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Chapter 286: The Road to True Element

With Argentum giving the two a general idea of what they had to do in order to become more prepared for Herellia’s eventual Existence Tribulation, the three of them went back to the alliance base, stopping just as they arrived at the end of the corridor that led to the small ecosystem, focusing their senses of vision on one another.

Thinking that an awkward atmosphere would become the eventual result if no one took the initiative to start a conversation, Herellia went ahead and imitated the sound of one clearing their throat as she looked at the other two and asked, “So…do we part ways here or…?”

“That’s pretty much what we’re going to have to do,” Argentum responded to her question without delay as he nodded. He then focused his sense of vision on the two before saying, “As long as you two follow what I said earlier, I have a strong feeling that Herellia’s chances of succeeding in her existence tribulation would be incredibly high.”

The two of them showed their affirmation to Argentum’s words in their own ways after he was finished talking. Just as Argentum was about to turn his body to make his way towards the Tower of Seclusion, Horell could not help but ask Argentum a question as a thought lingered in his mind, saying, “Now that I think about it, is there a deadline to this? Or rather, when are we going to meet up? Is it when everyone feels like they’ve made as much progress as they could?”

“Hmm…good question,” Argentum said as a response to Horell’s question before mulling over it for a bit. In the meantime, Herellia looked at the pondering Argentum for a bit before focusing her sense of vision towards Horell as she replied to his question, saying, “Although that sounds ideal, Horell, if you think about it, we don’t really know when we feel like we’ve made as much progress as we can. We always think we could still squeeze out a bit more improvement from ourselves.”

“What Herellia said.” At this point, Argentum was finished mulling over the question as his thoughts resonated with what Herellia was saying. Scratching his head for a bit as he made sure that the amount of time in his mind was more or less perfect, he then looked at the two and told them, “If we don’t set an arbitrary amount of time for us to squeeze out as much potential from our bodies as possible, then Herellia’s existence tribulation would be delayed to an incredibly great extent.”

“Speaking of which, what made you want to attempt an Existence Tribulation again, Herellia?” he said not long after, redirecting his statement towards Herellia. Without delay, Herellia replied, “Well, I’ve more or less reached the limit on how much power an X-grade Inanimate could have. Sure, I could still allocate most of my time to improving my skills, but in the long term, the improvement I get from doing so gradually diminishes.”

She then added, “Of course, if it was normal times, I would be fine with staying as an Inanimate for longer as that would allow me to gain more strength once I clear my Existence Tribulation. But after the war with Chonk, I realized that as a leader of the alliance, I should have as much power as possible to make sure that the alliance does not falter in front of enemies.”

“And uh…” Herellia continued with her explanation, hemming and hawing for a bit before letting out an awkward chuckle. As Argentum briefly wondered why she lightly chuckled, his non-verbal question was soon answered as she said, “I also want to experience the life of an Animate. After reading through the books in that Animate town, I guess I had this subconscious urge to turn into an Animate as soon as possible.”

“Is there anything wrong with that reason?” she could not help but ask soon after as the two went silent, only for the two to lightly chuckle in response to her reason as they gave off the feeling that hearing such an answer from Herellia was interesting. After that, Argentum let out an aura of slight glee as he replied, “Not at all. As long as it motivates you to become stronger, any reason is good.”

“Anyways, I’ve decided that we should meet up at this place after a week,” he uttered soon after. He then looked at the two and asked them, “Do you think that time’s too short?”

Herellia and Horell looked at each other for a bit before pondering over the amount of time given to them. After a few seconds or so, the two of them used their own methods of expressing disapproval as they simultaneously replied, “Not at all.”

“Good to hear,” Argentum said as he let out a light chuckle. He then went ahead and activated all of his movement speed boosting buffs as he told them, “And with that, best of luck to all of us. May we meet up after a week stronger than ever.”

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

And just like that, the three of them went their separate ways as they headed towards certain parts of the alliance’s small ecosystem. Naturally, with what Argentum said to Aurus’s allies before he left, the location he was heading towards was none other than the Tower of Seclusion. Surprisingly, with the help of the newly unlocked Alliance feature, it took him less to arrive at the entrance of the tower, not even taking a breather as he hastily made his way to the same floor where his original body was.

Just as he had stopped in front of the room beside Aurus’s, the entrance to Aurus’s room was opened, revealing the six, who had come out after sensing Argentum’s aura. With Argentum in front of their fields of vision, all of them radiated auras of elation and glee as they went ahead and asked Argentum as to what he did after leaving the Tower of Seclusion. After thinking about it for a bit, Argentum decided to entertain the six as he had a feeling that they would tell Aurus these important incidents as well, just in case he did not check the shared memories they had.

And so, the seven of them went ahead and bantered for a while at the corridor on one of the Tower of Seclusion’s floors, with various emotions being radiated by all of them as Argentum narrated how Horell’s Power Baptism went, exaggerating it quite a bit to give his narration a little bit of flair. After that, they went ahead and talked about what they could do while they were waiting for Aurus to wake up, to which Argentum replied that there was nothing wrong with doing nothing. He then told them that he was going to go into seclusion to improve his combat power only after 30 minutes of nonstop conversation, to which the six wished him the best of luck.

With words of encouragement in his mind, the six went back to Aurus’s room to wait for their master to awaken while Argentum went into the room beside his original body and closed it soon after, standing at the center of the room before sitting down in a cross-legged manner. He then manipulated the energy inside his body as he opened up the upper torso of his body, grabbing the Tome of the Four Elements as he closed the opening on his body.

