The silence in the conference room remained for a prolonged duration. It was only after a little while that the young man who had spoken first spoke up.
Gazing at the lady who was sitting to his right, he asked, "What do you think those guys are doing?"
When he asked that question, the attention was once again shifted to the lady. She was the one that was in charge of intelligence within the entire stronghold, and definitely, there was no one that knew more than she did.
This was not only due to her power level, but also due to a special technique that she possessed. It allowed her to be able to gather information quite easily as compared to others.
"As usual, I cannot tell anything about the floating city. Unless you personally pay a visit there, it will be impossible to be able to tell what is happening." The lady responded.
The young man frowned slightly. It was clear that the response that he had received was not what he wanted to hear. Regardless, the frown disappeared within just moments, almost as if he had never been there.
"Okay, let's not bother about the floating city. Let's focus on the other strongholds. If we cooperate, we can find a method of solving this. Even if we have to pool together our strength in order to attack a single forbidden area, as long as we succeed, the gains that we will get will definitely exceed venturing into those small ruins." The young man said.
The moment that those words were said, especially the words forbidden area, the tension in the conference room suddenly rose up.
Looking at the expressions of everyone around, the young man simply snorted and said, "What? Do you have any other idea? You have to know, the longer we wait, the faster we are going to die. If we don't get stronger, we are only waiting for the demons to destroy us."
"But Lord, do we really have the capability of venturing into the forbidden areas? Even if all the strongholds combine, it will be almost impossible for us to be able to successfully venture into the ruins present within the forbidden areas." Someone within the conference room spoke up.
In response to the question, it was not the young man who spoke, but a middle-aged man that was sitting to the left of the young man.
With a stern expression on his face, he said, "Do you think we have the capability of dealing with the demons?"
The moment that he asked that question, the conference room went silent again. And seeing that nobody was responding to him, the middle-aged man continued, "In comparison to the demons, we are always at a disadvantage. We have to take risks in order to be able to deal with these demons.
If we don't take any risks, we can only wait to be slaughtered by the demons. So, would you rather die while trying to get stronger, or do you want to just sit there, wait to be slaughtered without resistance?"
When the question was asked, nobody answered. But from their expressions, the answer was very clear to the middle-aged man. He simply snorted and said nothing more.
"Okay, I don't want arguments. Those who are willing to go, prepare yourselves. I will tell you exactly when we will be departing after I communicate with the other strongholds.
As for those that want to stay behind, make sure that nothing happens to the stronghold. If I come back and I find that the stronghold has faced any kind of danger, I will hold you accountable." The young man spoke in an irrefutable tone.
And after saying those words, he got up, before leaving the conference room. Following behind him were the lady in charge of intelligence and the middle-aged man.
"Damn! This is just too much! Those demons! If I had the capability, I would have slaughtered them all!" Someone shouted within the conference room.
"Can you stop with the yapping? How many people have said those words before you? But when they face the demons, they are always the first ones to flee with their tails between their legs." Another one commented from the side.
"What? Don't tell me that you want a fight? The last time that we competed against each other, you had no chance of resisting at all. If you feel that the beating that you received last time was not enough, you can come for another dose." The person who had previously shouted said in response as he glared at the person who had just contradicted him.
"If you have the time to argue, then please go on. In any case, I'm going along with the others, and see what the forbidden area holds. If you want to stay behind, be my guest. But you have to know, it is inevitable that the stronghold will face danger while we are away." Someone suddenly commented, before they left.
The others had a shift in their expressions, before they all began leaving. Each and every one of them had their own thoughts, but they understood, any choice that they made, it had its on pros and cons.
….
On the morning of the following day, Bob opened his eyes. He had slept quite late the previous day. Initially, he had intended to continue absorbing the energy throughout the night, but at some point in the middle of the night, he was overwhelmed and slept.
While he was getting stronger physically, he was being mentally drained. It seemed that to operate the technique, it required mental strength. Unless his mental strength was stronger than now, it would be impossible for him to continuously operate the technique to absorb the arcane energy continuously.
At the moment, Bob did not have any method of restoring his mental strength other than sleeping. So, when he was overwhelmed the previous night, he simply slept, only to wake up at this time.
Looking at the watch, it was already 8:00 a.m. It seemed that he had slept for a while, at least for 6 hours.
After stretching, Bob fixed his gaze on the system panel. His eyes lit up with excitement, looking at the improvements made. While nothing about the skills and techniques had changed, his power level had seen a considerable improvement.
[Name: Robert Milton
Age: 20
Power Level: Level 4 Commander
Techniques: Crimson Vortex Sutra (Epic), Spear Mastery (Epic), Human Weapon (Epic).
Skills: Phantom Veil (Epic), Phantom Thrust (Epic)
Divine skills/abilities:
Current skill points: ∞]
He had already reached level 4 of the commander realm! His current strength was completely incomparable to his strength back in the captain realm.
With this rate of improvement, Bob believed that it would not be long before he would be able to finally leave this world and go back to where he belonged.
Despite experiencing the feeling of getting stronger, Bob did not really want to continue staying within this world. He believed that since he could get to this level, others could do as well.
So, he was not willing to engage in some kinds of battle that did not even involve him. He had only been thrown here out of nowhere, not understanding the reason why it happened.
Maybe it was related to the game that he had been playing previously, but regardless, he wanted to go back. He had a family back on Earth, one that he was not willing to abandon.
As for the system and the strength that he could acquire within this world, even if it disappeared when he went back to earth, Bob felt that it was all worth it. After all, back on earth, the worst that could happen was the launching of a nuclear bomb, not the destruction of the entire world by some kind of demons.
Shaking his head, Bob decided not to think about this for the time being. In any case, even though he had gotten stronger, he did not feel like he was capable of venturing out of this stronghold confidently, not to mention the entire world.
Bob went to head and freshened up, after that, he prepared himself a sumptuous breakfast. But he noticed something. It seemed that his appetite kept on increasing with his increase in power level.
After eating, Bob wanted to leave the house, but he suddenly stopped. He realized something, the people that had seen him the previous day, and could see his power level, if they saw him again, things would get complicated.
Such rate of improvement, to the extent where they could see that he was currently at level 4 of the commander realm, or maybe they could not even see through his power level, they would definitely doubt something.
But the problem was the fact that there was nothing that Bob could do at the moment. It was not as if he was going to put on a mask on his face, right?
Just when he thought about that, Bob remembered something. It seemed that there were quite a few people that actually put on masks on their faces when they ventured out of the stronghold.
He could just do the same. In any case, as long as he presented his identification token, nobody would really delve deeper into his identity, right? It was a good thing that most of the enforcers that were in charge of verifying the identification tokens were only in the soldier realm.
As long as he was not unlucky, Bob would not encounter anyone that would suspect him. So, Bob, caring nothing but the bracelet on his wrist, he headed straight for the gate that led outside the stronghold.
When he got there, he did not experience much problem, which made it easy for him to be able to leave the stronghold. The moment that he got out, he chose a random direction, before going on to hunt demons.