Then much to everyone’s surprise Dozer stood his left arm still in a sling although his shattered collarbone had been mostly healed His squad extremely well trained stood with him Very quickly Donny’s squad stood too as well as men from Paolo and Kayle’s squad although none of their squad leaders but Dozer was present
If not us then who can do this Dozer spoke softly but all the Classers hunched their shoulders
They had taken the burden from the Ghosthound The town was now their responsibility Slowly they all stood All 35 squads It took two hours but it was mostly a problem of organization When the Classers of Donnyton moved they moved
Although they weren’t pretty or particularly straight the new arrivals of Franksburg slept in newly made houses that night
As dawn rose over Donnyton Raina walked slowly up the path they had used to arrive at Donnyton once more ascending the location where they crested the mountain and could see Donnyton sprawled out below them
There she sat down on a rock and looked down at the town for a long time as it slowly came to life Then when she had a better feel for it and the light filtered down over the mountains more fully she began to draw
She took her time because honestly drawing was a skill that she had forgotten about a remnant of her time in high school But as she did her best to reproduce the lines of Donnyton below her drawing the long thin valley the road the Classer compound the spread of tightly packed farms the arena the defensive fortifications the quaint NCC village the new housing addition for the people from Franksburg and as she did so notifications flooded her demonstrating a rapid rise in her drawing skill She ignored them for now instead focusing on reproducing the image
After a half hour of drawing the sun rose higher than she liked changing the light and Raina paused examining the picture critically There were more details she wanted to fill in but it would have to wait until tomorrow As it was she decided to head back
Her trip down the winding road was much quicker than the trip up but halfway down the hill she paused a strange pounding noise coming from a nearby grove of trees
Abruptly Raina remembered that even if the area around Donnyton was surrounded by tight patrols keeping monsters out it wasn’t completely effective and the odd monster got through She supposed it would be poetic justice if she came all the way here only to be mauled by a wandering monster Not that she couldn’t defend herself but
Still the noise made her curious so she approached doing her best to stay quiet Making her way through the brush and trees the pounding grew increasingly loud Then as she pushed a branch out of the way she saw him
A man was sweating his chest heaving holding a large iron ball attached to a chain He had dark skin and bright eyes and his face was narrowed into a look of focus His shoulder muscles bulging he threw the iron ball where it richocheted off one tree and with a twist of the chain was made to crash into another obliterating the bark and cracking the wood underneath The trees around him were clearly showing signs of wear but still he practiced working tirelessly on his control
There was a strange charisma about the man Raina realized Almost without a conscious decision on her part Raina settled down and began to draw the captivating man
Randidly took a small break looking down at his spear in frustration He supposed that he had to consult this problem eventually but to run into this wall so soon after he resolved himself to train was quite inconvenient
He had spent the night working and he had received one skill lvl in Phantom Onslaught and one in Eyes of the Spear Phantom But as he continued he realized
that ultimately he only had one way of improvement And that was repetition He would repeat the movement under various degrees of strain The higher the strain the higher the gain from the repetition He could continue this endlessly slowly grinding his skills up Eventually he would grow stronger It would even be at a predictable rate
But Randidly suspected that this wouldn’t be enough to stay ahead of the threats that would come for Donnyton let alone be enough to stay ahead of the looming threat of Judgement
This flaw of Randidly’s came back to the same reason that the earlier stages were so simple because he viewed this system through the lense of being a game It made things predictable but it also severely limited Randidly in terms of the way he could learn and gather skills
Speaking of he made a mental note to check with Lyra whether she still had access to the skill trials Although he didn’t currently want to grind a bunch of skills that he might not use there would perhaps be some gems among the choices now that he had access to the Apprentice tier
Repetition was all well and good but Randidly knew of another view of the world one which he would very much like to move towards That would be of course the concept of martial art epiphanies that would rapidly increase his power The idea was that application of the skill could be improved rapidly just by a sudden shift in perspective
Randidly laughed aloud So what he was looking for in a way was an epiphany that would abruptly change the way he used the system Shaking his head ruefully Randidly prepared to switch over towards more active skill and spell focused grinding while he pondered how to change the way he thought about the system but he was interrupted by a voice
I think I can help
Randidly turned slowly to face Lyra who stood there solemnly Although the connection between them was gone and they hadn’t really talked much since he had returned to find her human form dead he had to chuckle she was currently dressed just like Nul always was with drab clothes and her face studiously blank looking exactly like their previously bland village spirit
Then she grinned at him and they both laughed
As the laughter died they examined each other both aware that something had changed And from the slightly sad gleam in Lyra’s eyes it seemed she had more of a clue over what it had been that they lost but she didn’t say anything and Randidly was more focused on other matters
You can help
Lyra frowned at him Why the hell do you sound so surprised I’m basically a shapeshifter now you know I’m very useful for
Abruptly Lyra blushed and looked at the ground Well nevermind that But you are wondering how to get stronger right I always thought you were an idiot for looking at the system the way you did but I couldn’t deny it got results But now look at you
Again Lyra stopped and she flushed again Less this time from embarrassment and more because it felt different She wasn’t drawn forward into mocking him like she had been before and the words just came out stale in her mouth Things really had changed
Slowly she spoke again Well anyway I can help But not for free
Randidly looked at Lyra really looked at her The determined look in her eyes conveyed her honesty Her golden blonde hair hung down around her ears curling with a natural grace Her face was skinny and sharp but he couldn’t deny he had always been attracted to her Perhaps the reason he had refused it before and focused on her age was due to an instinct he had that it was unnatural And now
And now everything felt strange But that didn’t change the facts Yes I would like your help
Smiling sweetly Lyra held out a small potion that seemed to be pitch black There are costs of course but I believe this will solve your mental problems According to my information a sip will block your access to notifications Think that will change your perspective
Randidly was very quiet for several seconds Blocking access to notifications would do nothing to change his improvement on the surface But at the same time
If his thinking started to change while he didn’t have notifications
The notifications acted as positive reinforcement to his grinding mindset They validated it Without them Randidly wouldn’t feel as though he was improving just by grinding He would need to do some sort of training with quantifiable metrics Then he would train pushing his limits not to get in more reps but to make those reps count Just like sprinters wouldn’t just run to get stronger they would do exercises to isolate the different muscles and then return to sprinting to fine tune the process