39) Tier 1... finally!

When Ryker realized he could not make it in time to save Golak, he did not break down like before. Instead, he promised himself he would grow strong enough to avenge him. He would make the Orc Emperor suffer. So, he started focusing on himself. Thanks to the passive effects of [Calm Mind], his emotions did not get the best of him like before.

Now that he had gotten rid of the pressure of saving Golak, he could train harder. He had also been inside the game for about a month, however, the game time and the real-time were different, it had only been a week in the real world. The time dilation was 4.5 to 1. 1 second in real life was 4.5 seconds in the game so after a month in the game, only a week had passed in real life. That would be very beneficial as his training would not be interrupted by having to go back to reality and report back to Analog.

He decided to stay to explore the mountains and kill as many different specimens as possible to quickly gain more power. His training would be eating. Even when he had other affinities, he still was a foodie at heart. After a few days of practicing his spells while walking and eating, his spells had leveled up a lot. The food spells were already all at level 9, the runic spells were also at level 9 because they had no cooldown and their cast time was the time it took for him to draw the runes. He eventually memorized them and it became second nature. All he needed was to have enough mana to cast them.

When he was eating a piece of Midnight Goat, he finally heard the notification he was waiting for. He was also not the only one.

[Your spell [Gummy Bear] has leveled up]

[Level threshold reached. [Gummy Bear] had evolved into [Gummy Bears]]

[Congratulations to player "Ryker" for being the first to evolve a spell]

Again, this caused a commotion as in the past few days the game had become an international sensation. Almost everyone was playing it now. Some people had even started selling and buying game stuff for real money. Of course, the businessmen saw this as an opportunity and so the search for player Ryker began. Influential people had already been looking for him but now, almost everyone wanted to find him. Being the best at something causes unwanted jealousy and the people start to have malicious intent.

He checked his new evolved spell and saw that now it would summon two gummy bears instead of one. He could also summon them with tools now. Only sword, shield, and bow were available but he was very excited as he guessed that when the spell reached Tier 10 he could summon an army of gummy bears with different weapons.

'Damn, now that is a nice evolution. I wonder what the rest of the spells do. Too bad I don't have the [Double Shot] ability anymore, my bombs have become two again instead of four.'

And so he cast the [Gummy Bears] spell. Two human-sized gummy bears with gummy swords appeared out of thin air. One was red and the other one was green. They had more strength and speed than he had. Compared to the grey landscape they stood out a lot to be fair.

"Go and look for beasts, bring them to me."

And so his two gummy bears departed in search of new food for him to consume. He would get stronger even if he had to consume the entire world to do so. He did not sit diel either. Three super strong individuals were currently roaming around the Lunar Peak. Ryker did not kill excessively. He knew that after eating a certain beast he would not gain anything even if he ate it again so there was no point in killing everything.

More time passed as this and Ryker had eventually consumed one of everything there was in this peak. Fortunately for him, Zilco City was located in a valley surrounded by peaks and they all had different flora and fauna. It was one of the reasons why Zilco City had been able to flourish to such an extent. He had consumed ores, herbs, and beasts and had gained a lot.

He had gotten a few new runes and now every spell he had was at Tier 1. When the runic spells reached Tier 1 they allowed for more combinations of runes to happen as well as added effects. They essentially became different and more specific runes. The strength rune had evolved into sharpness and the defense rune had evolved into protection. He had also gotten a blast rune and a bind one. The blast one pushed something away and the bind froze something in place. They had evolved from a push and a stop rune respectively.

Ryker had started to realize the intricacy of this world. There were billions of spells and he could learn all of them. It was something that made him excited. As mentioned before, he loved collecting stuff and now he could collect spells. Well, right now he had an obsession with runes but it would eventually pass. He also had gotten a lot of neutral spells. Most of them were passive.

He had gotten a [Blademaster] which essentially increased his understanding of all bladed weapons. Now, not every spell he had was useful. He had one especially that even when he saw it he cried. [Clairevoyance] was used to detect anyone named Claire near him. It cost 60MP to use and could only be used once a day. It was a neutral spell but still, the most useless thing ever.

Ryker finally decided to move to another location and dispelled his gummy bears that were active almost all of the time. He had also learned a few stealth-based spells and with the addition of the Shadow Ring he got from the event, he had eavesdropped on a lot of adventurers passing by. His next target would be the Burning Peak. It was a gamble as it was said that a mythical phoenix was seen there a few days ago. He was confident in himself though. He was also trying to fight without a weapon and only use magic for his spells to level up quicker.

And so he embarked on a new adventure. Or a new disaster. He was not the luckiest person alive you know.

Meanwhile, in Zilco City, Shila was training in one of the many gyms in the city. As a summoner, her spells leveled up as she fought with her creatures so she was currently in the middle of a duel against Ava. Valerie was nearby in case one of them got injured.

Shila was swinging her huge ax and blocking the projectiles Ava sent her way. Ava, as a technomancer, mainly focused on long-ranged attacks while Shila liked close combat more. She did not like to send her creatures while she was just watching from a safe distance. She had also a very unique spell called [Possession] where one of her summoned beasts would enter her body and share a spell with her. That was what she was using with the light wings of her quetzal.

Ava had a rocket launcher and was sending missiles made of mana towards Shila who would cut them in half. Ava had the upper hand. She was not allowing Shila to come close to her.

"Stop hiding up there and come fight me like a woman!" -shouted Shila tired of cutting down missiles and evading lasers.

"You want a close-ranged fight? Well I have just the thing for you" -said Ava as a creepy smile appeared on her face.

She was cold to everyone but when she was alone with the other princesses she was very playful and prideful, she always beat Shila with her gadgets.

"Come out! Mecha suit!" -she shouted at the top of her lungs and a small figurine appeared in her hand which she threw into the ring below.

The small figure grew in size until it was about 20 meters tall. It had huge arms and legs made out of metal and in the chest, there was a glass cabin with a lot of control panels. Ava slowly descended into the cabin and it closed producing a hissing sound.

"Oh. My. God." -said Shila as she was processing what just happened.

*Swoon*

Ava had cast another spell and in the hand of the mecha appeared a 2 meters long saber made out of green light. The other hand of the mecha then slowly transformed into a giant shield that covered half of its metal body.

"You wanted close combat, I will give you close combat. This is my newest evolved spell. I have been dying to try it out." -said Ava who was very pleased with the shocked faces of the other two princesses.

Shila was the one who recovered from the shock first and unexpectedly she was smiling.

"Well, it would be rude not to show you my newest evolved spell either."

"HUH?" -visible confusion was written all over Ava's face.

"Multi-beast Fusion!"

*ROAAAR*

Several translucent beasts appeared surrounding Shila, if one looked closely these were all beasts she could summon, her white tiger was also present and so was the gorilla but there were at least 10 beasts. They all roared and jumped at Shila who started glowing blue and growing in size.

Her arms and legs grew larger. Her back hunched. Her face elongated and her hair turned into fur. A tail grew out of her bum and a pair of wings out of her back. In less than ten seconds she was the same size as the mecha suit. Soon the light diminished and a thunderous howl sounded.

The princesses were completely speechless.