After what Jack felt like an uncomfortably long time, Greed finally spoke, "I want to spend some time alone."
He then vanished.
This was rather unexpected. Jack was ready to speak more to persuade Greed to stay on the right path and not to return to the dark side, but it seemed that this ex-bad God never intended to give him a chance.
Since it was this way, Jack could only hope for the best.
He waited for an hour inside the hut. There was still no sign of Greed. He decided to just return to his routine. There was no point to worry about something that he had no power of, so he just forgot about the whole deal. Peniel remarked about how easy it was for him to take it easy. She reminded him that there was a chance that Greed might decide to torch this place the minute that God returned, with Jack included in the torching.
Jack simply said that he would try to reason with Greed if he was back, but if bad things happened, then they happened. He couldn't afford to worry about something that might or might not happen. It's better to use his time for something productive and within his power, like grinding the endless wave portal and the dragon flight portal for exp and draconic essences.
He didn't even bother to search for a way out. As Greed had pointed out, Greed never treated Jack as a prisoner. Jack was free to roam this place, and he did. For the first few days in this place, Jack spent hours after the portal grinding to look around the cave hall, but he was unable to find any exit. If his mana sense was not obscured, he might have been able to find a clue, but the environment here prevented that. So, after days of futile search, Jack gave up and just focused on leveling up.
Greed ended up being absent for three whole days. So, Jack abused it by grinding more of the endless wave portal, since there was no one requesting a compulsory portal.
Jack was beginning to wonder if Greed had left him here for good when Greed reappeared. He was slightly relieved when he saw Greed again on the third day, relieved that he was not left stranded here with no way out.
But his relief soon turned to worry. What if Greed decided to torch this place with him in it as Peniel mentioned?
Greed was just standing there quietly with a stern look, so Jack also stood still like an obedient student waiting nervously for his teacher to either hand him candy or a stick.
Without a word, Greed just motioned for him to follow him into the woods. They arrived at one of the trees with the portal and Greed just pointed and said, "Today's compulsory."
Though his mind was still worried, Jack went into the portal. It was one that contained a maze layout. He had to find his way through the maze while being hunted by minotaur monsters. The minotaurs were rare elites with the same level as him and they mostly appeared one at a time, so it was not a problem for him. But they did halt his exploration of the maze, which annoyed him as the maze was very large. He ended up spending almost an entire day before he found the exit. He only had the time to enter one more portal that day because it was late already. He chose to enter the dragon flight portal.
The next day, it was as if everything was as before. Greed didn't even mention about what they had talked before. Since it was so, Jack also didn't bring up the subject. He did the compulsory portal, which luckily didn't take as much time as the maze from yesterday, and then grind his routine portals for the rest of the day.
By that time, he had spent eighteen days inside this place. All the grinding inside the endless wave portals had allowed all his classes to increase to level 55, with his Blade Dancer not far from level 56. His Therras also enjoyed the express leveling as Jack always summoned him inside the endless wave portal. It was now at level 57.
If he did exp grinding outside, it would be impossible to get a five-level increase in less than three weeks like this. Much less for all his three classes. The most he estimated might only be a two-level increase. This was even considering if he found a suitable leveling ground.
His intelligence and wisdom stats, which were running behind previously, had started to catch up because the stats given by the Time Sage class were massive. Now, it was his Strength and Endurance stats that were getting left behind. He had 48 free attribute points. He used all these points to increase his Strength stat.
He also had 15 free skill points for each of his classes. He had no problem choosing the skill to invest in for Time Sage. He poured all fifteen points into the Acceleration spell. Each level-up added the duration of the spell by one second, while every five level-ups gave him an additional target.
*
Acceleration, level 16/20 (Active spell, range, requires magic weapons)
Increase the overall speed of 4 targets by 500%.
Range: 50 meters
Duration: 25 seconds
Cooldown: 1 hour
Mana: 300
*
For his Beastmaster class. Since he didn't have many skills, there were fewer options. The only skill that was not yet max-leveled in that class was Strength of the Wild, which was currently at level 15. He spent 5 skill points on this skill, increasing it to a max level of 20.
*
Strength of the Wild, level 20/20 (Active skill)
Call upon the blessing of the wild to bestow power. +200% increase to attributes, +10% increase to damage, +100% increase to defense and resistances, +100% to movement and attack speed, immune to movement restriction, recover 110 HP every second.
