Elias felt high, like he was floating somewhere in the clouds.
The breakthrough was instant, the feeling akin to being elevated to a higher state of being. His mind felt like it had stretched to become something vast, the numerous thoughts in his head processing at a speed that was far faster than before.
With his eyes, he suddenly felt like he could see further away, the extent of it so ridiculous that he could now recognize a blade of grass in the distant mountains from the top of the statue where he stood.
To make things even worse—or who was he even kidding, even better—he was still capable of breaking through again.
Name: Elias Verdan
Echoform Fragments: 264
Amount required to breakthrough: 250
Level: Intermediate Novice (F) (Ready for breakthrough.)
Mental Strength: 3000/3000
His mental strength had more than doubled, leaving him giddy at how much it would increase when he reached the Advanced Novice stage.
So, without wasting time, he initiated another breakthrough again.
BOOM
Shocking reverberations of power resounded from him again, as if an explosion had gone off in his body. This one took longer than the former, taking quite some time before the energy pulsing through his body in waves eventually died down.
Elias groaned, lifting his hands, which now felt weightless, into the air. If breaking through to the Intermediate Stage felt like floating in the clouds, then this one simply had him ascending the heavens!
"Damn!"
Elias called on the tab again, his eyes shining at the new line of text that had appeared in his Level and Mental Strength tab.
Name: Elias Verdan
Echoform Fragments: 16
Amount required to breakthrough: 500
Level: Advanced Novice (F+)
Mental Strength: 6950/7000
However, Elias' eyes couldn't help but narrow at the reduced mental strength. He had noticed that after each breakthrough, his mental strength seemed to be full, meaning that fifty of it was already consumed after he had just uttered a single word.
It had never been this bad!
"A drawback is still a drawback, no matter what," Elyndra replied, playing with her hair as she sat floating midair. "It probably eats at your mental strength in percentages, not in fixed numerical values like you think. So you can't cheat your way out of this one by becoming strong enough to ignore it."
"Fine, I get it, okay!"
Elias didn't like this at all. Just like Elyndra said, he had been under the impression that the moment he got pretty strong, he could probably ignore the amount of Mental Strength that talking took from him, the value likely becoming a drop in an ocean of his vast mental reserves.
It looked like he was completely wrong though, since the thing drained him more the stronger he became.
In the end, he wasn't going to escape the fate of getting dumb. While he could still talk freely enough to be comfortable, it made him incapable of saying anything during battle, at least if he didn't want to end up as some kind of sitting duck with a pink bow tie on.
"There is a way to help you with regards to this though. At least enough for it not to be a horrible problem if you are taken by a surprise attack after you just finished running your mouth to some unfortunate twerp."
Elias couldn't help but twitch his eyebrow, watching the tiny fairy speak while she floated upside down.
"The tree in the Voidsong. That's one of the branches of Sylvaen, the Listening Tree with its roots tethered to… well, saying the name will make you go mad, unfortunately. Point is, it's capable of helping you recover your Mental Strength three times faster than you are capable of when you meet the requirements."
Elias stood with his mouth agape. "So you're telling me… that colossal tree is merely a branch of some even bigger one? The hell?!"
Elyndra rolled her eyes as she floated to his face, looking at him with a smug smile. "You actually have no idea how big and wondrous the universe is, nor can you even imagine it with your pitiful strength. Humph! Just focus on getting stronger so that you can broaden your limited horizons, country bumpkin."
Elias took a deep breath, reining in his temper. This tiny gremlin was so infuriating—one day he would get strong enough to give her a good spanking!
Her tiny face twisted in anger when she read his thoughts, her body shooting to his hair as she began to pull.
"Bully… how dare you!"
"Stop! Fine, I am sorry!"
She pulled harder, his flailing hands trying to get her off to no avail.
"Humph! The next time you dare entertain such thoughts, I am going to punch you in the nose!"
She shouted, leaving his hair and turning to float midair again, looking at him with that infuriating, smug smile as if saying,
"Do you dare to do anything, huh?!"
Elias gritted his teeth, rubbing his tingling scalp. "What are these conditions needed to get the tree to help me recover my mental reserves?"
The concept of recovery at three times faster was too good to be true. Something like that was probably capable of restoring his Mental Strength even faster than he was using it himself. Unless he used a skill that required high Mental reserves, he could probably keep going forever.
It was truly world-breaking.
What he didn't know was whether it could help him combat his drawback, although he doubted it. His drawback seemed to be capable of draining his mental strength at an even faster rate, so it didn't necessarily negate it entirely.
But he would see how it worked for himself when he fulfilled the conditions required to use the mental strength acceleration effect of the tree.
"You will need to get the Echoform fragment of a Resonant Tyrant…" Elyndra began, Elias feeling his mind already racing with the first line of words.
Echoforms found in Mirrorths are usually ranked by strength based on the Mirrorths they occupy, since Echoforms in the same grade of Mirrorth are often equal in strength.
Echoforms in red-graded Mirrorths usually contain Lesser Echoforms. Above them is the Blue-graded Mirrorth, which contains Distorted Echoforms.
Violet-graded Mirrorths are occupied by Corrupted Echoforms. The Yellow grade above that by Luminous Echoforms, Orange grade by Abyssal Echoforms, Purple grade by Cataclysmic Echoforms, and then the Cyan grade by…
He hadn't really heard much about that particular grade, as the Harmonic Council had hidden all information about that particular Mirrorth. But people often summarized that Mirrorth and all its insidious inhabitants under one word.
DOOM.
Now, each of these Mirrorths contained bosses that were way stronger than the others, bringing forth a need to categorize them separately from the others, since they were stronger than the Echoforms in their Mirrorths and weaker than most of the Echoforms in the Mirrorths above them in grade.
The boss of the red-graded Mirrorth that Elias had fought before, Berrot, was classified as an Echo Warden. And the boss of the blue Mirrorth containing Distorted Echoforms was called the Resonant Tyrant.
And Elias was in no way strong enough to slay one. At least not any time soon.
"And you will need a golden elixir from the Choir of Dawn. Both of them should provide the tree with enough energy to recover some of its uses, I guess."
Elyndra continued, floating midair as if she hadn't just uttered something totally ridiculous.
The golden elixir from the Choir of Dawn was something that even B-ranked existences fought for, capable of bringing someone that strong back from the arms of death as long as they had a breath left in them.
In what way was he even qualified to go after something like that right now?!
Elias sighed, turning his face away from the tiny gremlin back to his interface.
It was time to evolve his class.