After leaving the battle arena, Alex went to a hotel and asked his guardians if they knew why his promotion to the fourth Rank failed.
"The Ruler Pride skill is unique and could provide tremendous benefits in exchange for a meager price, and even though temporarily it does legitly advance your Rank but it has its limitation,"
"The Ruler Pride skill seals the unique gifts of the user before temporarily raising their Rank, and your Rank promotion failed because the skill failed in sealing your physique because of its higher grade and the current limitations of the skill,"
"There could be some other reason for the skill failure, but I am fairly certain my thinking is correct because the previous Ruler also received the Ruler Pride skill, and he experienced the same situation," Elder Darrien said, calmly like the whole situation was no big deal.
'The good thing is that now I know the reason and don't need to worry about finding the unknown, but the bad news is I won't be able to use the Ruler pride skill at its full potential until I reach the fourth Rank,' Alex thought feeling a relived and a bit disappointed by the situation.
"Do I need to meet some extra requirements to advance to the fourth or higher Ranks because of my Physique," Alex asked after staying silent for a few seconds.
After knowing the probable cause of Rank's promotion failure, he wanted to understand if there were any extra requirements a physique holder needed to complete to advance, as he didn't have any information regarding this matter.
"The simple answer is No, But you will experience great difficulty advancing to the fourth Rank because of your physique, even with your great talent," Elder Darrien said.
'I will find out how difficult it is going be, but it couldn't possibly be as difficult as what I went through in my previous life,' Alex thought as he lay on the bed and closed his eyes.
Alex knew his life was incomparable to his previous life, as he had no mental burden weighing him down while unmatched resources and opportunities were available to him.
The opportunities currently available to Alex guaranteed that he would achieve higher strength than even most geniuses could in their life.
After resting for two hours, Alex had recovered from the mental fatigue he had built up in the last few hours, and while he was resting, his name was also spread throughout the city, resulting in him completing the Ruler mission.
'Let's feed Ricin while I search for a mission I will be doing to complete my second last Ruler mission,' Alex thought as he summoned his companion beast.
"SHHRRRIIEEEKKKKK"
"Calm Down, Little buddy," Alex said as he stroked the dark beek of the beautiful green vulture.
Ricin now stood at eight feet tall, his body covered in different shades of green feathers with his wingspan reaching eighteen feet, and he looked furious with his deep purple eyes and razor-sharp beak and claws.
Ricin's body was a bit chubby which was not surprising as Alex never made him do anything, and all he did was eat rare meat from high Ranking creatures and sleep in the system companion space.
Alex picked Ricin as his beast companion with a plan of turning him into a terror of the sky, which hasn't changed, but gathering the required evolution material needed time, a luxury for the current him.
Alex did have something prepared that, if worked as he hoped, could permanently eliminate the need for rare evolution material and him spending weeks gathering other resources needed for Beast evolution.
'After I am done sleeping for seven days, I will upgrade the Ancient Red gem and unlock the Bloodline and Selective Refinement skills and finally find out if it could cure the Devourer Curse to an extent,'
'I can also check if the bloodline refinement could provide similar effects to the beast evolution materials and bloodline enhancement,' Alex thought as he took out chunks of poisonous meat, making a small hill in the corner of the room.
Alex returned to sit on the bed while Ricin enjoyed his feast and used his mercenary card to search for a mission with (B+) or a higher grade mission that he could complete in a few hours.
After searching for a few minutes, Alex found the mission that fitted the criteria needed to complete the Ruler mission.
'I would like to take on an easier mission, but I should be able to complete this mission in under twenty-four hours, leaving me plenty of time to time to gather information about the dwarven clan's struggles,' Alex thought, looking at the mission status.
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[Extermination Request] (A)
Objective: Clean The (Section B-6) of the Nufrite Abyss Ore Mine system from the infestation of Diamond Jaw Ants.
Time: Two Weeks
Reward: 100K Merit Points + 100K Dark Gold Coins
Description: The Diamond Jaw Ants have incredible defense and offense, and like any ants, they live in big colonies with their strength ranging from early third Rank to peak fourth Rank, so it is recommended that only groups with at least three members at the peak of fourth Rank accept this request.
Accept: Yes/No
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Alex accepted the mission, and after Ricin was done eating, he put him back in the companion space and left toward the city exit.
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(Fourteen Hours Later]
Alex was engaged in a battle against three massive ants, their size reaching close to six feet and bodies covered in hard crystalline dark shells.
The ants had hideous mouths with two pairs of sharp jaws that they chomped with incredible force, ready to cut their target into pieces.
The ants threw acid and fireballs and tried to chop Alex to pieces, but he easily dodged their slow attacks while delivering quick energy slashes to them with his blade covered in Null energy.
After a few minutes, the ants were dead, lying in a pool of blood, their bodies covered in slashes and their limbs sliced off.
'At this rate, I will reach at least level 230 by the end of all this,' Alex thought as he drank a mana potion looking back at the giant passage filled with corpses of tens of small and big ants.
Alex had hunted hundreds of ants in the last fourteen hours following the map given by the guild taking one route at a time, clearing it from every ant he could find, and then moving to the next one.
The ore mine was deep inside the mountains, made up of intertwined natural passages and dwarven-made tunnels that slowly led down, with the depth of the mine being more than six hundred meters.
Alex was three hundred meters down the mine, having killed only worker ants until now with their strength ranking from low to peak third Rank, but he knew that as he continued to descend, he would start to meet stronger ants and in abundance.
Alex left the area going for the next tunnel and continued to slaughter the ants as he went deeper, and as he expected, he met his first fourth Rank Ant, a soldier ant, after two hours when he was close to reaching the depth of four hundred meters.
The fourth Rank ants were a bit tougher to handle than the third Rank ants because not only they had a greater defense, attacking power speed, and the ability to use poison, fire, or acid in a greater variety of ways, but they could also regenerate and release ear-piercing sound.
The ear-piercing screeching was not a mental attack but a sound attack that made Alex feel a mild headache and acted as a beacon of call that attracted other ants.
A single-fourth Rank Ant was no trouble, but Alex knew facing multiple of them would get troublesome, and he quickly found it to be true after encountering four-fourth Rank ants, who simultaneously used their sound attack to not only attract more ant workers but also made him feel like he got hit in the head with a hammer.
The deeper Alex went, the more and more group of Fourth Rank ant soldiers he found with whole passages filled with worker ants munching on the ore-filled walls and taking to the deepest part of the mine to the queen chamber.
Alex used a combination of phantom walk and his best damage dealer skills to take care of soldier ants before clearing the whole place as fast as possible before retreating to a safe distance to recover and continuing the same process.
Alex spent the next seven hours clearing the tunnels and passages, finally reaching the deepest area, a giant hole with a massive chamber made by the ants for their queen to lay eggs.
The deep hole had an area of a few hundred meters, and it was crawling with hundreds of worker ants, with tens of the strongest ants guarding the chamber with the queen.
Alex decided to recover to his peak condition, knowing that once he stepped into the hole, he won't be able to walk out without exterminating every ant present inside and outside the chamber.
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