Silent Advancement

After picking one from the list of Concept Books curated individually, the instructors let all the new Energy Refiners resign to their quarters. It's always best to get a silent environment easily gain enlightenment on it.

Although it's entirely possible to be enlightened over a Concept without the need of a Concept Book, that's something that was only used by the early Energy Refiners who were pioneering the path for the new generation. Nowadays, relying on a Concept Book was easier as it contained hints on how to properly gain enlightenment towards a Concept without wasting too much time.

Just like how Aldrin easily gained enlightenment on Shadow Clone, Spatial Pocket and Shadow Blade by relying on those Concept Books he bought. Without those, creating an entirely new Concept from scratch would be the same as treading in the darkness without bringing a flashlight to guide his way. Not only would it be hard, successfully conceptualizing it still depended on the pureness of its essence.

If that happened, an Energy Refiner could possibly waste not just days or weeks, a month or a year is a definite possibility as well.

"Shadow Steps. This costs 500 IDLE Points in Idle Shopping but I got it free from the Association. Janet said that picking the first Concept carried some kind of importance. It will be the Energy Refiner's first torchlight to guide him in the corridors leading to a Concept of pure Essence. If the Concepts I got enlightened to were related to each other, there's a possibility for them to combine into a Concept with a purer essence." Aldrin recalled what his Instructor told them as he stared at the Concept Book lying in front of him.

Seeing the word 'Shadow' among those choices presented to him and finding out that it's a movement technique that could help him escape in a tight spot, he instantly picked it.

The only reason he stopped buying new Concept Books from the Idle Shopping was because of the limit of Concepts that was imposed on him due to his Energy Quintessence.

He already had three and he experienced the difficulty of completely integrating the third one because of how he needed to expand it to a certain size to be able to accommodate it.

None of the instructors or even the real experts would be able to guess that Aldrin already had three Concepts even before the start of this Training Camp. It's highly unthinkable for them that someone who had just luckily awakened to easily get a proper channel for Concept Books. Furthermore, no one expects a new Energy Refiner to be enlightened in three Concepts in such a short time.

In any case, to give her trainees an example about what she told them. Janet specifically showed them her 'merged' Concept earlier.

Using her refined energy, Janet's body transformed into what she called her Tyrant Form or to what she called that merged Concepts, 'Tyrant Transformation'.

Her red hair and golden eyes turned to a deeper crimson color. Her body also showed minute transformations amplifying her presence to be on the more terrifying side on top of being domineering enough which let them feel a greater pressure than what they felt from the officials yesterday.

As Aldrin recalled that, he likened the experience to the fear he felt upon seeing the Ant Champion. Although that didn't mean that Janet was as strong as that ant, he believed that he could be crushed by her if she so wished.

According to her, that Concept was a combination of five different physique-centered Concepts that could give her overwhelming strength on different parts of her body. Those Concepts at least had one common word shared among them, 'Tyrant'.

"Let's see. I'm sure it will be hard for me to completely become enlightened with this. How many IDLE Points had I converted to Dimensional Energy to accommodate Shadow Blade?" While trying to recall that, Aldrin opened the IDLE Database from his phone and checked something from the statistics.

[Total IDLE Points converted: 16190]

'If I recall correctly... it's after it went past the 10,000 points. Will it be enough? Well, there's one way to find out.' Aldrin picked up the book and unhesitatingly read it to start gaining enlightenment.

A few hours later, Aldrin frowned. Unlike the ones bought at the Idle Shopping where it would be instantly downloaded in his mind, he's finding it hard to completely comprehend a physical Concept Book.

He left his room for a while to gain fresh air and clear his mind only to find out that many trainees like him were facing the same situation.

'I got too used with the features of the IDLE Database, didn't I join this camp to prepare myself for the real world in case it disappeared? I better put more effort and show some result!'

Upon thinking about that, he postponed his idea of taking a break and returned immediately to his quarters, continuing to comprehend the Concept Book.

