Chapter 375: The Astral Form...
Chapter 375: The Astral Form...
Prototype S16ir112, Floor 2.
"I have a strange feeling about this place... it feels dangerous..."
Standing in a long corridor, Link hesitated to move forward.
A large frown hung over his face as he stared at the corridor in front of him with caution.
Dao Rhythm is an ability closely intertwined with the harmony of the laws of the world.
Although Link's mastery over it isn't really great for now, he can still sense a vague guidance from it.
Looking at the empty corridor, what Link could feel was his 'Death'.
He could feel it in his bones that if he dared to move recklessly, he would be dead.
"Er... Maybe we should stay here for now..."
Link glanced at Riya and decided to not move recklessly.
If he was alone, he could have gambled it all and tried to make his way forward regardless of how dangerous the path was, but with Riya being on his side, he has to worry about her safety too.
Thus, he can't recklessly charge head on into danger right now.
'Would have been better if Lia was here to keep an eye on her for me...'
Link has left Riya's safety to Lia quite a few times before in battles, it was the same in the dungeon of Maya and the tournament of supreme talents too.
Lia has managed to keep Riya safe in many circumstances, So Link can always trust her with that now.
"What? Hehe, you don't need to worry about my safety..."
Riya immediately understood what Link was thinking after seeing the worried look on his face and a smirk appeared on her face.
She put away her candies and a rare serious look appeared on her face. (Grab the popcorn guys!! This is a very rare event!!)
"Well, seeing is believing, let me show you something amazing today..."
A confused look appeared on Link's face after hearing her words.
But the more confused Link was, the more smug Riya felt.
[Eternal Nirvana: World's Protection: Astral Form!]
As if the world had stretched out its hands to wrap around Riya.
The elements in the area poured into her body and she seemed to have turned into a partially transparent being with a body made entirely out of mana and the elements of the world. (Her clothes turn into Astral form together with her, don't assume strange things...)
Riya floated in the air as if she was free of all mortal constraints in that form.
"This is the 'Astral Form' bestowed on those with the heart of eternal nirvana after they master the legendary ability to 50% or more..."
"And as I said before, I made it past 50% recently..."
"I trained this ability during my time in the evaluation test..."
"As for what it does..."
Riya smiled a bit and floated towards Link, then she hugged him from the back and crossed her arms around his neck.
All of a sudden, Link felt immense power rushing into his body.
His body felt very light and powerful, and his senses became sharper than ever before and he felt like he had gotten massive surge in his energy levels.
Riya giggled after seeing the bewildered look on Link's face and then whispered into his ear.
"If I am in close contact with someone in this form, I can lend all of my mana and stats to them and can give massive buffs..."
"Right now, you have your own base stats and my stats are also stacked on them along with massive buffs..."
"As long as I am in close contact with you, you will get an infinite supply of healing and any damage you get will be healed mere milliseconds..."
"In other words.... in this state, we both are Immortal..."
Link was really taken aback by those words, although he knew that healers can buff others but this is the first time he has heard about such a ridiculous buffing ability.
Most healers grants buff according to their own capabilities.
For example, if a healer has 100 points in strength then they can only grant 25 stat points as buff to others.
But that rule only applies to ordinary healers.
Riya cannot be counted in the same group as the other healers, she's in a league of her own.
The buff she used to give even without the heart of eternal nirvana was already twice the times stronger than ordinary healers.
But now, she's not only giving the base buff, she lending all her stats on top of that. She's literally overlapping two buffs together without causing them to repel each other.
The buff Riya is giving right now is nearly a hundred times more efficient and better than what other ordinary healers can give.
And this is just the base stat buff, she's lending him near infinite healing so he will heal in mere milliseconds and she is lending him all of her own mana.
Matter of Fact, aside from Liam who has 'Mana Field' thus has near infinite mana, Riya has the most amount of mana in the whole team Astra.
This means she nearly increased Link's max mana capacity by nearly 2.5 times.
