Somewhere on the Thirty-Eighth floor

‘Finally, another EXP Orb…’ Crystal thinks as she reaches forwards to touch the glowing blue orb situated in the middle of the frozen cave. ‘This should be enough for me-’

Before she can touch the orb, a black-gloved hand suddenly clasps over the orb, and it explodes into sparks of blue light that then vanish into the hand.

“What the fuck?!” Crystal shouts as she reaches for her bow at the sight of a figure appearing right in front of her.

‘Is that…’ Crystal thinks as she takes a second to study the figure’s appearance, especially focusing on the eerie black mask on the figures face before taking note of the slightly ripped black cloak, the blue jeans and black t-shirt that can be seen through the rips, and eventually focusing on the various knives and daggers hidden around the figure’s person.

Ruth quickly retreats before Crystal can gather her bearings, exiting through the small opening to escape through the cold air outside and making use of the blizzard to escape.

“Damn it!” Crystal shouts after getting out of the opening herself with her bow drawn, only to find nothing but a seemingly endless blizzard. “You bitch!”

Arcadian Live

“Well, that was interesting,” Niklai says whilst rubbing his chin and watching Crystal’s screen. “It looks like the forsaken, Thorn, has turned thief.”

Tens of thousands of people turn their attention away from the other top ten Competitor screens to look at Crystal’s after hearing his comment, only to all begin messing around with their menus to see a replay of the event.

Even Mikaela turns his attention away from Wolf’s screen as he appears in the middle of a large, open space, full of one hundred total teleport pads. However, after he sees what happened, he just shakes his head without a word and turns his attention back to the screen again to commentate on the portal hub.

‘This will likely destabilize the relationship between Competitors a little bit…’ Niklai thinks to himself as he turns his attention away from Crystal’s screen to look at Ruth’s screen as the commentator assigned to her describes to the audience watching her screen how Ruth managed to steal from Crystal.

Niklai turns back towards Crystal’s screen as she glares at the blizzard one last time before continuing her way through it with a light cloth pulled over her face to block the snow and light hail.

‘I wonder if Thorn even knows what she just did…’ Niklai thinks to himself with a frown, ‘while it won’t cause any immediate problems, or even any unrepairable ones, there will likely be at least a few Competitors who will try to follow her actions and begin to steal themselves. Especially with the smaller floor space.’

He continues watching Crystal’s screen for a few seconds before shaking his head.

Wolf

As soon as I step onto the teleport pad, I find myself in a very large, open area with nothing but dozens of large, damaged pillars, and a large number of teleport pads.

I get the feeling that Competitors will be seeing each other a lot more when they reach this theme… unless they decide to just travel on foot outside of the arenas that is.

That said, what’s up with all of the damaged pillars?

Sapphire suddenly screeches lightly from my shoulder before hopping off and making her way towards the center of the hub.

“The hell…?” I mutter with a frown. Sapphire almost never randomly wanders off on her own unless we’re in combat.

Is there something attracting her attention in the center of the…

My focus lands on a strange circle that I can see inscribed upon the sandstone floor in the center of the large hub.

I follow after Sapphire to get a closer look before eventually stopping as I get a within a meter of it.

The circle seems to be letting out some sort of energy. It has eight crescent moons around it instead of the four from the other teleport pads, and it has a full moon in the center.

Actually, that reminds me. The menu earlier seemed to actually mention some sort of prayer to the moon.

Is it possible that whoever made the System worshipped the moon? Or maybe the moon had something to do with their ability?

I shake my head before focusing on the circle again.

Now’s not the time.

Sapphire continues walking towards the circle before pausing for a second and touching it. As soon as she does so, a bright purple light shines from the circle, and a menu appears above it.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Welcome, first visitor to the fifth theme’s teleport hub.

As a reward for activating the first grand totem within the Administrator Dungeon Run, you will be given an Ability Upgrade Token.

Every grand totem activation after this will give a Tier 5 item or skill of your choice out of a pool of items and skills.

System’s Favor: A grand totem is an advanced form of System totem that allows Executives, including the trial-Executives known as Competitors, to bypass or limit certain System restrictions to a degree whilst near the totem. These restrictions include the time limit for staying in a viewing room, the time limit on using the Player Auction, and other such restrictions.

For example, you, as a Competitor, would be able to stay within a viewing room for half an hour without the Administrator host boost.

Grand totems also allow a player to send a phantom of themselves out of the dungeon towards a specified location. This will allow them to interact with people outside of the dungeon.

However, they will not be able to bring anything with them, nor will they be able to damage things, take damage, or touch anything at all. At the same time, the player’s body will remain at the grand totem for other players and monsters to mess with as they please.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Both of my eyebrows raise at the sight of the System’s Favor note.

That’s interesting. The System’s last comment implies that it’s dangerous to use the grand totem, due to both other players and monsters.

Which also means that monsters can get into the teleport hub and attack us as they please.

I turn around to look around the area before focusing on the sand sea around the large, sandstone platform that makes up the teleport hub.

So it’s not all good as the original message laid it out to be…

This System’s Favor skill is working out rather nice so far.

As for that ability upgrade token…

My thoughts are interrupted as a finger-sized, pale-blue token appears in front of me. The token has the image of a crescent moon inscribed upon it, along with a capital A written on the crescent itself.

I reach out and grab it before immediately attempting to use it.

A loud blaring sound suddenly echoes in my head before a dark red menu appears above my hand holding the token.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Warning!

To upgrade a Tier 8 ability to Tier 9, you must have nine Ability Upgrade Tokens!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

My eyes widen as I read the menu.

Ice Reaper is already a Tier 8 ability?!

It was obvious that it wasn’t going to work, seeing as I only have one token, but I wasn’t expecting my ability to already be at such a high Tier!

I only tried using it in the first place in the hopes that it would tell me how many I needed, but it’s probably gonna take a long time to get that many tokens…

Wait, but I only have five effects for my ability… how is it Tier 8 if I only have five effects?

I look down in thought after putting the token into my inventory.

Thinking back on what I was able to find on the forums about abilities… oh yeah!

Abilities – when they upgrade – outside of just the initial boost in the power of all of the effects, they can also gain new effects, or even have the current effects completely replaced with new ones. And as for abilities that start out at a high Tier? From what I have been able to find, not all of them have a lot of effects despite their high Tier. Some of them also have hidden effects that aren’t even shown amongst the locked effects.

Maybe my ability has some of those hidden effects?

I stand still for several seconds to ponder this new discovery before raising my head as I feel Sapphire touch my leg.

“Huh?” I mutter before looking at where she is pointing to find a large totem with several different crescent moons of varying different colors coating a very large System totem. “Oh yeah…”

I almost forgot about the grand totem.

“Let’s see what you have for me…” I mutter whilst reaching my hand towards the large, three-meter-tall totem.