Eren wanted to know how much progress he had made.

So he accessed his I-Rune and saw his status screen appear in front of him.

Name- Eren Elijah Idril

Organization: Stardust Guild

I-Rune Imprint: * (verified)

Ranking Status: Rank 1 Meta Ranker (Liquid state mana core: Stage 6)

Class- Battlemage

Ranking Technique- Default

Credit paid: 100/8000 Mana Quartz

Base Stats:

HP- 11.3/11.3

MP- 15.2 ?/16.2 ?

STR- 9.9

AGI- 11.5

INT- 8.7

BTP- 57.6

Rank 1 Spells: Solid Spark, Blitz Steps, Blitz Wave, Blitz Storm, Blitz Heal, Blitz Arrow, Blitz Shield, Blitz Shard, Blitz Whip, Alfem, Taranbiest (sync incomplete)

[Active mission #KL-644: Subjugation of demonic ranker Bulal Blood and all his allies.

Mission site: Pointlet Forest and nearby region.]

This was a significant boost from his earlier stats. He couldn’t help smiling when he processed the progress that was in front of him.

Clip-clop! Clip-clop! Clip-clop!

There were a bunch of colts galloping through the night forest. Eren was one of the riders. He was busy seeing his progress when he heard a simple question hurled at him.

“How?”

While the entire team was riding their colts toward the Pointlet forest, Miranda asked Eren a question. Riding at midnight was a terrible idea. But Roland had told them he knew a safe route to the forest which was devoid of any aggressive mana beasts.

“I just did, you know. It was a do-or-die situation. And I pushed myself to perform. And the next thing I knew I was in the 6th stage of the Meta rank.”

Eren said honestly. By this point, he knew that blatant lies would not get him anywhere. So he chose the path of telling incomplete truths.

Eren’s team members who were close to him had the same questions. All except Reece who was just happy that the guy had surpassed her. She was also in Rank 1’s fifth stage.

But now Eren was a step ahead of her. She just wanted to catch up to him at this point, using the same method he had applied to achieve a forced breakthrough. Mia Silver was thinking along the same lines. Her case was a bit different because it was a bottleneck between the two ranks.

The stage breakthroughs were relatively easy to achieve. Especially for those with synth bodies. But rank breakthroughs required a lot more from rankers than simply pushing themselves to the extreme.

A ranking breakthrough would require a ranker to have a set level of elemental attainment of their element. Without it, a ranking breakthrough was a tall task to achieve.

This was why Minrada was called a genius. She had no problem advancing into the Awakened rank because her elemental attainment was already high, to begin with.

“Come on man. Tell us your secret already. You know I did you a solid, right? Now it’s time to return.”

Ekay spoke while riding beside Eren and Miranda. Obviously, he was talking about him introducing Eren to underground fights to make more money. Eren smiled mirthlessly before looking at Ekay. He pondered a bit before replying.

“Well… I think I benefited from doing regular workouts. A lot of rankers avoid doing workouts thinking their mana would take care of their muscles. And that’s all true. But sometimes, you need to put yourself under stress to see how much you can take.

It’s also a way of coping with the mental burden we might face in our jobs.”

Eren paused and took a deep breath before concluding.

“Worry about elemental attainment later on. Meta rank is just the beginning. Why not have a routine for yourself that you can adhere to for as long as you can? It’s worth a shot. Look at me.”

***

Eren said and sped up his colt to match up with Miranda and Reece. Ekay, Reece, and Rhea looked at each other after Eren said what he had to say. All of their eyes were indicating that they were seriously considering following in Eren’s footsteps.

Even Reece was listening. She too had decided to work out with Eren. The latter was doing progressive overload in terms of gravitational force these days in any facility he could find. He was now working out while under the effects of 3.1 times the gravitational force of Earth.

The rankers who knew about it had called it a waste of time. But now they were not so sure.

Eren had used his workout as an excuse to cover the existence of his infinite mana core. But he didn’t know that the other rankers who were listening to his advice were seriously planning to follow his tip. He was also not aware that his tip was going to end up causing a placebo effect for a lot of rankers in the future.

***

A team from the Stardust guild and Pointlet town’s guards led by Miranda, Kiara, and Roland stopped at the border of the Pointlet forest. They were going to divide the teams into multiple squads to approach the possible location of Bulal Blood.

Eren had found a bunch of antidotes on the dead demonic rankers they had killed in the city hall. It wasn’t clear if the demonic rankers were planning to hand the vials of antidote to the soldiers or not. The contract at least ensured they had the antidotes with them.

The immediate threat to the guards’ lives was over. But they had done a punishable offense by aiding the demonic rankers, even if they had done it unwillingly.

Kiara had told Roland and his soldiers that she would judge the performance of the soldiers in this raid. And that she would present the final report to her guild only after they were done with the mission.

She had also told them that those who performed well in the mission would be highlighted in her report. And since it was a kingdom-level mission, it could work wonders for the soldiers who were employed by the kingdom.

Kiara’s intentions were clear. She wanted the soldiers to perform above and beyond what was expected of them to clear their names. Nobody would prefer a renegade’s life. Now that they had been free of the ticking time bomb that was their dying bodies, they could give it all during this mission.

Roland had come to realize that Kiara was very crafty. She had applied a stick and carrot approach to rile up his soldiers. Yet he did not say a word against it. He had come to realize that the sooner he got on with the program, the better it would be for him and his soldiers.

Soon an entire lot of rankers and soldiers were divided into squads. There were two types of squads. Those who ventured into the forest. And those who secured the area.

The venturing squads were tasked with finding and confronting the enemies. Squads assigned as perimeter details were expected to provide cover at the right time after ensuring there were no fleeting enemies.

After all, this was a purge. They weren’t taking any prisoners.

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