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<11/04/1962 – 15:43 | Route J-H, Junon, Sprawn Valley>
The plan to undergo intense training and gather more credits and experience went well for most of Trujima members, but it wasn't until November 4th when they finally bumped into Eldora's official gradyent on J-H road. Sailing to the separate region took two full days when they departed with little delay for training, followed by battles and training with others on the other side of Tacyon port waiting in line to challenge the same gradyent. Kite and the others made short work of who would challenge this gradyent next, but among Trujima, the official battle would be Danton's honor.
Since he had been training mostly with the Luminous Artemus, Kite at least didn't take the idea seriously, regarding his ability to overcome the gradyent. True it was that Danton's battling style was totally different.
However, deep way into the gradyent challenge, the afternoon battle persisted without either side gaining a severe advantage over the other. The team members watched in awe as Danton once again demonstrated all of the possible new skills, battling right now against the powerful elite warrior guarding rightful entrance to Eldora City. Defeating him would be a requirement to access the city's Leray related services, including taking part in the championships next week. Right now, Danton had no time to think about anything other than his skills and the battle at hand.
Jumping back with an easy and elegant dodge, the elite mage sternly studied his opponent's battling style. Cadan Draix, the Eldora gradyent was about as tall as Danton, with short cut hair and special protective material which included a white collared cape. The man was dressed the part, and well prepared to make sure this young adversary receives the most amount of training possible. Only the best of the best make it to Eldora Tower!
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Danton-N-029.png]image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Cadan-N-001.png]
Danton tried to carefully control his breathing. Cadan can move very quickly at close range when he wants to, and this staff doesn't do very well to block physical attacks. Danton was already breaking a sweat only a few minutes into this Leray match, but so far, the results might as well become a tie if this keeps up. Training with the magic staff took a ton of practice, with Danton taking a few losses against other elites earlier. He had to lose in order to figure out how to prevent making any mistakes. Tactical assessment and well-planned magical spells is the key to fighting with a staff. If he blindly uses magical spells at random, he'll never win using this weapon, despite the spells being more powerful than usual. It was even more difficult to stay level-headed while magical spells designed to cause great damage or pain are constantly heading his way. Just now, Cadan launched another spell, ground based and quickly approaching. It's a Shadow Wave! And with this speed, Cadan has perfected the spell in practice to pack a real punch.
Having to think fast and act on his feet was the one thing Danton continued to polish with every battle, and right now was no different. With his staff already pointing forwards and a steady mind for thoughts of spell dynamics, Danton countered the oncoming Shadow Wave attack with his own Leray skill. "Earth Glave!" Using a spell that required no glyphring sped up his average invocation time by 15%, while the advancing wave of boulders and stone pillars began closer to his physical position. The timing and counter idea was very effective, since Danton was less than a second away from being pulverized by that large Shadow Wave. The Earth Glave continued forward, swallowing Cadan's Shadow Wave while neutralizing its effects like a steamroller. Earth Glave, the easy and common spell which deals earth-elemental blunt type damage quickly zoned in on Cadan, shooting stone boulders and pillars into his body faster than he could process a response to the danger. For the after-result, Cadan was sent flying into the air about two meters up and back. The damage was obvious whether anyone would assess the energy scope or not, but since Cadan was quite unpredictable as well, Danton decided to wait and prepare a proper defense.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Cadan-N-002.png]
Cadan pushed himself back up, noticing all of the small areas of deferred pain on his arms and in his chest from the bruising sensation Earth Glave can cause. That Danton is resilient with his counter-spells, given the chance, but he isn't so good at dodging attacks, even the easy ones. Cadan thus stood tall and aimed his right arm at the guy while charging his multi-colored glyphring circling his wrist. "Let's try Prism!"
Despite Danton hearing the spell name from his present distance, the elemental bolts of fire and ice were already shooting out just as instantly. Danton had a way of dealing with incoming elemental bolts, so long as he was ready. Contrary to popular knowledge, staffs, especially those that are crystallized can be used to deflect or even absorb the Leray energy within elemental projectiles. But that's the catch; they have to be elemental projectiles, which Prism happens to be made of entirely. Danton tried to focus, since he never before deflected a barrage of them as large as Prism's full arsenal contained. It was common technique for Prism users to slightly control the randomized order of which bolts strike the target first. Always hit first with a Lightning Strike attack, so that they are too stunned at the next moment to dodge any of the other slower moving fire or ice spheres.
