, and it would be an arduous task no Heroes could aplish to hide it from them.


    Hence, if Adam appeared without entering through a spatial rift, then it could only mean he had used the legendary teleportation ability of Legends.


    The people here were all the heirs of the most powerful powers in Epoch, and none of them were ignorant. Even if Adam wasn''t a real Legend as his Gold Rank was visible to all thanks to his status, they knew that the only way to use teleportation was by forming a powerful Space Essence. In other words, Adam was really as strong as a Legend.


    Undisturbed by the strange stares sent his way, Adam said "What I announced earlier was true, Tazolos is dead. I now hold the key of this dimension."


    Having the news verified, everyone present was obviously overjoyed. Adam continued "Moreover, I will allow you all to leave the dimension for a meagre price."


    Instantly, the joyous faces turned a little sour, as they didn''t like where this was going. How could they not understand? Adam literally held the lifeline of the strongest and richest powers of Epoch, how could he not take advantage of them?


    Only a few who had good rtionships with Adam remained neutral faced. Adam smirked and said "There''s no need to pull such faces, I truly intend on letting you leave without making you pay too much. I have two conditions."


    But before Adam could continue, a monster said "Don''t be arrogant, you may hold the power of a Legend, do you think you can hold against the entire world by yourself? You better release us if you don''t want to stay here for the rest of your life!"


    Adam didn''t even look at the monster as it suddenly was sliced into thousands of slices, dying without even realizing it.


    Under the frightened and shocked ze of everyone, Adam said "My two conditions are simple. First, I want to establish my very own kingdom, with this city as it''s capital. For that though, I need to popte mynd. I want you all to send craftsmen, farmers and about every person I might need for my kingdom. I wantpetent people."


    The faces of many people turned strange, that really wasn''t much of a problem for all of them. Now, they couldn''t help but fear the second condition.


    Adam continued "As for my second condition, I want everyone who has one of the Godyer''s Heart to hand them to me. For the powers with at least one Legend in their ranks, I want a Legend toe fetch you. As for those who don''t sending their leader will do."


    As the faces of the people in the room turned dark, Adam said "Each of you are to choose a representative to send back to Epoch to ry the news. In three hours, I will open a portal to Epoch inside the city, your representatives better be there by then if they want to leave.. Also, don''t get any strange ideas, if more than one of your members enter the portal, you will be wiped out, no exceptions."


    With those words, Adam disappeared and went toplete the next step of his n, that is truly submitting the strongest Sages of Providence. Until now, they respected him because of his strength, but he wanted them to truly serve him with their entire will to protect the dimension from dangers when he left for othernds in the future.


    Before, he had no way to do so, but now that he had be a Gold Rank and his Soul had merged with his two Essences, he could proceed to create a spirit imprint, which would make those monsters absolutely loyal to him.


    This was seen as something terrible to do, even worse than erasing someone''s soul, as this was basically turning another into one''s ve. This wasn''t limited to monsters, but every being with a hint of intelligence could be enved by a sufficiently strong person.


    The powers of Epoch would rather not use such means because if they did then no one would ept to join them and be ves, so it simply wouldn''t be worth it. After all, a Legend could see with a nce whether someone was enved spiritually or not.


    Fortunately, no Legend other than Adam could appear in his realm, so no one would see anything. Adam didn''t intend on using them for anything else than protecting this realm and his kingdom, so other people wouldn''t suspect a thing.


    Three hourster, every Sage above Level 180 had been enved, and no one other than them and Adam knew about it. Adam met with the representatives of the various powers and he created a portal. As he did, he used his domain to quickly scan the minds of everyone present.


    It seemed they didn''t try to y any games on him and so he didn''t have to kill anyone. When everyone had entered through the portal, Adam didn''t bother to close it and simply kept watch over it. Were any undesired guest to appear, he could instant kill them with his domain.


    A week quickly passed, during which no one tried to enter the portal. Adam didn''t expect for them to return immediately, the different powers would have to think of his words first.


    But now, after an entire week of wait, someone finally entered through the portal. After seeing no one else wasing, he teleported in front of him, scaring that person a little.