Duration: 2 minutes
Cooldown: 1 hour
*
The remaining 10 free skill points for Beastmaster he couldn't use on any other skills. He realized he might need to search for new Beastmaster's skills, but since he didn't join any faction focusing on this class, that would be rather difficult. He could only leave it to fate.
As for his Blade Dancer's free skill points, he had more choices to pick from. After a brief thought, he invested all 15 free skill points to Phantom Blade. This skill was very useful when paired with Asura. It practically tripled this skill's damage output when it was used with Asura.
Each level up to this skill increased its duration by two seconds.
*
Phantom Blade, level 16/20 (Active skill)
Summon a phantom sword that accompanies each sword. Deal 30% damage, cannot be blocked, ignore defense.
Each hit generates 2 sword orbs instead of 1.
Duration: 50 seconds.
Cooldown: 10 minutes.
Stamina: 225
*
His daily grinding inside the dragon flight portal also yielded many draconic essences, despite only entering once a day. Since the first time, he had spent another seven times completing that portal. He gained a total of 2,730 draconic essences.
This increased his bloodline level by another one level and he gained one additional active skill.
*
Divine Gold Dragon Bloodline, level 5/10 (Legendary bloodline)
- Passive skill: +36% to attributes, HP, Stamina, MP.
- Active skill 1: Gold scale armor: Cover user's skin with gold scale, reducing all damage received by 50%, immune to all negative status effects and knockback effects during activation, all healing and recovery on user are increased by 100%. Duration: 3 minutes. Cooldown: 2 hours.
- Active skill 2: Gold Dragon Sight: Trigger slowdown vision, all object movements are slowed by 1000%, sees invisible objects, can zoom in on distant objects. Duration: 10 seconds, Cooldown: 2 hours.
- Active skill 3: Gold Dragon Vitality: Max HP +100%, HP recovery +200%, attributes +100%, immune to instant-kill effect. Recover all HP and remove all negative status when skill is activated. Duration: 5 minutes. Cooldown: 4 hours.
Draconic Essence: 5940/7000
*
On his nineteenth day inside Greed's sanctum, something unexpected happened. Jack had just completed his compulsory portal and was talking with Greed inside his sanctum when suddenly he received a notification.
This notification came from his Recall Plate. It said that Paytowin had activated the Recall Plate Jack had given him. An interface appeared before Jack asking if he wanted to heed the summon.
Jack looked at the interface with surprise. He thought Greed blocked all signals from this place? But then he remembered Greed said it was most signals, not all. Perhaps this Recall Plate was strong enough to bypass Greed's barricade.
Hope rose in Jack's heart. If the Recall Plate was strong enough to receive a signal, perhaps it was also strong enough to send him out? Perhaps this was his chance to escape this place?
He caught Greed's eyes which were looking at him. Greed had been lying leisurely on a couch, but he was now staring at Jack with a serious expression.
"No, no. Don't you…"
Greed was still speaking when Jack hurriedly pressed the accept button. Jack disappeared from there.
"A*shole! What a prick! How dare he leaves without my permission…!" Greed stood up in anger. But the anger subsided as abruptly as it appeared. He sat back down. "Well, I did say he is free to leave. Whatever, I will just punish him when I see him again." He laid back on the couch.
"Hm?" Greed sat upright again and gazed into the distance. He then grinned. "One just left, and another one comes. What luck, to get another plaything so soon after. Hehehe."
*
Jack found himself no longer inside Greed's sanctum.
"Yes!" He exclaimed. "I'm free!"
A huge explosion sound cut off his celebration as the ground below him quivered.
"Bro, what are you so happy about? I need your help!"
Jack turned and saw Paytowin's distressed expression. He then looked around the place he was in. He was in a garden.
"This is Daminos Square Garden!" Peniel exclaimed.
Jack recognized the place after Peniel's words. He walked past this place during the outworlder world tournament event. He then noticed fire and smoke in the distance. Several explosion sounds were heard again.
"What the hell…?" Jack was dazed by the situation.
"I need your help, bro. We are under attack!" Paytowin uttered.
"Under attack?"
"Yes! The Council of Virtus is under attack!"
