Chương 200: Chapter 197 - What I want

Ryan's only focus was on the sword. Relishing in the way his mind and body flowed in unison. He was a stalwart student of the blade all throughout his childhood and it showed. Even his center was found with a cutting motion. A diagonal slice upwards. His mind wandered as he went through everything in his mind. Lost in the sword, lost in the [Conceptual Meditation]. Or at least, he thought he was. My class lets me see and peek into other's classes.

On Earth I felt the Secretary's concepts without having access to [Conceptual Meditation]. He slid his foot back, returning to a tighter form with the sword close to his face. Does that mean I could be a [Secretary] too? Perhaps. The conclusion seemed wrong. He had a feeling even if he used [Class Change] into a [Secretary], it wouldn't work. At least, that was what his class and [Conceptual Meditation] was telling him. The point of his class wasn't to become everything or anything.

Then there's probably another reason why I can see and feel concepts intuitively. Hmm, maybe it's like [Mages] being able to intuitively work with mana. The [Conceptual Metamorph] might not have anything special with its body but it works with concepts. That makes sense. Seeing concepts resonate is just the basics. It felt like he made one step closer to understanding the whole. He thought about another class resonance he witnessed as he switched to a fencing style. An en garde position, sword pointing out. Pinkie.

Her concepts were so immense that only King Theskar's display had been comparable. It might not have been as complex as Theskar's but there was no denying that she was well and truly deep into her class. Surely a [Metamorph] can learn from a [Shapeshifter]. Ryan thrusted forwards with his shattersword. She was using her class as a guiding rod to her next evolution. Following the intuition of a [Shapeshifter] to figure out how the Passive Tyrant thought. Which was absolutely insane if you thought about it.

Was that what he needed to do? Perhaps he needed to let his class guide him into becoming one with a class, no, something simpler, a smaller concept. Maybe once he mastered one aspect he could master another. Ryan visualized an opponent for himself. A stronger and tougher Zedart stood in front of him, longsword fairly close to himself. Defensive, knowing that Ryan could and would play dirty. He took a simple cursory stab while Zedart drew his longsword back to block.

So maybe I should let myself get guided into an [Assassin] first? What even is an assassin anyway? He focused, pushing his Epic further than he had before. [Conceptual Meditation] The assassin ignored everything else, going for the main target in hand. A decapitation, a cut, a finisher, any and all of them were viable methods. What was important to the Assassin was that there was a reason for the target. As if knowing something was changing, the imaginary Zedart charged.

Gone was the perfect [Swordsman] from Sector One, here was the one that exceeded perfection, the one that was willing to use rougher methods and take advantage of his stronger physique. A debilitating strike. Ryan's foot blurred as he tried to do a dirty move, ducking down and going for a max reach thrust and cut at the legs. He would do this and then— The imaginary Zedart simply stepped back and cut at Ryan's wrist.

He panicked, twisting his body and his wrist at the same time, even using [Partial Acceleration] to throw his arm backwards. Zedart's [Cleave] still cut his wrist. Whoops. Ryan drew back, a little embarrassed that he messed up against his opponent. He'd been so focused on trying to go for a singular fight ending move that he left himself wide open for the imaginary Zedart. He scratched his neck, confused. This probably wasn't the right path either. He could already resonate with the [Veilpiercer Assassin] class.

Trying to be more of what he already was just made him single-minded and sort of stupid.

"The hell are you doing?" Surprised, Ryan turned to Gamielle. He'd been so lost in the meditative flow that he hadn't seen her come up at all. He hoped that she couldn't tell that he'd just lost to an imaginary opponent, not that it was that embarrassing of course, good visualization was important. Ryan answered her question with an uncertain answer.

"Trying to resonate with one part of my class at a time?"

"And why are you doing that?"

"I don't know?"" Of course you don't know. Just treat class resonance as the beginning point instead of the end point, why don't you?" Ryan raised an eyebrow. She was definitely venting at him but he didn't think he'd done anything wrong lately. Practicing and exploring his class was important for any adventurer freshly into the fifth realm. It must have been something else. He smiled, trying to lighten the mood.

