n

n

nKairos stared at the man strangely.

n“Um… I don’t really understand what you are saying. Why is it hard for the person saved? Isn’t that a good thing?”

nThe man blinked a few times.

n“…I’m sure you’ll understand it soon enough.”

nKairos tilted his head to the side with confusion.

n“Ok?”

nThe man let out a soft sigh.

n“Basically, I’m just trying to tell you one thing. If there are people out there that care about you…”

nHe raised up a finger slowly.

n“Don’t die. No matter what.”

nKairos gave a small nod.

n“Er, I think I get it.”

nThe man opened his mouth to speak, but a woman suddenly rushed forth with a stern expression.

n“Hey! What are you doing to that kid? You better not be telling him to do anything bad! Children are too impressionable for that!”

nThe man hurriedly picked up his guitar and ran away, prompting the woman to chase after him.

n“Hey! Get over here!”

nThe man ducked down and coughed.

n“Uh, I didn’t do anything! You got the wrong guy!”

nThe woman screamed a little hysterically.

n“Then why are you running?! Get back here!”

nAnd with that, Kairos watched the two of them run off into the distance. He never did end up seeing that man again, and he similarly forgot about the words that he had said. Yet, after upgrading his willpower that random memory had suddenly risen up to the surface.

nHe blinked a few times.

n“I was a strange kid.”

nNicole raised an eyebrow.

n“Strange? I think you were great!”

nKairos let out a chuckle and muttered to himself.

n“Don’t die no matter what, huh?”

nNicole put the tip of her finger on her chin.

n“Hm? What are you talking about?”

nKairos waved his hand dismissively.

n“Nothing, nothing.”

nHe then went to upgrade the last ability that had yet to be limit broken.

nMagic Affinity 29.9 – 30 | Prestige Points 251 – 250

nThis time, he couldn’t really feel the effects all that much since the black stone in his room was interfering with the mana around him. Nonetheless, he still felt like the mana around him had changed in some respect. Or more accurately, he perceived it in a different way.

nNow that he was done with limit breaking, Kairos couldn’t help but wonder what in the world he was supposed to do with the rest of his countless prestige points. Though, considering how hard they should be to get, it would probably be quite valuable for something else down the road.

nKairos rubbed his chin.

n“I can’t let down the kid version of me, now can I?”

nHe thought about his promotion mission, causing a set of panels to pop up.

nPromotion Mission

nRequirements –

n1 – Broken Limits

nLimit break each stat. Stats can be limit broken through using Prestige. These points are naturally acquired if one ranks on a global leaderboard (Dungeon Leaderboards do not count).

n2 – Trademark

nUpgrade one ability to the D-Rank. Any ability may be upgraded to complete this mission. If an ability was previously upgraded to D-rank, then this mission will automatically be completed

n3 – Proven

nKill a creature at the peak of D-Rank. The peak of D-Rank is classified by any person that is currently working on their promotion mission.

n4 – Custom – Isolation

nSpend thirty days alone in the Abyss Realm. Further information about the Abyss Realm may be found after all other missions are completed.

nAfter scanning through all of them, he found that the next one on the list was the third one, as the other two had been finished. Though he would’ve thought about doing the fourth one, he didn’t really know what this ‘Abyss Realm’ was supposed to be. Though it seemed like he would get an explanation after completing the third one.

nHe blinked a few times.

n“Why did he call it a race to reach C-rank?”

nNicole puffed up her cheeks.

n“What are you talking about? I’m so curious, explain it to me!”

nKairos laughed.

n“Sorry, sorry, how about we do your evolution right now?”

nNicole pouted.

n“Mm… ok.”

nShe brought up her status panel and freely gave Kairos control over it.

nStatus

nID: 934783245676

nRank: 550

/1500 Evolution Energy – 500 required for Rankup

nObjective: Evolve

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)

nInborn Abilities: Lost (F-)

nEvolve

nHide

nHe gave everything a quick glance before pressing the evolve button.

nUse 10 points for stable evolution? Yes

/No

nUse 15 points for natural ability? Yes

/No

nUse 10 points for Growth Spell or Harvest Spell? Growth

/Harvest | Yes

/No

nConfirm

nKairos blinked a few times when he looked at the two available options. He wondered if this was supposed to be a sign that Nicole’s true calling was actually farming.

n“…Um, you can choose between the growth or harvest spell?”

nNicole let out a soft hum.

n“Which do you think is better?”

nKairos shrugged his shoulders.

n“I have no idea. I’ve never seen either of those spells before.”

nHis eyes narrowed slightly as he began thinking of Kian. There was an argument to be made that the growth spell might somehow synergize with whatever was going on with his garden, but there was also the consideration that he might eventually become an enemy.

nThough he had no idea what the harvest spell did, he thought that it had the potential to maybe work against whatever spells Kian had.

n“…But the harvest spell does sound more interesting I suppose.”

nNicole clapped.

n“Ah! Then choose that one!”

nKairos proceeded to press yes to all of the options and selected harvest as the spell. The moment he pressed confirm, he noticed that Nicole’s body emitted quite the strong heat.

nShe took in a deep breath and wrapped her arms around his as the changes gradually settled down. Once it was all over she looked over at Kairos with curious eyes.

