***
[Seed of Self Annihilation]: The fate of destruction looms over your existence; your life will soon end, and your body is weak. Pushing the body will expedite the process, so be careful.
[You will die in 190(-140) days.]
"It's fine, once I rank up, it should go back up."
In the silence and dim lightning of the tent, Ren answered Aria's worried eyes with reassurance.
"Still…"
As Aria's voice lingered, Ren turned to her and showed 5 fingers.
Aria tilted her head, stopping her discharge of mana, and reached out, grasping his hand.
"A-Aria?"
"Isn't this what you wanted?"
Staring at her confused eyes, Ren let out a chuckle at her misunderstanding.
"No, I meant that I've reached 0 days on my fate 5 times."
"Ah…"
Aria blushed, letting go of his hand.
Smiling, Ren continued speaking,
"I'm not stupid, am I?"
"You can be an idiot at times."
"Aria…"
"I'm joking."
"That wasn't funny though."
"Then I guess I was telling the truth."
Letting out a sigh, Ren touched his bandages, feeling the mana contained within.
"Anyways, I know what I'm doing when it comes to my fate, you know that right?"
Although reaching 0 days on a timer that represented your death 5 separate times was far from smart, the fact that Ren was still alive despite all of that was evidence of his ability.
"I know, I really do, we need to get stronger and as quickly as we can, but still… I don't like seeing you get hurt, Ren."
Aria turned towards Ren, her glowing Golden eyes were slightly sharp with worry.
'This girl…'
Her worry warmed Ren's heart, and he understood her, infact he was the same.
They've met recently, although they didn't know what the other looked like; their messages spanning decades created a relationship unlike any they've ever had.
After both living a life of loss upon more loss, why wouldn't they hold onto the person who supported them, the person who was still here and alive?
Subconsciously, over the years, the pair had started to depend on each other, and now that they've met in person, this dependence didn't lessen, but instead grew even more.
As they stared into each other's eyes, they realized that their thoughts were the same, both turning away from each other.
Aria smiled. She was about to lean on his shoulder, but stopped seeing the bandages.
Not wanting Ren to be more hurt, she instead started pumping more mana into them, while speaking softly.
"This isn't good, Ren…"
"What isn't good?"
"This dependence… it will harm us in the future."
"I agree, too much of anything is bad."
"Does that mean you're going to leave?"
"I can't, and even if I could, I wouldn't."
"How romantic of you."
"Romantic? I'm just telling the truth."
"You're so dense, you know?"
"Aria…"
"Hmph!"
Aria pouted in annoyance before letting out a chuckle.
"I'm happy, Ren."
"You are? Why's that?"
"I got to meet you in person, why wouldn't I be?"
From when they first met all the way until her final fight in Solaris, Aria believed she wouldn't be able to meet Mr. Night in person.
Yet here he was sitting next to her.
His name was Ren, and he wasn't as old as she thought, but he was reckless and determined, just as she saw in his messages.
"Well, I'm happy as well."
"You'd better be! Isn't just the sight of me a source of joy?"
"Yeah, yeah, but do you know what we need to do first?"
"What is it?"
"Defeat the Chaos God."
"You're seeming oddly invested in that… do you have a savior complex?"
"Maybe I do, maybe I don't. I mean, if we don't do anything, the world will end, right?"
"But Ren, how important really are we? Compared to a rank 10, aren't we ants? Plus, isn't this whole setup wrong? What responsibility and reason do we have for this world? We don't even know when this god will appear."
In their past life, although the two hadn't seen an actual rank 10, they had briefly seen power near that level.
If what they saw was weaker than a fully fledged rank 10, even the two former gods wondered how they could ever win.
At the many questions Aria had, Ren laughed,
"We aren't important, and yes, to a rank 10, we are ants. And for responsibility and reason, we will find that as we journey through this unknown world, right?"
Aria's eyes glowed at his answer, a smile forming on her face.
"How mature of you."
"There is also another reason I want to survive."
"Another reason?"
Ren stared straight at Aria, who tilted her head in confusion before her eyes widened, her smile getting bigger.
"What? Really?!"
"You really take me for a dense brick, huh?"
"Aren't you one?"
The two chuckled, even though they questioned their capabilities and responsibility to kill the Chaos God; the choice had already been made, from the moment they met.
From the moment they realized the other's identity.
