Inside the evaluation room, Almond, who was floating cross-legged in the center, opened his eyes.
His eyes were utterly calm and serene, but a second later, an inferno of frustration. "Ten fucking days, and I barely reached 50% percent progress…"
Almond felt like raining punches on himself, but that would be unproductive.
"I have to be faster, damn it!"
Almond sighed, his head plopping down.
'Lily…'
'How is everyone doing in war event? I hope things are fine there.'
'Lily must miss me, right? I miss her too…I wonder what she and others are doing…'
"Miss your girl, boy?"
Big D appeared above Almond's shoulder and patted his head with his tail.
"I do."
"Well, then let's see what she is doing."
…
Although Almond's assaults gave the Earth an upper hand in the War Event, the other three tribe's remaining forces surprisingly joined together even better, even forming a proper alliance with all of their tribes in it!
Things became hardcore, but Lily and Grim Breakers were superior in bat ability and gears pared to even the remaining enemy forces.
The old monsters and the research center led by James and Aarav also helped by supplying them with new products that could gather intelligence from far away places, most notably— Vector Drone Eye, capable of traveling at a maximum speed of 2000 meters per second and capturing a 360-degree view of not just physical things, but magical phenomenon through lens akin to a Platinum-rank adventurer's Focus Field's detail transparency.
Aside from those high-magi-tech products, there was other help from old monsters' expertise in giving training to the participants of this important event and another special item-supplying support from other forces, including GAA.
They suppressed the enemy and continued conquering tribes with ruthless precision led by none other than Lily.
During these ten days, with no news of Almond, Lily didn't do anything but focus entirely on getting stronger and not just winning the event but dominating it.
Because Almond would have done it, but he wasn't here. So, it was her job as well as her desire to achieve that domination.
Lily had decided this after the first day of Almond's disappearance and poured her entire focus on getting stronger and achieving that type of victory despite the enemy being more cohesive, thus outnumbering them.
And she did that…while dancing on the edge of madness.
She spent the next 12 hours training pletely alone before entering the War Event and launching a swift assault with the rest of the members after three hours of preparation and strategizing after gathering information.
In the bat against the Eldoran world's elves, Lily enveloped them in the dance of gloomy reaper and obliterated them alone. One vs four, all dead.
She broke through in terms of her specialized class skills, removing conditions and restrictions and making the Dreadspire Elements her own, modifying skills because she prehended them, just like how Almond prehended his Espada Ad Grimveil and created Unveiled Catastrophe pletely on his own.
She could summon the Dreadspire Elements with her blood with new technicalities she formed herself in the skill rune.
With her mastery of Blood, she could summon all four Dreadspire Elements at once by giving her own blood or giving enemies blood, and the more blood she gave, the more powerful they would get, in terms of magical power and size, both.
After achieving this domination, Lily spent the next 24 hours creating the final skill of her specialized class by using her last skill insight.
People would forget their high of entering that magical realm of skill insight dimension where their logic could form quickly and manifest their imagination based on their understanding of class and desire on what type of skill they want to create, designing it, experimenting, and doing all that with their consciousness in trans of this process.
Almond also didn't remember it, but he could see more than others with his eyes, so he prehended the skills in his own way later, understanding them, and thus, was able to modify Divine Divider's Harvest.
This affected his perception, and in the next skill, insight creation, he created a unique skill like Espada Ad Grimveil, a domain of unknown potential in which he could create techniques based on his increasing understanding and knowledge.
And then, he used third skill insight, in which despite being in trans, he was designing the entire Unveiled Catastrophe's full process with an active consciousness, understanding and remembering everything even after it was over.
That was when he made his class his own.
And Lily, as she spent these 24 hours... did the same.
Almond's specialized class had aspects of nihilism, space attributes, mystic connections, and severance based on his understanding of the "Riftveil Grimblade" name.
On the other hand, Lily's specialized class had aspects of mystic sorcery, summoning, hybrid elements, darkness attributes, and blood attributes.
In a state of skill insight where higher understanding was accessible to them, higher knowledge, and high activation of one's consciousness with a singular focus on the powers of their class source, their consciousness could gain insights into these powers because their class source' given by the Grimworld, had a most pure and original source of these powers.
Almond reached out to that with utter tenacity and desire of his burning will and understood his class.
