Chapter 286 - The Road to True Element (1/2)
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].