Chapter 79: Chapter 79 - No Harm in Trying

Point-of-View: Argent Stryker

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Okay, the barrier’s activating. I’m hiding behind a curved rock formation, and I can sense my opponent, she’s about forty meters away, by the trees. Hm, feels like she just brought out her Soul Weapon...it feels like a hammer or something.

I’ve honed my mastery over my Radar Skill, I can focus on specific targets and sense them more clearly if I need to, it’s not limited to just sensing living things. My mind gets overwhelmed if I overdo it, but I’ve learnt my limit and have been working to gradually increase that limit and sharpen the accuracy of this Skill.

Alright, my opponent’s on the move...wish I had at least one more useful Skill, two of mine are pretty useless. Radar, Limit Breaker and Intangibility are all great and extremely useful, but my other two Skills, Luck and Camouflage, are pretty worthless.

Luck is a passive Skill that apparently boosts, you know, my luck...it’s pretty vague, and therefore, useless. As for Camouflage, it sounds a lot more useful than it actually is. By using it, my body blends into my surroundings and makes it hard to spot me...but there’s a huge downside.

It doesn’t work on my clothes or hair, so to use it effectively, I’d have to be naked, hairless and unarmed. So, yeah, it’s not worth the trouble using. Well, I guess I shouldn’t complain, there are plenty of people who don’t have even one useful Skill.

I then glanced towards the trees as a loud crashes echoed out from where my opponent was...I focused on my Radar to sense what she was doing. Her weapon, the way it’s shaped...the handle is about a meter long, one end has a circular, ring-like grip, and the other has a large, round sphere.

And she’s currently holding the weapon by the ring end, spinning it round and round, the sphere end hammering into the ground and trees she was walking past, clouds of dust rising up.

Is this an intimidation tactic or something? She’s not even trying to stay hidden...well, not that it would matter since I’d be able to sense her even if she was trying to hide, but that said, she doesn’t know that.

Could this be a trap or something? Seems possible...but no time to consider that possibility, she’s now out in the open. She’s not that far, about twenty meters from my position, but she’s facing the wrong way.

Still, if I show myself, she’ll spot me, I’ll be well within her peripheral in this position. There’s no need to rush this, just be patient and wait for an opening. Suddenly she raised her weapon up high, still spinning it, before rapidly swinging it down towards the ground.

It slammed onto the ground with immense force, chunks of dirt and grass flying out upon impact, before she flung her weapon towards a rock formation with a rapid spin.

It crashed onto the formation and broke it apart, a dust cloud rising up as it collapsed to the ground. She then headed towards the weapon to pick it up, slightly turning her back to my direction as she reached down to pick it up.

Now’s my chance!

"Initiate Skill: Intangibility. And now, Elemental Flame: Double Mega Fire Blast!" I chanted quietly, as I phased my arms through the formation I was hiding behind till my hands were out the other side, to avoid fully revealing myself out into the open, before shooting out the blazing blasts of flames straight at my opponent.

She stiffened for a moment, before swiftly reacting by picking up her weapon and swinging it across as she spun around, slamming it against my flames and dissipating most of it, grimacing slightly as a few embers hit her shoulders, arms and face, burn marks appearing on the spots where she was struck.

She then gave the weapon a quick spin as she switched her grip from the base of the handle to the ring at the end, before flinging it right this way. I leapt out of the way in alarm as it crashed onto the rock formation I’d been hiding behind and brought it crumbling down with a loud, echoing crash.

I swiftly got back on my feet as she shot towards me at top speed...she’s a lot faster than she looks. But unless she’s got a Skill that can nullify my Intangibility, it’s futi-...

"Elemental Earth: Rock Spikes!" She exclaimed as she began to close in on me, and as she slammed her right foot forward onto the ground, a Magic Circle appeared around it, before a wave of spikes burst out from the ground and rapidly spread out towards me.

Crap, I can’t dodge this with just Intangibility, the bottom of my feet will get injured, because if I turn fully intangible, I’ll fall through the ground unless I jump...but if I jump, I’ll still have to turn my feet tangible when I’m about to land.

Tch, I don’t have a choice but to resort to this...I haven’t fully mastered this Spell yet, I can activate it just fine, but controlling it is still shaky at best. Well, here goes nothing...!

"Elemental Flame: Jet Soles!" I exclaimed, and as Magic Circles appeared around both my feet, I suddenly shot straight up into the air right as the spikes were about to reach me, as jets of intense flames burst out from the soles of my feet.

While Elemental Wind is the most efficient Magic for flying, it is possible with Elemental Flame as well...however, it’s highly inefficient and drains a lot of Mana at a pretty fast rate, so I can’t use it for very long. But I don’t need to to.

"Manifest Soul Weapon: Dragon Fangs!" I chanted, as I flew up out of the range of her spikes.

I then carefully angled my body downwards a bit and shot straight towards my opponent with a sharp burst of flames from my feet, closing in on her in the blink of an eye.

As I slashed at her with my right blade, she raised her weapon defensively, my blade phasing right through it as I turned it intangible, before turning it tangible again as I went past her weapon.

She began to swerve her body across in alarm, the tip of my blade slicing through the armor on her chest and leaving a shallow cut across the top right part of her chest as I shot past her, deactivating the Spell and landing on the ground.

"Initiate Skill: Energy Net!" She snapped, firing out a wide, square wall of energy made of dozens of horizontal and vertical lines of energy across each other.

I shot forward and then leapt towards the wall of energy as I turned myself fully tangible, and as my feet began to touch the ground...

"Initiate Skill: Limit Breaker!"

I then zipped towards her with a drastic, abrupt increase in speed, her arms beginning to move as a look of alarm started to spread out on her face, but she was far too slow to react, completely caught off-guard by the burst in speed.

A barrier wall appeared in front of her neck as I slashed at it, turning my blade intangible before it could break through the barrier and cut into her neck, before I came to a halt right behind her.

I then glanced back, to see her collapsing onto her knees with a stunned look on her face as she looked back and saw me, the barrier around the area fading. I felt a sense of triumph rising up inside me, making me feel giddy.

"Congratulations, you’ve qualified for a rank promotion, from Gold to Platinum," Remarked the receptionist, as she walked over.

"Right," I nodded as a felt a slight smile spreading out on my face...oh, this feels good, I ranked out without too much trouble!

And while there were a couple of close calls back there, I managed to win without sustaining so much as a single hit. Not bad, not bad at all.

All my hard work has paid off...I’ve improved a lot in less than a year, so I’m pretty thrilled right now. Yeah, this feels really, really good. With this, I can enter the Labyrinth in Obsidian and take on quests in there.

I could’ve entered it already if I really wanted to, but I decided to wait till I rank up. There’s no sense in rushing into it and risking my life if I’m not ready for it.

"Would you like to try to rank up to Diamond, or do you want to end the ranking exam here?" The receptionist asked me, as my opponent silently headed back up the stairs.

It’s unlikely that I’ll be able to rank up beyond this at my current level, I still can’t picture myself beating that Diamond rank who defeated me last time. But, that said...

"I’ll attempt to rank up further. No harm in trying, after all," I pointed out with a shrug, making up my mind...

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