I stayed in Loistavadvaar for 84 more days. Reading a lot, and exploring the city. I found the armory, but I couldn't get inside for some reason. Probably The Great One was behind that. I found plenty of new books, though.
I did some hunting from time to time when a suitable opportunity presented itself. I even got a chance to catch a ghost or two from the wastelands. At some point, something surprising happened.
Do you remember the three coins made out of void essence using the 'Shadow mark' skill? It so happens that all of them got returned to Hatta, and he decided to contact me through one of them. I was trying to write something in my notebook when I suddenly heard his voice.
- Hey, Peter? Does this even work? Shit...
- Hi. Who the hell is it? - I replied uncertain, although his voice sounded familiar.
- It's me, Hatta. This thing really works!
- Yeah, it does... Long time no... hear?
- Yes. How are you doing Peter? I'm not gonna bullshit you, I contacted you because we are worried...
- Didn't Will tell you what's going on?
- He did, he did... We just didn't hear from you for quite a while, and Ki'rai is very... Ok, she straight up told me that she is gonna look for you, so...
- So you tried to contact me.
- Yes. I was a bit hesitant because you know...
- Because you didn't want to find out that I'm dead.
- Well... I wasn't sure if those coins will work, and didn't really want to bring false bad news.
- Now you know I'm alive and well. They tried their best, but it's not so easy to take me down.
He laughed a bit.
- Oh, I know that. So... Why is it taking so long? Will is... anxious. We all have been working a lot to not think about you, Peter, but it's been harder every day. Ki'rai was just the first one to break.
- I need some more time, but I'm coming back. You guys should find a place for the gate.
- So we will be having a gate, huh?
- Yeah. Big-ass gate straight back to earth.
He laughed again, but this time there was more joy in it.
- Good, great. To tell you the truth we did some preparations. We classified the hunting grounds, by the difficulty and we started classifying hunters and made badges. If you have the right badge you might hunt in the spot that requires it.
- No, I don't. But I'm sure you did this because it will help us all.
- Yeah... There has been a little uprising also.
- Uprising?
- Few people found out that we can actually buy guns in the device now, and they did. Then they started using them to take over the city, but it ended badly. There have been also some problems with drugs, but we handled them both... The second one is kinda still a problem, but a minor one.
- Well... I can't help you now, but I'm sure you dint need my help. I'll return as soon as I can. Have the spot for the gate prepared.
- Yeah... See you, Peter.
- See you, Hatta.
It happened more or less in the middle of this period of time. After that I tried my best to talk with The Great One to get me more targets, to speed up the process, but he refused, knowing that without a proper weapon I won't handle a strong enemy anyway.
To tell you the truth, I could already return, but my greed was stopping me. I wanted to be sure that I'm strong enough to handle what was to come after opening that gate.
In the end, I earned 1 812 555 442 000 regular points and 8 545 class ones. Ten ghosts had to die for that.
I immediately unlocked the 'Arcshadow', which gave me access to the following skills: 'Shadow fusion IV', 'Void essence IV', 'Void manipulation IV', 'Void domain III', 'Eyes of the Void III', 'Hunger of The Void II', 'Void winds', 'Shadow whispers'.
'Void winds' was warking in entanglement with 'Void domain' skill and stirring up the void essence slipping to this world in the territory I claimed, and further increasing the flow of the essence, which meant I basically had an infinite amount of it as long as I stayed in the field. Not to mention a giant wall of wind at the edge of the domain, filled with vengeful thoughts that sometimes manifested by thousand of shadows dragged by the winds.
'Shadow whispers' on the other hand was protecting my mind when I was under 'Shadow fusion' with all the thoughts filled with greed and hatred straight from the void. I heard just some mysterious whispers, but if somebody else was to try to get into my head, they would have to face billions of them per second.
I fully bought the 'Void essence IV', and pushed every other skill to the ninth level, except 'Shadow fusion', which I upgraded to tenth.
Prior to that, I maxed the 'Master of barriers' class skills and unlocked a 'Barrier Grandmaster' class. I couldn't afford it yet, but it was definitely on my radar.
I fully upgraded the 'Unstoppable Dreadnought' class and unlocked the 'Legendary Dreadnought'.
Then I fully upgraded 'Fire magus' unlocking 'Infernalist'.
All of it knowing that I need to get stronger, so hunting those ghosts would become easier.
My last buy was 'Void dweller' skills. All except 'Hide presence III' and 'Void anchor II' to the eighth level. I wanted to finish that class too, but I didn't have enough points. I was left with 6 280 944 060 more, but there was no reason to keep those here since I was returning to my city.
After browsing a lot I just decided to go with some 'Void anchor II', which I bought out fully, even if I didn't need all those anchors. I also finished the 'Linguist' class, unlocking 'Experienced Linguist' and finally called it a day.
You might be wondering why I didn't go with some new classes since I had plenty of points to get them. That's because I really wanted to get something with a higher tier, and I was very close to that, so using those points seemed like a waste to me. I just decided to save.
Another period of time spent in Loistavadvaar came to an end with 5 677 634 060 regular points and 686 class ones.