Cosmic Peak

[Hellfire Bird killed, 1000 EXP gained.]

[Hellfire Bird killed, 1000 EXP gained.]

[Hellfire Bird killed, 1000 EXP gained.]

Aren killed three Hellfire birds using his chakrams one by one after dodging their attacks but suddenly, his head felt heavy, and his eyes blurred for a brief moment.

He hurriedly shook his head and slapped himself, 'What's going on?'

He looked around and saw three plant-like monsters that looked like Lily flower but scary and in red and black tone spewing sparkling red waves towards him from the ground.

The sparking red waves were only visible for a short time before they left those monsters' mouths and became invisible afterward.

Without wasting time, he flew lower until he reached within 300 meters of them and controlled his chakrams to attack them.

He flew in a zig-zag pattern to avoid getting hit by invisible red waves while he also kept his eyes around him for any other unexpected attacks.

[Nightmare Lily killed. 700 EXP gained.]

[Nightmare Lily killed. 700 EXP gained.]

[Nightmare Lily killed. 700 EXP gained.]

His chakram made quick work of those Lily monsters quickly with their speed, and he also finally leveled up.

[ You have leveled up. Reached level 13.]

[ Your path has leveled up. Reached level 6.]

[ As you have completed 5 levels of your path, the first test of your path will start.]

[ All activities paused.]

Suddenly, everything became still.

Aren saw two Hellfire birds appearing right on top of him out of nowhere. He also saw a giant one hundred-meter long and five-meter thick lava snake with black patterns appearing on the ground, but everything paused as if time had just stopped.

[3]

[2]

...

Aren saw cooldown appearing, and once it reached 0, he appeared in a black space with nothing but darkness.

[Test 1: You will be shown three items, choose one of them and use <Gear Enchantment> on it. Transform it into an Armalist Gear in the quickest way possible. ]

[For passable result: Finish the transformation in one minute.]

[For B-grade result: Finish the transformation in forty seconds.]

[For A-grade result: Finish the transformation in twenty-five seconds.]

[You will get different rewards based on results.]

[If you managed to achieve an A-grade result, You could keep the gear.]

[If you are dissatisfied with the result, you can try again. You will get a maximum of three tries.]

After the voice finished speaking and he finished reading, Three items appeared in front of him in a digitalized frame.

[Pick one item, and you will not be able to change the item later.]

[During this test, you have access to 2500 Armalist Force. Use it wisely without making mistakes while using <Gear Enchantment> on the item.]

While looking at the three items, Aren was in thought, 'One minute for the passable result? How difficult is it going to be? After all, transforming that gold-tier chakram took me only five seconds, not including creating the cube, which took me ten seconds. Even so, the total time it took me to transform the chakram was fifteen seconds...'

He looked at the items with narrowed eyes, 'I have to pick the item carefully. Unfortunately, I can't see any of their information with my Astral-X eyes.'

The first item looked like an umbrella, and it was a black umbrella with silver patterns on it.

The second item looked like a sci-fi sniper rifle. Its material body was dreamy blue metal with grey and red patterns.

The third item was a sci-fi-looking hammer, and its material body was metallic black with shining grey and silver patterns. However, he was a bit speechless at its shape and size.

In terms of size, it looked the smallest in the digitized frame compared to the other two items. If one wants to imagine it, they can take thor's hammer for reference as they looked similar in size and shape-wise.

'Hmmm...will all three items have the same level of difficulty when using <Gear Enchantment> on them or different difficulty? I hope it's former,' Aren thought before he decided to pick the hammer.

He picked the hammer since it would be almost a perfect weapon for the kinetic attack method. Sure there was a risk since this hammer didn't look like a normal hammer, but this choice still looked best to him.

[The test will start the moment you use <Gear Enchantment> on the item]

[Hint: Focus and Observe.]

'Focus and observe? Hmm...'

Seeing the hint, he decided to revise the information about <Gear Enchatment> skill.

'First, a certain amount of Armalist force consumes when I touch the item and create a cube of Armalist force according to the skill. The sword took less Armalist force to create the cube while the chakrams took more. After creating the cube, I infuse it in the item, and doing that would create vein-like patterns on the item.

'Afterward, I simply have to infuse Armalist force until all the vein-like patterns are filled, and the item disappears into the mysterious space inside my body..or soul? Whatever that place is, but once I summon the gear from that place, it has finished its transformation.'

After revising the skill information and process in his mind, he used <Gear Enchantment> on the hammer.

He touched the hammer with his hand before executing the skill. In this process, he infused Armalist Force in the hammer as it scanned its body structure before the Armalist force returned on his hand in the form of a cube.

[00:01]

[00:02]

The timer started, but Aren didn't hurry.

He was going to waste this try on thoroughly experimenting with the usage of skill on this hammer.

He sometimes increased the flow of Armalist force to increase the scanning speed and creation of cube and sometimes decreased the speed to see the formation and stabilization of cube creation.

He still remembered how he failed to create the cube the first time when he used the skill on Heavy Broad Sword.

'Hmmm...Speeding up can destabilize the cube creation, but I have to achieve a perfect balance of speeding up this process and stabilize the cube's creation while doing that.'

He took thirty seconds just to create the cube.

Afterward, he infused the cube inside the hammer, and right after doing that, he was shocked.

'T-this...What is this?' Aren confusedly thought because something appeared in his mind as he saw several hundred starry dots, big and small, bright and dim. However, there was a single large dot in the middle of this river of starry dots. This was quite different than when he used this skill on his chakrams.

'Hmm....do I have to fill up these starry dots with Armalist force?' Aren thought before he controlled his Armalist force and willed it to fill up the giant first since it seemed to be the target.

Indeed, Aren could feel the dot filling up with Armalist force in less than a second before it released five wiggly rays and connected to five dots around it.

'Hmm...guess I have to fill up those dots now.'

Thinking of that, he filled up those five dots as they also released wiggly rays from their two sides connected to ten other dots.

He then filled up those ten dots as they released wiggly rays and connected to twenty dots.

Aren continued this process before all dots connected with wiggly rays as the whole thing looked like complex vein structures.

The hammer also shined, but instead of disappearing, he heard a voice.

[Do you want to submit this result or try again? Two tries left.]

Before answering, Aren looked at the timer and was speechless.

[3:07]

'Three minutes? What the hell...' Aren thought as his expression turned serious, 'for A-grade result, I have to finish all that in twenty-five friggin seconds?'

He took a deep breath and remembered the hint, "Focus and Observe? Hmmm, let's do one more try seriously and see how it goes," muttering that, Aren answered the voice in his head with his thought.

'I want to try again.'

Right after that, the hammer shined before it returned to how it was before, and his temporary Armalist force that returned to 0 also became 2500.

[The test will start the moment you use <Gear Enchantment> on the item]

[00:00]

Aren looked at the timer that was stopped to 0 before he took a deep breath and touched the hammer, "Let's do this."