Danton spun his staff around rapidly in a circular motion, something he could do several times before after rigorous practice. The crystal end lit up slightly as a result of his preparation. By spinning the staff around to fully cover his entire height and width from incoming directional damage, if spun quickly enough generates enough of a centripetal force slightly assisted by magic within the crystal to deflect electrical energy. Danton did it before to deflect a few lightning bolts; the catch was predicting the time of dispersal before getting hit. His trick successfully worked; Danton could see the bright blue arcs of electrical magic stop just short of the spinning fan he created briefly, but after that, it was time to use the crystal directly. Danton stopped the motion of his staff with a free hand, smacking his palm with the force, which caused quite a sting. This was necessary, as the same trick won't work on the other elements easily. Danton instead targeted the trajectory path of each elemental bolt flying at him, and jabbed the end of the Luminous Artemus into the flying spheres. Much like it would be to cut into a magical sphere with a blade to deflect an attack, he would have to use the staff's end point or crystal to jab into the same type of magic projectile to deflect the damage away, and only that section would be capable of blocking the effective damage arc. Danton however was fast acting and high on his reflexes. He easily jabbed the next two Fire Bolts and the preceding Ice Bolt before any of them could do any damage. He then spun the staff around again just after, expecting another Lightning Strike, deflecting it the same way as before.
As impressive as it was to watch, Danton could not predict the light speed usage of each and every Lightning Bolt. Therefore, Cadan's Prism attack eventually made it through to do serious damage, but by then, his total spell's attack power had been deflected, cutting its potential in half completely. The drop in HP on Danton's energy scope was nothing for Cadan to be proud of. Danton didn't even look all that injured when Prism finally ended. Instead, he was preparing for another kind of attack, forcing Cadan to prepare himself.
Even if the spinning of his staff couldn't block out lightning every time, it was useful for other purposes too, like the fact that he can charge MP energy into the staff's crystal more discretely while moving around for deflection. The staff's crystal lights up during the spinning motion, to assist in deflection power as the staff has an automatic detection agent infused into the material by magic, but the crystal also lights up when MP energy is charged into the device by the user, making it harder to predict instant spell invocation right after a deflection, and Danton knew this as well.
While spinning his staff following the end recovery of Prism, Danton chanted the name of his next spell, stopping the staff's motion just as it was time to release the energy. "Photon Wave!" The glyphring was instant, while the release of magic easily caught Cadan off guard.
Cadan could see the nearly invisible dark photons of energy flying down towards him. As fast as they were, he still had enough time for a last second counter-skill. "Glave!" Skipping the extra syllable for the Earth Glave spell, Cadan quickly raised the earth in front of him only for a chance to let it block Danton's spell. Even as the wall ascended in the squeeze of time, the first photon sphere smashed through the entire stonewall, shattering the entire structure as if it were fragile glass, and the next fifteen photon spheres now had an easy opening to their target. Being barraged with powerful non-elemental energy assisted in power level by Danton's passive ability from the staff, Cadan was feeling the hurt, several small but painful blasts in multiple locations on his body. If they were any stronger, he would have been shot backwards and off balance as well.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Cadan-N-003.png]
Cadan was left standing, but his breathing rate increased from having to endure as much damage as this guy was causing him. Danton didn't fight so balanced at the beginning of this battle, but even now is he learning to adapt to a better strategy. Still, he can't counter everything. Against staffs, bladed warriors always have special advantages. "Electric Blade!" Cadan let a yellow glyphring phase the metal object into both of his bands, already infused with electrical energy on the saber itself. Since he never fights with an official weapon of choice, it was easy for Cadan to wield a spawned weapon rather quickly, but he took his time preparing himself for this, giving Danton the chance to see the skill that will take him down.