    The envoy''s face was already nervous, and after he teleported in front of him he straight out panicked, and with shivering hands he said "L.. Lord I havee.. to"


    Adam rolled his eyes and said "I''m not going to kill an envoy, so spit it out, whatever it is you wish to say."


    The envoy gulped and said "Someone is waiting for you out outside. They will exin the situation to you."


    Adam nodded and quickly sent a few orders to the nearest monsters under his control to protect the gate in case anyone else other than him were toe back in. Then, he grabbed the envoy by the helm of his shirt and flew out through the portal.


    The moment he appeared back in Epoch, Adam expected to be ambushed, but instead he saw his good friends, Henry, the king of Azure, who wore a helpless smile.

 Chapter 247: King of Slaughter

    Chapter 247: King of ughter


    When they came, the five demonic elders of the Legend Rank thought they had found Adam, but it was actually him who ced himself in their path.


    As someone who mastered a Sovereign Space Essence, catching Adam by surprise was nearly impossible. Not only did it allow him to flee instantly, it more importantly allowed him to hide between the deepyers of space, avoiding even domains.


    This was also why he wasn''t afraid of going on a rampage as he did, since very few people would be able to catch him, and from what he knew, none of the demons had mastered a Space Essence. After all, much like Starlight, it only came in the form of Sovereign Concepts and Essences.


    Then, for another week Adam harassed demons on a daily basis, who were so traumatized they finally went into hiding. At the same time, waves of shock spread through the world as they learned of the demise of five Legends.


    Although Adam had easily killed them, it wasn''t to be overlooked as something normal or insignificant. For any forces, five Legends was a lot already. Even the Racial Powers had less of ten Legends each, for a total of exactly 67.


    So even for the humanoid faction, the strongest faction, the loss of five Legends would be tragic, not to speak of the even weaker demonic faction. Those five Legends each belonged to a different organization, and were part of the ''Demonic 28'', which were the leaders of demonic cultivators, the 28 Legends leading them.


    Because of Adam, they were now the Demonic 23. With such a loss, they didn''t dare to send anymore Legends as they feared they would loose even more of them, and so they resorted to hiding.


    After another week of ughter, Adam finally left the Demonic Region, after having killed many demonic cultivators.


    Actually, those two weeks were only to show what he was capable of doing, drenching countless cities into blood, but doing just that wouldn''t be enough for them hand over the Godyer''s Hearts, as they hadn''t been attacked yet.


    So, Adam now had to switch targets. For the third week of the month, Adam focused on the monsters, wiping out a few Monster ns alongside three Legendary Monsters. Once again, what he did struck fear in many people''s hearts.


    At the same time, Adam had also managed to collect an additional four hearts, two from the demonic cultivators and another two from monsters, allowing him to unlock the next stage of the Heart, and it''s new ability.


    The new ability was called Devour, and it allowed him to grow stronger by absorbing the power of those he killed. This came at a nice surprise to Adam as this would allow him to grow even faster. So he tried it on the monsters, and he wasn''t disappointed.


    Although the growth was slow since those he killed were much weaker than him, it still allowed Adam''s body to be stronger with every n he destroyed. Moreover, the Legends also earned him much more strength, strengthening his body by several notches and level up a few times.


    Finally, for thest week of the month, Adam dealt with thest faction that resisted him apart from the Racial Powers, and that was the Sovereign Kingdoms.


    Not to be mistaken with the ss Rank, here the Sovereign Kingdoms represented the main forces of the Coalition.


    Adam first came to know of them when he created his guild with Sarah, the Marshall of Azure Sky, who had asked him whether he wanted his guild to be under Colnds or the Coalition.


    Theter was the gathering of independent guilds who slowly grew, and five of them even created Legends, bing the famed Sovereign Kingdoms. In the eye of the public, there were only five Legends, but that number was actually half the real one, as they had ten Legends, even more than a single Racial Power.


    And they also stood among the strongest of those who resisted Adam, and who wanted to send their armies to Azure Sky to finish him.


    Adam decided to finish with them because their Legends were the easiest to find since they were the kings of their respective kingdoms, and they couldn''t just flee from their kingdoms. As such, killing them would be simple.


