Chapter 171 First Trial [2]
I was floating in the endless darkness.
Slowly, my mind cleared, and I looked around.
[You have cleared the 0th Trial]
[You have gained the qualification of climbing ???]
A gargantuan door was the only thing beside me in this void.
As the last notifications disappeared, the door opened and blinding light engulfed my being.
I lost all my senses. Even through my closed eyelids, the blinding light kept haunting me.
It felt like forever until I could feel again.
[Welcome to Floor 1]
Opening my eyes, I saw a mushy swamp forest spread out before me. The light that had been blinding earlier now seemed welcoming enough like the sun rising from behind the trees.
[Please choose a skill]
[1. [Pierce [Common]] ]
[2. [Synchronization] ]
[3. [Golden Turtle [Unique]]
[4. [Appraisal [Legendary]] ]
[5. [Multiply [Unique]] ]
[Synchronization] was greyed out. It came as I surprise as this meant that the dungeon couldn"t copy the skill.
Only the 0th floor, which wasn"t joined with the rest of the floor, was real. This was why one could die there.
From Floor 1 you could say we were exploring with virtual bodies. We won"t also carry the injuries gained inside the dungeon to the outside world.
[Skill Slots- 0/1]
[Note- You will gain one skill slot after every 2 trials. You can reset the skill slots after dying once.]
Two trials meant 10 floors.
In the dungeon, we can only use a limited amount of skills gained from outside. As for the skills gained inside, there was no limit.
I knew about the skills slots and, after deliberate contemplation, knew what I had to choose.
[You have chosen [Golden Turtle [Unique]] ]
A golden light wrapped around me and I felt my connection with the skill back.
[You are on Floor 1. Restrictions are being applied]
[Your stats and level have been restrained]
[You have 5SP/Lvl talent. Extra stats have been given.]
[Please say "Leaderboard"]
"Leaderboard"
======
Name - Nathan Hunt
Age - 16 years (???)
Rank - Meta(Lvl.1) (Suppressed)
Stigma - Iridescence
Extra Stats - 5
Number of lives - 3
>>>Stats:
Strength - 5
Agility - 5
Const.i.tution - 5
Ether - 5
Intelligence - 5
Luck - (-13)
>>> Techniques:
[Armory of Eridu [Legacy]]
Mastery - Proficient
>>> Quest:
Error-NASC10-2141
Quest cannot be decoded.
======
"This status screen is similar to the one everyone gets after reaching Tesla-rank"
The status screen awakeners can access undergoes upgrades every 3 ranks. The first upgrade will come at Tesla-rank and the next one at Sandra-rank.
I redistributed the stats without hesitation. After all, like the skill, I can again re-allocate the stats after dying once.
[Ether - 5 --> Ether - 10]
A sense of power filled my body and I could feel that I gained more access to my ether core.
Stats gain significant boosts after crossing thresholds.
The stats don"t grow linearly. In the beginning, they will add explosive power, but as more stats are added, they will reach the ceiling(or power cap). Breaking this ceiling will again give an explosive boost to the stats. The orders are 10, 50, 100, and so on.
What I mean is 11 stat in strength will be twice as strong as 10 stat in strength, however, 50 stat won"t twice as strong as 49 stat in strength. The growth rate of stats declines the closer they are to the power cap.
However, breaking through this cap, i.e 51 stats, will give again give a big boost, even greater than the boost given by breaking the previous power cap.
Of course, breaking the power cap was anything but easy. In the Underworld, all of my stats were locked at 50 because of this power cap too, otherwise [Synchronization] would"ve boosted all my stats to the maximum limit of Enma-rank.
"No matter how many times I think it"s overpowered skill through and through."
If only it didn"t have a fixed number of uses.
I shook my head. There was no point in thinking about what wasn"t possible.
[Community Leader board can be accessed from Floor 11]
[Please grow to your heart"s content]
I felt the world come "alive",
Chirping of birds flowed into my ears. Birds were chirping as if it was their morning song.
Damp wind grazed past my cheeks
Trees swayed gently under the gentle breeze
And I felt myself floating inside the swamp forest.
"This is nice..."
I was enjoying the atmosphere when the tree that was next to me suddenly dropped down.
A 5-meter-long two-headed alligator came into view. The gator was looking right at me with its bloodshot eyes.
"Seriously? Boss of Floor 1, right off the bat?"
I thought if I should fight the gator, it would be a problem when Henry asks how I killed it alone.
