‘Let’s see, Five WDs in hand and a wide surface area to cover.’ Rolling the five small Mana-constructed marbles around in his hand, Brance began pushing little chunks of MP into each one as his eyes scanned the rippling water.
‘Hey, Tobs, do you know how big a boom these things make?’ Brance asked as he sheathed his greatsword on his back and transferred one of the WDs to his right hand.
-The explosion radius is dependent on how much Mana you have stored within the constructs. The blast radius has a starting point of 1.5 meters and will increase by an additional 1.5 for every 200 points accumulated within the marble.-
‘Gotcha, alright, and one last question. If I want to use remote detonation, do I just will for it to happen or what?’
-You modify the trigger mechanic in the same way you formed them. During the creation, if you don’t actively think about how it will trigger an explosion, the marble will automatically be created as a remote detonation [White Dwarf].-
Nodding at her response, Brance felt the Mana flowing into each marble as he moved a second to his right hand, leaving the other three in his left. Then, with pinpoint accuracy, Brance picked five points around the room, pumped enough Mana into the WDs, and tossed them into place so their blasts would overlap, covering as much of the room as possible, leaving relatively few blind spots.
Plunk Plunk Plunk Plunk Plunk
Although all five marbles didn’t splash into the water simultaneously, they slowly floated down toward the bottom of the stone floor through the now Fifteen Meter deep lake that filled the formerly empty stone room at similar rates of descent.
Brance waited a few seconds to let the small spheres travel under the water before narrowing his eyes and snapping both middle fingers against his thumbs.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM
“REAAAAAAAAAOHHHH”
Instantly, five vast pillars of water rose from the depths, accompanied by a perfectly timed white flash of light that reminded Brance of the flash he saw before the nuke went off back on Earth, killing him and his brother so many years ago.
|You have successfully Killed a Level 19, Tier-1 Virtual AquaNewt.|
|You have received a Perfect Score for the Twentieth Floor Trial.|
|You have received 5 Obelisk Kill Points.|
|You have received a 1000 Essence, XP Crystal.|
|You have received 3 Merit Points.|
|All rewards will be tallied and stored. You may access the Obelisk Market Place, which is open to you every five floors. Would you like to do so? (Y/N)|
| Congratulations, you have Cleared the Twentieth Floor. Since this is the final Floor that you will be able to use the Market Place, it is recommended that you do so before advancing. When you are ready to leave, please say “Move to Floor Twenty-One,” and you will be instantly moved up to the next Floor|
[Finished the last AquaNewt; I assume that you are holed up scrolling through the shop?] Brance said while sitting down and crossing his legs before pulling up the Obelisk Marketplace.
[Yep, you should have 740 OKP, so grab some new weapons and potions.] Scratching his cheek and reading through the full descriptions of each incubator for the third time, Cynrik responded.
[Hold on, what do you mean, 740 OKP? How much do you have?] Looking at the virtual wallet in the top right corner of the screen, Brance raised an eyebrow as he noticed there were only 370 points, not 740 like his brother predicted.
[Huh? I have 370, so isn’t it natural that you, the golden child, would have double my points because of your Passive?] Tilting his head to the side Cynrik was confused by Brance’s reaction.
[Uh, nope, I have 370 just like you do…wait, now that I think about it, I vaguely remember a line that Yenni said during the introduction and rules tutorial. Hold on, let me pull it up.] Navigating from the Marketplace, Brance’s fingers swiftly located the Rules and Regulations tab and began scrolling through it.
[Here it is, “To keep the Trials fair and balanced, all skills, potions, or abilities that grant additional rewards or Essence gain will be temporarily disabled or neutralized during your stay within the Obelisk.” I admit, I glazed over it, but I still vaguely remembered what it said. That’s why I found it weird that you said I had so many points.] Shrugging his shoulders, Brance swapped back to the Market.
[Well, that’s scuffed. I was banking on you having more points so I could take out a loan for Brother TAX, but if I can’t, then it looks like I’m Shit out of Luck. Anyway, how did you beat the last Lizzy? I thought it was hiding in the water.]
[That, well, I made a new skill, don’t freak out when you read the description, by the way.] Smirking and anticipating a heavy overreaction from his brother, Brance sent over [White Dwarf’s] info and started buying potions before navigating to the “Swords” tab.
The instant the data appeared in front of Cynrik’s eyes, he felt a cold shiver run through his body, especially when he got to the additional effect against Dark Affinity Users.
[Hey, HEY! WHAT THE HELL, BRANCIE? ARE YOU OUT TO GET ME OR SOMETHING! Do you even realize that I can’t be anywhere near that thing, or else it’ll start wrecking my HP like a bulldozer?] Feeling the urge to smack his brother repeatedly until he begged for forgiveness, Cynrik tried forming a counter to this new Skill Brance had come up with seemingly on the fly.
