For the next two weeks, Lorn didn't have any sessions with Lucas. Though Lucas was free on Saturdays to reach Lorn and Sybil, he still had work as the Guildmaster during the working days.
For Lorn himself, he had to work as the guild's member and also as a priest of the Crescent church. That basically meant he needed to hunt with his party twice every week and fight in the arena when he wasn't out of the city.
His job as a guild member wasn't so difficult. Adrian, Yara and Danton all decided to live in Vexis, and continue hunting with Lorn and Sybil. They didn't receive any important missions yet, only some dispatches near the city.
Yara also prepared to Rank-up. She already unlocked five out of six benefits she was set to receive, with only her Behavioral skill left locked.
The residents weren't worried, saying that Behavioral skills just took some time to unlock. Adrian also felt impressed by her growth and bought her a wyvern egg. Hers turned out to be a Spiked Wyvern, a species famous for the rows and rows of sharp protrusions on their bodies, similar to an ankylosaur.
Lorn thought he would be ready for a Rank-up by now, but the notification didn't appear. He was already finished with absorbing the amount necessary for the prompt to appear.
Lucas shrugged, saying that sometimes it takes longer than usual because of various reasons… though he didn't elaborate on what exactly those reasons were. Lorn could only hope that the harder requirements meant more powerful options.
As for his job as a priest, his first impression was that it was disappointing. Although the people who fought in the arenas were considered cream of the crop among their ranks, especially the ones at the top, Lorn felt like he was bullying a child in his first fight.
And he didn't even fight someone at the bottom of the ladder. As Lorn was a newbie, he could challenge anyone he wanted as long as it wasn't someone in the top 5. After three fights, his own rank would be decided. Lorn wasn't so cocky to challenge rank 6. He challenged the rank 15.
It was a large man whose arms looked like it could be mistaken for someone's thighs. Due to Lucas's order to not investigate his opponents, Lorn didn't really know what the giant man's skills were like.
He turned out to be a manipulator that controlled water. He constantly tried to trap Lorn inside a prison of water, so most of the time, Lorn was just running around the battlefield, trying to avoid the floating mass of liquid.
The water moved fast, but compared to the instantaneous skills that Lucas threw out, they were practically moving in slow-motion in Lorn's eyes. And after a minute of fighting, Lorn already knew all the skills the man possessed and also the corresponding soul movements.
There was a skill that allowed him to make the water move twice as fast for a few seconds, one that widened the water into many different, one that turned part of the water into icicles, and one that instantaneously created a new body of water surrounding him while relinquishing control of the previous one. He used the last one to block Lorn's attacks.
There must've been other skills, but Lorn assumed they were passive or base skills, and perhaps one trump card.
But Lorn wasn't too worried. After fighting for a few minutes, he was confident he could deal with anything his opponent threw at him. After all, Lorn hadn't really used anything other than Spirit Burst and his gravity spells.
Sure enough, when Lorn started attacking earnestly, his enemy was unable to deal with him. Since Lorn could use eight different skills at the same time, he could technically also use eight copies of one skill in one moment.
Though, because of his base skills needing to be active all the time, he could only send five pieces of rock towards his enemy. That was enough to harm his enemy to submission.
Three stones broke down the veil of water that protected him, and two hit him clean in the guts. The big man started curled up on the ground, hurriedly healing his messed-up insides with Rejuvenation.
That marked the end of the fight.
Lorn saw him push out one stone out of his stomach before looking away.
Although his innate skill, Capacity for Violence, reached level 9 during his stay in the One World, he still felt conflicted about murder. Of course, the reason for these thoughts was the incident of him killing Elan's men in his first match. The fact that he actually wasn't killing them made the act more tolerable, but it was still something he found hard to get over.
He could do the deed without issue in the middle of it all, but it didn't change the fact that he was killing or even mutilating living things. When his mind wasn't distracted by something else, he would often think about it all.
Always, the reasoning that it all was just a game saved his mental state, but that was quickly losing power because of how realistic the One World was.
He stressed out even more when he saw Elan. The loan shark and his lackeys could be seen walking around the city occasionally, but they didn't bother Lorn as much.
There was the occasional glance of hatred and intimidation sent towards him, but when Lorn saw them through Visions and Whispers, he could clearly see the stress-inducing dark red that cover their hearts. Fear.
Their reactions were natural. From the countless posts describing death on the Falling Cosmos forums, Lorn knew he was going to avoid death no matter the cost.
Lorn couldn't believe he was feeling sorry for what he did to them.
But aside from these two points, Lorn's days passed without incident. He fought rank 10 and then 6 soon after and won both fights with little issue. He was given rank 6 immediately, and quickly rose to number 1 over the course of two weeks.
Lorn had too many skills for the average E-rank to be a threat to him. He had 24 skills, while they only had 12 at best. He also had three different branches to rely on while they only had one.
There was also his new trump card, the Lv.8 Mental Inducement. Levels 5 and 6 unlocked two new states that were helpful to his team: Bravery and Conviction. But with level 7, he received a very special mental state: Lapse.
Lapse was a state that severely affected someone's focus, memory, and judgement; and unlike the other states, its effectiveness increased with Lorn's Willpower.
He tried it on the previous Rank 1 and she even failed to dodge or block a piece of rock flying towards her. It was such a powerful effect, Lorn almost couldn't believe it when he first used it in battle.
It was so op, in fact, that the system didn't even give him a skill for reaching rank 1, saying that his strength was too high for the E-rank league.
Lorn had no choice but to challenge above his rank, and join the D-rank league. Hopefully, he would get a skill when he hit rank 1 there. He was also kind of excited to meet Sybil on that ladder. When she first came to Vexis, she was hovering around rank 40, but after her private lesson with the Guildmaster, she quickly soared to 20 and was slowly rising up.
And two weeks later, Lorn's turn to study with Lucas came.
This time, he had a plan to make Graceful Cuts work.