CHAPTER 8.

33 days, 1 hour, 34 minutes and 21 seconds. That was how much time he had to prepare for an apocalypse.

It was about time that he got started. He impatiently waited for the sand, it took about five more minutes but a nun bowed before him and handed it to him, once he received the red sand from her, his status screen immediately identified it as

Dragon Hourglass Sand (Super Rare)

He took a small pinch of it and tried to absorb it and while the sword did absorb it, it didn't unlock anything but once he absorbed the whole thing he got the message.

Requirements Met: Portal Sword Unsealed (Level Lock: Required Level 50)

Adrian turned after confirming that the process had worked and began to walk out after nodding in thanks to the nun, who looked ecstatic and bowed deeply in response, to the three people he was stuck with, he said," Let's go. We don't have time to waste."

He had to get to level 50 as soon as possible. It was his best chance at surviving.

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The day was truly a beautiful one. Lush green fields all around interrupted only by the occasional massive trees, a calming wind what gently moved, and despite it being nearly an hour after noon the heat was barely felt.

Adrian, however, could not enjoy this amazing environment much, he was instead trying to get himself ready for his first fight against a monster.

He had done all he could think of and everything that his party members had suggested that he thought wise. He was equipped with some basic chainmail that had boosted his physical defence quite decently, his weapon, an Iron Sword, was the best one he could use at level one as it boasted both the best attack and a fairly decent speed rating and while not fancy the original weapon was a good quality one. Adrian also had potions at the ready, plus he had confirmed that Andrea and Bellamy could heal, so unless one of them wanted to betray him right at this moment he should be fine.

All the same, the idea of fighting while having Malty at his back made him quite nervous. So both to remove her from the board and to ensure much greater benefits for the day, he decided to go for a rather simple idea.

He waited until Andrea led them to a fairly large tree, it was equidistant from the forest that he could see nearby and the mountains, and it was close to the nearby plains as well, making it a good central spot, he nodded at her once she looked at him inquiringly, he had asked her to lead him to such a place when she had indicated that she was familiar with the geography of the area, and she had done a good job.

"All right everyone, since we don't have much time before the wave hits again, we need to be as efficient as possible. Our goals are simple, we need to kill a large number of monsters to level and gather a large variety of materials for me to upgrade the Legendary Sword." he paused here for a moment, " I need to experiment a bit to see the consequences of adding more and more of the same monster to the Sword to see if it helps or if simply focusing on one of each monster is enough. So our goal for the next half hour is to hunt down balloons. They should be the weakest monster here and the one in the greatest number," he looked to Andrea here, and she nodded once.

"We should aim for getting the remnants of at least 10 ballons each at a minimum but get as many as possible in the next half hour. If you encounter other monsters or see any useful herbs or plants that you can easily carry, take them as well." he continued, "We are going to split up into two teams, Andrea and I, and Bellamy and Malty. This way we have attack and defence balanced out. Let's begin immediately."

"Understood," said Andrea.

Malty had just frowned a little but when she caught him looking, she smiled and said," Of course Sir Hero."

Bellamy simply nodded before stating," Rest assured Sir Adrian we shall complete your orders."

"Good." he said with a smile," Then we shall see each other here in about half an hour."

He began walking at that, nodding when Malty wished him luck and then once they had covered some distance he asked Andrea," Where would you suggest we start?"

She considered that for a moment, before pointing in a direction, "Balloon swarms are common there. Likely to be the best place."

"Very well," he said, and tried to calm himself down, his heart was beating quite fast, he knew that he shouldn't be this nervous, these were mere balloons, the light novel had suggested that they were utter trash, as had the information that he had gotten from Andrea and his other party members and what the guild information counter had provided him.

Balloons had pathetic attack, worse defence and decent speed, for a normal level one. For Adrian who had already unlocked four weapon forms, three of which gave him a +2 for speed, and all of which gave him a +2 or in one case a +3 for attack. He should be fine. Probably.

Andrea's words proved to be true, they had scarcely walked for about 500 meters when balloons started to become common. He could see them from afar, moving about in the tall grass, and occasionally bouncing upwards.

He tried his best to focus on their movements, he had expected it to be a little difficult but oddly enough it was almost effortless, he had more than 10 balloons in his line of sight and yet he could track all of them easily. Was this an effect of boosting his speed stat? Enhanced perception to go with the speed? Or was this a side effect of the Legendary Sword boosting him physically? It could even be the fact that he had the Status magic now as an inhabitant of this world which pushed him past his previous limits.

He felt himself calm a little, he could see them coming.

"I shall draw their attention." said Andrea, her tone and demeanour shifting into something far calmer and far more serious, gone was the girl who had quietly followed his lead, instead here he could tell she expected obedience, "Please start your attack after that."

Andrea was as good as her word, she ran forward Sword and Shield in hand and then slammed the flat of her blade against her shield, making a loud sound that drew the attention of five nearby balloons.

