Joyrides and lengthy cruises aside, it was time to buckle down and get a little serious, which would also line up nicely with Kim and her team being back for a while. Everything that Beth's team needed had been found, or had already been available to them, such as with Bjorn's case, and they were ready. This would be the eighth rebirth for everyone but Val, as she had just completed her sixth rebirth and was still working on catching up. She wasn't always waiting to stay in lockstep with the others as she was behind, so she had already done six and was over halfway to seven, even counting the ever increasing requirements for experience gain at higher levels.

Beth, Sera, Blood, Kris, and Bjorn would all be undergoing rebirths, and just about the safest place for them to do it was within Beth's gate. They could pick an area in the 'backyard' that was behind the house and all activate the upgrade at the same time, which would add some helpful resonance, though they did have to walk a bit to get away from all the massive piles of dreadnought pieces and bits that were taking up a huge amount of space in the yard. The five of them took places about equidistant from each other, with Val sitting on a pile of titanium plates to the side and watching over them, not that there was anything to protect them from within Beth's gate. All five of them got the items necessary ready, a pile of treasures stacked neatly around each of them, so many of them together with such intense energy that the mana in the space around them twisted and vibrated. They all selected to undergo their rebirths at the same time, all of the materials and resources they need lifting off the ground and swirling around them before dissolving into streams of mana and powerful energies and piercing into their bodies.

The eighth rebirth wasn't really anything special, though Beth could still feel some resonances; she could feel Blood nearby, for one, but she also felt a very strong resonance with Sera, energy gliding back and forth between the two of them as their bodies were remade and reformed. It wasn't very dramatic for this rebirth, but the mana and aspects of the items was still doing reconstructive work on them, allowing them to even further surpass their limits while also retaining some of the strength they had already built up. The last part, combined with a bit better expansion of mana reservoir and a slight bit of increase in mana density, was why the True Rebirth required the quest and materials, though Beth had heard from others that the quest could be different, even not requiring any gathered materials right at the time of rebirth. There were a lot of things about rebirths they hadn't personally encountered yet, but much of that happened higher up the ladder, though people with slightly unusual bodies or constitutions could experience different True Rebirth quests even as an Awoken.

Beth felt something stir as their rebirths completed, though she had a hard time putting her finger on exactly what the feeling represented. She had a vague sense that something had changed within her, maybe with her soul, which was a bit of a scary thought, but she didn't feel at all bad or disturbed in any way. She remained seated as the others got up and stretched, though they were compounding their stats to much at this point that Beth had stats a lot of early Enlightened would have a bit of envy over if they saw them. She pulled up just her stat sheet, interested to check what her exact numbers were and see if anything unexpected show up in the raw data.

Name

Elizabeth Anne Bell

Class

Spatial Slaughterer

Level

1[8]

Strength

8883

Dexterity

4468

Endurance

5150

Intelligence

1459

Wisdom

1459

Free Points

0

Mana Physique

True Flame Mana Physique[Platinum]

Titles

Silver Flame Empress' Inheritor

Monster-Slayer

Skills

Ancient World Gate[4]

Beastly Tyrant Platinum[5]

Blacksmithing Journeyman[7]

Celestial Annihilation Gold[9]

Corruption Resistance Gold[6]

Elemental Resistance Gold[7]

Focused Meditation Silver[9]

FrostFlame Eye Gold[5]

Indomitable Heart Gold[9]

Lordly Reconstruction Gold[9]

Pain Tolerance Gold[9]

Spatial Domain Gold[0]

Spatial Mana Detection Gold[8]

Spatial Obliteration Platinum[8]

Spatial Resistance Gold[0]

Spatial Slice Gold[9]

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Spatial Step Platinum[6]

Swift Gold[9]

Swords Master[1]

True Life Harvest Copper[3]

Unarmed Expert[9]

Wealth

1a 3o 4m 22d 56p 6g 36s 9c

Emblems

CRA Gold Emblem (1600CP)