Almost pushed to a laugh, Danton responded by putting his staff behind him in its holster. "If that's how you want to play this..." Using similar magic, Danton created a yellow glyphring of his own, spawning a short saber sword similar to the one he sold off about a week ago. Just because he was learning to use a staff didn't mean that his sword skills have been forgotten, and Cadan doesn't share the same close combat speed either. Danton chose not to infuse his short saber with any magic, even if that would put Cadan's striking power level to a higher advantage.
Cadan happily charged in with confidence, choosing to engage Danton especially after noticing his sword's electrical advantage, but he was met with a surprising resistance of speed and defensive malice. Every time Cadan efficiently struck the blade towards his opponent, Danton's saber was always in the way, or else he would dodge the swinging attack in time. Danton was faster than expected, but Cadan's personal skills with evasion therapy allowed him to match the speed for some time. Amidst impressive evasions and counter strikes, neither Danton nor Cadan managed to score a single hit with their swords to each other, but Danton pushed on with heavy determination, getting Cadan to walk or slide backwards while he helplessly deflected a barrage of sword slashes. Even if Danton wasn't using magic in his blade, there had to be some reason why it wasn't necessary.
When Danton finally saw the opportunity he wanted, where Cadan wasn't paying attention to anything except for Danton's temporary sword, he openly unleashed a quickly invoked ability from his free hand forced towards Cadan's chest. Danton unleashed a powerful Push Wave spell that sent Cadan flying backwards and away several meters. Cadan impressively learned to land on his hands and feet while in mid-air, but the surprise gave Danton the perfect opportunity. With a quick wave of his hand over his short blade, the metal obtained a dark purple glow of an aura, a magical coat of special spiritual elemental energy. While he quickly lifted his blade and prepared his stance, Danton proceeded to deal the final blow.
"Flashpoint!" Upon immediate release of his charged aura energy, Danton launched forward and off the ground at the speed of light, turning his figure into a solid white hazy beam. In the untraceable motion, Danton used the speed and inertia of that energy to drill his magically infused blade through Cadan's chest, leaving him unable to block and unprepared following the Push Wave. As Danton reappeared with his aura drained and the sword fading from existence, a white hot line was painted on Cadan, the trace of the blade's impact sight only visible due to the extra energy involved to increase the damage tenfold. Cadan's response to the pain and the situation was slightly delayed, but the intensity of the impact was beyond excruciating. He had to cover the deep cut he sustained, while making sure his health didn't drop too low to be counted out of the fight. Despite his dropping stats, Cadan was still prepared to fight Danton to the end. Luckily this time, that spiritual damage didn't affect his judgment or senses.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Cadan-N-004.png]
Cadan turned around to face Danton, who was still having a rough time keeping his composure together. Despite Danton's remaining MP levels, he was still exerting a lot of energy. Danton's health wasn't great, but it was still higher than his own. "Rugh! You fight impressively with a sword. But I'm a Leray gradyent! You won't get past me unless you can pull off another stunt like before, and I've got a few tricks up my own sleeve. Dualcasting!" Using the Dualcast aura skill, Cadan quickly had his entire body shrouded in a dark green veil of light, while he charged up energy for the rest, and despite knowing that this left him open to be attacked, Danton wasn't going to risk it on behalf of the potential danger of unknown techniques or spells. Cadan invoked the next two of his spells, focusing on the effect of the magic and his personal aura to ensure this would work. "Armor of Darkness, and Dampen Field!" Though his invocation took some time to generate one solid aura over another, Cadan demonstrated the ability of stacking auras one on top of the other. There is nothing that stops anyone from using two special auras at the same time; it's just not as easy to learn. Now Danton, try and break down this shield!
"How impressive!" Gleeon of all people understood the secrets behind special auras, and this was the first time watching someone other than himself successfully generate and operate on two auras at once.
"He can do that? That guy's unstoppable!"
Kite's concern was ill-placed, but Gleeon responded to the situation objectively. "Cadan is capable of generating multiple auras. Anyone can technically do this, but the process isn't exactly the same, and it requires a lot of time and practice. In fact, he used a double aura trick twice in a row, since Dualcasting is also its own aura. Using it first makes sense, because both Armor of Darkness and Dampen Field take a long time to invoke after each other. But still, Armor of Darkness protects the user from damage entirely, though is based on a total defense point system, not based on a time limit. Dampen Field lowers the damage received from magic specific attacks, while based entirely on a time limit. Quite frankly, Cadan just increased his health all the way back up to a hundred temporarily."