He then went ahead and commanded the system in his mind to open up its inventory to retrieve an item from it. A few seconds later, a small rift a few decimeters wide appeared somewhat close to the tome, allowing a flask filled with a viscous green fluid to drop beside it with a dull ‘plonk’ sound. Just as he was about to go ahead and consume the contents within the flask to enhance his perceptivity towards the Wind element, a thought related to what he was currently doing abruptly surfaced in his mind, prompting him to open up the tome with multiple energy tendrils before doing so.

Just like before, he used these tendrils to flip through the pages of the tome, eventually stopping at the page where the tome started to explain the intricacies of [Wind Affinity]. He then used the energy tendrils he conjured to absorb the information from these pages, stopping at the page where the tome was just about to start explaining the concept of [True Wind Affinity].

As he organized the information he had just obtained in his mind, he pondered on what level of affinity he should expect after the effects of the Heaven’s Wind Potion had dissipated, instantly ruling out that he would be able to achieve [True Wind Affinity] in just two hours.

Naturally, he ruled out that he would only achieve the peak level of [Wind Affinity], which was currently named [Blessing of the Ancient Zephyr] in his skill list. Knowing how insanely powerful his comprehension rate, at the very least, he knew that he would achieve [Animate Wind Affinity].

And so, that’s what he aimed for. He aimed to reach [Animate Wind Affinity] within these two hours, and even hoped that he could go a bit beyond that, just like how his understanding of Water had gone slightly beyond the Animate level of comprehension within two hours.

Psyching himself up for what he was about to do, he then grabbed the flask and pulled out the stopper as his upper torso opened up, pouring in the contents of the flask into it. As he placed the flask back in his system inventory while he closed up his upper body, a notification sound soon resounded throughout his mind, telling him that the effects of the Heaven’s Wind Potion was now activated.

Ding!

‘You have ingested the Heaven’s Wind Potion.’

‘Your perception of the Wind element has increased by 200%’

‘Time remaining before buff wears out: 1 hour 59 minutes’

After briefly reading through the notifications he had received, Argentum then went ahead and closed his sense of vision as he attuned his energy to the Wind energy particles that lingered within the room. Thanks to his already high level of affinity with the wind, which was currently paired up with the perception boost brought about by the Heaven’s Wind Potion, he could not help but feel that his connection with the Wind energy particles was akin to him being embraced by the wind itself. At times, he even felt that he had melded with the surrounding wind, transforming into the embodiment of wind.

With that kind of feeling coursing throughout his body, Argentum went ahead and increased his affinity with the Wind, referencing the notes he obtained from the Tome of the Four Elements from time to time. Naturally, with his incredibly high comprehension rate, it came with no surprise that Argentum’s understanding of the Wind element was improving at a very fast rate, the aura of Wind currently radiating from him now being completely different from the aura he radiated before starting this session of improvement.

And only twenty minutes have passed.

At around the forty-minute mark, Argentum’s understanding of the Wind element had risen to a new level as the upper portion of his body, which took on the original color of green, had now transformed into a mix of light green and green. If one were to look closely, the movement of the light green and green portions of energy on his upper body, which were thin needles in shape, somewhat imitated the movement of wind in nature. Sometimes it would take on the movement of a calm breeze, at other times, it would take on the movement of a tornado. Nevertheless, all of the movements had something to do with the wind…obviously.

Naturally, his aura had changed as well, the feeling it gave off being akin to when he showed his improvement of understanding over the Water element in front of Felix and the others. Surprisingly, the aura he radiated was related to the movement of energy in his upper body. Whenever the energy in his upper body moved like the breeze, then anyone inside the area of influence of his aura would feel calm and relaxed. If it was a tornado, then his aura would become violent, making anyone inside the area of influence of his aura feel like it was hard to breathe.

Eventually, the two-hour effect of the Heaven’s Wind Potion had finally dissipated, signaling to Argentum that his session on improving his understanding over the Wind element was over…for now, at least. Letting out a sigh of satisfaction and relief, he went ahead and stood up as he grabbed the Tome of the Four Elements and placed it inside his upper torso. He then lightly stretched his body as he sensed the various changes that had occurred. After that, he went ahead and conjured a ball of wind, which radiated an intent of destruction far greater than before. Not only that, but the force coming from the ball of wind had significantly increased as well, even though Argentum used the same amount of energy to conjure one.

Without hesitation, he went ahead and threw the ball towards the wall that faced away from Aurus’s room, only to be left at a loss for words as the ball of wind had dealt more damage than he had expected. In his mind, he thought that the ball of wind would be able to tear a wall open and disappear from there. Never in his mind did he expect that even before the ball of wind was about to collide with the wall, the sheer force of wind emanating from the wind was enough for the wall to tear open, only dissipating after about…ten walls had been torn open.

Scratching his head at the result, he eventually let out a slightly awkward chuckle as he muttered, “Herellia’s definitely going to become mad once she sees this.”

“Should I blame this on Aurus?” he asked himself not long after before dispelling the thought not long after. Taking in a deep breath of air, he then muttered to himself, “Anyways, I’ve made quite the improvement. Even the weakest Wind-based spell I have now has its destructive power increased by multiple times.”

“And with that out of the way…”

“What should I do next?”

——–

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