historical

Leonel exhaled, stepping out of the Spear Pagoda. He looked back to find a familiar pillar of light reaching into the skies, but he wasn't surprised by this. He had realized a short way through the "first" floor that there was only one floor to be seen at all. His progress would be dependent on how many of the army that he had killed, but it turned out that he had killed them all.

This was already enough for people to look at him as though he was some kind of monster, but what they didn't know was that he had come here right from the Bow Pagoda without rest. The fact he still performed so well right afterward was shocking.

It just went to show just what kind of changes Leonel's body had undergone. Previously, his stamina would have long since been tapped out, especially with how wildly he had begun to battle near the end.

However, with how much vitality he had squeezed into his body during the reformation of his Metal Body, his stamina couldn't compare to the past. Even if he wanted to enter another two or three pagodas, he would still be able to perform optimally without drop off, and that didn't consider the fact that he still had [Instant Recovery] that he had yet to use.

The Spear Faction was already in an uproar due to the shocking changes of the Spear Pagoda, but when Leonel walked out, the shock was even more heavy.

Leonel, though, was looking for something entirely different. He wanted to make sure that he didn't run into his aunt again.

Truthfully, after clearing the Spear Pagoda, he could enter the Spear Faction for free from now on. But he didn't expect to be able to law-speak his way out of punishment. When one's elders wanted to be unreasonable, you could only acquiesce.

It wasn't long before Leonel locked eyes with his aunt, prepared to run. But surprisingly enough, she didn't seem very eager to run after him. She simply stood there, legs spread and arms crossed, watching with a smile.

The trial of the Spear Pagoda had been cleared six times in this generation already by those of the Morales family. However, they had all done it after entering Tier 7. Leonel was the only one to face against it at Tier 1 and actually clear it in one go.

Now, he was the seventh to clear it and the lights were actually extremely resplendent.

The truth was that so long as you were in the Sixth Dimension, all of the warriors of the army you faced would be in Tier 1. Fighting 10 000 enemies of your level was a ridiculous ask for anyone, and as such, it wasn't expected.

But Leonel had actually entered at Tier 1 and faced that many enemies all on his own. It was truly shocking. There simply wasn't a precedent for such a thing.

Leonel didn't look like he had changed much at all, which meant that he had entered and exited at pretty much the same strength level. That, in itself, was already shocking enough. Ness couldn't help but wonder just what Leonel had experienced in the Zone.

By this point, many stories had been traded and circulated about what many experienced in the Zone. Some gained opportunities, but there were many more who lived lives of suffering, this was especially so since everyone reported being unable to use Force or their Ability Indexes.

Due to this limitation, many were forced to rely on their physical bodies alone. This was enough for them to survive in the wilderness as the geniuses of the Human Domain, but if they came across high class civilizations, they were pretty much all unilaterally thrown into slavery.

For most, their journey came to an end just like this. They spent their days in humiliation, hoping and praying for a chance to escape.

There were some who were able to turn this around. Using their status as servants and following after the rich and powerful, they picked up on bits and pieces of knowledge that could change their fates. They found new methods of applying their strength, new methods of Force usage, or enlightening Styles and the like.

There were all sorts of stories. Some found valuable ruins, some located precious treasures, and some grasped valuable truths that would help them for decades into the future.

Of course.. There were also many who simply died, never to return again, pushed to the limit in what was ultimately a cruel world.

There was something special that many noticed, though. Those who had World Spirits were unlike the others and had been able to use their Force just fine. This was a truth that was found after plotting the patterns of everything that had happened.

As the gathering hub of talents of the Human Domain, the Void Palace had a large population of youths who were likewise World Spirit wielders. But such youths tended to be from weaker families as those from much more powerful families wouldn't have such a chance. After all, in such well established families, the World Spirits were in the hands of the experts.

But this led to an interesting change.

Alongside the Cataclysm Generation, there was an inferior, but still powerful group of youths who had managed to rely on their World Spirits to gain far more from the Zone than most others had. However, interestingly enough, these youths had only just begun to appear more recently and they were, as such, lagging behind the members of the Cataclysm Generation who had returned much earlier.

Due to this, it was very possible that these youths might even surpass the Cataclysm Generation given time.

As this pattern began to unfurl itself, interesting theories began to crop up one after another.

What did this all mean?

Well, the later one returned, the closer they had been to Leonel in the Zone when he activated the return sequence. In that case, could it be that many of those youths who had gained great opportunities had all experienced the very same thing?

Essentially, as Ness looked toward Leonel, the more she felt that there might be some truth to this theory. Could it be that all of these youths had experienced the same thing?

In that case.. didn't that mean that there was a change coming very soon?