Long flowing blond hair and sharp royal blue eyes emerge from the white wave of Qi flooding out from inside the isolation pod as the door fully opens.
Maria steps forward and everyone is left in silence as we witness a pure outline of bright white Qi, twisting and swirling around her body.
Her skin looks smoother, her figure appears more mature, and her overall appearance looks as if she's entered into a new prime. She's glowing with power, truly an upgraded version of her past self.
Not a drop of mana makes its way through the barrier, and it's clear the use of this technique is second nature to her as she walks further out of the door and looks each of us up and down.
Her gaze stops on me, the only one with a Qi barrier like her own, and switches her serious stare to the hint of a smile I can see hiding her bubbly nature beneath it.
"Let's spar."
Simultaneously, the door of the isolation pod falls off its hinges and I see the inside of its shielding is cracked and discolored.
My eyes focus on it as I see the top portion that still stores a considerable amount of mana within it begin to leak faster and faster to the point where I question if it's going to explode on the spot.
It was showing signs of wear and tear just moments ago, but the full extent of its damages wasn't clear until the time dilation stabilized with the outside world and Maria stepped out from the pod.
I open my storage and allow it to fall into suspended animation before anything unpredictable happens, then respond to Maria.
"Of course, that was going to be my question to you regardless. I need to see how much more powerful you've become. Let me get some preparations for the others ready, then I'll give you the real fight you've been waiting for."
Maria keeps walking forward, looking down at her hands and observing the room with careful eyes.
I can tell just by the way she moves, her Qi and mana control have risen to astronomical heights in the last 2 days. For us outside, it has only been 48 hours, but to her, it has been over 3 months.
As she walks over to the exit, I turn back to the others who are still staring at her without saying a word. Then, take 5 of the 6 isolation pods in my storage out and place them in a line.
In a matter of seconds, I carefully use my craftsmanship dashboard integrated with the capsules' designs to equally charge each of them with the containment stones I have from the last 2 days of farming.
They all become charged up to dilations between 43x and 47x, and I turn back to the squad.
Next to them, I place food, water, sleeping gear, and miscellaneous supplies that were leftover from a few days ago when I went shopping for the townspeople.
"Everyone take a pod, except you."
I point to Luna.
"We need combat fighters to use these pods only, Qi is a limited resource."
I turn back to Arie, Abby, Monk, Fisher, and Lydia.
"The Qi is split unevenly between you all. I'm keeping what I have on me for my turn, but I trust that you'll distribute the amount you have on you between yourselves regarding who you believe will need it the most. Time is running out."
As I remember, Abby and Monk both have 300 pills each, while the other three have a few hundred between them. Split evenly, they'll have close to 200 each, but no matter how they distribute them I believe if they get half of the result Maria achieved they'll be ready enough for battle.
They distribute the pills and gather the supplies they want while I give a briefing on what to expect, how to gather Qi, and explain the basics on establishing a Qi barrier. Then, end my spiel with a simple line.
"You know what you need to do. 48 hours in the pod. Come out as sharpened weapons of war."
They each enter their pods and I nod to them goodbye and good luck.
Then, turn around to see Luna timidly standing next to Maria at the back of the room.
I speak up to Maria and point to the stairs.
"Let's go spar, I know just the place."
She begins walking up the stairs, and I follow.
Then, turn back as Luna is still waiting for a place to go and speak to her too.
"You're going to watch. I want to know what those eyes can really see."
She follows right after and we exit through the hatch to leave the 5 vibrating pods in the basement below us to venture out into the desert.
We fly about 10km away from the town, and I use telekinesis to carry Luna behind us.
Once we make it to an open part in the desert and touch down on the sand, I put my hands up in a fighting position and stare Maria in the eyes.
She stares back and shows the same smile from the bunker before while putting her hands up as well.
Neither of us activates any mana-based skills, but the flowing white barriers of energy around us get denser and denser the longer we stay in the ready position.
Luna steps far back a few hundred meters like we recommended, and activates her ranked up buff to manifest an enormous light blue transparent eye high in the sky. That gives us the cue to start.
Maria runs forward, and I do too.
The sound of Qi on Qi like crashing waves echo through the desert as our spar begins.
Fists smash against fists, forearms block kicks, punches are landed, Qi speeds up our reaction time and boosts our movement speed.
I feel as if I'm fighting a mirror, and it's clear to see that Maria feels the same way.
Dust flies up in the desert, creating twisters and miniature sandstorms wherever we move to.
Every punch, kick, and strike we throw gets faster and faster as we try to gauge each other's power with incremental increases in strength, but it only gets higher with neither of us stopping anytime soon.
My movement speed and strength that I'm using eventually surpasses the 7th ranked dark guard, the precision of my attacks nears the pinpoint accuracy of the lightning wolf on the 40th floor, and the sheer amount of punches and kicks I throw nearly replicates the storm of windblade attacks I was forced to encounter while facing the 6th ranked Dark Guard.
She's managing to keep up with everything I throw at her and even launch attacks of her own back with equal speed and force.
While doing so, she's managing to keep that same hint of a smile on her face. Maria is enjoying every second of this thoroughly.
I am too. It feels as if we're dancing to a song no one else but us knows the notes to, and its being written down and ingrained in our minds every new step we take.
While it is refreshing to fight a teammate of this caliber, it is also slightly terrifying to think about the fact that Maria isn't even ranked up yet. She went into that pod at level 994 before we all started level grinding, and her Qi control is already on par with the lower-ranked Dark Guards without using any mana at all...
I find what I believe to be her limit when I see a bead of sweat on her forehead, and a spark of ice magic activate in her eyes. I jump back and speak up before she can bring this spar to a potentially dangerous level.
"Good. That's enough. This is good progress. I think you're almost ready to fight the Dark One's Army."
The dust settles around us for a final time and the large glowing eye above us connected by a thin string of mana to Luna's back blinks and disappears into thin air.
I pull out my sword and point it out into the desolate desert.
"There is one last thing I'd like you to test out."
I channel a small amount of Qi into the blade and swing it across my body, allowing it to flow out of the sword and release a slash of pure white energy. Then, turn back to Maria.
"I doubt you had the chance to try an attack like that in the isopod, you may want to develop a longer range Qi attack of your own before we go to the Labyrinth and rank you up."
She reaches for her own sword in her item box on her waist, but a yell from Luna behind us turns our attention away from this topic.
Her yells can be heard from far away in the direction her eye's energy left from.
"There's something coming! I can see something coming our way! It's a knight... a black knight! That's all I could see... It's just a single Black Suit of Armor with a number 5 printed right on its chest."
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