Almond walked towards the gates with his sword under the gaze of elder Arjun and others.
The moment he stepped past the open gates leading into the bridge path, the spectral knights turned from aimless and facing the east and west to pointing their swords at the south towards Almond.
“They will attack…”
“Will he really be alright?”
“W-“
The third person’s words stuck in his own mouth as he suddenly saw Almond vanishing and five heads rolling as the five Spectral Knights who were about to dash at Almond with a skill just died.
None of them could actually see what happened except for elder Arjun, whose eyes clearly sparkled. ‘Space-related powers and master stroke of his sword.’
Almond’s eyes glinted as he saw five other knights swinging their swords, releasing jade-green slash projectiles.
However, Almond vanished again while showing off as all five slash projectiles were sliced with an invisible blade before five more knights’ heads rolled.
‘Severance Blade is a perfect name alright,’ Almond grinned as he felt how easily he was cutting off these tough monsters with his space condensed-space severing blade.
A powerful and speedy shield bash immediately alerted Almond, who simply narrowed his eyes, and in that split second, he had a burst of golden electricity flickered under his feet as he made a low-angle dash before cutting off the spectral knight from below, bypassing the tough shield skill and killing him.
And then, Almond continued as he moved like a blur as heads rolled and bodies sliced before vanishing while he put their Spirits into his Spirit Forge Factory.
‘Proficiencies of all Mana techniques are high, his control is way higher than average platinum Adventurers, and most of all, his combat sense is terrific. He doesn’t look like a random eighteen-year-old teenager with no parents or backing. Instead, it’s like he trained for many years with mana and sword under someone to become this good,’ Arjun thought before wryly smiling as he thought of his grandson. ‘This kid is indeed monstrous. It seems my grandson is no longer the strongest under the age of 25.’
“The fuck, he killed all of them in less than five fucking minutes!”
“Crazy…is that kid really eighteen years old, clan head?”
“Fuck his age, I am just wondering how he is so powerful as a gold-rank adventurer to kill these spectral knights like they are nothing. None of my skills except for the top ones can insta-kill these spectral knights and I am platinum adventurer…”
“My weapon art is strong, but I can’t kill many like this…what’s with that monstrous kid?”
“The thing, I can’t see clearly how he is killing them…”
“Yeah, can you tell us how he is doing it, Arjun uncle?”
Arjun faintly smiled as he saw Almond waving at them on the other side of the bridge. “Let’s go and cross the bridge. I’ll show you.”
As he walked forward, his eyes flickered and a magical mana screen appeared in the front that reflected Almond’s earlier fight from senior Arjun’s view with an extra color in it—fiery orange.
“The fiery orange thin slashes and threads you occasionally see are what Almond uses. Since they can slash through these Epic-rank monsters easily, it has to be a very powerful weapon art with skills at SSS-rank or…higher perhaps.”
“Higher than SSS rank?!”
“Is there even a rank of that?”
“There is indeed, and it’s called L for Legendary,” Arjun nodded. “It’s not widespread yet, but people will know about it eventually.”
“Damn, if he got Legendary skill then it makes sense I guess…”
“If those fiery orange slashes are his, he is not even releasing them from his sword!”
“Yeah,
Almond was using the newly developed offense-type move of his domain—Spatial Craft series: Severance Blade, but without enchanting it Golden Haze Lightning so it wasn’t visible like when it was when he dealt that final attack on the Pearl King Leviathan.
Only elder Arjun could see it with his high perception and better Focus Line.
The group watched Almond’s fight again but with clarity this time.
“So how strong is he actually?”
“I would say he can easily enter the top 100 Global Adventurers rank if he wants to,” Arjun said with a chuckle.
“…”
“…” Find more chapters on empire
Almond saw the group approaching, but the way they looked at him was vastly different than before.
“Let’s finish this dungeon fast,” Almond said with a smile. “I still want to finish four more dungeons before the next day’s sun rises.”
…
With Almond’s insistence and his high combat power, he made sure to clear this S-rank Dungeon in approximately two hours.
Two hours per S-rank Dungeon was his ideal timing, and he wanted to maintain that unless the dungeon was problematic and bigger than usual with some strange structures like Xarath’s Womb.
As he left, Almond counted the loot.
‘584 Spirits of normal monsters, which will translate to more than half of them being Epic-rank items and the other half being Rare-rank. I kept several special spirits of normal monsters to use as ingredients for custom gear sets. And three mini-bosses, and one big boss who was a humanoid, though not intelligent are also perfect ingredients for some of the party members’ gear sets.’
Almond was grinning from ear to ear as he flew towards Gabris’s family’s territory for his next S-rank dungeon. Killing Epic-rank monsters and using their Spirits yielded higher-ranked spirit items, so he did not worry about lacking resources for legendary gear sets.
He was going to make one for every party member and each of his Spirit Wraiths, including the new Spirit Wraith based on Heroic Spirit, which he would make once he cleared fifteen more dungeons!
…
Time passed as Almond finished the Gabris family’s S-rank dungeon in two hours again before visiting the Von Richter family and clearing their S-rank Dungeon.
When he went to the Proximax guild next, the guild leader took him for a short walk at the back of the main headquarters building where a mountain soon began and a magic formation covered a small, strange black temple-like structure at the base of the mountain.
Almond was instantly startled as soon as he looked at it because he had seen a similar structure in his past life.
‘This is the same structure that the Rotetin clan had in my past life’s world…it’s said to make someone powerful, but I don’t know how,’ Almond’s eyes flickered.
[The Black Will Temple]
-Rank: Special
According to his knowledge, the Rotetin clan of his past life’s world would sell their monthly quota in a special auction held only for this spot each month.
‘No wonder this guild rose to become number one…’
“This temple appeared in this location automatically and I decided to hide it and get this territory for myself to create a guild,” Liam said with a faint smile. “Entering inside will put you through a trial. If you win, you will get something, and if you lose, you will lose nothing.”
“So are you saying I can enter there?” Almond blinked at the guild leader, his eyes showing excitement.
“Usually, we would select multiple young adventurers every month and then have them go through a test for us. Based on that, we would select one of them and allow an entry inside the temple.
“But to answer the question, yes,” Liam chuckled. “You can enter there. This month is ending soon, and only one person can enter every month, and the same person cannot enter twice. So, find some time this month once your dungeon rush is over.”
“Awesome!” Almond laughed. “Thank you so much, senior Liam.”