Right now, Link's base stats alone have reached the level of an intermediate stage SS-ranker, which is such an fact that even peak SS rankers will be shocked if they knew about this matter. Link was worried about Riya's safety but things turned out to be completely different. Riya was never a burden on him, she was his biggest ally and his biggest strength from the very beginning.
Just one helping hand from her has solved nearly all of Link's problems easily.
A wide grin appeared on Link's face as he felt the warmth of Riya's arms around his shoulders.
"You win Riya, this time you have really outdone me... I never expected that you would beat me to such a state that I won't even be able to react..."
"But I am glad... now I can fight with you supporting my back..."
"This feels kind of unfair though... you have made me insanely strong, I might end up getting addicted to this..."
"Sigh... the more I stay with you, the more I fell in love with you... you are really a devious one,
aren't you, Riya..."
Riya chuckled at those words of defeat from Link and replied in a happy tone.
"Well, what else did you expect? You weren't the only one who made the promise... I also promised to protect you, and here we are..."
Although she doesn't show it on the surface, Riya is alwasy worried that she would be left behind in dust by Link's immense improvement speed.
Moreover, after facing the situation that happened in Oaklum, Riya has always been on the
edge.
She's been worried that she will not be able to save Link if something like that happened to
him.
After Aria helped her set an 'End' to her path, Riya's mastery over her legendary ability skyrocketed and crossed the 50% milestone.
Finally giving her the Astral Form that could solve all her worries in one go.
Riya's hard work has paid off, she can now fight beside Link and can support him without
making him worry about her safety.
Her astral form is partially spiritual.
Thus, magical and physical, all attacks will pass right through her and she won't sustain any
damage at all in this form.
There's barely a few abilities in the world which can target her in this form.
Most people won't even have a counter for her except for a certain anomaly, of course.
Rio has 'Sword Intent', 'Soul Splitting', 'Miasma', and now even has 'Golden Thunder'. He
has so many tricks up his sleeve that it's kind of scary.
All of these are direct or indirect counters to her Astral Form.
Although, Soul Splitting won't work on Riya, it will still be capable enough to separate Link
and Riya from that combined state.
"Well, now that we have such amazing powers... why not explore the area then..."
With a wide grin on his face, Link stepped forward without hesitation.
And with the senses of an intermediate SS-ranker, he easily avoided all the traps and made his
way forward easily.
He couldn't have achieved all this alone, but with Riya on his back, he's completely invincible
in this place now.
"By the way, I am still new at this skill so I can only maintain it for a short time... so let's hurry
up and find a way out..."
Link nodded his head at those words and agreed to her.
"Er... can you stop whispering like that in my ear..."
Riya giggled at Link's words as she noticed the slight blush on his face.
"No, you need to get used to it... hehe..."
Hearing those words, Link could only shake his head in defeat.
Today, he has been completely defeated by Riya, he has no way to counter her words today,
she has shocked him too much with her amazing abilities. "How many minutes exactly do we have before the skill goes into cooldown?"
Hearing Link's question, Riya contemplated for a few seconds before replying in an unsure
tone.
"Hmm, this is the first time I am using it in full power so I don't exactly know but... I guess I can definitely maintain this state for half an hour at least..."
An extremely shocked look appeared on Link's face after hearing those words. "H-half an hour!? D*amn! Doesn't that mean we can stay in this immortal and all powerful state for long enough to beat thousands of enemies of the same rank at once!?"
"Riya you are too overpowered!! I don't remember my candy loving girlfriend being so
strong! Are you sure you are the same Riya that I know!?"
Riya chuckled at those words, and replied in an amused voice.
"Hmm, what? You want me to prove it by eating a whole box of candies right in front of you?"
Link shook his head at those words.
"N-no don't... let's do that later, we still need to focus on getting out of here..."
...
Author's Notes.
Yo! It's your beloved author here!
Turns out, Riya was also overpowered all along...
Question of the day.
What do you think is the purpose of this 'Prototype'?
(Tell me your thoughts in the comments.) By the way, don't forget to use those power stones!!