SURE?

Leonel made his way to Noah, his thoughts still filled with many things.

Ninth Dimensional Urbe Ore was still manageable. But in this world, there were literally no other Ninth Dimensional Ores.

Urbe Ore was a Foundational Ore, an Ore that was ubiquitous in its usage and it could be said that it was the most abundant in the world. And yet, the Godlens only had one of them.

Their next best mine was an Eighth Dimensional one that seemed to have Fire Elemental Ores of some kind. Leonel didn't even look into it much.

In the wider Existence, according to Anastasia, people used Reinforced Urbe Ore as the currency of choice. Unfortunately for the Godlens, that meant that even with a Ninth Dimensional Urbe Ore Mine, they still used Seventh Dimensional Reinforced Urbe Ore as their baseline currency. They would be paupers if they went anywhere else.

This was all to say that this was the mine of the greatest value the Godlens had, and yet it was the most common in wider Existence.

Just in general, Ninth Dimensional Evolution Ore was impossibly rare. This was an Ore capable of upgrading Ninth Dimensional Ores, which were already at the very pinnacle of existence.

The more Leonel thought about it, the more he thought his dad just rolled out of bed and decided to mess with him. If things were already this wild now, what would it take to enter the Fifth Dimension? Beyond that?

Leonel shook his head as he came to a cabin in the woods. He raised his hand to knock on the door, but Noah opened it first, a complicated look in his eyes.

Leonel grinned. "You look like you're doing much better, that's good."

"You saved me again."

"Eh..." Leonel scratched his head. "... honestly, you were only in so much danger to begin with because of me. Things wouldn't have gone left so quickly if I never appeared. I should have trusted you to have things in hand."

Indeed, back then Leonel had only allowed himself to be captured because he was worried about Noah. If he had trusted Noah to protect himself, things wouldn't have gone so poorly.

Noah blinked. "... You've changed."

"Why does everyone keep saying that?"

Noah blushed a bit, leaving Leonel not knowing how to react. This cousin of his sure embarrassed easily.

"Regardless, now we're here, we should stick together. I mean, unless you want to try and make your own way. I won't say no."

Noah hesitated, then looked back toward Jessica who was still within the cabin.

"I heard that you want to start an organization?"

"I do. I'm finally tired of getting kicked out of them."

Noah smiled. "Okay, we will join. Does it have a name?"

"Not yet. But! I guarantee it will have cool uniforms."

This time, it was Noah's turn to be speechless.

...

Amery was already practicing his sword. He didn't say anything even as Leonel walked up to him; he just continued swinging that wooden sword again, and again, and again.

Unlike Leonel, he had been there. He went from a genius, to losing at the hands of someone a Dimension below him, to getting returned to his grandfather, only to be captured again alone with his fiancee, and as though all of that wasn't terrible enough, after Leonel vanished, he had to watch his people die one after another.

His parents were gone. His grandfather was gone. His cousins, his siblings, his family was gone.

And it was all because this sword in his hand wasn't strong enough.

Golden streams of Sword Force pulsed again and again.

Amery hadn't been able to protect his mind from manipulation like Noah had. Due to that, he had been trapped in his own head the whole time, forced to watch as everything happened around him. He thought he would never be able to break out at all, until it was somehow the man who enslaved his family to begin with was the one to save him.

Leonel didn't say anything either. He stood there with his arms crossed, watching Amery swinging his sword again and again. The man didn't seem like he was going to tire anytime soon, but Leonel's patience also seemed to be endless.

"Are you going to give me a chance to kill them?" Amery suddenly said. Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

"Does 'them' include me?" Leonel replied with a smirk.

"It might." Amery replied evenly.

"Then probably not. I'm not a fan of losing, and I don't have a habit of losing to people I've already defeated."

"It doesn't look like you'd stand much of a chance right."

"Want to give it a try?"

Amery's wooden sword flashed, and its tip stopped just an inch in front of Leonel's nose. Leonel himself didn't even flinch, his arms remaining crossed.

With a flicker, the sword vanished again, and Amery started to diligently swing it again.

"Good talk," Leonel laughed, turning to disappear into the distance.

Neither felt that it was necessary to say much more than that.

...

Leonel stepped out into the world again, taking a deep breath.

The Segmented Cube unfolded and entered its shuttle form. He stepped into it and shot off into the distance. It wouldn't take him more than a few minutes to reach his destination.

His mind was still consumed by thoughts of how he'd get his hands on that much Evolution Ore, but soon that was swept away by that flash of Dream Force in the distance. It was taking everything he had to not go in that direction instead.

He wasn't ready to go, plus it also didn't help that doing so would mean entering the territory of the Four Great Families. There was probably a reason his grandfather said they were not to be trusted even though he would naturally already know that.

'I need to go. This feeling isn't here for no reason.'

When Leonel got close to the region of the Ninth Dimensional Urbe Ore mine, he stepped out of the shuttle. Although he could definitely out-speed any demons in the area, it wasn't like he could do the same while he was digging into the ground. He had no choice but to approach more stealthily.

...

"Are you sure?" The Moon Demon asked.

"Sure? No. But with the Godlens turtling up, this is our best shot at catching another fish."

The Sun Demon smiled, looking toward the ruins of a crumbled mine.