The first week was the hardest, he would see his friends around but they did what he had asked, they put on the show of hating him. He did the same, he would give them dismissive looks, or out right sneer at them, whatever felt like the right thing in the moment he would just go with. He took his first run at the peak E grade dungeon, it started off the same as all the others, with 5 monsters, but thankfully they also started out at level 60, and grew quickly. The format was slightly different though, instead of 5 waves of the same monster and then a boss, this dungeon added in different monsters to the mix, although all along a theme. For example, on the first 5 waves it was different types of golems, which was a great throw back to the earth dungeon. What happened was that on each wave more than one monster would be added and they would be different types, ranging from rock to steel to stone, all getting exponentially harder to fight.
He had little issue getting through the waves, it was ridiculous how many levels he gained in the first run of the dungeon, it initially started off with maybe 1 level per 3 wave, but eventually it got to a point where he was gaining a level every 2 waves. When he had gained 10 levels he decided to leave the dungeon, he could have gone further but he had decided that he would need to pace himself. If he gained to may levels too quickly he would draw even more attention, questions would be asked, and he just couldn’t deal with it.
So rather than push himself to far in the dungeon he spent more time crafting during the day, he made his new sword, embedding so much power into it, both with runes, crystals, even the metal itself was enhanced. It was impressive, so much so that when he wielded it for the first time it was as if it was an extension of his very body. Perfect in every way. He didn’t put to many spells into it, instead on focusing on pure physical power. As he was fighting monsters at a higher level he needed a sword that could be used to really slice through them. Because of that he sacrificed any magical attacks and instead focused on creating a cycle of power within the blade to increase its durability, sharpness and overall channelling ability.
His next fight wasn’t even a fight, the moment he got into the arena with his opponent they conceded the match. The crowd was not happy about this, apparently it was the first time someone had conceded, but he could really blame the guy, Shaun was at level 50 at that point whereas the other guy was at level 32. It was a smart decision though, as if he gave up now and continued to train hard there was a chance that they could replace one of the other top contenders later on. But if he decided to fight Shaun, and potentially not make it out of the arena at all, like what happened in his first fight, then there was no hope in coming back.
He was now limiting himself to only gaining 3 class levels a day in the dungeon, even though he could really push himself to gain more, he had to restrain himself. Now that he had nothing else to craft for himself he started to make all sorts of different things, pushing his skills as much as he could. He created weapons, armour, arrows, leather goods, any thing he could think of. He wanted to try and make other growth items, but he had yet to replicate the success he had with the arrow. So he would sell what he crafted and then purchase more things from the stores to craft more. He was single handily keeping this tutorial economy alive, and it had even started joking with some of the owners around just selling everything they had to him to save them all the time.
The only place he only went into once was the alchemy store. When he had went in there to collect his elixir’s the elf had said something that had set him on edge. Alxeria had given him the elixir’s, telling him to take both of them while she was there so she could make sure nothing went wrong. He took the body elixir first, gaining only 20 points in each of the 4 body stats, it was good but not great. The mana concentration one though was something completely different, he wouldn’t say the experience hurt but when the elixir started taking effect he was unable to move, his entire mana channel constricted, it was as if the mana itself was becoming more compact. The process went on for over three hours, one by one his mana streams changed, he knew that they were getting stronger but it didn’t stop him from worrying. The basic streams went the quickest and by the time they were done they shined just a bit brighter, the advanced ones though, they took so much time that he was wondering if they would ever end. Eventually though he was done and the look that he was given by the alchemist was terrifying. She told him, after the fact, that the stronger and more affinity one has in their mana channels the longer the elixir takes. She went on to tell him that even with 2 basic and one advanced that it should have only taken a little over an hour, then she questions him on why it took over 3. After that he made some excuse, saying she had obviously screwed up and he left, but her laughing as he did was still playing in his mind days later.
His second fight went the same way as the first, apparently, he now had some reputation, if you went into the arena with him you weren’t going to make it out, and people actually believed it. He thought about correcting it but then decided against it, he was growing in level, fast, and the gap between him and everyone else was not closing, only growing wider. There were questions as to how he was doing it, what exactly it meant to be an Elemental Blade Slinger, but no one would dare approach him to ask, and no one wanted to risk fighting him to find out.
By the time the week was over he had met with 5 more of the major reps, the first was Collective of Beastial Creatures rep Polrias, It wasn’t as bad as some of the others but it was definitely weird, they mostly spoke about why he wanted Shaun to join them, mostly so that he could father cross breeds with some of the more human like creatures that were part of the faction, in the hopes that his class and power could be passed into their faction, he was offered whatever he wanted in return. It was such an odd conversation that he had to try and not laugh when they asked him what he liked in a creature.
