81 81 - Hell Flames Level Up

Marcel couldn't close his mouth. He had been trying to count how many times Noah had teleported in battle to get a sense of his ability so the party could strategize in the next Fortress they invaded. But when he counted 15 teleports, he saw that one of the monsters was on fire at various points and that all of these places on fire were caused by Noah's flame.

When Marcel saw this, he thought that Noah would have had to slow down his teleportation speed in order to sustain both abilities, but strangely, the more burning points continued to appear on the monster, the faster Noah would teleport.

At that point, Marcel had to choose just one thing: he could either focus on the battle that was going on around him, or he could focus on Noah's teleporting. He was unable to do both at the same time because of the speed in which the teleportations were taking place. From the amount of explosions and light that Noah was causing, Marcel was assuming he was doing at least one teleport every two seconds.

This was something he concluded was inconceivable. Noah's kind of skill was very unbalanced. He always considered Jasper's Blessing to be very powerful and promising, not in terms of innovation, but in terms of potency. Even when compared against other Blessed Ones who had similar Blessings, if they were in the same ranking, Jasper would come out superior. But comparing Jasper to Noah was impossible.

Jasper's agility was truly much greater than Noah's, perhaps even twice as fast as Noah's when Jasper used the maximum load, but comparing that to someone who can teleport so often over such a short period of time was difficult. This was even more true considering that Noah could attack from both far and near.

He really was right; Noah's gift was never to be a magician. Comparing whether he made a better magician or an assassin, just listening to the amount of teleports would already tell the person the answer. A good wizard could deal with several enemies, but a good assassin could deal with any enemy.

After Jasper cut off one of the monster's eyes, the monster became much more astute and didn't let Jasper take the other eye off him. As Jasper did not have the unpredictability of Noah's teleportation, in the end he had to depend almost exclusively on the group's wizards and archers to hurt the monster.

When the monster had obviously been badly damaged, Marcel and the other warriors approached to end his journey, while Jasper went over to support Noah.

Thus, the battle ended relatively easily. The only thing most notable was Noah's forehead that was getting sweaty, and Jasper, who was breathing heavily on the floor after dodging so much and running from side to side.

"You are a monster!" Jasper shouted as he pointed at Noah.

Noah knew he had passed 100 teleportations, but after that he just stopped counting. In the end, the exp he would earn depended heavily on the distance he teleported. Unfortunately he had a distance limit; otherwise he wouldn't even need a car; he could just teleport from his house to wherever he wanted. But that was not yet possible. Besides, he could only go a few meters more than 100, and he felt very exhausted whenever he did that. Doing that was not at all feasible. 'At least, it's not feasible for now. In the future?… Who knows?' Noah thought with an evil smile as he imagined going anywhere instantly, maybe even going to other planets in the blink of an eye...

Unfortunately this was still a very distant dream. Without first raising the skill to Lv 02, he would not even have a basis for what the growth rate of that skill would be.

As he burned the monsters, Noah noticed that each of the corpses also had a control chip in the belly. These monsters, however, had no scars and seams on their bellies like the first monster, which had made the battle much more problematic, but it was not something that prevented the team from killing all three monsters. The only thing to note was that these chips in the monsters' bellies were also exactly like the chip in the first monster, which only increased the doubts of the Blessed Ones about what was behind all this.

It was obvious to the team that monsters so underdeveloped intellectually wouldn't have enough intelligence to make chips like these, which only further affirmed Noah's theory of "belly control". The problem was that Noah was getting worried about all of this.

Up until then they had come across nothing but doubts when proceeding through this Fortress. It was not enough for them to find dwarves inside this place; now they were discovering that the monsters were being controlled. Their fear was actually who was controlling these monsters... and as for that, looking at the ground, Noah was already starting to get an idea of ​​who it might be.

