Jack also asked Grace to ask Andrea if their leader would like the kingdom to send her a security detail. This was Jack's effort to curry favor from the Healer Society. Unfortunately, this faction's main headquarters was in Aurebor, which was also the country where Panacea was hiding at the moment. So, Jack wasn't able to make good on his offer.
After finishing instructing the investigative team via messages, Jack decided to do the challenges since he was already at the Order of Magi. He asked young Janus permission to use the obelisk.
"Make yourself at home," Janus said. "But before that, I'm curious about what you are going to do about the assassination attempts. You seem quite interested in it despite this being a league factions' issue."
"Some of the league factions are my friends. Including yours, of course," Jack said.
"Why, thank you, Mister Storm Wind," Janus responded. "So, have you taken any steps about this matter?"
Jack originally wanted to discuss this with the real Janus, but he figured talking with the clone should just be the same. He told Janus what he had learned from the discussion with the other league factions' members. He said that he had a team that was on the way to Palgrost to investigate the failed attempt there.
"If you have any information to share, please let me know, okay," Jack said.
"I will, no doubt, do that, Mister Storm Wind," Janus replied.
Jack entered the portal and went to the obelisk courtyard. There. he entered stage 85 obelisk. He failed this stage last time because he had to face two mythical grades and a bunch of other monsters. This time, though, he had something that could deal with them.
He first used Strength of Hope. After that, he unleashed Judgement of Past Kings, Lightning God Barrage, and Perpetual Lightning Judgement empowered by mana manipulation. He then cast Double Clone. Two clones took on the two mythical grades while the last one dealt with the rare-elite monsters that still survived. The special elites were all vanquished.
Jack's real body which was enhanced by the Strength of Hope was among the ones fighting the mythical-grade monsters. With his two clones keeping the other enemies away, his real body could concentrate on dealing with only one mythical opponent.
Jack managed to take out that mythical opponent before his Strength of Hope ran out of duration. His clones also disappeared as they had the same half-hour duration as the Strength of Hope. But with only one mythical-grade opponent and a bunch of near-death rare elites to deal with, Jack completed the challenge without too much difficulty.
He received double knowledge points from this stage due to his Exalted rank. He continued to stage 86.
He repeated the process until he completed stage 89. When he was about to enter stage 90, Peniel told him, "Before you attempt this stage, you need to make sure first which faction you want to proceed in rank. This faction or the League of Champions."
Jack remembered then. Peniel once told him that he couldn't get the same upper ranks from two different factions. Once one reached a higher rank in this faction, it would lock the advancement out from the other factions.
"So, if I completed this stage and become a…"
"Minister," Peniel completed Jack's sentence. "Then you can't advance to the Laticlavian rank in the League of Champions."
"So… I can't get the items in the exchange list of that rank?"
"You can't," Peniel confirmed. "The highest rank will let you exchange for more powerful skills. So, you have to decide which classes you prefer. The Brave Swordsmaster or the Time Sage."
"Ah, crap… We can't have everything, can we?" Jack lamented.
"You can complain to Wilted if you want," Peniel shrugged.
After thinking for a while, Jack decided he should just go with the Time Sage. The items in the top rank would no doubt require lots of exchange points. He could collect knowledge points in this faction faster than the glory points in the League of Champions due to his Honorary Magi title. If he chose the League of Champions, he would need to spend an awful lot of time repeating these challenges. He didn't think he had that luxury. At least not before Master was defeated.
Hence, he touched the stage 90 obelisk and entered the challenge stage.
In this stage, he faced a total of fifty enemies. Thirty of them were level 85 special elites, seventeen were level 85 rare elites, and the last three were level 80 mythical.
"Aw, shit…," Jack uttered after seeing the three mythical opponents.
He tried his best. But as expected, he couldn't pass the stage. He repeated stage 89 another fourteen times, amassing a total of 3362 knowledge points. With the 930 knowledge points in his badge, he now had 4292 knowledge points.
They were not enough to exchange for the spells he aimed for in the exalted rank's exchange list. Telekinesis required 12,000 knowledge points, while magic bombs needed 14,000 knowledge points. He would need to come here several more days if he wanted those spells.
Jack left the place and headed to the League of Champions next. He entered the challenges there as well.
He couldn't cast Double Clone in the challenges of this faction but he had improved much since the last time he took these challenges. Not just in terms of levels, but also his martial arts. His swordplay had improved tremendously due to the improvement of his sword's heart. His Nine Yin Phantom Sword also helped a lot in piercing through the enemy's defense and helped him out of tight situations. He could now perform the Nine Yin Phantom Sword every five minutes.
Additionally, he was always more comfortable fighting with swords than spells. With Soul Asura and Dances of the Braves, he was like a sword god who was surrounded by numerous deadly swords. He cut through the enemies with even more ease than during the challenges in the Order of Magi.
He defeated one stage after another until stage 89. After conquering the stage, he stood before the platform with a Roman numeral of 90 carved on it.
"So… You want to try it?" Peniel asked. "But if you succeed, you will lose the chance of becoming a minister."
Jack thought for a bit. He said, "I still choose to be a minister, but I want to see if I can win against three mythical grades using my swords. If I can, I won't kill them all. I will leave at least one and let myself fail."
Jack entered then. He ended up fighting with all his strength and still lost.
He sighed when he came out. He still had a long way to go. He went back to stage 89 and repeated it nine times. He collected 2472 glory points from all those challenges. With the 546 glory points originally in his League of Champions Badge, he now had 3018 glory points.
The items in the Praefectrus rank similarly needed glory points above 10,000 to exchange. So, he couldn't get any new things for now.
He called it a day and went to Heavenly Citadel to do the Ice Throne Legacy Dungeon of the Hard difficulty. Afterward, he went back to Thereath and used the training caves there. He didn't do the Ancient Battleground Legacy Dungeon of the Hard difficulty. That legacy dungeon had a cooldown of five days.
He also told guild members who had returned to not do this Hard difficulty first. He wanted it to be available once he got to level 80.
So, while waiting for the one week when the country leaders would visit as well as the reports from the investigative team about the case involving the league faction leaders, Jack trained to increase his level.
