Chapter 278: Chapter 278 – Tutorial 60th Floor (0-4)

Chapter 278 – Tutorial 60th Floor (0-4)

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[The 61st-floor stage begins . ]

Explanation: Challenger who wants to take a short break and start a journey, here are two roads . One is a trail, where you have to walk through a burning desert, and the other is to climb a mountain filled with snow-storms . Both roads are full of dangerous enemies and difficult challenges . Conquer both paths, and reunite with your colleagues at the end .

– Clear condition .

Conquer the first ascetic path .

Conquer the second ascetic path .

3 . ?

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Two portals appeared with the message . They were emblazoned with the patterns of fire and ice, respectively . Splitting 50 people into two halves and conquering both of the paths beyond the portals would be how this 61st-floor stage was conducted .

And finally, they would meet again . The 61st floor would only be cleared when one side is wiped out . If the explanation Kirikiri gave was correct, perhaps it would be so .

[Which way do you want to go?]

“Left . ” I chose the portal with the pattern of fire . I was more used to fire than ice . Before going to the entrance, I called the frog .

“Keeaaaeeek!”

“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to put you back in . There must be a lot of temperature changes over there . ”

“Keeeaaaeek!” The frog was sad, but he didn’t object to my words either . Temperature changes were fatal to amphibians .

Of course, the frog only had an amphibian as its head and body of a dog, but anyway . I put the frog back and stepped on the portal . After a while, I stood in an open space, not in an enclosed space .

“I’m glad I called the frog back . ”

[Right . ]

The place where I was teleported to was in the middle of a raging desert . I thought it was better to recall the frog because of humidity problems rather than temperature problems .

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[You have chosen the first ascetic path . ]

Explanation: The challenger who has chosen the first route, your journey will be rough . During the day, you will have to walk in the blazing desert, and at night you will have to sleep, hiding from the harsh winds . At the end of the journey, you must defeat one of the two rulers who rule this planet, the volcano ruler . There is a way to make the journey to the ruler of the volcano easier . You can weaken the volcano ruler by dedicating a companion to another ruler of the planet, the ruler of the Snow Mountain . The more the sacrifices, the weaker the ruler of the volcano becomes . As the ruler weakens, the number of his combat forces and powers decreases . Finally, the climate of the Great Volcano is adjusted .

-Clear condition of the first ascetic path .

Pass through the Desert .

Climb the summit of the Great Volcano .

Defeat the Ruler of the Great Volcano .

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All I had to do was cross the desert, go to the volcano, and kill the volcano ruler . It was a simple stage . There was a suggestion in between, about offering a colleague, but it wasn’t a choice I could make .

“Okay . Let’s go for now . ”

You can never clear it alone, Kirikiri had said . Even if they had a 50-member team, it would be difficult to proceed without the thought of sacrifice . That’s how I organized my thoughts and began to walk forward . I liked the feeling of stepping on the fine sand in the desert . I also liked the dry climate without moisture, but a sandstorm ruined everything . My shoes and clothing filled with sand, some stuck to my face, making me displeased .

“Shhh!”

I hadn’t said that . When I looked around, I saw a lizard staring at me . Standing on its hind legs, it was as tall as my knee . That was not a good attitude to hunt for food . It had already shown its position . Maybe that lizard was going to hunt me down . Instead, it was as if I had invaded that lizard’s territory . I think the lizard was threatening me by making sounds . There’s no need to kill an innocent lizard, so I just tried to pass it by . Until the lizard spewed out a fire .

“Cooch!”

The lizard threw the fireball in my direction . The sound was funny, but the power was not a joke . Even in the middle of the hot desert, I could feel the heat of the flame . It was amazing .

“Is it the sub-species of a dragon?”

[Of course not . That’s just a lizard . ] Ahbooboo answered shortly .

When the lizard saw that I had escaped the fireball, it licked its mouth, a visible sign it was preparing to spew yet another fireball . Before that, I approached the lizard and grabbed it by the tail . The lizard started struggling . Its short legs could not touch my hand that held it by its tail, but it still fought with all its might . I had no choice but to end up flinging away the lizard that was cutting off its tail . As soon as the lizard, with its tail cut off, fell to the ground, it rushed towards me .

I snapped my fingers . A fire broke out inside the lizard . The lizard’s insides burned horribly, and it died .

“Damn it . Too much blood . ”

The tail of the lizard was still wildly flapping, sprinkling blood all around . There was a lot of blood on my clothes, too .