Bonds

Blood

The first thing she noticed, other than her stats being quite high now, was that Ancient World Gate had finally gotten another level. It was a bit strange, but she had almost given up and thought level three was max at this point. To have it suddenly jump a level randomly after a rebirth would be something that she would have to investigate. She needed to sit down with Liveria and talk about the skill again, but the empress had confessed that it was a skill she had gotten in an extremely dangerous place and she hadn't learned much about it. Liveria had pushed the skill enough to get the residence and then just a bit further, and that was about it. Beth wasn't sure that was a whole lot more information to extract from that source, but it was all she had at this point. Other than that, she had made generally small gains, though a level in her Swords was a nice upgrade considering she was already at Master, though much of that was from training with Jaq and Baelvyr a bit when they'd had a little free time over the last year or so.

Her other change wasn't a pleasant one, but she and the others had forked out several adamantine each to get the cruiser repaired. Zel had insisted he could do a good job, making it even better than new, even the Skip Drive, for a lot less than Beth had initially assumed, but the price was still well into the adamantine range. Beth, Sera, Blood, and Val had all thrown coin in, though Val grumbled a bunch about it. Bjorn and Kris were happy to work with the team and share in losses or gains, but they weren't sure they were going to be permanent members of what was very clearly Beth's team, so they had forgone buying into the cruiser, as the team thought of the act, and opted instead for a greater share of the profits from the dreadnought sales. The math was going to be a headache to work out, really because Beth's pocket Ascended were doing a lot of work that they would have had to buy, especially repair work, and that skewed the calculations a lot. Still, Beth was sure they could come up with numbers that satisfied everyone, and she wasn't very concerned overall. Kris was from a mega wealthy clan and Bjorn, from the hints he had dropped, likely had access to a significant piece of wealth that was left over from the true titans. Neither was desperately scrabbling for every copper; hell, Bjorn sometimes left gold laying around like it didn't have much value.

Rebirths done, they had a bit of fighting to do, as it would be a waste not to use Beth's gate, set to something other than the residence, of course, to gain a hundred levels rather quickly. Nobody had had any significant improvements outside of the standard for the rebirth, the only exception to that being a very slight increase in Sera's humanization. She was still far behind Blood in terms of her overall progress, but she was rather far ahead of where many others would be at their level and age. Blood had only improved a tiny, barely perceptible amount, only really noticed by looking at her stats when she leveled and calculating that she was getting one more point per level.

The leveling gave them some time to work with Kim's team, as well, though that was more Beth lending the use of the gate, or allowing the use of the gate. Kim's team was still a number of rebirths behind and wasn't going to be catching up any time soon, though they hadn't done True Rebirths every time. Well, Neph had done True Rebirths every time, but sometimes the others had done Perfect Rebirths or even just rebirthed a little before max when they felt like they had an opportunity to do so safely. The gate was such a big help to everyone and Kim was basically making sure she and the others swung back around Earth at regular intervals at this point to get access. The timing didn't always work out, but even coming home for a week to see their families and not being able to use the gate still wasn't a waste when they occasionally got a month of gate time for nothing.

Beth and her team didn't even really use the gate all that much after they quickly shot up in level, not really caring about fighting all that much once they were over level one-fifty, as their stats were pretty ridiculous at that point. Combined with all their other advantages and strengths, they wouldn't have any trouble fighting anything that they had been before the latest rebirth. That's not to say they entirely stopped leveling, and they did hang around on Earth for a couple objective weeks to give Kim's team plenty of time to get free levels, but leveling wasn't some kind of emergency priority right now. They took some time to relax, some time to travel around a little, and some time to get some instruction from some of the Seniors, or other Seniors, since them all being Gold Emblems now, except for Val, meant they were all also Senior Enforcers. Golds were still at that level where they had permissions and some small responsibilities, but they could largely dictate their own time if they wanted. Once they moved up into Platinum, they would owe more time to the Association, though everything was negotiable. If they made amazing contributions, they would have less restrictions placed on them, restrictions mainly in the form of mandatory work, but the point still stood.

