Staring at Elise, Junhyuk asked, “How does your ultimate work?”

Elise had been waiting for that question.

“I can summon my weapon through dimensions. I heard the coordinates, triggered the summon, and the transportation cleared. After I died, I looked into it a bit more before trying it in the field. I can summon five weapons at the same time for a total of six, counting my original. With them, I shoot a high-powered beam.”

“You have five copies of your weapon?”

“No. I can bring them over from parallel universes. They are temporary. What I think is most important is that I can cast magic circles in the air.”

“Why is that important?”

“I can create the magic circles just by imagining them, which means that item crafting will speed up.”

“That’s nice!”

It took her a while to craft an item, and creating the magic circles for crafting was the most time-consuming task of the process. Now, with her ultimate, she would be able to craft items bypa.s.sing that task.

“Do you have enough materials?”

“I can’t say I have enough.” She smiled and added, “But, I can create five magic circles at the same time, so even if I fail, my chances of success are higher. I used to only be able to craft one item at a time.”

“With enough materials, you should be able to speed up the process even more.”

Elise was the only one to have learned magitek among them. Now, she could work as much as five people.

“I’ll focus on making more Red Dragon set items. After finishing the set, I’ll work on the core.”

The core development was a necessity. Once the core research was concluded, humanity wouldn’t have to worry about the monster waves.

Now, Junhyuk needed one more hero. With just another hero, the waves would stop altogether. From then on, he would focus on the minions. He wanted to teach them to use their shields.

While listening to Elise, Junhyuk smiled and said, “Now that you are a hero, you’ll be joining our team.”

“Your team? Don’t you already have five heroes?”

“Rodrey got removed from the team.”

“Ah!” Elise was shocked.

He explained, “The problem is your items. You are lacking items comparable to the rest of the team. So, try not to die in the next battle.”

“Now that I’m a hero, will our team not have a champion?”

“That’s right. We will be weaker, but we’ll regain our strength in time.”

Their enemies didn’t always have other powered beings with them, so it would be OK for the allies to be missing lower-tiered powered people for now.

“We need to grow our own experts and champions. We need to pay close attention to when a minion activates their power.”

“Good thinking.”

Elise raised her head suddenly, and Junhyuk saw Gongon’s and Layla’s projections appear in the air.

“I wanted to congratulate her,” Gongon said, and Elise smiled at him.

“Thank you.”

“He-he-he! She’s my disciple and already a hero. Feels like I’m raising my own child.”

“You are just a hatchling.”

Layla smiled and said, “We are on the same team, so let’s do our best.”

“Please, teach me many more things.”

After hearing Elise’s answer, Layla said, “I’m training on something specific right now. I’ll hang up first.”

“OK.”

Looking at Elise, Gongon asked, “Your ultimate looks like a dimensional summon. Am I right?”

“Yes. When I died, I thought hard about the process and gained that power.”

“Is the dimensional summon instantaneous?”

“The more important thing is that the magic circles appear instantaneously. With that, I can improve on magic engineering significantly. I’ll further develop Zaira.”

Elise could upgrade Zaira while evolving her own power. Zaira had been crafted with state-of-the-art magitek, but since then, her power had evolved, so Elise could upgrade the gynoid now.

Gongon nodded and said, “I’ll send you my core development research. It’ll help you with your core research.”

“Really?! Please, do so.”

“Since you are talking magitek, I should get going,” Junhyuk said.

“Right. See you next week.” Gongon waved and turned to Sarang, asking, “What have you learned this time?”

“Vera taught me some things. I need items to support my casting. If I’m to use magic on Earth without limitations, I’ll need to get more things ready.”

“Yeah? Can I depend on you for the monster waves?” Junhyuk asked, surprised.

“Of course! You can always depend on me!”

He smiled and said, “OK. I’ll go train. If you need anything, let me know.”

“Sure.”

Junhyuk went back to his room, and just as he was about to go into his training facility, Jeffrey dropped by. The hero smiled at him.

“I heard you got a new training facility. Show me.”

Junhyuk laughed and sent Jeffrey an invitation. Jeffrey disappeared, and Junhyuk entered the facility as well.

After looking around, Jeffrey summoned his scythe and swung it lightly.

“I’m upgrading my items, especially my weapon.”

“How many upgrades?”

“The scythe is a +10 now. I was a lucky.”

Jeffrey had upgraded the scythe ten times. The amount of damage it dealt had to have gone up. As a human hero, Jeffrey’s societal and battlefield statuses had skyrocketed.

The four human heroes were stronger than most heroes out there.

Junhyuk thought that things were going well. Artlan, Nudra and Halo were superior to them, but he could check his progress against Jeffrey.

“This is good. I’m developing my own swordsmanship. Do you want to duel?”

Jeffrey smirked and replied, “I wanted to check my own skills with the scythe against you.”

“Really?”

Junhyuk faced Jeffrey. The hero triggered the dark energy within him, which enveloped the scythe. Jeffrey had gotten used to controlling the dark energy coming out of him. It easily powered up the scythe.

Junhyuk lowered both of his swords by his sides, taking a stance: Dentra’s wind energy and Aksha’s mana. He had to be able to control both of the swords and use them effectively.

Junhyuk ran forward, and Jeffrey ran to meet him.

Clang!

Jeffrey blocked Junhyuk’s attack, but he was also pushed back. However, even as he repositioned himself, Jeffrey deflected Junhyuk’s sword. Junhyuk aimed a strike at Jeffrey’s thigh…

Clang!

… but Jeffrey blocked him again. The hero had become very skilled with the scythe, so Junhyuk’s desire to fight for real grew.

He released a gust, part of the energy to increase his speed. Junhyuk accelerated and swung his sword at incredible speed, but Jeffrey blocked him still.

Clang, clang, clang, clang!

Nevertheless, Jeffrey had reached his limit, and he started getting injured. Still, Jeffrey had grown. The hero had trained by himself, and his scythe techniques were shockingly powerful.

On top of that, Jeffrey really was in control of the dark energy now. He could even block Junhyuk’s attacks while he was accelerating. Jeffrey was using the dark energy to match his speed.

Junhyuk had thought Jeffrey’s strengths to be related to summoning, but Jeffrey had developed in different ways. He was a true hero.

Junhyuk pushed Jeffrey’s scythe down with one of his swords and pointed the other at Jeffrey’s neck.

“You’ve become stronger.”

Jeffrey smirked and said, “I thought I could win.”

Junhyuk was combining many swordsmanships into one, but Jeffrey was only working on his scythe techniques.

Jeffrey could buy however many scythe manuals from Bebe, but those only increased his knowledge. It took time for his body to catch up to what he knew.

Jeffrey had to be working very hard.

Junhyuk patted his shoulder and said, “We got another hero.”

“Really!?”

Junhyuk nodded.

“Just one more to go.”

With one more hero, the waves would stop. Smiling, Jeffrey said, “When I get more gold, I’ll get a place like this one.”

“It’s really expensive.”

“Can I use this one?”

“You can, and we can train together.”

Just like the cores, the facility was overflowing with different types of energy. At the facility, both mana and dark energy could be replenished.

It was like an oversized Spatial Bag.

Jeffrey left, and Junhyuk ran through the duel in his mind. With his dark energy, Jeffrey could move with increased speed, but not as fast as his acceleration.

Jeffrey had also managed to block strikes from both of his swords. He had certainly become stronger.

It wasn’t a long duel, but Junhyuk, too, had learned a lot from it. Jeffrey had helped him.

“I should spar with him from time to time.”