    A weekter, the month of ughter ended, and the world mourned. Hundreds of Demonic ns, Tens of Monster ns and Independent Kingdoms, as well as three Sovereign Kingdoms were wiped out of the face of Epoch.


    Those attacked by Adam had tried to kill him, to send peak Legends after him, but none were able to kill him. Instead, Adam killed 12 Legends during this month, as well as more than a billion lifeforms. A. Billion.


    Adam had now be a true legend of Epoch, not because of his strength, but of his fame. He now was the mythical King of ughter, the Great Sinner.


    But the most shocking day was thest day of the month, the 31st. When Adam returned to Providence, he was ambushed by tens of Legends from every Faction, including the Racial Powers, who were the only ones hit.


    The result? Adam sessfully fled into Providence, and nine other Legends were killed, bringing the total tally to 21. At first, although their loss was terrible, they thought they had at least managed to heavily injure Adam, but they were dumbfounded when Adam emerged the next day, in perfect shape.


    They then abandoned and bowed their heads. For the first time in thousands of years, they admitted defeat.


    Adam was quickly brought up as one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, person in the whole world because of that month, by themon masses. Many felt fear toward him, but also the usual reverence for the strong.


    Actually, Adam was far from invincible, there were at least five or six Legends who could defeat him in the different factions, and even some who could kill him. However, doing so would cost all of them way too much as Adam would still damage them heavily, allowing for others to take advantage of them.


    And during his month, Adam had taken great care of not assaulting the direct interest of the ns who had the power to kill him.


    As such, since they didn''t have a real deep enmity with Adam, they didn''t want to risk their entire n just to kill him. They had no choice but toply with Adam.


    In the end, intelligence brought selfishness, and unlike what Henry thought, the truly strong wouldn''t sacrifice their entire live''s work just for some reputation.


    So what if they were humiliated on this matter? So what if Adam became famous? Would it hurt them in any way? Whatever happened, their foundation remained, and they all had lifespans of thousands of years.


    In a thousand years, or two, even three thousand years, people would have forgotten all about this if they wished to erase it from history. So, they agreed with Adam''s demands.

 Chapter 247: Month of Slaughter

    Chapter 247: Month of ughter


    Adam smiled and asked "Why are you making this kind of face? I''d almost believe something went wrong."


    Henry rolled his eyes and said "A year ago you were nothing more than a brat at the Iron Realm, and you already reached my realm. How am I supposed to feel about my talent?"


    Adam waved his hand and said "No need to feel ashamed, in front of me everyone is talentless. Don''t think you are less talented than me, just think you are on the same level as the strongest people on this continent."


    Henry rolled his eyes and said "I can almost touch your pride. But enough jokes, the situation is quite perilous."


    Adam shrugged and said "I didn''t exactly expect them to obey my orders willy nilly either. So, what''s up with the old fogeys."


    Henry''s face turned a little grave as he said "Don''t think you can randomly insult the elders of the powers of Epoch just because you have reached the strength of the Legend Rank, they are far more powerful than you think."


    Adam grinned and said "Don''t worry about me, I am plenty confident I can take care of whatever they have to throw at me. Now, tell me, what are their intentions?"


    Henry sighed and said "You can''t always do everything on your own. When you sent back those representatives, no one was happy with your condition. You are basically pping the faces of them all in the face of the world. Reputation is something those powers care even more about than their lives."


    Adam''s gaze turned cold as he said "I see, it looks like I will have to show them they don''t have a choice. What do they want to do then, exactly. Block people from entering my realm?"


    Henry shook his head and said "They can''t do anything to you inside your realm, that much is obvious to everyone. They wanted to target your guild, or kingdom, but they can''t do that either. So they want to strike your allies. That is, me."


    Adam was shocked as he asked "Isn''t Colnds going to do anything about it? Are they targeting you too?"


    Henry replied "You must understand you haven''t just angered a few people, you have angered the entire world. Although you have many friends in high ces, such as the Imperial family of Colnds and Aldeneid, as well as the Yok n in Buwog and the faction of Cave Master in ckheart, it isn''t enough."


