CHAPTER 56: Limits of the Universe.

First, I agreed to merge with the Grade-3, and once again, I was sent into my Spirit Space.

There, the same procedure as the previous time repeated as the in the form of a thumb-sized black sphere grew in size until it reached 1000 meters in diameter upon reaching the third innermost orbit of my Unique Innate Talent.

Because of other elemental Innate Talents, the became unstable and started to shake.

Then, like a déjà vu, my Innate Talent released an ominous hum, and a silver shockwave emerged from it.

Soon, the Grade-3 became docile and obediently revolved around , and I was greeted with a notification showing that the merging process was a success.

After that, I exited my Spirit Space and agreed to merge with Lv.21.

Pieces of memories that contained the Lv.12 Greater Shadow Leopard's experiences flowed into my mind like an unending stream.

[By forced absorption of Stage-3 Mastery memory fragments, your mind will go into a long-term Spirit paralysis state.]

[Due to your Unique Innate Talent's protection, you are invulnerable from the damage caused by forced absorption of Masteries.]

Once again, thanks to , I didn't get any direct damage, but the pain I experienced from the series of memory fragments was different from the physical pain that I had high resistance to.

Still, it was no lower than the pain I usually experience whenever I enter mode.

I didn't know how long the pain continued, and every once in a while, I received notifications that my levelled up.

Once the pain faded away, I found that just a minute passed and that my directly went from Lv.16 to Lv.33.

But my attention was pulled away by the waves of darkness swirling around me at knee level.

Even Dante, who was training in Dagger Mastery, halted and looked at me with his eyes wide open.

Ignoring him, I swiped my hand through the Darkness element that looked like black gas.

With my increased Spirit Attribute, my senses were sharp enough to detect minor fluctuations in the air with just my sense of touch.

But still, I wasn't able to sense anything even when my palm is in dense black gas, and along with that, it has no odour.

Even though I know it's properties, I still tested it as I manipulated the Darkness element to engulf Dante, who still had his eyes wide open.

Before he was engulfed, I told him not to worry and that I was testing it.

After a few seconds, I removed the cloud of Darkness around him and then Dante, who just got out from a state of shock, proceeded to tell me that while he was engulfed in Darkness, his five senses were rendered useless as he couldn't see, smell, hear, touch or taste anything while he was in there.

Even though he was eager to know about my new ability, he still didn't pry me about it. I appreciate him for that.

Following that, he resumed his training while I tried several ways to use it from the Darkness Element comprehension I looted from Greater Shadow Leopard.

What those memory fragments had was not similar to the knowledge that the training methods that one would get for every mastery level up.

Instead, it directly gave me the Lv.12 Greater Shadow Leopard's overall comprehension over the Darkness element.

I just tested it out but didn't train in it since the was already Lv.21, meaning it was considered Stage-3 Mastery.

With 'Hobgoblin MJ' killing enough monsters, I already satisfied the level requirement for Tier-3 Evolution since I had Life Energy to cross Lv.25.

I used the 12 Undistributed Stats I got from levelling up once, and with the already existing 3 Undistributed Stats, my overall Stats in increased from 485 to 500.

With that, I had 100 Stats in each of my 5 main Attributes.

Even though that didn't improve any of the Attribute-based skills such as , and so on, I still had an upgrade in my Achievement Title as (Common) changed to (Uncommon).

With that, my Luck Attribute increased from 37 to 47 Stats. But thinking about Dante's Fate Stats, the amount of Luck I had, it felt negligible.

After shaking my head, I opened my and looked at my 2nd Innate Exclusive Skill that just had its cooldown ended.

I didn't delay even a minute before entering it.

Since I had 500 overall stats in my , logically speaking, I could bring my overall Looted Stats to 1500* (= 3 times of 500 Stats) in be at max.

With 1500* overall stats, I would be as strong as a Low-Phase Tier-4 Lifeform with an estimated level of 66.