Adrian watched carefully as the balloons moved towards her, their speed was still easy to perceive, and then bounced out of the grass, teeth first.

She killed one of them and then blocked the other two.

Adrian focused on those two that rebounded off her shield. She had angled the shield so that they were moving in his direction, so he repositioned himself slightly and intercepted one of them while it was still falling.

The Iron Sword cut through it like it was going through thin air.

Only the small bursting sound and the drizzle of orange fragments made him believe that he had hit something because he had felt no resistance at all when he had swung his weapon. But he didn't dwell on this for the second Balloon had already nearly hit the ground and would soon bounce in his direction.

For this one, he swung again, the balloons arc easily predicted, and once again it died, just as effortless as the first one, and fragments rained again.

That had been absurdly easy, Adrian could feel his tension drain out, especially when he saw five notifications that all said the same thing.

0.25 Exp Gained.

0.25 Exp Gained.

0.25 Exp Gained.

0.25 Exp Gained.

0.25 Exp Gained.

He shrugged the notifications off, and then looked to Andrea who had already killed her three. As expected of his highest level party member.

She was looking at him as well and he simply indicated that they continue, before kneeling and absorbing the fragments of the balloons he had killed, it wasn't enough to unlock the Sword Form but it was a start. Andrea started moving after she gathered her fragments into a small bag and then they moved forward.

Their hunt for balloons continued to be just as easy as the first time. The pattern of attack was identical. Andrea went in first, then they both worked together and killed them. Adrian found himself growing more and more comfortable with attacking and after a small amount of time, they had killed nearly 30 of these balloons, which combined with the Exp gain from his other two party members had been enough to level him up twice.

He had also managed to finally unlock the Orange Balloon sword and even the Red Balloon Sword, both offered nothing more than stat boosts but that was hardly a negative or an unexpected result.

The Balloon Swords were quite basic, he opened up his Status menu while they walked back to the tree once they had finished their time limit, Andrea acting as a watchdog.

Orange Balloon Sword (unmastered)(0/15) : Lv 1 0.00% +0

Energy Level 0/100

Rarity: Very Common

Enchantments: None

Status Enchantments: None

Equip Boosts : Attack +1

Equip Skills: None

Special Ability: None

Red Balloon Sword (unmastered)(0/15) : Lv 1 0.00% +0

Energy Level 0/100

Rarity: Very Common

Enchantments: None

Status Enchantments: None

Equip Boosts: Attack +2

Equip Skills: None

Special Ability: None

Nothing special at all, Adrian continued adding the Balloon fragments that Andrea had gathered, able to see his inventory slowly filling up with Red and Orange fragments, the vast majority of the loot orange fragments, and once they reached the tree and found that their party members were not there, Adrian leaned against the tree and began to test out the fragments.

He brought up the Orange balloon Sword and focused on one of the fragments, absorbing it into the sword.

Orange Balloon Sword (unmastered)(0/15) : Lv 1 0.00% +0

Energy Level 0/100

Rarity: Very Common

Enchantments: None

Status Enchantments: None

Equip Boosts : Attack +1

Equip Skills: None

Special Ability: None

No change at all. He kept this up until he saw a minor difference, but a significant one.

Orange Balloon Sword (Mastered)(0/15) : Lv 1 0.00% +1

Energy Level 27/100

Rarity: Very Common

Enchantments: None

Status Enchantments: None

Equip Boosts : Attack +1

Equip Skills: None

Special Ability: None

it would seem that absorbing the same material into a sword boosted both the mastery of it and the Energy level needed to boost the Lv of the weapon. But this was not the end to his testing, now he tried to focus on increasing the number (0/15), the first slot filled in effortlessly going from 0 to 1 in an instant, barely consuming 1% of the total Orange Balloon fragments.

But to go from 1 to 2 and then 2 to 3 was a lot more difficult, taking 5% and then nearly 13 % of the original total. Worse he didn't seem to see any positive effects, the screen stayed the same, save for the number going from 0 to 3.

Hmm, the power-up effect should have done something….wait maybe it was simply not being displayed because he didn't think that the modification should be tried to think about the ratings of the weapons, which he normally saw on separate screens, and the damage bonuses, or even viewing the values in decimals, he focused on believing that it would be there, and after about half a minute, he reopened his Status Menu after closing it and found.

Orange Balloon Sword (Mastered)(3/15) : Lv 1 0.00% +2

Energy Level 55/100

Rarity: Very Common

Enchantments: None

Status Enchantments: None

Status Rating

Attack: 18

Magic Attack:5

Defence :0

Magic Defence :0

Speed: 9

SP :0

MP:0

Stamina: 1

Damage Increase: 25% Against Balloon Type Enemies.

Equip Boosts : Attack +1

Equip Skills: None

Special Ability: None