[What’s wrong with blood?]

Well, that’s true . I felt uncomfortable because it was not the blood of an enemy, but of an insignificant beast . My curiosity hadn’t been solved at all .

I asked Ahbooboo, “Have you ever heard of a lizard spouting fire in a crisis?”

[Of course not . ]

Was it really a dragon’s subspecies? Maybe it was a Hatchling . The ruler of the volcano I was looking for was actually a dragon, but could it be that I had already killed a dragon cub? Something like that was plausible .

[Never . That’s just a lizard . ]

“But it spat out a flame by its mouth . ”

[I guess it’s a unique lizard . Anyway, it’s not a dragon . How can a lizard that doesn’t have even a handful of mana be a dragon cub?]

It was an unusual lizard, huh . Maybe, fire-breathing was a local trait here . Volcanoes in the desert and even fire-breathing lizards . All the themes in the region seemed to be set to fire and heat . Now for the second question, I violated the control of the lizard and set it on fire . How did I do that? Come to think of it, the first time I used was when I didn’t know much about my abilities . I just happened to use it .

At that time, I thought that the power to exercise control over others came from the core of the source given by the God of Remorse . But now that I’d been dealing with both gods and the source, I knew it wasn’t . So, it didn’t make sense that I had started a fire in a lizard’s body with the power of the source . Most importantly, I didn’t have any source right now .

[Are there not people who have faith in you?]

“Huh?”

[Like people from your hometown or the people you met last time . Don’t the other challengers of the Earth or from the Tutorial have faith in you?]

That was a valid point, but it didn’t seem so . My image among the challengers was no less than a vague fear . Even Kim Min-hyuk’s work was fading the image . I didn’t see that as religious . The same was true of the Earth . I didn’t know what the people outside thought of me challenging the Hell Difficulty level . I doubted that they had faith in me .

[How about Warrior?] Seregia, who had been quiet, asked .

“Huh? What do I think?”

[No . ]

I thought she was asking me what I thought about this problem .

[Warrior believes in himself . ]

“Uh, yeah . That’s right . ”

[Crazily, maniacally . ]

“… . ”

[Close to crazy . Warrior has the belief that he can do it . It’s not a bad thing . But when you can’t do something, instead of feeling sorry or disappointed, Warrior seems to deny the possibility of failing . ]

There’s no way that I can’t make it because I have to . Perhaps such an obsession that goes beyond faith, which I send to myself, had become faith . That was what Seregia meant . She had tried to convey the meaning of words too directly . It was not bad, but sometimes it hurt my heart .

[Sorry . ] She didn’t sound sorry at all .

I asked Ahbooboo, “What do you think?”

He was silent for a moment, then replied, [That’s something I can’t tell you . ]

He was under a constraint . I didn’t know if it was a systemic constraint or a divine constraint . This increased the credibility of Seregia’s hypothesis . This was quite an important matter . If Seregia was right, then I could self-produce power without anyone else .

“Well, let’s find out slowly . ”

If I looked back on the memories of my first experiment with and observed the changes that emerge through training, I would soon know . After thinking about it, I decided to start again .

I spread Talaria’s wings and flew up . I didn’t want to walk because of the annoying sandstorm . As I flew up into the sky, the wind seemed a little less sandy . When my body was covered by mana, the sand that clung to the body was significantly reduced . There was also one more good thing . A desert city was seen from the top .

After such a long flight, I should arrive in front of the city soon . I landed nearby and walked to the city’s main gate . As I was strolling, the city faded from my sight . Soon the city disappeared without a trace, and only the boundless sands remained in front of me .

“…Was that a mirage?”

[Huh… I guess so . ]

* * * * * *

“It’s not a mirage . Definitely not . ”

At first, I didn’t realise, but after seeing the city disappear nearly ten times, it slowly began to hit me . As far as I knew, a mirage was a phenomenon in which light bends to move through warmer and less dense air .

This was a phenomenon in which the city showed up at a different location every time .

The problem was, I didn’t see it wrong . I had approached the place with the thought that there was a city in the place, not just through sight . Nevertheless, as soon as I approached, the city had disappeared . I had to hold back my boiling anger at this, which seemed as if someone were making fun of me .

“This is not a mirage . Someone’s playing a prank on me . ”

[Oh, my God, looks like Warrior has gotten agitated again . ]

End

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