The executive walked down the steps while Eiro followed him. It didn't take long to convince the executive to lead the Demon there; with a quick dagger pressed against his throat, the issue was dealt with.
They stepped through the underground complex, and soon reached a thick wooden door with runes inscribed onto it.
"Place your ta-" The executive started talking, but before he finished the sentence, the Demon already pressed the tag, which acted as his 'identification' for the organization, onto the wooden door. The runes lit up in a dim light, and Eiro was able to press the door open afterward. This was just some sort of magical lock, nothing special behind it.
"Keep going." Eiro said in a blunt tone, and the executive slowly nodded his head, "O-Of course..."
At this point, it didn't seem like Eiro actually still needed this man, so he could just kill him if he wanted to, but just in case Eiro was wrong, he kept him along. The area that they entered now seemed to be the start of the area that was only accessible to Letters. They walked down some stairs into a large open room.
It was nothing but another bar, a place for Letters to gather and sit, eating delicious food and drinking booze. There seemed to be some more servants in the area to take care of a Letter's 'every wish', or so the executive quickly explained.
Eiro really didn't care all too much about that kind of stuff, so he didn't pay attention to it.
However, there was something even more important here. There were 10 big boards hung up on the walls, with one high-tier quest set up on each. The reward for each quest was set into a glass box right underneath those boards.
It seemed like those boxes were made of the same kind of stuff as the Aegis was... Meaning that Eiro might be able to break these open and grab the artificial artifacts that were set as the reward. Eiro was pretty curious about that, but he should try not to do something like that yet, just in case there was some sort of security system that Eiro would have a tough time dealing with connected to the boxes. He would figure it out later.
"This here is the central 'hub' for all Letters... If you are called here to the headquarters, you are expected to wait in this space, except or until you are told otherwise. You are free to come here whenever you wish, however, and enjoy our services for those with privileges such as yourself." The executive explained. Eiro really didn't care about any of that. It wasn't like he would actually end up being called here for anything, since he would be taking the organization over rather soon.
"Show me to the place where the artifacts are made and enhanced." Eiro said in a blunt tone, although the executive slowly turned toward him.
"I... I'm afraid that you did not yet earn the privileges for that. As the Letter 'Z', you are merely something of a placeholder. Your position could change at any point, since you are the one that the Number '1' is supposed to challenge to advance. Once you advance to the position of the Letter 'Y', you can make use of those services." The executive explained, clearly nervous about telling Eiro off like that.
But the Demon didn't care. He grabbed the executive by the throat and started to squeeze down a bit, choking him until his face turned blue, "You sure about that?"
The man grabbed at Eiro's hands to get them away from his throat, before Eiro just let him drop down. While trying to get back the breath that he lost just now, the executive looked up at Eiro. He slowly pushed himself off the ground and nodded his head, "I... I don't think I am allowed to let you in there, I am sorry... However, as a 'Letter', there are new ways of increasing your rank within the organization... There is something like another evaluation, and depending on your apparent skill, your rank can be re-assigned... You can reach up to Rank J like that."
"Then let's start that evaluation now. I don't want to deal with that much longer." Eiro said in an annoyed tone. The executive quickly nodded his head and walked through the large room, toward a door at the back.
He presented his own tag to the door and then opened it up. This place seemed to be something like a small arena. In the center stood a white pillar with runes inscribed onto it. As far as Eiro could tell, this was supposed to be the target to be attacked.
"Wait... So nobody is going to evaluate technique?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, and the executive slowly shook his head, "No... compared to actual power-output, technique is unimportant, is it not? You have one minute to deal as much damage to this pillar as you wish. Don't worry, it's not going to break, no matter what you do to it... But either way, at the end, the total damage is going to be calculated and you will be assigned your new rank." The executive explained quickly. Eiro raised his brows as he looked at the pillar.
"Interesting. Is the damage calculated in the same way as personal damage when you attack others?" Eiro inquired. The executive quickly nodded his head, "Correct. So just attack it as you normally would any enemy."
"Alright then." The Demon muttered quietly. He walked up to the pillar, and looked at the executive, "Can I use artifacts?" Eiro asked.
