Chapter 402: Moments before disaster... (Skippable)

Chapter 402: Moments before disaster... (Skippable)



Lia's dorm room.

"Phew... Okay, I covered this wall with our pictures together that we took in the Dragon

Valley; that one on the left is covered in the pictures from our adventure in the Elven Empire."

"As for the rest of the two walls, I have put the other pictures from the academy and other places that we took at random..."

"Seriously, it takes so much effort to manage such a big collection..."

Lia wiped the sweat from her forehead and smiled to herself as if she had accomplished something really good today.

She spent the past whole night managing her collection of her pictures with Rio and the other ones that she secretly took whenever he was sleeping or had his guard down.

"Er... What will you do if he someday comes to your room, though? How will you hide all these?"

Kai, who was lazing around on the ground in his small cat form, couldn't help but roll his eyes when he saw this.

"You seriously wasted the entire night just looking at them for hours and putting them here and there... You know, you can actually go and hug the real him; it's weird how you are so obsessed with his pictures..."

"Don't tell me... Were you born with a hidden talent for being a stalker!?"

Lia pouted her cheeks after hearing those words and spoke in an annoyed tone.

"No! This is solely for the purpose of research, nothing else! You are misunderstanding something! I just like capturing these because I want to remember these memories forever!!" "I am totally innocent!"

Lia said those words with such confidence that Kai had serious doubts about whether this girl even knows if stalking someone is illegal or not.

Lia glanced at the small golem that was rolling on the ground and was playing with a ball that she gave it and said,

"You know, you should be more like RJ; he's always so well behaved and never annoys me like you; maybe you should start behaving like a proper cat from now on..."

Kai rolled his eyes at those words,

"Are you seriously comparing me to that happy-go-lucky little golem who has the mentality of a kid and is always busy in his own world?"

"And in the first place, when did you name it 'RJ'?"

Lia puffed up her chest in pride at that question and replied with great confidence,

"I named it just now... You see, he was given to me by Rio, so I named him 'Rio Junior.' That is what 'RJ' stands for!"

"As I thought, my naming sense is the best!"

Kai put his small cat paw on his head and shook his head like a mother who is completely disappointed at her child's incompetence.

"The next time I meet that stone-faced kid, I must tell him that he mustn't let you name his kids at all costs; your naming sense is really quite unreliable!"

Lia felt a bit embarrassed that her naming sense was considered so bad, so she tried to suggest some other name,

"Er... t-then how about 'Sweet Pie'-"

Kai felt a bit annoyed, so he immediately denied it.

"THAT little fella has a literal miniature SUN inside it's small body; it can wipe out the entire solar system in ONE GO!!"

"Are you sure that something that dangerous should be given such a casual and sweet name!?"

"It would be more believable if we gave him some demon's name, something like Astaroth, Baal!, Etc..."

Lia glanced at the harmless-looking small golem who was playing around on the ground with a plastic ball and was giggling like a kid and had serious doubts whether such a name would really suit it at all.

Just when Lia was busy thinking about a name for the little golem, a small dark red portal opened below her feet, and she got teleported in an instant!

She ate all the candies and emptied the entire space ring last night. Right now, the ring only

has a few changes of clothes in it and some potions and stuff.

There's not a single candy left! Getting teleported somewhere with no candies to survive!

This is a great tragedy!

...

Link's Dorm Room.

"Phew.... Lying down in the bathtub and enjoying the warm water is the best thing..."

As Link is training most of the time of the day, he always likes to lay down in the bathtub for a long time to relax his muscles.

"But seriously, controlling a legendary skill to make it work like a harmless handwarming auxiliary skill... I used to think it would be easy, but now that I am personally trying it..."

"It's so f*cking impossible!!"

Link's legendary skill 'Dao Rhythm' represents harmony with nature and the 'self', in other words, it should be much easier for him to do something like warming hands with the skill.

But the facts prove him wrong.

His skill is not even 'destructive' in nature; it's a hundred times more gentle than 'Sword

Intent', yet controlling it to just warm the hands to some specific mild temperature is already

a very difficult feat.

"It's not a problem when I try to put as much power to attack, but when trying to hold back

and make it more harmless... it becomes difficult..."

Link glanced at his own two hands and sighed.

'My hands blow apart like a balloon being burst whenever I try to do it... I always end up needing a healing potion afterwards to heal myself...'

'And to think that Rio was already doing it a year ago... His mastery over 'sword intent' is

immense...'

Although Link never says words of appreciation on Rio's face, he does respect his rival from

the bottom of his heart.

He has already considered Rio his eternal rival. But seeing Rio pull off such insane feats so easily makes him wonder whether he himself is worthy of rivaling Rio in the first place.

'I clearly have higher talent potential than anyone else, but perhaps Rio has some talent that increases his 'comprehension' to the extreme or something...'

No one in the team Astra knows why Rio is able to advance so fast despite the fact that the test results at his awakening showed that he only had C rank talent potential.

Link himself faced the 'heavenly punishment' when he was born; if Rio really had as much talent as him, he should have faced the 'heavenly punishment' too.

The conclusion that everyone came to is that Rio likely has some kind of talent that increases

his comprehension to the extreme and lets him bypass the talent limits by 'forcefully

breaking' them.

'I guess I will have to train harder to catch up or he will really leave me behind in dust...'

Just as Link was thinking all this while lying naked in the bathtub, a dark red portal suddenly opened below him, and he fell inside instantly.

He didn't even have the time to grab a set of clothes for himself.