Chapter 157: True mana (IV)

"You have the freedom to request for anything you want, as long as it is the rank as the mission." Walden said.

"Alright, I agree to your request." Zirrack said with a wide grin.

"The info about the Rugors will be shortly sent to…" Walden was speech was cut short, when Zirrack cut the communication link.

'Why am I not surprised…' Walden couldn't help but shake his head. This wasn't his first nor the 50th encounter with the Zirrack, so he acted as if nothing happened.

"Send the info of the mission and that of the rugors to Mr. King Slayer's adventurer amulet.' Guild master warden said to the stunned Susan.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that, regular holding of one's breath isn't good for the heart." Guild master Walden said to Susan just as she was about to leave the office, causing her cheeks to turn pink out of embarrassment.

"Thanks for the advice Guild Master." Susan gave a deep bow in order to hide her embarrassment.

…

"Let's see what I can find before leaving..." Zirrack said as he controlled the fire particles around him to form a faint purple fire dome that spread out to more than 600 meters away from him.

The fiery dome served the same purpose as that of the system's sensory skill, but it was more than 5 times powerful.

The purple fiery dome let Zirrack get information of every living and non-living thing within the range from their heat signature. It drew a kind of map in his mind making nothing, even non-living things to escape his senses.

For example, once the fiery dome came in contact with a pebble, it will transmit the details to his mind and due to his intuition and years of practice, Zirrack could easily make heads and tails of them.

"Since there isn't anything worth my time, I will be leaving." After scanning more than half of the mountain's surface and found no beast worth his attention, Zirrack declared his 'vacation' paused as he placed the rugor corpses inside his dimensional amulet.

"Just in time. Let's just hope this doesn't take long and this unknown beast is worth my time." Zirrack thought to himself as darkish-purple flames burst out of his body.

BOOM!

Zirrack took flight and in a matter of seconds, he broke through the sound barrier, heading for the Bulian hills.

…

Back to the present.

After more than 8 hours of cultivation, Blake finally opened his eyes.

"That would be 10 gold coins, thank you..." Brian said as he collected the gold coins from Castiel.

After 6 hours of cultivating, their minds felt tired and couldn't maintain the level of concentration needed to continue cultivating.

They decided to take a rest and wait for Blake to get done so they could chat, but after 30 minutes Blake kept on turning beast cores to dust, so they decided to place a bet on how long he would last.

Castiel had the opinion that Blake would stop at the seventh hour, but Brian thought that with Blake's level of willpower and determination, he would surely reach the 8th hour.

Unknown to the both of them, Blake had a monstrous willpower and mana control greater than what they thought, and if all things were equal he would have gone on longer, but he stopped because he couldn't hear the system.

"Did you guys notice anything while I was cultivating?" Blake asked the duo who had opposite expressions on their faces.

"No, why do you ask?" Castiel asked.

"Well, I have been trying to communicate with the system, but it doesn't seem to reply." Blake's words wiped the smile off Brian's face and deepened Castiel's frown.

From the moment they had entered the underground facility, the system had been the one guiding and explaining everything to them, so the news of its sudden disappearance almost made them enter panic mode.

"Wait, let me try and call up the system's interface." Not letting his fear cloud his judgment, Blake quickly came up with an idea.

[Host information:

Name: Blake Wilson

Strength: Average.

Condition: healthy

Realm: third pillar of the Champion realm.

Awakened elements: Lightning, Fire, and space. 

Current location: Unknown.

System skills: ????]

"Huh, that's new…" For a moment Blake forgot about their system problem and clicked on the system skills section.

[The system is undergoing an upgrade, some information about the system will be unavailable for the time being.] An error message popped up, before taking him back to the main screen.

"So?" The duo asked in unison when they saw Blake's expression filled with expectation.

"It turns out that the system is undergoing some kind of upgrade and would be unavailable for some time." Blake said. 

"Isn't that  the first thing you are meant to do, why did you scare us like that?" Castiel and Brian stared at him with raised brows.

Unknown to both of them, Blake had been so used to the AI feature of the system that he had forgotten about its user interface.

"You told us about its previous upgrade, do you think it has anything to do with your cultivation level?" Castiel asked when he noticed the pattern.

"I think so because the last upgrade happened when I broke into the warrior realm, Now, I think it's because I formed the third pillar of the hourglass." Blake said.

"What?" Blake couldn't help but ask when he saw them looking at him as if they saw a monster.

"Did you just say you just filled up the 24th star as if it was nothing?" Castiel sneered.

"Yeah, what's wrong?" Blake was even more confused by the reply.

"You see, not everyone is a monster like you. we are still at the 20th star." Brian said with a forced smile.

"The gap isn't that…" Just before Blake could complete his sentence, he remembered his condition and quickly stopped before things got worse.

"Wow, I never noticed I was that fast." Blake surprised by the realization.