Out of nowhere Victoria says the last thing I ever thought I’d hear co from her lips, and as she does, never once does she deviate from her usual calm deanor.
"Co again?" Sophie asks, gaping in disbelief, straining to process the words she just heard.
Myrra pokes , “Feral one, what are thermonuclear warheads?”
I ignore Myrra and ask, “Where the hell did you get them?”
“One of our Hell difficulty groups consists of soldiers from a submarine. They got into the tutorial with a bunch of missiles that had warheads on them. Around 120 warheads in total, but they lost over 90% of them on the early floors.”
“Holy fuck,” Sophie mutters.
Victoria glances at her before turning back to , “They used a few to level up, primarily on the 4th floor against the Colony. But during the tournant, when the system made it possible to die, one of them sacrificed himself and used one in an attempt to kill . So, I took the remaining warheads from them. Currently, there are 9 in my possession.”
“You an to tell us you surv…”
“Feral one, what are thermonuclear warheads? Tell !” Myrra shouts, interrupting Aaron.
“I will tell you later, Myrra, or ask Min-Jae, he should be able to explain it to you.” I wave Myrra off and turn to Vic, “Can you use them?”
“I cannot. They were several floors in before they found a way to use them. Apparently, the warheads disarm themselves when you remove them from the missiles. There is a built-in detonation system in the missile specialized to arm and trigger it, plus a safety system to prevent misfires. But they found a way around it with so kind of inscription or skill.”
“Nat, do not…” Sophie starts.
I pay her no mind and ask, “Inscriptions, you said? Can you give one?”
“I will send it to you once I return to my common area,” Victoria confirms.
"As if you even need sothing like that," Sophie sighs in defeat, turning to my sister. "Victoria, you said they used one against you?"
"Yes. They didn't like the way I went about things and found themselves incapable of dealing with any other way."
“How the hell did you survive that?”
“I apologize, but I see no reason to tell you. I hope you understand.”
“...Got it.”
“Thank you.” With that, Victoria stands up and turns to , “I will be heading back to the area for my round. Nathaniel, you can visit anyti, but I understand you are a bit preoccupied at the mont, so I will be stopping by every now and then.”
“I’ll see you in the second part of the 1st event then, Vic.” I stand up as well and open the door so she can exit; we then head downstairs.
“What kind of Hell difficulty groups did you get in your round?” I ask curiously.
"As I said, those soldiers. Then, we got a bunch of professional archers who got taken during their training, so were apparently preparing for the Olympics. A group of millionaires who were spending their weekend on a superyacht. So of them even survived. And a few smaller groups that seem content to lag behind on the lower floors."
“About that warhead…” I start, lowering my voice when we are far enough.
Victoria nods, “Don't worry, I will send two.”
“Love you, Vic.”
She reaches and ruffles my hair and, for a short mont, smiles at .
As we exit the tree, I see the guy I sensed entering our area. Jean, tall as always and probably even more muscular than before. And that little shit who called himself… Spacepup? Sothing like that. He’s here as well.
The last ti I saw Jean, he was pretty close to dying after I beat the shit out of him during our last Beyond expedition, just to make sure he’d have to go through in the event that he decided to kill soone from my group. So, I'm curious how he’s going to behave this ti around, especially knowing he’s following the path of Pride, the sa as .
“Nona!” he shouts happily, the loss he suffered seeming not to bother him. Though he’s just as overbearing as before.
Imdiately, I feel my energy start to drain away.
“Later then, Nathaniel,” Victoria says, waving to as she passes by Jean, who tracks her movents until she jumps with incredible force, almost seeming to fly into the air, as she heads back to her area.
Jean just shakes his head in the end and turns back to , “I ca to challenge you!”
“Yeah, no.”
“I won't take that for an answer.”
“You don’t have a choice,” I say as I start making my way to the workshop. After a mont of confusion, he rushes to my side and starts keeping pace.
“We made a deal, and I promised to hold up my end of it, and I intend to continue doing so. My requirent….”
“I know,” I concede. “Trust , beating the shit out of you could be fun and would distract for a while, but I have much more important things to do now. Why don't you spar with Grumpy?”
“That tiny black-haired girl?”
I nod, “You lost against , right? And I didn't even go all out, so you have to prove yourself worthy of challenging . Defeat my underling, and I’ll fight you.”
I know this maniac won’t miss an opportunity for another fight, so this should be plenty to distract him. And Lily herself said she was curious about how she would handle herself against him.
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“Okay!” Jean replies and starts heading toward the tree, calling out “the tiny girl with the huge ax.”
Well, that was easier than expected.
Lucien watches his group mber walking off, sighs, and then shudders. As he leaves, I see him shudder again and hear him muttering to himself as he takes a quick look around himself, “Fuck, why do I feel like I'm being watched?”
Having solved things, I send a ssage to Miwa inviting her to join , and then I shut myself inside the workshop. For a mont, I sit down on the bench nearby and relax a bit. Doing so, I look at my hands. Both of them are shaking, and the tips of my fingers are twitching. My breathing grows haggard, and I feel like vomiting. That sense of fear, the thought of another death caused by my own training regin, rises up inside again.
I feel so tired, not physically but ntally.
Not even three days have passed, and I have already died more tis than I did over the entire duration of the week long 1st tournant.
The heart, my black mana, Mana Circulation testing, orb training testing, splitting my mind into so many parts. Sotis, even that kills . Then there are the movents of kinetic energy I'm testing, so dangerous and volatile that they trash my insides. Testing my abilities while deactivating my mid-arcane passive, storing oversized mana structures in my mind, and more.
I test the limits of my body and mind over and over again. Outside, it would be dangerous, but here, I can do it while only risking temporary death.
