Intermediate Stage!

Looking at the west, Noah's lips curled as a beyond crazy idea rose into existence within his mind. "Alyssa, you'll stay here for a while."

The girl frowned. "I hope you're not trying to fight that beast."

He shook his head. "Do I look crazy? I'm just heading out." He glanced at the slumbering beast and explained. "To fight that monstrosity, we need something to do the job for us."

Her eyes widened as she associated his words with his earlier action of glancing west. "You want to lure the beasts over?!"

Noah shrugged. "What other choices do we have? I would really love for you to go instead, but your flight is less effective than my short distance teleportation. We studied the beasts earlier so I'll be going west where the forest is clouded with apes, they possess no long ranged attacks and wouldn't be as agile once I'm in the desert so the most dangerous phase would be while I'm still in the forest."

"But you can't!" Her chest heaved in and out as she stared at the crazy boy before her. "You will die if you head in there! Don't you remember? You're still in the Novice Stage."

Noah smiled. "Not for long, I wanted to stabilize further but it seems I have no choice but to advance now. So you will hunt those scorpions. I don't care about their rank, just get as many as you can, I'll advance in the meanwhile."

It took a lot of time to advance to a major Stage so he and Alyssa backtracked a bit. They only set up camp at the very edges of the strange force field that blocked the sun.

They then spent their time experimenting and found out that the beast was basically in stasis, it wouldn't wake up even if a bomb blasted through its surrounding. Well that was as much as nobody approached it, the two could make out the Grandmaster's humor, keeping an Exalt Stage beast as a guard dog.

"Here." Once done setting up camp, Alyssa handed a metal box to Noah.

He glanced at her for a bit before taking it from her. The item was an Essence Gathering Array. And looking at its size, it was sure to be a high grade one. This kind of things were very expensive and who knew what lengths Alyssa took to get such a treasure. "I'll be able to advance even with a low grade array." She knew he was not bragging, someone with dual Emperor Grade Battlesouls would never be stuck at such a low Stage as the Novice. "But since this will get the job done faster, I'll accept it."

He tapped on the top of the box, making it unfurl into a flat mat like object with markings drawn upon it. Wasting no time, he sat on it in a meditative position. His Battlesouls flashed into existence, displaying their brilliance towards the world as they sucked in the high grade Essence gathered by the array.

Alyssa watched with shock as the Essence within a 400 meter radius was sucked into the array so that it could satisfy Noah's need for energy. This was shocking as even the top student in her academy was only able to gather a record breaking 300 meter radius!

Noah's body released a bright light as a khaki and silver colored light swam within his body, releasing purifying lights that bathed his Essence Veins and sought to create that last 1% that remained.

99.3%! 99.6%! 99.9%! 100%!!!

The light around him intensified as if to announce his achievement to the world. But instead of the light receding, it somehow intensified.

Alyssa could easily guess what was happening. This meant that Noah's foundation was so firm that he would continuously advance! This was naturally because of the incident back then, when he had been seriously injured in their first battle against the Desert Scorpion. Noah had spent about five months then to stabilize his foundation.

The Intermediate Stage was about strengthening the bones, organs and muscles. Each took three levels, this meant the first three levels of the Intermediate Stage strengthened the bones.

Noah's practice of the Azure Dragon Arts had definitely done its job, increasing his fitness to a level none at his peer could ever dream of.

Because of this, Alyssa's receding shock rose once more as Noah breezed through the first three levels of the Intermediate Stage and placed his strength deeply into the 4th Level of the Intermediate Stage!

Standing Noah exhaled deeply as a magnificent sword aura was released into his surrounding and his hands, both left and right, dragonified. He believed the power he possessed at this moment could defeat anyone within the Intermediate Stage. But there was no way of knowing without trying, and if he wished to try he had to get out of the hell hole he was currently stuck in.

"Okay once night arrives, we'll sweep through all the scorpions around. I have only about a year now before the exams and you probably have less, considering your term has begun."

Alyssa nodded. This was one of the things bothering her. Truth be told, the Soaring Sky Academy had already expected this kinds of things happening. So it was possible to still stay admitted as long as the student could return nine months after the resumption of the term. At the moment, six months had passed since resumption but she was still stuck here. Meaning that Alyssa only had three more months before she was considered dead but the academy and expelled. And while she was still at the entrance exam age range, being 14 years of age, she'd have to start all over again from the first year, lagging a year before her peers.

Noah then proceeded to exercise. Of course, he would never show the Azure Dragon Arts exercise before Alyssa but he could familiarize himself with his new strength while waiting for the sun to set. Tomorrow would be the day that tested whether he could leave this hellish land.