Lily POV

She gasped for breath as she tried to climb just one more step. When she finally managed to crawl onto it, she crumpled into the stone, whimpering for relief.

The other floors hadn't been too hard on her so far. Even the last one, which had taken her far longer than she would have liked, wasn't that bad. The main reason why it had taken her as long as she did was that she hadn't been able to find the trolls.

They were hidden in a secret valley, and it was only because of luck that she managed to find them. However, once she did, she was able to take them out without too many issues. The fact that they were able to heal was annoying, but compared to her own friend, who could heal at an even more outrageous rate, it was nothing.

Plus, she was uniquely suited to take care of them. Their main vulnerability was their heads, and she was able to blend them into a pulp, thanks to her skills.

However, it would appear that she had finally hit a hurdle—one that she didn't think she would be able to overcome. This floor seemed to test the person's physical strength and how well they could empower their body with mana or aura. It also tested how well they could control their body.

That, unfortunately, wasn't something that she was good at. As a matter of fact, it was something she was really bad at. Marcus had done his best to help her develop some proficiency in that area, but her talents lay in other directions. She had done just enough that she wasn't an embarrassment, but that was about it. It would be a stretch to say that she was anywhere close to above average in body empowerment.

For the most part, she was able to overcome this lack of skill with her other abilities. For a psychic like her, it wasn't that important for her to be able to move like Julius or Edgar. All she needed to do was be fast enough to avoid normal attacks.

Her mana skills were quite good, and they allowed her to avoid taking damage, which she otherwise would have because of her lack of physical prowess. She had some hopes that this would let her climb the stairs more easily, but that didn't work.

She couldn't even cancel out the effect the stairs were subjecting her to, not with her mana and not even her aura. The effect almost entirely relied on gravity magic, at least for this portion.

However, she didn't think she would be passing this floor. It was unfortunate, but she knew her abilities better than anyone else. She looked up at the sky, where she could finally see the top of the staircase, but if the increase in difficulty continued, she doubted she would make it halfway.

It sucked because she really wanted to get a better result, but perhaps this was a good thing. This might be what she needed. She had been falling behind in her physical abilities too much and this floor proved it.

When she returned from this rift, she would need to do more training and focus on shoring up her weaknesses.

In the meantime, she still wanted to see how far she could make it. Even though she wouldn't make it, quitting before she pushed herself seemed like the easy way out.

***

Julius POV

Empowering his body with kinetic energy was surprisingly simple, especially when he compared it to infusing his Sharpness Concept into his kinetic energy. However, it required a mental shift in how he approached empowerment.

When he empowered his body with mana and aura, he concentrated on channeling it throughout his entire body. When he used kinetic energy to do this, he had to place more attention on shorter but more frequent bursts, with a lot of emphasis on his limbs.

It required more focus, and he had to stay dynamic at all times. If he didn't, it wouldn't work well. It would sort of just peter out like a candle. Thankfully, he had skills such as [Sage of Savagery] to help him maintain this technique for longer periods.

Additionally, there wasn't any real sustained enforcement beyond the simple amount he used to allow his body to handle such extreme loads. Still, most of the empowerment came from powerful bursts of kinetic energy through his muscles and bones.

It made his movements a lot more jerky and erratic than his usual empowerment. Even more than he had been doing since entering the rift and focused on improving his kinetic energy. He was well aware that he looked weird when using it, too. He probably looked like a puppet controlled by strings.

The erratic movements didn't have the grace he usually moved with. However, he didn't need to look pretty in order to be effective. He could worry about that later. For now, all he cared about was how well his kinetic energy allowed him to move under this gravity magic.

He made some slight adjustments each time the difficulty of the steps increased. They were small, but thanks to the floor's circumstances, he could differentiate the small changes with higher confidence.

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What was even more exciting was that he suddenly felt a change in how the kinetic energy interacted with his body. Even more importantly, there was a shift in how it interacted with his Force Concept. Resounding Burst was helping this new form of enhancement with great synergy. Each little bit of kinetic energy went further than it did just minutes ago.

It wasn't quite life-changing or too dramatic. But it was enough that he felt the difference in how easily his body and soul responded. Something that the Words of the World recognized, and he smiled when he saw the notification about his physical enhancement skill.

[Pyrokinetic Embodiment of Ruin lvl 9 - lvl 10]

It was funny to see that the skill gained a level despite him not even using the skill. Perhaps it was just an indicator that his kinetic energy usage had improved, which would strengthen the skill as a result.