    He sighed and continued "Racial Powers areplicated, and their leadership isn''t based on a single person. While in the eyes of the public it is the Emperor, Battle Chief or whatever Supreme Leader who is leading, the influence of the elders and ns of that nation are not to be underestimated."


    Adam frowned and said "So you are telling me that the hidden factions of the Racial Powers are the one striking out?"


    Henry nodded "For those I mentioned, yes. Well, not Colnds, since you have the support of over half of our Legends, so they won''t strike, but for the rest, yes. As for those with whom you have no rtionship, they don''t have such worries. And that is only the Racial Powers. The Monster Faction will also attack with a few exceptions. You should also worry about the Demonic Faction, who wants your head for spoiling their ns. They wanted to destroy our foundation by killing our young generation."


    Henry expected Adam to be scared by now, but much to his dismay, Adam grinned and asked "So they want to attack you to pressure me? To make me understand I shouldn''t offend them, is that right?"


    Henry said, helpless "What are you grinning for, my kingdom is the one being targeted." Adam replied "Don''t worry, they should know their limits, your wife is the daughter of the King of the North, they won''t dare to go too far. Moreover, I assure you they won''t dare set foot in your kingdom."


    Henry asked, curious about Adam''s confidence "What''s making you so sure of yourself?"


    Instead of answering his question, Adam said "We are the first of the month, right?" Although he was curious as to why he asked, Henry nodded, it was indeed the first day of the month. Adam continued "Good, then in the future people are going to call this period the Month of ughter."


    As he said that, he disappeared, teleporting away, leaving the dumbstruck Henry behind.


    Adam was even faster than he used to be now that he had been promoted to Gold Rank, and so he didn''t even need to use the teleportation arrays to travel through the world.


    The entrance of Providence was located in the South-East of Colnds, which itself was in the North of the continent. As for Adam''s destination, it was farther in the South, just North of the Mirage Desert, between ckheart and Feynwoods.


    The reason he was heading there was because this region was known as the Demonic Region, where most of the demonic cults gathered. Of course, not the entire Demonic Faction resided there, like the Demon n that was North of the Kloss Canal, or many other smaller ns, but it was still and filled with almost only demonic people.


    It took Adam a couple of hours to fly over to his destination, a journey that would have taken him days if not weeks back in the past, even with the use of Teleportation arrays. As a Legend Ranked powerhouse, life was much easier.


    When he arrived in the Demonic Region, Adam flew to the nearest city and unleashed his domain''s might. The moment he did, all movement in the city stopped. Even the magistrate of the city, a peak Gold Rank, was incapable of moving.


    Adam quickly scanned through their minds with his Spirit Concept, and quickly learned of the location of the surrounding demonic powers. After killing all the people associated with them, Adam quickly left, freeing the scared poption.


    A minuteter, Adam arrived in front of a town like settlement, where a faction known as the Skydevil Sect ruled. They could be considered quite powerful as they were the rulers of the area with millions of people in their settlement, and a few tens of Heroes leading them.


    Like before, Adam used his Domain to surround the city, and sent an overpowered spirit wave, killing everyone in an instant. The people of Skydevil barely had the time to realize a powerhouse appeared above the city before dying.


    As he absorbed the Soul Energy of the people he killed, he then used his Domain to make all their bodies explode in blood, including the Legends, drenching the town in blood. At the same time, he took the spirit rings of the Heroes and plundered the treasury.


    In a second, a town had turned from one full of life to one drenched in blood, with all it''s inhabitants dead. Finished with this town, Adam quickly went for the next one.


    In a day, all the surrounding area had been cleaned of the demonic faction, all their members dying a tragic death. Although no survivors were left, some people tried to enter the city after Adam''s passage, and the rumours quickly started spreading.


    Unfortunately, Adam was faster.


    It was only a week after Adam began his ughter-fest that the true rulers of the regions got the confirmation Adam was exterminating their men. A gathering was held, and a squad of Legends were sent for Adam.


    In the past week, Adam had already destroyed hundreds of demonic sects, and he never crossed a Legend. But as he attacked a city where only a single Hero resided, five Legends appeared not far.


    Their leader looked at Adam with squinted eyes and said "Today is the day you die, scum." But he barely finished his words when Adam appeared in front of him. He tried to react, to attack Adam, but he found his body unresponsive. Why was he getting higher?


