Chapter 362 - Challenges (Patreon)

During the next few hours, while watching the challenges, me and Tacita play a game.

Sitting on the chimney, she doesn't move from the spot and instead her barrier, skill, trait, or whatever it is, keeps changing. She does it in quick succession after examining the way I detect her.

Sometimes it takes me only a few seconds to pierce through, sometimes it takes thirty minutes. She is really good at it, and it's intriguing to watch. She is not like Savant or Tess, whose skills seem to be at the level of a genius, both of them quick to learn and grasp. She also isn't like me who abuses my skills, pushes myself further than others, and tries to scam the system.

Tacita is doing it all mostly based on her own wild instincts. Like a bird thrown out of the nest, forced to learn to fly by instinct rather than gradually by training.

And damn, she seems to be annoyed. Her hiding seems to be important to her. Being so twitchy when people are close to her, it's no surprise.

Yet I do not stop or act in consideration. No, I even use my eyes when I have trouble piercing through her hidey barrier.

The longer it goes on, the more dangerous she feels. The playful mood is gone, and her eyes are glued on the back of my head. I can nearly feel that gaze burning me.

I also keep my body strengthened, Vortex Core ready to be emptied, and Mana Regulator using a big part of my mana for Reinforcement.

It's a clear challenge to her, and it might be playing with fire, but I do not care. I also do not like her sneaking around and appearing out of nowhere. Ever since the 1st floor, I bear a deep hate towards opponents who hide like that. It's not to the point of trauma now, but a deep dislike and uncomfortable feeling.

So we either set some rules about that or we will fight. That's my message to her. 

Meanwhile, the remaining Hell difficulty Avatars go through their third challenges.

After being beaten by me and Gareth, they challenge a few weaker-looking ones. As before, it's always in groups of close to a few hundred to one thousand. Me with close to two thousand was the exception. Against some members of Hell difficulty, they even win.

BenDover gets tired out and hunted when he runs out of mana. Brainiac fails to reposition quickly enough, gets surrounded, and his ranged attacks are less effective in the forest.

Lootenant is mostly defensive based, so he does not have a lot of ways to attack.

Aaron and Dennis get tired out, neither of them capable of sustaining long combat against that many people who are getting better and better organized. They are also weaker on their own, without the other twin.

The murderer from Easy difficulty is also joining a lot of these fights, often getting in a few nasty attacks during the challenge and then getting pulled away when he appears in the common area.

At this point, around 150 people from Hard difficulty create a core that goes around challenging Avatars one after another. They are the main forces the others join and follow their lead. That group of 150 people is at this point quite efficient. There's a ranged unit, a melee unit, a unit used for detection, defenders, and a few really really weak healers.

They protect each other, members switching places to keep their mana topped up and stamina fresh. Once again, it's Samuel and some of the other soldiers from his group. Seeing how well they are doing, the others have an easier time trusting his lead and following his orders.

They defeat another Avatar from WhiteWing and another one from the same group as BenDover.

“Would be nice to see them beat your Avatar, Tess, especially after how you kept putting Samuel down,” I note.

Tess doesn't even flinch, her bearing still confident and without any worry. “If anyone from Beyond lost, I would be deeply disappointed,” she says.

“I want them to beat Savant,” I sigh while looking as they are preparing in the common area. The next Avatar is Tess restricted to the 4th Floor.

“Maybe if he went for 2nd Floor [Restriction].” Tess watches with interest as they are already splitting into groups, the last orders given. “I regret not going for 3rd. I was too careful.”

“Scared.”

“Careful, Nat.”

“Sure.”

“Did anyone already tell you that they would like to punch you?”

“Yup, constantly during the 5th floor. Handsome lad, but with a very punchable face himself.”

“I see. By the way, can you stop playing with Tacita? You two are scaring people.”

“Hell no.”

“Sometimes I forget how stubborn you can be once you decide. Anyway, I had talked to Miwa. How did you anger her so much?”

“He wanted to steal her arm,” Maya says, nomming on snacks she shares with Biscuit who sits next to her.

“It's still an achievement. Miwa is an extremely polite, patient, and reasonable person. Anyway, she will prepare pizza, salami with some extra cheese. A few of these ingredients are old, but it should be fine. The price is an epic item and a single mid-sized piece of voidsteel.”

“What? We said epic item only.”

“That was before you wanted to steal her arm and kept pestering her for it.”

“Okay, okay, but the pizza better be good.”

Tess shakes her head, “You know you could find a better use for an epic item, right?”

Ha! Better than feeding my ESM? No way. I also already plan to take plenty of pictures of the little half demon.

Now that I think about it, demons are indeed dangerous. Just a few weeks and I act like this. Am I that weak or is everyone around me just scary?

“I still have a few and soon will be able to make them on my own. So don't worry about it,” I tell Tess.

“Truly the sugar daddy of group 4.” Maya turns to me, “When you summon your disciple, I will watch her and learn from her. Then I will make you turn me into your minion and make me epic items,” she jokes.

“What? I can't hear people who have their [Focus] skill below level 40.”

“It’s starting,” Sophie interrupts us and nods at the screen.

Tess's avatar stands there, a shine in her eyes as she activates her skill, spotting the challengers. The crown forms over her head immediately, white and red lightning cracking around. Then the avatar moves away from the group that is still trying to locate her.

While the Avatar runs, certain stones lift up from the ground, floating after her. These stones get imbued with lightning and she jumps on the trees, cutting a few branches with her bare hand and shaping them into javelins.

In a few minutes, a decent amount of projectiles float around her, lightning crackling by. It happens all while the Avatar keeps looking in the direction of the challengers, collecting information.

So when she attacks, it's no surprise it's to kill Samuel first.

