Chapter 327 - Escalation
Despite having found a solution to solve the [Platinum] mission <Chase>, Shane had yet to figure out how exactly he could allow either Umbra or Cosmo to race against the lightning gazelle.
The most annoying thing for Shane was that he couldn't even enhance Cosmo's quality right now because he might need him to solve the Innate Skill's Upgrade mission!
That was what caused his frustration, and it was as if he wasted way too much time on a simple mission.
Only after one month had passed did Shane finally find a solution and Cosmo had almost caught up with the lightning gazelle in 10 out of 10 tries!
Having superior intelligence compared to his opponent was the main reason for Cosmo to make it almost possible to catch up with the lightning gazelle.
Thus, Shane decided to ease Cosmo's burden by enhancing his quality from [Extraordinary] to [Legendary].
When the quality upgrade was initiated, Shane looked at the countdown, and he could only smile lightly, thinking that it was quite funny.
[34D:23H:59M:59S]
Despite it being an upgrade to the [Legendary] quality it took only 35 days which was less than expected.
.
He was not sure how long he had assumed the quality enhancement would take, but it hadn't definitely been that short.
Now, he could simply solve his [platinum] mission and obtain permission to purchase the [70%] mana purification technique.
During the remaining 35 days before he could finish his Innate Taming Skill's upgrade mission, Shane could easily refine his body and increase his mana purity while allowing his soul bound world to absorb as much mana as it could.
Nevertheless, to make this possible, he had to finish the <Chase> mission first.
Shane had already devised a plan to achieve this, and it was cruel, yet efficient.
However, after 30 days had passed since he'd started testing the waters, Shane had found a different way to approach the mission.
Initially, he had just wanted to take out a unique ballistae from the Hidden Paradise to shoot the lightning gazelle that was slower than the bolt the unique ballistae shot out, but Shane disregarded this idea later.
In the end, despite having killed so many beasts and other living beings, Shane couldn't help but feel pity for the lightning gazelle that was forced to do things against its wish as well.
Racing for more than a month against your will was definitely not something anyone wanted for oneself.
As such, killing a helpless and harmless animal in this situation was not what Shane wanted to achieve.
Fortunately, this was not much of a problem, and he had already found many solutions to tackle this issue.
That was exactly how Shane ended up inside the arena with more than 200 ballistae and the Starlight guild that had a total of 250 members now!
His Astral Artisans had increased to over 2000 in number, and Shane couldn't help but feel great seeing how beneficial it had been to construct the RadiantRing shelter, with the Starlight guild mansion in the center of it!
Nevertheless, more important right now was the fact that Shane's race with the lightning gazelle had yet to start, and more than 200 ballistae were already set in position to shoot at the lightning gazelle that was scared witless.
Because his mission had no restrictions, Shane made use of his power. He crafted a shrewd plan that allowed him to overwhelm the lightning gazelle with bolts whose tips were in fact a tightly folded net that was held together by a single rune!
Once the ballistae shot out the bolt, the nets would catch the lightning gazelle, holding it in place and Shane could easily win the race without any issues.
This was easier said than done, and they had already repeated the same procedure 10 times before every single ballistae had been moved to the perfect location while the members of the Starlight guild had figured out the right timing to shoot too.
In the end, it was not really an issue for Shane to finish the mission, and it was only his pity towards the lightning gazelle that made it slightly more annoying to solve it.
However, in the end, he had finished his mission and that was everything that mattered!
[[Platinum] mission <Catch> has been solved. Congratulations! Reward: Permission to purchase [Tier-2 (Platinum)] mana purification manual (70%)]
After he received this notification, everything was teleported to its rightful place, and Shane appeared in the middle of the forest where he had stayed for the last 30 days!
There was only a small tent and a wooden bathtub to refine his physique in.
All other necessities were inside his spatial ring, but there was not much he required to begin with.
His entire focus was on how to solve the Innate Skill mission, which he had yet to accomplish!
