Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+

With every teleportation Aurus makes, a great distance for a C-grade or B-grade Inanimate would have been covered by him in an instant. Within three teleportations, he was already out of the Tower of Seclusion. Within ten teleportations, he was already near the corridor that connected the small ecosystem to the main hall. And within fifteen teleportations, he was already at the center of the main hall.

Whoos.h.!.+

As he appeared at the center of the main hall, Aurus took a look around his surroundings, seeing if there was anyone who had just came from a mission and was about to report to Herellia or something. Unfortunately, by the looks of it, for the past day or so Aurus was grinding to the fullest to improve his combat power, almost all of the members of the alliance had already come back from their missions, focusing their full concentration on improving their combat power for the upcoming war.

Letting out a short sigh, he could not help but look up at the ceiling of the main hall, where he allowed his clone to incubate as a sort of trump card. Comparing the appearance of the incubating clone right nowto its appearance when it was just starting to form, the green sphere on the ceiling had shrunken by a few degrees as a weird blob of energy could be seen in its center, gradually elongating itself the longer one looked at it.

While looking at the clone, the thought of telling Herellia about the clone popped into his mind one more time. This time though, he decided to not tell Herellia about the clone since there was a chance for an Inanimate specialized in searching through memories to pop up in Chonk's army of sorts. The less people that knew about his trump card, the better.

Anyways, after looking at the clone for a few minutes, he now wracked his brain to its utmost limit to find a way to find Herellia at this time and age since every minute to him would mean more Genesis Points for him to farm. Fortunately, he remembered one of the perks of being a Pillar member of the Tempest Branch Alliance, which was a holographic map that allowed him to see the location of every member of the alliance, Executive level members, Pillar level members, and even the leader herself was not exempt from this.

With that in mind, he commanded the system to activate the map, only taking him a few moments to pinpoint where Herellia was before proceeding to teleport after making sure that no one was looking at him from the main hall.

Whoos.h.!.+

Tempest Cliff, Tempest Branch Alliance, within a secluded part of the alliance's small ecosystem.

Whoos.h.!.+

A couple of minutes after he pinpointed the specific position of where Herellia was, Aurus appeared in front of Herellia all of a sudden, not even making so much as a sound when he arrived. Fortunately, Herellia's sense of vision was closed all the while Aurus had just teleported in front of her. It was after around a minute or so before she opened her sense of vision to look at Aurus and say, "Oh? What brings you here, Aurus?"

"Well, it would be quite disrespectful to not tell the alliance leader about what I'm going to do," Aurus replied to Herellia's question, slightly chuckling. "Anyways, I'll be going out for a bit to grind out some stuff for the system. Is that fine with you, Herellia?"

"Well that's fine by me…" Herellia replied as she exuded an aura of affirmation. She then continued, "But why aren't you preparing for the war? It could happen at any time, you know."

"Who says I haven't been preparing for the war?" Aurus replied, letting out a boisterous laugh as he continued, "I've been grinding all of my skills all this time. Almost all of them are already at Transcendent level. Not only that, I even have some trump cards up my sleeve just in case."

Probably from hearing the words 'trump cards' come out of Aurus, Herellia could not help but exude an aura of curiosity as she asked, "Hoh? What kind of trump cards would that be?"

"Unfortunately, that's a secret for now since we can't be sure that they don't have someone that can peer through memories," Aurus replied in a slight melancholic manner.

"Well, that is true," Herellia replied not long after. "Okay then, you can go out to grind out for your system," she added. "But can you do something for me while you're out?"

"Oh?" Aurus said as he exuded an aura of slight curiosity. "What could that thing be?"

"Recon," Herellia replied. "To be better prepared for the upcoming war, it's better to know more about the enemies, right? As I've heard from Animates here and there, knowing the enemy is already half the victory, don't you think?"

"Well…sure," Aurus said after thinking about his chances of escaping from them if they ever find him. Remembering that he had a skill that allowed him to morph into any shape he wanted, he accepted Herellia's proposition. "So…where are they located at the moment?"

"Give me a second," Herellia replied, closing her sense of vision for a bit before opening it not long after. She then replied, "They're currently recouping their losses near the now destroyed Blossom Breeze Alliance. As for the location of where that is, I'll send that to you right now."

Whoos.h.!.+

Just as she was finished talking about where Chonk and his gang was, she extended a blood red tendril towards Aurus all of a sudden before coursing energy through the tendril. It only took a few seconds for the energy to be absorbed by Aurus, imparting him information regarding the general location of the Blossom Breeze Alliance.

Afterwards, she retracted this tendril and said to Aurus, "And with that, I wish you good luck on your grinding and recon spree."

"Thanks in advance then," Aurus replied to her. But just before he was about to leave, he questioned Herellia, "But before I leave, let me ask something. Does the alliance have trump cards to fight against an Animate?"

"Of course it does," Herellia replied with an aura of confidence circling around her. "How would we become the strongest alliance in Tempest Cliff if we didn't have trump cards of our own?"

"Is it alright for you to tell me what those trump cards are?" With his curiosity slightly piqued, he asked.

"Nope. Just as you've said earlier, there might be someone who could read memories in the enemy's army," Herellia replied, slightly chuckling afterwards.

Hearing how his words were used right back at him, Aurus could not help but chuckle as well, saying, "You got me. Alright, alright. I'll be leaving then."

