After telling the Heavenly Demon the results of his appraisal, she remained silent for a while.
Cipher didn't disturb her and also maintained his silence.
This was essentially saying that the world had no future. No wonder it kept looping even after she was strong enough to defeat the apocalypse. In the end, it all meant nothing - the world was already dead.
It couldn't be saved.
He couldn't even begin to imagine how she felt. It was as though all her struggle had been for nothing. The world was going to keep looping, and she was going to die eventually once her soul eroded completely.
This would eventually be the fate of the entire Murim World.
He glanced at her, wondering how she would react to this. Would she give up...
Before he could complete the thought, the Heavenly Demon exhaled.
She then extended her hand and a huge book appeared.
"This is the Heavenly Demonic Sword Art manual," she said. "I'll go fight the final battle just like before. You'll practice by yourself like we agreed."
Cipher looked at her. She didn't show any emotion - just her usual self. It was better not to ask what was on her mind and just go along with it.
He took the manual. "Thank you," he said with a bow.
Suddenly, he felt her hand on his chest and she exerted some pressure, causing him to begin falling from space.
Before he could realize what was happening, a portal appeared below him and he fell right through.
…
Cipher appeared through a portal back where he was before leaving with the Heavenly Demon.
He turned around only to see the portal closing behind him.
He looked at the horizon where he saw the encroaching darkness.
It seemed the Heavenly Demon still had a strong heart. Even after learning that the world had no future and was already dead, she still refused to give up and fought for it.
He wondered if it was a matter of pride. What would he do if he was in the same situation?
He looked at the manual in his hands.
Before, she was just teaching him casually as she found him a little interesting. But now that she had given him the actual manual, was she now serious about him learning it? Did she want him to preserve the method as her successor or something?
He shook his head, deciding not to think about it anymore.
…
Later that day, Cipher was swinging his sword as the sun slowly descended.
He looked at the horizon. The darkness had advanced quite a bit.
At the same time, he felt the world shake and stabbed his sword into the ground to stabilize himself.
This had become a usual occurrence ever since he left the Heavenly Demon. He assumed it was a high-level battle happening between her and the Demon God. Those two were really on another level compared to him.
What surprised him even more was that the Heavenly Demon was still fighting that Demon God despite the difference in stats.
"It's about time for my battle too," he thought, beginning to walk.
He still had yet to gain the Heavenly Demonic Sword Art skill. He decided to continue training just like before - practicing his swordsmanship during the day, hunting three equally ranked monsters in the evening, then practicing his qi manipulation throughout the night.
Qi manipulation was different from the mana manipulation skill. Well, it was the same in that it was all about how one circulated energy, but this one was part of the Heavenly Demonic Sword Art. It could be considered the second half of the art - the first half being the pure swordsmanship, and the second being how to circulate energy when executing the swordsmanship.
He walked around, looking for monsters to fight.
Unlike the Heavenly Demon who could capture three monsters and bring them to him to fight at the same time, he couldn't do that. He could only find a monster at a time and fight it.
Well, he supposed it didn't really matter. The pressure of facing three at the same time was to temper his mindset and fear of battle, which he didn't believe he had considering how much death he'd experienced in the future.
Since he wasn't in the fake apocalypse the Heavenly Demon had made, there were also some higher-level monsters hanging around here. Thankfully, most of the higher-level ones seemed to have moved toward the battle, but there were still some C and B-ranks left.
Thanks to his Appraisal, he was able to notice anything dangerous from afar and stay away from it.
He soon found his first D-rank monster and was able to quickly execute it. He could already kill three at the same time within about a minute, so killing just one was child's work.
[You have slain D-rank Demon (Level 35)]
[+44,000 EXP]
[+40 Cheat Points]
[You have leveled up!]
[You have leveled up!]
He looked at his system. He was now officially D-rank. No matter how he distributed his stats, he would enter the D-rank threshold.
He put two points into Stamina, one into Agility, and one into Intelligence.
Now he had all his stats except Strength in D-rank.
He sighed. This meant that he could only level up once for each D-rank he killed. Well, on the bright side, the limit of Cheat Points per level up had increased.
Speaking of, he opened the Cheat Shop.
This was another advantage of fighting one monster at a time instead of three. With one, he had the time to check the Cheat Shop. This way, he wouldn't miss any of the free shop resets that came with leveling up.
Getting new cards didn't really matter, but he mostly wanted to see all the cards available in the shop. That way, he could begin planning how to optimize his deck and what to roll for.
This time, the shop had a Patch Card, and a... a skill?
…
Author's Corner
An observant reader (no pun intended) pointed out some errors in the numbers and me fixed them. The changes aren't that big but you can start rereading from chapter 8 to keep up with the changes. Or you can just read the fixed chapters. The chapters will have a "fixed" next to the title. Try clearing cache if you don't see it.
If you see an error in the numbers, pls point it out so we can fix it early and avoid having to build the later drafts on top of fake numbers.