In a quiet room filled with training dummies, a young man with silver-white hair sat cross-legged, his eyes closed. He seemed to only wear training trousers, his upper body completely bare.
Golden, nerve-like pathways glowed across his body, forming intricate patterns that shimmered with an otherworldly light. On closer inspection, these luminous tendrils pulsed like electrical currents, their energy surging rhythmically toward a central point at his navel.
At the center, the glow grew brighter, forming a radiant core that outshone the tendrils. Each pulse seemed to feed into this central point, converging steadily, as if all the power within him was being drawn and focused into that one brilliant spot.
This process continued for a few more hours until the glowing tendrils around his body dimmed, and the navel point became the center of the glow, like a small orb. It radiated golden light, illuminating the entire training room before it too gradually faded.
[Congratulations to Max Voidwalker for leveling up to Level 1 of Apprentice Rank.]
[Congratulations to Max Voidwalker for unlocking the Dimension of Flames.]
Max smiled as he saw the notifications. He hadn’t expected he would also unlock a new dimension after leveling up to Apprentice Rank.
"I’ve finally entered the Apprentice Rank." He muttered, feeling the new profound strength flowing through his body. ’I feel like a completely different person now and most importantly I feel as if my strength has rose to a whole new level.’
The increase in strength was unlike anything he ever felt before when leveled up in the Novice Rank. It felt as if each level of Novice Rank was increasing his strength by 1% then by reaching Apprentice Rank his strength rose by a total of about 10%.
"I guess that was what to be expected after I absorbed so much cores." Max muttered recalling the outrageous amount of cores he needed to level up.
After absorbing countless level 9 and level 10 cores, he had seen no increase in level from level 6. He had to absorb an additional five level 1 Apprentice Rank cores to reach level 7.
Hundreds more level 1 Apprentice Rank cores, along with four level 2 Apprentice Rank cores, to reach level 8, numerous level 2 cores and six level 3 cores to reach level 9, and finally, handful of level 3 cores and some level 4 cores to reach level 10.
Seeing the amount of cores he was absorbing without leveling up, even Master Sophia questioned if he was kidding, but it was all true. She discovered this the hard way, as she was the one responsible for providing him with cores to level up.
It was just after the week Max defeated Killian. That day, she lost a fraction of her wealth.
Since then, Max had been trying to converge all the mana inside his body at one central point to level up to the Apprentice Rank. It had been extremely difficult, as Alice had mentioned, but after nearly three months of hard work, he finally succeeded and reached Level 1 of the Apprentice Rank.
’Let’s see my stats,’ Max thought, opening his status.
---
[Max]
– Rank: [Apprentice]
– Level: 1
– Class: [Dimensional Keeper]
– Title: [Limitbreaker, Aura of Primordial]
– Physique: 9.6
– Soul: 8.3
– Energy: 16.5
– Skills:
—» Class Skills: [Three Dimensional Body, Dimension of Time, Dimension of Spirits, Dimension of Flames]
—» Acquired Skills: [Magic Sword Barrage (Lvl-10), Advance Sword Arts (Lvl-16), Phantom Dash (Lvl-12), Celestial Tempest (Lvl-8), Flame Creation (Lvl-100), Abyssal Coating (Lvl-11), Eternal Bulwark (Lvl-7), Sky Float (Lvl-17)]
—» Comprehensions: [Sword Aura (Lvl-1), Flame Aura(Lvl-1)]
– Bloodline: [Black Dragon Chaotic Bloodline]
—» Draconic Essence: [10]
—» Dragon Scales: [2]
---
After glancing at his stats for a moment, Max noted some changes in the Apprentice Rank compared to the Novice Rank.
’At level 10 of Novice Rank, my stats were: Physique - 9, Soul - 8, and Energy - 15.’ Max thought and noted that they had increased by 0.6, 0.3, and 1.5, respectively. Though he felt that the stat didn’t justify the increase in strength.
’So, the increase from the previous rank, only the Energy stat shows an obvious increase of 0.5, while Physique and Soul only increased by 0.1 each,’ he mused, wondering how his stats would fare compared to others.
But he understood one thing after checking his stats.
’The value of a stat point in each rank differs greatly.’ Max summarized. Find exclusive stories on freewebnovel.com
Turning his attention to the skills, Max smiled in satisfaction. After reaching the Limitbreaker rank and leveling them up once again to higher ranks, he had decided to focus all his attention on forming the core inside his body.
Max glanced at the Magic Sword Barrage skill and muttered, "The upgrade this time is more powerful than the last."
He held his hand forward, and immediately, three blue glowing objects floated in front of him, casting a soft glow on his face.
One was a small, finger-sized blue sphere, a bullet from the Magic Bullets skill; the second was a small blue sword the size of his palm; and the third was a normal blue glowing sword, larger than his arm.
’It’s only becoming bigger as their rank increases,’ Max mused, wondering if he would have an even bigger sword at the Epic rank.
The highest rank skill he had currently was Legendary rank, which he obtained after upgrading two rare rank skills twice. They were Celestial Tempest, upgraded from Flurry Strike (Rare) to Barrage Strike (Epic) when he first ranked up all his skills, and then to Celestial Tempest (Legendary).
The other was the Eternal Bulwark, which upgraded from Ten Directional Shield (Rare) to Omni Guard (Epic) and then to Eternal Bulwark (Legendary).
’Celestial Tempest is a very strong skill,’ Max thought, recalling the scene while training the skill. But what he was most excited about was his defense skill, Eternal Bulwark.
’I now have three stages of defensive protection on me,’ Max thought excitedly as he used the Ten Directional Shield, causing ten hexagonal-shaped red shields to appear all around him. They glowed with a red ambiance and were partially transparent, each as large as Max himself.
Max then used the Omni Guard skill, and a spherical shield enveloped him completely. It glowed with a green aura and was completely transparent, unlike the previous one.
Finally, he used the Eternal Bulwark skill, and a circular shield appeared before him, like the original war shields.
’This Eternal Bulwark is a strange shield skill, but I believe, since it’s a Legendary rank skill, its full power defense should be stronger than the last two,’ Max thought.
Happy with his increased rank, Max muttered to himself, "There is still a week before The Guild Summit starts, so I’d like to go to Rune Tower in the meantime."
These past three months, he hadn’t only trained in skills and cultivated; he also contemplated the runes book, mana flow, and mana structure books, and understood a lot of things.
Even though it was nothing compared to the knowledge of Daniel Winchester, the mad scientist researching golems, he was at least confident that he should be able to create level 1 rank runes.
It was just that he had never tried creating a rune since he didn’t have the materials. That was why he wanted to go to Rune Tower.
"There’s also the so-called Runestone, which I can only find at Rune Tower," Max muttered. From what he’d read in the runes book, a rune and a runestone were two different things.
A rune was simply a mystical symbol drawn with the power of souls on paper, while a runestone was made by combining a rune with a rare stone called Chaos Stone to make the rune usable for humans, like a one-time skill.
Max was sure there was something special about this Chaos Stone. He believed that it was because of this stone that his Dragon Scales increased by 1 when he absorbed the runestone that day.
Though all this was just his assumption, he had to go to Rune Tower to be sure of everything.
Checking the time, he saw it was still early in the morning. ’Enough time to check on my Dimension of Flames and then go to Rune Tower,’ he thought, messaging Alice about this as he prepared to enter his new Dimension.