"What's wrong? The faith orbs not going the way you want it to?" He said that in a teasing manner. Apparently that wasn't the right move.

"No! I mean yes! But argh—shut up!" Gamielle flew off, leaving a very confused Ryan behind. He had started to believe he and Gamielle were getting to understand each other. This outburst really didn't make sense. She had gotten one over him with the kissing projections from earlier. She should be happy, not pissed. Plus, they were close enough that if she was actually worried or annoyed about something, she would normally tell him. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Ryan thought about it for a moment and then shook his head.

"I really don't understand any of the girls in my life." Apparently that was the wrong thing to say because a tiny but incredibly quick spark of fire came whizzing from where Gamielle had floated away. Ryan started sprinting from where the spark was supposed to land. Apparently that wasn't enough because it started to track him. Also, it was getting consistently faster. Ryan had seen this trick before in their previous spar, it was how Gamielle got around the leveled zone restrictions.

A light spell with a constant increase in velocity. He took out a knife and threw it at the spark. When it collided in the air, it slipped past the metal, as if the spark was really just a floating piece of fire. That was new. Ryan narrowed his eyes and threw a knife imbued with [Arcane Volatility]. This time when the knife collided with the spark, it shattered like the projections had done earlier. A single spark turning into three sparks.

Except these were much bigger, and had the color of his mixed into it, turning purple. [Dangersense] Gamielle's spell had eaten his volatile mana and was bulging. At least the sparks had slowed, the spell that had somehow held his volatile mana at bay were being overloaded… which meant that— Oh shit. [Instant Dodge] BOOOOM! Ryan was propelled forward by both skill and explosion as the heat singed the back of his head. He landed on the ground and stared at the cleared area caused by the overloaded spell.

"That was a little too much for a prank, Gamielle." She was hovering archly over him, staring at her fingernails.

"Just a reminder. If you thought you could rest on your laurels and rely on such an amateurish use of a trial skill then you're in for a rude awakening."" Yeah, I got that the first time you sent the projections. Thanks."

"Hmph." He was trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with her, then decided to think better of it because he hadn't done anything wrong. It was her that had pranked him this time. Ryan shook his head as he tried to go back to [Conceptual Meditation]. Unfortunately, he found out that the Epic could deactivate by itself if he lost focus. He went back to his sword forms to at least try and recapture the feeling of the Epic even while it was on cooldown.

He managed to swing once—right before Cerul squawked from high above and then dove. Cerul landed right in front of him, kicking up dirt everywhere and making Ryan cover his eyes. Great, now I have no chance at getting my focus back. Cerul had his beak open and its neck feathers were rapidly moving back and forth, taking deep gulping breaths in and out. It was panting, Ryan didn't even know crows could pant but here it was, Cerul was overheated from the sun and the all day barrage of the noxweed plant.

Cerul tilted his eyes at Ryan while it kept doing the weird neck vibration thing.

"What now?" It pointed a wing at the remaining noxweed plant. Then pointed at him as if to say it was his turn.

"No, no, no, I already did the hard part. What, you can't handle a literal vegetable?" In response Cerul scratched the ground and leapt high into the air, flying towards an area he had devegetated with his feathers. He landed with a great big gust, tossing all the shredded plant matter into the air. It clawed at the ground, digging massive grooves into the dirt until finally it picked something up and dragged it as high as it could with its claws.

A thick healthy root was covered in shredded plant matter, it had a few of the magical feathers stuck to it too but some of the shredded plant matter was half absorbed into the root? Cerul used a wing to cut the root away and flew it over to him to show it. Then he understood. The roots were actually eating its own dead plant matter, even cerul's magical bombardment was getting swallowed up.

Considering how massive the noxweed field was, it was very possible that it was regenerating faster than Cerul could damage it. Ryan scratched his neck, then decided to help. Not only had he promised to get system portals for Cerul, but he did need to practice with his volatile mana core a little more. Also he had hit a wall with the [Conceptual Metamorph] class and was getting a little frustrated with it all. He rolled his shoulders while his volatile mana core churned. It was time to do some gardening. …

Five hours later.

