During the time Jack spent in Heavenly Citadel, the Ice Throne legacy dungeon and Ancient Battleground legacy dungeon had netted Jack decent exp points. Additionally, Tip had given Jack some exp pills which Jeanny had left behind. With the exp from those sources, Jack's every class had increased by one level. His Brave Swordsmaster was now level 57, while his Time Sage and Beastmaster were level 56.
After these level-ups, all his stats were above 1,000 points.
During Jack's foray into the Ice Throne legacy dungeon, he was lucky enough to get a drop of one bottle of Thousand-year Wine. Jeanny had made a few copies of the wine but she gave them to the other core members. The arrangement was every core member should get at least one bottle first before the same person could get a second one.
Jack had no problem with her arrangement. He thought Jeanny was already selfless enough to spread the wines instead of hoarding them herself. Additionally, his luck was high enough that he could get one if he continued to do the Ice Throne legacy dungeon.
On the day he left Heavenly Citadel, he originally still had two days before he gained another one-month age. After drinking the Thousand-year Wine, he gained a free half month and his age immediately increased to age 13.
His race skill, Limitless Potential, increased to rank 9. It now increased his HP by 2200, Stamina and MP by 250, and all attributes except luck were increased by 9 points.
His lowest attributes at the moment were Endurance and Wisdom. They were at 1013 and 1012 points respectively. He had 12 free attribute points from four level-ups. He decided to invest them into his Wisdom stat again. His armors already gave him good defense again physical damage. He wanted to balance it with sufficient Wisdom stat so he was not weak against magic damage.
As for his free skill points, he had 6, 3, and 13 for Brave Swordsmaster, Time Sage, and Beastmaster respectively.
He didn't have any new skills for the Beastmaster class yet, so the 13 free skill points were not usable. He was probably the only one to have excess free skill points without being able to spend them on available skills. He realized now that he probably shouldn't have used the souls from Container of Souls to increase any of the Beastmaster's skills in the past. But what's done was done, there was no use regretting it. At least now if he gained a Beastmaster's skill or Beastmaster's special class, he could immediately level it up substantially.
As for his container of souls, he hadn't used any of the souls since he departed to Valley of Tempus for the Time Sage's trial. He had saved up a good number of souls since then. Too bad the portals inside Greed's sanctum where he spent a large chunk of his time didn't provide any soul point. Many of the souls in his Container of Souls came from the time when he was present during the destruction of the Council of Virtus.
It was not comparable to the souls he gained during the civil war, however, because Jack mostly avoided the battle between the high-level individuals at that time. He needed to be within a certain range for the Container of Souls to absorb the souls of the departed.
Added with the time he spent inside the Ice Throne legacy dungeon, he had amassed 1,268,921 souls.
He first used 100,000 souls and 3 Time Sage's free skill points to max-level Acceleration spell. The spell could now affect five targets and its duration was now thirty seconds. If Jack used this spell on himself, the thirty seconds in the normal time flow would be two and a half minutes from Jack's perspective.
Jack then spent 6 of the Brave Swordsmaster's free skill points on Brave Slash, increasing it to level 7. Each level-up increased the produced damage by another 50%. At level 7, the slash dealt 1300% light damage.
As for the remaining soul points, he spent 1,100,000 souls to level up his Perpetual Lightning Judgement to level 12. The level-up increased the damage and the number of lightning produced by the spell. This spell didn't indicate the percentage of damage dealt because the damage was proportional to the lightning element absorbed from the environment.
Several of his skills had also upgraded their star proficiencies. When he was training his sword art inside the Time Chamber, he couldn't just train the Formless Flowing Sword style non-stop. Each attempt in the burst assault caused him to fatigue. Hence, he had to rest in between.
As he rested, he trained his game skills. The guild had a facility that helped in improving game skills proficiency, the First-rate Training Ground, the upgraded facility Jack had gotten from Greed's reward. This Training Ground increased the proficiency of each skill usage by four times.
Of course, for skills that had a short duration, it was still more effective to use the Time Chamber instead of the Training Ground. The Time Chamber allowed the time inside to be ten times the time outside. For example, if using a skill with ten seconds cooldown time, like Flash Step, for example. When Jack performed the skill for ten minutes inside the time chamber, he could do it sixty times, which was sixty proficiency points. This ten minutes inside the chamber was one minute outside the chamber.
Using the same skill in the First-rate Training Ground for one minute, allowed him to do it six times. Multiplying the proficiencies by four due to the training ground's special effect, gave the user twenty-four proficiency points. This was less than when one used the Time Chamber.
Even if so, the First-rate Training Ground was still useful because it was large and hence could accommodate a large number of members. As opposed to Time Chamber which had limited space hence it was only reserved for core members.
And Jack actually utilized both during his stay. For skills that had a long cooldown, for example, his Beast Form which had a six hours cooldown. Once these skills were off cooldown, he ran out from the Time Chamber and went into the Training Ground. Unleashed all those skills before running back and re-entering the Time Chamber.
This act confused the common members who were using the Training Ground. Jack just appeared every 36 minutes, spam his big skills, and then exited again.
From this clockwork activity, plenty of Jack's skills received star upgrades. Some that received their first star were Asura, Spirit Weapon, Hundred Shadow Strikes, Combination Assault, Tracing Beams, and Acceleration.
Asura's one star increased the damage boost during Asura state by 8%. All of his melee damage now got a 28% boost when he activated Asura. If Asura was fully upgraded to ten stars, the damage boost would be 100%.
One star on Spirit Weapon increased its power and HP by 10%, making it more durable.
Each star on Hundred Shadow Strikes increased its critical chance by 4% & cursed chance by 2%. A fully upgraded Hundred Shadow Strikes had a 50% chance for both critical and cursed chances.
Each star of Combination Assault increased the chance to inflict dizzy and fear by 2%, reduce the target's defense by an additional 2%, and increased the range by 1 meter.
The Tracing Beams' star upgrade increased the beams' knockback power and speed of the beams. Since his Time Sage's passive effect already increased the beams' speed, this star upgrade made the beams even faster.
As for Acceleration, each star increased the target's speed by an additional 50%. Previously, the spell caused a target to be five times faster, now it was 550%. With full ten stars, the spell's targets would move at ten times their normal speed!
*
Jack teleported to a small town closest to where the third army was. He had gotten the latest coordinates from Jeanny. With Pandora, it took him less than half a day to reach the marching army.
The sight of half a million army was indeed impressive. The field was simply blanketed by people. Jack took in the sight for a few moments before he rushed to the front of the troops.
The fire trail from Pandora was eye-catching. Everyone noticed his approach.
As Jack had Pandora galloped along the front side of the army, he soon saw someone waving. It was Jeanny. He immediately headed over. John and the others were there as well.
"Did you manage to complete what you needed to do?" Jeanny asked.
"Yeah," Jack said. He then looked at his grandfather who was there as well. He jumped from Pandora as he shouted, "Gramps, take a look at this!"
Ninety-six sword lights interweaved as he swung his two swords. The sword lights that hit the ground created deep gashes.
"Splendid! You have reached the third phase." Jack was expecting Domon's praise but instead, it was Jet who gave the compliment.
Domon simply gave an approving look and said, "Good job, but your slashes are all over the place. You should give it more control so you can better direct the slashes' paths."
Jack was dejected. Partly because the fatigue set in after he performed the third phase burst attack of his sword art, and the rest was because his grandfather still criticized him despite his improvement.
