Tempest Cliff, within the base of the Tempest Branch Alliance.

Within a secluded place inside the small ecosystem found within the inner reaches of the Tempest Branch Alliance base, Herellia was currently engrossed in training her skills up to at least X grade in order to prepare for her inevitable evolution to an Animate. Although she could decide not to evolve into an Animate, the G.o.ddess that chose her wouldn't let her to do that, as her goal was to create a family that she would not regret. With that line of that thought, do you think branches can create families?

Of course not.

And that's why it was inevitable. Anyways, while Herellia was levelling up one of her skills, the sound of wind pa.s.sing through her body alerted Herellia of a person entering the place she was currently in, prompting her to open her sense of vision that was closed all this time to look at the person. Not long after, Herellia let out a sigh of relief, realizing who the person was in front of her.

"Oh, it's just you h.o.r.ell. You scared me there." Stopping the skill that she was just using and letting her SP regenerate back to its full capacity, Herellia could not help but let out a sigh of relief after knowing that the silhouette was someone familiar to her.

"I apologize for startling you, Herellia." h.o.r.ell released an apologetic aura, letting Herellia know that h.o.r.ell was sincere in his apology. "Nonetheless, I need to bring you a report from one of the executives of our alliance, the newest one at that."

"Oh? Aurus? What about him?" Hearing the phrase 'newest executive' come out of h.o.r.ell's mouth, it was a given that h.o.r.ell was talking about Aurus.

"Well…" h.o.r.ell thought about what he was going to say for a bit. After a few seconds, h.o.r.ell started to speak. "Around sometime ago, Aurus finally got out of the Sparring Tower, successfully evolving into an Inanimate of the S-grade. Instead of letting you know about his successful evolution at the instant he got out, it seemed that he had other things to do that were of greater priority…which is why I'm here to tell you that he is currently outside travelling in order to head towards a place he dared not to tell where."

"I knew he was bound to evolve to S-grade eventually." Rather than being mad at Aurus not telling her that he evolved, she instead became elated at the fact that a strong mage at the level of Aurus at grade now became a mage that could be beyond h.o.r.ell's strength at max level, or even be beyond her own strength. Add in the fact that they were both blessed with systems hence she did not worry about Aurus being away for a long time, or even if he did go missing for a long time, he would be able to come back unscathed.

"Thanks for letting me know that he evolved, h.o.r.ell. I'll make sure to increase his authority after I finish what I have to do," Herellia thanked h.o.r.ell for telling her about the whereabouts of Aurus, albeit vague. After saying this, she expected h.o.r.ell to leave the premises, but for some reason, h.o.r.ell stayed around, radiating an aura of anxiety.

Sensing this aura around h.o.r.ell, Herellia asked, "What's wrong, h.o.r.ell? This isn't like you."

Hearing Herellia speak broke the thin line that barred h.o.r.ell from doing what he wanted to do. He looked at Herellia for a short bit as he let out a long sigh of intense melancholy. A few seconds later, he then said to Herellia…

"I'll be leaving the alliance."

While this was happening within the alliance base, Aurus, on the other hand, had finally crossed the barrier between the Tempest Cliff and the outside, letting him feel like an intense weight has been removed from his shoulders…or his branch body anyway.

With his speed already reaching a speed that surpa.s.sed 3 kilometers per hour, it only took Aurus almost 2 hours to leave the Tempest Cliff, which is a drastic reduction in time used to traverse the same distance. He calculated, that at his current speed, it would only take him at most, another 6 hours or so to reach the Lesser Experience Haven so he can kill the boss of said experience haven.

Now, with his current strength surpa.s.sing any normal S-grade at Level 1, one could not help but ask a one-word question.

Why?

This was because Aurus wanted to use all of the Genesis Points he could get his hands on to bolster the strength of his future Genesis Tree. As for what the functions of the Genesis Tree are, those shall be explained in the future.

As he zoomed through his surroundings, Aurus noticed that he had a lot of spare time he could use to experiment with his newfound abilities as most Inanimates that got close to him would try to escape from someone like him, an S-grade Inanimate.