—
Meanwhile, as the brothers worked on prepping for the Twenty-First Floor, in a different realm, Gabby was bored as she rapid fired bolts with her Tier-1.5 Iron crossbow in one hand and flung [Psychic Disks] like frisbees with the other. She was currently fighting on floor 20, and like Cynrik, she was storming through her opponents with little or no difficulty.
Currently, she was dealing with creatures that looked like giant spiked purple hippos. Still, even if these opponents were more than four times her size, all it took was one disk to cut through their blubbery fat bodies and a well-placed Crossbow Bolt to finish them off.
Unfortunately, since it did take two hits to kill each of the hippos, Gabby had slowed down her clearing speed significantly as time went by until she finally killed off the last creature and received all the same notifications as the brothers.
She, too, had been on the path of a Perfect Clear; however, it was an easier task for the girl since she was already small and agile enough to dodge any enemy or keep on the move while taking shots from a distance.
Sighing and wondering how her beloved Brancie was doing, Gabby plopped down on the ground and opened up the Market. Unlike Cynrik and Brance, who were only doing it for the first time on the Twentieth Floor, Gabby had opened it every opportunity she had been given so far.
That was how she had already upgraded her weapon several floors back, and now all she was doing was stocking up on additional bolts and potions. Once she had finished picking up the bare necessities, Gabby scrolled through the list of different and exotic plant seeds and other small items that piqued her fancy until she ran out of OKP and sadly closed the Marketplace.
“Ok, time to move up; only two floors left.” Slapping her cheeks for motivation, Gabby took a deep breath and teleported to Floor Twenty-One.
—
In another one of the Obelisk Realms, Selene was panting as she received blow after blow on her deformed bronze shield. Taking her boyfriend’s words to heart, she had spent all her time working on getting used to fighting as a Valkyrie instead of an Assassin, as she had been trained from practically birth.
Since she had already lost the opportunity to get a perfect clear due to saving and quitting the trials once before, Selene was in a very different position than the rest of the party, who were trying their best not to let even a single attack touch them.
Standing in the center of a ring of Orc Warriors, Selene was bobbing, weaving, and deflecting every incoming attack with her feet rooted in one place. Training in this way was something she had learned in Tank class.
For Selene to adjust to the role of spearhead and one of the frontline defenders of her party, her instructor had made her receive endless strikes throughout the class, more than once, to break the habits she had acquired from years of Assassin combat training.
CLANG CLANG
BANG
The heavy-handed strikes of the ugly green and grey orcs rained down on Selene’s tower shield, but she didn’t back down; each time one of the crude bronze weapons bounced off her shield, Selene would counter-attack using her spear to either stab through their heart, or head.
Finally, after over an hour of hard-fought practice, Selene felled the final opponent and began going through the store to find anything necessary for the duration of her climb. Once she felt prepared, Selene closed the store and headed up to Floor Twenty-One.
—
Panting heavily and covered in injuries, Benny was backed into the corner of the room on the Twentieth Floor. He had significantly struggled since multiple enemies appeared on Floor Eleven, and by the time he reached the Sixteenth Floor, he had already been hit several times. Ignoring Cynrik’s advice after a few floors, Benny resorted to fighting in his usual way but was suffering the consequences.
His opponents this time were 10 Canine Kobolds, and unlike their reptilian cousins, these furry assholes were excessively violent and fast. Even if they were a whole Tier below him, Benny struggled due to conserving as much Mana and Stamina as possible for the final two floors.
Now, he was backed into a corner and receiving flurrying attacks from all sides as the expertly coordinated Kobolds took turns beating the shit out of his Aspis.
‘Fuck, I can’t keep doing this shit. DAMN IT!’ Making up his mind, Benny triggered one of his class skills, [Shield Strength], rapidly depleting its durability but increasing the damage he could do.
“RAH!” Growling in effort, Benny swung out his shield, flinging back several Kobolds, and went on the offensive. Stringing combinations with his Aspis and Estoc, he flew forward, bashing heads and chests in with his shield or crushing limbs and bones with his sword before piercing their vitals.
Breaking through the now panicked group of dog people, Benny moved through them like a hurricane, mowing down all ten opponents until only he was left staring aimlessly at the ceiling.
Cra…Crack, clang
Looking away from the ceiling and down at his arm, Benny watched as the poorly crafted Aspis shattered into pieces, its durability fell to zero, and his Skill wore off.
“Sigh, I should have fucking listened to Big Bro; now I have one less trump card for the final two floors,” Benny said aloud as he opened the Market and scanned through the shields for a new one.
-This series is exclusively published on WebNovel if you are reading it anywhere else…You Wrong, Fam. PS Check out the discord, https://discord.gg/dcxKNJEMwg-