Taking a deep breath, Elias mentally gave the command for the class advancement to be carried out, curious about the changes he would see in his class after it evolved.
He really should have taken his time, maybe taken a breath or two before he gave the order, because the moment he did, the first thing Elias felt was pain!
It was pain so intense that he began to scream, Elyndra smiling right behind him as he felt himself get yanked into his Harmonic Chamber with a force so overwhelming that resistance felt like a joke.
When he appeared there, all he could see was the massive devouring sun of darkness, its surface lined by innumerable red lines that crossed across its titanic surface like massive rifts.
The lines began to twist and turn when he arrived, then he bewilderedly watched as they joined together, twisting inward to form a single, pulsing sphere of red light.
The red sphere separated itself from the devouring darkness, standing beside it as it pulsed outward with a red, vibrant hue. Then Elias felt it call to him just like his Harmonic Core had done before, the sight so ridiculous that Elias was left in a stupor!
But he recovered quickly, the familiar scene of him floating upwards playing out again. Elias didn't stay shocked for long as he reached out to touch the mysterious sphere, establishing a connection.
When Elias opened his eyes in the real world, he was staring at the shocking scene of his interface, his mouth wide open in shock!
[Carrier Profile]
Name: Elias Verdan
Echoform Fragments: 16
Amount required to breakthrough: 500
Level: Advanced Novice (F+)
Mental Strength: 6630/7000
Class: Silent Thread
Description:
You are able to devour minor dissonances—Echoform fragments and Broken Songs—provided the Echoform is not two ranks above you.
Devoured dissonance is stored within your Harmonic Core as a single thread.
[Threads Devoured: 0/200]
[Weakness: Overeating leads to Echo rejection. Your body will dissolve into sound.]
[Class Rank: Mythic]
Second Class: Threadweaver
Description: You can turn created weaves into tools and temporal abilities.
Signature Skill: "Hollow Requiem" - A Silence Field that cancels most Resonance Attacks. Suppresses attacks of opponents far stronger than you to some extent, ineffective if difference in strength is too wide. Completely effective for those weaker or of similar strength to you.
First Weave: Pyre Weave
Description: Scorch me fire, end me flames. Let me rest as the ashes.
Accumulated weaves will advance your class rank.
[Weaves Created: 1/100]
[Class Rank: Transcendent]
[String Type: Solitary]
[Tremors: None]
[Lament:]
Veil of Null – A cloak once fashioned by the Silent God to make his mischievous escapades easier.
Grade: Divine
Ability: Wearing this cloak renders you invisible to anyone no more than four ranks above you for two minutes.
Cooldown: 24 hours
[Sonic Skills:
|Melody of Ash Rain|
One of the children of the Lost, abandoned and left to rot. The child was filled with hatred and died screaming with vengeance.
His screams birthed a phantom, and the phantom embodied Avarice. When this phantom learned to sing, rain fell from the skies—but the rain was ash.
Grade: Note
Ability (Effective only for those vexed in the songs of fire): A small circular ring of fire surrounds you when this skill is active. Anything other than you that enters this ring turns to ash within seconds.
Completely effective against those below your stage. Results may vary against equals. Ineffective against higher-ranked opponents.]
[Title(s):
Bone Slayer: Your Song carries an innate dampening force that resonates through the bones of your opponents.
Effects: You can effortlessly fracture and crush bone structures.
Songborn (Special): You are duly loved, blood of the Song.
Effects:
+10% chance of obtaining Tremors
+20% chance of obtaining Laments
+30% chance of obtaining Sonic Skills]
This was ridiculous.
This was totally, infuriatingly ridiculous.
Should something this broken even be allowed to exist?!
And what the hell was Transcendent—was the damn thing above Mythic?
And no, the bigger question was how he even ended up having two classes in the first place. He half expected the first to disappear, its ability to devour dissonances written off as a subset of the newly appearing Threadweaver.
But the fact that the Silent Thread class had still remained even now meant that Threadweaver had simply evolved from it as a separate class, and Silent Thread had not evolved into it to disappear on its own.
Both contexts were different, the very concept of it something extremely ridiculous.
As far as Elias knew, other Chordbearers had a fixed class that was incapable of evolving, talk more of having two in the first place! As they advanced in rank, they simply unlocked numerous variants in the manifested ability of their class, but their class never changed no matter what.
But it was quite stupid for Elias to compare himself to other Chordbearers at this point. The very fact he possessed a Harmonic Core and not a Resonance String was already enough reason to call him an anomaly.
Taking a deep breath in excitement, Elias willed the appearance of the weave, watching a network of fine, red threads appearing above his hands like a web, the weave pulsing outward with a hot and burning aura!
Then Elias felt a rush of instinct, as if his body already knew what to do next. Before he could stop it, he began to twist the glowing weave, the threads in the weave moving like tentacles as he watched it become hotter, while it rang out with a loud and rage-filled sound.