    It was only after a moment of realization he discovered Adam had appeared behind his group, and all five of them were decapitated. As the elder tried to understand what just happened, a sword light went through each of their heads, destroying their Golden Soul. Adam quickly absorbed the Soul Energy, clenching his fist as the powerful energy flooded his mind.


    All five of those Legends were weak, only reaching the Early Basic Essence Level, two levels away from Adam. As such, they didn''t even stand a chance against him.


    But more importantly, after absorbing the Soul Energy from tens millions of people in the past week, the Soul Energy from those five allowed Adam to finally condense his Spirit Essence, third Essence of Adam.

 Chapter 248: King of Slaughter

    Chapter 248: King of ughter


    When they came, the five demonic elders of the Legend Rank thought they had found Adam, but it was actually him who ced himself in their path.


    As someone who mastered a Sovereign Space Essence, catching Adam by surprise was nearly impossible. Not only did it allow him to flee instantly, it more importantly allowed him to hide between the deepyers of space, avoiding even domains.


    This was also why he wasn''t afraid of going on a rampage as he did, since very few people would be able to catch him, and from what he knew, none of the demons had mastered a Space Essence. After all, much like Starlight, it only came in the form of Sovereign Concepts and Essences.


    Then, for another week Adam harassed demons on a daily basis, who were so traumatized they finally went into hiding. At the same time, waves of shock spread through the world as they learned of the demise of five Legends.


    Although Adam had easily killed them, it wasn''t to be overlooked as something normal or insignificant. For any forces, five Legends was a lot already. Even the Racial Powers had less of ten Legends each, for a total of exactly 67.


    So even for the humanoid faction, the strongest faction, the loss of five Legends would be tragic, not to speak of the even weaker demonic faction. Those five Legends each belonged to a different organization, and were part of the ''Demonic 28'', which were the leaders of demonic cultivators, the 28 Legends leading them.


    Because of Adam, they were now the Demonic 23. With such a loss, they didn''t dare to send anymore Legends as they feared they would loose even more of them, and so they resorted to hiding.


    After another week of ughter, Adam finally left the Demonic Region, after having killed many demonic cultivators.


    Actually, those two weeks were only to show what he was capable of doing, drenching countless cities into blood, but doing just that wouldn''t be enough for them hand over the Godyer''s Hearts, as they hadn''t been attacked yet.


    So, Adam now had to switch targets. For the third week of the month, Adam focused on the monsters, wiping out a few Monster ns alongside three Legendary Monsters. Once again, what he did struck fear in many people''s hearts.


    At the same time, Adam had also managed to collect an additional four hearts, two from the demonic cultivators and another two from monsters, allowing him to unlock the next stage of the Heart, and it''s new ability.


    The new ability was called Devour, and it allowed him to grow stronger by absorbing the power of those he killed. This came at a nice surprise to Adam as this would allow him to grow even faster. So he tried it on the monsters, and he wasn''t disappointed.


    Although the growth was slow since those he killed were much weaker than him, it still allowed Adam''s body to be stronger with every n he destroyed. Moreover, the Legends also earned him much more strength, strengthening his body by several notches and level up a few times.


    Finally, for thest week of the month, Adam dealt with thest faction that resisted him apart from the Racial Powers, and that was the Sovereign Kingdoms.


    Not to be mistaken with the ss Rank, here the Sovereign Kingdoms represented the main forces of the Coalition.


    Adam first came to know of them when he created his guild with Sarah, the Marshall of Azure Sky, who had asked him whether he wanted his guild to be under Colnds or the Coalition.


    Theter was the gathering of independent guilds who slowly grew, and five of them even created Legends, bing the famed Sovereign Kingdoms. In the eye of the public, there were only five Legends, but that number was actually half the real one, as they had ten Legends, even more than a single Racial Power.


    And they also stood among the strongest of those who resisted Adam, and who wanted to send their armies to Azure Sky to finish him.


    Adam decided to finish with them because their Legends were the easiest to find since they were the kings of their respective kingdoms, and they couldn''t just flee from their kingdoms. As such, killing them would be simple.


