Doomsday Pillars

After spending half a day trying to clear the stone pillar's rubbles from the cave entrance, slowly moving them one by one, they finally could see an opening to the outside. They continued to clear the entrance with vigor when they saw the outside was finally visible.

Alex looked into Aria who was right beside him, helping him throw the rubble away, "Finally, Aria. We could finally go outside." he said with a smile. "Um!" She replied, nodding her head up and down.

Within a few minutes, they eventually managed to clear an opening big enough for them to get through. Without further due, they quickly go through the opening with vigilance, paying attention to any possibility of further ruins caused by the opening of the entrance.

When they get out from the cave, into the open field, they can see their previous landing spot, the frozen lake with a much smaller than before hole caused by Alex's missiles, seen in the middle of it in front of them.

Alex nudged Aria's arm as he pointed towards the frozen lake, more precisely at the barely visible hole, "Can you see that hole? That's our landing spot. We almost died a week ago.." he said while chuckling.

Aria who heard this could only say guiltily, "I'm sorry."

Hearing her reply, Alex frowned a bit and looked at her, "I'm not trying to guilt trip you. Aria. I just want you to think about your decision before you do it. Moreover, I'm just joking earlier." he said with a smile. He then continued to observe their surroundings, looking for any kind of danger.

Alex noticed an ice hill across their position, located far in the distance, at the other side of the frozen lake. He could see that the ice hill was formed by many different sizes of ice rocks. He then gestured towards Aria to follow him. "Let's go, I think I know where we need to go."

The two of them walk slowly towards the ice hill, crossing the frozen lake carefully. As they reached the bottom of the hill, Alex immediately used [Scan Area] to detect any kind of life form in their surrounding.

Although this [Scan Area] skill is a low level skill, ever since Alex has reached the foundation stage of light element, he felt that the range of this skill was increased tremendously. He could detect any life form in the radius of 1 square kilometer from his position. He quickly detected a few lifeforms around the area.

"There are 3 of them in that direction. Remember to do it according to the plan." he said, pointing at the northwest direction.

"Okay."

"I'll be going then."

[Hexagram Technique - stage 4]

Alex immediately approached the location of the detected lifeforms and found that the lifeforms he detected were a small pack of gargoyles resting on top of a small ice rock. He quickly run towards them at high speed as he drew his swords and slashed his swords at the relaxed gargoyles. He swings his new tier 3 sword toward the gargoyle's neck, the sword easily goes through its neck like a hot knife cut through butter, decapitating it. Meanwhile, his other hand with Strokes in it is not idle either. The other gargoyle beside the decapitated gargoyle quickly split into two by his diagonal slash. Two of the three gargoyles immediately die from Alex's surprise attack.

The last gargoyle immediately moved away from Alex's position, terrified by this unknown creature who could instantly end its companion's life. The gargoyle just wanted to spread its wings and flee when suddenly a silhouette appeared behind it and stabbed its neck. Unexpectedly, Aria has waited at that place using her invisibility. When the last gargoyle intends to escape, she swiftly finishes the job using her two tier 3 knives, ending the surprise attack flawlessly.

With careful preparation, they managed to kill the three gargoyles in a short amount of time. Alex then approached the gargoyles' bodies to loot it.

"3 yellow spirit stones! Not bad!" he exclaimed.

The two of them then began to search the nearby area again, searching for more gargoyles and did the same thing over and over again.

Alex was careful not to approach the area where the gargoyles were concentrated. Hundreds of gargoyles still in statuary form could be seen gathered around an area. It is very important to not disturb them unless the two of them want to die a horrible death. That's why every time they fought, he had to make sure none of the attacked gargoyles survived, lest they alerted their companion.

Alex was quite satisfied with his [Light sword - Tier 3 Weapon] sword, because the [Light Pulse] skill of the sword was not inferior to the sharpness of [Strokes]. Aria also fights the gargoyles using knives that also have similar skills to his sword, so that all this time they have no problem finishing off the gargoyles.

These gargoyles basically had the same strength and speed as Sky realm Knights. For spirit enhancers who have reached the Sky realm Magus, these monsters are 1 level below them. However, the anti normal weapon bodies of these monsters and their ability to fly were always the main problem in defeating them.

Currently, Alex, who has the hexagram technique and Aria, which is a dual element magus, is two levels above the gargoyles. Especially after he reached the middle stage of Sky realm. With this capital, Alex is more confident to fight with these gargoyles. Surely, he is not that stupid to fight against a dozen gargoyles at once.

If they are unlucky and get surrounded by more enemies than they could handle, they are always ready to retreat with their invisibility skill, immediately running to find a hiding place. Alex always makes sure that his life saving skills like [Haste] [Transparent] are always available at all times. But still, the main solution is to not let the gargoyles run and call for reinforcements, because sooner or later they will run out of places to hide.

Alex gave Aria all the spirit stones they collected so far, and encouraged her to immediately break through the foundation level of her water or ice element. Meanwhile, he uses his time to practice the tier 3 skills he bought from the Doomsday Pillar.

This is what they continued to do the next few days.

"We are still lucky so far, but we can't do this forever. How long are we gonna keep doing this?" Aria asked

Alex was silent for a while, thinking about the answer. "At least until you've already broken through the foundation stage and reached the middle stage of your cultivation. Just to be safe.."

Although Alex wants to get back to practicing the artifact enchantment, they currently have strong enough artifacts to kill gargoyles. So, all the spirit stones that they obtained so far are given to Aria, to help her quickly break through her bottleneck. But, even though she has reached the level 10 of Sky realm cultivation stage, she still cannot break through in her understanding of the spirit element.

[Alex]

[Sky realm level 11 - middle stage]

[Sky Magus - Light - middle stage]

[Aria]

[Sky realm level 10 - early stage]

[Sky Magus - Water - early stage]

[Sky Magus - Ice - early stage]

If Aria is unable to increase her understanding of spirit elements, her realm will always be stuck at level 10. For this reason, Alex decided for them to return to the cave and focus on practicing. 'It's better to be safe.' he thought. It took her 3 weeks to successfully break through her spirit foundation and reach the middle stage of the ice element.

"It's not easy for me to achieve this, Alex. I'm sorry if it takes too long. It's amazing how you can reach it in just a week." said Aria, showing her admiration.

"Yeah… Congratulations." replied Alex with a strange expression while cursing in his heart. 'WTF??!!' Inwardly, he was dumbfounded, frustrated, and depressed.

In his previous life, it took him 3 years to do the same thing with his C grade aptitude. The only reason he was able to achieve it quickly in this life is because he has already understood it in his previous life.

Alex can only sigh to himself, grieving about his poor talent because he has never reached the next stage. 'Oh my poor talent… Why are you doing this to me? *sigh*' He believes this is the last time he can beat this talented woman next to him.

Alex could only smile awkwardly, accepting what seemed to be Aria's final compliment to him.

In the last 3 weeks, Alex has finally succeeded in learning the two tier 3 light spell of his.

[Blessed - Rank 3 Light spell ]

[Smite - Rank 3 Light spell]

One buff-type skill and one attack-type skill. Perfect balanced skill for their current situation.

Both of these skills helped Alex to have more confidence in the fight against the gargoyles. He then turned around and said to Aria.

"Before we think about farming more spirit stones, let's find out where we really are and the way out of this place."