This was the first time Nicole saw them fighting together. She never expected that there would be someone as ridiculous as Anna.
Of course, she had been following Anna's news the whole time. Her growth only made her shake her head helplessly.
She thought no one would be able to stop her once she grew. There was even a rumor that she killed Noel Ardagan.
She wasn't completely aware of this situation, but it was clear that Noel was the only rival that could match Anna's progress, considering they both graduated at the same time and headed to the same squad.
With Noel out of the picture, she thought it would be impossible for anyone to come close to Anna. But it turned out this masked man managed to do it.
On the one hand, she wanted to think this man was Noel. On the other hand, there was no way they were the same person, considering they had different hair color, eye color, and elements. Hence, she wondered about the identity of this masked man.
While the two took care of the seven demons, Damian and Dimitri eliminated the demons in their direction, making sure that the group could advance without any problems.
It seemed that their strength was beyond Nicole's imagination. A Spirit Grandmaster like her wouldn't have any problem eliminating those demons, but Damian and Dimitri killed all of them in a single move.
'Anna and the masked man are one thing, but those two are insanely strong as well. It seems that the probability of this mission is higher than I originally thought.'
Nicole reconsidered her opinions of them and said to Noel and Anna. "You two are great and completely in sync. It's the first time I see Anna matching someone's movement like that. More importantly, that person is a male. I know it's rude to ask, but may I know the relationship between you two?"
"What are you talking about?!" Anna hurriedly stopped her.
"I was just asking. If you didn't want to answer it, then that's fine." Nicole shrugged. "I was just curious since Anna had always beaten all the boys that came near her in order to escape marriage."
Anna frowned, trying to cover her mouth. Her expression was telling her not to continue to embarrass her.
Nicole smiled and finally raised both hands, stopping her remark. At the same time, she kept glancing back and forth between Anna's flustered face and Noel's poker face.
In the end, she said, "In any case, I have seen your abilities. To think you would be able to defeat a Peak Level Demon without letting it do anything… If this is the case, then I can be a bit bolder to increase our pace."
Noel and Anna had managed to kill a Spirit Master when they were still Spirit Wielders, so this feat wasn't enough to show their entire prowess, especially after becoming a Spirit Master.
Still, they both knew that they needed more enemies to get stronger.
The group took out the Demon Crystals from their bodies before continuing their journey.
Of course, they had agreed with the split.
Anna and Noel would receive fifty percent of the split by themselves since they wanted to use this opportunity to get stronger. Damian, Dimitri, and Nicole had to split the rest.
Dimitri, however, chose to dedicate their shares to Noel, causing Damian to not want to lose in the initiative. Nicole also didn't want to let Noel reign supreme.
In the end, Noel received both Damian and Dimitri's shares, resulting in him getting sixty percent of the total Demon Crystals they acquired during the trip while Anna took the rest.
Continuously increasing the Spiritual Energy Reserve would cause their foundation to be weak, but Noel had learned a lot of abilities and tried to master them, so he could advance pretty far.
According to Dimitri and Damian, he could at least make his way near the peak of Spirit Master during this trip. Meanwhile, Anna had all the memories from her previous life, so she could advance whenever she wanted.
Hence, she chose to match Noel's pace while making Noel believe she was doing her best to reach the next level. This way, they could maintain their rivalry, which stimulated their potential.
They continued their way toward the hermit's location. They found thousands of demons and killed almost a thousand of them on their way.
Noel's strength increased by leaps and bounds. After a week, they managed to cover a third of the distance.
Noel shouted while pointing forward, "Anna!"
"All right!" Anna slipped past him, using her lightning to boost her speed. In an instant, she reached the Peak Level Demon not far from them and struck it from above. The electricity from her blade sparked and electrocuted the demon, but due to the demon's size, that slash wasn't enough to kill it.
Noel took that opportunity to catch up to Anna and waved his sword with the Circular Sword Strike, cutting the demon's body.
"Hu…" Noel let out a breath of relief while looking around. There were at least fifty demon corpses in the area. They had just cleared a demon nest that stood in their way.
After taking out their Demon Crystals, Noel used his fire to burn all the corpses. Due to the overbearing flame, it didn't produce smoke and smell, which was extremely important for the group.
Anna remained on his side as though she was protecting him while he did his work. But more importantly, she was observing the way Noel handled his flame.
His flame actually tried to match the shape of the demons. Noel had been improving his control by using his flame in different shapes. After realizing that matching the demon's corpse would allow him to improve considerably, he had been disposing of the corpses all this time as a part of training.
Anna couldn't help but think, "Since when did he get this good at controlling his flame?"
Unbeknownst to them, the one that got shocked the most was Damian. He had another thought when watching these two, "Why did he progress so fast? Was it because of Anna Stargaze?"
