Maike sat with the tiny family on her couch, drinking tea and told them what awesome stuff they had in their base.

“We also have four inns now that make delicious food, but the best one is that of Lars,” Maike said happily. “Oh, and Kael bought flying ships that will be docking at one of the now fifteen great towers in the fortress.”

“That is very nice to hear, but what will happen in a week when you all leave?” Hioshi asked.

“Not everyone will leave. There are so many newcomers joining. You will probably have to build a new base, but that shouldn’t be too difficult,” Maike argued.

“Thank you for the help,” Sachiko said with gratitude. "Most only wanted to know stuff about Thalion, if his aura was stronger than theirs, or what skills he had used."

“I don’t really want to fight the guy, so it wouldn’t be relevant for me either way,” Maike laughed.

Soon, the healer arrived and fixed Hiroshi's legs and arm.

“Do you think you could tell me where the fight with the scorpions and the spiders was if we were to fly over it?” Maike asked, leaning forward.

“Sure, but why would you want to find him?” Sachiko shrugged. “Why would you even want to know? The last we saw was how he transformed into a green eagle and disappeared into the sky.”

“It still would be very helpful,” Maike argued. “I just want to find Thalion and talk to him.”

“We can help you, but we don’t want to leave the ship,” Hioshi said, and Hanako and Sachiko nodded in agreement.

“Wonderful! Don’t worry, you can stay on the ship while I take a quick look around,” Maike said happily.

<--

Thalion had traveled for two hours until he spotted a small clearing that would be a nice spot for the night.

He had seen a black spot in the forest, arguably plants with a high darkness affinity, which would be perfect for him. It would take easily three more hours of flying, and he wanted to get some soul cultivation done today.

He had continued the path of the eternal spirit while flying, but it took him way longer, so he decided to fly through some whirlwinds to temper his body further and have some fun.

Now that fun had ended as he sat down on a tree branch and continued to build his spirit body. When the night started, he turned to hunting. He wanted to test how strong the umbral predator now was.

He also used the scroll of predatory control for the first time before he started the hunt. When he touched the scroll, his brain got flooded with information. Damn, what is it always with those scrolls?

Sometimes you have to read them, or they speak to you, and the last one just pushed all the information into your head with the gentleness of a wrecking ball. It took some time to organize all the information, and he was positively surprised by the result.

There was so much information on mana and how it could help to track prey. The natural mana would get disrupted when beasts walked through it, leaving a footprint in the air.

The even more important information was how to see the weak spots of your enemies. Thalion had always thought that the head or joints would be weak points, but now he could feel where the mana in a beast gathered and how it flowed through the body.

Striking one of those veins could deal much more damage than a strike against a joint. Yeah, the head was still the biggest weak point, but some beasts didn’t have a head or brain, like elementals. Another reason was that when he fought bigger monsters, it would have been easier to defeat them by striking those weak points.

In combination with his affinity for darkness, which seemingly eroded the enemy’s flesh, he should make him a terrifying enemy.

What he liked most about all the information he had just been assaulted with, was that it was useful in every single one of his forms. “Time for some fighting. I didn’t just land here to sit on a tree the whole night.”

The umbral predator rushed through the jungle with incredible speed. With the help of predatory instincts, he soon found his first target.

Mantis Akridon Level 58

He had already fought against that beast, and it was definitely one of the strongest beasts he had ever faced. This one was around five meters tall, and a strong aura radiated out from its body. This wouldn’t deter Thalion; the stronger the enemy, the more he would learn. He needed those fights to gain power quickly.

Better said, as fast as his current condition with the guardian's remnant title allowed. The mantis was busy at the moment ripping a delicious lure out of the ground and eating it.

This mantis even had blade-like bones coming out of its elbow; that was new for sure. Thalion was hidden in the darkness of the night while he slowly approached.

He saw problems with how he could ever ambush someone in broad daylight since everything grew dark around him. In the night, he was like a phantom, unseen to every watcher, while his sharpened senses spotted prey at fast distances. Thalion sprinted at the mantis with full speed.

The mantis akridon somehow noticed him fast enough to bring his claw up to block the strike of a shadow claw. At least that was the mantis' intended action, but Thalion’s attack was too strong, and he cut right through the arm. The arm of the mantis akridon was ripped apart, and shortly after, the body followed as a slash of darkness extended from his claws.

“This was easier than anticipated,” Thalion thought while devouring his prey. Tonight, he massacred a wasp hive, a few vine horses, and a pack of night panthers, every beast between level 50 and 60. With all his effort, he only got one single level up.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“This is so frustrating; I had killed so many wasps, but since they were all closer to level 50, they barely gave any experience.” Slow and steady wins the race, he thought, as he sat down in his human form again. Level 43 was not bad but also not good. He wondered if he could even defeat Kael or Kai.

They must have had a hard training program when a god gave them advice. Thinking back, he had no idea if he could beat them. In their first fight against the orcs, they both were already terrifyingly good with their weapons.

He definitely needed some more insights if he was going to fight them one day. Now it was time for soul cultivation. He had almost finished his spiritual body in his human form. After that, he had to work on the spiritual veins.

This was a task he had avoided for quite some time, as it was just a pain in the ass to slowly grow them. Most of the time, they didn’t grow in the direction he wanted, and one single mistake and the last hours of work would be for nothing.

