Chapter 172 Nicole's Mission

Kairos stared at the man strangely.

"Um... I don't really understand what you are saying. Why is it hard for the person saved? Isn't that a good thing?"

The man blinked a few times.

"...I'm sure you'll understand it soon enough."

Kairos tilted his head to the side with confusion.

"Ok?"

The man let out a soft sigh.

"Basically, I'm just trying to tell you one thing. If there are people out there that care about you..."

He raised up a finger slowly.

"Don't die. No matter what."

Kairos gave a small nod.

"Er, I think I get it."

The man opened his mouth to speak, but a woman suddenly rushed forth with a stern expression.

"Hey! What are you doing to that kid? You better not be telling him to do anything bad! Children are too impressionable for that!"

The man hurriedly picked up his guitar and ran away, prompting the woman to chase after him.

"Hey! Get over here!"

The man ducked down and coughed.

"Uh, I didn't do anything! You got the wrong guy!"

The woman screamed a little hysterically.

"Then why are you running?! Get back here!"

And with that, Kairos watched the two of them run off into the distance. He never did end up seeing that man again, and he similarly forgot about the words that he had said. Yet, after upgrading his willpower that random memory had suddenly risen up to the surface.

He blinked a few times.

"I was a strange kid."

Nicole raised an eyebrow.

"Strange? I think you were great!"

Kairos let out a chuckle and muttered to himself.

"Don't die no matter what, huh?"

Nicole put the tip of her finger on her chin.

"Hm? What are you talking about?"

Kairos waved his hand dismissively.

"Nothing, nothing."

He then went to upgrade the last ability that had yet to be limit broken.

[Magic Affinity 29.9 -> 30 | Prestige Points 251 -> 250]

This time, he couldn't really feel the effects all that much since the black stone in his room was interfering with the mana around him. Nonetheless, he still felt like the mana around him had changed in some respect. Or more accurately, he perceived it in a different way.

Now that he was done with limit breaking, Kairos couldn't help but wonder what in the world he was supposed to do with the rest of his countless prestige points. Though, considering how hard they should be to get, it would probably be quite valuable for something else down the road.

Kairos rubbed his chin.

"I can't let down the kid version of me, now can I?"

He thought about his promotion mission, causing a set of panels to pop up.

[Promotion Mission]

[Requirements -

1 - [Broken Limits]

Limit break each stat. Stats can be limit broken through using Prestige. These points are naturally acquired if one ranks on a global leaderboard (Dungeon Leaderboards do not count).

2 - [Trademark]

Upgrade one ability to the D-Rank. Any ability may be upgraded to complete this mission. If an ability was previously upgraded to D-rank, then this mission will automatically be completed

3 - [Proven]

Kill a creature at the peak of D-Rank. The peak of D-Rank is classified by any person that is currently working on their promotion mission.

4 - [Custom - Isolation]

Spend thirty days alone in the Abyss Realm. Further information about the Abyss Realm may be found after all other missions are completed.

After scanning through all of them, he found that the next one on the list was the third one, as the other two had been finished. Though he would've thought about doing the fourth one, he didn't really know what this 'Abyss Realm' was supposed to be. Though it seemed like he would get an explanation after completing the third one.

He blinked a few times.

"Why did he call it a race to reach C-rank?"

Nicole puffed up her cheeks.

"What are you talking about? I'm so curious, explain it to me!"

Kairos laughed.

"Sorry, sorry, how about we do your evolution right now?"

Nicole pouted.

"Mm... ok."

She brought up her status panel and freely gave Kairos control over it.

[Status]

[ID: 934783245676]

[Rank: 550/1500 Evolution Energy - 500 required for Rankup]

[Objective: Evolve]

[Proof Of Perfection Points: 217.3]

[Strength - 14.9

Agility - 14.9

Endurance - 14.9

Willpower - 14.9

Mana Capacity - 14.9

Magic Affinity - 14.9]

[Special Abilities: Afraid Spell (F), Frost Spell (F)]

[Inborn Abilities: Lost (F-)]

[Evolve]

[Hide]

He gave everything a quick glance before pressing the evolve button.

[Use 10 points for stable evolution? Yes/No]

[Use 15 points for natural ability? Yes/No]

[Use 10 points for Growth Spell or Harvest Spell? Growth/Harvest | Yes/No]

[Confirm]

Kairos blinked a few times when he looked at the two available options. He wondered if this was supposed to be a sign that Nicole's true calling was actually farming.

"...Um, you can choose between the growth or harvest spell?"

Nicole let out a soft hum.

"Which do you think is better?"

Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

"I have no idea. I've never seen either of those spells before."

His eyes narrowed slightly as he began thinking of Kian. There was an argument to be made that the growth spell might somehow synergize with whatever was going on with his garden, but there was also the consideration that he might eventually become an enemy.

Though he had no idea what the harvest spell did, he thought that it had the potential to maybe work against whatever spells Kian had.

"...But the harvest spell does sound more interesting I suppose."

Nicole clapped.

"Ah! Then choose that one!"

Kairos proceeded to press yes to all of the options and selected harvest as the spell. The moment he pressed confirm, he noticed that Nicole's body emitted quite the strong heat.

