A few hours before Barnabus teleported to the Fire Mine, William and Carl had left through the front entrance. A few Golden Core Cultivators noticed them, but with William's newfound strength, they didn't stand a chance.
Before they could even cry out in alarm, each of the Cultivators was struck on the back of the neck and knocked out. Their Space Rings were stolen, and William wiped every tracking Array attached to their belongings before leaving.
He thought about killing the Cultivators, but after sensing a trail of consciousness leading in another direction, William thought better of it. According to the System, the trail was some sort of Soul Link, which usually went to an Artifact someplace else.
If the thieves were killed, the Artifact would probably warn the Thieves' Guild and he would probably be attacked again. Given that they were in a hurry, William didn't have time to fight head-on with the Thieves' Guild.
He and Carl took a random path until they were roughly 40 kilometers away from any human life, then William created a long-distance portal to return to the Far West Forest Region. They appeared a little over sixty kilometers away from Blue Moon City, so it would only take a few hours to reach the City gates.
POTENTIAL POINTS: 328180
William didn't even know how many Greater Fire Shards he had extracted from the cave, but two of his Titanium Space Rings were completely full and he remembered spending almost an entire day crafting storage boxes out of stone to keep the Shards in good condition.
He hadn't used any Potential Points in the last six days, not even taking the time to upgrade any of his Talents. William didn't know how long he had until the Beast Tide, so he pushed himself to put every last moment into extracting and storing the Shards.
Even the Mining Talent wasn't upgraded, since it would only improve his knowledge of the process but wouldn't increase the speed at which the materials were extracted. That seemed to be something that William couldn't speed up, no matter what he did.
Since extracting the Fire Shards took a great deal of care and precision, even upgrading his Speed Talent wouldn't help. If anything, it would just raise the chances of making a mistake and losing the Greater Fire Shard.
He found this out the hard way six days ago, when he had just upgraded his Acrobatics Talent. The increased speed caused William to accidentally tap with the chisel in the wrong spot, leading the entire Shard to shatter into dozens of pieces.
This happened a few more times until William was accustomed to his own speed. He tried a few other ways to increase his efficiency, but after each method failed and the losses started to affect his Potential Points, William opted to go back to what he was previously doing.
William reverted his identity to "Yuming", the Blacksmith and Healer with the Life, Space, and Earth Elements. Once he had fully changed, he and Carl approached the City and entered the gates without any issue.
The Elemental Beast Tide was already showing signs of movement, but it likely wouldn't reach the city until the following day. They had made good time.
X-Rank Bonus Effects:
-Unbreakable: Your mind can handle the toughest situations and can handle any pain. No longer lose consciousness while in pain. Pain reduced by 99%.
-Unforgettable: Extremely high resistance to enemy memory-related and mind-restricting abilities.
-Mental Perception: Your brain sends constant mental waves to scan your surroundings, allowing you to perfectly understand the situation within 100 feet of yourself even with your eyes closed.
Next rank up: Requirements Locked. Ascend or upgrade the System to A-Rank to unlock the next Rank.
———
Wow... was all William could think when he looked at the array of new abilities. He hadn't checked the status of the SSR-Rank Mind Talent, but he remembered that when the Talent was SS-Rank, it only had one ability that increased his mental capacity.
Additionally, it only had one bonus effect, which was now labeled as Unforgettable. Even this had improved, and now granted extremely high resistance.
He knew that the X-Rank was the highest available, but when William saw the next rank was locked and not unavailable, it made him curious. The only problem was that he would need to Ascend or raise the System to A-Rank, both of which equally as difficult.
Though getting the System to A-Rank might be easier with the cave in the Southern Plains...
William checked the time to see it was only just after midnight, so he still had plenty of time to do another X-Rank upgrade. He scrolled through the System Panel and chose to upgrade the Arrays Talent next, as was only customary.
-50000 PP
Like before, the System shut down his senses and notified him that the upgrade would proceed. Thankfully, he wasn't forced to sit like this for long, as the System pulled his consciousness into a one hundred-thousand-year simulation, where William did nothing but perform millions of different Arrays at a level above Complete.
These Arrays were different from the rest, since they weren't given a name per-say, but a number. He received small bits of information that appeared to be hints related to Ascension. The System explained that the Arrays he was learning now were called Tier 6 Arrays.
The other Arrays were also given Tiers. Basic Arrays were at Tier 1, while Intermediate was Tier 2, Advanced Tier 3, Perfect Tier 4, and Complete Tier 5. This was how the Ascended Cultivators named Arrays, since the levels were more than just a simple name.