"Is there any other way I can gain experience?"
Lizzie gave him a warm smile. "I appreciate you wanting to become stronger.
But unfortunately, there's no other way to get experience other than to do missions in the Remedium, killing Canzers and all that."
This made Atlan even more surprised to see that he already had 10,000 experience even though he hadn't done anything yet. From what Lizzie said, Saviors only gained exp from defeating Canzers in a mission to the Remedium.
How do I have this? I don't even know what the Remedium is! I haven't even seen a Canzer yet…
The only explanation would be the powers he gained from the God of Death. A faint memory resurfaced in his mind.
This was what he saw before he exited the Draft.
[Your soul has mutated to accommodate the consumption of souls]
[You can now reap any death]
It made sense. After all, he did see an extinction-level event, with thousands of angels dying and falling from the heavens. He reaped their deaths and gained experience from it. That's the power of his mutated soul.
Atlan looked at the Soul System and saw a black expanse with thousands of blue wisps that gathered into one giant ball akin to a sun. They vibrated like atoms, reorganizing themselves so fast that they looked like they were teleporting.
This was the physical manifestation of Experience in his Soul System.
Off to the side, there were two empty planet-sized transparent spheres that orbited each other. They looked like glass balls with nothing but darkness inside.
The first planet had barely visible designs of horrified skulls, melting into each other.
The second planet had a pattern of wings and a halo stamped all over the sphere.
He didn't have to guess to know that these two planets were his LifeSkills.
He remembered what Lizzie said to him earlier.
Using experience, you can advance to the 2nd stage of the Student Realm, so on and so forth until the 9th stage.
Could he advance his LifeSkills now? He had enough experience…
With this thought, Atlan decided to test it out.
Using the innate knowledge and instincts in his mind, Atlan ordered the thousands of blue wisps to swarm his two planets.
And with just a thought, the blue spirits flew through the darkness and entered the empty spheres, filling it up as the wisps coagulated at the core.
[LifeSkills]
Specialty: GLOBAL
—God: (SSS) Grim Reaper Physique
———1st stage Student Realm
————(1000 / 1000)
Specialty: Vanguard
—DPS: (SSS) Cherubic Retribution
———1st stage Student Realm
————(1000 / 1000)
[Available Experience: 8000]
But even though he still had a ton of experience left, the wisps refused to enter the planets anymore. The LifeSkill created an invisible barrier that prevented Atlan from advancing it to the second level.
Why can't I advance? How do I break through?
If she found out that he advanced through to the peak 1st stage of the Student Realm in just a few seconds, she would implode from shock.
Everyone sane would.
Even talented A class LifeSkill Saviors took at least a month to advance that fast. And that's if they rushed through mission after mission to accumulate experience.
Not only that, he advanced through two SSS class LifeSkills!
He couldn't directly ask Lizzie if there was a reason he couldn't advance to the 2nd stage. She would be suspicious as to how a kid like him knew about this 'barrier' when he hadn't even gone through one Remedium mission yet.
"Um…so as long as I get enough experience, I can advance through to the 9th stage in one fell swoop?"
Lizzie looked at him and thought for a second.
She was deciding whether it would be wise to tell all of this to a new Savior and burden them with things they didn't need to know till months later.
However, she decided to reveal it to him.
"You aren't supposed to know this yet, but to advance in the next stage—"
BEEP BEEP
Her words were interrupted by an alarm from the truck. A green overhead light rotated on the roof like a lighthouse.
Atlan didn't know what was happening, so he looked towards Lizzie. He wanted to know if this was an emergency.
But on the contrary, Lizzie seemed happy and excited. She opened the blinds on her window as she searched for something in the distance.
In the wide region of gray sands of the Unclaimed Lands, there was a small patch of green on the horizon. Her eyes glinted when she saw the city in the distance.
She looked over towards Atlan and pointed in the horizon.
"That's Genesis City! We're finally here!"
She seemed even more excited than Atlan, who was supposed to be jumping in joy from finally breaking free from the dangers of the Unclaimed Lands.
She looked at him and said, "Are you ready to become an immortal?"
Her words were casual and full of enthusiasm. Seeing a curly-haired beauty with a full smile on her face would have made most men unable to resist smiling.
Atlan would have smiled too, if it weren't for what she said.
Are you ready to become an IMMORTAL?
If it was back then, he would feel like he could walk on air from joy. He would no longer have to worry about death each and every day.
But she seemed to be forgetting something.
"What happened before I passed out," he asked her curiously.
"Why aren't you more excited about this?"
But he kept her eyes on her with all seriousness. So, she relented and answered his question.
"Nothing much happened after you passed out. I postponed the Draft for the other kids and quickly ordered the truck to take us back to the City."
But that wasn't the answer he was looking for. Atlan asked her again.
"Why?" he asked, subtly prodding for more information.
She looked at him confused.
"Why what?"
"Why did you go outside? What happened before I passed out? Why did you show that worried look on your face?"
Atlan wanted her to recall the moment when they all saw the angels fall from the sky.
He wanted her to acknowledge the fact that the Angels died. They were extinct.
And according to her, Angels were the very reason why humanity was blessed with immortality. And if they were gone, so was everyone's eternal life.
If so, then why did she say that he was going to be an immortal?
But she didn't seem to get his words.
If his subtle wording didn't work, then he decided to ask her straight up. Point blank.
"What happened to the Angels?"
It was only then that she finally understood Atlan's strange behavior. She smiled and waved off the seriousness in his tone.
"I thought you forgot about that. But it's nothing to worry about, really.
That was my fault. I said something that wasn't true. I thought those were angels too, so I blurted it out without thinking.
But after you passed out and I carried you to the truck, I contacted Savior HeadQuarters back in the City and they said that it's nothing more than a misunderstanding.
Those things were just a result of an unexpected solar activity from the Sun. They said it was something about magnetic storms and solar flares, but I didn't understand it.
It's kind of like the Aurora Borealis."
Atlan's jaws dropped. He couldn't believe what she said.
Unexpected solar activity?
She seemed to believe it wholeheartedly, and Atlan would have believed it too…
Except for the fact that he gained a Genus from the extinction of the Angels!
That was enough evidence for Atlan to know that the excuse was bogus!
He looked at Lizzie, but she didn't seem like she lied to him. She was clueless.
It finally made sense why her behavior made a quick turn. It made sense why she didn't mention anything about 'that' incident.
It was because she dismissed it as nothing more than a bizarre weather event.
She didn't know that it was the actual extinction of Angels. And for all Atlan knew, he was the only who knew this fact…
"Don't worry about that stuff anymore. We're finally here!" She looked eager to return home.
Atlan looked out the window and saw that the city was inside a giant transparent blue dome that encompassed the whole territory. And on the outer layer, before reaching the ten meter walls of the City, there was a field of grass and meadows.
The military truck rolled towards the dome, leaving the Unclaimed Lands. This transparent barrier prevented dust and gray sands from entering inside.
Atlan opened his windows and smelled, for the first time, the air of fresh greenery.
"You don't have to worry about Angels. They're still present, giving life to every living thing and being in this territory."
Atlan put his head over the window and looked down on the supposed eternal lands.
In the midst of healthy, green grass, he saw brown blades sparsely scattered through the plains. They looked dead.
"Everything here is immortal!" she proclaimed. "Trees, plants, flowers, and even all individual blades of grass live in perpetuity."
Atlan looked at the words in front of him.
[You have reaped the deaths of simple life forms: grass] x62
[You have gained 6.2 experience]