Parallel - A Virtual Reality.

Noticing the change in the environment, we finally start to slow down our pace. Checking on the map, we are assured that we have finally arrived at our destination.

I exchange a look with Kagito, and we both nod before proceeding forward, walking with firm but cautious steps.

Soon, our surrounding start changing, and we finally see the place called Elemental Ruins. I could sense that its majesty was gone as it honors its name as a ruin. While grand, it seems lifeless and desolate on its great entrance, but…

"What pressure…" words flow out of my mouth as I look forward seriously. Kagito, standing behind me, nods with an equally serious look.

While the pressure wasn't so great as to keep us from moving forward, it still feels ominous enough, but at the same time, I feel quite… relaxed here, just a bit melancholic.

"Really… time is merciless." Dei mutters and I look at my sword a bit surprised.

"Boy, if you can, you should come back here after the battle against Dorek ends. You might find a legacy from your predecessors here," ending his words there, Dei falls silent again.

"I will," I nod firmly at Dei. I know from his attitude that he wouldn't really tell me more about it.

'Some things I have to look by myself, huh.' I think while pondering for a bit.

Kagito is the same as he looks with a small frown.

"I can feel strong spatial fluctuations from the inside. From what they told us, their records say that the artifact is in a spatial pocket in the first floor of the ruins," says Kagito with a pensive expression, "But from what I feel, the whole space of this ruins is a spatial pocket."

I shake my head and say, "Well, there is no use dwelling on it too much. Let's go in and check out. Keep your guard up"

Kagito nods and we walk towards the entrance with careful steps.

As soon as we step over it, I could feel a strange change in the space. As if going through a liquid portal, the moment we step on the other side, I feel washed over by the strong current of elements inside. My body runs the elemental energies through it effortlessly.

Power and clearness rush every inch of my body and brain as I suddenly exhale, feeling goosebumps at the comforting feeling.

- You are the first to enter the Elemental Ruins of Warsaw Valley!

- Your…

I closed my eyes to feel every part of my power, ignoring the usual notification. I could feel that buffs were mixing in it, and as I look towards it, that seems to be the case. But instead of looking joyfully, graveness surrounds me.

"… the energies are quite chaotic," says Kagito with an entranced expression, his palm moving as if grabbing something. Spatial fluctuations could be felt from his grasp, while powerful energies were running amok.

"Yes… while that seems to help us, it might also mean…"

"… that things are going to be quite difficult," finishing my words, Kagito looks ahead with clear eyes, "but thanks to that, I might be able to guide us to the artifact."

Surprise shows in my face as I look at him, and he grins back at me, "I've been practicing spatial manipulation ever since I fought Tyrfing. It was a very enlightening fight."

"Hoh ~," grinning back at him I say, "Then you lead us"

Kagito nods and he start exploring the place at a suitable pace. I follow close behind him, keeping an eye for any enemy that might appear from our backs.

Just as I watched a few minerals that were in one of the corners of the ruins, I could feel turbulences at the elements surrounding us. The elements were violently flowing towards the mineral and I call out to Kagito.

"Elementals!" I could instantly perceive the type of monsters that we would fight, and soon enough I already knew which would be, "Fire and Wind Elementals"

"Okay!" Kagito gets ready to attack at any moment, as a couple of Elementals from around those minerals. Chaotic elemental waves around them as they start floating aggressively towards us.

I do a quick appraisal and see that their levels are close to 250. I relax a bit at that, but I knew that wouldn't mean this place would be easy.

Surrounding ourselves in our respective auras, our attacks manage to damage the elementals despite them not really being tangible. We could slash on their 'essence', and they were Elemental dependents on a physical object.

Because of the difference in levels, we killed them as soon as they appeared, dispersing them into the environment while the mineral falls on the floor and a slight crack appears on them. But, before we could analyze them, a few more Elemental start appearing.

Among them, there are a couple that are more well defined than the rest, shapes similar to beasts.

