“So that’s your son-in-law, Arthur?” Derek, the father of the boy Stark had defeated, laughed, “Didn’t know your daughter was taken… and here I thought Karl had a chance!”
“Don’t push your luck, Derek,” Arthur’s smile disappeared as soon as Stark left, “Don’t ever think my daughter will get with a thug like your son.”
“…” Derek was ranked 45th in the ranking, which would seem great for anyone else, but in this room where everyone is strong, rank is everything, and those with lower ones needed to respect those that were stronger.
“Who is he?” a woman asked, approaching the ‘Archer King’.
“Hm…” Arthur thought for a while, and everyone watched, awaiting his reaction, “An acquaintance, I guess…”
And so just like that, the party resumed, although it was much more chaotic as many were left wondering who that mysterious boy was.
He intruded this place with no fear in his eyes, beat two powerful classifiers, and left after talking with the top 8 classifier, the ‘Archer King’, about something.
The Bunny-Masked Man’s reputation grew once more.
***
[…]
Stark was still in the elevator, but his body was sweating all over, and he was holding his head tighly, his pupils shaking like never before.
He had acted confident in front of everyone, and even up until entering the elevator, but inside… he could feel it: death.
He made sure not to make it obvious, but he had noticed all thorough his stay inside this room that almost all of the classifiers had their hands on their weapons.
They were all glaring at him, their auras enough to suffocate him.
The [Warriors] had their hands on their sword’s handles, ready to cut Stark in a single second, the [Magus] had their staffs in hand, particles of magic already visible at their edges as if one single word from them could crush him, the [Soul Wielders] were already beginning to summon their hearts in hand.
Basically… everyone was ready to kill him if he ever did something wrong.
Luckily, Stark had managed to survive by focusing most of the attention on the fight and his discussion with Arthur, otherwise it would have been game over.
“…!” he put his back against the wall and breathed in and out slowly, in the end… he had managed to do it…
And yet…
Fear wasn’t the only thing Stark was feeling, no… there was another emotion he couldn’t describe inside of him, one that made him smile even with all the sweat and while his aura was shaky because of the memories of his possible death.
Was it thrill? Excitement? Ecstasy?
He didn’t know… but at least he balanced it all out.
And so by the time the elevator stopped on the first floor and he got out, his face was back to normal, and he managed to take complete control over his aura.
‘Need to get stronger…’ he mumbled, his eyes burning yet again, and a vortex forming inside of them, ‘Stronger… stronger… stronger…’
He kept repeating this word over and over until he reached the entrance door again, and left.
Once outside, Stark took a deep breath and started walking home. The events of the day had left him shaken, but also energized.
His plan of showing himself to the others, while also forcing Arthur to respond positively to his return was a complete success.
[‘Rift Conqueror’ academy entrance in one month…]
He still had one month before finally beginning his REAL entrance into the world of classifiers.
He was frankly interested to see what this school was about as he knew that it had a 95% if not more failure rate, meaning that out of 1000 people allowed, only around 50 would pass the first year, and even less the second.
But until then… he needed to become stronger, way stronger…
Karl was simply beaten since he had underestimated Stark, and Aoki didn’t have his real arrows.
It wasn’t complete luck, of course, but it was just that Stark took advantage of the circumstances to come out on top.
‘…’
Stark reached his hotel room quite easily after hailing for a taxi and he jumped on his bed, exhausted, it was around 5pm, but he was still tired nonetheless since fighting decreased his stamina.
‘Ways to get stronger…’ but he kept thinking of that.
[Memories Museum] was his most obvious option, but it didn’t increase his level, and training his movements would have a limit at some point
The second option was the [Devil’s Abyss Key] which he had gotten from killing Judicator, but he currently had no idea where it was located, and how he could open it…
He still remembered that its description stated that three ‘Godless Demon’ apostles were inside, and it would surely be his hardest rift yet… but for now he was safe.
He played with the key for a little while, inspecting it to see if it had any secrets, it was completely crimson, with traces of rust all over it, and its edge had two devil horns as well as holes which resembled a skull.
And when he taped it with his finger three times… something happened.
~GROOOWALLl~
A large sound could be heard all over Stark’s room, which surprised him, and then…
A crimson panel, one that had a fire aura around it, as well as a two black horns on top, and a moving tail on its back, appeared.
[The ‘Devil’s Abyss’ rift has not been opened yet, but it will be available very soon.]
[Whoever owns this key, watch out, many will try to take it from you, and trying to go inside by yourself is guaranteed death.]
[Good luck… the devils are waiting for you…]
‘Huh…’ he had never seen that before since he immediately put the key into his [Spatial Inventory], but it seemed like that thing was much important than he expected.
Was it another secret rift that would cause uproar? It sure looked like it if even the key warned him that people would want to steal it from him.
In the end, he decided to put it back into the inventory and he would keep it there until he found the entrance of that rift.
‘Last options to get stronger… find a common rift people go to and level up there, or go outside to the dangerous zone…’ this was all he could think off as finding unique rifts like he did before wasn’t easy, and he couldn’t ask Arthur for another one after such an event today, ‘Welp, I think I’ll just find out tomorrow…’
He spent the rest of the day lazing around in his room, and watching videos of people analyzing his fights (narcissistic much?), he frankly enjoyed being in the spotlight.
And so just like that… it was time for Stark to sleep, the sun had sipped below the horizon and the moon rose up to watch over him in the night.
Although… the moon wasn’t the only thing watching him… but he didn’t know that yet.
