Jack never asked Prince Alonzo nor Royal Advisor Mason about the direction to Tranviste, because he had a living compass. Peniel pointed the direction and Jack had Pandora go in a straight line. He traveled swiftly with Pandora but he still make time to dismount whenever he met a new monster that was not too strong for him to handle, or when he met the monsters on his hunting list.
His journey took him across a vast expanse of land, seeing different kinds of flora, fauna, landscape, and weather. There was once where he met some sort of sandstorm but instead of sand, it was fire. So probably it should be called firestorm. This firestorm was rolling towards where he was heading. Pandora was happily going to enter the firestorm, considering it was her element. Jack and Peniel had to remind her that her rider was not, before she changed direction. Luckily her speed was still enough to outrun the firestorm.
The distance of his travel this time was even longer than the previous expedition with the army. He passed through two main cities, Thenident and Therimdell. He promptly established teleportation links with Heavenly Citadel, allowing his guildmates to visit these two cities.
He also visit a few smaller towns, which were not open to regular outworlders. Jack was allowed entrance though, considering he was a member of the kingdom faction. He also established teleportation links with the zone portals in these towns. He instructed Tip to set the Teleportation Chamber so that not everyone could teleport to these towns.
He also encountered several smaller communities, villages. When he saw such villages, he wondered at first how they survived wilderness monsters. But he then noticed that most of these villages were built within areas with few monsters and also mostly low-level. There was always at least one high-level kingdom official in charge of these villages, in case of a monster attack.
There was an incident where Jack was given a quest offered by one of the village inhabitants. The quest was to search for a medicinal plant in nearby woods. Jack rejected the quest. He couldn't afford to waste his time dealing with these small quests and risked failing his faction chain quest.
Once he completed his current diplomatic mission, then only would he take his time to adventure around before returning to report the quest. He had a feeling that once he reported in, he would be given a continuation on the chain quest immediately. He was not ready to so eagerly complete this quest yet, it was an SSS quest, after all.
Hence, after that one incident, he didn't spend too much time inside a new city, town, or village he visited. What if someone threw him a quest in which his heroic impulse could not reject? For example, saving children from the lair of a dragon, or rescuing a young maiden from the mansion of an evil outlaw. So, he quickly established the teleportation links before hurriedly making himself scarce from said places. Not even spending the night there, he used his Camouflage Tent and rested in the wilderness.
He did not forget to continue training his meditation and martial arts. He could now sense the minuscule mana that accompanied every object, though he still need to concentrate hard for that, so his mana sense ability was not yet perfected.
His Formless Flowing Sword Style was getting much improvement. He could now easily execute the burst of forty-eight slashes. His flowing attack also displayed more variation and complexities. The second phase of the sword art could be said to have been perfectly mastered. However, he got tired very easily after using the phase two burst attack though.
When he trained the sword art, he always activated his Dragon's Eye in conjunction now. From his last experience, the slow-motion effect when using the burst attack had contributed much to his improvement. It still did, as it allowed him to analyze the shortcomings and where he could still improve the style.
For Eight Diagram Illusory Steps, when he felt he was adept enough to use it in a real fight, he tested it on some basic monsters. He still needed to concentrate to execute this movement art. It's a good thing his talent, Hundred Synchronous Thoughts, allowed him to think of multiple things at the same time. So he could have one mind focusing on the movement art, while the others on the sword art. The combination of these two arts complimented each other nicely and caused his offensive to be more deadly and unpredictable.
Against a group of elite monsters though, Jack still got hit one out of four times when he used the Eight Diagram Illusory Steps, so he knew he still had much to improve on this martial art.
He met several Gang Hideouts and Monster Settlements on the way, two of the gang hideouts and one tiny-sized monster settlement were within his level range, so he conveniently raided those three. For the hideouts, he summoned his companion, Heathcliffe, which helped him keep the boss busy while Jack destroyed the cores. So the two bosses now occupied the cells inside guild jail, ready to be handed to kingdom authority for rewards.
During the journey, Jack discussed the SSS grade chain kingdom quest with Peniel. Jack joked that probably in this chain quest, he would again get another divine treasure. Imagine fusing with one more and possessing another elemental assault as insane as the Lightning God Barrage.
Peniel responded with a contempt-filled laugh. "First, do you think every SSS quest gives out a Divine Treasure? It only had a small probability even for this highest-grade quest. There are only seven Divine Treasures, for goodness sake. And second, even if you get your hands on another divine treasure, you won't be able to fuse with it."
"Why not?" Jack asked.
"Because one person can only fuse with one divine treasure. Trying to fuse with another one will just cause your body to explode. You will lose everything from this death, no matter even if you wear Amulet of Rebirth. So I assume your Immortal Soul will also not save you from such a death."
"Uh, luckily we have this conversation. Imagine if I immediately fuse with another divine treasure like the last time."
Peniel gave Jack an irritated look. She had berated him severely after his reckless fusing with Lightning God Sphere the last time, he was still thinking of doing it again without asking first?
Despite Pandora's unnatural speed, they still took two weeks to reach the border region between Themisphere kingdom and Sangrod Empire. The region was a vast rocky land with sparse greeneries. Monsters around here were stronger, ranging around level 40 to 60.
There were a few occasions within this region when they saw on the horizon a freak of nature, a titanic monster of incredible proportion. Something similar to the existence of the Grim Sand Drake.
Although Peniel informed Jack that it was unlikely for mythical or level 70 rare elite monsters to appear in this region, she also said that it was not impossible. So Jack chose to circle around such an existence. He did not dare to go near enough to use Inspect. If it was truly a terrifying monster that was immune to Pandora's fear aura, then they would be done for. Such a high-level creature most probably possessed speed that rival the Nightmare.
Because of the tip-toeing around these titanic existences, his journey through this border region was lengthened. It took him four days to pass through it despite Pandora's exceptional speed. But on that eighteenth day since he departed from Thereath, he saw in the horizon the land that marked the beginning of a new country, the Sangrod Empire.
During these eighteen days, although he didn't grind much, single-handedly taking down two Gang Hideouts and one Monster Settlement had netted an abundance of exp points. Out of these ventures, both his class had increased in level, Blade Dancer to 36 and Archmage to 34.
When his Blade Dancer reached level 35, he received a new standard skill.
Whirlwind Slash (Active skill, requires dual-wield swords)
Strike everyone around within a radius of 3 meters, dealing 300% damage.
Cooldown: 1 minute
Stamina: 60
It was similar to his Ice Ring spell. Less radius, but higher damage. Its cooldown was less than Ice Ring, so he could use this skill more often.
He used the 6 free Blade Dancer skill points for this new skill, increasing its damage to 360% damage. The 3 free Archmage skill points were spent on Myriad Ensnaring Chains, bringing it up to level 5. When the spell hit level 4, it added another chain. Now the spell could conjure eleven crimson chains.
For the 9 free attribute points, he went back to dump them on the Endurance stat.
Jack looked at the horizon where Peniel informed him was the start of the Sangrod Empire.
"There seems to be a heavy storm coming," Jack mentioned. The sky ahead was dark despite it was still daytime, the clouds were thick, much more thick and dark compared to the ones usually seen with the coming of a rainstorm.
"That is not due to the weather," Peniel informed.
"Huh?"
"Sangrod Empire was also known as the country of eternal night."
Jack took some seconds to grasp Peniel's words. "Wait! Are you saying the sky of the entire country is like that?" Jack asked in astonishment.