And by chance, that trip in the Omega of the Horizon triggered that understanding to a new level, a high level that his consciousness couldn't understand, but his subconsciousness managed to do that, and stubborn will fought against that dread, thus breaking through to the barrier and reaching 200 will—all of these reflected as his entrance into the leaderboard of Arcane Champions of Eternal Wills, as he 'developed' affinity with void forcefully and boosted his space power from subconscious understanding that engraved in him as simply natural talent of space.
On the other hand, Lily, after her last skill insight session in which she gained an understanding of the entirety of her class, just hit the 100-will barrier.
After ing out of the skill insight state, she didn't even sleep and directly went to the War Event.
Her skills became superior and efficient, and her bat was rapidly refining during fights.
Her Darkness Elemental Mastery had long broken through from S-rank and reached Epic-rank, but it was increasing fast right alongside her Blood elemental Mastery.
She gained a significant understanding of these two elements in the latest skill session, so she was in a fast growth period, which could end anytime.
But Lily... she spent ten hours after exiting the 24-hour skill insight session warring, fighting, and conquering two tribes, working even others to their bones, but this time, she didn't let even a single enemy escape.
A domain of darkness would loom the moment her presence entered within a 200-meter radius, and there was no escape from it.
Her 5th specialized skill required only her blood, which was replenishable in multiple ways, thus increasing her bat power drastically.
Dome of Crimson Twilight.
Everyone inside would first have their blood contaminated with Dreadspire Nightmare, an effect produced from negative properties of the darkness element, like corrosion, mental interference, curse, and a multitude of debuffs.
But the effect Lily created was merely an illusion. However, it was no simple illusion. Instead, it was a nightmare that would show them their deaths in the way they feared most, while other debuffs would weaken them.
And before they could do anything about it, either Lily's daggers or the fangs of her Lupin of Darknend Flame would have either sliced, diced them, or devoured them.
But this was just the beginning of the madness that Lily purposefully chose to walk into.
During the next seven days, Lily only slept for two days, and her schedule was different each day, but one thing was constant—she would train pletely alone for 12 hours daily after the everyday meeting with Grim Breakers and others to strategize their next move.
After 12 hours of daily training, she would spend the next 10 hours warring and fighting in the War event, exploring maps and fighting with other challenging foes, and if there was nothing to do to finish these 10 hours of fighting, she would go to dungeons.
On the 10th day, Lily broke through to the Legendary rank of her Darkness elemental mastery and reached S-rank in Blood elemental mastery, prehended the second stage of her Weapon Art, refined her specialized class skills to as high as she could, and…became so powerful with the new bat style that average platinum-rank adventurer was no match for her, and she came even close to beat her mentor, the rank 7 Global leaderboard adventurer, Aria of Crimson Shadow.
To the people of the other three worlds, she came to be known as Lily the Dreadspire Reaper.
But the event was over, and she won spectacularly, earning maximum points by conquering all tribes and killing almost every enemy participant of the other three worlds.
The rewards were about to be obtained as per the announcement from Grimworld Tutorial, but Lily was there, in the peace garden, looking at the sky.
"I know you are fine, Almond. I know, so I will not worry about you. I will just get strong because I know you are doing the same."
"But I miss you..."
…
"Lily..." Almond saw her looking at him in the mirror, feeling his chest tighten and a lump in his throat while his eyes became watery.
He really wanted to go there and hug her right now.
"Both are having a similar reaction at the same time. Ho ho ho, I like this holistic situation. You two are intimately connected on a scale of the highest degree that you two forged on your own. I've seen people like you," Big D grinned. "You two are lucky like others, but more exceptional than the most."
"Work hard, boy, and don't worry about her. She has a fire that is intimately connected to you as her sole desire, and that fire is brighter than your fire."
Almond nodded. He saw Lily going away as Natalia came to call her and took a deep breath as he closed his eyes.
"Time to solve your puzzle and form my Arcane Constitution. Give me a deadline," Almond said with stubborn and fiery eyes as he looked at Big D.
"I like that," Big D laughed. "Alright, finish this task in three days."
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"…"
"Consider yourself a failure if you can't do that because, with your specs, you should be able to form your Arcane Constitution by the end of the third day from now on."
Almond clenched his fist and closed his eyes.
"Consider it done."
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