Week 1 Day 4
“Alright, ready?”
“Yeah.” They came with mining gear, loaned by the Tower and entered the very same gate. They encountered the same type of giant cats and defeated them quite easily, now that they both had enough experience. “Why do the gates refresh their monsters?”
“No idea.” Alia admitted. “All I know is if you step out, and step back in again, and there’s no one inside the rift, everything resets. Probably some rift-magic. In larger wild rifts, the army usually attempts it with bigger parties with smaller sub-teams, so that the parties can split up and rotate forces.”
They stumbled on the crystals again, and this time, the mining gear magically sucked everything up without any action required. “Whoah. They should've put a sign that we should carry these.”
Alia grinned as if she imagined something preposterous. "Nobles? Resource collection and mining?"
After that, they faced three more cats. Ethan was a lot more careful, and managed to take out the party of three cats without taking a hit, and then... the door to the boss.
“I’ll open the door?” Ethan asked his rift partner, and she nodded.
A giant cat with red stripes stood at the center of a bright, large marble room. It’s feline eyes locked on Ethan, and he honestly felt his heart sink.
“Hey.” Alia said, as she patted his back. “We can do this. We’re both at full health, with no damage. I doubt level 1 bosses are that hard.”
“Famous last words.” Ethan muttered, and if he had to, Kaname would have to join him. Kaname seemed strong enough to take on the boss.
“Well, let’s see what we can do, alright? Let’s flank it and attack.”
Ethan nodded. “Alright.” He gripped his sword, and rushed in.
The striped cat roared, glowed and then charged at Alia. Ethan almost thought the cat was going to smash into her, and then, she flew to the side as if pushed by a strong gust. Simultaneously, she landed a cut to the striped cat’s side.
The striped cat braked and altered it’s posture, and turned back. Ethan rushed forward in its moment of weakness.
He activated his abilities. [Shadow Copy], [Shadow Steps], [Sword Unity].
His sword turned dark, and the striped cat took two direct hits. It staggered backwards, and then once the cat regained its footing, it charged.
It was too near, and Ethan couldn't dodge. The cat slammed into Ethan directly, and was flung backwards. It was a clean, direct hit, and he felt his core’s health drop. “Ugh. I’m down by almost half!”
“Got it!” Alia had already positioned herself and attacked the striped cat from the rear, and she landed two more hits. The cat turned somehow, and struck Alia with the swipe of its claws.
It smashed against her upper shoulder and Alia winced. Yet, she somehow still managed to counterattack, and landed two more hits. “The claws don’t deal that much damage, I’m down by a quarter. We should take the claws but try not to take the charges.”
Ethan charged again, and repeated the same motion. He landed two more hits during the cat’s attempt to attack his rift partner, and the striped cat growled in pain. It’s feline eyes stared, trying to choose it's next target.
“I’ll distract it.” Alia said, as she moved closer. The striped cat, sensed weakness and, didn’t buy the ruse and charged at Ethan instead.
He activated his [shadow copy], and luckily, the cat chose the copy. In the window of time when the cat destroyed the copy, Ethan landed two hits, and the striped cat staggered.
Alia ran to it, managed to land three slashes at it’s back while it was momentarily stunned. The cat recovered quickly, twisted, and slashed. Alia took a single hit to the chest.
“Ugh.” She winced in pain.
Ethan rushed in, and stabbed it through the cat's body. The striped cat collapsed, and then... died.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.
[Rift completed]
The striped cat left a large core.
“Well done!” Ethan smiled.
“We’ll have to pick that up to get our GP.” Alia picked up the core. “Let’s go.”
The attendant collected the striped cat’s core, and awarded them 5GP each, as they agreed to split it halfway. Alia looked delighted. “I’m glad we made it out, but now, I’m going to go back and rest.”
“Me too! Thank you for doing this with me, I hope I didn’t drag you down too much.” It was obvious that Alia had to pick up his slack a few times.
“Eh. Don’t see it that way.” Alia smiled. “See you around. We can plan another dive if you’re ready.”
“Got it.” Ethan nodded, he had a feeling Alia would advance quickly.
Around that time, he saw another group step out of their rift. The heroine.
