Chapter 81: Martial Master
The spatial distortion smoothed out with a faint, crimson ripple as Roy stepped back into the subterranean silence of the hidden tunnel.
Alisa was standing exactly where he had left her, her posture rigid, her amber eyes widening slightly as her master materialized out of thin air.
The heavy, lingering scent of scorched earth and divine pressure clung to his black coat, a silent testament to the absolute devastation he had just unleashed out in the open desert.
Everyone felt it in the Hudeii Desert but no one knew who exactly was responsible for such devastating destruction.
Alisa wasn’t there but she believes the Apostle was responsible.
"Alisa, come forward" Roy commanded.
Roy didn’t waste a single second on pleasantries.
Alisa emerged from the shadows, approaching her master.
He reached into his coat and produced three glowing vials, placing them gently into Alisa’s slender hands.
"Consume them in sequence," Roy instructed, his voice a calm, smooth cadence that echoed softly against the stone walls. "Start with the silver."
Alisa looked down at the floating containers.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, but her loyalty to Roy was absolute.
She uncorked the first vial—the 2nd-Grade Evolution Advancement Elixir—and downed the shimmering, mercury-like liquid in a single draft.
[Ding!]
[Your Dedicated Follower has digested your blessing ’Evolution Advancement Elixir’ ]
For the first few seconds, there was dead silence.
"Urghhh"
Then, a sharp, choked gasp escaped Alisa’s throat as her core violently violently seized.
The elixir bypassed her mana channels entirely, targeting the center of her cultivation.
Her dantian.
A brilliant, blinding silver light erupted from her chest, shining right through her slate-grey Mandraxx uniform.
The pure, dense energy began to forcibly compress her internal gaseous mana, crystallizing it into a dense, solid liquid mana cores.
[Reporting.....]
[Your Dedicated Follower ’Alisa’ will now advanced into the cultivation realm]
[Subject has awakened her second mana core]
[Evolution Phase has now begun]
[Enlightment Phase: Middle Stage]
[Cultivation Status: Martial Master]
"Arrgghhh" Alisa clenched her fist tightly, she could feel it.
Her second mana core forming deep within her dantian.
Her natural bottleneck—the stubborn threshold that usually required decades of life-and-death enlightenment to cross—was systematically dismantled by the divine potion’s parameters.
Her muscles snapped taut, her veins bulging against her skin as her aura aggressively expanded, violently shattering the atmospheric pressure of the tunnel.
The silver luminescence flared one final time before sinking deep into her skin. When she opened her eyes, the ambient temperature around her had dropped, and her presence felt radically heavier.
Without a single side effect, she had successfully stepped over the mortal line, her dual mana cores stabilizing firmly at the entry baseline of a Martial Master.
"Good, you’re evolved into a Martial Master" Roy smiled.
The next on the list was the Nine-Headed Shadow-Viper Elixir: Synchronizing the Mind
"The purple one next," Roy instructed calmly, his golden-crimson eyes tracking the structural data shifting within her body.
Alisa nodded tightly, her hands steadying as she uncorked the 4th-Grade Nine-Headed Shadow-Viper Elixir.
The translucent purple oil smelled faintly of ozone and ancient venom.
She swallowed it down, but not without eating the desert viper Roy had caught on the way.
The reaction was instantaneous and cognitive. Alisa’s pupils dilated until her eyes were almost entirely pitch-black.
Her nervous system lit up with a burning, violet electrical charge.
She could hear the microscopic shifting of the sand dunes hundreds of meters above her head; she could track the exact trajectory of every individual dust mote floating in the tunnel air.
Her cognitive processing speed surged by an incredible fivefold.
The world around her slowed down to an absolute crawl.
Her perception state completely synchronized with her new Martial Master realm, ensuring her mind could effortlessly control the hyper-accelerated speed and lethal reflexes required for high-tier assassination maneuvers.
"I feel good" Alisa exhaled a deep sigh, her eyes widened as she could feel the clarity of her mind.
Finally, she raised the third vial—the 3rd-Grade Ghost-Silk Dantian Nectar.
As the pale, gaseous substance passed her lips, a sudden, eerie chill washed over the entire clearing.
The nectar targeted her physical structure and her shadow affinity.
The violet and silver auras that had been violently crackling around her body were suddenly dragged inward, sucked back into her skin like water into a sponge.
Alisa watched in sheer awe as the muscle fibers in her arms and legs visibly shifted, vibrating at a frequency that made her limbs look slightly blurred, almost translucent in the dim crystal light.
Her physical form was adapting into "ghost silk."
Within seconds, the heavy, dominant pressure she had just unlocked as a Martial Master vanished entirely.
She stood right in front of Roy, yet if he were to close his eyes, her physical warmth, her heartbeat, and her mana signature were completely, utterly untraceable.
She had become frictionless—a living phantom wrapped in the absolute quiet of the void.
Alisa fell to one knee, her hands pressed against the cold stone floor, her head bowed in deep reverence to the young man standing before her.
She could feel the monstrous, unshakeable power thrumming beneath her skin.
"Master Jarden..." Alisa breathed, her voice completely devoid of any acoustic resonance, sounding like a whisper carried directly into the mind.
"My evolution is complete. I am ready to serve the God of Beasts" she fell on her knees, bowing her head before him.
Roy looked down at his newly forged weapon, a cold, satisfied grin cutting through his lips.
"Excellent." he turned his gaze, "Now we run home to complete the evolution of the rest"
"Yes" Alisa didn’t argue, she didn’t question why they were leaving so soon even after infiltrating Norona City.
"Aren’t you going to question why we are leaving so quickly?" Roy asked.
"You mentioned you wanted to complete the evolution of my brethren, why should I question the grace of Lord Varanus?"
"It’s thanks to Lord Varanus that I was able to skip decades what of cultivation to reach the Martial Master realm" she smiled.
"Although I’m quite jealous since Eurenia, Trojan and Brenda would all become Martial Generals once we return to Tempest"
"But it’s all for the glory of Lord Varanus!"