“You can’t run away from the hard work, or your dream will end here,” he thought to himself after he finished his spirit body eight hours later. “Every failure brings you closer to victory,” he told himself after the third spiritual vein he had tried to create tore off. It was already night again, and he had managed to add one spirit vein to his spirit body.

If he hadn’t failed so many times, he would have had twenty-four, but life was cruel sometimes. He contemplated going for another hunt but decided against it. Most beasts weren’t his match, and he didn’t get much experience from the kills. Best to focus on other improvements until the beasts had grown stronger and he wouldn’t have to kill hundreds of them for a single level.

He also feared that he wouldn’t pay as much attention while fighting anymore when he had such an advantage. That’s why he sat all night on a tree branch seventy meters above the ground, furiously waving his arms around every time a newly created spirit vein ripped off.

<--

Kael's body hurt from all the training and body tempering he had gone through this night. He only had a few more hours until they would start their journey to the mountains. He had finished the last stage of Aeta's body tempering manual.

All his senses were sharpened to a ridiculous degree, as was his agility and dexterity. Kael, however, had invested much time in swordsmanship and fighting with daggers.

It didn’t make much sense to work on skills, because he had invested most of his credits to buy skills of legendary rarity.

He had multiple skills which could speed him up in a fight.

Kael, moreover, had gotten a new ability from his upgraded blessing: "Ranger's Premonition." This skill warned him of danger even when he didn't see it. A very powerful skill, it would be very useful in the future. Another reason why this skill was so important was that he lacked any defensive stats.

He had high strength, agility, perception, and dexterity, while his toughness and vitality were very low. Kael had put some of his free stat points into vitality, but it was far from enough to have a big impact. He took the bow out of his spatial ring and started practicing, shooting arrows after doing rolls, backflips, and so on. The bow had helped him in so many fights and, in his opinion, brought him many advantages.

It was a very good stealth attack, but since he got a spatial ring, it was very easy to switch between weapons while fighting. So he could quickly take a shot at the enemy while he was airborne and, before impact, switch to his sword again.

That he didn’t need a quiver to hold all the arrows was another bonus; instead, he could just summon them out of his spatial ring with a thought. In his training session, he tried to speed up the time an arrow needed to fully charge up, and he made great progress.

Three weeks ago, it took him almost five seconds to fully power an arrow. Now it was a bit under two seconds. Two seconds in a fight was a long time, but when they fought as a team, it was more than enough.

He, of course, had his own training room, and for the next hour, Kael spent destroying target dummies with charged arrows. He also had different kinds of arrows; some were longer, others were heavier, which of course made it harder to hit. That’s why Kael spent so much time training; perfection was very important in this new world.

"Come, Kael, the skyships are ready," Kai interrupted his training an hour later.

"Great, then let's go," Kael said. "If we are lucky, one of our scouts will find Thalion, and we can pay him a visit."

<--

Thulgar, the frozen Revenant, stepped through space and appeared in a giant hall. All the other undead gods were already there.

"How is the war going, Thulgar?" Ankhu Ra, the sand wraith, said with his sinister voice.

Ankhu Ra a mummie, was a master of curses and the desert. Arguably, he was even the strongest undead god, but that was always hard to say. One thing he definitely was, was arrogant to name himself after the great one; outrageous.

"Good, the pressure is starting to rise. She already needs help to fight the attackers off," Thulgar reported after sitting down.

"How is the situation in the tutorial?" he asked the group.

He hadn’t managed to find someone he could bless in that specific tutorial. For him to be able to bless someone, special requirements must be met.

"Very good; my underlings are almost finished with the preparation for the fifth stage," Xirnath, the soulbinder, said.

Xirnath was the most powerful lich in the eternal dominion.

"My and Tevebrice's blessings have secured the fourth stage and will soon move on to the fifth stage," Morrigana, the blood priestess, said.

"My vampires have turned many beasts. Leveling will be more difficult for the humans," Tenebrice said with a smile.

"This is good, but we need to be cautious. The elves and the orcs also have their plans," Ankhu Ra said. "The fights with the living will weaken us, and there are many gods out there who will use the opportunity to gain power."

"Do we have any information about the cyborgs? They have been very silent," Morrigana asked curiously.

"No. The time until the new universe fully opens up will be very eventful," Xirnath said.

"How are your divine champions doing?" Thargul asked. Almost every strong god would give out their divine blessing when a new era began.

"Excellent; mine rules over his tutorial already at the peak of F grade," Tenebrice said proudly.

"Do we know something about the divine champions of the other gods? Especially Mazu's chosen will be very important," Thurgal asked the other gods.

"No, sadly not," Morrigana hissed. "We are all on the lookout; it won't be long until we find her."

"How is the training of your incursion forces going?" Thurgal asked partly to annoy Tenebrice. "If necessary, I can help out. There are a lot of promising seedlings in this generation."

"Don’t bother; my forces are more than fine," Tenebrice scoffed.

"If the situation in that tutorial doesn't change, we will gain much power," Xirnath said with confidence.

With that, they all agreed, and soon after, the meeting was over. Thurgal smiled; the future held so many promises. He wondered, will it be enough to slay Mazu this time?

The water goddess was powerful, but the last eras had been hard for her, and she had lost some of her power. Now she was on her last legs, and Thurgal would gladly finish the woman.