I exhale and count them fast, '10… while two of them are stronger than the rest, but…'

"Be careful, more will start appearing," I tell Kagito without taking my eyes off our opponents and start attacking them fast, quickly taking the items into my storage. I could sense from the elemental fluctuation that way more would start appearing in front of us, so we start pressing forward.

Kagito simply nods while focusing his all to defeat the most opponents he can while not giving a step back. I support him as he makes way to the place where the artifact is.

I grit my teeth as more start appearing, each stronger than the last. From close to 250s, to close to 270s, and finally, close to 300s.

I can see that Kagito is already fatigued as he kept continuously attacking and being attacking, even then, he was holding extremely well for his level. His ferocious fighting style and improved spatial manipulation let him defeat the Elementals quickly and efficiently. I wanted to help him more, but…

'The strain is too much' I click my tongue as I think of that. Whenever I activated Elemental Enhancing, a tremendous influx of the elements would come to me, and while that made the buff stronger, it also made it hard to control. I don't dare use Three Elemental Enhancing yet.

But thanks to the constant battles, I managed to use Two Elemental Enhancement at its full use with half the effort soon enough.

I move my two swords, creating tremendous sharp gales of wind, splitting off many elementals on my way. Be them made of wind, fire, water or earth, all of them perished under my sword, leaving their minerals on the ground.

I look back and I see Kagito fighting against one of the levels 300s, using each bit of his power to destroy it as soon as possible. His barrage of attacks is unpredictable and wild, suddenly closing in instantly, as if a step of his had the potential to traverse miles in seconds. His swords appear on the elementals right side in one moment, and then, the left. I can feel that the buffs of Kagito start congealing on space and my power increasing because of it.

I just watch as Kagito finally manages to kill it and then look around very alert.

"Don't worry, there aren't more left," I tell him as I smile, his expression and guard visibly relaxing but still looking around as he starts panting for breaths. He soon sits on the floor, leaning a bit on his sword as he closes his eyes.

I keep a lookout, as my stamina, health and mana replenish very fast. Soon enough, Kagito opens his eyes again and says, "There is still quite a lot left to get to the artifact, but I feel the space stabilizing from here on out, so our opponent might be those close to lv 300s."

I nod, "I feel the same about the rest of the elements. I think we should rest here and get used to the environment"

Kagito looks a bit reluctant at first, but then sighs and nods. He stands up and start focusing while brandishing his sword. Then, he exhales and start moving it slowly.

I watch him sharply, and a satisfied smile sprouts from my lips. 'He is catching up fast'

While thinking that, I start analyzing our loot. I felt that they would be quite helpful. Organizing the minerals.

- (Small) Fire Mineral – Cracked.

- (Small) Water Mineral.

- (Medium) Wind Mineral.

- Minerals infused with the power of the elements. Can be used to create or enchant weapons and armors. Can be used for Alchemy and Utilities. More functions can be explored from the minerals.

Picking three random ones from each size, I recognize each from each power levels of the elementals. 'So, there might be stronger ones ahead…' I think while watching them quietly and thinking of their uses.

The most reasonable thing would be giving them to Helium, the best blacksmith of our guild... but I felt something from these minerals. My instinct drove me to pick one and start coursing the elements withing my body.

- Your Elemental Affinity has slightly increased!

My eyes open wide at that, as I feel a slight improvement in my use of the elements. The (Small) Fire Mineral – Cracked soon dissolves into dust, and an elusive thought runs through my head.

'Enchanting… absorption… annulment…' My skills start going through my head, as I feel that I am bordering on something important. I absorb a couple more minerals, my elemental affinity increasing slightly more.

The movement of the elements, energy flowing and cutting off from time to time. I could feel the environment flowing rhythmically around my, slowly but surely, going through the minerals towards my body.

Then, I pick my Runic Sword in one hand and one mineral on the other. This time, I had a (Medium) Elemental Mineral, the element running as if it was a furious lake. Going through my sword, I apply absorption on it, and then, as I fell the powerful element going out of control, I apply Elemental Enhancing, and then…

"Annulment!"

