Limitless Path

Medics had rushed to the field just behind the referees and, while not strictly necessary, the amount of damage Beth had done still meant that her opponent should be checked over, particularly considering it was enough to warning flash the barrier orange. Beth herself wandered away for a minute, pacing to help calm down after such a hectic battle, her blood still pumping loud enough it was like the beat of a war drum in her ears. She paced while the medics assured that her opponent was still all there, both physically and mentally, though a lot of competitors would need time to calm down after a match that intense, regardless of if it was a win or loss. The spear Grandmaster didn't take the loss too hard, once the medics had tended her and certified she was fine to walk it off, and gave Beth a bow before leaving the arena. Tazeen took Beth back to their waiting room, even though the fights were over, where he told them to wait while he went to confirm the final results with the White Feathers' representatives.

Once Tazeen had confirmed everything, they were free to move around or leave, though he still hadn't gotten the reward. He did, however, give them a reward for their efforts, though he couldn't give them mission credits for the CRA as this was a personal matter. Involving the Association in something like what Tazeen was working on would be a pretty big breach of the rules, one that would come with some punishment. Instead, he paid them out in cold, hard cash, a pay that reflected what one would expect an experienced duelist to make. That was a whole industry Beth had little explored, but people dedicated their whole lives to fighting in the arena. Those people still had to level up and rebirth, of course, to compete in different brackets or types of fights, but it was a lucrative industry. Whether it was fighting for the enjoyment of the crowds, or fighting to settle disputes between disparate parties, professional duelists enjoyed premier lifestyle.

Of course, a lot of people dreamed of becoming a professional duelist, while only a few were able to really turn that dream into a reality. Fame and fortune followed that dream, and the fortunes were immense, but Beth wasn't sure the sacrifices of being such a celebrity would equal it out. Especially not since she could get just as much fortune from fighting and exploring, and she wouldn't have to deal with all the complications of the fame side of things. The thrill of fighting such people would be a bit addicting…but, then again, how many of the people that were duelists professionally were on the level of a Grandmaster or better? Much better to keep on doing what they were doing right now, leveling and exploring as they pleased, and Beth could just look into participating the arena a little more. She also didn't have any really big demands on her time in the near- or mid-term, though she did have to keep pushing if she wanted to rescue Liveria's consort before she couldn't hold out any longer. She also did want to figure out the whole titans and giants situation, but that didn't seem to have as big a time crunch on it as other things. The two things in her immediate future were getting to Enlightened, then visiting people, including Sera's family, but also the smith that they had the token that guaranteed a lesson.

With the fighting done, their pay received, and nothing else of interest for them there, Beth took the team off to a remote world where they could set up and farm and not be bothered by anybody breathing down their neck. Not that they would be leaving the room much, considering Beth's gate power, but she didn't want them interrupted by anything, though if news of the beatdown they just gave a very powerful team spread, they would likely be left alone. The main concern they had going right now was getting everybody to the peak of rebirth nine, but within that they had to get several of the people on the team to rebirth nine. Andrea, Adam, and Val were behind the others, but they had been catching up quickly. They shed a member in Veren, who told Beth to call him for anything else interesting before disappearing after the Grandmaster fights, but they gained a member when Neph joined them. Neph had pulled ahead of Kim's team, though not by a massive amount, but she wanted to level furiously for now, and Kim's team was getting ready to take a break and take it easy. Neph also wanted to spend time with her bond and with her bond's companion, so it also worked out as some nice timing on several fronts.

Beth wasn't pushing quite as hard herself or with some of the others, as they could afford more than a bit of time for the others to catch up. Val would be fairly fast, as she wasn't that far behind and had Tera's help in sourcing rebirths materials, at least for the early rebirths, but the others were going to take longer. Andrea and Adam were ready to do rebirth eight, but even if they skipped the True Rebirth and went for the Perfect Rebirth instead, they would still have to climb up to the peak of rebirth eight and do another rebirth before they had even caught up to Val. It was likely they wouldn't catch Val until all three were basically at the peak of rebirth nine, at which point they could join the others in trying to secure the materials needed for their True rebirths. Beth had a couple plans for once everyone was at that point, but they had at least an objective year until everyone but Neph caught up, and if Neph were just going to stick with them, which was possible, it would be a couple years. They didn't necessarily have to stall everybody and do their rebirths all in sync, but just getting the rebirth ten materials was going to take a massive amount of time anyway, so it would more be a product of that lag time.

Beth was also sometimes experimenting with the new settings she had on the gate power after it had hit level four, though it really just let her make a slightly more interesting dungeon, at least in comparison to the more basic dungeons. Her ability to intermix types of enemies made it a bit more novel, but they had already encountered some instances like that before, even if a few of them didn't have particularly good variety. Beth was thinking in particular of the hell that was the insect dungeon they had cleared as part of the set of three dungeons that was overflowing. Even with several years now separating them from that experience, it was still enough to make her shudder a bit thinking of what they had to go through. Insect enemies already sucked to deal with, but doing it in a cave system, and having to deal with freezing temperatures and ice mana at the same time, especially before their resistances were that good and she had her fire control abilities, was an incredibly trying experience.

