I Reincarnated As A Stick

Chapter 212: The Final Step

As he looked at his status screen, shocked at the great boost to his stats three Ally skills had given him, he could not help but mutter to himself, “Ain’t I too broken?”

“If I were an X-grade Inanimate and I decided to not evolve to the Pseudo-Animate level or Animate level in a long time, then I would’ve accepted these numbers,” Aurus continued muttering to himself. “But I’ve only been an S-grade Inanimate for a short frame of time…how monstrous would my stats become in the future?”

In the end, he decided to not think how monstrous he was. He changed his train of thought towards that of his future, a future after the Inanimate existence level. Thinking about it, he thought to himself, ‘If I go through the same route Argentum is undergoing right now in becoming an Animate, then that would make me…an Ultra Animate? A Super Animate is already strong thanks to the stats they have, but an Ultra Animate…surely with monstrous stats like these, I’d be unrivaled against those on the same level as me as well as those above me, right?’

The more he thought about it, the more he became excited for a future where he could lord over anything while being at a lower level. He could not help but imagine fighting against those that underestimated his power, only for him to win overwhelmingly in a tournament like in the web novels he read. He then thought about the farther future…the Transcendent level…the Divinity level…with his current stats, it might just be possible for him to reach the pinnacle of power while being at a lower rank.

“Well, I can already reach the Pseudo-Transcendent level of power at my current existence level,” Aurus muttered to himself as he let out a low chuckle before adding, “Who knows what level my power would reach when I get to those existence levels.”

“Anyways, I should go ahead and grind my skills to the X-grade Transcendent level,” Aurus continued to mutter, returning his train of thought back to the steps of his plan. Just as he was about to start grinding his skills, he remembered a certain memory that would allow him to raise a few of his skills far faster than before, prompting him to look at Theresa on his left shoulder before asking it, “Theresa, I have leftover chances where I could max a skill’s level out instantly, right?”

“That is correct, Master,” Theresa responded to Aurus’s words in a slightly cheerful tone before adding, “You have 6 chances remaining, would you like to use them?”

“Indeed, I do,” Aurus said in response to Theresa’s question not long after. He then went ahead and commanded her, “Open up the skill list. Exclude the Ruler skills since they’re my last priority in terms of leveling. Also, make sure to exclude the skills that cannot be leveled up or evolved.”

“As you wish, Master,” Theresa said in response to his words before gesturing with its hands, a slightly corporeal screen appearing in front of Aurus’s field of vision not long after.

Ding!

______

Active Class Skills:

[Supreme Deification (Epic) Lv. 1], [Flux Equipment Creation (Legendary) Lv. 1]

Passive Class Skills:

[Otherworldly Spiritas Energy Core (Wind Variant) Lv. 1], [Heaven’s Zenith Essence Ascension (Rare) Lv. 1]

Active Species Skills:

[Omnipresent Movement (Rare) Lv. 1], [Spellswords of Ruination (Legendary) Lv. 1], [Divine Polymorph (Rare) Lv. 1], [Heavenly Rejuvenation (Rare) Lv. 1], [Spirit World (Epic) Lv. 1], [Grand Aegis (Epic) Lv. 1], [Wisdom Transfer Lv. 1]

Hybrid Species Skills:

[Penultimate Veridical Spirit (Mythic) Lv. 1]

Passive Species Skills:

[Grace of the Divine Tempest (Special) Lv.1], [Flux Dimension (Epic) Lv. 1], [Parallel Sentience (Special) Lv. 1], [Surpassing Fate Lv. 1], [Power Surpassing Boundaries Lv. 1]

Active Life and Will Skills:

[Omnipresence (Rare) Lv. 1/5 (C-Transcendent)]

______

“Well then,” Aurus muttered as he looked at the screen in front of him. “What a surprise. Even if I removed all of the skills that can’t be evolved or leveled up from my skill list, I still have quite a lot of skills to grind.”

“Then again, what skill should I allocate the 6 chances I have?” Aurus asked himself not long after, looking at the skill list in front of him as he pondered for quite some time. Eventually, he made a decision in his mind, focusing his sense of vision towards Theresa before saying, “Use all of my 6 chances on [Flux Dimension]. Make sure to evolve it.”

[Flux Dimension], Aurus’s only FP storage skill which used to be called [Supreme Spirit-Flux Chiliocosm] back then. Naturally, after fusing with a lot of skills, the maximum FP capacity Aurus could hold at once was greatly increased while the grade of the skill had reverted to the C-grade Mortal level.

