Chapter 74 - Intermediate Stage Grandmaster

Arthur slumped down to the ground and began to meditate. As he entered a trance, a vibrant light began to shine out from him in every color and powerful energy shot out from him.

The energy burst caused a rush of wind around the room, a lot of things fell and caused a ruckus.

Cattleya had put up a barrier earlier so even if one were to stand right In front of his door, they would not sense a thing.

Seeing the iridescent light shining from his body, Cattleya was shocked and rendered speechless.

'All affinities?!'

This was something Alexia hadn't seen, she hadn't checked for it as it was extremely rare.

The light meant that Arthur had met the conditions to awaken his affinities for all elements and their corresponding laws.

Even among progenitors that had most affinities their race could possibly have, very few possessed affinities for all elements and their corresponding laws.

Arthur's affinity exceeded that and even stretched towards being compatible with most of the known laws.

Naturally, there were those he still did not possess the affinity for. One can't have everything in life after all.

After about an hour, the iridescent light stopped shining from Arthur and turned into one bright light and began to shake his body.

His bones and muscles were being reconstructed. After trembling for about ten more minutes, his body began to show a different phenomena.

'I expected this, but it seems it still wasn't enough huh?'

His face skin began to crack faintly. It was different from when his body was unable to withstand his energy.

'Body reconstruction huh?'

The cracks began to spread all over his body. It was as if he would shatter with even a slight touch. 

It was then Arthur moved as if he was uncomfortable and all the cracks shattered, turned to dust and disappeared.

The energy wind that blew began to calm down and he opened his eyes.

Seeing his mother's smiling face in front of him, he knew he had successfully advanced.

He checked his body and was slightly stunned.

"Intermediate stage grandmaster realm, never thought I'd experience the phenomenon of going up two stages at once."

"You have already met the energy requirements for the superior stage of the legendary realm so you can rest assured that you'd be fine till that level, if you deal with your rampaging energies, that is."

Arthur laughed and dusted himself, standing up, he realized his body felt lighter than before.

"Like this, I can last for about 10-25 minutes before my energy goes haywire and starts trying to make me implode. 

It depends on how much energy I use, and for the amount I can control, I think it can let me survive an attack from an inferior stage legendary, without any strengthening magic or artifacts."

That was true, Arthur could now fight inferior stage legendries without energy and have the leeway to think about winning.

Of course if he tried that with an intermediate stage or higher then he would probably be courting death.

His physical strength was also higher, his speed faster and his durability also increased exponentially too.

Unfortunately, his enormous amount of energy was still too much for him to hold, however now, he could last longer before it began eating at him.

This was despite the fact that his energy increased slightly after he became a grandmaster.

He would most likely be like this until he reached the sovereign or transcendent realm.

Cattleya looked at her son who acted like he had gotten a new toy and thought.

'Maybe I should seal his true name after all?'

Not knowing the dangerous thought his mother was having, Arthur continued checking out his body.

He was completely confident in defeating the mastermind of Saturday's incident with relative ease as the latter was only a superior stage master.

One might wonder, why did the culprit not run away after hearing Arthur's threat.

The answer was simple: pride. Coupled with overconfidence.

He believes that Arthur has no way to figure out who he was as he was very meticulous in hiding his tracks.

Even normal drifters would have not been able to find him.

He also believes that he was capable of handling Arthur, who was a superior stage master.

This is due to the power he had gained from his experiments in monsterization. His test subjects were numerous and Zach was the greatest success. 

As for the failures, at least we know who the owners of the runes Zach devoured are now.

Like Arthur had deduced, his aims were to create a monsterized devil who could still retain their sanity and Zach, was the only success.

Unfortunately for him, his pride and confidence in himself would be his undoing as Arthur just had a huge power up.

Cattleya looked at Arthur in silence for a few moments before making up her mind and walking up to him with a serious look on her face.

Faster than Arthur could react, Cattleya fished something out from her inter spatial ring and stabbed it into Arthur's shoulder.

"Ow! What the f*ck??!!"

Of course, the natural reaction to such a sudden action was to curse out loud while screaming in pain.

He even unconsciously tried to back away, unfortunately Cattleya was a high tier deity. If she didn't want Arthur to move, there was nothing he could do.

And that was exactly what happened, he could not move an inch. Cattleya didn't even use her energy, just her pure physical strength was enough to root him to the ground.

Arthur felt something enter his body and quickly enter his energy circuit. 

"Stop trying to move, it'd only hurt more."

"Would it kill you to at least tell me what suspicious things you're putting in my body?!"

"Just a small micro device that can watch your energy state and alert me if you're about to implode.

Its only good if you're in the same star system so don't go too far without informing me."

Arthur was stunned, not because of the device his mother injected into his body, but for a different reason.

"You're being a helicopter parent now?!"

"I am not, I'm simply an average mother you can find anywhere who cares for her son."

Arthur rolled his eyes at her reply, naturally, Cattleya saw this and flicked him on his forehead before letting him go.

"That's good, now I can watch if you're doing anything crazy and stop you before you do it."

"Just what do you take me for?!"

"An exact copy of me, besides your gender."

"Tsk…"

Arthur clicked his tongue in response because she was right.

If Cattleya was a Male, she would look similar to how Arthur did. Their hair colors were the same with Arthur's being slightly lighter. The eye colors were the same, though that won't be the case for long as Arthur's left eye had shown a color change, it was currently temporary but it might become permanent in the future.

This was likely due to his unnatural affinity with the law of time as it was manifesting in his physical body.

Alexia was similar as her eyes also turned blue as she advanced in the law of time.

Besides these few differences, Arthur and Cattleya were completely alike.

Their unpredictable personalities, love for pranks and ridiculous genius talents.

As such, she knew fully well that Arthur would probably just decide to leave the academy once In the future for no reasonable reason, going out of the range she could monitor with the device as she had no plans to leave Aeturn or the surrounding star systems for the next few years.

"I'd find a less dangerous alternative in dealing with your rampaging energy."

"Less dangerous? Just what did you plan on doing to me?"

"Sealing your energy with your true name?"

"The fact that you can say that to your son so casually with a straight face is scary as hell."

"We are in hell, although it's not all pretty, it's not scary as the humans say you know?"

"Excuse me mother, have you been to any of the 'Nine Thousand Circles' lately?"

"Don't remind me of that place now will you?"

"Weren't you just saying hell wasn't scary?"

Arthur and Cattleya bantered lightly like this for a few more hours.

He told her of most of the happenings of his school year so far, he also informed her about his plans to participate in the planning of the mini sports festival that was postponed for two months.

She also gave him a nefarious idea when he told her about his plan to 'make Layla squeal'.

In the girl's dormitory, Layla suddenly shivered in fear but felt nothing that could possibly cause that.

Unfortunately, she did not know that a certain mischievous mother and son duo were planning something that might make her regret participating in the sports festival for the rest of her life.

As for the results of that, we can only wait and see. 

Around 12am, Cattleya finally left after warning Arthur not to mention her presence to anyone as she was not supposed to be in hell at the moment, especially his grandfather as she had plans to surprise him.

Unfortunately, her surprise failed as Diablo had long noticed her arrival from Bracken, the universe she actually went to.