They would kill the Chaos God even if this god was rank 10, even if their journey seemed hopeless.
Because they had a reason to, a reason that came in the form of the person next to them,
A now open secret danced in both their minds.
Their minds were full of perseverance.
Hearts full of hope.
Eyes of resolve.
'Sera.. no, what if it's a boy? Uwah, a mini Ren!'
'It's time to lock in!'
Their thoughts full of… determination?
…
Rank 2
If you knew how to count, you'd know it was the rank after rank 1.
This counting continued all the way up to rank 10.
Each rank had something that made it stand out, as seen before, rank 1 created a core, the very foundation of your journey up the ranks, boosting your power many times.
Another rank they've seen was the rank 5 Hale, whose mana could touch upon a person's soul and mind, ending a fight before it could even start.
But what made rank 2 special?
"Mana Veins!"
"A very focused flow of mana."
"Liquid mana and use of Aura!"
"Your mana is faster and stronger."
Ren spoke with excitement while Aria spoke calmly, both nodding with each other.
Although the fourth rank had the highest jump in power at the start, it in no way meant the 2nd and 3rd ranks were useless.
They were the foundation of the fourth rank, and the two were now trying to rank up.
The pair looked around, and the sunlight was hitting the forest around them.
It was morning the next day, and after the Aureus knights put away camp, they started moving towards the capital as planned, entering the forest a couple of minutes ago.
Right now, they were taking a short break to organize and prepare for their arrival in the capital, and since the pair had some time, they snuck off.
Ren sat cross-legged on the ground. He looked at his bandaged arm and sighed.
"It'll probably take a week before it's healed. Are you disappointed?"
"No, not really, if not for this, it would take months to recover."
"That move you used, folding blankets of mana… the [Era Fist], right?"
"You remember me mentioning that?"
Aria chuckled at this question,
"How could I not? You were messaging about it for weeks when you learned it."
"Ah…"
Ren smiled with nostalgia, thinking of his days trying to understand Cadvadi's martial arts.
"Anyways, let's begin, we don't have much time."
"Right, just step in if something goes wrong."
Aria nodded, standing and circulating her mana while calming her mind.
Ren's control jumped sharply after using Hale's mana, although he was still injured; that was only his body, his ability to control mana had jumped enough so that he could start to rank up.
Focusing his mind inside his body, he visualized the core and Mana landscape as he did in the forest when he first started to create it.
Ocean blue mana formed the dark blue core; it glowed resolutely, and the mana inside only half filled the core.
'Veins…'
The name would make one think of the veins that carried blood, but to be more accurate, they were more of a mix between veins and nerves from the body.
'Their purpose is to transport mana.'
Mana could be used even at rank 0, but this mana wasn't focused or flowed efficiently.
When you became rank 1, your control over your mana grew, concentrating it and flowing it much more easily.
But even that wasn't perfect.
The purpose of mana veins was to concentrate your mana into small veins for efficiency and higher output.
Ranking up increases all your stats, be it mana control, capacity, or output, as well as your physical and mental stats.
Since Rank 2 was next, it also increased all your stats, but focused mainly on increasing your output,
For warriors, you can use more of your strength, for mages, they can use more of their computational power, and for both, mana jumped.
Ren looked up in his mind and spotted a large floating structure, though not as large as the core.
The structure was a mana vein that he created last night.
Moving up, he was now above the vein; it stretched far, reaching all the way to the end of his landscape.
When he used mana, it would shoot from the core to the end and exit the body through a mana exit point.
With the vein, he could control that course, improving its efficiency and holding the mana together to make the output more powerful.
It was like a train track for Mana to be transported outside.
The vein wasn't connected to the core yet; it was only connected to the Mana exit point at the end of the Mana landscape.
'I need to create all veins first before I can connect them.'
If he connected the vein right now, it would create an imbalance, and the vein would burst, injuring him.
By creating all the veins first, Ren would create a balance that wouldn't cause the veins to burst.
Looking at the vein, Ren was pretty happy with himself.
A single vein would typically take days to make, yet he did it in one night. What was even more incredible was that the vein Ren made was one of the 16 main veins that would connect to his core.
They were much larger in size and branched off into nearly 30 different veins each at different exits, and subsequently, much harder to make.
'Just 400 more to go!'
Ren's push to rank 2 had begun.