After team Sandstorm dispersed, Kyle went back into the tunnel.
'Hey, at least I get time to focus on learning more about funny ores,' Kyle thought.
'Gotta keep the positive vibes flowing. Imagine spending time moping around and lamenting your life. Hah, couldn't be me,' he thought as he remembered the time he had been on Earth.
The joke was that Kyle had constantly been moping around on Earth.
He had lamented his situation, but didn't do anything to change it.
He had been angry at his lack of funds, his non-existent social circle, the pressure his "colleagues" put him under, and so on.
As Kyle thought about his life back on Earth, he realized that he could have fixed almost all of these things.
It would just need a shit-ton of effort.
'Eh, nobody cares about Earth. Gotta get back to looking at magical stones.'
The tunnel had plenty of ore.
Due to the dense Metal Ether in the World Peak, the worst kind of ore Kyle could find was a Rank D Material.
Most of the time, he found Rank C Materials, and when he was lucky, he also stumbled upon some bits of Rank B Materials.
Kyle tried to understand how the Rank C Materials worked, but it wasn't that easy.
Understanding copper had only taken Kyle a couple of hours, but understanding even a single Rank C Material took him over two weeks.
For now, Kyle focused on the Rank C Materials since they were still understandable. Additionally, the more he understood, the fewer materials he had to buy in the future.
Two weeks after going into the tunnel, Kyle came back out again and approached a random person in the Third Realm.
"Hey, you one of the ones in charge here?" Kyle asked.
The man furrowed his brows. "My rank is Captain," the man answered with a bit of annoyance.
"Cool, can you check if my orders have changed?" Kyle asked, showing his emblem.
The Captain scanned the emblem with some annoyance.
"I see. You're an outsider," he commented. "If you were one of my men, I would have sent you to the frontlines for your undisciplined tone."
"So, did my orders change?" Kyle asked.
"Your emblem says that you are on standby near the frontlines and that your mission is complete," the Captain said.
"Cool. So, I can go back to doing jack-shit?" Kyle asked.
"…Yes," the Captain answered after some seconds.
"Great! Thanks a lot!" Kyle said before running back into the tunnel.
The Captain only snorted.
Kyle focused more on understanding ore.
'This is getting annoying, ' Kyle thought. 'It's like my brain doesn't have enough space.'
"Hey, Boss," Kyle said. "Can I advance?"
"It's a good time to advance," Theodor answered neutrally.
Kyle just smiled before he shoved a bunch of ore into his gullet.
Luckily for Kyle, he could just eat anything that had Ether in it.
He didn't need to use a bunch of valuable Ether Gems to advance.
He could just shove funny rocks into his maw to become stronger.
Within a couple of minutes, Kyle advanced.
He was now a Late Warrior.
"You can continue," Theodor said.
"Wait, what?" Kyle asked.
"You can advance another level," Theodor said. "Your Battle-Strength is high enough. You have enough experience, and your Momentum is strong enough."
"Staying at your current level is not beneficial. Usually, people who care about their future stay on lower levels longer to push their Battle-Strength further, but yours is more than enough."
"Advancing will make it easier to comprehend Fragments, and there's a smaller chance that you might die."
Kyle scratched the back of his head.
Then, he shrugged. "Sure thing, Boss."
Over the next hours, Kyle ate all the ore he had gathered but still didn't manage to advance.
"Man, I need a lot of Ether," Kyle said.
"Due to your Aristocrat's Body, you have to consume twice as much as others to advance," Theodor said.
"Wait, really? I didn't know that," Kyle said.
"I never brought it up since it wasn't relevant to you," Theodor said. "You can consume beasts and metals. Advancing is not a concern for you."
"People usually need around 30 Ether Gems to reach the Peak Second Realm from the Late Second Realm. In your case, you would need 60 Ether Gems."
"You can purchase a lot of valuable ore with 60 Ether Gems."
"Huh, interesting," Kyle said.
Then, he shrugged.
"Lucky me!"
For the next days, Kyle gathered a lot more ore.
One month after team Sandstorm dispersed, Kyle finally managed to become a Peak Warrior.
When he focused on the Rank C Materials again, he realized that understanding them had become much easier.
Now, he only needed about two days for one.
Additionally, he didn't need to take breaks to regrow his arm anymore.
After all, Rank C Materials could be heated to quite a high temperature, and his arm quickly turned into soup.
It was fucking annoying to regrow an entire arm just to burn it away again.
Also, it hurt quite a bit. But the most annoying part had been to split the liquid materials from the liquid soup that was his former arm.
The pot of metal lost a lot of its purity after some arm soup had been added, making it harder to comprehend the material.
Kyle remained inside the tunnel until his shift was close to being over.
'Well, I didn't comprehend a Fragment, but I learned a lot.'
As Kyle stepped out of the tunnel, he looked around.
'This place used to look more imposing,' he thought before smirking. 'Well, I guess somebody got stronger!'
Kyle was now a Peak Warrior, and with his overwhelming Battle-Strength, he could even fight people in the Early Third Realm.
One had to remember that every additional level in the Third Realm represented at least one decade of additional experience.
Often, people remained at one level for several decades.
It wasn't because they didn't want to advance.
It was more that they simply lacked the funds.
After all, Ether Gems weren't enough for people in the Third Realm.
They needed Ether Crystals, and those were hard to get.
There were people in the Third Realm who had over 10,000 Ether Gems but couldn't get the two Ether Crystals they needed to reach the Early Third Realm.
It was very rare for anyone below the age of 50 to reach the Third Realm.
Meanwhile, Kyle was just 26, and he had only been in this world for three to four years.
His speed of advancement was crazy fast.
'Anyway, my shift is close to done. Gotta get my reward and fuck off.'
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