"Everything kneels to love."
-Glecan priest, fourth floor.
***
A tall, dark-haired man with dark eyes was walking in a pretty village surrounding a glowing lake.
It was a different kind of village. One where there were no farmers or livestock owners.
It was inhabited by people who were well-off who wanted to get away from the stresssful life in cities and towns. A place where they could raise a family.
Wealthy men, retired adventurers and warriors with money lived here with their children and wives.
There was a massive, glowing, blue tree on a tiny island in the middle of the lake. The island was connected to the village via a humble wooden bridge.
On the tree grew vitalizing fruits of many different types every single day. Yes.
Every single day dozens of new fruits would appear while dozens would fall to the ground.
The fruits, which were incredibly nutritious and regenerating, along with fish in the lake, were the main source of food for the residents here.
There were other stuff brought with carriages like sweets from towns.
But this was a self-sustaining paradise for the rich. Located on the third floor.
Klaren had something here.
Something that gave him a reason to live. Something that gave him the drive to slow, if not stop, Priam's climb of the floors.
Something that made him never want to leave this game.
A family. A woman. A life. Love. All something he had lost when he became a cripple because of an accident in the real world.
He had a smile on his handsome, angular face as he strolled down the path, waving at people who noticed him and staring at the surrounding cliffs of purple stone. They almost completely surrounded this paradise with a radius of around three kilometres.
It is also a high aura environment where the trees of many colors emitted faint aura of the same color that collided with the aura of other trees with varying colors to form a calm light show of different colors and shades. Similar to auroras.
This made the nights here incredible.
Like now. Klaren admired the aura light show happening above him for a bit until a peculiar animal approached him and licked his shin.
It was a pink furry animal with long ears, a short tail and six legs.
"Nia!" He said, cheerfully.
He bent over to pet it and kiss it on its head.
"Klaren!" A woman yelled.
"I'm sorry I took long." Klaren looked towards the woman.
The woman jogged towards him with wet eyes.
"Slow down, you're pregnant." He said softly, with a smile.
"Sorry." She wrapped her hands around his neck and kissed him.
After a few seconds she looked him in the eyes.
She had a face with striking features. Her individual, normal-looking features put together made an unforgettable beauty.
It was a face that you would look at, then glance away casually from. But then right after your would look again. And again.
Until you were quickly entranced. Which, for Klaren, happened on the first glance.
Brown siren eyes, long brown hair, a cute pointy chin and and straight medium set eyebrows.
"How long has it been? Ten days? Forgive me, there was something important."
"It's fine. I had family visit me, and you know the neighbors keep me good company every day. Especially Velentia."
"I'm very happy for that. Let's go inside."
The couple walked inside a one-floor house that looked like it came from a fairy tale.
"Is there anything to eat?"
"That's the first thing you want? Food?"
"I'm way too hungry, sorry. Everything else comes after, love."
The next morning, Klaren teleported back to the fourth floor, to go to the meeting place from which he and his guild will depart towards the Death Pillars.
***
Three days later.
Max had trained with mundane soldiers on the first day. But soon that day, he told them to use their aura while he was fully physical. This made it more even.
He had lost and won. Definitely lost more though.
Against several different mundane soldiers.
He also trained with the Awakened spearman.
By the end of each day, he was seriously beat up. But Super Regeneration and a potion took care of everything overnight.
It was almost like a cheat code.
Max trained and trained. His only relief in the day being food, water and bedtime with Berlona, the mage lady.
Eliyah was on the lookout for new wanted posters three times a day. Max ate together with the gang every single time for obvious reasons. They all had to be together.
And now, he started becoming a threat to the spearman.
The Awakened NPC lunged, fully charged with aura.
Max sidestepped and swung a dull sword at his neck at the same time.
The spearman, of course, dodged by ducking. But Max expected this. He kneed the NPC in the face.
Levent let out an awkward sound. He had never been hit like this by Max before. Max only managed to get his armor before. Never his face. Never a vulnerable spot.
Max slashed multiple times right after shocking Levent. But the Awakened NPC proved his might and capability by somehow managing to dodge each and every attack. Maintaining calmness under pressure.
