Legendary Traveler: By Earning Progress Points I will Become Supreme!

'Upgrade my….wait,' Just as he was about to begin adding points to his Links of Subordination, Aoni raised an eyebrow as a sudden memory pertaining to his LoS popped into his head.

The only time he had added additional slots to his LoS count, he remembered the notification saying it was "Adding one" before deducting points.

'By that logic, it should be possible to apply multiple upgrades simultaneously…right? How about we try it this way.'

''Increase my Links of Subordination by two,'

| Increasing Links of Subordination by Two |

| Progress Points have been Deducted |

'Oh, that worked, NICE, alright then, Increase my Links of Subordination by 16.' Wearing a cheeky grin, ignorant of how many points were about to be deducted, the lad went ahead with his half-baked plan.

| Increasing Links of Subordination by Sixteen |

| Progress Points have been Deducted |

Seeing that last notification, Aoni felt slightly pleased by how smart he was and how much time he could save this way instead of going down the line one by one.

That is…until the realization of what he had just done began setting in, and after a few seconds, when the notification had long since disappeared, only then did Aoni start freaking out.

'SHIT! I forgot I didn't get any points when I upgraded my LoS Limit last time…' resisting the urge to slam his head on the cave's rocky wall, Aoni quickly opened up his TD to check the damage done to his Progress points…and after seeing how much had been deducted, only then did he give up and accept his mistake.

Eighteen upgrades had cost him 90 points, and without the usual bonus points attached with normal upgrades, he found himself with 138.73 progress points remaining from the original almost 300.

Summon's Display

_______________________________

Flume Grade: ★

Territory Climate: Artic/Mountainous

Summon's Available: 1/5 (►)

_______________________________

Links of Subordination: 1/20

_______________________________

As expected, the arrow vanished from beside his LoS count, but Aoni felt that was fine, considering, as things stand right now, he was a LONG way off from ever using that many, to begin with.

'Sigh, no point in crying over burned points; gotta keep moving forward. With my Flume upgrades out of the way, what else can I spend points on…OH YEAH! The attack and Grade of both my weapons…and, of course, my passives.' Turning his head and looking at the overturned Sled resting by the mouth of the cave, Aoni thought about it for a moment before getting up and walking over to it.

Since he hadn't bothered to remove the blades from the means of transportation during the evening, they were still attached to the base of the Sled. Still, seeing as they were easily accessible, the lad didn't bother cutting the vines and went ahead with gripping the hilt of Vestr before stopping just shy of uttering the mental command for an upgrade.

'STOPPP, let's think about this: Whatever I do to Vestr, I need to duplicate on Austr as well, or else their balance will be out of whack, and wielding them simultaneously will end up lopsided.'

Not wanting to get ahead of himself, a strange thought shoved its way to the forefront of his mind.

'Eh, this must be how those people who win the lottery feel when getting all that money after not having a pot to piss in their entire lives.' Drawing the comparison between his randomly appearing wealth and poor people striking it rich, the lad knew he needed to learn how to adapt.

Especially since Aoni was sure that the prices of upgrades would continue to increase as his Ratings grew.

'I need to get a grip on this feeling of greed. It's one thing if I have a bunch of points, but I need to detach myself from the numbers on screen and the reality of my situation.' Taking his time to think about his decision, Aoni gave a short nod, gripped Vestr's hilt, and issued his command.

'Increase the Rank of Vestr one Step.'

| Increasing the Grade of Summon 'Vestr' to ✬ |

| Progress Points have been Deducted |

| 0.5 pp Earned |

Seeing the notification that he had received 0.5 progress points and double checking that 5 points had been deducted, Aoni instantly knew the cost of upgrading his weapon's Rank matched that of his Flume, so, without hesitation, he released Vestr and repeated the process with Austr, increasing it from Null Star to CF Star.

Next, he burned another 40 points to bump both weapons to the Outer Fill step, netting him 20 points before moving on and finishing the upgrades to their Rank and bringing both Austr and Vestr to the Full Star Step.

In total, it had cost him nearly as much as he spent on his Links, with the upside being the 31 bonus points.

'Spend 70, earn back 31, it's not terrible…a net difference of 39 points. Tsk, just shy of 100 points now, with 99.73,' clicking his tongue, Aoni noticed a distinct shimmer coming from the entirety of both Austr and Vestr, causing him to crouch and look at them from different angles with clear admiration on his face.

'Even after all these years, people still don't know the reason behind the specific glows inanimate objects get at the Full Star Step…' Aoni mused while trying to muster up the courage to blow through the rest of his points, increasing the attack of each weapon.

For the two hook blades, 30 points each for a total of 60 points was all it took for them to break through to the next Stage and into F- Territory, bringing along 35 bonus points.

Unfortunately, the instant Aoni finished upgrading his two Hook Blades; his attention shifted elsewhere because upon completion of Austr reaching F-, a sound akin to shattering glass rang out in Aoni's ears, and..

Drip…drip…drip.

"Huh?" the faint sound of liquid hitting wood sent a wave of confusion through the lad, but when Aoni looked down to see what was causing it, he was greeted by several drops of crimson liquid falling from his face and onto the surface of the Sled.

And then came a wave of dizziness, which prevented the lad from registering up from down. Luckily, Aoni had enough mental capacity to lean backward because his last thought, before the world went black, was…

'Falling Forward equals DEATH!'

THUD