"Hmm…what should I experiment with first?" Aurus muttered to himself as he looked at the blue line that was overlapping over the ground, letting Aurus know the most efficient route towards his destination. After a while, a skill was brought up to the surface of his mind and decided that it was the one. "If I don't upgrade it anyway, I wouldn't even be able to experiment with any of the other skills available to me."

The skill that Aurus was referring to was [Nine Flux Transformation], which was a pa.s.sive skill that tempered the Flux that covered each and every Anima making up his body. Although a few hours have pa.s.sed since he checked the detail screen for the skill, he could still remember the requirements needed to upgrade the skill.

"100 SP and 1000 Wind energy particles huh…"

And so, while he was flying towards the Lesser Experience Haven, he used his heightened sense for Wind energy particles to manipulate the Wind energy particles in his current surroundings before manipulating them to cl.u.s.ter over his head as they acc.u.mulated towards a certain point. After seeing that the cl.u.s.ter was dense enough, he then willed the particles to enter his body.

Ding!

"Hm? A notification?" Aurus did not expect a notification to come up at this time. Nonetheless, he commanded the system to bring up a screen regarding the latest notification.

'1000 Wind energy particles have been acc.u.mulated. Would you like to infuse your Flux with 100 SP to upgrade it to Rank 1?'

"Is my affinity for Wind energy really that perverse?" Aurus never realized that his affinity for Wind had reached a great level after leveling both his elemental affinity and Wind blessing skill to X-grade. But Aurus knew that he was still aiming to become a G.o.d-tier existence as fast as possible, so he chose to infuse 100 SP into his Flux.

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

All of a sudden, the Flux covering his body started to bubble up as they expanded to a size that made Aurus' body seem larger by two times. A few seconds later, tinges of green could be seen on the Flux, which rapidly expanded to cover each and every particle of Flux on Aurus' body. This process continued on for 5 minutes before coming to an end. After the upgrading process, the Flux that covered Aurus' body was now a extremely faint green. It was not a type of green that would make a person's eyes strain, but rather a soothing and relaxing green to the eyes.

Ding!

With the upgrade done, another notification appeared on the screen Aurus brought up a while ago, telling him about the current properties of his Flux.

'Your Flux is now Rank 1. To upgrade it to Rank 2, you need to infuse 300 SP and 3000 Wind energy particles in order for it to happen.'

'Please check the new properties of your Flux in the [Nine Flux Transformation] skill tab.'

Without delay, Aurus opened up the details regarding [Nine Flux Transformation] and was surprised that there was new information written regarding the current powers of his Flux. After skimming over it, he was dumbfounded at its properties.

Ding!

________

[Nine Flux Transformation] (Level 2/10)

Grade: Unknown

Flux, an energy manifested from the Animas of a Spiritas, is something that holds extreme power once one peers into its intricacies and tempers it to a great extent.

This skill allows the user to temper the Flux covering their bodies, baptizing them with the worldly energy of the environment and the Spirit Points from within, letting them evolve into a substance that becomes a myriad of colors and possibilities.

> Current Flux Rank: Faint Green (Rank 1)

- For every point of Flux used in Weapon Creation: 10 points to Attack stat & 0.5% increase in damage

- For every point of Flux used in Armor Creation: 20 points to HP & 0.5% increase in damage reduction

> Requirement to upgrade Flux Rank: 300 SP and 3000 Wind energy particles

[Flux has reached the minimum requirements needed in order to be used for Weapon and Armor Creation.]

________

"Holy s.h.i.+t…" Aurus could not help but curse at the effects of the newly upgraded Flux. After reading the contents regarding Flux, he now had an idea as to how he would go about crafting his weapons. He knew that the more Flux he used in creating equipment, the better and more solid the equipment would come out, but if he had a Flux and it was of an extremely high rank, how strong would he become?

Although his nonexistent hands itched to craft a weapon to increase his damage right now, he knew that he only had limited amounts of Flux…which he did not know the upper limit. So, he called up his status screen.

Ding!

"I can only hold 10 Flux at most huh…" Taking only a short glance at his status screen let Aurus know how much he could allocate to equipment creation at most. Of course, he knew that this limit could be increased since he could still remember the [Flux Vessel] skill that came about from him obtaining Flux. But with him being incredibly excited at the possibilities, Aurus could not hold himself back any further.

"[Flux Weapon Creation]!"