With this, it marked the end of the first day of the Joint Rookie Training Camp.

-

-

Three days soon passed and the free time the instructors gave to their trainees ended.

Unlike the other trainees, Aldrin diligently tried to comprehend and gain enlightenment to the Shadow Steps Concept Book. Moreover, he didn't forget the IDLE Database and his routine to dive once a day to gain combat experience.

Apart from that, he didn't forget to probe the new Dimension the IDLE Database detected beyond the Maintained-type Dimensional Rift at the middle of the fortress.

Using one run after the reset during the second day, Aldrin tried diving inside it by controlling his Dimensional Clones. However, he found out that it was impossible to manually control the clones sent inside the Drawyz Domain because of the same reason why Conquest through Idle Adventure was impossible.

He had no choice but to watch his clones through the screen of his phone.

Seeing that it's truly another dimension like the Small Insect Colony, Aldrin was amazed at the geography he saw inside it. However, the weakest creature that his Dimensional Clones found inside that they could win against was a giant brown cat simply called Brown Feline.

The Brown Feline's level is higher than Giant Head Ant, sitting at Level 20 and with Totally Impossible difficulty.

Against a strong opponent such as that one, his clones only managed to kill ten before they started dying one by one. Due to that, Aldrin decided to stop even if the profit only amounted to less than 500 points IDLE Points after deducting the cost of multipliers and heals.

With that kind of probe, Aldrin confirmed that he was still weak. Even with two multipliers that were equivalent to 4x of his current strength, it needed a team of his Dimensional Clones to put down the weakest Rift Monster inside the maintained Dimensional Rift.

And that explained why Energy Refiners were using Metadomes to explore that place. It's just too dangerous to rely on oneself.

During that probe, he actually saw some Metadomes which affirmed that the new dimension listed in his IDLE Database was truly the dimension beyond the Maintained-type Dimensional Rift.

Nonetheless, the Dimensional Clones actually avoided those Metadomes. And whether those Energy Refiners noticed his Dimensional Clones, he had no idea.

Either way, lucky those who would be able to find the corpses of the Brown Felines his Dimensional Clones left behind. But if no one, the other creatures residing in that Dimension would surely eat them.

It's a shame but he had no choice but to leave them behind.

-

-

"Aldrin, what about you? How is your enlightenment?" Irina approached him after asking the same thing to the other three in their group.

At the moment, every new Energy Refiner was once again gathered outside to evaluate their progress with the Concept they picked.

With those on the same team lining up together, the ten instructors were standing in front of them, checking their progress.

"I met some success." Aldrin humbly answered when in fact it's not just a small success but a bigger and greater one that he had no idea if he could successfully hide it from Janet.

During the third day and after basking in 10,000 IDLE Points worth of Dimensional Energy for a total of 20,000 IDLE Points for the three days that passed, his Energy Quintessence finally allowed him to conceptualize Shadow Steps.

It's just utilizing shadows to quicken his footsteps. Furthermore, his body would be concealed by his shadow making it appear as if he blinked from one place to another.

But that's not his greatest gain in terms of Concept. As if something clicked inside him, once he became familiarized with Shadow Steps, the three Concepts; Shadow Clone, Shadow Blade and Shadow Steps seemed to be linked with one another.

Although it didn't appear to be the same fusion of Concepts as what Janet told them, Aldrin felt that there now exists some kind of harmony between his three Concepts. For example, the Shadow Clones he could conjure could also conceptualize Shadow Blade and Shadow Steps by themselves.

Naturally, he was certain of that because he had finished testing it in Idle Adventure mode of IDLE Database, raising his earning for the third day to 15,000 IDLE Points contrary to 7,000 and 10,000 from the past two days before it!

And that's not all... After passing the 25,000 point-mark of converted IDLE Points, Aldrin experienced that certain click in his mind concerning his Energy Quintessence expansion. It finally reached its limit, making him pass the threshold to become considered as a middle Stage 1 Energy Refiner!