She took in a deep breath and wrapped her arms around his as the changes gradually settled down. Once it was all over she looked over at Kairos with curious eyes.

"Am I strong now?"

Kairos shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, we can open up your status panel and you should be able to bring up the ability descriptions."

Nicole let out a soft gasp.

"Ah, ok!"

[Status]

[ID: 934783245676]

[Rank: D-]

[Objective: Survive]

[Proof Of Perfection Points: 192.3]

[Strength - 14.9

Agility - 14.9

Endurance - 14.9

Willpower - 14.9

Mana Capacity - 14.9

Magic Affinity - 14.9]

[Special Abilities: Decay (E), Harvest (E), Afraid Spell (F), Frost Spell (F)]

[Hide]

After looking at her abilities, Nicole pressed onto the one that was called Decay.

[Decay (E)]

[Only activatable with direct contact with an organism. Upon activating, the organism's cells at the point of contact will die, and spread outwards to all other nearby cells at a rate that is dependent on channel time.]

Kairos blinked a few times when he saw that.

"Huh... that works with you really well."

Nicole put a finger on her chin.

"Does it? Wouldn't it just be better to kill them with a blade?"

Kairos slowly rubbed his chin.

"Maybe... but this could work much more easily. You only have to touch them for a moment, right? That would be much harder to detect than the swing of a blade."

Nicole pouted.

"Hm... but what if they just cut off the part that I touched? Then they would still be alive!"

Kairos gave a small nod, and was a little surprised that Nicole caught on to that caveat.

"That's why you do it discreetly. If you touch their back, right behind their heart, they might not be able to notice it fast enough before it's too late to save their heart."

Nicole tilted her head to the side.

"Ah, I-I guess!"

She then pressed a finger on the harvest spell, wanting to figure out what that did as well.

[Harvest (E)]

[Damage to organic matter is increased by 150%. This is a passive spell.]

Kairos blinked a few times.

"...What? Isn't that just basically a blanket-wide damage increase? How is that even an elemental spell?"

Nicole scratched the side of her head.

"Ooh, you were right! It does look pretty good. But... if we have to face something like the minigun from before, then it probably wouldn't be too good."

Kairos smiled bitterly.

"It's not like many people have guns here in the first place..."

Nicole puffed up her cheeks.

"But it still doesn't work for everything."

Kairos smiled bitterly.

"...Alright then."

Nicole let out a soft hum.

"Should I increase my stats all the way?"

Kairos was at a loss as to what to say for a moment. In reality, he somewhat forgot that Nicole was actually someone that could hold her own if he looked at her abilities. In fact, he wouldn't mind trading his abilities with her all that much, though he would still prefer his own.

After thinking about it for a while, he always thought that he was going to be the one protecting the others, and not the other way around. The way he thought about them was more like baggage rather than anything else. It wasn't something he consciously realized, as he simply didn't really consider them to be on the same level.

He spoke the next words slowly.

"Alright then. For now, you can just increase all your stats as far as you can. But before you do that, drink this."

Kairos took out a nature core, which Nicole looked at curiously. He never would've given her something like this before for something like this, but considering that he now had a semi-reliable source from Kian, he was willing to give up one to make the process simpler.

Nicole coughed weakly.

"E-Em, what do I do with this?"

Kairos stabbed one end with his spear and held it up next to her.

"Just drink it."

Nicole was a little surprised, but did as told, drinking all of it. Her eyes widened slightly as she noticed the effects of it already. She hurriedly brought up her status panel and increased everything to the highest level she could.

That was when another panel popped up on her screen.

"Eh? Um, what is this?"

[Promotion Mission]

[Requirements -

1 - [Broken Limits]

Limit break each stat. Stats can be limit broken through using Prestige. These points are naturally acquired if one ranks on a global leaderboard (Dungeon Leaderboards do not count).

2 - [Trademark]

Upgrade one ability to the D-Rank. Any ability may be upgraded to complete this mission. If an ability was previously upgraded to D-rank, then this mission will automatically be completed

3 - [Proven]

Kill a creature at the peak of D-Rank. The peak of D-Rank is classified by any person that is currently working on their promotion mission.

4 - [Custom - Nightmare]

Without ever making direct contact with or being noticed, make a peak D rank kill themselves from fear.]

Karios looked through everything and found that the promotion mission was more or less the same as his, except for the custom one. Unlike his, this one was much clearer, described entirely in only one sentence. However, he couldn't help but feel that the requirement was quite ridiculous.

In the first place, someone that reached the peak of D rank probably wasn't some sort of pushover. Killing them was already a fairly difficult task, but forcing them to kill themselves out of fear sounded even more harder. Not to mention, she wasn't allowed to be noticed or even make direct contact.

He guessed that his custom mission wasn't going to be all that easy either from the looks of things.

"...It's a mission you have to finish if you want to reach the C rank. As for limit breaking your stats, you're going to have to find a way to get on the global leaderboard."

Nicole frowned.

"I don't think I've gotten on any of those. What should I do?"

Kairos narrowed his eyes slightly once he thought of one of his completed missions that he ranked top 250 on. So far, nobody has taken second place. But if he could guide her to be the second one...