It felt like something blasting against the ears, loud enough to make it burn while it rumbled.
From the weave came a red spark. Then from the red spark came flames!
Above Elias' palm, red flames burned, emanating from the weave, continuously letting out a ringing sound loud enough to split the ears.
Elias laughed, his eyes moving over the Sonic Skill tab as he was tempted to try it immediately. This should qualify him as one of the Singers of Fire, right?
The skill activated immediately when he willed it. The ringing of the weave took a different pattern as it seemed to become faster but more controlled, the effect being a ring of flames that surrounded him, the burning fire tall enough to reach him halfway. The ring was wide, covering quite a few meters beyond him.
However, what made Elias grin was that within the flames, he could feel it burning with twice as much intensity than when it had simply floated above the palm of his hand!
This was the stupendous effect of the skill, |Melody of Ash Rain|, capable of turning those weaker than him into a cloud of ash. If he had this weave and its skill before he entered the Mirrorth earlier, he would just walk with his hands behind his back while watching any Echoform unfortunate enough to near him get smoked to cinders.
This was the path of a master and a true Aurafarmer. This was the kind of strength he had been searching for!
His eyes turned to the signature skill of his new class, feeling his excitement bubble even more. Mind you, before, his ability had only been effective against Echoforms, but this new skill gave him the capability to be just as much of a menace against Chordbearers!
And holy shit, was this really a Requiem Skill, standing just a rank below the ultimate Finale?! Elias just kept loving this new class more and more!
Removing the weave, Elias stretched his back, feeling so jovial he felt like hugging anything right now.
He turned to the floating Elyndra, who stopped floating to stand midair as she looked at him, face irritated. Well, she was always irritated. "Don't you dare lay your filthy paws on this princess, disgusting fellow!"
He snorted. "That just makes me want to hug you more!"
"Seems like you are in need of a beating, you bastard!"
He rolled his eyes, looking at the sight of himself covered in murkiness and sweat. He really did need a bath, at least before he got to the train.
Good thing he was already here then.
His eyes had already seen a pond at the base of one of the mountains forming the borders of this expanse, and within a moment he appeared right in front of it, his eyes shining as he looked at the beautiful pond.
It felt surreal. Multicolored fishes swam within it, their bodies glowing with a milky sheen. The water looked like glass, completely clear and still regardless of the life forms swimming in its depths.
With a sigh, Elias dived right into the water, swimming in as, within the next few minutes, he played around with the poor fishes while giving them plentiful hugs, his boisterous laughter cutting through the air, traumatizing them for life!
***
"You should leave now or those brats at the train will find out you aren't there anymore," Elyndra said with a yawn, floating behind him yet again. "Save yourself the trouble if you really don't want to draw any attention."
This time, Elias sat atop the outstretched palm of one of the colossal Tremors, a little wind ruffling his dark hair slightly.
Elias clicked his tongue. "I doubt they will notice anyway."
After the Song had made that announcement about him, Elias hadn't changed his stance about remaining in the shadows while he got stronger. After all, he had everything he wanted and didn't need the help of anyone other than himself and the tiny gremlin to get stronger.
It was going to be a completely brain-dead move to show himself in the spotlight, where danger lurked at every corner and he would be incapable of having a moment's rest without wondering if his food had been poisoned or if some assassin was waiting right in his room for some midnight chat.
Only when he was strong enough to carry his own weight without fear would he be bold enough to even consider taking such a risk.
Until then, well… he would keep getting as strong as he possibly could. After all, that was simply the only choice.
"I can't believe this escaped my mind. How many system points do I have right now?"
She sighed, voice tired. "About ten thousand seven hundred and blah blah blah."
"Can I see the store before I leave?"
"Humph! I am going to sleep. Later!"
"You… you can't just do that!"
She vanished right after, Elias only looking on helplessly at the spot she had been moments ago.
He shook his head, willing himself to disappear from the realm as he vanished right after!
When he appeared again, the cabin was still dark with everyone asleep. Making his way into the bathroom, he changed into a new set of clean clothes, throwing the old tattered ones into the trash at the end of the cabin.
When he came back, he crept into his sleeping bag with a yawn, checking his phone to find out he barely had two hours of sleep before morning. Beside him Eric snored, the sound of it particularly irritating to the ears.
Elias exhaled, thinking of how crazy things had gotten for the past few hours.
Everything that had happened to him the entire night—from entering the Mirrorth down to the time he spent checking his rewards in the Realm—had taken a freaking eight bloody hours!
Elias shook his head, marveling at how he had been weak enough to be the weakest in the train a few hours ago, and now he stood at the verge of entering the Apprentice stage, even capable of doing what an Apprentice does through the use of the Pyre Weave.
"What a crazy day," he mumbled, his hazy eyes closing, only to wake up an hour later as a fierce roar shook the cabin.
"EVERYONE WAKE THE FUCK UP. GET YOUR ASSES TO THE FRONT OF THE CABIN RIGHT NOW!"