D'Angelo Hall hit High Peak.
Light and dark blew out of him in equal measure. He stood, blinking. One pupil white, the other black.
When he powered his Skills, they seemed to defy space. Zane couldn't tell if it was an illusion—he threw his fist one way, and it came out somewhere else—seemingly with double the power. The same with an experimental kick. His body would bend in ways bodies should not be able to bend, and portal all over the place to land their shots. It was some kind of Darkness plus Light Law. It was weird. Unless you could overpower him with raw strength, fighting him would probably be a nightmare.
D'Angelo flexed his hand. Nodded. He came over to Zane before he left, said he appreciated being invited. He fought surprisingly weird, but he was surprisingly normal. He hesitated, probably wondering whether to bring up Jason, thought better of it. Just left.
Vanessa also hit High Peak, and her breakthrough brought an explosion of icy power so strong it shattered the rune circle. She seemed a little disappointed though. Like she wanted what Zane had. Zane knew it with Sage Mind—her face didn't show much. She locked eyes with him—ice-blue meeting coal-black—curtsied, and left with her crew.
Cain Hastings hit Low Peak. But a solid Low Peak. He seemed happy with it—he seemed surprised he'd even hit that. His countrymen were enthusiastic too. Peak Core meant he stayed in the ranks of the true elites. It was important, Zane noticed, for certain countries—especially smaller ones—to have at least one world power. If only for their pride.
In the end about fifteen people got a grade of Peak. The rest got Superior. No one hit Seamless, but that was to be expected. They all immediately came away a lot stronger than they would have without this camp.
Some took six hours, some several days. They all seemed to consider the training camp well worth it, though—and Yuki's vow that he wouldn't forget what Zane had done for him wasn't the only one Zane got. Not by far.
Like that, the training camp slowly wrapped up. World Rankers trickled out one by one. It was a massive success. From start to end, Reina had run a tight ship—she got everyone trained up to speed. She'd kind of mothered humanity to success.
They had been together a while, and Zane was surprised how he could still continue to be impressed by her.
Soon the last of them finished up—Lucia the Beastmaster. The moment she did, a funnel of scarlet flame soared deep into the skies. All her dragons raised their smoking heads and roared. They flocked to her. She came out totally nude, as though rebirthed in flames—a little bright crown of it crested her brow. She kind of looked like one of those Greek sculptures of Amazon queens.
She nodded to Zane and told him in a purr that he was welcome to visit her anytime. She winked. Then she leapt up on a great green dragon and the lot of them soared off.
Reina, meanwhile, stood by with her eyes narrowed. Fuming. She watched the dragons vanish down the horizon—Zane could tell dark thoughts were brewing in her head. Like she was plotting an assassination or something. She wasn't of course.
…Wasn't she? Suddenly Zane wasn't so sure.
"Uh," said Zane. He turned her attention away with a kiss.
He wasn't really sure why she got so jealous anyway. Reina was perfect in every way Zane could think of. When she was with him no one else even registered to him anymore.
Besides. That Lucia lady was pretty, but it wasn't close. Reina was the kind of pretty that broke his brain sometimes. Zane told her so—leaving out the other lady being pretty bit. This appeased her some. Her face was still mad but she felt proud; her chin went up, like she was thinking, that's right.
***
It was almost time to go. Once they got back, Zane would get to eating. He'd just gotten a huge amount of treasure—and he was mostly recovered soul-wise. It was high time he went full steam ahead on his own breakthroughs. He was quite eager. Especially the Bloodline stuff.
First, though, his friends had to break through. Evan and Avery went one by one, and both hit mid-peak Core, which was quite solid. Reina hit Peak—she came very close to Seamless, as close to anyone, probably because she knew more about it than anyone. But in the end, she couldn't quite make it. Zane was still very proud of her.
***
There was one more thing before they left. On the very last day, Evan and Zane went out on one last expedition. Evan had still not given up on finding a penguin friend.
They searched, and searched, and searched. No luck. Then—late in the afternoon, when Evan was starting to get a little disappointed—they spotted a white-and-black head popping up on a distant iceberg.
Evan lit up.
"Penguin!" he gasped. Zane had never seen a single person filled with so much pure joy. His head went totally empty. It was just the word 'penguin' bouncing around in there.
This gasp, however, startled the penguin. It dove into the water and swam away at a speed Zane did not know penguins were capable of. Evan cried out as it vanished.
They both stared at the spot, trying to work out if they'd just imagined the thing.
"Uh," said Zane.
He waved a hand in front of Evan's face. Evan was frozen mid-gasp. He seemed to have short-circuited.
After he came to his senses, he was a little disappointed. But in the end he circled around to being happy.
"Penguin," said Evan happily.
***
Then came the big long grind—for everyone.
Lots of top World Rankers all around the globe hunkered down at once. And got to work. That meant training their Skills and Inheritances and Bloodlines. For Eze, for instance, it meant doubling down on his Golden Lion bloodline. Hammering that Inheritance, making the most of that Godbeast power and strength and explosiveness. Tempering his body skin-to-bone so that it could achieve its complete Golden Body, flashing gold in battle.
