Weapons of Mass Destruction

“Hey,” Tess says, moving closer to me.

“What is it this time?”

She chuckles, amused by my reaction, “I wanted to confirm something. Lily seems disappointed with you over that thing with Tacita, but I can’t help but wonder if that’s all there is to it.”

“What do you mean? I’m an asshole. It's simple.”

“Really? Why then, was your first reaction to grab Lily and teleport to Tacita? I saw it, I have good eyes. I sensed you preparing to teleport.”

“You must have seen wrong.”

“Did I?”

“Yup, it was all Lily’s idea.”

“Are you worried about Tacita becoming attached to you?”

“You’re lying. But I wonder why. Would that really be so bad? Does the idea scare you? Having someone like her attached to you? Maybe you just like acting like an ass so people will leave you alone.”

“Totally. Anyway, did you see the last event? What do you think?”

Tess looks at me for a bit and then lets go of the previous subject, “I will be challenging The First One. Lily will probably go against The Fallen Hero. Sophie is also going to pick The First One for obvious reasons. The rest still isn’t that sure. Have you made a decision?”

“Yes, but I’ve got a few ideas about that. Could you get Channeler and a few people from Easy difficulty? I’ll give them some items if they use their challenge the way I want.”

“Sounds intriguing. I’ll give him a call. And don’t forget to set something aside for Channeler, he was helpful most of the time.”

Who does she think I am? I’m already preparing some nice stuff for my future PR guy. Enough to make him the most powerful Easy difficulty attendee.

I spend half a day training with Lily, trying to beat some sense into her and improve her efficiency. She tends to use too much mana and needs to invest more into her reserves, as the result of her duel with Tess demonstrates.

Using a lot of her stats for constitution is nice as it means better body parts to [Sacrifice], but even that consumes mana. She also spends a lot of mana regenerating her body, which now costs more because of her high constitution.

Her ideal strategy would be avoiding injury and taking advantage of her tough body through [Sacrifice], but Lily seems to like cosplaying a bulldozer during fights.

In the future, the power of constitution and some additional traits could make her investments more viable, but that’s going to take a while.

Then I spend a bit of time with Izzy, demonstrating a few better ways to use her flames. Sophie helped her a lot with that, and Izzy herself is pretty good, so it's just a nudge towards a different direction.

As always, I remind Maya to not be a scaredy-cat and level her [Focus] more.

So far, no one from Hell difficulty has chosen to issue their challenge for the 5th event. We have people monitoring the auditorium, once again set up in the common area, with multiple screens displaying each challenge.

Some of the people from Hard have chosen to challenge powerful monsters they met on previous floors and couldn’t defeat. Others challenge humans they want to learn something from, stretching fights out as long as possible.

Challenging to learn is the way to go, I think. Yes, some want to overcome their trauma and near-death experience, but that’s not for me. My challenge has already been decided, and I will wait for the end. Not like it is that far, just a few more hours.

When people from Hell difficulty start issuing their challenges, I teleport to the common area.

It’s a bad day for ants as I watch both Sophie and Tess obliterate the First One.

Something nearly snaps in me as I see that black ant again, standing there like it had never died even while seeming like an empty husk.

Tess is usually quiet about this kind of stuff, but I think The First One was something she sees as her big failure. Even though she doesn’t talk about it or show it to others, I’m sure it bothers her a lot.

As I watch her fight that ant, I think I can understand that, at least partially. Even though it won’t be a satisfying form of revenge and it won’t change anything, it will be a step forward. She might need this more than any prize she could have gained.

Her fight isn’t even that difficult. Without the support of his [Hive Mind], the First One is weaker, and the much stronger Tess defeats the black ant.

When Tess gets out, Maya makes sure the others leave her alone, and Tess sits to the side of the roof near us. There is a solemn mood around her as she sorts through things in her head.

Sophie also gets in and it’s even worse for the First One´s Avatar. He just freezes on the spot as his skill andSophie´s [Manipulation] clash. He stays like that for the rest of the challenge. Sophie just holds him there, tearing as much knowledge as she can from his usage of [Hive Mind] as he tries to use it to counter her skill.

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Where Sophie failed back then, she succeeds now and holds him in place with ease. But I don’t think she feels as satisfied as she would have hoped. The First One is an Avatar and without his Colony may as well be a weaker version of himself. One thing I can say, even hating the ant as much as I do. He was truly formidable back then.

The Challenges continue, and at some point, Savant reappears as well. He says a name and appears inside, facing a young-looking man. The ten-second countdown starts, and Savant starts his preparations to face him.

“Champion Tristan, he said,” Sophie, who’s recently reclaimed her space on the roof, mumbles.

That makes me check the man again.

Tristan has a young, friendly looking face. He is slim, and his blonde curly hair makes a nice contrast to his simple black clothes decorated with a few subdued golden ornaments. His eyes are sharp and have a slight orange hue to them. He looks very dignified even for the Avatar he is now.

