Leonel's expression changed. This was the last thing he could have possibly expected to happen. However, after a while, he understood why such a thing would happen.
The Merlin Trials were set up with the utmost transparency. With the exception of hiding what happened within the Special Store, everything else was laid bare for all to see. Whether it was one's performance and grade or even the skills one chose to unlock, everyone saw it.
Beyond this transparency, one could watch everyone battle. This was especially so in single participant trials like trial 1 and 2 had been. In that case, even when one waited to unlock skills after using a Special Store Ticket, it was more likely than not that whatever improvements one made would become very obvious, very quickly.
As though this wasn't enough, everyone shared the same physical root skill tree. In addition, all those who used the same weapon shared the same weapon root and special root skill trees as well. This meant that even if one wanted to hide their skills and did a good job in doing so, the kind of skills one had unlocked could be deduced just by observing someone else with a similar weapon!
What did this all come to mean? It essentially meant that this set up made it very easy to distinguish who was powerful and who wasn't, in addition to who was improving faster than others and who wasn't.
In such a situation, a small group of individuals becoming the target of many was very possible. One could even say that it was inevitable. The only question was of when.
Understanding this, Merlin would have definitely made some plans accordingly. Or, maybe this was always Merlin's intention to begin with.
'It feels as though everything is suddenly moving quicker. Whether it was the sudden Elimination Round or this Random Event, both were triggered by something that should have only begun to happen much later in the trials…'
After thinking to this point, Leonel became several points more serious. Though the voice had said that he had 10x the rewards to claim, he knew that doing so wouldn't be so easy.
Before Leonel could think anymore, he felt the world warp around him. When his vision cleared, he found himself in a familiar throne room. Except this time, rather than kneeling before it as he had done last time, he was sitting on its cushioned seat.
'King Arthur's Throne Room?'
Leonel frowned. He felt that this positioning wasn't much of a coincidence.
After a sweep of his senses, Leonel realized that though he was within Camelot's castle, it was completely deserted. In fact, for as far as he could stretch his Internal Sight, he didn't spot a single person.
<Preparation Time Given: 00:30:00>
Leonel was pleasantly surprised. He hadn't thought that he would gain something like that. This made things much more convenient for him.
After a while, Leonel understood the Random Event.
There was a flag in this very throne room. In fact, it was waving above the throne he sat on at this very moment. His role was to protect it, while the role of everyone else was to steal it.
Leonel had to protect the flag for a single day. However, should the flag be stolen away, it only had to be protected by the opposition for ten minutes. The only exception to this is if there was less than ten minutes remaining to the end of the trial. In that case, they only had to protect it until time ran out. This essentially meant that the most dangerous time for Leonel to lose the flag would be in the final minutes.
Of course, the reason Leonel wasn't in too bad of a position was because he could move the flag if he wanted to. The only restriction was that since the chosen location was Camelot, he couldn't leave the city walls. In fact, from Leonel's understanding, he had to stay within the core city's gates as well. However, this was still a large area.
'Run?'
Leonel's lips curled, a cold light suffusing his eyes.
In order to participate in capturing his flag, Leonel's enemies had to pay 1 star point or 1000 skill points. This way, most were filtered out. However, it also guaranteed that all who dared to do so would be elites.
At the same time, the more who participated, the better his rewards would be.
"Yip! Yip!"
Little Blackstar jumped up from Leonel's shoulders to the top of his head. Previously, the little guy had felt quite enraged about how Leonel was being treated and had even wanted to charge out to face their enemies directly. However, Leonel had stopped the little guy from doing so. Though the little mink was powerful, Leonel was sure Blackstar was still an infant. He couldn't let him rush to his death like that.
"Yes, yes. We'll get them back now. Giving an Earth Mage time to prepare their own terrain? They should expect to suffer a few losses…"
Leaving such an advantage to an Earth Mage was bad enough. But, Leonel wasn't just an Earth Mage… He was an Earth Magus who also happened to be a Force Crafter.