And damn, so of my limits reach much further than I thought. I knew I had built an amazing base and that so of my abilities synchronize very well, but even I’m surprised at how far I can push myself before dying.
And that line is pushed further and further with each hour.
I know I handle dying here better than most of the others. Soone from Easy difficulty wouldn’t even think of it. People from Normal might die once and stop, needing days to recover. Soone from Hard might push themselves multiple tis during the entire duration of the tournant, and Hell difficulty might accumulate a dozen or so deaths.
But for ? A dozen deaths is sothing I sotis go through in just an hour or two.
Sensing Miwa approaching, I take a deep breath in. A slow exhale follows.
My hands stop shaking, and I stand up and fix my clothes. Then I slide into [Focus] a bit and call for her to enter.
After hours of working on the item for Channeler and creating more mid-epic items to sell, I'm taking a short break.
Close to the end, Miwa started helping more actively, often giving advice based on her experience as a smith on Earth and the things she learned back on the 2nd floor.
She is polite and puts effort into everything she does. She is also talented and hardworking. From what she told , she had no problem finding teachers as she climbed the floors with her Hard difficulty group, often even using her tallic right arm as a conversation starter with the many blacksmiths she’s t.
There's also sothing more interesting she's telling .
“I can't believe you haven't heard of this. It's already been two years since the tutorial started!” As she talks, I feel like a student being cussed out by their teacher. “And no, I'm not making fun of you or lying. It’s just like I said, if you create an item and sell it, or give it to soone and that person kills a monster with that item, you get a tiny share of experience from the kill.”
“Look, I'm too tired to try to excuse myself. How tiny a part of the experience?”
“Very very tiny. But imagine you make thousands of items, and they get used in combat. Over the decades, it can net you a decent number of levels and might even level up your skills or give you passives or traits.”
“Okay,” I stop her, “imagine you live for 200 years. You make tens of thousands of items that are then used. Wouldn't that make it possible for you to level up quite a bit?”
“Possibly, but at a certain point it tends to taper off quite a bit. It's hard to imagine soone becoming a Champion this way. But you have to agree with that it makes a lot of sense. Sure, a lot of crafters level up by buying live monsters from hunters and killing them themselves or hunting on their own, but it's nice that the other option exists, too.”
“Nothing for armor?”
“Nothing, as far as I know. Maybe it influences your passive offers, traits, or skills, but I don't think there’s any leveling tied to it.”
While thinking about it, I move toward the table and start heating up the tals I had set out. “So, as always, it's all about killing.”
The molten tal moves through the air, manipulated by my mana radiating and the arms I form with it. “Unsurprisingly, the way of leveling you just ntioned probably doesn't work very well inside the tutorial. You can make a lot of weapons on one floor and sell them for use. But the mont you enter a different floor, that floor will vanish along with your weapons, taking your chance at leveling with them.”
“The alloy you are making isn't rging very well; try to cool that darker tal a bit more. It bonds better with the endurium at lower temperatures. And I agree with you, that's why I made a lot of weapons and brought them here.”
Miwa smiles and moves closer to observe the process, “They might not be as sought after as the ones the great Tent Creep made, but I will sell all of them, and our dear colleagues will help gain levels.”
After Miwa leaves, I continue for a bit longer before I call it a day and put seven more items into the system shop. Who would have thought that being able to push myself literally to death to make items could shorten the production ti so much?
While the workshop cools down from all the heat I generated, I close my eyes and enter my ntal space.
This ti, I find myself on top of the tallest of the Giza pyramids. Whitey and I are dressed like British adventurers from the turn of the last century. Light colored trousers, sturdy boots, and loose shirts tucked into belts weighed down by pouches. A vest and a wid brimd hat complete the look, all kind of clothes once worn by those who looted artifacts for museums and personal collections.
“I don't have much ti at the mont, so do you have any fancy tricks you could teach ?” I ask as I plop down next to Whitey.
“A few, but you will need to improve your mastery before I can even show them to you,” he replies, his reaction as usual. “Your output is good; after all, you’re a brute and can handle huge amounts of kinetic energy. But your fine control is still lacking, and your movents aren't natural and intuitive yet.”
“I’m just a human, after all,” I sigh.
“A thief, a cheater, and a maniacal little shit,” Whitey confirms.
“Sounds just like ,” I reply and stand up.
To prove my point, I redirect most of my mana toward generating kinetic energy.
The first heartbeat shakes the top of the pyramid we’ve found ourselves standing on.
The second one sends vibrations through the air, and the sand collecting on the stones rises up.
The third heartbeat makes the air around us vibrate, and Whitey stands up as well.
On the fourth, I actively channel more of my body’s mana and reservoir through my heart, damaging it in the process, but it’s not like I have anything to worry about here. This mind space and all the training with Whitey, all the deaths, might be one of the reasons why I can push myself so far during the tournant.
A few more heartbeats, and I feel like I can’t handle even a drop more. The vast amount of kinetic energy flowing, bouncing inside of , held at bay by effort alone.
“Fucking brute,” Whitey sighs and jumps back. He doesn't even bother trying to counter it. He cannot handle that much kinetic energy.
I stomp, and the pyramid detonates.
Each stone fractures and shatters midair, flung outward like shrapnel from a bomb. The shockwave ripples through the desert, sending dunes rolling like waves, carving trenches into the sand as if an unseen hand were carving through the landscape.
The sky itself seems to ripple, dust and debris hanging suspended in the air. All that remains of the pyramid is a chaotic storm of stone and dust floating in the air, held in place by my will.
Then I charge Whitey.
Just a short clash before I return to the reality of the tournant.
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