“Now,” Almond continued as he swept his glance at everyone. “Lily and Marcus are getting an armor each. The remaining four will go to Kira, Noah, Eliara, and….”
Almond turned to Kayla and asked, “Kayla, what other spirits you can transform into?”
Kayle thought for a moment and said, “If you want defense and support at the frontline, I can transform into Warden Griffon, which I recently got after the skill was upgraded. This Warden Griffon can parry projectiles and melee attacks both with one of its skills and also give a buff and can attack. Its main elements are Wind and Metal.”
“Parry?” Almond’s eyes glinted. “Show me.”
“Okay,” Kayla nodded, slightly feeling thrilled to show Almond her power as if wanting to impress him.
She transformed into Warden Griffon, a steely gray-brown winged griffon with shining brown fur, dreadful steel claws, and a predatory eagle head.
Almond took out his Super-rank sword, Lightning Crownsun Edge.
Kira and Noah immediately became focused as they observed Almond. Both of them had trained within their family walls after the tournament ended under the strongest of their families—Hiroshi Ryugiri and Silvester Duncan.
Both of those old monsters had told them to watch Almond at any given opportunity to observe his swordplay and learn anything they could.
“Are you ready?” Almond asked as he stood as if he was standing casually, the sword in his hand hanging at a side pointing downward, but he was still instinctively and actively in recognition of his position in a stance to release the perfect slash possible in this style.
“Yes,” Kayla’s voice rang out from the Griffon’s mouth as it floated fifteen meters off the ground and twenty meters away from Almond.
At Kayla’s answer, Almond swung his sword from bottom to top in an arc as it was wrapped in Lightning-style Weapon Enfold.
The slick golden slash with faint flickering lightning that was perfectly woven shot at Kayla.
Kayla’s wings magically glowed as they moved at a blurry and unnatural speed dictated by her wind. Almond’s sword slash struck and went wide as it got parried and blasted five meters away instead.
“Interesting,” Almond raised his eyebrows. “That Griffon’s wind is special, a variant one. It forcefully led the slash away and prevented it from detonating, too. That’s a very good parry skill.”
“Yes!” The griffon’s eagle head nodded quickly in excitement. “It can parry anything!”
“Good,” Almond smiled. “I’ll go and make the armors now. You all continue.”
As soon as Almond went back to the tent, Kira and Noah dashed to the place where Almond was standing.
Both of them looked at Almond’s footprints and saw his feet had dug into the ground slightly, but the surrounding ground of those footprints had not even a slight crack.
“Hehe, I was right,” Kira snickered. “I told you, Almond is a freak. Even that swing was a masterful one. You need to get better at observing if you want to learn. You’re only lacking this one thing.”
Noah was somber. “How? How can he just align his whole body for the sake of a perfect slash exerting high strength at any moment? The speed at which he moved his hand was supported by his body and didn’t even vibrate the surrounding part of the ground around his feet despite the power and speed he used. Everything was contributed to that slash, no energy wasted…”
“Well, “Kira patted his back with a smile, “Keep calm and mind open. We will watch him, train, and learn.”
They both turned around and saw Xavier staring at them, startling them both.
“Why are you sneaking up on us using Mana Shroud?” Kira rolled her eyes.
“I was listening and didn’t want to disturb you,” Xavier said as he glanced at Almond’s foot spirits. “Rapier is my main weapon, and it’s a bit different than other swords as it’s mostly piece attacks. I wonder if Almond knows about piercing styles for rapier…”
Noah shrugged, “I don’t know.”
Kira grinned and said, “Well, you’ll have to ask him and find out.”
“I will do that later,” Xavier nodded with a serious expression. “I want to get stronger and more refined in my style, like him.”
“Yeah, we all want to do that. But for now, let’s spar,” Kira said as she walked towards the group and shouted, “Lily, Mr. Galvaren! Let’s spar in a high-speed weapon-only battle!”
Noah and Xavier looked at each other.
“Spar?”
“Yeah.”
…
After Almond entered the Magic Tent, he first created the six armors’ designs and put them into production.
He didn’t have enough boss spirits to put in all three ingredient slots for all six items, but he put one or two in each and then used other normal spirits he had saved for the 3rd ingredient slot.
Once he was done with that, Almond took out his MVP reward chest and Party Ranking Reward chest for reaching Rank 1 in the Grimworld leaderboard of the 3rd Labyrinth Floor.
“Time to open this,” Almond opened the MVP chest with anticipation.
A bunch of orbs spewed out containing various items.
Almond looked at the window containing the list of rewards he got.
1 x Random Legendary Ore Material.
1 x Random Legendary Herb.
1 x Universal Skill-upgrade card.
1 x Advanced Skill Scroll.
1 x Epic-rank Gear Set (Mid-tier).
5 x Grand Abyss Labyrinth Roulette Tickets.
‘It’s similar to the second floor’s MVP reward chest except that I got a set this time instead of four individual items. Good, I can sell it to someone in the party for tons of Gold coins,’ Almond grinned.
‘And what’s with the Advanced Skill Scroll?’ Almond curiously picked up the orb that contained the scroll.
The previous skill scrolls everyone got were High-ranking skill scrolls. He got two of them in the previous MVP chest, but this one was different and should be better, as he only got one.
[Advanced Skill Scroll]
-Rank: Special.
-Effect:
—> Upon opening the scroll, a random growth-type skill is generated on it. It could either be an Active skill or a Passive skill.
—> To learn the skill, the user must infuse Mana into the scroll, which would send the consciousness inside in a special dimensional and complete the training tailored training to learn the skill.
—> The skill’s starting rank will be determined based on the training result.
‘Holy shit,’ Almond was honestly surprised as he read the detail of this item. It was absolutely awesome!
‘The big thing is that this skill scroll has a chance to give passive skill as well,’ Almond’s eyes glinted.
Passive skills were way harder to get, and getting a high-ranking one meant a considerable boost in one’s power. Though it also depended on the effect of the skill, the passive skills were considered important since they worked “passively” without consumption of Mana and could give surprising powers and boosts.
Almond really hoped to get a passive skill from this scroll. ‘Wait, should I keep this until Natalia regains her luck and let her open it?’
‘It’d take two months though…’ Almond sighed. He thought for a moment and decided that he didn’t want to wait that long.
‘If I got this scroll in the 3rd floor’s MVP reward chest, then there’s a high chance I’ll get it again.’
Looking at the scroll, he decided to open it!
‘Please give me a passive skill, goddess of fortune.’
Almond prayed internally as he opened the scroll.
[Congratulations, you have….