He maintained a grin on his face as he continued pressing forward up the stairs. He had already improved quite a bit from this little training session and wondered just how much further he could push it. He might even improve his kinetic energy usage to similar levels to his body enhancement skill.

Of course, he didn't expect it to surpass it, but he would be very pleased if he managed to get close.

***

After some time doing this, he frowned to himself in disappointment. After getting this little boost, he found himself not making as much progress as he would have thought. Or rather, would have liked.

He tried very hard to find new ways to improve but wasn't able to make them work. So, as he pulled himself one stair at a time, he started to use more kinetic energy. If he couldn't find a better technique or skillful way of doing so, he would just have to brute force it for the time being.

He didn't necessarily mind this. Brute forcing things has been his go-to method for some time. And in his opinio, itn was a talent of its own. He doubted many people could handle the extreme loads.

However, this also eventually plateaued as well. There was only so much his body could physically handle at Tier 3. Without his body enhancement skill, he doubted he would be able to add more kinetic energy without his flesh sack bursting apart like an overinflated balloon.

However, instead of just using his enhancement skill right away to help him, he decided that he had enough confidence to start slowly infusing his newly acquired Sharpness Concept into his kinetic energy.

He had been putting it off this entire time for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, he wanted to see what he could manage using pure kinetic energy without too many frills. Secondly, he was a little nervous about how much he might injure himself if he decided to use Pure Severance.

His previous version of the Sharpness Concept wasn't as strong as this new one. This meant that it wasn't as dangerous when he loaded it into his body, and it started to cut it apart. However, this recently evolved Concept could definitely wreak havoc if he let it get out of control.

But now, there wasn't time to worry about that. He couldn't hold back his curiosity any longer and started to infuse his Concept into his body.

The pain was immediate but the power that rushed through his veins was immense. If he thought his old Concept made his actions sharp, he was wrong. This was true sharpness. His kinetic energy reacted with such quickness, it was fascinating.

There were a few hiccups, and he had to pump his healing skill as the Concept accidentally shredded his muscles apart. A blast of sharpened kinetic energy was released from his body, and he groaned as the muscle fibers in his chest, legs, and arms were torn to shreds.

He gritted his teeth as he endured this pain and tried to figure out a way to make it work. The easiest way would have been to simply lower the intensity of his Concept, but he felt like that would be cheating, so he forced himself to tough it out.

However, it was thanks to this stubbornness that he was rewarded for his efforts.

[Pyrokinetic Embodiment of Ruin lvl 10 - lvl 11]

Once again, despite not using the skill directly, he found that it leveled up once again. There must have been a reason for this, and he had a feeling that it had to do with the fact that he hadn't been leveraging his kinetic energy as well as he could have.

After all, the skill's name had kinetic in it, so it would make sense that he would need an equal amount of skill with the energy.

He found that the moment he got the additional skill level, he could withstand the Concept's pressure with greater ease. His body was no longer bursting at the seams and only caused him relatively slight injuries, at least for his standards.

However, his healing skill took care of that, and he was able to use it with a level of efficiency. All of these slight improvements ultimately allowed him to climb the stairs without too much trouble.

After a little bit of time, he smiled with relief when he finally saw the top of the staircase. There was a golden gate right at the very top and an equally golden orb of light placed in the middle of this gate.

The gravity had been increasing dramatically over these past couple of hundred steps, but with his newly improved kinetic enhancement, it wasn't too bad. It only required some sweat and a little grunting until he made it to the top.

After he ascended to the final step, he felt the immediate release of whatever gravity magic was affecting him. It was so sudden that he almost blasted himself off into the sky on accident, overcompensating for the resistance he had gotten used to.

He hadn't quite walked through the Golden Gate yet. He used this time to catch his breath and examine the golden orb in front of his eyes. For some reason, he wasn't able to sense much from it. Not an ounce of mana or aura. It was simply there. The only thing he was able to sense was how it somehow encapsulated him within its grasp.

He had a feeling that this orb was the reason why he wasn't able to feel the gravity magic anymore. It was almost like the golden light had canceled it out.

It fascinated him, and so he took the time to analyze it as much as he could with [Absolute Spatial Perception].

It was mainly luck, but he finally managed to sense something after some time examining it. It was almost like a disruptive technique. The golden light reminded him slightly of his own attempts at disrupting mana. The main difference was that it was much more subtle and way more elegant than his barbaric attempts.

He also realized that it was too advanced for him to really learn from, which was very upsetting. However, he still did his best to take some time and engrave as much information about this orb into his brain. He might be able to make use of his information later down the road when he gets stronger.