But at the same time he was pondering these things, Noah received the alert he had been waiting for as soon as half of the second monster had burned. Without even reading the message, Noah felt even more comfortable with his flame. If before he had a little difficulty controlling the flame, now he could make two balls of fire simultaneously without any difficulty. On second thought, Noah decided he needed to test it, as just making two fireballs didn't really seem like a challenge to him. 'I want to test my limits.'

While burning the last monster, Noah decided to play with the flame, and little by little he used his control to transform the flame, that before looked like a ball, into several lines that moved independently.

The other people in the group looked at the last burning monster and saw the flame squirming and creating legs like a spider, causing the burning rate to increase even more because of the greater contact surface. When they looked over at Noah, they realized that he was concentrating and apparently getting more exhausted than when he was teleporting.

'He really is very dedicated to perfecting himself. Maybe if I did the same I could also have more powerful skills in my arsenal...' That's what many of the Blessed around him thought. While they were just resting, Noah, who already had two very powerful skills, did not give up training and was continuously dedicating himself to his training and maybe even unlocking a new skill.

When everyone realized what Noah was doing, instead of the calm and relaxing atmosphere that the group usually had, it was replaced by a heavier and more competitive atmosphere. Nobody wanted to be left behind. When Noah had been elected the main magician of the team, the other magicians started to train even more to maybe one day conquer this position from Noah. Whenever they saw Noah, who was already powerful, they felt even more thirsty for power and a desire to improve, which was great for the group's morale. Previously, that had boiled down only to the magicians of the group, but now that Noah showed himself to be a flexible fighter between short and long range, even the warriors felt pressured to practice more so as not to be left behind.

Noah had no idea what his practice had done to the group; he just wanted to test his control over the flame and he was pleasantly surprised. Perhaps at the next level of skill he would even be able to create a letter of flame. Obviously it would not be nearly as delicate as the letters of the system were, but still it would be a letter made with his control over the flames.

Once again, Noah's imagination had gotten away from him, since now he started imagining the thought of where he would control several flame dragons to fight some monster, and used this magnificent image to motivate himself to keep training and gaining exp. The improvement that the system was causing to him was colossal, and Noah knew that in the future it would be even better.

'I just hope the cost of the skill didn't go up as much as it did last time...' Noah thought, a little worried as he opened the status window to see how it was.

[User: Noah Stern

Level: 03, 16/1600 exp

HP: 14/14

Strength: 14

Agility: 14

Stamina: 14

Skills:

(Hell Flames Lv 03, 18/2500 exp: A technique that consists of invoking the flames of hell itself. The flames of hell were no different from normal flames, but after purifying so many sins and so many sinners, it became the most powerful flame, having even burned the flame god himself, making him beg Lucifer to extinguish the flames before he died.To increase the power of hell's flame ability, the user must burn sins or sinners.

* * After reaching Lv 03 the user's body adapted better to the flame and control over it became even more natural, in addition to making it possible to purify humans corroded by sin. The greater the sin of a human, the greater the benefits. * *)

(Hell Tunneling Lv 01, 286/300 exp: A technique that consists of opening a tunnel to hell and leaving somewhere else in a fraction of a second. The greater the distance, the greater the energy used.

Hell has harbored the souls of sinners since the beginning of time for all eternity, and to support the great number of demons and souls, the area there is many times more expanded than the world of the living. Whenever Lucifer passed through these tunnels, people assumed he was teleporting.)]

'Hmm, even sharing the exp with the others, these two monsters still earned me 8 exp each. Rank D Fortresses are truly more profitable. Now let me see the skill... Two thousand... and five hundred experience points... ' Noah's jaw dropped at the amount of experience the system was asking for to raise his skill level again.

'If this continues like this, will I ever reach S Rank?' Noah thought a little dejectedly. But reading the description of the skill, Noah's jaw dropped quickly, forgetting why he was discouraged.

'What does that mean? Now can I purify humans?!?!' Noah asked himself, extremely surprised.

Looking at the bodies of the dwarves scattered on the floor, Noah had an idea...

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Please read the author's notes down here! :3 ↓↓↓