"You are not allowed to use artifacts that you were given by the organization, no. Neither are you allowed to use those that you may have stolen from other Letters." The executive explained, and Eiro smirked lightly, "Are those the only two restrictions?"
"Of course."
"I'll kill you if you make trouble afterward." The Demon pulled out a ring out of his treasury and held it in his hand, ready to use it.
The executive didn't seem to have noticed, and simply activated everything. The pillar lit up in a red light. The moment that it would turn white again, Eiro would be able to attack it. The Demon quickly manipulated the life force in his body and took on the right stance.
He second-step infused his body with water, and used 'Rock Skin' in a few particular places on his fist. The moment that the pillar turned white again, Eiro pushed his fist forward as quickly as he could and punched the pillar in a way that would release as much force as absolutely possible.
That one attack dealt more than a hundred thousand damage. Quickly, Eiro continued attacking the pillar as much as he could, multitasking as he was doing so. The Demon was currently creating a magic circle that was focused on putting out as much power as absolutely possible with his right hand, as he kept attacking the pillar with his blades and his left hand.
It didn't take long until the magic circle was finished, and the instant that Eiro activated the magic circle, he also activated the time-stopping ring.
The reason for this was simple. The spell that Eiro created would create something like a 'power catalyst' in one spot for a second. Something to gather any mana and magic that was put into it for a short amount of time, before compressing it down and shooting the target with immense force.
Of course, since this sort of spell was extremely unstable, especially the more magic was used for it, there was one restriction to this spell. Eiro could only fill it with magic for half a second. And half a second turned into a whole minute using this special ring.
That meant that Eiro had a full minute to fill this catalyst with as much magic as he could. Eiro used as much time as he could afford filling up this catalyst with any magic that he held within himself. And just before he let time proceed, Eiro touched the tip of one of his Three of Swords' blades against the catalyst and tried to fuse those two things together.
Once the blade fully absorbed the compressed magic, Eiro fused it with his main dagger that had recently been enhanced even more than before by Armodeus, and used the other blades of the Three of Swords as support by wrapping them around the base of the central dagger.
And then at the last moment, Eiro pushed the blade forward as much as he possible could, just an inch in front of the pillar, and then let time continue flowing normally.
[Ability Test Pillar – 13.014.290 Damage]
[Due to the damage being focused on a single point of interest, it will be multiplied by 2]
[Critical Damage has been done to the target, Damage will be multiplied by 2]
[Lethal Damage has been done to the target]
[You have leveled up]
[You have leveled up]
[You have leveled up]
[You have leveled up]
[You have leveled up]
[You have 120 stat points available]
Eiro looked at the notifications in front of him and was a bit baffled at what just happened. Sure, he focused all of his damage onto a single point that seemed to be the weakest within this thing, but it did seem pretty sturdy so far... It had multiple layers of the Aegis weaved into one making up the outermost part of the Pillar.
Since Eiro already broke one of these fake Aegis artifacts, he had the chance to analyze how the power fluctuated in different places, letting him choose the place where it was objectively the weakest.
But it seemed like that extreme damage in this specific spot caused a chain-reaction and made the Aegis shatter into pieces altogether.
"Huh..." Eiro muttered quietly, looking at the executive on the other side of the room, "Erm... I killed it, I think?" The Demon pointed out.
The pillar had exploded into pieces, and while that happened, Eiro was able to see that this pillar was actually more of a sub-species of Mimic that was specially created, rather than a regular pillar.
Well, it let Eiro level up another 5 times, so he really didn't care too much.
The executive stood there completely perplexed at what just happened, "How did you... Just..." He muttered in confusion. The Demon looked down at his tag, noticing a change, and was happy to see that it now displayed the letter 'J' on it, making him the tenth-highest ranked member of this organization.
Sure, Eiro technically cheated a bit, but that wasn't the point. He was sure that there were other people that did more raw damage than Eiro, but just because the Demon had the Three of Swords, he was able to pierce through the fake Aegis and then have all the damage dealt to the Mimic beyond it.
Well, at the end of the day, Eiro was happy that he had a target for such a high power-output for once.
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