Whoos.h.!.+

After saying those words, Aurus disappeared in front of Herellia without a trace, slightly surprising Herellia as she was expecting him to fly away. She truly was not expecting for Aurus to disappear in front of her in an instant. After a while, Herellia could not help but laugh as she gradually closed her sense of vision while muttering to himself, "Well then, I wasn't expecting that. Speaking of which, I'm pretty close to maxing that skill out. Unlocking it would definitely help turn the tides in the war."

"Especially against an Animate like Chonk."

Whoos.h.!.+

Within the span of a minute or so, Aurus was already out of the Tempest Branch Alliance, heading towards the general direction of the now destroyed base of the Blossom Breeze Alliance since he had the great idea of just grinding for Genesis Points while near the target of his reconnaissance. Of course, he was not that stupid, making sure to put a decent amount of distance between him and the place where Chonk and his army were recuperating.

It took him only three minutes to arrive at the place he had in mind, being a kilometer or so away from the dilapidated base of the Blossom Breeze Alliance, a great contrast to his previous speed since the distance he teleported within those three minutes was around twenty or so kilometers. As to how he had achieved such a feat, he was experimenting with the movement skill that he had obtained from becoming a Ruler of the Void, being surprised that it actually affected the farthest distance he could actually teleport to.

Anyways, once he arrived at his destination, the first thing he did was to disguise himself as a mundane thing commonly found in a forest. Activating his polymorph skill, he gradually transformed into a small twig, a great contrast to his wooden sculpture appearance. After that, he decided to just fly with [Zenith Nihility Dash] activated as he was more used to flying after teleporting. Not only that, he felt that flying was better, even back then in his previous as a great ISE player.

Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+

As he flew throughout the area which was filled to the brim with tons of flora due to it being near the Blossom Breeze Alliance, he had the Battle module of his system on full power, allowing him to sense whether the power of the Inanimate he was looking at was at least X-grade Inanimate, in order to obtain the highest amount of points possible from his grinding spree.

At the very instant he found one, he would use his newly evolved [Spellblades of Nonagon Domination] and experiment with it, being more well-versed with the skill after his 50th kill or so. Not only that, the speed at which he fused spellblades together into greater forms had also increased the more he killed. Of course, that was not the most shocking thing from his grinding spree. Because by the time he had killed around 130 or so X-grade Inanimates, he had accidentally discovered that by using all of the nine spellblades that const.i.tuted the skill at once, he could unleash a power that could easily exceed what an early Pseudo-Animate could do as long as he buffed himself up.

This grinding spree lasted a timespan of 2 hours, leaving Aurus an hour to spare to a.s.sess the power levels and the members of the enemy army that was going to attack the Tempest Branch Alliance. Anyways, those 2 hours of Genesis Point grinding was incredibly fruitful for him, as he had acc.u.mulated around 800 points after killing about 300 X-grade Inanimates within a radius of 5 kilometers around where he had originally arrived. Of course, he made sure to not alert the enemy army while he was doing so. Doing that was basically telling them that he was a s.h.i.+tty spy.

Whoos.h.!.+

After ama.s.sing 800 Genesis Points, Aurus settled down at the area he first arrived in, opening up the Genesis Seed System as he consumed around half of the 800 points to max out the seed's grade and maturity level.

Ding!

At the very instant he had achieved the highest level for both the grade and the maturity level of the Genesis Seed, a prompt appeared in front of his field of vision, with the text…

'You have reached the highest level of maturity and rarity for the Genesis Seed. Would you like the seed to germinate to transform into a Genesis Tree?'

"Of course! That's the reason why I nurtured the seed to its highest level." Saying this, Aurus confirmed the decision of germinating the Genesis Seed, with the intangible seed of two shades gradually coming out of his body not long after.

Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+

A few seconds after the intangible seed was outside Aurus' body, a formless white energy started to manifest around the seed, before transforming into a drill that pierced through the seed. Normally, once a seed has been drilled into, it would undoubtedly die. It wasn't the case for this one since this was an intangible seed, not a real one. Thanks to it, the exact opposite, with the white energy drill piercing through the seed giving the seed more and more vitality as time pa.s.sed.

Eventually, the aura of vitality around the seed was incredibly thick that the seed just…

Bang!

Burst open.

Whoos.h.!.+ Whoos.h.!.+

As the outer sh.e.l.l of the seed cracked open due to it bursting open, a great whirlpool of energy started to manifest over the exploded seed, infusing the seed with great amounts of energy as the seed started to sprout in multiple directions. Around thirty seconds later, the whirlpool of energy above the seed was now gone, replacing it with the majestic sight of a small yet st.u.r.dy tree.

The tree's leaves had a color that were akin to precious green jade. As for the tree's bark, it was the color of the pitch-black sky at night, which referred to the s.p.a.ce element imbued inside this tree.

Whoos.h.!.+

Not long after, the newly grown tree made its way back to Aurus' body, imbuing Aurus' body with a greater understanding of Wind and s.p.a.ce as a notification appeared in front of his field of vision a few seconds later.

Ding!

'The Genesis Seed has transformed into a Level 1 Genesis Tree!'

'Due to the user being blessed with a greater understanding of Wind and s.p.a.ce, [Void Gale Blessing] has been upgraded to [Nebulous Tempest Blessing].'

'Due to the Genesis Tree being at the first level, 1st Layer Genesis Skills have been unlocked.'