Months ground by without anything extraordinary happening, though Val did complete her rebirth and get going with catching up to the rest of them. Beth wasn't leveling like mad, but she had already hit three hundred before their duels and she didn't slow that much, meaning she was closing in on three hundred eighty after just four months. It helped that the duel with the Grandmaster had given her a very solid boost, pushing several skills up a rank, not least of which was her Unarmed. That made her a double Master, which still wasn't on the level of a Grandmaster, but it did give her a significant advantage against other Masters. The rest of the team found they had a really hard time keeping up with her at this point, as nobody could best her with weapons. Bjorn was ahead by the numbers, with his Maces skill two levels above Beth's highest weapon skill, but he was unpracticed with any other form of weapon, even Unarmed. Many people would get the Unarmed skill, even naturally as they fought, but it would lag far behind their main weapon over time. Someone who worked on two weapons would be able to bring a lot more power to bear, and having Unarmed as one of those weapons meant that the person always was ready at a moment's notice to use one of their weapons.

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The next thing that happened was Neph's rebirth, as she was still behind by a decent bit. That meant that she could get to max level faster, and her resources were more reasonably priced for a True Rebirth. Neph could quickly throw herself back into leveling after she had taken care of the rebirth, and Beth was happy to help her by setting the settings on the gate to the lowest level she could for a little while. Neph was already at the point where she could fight up a hundred levels or more at level one after a rebirth, so it wasn't too much of a challenge, nor did it take her too long to reap a few dozen levels. Beth was able to reset the gate, after a short one day rest to make sure she wasn't overtaxing herself, to a setting that would be better for her and the rest of the team, even if they would have to move a little further out right away to find challenging enemies.

Beth was focusing a little more on her skills right now than her level, as the level would come just as she fought. Her increases from the fight with the Grandmaster had given her several levels in her spatial skills as well, and two in her dominion skill, which made her want to explore the level of power. She also wanted to push her power even further; she had just seen firsthand how the overwhelming power of her spatial skills at a high rank could defeat even an immensely powerful being. Overwhelming a Grandmaster with brute force, essentially, let her see just how powerful a combination of Platinum skills, when assisted by her control of her Presence and incredible Mana Physique, could really be in a intensely tough fight. She was excited to get even more of her skills to Platinum, and even more excited to try to push her skills to Diamond. The one thing she felt like was that she didn't have enough time, though it wasn't so much as having some kind of deadline as she wanted more hours in the day, even when she could multiply those hours by ten times over.

Her dominion skill was still a low enough level that just using it and passively manipulating the fire while she was doing other things, or using other skills, really, was enough to keep leveling it. Her spatial skills were a lot tougher, as they were all at Gold at a minimum at this point, but she was still able to push the Gold skills by really focusing on them. Pushing the Platinum skills to the next level required her to really push herself to very edge, which was dangerous, of course, but it was the kind of thing she was willing to undertake to increase her strength. Other people might have had the same kind of fight she just did with a Grandmaster and been overjoyed with their victory and been happy to continue moving forward at a steady pace, but Beth was a bit of a different beast. She was throwing herself deep into the gate, into crazy fights with beasts at or over level five hundred, pushing her skills to the edge not just with the difficulty of the opponents, but with how fast she was trying to kill them. The risk was insane; most people at level three hundred fifty, even people with crazy stats like hers, wouldn't even think of fighting beasts at level five hundred, but Beth was not most people.

She had to take things slow, fighting one beast at a time, and even that posed a huge risk; she often finished a fight with her equipment heavily damaged, numerous bones broken, and some of her organs shredded. That kind of damage would be fatal most of the time to a regular person, and even most Wayfarers wouldn't be able to handle it very well, but Beth just forcibly healed herself, fast, pushing Lordly Reconstruction to its current limits before throwing herself back into the action. Most of the others didn't want to even try joining her, and for those that did, she politely refused, understanding that the risk and challenge of doing it solo, combined with the potential gains, made it worthwhile. She made exceptions for Sera, not ever wanting to say no to her lover, but the dragon would only come out occasionally to check that she was still alive. She would maybe watch Beth for a time, verify that she could handle what was happening, and then return to her own leveling.

The others were leveling faster than Beth was at this point, but that was fine; the wait and hunt for rebirth materials was going to be very long and tedious. If the others beat Beth to three hundred eighty by a month or two, or even three, that wasn't a big deal. She could really care less about it at this point, to be totally honest, as she was lost in her world, subsumed by the rhythm of battle and the thrill of pushing herself ever further, ever higher, reaching that next stage. It was a bit of a battle trance sort of thing, but nowhere near as deep as what she had experienced before; it was just pure joy, reveling in the increase in strength and sheer thrill of battle as she fought with her very life on the line. Even most of the battle maniacs in the Milky Way would have called her nuts, especially the ones that enjoyed getting their thrills in duels. Even most the of the ones that explored the deep wilds often had several life-saving items that they could fall back on in times of particular danger. Beth didn't have any trinkets like that; her life-saving items were the new numbers behind her skills, and the cold surety of steel in her fist. Even the beasts she fought couldn't withstand her overwhelming power, trembling before the joyful battle lust that sent her ever higher, ever further with her skills.

She lost track of time out there, even Sera's visits blurring together as she fought and killed and warred until she dropped where she stood from total exhaustion. She only glanced at her skills occasionally, maybe once a subjective month, and that just to see that the numbers were getting bigger. She left the gate open in its current conditions, the ring of five hundreds so far out she could fight for years and not even reach the point where she depleted just the first layer of them, and none of the others seemed to mind. She forgot the numbers entirely at times, so caught up in the thrill that she sometimes didn't remember to even eat or drink. After more than a year had passed, Sera finally pulled her back, both concerned that Beth needed a rest, but also saying that the gate would need a reset as the rest of the team had essentially fully denuded the lower strength areas of all beasts by this point. Beth was quite reluctant to leave, but after looking at her status page for the first time in several months, she decided that a well-deserved break was totally in order.