n

n

nNicole gave him a curious look.

n“What do you mean by limit breaking?”

nKairos shrugged his shoulders.

n“It’s not something you should worry about right now, but it’s something you can do after reaching the ranks.”

nNicole tilted her head to the side.

n“Then maybe the rest of us should promote to the D rank as well!”

nKairos tapped his chin a few times.

n“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

nNicole clasped her hands together.

n“So should I invite everyone else?”

nKairos narrowed his eyes ever so slightly.

n“…We might as well take it slow. The promotion process takes a while, so it would be better to do it one at a time.”

nNicole tilted her head to the side.

n“Eh? But wouldn’t it be better if everyone got together? It’s not like there’s much else to do anyway…”

nKairos blinked a few times.

n“Alright, but your evolution process will be hidden from the others. Ok?”

nNicole looked back at him with confusion.

n“Eh? Why is that?”

nKairos let out a soft sigh.

n“I know you want to trust everyone, but we have to do it slowly.”

nNicole stammered.

n“T-Then we can at least trust my mom too, right?”

nKairos looked at her blankly.

n“…Under normal circumstances, yes. But I think something strange is happening with her. I have a plan to fix it, but I can’t act on it right now.”

nNicole stared back at him with unsure eyes. She clearly didn’t like all this uncertainty and doubt, but Kairos was forcing it onto her. Though it made her uncomfortable, she nodded in the end.

n“O-Ok…”

nKairos and Nicole walked back into the city, all the way back into the center building. Most people were just sleeping. Once he got back into his room, he opened up his status panel once more.

nStatus

nID: 345315364923

nRank: D-

nObjective: Survive

nProof Of Perfection Points: 22.1

nStats –

nStrength – 29.9

nEndurance – 29.9

nAgility – 29.9

nWillpower – 29.9

nMana Capacity – 30.0

nMagic Affinity – 29.9

nSpecial Abilities: Alone (D), Water Spell (E), Pulse Spell (E), Fire Spell (F), Gale Spell (F)

nHide

nNicole couldn’t help but let out a small gasp.

n“All your stats are so high!”

nKairos raised an eyebrow.

n“How many points do you have?”

nNicole blinked a few times.

n“Um… a little over two hundred. Wait, let me bring it up.”

nStatus

nID: 934783245676

nRank: E

nObjective: Survive

nProof Of Perfection Points: 217.3

nStrength – 14.9

nAgility – 14.9

nEndurance – 14.9

nWillpower – 14.9

nMana Capacity – 14.9

nMagic Affinity – 14.9

nSpecial Abilities: Afraid Spell (F), Frost Spell (F)

nHide

nThe side of Kairos’ face twitched.

n“You… have a lot of points.”

nNicole tilted her head to the side.

n“But that’s because I’ve killed a lot of monsters with the red watch on. You haven’t been killing anything but you still have so many!”

nKairos thought to himself for a long moment. He didn’t really think about the consequences of ranking up all that much. Though when he looked at it realistically, he had been doing so much, yet the real gap in points between the two of them wasn’t as large as he thought it was.

nWhen he thought about it, Kairos definitely was underestimating how advantageous point-wise staying at a lower rank was. The only real exception were dungeons, but Kairos didn’t know when the next time he would see one of those was.

nGranted, it wasn’t as though he really had a choice in promoting himself at the time. He was in a rather desperate situation within that dungeon, and it was the only chance he had at survival. Nonetheless, this realization made his enthusiasm to complete his promotion mission fall considerably.

nAfter all, once he did reach that peak, growing further would be so much harder.

nNicole let out a weak cough.

n“Um, are you limit-breaking your stats right now?”

nKairos woke out of his stupor and gave a small nod.

n“Ah, yeah. I was doing that.”

nFrom there, he began adding points to increase his status points past their limit.

nStrength 29.9 – 30.0 | Prestige Points 255 – 254

nLike with the increased mana capacity, he could hardly tell the difference at first, as it truly did feel like he only added a tenth of his points. Yet, just a few moments later, he could feel his muscles rearranging themselves. He could feel something changing with his tendons like they were wrapping around his bones even tighter.

nThere wasn’t a realistic change in his muscle mass, but he could tell that it was rearranged in a way to be more efficient in a way that made sense for someone that had long left the realm of human limitations.

nKairos didn’t stop there, continuing to increase all of his stats.

nEndurance 29.9 – 30.0 | Prestige Points 254 – 253

nThis time, he could feel his skin get tougher, and seemed to wrap around his muscles themselves. He even felt his organs shifting within his body, in particular, his ribcage extended downwards slightly while his liver raised up. He could also vaguely tell that some sort of padding formed around his brain.

nAfter feeling the changes stop, he continued on.

nAgility 29.9 – 30.0 | Prestige Points 253 – 252

nHe waited to feel the changes, but nothing really happened. After a bit of confusion, he tried moving his hand around in the air and noticed a difference. It was very slight, but he could feel that his hesitation had disappeared.

nIt sounded a little stupid to have hesitation in just moving his hand, but there was always uncertainty in his actions as he wasn’t always completely sure about how it would end up. It was like people could jump, but they wouldn’t know how high they would jump. As such, if someone was performing something like hurdles, they would likely overshoot their jump by a decent margin.