Levent leapt away, but Max followed him ferociously.
He blocked and dodged, but didn't seem to manage to regain dominance. Max was a very quick adapter, it seemed.
What should be mentioned is that the weapons themselves weren't infused with aura. Only the fighters' bodies were.
The aura wouldn't make the training weapon itself strong. It's the aura itself that is the danger.
If it takes the form of a blade, then it is a blade of a caliber close to Awakened, if an Awakened is the aura user. Which can be pretty dangerous, even for men like them.
'I'm going to win...' Max thought, as he followed the spearman around.
'I'm great. I really am great...'
Max's thoughts, however, did not exactly line up with reality.
Levent did something crazy once again.
As Max ran in towards the spearman who managed to create some distance, the NPC pointed the end of the dull training spear at Max, bent his knees, leaned forward and...
Explosively dashed into the poor player who, as he charged in, was about to get his breath taken away.
"Kagh-"
Max made gurgling sounds as he went down on his knees.
"Blergh!"
The player threw up immediately after getting on his knees. He got hit in the stomach. Even though he had solid training armor that could resist an attack from most monsters and an aura enhanced Awakened body, the power was simply too much.
The armor broke instantly, which made his body sustain a huge part of the impact.
A dull training spear with no sharpness broke the armor. Simply through force. And it broke the Awakened player himself.
Levent went down to assist Max in regaining his breathing.
The player looked at him in shock. He thought to himself that only an Elevated could produce something like this.
"Have...Have you been...holding back all...this...time?" Max asked, while trying to regain his breath. He lost half his health.
"No. I'll explain what happened. First, we gotta get you better."
Levenr glanced up at the crowd that gathered to watch their fight.
He called out to someone.
"Nirku!!! Get the potion!"
A short time passed and Max was swallowing a pleasantly tasteful potion.
An ordinary healing potion.
He didn't really need it much due to Super Regeneration, but he accepted it.
"Thanks." Said the player to Levent.
Max slowly got up and sat on a nearby wooden bench.
Levent stood in front of him.
"What was that?" The player asked.
"A technique. A dangerous and risky one. I didn't go for your head, since it would definitely have caused irreperable damage, or even death."
A technique. Not an ability.
"But how? That was so powerful. It had to be an ability!"
"You mean a blessing?"
"Yes."
Blessings of the Celestials was the name that NPCs gave to Abilities that are given to people who did something extraordinary. Even NPCs had abilities. Well, it was rare.
"It's a technique that discharges all the aura in your body into your legs and then into the ground. Causing you to propel forward incredibly fast. But it drains you, weakens you."
Aura takes time to reinforce the body. There is always some lingering bits of aura present, even when a person is not consciously using it to reinforce themselves.
If all of the aura in the body is used up...Or most of it...
You'll be seriously weakened for a time. How long is dependent on aura stats, the nature of your aura, etc.
It could be 30 seconds or a minute. Or 15 seconds for the aura to enter your body from the soul core in sufficient amounts.
"So this is an ability for desperate situations."
"Yes." Levent answered.
"If I had missed, you would've won. Very risky."
"How do I do it?"
"You have to train your circulation. Discharge as much aura as you can in any way. Your body will adapt to the rapid flow over time."
Max nodded his head.
Wiping sweat from his forehead, he gulped the last bits of the potion.
He could barely see from the bright noon sunlight.
Which reminded him that it was time to go eat!
"Well, thank you. I'll come back later in the day."
"Oh and it doesn't have to mean expelling all of your body's aura. You can expell 80% or so. It doesn't have to be exactly 100%."
The player nodded and casually waved to the helpful NPC and left the training grounds.
[You have glimpsed an Advanced technique! Listen to Levent Ivor's instructions to obtain it!]
Max willed the notification window to open after hearing the recognizable sound all players heard outside of combat.
"Advanced Technique?" He spoke to himself.
He also got this notification after Carsius' instruction on how to get Sixth Sense, but he ignored and overlooked it due to all the other shocking messages he received.
'Things are getting interesting.'