Dimensional Descent

Aphestus sat on a meditation pillar that stood five meters tall. One leg dangled over the edge while he brought his other knee to his chest. His gaze peered over the ledge, gazing upon the few that had come to report matters to him.

This seemingly ordinary pillar was actually one of the resources that youths of Valiant Heart pined over. Yet, Aphestus was using it as a casual sitting stool, not even practicing Force as one would expect.

However, at this moment, the few beneath him didn't have the luxury of thinking about how wasteful their vice leader was being.

Seeing that crooked smile that hung on Aphestus' face, with their experience, they could tell that he was just a step away from blowing his lid.

"… We… We tried our best to cut them down, vice leader. But, for some reason, no matter how hard we tried, we couldn't. There's some weird space distortion around the tree… As best as we can tell… If someone more powerful than us doesn't go…"

The words of the young man were cut off by Aphestus' laughter.

"You want someone more powerful to go? Someone recognizable maybe? Somewhat of a genius that everyone has seen before?"

Aphestus laughed even more.

He felt as though he was getting out of character in just this past day. Often times, humans fell into the trap of doing something they never would. But, instead of backtracking after they realized they had made a mistake, they rather chose to double down, causing them to continue down a rabbit hole of doing things they wouldn't ever usually do.

Maybe Aphestus had fallen into this very hole.

a

precarious time they were in, he wouldn't have even been sent to personally recruit anyone. Even though

elders, there were no shortage of people on Hero Peak who had succeeded under the full brunt of

had actually landed himself in such a situation. It

as him taking action personally, but that would only make a matter he thought was insignificant

he had tried to squash an ant, only for it to survive and shit into

him trembling as his muscles ripple like they had a mind

for all I care. They can bleed

a state and posture of meditation. Hidden patterns on the pillar he

to do. But in the end, they could

anything any longer. Speaking the name of Hero Peak so casually

…

more people attempted and failed to take the

had given the Segmented Cube to Aina, he could

out of

was, he didn't plan on taking it lying down. He had given her those things as though they might separate only

important it was to her, so he decided to give her some time to focus on those things. As for him, his goal here wasn't exactly to become stronger. Though, that might happen as a by-product, his main goal was to gather

have a better training environment than he did. Only in

'Resources, resources, resources…'