NOVEL WEB Chapter 720: The final 10 levels
It was the afternoon of the third day since Allen and his party had started hunting Iron Golem at S-rank dungeon. —Also, in just 20 days, Allen would turn 17.
"Yahoo! I have reached LV89!!"
Cecile grandly raised the primordial magic staff as he announced the news.
With the total earning of 3.3 trillion experience points over the span of 3 days, one of the hunts had finally come to an end.
And moving forward, Cecile would now need 41 trillion experience to hit the level limit. By the standard of Iron Golem, if they focus on hunting them for 10 hours a day, the goal could be probably achieved in 21 days.
The basic calculation was—(410000 - 33000) / (12 x 150 x 10) = 21 days.
However, that's only if they stuck to clearing the Iron Golems.
The demigod level spirit beast alone could raise level by 10 at once. Of course, this was the path only for the strong ones. Nonetheless, its efficiency was undeniable. They would be saving 21 days, and 10 hours of effort every day.
"This marked the end of our first step. We would be shifting up our game now—fellas, onwards to the Earth Labyrinth!! No, wait. Or maybe I should first see the progress of Magic God's research, huh?"
Arriving at the pyramid structure, everyone walked to the upper part, but the event didn't unfurl as the team had expected. —It was also a hard way Allen learned he ought to not disturb Magic God when she was engrossed in her research. As for why—
With a huge test tube on one hand, Magic God Isiris could be seen running inside the research room with a menacing aura.
«W-w-where are you now!! Y-You have the guts to disturb me on my research. C-c-c-come out!! I swear I am going to kill you!!»
Magic God made her statement in a fit of anger.
"...See, this is why I had been against it. You shouldn't have disturbed Magic God dammit!!"
With a murderous glare, Isiris shook her head violently from side to side, her messy hair standing on end, and divine power radiated from her in waves of hatred. She was trying to search for the harassers.
Meanwhile, the preparators of the current messy situation were receiving a sermon from Larappa—while hiding behind the raw material desk.
The root of their current predicament could be said to be Allen's persistence. After arriving at the research institute, the team heard from Larappa that the research of the Magic God had yet to be completed, and it was impossible for Cecile to wield the «Ancient Magic» in its current shape.
And yet, Allen showed an insistence to directly hear the progress rate from Magic God, but the other party was too engrossed in her research. Needles to say, the interruption had bought them the ire of Magic God.
"Hmm, it appears she has left for now. Let's keep our posture low and retreat."
Leading the way, Allen, followed by Sophie, Luck, Cecile, and Formar, crawled silently toward the cube-shaped object that would lead them to the lower levels of the research facility.
"So it appears we have arrived ahead of time..."
"Hmm, true. Sophieis a bit disappointed to be honest, but—Mmm? Why... it's not teleporting?"
They'd just retreated to the cube when the team's movement came to a halt, eliciting a confused response from everyone. Sophie inquired of Allen for the cause, her voice faint as to not be heard by Magic God.
"No, it's alright. I was just doing some exchange. We're teleporting!"
Apparently, Allen was exchanging the faith points for couple items.
1. Practice Staff (Strong): 10 billion points
Skill experience +10x, cooldown reduced by 80%, intelligence -90%.
2. Spiritual/Mana Conversion Ring (Voice Recognition): 10 billion points
Allow the conversion of Spiritual and Mana at a whisper of voice. The maximum power (spiritual or magical) can change by 1% per second.
As soon as Allen was done with the exchange, he ignored Sophie's question and focused on leaving this place with a landmine. Once they arrived at the first floor of the research facility, Allen handed Cecile the staff he had just obtained.
"What is this?"
"You will hit level cap once we defeat spirit beast. So, for the rest of time, it will come handy to level up your skill in Earth Labyrinth. Your Small Meteor also needs an upgrade now that's a skill. The one hour cooldown can be cut short by the staff, so you can focus on it.
"Oh, I see."
After the rollercoaster of a situation in the Magic God research institute, the team had now arrived at Earth Labyrinth to look for a Demigod level spirit beast.
Initially, they could also be found in the Heavenly Sandal Kingdom, Paradise of Primordial Beasts, or the vast Divine Realm, but maybe they'd been so over hunted that it was increasingly getting tough to find them.
(Seriously, how can one fail to set up respawn points? Just let us hunt them in droves, O' God. —On another note, is it because there's no more stagnation in the Cycle of Life? I mean, that's what gives rise to them...)
"What about that? It's not fair to hog that ring for yourself."
"This ring allows me to convert my mana to spiritual power or vice-versa. I thought it wouldn't be necessary since I've been collecting spiritual stones, but the number of Spirit Beasts has decreased significantly, so I got it in case I need to convert mana into spiritual power in the human world. Well, a spiritual aura recovery ring is usually enough in the divine realm."
"Hmm~."
A vague reply came from Cecile.
It appeared Allen was also dealing with scarcity of the spirit stones. In contrast to how they'd managed to amass billions of spirit stones, requesting even Dragonkin, Beastkin, or themselves setting up a fort in the Paradise of Primordial Beasts, they could barely find the spirit beasts in sufficient quantities nowadays.
Well, it was also a fact that spirit beasts had barely been hunted in the last tens of thousands of years, leading to their swarm. But, after a series of non-stop hunting of spirit beasts which surpassed their spawn speed, they were only able to gather 1/10th of the previous hunting reward.