When that happens, I will become near invincible whenever I enter mode within Earth's Trial Zone.

I didn't directly add all of the Undistributed Stats into my Attributes in .

Instead, I added a few every minute during the duration of mode to avoid any unnecessary pain.

In the past two times, I underwent , I raised my overall Stats in from 645* to 950*, making each of the 5 main Attributes in my Secondary Status have 190* Looted Stats.

Stats wise, I was even more powerful than a High-Phase Tier-3 Lifeform but not as powerful as a Low-Phase Tier-4 Lifeform.

With 'Shadow Leopard MJ' going on a hunting spree and 'Hobgoblin MJ' helping Andrea by power levelling her, my investment didn't go wasted as my Undistributed Looted Stats continued to grow every minute.

But, when I started to add Undistributed Looted Stats, my overall Stats in stopped increasing after they reached 1000* Looted Stats, and I was faced with a single notification.

[You are faced with the '1st Limit of the Universe' upon reaching a total of 1000 overall Stats.]

I thought back to the time when MJ explained to me about Tiers.

Supposedly, there exists something called 'Limits of the Universe' that acts as a bottleneck for every three Tiers.

That was also why there was a qualitative difference in power for every three Tiers.

Throughout the Universe, Tier 1 to Tier-3 were known as 'Mortal Realm', Tier-4 to Tier-6 as 'Sky Realm' and Tier-7 to Tier-9 'Immortal Realm'.

The one that obstructs every Lifeform in the Universe to reach 'Sky Realm' when they were at the peak of 'Mortal Realm' was called the '1st Limit of the Universe'.

It's even harder than meeting the requirements for Tier-4 Evolution since overcoming the '1st Limit of the Universe' was to break past into a without any help of training methods that the System usually provides per every increase in mastery level.

The first three Stages of Mastery was named as by the System, and by reaching the peak of Stage-3 Mastery, i.e. Lv.30, one would face the '1st Limit of the Universe'.

It seemed that one would also face it by reaching 1000 overall Stats, and the System must have considered the overall Stats in instead of the overall Stats in .

With that, I was stuck at 1000* overall Looted Stats until I manage to upgrade a into .

As for the '2nd Limit of the Universe' and '3rd Limit of the Universe', one would face them at the peak of Tier-6 and Tier-9, respectively, but even MJ doesn't know about the exact requirements to overcome them.

When I was deep in my thoughts, Dante approached me, and I could see that he was intimidated by my appearance in mode.

But it's to be expected since I stood at 10 feet (3 meters) with dense muscles. As my overall Stats grew, my height and body size continued to grow according to it.

When I had 800* overall Stats, I was 8 foot tall, and upon reaching 1000* overall Stats, I stood at 10 feet height.

My head was just half a foot away from the top of the Underground Maze Centre's ceiling at such height.

If not for the state of harmony, I, too, would be intimidated by my appearance.

It wouldn't be a surprise even if he thinks I was some kind of monster.

After a sigh, I asked him to tell me what he wanted to say.

Upon hearing my voice that didn't change with my body size, he collected himself and said that he remembered something important that he wanted to say whenever he saw my silver hair and eyes but couldn't remember when he tried to recall it.

Even though makes one forget information of its user, some trigger points could bring up the memory hidden within the depths of their consciousness, but that was the extent of it since they couldn't recall it even if they have it in the edge of their mind.

I tweaked the 's ability so that he could recall the information which he unconsciously believes to be important for me.

Dante then told me that during the fight with Goblins and Lizardnoids on the bank of Crystal Lake, he saw my Fate Halo crumble into nothing by the silver-coloured energy on my hair.

I also learned from Dante that when I don't have the silver-coloured energy on me, the Fate Halo forms back over my head.

I was taken aback since I know that the Fate Halo he was talking about was something through which he could perceive one's Fate in the next 10 seconds with his Innate Talent.

Till then, I didn't know that the silver energy was powerful enough to erase my Fate for a period of time.