After the feeling of riding in a train for the first time in a bit over two years, Evan threw himself back into dungeon diving, aiming to reach his goal of Level 300 while he was still 13.
However, he failed woefully as ever since he reached Level 290, his levelling speed had slowed greatly, to the point where Eliza whose level was lower than his was actually caught up.
He even made a trip to Kasteblum to take advantage of the city-state's double dungeon experience, ignoring all the documentation required for him, a 'Count' of the Empire, to travel to another country.
Sadly, even this was not enough as by his birthday on the 14th, poor Evan was only level 295.
As such, he failed to set the record of becoming a Grandmaster at 13.
If it was any consolation, the youngest ever Grandmaster in Aidos was 'Strongest Human' Rathal who became a grandmaster level existence at exactly 15 years and 3 days, so Evan still had a shot at breaking that record…probably.
The boy's birthday celebration was a lavish one that was held at his Estate in the capital, with a lot of the Empire's high nobles and a few foreign nobles and officials in attendance.
Evan was pretty much the only Count in the Empire who could have that many high-ranking personages attending his birthday celebration.
The Emperor was not there in person, by the Empress and Laurene came over as representatives of the Royal family, along with Duke Charles' Wife to represent his family and the heir apparents of the Empire's 22 other Dukedoms.
Date of Occurrence: Year 1052, October 15.
After the boy's birthday Celebration was concluded, and he spent a few more days depressed that he hadn't achieved Grandmaster before it, Evan returned to his 'Side-Quest Run'.
The party split up once more and travelled to different countries, with Pride and Greed actually putting in the most effort as they wanted to regain some of the skills that they had lost in a thousand years of being sealed.
In addition, they also cleared a few high-profile guild quests in other countries, making their presence known there and keeping the party in the limelight.
Though there were a few rumours about Evan doing 'strange things' in some other countries, like randomly walking up to a water fountain in the middle of Blealand's capital and tossing a bag of gold coins into it, after which there was a flash of light, followed by him leaving with a large black box in his hands.
Or when he went to Aspea, a country located in the Alpha continent's North-Western Periphery; not many knew what prompted it, but he got into a fight with a powerful Grandmaster-level Blood-Eyed Raptor Panther, and he ended up slaying it in a flashy battle that lasted less than half an hour.
He then left the scene with the Raptor Panther's heart after turning its corpse over to the authorities who came over after sensing the magic power fluctuations.
The next time he reappeared, was in a cemetery a few cities away, and according to the grave keepers, all he did was place the Raptor Panther's heart on a grave site, after which the heart was absorbed into the ground followed by a vision of what they could only describe as vengeful spirits ascending to the skies.
Once again, he left the area with a strange artifact which he later sold at an auction in the Country's capital for millions of gold coins.
On a side note, the time when Evan had tossed a bag of coins into a fountain in Blealand's capital, people had gone to check the fountain for the coins, however, the first group saw with their eyes how the coins mysteriously disappeared not long after.
Pride also had her own share of weird rumours, but hers were much fewer than Evan's and they mostly involved her opening secret bookcases or hidden rooms in dungeons of which the Adventurer's guild thought every nook and cranny had been explored.
For the 'Spirit Half', the stories about them were mostly about how they were completing quest after quest in an effort to raise their ranks to the B-rank.
In the months that followed, many other things happened in the Alpha continent, as although Evan and his party were a hot topic, they weren't all people were talking about.
Unsurprisingly, their party was still unknown in many parts of the Continent.
Two months after Trains made their big debut, they nearly had their first accident as a certain country that did not participate in the Train developments, Scieque, tried to sabotage the rails of a neighbouring country.
It was an incident that blew up internationally and the Major World powers on the Alpha Continent did not take it lightly.
They had poured time and money for a decade into these trains and rails, interconnecting them across various countries and routes, there was no way they'd be happy upon discovering another country attempted to sabotage them.
It was precisely because of this that they spent money deploying knights and hiring adventurers to guard certain major stations and rail routes, which led to that country's actions being discovered.
Worst Case Scenario: Over 200 people, some of which were High Nobles of different countries, would have died. Along with the cargo being transported, worth close to five million in gold coins would have been lost.
Multiple Socioeconomic sanctions were imposed on Scieque and the Desert Country of Tarse which bordered the country in the north intervened in the matter, ousting all of the national leaders who were involved and replacing them.
By the time people finally stopped talking about it, Tarse had unofficially taken control of Scieque as its new leaders were very afraid of the Major World power who took out their previous leaders in but a single week.
Date of Occurrence: Year 1052, December 7.
The Beta Continent also had their own big news as the transportation means they had worked on as per the agreement between Continental Leaders; Airships, had made their official debut at around the time of the Train sabotage incident.
One of 'The Five', 'Smith Master' Vulwin personally oversaw the inauguration ceremony in his country, Stonehammer, while deploying some of the Dwarven Race's Living Legends to other nearby countries to monitor things there.
The 'Elven Emperor' Zaos, also took similar actions, though this was mainly because his youngest daughter; Abigail, had decided to attend one of the opening ceremonies in another country, he just didn't know which one as she was already gone by the time he found out about her intentions.
In the end, he just had Living Legends put all of them on close watch, while preparing to scold his teenage daughter who somehow coaxed one of the Sovereign Level existences under him into sneaking her out.
Speaking of Abigail, the young princess had become just as famous as Evan was on the Alpha continent, and although her 'Hero' status wasn't public knowledge, it was only a matter of time.
Most of her popularity, came from the fact that she was currently the possessor of the 'Youngest Grandmaster in the World' title, as the sixteen-year-old had been revealed to possess a level over 300.
Part of the reason for this was the destroyed Dalburn forest where she had apparently fought off a 'dangerous creature that came out of a dungeon', in a fierce battle that turned close to half of the thousand-mile forest to ashes on fire.
There were other powerful rising stars in various other fields in the world, garnering enough popularity to have their names known cross-continentally like Evan and Abigail were.
Funny enough, despite Evan's 'Hero' status, Abigail's fame was still far higher than his, but Evan was sure that the scales would tip in his favour once he was done with the 'Lizard Lord Outbreak'.
He was also sure that after this, it would become increasingly difficult for the Demonic Hand to carry out their plans in the shadows.
The 'Anomalies' once again went off the grid for a week, putting the 'Side Quest Run' on hold in favour of challenging Floor 28 of the 'Tower of Trials'.
They had put the Floor clearing on hold for a while and were ready to bulldoze their way to floor 30, and at least defeat the floor boss before leaving.
And this Challenge proved to be their most difficult yet, as the party had to face thousands of monsters over Level 280.
After ending the lives of a hundred gigantic Predator Elephants (sharp-fanged/tusked, elemental-breathing monsters with absurd levels of physical strength and durability) that destroyed the images of Elephants that the party had on Floor 30, they finally stepped into the Floor Boss room, planning to call it quits and return to the Oak Avenue Manor after defeating the boss.
Even Milena, the only grandmaster in the party at the moment, had a hard time against the Elephants, and if it wasn't for Eliza's buffs and support abilities, then taking on 100 Level 295 Superior Stage Master Level Predator Elephants was going to be a lot harder for them.
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