Soon, a powerful sound explodes out of my sword and the mineral in my hand blows up and disperses into the air. I grit my teeth and hold my sword with all my strength, aura surrounding it.

- Skill Evolution! Because of your enlightenment and your accomplishments, your skill, Blacksmithing, has gotten the opportunity to evolve!

- Not all the conditions have been met for Blacksmithing to evolve.

- Path of evolution has opened: Elemental Forging.

- Elemental Runic Sword has been perfected! Elemental Runic Sword +1.

- The attack power has increased. It increases the ease of elements flowing through it. Because of the forceful approach, its internal structure has suffered, decreasing its durability.

I exhale as a trace of sweat falls from my chin. I feel a smile forming on my face as I look, 'Partial success, eh'

While it was risky, and the shortcoming could be lethal, it still was a success. My Blacksmithing skill has long stopped advancing, evading the Advanced stage all this time. Knowing fully well that it was because of my warrior focused class, I still felt unwilling, so I have tried again and again, but failed in the end… until today.

'So… that's the path…' I close my eyes to remember that feeling, I knew if I did it again on my Runic Sword, I would fail miserably with my weapon exploding. You could say that I succeeded by luck and wits.

Kagito looks at me surprised and says, "What happened!?"

I wave my hand reassuringly and say, "Was practicing my skills, and I ended up finding out something pretty interesting. Here, take some minerals, might be useful to you for a new weapon from Helium."

Kagito picks the mineral I threw at him, and he looks at it surprised. Because he was too busy fighting and recovering, he didn't pick up his loot. Kagito grins and says, "Well, this is going to be very useful."

I grin back and give him his share. After that, we both focus on practice and I absorb as much of the minerals as I can before the increase of my Elemental Affinity topped after increasing by 5%.

Taking a rest in real life, we arm ourselves again and start going through the ruins again.

I could feel our power increasing as we start blitzing through the elementals, appearing on our way. Kagito's skills started shining as we could easily hold out against dozens of them. My power trying to assist him the best I could while pulverizing the strongest of them.

My right sword fulminating a new, stronger Elemental. While my left forms a rain of light, killing mobs of late 200s.

My magic, then, impulses Kagito from the back as he jumps up to attack, giving him momentum and speed. As if knowing that, he easily cleaves into an Elemental of close to level 350.

That elemental had a very refined form, one similar to that of serpent. A serpent that spit water spears and had a tremendously deadly body movement.

As it wants to bite on Kagito in rage, he moves his sword inside it and a strange thing occurs. With a slow movement, his sword goes through the body of the serpent, slashing easily to the side until it gets out of it, then, Kagito stomps softly and appears a few meters out of that place, evading the attack of the serpent by a hair width.

The serpent hisses and disperses a bit, and then congeals again close to Kagito, moving its body with powerful movement. But before it could strike him, I appear on it, and slash both of my swords with a sudden activation of Three Elemental Enhancing.

Quick as Lighting, strong as Thunder!

Both of my swords slash on it with devastating power, and once they go inside of it, I run through tremendous amount of power and magic. Absorbing and annulling at the same time.

Before it could counterattack, it swiftly exploded, leaving a big mineral with a soft bluish glow.

I exhale, and Kagito falls on his b.u.t.t as he breathes roughly.

I look at him and say helplessly, "You should've let me Aggro it, you could've died."

Kagito gives a sheepish smile and says, "Well, I was so focused, and I wanted to test something out. I survived because of that, didn't I?"

I shake my head with a smile and then look at the twisted space that was just a bit in front of us.

"So, that's the place?"

Kagito's eyes turn sharp and says, "Yes, that should be the place"

I nod and tell him with a serious expression.

"If it isn't the place, then we should get back immediately, we have used too much time here."

Kagito nods at my words, and I say, "Well then, let's rest and prepare ourselves before going in, I can feel a very dangerous presence over there"

Kagito closes his eyes and says, "Very dangerous, indeed."

Then we look at each other eyes and grin widely.

An excited glint could be seen from each other eyes.

Well, Kaiser was also known because of their reckless leaders.

We just love challenges!