"You ready?" Pherdanta said.
"J-just do it." It was a rare sight to see Maxim flustered. Sure, she had been quite shaken by what she saw during the little trip to the past minutes ago, but she hadn't worn a look quite like the one she was wearing now.
Mazim was standing opposite Pherdanta with a five ter distance between them. Her legs were spread wide, her centre of gravity lowered. She looked as though she was bracing for a fierce impact. Her palms were stretched out before her, giving the impression that whatever she was bracing for also needed to be trapped in her hands.
Everyone was watching closely. Pherdanta had given a brief explanation of what she and Maxim were trying to do since it was for everyone's benefit. The explanation garnered not just interest but quite a bit of morale. The mission to the Under was obscure for most, but even the most common of commonfolk knew that the Under was bad news.
Even if Boron was technically not there at the mont, visiting a place that had been used to whip children into shape with sayings like, If you don't eat your spring roots, the Under dogs will co and snatch you, or, The souls of little children who hit others are the perfect dessert for the great wolves of Under, was terrifying all the sa.
Most rembered the fables of old concerning that place. It was getting real now.
Fortunately, Pherdanta had consoled everyone by telling them that it didn't matter if they felt underpowered. After all, a primary asure she was implenting for the benefit of everyone was that she would be giving the experts five hundred attacks that they only needed to throw at the enemy without worrying about expending energy.
"Here I go," said Pherdanta, but she didn't seem to prepare at all. Her swords were sheathed and her hands were on her waist. "I'll match your pace and perhaps go over. Just by a bit."
"I get it already. You're good. It's written all over my face how anxious I am!" snapped Maxim. Pherdanta chuckled, as did Illyinni Wolverik. She garnered a sharp, hateful from Maxim.
When Pherdanta's mana gushed from her body though, Maxim went back to looking like she was about to fight a naked ghost. Her own mana surged from her body, several leagues lacking when matched against Pherdanta's.
The Unlimited Star kept a modest smile on her face, her body aloof and unmoving. Then a visible streak of light rushed towards Maxim. It must have been moving ten tis faster than sound judging by the way it seed to spawn between Maxim's outstretched palms.
Maxim's senses were drawn taut.
'She's really going easy on ,' she thought as she activated her technique, Planate High.
The slash Pherdanta sent out was imdiately encased in a very thin, glass-like plate that had zero montum. It fell to the floor gracelessly. A long streak of light – the slash – was trapped right in the middle of the plate; it looked like a long, luminous smudge than anything else.
Planate High was the technique – a skill, of course – created by the Flatbed Family. It allowed the user to trap certain targets within glass-like plates conjured from mana, preserving said targets until the plates were shattered.
The technique could be used for stalling opponents or storing volatile forces that could then be released per the user's choosing. It was a very powerful technique, given that it could also be used on sentient, organic matter, depending on the strength gap between the user and the target.
In this case, Maxim was storing Pherdanta's slashes. She could tell when she stored this first one that the strength of the slash was just barely below the limit of what she was able to contain. The slash could definitely injure an Incandescent Stager, even if the parater for injure was restricted to a scratch.
But then again, cutting down powerful enemies with a single attack wasn't the goal behind why Pherdanta was giving everyone these slashes. The more skilled experts among the combatants here would derive a lot of utility from just one slash. The less skilled ones could probably kill a single powerful enemy by using a hundred or so of the slashes at once in a desperate situation.
Maxim breathed out. She gave Pherdanta a hard look and then nodded.
She was ready.
The Unlimited Star nodded back and then she released another slash and then another, and then another and….
WHP! WHP! WHP! WHP! WHP!
A slash flew at Maxim every 1.2 seconds. She imdiately caught it with Planate High and then focused on the next and then the next.
She knew she wasn't in any danger even if she failed to ti herself correctly and got hit by a single slash. She'd seen Pherdanta heal from a technique that could cut through Transcendent grade armour like butter after all. But still…
'Co on. Did I start to feel too self-important because I was hanging out with Festos? Damn it! This woman has a way of making feel useless. She's a whole lot more valuable to the real Festos than I am,' she thought frowning. 'At the very least... I can't fail at a task like this. Especially with that bitch watching.'
She said it, but she didn't dare spare a glance at Illyinni. She did wonder though. What was Illyinni Wolverik's technique? Heck, what was Shura's technique? The Desmonn House was renowned for their powerful technique. It was supposed to be at the sa level or stronger than the EverSword Imagining Technique.
Maxim chuckled. If it was as powerful as the rumours suggested, Vali was probably going to steal it. She (Maxim) knew Vali was just as frustrated as she was for being so lacking when compared to Pherdanta.
It didn't take too long for Maxim to trap 184,500 slashes, but after she was done, she was drenched in sweat and wheezing. Even for a Master like her, that was an absurd number of activations for Planate High.
Midway, she had needed a supplent of mana, which Pherdanta had seamlessly given. Maxim had almost mistaken the swift replenishnt for an inexplicable miracle given how smoothly it was perford.
"Argh! Kill !" she cried as she plopped to the ground. No sooner had she touched the stone tiling in the courtyard did Vali walk over to her and place a hand over her head. Using her own technique, she removed all the strain, sweat, and pain from Maxim who still chose to remain lying down.
"Well done," said Vali with a smile. She ant it.
"Fuck…off."
Pherdanta pointed at the mounds of plates, and using basic mana manipulation – at least what she and the other Stark Troops would consider such – she perfectly organized the stacks for the more than 360 experts who were going to be using them. The Stark Troops and the Six Houses were not included, after all.
"Take your 500 and store them in a spatial storage. If you don't have one, you only need to say it. I'll provide," the Unlimited Star said.
The experts imdiately – though in an orderly fashion – moved forth and did as they were bid. It was terrifying how much respect Pherdanta had garnered from them just from the last several minutes.
The fact that she had produced nearly 200,000 powerful slashes without moving so much as a finger or breaking a sweat was baffling for the average expert.
But at the sa ti, Maxim had also garnered a bit of that respect as well. At first, Pherdanta had been sending a slash every 1.2 seconds, but she kept increasing the pace.
Pherdanta wasn't blind or stupid. She knew how her performances of late were starting to make Vali and Maxim – friends of her master – feel. In order to help Maxim earn face and ignite her potential, she challenged her. Fortunately, Maxim was up to that challenge.
In the end, she was able to handle a slash every 0.02 seconds. She didn't fumble even when her mana reserves had run dry and were swiftly replenished by Pherdanta. That miniscule transition from empty to full would have tripped most experts.
It didn't take too long for everyone to take their share of the plates. By then, Maxim was on her feet, using Vali's shoulder as support – even though she was back to full health. She had been thinking hard as the experts Vali had commandeered from several Families during the Premium Age Royale took the fruits of her labor.
She frowned.
A mont later, she walked towards Pherdanta.
"Look," she said to her. "To tell you the truth, I'm not in the habit of helping people in this manner so I'm not sure about so of the weaknesses of having portable slashing attacks. Usually, all I need to do to release a phenonon I've trapped is to will the plate to break or to do it myself. However…the more I think about it, the more I have a feeling it will be significantly more difficult to control a slash after release for everyone else. They can't will the plates whenever they wish. They can only break them. And if they do... those slashes might harm them instead of being of use."
Pherdanta nodded.
"I considered that."
Maxim reeled.
"You did?"
"Yes." Pherdanta suddenly turned to her right where Ferex was watching the experts. "Ferex is going to rectify that. Or rather…he's going to help you do so."
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