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The Holy Light and The Nine circles went one after the other, and he honestly felt that it went the same way as when he spoke to the Life and Death faction. Quinter from The Holy Light went on about their war with hell, why he needed to fight the great fight and so on. It was hard to even make it through without just telling them to shut up about their beef with demons, he just didn’t care. Drakunsher on the other hand was actually decently pleasant to talk to. He got to ask as many questions as he wanted about the hells, He asked about what it was like, and of course the question around if lucifer was in fact an angel. Drakunsher seemed to enjoy his questions, laughing at some of the more ridiculous ones but answering them non the less.
He met with Sleese after that, and finding out more about The Elementals was interesting, apparently there were so many different types of elemental beings that they made up planets, some of them being completely terraformed to the elementals liking. It was one of the most interesting conversations he had had with the reps. They spoke around what happened when all beings, not just elementals, increased in grade. Just like when Shaun had gone from F grade to E grade and he became more powerful, as if his body was remade, this happened at each increase. There was some that were more important than others though as when one hit the C grade there was a chance that if a being had unlocked any important aspects of themselves, either through special items or even through there own deeds, than they could potentially upgrade not just their grade but also their race. This was a big deal in the multiverse as to upgrade one’s entire race was a reflection on not just their past achievements but also their future potential.
Shaun’s last meeting of that week, marking the halfway point of the last stage, was with Claude from The Unending Void. It was the weirdest of all the meetings, they didn’t speak the entire time, simply sitting and watching each other. He thought to break the silence but had decided it against it as Claude seemed content to just sit and watch him, seeming to try and gain some understanding into him by just staring.
The end of the week saw another feast, this time he attended but made no attempt to show his power, or release an ounce of his aura, the only reason he actually attended was in the hope that he would see Des again. He didn’t speak the entire time, instead he just ate and drank in silence, hoping that he would be called away to another room to talk to someone from The Alliance. As the feast went on though he gave up hope, he resorted to just drinking his way through the feast in the hope it would end. He refused to give any speeches and when he felt like he had been there long enough he just got up and left. It was disappointing but expected.
Before he had left the feast Dijaun had appeared again and informed everyone that the fights had been posted on the board, with Shaun being exempt due to his ranking and win streak. Everyone was informed that due to two of his opponents forfeiting and him killing the other with no issues that it was clear that he was the highest placed person in the fights so far. He was also informed that on the second day he had already been ‘randomly’ selected to be one of the people in the three person fight, not that it made much of a difference to him.
He now had the next two days completely free, only needing to attend his second to last meeting with one of the reps at the end of the second day. He had done a lot of training this week, using his elemental shift ability as much as possible, gaining a better understanding of how it worked and how much mana he needed to put into it. He found that shifting into his basic elements was easiest, all he had to do was concentrate on the element inside of him and allow it to fully take over his body. Moving as the wind had been more fun than he initially expected, but sustaining the shift was near impossible. He was able to hold it for a few seconds before his body couldn’t handle the sustained use and he would need to cut it off. It was the same with his advanced elements, however he was able to use these in different ways. For example he found that he could turn his entire body in lightning and attacks from monsters would cause him no harm, the same couldn’t be said for the monsters though. As soon as they touched him they were immediately electrocuted with the full force of a lightning strike. The other way he could use lightning was being able to fully allow himself to be formed into a bolt and strike out, instantly moving from one place to another so quickly that the first few times he had done it he was so disorientated that he got mauled by monsters.
Using ice was much more straight forward, he could turn either his full body or even parts of his body into ice, the cool part being that if anything touched him in this form than they too would start to turn to ice, regardless if it was a weapon or monster, they could immediately start to be claimed like a virus spreading out from Shaun through to whatever touched him.
When it came to his class, he was overpowered, his heritage mixed with his affinity made fighting anything his own level child’s play and he was easily fighting monsters over 20 levels above him, sometimes more. If he wanted to, he could probably reach the peak of the E grade dungeon but doing so would get him so many levels that it would raise too many, so instead he focused on the 2 things that did take time, his profession, where he had now been stuck on level 49 for days, and bonding one last advanced affinity, magma. Gaining levels in his profession still took time, even with everything he had created the last week, so he wasn’t scared to keep going at it. And with another affinity no one would be able to tell, it just took time and patience, and a lot of pain, on his behalf.
Shaun decided to start with the bonding, knowing that it took time to get back to feeling 100%, but after that he would push as hard as he could to get to level 50 in his craft so that he could get a new skill, one that he hoped would push his crafting to the next level.
Before he went into the dungeon to bond the affinity he did a quick shop for food, needing to restock his inventory before he secluded himself. He got some weird looks at the request for months worth of food but he didn’t pay it any mind, instead he just took what they could give him and he made his way to the dungeon. This was probably going to be the last time he would utilise the time dilution in this way, having already gone over all the books he could on affinity and not finding any other ways to utilise the basic affinity he had. After this he was going to haver to find other ways to increase his power, that meant finding natural treasures or places that were completely attuned to an element which was both rare and time consuming, but something he may need to seriously look into in the future. When he was finally in the dungeon and ready to get to work he was more than ready to get to get another affinity.