TOP ONE
The top 1 prize of the event was truly heart stirring.
There were many Spirits in the world. Fire Spirits, Wind Spirits, Metal Spirits... each one had their own unique path of Crafting, but there was no doubt that in order to be a Crafter, one had to have one of these Companions by their sides.
There were some Crafters who had more than one, some who combined multiple paths or chose to have more than one of the same kind. But this was still the inevitable truth of them all.
Morphing and forging Ores without the help of Spirits was possible, but without being in the Creation State, it was hard to give your creations any sort of life without them.Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.
Of the normal Spirits, there was no doubt that the Metal Spirit was probably the most highly sought after, and also the most dangerous to work with. However...
There were Spirits above this level.
The Minerva Race was known for a great number of feats during their existence, but it could be said that of their best, one would be remiss if not to mention the Minerva Spirit.
The Minerva Spirit was the only humanoid Spirit in existence. It looked like a small doll, always sitting beautifully on the shoulder of its master... But within that small body, there were a myriad of changes and it housed the mysteries of the universe.
The Minerva Spirit, being a humanoid Spirit, was a blank slate. It was capable of practicing and growing affinities for Forces much like other Races could, and as such, it was considered to be the absolute pinnacle of Spirithood.
Having a Minerva Spirit was akin to having a growth-type Spirit capable of becoming any one of the others. If you wanted to behave like a Metal Spirit, it would. If you wanted it to become a Fire Spirit, it could. If you wanted to fuse the paths down a unique and personal adventure of yours... it could do that as well.
The Minerva Spirit, even in comparison to the Spirits used by various God Races, was known as the beast of them all...
Of course, that was a matter of potential and not actuality. The Minerva Race of the past was capable of raising Minerva Spirits, but the current Owlan Race wasn't the same as the Minerva Race of the past. As such, though these Spirits had the greatest potential, in practice, they were weaker than those God Spirits.
In addition to this, who couldn't tell that the Owlans only dared to do this because they were certain that one of their own would win?
Minerva Spirits were so rare these days that there were less than a few dozen in the Owlan Race that had one. Of course, part of that was also because they were making a real attempt to distance themselves from the Minerva Race as well. But now that they had the support of the Plutos...
What need was there to do that any longer?
And now, such a Spirit was the prize for the first ranked. How could the hearts of the youths not be stirred up?
...
Everywhere Leonel and Aina walked, there was a large berth given to them. The city of the Gathering of Kingdoms wasn't part of the projected images to the wider population, but the battles themselves certainly were. There was no shortage of individuals who picked out Aina immediately.
Compared to the Human Bubbles who were just worried about living it up for the last moments of their lives, or surviving the carnage forced upon them by others, these worlds were different. They were strong enough to not worry about the culling, so they had all watched the Gathering of Kingdoms for the sake of their own entertainment.
And due to that, the image of Aina was practically burned into their retinas.
They might not have seen what happened in the city, but the world wasn't filled with fools. When Aina kept entering the arena more and more injured than the last time, despite having secured easy victories earlier, they could put two and two together.
In the eyes of these people, Aina was an absolute legend.
Of course, this Bubble World wasn't the Owlan Bubble. There was quite some distance Leonel and Aina had to go before they could reach such a place. And, it was a bit inconvenient for them to do so in a straightforward way as well.
If Leonel just started hopping from teleportation pad to teleportation pad like everyone else, the result could be imagined. The Minerva Race would easily be able to trace it back to his exact location.
So, Leonel had taken a different approach.
There were really two ways to approach this. The first was going out of his way to travel through the Inbetween Worlds for as long as possible, distancing himself as best as possible.
The trouble was that he wouldn't get very far.
Anastasia's speed was based on the Force in the surroundings and Anarchic Force wasn't something she could absorb. So unless Leonel had great treasures to feed her, it was a pipe dream to do so.
Even if he mined the Force Crystals in the bubble worlds, their quality was so inferior that they would at best give him the speed of a Human Ninth Dimensional expert, and what good would that do him?
If he moved at that speed, he wouldn't get very far even if he used all three months. It would still be a small enough search radius for Minerva to pin him down.
Luckily, there was a second approach.
Leonel smiled when he laid eyes on the teleportation pad for the first time.
Just like he expected, it was well within his wheelhouse.
This world was a Cloud Race World nearby the Human Bubbles. It was known as the Fleeting Bubble. And the reason Leonel was smiling right now was because the Crafting skill of this world was very clearly inferior to his.
It seemed that he could really have some fun.