Chapter 425: Max Level Eye of Truth, Increased Storage Space Slots
Next morning, they woke up to the same announcement as yesterday, the familiar chime echoing through the city as dawn broke.
Ding!
[Start of Day 4,595.]
[Please pray for the success of Lord Cavin, Empress Silver, and all the other requiem guild members!]
"Well," Leon smiled as he opened his eyes, stretching his limbs, "I don’t need to sleep, but these beds really are top quality, I have to admit."
"Agreed!" Emilia beamed, "So much better than the inn in the Imperial Kingdom!"
"...Or the hotel in the Awakener Kingdom," Celeste completed, recalling their previous accommodations with a slight grimace.
Regardless, after the four of them ate breakfast together in the hotel’s dining area, they went outside, and Leon looked at the girls with a serious expression that made them pay attention.
"Alright, from today onward, we should focus on growing stronger, that will be our main goal and our top priority above everything else."
"But how?" Violet pondered, "There’s no real way to increase our strength beyond what we have without grinding for years and years..."
"Oh trust me," Leon’s smile widened, "There are a few ways: monster essences and skill/enhancement stones."
As soon as he said that, Violet understood, and the realization was even higher as she remembered Leon’s talent and what it could do for all of them.
"Oh..." Violet mumbled, "I see now, indeed, that might work, we could grow exponentially in just a few weeks if we focus on the right areas."
The group might be "weak" compared to the requiem guild members and some other threats, but in the next few weeks, the balance would be completely different, and they wouldn’t see it coming until it was too late.
Before heading out to begin their grinding session and tackle the monsters that awaited them, Leon decided to spend his skill stones to evolve one of his skills.
Knowing that it would serve him well in the battles to come.
[Skill Stones x110]
And the one skill he wanted to evolve right now among all of those he currently had was [Appraisal], the very first skill he had ever acquired back in the novice village when he began his journey.
It was currently level 7 and only common-rank, meaning it was literally the cheapest one to max out in terms of skill stone investment, making it the most logical choice.
Though even then, the amount wasn’t small either, as Leon had to crush 65 Skill Stones.
[Which skill do you wish to upgrade?]
"The first skill I ever got," Leon grinned, a hint of nostalgia in his voice as he remembered where it all began.
He had come so far, yet he knew that there was so much more to do.
Ding!
[You have evolved your "Appraisal (Common Lv.7)" skill into "Appraisal (Common Lv.10)"]
The panel around the spell suddenly began changing again, the interface shifting and reforming as the skill reached its maximum potential.
’Here we go!’ Leon thought, his anticipation building.
[Your "Appraisal (Common)" skill has reached its maximum level and has grown much stronger.]
[Your "Appraisal" skill has evolved into "Eye of Truth"]
[Eye of Truth (Max): Able to peer into the very essence of all things, nothing can escape your gaze, and even if you appraise a monster or a player, they will not be able to sense you no matter what.]
"Here it is," Leon’s eyes widened with satisfaction, "With that, this should be much easier going forward."
If he had tried to use [Appraisal] on the Requiem Guild members before, they would have probably detected him and killed him on the spot without a second thought.
But now, with a much stronger version of Appraisal that can bypass restrictions, and that they couldn’t sense no matter what, it’d be much easier to gather information about his enemies.
And with that investment made, his remaining skill stones were now significantly reduced.
[Skill Stones x45]
’Even three levels from Common rank skills takes that many Skill Stones,’ Leon thought with a groan, realizing the scale of what lay ahead, ’I’ll have to acquire a lot more to make real progress.’
It would take thousands of them to max out his skills, and perhaps tens of thousands in the future if he wanted to do it with the girls as well, a daunting prospect.
That would require a TON of grinding across the most dangerous areas of the domain, which Leon wasn’t scared of, but it would take time.
The main thing that would pose problems was his [Storage Space] as he only had 280 Slots right now, and the items were already piling up.
Thankfully, Leon had a lot of money thanks to all the items he sold on the global market, and so he didn’t cheap out when it came to expanding his inventory.
Ding!
[Do you wish to spend 5,000,000 Eternal Coins to expand your "Storage Space" by 10 slots?]
"Yes!" Leon confirmed without hesitation.
A brilliant golden aura burst outward from his panel, the coins dissolving into pure energy that fed directly into the storage itself.
Ding!
[Your "Storage Space" slots have increased to 290.]
"More," Leon said, wanting to expand further.
Leon tried to look through the [Trading House], but there was no [Storage Space Expander] available for purchase from other players.
The trading house was truly lacking when it came to high demand items like these, as everyone tried to grab them the moment they appeared.
That is precisely why the requiem guild struggled hard to obtain stronghold crystals even with so much coins to spend, because the market simply didn’t have them.
Either way, he repeated the process three more times, paying 10,000,000, then 15,000,000, and finally another 20,000,000 for the subsequent expansions.
Ding!
[Your "Storage Space" slots have increased to 320.]
Of course, Leon still had a ton of Eternal Coins to use if he wanted to, but he stopped for now, not wanting to deplete his reserves too much.
[Eternal Coins: 91,140,489]
The cost would indeed become too much if he kept going at this rate, and he still wanted to keep the coins in case of emergency, as well as for when he returned to [Higher Domain #3].
’I think I’m probably strong enough to take all of the Awakener Lord’s guardians by now,’ Leon mused, ’just gotta make sure I can defeat him as well, and as for the Divine Academy, I’m sure growing stronger will make it easier to deal with them as well.’
Everything seemed to align in Leon’s vision at this point, his future plans and what he needed to do were all clearly mapped out in his mind for the higher domains.
All he needed to do now was to make it happen through consistent effort and smart decision-making.
He looked at the S-Rank quest’s panel one more time, reviewing its requirements.
[S-Rank Quest: Level 6 Stronghold.]
[Objective: Bring the Requiem Guild the remaining 6 Stronghold Crystals.]
[Time Limit: 29 Days 5 Hours 47 Minutes.]
[Current Completion: 5/6]
Leon knew that they wouldn’t know how many crystals he had except if he directly showed it to them or if he obtained another one as the system would detect him completing the quest.
Meaning that right now, the requiem guild must be thinking that Leon was in a state of panic to obtain some, scrambling to find the crystals they needed.
Unfortunately for them, he couldn’t be calmer than he was currently, completely in control of the situation.
"Lets go," Leon smiled as teleported each of them outside the requiem stronghold, appearing in the wilderness beyond its walls, "We have a little under four weeks to do all we can do, so no time to waste."