Danton was surprised that Cadan could do that. But as expected, while using two auras at once, one must constantly concentrate on their successive generation. That means Cadan can't move very fast at the moment. What spell would be able to bust through such impressive defense? The Luminous Artemus increases spell power level, but only to a specific extent. There is another way to increase spell power, but...
"What's wrong," Cadan taunted. "Can't make your next move?" Danton wasn't answering, and he finally seemed to be all out of ideas. "Just because my MP dropped to zero, doesn't mean I can't attack you. Knife Toss!" Cadan threw two small knives towards Danton, sure to at least coax him into losing his patience.
Danton easily dodged the Knife Toss, and went through with his risky plan. The time it takes to make this work is what makes it so risky, and he could easily become interrupted even by a simple Knife Toss, but now is as good a time as any. "Kafire!" Using the staff to amplify its energy aura over Danton, he unleashed the spell, coating himself in a dark green aura of light.
"Now Cadan will have three auras," Vanoss concluded. "Wait? Why is Danton the one... He forgot not to use it on himself by mistake!"
Danton could feel the difference. Everything felt slower, though his reaction time and reflexes were left unchanged. Kafire is usually an anti-aura against the enemy. But after using it on himself, Danton changed his movement and tactics, using the staff again to generate three different glyphrings all surrounding Cadan in the presence of a triangle. Tri-Attack is the spell, creating one fire type glyphring, one ice type glyphring, and one electrical glyphring. Danton generated the glyphrings quickly, but he needed a lot more time to energize them to the point where they would be allowed to fire their elemental bolts. Danton changed his aim of the staff and direction to focus on each glyphring located at separate points. In the meantime, Cadan just threw two more knives in his direction.
Danton noticed them in time to dodge again, but it could have easily interrupted the postponed charging sequence. Due to Kafire's effects, Danton's charging speed for all spells was less than halved, meaning they were taking a lot longer than usual. Nevertheless, he continued to concentrate on three points of each glyphring, generating a secondary spell at each point one at a time. "Molecular Boost!" Danton exerted magic from the end of his staff, creating another kind of glyphring floating just in front of the center of the fire elemental glyphring. Its effect, Molecular Boost will dramatically increase the power level of any spell, especially that of a projectile that happens to pass through the special glyphring when perfectly aimed, but Danton didn't stop there. Despite how much energy Molecular Boost takes just to use once, he switched position to aim at the ice elemental glyphring, chanting the same name. "Molecular Boost!" Danton again switched to the electrical glyphring and performed the same action. "Molecular Boost!" Though his MP reserves were almost depleted and still draining to continue charging all three elemental glyphrings, the new addition of all three Molecular Boost glyphrings were well aimed to amplify the power of Tri-Attack tenfold.
"I knew it!" Gleeon wasn't sure about Danton's motives before, but this amazing display of power, as long as it was taking all revealed a singular purpose. "Danton did use Kafire on himself, with every intention to do so."
"What?"
Gleeon knew that Mainne wasn't the only one confused for answers, so he explained it anyway, amazed that Danton was giving the spell as much time to have it explained. "Kafire does more than slow down your invocation time. It conserves the MP energy you use by half. Normally, it would be impossible for anyone including Danton to generate three separate Molecular Boost rings at once, let alone to control all of them. The energy requirements are far too high for that. But because his magic points are reserved, he can overpower Tri-Attack all he wants without as many consequences. Plus, the benefits of Kafire are two-sided. In order to pull this off, Danton knew he would need to hold off on launching the Tri-Attack sequence, having prepared the other glyphrings before that. Normally, you can't delay the charge time of your own spell, not without consuming additional MP energy, which generally would not do you any good. But in this case, the increased charge duration from Kafire is helping him focus each Tri-Attack ring while powering up each bolt of attack." It's far more effective than overpowering something like Prism, because in this case, Tri-Attack counts as three separate spells as far as damage is concerned. Molecular Boost doubles power level, but in Danton's plan, he is multiplying that factor far beyond two. Each elemental bolt will do six times their ordinary damage, since all three Molecular Boost rings are synchronized to the same general spell. "He really is learning how auras work. Cadan is finished."
