Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

”This is it. This is what the ancient variants were preparing for...” Uhtred muttered under his breath.

With a sudden burst, he sped in the direction of his territory, eager to see this teleportation circle the System had spoken of. The situation was now urgent, seeing as the System had termed this as a global quest.

Everyone on the ranking panel who owned a territory would receive the same teleportation circle. He was a fair bit away from his territory right now, meaning that there were at least twenty people who could have a head start ahead of him for whatever this trial entailed.

Over the last three days, more people had joined the ranking panel, reaching Level 10. It wasn’t surprising, seeing as the first of them had appeared much earlier during the past week.

Right now, there were thirty-three people on the rankings the last time Uhtred checked. Of those, at least twenty of them owned territories already.

Uhtred urged cosmic essence into his legs, speeding across the forest and releasing his aura wantonly to warn any beast in the vicinity.

This deep into Zone 1, the creatures were powerful enough that wading through the forest alone was essentially suicide. If not for Uhtred’s confidence in his own strength, he would never have tried something like this.

In any case, the mad essence draw of his primordial grade core on the surroundings was enough to cause a disturbance that made any interested beast pause in their tracks till he passed.

Within ten minutes, Uhtred was back at his territory, panting heavily as he sped through the barrier.

Zara, Minh Quan, Dennis, and Diya were standing at the center of the territory where a large circle had appeared.

The four were in deep discussion. All of them remained carefully distant from the circle itself, just in case they mistakenly activated it. They all perked up as Uhtred stepped through the barrier, his gaze flitting about till it landed on the circle.

”Has anything happened yet?” he asked, walking briskly to the edge of the circle and observing it with a curious focus.

”Nothing yet,” Zara responded. ”It appeared immediately after the global system message. It seems you were right. The ancient variants were preparing themselves for this...”

Her expression was flat as usual, but there was a bit of confusion in her eyes as she stared at the circle.

Uhtred being right about this simply meant the ancient variants had knowledge of this trial ahead of time... at least, that was what this suggested.

Uhtred clenched his jaw but said nothing, also realizing the same thing Zara had. He simply continued observing the circle before his gaze firmed, and he looked up at the rest of his crew members.

”Zara, Diya, Dennis. Ready yourselves. We are going to be heading to the trial in thirty minutes.”

The three whom he had mentioned nodded and immediately went to their quarters to begin preparing themselves. The only one who remained was Minh Quan.

The old Vietnamese soldier stood with a bitter smile on his face. He stared at the circle with a longing in his eyes, then his gaze flitted up to Uhtred, whose eyes were on him with a flat look.

They didn’t exchange any words, as no words were necessary. Uhtred’s meaning was immediately clear. Minh Quan was not coming along with them.

The System had been explicit. A baseline strength of Level 10 was required for this trial. While it had also claimed that anyone of any level could enter, the fact that it hinted at a Level 10 minimum for survival meant one thing:

Whatever this trial held, Minh Quan was not ready for it.

Over the past three days, Diya, who had been at the threshold of Level 9 for a while now, had finally crossed through to Level 10 and now sat firmly at the early stages of Level 11.

Dennis, who was a step behind her, had pushed into Level 10 just this morning.

And Zara... well, Zara was a different beast entirely. While she had only moved a few steps to the peak of Level 20, she remained the second-ranked human in the world, right behind Uhtred at Level 23.

Minh Quan, on the other hand, had only moved up to the peak of Level 7 despite his best efforts. The difference between each level was now beginning to slow him down with his talent grade.

”While we’re away, you will take care of the base,” Uhtred stared at the man with a firm gaze.

Minh Quan clenched his jaw in response, swallowing hard but nodding nonetheless. This was the reality of things.

It was obvious he wanted to go, but in truth there had to be someone who was going to stay behind and take care of the territory, handle things while others were away.

Even with the System ensuring that every territory that held a teleportation circle was secure from outside threats, Uhtred simply couldn’t leave his territory without anyone to watch it.

”I will guard the base with my life,” Minh Quan nodded firmly, then turned on his heels and returned to his quarters.

Uhtred watched his retreating back before releasing a soft sigh and refocusing on the current situation. He pulled up the world ranking panel and looked across all the new additions on the side of humans.

The previous number of thirty-three he had seen when he last checked had jumped up to thirty-seven already. But even still, Uhtred felt it wasn’t enough.

Over the past three days, his observation of the leaderboard had given him some insight into the talent grades of these individuals.

King Alexei had moved up a level to Level 16. Perfection, who had been at level 13, had moved up a level also. But the others who were around level 11 and 10 three days ago had not moved at all, which told Uhtred that they, along with the others who just joined the list, were around a similar talent grade.

They’re all rare grades...

Uhtred was fairly confident he was right with his deduction. Dennis, who had just entered the leaderboard, sitting at rank 38, was at the early stage of Level 10, and he was a rare grade talent.

Diya, who had climbed to Level 11 was an epic grade, and she was sitting confidently at rank 13, pushing the previous holders a step behind. And he was sure she would continue to climb.

John Allen had revealed that the number 9 ranked individual, Antoine, was a rare-grade talent, so it was only a matter of time before Diya would surpass him.

Damn... we’re severely underpowered.

Uhtred shook his head lightly where he stood. He had hoped to level all the way up to the peak of the Mortal Realm, Level 24, and gain access to the ranking leaderboard of the ancient variants, but this trial arrived way too early.

He could decide to wait a bit longer and cultivate all the way to Level 24 before heading for the trial, but as the forerunner of humanity, time was of essence.

He needed to be one of the first to arrive at this trial ground... on the continent designated by the System from the onset of the integration...

Australia.