"Gardening sucks." Specifically, weeding sucked. It wasn't anywhere near as simple as just digging your hands into the dirt and blowing up the interconnected network of roots. There was no convenient center root network anymore because he'd blown it up. It meant he was hunting down clusters of thick roots that could carry enough of his mana to cause the most amount of damage. Plus, most of the thicker roots were deeper into the ground.

Cerul's keen eyes could tell where there was the most amount of soil activity and Ryan had to manipulate [Spellweave Perception] to help him find the largest cluster of roots. Then they'd both dig down and he'd shove [Arcane Volatility] and try to control it so it would do the most amount of damage. At least the explosions themselves were still satisfying enough.

He had made a game out of it, trying to find the smallest part of the root that would still maximize the damage and get out of dodge before the explosion flew chunks of rock and dirt everywhere… he hadn't gained a level despite all of this effort. The lack of progression aside, the real problem was his fifth realm core and [Arcane Volatility] not having the output and efficiency to be constantly blowing up more roots.

If he thought about it, he realized he didn't need to be constantly filling crystals with his excess mana. He could have just kept coming back to The Realm to dump it. Then again, he didn't have access to a continuous field of mana rich noxweed plants in The Realm. Cerul cawed from above, telling him that break time was over. Ryan glared at the demanding bird, then sighed. The damned crow could tell that he'd replenished enough volatile mana for another [Arcane Volatility].

Ryan took one good look at the field and hesitated. They'd maybe cleared about thirty percent of the area. Plus, they still had no idea what the regeneration rate of the plant was going to be. No wonder nobody had killed this damned thing before. I'm not going to do this for another ten hours straight. I need something else… Cerul cawed at him from above, like some sort of bossy manager.

"Give me a second, alright!" Ryan took out his sword and this time switched it to his left hand. He closed his eyes and started to go through some of his sword forms. Less in the style of a [Swordsman] or an [Assassin] but something with a more rough and casual style. A chop from the side, then he kicked the dirt up from the ground to eye level. A bastard's trick with the dexterity and power of an evolved adventurer. This time he fell into the class of his left arm. The [Arcane Saboteur].

The rough movements were a ploy, a trick. To make himself look less skilled than he truly was. Winning or losing a battle wasn't the important part, it was winning the overall war. Never forget that. You can look weak, be made fun of. Lower their guard. Patience was the name of the game of the Saboteur. Then blow them up when they don't expect it. Right in the mana core. Volatile mana began to churn in his arm as it infused the shattersword soul weapon.

[Arcane Volatility], except he was controlling the output, letting the class concepts guide the path. Like what Pinkie had done. But compared to her groping around with other people's concepts, this was easy, he already embodied the [Arcane Saboteur], and knew that they were his. She was trying to embody someone else's concepts, he didn't want that, and neither did the [Conceptual Metamorph]. No, what he wanted was something else. He had experienced one other example of conceptual weight that had matched Pinkie's.

A flash of gold passed by his mind as he remembered the feeling. Another rough cut, this time he flipped and picked up some dirt in his hands and held it like it would be a threatening weapon. He pretended to throw the dirt but instead cut the air with his sword. The example he was thinking of might have been as powerful as Pinkie's concepts but he remembered being awed by it more. It had been so, so much more complex and beautiful that it had seared into his mind. King Theskar's aura.

Unlike Pinkie who used her class as a guiding rod, King Theskar's concepts were indistinguishable from his aura. A seamless blend that was more than a single thing you could define. If King Theskar had a class, it would be greater than any other class that had been released to the public. Normally a class was a role, a perspective or even a job. King Theskar concepts were all of them at the same time. The King of Valmere, A Role Model, and a Guide for the Future Generations and a Teacher.

Ryan should have realized it sooner, but the moment King Theskar had shown him what he was, any class was going to pale in comparison. Ryan Robinson wasn't just one thing or one perspective, why would he settle for anything less than who he truly was? Yes that is it. Maybe I'm just greedy but I'm certain I'm right. [Conceptual Metamorph] came about because I tried to combine everything into one attack. The class hates being defined by others because it's not finished yet. Because I'm not finished yet.

I am more than just one purpose, perspective or job. I want what King Theskar has and more. And [Conceptual Meditation] activated on its own.