Even though this charge sequence took almost thirty seconds now, it didn't change anything for Cadan. His auras were still active, but the disadvantage to running two at once as Gleeon once spoke of, is a reduction in mobility. Right now, Cadan was trying to figure out what was happening on the field. Too late now though, because Tri-Attack is ready to fire. Danton was already exhausted from this lone technique, but his attention was still unscathed. He released his Tri-Attack, sending all three bolts of energy to fire from their respective glyphrings, and since they would immediately pass into their own ring of Molecular Boost glyphrings, there's no telling how much this would amplify the spell in total.
To even Danton's surprise, the bolts from all three sides immediately transformed into blinding beams of colored light fixated onto the same target point. There were three flashes of light, followed by a massive explosion of energy sending a shockwave in all directions, blinding Danton further with a sudden dust cloud. All of the glyphrings disappeared, including Danton's aura from Kafire. After the dust dispersed further from the blast origin, the results were left in plain sight for the last man standing. Cadan was already in the process of dropping forward to the ground, failing to use his hands to shield his face from the fall, being unconscious already. Cadan's auras, both of them were effectively destroyed by the blast of energy, which apparently was enough to perform additional damage afterwards. His HP was already dropped all the way down to zero percent, and by now, the battle was over.
image [https://ia800302.us.archive.org/27/items/lw-allenergyscopes/{S4}_Cadan-N-005.png]
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Chapter Theme Shift: The Gapra Whitewood ~ FFXIII OST
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"Haagh!" Danton relieved himself from standing, falling into a leaning sit-down in the grass, staff barely grasped into his left hand. As cool as that plan was, it took a ton out of him. That technique took thirty full seconds of uninterrupted concentration; it won't ever happen again. Cadan was just stupid enough to make himself immobile for over thirty seconds.
By now, the Siriean dome faded away, rewarding Danton with an automatic pass into Eldora City will all perks attached, but the gradyent will still have to wake up from that and manually input the same benefits for the rest of the gang. Cadan promised as much if Danton could defeat him in battle. However, not everyone was jumping up to celebrate.
"What the hell was that?! I thought you said Danton had a long way to go before he could pull off some magic crap like that!"
Kite is still his usual self anyway. At least it made things feel more normal. With Danton being the leading charge to Eldora City, everything just felt out of whack. Gleeon knew that he and Kite were both sensing this. Vanoss might be as well. Either way, Danton's adaptability and creativity with that staff are reaching heights he has never seen before. "I guess there are a lot more secrets in Leray magic than we were previously aware of..." Nobody wanted to answer to Gleeon's deduction, but now, somebody would need to help Danton and Cadan recover.
It didn't take too much time to revive Cadan and recharge Danton using healing orbs, but the team had to wait until Cadan was awake before anything could be done. When both of them came to, Cadan was then made to honor his end of the deal. Just like Belzer did for the entire team, Cadan updated the license cards of everyone in Trujima, praising Danton for his victory. Naturally, Cadan didn't have a reliable memory of the last few moments, the amazing spell combination that defeated him. Danton saw no need to explain it to him. There is no way that trick could work twice, no matter how amazing it was.
When everything was taken care of, the team pressed on foot to the interior of Eldora City, on approach to Eldora Tower for the registration process. "Still, I think I could have done better."
Danton sighed from Kite's repetitive behavior. Kite doing something better than the way Danton battled; he would love to see that in action. "The time for dreaming and self-delusions is over." Danton knew Kite wouldn't take that without some resistance, but he welcomed his enthusiasm to defeat everyone in the upcoming Eldora championships.
"You better watch yourself kid. I've become stronger too during this time." Kite knew Danton wasn't as easy as he made it sound, but there is still a chance.
Mainne nearly laughed at the familiar situation while she and the team reached the city entrance. "You both sound like kids going at each other. There will be plenty of time to prove yourselves, and we have a whole week to train before the championship starts again."
Mainne was referring to the official process of championship chain events, in that the battle hosting for these events only happens once every week, in order to give the ruler of Sprawn Valley plenty of time to navigate their executive duties. The last battle finished last night, apparently with no changes to the current chain of command.
