Chapter 245: Progress, Conflict
Looking at the Radiant Lifebane Tree, Erix and Lilith eagerly waited for the fruits to 'calm down.'
The tree has reached 100% completion, causing it to shine along with its fruits.
One by one, fruits detached and dropped on the mystical soil beneath that held the tree.
The soil had grown and spread to over a hundred square meters, but its density was only two meters thick.
[Radiant Lifebane Tree]
_Type: A Bizarre-type Plant. (Bound to Erix)
_Level: 1 [ Requires 1000 natural resources and 10,000 Prana.]
_Effect(s):
—> Fruits: The tree will grow life-attributed fruits with random benefits every month. The higher the tree level, the better the fruits. You can speed up the fruit's growth by giving it Tier-6 or higher-rank resources.
_Passive effect(s):
—> The healing you receive and give from any source is automatically boosted by 10% by the tree.
_Note: level up the tree to awaken more effects.
'Interesting effects,' Lilith commented as she saw Erix sharing the tree's details with her.
'The fruits…random benefits of life-attribute?' Erix was surprised, 'Well, let's hope it also gives pure life power to my source for balancing.'
'Try one,' Lilith said.
All five fruits looked the same, so Erix inspected a random fruit, getting its details.
[Life-Burst Fruit]
_Type: Healing.
_Effect:
—> Eating the fruit will increase healing received by 100% to 200% for thirty seconds.
'Woah, the effect is kinda crazy. If there's a continuous healing skill used on me when I eat this fruit, I basically won't for thirty seconds,' Erix chuckled.
'But it's useless for now,' he added with a sigh.
'Give it to me,' Lilith said, 'If we don't want the fruit's effect, we can just refine the fruit to extract its power as we did with the resources and gave it to this tree.'
'I'll refine it and give you its potent life energy.'
'Great, let's do it quickly,' Erix grinned. 'I want to progress balancing over 40%, so the death power of those monsters I kill wouldn't mess with my source.'
Since Erix was more powerful than before and even had Death affinity at level two, once his source balanced to 40%, he would be freely able to kill monsters, and their death power wouldn't break the balance anymore since it was already a whole 40% progress.
After all, the Life part of his source was becoming powerful, so it could finally show its power. Hence, Lilith said that Erix would need to reach 40% before he could start killing monsters in masses again.
Without further ado, Lilith started refining this fruit with mystical and abundant life power in it and channeled it to Erix.
Erix was guiding it to his source, feeling distinct and clear progression each second.
Ten seconds later, Lilith completely extracted the fruit's life power while Erix's progress reached 37.2%!
It was an increase of whole 2.2%!
Erix couldn't help but get excited, 'Lilith, let's use the rest of the fruits except that one with instant heal, and I'll cross over 40%!'
Lilith smiled, 'Alright.'
'I'll get my class soon,' Erix's face grinned from ear to ear.
Rin and Lily saw grinning with his eyes closed and couldn't help but smile in reaction.
"It looks like that tree proved super beneficial to him."
"Yep," Rin heartily chuckled. "I'm sure it's related to his source. The tree must have increased his progress enough to make him gleeful like that."
"That reminded me. What about your class skills, Rin?" Lily asked.
"I am saving all the attempts," Rin grinned. "Since Erix didn't have his class, I don't want to use my class's skill creation attempts."
"So you are waiting for him to progress together…"
"And compete," Rin smirked, "We progress faster when we have a competition."
Rin's class had reached a maxed level, but she hadn't used any skill creation attempts despite almost having a dozen of them.
If she did that, she would be out of sync with Erix, and if that happened, Rin was sure they wouldn't be making progress like they were currently making.
"The first thing he'll do is to awaken his class, and I also can't wait for that, haha."
"Yep. We'll be farming a lot to level up in the next spot."
The group stayed on the plateau for two more hours to have passionate and fun relaxation where no one could see or sense them after Lilith and Erix were done.
Erix was especially energetic and happy due to the reward he got since it essentially fixed his problem and increased his progress speed.
After they were willing to exit, a notification appeared that asked about which floor they wanted to go.
"Let's pick up Reinala and Maleina on the way."
The group went to the floors where Reinala and Maleina were resting and training after failing.
Afterward, they went to the ground floor, arriving in a huge circular hall over one kilometer wide in size!
The group flew towards the 100-meter-wide exit that was small in comparison to this hall.
There were thousands of people at various spots and stalls as people had made this floor a sort of market as people would want various items and consumables before going to their respective challenges among 300 floors.
"Lilith, we are going to a good farming place, right?" Erix asked.
"Let's hope it's abundant with monsters so I can kill a couple thousand in a day and finish the task," Erix added as he rubbed his palms while grinning.
"Of course, darling. We are going to the best place for farming. It's between the core domain and inner domain," Lilith licked her lips. "I also need to kill some Empyrean-order monsters, so that place is extremely dangerous. Perfect for us."
Just as the group exited from the Wihanx Finger's hall and Lilith took out her Airship to continue their journey, she frowned.
"It seems that someone wants to entertain us," Lilith said as three powerful presences and a bunch of others quickly approached them before the group saw themselves surrounded.
"Deathly Fist and Anarchic Blade Dancer, eh? They do look extraordinary, hahaha!"
Mohak laughed while his beady eyes looked at Rin and Erix.
"Are you talking about us?" Erix raised his eyebrows.
"Eh? It seems that we got titles without us knowing," Rin was also surprised before she clicked her tongue. She was dissatisfied with her title, but whatever.
"It seems that you two don't know that your battles against other Royal-order hunters were recorded and spread," Mohak laughed. "If you were Empyrean-order, I would have liked to fight you."
"What are you here for?" Lilith crossed her arms, her eyes narrow. "Your intentions don't seem to be peaceful."
"Where is Lynia?" Valen asked, his face dark and voice cold. His gaze was looking at none other than Maleina.
Erix and others quickly understood the situation at that question.
They scanned everyone and became cautious internally, revving their internal gears to get into combat.
'I am sensing three Empyrean-order presence, and unfortunately, as powerful as I am, I can't take on three Empyrean-order at once when one of them is a strange one.'
'For starter, let me, Rin, and Lily kill those Royal-order,' Erix said with a grin.
'Alright, show them a nightmare while I go take away these three Empyrean-order dogs. If I don't want to get caught, even they wouldn't be able to stop me.'
And thus, it began.
"Lynia is dead," Maleina said with a deadpan expression as she looked straight at Valen. " That bitch is dead."