Chapter 5 - Journey

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Since the day Max left his home his power skyrocketed. He would always train before sleep and after waking up for 2 hours, the rest was spent on travelling and resting.

As Max travelled through a forest he saw many things he thought was impossible. It was like giving a kid a new toy containing an entire world. Literally.

As Max wasn't able to paint, because canvases is something available only for the rich and for nobles. Unless you study under a renowned painter, it is nearly impossible to get in a contact with a canvas.

And so Max improvised. All he trained in this life was the sword art his father gave to him. And so, he decided to use it as a base for his own sword art.

As he felt that he didn't want to rely entirely on the hexagon he only used it to correct mistakes in his sword art. Thanks to it he was able to create it with full confidence.

He wanted for his sword art to be ever growing. He wanted to have something that would accompany him through his entire life. With that in mind he used his Enlightened mode to create what he thirsted the most.

And after travelling for three days he created the basics. Surprisingly if it were to be graded it would be grade higher than the user. At least until grade 5 which is the current limit of the sword art.

He named the first part. Three years of despair. As a soon to be artist he finally used his emotions. Thanks to that his sword art the 'Three years of despair' had a particular ability to it.

When used against emotionally unstable enemies, especially humanoid ones. He can invoke illusions of despair he felt after learning that his sisters were gone.

Using that despair in his sword art will create an illusion of what the enemy fears the most. It is a powerful addition because it can distract enemies even for a second. And in that second Max can easily dispatch the enemies in one strike.

"Now that I am fully familiar with my created sword art I should test it out..." Said Max under his breath

"Let's see. There are multiple beast lairs on this map and the strongest one should be around tier 5 hmmm... A bit weak for my strength but if I hold back and only use my sword art it should do." Pondered Max aloud

30 minutes later Max arrived next to a cave. The cave quite spacious and emitted spooky vibe to nay normal people going by.

"This should be the lair of the Copper Spiders. The peak of their race is around peak grade 6, however this one should only be at grade 4 or at worst 5." Said Max to himself which he quite liked to do after travelling alone for a few days.

Right as he finished his talk a bunch of vines started to sprout from the ground at the entrance of the cave. As the vines grew a fireball ignited it, resulting in a huge fire in mere seconds.

As the smoke travelled inside the cave around 100 grade 2 & 3 spiders emerged like a horde coming out of your nightmares.

After a while 3 Grade 4 spiders emerged along with a grade 5. It seemed as if the 3 grade 4 spiders were also on the verge of breaking to grade 5.

"Hmm it's seems that the map is a bit outdated. Doesn't really matter anyway. Not like grade 6 can even do something to me right now." Mumbled Max to himself as he lunged forward

Using his sword he engulfed it in fire and slashed horizontally at the massive group of weaker spiders. As the flame travelled further and further the spiders were burnt to ashes.

This wasn't some kind of technique or a mage spell. It was just a simple usage of fire energy. As the grade 4 and grade 5 spiders saw the absolute massacre that happened in just a few seconds they went mad with anger.

Two of the spiders shot massive web at Max while the Grade 5 dashed forward massively decreasing the gap between itself and Max.

As Max watched the webs fly through the air he inhaled and breathed out a massive torrent of air, blasting the webs out of the way. As he was doing so the Grade 5 managed to close in and was only 20 meters away.

'Time to test my sword art. I hope that if I use grade 3 strength you will be able to last for a while.' Thought Max as he lowered his strength perfectly to grade 3 peak standard which is perfect 100% completion.

By the time he finished his thoughts the spider was already 5 meters away. Without further delay Max swung his sword at the spider.

As the sword travelled it seemed fast but at the same time mediocre, not slow but it seemed like a normal grade 3 sword swing without any kind of mastery.

However massive amounts of afterimages started to appear as the sword travelled further and further. The after images looked like a bloodied sword screaming in anger. And every single afterimage started to direct it's hatred toward the spider.

Thanks to that massive amount of hatred that appeared seemingly out of nowhere the spider was paralyzed for a few seconds.

As it was about to move again it's body refused to listen. Confused the spider tried to turn it's head. As it did so the spider split in half spewing blood everywhere.

"Sadly Copper spiders have mediocre defense. So much so that even grade 4 attacks can seriously injure grade 5's." Said Max clearly disappointed by the fact that he can't fully test his sword art.

"The sword art needs to reach at least the next step to be of any real use to me anyway. I guess I have to strive for the next move as soon as I can." Max said aloud.

The 3 grade 4 spiders were stunned after they saw Max one shotting it's brethen that could kill all three of them in a minute.

As they knew they had no chance of winning they split up and started running.

"Truly a disappointment. I shall end your suffering and fear, rejoin your brothers and sisters in the realm beyond." As he finished massive wind bullets shot the three spiders penetrating their bodies, creating a huge holes in them.

And with that Max resumed his journey. As for his destination? Obviously it was the Eastern continent. He knew that getting his sister that was taken by the Holy continent was nearly impossible right now, but give him a year and he is pretty confident that he can wreak absolute havoc in there.

And he really plans to do so. The continent of God is basically a continent without future. Without their God they are nothing and if their God died or disappeared one day, they were fated to face absolute annihilation.

It may seem as a prosperous and most powerful continent but it was built on a power that could be easily swept by higher beings.

Anyways, as Max travelled further he finally arrived to his first destination. The City of Luxemburg. [I am lazy to think of city names, please don't shoot me okay?]

The city of Luxemburg is a thriving city that is pretty close to the entry point that leads to the Eastern continent. Thanks to it being a city that also connects to the deep mountains there is an abundance of trade.

