Exploration

Having learned everything he needed, Adam et the soldier go and looked around for anything he might use. After a moment, he decided to take a few Gold Coins, maybe he could use them later.

After that, Adam left the palace, and saw an army was waiting for him outside. 200 soldiers, spears and swords in hands, were waiting for him. The one leading them pointed his finger at Adam and said "Kill the murderer!"

The 200 soldiers roared for Adam's death as they came charging at him. Seeing the army coming toward him, Adam decided not to use his sword, but his feet instead.

In the last few days, not only had he been working on his [Lunar Smite], but also on his [Icy Stomp]. Adam jumped toward the soldiers and his foot crashed into one of the soldier's heads.

The head first froze before exploding into pieces, killing the soldier. However, the ice didn't spread to the surroundings. Adam had become able to replicate the ice damage with the kick, but not the AOE effect.

Actually, if he really wanted to deal with those soldiers, he could just use the [Spirit Snake] skill from his new ring or even his sword's [Sword Cry], but he wanted to use them to train himself.

The soldiers were frightened seeing what happened to their friend, but they still attacked, they had orders. Unfortunately for them, it was too easy for Adam to dodge their attacks. Going from one soldier to another, they turned into ice statues before exploding.

Soon, almost all the soldiers had been killed, and the remaining twenty finally understood they stood no chance and started fleeing. As for Adam, he sighed but didn't chase them.

He went to retrieve his horse, and led it outside the city before starting to head south.

Since the horse wasn't going very fast, they had a few hours of travel before they reached the abandoned village and the lake.

Adam decided to head in the village because he was curious. At first, there wasn't anything, but a few minutes in, as Adam went from house to house, a transparent figure appeared behind him. It's ethereal body was covered in red blood, and it looked quite horrifying, the faint hearted would be terribly scared by it.

Adam spotted it, but decided not to do anything. The ghost reached out for his shoulder, but the moment it came in contact with Adam, it's whole arm, followed by its body, froze.

This came from Adam's Chilly Spirit Ring too, and it was the skill [Icy Touch]. This skill, usable once every 10 seconds, would deal 200% ice damage to anything he touched, or was touched by. Adam had actually used this equipment's skill as a reference to work on perfectly mastering his [Icy Stomp].

As the ghost was frozen and it's now hard body shattered against the ground, Adam continued touring around the village. However, the ghosts didn't appear anymore. They were scared off by the death of their fellow ghost. If they couldn't even touch him, what was the point of attacking him?

So it was quite a relaxing visit for Adam. Half an hour later, he left the village with his horse, as some of the ghosts watched him leave from their hidden spots.

After the village, Adam decided to go to the lake. After all, he was waiting for the Holy Empire's army, as he had the feeling this army was related to his challenge. He would first kill their army, and if it wasn't the original objective then… he would continue searching.

As he reached the lake, he saw no one around. However, it wasn't very surprising, he had learned that terrifying monsters dwelled in this lake's depth.

Still, he was bored and curious, so he walked on the lake. That's right, walked on it. Every time he stepped on the water, he would use his incomplete [Icy Stomp] to freeze the water below hit foot and walk on it.

Of course, it wasn't as simple as that because the layer of ice under his feet was thin, and the water around would sway it so not falling off of it was a hard task. But since Adam had mastered the 4th Gate, it was no problem for him and he was able to stroll on the lake without any difficult. For him, it wasn't very different from walking on the ground.

Adam finally stopped in the center of the lake, and there he created a bigger and thicker platform for himself. Although this replicated the AOE of [Icy Stomp], it wasn't the skill because he was simply channeling an excessive amount of Aura in his foot to forcefully freeze a bigger area. He was wasting too much Aura for this.

As the platform was created, although it was rocking around, it still held, and Adam was able to sit on it and meditate a little to recover the Aura he had lost to create the platform.

But as he was doing so, the water around him suddenly started to darken. Adam opened his eyes, and jumped from where he was.

And it was just in time as after he jumped, a giant mouth suddenly swallowed the entire platform. From his higher point Adam could see a set of giant teeth, as well as scales and big eyes. This was a giant piranha.

Adam landed a few meters away, and this time decided to dive in the water. He was the Aqua Sovereign, was he going to be afraid of some water?

Although entering water didn't strengthen Adam, he felt no constraint from the surrounding water, it didn't weaken him in the slightest.

Normally, if someone enters water they would find every movement to be harder and they would tire themselves, but for Adam, it was like the water around him followed his every movement, he could go anywhere he wanted and he wouldn't be slowed down.

Actually, this felt a bit like flying, and thus turned this battle into a three dimensional one. One piece of information Adam had learned in his time in the game was that someone could start flying when they brokethrough to Gold Rank.

However, even though everyone became able to fly when they became Gold Rank, many wouldn't use it in fights. This was because humans aren't supposed to fly, their brain doesn't allow them to fight well in three dimensional fights.

Only when someone opened the 4th Gate would they be able to perfect three dimensional fighting. That's why, even if Adam was now fighting a three dimensional fight for the first time, he didn't have any difficulty.

The big fish swam toward him, but he easily dodged and sent a palm strike against the fish's side. The area around his hand turned into ice, including it's insides, but it wasn't enough to kill it.

Just then, Adam hadn't used [Icy Touch] but the incomplete [Icy Stomp]. Although it was originally a skill to be used with his feet, it could actually be used from any limb.

As Adam's palm hit the fish's side, it ignored the pain and used it's tail end to whip toward Adam. Adam could easily dodge it, but something unexpected happened. The water surrounding the tail formed a whirlpool like power that slowed down Adam.

With his strong body, he was still able to break through this whirlpool power and dodged, but Adam was intrigued by this power as he felt that it somehow resembled his [Icy Stomp] in the way Aura was dispelled.

So Adam allowed himself to be hit by the tail. In the short instant where his body and the fish's tail were in contact with each other, he was able to feel the way the fish was using it's Aura. However, it was only a short moment and Adam was only able to understand and memorize a part of it.

Then, his body reeled back from the heavy impact and Adam felt pain through his body, but he didn't care. Using his 2nd Gate, he healed from the damage. Since he was in the middle of water, his Aura Regeneration was many times faster than normal, so he was able to heal from damage very quickly.

Actually, if he was fighting underwater, Adam believed the only way to kill him was either to make him lose all the blood in his body, or kill him in a single attack. Otherwise, he would be able to heal 5% of his health every second.