Malevolent Warlock: Sin Of Eternity

79  Peak of level 1

"Hhhhheeee" Leon could be seen profusely sweating in his room. He seemed to be having a hard time advancing.

"Huuu" He let out an air of exhaustion as he opened his eyes and looked around.

"It's already dark out" Leon said. From beginner stage to middle stage had taken him about 3 hours. This seemed long and frustrating, but as compared to what he was going through now, he could only feel like what he had to go through previously was but a walk in the park.

This was already about 15 hours after he started absorbing the energy from the red devilwood and he hadn't even finished absorbing 1/4 of its entire length.

"Is there something wrong?" Leon frowned. This made no sense to him, all this while that he hadn't tried to breakthrough was because he was tuning his control of life-energy. With impeccable control came good foundations, with the resources he had now it should be easy to breakthrough.

Of course, if anyone apart from Leon heard what he had just thought, they would go crazy with rage. Was it that easy to become a peak level 1 warlock? If it was, then were they just wasting their time all this while?

Leon's complaint would cause an outage.

However, it came from a place of experience. Leon knew that to break through to any realm, one must first have a stable foundation, and he had that, so why was it taking so long?

"I guess, I'll just have to keep going at it" Leon muttered before closing his eyes once again.

Maybe it was because the item was grade 2 and Leon was still at level 1, or perhaps it was because he was missing something, but Leon knew it was but a matter of time, he would break through eventually.

And so he continued, the day went by and then the next and then the next...

3 days and Leon was still inside the rook trying to elevate. Even Arian became worried and came to check up on him several times, but Leon was unresponsive, only focusing on reaching the peak.

On a particular night.

Leon's figure could be seen taking in life-energy through his pore sin fact, the whole room was littered with white smoke, brimming with life-energy. The only part of the room that wasn't filled with life-energy was Leon.

His face was completely pale and devoid of signs of life. He looked like a corpse.

"He-he, got it" all of a sudden, Leon's lips curved into a snide smile. "Huuuuuu" he took in a deep breath of air and astonishingly all the life-energy floating around the room started rushing towards Leon at full speed.

It looked as if it had a mind of their own, but this was not the case. Leon was the one controlling it. During these few days, Leon was able to understand that, truly, he was lacking in control of life-energy.

Maybe it was because his usage of mana had conflicted with his usage of life-energy, Leon didn't know, but he was confident now more than ever… n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Huuuuuuuu" as the life-energy came pouring in, Leon's pale face regained its redness, minute by minute he was looking Healthier and healthier….in fact, at a point he started growing muscles that weren't there previously....then all of a sudden.

—poop

A Loud sound echoed in the room, alerting Arian, who was outside having a meal with gunta.

"Oh? " Arian looked up at Leon's room and sighed in relief. Many times she had witnessed people go into this frantic state of breaking through and ended up causing themselves more harm than good.

She was relieved that Leon's case wasn't one of those. She didn't know why, but she was subconsciously afraid for Leon...it just seemed natural.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

At the same time, memos were sent to the instructors for each of the faceless mercenary entrance tests.

Darknorth too got one and couldn't help but smile from ear to ear.

The tempering event had been scheduled!!!.

The tempering event was an age long tradition in the faceless mercenary company. It was meant to give the members of the company a taste of the benefits the company had in store for them. No matter the circumstances, they would have to hold it.

"Reach out to them" Darknorth muttered to one of his colleagues.

"Hmm!!" The colleague nodded and went to the back of the restaurant.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

"Yum umm yumm"

The silhouette of Leon could be seen savagely munching down on several bowls of rice and eggs placed in front of him.

This was unusual for Leon's normally poise and elegant behavior. He looked like he was starving.

Seating in a lotus position for about 4 to 5 days, no good, only hard work. Of course, he was hungry. In fact, he felt like he could go on eating forever....

"Uhhhhh" Arian, who was seated opposite Leon, tried to get his attention while staring at him awkwardly.

"Hm? You want something?" Leon asked.

"I got this from Darknorth yesterday…." Arian extended a letter in front of her. She had gotten it the same day Leon broke through, but when she got to his room he had fallen into a deep sleep, so she decided to wait.

"Oh? Get it, Levi" Leon extended his hand forward and a pitch-black snake crawled out from his sleeve and slithered towards Arian.

"Hissss"

When he got to her, it used its mouth to grab the letter before slithering back to Leon.

"Hm? So soon?" Leon frowned, the paper read:

All new members of the faceless mercenary company are hereby invited to take part in the tempering ceremony of the company holding a week from now, meet your test instructors for further information. We hope to see our new talents here and how far they are able to go.

                                                 Signed by

                               Deputy leader Firstblood

"Too much of a rush" Leon shook his head. He was hoping to accumulate enough to use the tempering event to break through to level 2, but it was too close.

"Arian, do you think you can handle an errand for me in the undercity?" After contemplating for a few seconds, Leon asked.

"The undercity?" Arian tilted her head sideways. What did Leon want with the undercity?

"I need you to kidnap a level 2 warlock for me" Leon said, causing the whole room to become silent.

Kidnap a level 2 warlock? The balls on Leon were enormous, if anyone heard him saying this outside, they would probably punch him in a fit of rage. How was a level 1 warlock thinking of kidnapping someone in level 2? Was that wishful thinking?

Of course, Leon knew this was hard, hence him asking Arian to do it. She was the perfect candidate, a level 3 mage with the ability to force a fighter to fight her to the death.

She could definitely accomplish it.

"Okay" Arian Agreed to Leon's request. It wasn't the first time he had made such outrageous requests. In fact, that was what she knew him for, constantly looking for a way to accomplish the impossible.

"Hehe, wonderful" Leon smirked before picking up his rice bowl and burying his face into it once again.

He had to seize any and all opportunities available to him. Strength was the most important to him right now.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Inside of Badur's gates.

"More"

—Cling

—cling

—cling

Chains could be seen wrapped around a giant pagoda inside badurs gates. The chains didn't only wrap around it. They pulled so tight that the pagoda was lifted from the ground.

Chain magic, this was one of the specialities of Badur's gates. It gave Leon full dominion over the space, allowing him to imprison others in it.

In this case, he wasn't imprisoning anything per se. He just noticed that the pagoda had started causing cracks to appear on the floor of badurs gates.

He didn't know if it was a conscious effort to destroy Badur's Gate by the pagoda, or it was something else. So, Leon suspended the pagoda in the air with chains.

"It was going to happen eventually" Leon, after contemplating for a minute, shrugged his shoulders and walked towards the pagoda.

It had completely faded into existence inside badurs gate, but Leon was too busy to investigate why. Now it was becoming a problem, he had no choice but to go in and find out.

And he did just that, he entered the pagoda physically for the first time. And surprisingly, it wasn't the same as when he did so with his spiritual body.

The space was emptier and gave of a feeling of being ancient. Leon couldn't help but wonder why this was. But that was not why he was here.

"Treasure" Leon called out, he was here to find out why the pagoda was inside of Badur's gates.

[Ding

What might the host need?

]

The system echoed

"What are you doing here?" Leon asked.

[ Ding

The system is trying to merge with this Spectral treasure

]

"Merge?" Leon looked confused.