Crack!
Eren's regular mana core cracked at the time of his breakthrough. His infinite mana core on the other hand just metamorphosed into an Awakened rank core.
This was when he was clashing with Arto. Both of them were unrecognizable from their previous selves. They both looked bloody and had numerous wounds on their bodies.
Eren had lost the protection of his Hex armor at this point. He had activated the bear tattoo on his chest and retracted the armor because it had lost all its defensive properties. And keeping the armor on was now detrimental to his agility.
The battlemage had been forced to fight with an exposed torso and pants that barely clung to their places in their worn-out and tattered condition. Even his axes had been damaged after they duked it out with Arto's sword.
Arto had tried really hard to eradicate Eren from existence. He had come to realize that Eren was using him to achieve a breakthrough and was pissed because of it. Eren had basically treated him like a training dummy.
At this point, the fact that he was a Spider and Eren was a member of the Stardust guild didn't make any difference. It didn't matter that Eren had snuck into the warehouse and was trying to loot the place all for himself. It also didn't matter that he had killed Bobby, Vasemir, Raul, or any other Spider.
This fight had turned into a survival game. And only survival mattered for both Eren and Arto. They both fought, putting their backgrounds and ranking statuses aside.
Arto looked to be in much better condition than Eren. It seemed that he also had used a lot of trump cards to counterbalance Eren's advantage.
Yet, Eren didn't feel like he was going to lose. He started enjoying the battle more and more as he fought his toughest opponent yet. He subconsciously started treating pain as part of the process of reinventing himself anew.
Eren's body and his mind were in two different and contrasting states. And the body had to make the mind get in touch with reality. Eren's arms and legs were about to stop listening to his orders. And his vision was getting blurry due to excessive blood loss. He had started hearing white noises and his perception of time was slowed down even without Aleph's interference.
That's when the breakthrough took place.
Lightning struck and flames bloomed around Eren. The howling winds spread in every direction and the masses of water formed into spheres before imploding from within. His ranking breakthrough included enlightenment regarding every element since Eren had started practicing them at his Meta rank.
Arto Lohan was forced to create distance from Eren when he suddenly started turning into a rank-2 battlemage. The mana storm created around Eren was not something he could breach.
The mystic runes over the infinite mana core were illuminated as they transformed. The transformation of these runes was what allowed the infinite mana core to get rid of rank-1 mana completely. Then, it began drawing rank-2 mana from its surroundings. The infinite mana core drank the surroundings' mana like a bottomless pit so much so that it was added to the mana storm.
Eren's regular mana core also underwent drastic changes. It started harnessing rank-2 mana as well. As more elemental runes were added over time, his path as a battlemage was bound to get even more diverse.
Eren had fought with Arto for so long in a battle trance. As such, he wasn't in complete control of himself when the breakthrough took place. He started noticing the changes only when his mana core burst.
Eren's previous injuries started recovering at a visible rate. His wounds healed and his bone marrow started churning more blood all of a sudden to fix the loss of blood. His bone density increased and his body stats shot up. His hair grew a bit longer and his stature increased an inch or two more. His skin remained the same but his eyes got a darker shade of blue for some reason. His aura changed and his mana signature started reflecting his status as a rank-2 battlemage.
Arto felt like banging his head against a wall looking at Eren's progress. This was the wildest breakthrough he had ever seen any ranker perform. That's because Eren did not stop after entering the Awakened rank. He progressed even further within the rank and reached the 3rd stage– solidifying his status as a veteran Awakened-ranked entity. His mana core was only a step shy of entering the liquid state.
'What… What kind of breakthrough is this?'
Arto mumbled to himself as he witnessed Eren's unmatched progress. He was also shocked by the elemental attainments the battlemage was practicing. With so many elements integrated into the path, Eren should have taken even longer than regular rankers to break through into Awakened rank. Even so, the guy didn't stop when he had achieved the breakthrough but continued as if there was no bottleneck.
Arto's face became ashen when he saw that Eren's wounds had healed and he was born anew by the breakthrough process. He knew that he would not be able to survive the fight with Eren anymore if he clashed with him now.
That's why Arto thought of running away. He regretted the fact that he had talked a big game in front of Eren. He regretted that he agreed to stay inside the House of Spiders despite knowing it was a sinking ship. And most of all, he lamented the fact that he had left his manned position to check up on the ruckus caused by Eren. He could have handled things differently if he was in his position and had access to the warehouse's array control.
Alas, regret is a bitter pill to swallow.
The mana storm around Eren dispersed all of a sudden and revealed Eren's brand-new appearance. The blood and grime on his body had disappeared.
He looked leaner, taller, and more charismatic than ever before. He had distinct muscle definitions. And his blue eyes shone through the locks of white hair covering his face.
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