Having never been to Eldora City before, Danton and Mainne were both eccentric with the scenery before them. The city itself is beautiful in every way imaginable. The streets were filled with people walking to their jobs or to their apartments. The size of the area was beyond what anyone could see. A map of Eldora was proving that one would have to explore on foot just to get the whole idea of the size of the area. But the most amazing structure of course was the massive cylindrical building in the distance, spanning up into the sky. At appearance, Danton guessed it to be well over a thousand meters tall, but there were special edges in specific areas outside of the tower, appearing to resemble extra rooms on certain levels that were totally opaque from this viewing angle. With a blank stare for answers, Danton could see that Mainne found the structure to be just as interesting. It was like walking into another world. Somehow, Gleeon and the others weren't sharing the same sentiment.
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Chapter Theme Shift: Northland (Alternative) ~ Antti Martikainen
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"Let's not look like tourists," Gleeon pleaded. He actually used to grow up here in the past before his family moved to a more remote location. Somehow, it didn't feel worth all that extra effort, but based on the memory he held in from earlier, Gleeon knew that Kite visited Eldora City before too, as a citizen anyway. Vanoss's story was more mysterious than this, but he didn't seem as surprised as the other two were. Maybe he visited Eldora as well?
There was a long walk just to reach the entrance of Eldora Tower, but Danton just remembered something important about the registration process. "So Kite? Which one of us is going to register for the championship battle? If we both do it, it will take much more time to face off against each other."
"I should do it of course."
"You seem confident," Mainne reluctantly assumed.
"Lawrence has nothing on any of us. Besides, if I become the champion, it will make the battle more exciting."
"You are forgetting that I just defeated two gradyents in a row. What sort of demonstration of skill have you provided to us lately?"
Kite was about to grind his teeth, having Danton dare to question his ability to fight at all. "I work in the dark to train kid."
"And what's with this calling me kid crap? My name is Brash Danton. Use at least the first or last name."
"I don't know," Kite declined. "You seem more like the kind we took under our wing, and not the other way around. Look. I'm still technically the leader of Trujima, so that's how it is."
"If I sign up for the Catalyst Grove, it will be faster to challenge you directly, but the same case could be made if you were the one who signs up for it."
Kite glanced back at him while pacing his steps. "What do you want out of this, man? You want to fight me now just to see which one of us deserves to try first for the champion? I promise you that Lawrence is not a tough opponent. I've done my research on his battling style."
Mainne stepped in to invalidate that offer before it was too late. "Registration ends at five today. We don't have the time for random battling."
"Fine then." Danton crept up closer to Kite, changing his mind on how to make this work. "We'll rock-paper-scissors for the first chance to sign up."
"If that's how you want it..." Kite dragged his speed back to draw his right arm over to Danton's. He had the right idea anyway. This is also an acceptable way to settle any dispute, best out of one. Kite bobbed his hand up and down alongside of Danton's, preparing to reveal the results at exactly the same time. Kite had a strong feeling that Danton would chose rock over anything else, based on the likely fact that Kite usually goes for scissors. But this time, he was ready for it. Kite chose paper, while Danton chose rock, and that was that.
"Nagh!" Danton sadly studied his clenched hand, soaking in his own defeat. "Fine. You get to go first," he allowed. Danton would just have to sign up for the Catalyst Grove, and make his way into the elite chain. "But if you somehow lose to Lawrence, I'll be taking his place long before you make it back into the ranks of the elite chain."
"No need to worry. I won't lose."
When the Trujima gang made it to the front counter of Eldora Tower for registration, the time and date for everyone was set. For those in the Catalyst Grove, everyone had to choose one of the four current elite members to overtake should they score a victory. The rules were once again repeated, in that the final challenge of the Catalyst Grove will have to be done with half the challenger's HP reserves, and a time limit of ten minutes, without bringing any native weapons or armor into the chamber. With the plan already set into action, it would be time to settle into a place to sleep, with plans to continue further training in the meantime. From here on, it will be nothing but hard work and sheer determination to take the elite chain of Eldora Tower, in the name of Trujima.