Atleast, the requirement for faith point had diminished now that he had gotten a spiritual aura recovery ring. Moreover, Pecktan addition was a timely help too, and the increased growth speed had made it easier for him to acquire items to exchange mana and spiritual power.
*Clank-Clank*
At the entrance of Earth Labyrinth, the sound of a hammer falling on the anvil, swung by a dwarf, reached the team's ears.
«Yes, that's the spirit. You're doing good!! Keep it up!! You just need to do it three times!!»
(Wait, this voice...)
"Hey, calm down, Gaia-sama. Habarak-sensei is already at his limits!!"
«You mooooron!! A man doesn't have any limit!! Keep going, Harabrak!!»
"Arrrrgggghh! One—"
«Good, just two more!! You can do it! I am here because I know!! Go, Habarak!!»
A ruckus had spread behind the atelier. Cecile spoke, his brows furrowing.
"What's with that shriek, and all? What in the world are they doing?"
But they wouldn't get any answer from outside, so the team entered the atelier.
"Excuse us. Habarak-sa—Huh?"
Cecile promptly raised his voice to greet Habarak inside the atelier, however his words were cut short when his gaze crossed against a half-naked, bald muscular man he had seen in the depth of Earth Labyrinth.
«Huh—oooh, if it isn't Allen. What have ya come for?»
"You're speaking my words, Gaia-sama. What might you be doing here?"
«Huh, you really have to ask the obvious? Since this guy has my blessing, I am just forging him in his talent!! Alright, the weight of the sacred artifact is 10 times!!»
"Hnrrrgh, rrrrrraaarghhhh!!"
To conclude from the conversation, Habarak, one of the only three Master Blacksmiths of the human realm, was seemingly being trained by Earth God Gaia.
After greeting the team, Gaia then invoked his command, and turned the weight of his sacred artifact ten times of original. It appeared the sacred artifact in his hand, «Earth Hammer» weight could be changed at whim.
The weight could be felt at a glance from the bulging veins in Habarak's biceps as he held it up.
(Well, all the rewards—«Blessing», «Divine Technique», and «Sacred Artifact»—of Earth Labyrinth had been turned to him after all. The good thing is he can now forget equipment out of the sacred orichalcum.)
Once Allen knew what was going on, it wasn't hard to see through the situation.
It would be correct to say Habarak was now the apostle of Earth God with all the rewards he had received. And the entrance of Earth Labyrinth also fell into the divine territory of Gaia. All the factors made this place to be most fitting training ground for him.
"......*huff-huff*. Allen-dono? Wh...y *huff* Are you he...*huff*."
Finally catching a breather to regain his senses, Habarak noticed the arrival of Allen and his team.
As they entered the workshop and were about to greet the master craftsman, Habalac, Allen's gaze met a muscular, semi-naked, bald man from the back of the Earth Labyrinth.
It should've been a bit more than a month since Allen had cleared the Earth Labyrinth with the team, and Habarak had been in the Earth Labyrinth since then.
The training should have been intensive as—well, that's what he had heard—the 60 year old body of Habarak was bursting with muscles.
He had been training so intensely that, despite being over 60 years old, his body had become incredibly muscular.
"We're here to help Cecile hit the level cap."
"To Earth Labyrinth once again? Wait, I will come with you. My stock of orichalcum has also been used up."
"Huh? Oh, that's alright. We can shift a bit of our schedule, and hit the Orihalcum ore vein on the 80th floor. I wonder how far we can reach with our present line-up though."
(Uh-huh, it would be a pickle if I didn't have orichalcum. No metal, no weapon, eh? Anyway, since we're already here for Cecile, it would be two birds with one stone.)
Since most of the party members were helping out Helmios in his trial, the exploration of Earth Labyrinth this time would be exceedingly casual. But they also couldn't leave Habarak hanging on the lack of orichalcum. It would be a waste of opportunity when Earth God himself was training him.
Besides, their team was also lacking in better armaments. And after all the grueling one month training, Habarak should be able to smith better armaments now.
«A Demigod class spirit beast.....?»
Earth God murmured as he listened to Allen and others' conversation.
"Hmm?...Why, is Earth Labyrinth lacking them?"
«Well, I may not be sure. I think there should be atleast one demigod spirit beast... And gauging from your conversation, is it the turn of that witch?"
"Who the hell is the witch...?"
"It is indeed so. And yes, one demigod spirit beast is sufficient."
«Oh, alright. Your trip isn't wasted then.»
"*Sigh*......"
(I wonder what was that for? Hmm... oh well. We did over farm the demigod spirit beasts in the Earth Labyrinth as well. I guess that was a fair exchange for LV250.)
Apparently, the demigod class's spirit beasts were captured by the angels, and then locked in the Earth Labyrinth. Maybe Earth God was concerned about their stocks. But since the hunt allowed him to reach LV250, he didn't put much thought since it appeared fair trade to him.
"Alright, then we're going to begin a 24 hour expedition. Pepped up yourself, everyone."
"I can't wait to use my skills."
"Cecile, use this ring, and focus on improving your skill levels."
Since they would have to traverse through the labyrinth until they reached their goal—demigod spirit beast, the rest of time would be used for Cecile to train his skills.
«......Welcome to the Earth Labyrinth. Are you here for the challenge?"
A clay figure, the guide of the dungeon, spoke as it watched Allen and team approaching at the entrance.