n“Am I strong now?”

nKairos shrugged his shoulders.

n“Well, we can open up your status panel and you should be able to bring up the ability descriptions.”

nNicole let out a soft gasp.

n“Ah, ok!”

nStatus

nID: 934783245676

nRank: D-

nObjective: Survive

nProof Of Perfection Points: 192.3

nStrength – 14.9

nAgility – 14.9

nEndurance – 14.9

nWillpower – 14.9

nMana Capacity – 14.9

nMagic Affinity – 14.9

nSpecial Abilities: Decay (E), Harvest (E), Afraid Spell (F), Frost Spell (F)

nHide

nAfter looking at her abilities, Nicole pressed onto the one that was called Decay.

nDecay (E)

nOnly activatable with direct contact with an organism. Upon activating, the organism’s cells at the point of contact will die, and spread outwards to all other nearby cells at a rate that is dependent on channel time.

nKairos blinked a few times when he saw that.

n“Huh… that works with you really well.”

nNicole put a finger on her chin.

n“Does it? Wouldn’t it just be better to kill them with a blade?”

nKairos slowly rubbed his chin.

n“Maybe… but this could work much more easily. You only have to touch them for a moment, right? That would be much harder to detect than the swing of a blade.”

nNicole pouted.

n“Hm… but what if they just cut off the part that I touched? Then they would still be alive!”

nKairos gave a small nod, and was a little surprised that Nicole caught on to that caveat.

n“That’s why you do it discreetly. If you touch their back, right behind their heart, they might not be able to notice it fast enough before it’s too late to save their heart.”

nNicole tilted her head to the side.

n“Ah, I-I guess!”

nShe then pressed a finger on the harvest spell, wanting to figure out what that did as well.

nHarvest (E)

nDamage to organic matter is increased by 150%. This is a passive spell.

nKairos blinked a few times.

n“…What? Isn’t that just basically a blanket-wide damage increase? How is that even an elemental spell?”

nNicole scratched the side of her head.

n“Ooh, you were right! It does look pretty good. But… if we have to face something like the minigun from before, then it probably wouldn’t be too good.”

nKairos smiled bitterly.

n“It’s not like many people have guns here in the first place…”

nNicole puffed up her cheeks.

n“But it still doesn’t work for everything.”

nKairos smiled bitterly.

n“…Alright then.”

nNicole let out a soft hum.

n“Should I increase my stats all the way?”

nKairos was at a loss as to what to say for a moment. In reality, he somewhat forgot that Nicole was actually someone that could hold her own if he looked at her abilities. In fact, he wouldn’t mind trading his abilities with her all that much, though he would still prefer his own.

nAfter thinking about it for a while, he always thought that he was going to be the one protecting the others, and not the other way around. The way he thought about them was more like baggage rather than anything else. It wasn’t something he consciously realized, as he simply didn’t really consider them to be on the same level.

nHe spoke the next words slowly.

n“Alright then. For now, you can just increase all your stats as far as you can. But before you do that, drink this.”

nKairos took out a nature core, which Nicole looked at curiously. He never would’ve given her something like this before for something like this, but considering that he now had a semi-reliable source from Kian, he was willing to give up one to make the process simpler.

nNicole coughed weakly.

n“E-Em, what do I do with this?”

nKairos stabbed one end with his spear and held it up next to her.

n“Just drink it.”

nNicole was a little surprised, but did as told, drinking all of it. Her eyes widened slightly as she noticed the effects of it already. She hurriedly brought up her status panel and increased everything to the highest level she could.

nThat was when another panel popped up on her screen.

n“Eh? Um, what is this?”

nPromotion Mission

nRequirements –

n1 – Broken Limits

nLimit break each stat. Stats can be limit broken through using Prestige. These points are naturally acquired if one ranks on a global leaderboard (Dungeon Leaderboards do not count).

n2 – Trademark

nUpgrade one ability to the D-Rank. Any ability may be upgraded to complete this mission. If an ability was previously upgraded to D-rank, then this mission will automatically be completed

n3 – Proven

nKill a creature at the peak of D-Rank. The peak of D-Rank is classified by any person that is currently working on their promotion mission.

n4 – Custom – Nightmare

nWithout ever making direct contact with or being noticed, make a peak D rank kill themselves from fear.

nKarios looked through everything and found that the promotion mission was more or less the same as his, except for the custom one. Unlike his, this one was much clearer, described entirely in only one sentence. However, he couldn’t help but feel that the requirement was quite ridiculous.

nIn the first place, someone that reached the peak of D rank probably wasn’t some sort of pushover. Killing them was already a fairly difficult task, but forcing them to kill themselves out of fear sounded even more harder. Not to mention, she wasn’t allowed to be noticed or even make direct contact.

nHe guessed that his custom mission wasn’t going to be all that easy either from the looks of things.

n“…It’s a mission you have to finish if you want to reach the C rank. As for limit breaking your stats, you’re going to have to find a way to get on the global leaderboard.”

nNicole frowned.

n“I don’t think I’ve gotten on any of those. What should I do?”

nKairos narrowed his eyes slightly once he thought of one of his completed missions that he ranked top 250 on. So far, nobody has taken second place. But if he could guide her to be the second one…

n