The next week passes with nothing notable happening, other each of them getting a stat up to D rank and Sen buying a new sword. The hobgoblin dungeon actually turns out to be very useful, as they simply trade in the cores for ones they need, and each of them learns a couple new skills. Sen finally gets Gale Steps to the point where he can use it, and Lynna and Jennifer pick up a more advanced version of that twisting sword, which extends the blade with a whip of water, a nasty thing that will wrap around a shield or sword, cutting into the body behind it even if the blade is blocked. Xue on the other hand, picks up a defensive skill, something that will dissipate energy fueled attacks, making any attack D rank and under lose practically all of its momentum.

Julie, as obsessed as she is with her arrays, picks up an array that can send out blades of energy, and manages to somehow combine it with her previous array, making the previously only virtual attacks from her image actually cut.

Everyone in the group has gotten a decent amount of work done on their bone enhancement skill as well, and Lynna, Jennifer, and Xue have started carrying around a little water because of the control they’ve gained over it. They can’t do much with it, but they can create a bit of mist in the area, sensing anything moving within, which they find is probably the correct way to deal with arrays like those Julie uses. Sen has also learned that he can use his control over air to sense her real body, but according to her, there are more advanced arrays which will create a body indistinguishable from her real one.

Julie is the odd one out along with Sen. She’s using Bones like Flame, and while she can’t do much at the moment other than act as a glorified lighter, in the later stages it’s sure to be powerful. She’d actually quit Mountain’s peak, as it didn’t have the flame related body skills, and joined the same school as the other girls, as it had both the flame and water skills.

Once the tournament arrives, everyone is expecting to do pretty well, and they do, for the first two rounds. At this point though, Julie and Sen both fall, the superior stats of guild raised players simply overpowering them.

Even so, they’ve both placed in the top two thousand worldwide, Sen the only one who is annoyed he couldn’t place higher. Julie is simply happy that her arrays have so much use, and the others lost before they could get to this round.

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The tournament over, the rewards are distributed. Sen and Julie get a total of three C ranked crystals, five D ranked crystals, and ten E ranked crystals, each, along with a stupidly large amount of healing salve.

Considering how well players from Falan did, their particular city is just a bit of a powerhouse, LostMind even placing third in the entire world. They all meet up again in real life after the tournament is over, and they discuss their plans for the next few months in game. They all agree that they need to learn the muscle enhancement skills next, as they both increase strength and control over the respective element, with a few side benefits depending on what element the skill is based on.

The bone enhancement skill is a prerequisite for learning it though, so they all need to finish it before they can learn it, and after that they’ll need to get the upgrade for the bone enhancement skill, and so on. There’s going to be a lot of skill grinding in their future.

The next month passes in a relaxing manner, and it’s summer break for Lynna’s college. Sen on the other hand gets no actual break, but his tutoring sessions are cut down even more than before. Xue’s coldness has faded a lot over the time they’ve been spending together, and while she is still rather taciturn compared to the other girls, she now regularly smiles, unlike her earlier cold countenance.

There’s no news released about the contact with Earth, just that it’s ongoing, and so the biggest news is that the capsules have decreased in price to the point that almost anyone can buy them, leading to a massive surge in the playerbase.

The player base goes from around a fifth of the population, to almost two thirds, which has broken every record by a massive margin. Not all of that is attributed to the gaming part of it though, as Sen has eventually learned that you can indeed eat in game, it’s just not required, and there are certain adult activities that attract a lot of “players” as well.

Eventually, everyone gets their stats up to C rank, and then start running into trouble. There simply aren’t enough D ranked monsters to get their stats up to B rank, and so they’re forced to hunt C rank monsters. That normally wouldn’t be a problem, except there seems to be a massive dividing line between D ranked mobs and C ranked mobs.

Up to D rank, it isn’t hard for a person to kill a monster of the same rank so long as they’re reasonably skilled, but when it comes to C ranked monsters, one of the branches of King had sent hundreds of low rank players trying to kill a particular one and still failed. Anyone under C rank in stats simply hadn’t even been able to hurt it, and even those at C rank weren’t exactly skilled players.

On the bright side, this disparity leads to C rank being a large dividing line. As most players can’t keep up with the game at that point, most guilds can no longer simply feed cores into their best members, losing the advantage that they have in cultivating a main team, as the lead team has to do the hunting themselves.

Solo and small groups of players are about a couple weeks behind, but they now have a chance to catch up.