***
“That was amazing, Miss Whitetower.” Ethan glanced to see two good looking men happily talking to Violet. “I didn’t know you could summon water elementals! I thought that was a higher-tier skill!”
“Not as important as your incredible defensive work!” Violet responded. “Both of you did so well protecting me, that’s why I could activate my low-tier water elementals!”
“But they were so strong, they couldn’t be low tier!” The other man said.
“They are, they are! Your attacks weakened the foe, that’s why my water elementals could take them out.” She smiled, and then handed the core to the attendant. The attendant immediately asked.
“Three members, three GP each. Who will get the extra point?”
The two boys were unanimous. “Miss Whitetower should get it.”
She blushed and smiled at the two boys. “Thank you, you two are so kind.”
Ethan stared at the boys, all thoroughly smitten by the thousand-watt smile from the heroine. “Oh dear, Miss Whitetower looks like she’s gonna have a fangroup of jealous potential boyfriends.”
***
Ethan sat in his room, and processed the shadow-element energies gathered in his soul. The gray core at the center of his soul frame glowed slightly.
[Common-grade Core of the Shadow Swords advanced to 6th stage of the 1st realm].
There are 10 stages to every realm, and at the 10th stage, with sufficient energy, it would then be possible to break through to the 2nd realm.
“Well, that’s pretty good.” Ethan said to himself, and then summoned Kaname.
“Master.”
“I’ve just advanced my core by a single stage. Any changes?”
Kaname paused, and then nodded. “Summon lasts an extra 15 minutes.”
“Eh.” Ethan immediately did some simple math. “15 minutes per stage, there are 10 stages per realm, and 6 realms known so far. At 5th stage, 1st realm, you last 3 and a half hours. At the first stage of the 2nd realm it’s only 5 hours-”
“It could be exponential. Each higher realm is worth more than the ones before. Realm increases are supposedly huge jumps in power.”
“True.” Ethan agreed, amazed that his summons were intelligent and able to give their own suggestions.
“Alright, tonight, I want you to try and spy on Miss Camelia Everfrost or Sara Argos.”
“I... still don’t know what they look like.”
“Oh.” Darned. “Then for tonight, let’s do something different. Just patrol the Garden, and let me know if you spot anything unusual.”
“As you command, master.” Kaname stepped out of the window, and Ethan noticed she had a range of abilities outside her specified skills, which was... strange?
He had almost drifted to sleep when Kaname pinged.
[Kaname: Master. Spotted unusual movements of ghosts-shadows. Following but they vanished. I spotted them near certain unidentified individuals. Your orders?]
[Ethan: Do not engage. Keep watch and remember their faces.]
[Kaname: Master. Acknowledged- Master. Some of them spotted me. Should I retreat? Wait. They are approaching quickly.]
[Ethan: What-]
[Kaname: Engaging-]
Ethan felt a sense of worry as Kaname went radio silent. It lasted for about 15 minutes and then, a sense that Kaname had cancelled her own summon and returned to him.
When he resummoned Kaname, she looked perfectly fine.
“What happened?”
“Some dogs attacked me. I saw at least fifteen of them, they were everywhere, but they didn’t enter the rooms, just outside, searching. I managed to defeat quite a few though, before I ran out of juice. Here.”
Kaname placed about twelve little black fragments on Ethan’s palm which vanished when it touched his palm.
[You’ve gained 12 fragments of divine energy. 10 fragments have been combined. You now have 1 Shard of divine energy and 2 fragments]
“Oh. Wow.”
The ninja nodded. “The dogs were looking for something. They moved from room to room, sniffing and searching. Then they spotted me.”
Ethan sat in his room, and frowned. “Wouldn’t the grandmaster know? As someone in the 6th realm, they should be perfectly aware of what’s happening in the Garden.”
His rhetorical question was just greeted with silence.They did not know what a sixth realm could do.
Kaname looked exhausted. “I feel drained, master. I shall return."
He pondered what to do with the extra shard for just a moment, and realised it was not a choice. He had to upgrade his summoned warriors.
[Summon Master - Summoned Warriors - Level 3] (+1)
[Overall strength of Summoned Warriors upgraded. All summons gain a level.]