nHowever, Kairos could feel that hesitation disappear. He would have the confidence to jump just enough for that hurdle.

nNicole scratched the side of her cheek.

n“Is anything… happening?”

nKairos couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle.

n“A little bit, yes.”

nNicole let out a soft hum.

n“I don’t understand… but it looks much nicer since all of the nines are gone.”

nKairos blinked a few times.

n“I guess so.”

nHe couldn’t help but feel doubts over why he was even trying so hard to get stronger. Kairos definitely didn’t feel like he was slacking much at all, and he hadn’t even been all that unlucky either if he took into account his future vision.

nYet, despite all of that, he was still so much weaker than so many others. The Church of Evolution was such a large looming threat to him, while Kian somehow just became some sort of nature monster that could easily create dangerous parasitic mushrooms. And to top it all off, his mother was probably the strongest thing out of all the things he had seen and was probably only stronger at this point.

nNot to mention, there were probably many other freaks of nature out there that he couldn’t even imagine.

nWhat was the point if there were so many things that overwhelmed him anyway?

nAll that effort, only to be killed easily by something stronger than him.

nWith that thought process, he reluctantly proceeded to upgrade his Willpower as well.

nWillpower 29.9 – 30.0 | Prestige Points 252 – 251

nThere were no changes at first, but Kairos suddenly remembered something. It was back from when he was a kid, and a memory he had forgotten as it was something he didn’t really deem important.

nAs a kid, he would frequently just be wandering around on the streets, as he didn’t really have anything better to do. He would meet with random people and try to talk, though most of them didn’t care enough to do more than greet. Others would hold superficial conversations, but give some excuse to him before going on with their own business.

nBut to him at the time, he still found it exciting just to meet with new people, even if the interactions were brief and essentially meaningless.

nAnd one of those interactions was with a man strumming a guitar on the side of the sidewalk. He was playing a song and was occasionally messing up the notes, but he was still playing enthusiastically.

nThere were people that occasionally stopped by to listen for a moment, but they would usually leave after hearing a few mistakes, not to mention the song wasn’t all that good in the first place.

nKairos had walked up to him and greeted him like he used to, and the man was rather friendly, giving a nod and saying hello back. To Kairos’ surprise, the man ended up asking him a question first, when it was usually him that did that.

n“Hey kid, you ok without your parents?”

nKairos gave a confident nod.

n“Yeah! My parents said I’m allowed to go out on my own now!”

nThe man laughed.

n“Ah, you’re a big boy now!”

nKairos smiled triumphantly.

n“Hehe of course!”

nThe man nodded several times.

n“So, what are you doing?”

nKairos tilted his head to the side.

n“Talking to people. I don’t really know what else to do.”

nThe man chuckled.

n“Ah, not knowing what to do, huh? I’m pretty familiar with that, haha. Do your parents not tell you what to do?”

nKairos blinked a few times.

n“Um… they said that I shouldn’t be so picky when eating.”

nThe man gave a small nod.

n“I see, I see. I’m guessing you haven’t really thought about how things are going to be in the future, huh?”

nKairos looked up at the man with confusion.

n“Ehh? But I already know what will happen in the future!”

nThe man raised an eyebrow.

n“Oh really? Then what is going to happen?”

nKairos let out a soft hum.

n“You’re going to stand there and do nothing!”

nThe man laughed.

n“Huh? But I’m not doing that now!”

nKairos grumbled.

n“Well, you were but you changed it!”

nThe man let out a sigh.

n“When I say future, I mean what do you think will happen years from now?”

nKairos blinked a few times.

n“Eh? How am I supposed to know that?! It hasn’t happened yet!”

nThe man nodded.

n“That’s true, but one day you’ll have to be something, you know?”

nKairos put a finger on his chin and thought for a few minutes.

n“Ah, an adult! I’m going to be an adult soon!”

nThe man smirked.

n“Of course, of course. But what kind of adult are you going to be?”

nKairos tilted his head to the side. He was able to see in the distance a father lifting up his child and spinning him around slowly.

n“Um… a super strong one that can lift people up!”

nThe man laughed rather loudly.

n“That will be rather hard, you know? Are you really sure you want to be someone like that?”

nKairos gave a single nod.

n“Yeah!”

nThe man raised up one finger with a smile.

n“Then remember, you will have to try very hard. There will be a lot of expectations on you if you do such a thing, and it may make you feel really pressured to do well. But you shouldn’t let those expectations shake you. Don’t do more than what you know you can’t do.”

nKairos nodded casually to himself.

n“That’s obvious! Don’t do what I can’t do.”

nThe man smiled when he heard that.

n“And most importantly, you need to protect yourself. If you aren’t alive, then how can you protect other people?”

nKairos gasped.

n“Ah! So no dying! Never!”

nThe man laughed.

n“Yes, yes. If you see that you can die for someone to save them, even if it’s someone really important, you should still try to see if there’s another way.”

nKairos tilted his head to the side.

n“Eh? Why?”

nThe man’s smile suddenly became a little sad.

n“Because it gets really hard for the person you saved.”

n