Chapter 123: Tier 1 Lexie
Her eyes snapped open like an ancient well. Deep within her black eyes crackled bolts of primeval and violent lightning. Elegant, swift, yet destructive and chaotic in nature.
She turned and looked at Desther, their gazes met in mid-air. The lightning on her eyes dimmed, slowly returning to normal, pitch black like the abyss, as they once were.
"I’ve reached Tier 1," she said simply, yet her tone carried the joy she was feeling. She was smiling jovially toward Desther, it was apparent how happy she was for reaching Tier 1.
Ascending one’s life rank, from a mere mortal to an Awakened Mortal was indeed a rare occasion one must be happy about.
Her happiness, though, stemmed deep and seemed to bear a lot of significance to her.
"Congratulations," Desther offered a smile on his own.
As a matter of fact, he barely knew Lexie.
Heck, before the awakened ceremony, he had barely interacted with her, and most interactions were solely for the purpose of doing school tasks handed to them by Teacher Rosa.
His first real interaction with her outside of school-related matters was in that oval. And even at that time, he immediately distanced himself, away from her, away from the trouble she would bring to his life.
After that incident, the two of them met and interacted more. Whether it was by mere coincidence, they had met in both battlefields and in chance encounters.
Now, a few days after not seeing each other, they once again converged in what seemed like another coincidental encounter.
Seeing her radiant smile directed toward him and her jovial emotions mirrored in her now-calm eyes, even Desther could not help but be infected and smile back in return.
"So? How is it? Being a Tier 1," he asked, amused at how happy she was to reach this rank.
"You tell me; you achieved it earlier than me, after all." An unusual grin surfaced on her face. She directed her gaze to Desther, only to shift it away after a brief moment of contact.
Shrugging his shoulders, Desther approached while saying, "To be honest, I don’t feel that much. Just that I am countless times stronger than when I was a mere mortal."
He was not surprised that Lexie guessed that he was already a Tier 1 Awakened Professional. He did not try to hide it anyway.
She nodded her head and clenched her right fist, seemingly testing her newfound strength.
"I feel the same. They are not lying when they say that only when one reaches Tier 1 will we truly awaken our latent potential. My attributes had indeed directly doubled."
Desther smiled in understanding upon seeing her actions.
"Are you going to collect this snake’s body?" He asked as he pulled the coiled body of the snake off the tree.
The snake was not light, to say the least. With a rough estimate, he confirmed that its mass was no less than 300 kilograms. With his strength, he pulled it out and lifted it easily, though.
"You can have the snake. You’re the one who found it after all." She continued.
Desther nodded his head and laid the snake on the ground, preparing to dissect it with his dagger. There was a lot of material he could gather and sell it for. The fangs were a good material, but the most valuable thing out of this snake should be its skin with unbelievable defenses.
"Attribues doubling is just the standard. The real reason why Tier 1 Awakeners could widen the gap even further is due to the classes giving attribute bonuses every time they level up."
He was not surprised that Lexie did not seem to care about the snake’s carcass. Although she did not seem to be in bad blood with her family, it did not mean that she would not be supported with resources. At the very least, that was what he thought.
Especially since she was hailed as a genius even before she awakened her talent.
As for the point that could be obtained for taking a picture of the snake, she did not seem to care about it either.
She did not even seem to care about the ranking very much. She did not even try to get a single point out of the Ravenous Lizards she killed yesterday.
And if she did care about the ranking, her score would surely be much higher compared to what she has right now. Or at the very least, the gap between her and the others would not be that small.
Lexie nodded her head in agreement.
"You’re right. Each class also provides its own set of skills that mortals could hardly get. Awakening new skills is not entirely impossible either."
Aside from the standard set of skills that comes with the acquisition of the class, its other skills would also gradually manifest as the awakener advanced in levels. In most cases, though, new class skills would only show up after they reached the next tier.
There were precedents of some awakeners getting new class skills even before reaching the next tier, but they were extremely rare and seemed to involve a lot of factors.
"Better not hope for something intangible that involves a lot of factors. Instead of hoping for a new skill, it would be better to hone the one you currently have to the limits," Desther offered advice.
He was a witness to how a skill’s strength drastically increases once its mastery reaches a new level.
The Magic Bullet, with its mastery at High Rank, was still a force of its own even though it was just a mere C-Grade skill.
Its might was no longer as it used to before.
Desther’s control over it had deepened. He could now control its size and lethality to a degree he so wished. Although he could not do it instantaneously yet, Desther knew that it was only the start, and he would not stop at such a level of control toward it.
Even as a C-Grade, the Magic Bullet could probably now stand on its own even against other skills with higher grades.
Lexie nodded her head once again, fully agreeing with his words. She knew full well how one’s mastery over their skills could alter the course of a battle.
In fact, she had experienced it firsthand as well.
The topic abruptly stopped as Lexie observed Desther’s practiced action of flaying the snake.
"Do you often do this kind of thing? Dissecting monster corpses, I mean."