Back on the 2nd floor, I heard multiple people say that Champion Tristan easily classified as the closest being to attaining the title of the Absolute from the entire world Eladore. Even closer than Champion Keiron or the mind mage emperor. And that man took Savant as his disciple for some reason, even declaring him a candidate.

Now they face each other, Savant radiating as much mana as he can, focusing it all on defense. To stay alive for as long as possible and learn from the man who took him in.

When the countdown stops, the duel doesn’t even take a second. Tristan barely moves, and Savant dies.

Appearing outside, Savant doesn’t seem to be dissatisfied, and I see the calculations going behind his cowardly eyes. Maybe he came up with better ways to forfeit duels that just started. Maybe he learned to say the word “Forfeit” much faster.

Maybe… I shake my head and sigh.

Biscuit’s challenge is a huge deer with white glowing antlers. The deer is extremely majestic, each step he takes makes him look like a being from a fable. Like the kind of spirit our ancestors would have worshiped as a god in ancient times.

The deer dies almost immediately in a single hit that seems to avoid damaging the body. Before Biscuit gets teleported out, tentacles surround the deer as he tries to bring it out with him.

Appearing outside without his prey, Biscuit seems extremely confused and disappointed.

(Food!) he shouts.

His head moves from side to side, and he even tries digging into the rooftop with his front paws, while sniffing at his surroundings.

(Gone!) He cries, with pain in his voice.

I pick him up, and while he keeps complaining over and over again, I feed him pieces of my decreasing reserves of deer jerky.

“Hang in there, buddy,” I say trying to comfort him.

I think Biscuit was a 2-year-old corgi when he entered the tutorial with us. On the 1st floor, he “awakened” for lack of a better term. He still could be considered a kid, a child, even younger than my minion or Izzy.

However, I find his naivety extremely endearing. His attempt to pay for stolen meat with pieces of glass he thought were the same as the mana stones they used as currency. Packing up pieces of meat with candy wrappers, thinking it might make us happier because he saw how much we enjoyed them. And more.

His worldview is simple, and even most of his abilities were gained just to get more food. Tentacles to reach the places we had hidden food, telepathy so he could ask for more food.

“You are one cute little thing, aren’t you?” I whisper, making sure no one hears, and boop his nose a few times.

(Gone!)

“We will get you some later, don’t worry. And where did you see that deer? Did you face a monster like that on the 5th floor?”

(Food!) He confirms.

Receiving a Notice from Sophie, I look at the screen to see Min-Jae facing down a monster I haven’t seen yet. It's bipedal with human-like features and four arms. Its skin looks like it is made of metal. Maybe it’s something Min-Jae met on the 5th floor?

Soon the reason for this challenge becomes obvious as the monster seems to possess a skill similar to [Telekinesis].

Min-Jae, like people before him, uses this to observe the monster and try to learn as much as he can. There also seems to be a hint of fear and hatred directed at the monster. Maybe it caused him trouble before.

In the end, the boy wins. It's still not fully satisfying, but his fighting feels just a little bit less tense. At the end of his challenge, he even seems to enjoy it.

The twins go one after another, both of them summoning the same monster. A small blue one with a huge head and a thin body that keeps creating illusions. That monster seems to be much stronger than they are able to handle, and after a while, they both lose. Even so, I can see their excitement as they exchange their wordless conversation.

The next member of our group to fight is Maya, and she faces a female lynthari I don’t know. The warrior is wearing simple armor and wields a longsword.

“It’s Maya’s teacher from the 4th floor. One of the best sword masters of Virelia. The lynthari liked Maya and taught Maya when she asked for lessons. She agreed and In exchange, Maya had to accompany her when she went to the city and shout vulgar stuff at people who tried to talk to her teacher,” Tess explains with a giggle.

“Typical lynthari.”

“I know, right? Still, Maya was rather fond of her and learned a lot. She didn’t have time to say goodbye, and I think she wanted to see her one more time. Maybe even learn a thing or two or see how much stronger she has become.”

To watch the scene play out on screen, I can’t doubt what Tess said. Maya is getting pushed back by an extremely skilled lynthari. I recognize parts of her move set that Maya seems to have adopted into her own style. The lynthari also likes to quickly switch between a number of weapons created from mana. She uses a shield, then she switches to a spear, then a dagger, and finally back to a sword.

The style looks extremely confusing and very versatile. It requires a lot from its user, but the result seems to be worth it.

Maya holds back and focuses on her technique instead of exploiting her higher level. And because of that, she loses, but she doesn’t seem sad at all. Instead, she smiles proudly, satisfied with her growth.

“Can you connect me to Channeler?” I ask Dennis, and with a nod he does.

(You guys can do it, I will pay as promised if it works.) I say, sending it through the connection.

(Sure thing! The guys are excited!)

Then I watch the scene down below, as one man separates from his group and heads towards one of the screens. I’m too far off to hear what he said, but I know the words. They are the words I told them to say.

“I want to challenge the winner of the 1st round of Earth's tutorial's 1st tournament.”

The man then disappears, teleported inside the arena to face his challenge.

The event is called The Chronicle of the Past after all.

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