𝑂𝒱𝓵xt.𝗇𝓔t

After pondering over the things he had realized in his moment of introspection for a bit more, Valyr even let out yet another sigh of relief as he got out of bed. Making his way to the orb near the entrance of their room, he went ahead and ordered a few meals for himself, only realizing once he was done that he had not eaten his fill yet.

“Feeling better?” Noticing that Valyr had left his portion of the room, Wells decided to head to the main area as well, looking at the man with a slightly concerned gaze.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Apologizing to his good friend once more regarding what had transpired earlier before his moment of introspection, Valyr gave Wells a smile filled with gratitude. After that, the young man joked whether the two of them should still catch up on what the other side had been doing, to which Wells unsurprisingly agreed that they should.

With that, Wells went ahead and talked about the progress he had been making in improving all of his skills, as well as the plans he had been formulating in the background regarding him eventually reaching the peak of Rank 1 and ascending to Rank 2. While listening, Valyr’s eyes briefly widened in surprise as he focused on a certain phrase the man before him had mentioned.

“Wait… did you just say all of your spear-related skills are all Uncommon grade thanks to that Technique Introspection skill of yours?” Interrupting Wells’ train of thought, Valyr looked at the man with a gaze of slight disbelief as he asked the question.

“Well, to be more accurate, most of them are at Uncommon grade.” In response, Wells scratched the back of his head as he let out a bit of an awkward laugh. “A few of them, I’ve been able to upgrade to Uncommon grade, while the most important ones, I’ve already upgraded to Rare.”

“Hasn’t it been only a bit over a month since you gained the Spear Scholar class?” Though Valyr was familiar with the concept behind the Spear Scholar class, allowing its wielder to upgrade their skills to higher grades regardless of whether they met the rank or not, he did not understand how Wells was able to raise his skills to such a level in such a small time frame.

As far as he knew, those with the Spear Scholar class or any other class within the same branch would experience a reduced rate of skill improvement, only allowing them to upgrade a couple of their skills to Uncommon grade after a month or so has passed.

Yet, for some reason, Wells had seemingly found a way around it.

“Yeah, it has.” Nodding as he wondered why Valyr was so hung-up on how quickly he was able to level all of his skills, Wells finally put two and two together in his mind as his eyes briefly widened in understanding. “Wait… are you perhaps curious as to how I leveled them so quickly?”

“Isn’t that already obvious with how much I’ve been asking about it?”

“You could’ve just said so from the get-go, you know?” Bitterly smiling in response, Wells went ahead and told Valyr the entire reason why he was able to upgrade his skills so quickly. “In any case, upgrading all of my skills to Uncommon grade was only possible due to the fact that I’ve focused on upgrading Technique Introspection first.”

“But wouldn’t…”

“…that be slower? It was.” Knowing what Valyr was going to ask since he was the one who suggested the class to him, Wells already knew what he was going to answer. “However, that was only at the first few levels. After all, Technique Introspection had something like a 50% reduction in efficacy in gaining skill experience or something at the start, which gradually became better as I improved it.”

“With that in mind, it’s the first skill I upgraded to Uncommon, as well as the first skill I upgraded to Rare. Currently, it’s at Rare , where the reduction in efficacy is now more negligible, around 15% or so.” Finally understanding how Wells was able to upgrade his skills so quickly with Technique Introspection, a thought soon surfaced in Valyr’s mind.

‘Those guys from back then were incredibly stupid to not think of that approach in the first place.’

After Wells added a few more things regarding the things he did recently, it was now Valyr’s turn. Naturally, the latter went ahead and talked about his journey into the Akashic Battlefield, talking about how it felt more natural to be in compared to something like the Experience Pit. In fact, with how enthusiastic he was in talking about the Akashic Battlefield, Wells was gradually becoming inclined in trying to use it as well.

However, just before Valyr could talk more about the benefits the Akashic Battlefield had over the Experience Pit, he shifted the topic to the orc infiltration, talking about it in detail as he brought up some of the reports he had obtained while loitering around the outpost.

Unsurprisingly, such a drastic change in topic caused Wells to go pale, feeling dread at the fact that even Rank 4 class holders, beings that were at a whole other level of strength compared to the current him, posed no match to the orcs that decided to break into the Akashic Battlefield.

Of course, with how much Valyr talked about the orc infiltration, Wells soon wondered whether his friend in front of him had come across the orcs or faced against the orcs at least once. In response to that question, Valyr gave his friend a wry smile. “If I did come across the orcs or fought against them, I wouldn’t be here standing in front of you right now.”

“Right…” With Valyr’s response reminding him of the ruthlessness the orcs had through Valyr’s narration of the story, Wells flashed a wry smile of his own in response.

Seeing that Wells did not have any more questions, Valyr added a few more things to say about the orc infiltration, eventually ending it as he decided to shift it to another topic. While doing so, he told Wells to keep the orc infiltration a secret between the two of them, even after omitting almost all of the important information regarding the situation.

Once his friend swore that it would remain a secret between them no matter how much time had passed, Valyr nodded at his friend before deciding to talk about the moment of introspection he had just given himself, only to be interrupted by the inn’s service delivering him the food he had ordered.

Deciding to eat whilst he talked, Valyr went a bit into detail regarding his thought process, such as the initial question of why he felt like he was doing too many things at once, and how changing his perspective helped for the better. Naturally, information such as World Quests and the like were omitted from his explanation, feeling that he did not need to burden his friend with the knowledge of how much he had on his plate.

“By the end of it, I realized that even if I take my time and go through things at a more relaxed pace, I’d still be doing more than the average person,” said Valyr, ending his overall explanation regarding his introspection.

“I see. So, what do you plan doing next? Gonna relax for the day?” Nodding in agreement with Valyr that he should do things at more relaxed pace, Wells went ahead and threw a question not long after that was related to the topic.

“Probably.” Valyr nodded, albeit with a hint of uncertainty. “I might head out and buy a couple of things here and there, but for the most part, I’ll be taking it easy for the remainder of the day.”

“Speaking of which, I just remembered something.” Just as he was going over through the list of tasks he had yet to complete, a memory from over a month ago surfaced in Valyr’s mind, reminding him of a certain event Wells had mentioned to him.

“Remember that Myriad Prodigies Tournament thing you mentioned to me back when we met up again at Clossbay?” Looking at his friend just as he had finished eating, Valyr posed a question at the man.

“I do, but what about it?” Nodding in response, Wells looked at Valyr with a hint of doubt, wondering what the young man was hinting at. “Are you trying to remind me of the mission my family gave me to encourage you to participate in it as a representative of our family?”

“Well, I guess that’s part of the reason why I was reminded of it.” Valyr faintly chuckled. “But I wasn’t really pertaining to that.”

“Instead, I was wondering if you know where the Myriad Prodigies Tournament is going to be held, as well as how much time we have left before the tournament begins.”

“Oh?” Hearing Valyr’s response, Wells raised his eyebrow in slight surprise. “Did you perhaps change your mind?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” In response, Valyr gave his friend a mysterious smile. “So, do you know?”

“Well…”