Tempest Branch Alliance, Tower of Seclusion.

After finis.h.i.+ng his grind that needed the Ruler skills to be at X-grade Mortal, he was able to raise his Ruler Rank, becoming an a.s.sistant Ruler of the Void. After he obtained the t.i.tle, he felt a definite change in his power. He definitely wanted to check his stats right now, but he thought that it was better to grind all of his skills first before checking his stats.

And so, that's what he did.

The first batch of skills he focused on were the Flux skills he obtained from evolving to S-grade Inanimate. Namely, the Flux equipment creation skills, the enchantment skill, the sacrifice skill, and the storage skill for Flux. Although the latter was now obsolete due to [Stick-Flux Unification], a little still went a long way.

Thanks to the Transcending Comprehension Leaf, it only took him 3 hours to raise all of these Flux-based skills, which were at B-grade Mortal, to his current goal, which was C-grade Transcendent level.

[Better Flux Weapon Creation] was now called [Unworldly Flux Weapon Fabrication], while [Better Flux Armor Creation] was now called [Unworldly Flux Armor Fabrication]. As for [Better Flux Enchantment] and [Better Flux Sacrifice], they were now called [Third Heaven Flux Enhancement] and [Grand Flux Samsara] respectively.

As for the storage skill, [Expanded Flux Vessel], it was now called [Flux Chiliocosm], giving Aurus a few hundred more Flux points to work with.

The next set of skills he proceeded to grind were his offensive skills, as well his skills that boosted offensive power. [Middle-High Spirit Spell Core], [Zenith Spirit Transcendence], [Zenith Purity Spirit Energy Core], and [Spirit Sword of Seven h.e.l.ls], which were all at X-grade Mortal, took only 2 hours to transform into C-grade Transcendent level skills. Their new names were now [High Spirit Spell Core], [Grand Spiritas Deification], [Otherworldly Spiritas Energy Core], and [Spellblades of Nonagon Domination] respectively, with the last skill being specifically chosen by Aurus as the new form of the skill resembled its previous form.

Aurus then moved onto grinding out his movement skills, as well as his supportive skills, which were namely [Instantaneous Spiritas Movement], [Void Gale Spirit s.h.i.+ft], [Formosus Exuberance], and [Unyielding Barrier of the Spiritas Magnus].

This took Aurus around 3 hours to do, turning them into [Transient Spiritas Dash], [False Nil Teleportation], [Heavenly Spiritas Revival], and [Unbreakable Spiritas Flux s.h.i.+eld] respectively. For his defensive skill, he could not help but let out a sigh of relief as the name was shortened by a bit.

After that, the next skills he focused on grinding were the remaining skills he had not grinded yet, which were mostly pa.s.sive and miscellaneous skills.

He focused on [Soul Perception III] first, taking 40 minutes to achieve its C-grade Transcendent form, [Eye of the Soul]. He then moved onto [Myriad Manifestation Polymorph], taking 20 minutes to evolve it to [Infinite Primordial Morph]. After that, he focused on [Soul Morphosis], which was at C-grade Mortal all this time. Taking around 30 minutes or so, he was able to evolve it to [Nine Worlds Soul Morphosis], allowing him to show greater control over his soul vessel when needed, while suppressing his incredibly high soul power in the process, bringing it to the level of an S-grade Inanimate.

He then focused on [Spirit Aura], which was halfway to its maximum level after being put into the Learning module. In contrast, it only took around 10 minutes for Aurus to evolve the skill to C-grade Transcendent level, turning into [Boundless Spirit Domain].

While he was grinding all of the previous skills, he made sure to activate [Spiritas Rage] and [Spiritas Fortress], which were skills with incredibly long cooldowns. For these skills, he decided to just raise them to X-grade Mortal, which he had just achieved after upgrading [Spirit Aura].

The new names of the two skills were [Berserk] and [Invincible], great contrasts to the names of the other skills in his skill list.

He then proceeded to simultaneously grind [Zenith Purity Spiritas SP Vessel], [Infinite Tempest Affinity], [Blessing of the Zenith Tempest], and [Superb Illusion Resistance] within a span of an hour and a half, transforming into better versions of themselves...which shall not be said due to their long name.

And last but not the least, he grinded his Life and Will skills, which had not shown great purpose throughout fights and such, but showed great purpose when choosing his next evolution path.

The two pa.s.sive Life and Will skills, [Seeker of Two Destinies] and [Grand Vessel of Higher Sentience], turned into [Two Worlds' Overseer] and [Hundred Sentience World].

As for the three active Life and Will skills, [Blooming Vitality++], [Indomitable Will++], and [Sentience++], rather than changing names once they evolved to C-grade Transcendent form, the system just decided to add more plus signs onto the end of the skills, turning into [Blooming Vitality+++++], [Indomitable Will+++++], and [Sentience+++++].

After reading the names of these last three skills, Aurus could not help but wonder as to whether the system was actually there to help him. Nonetheless, he brushed the thought off as he was finally finished in grinding all of his skills to C-grade Transcendent level.

He asked the system to keep track of time just so he could see how much time he had used up while grinding his skills, only for him to know that it took him less than 18 hours to grind all of those skills to C-grade Transcendent level, with some at X-grade Mortal level.

After knowing this fact, Aurus could not help but mutter to himself, "Holy s.h.i.+t. This Transcending Comprehension Leaf works wonders."

Since he was now done with grinding his skills, Aurus now had nothing to do. In fact, Aurus did say around 18 hours ago to himself that if he had used less than 4 days to grind all of his skill to C-grade Transcendent level, he would aim for a higher level to make use of the remaining time.

Although he did say that, he was deciding to not uphold that promise to himself as it was a bore for him to just repet.i.tively use his skills over and over again. After this experience, he could not help but remember the ten days of seclusion he did before evolving to grade.

"Ah, right." With that thought in mind, Aurus could not help but look at Fenrir and Charisa, who were still grinding their skills all this time.

Unlike their master, they had to grind the hard way, which was basically how normal Inanimates did it if they haven't consumed Comprehension Leaves. But as Aurus looked at the two, he could not help but think about ascending the two to the X-grade Inanimate level.

By ascending the two to the peak of the Inanimate existence level, they would be able to offer more help to the alliance, as well as help to him. Of course, it's not just help in terms of commanding them and such, but help in terms of Ally skills as well. He was quite eager to see the effects of the X-grade versions of their skills.

But unfortunately, in the end, he decided to postpone this decision as he did not want to interrupt the two from grinding their skills. Sure, he could interrupt the two as they would follow his every command, but he would definitely bad after doing that. He was pretty sure that the two would not like it either.

And so, he was stuck in a situation where he had no idea what to do. Well...not really a situation where he had nothing to do, but instead, too much to do that he had no idea what to do first.

He could go ahead and evolve to X-grade Inanimate, but just like how he evolved to S-grade Inanimate, it would take a long time for him to finish the evolution.

"Speaking of which, is there a way to hasten this evolution? If not, I'll just postpone it after the war," Aurus said to himself as something he had to do. He would ask Herellia about this later if she knew any methods to do so.

Speaking of Herellia, he could also go to where Herellia was and tell her about his clone, his plans, and other topics that would possibly benefit the alliance one way or another. But he had a feeling that Herellia was also preparing in her own way as well through grinding skills, so he decided in the end to postpone that later as well.

As he continued to think about what to do, a thought embedded deep in his mind started to surface up, giving Aurus a sort of eureka moment as he started to talk a moment.

"So that's why I felt like I forgot something!"

"It's because I forgot about giving the Genesis Seed a type!"

"I...should really do that."