CHAPTER 200: EX 200. DAYS IN PANDORA

Leon’s eyes lingered on the glowing script that appeared before him.

Name: Steel Forge – Form 1: Steel Bullets

Type: Beast Skill

Tier: III

Description: Able to create and control steel. At form one, the user creates multiple steel bullets that rotate at rapid speed and possess high penetrating power.

Leon frowned, his gaze narrowing. "That’s strange... where’s the rank?"

Despite the flood of information, this detail was all he cared about. The designation under Type caught his eye, Beast Skill. That alone wasn’t shocking. Trial takers had long accepted this quirk; as long as it came from an orb, the system categorized it as a skill even if it was an art. The true difference was instinctive. Arts carried a depth to them, an echo of evolution. They could grow, transform, and lead a trial taker toward enlightenment and higher ranks. Skills, on the other hand, were rigid, fixed at mastery, and never changing.

Anyone who learned an art could feel it immediately. Even if the word Form was written next to it, the resonance was unmistakable. That wasn’t the problem here.

What unsettled Leon was the missing rank. His lips tightened as he muttered, "From the strength the rabbit displayed, this should’ve been peak C-rank. By all logic, the art’s rank should be C... but something tells me that isn’t the case."

His gaze drifted back over the details, weighing what mattered and what didn’t. The Tier represented how potent the art was in battle, while the Form signified what new technique emerged each time the art advanced. Normally, both were crucial. But Leon’s Extreme Art warped that entire system.

With his Extreme Art, he didn’t need to painstakingly nurture each individual art through forms and ranks. The collective grew as one. Every new art he absorbed strengthened them all. His foundation wasn’t in fragments, it was in the whole.

Exhaling slowly, Leon muttered to himself, "I still have a lot to figure out about this trial... but for now" His gaze sharpened, turning to the rest of the dead rabbits still scattered around the battlefield. As a cruel edge touched his tone and his fingers flexed.

"let’s see what you guys have."

****

After desecrating the rabbits, Leon crouched among the ruined carcasses, his hands slick with blood and dusted fur clinging to his sleeves. His breathing was steady, but his eyes carried the sharp glint of calculation. In the silence that followed, he made two new discoveries.

The first was troubling, not all the rabbits had orbs. He had torn through every corpse, yet only a handful contained them. The rest were empty husks, no different from wild beasts. He frowned at the thought. "So, the orbs aren’t guaranteed," he muttered, pushing aside another broken body.

The second discovery weighed heavier. After absorbing over a dozen orbs, the stardust simply refused to enter his body. It wasn’t a mental block, not like before, it was as if his body itself had grown resistant, rejecting the influx. He tried again, pressing the glowing particles into his skin, only to feel them dissolve into nothing against his flesh.

Leon leaned back on a boulder, gaze narrowing. "The only thing is... I don’t know if this resistance is just a cooldown or if it’s permanent. And if it’s permanent..." He paused, letting the thought linger, then shook his head. "No. I believe this is only for the rabbits. If I find another monster species, I’ll figure it out."

He didn’t discard everything though. He pulled a few of the rabbit corpses into his inventory. Not for food, but because corpses like these could hold value, if he encountered civilization, they might be worth coin. It was better to be prepared. His gaze lingered on the desecrated pile one last time, cold and unfeeling, before he vanished.

Leon’s movements blurred. To the untrained eye, he would have seemed like a streak of light cutting across the forest floor. Hours passed with nothing but the sound of his own rushing steps. No monsters appeared, not even a single wandering beast.

That absence gnawed at him. The system panel showed the day nearing its end, 11:40 p.m. yet the skies of Pandora showed no signs of fading. The light remained the same. He had suspected something earlier, but this confirmed it.

"The days here are longer than the real world," Leon muttered as he dashed, eyes flicking to the glowing panel.

The revelation stirred something inside him. So he decided to test it. He slowed his pace just enough to distribute his points quickly. Then he waited, gaze locked on the numbers as the panel ticked over to 12:00 a.m.

Ding. A new day registered. Yet the sky above Pandora burned just as bright as before.

Leon’s lips curved into a grin. "Let’s see if I can accumulate new points."

By now, he was beyond mortal limits. Accumulating points through strikes had become a refined art. He drew his fist back, air rippling around him. There was no structure to strike, but that didn’t matter. He made one. His fist lashed forward, snapping with such force that the air itself cracked.

BOOM. A shockwave erupted, the sound barrier breaking around his knuckles.

Ding.

[+1 Attack Point]

Leon’s grin widened. The sound was sweeter than any melody. This confirmed his suspicion: even if the day in Pandora dragged on endlessly, the system measured time by its own cycle. Meaning, he could earn points more than once within a single Pandora day. He didn’t know how many cycles it allowed, but the potential alone made his blood burn with excitement.

But then, as the rush ebbed, another thought struck him like ice water. If time here flowed differently, if the days here stretched far longer than in the real world, what would happen to the one-year trial limit?

Leon’s smile faltered. His heart thumped once,.as it became heavy. He willed the trial counter open, breath caught in his chest as the numbers flickered into view.

****

A/N: Let’s go!!!!! 200 Chapters, the thought of it is so EXciting and I don’t even know what to say.

But what I do know, is that these wouldn’t have been possible without your support. Thank you so much for sticking around to this point and I hope it will remain like this to the end.