The following day Cain woke up in a pile of warmth. The bed was covered in a thick blanket, as despite the warmth, the night was still a good deal cooler than the sweltering heat of the Eastern Continent.
As he explored, Cain was starting to think that the Beginner's Valley and the Ice Youkai island were the only spots on the planet that weren't unreasonably warm. No, he had heard that the Northern Continent was cold, so there might be some escape from the heat.
As he comes to his senses, he realizes that the heat is not all blankets, though. Misha is hugging Cyrene, and the warm-blooded Lamia is draped over the pair them in a spiral pattern.
It might be morning, but it's still almost twenty degrees outside, a comfortable room temperature in the Beginner's Valley. Maybe Misha feeling cold has to do with the pregnancy, then?
Cain has never seen anyone look quite so happy while sleeping as those two do, so he lays in bed a while, mentally listening in on his Echoes clearing the dungeon. They've brought him to level 289 already, and the competition is now to see who can get the final kill that moves him over level 290.
They know as well as Cain does that the final skill will be quite a significant change, and they're eager to see it in action. If Cain hadn't already been awake, they had fully intended to bombard him with messages until the sound woke him up to upgrade the skill.
Team Beastkin gets the killing blow for the level up this time, thanks to a large number of Snapping Turtle Kin that has been Summoned by the Legendary Beastkin the Echo chose.
[Level Up]
[Skill Learned: Ancient Horrors]
[Skills Renamed]
[Summon Lesser Golem] is superseded by
[Summon Pet] Summon 18 selections from the Lesser category at Epic Quality
[Summon Greater Golem] is superseded by
[Summon Helper] Summon 12 selections from the Greater category at Legendary Quality
[Personal Guard] is superseded by
[Summon Assistant] Summon four selections from the Epic category at Ancient Quality
[All other Summons increased in Quality by one additional Rank. [Advisor] 's restrictions on Companion Quality are entirely negated.]
Cain notices that the increased numbers from his Puppet Master skills have thankfully been maintained instead of being unavailable with the more powerful new skills.
But that also means that using [Benevolent Leader] to share them with the Guild would move everyone from two epic quality summons to either 18 epic quality summons or 4 Ancient Quality versions of the two epic choices they had been using.
He's not sure which will be more of a disruptive force for the world around him. That's a lot of dungeon bosses, but Ancient Quality summons are nearly indestructible.
The skills said they were superseded, not overwritten, so Cain inspects his skill list.
The old ones are no longer usable for him, but [Personal Guard] is still active as the Guild Skill. He could leave well enough alone then.
But Cyrene said they wanted to start doing more good in the world, an outreach program she called it, so the more impressive he can make his Guild Members combat abilities, the better they can help others.
Char has done an excellent job of choosing and raising kind and well-mannered members, so a little more power shouldn't send anyone off the deep end, or so Cain hopes.
More importantly, with the restrictions on Quality made by the Advisor skill removed, he should now have Companions above Ancient Quality. Both Vala and Laura. Cain turns his attention to them, and a red flashing notification comes into his vision.
[Abilities Above Ancient Quality Detected] Status set to Awakened. Barriers to awakened areas are now unlocked. Proceed with caution.
There were locked areas too powerful for him to enter before? Certainly not on the Central Continent, but that's a revelation to Cain. He thought he was reaching the pinnacle of power in the world, but it seemed he was only getting ready to look at the high-level content.
Unfortunately, he knows nothing at all about awakened abilities or classes. That might be why they see so few fourth advancement Classes. Maybe the ones they are seeing are actually just strong third advancement classes and not a new category at all?
Looking over Vala for changes might give him a clue.
Everything seems to be the same as far as skills go; not much changed. The quality of her Innate Skills now says [Mythic], and it looks like she got one new talent.
[Mythic Awakening] Reduces damage taken by Skills and beings under Mythic Quality by 99.9 percent.
Faaaawk
Forget Ancient being overpowered; this is a whole new level of off the charts. Even though they're at the same level, Nemu and Nila, both now Ancient Quality, couldn't even damage Vala or Laura enough to make a noticeable change in her health, much less overcome her regeneration.
Evangeline is not going to be happy about this. Cain hadn't found enough species of Seraphim to bring her up to Vala's level, so she too, will be stuck at Ancient.
More importantly, this might mean Cain has no abilities that he can personally use to damage Mythic Quality targets.
Maybe if he merged with one of his Mythical summons? The Legendary base quality ones he summons using [Blessed Summoner] should now be Mythic Quality.
Cain pulls a Seraphim into his Greater Merger and finds that only one of the skills they have is of Mythic Quality. [Holy Light], their combined area healing and damage ability is Mythic, but the others still look the same as always.
[Getting Mythic Skills isn't as easy as upgrading Quality, though Hand to Hand combat is a possibility. You will also need to upgrade weapons, and fairly soon. Your old ones aren't going to hold up for long.] The Seraphim explains.
Cain looks through his System for his skills, which he hasn't checked or updated in a long while, and sees he has a new column. He takes a moment to distribute his points and takes a moment to marvel at the benefits he gained from [Ancient Perfection], which increased his Modifiers to the peak of Ancient Quality.
At the time, it didn't matter because he was always merged with something, but looking at it now, he wouldn't have to be. He has become just as tough as the summons he calls to protect himself.
[Name] Cain
[Level] 290
[Class] Flesh Crafter
[Race] Ancient
[Awakened] Mythic
[Stats] +1010->10
[STR] 225->475
[DEX] 225->475
[CON] 225->475
[INT] 225->475
[HP] 36000->76000
[MP] 45000->95000