The man dies in the middle of a sentence, the stone as big as a fist flying through him from over a mile away.

Before the challengers can even react, five more die, all of them leaders of their units, and none able to endure the attacks. The Avatar made sure they were strong enough. With her eyes, Tess can see really far away and a little bit of mana too. It's not enough to use for analysis like my eyes, but enough to detect mana signatures or bigger amounts of mana.

The challengers start repositioning and strengthening the barriers. A few seconds later ten more attacks kill ten more people. This time the attacks are coming from the opposite side as the Avatar moved quicker than they expected.

There are 196 people from Hard difficulty and each of them die before the Avatar touches anyone else. Not a single Hard difficulty challenger endures the attack. They are all perfectly timed and unexpected, hitting the weak spots with enough force to kill. Each with just the right amount of lightning.

Taking care of them, she changes the strategy. The trees are pulled out from the earth and flung into the remaining groups. Stones as big as motorcycles are thrown at them.

And the entire time they can’t even locate her precisely enough to attack.

“Why are you so cool, Tess,” Maya sighs, her eyes glued on the screen.

I mean it might be cool, but she is just flinging stuff from a distance. It must be boring as hell. Let's ignore the fact my Avatar did the same.

Anyway, to no surprise, Tess's Avatar wipes out the challengers and Tess scrolls through the window to check how many shards she got. It won't be as much as I did, but some quite nice amount for sure. Probably enough for an epic javelin.

The epic items start at 4 thousand shards, but some of them cost multiple times that. There is also a difference between low, mid, and upper, even though not as much as in arcane.

When the challengers get outside another brainstorming starts and most of the challengers do not even look that disappointed. As if the result was expected and they consider it a learning lesson. It mostly comes from Hard difficulty.

That makes me reconsider a few things. Lately, I thought of them as weak, how could I not? Even restricted members of Hell difficulty can wipe them quite easily, but maybe it's just that I thought about it wrongly.

It's not like Easy has a power level of 1, Normal has a power level of 2, Hard of 3, and Hell of 4. It's more like Hell difficulty is a few stages above.

Yet, Hard difficulty isn't that bad. Logically they shouldn't even be, the tutorial must be… well, hard, for them as well. They also show some hunger for improvement that is stronger than in Easy or Normal who mostly take it more relaxed and akin to a hobby.

When the tutorial ends, I can imagine some people from Hard growing strong enough to destroy a smaller city on their own. Maybe a bigger one for the stronger ones. But at the moment, it's hard to say and mostly speculation from my side.

It's fun to think of the differences between us.

Oh and one more thing, aren't the strongest people mostly inclined to become loners? Actually, it might be half and half.

Currently, we have 6 people from Beyond here. Tess, Gareth, and Lily are quite sociable while me, Tacita, and Savant seem to be on the more introverted side. And I'm sure our trio of introverts would win. Yup, screw extroverted weirdos. I bet they can talk to people easily even in the morning after they wake up. Creepy.

I also decide to ignore the fact that we three introverts are weirder and more assholish than our opposite side. But it's not like they are normal. Everyone in Beyond is a bit twisted.

When I finally crack through the change Tacita made in her field, I turn back to the screen. That one was difficult, it took me the longest time yet to pierce through. Tacita can be surprisingly stubborn, it seems. Ever since we started, she hasn't moved from her spot or stopped staring at me.

The next avatar they challenge is Min-Jae. They do not even go in with that many people, below 500 even.

I already suspect the result, but Min-Jae gets defeated. He takes out a bit more than half of them and they have trouble catching up to him. The Avatar even uses the eye he got on the 4th floor as it is restricted to it.

In the end, it's not enough and his strong attacks gradually weaken and they catch up to him. Current Min-Jae would wipe them out easily, yet the [Restriction] he chose is too severe. The young boy is too proud to go higher than 4th.

The result is the celebrating bunch of people who excitedly talk about the fight. The one who did the most even with a nice part of two thousand shards Min-Jae offered as an additional reward and an epic item he got from the 5th floor. He did set it up after he saw me creating my Avatar and the result is what it is.

If Tess knew, she would’ve probably stopped him. Even twins would’ve done that. But Min-Jae did it on his own.

Even before his Avatar was defeated, he disappeared from the roof.

When Lily's Avatar appears on the screen, I stand up and detect where Min-Jae went. I don't even have to watch this challenge as I'm sure Lily will wipe the floor with them with her surprisingly low [Restriction], the 5th Floor. But that's just her. I'm sure she would be able to do it with the 4th Floor one but she doesn't seem to have such confidence.

I stop in front of Tacita, “I have to go now. But let me tell you one thing. I humored you sneaking up on me plenty of times, but it's something I don't like.”

Ever since the Earth where bullies that beat me kept trying to surprise me and catch me in a group. Ever since I spent three days with my life on the line, getting hunted by Phantom Goblin and stabbed every time I failed to detect him.

It's something I can't help, even if it's meant as no harm and in a playful way. But I do not trust Tacita the same way I trust group 4. And even though I can't die here, I don't want to allow it.

But for once, I will be nice and try to solve it by talking instead of fighting, “Do you know what I mean by that?” I ask her.

From below her messy bangs, her eyes shine with a long examining look. Her expression changes a few times until it lands on one of understanding.

A few seconds later, she nods.

The field around her changes but this time it's more akin to a playful attempt to hide and catch someone off guard to laugh at them later. Like a game.

She looks at me with a question and tilts her head. There is also a warning to not push her further.

“This much is okay.” I also change the way I detect her to match her change.

From now on, it's a fun way to keep ourselves sharp rather than something with a darker undertone.

A bright smile appears on Tacita's face and she waves as I use one of my anchors and teleport to where Min-Jae went.

***

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