Chapter 101: Longing & Bored, Big Raid
"We need your new potent long-range attack. Shoot a meteor with an external aid from Duke Khroll and destroy the Nexus in one shot," Sameira smiled.
"When?" Erix asked, his brows slightly furrowed.
"Tomorrow morning," Kenshin answered before he crossed his arms and asked, "Today was the last day at the Magsmith classes, right? Did you awaken it?"
Erix smacked his lips and shook his head. "I didn\'t. I\'ll try something else later, but not here. I want to go to Rin. It\'s been a long time since I\'ve stayed away from her this long, and all I am doing is fighting monsters and training without her. I\'ll go mad if I don\'t see her."
"Velfion Kingdom, eh? Do you know how far that is?" Sameira asked with a chuckle. "But you would cross the sea of fire and land of blades for her, right?"
Erix grinned, "For sure."
"Hahaha, that\'s how it should be!" Kenshin laughed.
"Well, she would do the same," Erix smiled. "I just used a 1-hour leave card and saw her message that she is departing from Velfion Kingdom to come here, but the distance is big, and I don\'t know what kind of dangers are there, so…"
Kenshin and Sameira suddenly looked somber.
"Are you saying Rin can\'t cross this distance?" Kenshin snorted.
"If she decided to cross these thousands of kilometers, then she likely would have some means. Let her come here," Sameira said.
"Did she tell you when she is departing?" Kenshin asked. "If she didn\'t, she would\'ve likely left immediately, just like you decided to leave."
"That…that seems possible." Erix scratched his head as he couldn\'t help but nod at that, "She indeed didn\'t tell me when she will depart."
"Then Rin will arrive here before you reach there," Sameira smiled.
Erix knew that was highly possible, and he nodded with a helpless smile. "Alright."
"Oh, and Erix. Did you make any progress in the Rank-up quest?" Kenshin asked.
Erix shook his head. "We just reached level 100 two days ago, but things were busy lately, for me even more about because of Magsmith classes, so nope," he said.
"We are going to attempt ranking up today since we\'ll get a huge boost in our magic power," Kenshin said.
"Which will help us in tomorrow\'s big battle," Sameira said. "We are going to face our biggest battle against Abyss so far, so you should try to attempt ranking up today."
Erix turned to the sky from the open pavilion and said, "It\'s noon, and we have a lot of time…"
"Alright, let\'s do it now if you are two free. I also want to rank up quickly," Erix nodded as he turned his head back to them.
"Good. We are ready."
…
[Rank-up Quest 2]
_Task: Evolve your Magic Core into Magic Spirit Flower by following the steps.
—> Step 1: Attain 300 magic power and 1000 mana in your Magic Core.
—> Step 2: Shatter your magic core by exerting your consciousness and will pressure on it.
—> Step 3: Successfully shattering the magic core will transform the shattered magic core into Magic Motes due to the interaction of magic with your consciousness. You must completely absorb those Magic Motes with your consciousness to manifest Magic Spirit Flower.
_Rewards:
—> +100 magic power, +500 mana.
The steps sounded easy, but they\'d only been able to put shallow cracks on their Magic Core, so shattering it still looked far.
Using their consciousness to pressure it meant their mind would drain rapidly, and they would faint upon consuming all consciousness power to pressure it.
So, they had to shatter their Magic Core in one go, one session, or they would have to start all over because the Magic Core would automatically recover from cracks if they stopped infusing pressure.
As such, Erix, Kenshin, and Sameira decided to spend the whole day trying to rank up with a total of two tries.
If they failed both times, they would have to stop because the following day\'s morning was an important event of attacking a massive Abyss Nexus, and they couldn\'t afford to be knocked out cold during that time.
Alas…they failed first try and knocked themselves out for five hours before they woke up with fully recovered consciousness.
"This is the last try," Erix said with a frown. "My entire core was filled with cracks before I lost consciousness but recovered to flawless again."
"Same," Kenshin nodded.
"Let\'s try again one last time. If we fail, then we\'ll try after the big battle," Sameira said before she closed her eyes again.
…
"Erix will be surprised," Rin happily giggled as she stood atop a reddish-brown wooden deck leaning against the fence of a dark gold flying ship, plated and coated with sharp-looking designs and patterns made of purple, gold, and red crystals.
"Erix, Erix, Erix, not even a day passes without you mentioning him," Nessa wryly smiled.
"You won\'t understand," Rin rolled her eyes. "If I don\'t meet, hug, and kiss him as soon as possible, I\'ll go crazy."
"Every day, it\'s all about monsters and getting stronger without Erix; I am getting sick of it," Rin lay on a sofa on the deck with a bored expression, not getting the motivation to do anything.
"We\'ll reach Yorik Kingdom in ten to fifteen hours, so you should try to rank up," Nessa said. "We have to try every day because I heard it\'s not easy to form Magic Spirit Flower."
"Alright, that would keep me from being bored and bragging if he hadn\'t ranked up yet, and I managed to do it," Rin said with a grin.
"Try your best, but I don\'t think we\'ll succeed today."
"Tsk, don\'t be pessimistic and give your best with the aim to succeed. If we fail, we\'ll simply try again."
"We\'ll take turns trying. You go first," Nessa said as she stood at the control wheel of the ship with a floating blue crystal above it attached with magic strings to the magic control panel before the wheel.
Rin made an attempt, but when she was on the verge of losing consciousness and still failed to shatter it, she stopped and sighed in exhaustion.
"I failed. Your turn now."
Rin leaned back on the couch, lethargic and sleepy. She needed rest.
Afterward, Nessa put the ship on auto-pilot and started making a rank-up attempt while Rin fell asleep to recover her consciousness power.
Rin and Nessa made a total of two attempts before they stopped and decided to do it later.
"I feel like we have to do something more than just putting our consciousness pressure on the Magic Core to shatter it," Rin mused. "Or, we are just supposed to keep trying this until our consciousness power actually increases and becomes powerful enough to shatter it."
"I feel like it\'s the latter; that\'s why people are stuck at level 100 for months despite trying once daily," Nessa nodded. "I heard those who don\'t try every day even take more than a year."
"That\'s too long," Rin clicked her tongue. "We\'ll try twice daily and succeed as soon as possible."
They didn\'t make any more attempts after that as the night passed them while they just talked about various things and occasionally fought against flying monsters on the way.
Finally, when they arrived at Yorik Kingdom, they learned about the big raid on Abyss from two familiar people.
Kaflan and Ronaldo.
"Erix and your parents already went there, and we were just going to depart, haha," Kaflan said with a laugh as he jumped on the ship. "Nice ship. How much did it costed you?"
"Two hundred thousand gold coins," Rin said before she controlled the ship and flew up after Ronaldo boarded on the deck.
"Tell me the direction."
After ten minutes, they could see the atmosphere getting chilly and creepy, with aura of darkness permeating the atmosphere in the north of Yorik Kingdom, on a grand canyon of Laikan.
Hundreds of powerhouses floated in the air while Erix was way higher in the sky, prepared to unleash his most destructive attack.
"Rin, this Abyss Nexus is way bigger than the one we destroyed," Nessa gasped, looking at the fifty meters giant black crystal with countless tendrils oozing out of it.