The walk back to the car is rather solemn. While they’ve died before in the arena, this is the closest they’ve come to wiping in the main world, half their members being seriously wounded.

If all the B rank bosses are going to have a similar gimmick, there’s going to be some trouble until they figure out how to counter them. They actually ride the car back to Falan for once, each of them thinking their own thoughts, the occasional attempt to start a conversation petering off until Kang wakes up.

“Did we win?” he asks, still groggy from the hit on the head.

“We won,” Lynna replies with a hint of a smile. He should very well known that they’d won considering he isn’t kicked from the game for his death timer, but apparently the effects of head wounds are very realistic in game.

The group gets a bit more lighthearted after Kang’s awakening, and starts to chat about what they should have done better. The general consensus is simply that they should have been taking a more passive role, going in for strikes before dashing back for distance, as the distance would have allowed them a bit of time to recover from the massive sound of the roars.

They all agree to play it a bit more safe with the other bosses they’ll be fighting in the upcoming B ranked bosses before conversation turns to something a bit more lighthearted.

“So Sen, have you even done anything other than hug Xue?” Lynna has apparently decided that the best thing to distract everyone is to tease Sen.

Sen blushes. “We’ve only been dating for like two weeks!”

“Yeah, but you’ve known her since we played Last World Online. It’s been years you’ve known her.”

“That’s different!”

Lynna give him a bit of a flat look.

“Besides, I’m underage anyway!”

“And that’s why the rules are a bit looser so long as you’re within a few years.” Lynna grins like she’s won this conversation, while Sen looks like a tomato with how red he’s become.

Sen eventually tries to convince them that he’s just not ready for anything, while Lynna ends up lamenting the fact that he’ll never be ready for anything, and that Xue is going to have to do everything herself.

Eventually, they arrive at Falan, the girls having spent the rest of the time teasing Sen, while Kang simply looks at him in pity. Once they’re there, Sen escapes into his own school, and after calming down a bit, decides to try and figure out that attack he’d used on the boss.

He rents a private training room that enhances your sense for energy, and takes a deep breath before trying it out. His first attempt completely fizzles. While he is able to generate the two flows of energy, as he goes to swing his sword, the two flows of energy begin to react to each other, and start to fizzle.

He doesn’t bother trying again for now, and takes a deep breath before trying to figure out what went wrong. With all of his skills, they require two things, an energy pattern and a solid mental image.

With cutting squall, the energy pattern is similar to a fast flowing wind, with a few swirls looking like miniature tornadoes. With Weight of the mountain it’s like a mountain range, and putting the two together, it’s like the peaks of a mountain being battered by the wind.

On the other hand, the image he’s using for one is that of a mountain crashing down, and the other is that of his sword literally becoming wind. He thinks back to when he successfully executed the ability, and realizes that all he’d wanted at that point in time was death for the monster. He hadn’t been imagining a particular image, just death.

He takes a deep breath, before letting out the part of him that was trained in his past life, the part of him that had known nothing but hardship and killing. Focusing on the sensation of taking a life, he carefully overlays the energy patterns, and as he swings down, they seem to blend together in a mysterious way, making them come to life, more a painting than simple patterns.

The sword itself cleaves entirely through the practice dummy, leaving a gaping jagged blue line in it, with blue cracks spreading from where it had started its impact. Sen stares. The practice dummies are usually made so that you can only cut in a bit, the resistance drastically increasing the deeper you cut, and he’s never been able to cleave one entirely in two.

He spends the next few minutes with his mind in a dark place that he feels all to comfortable with, practicing the blow each time the dummy refreshes itself. Once he finally decides that he has a good enough feel for the image required to execute the move, he spends a good thirty minutes trying to calm down his dark mental state before logging out for sustenance.

Once he’s satisfied his very large appetite that comes from both his age and the constant exercise the capsule puts him through, he logs back in for a while, and simply practices the B ranked version of Bones Like Wind for the rest of the time until dinner.

By the time dinner is ready, everyone in the group has healed up, but they all decide to put off finding the next dungeon for now, as everyone goes to get some food. Upon logging off for dinner with his family, Sen ends up asking his father about his worries that the United Federation of Humanity has been pressuring Alpha’s government with the warships they’ve recently landed across the planet.

“They haven’t said anything about them, but simply letting those of us on Alpha know they exist is enough of a pressure by itself. We haven’t bothered making any combat capable spaceships, as they’re not any use with nothing to fight, so if they wanted to they could just bombard us from orbit. We’re inherently at a weak position.”

The mood of the meal spoiled, everyone finishes their meal quickly, before Sen and Lynna head off to Fifth Dimension to travel around to a few different cities in preparation for reaching the B ranked dungeons.