Chapter 460 - What a beautiful day (Patreon)

“I want to change handler,” I tell her and wait for a pop-up message.

“It doesn’t work at this place,” she sighs and points at the storage cubes I brought here. “White sand was made by a powerful Absolute long ago. It was his way of dealing with annoying mana users and later modified and used to trap Champion Caius and many more. You surely must know how dangerous it could be if someone used it on the Entrance floor.”

“There are people with damaged arcane weapons and surely plenty with full arcane weapons. Plenty of people would be capable of wiping out the entrance floor on their own without any need for a weapon or item.”

“The arcane items need to be used with intent, while there is not a single attendee capable of controlling the white sand. Do you think you are the first one to bring white sand here, to Beyond? What do you think would happen if you release it here in the highly mana-saturated entrance floor?”

“What happened before?”

“Someone took it here, it got out of the container, charged by a lot of ambient mana and from the people. It wiped out one of the entrance outposts—all the attendees and locals that were there. A single pile that was probably as large as two of your boxes combined.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh. So let’s do it like this: I will take these boxes, I will also take the weapons you made out of it. There are a few handlers with permission to play around with things like white sand, so I will sell it to them and give you shards later. If you try to bring more white sand next time, I will just take it from you.”

“And you will take your cut after selling it to another handler?”

“Obviously.”

I can’t help but feel disappointed. Part of me expected this, but I was hoping for a different outcome. At least I’ll get some shards out of it. If it's too few, I’ll be angry.

“Can’t these handlers just ask Rulers to get them white sand or somehow get it themselves?” I ask.

“I can see what you are doing here, and this time I will play along and give you that free information. It’s impossible to enter the tutorial twice. No one can enter the tutorial other than the attendees from the First Generation.”

“Not even Rulers?”

The look she gives me makes it obvious she won’t tell me more.

After a while, she smiles from behind that table. “Didn’t you want to change your handler the last time?”

“I forgot.”

“Did you?”

“Yup, a lot of things happened. I might change you now, so you better give me some good information.”

“Nope.”

“I’m changing the handler the second I get out. The way you acted before, and now this situation with the white sand—I've put in a lot of effort, you know.”

“Sure, do it.”

Her smile widens even more as she watches me, her chin resting on the open palm of her hand, “But I’m in a good mood, so if you ask the right question, I might answer. You have a few seconds before you get transported to the entrance floor, so be quick.”

“Who was the ruler on the first floor?” I ask.

She chuckles and leans back in her chair with a relaxed ease.

A light flickers in her eyes, and she waits a bit, stretching the seconds until I feel myself getting pulled away.

As if waiting for that, she asks, “Do you remember that deer you skinned?”

Then I disappear, not having enough time to answer her.

Shocked, I then stand, dozens of Beyonders walking all around me, back on the entrance floor.

There is no fucking way.

***

An hour later, I’m 99% sure that old hag, asshole of a handler, was just messing with me. There is just no way.

I catch myself wondering why I haven’t already changed the handler. It would be so simple—just say the words out loud and go through the options. But to my frustration, I still haven’t done it. All because I believe her when she says only a few handlers can provide the kind of information she gave me last time.

Damn it.

I still have a few hours until the set time I left on the board, so I just walk around.

This time there is a crown over my head, and after a few weeks on the 6th floor, it’s nicely filled. It seems to be the trend with me: filling my crown and then things go to shit. So I expect something to go wrong fairly soon.

There also goes my plan of cosplaying as a melee fighter Noname. I’m sure people who would be able to check the amount of mana stored without me noticing are very few. The crown is something I’m deeply connected to. It’s also rude to do it, so only once in a while does someone try to scan people around, mostly rookies.

As for my crown, I wonder how many people would recognize it as [Mana Crown].

To mess with them a bit, I move a bit of my thermal energy, creating yellow flames that flicker around the crown, possibly masking it as [Fire Crown]. For the large part, I try to make it as similar to the guy from before.

From what I’ve heard so far, it would bring less attention to me with the fire-based crown. Lastly, my camouflage is finished with a simple mask made of mana over my face and with Flamebearer hidden under pieces of cloth.

It’s so silly it nearly makes me want to just give up on this, but I still continue.

There were plenty of things I heard from Duncan before. Sometimes people disappear, their bodies never found, probably taken apart for their traits. In other cases, people with rare skills are also examined.

In the near future, I fully intend to reveal some of these skills to purposefully get myself kidnapped. The kidnappers can then serve as a valuable source of information or loot.

Your body changes and adapts to your powerful skills as they level up. It either needs to or it’s just the sheer influence of the skills on the body. Even that little is enough for some people to risk it on the small chance it gives them hints to acquire a powerful skill.

Attribute crowns are often some of the most sought after, especially [Dexterity Crown]. Strength and Constitution as well and Mana is mostly considered just a variation of a mana battery. An amazing one, probably the skill being equal or better even in comparison to the greatest mana batteries, but [Dexterity Crown] seems to be on a different level.

I still don’t fully know how you would even fill that crown, but I can clearly imagine its strength. Just imagine a person storing Dexterity over months, over years.

It’s so crazy. How do you fight someone who moves so quickly you can’t see them? Someone who moves faster than you can teleport, and even if you teleport, they’re already waiting there?

In combination with a powerful weapon, they are one of the most terrifying opponents you could face. Just that crown, something to endure that movement, and a sharp blade to pierce through armors and barriers—and that’s it for you.

