The Genius Killer Stage.

Phina groaned as she woke up. She opened her eyes to find her and Pida in the same bed cuddling. 'What the hell?!'

She quickly forgot about the man's arms around her when she felt the cold. She was quite literally shivering! The temperature needed to make an Expert-ranker shiver was by no way little. 'We must have unconsciously got together to warm up at night.'

Phina vaguely remembered getting out of her bed at night.

"Why is it so cold?" Phina muttered as she got up from her bed. She quickly opened the window and felt the heat from the morning sun hit her hard. "Oh yeah..."

The sun felt extremely comfortable even on her numb face. She sighed as she bathed in the sunlight. "I guess I have to wake him up."

"Hey...hey...Pida...wake up." Phina shook the man awake.

"Is it m-morning already?" Pida stuttered as he slightly shivered. He was the big spoon, and he didn't get quite as much heat as he wanted.

"Yeah, go to the window. The sun will help." Phina advised as she put on her armor. "Oh, I have a question."

"What is it?" Pida responded with a smile as he absorbed the hot sunlight.

"Did your grandfather give you any advise on increasing your rank before he left?" Phina asked.

"Uhm...c-can you excuse me for a moment? I need to use the bathroom." Pida said as he quickly turned around and dashed to the bathroom.

"Thinking about it, we didn't really stop to use the bathroom since last week. It must be a big one. I have to wait for my turn." Phina sighed as she sat cross-legged on her own bed. She was trying to move the Ice Element around her. After around a minute of trying, she felt a slight movement.

Phina frowned. "It doesn't work the same as World Energy. I can't just force it to move with my mind...what to do?"

"Maybe I should try asking it to move?" Phina wondered. She then whispered. "Hey, Mr. Ice. Can you please move?"

"..."

"..."

Phina blushed in embarrassment. "W-Well...that was stupid."

"Hold on...what if I controlled it the same way I control my Laws?" Phina wondered. She was using a bunch of Laws in her Skills. For example, the Law of Space. But she didn't control it purely like a Law-ranker would. She forced it to move using World Energy, which placed a heavy toll on her World Energy reserves in a fight. "Wait...what about when I use Holy World Energy with Holy Devastation? I usually just make it follow my World Energy...that's it! I can move it by making it follow my World Energy instead of forcefully using my World Energy to move it!"

Phina tried out her new theory and the World Energy slightly moved the Ice Element!

"Nice! Now, all I need to reach the High stage Expert-rank is to start my World Energy Transformation!" Phina rejoiced. World Energy Transformation was one of the easiest step Experts could face when ranking up. World Energy Transformation essentially turns your World Energy into a specific type of Elemental World Energy, and the process was instant. The World Energy would sense the Element and absorb it like there was no tomorrow. "Wait...I need to do it with the Holy Element, otherwise I won't be able to use my Holy Devastation Skill."

Phina sighed as she realized. World Energy Transformation would mean she wouldn't be able to turn her World Energy from its base form into an Element. It took her exactly three minutes to find and start moving the Holy Element. "Great!"

She moved the Holy Element into her World Energy core, yet nothing happened. It just passed through. "What? It shou-"

"Alright. Let's go." Pida came out of the bathroom in a rush. "If you're done meditating, we should move out now."

"R-Right...let me use the bathroom first." Phina replied. 'What did I do wrong?'

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"I found them both!" Shira reported to Salas.

Salas's avatar quickly appeared in front of the giant red snake. "How are they doing? What are their ranks?"

"Max is in some type of assassin organization and Sera is in a policing force. Max is doing well for himself. He's already at the Peak stage Intermediate-rank, while Sera is stuck in a hunt, kind of like the one you sent her into your World for. She's not bad at all. She's already at the Middle stage Expert-rank." Shira reported. While the Loading World did not belong to her, she could inspect it from outside.

"Oh, she's already at the genius killer stage?" Salas was slightly surprised.

"She's probably going to suffer mentally at this stage." Shira said.

"Of course she will." Salas chuckled slightly as his avatar left his World.

Salas opened his eyes on his throne. He turned to the man to his side. The man was a giant, standing at 2 meters tall, and had short slicked back black hair. His shining golden armor radiated a fearsome Aura.

"Alex, call for a meeting. Have everyone attend, including Ryan." Salas ordered his general.

"Of course, my emperor." Alex bowed at the waist and left to gather everyone immediately.

"..." Salas sighed as he watched Alex leave the throne room. He then chuckled to himself. "I wonder if my princess will be able to cross the genius killer stage."

The High stage of the Expert-rank was known as the genius killer stage, or more commonly known as the instant powerup stage. The reason that some people came to know it as the genius killer stage was because of geniuses' insane Synchronicity rates. The point of the stage was for your World Energy core, which is a part of your body, to detect the Element and trigger a transformation due to how different the two things are. It's like a fusion of Yin and Yang. While a ton of people found it easy to get past this since all they had to do was let the two forces meet, millions of geniuses across many Worlds have cried enough tears to fill up a Tier 7 World because of this stage.

The problem with this stage was that, if your Synchronicity rate is high, the two forces wouldn't be as different. That means that instead of triggering the transformation naturally, geniuses had to forcefully fuse the two, which was harder than a non-genius to grasp an entire Law.

"I look forward to seeing your resolve, Sera." Salas smiled lightly.