Chapter 381: Golden Gate

Lily POV

She gasped for breath as she tried to climb just one more step. When she finally managed to crawl onto it, she crumpled into the stone, whimpering for relief.

The other floors hadn’t been too hard on her so far. Even the last one, which had taken her far longer than she would have liked, wasn’t that bad. The main reason why it had taken her as long as she did was that she hadn’t been able to find the trolls.

They were hidden in a secret valley, and it was only because of luck that she managed to find them. However, once she did, she was able to take them out without too many issues. The fact that they were able to heal was annoying, but compared to her own friend, who could heal at an even more outrageous rate, it was nothing.

Plus, she was uniquely suited to take care of them. Their main vulnerability was their heads, and she was able to blend them into a pulp, thanks to her skills.

However, it would appear that she had finally hit a hurdle—one that she didn’t think she would be able to overcome. This floor seemed to test the person’s physical strength and how well they could empower their body with mana or aura. It also tested how well they could control their body.

That, unfortunately, wasn’t something that she was good at. As a matter of fact, it was something she was really bad at. Marcus had done his best to help her develop some proficiency in that area, but her talents lay in other directions. She had done just enough that she wasn’t an embarrassment, but that was about it. It would be a stretch to say that she was anywhere close to above average in body empowerment.

For the most part, she was able to overcome this lack of skill with her other abilities. For a psychic like her, it wasn’t that important for her to be able to move like Julius or Edgar. All she needed to do was be fast enough to avoid normal attacks.

Her mana skills were quite good, and they allowed her to avoid taking damage, which she otherwise would have because of her lack of physical prowess. She had some hopes that this would let her climb the stairs more easily, but that didn’t work.

She couldn’t even cancel out the effect the stairs were subjecting her to, not with her mana and not even her aura. The effect almost entirely relied on gravity magic, at least for this portion.

However, she didn’t think she would be passing this floor. It was unfortunate, but she knew her abilities better than anyone else. She looked up at the sky, where she could finally see the top of the staircase, but if the increase in difficulty continued, she doubted she would make it halfway.

It sucked because she really wanted to get a better result, but perhaps this was a good thing. This might be what she needed. She had been falling behind in her physical abilities too much and this floor proved it.

When she returned from this rift, she would need to do more training and focus on shoring up her weaknesses.

In the meantime, she still wanted to see how far she could make it. Even though she wouldn’t make it, quitting before she pushed herself seemed like the easy way out.

***

Julius POV

Empowering his body with kinetic energy was surprisingly simple, especially when he compared it to infusing his Sharpness Concept into his kinetic energy. However, it required a mental shift in how he approached empowerment.

When he empowered his body with mana and aura, he concentrated on channeling it throughout his entire body. When he used kinetic energy to do this, he had to place more attention on shorter but more frequent bursts, with a lot of emphasis on his limbs.

It required more focus, and he had to stay dynamic at all times. If he didn’t, it wouldn’t work well. It would sort of just peter out like a candle. Thankfully, he had skills such as [Sage of Savagery] to help him maintain this technique for longer periods.

Additionally, there wasn’t any real sustained enforcement beyond the simple amount he used to allow his body to handle such extreme loads. Still, most of the empowerment came from powerful bursts of kinetic energy through his muscles and bones.

It made his movements a lot more jerky and erratic than his usual empowerment. Even more than he had been doing since entering the rift and focused on improving his kinetic energy. He was well aware that he looked weird when using it, too. He probably looked like a puppet controlled by strings.

The erratic movements didn’t have the grace he usually moved with. However, he didn’t need to look pretty in order to be effective. He could worry about that later. For now, all he cared about was how well his kinetic energy allowed him to move under this gravity magic.

He made some slight adjustments each time the difficulty of the steps increased. They were small, but thanks to the floor’s circumstances, he could differentiate the small changes with higher confidence.

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What was even more exciting was that he suddenly felt a change in how the kinetic energy interacted with his body. Even more importantly, there was a shift in how it interacted with his Force Concept. Resounding Burst was helping this new form of enhancement with great synergy. Each little bit of kinetic energy went further than it did just minutes ago.

It wasn’t quite life-changing or too dramatic. But it was enough that he felt the difference in how easily his body and soul responded. Something that the Words of the World recognized, and he smiled when he saw the notification about his physical enhancement skill.

[Pyrokinetic Embodiment of Ruin lvl 9 -> lvl 10]

It was funny to see that the skill gained a level despite him not even using the skill. Perhaps it was just an indicator that his kinetic energy usage had improved, which would strengthen the skill as a result.

He maintained a grin on his face as he continued pressing forward up the stairs. He had already improved quite a bit from this little training session and wondered just how much further he could push it. He might even improve his kinetic energy usage to similar levels to his body enhancement skill.