Zane had heard Yuki had some bird Godbeast Bloodline. And Vanessa a blizzard fox Godbeast. It was a rare handful that had managed a Godbeast Bloodline—it seemed like not just anyone could absorb them. But those who found them put themselves head and shoulders above the rest.
And the more they absorbed, the greater advantage they got. Zane would work with his Titan Rhino body. Get it as close to saturated as he could. He had a list of things to run through. First his Bloodline. Also that Red Moon Pagoda, which would give him some Soul Skills, a relatively unexplored area for him. There was also the next Stormfire Concept. He was pretty sure he was coming up to some kind of checkpoint there. He felt a good way to mastering true Stormfire. The next few concepts, he felt, would likely ratchet him up considerably.
There was so much to do. He wasn't sure he could finish it all in the next one and a half months. But he would try to get through as much as he could. He had to go fast.
First, though—before he could start all that comprehension—he had to finish off his soul recovery. This would take a few weeks. A good time to pound through all the treasures he had gotten.
Legendary breastplates. Intricately carved shields that had survived millennia of battle. Troves of imperial gold ingots, enough to bankrupt a kingdom. It all disappeared down Zane's throat.
Merging with his body. And his body only took the best of it, the purest of it—it was a picky beast. The rest dissolved to smoke.
Still though, it made for good progress.
First up, his new Epic Behemoth Muscles.
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔹𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕥𝕙 𝕄𝕦𝕤𝕔𝕝𝕖 𝕀𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕀𝕀
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔹𝕖𝕙𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕥𝕙 𝕄𝕦𝕤𝕔𝕝𝕖 𝕀𝕀𝕀 -> 𝕀𝕍
Then his new Rare Indomitable Hide, courtesy of those three extra droplets of Bloodline.
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝕀𝕟𝕕𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖 ℍ𝕚𝕕𝕖 𝕀𝕍 -> 𝕍
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝕀𝕟𝕕𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖 ℍ𝕚𝕕𝕖 𝕍 -> 𝕍𝕀
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝕀𝕟𝕕𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖 ℍ𝕚𝕕𝕖 𝕍𝕀 -> 𝕍𝕀𝕀
𝕊𝕜𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝕀𝕟𝕕𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖 ℍ𝕚𝕕𝕖 𝕍𝕀𝕀 -> 𝕍𝕀𝕀𝕀
By the end of it, he ran a hand along his skin, and it kind of felt like running a hand along some legendary suit of armor, or some high-quality leather. It had a certain indescribable sense of quality to it. Somehow he could feel the quality even without testing it. When he did test it, he found he had a very hard time even getting a scratch on himself.
As for his muscles… there was nowhere on Earth he could safely test the limits of that now.
Right now, he was stupid hard to hurt. The only weaknesses he had lay inside. His bones and organs and tendons. Even then, he'd take care of it—soon. And there would be no softness inside him after that.
A few more days until he could get to it, though. After he finished off his Steel, he leveled.
All that essence treasure got him a good deal more. Reina contributed a few too.
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟚𝟙𝟘 -> 𝟚𝟙𝟙
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟚𝟙𝟙 -> 𝟚𝟙𝟚
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟚𝟙𝟚 -> 𝟚𝟙𝟛
…
𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝕦𝕡!
𝔼𝕤𝕤𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝕃𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕝 𝟚𝟙𝟞 -> 𝟚𝟙𝟟
***
And then—finally—his soul felt right. He was ready.
One morning, bright and early, he got up and made for the Warrior Dojo.
He found himself in his meditation room again. Titan Rhino manual in hand. He closed his eyes, lit up his Bloodline. Cracked the thick leather tome, was greeted by the smell of old smokey hide… soon he was in.
The third and fourth layers of the Titan Rhino Manual came in one chunk.
"So you've conquered Behemoth Muscle, have you?" rumbled the Barbarian Sage, scarred arms crossed. "Good! That means your body has taken well to the Titan Rhino bloodline. As with any Godbeast Bloodline, a scant few can handle it! Most can barely take a drop before they're forced to reject it. Only one whose whose strength or character matches that of the beast can share its lifeblood fully! You have reached the third stage. This stage requires, at minimum, four drops."
The Sage thumped his scarred muscled chest. "Even the strong among you have started feeling the resistance of that last drop, I'll wager—it will only grow tougher from here on out! The more you absorb, the more it'll test your soul. For a Bloodline does not merely test the body—it also tests the will!"
The Sage then went on a rant about insecurities and mental weaknesses, which he called 'heart demons,' and how you had to fight against them to absorb more bloodline. Some really had to tussle with their demons to absorb these Bloodlines. The purer your soul was, the weaker these demons were, apparently.
Zane had no clue what the guy was talking about. It had gone down pretty easy for him. He simply filed it away in the rather broad category of 'things other people had to deal with that he didn't have to think about.'
Finally, the Barbarian Sage got to the point. "Four droplets of Titan Rhino blood opens one of the greatest power-ups yet. It goes hand-and-hand with Behemoth Muscles."
He crossed his burly arms. "I speak, of course—of Colossal Tendons!"
Zane perked up.
"They make the foundation of the Titan Rhino's movements," said the Sage. "Before even the muscles themselves! They, more than anything, govern the Rhino's explosive power!"