Chapter 471: The Meeting... Part-2.

Link nodded his head at Rio’s words.

"Yeah... I also need to stop being so depressed and start training soon..."

Link glanced at Rio and spoke awkwardly.

"When that explosion happened... I almost thought that you... well... thankfully you survived that situation..."

Although Link and Rio are rivals and are always competing with each other, it would be really sad for them if either one of them ended up dying.

Link didn’t want Rio to die so suddenly and lose such a close friend; thankfully, Rio survived the disaster and remained alive.

"No way, I am not going to die so easily."

Rio waved his hand and shrugged his shoulders as if he wasn’t worried about such a thing.

"Moreover, now I am an S-ranker; there’s barely even anything that can actually threaten my life now... as long as it’s not an SS-ranker, I don’t think I will have much trouble dealing with most things..."

Rio was without a doubt happy at his own increased strength; he worked hard for it and even went as far as stealing various chances of a heaven’s chosen just to become strong.

The original Rio barely even had talent, and without that talent, Rio could have never reached his current heights.

Rio knew this from the very beginning, and that’s why he never hesitated to do anything to increase his strength and even stole the protagonist’s chances for himself.

’As I said before...why would I care about the protagonist losing his chances if my own life isn’t good...’

’You can only worry about others when you yourself have fewer worries compared to others...’

Although Rio was happy at his increased strength, he didn’t become arrogant due to it.

He still knew that he still can’t deal with truly strong people.

SS-rankers are still far from his reach, and he still can’t ’slay’ demi-gods yet and can barely even take a hit or two from them even with his current strength.

Thus, Rio knows that being confident about your strength is good, but arrogance must always be avoided to prevent troubles.

"Ugh... yeah... you already became an S-ranker... I need to hurry up and get to S-rank too; I am lagging behind in my master over ’Dao Rhythm’ too..."

"Even that guy Liam is slowly catching up to me..."

Link shook his head and felt that he needed to improve urgently; being left behind by Rio is not a pleasant feeling at all.

Even Lia, who was silent up until now, also nodded her head and spoke with a serious tone.

"Yeah, I also need to get stronger; I don’t want to be a burden after all. I need to get to rank S fast too... even Riya is about to reach rank S..."

"By the way... where are Liam and Ellie? I didn’t see them in the ’Spire of Ascension,’ and they are not in the academy either."

Hearing Lia’s question, Link shook his head and replied calmly,

"Well, Principal Raji said that she seemed to have sensed that Liam, Ellie and even Liam’s father were all in the Spire of Ascension, but I am not sure if I should believe it..."

"As you know... the spire of ascension exploded and if Liam was there then..."

Rio shook his head and interjected at that moment.

"No, he wouldn’t just die like that... although I don’t know how his ’Mana Field’ works in detail, I am sure that skill is the highest-level ability when it comes to mana control..."

"It’s an ability that can create mana shields so powerful that won’t even budge unless I go all out and use ’sword intent’ with maximum output..."

Rio continued to speak as he thought about the explosion in his mind.

"That explosion was made up of both mana and miasma, so Liam could have gotten enough mana to protect himself..."

"In fact, in my opinion, Liam should have been the person with the highest chance of tanking that explosion on his own without much damage..."

Rio’s legendary skill, ’sword intent’ is highly focused on ’offense,’ and it is not that good at defense.

Even though Rio can imbue his entire body with ’sword intent’ to tank damage, if the opponent uses powerful attacks or some other legendary skill, it will become difficult for him to defend.

Link’s legendary skill, ’Dao Rhythm’ is highly focused on improving his martial arts and his physical defensive and offensive capabilities.

It’s not effective at controlling mana and instead gives tremendous control of the entire body to the user.

Link can literally control every single muscle of his entire body and can train them to the extreme limits, making his physique almost rival a dragon in terms of pure strength and defense.

Even though Rio has become an S-ranker, he wouldn’t be arrogant enough to take a head-on attack from Link either, even with his sword intent covering him, and he would prefer to dodge it instead.