Mainly minerals but also weapons and armors. The city lord of Luxemburg is a grade 8 entity said to be on the cusp of grade 9. Thanks to his legacy he can already battle average 0-20% grade 9 entities which is very rare these days.

Thanks to the huge surplus of minerals coming from the mountains there was an abundance of Blacksmiths. His goal is to find one to forge him a good blade because his father didn't have one ready and didn't think his son would grow that quickly he didn't buy a strong sword.

The blacksmith himself was a top 5 smith in the city. The interesting thing is that he never ranked below or higher than rank 5. Even if someone surpasses top 4 blacksmith and becomes top 4 the ex top 4 becomes top 6.

Some people speculate that it is because of his mysterious nature of smithing only for the ones he deems to be worthy. Some even think that his skills are the best in the city but because of the amount of customers that he accepts it is hard to measure his true ability.

As Max was nearing the gate he was surprised at the fact that there was no line at all. The reason for it wasn't because no people visited. It was the opposite because Luxemburg was one of the most visited cities on the continent.

And because of that, the City Lord made 3 smaller pathways that lead to the city on each entrance. The big pathway was usually only used when people on horses and carts came.

Otherwise be it nobles or commoners no one could use the large pathway without having a good reason. Thanks to that the traffic was incredibly fast and nobles that walked by foot didn't complain.

After smoothly entering the city which was incredibly easy as one only needed to pay a small fee to enter. Unless one was incredibly famous as an evil doer the guards would never search you, even if it looked like you possessed a true treasure.

That is also one of the policies created by the City Lords over the time of their reign. It greatly reduced the corruption level because when it happened the victim could file a complaint.

The simplest way to do it is to shout at the entrance. Because the City Lord doesn't search the people that come and go too much there is security almost at every corner.

Alleys and dark places are being especially watched and searched making it effectively impossible to commit murder in this city unless one was too strong.

Mind you the guards were of an average Grade 4 and some stronger captains even grade 6. With that unless a grade 7 or higher comes that is skilled in assassination it would be really hard to kill somebody without being noticed.

When Max witnessed the marvelous infrastructure of the city he was stunned. The cities on Earth were no where close to this level of aesthetics and beauty. Not even the ancients of Earth that made beautiful cities and statues that could compare.

The buildings were mostly blue and pure white. In them were silver and golden decorations that sublimed the aesthetics of the buildings. The whole city seemed to be connected as no building stood out of place.

No building was too large or too small for it to ruin the beauty within. As he walked further he witnessed a first blacksmith shop.

It seemed not too shabby from the products placed on the shelves behind the glass, but also nothing marvelous. The weapons were a bit weaker than his own and could be used by grade 4 or 5.

Which would be impressive in almost any city except few. And of the few is Luxemburg as the top blacksmith is said to be able to make weapons higher than grade 9 if he was given the right materials.

As he walked by he asked for the best place to rest at a reasonable price. After asking a few people it seemed that they agreed on a restaurant mix inn that had connected two buildings. One where they ran the restaurant and the other where they housed the guests.

As he arrived at the door to the inn he found a sign that read Sapphire's Inn and Dining. As he opened the door he found out that the reception was also the place where you order food.

The place was quite spacious and the tables were almost all filled with people. They all seemed to enjoy the food and he thought that it must be a good food.

As he looked at the array of options to eat he found one that he liked the most. It was actually a fried chicken with thin sliced fried potatoes. They didn't call it crisps or chips here but that didn't really bother him.

He was quite surprised though. It didn't seem like this type of food would exist in this level of society.

"I would like to order 8 pieces of fried chicken and a portion of large thin sliced fried potatoes please." Said Max to a middle aged lady that was sitting on the counter.

"I would also like to buy 3 days of accommodation please." Continued Max

"Sure thing, 3 days in a standard room and the food will cost 9 silver coins or 27 silver taels." Said the lady in amiable tone.

As this place was near the eastern continent there were a lot of cultivators visiting this place. Thanks to that there were two currencies used which were taels and coins. The ratio is 1:3 mainly because cultivators spend too much money without thinking much.

It also depends on the level of pride but thanks to that the value went down as there were way more taels in the world than coins.

And so after he finished ordering and buying his place to stay which he got a key for. The key had a rather nice design of a half broken Sapphire.

As he sat on a random smaller table for two he waited only 20 minutes before the food was ready. As he thanked the server and bit into the chicken he was surprised.

The flavour of the chicken was way better than any chicken he ever tasted. It seemed to be thanks to a profession and ingredients.

There were a lot of professions besides the main ones like blacksmiths, alchemists, potion makes and pill makers.

One of which were Chefs. No one who couldn't cook grade 3 meat to perfection could not call themselfs a chef.

Thanks to that Chefs were highly sought for. After all who wouldn't want the luxury of tasting great food every day. Not to mention that higher the grade the better the food they can make. Which makes it tastier and can even boost the grade or cultivation and physique if the right ingredients were used.

Some chefs are so great that their effects can even rival potion and pill makers.

After slowly chewing the chicken which was exploding in juices he grabbed a few chips and placed them on top of the chicken.

After biting to it again he felt like he was in heaven.

'Seems like I would have another hobby in this world!' Thought Max as he delightfully ate his meal.

He didn't care much for money or cultivation resources because they were frankly useless to him. Unless they were power sources which could boost his hexagon.

Right as he finished his meal the Sun began to set and he decided to head to his room.

As he opened the door the room looked humble and simple to live in. It didn't have too much but it had everything one needed. Even a small bathroom that ran on magic which would provide a hot shower.

As he bathed himself properly for the first time in a time he felt sleepy and so he jumped into a bed and fell asleep right away...