The two shot forward simultaneously. Though he knew that it would be overkill, Leonel didn't want to waste another spear. He could tell how powerful Rychard's rod was and it was made of a material that reminded him of Elthor's Chaotic Particle Force.
It had heft, an almost tangible gravitational pull to it, and it seemed like an endless void fashioned into a pole.
However… it didn't seem to matter very much.
Leonel could tell that Rychard's skill was top notch, even beyond his own. Leonel was still refining his Spear Domain and hadn't touched many spears at the Fifth Dimensional level. In addition, he had spent much of the past few months tweaking and refining [Star Fusion] because he knew how important it would be to his combat prowess in his world.
However, though it was faintly beyond him, the gap wasn't enormous. And, while there was a small gap in skill, the gap in power was an almost endless abyss. Rychard's skill wasn't great enough to pin Leonel down and his strength was far too weak to last more than a few dozen exchanges.
After just several minutes, Rychard found himself standing on the edge of the road, his heels not even touching ground anymore.
He continued to glare at Leonel through the striking of their weapons.
In this place, he couldn't make use of even a single percent of his true strength. His body was heavy, his Lineage Factor and ability was sealed away, and to make matters worse this young man he was fighting didn't seem to have any of these limitations.
He could tell that Leonel was holding back for some reason. And, even though he didn't know what that reason was, it only infuriated him more.
He was so close. There was just a single person blocking his path toward securing the Viola family's Heirship for himself. And yet, he had actually run into such a roadblock.
'I should…' Rychard grit his teeth and shook his head.
It wasn't worth it. If he used it now, he would waste it and his intuition told him that it wouldn't fix much of anything. The gap between his current self and Leonel was far too wide. However, he held on so that he could continue to analyze Leonel.
If there were two things he was, it was patient and vengeful. He didn't know if he would ever run into this Leonel Morales again, but when he did, he would pay him back a hundredfold.
'He likely has either a Star Force Lineage Factor or ability. It gives him a massive leg up in this place. But, outside, he won't have nearly as much Star Force to work with…'
The only way to match up to this density of Star Force would be to battle near a Star. However, unless you were in the Sixth Dimension, you couldn't even consider battling in space. And, unless you were in the Seventh, approaching even a Third Dimensional star was asking for death without appropriate protection.
Stars, blackholes and other celestial bodies were among the existences in the Dimensional Verse that were dangerous regardless of their Dimension… Depending on how you looked at it, this could either be an intriguing mystery, completely irrelevant, or something that made little to no sense…
When Rychard found he could no longer hold on, he didn't give Leonel even the chance to kill him. He slipped a foot back, hooking his toes beneath the light road before pushing back with his remaining foot.
His rod spun in his hand as he swung at the bottom of the road with all his might.
Like an arrow out of a canon, he shot into the abyss below, his two flickering violet irises the last things that were visible before he completely vanished.
Leonel didn't react much to this, he hadn't been planning on killing Rychard to begin with. That said, he hadn't been holding back to spare him but rather to focus on his [Star Fusion] and see if there was anything that could be tweaked and fixed.
At that moment, a flood of information entered Leonel's mind, causing him to close his eyes. He took long, steady breaths, his mind assimilating it all very quickly.
Compared to the Fourth Dimension segment, the Fifth Dimensional was a lot more involved. Ironically, though, also compared to the Fourth Dimension, cultivation within the Fifth Dimension was far easier as well—especially for someone like Leonel… Depending on how you looked at it, that is.
Even as early as the Third Dimension, one had to restructure their body on a cellular level. This was a massive leap for anyone. The difficulty was already beyond the understanding of most.
Within the Fourth Dimension, this became even more complicated. Rather than just forming Nodes and the connection between them, one had to essentially form a completely knew circulatory system that could connect, fuse and make use of all of their inner organs, muscles and bones.
Back then, just for the sake of adding a Node to his Brain Stem, Leonel had to rearrange the pathways of tens of thousands of his neural cells. Now, one could imagine the level of rearranging that would be necessary for someone to make a new circulatory system for themselves.
However… The Fifth Dimension didn't require any of this. In fact, it could be said that the reformation of the body could be considered to be complete, for now.
The Fifth Dimension was entirely focused on the mind and eliciting growth within it. There were no new cells or nodes to form, one could entirely focus on increasing the size, durability and strength of their Ethereal Glabella. It could even be said that from now on, one's Ethereal Glabella would only become more and more important.
Leonel had been disappointed that his number of minds had only increased to 50 000 after reaching the peak of the Fourth Dimension. This might sound like a lot, but when he already had a thousand at the peak of the Third Dimension, the number seemed too small. How could there only be a 50x difference between the Third and Fourth Dimensions, let alone that being the gap of their Peaks?
But now he understood… The Fifth Dimension would be where the shackles of his mind were truly released.