Chapter 272 - Path of Ascendance

Hammering away at the armour, sweat dripped off Helion's face. Every hit on the armour would purify and enhance the foundations ever so slightly. Should he fail to control the power behind the hit, it would only cause damage and cause the upgrade to fail.

Stomping down with his foot, he sent the materials into the air and had them converge towards the armour.

While this was happening, Shiro furrowed her brows.

'The mana's becoming violent. If this continues, I don't think Helion would be able to control the mana enough for him to upgrade the armour.' She thought to herself.

As much as she wanted to help, should she interfere, it would only increase the chance of failure.

"Tch." Clicking her tongue in annoyance, she stepped back a bit more and watched patiently.

It was unknown how long this would take so Shiro decided to do something productive. After all, spending several hours watching Helion upgrade her armour was a waste of time. She could easily use this to train her newly acquired martial arts.

Sitting down on the floor, she calmed her mind.

As she had previously stated, the first stage was to know oneself and hesitation would fade from her movements.

'Who am I as a person?' She mused to herself.

In one sense, she has multiple personas that she likes to 'wear'. Even her main one was a by-product of her taking things light-heartedly so that her mind can relax from all the serious things in life.

As one who was betrayed and experimented on, her mental state was always in a state of seriousness where she was suspicious of everyone. When she first became friends with Lyrica, that was her trying to change herself back and enjoy life now that she had a second chance.

But the serious side of her knew that if she was to just relax, she could be killed at any moment. Life was like a venus fly trap. It'll lure you with a sweet scent only to then consume you.

While she could say that all of it was 'her' as a being, that wasn't answering the question of the heart seriously.

If she was to slowly chip away at this collectiveness, she'll be left with a single element that defines her most basic trait which is the foundation of everything that she chooses to do.

Should that foundation be optimism, it will mean that she had done everything out of the kindness of her heart and believed that everyone was good. Which she could say was complete and utter bullsh*t.

Should she be truly 'kind', then she would have never taken up the sword and slaughter all those that opposed her.

Then was it anger? That wasn't it either. If her basic principle was anger, then she would have never extended a helping hand to Lyrica.

If neither the good nor the evil was her, then what was she?

"Flawed avenger…" She muttered softly with a smile. She is one that wishes to bathe in the hands of her killer and yet desires a normal peaceful life. Which is why she befriended Lyrica.

But she knew that 'normal' and 'peaceful' were impossible for her since these are the very things that she fears.

In order to obtain these, she'll have to give up her power and control. Two that she held close to her heart as she hated the very thought of being unable to do anything.

The last time she had a normal and peaceful life, she was captured and subjected to torture.

With one side of her that desired violence and hatred, and another that wished to cherish things that she had obtained, she was flawed to the point of being the very thing that had the biggest chance of destroying everything she held dear because of her nature as an avenger.

As she continued to ponder about her nature, she decided that her most prominent nature was none other than that of a berserker.

"I am a berserker that treads the path of blood to reach my enemy. I have long given up the concept of normality to chase for more power. I search for allies to stand by my side so that I can increase the chances of achieving my vengeful desire." She muttered with a smile.

A blood red radiance was slowly emitted from her body as she opened her eyes.

-Is that really true?-

A foreign voice whispered in her ear.

Furrowing her brows, Shiro looked around in suspicion.

Before she could answer, she received several notifications regarding her choice of nature.

[Ancient Heart Enlightenment -> Berserker Heart

Yin Style Asura's Path -> Path of Ascendance

Path of Ascendance: Berserker Path gained.

Four truth paths discovered:

Phantom Path: Truth of the hidden world.

Asura Sword Path: Truth of weapons.

Celestial Path: Truth of magic.

Berserker Path: Truth of the heart.

Title gained: Seeker of Truths.

Seeker of Truths (Stage 4):

Whenever you use a martial art associated with one of the 'truths', you temporarily gain a 10% increase in stats.

Stages correspond to the number of truth's you've discovered. The higher the stage, the bigger the stat increase.]

Surprised at the sheer amount of notifications that she received, she took a moment to sort it all out.

'So I've evolved Yin Style Asura's path to Path of Ascendance. Not only does the effects of my martial arts increase, but the risk of losing myself to 5th phantom has also disappeared. I can most likely synergise the 5th phantom with the new Berserker Path to amplify the benefits.' She thought to herself in surprise.

'To think that understanding a single martial arts manual of this quality could bring so many benefits.'

On top of removing the danger of 5th phantom, she had gained a title that improved her stats temporarily whenever she used her martial arts.

This encouraged her to seek out more martial art manuals of the same quality or higher so that she could discover more 'truths'.

Looking down at her phone, she was surprised to see that 3 hours had passed and Helion was still trying to upgrade her armour.

However, she realised something shocking.

'He's using so much mana that this place can barely recover to keep up with demand.' She widened her eyes in surprise.

Pausing in his swing, Helion's figure swayed for a moment as he gritted his teeth and slammed the hammer down one last time.

*BANG!

His body was sent flying backwards as Shiro quickly intercepted him and stopped him from slamming against the wall.

"How is it?" She asked while looking at the glowing set of armour that was being drowned in an endless torrent of flames.

"I don't know. It's in the final stage and all I can do is hope that the preparation was sufficient." Helion replied. He had no more strength in his body and could barely keep his eyes open.

"I see…"

Waiting in silence, they watched the armour closely, hoping that the upgrade would be a success.

*CRACK!!!

A sudden fracture split across the armour as Shiro widened her eyes.

Quickly slamming her palm into the ground, ice erupted out from around the cave and set up several walls of ice between them and the armour.

*BOOM!!!!!!

Exploding into thousands of pieces, the energy that was released by the explosion shattered the defensive walls one by one.

Clicking her tongue, Shiro added more mana to the remaining walls, reinforcing them as much as she could.

*PING PING PING PING!!!

Smashing through her defences, the explosion soon lost its momentum with only two walls left to destroy.

"Hais…" Signing in relief, Shiro thawed the ice and saw the charred aftermath of the explosion.

"Sorry. It seems like the upgrade was a failure." Helion smiled bitterly.

"It's fine. It was a gamble to begin with." Shiro shook her head.

With her armour shattering into a thousand pieces, there was no way that she could use it again.

'Well I guess I'll have to farm in some dungeons so that I can get some armour pieces to use until I find the next set armour.' She sighed.

Letting Helion recover, they made their way out of the charred dungeon.

"Give me a day or so. I'll try to make you a purple grade armour as a replacement." Helion suggested.

"Don't push yourself too much. It's the thought that counts." Shiro smiled.

"I understand but I will try regardless." He shook his head in determination.

Making their way back to the workshop, Shiro saw a woman standing in front of the door with a small smile.

"Long time no see." Aarim smiled as her eyes were focused on Shiro.