Fortunately, he had received the right to purchase 70% mana purification manual which he did immediately.
It was nothing special and looked similar to the other manuals, with the sole difference that the diagram on the cover had a platinum color.
This was not important to Shane, and instead of minding such an insignificant fact he simply learned the manual before he decided to set up a rough schedule to adhere to the next 35 days until Cosmo finished his quality upgrade and what to do afterward.
Umbra was coiled around his tent and was sleeping because Shane was occupied while Cosmo's quality was being enhanced.
It was boring, but Umbra had already accepted boredom for a long time. As such, he had started to learn the Primordial language, both how to speak and write it correctly, using its tail and ink while practicing its darkness affinity every now and then.
Shane found this quite funny, but he was even more proud of his first tamed beast.
Even without Shane asking him to do anything, Umbra was trying to become more independent and increase his wisdom by studying!
Knowledge was power, and knowing how to utilize power in the most efficient way, was what made someone strong!
In the end, 35 days passed without any issues, and Shane's perfect expert physique had attained the 7th rank, while his mana purity increment was extremely slow.
Despite exerting the mana purification technique for 12 hours each for 30 days, Shane's mana purity had barely reached 68%.
This wasn't much of an issue, but more than that was the fact that the progress would slow down the higher his mana purity would become!
Shane had forgotten that his birthday had already passed, and realising that he had turned 18, he couldn't help but shake his head.
His pace was fast, and it was shocking that he was about to create a perfect expert physique in a few months, but Shane felt like it was still too slow!
Compared to Leon Ra and other former students of the Shirai academy who had a mana purity of 80% or more when they had been 18, he felt that he had wasted too much time on solving the mythic mission for his perfect physiques.
The time spent was not wasted per se, but he was feeling like he had to be even faster in order to solve every possible problem!
This was not without reason, and there had been many shocking news he had heard!
Apparently, one of the basic races that were present at the basic race gathering had been attacked!
What was shocking about the attack was that it hadn't been on their shelter within the radiant mountain ring dimension, nor any other dimension, but their origin planet and surrounding planets they were inhabiting!!
It had been the act of the Dark Ice elves that were acting more decisively than anyone could have ever imagined!
In the end, it was only when other intermediate races had intervened that the Dark Ice elves had been forced to back off.
The attacked race had called for help and the intermediate races that were in an alliance with multiple basic races that were present in the gathering had answered their call.
This was shocking, and one could say that fortune had blessed the other races that were present at the basic race gathering because they had escaped a near annihilation relatively unscathed.
On one hand, it frightened everyone, but on the other hand, the Dark Ice elves had indirectly revealed that the dungeon their sub-race had found was even more valuable than expected!
As such, the dungeon couldn't be a commonly found one, and everyone was eager to enter it!
Because of the shocking news that spread through PrimWeb, many pieces of information were leaked.
As more and more news spread through the basic dimension, the basic race gathering slowly expanded with more races that were previously reluctant to offend the Dark Ice elves joining them.
However, this was only after the Dark Ice elves had been forced to retreat in order to prevent waging war against multiple intermediate races. They had even issued a statement that they wouldn't intervene in the matters pertaining to the radiant mountain ring anymore.
This piqued the curiosity of even more basic races who became interested in the radiant mountain ring shelter, wondering what could make an intermediate race interested in a basic dimension!
As such, the entire situation was becoming more difficult to grasp and the number of races to pay attention to increased with several new shelters that emerged inside the radiant mountain ring dimension, every single day!
This could be said to be extremely frustrating, and it was even more so when the Miac alliance revealed the exact coordinates of the dungeon to everyone!
In the beginning, nobody was sure what exactly the Miac alliance wanted to achieve with this, however, after thinking about it carefully, they had already figured out quite a few things about the dungeon!
There should be a reason behind every action, and the Dark Ice elves and Miac alliance's combined actions were extremely suspicious!
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