I stop mid-step and then take a few steps back.

Right to my side, there is Duncan, hurrying somewhere with that signature big bag on his back and a smile on his face. He quickly greets some feylith and then rushes between houses.

I almost feel ashamed for slacking around, and even though it’s a bit early, I head towards the spot where I set the meeting at.

The closer I am to it, the more I start focusing again and pushing these constant thoughts away. Now they all get replaced by curiosity.

All 10 Earth rounds should be synchronized now, meaning I could meet a Beyonder from any round of the tutorial. And as I get closer, exactly that happens.

A tall, bald man sits there, his hand passing through his beard. He is wearing a tank top, and each of his arms must be thicker than my leg for sure. Hell, his leg probably weighs as much as me.

It’s the winner of the 1st round’s 1st tournament. The one we saw during the Chronicle of the Past event.

Next to him sits a boy. He is probably barely 12, and he is very slim with wavy brown hair and the same colored eyes that continuously and curiously tick all over the place.

Opposite of them is a woman with short black hair and kind-looking eyes. Next to her sits a golden retriever, his head on her lap while she scratches him behind his ears.

The extrovert class, both of them for sure. The woman is smiling and nodding, while the white, big, tall, muscular man laughs loudly and happily, ignoring the looks he gets because of that. The boy seems to be used to that, and I can see him rolling his eyes. The way he sits close to the bald man tells me they are most likely used to each other, likely from the same round.

As I move closer, the boy detects me and pokes the bald man. He doesn’t let it show and continues to act as normal, yet the feeling of danger overwhelmingly increases.

As if I walked into a den of beasts. It ramps up even more as I move closer, and even though the man seems relaxed as he keeps laughing and talking, the feeling I have now doesn’t fit.

I let my heartbeat, kinetic energy flowing through my body, through my muscles, to counter that feeling. I also ramp it up, each of my steps sending reverberations through the floor, heartbeat nearly audible.

My hand closes into a fist and opens.

Winner of the tournament? Let’s see.

“Noname?” Out of nowhere, the voice sounds.

The moment feels frozen in time, and the bald man, who was standing with his muscles bulging, stops mid-movement. He glances at me, then at the woman with the retriever who said these words, and sits down.

With that, the feeling of danger is gone.

Disappointingly.

“Hello,” I greet.

“Hello,” the woman smiles, turning to me. “Luna noticed you coming closer,” she says as she pets her dog, who starts wagging her tail. “She said you smell like a human from Earth, so I tried to guess if you were the one who left the post.”

“Luna is smart.”

“She is, right?” The black-haired woman smiles happily. “My name is Leticia, and this is my Luna as I already said,” she introduces the golden retriever as if it’s the most important member.

Luna turns to me, the same gentle brown eyes retrievers usually have. But these eyes are smart, very smart. There isn’t any feeling of a scan, but I’m sure that retriever is checking me out and judging the danger.

“It’s fine, Luna, we are all from Earth here,” Leticia smiles and pets her again, to which Luna quietly turns away from me.

Leticia then gestures at the young boy. “This is Spacewolf. He’s really sweet, so please ignore his name! The mountain pretending to be a human sitting next to him is CarrotCake.”

The bald man, who is close to two heads taller than me and two times as wide, smiles brightly, his teeth showing.

“My name in the community is Noname,” I introduce myself.

“Hello, Noname. I hope soon enough we will all drop these nicknames. I have heard from my handler that you can even change your Community name, but only once, and to your real name only. So please think of it.”

Spacewolf snorts while CarrotCake stands up and stops in front of me. Most of my view as I look up to him is partially blocked by his beard.

“Round?” he asks.

“Fifth, you?” I return, curious if he will try to lie.

“First round, 1st tournament winner. You?”

“Also winner of the first tournament.”

The feeling of danger appears again and right away. It's even stronger than before and the man’s smile becomes even brighter.

Then the two presences I felt coming closer reach us, retriever Luna reacting the same way she reacted to me.

“That makes us three tournament winners,” the man a few years older than me says, bringing to himself the attention of the tall muscular man, which he ignores. “I’m Derick, and this is Noelle, 8th round.”

Derick has long red hair tied into a ponytail. He is slim and wearing black pants and a shirt with long sleeves. There is no weapon on him.

Noelle is shorter, with brown hair, and on her back, there is a long bow, seemingly made out of metal, but missing the string.

They both seems to be used to with each other’s presence.

“Isn’t that great! What a beautiful day!” the bald man, who I refuse to call CarrotCake, shouts and stomps, a crack appearing on the cobblestones below him. It’s just a simple movement, playful, not using any mana, yet the power of his body can be felt just from that.

I smell a single-attribute enthusiast. It's just a shame he chose Strength.

Leticia rushes to calm the bald man down, and I have a strong suspicion he wouldn’t mind starting a fight right here and now. He seems like that type.

Derick and Noelle stand quietly off to the side, talking to each other. The winner of the 8th round's tournament makes me curious about what abilities he's hiding. Unlike the musclehead over there, it's not so obvious.

I check the countdown, the time for the meeting nearly up.

Exactly on the second, the last person enters the area. That person is a young man with green eyes and long black tied hair. There is a beauty mark under the corner of his left eye. That guy...

So it's three winners of the 1st tournaments.

An archer with a weird ass bow.

A woman who snuck her dog into the tutorial.

Spacewolf.

And lastly, the cowardly Savant.

***

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