    A weekter, the month of ughter ended, and the world mourned. Hundreds of Demonic ns, Tens of Monster ns and Independent Kingdoms, as well as three Sovereign Kingdoms were wiped out of the face of Epoch.


    Those attacked by Adam had tried to kill him, to send peak Legends after him, but none were able to kill him. Instead, Adam killed 12 Legends during this month, as well as more than a billion lifeforms. A. Billion.


    Adam had now be a true legend of Epoch, not because of his strength, but of his fame. He now was the mythical King of ughter, the Great Sinner.


    But the most shocking day was thest day of the month, the 31st. When Adam returned to Providence, he was ambushed by tens of Legends from every Faction, including the Racial Powers, who were the only ones hit.


    The result? Adam sessfully fled into Providence, and nine other Legends were killed, bringing the total tally to 21. At first, although their loss was terrible, they thought they had at least managed to heavily injure Adam, but they were dumbfounded when Adam emerged the next day, in perfect shape.


    They then abandoned and bowed their heads. For the first time in thousands of years, they admitted defeat.


    Adam was quickly brought up as one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, person in the whole world because of that month, by themon masses. Many felt fear toward him, but also the usual reverence for the strong.


    Actually, Adam was far from invincible, there were at least five or six Legends who could defeat him in the different factions, and even some who could kill him. However, doing so would cost all of them way too much as Adam would still damage them heavily, allowing for others to take advantage of them.


    And during his month, Adam had taken great care of not assaulting the direct interest of the ns who had the power to kill him.


    As such, since they didn''t have a real deep enmity with Adam, they didn''t want to risk their entire n just to kill him. They had no choice but toply with Adam.


    In the end, intelligence brought selfishness, and unlike what Henry thought, the truly strong wouldn''t sacrifice their entire live''s work just for some reputation.


    So what if they were humiliated on this matter? So what if Adam became famous? Would it hurt them in any way? Whatever happened, their foundation remained, and they all had lifespans of thousands of years.


    In a thousand years, or two, even three thousand years, people would have forgotten all about this if they wished to erase it from history. So, they agreed with Adam''s demands.

 Chapter 249: Yo

    Chapter 249: Yo


    I''m taking another break because I haven''t really nned out the next Volume, this one was supposed to be way longer than this. Anyway, this break should be about as long as thest one, maybe less. I can''t just have Adam cultivate silently in his pce until he bes invincible, can I?


    Also, thanks for sticking with the story, we reached a million views as well as more than 1.2k collections despite never signing webnovel''s contract, which is pretty damn impressive I believe. Thumbs up to you.

 Chapter 250: Hiatus

    Chapter 250: Hiatus


    This will go on hiatus because I have another big project going on. Sorry for those who waited for an entire month, but I won''t force myself to write.


    PS: I will admit the story''s ranking has always bothered me, I know I shouldn''t say that but I believe my story deserved higher ranking.

 Chapter 251: Hello

    Chapter 251: Hello


    Marvel: Mortal Ascension


    So you might wonder, why are you reading this? Well, before I tell you, I want to say something. It''s more of an exnation than an excuse, but here I go.


    I tried rewriting my old works many times in the past few years, but I never went past ten chapters because I simply can''t redo what I already did. Back then, I had a different age, a different mindset, a different view of the world, a different... well, I was a different person.


    That''s why, and I am saying it here, I won''t do remake of any of my stories, not in the way you think at least.


    What I will do though, is that I will take the core of my story, and build a new one on top of it. Hence, I present to you my new story, which is the remake of a Hero''s Journey.


    In this story, the name of the main character will be changed to Edward Bell, and he isn''t a super intelligent reincarnator who got a wish. I changed this because I do not expect the same from my character anymore, and I don''t wish for him to know everything and simply cheat all the time with his past knowledge, while not changing the plot for my convenience. That''s why Edward isn''t a reincarnator, he simply acts as his character should realistically.


    But that''s enough exnations, just know this is as close to a remake you will get. Here is the link, I will also add it to thement to copy and paste /book/marvel-mortal-ascension_21334334806211205


    The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and


    continue reading tomorrow, everyone!