The moment Leonel had this thought, he began to use the over 3000 skill points he had just gained without thought for conservation.
**
The 30 minute timer ran its course.
At that moment, several individuals turned their gaze toward the Segmented Cube Leonel had left behind. However, none of them had the ability to cross the skies like Leonel had. Or, maybe some of them did, but had yet to unlock such an ability from the physical root skill tree and could only watch it.
Unfortunately for them, there wasn't much time to think about just what this treasure was or how it worked. They were all given the same option.
<Would you like to enter the Random Event?>
<Cost: 1 star point>
In that instant, several elites made their decisions and disappeared along with Leonel.
When they reappeared, they found themselves within the walls of Camelot. The sun hung high in the sky.
For them, who had been within the trials for the last few months, seeing such a sight was actually quite refreshing. But, after a few moments, they grew serious. This wasn't the time to be losing themselves in thought.
They had all spawned in random locations, stretched across the core city of Camelot. No two individuals could be found within a hundred meters of one another. Now, they just had to make the decision of where to look for Leonel first.
Luckily, they were all elites. The prerequisite to cultivate Force was to grasp Internal Sight. Even if they all had varying degrees of how strong their own were, they all at least had Internal Sight capable of covering a few tens of meters. The more powerful of them could cover several hundred meters.
The truth was that if Leonel wanted, he could hide himself from their search. After all, that was how he had escaped Camelot initially. He had been able to avoid Lamorak's detection and simply walked out.
However, while he could do, he didn't feel that it was necessary. At least not for now. This was the perfect chance for him to gain slaughter points.
By now, Leonel had learned the benefit of saving and not using his slaughter points immediately. From being worth 100 skill points, they were already worth 1000. If he saved them well, the benefit could be imagined.
As the elites looked for Leonel, they seemed to realize that this might have become more difficult than they originally thought.
In a corner of the city, Umred frowned. The action made his already sinister crimson features all the more so.
'He can hide from Internal Sight?'
This was the first thought the #2 Demon Lord had. However, it wasn't a thought he wanted to confirm. If this was true, finding Leonel truly would be impossible.
'Hm?'
Umred's expression chain, his twin battle axes trembling slightly as he seemed to realize something. He didn't immediately sense Leonel, but what he did sense was a faint fluctuation of magic.
He looked toward the castle with a slight hint of shock.
The reason he was shocked wasn't because the magic fluctuations were powerful. But rather because of their location. These fluctuations were actually coming from Camelot's castle.
As a demon, he had never stepped foot so close to Camelot's core. However, he knew a castle when he saw one. The fact that these fluctuations were coming from the very center of this city… it can't be that Leonel hadn't been running and hiding like they thought?
While Umred was having these thoughts, so were many others.
Surprisingly, neither King Arthur nor Modred had chosen to take part. In fact, Pope Margrave, who Leonel thought likely had the highest chance of taking action, hadn't moved either.
That said, there were still some familiar faces. Aside from the crimson Umred, there was the black scaled Cralis and even the large bellied Big Buddha…
All at once, these three seemed to realize the very same thing.
Big Buddha looked toward the castle with a dark expression.
He had once had a great impression of Leonel. This was a youth that had saved many of their promising geniuses, after all. However, ever since Leonel said those words about the Slayer Legion, his opinion of Leonel had only plummeted day after day. These emotions reached their peak when he watched so many of their own die.
Mountain… He was a youth that Big Buddha saw a lot of himself in. Mayfly… She was a cheerful little girl with a big heart and had even been among those who went to take Leonel out of the Project Hunt Island.
Yet, all of them had died here.
It was Leonel's fault. Had he not been unreasonable and caused so much chaos, the Adurna family would have never grasped the chance to enter the Zone and their team would have been whole and complete. But, because of his own selfish desires, he actually caused the death of so many.
Big Buddha's gaze turned red, his steps causing the ground to rumble as he entered the castle before him.