The reason as to why Aurus decided to use all of his chances on this skill was because his current species specialized in Flux, which he had fused with his previous Spirit Points in order for him to have a huge amount of Flux. In his mind, he thought that by having a lot of Flux, he would be able to evolve to a species of Spiritas Flux far stronger than his current one. Of course, he’d still have to grind the rest of the way to X-grade Transcendent, but he thought that just saving those chances rather than using them is more useless.

“Alright, Master!” Theresa said in response before gesturing with her hands not long after. A few seconds later, six balls of white light manifested over Theresa’s head, forming a sort of halo around it. Not long after that, a ball of blue light multiple times larger than the six balls came out of Aurus’s body before settling down on top of his wooden head. 

These six balls of white light then made their way towards the ball of blue light, entering the ball of blue light one by one as the former gradually increased in size. After a single ball of white light was absorbed, the ball of blue light would then burst in an array of light, signifying that the skill had evolved to a higher grade. This happened for a total of six times, bringing [Flux Dimension] from the C-grade Mortal level to the B-grade Transcendent level, increasing the amount of FP Aurus can hold by leaps and bounds.

As the enlarged ball of blue light went back into Aurus’s body, Theresa looked at Aurus and happily said, “Congratulations, Master! [Flux Dimension] has now reached the B-grade Transcendent level.”

“Good to know,” Aurus said in response to Theresa’s words, reciprocating the happiness in her tone. After that, he pondered for a bit over a certain topic before proceeding to ask it, “Theresa, is there, by any chance, a way you could help me grind these skills out to the X-grade Transcendent level?”

Listening to his question, Theresa hastily replied with a slightly sorrowful expression, “I’m afraid I cannot help you with that, Master. The only thing I can help out in terms of skills is…”

Just as it was about to finish its answer, the sorrowful expression on its face had changed to that of a smile as it continued, “…Exactly that! Just tell me the skills you want me to grind, and those skills you tell me to grind will level up at the same pace as your comprehension speed, Master!”

“…” Aurus listened to Theresa’s response in silence, eventually letting out a sigh as he said, “You know…you could’ve saved us time if you just said yes.”

“That’s no fun at all, Master!” Theresa said as it puffed out its cheeks before letting out a short giggle. It then went ahead and asked him, “Anyways, what skill would you like me to level up to the X-grade Transcendent level?”

Emanating slight elation, Aurus went ahead and said, “Well…”

And so, with that, Theresa and Aurus proceeded to grind all of Aurus’s skills to the X-grade Transcendent level, making sure that they had reached the maximum level for the X-grade Transcendent level as well.

The first few skills the two had tackled were the skills that had reverted to the C-grade Mortal level thanks to the mass fusion, only taking around half a day or so for all of those skills to reach the peak of the X-grade Transcendent level. Of course, this was all due to Aurus’s comprehension speed being at 40 times the normal comprehension speed, almost thrice as fast than his comprehension speed from before the war.

After those skills, he then moved onto the passive skills he had, also raising all of them to the peak of the X-grade Transcendent level. Unlike the active skills, due to the slightly complicated method of raising their experience, the amount of time taken for all of those passive skills to reach the peak was around 18 hours or so, with the newest passive skills he had obtained, [Surpassing Fate] and [Power Surpassing Boundaries] taking the longest time to grind since the two of them did not know how to raise their levels.

It turned out that the two just needed to use the active skills embedded in the skills for their experience to increase.

After the passive skills were the remaining active skills he had left that were not at the peak of the X-grade Transcendent level yet. This included [Omnipresence], a skill he made for the war but did not even use, and [Wisdom Transfer], a skill that needed Aurus to pass on skills onto other beings.

Unsurprisingly, [Omnipresence] took only around an hour or so to reach the peak of the X-grade Transcendent level while [Wisdom Transfer] could only reach the X-grade Mortal level, taking on the name [Sage’s Wisdom Shift]. The reason as to why the latter could only reach the X-grade Mortal level was because Aurus could only transfer some of his skills to Eu, Phoria, Terrence, and Marielle within his room since Fenrir and Charisa had already learned all of the skills that he could transfer.

Of course, he could go ahead and go out of the Tower of Seclusion to pass his skills to the other members of the alliance, allowing [Sage’s Wisdom Shift] to reach the X-grade Transcendent level. But then, he decided that it would be better for the skills he transferred to be at a lower level than a higher one for it to suit the specialties of the being he passes the skill onto.

