‘This is unreal.’
‘This cannot be real.’
Almond lay on the floor, his senses retracting as he finished the 10th round of individually scanning and focusing on each medium of knowledge present in this hall.
There were 1000 of them!
But he couldn’t invoke the so-called intent from any one of them.
‘Why is this so hard? Or maybe I completed the training already? I can just leave, right?’
[You have yet to meet the minimum requirement to acquire this skill. Would you still like to leave?]
‘Goddamn it!’
*Smash!*
Almond smashed both of his fists and jumped up.
‘I can do it! There’s nothing I cannot do!’
Time passed, and Almond continued to try.
Only one hour remained until 7 of the evening. At 7, he has to be present at the Zhou clan’s territory to enter the S-rank dungeon.
‘Fuck this skill,’ Almond sat down and crossed his arms. ‘I have to leave.’
[You have yet to meet the minimum requirement to acquire this skill. Would you still like to leave?]
“…” Looking at the question in front of him, Almond’s fingers dug into his mind avatar’s arms, great frustration filling him up.
‘Hey, Grimworld Tutorial! What’s wrong with this training?! Why can’t I learn it?’
A gentle breeze blew by in the serene silence. No response.
‘Fuck you. I want to learn this! Why is this skill so hard?’
[The default lowest rank of this skill is Legendary. You have yet to meet the requirement to make this passive skill yours.]
Almond was surprised to get an answer, but a second later, his expression turned blank, ‘that’s it?’
‘Tell me more!’
Almond felt like going insane. He wanted to learn this skill!
He didn’t want to believe he couldn’t learn this!
He believed that he would learn anything if he put his whole mind and focus to it!
‘Damn it!’
“Speak to me, you…you random knowledge!” Almond muttered heavily as he saw every single one of the knowledge mediums in his focus field.
His eyes burned with frustration, anger, and, most of all, an intense focus.
‘I don’t have time? So fucking what? I am not giving this up!’
‘Whisper to me your knowledge! You must! You will!’
…
In the Zhou clan’s territory, the Red Fox Jungle.
This jungle of thick plant life had a distinct characteristic of being—Red.
The trees, the leaves, and even the fruits that grew here always had patterns, designs, and spots of different hues of red color, and occasionally, the laughter and howls of foxes would echo in large areas. Hence the name Red Fox Jungle.
In the southeast area of this jungle, there was a fancy portal gate with a red border leading to the S-rank dungeon.
The figures present at this gate were all-powerful Platinum-rank Adventurers. Among the ten people, there were three old monsters.
Admiral Rudra.
Liang Zhou.
Bianca Moretti.
The other seven were also prominent figures, at least six of them.
Damian Silverfang, the guild master of the 5th rank Silverfang Guild. Level 150 Platinum. An old man in his sixties with a plain white martial outfit.
Ray Drumell Silverfang, the vice-guild master. Level 148 Platinum. A man in his forties with an air of a calm mountain.
Experience tales with empire
Alexander Graves, head of the Graves family. Level 150 Platinum.
Cassandra Graves, the wife of Alexander Graves. Level 150 Platinum.
Parents of Talia. The couple were in their modern cow-boy type outfits with revolvers at their waists.
Sun Zhou, the son of Liang Zhou—Level 149 Platinum.
Guolan Zhou, the daughter of Liang Zhou—Level 149 Platinum.
The twin siblings hit half a century in age a year ago. They grew up together, trained together, and lived with their families together. Two together could make any run for their lives in combat, even most of the old monsters.
The only thing that could separate this duo was death and nothing else.
Valentina Moretti, the granddaughter of Bianca Moretti—Level 57 Platinum, 23 years old.
Her outfit looked strikingly similar to her grandma’s, wearing the same skin-tight assassin-ish outfits with a cloak that would occasionally flutter in the wind and reveal their package of smoking-hot figures with loaded assets at the front and back.
“Rudra, ten minutes remain until the deadline. Almond isn’t here yet,” Bianca glanced at Rudra.
“He will come. Wait.”
“I’m bored,” Valentina said with a dazed expression as she sat on a rock, her eyes on the sky. But she suddenly shut her eyes and prayed. “That’s a third shooting star. I wish he would come soon.”
‘What do you think, sister? I’m certain she is an artificial human based on a cartoon character.’
‘She has been staring at the sky since she arrived, and her expressions…yeah, I’m now convinced.’
‘She is the same age as your daughter, you rascals. And if you want to bull shit out of boredom, don’t include me in your conversation,’ Liang Zhou snorted, sending a mind shock to his son and daughter.
“What’s going on, Rudra? Just tell us so we can know,” Liang said.
‘This brat…I also sent my fastest ride there. When are you arriving?!’ Rudra glanced at his wristwatch.
[Rudra: is he still in training?]
[Alfred:…He is.]
[Rudra: Can you nudge him?]
[Alfred: I will not. I apologize.]
Rudra’s right eye twitched.
Rudra’s chat was connected to Alfred online for the past half an hour. Every time he asked Alfred to nudge Almond, he got the same reply.
“Alright, I’ll tell you why he is late,” Rudra suddenly said as sighed. “You all know about the Advanced Skill Scroll by now. He is in one, training to learn the skill.”
“Anya used one,” Damian said with a nod. “She finished learning a skill after 19 hours. It was an SS-rank skill.”
Anya was the super rookie of his guild and also his direct student, so he was aware of her progress as he was nurturing her.
“And this training is generally finished in 24 hours according to information from others I got,” Bianca said as she narrowed her eyes. “I’m sure Almond also knew about it.”
“It’s been well over 24 hours since he started training,” Rudra calmly replied.
“But he knows about the deadline and is not leaving the training realm of that scroll even though he can,” Bianca said, making Rudra speechless.
‘You darn Morettis…’
“As always, you are up to date on information,” Rudra snorted, his tone turning rough. “That’s right. He can leave. He knows the time, but he isn’t leaving.”
“He thinks we will wait for him,” Sun Zhou said with a loud laugh. “I like his attitude.”
“Well, will we wait?” Guolan Zhou smiled.