Chapter 177 - Creation Rank
In the next two days, Cecelia reached the Fusion Rank. Barret Duncan and Hot Rod followed closely behind, and five days later, the duo achieved their greatest desire. They had shrunken, looking like skeletons, after seven days of hard word, without eating or sleeping. As soon as they finished their task, they collapsed—and the next day, Elora and Khrom also became Rank 2.
Far away the storm was brewing at the borders of the Gubia Empire. A large army had gathered in the closest town—Stanlow—to the border, waiting for the enemy. They had already abandoned their garrison, as it won't do any good, holding. The watchtowers standing tall at the walls of the town, the torches flickered, as the guards signalled one another.
Due to thick fog, it was hard to see too far away. They could barely detect anything a few hundred meters away. To cover this blind-spot, quite a few summoners had sent their summoned beasts to petrol round the town, so as not to let anyone suspicious escape from their sight.
"Roar!"
A painful roar of a wolf echoed. It was silent briefly.
"The enemy has attacked!" a guard shouted; he started to ring the bells on his watchtower. The entire town echoed with panicked cries of a few stubborn townspeople who refused to evacuate. All the mages wore their defensive artefacts and grabbed their spears or swords or wands, as they rushed towards the walls. It didn't take long for all the soldiers to gather.
About a minute later, they spotted torches flickering a few hundred meters away. Jareth was commanding the soldiers, together with him there were two other people of the same rank as him. "It—it looks as if there are more than a hundred thousand soldiers!" he said with a shocked voice, as he stared at the flickering torches in the distance.
"We have just fifty thousand soldiers," Jareth's companion—Enan—said. "I—I think we should ask for reinforcement."
"Le—let's inform the em—emperor about the situation," said another man—Bayo—in his nervous voice, as he grabbed his mobile phone to call.
"Have your brain also frozen due to fear?" Jareth said, furiously. "How could you use your mobile to inform such important news? Any ordinary Psychic could hear our talk!"
After that, he took out a communication artefact and contacted the emperor.
—
Mages needed to build a rune at the Rune Building rank; they fused their Mana Pools with the Rune at the Fusion rank—when they complete the fusion process, the rune would become alive, it is called the Creation rank. It hadn't been long since Kadyn had reached Fusion rank; however, he was already on the verge of reaching Creation rank.
As Kadyn fused his Mana Pool into the World Lotus rune, his entire body trembled. His forehead was covered in a cold sweat, and his face somewhat pale. Only he knew how much painful it was to proceed at this rank. However, whenever he was about to reach his limit a kind of mysterious energy would appear and recover his spiritual energy. The process repeated time and again, and Kadyn had almost completely fused the Mana Pool into the rune.
"Just a little bit more," he muttered as he continued. "I am just a step away from reaching the Creation rank."
"Boom!"
As the last bit of Mana Pool fused into World Lotus Rune, a booming sound echoed in Kadyn's head. Then he felt a terrifying burst of pain in his head. He clenched his skull and started to froth, his body twitched, he whimpered, he moaned, he cried—but it did little to soothe his condition. In the end he lost consciousness.
An eternity passed—so as Kadyn felt—before he opened his eyes. He supported his trembling body with his hands and settled on his aching arse—he had no idea why it was aching, though. Then he took a deep breath. "Fuck, I almost shit my pants," he never thought that he would have to feel such a pain in his life after experiencing all the torments previously.
Only now did he realize the use of the Practice Room, where he didn't go—to practice—for ages. It was to strengthen the will of a mage. He thought, previously, he had reached his limits in that area. Only now coming to the truth that he was far from reaching the limit. A few things could still make him tremble in fear, such as the pain that he went through just now.
He sucked a deep breath and closed his eyes, checking the changes inside his Consciousness. There was no Mana Pool left. What remained inside was the Golden Ocean, covering his entire Consciousness with it. Kadyn eyed the Golden Ocean and then spotted a tiny 'sprout' at the centre of it. A lotus sprout. It didn't even have a bud yet. There was nothing noteworthy about the sprout. Though Kadyn could feel his nine elements within it. Otherwise, it looked ordinary from every angle.
Then his gaze moved towards the Golden Ocean. "So that's what has become of the Blessing Element, huh?" he muttered. He had discovered a single ability of the blessing element, and that was to bless someone with his elements. However, that process would gradually weaken his own elements, so he was a bit hesitant to use it. He was still wondering about the real use of it.
He opened his eyes and walked out of the chamber. The sky was already starting to lit up, as a faint orange mixed with violet was trying to bloom in the east.
—
The emperor was sitting on his throne, the Left and the Right Ministers were also present. "The Chief Commander must be reaching at Stanlow," said the small and weak looking old man. He was the Right Minister. The controller of the taxes of the entire empire, while the Left Minister, a middle-aged man, was the Chief Justice of the empire. He dealt with major crimes. Only crimes similar to treason would be passed to the emperor to deal with.
"Don't worry," the Left Minister—or Chief Justice—said. "Commander-in-Chief, Dyso, is peak Creation rank mage. Unless the Tower Head of Bone Spear Tower sends one of the two deputy heads—the head of the Poison Hall or the Bone Spear Hall, I think nothing could go wrong. Gubia Emperor is just a dunce at the intermediate Creation rank—"
He stopped abruptly as he saw an abrupt change in the emperor's face. "What happened, Your Majesty?"