And last but not the least among the line of skills he could level up and evolve were the Ruler skills given to him by the Supreme Ruler of the Void. Although his title would not go up by a level anymore since the Supreme Ruler of the Void had already done so beforehand, these skills still made up quite a great portion of his amplification multiplier, even more so after their output could now be adjusted thanks to the Supreme Ruler of the Void’s blessing.

It took Aurus and Theresa over half a day to grind all of the Ruler skills to the peak of the X-grade Transcendent level, including the passive Ruler skill that allowed him to attune to the element of Void without having an affinity for it. In total, Aurus and Theresa took almost 2 days to grind all of Aurus’s skills to the peak of the X-grade Transcendent level.

After doing so, Aurus could not help but look at Theresa with greater elation, asking it, “Since we’ve maxed out almost all of the skills I have to the X-grade Transcendent level, don’t you think it’s time for us to go a bit further?”

“What do you mean by that, Master?” Theresa could not help but ask, a somewhat confused expression on its face. In response to its question, Aurus let out a chuckle before commanding Theresa, “Evolve all of the evolvable skills I have to the next grade.”

Ding!

In response to his command, a notification sound resounded in his mind as Theresa put on a somewhat sad expression. Theresa then said, “I’m afraid you can’t do that, Master.”

“Why is that?” Aurus asked Theresa, wondering what was hindering his skills from reaching the highest level of skills possible, the Divine level. Theresa soon replied, “Master, the skills of Inanimates can only go up to the peak of X-grade Transcendent level at most…”

“…Unless you have a key that could break through this limit, Master,” Theresa added after the long delay in its previous statement. “The skill [Penultimate Veridical Spirit] is an exception to this one since it was a skill that could reach the Divine level to begin with.”

“As for the other skills you have, their path to the Divine level can only be opened once you have a key,” Theresa continued explaining as to why, leaving Aurus pondering as to whether or not he had a key that could do such a thing. Eventually, a certain memory from a few days ago had entered his mind, with Theresa’s voice reverberating in his mind as it said:

“After absorbing the All-seeing Comprehension Leaf, Master now has a comprehension speed of 35 times! Not only that, but Master has also obtained a chance to break a skill’s limit to a higher level!”

“A chance to break a skill’s limit to a higher level…” Aurus muttered, finally understanding what Theresa meant back then. With this in mind, he proceeded to ask Theresa, “Is the chance I got from absorbing the All-seeing Comprehension Leaf considered a key for a skill to break its limits?”

In response, Theresa let out a short giggle as it smiled, saying, “That’s exactly what it does, Master. Now, what skill would you like to use your chance on?”

Not expecting that Theresa would ask him to use his chance right now, Aurus pondered for a bit. Thankfully, it did not take Aurus that long to decide on what skill he wanted to break through the limit, muttering to himself, “The more I have it, the stronger the species I could evolve into…probably.”

“Use the chance I have on [Flux Dimension],” Aurus soon responded to Theresa’s question, to which Theresa replied, “As you wish, Master.”

Whoosh! Whoosh!

With a snap of Theresa’s fingers, two balls of light came out of Aurus’s body. One ball of light was incredibly small but radiated an aura that surpassed the aura Aurus could radiate at his maximum power while the other ball of light was incredibly large, radiating an aura that seemed to make anyone feel like it was a boundless dimension once one looked into it.

The large ball of light was none other than the manifestation of the skill [Flux Dimension], while the other ball of light was the manifestation of the chance he had. It did not take long for Theresa to fuse the two balls into one, with the large ball of light emanating a godly aura a few seconds later. Surprisingly, this made Aurus’s Allies, who were engrossed in grinding their skills, look at Aurus’s direction and stare at the ball of light that radiated the aura.

Fortunately, it did not take long for the ball of light to head back into Aurus’s body as Aurus told everyone to go back to grinding, which they did. After that, Theresa went ahead and congratulated Aurus, saying, “Congratulations, Master! [Flux Dimension] is now at the C-grade Divine level, taking on the name [Celestial Flux Dimension].”

After listening to what Theresa said, Aurus went ahead and grinded his newly evolved [Celestial Flux Dimension] skill to its maximum level, prompting Aurus to command Theresa, “Theresa, evolve this skill to the next grade.”

“Unfortunately, Master, you need another key for the skill to reach the next grade of the Divine level,” Theresa said in response with a slightly sorrowful tone, making Aurus let out a long sigh of slight annoyance in response. Not long after, he muttered, “Ah well. This is probably more than enough to make my choices better.”

“Theresa,” Aurus looked at Theresa and said, to which Theresa replied, “Yes, Master?”

In response, Aurus let out a chuckle of elation before saying, “It’s time.”

“Evolve to the next grade.”