The most important thing right now, in Beth's opinion, was getting the dreadnought taken apart while still paying a little attention to their level situation. They had the unique advantage of being very strong for their level and tier, not many Empowered able to confidently fight level four hundred beasts and not be concerned about it. A benefit of that kind of power, and the fact they often faced those kinds of opponents, was that they would still level quite fast even if they didn't spend huge amounts of time actively grinding levels. Experience curves increased rapidly, especially after level two hundred and even moreso after level three hundred, but being level two hundred one and killing a level four hundred forty beast was pretty much an entire level for one kill. That wasn't even one fight, as they could encounter packs or groups of rather high-level enemies on the dreadnought while they were still clearing sections, and a single one of them putting down half-a-dozen level four hundred beasts was going to be at least one level, even in the higher two hundreds. Beth was just glad that they were so strong now that they really didn't have to worry about anything below five hundred all that much, especially if they had a couple weeks after a rebirth to get close to level two hundred.

She had also, experimenting with her group and Kim's, figured out what level the Ancient World Gate had done for her. It was a two-fold increase this time, with one being a greater ability to control level and type of enemy they faced. The level range was extended and now it was much easier to create mixed groups of different enemies, as well as create larger or differently arranged groups. Beth could set up an area to have a broad mix of beasts and have them in large groups that were close together; it wasn't exactly a Tide, for a few reasons, but they could get the fighting to be pretty constant against large numbers with the new settings. She was able to not just do a broader level range, she was able to set a specific target for the levels, which could be nice to have everything within a set range instead of starting at level x and then increasing slowly from there.

The other big change, apart from all the setting changes for level and for beast types and groupings, was to the ability to create a much more complex environment. This really meant, once they had done plenty of experiments to figure it out, that she could have the gate create a quite complex and difficult dungeon layout. She was talking about twisting and convoluted labyrinths with many dead ends and sealed passages and all kinds of navigational hazards. They also quickly discovered that the most complex setting would put in traps for them to avoid or disarm; lots and lots of very devious and difficult traps that gave them all more than a few close calls and frustrating moments. The danger was much greater in these extremely powerful dungeons, but they made fantastic training grounds, especially for Kim's team, which was still not as used to traps and other hijinks in the dungeons they usually tackled.

The dreadnought salvage eventually took them away, and Kim's team took a break, relaxing for a week or so before they teleported away again. Her whole team, which was the two sisters, Sabs, Neph, and a new member they had picked up some months ago, had benefited to the tune of close to a hundred levels in the time they had been using the gate. They weren't as powerful as Beth's team by a long shot, so for them to have gotten a hundred levels, and a nice chunk of those in the two hundreds, was a pretty big deal. While the team normally could get pretty easy access to dungeons, especially since they were all Silver Emblems, the time compression was the real key, and it made the whole team wistful. Beth hadn't had much interaction with the fifth member, other than being introduced to him and exchanges a few words, but he seemed to fit in well, and she also got the impression he was both a quiet, shy sort and that Beth's team was more than a bit overwhelming for him. Well, Beth's team was back on the dreadnought, which they had still not told anybody other than Selene about, so the young man wouldn't have to worry for a while.

The dreadnought deconstruction was proceeding very nicely, especially since they had cleared most of the beasts by this point. There were very few hostiles left on the ship, and the fact they were taking the ship apart at a rapid pace didn't give much room for many new beasts to be spawned by the ambient mana. Beth was estimating they had about eighteen months left on the work, though she could see it going a nice bit faster if they pushed themselves pretty hard and just put their heads down without any breaks. It wasn't an emergency, however, so Beth just resigned herself to taking it nice and steady and still getting the disassembly done well ahead of schedule.

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