Liam’s legendary skill, ’Mana Field,’ focuses heavily on controlling and improving the quality of his mana.

It improves Liam’s mana efficiency and recovery to such high levels that it’s almost impossible for Liam to ever run out of mana, as he can recover it faster than he can spend it.

And as Liam is half a magician along with being a summoner, he can unleash shields and barriers powerful enough to tank most things with his never-ending supply of mana.

’Unless his barriers are hit by overwhelming force, they won’t break so easily... He’s improved tremendously after the ’supreme tournament’ and won’t get defeated easily...’

"Moreover, if Principal Raji’s intuition is correct then Liam’s father must also be with him..."

"Although the two of them don’t seem to have a good relationship, he’s Liam’s father at the end; he will not let his son die just like that. he will likely be able to protect Liam’s life from that explosion..."

Link nodded his head and agreed to Rio’s words.

"Yeah, even my father, who’s always so strict with me, actually tanked the literal ’heavenly punishment’ to save me..."

Hearing Link’s words, Rio sighed and thought to himself,

’Only Rio’s father is a careless guy...’

Rio and Link weren’t worried about Liam as much as Jin and Ashtel.

What they didn’t know was that Neo was an even more horrible person than the two of them could have ever expected.

...

A few minutes passed, and the car finally reached the inner door of the mansion.

Due to space-expanding artifacts, the space inside the Rex Mansion is very big despite looking smaller from outside.

It took them quite a while to reach the inner door even with a car.

Everywhere they looked, there was a massive garden stretching far and wide, filled with large grass fields and some trees here and there.

There were even fields filled with flowers and trees with fruits hanging on them.

’This place is quite amazing...’

Even Rio couldn’t help but feel that this place was really beautiful and nice.

’The stories say that Ashtel Rex, the strongest of the empire, had his house built this way because his wife liked living in such beautiful places...’

’He even went as far as equipping the mansion with a weather-controlling artifact to keep the weather warm and sunny for his wife whenever she wanted to take a walk in the garden...’

Ashtel Rex is a famous person, and many people in the world are curious about his personal life.

The story of Ashtel Rex and his wife is the most well-known among all the stories from his personal life.

’Should I also make such a place for Lia?... I will have to ask her first which type of scenery she wants...’

Rio shook his head and followed Link inside as he stopped staring at the scenery.

They entered through the front door and found themselves in a grand hall.

Many chairs and couches were placed in the hall, and dozens of S-rankers were either sitting there or lying down on the couches while holding their weapons in their hands.

Aside from the S-rankers, there were even A-rankers who were likely personal attendants of the S-rankers who were working like servants and were serving various refreshments.

Some S-rankers were playing cards in the corner, while some were chatting and gossiping about various things.

The place was packed with people, and Rio could almost feel the mana in the air solidify due to the presence of so many S-rankers being in the same place.

"This is many times shocking than I was expecting it to be..."

Even Rio was surprised by this scene, let alone Lia.

Link had already seen this scene long ago, so he wasn’t much surprised; he nodded his head at Rio’s words.

"Yeah, the first time I saw so many S-rankers rushing to my home... I was quite shocked myself... thankfully Riya asked her sister to stay here; otherwise I couldn’t even stay calm..."

Link’s concern was valid.

As long as no SS-ranker interferes, this many S-rankers can even conquer a nation and destroy the entire continent all by themselves.

Anybody would feel tense if so many walking nuclear missiles suddenly came to their house and started playing cards with each other like some shady gamblers.

"Forget about them; come with me. Riya and her sister must be waiting for us..."

Link was already used to such a scene by now, as it had been nearly a week since so many nuclear missiles were placed in his home, and he was now kind of used to sleeping on a bed made of nuclear explosives.

"Yeah... let’s go..."

Lia’s father was likely on patrol duty at that moment, so she and Link did not know any of the S-rankers present and decided to leave instead of staying to chat.