Chapter 118: Gaining Two New Talents

"Forty-eight days left until the end of the elimination cycle."

Leon sat at the edge of the woven silk bed, his voice a quiet, measured murmur in the tranquil morning air of the bamboo estate.

The glowing blue light from his system interface cast a faint reflection across his sharp features. The global announcement from two days prior still hung at the absolute forefront of his mind. Seventy-five percent of the Initiate rank was marked for deletion. Millions lives were waiting for a guillotine they could not see, bound by a power curve they could not overcome.

He swiped his hand through the holographic projection, dismissing the global countdown. The impending slaughter was a tragedy, but it was not his tragedy to bear. He was but a single player, and his current goal was ensuring that when the golden barrier to Sector 11 finally shattered, he will be a flawless, untouchable god of war ready to conquer the Steadfast domains.

Leon closed his eyes, centering his breathing. His mind drifted back to the events of the previous afternoon.

After the intense, profound intimacy of their first night together, Snow had spent the majority of the following day in the estate’s courtyard, rapidly refining her forging techniques, while breaking down the obsolete gear Leon had discarded.

With his wife occupied and his bonded beast resting, Leon had ventured out alone into the deepest, most treacherous areas of sector 12.

Since he had crossed into the Steadfast rank, killing Adept-tier monsters no longer yielded Experience Points. The standard progression loop was entirely closed to him until Sector 11 opened.

However, his SSS-Rank Talent Devourer was not bound by standard leveling mechanics. If he could not level up his stats, he would spend the remaining weeks aggressively hunting monsters to harvest their innate abilities, expanding his already staggering arsenal of passive and active talents.

The hunt had been meticulous and violently efficient.

His first target had been a Level 58 Phase-Stalker—a massive, six-legged predatory feline composed entirely of highly compressed, light-bending mana. The beast possessed an innate, terrifying ability to temporarily shift its physical hit-box out of the active dimension, allowing it to pass through solid objects and completely ignore incoming physical strikes.

Leon had tracked the beast for two hours through the dense, steel-like crystalline trees. When he finally cornered it near a localized mana-vent, the beast had attempted to phase through his Blade of the Dragon God. But Leon had simply swapped to Epitaph.

He used the Legendary axe’s Absolute Edge to bypass the beast’s magical phasing, hooking the razor-thin beard of the blade into the creature’s spine and injecting a Kinetic Rupture. The internal detonation had instantly shattered the creature’s core, dropping it before it could even roar.

His second target had been significantly more durable. Deep within a murky, subterranean cavern beneath the forest floor, Leon had encountered a Level 60 Aegis-Shell Basilisk. The towering reptilian monster moved sluggishly, but its back was coated in a thick, naturally occurring layer of hyper-dense diamond-scale that actively absorbed and nullified magical energy.

Leon had spent twenty minutes dismantling the beast, dancing around its petrifying gaze and lethal tail swipes. He had used the brute, exponential mass of his Grave-Crusher talent combined with the Mythic weight of his greatsword to systematically crack the diamond plating, eventually severing its head in a shower of corrosive black blood.

Sitting on the bed, Leon pulled up his active talent registry.

The holographic interface shifted, presenting two brilliantly glowing gold icons that he had synthesized from the dozens of raw fragments harvested from the Stalker and the Basilisk.

[New Talent Acquired: Phase-Shift Evasion — Grade: A]

[Description: The user’s physical framework achieves a state of hyper-frequency vibration. Upon manual activation, the user’s body temporarily slips into a localized sub-dimension for 1.5 seconds. During this window, the user becomes entirely intangible, capable of passing seamlessly through solid environmental obstacles, physical barricades, and hostile kinetic strikes. Cooldown: 45 Seconds.]

Leon analyzed the text with absolute satisfaction. Phantom Shift was an excellent ability, but it merely dropped his physical mass to zero to avoid damage.

Phase-Shift Evasion was a conceptual upgrade. It didn’t just make him light; it completely removed him from the physical plane for a second and a half. It meant he could charge directly through castle walls, dungeon barricades, or an enemy’s impenetrable shield without slowing his momentum. It was the ultimate flanking tool.

He tapped the second glowing icon.

[New Talent Acquired: Magic-Bane Carapace — Grade: A]

[Description: The user’s biological structure passively generates a microscopic, continuously cycling field of anti-magic. Hostile spells, magical domains, and elemental breath attacks that strike the user suffer an immediate 40% reduction in overall potency and conceptual weight. Furthermore, a fraction of the mitigated magical energy is absorbed and converted into raw stamina for the user.]

"Flawless," Leon murmured, swiping the interface away.

He already possessed Ironbound Retribution to severely punish any enemy foolish enough to engage him in close-quarters physical combat.

Now, with Magic-Bane Carapace, he possessed an innate, passive dampener against long-range spellcasters and elemental beasts. If a player tried to burn him to ash, the fire would not only be halved in strength upon contact, but the residual heat would actively fuel Leon’s stamina reserves. He was slowly engineering his body into a perfect, impenetrable fortress.

The sliding bamboo door of the bedroom suddenly clicked, sliding open with a swift, energetic motion.

Snow Valestorm stepped into the room.

She had abandoned the midnight-black silk dress of their first night together and was fully clad in her signature combat attire. Her heavy white fur coat hung open over her black crop top, her silver cross-chain garters chiming sharply against her leather shorts as she walked. Her long, white hair was pulled back into a tight, practical braid, keeping the cascading locks out of her eyes.

She looked radiant, her pale skin glowing with health and an abundance of unspent energy.

"Morning, baby!"

A/N: I will appreciate some golden tickets