Chapter 476 - Seven Days

Chapter 476: 476 - Seven Days

A week had passed since the trip back, and the Astralis Requiem looked like a completely different guild from the one Lohan and Lisa had left behind when they set off for the volcano.

The lobby of the headquarters tree, which used to sit half empty outside peak hours, now buzzed all day long with groups coming and going, comparing loot, trading route tips and arguing out loud about which monster gave the most experience per minute for more efficient leveling.

The new members, who in their first week had walked the corridors with a cautious posture for fear of bothering someone, now crossed the main hall with their chests out, and many of them still couldn’t believe how fast it was all happening.

"Seventeen," Kai announced, standing in the middle of the lobby with his arms raised as if he had just won a competition. "Level seventeen, everyone! Last week I was at 13!"

"You were at 14, don’t exaggerate," Jenny shot back, without even looking up from the inventory she was organizing. "And I’m at sixteen, so there’s no need to get full of yourself."

"Sixteen in one week is practically impossible in any other guild," Devon commented, passing by them with a scroll under his arm. "I read on a forum that the current average level of people joining a mid sized guild is still thirteen. We’re already way beyond that."

"That’s impossible," Sara murmured, more to herself than to the others, staring at her own experience bar as if expecting it to vanish at any moment. "I’ve been playing for months, and I’ve never leveled up this much."

That was exactly what the numbers showed, and Dylan knew it better than anyone, because he was the one who spent his nights going over the performance spreadsheets for the entire guild, after everyone had logged off.

That morning, he had walked into Lohan’s office with a scroll in his hands and an expression that mixed pride with a professional worry that was hard to hide.

"The average level of all Astralis members, excluding the two of you, Alice and me, is sixteen point four," he said, setting the tablet down on the desk. "Last Monday it was thirteen point one. That’s growth I’ve never seen in any guild, not even the biggest ones that advertise these numbers as promotion on the internet."

"And is that good or bad?" Lisa asked, lying in a corner of the office with her tails curled around her body.

"It’s great," Dylan answered. "But it’s also a little scary haha. If this pace holds, in a month the entire guild will be above level twenty one, and we’ll have to start worrying about what other guilds are going to think of something like that."

"Let them think," Lohan replied, and this time his voice didn’t come through the guild link, but straight into both their minds, something he did so naturally by now that he barely noticed it anymore. "What matters is that everyone is getting stronger without getting hurt, and that we’re managing to keep up the pace without anyone giving up."

Dylan still got a small jolt every time he heard that voice arrive without any warning, but he had gotten used to it enough to just smile and jot something down on the tablet.

Part of the reason for that growth, he knew, was the constant work of Lohan’s clones, accompanying the hunting groups and collecting experience and biomass that no one else could make use of.

But there was another part that Dylan had only noticed after a few days of watching closely, and it impressed him even more: the way Lohan coordinated all of it.

Before, he had to open a guild link, talk to one group at a time, wait for the replies and only then move on to the next. Now, while Dylan talked with him in the office, Lohan was, at the same time, advising three different groups at three distant points on the map, warning one of them about an ambush from a pack of wolves that was still a hundred meters away, correcting the position of an archer who was exposing himself too much, and calming a recruit who froze every time he faced a monster bigger than himself.

All of it with no delay, without mixing up the voices, and without any of the groups knowing they were sharing his attention with the others.

"They need to know someone is watching," Lohan explained, when Dylan asked how he managed to do that without overloading himself. "It doesn’t have to be a long conversation, just a little nudge at the right moment. Abyssal Clarity lets me keep everything in its place, and Mental Perception shows me who’s afraid, who’s overconfident and who’s about to make a mistake., and being able to correct those mistakes improves everyone’s efficiency and coordination tremendously."

"You’ve become some kind of omnipresent coach," Dylan commented, shaking his head. "I don’t know whether I should be impressed or scared."

’A little of both is healthy.’

Lisa let out a soft laugh, and Lohan sensed, through her white light, which he could now feel whenever she was nearby, a quiet satisfaction she didn’t bother to hide.

Her growth, by the way, was another point of pride from that week.

With the daily biomass injection sessions, which had continued without fail since they discovered her absorption limit rose with each level, and with Lohan following the strategy of only helping indirectly during hunts so that all the monsters’ experience went to her, Lisa had gone from Level 16 to Level 19 in just seven days.

Considering that with each new level the amount of experience needed for the next one doubled, that jump was gigantic, far more surprising than someone going from level 5 to level 15.

She was still amazed by the difference every time she looked at her own stats, because the power gains at each level were far larger than any ordinary player would ever see, and her spirit fire had gained a depth that sometimes frightened her with its own potential.

"Two more levels until I reach 21 and go through my evolution," she commented, stretching her front paws with a satisfied yawn. "But yours comes first."

"It does," Lohan confirmed, and his voice carried a little thread of anxiety he couldn’t hide.

He was at Level 20, with his experience bar at ninety three percent, and his second evolution was so close that he could almost feel the system preparing to open it. One more day of hunting, two at most, and he would be at Level 21, ready to cross the second barrier of his journey in Elysium, something he had been waiting on for weeks.

And there was, of course, the other reason for that anxiety, hanging around Lisa’s neck inside a small leather pouch she never took off.

He had decided to wait. The Mana Stone Yrneha had given them, the one from a Level 23 monster, was far more powerful than anything he had digested so far, and even with all the recent advances, with Abyssal Clarity protecting his mind and the new mental structure absorbing information far more efficiently, he didn’t want to take any risks.

Crossing the Level 21 evolution first, with a steadier base and reinforced skills, was the most sensible decision, and he knew it.

But knowing and enduring were very different things.

Mental Perception, which was great for sensing presences and emotions, had a side effect he had only noticed two days earlier: it picked up, faintly but constantly, the psychic echo the Stone still carried.

It was an almost imperceptible whisper, coming from Lisa’s neck, that seemed to call out to him in a language he didn’t know, but which he felt deep in his mind like a lullaby.

"I see you looking," Lisa said, without opening her eyes, a smile on her lips.

"I’m not looking."

"You are. I can feel your gaze on the back of my neck, Halon."

"That’s a lie."

"Proof that I’m right: you didn’t deny the gaze, you only said you weren’t looking."

Dylan, who watched that exchange with an amused expression, decided it was best to pretend he was very focused on the scroll.

"Just one or two more days," Lisa went on, opening one golden eye to look at him with a stubborn affection. "I know it hurts to wait, but it’s for your own good. I’m not going to let you take risks without need, remember?"

’I remember,’ he answered, with a mental sigh. ’I just wish the echo would stop calling me.’

"If you held out for a week, you can hold out two more days."

Before he could respond, the office door burst open, and Pip flew in at high speed, his serrated wings vibrating in a frantic rhythm and his golden eyes wide with pure desperation.

"HALON! LISA! ELLE IS GLOWING!" he shouted, spinning in the air unable to stay still. "Elle is glowing and won’t stop glowing, and Pip doesn’t know what to do, and the flowers are all growing on their own, and Pip thinks it’s time, Pip thinks it’s Elle’s time!"

Lohan and Lisa exchanged a silent look for a brief moment, and then both of them left the office almost at the same time, leaving Dylan alone with the tablet and a bewildered smile.