But then I remembered that I had already been showing off my "stigma" since the beginning in Ward. Even the reason I fought Leon using my "stigma" during the demonstration was to attract Student Council attention.
Though I no longer wanted the Student Council"s attention, the fact stood that I had been gradually using more of my "stigma" in front of everyone. Besides, this was the boss of the first floor only.
Graaa-
The alligator heads screamed
And rushed toward me.
"Enough of this. Let"s go."
I shifted my weight and leaped up from the swamp ground.
Phzzzt-
Landing on a sword, I fired the other two at the alligator"s heads.
The sword bounced from its thick hide without leaving so much as a scratch.?re????n?νℯ?.c?m
Before I could think something, the alligator wrapped its tail around a tree. It did not take the alligator more than a few seconds.
Uprooting the tree, the alligator flung it at me.
I jumped away and fired the sword.
The sword didn"t do much damage and simply served to anger the twin-headed alligator.
Not giving it a chance, I jumped. A b.a.s.t.a.r.d sword materialized in my hands.
I attacked, using the sword"s weight to add more force to the swing.
The alligator roared and swung its giant tail.
I let go of the sword and flew through the air.
All I could see was the huge tail coming towards me.
Just before the tail hit me, I grabbed onto it.
I used the momentum to flip over the alligator"s head.
I landed, and a new sword materialized.
Schwing-
It didn"t feel like I was doing any damage. I held the sword upside down and thrust it toward the eyes.
The monster jumped and threw off in the air.
It turned around in the air...
...and stood on its two hind legs.
It was taller than 12 meters and five times as wide as me.
Swinging its ma.s.sive arms, it caught my body. The alligator opened its two jaws and attacked my head with a flash.
"[Golden Turtle]"
A golden shield appeared around me and blocked the alligator"s chomp.
I smirked at the furious reaction of the boss.
My level my suppressed to Lvl.1.
Keyword: Suppressed
My actual level was still Lvl.15, the boss who wouldn"t be more than Lvl.5, couldn"t put a scratch on my shield.
However, I wasn"t out of the danger yet.
The alligator roared and tightened its grip.
Its hands, which were holding me before I had activated the skill, turned into an iron prison for me. The monster was trying to squeeze me to death.
Phhzzt-
Puchi-!
The dagger shot into its open defenseless jaw and struck inside its mouth.
Graaa-
Puchi-!
Puchi-!
The alligator quickly closed its mouth, but this time I attacked its eyes.
I only had 1 dagger constellation, as such I had to fire the dagger before constructing a new one.
The alligator threw me into the swamp water.
Splash!
I bobbed up to the surface. And immediately started swimming and climbed to the ground.
Thanks to the water, my crash was softened, and I wasn"t injured.
Graaa-
Phzzt-
It took me a few more minutes to completely blind the alligator. Though with one side of its vision gone, it wasn"t difficult.
The moment the alligator lost all of its eyes, it went into a frenzy.
It tried to chew my body, but with my protection shield in place, it couldn"t get anywhere near.
It tried to swallow me whole, but I got out of the way in time.
It tried to smash me with its huge legs, but I avoided it easily.
I took my time to safely take down the boss.
[Congratulations, you have killed Lvl.5 Man-eater Alligator. You have received 100exp.]
Thud-
Its giant body fell to the ground.
I was on the ground huffing and puffing. Constructing weapons non-stop had strained my 10 stat ether core.
A few seconds later, the alligator"s corpse broke into specks of light and disappeared.
I gasped for breath as if I was drowning inside the swamp forest.
Finally, I stood up and looked at the place where the corpse was supposed to be.
"f.u.c.king negative luck"
These Meta-rank monsters wouldn"t give much exp, but they might drop artifacts, potions, skills, or something else, depending on one"s luck.
"Whatever, I don"t need low-quality trash, anyway."
I knew the location of the items I needed and the way to get them. Why would I need random drops?
tsk tsk
Only poor peeps depend on luck.
I moved around a bit while thinking of the rewards I was aiming for from trials. I don"t need these random drops, definitely not.
[The Floor 1 boss has been defeated.]
[Pa.s.sageway to Floor 2 will be opened for 6 hours.]
The earth shook, and the trees swayed. A white mist rose from the floor.
I walked forward to the entrance of the tunnel.
The white mist cleared away, and I saw a normal stairway leading into the ground to the next floor. This was the same as in the novel.
At the same time, from the corner of my eyes, I saw a pillar of light shooting into the sky.
This... wasn"t the same as in the novel.